What tipped me off that we're in a dream is when Screwllum said that they're quitting SU and instead researching Memory Zone for the sake of humanity. Herta and Ruan Mei would NEVER.
x2, But for me was everything bcuz, 1.- Jing Yuan will never call us "Galactic baseballer" bcuz is a nickname that the TB gave himself, 2.- The IPC will never let a planet go that simple and we know that from the story of Belobog and 3.- Leaving the SU proyect? nah herta would never
for some reason i think i read it too fast and thought screwllum was just saying that he’d temporarily focus on a different area of research so that didn’t even properly click for me until i watched people’s reactions and was like oh-
@starrykuns I was the same. I was tipped of only at the end when we could pick a destination and were seemingly about to jump. I just thought to myself "wait a minute this process isn't usually this smooth"
I love how obvious and simultaneously completely unexpected Acheron's line about the light is. If the Nihility is casting a _shadow_ over the universe, then there _must_ be an unimaginably bright light producing the contrast. A shadow can't exist in darkness, which means there _is_ light, period. It makes perfect intuitive sense when you think about it, but it never even occurs to you until Acheron brings it up. If one can get past the Nihility, somehow, then it stands to reason that they would find themselves in that light. Acheron's puzzlingly optimistic perspective on Nihility makes a lot more sense now. She's not approaching the Nihility in spite of a conflicting philosophy, she's able to approach _because_ she understands what the Nihility's philosophy truly is. She realizes that the only way out is _through,_ and I think her recognizing that not only is resisting the Nihility pointless in that you cannot defeat it, but also because running away from it means running away from the salvation that lies on the other side of it, is probably what drew IX's gaze and enabled her to become an Emanator without being consumed. Other people get consumed because their understanding is only half-correct, and thus the farther they travel down the path without grasping its true meaning, the closer they creep to disappearing, much like an Aeon that deviates from its path ceases to exist. If you reach the point where you _would_ ascend, but you've fundamentally misunderstood the path, then it stands to reason that you would vanish just like a fallen Aeon. At least, that's my half-baked take on it based on what we know so far.
Regarding Firefly, have you seen Groundhog Day? Where Bill Murray commits suicide to try and get out of the loop? Aventurine mentions to Dr. Ratio in 2.1 that he's tried to "die", but he can't; he's instantly woken up in the Dreampool as soon as he would die, with no pain. Basically, Firefly, not using the technology of the Family, had to "die" in the dream, in order to escape it's grasp. That's my interpretation: she had to actually go through the pain & experience of death to awaken, but she did it out of dedication for us & herself. Side note: apparently Firefly is ancient, like thousands of years old. The Swarm Disaster was a long ass time ago, even if Amber Eras are a weird dating convention (they can be anywhere from like 50-200 years long). Though given that the Glamoth set talks about "cocoons" for the warriors, she was probably in stasis. There's 2 readables this patch in Dreamflux Reef, that talk about the experience that "stowaways" have in Penacony, highly recommend reading them. It's hellish, common, and there's an entire economy around human trafficking to get people into the Asdana system to enter the Dreamscape illegally.
If you want to get a little follow up on Robin and Sunday after the end, go back to the entryway of the grand theater, a hidden quest will start as you walk through that delves into that. I was a mess through the entire end portion. I was also crazy and did the whole patch in one sitting to avoid spoilers lol. The false end seemed so obvious at first, but the longer it went on the more I started doubting myself 😂 Not sure about some of the other languages, but in JP Boothill has his swears swapped out to just shout 'BABY!' It's actually kinda hilarious.
Ooooo! Yes! I will definitely do that. I really love them both, so I'm invested in getting any additional tidbits I can get -- thank you much! Oh my goshhhh! I could never lol but good on you for staying strong for the full 8+ hours XD I agree -- at first I was like, "Okay... hm. This doesn't seem right?" but then we boarded the train, and I was doubting myself. Then the credits came, and I was thinking, "Wait. No way! Is that actually it?" lol Also, OMG. That's hillarious 😭 I love him so much!
When we're talking with Acheron at the end where she asks us the same questions she did in 2.0 the music used is from Honkai Impact 3rd and the song used is "North Wind"(2:39:24) and later when she tells us her name the song used is "Why"(2:44:55), both songs are from the album "Yesterday" and it was released with the "Return to Nagazora" arc that focuses heavily on Mei and Kiana who also happens to be a gunslinger like Tiernan which I find to be a nice paralell. The whole segment was for me as a long time Honkai fan the best possible reveal of her name with the long buildup of nostalgic music and parallells shown throughout Penacony. They also reference "Lament of the fallen" during the cutscene when Acheron graps the falling Trailblazer. I'm so glad I managed to get her E6 much like how she was my first limited character when I first started playing HI3rd
the fake ending is so funny if you consider it's Sunday trying to ensure everyone gets their happy ending where Penacony is left alone in the dream, protagonists falsely believing to have stopped the grand plan. Black Swan and Boothill "submitting a request to temporarily travel with the express" feels like Sunday just going "get out get out get out". trying his darn hardest to kick them off-planet so they can't fuck things up for him. also gosh!! that entire fake dream!! i loved that most people's voices just sounded... odd. Black Swan vocal inflections didn't sound as... 'extra'? it confirmed to me that it likely wasn't reality but an imitation thereof. also Welt speaking without the pauses every 5 or so syllables. i think the thing i'm left most curious about is Sparkle's whole situation. they can't have been setting up this bomb going off in multiple trailers and then spent time on those 'mutually assured destruction' buttons in two updates' story quests only for it not to become relevant at any point... right?
I completed the 2.2 final trailblaze mission yesterday and it really left a mark. Sure, it might get "overly anime" at times, but so far Penacony truly has been storytelling at its best. Personally, I found the whole conversation during the Horizon of Existence scene extremely uplifting. Having gone from a romantic youth to a jaded and - at times - regrettably nihilistic 27 yo due to a number of losses, I appreciate how eloquently and creatively the writers (and artists) depicted the "light at the end of the tunnel" metaphor. Also, I was stoked you remembered Acheron asking those same questions in the prologue. It HAS been a while, so it's absolutely fair players would forget. Loved your analysis during the aforementioned scene too. Empathy for fictional characters is such a blessing and a curse at the same time ^^ Thank you so much for the video
I had the same thoughts as you when I realized it was a dream. After the boss-fight it was too anti-climatic, I had faith in hoyo writing. But even before that, I was kinda upset about the Misha "plot-hole". It was such a big plot hole that I've never seen in hoyo writing that I suspected everything. BUT THEN IT WAS A PLOT POINT I WAS LIKE OMG OMGOMG.
Ngl the new puzzles actually took me more than 2-5 minutes each. They really upped the difficulty for them in 2.2, while it hurts my brain, I like the challenge.
In relation to the real death. The way that I see it, for most people, if you die whilst asleep, you don't actually die, but rather wake up right before it happens. In real life, for most of us, that's likely because we don't actually know what death should feel like. But in Firefly's case, as far as I would assume, she had to experience truly dying inside of the dream, so she could escape. She most likely survived it, as she was the one who found us. But she had to genuinely experience what death is like, to do so. This is also likely why she was worried about her final death, cause if something went wrong, she genuinely would have died. Instead of surviving by waking up after dying in the dream.
@@himetsukich this is indeed PEAKacony if you dont have time to play the game, i suggest you check out the videos " honkai operation center" for quick introduction to hi3rd
Just wanted to say that I think you forgot that people DO forget Acheron, when Black Swan tries to get answers in Acheron's room she finds everything's deleted. Also multiple times when the trailblazer is asked about Acheron the choices become a red: ''Weird I don't remember''.
Now im sure The red text is Raiden’s own existence…she’s speaking as her old self…what with their conversation about red as the color of existence and the only thing that is keeping her from losing herself to Nihility… Eventho she comes from another similar HI3 reality universe, her core self is still same tho
HANDS UP THE TRACKSBARE RUNNING edit: Id like to believe that the express we got during the sunday fight was the express mikhail rode on. Since the express is much longer than the one we are currently on and it kinda makes sense ig.
I confirmed my suspicions it was a dream after Topaz announced that the IPC will surrender all of Penacony to the Family. I had an inkling that we're still dreaming after the first boss battle was over cuz it only had 1 phase when the 2.2 livestream stated it had 3 phases.
The fact that nobody remembered Acheron at the "end" immediately started setting off alarms in my mind, and the fact everything was falling into place too well and fast had me questioning the whole time if that was really the end of the story too. I really enjoyed your insightful and substantive commentaries around Penacony's themes, especially when you relate them to personal experiences which I'm sure is Shaoji's (writer for Penacony arc) goal when he writes these stories to evoke emotions and feelings in us. I look forward to seeing more of your playthrough and thoughts! o7
Yesss! That part had me so confused lol I thought maybe everyone was forgetting her because of the whole self annihilator thing, but I really wasn't sure. Also agree about everything seeming too perfect. I thought there was no way it could all end so easily like that. Thank you so much I'm glad you enjoyed the playthrough! They did an amazing job with Penacony. I'm excited to see what they cook up next
2.3 is the conclusion of the Penacony arc but with the end scene in this and Jade coming - I hope they use this as set up for an IPC arc. In JP all the swear words get replaced with an english “baby”
2:42:10 so their is an interesting phenomenon about dreams, is not specifically in hsr but also in real life that sometimes happen in dreams. Similar to a prophetic dream but in a form of convoluted happenings. For me example , before a important family member of mine passed a way a year later, I had a dream about them riding a vehicle going a way but for some odd reason it made me cried so much that it gave me an asthma attacked and so on and forth. Similar to first act of the penacony story quest all of the characters have very close interactions in some of their quests, like aventurine and ratio deceiving Sunday, black Swan and sparkle in sparkle story quest. Robin and Sunday current story quest, firefly and silverwolf sneaking in penacony. making the first scene of the first penacony quest line making it connected. Lastly remember when acheron slashing us after finishing answering her question and waking us up, it's refering to what she going to do next "Waking us up" From ena's dream.
People forgetting Acheron is normal in the dreamscape When we got asked to describe Acheron in 2.1 we couldn’t as we forgot her. - the same thing happens later in the patch again. The IPC doing stuff for free got me as that that would never happen + with Jade coming. As HI3 fan this arc gave so much bonus on top - so many fanservice to the older game be it with OST playing, the name drop or how Acheron catches Trailblazer in the sky
I realized it was still a dream when I woke up on the couch in the Reverie and found one of those creepy anubis statues that puff into dream smoke when you click on it on the table.
I start thing I'm still dreaming when The General call use Galactic Baseballer, and I knew I was still in a dream when I.P.C "gave up on getting Penacony for the greater good" 🤣that's 100% never going to happen
I think it's fine, it's unfortunate for the luofu, but it was clearly always meant to be a bigger intro to the HSR world in like a tutorial part 2 fashion compared to the HSS. Plus, the Luofu also clearly set itself for more arcs unlike belobog and HSS(the latter of which only has low key plots to theorize with, like Screwwy and the phase flame).
So there's a theory that some people don't quite agree with: pretty much the events of the first time we reached Penacony to our first battle with Sunday all happened off-screen. We lost and got trapped in Ena's dream, which then loops back to the first time the astral express warped jump to Penacony. So since 2.0, we have always been in Ena's dream.
Isn't that just what Black Swan says, verbatim. She said that what we experienced, did happen, right up until about the end. But there was a single glaring inconsistency, that told her that we were still in a dream. So whilst little things may have been off, just about everything major was correct.
In the second creadits roll the fact that Gallagher is played by Penacony escaped me whe I played the quest. On the part of knowing if we were in a dream at the first credit roll, I was like: "did I get the wrong ending?" since before only alternate endings had the credit roll. The fact that we were in a dream from the begining of 2.0 was kinda unexpected for me at least.
I realized it was a dream the moment Screwllum said that development on SU was stopping to help Penacony. Herta would not give a single solitary fuck about Penacony. Also I believe the voice narrating the real ending was Elio.
Alzheimer’s is a type of dementia, to answer that question. From your experiences with your grandfather, I’d wager it can be pretty different from person to person, but I’m sure you have some difficult memories related to that, and wanted to offer what condolences I can. It’s really rough. My grandmother had Alzheimer’s, as well as post polio syndrome. We went to visit pretty often as a child, but there wasn’t a lot of her left.
Thank you for explaining! I couldn't recall the relationship between the two, so I appreciate you chiming in on that I agree -- it likely varies a lot from person to person, and of course the more it progress, the more of the person you lose. Thank you for the condolences -- I extend the same to you.
I think it was very bold of them to cause such massive disappointment in everyone right before the final confrontation... I didn't emotionally recover in time to be nearly as hype as everyone else did. I thought the second real end needed more ramp up, especially on the action front.
I think most people didn't really feel disappointed. But rather confused and surprised. which was likely the emotion they intended to illicit. Given that they made everyone and everything just a tad too happy on convenient.
@@nemasisdemarini8339 Yeah I wasn't confused or surprised at all. It's weird that I actually thought the false end was funny, if anything, but it went on so long I started doubting myself by the end. XD
I knew it was a dream because after Topaz's antics on Belabog there was NO way I'd believe the IPC would EVER give up once they've set their hearts on reclaiming something.
The vibes were off immediately when we woke up. Partially b/c I watch the patch live streams, and was like "where boss 3rd phase?", but also b/c everything was weird. Himeko was talking flatly, Jing Yuan calling us the baseballer, Screwllum doesn't talk like that at all. I actually kept backing out of the convo with black Swan b/c I though maybe we'd need to use the card she gave us to do something. When asked where to go next, I said "I'll abstain", and everyone else was like "Yippee, Edo Star!!". I was geeking out when Black Swan asked about the flaw, in a "holy shit are they doing a "it was a dream the whole time" + "time loop" reveal?" Honestly I'm impressed that they pulled it off. Lots of loops in the 2.0-2.2 story, even in the same patch. Acheron repeating the old man's words back to him at the end of his life. Welt and Acheron's discussion about the "Spiritual Adam". The Watchmaker's words to us being said to Sunday as our answer. Acheron asking the same questions as the start of 2.0 at the end of 2.2, but now we've decided on our answers; she even repeats the same "The golden dream is getting restless" part. Fantastic story planning by the writers.
I will apologize for a wall of text ahead of time. Sorry! *SPOILERS FOR THE STORY SO FAR for those who haven't played 2.2 as yet* After the first Sunday fight, your reaction switching between "This is underwhelming" to "This HAS to be a dream!" to "but... is it?" is absolute peak content :D You've second guessed and third guessed yourself so many times in those 10 minutes, it was brilliant to watch. Hilarious that you knew that your Husbando Jing Yuan would never call us Galactic Baseballer! I'm glad you enjoyed the actual ending. I had a very similar reaction to yours, although I didn't switch again once Jing Yuan calls us Galactic Baseballer. Knew it was a dream from there onwards. Was way too off brand. IPC not being greedy? Screwllum shutting down the Simulated Universe? Ratio working with others without exploding? Fat chance. You've done a great job in going over the philosophies of Sunday and Robin, and how they clashed. I'm also glad that you highlighted how your past experiences made you who you are today. Erasing the trials and tears of the past, we'd not be who we are today. Erasing the pain that one might experience in the future, we'd not really be living. Gopher Wood groomed Sunday. Robin managed to escape and tour the world and expand her mind, while Sunday was never given that luxury. He kept getting influenced right from childhood, by someone who was already being influenced by a stellaron. In a way, it is similar to what Bronya faced by Cocolia, but she was a much more optimistic person who wanted to save Belebog. Sunday was naturally more of a pessimist, and the only positive thought he could muster was to take Robin's place in sacrificing himself when he knew she wouldn't sing. As someone who went through severe depression, I can relate to Sunday on so many levels. He wanted to protect people too, and while Bronya was shielded by Cocolia, Sunday was made to play the youth pastor role where he was exposed to the worst of humanity's weakness day in, day out. So his solution was to make everyone "happy, forever". Robin got so much credit for how she had enough determination to wake up from the dream by herself by the community. But what they didn't get is that Firefly did the same thing behind the scenes. I believe that is the "Decomposing body" mentioned in the after credits. She was a stowaway, and if you remember the instances of people confessing to sunday... the second guy who sold his kids into slavery was also a stowaway. If you refuse to help him, he dies away slowly because his body isn't protected by the dream-pool. Firefly knew this. She was a stowaway, and she knew that she would die. But she was determined and found the express and guided Acheron and Black Swan in finding the Nameless. In doing so, she met her second death. It breaks my heart that it was not mentioned clearly, and not recognized by the wider community. The writing was a bit lax here imo. I am absolutely certain we will revisit this in 2.3, the Epilogue and figure out her "third death" as per the script. Acheron confuses me. I guess she is like a grim reaper, guiding souls in the afterlife. But where does she reside? In the Nihility according to Tiernan. How does she traverse? And that domain where Aventurine and the Trailblazer walked is even more confusing. She says it is a doorway out of the Nihility. But to Aventurine, she said it was a path into Nihility. I thought he'd walk into a long path of self discovery and come out with a changed path... and yet, he's safe and sound talking to Jade, apparently saved by Argenti. How did the Trailblazer get there before the second sunday fight? And it is shown that she slashed and destroyed that zone in order to help everyone wake up. Did she bid farewell because she killed her own way out of the Nihility? I'm beyond confused about her, and the principles of Afterlife that they've tried to incorporate here. I do believe that Razalina was her companion that Acheron mentioned traveling for 30 days. We've found Tiernan, we've found Mikhail. But we haven't encountered Razalina. She says short and determined girl. And if it does come true, please know I do not follow leaks. Boothill, the artifact is poorly written. Just a bullet shot and every Galaxy ranger just magically appears? What about traversal time? Did we all stay in a dream till everyone took their time to arrive? Confused again. But I am really looking forward to his conflict with the IPC, and the introduction of Jade. In answer to your question, in JP, he just says "BABY!" for every swear word. It is funny, but I do prefer the EN version. Loved following the story again alongside you, as always!
Hahaha, I really did go back and forth on it a lot XD but yes, I was so thrown off by my husbando calling me Galactic Baseballer. I was like, "WAIT. What???" lol and yes, everything was so perfect. IPC being so peaceful, the SU stuff, Ratio seemed way too nice, and it also just felt anticlimactic. I kept thinking, "There's no way they would write this amazing story only to end it like this.. right? ... right?" Thank you! I really like both Robin and Sunday, but Sunday is especially interesting to me just because of his philosophy. I think what really resonates with me is that he isn't evil in the traditional sense. His thinking is very backwards, but he's actually quite a compassionate person. His heart is in the right place, his thought process and actions are just misguided. Not saying this justifies him, but it definitely made me love his character. I respect the hell out of Robin as well, but Sunday's story really grabbed my attention. Robin definitely is a badass for that, but yes! Firefly is also amazing. She's got so much grit and determination and will power. I love her and can't wait to see more of her in the story. Yeah, there's still a lot of room for them to expand on Acheron. I hope we see more of her as well. I definitely understand her much better now, but I still would like more insight. I'd also like to get more specifics on Aventurine and Argenti, and how that all went down. I could definitely see Acheron's companion being Razalina! I think that would be a nice way to connect her to us :D Yeah, I don't know how all this works with travel time and everything happening inside of a dream. The mechanics of all that aren't really explained, but I'm cool with that lol overall super awesome story quest. My favorite thus far also love JP Boothill saying, "Baby!" lmao Glad you enjoyed the playthrough 🥳
@@himetsukich Can't wait for 2.3! I'll not go into too many more points or I'll keep tapping all day. To answer your question about Aventurine and Argenti... Aventurine says that he contacted every major faction to try and gain friends. One of the factions he mentioned is the knights of beauty. That is probably Argenti answering the call. We already know he is an extremely suspicious and powerful individual, having escaped from the Swarm when it attacked the train. While we don't know exactly how he's done it both times, it was Aventurine's planning to have contacted Argenti. I don't believe his interactions with Sparkle are done either. He's a very shrewd man who downplays it all as luck, imo. Thank you for the detailed response, btw. Never expected, but always appreciated!
I might be going off the deep end with my theory about Sunday after the events of 2.2 but here it is and I'll continue in the replies (it is going to be an absolute yap fest): I have a theory that Sunday is going to be a related to Elio after these events, and maybe become a Stellaron hunter. This is based on a readable I found in Dreamflux Reef. It is a readable called "Death of the Crow" and it goes: description: A bizarre and incomprehensible poem. Or perhaps, some kind of mysterious invitation. text: "Once upon a midnight dreary, while you pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten dreams - While you nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at your chamber door. "'Tis some visitor," you muttered, "tapping at my chamber door - Only this and nothing more." Ah, do you distinctly remember the dew-doused window pane; And a dying baby dove laid like a shadow upon the floor. Eagerly you had wished the story to meet a happy end Eagerly you had wished no birds would plummet, their demise to bewail. Some soared like shining stars, bound for the sky... While others found only demise, in dust they lie. Deep into that darkness peering, long you stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; Worms have stained satin, and flames consumed doves with broken wings, A flame-bathed raven greeted you, its voice's rasp that sings. "Sweet dreams are no paradise of mine," you whispered and sighed. "When I cast my eyes around -" Darkness there and nothing more. Then this ebony bird beguiling your sad fancy into smiling, "The echoes of ghosts bring no salvation to light." "People repent, their hearts sincere, only due to them seeking greater gains." "Drink this blessed potion from the Great One, erasing your painful memories." As Harmony's tune changed, you hear a dirge played amidst the dancing ashes... Quoth the Raven "Nevermore." The unbroken stillness remains silently, mocking any reply so aptly spoken, But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling, This and more I sat divining, scrying the source of the world's pain Your heart grew resolute, no longer held back by confusion and doubt. "Liar," you declared, "the Great One is blind to worldly sorrow -" Merely this and nothing more. You ascended the stage, you stole the authority, you strived for divinity You raised the dim curtain, your self-directed farce skillfully honed. Your heart overflew with pureness, while the shadows of the puppets cast grim shadows in their play. Your soul embraced compassion, daring to forge a scale that will never sway. "Behold," you proclaimed, "the utopia of absolute bliss," Yet the dream shattered, "Nevermore." The velvet nest fell, the golden bed withered away, But the bird remained perched, as did you, come what may. The gods, who once bestowed upon you love's sweet hue, Withdrew their favor, leaving your paradise askew. Liberated from the shadow of young dove's demise, your soul will take flight, Merely this and nothing more. Your old dreams are as dead soil, barren of hope and bereft, Yet how can a noble soul wither and fade, left adrift? I shall await your arrival, with open arms and boundless hope, Here lie the truest dreams, where infinite possibilities lope. Here, all your ambitions shall be fulfilled and set aflame, The past forever transformed, and nevermore Yours, Most Sincerely Cecil Simmes"
I was confused at first as I couldn't link this to anyone besides Firefly from the word 'Nevermore', but there was no connection to her at all in story. But I did notice it was based on Edgar Allen Poe's poem called 'The Raven' I looked into this poem when 2.0 released when I noticed SAM's theme is called "Nevermore" so seeing the poem actually appear freaked me out, and after completing the 2.2 story it is very much related to Sunday. The Raven is a poem where a person longs for their Lenore who they lost, and a raven perches in front of them, this person indulges to question the raven but the raven only answers with "nevermore", which gives the speaker grief as they believe this Raven speaks the truth, and as the speaker keeps indulging in the questions the answer only fills him with grief as he will nevermore forget his Lenore and in trying to forget he pushes himself into the shadows... (it is something along those lines based on my memory) This readable very clearly states Sunday's thinking, his path, his wants, his dreams, his past, and his actions. But this could just be someone close to Sunday that wasn't mentioned after the events of the story you might see a flaw in my theory... but an important detail is that this can be found BEFORE COMPLETING THE QUEST which is a very important detail as they do lock collectibles behind certain triggers but didn't for this and that is very important to note since it mentions what happens in the story before it actually happened which implies they knew the outcome of the story before it happened, no one is able to know this, not even Sunday himself, there is only one character we know that can, Elio, and this Cecil Simmes could be another Alias (I don't know if this name has any significance or if it is inspired by something) The poem is very clearly related to Sunday... his past with the dove crashing in front of Robin's window and watching it die, etc... but there a 2 points that relates to Elio, the description of the readable and the last paragraph of the poem: "A bizarre and incomprehensible poem. Or perhaps, some kind of mysterious invitation." "Your old dreams are as dead soil, barren of hope and bereft, Yet how can a noble soul wither and fade, left adrift? I shall await your arrival, with open arms and boundless hope, Here lie the truest dreams, where infinite possibilities lope. Here, all your ambitions shall be fulfilled and set aflame, The past forever transformed, and nevermore" This is an invitation sent to Sunday to join the Steallaron Hunters and whether or not Sunday join is up to him. But in turn of the Stellaron Hunters joining Elio to stop the universe from destruction, Elio helps them fulfil their wishes in their times of desperation, giving them a new hope and a new beginning and he is willing to do the same for Sunday to move on from the past. And Sunday is currently imprisoned by the Family as said by an NPC found in the grand theatre but he is alive and Elio may have seen potential after all he wrote "Yet how can a noble soul wither and fade, left adrift?". Sunday isn't a murderer, he wants the best for everyone, he could have just killed us if he wanted everyone else to live in his ideal but he didn't, he saw himself as a necessary sacrifice to become the star that would overseer everyone was safe in the dream to maintain it, he is selfless to the extremes and joining Elio to stop the universe from destruction and help other people that are desperate (the other steallaron hunters), the "weak" he was talking about fit his philosophy as well as Elio wanting to kill Nanook as Sunday wants a universe without Aeons, so Sunday has a reason to Join. But there is also another reason Elio may want Sunday, there were 3 deaths that Firefly is meant to suffer and Acheron said "Firefly is a stowaway who entered the Dreamscape in a different way from ours. Without the dreampool in the hotel or assistance from The Family, she can only awaken from this dream in one way... a real "death"." The rest of The Family won't help a stellaron hunter, she already died 2 times but the third was said by her "Only by achieving victory in this battle can we secure a future for Penacony. And only then, my third and final death... won't come true in the most terrible form" which implies she still dies but by waking from the dream and not a real death. The only person that could do this and be willing to is Sunday. He won't let someone die if he can control it, he has an extreme sense of justice. I posted this on other videos and someone pointed out entropy in relation to all this which slipped my mind: Firefly's condition is called "Entropy Loss Syndrome", from memory entropy is a term in physics that describes the positive correlation between time increasing and an increase of energy dispersal. Essentially, energy remains constant in the universe just that over time it gets more dispersed and can't do work (the physics definition), so as time passes the energy becomes more disorganised and chaotic, entropy is the term to describe this process of the universe moving towards death and chaos. The antithesis to entropy is negentropy, which the opposite meaning things becoming more in order and organised. So Firefly has the same amount of energy, her energy is becoming more dispersed and the energy she has isn't enough to do work, this describes the symptoms of the syndrome, she starts off normal but over time she can do less and less. The only solution and potential cure is to organise this energy dispersal through the use of ORDER. Also in a HoyoLab post called "character introduction Sparkle" under the "share something that has amused you" section it says: "How about making a little chicken as my partner? I'll give it a white suit and black cat glasses" Elio is the character presumed to use black cats as a sort of way to overseer the stellaron hunters, as a way to watch them without using his real body, just as Sunday uses his servants this was shown in the Kafka splash art and myriad celestia trailer, Edgar Allen Poe also wrote a book called "The Black Cat" so they might have used his works for a reason to link the stellaron hunters together. Another fun little connection is the song Robin sings in the battle appears to be based on the name of a Poem also called “Hope is the thing with wings” and looking at the lyrics it obviously is about Robin and Sunday…but there is another book who draws reference from “Hope is the thing with wings” called “Grief is the things with wings” and the bird on the cover is a crow, this likely represents Sunday. On the same comment there was another reply stating the stellaron hunters having a crow motif as a whole: It is obvious they draw a lot of inspiration from literature but the stellaron hunters seem to have a lot of symbolism involving corvids, Kafka sounds like Kavka which translates to Jackdaw in Czech which are corvids, there is a book called "Kafka on the shore" which involves Kafka, a character named "Crow", and involves cats... Blade's splash art also has a crow in the background... and SAM's theme "nevermore" is related to Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven"... The crow typically represents a bad omen, but a dead crow could represents a positive changes, if Elio seeks the fulfil their wishes it would be the death of their crows... Blade wants death and be rid of immortality, Firefly wants to find meaning in her own life as Firefly not SAM or Glammoth's iron cavalry which the theme Nevermore is linked to, kafka we still know little about, and SW doesn't seem to follow anything in particular as she sees the universe as a game the only one who doesn't have a crow motif It should also be noted that Gopher Wood can be seen in the dreamscape pass, he is a Halovian with completely black wings and has a crow on his shoulder unlike Sunday's wing which is purple with white (Sunday also only has one wing, if you look closely underneath his suit one is a wing but the other is just part of his clothes, his wing has been clipped and can't fly, he sees himself as one of the weak while Robin is the strong). Looking that the Harmony/Order obviously draw inspiration from Christianity and to quote Leviticus 11:13 "Of birds these are they which you must not eat, and which are to be avoided by you: The eagle, and the griffon, and the osprey," Leviticus 11:14 "And the kite, and the vulture, according to their kind" Leviticus 11:15 "And all that is of the raven kind, according to their likeness" crows and such should be avoided and not eaten under any circumstance as it is a false and sinful teaching I also believe that the person speaking for the credit section at the end of the story is Elio, also in the dreampass 17 are both Elio. The 3 dialogue options from the dreamscape pass: "We've known each other for a long time... Interestingly, I feel the same way. But is this truly the correct answer? Don't be in a hurry. When we have witnessed the end of this business together, I will certainly reveal to you my true identity." "We are but people passing by each other's trailblazing journeys... Interestingly, I feel the same way. But is this truly the correct answer? Don't be in a hurry. When we have witnessed the end of this business together, I will certainly reveal to you my true identity." "We cannot see through each other at all... Interestingly, I feel the same way. Then, what is the correct answer? Don't be in a hurry. When we have witnessed the end of this business together, I will certainly reveal to you my true identity." This is based on feeling and is just speculation but out of all the characters that would speak the end of the script, it would be Elio
Ooooooo! That would actually be so fascinating if Elio extends an invitation to Sunday 😱 what an interesting poem -- thank you for sharing! I would definitely be down for more Sunday content. Idk for sure how I'd feel about him joining the Stellaron Hunters specifically (not in terms of your theory -- I think you've made some good points in the theory -- I mean more in terms of the story and how I'd personally feel if he joined them/whether or not I'd like it), but I do really like him as a character and think they did a great job developing him, so I'd be happy to see more of him :3 the writing has also been amazing for Penacony, so I have faith that the writers could make this work if this does wind up coming to fruition. It's tough because on one hand, I think story-telling wise, Sunday dying isn't bad. I think his death makes the scene with him and Robin falling more emotionally impactful in some ways, but at the same time, I have fallen so in love with his character. They wrote him so convincingly that I can't help but want to see more of him, so thank you for sharing your theory! I do hope we'll see him again :)
JY calling us the galactic baseballer, and acheron's non-existence to Boothill and DH (I thought BS messed with their minds) made me suspicious. But what tipped me off is the IPC trio. Topaz's willingingness for such an amicable wrapup and Dr Ratio, in all his hubris against the geniuses, working with screwllum.
Well, I realized that something was sus, when I was fighting Sunday's puppets. I remembered that during the 2.2 livestream Hoyo showed us 3 phases of the Dominicus fight. If this 3 phases had yet to come then this fight was not the final one. Hoyo did a really good job! They made the fake ending, artificially lowered the quality of the story and gave us countless little hints, so we, filling a mild confusion, interaction after interaction could discover that everything is a lie.
It sounds a bit unrelated, but whether u can find out that you are still in dream depends quite a lot on how well you build your characters Lmao. For me, I soon realized just by looking at his health bar as he got oneshoted, I was like 'Bruh, we must be dreaming, aint no way that real'. I even feel kinda same at the second time but i right away try to convince myself cuz the story seems complete and reasonable to end there. BTW, too bad we lost the chance to have 7 day off per week :(
You were talking about the start of this patch where Sunday says “Someone has to be awake in this dream” you over though this line that doesn’t mean his real body is in the dream - he defended only his over work with this. He doesn’t indulge in sweets anymore to do his job to overlook everyone
Ohhhh, gotcha! That makes sense -- this makes me even more curious as to what happened to him then. I'm told there's a hidden quest that touches on it a bit more, so I'll have to go do that
that’s true don’t understand why they hid it. It takes just 5min. Teleport back to the theater and walk a little. Robin will message you. It also gives you the Boss fight song for the train ^^
@@MegaApostel They're really making me work for my Sunday content, aren't they? lol I probably never would've thought to go back to the theater if it hadn't been mentioned.
Yeah just to add to this, he actually never "wakes up" (leaving the penacony dreamscape) to go back to reality, which is why he never is awake to try the sweets Robin sends home to him. The way in which he is going to be "always awake" is that he will be operating everyone's dream and keeping eternal vigil, which he's already started doing. Shaoji has a problem where he overloads metaphors so if you take the wrong time or wrong part literally: It's just a big confusion party. I actually started rewriting all the bird metaphor parts for coherence, it's so bad. XD
I was more annoyed and almost threatening the game that it was a dream. That ending was so unappealing. I was so happy it was a dream. I hope there is more to the story next update.
Unironically I got gaslit so hard into believing they actually ended the story that way. They've dropped the ball at parts in the story before and they just kept it up for so long that I was just convinced that was it. I didn't want to believe it but then it seemed as if it actually all ended and I just got kinda sad, so when Black Swan appeared I was like "wait whats happening..." The thing about them forgetting Acheron didn't even strike me as that odd because my brain basically just auto-corrected into being like "Oh she's an emanator of Nihility, their memories of her probably just got deleted from the universe or something because of Nihility" so my brain also just convinced itself that stuff was making sense. Also I played the quest in one entire sitting so at the "end" my brain also just went into no think mode and went "this has to be it, RIGHT?!"
Honestly I dont think theres was any speciifc point you lost, considering the dream scape was merging with reality , more like He probably just changed the outcome into what we wanted as soon as we started disagreeing with him. However is there ever was a point I'd say it was as soon as he took Robin and Welt, and after what we hear from robin, the dream we had of winning was specifically tailored to Stelle/Cas compared to Robins dream of being a child again
What tipped me off that we're in a dream is when Screwllum said that they're quitting SU and instead researching Memory Zone for the sake of humanity. Herta and Ruan Mei would NEVER.
x2, But for me was everything bcuz, 1.- Jing Yuan will never call us "Galactic baseballer" bcuz is a nickname that the TB gave himself, 2.- The IPC will never let a planet go that simple and we know that from the story of Belobog and 3.- Leaving the SU proyect? nah herta would never
for some reason i think i read it too fast and thought screwllum was just saying that he’d temporarily focus on a different area of research so that didn’t even properly click for me until i watched people’s reactions and was like oh-
bro what tipped me off was screwllum acknowledging dr ratio
@starrykuns I was the same. I was tipped of only at the end when we could pick a destination and were seemingly about to jump. I just thought to myself "wait a minute this process isn't usually this smooth"
Herta would definitely never.
I love how obvious and simultaneously completely unexpected Acheron's line about the light is. If the Nihility is casting a _shadow_ over the universe, then there _must_ be an unimaginably bright light producing the contrast. A shadow can't exist in darkness, which means there _is_ light, period. It makes perfect intuitive sense when you think about it, but it never even occurs to you until Acheron brings it up. If one can get past the Nihility, somehow, then it stands to reason that they would find themselves in that light. Acheron's puzzlingly optimistic perspective on Nihility makes a lot more sense now. She's not approaching the Nihility in spite of a conflicting philosophy, she's able to approach _because_ she understands what the Nihility's philosophy truly is. She realizes that the only way out is _through,_ and I think her recognizing that not only is resisting the Nihility pointless in that you cannot defeat it, but also because running away from it means running away from the salvation that lies on the other side of it, is probably what drew IX's gaze and enabled her to become an Emanator without being consumed. Other people get consumed because their understanding is only half-correct, and thus the farther they travel down the path without grasping its true meaning, the closer they creep to disappearing, much like an Aeon that deviates from its path ceases to exist. If you reach the point where you _would_ ascend, but you've fundamentally misunderstood the path, then it stands to reason that you would vanish just like a fallen Aeon. At least, that's my half-baked take on it based on what we know so far.
Amazing take
Regarding Firefly, have you seen Groundhog Day? Where Bill Murray commits suicide to try and get out of the loop? Aventurine mentions to Dr. Ratio in 2.1 that he's tried to "die", but he can't; he's instantly woken up in the Dreampool as soon as he would die, with no pain. Basically, Firefly, not using the technology of the Family, had to "die" in the dream, in order to escape it's grasp. That's my interpretation: she had to actually go through the pain & experience of death to awaken, but she did it out of dedication for us & herself.
Side note: apparently Firefly is ancient, like thousands of years old. The Swarm Disaster was a long ass time ago, even if Amber Eras are a weird dating convention (they can be anywhere from like 50-200 years long). Though given that the Glamoth set talks about "cocoons" for the warriors, she was probably in stasis.
There's 2 readables this patch in Dreamflux Reef, that talk about the experience that "stowaways" have in Penacony, highly recommend reading them. It's hellish, common, and there's an entire economy around human trafficking to get people into the Asdana system to enter the Dreamscape illegally.
If you want to get a little follow up on Robin and Sunday after the end, go back to the entryway of the grand theater, a hidden quest will start as you walk through that delves into that.
I was a mess through the entire end portion. I was also crazy and did the whole patch in one sitting to avoid spoilers lol. The false end seemed so obvious at first, but the longer it went on the more I started doubting myself 😂
Not sure about some of the other languages, but in JP Boothill has his swears swapped out to just shout 'BABY!' It's actually kinda hilarious.
Ooooo! Yes! I will definitely do that. I really love them both, so I'm invested in getting any additional tidbits I can get -- thank you much!
Oh my goshhhh! I could never lol but good on you for staying strong for the full 8+ hours XD I agree -- at first I was like, "Okay... hm. This doesn't seem right?" but then we boarded the train, and I was doubting myself. Then the credits came, and I was thinking, "Wait. No way! Is that actually it?" lol
Also, OMG. That's hillarious 😭 I love him so much!
A hidden quest?
When we're talking with Acheron at the end where she asks us the same questions she did in 2.0 the music used is from Honkai Impact 3rd and the song used is "North Wind"(2:39:24) and later when she tells us her name the song used is "Why"(2:44:55), both songs are from the album "Yesterday" and it was released with the "Return to Nagazora" arc that focuses heavily on Mei and Kiana who also happens to be a gunslinger like Tiernan which I find to be a nice paralell.
The whole segment was for me as a long time Honkai fan the best possible reveal of her name with the long buildup of nostalgic music and parallells shown throughout Penacony.
They also reference "Lament of the fallen" during the cutscene when Acheron graps the falling Trailblazer.
I'm so glad I managed to get her E6 much like how she was my first limited character when I first started playing HI3rd
the fake ending is so funny if you consider it's Sunday trying to ensure everyone gets their happy ending where Penacony is left alone in the dream, protagonists falsely believing to have stopped the grand plan.
Black Swan and Boothill "submitting a request to temporarily travel with the express" feels like Sunday just going "get out get out get out". trying his darn hardest to kick them off-planet so they can't fuck things up for him.
also gosh!! that entire fake dream!! i loved that most people's voices just sounded... odd. Black Swan vocal inflections didn't sound as... 'extra'? it confirmed to me that it likely wasn't reality but an imitation thereof. also Welt speaking without the pauses every 5 or so syllables.
i think the thing i'm left most curious about is Sparkle's whole situation. they can't have been setting up this bomb going off in multiple trailers and then spent time on those 'mutually assured destruction' buttons in two updates' story quests only for it not to become relevant at any point... right?
@1:46:13 its time to let go Tsuki, the accident wasnt your fualt
I completed the 2.2 final trailblaze mission yesterday and it really left a mark. Sure, it might get "overly anime" at times, but so far Penacony truly has been storytelling at its best.
Personally, I found the whole conversation during the Horizon of Existence scene extremely uplifting. Having gone from a romantic youth to a jaded and - at times - regrettably nihilistic 27 yo due to a number of losses, I appreciate how eloquently and creatively the writers (and artists) depicted the "light at the end of the tunnel" metaphor.
Also, I was stoked you remembered Acheron asking those same questions in the prologue. It HAS been a while, so it's absolutely fair players would forget. Loved your analysis during the aforementioned scene too. Empathy for fictional characters is such a blessing and a curse at the same time ^^ Thank you so much for the video
I had the same thoughts as you when I realized it was a dream. After the boss-fight it was too anti-climatic, I had faith in hoyo writing. But even before that, I was kinda upset about the Misha "plot-hole". It was such a big plot hole that I've never seen in hoyo writing that I suspected everything. BUT THEN IT WAS A PLOT POINT I WAS LIKE OMG OMGOMG.
Ngl the new puzzles actually took me more than 2-5 minutes each. They really upped the difficulty for them in 2.2, while it hurts my brain, I like the challenge.
For real the puzzles in this game have never disappointed and they just keep getting better
I mean except the literal puzzles, those are always super easy lol
From what I can tell, when Aventurine passed through the event horizon, he was sent to Dreamflux Reef just like everyone else who experienced ‘death’.
In relation to the real death. The way that I see it, for most people, if you die whilst asleep, you don't actually die, but rather wake up right before it happens. In real life, for most of us, that's likely because we don't actually know what death should feel like. But in Firefly's case, as far as I would assume, she had to experience truly dying inside of the dream, so she could escape. She most likely survived it, as she was the one who found us. But she had to genuinely experience what death is like, to do so. This is also likely why she was worried about her final death, cause if something went wrong, she genuinely would have died. Instead of surviving by waking up after dying in the dream.
25:13 LMAO
As someone with ADHD, sometimes you just be saying things before fully processing them, so I feel you.
Good reaction hime
And yes, when Acheron real name revealed the whole hi3rd community went absolutely crazy including me 🤣
Why did the community go crazy. It was super obvious to anyone with functioning eyeballs
Having the game confirmed it with the name drop is different then just see the model being similar
Thank you! And yay! I'm glad this one was such a fun playthrough for hi3rd fans 🥳 I'll have to check that out someday :D
@@MegaApostel my thought exactly
@@himetsukich this is indeed PEAKacony
if you dont have time to play the game, i suggest you check out the videos " honkai operation center" for quick introduction to hi3rd
Just wanted to say that I think you forgot that people DO forget Acheron, when Black Swan tries to get answers in Acheron's room she finds everything's deleted. Also multiple times when the trailblazer is asked about Acheron the choices become a red: ''Weird I don't remember''.
Now im sure The red text is Raiden’s own existence…she’s speaking as her old self…what with their conversation about red as the color of existence and the only thing that is keeping her from losing herself to Nihility…
Eventho she comes from another similar HI3 reality universe, her core self is still same tho
HANDS UP THE TRACKSBARE RUNNING
edit: Id like to believe that the express we got during the sunday fight was the express mikhail rode on. Since the express is much longer than the one we are currently on and it kinda makes sense ig.
I confirmed my suspicions it was a dream after Topaz announced that the IPC will surrender all of Penacony to the Family. I had an inkling that we're still dreaming after the first boss battle was over cuz it only had 1 phase when the 2.2 livestream stated it had 3 phases.
The fact that nobody remembered Acheron at the "end" immediately started setting off alarms in my mind, and the fact everything was falling into place too well and fast had me questioning the whole time if that was really the end of the story too.
I really enjoyed your insightful and substantive commentaries around Penacony's themes, especially when you relate them to personal experiences which I'm sure is Shaoji's (writer for Penacony arc) goal when he writes these stories to evoke emotions and feelings in us.
I look forward to seeing more of your playthrough and thoughts! o7
Yesss! That part had me so confused lol I thought maybe everyone was forgetting her because of the whole self annihilator thing, but I really wasn't sure. Also agree about everything seeming too perfect. I thought there was no way it could all end so easily like that.
Thank you so much I'm glad you enjoyed the playthrough! They did an amazing job with Penacony. I'm excited to see what they cook up next
There is no options in answers to RED Acheron questions, cuz that's what we answered to her the first time we've met her.
2.3 is the conclusion of the Penacony arc but with the end scene in this and Jade coming - I hope they use this as set up for an IPC arc.
In JP all the swear words get replaced with an english “baby”
2:42:10 so their is an interesting phenomenon about dreams, is not specifically in hsr but also in real life that sometimes happen in dreams. Similar to a prophetic dream but in a form of convoluted happenings. For me example , before a important family member of mine passed a way a year later, I had a dream about them riding a vehicle going a way but for some odd reason it made me cried so much that it gave me an asthma attacked and so on and forth.
Similar to first act of the penacony story quest all of the characters have very close interactions in some of their quests, like aventurine and ratio deceiving Sunday, black Swan and sparkle in sparkle story quest. Robin and Sunday current story quest, firefly and silverwolf sneaking in penacony.
making the first scene of the first penacony quest line making it connected. Lastly remember when acheron slashing us after finishing answering her question and waking us up, it's refering to what she going to do next "Waking us up" From ena's dream.
The moment we had the Xianzhou on speed dial, I sensed a disturbance
Hearing your thoughts is always interesting and really makes me think deeper. Thanks for another amazing video.
The game doesn't really tell you this, but Sunday's phase 2 shield breaks faster when you attack his broken minions
People forgetting Acheron is normal
in the dreamscape When we got asked to describe Acheron in 2.1 we couldn’t as we forgot her. - the same thing happens later in the patch again.
The IPC doing stuff for free got me as that that would never happen + with Jade coming.
As HI3 fan this arc gave so much bonus on top - so many fanservice to the older game be it with OST playing, the name drop or how Acheron catches Trailblazer in the sky
I realized it was still a dream when I woke up on the couch in the Reverie and found one of those creepy anubis statues that puff into dream smoke when you click on it on the table.
whole hi3 community went ablaze with that reveal. awesome reaction as usual tsuki!!
That's awesome! I'm glad HSR is making it rewarding for hi3rd players and thank you! Glad you enjoyed :D
I start thing I'm still dreaming when The General call use Galactic Baseballer, and I knew I was still in a dream when I.P.C "gave up on getting Penacony for the greater good" 🤣that's 100% never going to happen
The worst thing about this storyline is that it makes the Luofu look so much worse in comparison.
I think it's fine, it's unfortunate for the luofu, but it was clearly always meant to be a bigger intro to the HSR world in like a tutorial part 2 fashion compared to the HSS. Plus, the Luofu also clearly set itself for more arcs unlike belobog and HSS(the latter of which only has low key plots to theorize with, like Screwwy and the phase flame).
So there's a theory that some people don't quite agree with: pretty much the events of the first time we reached Penacony to our first battle with Sunday all happened off-screen. We lost and got trapped in Ena's dream, which then loops back to the first time the astral express warped jump to Penacony. So since 2.0, we have always been in Ena's dream.
Isn't that just what Black Swan says, verbatim. She said that what we experienced, did happen, right up until about the end. But there was a single glaring inconsistency, that told her that we were still in a dream. So whilst little things may have been off, just about everything major was correct.
@@nemasisdemarini8339 It is. I don't know why they think it is a theory.
I loved that boss fight. I laughed at the train... The real motto of the Astral Express Family! Always run train!
In the second creadits roll the fact that Gallagher is played by Penacony escaped me whe I played the quest. On the part of knowing if we were in a dream at the first credit roll, I was like: "did I get the wrong ending?" since before only alternate endings had the credit roll. The fact that we were in a dream from the begining of 2.0 was kinda unexpected for me at least.
(Whats funny to think about is that sparkles dream was probbaly everyone pressing her buttons that she gave out and exploding lol)
3:13:45 "That is a beautiful man. I must help him"
I realized it was a dream the moment Screwllum said that development on SU was stopping to help Penacony. Herta would not give a single solitary fuck about Penacony. Also I believe the voice narrating the real ending was Elio.
Alzheimer’s is a type of dementia, to answer that question. From your experiences with your grandfather, I’d wager it can be pretty different from person to person, but I’m sure you have some difficult memories related to that, and wanted to offer what condolences I can.
It’s really rough. My grandmother had Alzheimer’s, as well as post polio syndrome. We went to visit pretty often as a child, but there wasn’t a lot of her left.
Thank you for explaining! I couldn't recall the relationship between the two, so I appreciate you chiming in on that I agree -- it likely varies a lot from person to person, and of course the more it progress, the more of the person you lose. Thank you for the condolences -- I extend the same to you.
I think it was very bold of them to cause such massive disappointment in everyone right before the final confrontation... I didn't emotionally recover in time to be nearly as hype as everyone else did. I thought the second real end needed more ramp up, especially on the action front.
I think most people didn't really feel disappointed. But rather confused and surprised. which was likely the emotion they intended to illicit. Given that they made everyone and everything just a tad too happy on convenient.
@@nemasisdemarini8339 Yeah I wasn't confused or surprised at all. It's weird that I actually thought the false end was funny, if anything, but it went on so long I started doubting myself by the end. XD
I knew it was a dream because after Topaz's antics on Belabog there was NO way I'd believe the IPC would EVER give up once they've set their hearts on reclaiming something.
The vibes were off immediately when we woke up. Partially b/c I watch the patch live streams, and was like "where boss 3rd phase?", but also b/c everything was weird. Himeko was talking flatly, Jing Yuan calling us the baseballer, Screwllum doesn't talk like that at all. I actually kept backing out of the convo with black Swan b/c I though maybe we'd need to use the card she gave us to do something. When asked where to go next, I said "I'll abstain", and everyone else was like "Yippee, Edo Star!!".
I was geeking out when Black Swan asked about the flaw, in a "holy shit are they doing a "it was a dream the whole time" + "time loop" reveal?" Honestly I'm impressed that they pulled it off. Lots of loops in the 2.0-2.2 story, even in the same patch. Acheron repeating the old man's words back to him at the end of his life. Welt and Acheron's discussion about the "Spiritual Adam". The Watchmaker's words to us being said to Sunday as our answer. Acheron asking the same questions as the start of 2.0 at the end of 2.2, but now we've decided on our answers; she even repeats the same "The golden dream is getting restless" part. Fantastic story planning by the writers.
In loving memories of Rosaline Estella
She ignored her farewell xDD
I will apologize for a wall of text ahead of time. Sorry!
*SPOILERS FOR THE STORY SO FAR for those who haven't played 2.2 as yet*
After the first Sunday fight, your reaction switching between "This is underwhelming" to "This HAS to be a dream!" to "but... is it?" is absolute peak content :D You've second guessed and third guessed yourself so many times in those 10 minutes, it was brilliant to watch. Hilarious that you knew that your Husbando Jing Yuan would never call us Galactic Baseballer! I'm glad you enjoyed the actual ending. I had a very similar reaction to yours, although I didn't switch again once Jing Yuan calls us Galactic Baseballer. Knew it was a dream from there onwards. Was way too off brand. IPC not being greedy? Screwllum shutting down the Simulated Universe? Ratio working with others without exploding? Fat chance.
You've done a great job in going over the philosophies of Sunday and Robin, and how they clashed. I'm also glad that you highlighted how your past experiences made you who you are today. Erasing the trials and tears of the past, we'd not be who we are today. Erasing the pain that one might experience in the future, we'd not really be living. Gopher Wood groomed Sunday. Robin managed to escape and tour the world and expand her mind, while Sunday was never given that luxury. He kept getting influenced right from childhood, by someone who was already being influenced by a stellaron. In a way, it is similar to what Bronya faced by Cocolia, but she was a much more optimistic person who wanted to save Belebog. Sunday was naturally more of a pessimist, and the only positive thought he could muster was to take Robin's place in sacrificing himself when he knew she wouldn't sing. As someone who went through severe depression, I can relate to Sunday on so many levels. He wanted to protect people too, and while Bronya was shielded by Cocolia, Sunday was made to play the youth pastor role where he was exposed to the worst of humanity's weakness day in, day out. So his solution was to make everyone "happy, forever".
Robin got so much credit for how she had enough determination to wake up from the dream by herself by the community. But what they didn't get is that Firefly did the same thing behind the scenes. I believe that is the "Decomposing body" mentioned in the after credits. She was a stowaway, and if you remember the instances of people confessing to sunday... the second guy who sold his kids into slavery was also a stowaway. If you refuse to help him, he dies away slowly because his body isn't protected by the dream-pool. Firefly knew this. She was a stowaway, and she knew that she would die. But she was determined and found the express and guided Acheron and Black Swan in finding the Nameless. In doing so, she met her second death. It breaks my heart that it was not mentioned clearly, and not recognized by the wider community. The writing was a bit lax here imo. I am absolutely certain we will revisit this in 2.3, the Epilogue and figure out her "third death" as per the script.
Acheron confuses me. I guess she is like a grim reaper, guiding souls in the afterlife. But where does she reside? In the Nihility according to Tiernan. How does she traverse? And that domain where Aventurine and the Trailblazer walked is even more confusing. She says it is a doorway out of the Nihility. But to Aventurine, she said it was a path into Nihility. I thought he'd walk into a long path of self discovery and come out with a changed path... and yet, he's safe and sound talking to Jade, apparently saved by Argenti. How did the Trailblazer get there before the second sunday fight? And it is shown that she slashed and destroyed that zone in order to help everyone wake up. Did she bid farewell because she killed her own way out of the Nihility? I'm beyond confused about her, and the principles of Afterlife that they've tried to incorporate here.
I do believe that Razalina was her companion that Acheron mentioned traveling for 30 days. We've found Tiernan, we've found Mikhail. But we haven't encountered Razalina. She says short and determined girl. And if it does come true, please know I do not follow leaks.
Boothill, the artifact is poorly written. Just a bullet shot and every Galaxy ranger just magically appears? What about traversal time? Did we all stay in a dream till everyone took their time to arrive? Confused again. But I am really looking forward to his conflict with the IPC, and the introduction of Jade. In answer to your question, in JP, he just says "BABY!" for every swear word. It is funny, but I do prefer the EN version.
Loved following the story again alongside you, as always!
Hahaha, I really did go back and forth on it a lot XD but yes, I was so thrown off by my husbando calling me Galactic Baseballer. I was like, "WAIT. What???" lol and yes, everything was so perfect. IPC being so peaceful, the SU stuff, Ratio seemed way too nice, and it also just felt anticlimactic. I kept thinking, "There's no way they would write this amazing story only to end it like this.. right? ... right?"
Thank you! I really like both Robin and Sunday, but Sunday is especially interesting to me just because of his philosophy. I think what really resonates with me is that he isn't evil in the traditional sense. His thinking is very backwards, but he's actually quite a compassionate person. His heart is in the right place, his thought process and actions are just misguided. Not saying this justifies him, but it definitely made me love his character. I respect the hell out of Robin as well, but Sunday's story really grabbed my attention.
Robin definitely is a badass for that, but yes! Firefly is also amazing. She's got so much grit and determination and will power. I love her and can't wait to see more of her in the story.
Yeah, there's still a lot of room for them to expand on Acheron. I hope we see more of her as well. I definitely understand her much better now, but I still would like more insight. I'd also like to get more specifics on Aventurine and Argenti, and how that all went down.
I could definitely see Acheron's companion being Razalina! I think that would be a nice way to connect her to us :D
Yeah, I don't know how all this works with travel time and everything happening inside of a dream. The mechanics of all that aren't really explained, but I'm cool with that lol overall super awesome story quest. My favorite thus far also love JP Boothill saying, "Baby!" lmao
Glad you enjoyed the playthrough 🥳
@@himetsukich Can't wait for 2.3! I'll not go into too many more points or I'll keep tapping all day. To answer your question about Aventurine and Argenti... Aventurine says that he contacted every major faction to try and gain friends. One of the factions he mentioned is the knights of beauty. That is probably Argenti answering the call. We already know he is an extremely suspicious and powerful individual, having escaped from the Swarm when it attacked the train. While we don't know exactly how he's done it both times, it was Aventurine's planning to have contacted Argenti. I don't believe his interactions with Sparkle are done either. He's a very shrewd man who downplays it all as luck, imo.
Thank you for the detailed response, btw. Never expected, but always appreciated!
2:49:27 Boothill pulled a 4 star
I might be going off the deep end with my theory about Sunday after the events of 2.2 but here it is and I'll continue in the replies (it is going to be an absolute yap fest):
I have a theory that Sunday is going to be a related to Elio after these events, and maybe become a Stellaron hunter. This is based on a readable I found in Dreamflux Reef.
It is a readable called "Death of the Crow" and it goes:
description:
A bizarre and incomprehensible poem. Or perhaps, some kind of mysterious invitation.
text:
"Once upon a midnight dreary, while you pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten dreams -
While you nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at your chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," you muttered, "tapping at my chamber door -
Only this and nothing more."
Ah, do you distinctly remember the dew-doused window pane;
And a dying baby dove laid like a shadow upon the floor.
Eagerly you had wished the story to meet a happy end
Eagerly you had wished no birds would plummet, their demise to bewail.
Some soared like shining stars, bound for the sky...
While others found only demise, in dust they lie.
Deep into that darkness peering, long you stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
Worms have stained satin, and flames consumed doves with broken wings,
A flame-bathed raven greeted you, its voice's rasp that sings.
"Sweet dreams are no paradise of mine," you whispered and sighed. "When I cast my eyes around -"
Darkness there and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling your sad fancy into smiling,
"The echoes of ghosts bring no salvation to light."
"People repent, their hearts sincere, only due to them seeking greater gains."
"Drink this blessed potion from the Great One, erasing your painful memories."
As Harmony's tune changed, you hear a dirge played amidst the dancing ashes...
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."
The unbroken stillness remains silently, mocking any reply so aptly spoken,
But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
This and more I sat divining, scrying the source of the world's pain
Your heart grew resolute, no longer held back by confusion and doubt.
"Liar," you declared, "the Great One is blind to worldly sorrow -"
Merely this and nothing more.
You ascended the stage, you stole the authority, you strived for divinity
You raised the dim curtain, your self-directed farce skillfully honed.
Your heart overflew with pureness, while the shadows of the puppets cast grim shadows in their play.
Your soul embraced compassion, daring to forge a scale that will never sway.
"Behold," you proclaimed, "the utopia of absolute bliss,"
Yet the dream shattered, "Nevermore."
The velvet nest fell, the golden bed withered away,
But the bird remained perched, as did you, come what may.
The gods, who once bestowed upon you love's sweet hue,
Withdrew their favor, leaving your paradise askew.
Liberated from the shadow of young dove's demise, your soul will take flight,
Merely this and nothing more.
Your old dreams are as dead soil, barren of hope and bereft,
Yet how can a noble soul wither and fade, left adrift?
I shall await your arrival, with open arms and boundless hope,
Here lie the truest dreams, where infinite possibilities lope.
Here, all your ambitions shall be fulfilled and set aflame,
The past forever transformed, and nevermore
Yours, Most Sincerely
Cecil Simmes"
I was confused at first as I couldn't link this to anyone besides Firefly from the word 'Nevermore', but there was no connection to her at all in story. But I did notice it was based on Edgar Allen Poe's poem called 'The Raven' I looked into this poem when 2.0 released when I noticed SAM's theme is called "Nevermore" so seeing the poem actually appear freaked me out, and after completing the 2.2 story it is very much related to Sunday.
The Raven is a poem where a person longs for their Lenore who they lost, and a raven perches in front of them, this person indulges to question the raven but the raven only answers with "nevermore", which gives the speaker grief as they believe this Raven speaks the truth, and as the speaker keeps indulging in the questions the answer only fills him with grief as he will nevermore forget his Lenore and in trying to forget he pushes himself into the shadows... (it is something along those lines based on my memory)
This readable very clearly states Sunday's thinking, his path, his wants, his dreams, his past, and his actions. But this could just be someone close to Sunday that wasn't mentioned after the events of the story you might see a flaw in my theory... but an important detail is that this can be found BEFORE COMPLETING THE QUEST which is a very important detail as they do lock collectibles behind certain triggers but didn't for this and that is very important to note since it mentions what happens in the story before it actually happened which implies they knew the outcome of the story before it happened, no one is able to know this, not even Sunday himself, there is only one character we know that can, Elio, and this Cecil Simmes could be another Alias (I don't know if this name has any significance or if it is inspired by something)
The poem is very clearly related to Sunday... his past with the dove crashing in front of Robin's window and watching it die, etc... but there a 2 points that relates to Elio, the description of the readable and the last paragraph of the poem:
"A bizarre and incomprehensible poem. Or perhaps, some kind of mysterious invitation."
"Your old dreams are as dead soil, barren of hope and bereft,
Yet how can a noble soul wither and fade, left adrift?
I shall await your arrival, with open arms and boundless hope,
Here lie the truest dreams, where infinite possibilities lope.
Here, all your ambitions shall be fulfilled and set aflame,
The past forever transformed, and nevermore"
This is an invitation sent to Sunday to join the Steallaron Hunters and whether or not Sunday join is up to him. But in turn of the Stellaron Hunters joining Elio to stop the universe from destruction, Elio helps them fulfil their wishes in their times of desperation, giving them a new hope and a new beginning and he is willing to do the same for Sunday to move on from the past. And Sunday is currently imprisoned by the Family as said by an NPC found in the grand theatre but he is alive and Elio may have seen potential after all he wrote "Yet how can a noble soul wither and fade, left adrift?". Sunday isn't a murderer, he wants the best for everyone, he could have just killed us if he wanted everyone else to live in his ideal but he didn't, he saw himself as a necessary sacrifice to become the star that would overseer everyone was safe in the dream to maintain it, he is selfless to the extremes and joining Elio to stop the universe from destruction and help other people that are desperate (the other steallaron hunters), the "weak" he was talking about fit his philosophy as well as Elio wanting to kill Nanook as Sunday wants a universe without Aeons, so Sunday has a reason to Join.
But there is also another reason Elio may want Sunday, there were 3 deaths that Firefly is meant to suffer and Acheron said "Firefly is a stowaway who entered the Dreamscape in a different way from ours. Without the dreampool in the hotel or assistance from The Family, she can only awaken from this dream in one way... a real "death"." The rest of The Family won't help a stellaron hunter, she already died 2 times but the third was said by her "Only by achieving victory in this battle can we secure a future for Penacony. And only then, my third and final death... won't come true in the most terrible form" which implies she still dies but by waking from the dream and not a real death. The only person that could do this and be willing to is Sunday. He won't let someone die if he can control it, he has an extreme sense of justice.
I posted this on other videos and someone pointed out entropy in relation to all this which slipped my mind:
Firefly's condition is called "Entropy Loss Syndrome", from memory entropy is a term in physics that describes the positive correlation between time increasing and an increase of energy dispersal. Essentially, energy remains constant in the universe just that over time it gets more dispersed and can't do work (the physics definition), so as time passes the energy becomes more disorganised and chaotic, entropy is the term to describe this process of the universe moving towards death and chaos. The antithesis to entropy is negentropy, which the opposite meaning things becoming more in order and organised. So Firefly has the same amount of energy, her energy is becoming more dispersed and the energy she has isn't enough to do work, this describes the symptoms of the syndrome, she starts off normal but over time she can do less and less. The only solution and potential cure is to organise this energy dispersal through the use of ORDER.
Also in a HoyoLab post called "character introduction Sparkle" under the "share something that has amused you" section it says:
"How about making a little chicken as my partner? I'll give it a white suit and black cat glasses"
Elio is the character presumed to use black cats as a sort of way to overseer the stellaron hunters, as a way to watch them without using his real body, just as Sunday uses his servants this was shown in the Kafka splash art and myriad celestia trailer, Edgar Allen Poe also wrote a book called "The Black Cat" so they might have used his works for a reason to link the stellaron hunters together.
Another fun little connection is the song Robin sings in the battle appears to be based on the name of a Poem also called “Hope is the thing with wings” and looking at the lyrics it obviously is about Robin and Sunday…but there is another book who draws reference from “Hope is the thing with wings” called “Grief is the things with wings” and the bird on the cover is a crow, this likely represents Sunday.
On the same comment there was another reply stating the stellaron hunters having a crow motif as a whole:
It is obvious they draw a lot of inspiration from literature but the stellaron hunters seem to have a lot of symbolism involving corvids, Kafka sounds like Kavka which translates to Jackdaw in Czech which are corvids, there is a book called "Kafka on the shore" which involves Kafka, a character named "Crow", and involves cats... Blade's splash art also has a crow in the background... and SAM's theme "nevermore" is related to Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven"... The crow typically represents a bad omen, but a dead crow could represents a positive changes, if Elio seeks the fulfil their wishes it would be the death of their crows... Blade wants death and be rid of immortality, Firefly wants to find meaning in her own life as Firefly not SAM or Glammoth's iron cavalry which the theme Nevermore is linked to, kafka we still know little about, and SW doesn't seem to follow anything in particular as she sees the universe as a game the only one who doesn't have a crow motif
It should also be noted that Gopher Wood can be seen in the dreamscape pass, he is a Halovian with completely black wings and has a crow on his shoulder unlike Sunday's wing which is purple with white (Sunday also only has one wing, if you look closely underneath his suit one is a wing but the other is just part of his clothes, his wing has been clipped and can't fly, he sees himself as one of the weak while Robin is the strong). Looking that the Harmony/Order obviously draw inspiration from Christianity and to quote Leviticus 11:13 "Of birds these are they which you must not eat, and which are to be avoided by you: The eagle, and the griffon, and the osprey," Leviticus 11:14 "And the kite, and the vulture, according to their kind" Leviticus 11:15 "And all that is of the raven kind, according to their likeness" crows and such should be avoided and not eaten under any circumstance as it is a false and sinful teaching
I also believe that the person speaking for the credit section at the end of the story is Elio, also in the dreampass 17 are both Elio.
The 3 dialogue options from the dreamscape pass:
"We've known each other for a long time... Interestingly, I feel the same way.
But is this truly the correct answer? Don't be in a hurry. When we have witnessed the end of this business together, I will certainly reveal to you my true identity."
"We are but people passing by each other's trailblazing journeys... Interestingly, I feel the same way.
But is this truly the correct answer? Don't be in a hurry. When we have witnessed the end of this business together, I will certainly reveal to you my true identity."
"We cannot see through each other at all... Interestingly, I feel the same way.
Then, what is the correct answer? Don't be in a hurry. When we have witnessed the end of this business together, I will certainly reveal to you my true identity."
This is based on feeling and is just speculation but out of all the characters that would speak the end of the script, it would be Elio
Ooooooo! That would actually be so fascinating if Elio extends an invitation to Sunday 😱 what an interesting poem -- thank you for sharing! I would definitely be down for more Sunday content. Idk for sure how I'd feel about him joining the Stellaron Hunters specifically (not in terms of your theory -- I think you've made some good points in the theory -- I mean more in terms of the story and how I'd personally feel if he joined them/whether or not I'd like it), but I do really like him as a character and think they did a great job developing him, so I'd be happy to see more of him :3 the writing has also been amazing for Penacony, so I have faith that the writers could make this work if this does wind up coming to fruition.
It's tough because on one hand, I think story-telling wise, Sunday dying isn't bad. I think his death makes the scene with him and Robin falling more emotionally impactful in some ways, but at the same time, I have fallen so in love with his character. They wrote him so convincingly that I can't help but want to see more of him, so thank you for sharing your theory! I do hope we'll see him again :)
JY calling us the galactic baseballer, and acheron's non-existence to Boothill and DH (I thought BS messed with their minds) made me suspicious. But what tipped me off is the IPC trio.
Topaz's willingingness for such an amicable wrapup and Dr Ratio, in all his hubris against the geniuses, working with screwllum.
Well, I realized that something was sus, when I was fighting Sunday's puppets. I remembered that during the 2.2 livestream Hoyo showed us 3 phases of the Dominicus fight. If this 3 phases had yet to come then this fight was not the final one. Hoyo did a really good job! They made the fake ending, artificially lowered the quality of the story and gave us countless little hints, so we, filling a mild confusion, interaction after interaction could discover that everything is a lie.
Peakacony.
It sounds a bit unrelated, but whether u can find out that you are still in dream depends quite a lot on how well you build your characters Lmao.
For me, I soon realized just by looking at his health bar as he got oneshoted, I was like 'Bruh, we must be dreaming, aint no way that real'. I even feel kinda same at the second time but i right away try to convince myself cuz the story seems complete and reasonable to end there.
BTW, too bad we lost the chance to have 7 day off per week :(
Leave a like if you recognize the music when Acheron asked you questions. ❤
You were talking about the start of this patch where Sunday says “Someone has to be awake in this dream”
you over though this line that doesn’t mean his real body is in the dream - he defended only his over work with this. He doesn’t indulge in sweets anymore to do his job to overlook everyone
Ohhhh, gotcha! That makes sense -- this makes me even more curious as to what happened to him then. I'm told there's a hidden quest that touches on it a bit more, so I'll have to go do that
that’s true don’t understand why they hid it. It takes just 5min. Teleport back to the theater and walk a little. Robin will message you. It also gives you the Boss fight song for the train ^^
@@MegaApostel They're really making me work for my Sunday content, aren't they? lol I probably never would've thought to go back to the theater if it hadn't been mentioned.
Yeah just to add to this, he actually never "wakes up" (leaving the penacony dreamscape) to go back to reality, which is why he never is awake to try the sweets Robin sends home to him. The way in which he is going to be "always awake" is that he will be operating everyone's dream and keeping eternal vigil, which he's already started doing.
Shaoji has a problem where he overloads metaphors so if you take the wrong time or wrong part literally: It's just a big confusion party. I actually started rewriting all the bird metaphor parts for coherence, it's so bad. XD
I thought they'd save the star rail attack for like the final arc years later or something lol
I was more annoyed and almost threatening the game that it was a dream. That ending was so unappealing. I was so happy it was a dream. I hope there is more to the story next update.
Unironically I got gaslit so hard into believing they actually ended the story that way. They've dropped the ball at parts in the story before and they just kept it up for so long that I was just convinced that was it. I didn't want to believe it but then it seemed as if it actually all ended and I just got kinda sad, so when Black Swan appeared I was like "wait whats happening..."
The thing about them forgetting Acheron didn't even strike me as that odd because my brain basically just auto-corrected into being like "Oh she's an emanator of Nihility, their memories of her probably just got deleted from the universe or something because of Nihility" so my brain also just convinced itself that stuff was making sense.
Also I played the quest in one entire sitting so at the "end" my brain also just went into no think mode and went "this has to be it, RIGHT?!"
2:23:05 Hime: I can fix him! 😂
In the JP dub, Boothil, says "BABY!!" instead of the swears. Why? Idk, but it's also funny.
Honestly I dont think theres was any speciifc point you lost, considering the dream scape was merging with reality , more like He probably just changed the outcome into what we wanted as soon as we started disagreeing with him. However is there ever was a point I'd say it was as soon as he took Robin and Welt, and after what we hear from robin, the dream we had of winning was specifically tailored to Stelle/Cas compared to Robins dream of being a child again
3:04:01 that sound sus without context
You know... I just noticed... They gave the candle-headed enemy physics...
It's a doll, like Herta. Why did it need physics.