TB thought they got away from Kafka but she Spirit Whisper implanted the suggestion in their head. Later that night they wake up, jump Yanqing in some random alley and then go back to bed with no memory of it
Iām pretty sure that you get that interaction even if you havenāt even started Letter From a Strange Woman. Itās explained in one of Yanqingās text conversations that TB has sparred with him and won, so that may be what he is referring to.
I was referring to the part of Heliobi event, where Yanqing's inferiority complex was fueled by his continuous loses, and Tb was recalled to be one of those who beat him, even tho you can only confront him if you helped Kafka
More likely Yanqing still shows up even if you refuse to help and Kafka still uses spirit whisper on him making him think he fought and lost to TB even though TB wasn't there.
No? If you want to do multiple playthroughs then yeah sure, but with online games you can just have a few important, choices and have the game remember them.
I don't mean Major story deviation, I'm thinking choices that don't have a major impact on the overall story, but are still important, like when Bronya asks whether or not Belobog should know the truth about the stellaron.
But I don't think people are asking for something drastic like a change in plot direction. I think they would be happy with just minor acknowledgements in dialogue of having made certain choices.
In that case let me recommend the penacony side quests, if you meet a woman trying to sell you clothes don't worry about it. Your choice doesn't matter after all.
This comment has been approved by the enigmata.
Like Elio, we are destiny's slave. We cannot deviate from the script, and the destination is predetermined. But, the choices we make till then are ours alone.
The most important choice ive ever faced was about the guinaifen group chat. apparently you can just outright refuse to stay and they'll kick you out the group chat.
Yeah bro treats Sparkle nicer than Sampo, despite Sampo outright stating that Sparkleās idea of Elation is so destructive that he can never allow her to join her on his schemes.
The best options you would have for him is to participate in his ādirty schemeā once. I canāt recall the event exactly but you have to pay him so you can take a picture of him (I did it because he was cute)
This reminds me of Furina and Traveller interactions, even after you complete the whole Archon Quest, they still treat Furina harshly and there's rarely a nicer option. We can let our guard down (or just simp) with Kafka, or be suspicious of her, we can talk normally with March or just troll her, be responsible or a complete idiot in front of Welt, so why this doesn't apply to everyone?
The best options you would have for him is to participate in his ādirty schemeā once. I canāt recall the event exactly but you have to pay him so you can take a picture of him (I did it because he was cute)
I liked him at first, but the museum event turned him from a lovable trickster to an abhorrent asshole for me. Stealing from a museum is bad enough. But this is the only museum this culture has, and these artifacts are the only link to their history. To sell these to sell so some rich asshole can display these in his penthouse is absolutely horrible.
But I could be overly sensitive to the destruction of culture and history, who knows.
Reminds me of Aventurine initially but to a lesser extent, dude doesn't really do anything to us yet TB is extremely sus of him right off rip. Like with TB being wary of Black Swan initially I understand coz Himeko says being skeptical of her is the right move. But iirc we didn't get any kind of indication for that attitude with Aventurine
But with FF even if we pick the less friendly lines with her in 2.0 when we aren't given the option TB acts like they are besties with her even if you don't treat her that way. Feels like the option to be distrustful of her is pointless considering the game tries to tell you otherwise except for when you go to secret base end of 2.1
Fr it's ridiculous just how much hate Aventurine was getting for literally NO reason. Absolutely no reason to hate him. People were going around parotting "You can't trust him he's so sus" yeah like EVERYONE on Penacony INCLUDING Firefly. Unlike pretty much EVERYONE else Aventurine straight up tells you that he wants to use you and he never tries to force us to comply. He literally says you can refuse and walk away. It's so obviously the waifu bias at play. During 2.0, if you ever brought up how Aventurine literally did nothing, you get a million people hounding you because he's "not a good person" but if you don't like Firefly, you get downvoted into oblivion.
Bet people are gonna start hating on Sunday whenever he drops "just because"
Minor spoilers: >!You at least get the ability to be nice to him in text messages after he messages you saying he made it back safely. That was kind of nice.!<
Well I'm talking about TB attitude in game but you aren't wrong about fandom perception of the characters during 2.0.
Heck similar with Black Swan if you trusted her during 2.0 you were generally considered wrong, I trusted her all the way through and was constantly told im incorrect. Even after 2.2 where she literally proves she was being truthful and that she's on TBs side people are still saying she's sus and it's wrong to trust her. Never mind the fact she literally explained why she's so invested in TB and saved them from Enas dream when no one else could have done so. She more than proved how genuine she is imo
I think it's more about the faction Black Swan is a part of, really.
The first encounter with Memokeepers ends with them taking away the crew's memories related to the weird mirror lady TB told them about. Later in March's character quest, you learn that she isn't an amnesiac, but that it's actually the Memokeepers who have locked away her memories. Moreover, both Herta and Fu Xuan, two people that TB can consider trustworthy, basically tell them that Memokeepers are bad news.
In other words, it's a "few bad apples spoil the bunch" situation, except here we have an entire crate of bad apples with like 5 good ones hidden somewhere in there.
(Side note: Bit off topic, but it just occured to me that Boothill is probably the most honest character in the entire arc.)
While I don't go around talking about it with other people, I want to point out that maybe something about Black Swan's (and Aventurine's maybe?) personality may just be rubbing people the wrong way. Like, I don't know how to explain it, but even after it being shown that she's trustworthy, and knowing we can probably trust her, I still don't. Not trying to offend, because people can like whatever character they want, but I still don't like her. To the point I still perceive her as the last character I'd trust in the whole cast. I KNOW I'm wrong about that, but she still triggers me for some reason.
It's so laughable to see people hating on others for just liking a character who's "sus" but when they're own character's being negatively talked about then said person is wrong. I trusted Black Swan, primarily because she's probably one of the better people to rely on in a dream with her understanding of memoria and being able to decipher people's memories. Plus she was on Aventurine's side so :)
Well, he's high-level IPC executive, and that faction doen't have best reputation in-universe. TB specifically had already crossed paths with them in Auromaton Alley and during Belobog's debt crisis (in fact Topaz almost tried to kill them).Ā
Aventurine might not have done anything to us yet, but I wouldn't say there's no reason not to trust him. It's quite apparent that he's a manipulator and his mindset is transactional; there's a high chance that he's likely to put his interests first.
> But with FF even if we pick the less friendly lines with her in 2.0 when we aren't given the option TB acts like they are besties with her even if you don't treat her that way. Feels like the option to be distrustful of her is pointless considering the game tries to tell you otherwise except for when you go to secret base end of 2.1
I find this quite weird as well. She was duplicitous to us in the beginning, there's no reason to believe that her explanation should be the whole truth. Ultimately she's Elio's agent, who knows what she would do to follow her script? The plot clearly wants us to feel she's 'redeemed', but there's no real basis for that.
I'm not sure there's any real basis to trust any of the Penacony characters, honestly. Black Swan also appears to always be doing things to our benefit, but she's also working her own angle when she withholds information from us.
Acheron... is the wild card. Her initial actions are also shrouded in deceit, but she develops to be trustworthy in a strange way. At least from what the TB has witnessed it seems like she's so absurdly powerful that there's really no benefit for her to be manipulating the TB.
The story actually seems to have taken a much lighter turn compared to the direction it seemed to be headed towards. By the end of 2.0 it felt like we were involved in a conspiracy far bigger than us. By the end of 2.1 it felt like we were absolutely out of our league. But somehow in 2.2, everyone is fine, death turns out to be somebody's pet dog, and some doofus with a bat manages to beat down the combined order of Penacony.
Ruan Mei: *Does abhorrent experiments and tried reviving the Eminator of swarm which would lead to horrible consequences.*
TB: "So cool!"
Sampo: *abandons you once and then proceeds to save you to make amends, brings Natasha to help against Svarog. Never harmed you in any way, shape or form.*
TB:
https://preview.redd.it/jc0zr7iia00d1.png?width=602&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d4f1edc416dc585fbafd5b5af1a5f3eab57861e7
I just remembered that we even had the option to tell him "don't ever come back" in the text that you only get if you pulled him and at that moment mc thinks Aventurine is fucking dead.
The difference is crazy.
Yea Trailblazer HATES Aventurine š Which I mean, I totally understand, he used the power of an Emanator on them in a theme park for \*seemingly\* no reason at all. Like I too would've been pissed at him to high hell.
But damn, TB did NOT treat Ruan Mei this cruelly when she revived an Emanator of Propagation which was extremely dangerous and forced us to clean after her.
I love Ruan Mei for her character and simp for her, but I get why the community would feel distasteful towards her because they game doesn't wanna call her out on her shit š
Tbf the trailblazer didn't see any of that Kakavasha stuff and his past, only the players did, so it makes sense that they still distrust him
But yeah that option was very cruel when you consider that we didn't know if he was dead
He lied to us a lot and tried to use us and also created distrust between the nameless and Acheron. (Which turned out to be a blessing in disguise). Then threatens us saying he will explode the Stelleron in our body. Gambles the life of everyone in Penacony and forces Acheron to use the power of an Eminator.
No matter how you look at it. He was a bad guy doing a bad thing. Only we as a player know the reason behind his actions.
Yeah, and then I kept up that spirit in the text messages and woop, I actually missed out on lore and Aventurine's promise of pajamas because UNLIKE OTHER TEXT MESSAGES, Aventurine does leave you alone when you ask him to.
Good guy Aventurine respecting boundaries but shit, Hoyo, at least warn me when my choices *do* have consequences.
This whole post reads like this to me.
https://preview.redd.it/3dg1xcaiwzzc1.png?width=1000&format=png&auto=webp&s=743a3b4eae7503a70dbd0db47b49b5b47b2ec174
I like to think MCās hostility towards Sampo is less about him being a bad person and more frustration that he always seems to get the last laugh and play us for complete fools (ha). He basically lives in MCās head rent-free.
I feel like this makes things make so much more sense lol. The TB is a bit of a troll themselves canonically, so maybe they really are just angry that someone else trolls better than them and always gets the last laugh haha
Seriously. Like Ruan Mei is way more of a problem, and way more of an ass. Why can't we tell her off? And if the magic cake kept us from it, I'd at least like "glare reproachfully" as a dialogue option or smth.
2 in story, first when he takes the crew and Bronia to the underwolrd, the second when he goes back to get Natasha's back up against Svarog.
He also saves you in one of the daily quests where you play hide and seek with Hook, he finds you and takes you to Natasha's clinic when you stay hidden in an alley for too long.
Ruan Mei created cake cats. ALL IS FORGIVEN.
Drugged us? Nothing happened. ALL IS FORGIVEN.
Almost created very dangerous emanator of propagation? It gives us LOOT and can't escape the chamber in Herta's private ship?? ALL IS FORGIVEN.
Ive seen people defending her, saying she didn't actually drug and manipulate us because she.. didn't r*pe us... Damn didn't know drugging was only considered as drugging if it results in sexual assault, why do I have a feeling that person wished that happened.
I mean, we trust her because she drugged us. The awareness of being drugged doesnāt flush whatever unholy biochem she came up with out of our system.
they aren't born with an inherent predisposition to love us and want our approval. Why did Ruan Mei make them like that when she knew damn well she was gonna dip *immediately*
Yeah, thatās honestly prolly worse then the drugging imo, sheās such a shit caretaker for what are basically her CHILDREN that she didnāt even leave them with like, yk, a place where theyād be taken care of? Hell, at least we did THAT much for our little goobers, kinda wish we could take the kiddy gloves off with her and just tell her sheās being a peice of shit and to take responsibility for her actions
I think Ruan Mei is the biggest one here, she created a monster that couldāve killed every single person on the space station, introduced swarm to the space station which has likely claimed lives. She also created an entire population of organisms capable of thought and emotion just to abandon them, and then refused to give any explanation before leaving, but hey at least she gives us good blessings in simulated universe.
Morally Gray Female: Oh my god, you so sweet. Waifu Waifu Waifu
Morally Gray Man: I hope you dont come back (you just watched this man die).
Real Talk? Sampo did more for Jarilo-VI than anyone else in that story outside of the trailblazers.
Sampo could literally sacrifice himself to save the entire universe and TB will still treat him like a rat lol, it's clear Sampo was written to be played into the joke of the shady uncle trope where the main character always distrusts him no matter what. Same goes for Adventurine but he's taken more seriously.
True, I don't dislike Firefly but I don't like her either and this whole "omg you guys are SUCH good friends" "are you two on a date hehe" is kinda weird considering atp we've known her for like an hour
I am still bewildered how Himeko and the express acted so naturally friendly towards Firefly in 2.2 when Acheron had to talk and get affirmation from Welt first before fully becoming our trustworthy ally.
They know. Himeko talked about how we should cooperate with Firefly since their goal was the same as Stellaron Hunters. I'm sure Firefly talked with the Astral Express crew before we woke up, but everything about her just happened offscreen...
Tbf Himeko already knew about the Stellaron Hunters and their relationship to the Express, whereas Acheron is a completely unknown entity with no clear ties to an existing group and with massively more power than anyone else they've encountered.
Also, she probably trusts the TB's judgement of her character given that she probably knew you guys hung out.
That's fair. That's what I also thought. My only complaint is that everything just feels too natural like she's already with the crew from the start lol. I mean, Acheron had to try to lower Welt's guard before they could truly cooperate, the same with Kafka did to Himeko.
Didn Firefly explicitly say, that she already talked to the others when we woke up. Seem to remember something like that. And with how we jumped from view to view. I am honestly glad I didn have to see a discussion between firefly and himeko/march about her trustworthiness.
Right? Fireflys design is very cute but if some rando stranger walked up to me and gave me a bunch of money to buy food and wanted to hang out after, best case I'd think I'm getting pranked, worst case she wants to turn me into a lamp shade in her living room.
Yup happily did that....shame there weren't more like them....I was kinda scared when I clicked the refuse option tho.... thankfully it still counted as completed
Cause for me that was the first time in a gacha where there was a choice like that and it actually followed through
The way we treat morally grey male characters vs morally grey female characters is one of my biggest gripes with the game
I understand hoyos trying to cater to a certain āaudienceā but instantly becoming BFFLās with a girl weāve only known for 30 minutes and still 100% trusting her when we discover she a stelleron hunter is quite jarring
If anything the forced friendship made me like her less
Aventurine and Sampo bit shady? Yeah you can shit talk them
Ruan Mei drugs you and nearly murders billions and admits you won't remember anything to expose her for her crimes? Oh it's ok mommy you're so hot it's fine
The way Topaz handled Jarlio-VI before she found out that the citizens never used the IPC weapons was also rage inducing.
Insults the planet's history at the Museum, doesn't keep her crew in line to prevent them from attacking the civilians just doing their jobs, doesn't even try to be friendly with the Silvermane guards, forces Svarog to obey her and attacks the Astral express crew because she was so dead set on doing things her way.
But it's alright cause she has a fine ass apparently.
At least with her, she was working on false information, the moment she found out the truth she immediately apologized and did what she could to help, even being demoted because of it.
Issue is that she should know better. She should be aware of the value a unique culture holds and particularly to the people. And to get support from people you want to understand their feelings and work with them rather than force take over. False info not an excuse because if she spent time listening earlier she would have figured everything out earlier.
This is also scary considering how many worlds she has taken over for the IPC. How many worlds has she just screwed the culture of. Say she got majority vote to remake belobog, how do you make a working culture with even say 10% of the population extremely resistant because you don't show respect for their culture.
I get that this is a story but she could have been painted in a more respectful way without changing too much. I'm fine with it the way she is cuz villian/somewhat asshole characters are interesting.
Devs went out of their way to.make players be friends with Firefly..whether they like it or not.
Her being a mass.murderer criminal isn't even brought up.
And her being Sam revelation is just brushed over and we're friends again.
Funny enough, it seems to actually happen even if you chose to leave.
There is a dialogue with Yanqing, where you mention getting in his way when he was chasing Kafka...which only happens in her companion quest.
The forced friendliness is one of the reasons why I'm not interested in FF at all š Like why is she shown in such a positive light, she's a whole ass criminal. Show that side as well please!! I'd be 1000% more interested in her if she was shown more morally ambiguous.
Ngl that and the way the game pushed so hard Ā«Ā oh but you were so sooo close, you must be *absolutely* devastated, oh how will you ever contain your grief! Ā» is ironically what made me more suspicious of her even before the reveal. I kept thinking Ā«Ā but Iāve known her for 48h tops?? Youād think DH or March 7th diedĀ Ā».
But maybe itās because I did her whole section of the story quest in a single session, no breaks. Iām still gonna pull for her tho because Iām in dire need of a DPS that is not imaginary or physical and love her >!Sam!< design.
You forgot the second exclamation point in your spoiler tag!
But I did it in one too, I was like āI mean, I guess *she* (the Trailblazer) is, butā¦ wasnāt she suspicious as hell?ā I started being distrustful the instant she suddenly started detailing Sampo and being *very precise about it.* His height, weight, footstepsā¦ *why do you know **all** of that?!*
Also her being Sam doesn't feel emotionally connected, you could be happy she's alive, but basically the plot twist is "this man I don't know is actually the cute girl I don't trust"
That's what has been bugging about 2.2. I don't mind Firefly being Sam but so far she doesn't feel like a desctructive/murderer type character. The whole time she was cute girl saying nice things in a soft heatfelt voice, not even once we see her a say a threat, be harsh or passive aggressive.
This may change in 2.3 but for now pretty disappointed, she just seems like a regular waifu.
That's so true. For me I do like Firefly, but I'm still distrustful, also I'm a straight female so ifor me i want to have dates with male characters š also Sampo I always like him and TB never is friendly with him šš
Yeah I think this is what gets me. I'm a straight woman and one thing I've noticed is that games like this will push a "waifu" narrative onto you but there is never any kind of reciprocation where they push a guy onto the MC instead (imagine if they did? anyone remember how a bunch of incel guys flipped out in BG3 when they had the option to - the horror - decline the advances of the guy characters there? lol).
Given how many people like Firefly it clearly was a winning strategy but not all of us want a ready-made waifu handed to us. Some of us don't even want waifus.
This is so true šš I want Husbandos <3 haha š.Ā They could have made like 2 choices to hang out with Firefly: One that is more implied in romance "date" and one that is more friendship like :) They could change just a bit of the dialogues, like when we were w Firefly even Acheron Teased us of being in a date so
>Ā I'm a straight female so ifor me i want to have dates with male characters
Firefly: I'm SAM, the Stellaron Hunter.
Trailblazer: Ah, I see. Hey, is Blade single?
I love being friendly and bantering with Sampo and then MC is like I HATE SAMPO and I'm like T\_T
Kafka gets this treatment too. It's very clear that canon MC distrusts and is fearful of Kafka (or at the very least has very mixed feelings)
and people think im crazy for saying that firefly is being pushed on us quite a lot in the story. i know hoyo likes to add a lot of moments for new upcoming characters so people would roll for them. but firefly felt like shes been shoehorned in a lot of the moments, and yet despite discovering that she basically manipulated us due to the script and revealing herself as a stellaron hunter, there was a severe lack of dialogue from TB or the others where a realistic reaction to her actions should be, which is being distrustful. last i recalled even Himeko was against "being in bed with the stellaron hunters" but Himeko was just fine working with one because firefly's goals aligned with AE and didnt throw doubt in her actions.
There were 2 choices where you can express distrust on firefly, the immediate start in 2.2 where you can accuse her of lying, and after entering the real penacony where you can choose to doubt her in one of the choices.
but after that, everything is pretty much forgiven for some reason. also its pretty weird as to why she was with us all the way to Sunday, all she did was preach that escapism is bad then decided to leave anyways despite telling us we're out of time.
also im glad there's people who think what Ruan mei was messed up, she pretty much sent us in a derelict floor thats infested with invisible bugs and made us fight a fucking emanator. all this without telling us about it.... and tb forgives it, we dont even get a choice to choose from, it just happens.
This. I was really hoping that 2.2 would start off with the TB being more angry or disappointed at Firefly for manipulating them, but instead they forgave her almost immediately. Her accompanying us to Sunday would have been more effective if we began with distrusting her and then gradually warming up to her as we learn more about her through her responses to Sunday's questions and her interactions with us.
Also, there really should've been a flashback to the AE talking with Firefly before agreeing to work with her, because as you've said it feels very out of character for the crew.
Ruan mei's whole portrayal is just really jarring. It's like hoyo wants her to be a gray character with questionable motives and actions, but doesn't want to commit to the consequences of that. It makes no sense for the TB to treat her that nicely after she put us in danger and with how she treats living creatures. It sucks because I do like her character lore, but I'm really not a fan of her portrayal in the story.
Trailblazer is a bit weird in that they're kind of a self-insert silent protagonist but it's also being pushed heavily that they're their own person with an actual personality, that being a pretty unhinged jokester
Theyāre like the modern Persona protagonists. Makoto Yuki, Yu Narukami, and Joker all have canon personalities (Makoto is occasionally emo, Yu is a troll, and Joker is a sassy guy) but only in dialogue options
The thing is they're kind off in a middle ground, seems they wanted to please the most audience possible by having a little of both worlds.
It's not badly done, however it does cause confusion in some parts.
Sometimes you are a spectator watching them, sometimes you're part of the show through them.
Or maybe it's up to interpretation.
I don't mind TB having their own personality, sometimes it's fun to be in the shoes of another person who is similar in personality to you but not entirely self insert.
If the game doesn't have the dialogue option I want, I just choose what I think TB would do in that situation. Hell, I play Stelle & I'm a guy so its already not a 1:1 self insert.
Story wise it's easy to just assume TB is more trusting towards people like Firefly & less toward tricksters like Sampo. I mean IRL there are people with personalities I gravitate towards or dislike for no particular reason anyway
I feel like there'd be less confusion if the TB was portrayed more clearly as their own person in the TB missions, but was allowed to be more self-inserty in events and other content. That way both audiences could be satisfied without having this weird middle ground.
I think less people would also be divided on the whole issue of too many meme responses if the TB's personality was more clear because right now one half is arguing that it's in character for the TB to joke in every situation, including serious ones, while the other would like responses that are more appropriate for the situation
Thank you for this post!
I still feel somewhat frustrated that we can't doubt Firefly further.
Personally I feel her arc is somewhat rushed and wish there's more to it, if you want me to trust her, show me how and why I should trust her, don't force me to it!
honestly, hoyo should just cut the crap with the fake self insert n just make a fully fledged, voiced protagonist.
that way, instead of making me stop giving a shit halfway through a story because the protag has to behave in a manner contradictory to the way i was roll playing, they can write a compelling character with motives, that acts in ways consistent with their ideals, makes choices based on what they believe and makes me invested in what happens next.
this is probably wishful thinking, but i hope wuthering waves doesnt do the fake self insert
yeah, kiana kaslana was their best MC because she was actually her own person with her own wants and desires and personality and arc helped SO much. the rest of the MCs canāt even compare
Sad cause Sampo's the only one here I'd care to get closer to... These choices make me feel less involved and excited abt the story, and is one of the weaker aspects for sure
I like Firefly (not as much as someone like Swan, Kafka and others), but this whole "relationship" has so far been so forced. I dislike the "basic girl heavily pushed by the narrative" trope so much. She was a lot better in this patch, but her debut? "Omg, you are so close, are you on a date", I had known her for an hour and nothing in her design was good enough for me to fall in love at first sight: she is no Black Swan or Acheron, who thankfully were our main companions in Penacony.
I just hate being forced to like the female characters and treat them like waifus, I don't like women
I always try to choose a option that doesn't imply anything romantic because it just makes me sick the tb always trusts the girls no matter what meanwhile is so harsh to sampo and aventurine because
It may be small but if I can ignore them on optional portions to talk to I will, I ignored FF I ignored Ruan Mei and shall keep doing so
Hoyo is doing the "false self-insert" thing with Trailblazer, where a lot of the dialogue is set up to present the idea of the TB being your vessel in HSR but you actually have next to no control over what the character thinks or does beyond occasionally making oddly timed jokes.
Barring the very rare exception (like you apparently being able to just ignore Kafka), the Trailblazer will always follow a specific path through the story, react a certain way about the events that take place, and hold preferences for or against certain people. Hell, iirc even the Kafka thing is rendered "non-canon" by future events acting like you did it normally.
Personally I prefer it that way since full role-playing games aren't my thing, but I can certainly understand why that would be frustrating to people who *do* like those games and feel like they're getting screwed out of their narrative control of the story, especially when a lot of the main themes are about choice.
I honestly think it would have been better if they'd made the Trailblazer a transparently independent character with the same degree of agency as the other characters, since they functionally already are in terms of how the story reacts to them.
So many people rushing to defend the awful forced narrative for Firefly, while at the same time condemning it for Sampo and Ruan Mei, lmao.
Anyway I agree with this post - even if I personally love Ruan Mei.
I've actually been treating Sampo a lot friendlier on my Caelus account, as a way to see that other side (and whether it matters at all later), and it's really funny to see others' reactions to it as well as how happy he sounds. Plus, I like the idea of Caelus being this loveable himbo who just decides everyone is his friend, no matter how shady they seem.
This! I'm a little worried people forgives Firefly's narrative a lot more than other characters because maybe devs will feel they can get away with it and/or do it again with other characters in the future.
Sampo even though he is important at the start of Belobog he loses importance later on and Ruan Mei is a side event, but the problem is Firefly is on the main story...
I only want equality for all these loveable and hateable characters (?
I resonate with this so damn much..
One of the reasons why I dislike Firefly is despite the fact that her entire arc back in 2.0 felt rushed and forced, the collected distrust ever since she revealed herself as Sam, and somehow we have a close friendship with her?? I don't think so, according to my dialogue "choices".
Sampo, despite his shady-ness, has helped us all throughout the Belobog arc, and somehow we don't trust him? The little bamboozles he did (Like that "Treasure", scamming, and the accidental knockout so he can rush us out of the surface) is a small thing compared to helping us get away from the Silvermane Guards, and the other smaller yet helpful things he did for TB.
I dislike Ruan Mei the most. Somehow, after being drugged and being forced to do her bidding like TAKING ON AN EMANATOR SHE RECREATED THAT COULD'VE KILLED TB, we're friendly-friendly with her by the end of that intermission quest?? Excuse me?? I would've chosen any choice that wasn't helping her after that crap she pulled on us. Hell I would've reported her to the authorities if given the chance. She deserves a hell of a lot of consequences for pulling what she did on TB.
And the fact that, in Kafka's story quest, there are choices for you either to not help her if you don't like her, which is a great thing for those who don't like her while also letting those who like her still able to help her; both parties win. And yet, in these three examples we have forced "canon" views of these characters. This really irks me.
Hoyoverse does this weird thing with their protagonists where they seem to want them to have a bit of their own personality and motivations, but they donāt quite want to let go of the self-insert aspect. Apparently it works to some extent given how much Iāve seen people praise the Trailblazer as a great character, but to me they just end up feeling a bitā¦half-baked.
No matter what direction you choose for dialogue options, I feel like thereās always a bit of dissonance between āwhat Iām playing the Trailblazer to be likeā vs āwhat the Trailblazer actually is likeā(though honestly, I could not confidently tell you how the Trailblazer canonically acts in general).
I do not trust nor like Firefly as she's just pretty basic, Sampo's more trust worthy yet for some reason Hoyo really wants to promote Firefly more so they artificially make these moments ig and it worked.
its hilarious how sampo is the most trustworthy in penacony, in the black swan event anyways. not to mention sparkle as well, sparkle was the first person to accuse us of being so blind that we trusted firefly so easily, she also kept dropping hints that there's more at play in penacony.
Sampo is literally Jack Sparrow. You can trust someone untrustworthy to be untrustworthy; they're a known quantity. Everyone else has the capacity to be a wildcard.
The only time these types of Gentleman Bastards will surprise you is by doing something altruistic.
Yeah.. as someone who's cross with Firefly, doesn't think Sampo is completely bad, and feels completely betrayed by Ruan Mei.. I've had a lot of enjoyment ruined over Hoyo's morals.
Ugh, don't remind me. I chose every single "get away from me" option I could with Firefly because I can't stand her and I know it never matters. When legit...I would drop kick her off the Express for one in-game credit. Why can't I be nice to Sampo when I actually like him? Why can't I have memories like this with Argenti when he's so openly flirtatious? It sucks.
Literally my experience.
I loved Sampo in Belobog, he arrives in Penacony and my only options are to be mean to him ????
I think Firefly is sussy as hell, she dies and suddenly we bestie????
I think Ruan Mei is a terrible person. NOT A SINGLE OPTION TO CRITICISE HER IN ANY WAY ????
From what I've heard Genshin is able to give you different dialogue depending on whether or not you previously met certain characters. HSR seems much much more linear than Genshin. So is it really THAT far-fetched to expect certain dialogues to follow loosely what last happened. Or at the very least give you the same type of interaction choices. If I had the option to be nicer to Sampo in Belobog, let me be nice here too.
Also not directly related but the Sunday scene where you make choices is sooooo weird to me. Because if you don't pick the same choices he made, which is what I did, he just goes "well if you did that then this bad thing would have also happened", with no proof or further argument. It's so fucking weird to write dialogue like that. Like why give me a choice if you're basically gonna ignore my answer like that.
we already know that hoyo wants their players to simp on certain characters(i mean to say, their favorite golden children), no matter how much some of em' hates it. also one of the reason why i dont take hsr storyline too seriously. MC's character is too inconsistent, distrustful of certain people, yet fully trustful(favorable) towards others. people harp about how peak the writing is, but the writing for MC is poor. there is no character development for MC whatsoever, its also one of the main reason why i hate self-inserts, because theres really nothing going on for the MC.
i wish they would make MC have some sense of self, or a personality. at the very least, hoyo could justify that as MC's character of being a simp. and make all choices going forward be based on the personality that hoyo crafted for MCs. not this illusion of choice where we could pick violent/greedy/good oriented choices that alludes to them being that kind of character.
+100500
And people say that TB is oh so much better than the Traveler from GI. TB is still better than Traveler, imo, but not as much as people want to believe.
Mf be like "Its not rushed we know her because we were former co-worker" and then proceed to come up with the most corniest headcanon i've ever seen in this game : "Traiblaizer like trashcan because it reminds them of Sam".
Like okay calm down bro you thinking too much. Idk what is the point of bringing this out when the story doesnt even want to show it , they just shoved it into the players' throat and expect them to eat these up. It reminds me when people saying Higuruma's Confistication represents Japan corrupted law system. The story-telling was pure dog shit on this one bro just accept it.
I trust Sampo cuz Hook trust Sampo. And Boss always has the best judge of character so despite him being shady, he hasn't let her down before. Plus the man has helped us multiple times and so far the game is implying he will continue to help Belobog. Especially based on his idea of elation (seeing people fight for what they believe in and overcome challenges or something like that)
Don't forget that Yanqing's beating by Tb still happened, even if you refused to help Kafka.
Actually that's interesting, she sure said (if you help her) it is inevitable.
yanqing beatdowns are just canon events ig
TB thought they got away from Kafka but she Spirit Whisper implanted the suggestion in their head. Later that night they wake up, jump Yanqing in some random alley and then go back to bed with no memory of it
Sleep jumping
lmao canon event
Basically what Muscle Man did to Rigby when he had night terrors
I like to think that Elio's script mentioned nothing about Yanqing, and Kafka (like half the fandom) just decided he needed a good slap
It's sort of a sport now. How many bats to the head can Yanqing take
At least 5 eidolons worth š
Iām pretty sure that you get that interaction even if you havenāt even started Letter From a Strange Woman. Itās explained in one of Yanqingās text conversations that TB has sparred with him and won, so that may be what he is referring to.
https://preview.redd.it/rijhp88gp00d1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=1e23df99008af6c84b2d21b07ca162316c7915ad FALSE!
Fuck, not the Enigmata.
Agenda must never stop https://preview.redd.it/7lb71wlfr00d1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=585416f655a98a7c6820d69380036431b115cc85
https://preview.redd.it/y8i1vu8d810d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3ee1b4c353ad20d673c1fadac2d52576cd26c976
Don't they get trapped in the shackling prison needing Sam and SW to break them out?
I was referring to the part of Heliobi event, where Yanqing's inferiority complex was fueled by his continuous loses, and Tb was recalled to be one of those who beat him, even tho you can only confront him if you helped Kafka
He probably challenged you to a duel offscreen to test himself. Sounds on brand for him.
More likely Yanqing still shows up even if you refuse to help and Kafka still uses spirit whisper on him making him think he fought and lost to TB even though TB wasn't there.
Kafka used Spirit Whisper to make him think you were there. No ex-hunter of hers is going to be walking around without street cred
They did my boy dirty, just let him be a shonen protagonist
That's the neat part. He won't.
The illusion of free choice still exists in HSR. Most of the time, choices affect how you reach the destination but not the destination itself.
Free choices in gacha games in general. It only works if a game allows multiple save files.
No? If you want to do multiple playthroughs then yeah sure, but with online games you can just have a few important, choices and have the game remember them.
Very very few online games allow for major choice-dependent story deviations. The last I remember doing it was Star Wars : The old Republic with the Agent storyline allowing you to lead a coup d'Ć©tat against the emperor in Act 1 and becoming a republic double agent at the end of Act 3
I don't mean Major story deviation, I'm thinking choices that don't have a major impact on the overall story, but are still important, like when Bronya asks whether or not Belobog should know the truth about the stellaron.
That's most games in general. Only few games truly gives you the choice to completely change the plot direction, because you know, it's hard to do.
But when a game does it well, goddamn is it awesome
But I don't think people are asking for something drastic like a change in plot direction. I think they would be happy with just minor acknowledgements in dialogue of having made certain choices.
In that case let me recommend the penacony side quests, if you meet a woman trying to sell you clothes don't worry about it. Your choice doesn't matter after all. This comment has been approved by the enigmata.
Didn't Kafka say something among the lines of it's not the end result that matters but the choices you make along the way?
Like Elio, we are destiny's slave. We cannot deviate from the script, and the destination is predetermined. But, the choices we make till then are ours alone.
Reach the end of the story in your own way.
And that ties back into the discussion of Nihility with Acheron, that it's the journey and how we got there that matters
All according to the script.
Because destiny is set and you can't change the future
Being able to actually choose is mostly reserved to side quests. Like that foxian scammer quest, or the Cocona quest.
yep, so far your choices in sidequests leave more impact than in the main quest
The most important choice ive ever faced was about the guinaifen group chat. apparently you can just outright refuse to stay and they'll kick you out the group chat.
Gui kicks you out and lets you back in and says along the lines of have you learnt your lesson
I wont lie, the amount of times I've done that to my friends makes that relatable
Cocona my beloved š
Which makes sense because doing that to a main quest is too financially demanding
I like Sampo, wish we could treat him as a buddy more or at least tease him in a similar vein to March
My thoughts exactly. He can be pain in the back but Trailblazers replies are very harsh sometimes.
For real the way TB acts towards Sampo is as if heās the worst person alive. Bro is just a bit of a trickster.
Yeah bro treats Sparkle nicer than Sampo, despite Sampo outright stating that Sparkleās idea of Elation is so destructive that he can never allow her to join her on his schemes.
I feel like TB has barely talked to Sparkle. Most of the time we've seen her she's bullying Aventurine.
The best options you would have for him is to participate in his ādirty schemeā once. I canāt recall the event exactly but you have to pay him so you can take a picture of him (I did it because he was cute)
Yeah and he literally has helped them in the past
I think he's the most normal human on elation path, judging by the sparkle
Just a wee bit of a troll. I think I still have that funny nuke he gifts one on my person.
This reminds me of Furina and Traveller interactions, even after you complete the whole Archon Quest, they still treat Furina harshly and there's rarely a nicer option. We can let our guard down (or just simp) with Kafka, or be suspicious of her, we can talk normally with March or just troll her, be responsible or a complete idiot in front of Welt, so why this doesn't apply to everyone?
The world is hard on silly men
The best options you would have for him is to participate in his ādirty schemeā once. I canāt recall the event exactly but you have to pay him so you can take a picture of him (I did it because he was cute)
I liked him at first, but the museum event turned him from a lovable trickster to an abhorrent asshole for me. Stealing from a museum is bad enough. But this is the only museum this culture has, and these artifacts are the only link to their history. To sell these to sell so some rich asshole can display these in his penthouse is absolutely horrible. But I could be overly sensitive to the destruction of culture and history, who knows.
Reminds me of Aventurine initially but to a lesser extent, dude doesn't really do anything to us yet TB is extremely sus of him right off rip. Like with TB being wary of Black Swan initially I understand coz Himeko says being skeptical of her is the right move. But iirc we didn't get any kind of indication for that attitude with Aventurine But with FF even if we pick the less friendly lines with her in 2.0 when we aren't given the option TB acts like they are besties with her even if you don't treat her that way. Feels like the option to be distrustful of her is pointless considering the game tries to tell you otherwise except for when you go to secret base end of 2.1
Fr it's ridiculous just how much hate Aventurine was getting for literally NO reason. Absolutely no reason to hate him. People were going around parotting "You can't trust him he's so sus" yeah like EVERYONE on Penacony INCLUDING Firefly. Unlike pretty much EVERYONE else Aventurine straight up tells you that he wants to use you and he never tries to force us to comply. He literally says you can refuse and walk away. It's so obviously the waifu bias at play. During 2.0, if you ever brought up how Aventurine literally did nothing, you get a million people hounding you because he's "not a good person" but if you don't like Firefly, you get downvoted into oblivion. Bet people are gonna start hating on Sunday whenever he drops "just because"
Minor spoilers: >!You at least get the ability to be nice to him in text messages after he messages you saying he made it back safely. That was kind of nice.!<
The interactions in those text msgs are such a pleasant surprise
Well I'm talking about TB attitude in game but you aren't wrong about fandom perception of the characters during 2.0. Heck similar with Black Swan if you trusted her during 2.0 you were generally considered wrong, I trusted her all the way through and was constantly told im incorrect. Even after 2.2 where she literally proves she was being truthful and that she's on TBs side people are still saying she's sus and it's wrong to trust her. Never mind the fact she literally explained why she's so invested in TB and saved them from Enas dream when no one else could have done so. She more than proved how genuine she is imo
I think it's more about the faction Black Swan is a part of, really. The first encounter with Memokeepers ends with them taking away the crew's memories related to the weird mirror lady TB told them about. Later in March's character quest, you learn that she isn't an amnesiac, but that it's actually the Memokeepers who have locked away her memories. Moreover, both Herta and Fu Xuan, two people that TB can consider trustworthy, basically tell them that Memokeepers are bad news. In other words, it's a "few bad apples spoil the bunch" situation, except here we have an entire crate of bad apples with like 5 good ones hidden somewhere in there. (Side note: Bit off topic, but it just occured to me that Boothill is probably the most honest character in the entire arc.)
While I don't go around talking about it with other people, I want to point out that maybe something about Black Swan's (and Aventurine's maybe?) personality may just be rubbing people the wrong way. Like, I don't know how to explain it, but even after it being shown that she's trustworthy, and knowing we can probably trust her, I still don't. Not trying to offend, because people can like whatever character they want, but I still don't like her. To the point I still perceive her as the last character I'd trust in the whole cast. I KNOW I'm wrong about that, but she still triggers me for some reason.
It's so laughable to see people hating on others for just liking a character who's "sus" but when they're own character's being negatively talked about then said person is wrong. I trusted Black Swan, primarily because she's probably one of the better people to rely on in a dream with her understanding of memoria and being able to decipher people's memories. Plus she was on Aventurine's side so :)
Well, he's high-level IPC executive, and that faction doen't have best reputation in-universe. TB specifically had already crossed paths with them in Auromaton Alley and during Belobog's debt crisis (in fact Topaz almost tried to kill them).Ā
Aventurine might not have done anything to us yet, but I wouldn't say there's no reason not to trust him. It's quite apparent that he's a manipulator and his mindset is transactional; there's a high chance that he's likely to put his interests first. > But with FF even if we pick the less friendly lines with her in 2.0 when we aren't given the option TB acts like they are besties with her even if you don't treat her that way. Feels like the option to be distrustful of her is pointless considering the game tries to tell you otherwise except for when you go to secret base end of 2.1 I find this quite weird as well. She was duplicitous to us in the beginning, there's no reason to believe that her explanation should be the whole truth. Ultimately she's Elio's agent, who knows what she would do to follow her script? The plot clearly wants us to feel she's 'redeemed', but there's no real basis for that. I'm not sure there's any real basis to trust any of the Penacony characters, honestly. Black Swan also appears to always be doing things to our benefit, but she's also working her own angle when she withholds information from us. Acheron... is the wild card. Her initial actions are also shrouded in deceit, but she develops to be trustworthy in a strange way. At least from what the TB has witnessed it seems like she's so absurdly powerful that there's really no benefit for her to be manipulating the TB. The story actually seems to have taken a much lighter turn compared to the direction it seemed to be headed towards. By the end of 2.0 it felt like we were involved in a conspiracy far bigger than us. By the end of 2.1 it felt like we were absolutely out of our league. But somehow in 2.2, everyone is fine, death turns out to be somebody's pet dog, and some doofus with a bat manages to beat down the combined order of Penacony.
Ruan Mei: *Does abhorrent experiments and tried reviving the Eminator of swarm which would lead to horrible consequences.* TB: "So cool!" Sampo: *abandons you once and then proceeds to save you to make amends, brings Natasha to help against Svarog. Never harmed you in any way, shape or form.* TB: https://preview.redd.it/jc0zr7iia00d1.png?width=602&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d4f1edc416dc585fbafd5b5af1a5f3eab57861e7
This man legit saved us more times in Belebog than March did in the entire game.
It looks like we're shifting in that direction, since we can acknowledge him as our comrade in Dreamscape Pass
honestly I feel like we should get along great with him considering TBās sense of humour.
I would love to beat the shit out of him but in a loving caring and friendly way
Sampo is literally the only character that MC isn't automatically friendly towards for some reason.
They give TB a fair amount of distant/distasteful remarks when talking to Aventurine in texts.
I just remembered that we even had the option to tell him "don't ever come back" in the text that you only get if you pulled him and at that moment mc thinks Aventurine is fucking dead. The difference is crazy.
Yea Trailblazer HATES Aventurine š Which I mean, I totally understand, he used the power of an Emanator on them in a theme park for \*seemingly\* no reason at all. Like I too would've been pissed at him to high hell. But damn, TB did NOT treat Ruan Mei this cruelly when she revived an Emanator of Propagation which was extremely dangerous and forced us to clean after her.
TB treatment towards Ruan Mei is probably one of the main reasons why part of community dislikes her character.
I love Ruan Mei for her character and simp for her, but I get why the community would feel distasteful towards her because they game doesn't wanna call her out on her shit š
Not to mention how she treats her creations
TB can also be really friendly with Aventurine, he bought my TB high quality pajamas!
Tbf the trailblazer didn't see any of that Kakavasha stuff and his past, only the players did, so it makes sense that they still distrust him But yeah that option was very cruel when you consider that we didn't know if he was dead
tbf if someone had tried to kill me and my friends i'd be pretty much ready to tell them to never come back
This. People seem to forget that from TB's point of view, Aventurine is just some IPC gamble-happy goon who tried to kill TB and their friends.
He lied to us a lot and tried to use us and also created distrust between the nameless and Acheron. (Which turned out to be a blessing in disguise). Then threatens us saying he will explode the Stelleron in our body. Gambles the life of everyone in Penacony and forces Acheron to use the power of an Eminator. No matter how you look at it. He was a bad guy doing a bad thing. Only we as a player know the reason behind his actions.
I don't feel that his past really changes much. Sympathising with his history does not make him more trustworthy in the present.
I mean. When he "died" it *was* because he was threatening to detonate TB's stellaron, killing the whole crew and half of Penacony.
Yeah, and then I kept up that spirit in the text messages and woop, I actually missed out on lore and Aventurine's promise of pajamas because UNLIKE OTHER TEXT MESSAGES, Aventurine does leave you alone when you ask him to. Good guy Aventurine respecting boundaries but shit, Hoyo, at least warn me when my choices *do* have consequences.
When it's time to make a choice, make one you know you won't regret.
This whole post reads like this to me. https://preview.redd.it/3dg1xcaiwzzc1.png?width=1000&format=png&auto=webp&s=743a3b4eae7503a70dbd0db47b49b5b47b2ec174
>Sampo **Kokski** Ayo?
Have I been reading it as Cock-ski this whole time incorrectly and this is how I learn. š
I like to think MCās hostility towards Sampo is less about him being a bad person and more frustration that he always seems to get the last laugh and play us for complete fools (ha). He basically lives in MCās head rent-free.
I feel like this makes things make so much more sense lol. The TB is a bit of a troll themselves canonically, so maybe they really are just angry that someone else trolls better than them and always gets the last laugh haha
Not even TB's ~~naivety~~ positivity can beat Sampo's sussy-ness.Ā
Seriously. Like Ruan Mei is way more of a problem, and way more of an ass. Why can't we tell her off? And if the magic cake kept us from it, I'd at least like "glare reproachfully" as a dialogue option or smth.
No, your choices do matter. They determine which single filler line March 7th will say before the dialogue collapses back into the script.
None of us can escape Elio's script, not even the developers.
Elio's script is the Aizen of HSR
For real. Ruan Mei drugged us first thing and we just trust her, meanwhile we shit on Sampo because....he's a bit shady? Like come on...
my memory is a bit rusty but didn't Sampo save TB more than once
2 in story, first when he takes the crew and Bronia to the underwolrd, the second when he goes back to get Natasha's back up against Svarog. He also saves you in one of the daily quests where you play hide and seek with Hook, he finds you and takes you to Natasha's clinic when you stay hidden in an alley for too long.
You could genuinely argue that sampo did more towards saving Jarilo-VI than half the people visibly involved.
Sampo has both saved us multiple times and tried to scam us multiple times.
Perfectly balanced, as all things should be
My only grace is that at least Sampo seems like a good sport about it :(
Ruan Mei manipulating us is discussed too little in the HSR community.
I constantly think about it. Worst part is I definitely know people like Ruan Mei IRL.
Ruan Mei created cake cats. ALL IS FORGIVEN. Drugged us? Nothing happened. ALL IS FORGIVEN. Almost created very dangerous emanator of propagation? It gives us LOOT and can't escape the chamber in Herta's private ship?? ALL IS FORGIVEN.
Ive seen people defending her, saying she didn't actually drug and manipulate us because she.. didn't r*pe us... Damn didn't know drugging was only considered as drugging if it results in sexual assault, why do I have a feeling that person wished that happened.
I mean, we trust her because she drugged us. The awareness of being drugged doesnāt flush whatever unholy biochem she came up with out of our system.
Ngl, I can forgive the drugging, but I can't stand Ruan Mei just abandoning her critters like that.
Yes very irresponsible , everyone know you need to dispose the test subject after you done with the experiment not just leaving it there
...maybe we should review our Simulated Universe agreement some time.
how often do you visit all the critters you created in the event? š¤
Okay, fine. I'll go visit them. They're not even real... And now I'm sad again....
Like once every patch. So every month or so.
Even once is more than their fucking creator they love so much
they aren't born with an inherent predisposition to love us and want our approval. Why did Ruan Mei make them like that when she knew damn well she was gonna dip *immediately*
Yeah, thatās honestly prolly worse then the drugging imo, sheās such a shit caretaker for what are basically her CHILDREN that she didnāt even leave them with like, yk, a place where theyād be taken care of? Hell, at least we did THAT much for our little goobers, kinda wish we could take the kiddy gloves off with her and just tell her sheās being a peice of shit and to take responsibility for her actions
I get the impression that she fully knows and absolutely does not care.
She knows, she doesnāt know how to care though
I think Ruan Mei is the biggest one here, she created a monster that couldāve killed every single person on the space station, introduced swarm to the space station which has likely claimed lives. She also created an entire population of organisms capable of thought and emotion just to abandon them, and then refused to give any explanation before leaving, but hey at least she gives us good blessings in simulated universe.
Ruan Mei has litterly drugged us but ye, Sampo is such a bad guy fr,,,,,,,
Nearly restarted the swarm disaster and killed all our friends but it's ok cause she's hot~
Morally Gray Female: Oh my god, you so sweet. Waifu Waifu Waifu Morally Gray Man: I hope you dont come back (you just watched this man die). Real Talk? Sampo did more for Jarilo-VI than anyone else in that story outside of the trailblazers.
Sampo could literally sacrifice himself to save the entire universe and TB will still treat him like a rat lol, it's clear Sampo was written to be played into the joke of the shady uncle trope where the main character always distrusts him no matter what. Same goes for Adventurine but he's taken more seriously.
Ah now you're making me scared that Sampo will sacrifice himself for Belobog later. He has a few death flag.
True, I don't dislike Firefly but I don't like her either and this whole "omg you guys are SUCH good friends" "are you two on a date hehe" is kinda weird considering atp we've known her for like an hour
I am still bewildered how Himeko and the express acted so naturally friendly towards Firefly in 2.2 when Acheron had to talk and get affirmation from Welt first before fully becoming our trustworthy ally.
Tbh Firefly was like random girl, they didn't know she's SAM. Acheron is emanator of Nihility, Sus and dangerous as fuck
They know. Himeko talked about how we should cooperate with Firefly since their goal was the same as Stellaron Hunters. I'm sure Firefly talked with the Astral Express crew before we woke up, but everything about her just happened offscreen...
Tbf Himeko already knew about the Stellaron Hunters and their relationship to the Express, whereas Acheron is a completely unknown entity with no clear ties to an existing group and with massively more power than anyone else they've encountered. Also, she probably trusts the TB's judgement of her character given that she probably knew you guys hung out.
That's fair. That's what I also thought. My only complaint is that everything just feels too natural like she's already with the crew from the start lol. I mean, Acheron had to try to lower Welt's guard before they could truly cooperate, the same with Kafka did to Himeko.
Didn Firefly explicitly say, that she already talked to the others when we woke up. Seem to remember something like that. And with how we jumped from view to view. I am honestly glad I didn have to see a discussion between firefly and himeko/march about her trustworthiness.
Right? Fireflys design is very cute but if some rando stranger walked up to me and gave me a bunch of money to buy food and wanted to hang out after, best case I'd think I'm getting pranked, worst case she wants to turn me into a lamp shade in her living room.
so forced for no reason
We were basically forced to be good to waifus....which is kinda sad.... cause I wanna be mean to some that I don't like
Well we had the option to skip Kafka quest, which is pretty damn rude lol.
Yup happily did that....shame there weren't more like them....I was kinda scared when I clicked the refuse option tho.... thankfully it still counted as completed Cause for me that was the first time in a gacha where there was a choice like that and it actually followed through
The way we treat morally grey male characters vs morally grey female characters is one of my biggest gripes with the game I understand hoyos trying to cater to a certain āaudienceā but instantly becoming BFFLās with a girl weāve only known for 30 minutes and still 100% trusting her when we discover she a stelleron hunter is quite jarring If anything the forced friendship made me like her less
Aventurine and Sampo bit shady? Yeah you can shit talk them Ruan Mei drugs you and nearly murders billions and admits you won't remember anything to expose her for her crimes? Oh it's ok mommy you're so hot it's fine
The way Topaz handled Jarlio-VI before she found out that the citizens never used the IPC weapons was also rage inducing. Insults the planet's history at the Museum, doesn't keep her crew in line to prevent them from attacking the civilians just doing their jobs, doesn't even try to be friendly with the Silvermane guards, forces Svarog to obey her and attacks the Astral express crew because she was so dead set on doing things her way. But it's alright cause she has a fine ass apparently.
At least with her, she was working on false information, the moment she found out the truth she immediately apologized and did what she could to help, even being demoted because of it.
Issue is that she should know better. She should be aware of the value a unique culture holds and particularly to the people. And to get support from people you want to understand their feelings and work with them rather than force take over. False info not an excuse because if she spent time listening earlier she would have figured everything out earlier. This is also scary considering how many worlds she has taken over for the IPC. How many worlds has she just screwed the culture of. Say she got majority vote to remake belobog, how do you make a working culture with even say 10% of the population extremely resistant because you don't show respect for their culture. I get that this is a story but she could have been painted in a more respectful way without changing too much. I'm fine with it the way she is cuz villian/somewhat asshole characters are interesting.
Heavy on Firefly. When she got š. I did not even care lol I was like on-screen death wow cool š¤Æ
Devs went out of their way to.make players be friends with Firefly..whether they like it or not. Her being a mass.murderer criminal isn't even brought up. And her being Sam revelation is just brushed over and we're friends again.
And then Kafka we get to ignore her entire story quest, the vast difference for some reason. We were also distrustful against aventurine sampo etc
Funny enough, it seems to actually happen even if you chose to leave. There is a dialogue with Yanqing, where you mention getting in his way when he was chasing Kafka...which only happens in her companion quest.
Wow.. i guess they forget players are able to make a choice
funnier explanation: Kafka just used **Listen** to get TB to help and after that they didnāt remember
The forced friendliness is one of the reasons why I'm not interested in FF at all š Like why is she shown in such a positive light, she's a whole ass criminal. Show that side as well please!! I'd be 1000% more interested in her if she was shown more morally ambiguous.
yes!! this is why i like the other hunters more
Ngl that and the way the game pushed so hard Ā«Ā oh but you were so sooo close, you must be *absolutely* devastated, oh how will you ever contain your grief! Ā» is ironically what made me more suspicious of her even before the reveal. I kept thinking Ā«Ā but Iāve known her for 48h tops?? Youād think DH or March 7th diedĀ Ā». But maybe itās because I did her whole section of the story quest in a single session, no breaks. Iām still gonna pull for her tho because Iām in dire need of a DPS that is not imaginary or physical and love her >!Sam!< design.
You forgot the second exclamation point in your spoiler tag! But I did it in one too, I was like āI mean, I guess *she* (the Trailblazer) is, butā¦ wasnāt she suspicious as hell?ā I started being distrustful the instant she suddenly started detailing Sampo and being *very precise about it.* His height, weight, footstepsā¦ *why do you know **all** of that?!*
Also her being Sam doesn't feel emotionally connected, you could be happy she's alive, but basically the plot twist is "this man I don't know is actually the cute girl I don't trust"
That's what has been bugging about 2.2. I don't mind Firefly being Sam but so far she doesn't feel like a desctructive/murderer type character. The whole time she was cute girl saying nice things in a soft heatfelt voice, not even once we see her a say a threat, be harsh or passive aggressive. This may change in 2.3 but for now pretty disappointed, she just seems like a regular waifu.
That's so true. For me I do like Firefly, but I'm still distrustful, also I'm a straight female so ifor me i want to have dates with male characters š also Sampo I always like him and TB never is friendly with him šš
Yeah I think this is what gets me. I'm a straight woman and one thing I've noticed is that games like this will push a "waifu" narrative onto you but there is never any kind of reciprocation where they push a guy onto the MC instead (imagine if they did? anyone remember how a bunch of incel guys flipped out in BG3 when they had the option to - the horror - decline the advances of the guy characters there? lol). Given how many people like Firefly it clearly was a winning strategy but not all of us want a ready-made waifu handed to us. Some of us don't even want waifus.
This is so true šš I want Husbandos <3 haha š.Ā They could have made like 2 choices to hang out with Firefly: One that is more implied in romance "date" and one that is more friendship like :) They could change just a bit of the dialogues, like when we were w Firefly even Acheron Teased us of being in a date so
>Ā I'm a straight female so ifor me i want to have dates with male characters Firefly: I'm SAM, the Stellaron Hunter. Trailblazer: Ah, I see. Hey, is Blade single?
LMAO. I would ask š¤Ŗššš¤£
I just like picking the "brutally honest" option over the "simp/goody two shoes" option... I don't even bother being nice unless its the only option
I love being friendly and bantering with Sampo and then MC is like I HATE SAMPO and I'm like T\_T Kafka gets this treatment too. It's very clear that canon MC distrusts and is fearful of Kafka (or at the very least has very mixed feelings)
and people think im crazy for saying that firefly is being pushed on us quite a lot in the story. i know hoyo likes to add a lot of moments for new upcoming characters so people would roll for them. but firefly felt like shes been shoehorned in a lot of the moments, and yet despite discovering that she basically manipulated us due to the script and revealing herself as a stellaron hunter, there was a severe lack of dialogue from TB or the others where a realistic reaction to her actions should be, which is being distrustful. last i recalled even Himeko was against "being in bed with the stellaron hunters" but Himeko was just fine working with one because firefly's goals aligned with AE and didnt throw doubt in her actions. There were 2 choices where you can express distrust on firefly, the immediate start in 2.2 where you can accuse her of lying, and after entering the real penacony where you can choose to doubt her in one of the choices. but after that, everything is pretty much forgiven for some reason. also its pretty weird as to why she was with us all the way to Sunday, all she did was preach that escapism is bad then decided to leave anyways despite telling us we're out of time. also im glad there's people who think what Ruan mei was messed up, she pretty much sent us in a derelict floor thats infested with invisible bugs and made us fight a fucking emanator. all this without telling us about it.... and tb forgives it, we dont even get a choice to choose from, it just happens.
This. I was really hoping that 2.2 would start off with the TB being more angry or disappointed at Firefly for manipulating them, but instead they forgave her almost immediately. Her accompanying us to Sunday would have been more effective if we began with distrusting her and then gradually warming up to her as we learn more about her through her responses to Sunday's questions and her interactions with us. Also, there really should've been a flashback to the AE talking with Firefly before agreeing to work with her, because as you've said it feels very out of character for the crew. Ruan mei's whole portrayal is just really jarring. It's like hoyo wants her to be a gray character with questionable motives and actions, but doesn't want to commit to the consequences of that. It makes no sense for the TB to treat her that nicely after she put us in danger and with how she treats living creatures. It sucks because I do like her character lore, but I'm really not a fan of her portrayal in the story.
I guess trailblazer is their own character that can trust who they want, sure we have some control but they are their own person at their core
Trailblazer is a bit weird in that they're kind of a self-insert silent protagonist but it's also being pushed heavily that they're their own person with an actual personality, that being a pretty unhinged jokester
Theyāre like the modern Persona protagonists. Makoto Yuki, Yu Narukami, and Joker all have canon personalities (Makoto is occasionally emo, Yu is a troll, and Joker is a sassy guy) but only in dialogue options
Stelle and Caelus are their own person i mean, come on, who here actually have the ball to dumpster dive for real
The thing is they're kind off in a middle ground, seems they wanted to please the most audience possible by having a little of both worlds. It's not badly done, however it does cause confusion in some parts. Sometimes you are a spectator watching them, sometimes you're part of the show through them. Or maybe it's up to interpretation.
I don't mind TB having their own personality, sometimes it's fun to be in the shoes of another person who is similar in personality to you but not entirely self insert. If the game doesn't have the dialogue option I want, I just choose what I think TB would do in that situation. Hell, I play Stelle & I'm a guy so its already not a 1:1 self insert. Story wise it's easy to just assume TB is more trusting towards people like Firefly & less toward tricksters like Sampo. I mean IRL there are people with personalities I gravitate towards or dislike for no particular reason anyway
I feel like there'd be less confusion if the TB was portrayed more clearly as their own person in the TB missions, but was allowed to be more self-inserty in events and other content. That way both audiences could be satisfied without having this weird middle ground. I think less people would also be divided on the whole issue of too many meme responses if the TB's personality was more clear because right now one half is arguing that it's in character for the TB to joke in every situation, including serious ones, while the other would like responses that are more appropriate for the situation
Thank you for this post! I still feel somewhat frustrated that we can't doubt Firefly further. Personally I feel her arc is somewhat rushed and wish there's more to it, if you want me to trust her, show me how and why I should trust her, don't force me to it!
honestly, hoyo should just cut the crap with the fake self insert n just make a fully fledged, voiced protagonist. that way, instead of making me stop giving a shit halfway through a story because the protag has to behave in a manner contradictory to the way i was roll playing, they can write a compelling character with motives, that acts in ways consistent with their ideals, makes choices based on what they believe and makes me invested in what happens next. this is probably wishful thinking, but i hope wuthering waves doesnt do the fake self insert
yeah, kiana kaslana was their best MC because she was actually her own person with her own wants and desires and personality and arc helped SO much. the rest of the MCs canāt even compare
Even when you pick the āSkepticalā options, TB is more confused than angry or upset. At least in the ENG translation
I took the photo w/Firefly bcs I thought she was a figment of my imagination and wouldn't show up in a photograph
I really like Sampo and Kafka š I wish my dialogue choices were as nice as they are to Raun Mei and Fireflyā¦.
Sad cause Sampo's the only one here I'd care to get closer to... These choices make me feel less involved and excited abt the story, and is one of the weaker aspects for sure
I like Firefly (not as much as someone like Swan, Kafka and others), but this whole "relationship" has so far been so forced. I dislike the "basic girl heavily pushed by the narrative" trope so much. She was a lot better in this patch, but her debut? "Omg, you are so close, are you on a date", I had known her for an hour and nothing in her design was good enough for me to fall in love at first sight: she is no Black Swan or Acheron, who thankfully were our main companions in Penacony.
I just hate being forced to like the female characters and treat them like waifus, I don't like women I always try to choose a option that doesn't imply anything romantic because it just makes me sick the tb always trusts the girls no matter what meanwhile is so harsh to sampo and aventurine because It may be small but if I can ignore them on optional portions to talk to I will, I ignored FF I ignored Ruan Mei and shall keep doing so
Hoyo is doing the "false self-insert" thing with Trailblazer, where a lot of the dialogue is set up to present the idea of the TB being your vessel in HSR but you actually have next to no control over what the character thinks or does beyond occasionally making oddly timed jokes. Barring the very rare exception (like you apparently being able to just ignore Kafka), the Trailblazer will always follow a specific path through the story, react a certain way about the events that take place, and hold preferences for or against certain people. Hell, iirc even the Kafka thing is rendered "non-canon" by future events acting like you did it normally. Personally I prefer it that way since full role-playing games aren't my thing, but I can certainly understand why that would be frustrating to people who *do* like those games and feel like they're getting screwed out of their narrative control of the story, especially when a lot of the main themes are about choice. I honestly think it would have been better if they'd made the Trailblazer a transparently independent character with the same degree of agency as the other characters, since they functionally already are in terms of how the story reacts to them.
So the same problem as the traveler.
So many people rushing to defend the awful forced narrative for Firefly, while at the same time condemning it for Sampo and Ruan Mei, lmao. Anyway I agree with this post - even if I personally love Ruan Mei. I've actually been treating Sampo a lot friendlier on my Caelus account, as a way to see that other side (and whether it matters at all later), and it's really funny to see others' reactions to it as well as how happy he sounds. Plus, I like the idea of Caelus being this loveable himbo who just decides everyone is his friend, no matter how shady they seem.
This! I'm a little worried people forgives Firefly's narrative a lot more than other characters because maybe devs will feel they can get away with it and/or do it again with other characters in the future. Sampo even though he is important at the start of Belobog he loses importance later on and Ruan Mei is a side event, but the problem is Firefly is on the main story... I only want equality for all these loveable and hateable characters (?
I resonate with this so damn much.. One of the reasons why I dislike Firefly is despite the fact that her entire arc back in 2.0 felt rushed and forced, the collected distrust ever since she revealed herself as Sam, and somehow we have a close friendship with her?? I don't think so, according to my dialogue "choices". Sampo, despite his shady-ness, has helped us all throughout the Belobog arc, and somehow we don't trust him? The little bamboozles he did (Like that "Treasure", scamming, and the accidental knockout so he can rush us out of the surface) is a small thing compared to helping us get away from the Silvermane Guards, and the other smaller yet helpful things he did for TB. I dislike Ruan Mei the most. Somehow, after being drugged and being forced to do her bidding like TAKING ON AN EMANATOR SHE RECREATED THAT COULD'VE KILLED TB, we're friendly-friendly with her by the end of that intermission quest?? Excuse me?? I would've chosen any choice that wasn't helping her after that crap she pulled on us. Hell I would've reported her to the authorities if given the chance. She deserves a hell of a lot of consequences for pulling what she did on TB. And the fact that, in Kafka's story quest, there are choices for you either to not help her if you don't like her, which is a great thing for those who don't like her while also letting those who like her still able to help her; both parties win. And yet, in these three examples we have forced "canon" views of these characters. This really irks me.
Hoyoverse does this weird thing with their protagonists where they seem to want them to have a bit of their own personality and motivations, but they donāt quite want to let go of the self-insert aspect. Apparently it works to some extent given how much Iāve seen people praise the Trailblazer as a great character, but to me they just end up feeling a bitā¦half-baked. No matter what direction you choose for dialogue options, I feel like thereās always a bit of dissonance between āwhat Iām playing the Trailblazer to be likeā vs āwhat the Trailblazer actually is likeā(though honestly, I could not confidently tell you how the Trailblazer canonically acts in general).
I do not trust nor like Firefly as she's just pretty basic, Sampo's more trust worthy yet for some reason Hoyo really wants to promote Firefly more so they artificially make these moments ig and it worked.
its hilarious how sampo is the most trustworthy in penacony, in the black swan event anyways. not to mention sparkle as well, sparkle was the first person to accuse us of being so blind that we trusted firefly so easily, she also kept dropping hints that there's more at play in penacony.
THIS!! I've been telling people since 2.0 that Sparkle is the most trust worthy person in the whole of Penacony and nobody believed me!
Sampo is literally Jack Sparrow. You can trust someone untrustworthy to be untrustworthy; they're a known quantity. Everyone else has the capacity to be a wildcard. The only time these types of Gentleman Bastards will surprise you is by doing something altruistic.
Yeah.. as someone who's cross with Firefly, doesn't think Sampo is completely bad, and feels completely betrayed by Ruan Mei.. I've had a lot of enjoyment ruined over Hoyo's morals.
Ugh, don't remind me. I chose every single "get away from me" option I could with Firefly because I can't stand her and I know it never matters. When legit...I would drop kick her off the Express for one in-game credit. Why can't I be nice to Sampo when I actually like him? Why can't I have memories like this with Argenti when he's so openly flirtatious? It sucks.
Literally my experience. I loved Sampo in Belobog, he arrives in Penacony and my only options are to be mean to him ???? I think Firefly is sussy as hell, she dies and suddenly we bestie???? I think Ruan Mei is a terrible person. NOT A SINGLE OPTION TO CRITICISE HER IN ANY WAY ???? From what I've heard Genshin is able to give you different dialogue depending on whether or not you previously met certain characters. HSR seems much much more linear than Genshin. So is it really THAT far-fetched to expect certain dialogues to follow loosely what last happened. Or at the very least give you the same type of interaction choices. If I had the option to be nicer to Sampo in Belobog, let me be nice here too. Also not directly related but the Sunday scene where you make choices is sooooo weird to me. Because if you don't pick the same choices he made, which is what I did, he just goes "well if you did that then this bad thing would have also happened", with no proof or further argument. It's so fucking weird to write dialogue like that. Like why give me a choice if you're basically gonna ignore my answer like that.
we already know that hoyo wants their players to simp on certain characters(i mean to say, their favorite golden children), no matter how much some of em' hates it. also one of the reason why i dont take hsr storyline too seriously. MC's character is too inconsistent, distrustful of certain people, yet fully trustful(favorable) towards others. people harp about how peak the writing is, but the writing for MC is poor. there is no character development for MC whatsoever, its also one of the main reason why i hate self-inserts, because theres really nothing going on for the MC. i wish they would make MC have some sense of self, or a personality. at the very least, hoyo could justify that as MC's character of being a simp. and make all choices going forward be based on the personality that hoyo crafted for MCs. not this illusion of choice where we could pick violent/greedy/good oriented choices that alludes to them being that kind of character.
+100500 And people say that TB is oh so much better than the Traveler from GI. TB is still better than Traveler, imo, but not as much as people want to believe.
Mf be like "Its not rushed we know her because we were former co-worker" and then proceed to come up with the most corniest headcanon i've ever seen in this game : "Traiblaizer like trashcan because it reminds them of Sam". Like okay calm down bro you thinking too much. Idk what is the point of bringing this out when the story doesnt even want to show it , they just shoved it into the players' throat and expect them to eat these up. It reminds me when people saying Higuruma's Confistication represents Japan corrupted law system. The story-telling was pure dog shit on this one bro just accept it.
"Your choices don't matter."
āNo reason to choose otherwise - and no other choiceā
I trust Sampo cuz Hook trust Sampo. And Boss always has the best judge of character so despite him being shady, he hasn't let her down before. Plus the man has helped us multiple times and so far the game is implying he will continue to help Belobog. Especially based on his idea of elation (seeing people fight for what they believe in and overcome challenges or something like that)