hsrlorefreak

[hsrlorefreak]

ok i finished the event now and i am slightly disappointed it’s not sampo but!!!! more masked fools lore!!!!!

who’s her.

we’re probably going to meet her on penacony, but is she going to be like sampo and just assumed to be some funny little character until the end where she breaks the fourth wall? is she going to be like zhongshan/giovanni and just be really obvious in mask wearing, thrill seeking?

penacony is the planet of festivities, and we’re like. answering an invite to a party(?). that seems like something fun, but uh. elation is not normal “fun” (lying in wait to murder akivili’s followers and their train)

has someone in the elation faction actually infiltrated the “family”???? are they going to be our way in if himeko doesn’t know anyone there/isn’t related to a certain someone like people are half speculating.

what even. is the Family.

aaaaaaa penacony and masked fools and stellaron hunters.

ok this is. completely basically crack but like.

is giovanni (in the new-ish event) sampo?????

because.

Elation. it was like, really heavily implied last time we saw sampo at the end of belobog stellaron crisis, that he was a part of the Masked Fools, aka followers of Aha, The Elation.

and in sampo’s story, it’s implied that he. dressed up as a woman. convincingly. and he wasn’t called out on his voice, so he can definitely change his voice, too.

and he even has a mask— to play at the eccentric billionaire who funds a game on a whim. that seems like something he would do just for amusement.

and it starts on belobog, too. and sampo does have ways to get to other world— the joke bomb he sent with a signature proved that.

i forgot to take a screenshot, but pela + serval also say that he told them to not tell march and trailblazer who the really good player was (might be him) because : “adding an element of mystery to the story” and what story? our story, our game. what is that doing? breaking the fourth wall. who, aside from trailblazer, breaks the fourth wall?

sampo.

but why???? but have followers of the elation ever had reasons for what they do??? zhongshan (unshackled on luofu mission) did what she did just because. didn’t plan it out or anything, saw a chance, decided it was funny, and pulled trailblazer along to play her tune

anyway if he isn’t that’s fine but if he is that’ll be so funny.

[hsrlorefreak]

ok this is. completely basically crack but like.

is giovanni (in the new-ish event) sampo?????

because.

Elation. it was like, really heavily implied last time we saw sampo at the end of belobog stellaron crisis, that he was a part of the Masked Fools, aka followers of Aha, The Elation.

and in sampo’s story, it’s implied that he. dressed up as a woman. convincingly. and he wasn’t called out on his voice, so he can definitely change his voice, too.

and he even has a mask— to play at the eccentric billionaire who funds a game on a whim. that seems like something he would do just for amusement.

and it starts on belobog, too. and sampo does have ways to get to other world— the joke bomb he sent with a signature proved that.

i forgot to take a screenshot, but pela + serval also say that he told them to not tell march and trailblazer who the really good player was (might be him) because : “adding an element of mystery to the story” and what story? our story, our game. what is that doing? breaking the fourth wall. who, aside from trailblazer, breaks the fourth wall?

sampo.

but why???? but have followers of the elation ever had reasons for what they do??? zhongshan (unshackled on luofu mission) did what she did just because. didn’t plan it out or anything, saw a chance, decided it was funny, and pulled trailblazer along to play her tune

anyway if he isn’t that’s fine but if he is that’ll be so funny.

[hsrlorefreak]

is it. intentional, that dan heng (both 4 star and 5 star forms) and blade both have repeating first lines in all their character stories?

i would include bailu because!!! high cloud quintet!!!! but hers is medical journals/records which makes sense to be repeated first line (except the last one) and other characters have similar things (hook: diary, pela: reports, clara: logs by svarog)

i mean i know they did it for a reason but is it. high cloud quintet reasons. as the ones who are “alive but dead” “remember but not”. my theory will be “confirmed” when jingliu comes out and if she has that same pattern, as “one of the three who need to pay the price”

(i could probably look up her story there’s probably leaks but like. why.)

i’m just looking at this from story fanfic whatever perspective, but like. is it implying that they’re in a cycle. together. something needs to change, to break. either through death, or something else, i don’t know.

Dan Heng: A new dawn begins.

Dan Heng IL: He seemed to have returned to the insides of a Vidyadhara egg in the lightless dark, being ceaselessly churned in a sea of waves and elusive dreams.

He dreamed (different)

Blade: The only thing he could sense was a splotch of crimson in his sight and the taste of iron in his mouth. His limbs were unresponsive.

— He must have died.

[hsrlorefreak]

i overthink everything LMAO. that is literally the singular purpose of this blog. it is my name, i am weird about it.

i don’t mind if hoyo never actually elaborates on this or anything else either because if it is meant just to be a “haha easter egg” but the fact that it was highlighted got me…

yeah the praise of high morals…. they’re kind of weird. i just want to go through the little details of the descriptions of every item because there is some actual Lore in them (blade’s relic set). i just have to. stop dying from work first.

okay WHAT IS THIS.

(Guardian of the Shoreline: drift bottle V) because i swear that in this game only really important/related text is highlighted gold like that. and this? this is a random daily quest. it didn’t do anything after.

i’m looking at the wiki and it doesn’t say that trailblazer says that line. who is that. because i thought it was just a game mechanic mocking you but that might have actual story significance?

there’s even more if you say you disagree. except only elation gets a repeat, and Aha’s simulated universe appearance is. interesting, considering they’re the only one to realize that they’re not the actual aeons.

not remembrance, but elation.

but back to the not-trailblazer narrating. because you would assume it’s just their thoughts, yeah? like any other game. but we do have that already, and they’re labeled trailblazer.

so who is narrating when it’s not?

right now, without anything else to go by(?), it honestly might be elio.

we have like, zero knowledge of who he is other than that the ipc wants him captured unharmed and alive unlike the rest of the stellaron hunters and that he’s probably a cat. but he could just be controlling it.

but the trailblazer has the option to make references that don’t quite make sense to the other characters, even though herta has been around for quite some time and is a genius (albeit one who loses motivation easily).

and elio is “cursed/blessed” with future sight, but that’s just the ioc’s description of him. the stellaron hunters talk about “his future” and “his script” and if kafka wasn’t lying during her truth and lies game in her companion mission? trailblazer is artificially made. according to blade, who has literally zero reason to lie, trailblazer followed kafka around, before they were left in herta’s space station.

there’s a theory canon idea thing that elio is the cat that was in Scene 47 Jepella Rebellion that was watching, which is great, but hsr is great at making your choices matter but not at the same time.

you get different endings, technically, but the main story will go on (elio’s script) will go on no matter what you do. even if you choose to not go to kafka and blade, they escape the xianzhou luofu anyway.

i don’t think the trailblazer *is* elio, but i think he’s more involved with them than anyone in the story realizes, just because there’s so little information about the stellaron hunters in general, and even less so about elio.

anyway.

is this implying that your dialogue options might actually change what path you go on in future story? that seems really unlikely but like. what if.

trailblazer might recognize elio, if they see him. i know kafka says she’s the only one that trailblazer recognized, they probably won’t see him in penacony, but i do think he’ll show himself not soon, but not like. final boss battle late.

i wonder if elio actually cares about trailblazer at all, since he presumably had hands in their creation.

or not, since he put them in kafka’s care for at least as long as blade’s been with the stellaron hunters.

i really, really hope penacony is cool.

[hsrlorefreak]

okay WHAT IS THIS.

(Guardian of the Shoreline: drift bottle V) because i swear that in this game only really important/related text is highlighted gold like that. and this? this is a random daily quest. it didn’t do anything after.

i’m looking at the wiki and it doesn’t say that trailblazer says that line. who is that. because i thought it was just a game mechanic mocking you but that might have actual story significance?

there’s even more if you say you disagree. except only elation gets a repeat, and Aha’s simulated universe appearance is. interesting, considering they’re the only one to realize that they’re not the actual aeons.

not remembrance, but elation.

but back to the not-trailblazer narrating. because you would assume it’s just their thoughts, yeah? like any other game. but we do have that already, and they’re labeled trailblazer.

so who is narrating when it’s not?

right now, without anything else to go by(?), it honestly might be elio.

we have like, zero knowledge of who he is other than that the ipc wants him captured unharmed and alive unlike the rest of the stellaron hunters and that he’s probably a cat. but he could just be controlling it.

but the trailblazer has the option to make references that don’t quite make sense to the other characters, even though herta has been around for quite some time and is a genius (albeit one who loses motivation easily).

and elio is “cursed/blessed” with future sight, but that’s just the ioc’s description of him. the stellaron hunters talk about “his future” and “his script” and if kafka wasn’t lying during her truth and lies game in her companion mission? trailblazer is artificially made. according to blade, who has literally zero reason to lie, trailblazer followed kafka around, before they were left in herta’s space station.

there’s a theory canon idea thing that elio is the cat that was in Scene 47 Jepella Rebellion that was watching, which is great, but hsr is great at making your choices matter but not at the same time.

you get different endings, technically, but the main story will go on (elio’s script) will go on no matter what you do. even if you choose to not go to kafka and blade, they escape the xianzhou luofu anyway.

i don’t think the trailblazer *is* elio, but i think he’s more involved with them than anyone in the story realizes, just because there’s so little information about the stellaron hunters in general, and even less so about elio.

anyway.

is this implying that your dialogue options might actually change what path you go on in future story? that seems really unlikely but like. what if.

trailblazer might recognize elio, if they see him. i know kafka says she’s the only one that trailblazer recognized, they probably won’t see him in penacony, but i do think he’ll show himself not soon, but not like. final boss battle late.

i wonder if elio actually cares about trailblazer at all, since he presumably had hands in their creation.

or not, since he put them in kafka’s care for at least as long as blade’s been with the stellaron hunters.

i really, really hope penacony is cool.

[hsrlorefreak]

i’m rly proud of how this one turned out tbh😭

[hsrlorefreak]

i am. not normal for dan heng. (or dan feng, as i’ve realized)

but ichor of the two dragons. god????? honestly i had ignored a lot of the animations from hoyo before because i just wasn’t that invested.

but i could talk so much about this one animation.

dan feng

(because i say “he” a lot and uh. it is kind of hard to tell)

general story

the animation basically states that dan heng, after the xianzhou luofu trailblaze mission, he visits places of significance to dan feng.

the whole thing, i think, is meant to convey dan heng trying to accept the fact that he was dan feng once, but reaffirming that he is not him. he remembers, feels, maybe, but that was not his life.

maybe it’s trying to put his (negative, complicated) feelings towards his previous incarnation to rest. because he finally had to confront it after constantly running from it, from sins he doesn’t understand.

i think dan heng believes he has put his past behind him. that’s why he goes (other than no longer being exiled)

i find it really interesting that the sky doesn’t turn dark until he starts to walk away. that it comes from behind him, and dan heng doesn’t notice until it overwhelms his world entirely and he can’t run anymore.

then the water comes.

water, cloudhymm, a power that comes specifically the man he doesn’t clearly remember being, a person that was denied the chance to live his full life, a person of a ‘home’ dan heng never had the chance to see and they both were locked away from.

he is drowning in memories of a past he wanted to deny so badly.

dan feng’s (i’m going to have a whole second on him so his dialogue isn’t the point) entrance is from behind dan heng. a constant shadow on his present life, a dark that follows him even as he can be happy, maybe especially because of that (light creates shadows).

the fact that dan heng and dan feng (in any language i checked the credits) do not share the same voice actor despite the fact that blade and yingxing do and that people keep seeing them as the same person. i’m 90% sure that was done on purpose because voice actors are great and i’m sure anyone who voices dan heng could go regal and proper and voice dan feng as well, and yet they chose not to.

the petals that fall down are the mara petals that the soldiers have. the red petals on the statue i can maybe excuse as a drink thing? but out of any color, they chose the gold of those consumed by mara.

and when dan heng ‘sees’ (i don’t think this portrayal is accurate to how he was in life?) dan feng, his immediate reaction, despite having a weapon to his throat, is “I have to leave.” he is frozen and can’t do anything against him (dead)

this establishes the theme: he still isn’t over dan feng’s place as his past. he still doesn’t want to face it.

he doesn’t look him in the eye—he can’t, he shakes and closes his eyes and avoids it—doesn’t turn completely, doesn’t defend himself. his first instinct—as it had been for blade when he had that nightmare right before the xianzhou luofu mission—was avoidance. but like the lightcone—there was “nowhere to run”.

kudos to the voice actors, because dan heng’s voice is shaky and quiet and dan feng is calm and constant. it matches the animation— dan heng is constantly moving his eyes and being taken off guard, but dan feng barely moves at all.

i’ve seen people talk about the next scene. but really. the symbolism? there is nobody but the two of them in that world, both have shadows, and yet there is a larger one vaguely resembling another person casting over the both of them.

and the next! the difference in their fighting styles is really apparent here, i think. dan heng is still in his human form, legs wide. dan feng isn’t using the spear (cloud piercer?) anymore. he’s preparing to use cloudhymm, something dan heng cannot (won’t?) do in his current form. something he never wanted to, because that meant confronting his past as dan feng.

the fight itself is so cool but i’m not very good at that but. dan heng keeps trying to move forward, is actively getting closer, but he does not land a hit on dan feng at all. he misses, is not enough, is pushed back. he cannot change the past, and dan feng is that past.

there’s no reason for dan feng to raise himself up— dan heng wasn’t managing to hit him at all. a symbolism, i think. the luofu does not see dan heng. they see dan feng, put him on a darkened pedestal, because despite if they think he was wrong or right in whatever sin he committed, there was no denying that he was one of (if not the, if i can remember the shade’s words correctly) strongest vidyadhara high elders ever.

okay i’ll say more about it later but dan feng now says “You have nowhere to run.”

—and then dan heng can’t even push back the water at all, unlike when he could at least deflect them earlier in the fight.

and he hasn’t gotten up. he’s not trying to catch up to dan feng and defeat him anymore. he’s just staring, until the very last scene before he’s hit by the water dragon and is dragged into the water, loses his grip on his weapon.

the resulting scenes of the past, of dan feng’s memories (jing yuan, yingxing, jingliu, the preceptors (?) not caring even for dan feng, just the knowledge only he holds)

darkness. for, not that long, but quite a while.

his eyes opening, bubbles, breathe, his life coming back to him.

the astral express. basically insignificant dialogue, but to dan heng, at that moment, they are the words he needed to hear.

himeko’s “you’re one of the express crew” he, dan heng, not dan feng, belonged. dan feng never was and so he cannot taint that. march, calling out his name, doing something simple and mundane with stelle having zero reason to be there but is anyway, just to see him.

pom pom’s doesn’t have much, but the fact that he remembers it means that one time, before stelle/trailblazer came abroad the express, he was in the main train cart with the rest of the crew. that sense of belonging.

his eyes, almost lifeless, blinking, instead of to avoid his last, to clear his head and to wake him up, to continue forward, upwards, to not be dragged down by a shadow of who he cannot be, even if he wanted to (he doesn’t, mostly)

acknowledgement. at last. “You are my past.” him finally understand that it doesn’t define who he is as dan heng. that he “won’t follow [him] into [his] future!”

explosion, breaking away from it all, light, genuine, bright yellow light, for the first time since the sun was out in the beginning of the animation.

aaaa i wanna talk about the line he says, but i’ll save that because it has to do with dan feng.

standing opposite sides of the statue of both of their past life as yubie. facing away, facing downward. mirrors, at last and always, and yet.

(the rain, washing everything away.)

dan feng, a constant, and yet a small shift. a willingness to let dan heng live, now.

“and don’t look back”

for once, it isn’t fear. it is advice, closes his eyes, and disappears into gold.

and he is at peace. doesn’t deny he was reminiscing at the statue. that (some of) his memories are dan feng, without having to reaffirm that “he still is dan heng” or that “i’m not him”

final shot, the astral express.

dan heng’s present, and his future.

(god i loved this animation.)

———

dan feng + dialogue

his entrance, to dan heng, came out of nowhere. he (it) crept up behind him until he couldn’t ignore it and it was threatening him.

my take on this animation is: it is not set in the real world. maybe, probably, some shenanigans happened with the sedition of imbibitor lunae that means blade is somewhat right in his insistence that dan heng is still dan feng in some ways more than just being his reincarnation.

but even if that’s not the case, i think the fight is all in dan heng’s head/conscious, in an attempt to reconcile his past in front of an area that shouldn’t be significant to him, a statue of his way past life, while he was trying to leave for his present.

note: i don’t think dan feng’s particular ‘punishment’ had ever been used as a punishment before because of the severity of the crime he committed and so there could’ve been unforeseen consequences of that. especially since the molting rebirth was messed with by the preceptors(?) to try to keep the transmutation arcanum alive.

his words, in particular i think, are dan heng’s subconscious listing all of his fears.

“how long will you keep running?” (that’s all he’s been doing since he was banished)

“you’ll find no refuge among the stars.” this line makes it clear to me (i think) that this isn’t dan feng. why would he know of what happened after his death? why would he be bitter(?) when he seemed so calm and at peace in “myriad celestial trailer — “history of the xianzhou: exodus of the five dragons””?

baiheng is confirmed to be the foxian of the high cloud quintet. baiheng was a nameless, someone who goes from world to world, among the stars. “dan heng’s” guilt of bailu’s existence (implied to have been baiheng because of her dreams starting after getting on the astral express + dan heng’s companion mission)

he doesn’t even say “escape, peace” he specifically says refuge.

“the high elder succession is as eternal and unyielding has the ancient sea” (he does not want the title)

“you are my reincarnation. a mirror image. a past life’s sin must be repaid in this one”

this line. dan heng struggles, so much, with his identity. half the reason i think he stayed on the astral express other than genuine fondness is the fact that they had no connection to dan feng (other than being nameless, but that was not dan feng’s title. it was not something exclusive to the luofu, that belonged to people unrelated to him. it belonged to someone dan feng cared for so much that he was willing to commit crimes that it probably subconsciously leaked into dan heng.)

he could protect (while he believes(?) that all dan feng did was destroy (doesn’t have his healing powers)) while not having to face his past because they did not make him.

and the part about past life repaying sins— i don’t think that is something dan feng of the high cloud quintet, when he was alive, would say. we only have one (what i consider) accurate scene of him chained in the prison, and he is calm, unlike dan heng’s light cone “brighter than the sun”. dan feng’s punishment was unique to him— usually, any sins were washed away after being reborn, because the vidyadhara believe that the reincarnation does not equal what came before them.

i think that idea got kind of muddled, after dan feng’s punishment. especially since in dan heng’s companion mission, all they see is dan feng. maybe it’s because of what the preceptors did, that made him so similar looking to dan feng, but that’s just a theory.

anyway.

dan heng responds to that, “I’m not you!”

dan feng is mostly. stationary. he moves his arms a little, dodges, but he is like a wall, that dan heng can’t cross, can’t break, until he does.

“i will blaze a path of my own.” his will, he wants to continue trailblazing with everyone, wants to be his own self, and he’s willing to fight for it instead of running and hoping for his last to never catch up.

“it is futile.” again, these are dan heng’s fears spoken through his greatest one: dan feng.

(well, blade scares him, yes, but because he is trying to murder him, and the fact that his existence screams to him that he is dan feng, that dan heng doesn’t and won’t exist towards others, that he cannot have things of his own because he (both dan feng and blade) will take them from him)

his transformation. he uses everything at his disposal to win.

(also, switch from left to right hand— is that something he consciously did? or is that one difference of dan heng to dan feng?)