#I've also got Stellaron Hunter thoughts for another post

[almea]

I've got random 2.2 thoughts because I had such a good time with it.

I'm so glad I didn't try to power through the rest of the story before going to sleep last night because the boss fight was so hype that I don't know if I would have been able to fall asleep after it. I will never get over slamming the Express into the boss, and Stelle looks SO PRETTY in the animation when you use it. I loved Robin and the rest of the crew having a line the first five times you activate it. Himeko's line fucking took me out. Hoyo… truly knows what my weaknesses are.

I heard you still have the Express's help in the Echo of War version of the fight but you don't get the animation of Stelle and Clockie summoning it and that's just. A crime. I'm pretty sure they still show Dan Heng in the Echo of War Phantylia fight, so why don't we get Stelle and Clockie? Like, I guess??? It could be weird if you're using Destruction or Preservation Stelle in the fight and then it's the Harmony version in the animation, but it would be the same situation as using 4 star Dan Heng against Phantylia. I'm just so sad I'll never get to see it again in the game.

I loved the whole part where Stelle's trapped in the Order's dream because I was just like. What is happening? This is feels so abrupt and I'm so disoriented and, bitch, I know the boss has two more phases and there were cutscenes in the trailer that still haven't happened yet. And then as soon as Topaz was like "Everyone has agreed to work together to help Penacony" I was like. Yeah. No. This is 100% a dream lmao.

I think it's incredibly sweet that Stelle's dream was a world where everyone would work together and be happy though.

Also, I don't know if this was just an audio glitch, but when I went back to the train, the music was reset to the default song, so I was like. Um???

When Black Swan said the card she gave Stelle was an empty light cone, there was a moment where I thought she would use it make a light cone using Stelle's memories and I was so disappointed that didn't happen. I really want a light cone with Stelle in it one day...

Harmony Stelle's animations are so good, I'm in love with her. There's so much personality and sass to them!! I'm surprised Stelle and Caelus's ultimate animations are almost exactly the same except for one part because their other ultimate animations look very different from each other while conveying the same thing. It's probably my bias speaking, but I feel like, aside from that really cool knee slide only Caelus has, the rest of the dance looks like it was animated a little more with Stelle in mind than Caelus.

I love Harmony Stelle so much that I'm going to start building break DPSs for her. And Ruan Mei lmao. I've been sitting on Ruan Mei for ages as I farmed relics for other characters. I was already planning to build Xueyi eventually because I used a trial version in one of the combat events and she was very fun and now I have another reason to do it.

I'm thrilled that Stelle got to talk and say cool shit in the cutscenes. I love her and she's so precious and I love that she gets to be cool!!! I always want Stelle to talk more.

Dan Heng's interactions with Boothill are so funny. He's just like. I don't want this man to ever speak for the rest of his life, I will murder him if he claims to be a Nameless again.

I was like. This close to crying when Dan Heng said his companions are once-in-a-lifetime treasures. My fucking heart, man.

All the Nameless stuff makes me so emotional and I'm not even entirely sure why. There's something about the way they present it that always has me dead on the ground. Like, the fact that the Astral Express has been around for so, so, so much longer than the current crew and they will continue to visit worlds that were visited and loved by their predecessors. The way the Nameless who left the Express still held it so close to their hearts. I love the reverence they have for the past Nameless. Stelle kneeling in front Mikhail after she received his hat was so beautiful.

I cried over Misha getting his memories back, and how only the other trailblazers were able to see him. The 2.0 explanation that only honest people with childlike innocence could see Clockie was very funny and I had thought it was a Stellaron thing since Stelle being able to see weird things related to Stellarons is an established thing, but the fact it's actually that you need to share the same spirit of trailblazing that Mikhail had is so uggggghhhhh.

Acheron finding Tiernan and helping him find peace and move on was soooo sweet. Now that we very concretely know the final fates of two of the three Nameless that stayed on Penacony, I'm curious whether we'll eventually get a more concrete ending for Razalina since I think her fate was still a little ambiguous.

I fucking LOVE bookends, so Acheron repeating what she told Stelle during their first meeting being one of the last things that happened in 2.2 and asking her the same questions she asked at the beginning... Those were personal attacks on me.

I'm still not 100% clear on the meaning behind Acheron's red text. I know it's related to red being the colour of existence (I think that's what she said) but I don't know what it's supposed to mean in the context of the red text. My first thought was that the red text is her breaking through the Order's dream's influence, but I don't remember if that fits with all her red text. And her red text appears when she's talking to Tiernan too, and I don't think that was part of a dream.

So I really don't know. Maybe her red text isn't that deep and everyone freaked out when they saw it for no reason lmao.

I have no idea what Sparkle was up to. I thought her buttons would do something during the last boss fight, but no? That doesn't seem to be it? I guess the Charmony Festival technically didn't start yet, so it's might be setup for something in 2.3. Either that or it's more of her red herring imagery.