#also i am not even done with the trailblaze mission yet (if it ends on a cliffhanger i am going to lose my shit) so yet another reason to 🤐

[threnodians]

i have so very many thoughts and emotions and feelings about the newest trailblaze mission but i will keep all of them to myself for now because i am definitely not in the right headspace to say them all or put any of it into words

[eternalflashh]

thoughts slash word vomit about sparkle // hsr 2.2 spoilers

i do overthink, but i genuinely keep wondering there's more to sparkle's role in the penacony arc (cf. her character, although there being more to her role would have to correlate to there being more to her character/personal motivations).

in all fairness i am all for her simply being a menace and looking for chaos, as aha themself seems to operate, and having no other ulterior motive; though it would be unconventional, it would be very true to her character were she to simply be "meaningless" in her role in this arc, aka a red herring—there only to incite suspicion when there was no harm, only fun, to begin with. it would be in line with her beliefs; it would be like sampo in belobog, not worth much with respect to the story and motives not so clear to the end. and i could get by that reality, because it does reflect her identity as a masked fool.

maybe it's really just because i'm used to conventional narratives that i find it hard to believe she has no other role than to be a little silly. "no useless characters", and whatnot.

to be fair, it's not like i think she might have a secret motive because "she's secretly kind and just wants everyone to be happy". she's terrible and immoral and that is what makes her a good villain (to me, if to no one else); she doesn't show sympathy towards "death" (although, maybe she's always known the truth? wouldn't be out of the question), nor is she hesitant in mocking people for their grievances, even race.

that doesn't mean she doesn't have a philosophy, though, and it's that philosophy that begets actions. thus far, too, it's clear she does have reason and ambition—she is far from the "meaningless" masked fools are often described in. we know she's passionate about acting and amusement. she also talks about working "behind the scenes", even mentions that her reason for being there has to be aligned with aha's reasons for sending her. laughter and amusement is not nihilism. as for what she'd do to get that Laughter?

data bank and SU index say that the elation would do anything, often invoking chaos or massive change, to bring joy and laughter to the world. in which case, the actions she is doing must revolve around making a huge change. yet she has done so little—of what we can see, anyway; she pushes us into the real dreamscape, yes, and she's been suggesting things to aventurine. was this her simple role, to be the imperceptible catalyst to change and destruction? then why does she keep appearing, still, with these mutually assured destruction buttons, when we hardly see them used either? or are they used, but we just did not see them? is her role in this arc, too, going to be something purely behind-the-scenes, something we'd never come to witness?

and then, on the deeper note: is the amusement watching the dream collapse, or is it something more inherent than that, more "noble", per se—like, say, spreading true elation? this may sound quite ironic considering people seem to be happy in the dreamscape, yet sparkle's going about revealing unhappy truths hidden in the dreamscape. but perhaps, does she believe true joy can only be obtained beyond the confines of a dream—in life?

it's a reach, i admit. but something else has been mildly bothering me that has led me to entertain this idea: sparkle's powers emanate from the Harmony. first i only thought it mildly interesting because penacony is governed by the family, and it was a nice coincidence. but in the 2.2 mission we got a new path for our trailblazer, after confronting sunday's ideals and being glanced upon by none other than xipe themselves. the power of paths said to be based on recognition, so it would imply that xipe recognized sparkle's beliefs— that it resonated with harmony. which i initially thought ironic, because followers of the elation typically are characterized by chaos.

but whereas chaos is the antithesis of order, it is not so the antithesis of harmony per se; in fact, you could interpret harmony as peaceful coexistence of differences (whereas, like sunday's ideals, order seems to be concerned with everyone believing in one structure, following Laws, rather than freedom amongst difference.) i'd think sparkle, too, respects that people live varying different lives (a thousand faces, etc); that she wouldn't want humanity's free will to be taken away, because it is against true Elation as she defines it. again, all conjecture, little evidence, just food for thought.

tl;dr: it bothers me— what she's really been doing (if she's doing anything substantial for the plot), the why's, what she really believes in... why she knows so much, says less than she can, why she keeps appearing (especially in this patch) with seemingly little reason.

and also: in the cutscene with a bunch of them, sparkle was lying down on the ground. WHY

i also wonder what the answer is if you'd chosen the fact about sparkle when we're unveiling that the first "ending" was a dream. whether it would tell you that's the flaw. because i chose the misha one and it immediately said that's the flaw. so i can't tell if there's only one right option or all of them would be correct. i'll search it up eventually! i'm Too Curious!

can't believe now i have to wait six weeks for another update that mAY NOT ANSWER MY QUESTIONS i genuinely hate this game.

[theforesteldritch]

*vague spoilers if you havent played through the latest honkai star rail update yet*

march definitely has a crush on tingyun and no i will not shut up about it :) also do you think shes dead. was she possessed the whole time. thoughts i am unwell

Yesss March very much likes Tingyun and also Stelle (Stelle and March are gfs you cannot change my mind) and also the trailblazer is also crushing on Yukongs assistant (I forget her name lol), they’re very flirty when you talk to her (the trailblazer can ask how she’s so pretty and she replies that the trailblazer is her type) and they also flirt in texting during Yukong’s companion mission. I like to think poly march and Stelle where they live together and are best friends and girlfriends and they sometimes date other people too.

And I don’t think Tingyun’s dead, but I think that maybe the thing is that they never knew the real Tingyun, it’s always been the fake one, because while I don’t think hoyo would kill off a playable character I think it would also have a big emotional impact in the story if she’s still alive but they never knew the real her.

And also, idk if you’ve done it but if you kept the package with the neutron bomb, in the update you’ll get a text from Jing Yuan telling you to go to the seat of divine foresight about it, and you go and even if you try to explain that the bomb will go off if you’re not holding it his assistant takes it and it goes off, and you get blown all the way to the alchemy commission, and find a note from it that says ‘Are you having a good time at the Xianzhou alliance?’ from none other than SAMPO. Sampo Koski himself!!!!!!! Mind you this package was found on the Luofu not in Belobog, so I think there’s definitely something we don’t know about him and he’s going to play a big role in the story at some point. If you remember the dream at the end of the Belobog arc where he’s talking to the camera I think that just shows this even more and I’m here for it, I love Sampo as a character

[elder-dragon-bolas]

Chapter 7: Running from the Past

He had been so young. So young, in fact, that he had never even learned the name of the world he had lived on. It had a metallic surface, and the creatures that lived upon that surface were anything but normal. Many of them were near completely composed of metal, and the few beings with flesh remaining were hunted viciously. Nikolai had been among those few.

Before he had even learned to speak, a massive, oil-dripping creature had invaded his home. It had chopped several other survivors down, then, with one swift strike, cleaved both of Nikolai’s parents’ bodies into bloody chunks.

He had screamed, then, and disappeared from that world in a blast of heat. He had reappeared, crying, in a massive forest, where he found he had no will to do anything but roll up into a ball and cry. When he awoke, he was not alone. A massive beast with a dozen heads loomed over him, and after bellowing out a primal roar, extended its massive necks to crush him. But just as Nikolai closed his eyes and accepted his fate, he had heard the slice of metal against flesh, and looking up, saw a man looking to be around thirty standing above him. He had scooped up Nikolai and rescued him from the forest, and as the years passed, Nikolai had come to known him as not just Benjamin, but also “Father.”

In the present, Nikolai swerved to avoid a tree branch. He was almost at the final outpost he needed to visit, and then he would run to North Gate, where he would fight alongside Benjamin. To pass the time as he ran, he forced himself to remember, however much it hurt him, as he always did before battles of consequence.

He had never understood why he had not died upon the metal world, why he was whisked away so miraculously. He had done his best to erase it from his mind.

He had to stop living with Benjamin only a few years after the man had saved him, as questions of who this mysterious boy was would have been raised, and could have gone so far as to create theories of an illegitimate child, as Zon’s leader was known to not be married. Benjamin had put him in an orphanage, but had visited him every day, sharing stories and taking him on adventures around the city.

As Nikolai had grown up, he began to manifest superhuman running capabilities. Benjamin had happily offered him a spot among the Last City’s Trailblazers, and Nikolai had happily accepted. He rose quickly through the ranks of the Trailblazers, eventually becoming their leader. In this position, he commonly interacted with the leader of Zon’s Exterminators, a man named Greziel. They quickly became friends, and after enough time, they were as close as brothers.

It was around that time that they met Sylvia.

Even the memory of the woman hurt Nikolai, and he had to catch himself before he tripped over a large branch near his foot.

Sylvia had been an expert Trailblazer. Although not skilled in physical combat, she was incredibly nimble, and possessed reflexes that put even Nikolai to shame. She and Nikolai had grown closer each day, until Nikolai’s heart eventually fell for her. And yet, he held himself back, for he had noticed that his friend had similar feelings for Sylvia. It had become a topic of minor argument among the two, but never anything dire enough to shake the foundation of their friendship. When it became apparent that Sylvia loved Nikolai and not Greziel, the Exterminator had dropped the topic.

As Nikolai wiped a bug from his cheek, he noticed that his lips had become a smile without him noticing.

There had been a joint mission between the Trailblazers and the Exterminators, called to deal with one of the deepest evils the Hydrean Wood harbored. There existed a group of scientists known as the Slavir, some human, most gorgon, that experimented upon the bodies of the dead. In order to acquire humanoid bodies, they often stole away more novice scouts from Zon’s Trailblazers and Expedition Unit. If a recruit went missing, the Slavir were almost definitely to blame.

The Expedition Unit had recently discovered a stronghold that could potentially be a base of Slavir operations. It was a relatively small tower. Upon exploration of the structure, the Expedition Unit had found no signs of life (or unlife). It had been Nikolai who had stumbled upon a well-hidden trapdoor. Below it, the Expedition Unit had found a massive pile of scout-recruit bodies, each with their own variety of mutilations.

The Exterminators had been called in to perform a mass cremation of the bodies, but when it had ended, it became evident that the pile had been used to conceal a pathway that led deeper underground still. Upon this discovery, many more Trailblazers, Scouts, and Exterminators had been called in, and the exploration of the tower’s underground began. They had found that the area expanded and writhed into a labyrinth so grandiose even the Expedition Unit struggled to map it.

The labyrinth had split the once large group into several smaller ones, but there were plenty of horrors for each of those groups to witness, including botched experiments and desecrated corpses. Occasionally, a group would encounter a gorgon Slavir administrator, which usually meant that the Zonites would not only have to fight off the gorgon, but also the gorgon’s pets — strange combinations of different species and body parts held together by dark and unknown forces. These encounters slowly picked off members of each group, but when the groups began to retreat, they found that the labyrinth had shifted on its own, denying them any means of escape.

As he remembered, Nikolai’s breathing became short and quick.

Sylvia and Nikolai had led a group of some of the most veteran Trailblazers, but even their numbers had dwindled. There came a moment when Nikolai had looked back and found no one behind him — not even Sylvia. He had continued to walk, and then run, alone and with sweat dripping from every pore.

When he finally reached a massive, square room which he could only hope was the labyrinth’s center, what he saw terrified him. A pile of corpses many times bigger than the one they had burned to get down into the labyrinth lay before him, consisting of the men and women who had entered the maze just hours ago.

Around the pile stood a ring of horrific mutants, some holding bodies, some consuming them. A single gorgon stood at the far end of the room, smiling at Nikolai. Quickly, the Trailblazer’s eyes scanned the pile for familiar faces, and although he saw many, he noted that Greziel and Sylvia were not among them. Nikolai drew his sword, opening his mouth in a battle cry, and charged, when he was interrupted by the gorgon’s smooth voice.

“Now, now, not so fast,” the gorgon chided. “If you kill me, how will you ever leave this place? How will you ever find your friend again?”

Friend? Thought Nikolai. Don’t you mean friends? He thought better of asking this, however, not wanting to give away any more information than he had to.

“Now, let’s get to introductions, shall we? I am Vivze, the chief administrator of this sector. And you are…?” The gorgon pointed an upturned finger at Nikolai.

Nikolai said nothing.

Before Vivze could open her mouth again, a familar figure ran through the doorway to the wall next to Nikolai. Greziel was blood-splattered, some of it his own red blood, some a darker, purplish shade. The gorgon’s mouth opened in a wide O of exaggerated surprise. “Another guest is still up and running? What a treat! Well, then, I suppose we’ll just skip straight ahead to the best part.” Vivze snapped her fingers, and a mutant appeared from the shadows, tugging a chained-up Sylvia along with it. His lover’s breath was ragged, her clothes torn.

“Do you two recognize her?” Vivze asked with glee in her voice. “Well, boys, I have a deal to make with you. I give you back —”

Nikolai and Greziel were already charging forward.

Nikolai’s speed allowed him to reach Sylvia before Vivze and her mutant even had time to react. With a soldier’s precision, he cut loose the chains surrounding Sylvia, and reached his arm around his lover. When he turned to look into her eyes, though, he saw a spiked chain wrapped around her neck, causing his eyes to widen in shock.

In this moment of shock, Vivze revealed a black knife from her sleeve, and with one stroke, ripped the front of Sylvia’s throat into bloody tatters. She fell to the ground with a shriek, her last conscious movement a hand thrown towards her love.

Nikolai saw Greziel screaming, saw him charging towards the gorgon, but Nikolai found himself unable to move. A flood of memories had come back to him as he had seen the knife come down, as he’d seen his lover fall to the ground; he’d seen his father and mother cut down beside Sylvia, he’d seen the oil-dripping monstrosity who had killed his parents in the face of every Slavir amalgamate surrounding him. He had screamed a scream of rage and pain and sadness, and he felt an old feeling, a memory he had tried so hard to forget, surrounding him. He felt the temperature rise as the air around him shimmered, he felt himself rise into the air, he felt the stare of every living being in the room upon him. Nikolai felt Terran fade from existence, and he felt himself carried away from the plane by the same power that had carried him there so many years ago.

By the time the last outpost came into view, hot tears ran down Nikolai’s face.

He had laid there, on the swampy ground of a world whose name he did not know, and had wept. The ponderous weight of memory had crushed him, and he resolved to die there, in the muck of that unknown world’s bayou. Many-legged insects and rats crawled around him, and still he had not moved.

He had spent hours, weeping for himself, for Sylvia, for his mother and his father. Night had become day when finally a different image had lighted upon Nikolai’s feverish mind. His thoughts turned to a crying Benjamin, a father shedding tears for the son he had lost at such a young age. For him, he would go back. He remembered Greziel, alone and abandoned in that dark, hopeless maze. For him, he would go back.

Nikolai had scooped himself out of the mud, and reached towards the void between worlds. The void reached back, and for the first time, he felt himself leaving a plane of his own choice. But a thought occurred to Nikolai, and he cut the connection short. There’s something I have to do first, he thought. Reaching down, Nikolai picked up the sword he had cast to the ground, the weapon that had failed to slay his love’s killer, and cut his palm with it. He then planted the sword into the ground, and looked up at the sky. Raising his bloodstained palm, he made an oath to never leave Terran again. It had been the leaving that had been there at every painful moment in his life. He would not allow it to happen again. He would forever be loyal to only one world — Terran.

From that day onwards, he had gone by the self-proclaimed title “Nikolai Faithful.”

As he reached the outpost, Nikolai wiped the tears from his eyes, pulling his thoughts back to reality from his melancholy reverie. As he surveyed the outpost from up close, though, anxiety began to claw at his heart. Many of the buildings were damaged or covered in claw marks. Corpses littered the ground, and armed, savage elves ran from building to building. It took only a moment for Nikolai to put the pieces together — the Hydrean army was far closer than the people of Zon had thought.

It was not long before the perceptive elves took notice of Nikolai, moving to surround him on all sides. They wielded sharp, long knives, and had not a civilized hair on their body, from their uncut nails to their frenzied eyes. With no route of escape, Nikolai accepted the only remaining course of action: to fight. Raising their weapons high, the elves charged. Their screams of bloodlust turned to gasps of shock quickly, however, when they saw a quarter of their numbers fall onto the ground, sword wounds cut into their chests. Nikolai had moved so quickly that they hadn’t even seen him draw his sword before this. The elves recovered quickly, though, and the deaths of their brothers and sisters only served as fuel to their rage.

Running at a speed so fast that his feet barely touched the ground, Nikolai blocked sword after sword, each of his parries fluidly transforming into a precise strike, each aimed at a different elf’s vitals. In a flurry of feet and blades, he felled more elves than he could count to, but their numbers swelled faster than he could cut them down. They were everywhere at once, filling his peripheral vision to an extent that made him wonder if he should have just tried his best to flee.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a Hydrean charger stomp onto the scene. It wasn’t the largest of beasts, but it packed a punch, and was too durable for him to fell it quickly. He had to escape before it reached the fray.

A club crashed into the back of his head — a punishment for pausing to analyze the stomper. Struggling to stay on his feet, Nikolai whirled around, coming face to face with the club’s wielder. The elf was bigger than any he had ever seen, its build bulky and its stature looming. One of its ears was completely torn off, and its fangs were twice the size of those of the other elves. The goliath roared and brought down its club again, this time aiming for Nikolai’s sword. Dazed by the impact, the Trailblazer was unable to react, and his weapon was knocked out of his hand and somewhere far into the tangle of elves around him.

With his weapon gone, Nikolai did his best to dodge the circle of knives and clubs closing in on him, but knew it would not be enough. He received another crack from the brute’s club, and realized that if he didn’t take him down soon, he was going to be too dazed to continue running. I’m going to have to use that technique, Nikolai thought, and grimaced.

Shaping his hand into a spearhead, Nikolai sprinted at the large elf. The elf swept its club low, aiming for Nikolai’s legs, but this time, the Trailblazer hopped upwards, leaping on top of his enemy’s club. Focusing his strength into his legs, Nikolai propelled himself towards the elf, then turned in midair, kicking with all his strength. The elf was dazed for only a second, but it was enough. Making his hand into a point once again, he ran faster than he had in a long time, aiming his hand directly for the elf’s heart. His speed brought his hand straight through the elf’s flesh, gouging his organs. The colossus fell with a bellowing scream.

“Huh,” Nikolai joked. “I think I might’ve broken a nail there.”

The elves did not find this amusing.

Without the largest elf clubbing him, Nikolai regained his natural rhythm, and slowly began to turn the fight once again. He weaved his way through the crowd, retrieving his sword, and his odds started to look for the better.

Then he remembered the charger, which had now arrived at the fight. An elf sat on top of it, pointing at Nikolai and barking a command which didn’t quite reach his ears. The charger ducked its head and charged at Nikolai, who dodged the creature’s assault just barely. Then, however, Nikolai felt the force of the shockwave the charger’s attack had left behind, and fell onto the ground. A swarm of elves dived on the opportunity, but Nikolai got to his feet just in time to dodge away from their slices.

I’m not going to win this fight by ordinary means, thought Nikolai. I need to do something big. His eyes drifted up to one of the outpost’s towers that was still standing, and then down to its weak bottom support — four wooden legs. A plan formed in his mind, and he made a break for the tower, the crowd of elves on his heels. The charger followed them with foam dripping from its mouth.

As they got into position, Nikolai turned his head back at the charger, baring his teeth in a challenging grin. The charger got the message, and ran straight for Nikolai, but the nimble Trailblazer sidestepped the charger with ease, instead sending it into the tower’s weak legs. Before the crowd of elves had time to react, the entire viewing tower was crashing down upon them, felling even the massive charger as it went.

Nikolai ran back to the Last City with all the energy he had left. He had to warn them before it was too late.

---------------------------------------------

On the back of the massive hydra known as Arkthus, a single elf looked down upon the city that had eluded destruction for so long. Today was the day it met its end, and his arrival would herald its fall.

For the first time in decades, Dayn of the Hydrean Wood smiled in earnest.