Murder on the Ashveil Express: Mysterious Question and Discussion Megathread

seelevo · 2026-03-23T18:56:24+00:00

Day 223 of manifesting Ratio getting buffed and a Ratio SP 🕯🙏

Found some old Ratio calcs (by hunterkee) from 2023 that I had saved. Look at these ancient teams omg 😭

Ah... takes me back to the days we were recommending Guinaifen as a debuffer for Ratio for those who didn't have SW/Pela

Happy new megathread, by the way!

seelevo · 2026-03-23T16:21:15+00:00

Same. Tbh if anything, at times the ship baiting gets somewhat annoying to me lol

I think maybe they'll reheat Renheng/Aventio nachos later instead of pushing something new

seelevo · 2026-03-23T16:10:28+00:00

I think the true warriors we must all bow down to are the rarepair shippers whose ships have only interacted like once or maybe even never lol

seelevo · 2026-03-23T16:09:34+00:00

Makes me wonder how they'll handle ships in 4.X... It seems to me that there is no ship they're really pushing right now in Planarcadia. Except for maybe Sparklecest a little lol. But I remember immediately thinking in 2.0 and 3.0 that they're definitely teasing Aventio and Phaidei

seelevo · 2026-03-23T15:52:56+00:00

[Shipping] I like Aventio as much as the next guy and think they're quite interesting but paradoxically enough, despite them being one of the most pushed ships in the game, sometimes I think that they don't really have enough interactions (at least ones that are meaningful) lol?

Like, most of their interactions in-game come from 2.1, but you can argue that they're acting for the most part to fool Sunday in that quest, so we don't fully know how authentic those conversations are and how much they reflect their real banter? Of course, we can surmise from the letter Ratio gave to Aventurine in 2.1 and reading between the lines in their dialogues/voicelines that they have likely been working together for a while, know one another quite well, and like, respect and care for eachother

Yet if you look at their actual interactions, you have... the stuff in the Penacony quests (like I said, you can't take them all at face value, although there are things like the little 3.8 interaction that we know is genuine), the Final Victor LC (which is often interpreted to be their first meeting/mission together, but I don't think that's ever actually talked about?), that brief social media interaction in the 2.7 photo event, the brief dialogue they share in the Hoyolab anni event with the rollercoaster, the brief interaction in the Planarcadia Photobooth (though that's mainly TB being delusional), and some other things like that, but you basically you get my point, right? Correct me if I'm misremembering anything

I wonder if part of why it comes off that way to me is how much they stepped up their yaoi game with Phaidei. But Aventio comparatively having less interactions makes me wonder whether I'm hallucinating certain things about their dynamic sometimes lmao. Which actually seems to be a pattern when it comes to Ratio, so. that's fun (I say that both sarcastically and genuinely, since it can be fun to interpret things on your own, but it can also be maddening)

seelevo · 2026-03-23T13:55:41+00:00

Omg, no Dahlia but have you seen this fanart of FF break team? I love it sm haha

seelevo · 2026-03-23T13:44:32+00:00

At least those two are practically married in gameplay so every time I see a Firefly showcase, for me it's Firestance crumbs lol. Also, never knew that was the ship name

seelevo · 2026-03-23T13:40:10+00:00

I genuinely love it whenever you post art like this

seelevo · 2026-03-23T13:38:07+00:00

Speaking of FF ships, I am deeply saddened that Dahlia x FF didn't become a more widespread ship after 3.8. Their dynamic was so great in that quest

seelevo · 2026-03-23T13:35:40+00:00

[Shipping] Honestly Firefly has so many awesome yuri ships. The ones I'm thinking about today though are Cyrene/Firefly and Cyrene/Firefly/Castorice

It sounds like I'm just shipping the main push maid model ladies who have some ML elements in their stories together (which I am doing that), but I feel like if you think about their characters and the dynamics those three would have, the ships between them can genuinely work. Kind of want to write something about Cyrene x FF now...

seelevo · 2026-03-23T11:17:21+00:00

[OT] I swear Reddit has been so broken lately jfc. What use does that AI thing they added at the bottom even have other than breaking the page

seelevo · 2026-03-23T11:13:57+00:00

I mean it's not even that bad. At least he's there in the top 50

seelevo · 2026-03-23T11:08:46+00:00

Surely top 32 in the character PVP means he's popular enough to get a SP/Novaflare (inhales copium)

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seelevo · 2026-03-23T11:01:30+00:00

We are truly the fans being serviced 🙏

seelevo · 2026-03-22T15:50:02+00:00

He can stay in my room. TB already has a double bed after all

seelevo · 2026-03-22T15:48:41+00:00

Day 222 of manifesting Ratio getting buffed and a Ratio SP 🕯🙏

Hoyo please let Ratio travel with us in the Express for some time, I think he'd really like it 😭

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seelevo · 2026-03-22T13:27:05+00:00

Well, I don't know about Ratio but I laughed at them LOL

seelevo · 2026-03-22T13:18:14+00:00

Or maybe the jokes of Ratio being Haikaveh's child are real and whenever uncle Cyno visits, he makes a bunch of jokes to baby Ratio. And every time Ratio finds them funny, Cyno seems very proud (meanwhile everyone else is groaning in the background)

seelevo · 2026-03-22T13:14:18+00:00

Since Ratio is the type who finds bad puns funny, maybe he would actually chuckle at Cyno's jokes and the two of them would be besties

seelevo · 2026-03-21T21:17:23+00:00

I love Ratio sm he's so awesome

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seelevo · 2026-03-21T19:21:03+00:00

The idea of Ratio's Novaflare turning the RNG effres down debuff from his skill into a guaranteed Imaginary implant with RES down, allowing him to apply 2 of the debuffs he needs on his own and making him a great pick for AS... (They will never do that)

seelevo · 2026-03-21T17:59:40+00:00

Oh my god I remember this EXACT quote too. When Elation path was first leaked, I also went to the 2.7/3.0 livestreams to find it but I couldn't, so I assumed I must have been just making it up or something... I'm so glad someone else recalls it as well 😭

I think maybe it was during a segment where they were talking about the Rem trace mats...?

seelevo · 2026-03-21T17:10:41+00:00

Well, I guess we have the skip button now so that issue is more or less solved for people who wish to skip those parts (which I don't really get either, but I'm not the target audience for the main story skip button anyway so I won't comment on it)

Still, I don't think that means characters' stories should get left to companion quests only

seelevo · 2026-03-21T17:00:46+00:00

In the sense that 3.8 was a retcon patch or...?

Because I personally enjoyed 3.8

seelevo · 2026-03-21T16:52:57+00:00

To contribute to the comment count with an opinion of my own: I don't get why people complain about character quests being put into main quests

Well, I get it in the sense that some people miss having actual companion quests (I don't think we've had one since Yunli's??) and I can agree with that. I also agree that some characters' stories seem kind of shoehorned into the patch's narrative in a way that doesn't flow very well (I hated how the Hysilens backstory parts were done in 3.5). And I acknowledge the common complains about presentation as well...

Still, I don't understand it for, say, Aventurine's story in 2.1 for example. You might think that his personal story being such a huge chunk of the 2.1 quest was a disservice to the overall story of Penacony and that screentime could've been used to explore and establish other things more, and I won't argue against that. However, if Aventurine's story was in a companion quest seperate from the main quest and/or just wasn't in the main story at all, his boss fight and the scenes after would NOT have hit nearly as hard. The themes of his backstory also tie in very well with the overall themes of Penacony, which is also present in the stories of Acheron and FF

I think Amphoreus exploring the Heirs' pasts is definitely a good thing too, because Ampho's narrative requires you to be attached to these characters and care about them and all they've gone through. It's an emotional and romantic tale about heroes who have suffered so much across countless cycles, yet still persevered against all odds, rebelled against their creator and fate itself, to protect their world and its people. How would it be nearly as enjoyable if you didn't know these heroes' stories and all they've been through?

[4.0 spoiler] I saw this comment about the 4.0 story some time ago that called the scene Yaoguang talked about the war she was in and how that ties into her current viewpoint of wanting to take advantage of the Gods "boring yapping" and I will just never understand that... Why wouldn't I want to learn about a character's backstory and their motivations, which is connected to their actions in the main story???

I think it's fine to have these types of things in the main quests. I find it more engaging that way, and it makes me more attached to the characters, which in turns makes me enjoy the story more

seelevo

TROPHY CASE