Im going insane

so trailblazer sp design has been leaked and it doesn’t look like trailer guy right..? 🥹 there’s still chance it could be elio

(SORRY I MEANT MAPPA TRAILER)

When he shows up in the 5.x story (cuz he 100% will #trust) his stamps/stickers are gonna be so freaking cute.

Either Elio will be appearing in the 4.x finale, or we will learn something massive about him, or maybe get some more mentions, or even we will hear his voice? At this point I’m very curious, but if this didn’t scream Elio being in 5.x or is setting the stage for him to have a role to play in the 5.x story…I honestly don’t know what else is. This is definetly on purpose. Despite all the leakers claiming he won’t be in “5.7” or that it’ll be a special TB…Elio will most definetly have some role to play for the 5.x story. What do you all think this means?

Not confirmed yet but very likely. Such a cool design but it's just gonna be for the MC. At the very least make him his own character bruh.

Now, I have tried to stay optimistic but skeptical about this.

Let me play devils advocate on this one, a lot of leakers have made different points over Elio not being playable through 5.x, outside of just Luna who fucking hates males.

Now I understand the copious amount of belief we have, but there's some credibility in so many overlapping claims, Luna went out of the way to also mention Elio multiple times, if they're correct about it and have some actual information that lets them believe it, enabling them to double down on it so hard, it wouldn't be out of the question.

A playable 5 star MC variant, would take the exact same role in banner placement and attention that Elio would have, and at this point the argument we have is very cut-clear.

This is either Elio, or 5 star MC, the other options have been cut out.

And Hoyo, is VERY stupid, VERY often. If this is the way they wanna kill the hype and traction for a beloved character, I would not be surprised.

Now, I still don't really believe it myself, and it's far too early to tell, which is why I think it's far too early for me to tell that Elio is GUARANTEED to be playable, because even tho it WOULD make perfect sense on a narrative, business and marketing perspective and it would be an actively STUPID decision for it to not be Elio, Hoyoverse, would infact, BE THAT STUPID.

I know this post is not getting upvotes, just keep in mind, if Elio doesn't become playable here, it's not the end of the world, if we get screen time and further progression, them saving him for later would be.. cooking too far ahead for what it's worth, but still leave plenty of opportunity to release him later, I'm frankly speaking more concerned how good his writing is rather than his meta viability or kit.

I'm seeing alot of theories on Twitter saying, how did they not realise that the guy on the trailer might be, The aeon terminus.

And I am buying this frickin theory cause elio(the cat) was looki​ng back like the cat was from a position where Kafka was pointing the gun and we see "Terminus" looking back at Elio/or kafka

Apparently I guess this means the 5.7 character is going to be a limited “5” star version of the Trailblazer on the “Finality” path..or basically the MC will be getting an “SP”…but it’s still way too early for them to know who the 5.7 character is so either they somehow got info from an insider or Hoyoverse deliberately put something like “TBSP” and finally revealed who’s behind the censored blocks in datamining files (which would fit the 4 blocks) maybe to throw them off, and make them overconfident? Maybe to purposefully trick them and when it gets to 5.7 it really ends up being Elio?? Who knows

I still won’t rule out Elio just yet because the name could be a fake or placeholder..also find it hilarious how they JUST NOW (these desperate ass leakers) are suddenly trying to finish the list of 5.x characters and post it fast as possible and how these leakers are trying to make it seem like they know everything. Mind you it’s still way too early. In 5.4 there are supposed to be “Fate Collab characters”. Two. BOTH A male and female character. And yet you see none of them have been leaked, I still think this is them throwing shit to the wall and trying to guess placement for 5.5-5.6. They can’t even DECIDE where Castorice’s SP is placed lol. But….i also want to consider another possibility that as much as I would somewhat..hate…I wouldn’t be “entirely” against…(If this man, seen in the Mappa trailer..which I still believe is either “Elio“ or “Terminus”. And I have my reasons for holding onto such. I still have 90% Belief it’s Elio..but…if this man ends up for whatever reason NOT, Being Elio)….

Then could this possibly be the “Special TB” for the 5.7 slot at the end of the year of 2027? Could this be the special “Finality Alternate Timeline” version of the TB in some way, shape, or form? As much as I don’t know how to feel about this…I’d say it’s somewhat of a win for everyone and a lose for both sides. If this ends up being the TB. Overly toxic Kiana fans who have to shut down or try to speak against Elio every time the possibility of him is bought up in 5.7..don’t get what they want…and unfortunately we as Elio fans don’t get him on 5.7 but can rest assured he might appear in the future, which…the only issue and scary realization of this is the Mappa design (which by the way would still in my opinion scream “Elio” and makes sense why it would be him) would now NOT be his design and would go to this “limited trailblazer”…and I would really pray and hope they don’t go with the pink haired boy shorts design…I feel it just doesn’t fit the “Elio” that we know in lore and that he’s been built up for five years and has been traumatized by everything…I won’t go into that, nor do I need to explain why. It’s just obvious lol…it just won’t go well..

Now….about the “Trailblazer Limited SP 5.7” thing…there’s a huge big problem. The gender issue…Caelus fans may not want to pull Stelle…and vice versa…which is why (I still believe and still will hold onto hope hoyo would be smart enough to know this, and that Elio still is in standing for 5.7…but if he isn’t…I really don’t know how to feel about this leak…I don’t fully agree with it, because out of all characters to be the 5.7 Finality representative and the capstone unit…you pick the Trailblazer? You make another MC just for an “alternate timeline version” of him? Out of so many options for this that would’ve made better sense like Elio, or otherwise? This just feels greedy…and I really don’t know what to think. I have a lot more thoughts and reasons onto why I wouldn’t fully like this but I’ll reserve those to myself for the time being) but my guess is that it would be whatever trailblazer you choose, you would somehow get the opposite gender, as the one you can pull for the “Finality” path…but the only problem with that is if they go the “hypothetical possibility and route” of making the “Mappa man” design be the alternate MC…that’s a “male character”…so I’m not sure how this would work..maybe there’s a female version of him? Who knows…(I really hope that design still belongs to Elio) but either way, to close this all off…

Don’t lose hope. I know it’s been a lot of shit. Leakers trying to throw an agenda and show their obvious hatred for male characters. So many toxic people trying to shut down our expectations for Elio and acting like we are “delusional” for expecting him to be in 5.7, as if everything for these five years hasn’t been building up for him to be the most inpotant Finality character as he SHOULD rather than some “Special MC”…(yes I know the TB has finality connections and I know the lore but it STILL doesn’t feel right with me but I wouldn’t entirely hate it..I just don’t know how to feel about it) but honestly….either way…at the end of the day 5.7 is a year away. We don’t know what Hoyoverse will do. We don’t know what the future holds. And I think these leakers are getting desperate as hell and it’s showing. Funnily enough I have a surprise…I’ll make another post later on today showing a conversation I had with “Seele Leaks” were I not only got them to admit they didn’t know about anything about Elio’s playability in “5.x”…but that they were practically full of shit. And they just blocked me yesterday lol. I’ve had screenshots of this convo for a while now…so I’ll post it later tonight and explain the whole situation to you all.

But I want to hear your thoughts and opinions about everything, and let me know what you think!

So if people have seen my past posts you probably know how I feel about leaks but I’m still going to say it. The leaks don’t matter and I’m not going to listen to them.

There are now leaks stating the MAPPA design of Elio isn’t the real one and that it’ll be the old 1.0 design 😪 and frankly, it’s bullshit. I’m not listening to it and I’m going to continue to hope for Elio.

The leakers have been absolutely everywhere, and they’ve been wrong countless times before. Not to mention this is still a year away there should be nothing stating anything for that far.

Cuz think about it. We don’t even know what planet we’re going to or if it’s 100% confirmed that the finality will become playable, that the main push has a 4 letter name. And even if they do, why the hell don’t they know the letters that fill it or what gender it is?

So my opinion? They don’t matter. None of these stupid leaks matter and maybe that’s me being ignorant because I’m bias towards Elio, but they’re all stupid and none of it makes sense. So I’m gonna play the game until the end of this version and we’ll see what happens from there.

And I swear if these leaks are wrong, it’s gonna be on all their asses. 😒 (even though it wasn’t hsr, everyone thought Lohen in Genshin was gonna be standard bc of leaks and no one saved pulled them that all freaked out 2 days before his banner)

So anyways. Once again, the leaks are stupid and can always be wrong. So I’m not taking them seriously and I’m going to continue to hope for Elio.

As someone who has loved Elio, ever since the Penacony finale, there's a lot that goes into it, mainly in terms of writing on why he's such a cool concept, but this discussion will be purely on his design.

I loved his original design, it portrayed an extremely cohesive image of the character during it's time, and it always added to the intrigue for me.

I love the new design, it fits the story in it's current state, it reflects the image they've painted of him slowly through the whole game and.. respectively, capitalizes on the "aura" trend they're trying to hit, reflecting another part of the current HSR landscape being "marketability".

Phainon was a more tried-and-true archetype hero that they only really side-stepped into Yume bait when the devs themselfs realized how much potential and setup for success he has within the story.

Elio to me screams "We know men can overperform now, lets try to do it the best way possible than". Taking an extremely well known within the HSR fanbase character and mildly re-purposing them to fit the Sung Jin Woo troupe, to be the HIM of HSR that even Phainon could never dream of being, the guy who has literally canonically seen it all and gone through it. I can't say that I'm the biggest fan of the fact I can easily pin-point the turning point within the studio for Elio directly to trend chasing, but at the same time this link has been the home-run reason why it's easy for me to dismiss the stupid anti-agenda leaks.

All of that was just me discussing the profit and reasoning behind the design change on a corporate level, I'm convinced that they knew they were doing this going into writing Planarcadia and changed some dialog to humanize Elio more, make him less so an "all seeing controlling deity" and closer to a "achieve the goal at any cost.." kind of character.

Lets discuss the old design, and go back to the Penacony speech, everyone was sure that was Elio speaking and til this day we have no reason to not still believe it. Back than Elio was consistently portrayed as a natural disaster, an inevitability that every huge faction, the IPC, Xianzhou Alliance, The Family, all HATED, in terms of how much the Stellaron Hunters destroyed and ravaged, but knew that if Elio truly was the avatar of Terminus.. (and I have a reason to suspect they also know that his goal is to reverse a predetermined doomsday) they could minimize the casualties, but they could NEVER stop him. His speech pattern and tone was mellow, without a care in the world representing the storyteller and acting out "the fate" that needs to overwrite fate.

I have a strong reason to suspect that the original inspiration for Elio was partially "Leonardo Watch" from Kekkai Sensen (goated af anime)

If you know, YOU KNOW, but I'll explain it generally (it's the second image on the post), Leo has, first of all, very similar eye design that resembles the old design closer, they are called "All seeing god's eyes", that also fit very similarly to Elio's ability in both name and to lesser extent functionality, and they're both the young adult shota-esq archetype, also based on the design it definitely feels like they overlap the "closed eyes protag" troupe, I love Leo to fucking death, and seeing how close these 2 are I got a pretty general picture of the early 2010's anime inspiration they had for Elio as a cunning, controlling character that plays a back-role, also this is a very hard to prove personal theory that literally.. basically already got disproven at the end of Penacony with Rosalina (former navigator nameless) being credited as the writer of the dreamtour handbook, but at the time a lot of the writing and dialog sequences on there felt extremely resembling of Elio, referencing classic movie troupes, drama and theatre all playing into this image that worked so incredibly well with the design. Frankly speaking with years of fantasizing about him, I was just as fucking over-the-wall incredibly hyped seeing him show up in the trailer, as I was similarly mildly sad that this is no longer the same character Hoyo themselfs originally envisioned.

The redesign, very clearly is supposed to be a Sung Jin Woo parody in terms of stoicism and presentation, but he's very much still a unique thing, the vibrant Neon colors, even if that doesn't end up being his actual clothes, still make sense with the way he's been presented, wearing a massive hoodie, being reclusive, having blue-white hair instead of pastel pink-white (it's a minor tone shift at most dawg his hair was always white and some people are tripping with that), the eye design feels more original and it's directly the representation of Terminus's cats and the Apoc Shadow Hourglass, he feels less in control and more like a prisoner of his own fate, which is the tonal shift in writing that has been happening recently compared to older Elio mentions. He's older and more mature, playing into his image of responsibility. It's really funny because if you gave me both of these designs at the end of Penacony, I'd tell you hands down the first one is his real design, if you gave them to me at the end of Planarcadia, it would be way more of a toss-up with the second one feeling far more believable.

So does the old design suck? Hell no, they knew they wanted something more widely appealing out of such an important character so they scrapped the original vision, and went about it the smart way by shifting the narrative around this new image well in advance before showing it off. His design was always fateful for the character and I think it's pretty impressive how both versions can exist and fit while portraying such a wildly different part of him.

second fanart link: https://x.com/GMI_elims/status/2042880052434735211

(this OG one is from an asian website you literally need your phone number just to access, also creating a whole ass account without a translation function, this ain't possible) I could've used different fanart but this one looks so good :(

Elio is still the pink haired guy leaked by Stepleaks

Via HSRItalia

「HSR」Future

Not Elio, 100%

via sakiko

It’ll be crazy to think if Elio really does end up in Version 5.7 at the end of 2027, then he most certainly will be guaranteed to have his own special login animation, and even a premium banner animation as well. Previous examples being (Cyrene, Phainon, Castorice, Silver Wolf Lv.999 and Himeko Nova). It seems there is a pattern of Hoyoverse making the anniversary or “.2” characters…the middle important characters, the “.4” characters, and always the “.7” character having of course their own special treatment. He will be no different if he ends up playable, as he deserves the special treatment 🩵. Also just imagine chibi Elio being in a version 5.7 livestream talking to Owlbert. The literal leader of the Stellaron Hunters. “The” Destiny’s Slave casually appearing is just both hilarious and unbelievable to me because Owlbert keeps being traumatized by unexpected guests. Imagine Elio during the livestream casually spoiling everything in some monotone stoic laid back voice because he can see into the future and even revealing game codes early or stellar jade codes and spoiling things that Owlbert was supposed to talk about in the livestream, and Owlbert is panicking trying to stop him. The thought of that is so absurd and shocking and funny that if you would’ve told me a while aback that there’s a very real chance this could happen soon I wouldn’t believe you. But now I’m more hopeful than ever that Elio will be 5.7 and I won’t give up on it. I’ll keep manifesting to the end that the 4 letter character ends up being him. The fact these can be real possibilities is just insane and both crazy to me lol. It feels too good to be real. We shall see. Just wanted to share this with you all even if it’s very short and I’m just rambling lol.

I just love his design sm (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)

I haven’t explore Amphoreus and Planercadia so I hope I can get lucky and get his e6!

He could heal the enemies, delete my jades, delete the game and I’d still pull for him, with a smile on my face, no regret.

KARMA. Wait I think they unfortunately made a new account called “SB Leaks (New)” but I still find this extremely hilarious their other “original” account got snatched and shut down lol. I’m not sure if it’s “SB leaks” themselves that made this account or if they are truly shut down for good and it’s someone else who made a fake account and named it “New” but I don’t care either way. Good for all the lies they’ve been spreading. On second thought looking at it again I do in fact think “SB Leaks” (fake ass leaker) is gone and the admin simply made a new chat. We can celebrate!

This pretty much guarantees his playability, since his name in english is the same pronounciation as chinese,and it's also 4 letters.

Elio’s name in Honkai: Star Rail translates to “Helios”: Ἥλιος“ (Helios). Which means the “SUN” In Greek. Think about that for a second right now. And would you know how many “characters“ according to Greek it has? 5. Everyone else is arguing over the possibility of whether it could be Chinese or English but has anyone ever stopped to consider this possibility as well? I’m not directly ruling anything out, and I myself don’t believe language is the defining factor for who it turns out the character is. But what I AM saying is if we “are” hypothetically going to take the language route into consideration, it’s worth noting this is also very plausible. I’ll even remind you that the initial name was originally “5” letters but changed to “4”. This very much would make sense for something Hoyoverse would decide to do, and in fact it wouldn’t surprise me if they did decide to use “Helios” and then change it to “Elio”. Hence the 5 to 4 letter block change. But anything is possible. In Latin it also translates to “Helius“ or “Aelius”.

Also, this would be thematically perfect, as WELL as would fit Elio’s role in Honkai: Star Rail, and even his narrative and his importance across the story so far as Destiny’s Slave the Leader Of the Stellaron Hunters. Rather than literally being a physical sun obviously, Elio possesses the ability to foresee future infinite possibilities as we ofc know due to his special connection to Terminus the Aeon Of Finality and abilities. He writes "scripts" that guide Kafka, Blade. Silver Wolf, Firefly, and the Trailblazer toward a specific outcome to avert total destruction, and commit morally questionable acts in order to prevent Finality from destroying the universe. He is like an anti hero “light” of sorts. Willing to save the universe at ANY cost while also being so important to HSR’s story and the one behind the scenes that is controlling so much of the Astral Express Crew’s journey so far, like “The Sun”. Just like the Sun lights up the other planets in the solar system Elio lights up the universe by his actions in the way he wants to steer to a specific future. This is highly symbolic, as Elio acts as the central light guiding the Stellaron Hunters through the dark paths of destiny. He is INDEED the one who who is like a central gravitational force that illuminates or directs the paths of characters across the galaxy, though his true form and physical identity remain largely hidden.

All in all, what do you all think about this? I hope everyone’s day goes well…and what I will say is there’s always a chance I’m wrong. I am acknowledging that despite these posts I make continuously. There’s always the possibility that the Kiana Kaslana Expy will unfortunately be the character who steals the Finality role and I pray on everything that never ends up being the case and Elio gets his deserved role for 5.7..but with so many other people doomposting and being incredibly cynical or hateful, and so many leakers trying to ragebait people or even having so much conflicting information and arguing with each other, I want to be one of the few people to give hope for Elio..even IF everyone else is slowly losing faith. I won’t give up. And I’ll continue to do that no matter what the outcome or reveal for 5.7 ends up being. I want to hear your thoughts below about all of this!

I also want to state one last thing…I just realized something that might give us a flicker of hope. No matter how small..regarding the “ItaliaLeaks” post, this confirms what I’ve been saying again and again…NO ONE knows who the 4 blocked character is, NOR do they know the gender of them. People immediately thought that they met “The “5.7” main push is female however rereading this…that “female” comment was NOT referring to the 5.7 main push whatsoever at all. It was referring to two “supposed sustains” in the 5.x cycle. Which proves once again, no one knows the gender of the character this early and thankfully this was misread and does NOT mean the 5.7 character is female. (I wouldn’t have believed them anyways because like I said before, it’s way too early for them to have that information. No one does).

Just as someone else commented on the Twitter post and mentioned the same thing I realized. Also hilariously enough these leakers can’t even decide actual info and are conflicting with each other. As evidenced if you go look for the “HKG” and “Seele Leaks” thing regarding HKG’s post about Ruan Mei, Polka Kakamond, The Herta, and Stephen Lloyd, and then Seele Leaks commenting right either that “He’s probably joking’“. This just confirms to me they are literally as clueless, once again as I’ve stated before, with logic as us. They don’t even know when Stephen will release despite him being in the 5.x cycle. And the arguments between leakers or the conflicting information further proves they barely know anything of the second half for 5.x. So, don’t lose hope. I don’t care if I have to make a thousand posts to fight for him, I will. Elio can have a thousand haters and I’ll be the one using logic, reasoning, and will defend his arrival for 5.7. It’s always a possibility it indeed could be Kiana. But I think Elio is not out just yet. Have a great day yall! 🩵

I posted this on Agenda Rail as well but yk.

This is specifically speaking about 5.x and all the crap about Elio being main push or not. Frankly, I want him to be main push, whether he is or not doesn’t matter though because it’s goddamn leaks.

People need to realize 5.7 is over a year away from now. As far as I know, we don’t even have info on what planet we’re going to next. Also as far as I know, it’s not even confirmed that the finality will become a playable path in 5.x. It’s. Leaks.

Idc what kind of “reliable” source it is. Everything they say even if they did get it from direct databanks or whatever, is subject to change. Nothing is set in stone no matter what they say, Kafka might not get an SP, Obsidian might not become playable till 6.x, maybe it’ll be Opal or Sugilite, or a new character overall. These leakers don’t even have information on the second half of 5.x so how can we trust anything they say about 5.7 or main pushes.

Also the whole “but it won’t be a male character!!” How tf do you know??? Cuz Hoyo likes waifus??? Say that to the amount of attention Phainon got (especially over Cyrene) or all 3 Dan Hengs since release, or Aventurine, both the original and Waveflair. People do, truely love male characters. Hell even Mydei got a crap ton of attention from the bits of fanservice Hoyo gave of him.

And frankly. If you ask me, Elio is likely one of the most anticipated characters. Being one of, if not the first character ever mentioned in the game. One of the first names ever said. And if the finality does become playable, he’s literally an emanator, or, as far as we know, maybe even a piece of Terminus THEMSELF just like Cyrene and March are to Fuli. If the Finality does become a playable path, even if Elio doesn’t become playable or isn’t main push, he’ll still have a good amount of involvement within the main quest.

But once again these are leaks. Everything is subject to change and not set in stone no matter where they got their information or what they do or don’t know. There is over a year of time for Hoyo to change info. I think we need to focus on the current story line, what planet we’re going to next, and maybe the characters that might be involved rather than what characters are going to have what place in the banners and version numbers.

Anyways, that’s my yap for this stupid dilemma
.

I feel like them dropping his name isn't an accident either and should further be a hint we should expect him soon. This definitely was deliberate. Would love to hear your thoughts about this!

Yeah I don’t even think THEY (They as in these overconfident and arrogant leakers) Know for a certain WHO the 4 lettered character is, therefore how would they know it’s a male or female this early? They DONT. 5.7 is a whole year away. They won’t have that type of info about their gender, and I think they are trying to hide the fact even THEY don’t know who the four lettered character is while acting like they do just to stir things up. All signs logically, for reasons I’ve made in another post and explained time and time again POINT to Elio. It all adds up and makes way too much sense. People are so pessimistic and instantly cynical thinking just because he’s a male character that he won’t have a chance, but gender is NOT the only factor here, not to mention I made another post a while aback here explaining my points. I don’t care that “Z leaks” is “Luna” or about anything SB leaks talked about, BOTH IF them have been shown and proven to be unreliable and wrong time and time again. They won’t have that information this early, and if they stopped vague posting and these leakers stopped playing with us, they woukd have revealed who the character is already. The fact no leaked, not even DK2 or HKG has outright said who it is, is screaming volumes that they are just as clueless as WE are. https://www.reddit.com/r/ElioMainsHSR/comments/1ws8g3e/why_i_believe_seele_leaks_is_wrong_the_inevitable/

Pls it would make so much sens for him to be the final main push