Thread by @synonyms26

The Many, Many clues telling us that the second ending of 2.2 is also a dream, a thread.
Buckle up, yo, this is gonna be longgggg.
Might have to update with new findings later lol. I blame Sparkle.

1. The first thing that screams at our face that the second ending of 2.2 is fake is the end credit. Normal ends don't have end credit. As of 2.2, there have only been 4 end credits so far: Herta station when TB rejected the AE, bad end of 2.0, fake end 1 in 2.2, and second end.

Basically, the stat right now is 3 out of 4 end credits are fake endings. The stat ain't exactly on the second end's side, to say the least.

2. Comparing the 2 end credits, you can see that people's true identities are slowly being unveiled, but in the second end credit, there are still a lot of names unmasked. Devs confirmed to us in 2.1 that everyone in Penacony is faking their identities except Sparkle.

Most notably, Blackswan's identity isn't uncovered yet. And this is important, because the CN title of 2.1 is 天鹅绒里的恶魔 (the Swan covered in velvet is the devil).
....
So yah she's the culprit behind the SUD attacks, Gallagher is lying, cuz he's Mythus and a compulsive lier.

For more details on Blackswan culprit theory, pls see here:

3. Firefly's 3rd death hasn't happened, so yah. 1st is when SUD stabbed her in 2.0, 2nd is when we woke up from the first fake end of 2.2. So where's 3rd?
Noticeably, she doesn't appear after we woke up from Sunday's dream, after this quote.
So what really happened to FF?

FF actually has quite a few death flags actually, 解脱 salvation can also be used to mean death, which is evidently the case here in the second flashback of the Blade convo.
What Acheron said to FF in 2.0 is also identical to what she said to Tiernan, who is confirmed ded.

Tbf, just because she has a death flag doesn't mean she's gonna die for real, just that she has a 3rd death that we haven't seen that.
Although, admittedly, the whole predetermined end doesn't spell out well for her. Cuz it implies that the she already died in the first samara.

The way Acheron keeps asking us the same question about breaking up a bond with friends and how it's a tragedy after each loop is peak sus. The friend we became closest to on Penacony is undoubtedly FF, and with how much we got info dump on stowaway being a dangerous method...

4. Speaking of samsara, it's real. Pretty much confirmed by Acheron and the cut scenes of the warp we did in 2.2.
If you're on laptop, you can use > and < to go through this recording frame by frame as you follow this thread.

First scene of the warp, we were on the train, preparing to jump, then we see this chess piece, which is the exact same pic of this frame in 2.0 Acheron cut scene. These 2 pics are from 2 different videos.

Scene 2, the train started to jump, but we got intercepted by this 1 frame of Blackswan, which actually happened AFTER we defeated Sunday and got our post victory cut scene.
Notice the time bar at the bottom, from 2 different places in the same video.

Scene 3, we went back to train warp, and a single frame of Acheron slash, which also should happen AFTER we went back to the hotel, which happened AFTER the warp.

Scene 4, back at the warp again, and then MC is falling, which is part of the scene when Acheron slashed the dream and MC started falling, so After the warp.

Scene 5, the train is now mysteriously wrapped in blue ice *cough Fuli *cough*. It stopped mid-warp.

Scene 6, Robin preparing to sing and beat up Sunday in phase 3.

Scene 7, the chessboard of (presumably) the aeons, this is the same chessboard that appeared in Acheron dream in 2.0 and DH dream in Nightmare PV.
SH should be white, AE black because white moves first. This is based on Magnus Carlsen vs Hou Yifan.
lichess.org/85Y4vl3J

Scene 8, Robin prepping to sing and beat up Sunday again.

Scene 9, train is now completely covered in blue ice.

Scene 10, MC is falling, and Acheron grabbed them. You can verify that it's her because of her reflection in MC's eyes.

Scene 11, Black swan is smiling and showing us her card, which is.. the Princess card. I have highlighted so many times how this card is fucking susssssss.
And it really is sus.

Because that princess should be the Mirror Princess, Razalina.

Scene 12, And then static, because she deleted our memory. Probably. Same static as in Acheron dream.

Scene 13, we fell asleep again on the train. Emphasis on Train.

Scene 14, and then we woke up...In the Dream Hotel. Again.
Not the Reality Hotel, the Dream Hotel.

The Dream Hotel that was already half sunken into the Black hole and overran by the sweet dream troupes, confirmed in 2.1.
So where are all the mad sweet dream troupes in 2.2 TB quest?

Btw, these are the hidden scenes in Acheron dream in 2.0. So 2.0 wasn't our first samsara either.

But yes, basically, samsara is confirmed. This is what Acheron meant by predetermined end: The first Charmony festival already happened, and we all already got Tang-ed.
And we haven't finished the last cycle yet, because Acheron confirmed that the time for the Choice hasn't come.

In any case, a tragedy probably did happen, Penacony sunk, and someone close to TB probably did die. Cuz TB woke up from Acheron dream crying.
It's between FF and Robin atp.

5. Have I mentioned that we fell asleep on the train? Because we fell asleep on the train.
But where did we wake up?
In the Dream Hotel that should have been overran by the Dreamjolt troupes long ago, and then in front of Sunday.
We fell asleep on the Train.

So basically, it's a dream within a dream situation, inception style.
We are under at least 3 layers of dream.
Layer 1: Reality hotel.
Layer 2: 12 Moments.
Layer 3: Dreamflux (we got there by dying).
Layer 4a: Mikhail's memory Bubble (Child's dream), which is in Dreamflux.

Layer 4b: Sunday's dream of Order and fake ending 1.
Layer 5: Train during warp cut scene in 2.2.
Layer 6: Acheron's dream.
The corridor between the layers are Misha corridor in 2.0.
Long story short, it's Inception.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inception

Yes, devs are Nolan nerds.

Btw, we got this after end credit 2.
So we're totally still dreaming lmao.

6. BTW, DH was blocked from the dream by the Family, then he broke in fake ending 1 with fake JY who wasn't actually there (like the fake Ratio and fake Screwllum who declared no more SU kek). Fake ending 1 isn't real, XZ never got here.
So who's the DH in the Sunday boss fight?

7. If you think about it carefully, Boothill summoming the Galaxy Rangers is just as bad of a deus ex machina as XZ busting AE. In both cases, the Big Moment happened in like 2 frames, we didn't see 99% of it because we were somewhere else.
That's anticlimactic af.

Hence why Acheron helpfully highlighted to us that new people called in can fall into the dream too. Thanks Acheron. That's a jinx. 🤣

8. Also, that parting gift from black swan. She gave it to us in 2.1, yet it recorded... Acheron dream, in 2.0 lmao.

9. Since devs who helpfully told us to investigate the loose ends, those "loose ends" should be our keys to solve true the mysterirs of Penacony.

Anyway I'm sleeping, will continue this thread tomorrow bye.

Wait wrong Pic for end credit comparison. Should be these 2.

Let's go back to investigate all the possible fatal variables again.

10. We fell asleep on the train, the clock turned back, the samsara restarted. Literally the clock in the real hotel is turning backward, and Penacony clock when seem from the train is also turning backward as well. Credit to Ignis for this discovery.

11. Misha's case is confirmed. But why was Misha created, for what purpose, and what was the Watchmaker's treasure hidden in the film event? Hanu saw Mikhail buried a clock underground in the film, what was the clock?

No the hat isn't the treasure, it disappeared midway in the cut scene during the warp of the fake ending 1. The hat isn't real, it's a dream.

Btw, they have never explained to us what this is. The script says Stay Aleep. What is this Clock, why is it ticking backward, why is it falling apart, and why did the camera zoomed to it when Acheron talked about the Charmony drawing to its close and the starting point.

12. Sparkle somehow put us to sleep and sent us directly to Child's Dream, which is canonically inside Mikhail's bubble in Dreamflux. While sleeping should be impossible in Penacony.
...
Yeah so Sparkle has the same power as the "car", and Blackswan too.

Also, isn't it funny how Blackswan found out about Child's Dream in 2.0, yet it's only in 2.2 that she "figured it out" about Misha. MC is dumb, which is understandable, but what about expert Memokeeper Blackswan?

13. Firefly's death was also insufficiently explained by the argument that "Gallagher is always the culprit of SUD". FF told us that she was trying to summon SUD on purpose, yet it mysteriously came up early.
Meanwhile, she was chased around and saw her own mecha.

Someone had to summon the mecha, and it ain't no Gallagher. He has no motive to pretend to be a mecha and chase her around.

14. Robin's death is also a big clue to us that the second ending is fake. Because Robin told us that she followed a mysterious letter of Aven's and was killed. Meanwhile, Aven claimed he had nothing to do with Robin's death, he just happened to find her corpse in his room.

The corpse was fresh enough to not become water before he arrived too, would ya look at that.
Sunday specifically asked him whether he could delete memory was a big ass flag. Blackswan was working with him for the Robin case, after all.

Btw, Aven lied, but Sunday's power is Harmony + Order. He can actually puppet you, imprison you in a dream, and compell you to do what he wants. It's Ena's entire shtick, puppetting people.
So how did Aven lie at all.

That Ena eye is looking mighty sus at the moment.

14. Speaking of Sunday, he confirmed to us that Gopher wasn't the one who is using the Stellaron to make dream into reality. Since Gopher did it "for justice" and they were talking about Karma before that, it is likely someone in the Harmony camp who is actually running the show.

Btw, where is the Stellaron.
Isn't it funny how at the second end credit, we got a flashback of Robin and Sunday talking about wishes upon the stars, about how there are 2 stars. And then the film event has the Stellaron as shooting stars.
While Robin and Sunday designs are stars

Why does Robin have stars splashed all over her design, talk about 2 shooting stars, and then in her trailer she kept talking about being forgiven and granting wishes for other people. Like how the Stellaron promised Cocolia.
Btw, the Stellaron in Belobog also demanded Tang.

Credit to @Lalodyslore for the discovery in Robin's trailer.
So the stars symbolize Sunday and Robin, according to their designs and the second end credit. This the stars of morning and night should also be them. Stars of morning and night are both Venus, just at different time.

And Sunday is def the star of morning, he quoted Lucy, and Lucy is Venus. Specifically the paragraph talking about Lucy as son of the dawn, like Sunrise, Sunday.

So who's the other star, the star of the night?
The other Twin of Other, Robin.

15. Speaking of Robin, she was supposed to be the OG Chord master who Tangs people, but in 2.2, in Sunday's dream, he managed to take her place and Tang people to Order instead of Harmony.
Which means that in the first samsara, the Chord master who Tangs people was Robin.

Basically, you can see Penacony as a similar situation to Umineko world setting.
There are technically at least 2 Battler in the game, Game Master Battler who wrote the story, and piece Battler who was unaware of the plot
In 2.2, the one we talked to was piece Robin, not GM Robin

16. Also, kinda convenient that her voice was affected by the level of diluted Harmony and contaminated by Order.
And then her voice still stayed normal while Sunday used his Order power on her. And she used Harmony against Order just fine, while being... a Twin of Order.

So yah that explanation was bullshit. The Robin we met in 2.2 is a dream copy, a dream within a dream. She isn't the real Robin who became the Chord Master.

17. Speaking of Charmony festival, the event of the fake ending 2 was actually 1h before the Charmony Festival. The Charmony Festival of that samsara still hasn't happened yet, and Maeven is pushing for piece Robin to be the Chord Master again.

Toskani is a guy who already got Tang-ed with his band mates, btw. They are 1 now.

18. He also conveniently told us that whenever Aelenev is summoned, he will Tang people.
The Eternal Centurion is what Sunday told Aven he would Tang with in 2.1.
Aelenev is mentioned twice again, in the harmonic string book and by Graysen, whose ancestor summoned Aelenev.

Yep, lots of flags that Aelenev is already active and already Tang everyone, and the chord master for that is on the Harmony side, using the Stellaron to do it.

Which explains why MC was already Tang-ed in the Acheron dream in 2.0.

19. There is actually a hidden Robin quest after you finished with the 2.2 TB quest. Robin told us that the sweet dream is falling apart, and death is now possible. And she asked us to look for Sunday.

20. We found his Ena Bible and gave it to her, Robin expressed shock, which means she didn't know about it before hand.

So who talked to Sunday here? From whom Sunday begged for death and was spared?
Piece Robin told us that she lost consciousness, so it wasn't her.
It was the other Robin, the star of night, the GM of the game.

Btw, Sunday is already caught, the Family just didn't bother to tell piece Robin.

21. The hidden Robin quest also told us that the sweet dream is collapsing. Kaimee in the TB quest told us that the dreamflux was collapsing because memoria was flowing to Sweet Dream. Well, if you speak to her again, she will say that Dreamflux is no long feeding sweet dream.

Hence why the sweet dream is collapsing, which was exactly what Acheron told us in the TB quest.

22. Sweet dream collapsing is a hanging plot point, telling us that its not over yet.
Namely, Jade is busting in with full 4k recording. And the NPC is talking about threats of a hostile IPC takeover. As of 2.1, IPC has Penacony surrounded.

23. The other hanging plot point is the obvious Boothill Aven scene, where Boothill and Aven both have reasons to hate Oswaldo Schneider, and Aven outright stated he wanted to win freedom with the wager in 2.1.

24. Meanwhile, Glaux is heavily implied to be the VIP of the room we were forced to explore to get through Sunday story.
But the last we knew of him was from Orla quest, who told us that he escaped to Dreamflux and went mad. And then time skip, VIP room. 🙄
Who's Glaux?

25. In the TB quests, we kept being told that all the victims have sth in common. And that sth in common still hasn't been shown to us yet. That's another hanging plot point.
Colleen hinted to us that its because they all want freedom, which is consistent with Aven's.

But you know it's gonna be shown to us later on, officially they haven't provided an answer for us yet.
After all, FF still has to clear her 3rd death.

26. Back to Gallagher: He told us he would disappear, but then he is credited as Penacony and appeared in the credit of Scorchsand world quest.
So yeah true Mythus follower. Orla told us he's a compulsive liar lol.

More probably is that the identity of Gallagher is what dies, and the meme behind Gallagher is still alive and kicking, working everything behind the scene.
There's a pretty weird hint in the cut scene that he's Elio actually....

27. Gallagher also kinda implies that Sunday was a brother of him. Now, this could just be him mocking Sunday by pretending to be Robin, but then it turned out he has actual siblings, they're all adopted by Mikhail.
So why did he call Sunday brother?

22. Gallagher having features of the many family members was also never explained. So that was another hanging plot point related to the mystery behind the meme pretending to be Gallagher.

23. Also, do you know what he told us in the Scorchsand film world quest?
That this is his not-yet-finished art piece, and reality is a dream trapped in a cage.
...
So yeah 2.2 second ending ain't the end. He hasn't finished his movie script yet.

24. Btw, Sparkle's bombs haven't gone off yet. And it will, because she has repeatedly told us that she will burn Penacony to the ground.
And no, it's not because she was rooting for us and the bombs are shelved backup plan.
The bombs are Chehkov's guns. They will go off.

25. BTW, have you noticed? There is no daily mission in Penacony.
...
So yeah, Dreamflux has flags that it will survive and we will fix its economy, but the Sweet Dream?
Big ass flag.

Conclusion: The second ending of 2.2 is also fake lol, we haven't even gone to the end of that loop. Way too many hanging point points and deux ex machina.
The real TB quest this patch is actually in the world quest and Dreamjoy film event lol.

I'll update this thread if I find anything else. For now, stay tune to watch the rest of "Gallagher's" not-yet-finished art piece. 🫗

Oops, forgot this Pic.
This is Blackswan in the card web event back during New Year, Blackswan swapped from Fables to Folly of the Stars after Sparkle was drawn.
And that's why this patch trailer is Fool rings Twice. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

@threadreaderapp unroll

@Dreya__Zeii She does remember more than us, but it's not complete immunity. We innitially thought she was naturally amnesiac, but nope, 2.2 showed us that's not the case at all. Someone tampered with her memory every loop as well.

@otaku_ramen137 deleting her memories. She does remember more than us, yes, and she's aware somewhat of the samsara, she told us of that, after all, but she was equally clueless when it came to the death of Robin and went investigating with Welt in 2.1. She can be affected by Remembrance.

Fuck I forgot to post this screenshot.
Clocks have rewinded = new samsara.
Coyote = Gallagher as an identity.
Heavy logs = Oak family.
Crocs = IPC.
Same allegory as in the Dreamjoy film stories.

@YWayfarer1959 That's why it's the work of a fictionologist 🤣.

27. Repeating radio message on the train, telling us we haven't left Penacony yet and the Charmony Festival of this loop hasn't actually happened.

@Hac1656937 Memory means red, so the sea of memory, or the memory zone, is red. But the closer you get to the blackhole, the red will gradually fade away, leaving behind a monochrome. This is what happened to Tiernan and the Galaxy Rangers in the flashback, and what is happening to Acheron.

@Hac1656937 Basically it works kinda like an irl blackhole. The center is "monochrome" and leads into the sea of quanta, but the outer ring, the event horizon (Horizon of Existence, red sea, memory zone) is composed of shredded memories, which are red.

@Zarlheinz That's a big clue to Blackswan being sus, and thats in addition to all the clues that are already present in game. Like the princess card in the warp cut scene.

28. No CQ other than Blackswan and Sparkle so far, and their CQ canonically took place before 2.0. Thanks to @Himeshxt for reminding me 🤣.

Note: I have seen many people express the fear that the fake dream ending will make everything meaningless. I think they can still land well in the emotional department if they execute it well. E.g. Nilou's samsara in Sumeru
Also there's still FF 3rd death

Dunyarzad = FF.
Nahida = Acheron.
Robin = Nilou.
MC = MC.
Azar = idk probably GM Robin or Mikhail, or Gallagher.

29. Forgot this one, more FF flag in Blackswan story 4.

40. Another flag for Penacony. Memosnatchers and Cremators are flagged to arrive.
Cremators are Fuli's followers who burn up trash memories in SU.
Memosnatchers are memory thieves from the Garden.

@belphegortrash Also, there hasn't been any CQ for any playable character on Penacony other than the Blackswan and Sparkle one in 2.0. And that CQ took place before 2.0 started canonically. That's actually one of the biggest red flags for the sweet dream, alongside the no daily.

31. More Samsara hints in the OST.

32. Small bit of Robin death flag in the cut scene of Robin and Sunday falling.

33. Sweet dream of Penacony as Babylon, also in the OST.
Another song also calls Penacony hell.

Which check out because the blackhole is still there, and nothing has been done to prevent Penacony from continuing to sink into the black hole so far...

@belphegortrash people with the concept. The effect they want to achieve is to get the players carried away with the emotional flow of second ending and then surprise people with the end credit to make players doubt again. This is the same technique used in Inception and NGE endings.

@belphegortrash Anyway, even the casual players who didnt know about the first 2 bad ends would have doubts the moment the second end credit rolls in, doubtly so when they do the scorchsand world quest where there's a fifth end credit for another fake end.

@belphegortrash The only reason a lot of people still buy the second end of 2.2 as real is solely due to emotional attachment, nothing else. Which exactly how they want to bamboozle people.

@Jack91422159 @belphegortrash All I can say is atp if some people still haven't realized that the second ending is also fake, then they're the type that's easy to be emotionally manipulated I guess lmao.

@Dehim7290781 @boobytoesdays @YeXiaozu It's all a big scam.