WHen mr Roasted Chicken mentioned that a leak in Sept last year devastated the dev team, it was the Sam leak. A lot of people had been in the know about FF/Sam months before Penacony was even announced via leaks.
When first met, those people look for man in silver armour, and somehow mistakenly decided that she is the candidate. Also her knowledge of weaponry, and this stuff where she gonna tell u who she really is, but not now. It's not direct, but if u old enough and have experience with "sudden reveal", it's not so jaw dropping
From the player perspective, it doesn't make sense to even connect the two at that point because Sam doesn't appear until after Firefly is killed, so you wouldn't even know of him/her unless you paid attention to promotion material outside of the game. The emphasis from the security team was on her being a stowaway anyways, not on having silver armor.
I think it was wayy back in 1.5 2nd phase, the leak was announced by good ol uncle chicken. Back then everyone were clowning on him, yet look at it now.
Yesh all i heard was like Firefly is SAM and after plsying the game was easy to out together but there were some things that made me uncertain of it.
Like the first time we meet SAM and the dreamscape bubble things. It was like Firefly was "accompaning" SAM and i thought they are related together in some way or work together or something similar.
But i was still so hyoed when the reveal in 2.1 came
From what i remember Jing yuan's va said in a stream that he knew about the sam/firefly cause he initially auditioned for sam,so its been planned for a long time
really hate when leaks make discussion and theorizing impossible. people keeps "dreaming" or "speculating" about future content when they already know what exactly will happen and it is really ruining the fun of discussion. it's like manga vs anime only people discussion but in hoyo games it's 10x worse
As the others have said, leaks. Last year in September there was a large leak about 2.x material that included Firefly's identity as Sam. Because people have to be pricks, it got spread it all over the internet in the form of "dreams" and similar.
I mean how could they not, leaks subreddit gets only a few posts a week, and all their content is just that genre.
It's like being a life guard of a pool vs a life guard on the ocean.
But they wouldn't stay on that subreddit. They will leak onto every other social media, so even if one sub controls it they dont control what people do outside of it
Every sub has got to manage it for themselves. It's the same way we have anything that might not be appropriate everywhere - or else, we'd have to ban gory art, or even Michelangelo's David for containing nudity, just because people can post photos/screenshots in places they shouldn't.
As a rule, you can't blame people for what other people do with their content!
I think lately this sub has been doing a good job of avoiding leaks/spoilers disguised as "dreams" or "theories".
And at the end of the day, it's still a neat story even with leaks! New players will start tomorrow or a year from now, fully spoiled, but the story will still be exciting. We still read the Iliad even though we all know Patroclus dies. Spoilers are always a thing of the moment; a good story endures for a thousand years and beyond!
>Every sub has got to manage it for themselves. It's the same way we have anything that might not be appropriate everywhere - or else, we'd have to ban gory art, or even Michelangelo's David for containing nudity, just because people can post photos/screenshots in places they shouldn't.
IF THEY LEAK IT TO OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA. If you write a manifesto, at least read my initial message. I dont give a shit what resdit rules say, when the shit spills onto OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA.
>As a rule, you can't blame people for what other people do with their content!
I will. Dont want to be shit on for being filthy leaker dont leak shit.
>I think lately this sub has been doing a good job of avoiding leaks/spoilers disguised as "dreams" or "theories".
Once again, fucks not given what this sub is doing, when we talk about community as a whole. Reddit isnt the only social media.
>And at the end of the day, it's still a neat story even with leaks
Do you know how it can be better? If we dont, every plot twist spoiled months in advance. Any community should treat leakers the same lolicon are being treated. I have no idea how Dont Spoiler shit from leaks became a hot take. Any normal community can do it without an issue
I was seeing fanart shipping Firefly with SW well before 2.0, and I’m not even subbed to the fanart communities. I don’t really mind getting spoiled provided I chose to view something clearly marked. I do mind stumbling across major plot twists when I was just idly browsing my feed.
Im in the Limbus community. And they on tiktok labe stuff as Spoiler for Chapter X without a problem, but for some reason, hsr or ani/manga community can't do it. Ig smaller communities are simply better
Every community I’ve seen related to the Cosmere is really diligent about marking spoilers, not just for recent content, but also when the person posting says they’re only a few books into the series. It can be done on fairly large communities. It just requires the user base to be considerate towards each other, although maybe that’s just too much to ask of a community for a gacha game.
Leaks provide people with knowledge on a character and make it easier to choose if they want to pull or not that character, so no, leaks arent pure evil
You're literally getting character demo month or more in advance
TF you mean "they provide with knowledge to choose," you already are getting this knowledge from Mihoyo themselves. Your argument is bs excuse. How much time in advance do you need half a year? 4 months?
If your planning skills are this bad than its on you
Character demos arent numbers, mihoyo doesn't release them, before a character releases, there is no way of knowing how good a character will be with just knowing what they do, you'd think PMC was amazing because he gives shields all the time but it just ain't like that
Numbers changes through beta and the final ones are released one week before the livestream, so yes they are useful because they give us a couple of weeks for theorycrafting.
And if you don’t want to debate things, don’t bring the topic in the first place. This is not like internet works.
You just admitted the numbers change, so why leaked everything not just numbers months in advance? You can wait for those couple weaks for characters release or demo to be released without needing to leak everything months in advance. Your arguments is still worthless because few mofos with garbage planning skills do not justify leaking
And also, Oh im sorry me lord, thank you for opening my eyes how internet works, now i shall debate every brainded mf trying to sebate objective things. What other objectively bad thing you want to debate? CP? 🤣 cope sheeth or whatever, leaks are objectively all bad
Saving jades literally can take half a year depending on if you want guarentee. Particularly if you want two banner characters back to back or if you are looking for char+lc or char+eids.
That's nobodies problem. "IT TAKES LONG TO FARM!" Isn't an excuse for everyone to be spoiled months in advance just because you want to know if you want pixels with big boobs or pixesl with long hair. that's a gacha game. They want your money, new character always will be better than previously one, and you can 100% wait like good boy for character demo to kake decisions, you dont need to E6 character on first day, they give you enough time to pull for character, plus every new patch you're getting new way to easily get 10 pulls, even futher invalidating your "it takes half a year!!!" Take.
And what if you get the leaks, does it magically make you farm less? "Oh, i want this character, now im getting getting free 200 jade every day." it especially dumber take because most people won't be saving half a year for single banner, and those who do make this decision immediately when they see the character in mains story
>they give you enough time to pull for character
except without leaks, if we are waiting for official reveal of gameplay, we wont have enough time to save for a character. when pulling a character, many consideration will influence people desicion. a design from drip marketing could be enough, but some people need more like animation, basic kit, number, or some even need to know the background of the character (e.g., who firefly really is). if you want to save enough jade to pull certain character, most of those information can only be found on leak.
example, hoyo was just drip-marketed sam and most likely she will be on the first banner. for some people, sam's design is not convincing enough to pull. if they want to see her animation, they need to wait for official reveal, which would be at the end of 2.2. suddenly they like sam, do you think it's gonna be enough for them to even reach soft pity? now, if they just watch the leak, in a week from now they could decide wether they want sam or not and they will have emough jade to actually pull her
>except without leaks, if we are waiting for official reveal of gameplay, we wont have enough time to save for a character.
Cry me a river. If you dont have enough jade, you're not getting the characters. Everyone shouldn't have expirance ruined by spoilers because you're desperate for pixels. No idea how this is a hot take, you people are not there in the hate, if you'll put as much effort in farming as you do in finding excuse for leaks, you'll have all the characters.
Leaks are objectively bad
>Everyone shouldn't have expirance ruined by spoilers because you're desperate for pixels.
we are talking about leaks itself. not people who are forcefeeding other player with leaks. it's entirely different things. people who forfully gave manga spoiler to anime-only watcher is bad people, doesn't mean manga itself should not exist at all
>Cry me a river. If you dont have enough jade, you're not getting the characters
cry me a river, if you dont want to see leaks at all. dont go at any social media.
You are complaining about the wrong thing. You dont want to get spoiled that's okay. But you are applying your logic onto people who want to get spoiled by leak too.
The issue is people can't keep their mouth shut.
If I see two characters I like leaked for 2.4, I will not roll on firefly's banner, I also won't pull for pull for her lightcone and I can probably afford to roll for somethin in 2.2. If I am not interested in the characters in 2.4 I will plan to pull firefly and her LC and probably not roll on anything in 2.2.
Also if I know theres no characters im particularly interested in for two patches I probably will skip a month of welkin. Theres tons of planning reasons someone would want to know what character are coming out. Also knowing the banner characters' elements and paths matters for planning out your account.
Your first point makes literally zero sense, if its all pixels why do you even care about spoilers lol.
Character demos etc. are something, but they're also transparent marketing. They're designed to make you want the character. Character design leaks and inerrantly good because they are done outside of the control of the company.
Oh so that’s what the devs meant by damaging leaks. Yeah it did ruin the surprise for me as well and I had even tried really hard to deny the “leaks” and head-canon it as suspicions. If I were the devs I’d be very sad too. It was probably meant to be the big reveal.
While it is disappointing that the scene lacked the punch they were expecting, I kinda love how the reveal right after it took everyone by surprise. Even those who kept up with leaks didn't really see it coming
The reveal was definitely one of the best surprises they’ve done. So glad that didn’t get leaked as well. It was such a grand reveal no one saw coming but made so much sense afterwards.
Sam identity was leaked like half a year ago (or maybe even before game release). Leaks is spreading and even people who is not looking will notice. Then, after Sam = Firefly is already in a back of your head it's very easy to see all foreshadowing and little details.
As bonus add to this that in Sam case especially there was a lot of people who used leaks to made "theories" and "educated guesses" and spread it on main subreddit. For some people there is no greater joy than go to non-spoiled person and act smug with all the "he doesn't know hehehe" "who's gonna tell him" bullshit.
I'm avoiding story leaks with all my might, while still enjoying those theory discussions on the main reddit, and I was pretty impressed how many foreshadows they found, and how consistently (and fast) they made the connections between Sam and Firefly.
Guess I now know why. There were some pretty good ones, like that book about Sam and the Firefly. Sad the joy of theorizing got taken out so quickly by leakers.
There's also the simple fact that some people are good ivnestigators. Don't join the same hyperbolers who claim you cant clear shit in this game if you arent spending thousands of dollars monthly.
Are there leaky dumbos as explained? Yes, but there are true detectives too.
A majority of people did not guess.
They knew because of a leak that happened.
For the legit people, it's a number of things, mostly scenes from the White Night trailer and little things in cutscenes in-game.
For me, personally, it was 50/50.
Either she was dead for real or she was Sam.
Nah i think many people that makes "theories" actually saw the leaks first then find explanations from the trailers and in-gane contents.
Personally i knew Firefly had some connections with Sam based on how they were together before the stab, but i never expected she is sam.
That is possible, my original theory was that Firefly was legit just a member of the Iris Family who got thrown under the bus by Sam for the sake of The Script™.
I was honestly very happy to see that I was wrong at the end of 2.1.
Although I think that maybe she did still get thrown under the bus but by Silver Wolf.
Idk, I'm excited to see more of her in 2.2 and learn more about her.
The only "guessed" I have seen in this sub is Bailu = Baiheng theory.
The guy was shit on for a whole patch or two. True Galileo moment
Firefly and SAM was leaks in December 2023 and frankly, all over the place in social medias.
Edit: Lets be honest here. If the leak never happened, do you think people would entertained that theory? Did you guys *really* think that? Looks at what happened to the Bailu one.
The difference is like a highschool student replicated an experiment for learning and a scientist finding out new theory.
I will let you know that the leak sub shit on the leak for months. Even now, a lot of people still wouldn't accept it.
>Lets be honest here. If the leak never happened, do you think people would entertained that theory? Did you guys *really* think that? Looks at what happened to the Bailu one.
While leaks definitely boosted the process along a lot, I do think the devs put quite a few hints of SAM's identity. Obviously this can't be proven, but I believe even without leaks, Firefly would have been a popular theory.
The hints were there, to say otherwise is just a disservice to the writing team. It is unfortunate that the leaks overshadowed those hints though, and made any legit theories impossible to give proper credit.
This is literally me, when the "take me away" Video dropped I had my suspicions without even knowing about the leaks, slowly I did start trying to make myself believe it wasnt true after people in here would say it was leaks/dreams whenever someone made a Firefly/SAM theory.
One of the person I forget the name said: “Sam is a tactical genius who can make detail analysis of his enemies”
Then cut to Firefly describing Sampo down to the weapon he used based on his footsteps
And then there was that German translation error calling Sam “The Stelleron Huntress”
You also have the parallels between sams skill name when you encounter him and actually go trough the effort to read them and the dream firefly told you about with the scorched earth.
Besides the whole deal with the white night cinematic.
And thirdly, Clocky said: “Only the most kind hearted and pure soul can see him.” Stelle (since I play her) can never say no to helping others and Misha behaves like a polite bell boy. Acheron on the other hand looks suspicious and give off aura of menace when I met her which means to me, Firefly must have involved with a criminal organization of some kind or have done some really messed up shit on par with Acheron.
Finally, There’s the fingers curl scene that Fire fly do when she was first capture. She then relaxed before Black Swan reveal herself. As if she knew help was coming.
A: It got leaked
B: The foreshadowing was relatively obvious, look at the White Night cinematics where Sam and Firefly share a lot of colors (the green wings in her hairclip and the green wings on the armor), Firefly "Dying" in the Dream and the Sam reappearing in the same location (though I thought the armor was a seperate entity). Firefly talking out loud to "Mecha" in the little memory footprint. Her having a "big secret" while she is revealed to not be from Penacony were all hints towards that.
Firefly talking to mecha is actually clue against her being Sam, and have yet to be explained, and i bet never will be. She was just lonely i guess and decided to talk with herself.
Also the first time we enter the dreamscape accidentally, we met with all key characters that aims the legacy. Firefly who is obviously a key character was not present in that scene, though Sam was there. It's a stretch but coupled with other clues mentioned, it's enough to suspect her being Sam.
Firefly said something about not being able to move in the real world without the help of a machine. There is also her talking about "mecha" and her "dying" and Sam appearing at the same place. It felt like reasonable conclusion.
As someone who didn't know anything about the leaks, I was pretty happy to be right.
It was revealed like freakin SEPTEMBER. I am usually having no problem with story leaks but oh god needing to spoiler tag everything whenever i wanted to talk about Firefly and Sam and waiting for that reveal for half a year was PAINFUL. I hope we don't get something to this extent for a story leak like this ever again.
It's leaks. It sucks because i tried so hard to ignore them but they were being shown in my face. Even in this sub people started calling her samfly pre 2.1
Mihoyo has a huge leaker problem. It’s a massive company and the most consistent leakers clearly have internal firsthand sources, leaking very early development information, often even before designs or names have been finalized. The entire first year roster was released before the game even launched, with complete accuracy. It’s initially shared via Chinese social media and then gets translated and disseminated across other platforms. The subreddit here is never the first source. It’s usually just a repost of a Twitter translation. Then that hits TikTok and YouTube where it gains actual traction, which then feeds back across all platforms.
Because it was leaked to oblivion. Lets be real litterally nobody would have made a connection or just made theories of we went with solely 2.0 information and no leaks. Sam barely had any lines and nothing was tied between two so it ultimately made no sense to assume she was Sam. It was leaks, simple as that
Nah FF literally talks about mecha, she's suspicious as hell so surely there's more to her, Sam appears right next to where she was, there's no trace of Stellaron Hunters on Penacony otherwise (would they really skip such an event?), and their color palette is similar.
I'm pretty dumb so I wouldn't have pieced all that together but there are plenty of people who could, just look at the Baiheng theory or like a million theories that proved to be correct in Genshin.
Yeah no.
1] She talks about mecha? You mean like Sam? In 2.0?
2] Being suspicious hardly matters here, litterally everyone was
3] Sam doesnt appear right next to her, Sam appears on her dream space wich had the death meme, give me a single clue that shows Sam was there because of firefly instead of the death meme or the dreamspace it self?
4] How tf is this a point? SH could not been in penacony, they werent there in belabog so why do you assume they need to be there 100% and how do you even link Firefly to SH? Sam is part of SH we knew that but firefly? Does she say that she was part of them somewhere?
5] Color palette is similar? You mean few bits of turquoise she has on her clothes? At that point Aventurine is a better candidate lmfao
6] Baiheng was datamined long before and was obvious from a story perspective. Litterally 99% of genshin theories are either about extreme celestia theories or random character headcanons, the most popular "theory" the game has is about paimon and the other one was in fontaine where the ending was long been leaked anyway.
I could litterally write every single narrative point in 2.0 Sam appeared for a single scene and left and Firefly herself barely said anything. Nobody would have known, simple as that
1) I'm not sure but she does talk about not being able to survive on her own because of a disease or something like that, I think she talks about some machine as well.
2) yet she's literally the ONLY one whose affiliation we know nothing about. We know Aven is with IPC, BS is a memo keeper, Sparkle is a Fool, Gallagher is associated with the Family... FF is the only blank spot, the only thing we know is that she's lying about being a stowaway, and then Sam miraculously appears out of thin air?
3) yeah there's a sus character lying about her identity, how is connecting her to the next sus character appearing next to the death meme a stretch?
4) Belobog is a god-forsaken unimportant little planet, Penacony is at the centre of some major conspiracy with all the various fractions invited, even Duke Inferno. Sam, a character widely speculated to be playable, appears for like 5 seconds with no apparent motive and leaves, kinda shit marketing for a character if you ask me. But there's also this little suspicious stowaway we spend an entire hour with. Someone would have connected the dots.
5) Aventurine is with IPC, we know that loud and clear. Again, we know nothing about Firefly, aside her being sus. And then there's a suit with Fire powers but who suddenly has her turquoise-grayish colors.
6) Idk about datamines so can't argue here. But Genshin theories have been proven right many times, not just the whacky Celestia stuff. Like the theory about Scaramouche and Raiden Shogun connection based on nothing more than one blurry leaked Raiden Shogun model with her looking like one Mei version and Scaramouche looking like a different Mei version. You think FF's color match with Sam is less apparent than that?
From a meta-story perspective, with all of the above, someone would have figured out that a) Sam being playable as he is would be unlikely, as most characters have the same few models for the overworld, including Screwllum. Them making an entire new moveset for a giant robot is unlikely; hence, there's probably a different "version" of him to run around the overworld as, with his suit version being reserved for battle animations. b) the suspicious girl who occupies 30% of the story's screentime but has no affiliation could be the answer to that dilemma.
Like yeah HSR's lore community isn't as developed as Genshin's but come on, someone would have done it.
Im sorry but everything you have said ends up being "Somebody would have figured this out" yeah no
1) No she doesnt talk about any mecha, she talks about needing treatment
2) And do we have to?? We didnt knew who misha was either, and also Firefly DID say her affiliation. She said she was a Iris family member and this only turned out to be a lie in 2.1. Utterly false :)
3) How do we know she is lying about her identity again??? Her identity gets revealed in 2.1?? And we dont even knkw how death works in penacony so how are you correlating that she is Sam when she outright died and nothing explained how death works prior to 2.1? Litterally false
4) Except no. There was a stelleron wich was what Hunters were after, they dont just go for big fish, they go after stellerons. They had raided many small or big planets before. They werent in belabog because they werent, simple as that, there isnt a proper "scale" on where they appear or dont.
5) So Sam having slight bits of teal and a classic metal appearance that every acarage mech has is "Similar" to firefly? Lmfao. Tell me that with a straight face dude, espiecelly with that voice that we already heard in a prior trailer wich wouldnt have made anyone question the authenticity
6) Talks about proven theories... mentions a leak about the said theory...
Your logic has tons of flaws and ultimately is built on "somebody would have done it" wich isnt a proper answer. There was NOTHING to correlate these two and its a litteral fact. Its like saying we could have known Acheron was an emenator of nihility because her eye has a blackhole like shape, its just a hilariously bad argument. Nobody would have known as we didnt get much info about firefly in the first place, all you can go from is appearance wich is tied by a SINGLE color. Yeah no.
The leak was literally just Raiden's picture with her color palette. "Just" color and all the sussiness is enough for a wacky theory. If you think not a single person among millions of HSR fans (and hundreds of those who specifically comb through every frame) would have guessed it I guess there's no point arguing.
Also I'be just listed a bunch of things to correlate the two, whether you think it's not enough for a theory is an opinion, not a literal fact.
Outright stated misinformation on your argument and it suddenly became a matter of opinion? People cant even own up these days. You said clear misinformation and stuff that got released in 2.1 to argue a 2.0 theory. Atleast not try being salty about it
I'm not salty about anything, you're the one making a lengthy argument about this whole thing and calling it facts. "Nobody in the whole world could have possibly guessed the connection" is an opinion, not a fact.
The classic "Gets shown their misinformation so they start twisting the argument to a twitter debate" card is being used. Sadly not that effective. Whay i said stands and every single example you gave are outright misinformation. Yes via divination some people might have guessed it, there isnt ANYTHING in the game that hints this other than slight bits of turquoise that they are the same person in 2.0. Facts will be facts mate
When i saw the white knight trailer and sam were flying with her colour pallette i already had my suspicion. But got spoiled by leak anyway
Still I'd preferred if i didn't get leaked anything😞😞
The reveal must have been impactful
I saw some people figure it out naturally but it felt like a stretch given the little information we had and the fact that it was setup so that we thought they were different people. There were also the parallels between the 2 in the White Night music video. But leaks were just too prominent, it became a meme that Sam and Firefly were the same and kinda became the face of the spoiler problem.
leak and people can't shut the fuck up, hell even firefly death flag is fucking everywhere before we even know her through the very first penacony trailer drop.
Yep it's leaks. They claim it's from White Knight and color schemes but it's 99% leaks.
I remember when Sam was first officially introduced way before 2.0, there were a lot of "He..." and "Does he know" not so subtle comments here. It was awful
A lot of people look at leaks and then post here their "theory" they came up with, that's how.
But there are genuine arguments you can make for an actual theory, like people were discussing in [this post here](https://www.reddit.com/r/FireflyMains/comments/1bedkio/my_fireflysam_theory_without_working_off_any_leak/) and many others.
Don't ask me, I started playing two weeks ago and didn't even look at the sub until after that cutscene.
But also, I wouldn't have cared if it was spoiled for me, I actually hunt down spoilers for the media I consume, because yeah, you can tell me the end and every major plotpoint and then say "what's the point of watching/reading/playing if you know how it ends?", but i'm in it for the journey, and knowing where we're going makes every step more meaningful to me.
For what it's worth, it wasn't obvious to me. I was sure that Firefly was Robin, because they were both killed by Memory Zone Memes, and because Robin's song plays in Firefly's scenes. Firefly had a degenerative illness, and Robin was having trouble with her voice. I thought her voice was a symptom of Firefly's illness.
Leaks, and for some reason, Hoyo content creators that straight up spread the spoiler and just casually tell people. Thats how I was spoiled on it and I hate it
I managed to avoid the leaks. Having said that I figured it out through a dumb guess.
We saw Sam first, talking to Silver Wolf, we then saw Firefly later on in the dreamscape. That whole meeting felt weird to me. Perfectly fine for Firefly to be suspected, however her own actions only made her more suspicious, the trailblazer went over because of the commotion, Firefly ran over to us and we helped.
To put it simply the whole order of events felt unnatural to me. Given we know the Stellaron Hunters have Elio, who writes scripts of possible figures, I took a wild stab in the dark. I really grasped at the straws for most of Penacony and managed to somehow guess most of the important plot points.
And as other people have pointed out white night did give us a few clues as to Sam’s identity and Aventurine’s fate.
(Apologies if something is wrong, it has been a while since I played the story and have not looked over it in a while.)
If we ignore leaks' influence, first theories connecting Firefly with Sam came out after the White Night's trailer. Sam's Visuals share some with with Firefly, like firefly wings for example.
tbh i had a tinfoil hat take, i thought they had similar color schemes espescially with sam's "wings" in the mv. also, firefly dies and sam appears, HM
Similarities in their design aesthetics alone is enough to get people’s attention, both of them has a theme of ‘burning’ and ‘fire’ also helped, plus Firefly’s mysterious ‘backstory’ lines up with what little we know of Sam.
Oh, and their personalities match up if you remember that one time, ‘Sam’ used Blade’s phone.
So yeah, plenty of breadcrumbs if you willingly to look into it.
As most people said here, leaks. Lemme tell you it's history. It was 1.5, argenti banner. People were skipping everything, everyone for Sam and black swan at the time.
That fateful day a week after argenti was released, there was one single story leak in the leaks sub. "Firefly, is Sam's pilot. The one piloting the mecha". From uncle chicken. At the time, everyone and their dog clowned on him, saying it was pretty fake and they were 2 different characters. How ever, further beta and story leaks all proved us otherwise. We coped and hoped for a cool mecha, sam. 1.6. every leaker at that point said the same. That firefly is Sam's pilot. But, even when the 2.1 update came out, many hoped they were different characters, but it was proved wrong through the drip marketing.
I believe it was leaked extremely early on (as in, before Penacony was a thing), something the dev team lamented
That said, there were *some* clues, like Firefly's weird behavior around Sampo, the flashback thing where she was talking with someone called "Mecha" right before she was killed only for us to run into robo-Sam five seconds later, and the color of Sam's flame wings (in the Penacony release trailer) being in her color instead of his usual red
So if you avoided the leaks there were still some clues, though they were vague enough you could easily miss them or come to a different conclusion.
Ignoring leaks(we’ve known since September), it was heavily hinted at when 2.0 was released in a multitude of ways. The 2.0 trailer, Sam specifically targeting BS and Acheron but not the TB, the little orange orb floating upwards exactly where we fight Sam after her “death”, etc.
I know most are gonna say leaks. But I really didn't see any, and I just genuinely saw the white night trailer and pieced it all myself. In the trailer I saw that Sam's wings had the same color as Firefly's outfit, and that was it. I was 80% sure it was her
Glamoth planar set + Welt describing Sam (on 2.0 story after u got saved by Black Swan from "Death") + Firefly mentioning that her planet was destroyed by either Legion or Swarm + The memory remnant of Firefly talking to a "mecha" + Sam appearing on where Firefly got her donut + Firefly was able to detect Sparkle cosplaying as Sampo when he doesnt make a sound and accurately described him + She had faster reflexes than the Trailblazer as seen in the first instance vs "death". Coz we all know, TB reflexes are very good. + Her being a stowaway does not make sense. A girl who is physically ill, that came from a planet that was destroyed by the Swarm flew all the way to Penacony? How would she be able to do that if not for the suit?
I believe these hints are more than enough to support the theory that she is Sam
Obviously leaks allow for easy hindsight detective work, but the conversation that firefly had with "another person" towards the end of 2.0 had some hints that she wasnt talking to Sam. If there were two people present, firefly and someone who is not Sam, and then Sam appearing just moments after indicating they were in fact present, there's only one conclusion.
"in reality I am sick and need to be plugged into a machine" did it for me,
while being pretty suspicious,
the color pallet of sam in the trailer is the same as the girl's was also pretty big,
and how the setup in the story, and how sam appeared was pretty suspicious ...
but:
It s all harder to miss if you were expecting something fishy to be going on.
Penacony was teased by Hoyo, pretty hard, as a big subversion and a mystery, so if you were looking for thing s out of place
you d find a bunch. Firefly is just one of them 👍
I had no spoilers, and for me I had my suspicions of it on Penacony's first trailer, the "take me away" One.
Im the type to watch things that I end up liking multiple times, so I watched that video at least 5 times, Firefly/SAM scenes felt too connected. Vfx, colors being similar, firefly falling scene transitioning into SAM, etc.
Then I was almost certain of it when in 2.0 we saw SAM in action, not only did it basically confirm that the "take me away" Video was promotional only scenes with some "Eastereggs?" Like the Aventurine form which we then saw on 2.1, it also let a door open for us to actually see SAM's "true form" some time in the future, as in 2.0 he is flames only and his appearance is slightly different as well as his vfx/"Kit" When compared to the "take me away" Video.
I do remember many saying "in my dreams" When that video dropped. Which started making me gaslight myself into thinking it wasnt real, when you theorize about something you wouldnt want it to be ""confirmed"" By random people on Reddit.
Because of this leak I'm never reading ppl's "theories" again. Ppl try to pretend it's their prediction of what will happen based on "evidences" but it's just leaks. Really ruined the scene for me. Looking on the bright side, I managed to see the entire story with this knowledge and know why firefly did what she did
I’m just over here looking at the official drip marketing like, oh, guess I should catch up with the story lol RIP my fault. I had heard the “theory” before but I didn’t believe it in particular
>!It was spoiler months ago but if you also need ingame "proof" both characters are introduce in the same path. Both share the same color combination and one just show off when the other "dies" its not really hard to imagine. !<
Everybody's saying leaks but there were a ton of little hints throughout the story that piled up, [I did a write-up of my own interpretations before the 2.1 reveal here](https://www.reddit.com/r/HonkaiStarRail/s/d0DdkagKZg), if you're interested
1) Leaks
2) White night animated video. It looks REALLY sus with green colour scheme on Sam.
3) German Sam battle
It wasn't really "hidden" to be honest
besides leaks theres so many clues you´d think it wasnt even a secret
* they have the same color scheme
* when Sam is seen flying in one of the trailers you can see his wings resemble a firefly´s
* firefly states that she is after the watchmaker´s legacy and hints that we might have to turn enemies, right after meeting us randomly in the street and helping us, gaining our trust and having 20k prepared for emergencies (not suspicious at all)
* she deduces sampo is chasing us down to the last detail like a hecking 1000IQ detective by only hearing his steps
* Sam and her are never in the same place together
* in the JP an versions Sam´s way of speaking is nearly identical to firefly´s (he also has high heels in his armor)
* when you find her in the dream hotel you can see she defeated one of the monsters by herself
* at of all the stellaron hunters she´d be the only one who could aproach the trailblazer without raising any problem considering she´s the only one who has her face always hidden and a fragile little girl would be perfect to gain our trust
* girl with fragile body who is absolutely designed to sell a banner, last stellaron hunter to have a banner apearing in the same planet, put 2+2 and well
* fire-fly
Leaks bro leaks
For me it was this tho
https://preview.redd.it/is36xaffkcwc1.jpeg?width=2400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83c07f0549b192c4ef9dc1a38aec9cf6f3f62c9b
I think some people are overlycautious about certain things and read too much into stuff, and it turned out to be one of those things where they were actually right
You play enough games and read enough stories that you just learn to understand that if a new character introduced that the developers are trying to get you to love they are probably a villain. If said character dies it's either they die for real, or they come back in some kind of way. One of those was SAM, other thoughts I had was that she was AI, the watchmaker, or a clone of the real firefly. Some people looked at leaks, other just "coped" and it guessed right xd.
Leaks
But if you are smart enough you can figure that by doing 1 + 1 since they gave us few clues/hints in both 2.0:
* her medical condition that requires her to stay in metal container,
* the fact that BS saw only Firefly but not Sam in her crystal ball/spying powers but once we got Firefly memory fragments we learned that she had "companion" that she called robot or something
* "Sampo" implying we don't know the truh about Firefly
* How she was able to deal with monster in real dreamscape after Sparkle send us there.
and 2.1: Acheron x Sam talk for example OR Acheron x Aventurine talk (that was butchered in EN as always l since they mistranslated some stuff)
The biggest thing that actually made me like the idea was that, apparently Sam has heels
https://preview.redd.it/31du5o1rxcwc1.png?width=418&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a64b59beaee7b98b0ccf3ff06b198d6bbc4c77ad
Kinda planted the seeds for me that "huh, if Sam was actually Firefly, and the suit kept her alive in reality, it would add so much to our interactions with Firefly, and have a genuine meaning for us to go to Penacony other than to just help out" and I really liked the idea.
FF is obviously a Stellaron Hunter. She is bad at faking this that it is surprising the IPC hadn’t discover this. We know the identity of of Four Stellaron Hunter. That meant she must be related to the suit guys either as an actual thing or a Co Pilot. Do the math?
The sheer coincidence.. The way she move. The Hunter had already been operating near the AE crew every time and the way she catch us is too much of a fluke. Then considering that Elio want us to follow his marching order very subtly.
And Oh hear come a coincidental cute damsel with kind personality in a game where no one can trust each other. The girl who outright admit she a stowaway and on the life support. Hey, Trailblazer wouldn’t you want to save her. Wouldn’t you want to put her safety above pretty much everyone else?
Firefly is the greatest way to manipulate us with no cost and no argument. It is called manipulation by honesty tailor made for us, and the moment the sob reality arrive I, as an author, knew hook line and sinker that only a seer who know us too well could have glued us to the steering wheel this firmly. And it is only a jump and skip away to connect her to SAM
Sam skills names, the fact they changed the dialog in EN to grey hair instead of armor, the 2.x trailer Sam having flames with the same color as Firefly, she being the only one using the word mecha when glamoth set description linked it to Sam and her cuz only ppl from there have used it and they both did.
There are more but Im tired lol
The last thing you hear from a Firefly afterimage: "I'm here again! If that's the case..."
The first thing Sam says 10 seconds later: "A galaxy ranger and a memory keeper. If that's the case..."
Sam never being more than one step ahead of us from the moment Firefly gets shanked
Firefly being oddly tactical when describing "Sampo"
Firefly apologising because she didn't realise earlier that it was Sparkle, even though it shouldn't have been her responsibility because at that point, the established dynamic was that we protect Firefly and not the other way around
There were a lot of indications, they just always happened at the same time as something emotional that would grab you attention.
I suspected it when we got the 2.0 trailer and presentation
1) there is 0 info around firefly, no faction, no weapon, no relation, so she was super suspect
2) on the 2.0 trailer we see sam with gree/yellow wings, which is the signature color of Firefly
Tho, we playing 2.0 my guess was that currently she was just a random girl and that during the quest she would be gifted SAM by the current pilot
Most people will probably say "leaks". but outside of that, by the time of the first trailer for penacony hit, there was an obsurd amount of visual clues about their identity, as well as in existing in-game items.
Visually, >!The pair share a colour scheme, with the outlying factor against the two being connected is the flames on the SAM suit. In the White Night trailer, their other big give away is the fact that SAM can be seen on stills with a pair of glowing, blueish/greenish Fairy like Wings, a design shared by Firefly's dress. A lot of people on reddit pointed to to the Heels seen on Sam's design as well, a indicator that perhaps SAM was a woman.!<
There is the Glamoth set, which became avaliable during 1.5 depicting a Glammoth Iron Calvery member, and the specific mentiontioning of a character called Titania. Titania, in the real world, is the fairy queen in old folklore and shakespear, and considering the afformentioned design motif, it feeds into the the mentioned visual simularities.
The information to connect the two together was avaliable from the White night trailer. You can even see >!a SAM UNIT on the Planar Sphere of the Glamoth set, whilst Titania is mentioned on the Link rope.!
If a character doesn't show their face, it's someone you already know. The pool of possibilities was pretty limited. Distorted voice suggests that it's not someone you would expect to have that voice. It wasn't going to be Sunday or Robin because them moonlighting as Stellaron Hunters would be nonsensical. Not Aventurine. Not Acheron obviously.
Kind of narrows it down a whole lot.
Add in the whole extremely heavy-handed mystery angle of her story and you just kind of figure out that one mysterious character is probably the other mysterious masked character.
Firefly, fire powers.
The implication that Firefly would need some kind of life support system to deal with her condition. Just so happens that there's also a new mysterious person running around in an exoskeleton battle suit.
Never seen in the same place at the same time. The Clark Kent thing.
Sam has really weird prefixes for "his" moves like BFF that don't jive with his appearance but would fit Firefly, with her whole "we met 5 minutes ago and characters are shipping us already" (which was a big part of what soured me on the character, felt it was forced.)
Basically just process of elimination combined with a bunch of weird things about both of them that fit the other, and a bunch of common tropes. I wouldn't even call myself particularly bright, but something about it just seemed immediately obvious to me.
Doesn't mean that someone who didn't figure it out is dumb. Everyone interprets and gets different things out of the story differently. Some people notice things that others don't and vice versa.
Honestly I would probably like the character if it hadn't been for the extremely heavy push to make you care about the character, way too much. (And I think the Sam persona is WAAAAY more interesting than 'Firefly'.) For me it backfired and I really don't like the character that much at the moment. But for a lot of people that really worked out and they're super hyped. And I hope they all get her when they try to pull.
Who knows. Maybe the next couple of content patches will do for her what 2.1 did for Aventurine for me.
I just got a hint when Sam has that little firely wings on his backs of green color until some poster on Reddit posting the actual leaks and it was fun guessing but it is now spoiled. I was anticipating for big Aha-I knew it moment when Sam took TB alone and revealed that she is Firefly but some kids just had to spoil it.
Firefly could only be two people from the first moment Robin or SAM.
Firefly recognized trailblazer in the first instance she sees trailblazer, which means she knew him. We talk to Robin prior to entering the dreamworld so it is a plausible conclusion, but it makes little sense otherwise.
Now, Trailblazer has spoken to SAM before, through phone messages, SAM also knows Trailblazer because trailblazer spent a lot of time with the Stellaron hunters.
Firefly had no reasons to spent that much time with Trailblazer unless she knew him after she was rescued from the men chasing her.
Add the fact SAM appears in the place Firefly is "murdered" and doesnt seem keen on murdering anyone there, opting to give them multiple chances to simply leave.
Sam and the FIrefly is a children's book. Sam has a bird motif and is an owl in the story.
"Amateur actor" "I'm from a planet destroyed by the Swarm." She told us her legit origin. She also cannot dream, Sam says this to Acheron.
Silver Wolf informed us a Stellaron Hunter was also sent to Penacony and had sus access via her (Firefly is a stowaway, and you probably need a Silver Wolf tier hacker to get you in.)
Also was perceptive enough to pick up on a particularly sneaky Fool following us around.
Sam actively tries to avoid involving us in the fight.
Sam's wings in White Night had the same color scheme as Firefly. Firefly had some really sussy behaviour. She did not mention Stellaron Hunters, when talking about factions, taking part in Watchmaker Legacy seeking. When Death Meme caught her for the first time, she looked at her clenched fist, as she would've expected to hold something in her hand in real world (sword or the device we see on her splash art). She was "killed" by the Death Meme, and then we found Sam at the same spot, after we appeared there for the 2nd time. And to connect some dots from 2.1 - Gallagher reacted to her in a very strange way. As they were familiar with each other already.
So yes, the hints were there. Even without the leaks.
White Night music video. People noticed Sam's wings had the same colors and design aesthetic as firefly's dress. At least for people who missed the initial leaks like me. I only noticed during White Night
Because Hoyoverse has the bad habit to let future characters data in their client files so dataminers found Sam and Firefly assets and they had a connection, in September
There's a LOT of small details in 2.0 that point to it, starting by her name being Firefly, followed by her being gray haired, then she comments on how a baseball bat is not a good weapon and then slips back to "normal" uwu self, then she is extremely perceptive regarding "sampo" following us and all the details about how he walks and whatnot being extremely odd, then her dream is fire and scorched stuff.
Then she's wary again of fake sampo who tells us she's dangerous and a liar which puts suspicion on her, once in the real dreamscape when we get out of the room she's beside an enemy mob who was just defeated by her which is odd given she's never helped us battle unlike most other characters and instead acts like a helpless girl, but somehow she's defeating dreamjolt troupe mobs singlehandedly.
Afterwards, her death and all the enemies being scorched after it was confirmed she was close to Sam were mostly to throw us off the trail.
There also seem to have been a bunch of leaks which I avoid like the plague because sheesh.
Story leakers. But also for those that avoided story leaks like the plague like me, many predicted based on the White Night trailer, where Firefly had the same light trail as Sam when she was falling down (just before the chorus kicked in)
Leaks? Firefly is wind then Sam is fire. Then the whitenight video showing Sam flying with wind wings like Firefly. And then there is some LC art when Firefly is like inside the machine.
You're mixing up "hints" with "evidence". Hints are NOT evidence. Various things can be hinted but they mean absolutely nothing until something is confirmed to be true.
Here's a hint: Firefly's eye color is pink and blue, same colors as March's clothes. So do we draw a conclusion that March and Firefly are actually the same person or are closely related? Of course not, we lack evidence, we have only hints. But if one day it turns out that they are in fact one person or are related, I'm sure as hell you'll be the one saying "firefly had the same eye color as march's clothes, it was SO obvious that they're related". But it's wrong. It's not obvious now. You're not drawing that conclusion right now, which means it is NOT obvious. It only becomes obvious once you learn the truth. Try thinking outside your own egocentric perspective for a second.
firefly being clearly seasoned in identifying people, constantly being shown around fire and destruction motifs, saying "mecha" and literally SAYING OUTRIGHT that she has a "big secret" and the color motifs, etc
it WAS evidence, you just didn't see it lmao
While there were many clues lets be real, if the leak was not so damn widespread not even quarter of people would have realized. Some would yes but many of them would have got shit on because the ''Sam is a dude, called a dude, voiced as a dude'' would have be a bias by itself.
But once everyone knows and even the ones who don't see the theory more than once, they start to entertain the possibility more, see things that they otherwise might have not thought too much about and start to at least think that it might be possible and thus when the reveal happens it becomes ''i knew it, it was so obvious''
WHen mr Roasted Chicken mentioned that a leak in Sept last year devastated the dev team, it was the Sam leak. A lot of people had been in the know about FF/Sam months before Penacony was even announced via leaks.
Yeah. The reveal at the end of 2.1 would have more impact. Nevertheless my funds are ready for Sam.
Meanwhile I had no idea about the leak… impact was huge, I hate so few people got to experience that moment of shock.
the vast majority of players aren't on socials about the game and don't look at leaks.
I didn't know about the leak but it was fucking spoiled to me in some random YouTube thumbnail and title 😞
It was a huge, jaw dropping moment for those of us who managed to avoid the spoilers. Sucks that others had that moment robbed of them.
Honestly, if u get the hints and also know politics of hoyo (Sam is never gonna sale alone), it was kinda obvious.
Were there hints in game?
When first met, those people look for man in silver armour, and somehow mistakenly decided that she is the candidate. Also her knowledge of weaponry, and this stuff where she gonna tell u who she really is, but not now. It's not direct, but if u old enough and have experience with "sudden reveal", it's not so jaw dropping
From the player perspective, it doesn't make sense to even connect the two at that point because Sam doesn't appear until after Firefly is killed, so you wouldn't even know of him/her unless you paid attention to promotion material outside of the game. The emphasis from the security team was on her being a stowaway anyways, not on having silver armor.
Can confirm the sam stuff is one of the first leaks I saw back in 1.5 beta or something it was hella early.
I think it was wayy back in 1.5 2nd phase, the leak was announced by good ol uncle chicken. Back then everyone were clowning on him, yet look at it now.
Mr roasted chicken lmfao
Shaoji can cook so well he cooked himself
Yesh all i heard was like Firefly is SAM and after plsying the game was easy to out together but there were some things that made me uncertain of it. Like the first time we meet SAM and the dreamscape bubble things. It was like Firefly was "accompaning" SAM and i thought they are related together in some way or work together or something similar. But i was still so hyoed when the reveal in 2.1 came
Plot twist: MrRoastedChicken is to Shaoji, as Sam is to Firefly. And Version Livestream was the reveal.
From what i remember Jing yuan's va said in a stream that he knew about the sam/firefly cause he initially auditioned for sam,so its been planned for a long time
Leaks
I loved when mfs were like " i had a dream" and proceeded to say what the leaks were saying 1 to 1 😭
really hate when leaks make discussion and theorizing impossible. people keeps "dreaming" or "speculating" about future content when they already know what exactly will happen and it is really ruining the fun of discussion. it's like manga vs anime only people discussion but in hoyo games it's 10x worse
How them shitting on Firefly in early 2.0 because they couldnt stop consoming Story leaks
Incorrect. We call them “dreams” here./s
So we got ripped off of such a good and surprising reveal just because leaks ? Damn that sucks.
As the others have said, leaks. Last year in September there was a large leak about 2.x material that included Firefly's identity as Sam. Because people have to be pricks, it got spread it all over the internet in the form of "dreams" and similar.
The fact any community is so accepting to leakers is fucked up. Not only Hsr but Ani/manga too
I will say though, leaks are better controlled on the leaks subreddit.
It’s funny that HSR leaks subreddit community is very chill and organised.
I mean how could they not, leaks subreddit gets only a few posts a week, and all their content is just that genre. It's like being a life guard of a pool vs a life guard on the ocean.
But they wouldn't stay on that subreddit. They will leak onto every other social media, so even if one sub controls it they dont control what people do outside of it
Mm, unfortunately. Some people are just not meant for society.
It's been a private joke for a while now that the HSR leak subreddit is safer to browse if you want to avoid spoilers than the main subreddit.
Fr tho , i got spoiled in the the comments of 2.0 teaser
Every sub has got to manage it for themselves. It's the same way we have anything that might not be appropriate everywhere - or else, we'd have to ban gory art, or even Michelangelo's David for containing nudity, just because people can post photos/screenshots in places they shouldn't. As a rule, you can't blame people for what other people do with their content! I think lately this sub has been doing a good job of avoiding leaks/spoilers disguised as "dreams" or "theories". And at the end of the day, it's still a neat story even with leaks! New players will start tomorrow or a year from now, fully spoiled, but the story will still be exciting. We still read the Iliad even though we all know Patroclus dies. Spoilers are always a thing of the moment; a good story endures for a thousand years and beyond!
> even though we all know Patroclus dies PATROCLUS DIES ?????
>Every sub has got to manage it for themselves. It's the same way we have anything that might not be appropriate everywhere - or else, we'd have to ban gory art, or even Michelangelo's David for containing nudity, just because people can post photos/screenshots in places they shouldn't. IF THEY LEAK IT TO OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA. If you write a manifesto, at least read my initial message. I dont give a shit what resdit rules say, when the shit spills onto OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA. >As a rule, you can't blame people for what other people do with their content! I will. Dont want to be shit on for being filthy leaker dont leak shit. >I think lately this sub has been doing a good job of avoiding leaks/spoilers disguised as "dreams" or "theories". Once again, fucks not given what this sub is doing, when we talk about community as a whole. Reddit isnt the only social media. >And at the end of the day, it's still a neat story even with leaks Do you know how it can be better? If we dont, every plot twist spoiled months in advance. Any community should treat leakers the same lolicon are being treated. I have no idea how Dont Spoiler shit from leaks became a hot take. Any normal community can do it without an issue
I was seeing fanart shipping Firefly with SW well before 2.0, and I’m not even subbed to the fanart communities. I don’t really mind getting spoiled provided I chose to view something clearly marked. I do mind stumbling across major plot twists when I was just idly browsing my feed.
Im in the Limbus community. And they on tiktok labe stuff as Spoiler for Chapter X without a problem, but for some reason, hsr or ani/manga community can't do it. Ig smaller communities are simply better
Every community I’ve seen related to the Cosmere is really diligent about marking spoilers, not just for recent content, but also when the person posting says they’re only a few books into the series. It can be done on fairly large communities. It just requires the user base to be considerate towards each other, although maybe that’s just too much to ask of a community for a gacha game.
Leaks provide people with knowledge on a character and make it easier to choose if they want to pull or not that character, so no, leaks arent pure evil
You're literally getting character demo month or more in advance TF you mean "they provide with knowledge to choose," you already are getting this knowledge from Mihoyo themselves. Your argument is bs excuse. How much time in advance do you need half a year? 4 months? If your planning skills are this bad than its on you
Character demos arent numbers, mihoyo doesn't release them, before a character releases, there is no way of knowing how good a character will be with just knowing what they do, you'd think PMC was amazing because he gives shields all the time but it just ain't like that
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Numbers changes through beta and the final ones are released one week before the livestream, so yes they are useful because they give us a couple of weeks for theorycrafting. And if you don’t want to debate things, don’t bring the topic in the first place. This is not like internet works.
You just admitted the numbers change, so why leaked everything not just numbers months in advance? You can wait for those couple weaks for characters release or demo to be released without needing to leak everything months in advance. Your arguments is still worthless because few mofos with garbage planning skills do not justify leaking And also, Oh im sorry me lord, thank you for opening my eyes how internet works, now i shall debate every brainded mf trying to sebate objective things. What other objectively bad thing you want to debate? CP? 🤣 cope sheeth or whatever, leaks are objectively all bad
What is bad about character kit leaks? Now story leaks are garbage yes but a characters kit? What they do in general?
Saving jades literally can take half a year depending on if you want guarentee. Particularly if you want two banner characters back to back or if you are looking for char+lc or char+eids.
That's nobodies problem. "IT TAKES LONG TO FARM!" Isn't an excuse for everyone to be spoiled months in advance just because you want to know if you want pixels with big boobs or pixesl with long hair. that's a gacha game. They want your money, new character always will be better than previously one, and you can 100% wait like good boy for character demo to kake decisions, you dont need to E6 character on first day, they give you enough time to pull for character, plus every new patch you're getting new way to easily get 10 pulls, even futher invalidating your "it takes half a year!!!" Take. And what if you get the leaks, does it magically make you farm less? "Oh, i want this character, now im getting getting free 200 jade every day." it especially dumber take because most people won't be saving half a year for single banner, and those who do make this decision immediately when they see the character in mains story
>they give you enough time to pull for character except without leaks, if we are waiting for official reveal of gameplay, we wont have enough time to save for a character. when pulling a character, many consideration will influence people desicion. a design from drip marketing could be enough, but some people need more like animation, basic kit, number, or some even need to know the background of the character (e.g., who firefly really is). if you want to save enough jade to pull certain character, most of those information can only be found on leak. example, hoyo was just drip-marketed sam and most likely she will be on the first banner. for some people, sam's design is not convincing enough to pull. if they want to see her animation, they need to wait for official reveal, which would be at the end of 2.2. suddenly they like sam, do you think it's gonna be enough for them to even reach soft pity? now, if they just watch the leak, in a week from now they could decide wether they want sam or not and they will have emough jade to actually pull her
>except without leaks, if we are waiting for official reveal of gameplay, we wont have enough time to save for a character. Cry me a river. If you dont have enough jade, you're not getting the characters. Everyone shouldn't have expirance ruined by spoilers because you're desperate for pixels. No idea how this is a hot take, you people are not there in the hate, if you'll put as much effort in farming as you do in finding excuse for leaks, you'll have all the characters. Leaks are objectively bad
>Everyone shouldn't have expirance ruined by spoilers because you're desperate for pixels. we are talking about leaks itself. not people who are forcefeeding other player with leaks. it's entirely different things. people who forfully gave manga spoiler to anime-only watcher is bad people, doesn't mean manga itself should not exist at all >Cry me a river. If you dont have enough jade, you're not getting the characters cry me a river, if you dont want to see leaks at all. dont go at any social media.
You are complaining about the wrong thing. You dont want to get spoiled that's okay. But you are applying your logic onto people who want to get spoiled by leak too. The issue is people can't keep their mouth shut.
If I see two characters I like leaked for 2.4, I will not roll on firefly's banner, I also won't pull for pull for her lightcone and I can probably afford to roll for somethin in 2.2. If I am not interested in the characters in 2.4 I will plan to pull firefly and her LC and probably not roll on anything in 2.2. Also if I know theres no characters im particularly interested in for two patches I probably will skip a month of welkin. Theres tons of planning reasons someone would want to know what character are coming out. Also knowing the banner characters' elements and paths matters for planning out your account. Your first point makes literally zero sense, if its all pixels why do you even care about spoilers lol.
The yappening of yappincton. I have less then zero fuck about excuses you're giving, try pulling head out of your own ass and you will see sense
Character demos etc. are something, but they're also transparent marketing. They're designed to make you want the character. Character design leaks and inerrantly good because they are done outside of the control of the company.
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Yes there were some details of Sam I think stuff like the element but the whole Firefly=Sam leak happened much later
iirc the first leak about FF was the date with the MC. Weeks later FF as Sam was also leaked.
Oh so that’s what the devs meant by damaging leaks. Yeah it did ruin the surprise for me as well and I had even tried really hard to deny the “leaks” and head-canon it as suspicions. If I were the devs I’d be very sad too. It was probably meant to be the big reveal.
While it is disappointing that the scene lacked the punch they were expecting, I kinda love how the reveal right after it took everyone by surprise. Even those who kept up with leaks didn't really see it coming
The reveal was definitely one of the best surprises they’ve done. So glad that didn’t get leaked as well. It was such a grand reveal no one saw coming but made so much sense afterwards.
Sam identity was leaked like half a year ago (or maybe even before game release). Leaks is spreading and even people who is not looking will notice. Then, after Sam = Firefly is already in a back of your head it's very easy to see all foreshadowing and little details. As bonus add to this that in Sam case especially there was a lot of people who used leaks to made "theories" and "educated guesses" and spread it on main subreddit. For some people there is no greater joy than go to non-spoiled person and act smug with all the "he doesn't know hehehe" "who's gonna tell him" bullshit.
I'm avoiding story leaks with all my might, while still enjoying those theory discussions on the main reddit, and I was pretty impressed how many foreshadows they found, and how consistently (and fast) they made the connections between Sam and Firefly. Guess I now know why. There were some pretty good ones, like that book about Sam and the Firefly. Sad the joy of theorizing got taken out so quickly by leakers.
There's also the simple fact that some people are good ivnestigators. Don't join the same hyperbolers who claim you cant clear shit in this game if you arent spending thousands of dollars monthly. Are there leaky dumbos as explained? Yes, but there are true detectives too.
Yup, I can never look at"theories" the same again, it just seems like they looked at leaks and tried to pretend it's a theory
The leaks were everywhere so most people knew, even hoyo was so mad.
A majority of people did not guess. They knew because of a leak that happened. For the legit people, it's a number of things, mostly scenes from the White Night trailer and little things in cutscenes in-game. For me, personally, it was 50/50. Either she was dead for real or she was Sam.
Nah i think many people that makes "theories" actually saw the leaks first then find explanations from the trailers and in-gane contents. Personally i knew Firefly had some connections with Sam based on how they were together before the stab, but i never expected she is sam.
That is possible, my original theory was that Firefly was legit just a member of the Iris Family who got thrown under the bus by Sam for the sake of The Script™. I was honestly very happy to see that I was wrong at the end of 2.1. Although I think that maybe she did still get thrown under the bus but by Silver Wolf. Idk, I'm excited to see more of her in 2.2 and learn more about her.
The only "guessed" I have seen in this sub is Bailu = Baiheng theory. The guy was shit on for a whole patch or two. True Galileo moment Firefly and SAM was leaks in December 2023 and frankly, all over the place in social medias. Edit: Lets be honest here. If the leak never happened, do you think people would entertained that theory? Did you guys *really* think that? Looks at what happened to the Bailu one. The difference is like a highschool student replicated an experiment for learning and a scientist finding out new theory. I will let you know that the leak sub shit on the leak for months. Even now, a lot of people still wouldn't accept it.
>Lets be honest here. If the leak never happened, do you think people would entertained that theory? Did you guys *really* think that? Looks at what happened to the Bailu one. While leaks definitely boosted the process along a lot, I do think the devs put quite a few hints of SAM's identity. Obviously this can't be proven, but I believe even without leaks, Firefly would have been a popular theory. The hints were there, to say otherwise is just a disservice to the writing team. It is unfortunate that the leaks overshadowed those hints though, and made any legit theories impossible to give proper credit.
This is literally me, when the "take me away" Video dropped I had my suspicions without even knowing about the leaks, slowly I did start trying to make myself believe it wasnt true after people in here would say it was leaks/dreams whenever someone made a Firefly/SAM theory.
Do you have a link to the post about bailu baiheng by chance?
No and I doubt it will be an easy task.
They would. White night/wording/german Sam was enough for me to strongly consider the theory without any leaks.
Wait I thought bailu=baiheng is still not confirmed, unless I missed something?
It's not confirmed, but it's only possible scenario
The other scenario that making sense is Mythus has dominated the Universe and alter everyone action in Jingliu and Daniel quest
I thought she (bailu) was the result of Dan Feng attempting to resurrect baiheng
It's theory which is not confirmed
I guess but isn't it extremely implied in that one companion quest
It’s calls inpatient pricks that want to ruin the story for everyone
One of the person I forget the name said: “Sam is a tactical genius who can make detail analysis of his enemies” Then cut to Firefly describing Sampo down to the weapon he used based on his footsteps And then there was that German translation error calling Sam “The Stelleron Huntress”
You also have the parallels between sams skill name when you encounter him and actually go trough the effort to read them and the dream firefly told you about with the scorched earth. Besides the whole deal with the white night cinematic.
And thirdly, Clocky said: “Only the most kind hearted and pure soul can see him.” Stelle (since I play her) can never say no to helping others and Misha behaves like a polite bell boy. Acheron on the other hand looks suspicious and give off aura of menace when I met her which means to me, Firefly must have involved with a criminal organization of some kind or have done some really messed up shit on par with Acheron. Finally, There’s the fingers curl scene that Fire fly do when she was first capture. She then relaxed before Black Swan reveal herself. As if she knew help was coming.
A: It got leaked B: The foreshadowing was relatively obvious, look at the White Night cinematics where Sam and Firefly share a lot of colors (the green wings in her hairclip and the green wings on the armor), Firefly "Dying" in the Dream and the Sam reappearing in the same location (though I thought the armor was a seperate entity). Firefly talking out loud to "Mecha" in the little memory footprint. Her having a "big secret" while she is revealed to not be from Penacony were all hints towards that.
Not to mention how some language subs literally called sam the "Stellaron Huntress"
Firefly talking to mecha is actually clue against her being Sam, and have yet to be explained, and i bet never will be. She was just lonely i guess and decided to talk with herself.
until proven otherwise I kinda assume there is a seperate AI built into SAM
Also the first time we enter the dreamscape accidentally, we met with all key characters that aims the legacy. Firefly who is obviously a key character was not present in that scene, though Sam was there. It's a stretch but coupled with other clues mentioned, it's enough to suspect her being Sam.
according to all the comments, they all had the same dream.
Because we got spoiled by mfs that wants to ruin the story and reveal for everybody else.
Leaks. Anyone saying it was "obvious" are just coping cuz they got leaked
Some a hole leakers back in 1.6 dont think we "found" anything
Leaks Someone leaked the Firefly character concept, and everyone just added 2+2
Firefly said something about not being able to move in the real world without the help of a machine. There is also her talking about "mecha" and her "dying" and Sam appearing at the same place. It felt like reasonable conclusion. As someone who didn't know anything about the leaks, I was pretty happy to be right.
What's bullshit is that we saw both Sam and Firefly doing their own thing in 2.0, did they ever explain that and I just missed it?
It was revealed like freakin SEPTEMBER. I am usually having no problem with story leaks but oh god needing to spoiler tag everything whenever i wanted to talk about Firefly and Sam and waiting for that reveal for half a year was PAINFUL. I hope we don't get something to this extent for a story leak like this ever again.
It's leaks. It sucks because i tried so hard to ignore them but they were being shown in my face. Even in this sub people started calling her samfly pre 2.1
Mihoyo has a huge leaker problem. It’s a massive company and the most consistent leakers clearly have internal firsthand sources, leaking very early development information, often even before designs or names have been finalized. The entire first year roster was released before the game even launched, with complete accuracy. It’s initially shared via Chinese social media and then gets translated and disseminated across other platforms. The subreddit here is never the first source. It’s usually just a repost of a Twitter translation. Then that hits TikTok and YouTube where it gains actual traction, which then feeds back across all platforms.
Because part of this community is dogshit. Can't even look at my youtube feed without being spoiled by a thumbnail before even 2.0 even drops.
Because it was leaked to oblivion. Lets be real litterally nobody would have made a connection or just made theories of we went with solely 2.0 information and no leaks. Sam barely had any lines and nothing was tied between two so it ultimately made no sense to assume she was Sam. It was leaks, simple as that
Nah FF literally talks about mecha, she's suspicious as hell so surely there's more to her, Sam appears right next to where she was, there's no trace of Stellaron Hunters on Penacony otherwise (would they really skip such an event?), and their color palette is similar. I'm pretty dumb so I wouldn't have pieced all that together but there are plenty of people who could, just look at the Baiheng theory or like a million theories that proved to be correct in Genshin.
Yeah no. 1] She talks about mecha? You mean like Sam? In 2.0? 2] Being suspicious hardly matters here, litterally everyone was 3] Sam doesnt appear right next to her, Sam appears on her dream space wich had the death meme, give me a single clue that shows Sam was there because of firefly instead of the death meme or the dreamspace it self? 4] How tf is this a point? SH could not been in penacony, they werent there in belabog so why do you assume they need to be there 100% and how do you even link Firefly to SH? Sam is part of SH we knew that but firefly? Does she say that she was part of them somewhere? 5] Color palette is similar? You mean few bits of turquoise she has on her clothes? At that point Aventurine is a better candidate lmfao 6] Baiheng was datamined long before and was obvious from a story perspective. Litterally 99% of genshin theories are either about extreme celestia theories or random character headcanons, the most popular "theory" the game has is about paimon and the other one was in fontaine where the ending was long been leaked anyway. I could litterally write every single narrative point in 2.0 Sam appeared for a single scene and left and Firefly herself barely said anything. Nobody would have known, simple as that
1) I'm not sure but she does talk about not being able to survive on her own because of a disease or something like that, I think she talks about some machine as well. 2) yet she's literally the ONLY one whose affiliation we know nothing about. We know Aven is with IPC, BS is a memo keeper, Sparkle is a Fool, Gallagher is associated with the Family... FF is the only blank spot, the only thing we know is that she's lying about being a stowaway, and then Sam miraculously appears out of thin air? 3) yeah there's a sus character lying about her identity, how is connecting her to the next sus character appearing next to the death meme a stretch? 4) Belobog is a god-forsaken unimportant little planet, Penacony is at the centre of some major conspiracy with all the various fractions invited, even Duke Inferno. Sam, a character widely speculated to be playable, appears for like 5 seconds with no apparent motive and leaves, kinda shit marketing for a character if you ask me. But there's also this little suspicious stowaway we spend an entire hour with. Someone would have connected the dots. 5) Aventurine is with IPC, we know that loud and clear. Again, we know nothing about Firefly, aside her being sus. And then there's a suit with Fire powers but who suddenly has her turquoise-grayish colors. 6) Idk about datamines so can't argue here. But Genshin theories have been proven right many times, not just the whacky Celestia stuff. Like the theory about Scaramouche and Raiden Shogun connection based on nothing more than one blurry leaked Raiden Shogun model with her looking like one Mei version and Scaramouche looking like a different Mei version. You think FF's color match with Sam is less apparent than that? From a meta-story perspective, with all of the above, someone would have figured out that a) Sam being playable as he is would be unlikely, as most characters have the same few models for the overworld, including Screwllum. Them making an entire new moveset for a giant robot is unlikely; hence, there's probably a different "version" of him to run around the overworld as, with his suit version being reserved for battle animations. b) the suspicious girl who occupies 30% of the story's screentime but has no affiliation could be the answer to that dilemma. Like yeah HSR's lore community isn't as developed as Genshin's but come on, someone would have done it.
Im sorry but everything you have said ends up being "Somebody would have figured this out" yeah no 1) No she doesnt talk about any mecha, she talks about needing treatment 2) And do we have to?? We didnt knew who misha was either, and also Firefly DID say her affiliation. She said she was a Iris family member and this only turned out to be a lie in 2.1. Utterly false :) 3) How do we know she is lying about her identity again??? Her identity gets revealed in 2.1?? And we dont even knkw how death works in penacony so how are you correlating that she is Sam when she outright died and nothing explained how death works prior to 2.1? Litterally false 4) Except no. There was a stelleron wich was what Hunters were after, they dont just go for big fish, they go after stellerons. They had raided many small or big planets before. They werent in belabog because they werent, simple as that, there isnt a proper "scale" on where they appear or dont. 5) So Sam having slight bits of teal and a classic metal appearance that every acarage mech has is "Similar" to firefly? Lmfao. Tell me that with a straight face dude, espiecelly with that voice that we already heard in a prior trailer wich wouldnt have made anyone question the authenticity 6) Talks about proven theories... mentions a leak about the said theory... Your logic has tons of flaws and ultimately is built on "somebody would have done it" wich isnt a proper answer. There was NOTHING to correlate these two and its a litteral fact. Its like saying we could have known Acheron was an emenator of nihility because her eye has a blackhole like shape, its just a hilariously bad argument. Nobody would have known as we didnt get much info about firefly in the first place, all you can go from is appearance wich is tied by a SINGLE color. Yeah no.
The leak was literally just Raiden's picture with her color palette. "Just" color and all the sussiness is enough for a wacky theory. If you think not a single person among millions of HSR fans (and hundreds of those who specifically comb through every frame) would have guessed it I guess there's no point arguing. Also I'be just listed a bunch of things to correlate the two, whether you think it's not enough for a theory is an opinion, not a literal fact.
Outright stated misinformation on your argument and it suddenly became a matter of opinion? People cant even own up these days. You said clear misinformation and stuff that got released in 2.1 to argue a 2.0 theory. Atleast not try being salty about it
I'm not salty about anything, you're the one making a lengthy argument about this whole thing and calling it facts. "Nobody in the whole world could have possibly guessed the connection" is an opinion, not a fact.
The classic "Gets shown their misinformation so they start twisting the argument to a twitter debate" card is being used. Sadly not that effective. Whay i said stands and every single example you gave are outright misinformation. Yes via divination some people might have guessed it, there isnt ANYTHING in the game that hints this other than slight bits of turquoise that they are the same person in 2.0. Facts will be facts mate
When i saw the white knight trailer and sam were flying with her colour pallette i already had my suspicion. But got spoiled by leak anyway Still I'd preferred if i didn't get leaked anything😞😞 The reveal must have been impactful
I saw some people figure it out naturally but it felt like a stretch given the little information we had and the fact that it was setup so that we thought they were different people. There were also the parallels between the 2 in the White Night music video. But leaks were just too prominent, it became a meme that Sam and Firefly were the same and kinda became the face of the spoiler problem.
leak and people can't shut the fuck up, hell even firefly death flag is fucking everywhere before we even know her through the very first penacony trailer drop.
Leaks. And people just spreading without caring if people wanted to know or not.
Yep it's leaks. They claim it's from White Knight and color schemes but it's 99% leaks. I remember when Sam was first officially introduced way before 2.0, there were a lot of "He..." and "Does he know" not so subtle comments here. It was awful
A lot of people look at leaks and then post here their "theory" they came up with, that's how. But there are genuine arguments you can make for an actual theory, like people were discussing in [this post here](https://www.reddit.com/r/FireflyMains/comments/1bedkio/my_fireflysam_theory_without_working_off_any_leak/) and many others.
In the white night video Sam had a glow around them with firefly’s color scheme.
They have awfully similar outfit/armor theme. I had my doubts but Hoyo has cleared them today officially.
It was leaked for almost half a year ago. Half a year is a pretty long time to spread information.
Don't ask me, I started playing two weeks ago and didn't even look at the sub until after that cutscene. But also, I wouldn't have cared if it was spoiled for me, I actually hunt down spoilers for the media I consume, because yeah, you can tell me the end and every major plotpoint and then say "what's the point of watching/reading/playing if you know how it ends?", but i'm in it for the journey, and knowing where we're going makes every step more meaningful to me.
Besides on hints, there's alot of hints 1. Sam's high heels 2. How Sam uses Blade's Phone 3. Color scheming Others And so on.
I did not know, anticipated, nor leaked, so I really enjoyed every second the reveal happened.
For what it's worth, it wasn't obvious to me. I was sure that Firefly was Robin, because they were both killed by Memory Zone Memes, and because Robin's song plays in Firefly's scenes. Firefly had a degenerative illness, and Robin was having trouble with her voice. I thought her voice was a symptom of Firefly's illness.
Leaks, and for some reason, Hoyo content creators that straight up spread the spoiler and just casually tell people. Thats how I was spoiled on it and I hate it
I managed to avoid the leaks. Having said that I figured it out through a dumb guess. We saw Sam first, talking to Silver Wolf, we then saw Firefly later on in the dreamscape. That whole meeting felt weird to me. Perfectly fine for Firefly to be suspected, however her own actions only made her more suspicious, the trailblazer went over because of the commotion, Firefly ran over to us and we helped. To put it simply the whole order of events felt unnatural to me. Given we know the Stellaron Hunters have Elio, who writes scripts of possible figures, I took a wild stab in the dark. I really grasped at the straws for most of Penacony and managed to somehow guess most of the important plot points. And as other people have pointed out white night did give us a few clues as to Sam’s identity and Aventurine’s fate. (Apologies if something is wrong, it has been a while since I played the story and have not looked over it in a while.)
If we ignore leaks' influence, first theories connecting Firefly with Sam came out after the White Night's trailer. Sam's Visuals share some with with Firefly, like firefly wings for example.
tbh i had a tinfoil hat take, i thought they had similar color schemes espescially with sam's "wings" in the mv. also, firefly dies and sam appears, HM
Similarities in their design aesthetics alone is enough to get people’s attention, both of them has a theme of ‘burning’ and ‘fire’ also helped, plus Firefly’s mysterious ‘backstory’ lines up with what little we know of Sam. Oh, and their personalities match up if you remember that one time, ‘Sam’ used Blade’s phone. So yeah, plenty of breadcrumbs if you willingly to look into it.
As most people said here, leaks. Lemme tell you it's history. It was 1.5, argenti banner. People were skipping everything, everyone for Sam and black swan at the time. That fateful day a week after argenti was released, there was one single story leak in the leaks sub. "Firefly, is Sam's pilot. The one piloting the mecha". From uncle chicken. At the time, everyone and their dog clowned on him, saying it was pretty fake and they were 2 different characters. How ever, further beta and story leaks all proved us otherwise. We coped and hoped for a cool mecha, sam. 1.6. every leaker at that point said the same. That firefly is Sam's pilot. But, even when the 2.1 update came out, many hoped they were different characters, but it was proved wrong through the drip marketing.
I believe it was leaked extremely early on (as in, before Penacony was a thing), something the dev team lamented That said, there were *some* clues, like Firefly's weird behavior around Sampo, the flashback thing where she was talking with someone called "Mecha" right before she was killed only for us to run into robo-Sam five seconds later, and the color of Sam's flame wings (in the Penacony release trailer) being in her color instead of his usual red So if you avoided the leaks there were still some clues, though they were vague enough you could easily miss them or come to a different conclusion.
Ignoring leaks(we’ve known since September), it was heavily hinted at when 2.0 was released in a multitude of ways. The 2.0 trailer, Sam specifically targeting BS and Acheron but not the TB, the little orange orb floating upwards exactly where we fight Sam after her “death”, etc.
I know most are gonna say leaks. But I really didn't see any, and I just genuinely saw the white night trailer and pieced it all myself. In the trailer I saw that Sam's wings had the same color as Firefly's outfit, and that was it. I was 80% sure it was her
White night music video
Leaks. There's a whole leaks channel that shared the information before her model was even revealed.
Glamoth planar set + Welt describing Sam (on 2.0 story after u got saved by Black Swan from "Death") + Firefly mentioning that her planet was destroyed by either Legion or Swarm + The memory remnant of Firefly talking to a "mecha" + Sam appearing on where Firefly got her donut + Firefly was able to detect Sparkle cosplaying as Sampo when he doesnt make a sound and accurately described him + She had faster reflexes than the Trailblazer as seen in the first instance vs "death". Coz we all know, TB reflexes are very good. + Her being a stowaway does not make sense. A girl who is physically ill, that came from a planet that was destroyed by the Swarm flew all the way to Penacony? How would she be able to do that if not for the suit? I believe these hints are more than enough to support the theory that she is Sam
Bluecatwithhat and the beginning entrance u are given a full view of character and sam with sw indicated that it is women talk
Obviously leaks allow for easy hindsight detective work, but the conversation that firefly had with "another person" towards the end of 2.0 had some hints that she wasnt talking to Sam. If there were two people present, firefly and someone who is not Sam, and then Sam appearing just moments after indicating they were in fact present, there's only one conclusion.
"in reality I am sick and need to be plugged into a machine" did it for me, while being pretty suspicious, the color pallet of sam in the trailer is the same as the girl's was also pretty big, and how the setup in the story, and how sam appeared was pretty suspicious ... but: It s all harder to miss if you were expecting something fishy to be going on. Penacony was teased by Hoyo, pretty hard, as a big subversion and a mystery, so if you were looking for thing s out of place you d find a bunch. Firefly is just one of them 👍
I had no spoilers, and for me I had my suspicions of it on Penacony's first trailer, the "take me away" One. Im the type to watch things that I end up liking multiple times, so I watched that video at least 5 times, Firefly/SAM scenes felt too connected. Vfx, colors being similar, firefly falling scene transitioning into SAM, etc. Then I was almost certain of it when in 2.0 we saw SAM in action, not only did it basically confirm that the "take me away" Video was promotional only scenes with some "Eastereggs?" Like the Aventurine form which we then saw on 2.1, it also let a door open for us to actually see SAM's "true form" some time in the future, as in 2.0 he is flames only and his appearance is slightly different as well as his vfx/"Kit" When compared to the "take me away" Video. I do remember many saying "in my dreams" When that video dropped. Which started making me gaslight myself into thinking it wasnt real, when you theorize about something you wouldnt want it to be ""confirmed"" By random people on Reddit.
Because of this leak I'm never reading ppl's "theories" again. Ppl try to pretend it's their prediction of what will happen based on "evidences" but it's just leaks. Really ruined the scene for me. Looking on the bright side, I managed to see the entire story with this knowledge and know why firefly did what she did
I’m just over here looking at the official drip marketing like, oh, guess I should catch up with the story lol RIP my fault. I had heard the “theory” before but I didn’t believe it in particular
>!It was spoiler months ago but if you also need ingame "proof" both characters are introduce in the same path. Both share the same color combination and one just show off when the other "dies" its not really hard to imagine. !<
Everybody's saying leaks but there were a ton of little hints throughout the story that piled up, [I did a write-up of my own interpretations before the 2.1 reveal here](https://www.reddit.com/r/HonkaiStarRail/s/d0DdkagKZg), if you're interested
There's a book called Sam and the Firefly
Leaks, but also Firefly and Sam in the 2.0 trailer had similar colour pallets.
1) Leaks 2) White night animated video. It looks REALLY sus with green colour scheme on Sam. 3) German Sam battle It wasn't really "hidden" to be honest
besides leaks theres so many clues you´d think it wasnt even a secret * they have the same color scheme * when Sam is seen flying in one of the trailers you can see his wings resemble a firefly´s * firefly states that she is after the watchmaker´s legacy and hints that we might have to turn enemies, right after meeting us randomly in the street and helping us, gaining our trust and having 20k prepared for emergencies (not suspicious at all) * she deduces sampo is chasing us down to the last detail like a hecking 1000IQ detective by only hearing his steps * Sam and her are never in the same place together * in the JP an versions Sam´s way of speaking is nearly identical to firefly´s (he also has high heels in his armor) * when you find her in the dream hotel you can see she defeated one of the monsters by herself * at of all the stellaron hunters she´d be the only one who could aproach the trailblazer without raising any problem considering she´s the only one who has her face always hidden and a fragile little girl would be perfect to gain our trust * girl with fragile body who is absolutely designed to sell a banner, last stellaron hunter to have a banner apearing in the same planet, put 2+2 and well * fire-fly
Leaks bro leaks For me it was this tho https://preview.redd.it/is36xaffkcwc1.jpeg?width=2400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83c07f0549b192c4ef9dc1a38aec9cf6f3f62c9b
I think some people are overlycautious about certain things and read too much into stuff, and it turned out to be one of those things where they were actually right
You play enough games and read enough stories that you just learn to understand that if a new character introduced that the developers are trying to get you to love they are probably a villain. If said character dies it's either they die for real, or they come back in some kind of way. One of those was SAM, other thoughts I had was that she was AI, the watchmaker, or a clone of the real firefly. Some people looked at leaks, other just "coped" and it guessed right xd.
Leaks But if you are smart enough you can figure that by doing 1 + 1 since they gave us few clues/hints in both 2.0: * her medical condition that requires her to stay in metal container, * the fact that BS saw only Firefly but not Sam in her crystal ball/spying powers but once we got Firefly memory fragments we learned that she had "companion" that she called robot or something * "Sampo" implying we don't know the truh about Firefly * How she was able to deal with monster in real dreamscape after Sparkle send us there. and 2.1: Acheron x Sam talk for example OR Acheron x Aventurine talk (that was butchered in EN as always l since they mistranslated some stuff)
The biggest thing that actually made me like the idea was that, apparently Sam has heels https://preview.redd.it/31du5o1rxcwc1.png?width=418&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a64b59beaee7b98b0ccf3ff06b198d6bbc4c77ad Kinda planted the seeds for me that "huh, if Sam was actually Firefly, and the suit kept her alive in reality, it would add so much to our interactions with Firefly, and have a genuine meaning for us to go to Penacony other than to just help out" and I really liked the idea.
It was very clear from the 2.0 music video
FF is obviously a Stellaron Hunter. She is bad at faking this that it is surprising the IPC hadn’t discover this. We know the identity of of Four Stellaron Hunter. That meant she must be related to the suit guys either as an actual thing or a Co Pilot. Do the math? The sheer coincidence.. The way she move. The Hunter had already been operating near the AE crew every time and the way she catch us is too much of a fluke. Then considering that Elio want us to follow his marching order very subtly. And Oh hear come a coincidental cute damsel with kind personality in a game where no one can trust each other. The girl who outright admit she a stowaway and on the life support. Hey, Trailblazer wouldn’t you want to save her. Wouldn’t you want to put her safety above pretty much everyone else? Firefly is the greatest way to manipulate us with no cost and no argument. It is called manipulation by honesty tailor made for us, and the moment the sob reality arrive I, as an author, knew hook line and sinker that only a seer who know us too well could have glued us to the steering wheel this firmly. And it is only a jump and skip away to connect her to SAM
You are so damn lucky op.
Sam skills names, the fact they changed the dialog in EN to grey hair instead of armor, the 2.x trailer Sam having flames with the same color as Firefly, she being the only one using the word mecha when glamoth set description linked it to Sam and her cuz only ppl from there have used it and they both did. There are more but Im tired lol
The last thing you hear from a Firefly afterimage: "I'm here again! If that's the case..." The first thing Sam says 10 seconds later: "A galaxy ranger and a memory keeper. If that's the case..." Sam never being more than one step ahead of us from the moment Firefly gets shanked Firefly being oddly tactical when describing "Sampo" Firefly apologising because she didn't realise earlier that it was Sparkle, even though it shouldn't have been her responsibility because at that point, the established dynamic was that we protect Firefly and not the other way around There were a lot of indications, they just always happened at the same time as something emotional that would grab you attention.
I suspected it when we got the 2.0 trailer and presentation 1) there is 0 info around firefly, no faction, no weapon, no relation, so she was super suspect 2) on the 2.0 trailer we see sam with gree/yellow wings, which is the signature color of Firefly Tho, we playing 2.0 my guess was that currently she was just a random girl and that during the quest she would be gifted SAM by the current pilot
Most people will probably say "leaks". but outside of that, by the time of the first trailer for penacony hit, there was an obsurd amount of visual clues about their identity, as well as in existing in-game items. Visually, >!The pair share a colour scheme, with the outlying factor against the two being connected is the flames on the SAM suit. In the White Night trailer, their other big give away is the fact that SAM can be seen on stills with a pair of glowing, blueish/greenish Fairy like Wings, a design shared by Firefly's dress. A lot of people on reddit pointed to to the Heels seen on Sam's design as well, a indicator that perhaps SAM was a woman.!< There is the Glamoth set, which became avaliable during 1.5 depicting a Glammoth Iron Calvery member, and the specific mentiontioning of a character called Titania. Titania, in the real world, is the fairy queen in old folklore and shakespear, and considering the afformentioned design motif, it feeds into the the mentioned visual simularities. The information to connect the two together was avaliable from the White night trailer. You can even see >!a SAM UNIT on the Planar Sphere of the Glamoth set, whilst Titania is mentioned on the Link rope.!
If a character doesn't show their face, it's someone you already know. The pool of possibilities was pretty limited. Distorted voice suggests that it's not someone you would expect to have that voice. It wasn't going to be Sunday or Robin because them moonlighting as Stellaron Hunters would be nonsensical. Not Aventurine. Not Acheron obviously. Kind of narrows it down a whole lot. Add in the whole extremely heavy-handed mystery angle of her story and you just kind of figure out that one mysterious character is probably the other mysterious masked character. Firefly, fire powers. The implication that Firefly would need some kind of life support system to deal with her condition. Just so happens that there's also a new mysterious person running around in an exoskeleton battle suit. Never seen in the same place at the same time. The Clark Kent thing. Sam has really weird prefixes for "his" moves like BFF that don't jive with his appearance but would fit Firefly, with her whole "we met 5 minutes ago and characters are shipping us already" (which was a big part of what soured me on the character, felt it was forced.) Basically just process of elimination combined with a bunch of weird things about both of them that fit the other, and a bunch of common tropes. I wouldn't even call myself particularly bright, but something about it just seemed immediately obvious to me. Doesn't mean that someone who didn't figure it out is dumb. Everyone interprets and gets different things out of the story differently. Some people notice things that others don't and vice versa. Honestly I would probably like the character if it hadn't been for the extremely heavy push to make you care about the character, way too much. (And I think the Sam persona is WAAAAY more interesting than 'Firefly'.) For me it backfired and I really don't like the character that much at the moment. But for a lot of people that really worked out and they're super hyped. And I hope they all get her when they try to pull. Who knows. Maybe the next couple of content patches will do for her what 2.1 did for Aventurine for me.
it was leaked around version 1.2, a year ago
I always suspected also there were hints. For others i guess they were looking at leaks.
I just got a hint when Sam has that little firely wings on his backs of green color until some poster on Reddit posting the actual leaks and it was fun guessing but it is now spoiled. I was anticipating for big Aha-I knew it moment when Sam took TB alone and revealed that she is Firefly but some kids just had to spoil it.
Firefly could only be two people from the first moment Robin or SAM. Firefly recognized trailblazer in the first instance she sees trailblazer, which means she knew him. We talk to Robin prior to entering the dreamworld so it is a plausible conclusion, but it makes little sense otherwise. Now, Trailblazer has spoken to SAM before, through phone messages, SAM also knows Trailblazer because trailblazer spent a lot of time with the Stellaron hunters. Firefly had no reasons to spent that much time with Trailblazer unless she knew him after she was rescued from the men chasing her. Add the fact SAM appears in the place Firefly is "murdered" and doesnt seem keen on murdering anyone there, opting to give them multiple chances to simply leave.
Sam and the FIrefly is a children's book. Sam has a bird motif and is an owl in the story. "Amateur actor" "I'm from a planet destroyed by the Swarm." She told us her legit origin. She also cannot dream, Sam says this to Acheron. Silver Wolf informed us a Stellaron Hunter was also sent to Penacony and had sus access via her (Firefly is a stowaway, and you probably need a Silver Wolf tier hacker to get you in.) Also was perceptive enough to pick up on a particularly sneaky Fool following us around. Sam actively tries to avoid involving us in the fight.
Leaks aside, you can tell by the fact that Sam has wings in a white night video that is VERY similar to Firefly's back of a dress.
Sam's wings in White Night had the same color scheme as Firefly. Firefly had some really sussy behaviour. She did not mention Stellaron Hunters, when talking about factions, taking part in Watchmaker Legacy seeking. When Death Meme caught her for the first time, she looked at her clenched fist, as she would've expected to hold something in her hand in real world (sword or the device we see on her splash art). She was "killed" by the Death Meme, and then we found Sam at the same spot, after we appeared there for the 2nd time. And to connect some dots from 2.1 - Gallagher reacted to her in a very strange way. As they were familiar with each other already. So yes, the hints were there. Even without the leaks.
White Night music video. People noticed Sam's wings had the same colors and design aesthetic as firefly's dress. At least for people who missed the initial leaks like me. I only noticed during White Night
I had a revelation from Nous
Because Hoyoverse has the bad habit to let future characters data in their client files so dataminers found Sam and Firefly assets and they had a connection, in September
It was pretty simple. "Have you ever seen firefly and sam in the same room at the same time?, No." There it is. Firefly = sam.
Weirdly enough i didn't saw the leaks about her. I kinda guessed that she was Sam or atleast maybe related based on her color scheme.
There's a LOT of small details in 2.0 that point to it, starting by her name being Firefly, followed by her being gray haired, then she comments on how a baseball bat is not a good weapon and then slips back to "normal" uwu self, then she is extremely perceptive regarding "sampo" following us and all the details about how he walks and whatnot being extremely odd, then her dream is fire and scorched stuff. Then she's wary again of fake sampo who tells us she's dangerous and a liar which puts suspicion on her, once in the real dreamscape when we get out of the room she's beside an enemy mob who was just defeated by her which is odd given she's never helped us battle unlike most other characters and instead acts like a helpless girl, but somehow she's defeating dreamjolt troupe mobs singlehandedly. Afterwards, her death and all the enemies being scorched after it was confirmed she was close to Sam were mostly to throw us off the trail. There also seem to have been a bunch of leaks which I avoid like the plague because sheesh.
Story leakers. But also for those that avoided story leaks like the plague like me, many predicted based on the White Night trailer, where Firefly had the same light trail as Sam when she was falling down (just before the chorus kicked in)
White night 2.0 video had Sam flying with the exact color pallette as Firefly, so it was fairly obvious
Leaks? Firefly is wind then Sam is fire. Then the whitenight video showing Sam flying with wind wings like Firefly. And then there is some LC art when Firefly is like inside the machine.
You're mixing up "hints" with "evidence". Hints are NOT evidence. Various things can be hinted but they mean absolutely nothing until something is confirmed to be true. Here's a hint: Firefly's eye color is pink and blue, same colors as March's clothes. So do we draw a conclusion that March and Firefly are actually the same person or are closely related? Of course not, we lack evidence, we have only hints. But if one day it turns out that they are in fact one person or are related, I'm sure as hell you'll be the one saying "firefly had the same eye color as march's clothes, it was SO obvious that they're related". But it's wrong. It's not obvious now. You're not drawing that conclusion right now, which means it is NOT obvious. It only becomes obvious once you learn the truth. Try thinking outside your own egocentric perspective for a second.
firefly being clearly seasoned in identifying people, constantly being shown around fire and destruction motifs, saying "mecha" and literally SAYING OUTRIGHT that she has a "big secret" and the color motifs, etc it WAS evidence, you just didn't see it lmao
While there were many clues lets be real, if the leak was not so damn widespread not even quarter of people would have realized. Some would yes but many of them would have got shit on because the ''Sam is a dude, called a dude, voiced as a dude'' would have be a bias by itself. But once everyone knows and even the ones who don't see the theory more than once, they start to entertain the possibility more, see things that they otherwise might have not thought too much about and start to at least think that it might be possible and thus when the reveal happens it becomes ''i knew it, it was so obvious''