The Passengers in the Comments Can See Themselves

Before anyone presses play

A mysterious broadcast interrupts people in two worlds. Aboard the Astral Express, March and Stelle spend a moment deciding whether either of them actually said anything. At a funeral parlor on Teyvat, Hu Tao wonders what kind of ghost would be foolish enough to haunt the people professionally equipped to deal with it. Hotaru12 gets a surprising amount of mileage from this simple cut. A voice with no body means something different to the crew of a space train, a frightened traveling companion and an entrepreneurial funeral director.

The title sells spectacular revelations. Much of the pleasure of the first eight chapters lies in the waiting room. Nobody has agreed on the rules. Stelle discovers that a thought she has barely finished can appear where other people read it. March greets everyone and immediately has to clarify that she was asking whether anyone besides the person beside her was there. The exchanges are at their funniest when the reader can remember where people are physically sitting. An interstellar audience has become possible, yet two friends sharing a sofa can still get on each other's nerves.

A small question with a real answer

Lumine asks a stranger whether she knows Nahida. The reader has just seen Nahida hear the broadcast from confinement, so the several exchanges it takes March to consult her companions can be unexpectedly touching. The cast has not assembled to perform a crossover for our benefit alone. One person urgently wants news of a friend. Notice how carefully Lumine introduces herself before asking for it. There is quite a different rhythm to a message you need somebody you have never met to answer.

The chat also makes a rather good instrument for getting people's importance wrong. A general celebrated on the Luofu is an unfamiliar name to people on the other side. Scaramouche takes local ignorance as a measure of the general's importance. A diviner tries to trace a speaker, fails and supplies an explanation that makes sense within her own world. Readers who know one game better than the other can enjoy the unusual position of sometimes sharing the ignorance and sometimes seeing exactly which insult has just landed.

The other audience in the room

The format grows more interesting when a video editor addresses an audience of players. Silver Wolf can define a term for people who follow a game without playing it. Stelle wants to know why the editor is addressing players at all when the material concerns her life. One question can be answered with a definition. The other makes the entire crew's relationship to the broadcast unsettling. The book has the good comic sense to let a perfectly informative answer miss the point.

Outside comments then compare the strength of the two settings with the casual confidence of spectators arguing over a matchup. Boothill dismisses a place whose inhabitants are reading over his shoulder. The screen fills with ellipses. After pages of exclamation marks, the silence is superbly timed. Elsewhere Neuvillette has already given the relative size of a world a different measure, observing what it means to the people who have to live there. An abstract question about which setting could destroy the other has acquired neighbors, businesses and a thoroughly embarrassed speaker.

Who can extend an invitation?

Paimon wants the train to come. Lumine, who would also like to travel, wonders who granted them permission to invite strangers on behalf of everyone at home. Several Archons then post enthusiastic welcomes while she is still considering the matter. This is an effective joke about the limits of deliberation in a fast-moving group conversation. In private, Zhongli also sees a chance to establish contacts with people his world might one day need. Hu Tao wants him to mention the funeral business. An invitation can carry diplomatic calculation and a sales pitch at the same time.

The practical obstacle that follows is pleasingly modest. Nobody can give the crew usable coordinates. Goodwill opens a discussion and still leaves a navigator without a destination. At other times the writing takes two or three turns around an insult after its point has landed. Switching from a comment to a reaction in the room and back to the chat can mean reading an explanation of the joke one has just understood. The pace will suit someone happy to linger with familiar characters much better than someone waiting for the actual jump.

What the camera catches

When the Penacony footage gets going, it returns us to the route meeting close to where we began. This time the passengers can see the meeting from outside. A conductor who would like help tracing three former travelers gets an altogether different distinction from a young viewer who loves those fluffy ears. Stelle worries about her appearance on camera. It is a neat demonstration of how little power the subject of an image has over what other people find memorable. It also tells a prospective reader exactly what kind of fan fiction this is. Knowing who sits in the observation car will carry you some way. Wanting to hear them argue about how they look in somebody else's edit will carry you much further.