What is Resonance exactly?

In light of having seen the Music Season story (if a bit late, got it done mere days before this latest update) I feel like Infinity Nikki has finally provided an answer to a question I've had about one of the in-game functionalities. 

 Like if you think about it, isn't it kind of strange that (at least as far as I've been able to personally tell anyway) Resonance hasn't been seen as a canon functionality? It's the gacha system yes, it doesn't need to be justified really. But it is a little curious compared to other things in game.

The hourglasses are real functions that exist in-game, the pear-pal menu is quite literally a digital creature tablet i.e. like the rotom pokedex from pokemon, the compendium is a real thing that the characters can use to go through and see the various outfits that matter to Miraland. So why is it in all of this, Resonance as a function has gone unjustified in-universe?

 Well we may finally know how it works now vaguely, but I don't think it's going to change my verdict much on how canon I view particular outfits to be. But let me just talk about my speculation about Resonance in light of the word having come up.

 
So the dress that Nikki wears for the Evermelody Troupe performance, Echoed Dreams, is shown in art in the back of the theater. Teased also by Renita in the boss fight sequence as a dress that she wanted to wear someday for a big performance for the troupe. I feel like in backreading my blog you can probably tell already that this dress isn't really canon to me, but we'll unpack the full lore when we get there. The point I was trying to get at, is that Nikki puts on this dress and performs basically alongside Renita in her dream dress.

 (By the way I didn't think to screenshot this moment when it happened, so I'm taking this dialogue box from emari harukawa on YT who posted the full quest)

She says after the show that she'd felt a resonance with Renita during that performance, though it was gone after the curtains closed. It seems like we can draw the conclusion that this is exactly how Resonance banners are supposed to work, with Nikki's Whimancy resonating with another person or with the whim associated with a situation. This is what allows her to take on a different appearance on the spot, because her whim just can bend to suit any situation she gets herself into.

This doesn't really work as a justification for every outfit situation however, like Crimson Rhapsody happened because of a faewish sprite making the outfit on the spot for her, and even Echoed Dreams is not shown to have happened due to resonating Whimancy. It seemed entirely like Nikki might've made the dress before the performance, it's not like it's really beyond her capability anyway. It seems very much like the story is implying she's made Wishful Aurosa by this point, with their insistence of what a hero she is.

(I really do have questions about the timeline of events in the story vs in-game event stories because of the way you can complete the main story anytime without it often getting referenced; but let's not get into that today.)

So I guess now we know what Resonance is, it is quite literally Nikki's whim just bringing things into existence at least part of the time out of her control, as a result of her whim resonating with essentially more whim. I always suspected that the Resonance outfits that showed up within the story, probably had something to do with her whim, but it wasn't really spelled out in so much detail before the Music Season.

 But what does this mean for my rules? A big part of my rules has always felt like Resonance is less canon than Sketches because Resonance went unjustified in canon directly. Does this potential explanation change anything?

Well honestly not much. It makes Resonance as a concept less strange in-universe anyway, at least now we have an explanation for where the hell these things are coming from exactly. But context is still key to me here, as outfits that haven't appeared in the story still don't seem particularly canon. Even if they have appeared in the story, yes Resonance could be how it happens but sometimes that is not the given justification. Dance Till Dawn happened because Scintillada applied his own whim to bring Dance Till Dawn into existence for Nikki for only a few moments. We can potentially speculate from this that Nikki could feel Resonance again to bring Dance Till Dawn into existence, but we have nothing to suggest that she did.

Does this make some outfits seem a bit more likely because it makes Resonance make a little more sense? Yeah, I have less to gripe about in that regard if my speculation here is correct. It still feels like there should be something to prompt this Resonance in the story, but you could just as easily say that some outfits that don't appear anywhere, happen just as a result of some inspiration from Nikki. Maybe she heard the story to the outfits and sought to make it happen herself, I am especially willing to buy this for Dream Banquet and Adventure Ride because of the fact they are actually referenced in-universe even if they're not used in any story scenes.

So...yeah! I guess it's extra justification and I have less to complain about, but I still will prioritize the story scenes that are shown over what can be simply guessed at. I love speculation, I love guessing sorta vibes from Nikki and her story, but what's outright shown will always come first. Not to mention the context behind the outfits even if they are shown, since yeah Nikki's whim can resonate in many ways; but I really question if she'd straight up take someone's gift even if they're no longer around to receive it.

I know this is sorta off topic to what I've been doing on this blog so far, I honestly just felt like going off about this. Pardon my quiet in my posts though, I swear I am aiming to have a schedule down just in real life scheduling does come first! But I shall be aiming for this Friday anyway!