I'm kinda confused about the traveler's story rn

Yeah, shit's super confusing and Hoyo just keeps adding to it.

It feels to me like the story is that things don't fit together like they should. That things didn't happen the way you thought they did OR the world doesn't think things happened the way they did happen(IE, sibling fucked with Irminsul).

Traveler/Abyss Twin Timeline

1. Traveler and Abyss Twin start traveling on Space Ship
2. Abyss Twin gets summoned to Khaenri'ah and has some form of Amnesia while the spaceship crashes on Teyvat
3. At some point, regains memory and looks for the space ship
4. Cannot find the Space ship and continues their duties in Khaenri'ah
5. Cataclysm happens and the Abyss Twin runs into Direidyth with a hibernation key. The Abyss Twin then rushes off to the space ship
6. They wake up the Traveler and they take off. The Opening cutscene happens during this period
7. Abyss Twin reappears on Teyvat Shortly after and has a journey with Dain until eventually joining the Abyss order
8. Traveler wakes up centuries later and fishes Paimon out. Start of their Journey
9. Space and time for you happens and explains how Direidyth obtained the Hibernation key to the Abyss Sibling

So as far as I can tell, the intro was traveler and their sibling trying to escape teyvat but stopped by Heavenly Principles. So it is after traveler wake up from his hibernation pod.

We don't know why, but Nod krai did give us few theories, that is for you to discovered.

very basic explanation

1 - Twins crash land in Nod Krai

2 - they are in hibernation for an uncertain amount of time

3 - Kheanriya used magics to summon people, trying to summon a descender they ended up summoning the twin (that's how they left the ship without visibly leaving the ship)

4 - Twin had no memories of their twin or past (likely due to being summoned out of the hibernation pod interrupting how the wake up is supposed to go)

5 - Twin has the same absorption energy as traveler, King Irmin uses this to make the twin absorb countless amount of abyssal energy

6 - At some point twin starts remembering their true past, the Kheanriya revolt happens leading to the cataclysm

7 - twin has to choose between saving kheanriya (the place they now consider a "homeland" due to living there however long and becoming the prince/ss of Kheanriya) or rushing to their twin

8 - Twin chooses to go to traveler, wakes them up and the two start fleeing

9 - they run into Susty and she puts traveler into a nightmare filled sleep for 500 years, in this time the twin felt regret for abandoning Kheanriya, traveled with Dain and ended up running into Clothar and Caribert leading to twin meeting the sinner and then forming the abyss order.

10 - Traveler wakes up catches Paimon and the Journey starts

It's not super clear yet, on purpose. I think we'll find out by the end of Nod-Krai, but maybe not till the end of Snezhnaya. The opening cutscene is either before they reach Teyvat for the first time, or after the twins initially separated, and I'm not sure we have enough support on either side to definitively say yet

Keep in mind that the intro is probably Paimon trying to picture what Traveler is drawing on sand for her. Traveler doesn't speak the language fluently and Paimon is the unreliable narrator. This is addressed pretty early, when Dain tells us about Khaenri'ah and Paimon is surprised there's more to the story,

There is definitely some time traveling shenanigans going on here. I would say there is a good chance that the space and time shades are working with the sibling. Keep in mind hundreds of years have passed between the scene at the beginning of the game and when we meet MC and Paimon. That scene also occurs after the fall of Khaenri'ah as it occurs when the sibling learns MC is in hibernation in their ship. The sibling goes to get MC and they try to leave Teyvat, but are stopped by the space shade.

>Was this before or after being attacked by the heavenly principles?

You already got your answer from perfectchaos, Traveler hibernated before the opening scene. However, it's worth noting that the Twins weren't attacked by The Heavenly Principles (at least not technically/directly). They were attacked by Asmoday, the Shade of Space, who calls herself "The **Sustainer** of The Heavenly Principles". Sustainer here meaning someone who provides support, it probably would have been better if they used "Retainer" instead.

>When did this hibernation stuff get brought up??? Have I missed something or am I not remembering something, I'm so confused 😭

Everything relating to the Spaceship, including the Hibernation Chamber, was new for A Space and Time for you quest. Before it everyone assumed the Twins traveled between worlds by turning into stars. You did not miss anything in regards to this.

The game is deliberately hiding stuff about the twins. Figuring out just what happened to them is one of the primary mysteries of the game, and so no one has all the answers yet.

Others have provided you with a rough timeline of events, but there's STILL some things that we don't understand, like how the Twins escaped from the Unknown God, or at what point the Traveler's Twin left the spaceship.