#Ægir arknights

[multiversetravelingjournalist]

Arknights: Ægir conlang

Seeing how my recent conlang sketch that takes place in the same universe is so well received, I might as well share my second most realized conlang. this one is for the aquatic goths at the bottom of Tera's oceans.

the language employs a four consonant root system. like any semitic language but with an extra letter. this was shamelessly lifted from a now-missing language of Lichen the Fictioneer's Skjor. because Ægir is such an old norse aesthetic, and skjor has such in its name alone, I just had to incorporate this feature somehow. (To Lichen the Fictioneer, if this post ever finds you, First of all, I hope this feature won't end up copying what yours would be doing, as unlikely as that may be. second of all really big fan of your work, keep it up).

There are no plosives, affricates, clicks, ejectives, implosives, nor any consonants that completely close the airway. the closest to those would be fricatives, of which there will be many of as explained in the tentative section of this post. this will mean that Skadi's name would be more pronounced [Sxa,.ðhi']. I really like the phonaesthetics of this choice and will not be changing it any time soon.

Now that we got the confirmed features out of the way, let's look over some maybe-inserted ones:

I was thinking that what consonants there are will have a three-by-three-way distinction via voicing and articulation. voicing would distinguish voiced, breathy voiced, and voiceless. while articulation would be plain, aspirated, and palatalized. though I'm on the fence about the palatalization.

I am honestly stumped about what to encode morphologically with the aforementioned features listed above. maybe the classic person-number-case seeing as the four-consonant root system and lack of plosives meets my self-imposed quota of "features I have yet to see in a conlang".

this is all I got for this one. hope you found this interesting. as always, your feedback is appreciated. till next time... ;).

[kyrawaff]

We don't talk enough about how Andreana, Deepcolor, and other cephalopod Ægir have chromatophores that can be really fun for expression! So much fun potential there!

[tanjaded]

Damn, how many fish I gotta kill to look like her?

[morpeko]

also i love that the Iberian's called the first Ægir who fled to Iberia "Islanders" because of course they wouldn't understand what the Ægir mean when they say they come from the ocean, the idea of whole cities existing underneath the waves seems fantastical, of course they'd reach the conclusion that they must really mean oceanic islands instead

[studentofetherium]

y'know until I'm looking through the Poetic and Prose Eddas, i forget just how much Arknights took from Norse mythology (particularly for the Ægir)

[silicacid]

hes sooooooo

[144]

my favorite part about arknights, i think, is when they show that the world is lived in, and the kjerag teaser reminds me of that. like, yeah! of course they'd have a ministry of tourism, but it's cool that we get to see what their ads would look like, even if it's mostly inconsequential for the main plot! i recall thinking the same with the rim billiton ads in the CN livestream that'd announced the zwillingsturme event, since they put all teasers together in these. it's part of why the kjerag national museum fan project blows my mind, because it feels so much like peeking into the ak universe. i recall seeing in the ak tags someone working on an Ægir conlang and it was so cool, as someone who doesn't understand anything of linguistics!

a lot of fan content is character centric, which like, understandable, this is a gacha game and you pull for characters, but fanworks of the worldbuilding sort are also so insanely cool. i'd spend so much money on, like, Reunion propaganda posters to hang in my room, or ads for competition knights in kazimierz. i'm dead serious.

[cherrygrudge]

Thinking about Lumen, he really is just an ordinary guy caught up in extraordinary situations. It's super easy to focus on that part of his character and leave the rest of it out, but...

(Putting this all under a read more so that it doesn't take up a lot of scroll space. Lumen Analysis below.)

Jordi Fontanarossa is technically a diaspora, but it almost seems like he feels like he doesn’t belong. He has almost no links to the rest of the Ægir beyond his species, what he has left of his parents (their notes, I'll get back to this later), and what little his uncle would tell him. Which is implied to be not a lot for his own safety, but... it doesn’t change the fact that while this feeling of separation definitely applies to all Ægir Islanders, of all the Iberian Ægirs we know, only Jordi seems to have a lot of obvious feelings about this.

"I mean, I know nothing about the Ægir" is one of his lines that stick to me a lot. Because... he's right, he admits it himself even; but somehow he's supposed to do something about the rift between Iberians and Ægir Islanders as the first Ægir Inquisitor-In-Training since forever, essentially? He isn't even suited to be an Inquisitor in the sense of fighting the Seaborn! His hands are made for tools and not for weapons, but he essentially got press-ganged into the Inquisition at the end of Stultifera Navis because... he knew too much. About the Seaborn, about what's really going on...

And this ordinary guy is now responsible for doing something about the rift between races? Like. I understand that you have to start from somewhere and that it works because Jordi is the mosy harmless guppy ever unless you get a Hand of Purification, but the man just lost his uncle and is grappling with the fact that the ocean is even more dangerous than he thought. Give the fishie a break.

Unfortunately, he isn't getting one, because that's not the kind of world Arknights is; and Jordi is a kind of person who can inspire change. In a small way, but even the smallest speck of light can shine bright enough to dispell the darkness.

In any case, let me continue with this scuffed Lumen analysis. Namely, his disconnect with Ægir as a civilization and culture. Because that line I highlighted about how he knows nothing about the Ægir? It means so much added with certain other things about Jordi.

Now, I can't claim to know every single detail, but when it's all said and done, it's pretty clear that Jordi is disconnected from his culture. Not only is he the only Ægir in Gran Faro, but... he was young enough that it seems like he barely recalls his parents. So he wouldn't necessarily remember too much about whatever culture the Ægir Islanders would have, beyond a few things:

One - the Ægir Civilization is one of the more advanced civilizations technology-wise on Terra.

Related to this, it's mentioned that Jordi's parents left him notes and things relared to engineering. It's said that he holds his tools awkwardly like he taught himself how to use them. It's also implied that he just genuinely taught himself how to do engineering since... well, who would teach him? Maybe his uncle, but for things related to the Golden Age of Iberia? It just doesn't seem likely with the general trauma the older generation of Iberia has due to the Great Silence.

Two - Have you noticed that the Operators related to Ægir the Civilization have a specific kind of fancy? Sure we only see the Abyssal Hunters and that's a small sample size, but I feel like it's enough to at least vaguely pin down a national "style" so to speak.

Relating this to Lumen, look at his normal outfit. It's not quite the same fancy aesthetics as the Abyssal Hunters, but... it's similar enough. Sure it also fits pretty well with the Inquisition, but that's not the point. The point is that it feels like Jordi is trying to keep the memory of something alive by wearing what he wears - it might just be the typical gacha design philosophy, but... if he has only faint memories of his parents, he might recall a particular outfit one of them wore and he's trying to stick to it - to feel that connection with them that he just barely has. Regarding his skin though? That's a pirate shirt. Well, it's probably actually a poet's shirt, but it's that one shirt either vampires, lesbians or pirate's wear; and while Jordi isn't a pirate, out of those three he's more likely to fit in that category. Admittedly this one is my biggest stretch and more headcanon than canon, but I connected some dots at least.

Third: His lines.

Just his lines in general okay. He wonders how the Ægir live under the ocean. He has a line talking about how he knows nothing about the Ægir. There's probably more but as much as I love him, I am not willing to go through the whole of Stultifera Navis just to find every single line. In any case, Jordi's has multiple lines mentioning his lack of information on the Ægir and his own disconnect from the culture he supposedly belongs to as one.

Fourth: His Interlude - Till The Light Shines Bright.

Jordi: Do people out there know the sea better? Jordi: Do they talk about the great lighthouse, about the legend of the Eye of Iberia? Local Messenger: Don't be silly, Jordi. The people don't really talk about the sea. As for the great lighthouse, that's a nursery tale that the people of Gran Faro tell their children. Jordi: ...I see. Jordi: Thank you for the offer, Rald. Jordi: But I can't go, not until I've seen the sea and the lighthouse. Local Messenger: Gran Faro has failed. The dream of Iberia's Golden Age ended decades ago. Jordi: Don't say that. Jordi: It's not just a dream for Iberia. It's also a dream for the Ægir... Jordi: ...For one Ægir.

These lines in his Interlude mean a lot. Actually, his whole Interlude reveals so much. For one thing, he is teaching himself how to do Ægir engineering. We have a very smart guppy on our hands here people. It... also reveals Jordi's fascination with the ocean and the fact that unlike say, Amaia, he isn't interested in pursuing that fascination of his over caring for others. It's just... poignant in a way I don't have words for, really.

All of those just... combine to say that Jordi Fontanarossa is someone who wants to know about the Ægir. He has the opportunity now, but... growing up? All he had was his parents' journals and what little stories his uncle would share.

Why I say "what little stories" in reference to his uncle? Well. I have some thoughts on Thiago and how his death affected Jordi. Especially taking into account a module that Jordi was referenced in: Indigo's module.

However, once they had both left, Lumen raised an alternative, 'small-minded' conjecture, more or less that before an old man sends his granddaughter off to the city, he stuffs the only valuable they own into her suitcase and hopes she'll never come back, or that he'll have passed by the time she does... or thereabouts.

'The elderly are like that. They like to decide everything for you while you're still clueless,' Lumen added.

His lines there are... well, they definitely reveal a lot about what he feels about Thiago now. Not quite bitter, but not quite positive? Thiago has definitely made decisions for Jordi before out of worry for his former wife's last remaining family.

I don't have a lot to say here, but like. I wish we got to explore this more. Jordi is a quiet and well-meaning person who has more negative feelings than he seems to have due to the focus on his ordinary guy-ness and self-depreciation.

TL;DR: So with all this said about his place as an Ægir disconnected from his history and culture, but still trying, and now forced to be a cultural bridge with no culture of his own... I think Jordi should get to go off a little. As a treat and so that we can explore his character more because I think the guppy should be around more.

And that's all.

If you have any thoughts on this, please feel free to reblog or comment. I need to talk about the fishie.

[fishing-lesbian-catgirl]

Thinking about Andreana Arknights. Her being a seemingly normal Ægir from Iberia, who joined Rhodes Island because her friend got a job there, and then she meets the Abyssal Hunters. She sees these powerful women who are each individually strong enough to take on an army, and here they are all together as an unstoppable force being sent on the most important missions. She sees them and feels inside the strangest sensation that she has a connection with them, and suddenly these warriors goddesses are taking her in and making her into one of them. They’ve all got a long history with each other, have fought against literal gods and won, and here Andreana is as a somewhat ordinary woman suddenly getting brought into a team of some of the most dangerous people on the planet

[axenyan]

🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

Just a very random and self-indulgent headcanon of Tokyo Debunker bois if they were Arknights operators. This is purely my personal opinion, but I'm also open for discussion 👁️👁️👌

I'm putting the references here in case you want to see what class does what.

Race: link

Class: link

Frostheim

🐻‍❄️ Jin (ursus), liberator guard. Bro will afk together with uncle Mlynar.

🐟 Tohma (ægir), dreadnought guard. Orca and dreadnought guard, this is just Skadi 🤣

🐧 Kaito (liberi), deadeye sniper bc bro is strong but has long atk interval.

🐶 Luca (perro), lord guard. I was thinking of giving him dualstrike (swordmaster) guard, but IIRC his stigma creates a shield? Lord guard is known for their ranged dmg, but there is also a lord guard who can kind of "protect" himself (Thorns).

Vagastrom

🐶 Alan (perro), dreadnought guard.

🦝 Sho (anaty), this is tough bc there is no motorcycle as a weapon in AK (yet)... I guess he can go as arts protector defender.

🐈 Leo (feline), geek specialist because I want to see his HP depletes over time that class is just... very Leo. I'm also thinking of ambusher specialist, but I prefer geek specialist.

Jabberwock

🦊 Haru (vulpo), tactician vanguard. He can deploy Peekaboo(s) on the ground.

🐐 Towa (caprinae), splash caster. Bro and Passenger will make thunderstorms.

🦈 Ren (ægir), executor specialist because I know he doesn't like being in the battlefield for too long. Good luck taking all the damages tho 😁 //smacked.

Sinostra

🐯 Taiga (feline), marksman sniper.

🦚 Romeo (liberi), artilleryman sniper. Bro does AoE dmg with his explosion.

🐶 Ritsu (perro), phalanx caster. Was thinking of juggernaut defender (like Penance!), but he looks more like a ranged unit than melee unit. His stigma does make him a defender of some sort, though. Fortunately, there is a ranged class that can also absorb dmg because of how tanky they are when their skill is not active, and that is phalanx caster 😋

Also....lawyer...defend....defende(

Hotarubi

🐓 Subaru (liberi... I use chicken emoji but hes supposed to be a crane jdjdjdjd), charger vanguard.

🦊 Haku (vulpo), decel binder supporter.

🐟 Zenji (ægir), dollkeeper specialist. Bro doesn't retreat when receiving lethal damage, and will be replaced by a "clone." I think he can also be a bard supporter.

Obscuary

🦇 Edward (sarkaz), hm... Thinking of ritualist supporter or primal caster. When I see him, I can only think of elemental damage for some reason 😭

🐶 Rui (perro), reaper guard.

🐺 Lyca (lupo), arts fighter guard.

Mortkranken. This dorm feels arknightsy already 😭

🐹 Yuri (zalak), harmacist-- I mean incantantion medic 😇

🦕 Jiro (vouivre), centurion guard bc bro is swinging a chainsaw around.

[that-spider-witch]

Arknights might have completely ruined how I see animal-based anime designs.

Because I’m looking at the amazing work of Rinotuna (An artist who turns random objects and creature into anime character designs) and all I can think about is “Wow, this would be such a good Ægir / Liberi / Insert-Race-Here Operator!”

Like...

Look at me in the eye and tell me that they wouldn’t fit right in (black moor goldish girl and harpy eagle man particularly so!)

[multiversetravelingjournalist]

Ægir Grammatical "Number" System.

Ægir has a few grammatical numbers that not only mark the amount of a group of the nouns but also the composition of said group. In other words...

Singular applies when there is only one of such noun.

Balanced Dual applies when a pair of something is considered the same or equal.

Biased Dual applies when the two nouns are considered different or not equal.

paucal is for when you have a few of a noun regardless of composition.

Even Plural is for when a group is considered equally distributed in some way.

Odd Plural is for when the group is considered to be unequally distributed.

Collective is used for when referring to all possible types of that noun regardless of composition.

What is considered "balanced" or "biased" or "even" or "odd" is a subjective matter left to the speaker to decide therefore making it telling of what the speaker values through its usage.

In the person marking system these numbers are marked with a vowel that is which out of the eleven that the language has, this system uses seven of. placing the vowel in the place denoting the person in the consonant root (more on that later) determines the number of the person in the subject and/or object of the verb. there is a total of 441 possible combinations of person, number, and case without tense, aspect, mood, nor positional infixes (more on those later).

Overall, I am quite satisfied with the results. (though I was considering having the singular come in different genders. but decided against it as the numbering system with what I consider a unique twist on how nouns are marked for number).

That is all for now. as always, feedback is appreciated.

till next time... ;).

[siriannatan]

Empires Arknights AU - Scott fWhip

Is it an excuse to ramble about one of my favourite games? Maybeeeee… {: <3<3<3

Slightly lore-dumpy explanation of stuff (can probably be skipped):

Arknights - tower defence gatcha

Lungmen - mobile, modern Chinese/Japanesee style city

Liberi - bird people {reference}

Lung - asian style dragon {reference} people as oposed to draco {reference}

Ægir - fish people {reference}

Leithanien - Arknights Germany

Victoria - Arknights UK

Wei - leader of Lungmen

Lin's - old Lin, or Rat King is kinda the godfather of Lungmen underworld, his {granddaughter} is to take over after him

Penguin Logistics - a logistics company with an actual penguin for a boss

Siracusa - Arknights Italy, full of wolf-people, minus Vatican, that's Laterano, totally separate place with Sankta - angels with guns

L.G.D. - Lungmen Guard Departmen, kind of Lungmen police

Hoshiguma - member of the Special Service of Lungmen Guard Department {reference}

Ch'en - Special Inspection Unit Chief, L.G.D. {reference}

Scott was having a great day. Yes, he spent most of it in his high-rise office. Taking in appointments, and making phone calls. But at least today no one pulled out a gun on him. Just the thought of the few rude 'customers' was enough to have the Liberi's feathers ruffled. With a sigh, he calmed down and glanced at the clock. Nicely made, imported from Leithanien. He had some fond memories of a brief stay there in his youth. Not that it was that long ago.

He was starting to wonder how long he should stay, waiting for his last guest when his door swung open. An angry Lung, dressed in rather traditional Lungmen garb. Ginger hair tied in a long braid. Scott kind of hated it. Blue eyes narrowed in a glare that the Liberi met with a polite smile.

"Punctual as always, Mr fWhip," he greeted with his best 'Victorian', as fWhip called it, smile.

"Don't give me that, why did you send assassins after me this time?" he asked, taking most of the couch opposite of Scot's desk.

"I simply didn't want you to ignore my invitation, unlike the last time I sent one," Scott's smile faltered slightly. fWhip could be damn annoying. Unfortunately, he was Lungmen's best when it came to explosives and Scott's... business often needed them. "Would you like some tea? I recently received a shipment of Victoria's finest," he offered, the legal part of his business was all about trade. Less legal... also imports but of things Mr Wei would approve. Lin's certainly did like him.

"Sure, why not," the Lung huffed. He did keep his eye on Scott as he made the two cups. "You still insist on dressing like a Victorian," he huffed. For some reason, he was really against Scott's suits.

"Well, that's where I'm from after all," Scott shrugged. And Victorian clothes were comfier for him. He did not mention that.

"What did you get me to come here for? And be glad I didn't report you to Madam Ch'en. She's not let you go no matter how much Lin's like you," he huffed. Ever loyal to Wei. How boring.

"Right to the business," Scott shook his head. "Maybe I just wanted to share a cup of tea with a friend?"

fWhip laughed at that. "Yeah right. What do you want?"

Scott sighed. How Lung of fWhip. "I need help locating a certain box for an acquaintance. Miss Ling brought him here so it's kind of important. But relics are not quite my cup of tea, but then I remembered a friend who has a nice collection," he said, giving up on playing with fWhip.

"Acquaintance? Lin Yühsia? Now that's interesting," fWhip mused. 

"Mhm. I have no idea where she found an Ægir here," not that it was all that interesting to him.

"Why didn't she just go to Penguin Logistics? I'm sure they could find it easily."

"Maybe she needed some more... finesse?" Scott offered with a giggle. "They are certainly fun but I think the Ægir she dragged here would drop dead after just seeing them," he giggled setting a teacup in front of fWhip. Victorian make, of course, just to annoy him further.

"Maybe, but really... Did it have to be damn Siracusans you send? They're a pain to deal with," fWhip huffed, taking a sip. He said nothing so it had to be good.

"You're still here so not that bad," Scott did not regret sending assassins after fWhip. It always got him to his office. "So how about we leave the box for tomorrow, and spend the rest of today on..." he said as he settled next to fWhip, "...me apologising to you?" he finished, one hand resting on fWhip's thigh.

"Fine, but you have a lot to apologise for, I had to talk to L.G.D.'s  Madam Hoshiguma, I don't want to repeat that anytime soon..." fWhip sighed as he finished his tea. It was always fun to hear him indirectly complain about his height.

[raisengen]

I’m still early on in Stultifera Navis, but something about the “Little Handy” has caught my attention. Specifically, the “Housekeeping Assistant Module”, and the implications it has for world history.

We’re fighting the Sea Terrors using Ægir's roombas, and boosting their combat power with a plug-in module for a domestic assistant robot. We knew that Ægir tech was more advanced than that of the surface-dwellers, but since the Abyssal Hunters use deliberately low-tech weapons, our best example so far was an automatic toilet.

Now we’ve got a better idea of their typical product, does it seem a little bit familiar? A device with far more power than its name would seem to justify?

How about a “home-use life functions restoration device” that can power an entire nomadic city while in sleep mode?

I’ve previously theorised that Arknights is set in the post-apocalypse of a technologically advanced precursor human society that was destroyed by the emergence of Originium. As part of their attempts to stop the plague, they spliced their own DNA with animals that were more resistant to the disease. Much of their technology has since been lost, but their designs for nomadic cities have survived.

That’s the case on Terra firma, but what about under the waves? I suggest that the Ægir represent another group of survivors that took on a slightly different path, hiding away on the ocean floor where Originium and its Catastrophes did not naturally reach. Perhaps due to that escape, they managed to preserve and continue the technological legacy of the precursors more effectively than the surface dwellers.

Taking Ægir tech as the closest living relative of the precursor tech, note:

The Abyssal Hunters are spliced with Seaborns, proving the technology for the genetic splicing I theorised does exist.

Ægir technology does not run on Originium and Arts is foreign to their nation, indicating that Originium was something new to the precursor society, not embedded in life as it is now on the surface.

Abyssal Hunters aside, the Ægir themselves are not unmodified genetically: for example, Kirara sports a number of tentacles. (Gladiia’s also made a comment about breathing underwater, but that might just be a Hunter thing.)

The Ægir-precursor cultural link doesn’t change my hypothesis too much, but it gives supporting evidence and a window onto the past through preserved “traditions”. It also suggests why Ægir has remained hidden so far: they could have a lot to tell us about history.

[razorpen]

About Avdotya Razorpen

Avdotya Razorpen, or Operator позёмка of Rhodes Island, is a former Ursus noblewoman, and a writer tormented by a traumatic past she can't quite let go of. In her new life, which she's slowly adapting to, she's become many new things: a gentle and firm caretaker, an advertising consultant...and a sniper.

This is a roleplaying blog for Avdotya, who I will largely be referring to by the anglicization of her operator name: Pozyomka.

Yes, I'm playing a second of Chuzenji's characters. You can find the other one here.

You may also see the official anglicization, Pozёmka. Not from me, because it's wrong, but you might see it out there.

TL;DR Notes:

Pozyomka was a noblewoman from what is effectively Tsarist Russia. Her middle name comes from one of the goddamn Romanovs, for fuck's sake.

Her family was killed in a purge as a result of a political conspiracy, which she barely escaped from, and fled into underground tunnels before being rescued by the Durin people of Zeruertza, a carefree people who live(d) in a peaceful, plentiful utopia.

The whole affair shook her outlook on life, and she came to hate the surface world and its peoples. She praised the life of the Zeruertzans, unspoiled by the greed, strife, hunger, and ambition that plague Ursus. She became a shut-in writer and advertising consultant in Zeruertza, and never wanted to leave.

She was forced to leave when Zeruertza's carefree and isolationist nature was about to cause its own destruction, and she herself was forced to confront her past and her identity. She was ultimately crucial in convincing the people of Zeruertza to leave their crumbling underground utopia to live on the surface, a prospect that she was initially opposed to.

She's since worked as an intermediary between Zeruertza and the pharmaceutical company of Rhodes Island, and works for Rhodes Island as an advertising consulting and a field operator, as a sniper. Aboard Rhodes Island, she's closed off to most, but has taken to being protective and motherly towards the Durin. She believes they must be sheltered from the harsh realities of the world, which they are ignorant to and unprepared for. She's since opened up to the landship's children, as well, for the same reasons, as she wants them to have a better life than she's had.

Long Form:

Formerly Avdotya Nikolayevna Ivanova, a noblewoman in Tsarist Ursus, she was implicated in a conspiracy that led to the purge of her family. Hunted by assassins, she barely escaped with her life, and fled from frozen forests into underground caverns, where she—by complete accident—found her way into the tunnels carved out by the Durin.

The Durin are the dwarves of the Arknights setting, a carefree bunch who live underground in a technological utopia. It's...very different (and considerably lower-tech) from the other technological utopia in the setting, being a very sheltered locale isolated from the world above not by sneering contempt, as in Ægir, but from safety and happenstance. While the utopia of the Durins is much closer to an actual utopia than the brutal technocracy of Ægir, it's also just as fleeting. Durin society is unsustainable in the long run, something that the Durin of Zeruertza learned the...hard way?

Pozyomka was saved by Zeruertza after she was discovered in their caverns. As a welcoming people, they took her in, and she spent the next several years of her life assimilating poorly into their carefree culture. Though she changed her surname to the much more Durin-like Razorpen, a function of her new occupation within the city, she would always remain the traumatized young noblewoman with a novelist's heart who fled from pain and consequence. Disgusted by the ambition, greed, and mercilessness of Ursus politics, she found in Zeruertza to a paradise. The Durin were a somewhat dull and worldly people, without a need to sharpen themselves on hardship or strife, but they were also a people that she perceived as unsullied by the evils she had herself been steeped in as a noblewoman from a brutal dictatorship. She, thus, felt a need to protect the Durin from the outside world, so that the corruption that blackened Ursus would never take root in Zeruertza.

She continued to write in Zeruertza, but the Durin could never understand her stories. To them, the bleakness seemed like comedy, and the murder and strife were confusing and tonally dissonant from anything they knew. She persisted in writing her stories, with an audience of none, while being incredibly successful as an advertising consultant, producing slogans and writings completely divorced from her typical style. Over time, she even took the newly-made position of Literature Representative within Zeruertza—an office with no responsibility, which nonetheless acted as a way of commemorating her beloved status within the city. Or...at least, her beloved status to Croque Diamondface, Zeruertza's mayor and commercial representative, who took initiative in making sure she felt at home in the city. Croque was one of the few people who made any attempts to understand Avdotya, and even then struggled to bridge the divide between their cultural experiences.

Paradise, however, would not last. Zeruertza's own carefree nature caused it to ignore its problems until they became untenable. An active and unstable originium vein, left unsurveyed in the wake of an earthquake, threatened the city. Stitch Canvas, a particularly heads-up Durin, sought assistance from the surface-dwelling tribal peoples of Acahualla, a Sargonian province directly above Zeruertza. Incidentally, he came across the Tiacauh people, connected to Rhodes Island through Gavial. Gavial, herself an Acahuallan native who left Sargon to become a doctor at Rhodes Island since becoming Infected, came along with a handful of other Rhodes personnel and investigated Stitch's claims of impending disaster. Pozyomka was distrustful of the surface-dwellers, and needled them in hostile fashion until Gavial finally wore her down enough to reluctantly accept that they truly were there to help.

I'm going to be real with you, some of the handling of the Tiacauh in Arknights is downright awful. Some of it, especially from older events, is just straight-up racist. Ideal City, the event that introduced Pozyomka, is better about it where it can be, but it has to build from the framework established by the older events, so it has to perpetuate some of the worst of it. The Tiacauh are still depicted as a largely stupid and primitive (if humanized and sympathetic) people, with Gavial and Zumama as notable outliers who want to improve their tribes by learning from and connecting with the outside world. Ideal City goes into why this is necessary—not because it's inherently better for them to integrate themselves into Sargon, but because the Sargonian Lords Ameer would one day soon begin to infringe upon their freedoms, and they need to establish themselves within the region before that happens. That's...better, but the worldbuilding in Sargon is still some of the worst that Arknights has, and unfortunately Pozyomka is connected to it, albeit tangentially. I'll be involving Gavial in the operations of this blog, but I am not going to retread the absurdly racist ground that her events have covered. I'm capable of criticizing media that I love, and Sargon is pretty universally agreed to be Arknights' biggest mistake. Gavial is cool, but her white dreads aren't, and neither is the setting she comes from. Most of the worldbuilding I reference will be from areas that are much less...horrifically offensive, and also much better-written. Namely, the failing utopias of the Durin, but especially the political quagmire of Tsarist Ursus in the wake of a failed revolutionary plot. I might occasionally mention Acahualla, but I'll do so as carefully as I can.

Not yet grasping the fullest extent of the danger, Stitch brought them along with him to help him perform necessarily maintenance and neglected survey work. However, the surveyors quickly learned the terrible news: due to the instability of the originium vein, Zeruertza would be a pile of rubble within 25 days. When it was brought to her attention, Pozyomka was initially resistant to Gavial's suggestion to bring the Durin to the surface, where the Acahuallans could offer them refuge. There were other options available to them, but they would be costly. Her own proposed solution would only allow for the evacuation of around 70% of the citizenry in time. Still, she initially believed this preferable to the possible disaster caused by the sudden emergence of hundreds of thousands of Durin into Sargon. Clever politicking by the Acahuallan Messenger, Inam, eventually convinced her that it could be done without causing a political crisis, but she was still opposed to the idea on the basis of keeping the Durin sheltered from the outside world.

A conversation with Gavial exposed to her the fears and assumptions that clouded her eyes to reason. Pozyomka was still unconvinced that this was the best solution, but she placed her trust in Gavial and Inam. If preventing such a catastrophic loss of life was possible, she'd have to put aside her own baggage. She agreed to help convince the Durin to leave behind their homes, and penned a speech that would ultimately sway them to not only open their hearts to the idea, but to her—and, perhaps for the first time, understand something of her history, and why she was the way that she was.

In turn, she was forced to realize that her idyllic view of the Durins and their lifestyle wasn't quite consistent with their reality. They weren't wholly ignorant to the consequences she tried to shield them from, nor were they unaware that said consequences came about as a direct result of their carefree lifestyle. They weren't able to understand her experiences, but they were able to relate to her honest emotions, and understand the pain they might experience on the path into the future.

She hasn't quite learn to give up that protective cherishing of their innocence. She's simply tempered it. Her perspective isn't without value, even if it represents as an unfair infantilization of the Durin people. She still wishes to protect and guide them from evil, as someone who knows what the heart of darkness looks like. She still is overprotective of the Durin aboard Rhodes Island, especially those who came from Zeruertza. She believes she understands what they truly need better than them, and while she's not entirely wrong in some cases, she's still not quite got it right.

That said, she's growing. She's opening up to people who aren't Durin, but very, very slowly. She was the fastest to open up to the children aboard, especially the Ursus children, who were exposed to some of the same horrors she was. In particular, she's formed a friendship with the Ursus teenager Istina, an avid scholar of literature (and canonical Marxist-Leninist, hilariously confirming that Lenin lives or lived somewhere in Ursus) who originally approached her to speak about her books. Eventually, she'll open herself to more people.

That's what this is about. Kal'tsit has recommended she take up microblogging, claiming it's helped a few of Rhodes Island's other employees. It's a distanced form of social interaction that she can do safely, that she can control.

Background by Freepik. Sidebar images by monicore, Eva Bronzini, and Alan Cabello.

[cupids-patheon]

Another arknights postt

Ok, so I re-read skadis thing on the wiki. So correct me if im going wrong here.

skadi the corrupting heart is regarded as a what-if scenario if skadi was actually a vessel for ishar-mla and is not canon in that aspect. However it is canon in the aspect of it being a disguise so skadi didn’t get recognized by bounty hunters while searching for laurentina and gladiia.

I hope the corrupting heart alt comes back into relevance with the canon Ægir story bc I think it looks pretty, also skadi must be very strong to coin her the nickname “the walking catasrophe” though I think thats a given. Though she does seem to have a pretty big bounty on her head.