#Skullshatterer

[kara-knuckles]

People like to joke about bullying Crownslayer, but if you look at module missions, you will realize that the real loser is actually Skullshatterer. There are at least 12 missions that require a certain op to defeat them. In comparison, Crownslayer only has 2.

[arknights-archive]

Global 4th anniversary artbook previews

01 / 02 / 03 / 04 / 05

[arkiwii]

her troops? wuuh??

WUHH????

[oltammefru]

Just remembered the fact that in the Arknights Anime, Skullshatterer canonically has dicks on his boots.

Like. Skullshatterer WHAT ARE THOSE?

The real reason why W got Skullshatterer killed wasn't as part of her plan to get the Chernobog control tower keys to Rhodes Island it was really because she was really jealous of Skullshatterer's drip and wanted it for herself.

[bingus35]

I’ve been surfing lofter and came across uh. quite a few mephisto am///pu///tee art. And there’s some comments on bilibili mentioning him having a bad leg too?

Don’t remember anything like that so I looked back to see if it was mentioned in the story and found this dialogue

The translation “that man cut my leg” gave me the impression it was like a small cut/a slash on his leg. But I wonder if the original Chinese was something closer to “that man cut off my leg”…

Edit: yeah.

I don’t speak chinese and there’s still a chance DeepL is wrong, but seems unlikely. Jesus this is fucked up

Aside from this there’s also how his arts staff doubles as a walking crutch, and W mentioned his limbs were torn off in an explosion (though that could just be a threat).

So that’s why his leg is drawn so weird…

[cerastes]

We’ve talked about how all the really-hard-to-deal-with Operators in Rhodes Island get assigned to Doctor because they are a freak that can get along with freaks just fine, but this also has resulted in Doctor’s bodyguard retinue at any given time to be monstrous. I think Amiya personally arranged for this after the whole Skullshatterer situation, but just imagine you are some goon that thinks they can finish what Skullshatterer started, you wouldn’t fumble the assassination, you’d nail the landing, right? So you see the opening and go straight for Hooded Freak.

And suddenly you find yourself face to face with Texas, specifically the one wielding dual greatswords and not holding back

Schwarz, who’s been doing this and also top-level assassinations since she was around 6

Gravel, who is really, really good at killing and keeping VIPs alive, and who has zero professional investment in this, no, it’s more important, this is personal for her

and straight up Skadi, the woman feared as the “Walking Catastrophe”

Amiya took the whole “Skullshatterer almost for realsies killed Doctor” VERY seriously.

[thegreatyin]

gotta say i think a lot more than just the legs were broken there buddy

gone. reduced to atoms.

[stelladess]

what are some reasons you love amiya bc amiya fans are having our moment rn 🙏🫶 -@greythroat

There are many reasons, many of which I have talked about before. But for some of them; 1. Her design is extremely versatile, able to be twisted pretty far for comedic or badass effect and still instantly read as Amiya 2. She has a very fun personality and fun/interesting dynamics with lots of other characters I really like (W/Wis´adel, Kal´tsit, Blaze, Rosmontis, etc) 3. Her powerset and in game kits are really cool And then the big thing... the entire reason I began playing Arknights. Back when the anime aired I checked it out cause I had plenty of time at my hands back then and I have always been a big fan of paragons like superman or other such heroes. And when it got to the whole Skullshatterer thing in the anime and Amiya was placed in a pretty classic paragon situation of having to break their own morals or risk losing someone they care about... and she breaks against her own morals right away. She feels awful about it but she still did it. And it struck me that she isnt a paragon, she is a traumatised child soldier trying to be a paragon. Who feels she has a responsibility to be a savior. Who considers herself a failure because she is only a regular person who cannot live up to her own impossible ideals. So I went and played the game, which I fell in love with. I love Amiya so much in large part because she is a normal, imperfect, "broken" person who cannot live up to her own ideals. But she keeps trying. She will always strive for the beautifle future Theresa dreamed of even if it is not possible. "Dreams are worth it because they are more then we can be" - Superman She also has such an incredible character arc. I am really excited to see what is in store for her in the future as well~!

[nero-draco]

I checked what 3-8 stage is and it turns out to be Skullshatterer (Misha) stage. Yeah, okay, makes sense as that's where I got gatekeep'd too for a long time.

[superchat]

actually kind of nuts watching this knowing more about W and the culture around Sarkaz thats so deeply tied with her. she was probably really fucking mad whens she heard Misha was going to stay cuz it sounded like she was just giving up. thats why W was mocking her so hard

but Misha taking on the name of Skullshatterer so he lives on, for both him and for the people who followed him is exactly the kind of thing Sarkaz do in war, when they pick up a weapon, they take on the name of the fallen owner, in a way to honor them and for them to live on (thats how i remembered it feel free to correct me though). once W saw that, she didnt force her to leave because the promise she made to Skullshatterer was no longer there, the new Skullshatterer had their own will and agency and she wouldnt get in their way

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

Arknights Analysis: Chapters 0-4

So I want to start this off by stating that I'm going to analyze these chapters in two separate fashions. The first will be analyzing the chapters as if I had booted the game on launch and experienced the story without any of the surrounding events and story chapters that give these chapters additional context. The second will be analyzing these chapters from a retrospective angle, looking at how further chapters and further events have provided new information that re-contextualizes a lot of what happens and is said in these four chapters.

One of my primary theses when it comes to Arknights is that the episodic storytelling often hurts Arknights more than it helps the game, and I want to illustrate that through these two styles of analysis.

So without ado:

Part One: The Bad and the Evil Time

Now, there's a relevant question that needs to be answered from the beginning of this analysis: why am I analyzing all four chapters together instead of splitting them into four separate posts? There's an argument to be made that splitting up the chapter discussion would allow for each chapter to breathe individually. But I want to explain my reasons for not doing that.

First, these chapters were not released individually. They were released all at once, and unlike say, the first four chapters of F/GO, they do not form four separate stories plot-wise that share some connecting themes. They directly relate to one another and are basically contiguous with one another. If you wanted to, you could play and get through the first four chapters of Arknights all at once. While newer players likely would have gotten stuck on a boss like Skullshatterer and not been able to progress, I want to emulate that experience of reading all four chapters at once.

Second, these chapters do not have a lot to them in terms of actual writing and I do not intend to merely summarize the events of each chapter ahead of time. You can read them here to get an idea of what I mean. They're short chapters all things told.

Third, they share pretty much all of the same themes and messaging between the three of them, and characters do not make a ton of meaningful progression through the story. These four chapters flow into each other really well, which suggests to me they were written roughly all in a row from each other, but this results in an initial four chapters that have a lot of overlap with each other.

So that's why this analysis is going to look at all four chapters together. To give a quick one sentence overview of the plots:

Chapters 0-1: Rhodes Island's extraction operation for the Doctor and their conflict with Reunion Chapters 2-3: Rhodes Island's pursuit of Misha and their confrontation with Skullshatterer Chapter 4: Rhodes Island's rescue operation and their meeting with Frostnova

Despite the fact that these chapters span between three different locations and concern themselves with three separate events, broadly speaking, they're very tonally consistent. There's no clear separation in terms of how these chapters meaningfully contrast with each other.

In terms of the major players, Rhodes Island is the protagonist and Reunion is the antagonist, and are written pretty diametrically opposed to each other. Rhodes Island is a pharmaceutical company that is looking for a cure to oripathy and generally condemns the violent measures that Reunion takes in these four chapters, which is often spoken quite strongly. In particular I want to note that Dobermann in particular is heavily critical of Reunion, and this sets the tone for how Reunion is portrayed and generally looked at in these chapters.

Reunion as the antagonists for these four chapters are basically not portrayed sympathetically at all, and this can be pretty easily seen from the antagonists that are initially introduced to the player: Mephisto, who delights in causing harm and toying with his opponents and is named after the fictional demon Mephistopheles; Crownslayer, who is ruthless and whose name invokes regicide; and W, who is enigmatic but mostly cruel and seemingly only let's Rhodes Island go on a whim.

This image does a lot to establish the tone of Reunion: they're draped in darkness and shadow, stand atop rubble and carnage, and their leader, Talulah, is associated with dramatic heat and consuming flame. It's a very strong message to send to the player.

Reunion's job in these four chapters, outside of being the antagonists, is to act as a critical foil for Rhodes Island. The prime question of Reunion towards Rhodes Island, time and time again, is "What do you do to deserve to fight for the Infected?". Reunion is repeatedly stated to embody the rage of the Infected, calling back to the idea that "Riots are the language of the oppressed", and they repeatedly criticize Amiya for not recognizing the anger the Infected feel.

This, at least in my opinion, is not actually a bad way for narrative tension to develop. Violent and non-violent movements do tend to have some tension between each other, and importantly, are both needed to compliment and keep each other in check. However, the problem here is that these chapters are not interested in interrogating these facts. These chapters are not interested in interrogating basically anything it puts in front of you.

Amiya never really has a response for why she's acting in the way she does, and as a result, neither does the narrative. But because Reunion needs to be the antagonist, their anger is not merely limited to the authority figures behind oppressive policies or the primary people who exploit them. Reunion oppresses and kills innocent people in Chernobog, using a Catastrophe that decimates the city and infects a large portion of its populace with Oripathy, using their anger as justification, and there is never a competing viewpoint shown in opposition with that. So when Reunion is marching on Lungmen, there is every reason to believe that a similar occurrence will happen there. This is reinforced in Chapter 4, where Mephisto has created a literal flaming display of Reunion's symbol at least partially fueled by civilian bodies.

Rhodes Island being the defacto protagonist means that their actions are given an inherent justification. It creates a lot of weak writing in the chapter where, for example, their cooperation with the L.G.D. is never given any kind of moral depth, despite Lungmen's own oppressive policies towards the Infected and the attitudes of L.G.D. officers towards the infected.

The only character we see some meaningful change in is Ch'en, and unfortunately, it's part of a chapter she's not really present in. Chapter 4 shows that Ch'en is capable of some humanity and connection with the Infected that the others in her psuedo police force weren't willing to show, but it's not made particularly clear why and Ch'en quickly exits the chapter.

If you came away from these four chapters feeling like this is a RWBY situation, I really wouldn't blame you. The chapters are weak and not particularly well-written. There are points of intrigue made for example in Chapter 2 with Kal'tsit and Wei Yenwu that do not really go anywhere. Probably most importantly, despite being the protagonists, Rhodes Island's, and consequently Amiya's, moral position is never really defined. You don't get a clear sense to know why Rhodes Island is taking the actions that it is.

Now, to a certain extent, a bit more of the moral backbone of RI is revealed in the character files for the launch operators. I do think it is worth discussing these for a bit here because most of them are very brief and not well detailed, but they help to highlight what is, in my opinion, one of the central conflicts and messages in this early part of the arc.

The difference between Rhodes Island and Reunion is identity. That is, what is expected out of the identity of the Infected underneath them. This can be seen in a couple of the operator files and, most importantly, with Misha. For Reunion, the Infected and Reunion are considered one and the same. When Rhodes Island kills Reunion rioters in Chernobog and hands over Reunion prisoners to the L.G.D., Reunion makes the criticism of what Rhodes Island is doing to the Infected. Misha remarks that what else can an Infected be but Reunion. It is a continual point that many of its members are whipped into fanaticism in part because Reunion presents itself as the only option.

Rhodes Island, on the other hand, allows its Infected personnel and Operators to take back their identity as people. The Operators of RI are all unique people with their own goals, wants, and dreams. They do not, fundamentally, become Rhodes Islanders. It's why there is such an eclectic group of people working for RI.

To summarize, these chapters are invested in portraying a very black and white board to the Infected struggles, with the correct Rhodes Island contrasted with the violent, arguably evil Reunion on the other hand, and does so without really performing the necessary labor to justify Rhodes Island as the protagonist. While there are interesting messages and ideas in these chapters, it's let down by overall very weak writing.

Part 2: Separated Hearts and Arcs

So you know what the fuck a Kaschey is at this point and you're looking back. Here's the thing that kind of fucks me up: these chapters don't read nearly as bad in a retrospective lens. There's a fair amount of reasonably subtle storytelling and foreshadowing going on that hints towards things revealed in later story chapters, and a lot of its awkwardness can be forgiven with the better writing down the road for pretty much all of the characters involved (except for Skullshatterer, who basically disappears from the narrative entirely, and doesn't even show up typically in flashbacks).

In truth, I think the writers knew these chapters weren't very good, and something very interesting happens from this point on which I will cheekily call "the Reunion Arc Redemption Arc". A number of things happen in fairly quick succession with each other: the first is the release of Chapter 5, which does a lot to add additional moral depth to Rhodes Island's relationship to the L.G.D. as well as to Ch'en herself. This is followed by Grani and the Knight's Treasure which gives us our first, sympathetic Reunion character in Big Bob, and then perhaps most importantly by maybe one of the single most important vignettes in the game.

The Anonymous One's War.

This Vignette is a much, MUCH needed stitching of the various problems with Reunion. Patriot, the disorganization of Reunion, and the condemnation of the acts against Azazel do a tremendous amount of work in redeeming a lot of the previous writing. It's arguably a retcon in many ways.

This REALLY highlights a big problem with the episodic approach. I think part of the reason Chapter 5 is often lumped in with Chapters 0-4 is for a while, you were stuck sitting and ruminating on Chapters 0-4, and then Chapter 5 releases and its a chapter whose primary POV is Ch'en and the L.G.D. With episodic writing, it's easy for writing flaws to sit and fester, and it's easy for a lot of fandom voices to get together and make things worse.

Chapters 0-4 just do not hold up on their own, and honestly they do not really hold up with additional context either. The additional context softens a lot of the blow and provides a lot of closure to the issues in these chapters, but the issues still remain. You didn't necessarily need more writing in order to make these chapters work. Chapter 5 isn't that much bigger than Chapter 4 is, but I felt like there had been a sudden shift towards stronger writing in Chapter 5.

This seems by and large to be a real problem with gacha game development. Early story chapters are neglected because the time and effort needed to actually make a gacha game seem to eclipse the desire to have a strong and functional story. It feels like Chapters 0-4 were pushed out the door to make sure the players had something.

But in comparison to other gachas I've played, the turn around on Arknights is very, very quick. F/GO notably takes four additional chapters until it finally hits a good, well-written chapter in Camelot, and it's events are still very lackluster. In comparison, the only dud event that happens at least imo is Grani and the Knights' Treasure, and the next three events (Operational Intelligence, Heart of Surging Flame, and Code of Brawl) are all quite good.

What the turn around at least tells me is that Arknights from the beginning had competent writers, but that they only really got to shine once the game got on the ground.

[arknights-archive]

Prelude to Dawn Blu-ray

[rueria]

still so fcked up that they require you to have amiya kill skullshatterer in 3-8 to unlock her module afshjsks

i bet her guard module would have her killing kashchey lol

[oltammefru]

With Where Vernal Winds Will Never Blow we get caster modules, which includes Amiya's module, meaning we now finally get to experience one of the crueler things HG has ever done:

Making Amiya relive her experience of killing Misha-As-Skullshatterer in chapter 3:

[kumeko]

A/N: Didn’t expect to get interested in the game after watching the anime, but here I am. Though this will probably be my only foray into Arknights unless I find time to play the game. XD

…

…

…

…

The ship is never quiet. It’s something Amiya is used to. Her coworkers, her friends, often come in and out at different times, tired and weary from their missions. No matter how late it is, the cafeteria and medic bay remain open, staff ready to support the hungry and wounded. A soft blue light bathes the hallways, making sure people can stumble back to their rooms safely.

Or, in her case, sneak into the doctor’s room.

A small side light is on as he sits on his bed and scrolls through hundreds of pages of documentation. With his memories gone, he’s taken to reading and memorizing, as though the pieces of his identity and past could be found in the official reports of their past missions. Amiya stands at the door, watching him for a long moment. With his trademark jacket off, he looks smaller, more vulnerable.

He looks like he did when she found him in the Sarcophagus.

“Are you coming in?” he asks, stirring her out of her reverie. He’s looking at her now, his expression gentle as he pats the spot beside him. Gentle, but not familiar—those eyes do not recognize her still, do not remember their shared past and the weight of it.

Her chest is tight. She manages to breathe anyways. Amiya slowly steps in, the door sliding close behind her with a soft click. “You shouldn’t read this late,” she warns as she slips into bed beside him. “It could harm you.”

“True.” He nods, as though she doesn’t say this every night, as though they both don’t know he was only waiting for her to come. The doctor turns off his reader and settles down beside her. The darkness envelops them both.

It’s easy to picture Skullshatterer reaching him now, guns ablazing, bomb exploding, a war cry on his lips.

It’s easy to see the black spikes leaving her hand and piercing the boy’s chest.

It’s easy to see Misha’s naked hatred.

Her hands tremble and Amiya shifts so her head rests on the doctor’s stomach, her long ears pressed to his heart. The tips of her ears tickle his jaw but he says nothing.

It’s a steady heartbeat. A consistent thrum. A pulse of life.

The doctor is alive. The doctor is safe. He breathes in, breathes out, and his warmth seeps out of his clothes and onto her. As though reading her mind, he gently strokes her head like he had in ages past.

Despite his lost memories, he is still the doctor, still himself.

Despite the blood on her hands, despite the lives she failed, here is the one life above all others she swore to protect.

Amiya closes her eyes and breathes in time with him.

[cerastes]

Are you going to give Arknights: endfield a go when it releases?

Yep, but I've been honest on stream about my current impression on it: It doesn't look too good. We talked about it, and basically, Liduke wasn't the best option for art director to be honest. She's really good at what she does but what she does, is lacking in scope: The colors don't look good, too muted, too sterile, designs aren't super good, no design has wowed me the way pre-release Arknights designs wowed me (Specter, Hoshiguma and Skullshatterer made me very hype, to name a few). It's like I'm looking at a slab of dirt. Just... Where's the color? In the maps and the designs of the characters. The moment Angelina showed up in her Bloodline of Combat fit, it was so funny to me, because her bright red jacket instantly became the single most colorful thing in the entire game.

Liduke works very well with pale blacks, whites, reds, yellows, and complimentary winter palettes. Look at Hellagur, Schwarz, (her) W, (her) Ines, etc, they look really good. But that's because we have an overarching cast and world of color to contrast them to. When everything is like that, it doesn't look good. I'm a bit disappointed by Endfield's presentation, to be honest.

The gameplay, or what we've seen of it... Doesn't really look fun. It's plain and simple as that.

It's rather difficult for me to write this because I strongly believe in not doomposting and looking at the virtues of things, but at least from what we've seen, it's just being very difficult to find these virtues in Endfield. The best thing I can say is that I still have faith in it simply because Arknights has really delivered to hell and back in terms of being a game and in terms of sheer raw style. The way it keeps evolving Tower Defense (and Tower Offense, to be honest!) is impressive, so I have no doubt brilliant and passionate minds are working behind Endfield, but it feels bad framing it this way because I'm saying "I like their other work" without being able to find a lot to say about Endfield by itself.

I'll give it a try, because I love Arknights and Hypergryph has been phenomenal in my opinion, but if this was a stand alone game not associated with HG or AK, I really don't think I'd look at it twice, and it saddens me to say. I'm hoping to be proven wrong.