#and Ines and Hoederer honestly

[valiant-if]

I dunno if anyone around here plays Arknights, but (spoilers for future global server banners, i guess?)

I've just been vibrating with the need for Wiš'adel, because W is my favorite character in that game and I cannot fucking wait for her alter. (It's apparently OP as shit too, but tbh I don't really care, it could be the most dogshit kit they've ever made—which would be an impressive feat considering some of the characters that already exist—and I would still pull the shit out of that banner.)

But she's still months away for global server 😭

As a side story to this, I picked up Arknights on April 1, 2023, and I fell in love with W right away. She's a limited character, but I was lucky enough to get an off-banner pull of her when Texas alter came out on global. It was meant to be 🧡

[little-lanterns]

alright, finally cleared my head. overall it was okay-ish, honestly i am glad it was leaked because i get to prepare myself mentally from disappointment weeks ahead. i haven't got the energy to watch the new short to really understand what's the deal with walter. why did they give a limited an limited alter, i guess i can understand that making her the non limited/free operator would be basically a downgrade but why not anybody else.

and also welcome that coop game mode. unlike previous coop where single player can carry the entire battle, in here both player must contribute in some way, i am interested in a strat where one player pumps all dp and give it to other player to drop high cost units early. challenge stages only costing 1 sanity on failure is the most needed qol, and idk why it took so long for the friendlist size expand.

victoria arc finally ends and we get to focus on the real mystery of originium, previous civilization, and seaborn. the new is5 with kazdel history as its theme sounds exciting though i don't understand its mechanic yet. i can't wait for the next arc and that laterano event that was teased, hopefully i get to see andoain and beat oren to death.

also you know how adnachiel and steward has outfit where they are on each other's back? i wonder if it will be the case with that new ines skin and hoederer. welp 6 months wait it

the dunmeshi collab was unexpected but i cant wait to have senshi in my team. the new mili song was great and the animation was god like

if there is still no news for azazel event i am going to lowlight's house

[zeravmeta]

Honestly the main take away from darknights is that it shows how fucking powerful hope and trust is

Ines and Hoederer spent years with W after picking her up keeping her at arms length 24/7 and always seeing her as this unstable explosions lunatic but as they warmed to her they began to twist their own rules a bit. Its established so many times that the reason why the Sarkaz civil war keeps going as strong as it does is because being a mercenary is the only living available to them, and that they can't hope to wish for more because they cant trust each other to do so. W was the biggest example of this: she met Hoederer because she was after the bounty on his head, and then decided to join him because she couldn't win the fight, but she'll always have a backup for his head if working under him doesn't work out.

And then W met Theresa.

Here was the King of Sarkaz herself, supposedly the most Sarkaz of them all...being a huge silly goof, laughing with her friends, talking about making peace and struggling to fix a door. That fascinated W, because the first impression she had of Theresa was as a literal goddess on the battlefield, and W can easily tell that Theresa can outmatch her in every way. So what happens?

She stays at Babel for the time being. She learns with them, grows with them, starts to get attached and want more than simply to live till the next day waiting to see if her contract means she'll have to kill the person she enjoyed the company of only hours ago. And it's dangerous and infectious, too. Hoederer becomes more wary of W because she went from being a mercenary to being someone who has hope, and yet the three of them actually have grown to trust each other despite their positions. And why wouldn't they? They've fought and bled together, and were lucky enough that their mercenary lifestyles didn't set them up against each other up till that point. When Ines "dies" (bc she 100% faked her death), Hoederer and W are doing their best to try and play it cool but they're frothing at the mouth at how their friend was killed. And it comes to the point where neither W nor Hoederer can tell of the other is lying about them caring. They've become a danger to themselves and each other because they've begun to carry the hope that they can actually stop this pointless fighting. The Sarkaz way of carrying on the memory and ideals of an individual by carrying their weapon became literal when the hope Theresa gave them was continued after her death. Because hope was her weapon, hope and trust in your fellow man to make peace is what's going to end the machinations of a monster wanting to profit off suffering.

Despite everything, they trust each other, enough to work towards killing Theresis, the man who set them all up against each other in the first place.

[cerastes]

Is W suicidal? Im getting confused about that, because she acts like a jobber from the beginning with the mercenaries, but later she seems to continually try to put herself in massive danger and piss people who can and will kill her as a greeting. Like, she honestly seem ready to kill the doctor because it would mean her death by rabbit and ferret.

W is the opposite of suicidal. Mostly by plan and occasionally by accident, what she does and say are all according to the script she prepared. In the past, as Darknight’s Memoir shows up, W doesn’t really care too much about her life; she’ll do what she can to save herself and isn’t willingly jumping at the chance to die, but when she got cornered with seemingly no way out, she was pretty ok with wearing a bomb vest to take out some people with her without really caring too much about it.

After Babel and Theresa, though, she gained an actual objective beyond “survive each day”, and in fact, most everything she does, even the risks she takes, are premeditated. She most definitely doesn’t want to die, since there’s something she believes she has to do now. And if that involves pissing the wrong people off, well, that’s what she’s gotta do.

Another sign of this is how she immediately joins Hoederer when she sizes him up and realizes she can’t take him and Ines in a fight (she explicitly wanted his bounty). Contrast this with how she’s in the exact same position albeit in a far grander scale in relation to Theresis -- who is millions of times more dangerous than Hoederer -- and yet she does NOT yield or submit to him: She has a mission now. Can’t die until that’s done.

[johannstutt413]

(requested by mathmaticalknight)

It was difficult, sneaking her way onboard, but considering the amount of stealth missions she’d had to perform over the past few months, Ines had long gotten used to ‘difficult’ by this point. Rhodes Island’s security had tightened up over time, especially recently, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle. ‘Specially since a certain someone wasn’t expecting her re-

“You made it.” W’s head popped around the corner as Ines snuck through the last of the safeguards in place to keep this exact sort of thing from happening. “Thought you were dead.”

“The rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated,” she retorted, continuing to walk past.

The Sarkaz held out a hand. “Hey, hey, where do you think you’re going? That’s not the way to your room.”

“...My room?” What the hell? “I don’t have a room here anymore.”

“I do, though. Let’s go.”

Ines glared at her. “And why would I-”

“Look, we can talk about it when you won’t get us both thrown off this ark, okay?” When she continued to hesitate, W just grabbed her hand. “Come on, one foot in front of the other.”

“Let go of me and I’ll follow...you...” The merc found herself trailing off as rather than letting go, her escort doubled down and locked their fingers together. Even with Hoederer - especially with Hoederer, honestly - the Sarkaz had ignored her complaints, comments, concerns, criticisms, notes, and advice, so it wasn’t entirely a surprise that she’d keep dragging her along, but this felt different. A quick glance at her shad- what.

The mercenaries moved at a middle-of-the-road jog before W slipped open her apartment door, half-flung Ines in ahead of her, and closed the door behind her. “Should be in the clear.”

“What happened while I was gone?” That glimpse past her associate’s mask had properly scared her. “Please tell me it isn’t the Doctor.”

“And of course you nail it in one. Let me guess, took a peek while we were making our grand escape?”

The (?)Sarkaz groaned as she settled on a surprisingly plush couch. “I thought you said you weren’t going to get attached.”

“Funny thing about this new personality stuffed in that bastard’s body: he’s actually good at his job.” The real Sarkaz settled on using her fellow mercenary as a plush couch, laying back against her and immediately comfortable. “Talking to him’s really made me think...You know how much I hate that.”

“I didn’t agree to being your pillow,” she muttered, tacitly agreeing to being her pillow in the process.

W tilted her head back a bit so Ines wouldn’t miss the smirk on her face. “And why would that stop me?”

“If you’ve really turned over such a new leaf, I can speculate on its color, can’t I?” The merc sighed, realizing she was already starting to feel comfortable on this damn couch. “So, you’re thinking now? And clearly that’s making you lose what’s left of your mind if you seriously want...I can’t even say it.”

“It’s all his damn fault. If he hadn’t asked me about you, we could still be enemies like we should be, but no-o-o, he had to ask so many damn questions...When are you leaving again?” There was no vitriol in her voice, no ice in her eyes.

Ines shrugged. “I learned all I could while I was out; the situation hasn’t changed enough to change our plans, so until something happens, I don’t have anywhere else I need to go. You want me to stay with you?”

“That’s why we’re here right now, isn’t it?” The Sarkaz pressed further back into her person-pillow. “Got a problem with that?”

“...I’d feel a lot better if I did, but since you’re not messing with me, I guess I need to be honest, too: I don’t hate you. Even after all the shit we went through, the multiple times you betrayed me, you’re still the person I understand the best, which really should be more terrifying than it is. Ugh. We’re going to have to work out a whole new dynamic now, aren’t we?”

Reunion’s ex-head of explosives flipped around to look her in the eye, head resting on the other merc’s chest. “What’s the matter? I’m sure you’ll make enough mistakes for us to keep on like normal.”

“Me? Make a mistake?” Ines scoffed. “Please, if either of us is going to keep the mood right, it’ll be you. You’ve always made more of a mess than me, after all.”

“Only because I have to clean up yours, and ashes just blow away in the wind.” W stuck her tongue out at her, which turned out to be the wrong kind of taunt as the (?)Sarkaz was close enough to act on the threat of romance they’d dangled over each others’ heads.

Suddenly, there was a far more pressing matter than keeping up appearances.

[retour]

Ines x Hoederer. XD

// That’d.....honestly be interesting to see, ngl. Granted, it’d take a while to see how things go, but it’s not entirely impossible.