#bones plays arknights

[shark--apologist]

First Arknights fanart

Gravel

[cerastes]

Arturia's Arts make away with one's inhibitions, making it so those affected will follow their dreams and desires in full. This is why some people practically commit suicide -- directly or by simply doing something that means courting certain death -- which is why she's a wanted criminal (and she also has masterful enough dominion of Arts to generate barriers that can tank Executor's shots, so assassinating her is also difficult), but it's also why some of her crimes, as listed in the official Arknights Twitter, are also really funny, such as my personal favorite, where she played for a sanatorium and retirement home of old Laterano paratroopers, which made them want to collectively desire one last flight, resulting in them tying an absolute assload of balloons to the sanatorium and making it fly Up style while they cheered and hollered.

Realistically, all she did was play for them, and then they did All Of That. In my heart of hearts, though, she was there inflating balloons with an old ass hand pump, working a big ol' sweat with her twig-like physique, manure-feasting grin on her face, the "driving home... PENIS >:)" kinda smirk, thinking to herself "oooh they are going to fulfill their innermost desires SO bad... God my bones hurt but it's going to piss off the government sooooo much heeheehoohoo >:)))))"

[threecheersforsuccess]

I've been yapping for too many years, so I need a living masterpost of the guides and blogs from my Tumblr and Instagram. I plan to create more long-form content in the upcoming months, and I will re-do some of the prompts listed. I feel some of my old work might be outdated, so please take my wording with a chunk of salt.

I'll update my with my content as I go.

Stuff from 2024

♡ What's in my bag? (2024)

My Motivation Education Video Series (2022-2023)

♡ Part 0: Something Much Needed Among Students: Motivation ♡ Part 1: Bare Bones Definition of Motivation ♡ Part 2: Self-efficacy, I think ♡ Part 3: Where is the control? ♡ Part 4: Reward or Autopilot ♡ Part 5: Determination to Continue ♡ Part 6: Personal Interest ♡ Part 7: Outside The Model ♡ Part 8: Where is the willpower? ♡ Part 9: Is stress even a bad thing? Note: I stopped because I did not like the short video format. I'm not sure if I may pick this up again, but I do think the lessons I learned from my readings are pretty neat :)

5am.Raining's Studying Challenge (2022)

Note: A challenge led by my cool mutual 5am.raining on Instagram. I slowly figure out how to make videos. It's a little wonky at the beginning, but I find my style! I made these posts in 2022 ♡ Poorly Filmed Day in My Life! ♡ My Studying Role Model... Haruhi from Ouran... ♡ Fave Leader in My Field: Carol Dweck ♡ What gets me in the mood to study? ♡ What I want to do with my degree... ♡ My Fave Reading Assignment ♡ Study Tunes ♡ How to get back into reading books ♡ Favorite study supplies ♡ Planning Routine (2022 version) ♡ Organizing My Desk ♡ What's in my backpack? ♡ Inspiring Film or Doc on My Field ♡ Imposter Syndrome ♡ "Study Buddy" ♡ Coping with Long Study Sessions

Flipd Productivity and Motivation Challenge Blogs

Note: I yapped so hard I won the productivity challenge. I wrote these around junior year of college (2021). ♡ Long-Term Destination, Short-Term Motivation: Living in The Moment ♡ Embedding Self-forgiveness in Your Self-Care ♡ Study Essentials ♡ The Importance of Play and Breaks ♡ Quote of Week Analysis: Self-Acceptance ♡ How I Plan My Everyday ♡ The Biggest Time Management Misconception I'm Trying to Get Over ♡ Recognizing Burnout (and Listening to Yourself) ♡ Building an Academic Support System ♡ Ways to Make Yourself Take Breaks ♡ The Challenges of a Positive Mindset ♡ How I Build Habits (based on James Clear's Atomic Habits)

Diana's Studying Challenge (2021)

Note: A challenge lead by my cool mutual dianas.desk on Instagram. I made these posts in 2021. Day 1: Challenge Introduction Day 2: What Gets Me Motivated Day 3: Cleaning My Desk Day 4: Study Tunes/Songs I Listen and Avoid Day 5: Current Books I'm Reading Day 6: Relaxation! Arknights Projekt Red Bullet Journal Spread Day 7: My Happy Place Day 8: Week Reflection Day 9: How I Plan Day 10: My Summer 2021 Work Routine Day 11: My Desk Essentials Day 12: Study Snack (Natto) Day 13: Digital or Paper Notes? Which is Better? Day 14: How I Self-Care Day 15: My School Bag Day 16: Proudest Achievement Day 17: Most Favorite Productivity App/Website Blocker Day 18: Work Buddies Day 19: Inspirational Quotes Day 20: My Favorite Place to Work Day 21: #MessyDesk Day 22: Guilty Pleasure Day 23: My Favorite Study Accounts Day 24: Study Methods I Do Not Like Day 25: Trying out a new place to work? Day 26: Part 2 of My Unconventional Study Tips (same as above) Day 27: My Outfit Day 28: Making a Gratitude List Day 29: My Aspirations Day 30: Today I learned… Day 31: September Goals

My Study Tips

Note: I wrote many of these either in 2020 or very early on (2017-2018). Super old stuff. ♡ Unconventional Study Tips Part 1 + Part 2 ♡ One Effective Memorization Tip ♡ Dealing with Bad Grades: What I Do ♡ How to get 800 on the SAT in Math and Full Points on Grammar ♡ Causes of Procrastination + Methods for Each ♡ How to Study When Unmotivated ♡ Making Your Discord Study Space ♡ Ways to Go to Bed Early ♡ My Super Ultimate Guide to AP Calc AB and BC ♡ Using Your Phone Productively (2018)

Journaling

♡ How I Journal (2017) ♡ How I Use My Notebooks (2018) ♡ How to Keep a Daily Journal (2020) ♡ How to Get into Creative Journaling (2022)

Dividers by @fairytopea

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

I don't play a lick of arknights but everything you mentioned about Degenbrecher makes her sound like Musashi, how off is that impression? Just curious.

Pretty off, actually. There is some overlap between the two characters in some ways, but they end up being remarkably different parts of the spectrum.

Musashi is happy go-lucky, boisterous, and cares deeply about her sword technique and mastering it. Degenbrecher is serious, taciturn, and is only concerned about getting strong enough to win. This is a very in a nutshell thing but it's an important starting point. Their backgrounds being dramatically different is a huge part of this. Musashi doesn't really get along with her father, but she is part of a family of renowned sword skill, and her trajectory on her life was started out of spite for her father. Degenbrecher was disowned, almost seemingly, by all of Leithanian for her complete lack of arts ability, to the point where she has abandoned her original name.

While Musashi left home to get stronger and improve her skill with the sword, to push it to ever higher limits, Degenbrecher's journey began when she took a pair of degenbrechers (a German sword-breaker, although Arknights also seems to conflate them with the jian) from a Germandarie and kills him with them. From that point on, Degenbrecher realized the strongest force in the world is simply violence and worked to become as strong as possible. She is the shonen trope of the person who can't do magic so they double down and become the most batshit powerful martial fighter.

Degenbrecker fights duels with opponents because she's so thoroughly bored at how strong she is now that she is desperately looking for some kind of challenge, while Musashi does it because she really loves dueling people.

I imagine if they were to somehow meet they probably wouldn't like each other very much, Degenbrecher has basically stated she doesn't tend to like opponents who are overly proud of their skills because she always find them to be weaker than those who understand fighting like she does, and for Musashi I imagine she would find Degenbrecher's physical talent respectable, but probably pretty inelegant. Then again Musashi would probably still try to bone her because it's. Musashi.

[all-hail-trudos]

Okay, I was fully prepared to be a proud supporter of Women's Wrongs again, but you know what? No. No, Arturia isn't getting that treatment. There's something simultaneously banal and insidious about someone who is Philsophically Evil. Not blowing up people and laughing about it like W. Not constantly scheming, going places She Shouldn't Go, and forcibly hiring herself at the end of Lone Trail like Ho'ho. No, she simply stands above it all, plays her fancy fiddle and claims she bears no responsibility for the events that transpired, especially pushing a despairing man over the edge. It was all them, she says. They would have done it anyway, she only played to the tune of their hearts. She shrugs off Federico's rightful accusations with a flippant laugh, as if she was only providing background music, nothing more.

I'm not saying that my favorite villainous Arknights women are morally any better. But they're at least Proud of what they achieve, and make absolutely no bones about it. Which makes them great fun to watch in action. Artoria gets no such pass. All she does is monologue and needle her unreceptive autistic brother. Very much not my cup of tea. 2/10.

[mielmoto]

playing arknights and while i am trying to strike a balance between prioritizing useful, quality units, i am once again presented with a case where i will exhaust my resources for one [1] pretty girl with zero care as to whether or not she's highly rated, simply because she is a pretty girl and she deserves it!!

read also as: i pulled harmonie like a week ago then this hit the EN servers

so yeah. i bring her everywhere now.

this is so honey coded it aches my bones.

[exoticalmonde]

I. Arknights OSTs Top 20 of Eve's Favourite Songs for December 2023

So me and momma Eve listened to some Arknigths OSTs together while I was stiching in the living room today and because it was an auto run on YT I ended up listening to some songs I have not heard before.

Which ultimately tilted the scales of which songs I do and do not like really really much right about now. My phone's been blasting the same 11 songs as well for a while, so I need to actually look into a playlist that's catered to me and me alone.

Since there's a limit of 10 about video links I'm gonna start simple and get into the frisky and unexpected.

We start with the obvious, 1. Ständchen - Ebenholz Theme Has been since coming out and will probably always be my favourite one. I love everything about it from the music to the lyrics and I have probably sang it 10 000 times to myself like a ghost in my apartment with its wallowing death song on its lips for all eternity. Thank you Ambience Synthesia for also playing it, I crode.

2. Settle Into Ash - Hoederer OST HOEDERER MY BEAUTIFUL DARLING HUSBAND MY LOVE THE APPLE OF MY EYE THE MARROW OF MY BONE THE BLOOD IN MY HEART MY MOST GORGEOUS, TENDER, JADED AND TORMENTED DARLING THE CHARMER THAT HAS STOLEN MY BREATH AND MY SOUL THANK YOU FOR EXISTING YOUR THEME IS THE GREATEST EVER I CRY EVERY TIME I HEAR IT BEGIN

3. Silver Lining - Silverash OST Well... Found it today on accident although it turned out it was on my old favourites list I had absolutely forgotten about it and am now going to spam play it as I think about all the ways I can make this fanfic between Dr. Eve and SilverAsh work in ways that will not cause me nervous impairment.

4. Stainless Heart - Stainless OST Also heard it today for the first time. Absolute banger.

Dr. Kryo agrees with me on that one, of course.

5. Прощание - Hellagur's OST It's one of the songs up there with Lullabye that are in Russian and I have been singing them to myself coming form and going to Uni because I really like them and my neighbours are Russian speakers so I wonder how much they think I am being weird. And how much they think I could understand them... which I can, but a very tiny bit.

6. Bluish Light - Lumen OST Got reminded of this yesterday when Leaff asked about Lumen, having found his art somehow somewhere. He's baby, my trusted medic, baby boy muah muah

7. Ensheath - Mlynar OST In honour of Dr. Lundi I played it a lot to myself and after crying twice over how raw it is I decided to add it to the list. I love it a lot.

8. Stained - Executor the Ex Foedere (Exalter) OST Don't listen to it too often now, but I did over the summer. Another honourable Dr. Lundi mention. I'm gonna be buried under the church in the upcoming week, why not remind myself the complete wreck this theme makes of me.

9. Lessing - Lessing OST I can't wait to have you in my hands.

10. Blade Catcher - Degenbrecher OST All of China and the US know I am horny for this woman simply because of that one image where she's got her hands all bloody on the train. My sense of self-preservation has been stun-locked.

[chryza]

Now that I’ve had some time to reflect on my finishing the Main Theme of Arknights it strikes me as how NUTTY a decision like Shatterpoint is. I am not a fan of bringing characters back from the dead because the power of killing off a character immutably is so good. And yet, as a writer, I’m in awe of the decision to have Theresa brought in for Shatterpoint. Or rather in awe at what I consider to be flawless execution.

Like you spend the first eight chapters and some events to boot of this story learning about Rhodes Island and how it came to be. How, fundamentally, the relationship you have with several major characters is predicated on Theresa’s murder. Like, there’s haunting the narrative, and then there’s everything you’ve seen thus far is a result of what she built and you can’t even remember her name, let alone the fact that you killed her. Her death isn’t the only thing driving the story of course because there are many, many players in the world of Arknights. But for your relationship with Amiya, Kal’tsit, and W, and the lens through which you view that world? It is intrinsic.

And then suddenly she’s just there. I hate when stories bring characters back to life but her death was so chock full of perceived injustice and you see the pain her death caused so many people (god forbid Amiya) so it feels like a victory. Except. Well. She’s not on your side. Is she? Suddenly the victory tastes bitter. As much as I love the “came back wrong” trope it is so much more powerful to have Theresa be the exact same person she was, sans memories of Babel. Now suddenly you have to confront the emotions her death caused while she’s there and reconcile those feelings while working against her. It did the ‘bringing a character back from the dead’ right, because necromancying Theresa doesn’t take away the emotional impact her death had—it harshly exacerbates it.

Like I figure not a lot of people play Arknights for the story (“It’s a fucking gacha game bro, we play this game because we want to fuck this picture.” -QaiserGAMES 2023) but if you DO hoo-boy there is some MEAT on those bones.

[icharchivist]

Not to be that person, but I think for all its faults, Gbf still has more body diversity than other Gacha games

One of the reasons I couldn't really get into Genshin Impact for is that they have a total of three body types and one of those looks like small children, which I'm not interested in

All the dudes are total twinks and all the women either come in small tits or big. It's annoying to me, which is why I'm not playing. No judgement on people who do enjoy the game

So imo Gbf is at least passing this bar, even though it is on the floor

And yes, they should do more in terms of muscular women, but at least we get buff men and not twinks exclusively. Or, thinking back to the four dragon knights with their different body types

Until then, Fediel will always have abs in my mind

oh no i agree don't worry about that

it's like, both "Granblue still falls under the trap of not trying more "risky" bodytypes" and "still, Granblue actually makes a lot of effort and care which is appreciated" are things that can coexist.

The comparaisons are with BG3 rn bc the anons brought it up but tbf those are such drastically different games in term of production and medium that it just highlights the general issues with any medium. i think BG3 could more likely be compared to other games of similar genres with what it tries, and doesn't try.

But Granblue should be compared to other gacha on that level and, on that level, Granblue actually probably puts the most efforts i've seen in a gacha game in term of diversity.

it just sucks because it still isn't nearly enough and it still falls into the common trap of some beauty conventions.

But it's still more efforts than a lot of others games.

Genshin's stuff is kind of in its own area for me bc it's stilla 3D game and 3D game requires new models for new bodytypes. Like i said in the previous ask, i still think it should be an effort to be made -- but it's also clearly at a disadvantage compared to games like say, Granblue, Arknights, a3, or stuff like that, who are fully 2D and therefore don't have to rely on any restrictions.

Granblue has a huge cast, and a lot of diverse bodytype. conventionally attractive bodytypes, but still more diversity than not.

in Granblue there's already the different races that already have some bodytype associated to them, which is especially visible with the men, so the bodytypes end up diversified just on this basis. Then, most of the time, at least for men, there is an effort to have the bodytype/the muscles placement to make sense with the era of expertise of those characters. Nehan barely has any flesh on his bones due to decades of abuse. Lancelot's body is slender and not too muscular because everything about him is about being nimble on his feet. Vane is a powerhouse because he's a tank. So on and so forth.

when it comes to women (who aren't Harvins at least), muscles aren't taken into account at all, which is peeving. There's diversities on different level, boob sizes, waist, thighs, all that jazz. It's eyeroll worthy that the diversity for women in Granblue is still fully based on conventionally aesthetic ideals. But at the end of the day it still means you can have many women with different bodytypes. Not *extremely* diverse one, but more than some gacha which have a same body size fit them all.

but there is other levels of diversity in appearance Granblue has an advantage on. while it's not the majority, there are dark skinned characters, from darker shades than some gacha would even dare to explore. There's the trans characters. There's different level of reading to it all.

it could be so much better, of course. Granblue's shortcomings are shared everywhere in the video games industry because of basically beauty ideals.

At the end of the day a Gacha especially is relying on people being willing to spend money for one single character. It makes them more scared to experiment with different type of characters because each character has to be bringing money in some way. It's different than a big AAA game that you buy once, and that shouldn't have to convince you to spend money at every character it introduces.

So the fact Granblue does take some risks is appreciated. It makes it one of the gacha that does try the most.

but it's still trying into a comfortable zone that still doesn't acknowledge """"""less desirable""""" features. Which sucks because it's not even true, and the less they're willing to take risk the less they'll be able to see that.

[glassautomaton]

Iris is the SCP equivalent of a Saberface and DA Iris is Castoria and Lily is High Queen Morgan and I swear this is a good bit if anyone would ever get the joke aside from me due to my very niche intersection of interests. Anyways, Saber is a good guess - Castoria sort of lines up - but it wasn't who I had in mind. This might take a little explanation and I'm probably going to sound insane.

I used to play Arknights, and I don't think that's really a secret, as all my early posts from this blog are just about Arknights (including that time I correctly guessed Hoshiguma was secretly decades if not centuries old and was lying about her life history so haha), and my profile pictures have usually just been pictures of Saga, my favorite Arknights character. What this means is that I like a lot of Arknights (and now FGO) fanart on Twitter, and since Twitter sees me like a lot of gacha game fanart, it recommends stuff from lots of other gacha games I don't play. I also tend to like looking at artwork and character designs to give me ideas for characters, and the other day I got recommended artwork of this character from the gacha game Girl's Frontline. I'm using official in-game art here rather than the fanart I found since I can't seem to find it. From what I can tell this shows base and upgraded versions of the characters with normal and 'damaged' sprites.

The character's name is AN-94, same as a modern (I think Russian) assault rifle, with most of the characters in the game sort of being anthropomorphized firearms. That's right, you can't google historical figures, mythological figures, boats, or certain types of birds without getting anime girls, and now you can add guns to that list. As you might expect, it can be kind of difficult to find artwork of characters with anything resembling tactical gear or modern combat armor, which I obviously want to see due to Devil's Advocate being a modern-day series. Plus, blonde woman, and as we all know any blonde woman is an Irisface, blatant discrepancies be damned.

I ended up looking for some more artwork with her yesterday since I saw her pop up again, and I found this alternate outfit for her.

Oh, a wetsuit with tactical gear, that's funny, Iris wore a tactical wetsuit that one time. Except it turns out, this is from a batch of summer skins, and all the other characters had the expected swimsuits except for poor AN-94 who read the memo wrong. Just like Iris wearing a wetsuit when she was supposed to wear a normal swimsuit.

But it didn't stop there. You know how Alpha-9 wears armored suits in order to blend in on public operations? You know how I color-coded all of them because I'm insane? You know how Iris' suit is blue?

Good god what does it all mean. I feel like if someone knew GFL before reading DA they'd think I'm just lifting stuff from it for DA.

It doesn't even stop there. Here's a small excerpt from the next Devil's Advocate tale...

...And here's a skin for AK-12, AN-94's squadmate who's commonly shipped with AN-94.

I feel as though the universe is attempting to tell me something with that one. This one's really neither here nor there, but I found that RPK-16, another squadmate for the other two, to be very Delta-coded. Yes I just had to throw my androids a bone I like them okay.

To top it all off, the artist who made all of these character is also the artist for Saga, my favorite Arknights character. So I guess it turns out I'm a hack fraud plagiarist so I have to delete all my tales now, sorry everyone.

Me and @drdapper found what can only be described as a profoundly Iris-coded anime girl. It started off as a joke then I found out that the character wears a full tactical wetsuit to an outing where everyone else wears regular swimsuits (like Iris) then I found another official outfit where she’s wearing a blue suit like Iris’ suit because I color-coded all the character’s civilian outfits. Both of her alternate outfits lined up it’s fucking with me man. Unfortunately DrDapper has told me not to say who it is because he thinks it’s funnier that way. So go bug him.

[shark--apologist]

ok but is Gravel actually a hoe or is that just how everyone interprets her based on how she looks /gen

[winged-void]

prime numbers fuck you

2. You talked to an ex today, correct?

huh. bitch ass question machine. i have one ex and the last time i heard from her she was stalking me in high school.

3. Have you taken someones virginity?

I guess it depends on your definition but like. under most definitions yeah.

5. Did you hang out with the person you like recently?

I hang out with my wife every day<3 I also got to hang out with penny unexpectedly on wednesday that was cool.

7. What happened tonight?

it's 9 am. so. last night what happened was i got sad for no reason and sat on the couch motionless and played the arknights roguelike mode. it was cool.

11. How many people of the opposite sex do you fully trust?

i fully trust like. four people. maybe. and none of them happen to be men.

13. What are you gonna do Saturday night?

i have no idea! that's a whole 36 hours away!

17. Who do you feel most comfortable talking to about anything?

It's probably a tie between you, my wife, and my best friend

19. Have you had sex today?

it's 9 am. so no.

23. Are your eyes the same color as your dad’s?

i have no idea what color my dad's eyes are lmao

29. Do you really, truly miss someone right now?

My wife left for work an hour ago so that's pretty fucked up and i miss them a lot.

I also miss my girlfriend, I hope i get to see her again not too far in the future.

31. Honestly, do you hate the last boy you were talking to?

the last boy i was talking to was a random stranger who wanted to play fighting games with me. i feel neutrally about him

37. Do you believe in love at first sight?

Not really no. the concept doesn't like. make sense. with how i define love.

41. When was the last time you ate a cupcake?

I have no idea but my wife made oreo cheesecake bites and those are similar and SO good

43. Ever embarrass yourself in front of a crush?

I embarass myself constantly in ways most people don't even notice, so yeah.

47. Who was the last person to call you?

this girl who's always on my dick. like. i already told you miss Scam Likely, it's never gonna happen.

53. Is Christmas stressful?

Yeah. ptsd reasons mostly.

59. Take a vitamin daily?

no. i should take calcium for the bone destroying pills i take daily but i don't

61. Wear a bath robe?

ugh i wish i bet i'd look hot.

67. Peanuts or Sunflower seeds?

Peanuts, but i don't think I've ever had sunflower seeds.

love me a peanut tho

71. Can you curl your tongue?

mhmmmmmmmm

73. Have you ever cried because you were so happy?

yeah! constantly. ya girl cries about everything<3

79. What was the last concert you saw?

I have no idea. it was definitely a long time ago. it might be when i went to a twenty one pilots concert in 2015. wack.

83. Can you swim well?

pretty well

89. Which are better black or green olives?

i never really notice a difference. love me an olive tho, esp on a pizzum

[tsukinoinaba]

ok, that makes way more sense. I'm sadly incredibly lazy about actually taking the time to read story in some of the gachas I play, and Arknights is sadly one of the ones where I only know bare bones stuff for a lot of things. one of the few things I did know since launch was "SA is rich and also here's all these Chris Redfield memes again." so him only being able to afford a car one way felt weird.

Yeah they are fun, I’m sold.

[raisengen]

Thinking about past games I’ve played, I feel like silent(ish) self-insert protagonists actually work better when you don’t surround them with allies to fill the silence.

It might seem counter-intuitive at first, but I think a lot of it comes down to robbing the player of agency. Different games allow for different levels of freedom in how you tackle problems, but in the end, if your storyline is linear, players are going to have to follow your set checkpoints to progress however you write it. But there’s always a choice, that choice to progress.

If your silent character is alone, the players themselves can fill that silence. You tell them that there’s an interesting place to check out, you tell them that a town is under attack, and the player can say “I want to go and check that out, I want to go and help them”.

If you’ve already filled that void with a characterised party, it’s all too easy to have them say “we want to go and check that out, we want to go and help them”, then – implicitly or explicitly – turn to the player character and say “you want to go and check that out, you want to go and help them”. Or wants be damned, they just tell you to do it. Your player already made the choice to play your game, but I don’t think “people telling you to do the thing you were already going to do” was the experience they wanted.

The way that supporting characters can steal agency generalises to a possible risk in party dynamics. Clearly, it’s hard to write a full conversation with a silent protagonist, but adding verbal party members might just mean you’re just cutting the protagonist out of the conversation entirely, turning them into a piece of problem-solving furniture and lessening the chances to bond with the characters that are meant to be their friends.

For some examples, the earlier Pokémon games are perhaps a prime choice for capitalising on a silent protagonist and letting the player build their own story on top of the largely linear one you provide. They throw you in at one end, give you a couple of goals, and then largely let you walk yourself to the other end alone. Lots of people have fond memories of “their” adventure, even if the meat and bones of it are the same between players.

The Elder Scrolls is another interesting one for player agency, being a meaty RPG with linear storylines that often feature a lot of exposition directed at you. Of course there’s the choice in how you approach gameplay, but more than that the choice of whether you do a story at all is a very real one. You absolutely can just choose not to follow it up if you don’t vibe, and you can still get a full experience from the game.

Looking over at mobile games, I’m happy to point at GBF as a big stinker by handing you your player character protagonist, then saying “here’s your childhood friend the mascot character, you ARE good buddies and he WILL be speaking on your behalf and assuming your opinions whether you like it or not”.  FGO would perhaps make for a conventionally interesting case study in their techniques to keep the player-protagonist feeling involved and relevant, while Arknights is comfortable enough to say “you are a real character, but you are not the main character”.

For the finale, FFXIV ARR makes for perhaps the best case study I’ve got right now, because it manages to create several of these dynamics at different times. In much of the main quest, you find yourself tagging along as the new addition to a squad who already know each other and have their own dynamics, and it can often feel like you’re just the pointy end of their pointiest spear. Then the story cuts you out and sends you to Coerthas, and while mechanically nothing has changed – you’re still following the main quest markers and ticking off their objectives – now you’re closer to that solo dynamic, now you’re being treated as your own person rather than the muscle of the Good Guys, and it feels much more like “your” adventure.

Well, you still have Alphinaud around to waggle his jaw, but I find myself forgiving him because “assumes things of the people around him, including their friendship” feels very in-character for someone as posh and privileged as he.  That’s another interesting technique to think about, but if I try to think all the ways to write around it acceptably I’ll be here forever.

Finally, FFXIV has that occasional lengthy side quest chain that matches the Elder Scrolls spirit, where it’s entirely unrelated to anything else you’ve got going on, and for all its linearity the only reason you’re there is because you want to be there, and that feels like it fills out your character the most.

[siverfanweedo]

everyone: playing lb4

me: stuck farming Loxic Kohl on arknights cuz all the girls want these it's just the bone from fgo all over again

[shark--apologist]

idk why but the arknights aesthetics, both character and world, are making me feral like??? its the perfect combination of dystopian, sci-fi, but also fantasy that i absolutely love. I love the fashion and how the characters look