#personal arknights stuff

[daidai-kawaii]

In case anyone was wondering how the Ines pulls are going, I'm gonna lose my mind

[thegreatyin]

i'm fully aware i'm a few days late to the punch. however. don't forget to open up arknights and play + read Actual Peak Fiction if you haven't already

this is heralded as the single greatest writing arknights has ever concocted bar none. and that is for very good reason. go trail that lone already

[elidistortion-art]

Woman needs more content pls,,,,

[nattodoobles]

lately I've been experimenting more with media other than pen/pencil so ive been in the marker and watercolor trenches

[yokohungry]

Tasty food medals. 😂

[kara-knuckles]

Due to leap year, I got the medal for my third anniversary today, even though it is technically two days off. Anyway, I decided to throw a multi at TFTW banner on each day between 11th and 13th, and today's result was very nice!

[astranauticus]

you ever in the middle of using an app and suddenly think damn i wish the way this app is built was industry practice. anyway i feel like we need to acknowledge that bilibili exists and has

no video ads

background play/in-window play/video download as default (read: NOT PAID) features

collaborative video credits so like you can upload a video and directly credit other users with their roles like editor/voice actor/etc. in the created by section

and youtube also exists and is the way that it is

[laurarolla]

The whole situation of turmoil inside Bungie right now does make me wonder if we accidentally got a tiny hint that things weren't going well earlier this month when we didn't hear a peep about the Arknights collaboration that they announced earlier this year. Lot of people were curious why the next Rainbow Six collab was getting announced on the livestream with no word on Destiny 2, but if Bungie is in the midst of some serious internal turmoil, a collaboration with a chinese mobile game might be one of the easiest things to put on the back burner or wordlessly drop entirely.

[brbgensokyo]

just saw your response to my kamen rider ask, so that Vice Hatepost must’ve been someone else

but if it helps a lot of Kamen Rider shows are literally thrown together as they’re being made, with maybe two-three episodes of planning just so they have a teaser to put into the end of each episode for the next one

iirc Kamen Rider Gaim is the only one that was planned out fully before airing (and consequently is a lot shorter than the others at only 35 episodes and one mandatory film viewing)

maybe the structuring/lack of planning of the series is a factor?

nah its not that, the fact that its live action undermines anything its trying to present to me. I cant buy into the cartoon antics if the characters have to abide by the real world rules

[racke7]

Just went through 2M LMD in like... half an hour.

But I did manage to E2 12 different 4* operators (and E1 Max a few more).

[chryza]

THINGS TO SAY WHEN YOU CAUSE THE COLLAPSE OF YOUR COUNTRY THROUGH CIVIL WAR

[daidai-kawaii]

In case anyone was wondering how the Ines pulls are going, I'm gonna lose my mind

[thegreatyin]

you know i haven't personally played it for long so i can't actually tell but limbus company seems to be doing pretty well for itself out there on the internet and i wish all 12 project moon fans a very happy whatever's going on in that train

[cerastes]

Was Wisadel's backlash at all comparable to the Chalter incident and do you think it would be enough to make them ignore her for a bit, or do you expect them to give her a skin on the more normal schedule for limiteds? I know there are a lot of complaints that even went beyond gameplay stuff (like being a limited alter of a limited) but I generally shut out the community when it gets super annoying so have no clue how big the stink actually got.

As far as I know, there was no backlash for Wisadel, but I’ve also not had my finger on the Arknights pulse as of late, so maybe I missed it, but, again, as far as I know, there wasn’t anything like with Chung the Hung, which makes sense, all things considered, because Chung didn’t get her backlash due to being overpowered, it was a molotov cocktail of factors which included being overpowered. Wisadel had some complaints, such as what you mentioned — limited alternate of a limited — but nothing much beyond what limiteds get.

Wisadel as a while evades the Chung trappings:

Regardless of your opinion on her actual design, Wisadel’s artwork is of good quality. It’s proportionate, well drawn, stylish, the whole deal. Ch’en the Holungday famously had really awful E2 art.

Wisadel is overpowered, but she’s a character that’s been ingrained in the narrative since day one and this “upgrade” is tied to her actual growth and role in the main story. Ch’en was overpowered, but while you can make an argument her growth is part of it (since it’s offhandedly mentioned in her Files, I guess), it’s tied to an overall filler summer event, has her in a literal swimsuit, firing a jury rigged Super Soaker for more damage than several of her contemporaries could manage combined per shot, all while having three Skills that were all basically the same and S3 being the best one by far, which also used the Ammo mechanic so you could have insane practical upkeep on it. Comparatively, Wisadel actually has three distinct Skills, which leads to the next point:

Wisadel is actually entertaining and satisfying to look at: The bombardment S2, the huge death beam explosion of S3, the graphics, the sound effects, the sprite animations, Wisadel has actual flair. Ch’en the Holungday is painfully boring to play and look at, all Skills have the same animations, the same dull sound effect, no variation or flair. Her skin definitely helped on the flair department, like 3 years later.

Though you could (correctly) argue that Wisadel might also be doing this for limited alts of limiteds, Ch’en was setting a very awful precedent: Overpowered Summer Units, maybe even Overpowered Seasonal Units, a hallmark of trashy gacha design. Hypergryph had tested the waters with other scummy strategies before — the period of time in which Thorns and Surtr, AKA stupid strong characters, among others, were rapid fire releases with no accompanying lore or event to give them a place in the world the way others have, which haunts them to this day as ‘lorelets’ — so Ch’en In A Bikini Godtier didn’t sit well either.

Wisadel wasn’t the only good unit out of her banner; regardless of your personal take on Mizuki as a unit, he was widely agreed to be, and thus, perceived as a nothingburger of a 6*, and La Pluma, who is definitely a good unit but was a new archetype at that time, so people were cautious with her, so there was a clear winning roll and losing roll. Wisadel was joined by 6* Logos, who could easily be the limited 6* in any other banner, and 5* Fang, a highly anticipated character. Overall, the perception of these banners could not have been more different.

The overtuning of Ch’en is but one in a cocktail of complaints people had for her, basically. Any complaints there were over Wisadel were a fraction of what Ch’en got.

[yokohungry]

Working through the difficulties.

IS3 feels so rng based at this level. Took over a week for this level.

More rambling observations under cut.

Rip to players with no Texalter. Her utility is unmatched here with her fast-redeploy and stuns. The amount of "hovering" enemies is terrible.

May has stuns with her S2. Ambriel has stuns at E2 outside her range which is a little trickier. Krooster might be worth the hope? I should probably look more into other units since ugh, Texalter kind of spoiled me.

^This is one of my favorite relics. It combines really well with units like Beanstalk who can "redeploy" with skill activation, but it also makes "traps" op because it counts traps as a "deploy"

Which makes Dorothy who has unlimited traps just silly.

BUT IT ALSO MAKES W'S LANDMINES GO BRRRR. (Add a sp generator to her and it's the best. 10/10 for ending2 boss.)

I still have no idea whats a good staring squad type. Research and Spearhead are my faves, but I took a shot with People-Oriented and was really happy about not worrying about the hope costs.

IS has really made the 5* units in a real awkward spot. 4* are just too good per hope costs and utility. I'd try to do a 5* only run, but I don't think I even have that many of them built! 🙃

I think I should unlock more relics on lower difficulty before trying more.

[bobbile-blog]

Okay so I've finally gotten to Jessicalter's Oprec and now feel qualified to talk about Come Catastrophes or Wakes of Vultures. holy shit. This went straight into my list of top Arknights events. Fantastic event, spoilers will be under the cut so I HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading the event first. It's really good and worth your while.

Anyway, what follows is a scattered mess of thoughts about this event and things that stuck out to me.

First off, plot stuff! I'll probably cover this when I do my next plotline recap post, but what I took away from the end is that Clip Cliff seems to want to make Blacksteel independent, or at least more self-determining than it is now. He seems to be gathering resources and assets like mobile city plates and investing in long-term infrastructure like merc training, so he definitely has a long game he's pushing for. I don't think we know enough go speculate about his goals, but we'll definitely be coming back here again. After all, Tila has an infection monitor in her art, which probably means she's going to be playable at some point in the future.

Next, having looked into this a little on my own, I was interested in some of the previous places Raythean has shown up. Specifically, the ones that stood out were the drones in the Kazimierz Major and arming Silverash's forces in Kjerag, which might be referring to the Tschäggättä. It's not just notable for their apparent level of technology, but also as a faint connecting thread between three separate capitalism plotlines. I don't know if that's going to be meaningful in the future, but I found it interesting enough that I thought I'd bring it up.

Now on to more narrative things. While I love Liskarm and Franka, I do think it was the right choice to give them less screen time in this event. They're both (for the most part) fully-realized characters who understand their own motivations and morals. This is above all else an event about Jessica learning to stand on her own as an adult, so it makes sense that they're more here to support her than they are to play their own roles in the story.

Speaking of said roles, I liked the event's commentary on cops. It pointed out an interesting distinction that I wouldn't really have ever thought of, that between mercenaries and cops. To start: cops exist to protect property, not people. The police exist to protect things and do not have an obligation to err on the side of people over things, and in fact are supposed to do the opposite. This event understands that, and that role os the core of how the bank treats the Blacksteel mercs. CV, however, raises an interesting point that mercenaries are bound by the letter of a contract and not the larger obligation to property cops are, so they can actually raise moral objections and point to their contracts, sort of a Lawful Evil/Lawful Neutral to cops' Neutral Evil. The independence of their position with respect to cops allows for more of an independent morality than you'd get in a cop story and I like that, I think it's a really smart direction to take your writing in.

On a (mostly) separate note, holy shit Arknights is really good at writing cowboy stories. Between this and chapter 9 (and I would argue An Obscure Wanderer), Arknights has repeatedly made it clear that they Do Not Fuck Around with their cowboy stories and I'm surprised I haven't heard more people talking about it. It kinda has everything:

- It takes place in a rural, working-class setting undergoing a larger imminent societal shift that can inform the larger narrative, and deals with a semi-mythologized past that is rapidly disappearing.

- It has a protagonist and an antagonist that serve as foils, both very heavily affected and defined by the (same) violence in their past that they've both had different reactions to. Our protagonist has come to terms with the violence as a tool to maintain order, while our antagonist has used it for personal gain and in some ways lost control of it.

- It's a story about community, and heavily emphasizes local and personal community over larger artificial corporate "community". That's my reading of the recurring motif of the cold btw, warmth represents the close, personal community Davistown used to have and the cold that now pervades it comes from how the bank has systematically dismantled that community.

- And, I'd argue most importantly, it understands the narrative power of a bullet. The Showdown at the end of a cowboy story is powerful because we've spent the entire runtime of our story with these characters, and they are now facing each other down with the intent to end one of their collective two stories. The entire weight of the narrative so far comes to rest on a single moment of tension. It's really hard to gather up the kind of narrative momentum you need to make that hit like it does in CV. For example, it requires a really light hand with actual action in the story, so that it really does feel like it's an even standoff between our protagonist and antagonist. On the other hand, though, you do actually have to establish the relative skill of both parties and actually sell the danger of the moment to the audience. It's really hard to toe the line between tension and actual action in a way that makes for a satisfying resolution, and CV does it extremely well.

Honestly, Arknights just seems really good at getting the vibes of American media right. This is something I noticed in DV and Lonetrail too, and I haven't really been able to put my finger on what it is about them, but the vibes are just really on-point. I want to write more about this at a later point once I actually figure out what it is that I'm feeling, but maybe it's the setting, maybe it's the cast, maybe it's the plot points, maybe it's something in between — it just seems to understand the spirit of period cowboy stories in a way that I can't describe. Good shit.

Finally, I wanna end this with where Jessica is now. The events of CV take place In between the events of Loneterail and Ideal City, so the current "now" of the story is a few months ahead. Jessica left for the frontier along with Woody, Helena, and Miles. They live together in a small new settlement, building the place from the ground up with Woody and Jessica acting as town sherrifs. At the point we're at now, rhe town is fairly well-established and Woody has temporarily left on other business, leaving Jessica the sole sherrif of their new settlement. However, she's risen to her new station, and is growing into a stronger person than she ever was before.