#and I think the loss of Frostnova is why

[kc5rings]

Blaze/flint is kinda underrated

The real problem is Blaze is Rhodes Island’s burning blood powered community motorcycle, everyone gets a ride.

A lot of characters in AK have a person or group they are pretty connected to that leads easily into shipping dynamics. Rhine Fam, The Greater Lungmen Polycule, The Followers entire thing etc etc.

Blaze however is connected to several people across disparate groups that folks haven’t really settled into a favored ship for her and the group she’s connected to, the Elite Operators, are largely unknown or NPC’s for now. So it feels like none of the Blaze ships have a ton of content even though people obviously like Blaze.

I think a lot of this comes from a group wide mourning of what would have been a great matchup, Blaze/Frostnova. They were so perfectly fit in themes, motifs and personalities that nothing else hits quite right.

Anyway, this turned into A Thing but in general I do agree with you, Blaze/Flint is a great ship. I just think it’s interesting how the loss of Frostnova seems to have stopped Blaze from getting in on popular ship radars.

[cerastes]

So what IS the deal with Skadi? I mostly hear that she is dumb and strong, but how much of that is memes and what's the actual truth?

The thing with Skadi is that she isn’t dumb as much as she’s musclebrained: She can think, but opts not to simply because just threatening others and/or beating them up gets the job done in less than half of the time it would to actually try something that requires more finesse or thought. Or, in other words, Skadi is using her talents to their fullest, “talents”, in this case, meaning “Herculean strength so outrageous that even science cannot comprehend it and it makes Warfarin want to pull her hair out”. Why talk things out or rely on complicated plans that take more time and incur risks when she can just crumple people like empty soda cans, cause cave-ins with a single, nonchalant swipe of her sword, or break people’s arms by merely taping her weapon against theirs? It’s more a matter of “I really don’t have to deal with this whole ‘thinking’ thing” than actually being dumb. To put it simply, she could possibly think of plans if she tried, but she doesn’t need to.

It’s important to point out that incredible feats that make the word “superhuman” seem like an understatement are not exclusive to Skadi per se, but they are once you take into account that she’s not using Arts. Talulah was melting buildings with her fire Arts, FrostNova can flash freeze your blood in a second, Blaze habitually jumps off aerial transports and Incredible Hulk-jumps around buildings, but these are all feats accomplished with Arts as a side effect of Oripathy, with the appropriate prices to pay: We don’t know about Talulah, but FrostNova’s days were always counted and shortened with each intense use of her formidable powers, and Blaze’s Oripathy is explicitly dangerous and she sees the end of operations mulched halfway to death between the sheer physical toll her body has to endure and the fact that, apparently, her Arts come at the price of her blood (the damage she suffers from her S3 is quite possibly blood loss, and by the end of the Lungmen operation, Blaze can barely stand due to the blood loss and needs GreyThroat to help her walk). In stark contrast, Skadi just has unconditional access to her mind-boggling physical strength and, instead of Oripathy, she has the lowest recorded Originium numbers in her bloodstream. Unlike FrostNova and Blaze who have to make important, conscious decisions on whether to use their incredible powers or not, Skadi can use hers freely without a worry in the world and without having to come with terms with the fact that using these means she’s effectively burning her lifespan for power. It is a very considerable contrast in a world as callous as Terra.

This is further reflected on her base skills... Or rather, lack of. Skadi does one thing very, very well -- we see during the Grani event that Skadi is known and feared across Terra as a legendary mercenary and as the “Walking Catastrophe”, quite the telling title when you consider how Catastrophes shape life in Terra -- and has just no competences outside of that: She only knows how to beat things up. Her only other noteworthy skill is singing (and apparently being quite passionate about music, if her token is anything to go by), which doesn’t exactly provide much for a pharmaceutics-slash-private military company, unlike Blaze, to continue the comparison, who is skilled at managing power plants (in part thanks to her Arts) and at processing building materials in the Workshop, which is extremely telling of Blaze: The Elite Operator that is known for all the destruction she causes whenever she’s deployed is remarkably skilled at producing construction materials, going very well with Blaze’s characterization of someone who is truly fighting for a future for the Infected and giving it her all, all for that purpose, and contrasting with Skadi, who seems, all things considered, a wanderer in life, dedicated to the single purpose of recovering Specter’s “Orignium Nerve Agent” from Kal’tsit. It is, in fact, during her short confrontation with Kal’tsit, that Skadi actually shows chops in anything not brutalizing-related and tries to force Kal’tsit into giving her what she wants by negotiating with her and even threatening to destroy something she needs, an act upon which Kal’tsit herself remarks on: “Where’s your usual laziness and snark? I’ve never seen you this aggressive”. At no point, however, does Skadi threaten to attack Kal’tsit, for a number of reasons: Skadi is honorable and believes in trust, and as she’s an Operator for Rhodes Island, attacking Kal’tsit would go against her principles. “I only follow those who are trustworthy”. Thus, she’s evidently quite self-aware, and resorts to other methods (such as negotiation, as she did here) in order to get what she wants if just punching someone’s head off outright isn’t an option.

In conclusion, no, Skadi is not actually dumb, she merely defaults to violence very easily because she’s exceptionally good at it and, let’s face it, it tends to be the answer in Terra, but is more than capable of utilizing other methods to get what she wants if violence isn’t an option. If anything, as mentioned before, due to the lack of consequences that using her extreme strength carries in contrast to the prices paid in blood and lifespan that Arts users have to burden their shoulders with whenever they decide to use their powers, Skadi is an anomaly in that she has no such concerns and as such she can just default to punting people out of the stratosphere any day of the week without having to worry about her health.

[amnesicmaiden]

A Matter of Choice. . .

[Something I’ve been wanting to write after beating chapter 8, I’m sure I got some thing wrong but anyways!]

SPOILER WARNING FOR CHAPTER 8

Sometime after the operation at Chernoborg, The Doctor known as Seira was walking into the medical wards wearing her complete outfit including her mask as she kept hold of her clipboard with a few pages stacked on each other. With her uncharacteristically precise movements, there was an important matter for her to be attending, using her card to enter a more secured room being approached by one of the many medics.

“D-Doctor, are you here to visit the patient. We were told to expect you. . .”

“Eh? You were?”

“Yes, Doctor Kal'tist was here a moment ago to oversee any changes that may be unusual. Once she was finished she left saying “Expect Doctor Seira to come here.” and shortly you arrived.”

“As expected of Doctor Kal'tist, could you maybe tell me how her mood was when she spoke to you.”

“J-just the usual mood. Why do you ask a strange question like that Doctor?”

“I was just curious.”

“Well, we were told to let you in as it was deemed safe.”

“And the patient's condition?”

The medic eyes look down giving anyone that had a basic understanding that it was grim. “We're not sure if he's going to be able to get out of the coma. . .”

“. . .It's going to be like what Kal'tist said. . .” Seira said under her breath remembering the words Kal'tist had spoken to her.

“What was that Doctor?”

“Nothing, I was just remembering something Kal'tist had said to me. Do you mind if I enter the room, in private?”

“. . .You want to go in and be alone with him?”

“Yes? Is that a problem?”

“N-no of course not but we can only give you only a few minutes”

“How much is a few?”

“About ten.”

“I can make do with that.”

“Then we will come around that time and let you know when you have to leave Doctor.”

“Very well and thank you.”

With that said the Doctor enters the room that contains a lot of medical equipment that caused plenty of different kinds of sounds inside and medical equipment attached to a single white-haired Liberi boy who is in a deep deep sleep. Seira stood in front of the door until she heard the door shut with the last medical personal leaving the room and with that she spoke not in her usual friendly matter but in a serious tone that few have only heard her behave like. Slowly she enters the center of the room where the Liberi was located, standing to stare at him through her helmet.

“Still in that coma, Mephisto?” She spoke to the Liberi as if thinking he was listening to her words, walking to his side and pulling a seat next to him.

“Been thinking how it came all to this, how someone can be so cruel and then the next moment desperate enough to use the machine for what? Thought understanding I came out like new you wanted that as well? Is that what you figured? Well, guess the fact of the matter is that we are two completely different people. You came out as a monster bird, spewing toxins and cause something frightening yet Kal'tist was able to operate on you to bring you back like this. As for me. . .”

She paused, looking to her side away from the unconscious body and slowly she places her hand up, removing both her hood and her mask to reveal a woman with long-blue hair and red eyes, a soft gentle face but one that was currently being stern with the seriousness of what the subject is and who she is next to in which she turned back to face him.

“. . . My memories reset after I apparently sustain heavily injury and I was bought here, this healed me and it only made me forget my past. A past that still affects me now, something I did so horrible and maybe even more than that it affects how some people view me. It sounded like I didn't choose to go inside even what I did, I was injured but you. . . You wanted to forget, forget everything that had happen to you and what you've done, when you figured you could use that machine you came to it, and yet this world is always so cruel.”

She took a pause as she lets out a sigh, thinking over the choices she had made and the ones she made concerning the one in front of her. Was it a good idea to treat him like a patient, think of him as some casualty, a lamentable outcome of some hideous logic even seeing the horrible deeds he had done? Perhaps it was the wrong choice to some, perhaps the right choice to others, and a choice that no one can really judge. Then it came up to another thought. . .

“I've killed someone's best friend, someone that was dear to another and that person will hold that against me forever. Even if I have forgotten I still live with those consequences, it's not just Kal'tist but also W who is explicit in making me know what kind of person I am not compared to what I was in the past. Then I guess the only reason I was the right choice to bring back was because of my usefulness and yet Amiya trusts me so much with her big heart. . . Maybe she doesn't know? So, if I came back normal because we are all so different maybe I'm a different kind of monster and I only forgot the kind of monster I was. It's hard to understand but I'm so different from every else and not just what Kal'tist mention. What am I? I can't be Sarkaz, Sankta, Feline, Perro, Liberi, Aegir, Cautus and all the others I know of. . . I'm just, Seira who has this strange body. . .”

After a small pause of the Doctor looking down, a break of a moment as she giggles softly with her voice in a moment of weakness to its usual tone “You know, Kal'tist told me not to say some of the stuff I've said here yet It's not like you're listening as you sleep deeply. Hahaha. . .”

She slaps her own knee gently and continues talking to the comatose body with her voice still in the usual tone that others are used to.

“. . . It would be real bad if you were, but that really depends if you really do wake up. . . “ Then her voice went back to being dead serious.

“. . .I didn't bring you here because I forgive your deeds, rather I want you to face the terrible actions you have done to everyone even if you don't want to remember. So the question is this, in this world that is cruel to the infected and to many others. What is crueler to you, letting you wake up from your coma, being reminded of what you did, and having to face not just your actions but the loss of people you were close to while having an extremely limited time or perhaps you dying right here slowly is crueler, destined to never wake up. As I said, I don't forgive what I know you've done but if you do wake up I'll come to you, and if you do want to proceed forward even if your time is only a few years, a year, 6 months, a month or even a few days. I will help you on your path of redemption as long you seek that hard path. After all, Kal'tist never said a specific short time so perhaps you can have a small-time alive. Whatever this world thinks is crueler is most likely what will happen to you, all I did was make a choice even if there is no real difference to the end result if you are just fated to die.”

“. . . .”

“. . . .Guess my next action is to ask Talulah about you.  I don't want to ask her anything selfish, if she wants to make a decision on what she wants to do she has that freedom. Perhaps I just want to listen to her, know more about her, and learn a little more about Reunion. Of course, not just about you, but also FrostNova and Patriot, right, and what was that crossbow boy's name? Faust? Yeah, it was Faust.”

Seira could help but let out a chuckle, due to her speaking to a comatose body that most likely wasn't listening to her, guess it's a means to speak out her mind to herself using someone as a means while saying things she wanted to say to the boy. “. . . Can't believe I said all this, even taking off my mask and hood, guess it really doesn't matter. Rest well, Mephisto.”

With that said she places her hood and helmet back on, standing up and as she heads to the door the medic she had spoken to was opening to the door.

“Oh, Doctor. . . I was just about to say to you-.”

The Doctor interrupted the medic in her friendly tone. “Ten minutes has passed I'm guessing, I won't be coming back here anytime soon. Although, if I may make one request.”

The medic nods. “Of course, Doctor. What do you want?”

“If there are any signs of him waking up, let me know as soon as possible.”

“Yes, of course, Doctor but. . .”

“. . . I understand, the chances of that is immensely low. Still, the possibility is not 0%. We will do our best for any infected even if the chance is 0.01% so let's do the same here.”

The medic gave only a soft smile. “Yes, of course, Doctor. Can I ask why you wanted to be with the patient alone?”

“Don't worry about it, all I was doing was thinking about how much my choices actually mattered.”

“Doctor?”

“Ahaha, I told you to not worry about it. I'm just being silly~”

With that said, Doctor Seira leaves the medical room, walking out of the medical ward with that thought left all it was now. . . Was that Seira had made her own matter of choice and surely if someone else was in her shoes, they each will have their own.