#arknights draco

[gryffoon]

My Reed the Flame Shadow piece for the Arknights Operator Archive community zine!

[dlartistanon]

My brand + critters

[drmajalis]

A group of Pride-filled Dragons <3

Reed, Talulah, and Ch'en commissioned from @homugabs

[edgelessvoid]

shu arknights why must you make me consider which limited banner to skip

[morpeko]

it's funny don't you think, that in life, The Law allows all of the Sankta to be connected via the Sankta empathy, and then the Revenant, the Sarkaz collective consciousness allows the same for the Sarkaz but only in death

[raisengen]

Talulah: debuffs Operators with flame, dealing True DoT and halving the damage she takes from them. Can manually detonate burning operators, dealing AoE damage and spreading the flame to adjacent operators.

Eblana: debuffs Operators with flame, preventing them from attacking for a certain duration. When the duration expires or the fire is destroyed (by allied attacks or by retreating the Operator), it detonates, dealing AoE Arts and Burn damage to adjacent operators.

Reed (S3): debuffs enemies with flame, dealing Arts DoT and reducing their Atk, as well as increasing Arts damage taken. When an enemy dies, they detonate, dealing Arts damage and spreading the flame to nearby enemies.

I appreciate how HG have developed a consistent style for how Draco’s fire works in battle (deals damage + cripples offence + ability to spread), while still making each version unique in its own way.

[tiredstudents]

I fucking love this game so much

[arknights-imagines]

Hi Exe! How are you doing?! :3

Draco, hello there svzhs 💞!!

Ty for coming by my inbox! It's been a small while and it's v nice to see you again 🥳! How are you aaa? I do hope you've been doing well and have been taking care of yourself 💕~

As for me, I've been v nice 🥳!! Tysm for asking 👉👈 Quite occupied with wips for the blog and commissions ✨!!! I'm also super happy to simply be back to regularly interacting with my mutuals (like yourself avshhs!) and people who support the blog aaa~

I've been devoting lots of time to playing Arknights as well sbsjs ✨👍!! There's lots to do in-game lately, from the current 'Stultifera Navis' event, new characters, and such omg 😮

Anywho svhss, ty again for sending in an ask 💕! It's always great to see you ('Rico sends a 'hello' as well!) 🥳~

I hope you'll keep sticking around and please have a great day 🌸!!!

[penandlandship]

Hello all, I was thinking of doing a small prompt list, something I can make for people to send to their fav Operator(s). 

I would love if you all could give me some suggestions on what you’d like!

[ophcnim]

tag dumpeth

♢▐

[tainbocuailnge]

one interesting thing about arknights races is that almost every kind of land animal is named as a separate race (foxes, cats, wolves, dogs, lions, bears, horses, rabbits, snakes, crocodiles, salamanders, otters, rats, sheep, deer, the list goes on are all listed as separate races, with some of them only counting one or two operators) but while the sarkaz recognise several different kinds among themselves too (vampires and patriot’s race off the top of my head) they’re all lumped together under “sarkaz” in the operator files.

it’s not because sarkaz are based on fantasy creatures while the rest are real world animals, all the different sea creatures are lumped together under aegir for example and all birds are liberi (including hellagur and archetto, who as hippogryph and griffin are half horse and half lion respectively) but the files name several different kinds of dragons (lung, draco, vouivre, kylin). the dragon races also categorically enjoy a lot of social prestige even though outwardly the characteristics of horns + tail would be enough to lump them in with the loosely defined and widely despised sarkaz. since oni are a separately acknowledged non-sarkaz race the line between them can’t even be that the sarkaz are “demons” even though that is in fact a slur they get called. apparently sankta are implied to be modified sarkaz in mostima’s upcoming event which is a whole other can of worms I’m not currently qualified to open.

even in a world where everyone has animal features it’s impossible to neatly divide people into separate races based on physical characteristics because there is massive variety within races and there are mixed race people and there are those who only seem to be one race or the other by matter of circumstance. and this way the game subtly reinforces what it also says more explicitly in a lot of other ways namely that there is no intrinsic trait of the sarkaz (or any other ethnic group) that separates them from the rest of society and causes them to be discriminated against, their suffering is politically motivated and allowed to continue because it is convenient for their oppressors

[qedmirage]

Well, that was a ride. Unmarked spoilers below the cut.

Took me about 5 months to clear episode 8, and three days to clear episode 9. Episode, well, where to begin. I'll admit that I read too many spoilers myself on major plot elements, undercutting some of it. Still, it was neat to see just how hard Deathless Black Snake is into a kind of violent nationalism, possibly even fascist thought?

Favorite moment is without a doubt Alina's death in R8-9 After, and abject refusal to allow Talulah to know her killers. Because Talulah will take revenge if given a chance, will let anger consume her, will fall to Kaschey's arts and hateful manner of thinking - even if the arts weren't there, it would be a path of violence for her.

The white-haired Draco keeps trudging on in the cold, endless snowfield. On her back, the Elafia girl trembles away, pausing only to take in deep breaths now and then. Snow drops down from the Elafia's horns. As Talulah slogs along, the snow-covered trees behind her begin to burn alight in silence. She has unknowingly begun to set her path ablaze.

The final climax of chapter 8 is also some great otaku-ass nonsense as Amiya, our cute soft bunny CEO, has a powerset almost perfectly geared to ruin the Deathless Black Snake's day. And she knows it

The introduction of Priestess, and her vow to Doctor was also really neat:

and I liked the story beat that Kaschey is still inside Talulah, still tempting her. Fuel for my anarchist reading of the story;

It's this urge for control, for power, for violent revenge that undergirds why Reunion goes wrong. The pull towards authoritarianism, towards unchecked violence, is what destroys the liberation movement. as for mechanics, wow. Boy I hate ursus civilians. Ep 8 was probably the high water mark of difficulty in arknights, and I feel like from here I can handle anything. I gotta say Talulah was really a pile of nonsense, but with her Burning Breath mechanic defanged, she's pretty tractable. The basic core of my strategy going into her final fight was to use Gravel and Projekt Red, who have 17 sec redeploy timers, to bait her breath move with its 19 sec cycle time. Absent that mechanic, the rest of her fight is...not easy, but manageable. On the other end of things, ep9.

This one was a much smaller scale story, and I appreciated that! It was shorter too, which in some ways worked against it - the guys Outcast faces off against scream jobber - but it worked. It's also notable as being an episode who's plot almost doesn't feature Rhodes Island - the focus characters are instead Horn (Rita Skamandros), Bagpipe (Fiona Young), and Saileach (Jane Williams), with a little bit of time in Reed (Lougshinny)'s head. Notable is that none of those are part of the feline majority race in Victoria, and the first three all to some degree believe in a pluralistic, welcoming vision of Victoria instead of the oppressive one they have. High points gotta be watching Saileach go from "the nice girl Janie who is nice to everyone and takes care of the flag" to "Me and this entire hospital ward are gonna beat your ass if you harm one hair on a patient's head", and Outcast's whole deal. Like, back in prior chapters we've seen Elite RI ops show up, paradrop without chutes, tear buildings apart with telekinesis, so you know the old lady's gonna be dangerous. And she is and the payoff's great! Great old lady cowboy character. Also, found a bit I liked:

Janie: But it's not… the whole story. After the conversation we had, I remembered some things from ages ago I'd forgotten. My da's a lawyer, and he used to tell me stories about how my grandda's grandda came to Victoria with nothing. He went from rags to riches. The Victoria he described was an advanced, open-minded, prosperous country. Here, technology and capital conquered savagery. The people's hard work and wealth wouldn't be destroyed just like that by Catastrophes or racial conflict. In making it to such a magnificent land, we Vouivre were able to live a "civilized" life, compared to one of barbarism and violence in the old country. Outcast: Victoria was the most advanced industrialized nation in the world, for a very long time.. Janie: But we had to give up a lot, in order to become Victorians… When I was five, I climbed to the top of the tallest tree in our garden. My da caught me having a blast and gave me a good scolding. Then he locked me in my room and gave me dozens of books to read. The next day, he hired a Leithanien piano teacher for me. I missed the view from the top of the tree, but I didn't give it much thought. I knew my da was doing it for my own good. Outcast: He was helping you to get used to the rules. Janie: That's right. Books, piano, the garden… He understood that those were all things we'd need to know, in order to enjoy the life we had.

Janie's family had to work hard to fit in, to not express their racial traits, to shape themselves to the society around them. Similarly, people know and sense that Victoria's glory days are past - but they don't quite grasp just how soon, how fast, the whole thing may end up unraveling. A few characters note that the fire started in County Hillock may destroy the nation, but for people like the Colonel, the magnates who wish to meet Dublinn, it's not understood - these are quite possibly Victoria's last days.

Mechanics and gameplay wise, ep 9...knocked it out of the park! It wasn't too hard, the Dublinn guys had some interesting mechanics that kept any one thing from being stale, there wasn't anything that felt like I was getting smacked with a wall of pain. I will note that 9-14, with all the pre-deployed jerks, I had to use a support Fiametta to funnel all the enemies into her bombardment kill box. The tattered pillars mechanic is kinda tricky sometimes, with how it actively reshapes the map, but it opens the door for a lot more engaging strategies. I kinda hope it comes back now and again. Mandragora's a fun boss. I had Nearl The Radiant tank her phase 1 (shield this, loser!) and then just kinda threw random fast-redeploys and snipers at her in phase 2 including tex alter to drop pillars on her. Part of my line broke and it was nearly a fail but I got the 3* clear! A fun time.

(Edited 11/2 to fix Saileach's legal name and a capitalization error on Victoria)

[dlartistanon]

... The forbidden Talulah/Nine yuri stemming from how aimless and insanely self-loathing Talulah is feeling after having failed to be a figure of hope for Reunion. Having her goals and aspirations and dreams taken and co-opted into a movement of hate and spite, warped into something unrecognizable and nefarious, at the expense of everyone she ever loved and held dear. Now she's left with nothing, with hardly anyone; her only remaining tie to sanity is Ch'en, who's off gallivanting across the world on her own wuxia-themed hero's journey, so even if she wasn't Emotionally Constipated, it's not like she's around to give her sister the love she so desperately needs.

Neo-Reunion Leader Nine breaks her out of Rhodes Island jail, but it's not an act of rescue.

In her own words, Talulah must answer for her crimes, her betrayal. The only people who can judge her are those she turned against. Her fellow Infected.

Dedicated to Reunion's original ideals, Nine will not absolve Talulah. She knows and will make sure Talulah bears the brunt of her actions. But... at the same time, she knows that there's more to the former leader's situation than meets the eye. It can't be so simple as Talulah just deciding, one day, to destroy everything she had worked towards and built and cultivated for the sake of Infected everywhere.

Regardless, Talulah is still needed to light the flame forward.

She won't cuff Talulah all the time. There's no need to do that. Talulah surely must be seeking a purpose in life now that she failed. So Nine will let Talulah go off on her own for a while. Give her some space. Give her a modicum of freedom she must experience after everything that transpired. Give her what she wants (within reason). Make her agreeable. She's more likely to go along with us if she doesn't feel trapped. Her guilt and self-hatred fuels a desire to find a reason to keep going, to atone for her sins. This is how she can do it. This is her penance.

Nine is quite manipulative, huh.

[drmajalis]

fic idea: Reed has never been able to experience snow, because they're so hot any snowfall turns to rain around her, so Kjera uses her feranmut abilities to create a snowfall that never melts, so they can experience things like a snowball fight, sledding, and making snow angels (Dragons?) Edit: oh i forgot it was snowing when their parents died, so, this gets the additional caveat of them all trying to give reed a more positive memory to associate with snow

[siriannatan]

Empires Arknights AU - Scott fWhip

Is it an excuse to ramble about one of my favourite games? Maybeeeee… {: <3<3<3

Slightly lore-dumpy explanation of stuff (can probably be skipped):

Arknights - tower defence gatcha

Lungmen - mobile, modern Chinese/Japanesee style city

Liberi - bird people {reference}

Lung - asian style dragon {reference} people as oposed to draco {reference}

Ægir - fish people {reference}

Leithanien - Arknights Germany

Victoria - Arknights UK

Wei - leader of Lungmen

Lin's - old Lin, or Rat King is kinda the godfather of Lungmen underworld, his {granddaughter} is to take over after him

Penguin Logistics - a logistics company with an actual penguin for a boss

Siracusa - Arknights Italy, full of wolf-people, minus Vatican, that's Laterano, totally separate place with Sankta - angels with guns

L.G.D. - Lungmen Guard Departmen, kind of Lungmen police

Hoshiguma - member of the Special Service of Lungmen Guard Department {reference}

Ch'en - Special Inspection Unit Chief, L.G.D. {reference}

Scott was having a great day. Yes, he spent most of it in his high-rise office. Taking in appointments, and making phone calls. But at least today no one pulled out a gun on him. Just the thought of the few rude 'customers' was enough to have the Liberi's feathers ruffled. With a sigh, he calmed down and glanced at the clock. Nicely made, imported from Leithanien. He had some fond memories of a brief stay there in his youth. Not that it was that long ago.

He was starting to wonder how long he should stay, waiting for his last guest when his door swung open. An angry Lung, dressed in rather traditional Lungmen garb. Ginger hair tied in a long braid. Scott kind of hated it. Blue eyes narrowed in a glare that the Liberi met with a polite smile.

"Punctual as always, Mr fWhip," he greeted with his best 'Victorian', as fWhip called it, smile.

"Don't give me that, why did you send assassins after me this time?" he asked, taking most of the couch opposite of Scot's desk.

"I simply didn't want you to ignore my invitation, unlike the last time I sent one," Scott's smile faltered slightly. fWhip could be damn annoying. Unfortunately, he was Lungmen's best when it came to explosives and Scott's... business often needed them. "Would you like some tea? I recently received a shipment of Victoria's finest," he offered, the legal part of his business was all about trade. Less legal... also imports but of things Mr Wei would approve. Lin's certainly did like him.

"Sure, why not," the Lung huffed. He did keep his eye on Scott as he made the two cups. "You still insist on dressing like a Victorian," he huffed. For some reason, he was really against Scott's suits.

"Well, that's where I'm from after all," Scott shrugged. And Victorian clothes were comfier for him. He did not mention that.

"What did you get me to come here for? And be glad I didn't report you to Madam Ch'en. She's not let you go no matter how much Lin's like you," he huffed. Ever loyal to Wei. How boring.

"Right to the business," Scott shook his head. "Maybe I just wanted to share a cup of tea with a friend?"

fWhip laughed at that. "Yeah right. What do you want?"

Scott sighed. How Lung of fWhip. "I need help locating a certain box for an acquaintance. Miss Ling brought him here so it's kind of important. But relics are not quite my cup of tea, but then I remembered a friend who has a nice collection," he said, giving up on playing with fWhip.

"Acquaintance? Lin Yühsia? Now that's interesting," fWhip mused. 

"Mhm. I have no idea where she found an Ægir here," not that it was all that interesting to him.

"Why didn't she just go to Penguin Logistics? I'm sure they could find it easily."

"Maybe she needed some more... finesse?" Scott offered with a giggle. "They are certainly fun but I think the Ægir she dragged here would drop dead after just seeing them," he giggled setting a teacup in front of fWhip. Victorian make, of course, just to annoy him further.

"Maybe, but really... Did it have to be damn Siracusans you send? They're a pain to deal with," fWhip huffed, taking a sip. He said nothing so it had to be good.

"You're still here so not that bad," Scott did not regret sending assassins after fWhip. It always got him to his office. "So how about we leave the box for tomorrow, and spend the rest of today on..." he said as he settled next to fWhip, "...me apologising to you?" he finished, one hand resting on fWhip's thigh.

"Fine, but you have a lot to apologise for, I had to talk to L.G.D.'s  Madam Hoshiguma, I don't want to repeat that anytime soon..." fWhip sighed as he finished his tea. It was always fun to hear him indirectly complain about his height.

[coldgoldlazarus]

I love how Arknights is like, mostly pretty broad in terms of the races, like you get distinctions between Perro for dogs and Lupo for wolves, and similarly Aslan for lions and Felines for cats (though people have argued and I agree that Aslan should be covering all Big Cats, and those like the Silverash family and Broca and others were miscategorized as Felines)

But then there's four distinct types of Dragons; Voiuvre for the wyverns, Draco for "true" western dragons, Lung for eastern dragons, and of course the Sui as like also distinctly eastern dragon gods

I just think that's real sexy of them to do lol