#now I just need to see her interact with Mostima 1 on 1...

[her-reidiance]

A Kindred Spirit's Revelations, or: How This Arknights Player only came to love Lappland infinitely more — a Treatise by Her-Reidiance

I have had so many thoughts about Lappland in Il Siracusano it's insane. She afflicts my brain like Oripathy. Please bear with me, below is a long post and contains spoilers for the event.

EDIT: This part is misremembered, I apologize. The Saluzzos took in Cellinia Texas 7 years ago, after the Texas famiglia was "liquidated" for rebelling against Signora Sicilia. Yet Salvadore also sent Cellinia to live with them before the purge.

Lappland and Texas have been through how much together... was Lappland infected after Cellinia was taken in? How did those changes start to show... slowly or rapidly? Did Lappland's obsession begin with Cellinia first leaving Siracusa, or was it prior to that? Despite what we do gain knowledge of in the event, there's still some open doors.

We do know that they know each other quite well, and there's still some vestige of trust before the event's conclusion, this being my favorite representation:

The fact that Cellinia doesn't even bat an eye at the fact that Lappland broke into a supposedly well secured prison, but also the fact that she accepts the treat that Lappland brought, only to then realize it's her least favorite flavor — a fact Lappland had to have known going into this — sets my heart on fire. They know each other so well! They're complementary, contrasting, they have intimate knowledge of each other (take this phrase as you will, I already know how I do) and they regularly stay in some sort of off-balance with each other.

But the fact is, Lappland's obsession with Cellinia isn't just some textbook stalker with a crush, like what most would initially think given what had been presented prior to Il Siracusano. As Lappland says herself:

Lappland grew up the perfect Siracusan, the perfect Donna in training, the perfect killer. She was everything that could be expected of a woman in her station. She didn't see any way out of that life. It's what she was born in, it's what she will die in. But then along comes Cellinia Texas, doing nothing to save her family's life when the time comes to exterminate them, simply walking away from it all, and then walking away from her years later to go to Lungmen. Whatever condition Lappland was in by then, a switch was flicked on nonetheless, and she realized: "Oh... if it sucks... I can hit the bricks!"

But could she, really? What if Texas came back to Siracusa, and found that she could not truly escape her destined life after all, that she was just as bound to this place as Lappland was and would die here? That was the real test, and thus the events of Il Siracusano take place. But, when all is said and done, and it's just the two of them alone in the park...

I love this so much because it illustrates that our favorite insanity wolf has evolved! There is progress in her character arc! It's in an absolutely unhinged direction but it is no less in character for it. Her obsession has left from focusing solely on Texas as the Ideal, and now focused on destroyed Siracusa as a sort of Anti Ideal. Lappland now knows she is not bound by fate or blood or destiny to the place she was born. She too can simply watch the flames consume her family, her life, and walk away. And unlike Cellinia, she intends to be the one to light the match. The narrative gestures to this as well:

Lappland is now able to face the world, the wide world around her, not just as backdrops to her pursuit of Cellinia, but as hers to explore, to enjoy, to destroy as she wishes!

This moment is so much to me. It's the sudden clarity in her vision that demonstrates that she finally sees Cellinia as her own person, as just Texas the woman. Texas the Penguin Logistics courier. Texas, the woman who left. And she's no longer Lappland Saluzzo, shackled to her family name or a predestined future as its leader. She's... just Lappland.

Part time soulmates, Full time problem. No other dynamic can sum them up. Texas still cares for Lappland, just as she does Giovanna, as a part of her past that she did not altogether dislike. But she also sees more clearly than either of them. Giovanna, stuck in the past when she was Cellinia's best friend. Lappland, presently stuck on destroying the city around her as a final show of independence.

Finally, Lappland leaves the city, after a couple of loose ends are wrapped up. She wanders the wasteland, where the freshly defeated Zaaro happens upon her.

She fights Zaaro for THREE MONTHS in the middle of desolate wastelands. In all of that time, Zaaro didn't kill her, because he came to realize that there was no point in it. There was no satiation to be found for doing so, and that her fractured mind makes her a perfect candidate to be his next Fang. She is an empty husk, a woman who has nothing to live for by herself, but she is full. Full of training, full of potential, full of a singular goal; she is perfect to serve as the vengeance that Zaaro wishes to exact on Siracusa for his failure. And so, they team up, forming a bond forged in mutual hate. Not unlike the original appearance of Eddie Brock and Venom, truly.

The timing of the Azione Solo stories seems ambiguous to me, but some of them definitely take place after the main events of Il Siracusano. Of course, while I'm on the subject, let's discuss Lappland's solo story. I believe I have space left for more pictures so I'll share a few.

The summation is that Lappland makes a minor cameo in Cellinia's, in which she leaves a radio for the Texas to find, and she also goes about rooting through her family's estate one more time. She finds a photo of her younger self, and reminisces slightly on it. In between there was also a musbeast that she found and decided to keep, until it was taken and slain by the Saluzzo mafiosos.

After reminiscing about her father, and how doomed he — and as a result, she — are by being born as Saluzzos, as part of the mafia famiglie system... she destroys the image, while lamenting briefly that once again, the beloved pet of hers was killed by her father, laughing maniacally. To her, there still is no escape, or at least that's one way her mind leans. She knows Cellinia left, but maybe... maybe she cannot. All she can do is burn it down so there is nothing left to trap her. Nothing left to come back to. Scorched earth.

Finally, she dismisses Capone from her tentative services, having recruited him and Gambino at the end of Code of Brawl. Capone at this point realizes a bit just how absolutely feral and insane his "boss" is, and he is ready to die trying to kill her to be rid of her, by holding a knife in his sleeve. Of course, this is Lappland we're talking about. She sees through it right away and expresses probably one of her more genuine selves by stating that he's making a choice, and that's enough for her. He's free to go. The duplicitous Lappland, who prior might just have killed him for the sake of... sport? Insurance? On a whim? Lets him go instead, because she respects that he is making a choice for himself, rather than what he had been doing all event, which is walking on eggshells around her and trying not to be killed by her. We leave Lappland's story for now with this:

This implies that she returns to the city at some point after contracting with Zaaro. This to me shows promise of a continuance of her character. Lappland, The Fang of Zaaro, 6-star Operator coming sometime. Maybe during the Laterano event? After all, there's much more questions left to be answered... like why Lappland, a Lupo from Siracusa, can use Arts so well; and implied to be a skill of hers before her infection... but that's a ramble for another post.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you all understand my kinship with Lappland a little better, or at least have a bit more appreciation for this wonderful, horrible, terrifying, beautiful creature.

[rimeiii]

Analyzing What in "Hell" is Bad's gameplay (+ the four demon king's gameplay archetypes) based on trailers alone

I don't know if anyone has done this yet, but literally the only reason why I'm doing this is because. Well. I'm a sucker for tower defense and I'm probably the few people who's interested in this game mainly because of the gameplay, so I do want to brainrot a little bit aha. There's also this little interaction within my crew server:

(danchou is a running nickname for me bc this server did start out as a granblue fantasy crew server and i was the captain of the crew)

Now I can't recall if Prettybusy has ever explicitly stated that WHB will be a tower defense game (like I THINK they did? but idk?) but at this point I'm deep in the trenches of tower defense games (specifically Arknights) and I need a break from the mind-bending struggle that is Surging Waves 9 in IS3 aka Integrated Strategies aka Mizuki and Caerula Arbor after dying on floor 5 one too many times so! Here we go!

Preemptive warning that I'm probably going to slip into Arknights terms because that's what I'm familiar with, oof.

Continued under the cut because this is going to be LONG.

Let's just jump right into it - to the brief view of gameplay from the second trailer!

Okay, sure. Some of the icons and elements are a bit...vague, I guess is the word. But some things are pretty obvious so let's get them out of the way:

You have the stage number up top.

24/30? Number of enemies left!

Now these last two numbers on the top of the UI are a bit confusing, but one of them (most probably the smaller number) is likely to be HP. If I had to guess it'll work like Arknights, where one enemy entering the base would count as 1 HP lost (apart from bosses). The other might be the number of opportunities we get to move a unit on the battlefield, kinda like Path to Nowhere, though the trailers so far have not shown that this is a gameplay feature, so take this speculation with a grain of salt.

The round circle in front of the building is likely to be the base. On the other hand, the red squares are likely to be enemy spawn points.

Red bars are HP bars, while white bars are skill/ult bars.

I do wonder if the game will incorporate something akin to Arknights' high ground tiles. There are two different tilesets in the second trailer, a plain white/cream one that forms a path to the base from the enemy spawn points (where Leviathan and Mammon are standing), and a textured grayish one separate from that path (where Beelzebub is standing).

For the uninitiated, in Arknights, only ranged units can be deployed on high ground tiles. Take for example the one of the boss stages of IS3. Here, the boss is dead and I was in the process of cleaning up the final few enemies. There are three Operators in high ground tiles (Honeyberry, Ansel, and Fiammetta) and four on normal tiles (Mountain, Mlynar, Saria, and Highmore).

High ground tiles are denoted by being at elevation compared to regular tiles, where melee Operators can be deployed. Whether an Operator is melee or ranged is denoted in their Operator screen, at the bottom left (where their class, attack range, and roles are also denoted).

Why do I say there might be high ground tiles in WHB? Because Beelzebub's attack seems to be an AoE ranged attack, akin to the Artilleryman class in Arknights, like Fiammetta or Shirayuki. In addition to that, he is standing on the gray tiles, unlike Mammon and Leviathan. As an aside, the visuals of his attack reminds me of Shirayuki's shuriken, specifically the ones in her second skill.

Anyways, my only gripe with what I'm seeing in the trailer is the vague description in attack speed. It's kinda like a repetition from Arknights. In Arknights' case, it's actually one of the few things in the Arknights status screen that's really vague, and to see it also replicated here...hoo boy.

Like how much of a time interval difference is there between "slow" (Mostima), "slightly slow" (Mudrock), and "average" (Enforcer)? Plus, Mostima's third module has raised her attack speed for every level, so how different is the Mod3 "slow" different from the regular or Mod1/Mod2 "slow"? Thankfully the wikis all have detailed information for the actual attack interval, and for all intents and purposes this vagueness isn't game-breaking by any means, but it'd be a nice QoL addition if we have access to that information in-game.

But you're not here to listen to me talk about Arknights (it's a wonder if you are, honestly, considering this is meant to be a WHB post), so I'll get to my next point.

It probably wouldn't really matter much in WHB?

Like I said earlier, the game's main focus is the demons, not like Arknights where we have people doing absolutely insane things like max risk Contingency Contract or IS3 Surging Waves 15. So, if Prettybusy doesn't really put as intense of an effort into the tower defense aspect like Arknights, I'll be fine with it. I'd appreciate it if they also really develop the tower defense gameplay though, and not turn the later stages into pure DPS checks. We'll see when WHB officially releases!

Enough with the complaints, though. I want to talk about potential character classes, starting with the four main demon kings! Starting with my man, my baby, my love, Leviathan! (danchou stop)

Leviathan, once again proving that I can't escape from falling in love with characters associated with water and the sea, seems to be the WHB equivalent to a Defender in Arknights, potentially either a Protector focused on DPS, like Hoshiguma, using his coffin as a shield. He seems to have taken the brunt of enemy damage in the second trailer, likely due to tanking the hits - his HP is so low I'd be scrambling to deploy a medic or Guardian Defender if it were Arknights. Though, his ult reminds me of Asbestos's second skill, with the increased range and AoE damage. Otherwise, if he has other forms, I'd imagine him being a Summoner, who summons his Eldritch beings onto the battlefield. Kinda like Deepcolor, I guess?

I talk about alternate forms because it does seem you can use multiple versions of the same character in the same team, and these alternate forms seem to have different classes. However, this screencap was taken from the first trailer, so...

Anyways, I talked about Beelzebub potentially being an Artilleryman in the second trailer, I'd talk about the form in the first trailer, which seems to imply that Bubs here is a melee unit. Yet, the party select screen seems to indicate that Bubs is a ranged unit. Note, however, that there doesn't seem to be a clear path like in the second trailer, so enemy movement seems unclear. For all we know, the enemy Bubs is fighting might be the WHB equivalent of an aerial unit.

With Bubs out of the way (wow gbf brain is real), let's move on to speculations regarding Mammon and Satan. Again, screencap is from the first trailer, so I'm not so sure how accurately this will reflect on the current build used for the second trailer, much less the final product.

Satan seems to be yet another ranged unit or a melee class capable of ranged attacks (so, a Fortress Defender like Horn, or a Lord Guard like Arene), if that weapon is of any indication. Like, is that a ballista? He's said to be the most violent of the seven kinds, so is he doing AoE damage like an Artilleryman Sniper, point-blank shots with large damage like Heavyshooter Snipers (like Pozyomka or Schwarz), just has a high attack stat like Deadeye Snipers (like Andreana or Ambriel), or purely focuses on dealing large damage at a farther distance like Besieger Snipers (like Poca/Rosa or Totter)? So many ways we can go with him, and I for one am interested!

And last but not least, Mammon. Those tentacles (and later on the gold hands from the second trailer) surrounding him actually reminds me of Ambusher Specialists from Arknights, melee Operators capable of dealing AoE damage to their surrounding tiles (like Mizuki and Manticore). Considering one of his abilities is to create gold that turns into weapons, this might be one of the manifestations of his abilities!

Now, I'd continue with the other demons eventually, but in a separate post because this is. Already so long. Plus, we don't have as much info about the other demons (and angels) apart from the character previews, so much more speculation abound. So, uh, thanks for reading I guess? Ahaha-