Oh my interpretation is Aegir is the race that came from the place of the same name, and it encompasses all the marine beings that live in/spawn from Aegir. However, there is the faction, Abyssal Hunters that go against the seemingly malevolent Abyssals. Both are Aegir in the sense that they are marine beings. It is possible the Abyss itself is a separate thing that corrupts Aegirians and that's what the Abyssal Hunters are fighting against (Arknights is the Dark Souls of gacha games lol). The things is, the final words of Alty were a warning that "They" supposedly referring to the Aegirians we have are potentially becoming older and "hungrier" suggesting that becoming sea monsters is the end phase for Aegirians.

Aegirians seem to be by and large considered a race like any other though, just remote and isolated - for somewhat unclear reasons it's the Sarkaz (the race, presumably also the dominant majority in the state of the same name similar to the Ursus) who have the all-around nasty and scary rep. Shining vaguely mentions a war in that context; given small-scale border wars and similar skirmishes seem to be a routine occurrence in the world and not a cause for any particular lasting enmity one has to presume state!Sarkaz went full Hitler on everybody else to earn that kind of shitlisting for the race or something...

Okay the Vampires being a Sarkaz subspecies probably doesn't help any, judging by how Warfarin describes most of her kind to be.

Speaking of connections to the Abyssal Hunters, I'd like to think Cuora is connected somehow. Conveniently has amnesia and has baseball bat and backpack made of unknown materials. No explicit connection to Skadi's sword, but... strong and made of unknown materials too...

Eh, this setting has no shortage of weird and creepy shit. Just look at things like the whole business with Red and "Grandmother", the metric fuckton of pure ominous that surrounds everything connected to Ifrit, or the implications of Nightingale's backstory. Or what the shit Mephisto pulls with the Possessed hints about Originium...

It's like Kal made a point of scooping up as many people with alarming backgrounds and connections as she can find pretty much just to have them somewhere she can keep an eye on, really.

Coal mining was big everywhere there was coal to be found those days mind you, as society rather literally ran on that shit. These days it's just mostly moved to developing countries for the lower wages (and way the fuck sloppier enforcement of safety standards).

While "route 66" isn't a big deal in itself as those are common enough all over I'll give you that marking looks an awful lot like the US one.

last edited at May 13, 2020 12:04AM

That was also my interpretation with the added caveat that apparently the Abyssals (not sure if applies to Aegir as a whole so including Skadi, Specter, Deepcolor, etc.) are relatively sane and humanoid when young but they turn into monsters as they grow older

The convo read to me rather like the Aegir are pretty much the traditional enemies of... whatever the fuck the undersea Things now are, hence Abyssal Hunters. Apparently Skadi at least carries some kind of unusual 'scent' of yet-unrevealed significance the AUS gals noticed, too. Probably also noteworthy that they seemed to be both uninformed of and curious about (which is why they approached Kal who's pretty much in charge of being the X-Files of RI and generally knowing way too much for comfort) some kind of important undersea encounter that, given the context, implicitly at least Skadi and possibly also Specter were involved in...

OFC the heavily hinted-at longstanding if rather hostile relationship between the Aegir and the Abyssals puts Deepcolor's particular skillset and choice of codename in rather interesting light, given she's obviously Aegir by race and her file states outright the background info she gave RI was to a large degree confirmed total bullshit... Kal and Skadi (and whoever else might be familiar with such matters, possibly incl. Blue Poison who's hinted to have worked with the Hunters in the past) don't seem to be too concerned about her tho so she's presumably safe.

Speaking of, notice how the trust/relationship map groups Poison (who straight up has a link to Specter) and Deepcolor right next to the two Hunters and assigns them the same series of "identification code" (AA0X)...? Yeah that's totally not suggestive as all get-out. >_>

Speaking of the event, if I interpreted the last story scene (loaded with ominous vagueness as usual when Kal is on screen) correctly the AUS is a band literally made up of Eldritch Abominations from the depths that have taken an interest in mortal shenanigans?

Because that's metal as fuck if you think about it. \m/

[flirting intensifies] (these two really should just get a room already, srsly)

I like how this kind of exchange is clearly a common enough occurrence that the twins don't so much as blink at it. :3

IIRC this was more or less the part where Asuka was first actually introduced, but given among the things we learned about her very early on in the park arc was that she had enough patience to tolerate Minami... well, being Minami... with disapproving frosty silence instead of biting her head right off (unlike Akane) this take seems like rather gratuitous fishing for drama where little was to be found. Doubly so for Acchan who'd already had decent amount of screentime over the first school year and been well established as all-around a pretty laid back and nice gal. (Her fight with Nemo consisted of sulkily avoiding each other, recall.)

Suspecting the author may have watched too many imported telenovelas.

^ not to knock on your fetish or anything, just sayin' I have it on a reliable witness statement - a relative studied in Edinburgh for some years - that the stereotypical unintelligibility of Scottish English to the unaccustomed listener isn't exaggerated at all.

last edited at May 12, 2020 7:56PM

^ I think most of us want to keep it intelligible o3o

Iffy is pretty situational due to her idiosyncratic attack range (ie. 4-5x1 line) but when you can find a good lane for her she's made of pure MILLIONS DIE IN FIRE. The fact that she debuffs enemy defenses only adds to the mayhem.

Bankai Old ManHellagur should certainly be a more widely applicable Op tho.

On another note Ren's wildly teleporting bangle(s) keep throwing me off. One frame they're there, another they've suddenly switched wrists, third they're nowhere to be seen. Sometimes on the same page too. >_<

I do agree that it does seem a bit sudden for Ren to jump straight to "Let's go to a love hotel!"

#justhornyteenagerthings

...does make you wonder just how long she's been lowkey lusting after Himeno's glorious gams tho. Floodgates opened etc.

Seriously. Yuri is niche as it is. It's sad instead of celebrating all forms of it we can find, we're fighting instead whatever it's yuri in the first place.

Obligatory.

...shouldn't y'all be having this discussion in the actual series thread instead of here?

@Rainendant As I recall Asuka and Akane were hanging out together for much of the 'park arc (Minami was there too for a bit but A-chan basically kicked her out for being a bitch), so that'd explain where she came from.

Doesn't quite cover why she'd get this personally involved in what's very much private Akane-Nemo drama tho.

I love how y'all are talking about a bullshit jury-appeal gambit restricted to Anglosphere Common Law countries (two categories that are heavily interchangeable as Common Law legal systems occur essentially only in present or former British territories) like it was something of wider relevance. (Most of the world lives under different legal traditions, mostly variations of the Roman/Civil Law.) It's a ploy directly deriving from the central role of the jury in those systems and the due primacy of swaying the opinion of the jurors in your favor - thinly disguised appeal to homophobia is hardly even the most morally bankrupt and irresponsible courtroom antic that has been employed to that end, though it's certainly in the running.

This woman works in a mansion infamously surrounded by RAGING LESBIANS, the heck she needs to visit a brothel for. Variety? (Faceless women indeed...)

I see this girl has been taking communication lessons from Ucchi...

The gross spreads.

^ ...jeez the only ones featured in those I don't yet have are Big TailProvence, Skyfire and Skadi. Might as well start hoarding Ori for W sometime down the road I guess.

Way to both miss the point directed at you, and specifically demonstrate your inability to empathise with the actual problem.

Maybe you should stop replying to someone with a lack of the ability you possess then. Or maybe stop turning the conversation to personal attack.

Look. This keeps going in circles because you insist on arguing from the point of ignorance about pretty basic human psychology and instead rely on vague superficial moralising that doesn't lead anywhere.

My problem with her character is that it seems like she is conscious about hurting both Sakura and the teacher, not simply "lashing out" on them because she is hurt. These characters of Kodama's works always have that side of them who are consciously morally at fault too.

You can be bullied and lash out on people who try to help you without actually meaning to hurt them.
You can be bullied, but consciously try to unload your frustrations to anyone you can, both into innocents and the perpetrators. In this case the innocents.

Again, I'm not saying what she does is way out of proportion either, I get it, but I'm also pointing out she isn't completely innocent here either. I'm sure she will eventually get help, but right now she is also being a perpetrator. Depression is not a free pass to hurt others, otherwise everyone in this world would end up recreating the cycle.

The "innocence" which you seem to be fixated on is a completely irrelevant concern here in the first place. People in pain only too readily and often lash out in ugly, counterproductive and contrafinal ways, this is a well-attested fact of anguished human behaviour. It does not somehow magically disqualify them from help or sympathy; to repeat, it's something anyone serious about helping them needs to cope with if they want to do any good. Deep reserves of patience are pretty much a job requirement for counselors etcetera if they are to be any good at their jobs.

Sakura puts up with Ashima's occasional antics without more than nominal protest because she recognises it isn't out of any personal ill-will but rather her own pain and anguish boiling over. Not that Ashima didn't have ample reason to bitterly resent and envy Sakura's position as the favoured child who gets all the love and affection she herself has been arbitrarily denied essentially all her life, of course, but she clearly tries to not hold it against her - and she also loves her both as her sister (possibly more) and the one person in the family who doesn't treat her like a damn leper at best.

Those contradictory impulses - heavily compounded by Ashima's current emotional state - are the fundamental root cause of her fickle behaviour towards Sakura.

But she is lashing on people who are not at fault here and are trying to help her.

But it's not about not showing empathy.

Way to both miss the point directed at you, and specifically demonstrate your inability to empathise with the actual problem.

For the record that kind of indiscriminately bitter lashing out is something that routinely comes up in the retrospections of people who were bullied as children. It's basically just symptomatic behaviour anyone who's serious about wanting to help them has to accept until they recover enough to get over it; rather like how injured animals in pain are wont to bite anyone who comes near.

What's this "sometimes" stuff, lady. She acts like a cat all the time!

Hey, she can open the fridge and tuna tins herself...

inb4 it runs for another 20 years, just like the original :U

^^ Fucking Kevin. Though do I remember wrong or didn't Hua leave feathers in both Bronya and Himeko, too? Then again the latter is also sorta rip ATM and hers probably melded with Kiana's anyway...

Just call her... Old Tuna. o3o

Defo candidate for Age gap tho given kung fu birbHua is quite literally way the fuck OVER 9000 yo.