Off the rails, full speed ahead, choochoochooo ...

Where we're going we don't need rails

Tbh most of my operators I've gotten since playing AK have been sitting pretty doing absolutely nothing. I should really use them more instead of just using the "meta" units to clear stages.

I do try to 200% Trust them all so I try to get them to an usable level (which I define as SL6-7 and E1L50-60), so much of the time I'm actually bending over backwards to fit whoever I'm trust-farming ATM into clear strats. :P

...though this has the caveat that Ops already at 200% then get benched unless they're just too essential (Silverdaddy, Eyja and Gravel fall here a LOT), too fun (eg. Ifrit whenever an IFRIT LANE :exists:) or too convenient (eg. flagbearer Vanguards + Bagpipe, Ptilopsis) to leave out. Like I don't even remember when I last actually took Liskarm to a new stage - she was one of my starter pulls and did a lot of work early on...

Though if I can't stand an Op's visual design (or find their kit too troublesome to bother with, like poor Nightmare and Brawler Guards) they just get to earn their Trust idling in base. Leonhardt is a standout example because his default looks give me a skin condition - his new skin's much better so he's been promoted to the "will upgrade someday" list as his kit's fine. (As an aside this fate also befell my Kaeya in Genshin - he's consigned to eternal puzzle reserve and expedition duty because I loathe his character design.)

It's guarantee 6 star after all + I still don't have SilverAsh, Nightingale, Mostima, Magallan, Schwarz and Rosa. I was the most interested in Nightingale, Mostima, Schwarz and Suzuran.

In terms of sheer general utility I'd say Schwing Schwing ManSilverdaddy or Suzu. The former has stupidly useful passives, particularly the stealth purge, and a well-placed Truesilver Slash can carry you through some pretty dumb shit - there's a reason whole clear strats are built around its judicious application. he will also turn all males within half-kilometer radius into yaoi ukes Suzu a cute must proteccseems like quite the Swiss Army Knife from what I've seen borrowing her from friend support - besides the usual slow-supporter applications her second talent muscles in on Pramanix and Shamare's action, and her S3 with its area heal can get pretty silly in a tight spot. I got very good mileage out of that one in the last story stage of Chief Gavial, esp. against the High Priest and his bootleg Gorkanaut for ex.

Also honorary mention to Mostima. I understand she isn't considered all that good overall, but I've found her passive SP regen and slow shenanigans quite useful - and her S2 is plain cruel against stuff like Wraiths/Ergates or CC-boosted Crowny. Or just anything tough and dangerous that you'd like to lock down hard in a killzone before it reaches your ground frontline; eg. I threw it at some of the Club Elites etc. in Kaz Major to very good effect. plus Appliepie's waifu

Personally kinda tempted to buy the pack and grab either iizi moodo ketBlaze or Suzu. It's kinda more money than I'm usually willing to throw at an online game in one go - I could literally buy several full games with that sum after all - but I do legit like AK enough to seriously consider making an exception to my usual principles in these matters.

...oh and I accidentally a Mudrock just now. If I was the superstitious sort I'd be getting seriously worried over some sort of karmic backlash from all this ridiculous lucksacking I've been having over the past few days. O_o

last edited at May 4, 2021 9:59PM

Nika confirmed to be either a Jedi, or Spider-Man

Oh my god...

She was holding the book....

WHERE DID IT GO...??

Also the pen materialises from one panel to the next. Literally unplayable

Cyberpunk 2077: The Manga

Motivation: -5

I feel personally called out

That's some galaxy brain play

So yesterday a Top Operator + Sniper Recruit gave me Chow Yun-CatSchwarz (who will be pouring tea in dorms until now E2 Rosmontis' comprehensive annihilation of my resources is undone...) - today it's Top Operator + Ranged. Is RNGesus in a celebratory mood or something? o_O

last edited at May 3, 2021 11:56AM

I'm starting to wonder if X is somehow the girl Hayate failed to save during her early hero days.

At that point we'd be dealing with an outright PIME TARDOX given her transformation gadget is from X, as she explicitly recounted...

this freaking peanut gallery lmao

Welp, just pulled a genocide kittenRosmontis from the daily freebie. feelsgoodman.jpg because so far all I've gotten is a few Jackies, Whisperains and a random ass Manticore dupe.

NSFW Blazethroat,

something something cats birds food chain :v

...though Grey would have unusually good reasons to be jittery there, given she canonically gets PTSD shakes just from being near the Infected.

TBH I don't think Utena actually knows what to do with Kiwi's very openly expressed crush. It's arguably an aspect of the gulf between her supervillain and civilian personas (and conversely the fact Dumplings simply doesn't compartementalize between the two); as Magia Baiser the BDSM Dark Magical Girl she'll gleefully and confidently go full hentai doujin on (almost) anybody anytime, but as Hiiragi Utena the awkward 14-year old girl she's completely at a loss how to cope with someone expressing romantic-sexual interest in her.

Bit of a glass cannon in other words - she can dish it out but not take it. :P
(The peculiarly familial relationship the two of them have with Korisu probably only confuses her further in this regard.)

It's possible that Kiwi (with rather uncharacteristic sensitivity) realizes this to some degree, too, as while she's not at all subtle about her raging homo lust for Utena she never really presses the issue. It's more like she's extending a permanent open invitation (and rather vocally at that) but is fine with waiting for an answer.

^that's a bit of a stretch given Saria's rather estranged status (mainly thanks to hostility of unclear motivation on Silence's part) in the narrative present...

We don't know what time this is set

Eyeballing the clothes somewhere in the later 1800s - you could more or less bracket the decade by comparing with galleries of period dress, though I CBA for now. (The unusual way European fashion evolved from about the 1200s onwards makes it an useful dating tool if the source material is good.)

A castle being restored since 1965?! these people aren't in a hurry, huh?

I mean, the real things often took quite a long time to build as well.

Not really, military fortifications generally needed to get to a defensible state pretty fast after all - lest whoever they were designed against come throw sand in the gears. Examples of enemy spoiling raids on construction sites aren't uncommon in histories of volatile regions (eg. the Levant during the Crusades). For example Rhuddlan Castle in Wales was fully finished in five years (1277-1282), and its concurrent "sister" Flint already had its core defense works in place by the end of its first year of construction. Full completion might well take longer ofc, particularly if the site was large, complex and/or involved a lot of stonework (as was universal of European fortifications from 12th century onwards); for example the rightly famous Krak des Chevaliers (in what is now western Syria) took 28 years to finish. Naturally the builder's resources factored heavily - the king of a major realm or a great prince (or a powerful city-state) could obviously mobilise money and labour on an entirely different scale and ambition than some minor baron or knight (or small town).

To put this in perspective compare a standout example of a major civilian construction project, the Notre-Dame de Paris which began in 1163 and was declared finished in 1345 - 182 years later... with a fair bit of expansion and modernisation done thereafter too. This sort of timeframe was pretty typical of cathedrals btw. For another rather more down-to-earth example the Uffizi complex in Florence (originally built to house elements of the civic bureaucracy, hence the name - Italian for "offices") took 21 years.

Japanese fortresses by way of comparison were essentially just sophisticated but relatively light palisades and walls atop massive stone-faced rammed-earth ramparts (rather similar to their Chinese peers), and relatively quick to throw up compared to the extensive and tall masonry walls of the European system; eg. Matsue Castle was apparently finished in just four years.

last edited at May 1, 2021 2:38PM

^ I think they are super sweet :) In this fluffy story we are not gonna get anything more between these 2- except at best a confession maybe.

Right, the hardcore stuff will be left for a side doujin.

meh, the tired trope of "old friend secretly always in love with an MC" who only confesses when it's so clear she'll never be accepted.

I mean, it's not necessarily a bad trope per say, but it's just so damn overused in yuri manga that it's just get over with this dumb point we all know will lead no where, and progress the main couple pls

There's this thing called "closure" that tends to be pretty emotionally and psychologically important to people you know. Fuuka's been hopelessly pining for Asahi since like high school and knows very well it's not going anywhere, why do you think she's basically handed things over to Hinako and more or less actively avoids getting in her way.

She's just finding it harder to watch from the sidelines than expected and seems to have gotten sick and tired of heartaching in silence, not in the least due to Asahi's war crime levels of obliviousness.

I doubt she expects anything to come out of that confession; she just wants to finally stop spinning her wheels around that fruitless crush and force some awareness onto her. "At least realize you're kind of hurting me here goddammit" kind of thing.

"A gripping drama of wild nature"

Ifrit will find a way to set the cabbage on fire.
And the knife.
And the kitchen sink.

A R T

What hath science wrought?! D:

ancient words of wisdom

Credit page on point as always lmaoooo

^no kinkshaming yo

That fact makes me feel old, despite me being 19yo.

Heh. Welcome to changing perception of the passage of time, kid. It'll only get worse from now on.

brb noisy kids on lawn

So poor Fuuka finally hit her saturation point and decided to just get it over with.