Man, Ikarin's really gotten hooked on this ship, huh? Not that I'm complaining. It's kinda funny - looking at their Twitter, it looks like Ikarin only actually started playing FE3H in the past month, almost a year and a half after the game came out.

Mmm, that's some nice angst. I had a feeling it'd all work out in the end, though the place it ended at was a bit odd - we didn't even get to see Maya's reaction to Claudine confessing her love for her!

Also, were some of the words on page 6 panel 2 supposed to be blurred like that?

Ichiro-kun the tentacle? Is that a reference to something in one of the manga? Looking up "touhou ichiro tentacle" doesn't turn up anything for me.

This story’s sadder than I was expecting, although going by what comments above me were saying this is a bit of a change from the original novel. Still, I’m into it.

Poor Madoka lol. TBH if this did happen post-canon I'd see her being more happy (if a little jealous) for Homura more than anything else as opposed to being totally pissed like here, but this is funny either way.

Also if you look at this artist's other works, they've done a lot of other PMMM comics and art, both the usual ships as well as the more cracky ones

By the way, if you go back to the Temple of the Lion in Mondstadt (it's northeast of Dragonspine) there's several new Elemental Trials available to do, each with a one-time reward of Mora, character exp and weapon exp. It's not much but they're all pretty easy and count for the weekly "Complete 15 Domain Challenges" mission.

Those plant crab things are indeed adorable and she's the same race as Spot. The second Hyena for Arknights, and the first female one.

I can already see the futa jokes

...only Beany isn't a spotted hyena which is the only one whose females have that gnarly pseudopenis. She's probably based on the aardwolf, very much the odd one out among the extant hyenas in general.

Oh, I completely missed that. Yeah, looking at her E2 art that's definitely not a spotted hyena. Aardwolves are still cool, if pretty obscure.

Managed to clear DM-MO-1. It was pretty tough - even though I spent a day's worth of practice plans on it, I still ended up wasting sanity on a bad run that I messed up at the last second and didn't cancel in time. Still, it was fun - E2 Nightingale really is a godsend for this map, and this event in general.

Also I forgot to mention this yesterday, but finally there'll be more operators in Recruitment! This is happening a bit later than it did for the Chinese server, but at least it's finally happening. This is actually a bit of a mixed bag, since this means that several tag combinations no longer give out guaranteed 4-stars (ie you'll probably get Spot instead of Gummy, Popukar instead of Estelle, and Catapult instead of Shirayuki). On the other hand, there will be a few new tag combinations that guarantee the 4-star Greyy and the 5-star Nightmare, such as Caster+Slow and Healing+DPS. And of course if you manage to get a Top Operator tag there'll be Skadi and Ch'en finally available.

Those plant crab things are indeed adorable and she's the same race as Spot. The second Hyena for Arknights, and the first female one.

I can already see the futa jokes

I found the anime I mentioned. It’s called Holy Knight Light and is about 10 minutes long. No subtitles unfortunately.

last edited at Dec 25, 2020 6:17AM

So I just saw the translation for the W x Amiya comic that Norainhere shared here (saw the translation in danbooru btw). That page of W getting a glimpse of Theresa while looking at Amiya with her hair down and then Amiya claiming that W's real feelings are obvious. It inspired me to look for W x Theresa and W x Amiya in lofter. The former (W特 or 特w) is really filled with angst as expected of a ship with a dead character. Examples: W with a precious photograph, "Up There", was just a dream. Happier art does exist like this cute smooch and this fangirling moment. As for W x Amiya (tag is w娅), yeah there really isn't a lot of it. It does feel more like a crack ship unless one really believes in a theory connecting Amiya and Theresa causing art like this where W sees Theresa in Amiya. Oh for W x Ines shippers, their tags are 伊W and w伊.

Thanks for all of this; more W yuri is always appreciated.

The new pseudo-annihilation map's open now! I haven't tried it yet, though we still have a week left so I'm not too worried. Also the event shop got filled up again; I was not ready for that. I'm starting to understand now why people where saying there'd barely be enough sanity to clear the shop if you're F2P.

Something neat I saw for the Chinese server is that there's going to be a new Vanguard archetype that's limited to ranged tiles. The first one is a 4-star operator called Beanstalk; I like her little plant-crab things.

Also, yesterday was Exusiai's birthday, so here's a Exusiai x Texas comic and a Exusiai x Mostima comic

There was also apparently an anime that aired for the anniversary livestream, though I've only found a video for the last part of it: https://twitter.com/arknightspeta/status/1342090955105550336
More stuff from the livestream included a real-life Thermal-Ex, and that a whole bunch of stuff's coming on December 30. These include a free Savage, Chapter 7, new costumes, and the W (and Weedy and Elysium) banner. Gamepress has an article summing it all up here

last edited at Dec 25, 2020 3:22AM

That's some good flirting. Does that even count as flirting? Either way, I'm loving Mask and Kaoru's...thing they have going on.

Also, is there a source for that Elisha x Honoka pic in the credits? I want to suggest that for the image upload tomorrow.

last edited at Dec 25, 2020 2:54AM

Finally managed to find the rest of the agates and level my tree up to level 8. It turned out most of the remaining agates I needed were just in the gold treasure chests lying around, which explained why they weren't showing up on the minimap. The new Dragonspine Spear from the quest seems interesting, and will probably work well with Rosaria since she's a Cryo polearm user. It's a bit ironic though, what with Rosaria seeming to be so focused on eliminating any threats to Mondstadt while using a weapon made from the remains of a giant monster that attacked the city centuries ago.

Speaking of which, going from the description of both the Dragonspine Spear and the Festering Desire, Durin (said corrupted dragon that fought Dvalin and died on the mountain) seems to have been surprisingly...not evil? Or something like that. Both weapons talk about how he was sent to Mondstadt for his "Mother", and wanted to spread his love there. It's actually kinda creepy, a lot more than if he was just a generic evil dragon that wanted to destroy everything. It really makes you wonder about that Catastrophe that happened 500 years ago that was implied to have birthed Durin and all other sorts of monsters.

last edited at Dec 24, 2020 7:50PM

Thanks for the heads up, I didn't realize there were new Liyue quests since I've just been doing Dragonspine stuff. I'm almost done with the region, the only thing I'm missing are 3 or 4 agates and then I'd be completely done.

Wait, when you say "almost done with the region", do you mean you've already gotten the tree all the way to level 11/12? Wow. Right now mine's only at level 7, and I just can't find the last several agates I need to get it to level 8. From what I understand the "Crimson Wish" that unlocks then gives you more agates as a reward for doing stuff, so it should be relatively easy to level it up from there.

Oh no, I meant the agates that are currently available. They only give you 79 agate in total, enough for you to get to level 8 and unlock the Crimson Wish. The Crimson Wish missions are like the daily commissions except they give you 5 agate that resets every Monday and Friday. You'd have to play a few weeks before you can get all the way to level 12.

Ah, I see. I feel less dumb for missing those then if there are only 79 available on the map.

It's nice that Honoka barged in and interrupted them after they already started making out.

Thanks for the heads up, I didn't realize there were new Liyue quests since I've just been doing Dragonspine stuff. I'm almost done with the region, the only thing I'm missing are 3 or 4 agates and then I'd be completely done.

Wait, when you say "almost done with the region", do you mean you've already gotten the tree all the way to level 11/12? Wow. Right now mine's only at level 7, and I just can't find the last several agates I need to get it to level 8. From what I understand the "Crimson Wish" that unlocks then gives you more agates as a reward for doing stuff, so it should be relatively easy to level it up from there.

^ Maybe she's a vampire who knows?

Maybe. It doesn't actually bother me that much, and since she's almost certainly going to be a playable character at some point we'll find out eventually.

I've almost finished all of the new Dragonspine quests, I just need to find some more Crimson Agates to get the Polearm prototype. RIP Joel's dad. Also, if you go to Liyue reputation board and look at the quests listed, you'll see there's a few new ones - including one titled "Return of the Jade Chamber?" I've only found one of them; unless I missed the others they might become available later when Ganyu's banner comes.

Exploring Dragonspine's been a lot of fun. It's really a lot bigger than I was expecting, mostly due to the different changes in elevation from the caves and stuff. Enemies aren't too terribly difficult, though the new Ruin Graders are a pain. Neat lore too; assuming those giant rib bones at Wyrmrest Valley are from Durin, it's pretty impressive that Dvalin/Stormterror managed to take him down considering the size difference.

Something I noticed from the beta map is that the section labeled "Liyue's Holy Tomb" doesn't really show up here. I'm guessing that was either moved or taken out, unless I somehow missed it. Also something neat is if you climb all the way up to the floating tower fragment above the peak of Dragonspine, you can see Celestia floating way off in the distance.

The event story seems interesting so far. Albedo's cool, though I accidentally spoiled myself on something about him. Rosaria...I'm still kinda torn on her design (why does she have purple skin? Even Qiqi, a literal zombie, looks normal in comparison!), but I do like her personality. I'm looking forward to the story as it comes out.

last edited at Dec 24, 2020 12:59AM

Meiling's suffering from success.

Absolutely adorable. They're honestly both kinda useless, but at least they actually managed to start dating!

Okay, that makes more sense - while page 2 is from Sakiko's perspective, pages 3 and 4 are from the yandere's perspective, before switching back to Sakiko on page 5. That confused me a bit.

Also, I'm a bit surprised that Chihiro blushed like that from Sakiko's gushing and accidental confession. Well, maybe it's not that much of a surprise - considering how almost no one else in their class recognized her and how they didn't know Haruiro, I'm guessing her idol group isn't exactly the most popular. Well, that or she just doesn't get undying declarations of love from her fans that often.

Anyways, I'm not sure just how dramatic or violent this will end up. Yandere-focused series can often be pretty serious and dark, but just judging by the cover page and description it seems like it'll be fairly light-hearted. Of course, looks can be deceiving, so we'll see. Raws so far go up to chapter 5 (though you can only read up to chapter 4 for free); I'm kinda jumping on the "MC x Yandere" train myself lol

New patch is live now! I haven't played much of it yet, but looking over at Dragonspine Mountain now it's kinda surprising how different it now looks. I guess that should be pretty obvious, but still.

Also, looking over at the patch notes, here's something that made me laugh:

◆ The name of Fischl's Passive Talent "Lightning Smite" is revised to "Undone Be Thy Sinful Hex."

That's right, they're making Fischl even more chuuni than before!

Got Fischl to higher raw atk than Keqing lol! Still way lower damage because of EM and crits, but like daaaaamn gurl you're like 20 lbs below her!

I feel like that's really rude to Keqing lol

Maintenance is going up in about half an hour, so make sure to spend your resin before then.

Well, the important thing is that Fujishiro got to have a date with Kurokawa before that guy did (even if neither of them realized it).

Oh, I remember seeing this on Danbooru a while ago. Glad to see it made it here - it's a pretty wholesome story, and it's nice to see Tewi being mature and serious here.

Also, interesting note on dugongs - while there aren't any populations living in the waters of the main Japanese islands, there is a very small population living near Okinawa in the Ryukyu islands. Considering how old Tewi is, she probably traveled and visited the islands back when the dugong populations were larger and more widespread.

Huh, angsty (or at least sad) PatchyKoa - that's rare. Poor Koa.