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Bumping to make a point: the thumbs up aren’t helping. And I think Azwulf is removing a lot of stuff that is still important because of personal bias. So an actual read through of his edits by people who have completed chapter 8 of Arknights would be nice.

Could ask the Arknights thread.

Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.

Could you link to Azwulf's edit history, please? If you don't provide courtesy links, it'll be difficult for the mods to track their activity.

This work? https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/el.php?findfor=Azwulf

It would also help if you linked some edits you had concerns about.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Hi, I'm an Arknights player and I've been informed of this mass edit issue. I would point out each of the edits that I have a problem with. A bunch of them are spoiler, but it's a pain to spoiler everything when I'm explaining what's wrong with the edit, so I won't.

• First, the very fact that they edit out WMG entries. From what I understand from other works' WMG pages, if WMG is disproven by canon, then it's simply labeled as jossed, instead of being nuked outright.
• Deleting Demonic Possession from Reunion's Talulah entry. They reason that it's leaning to More than Mind Control, however the scheme that the real bad guy Kashchey uses on Talulah is overtly complicated and fundamentally opposite to Talulah's principles. At one point, Kashchey outright says that he's going to kill Talulah's sister Ch'en because Ch'en is Talulah's Morality Chain and killing her will break Talulah so he can devour Talulah's last remaining consciousness. No matter what angle you look at it, it's a Demonic Possession.
• The entire edits about Lappland (and to the lesser extend, Texas). They deleted any mention that Lappland (and Texas) might be a Mafia Princess, despite the known backstories, slow-dripped from various events and minor details, of these characters is that they were scions of mafia families.
• The removal of the possibility of Provence's disregard of Scavenger as being Incompatible Orientation. As much as I wish this is true, but "everyone is bisexual" thing they cited as the reason for this edit is pretty much headcanon.
• The use of the "Sarcophagus", a mysterious coffin from which the player character (the Doctor) was extracted. Long story short, when the Doctor, whose race in the story is a big mystery, entered the Sarcophagus, they got healed to full health. Meanwhile, when a bird person did it, he turned into a mutant bird. It is then speculated in-universe that the Sarcophagus turns whoever enters it into its primal form. It's similar to how a Friend in Kemono Friends pretty much unaffected by monsters that turn other Friends into their non-sapient animal form; she's a homo sapiens to begin with. Azwulf deleted the entire mention of this in-universe speculation.

So Azwulf's edit that I have a problem with is pretty much everything.

Edited by AlaAlba

I've summoned them.

Looking at Ala's list, I also have concerns with those changes, and I think those are enough to call for a halt and a discussion before further edits are made.

It's been fun.

Getting a head start on the Talulah question specifically: we don't know exactly the extent of Koschei's mind control/manipulation, but there are several points to consider.

• Talulah's entire bearing (and in Japanese, her speech pattern) change between her early appearances in Chapter 8 and post-Alina's death, including how she addresses Patriot. Likewise, her attitude and speech change again after DBS's defeat.
• The Deathless Black Snake gives a "Tears in Rain"-esque speech talking about all the peoples who are now gone, that he explicitly says the mortals he's addressing wouldn't know.
• As Ala Alba said, Koschei plans to kill Ch'en to further his control over Talulah.

Additionally, the only source we have that says the manipulation is incapable of making Talulah do anything she doesn't want to is Koschei himself. And if I was able to manipulate people into doing things, the first thing I would tell them is that it proves they really wanted to do those things.

It's been fun.

Was at work before so I couldn't join till Today, sorry. If there is some other way to mark off a WMG as impossible then I was unaware of it and I apologize.

As for the Talulah demonic possession, it just isn't possession. Koschei (or Kaschey depending on preference) has 0 control over her actions. Ch'en was supposed to be the one person who could make her realize Kaschey isn't right, and all humans aren't evil, or at least there is time to stop following his teachings. But unfortunately for Kaschey, there was the Lord of Fiends there and they were able to outright figure out that there is a little Kaschey conscious in her head that is directing her like a GPS. Do you have to follow a GPS? No, you don't. But if you think the GPS is right then you are gonna follow it. Even if his Arts could mind control, it wouldn't work on her, she said herself that she's been trained against those kinds of Arts.

Edited by Azwulf

I will also need someone to tell me where exactly they found Lappland's and Texas's backstory. Because by all means, there shouldn't be an existing one about their relationship besides Lappland's obsession with Texas. Lappland also said she wasn't planning on doing anything to Texas besides bring back the old her. So I need to know where "her wanting to die by the old Texas" was from.

For Provence and Scavenger, sexual orientation is never mentioned once about anyone in the whole game. Arknight's humans also aren't like us, our worlds and people are very different. If this was on Earth, I would have kept it. But the cold fact is that we don't know if sexual orientation even exist making "everyone bi."

By going off of Characters who can be interpreted as having a crush on The Doctor, that means those character's would have to be flexible since the Doctor is unknown and so far left to the reader's imagination. And character's might not even know the Doctor's sex, like Cuora. So they'd be crushing on someone who they don't even know if they'd sexually align with.

Edited by Azwulf

As for the sarcophagus part I removed, the Doctor has been outright confirmed by the developers as not being human like us on Earth. Also Doctor is uninfected, that's been confirmed in game. But the Doctor does have strange things about them that could be racial, we haven't seen all the races in game after all. But it could also be to a deeper level, because Kal'tsit is marked as a feline on her profile, she looks like a feline, but she's been noted by Theresa as "the last of her kind." So Doctor could easily be in the same boat as her, but not the exact since she's the last.

So there's my reasons. If anyone want's any evidence, I'd be glad to show but I'm not entirely sure what would be the smoothest method to share the screenshots.

And for parts I removed and claimed there was no evidence for it, just show me real evidence that can make sure those parts are true.

Just FYI, it's better to write just one big reply. Use bullet points if you want to keep things from getting messy.

EDIT: Also, this is confusing: "But the cold fact is that we don't know if sexual orientation even exist making "everyone bi."" So everyone's bi automatically unless we don't know otherwise? Seems dodgy.

Edited by MichaelKatsuro

You're right, that's too bold of a claim on my part and shouldn't have been part of my argument.

However, I still do not believe that sexual orientation part should be there in the first place since, again, we don't know if that even exist in Arknights. Especially because, again, they are very different from us.

And sorry about the use of multiple replies, I'll keep it on just one big one for now on and edit it if I want to add something more to it.

My rebuttals of each of these is going to be really long, so I apologize in advance.

• As I said, Kashchey's scheme to incite war between Ursus and Yen is too elaborate and fundamentally opposite to Talulah's principles for a simple push to do things, and only can happen if Kashchey has a direct control over the scheme instead of leaving it to the chance of Talulah will do it for him. To make the plan goes as it did, things that need to happen are;

1. Covertly use Ursus' military assets and soldiers to radically arm and bolster Reunion's strength.

2. Conspire with the other Ursus war-hawks against the Emperor and Minister Witte's reforms.

3. Both of those points need a lot of conscious control over, while Talulah is disgusted at Ursus' rotten Decadent Court. How in the world Talulah will agree to do those if she has control over her actions?

4. Mephisto's descend to villainy is actively encouraged by 'Talulah', while the last words of Talulah's (pretty much) wife were to protect him and Faust and make them good people. How turning this boy into a sadistic little shit will protect him and make him good person?

5. If Kashchey can only encourage Talulah to do things, then how come Ch'en almost died if Amiya doesn't intervene? How come she let the original Reunion people die when they're outliving their usefulness, and laughing at their deaths? How come she ordered Ines' death if the only downside happens when Ines knowing that Talulah 'has two shadows' is that there's a possibility that Kashchey is going to get exorcised out of her?

These things don't make sense if Talulah is in control. Also, as Red Savant pointed out, if I'm going to gaslight someone, I'm going to convince them that this is what they want, even tho they have no control.

• Texas and Lappland's backstories; from their tokens. Texas' is a scutcheon of her family, and it's scratched. Lappland's is several bloodstained scutcheons of mafia families she took as battle trophies. We already know that Syracusa is a mafia state, ruled in the similar way as Italian princely houses. In the use of heraldry, only those high up in the dynasty can use scutcheons as their identification, usually as signet rings. In "Code of Brawl", the two mafioso react to Texas not wanting to deal with them as her changing from how she used to. You can connect everything else yourself.
• With Scavenger and Provence, my issue is that you use a headcanon that "everyone is bi" as the reason of deletion of that entry, instead of using the more make sense reason like "There's no evidence for that". It's similar with your reason to delete Ship Tease in Amiya's folder because "it's incestuous". Are we going to delete every single example of the obviously incestuous Ship Tease, like in Nasuverse, just because it's incestuous?
• About the Sarcophagus, that's why I brought up Kemono Friends. Kaban is a human Friend. Most of time this is disregarded in-universe by a lot of the characters because they don't know what humans are, because humans in the story are treated in similar way as Precursors, but the way Kaban stays a humanoid despite being reversed to her primitive state is because she's a homo sapient. It's not outright explained that this is the case when Kaban recovers from the attack, because the character in-universe don't understand how it becomes like that. However, the audience knows this because they have out-universe knowledge.

In case with the Doctor, we know that Doylist-wise the Doctor is self-insert, thus a 'human'. How the writer is going to explain it Watsonian-wise is depending on them, but they're going to be 'human', even if it's Human Alien, Precursors, just plain humanoid that isn't the part of Terra's demography, or whatever. This is in contrast with the half-animal, angel, demon, etc people in Terra. One example of such difference between the Doctor and Mephisto is when Mephisto gets in the Sarcophagus, causing the similar incident as the above Kemono Friends example. So, the writers' claim that the Doctor is not a human from Earth means little; it's just mean that the Doctor isn't an Earth human who got iseakai'd like the player-insert in Fire Emblem Heroes or the R6 collab operators.

Edited by AlaAlba

• This was plan made long before Talulah killed Kashchey and ran away. Kashchey didn't leave it to chance, he programmed her. Remember, he kidnapped her and taught her how to think, he even says himself that this was the most important part. Remember the Emperor's Blades? Remember how they went to check how far Talulah had progressed? Remember how they were satisfied with the results? He's planned this for a long time with others, so they were set up and waiting for Talulah to accept Kashchey. It is NEVER shown or mentioned that Talulah was talking or conspiring with Ursus, so how would he set up the plan with them in her body?

• She agreed to do all of this because she agreed with Kaschey, do you remember the village? Do you remember the wager? He said, and she recalled, that as soon ash she accepts him, as soon as she realizes he's right, she will become him. NOT him become her, but HER become him because she'll think she was wrong and he was right. That's why she did all this.

• Again, do you not remember the wager? If she slips up and thinks he's right then that will allow Kashchey to direct her like a GPS. Do you also remember what he was right about? He said all people are naturally evil, and now she has all this anger and hate for people that Kaschey needs and can use to direct her. Also, she cried when Patriot died, when did she laugh at someone else's death?

• Because, again, she's been brainwashed and believes he's right. He changed her memories, and made her believe that Ch'en is evil. That's why she was willing even though that little bit of self consciousness slipped through. Also Amiya OUTRIGHT SAYS the only reason Kaschey was able to do these things was because Talulah let him.

• Because Kashcey is telling GPS-ing her to (try and) kill Ines, he's trying to hide himself. Remember when Amiya calls him out, Talulah then says "well if you can mess with memories then who says he's real at all?" He was trying to hide then he messed up really bad by having Talulah say she's been alive for a thousand years.

• It is literally said that Kaschey must have tried to tempt Talulah into destroying the city key, but she resisted the temptations and didn't destroy it. The game itself has said three times now that he cannot do anything she doesn't allow and that his Arts are too pathetic for mind control and she's been trained to resist those kinds of Arts.

If you want to hear it from someone smarter than me you can also go to the discord and with luck the main Moderator for the lore club will discuss it with you and with better explanations than me.

• Lappland's Token and Texas's Token both mean they were involved in the mafia in some way, but it is nowhere near enough evidence to say that Lappland and her were Bloodknights because we don't know who who they were to each other. None the less Lappland literally said she wasn't gonna do anything to Texas besides try to bring the old her back. We know old Texas was ruthless from her Paradox, we know they have some history, but not what that history is. So where did you get the idea that they were a Bloodknights duo? Also, it's Siracusa, not Syracusa.

• Yes I did say it's more likely that everyone is "bi" but that was because of the Doctor being able to be either gender and this game having a large play on interpretation. But yes, I should have wrote no evidence.
• Again, the Doctor is confirmed to not be human like you and I. They are like the humans on Terra. None the less, Doctor can hardly be considered a self insert anymore so it doesn't matter what the player knows. Also physics and chemistry work different on Terra, so we don't know how anything really functions in their world.
• The Doctor is more of a OC insert rather than a self insert. None the less, if you've paid attention at all to stories and operator lines, you'd see Doctor is a person of their own. They have their own hobbies, own ideals, own beliefs, and no matter what you choose, The Doctor does an action. None the less, you don't just play the Doctor for dialogue. You got to play as Scout, Logos, and in IS you got to play as Ceobe. Even for gameplay you don't just play Doctor. Talulah and Patriot are the commanders for their part of chapter 8, for T.o.W. Folinic is the commander, Code of Brawl is mostly Texas since she's team lead. And for the 4th time, the writers have said the Doctor isn't human and that humans LIKE US ON EARTH don't exist in Arknights, meaning they cannot be like us in any Earth like way. Hell, The Doctor even has some strange unnatural abilities but we don't entirely how they function.

Edited by Azwulf

At the point you're using magic hypnotism, can claim to have been the same person for over a thousand years by repeating this process, and are treated as a separate consciousness capable of conversing with the person in question, I'd argue you're ticking enough boxes to qualify for Demonic Possession. You'd have to essentially prove that this is only trickery and there's no actual lingering possession for it to not be an applicable trope.

The key factor isn't whether Talulah is strong enough to throw it off or resist being completely consumed (at least within the timeframe and scope of the story); it's what Kaschey is trying to do.

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Do you have a trope of Demonic Manipulation? Because he sure as hell didn't possess her. He is in her head as a living ideology, yes. But he doesn't possess her at all. The game even said so THREE TIMES that Talulah has control. The game has said his Arts are just to speed up the process of her becoming him, because it's just manipulation. If there wasn't any Arts, Talulah would still turn out like him but just not do Chernobog because she wouldn't have the GPS for it.

What more do you want? The game literally said Kaschey had to tempt her into destroying the key, which means he couldn't do it himself or she stopped him from doing it, she just wouldn't do it.

Is Kaschey a distinct spiritual entity/consciousness trying to get Talulah to completely cede control? If yes, demonic possession.

The methodology is not important, here, nor is his eventual success/failure—aside from that past success would indicate that this is what he's doing, strengthening a reason to include it.

"Is unsuccessful/incomplete Demonic Possession an example of Demonic Possession" is a separate problem (self-demonstrating articles like this one are kind of a pain for that).

Edited by RainehDaze Avatar Source

Not spiritual entity, it's Arts, he's not getting complete control, he's making her into another Black Snake. Meaning she'll be someone like him, that was the whole point of her arc in chapter 8. It was her trying not to be like him and then she thinks he's right and becomes like him. Kaschey literally says "She is me. I am her!" Because she thinks like him and will do what he would do because of brainwashing, not demonic possession. And again, he literally cannot control her. The whole point of killing Frosnova, Patriot, etc. etc. was to ensure no one could convince her that Kashchey is wrong or doesn't have to be right and to ensure no one is physically capable of besting her.

Edited by Azwulf

Kaschey also spends like the last half of chapter 8 talking about things that Talulah wouldn't know, and Amiya's drawing a distinction between Kaschey's memories and Talulah's. That's not brainwashing.

Not to mention all the lines like

There's a lot of possession imagery and description going around, perhaps more of a kill and replace scheme, but... it's literally being described as possession.

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That was Ch'en that said that, have you noticed how off she was that whole time? And I know what he said, but he's still there.

And stop ignoring the parts I say that literally say he doesn't have control.

Because having control isn't relevant, which I already said. The potential for said control or obtaining said control? That's there. And there's a lot of examples on the page where it could have evolved into such stringent demonic possession but didn't—Kaschey is firmly in that group. If he killed Ch'en, plan works, nothing's going to bring Talulah back into control or cause her to ever object; it's all Kaschey's emotions and memories driving it. We're trying to prove that it doesn't qualify as attempted demonic possession, which is about "is there another entity distinct from the original person trying to assume control of this body".

And yeah, he's still there, but the point is one that he's also using possession imagery.

Secondary point, as manipulative as he is, citing Kaschey for also saying stuff claiming to be Talulah and it's all brainwashing skips that it's when he's trying to break Ch'en and Amiya's resolve to fight. It's not more conclusive.

I think you're having more of a problem with what qualifies as Demonic Possession than "is there or is there not a separate Kaschey-like blob of memories and emotions".

Edited by RainehDaze Avatar Source

Azwulf, you appear to have both underestimating the control Kashchey has on Talulah and that More than Mind Control and Demonic Possession aren't always mutually exclusive.

• After the village incident, Talulah pretty much loses most control. The conspiracy with the other Ursus war-hawks (not with the Blades) was after the village incident. How can we know that? The established rivalry between Chernobog's mayor and one of the war-hawks is fairly recent thing, the same one that elevated Rosa's family to aristocracy. Chernobog's mayor started using the technology from the Sarcophagus slightly over 20 years ago and Chernobog florished afterward, and in the approximately last 10 years, the war-hawk attempted to sabotage Chernobog because of that. Then, the war-hawk agreed to lax the army so Reunion can infiltrate Ursus defense and attack Chernobog. However, by the time the war-hawk is in rivalry with Chernobog's mayor, Talulah had already killed Kashchey. How can Kashchey conspire with someone when the setpieces aren't on their places yet, if he set everything up before he was killed? The only way it can make sense is that Kashchey approached the war-hawk after he was killed, and he can only do so when Talulah succumbed to Kashchey. Just because something doesn't happen on-screen, it doesn't mean it never happened.
• This goes into the second point; Demonic Possession and More than Mind Control aren't always mutually exclusive. In this case, More than Mind Control leads to full-blown Demonic Possession instead of simply the second shadow. This is why Kashchey tries to kill Ch'en with Talulah's own hands; it's to break her completely so he can fully in control. If he can always control her through manipulation, then he has no need to have Talulah kill Ch'en to further his hold on Talulah. Can't Arts have anything to do with spiritual entity? Rosmontis' Arts is literally manipulating her brother's ghost to wield her swords. Also, Raineh already said it about distinction Amiya made. This means Kashchey isn't some sort of vague ideal, but a clear personality trying to wrestle control from Talulah. It's a demonic possession.
• When 'Talulah' hears from Phantom Crossbowmen that Faust and the Yeti Squadron were killed to save them and Mephisto, she asks to be left alone to grief, but she actually orders the Sarkaz mercs to slaughter the Crossbowmen, amused that Mephisto actually alive instead of Faust, and that Patriot still clings to life. When confronted later, she celebrates Frostnova and Patriot's deaths because there's no one who can stop her anymore.
• Texas and Lappland can be seen from their voicelines. Lappland loves fighting. Lappland loves Texas' old self. Texas is now The Stoic, but described as having "genuine rage within". QED.
• You seem to not understand what 'self-insert' mean narratively. Just because the character have certain personality, it doesn't immediately hard disconnect that character from being audience insert. Just because you can see the pov of other characters beside the Audience Surrogate, it doesn't stop that character from being Audience Surrogate. For example, Ryuk from Death Note is an audience surrogate, because he wants to watch what we (as audience) want to watch in Death Note - flamboyan battle of wits. He's also a character with established personality. Also, the current Doctor and the past Doctor are pretty much treated as different character even in-universe, and the current Doctor is pretty much blank slate whose personalities we choose through dialogue tree and misc personalities established in fairly unobtrusive actions. If the game's writer doesn't intend to make the Doctor audience surrogate, then they won't use a lot of Leaning on the Fourth Wall imageries about the chessmaster outside the gameboard.
• Based on the above point, it can be said whether the Doctor is 'human' or not. The exact race of the Doctor doesn't matter. Doylist-wise, the Doctor is 'human' for being Audience Surrogate. Watsonian-wise, the Doctor is 'human' for keeping their human form in the situation that turn other 'half-human' into 'non-human' - which means the Doctor is 'human-human', whatever that means in the story later on.

Edited by AlaAlba

Once again I agree with Alba.

• While it's not clear at all that Talulah is being totally overridden, and thus not culpable for what she's done while leading Reunion, it's also not the case that she was totally still herself. DBS Talulah doesn't care at all about Eno, and considers Yelena an obstacle that needed to be removed. Like Alba pointed out, by the time of JT 8 Talulah/DBS celebrates that Frostnova and Patriot are dead, because they're the only two that could have killed her. There's also, yes, the second shadow on Talulah in Darknights Memoir. Whatever the extent of the influence on her, it's significant, and not just a suggestions.
• The Doctor in-game is pretty undeniably an adult human man, from his build in official art and the view of his hand in the CG with Priestess (who is also presented as a romantic partner, most likely). I support people bringing their own Doctors in - heck, I do it myself - but there are more and more indications that the Doctor will be presented as a specific character in later developments. The Sarcophagus especially indicates that the Doctor is human in a way that no one else on Terra is, and so does the fact that the Doctor's blood is special, possibly unique. Similar to Disco Elysium, being able to control how the character reacts post-amnesia doesn't mean that their prior identity isn't a fixed character.

It's been fun.

OK, that's enough. We have discussion pages for this sort of debate and to be honest, I think it's too early to make an Ask The Tropers report. Imma close this, if there are problems again you can make a new query.

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