My re-reading project has gone reasonably well, my ADHD is still untreated so I often have a lot of trouble actually starting (Who is Real consistently created this roadblock in my mind for whatever reason), but it was re-reading Under Tides that has had me sitting down and digesting it for some time.
Under Tides has a dramatically different tone from pretty much every single other event that I've read so far. It's a very moody work, dramatically more so than previous events (and, definitely in comparison to Stultifera Navis), both in story direction and in art direction. The residents of Sal Viento are drawn in a way I find really compelling for the nature of the story: they look like they've had the life and energy sucked out of them, and share the same muted palettes with the Inquisitors. It really makes the Abyssal Hunters standout in comparison to the rest of the world, in Skadi's vivid reds, Gladiia's blues, and Specter's monochrome colors.
This piece, on top of just being absolutely breathtaking honestly, is a really good example. Sal Viento sits, tilted in ruins into the sea, but at this angle it feels impossible to tell where the land begins and where the ocean meets the city. It makes Sal Viento feel very isolated from the world, and it is in many ways, and I in particular like the way the support structures at the right, now broken and falling apart, make Sal Viento feel skeletal. How much has been destroyed, taken by the sea? It's great.
But Skadi is the only splash of color. Skadi's red stand out amongst the very muted blues, the blues that feel barely distinguishable from the dismal grays of rain clouds and brackish water, and the sterile colors of Sal Viento. Skadi and the Hunters are the only splash of life in this landscape; even the Inquisitors cannot be said to do this, because much if not all of what the Inquisitors leave in their wake is death.
But it's also a much darker story than usually, and that's a bit surprising considering how much fare Arknights up to this point has had with the ideas of corporate corruption, discrimination, and cleansing. It's a lot to do with how the characters are positioned to each other: the people of Sal Viento are almost zombie-like, being slowly eaten away from ingestion of Seaborn flesh, and are intensely paranoid and disapproving of outsiders. Only Anita stands out amongst them, a beacon of innocence and curiosity that hasn't been stamped out yet by the constant erosion of the tides. Skadi and Gladiia are both oppositional to each other and oppositional to everyone else in the story. There's no real sense of cooperation or camaraderie between any of the characters outside of Anita, which creates a really rather oppressive atmosphere. The dark parts of Talulah's story in Chapter 8 stand in contrast to the warmer parts of her relationship to Alina, Frostnova, and Patriot, and it stands in contrast with Amiya and Ch'en. Maria Nearl's attempted assassination at the hands of the KGCC stands stark against Marcus and Zofia's support of her and her naive ideals.
There's no contrast in Under Tides, it's a constant gloomy, dark feeling, it's being in a cave that's constantly damp, dripping, and moist. That works really well for the type of story it wants to be, especially for its climax moment, where the first time character's connect with each other, it is portrayed in the form of a mental breakdown.
"She is a monster.
She murders her own kind.
She for her own kind murders her own kind.
She by her own kind murders her own kind.
The eyes of the people in the streets are filled with warmth. They don't know anything.
The eyes from the research institutes and in the tents are filled with ice.
When the hunters sleep, there are patrollers guarding. No. Those aren't guards. That night patrol doesn't serve the hunters.
The patrollers are waiting for the hunters to become monsters."
Aside from her, anyone and everyone probably knew.
Sea monster.
And–she has already committed the gravest sin...
I killed it.
I killed her.
I killed Him.
There's some questionable writing decisions made in this chapter, especially with the way that Anita and Irene have a habit of narrating action scenes in dialogue, but this will not be what I criticize. This is the climax of the story: where the truth of the matter, where Skadi understanding the bizarre idiosyncrasies of her biology and what they mean, causes her identity to collapse, leaving Skadi to try and grab at anything she can.
And she grabs onto being a monster.
Becoming a Seaborn is in some ways both an invasion and a form of acceptance. Your biology changes, but the outcome is not a guarantee. Skadi only avoids her fate here because Gladiia deliberately took a massive injury as a trap. If that hadn't been intentional, if Gladiia truly took a mortal wound, Skadi would have fallen right there.
"Your neural cells are rapidly metabolizing. Remember, you are a hunter. They can't do anything to you."
It's truth and its untruth. The extent to which Skadi's condition can be directly tied to her biology is questionable: we've already seen this questioned in Skadi's own monologue. But as long as Skadi remembers that she is a hunter, that she has a purpose and can resist, she'll be fine.
It's good, it's a fantastic climax that leads to the rather nice and cathartic reunion amongst the Abyssal Hunters. Really liked this event.
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