#half the time i'm just like 'damn liking rarepairs is suffering'

[dlartistanon]

I wanted to ask because I find you have really good takes on arknights ships most of the time so I’m genuinely curious what the deal with PlatiNearl is. I don’t remember them interacting much in the Kazimierz events and I assume the ship is popular because they were some of the only kazimierz operators from when Arknights started. You don’t have answer if you don’t want to of course, but I want to know what it is about the ship that you like if you wouldn’t mind explaining

Huh. I don't believe I've talked about ships that much, but I was originally baited by the Near Light 3D PV. They played up a sort of rivalry or climactic showdown between Ideal Knight and Knight-Assassin... only for them to never exchange a single word in any event. Needless to say, I was disappointed. Though it wouldn't be the first time. Also NLPT isn't really popular at all, at least in EN.

Regardless, it did get me thinking about the potential. Even if they don't say anything to each other directly, Platinum does have a voice line about Nearl, and her operator record has Nearl show up in her dream. Also Plat's whole deal is that she's assigned by the Armorless Union to keep an eye on Nearl.

On the surface it's knight and knight-killer, positions that are fundamentally opposed and can never truly meet on the horizon as the KGCC has a hold on both. One is stuck in darkness, the other in light. Nearl (at first) wears mostly black, Platinum is all white. Nearl is pretty old-fashioned, Plat is a bit of a fashionable girl. Nearl is serious and disciplined, Plat is casual and wants to coast by on life. Nearl has a hidden dorky side to her personality while Plat, despite her lackadaisical nature, enjoys simple frivolous pleasures. They're pretty clear opposites.

It's no secret that Platinum hates knights. According to her, they’re either muscle-headed jocks or self-obsessed assholes (and she knows what she’s talking about; she was one of them) What pisses Plat off the most about Nearl is that Nearl is neither. Nearl is what a knight SHOULD be and Platinum is just astounded that after all these years, after all this time, she’s acting like being a knight actually means something. It pisses her off so much because why? To run the risk of being left behind by stubbornly clinging to what some might call outdated ideals... deep down, I think she can’t help but admire Nearl too. There's something admirable about believing in the romanticism of true knights in a world so determined to quash you under its boots. For all she knows, the world has moved on from knights, but Nearl disagrees. There's value in keeping the ideal alive in a world that seemingly dismissed it but is also in desparate need of it. Nearl is not the artificial lights of Kazimierz that Plat is used to, but actual light.

I also want to say that Plat resents Nearl because Nearl had the chance to escape Kazimierz, but came back instead. Plat wants nothing more than to be free from her current life. So to see Nearl willingly return to the place that made her life hell? It’s infuriating. How can she think this rotten country can be fixed, when Platinum herself can't see any light at the end of the tunnel? They're both victims, but how is it that their outlooks are so different?

Pictured: Juxtaposing the symbolism of Nearl standing alone but bathed in light, who's still adored by many, while Platinum stands in shadow, surrounded by others but in reality she has no one and has to fend for herself in a cutthroat organization she hates. Their respective loneliness and isolation...

The events reveal that Platinum is quite compassionate. She didn't become an assassin to kill people; rather, she was coerced into it by someone taking advantage of her emotions. Yes, her job is to monitor Nearl, but she doesn't want to hurt her. She sees that Nearl has been away from her family and just wants her to be with them, likely projecting her own feelings of being estranged from her own parents.

This is more going into extrapolation of their characters and circumstances, but yes, Platinum kidnapped and threatened Maria to use as leverage but I have to wonder if Nearl would actually hold that against her should she learn about Plat having been manipulated into a job she desperately wants to leave. Also I think just based on Nearl’s voice lines about not pursuing enemies and giving them another chance to change their life trajectory, she’d feel sympathetic for Plat’s situation if she ever learned that she was tricked into it and couldn’t easily leave.

I just really like the idea of a slow-burn where Nearl herself is actually against Plat at first because of said kidnapping but eventually learns about her situation and how Plat is trapped and miserable. Her distrust and wariness turns to pity and then gradually concern. Nearl’s strong desire to help people compels her to try and find a way if she can help the girl she has mixed feelings about. In Plat's op rec, Nearl's appearance implies that both of them can never truly escape the shadow of the KGCC. If they come calling, Plat will eventually have to answer. Nearl still has to watch her words and actions now that she's back in Kazimierz, otherwise her friends get targeted.

Compare and contrast Nearl the ideal knight who stuck by her morals versus Platinum who just did what she was told under threat of retribution and how they both ended up getting screwed over by the system anyway, the unwinnable Kazimierz competition scene. Alternately, an assassin falling for their mark? That's the stuff of novels. Something that actually happened to Platinum's predecessor, and for her to follow in his footsteps?

NLPT slow-burn because both of them aren’t sure how to feel about the other. Plat avoiding her, it’d be so easy to blame all her problems on Nearl; if she didn’t exist, she wouldn’t be in this predicament. and Nearl always second-guessing Plat’s intentions... I have a scene in my head that’s basically like: too much of their dynamic is rooted in the place that changed their lives for the worse. But at Rhodes Island, they are not assassin nor knight, but comrades. And as her comrade, Nearl will die for Platinum, if need be. She was willing to die for Firewatch too, despite Firewatch also claiming to despise knights.

[stormyrainyday]

🍎🫐🍑 if it's not too much at once <3

omg hi !!

🍎 Is there anything you straight-up won’t write?

Kind of basic but I'm not really one to write smut like it's fine I enjoy consuming it from time to time. Honestly, it's not even a matter of being uncomfortable I just don't like to write it. If I think about it, I wonder if it'd be fun to use sexual intimacy to discover more about how I think two characters would interact but I'd be so far out of my depth that I'd have to leave it for a long while down the road.

🍑 If you could make a connection between your favorite character and another work you care about (whether a crossover/fusion or a wonderfully “pretentious” literary reference) what would it be? How would it work?

I've had an Alhaitham/Kaveh and Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch crossover rotting in my brain for ages and just haven't had the time to replay the game to flesh it out. But I imagine it as broken-hearted Alhaitham and pure-hearted Kaveh. A silly, sweet AU. Then they become companions and explore the world together it'd be cute as fuck.

If you've never heard of Ni No Kuni you should look into it it's so fun and gorgeous if a little childish and it's animated by Studio Ghibli it's so cool. I love the real time turn-based combat it was my first time playing a game like that.

🫐 What’s your favorite underrated thing in your fandom? (A ship that only you seem to write for, a character there’s almost no fics about, a trope that criminally hasn’t been written yet, etc.)

Oh man, can I make a list.

Shenhe and Baizhu as characters are so underappreciated. Shenhe is part of a major story quest (the first Interlude quest) but so rarely makes appearances after that. On top of that, she's a pretty niche unit that's only rerun once so I feel like people don't give her enough attention which is a damn shame because her backstory is so cool to pick apart. She's also canonically the most powerful human in the game? The only rival to her in strength is Childe and even then between you and me I think she could beat him. Childe is my favorite but Shenhe is stupid powerful in her lore. So yes. I wish more people talked about her characterization and lore but unfortunately half of her tag is rope bondage smut.

Baizhu keeps getting fucked over by Hoyo and gets a lot of hatred from the fandom for being gay-sounding (which, I don't love his English voice acting but homophobia from the Genshin Impact fanbase is fucking rich). It's actually kind of shocking how much hate he gets when he is literally just existing. I think there isn't enough work dissecting the utter tragedy of his situation and the way he values selflessness to the extreme-- even the game seems to treat his contract and his pursuit of immortality as something to be celebrated, when in reality he is dooming himself to an eternity of suffering should he succeed. Most of the works about him are shipping him with Pantalone or are just your standard run-of-the-mill sickfics (nothing wrong with that, I just think that he is open to much more dissecting and prodding and that there should be more works cutting him open to show his heart).

Also I haven't written about it yet but I am absolutely batshit insane about Childe x Lyney rarepairing, when I have more time I will compile my incoherent google doc about them into a fic or at the very least an extensive Tumblr post. Before I get shot I would like to gently remind you guys that Childe in canon is in his early 20s and Lyney is not a kid he's just short please read the character stories thanks <3

Not Genshin related but I also feel very strongly about certain Stardew Valley NPCs and feel like we don't talk enough about how nuanced their characters are despite having relatively straightforward cutscenes and dialogue but that's a post for another time