#and don't get me STARTED on the good arknight doc.

[versegm]

Oh you think your life is hard? Try being a fan of a self-insert protagonist.

[burstfoot]

Arknights, 2 and 13

2 because i'm curious

13 because of the ask i got :)

Thank you for the prompts annie!!! 2. Oh jeez to pick from three??? To pick from three??? I guess if I had to pick (and this isnt from most to least fav just an arbitrary order) Goldenglow is one of my all time favourites, I love her design sooo much its so cute I stockpiled emotes and used her as an icon even before I actually started playing the game, and then when I actually got to Light Sparks in Darkness I was glued to the event the whole time... her story about trying to give the Infected and poor of Caladon dignity and having such a simple dream crushed by the greed of the rich in the area hit really close to home... I don't think people talk about the scene where Haze talks her down from committing suicide enough, that scene is REALLY good and one of the standout moments in Arknights for me. Also s3 carries me through every boss thank u susie <3

I probably have to choose between Silence and Ptilopsis cuz they're so intertwined so it would be sort of pointless to just do both of them for 2 and 3. I'll go with Silence cuz she has way more screentime even though I do love Joyce a whole whole bunch Unlike GG I had 0 clue about her before I started playing and sort of experienced her story out of order, I read Dorothy's Vision and was like "yeah she's cool :)" and then didn't think about her that much and then I finally got convinced into reading the manwha and it transformed my mind forever... the complexity of her story and relationship with Ifrit and Saria and Rhine Lab, how selfless & passionate she is to make up for the things she did wrong... ;-; < 3333. The underdog story of all of these great minds in columbia being unfolded by a tired, dedicated 5 nothing owl mom is so good. I also really love her design and Nori might be my favourite AK artist so every piece of art he does of her I love seeing. (also i really like guardians of gahoole as a kid so im obssessed with owls)

^ the bubo bubo For my third I could go with like, Specter or Muelsyse or Flametail or any other character within my favs who actually has lore to base my love upon them on but I wont. Pudding

Pudding :) Shes so cute. Let me get straight to the point. I have seal 13. I don't want to be too negative on my account hashtag peace and love... BUT... Related to earlier mentions... I kind of can't get behind Redblade/GG anymore. It's not necessarily that I hate the idea of them together, but it feels like "red miraculously showing up to save GG from problems" is pretty much the weakest storytelling aspect of Light Sparks in Darkness that exists just to move the plot along and as a whole the pairing almost always feels like it severely downplays the depths of her character in favor of STRONG MAN protect CUTE GIRL. It's a very stereotypical M/F pairing I'm much more interested in her relationship with Quercus or Haze, both of who have seen Susie at her lowest points and reached out to support her, as opposed to Red who pretty much just like. is nice to her and saves her from goons Also every single male doc / female operator pairing kinda grosses me out, it's pandering that reduces the characters to one note caricatures of themselves. If you read doc as male all of his actual in-universe relationships are made less interesting by being romantic or you are inventing a sex god chad that does not exist to magically seduce operators that do not interact with him in the story. I was going to call it self-insert garbage but the male!doc/female operator fan content i have seen is an insult to self-insert garbage.

[I don't hate m/f pairings btw mr nothing kroos nation. Men getting pegged. Mountain and domma and/or robin is cute too]

P.S. I like wracked my brain to find a yuri pairing i didnt like becasue i dont think being like. straight people are NOT COOL is going to be controversial at all on tumblr dot gov but i legitimately could not think of a popular one that i couldn't at least slightly get behind. even the worst yuri mischaracterization is fine to me ive seen the horrors of gachabro fancomics

[johannstutt413]

Can you give a list of blue poison ships? yuri or BFFs from least favorite to most favorite and why and how it would make sense

Well, this is gonna be interesting...

Obviously, I'm a Doc/BP fan - not only are they the closest to a self-insert Arknights has, hence their perspective being the one I started writing fic in - for fuck's sake, I wouldn't be here if Doc/BP - but in the actual story I don't think this would actually happen. Yostar's plans for the Doctor seem pretty ace to me. Won't stop me, but an important note to make, and important enough for it to go first despite this request asking least-to-most-favorite.

Second note - I feel like there's an assumption that there aren't any male characters that would go with BP in this question? Am I the only one getting that vibe? Cuz there are dudes in AK lol.

Third note - Quite honestly, there's probably a case makeable for just about anyone willing to give her the time of day. This Anura is affection-starved and clearly in her head about it; the ones I'm going to mention are just the ones especially fitting to me, but, like, anyone will do. Most of us are given two hands to cherish best frog, after all.

With that in mind:

Ptilopsis - This was definitely me just bringing two waifus together lol. Cute, but totally not happening outside of my wishing for both of them to find happiness.

Astesia - They're...both blue? I wrote it, but as something that just happens naturally it's not terribly likely. So cute couple, needs a pretty specific meet-cute to make it happen though.

Da Bears - I'm grouping them together for simplicity. I feel like there are much better matches for them within the realm of AK's roster (mostly each other), but I've made cases for most of them for fic requests already and I think I did a pretty good job of it.

Specter/Skadi/Andreana/Deepcolor - As a sort of honorary Abyss Hunter from her past, it definitely makes some sense for her to be fair game for them, but again, she's not in any way automatic for them.

Thorns - Both Iberians who study and utilize toxins; wrote this fic with the ship as an important element because it just makes sense to me.

The Doc - ...Look I'm biased :P. I want to wake up next to this frog is that so much ask? (Yes. Yes it very much is.)

Glaucus - Aaaaaand we get to the one I think actually happens without any interference from outside factors at all. These two have good chemistry, have an Archive File where the two of them are together on a mission, and the slug's profile talks about BP specifically. I'm not even mad about losing to her, it just makes sense Brent.

Like I said above, and as calligomiles pointed out in a note on this Angelina fic, "I call it the Miku effect… as long as a character is still cute, the blander and more generic they are the more versatile they’ll be in the hands of fandom authors." As much as I love mah frog, she's another subject that applies to - her defining character traits being "People are scared of touching me," "I want to be touched," and a mixed bag of details that make her a bit more than two-dimensional (giving me a couple extra angles to ship her with - BP/Cutter, for example) but still keep her pretty generalized. That Archive File, giving her some more precise characterization through the vehicle of more dialogue (aka, doing its job perfectly)? Not really gonna change that perception.

So, that's a list. I get the feeling I won't see another question like this? But if I'm wrong and people are curious, I could do this again with other Operators. (I can think of at least one I have what may be spicy takes on, but again, we'll see if anyone's interested in that).

[sevi007]

Ohhh you started playing Arknights!? Hell yeah! I love the heck out of it so i hope you enjoy yourself! Also there's no shame in looking up stage guides, amd the story only really starts getting good around chapter 4 xD but the writing is honestly the main draw for me

I did! It's really fun so far - currently training up for Mission 4-8 - and though I often rely on guides because damn I suck at QUICK strategic gameplay, I'm having a blast so far.

And honestly, the story already got me the moment I started and everyone was like "Oh noooo you're amnesiac and don't remember us, but WE do remember YOU" and I immediately went - there's a mystery. I need to know everything.

(Yes you can absolultely bait me with the amnesiac trope XD)

So far, I have concluded absolutely nothing about the story that is yet to come, but I know that I would freaking jump into a burning building for Amiya. XD (Also, who let a 14 year old be the boss in a literal war???)

And the writing is really, really good. It's always a lot to take in, but I kind of think that goes well with the whole "amnesia" thing - it really gives you, the player, the feeling as if you're there, remembering nothing, and getting bombarded with all these responsibilties and decisions. Not to mention the whole morality thing of "are we doing the right thing? the just thing?" that is going on the whole time with Rhode Islands and Reunion.

(I'm also kind of dying to know why Amiya adores the doctor so much, when there are a lot of other characters who seem to range from respectfully distanced to downright cold around the Doc, but I'm afraid to look it up because SPOILERS XD)

[greythroat]

I was enabled so I'm posting some of my fave fic ideas I've come up with, all of these are Arknights (none of them are written except for Boy Meets Evil and I don't really plan to anytime soon so feel free to steal the other ones, I'd love to see what you do)

traincars (rosmiya)

Normal(ish) Terrans AU. War breaks out and Rosmiya ends up on a train fleeing away. Rosmiya typical bleak softness

school for good and evil au

Ever Amiya (may or may not be in the wrong school), Never Mephisto, enemies to friends but still destined to fight to the death, background Talina, feat. Tal breaking the curse on Evil and winning her story a year prior and Meph being her fanboy

surtr backstory

Surtr has less story than white bread but her files have some good imagery so why not expand on that? Kind of Surtr/all, feat. Ling, Pallas, Dusk and maybe others

badlands (utah au)

photographer mephisto working as a unit with journalist talulah meets painter ami. exposure and vulnerability despite distance. also it's winter. now i need to decide how dark this is gonna be bc there's a lot of cliffs to fall off of in utah

mephifaust aespa au (not rpf)

Very loosely inspired by Aespa lore. Very, very loosely. Criminal overlord x the soldier sent to kill him feat. identity issues (in this AU, ae is an alter ego everyone has based off of people’s impressions of you) and also Talulah appears briefly because I'm a loser and Meph is willingly supplanting his own personality with her ae. Anyway, Aespa was awesome at Coachella.

circus au

Everyone in Reunion except Talulah is a ghost and they work in this circus and Amiya goes there

alina and mephisto afterlife fic

deersapointment.jpg. Bad communication coupled with crushing grief and pain. Talulah's not here for once but she might as well be. This should be a fluffy wholesome concept but I had to. They don't hate each other or anything they just have a lot to talk about.

grave marker

Mandrake backstory concept. Separated from her abusive relationship by getting buried alive, survives by stealing from the graveyard she ends up in, hones her Arts, gets stalked by Leader, falls in love hate ???, me typical seething and tortured vibes

rosmiya future fic feat. meph and doc being questionable influences

A possible future (I say possible bc the ending could be way more sad) for EML where everyone is relatively stable. RI found the cure, Rosmiya is living a normal life with their adopted child, Doc and Meph who are both still at RI distributing the cure stop by (”you come into my home and live off my kindness AGAIN??”)

a hunter in scarlet

I don’t like how other people treat Red so I thought it’d be nice to write about her. Feat. Kal, Amiya, Suzuran, and the other Lupos.

flamew edge

This writes itself

a bunch of high school au ideas

I have a lot of ideas banging around for this AU that only make sense to me but I’ve been thinking a lot about writing a reincarnation AU of the AU. The kind of reincarnation AU where they don’t know from the start bc the angst and drama potential is fantastic. When your main concern was not killing your annoying AP Research partner but now it's LITERALLY not killing them

talulah + mephisto relationship study

Name stuff but more importantly villains who are found family. No I am not normal.

boy meets evil

Also a relationship study of Talulah and Mephisto but (even) more self indulgent. So Meph and Faust never meet and Koschei is a little more insidious with possessing Tal, so the curse is a bit more metaphorical and Tal stays herself. Multiple endings, tragedy, much toxicity and desperation

the sun that touches us

Same universe as above but there's no drama in this one. While Tal and Meph go through hell Faust is living his best life honestly. He and Firewatch are friends who run a Rhodes safehouse together. Place your bets on who is more weird and paranoid

as if it's your last

Meteorite and W high school AU. Crack pairing but feels interesting.