why zhongchi
(guest essay by artemis)
everyone say hi to my friend artemis whom'st remains to the time of this archiving (28 june 2023) the only person to have hopped through the necessary hoops to find me off-anon :33
anyway, so i mentioned in the otp dissertations page that i wrote that essay in response to a survey put out by some youtuber, and after the video itself was published without even a SINGLE mention of ANY of my friends' essay submissions (god UNbless!!!!), i ended up chatting w/artemis abt our submissions, and she gave me permission to archive her submission on zhongchi here
enjoy~!!!
originally submitted 27 march 2023.
tough fight between zhongchi and xiaoven but I'll probably go with zhongchi. why?
A man that does not believe himself to be anything but a weapon, actually partially insane from falling into the literal allegory of hell as a kid. Power hungry, clever, bloodthirsty, determined and killed more ppl than you could count - and yet he is full of life, values family and is insanely generous towards ppl he trusts. A walking enigma that is hard to understand even for Zhongli who knows otherwise literally everything about the world he partially created. It's a fighter Zhongli can respect and person that is interesting to get to know, someone that helps him look forward to the gnosis-less future instead of letting Zhongli loose himself in the merciless memories of the past.
Zhongli is a god too tired to hold onto his title, who took too many lives and lost too many people himself. He is, also, one of the few people that can accept Childe as he is, wholly, including all the killing and the insanity of the Abyss. No matter what atrocities Childe will commit during his mortal life, his hands will never be bloodier than those of a war god.
It's the notion of two people who'd be deemed irredeemable by others for what they had to do in their lives to survive, who perhaps cannot fully accept themselves; them finding each other and along with it, finally finding understanding and a safe space.
a little therapy of the realisation of no, you are not alone and no, you are not unlovable.
idk bro i just like troubled ppl getting their happy endings
also childe has a thing for people that can kick his ass, childe being Tsaritsa's subject = conflict of faith, the tragedy of a god falling in love with a mortal... this dynamic just keeps on giving