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#and that’s exhausting because of course I know there’s an element of truth to it

groguspicklejar · 7 months

Text

part 5 of medieval ghoap x reader

okay now i have things figured out. hopefully, i'll update this story more... hopefully. warnings: themes of forced prostitution, elements of sexual violence and trauma, "whore" is used, hints of physical violence, mentions of Graves and Shadow co., Ghost is not good at communicating, anxiety, angst, protective!ghoap.

Yolanda barely held back her shocked expression behind her hands when you told her what happened. you told only her, as she's the only person you can trust.

"and then he just—" she waved her hands around. "let you go? just like that?"

"just like that." you sunk back on your side of the bed with a sigh, finally being able to sit after walking the long distance with trembling limbs.

it's like your bones have melted over. your blood has already boiled and is now settling into a gentle simmer. your eyes droop as the exhaustion seeps in. the sudden rise and fall of your emotions being pushed and pulled had taken a toll on your body.

"good heavens..." Yolanda giggled lightly as she touched your forehead with the back of her hand.

"indeed." you mused, eyes fluttering closed.

"does this mean the king is going to take you to his bed again?"

you thought about Ghost's behaviour tonight.

not only had he invited you to the king's chambers under false pretences, he'd completely stepped out of character without how he normally is when it comes to you.

he touched you. he fucked you with his fingers. called you with sweet terms of endearment like you meant something to him. inhaled your scent. pulled you close instead of pushing you away as if you were the bane of his existence.

which you know you are. the fact that he had told you to leave because he's under the impression that you want to steal the king's affection proved it. so in all honesty...

"i don't know." you just don't know what to believe anymore.

your eyes slowly closed shut and you fell into the deep clutches of slumber.

when you rise, you discover that Yolanda had worked to keep your secret. she told the rest of the harem that you'd left early because the king was too tired to engage with you for the night. the meeting had taken a lot longer than expected and the nobles, as usual, were bothersome. the king needed his rest.

a half truth. Yolanda was an expert in those. of course she had left out the part where Ghost's absence was noted during said meeting, as no one knew where he was. and you have a distinct feeling that the guards would not say anything either.

though you have no idea why.

why go through all this trouble if he didn't want you? he didn't want you... did he?

it wasn't the king who summoned you. a shudder runs down your spine. it was me.

you're certain he'd made that clear.

she's taking you away from me.

then leave.

clear as day. the dark hatred in his eyes prickles your skin, even in his absence. there was no doubt that had the king not stepped in, you would have lost your head.

staying away from Ghost wouldn't be a problem.

you sat behind Yolanda and fixed the laces of her dress as she read her letter. "well? what does it say?"

she was preparing to see Lord Graves. you don't envy her. so far, he's followed the rules set by Ghost and treated her well and you were fine with that. even though you don't like the thought of her being anywhere near him or his Shadow men or whatever he calls them

she wears an elaborate green gown that cools the tone of her tanned skin and dark hair. the gold highlights of ropes and chains bring out the sparkle in her eyes. you have no doubt the nobleman won't have trouble keeping his hands off her.

her mouth gently murmurs the words as her eyes skim over the browned paper. "my sister's getting married."

she doesn't look happy about the news. why would she be? her sister is barely eighteen years of age and her husband is nearly twice her age. that's never a good sign.

you play with Yolanda's curls, hoping to soothe her. she turns to look at you. "has your letter arrived yet?"

you shrug. "not as far as i know."

"perhaps you should ask Victoria about it. she handles everything."

your lips purse. she's not wrong. Victoria oversees that every letter is either sent or given to the right people in her harem. most of the people came here out of boredom, needed a good earning to support themselves and their families or, much like yourself, out of sheer desperation.

you hate to think about why your reason is for being here. and you'd rather not dwell on it.

"i don't like speaking to her more than what is necessary." you say to Yolanda, sliding more beads into her hair. "but i'll have to ask."

"do you think your aunt will get you out of this castle?" she inquires, shifting to look at you through her peripheral. "if so, can i come with you?"

the thought jolts you. a bright smile graces your lips. trips with Yolanda, staying with her. sounds like a dream you wouldn't mind living it. she is your dearest friend and you wouldn't mind spending the rest of your life with her by your side.

"as much as i would like that—" you chuckle, turning her head so she faces forward and you can resume fixing her hair. "i doubt Victoria would make it that easy for us. after all, we are two of her best whores."

she hums. "true." then she gasps and turns back to you and you would be annoyed with her frantic movements as she grasps your shoulders with an elated expression. "perhaps the king can grant you permission!"

you pause. that's... that's actually not a bad idea...

no one has a higher power than the king. with his permission, not even Victoria can stop either one of you from leaving the castle.

"perhaps..." you bite your lip. "i'll see if i can seduce him into agreeing to that."

she giggles along with you and finally settles down to let you prepare her for Graves. if you play your cards right, you wouldn't have to do so for much longer. and perhaps, some day soon, you'll both be free.

from Graves, the king, Ghost. whichever man deems to try and control you both in their wretched world.

for now, you wait for your letter to arrive. and you begin plotting ways to find your way out of this maze.

you don't usually take this route in the castle. it's quiet, especially today on the noble lord's name day. most of the castle has gathered in the courtyard for the celebration.

your gasp echoes through the empty hallway as someone grabs you and pulls you into the royal library, pressing a hand over your mouth when you try to scream. terror seizes your veins when you breathe through your nose until you catch the sight of a familiar pair of blue eyes.

"hello, bonnie." he's grinning like he had just won a prize.

"my king—" you barely squeak before he presses his lips over yours and the heat of his lust melts into your bones like honey. your eyes flutter and close at the sensation and the weight of your own longing hits you.

you've missed him. you've missed him. you've missed him—

a lot more than you'd thought. weeks without his touch has made you yearn dearly for him in a way you never have yearned for any other man who's taken you to his bed.

he slinks his tongue into your mouth, drawing a high moan from you, his hands cradling your head with a relieved groan rumbling from his chest. heavens, you've missed him. you lean into him, fingers grasping his shirt as you return his heated kiss.

it's the first time you've ever kissed him back and you feel him smile because of that. you feel the heat blaze your cheeks at your brazen act.

"i've missed ya." he peppers kisses all over your face and neck, it makes you sick with unbridled joy. "so so much."

your foolish heart thunders and rattles against the bars of your ribcage. it shouldn't be this easy to get under your skin, yet he makes it seem effortless. you should know better than to allow that. you do know better.

hell, you shouldn't even be doing this.

"but..." you attempt to pull away from him, but he loops an arm around your waist as your breathless words echo into the air. "Ghost—"

rather than this desire fizzling out, the king grins widely, eyes glinting with mischief. "did ye have fun with him?"

you pause. he knows...

of course, Ghost must've told him. you're not sure why that would've remained a secret between the two of them. yet it doesn't come as a surprise that the king is aware.

but when you think back on the night before you can't help but shiver. oh, you had more than just fun. if anything, Ghost seemed to have enjoyed himself more than you did.

"i..." your gaze flickered between his blue eyes and his mouth. "i—i did."

it was an odd thing to admit. fun. with Ghost. unthinkable. yet it happened.

you're squirming just thinking about it. the king chuckled when he saw this. "good."

he brings your lips to his again and you melt into the kiss. there was nothing sweeter than his kisses, your own heart falls victim to the taste of him. he looks just as dazed as you feel when he pulls away with a groan.

"as much as i'd like to take ye right here, Laswell would have my head for dececrating her books with our..." heat flushes your cheeks when he cups the curve of your ass through the teal fabric of your skirts. "ravenous activities."

you giggle. "that would be a tragedy."

"indeed." he agrees, pecking your cheek. "see ye tonight, bonnie."

right. of course the king would want to see you again. it makes sense why he'd pull you aside. yet somehow, you're still uncertain about his knight.

the king senses your hesitance. "what's wrong?"

"will Ghost be alright with me coming to your chambers again?" you inquire.

his brows furrow. "did he not speak to you about it?"

you think back to the night before and all you can recall is Ghost's lustful gaze when he cornered you in the king's bed chambers. he'd been clear with his actions. he showed you that he had no issue with expressing his desires, but one thing he said still stood out to you.

deliberating, he told you.

which means, he's still unsure.

you don't like feeling trapped in this maze. it's true that no one supersedes a king's order. but Ghost holds the king's heart and he rules it with an iron fist. no one in this realm or the next can ever change that.

you have no intentions to either, but you wish you had more of a say in this. if you did, you would not even be here with the king. hell, you'd be as far away from him as possible. most likely with what remains of your family, and with Yolanda, if possible.

deliberating isn't a guarantee that he'd tolerate your presence around his beloved. which means it'll be that much harder to seduce the king into letting you and your dear friend leave without an issue.

your eyes cast to the side. "not exactly."

the king lets out a frustrated sigh as he pinches the bridge of his nose. "for fuck's sake, Ghost." he grasps your shoulders. "just be there tonight. we'll all talk about it then, yes?"

you nodded and he bid you goodbye with one final kiss that lasted a lot longer than it should have. and it left a lot more than just your lips tingling.

you suddenly hate the thought of leaving him.

except, he didn't.

he and Ghost were eagerly waiting for your arrival. but minutes had past since the time when you were supposed to be at the door and still nothing. the only person who had knocked on the door was a maid, here to tell them both that you had fallen ill and you wish not to be seen until you made a full recovery.

Johnny and Simon hadn't hesitated to go straight to the harem.

"what do ye mean she's not feeling well?" he fumed at one of the maids. "i saw her at Lord Price's feast. she was just fine this mornin'."

Yolanda was right there with the maid, trying to calm him down. Ghost's presence only added onto their piling anxieties. he was silent as the grave, watching them attempt to lie to their ruler.

"she came down with something." Yolanda, poor thing, tries to placate him and asked him if he would like to have someone else sent to his chambers, but he shook his head.

"i need to see her." sad Johnny as he tries to walk between them.

Yolanda gets in his way. "your majesty—"

"step aside, Yolanda." she flinches at Ghost's tone and reluctantly concedes, obeying him to let them through the doors.

Johnny's heart had been racing as he searches for you. Simon was equally as worried, already fearing the worst. they might be covering up something. an injury. a death. something worse. he's not sure.

but for the fact that you're not in their sights and the rest of the harem is actively trying to prevent that too, doesn't sit right with him.

that was, until everyone steps aside, parting a way for the king and his knight and suddenly, there you are.

you were standing near the window, facing away from them. Johnny heaved a sigh of relief and took long strides to get to you. Simon felt the darkness in his veins subside. you were still standing. that's a good sign. that's more than a good sign.

"your majesty." you bowed before him, eyes cast down and head turned slightly to the side. "i apologize for not being in your chambers tonight. i'm just not feeling well."

"bonnie." he calls out, reaching for you. "bonnie, look at me."

he hates how you flinch away from his touch. but what he sees when he hooks his finger under your chin to tilt your head his way boils his blood in an instant.

a bruise on your cheek. and a cut on your lip.

no one has seen the king quite as murderous as he was in that moment. his voice boomed through the entire room—

"who the fuck did this?!"

[part 6] this chapter was a nightmare to conjure from the depths of my mind. banners by @saradika and @cafekitsune

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alicentsgf · 1 year

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Let's talk in depth about book Alicent. because even though i read the book 3 years ago I didn't engage online about it until the show's release and um. wow. some people have a very different interpretation of her to me. and also... some of those interpretations show a fundamental misunderstanding of the text, a tendency toward indulging the misogyny present in Fire and Blood, or both.

People are saying the writers changed a lot about Alicent's story and 'made her a victim'... they didn't. It was always possible to read the book and perceive that she was in many ways a victim. Honestly the biggest thing they changed was her age, probably to assist the interpretation they'd chosen, but the larger elements all stay the same; in both versions she's worked in service of the crown since she was young (as a type of companion either to Jaehaerys or Rhaenyra) and she and Rhaenyra initially have a good relationship (according to one source in F&B - this supposedly changes when Aegon was born and not named heir). So making it Rhaenyra we see her close with just makes the emotional tethers that might have been there anyway more visible. After all, Rhaenyra Does spare Alicent's life in F&B, and whilst she says it's for Viserys sake, Alicent at that point had been at the very least complicit in the deaths of most of Rhaenyra's children. Rhaenyra having such a strong former bond with Alicent is going to give this event in the show a lot more weight. It's not hard to see why they made this change, because it adds to the tragedy of the story immeasurably.

The fact is everything we see of Alicent in F&B is up for debate to some extent. Like, for example, did she seduce Viserys? of course certain sources tell us yes, but Fire and Blood is brimming with asoiaf-typical misogyny; it all reminds me somewhat of the story of Anne Boleyn, her story molded into something unrecognisable by history in order to make her the instigator. In truth, we have no way of knowing if Alicent wanted Viserys or not, but we do know she probably didn't have to seduce him. She was widely regarded as being the most beautiful woman - it wouldn't have taken a lot for Viserys to notice her. People, characters and readers alike, assume that because she wasn't a good political match he must have been persuaded, but Viserys was a selfish man, (that is indisputable, we see it in many of his provable actions), so it fits with his character to choose a slightly unsuitable wife on the basis of his own lust. The age gap in the show only serves to demonstrate visually the power imbalance that was at least somewhat present in the book anyway. And yes, this like most things in the book is up for interpretation, but I will say this: I seriously do not respect people calling her 'evil'.

The text never presents Alicent as evil. Even in the worst of her actions she is never legitimately shown to revel in the pain and suffering of others. At most you could argue she was ambitious, but I don't even believe that on the basis of one specific thing: it was her, not Otto, who asked Viserys to betroth Aegon to Rhaenyra. This was not a crazy suggestion in the book, as it was presented in the show; they were only a decade apart, and it was the Valyrian custom that the eldest son would marry his eldest sister, as Aegon the conqueror married Visenya. Alicent wanted this without stipulating the expectation that Aegon would rule instead of Rhaenyra. Viserys reportedly dismissed Alicent on the basis of believing she only wanted Aegon a step closer to the throne, and it can be read that way, but personally I don't think so. I think she was exhausting options to try to protect him after she realised Viserys was never going to name him heir.

Ultimately, Alicent would have been stupid to ignore that her children's lives were at stake. Especially in Fire and Blood where she was much less familiar with Rhaenyra. Nothing in Rhaenyra's actions suggested she wouldn't be capable. She reportedly had no affection for her brothers where she doted on Helaena, suggesting she already saw them as threats. She had demonstrated herself willing to accept physical harm to them in favour of her own sons. She was later thought to be at least complicit in the death of her husband Laenor, who had by all accounts been a good, kind husband to her… and then she married Daemon. Even before this he had been an obvious threat to Alicent's children; a violent man who'd always lusted after power, with a known hatred for Hightowers and who'd never been kind to his nephews by Alicent. Even if Alicent didn't believe Rhaenyra capable of murdering her sons, she would have been stupid not to believe Daemon able.

The truth is even in the book this crisis was set in motion by Viserys. Once he'd refused to marry Aegon to Rhaenyra the bomb was built and ticking away, it was only a matter of time. Even if Rhaenyra's heirs had been indisputably trueborn, Aegon and his brothers and any descendants they had would have been symbols for those who wanted to oppose the Crown to rally behind as soon as Rhaenyra or Jacaerys disappointed them, no matter if Alicent's sons had personally bent the knee. The situation only became more dire when it was clear that Rhaenyra's heir was not trueborn.

Fire and Blood isn't even really quiet about Rhaenyra's first three sons being bastards. To me it read like Rhaenys' Baratheon blood allowed those who wanted to believe otherwise to delude themselves, as Viserys does in both versions. After all, in the book Laenor being gay is an open secret. But the thing is… it doesn't even really matter if they were or not. With so many people believing they were bastards, they were pretty much as good as. Eventually, and most definitely after Rhaenyra's death, there would have been some form of conflict. Because if Jace, an assumed bastard, ascended the throne it would throw into question the claims of almost every lord in Westeros, many of whom would have older bastard brothers. and if a bastard who didn't even look targaryen could sit the highest seat in the realm over a trueborn silver-haired son of a king like Aegon, what's to stop the bastard brothers of any lord from laying claim to their seat? Aegon would have become a rallying point for that dispute whether he liked it or not, and Jace would have been forced to dispose of him if he wanted to maintain power.

In light of this, it's really no wonder Alicent repeatedly voices her animosity over Rhaenyra's sons questionable births. It's very telling that in F&B every cruel comment she reportedly makes about or to Rhaenyra references it. and I say "reportedly" because one of the worst of her quotes, her saying 'mayhaps the whore will die in childbirth' about Rhaenyra, people quote as fact… if you do this I will laugh in your face and ask if you read the book. because Alicent did not say that. or rather, if she did, Fire and Blood would not be able to tell us either way because the quote is attributed to her by Mushroom, one of Rhaenyra's supporters who (apart from being a famed liar) was with Rhaenyra on Dragonstone at the time.

The other two quotes used to argue her supposed evilness are from slightly less questionable sources, and honestly, yeah, it does seem likely to me Alicent implied to Rhaenyra her bastard sons' blood was worth less than that of her own trueborn sons'… but at that point, with the horror she'd experienced on account of Viserys upholding Rhaenyra and her sons' questionable claims, her reacting in this way is perhaps cruel and prejudiced, but not evil. And almost justifiably cruel in my opinon; for all she knows the woman she's talking to directly ordered for her six-year-old grandson to be brutally murdered in front of her, her daughter, and her other grandchildren, directly leading to her daughter's madness and later suicide. Was she going to be respectful? Is it fair to expect that from her? This focus on the term 'bastard blood' overshadows the rest of the quote: “Bastard blood shed at war. My son’s sons were innocent boys, cruelly murdered. How many more must die to slake your thirst for vengeance?” Why is Alicent being a bit of a bitch treated as a worse sin than Rhaenyra ordering the brutal murder of a toddler, or at the very least excusing it.

The last quote mentioned to back up claims of alicent's 'evilness' is her telling her granddaughter Jaehaera she should slit the throat of her husband Aegon III in his sleep. By this point it seemed to me Alicent was no doubt consumed by bitterness and would have attacked Aegon herself given the chance, but even without condoning her words or actions we can see how she became like that; all of Alicent's sons are dead and she wants all of Rhaenyra's gone too. Wasn't it "an eye for an eye, a son for a son"? - Rhaenyra's side set the precedent, the idea that it is justifiable to take one innocent life in exchange for another, no matter if its the life of a child who just happens to have been born on the other side of a war.

Alicent by the end of her life had certainly been driven to cruelty in her grief, twisted into something ugly by the world and locked away to rot.

And yet her final words weren't steeped in bitterness or violence. When the fever sets in she accepts death, even welcomes it. She speaks of seeing her children again, and King Jaehaerys. So doesn't that say she was never driven by hatred at all? That there was never any kind of innate evil nature? At least that's my interpretation. This is the same girl who spent her youth reading to a dying king for no clear reward, and felt such affection for him that she mentioned him at the end of her own life, perhaps pining for the time before her marriage. (No doubt in the show she will mention Rhaenyra instead). This is the woman whose daughter and grandchildren visited her with such reliable frequency her grandson's killers knew to wait in her rooms for them.

So what was so evil about her? That she quite understandably saw Rhaenyra and her sons as a threat, and preemptively acted to protect her own? As much as people like to project ideologies onto these characters, neither Alicent nor Rhaenyra's motivations were ideological, that much as clear.

I may have many reservations about House of the Dragon's execution of it, but the decision to present Alicent as a victim of the world she inhabits was not only the right choice, but also kind of the only choice. HotD is presented as objective truth, where F&B is a collection of biased accounts dripping in the misogyny of the men relating them, and so HotD had to be a critique of its own source material. I admit to having my own bias, and my analysis is at least slightly skewed in Alicent's favour because I'm responding to the most negative interpretations of her. And they are all just interpretations. But in my opinion, those adapting the text looked at Alicent and saw her, where clearly many readers didn't. They asked "what if this woman is misunderstood?", "what if this woman had no real choice?", "what if the men of this world just chose to ignore her complexity, because she was a woman?" and those were absoutely the questions to ask.

#alicent hightower #book alicent #house targaryen #house hightower #fire and blood #f&b spoilers #pro alicent hightower #hotd #house of the dragon #hotd meta #anti viserys i targaryen #fire and blood meta #alicent apologist til death #yes even book alicent

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tackytigerfic · 6 months

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hello! 🌤️ for the wips game, if you feel like it, please! ❤

Share a favorite piece of dialogue from your WIP.

Hello, and thanks so much for the ask. Ah this is a nice one because I find dialogue tricky, so I tend to remember the bits where I'm happy with that element 😅 This snip is taken from an old forced marriage WIP where the magical world is in danger of exposure and Harry and Draco need to go on the run from a corrupt Ministry (along with Dudley and his magical child). I like this bit because there are four people talking plus Harry's interior monologue, and I got to play around with different characterisations. Hermione is pregnant here, btw.

It was Malfoy on the stairs, Harry realised—Malfoy and his awful friend Zabini, who Harry remembered vaguely from school, and who was everywhere these days, at all the same events and parties as Harry, only he always looked like he was actually having fun at them.

Hermione groaned quietly when she saw them. “Isn’t it enough that we had to see that ghastly man yesterday?” she hissed to Harry. “Why is he always everywhere?”

They headed for the stairs together, and Harry had half a second to notice that Malfoy was a bit pink and laughing properly, before Malfoy noticed them and composed himself.

“You’re drunk,” Harry said, and Malfoy looked sideways at Blaise before replying, as if he needed reassurance, which made Harry grit his teeth.

“You are drunk,” Malfoy answered reasonably, which was the truth of course, though Harry wasn’t sure why that was in the slightest bit relevant. He decided to ignore Malfoy.

“Zabini.” He nodded at Zabini politely, but then Malfoy snorted and the corner of Zabini’s mouth twitched and Harry felt his patience shredding, just exactly as though they were back in school and Malfoy had him seething over nothing.

“You’re all drunk,” Hermione said tiredly, “and I’m really, really not. So come on, Harry.” She nodded at Malfoy, and then sneezed suddenly. Malfoy looked amused again. “Wonderful.” She did sound exhausted, Harry realised. “And I’ve got a cold coming on. Just what I need.”

Hermione hauled herself up the first few steps of the stairs, and when he saw her heavy, rolling gait, Malfoy pulled himself up and pressed himself against the wall so she could pass.

“Granger,” he said as she went past, and though he put a hand out to her, he didn’t quite touch her. “Here, take this. It’s clean.”

He took a handkerchief out of his pocket, the fine white lawn drooping as he handed it to her carefully.

“Thank you,” she said, though she sounded suspicious, and she didn’t say anything else as she continued climbing the stairs. Malfoy only laughed in reply, always amused by other people’s discomfort, the prick.

Harry breathed in as he squeezed past Malfoy, felt Malfoy’s amused outward breath at the back of his neck as he pounded up the stairs after Hermione.

“I heard you had a run-in with him at the Board meeting,” he heard Blaise mutter to Malfoy as he left. “What’s his problem?”

Harry was at the top of the stairs by the time Malfoy finally answered, but his unconcerned voice was high and carrying so Harry could hear everything. “You know Potter,” he said. “There’s always something with him.”

#asked and answered #wip ask game #drarry #rowing and writing

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crimeronan · 1 year

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How does the general population feel about Luz taking over as Empress?

GOD this is such a good question. had to sit on it for a few days to ponder. am STILL pondering honestly. and if i end up writing proper fic set after the transition everything i say here will likely be scrapped and/or retooled but

the first question is what luz's reputation is outside the castle BEFORE belos dies. inside the actual castle she has a reputation for eccentricity and being very weird and saying weird shit and being impossible to read due to her chaotic personality.

(she isn't even TRYING to be a Crazy Unpredictable Eccentric type. but it manages to work in her favor because no one fukkin knows what her Deal is)

she has spent very very very little time outside the palace though, and when she HAS been outside she hasn't interacted much one-on-one with the general population. so i think that it's likely that the belos propaganda machine has worked, i think he probably made an active effort to establish luz as The Chosen Human Here To Save The Realm According To The Titan's Will because.... he's an asshole enamored with colonialism and cultural genocide. and this is a great way to cement a human supremacist legacy in the isles or whatever, without ever outing HIMSELF as human

What An Asshole .

after belos's death there's about a week of extremely public succession-oriented events and whatnot that luz navigates as carefully as she can. she already KNOWS that she puts her foot in her mouth when talking to people, so i imagine she does a lot of Active Listening and notetaking when she's conversing with people. so that she can compare notes with hunter later and figure out who's an ally and who's a two-faced monster. she's already covering up a murder and all of this extra performance fucking EXHAUSTS her, but i think she's actually better at it than she expects.

like, she already knows that everything the coven heads and corporate business types say has a double or triple meaning, so she's good at keeping her cards close to her chest and not making them promises

and then when interacting with more common people she is like. WAY more engaged and active and questioning than belos had been in like fifty years combined. she's not even playing a role she's just THRILLED to get to talk to NORMAL PEOPLE for like the FIRST TIME EVER. EVERY CONVERSATION IS SO NEW AND EXCITING

so like. i think it probably varies by individual and there may be variations in different towns based on whether she's committed any major faux pas....

but my INSTINCT is that. all of the coven heads and other powerful people find her fucking terrifying because they're like. 92% sure she killed belos (she did in fact kill belos) & they can't figure out what kind of game she's playing. everything she does seems so whimsical and calculated at the same time, this girl is a social chameleon political genius, she's way more enigmatic than belos, also she will probably murder anyone who gets in her way. and then go back to smiling and chatting very friendly-like with all the survivors

(there are elements of truth here and there in all of this but.... the idea that luz is faking her weird chaotic personality or her friendliness is 100% false. she really is just that excitable and ADHD.)

MEANWHILE. the general population are of course mourning the emperor they had for 50 years, most of them are too young to remember pre-belos times so it's like. losing a universal constant. but luz already had this reputation as a ~*~*~divine chosen one~*~*~ and then she ACTUALLY SEEMS TO CARE SO MUCH AND BE SO NICE. WHAT. average boiling isles resident thinks that the new empress is awesome and if anything happens to her they'll kill everyone in this room and then themselves

as for how people react when luz starts openly implementing more anti-empire laws or undoing certain laws already on the books or forming alliances with prior fugitives/undesirables..... that's a thornier political tangle that i'd probably need to unspool in actual fic. there are too many different variables involved like the coven heads, general propaganda, outside threats, wild witches, the emperor's coven, the titan himself, the on-the-books laws, school curriculums, etc etc etc. figuring out exactly how luz interacts with these factions & exactly how she uses her power & exactly what ripple effects this causes would require a VERY detailed plot outline.

#replies #toh #princess luz au #long post #now youve got me wanting to do another long thorny tangled political fic hearkening back to my homestuck days though #DONT LET ME. IT'S SO MUCH WORK YOU WOULD NOT BELIEEEVE

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wheneclipsefalls · 1 month

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I’m desperate to write a fic on just Neteyam since I haven’t yet. It’s always been multiple partners, never just him, so now I want to write about only him but the thing is, I can’t decide on a anything!😭 There’s so many ideas out there and I want something unique and original but also keeping it simple, if that makes sense. (I don’t want many chapters. May keep it at just one honestly. Not sure yet.)

Like I’m not sure if I want Nice Neteyam, Mean Neteyam, Dom Teyam, Sub Teyam, or maybe even Bisexual Teyam who cheats on Reader?? Then, how the Reader would be. Then of course, the story plot!

(I know I definitely want the Reader to be human though because ya know size kink😗)

What do you do when you’re at a stump but desperate to write a fic? Do you let it just flow however and then fix it where it’s needed or do you overanalyze/plan it out?

Trust me I have been there! I am there half the time honestly!

For me it really depends but lately I’ve been trying to just relax and focus on writing whatever I am in the mood for. Usually that is when my best stuff comes about because I am not trying to please anyone else but myself. There are times where I plan things out ahead of time but honestly even my big projects are never set in stone. I am always revising and rethinking ideas throughout until I land on my favorite outcomes.

One piece of advice I found from a video that really helps me is to think about some of your favorite movies/books and ask yourself why you like them so much. Then from there you can pick out a trope or aspect (or multiple) that you enjoy and run with that. I know it can be exhausting to try and come up with something original but for me I have found that focusing on it being original actually starts to draw away from my creative juices because I am so focused on doing something that no one else has ever done before so everything even close just feels like a copy. Truth is, every story made now days is just a mash up of different elements from past stories and that is perfectly okay! The key is to just find a mix that is your own and you enjoy. Plus, it’s just fanfiction so don’t worry too much about it:)

Hopefully this helps a little😘

P.S. That floppy guy freaks me out for some reason😅🤣🤣

#eclipse reponds

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otatma · 3 months

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okay, so neopronouns.

lemme get my bona fides in the open first. your neopronouns are valid, likely to have more historical precedent than you think, and you have every right to be called with the words that feel good to you.

that said.

what I want to talk about is the regressive / conservative hostility to neopronouns.

even that is too much for me to cover exhaustively, but there's one particular aspect of it that I want to dig into a little bit.

the aspect in question is a problem I'll call the Regal Couch problem. Stay with me for a bit.

there's a game children play. It has no name that I know of, so I call it Regal Couch. Regal Couch is a game about phonics. The goal of this game is to ambush a child and get them to utter curses as fast as possible, with large bonuses for making this goal within earshot of an overbearing adult. The speed is important, because if you get slowed down in any way then the intended victim's thoughts catch up and they begin to figure out that they're being pranked.

Yeah, this is the game people were playing when they tried to get you to unwittingly say "so fucking" or "I see you pee" or whatever low-hanging profanity felt the most fun on that day.

(This was a very frustrating thing to encounter as a neurodivergent fun-hating kid, but I digress.)

So, there's a lot going on here. It's almost a template. The important thing about Regal Couch for the neurodivergent person is the particularities - the phonics, the speed of the hustle, the proximity to gullible authority figures, the viscerality of the desired curses, etc.

It's important to outline these particularities because it's important not to be distracted by them. The important thing about Regal Couch for the perpetrator is that if your hustle is good enough, you get a pull on a slot machine. The prize you get when those reels line up is someone else feels bad, ragefits, gets in trouble, or all of the above. Which is to say, some agency and control over another human. (Kindly remember how these can be potent rewards when you're eight and every adult thinks they have to train you like some kind of dumb animal.)

Despite being neurodivergent, I'm not (just) bringing this up to fulminate about how kids can be monsters sometimes. It's relevant to the neopronouns thing. It's relevant because it captures an important aspect of regressive praxis, and that is the relation it establishes between hustling and speech and power.

When we ask people to use pronouns unfamiliar to them, it shouldn't be too surprising when the more regressive ones react as if we're playing Regal Couch. And they often do. Many of the same elements are there. They don't know what these sounds mean. Etymology doesn't get as much traction on neopronouns. They're already in a tenuous situation (learning about a new person living in a category that they feel is a threat). For the same reasons they're much more likely to be preoccupied with the precedent and power relations that Regal Couch is actually about. (And of course there's a massive raft of regressive preoccupations that don't relate to Regal Couch in any way, which I still refuse to treat with exhaustively today — but they're there and I do see them.)

The difference of course is that neopronouns are not about establishing who can play dirtiest for stakes, they are about courtesy and comfort and acceptance. If I was going to compare neopronouns to a game that it's actually similar to, I'd probably say it's got more in common with a trust fall.

Q: So what? Why make this comparison in this kind of detail?

A: There's one grain of truth here. The meaning of these words - the neopronouns themselves - is often unclear.

We therefore shouldn't have any trouble asking "Okay, and what does that mean?" This does a few useful things - it seizes on an opportunity to learn, it creates more detailed patterns to remember the neopronouns with, it proves we're not regressives*, and it models the right behavior for the situation.

It isn't without risk though, because of tone. If someone asks you in sincerity to practice a trust fall and your reaction is suspicious and hostile in tone, you probably don't ever get to know that person. Also asking people to do any extra work at a time like this will never be ideal.

That question "What does that mean?", then, should be as soft as the circumstances allow for. Make it a real and vulnerable request for information, not a micro-aggressive riposte on the entire project of neopronouns. Listen hard to the answer, even if it was nothing like you expected. Ignorance is curable, if you want.

* — for various reasons which I don't have time to list, regressives consider this kind of earnest vulnerability in any social situation to be literal suicide.

#certified fun hater #neopronouns #regressive thought #neurodivergence #probably just telling on myself #I wonder if kids still do this or if it died out after the nineties #yeah I see some of y'all out there like 'ok boomer' and if you bring that shit into the notes I will block you.#I'm already cringing a little okay

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tozettastone · 4 months

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Some navelgazing thinky thoughts for the day:

Often, the theories, frameworks and lenses we use are offering us one view of a situation, problem or concept, but we treat them as though they're the One True Way Of Knowing, and I think that is a little limiting. I believe (and I suppose this is ideology) we can usually only realise a fragment of truth using a given framework. What's offered by one might be contradicted by another, and it's kind of our privilege as thinking beings to rotate the thing in our brains and look at it from different angles.

Let me offer an example that I have plucked from a conversation I had with my parent two years ago: in my country, we have 4 major banks. Together they own most of the minor financial institutions (eg., Bankwest is owned by Commbank, St George is owned by Westpac, etc etc) and they all have, just, so many shareholders in common. They are an oligopoly and unsurprisingly, moving together, they don't always serve the interests of their actual customers. They famously¹ offer such services as fucking over rural business who take out loans by altering terms without notice or consultation, intentionally charging fees to people who are dead, offering bank-affiliated "advisors," who provide advice to customers that serves the bank, etc., etc., exhausting.

One perspective says that this problem is a matter of low competition—we should slash red tape, reduce regulatory complexity and thereby offer newcomers easier access to enter the industry, which would then force these organisations to court customers or risk losing market share.

Another perspective says that this problem is that businesses are not behaving in the interests of their customers—we should increase regulation and get stronger state oversight to ensure these organisations have to do certain things regardless of their size and market share.

But depending on which lens I use (whether you are economically right or left, traditionally), both of these things may be true. Strong competition, where it exists, does force companies to do things like undercut each other's prices and offer appealing services, and high regulation is a barrier to entry to the market. Meanwhile, strong regulation also has a measurable effect on how business carry out business and what nonsense they're allowed to pull.

My answer to the problem of "what do we do about the bloody banks?" more realistically depends on a number of other factors I'm considering, like what I think the ultimate purpose of a bank should be, and how much time I think each consumer should spend becoming adequately informed, whether or not I think markets need regulating over all, and so on... But the point I'm making is, both of the above lenses are just ways of knowing about a thing (in this case, solutions to bank fuckery) and are not themselves singular unified truths. They're lenses that expose one element of truth.

I feel this way about all sorts of perspectives as I see them on my social media feed, but it's always hard to verbalise it in context. The split attraction model isn't the only (or "better") way of thinking about how relationships work. A radical queer reading of a film isn't the only way of understanding it, but it also isn't any less legitimate than, say, a subjectivist one. If you're a proponent of restorative justice, you think that perpetrators and victims need to be treated in particular ways to repair the harms of crime, but you also have to think about how labelling theory might tell you something about those categories.

Of course, it's also our privilege as thinking beings to assess the value of a lens, theory or framework.

Not all ideas are made equal. I talk about how labelling theory interacts with restorative justice, sure, but you'll notice I'm not suggesting Lombroso's biological positivism is equally valuable. That's because it's a school that is really more of a curiosity than a serious criminological theory in the 21st century. But it does still offer us an opportunity to think about how its proponents in the 19th century arrived at their framework and what fragmentary truth they felt it revealed.

----

1— you may have heard that the 2017–2019 Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation, and Financial Services Industry resolved much of this, but unfortunately this is only partially true. The BCCC's report in 2023 revealed that every bank in their sample still charged deceased customers' accounts after being notified of their deaths.

#tozette.txt #just thinky thoughts

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digital-chance · 9 months

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Oc ask game: the personality section for an oc of your choice

the whole thing? [from this ask game]

well, it'll be a good challenge. i'll pick lucian because i need to work on his character a bit more. anything that's a spoiler or too close to plot elements I'll skip.

---

🏙 Do they prefer rural or urban environments?

Urban. They grew up in a city and moved into cities. They love to visit other places though and feel most comfortable with the ambient noises of people living in cities.

🚪Are they introverted or extroverted?

I would say they're pretty good mix, with introversion being slightly more prominent. When they're around other people they tend to be more extroverted most of the time.

💤 What's their sleep schedule like?

It's pretty shitty, tbh. They've got two jobs, once of which holds very irregular hours and he's on call for most of the time. His other job at a bookstore holds pretty regular hours but he works instead of sleeping or resting. Good sleep schedules and Lucian haven't heard of each other.

🍽 What's their favorite flavor or dish?

Lucian most enjoys their mother's specialty dish. Other people on their home planet make it regularly since it is a dish deeply rooted into their culture, but they prefer their mother's recipe.

🦠 Do they get sick easily or is their immune system stronger?

They have a pretty strong immune system since their home planet's atmosphere holds special chemicals that Earth's doesn't.

🏀 Have they played sports? What are they best at?

They enjoy snowboarding, boxing, hiking, and parkour. They're best at boxing since they've trained their body to withstand and dole out strong hits (along with the benefit of super strength of course) but they're getting pretty good at snowboarding. They have teleportation as a superpower so I'm hesitant to say they're naturally good at parkour. It does make for some wicked parkour videos though...

🪡 How's the homeliness? Can they consistently do things like thread a needle?

He wasn't taught much housekeeping and tends to watch tutorial videos or ask his neighbor for help for tasks like what chemical to use to clean certain materials. His parents taught him to maintain cleanliness but Earth's culture and his lifestyle keep him busy and working so the cleanliness isn't as big as a priority as it normally would be. He knows his parents and people at home would be disappointed in him but he's way too busy and exhausted to change anything.

🍳 Can they cook?

They often either buy pre-made meals or eat at restaurants. Lucian can cook but it's very average and tends to be bland.

🎵 Favorite genre of music?

indie rock mainly, but they can't get enough of indie music in general.

💍 Do they wear jewelry? Watches? Etc?

They wear necklaces, rings, earrings, hair clips and pins, hairbands, and so much more. Accessorizing is totally his thing, along with some jewelry pieces being a very important part of his home's culture.

☔️ Do they like the rain?

Not really. It doesn't rain on their home planet, so it's very strange to them. They're used to it after years of living on Earth but sudden storms startle them.

🍂 Favorite season?

He enjoys fall and winter the best. They're the best for layering up on clothing and the chill feels nice to him. He also enjoys the winter activities and sports much more than summer's.

👥 Are they good at socializing? How much do they talk?

They're quite good at socializing. When they were going through media training at their hero job, their trainers realized that he's quite good at clever and half responses. He tends to be truthful and often has a very honest and open look on his face but that can be deceiving. Otherwise, he's a friendly guy and will chat with everyone around him unless he's having a bad day. Some people say he's very chatty but most people will say he's very friendly and will listen to and include everyone around him in conversations.

thanks for the ask!

#answered #ask game #cheadarchesse #oc: lucian #wip: sod

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kaetchup · 1 year

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kaoru hakaze idol story 1

an idol story of kaoru’s! already localized on engstars (but hey, not everyone’s ascending those idol ranks). gimme a follow or a like or uhhh… anything! if you want more of what i do. as usual, i’ve made some minor tweaks/redone translation from the localization for readability. remember that kaochan story i talked about? yeah it’s this one

♪ obligatory disclaimer! none of this is mine, i’m just sharing it for my love of our idol boys. all content belongs to happy elements ♪

in the ES lobby

kaoru: All right~ Let’s work hard today ♪

Good morning~! I’m Kaoru Hakaze from UNDEAD~!

… Wait, what?!

(Oh no! Why’s “she” here at the reception desk at ES?)

(She looks so normal sitting there that I almost said hello!)

(I mean, what’s wrong with a hello? Why did I even hide?)

(She must have heard me. Look, she’s curiously looking around!)

(O-of course. I can’t walk in like that… What should I do? No, you idiot! At this point, there’s no point in panicking!)

(All I need to do is say a quick hello, check in, and proceed to the studio!)

(Ugh… I don’t want to face her.)

(Anzu… Though we work in the same building, I’ve been avoiding her because it’s awkward, so it’s been a while since I’ve last seen her.)

(She’s getting prettier and prettier. Her days must be so youthful and busy…)

(Saying hi would be great for her… But what should I do? My heart is beating so fast…)

(Ugh, come on! Am I some character who blushes at the mere sight of girls?!)

(Still, it’s a weekday today and Anzu is supposed to be at school. Why’s she here in ES this early in the morning?)

(And I don’t see why a producer like her should be sitting at the front desk…)

(Ugh, I’ll be late if I don’t hurry up and get to the studio…)

(I don’t want to ask for trouble, especially because UNDEAD’s in a delicate state now at ES…)

(On the other hand, I want to reunite with Anzu more romantically…)

(I have to ask my friend for help! It’s an emergency!)

(H-hello? Rei? Can you do me a quick favor…?)

in the ES stairwell

(I’m saved! Yep, that’s Rei… I think he did exactly what I asked!)

(Looks like he opened the emergency exit to the building.)

(Rei doesn’t like to help others out, though, so I feel a bit embarrassed…)

(But he’s got no common sense and it’s me who’s always taking care of him, so we’re even now.)

(That’s what helping each other means, right?)

(Anyway, now I can safely avoid the front desk and go to the back door. Phew, that was close.)

(I’ll make an excuse like “I forgot” and check in later after she’s gone.)

(... Eek! The door to the lower level- the door to the emergency staircase opened! Who’s that? Anzu?)

(Err… But why? WHy is she coming up the stairs with a suspicious look? I-I gotta run!)

in the ES hallway

(... Argh, seriously! I’m exhausted.)

(What’s happening? I don’t get it at all. Well at least I can now make it safely to the studio, I suppose.)

(I hope it’s over. Something doesn’t sit right, but what else can I-)

Eek!

Hey, you gave me a start! What… Huh? Anzu?

Wh-what are you doing behind my back? Don’t sneak up on me, okay? I nearly screamed!

(... No, that’s not what I meant. Jeez, come on! Where are all the cool lines I prepared for our reunion?)

(I forgot them all!)

Well, what… Oh, I’m supposed to call you “Producer”, not by your name, right?

Still… We’ve finally gotten close to each other, so don’t you think that’s too formal?

What? You don’t think we’re close? Because it seems like I don’t like you…?

No, no, that’s definitely not the case! I like you a lot, really ♪ Why would you think that?

It’s because I’d hide or run away whenever I see you…?

Oh, so you’ve noticed. How observant, Miss Producer ☆

But that’s not what I meant! There’s no way I could dislike you! I-I have a reason for that!

What reason, you say? Miss Producer, a-are you mad at me? You look scary! Come on and smile, okay? ♪

(Ugh, I can’t tell her the truth!)

(I’m supposed to make a cool and mature impression, and she’d be completely disappointed to know that I was like some lovesick schoolboy!)

Um, but may I keep it a secret? Everyone has one or two personal issues, you know?

It’s more mature not to pry, you see.

Oh, haha, maybe you don’t know because you’re still young.

Huh, “that’s alright”? You want me to at least check in?

Oh, so you went after me because I didn’t check in, right?

But hey, why are you even at the reception desk? Did someone make you?

That won’t do, you know~? You need to properly say no to things you don’t want to do.

What? You say it’s none of my business? True, but I’m worried about you~ So I put you in a bad mood, right, Anzu?

… Oh, you’re leaving already? Because you gave me the key card, and you can’t leave the front desk empty?

Hm, producer courses start in the afternoon, so you came here to ES in the morning…

You took the receptionist to the infirmary because that kid felt under the weather, and you took their place for the time being?

That’s so kind of you. I like that about you a lot ♪

Hey, wait! Don’t leave without a word! Are you really that mad at me?

Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude… Let me apologize! Please, Anzu~?

translator’s note:

as always, thank you bunches for reading. hugs and kisses! feel free to shoot me a message, a story you’d like translated, or an ask! i’d love to talk to you all :) oh and if you spot a mistake don't be afraid to point it out, i'll fix em real quick

#kaoru hakaze #enstars #ensemble stars #idol story

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storybounded · 9 days

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❝ you’re allowed to feel angry. ❞ ( for scott! )

Some meme from a while back ago

Anger...such a foreign emotion to the star. OF course, he had felt it PLENTY of times, as Scott is not without such an emotion. However, being chill and upbeat, he always felt out of his element when it came to it. The truth of the matter is that he hates feeling angry. He hates feeling the scalding hot heat within his chest. The uncomfortable churn that made his stomach do back flips. It never stuck the landing, because he could always count on feeling sick later on. It's exhausting. It's definitely not the type of HOT he wants to be. And it doesn't help he has an IMAGE to keep up. Oh...oh.... he was embarrassed, but he couldn't just TELL off the host in front of a live studio audience, as he doesn't want to be put under the negative spotlight. Of course, he never does, but certainly not right now when he is scheduled to do hospital visitations as Bolt this month. He can't have parents freaking out. He can't have young kids ask why BOLT acted so mean. But that didn't stop him from being LIVID, and thankfully, Cat was a good listener. He isn't the type to just...keep in his emotions for very long. He may be an actor, but Cat could see through him as if he was made of transparent glass. He would never lie to her, of course.

But it must be emphasized that she is scary good at reading people.

"I know. I know." Scott was walking back and forth through the living room. If it was possible, he would've created a rut. "The nerve of that guy, bringing up such old news. That was uncalled for and not necessary AT ALL. Like hell, give me a break, I've moved on.Being the BIGGER person is so fucking hard sometimes to SOUL sucking leeches."

#streetslost #&&. scott ( v: main )#&&. have ANGR scott #&&. GGRRRRr #language tw #language cw

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herb10 · 1 year

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https://www.tumblr.com/herb10/715306449801183232/httpswwwtumblrcomherb10715192047416590336sh

Of course that’s how it’s going to go, because no one from his camp will ever officially confirm or deny anything. As long as the silly speculation is kept on tumblr and no one harasses anyone involved, their family, or their friends, have fun with wild conjecture.

But cannot emphasis enough: KEEP IT HERE.

As well they should imo. We as fans have no right to details about his sex life or any part of his private life for that matter. If they confirm or deny one thing then it can set an expectation that they should confirm or deny everything, which can be exhausting. That's already apparent in the denial about the Rylee rumours way back bc people are still in my inbox asking why they denied her but not Ashley, Taylor, and Jeffree (lmao) and that this lack of denial means there must be an element of truth to these rumours.

Speculation is totally fine, even fun at times (curiosity is completely natural after all), but I know that there are people on my blog who don't know or care what's appropriate and what isn't when it comes to Justin and his private life. I know people are stalking Justin and anyone associated with him online; I know people who have messaged his family, friends, teammates, etc. for info on him; I know that some people here know exactly where he lives, right down to the house number; I know they know the layout of his house; I know they run background checks on him and his family/friends and have access to their addresses and even phone numbers.

This is all very alarming to me and I'm really not ok with pretending that this rumour generation is completely harmless anymore, especially when there are people here who (if they went off the deep end) could definitely harass Justin and his loved ones, and not even necessarily online but in real life as well.

#elle asks

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ratherhavetheblues · 1 year

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”JERZY SKOLIMOWSKI’S EO “May all your dreams come true…

by James Clark 2023

Most of us would say that humans are the powers of planet Earth. They have crafted religion, of course; and science. Our film today presents Earthlings in another way.

It begins with blood red flashes in the dark sky. Radiance. As if another being has made a discovery. Planet Earth, but instead of a foreign visitor, there is a donkey. A thinking donkey, in its own way. Thinking by the gut. Within that shimmer, one could see, despite the confusion, two figures: a woman, Kasandra, kissing the neck of a donkey, EO. Both of them work in a circus–she is a dancer; he is out of place. (Don’t rush to table this matter, “Surrealist.” Even though we see the donkey having a carrot.)

From the circus of the elements, we land in middling Poland, where love is not a joke. The first of the shocks. She had given him a little candy. He had bumped her in fun… But the circus had gone bankrupt. What had not failed, was millions of shiny metal objects, lying in their poison and uselessness.

Their comments, several months of irregular work. He had a stint in a large barn, where many impressive horses would be shown. In transit, he saw a herd of wild horses. (How did he feel about it?) He was bought by a farmer with many horses, who simply loved these creatures, and would find pleasure for his children. Perhaps he would have remained with the children for the rest of his life. But one late night Kasandra found him, in the easy-going farm. She was not the Kasandra of old. She had been driven by a motorcyclist, who didn’t bother to look at EO. She was drinking beer out of the bottle. Her remarks stink; but love had a part. The sky was pristine. EO eats some bugs on the feces. Kasandra says, “I have a surprise for you! “Happy Birthday! May your dreams come true! Be happy!” EO is happy. They snuggle. The boyfriend tells her, “Come with me, or stay with the donkey.” /” I have half to go…” That triggers EO to find her. A hopeless enterprise. A dangerous one. EO cries, with that deep heartiness. EO in the hills, looking for the heights. He cries as he walks. A blue tone. The windy dances of forests. (Close-up of EO’s eye and vision.) Bats in the sky. His exhaustion. Three windmills. Up and down. EO cries to be seen. When seen in a town: “Where the hell did you come from?”

EO comes upon a football game. The noises of spectators: “Blue and White, they make our day!” (Anticlimax?) “Good placement!… Zenek, you can do it! You’re doing it! A great shot!” Lightning smart! Very balanced. (Calling for a penalty.) EO, on a hill, watching. Free Shot. A Score! Much happiness! Much fighting! Much display of Advantage! “It’s all because of the donkey!”

The celebration moves to a bar. (EO becomes part of the parade.) “Blue and White, they make our day! We’re the winners! Losing is for weenies!” EO was dragged into this stupidity, as a cute logo. Screaming drunks. And that was only the beginning. He’s able to get out of the place because everyone’s pie-eyed. But he doesn’t know that a tempest is coming. During the riot he was viciously beaten. (In fact killed. And we have to resort, now, to our philosophist/artist. Along this way we fill-in what is needed of EO: absolutely dead; but there are actions later (not involving religion and science.. [Keep watching.]) EO pulled along. The attackers begin. A girl holds him, screaming, A car races up. Then, two trucks.. .. Someone notices… “The fucking donkey, in high beams…Get the fucker!” EO cries. Someone says, “Die!” EO cries, off-screen. But the expression is shattering.

At this point of the saga, a double attack upon EO, in order to sustain all the animals who have been given barbarism. And yet, in the second outrage, there is a keenness for truth which presents a mighty surprise.

He’s taken to a barn. “Three hooves up in heaven.” Sorry? (for the poor lack of civility). One says, “Why should it suffer? (The staff goes by without a blink.) Cut to EO, lying there with stitches all around. Clean and “effective.” A worker hears EO crying. He looks around as if he is in a zoo. EO looks up. He calls quietly… Remembering the cleaning of the farm. A part of her butcher opens from her eye. His fur, still beautiful, so lovely to touch and caress. Pan over his turf. His memory, being embraced by Kasandra. Her hands on his mane. Much caressing in the memory. The reach to see a loving heart. EO’s beautiful eye. The full reach of the skies. EO’s memory of the red places when being mysterious. “I still think, when there were four legs. Two legs up to the knee, and with another…” EO recalls all his great voyagers. And the dancing moves to make four! He can do it now, by memory.

The Robert Brisson film, of 1966, presents a donkey under stress, but that Heaven makes it all right. Our EO finds bliss in a completely different way.

Cut to another stable in the dark. EO in a place that doesn’t care. A cart; and a rider with no heart. EO stands there; he looks at those who will present a vision. As the horror takes its way… (The way of planet Earth. Fortunately, there are planets which are not a disgrace.) Outside of the farm. EO in flight. Being attacked. Carrying EO. “So what,” the one says. “For a fucking horse!” EO cries. A woman reaches into EO’s cage. EO! One has to imagine… Blood red. Steering the poisonous car, while intent on advantage. The wild music of the hopeless truck. EO’s wildness. EO’s eye, having seen much. Ludwig van Beethoven. Mountains to the heights. Overcoming distance.

Monster: “Damn,I”ve got a cramp in my hands.” Useless movement. Useless garbage. Useless coward. “Damn, why do I always have to screw up everything.”… A hurricane of blue… The author of nothing ends up in a mansion. Its first sight is a lilly-white priest. He shows us two candles. Back, then, the lilly-white-know-it-all. “Blessed are you. Lord of the Universe, the provider of this bread and fruit of the Earth and human labor.” Another woman appears. They whisper together. “… when he gets into trouble,you keep calling him my step-son. What has he done this time?” (And the cries of EO.) Pan to the priest. An appearance of EO in the foliage outside. Hands. Then eating grass. EO cries out, over and over; a long cry. EO enjoying the rich grass of beauty. (1966: “Besides, he’s a saint.” Recall Robert Brisson’s Balthazar.) The killer is gobbling a huge lunch. Back to the church. Deluxe. Across the table, the owner; her powers. But she only stages anger as a hope. After leaving the table, she takes a precious plate and preciously lets it crash on the marble floor. She can see that the killer has killed. “What did you do…? ” was her gutless move. She allows the excuse: “gambling…” But a pretty boy would never understand. She pronounces that she’s sold the place. She will be going back to France. “You won’t get much. I can’t help you with your debts. You can take some of the family wealth. This was your home, too. Before you gambled it away.” (Gambling was not his worst vice.) She smashes a table. “Your grandmother got it, during the London honeymoon. Isn’t it quite exquisite? Isn’t that so?” The cutlery… The sister throws a knife. The butcher says, “Stop!” (He rushes to her.) “Please stop! Enough! I’ve never lied! Not to you, not to your father.” He looks down. He touches her hair. He kisses her.

Quick cut. A garden, impressive. Foliage. A sunny day. EO reaches Kasandra. There would be reflections in the skies. The various stables at night, when the horses and donkey become true, finding their mysterious truth. His first love; not to be long, but deep. Coming to a ladder! How he managed. Over the wonderful bridge. Rushing water. EO embraces it all. To be alive! Cut to dusty cows. It was seen by EO. He could imagine it all. A lamb alone. He saw it. The herd. EO sees, and sees very far.

Poetry, Language, Thought, being the title of a book by Heidegger. While Heidegger slogs with his academic blindness, there came recently, this film, which opened many poems, languages, thoughts. And once again we turn to Proust, for a step of verve. A verve to link with EO. In the Chapter, “The Captive,” we find topspins. EO never lost a moment to sustain his topspins. Here we go to Proust!

“Physically, too, she had altered… and not kept their form… For, on the contrary, every morning the ripples of her hair continued to give me the same surprise, as though it were some novelty that I had seen before. And yet, above the smiling eyes of a girl, what could not be more beautiful than the clustering coronet of black violets? The smile offers greater friendship; but the little gleaming tips of blossoming, more akin to flesh, of which they seem to be a transposition into tiny waves, are more provocative of desire.”

When we have passed a certain age, the soul of the child that we were and the souls of the dead from which we spring come and bestow upon us a handful of their treasures and calamities, asking to be allowed to cooperate in the new sentiments which we are feeling and which, obliteration their former image, we recast then in an original creation. Thus my whole past from my earliest years, and earlier still, the past of my parents and relatives, blended by my impure love for Albertine, the charm of an affection at once filial and material. We have to give hospitality, at a certain stage in our life, to all our relatives who have journeyed so far and gathered around us.

It is precisely because this comfort has been necessary to bring grief to birth–and will return moreover at intervals to calm–that men can be sincere with each other, and even with themselves, when they pride themselves upon a woman’s kindness to them, taking, although, taking things all in all, at the heart of their intimacy, there continually lurks in a secret fashion, unavowed to the rest of the world, or revealed unintentionally by questions, inquiries, a painful uncertainty. But as this could not have come to birth without the preliminary comfort, as even afterwards the intermittent comfort is necessary to make suffering endurable and to prevent ruptures, their concealment of the secret hell that life can be when shared with the woman in question carried to the pitch of an ostentatious display an intimacy which, they pretend, is precious, expresses a genuine point of view, a universal process of cause and effect, one of the modes in which the production of grief is rendered possible.

The entry of the young dairymaid at once robbed me of my contemplative calm; I could think only of how to give possibility to the fable of the letter of that she was to deliver and I began to write quickly without venturing to cast more than furtive glance at her, so that I might not seem to have brought her into my room to be scrutinized. She was invested in me with that charm of the unknown which I should not discover in a pretty girl whom I had found in one of those houses where they come to meet one. She was neither naked nor in disguise, but a genuine dairymaid, one of those whom we imagine to be so pretty, when we have not time to approach them; she possess something of what constitutes the eternal desire, the eternal regret of life, the twofold current of which constitutes the eternal desire, the eternal regret of life, the twofold. We guess, we divine from her stature, her proportions. They are ready and waiting.

So, there is in Dostoevsky , not only people but their homes. Crime and Punishment. But did he ever murder? Those novels of Dostoevsky are not natural.

The courage of EO introduces a power not understood on this planet, or at least not in effective play. The powers that be have been crazed by cowards and dullards. Other planets surely step forward. But in the dramas of the semi-hopeless, one is seeing. One could be, in fact, in our short lives, a helper. A helper to the cosmos.

#JERZY SKOLIMOWSKI

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faber76dyhr · 2 years

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qqueenofhades · 3 years

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Do you really hate this county? Or were you just ranting?

Sigh. I debated whether or not to answer this, since I usually keep the real-life/politics/depressing current events to a relative minimum on this blog, except when I really can't avoid ranting about it. But I have some things to get off my chest, it seems, and you did ask. So.

The thing is, any American with a single modicum of genuine historical consciousness knows that despite all the triumphalist mythology about Pulling Up By Our Bootstraps and the American Dream and etc, this country was founded and built on the massive and systematic exploitation and extermination of Black and Indigenous people. And now, when we are barely (400 years later!!!) getting to a point of acknowledging that in a widespread way, oh my god the screaming. I'm so sick of the American right wing I could spit for so many reasons, not least of which is the increasingly reductive and reactive attempts to put the genie back in the bottle and set up hysterical boogeymen about how Teaching Your Children Critical Race Theory is the end of all things. They have forfeited all pretense of being a real governing party; remember how their only platform at the 2020 RNC was "support whatever Trump says?" They have devolved to the point where the cruelty IS the point, to everyone who doesn't fit the nakedly white supremacist mold. They don't have anything to do aside from attempt to usher in actual, literal, dictionary-definition-of-fascism and sponsor armed revolts against the peaceful transfer of power.

That is fucking exhausting to be aware of all the time, especially with the knowledge that if we miss a single election cycle -- which is exceptionally easy to do with the way the Democratic electorate needs to be wooed and courted and herded like cats every single time, rather than just getting their asses to the polls and voting to keep Nazis out of office -- they will be right back in power again. If Manchin and Sinema don't get over their poseur pearl-clutching and either nuke the filibuster or carve out an exception for voting rights, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act is never going to get passed, no matter how many boilerplate appeals the Democratic leadership makes on Twitter. In which case, the 2022 midterms are going to give us Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the House (I threw up in my mouth a little typing that) and right back to the Mitch McConnell Obstruction Power Hour in the Senate. The Online Left (TM) will then blame the Democrats for not doing more to stop them. These are, of course, the same people who refused to vote for Hillary Clinton out of precious moral purity reasons in 2016, handed the election to Trump, and now like to complain when the Trump-stacked Supreme Court reliably churns out terrible decisions. Gee, it's almost like elections have consequences!!

Aside from my exasperation with the death-cult right-wing fascists and the Online Left (TM), I am sick and tired of how forty years of "trickle-down" Reaganomics has created a world where billionaires can just fly to space for the fun of it, while the rest of America (and the world) is even more sick, poor, overheated, economically deprived, and unable to survive the biggest public health crisis in a century, even if half the elected leadership wasn't actively trying to sabotage it. Did you know that half of American workers can't even afford a one-bedroom apartment? Plus the obvious scandal that is race relations, health care, paid leave, the education system (or lack thereof), etc etc. I'm so tired of this America Is The Greatest Country in the World mindless jingoistic catchphrasing. We are an empire in the late stages of collapse and it's not going to be pretty for anyone. We have been poisoned on sociopathic-libertarian-selfishness-disguised-as-Freedom ideology for so long that that's all there is left. We have become a country of idiots who believe everything their idiot friends post on social media, but in a very real sense, it's not directly those individuals' fault. How could they, when they have been very deliberately cultivated into that mindset and stripped of critical thinking skills, to serve a noxious combination of money, power, and ideology?

I am tired of the fact that I have become so drained of empathy that when I see news about more people who refused to get the vaccine predictably dying of COVID, my reaction is "eh, whatever, they kind of deserved it." I KNOW that is not a good mindset to have, and I am doing my best to maintain my personal attempts to be kind to those I meet and to do my small part to make the world better. I know these are human beings who believed what they were told by people that they (for whatever reason) thought knew better than them, and that they are part of someone's family, they had loved ones, etc. But I just can't summon up the will to give a single damn about them (I'm keeping a bingo card of right-wing anti-vax radio hosts who die of COVID and every time it's like, "Alexa, play Another One Bites The Dust.") The course that the pandemic took in 21st-century America was not preordained or inevitable. It was (and continues to be) drastically mismanaged for cynical political reasons, and the legacy of the Former Guy continues to poison any attempts to bring it under control or convince people to get a goddamn vaccine. We now have over 100,000 patients hospitalized with COVID across the country -- more than last summer, when the vaccines weren't available.

I have been open about my fury about the devaluation of the humanities and other critical thinking skills, about the fact that as an academic in this field, my chances of getting a full-time job for which I have trained extensively and acquired a specialist PhD are... very low. I am tired of the fact that Americans have been encouraged to believe whatever bullshit they fucking please, regardless of whether it is remotely true, and told that any attempt to correct them is "anti-freedom." I am tired of how little the education system functions in a useful way at all -- not necessarily due to the fault of teachers, who have to work with what they're given, and who are basically heroes struggling stubbornly along in a profession that actively hates them, but because of relentless under-funding, political interference, and furious attempts, as discussed above, to keep white America safely in the dark about its actual history. I am tired of the fact that grade school education basically relies on passing the right standardized tests, the end. I am tired of the implication that the truth is too scary or "un-American" to handle. I am tired. Tired.

I know as well that "America" is not synonymous in all cases with "capitalist imperialist white-supremacist corporate death cult." This is still the most diverse country in the world. "America" is not just rich white middle-aged Republicans. "America" involves a ton of people of color, women, LGBTQ people, Muslims, Jews, Christians of good will (I have a whole other rant on how American Christianity as a whole has yielded all pretense of being any sort of a principled moral opposition), white allies, etc etc. all trying to make a better world. The blue, highly vaccinated, Biden-winning states and counties are leading the economic recovery and enacting all kinds of progressive-wishlist dream policies. We DID get rid of the Orange One via the electoral process and avert fascism at the ballot box, which is almost unheard-of, historically speaking. But because, as also discussed above, certain elements of the Democratic electorate need to fall in love with a candidate every single time or threaten to withhold their vote to punish the rest of the country for not being Progressive Enough, these gains are constantly fragile and at risk of being undone in the next electoral cycle. Yes, the existing system is a crock of shit. But it's what we've got right now, and the other alternative is open fascism, which we all got a terrifying taste of over the last four years. I don't know about you, but I really don't want to go back.

So... I don't know. I don't know if that stacks up to hate. I do hate almost everything about what this country currently is, structurally speaking, but I recognize that is not identical with the many people who still live here and are trying to do their best, including my friends, family, and myself. I am exhausted by the fact that as an older millennial, I am expected to survive multiple cataclysmic economic crashes, a planet that is literally boiling alive, a barely functional political system run on black cash, lies, and xenophobia, a total lack of critical thinking skills, renewed assaults on women/queer people/POC/etc, and somehow feel like I'm confident or prepared for the future. Not all these problems are only America's fault alone. The West as a whole bears huge responsibility for the current clusterfuck that the world is in, for many reasons, and so do some non-Western countries. But there is no denying that many of these problems have ultimate American roots. See how the ongoing fad for right-wing authoritarian strongmen around the world has them modeling themselves openly on Trump (like Brazil's lunatic president, Jair Bolsonaro, who talks all the time about how Trump is his political role model). See what's going on in Afghanistan right now. Etc. etc.

Anyway. I am very, very tired. There you have it.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts #covid for ts #i had a lot to say evidently #rant

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cno-inbminor · 3 years

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iterum vivere (childe/tartaglia)

a/n: wow, it’s been fucking forever. first genshin fic featuring childe/tartaglia!!! a very huge thank you to @suspensin for reading this over and being my rock and support, and i love her so fucking much. I couldn’t have finished this without her!

plot: reincarnation and modern/uni!au ft. afab reader!traveler with she/they pronouns x childe/tartaglia

-- in which meeting childe is a bit of a dangerous game of push and pull

wc: 12.1k; angst + fluff

warnings: DOES CONTAIN IN-GAME SPOILERS (1.5? 1.6? + story quest and idek) and NSFW MENTIONS (mdni to be safe). there’s no explicit smut but thoughts do run a bit wild here and there

EDIT: Altered ChiLumi version now posted on AO3 here!

“Haven’t we met before?”

The shine in your eyes does nothing to hide your curiosity, head even tilting a little in observation. He watches them scan his face for any recognizable features, but attempts to focus on the strange, taut string of déjà vu that pulls him toward you. In a moment of absentmindedness, he had heard a faint voice call out his name from your direction. Confusion overtook him as you weren’t looking at him, but something inside his brain said that it had to be from you. And so his feet redirected his path towards your figure in the student union building, as if on a mission.

“A fucking whale, Childe?”

Oh.

“I don’t think so…?” You trail off, curiosity now replaced by perplexed feelings. “Do we have a class together?”

I think I would’ve noticed you by now if you were.

“Ah, what’s your major?” Childe asks quickly to avoid listening to the little voice in his head.

“History and anthropology, you?”

“Economics, but I’ve taken a history course for core credits. Maybe it was then?”

“With Dr. Zhong?”

“Yes!” He snaps his fingers. Part of his brain decides to usefully function and scan his memories to see if he remembers your face or head of hair in the lecture hall then. “Last year? Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 to 11:20?”

“Actually, yeah,” you affirm in surprise. You think you would remember the relatively attractive ginger in your class, but honestly, it had all been such a blur and you were often pretty sleepy during class. Dr. Zhong didn’t quite appreciate it, but you made up for it with your exam and essay grades, as well as paying better attention in some of his other courses.

“Did you need me for anything?”

“I’d like for you to come visit and meet my family.”

He’s really not appreciating this extra voice speaking for him.

“Well…uh…” Childe stammers and looks away sheepishly, hand rubbing the back of his neck. He honestly had no reason for approaching you, and now, he just looks like a desperate idiot. Think quick, he tells himself, floundering for some shitty excuse.

“I wanted to, uh, take another history course as an elective and um, wanted to know if you had any recommendations?”

“Oh,” you blink. That’s a first. When he meets your gaze, the swirling shades of sapphire strike something deep within you. Flashes of events you can’t make out go by in the blink of an eye, but then you realize you’ve been staring for too long. Blood rushes to your cheeks because you don’t exactly want this guy to get the wrong idea from you, because how are you supposed to explain, “I’m sorry, but I think we have met before, but just a really, really long time ago, and we might’ve been more than just acquaintances because that’s what it feels like?”

“I think you’d like Teyvat Mythology,” your voice wavers on the verge of cracking. “Dr. Zhong might have a TA this time around, but Xiao’s a great teacher. Doesn’t have long, rambling anecdotes, but explains things well and gets straight to the point.”

“C-cool, I’ll look into it,” Childe replies and smiles brightly. “I’ll head out then,” jabbing a thumb over his shoulder, where he just realized he left a grouchy Scaramouche waiting by a vending machine, newly purchased Starbucks Tripleshot drink in hand. “Nice seeing you, (y/n).”

He scurries off before you both realize that you never told him your name.

“Who’s that?” Scaramouche asks, jutting his chin in your vague direction.

“Someone from my Intro to Liyuean History course last year,” Childe waves off. “Come on, let’s go before the line at the pasta bar gets too long.”

The next time you see Childe is by accident, traversing across an open field of grass that many students like to sit out on to relax with friends, sunbathe, hold events, or play casual team sports if room permits.

You had your earbuds in and were scrolling through social media when laughter rang above all other sound, causing your head to snap up and swivel around to find the source. And while it might’ve been strange to an outsider, your steps immediately slowed as you watched the man of your tiring, vivid dreams sprint in your direction, eyes pinned on a frisbee heading towards him.

He’s wearing a grey sports tank and basketball shorts, headband holding back his bangs as he makes a slight jump in the air to catch the plastic disc between his palms. His feet plant into the grass as he looks for someone to pass it to, and you watch (with embarrassment) the muscles in his throwing arm relax and tighten with practice, frisbee steadily soaring through the air in a beautiful arc towards a teammate. He then lightly jogs to get closer to his group, but then his back stiffens.

Before your instincts kick in for you to turn and bail, he looks over his shoulder and stares straight at your now stunned self.

The sole ruby earring that glints in the sunlight catches your attention, and you recall your dreams of terrifyingly dark, violet electric power, blades of water rushing toward you, and then the stomach-churning sensation of falling from great heights pours concrete into your veins—

Childe looks a little amused for having your sole focus, hand lifting up for a quick wave. And as you numbly return the greeting, your heart beats out, “Run from him.”

And so with the flight response pulsing and firing from your synapses, you abruptly speed walk away, almost breaking out into a sprint towards your dorm. You ignore his pointed, confused look, and pretend you don’t feel the two holes of imaginary fire searing into your back. It isn’t until you’re laying back in bed that you release a huge sigh of relief and pray to a deity you don’t believe in that those eyes of mirth will not haunt you tonight.

But of course, with a deity that doesn’t exist, the prayers go unanswered.

“Do you believe in any of the mythology you teach?” You ask Xiao about a few days later when you stop by his cubicle. Luckily, no one else is around for this conversation, and Xiao has always been kind enough to humor your thoughts. Granted, he might feel obligated because you had asked Dr. Zhong to be your advisor for your undergraduate Honors thesis, and Xiao was directed to be your receiver of some general questions and source of information if he wasn’t around.

A quick scan of your complexion tells Xiao everything he needs to know. Your eyes are overtaken with rumination and exhaustion, haziness clouding them as you seem to ponder over your own question. It’s not often that you ask him anything not related to your thesis or coursework.

“Perhaps there’s some sense and truth to the tales passed down,” he softly muses. “What makes you ask?”

You lift yourself to sit on the clean area next to his computer, legs slowly swaying back and forth. “It might sound crazy but...I’ve been having dreams lately. They feel too real, too natural to be anything that my mind would make up. I’ve never had the most creative imagination by any means, which is why there’s some comfort to me being a history major, but I can’t shake these.”

“So why ask me about the mythology?”

“...the Archons are there. I even dreamt that I met the Geo and Anemo Archons. And they controlled various elements, just like we were taught.”

You don’t notice that Xiao has ceased his rapid typing, fingers hovering over the keyboard before one hand removes his glasses from his face. He uses the other to rub his eyes and softly pinch the bridge of his nose before sliding the frames back on. Dark, golden amber eyes survey you as you grapple with the unfathomable possibilities of your nightly visions, at least until you shake your head in disbelief at yourself and lightly scoff.

“Who am I kidding?” You ask no one in particular. “Maybe I’ve been doing too much research and everything’s mixing together.”

“You’re ahead of schedule, if that provides any consolation.”

“Some.”

It takes Childe a grand total of one minutes and 53 seconds to sign up for Teyvat Mythology for the spring semester.

WInter in Liyue is only slightly miserable, being so close to the ocean. It’s chillier than usual on this dreary day, yet something compelled you to exit your dorm and shakily make your way to the campus coffee shop for a warm drink. Coffee, hot chocolate, you haven’t quite decided yet, but just as you let yourself bask in the warm building, familiar ginger hair and blue eyes wash away the comfort.

Or do they douse you in security?

They remind you of your recent dreams that now have shifted away from stress and violence to easygoing summer days by the oceanside, running barefoot in the sand while collecting beautifully patterned azure starconches. Sometimes, you thrust a hand towards an oversized four-leaf clover on a wooden stake with the power of wind and catch yourself in the air, soaring and looking around to find more of the little shells. Other nights, they consist of climbing steep cliffs, only to sit at the edge in the clouds with fatigue wracking through your system and marvel at the view before you.

Someone’s always with you though, ruby earring and maroon mask and cobalt blue gem hanging from the waist, sprinting with you, playfully tackling you down, pulling you up towards mountain peaks, laying their head on your shoulders, brushing their lips against your cheek--

You welcome the change of peace in those dreams, but only because they don’t leave you quite as tired the next day, as if you’d been avoiding an inescapable dark force.

Part of you wants the burning question of why this person, this man, in all his glory and brightness, affects you so fucking much when you barely even know the guy -- why looking at him sends your heart to lodge itself in your esophagus, why your lungs feel like they’re so close to being completely collapsed under the weight of his stare, why feeling like you’re trapped and caught between wanting to run towards yet away from him. It makes no sense, and you’re tired of trying to make sense of anything you don’t exactly want to remember from your dreams for some, once again, inexplicable reason.

But there’s no time to think as he quickly ambles towards you, your own feet shuffling forward to meet him in a warped reference of a distance that constitutes to “the middle” before you can stop yourself. Your shivering hasn’t quite stopped yet, and Childe seems to take notice of it.

“Pretty cold out there,” he softly states. It’s cute, the way you’re curling in on yourself to retain some warmth.

“Y-yeah, not sure why I decided I really needed something warm to drink right now,” you reply and avoid his gaze. He watches you peer over his shoulder to squint at the menu display hanging from the ceiling, seemingly contemplating on what you should get.

“How about I get yours today? My treat for your class recommendation last time.” Anything to keep you here longer. Childe doesn’t realize how much he’s missed you, which confuses him, and chooses to ignore the fact that he’d been camping himself at the study tables in the building where the history department is located in hopes of even just catching a quick glimpse of you.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” you immediately attempt to subvert his generous offer, hands shooting out from your jacket pockets and waving in rejection. “It was nothing.”

“Please?” Childe puts on his best puppy eyes before reaching for one of your wrists, gently tugging you to the register. “Just this once?”

You want so badly to squash the tiny flare of disappointment that erupts in your chest from the newly acquired knowledge that this was just a one time thing. Do econ majors hate to feel in debt? That they must be even with everyone, or would rather have people indebted to them than the other way around?

There’s no time to think when Childe gives the cashier his order before turning to you, and without wanting to waste anyone’s time, you rattle off your usual beverage. He’s quick in fishing out his student ID to spend some of his campus currency, shooting you a boyish grin when you pout at your half-opened wallet.

“Go take that table over there,” he says, pointing to one in the corner by some windows. “I’m gonna tell my friends to go on without me.”

“I didn’t mean to intrude or pull you away from them,” you slightly panic. The sooner you can leave, the better. Right? “You don’t need to sit with me, I was just gonna head back to my dorm.”

“I insist. Go ahead, I’ll be right there.”

Why your brain takes his orders over your own is a mystery in and of itself, because before you know it, you’re plopped down in one of the lounge seats and staring off into space, mind reeling over the last two minutes. You pretend you can’t hear the way Childe’s friends nudge his arm playfully with their shoulders, wiggling their eyebrows suggestively as Childe tries to get them to stop being nonsensical.

“You’re gonna scare them off,” he hisses at them, hands pushing at their backs so they could finally leave him to his devices.

“Not before you do!” One of them laughs and Childe groans at their antics. “All right, all right, we’ll go. They’re cute though, might steal them if you don’t make a move.”

The darkening of the aura surrounding Childe is too quick for them to fully process, not before he dampens any of their fleeting hopes with a, “Don’t even fucking think about it.”

But it disappears just as fast when his and your drinks are called out, and he gives them one last shove before retrieving your to-go cups. Childe directs all his focus towards the seat diagonally from yours as opposed to the one that’s straight across, and you’re sharply ripped away from whatever reverie you let yourself slip into.

“Thank you,” you murmur, hands cupping the drink and feeling the heat seep into your fingertips. “You really didn’t have to, it was nothing big.”

“Can you blame me for just trying to find an excuse to finally talk to you?” He asks without a skip and you can’t tell if the quickening of your heartbeat is from a looming sense of doom or excitement. Those eyes, the tiny swirls of the ocean, blue like those shells buried in the sand--

It takes three seconds too long for you to understand where he was going with in his words, and part of you feels unamused at his smooth talking. You’ve always guarded yourself against guys like Childe, devilishly handsome who know their way around language semantics, ready to pull you in and just as ready to push you away. That (possibly unfair) bias, coupled with everything else you’ve been feeling for him, sounded the alarms and set the walls up around your heart. Perhaps you need to stop wearing your heart on your sleeve, because Childe immediately retracts his forwardness.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I promise I’m not looking for anything in return and you don’t owe me anything, but I really did just...want to sit and talk and...get to know you?” Childe trails off a little towards the end. Your body loosens up and relaxes just a tiny bit, feeling bad for your snap judgment. Let the guy do something nice, don’t look into it too much, you tell yourself. It’s a coffee, not a five-course dinner.

You reach out a hand towards him, small smile across your lips, ready for his to join yours in a quick handshake. “I’m (y/n), senior history and anthropology double major. It’s nice to meet you.”

The pounding of your heart against your ribcage has nothing to do with the shimmering of his eyes, nothing to do with the fact that his hand fits with yours just right, and nothing to do with the fact that an eerily similar voice from your dreams whispers, “I love you.”

You learn a number of things about Tartaglia in the four hours, like his family members and their respective interests, which classes he did and didn’t enjoy taking, certain takes on Schnezhnayan politics, his own various hobbies, crazy accidents from the occasional college parties, and more. He’s a bit of an open book, probably telling you way more than any regular person would, and definitely more than anything you revealed during all this time. Everything you tell him seems surface level, nothing too deep. The walls are still there to protect you from the unexplainable, profound feelings his presence seems to elicit, and luckily, he doesn’t prod any further. Childe feels the resistance and respects it, which just adds more brownie points in your book, and you almost feel bad for having given so little in return.

“I wish we were taking Teyvat Myth together,” he sighs when walking you back to your dorm, hands stuffed in his pockets. His ruby earring catches the light from the sunset, the shade almost complimentary to the golden amber rays that streak across the sky. “Would’ve helped having a history major in there.”

“Is that all I am to you, an answer bank?” You jokingly ask, but he watches concerningly as you shoot your gaze to the ground, mindfully stepping over the cracks between concrete slabs.

“Of course not,” a gentle sincerity reaches you, giving you the confidence to make eye contact with him. “I’m sorry for making it sound like that, it wasn’t my intention. I really just meant it as a way of saying if the professor or TA ended up being a total bore, then well, having you would make it more fun.”

“I’m sure I’d bore you even more,” chuckling, speeding up to get away. You’re growing too comfortable in whatever atmosphere Childe has created, like an enclosed air bubble bobbing gently in the depths of the sea and letting the waves carry you both to whichever ends of the earth.

“Hey,” he interjects, hand reaching out to stop you with a soft yank of your wrist. There is no resisting force from you, feet stepping backward until he meets you eye to eye. It’s unfair in the way that he can render you motionless by standing just an inch from you, arms brushing with his head tilted closer to your own. “Seriously, I’m glad we did this today. Are you?”

No, because now I don’t know what to think, I don’t know who you are, I’m not any closer to figuring out why you terrify yet leave me so enamoured with you, I’m torn between punching and kissing you and--

“Yes,” you subconsciously answer, brain immediately short-circuiting to scold yourself. “I had fun.”

His grin, charming, devilish, is so so bright, bright enough to rival the Liyue sun that sits on the pier, on the edge of the ocean, bright enough to rival the love that your fraternal twin showers you with on a daily basis. You want time to stop right here because you’re almost sick of the voice settled deep within your heart that screams, “Don’t get comfortable, you must run from him!”

“Good. Let’s do this again?” And you nod, of course you do. Foolish you. “Don’t be a stranger!” He calls out as he turns on his heel and waves over his shoulder, hand raised in the air, and you’re suddenly transported to another scene, a less refined version of the Liyue Harbor, watching as the head of ginger hair with a red mask in a flashier attire of grey and maroon walks away from you and onto a roaring, magnificent ship; big, ivory sails only seen in books and museums. It’s the same gesture of “see you later”, and just before he turns, you blink, and you’re back to seeing your campus again.

But Childe does look back once, warm and content that you’re still standing there, watching over him, and he can’t help but think about when he can spend time with you again, because suddenly, it truly feels like there’s not enough of it anymore.

“Excuse me, what’s a Red Bull?”

The last thing, or person rather, you expect to see on the last day of finals for the fall semester, is a small boy who looks way too young to be here, tugging on the sleeve of your windbreaker. He’s at most eleven, ten maybe, but he has eerily similar characteristics, as well as an accent that doesn’t quite belong to most Liyue natives. Still gathering your bearings from your own perusing of the fridges that hold all the possible beverages a college student could consume, you kneel down until you’re at eye level with the child.

“Repeat that for me? Are you looking for a Red Bull, you say?”

“Yes!” He beams and holds out a student ID that most definitely doesn’t belong to him. “My brother asked me to grab him one because he was busy with something.”

Your eyes flit over to the top shelves where the aforementioned cans of caffeine are located, and definitely too high for someone of his height to reach. “I’ll grab one for you. Did he ask for a specific flavor?”

“Nope, he said regular. Thanks, you’re really nice! Do you know my brother?” He asks, waving the ID at you so you can get a better look at the name. That’s definitely a face you recognize, but the name leaves you confused.

“Yeah, um,” glance over again, “I know...Ajax…”

“He’s the best toy seller in the whole world!”

Somehow, it suits him much better than Childe or Tartaglia, and you’re not quite sure what toys have anything to do with the matter at hand. Speaking of hands, the little boy grabs yours in sheer delight. “Can you take me back to his room? I kinda forgot the directions he told me, and everything’s so big around here.”

“Sure, just let me buy something, too, and I’ll take you.”

“Okay!”

The cashier isn’t the least bit fazed by the little brunette at your side -- it’s always common for family members to come in around the end of semesters to pick up kids or visit, and being an open building with snacks and drinks and a stopping point of most tours, they’ve seen it all. You even let him pick out a bag of chips and a candy bar for himself for being so polite and not a complete menace, paying with your own campus currency.

Teucer, as you’ve learned in the last two minutes, likes to point out things and ask you questions. Luckily, you have answers to most of them and do your best to pad the time, enjoying the feeling of a tiny hand wrapped around three of your fingers. It’s sweet to any normal passerby, believing they’re witnessing an older sister doting on their little brother around the holidays, but to Childe, seeing the tender sweetness on your face as you nod along to whatever Teucer is rambling about to you, sets his heart aflame. He’s already constantly on the verge of wanting to hug and kiss you and never let go, but you haven’t made any indication that you could potentially like him back, and this is just torture.

“Look what they bought me!” Teucer shoves his rewards in Childe’s face as if he had extremely poor eyesight, and you can’t help but laugh a little as you set his Red Bull down on his desk, clutching your own preferred beverage while looking around his room. Finals must have gotten to him with the unusual lack of tidiness in the small space, some laundry strewn here and there, a couple boxes of eaten microwave dinners in the metal wire trash can, some textbooks left open and marked with more sticky notes than you’ve ever seen. You’d only been here once before to drop off some food that he desperately messaged you about, stuck doing a project that he just couldn’t step away from.

“Pretend you don’t see the mess,” Childe pleads, handing a kid tablet to his brother but holding on before Teucer can take it. “What do you say to our nice friend here for buying you these snacks?”

“Thank you!”

“It was nothing,” you shyly smile, ruffling his hair. “I enjoyed meeting you.”

“Wait, what’s your name again?”

“It’s (Y/n).”

“Okay, (y/n)! Wait…(y/n)..as in…”

Teucer trails off and gives a look to his brother, one that spells curiosity and trouble, before he grabs your hand and pulls you into a corner. Any movement Childe makes to leave his desk chair is immediately squashed by Teucer’s disapproval, and the older man is left to helplessly worry when you’re told to squat down so secrets can be whispered into your ear.

“He talks about you a lot whenever he calls home,” and you want to laugh at Tecuer’s attempt to sound as scandalous as possible. “All the time! I think he likes you, like, like like.”

Oh. Oh dear.

“What makes you say that?” You whisper back, indulging both yourself and him, yet also internally snickering at how troubled Childe looks.

“Sometimes, he video calls mama, but we’ll all sit around and talk, and whenever he’s talking about how he saw you or something, he just looks...happy. Really happy.”

The surprise on your face does nothing to settle Childe’s nerves and he’s about to start wringing his hands together. Whatever Teucer was telling you couldn’t be good, probably embarrassing, like the one time he unceremoniously fell on his ass while ice skating over a frozen lake, or when he tried fitting fifteen marshmallows in his mouth and nearly choked on them when their mother caught them in the act, or--

“I think he just thinks of me as a good friend,” you try to inform Teucer, not letting yourself get any semblance of hope. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“If you say so,” Teucer pouts. But then he stops whispering and bounds over back to his brother, grabbing the tablet before plopping down on the half-made bed.

“Look, I was overconfident and thought I could execute a perfect single loop on the ice, but there was a rock and I lost balance and--”

“I wasn’t being told any stories about you falling on ice, but do tell me more,” you chuckle and take some joy in watching the blush spread across his cheeks. It’s easy to tell that he’s mentally berating himself for jumping to conclusions.

“Well, first off, thanks for buying him all that, and my drink, too,” he sighs. “I spoil him enough as it is.”

“I can see why it’s hard not to,” you smile knowingly. “So is it just him here? Where’s the rest of your family?”

“Funny story, he somehow managed to convince my parents to let him come here on his own as his first ever plane flight, so I had to pick him up yesterday from the airport. He’s flying back with me tomorrow.”

“And the RA?” You ask with an eyebrow raised.

“Ah...well...what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him? Speaking of, what was Teucer whispering to you about?”

There’s a pensiveness that overtakes you when you look at Teucer again, who’s happily playing some sort of game and completely oblivious to the rest of his surroundings. You won’t, can’t, take his words to heart, and will take them with a grain of salt at most.

“Nothing important. Although I did learn something new...Ajax?”

“Say my name -- fuck, say it, please--”

“I guess cat’s out of the bag,” he chuckles and looks away, absolutely unaware of the flare of heat that swirls in your stomach from the fleeting vision just now. “I came up with other nicknames as a kid to seem cooler, and they just stuck with me. Plus, the business world is full of people who just want something from you, or just a transactional relationship. I’d rather not give my real name to them, if you know what I mean.”

“That’s fair,” you nod and lean to sit on the edge of his desk. A thought pops into your head and you turn the words over in your head like a washing machine on the spin setting, teeth gnawing on the flesh of your bottom lip. If Teucer hadn’t been in the room, he would’ve been this close to kissing you.

“But if it’s worth anything,” your voice slowly, softly starts, cautious and wary of your thoughts. “I think...Ajax suits you best.”

Curse fate. Curse the legendary Archons. Curse karma and deities and spirits because all he wants to do right now is stand and tower over you, trap you between himself and his desk so you can’t escape, take those pretty lips between his until they’re bruised and swollen because of him, hear you call out his name in the throes of pleasure so he can finally replace his fantasies with tangible memories. The unnatural, magnetic pull that draws him to you is unbearable now -- he feels like he’ll lose the last tendrils of his sanity if he doesn’t do something.

You can’t stop him from slowly reaching out to grab one of your hands, lifting it towards him until he’s close enough for you to feel his breath ghost over your knuckles. It sends a shiver down your spine and blood is pounding in your ears because you can’t begin to fathom what he’s thinking about while doing this, even more so when his lips make contact with your skin and your breath hitches, stuck in your throat as he languidly peeks at you beneath his eyelashes with a heated gaze, then lowly confessing, “My name sounds best when you say it.”

Good heavens.

It’s difficult to swallow and keep your composure, especially when Teucer yells out in glee over, what you can assume, beating something in his game, and Childe drops your hand. But his dilated pupils don’t retract in the slightest, refusing to let you look away so that maybe, you can understand what he’s trying to convey to you. He’s taking the first step because he’s terrible and can’t contain his self-control anymore, pushing the ball into your court, ready for you to either play or exit into the sidelines.

When you do blink, there’s a vision of your naked body wrapped around another, limbs clinging desperately to a sturdy and panting frame. Lips, much like the ones that have seared themselves onto your knuckles, are at your neck and sucking, biting, before moving to your ear and laying filthy words into them that drive you closer to the edge. It all happens so fast that you feel you’ve just experienced whiplash, yet also feeling secondhand embarrassment at how lewd some of these thoughts have been.

You can’t stay here any longer.

“I-I have to go,” spills off your tongue before you can really think about it. The way the haze shatters in his eyes is heartbreaking in its own way, but there’s no time for you to explain. Your brain is in overdrive and eager to run, run, run. It detects danger on all fronts, but you muster out a, “H-have a good break, come find me next semester, mmk?”

And you’re out the door with inhuman speed. When the door clicks shut, only then does Teucer look up from his screen and frown at the lack of your presence. “Where’d they go?”

Chlide doesn’t seem to hear him, and Teucer has never seen his big brother look so sad and confused before.

He holds on to that last tendril of hope, because mark his words, he will find you come January.

After about a week at home, enjoying the festive time with his family and mildly unconcerned about next year’s courses because that was a problem for another day, Childe has his first, crazy, nonsensical dream.

At least, that’s what he tells himself when he snaps awake and his body aches with exhaustion. Not only are his joints in agony, he also feels like he’s sporting unforeseen bruises, which makes absolutely no sense because he hasn’t done anything that would warrant them, no matter how much he and his brothers do some rough-housing. His night of sleep was all consumed by flashes and scenes of weapon fighting, lucid enough to remember feeling his arms flex and wield bows and double-headed polearms and being cognizant of all the enemies??? surrounding him. They ranged from deranged looking monsters, floating beings with soulless masks, and large humans in electricity-padded armor, to behemoth machines in the sky that could leave you within an inch of your life thanks to a drill for a hand?!

But what’s even worse is that you seem to have managed a deal with Morpheus himself and infiltrated his dreams. You were there, too, sometimes fighting with him, sometimes against him, much to his dismay, and while it was nice, he just didn’t get it. Why the friendliness and hostility? Why was there an anger that overtook him when looking directly at you, parrying your blade and sending harmful arcs of water toward your figure?

Why did he relish the fear in your eyes when he darted towards you with electricity cracking through the air?

There’s an overwhelming sensation now to grab his phone to text you and apologize -- for what, he can’t fathom and there are no words to accurately convey what he’s thinking. “Hey, sorry for wanting to kill you in my dream :( “? Or “Sorry for being a friend but then stabbing you in the back, but then being nice to you again”?

And the only thing that really made sense was the serenity and contentment that would course through his veins as the two of you danced around on ivory sandy beaches, picking up shiny blue starconches and taking down more weird creatures; the breathlessness when you would fall back into the water and re-emerge to reconfirm his beliefs that you were one of the most beautiful humans he’d ever laid his eyes on; the love--

Hold the fuck up.

He doesn’t love you. He likes you a whole lot and he’s severely and deathly attracted to you, but he doesn’t love you. Your existence has only been made known to him for about two months, and he didn’t really start talking to you until three weeks in. So no matter how comfortable he feels with you, no matter how much he wishes that you were sleeping peacefully next to him so his nights wouldn’t feel so lonely, it was too early, too hasty, to say that he loves you.

“I’ve been wondering, why didn’t you bring them home?” His mother asks him out of nowhere during breakfast, all to add to this extremely tumultuous roller-coaster morning he’s been having. All he wants to do is eat his bowl of milk and cereal, then potentially go back to sleep before fulfilling his promise to go with his siblings to the nearby skating rink. It takes everything in him to not choke on his spoon of grains.

“Agreed, didn’t you mention they didn’t really have any family to go back to and that the move to Liyue was semi-permanent?” His father chimes in, laying a quick peck on his wife’s temple. “It’s never fun to spend the holidays alone.”

“They would’ve felt like they were intruding,” Childe replies quietly, stabbing his bowl a few times before scooping up another spoonful of cereal to his mouth. “I know we’re friends, but we haven’t known each other for that long, and maybe they’d be uncomfortable because that’s a lot honestly…”

“You don’t know until you try,” his mother sings and pats him on the shoulder. “We do have a guest room after all.”

“For them and their twin?”

“And quite a comfortable futon with enough blankets.”

Childe smiles fondly at his parents’ kindness. He can only imagine what this winter break would’ve been like now -- you and your twin floating around, trying to help out with certain chores, sitting by the fireplace and watching TV, huddled up with mugs of hot chocolate, playing board games with everyone and engaging in all the shenanigans…

Laughing. Loving. Grinning. Basking.

Handing over one of his hoodies to you as a sick way of torturing yet blessing himself for seeing how lovely you look in his clothes, standing silently in the doorway as you attempt to help out with mealtimes next to his mother, watching you run around in the backyard and dodging his siblings’ snowballs while lodging a few of your own -- how wonderful it all would be.

But he squashes it down as quickly as possible, because you escaped his grasp. You ran away from his advances temporarily and even though you gave him permission to seek you out come the spring semester, he worries that you might take it back. Something will wake up inside of you to keep him out of your heart and your life, and he’s not confident enough at this point to believe there’s a good chance you will come spend the holidays with him and his family next year.

“Maybe next year, ma,” he sends her a hesitant, yet somewhat broken purse of his lips that’s just the least bit curved. It tells her everything he’s thinking, and the quick patting of his cheek lets him know she understands.

Half an hour later, Childe finds himself curled up on his side under the sheets, phone in hand as he stares at a blinking cursor. It shouldn’t be so hard to send a text to convey his holiday greetings, because that’s all it is -- part of him is becoming desperate and aching for some interaction with you, even if it’s just a text sent back for conventional social pleasantries. He’ll take it for now, right?

Before he can totally chicken out, his thumbs quickly type a, “Happy Holidays, (y/n) :)”, and it’s a little embarrassing how quickly after he hits the ‘send’ button that he tosses it over his shoulder so he’s not directly looking at it anymore. His heartbeat is too quick and he prays for no phantom vibrations or phantom sound notifications to avoid any disappointment of thinking he got a reply. It was a harmless text, yet he’s treating it like he just got assigned on a mission to go and murder someone for the first time. What will he do if you never text him back? Does that mean you really don’t want to talk to him? Are you dead in a ditch somewhere? Did you change numbers and not tell him? Did your twin get all the details and make the executive decision to block his number? Will he never get a chance to talk to you again, even if it’s about something in the Teyvat Mythology class next semester? Will you--

His shoulder screams in protest when he quickly flips himself over at the text notification sound, hands shakily unlocking his phone and opening up your conversation again. His heart rate significantly decreases, reaching back to its normal pace, especially as he reads the little words on his screen.

“Happy Holidays, Ajax ^^”

There is hope.

“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?”

You’re huddled under the comforter of your twin’s bed, phone just peeking above the edge as you stare at it with a brightness in your eyes. For the most part, you had been sulking there, apart from meals and going back to your own room to sleep, and mentally berating yourself for the way you reacted to Childe the week before.

“He just texted me to say happy holidays,” shrugging to put on a facade of indifference. It’s stupid that you’re trying to hide your feelings from your twin of all people, who could pick apart and identify your emotions in a heartbeat. A roll of his eyes lets you know that you haven’t fooled him at all.

“So you think that whatever comment he made, which was very suggestive and indicative of clearly non-platonic feelings, was just something...friendly? Remind me again how you came to that conclusion?”

“I don’t know what I was thinking!” You whine, looking around to see if there was anything you could toss at him. “It’s just, with everything, all the dreams and stupid gut feelings, I just -- I don’t know, okay?? I can’t tell you enough how much I wish I had just kissed his stupid face and see where it goes from there.”

“Okay, gross, but don’t beat yourself up. Though...I do have a good idea on how to maybe get a good reaction out of him. You wanna go to the New Years’ celebration at Xiangling’s?”

“I think she’d threaten me with a knife if I didn’t. She wanted to go shopping at some point, too.”

“I’ll drop the overprotective brother act for one night, okay? One night, just to let this happen, and for your peace of mind.”

He does a fair amount of conspiring with Xiangling, a friend they met one time at a restaurant a couple years ago, even tagging along on the shopping trip. Together, the three of you find yourself a dress that Xiangling swears would make any person drool over you, including Childe, because at the end of the day, he was a person with the possibility of being attracted to you.

You think it’s a bit silly, but honestly, what do you have to lose at this point?

At 11:57PM on New Years’ Eve, Childe is standing outside in the freezing cold with his family, arms lifting up bags of sparklers and fireworks. They’ve driven out closer to the wild like they do every year, and everybody excitedly gets lighters ready, making sure someone’s got a clock out there that tells the seconds. As the younger kids open up the packaging and argue over which one to set off first, Childe’s phone vibrates in his coat pocket.

It’s 11:58PM when he manages to fish the device out and thank himself for buying gloves that are touch-screen friendly, excited to see that there are two texts from you, the latter reading, “Happy New Year!”. It doesn’t matter that you’re a little early, but he’s mainly intrigued by the fact a photo came before it. In his mind, you’re probably curled up with your twin brother, hopefully a selfie because wow, he misses your face.

He gets something else instead, and he is so glad that it’s dark outside and the electric lamp they have is too far away from him to draw any attention.

You have your arm around your brother’s waist and another girl’s that he doesn’t recognize, but it’s a full frontal view of your outfit, one that hugs your curves beautifully and shows more cleavage than he’s ever seen from you, sophisticated and elegant, yet fun and leaving enough to the imagination. There’s a bright smile coming from all of you, and you look like you’re at someone’s house or apartment with plenty of other people milling around in the back, but they don’t matter, not when all he can focus on is you.

Gorgeous, breathtaking, arousing, mind blowing, and gods, he wishes he could teleport to Liyue at this moment, find you, and kiss you right at midnight. Fuck the fact that he doesn’t exactly believe in superstitions like, “Kissing your significant other at midnight means you’ll last forever!” but he’s willing to take the chance with it on this night and the ones after, if he’s allowed. He tries not to think too much about pinning you against the wall and letting the world dissolve -- wants to be the one with the privilege to drag down that zipper and feel his bare skin on yours, and --

As Teucer starts yelling there’s only a minute left, he instinctively locks his phone and shoves it away out of anyone’s view. The last thing he needs is his family teasing him about ogling at your photo for a straight 50 seconds, wide-eyed and pupils on the verge of dilating, the visible breath leaving his mouth just a smudge more dense and prominent than usual.

The only thing he can do to distract himself from popping a boner in front of his parents is to join in on the countdown, making sure all the fireworks are set up correctly and grabbing a sparkler for himself. He waves it around with Tonia and promises to fulfill her wishes of taking one of those pictures right as she draws a pattern in the air. Their excitement is palpable and addicting, and even though the larger fireworks set off a few seconds after midnight hits, the nostalgia fills his lungs with fond memories and future wishes that they only continue this tradition for as long as possible, and hopefully, with you at his side.

When it’s 12:04AM, you get a picture message back of Childe bundled up in a black paletot coat, matching beanie and all, a gloved hand holding a sparkler and lips curved upwards, with a caption that says, “Happy New Year’s! See you soon :)”. You show it to Xiangling and your brother, both taking it as a win in their books, although the former does tipsily protest that there should be a better indicator of Childe’s brain breaking at how amazing you look right now. Maybe she’s prophetic, because another text chimes in and the words set you aflame, as well as suggestive whoops into your ears.

It’s a simple, “You look incredible btw”.

If you didn’t want to properly savor this moment, you would’ve found the nearest shot of the strongest liquor and tossed it back with abandon. But you want to remember the warmth in your veins that wasn’t from the alcohol or the heating, the fluttering of your heartbeat, the teeth-baring grin that you couldn’t fight off, the constant re-reading of those four words -- because they’re so different from everything you had been feeling before with him, the need for protection, the need to escape. Instead, you’d like to be in his arms right now and see for yourself how he’d look at you in this moment, and if he would take any action.

You want him to. So, so bad.

Childe spends his last week at home hating the fact that you’re just sitting around somewhere in Liyue, doing whatever you’re doing, probably doing some light preparation for your last semester of classes, and he’s not there to take advantage of all this free time and hang out with you. When classes start, it’ll be busy and hectic. You still have your thesis to finish and revise, and while that won’t eat up all your time, it’s still some that he’d want to fill in with his presence if he could. He debates whether or not he should ask for your schedule and compare it with his, maybe set up meetings every other day or propose that they all eat one meal together every day. Childe’s not quite sure of what you plan to do after graduation, as it hasn’t come up in conversation yet, but either way, he’s determined to stay in contact and make things work out. Long distance isn’t ideal, but with technology now, he’ll take it.

He feels a little bad for how excited he probably looked to be leaving home, uncharacteristic for the most part. His older siblings have already gone back to their respective homes, and it’s mainly Teucer and Tonia that worry and tear up when he starts packing his belongings. Tonia finds it unfair that Teucer got to meet you first and the latter makes sure to rub it into everyone’s faces. It’s hard for Childe to sleep on the plane because he’s thrumming with excitement, yet somehow even more nervous than usual when the plane hits small bouts of turbulence, and he doesn’t seem to relax until he sets foot back on campus.

He’s here. It’s January, and you’re physically closer to him than ever in the last two weeks.

“Found you.”

On the first day of classes, you’re sitting alone with some salad greens in a bowl, poking your fork at some scraps while you watch something on your phone, earbuds in and back towards the entrance of the canteen. It would explain the unannounced entrance of the very person who’s been at the forefront of nearly every thought in the last 96 hours, his fingers gingerly removing an earbud to surprise you as best as possible, and you startle in your seat.

Your heart kicks into overdrive when he hands you back your earbud and pulls out the seat next to you, setting his own plate of food down as he plops down in his chair. But then he says nothing afterwards, instead choosing to send you a cheeky grin before digging in. You’re left to slowly phase out of your state of shock, stuck between either running away or frantically texting your twin to come and save you even though he was off on a date with Keqing.

It’s not that you weren’t elated at the fact that Childe had done exactly as you told him last month, you just weren’t...prepared? It’s a shitty excuse and a cop out -- you’re mainly just having trouble with racking your brain to find the right words. What are you supposed to say? What should you do? Is it socially acceptable to lean over and kiss him on the cheek because that’s what you’d like to impulsively do at this very second??

“So you did,” you settle and steal a roasted potato wedge from his plate. It’s his turn to be taken by surprise, but he gets over it much quicker than you do. In fact, he spears two wedges and drops them in your bowl, smiling at you as best as he can with a mouth full of food. You give them your thanks before the silence settles in again.

“Did you have a good break?” He asks before his next bite.

“I did. You?”

“It was nice. My parents said I should’ve brought you and your twin home to spend the holidays with us. Can’t say it didn’t cross my mind before finals.”

Holy shit, what? “We couldn’t intrude like that, but that’s really nice of you guys.”

“That’s okay, there’s plenty of chances to visit later.”

You tilt your head and furrow your eyebrows. “But we graduate this semester?”

Childe challenges you with one of his own eyebrows raised. “And? Are we never gonna see each other again?”

Honestly, the possibility had occurred to you. You aren’t entirely sure of Childe’s plans after graduation, and if that meant he was staying in Liyue or going back to Snezhnaya or even moving to Inazuma or Mondstat. While people preach on and on about how lasting friendships and relationships are often formed during college, you believe it’s more common to slowly drift apart as life gets busier. And if Childe moved away, or if you did, it’d be hard to consistently keep in touch with 10 hour workdays.

The thought saddens you, regardless. You like him so much and you’re glad that he was even in your life to begin with, because as unbelievable as it sounds, seeing him was almost akin to the feeling of coming home. Amidst all your nerves, your confusion, your spiraling thoughts, something deeply sated in your heart was a comfort that you found with very few people in your life whenever in his presence.

The thought of leaving and never looking back somehow doesn’t feel new -- it’s bittersweet, but the air in your lungs feels like it’s surrendered to something, like it was to be expected.

“You can’t just leave without telling me--”

“It was last minute! I had no choice!”

“You could’ve written up a message, anything--”

“Can you imagine the position you’d be in if the message got intercepted? I wouldn’t have been safe, she’d make you come after me--”

“As if you’d be any safer in Inazuma of all places! That’s the one place I can’t easily get to!”

“I can take care of myself, Childe, I don’t need you to protect me.”

“This isn’t about me protecting you, (y/n) and -- stop walking, will you?!”

“Then what is this about?” You spin on your wheel with eyes aflame. “Why are you so angry with me? It’s normal for me to disappear for weeks at a time, why was this any different?”

“Because you could’ve died!” He yells back in despair, chest heaving. Your silence is his cue to continue. “You could’ve died and I wouldn’t have known until much later. You could’ve died and all I’d ever think about were the things I never got to say to you, and how I wish I had treated every day with you like it was our last.”

It isn’t hard to tell that you’re stunned and at a complete loss for words. Childe often hides behind facades of charm and wit, and only when he is truly weak does he choose to be this vulnerable, baring his heart for you to see.

“I only have two nightmares in this world. One, my family being harmed in any way. Two, reading in a report or hearing from an agent that you’ve been captured and killed.”

“I like to think that we will.”

His hand reaches out to lay on top of yours, giving it a quick squeeze. “Well, let’s make the most of it this semester.”

Conversation afterwards is easy, filling each other in on holiday activities. Childe speaks extensively about several family traditions and you listen with rapt attention, basking in how fond he is of all of them. Even as you both bring your dishes to the return belt and leave, he immediately offers to drive you both somewhere to get boba, noticing your reluctance to part ways. But boba shops have to close, and you both have class tomorrow morning, and you’re both finding any excuse to keep talking, even if that means sitting outside your dorm building on a nearby bench.

You eventually bid each other good night’s and see you later’s, him refusing to walk away until the heavy door locks shut behind you after you swipe your student ID, and you looking over your shoulder to watch his figure disappear into the night.

True to his intentions, Childe makes great efforts to meet you at least once a day, and he can’t get enough. Each parting from you tugs and tugs at his heart, as if there’s a high possibility you’ll never want to see him again the next day, and he wouldn’t know what to do with himself. Your twin and Childe get along well for the most part, and he even meets Xiangling on one of her shifts at her regular restaurant, who sends you a salacious wink and an eyebrow wiggle over his shoulder that nearly causes you to burst from embarrassment.

February rolls over without a hitch, even if you’re a little disappointed that Childe didn’t make a move for Valentine’s Day. Granted, you two still spent time with each other and he’s so darn physically affectionate and he bought you a carnation from the event his dorm held, but you wish you had the guts to fess up and just kiss the man.

It’ll happen some day, you tell yourself. You have time before graduation.

Two days before the end of the Friday that would signal the start of Spring Break, you wake up in a cold sweat, mind reeling and head splitting, heart so so heavy, as a connection is made between your present and your dreams. Not long after, there are tears streaming silently down your face and into your open palms placed in your lap, and you sit in shock as everything comes back to you. Memories are such treasured burdens, you realize.

For the most part, you had gotten used to the dreams, choosing to take charge of what you know and feel now with Childe over succumbing to some strange neurological premonitions. Especially in your dreams when many people’s faces were blurred over and hazy, and the only things you could rely on were voices, touch, and other physical features. You thought that maybe your mind was just playing tricks by transposing Childe’s hair onto a body that was also strikingly similar to his, but for the first time last night, you could see each defining feature on his face as clear as day.

The sight of his figure arching gracefully over yours, the water arrows that appeared out of thin air, the back that protected you from some military men, the voice that said, “Hey girlie, hold still.”

And that was when you had snapped awake to your current state.

Past the initial shock and uncontrollable tears, you soon bent over as sobs wracked your chest, overwhelmed by all the emotions and the pain the memories brought you; losing your twin, finding him to only be left with even more questions after roaming for decades and decades, meeting all your loved ones throughout Mondstat and Liyue, fighting yet falling so hard for Childe, feeling the fear when facing his Foul Legacy form, hating him for Osial, loving him, breathing heavily as the tip of your blade was pointed at his neck and his own just centimeters from yours, tendrils of water inching closer and closer--

Everything makes sense now.

When you meet your twin for lunch at the cafeteria, you pay no mind to the fact that you’re in public and hug him harder than you ever have in years. He’s already a little alarmed that your eyes seem swollen and you look like finals came two months early, but when he asks what’s wrong, all he gets is a shake of your head and nothing more than, “Just a bad nightmare. I love you, y’know that?”

“I love you too?”

“Don’t sound so unsure, now let’s go and get in line before they run out of Jueyun Chili Chicken.”

Even when you meet Xiao later in the early evening to talk about your thesis, you find yourself holding back more tears just two minutes in, reminded of his past and his own life, and he’s moderately concerned, hesitantly handing you a tissue from the corner of his desk when a stray tear escapes. “Is everything okay?” He hesitantly asks, really hoping that he didn’t do anything to make you cry.

“No,” you almost wail and sniffle while dabbing at your eyes. “Sorry, it’s just been a really long day.”

Xiao’s inquisitive gaze softens, remembering how hard undergraduate life could be sometimes. Graduate school was a whole other level, but that shouldn’t discount your own personal difficulties. Plus, in all of the year and a half that he’s known you, you’ve never broken down like this before in front of him.

“You work really hard, Xiao,” you continue, and he’s not sure where this is coming from. “You’re always so helpful and willing to work with me and answer my stupid questions and like-- you practice self-care, right?”

Xiao nods as a white lie, but it seems to comfort you. Maybe too much because you pull him in for a quick and unexpected hug, and you both decide to reschedule this meeting for tomorrow.

As per usual, you wait for Childe to join you for dinner since you finished up earlier than expected. It gives you more time to think about everyone from Mondstat -- Kaeya, Diluc, Lisa, Jean, Amber...funny to think that some things never changed as you compared their past version to the ones you know now.

“Mora for your thoughts?”

There’s a peace that warms your heart when you hear Childe’s voice, one that forces you to smile at him as he sits down next to you. “Just thinking about old friends.”

“I have to admit, I’ll be a little jealous if it’s another guy taking up more space than me in that pretty brain of yours.”

What a flirt. This man isn’t good for your heart. “Who said you had any to begin with?”

He dramatically places a hand over his heart. “You wound me, (y/n). How will I ever recover?”

“You’re ridiculous,” you snicker. Childe reaches over to pinch your cheek and you bat at him in protest. Easily, he grabs one of your hands and simply pulls you towards the food lines, knowing that you’ll stop fighting back soon.

Part of it feels strange now to feel and see his hands with no leather gloves on.

“Childe,” you start halfway through your meal, continuing after he hums back in reply. “Do you believe in reincarnation?”

He freezes briefly, but recovers so quickly that if you hadn’t been watching so closely, you wouldn’t have noticed. “I think it’s neat, the idea of having past lives. Why do you ask?”

What he really wants to ask is if you’ve been having those dreams, too; if he’s starring in your nights like you have been in his.

“Just a thought, especially since you’re taking Teyvat Myth now, too.”

“Do you...do you think if there was a past life, that we knew each other?”

There’s something about the look of content on your face before you meet his gaze -- he thinks that you know more than you’re letting on but you’re holding back for some reason. He wants to know what’s going through your brain right now, why the fondness in your eyes sends a jolt through him like he’s been searching for it all his life, if you know anything about this magnetic pull between you two.

“I like to think that we knew each other well.”

Even though the first day of your returned memories was somewhat eventful, you couldn’t help but feel yourself wanting to pull back from Childe -- at least, until you can successfully compartmentalize which emotions belonged to you past self and which ones belonged to your current mindset. You didn’t quite agree with his duties and his affiliation with the Fatui back then, even if he had his reasons that did make sense, to some degree.

The killing, the threatening, so intent on stealing Rex Lapis’s Gnosis in the name of the Tsaritsa, summoning Osial as a mean to an end -- and you definitely can’t forget how stubborn he was in not listening to your protests, so caught up in his brain that you had betrayed him and sent you plummeting to a near-death experience despite his earlier promise of no intention of killing you specifically.

Everything had been toeing a faint, thin line with Childe then. Undeniable chemistry and tension, guarding yourself for yours and Paimon’s safety, slashing at Fatui agents, whispering out pleas and affirmations of “I’m yours” while riding him, sometimes having to sneak out in the mornings…

The only thing you don’t remember is how everything ends -- maybe it’ll come back to you eventually, but for now, you think you’re okay not knowing.

If Childe still doesn’t remember anything from back then, you think it’d be unfair to spend time with him in all your conflicting emotions, even when it’s spring break, where you have so much more hours in the day to be with each other than normal. Fun plans around Liyue had been made, like a two-day one-night trip to Yaoguang Shoal, and you’re this close to cancelling on him.

But he had been looking forward to it so much, even made most of the preparations for it. Who are you to rob that joy from him when it was you who couldn’t figure out your own shit? Are you self-destructing?

Perhaps.

Before you know it, you’re sitting in the passenger seat of his car, staring out the window at the scenery. Somehow, it pleased you to see that the nature of Liyue had been carefully preserved over the many centuries despite its development into the modern age. You get lost in picking apart the differences between then and now that you don’t notice how quiet you’ve fallen and Childe looks over worriedly when you show no reaction to your favorite songs playing on the stereo.

Even when he calls your name once, twice, nothing gives as you clearly have tuned everything out. So he leaves you be until there’s about half an hour left on the drive, unable to hold back and succumbing to reach over for your hand. You startle so strongly that he almost feels bad for having done it unannounced. But what’s even more disturbing is that this isn’t really the first time.

You’ve been talking to him less, often sitting quietly and staring off into another world that he can’t seem to reach. His texts are answered less frequently and with less wit and enthusiasm, so much so that he just appreciates you still show up to see him. Each time he asks if you’re okay, you always affirm that you are. He’s had a hard time believing you, but Childe believes you’ll tell him when you’re ready, surely.

It’s a little ironic yet fateful that Childe planned to bring you here, of all places. In the past, you had spent many days and nights running around in the sand with him, fighting slimes and hilichurls and collecting starconches for him. You remember laying on a large towel next to him as you both looked up into the sky, pointing out stars and constellations while sharing endless kisses away from prying, spying eyes.

“I’m sorry, I must’ve zoned out,” you sincerely apologize.

“It’s okay, I just wanna make sure you relax while we’re here. This is supposed to be a vacation.”

“You’re right,” you agree and squeeze his hand. “Let’s make the most of it before we become adults who are too busy to have fun like this again.”

And you do. Childe rented a small beach cabin (rich boys) closer to one end of the shoreline, just big enough with two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a small kitchen with a dining table. You help him bring in your bags and some groceries bought the night before, setting them down quickly so you can peer out the window again to take in the view. Childe picked a good time, too. Although it’d be a little chilly at night, the day was still warm and mainly overcast with clouds.

“What do you say we change into our swimsuits and head down to the water?”

“Sure.”

Childe hadn’t really been expecting for you to step out in a large, casual tee and gym shorts, one shoulder exposed. He might have been hoping to see a little more skin, but his mother didn’t raise a chauvinistic pervert for a son.

The light in your eyes as you both approach the water is everything he had been missing the last few days, your excitement and joy contagious. As soon as you place everything down on the sand, you kick off your flip flops and leave him behind to step into the water, giggling at feeling the waves crash over your ankles and bring sand between your toes. Childe approaches you from behind and starts smearing sunblock on the back of your neck, to which you just grin beautifully at him in thanks and he has to fight off the desire to kiss you right then and there.

You’re too caught up in embracing the ocean afterwards to feel the shrinking distance between you two, mistaking his warmth for the general spring air. It isn’t until he’s done with your shoulders that he hands you the bottle to leave you to do the rest of your body, and when you turn to thank him, he’s much closer than you remember. His eyes are gentle, holding your gaze and almost daring you to look away first.

But if there’s one thing you can place without a shred of doubt, it is the unmistakable look of love, because you had seen it many, many times before without knowing until later what it meant.

How so incredibly lucky you were to have Childe back in your life now, loving you all the same, and with no life-threatening barriers. Fate or the Archons have given you a second chance, and you’d be damned to take it for granted.

Childe welcomes your lips against his, wasting no time to bring you into his arms so you’re pressed against him as much as possible. He can’t care for the overt public display of affection because this is everything he’s wanted for months now, waiting patiently for you to give him permission to make you his. Your lips are incredibly soft and pliant against his as you first kiss him patiently, then applying more force and desperation to taste more of him. He mirrors you, one hand cradling the back of your head and the other on your neck with a thumb extended to your jawline, teeth moving to nip at your bottom lip. It’s dangerous, the way you smile against his lips, and when he sinks his teeth in deeper before pulling back, your quiet mewl nearly drives him over the edge.

But you’re in public, and this was an amazing first kiss. You two have a beach to enjoy and a fun night planned, and now that he doesn’t have to hold back on his affections, it’ll be even better.

His lips part from yours regretfully, his eyes languidly opening to meet yours. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots a blue starconch in the sand and freezes.

It’s not that he’s never seen one before, but something clicks. You. The shore. Starconches. Starry nights. His dreams. Monsters. Gods. Fighting. So much fighting. Training. His family. Dragons. You. Falling. You falling. You fighting him. Yelling. Kissing. Loving. Chasing. Him chasing you before you disappear at a teleport waypoint that somehow you only can operate. The abyss. Your twin.

Oh, Archons.

“ -ou okay, Ajax? Ajax?”

He snaps to look at you again. How does he go about this? How does he ask?

“(Y/n)...have you ever heard of the Fatui Harbingers?”

He has to admit that it’s a bit amazing to be able to identify all the emotions that cross your complexion, from curiosity to realization to conflicted. You’re actively trying to piece everything together without revealing too much on the off-chance that you’re wrong, that Childe hasn’t regained his memories and is just asking about something from class randomly and completely out of the blue.

Wait.

“You haven’t reached that material yet in class,” you whisper, heart in your throat at the realization. Could it really be…

“I was once Tartaglia, eleventh Harbinger of the Fatui, who possessed a Delusion and used my Foul Legacy Transformation with you several times,” he murmurs back, tucking a stray tendril behind your ear. “Is it too late to apologize again for summoning an ancient god and letting you fall about five floors with no warning?”

He should’ve been prepared for you wrapping your arms around his neck, pulling him in for a tight embrace. “No, never, but I spent weeks after kicking your ass so you’ve been long forgiven.”

Childe burrows his face into your neck, breathing in your scent and basking in this moment. There was so much to talk about, but you two arguably had more time in the world than ever with nothing holding you back. There was no impending war looming over, no one on the run, no opposing forces. His silent wish for a different life with you seems to have been answered finally. If running into you had been the event to set everything in motion, he only wishes he’d done so earlier.

All that matters now is you’re here together in this plane of existence, given a chance to love again, and experience everything you couldn't before.

As written in the stars, take my soul for it is forever yours.

fin

#childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin scenarios #genshin impact scenarios #genshin imagines #childe #tartaglia #childe angst #genshin impact #genshin angst #genshin impact angst #this fic maybe took two years off my life

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