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beebotea · 10 months

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hey, are you listening? — part 03

pairing : college au!xiao x f!reader . summary : in which uni students decipher vague tweets and emotions... + ie: second-year students y/n and xiao are forced to work through their term project (and feelings) as their friends attempt to meddle with their love lives ‘for the greater good’ . cw : swearing, slut-shaming, suggestive, reader she/her pronouns, alcohol, mentions of substance use .

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03. into the night

act 1, scene 1

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act 1, scene 2

Y/N watched as Xiao stood up from the table and excused himself from the conversation. It wasn’t long until Hu Tao & Venti and Yanfei & Heizou began their own respective conversations, leaving Y/N and Scaramouche to sit there in silence.

“Oh, um… is he alright?” Y/N said, as she watched Scaramouche finish sending a text from his phone.

The Inazuman ruffled his hair in slight frustration before setting his phone down. “Oh, Xiao? He said he was going to the washroom. I’m sure it’s nothing. He’s not great with big crowds unless he’s on stage with his bass.”

“I see… I thought he didn’t really like me or something…”

“Yeah, ‘or something.’”

“What?”

Y/N took a second to take in his appearance. Delicate and soft features carefully defined and enhance by his red eyeliner and the way his fringe framed his face. He was a very pretty young man… it seemed to run in the family considering Xiao was quite easy on the eyes as well, although quite intimidating.

“So are you done admiring me yet, or…” He seemed to catch on to her spacing out, smirking at her as he spoke up.

“Oh… sorry I didn’t mean to stare.” She looked away, feeling her cheeks heat up from being caught red handed.

“It’s fine. You wanna grab a drink with me at the bar over there?”

“Oh, sure alright.” Y/N accepted his extended hand. Scaramouche helped her out of her chair, before promptly letting go when she got to her feet.

“So, how come I’ve never seen you around campus until now? It seems we have a lot of friends in common.”

“Oh, I mean I guess I only really know Aether, Childe, Cyno and maybe Heizou from your side… it’s more like we have friends of friends in common. I’m not in too many extra-curriculars either.”

“Yeah I suppose that’s true. You’re in marketing right? How’s that going for you.”

“It’s fine, I suppose it’d be a lot simpler than Mechatronics Engineering…”

“Eh, maybe. But they’re totally different so I wouldn’t try to make a comparison.” He smiled at her.

“I’m not going to lie… you’re a lot nicer than I expected.”

“Really? What makes you say that? You thought I’d be more like Xiao or something?” He raised his eyebrow curiously at her.

“No, well yes but not entirely. My friend Mona didn’t seem to excited when she saw you and Childe show up so I just got the impression you wouldn’t be so fun to talk to.”

“Is that so? Did she tell you why?”

Y/N shook her head in response and tilting her head to urge him to continue.

“Hah, we’ll do I have a story to tell you.”

“Please, do tell.”

Before Scaramouche could continue, he received slew of notifications. “Oh, sorry one second,” he pulled out his phone to respond to whoever was bombarding him with messages. Shortly after, he slipped his phone back into his pocked and looked back at her to continue where he left off.

“Sorry about that, where was I… oh right. I went to a Snezhnayan private high school for the first three years. So in my third year, Childe and I were on the soccer team and we were playing against Monstadt City Academy. She was on the cheer squad for their school or whatever and there was like a small problem with their formation or something. Anyways, long story short, she fell off their pyramid right as a break was called and Childe and I almost pissed ourselves laughing at her.”

“No way!”

“Yep, it happened. You can even ask her, although I probably wouldn’t want to be there to see you get scolded… she’s quite the prideful one.”

“Yeah… I think I’ll just take your word on it then.” The two laughed together about the memory of the great Mona Megistus falling on her ass. “You must be really good at soccer then. Are you on our Uni’s team?”

“Oh yeah, all of our band members play together often after practices. We’re all on the team. The season is over now but you should definitely come watch our games next year. Who knows maybe Xiao will finally talk to you then.” He smirked at her and nudged her with his elbow.

He was met with widened eyes and incomprehensible stammering. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you trying to talk to him~ Too bad… I was hoping I’d be the one to catch your eye. Oh look, speak of the devil himself.”

Y/N looked into the direction he nodded at and saw Aether, Kazuha and Xiao approaching.

“Hey, Y/N! Having fun? This is Kazuha, our band mate and you already know Xiao.” The male twin waved at her as the three joined their group of two.

“It’s nice to meet you, Y/N,” Kazuha smiled as he extended and arm to shake her hand. “So what are we talking about?”

“Oh, you know, we were talking about how Y/N—ow.” Y/N elbowed Scaramouche in the side to stop his teasing before it got out of hand.

“Soccer! Scaramouche was telling me about how you guys are on the soccer team!”

“Yeah, we are!” Aether explained how Scara and Heizou played forward, Xiao and Kazuha often took up the midfield, while he and Venti usually played as part of their defense or goalie. “Some of other guys in our friend group, like Cyno and Childe, are on the team too,” Aether continued.

“Well recently Xiao has been playing forward, right?” Kazuha spoke up, patting the black and teal haired man on the shoulder to encourage him.

“Yeah, strikers are usually the fastest on the team. It’s just that I’m bad at aiming it into the net…” Xiao shyly chuckled at himself. It was a first for Y/N to see him smile, or to see any expression on him at all (other than a scowl).

“I’m no expert at soccer but I’m sure you’ll be the a pro w practice right?”

Xiao granted her another smile accompanied by a nod.

Since then, the atmosphere in the group began to change. They continued to exchange opinions and ideas during their conversations while also asking each other about their experiences with common friends and acquaintances.

Xiao had even seemed to loosen up a bit after a drink given to him by Kazuha and adding his own short quips.

Eventually, Scaramouche was called back to his table by Venti. Not long after, Aether and Kazuha also returned to their table after witnessing Xiao ask a whole conversation-starting question on his own, leaving Y/N alone with him for the first time that night. Luckily, the alcohol in their blood made it significantly easier for the two to speak to each other and loosen up even when they were left alone.

“Sorry for being a bit… uptight earlier this evening. I was kind of nervous coming to this party.”

“No worries, I get like that too sometimes. Meeting new people can be overwhelming, right?”

“Yeah… especially when they look like you.”

“What?”

“Oh I… I didn’t mean to say that our loud—like I meant—”

“I think you look great too, Xiao.”

Before Xiao could respond, Y/N got a call from Hu Tao, who was outside with Yanfei, preparing to leave.

“Sorry, I have to go now… I’ll see you in class on Tuesday! It was really nice finally being able to get to know you. Bye!”

“Yeah, no worries. You too… bye.”

He watched as she ran to their table to grab her things before hurriedly waving to everyone and made her way to the door. He was starting to wish the night was longer… or that he drank the alcohol earlier that evening.

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act 2, scene 1

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a/n: lots of words mb… hope you enjoyed!

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taglist —

@ashhh-14 @sanghyuksgasolinestationscream

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#[smau — hey are you listening?]#genshin impact x reader #genshin smau #genshin college au #xiao x reader #genshin xiao #xiao smau

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genshin-djinn · 3 years

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Genshin Impact Chapter 1 Act 3: A Reaction.

Chapter 1 Act 3 is what took my experience with this game from “good game” to “masterpiece”.

THIS POST CONTAINS MANY, MANY SPOILERS FOR GENSHIN IMPACT CHAPTER 1: ACT 3

Genshin Impact has some problems— actually, it has a shit ton of problems. But during the fight against hordes of Fatui, with the Adepti channeling their abilities through my gang, flying through them as Oz, decimating them with Diluc— I just thought, this is the best time I’ve had in a mobile game in my life.

This game might not be perfect now— it’s only a quarter of the way done if we’re counting Karenri’ah. But it will be a fucking masterpiece once it’s all out. If this is the level of quality we’re getting for our archon quests, this game is going to be an amazing time on story alone.

KEQING

I love Keqing with all my heart. If she were alive today she would be a socialist here to topple the ruling 1%. When ningguang asked Aether who they trusted more, her or Keqing, I hit the Keqing button as fast as possible.

I think one of my favorite things about Keqing is that she’s so completely honest, which is unusual for a Liyue politician. If she doesn’t like something, she’ll speak out against it. If she thinks something else should be happening, she’ll make it happen. She can probably be deceitful at times, but in general she’s straightforwards in that she wants a government for the people and by the people.

I can’t wait for her story quest!

NINGGUANG

pretty.... voice pretty....

Ningguang is cool. Her JP voice is very pretty, like she could do ASMR videos online or smth. One thing I decidedly did not like about Ningguang is how her personality just ???? flips? In the middle of the quest, for no reason other than “because plot”.

It’s established that Ningguang cares about two things more than anything— the Jade palace and Mora. Why, then, would she destroy the Jade palace for the sake of Liyue? I get that she’s a good person at heart at all, but I want to see more of her indecision, her brain saying “mora” and her heart saying “Liyue”. The way she just flips on a dime isn’t really strange but it does contradict with her preexisting characterization.

Childe’s Boss Fight!

The section of this quest from Childe’s fight to the Adepti + Qixing battle is just nonstop adrenaline.

Childe is IMO a lot more fun than Dvalin (sorry Dvalin). I’m at WL5 and have a tendency to play fast and loose with important mechanics like.... dodging, for example.... and Childe’s Mask Electro form ended up destroying my team. I killed him with Guoba because everyone else besides Xiangling was dead. I

Another thing I really enjoy about Childe’s boss fight is that in the irrationalities of Childe as a character, it actually makes sense. Genshin is decent at making weekly bosses logical excursions— Andrius wants you to get stronger, Dvalin’s weekly fight is ~~all a dream~~; but tbh sometimes the weekly bosses don’t make sense. Andrius wants to train us, not murder us! How does dvalin, a dream slash memory that doesn’t exist, manage to knock someone out?

Childe as a weekly boss actually makes perfect sense. He’s an adrenaline junkie addicted to the thrill of fighting people— to put this in modern AU terms, he’s the guy who’s first in line to ride the rollercoaster that failed all of its health and safety checks. Childe wants to befriend the Traveler entirely because they’re stronger than him, so that he can fight them over and over again until he’s the strongest. Of course, this will never happen, because the Traveler is the MC and therefore is stronger than all others. However, in this way Childe being a repeatable boss makes 100% perfect sense— he actually wants to fight the Traveler again and again and again.

The one question I have about Childe is how in the living feck are the Fatui letting him join the Traveler and fight for them *against the Fatui*??? I think this might be touched on in Childe’s Story quest, which I’ll do in a bit, but like????? They let him keep his delusion and just walk over to Aether like “aight fam I’m on your team now”? How?

Jade Chamber/ Guizhong Ballista vs Sea Monster Fight!!

Basically, all my charged adrenaline from nearly dying to Childe just came to a head in this one huge fantastic fight.

And Xiao :)

I absolutely loved seeing the Adepti and the Qixing work together. This fight was probably my favorite fight in the whole game— the music was amazing (soundtrack where), the graphics were so nice, the adepti were so feckin cool, using everyone’s abilities was n I ce. My adrenaline was reaching its highest point at this fight and it was just perfect. It was just so fecking fun after days of WL5 pain, having to pop like five ultimates to kill one hillichurl, to be able to just demolish swathes of enemies with Fischl and Diluc, run around like a madman thanks to Xiao, have infinite health idr who did that for me but bless them, just absolutely destroy.

Ever since I hit WL5 I haven’t been able to really just go insane during a fight and stop caring about HP/ when to use skills/ dodging and this have me that opportunity.

Zhongli’s Deal

*punches Zhongli across the room with the power of being the player character* I love this man so much.

Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli. I AM VERY ANGRY AT HOW THE PLOT RESOLVED HIS STORYLINE. But it also makes a lot of sense. And I think, for once, Zhongli should be allowed to be selfish.

Because choosing to leave Liyue was a bit selfish. He’s leaving the country that adores him, loves him, gives him shit for free; to its own devices and then to a completely unknown fate once the new Geo Archon becomes god and takes over. But he made a frankly fantastic plan and can now leave the country, for now, in peace.

I was absolutely delighted to see Zhongli in Morax form. Making deals with La Signora, being a complete and utter puppet master who set this entire situation up and played Childe like a kazoo; but just like his dear friend Venti, I think Zhongli is happier when he’s just Zhongli, the eccentric mortal. He seems so much happier and so much more relaxed when he’s forgetting about mora and eating dinner with Aether and Paimon. Rex Lapis might have just put Liyue through the wringer, but he can now put down his 3000- year long reign and just be the happy, eccentric Zhongli.

Zhongli’s little bit of insecurity over being a “bourgeois parasite” makes perfect sense now— he doesn’t want to be seen as Morax, a superfluous god who’s using his name to get whatever he wants from the humans he watches over.

But also the part of my brain that feeds off lore nEEDS to KNOW what Zhongli got from Tsaritsa. What could be worth a gnosis? His own happiness isn’t enough— Tsaritsa is likely going to use his gnosis to try and destroy Liyue. What could be worth that?

My main thought would be either “someone’s protection” or “another gnosis”, but I don’t think the latter is possible. The former could be possible but doesn’t really make sense either— a) whose protection is worth putting an entire country, much less the world, in danger and b) the Fatui are out to kill everyone who isn’t Fatui, so they won’t agree to spare a major player in the war to come like that. Brain go brrr.

I’m very hyped for Zhongli’s story quest, which I think is coming with his banner on Dec 1, when Childe’s banner ends. I really hope that Zhongli visits Mondstadt and chills with Venti for a while, but anything with this guy would be fine lol.

LORE

We got a lot of lore this update and I am delighted by it.

Firstly, we get a tiny hint of how Visions are bestowed— “if a person shows true strength of will at a desperate and fateful moment in their life, the gods will look upon them with favor.” Vague but more than we had before.

Next we got some neat lore about Inazuma— firstly, that it’s led by a god named Baal and secondly that it steals everyone’s visions. I’m very hyped to visit because guess what fam aether doesn’t have a vision.

Final Thoughts

In case you can’t tell from my insane ramblings, I loved Chapter 1 Act 3 and I absolutely cannot wait to play through Childe’s story quest and Chapter 2 and beyond.

The Prologue in Mondstadt set the stage for Genshin. We started out in a fantasy environment with a fantasy tale of an immortal bard and a dragon. Mondstadt was an excellent introduction to the world of Genshin.

And now? We’re starting to build on that. Chapter 1 brings us another story of another god and their relationship with the country they watch over. Liyue is much less of a traditional fantasy setting and takes the darkness we saw in Mondstadt— a friendship ruined by manipulation and suffering— and build on it. Now we don’t just see the Fatui more often but we also see more of the Treasure Hoarders and the way both groups kidnap and experiment on humans.

Mond started to introduce us to the Fatui, but Liyue is where they really start bringing continuous plot relevance. Inversely, we saw much more of the Abyss Order in Mondstadt than we did in Liyue. I’m extremely disappointed we didn’t see any more of the Princess this chapter, but it makes sense given that Chapter 1 was really more about the Fatui than the Abyss Order.

All I’m trying to say is the Liyue arc was an excellent continuation to the stage Mondstadt’s arc set. Now, we’re on to the world of the Eternal Shogun, Baal! I’m really excited to meet new characters and experience new stories of Inazuma, but I hope we’ll continue to see Mondstadt and Liyue in the future. Mondstadt is likely going to be the most “boring” of the countries we experience, cuz it’s just so classically fantasy- themed, but it will always be the first country we explored in this world.

After Inazuma (if I had to take a shot in the dark, inazuma’s arc will take from December 23 to maybe March or April) we’ll go to Sumeru, which I am really extremely hyped for because it sounds extremely different from Mond and Liyue and we’ll meet Cyno and possibly even Collei! (just me extrapolating lol). I can’t wait to see where Genshin Impact goes story- wise, because its first major update has brought so much to the table.

#genshin impact #genshin spoilers #gi spoilers

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