#I dont even know what genre i like

[m1d-45]

bloodletting

summary: a budding god needs a place to test their new powers, and childe was always a little too eager to lose a fight... a match made in heaven!

word count: 1.7k

-> warnings : minor AQ spoilers ? just like, general gi plot.. fairly graphic depiction of blood + other injuries (might be classed as body horror???). generally obsessive tendencies (childe <--> you). i cannot stress this enough, reader is 110% a sadist.

-> gn reader (you/yours)

taglist: @samarill || @thenyxsky || @valeriele3 || @shizunxie || @boba-is-a-soup || @yuus3n || @esthelily || @turningfrogsgay || @cupandtea24 || @genshin-impacts-me || @chaoticfivesworld || @raaawwwr || @ryuryuryuyurboat || @undrxtxd || @rainswept || @wanderersqt || @rozz-eokkk

< masterlist >

power was not something that came easy. it was fought over, stolen, defended with teeth and claw, tides of blood shed just so one could have power over another. social, physical, financial; no matter the leverage it provided, power was hard won. to give someone power was to admit defeat, a certain death that tartaglia had learned and taught more than his fair share of times. nobody undeserving of power ever held onto it for long; it was an acknowledgement that you were better, that you deserved it, that you’d won. power was a fickle resource that childe would kill to keep, only ever laying down his blade for a precious few.

the tsaritsa, of course. his fellow harbingers, skilled both on and off-field, who themselves could rival the archons. his family, for whom he’d happily give the world.

and naturally, who would be more worthy to hold power than you?

you, not just a god but the, the highest authority across all of teyvat. you bore a hundred names and a thousand monikers, your worship the one thing the world could agree on. granted, nobody could quite agree on how, but that was fine. childe did not need external powers to tell him what to do. he knew, in his deepest heart, that he had gotten it right.

he knew—and, on occasion, flaunted—that he was your favorite. of all the vessels you had chosen, you returned to him time and time again, wishing on his stars until his vision gleamed. his bow shone with power, even his weakest weapon more than enough to push his strength to new heights. part of him wondered what he could do if you’d granted him swords, or a claymore… but that was speculation for another time. didn’t it say something that you had still chosen him at his weakest?

the thought always made him smile. thick in the heat of puppeteered battle, before the sun to after dark, your presence was a constant in his life. at every altar, with every offering, when his hands stung from the rash of leather and his blade was covered in rust, your name a prayer behind blood-soaked teeth. he could not remember a time when his pocket was not weighted with a charm.

his devotion was no secret. he wore your bow with pride, entirely phasing out his other weapons. it didn’t matter that he was technically more controlled with them, for you had chosen this path for him. your word was his guide, a polar star through bitter nights.

he did not doubt when your presence ebbed or flowed. who was he to dictate when or where you spent your attention? no, his faith did not waver. it had no reason to. he waited patiently, going about his regular duties, lingering in snezhnaya for no other reason that he just felt like he had to.

who was he to question to buzzing in the back of his head? who was he to decline when he felt an instinct to leave, to go for a trip far past the city gates? who was he to think himself better than the guiding light that had never led him astray?

for you, he was whatever you needed. and so he went, armed with a thick coat and snowboots, hands shoved deep in the pockets to hide the slight shake. down the main road, an arbitrary turn into an alley and down an abandoned path, into a part of the city he’d never traveled. but a golden thread had tied itself around his heart, pulling without hesitation. he easily hopped over the fence gate, not bothering with hauling it open through the snow. the path beyond was covered in a thick layer of powder, his foot crunching through a foot of it before hitting solid ground. still, he continued.

snezhnayan winters were not warm. they bit and dug into every gap in your clothes, stealing away the precious warmth within. and yet, with his half-done coat and incomplete guard, he was not cold. or, rather, he couldn’t feel it. his hands were pink with frost, stiff at the knuckles, but he couldn’t feel the resistance. his body was not important, not now.

the snow began to thin. it fell from his knees to his shins to his ankles to his toes, until he was face to face with a thick wall of bramble, impossibly overgrown. he was beginning to overheat in his jacket. twin blades made quick work of the wall, and the sight behind it easily dispelled any breath left in his lungs.

the air that washed out of the bubble was thick and heavy, like a humid spring instead of snezhnayan woods. his breath came in short gasps, a shameful wheeze that he hoped was missed beneath the howling snow. he didn’t want you to see him as weak, as someone so easily tired by a short trip to a falling star; he didn’t want you to think of him as anything other than his best.

but you didn’t push him away. you helped him up—his head was buzzing with delusion, he could hardly see, when had he fallen to his knees?—and brushed the snow off his hair, not pushing him away when he leaned into your touch. he couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, could barely collect himself enough to recognize that he needed to get you inside, away from the wilds.

that was power. to so effortlessly take over every thought in his head, to hold his mind in your hands and pull it into your liking, that was the power he adored you for. gods were figureheads of power, a physical incarnation of their dominion. a god of the entire world would only naturally have power to manipulate that world to their liking. how blessed was he, that he could be the first you made yours.

he was with you when you first stepped into zapolyarny palace, looking around at the chandeliers and fine tile. he opened the door for you to her majesty’s throne room, sucking in a sharp breath as you brushed by. he was by your side when the tsaritsa swore you her fealty, delicately placing the gnoses in your hands.

and oh, how he’d fallen to the floor right then and there, dizzy from the wash of power that rolled off you in waves, an ocean that he willingly dove into. the floor was cool beneath his forehead, his hair sticking to his skin as sweat quickly began to bead. he didn’t bother pushing himself up on his hands, teeth sinking deep into his lip again to control his panting breath. copper bloomed over his tongue, filling his mouth and clogging what remained of his senses.

dimly, he was aware that he was being pathetic, that this would surely change your mind about him. he heard your voice, faint through the fog of his mind, your wisdom lost to his own inadequacy. and yet, despite his weakness, every part of him was tuned into you. he knew it was your hand whispering across his shoulders, he knew it was your influence that stole the breath from his lungs. he knew it was you, because it was always you. you were all he could think of, and now you were finally able to leverage your full power over his self.

he’d woken up in a hospital bed. saline dripped into his arm and the lights pierced his eyes, his head full of snow and iced over. and yet, the moment he was cleared for release, he found himself desperate to be back to your side, racing through the tiled halls of the palace and following the urgent burn in his chest. you would have been right to turn him away, to deem him too weak to stay by your side, but you didn’t. you smiled when he lost his breath and laughed when he wavered, brushing off his concern. you invited him with you—his lungs burned with the need for oxygen—as you twirled the gnoses between your fingers, as if they were toys or paperweights rather than objects of divine power.

divine to him. child’s play to you. a courtyard of snow was cleared in an instant, ripples of pyro melting permafrost while keeping the flora beneath intact, a lazy show of power that pulled little more than a slight hum from you in response.

he wasn’t so much a fool as to think he could teach you everything, or even something, about being divine. and yet he clung to your side like a sailor in a storm, watching as you grew familiar with the elements. he watched, stubborn and weak, as you stopped hesitating.

flowers bloomed as you walked by, crumbling to ash with the slightest look. electro jumped from your skin to his, a painful spark that drew his mind from his head, finally seeing your amused eyes instead of just mindlessly staring. you could—should—have just left him behind, but you didn’t. you instead asked for his help, taking his hand in yours and leading him to a quieter hallway of the palace. you didn’t comment on his thundering pulse despite the fact that you could certainly feel it, tracing a finger along the crease of his palm.

“i wonder…”

a claw of geo cut across his skin, a sharp sting that quickly welled with blood. he barely felt it, watching with detached awe as it filled up his hand, sliding over the edge and dripping to the floor. you didn’t show any emotion, just… watching. his heart beat in his hands, a pool collecting on the floor, and still, you just watched. your other hand moved over the surface, barely an inch away, the blood collecting in a bubble beneath it. with a hum, your fist tightened, pain lighting up his arm. a strained grunt slipped between his teeth, hand flinching closed, brushing against the ball of his blood you had pulled from his veins. his hand was stained red, shaking in your grasp, minutes stretched into hours.

all at once, it dropped, forced back into his body as forcefully as it was removed. with a snap, the skin stitched itself shut, and you were again dragging him along like a child did their favorite toy.

you did that a lot. pull him aside and experiment with whatever new reaction you had discovered that month, week, day, hour, watching his reactions with unabashed delight. and he let you. every time, without fail, he eagerly followed, knowing full well he’d end up rigid with lightning or with ice crystals studding his throat. it was worth it, though. you always fixed him up, squeezing his hand with a whispered ‘good job’ that never failed to make him dizzy.

it didn’t matter what you did to him. it never did. even when his mind was hazy with pain and he couldn’t quite stand on his own, he never regretted it. unconsciousness licked at the edges of his vision, burning black stains that lingered even after you stopped, but he never once hesitated.

if you asked him to jump, he’d ask how high. if you felt like holding him underwater, he’d cherish every bruise. to be kept as a toy was still to be kept.

[nachfo]

Heya! Thanks for tagging me!

N - Nightmares Never End by JT Music

A - anarchy!!! by STOMACH BOOK

C - Crackershock by Qbomb

H - Haunt, The Cartoon Heart by Bear Ghost

F - Fahrradsattel by Pisse

O - Oh Klahoma by Jack Stauber

@draagu @shakuthesharkcat @scrufflesksunnide @kolawy @pookapufferfish @mintscampi

Tag game by @genxrocker! Pick a song for each letter of your URL, and then tag that many people!

tag game! hell yeah! Thanks @schlauhonk

A- A pizza the action by The Stupendium

X- Exorcism by Creep-P

S- Shocking Plot Twist by Bug Hunter

O- Once and for All from Newsies

L- Lady Like by KIRA

O- One Step Ahead from Spies are Forever

T- The Faulty Feline Philosophy by Ferry

L- Like the Zombies do from Z-O-M-B-I-E-S 2

E- Everybody Loves Me by OneRepublic

@lamarckianenterprises @ghost-takes-the-scene  @nervousflowerwombat @gigigiaru uhhhhhh idk

[charlott2n]

finished my first tom clancy book today patriot games and i just wanted to say its amazing how well this man keeps my attention. i could read no other 800 page book in a week the way i did with this. highly rec if you can get over his politics lol

[bacchuschucklefuck]

you get riz gukgak so well 👍👍

thank u!! he really kinda is all of my favourite character things rolled into one package (negotiation of principles/investigator-truth seeker-negotiator with reality and the narrative/obnoxious character whose narrative reward for participating in the story is getting to be even more authentically obnoxious/deeply and hauntingly aroace

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Do you listen to music? And if you do what artists/genres/songs do you like? ^w^

music! yeah! that sure is a thing i listen to! um. i like a lot of it <3

[bedforddanes75]

if i see one more person say shit like "i cant believe people listen to rap when this exists" then play the cranberries i am genuinely going to Die

[saturfied]

kudos to all kimchay writers!!! y'all are doing a great job🫡👏❤️

[yellowocaballero]

i simply must ask- what makes an OP character (protag or otherwise) *work* for you, vs what doesnt?

Hi! This is a very astute and good question.

It's tension.

When a character is in a fight scene, the basic question and source of the tension is "Will they win?". Logically, they're probably going to win, they're the hero - but there should be a push and pull within the fight, where the audience pinballs between "he's going to win!/oh no, he might lose!".

You can't do that with an OP character. There's never any question. He's going to win. So the tension has to come from someplace else. You have to ask a different question.

The question can vary. "Will he win under his self-imposed constraints?" (e.g., your OP character is a pacifist and wants to win without shooting his gun). "Will he win without going Sicko Mode, which is bad and distresses all of us?" (e.g., your OP character is only OP when he unleashes the Demon Self, which is bad for him). "Will he win without revealing his identity or secret? (e.g., your OP character has to win a fight without using his OP powers, because otherwise he'll face social repercussions).

Alternatively/in addition, you change the type of conflict. If your character is guaranteed to succeed at every physical fight, then the primary/'real' conflict should be on an emotional, intellectual, or psychological level. The story can no longer be about the physical fights. They have to be won through intellect or cleverness. The path towards victory has to be through intelligence, kindness, self-actualization, etc.

But absolutely most importantly: watching the OP character be OP should be fun. It should make us pump our fists in the air and go 'fuck yeah!'. It should be thrilling, exciting, and a spectacle. We know the detective is going to catch the bad guy - we're watching for the how. We know the clever protag is going to pull one over on the bad guy through sleight of hand and trickery, we're watching for the reveal of what exactly they did. Don't neglect the joys of watching Mr. OP be delightfully OP. But that is the payoff, and we need sufficient buildup to get there. Watching Mr. OP go sicko mode is the joy, but it's not the path. It's no longer about the if they're going to win, it's about the how. And that should be fun to watch.

My friend @lazuliquetzal has good commentary on this, as usual: that when we say "a character needs to have flaws to be interesting", what we really mean is "a story should not bend itself to accommodate a character". A character without flaws is fine, actually. But the story shouldn't backflip to give them everything they want. This is all really simple. For some reason people act as if this is extremely hard.

TL;DR: Watch Mob Psycho 100 and then sit and figure out why Mob Psycho 100 is one of the best anime of all time. Between One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100, ONE understands how to do this.

[sonicunleash]

society if the dungeon meshi anime actually had texture and kept ryoko kui's personality in the artstyle instead of doing generic thin-lined flat colors flat shading streamlined anime face style. i know ppl have mixed opinions on some of these examples but i reallyyyy wished they went stronger on the mangas artstyle like say haikyuu season 4 and demonslayer did.

like i think heavier shading and use of lineweight and black shading would already do a lot for the texture... more frequent use of that nose shading ryuko kui uses a lot, like here? ALSO BRO THEY GOT RID OF LAIOS' UNDERCUT like okay tbf in some of the colored manga references he doesnt have that but also how else do you interpret his hair in this panel

anyways in general just throwing in some more hatching like using it more common as an art style for texture instead of just roughed up clothes/appearance would do some wonders. also softening the palettes i feel like theyve made things too dark and idk how to explain it its like they filmed the manga through a samsung camera

disclaimer i know most of these changes would cost more money and time and effort to do. the solution to most of this would probably just be to give them a bigger budget

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

genuine question but is there any fandom where a character is well written by the majority. im thinking about fandom culture and the spread of frustration when people dont write characters well but. honestly in all the fandoms ive been in there's only like, a Select number of authors who i trust to write Well, let alone write Well AND In Character. character analysis and writing and getting inside characters' heads are all separate skills (all of which are trained by roleplaying fyi can CONFIRM playing pretend with your friends is good for you). there's been more than once where I've disagreed with an interpretation that others agreed with, and then I turned out wrong. or i turned out right. like it doesnt matter WHO is right it just matters that differences in character analysis exist, so even if you DO write well AND write in character, your in character is still going to be someone else's out of character

there's this sort of. vibe. that to play in the sandbox you Need to be able to make a castle, and if you can't make a castle then you shouldn't bother, and it completely dismisses the idea that youre in that sandbox to PLAY in the first place. there's this Weight of disappointing someone if you can't build something that they like, but that forgets that you aren't there to build them a castle. like, be KIND. if you disagree with someone then please make an effort to do so kindly. i dont give a shit about fandom discourse but there is a reason kids get removed from sandboxes if they keep throwing sand in people's eyes. but if they don't like your misshapen sand pile, then youre not obligated to change it. even if you yourself end up hating that same sand pile later- youre not building a legacy. youre playing. and sometimes the result of that play is out of character drivel. theres a reason there are so many authors and so few who i like to consistently read and thats because everyone is Fucking Around in their hobby space. hash tag brag or whatever but i can build castles. ive built several that im v proud of. ive also dug holes in the sand for fun and then tripped on them when trying to get up. I often dug a hole and then got up and fucking- whoops, its a castle now, and i didn't realize i'd made something to be proud of until after the fact. the whole time while creating shit i was Convinced it was bullshit that didn't make sense. and then other times i was Convinced it was bullshit and then i was Right and i can look back and go. huh. ew. but it doesn't matter what the end result was, because i had fun playing in the sandbox

this wasn't meant to turn into a ramble but i have Feelings about bad art and art that's badly perceived and how public perception can screw with your head and how making art youre proud of is fucking. it's so difficult!!! it's hard!! it's really fun, which is why i try to make it, but i promise you it is Okay to not tryhard creativity. even if you CAN, it's okay not to do it all the time. or ever, even. fuck around find out have fun etc

[cacaitos]

very stressing that if i were to ask for manga similar to Ichi people would think i mean i want gore and not the admittedly specific vibe of masculinity parody & seinen meta it had going for

[kennys-parka-jacket]

i'll never forgive proship vs anti discourse for distorting the phrase "this thing in fandom makes me uncomfortable".

[redysetdare]

Hey you! yeah you stop! don't type another word! listen - listen I know what you're trying to do. you think you're being helpful by going on someones post and telling them to look at a specific media that has the basic similarity to what their post is asking for. But I'm going to tell you a secret, okay? They probably already know it. People have probably already told them about it. they probably have checked it out. because when you have such limited options it's kind of impossible not to hear about these things...and guess what...guess what - they might not of even liked it. Because if someone is asking for representation they likely want it in a story that they'll enjoy. yeah, not everyone wants to read YA drama/romance books just for the representation, crazy i know. Yeah some of us actually want well written stories about things we actually care about. some of us want characters to be like us while they fight dragons or something.

so stop typing that message about how OP should totally check out X media. maybe, if you really wanna recommend something, maybe just ASK OP is they are looking for suggestions and what kind of stories they like so you know if that's even what they're looking for. trust me, they'll appreciate your input a lot more if you just ask.

[ofcowardiceandkings]

when your clickbait title is something as boring basic as "cosy games suck" im not even gonna acknowledge with a rage-watch, youre just being embarrassing

[the-fae-tricked-me]

WWE is like reality TV, but for men

[bedforddanes75]

this is by no means an original thought but Omg the way u fucking "lyric obsessed~~ thought daughter~~ taylor swift~~ lana del rey~~" people act like rap is the WORST genre ever and deserves to die is soo weird because like. "they only talk about how tough they are and how they wanna kill people" first of all ur wrong second of all who was it who said "ur wife waters flowers i wanna kill her" 🤨 who was that 🤨🤨 u are simply Racist or at the very least NOT open to new ideas and genres (which is fine on its own (the second point .) but if u start shitting on it and calling it terrible just because u dont like it then u are DUMB) omg. "i listen for lyrics not sound" that is literally the number one reason u should listen to rap Hello even cupcakke has like Good lyrics please omg "i dont like how it sounds" that is a Better reason but they act like its one single genre and doesnt have nine thousand subgenres that sound Different. what