#Something something self perception

[inumbrapugnabimus-maybe]

But not green.

You know the song Mr. Jones? Yeah.

[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.

[starmocha]

You know, it's funny how Sylus is very casual and nonchalant about people robbing him, but he gets highly offended if you think he's poor (spend only $1 million).

[hylianane]

And when OPLA calls back to Zeff telling the crew to read stories to Zoro so he can hear their voices and recover faster, by having Sanji sit by his bedside on Thriller Bark and read him a book about the All Blue. What will you do then?

[anotherartblock]

DIRK: Oh, y-

DIRK: Yeah.

DIRK: Man.

DIRK: This is some fucked up shit alright.

DAVE: i know

[qoldenskies]

cc!leo and the way love and distrust go hand in hand for him. how he guards his own heart in an attempt to protect the person he cares about the most and that's his own undoing-- how that's both of their undoing. how he sees trust on donnie's end as too much, something he doesn't deserve and something he took for granted. how out of everything that's the one thing he will never ask for, and he's so quick to withhold information to protect donnie's heart in turn (hell, he does it to raph too, and by taking leadership he's quicker to hold up the weight on his own instead of sharing it).

and how this contrasts with how leo before this point spent his whole life begging for the trust of others, for his family to just believe in him for once. and now he fails to see the independence he's developed as a sign that his trust in other people, and in donnie, has been broken, and because of that he doesn't realize that it hurts them until he has to confront it violently head-on. (he doesn't even realize that in a lot of ways its the other side of the coin from how he was under the curse)

it is almost one am. ummmmmmm

[breadandblankets]

one of the fun things to do when writing Duke pov is that he lies to himself, and sometimes that makes him a huge fucking hypocrite. Duke will tell it like it is to every single person around him and then tell himself the sky is green. He is honest and truthful except in his own head lmao

Dude will 100% tell a teammate to take a rest take a break their over working themselves and then just take up their slack like he wasn't already holding the earth, the moon, and also maybe pluto on his shoulders

[sirhinkjinks]

AM I A REAL BOY?

[vespermyotis]

irving and jopson the ocd brothers

[exlimix1a]

Quick piece of @luluyamofficial 's character Lucelia + a 30 second speedpaint!

[varilien]

(dress ref)

there's aus where u try to recreate the "effect" of a character's personality and behavior through an alternative "cause", and then there's this shit where i Just think umm well personally wolfwood being down to kill for vash is hot and it's a bummer vash doesn't think so too, but what if an au where he does ?

it's not a true "villain" vash au, basically it goes that vash decided to stick it out with knives in the hopes he could mitigate the damage knives planned to do to mankind, and it's worked for the most part-- at the expense of vash taking on much of knives' ire himself. this vash is even more isolated than in canon, unable to meet the standard knives enforces for what a god is supposed to look like, and constantly concerned with appeasing knives: dressing and styling his hair in a way that doesn't annoy him, talking very little, always offering compromises that put himself at a disadvantage

it's a wholly bad deal, up until the eye (yeah i'm blending stuff from other triguns in even tho it's a 98 au lol) offer vash their latest up-and-coming disciple to protect and serve him directly, though the "protecting" thing ends up being extremely mutual. wolfwood is the first bright spot in vash's life in a hundred years, and he's not going to allow anybody to take that away

[heireign]

HER STRUGGLES WITH BODILY AUTONOMY + HEADCANON ( incest mentions, and grooming mentions )

the first thing to remember about it is that so much of the trauma surrounding it originates when she's still a child, it stems during a particularly difficult period during her formative years that started when she was only eleven going on twelve - and in the aftermath of the firing of otto hightower as hand, it had the opposite effect that her father wanted, and only worsened the questions and the concerns about the setting aside of her younger half brothers. aegon, who was about two at the time, and aemond who was a newborn, and it seemed to worsen the frigidity of which she was greeted by her stepmother and only increased her feeling of isolation within the confines of her own family. she had her ladies, of course, she was close with her ladies, she considered them like sisters, but - she was also well aware that they were reliant on her, their positions were determined by her own, and so was their success at court, which meant that ? it just could not be the same as having family of which she could be close to, because their jobs and their positions had to come first - despite the fact they were all of the nobility, they were still of a lesser class then she was, meaning, they could lose more then she could if she messed something up. she was always in their company, she was always with them, because she loved them. and the ease of that wholly platonic connection was comforting.

she struggled extremely with impostor syndrome. she knew, logically, that her father had made his choice - and nothing could unmake that decision beyond him, and he did not seem like he had any plans to do that, and he had fired his closest advisor in defending his choice and that was ? it assured her, for the moment. but she was never wholly comforted by it because she could hear the questions, she could hear alicent asking the questions and she knew they were right to, she knew her position was one that was wholly unsual and wholly new, and there were so many people, asking the same exact thing that amounted to why haven't you replaced her yet, you should have replaced her. why fire otto when he's right. for a child that ? it feels like everyone is making their feelings known on how much she's worth and how much she could be capable of, and deeming that it just isn't enough to amount for that break in precedent, she just isn't enough to allow for the setting aside of her brothers. and she can't quit. she can't say she does not wanna do this anymore, because her father wants her to do it, her father chose her, and she still wants to do it, despite everything. for herself, for her mother who died in attempting to give her father an heir, her being named was such an impossibility that when she was, she had to hold onto it. she had to fight for it. but when you break down a child's self esteem over the years and play on that one inner insecurity that she's been grappling with her entire life ( the notion that though she's loved, and cherished, she's not a boy, so she's fundamentally useless to her parents, despite the fact she knows they love her. she's not a boy, she can't fullfil that role her father needs a boy for ) and you start fortifying what you believe she lacks before she can even display what she can do, it starts building the foundations of what becomes a reoccuring issue later in her life which is the fact that people build her identity, people build her reputation out of lies and explicit rumors because they want to believe it, even if they know it isn't true. because it becomes that much easier to diminish and disregard her entirely when you believe the stories about her.

if you believe she so easily and so willingly ruined herself for her own pleasure, and was so reckless as to all of that - then how could she ever possibly be a competent queen ? ( incredibly misogynistic and blatantly false rhetoric but it was the exact same thing that she was dealing with being levvied against her at 14 ) the additional sexual aspect of it all that comes into play post the tourney of 111AC makes the period of time all the worse, and it exacerbates rhaenyra's already high levels of anxiety. it's absolutely terrifying for her because she knows exactly what everyone believing that would result in. and no matter how many times she denies it, it takes form anyway. it takes shape anyway; the idea that she's in some way sullied herself with mushroom, with daemon. that she took lessons with daemon to try and seduce criston and make him break his vows. that she's willing to disregard his chastity oath and wants that to be sullied as well. and all of these stories of that period are presented as possible fact, which means that they were repeated and believed. which means it hung over her, the notion that she could have given a blow job to the court fool, and was willing to spend months attempting to ' learn ' to seduce a sworn brother of the kingsguard. we're told that when allegedly daemon and rhaenyra were found in bed, that rhaenyra pleaded with viserys she was in love with him, and wanted to marry him. we're also told that when viserys was confronted with the story of blackwater bay, he refused to believe any of it until daemon confirmed the tale was true. i'm inclined to believe, due to criston cole's remainder at her side, and the fact he was at her side day and night, that it was the latter that happened, and daemon confirmed a fake story, to get her hand in marriage by claiming he had ruined her. the near complete gut of her reactions from the recording of these events, and the fact the events are conflicting so much so - it gives the reader the feeling that any of them could potentially be possible, and that was the exact sort of criticism she was being met with in person.

and everyone had an opinion. they're USED to talking about this girl, they're used to critiquing this girl by now. and never to her face, but she still hears it, because it's everywhere. she's the heir, and she's female, so of course she is going to be a continuous topic of conversation - she told herself she was used to it by now. but it feels like there's this version of her that exists that they've built out of nothing and that is serving as their template for how they judge her from then on out. she feels like there's no real chance to build herself up outside of it because that's what some people hear first about her. she feels like she can't, that she isn't in control of herself, because she feels in some way that she is guilty of what they're accusing her of, because people believe it - because they want to believe it, she feels guilty, even if she didn't do anything. she feels like she is ruined already before she even got to explore sex. she feels so genuinely flayed open about the prospect of sex, and sexuality that it doesn't feel like when she finally explores it it'll be intimate at all. it feels like it won't remain private, and that it'll be another source of derision and scorn even though she is likely going to be married at the time, and that's what is supposed to happen with one's husband. she hated the idea of a bedding, she's always hated the idea of a bedding ceremony, like it made her feel sick to consider the idea of the wedding's male guests undressing her, and the idea her losing her virginity would be a source of entertainment and amusement.

she did not feel like she could enjoy sex at all, she didn't think she should find pleasure in it because then... wouldn't that prove them right about her ? wouldn't that mean she's as worthy of disregard as they made it seem ? she knows its natural, she know its supposed to be and that makes her feel so wrong inside. it makes that feeling of shame and fear feel so wrong to her, because it makes her feel like they've won something and they've succeeding in taking something from her, in making the concept something that she needs to approach clinically or she's somehow diminishing herself. and she doesn't want to feel like that, she doesn't want to stay feeling like that. but she has no idea on how to start to unpack it and its like ? it's a fear that ends up blending into her fear of childbirth because she reckons with that fear of sex, and that feeling that a lack of intimacy is inevitable with her relationship with harwin strong, who she ends up siring children with fairly quickly after they start sleeping together and it's - part of her fear of childbirth is the helplessness of it. the fact that she can't control the vitrol that would no doubt come if she had a daughter first, the fact she can't control what or how her baby would be treated if she died, that she can't help if she ends up losing one and that she would be expected to try again because she needs an heir. she can't be sure of her baby's survival, and her mother's consistent tragedies make her vehemently afraid that loss is inevitable even though she knows logically, that that isn't the case.

[lollytea]

Im very happy that I finally got to the point in the fic where Amity's motivations are made a bit more clear. It was EXHAUSTING getting comments telling me I'm laying it on too thick with her behaviour or that I've completely massacred the character and at that point I couldnt even say "please understand the kind of stress this little girl is under" of course she's cloying and obsessive and annoying and constantly micromanaging Willow's emotions. Of course she's doing more harm than good. She's buzzing with intense paranoia at all times and is terrified of what could possibly happen to her friend if she stops monitoring her for even five minutes. Of course she's fucking it all up. Of course she's constantly putting her foot in her mouth. She's a disaster. She's 14. She believes Willow's entire life is in HER hands for some fucking reason. Give this bitch a break.

[moonstandardtime]

yknow i kinda think u guys just think ppl who use tiktok are stupid

[robiniswriting]

i cant quite put my finger on what exactly it is yet, but the master and the doctor have some kind of insane energy as a pairing that attracts gay people specifically

[cabeswaterdrowned]

people who think Blue isn’t a realistic teenage girl don’t know what they’re talking about because her internal monologuing about how much she likes the idea of being a badass superhero with a pink switchblade but the practical part of her feels she’ll definitely cut herself with it is just So real