#dislyte bi tao

[seharuuchan]

Esper treat for mini BiBi

[sparrowmp4]

Bi Tao (sketch + story extra)

Part 2 of putting everyone in hanfus, I think Li Ling and Yun Chuan might be next I think!

Another short story, I did a bit of character study and put my own twist on it! Some quotes are directly from his esper profile thing lol.

(English isn’t my first language, sorry! I still think I ate with this one)

Steam curled languidly around Bi Tao’s face, masking the sharp lines of his features. The man lounged against the slick stone edge, water lapping against his chest as faint tendrils of purple smoke mingled into the mist from the pipe that hung from his lips.

The scene replayed in his mind again and again—the way Lü Shang had stared at him, calm and unbothered, as if Bi Tao were nothing but air.

He drew a deep pull from the pipe, the bitter tang of the herbs attacking his tastebuds. Yet it couldn’t compare to the bitterness left in his heart as the words left Lü Shangs lips

“Shixiong, you must be mistaken” Lü Shang had said, with maddening politeness. No sneer, no edge of malice. Just indifference.

Bi Tao let out a low Humorless laugh, smoke spilled from his mouth and billowed around him, disturbing the lazily rising mist around him. Shixiong, he had said, as though they were equals.

Bi Tao clenched his teeth, biting down on the pipe until it creaked. He had cut the man off before he could finish, spitting venomous words about long-forgotten debts, declaring him his arch nemesis.

And what had Lü Shang done? He had only looked at him with that same maddening, infuriating calmness, as though Bi Tao were a stranger.

He doesn't even remember me.

“Shizun clearly doesn’t know what you’re talking about!” He couldn’t even remember the girl who had spoken up for her Shizun.

“Shizun.” The words tasted like bile, souring on his tongue as his lips twisted into a sneer. "You don't deserve that title. You never did."

He flicked ash from his pipe into the spring. Lü Shang. The calm, collected, beloved Lü Shang was everything Bi Tao despised. He was content to sit by a lake and fish, to guide one last disciple with sincerity, as though the past hadn't left scars. As though the efforts Bi Tao spent to ruin his imagine didn’t even leave a scratch.

Lü Shang is a calm pond, full of fish, clear and shallow. He doesn't know what it means to boil. To seethe. To claw one's way to the top.

Bi Tao remembered that day clearly. The courtyard was crowded with elders and disciples as he prepared for his speech, rehearsing every word meticulously. It was meant to be his moment.

But his cultivation faltered. He staggered, his vision blurred and his voice was trapped in his throat. The last thing he saw before collapsing was the shimmer of Lü Shang's robes—the perfect Shidi who had captured everyone's hearts.

When Bi Tao awoke in shame, no one spoke of his failure; instead, they whispered of how Lü Shang had carried him from the stage like a tragic hero.

He stole my moment

Bi Tao slammed the pipe into the water, sending ripples across the surface. He leaned forward as he watched the embers of the pipe extinguish and go under, his long hair clung to his face. He had spent years clawing his way back from that humiliation. Years of scheming, strategizing, and plotting to rise above all others.

“One day, you’ll pay twice over for the past”

But no matter how far he climbed, no matter how many enemies he crushed beneath his heel, Lü Shang always came out stronger.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

The worst part had to be the truth.

Bi Tao’s nails scraped against the stone. A fantasy twisted in his mind, he imagined looming over Lü Shangs lifeless body, imagined his polite expression faltering. Yet… Victory felt hollow in his heart. It always had- What he truly wanted, he realized, was not Lü Shang’s defeat.

It was his attention.

[karamellisokeri]

Commission for salt + that one lu shang wip i dwcided to finish

[fungiedo]

Loving the new emo sea urchin esper

[akuma-tenshi]

a few more

[faeofmoons]

bro is on his socials just to HATE 😭

[mugoki]

Bi Tao | Dislyte

[interstate75south]

ok sure!! so like, the best way i can think to explain this is by way of locus of control as compared to actual circumstance. (kinda long so tldr at the end)

(for context, locus of control is a psychological personality trait that describes how people perceive the degree of control they have in their own lives- someone with an external locus of control thinks along the lines of "things happen to me" while someone with an internal locus thinks along the lines of "i make things happen")

to start, li xiao has a strongly internal locus of control, even though most of the forces in his life are external (socioeconomic status, rigid cultural norms in tangton, institutional hierarchy etc etc). to himself, he makes things happen, and that is objectively true!! li xiao fought and clawed his way up from where he was against all odds, and this is also partially why he spun out so badly following the stampede- for the first time in 20 years, he lost control, and it could cost him everything. he locks down this control even further in his capacity as the head of the radiant guard after yun chuan's supposed death, because if there's one thing his life taught him, it was that the world owed him nothing, and he had to take what he wanted himself.

conversely, bi tao seems to have an external locus of control, even though his circumstances are mostly internal. according to bi tao, his "rivalry" with lu shang came about because lu shang was universally loved and bi tao was shunned and ostracized. sounds bad when he says it!! but there's a reason lu shang does not remember this rivalry at all, and it's because it was entirely of bi tao's own making. bi tao and lu shang were competitors for a school council position at the private school they both attended. and bi tao wasn't even like, a loser!! he was like second or third in the running after lu shang!! moreover, he was never ignored by lu shang, they just weren't explicitly friends, a key reason in that being that bi tao, in his desperate attempt for support, allied himself with the anti-esper camp, even though it's implied that he didn't actually believe in that. then, of course, in a twist of karmic irony, bi tao transforms into an esper mid-campaign speech, leading to him being rejected by the base he built his platform on. ironically, it was lu shang's honesty and bi tao's willingness to eschew his morals that made lu shang more likable to people. however, bi tao regards himself as someone who was dealt a bad hand, and lu shang as someone who just got lucky for no reason, refusing to recognize the actions he deliberately made that changed the course of his life, blaming others instead.

now, lu shang and yun chuan is a little harder to explain but stay with me here. one of the reasons that li xiao resented yun chuan so strongly was that he saw himself in him. he saw a man that, despite his circumstances, rose through the ranks via his own blood, sweat, and tears, and to li xiao, that made him a threat to his station. obviously, to someone as tirelessly driven as li xiao, the biggest threat to his efforts would be another li xiao, and that's what he feared from yun chuan. however, the paradigm of "internal locus of control despite strongly external forces" is much more applicable to lu shang than it is yun chuan. lu shang, for most of his life, believed in his own ability to change things, even after his life was irreversibly changed by an external force (the tangton council and bi tao orchestrating the deaths of his students), and he still holds this belief. what differentiates him from li xiao is the stakes- lu shang had the opportunity to move on and rebuild, but li xiao knew that his life was functionally over if the truth came out. on the other hand, yun chuan does have a strongly internal locus of control, but what li xiao didn't exactly realize is that his circumstances were also, by and large, internal. choice is a major theme in yun chuan's story, and it's why his trial revolved around the decision to take the fall for li xiao again- because it was, ultimately, a decision he consciously made, and he made peace with that. yun chuan's circumstances were almost entirely shaped by his own choices, and he regrets none of it, because he is both aware of this, and sure of his decisions. this is why li xiao wasn’t expecting yun chuan to take the fall- because it’s not something he himself would’ve done, and he hadn’t yet realized the difference in their thinking.

this is long as hell and kinda confusing so like thanks for reading if you did

tldr: li xiao and lu shang both just got the short end of the stick and decided to do something statistically improbable about it, yun chuan and bi tao both willingly and knowingly drew the short stick but bi tao blames it on lu shang and the world and large while yun chuan says yeah i meant to do that dw

[dislyteshack]

This is going to be a thing after he figures out who killed his students trust/j

[hisuianserperior]

I was cackling this entire conversation

Bi Tao: Waxing poetic about their rivalry

Lü Shang: Genuinely has no idea who this petty little bitch is

This image is so funny and Yu Jing is not helping

[lysosome-chan]

Bi Tao playing soccer ⚽ vs Chu Yao slam dunking 🏀

Who wins

[seharuuchan]

Beef 🥩

[stalkyarsen-ebook]

Thank you for answering my question :)

And now I can't help to imagine chu yao and bi tao literally drags long mian out from his room. And long mian fight them like a angry feral cat. So they call other shadow guards to take him. And just when they are at the miracle. They yeet or throw the dragon esper into it.

[karamellisokeri]

wet cat and wet fish

Bi tao is really pathetic its goofy

(If u use light mode click on the image)

[starcrossstudios]

How does bi Tao have the energy of someone who peaked in highschool yet didn't even actually peak in highschool

[akuma-tenshi]

friend got really really into bi tao so by extension i have to get insane about him too