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caelum-in-the-avatarverse · 8 months ago

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Fandom can do a little gatekeeping. As a treat.

So I finally decided to archive-lock my fics on AO3 last night. I’ve been considering it since the AI scrape last year, but the tipping point was this whole lore.fm debacle, coupled with some thoughts I’ve been thinking regarding Fandom These Days in general and Fandom As A Community in particular. So I wanna explain why I waited so long, why I locked my stuff up now, and why I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a-okay with making it harder for people to see my stories.

Lurkers really are great, tho

I’m a chronic lurker, and have been since I started hanging out on the internet as a teen in the 00s. These days it’s just cuz I don’t feel a need to socialize very often, but back then it was because I was shy and knew I was socially awkward. Even if I made an account, I’d spend months lurking on message boards or forums or Livejournals, watching other people interact and getting a feel for that particular community’s culture and etiquette before I finally started interacting myself. And y’know, that approach saved me a lot of embarrassment. Over the course of my lurking on any site, there was always some other person who’d clearly joined up five minutes after learning the place existed, barged in without a care for their behavior, and committed so many social faux pas that all the other users were immediately annoyed with them at best. I learned a lot observing those incidents. Lurk More is Rule 33 of the internet for very good reason.

Lurking isn’t bad or weird or creepy. It’s perfectly normal. I love lurking. It’s hard for me to not lurk - socializing takes a lot of energy out of me, even via text. (Heck it took 12 hours for me to write this post, I wish I was kidding--) Occasionally I’ll manage longer bouts of interaction - a few weeks posting here, almost a year chatting in a discord there - but I’m always gonna end up going radio silent for months at some point. I used to feel bad about it, but I’ve long since made peace with the fact that it’s just the way my brain works. I’m a chronic lurker, and in the long term nothing is going to change that.

The thing with being a chronic lurker is that you have to accept that you are not actually seen as part of the community you are lurking in. That’s not to say that lurkers are unimportant - lurkers actually are important, and they make up a large proportion of any online community - but it’s simple cause and effect. You may think of it as “your community”, but if you’ve never said a word, how is the community supposed to know you exist? If I lurked on someone’s LJ, and then that person suddenly friendslocked their blog, I knew that I had two choices: Either accept that I would never be able to read their posts again, or reach out to them and ask if I could be added to their friends list with the full understanding that I was a rando they might not decide to trust. I usually went with the first option, because my invisibility as a lurker was more important to me than talking to strangers on the internet.

Lurking is like sitting on a park bench, quietly people-watching and eavesdropping on the conversations other people are having around you. You’re in the park, but you’re not actively participating in anything happening there. You can see and hear things that you become very interested in! But if you don’t introduce yourself and become part of the conversation, you won’t be able to keep listening to it when those people walk away. When fandom migrated away from Livejournal, people moved to new platforms alongside their friends, but lurkers were often left behind. No one knew they existed, so they weren’t told where everyone else was going. To be seen as part of a fandom community, you need to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known, etc. etc.

There’s nothing wrong with lurking. There can actually be benefits to lurking, both for the lurkers and the communities they lurk in. It’s just another way to be in a fandom. But if that is how you exist in fandom--and remember, I say this as someone who often does exist that way in fandom--you need to remember that you’re on the outside looking in, and the curtains can always close.

I’ve always been super sympathetic to lurkers, because I am one. I know there’s a lot of people like me who just don’t socialize often. I know there’s plenty of reasons why someone might not make an account on the internet - maybe they’re nervous, maybe they’re young and their parents don’t allow them to, maybe they’re in a bad situation where someone is monitoring their activity, maybe they can only access the internet from public computer terminals. Heck, I’ve never even logged into AO3 on my phone--if I’m away from my computer I just read what’s publicly available.

I know I have people lurking on my fics. I know my fics probably mean a lot to someone I don’t even know exists. I know this because there are plenty of fics I love whose writers don’t know I exist.

I love my commenters personally; I love my lurkers as an abstract concept. I know they’re there and I wish them well, and if they ever de-lurk I love them all the more.

So up until last year I never considered archive-locking my fic, because I get it. The AI scraping was upsetting, but I still hesitated because I was thinking of lurkers and guests and remembering what it felt like to be 15 and wondering if it’d be worth letting a stranger on the internet know I existed and asking to be added to their friends list just so I could reread a funny post they made once.

But the internet has changed a lot since the 00s, and fandom has changed with it. I’ve read some things and been doing some thinking about fandom-as-community over the last few years, and reading through the lore.fm drama made me decide that it’s time for me to set some boundaries.

I still love my lurkers, and I feel bad about leaving any guest commenters behind, especially if they’re in a situation where they can’t make an account for some reason. But from here on out, even my lurkers are going to have to do the bare minimum to read my fics--make an AO3 account.

Should we gatekeep fandom?

I’ve seen a few people ask this question, usually rhetorically, sometimes as a joke, always with a bit of seriousness. And I think…yeah, maybe we should. Except wait, no, not like that--

A decade ago, when people talked about fandom gatekeeping and why it was bad to do, it intersected with a lot of other things, mainly feminism and classism. The prevalent image of fandom gatekeeping was, like, a man learning that a woman likes Star Wars and haughtily demanding, “Oh, yeah? Well if you’re REALLY a fan, name ten EU novels” to belittle and dismiss her, expecting that a “real fan” would have the money and time to be familiar with the EU, and ignoring the fact that male movie-only fans were still considered fans. The thing being gatekept was the very definition of “being a fan” and people’s right to describe themselves as one.

That’s not what I mean when I say maybe fandom should gatekeep more. Anyone can call themselves a fan if they like something, that’s fine. But when it comes to the ability to enjoy the fanworks produced by the fandom community…that might be something worth gatekeeping.

See, back in the 00s, it was perfectly common for people to just…not go on the internet. Surfing the web was a thing, but it was just, like, a fun pastime. Not everyone did it. It wasn’t until the rise of social media that going online became a thing everyone and their grandmother did every day. Back then, going on the internet was just…a hobby.

So one of the first gates online fandom ever had was the simple fact that the entire world wasn’t here yet.

The entire world is here now. That gate has been demolished.

And it’s a lot easier to find us now. Even scattered across platforms, fandom is so centralized these days. It isn’t a network of dedicated webshrines and forums that you can only find via webrings anymore, it’s right there on all the big social media sites. AO3 didn’t set out to be the main fanfic website, but that’s definitely what it’s become. It’s easy for people to find us--and that includes people who don’t care about the community, and just want “content.”

Transformative fandom doesn’t like it when people see our fanworks as “content”. “Content” is a pretty broad term, but when fandom uses it we’re usually referring to creative works that are churned out by content creators to be consumed by an audience as quickly as possible as often as possible so that the content creator can generate revenue. This not-so-new normal has caused a massive shift in how people who are new to fandom view fanworks--instead of seeing fic or art as something a fellow fan made and shared with you, they see fanworks as products to be consumed.

Transformative fandom has, in general, always been a gift economy. We put time and effort into creating fanworks that we share with our fellow fans for free. We do this so we don’t get sued, but fandom as a whole actually gets a lot out of the gift economy. Offer your community a story, and in return you can get comments, build friendships, or inspire other people to write things that you might want to read. Readers are given the gift of free stories to read and enjoy, and while lurking is fine, they have the choice to engage with the writer and other readers by leaving comments or making reclists to help build the community.

And look, don’t get me wrong. People have never engaged with fanfic as much as fan writers wish they would. There has always been “no one comments anymore” wank. There have always been people who only comment to say “MORE!” or otherwise demand or guilt trip writers into posting the next chapter. But fandom has always agreed that those commenters are rude and annoying, and as those commenters navigate fandom they have the chance to learn proper community etiquette.

However, now it seems that a lot of the people who are consuming fanworks aren’t actually in the community.

I won’t say “they aren’t real fans” because that’s silly; there’s lots of ways to be a fan. But there seem to be a lot of fans now who have no interest in fandom as a community, or in adhering to community etiquette, or in respecting the gift economy. They consume our fics, but they don’t appreciate fan labor. They want our “content”, but they don’t respect our control over our creations.

And even worse--they see us as a resource. We share our work for free, as a gift, but all they see is an open-source content farm waiting to be tapped into. We shared it for free, so clearly they can do whatever they want with it. Why should we care if they feed our work into AI training datasets, or copy/paste our unfinished stories into ChatGPT to get an ending, or charge people for an unnecessary third-party AO3 app, or sell fanbindings on etsy for a profit without the author’s permission, or turn our stories into poor imitations of podfics to be posted on other platforms without giving us credit or asking our consent, while also using it to lure in people they can datascrape for their Forbes 30 Under 30 company?

And sure, people have been doing shady things with other people’s fanworks since forever. Art theft and reposting has always been a big problem. Fanfic is harder to flat-out repost, but I’ve heard of unauthorized fic translations getting posted without crediting the original author. Once in…I think the 2010s? I read a post by a woman who had gone to some sort of local bookselling event, only to find that the man selling “his” novel had actually self-published her fanfic. (Wish I could find that one again, I don’t even remember where I read it.)

But aside from that third example, the thing is…as awful as fanart/writing theft is, back in the day, the main thing a thief would gain from it was clout. Clout that should rightfully go to the creators who gifted their work in the first place, yeah, but still. Just clout. People will do a lot of hurtful things for clout, but fandom clout means nothing outside of fandom. Fandom clout is not enough to incentivize the sort of wide-scale pillaging we’re seeing from community outsiders today.

Money, on the other hand… Well, fandom’s just a giant, untapped content farm, isn’t it? Think of how much revenue all that content could generate.

Lurkers are a normal and even beneficial part of any online community. Maybe one day they’ll de-lurk and easily slide into place beside their fellow fans because they already know the etiquette. Maybe they’re active in another community, and they can spread information from the community they lurk in to the community they’re active in. At the very least, they silently observe, and even if they’re not active community members, they understand the community.

Fans who see fanworks as “content” don’t belong in the same category as lurkers. They’re tourists.

While reading through the initial Reddit thread on the lore.fm situation, I found this comment:

[ID: Reddit User Cabbitowo says: ... So in anime fandoms we have a word called tourist and essentially it means a fan of a few anime and doesn't care about anime tropes and actively criticizes them. This is kind of how fandoms on tiktok feel. They're touring fanfics and fanart and actively criticizes tropes that have been in the fandom since the 60s. They want to be in a fandom but they don't want to engage in fandom

OP totallymandy responds: Just entered back into Reddit after a long day to see this most recent reply. And as a fellow anime fan this making me laugh so much since it’s true! But it sorta hurts too when the reality sets in. Modern fandom is so entitled and bratty and you’d think it’s the minors only but that’s not even true, my age-mates and older seem to be like that. They want to eat their cake and complain all whilst bringing nothing to the potluck… :/ END ID]

“Tourist” is an apt name for this sort of fan. They don’t want to be part of our community, and they don’t have to be in order to come into our spaces and consume our work. Even if they don’t steal our work themselves, they feel so entitled to it that they’re fine with ignoring our wishes and letting other people take it to make AI “podfics” for them to listen to (there are a lot of comments on lore.fm’s shutdown announcement video from people telling them to just ignore the writers and do it anyway). They’ll use AI to generate an ending to an unfinished fic because they don’t care about seeing “the ending this writer would have given to the story they were telling”, they just want “an ending”. For these tourist fans, the ends justify the means, and their end goal is content for them to consume, with no care for the community that created it for them in the first place.

I don’t think this is confined to a specific age group. This isn’t “13-year-olds on Wattpad” or “Zoomers on TikTok” or whatever pointless generation war we’re in now. This is coming from people who are new to fandom, whose main experience with creative works on the internet is this new content culture and who don’t understand fandom as a community. That description can be true of someone from any age group.

It’s so easy to find fandom these days. It is, in fact, too easy. Newcomers face no hurdles or challenges that would encourage them to lurk and observe a bit before engaging, and it’s easy for people who would otherwise move on and leave us alone to start making trouble. From tourist fans to content entrepreneurs to random people who just want to gawk, it’s so easy for people who don’t care about the fandom community to reap all of its fruits.

So when I say maybe fandom should start gatekeeping a bit, I’m referring to the fact that we barely even have a gate anymore. Everyone is on the internet now; the entire world can find us, and they don’t need to bother learning community etiquette when they do. Before, we were protected by the fact that fandom was considered weird and most people didn’t look at it twice. Now, fandom is pretty mainstream. People who never would’ve bothered with it before are now comfortable strolling in like they own the place. They have no regard for the fandom community, they don’t understand it, and they don’t want to. They want to treat it just like the rest of the content they consume online.

And then they’re surprised when those of us who understand fandom culture get upset. Fanworks have existed far longer than the algorithmic internet’s content. Fanworks existed long before the internet. We’ve lived like this for ages and we like it.

So if someone can’t be bothered to respect fandom as a community, I don’t see why I should give them easy access to my fics.

Think of it like a garden gate

When I interact with commenters on my fic, I have this sense of hospitality.

The comment section is my front porch. The fic is my garden. I created my garden because I really wanted to, and I’m proud of it, and I’m happy to share it with other people.

Lots of people enjoy looking at my garden. Many walk through without saying anything. Some stop to leave kudos. Some recommend my garden to their friends. And some people take the time to stop by my front porch and let me know what a beautiful garden it is and how much they’ve enjoyed it.

Any fic writer can tell you that getting comments is an incredible feeling. I always try to answer all my comments. I don’t always manage it, but my fics’ comment sections are the one place that I manage to consistently socialize in fandom. When I respond to a comment, it feels like I’m pouring out a glass of lemonade to share with this lovely commenter on my front porch, a thank you for their thank you. We take a moment to admire my garden together, and then I see them out. The next time they drop by, I recognize them and am happy to pour another glass of lemonade.

My garden has always been open and easy to access. No fences, no walls. You just have to know where to find it. Fandom in general was once protected by its own obscurity, an out-of-the-way town that showed up on maps but was usually ignored.

But now there’s a highway that makes it easy to get to, and we have all these out-of-towner tourists coming in to gawk and steal our lawn ornaments and wonder if they can use the place to make themselves some money.

I don’t care to have those types trampling over my garden and eating all my vegetables and digging up my flowers to repot and sell, so I’ve put up a wall. It has a gate that visitors can get through if they just take the time to open it.

Admittedly, it’s a small obstacle. But when I share my fics, I share them as a gift with my fellow fans, the ones who understand that fandom is a community, even if they’re lurkers. As for tourist fans and entrepreneurs who see fic as content, who have no qualms ignoring the writer’s wishes, who refuse to respect or understand the fandom community…well, they’re not the people I mean to share my fic with, so I have no issues locking them out. If they want access to my stories, they’ll have to do the bare minimum to become a community member and join the AO3 invite queue.

And y’know, I’ve said a lot about fandom and community here, and I just want to say, I hope it’s not intimidating. When I was younger, talk about The Fandom Community made me feel insecure, and I didn’t think I’d ever manage to be active enough in fandom spaces to be counted as A Member Of The Community. But you don’t have to be a social butterfly to participate in fandom. I’ll always and forever be a chronic lurker, I reblog more than I post, I rarely manage to comment on fic, and I go radio silent for months at a time--but I write and post fanfiction. That’s my contribution.

Do you write, draw, vid, gif, or otherwise create? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you leave comments? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you curate reclists? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you maintain a fandom blog or fuckyeah blog? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you provide a space for other fans to convene in? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you regularly send asks (off anon so people know who you are)? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you have fandom friends who you interact with? Congrats, you're a community member.

There’s lots of ways to be a fan. Just make sure to respect and appreciate your fellow fans and the work they put in for you to enjoy and the gift economy fandom culture that keeps this community going.

#ao3 #lore.fm #fanfiction #fandom history #gift economy #caelum rambles

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m-neuvillette · 1 month ago

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Star Rail and Genshin men: Giving them the silent treatment

Characters: Boothill, Diluc, Jing Yuan, Lyney, Moze, Neuvillette, Sunday, Venti, Wriothesley, Yanqing

Notes: female reader, blood, injury, creepy guy in Diluc's, jealousy, drinking, Moze being Moze

Author notes: FINALLY FREE OF FINALS!!! Prepare for more posts in the future hehe. Comment if you want a pt 2 (let us know what men you want!)

Boothill

Boothill is all kinds of confused right now. After that damn profnana messed with his head, now you avoiding and not talking him has his brain in overdrive.

He doesn’t fully know what changed. March 7th told him what profnana tried to make him do to you. He really wishes he could shoot that forkin thing in the head after the shirtbag tried to make him shoot you. March 7th also said he talked about his past but he’s fine with that. So he really doesn’t get what is up with you.

You’re sitting in one of the open sitting areas Boothill has on his ship thinking about all that has happened. You met Boothill early into your journey as a galaxy ranger and were always really close with him. He helped you so much and liked being around you so he asked you to join him.

You two only grew even closer as time passed and everyone knew you were more than friends. You two only got together before the whole trip to Penacony so the relationship is still fresh. But that isn’t what’s bothering you or has you upset.

It’s about Boothill’s past. It broke your heart hearing a young Boothill talk instead of the raspy voice you’re so used to and love. As you listened to that little soft voice talk about his past, you couldn’t stop your heart from breaking. It also made you realize you don’t know much about him. You know he wants revenge on the IPC for what they did to his planet but you didn’t know what happened.

Did he not trust you as much as you thought he did? Did he only see this arrangement as convenient to help reach his goal? Does he actually have feelings for you? You don’t know and don’t know how to talk to him about it. You feel the ship go into cruise mode indicating Boothill planned the next planet and you two have time before you get there.

You can’t help but get frustrated at yourself because all you want to do is to talk to him but you don’t know how. You start to tear up while thinking about a plan when you hear him walking into the room.

Boothill was quick to set the ship to cruise so he can figure out what’s going on. Once he’s got everything lined up, he makes his way to where you are.

He sees you with your head down and your hands clenching at your pants. He instantly knows something is wrong. Boothill makes quick strides over to where you’re sitting to start figuring this out.

He stays standing and tilts your head up to see your red eyes and tear stained face. Boothill rarely gets shot but seeing you like this feels like he’s got shot hundreds of times. He lets go of your face and sits next to you and pull you into his lap. Boothill tucks your head into his neck then says, “I can’t help ya, if ya don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

You’ll pull yourself from his neck to look at him. He reaches one of his hands up to wipe your tears which makes you let out a shaky breath. You lean your forehead again his and quietly ask, “Boothill, do you not trust me? Am I a bad girlfriend?”

Boothill eyes are wide open now as he stumbles out, “Wait whaddya mean? Of course I do. I trust ya with my life. And you’re not a bad girlfriend at all. Why would you ask that?”

You look down not being able to look him in the eyes anymore and start to play with the zipper on his shirt, “When you talked about your past with that soft voice my heart broke. But it also made me realize I never got to know you.” You start to cry again but you continue to talk, “I want to know you more. I want to help you. I want you to count on me so I don’t have to hear that soft little boys voice be in pain again.”

Boothill tilts your head back up to face him. He wipes your tears then kisses your cheeks, “Baby I want nothin’ more than to share everythin’ with you. I’m sorry that’s the way you had to find everythin’ out. From now on I’ll be more open with ya. But you also gotta promise you won’t shut yourself out from me and doubt yourself. Okay? I love you.”

You look him in the eyes and respond, “I promise Boothill. I love you too.” Then you go to give him a tight hug burying yourself in his neck again. Boothill quickly returns the hug holding you tightly to him and pressing a soft kiss on your forehead.

Diluc

Diluc didn’t think he could meet anyone as stubborn as Kaeya, that was before you decided to give him the silent treatment. It has been two days since your guys argument.

It all started at Angel’s Share. You asked Diluc to teach you how to make drinks so you can help him and Charles when times got busy. After a while you started working there. You love your job and everyone you get to meet. Well most people.

You love the regulars like Venti, Kaeya, and Rosaria. You also love when Lisa drags Jean here or when you meet new faces from or outside of Mondstadt. But there are a good amount of men who have been creepy towards you. You keep your work outfit simple with a white blouse and a black skirt (and sometimes Diluc’s jacket when you get cold). Whenever a man gets too creepy or tries to touch you Diluc is quick to stop the situation and kick the man out.

Your outfit isn’t that revealing. You made sure to keep the skirt at a medium length so no perverts could try to see something they shouldn’t. You also keep your chest covered so again no perverts could be weird. But sadly it’s only been getting worse lately and it’s making you stressed.

One night Diluc couldn’t get to Angel’s Share until later in the evening due to a meeting he had to be at. You are perfectly fine working with Charles and love talking to him when times are slow. Tonight is pretty slow but a couple groups needed refills so you offered to do it so Charles can stay behind the bar and continue his conversation with Kaeya.

You walk over to the group in the far back corner and see all the men drunk. You roll your eyes before tending to them. You ask if they would like anymore drinks but all they respond with is that they want you to warm them up. You ask again if they want DRINKS but none of them say yes so you begin to walk away. As you do one of the sleazy guys grabs your wrist and pulls you back. He starts to say something but that is before you see a tanned hand grabbing the guys wrist. You look up to see Kaeya glaring at the man.

“Let go of her now and get the hell out of here.” The men quickly follow Kaeya’s order and he follows them out making sure they don’t try to come back in. When he’s outside he sees Diluc walking towards him and says a little hello. Diluc quickly asks what happened and Kaeya relays the story. Diluc gets visibly mad and stomps inside to go find you. Once he does he grabs your hand and has you follow him to a spare room upstairs.

He gives you his jacket and asks if you are okay and if the guy did anything to you. You say you’re okay and that he didn’t do anything. Diluc shakes his head and tells you to stop working here and that you don’t have to work because he can fully support the both of you. You argue back saying you’re going to continue working here whether or not he likes it or not. Then march out of the bar leaving him behind.

Diluc then quickly follows you after telling Charles he’s got to go. He also turns to Kaeya and begrudgingly thanks him and leaves. Kaeya knows you two got into an argument but he definitely knows you aren’t too mad because you left still wearing his jacket.

After you thought about it for two days you realized you overreacted. You barely let him explain why he thought about you stopping now you feel bad because you haven’t spoke to him in three days. So you sat down in front of the fire waiting for him to get back from his Dark Knight Hero patrol.

Diluc walks into his mansion expecting it to be pitch black but he sees you sitting in front of a fire. He sets his sword by the entrance then makes his way over to you.

He kneels in front of you and breaks the silence, “Hey, everything okay? Did you have a nightmare, is that why you’re down here?”

Oh this man even when you’re giving him the silent treatment he is still asking if you’re okay. You shake your head and respond, “No I was waiting for you to apologize.” You brush his bangs out of his eyes, “I’m sorry Diluc. I overreacted and didn’t let you explain why you wanted me to stop. I just want to help you and not sit around here all day. Plus working at the bar with you is so fun. I get to see you in a whole different light and I love it. I don’t want to let go of that.”

Diluc gives you a smile and reaches for your hand and gives it a tight squeeze, “No pretty girl it’s me who should be apologizing. I’m sorry for getting so mad, I just hate seeing you get harassed. It also didn’t help Kaeya was the one to help you and not me. But you don’t have to stop. Just every time you work I want to be there so I can stop it or prevent it.”

You smile down at him and squeeze his hand, “That is perfectly okay with me. I have more fun working with you anyways, sorry Charles. I love you Diluc.”

Diluc smiles and brings your hand to his lips to give your knuckles a soft kiss and replies without hesitation, “I love you too.”

Jing Yuan

You thought you believed the phrase “wisdom comes with age” because that is Jing Yuan in his entirety. But now? You are starting to doubt that very much, because it’s not very wise to have wise to have an old friend spear you to take out an enemy now is it?

While you do understand that everyone was ready to defeat Phantylia at any cost, you really didn’t think that Jing Yuan would try to sacrifice himself in the process. Did he even think at all during that moment? Let alone think about how he’d leave you behind? You’ve already been left behind by so many people, and Jing Yuan knows all about how that’s affected you. So why would he try to leave you behind too?

When Jing Yuan first comes back after the fight was over, his first priority was to see you. He wanted to make sure you were okay, and he wanted to make sure that you didn’t find out about his little stunt against the Lord Ravager. He didn’t want you to worry about him. But unfortunately for him, March 7th found you first and told you all about the fight, including Dan Heng hurling his spear through him.

To say you were upset and fuming might have been the understatement of the century, because as soon as he came into your line of sight you were glaring daggers at him. Yanqing had been right next to you when Jing Yuan came up to you and he could feel the anger coming off of you so he turned around and ran off before he got caught in the middle of a “lover’s quarrel” as the General called them.

“GOOD LUCK GENERAL DON’T DIE!” Yanqing gave his best regards to the General before scampering off to avoid your rage. Jing Yuan tilted his head amusedly before fully looking at your expression. “Now what could have you this angry, my dear?” If it was even possible you narrowed your eyes even further and harshly grabbed his wrist and dragged him to your shared home.

The entire time you were dragging him tears were burning in your eyes because even though you are behind thrilled that Jing Yuan is safe and sound you can’t help but think that he wanted to leave you behind too, just like everyone else. “My dear, can I request that you be a little less harsh, your grip is beginning to hurt my wrist? Also, may I know what is troubling you so much? You know you can confide in my right my dear?”

When he said that you had reached his room and you dragged him to the nearest chair and shoved him in it, while also being careful not to aggravate his glaringly obvious injury. When you lift up his shirt to take a look at the injury and once you see the blood seeping through the bandages, you take a minute to take a deep breath before finally talking to him.

“Jing Yuan, tell me were you really trying to leave me behind too? Why would you ever think that having your old friend throw his spear through you to defeat an enemy is alright?! Don’t you always teach Yanqing to not be reckless?? What you did goes against those teachings don’t you think?! Please, I’m begging you, tell me why you thought that was the best course of action? Did you even think at all? Let alone about leaving me behind, like everyone else has?!”

Jing Yuan’s eyes widen in alarm before he’s trying to get up to comfort you. “Don’t you even think about getting up Jing Yuan! Do you want to make your injury worse?” At that he say right back down and responded sitting down. “My dear let it be known that what I did was the only option that we had to defeat that Lord Ravager, lest I become a Mara Struck. That, my dear, would’ve been much worse a fate than I would ever allow you to witness. I am deeply sorry for worrying you, know this, I will never leave you behind, not if I can help it. Though as an Arbiter General you just realize that I cannot choose my death as freely as others can.”

You turn around after he finishes and he realizes that you had been crying this entire time. “I know that Jing Yuan’s, I knew that the second I got into this relationship with you that your life as an Arbiter General was not going to lead to a pretty death, but sacrificing yourself like you did is beyond me! What would the Luofu do without you? What would I do without you?? Please just don’t leave me behind, I can’t take anyone else leaving me.”

Jing Yuan’s eyes soften and he beckons you to come closer to him. As soon as you reach him he’s standing up and wrapping his arms round you and kissing your forehead. “My dear I will never leave you, not of my own accord and that I swear on my life. I am deeply sorry for any pain I have caused during this time. When I am fully healed I intend to make this up to you to the best of my abilities.” You gently wrap your arms around him and place your head on his chest. “I will hold you to that my darling, I love you so much.” He smiles softly down at you before leaning his head on top on your head. “And I love you so much more dearest.”

The next day Yanqing giggled and smiled smugly before remarking with hand gestures and all. “I see the General lived through yet another ‘lover’s quarrel’. Nice job General, I’m impressed, can I have a few pointers?” Jing Yuan looked at him with the most deadpan expression before smiling softly and telling Yanqing to get back to training.

Lyney

A magician’s charm is like no other, that is the first thing you learned when you met Lyney. And it became even more prominent when you got into a relationship with him. His charm is his best quality and it attracts so many people, including unwanted gazes of new assistants of his.

As his popularity as a magician was increasing, Lyney decided that he should get a few more assistants to make his shows run more smoothly. And you are perfectly fine with him getting more assistants, after all that that’s how you two met. But this new assistant he chose is getting in every last one on your nerves, because who is she to flirt nonstop and try to get to get with your magician, when it is incredibly obvious that you two are together?

While you are helping prep for Lyney’s next show, it seems that the new assistant, Louise as you’ve unfortunately come to learn, is yet again all over Lyney. Instead of actually preparing the necessary materials for the show, Louise is clinging to Lyney’s and asking about a million questions about completely random topics. Everyone in the room can see that Louise has the hots for Lyney, his magician’s charm seems to work wonders, must to your dismay.

Even though he has a show to prep for and he has a girlfriend, Lyney doesn’t try to stop Louise and her antics at all, he even answers all of her random questions. It’s quite disheartening to see your boyfriend have another girl all over him and him not stop any of those advances, it makes it look like he doesn’t have a girlfriend when he actually does.

“Oh Lyney! What are you going to have for dinner after this? Do you want to go get dinner together? I’d love to have dinner with you!” You had to walk away to keep yourself from gagging at her horrible flirting. Though you stopped when you heard Lyney’s chuckle in response. “Oh my dear, what a most generous offer that is indeed! I have yet to make plans for dinner, but I will get back to you on my thoughts on dinner after this show, so wait for me alright?”

When you heard him say that your heart broke and you couldn’t help but let the tears fall from your eyes. Was he really going to have dinner with another girl, when having dinner with you, Lynette, and Freminet, has been your tradition since you guys were in your “courting stage” as Lyney loved to call it.

Lynette, who saw the whole interaction, was also very stunned that Lyney was entertaining the thought of having dinner with someone else. She walked up to Lyney and told him that the show was starting soon and that he needed to get on stage and then immediately went to find you. When she found you, you were sitting on one of the boxes that was backstage hugging your knees to your chest and your head buried on top of them. Lynette could tell that you had heard what Lyney said and walked up to you.

“Hey, I heard what that idiot said, just try not to take it to heart I guess. He’s not one to let people know they’re bothering him. If I had to guess he’s, probably, going to turn her down after the show. If it’s any consolation, I am also mad that he would ditch us for that idiot of a girl.” You look up at Lynette while she talks and silently nod your head in agreement.

After the show ended, the first thing Lyney did was look for you because you were always waiting backstage with a hug and a kiss for him. When he didn’t immediately see you when he walked off stage, he was very confused because you had never missed your routine hug and kiss, it’s become a tradition for you two. While he is looking for you, Louise clings onto his arm and begins questioning him about dinner again. He looks down at her and says that he’s looking for you and that he can’t talk right now. Louise let’s go at that and walks away.

Once Lyney finds you, he realizes that you haven’t moved since the show began. “Hello there, my dove! Let us go home now shall we?” You look up at him silently and get off the box you were sitting on and begin walking out. Lyney’s eyes widen in alarm once he sees the dried streaks of tears on your face and when you start walking he rushes to grab your hand.

“Oh my dearest dove, what could have you crying?” You shake your head and continue walking, because you can’t handle talking to him right now. Not after him basically accepting to eat dinner with another girl. He decides to leave it alone until you get home because that is the best place to discuss what happened. Once you two get to your home, you fumble with the key to unlock the door and more tears begin to fall out of your eyes in frustration.

Lyney sees this and gently grabs the key out of your hand and unlocks the door. He grabs your hand and pulls you to your shared room, so that you two can sort all of this out in private. Once you reach your room you let go of his hand and sit on the bed and pull your knees to your chest again and look away from Lyney. His eyes soften and he walks around to the other side of the bed and wraps his arms around you.

“My dove, what is it that’s troubling you? Please talk to me, I want to help you but I can’t do that if you don’t tell me what the problem is.” You shake your head and mumble “it’s nothing, just go have dinner with Louise.” His eyes widen again before he realizes that you must’ve hear him and Louise talking about dinner before the show.

“Oh my dearest dove, I was never going to entertain her and have dinner with her. I just didn’t want to create animosity before the show, though you have my deepest apologies for even saying that I could have dinner with her. I will never have dinner with anyone but you, Lynette, and Freminet. You have my word on that, I promise. So please forgive me for making you cry.”

You look up at him and swiftly wrap your arms around him and bury your head in his chest. “Please never do that again, I don’t think my heart could take it. I love you too much for you to do that.” He lightly kisses the top of your head before responding, “my dearest I love you more than you could possibly know.”

Let’s just say that he got an earful from Lynette when it was time for dinner, because no way was he ever eating with anyone eot on her watch.

Moze

Birthday presents are surprises. At least that’s how they’re supposed to be. Moze does not seem to understand this, not at all. Moze’s birthday was coming up and you wanted to surprise him, but could he let that happen? No apparently he could not, and he just had to spoil your surprise.

His birthday was coming up and you wanted to surprise him and get him a new custom dagger, you thought he would really like it. So when you decided what to get him, you got up extra early that morning and slipped out of your shared bed to go to the blacksmith. You made sure you were extra quiet so you didn’t wake Moze up and spoil your surprise.

When you finally made it to the blacksmith and made your order you decided to walk around and get some food. The dagger wouldn’t be ready until later that week so you had a lot of time on your hands. You decided to bring some food back for Moze and when you got back to your shared home he appeared out of nowhere and nearly gave you a heart attack.

“Moze seriously you got to stop appearing out of nowhere like that, you’re going to give me a heart attack one day.” He softly laughs and wraps his arms around you. “Where’d you run off to this early in the morning my love? You never get up this early.” You panic internally for a moment before you remember that you got food too, so you don’t have to worry about spoiling his surprise. “I went and got some food for us for breakfast, I woke up early and couldn’t fall back asleep, so I thought why not get some food?” He takes that answer and leave it at that.

Later that week you had to go pick up the dagger again, conveniently it was the day of Moze’s birthday. That day you got up early once more and snuck out of bed to go pick up his present. Though little did you know that when Moze woke up not long after he was surprised to not find you in bed once again, 2 times in one week? That’s suspicious, so he wanted to make sure you were okay, so he decided to go look for you.

He was looking all around the Yaoqing and he found you outside a blacksmith holding and admiring a dagger. What could you possibly need with a dagger? He decided to walk up to you to ask you about it and once he was in front of you, you about jumped out of your skin. “Moze! I swear please stop appearing out of nowhere!” You also realize that you have the dagger on full display so you quickly hide it behind your back.

“Now why are you hiding a dagger behind your back my love? That’s dangerous you know.” You then realize that he caught you red handed and quickly put the dagger in the bag you had along with the little card you made inside and shove it in his hands and run off. He stands there stunned at the fact that you just ran away, but before following you he looked inside the bag that you had given him. It held the dagger and a cute little note that said “Happy Birthday Moze! I love you” with a little heart next to it. He then realized that today was indeed his birthday and he came to the realization that he spoiled your gift for him.

When he finds you after he looked at your gift, you are in your shared room on the bed with your head between your knees silently crying, though he could still hear it, it is Moze after all. He quickly puts the bag on the nightstand and gets on the bed and pulls you into his lap. “My dearest love you have my deepest apologies for spoiling your gift for me. I wanted to make sure you were okay since you left so early but that does not excuse me from spoiling your surprise. Please forgive me my love.”

You look up at him teary eyed and bury your face in his neck. “You really don’t get the point of surprises do you, please try not to be so nosy around your birthday next year. I love you too much to have your birthday surprise spoiled.” He laughs softly before gently taking your head out of his neck and softly kissing your lips. “And I love you, I’ll try not to be so nosy next year, though I did forget it was my birthday in all fairness.” Your jaw drops at that and you realize that you have a new story to tell Jiaoqiu and Feixiao.

Let’s just say you three did not let him live down forgetting his own birthday, but you did it by giving him the best birthdays ever. Though when you told Jiaoqiu and Feixiao about all of this, Moze was lectured for hours on how to not ruin a surprise.

Neuvillette

Neuvillette is stressed. He doesn’t completely get “the silent treatment”. Why is it even a thing? Don’t humans love communicating? So why do they do this to themselves?

Furina watches in amusement seeing all the gears in Neuvillette’s turn trying to figure out why you’re giving him the silent treatment. You went to her to talk about how much he’s been working and it feels like he doesn’t even try to make time for you two anymore. She told you to talk to him about it because that’s the only way it’s ever going to get fixed. Little did she know it was going to make everything worse.

You went to talk to Neuvillette about it that night after you talked with Furina and he completely brushed it off. All he said was “What do you mean? Aren’t we spending time together now? We do this every night, get ready together and go to bed. That’s spending time together.”

You try to explain that you want to do more than that. You want to go on a date with him, you want to go on a walk, or even just stay in and cuddle. All he said back was “As the Iudex I am quite busy and you know that.” Then went to bed. Since then you’ve been ignoring him and going to bed before he gets home so now his routine is thrown off and he hates it.

Furina speaks up, “My dear Iudex what is troubling you?”

Neuvillette looks up at Furina and asks “Why am I getting the silent treatment? I don’t get it”

“Well Neuvillette, do you make time for her? Do you take her on dates? Do you get her flowers? Do you show her you love her?”

Neuvillette clears his throat and looks away, “Um… no…”

“Here lies your problem. It’s like how you make time every week to have a tea party with me and relax. Or catch up with Sigewinne. You’re not making time for your girlfriend you claim to love.”

Neuvillette sits there and reflects on this. He looks at Furina and says, “I must go. I have to fix this.”

Furina smiles and dismisses him as he walks out she calls out to him, “There’s no cases today so take the rest of the day off. But you have to start planning this stuff on your own.” Neuvillette shakes his head and leaves his office.

He stops on his way back home to get you flowers and some baked goods. Neuvillette arrives home and looks for you. He sees you and walks towards where you’re sitting in the bay window.

You’re shocked when you see Neuvillette home so early and then you see what’s in his hands. He has flowers and baked treats.

Neuvillette reaches you and begins to ramble, “My love I am so sorry. I didn’t put into perspective your feelings and how you want to spend more time with me. Which you 100% deserve because we are in a relationship and as a good boyfriend I must be present and make time for you. So after today I am going to make more time for you. I mean well it starts today as well because I am taking you out for dinner tonight. But in the mean time enjoy these flowers and treats I got you. I promise I won’t ever do this again. I love you so much.”

You watch and Neuvillette catches his breath after that long declaration but it makes you smile. You scoot over and make room for him to sit next to you. You pat the cushion and he is quick to listen and sit next to you. You grab the flowers and treats and put them to the other side of you.

You turn to give your full attention to Neuvillette. You reach out your hands and cup his face, “Thank you Neuvillette, that means a lot to me. I can’t wait for the date tonight and for many other moments together. I love you so much.” You go to give him a kiss which he quickly returns and pulls you closer to him.

Once you two break apart you stare lovingly at each other. Neuvillette vows to himself he will never have this happen again because he HATES the silent treatment.

Sunday

You’ve known Sunday and Robin since you were kids. The three of you were always playing together and created some unforgettable memories. Robin could tell yours and Sunday’s feelings grew into something stronger as you three got older. She made it her mission to get you two together before she left Penacony which she was successful with.

You laugh at her determination now but it also breaks your heart. You are Sunday’s girlfriend but you never knew what he was planning and what he was going through. You can’t help but blame yourself a little bit with not being able to stop him. But you’ve heard he’s out of confinement and planning on leaving. Is he really leaving you behind again? Can he not say goodbye? You look at the stars and wonder what will happen.

You hear a cautious hello behind you which makes you turn around. You see a young man with gray hair and a girl with pink and blue hair. You recognize them being the nameless that helped Penacony. “Why hello you two. I’m sorry I don’t remember your names could you remind me?”

The girl introduced herself as March 7th and the young man introduced himself as Caelus. March then asks, “Miss you’re Sunday’s girlfriend right?”

You smile at her, “Yes I am. I am sorry for all the trouble Sunday has caused you. Only if I knew I could have tried to stop him. But if you’re here to ask where he is, I don’t know. I just know he’s leaving and he could have left.”

March quick responds, “Oh we aren’t looking for him. We were curious if you would like to come with us? Like back to the Astral Express? We want to invite you to become a Nameless if you would want to.”

You think about the offer and quickly agree because you don’t exactly have a purpose right now. This can give you what you’re looking for.

March and Caelus took you back to the express where they showed you around and introduced you to Himeko, Dan Heng, and Pom Pom. Himeko tells you everyone has agreed to make you a Namless and that Welt is bringing someone else back to see if the Express wants them as a Nameless. To kill time you sit with March and Caelus.

You hear the door open and you see Welt and someone walking behind him. The person feels so familiar. March and Caelus stand up and walk over which you follow them. You stand behind them listening to Welt catch everyone up. Then you see him walk out from behind Welt. The man you dreamed of seeing since this whole disaster started.

Everyone begins to vote and say yes. Sunday looks happy but Pom Pom is quick to say, “Well we haven’t heard from our other new recruit. What do you think?” You step out from Caelus and March and make eye contact with Sunday and he sucks in a breath. “Yes I agree. He should become a Namless.” Everyone smiles and cheers for Sunday but he is frozen in place.

As soon as you and Sunday recite the creed you quickly go off ignoring Sunday. He tries to reach out for you but he realizes it’s futile. He knows he messed up. Welt comes up behind him and places a hand on his shoulder, “Don’t give up so fast. You’re on a new journey, don’t you want her on it? Go and talk to her.”

Sunday quickly follows where he saw you go and sees you looking at the stars. He takes a deep breath and walks over to stand next to you, “Aren’t they beautiful? They’re real and not fake ones. I’ve grown to learn that someday we will wake up from our dreams and have to face reality. I know that better than anyone now. After saying goodbye to Penacony and Robin I realized that I must start a new path. I regret not finding you first. You’ve always been in my path, dreams, future, anything really. I am lucky the Nameless are giving me this chance to fix everything. My angel I am so sorry. I should have went to you first, but I just thought about how I shouldn’t. You shouldn’t have to deal with a criminal and someone that went on the wrong path.” He starts to tear up, “Aeons I cannot imagine a life without you. I want you in my life and I want to take this next step with you. I am truly and deeply sorry for all I have caused. I love you so much. I understand if you don’t want to be with me anymore but just know if you give me another chance I’ll do everything in my power to prove to you I will change.”

You turn to face him and start to cry looking at his tears. You dive right into his chest and hold onto him tight. He quickly wraps his arms around you and cries with you. You missed this, you missed him. Sunday’s familiar scent is home to you.

You hiccup, “Sunday, Sunday” you grip him tighter. “I don’t care if you’re criminal. I don’t care if you walked the wrong path. I want you. Yes it hurt that you didn’t say goodbye but I know that it isn’t necessary because anywhere you go, I’ll follow. I’ll always be right with you because I love you so much. I want nothing more than to continue this Nameless journey with you.”

Sunday takes a deep breath and buries his face in your neck and plants light kisses on your neck. Between kisses he thanks you and promises you it will always be you and him.

Venti

When you’ve been alive as long as Venti has, you tend to not forget things you find precious or important. At least that’s what you had come to think. But now you are starting to doubt that. Because why else would you be sitting in front of Windrise for hours all by yourself, with all the picnic essentials, and no sign of your lovely bard showing up, if he didn’t forget?

When it started to get dark you decided that you had waited long enough for Venti to show up and made your way back to the city. When you walked through the gates you run into Rosaria, which was a pleasant surprise because you only really see her when you go to Angel’s Share with Venti.

“Oh, hey there Rosaria! How are you doing tonight?” She tilts her head at you and looks at you a little confusedly, “huh I’m surprised you aren’t at Angel’s Share with that bard tonight. He’s never there without you anymore, something happen between you two?” Now it’s your turn to look at her confused because what does she mean Venti is at Angel’s Share tonight?

“Rosaria, what do you mean? He’s at Angel’s Share right now?” You then mumble to yourself “that would explain why he didn’t come to Windrise for our picnic date then I guess.” Her eyes widen just a fraction before she narrows them. “You’re telling me he skipped out on your date to go drinking with Kaeya, what a lousy guy.”

You let that all sink in before tears start forming in your eyes at the realization that you were in fact ditched by your beloved. You let your head fall before you quietly tell Rosaria that you’re going to go home now.

When you get to yours and Venti’s shared home you place the picnic basket on the counter and you immediately go to your shared room. You change out of your clothes and hop into your bed, and it doesn’t take long for the tears to pour out of your eyes. Next thing you know you hear Venti walk into the room, and you don’t even want to know how long it’s been but you’re awake now but facing away from the door.

When he gets into bed you realize that you are now facing him and you will yourself to go back to sleep, because you don’t want to cry anymore tonight. When he fully settles into bed he softly looks at you and notices that you’re awake and softly whispers to you.

“Well hello there my windblume, what has you up at this hour? Sleep is important you know.” He reaches to cup your face and when he rubs his finger across your cheek he realizes that it’s kinda of wet. “Oh my windblume, whatever could have you crying?” He pulls you into his chest, and you immediately try to pull out of his hold and turn around.

He looks at you quizzically because you have never pulled away from him before. Did he upset you in some way? “My dearest, please talk to me, I wish to know what is upsetting you. Allow me to be the one you confide in my windblume.” You sigh before whispering softly, because that’s all you can manage without crying again.

“Venti do you remember what we planned to do today? Am I really that forgettable? That you would stand me up on our picnic date that we’ve been planning for weeks? Was drinking with Kaeya really more important than our picnic?” Venti’s face pales at what you said because he realizes that he totally forgot about your guys’ date.

“Oh my dearest windblume, no apology could ever be worth your forgiveness and tears. But please allow me to apologize all the same, I have no excuse for forgetting our date. Please allow me to make it up to you in any way possible, I’d even do the impossible for you because that is what you are worth. I hope you can find it within your heart to forgive me for this transgression but I know that an apology alone will not suffice. My beloved I am truly sorry.”

Venti then wraps his arms around your waist and gently kisses the top of your head. You sigh softly and turn around in his embrace, hug him tightly, and bury your head in his chest. “Please never forget about me again my beloved bard, I couldn’t stand it ever again.” He takes one hand from around your waist and brings it to tilt your head up towards him and he gently kisses your lips. “Never again my beloved muse, I will never forget you again.”

Let’s just say from that point on you guys were practically glued to each other, you could never find one of you without the other, and that’s just how everyone came to know and love Venti the bard and his muse.

Wriothesley

The strong and formidable Duke is passionate in his job. Maybe sometimes a little too much for your liking. Which is why you are shocked to hear from a guard that a big brawl broke out and your boyfriend was in the middle of it and didn’t leave unscathed.

You went up to the surface to get some quick refills of some supplies you and Sigewinne needed before the bigger supply would come to the fortress. After hearing the news you quickly run to the fortress to see the wounded and you can tell the guys that were on the receiving end of your boyfriend. But you don’t see the man in question here.

Sigewinne sees you come in and walks to meet you. “If you’re wondering where His Grace is, he isn’t here. I think he went to his office after the brawl. Go to him and I’ll stay here.” You nod and tell her to send a guard if she needs your help.

You walk to his office and smile at the guards and tell them not to come in. You hear grunts coming from upstairs knowing he is in pain. You head up the stairs and see him on his chair. You walk to one of the cabinets and grab the mini first aid kit you kept in here for situations like these. It only makes your blood boil now.

You got the kit and walk over to Wriothesley. You take a good look at his bruised face, split lip, blood dripping from his eyebrows, and scraped up knuckles. You see his nicely done hair flattened against his forehead and his nice dress clothes out of place. Then you see his bright blue eyes staring right at you. Wriothesley smirks at you, “It was a rough one wasn’t it haha.”

You glare at him and unbutton his bloodied gray vest so he isn’t wearing bloodied clothes, “Ohhh so that’s what you want. You wanna have some fun sweetheart?”

You glare at him again and take off the vest. Then grab the kit and start working on his face. You clean up the blood and put some bandages on his face then some ointment on his split lip. “Hey leave some scars, gotta scare the prisoners somehow.”

Once again you sent him a glare, “Wow that’s a death glare. Wait why aren’t you talking?” What a real funny question, he promised you last time he wouldn’t take on a big brawl again. But he obviously didn’t keep that promise. It makes you angry and upset. You just want him to stay safe, is that too much to ask?

You reach for his left hand start to clean and bandage it. You then switch to his right hand and can’t stop the tears that fall. Which fall right onto his knuckle which makes his freak. “Hey wait why are you crying? Sweetheart come on please look at me.” He grabs your chin and sees your tear stained eyes. “Talk to me please. I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

You sniffle and let more tears fall, “You broke your promise. You told me you wouldn’t take on a brawl by yourself again. Wriothesley I get you’re the Duke but seriously hold yourself in a higher regard. You are still a person and don’t deserve to be beaten up to stop a fight. You have people that can help you break it up. It’s not your burden to carry all by yourself. Don’t you care about your body? Because I do. I care SO much. I don’t want to see your beautiful face beaten up and your nice clothes ripped and bloodied. It breaks my heart and I can’t keep seeing you like this.”

Wriothesley stops, wait were you breaking up with him? “Sweetheart please don’t break up with me. I know I promise, and I’m very sorry I broke it. I’m the Duke and I want to send a message and not have my men get hurt over stuff I can handle on my own. I truly promise from now on I’ll go into these situations better. I’ll bring extra men just archons don’t break up with me. I love you so much it hurts.”

You think he misinterpreted the last thing you said but at least this promise seems like one he won’t break. You smile at him, “I’m not breaking up with you handsome. You misunderstood.” You brush your hands through his hair, “I just don’t like seeing you hurt. I like seeing your handsome face free of blood and bruises. I love you so much too Wriothesley.”

Wriothesley smiles up at you and pulls you toward him and slots his lips with yours. You feel like with this kiss he’s sealing your promise.

Yanqing

Yanqing is not only recovering from his little run in with Blade and Dan Heng but is now having a crisis because you’re ignoring him for some reason?? He tried to ask Jing Yuan why you were avoiding him, but he was like “I don’t know Yanqing, I think you need to solve your little lover’s quarrel by yourself.”

To say he was bewildered might have been an understatement. All he wanted to do after he was thoroughly beat up by an infamous Stellaron Hunter and the previous High Elder was to just be in your presence and have you tend to his wounds because you always did it better than he ever could.

So here you sit, all by yourself, in the Exalting Sanctum, trying to calm yourself down. You just can’t believe that Yanqing would try to recapture one of the Stellaron Hunters, when he knows just how dangerous they are, and all by himself on top of that.

When you had first heard that Yanqing had gone off on his own accord to try to recapture Blade, it wasn’t even from Yanqing himself, rather from the seat of Divine Foresight himself. To say you were bewildered and just plain terrified was probably an understatement, because Blade is a very dangerous criminal with a high bounty on his head. Why would Yanqing try to go after him by himself for starters and without an order from Jing Yuan??

When he first got back after Jing Yuan told him to take his leave, he finds you sitting in Exalting Sanctum all by yourself looking quite upset. His first thought is that someone bothered you but when he reached where you were sitting all he got was a very harsh glare.

“Hey there my dear, what’s got you so upset? Did someone bother you?” You glare at him even harder once you see his injuries and stand up and huff before grabbing his hand and dragging him to your home. Yanqing can tell that you are very clearly upset but he can’t seem to figure out why, because you have never been this mad before. You drag him to your room where you kept your medical supplies and push him to sit on your bed, and you were not that gentle with it.

He winces at the sting it causes his injuries when you push him and you glare harder at the floor. You grab your little medical kit that you have, for times just like this, and begin on working tending to his injuries. He looks at you quizzically, because by now you would have said something, anything at all in response to him, and he is growing more confused and nervous by the second, because was it something he did?

The silence between you two lasts for a little longer until he speaks up and asks “hey, did I do something wrong? Did I upset you somehow? Please just talk to me?” You look up and glare at him again before silently getting back to his injuries, and you don’t know if it’s because you’re angry or because you were so nervous for his safety, but you realize that your hands are shaking.

Yanqing soon realizes this too and his eyes widen in alarm. “Wait, why are you shaking? Please tell me what’s wrong and I’ll do all I can to fix it, please, please just talk to me!” You begin to fumble with the last of his bandages and as soon as he sees that he grabs your hands with one of his and your face with the other. You look up at him and it doesn’t take long for you to break, tears start forming in your eyes before you’re spilling what’s bothering you.

“Yanqing how could you think that going after a Stellaron Hunter all by yourself was a good idea?? Do you have any idea how worried I was when Jing Yuan told me that you went off on your own with no orders?? Blade is such a dangerous person and you thought that the best course of action was to go off on your own and try to recapture him?? You could’ve avoided getting these injuries, don’t you know that?? It hurts me every time that I have to tend to your injuries because I know you’re out there getting hurt everyday and there’s nothing I can do about it! That’s why I’m upset Yanqing because I hate seeing you hurt!”

To say Yanqing was stunned was an understatement, because he was the reason you were upset? How could he have let that happen? “Wait, I’m so sorry my dear I never meant to upset you. I just wanted to prove myself and recapture the Stellaron Hunter after he escaped, I know he’s dangerous but I thought I could do it. I’m sorry for overlooking your feelings when I get hurt, please forgive me.”

Your eyes soften before you take your hands gently out of his and wrap your arms around him. “I forgive you Yanqing, please just stop being reckless alright?” His arms immediately come to wrap around you before he buries his head into your stomach. “I promise I’ll try to be less reckless, my dear.”

Let’s just say that from that point on Jing Yuan was impressed when he noticed that Yanqing got just a little less reckless, and he mentally thanked you for that.

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