IT’S DAY 7 OF TSUKASA WEEK, FREE DAY!! I Didn’t Have A Single Bit Of Time To Write Today, Sob. BUT!

then eventually, we'll forget!!

Tsuchigomori: Honorable No. 7, please stop shirking your duties to flirt with that girl.

Hanako: No❤️

a thousand words

pairings (separately!) - diluc ragnvindr, kaeya alberich, albedo, childe, zhongli, xiao, kaedehara kazuha, scaramouche, dainsleif x gender neutral reader

word count - 2322

genre - hurt/comfort

format - drabbles

warnings - crying, focal point on being touch starved, use of xiao's real name because i love him, cursing in scara's because there will ALWAYS be cursing in scara's

summary - a touch starved reader crumbles upon being given love and affection for the first time by their beloved <3

a/n - hop aboard the self indulgent train!!!/hj but this idea has been on my mind for a while now so i'm eager to write it! :D also this is borderline rambling i apologize if it's not your thing :')))

our actions hold within them partial universes created of stardust and glitter, and a thousand words rooted in the slight slip of one's hand across another's cheek, or perhaps a longing, loving gaze that manages to enrapture another and speak volumes in silence. a simple hug would speak even more than thick, yellowed books and detailed encyclopedias that stretch on for volume upon volume.

you began to realize this when the way in which he caressed your cheek with such love had you melting under his breathy gaze and falling limp in his arms. his body alone seemed to preach with an airy cadence without a single word escaping past his lips.

for so long you'd bared the biting nip of frosting cold and let a sheen of ice coat itself along your skin. yet his touch seemed to melt what remained of blooming winter both in your heart and soul and left behind a shivering something, curled up in a ball and smaller than a marble: the desire for affection, to be loved, and to be wanted.

even now as his arms fit snug around your body for the first time, you let your mind wander to your times of icy frost and barren loneliness where only the softness of your pillow could provide some sort of solace for the gaping hole in your heart where loving hugs and kisses to your cheek were supposed to fit perfectly.

"is this okay?"

you wanted to laugh bitterly at how courteous he was,

"such a gentleman, of course it is." you teased despite the watery waver to the tail end of your voice.

when his arms drew tighter around your body and you felt his lips come to once again melt away at the snow around your temple, your mind drew back to those sleepless nights where all you longed for was one single hug, and suddenly all the snow had been thawed by his touch and left behind a calm, gentle stream of rivulets that trickled down your cheeks from the reservoirs hidden behind your eyes.

oh, how loved you felt in his arms.

content utc!

diluc.

upon hearing the first of your sniffles, diluc's body went rigid as rock as he hurried to pull you away from his shoulder and inspect your face. what he hadn't expected was for you to dive right back in, your arms slung around his torso as if holding too slack would mean he'd fade away into nothing and you'd be left to bear the stinging void of loneliness once again.

"please don't let me go, not yet." sputtered between little hiccups and wheezes, you prayed that he managed to hear the words you spoke directly into his heart.

and hear them he did, in fact he did more than hear them: he understood them. his strong, broad arms moved upwards to hold your body tight against his, taking great care to treat you as if you'd break under his touch. the gentle swipe of hair from your damp forehead and brush of his fingers against your tear-soaked cheeks had your knees buckling under the newfound touch.

to admit his own starve of touch out loud would embarrass him to no end, but he'd never deny the way your warmth made his heart flutter. and he hoped that he could mend the holes in your heart and indulge in each other's arms and this foreign feeling of touch, together.

"it's okay," diluc spoke into the roots of your hair, eyes shutting in pure bliss, "i'm here now, you're not alone anymore."

and you believed him, with all your heart.

kaeya.

"angel? what's going on? are those tears i see?"

despite the teasing lilt to his voice, the worry lined around his lilac pupils could never betray his mind. his hands held your sniffling face as if you were crafted by the gods themselves, each swipe of his thumb careful and gentle and each peck to your nose, eyelid, cheeks, forehead, and lips held within them words that never needed to be said.

"kaeya?"

"yes, darling?"

"could i have another hug?" if your words weren't enough to depict how much you loved him, your eyes screamed in volumes loud enough for the gods themselves to hear them.

kaeya wanted to give you one of his charming chuckles and offer up a cheesy, teasing response like, "aww, it seems not even you can evade my wicked, boyish charm."

but he knew better, and he knew that he understood you more than he let on. so instead of speaking, his arms wrote poetry wrapped tight around your waist, and his lips uttered lyrics to love ballads in the form of pressing kiss after kiss to your hair.

what remained on his skin was the thawed droplets of ice that once covered his body, all thanks to your warmth were they melted and gone. he prayed you'd never let go of him, because he knew he'd never let you slip from his arms.

albedo.

confused, albedo gently pries your face away from his shoulder and takes the first step in brushing away the drops of sorrow that flowed freely from your eyes.

"did something happen, my flower? was i perhaps too rough with my hug?" ever the diligent scientist, albedo's eyes scan yours for any sign of discomfort. yet what he finds staring back at him is the void in your irises beginning to fill up with his reflection, and his theory soon becomes fact when you say nothing more and head straight back into his arms, squeezing tighter and tighter with all of your strength.

you'd come crashing into his life with all of the gentleness of a bull in a ceramics shop, and yet you felt so soft, so fragile in his arms.

"just one more hug, i promise." despite the obvious strain to your voice and the tears that dampened his shirt, albedo conceded and decided to play into your fantasy, where he gives you just one more hug.

albedo himself knows not much of affection, but what he has been able to conclude from his studies is that he loves sharing it with you. and he doesn't need a notebook to detail such findings when he has the ability to hold you tight in his arms and let the beat of his heart detail his findings to your listening ears.

childe.

"hey, what's wrong? did someone hurt you? did you have a bad day?"

despite the literal chain bomb that was childe's constant stream of questions, his tightened grip only served to make your tears fall faster from your eyes as you realized just how loved you felt in his embrace.

without even needing to open your mouth, he seemed to realize right away when your fist gathered clumps of his shirt into your fingers and gripped with white knuckles.

"oh sunshine," he cooed, moving his thumb to brush just underneath the red rim of your eye, "c'mere. i'll give you lots of cuddles."

and give you lots of cuddles he did. you would never slip from his arms, not with how secure and firm they rested around your body, locked in tight and confirmed with the gentle squeeze to your torso every now and then to remind you of how real he was.

despite the fact that his shirt would be wrinkled with how hard you gripped onto the fabric, or the noticeable wet patch you'd leave on his shoulder from your tears, childe relished in the feeling of your puzzle piece bodies fitting together as one. as much as you craved him, he was addicted to you.

zhongli.

to many who have uttered his name in prayer, they asked for good fortune, another chance, or something along the lines that would only be grantable by a god.

but you uttered no words, not a single peep. instead you spoke his name through the way in which your eyes silently pleaded with him to hold you tight against his chest and he felt your prayers of love deep within the caverns of his heart.

"i'm here, my lily. you never have to ask me to hold you. if you so desire it, it shall be yours."

his words seemed to spur your sobs onwards, but he knew they were from a place that you had long sealed away, a place that had been released with only a single one of his hugs.

zhongli was a man of many words but he was content to let the way in which he held you tight against his throbbing heart speak the words he could never find.

xiao.

your cries are like stabs through the heart for xiao. poor, poor alatus who tries so hard not to mess up the one good thing that's come to him in a long, long time.

he slides away from your embrace in fear that he may have hurt you, which, much to his surprise, only makes your stuttered breaths and rolling tears increase.

"don't go..." you mumbled as you raced against his mind to clutch his torso with all you were.

he doesn't understand, to comprehend such intricacies of the human condition were far beyond his reach and yet he allows you to indulge in feeling the pound of his heart hammer away from under the thin skin of his chest and the feel of his fingers tracing patterns on the underside of your back.

his fears of your pain or sorrow are washed away when he brings you closer to his body and dives into the crook of your neck.

and as your fingers come up to card through his thick locks, he finds himself ever so close to joining you in melting the frigid snow that lay around his heart in exchange for calm, gentle rivers.

kazuha.

the minute tears fall from your eyes, kazuha sweeps in to kiss them away as if sensing your sorrow before you even know it.

"your tears wound me ever so deep, my love. what happened?"

but you can't give a straight answer, not with how the overwhelming warmth that encircles your body overpowers you brain and leaves you a bumbling mess in his arms.

you only answer with the glassy, longing look you give him and the burrowing of your body closer into his arms. any more and you'd merge with him.

his touch is gentler than the drop of a crimson leaf in early fall, and quieter than the gentle shake of wildflowers in spring. he feels like life itself, and as you inhale more of him through your nose you feel yourself unbinding the cords and vines wrapped around your heart.

once his hand came to stroke the top of your head, all while his soothing voice gently shushed your tears and muffled sobs, all you could do was melt and indulge in the finest that kazuha had to offer.

and kazuha knows that he'd do anything to fill the void within you where he fits perfectly.

scaramouche.

"why are you crying? who hurt you?! i'm going to fucking kill them-"

"n-no! scara no!"

the crack in your voice in enough to settle him down and allows you to return to placing your head in the crook of his shoulder. "just for a little bit...let's stay like this, please." you plead into his skin.

scaramouche can't help but indulge you, even if the sight of your tears or the way your shoulders rise up and down sharply sends shooting pains to that odd thing in his chest.

"if nothing's wrong then stop crying, it's annoying." despite his harsh words, his large palm comes up to hold the back of your head against his body, while the other arm pressed your body flush against his.

the way in which he held you completed contradicted his words, and his lingering touch was one you knew you'd think about for the rest of your life so long as you lived.

scaramouche himself felt the similar gaping hole in his chest begin to close, and the foreign feeling for once felt pleasant instead of painful.

"so...you like this kinda stuff?"

with a vigorous nod of your head and tighten grip around his torso, 'noted', scaramouche thought and allowed himself a single, small fraction of a smile that of which he buried into your temple in hopes that you'd see him with your eyes closed.

dainsleif.

you're so tender and soft, dainsleif almost feels as if he's holding a timid daisy rather than his beloved partner.

though he claims to be devoid of so many human traits, you feel his warmth and hear the thunder of his heartbeat against your ear. in this moment you realize: there is someone who loves you, and someone who treasures you enough to allow you close to their heart.

his first hug in so long brings him to near tears, and the spur of rivers that trickled down your face worried him to no end as he makes haste to slip away.

"are you alright? have i hurt you? we don't have to do that again if you don't want-"

you loved him, you loved all of him, even the nervous worrywart side of him that he rarely ever revealed to anyone. but in this moment, all you craved was dainsleif and you made it known of your intentions when you cut his rambling questions off by flinging yourself against his body, holding so tight as if he'd slip through your hands like silky water or thin, granules of sand.

"it feels so nice. you feel so nice." and though normally such bold words would have you flustered and looking away and his cheeks flared up in the color of pyro, dainsleif allows himself this one indulgence and wraps his arms tight around your body as you dry your tears into the fabric of his shirt.

and he'd be sure to never let go until he takes his last breath.

date published: august 18th, 2021

baby sherb’s been sitting on roses and snacking all day

Hello! I hope you'll have a good time running this blog ^^ I'm starved for platonic content of Zhongli and Venti. Would a drabble about them comforting the reader together, each in their own way be possible?

Comfort

GN!reader feat. zhongli and venti

genre: fluff (??)

warnings: none

a/n: thank you, i really look forward to working on this blog. this ended up being a bit gloomier than i had intended so i apologize i abt that :p! [unedited]

“here,” zhongli spoke softly, draping his coat over your figure, “we should be arriving soon.” the archon had found you at the entrance of the parlor with frustration evident on your face. with simply a few words exchanged, he had excused himself and offered to take you someplace else. you looked up at the starry sky, pulling the coat closer against you.

“one would think from all these years i have spent roaming this world, i would be better at these things by now,” he chuckles, finally coming to a stop. he had brought you to a cliff overseeing the city of liyue and the vast ocean in front of it. you feel your heart warming at the breathtaking sight as zhongli speaks again, “even with all the power one could fathom, i do not know if i could put your heart at ease. for now, i offer you this place of sanctuary, my words, and reminder of my unconditional faith in you.”

you finally look up and feel the warmth from the glowing, amber eyes looking back at you. a familiar gust of wind blows past you and you feel a hand on your shoulder. you look back to find the bard with his lyre and whimsical smile, the same smile that brought you comfort with such ease.

“how did you-” you start, only to be cut off by the bard’s giggles, “call it an archon’s intuition.” his smile soon dissipates, an earnest look of concern taking over. all three of you become silent as your bitter feelings rise again. the frustration of nothing seeming to go right and feeling undeserving of this sort of support, has a lump forming in your throat. your eyes seem to prickle with tears and your throat aches as you struggle to word your concerns. venti grabs you by the hand, leading you to a tree nearby as zhongli follows, “i understand, come take a seat.”

the bard starts playing a familiar tune on his lyre and your tears finally begin to fall. zhongli wipes them away and places his hand over yours, looking over at liyue, “barbatos and i may have our differences, but we have watched many mortals come and go. humans face many difficulties, no matter how trivial the subject may be. however, many people force these pretty ideals of constant strength and delude themselves into believing they’ve overcome something without even acknowledging it. i understand that our gestures alone will not solve your problems, but i hope that we are able to give you a safe space and some time to better understand your feelings.”

“even on your worst days, you are more capable than you give yourself credit for so i don’t doubt that you will have an issue overcoming these adversities. but for now, please just allow yourself to be vulnerable,” venti whispers, his fingers moving gracefully along the strings. they both lean closer against you and you don’t object, feeling safe and loved as you all sit in comfortable silence underneath the stars.

starlight, star-crossed

pairing: albedo/reader

rating: general

summary: It comes all too suddenly, an impulse he’s forgotten to hold back, rein in, the words spilling out of his lips, quick and unexpected. “Let’s get married.”

notes: this was done on a whim, so forgive any errors! this is a little too indulgent. but shrugs

Keep reading

scorpion's heart

Sometimes while thinking about TBHK thoughts will run through my head that I realize aren't universal among the fandom. I have actually touched upon this topic before, but I still wanted to make a quick post for the uninformed about an official parallel drawn between Tsukasa and a moment in a beloved piece of Japanese literature.

Night on the Galactic Railroad is a classic Japanese novel often taught in Japanese classrooms, similar to how English classics will often be taught in the Anglosphere. It's well known in Japan for this reason, and for the sake of this post I'll assume you either haven't heard of it or that you don't know much about it. Regardless, this post is centering on only a small portion of the novel, so you won't come away from it with a total understanding of what it's all about. I encourage you to check it out yourself!

As you might be able to tell by the name, the story involves a boy riding a train through a fantastical version of outerspace. During his trip through the cosmos, he meets others riding the train. One of these people tells him the story of Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpio. Already there is one connection to the story of Hanako-kun, that being Amane's infamous monologue about the star during the Picture Perfect arc.

The story goes as follows: a scorpion was being chased by a weasel. In a last ditch effort to escape the weasel, it threw itself into a well. But the scorpion had no means of escape, and realized it was going to die there. The scorpion bemoans this fate, because as a predator it has only ever taken life away. It regrets not taking the chance to help the weasel, even if it would only help the weasel live a single day longer. And now the scorpion is going to die having helped no one.

So it prays to God, and asks that its body be used to bring happiness to everyone. And as if God had heard its plea, the scorpion's body burst into a brilliant red flame. This same light is said to be the star Antares, the heart of the Scorpio constellation.

...so! Already somewhat superficially you can compare this story to Tsukasa and the Red House. Little guy jumps into hole/well,

little guy makes a wish to a God to bring happiness to others,

little guy bursts into flames...

Personally I find these alone to be staggering similarities, but it leaves you asking: What is the significance of this?

Well, I tend to interpret it as a reflection of Tsukasa's selflessness. I think Tsukasa's intentions as a child were very pure. But later on it seems like this selflessness distorts into something else, something more twisted. Regardless, Tsukasa's motivations involve destroying himself for other people's happiness. His own destruction will bring happiness to Sakura (she needs all the yorishiro to be destroyed to have her wish granted) and also Amane, who has a wish of his own he wants granted.

Anyway, besides Amane comparing himself to Antares in Picture Perfect, we also have this official Night on the Galactic Railroad AU art with Tsukasa bearing the tail of the scorpion:

Note the red flame on the tip of his stinger. (And most importantly note his cuteness. 🦂🔥❤️)

Touching briefly upon Amane's Antares story in Picture Perfect, there aren't many obvious comparisons to draw between it and Night on the Galactic Railroad. However, one thing I'll touch upon is how Antares is a binary star, or a "twin star." It being a binary star isn't talked about in Night on the Galactic Railroad, but Amane mentions it. He also mentions how you can't normally see its twin. This is because its twin is a main sequence star, much less bright than the red supergiant Antares. It was only ever discovered that Antares had a twin when the moon covered the red supergiant and an astromer spotted the main sequence star beside it. Perhaps Amane and Tsukasa are supposed to represent the red flame of Antares in different ways, but it does make me wonder if Amane is meant to represent the little main sequence star too, since Tsukasa is very clearly the red flame in this story. But considering Amane's analysis of Antares is so much more scientific than the fantastical version seen in Night on the Galactic Railroad, I think it's safer to regard these as fundamentally separate stories. Still fun to consider however.

But if we did want to talk about the scientific implications of Tsukasa being Antares, I'd bring up how red supergiants often become black holes, almost the antithesis of what the scorpion wanted to become. The scorpion wanted to bring light and happiness to everyone, but a black hole only devours and destroys, just the thing the scorpion didn't want to be anymore. I don't think Tsukasa started in the same place as the scorpion, who regretted its life of selfishness... but it makes me wonder if he's meant to be the anti-scorpion: a selfless being becoming a black hole of destruction. That's a very sad way of looking at things, but it's hard not to think of it when we see what's happened to him in the series as a whole:

In the context of Night on the Galactic Railroad, the scorpion is regarded as a selfless hero. Although another character expresses distastes for dangerous creatures like the scorpion, the character who tells the Antares story argues that the scorpion is a fundamentally good creature. It's another one of those little things in Hanako-kun that reminds me that Tsukasa, for all his faults, has good inside him too. But it does leave me wondering how far this comparison will go, and what that means for Tsukasa's fate. Will he continue to sacrifice himself till the end? And will that sacrifice be for the good of everyone, or only a few?

My favorite part about all this is there's no answer! It's just a fun comparison AidaIro made that helps recontextualize Tsukasa's character. Is this a meaningful comparison, or just a surface-level one? Will his story end the same way as the scorpion, or will he subvert expectations? Who knows! I mostly just think back on it and remember that Tsukasa started as an extremely selfless character that still displays these traits in the manga today, even as a nefarious ghost. Maybe he is isn't misunderstood like the scorpion, but he's certainly just as tragic. Thanks for reading!

Let's run away together. To the real world!

3 years old:

4 years old:

8 years old:

12 years old:

13 years old:

15 years old:

28 years old:

59 years old:...