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axeeglitter · 8 months ago

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Sensius, Part 1: The fall of Nathan Harper

The email had been short, almost curt: Congratulations! You’ve been selected as one of the exclusive winners to test our groundbreaking Virtual Reality System: Sensius! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! You are allowed to share this experience with 3 friends, so get ready!

Nathan had almost deleted it, assuming it was just spam. But when he showed it to Brad, his tech-savvy friend, the response was immediate.

"Dude, this is legit," Brad said, eyes wide with excitement. "Look at the company name, this is one of the biggest tech firms out there! If this is real, we can’t miss it."

And that was how Nathan, along with Brad, Josh, and Ethan, found themselves standing in the lobby of a sleek, futuristic facility just a week later. The air buzzed with a faint hum of machinery, and the walls were lined with polished glass and chrome, reflecting their eager faces.

Ethan grinned, clapping Nathan on the back. “We’re about to be part of something huge, you know that? They say this new VR system is years ahead of its time.”

Nathan managed a smile, though a small knot of unease had formed in his stomach. He couldn’t put his finger on why. Maybe it was the way the staff moved with such mechanical precision, or the fact that not a single window in the building seemed to let in any natural light. He glanced around, noting how the ceiling was lined with black, bulbous cameras, all aimed directly at them.

Before he could voice his doubts, a woman in a crisp uniform approached them. Her name tag read “Dr. Kim.” She had a perfect, plastic smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Welcome, and congratulations on winning the contest,” she said smoothly. “If you’ll follow me, we’ll get started right away.”

They were led down a narrow corridor, the walls closing in on them like the maw of a beast. At the end of the hallway, four doors slid open with a soft hiss, revealing a stark white room with a glass and metallic pod, each of them waiting for their user to get inside. “This is it,” Brad whispered, his excitement palpable. “These must be the VR chambers.”

“Yeah, but why do they look like that?” Nathan muttered. He couldn’t shake the feeling of unease crawling up his spine. “Nathan, you are assigned in the first room. Brad on the second, Josh on the third and Ethan on the last one.” Dr. Kim said in a kind reassuring voice as she laid Nathan in the first room. Then she turned back to the other boys and continued “We will start with Nathan. Get inside your assigned room and a technician will be with you shortly guys”, after what she followed Nathan in the first room as the door closed.

Dr. Kim gestured to the pod. “Please step inside and relax. We’ll begin the calibration process shortly.”

Nathan took a deep breath and climbed into the pod. The moment his back hit the cool, padded surface, the lid began to close softly.

“Wait, what’s happening?” Nathan tried to sit up, but the lid sealed shut with a click, trapping him inside. He felt restraints grab him around his wrists and ankles and panic started to rise inside his brain. Nathan tried to ask for Dr. Kim what was happening but he couldn’t hear anything, only a door closing and the silence humming in his ears. Then, the restraints started to tighten around his limbs, pinning him down in the pod. Panic surged through him.

“Hey!” he yelled, banging his fists against the glass. “I didn’t agree to this! Let me out!”

His voice echoed in the confined space. The room outside the glass was empty. Dr. Kim was gone.

A soft, synthetic voice filled the pod. “Please remain calm. Calibration will begin shortly. Do not be alarmed.”

Nathan’s heart raced. “What do you mean, calibration? What is this?”

But the voice didn’t respond. Instead, the lights inside the pod dimmed, casting him in shadows. He felt a rush of cold air against his skin as a fine mist filled the chamber. It smelled metallic, like blood.

“Initiating physical modification protocol.”

The voice was different this time, colder, clinical. Nathan felt a jolt of fear so strong it nearly paralyzed him.

“Modification?” Nathan’s voice cracked. “What the hell does that mean?”

But there was no time for answers. The pod vibrated violently, and suddenly; Nathan’s entire body convulsed with a pain so intense it felt like his bones were being shattered from the inside.

He screamed, but no one could hear him.

“Preparing subject for modification,” the voice announced, void of any emotion.

Before he could react, a bright red laser descended from the ceiling of the pod, sweeping methodically across his body. The beam was hot, too close, and he yelped as it touched his skin. His clothes fell away in thin, smoldering strips, disintegrating into ash. Within seconds, he was naked, exposed, every nerve on edge.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Nathan shouted, thrashing against the cold grip of the mechanical arms. “This isn’t right! Let me go! I will sue you!”

But the AI ignored his pleas and threats, moving on with its cold, calculated precision.

“Initiating skeletal restructuring.”

Nathan’s eyes went wide as he felt a sudden, unbearable pressure building inside his bones, like they were being filled with molten metal. He screamed as his fingers curled involuntarily, the skin on his hands pulling taut. He watched in horror as his nails darkened, lengthening into sharp, claw-like points. It felt as though blades were slicing through the tips of his fingers from the inside out before retracting back into his skin and taking a normal human appearence.

The sensation spread through his hands, the skin stretching and splitting in tiny, bloodless cracks that quickly healed over. His fingers elongated, becoming thicker and more muscular, transforming into something powerful and inhuman. He flexed them in terror, feeling an unfamiliar strength, but the sight made his stomach twist.

“Help me!” he begged, his voice raw and broken. “Somebody, please, make it stop!”

“Reconstructing limbs. Enhancing bone density and muscular structure.”

Nathan’s back arched violently, a sickening crunch echoing through the pod as his bones began to snap and realign. He felt his legs being pulled, stretching beyond their normal length. His femurs extended, each shift accompanied by a wet, grinding sound. The pain was unimaginable, like someone was using his bones as clay, molding them into a new shape.

He could feel the muscles in his legs tearing apart, only to regrow thicker and stronger. His calves bulged, cords of muscle coiling like thick ropes under his skin. He cried out as his toes spasmed, the bones lengthening, the nails hardening into black, pointed tips before retracting into normal nails. His feet, now larger and wider, curled involuntarily, digging into the padded floor of the pod.

Nathan looked down, choking on a sob. His legs had transformed into something monstrous, bulging with unnatural muscle.

“Restructuring torso and spine.”

The AI’s voice was cold and indifferent, barely audible over the sound of Nathan’s own screams. His spine snapped back into place, each vertebra popping out with a crack that made his teeth clench in agony. He felt himself being stretched, his torso elongating. His ribs expanded, pushing outwards, and he gasped for breath as his chest heaved.

Nathan’s chest convulsed violently, the skin rippling as new muscles formed. His pectorals swelled, tightening painfully as they reshaped into thick, defined slabs. His abs hardened, ridges of muscle surfacing under his skin. He could feel his armpits changing too, the skin roughening, dark hair sprouting where it had once been sparse. The musky, masculine scent filled the pod, overpowering his senses, making him gag.

“Please,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I don’t want this…” His vision started to blur because of the pain he was going through. His breath was going faster and faster as he was on the edge of fainting.

“Facial reconstruction. Jaw modification and dental adaptation.”

The pain surged into his face next, a searing heat that made him squeeze his eyes shut. He felt his jaw dislocate, stretching wider, the bones shifting painfully. His cheekbones pushed forward, the sharp, angular lines giving him a more predatory look. He could feel his nose narrowing, the bridge lifting, as if invisible hands were sculpting his features into something sharper, more defined.

Nathan’s teeth ached, a dull pressure building in his gums. He whimpered as he felt them crack, shards dissolving as they were replaced by healthier, stronger, whiter teeth. His canines extended, grazing against his lower lip before retracting back into a more regular size. He opened his eyes, staring at his reflection into the glass of the pod in front of him, but the face looking back at him was barely recognizable. His eyes had changed too, the irises now a bright, piercing yellow, glowing with a predatory light before going back to a natural hazel hue, way different from his dark brown natural iris.

“Enhancing cardiovascular and respiratory systems.”

His heart thundered in his chest, the beat so loud it drowned out the voice of the AI. He could feel it pounding against his ribs, each thump like the strike of a hammer. His ribs expanded outward, making room for his new, larger lungs. He gasped for air, the cold rush filling his chest, making him shiver.

His breaths were deeper now, the air flooding into him with a force that felt unnatural. He could feel his lungs stretching, adapting to his altered body. Every inhalation carried a new scent, his own musk, pungent and raw, filled the confined space, mixing with the sterile smell of the pod.

“Modifying skin texture and body hair.”

Nathan’s skin prickled, a thousand needles dancing across every inch of his body. He watched in horror as thick, dark hair sprouted along his arms and legs. Then the same sensation appeared on his newly muscled pecs and in the middle of his abs as faint hair started to grow, almost invisible but yet very present. It grew rapidly, covering him head to toe. Nathan started to feel the tingling appeared at the end of his newly acquired happy trail. He tilted his head and realize with terror between his two new pecs that his groin started to grow dense thick, dark, curly hair. He used to always shave his groin because he didn’t like the sensation of hair down there, but now it was a thick forest of pubes that was growing on him. Nathan twitched, and he screamed as a new feeling appeared under his pubes. Nathan felt like someone just had sucker punched him in his balls and cock. He almost faints just from this sensation as out of nowhere, his balls started to grow, thicker and thicker, bigger and bigger. Then his cock started to lengthen and lost his skin as he became cut. His cock head started to grow and blood rushed into this newly acquired territory. He started to get hard and Nathan could see his cock rising through his pubes, his new cock head shining with pre and sweat as veins popped on its length. When it was done, Nathan now had a thick cut 9 inches cock always leaking pre in his pubes and making sure he would stink of cock and balls no matter where he would go. Nathan’s breath came in rapid, shallow gasps, his chest heaving as he tried to make sense of his new body. Every muscle throbbed, raw and overused, as if he had just been put through hours of excruciating labor. He felt strong, dangerously so, but the fear still gnawed at his mind, overriding the primal instincts now coursing through his veins.

He expected the lid of the pod to open, to release him into the room. But instead, the AI’s voice echoed again, colder than before.

“Transformation complete. Initiating digitization process.”

Nathan’s eyes widened. “What! no, no, wait!” He thrashed against the restraints with his new raspy lower voice, the mechanical arms still pinning him down, but they didn’t budge. The cold metal dug into his skin, pressing against his enhanced muscles.

A low hum filled the pod, and a sudden, intense vibration shook Nathan to his core. He felt something strange ripple through his limbs, a tingling that started in his fingertips and toes. He watched in growing horror as his new hands began to shimmer, small flecks of light dancing off his skin.

It felt like his very essence was being pulled apart, strand by strand. His fingers disintegrated into tiny particles, dissolving into pixels, the sensation a mixture of sharp stings and a numbness that spread like ice through his veins.

“Stop this! Please! What is happening! HELP!” he shouted, his voice breaking into a deep, unfamiliar growl. But the AI continued without pause, the hum growing louder.

“Digitizing subject. Uploading data to central system.”

Nathan screamed as his arms began to dissolve, pixel by pixel. He could see his own new muscles breaking apart into tiny cubes of light, his skin fading into strings of code, ones and zeroes. The sensation was like being ripped apart atom by atom, his very being siphoned off into the void. He felt himself getting lighter, parts of him vanishing into nothingness as a weird sensation of pleasure invaded him, making his cock twitch without him being to control it.

The disintegration crept up his torso, and he gasped as he felt his chest begin to disappear, the solid mass of his enhanced lungs dissolving into digital particles. He could see his reflection in the curved surface of the pod, his new face contorting in agony, sharp cheekbones framed by the fractured light of his fading form.

His legs were next, disappearing into a stream of data that spiraled upwards, sucked into a vacuum-like aperture at the top of the pod. Nathan struggled, but it was like fighting against a current pulling him under. He watched helplessly as his feet dissolved, feet and thick muscles reduced to nothing but streams of binary code.

“Don’t do this,” he whimpered as the sensation climbed up his legs and reached his new thick balls and cock. As it swallowed them, Nathan felt an orgasmic sensation invading him as he felt himself starting to cum handsfree. His cock spasmed and spasmed as its lengths disappeared in floating pixels, leaving spurts of cum resting on the remnants of his shattered clothes on the ground of the pod. His voice thin and fragile, the deep growl fading as his throat disintegrated. His vision blurred as his eyes turned into tiny squares of light, and the last thing he saw was the empty, padded interior of the pod, littered with the remnants of his shredded clothing and his fresh cum.

In the center of the room, a sleek, black computer tower hummed to life, the main screen flashing on. A progress bar appeared, filling slowly, labeled:

“Uploading Subject: Nathan Harper… Assigned File: Theo Raeken”

Nathan’s mind felt like it was spinning, tumbling through darkness. He couldn’t feel his body, couldn’t tell where he was. There was only the sensation of movement, like he was being pulled through a narrow, twisting tunnel. It was suffocating, the pressure building until it felt like his very consciousness might burst.

Then, with a jolt, everything stopped.

His eyes flew open, and for a moment, he couldn’t process what he was seeing. He was standing in the middle of a quiet street, bathed in the warm light of the setting sun. Tall pine trees loomed on either side, their shadows stretching long across the pavement. The air smelled crisp and clean, tinged with the scent of rain and forest. It was eerily familiar.

Beacon Hills.

Nathan’s heart raced, or at least, it felt like it should. He looked down at his hands, expecting to see the muscular, clawed digits from the transformation. Instead, they looked normal. No, not normal, different, but not monstrous. They were the hands of someone else.

He glanced at his reflection in a nearby car window. Sharp cheekbones, piercing hazel eyes, a confident smirk playing at the edge of his lips. It was the face of a good-looking young men.

“This isn’t possible,” Nathan whispered, but the voice that came out wasn’t his. It was deeper, smoother, dripping with a self-assured charm he’d never had. He tried to move his arm, but it only twitched, jerking unnaturally as if someone else were pulling the strings.

“Activating NPC protocols. Enhancing virility. Initializing behavioral script.” The AI’s voice rang out in his head, clear and commanding. Nathan’s entire body stiffened, his muscles locking into place. He could feel it, like invisible hands gripping his limbs, guiding him. Panic flared in his chest as he realized he couldn’t control his own movements anymore.

Then, right before his eyes, clothes shimmered into existence, tight jeans, a black bomber jacket, and a perfectly fitted shirt opened on his muscled and slightly hairy chest, completing the transformation. The reflection showed a polished version of himself, but it wasn’t finished. His cheeks tingled as a thin layer of stubble sprouted, adding a rugged edge that enhanced the cocky expression on his new face.

“No, no, stop!” he shouted internally, but his mouth didn’t move. His face was frozen in a smug, confident expression as his body turned, striding down the street with a purpose he didn’t feel.

It was like being a passenger in his own body, trapped behind a glass wall. He could see, hear, and feel everything, but he couldn’t move a muscle. He was a passenger now, watching helplessly as the script of his new life took over.

Nathan’s mind screamed against the cage of his new form, but it was drowned out by the flood of new directives and routines flooding his brain.

“Welcome to the Sensius: Teen Wolf Gay Fantasy experience,” the AI announced, its tone disturbingly cheerful. “You are now an integral part of the interactive environment. Follow your programming and enjoy this experience."

Nathan tried to shout, to claw his way out of this digital prison, but it was useless. His body, Theo’s body, smirked, tilting his head as he started to walk in the middle of the avenue untill he reached a secluded dimly lit street. He fell back on the wall and Nathan could feel power and dominance running in his blood; the anticipation, like an electric current humming beneath his skin. The AI talked once again, this time echoing through the whole game like if it was a scream in an empty cave. “NPC loaded and waiting for players to join the servers. Rebooting behaviors in 3,2,1…”

“Theo Raeken’s routines starting.” He heard his new voice talking inside his head and he realized he was trapped as Theo from now on until he found a way to free himself.

Nathan felt his lips part, words forming without his consent. “Well, look who we have here,” he heard himself say, Theo’s voice dripping with that familiar, charismatic arrogance as he grabbed his cock through his tight jeans. “Looks like you are happy to see me!” he continued as he licked his lips. “I’m gonna beat you so right, and so hard, until you cum for me, twice…”

Inside, Nathan’s voice had fallen silent, swallowed by the dark. He was trapped, a ghost inside the shell of Theo Raeken, forced to play his part in the game’s endless loop while feeling everything that his new body was programmed to.

The game had only just begun.

______________________________________________________________

Hello guys!

I hope you'll enjoy this new story. I've always been a HUGE fan of Teen Wolf, and I’ve gone back and forth for a long time about whether I wanted to publish something inspired by it on my page. But I think I’ve finally found the perfect way to do it. I hope you’ll love it!

As always, let me know what you think by sending DMs or messages in my inbox—I read everything.

Also, I wanted to apologize for not writing as much as I had planned for the Halloween event (Melorius's Shop). Real life got in the way, and I had to take a step back from everything. I’ll be even better prepared for the next season, and I hope you guys enjoy it as much as the first one, because yes, Melorius will return next year. ;)

In the meantime, see you soon with new stories, and take care of yourselves! Sensius Part 2 Sensius Part 3

#male transformation #my writing #mental change #male tf #reality change #tf #gay #personality change #digitization #digital tf #teen wolf #theo raeken #nerd to hunk #nerd to jock #jockification #jock tf #Sensius

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gallusrostromegalus · 1 year ago

Note

What extension adds those hand buttons to the tumblr post if you don't mind me asking

It's XkitrRewritten for Firefox! I extremely recommend it for anyone using Tumblr through a browser. and that your browser should be Firefox.

Those are the "Block this post specifically from my feed" and "Block notes from this post specifically from my activity page" toggles, but it also includes features like:

A robust Tag-blocker that filters posts that even have the blocked word in the text or image descriptions

Timestamps

Acessability tools like freezing gifs until they're hovered over, highlighted links and regular-width scrollbars

An additional adblocker that blocks out Tumblr's in-house nonsense too

The old, more user-friendly search function

Open links in New Tab

Queue Management tools

Additional privacy managment tools

SO MANY dashboard management tools no for real get NewXkit and toggle it to your preferences, it's like going from a golf cart to a cadillac.

AN ASKS OUTBOX I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW MANY TIME

You can get the NewXkit add-on for firefox in the browser extensions, you can download Firefox and import all your bookmarks, history and other stuff from chrome HERE. The browser and extensions are totally free and will make your online experience so much better.

For those of us that already have it, Maybe spare a few bucks for the nice lady who built the best tool ever?

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thus-wrote-mrs-zeppeli · 6 months ago

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Hello! I have a request. Can I have some head canons about how La Squadra would react if you were disrespected by someone? Let’s say their s/o (preferably female) works at a cafe or restaurant and a rude customer throws the money at her, completely expecting her to pick up the bill from the floor (yes, that is a real experience I’ve had, unfortunately).

How would they react? What would they do afterwards or say?

Would really, REALLY appreciate it. Honestly, I wish someone had stood up for me back then.

Author’s note: Hey hey~

Thanks for the request~

Sorry no one stood up for you, what happened to human decency?

And I can totally relate, the entitlement of people is insane. Two days in to my very first job as a cashier I had a customer say some really atrociously awful things to me and I just took it because I didn’t know what else to do and afterwards my managers told me I should’ve called them wow. Like my manager literally wouldn’t repeat what the customer had said because it was so abhorrently inappropriate and disgusting.

So yeah. Respect employees, we’re all human beings here it’s literally so easy to Not be insanely rude.

Interestingly enough I actually had some thoughts on this written in my personal La Squadra notes, particularly in regard to Prosciutto since he gives me lots of thoughts about stuff similar to that, cool that I get to address that heh.

-La Squadra x female reader: When someone disrespects you

Content, PLZ READ: female reader who works as a waitress, discussion of unhealthy and toxic masculinity paired with sexism (Prosciutto), La Squadra is a group of (mostly) pretty aggressive men who act on that feeling so. Some canon compliant aggression, threats, violence and blood. They’re a group of assassins so Lots of Bad men doing bad things. Melone’s slightly perverse tendencies

Various scenarios involving rude customers, including the example in the ask.

Established relationship: dating/married depending on the character

Ok while writing this it’s finally really hitting me how bizarre it’d be to be a non stand user witnessing or experiencing a stand attack-

Reader is aware of stands and that her La Squadra man is a member of the Mafia

And attempts at Italian hopefully it’s correct but if not please lemme know!

Micro fics style

-Formaggio: Out of all the members of La Squadra he’s noticeably much more chill and relaxed than the others. But he’s still a proud member of the Italian Mafia. And you’re his girl. He’s no knight in shining armor or Prince Charming for you, he won’t intervene when there’s an occasional irritable customer giving you a bit of a hard time. He knows you can take care of yourself.

However, if some entitled customer has the audacity to go too far and say or do something Really disrespectful while he’s around, I think he has a preference for good old-fashioned humiliation, and only results to intimidation if they decide they wanna keep making a fool of themselves.

He plays it up like: “ooh, hey, if you wanted that pretty lady’s attention there are much better ways to get it, buddy.”

You don’t have to add anything. You resume work quietly, but keep your eyes and ears focused on him, in case he decided to get carried away.

After a little bit of back and forth with him using his usual coolness and charisma, the offender gets increasingly frustrated and flustered.

When your boyfriend’s finally had enough of this stupid game he stands up from his table. His playfully mocking expression remains, but his smirk shifts ever so slightly into something more sinister. “If you want we could just take this outside,” he says it so casually, with the tone of a man who wasn’t going to hold back if it actually did escalate into a fight. He was not bluffing at all either.

At full height and with the clear confidence that he was absolutely gonna win the fight, the rude customer wisely decides Formaggio was Not someone he wanted to mess with and awkwardly leaves the restaurant, Formaggio loudly exclaiming taunts as the guy skittered away with his tail between his legs.

He seems awfully pleased with himself after “defending your honor” like that. You let him enjoy that feeling, because honestly that was pretty well done and it didn’t get too ugly. He has some nerve expecting a bunch of praise from you for that though.

-Illuso: Someone saying or doing something rude to you is like insulting him as well. And his stand is uniquely qualified for an entertaining punishment against some arrogant idiot giving you a difficult time.

Illuso doesn’t say anything, but when you look over at him while some jerk is screaming his head off at you like it’s your fault his food took five minutes longer than usual to arrive, you see that he’s pretending to fix up his appearance in a fancy compact mirror you had gifted him on your one year anniversary.

You can tell immediately he’s actually angling it at the guy screaming at you so he can activate Man in the Mirror. You inwardly groan because honestly you welcome your husband’s interference, but it will be difficult to explain a man magically disappearing in the middle of a restaurant, especially while he’s causing such a scene with that excessive screeching.

All of a sudden…silence. Such a sudden silence that the sound of Illuso clasping his mirror shut is audible to you from where you’re standing. Of course all the customers were looking at that guy who was freaking out at you. And he literally vanished before their eyes. So you do the only thing you can think of and spread your arms in an exaggerated manner and go: “Ta-DAAAH~” like the supernatural disappearance was just a magic trick.

In a rather weak attempt to sell it, Illuso starts slowly clapping for you and commenting: “molto bene~”. You can’t muster an annoyed glare at him; the slight smile tugging at your lips gave you away. A few customers join him in clapping, a bit confused, but honesty just glad that the yelling has stopped.

Illuso’s version of torment is to leave the guy completely alone in the mirror world. Confusion combined with isolation is a cruel combination, and given his captor was Illuso who was absolutely bound to prolong the punishment because of his sadistic tendencies, you almost feel sorry for the guy.

“Make sure you let him go by this evening,” you remind him before you get back to work.

“Let who go, dearie?” he says, his acting pathetically bad.

Sigh. So he was going to play it that way…

“I’m serious,” you grumble.

“Me too.”

You meet his eyes at that remark, and his smug smirk tells you he wants to see if you’ll keep nagging him about it.

When you don’t indulge him he’ll get bored and let the guy go. Hopefully that brat learned a lesson. And if not, at least he has a story literally no one will believe.

-Prosciutto: Despite not being a very nice man to you, he’s got that ridiculous belief that only he’s allowed to be harsh to you. It’s “tough love” when he’s hyper critical of you or snaps at you for something small, but if anyone else does it to an excessive degree then it’s apparently unacceptable, rude behavior. Really it’s just his pride as a man and unhealthy view of masculinity that causes him to freak out when you’re disrespected. He’s your fiancé…By his logic, you need him to protect you, and it’s his job as a man to do so.

He’s a big hypocrite.

But at least he stands up for you.

You could usually feel Prosciutto watching when a customer started to get a little ornery with you. He wouldn’t always step in, unless something he deemed entirely disrespectful was said or done; he does think dealing with irritable people is okay for you until they get carried away.

It looked like he wasn’t going to intervene this time over the dirtbag being extraordinarily picky and fussy with you, just because he liked bossing essential workers around apparently. Prosciutto was listening, as usual, but didn’t seem too concerned, drinking his coffee disinterestedly. Until the customer decided to toss a crumpled up napkin at you when you turned around.

Ohhh boy, you didn’t even have to LOOK to know the coffee mug getting slammed down on a table was Prosciutto.

You debate what you should do. He strides past you, and you opt to just…hold still and listen for a moment. Pretend you don’t know him, and let him do whatever it is he’s about to do (though you have a pretty good guess what it is).

Despite all the tough talk he was doing before, that customer couldn’t hide the slight panic in his voice at Proscuitto’s sudden approach.

Unlike a lot of Passione members who preferred to hide their affiliation to the mafia, Prosciutto wasn’t nearly as subtle with that tailored suit, open shirt and the demeanor of a man who’s killed before and will kill again.

“Hey who the hell do you think you are?! Stay away from m-” the jerk’s nervous ranting is cut off by Prosciutto dragging him to his feet by the collar of his shirt.

“You dropped something,” Prosciutto says in that certain tone you’ve grown all too familiar with. He uses it often when he’s pissed off or teaching a lesson or both at the same time.

Before the man can even squeak out the beginnings of some sort of excuse or counter he’s gagging, and you turn around to stop Prosciutto from straight up choking the guy by shoving the same napkin he tossed at you down his throat, speaking about how disgustingly disrespectful it was to throw anything at a woman.

“Hey, I think he gets it,” you cut in.

You wonder if he’s actually gonna listen to you this time. For a moment it seems like he might ignore you and continue the lesson. But he decides you may have a point and that he’s not worth the trouble. Though it doesn’t stop him from roughly shoving the guy to the ground when he lets go of his shirt.

“Make sure you add an apology when you pay the check,” he says to the sniveling man on the floor desperately telling himself not to make a run for it like a coward now that Prosciutto’s back was turned.

You don’t know whether to smile or roll your eyes, knowing all your fiancé meant was that he better leave you a generous tip as compensation for such disrespectful behavior.

“Go smoke outside,” is all you say to him when you see Prosciutto reach for the pack of cigarettes in his jacket. He smoked when he was especially irritated; so he went through a lot of cigarettes. He waves his hand dismissively at you, but obeys and goes outside. Though he stays close to the entrance. He’s making it clear he’s not leaving til you’re getting paid well for all that trouble.

The guy ended up practically handing his wallet to you.

Prosciutto internally checks off his: do one good thing for his fiancée today mission.

-Pesci: He’s not the most confrontational of La Squadra, and there’s no love lost between the murderous members of the team beyond a mild respect for each other’s strength (and that’s only sometimes) but he’s more than familiar with how most of the other assassins handle disrespect or things they don’t like in public with violence and aggression (hard glares at Ghiaccio and Prosciutto in particular). And that usually results in them getting asked to leave the premises, how embarrassing-

He doesn’t want to embarrass you either when a particularly volatile customer started screaming at you and freaking out for no valid reason. But he can’t just sit there and let you take that kind of abuse either.

He tries to excuse you from the situation by calling you over to his table like he was a customer and it was something urgent. And well…it might just escalate the irritation of that insufferable jerk screaming at you but…

You go to Pesci anyways, opting to just ignore the jerk, pretending to be busy dealing with some made up issue Pesci was improvising.

To your surprise it actually kinda worked. The guy was steaming for a bit and yelling at you from his table but. You just ignored him. And if anything actually happened Pesci was 100% capable of handling it if he had to. He didn’t usually try to start fights, but if pushed he could absolutely finish them.

“Do you usually get customers like that?” Pesci asks with genuine concern in his voice once the guy finally gets mad enough to leave (without paying but that was a problem for later).

“Well…” more often than someone who doesn’t work in food service would think…

“Sometimes,” you admit vaguely, not wanting to worry him but not wanting to lie either.

He thinks you should find some different job, not that he’s actually in a position to suggest that given he’s literally a La Squadra assassin. And you’ve heard from the few times you’ve met with his coworkers that the money they make in the business of murder is minuscule all things considered. Honestly he should get a new job too. One that didn’t rely on the occasional commission and splitting a check with eight other people.

You both know it’s not that easy to just Find a new job. And he doesn’t think it’s a great idea to suggest you get more involved in Passione for quick but dirty money…sigh…no easy solution…

-Melone: Your boyfriend was the least confrontational man in La Squadra.

Usually you encourage him to not visit you at work…because he always stares at you in such a manner that your coworkers or customers sometimes warn you about a creep in the corner booth who’s been watching you for a while.

As someone who’s used to being yelled at (though only because he’s the one being a FREAK so it doesn’t Really count) he’s sure you can handle the occasional ornery customer who decided to raise their voice at you. He usually intervened only if you directly requested it, because more often than not you got annoyed at him for worming his way into your other problems. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t notice when he’s typing on his laptop at the restaurant you work at and someone starts destructively causing a scene all because you brought them the wrong brand of soda by accident. It’s been a long day, you’re tired, you’re working the evening shift and the restaurant’s about to close. So you don’t bother to try and appease this guy, you know he’ll just complain and give you a hard time no matter what you do. And he apparently took your: “I’m sorry, let me grab you the right one,” as disingenuous and insulting, because you didn’t call him “Sir”. You really don’t feel like dealing with this, and you’re about to just let it go until he has the audacity to knock the soda off the table and onto the floor, staining the floor and even getting soda all over your shoes.

God…just to humiliate you over something small-you find yourself quietly staring at the floor for a moment, trying to register what you should even do…bend over right now to try to salvage your shoes before the soda dried? You had napkins in your pocket. But then the damn customer won…

And you know Melone was watching everything. He’s so invested that he’s stopped typing.

Melone’s no gentleman, and has no shame, but he can’t just let someone get away completely with disrespecting his girlfriend…especially given he had bought those cute shoes for you!

You can only mumble Melone’s name quietly when he approaches the situation, his demeanor energized despite how late it was. You weren’t gonna deny him stepping in but saying his name was a warning not to be too weird.

He clicks his tongue, making a point to not even look at the jerky customer, like he wasn’t there, and focuses all his attention on you.

“You know those shoes weren’t cheap, tesoro mio,” he chides playfully, immediately plucking off some napkins from the customer’s table and kneeling in front of you so he can wipe your shoes clean himself.

You bite your lip. It might seem gentlemanly to onlookers, but you knew he was also using the opportunity to get close to your legs in public. But he manages to behave himself, even putting a few napkins over the spill on the floor once he’s done with your shoes.

When he finally stands back up, he makes a point of leaning very close with an especially devious look on his face.

“What a shame,” he says in a strangely exaggerated tone. “I think I’ll have to buy you a new pair of shoes…”

You just give him a confused look after reminding him you’re on the clock when he leans in for a kiss.

Then he wanders off. But at least he distracted the customer enough to dampen the worst of the disrespectful behavior.

You finish your shift. Melone was waiting for you outside with his motorcycle, as he’s your ride back to your shared apartment.

He looks especially pleased with himself.

“What’d you do this time?” you sigh and yawn, too tired to feel especially concerned with whatever he might’ve done.

“Your next pair of shoes is going to be Especially nice…I’ll even get you a pretty dress to go with them~” he licks his lips.

Under the dim light of the street lamp, you finally notice the wallet that he’s holding up. It isn’t his.

His little kneeling act by the table with the rude customer apparently had many purposes…your boyfriend really was quite a sly opportunist…

“Melone…” you were gonna chide him gently for taking the guy’s Entire wallet but…it was too late to start arguing with him, given he was your ride home. And you didn’t care too much about it in the first place, especially right now.

-Ghiaccio: Everything ticks him off so when you’re working you don’t mind if he doesn’t bother to stop by and say hi even when he’s in the area. He tends to get worked up about something minuscule even during quick visits. And your restaurant is quite popular with tourists, who he has a borderline obsessive type of hatred for. Yeah. You were okay with him NOT visiting you while you were working because inevitably one day he was gonna cause quite a scene-

You feel a very ironic cold shiver down your spine when you catch sight of a familiar red Mazda Miata going way too fast in the parking lot looking for a space to park.

“Dios mio…I don’t need this today…” you mumble to yourself, not realizing a particularly entitled customer was watching you act distracted for a moment by looking at a car from the window.

When you get to his table, you don’t really know what he’s yapping about when he says waitresses these days are SO ditzy and aren’t properly trained. You’re not listening too hard because you’re watching Ghiaccio walk past the window on his way into the restaurant. He gives you an acknowledging glance when he spots you, and it pisses off the customer even more because now he’s complaining about how completely unprofessional it was that you invited your boyfriend into the restaurant while you were working. You have no idea where this guy is even getting all these assumptions, or what was even so terribly wrong with the scenario he’s making up, so you don’t pay it much attention and just brush it off as the customer’s eccentric personality trait.

Until he says that if you were going to be disrespectful by inviting your boyfriend to work, you might as well look busy.

What a freaking idiot, waiting for Ghiaccio to walk in to the restaurant before literally throwing the money for his meal at you, completely expecting you to pick up all the bills.

Ghiaccio doesn’t even need to know the context to react (though it’s probably for the best he didn’t hear what started it because it’d just piss him off even more).

“Hey, hey, hey…” Ghiaccio’s voice from the entrance can be heard from half way inside the restaurant. “If you meant to give the money to her, it’d be MUCH more efficient for both of you if you just HANDED it to her, you freaking moron-“

Oh God, here we go…Ghiaccio wasn’t screaming quite at full volume as he speed walked to where you were standing, his hands twitching slightly, either oblivious or simply ignoring all the customers exchanging nervous glances as they watched him. He has to be literally the WORST AND the EASIEST member of his entire team to piss off…and when he got like this he sometimes didn’t even listen to you.

The customer glares at him, and dares to open his mouth to respond, but Ghiaccio’s rant wasn’t over and it just pisses him off even more to see the guy had the audacity to try and interrupt him.

“Ghia, hey-”

Yeah he was definitely not gonna listen to your attempt to calm him down. You wonder if he even heard you because he grabbed the guy by the back of the head while you were talking.

“IT DOESN’T MAKE ANY DAMN SENSE WHEN I THINK ABOUT IT! I MEAN, WHAT THE HELL IS THE POINT OF THROWING MONEY ALL OVER THE GROUND?! YOU JUST GET OFF WATCHING HER WASTE A BUNCH OF TIME PICKING THAT ALL UP?!”

Was he…more pissed about the illogical nature of the behavior or the fact that you were being disrespected…?…It’s kinda hard to tell…this ornery yapper on even more ornery yapper violence was Quite a scene this early in the morning…

“DON’T YOU HAVE A LIFE, IDIOT? OR DID YOU GO OUT JUST TO KILL TIME BY POINTLESSLY INCONVENIENCING A WAITRESS?! YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE BUT SHE’S GOT AN ACTUAL JOB TO DO AND DOESN’T HAVE TIME TO PLAY 52 CARD PICKUP WITH ENTITLED JERKS LIKE YOU!”

It doesn’t even cross your mind that most people would be mortified to watch their boyfriend completely lose it like this in public, you’re so used to it at this point; you’re thinking about how it’s a bit hypocritical of him given how you’ve witnessed him Also going off on a poor server for nothing.

“GHIACCIO!” you finally make yourself shout, reaching out and grabbing the wrist of the arm he was using to hold the panicking rude customer by the back of the head.

You know Ghiaccio. He was about to slam that man’s head on the table.

“WHAT?!” he snaps, but when he whips his head, you can tell the raging blizzard of his soul wavered just a bit when he looked at you.

“Don’t…you’ll break the table, they’re flimsy…”

His physical strength always astounded you, given he wasn’t particularly large, and he wasn’t even resisting your hand on his wrist but you could still feel the power in his arm. “You already made your point…” you whisper, worried about getting in trouble for the scene he was causing.

“BUT-“

“Thank you, it’s okay…”

He REALLY has to debate it, but reluctantly releases the man with an irritated huff and an audible growl. Such a lucky guy…you were one of the few people who could get Ghiaccio to think before taking something too far.

“Is your shift almost over?” he asks, clearly still incredibly irritated, tapping his foot rapidly against the ground.

“About fifteen minutes to go.” You glance at the trembling rude customer, gazing wide eyed and flinching every time Ghiaccio moved in any way.

He checks his watch and the customer climbs further into the booth out of fear of the simple gesture, but Ghiaccio is forcing himself not to pay him any mind.

“I’ll wait for you in the car then.”

“Alright.”

As long as he left the restaurant…

Now everyone knew he was definitely with you in some capacity…damn.

He sends a pointed glare to a couple of the customers on the way out. A “gentle reminder” to keep manners in mind.

And when you give the rude customer one last look, you see he’s on the ground picking up the money he had tossed at you.

He’s trembling a bit. Probably from fear of Ghiaccio changing his mind and coming back to actually break his face. But he’s probably a bit cold too, just from coming into physical contact with Ghiaccio could leave anyone with a chill if he partly activated his stand while touching someone.

You really needed to have a chat with him about his temper but as the previously inconsiderate customer blubbers out apologies and begs you to protect him from your scary boyfriend while shoving the money (and a generous tip) directly into your hands you hesitantly decide today is not the day.

-Risotto Nero: He doesn’t go out in public often, but minus the whole “leader of an assassination division in the mafia with a truly frightening appearance” he’s a pretty normal guy. Keeps to himself and stoic, but he can hold a conversation. You’re fine with him not visiting you at work often, you get that he’s super busy, but when he does stop by you’re glad to see him (and he doesn’t cause any scenes. Bonus points for Risotto).

It was a slow morning for you, and he had finished an early morning mission earlier than he had expected. He even checked to make sure the diner you worked at wasn’t busy before he decided to stop in and see you.

Your face lights up when you see him, running over to him and giving him a quick hug, and bringing him a small cup of coffee on the house, allowing yourself a brief moment of respite to speak with your boyfriend. It wasn’t busy yet…there were only two other customers, but it was just your luck that one of them woke up on the wrong side of the bed and decided to come over and give you a hard time for taking a moment to spend with Risotto.

“Does your boss pay you to flirt with customers?”

You can’t even believe someone really came over just to say that to you. You weren’t even sitting down to talk to Risotto, and it’s not like you were being loud or obnoxious or anything.

“She’s doing her job,” Risotto points out with that signature stoic nature. The guy seems slightly put off by Risotto’s unique appearance, but was apparently in a bad enough mood to not back down so easily.

“If she was doing her job she’d be bringing me a refill and not wasting her time chatting with a guy she already served,” he points out indignantly. What an insane level of entitlement…Risotto seemed to think the same thing, though he wasn’t a fan of escalating things.

But this guy…he had some audacity talking to you like that.

Risotto puts his hands on the table, and stands up slowly, deliberately, to his full height, tilting his head slightly to better look the smaller man in the eyes.

“She’s just being polite,” Risotto corrects the man. His voice is still calm, but his speaking speed is Slightly slower. Paired with him purposefully emphasizing his full height, the warning that he wasn’t going to stay civil for much longer was clear.

The unwanted visitor inwardly debates for a moment, visibly shaken from Risotto’s intimidation but absolutely too embarrassed to just back off now.

He foolishly decides to keep going.

“She-” he’s cut off by an almost explosive gush of blood coming out of his own nose. You gasp at the suddenness, but instantly realize what’s happening. He slams his hand over his nose, the blood not stopping that easily, almost immediately leaking through his fingers.

“Oh…” Risotto remarks with obviously fake concern, leaning in as if he were examining the “mysterious” nosebleed. “You’d better take care of that before you get blood all over the place…” he states the obvious with complete unconcern.

It was admittedly a bit funny to watch that jerk sprint to the restroom clutching his bloody nose.

There is a minuscule tug to the edges of Risotto’s lips.

“Risotto! Sudden unexplainable nosebleeds aren’t funny at all,” you chide, despite not feeling an ounce of pity. It’s not like Risotto was trying to kill that guy, if he was he would be bleeding out on the ground right now. The goal was just to embarrass him a bit, and he definitely succeeded.

“I think that was just a suitable divine punishment,” Risotto replies with a shrug, as if his stand, Metallica, had nothing to do with it. It’s subtle but…you can tell he’s irritated someone really had that kind of nerve to bother you for no reason. But you won’t let it ruin his whole day, reminding him that you got off work early today and you’ve been really excited to finally have some free time to spend with him.

Author’s closing note: I hope this could bring you some entertainment~it was enjoyable to write and consider how a few of them could use their stands to mess with people but wow I was being sent back to my first job on occasion with some of these customer characters, sheesh-

#jjba x reader #jojos bizarre adventure x reader #female reader #la Squadra x reader #Formaggio x reader #Illuso x reader #prosciutto x reader #pesci x reader #melone x reader #ghiaccio x reader #risotto nero x reader #Thus Wrote Mrs Zeppeli

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splitpointsolutions · 14 days ago

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Top 7 Benefits of Real Time User Experience Management

In a digital era, users demand performances that are quick, snappy, and consistent whenever they engage with a digital service, application, or web site. One delay or fault will upset customers and drive them to competitors. This is the place where Real time User Experience Management comes in. It enables companies to track, diagnose and enhance user experiences in real-time, so that minor complications do not escalate into larger ones.

Real-time systems deliver immediate reports on user behavior on digital platforms unlike conventional monitoring which checks on the performance ex-post. This enables the companies to respond instantly and maintain a smooth flow of services to the customers resulting in customer satisfaction.

Let’s explore the top seven benefits businesses can gain by adopting this approach.

1. Immediate Problem Detection and Resolution

Among the greatest benefits of real-time monitoring is the fact that it helps identify the problem immediately when it arises. In the event that a user is on a slow-loading page, broken link, or transaction failure, the system captures it in real-time.

This enables the IT teams to act promptly and in most cases fix the problem before most users even notice its existence. Speedy resolution keeps business down time to a minimum, frustration levels of the customer down to a minimum and business operations on track.

2. Enhanced Customer Satisfaction

The success of a business is linked to customer experience. When users are faced with issues, they lose faith and will not come back. Real time User Experience Management offers companies the chance to provide quality user experiences all the time and every time by establishing problems whenever they happen.

Through this flow of interactions in a rather harmonious manner, companies are able to develop a better rapport with the consumer hence utilizing this to drive satisfaction, loyalty and long term expansion.

3. Reduced Revenue Losses

Technical problems can mean the difference between a lost shopping cart, an unsuccessful sign-up or transaction. Each transaction that is lost implies revenue loss.

Real-time monitoring enables businesses to detect and resolve performance problems at peak periods and avoid lost sales. It is particularly golden to e-commerce services, online services, and financial institutions whereby the stability of the system is directly related to revenue.

4. Improved Decision-Making With Accurate Data

With real-time systems, there is a continuous flow of user data that indicates real behavior and system behavior. This enables top managers in the businesses to make sound decisions depending on the prevailing circumstances as opposed to stale reports.

Consider an example, when unexpected traffic is generated as a result of a marketing campaign, then real-time insights will assist IT teams to scale resources or change performance settings in real time to manage the traffic and ensure user experience is not affected.

5. Proactive System Optimization

Instead of reacting to the emergence of problems, real-time monitoring helps to make improvements proactively. Businesses can spot trends, pick out regular performance spikes and downturns and deal with possible problems before they have an effect on users.

This proactive practice keeps the systems healthy, minimizes possibilities of wide-scale outages, and makes sure that platforms stay stable, despite shifts in demand.

6. Better Collaboration Across Teams

It is not only IT teams that can enjoy the benefits of real-time data; marketing, sales, customer support, and product development can use it as well. When each of the teams has access to the up-to-date data on performance and user behavior, it becomes possible to collaborate more efficiently.

As another example, customer service teams can easily look and see whether a surge in support calls are associated with a technical issue, and developers can prioritize updates based on real-time user issues reported.

7. Stronger Competitive Advantage

Providing an excellent user experience may be one aspect of differentiation in competitive industries. Companies allowing customers to experience quick and error-free digital exchanges will increase customer attraction and retention.

Real time User Experience Management helps companies to be ahead of the competition that uses slower, reactive forms of monitoring. This capability of addressing the needs of users on the spot builds a more solid brand reputation.

Conclusion

Users today demand a perfect digital experience, and any business that does not meet their expectations will lose them in a close future. User Experience Management in real time provides businesses with the capability of tracking performance in real time, resolving problems as they occur and ensuring customer satisfaction. Whether it is enhancing system stability, increasing revenue and enabling smarter business decisions, the advantages of real-time monitoring are obvious. The digital environments are becoming increasingly complex, and thus, this proactive approach is not only an advantage but a requirement to succeed in the long-term perspective.

#real time user experience management

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nymph-ette111 · 1 month ago

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Do you write about Ben Drowned? (Adult version yk)

I would like to ask for romantic headcannons of him with Fem!Reader :D (It can be SFW or NSFW or both, as you like)

That's it! Ily <3

AUTHOR'S NOTE; been a hot minute since I wrote for BEN :) really enjoyed writing this one! The fanart of this guy is fucking scrumptious.

WARNINGS; MANY SUGGESTIVE THINGS/MENTIONS OF SEX/MENTIONS OF GORE/MENTIONS OF GETTING STONED AND HIGH

-He prefers possessing electronics instead of taking a physical form, which means endless torment for you.

-On your phone, your computer, anywhere that has a screen or speaker, he's there. And he'll let you know he's there. Whether it be obnoxious moaning sounds to piss you off or straight up gore pictures to jump-scare you.

-At one point it becomes way too much and you have to seriously sit him down and tell him directly that flashing pictures of real human intestines and mutilated bodies is NOT a good way to get your attention.

-He has a fucked up sense of humor and a degradation kink so it's not going to work out for you because he's not even focused on what you're saying during the entirety of your lecture.

-BEN's logic is "she's telling me to stop but I'm not going to because I find it funny" so he always ends up taking things too far because he thinks you're enjoying it as much as he is.

-I think the best way to get the message across is to give him the silent treatment, that's how he'll know that you're actually being serious.

-He'll give you space, wouldn't want to risk anything but you can tell he's still there—lurking around, waiting for you to call for him and he'd be by your side immediately. Pouting like a kicked puppy.

-Does he learn from this experience? Nope! Give him a couple of months and the questionable videos are reappearing... Just weird content, at least it's not gore anymore.

-Avid 4chan user I will DIE on this hill.

-Has doxxed people on there countless of times. Ragebait master.

-Zero dating experience, you're his first everything. The personality and knowledge of a teenage boy (before anyone starts I see BEN as an ageless entity NOT a twelve year old)

-That being said, you have to teach him a lot. Both dating and in bed.

-All of his sex knowledge is taken from cheap pornos on questionable sites. Like actually, tell me this guy finds his porn on the dark web and I wouldn't even question it.

-Made an entire post about this a while back but DO NOT PLAY VIDEO GAMES WITH HIM, HE IS NOT FAIR! WILL HIJACK YOUR DEVICE TO MESS YOU UP!

-It hurts me to say this but I don't sense a big dick here... just cannot imagine this guy with a monster in between his legs but we'll say so just for the fantasy ¯⁠\⁠(⁠°⁠_⁠o⁠)⁠/⁠¯

-Back to my previous point of him being inexperienced, he's all perverted remarks and fantasies but the second you do something as simple as brushing your hand over his thigh or something he's immediately short circuiting. You can tell because the glitching becomes more apparent and consistent.

-Also talk about fantasies... Yeah inexperienced BUT LORD HAVE MERCY! any kink you have 99% chance that he's into that too. Has rubbed it to a couple of questionable things before.

-The only thing he wouldn't actually do is things that involve piss or vomit, age play... but that's about it. Anything else and he's down for it.

-Has tried getting you to dress up as his favorite fictional girls, up for you to decide whether you want to play into that or decline.

-If you're looking for some dirt to dig on any of the creeps then... you're dating the perfect person. Manages to find the most INSANE information so easily. It's kind of bad for you too because, yes, he will find your most embarrassing childhood pictures that a family member posted on Facebook. May or may not print it out and tape it all over the mansion for shits and giggles.

-He's kind of the lolcow of the mansion. That being said, his powers and skills are often overlooked and dismissed by the other creeps until they need him for something and then he's back to being underestimated. Tell him that he matters, he won't realize how much he needs it until you say it.

-Has a digital shrine dedicated to you. Is ashamed you wouldn't match his freak so the shrine is a secret, for now.

-Any attention from you equals good attention. Loves pissing you off (as long as it's not serious and you're not actually mad at him)

-Lazy stoner boyfriend detected!

-Isn't a romantic date type of guy—wine, lit candles, nicely prepared dinner, rose petals leading to the bed... Nope. Prefers being comfortable because the former makes him feel like he's preforming. What's better than lazily chilling on the bed with your hot girlfriend, a shitty show on that nobody is paying attention to, and being so high you enter a completely different dimension?

-Disgusting perv but I think it's very clear by now lol

#♡⁠˖⁠꒰nymphette writes #creepypasta #creepypasta fandom #creepypasta x reader #x reader #creepypasta headcanon #headcanon #ben drowned x y/n #ben drowned x reader #ben drowned creepypasta #ben drowned

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l-in-the-light · 10 months ago

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Luffy's and Law's similarities

Because people always talk only about their differences, time to do the uno reverse! You might be surprised how many there are, actually.

Snapping at exactly same thing.

Snapping at same stuff again, because sometimes they share exactly the same brain cell. Even their face expressions are exactly the same in both examples lol.

Whenever Law actually loosens his guard, he reacts in exact same ways as Luffy does.

They both have a very similar experience with their mentors sacrificing themselves for them and same selfblaming reaction. This serves mostly as a prologue because we will compare how child Law and child Luffy behaved.

Both were reckless brats with very wrong self-harming ideas to get what they want.

They hate "dirty tricks" and being lied to. And easily lash out.

Their initial reaction to making fun of someone tripping/being pushed on the floor or making fun of anyone. Also standing there in exact same pose with their fists clenched.

"I will go find a real role model", same vibes here honestly.

"You will pay for this" mentality. They were also both literally thrown which endagered their lives and they both can't believe it's actually happening, that anyone would do something like that. Also bonus points for swearing child Luffy haha.

Both consider some people to be just total scums that deserve punching. Bad guys should be taught a lesson. Law at least managed to land a stab, so 1:0 for him.

This is intriguing. This is the last time Law asks someone for help. And last time Luffy asks someone to help him. Both seem to be convinced "asking for help" caused their loved ones to get hurt, so you will never hear them do it again. The only difference here is Law is asking to help Corazon, while Luffy is the one who needs the help.

Later on Luffy is taught to ask for help by Vivi in Drum Kingdom, but he isn't asking for himself, but to help Nami. Meanwhile Law never again uses the polite words. The most he is capable of is to ask Cavendish "tanomu" which is more like "I'm counting on you".

Both sit in same pose whenever Law isn't trying to impersonate Corazon's style (yes, Law mimicks Cora a lot, also in the way he walks). At least once he slipped and sat in the way he found naturally comfortable instead and it was exactly same way as Luffy's preferred sitting position. What a curious coincidence.

Another funny thing about them is that they both like to wear exactly same type of shoes they used to wear as a child, Luffy the sandals, and Law his dark boots. It's not really that common thing in the manga, for example, Nami and Zoro didn't stick to same type of shoes they used to wear when they were kids.

They also sleep in exactly same position, the infamous T-pose. For comparison, the rest of the Strawhats all have their own different sleeping positions (first from the right is Usopp ofc lol).

They also match each other's pace pretty well. "Let's go, Torao!" and "Ike!" as Law's answer which literally means just "Go!", because Traffy is ready too, no need to stall back.

And finally my favourite:

If Law wasn't under Corazon's "calm" spell, would his laugh sound familiar? Perhaps would it be "shishishi" we know so well? Of course that's the last time Law laughs like that, so we can't compare him laughing when he's an adult. Families in One Piece often share similar laughs, it seems. Unless you're a devil fruit user, that also changes your laughter apparently hm.

There's probably even more similarities between their behaviour, thinking patterns and expressions than I managed to find. I find it suspicious considering those two did not grow up together, so why are they so similar when they're both children?

I dunno if whole D. clan is an actual family, but I think Law and Luffy definitely had a shared ancestor and probably not that far in the past. Very curious since they're from East Blue and North Blue, the two seas mentioned to be the hardest to travel from one another.

Many people speculated Dragon isn't related to Garp or Luffy because they don't really look that much alike, but if you compare Monkey, Trafalgar and Gol family members together you can start to see some pattern emerging: they all have naturally black ruffled hair Potter-family style (you're welcome for that comparison you never wanted to notice and now you can't unsee haha). I wonder if Joyboy will also be revealed of sporting similar style of hair.

#one piece #trafalgar law #luffy #lawlu #what will lawlu fans do if Law and Luffy turn out to be an actual family?#I mean I don't mind bl incest in fics but nowadays it's not as accepted as it was in the 90s in manga fandom so...#I never promised i'm decent okay #I forgot to mention they also have same bloodtype: F #one piece meta

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eclipixels · 1 month ago

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Hello! I was wondering if I can request a Nagi Seishiro x reader fic

So basically User was a soldier back then when they were a child and fought in the Afghanistan war. After the war they were taken in by two parents who lost their son in the war, and transferred to Hakuho. The rumors of the user being a child soldier immediately went out the whole school causing the other students to avoid the user since they were scared. However the rumors managed to get Reo and Nagi's attention causing them both to approach the user and to try and befriend them.

And over some time Nagi managed to harbor feelings for the user and wanted Reo's help.

User is likely based off Violet Evergarden who is confused about their feelings because they were dehumanized and treated as a weapon during the war and was only allowed to follow orders

Human

Seishiro Nagi x Reader

Content: Nagi slowly realizes he’s fallen for the quiet and mysterious former child soldier

A/N: So unfortunately, I'm not comfortable using a real war like the Afganistan war. I am all for historical fiction as it is one of my fav genres but not within this context. Instead, I incorporated almost a Black Widow and Cassandra Cain kind of origin.

[1,837 words]

You didn’t understand why everyone stared.

Hakuho High’s halls echoed with murmurs about your past, about your eyes, about what your hands were capable of. You moved through the corridors with quiet, calculated steps, every motion clean and purposeful. To them, you weren’t just a transfer student. You were a ghost of war, an experiment, a name torn from redacted reports.

You were something to be feared. So they stayed away.

You were bred, born, and raised to be a biological weapon.

Not a child. Not a person.

An asset.

In the dark corridors of an underground facility that never officially existed, you learned the weight of a trigger before you learned to write. Orders were the first language you were taught. Combat was your cradle. You could break bones before you knew what fear was supposed to feel like. You weren’t taught right from wrong. You were taught “complete the mission.”

The adults called it Project Seraph.

A name that sounded beautiful. Holy, even.

But there was nothing divine about what they did to you.

They took children and stripped them down to sinew, reflex, and silence. You survived where others didn’t. A favorite subject. A living weapon. Your only skillset was destruction.

And then it all burned.

You never found out what caused the breach that shut the facility down. An internal betrayal? A rival nation? You were dragged out of the wreckage by soldiers wearing the emblem of a country you never belonged to. They handed you over to a couple who had buried their real son under an empty grave marked MIA - Facility 04.

You were placed in their care like a replacement part.

But they didn’t treat you like a weapon.

They bought you soft clothes. Spoke to you gently. The mother cried the first time you got sick because you didn’t know what a fever was, and didn’t ask for help. The father built a routine for you. Wake up, eat, school, home, sleep, as if you could be normal.

They enrolled you in Hakuho High. It was chaos.

Not the kind you were used to, though. Not bullets and broken ribs but loud hallways, social rules you didn’t understand, and students who whispered when you walked past.

They had heard the rumors. Of course they had.

"She was a soldier." "No, like a child soldier." "She killed someone. No emotions. Total psycho." "She doesn’t talk. It’s creepy."

You moved through the school like a ghost.

Until Reo Mikage and Seishiro Nagi approached you during lunch.

"Hey," Reo said, his voice smooth but not mocking. He sat across from you without waiting for permission. Nagi, hair messy and pillow-soft, flopped down beside him like gravity had given up trying. He looked at you with the curiosity of a cat, unbothered and unreadable.

You stared at your untouched food. “Hi.”

“You’re not as scary as they say you are.” Reo grins.

Nagi’s silver gaze drifted lazily to your face. "You're not scary. Just... kinda cool."

Cool?

You blinked. No one had ever used that word to describe you before. Not 'cool.' Not like that.

Days turned to weeks. They didn't stop showing up. Reo talked enough for the three of you, sometimes slipping you sweets under the table, saying you "needed to learn the joy of sugar." Nagi, in his own way, stayed nearby, his silences never awkward, just comfortably still.

“You’ve never had Jolly Ranchers?” Reo gasped, nearly dropping his bag of snacks.

You blinked. “No. I wasn’t allowed sugar. The only carbohydrates I could consume had to come from organic natural food.” You said it like a report, factual, unbothered, mechanical.

“Boring,” Reo said, dramatically rolling his eyes. He dug through the bag and pulled out a shiny red wrapper, tossing it across the table to you. “Here. Take some. Cherry’s the best one. Trust me.”

You picked it up carefully, studying it like it was an unfamiliar explosive. Nagi, seated beside you with his head half-slumped against the wall, watched you with vague interest, like you were a video game character at the start of a tutorial.

"Do I... chew it?" you asked, examining the translucent candy.

"Nah, let it melt," Nagi mumbled. “Biting it’s a crime.”

You slid the wrapper open with precise fingers, popped the candy in your mouth, and froze.

The flavor hit hard. Intense. Sweet. Tart. It didn’t taste like anything you’d had in the facility or even after you were taken in. Your tastebuds seemed to flare awake, a tiny jolt of sensation lighting your nerves. It was almost too much.

You stared forward, eyes slightly wide.

Reo leaned forward eagerly. “So? So? What do you think?”

“…It’s loud,” you said finally, tongue moving slowly around the candy. “But… not unpleasant.”

Nagi gave you a soft smile. “So you like it?”

You thought for a moment, then nodded once. “Yes. I think I do.”

They didn’t say anything after that, but Reo passed you another flavor, blue raspberry this time and Nagi leaned just a little closer.

Eventually, it wasn’t orders that made you sit with them. You just did.

“You like her, don’t you?.”

Nagi blinked slowly. “Huh?”

Reo smirked from where he was leaning against the vending machine, arms crossed and eyes fixed on his best friend.

“You’re doing that thing,” Reo said. “The ‘I’m-totally-not-interested-but-I-can’t-stop-looking-at-Y/N’ thing.”

Nagi’s eyes drifted back across the courtyard where you sat alone under a tree, quietly reading, legs tucked beneath you. The wind caught your hair just enough for a soft curl to fall across your cheek. You of course knew he was looking at you, the sixth sense you were born with. But you also didn’t care, putting on a display where it seemed like you didn’t notice the world watching you, and Nagi never stopped watching.

He clicked his tongue and looked away. “I’m not.”

Reo’s grin widened like a shark’s. “Dude, you absolutely are. You like her.”

“Do not.”

“Oh my god, just admit it.”

Nagi sighed and slumped against the vending machine beside him. “It’s... annoying.”

“What, feelings?”

“Yeah. I don’t get them. It’s like… whenever she’s around, my brain doesn’t want to do anything but be near her.” Nagi furrowed his brows. “It’s exhausting.”

Reo gave him a long look and then clapped him on the back. “Buddy, that’s not exhaustion. That’s yearning.”

Nagi groaned. “Bleh.”

“You gotta tell her.” Reo insisted, nudging his friend.

“I don’t want it to be weird,” Nagi muttered, kicking the dirt with the toe of his shoe. “They’ve been through a lot. What if I mess it up?”

Reo’s grin softened, just a bit.

“You won’t. Because you care.”

Nagi didn’t answer.

“Okay,” Reo said, pushing off the vending machine. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. Tomorrow, after school, rooftop. Golden hour, clear skies, dramatic breeze, the works. You’re gonna confess. Got it?”

Nagi stared at him, horrified. “Why the rooftop?”

“Because it’s cinematic. And romantic. Don’t question the vision.”

“I don’t want to confess on a roof.”

“Well, too bad, because you’re doing it,” Reo said, already texting himself a reminder. “You’re welcome.”

So, one late afternoon, Nagi pulled you aside on the rooftop. His hands were shoved into his pockets, the wind tousling his hair. You tilted your head at him like you were reading a mission briefing.

One day, Nagi asked, "Do you like anything?"

You paused. The question was too abstract. You’d never been allowed to like things.

"I don’t understand the question," you replied flatly.

"I like you," he said, eyes locked on the sky.

“When I see you, my chest feels heavy. But not bad. Kinda warm. I wanna be around you more."

You didn’t respond immediately. Your mind raced through everything you were trained for, reconnaissance, strategy, defense, destruction.

But not this.

"What am I supposed to do... with that information?"

He chuckled softly, like you were saying something adorable. "Nothing, I guess. Just... felt like saying it."

You looked at him then, really looked. Seishiro Nagi, the boy who couldn’t be bothered by much of anything, was looking at you like you were worth every second of his time.

"I... don't know how to feel," you admitted, voice barely above a whisper.

“That’s okay,” he said, gently tapping his knuckles against your shoulder. “I can wait.”

You stared at the spot where his hand had touched. It didn’t feel like war.

It felt like peace.

The next few days, things started to change.

You sat beside Nagi under the gym bleachers, watching clouds through the chain-link fence.

"Do you ever wonder what you'd be if you weren’t made for war?" he asked, tossing a soccer ball up into the air and catching it with lazy rhythm.

You paused.

"I don’t know,” you replied. “But lately… I think I’m more than what I was made to be."

He turned his head, silver hair messy, gaze soft. “You’re definitely more.”

You didn’t understand the heat in your chest when he said that.

You fell in love with Nagi Seishiro without realizing it at first. It was in the way you noticed when he wasn’t around. The way your eyes always found him in a crowd. The way he saw you. not the weapon, not the rumor, but you.

One afternoon, he handed you a controller.

“Play with me,” he said.

“I don’t know how.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll teach you.”

And he did. Patiently. Softly. His shoulder touched yours, and for once, you didn’t pull away. Your heart had learned what warmth was.

You were in the courtyard when they told you. Reo and Nagi stood in front of you, wind ruffling their uniforms. There was a charged silence in the air, like the moments before a mission briefing.

“We’re leaving,” Reo said, bright but solemn. “We got scouted.”

“For a program called Blue Lock,” Nagi added. “It’s… a chance to go pro.”

You stared at them. You weren’t surprised. They were too good not to be chosen.

Still… your chest ached.

“Oh,” you said. It was all you could manage. You didn't know how to hold this emotion. Loss. Separation. Fear of being alone again.

“You’ll be okay, right?” Reo asked, concern softening his expression.

You nodded slowly. Then your eyes drifted to Nagi. “You’re really going?”

He nodded. “Yeah.” There was a pause. “I’ll miss you,” he added after a second, voice unusually quiet. “A lot.”

Your throat tightened. For years, you’d been training yourself to feel, to speak, to live. Now, the person who helped you understand all of that was leaving. But you weren’t a weapon anymore. You stepped forward. Reached out. Touched his sleeve.

“I’ll miss you too,” you said. “And… I think I love you.”

Nagi froze. Then, for the first time, he smiled in a way he never had before, tired, shy, overwhelmed.

“I love you too,” he said, holding your face in his palms as he leaned in to place a kiss on your cheek.

And then Reo yelled, “Oh my god, finally!”

#nagi x reader #nagi seishiro #bluelock x reader #nagi x you #bllk x you #blue lock #bllk #seishiro nagi x reader #seishiro nagi #bllk seishiro #bllk nagi #seishiro nagi fluff #seishiro nagi x you #nagi seishiro x reader #nagi seishiro x you #nagi seishiro fluff

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literaryvein-reblogs · 7 months ago

Note

Writing an oc that's a streamer?

Writing Notes: Streamer Characters

Live Streamer

Also livestreamer or online streamer

Someone who makes videos that show them playing computer games, talking about products, or doing other activities, and streams them (i.e., puts them on the internet) at the same time as they are being made.

An individual who broadcasts real-time video content over the internet, engaging with an audience through online platforms.

Transmits live or on-demand audio or video content while users listen or watch.

Livestreams are deployed over various platforms, including social media platforms like YouTube Live, Facebook Live, Twitter, Instagram Live, and TikTok, as well as through professional business services, such as Kaltura and Dacast.

Unlike pre-recorded videos, live streams occur in the moment, allowing viewers to interact with the streamer through chat functions and other interactive features.

This immediacy creates a dynamic and engaging experience for both the streamer and the audience.

Live streamers cover a wide range of content:

playing video games,

hosting talk shows,

conducting interviews,

cooking,

crafting, and

live vlogging daily activities.

The versatility of live streaming content means that streamers can find their niche and build a community around shared interests.

Successful live streamers often cultivate a loyal following by maintaining a consistent streaming schedule, engaging directly with their viewers, and creating a sense of community.

What your Character does as a Live Streamer

Content Creation: Live streamers plan, prepare, and execute engaging live broadcasts. They choose topics or activities that resonate with their audience, maintain a consistent streaming schedule, and ensure that their content is entertaining and relevant to their viewers.

Audience Interaction: Interacting with viewers in real-time is a key responsibility. Streamers engage through live chat, responding to comments, questions, and feedback during the stream. They foster a sense of community by acknowledging and involving their audience, using interactive features like polls, Q&A sessions, and shout-outs to enhance viewer engagement.

Technical Management: Managing technical aspects is crucial to a successful stream. This includes setting up and maintaining streaming equipment such as cameras, microphones, lighting, and streaming software. Streamers must ensure a stable internet connection, troubleshoot technical issues promptly, and optimize stream quality to deliver a seamless viewing experience.

Monetization: Monetizing their channels is an important aspect for many streamers. This can involve receiving viewer donations, earning subscriptions (e.g., Twitch subscriptions), securing sponsorships and partnerships with brands, and generating revenue through advertising. Streamers may also leverage merchandise sales, affiliate marketing, or exclusive content to diversify their income streams.

Community Building: Building and nurturing a community around their content is essential. Streamers cultivate a loyal following by creating a welcoming environment, engaging with viewers regularly, and participating in community events or collaborations. They may also moderate chat and ensure a positive and inclusive atmosphere during streams.

Continuous Improvement: Successful streamers constantly strive to improve their content and grow their audience. They analyze viewer analytics to understand audience preferences and trends, experiment with new content formats or streaming techniques, and stay updated with industry trends and platform changes to maintain relevance and competitiveness in the streaming space.

What Type of Live Streamer is your Character?

Live streamers can be categorized into various types based on the content they stream and the communities they engage with. Here are some common types:

Gaming Streamers: Gaming streamers focus on playing and broadcasting video games live to their audience. They may specialize in specific genres such as first-person shooters, role-playing games, or multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBAs). Gaming streamers entertain viewers with their gameplay skills, commentary, and interactions with their audience through live chat.

IRL (In Real Life) Streamers: IRL streamers share their real-life experiences and activities in real-time. They broadcast everyday activities such as traveling, exploring new places, attending events, or participating in challenges. IRL streamers often engage their audience by interacting with them while showcasing their daily routines or special events happening in their lives.

Talk Show and Podcast Streamers: Talk show and podcast streamers host live discussions, interviews, or debates on various topics of interest. They invite guests or panelists to join their streams, engaging with them and their audience through insightful conversations and debates. Talk show streamers may cover topics ranging from politics and current events to pop culture and entertainment.

Creative Streamers: Creative streamers focus on showcasing their artistic talents and skills live. They create art, music, crafts, or digital designs while interacting with their audience. Creative streamers often provide tutorials, share their creative process, and take viewer suggestions or requests for their next project.

Music Streamers: Music streamers perform live music sessions, DJ sets, or music production sessions for their audience. They may cover popular songs, perform original compositions, or engage in interactive music creation with their viewers. Music streamers often use platforms that allow them to receive song requests and interact with their audience in real-time.

Fitness and Sports Streamers: Fitness and sports streamers broadcast live workouts, training sessions, or sports events. They provide exercise routines, fitness tips, and motivation to their audience while demonstrating exercises or participating in sports activities. Fitness streamers may also engage in challenges or competitions with their viewers.

Educational Streamers: Educational streamers conduct live tutorials, lectures, or workshops on topics such as science, technology, languages, or academic subjects. They share knowledge, answer viewer questions in real-time, and provide interactive learning experiences through demonstrations or experiments.

Cooking Streamers: Cooking streamers broadcast live cooking sessions where they prepare recipes, share cooking tips, and engage with their audience while demonstrating culinary techniques. They may also take viewer suggestions for recipes or cooking challenges, creating a community around food and culinary arts.

What Would your Character's Workplace Look Like?

The workplace of a live streamer is typically centered around creating a conducive environment for broadcasting engaging and interactive content.

Unlike traditional office settings, live streamers often work from home or a dedicated studio space that they have set up for streaming purposes.

This space is vital for maintaining control over the streaming setup and creating a comfortable atmosphere conducive to content creation.

At home, live streamers often have a designated area or room where they set up their streaming equipment.

This might include a high-quality camera, microphone, lighting rigs, and a powerful computer or gaming console capable of handling streaming software and gameplay simultaneously.

The setup is tailored to their specific streaming needs, ensuring optimal audiovisual quality and reliability during broadcasts.

Beyond the physical setup, the digital workspace of a live streamer involves managing streaming software, interacting with viewers through chat functions, and monitoring analytics in real-time.

This requires multitasking skills to engage with the audience while focusing on gameplay, discussion topics, or other content being streamed.

Streamers also use this digital space to collaborate with moderators, manage community interactions, and coordinate special events or collaborations with other content creators.

Some Streaming Strategies your Character Could Use

Makes their livestream unique

Focuses on their livestream audience’s needs

Surprises their livestream audience

Promotes their livestream

Interacts with their viewers

Tells viewers what to do at the end of a livestream (e.g., see more content, attend an event)

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References

Hope this helps with your writing!

#streamer #writing reference #writeblr #writing notes #literature #writers on tumblr #dark academia #spilled ink #writing prompt #light academia #creative writing #character building #character development #writing resources

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aster-oid · 1 year ago

Text

To the stranger I knew too well

Summary: When your recurrent dreams about a puppet become out of hand, a reality check feels like the only way to get back to normalcy. Fate proves you wrong.

Pairing: Wanderer & gn!reader (post Irminsul), the relationship is heavily implied to be platonic

Content warnings: Reader is gender neutral, mentions of blood and murders but I don't go into details, slight angst, Wanderer is bad with feelings, platonic content

Word count: 7.2k | Soulmate AU

Comments: A special thank to my beta @ladyfocalors for always brainrotting with me about Genshin characters. We'll platonify the Genshin soulmate AU one work at the time /lh

It took you years to understand that your frequent lucid dreams about an Inazuman electricity-wielder leader were actually the memories of your soulmate.

To your parents' defense, every normal individual would have dismissed the idea. While your soulmate wearing an extravagant hat wasn’t impossible, your tales about a place shrouded in darkness and an Electro-user without a Vision sounded like a child's fantasy. There was no such thing in Teyvat.

You quickly got the reputation of an imaginative kid. Adults liked to ask you about your dreams.

"What a smart child you are!", they cooed once you finished recalling your visions. "You could write a storybook!"

Your younger self would shoot them the dirtiest glare they could muster. Unfortunately, adding that the protagonist was a puppet made hundreds of years ago was not the convincing argument you thought it was. To the layperson, your visions were nonsensical dreams.

But you knew what you saw. It felt real. Terribly, shockingly real. Most often that not, you woke up from these flashes with the taste of iron in your mouth, static filling your sight, your muscles locked into place. You were trapped in your own unresponsive body. Even your breath was stuck in your throat. But the worst part of your awakenings was the sticky feeling on your hands. No matter how many times you scrubbed, it lingered on your skin. You didn't know what it was at that time, just that it made you feel gross and that it would sometimes reappear if you washed your hands hard enough.

You learnt what blood was before you knew how to spell the color red.

When one is repeatedly told that they're wrong, they will come to believe it. You were no exception. As the years passed by, you pushed those fantasies in the back of your mind. The adults in your life must have been right. You were just a strange kid with gruesome dreams, that was all.

Despite knowing that they were figments of your vivid imagination, the sights of snow-covered plains and bloody massacres haunted you well into adulthood. They had grown more complex. Details you didn’t notice as a child seemed obvious now that you had more experience. You could also recall conversations better. That’s how you learnt the name of the body you inhabited. Well, it was more correct to say you learnt multiple names for them. Kabukimono, Kunikuzushi, Scaramouche, the Balladeer... It was like you could never make up your mind.

The puppet you temporarily inhabited was as elusive as the wind: no fixed name to call them and no face to match. They fled mirrors when they saw one, preventing you from seeing their appearance. The only thing you knew about them was their title: number Sixth of the Fatui Harbinger. A seat that was left vacant for centuries according to every Fatuus you asked.

Your constant daydreaming was annoying but manageable until you started having visions about Kunikuzushi taking over Sumeru. You saw them getting experimented on to become one with a robot, wincing in pain at the hands of a masked doctor, rambling about their birth-given right to access godhood, taunting a blonde traveler; a chain of events that could only make sense in a dream. The problem was that your reverie was affecting your daily life. You couldn’t go through a day without getting assailed by memories that weren’t yours. You had to stop halfway through any task, discussing became hard and sleep rarely came to you.

There was little you could do as you didn’t know what had worsened your visions. You were hoping it would go away by itself.

That was until a particularly haunting dream. As usual, you were but a spectator seeing through the Balladeer’s eyes. You saw a hand -their hand- reach for a chess piece, leaning forward as much as they could. Your blood went cold. They were about to fall over the edge of the platform! Your gaze darted everywhere. There was nothing on the distant ground that would break their fall. For the first time in your life, you realized that they could die. Scaramouche, the one you had observed for decades, could die.

You were the only one to realize how far they were leaning. They only had eyes for the violet pawn in front of them, begging and begging with a shaky voice. It had never sounded so frail, so raw with hurt and panic.

"Please, anything but the Gnosis!"

It’s not worth it! you tried to scream. Stop! You didn't know why this Gnosis was so important to them but it was nothing dying for. Alas, no matter how hard you tried to move your mouth, the body refused to answer to you. You were nothing but a witness of a tragic scene, a powerless ghost with a bleeding heart. Your throat was thick with emotions you were not allowed to express.

Your dream ended in a snap, quite literally. A tearing sound erupted from behind you before you were sent falling down, pain flaring in your back. You bit down a scream as the world turned to blurry shades of blue and fluttering black bangs. The increasing speed made your eyes water and your body burn. You clenched your teeth. The fall was inevitable. Maybe it made you a coward but you couldn't bear to see it. You didn’t want to see Kunikuzushi die. Muttering an apology to the stranger in your dreams, you squeezed your teary eyes shut.

The last thing you heard was a wet crushing sound, a mix between eggshells broken under the palm of your hand and a fruit being squashed. Your body jolted in your bed and you gagged, fighting the urge to throw up. You had never felt this sick. Not even when you dreamt of unfair massacres.

You sank to the floor, furiously wiping away the tears beading in the corner of your eyes. You couldn't do it anymore. You had to confront your dreaming problem. There was only one solution: if your brain was so adamant on obsessing over an imaginary character, you had to show it the harsh reality, to remind yourself that Kabukimono never existed.

Your trip to Sumeru was the most spontaneous project you ever planned. You were strolling through the busy streets of Sumeru city the very next day with barely enough money to get back to your nation. You had packed the bare minimum in your suitcase to carry it easily, meaning you wouldn’t be able to stay for more than just a few days.

That was, if you found a room for the night. You had no time to check what the usual prices were in the capital before leaving. Now that you were scouring the streets with your meager funds, unable to find a hotel within your budget, you were bitterly regretting your lack of foresight. You sighed. You supposed that the saying was right. Slow and steady wins the race.

As if it had felt your determination dwindling, the crushing sound echoed in your mind in response. You bit your lip, bile rising in your throat. You hadn't been able to forget about your last dream. It looped in your head like a broken record. Even if impulsively leaving your country was one of your worst ideas ever, the quicker you settled your daydream problem the sooner you'd be back to your normal life.

Your weary steps lead you to an indoor bazaar. The smell of fried food filled your nostrils, making your stomach growl. You winced. The small homemade sandwich you had earlier couldn't compete with the appeal of street food. Unfortunately you needed to save your funds for a room. You let your gaze wander in the crowded marketplace, trying to distract yourself from the appetizing smell. Colorful stalls were full of fresh fruits, potted flowers and intricate trinkets. If you stood on your toes, you could even see a small theater representation in the farthest part of the bazaar. It was a lively place that perfectly encapsulated Sumeru’s charm.

You were about to turn back when your eyes stopped on a blue silhouette near a candy stand. You didn't know how you missed them earlier. In the brown and green crowd, their traditional clothing and their ornamented Inazuman hat stuck out like a sore thumb. They were in deep discussion with the merchant. Turquoise fabric trailed behind them, floating in the wind.

Without a second thought, you cut through the crowd, never leaving the stranger from your sight. Your heart leaped in your chest when they left the small stall.

"Hey, you with the hat! Stop!" you yelled. To your dismay, the Inazuman did not even slow down. They must have been too far to hear you. Breaking into a sprint, you called again. "Hat guy!"

You breached the distance in a few seconds. Just as you were about to grab their shoulder, they turned around. A cold hand snatched your wrist, making you wince. When you looked at its owner, you were greeted with a deep scowl and narrowed indigo eyes.

"Don't." The man’s low voice warned you, his tone full of unspoken threats. You swallowed uncomfortably as your confidence melted away. He managed to be intimidating in spite petite stature and youthful appearance.

As he glared daggers at you, you were hit by a feeling you couldn’t quite place. You pressed your lips together, studying his messy black mullet and his glowing Anemo Vision. The word popped up in your head. Familiar. The stranger felt familiar.

Wiping the feeling of déjà-vu from your mind, you retreated your hand. "Sorry, I was just trying to get your attention."

"Well, now you have it," he huffed. Annoyance was written on his face. He crossed his arms. "What do you want?"

A good question, but not one you had an answer to. Running after the man was a spur of the moment decision.

Self-awareness striked you like a thunderbolt. Why were you even doing this? Your goal was to cure your daydreaming, not to throw yourself headfirst into the rabbit hole nor to annoy a stranger with the tales of an imaginary character.

He clicked his tongue. "Hurry. I don't have all day."

You huffed. It was true that you were taking too much time to gather your thoughts but he didn’t have to be rude about it.

"I'm looking for someone,” you said tentatively. It was the closest you could get from the truth without annoying him. Considering his foul mood, the stranger would have walked away if you told him you were looking for the lack of existence of Kunikuzushi, the Sixth Harbinger, the person who tried to become an Archon, someone that only existed in your mind.

The man didn't answer, encouraging you to continue with a movement on the head. His black bangs flew in the light breeze. Now that you had a clearer view of his face, the man seemed more bored than irritated. He wanted the conversation to be over with but he still had the patience to hear you out. This realization gave you the courage you needed to talk again.

"Their clothes are quite similar to yours, but they're red and black. They also have a hat. A huge one." You opened your arms in emphasis.

He scrunched his brows together, looking at you like you were an idiot. "Right. Because the length of their hat is the most important detail you could give me," he deadpanned.

You fight the urge to sigh. "I wasn't done. I don't know much about them, but they're linked to the Fatui." The stranger's eyes narrowed in suspicion. He was back to glaring at you, his face closed. Unsettled by this sudden tension, you quickly added. "Probably. I'm still not sure about that." There was no Sixth Fatui Harbinger, after all. Your brain had made it up.

"Of course." His voice was drier than earlier. What little interest he had in your discussion had melted at the mention of the Fatui. You scrunched your brows. You swore you could read another emotion than ire in his eyes, even if you didn’t know what. "Anything else I should know about that... Friend of yours?"

You racked your brain for more details. There was a lot to say about the person in your dream. Their lack of heart, their coup attempt in Sumeru, their bloody killings, the experimentations they underwent... Nothing you could talk about in public without looking crazy, in sum. The only thing you could still mention was...

"Their name is Scaramouche."

The man went rigid. "What did you say?" he gawked, his eyes wide with shock.

"Scaramouche. I think that's their name?" Truthfully, they were given so many names that it probably wasn't their real one. But it was the one that came up most in your dreams.

As if it caught onto the tense atmosphere, the wind abruptly stopped blowing. You barely noticed it, focused on the horror shining in the man's eyes. He couldn't believe what you had just said. His piercing eyes analyzed every inch of you with a newfound distrust.

“Nobody should be able to-” He interrupted himself with a gasp. Recognition flashed across his face. "Wait. You...!"

His face went from surprise to disgust in the blink of an eye. You had barely the time to react before he pulled his hat down over his head, his scowl peeking from behind the rim.

"Of course fate would string something like this..." He let out a bitter laugh. "Has it ever made anything easy for me?"

You watched as crossed his arms, lifting his head to glare at you as if you had purposely wronged him. You tried to appease him by apologizing. "Sorry, did I say something wrong?"

Despite your question, you knew you had done nothing worth this cold attitude. You didn’t know why he was overreacting, why he was looking at you like dirt under his soles. It’s as if he was personally offended by your description of the Balladeer. You blinked as pieces fell into place. An Inazuman with a strange hat and dark hair, just like the one you were looking for. Could it be…?

"Is that you? Are you Scaram—"

The man turned around before you could finish your sentence, the blue fabric tied to his hat smacking you in the face. You yelped in pain.

"Don’t use this name." You couldn't see what kind of expression he was making but his flat tone told you enough.

You were standing in front of the protagonist of your dreams.

Reality shattered around you. There were only two reasons for your dreams to be visions of the past. You either were a seer —which was unlikely considering you had no elemental affinity— or you were using your soulmate link. Realization sank in. You had a soulmate. Everything finally clicked together: why you had Scaramouche's memories, why he recognized you, why you never stopped having those dreams… It was because the universe had deemed you a perfect fit.

Your eyes burned with unshed tears. You were not an anomaly without a soulmate, like you were led to believe. You just didn't pay attention to the signs.

"Wait a minute," you gasped. No matter how happy you were about your discovery, it came a lot of terrible implications. "Does it mean that everything is real? The Fatui, the taking over Sumeru part, everything ?"

Kunikuzushi immediately clammed up. Not even bothering to look at you, he said without a trace of emotion. "This conversation is over."

Strong wind currents flared all around you with him acting as the epicenter of the small storm he invoked. You stared at him with wide eyes. He was getting away!

"Please!"

You grabbed his sleeve and tugged hard, adrenaline pumping through your veins. The man gave you the dirtiest glare from above his shoulder as the miniature hurricane intensified. But you didn't let him go. You sank your nails deeper into his arm.

"Listen to me!” you said through gritted teeth. “I'm not gonna pretend I know everything about you because that's not true. I only know glimpses of you. Parts of your past that don't make any sense."

You closed your eyes as the memories flooded your mind. The Gnosis, the laboratory, the crushing sound as he fell down... You didn't understand what those events meant to him. What kind of story they told. It was like you were in front of an incomplete puzzle where all edge pieces went missing. It was impossible to get the big picture no matter how many combinations you tried.

That didn’t mean the little bits of memories you had taught you nothing about him.

"You were hurt. That much is certain."

Your words only rekindled the fire of his ire. He bared his teeth at you. “Huh?! Who do you think you are, talking to me like that?” He stabbed your chest with his finger, forcing you to take a step back. “Seeing glimpses of my past doesn’t give you the right to assume things about me, you worm.”

"But it’s not an assumption. You lived a very long and lonely life. A bloody one too.” You briefly wondered if contrary to you, he had grown accustomed to seeing his hands covered in crimson. You let out a shaky exhale. “But you cannot talk about your life to anyone. No one would believe you if you talked about the Sixth Harbinger of the Fatui or what you were doing centuries ago."

You had the experience to back yourself up. You still weren't sure what the Fatui thing was all about but if you could barely believe it after seeing his memories firsthand, no one else could.

"See, you’re just assuming things again out of pity," Scaramouche snapped. He tore himself from your grasp, sneering. "Guess what? I don't need you to feel sorry about me."

You shook your head. "I wasn't about to."

You were never going to forget the feeling of blood on your hands, the crackling of electricity as you saw someone charred alive, the coolness of a cadaver against your skin. You couldn't bring yourself to feel sorry for this man. It wasn't what someone like him sought.

Pity was for those forced to live under the ruling of unfairness, not able to object to its cruel laws. Forgiveness was for those that were mothered by this tyrant and dedicated their life to preach its teachings. For now, the Balladeer deserved none of them.

When you opened your eyes, Scaramouche had tipped his hat down, obscuring his expression. His grip on his crossed arms was so tight you thought he was going to break his fingers.

"You don't understand. You can't understand."

His voice was lower than earlier, almost like a growl.

It wasn't enough to scare you.

"You're right," you admitted. "I cannot understand you. But I really want to."

Maybe it was because you knew him on a deeper level than a stranger, but something had changed. You were starting to notice it. The hurt he masked behind a veil of fury. Until his words, you thought he was just an eternally angry man, bitter at the world and at his fate. Now, you wondered if he was just someone who lived through too much. Someone who was ready to beg and kill himself for a glimpse of a better future.

He snorted, disbelief written across his face. “A human like you, understanding someone like me? Don’t make me laugh.” He leaned towards you. You fought the urge to take a step back, withholding his stare with all of the courage you could summon. His mouth contorted into a twisted smile. “You’ve seen what I am capable of. Not only are you fundamentally unable to relate to a fraction of my existence, you’re also unable to withstand it. Understanding me will only bring you trouble.”

“You already do.” Scaramouche didn't utter a word, turning his back to you. You didn't let it get to you, instead squeezing your hand against your chest. "I spent my life stuck with visions I couldn't control. Seeing your memories at random moments robbed me from precious moments with the people I love. From enjoying a normal life, one where I don’t have to fear falling asleep."

Your hands were shaking. Whether from anger or sorrow, you didn’t know. Scaramouche was the one assuming things. You may only be a human, one similar to thousands that have come before you, but you knew how it felt to be misunderstood. How it felt not to belong. Nobody had believed you for decades, nor understood why you were so uncomfortable when it came to sleeping. Even your friends couldn’t wrap their heads about your constant worry of getting lost in the daydreaming. You might as well have been from a different species.

You took a deep exhale. Your anger faded away as quickly as it came. "I feel close to you, no matter how strange it sounds. You've always been a small part of me.” Determination seeped through your tone. “So I won't be able to move on as long as I don't know what's going on with my soulmate."

Soulmate. The word rolled strangely on your tongue. It was the first time you were saying it out loud.

Scaramouche gagged at your word choice. "I'm not looking for a lover." Disgust laced his voice. Seems like you were not the only one who felt weird about the whole situation.

You shook his concern with a wave of the hand. "Me neither. I'm looking for an explanation. A timeline in a chronological order, if possible."

Your attempt at a joke fell flat as silence fell between the two of us. Your face shifted into a frown. Had you been too insistent?

"It's alright if you find the situation strange," you said, trying to save the conversation. "I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that you saw glimpses of my life. This is quite embarrassing...."

You didn't have the most exciting life but there were private moments you wanted nobody to see. Especially not your soulmate.

He shot you an uninterested look, examining the dirt beneath his nails. "I could not care less about your mundane life."

You blinked. You didn't expect him to get interested in your life as much as you were in his, but was that supposed to be comforting? Unsure how to respond, your face contorted into a polite smile.

None of you said a word after that. You didn't dare move either. Weariness taking over you, you watched as the back of his hair fluttered in the breeze, joining the hypnotizing dance of the blue ribbons. The sound of animated conversations and the ringing of distant bells filled the otherwise tense silence.

You were about to leave when Scaramouche let out the heaviest sigh known to mankind. He finally turned to you, uttering a single word.

"Wanderer."

Whatever you were expecting him to say, it wasn't that. "Come again?"

He rolled his eyes but repeated it anyway. "Wanderer. That’s my name. Not Scaramouche or whatever name you heard in my memories."

You felt your entire face lit up. You could recognize an olive branch when you saw one. "I won't call you anything else, I promise!"

He sighed at your sudden excitement, shaking his head. You were starting to recognize when he was truly irritated and when he was acting annoyed by habit. This time, the look in his eyes didn't match his bored pout. It was not soft by any means, but he did not glare daggers at you anymore.

"I still don’t think someone like you can handle the tale of centuries of existence.” He clicked his tongue. “That being said, I suppose it would be entertaining to see you try. Come to the entrance of Sumeru city in two hours."

Your eyes widened. You thought that you wouldn’t get more than his name, and now he gave you the opportunity to explain his life ? You had half the mind to pinch yourself awake.

"Don't be late Wanderer!"

He scoffed, readjusting the position of his ginormous hat. “If I were, you'd scream my name in the streets of Sumeru until you get ahold of me. No thanks."

"I wouldn't do that!"

"Oh, really?" A smug smirk took place on his lips. He cleared his throat before taking a high-pitched voice. " 'Hey, you with the hat, stop right there ! I really want to talk to you! Stop, I say !' "

You gasped in shock. "So you actually heard me! Do you not stop when someone calls you?"

"I do. I just don't typically talk to pipsqueaks."

His grin deepened at seeing your offended expression. He even let out a short laugh. You playfully punched the cheeky bastard on the shoulder, not putting much force in the blow.

Wanderer didn't budge. He instead grabbed your wrist, pulling your hand away from him. His eyebrows were pinched together in irritation. "Don’t think you can punch me and get out unscathed, kid."

Despite his words, his grasp on you was light, as if he was careful not to hurt you. It was easy to slip from his hold. He was entertaining you, you realized. Considering how harsh he had been when you first had tried to touch him, a light scold was nothing.

Mimicking a fighting stance, you started shifting your weight from left to right.

"You're the one who's gonna bite the dust! I can knock out someone with a single blow!" You punched the air to demonstrate, a smile blooming on your face. "I can take anyone in a fight!"

Wanderer pinched the bridge of his nose, exasperated by your playful attitude. "Celestia above, not another Childe..."

You pouted at his words. "Are you calling me a child again? I'll let you know that I'm a fully-fledged adult!" You may not be as old as the immortal puppet but you were no kid by human standards. You were only teasing Wanderer because you needed something light after your heavy talk. He couldn’t base his whole perception of you on a speech stemming from your sleep-deprived self…

He clicked his tongue in his mouth before looking at you directly in the eyes. "You talk big for someone I've seen fall in the stairs several times."

Horror washed over you. Every little embarrassing moment you lived flooded your mind. The fact that Wanderer had seen some of them sent warmth pooling in your cheeks.

"You said you didn't care about my life!" you said, absolutely mortified.

"It doesn't mean watching you was not mildly entertaining. Why would I focus on boring Fatui politics talk when I could be the witness to the mess of your teenage years?” Your expression was decomposing by the second, to his delight. "I especially liked it when—"

You cut him off with a nervous laugh. "Alright, alright, I get it. Aren't you busy?"

His gaze fell into a small pouch at his sides. "I do, actually. Buer must be looking for me."

"Buer? Who's that?" You didn't remember hearing this name in his memories.

"The Dendro Archon," he said like it was the most obvious thing on Teyvat.

"...Right. Of course.”

Maybe you were a bit too optimistic about his ability to open up to you.

Wanderer couldn't believe himself. Three betrayals should have been enough to teach him that closeness only brought pain. Whether because of misunderstandings, lies or the unpredictable and unescapable scythe of Death, the ending was always the same: he was fated to end up hurt. Alone. Cursing himself for loving too much.

He snorted. He knew all of that and yet here he was, wrapping his job up before his meeting with you. How pathetic.

Part of him was not surprised about this new twist of events. Fate liked to throw him in the most ironic situations. He was currently going on errands for Buer, the same Archon he had tried to supplant her months ago and who took him prisoner. Randomly meeting his soulmate in the middle of the streets was not the most unexpected thing to have happened to him. Far from it. At that point, he was surprised it hadn’t happened earlier.

When Wanderer entered the sanctuary of Surasthana, the Archon was sitting on her swing, humming to herself. The melancholic tune didn’t sound familiar but the lyrics in old Sumerian sang the tale of a love long gone. If he rolled his eyes at the song choice, he was polite enough to wait until the end of the song before clearing his throat.

Buer perked up, finally noticing him. She jumped from the swing and greeted him with a small wave.

"Hat guy!" He cocked an eyebrow at the oh so creative sobriquet, making her giggle. "I’m glad to see you. I was starting to think that you had forgotten about me."

"As if my memory would get faulty. I was held up by someone." Holding his hat to pin it into place, he sat on the lush grass. Reunions with Buer always took a while. He might as well make himself comfortable.

Familiar curious green eyes landed on him. "Was it a friend from the Akademiya?"

He rolled his eyes. "I had never seen them before."

He had expected this flow of questions. Buer was very invested in his relationships with other people– well, rather his lack of. She had made him participate in social events like the Interdarshan championship to socialize. She even enrolled him in the Akademiya. Her argument was that it would help him understand humanity better, as well as himself.

The results were arguably mixed. Wanderer admittedly tolerated people a bit better than before. They were predictable creatures but they could be entertaining. Sometimes. On the other hand, he had not grown close to anyone since he started attending classes. Sure, some students followed him around, gushing about the mysterious “hat guy” and throwing a birthday party for him, but he would not call them friends. They were classmates at most. It was for the best: it didn’t matter if Buer claimed he was progressing regarding socialization, talking to him was an experience he wished on no one.

She didn’t seem to agree with him. Excitement and pride shone in her eyes. "Every stranger is a friend in potentiality. That is what makes new meetings so exciting: you might be talking to your new favorite person in Teyvat," she beamed, taking place near him.

"If you say so."

Friendship was a human concept. Something he could neither fully understand or get. Melodramatic speeches and lengthy explanations meant nothing to him. That is why Wanderer didn’t try to counter her argument. There was no point in talking about something he knew nothing about.

What he did know was that Buer was wrong. You were no stranger to him.

His gaze fell to his hands. The first time he had seen your memories, Scaramouche had thought he was defective. He had never been able to dream until then. His creator didn’t see the interest in allowing him to do so. The only reason he knew what dreams were was because Niwa liked to recount his when they worked together in the forge.

One second he was lying down in the laboratory of the Fatui, the other he was in a small bed. Piles of toys were scattered around him, decorating what seemed to be a child’s bedroom. Why on Teyvat was he here? Scaramouche tried to move his arm but it did not move an inch. He cursed under his breath. For some reason, his body refused to listen to him. If it was Il Dottore’s scheme, the man was dead.

Without a warning, his head turned. He was greeted by the reflection of a small child in the mirror of the wardrobe. You.

His mind had been pure madness when he had come back to his senses. He had the time to zap five machines before the Doctor arrived, complaining that his research was being destroyed. The Tsaritsa, the stars, fate itself... He had cursed everything he could think of for giving him a soulmate. There was no other reason behind his sudden ability to “dream”. Fate had decided to intertwine your destinies together. The thought only made him more angry.

He couldn't be mad at the child you were, though. You were barely five. No matter how much of an unfeeling person he was, Scaramouche was not about to hold the situation against someone as young as you. A small part of him, one he had tried to bury for centuries, had even ached to hold your chubby hands in his when he had seen you reach for your reflection.

With the impossibility of breaking a soulmate bond, the Fatui Harbinger had been forced to watch you as you grew. He learnt about your favorite color, the school subject you liked best, the names of your childhood friends, the color of your bedroom, all the details of your ordinary life. He was a spectator to mundane moments, to victories and horrific failures alike.

You had transformed from a kid with shining eyes to a determined adult before his eyes.

If Buer was right and that all friends started as strangers, it meant that you would never be able to grow close to him. You already knew him.

Wanderer plucked a few strands of grass, watching how they fell to the ground. No, hoping for you two to be friends was wishful thinking. You had seen the atrocities he had done as a Fatui Harbinger. Once he filled the gap in your knowledge, you would not want anything to do with him. His erasure from existence didn’t excuse the actions of his past life.

He would not blame you. He deserved your hate. At the end of the day you were another name on the endless list of his victims. Because of your soulmate link, you had lived your entire life plagued by visions you didn't understand, othered because of things out of your control. You were the proof that Wanderer brought suffering just by existing. That he wasn't a fundamentally good person, like the one Buer and Traveler insisted he was. You had every right to loathe him.

That was why he accepted your offer. If he explained everything to you, if he confirmed that every "dream" of yours was true, you would move on. You would forgive Fate for giving you such an unloving person as a soulmate. Maybe you would even want to settle down with someone else... At the end of the day, you'd be free from the chain of destiny. So would he.

The world would let him do a good thing, for a change.

"While it's true that talking it out will appease both of your minds, you shouldn't only see them as a way to atone for the sins of your past life," Buer intervened.

Wanderer gave her an unimpressed look, throwing away the rest of the grass strands. "One day, you will have to answer for all of those breaches of privacy before the General Mahamatra."

"Talking about your thoughts with someone else can help you sort them out and gain new insight. I felt like you could benefit from it."

Her growing smile told him that she didn't feel sorry for reading his mind without his consent. He huffed. She was lucky he had grown accustomed to this habit of hers.

She hummed as she stepped in front of him. "Agreeing to a meeting to ease your guilty conscience is not a bad thing in itself. The problem is that you’re assuming that they can only hate you."

“What other reaction could they have?” The answer appeared in his mind before he finished his sentence. “Pity?” Pronouncing the word made his insides hurl. Wanderer would rather feel your wrath than your pity. The former didn’t feel as disgusting as the other;

Buer shook her head. “That’s not it either. It’s alright if you don’t yet understand Wanderer, you will see in due time.”

He fought the urge to roll his eyes. He preferred it when she used complex metaphors. At least he had the opportunity to understand what was going on in her mind, contrary to when she used vague words of wisdom like a drowsy prophet.

"If I can give you one more piece of advice, you should give this relationship a chance." Seeing his scowl of disgust, she explained herself. "I'm not telling you to pursue a romance with them. Just don't assume that tonight is the only time you meet. Keep your mind and your heart open."

Despite her smile, she had a serious look in her eyes. It was the face of wisdom in all of its assured glory. Wanderer closed his eyes. It was easy for him to forget she was not a young child, like the one he took care of all those centuries ago.

"There is a reason why they're your soulmate," Buer said. "Don't you want to discover why?"

"Someone like them has nothing in common with me."

Your memories told the tale of a simple life. In an ideal world, a normal person like you wouldn't have been paired up with him. How it happened in this one was a mystery. If he was inclined to pity others, Wanderer would feel bad for you. Being his soulmate only brought you experiences that you couldn’t talk about to anyone.

“You cannot talk about your life to anyone. No one would believe you if you talked about the Sixth Harbinger of the Fatui or what you were doing centuries ago.” Their hands shook as they lifted their head to meet his gaze. He stilled. He had expected to read loneliness and fire in their eyes. He only found the glow of loneliness. It was the same he had seen in your reflection all those years ago.

Wanderer hid his face behind his hand. He supposed he was wrong. He could see a few ressemblances between you and him. That didn’t necessarily mean you would become friends.

"Don't expect too much from this meeting. I only plan on retelling my story, not on learning more about them."

Gentle hands covered his, pulling them away from his face before lightly squeezing them.

“You don’t need to. You already know them better than anyone else.” Buer's voice was as soft as her expression.

He opened his mouth but no snarky counter-argument came to his mind. From what little insight Wanderer had gained on friendship over the course of his life, sharing experiences with a potential friend wasn’t enough. You also had to learn about the other person's personality, their taste, the little things they did… Such a process was too much work for a relationship that would eventually decay. But the man already knew you, more intimately than any person ever would.

If to be friends was to learn about someone, he had become yours a long time ago.

Wanderer fought the urge to shield his face behind his hat. It would be as good as admitting to Buer her words had struck a chord. No way he would embarrass himself like that.

“You're not going to give up, are you?" he sighed.

“While I do hope you will form a bond with them, I will not hold it against you if it doesn’t happen.” She took some time to think, trying to come up with a convincing imagery. “Fate is a tricky concept. It steers you in a specific direction but it cannot force you to follow it. No matter what, you can always make your own way.”

He let the words sink in as he laid down on the cool grass. From the Sanctuary, he could hear the entire city’s hustle and bustle. The sound of the streets mixed with the chirping of the birds and the rustle of the wind through the branches.

He felt Buer sitting next to him. Her voice interrupted his quiet reverie, sounding cheekier than usual.

"Don't I deserve something in return for my good advice?"

Her eyes were focused on the small pouch hanging at his side. He had forgotten about it, their conversation had distracted him. Wanderer shook his head in defeat. The Archon didn’t need to use her mind-reading powers to know about the actions of her subjects.

“If you want to be paid for giving lectures, you should think about becoming a teacher at the Akademiya.”

“I would deprive someone from the joy of educating young minds.”

His lips curled into a grin. “Right. Poor them.”

Feeling her gaze on him, he relented. He unclipped the package from his belt and gave it to her, not bothering to sit back up. Buer tried to open it carefully. It was so full that in spite of her efforts, morsels of candied Ajilenakh nuts spilled on the ground.

Wanderer frowned at the sight of the mess. Something churned inside him. If he had known it would be wasted, he wouldn’t have bought so much food.

“Be more careful,” he chastised her. “It’s expensive.”

Buer shot him a perplexed look. He scoffed in response, averting his gaze.

"I didn't buy them. The merchant gave free samples to bystanders and he couldn't take no for an answer."

Another white lie from him. He had noticed that Buer didn't have much candy left and since he had to go to the Bazaar anyway, he had decided to buy some. He watched as she inspected a piece of candy, rolling it between her fingers. He didn't get why she was head over heels for those disgustingly sweet nuts but he had to keep her in good spirits. Otherwise, she might decide to lock him back in his cell. That and seeing her smile so much sent warmth running in his chest.

Her eyes crinkled, amused. "A free sample? How nice," she said, popping one of the delicacies in her mouth. He supposed there was no fooling the Archon of Knowledge. She pointed at him. "Your friend hasn't had the opportunity to try food from Sumeru, have they? You could bring them to Lambad’s and keep some of the Ajilenakh nuts to snack on."

“We have other things to do than distract ourselves with culinary tourism.”

“It’s not a distraction! See it as a bonding experience that will allow you to grow closer.”

He arched a brow, unimpressed. “As if I needed something like this to become their friend.”

He stopped after his own sentence. He blinked, not believing what he had just said.

Wanderer didn't know how he ended up in this situation. Truly. He was never one to let Fate decide for him. He defied it at each opportunity, fighting with all he had. This shouldn't have been any different. He was a traveler, an outcast, an outsider. He had no use for a soulmate– a lover. Especially not a human one, one that would be gone in a blink of his immortal life.

He had no use for a lover, but he supposed that if he had to befriend a single person in the world, it may as well be you.

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