Mimi: Asks Their Followers If They Would Be Interested In Reading Fics About Thoma From Genshin Impact

mimi: asks their followers if they would be interested in reading fics about thoma from genshin impact

also mimi: posts a fic about wanderer from genshin impact instead

I know a lot of y’all followed me cuz I posted twist x reader posts, but would y’all be interested in reading any genshin impact x reader posts from me? I use this blog infrequently as is but Thoma has been living rent free in my head lately

High res. Relaxing in room Ace groovy

Art by @yukikitune_e

https://twitter.com/yukikitune_e

time for skeleman

with the lack of any other info yet, all I can focus on are those Charles Lloyd-looking sunglasses. they are absolutely sending me. I feel like we're gonna fall through a tree or whatever and this stitched-up boney gentleman is gonna pop out from behind a gravestone and start serenading us with some smooth jazz on the saxophone.

or should I say...the saxoBONE???????

Finding Hope

notes: i had no plan what i was gonna do with this, i just opened a tumblr draft and started writing words and this is the result.

contains: diluc x gn!reader, hurt/comfort, this is 60% me exploring diluc's mental state and 40% actually including reader, diluc processing his trauma and learning how to see the good in the little things and how you make him see them

warnings: diluc's ptsd from learning a bit too much about the fatui while he was abroad, dottore's horrifying nightmare experiments (including: addiction, child abuse, test subject vending machine), angst

As long as he kept himself busy, Diluc would be fine. Maybe part of the reason why he'd hunt down monsters every night wasn't only for the protection of Mondstadt. Maybe part of it was selfish. For a brief moment, being the Darknight Hero gave him the illusion that he was able to do something about the presence of evil in this world. The presence of evil that had never truly left the back of his mind ever since he returned from the cold lands of Snezhnaya. In a way, it had latched onto him, infested him to his very core and now? Now he carried it with him wherever he went.

He had come far with the underground intelligence network he had joined in his absence. Perhaps that was something to be proud of. That he contributed to something bigger than himself. But in the grand scheme of things, Diluc never felt like his work was finished. Like he could truly rest. The monsters of the abyss kept coming, the Fatui were now in possession of the anemo gnosis and Il Dottore was still conducting his experiments without a care in the world.

Peace for Diluc would mean to ignore the things he could never truly bring his heart to find closure with. Ignore the fact that his father had never received the recognition he deserved. Ignore how involved the Fatui were in every nation across Teyvat. Ignore the horrors he had seen and the full scale of justice that never came. Ignore how the rest of Teyvat seemed to be blind to it and how he was a lone observer, silently calling out to the world to answer his indictments. Diluc sometimes felt like a ghost haunting a past that had long since gone by and a present that seemed far out of his reach. He was just there. Doing his self-appointed duty, running his winery, working as a bartender at Angel's Share on some nights; all whilst the shadows in his mind never truly left him. That was the curse of having come face to face with the bottom of the iceberg. Of having been ripped away from the life he led growing up, traversing into the unknown in search for answers. In his search for reasons, Diluc only ever found more why's. There were things that were never meant to touch him and yet they did. Death did. The abyss did. Evil did. He felt like he had ventured out behind the curtains of his little world equipped with nothing but a wooden sword and shield. Driven by anger and the need for justice.

He read it in the books when he was a child. That good things would come to those who chose to be good and that victory would come to those who were dedicated and worked hard. That was what he truly believed when he had joined the Knights of Favonius. His mind used to be so naive, unable to comprehend that reality was a lot more complicated than the principles he had accepted as the foundation of fate. Fate itself seemed like a fairytale now. Life had no rules of cause and effect, at least not in the way he had counted on long ago. Life was unpredictable, it could bring him happiness in one moment and throw him off his path in the next. Life was a constant dance on a tightrope and Diluc had traveled far, trying to find out how to find stability in his cloudy mind and below his weary feet again. And in the process he had grown but he had fallen too.

Images of the past would resurface when he least expected it. Waiting in line to get lunch from Good Hunter. While Adelinde talked to him. While petting the cats at Mondstadt when he was done doing his duty at night and about to go home. As if there was a shadow hanging over him, reminding him with a stab at his heart: No. You're not allowed to be happy.

Diluc knew that wasn't true. There were plenty of happy moments in his life. Simply counting all the moments and memories he had with you were enough to consider himself truly lucky.

But through it all, Diluc had returned to Mondstadt and felt that the world has gotten a little too small for him. So before he learnt to love you, he had mostly kept to himself. He saw the people of Mondstadt go about their day; talking about the weather with their spouse, throwing coins into the well in hopes that their wishes came true, drinking away their stress from work at the tavern... The people of Mondstadt hadn't seen evil the way Diluc had. And he wouldn't wish it upon them to do. He was glad that they were living simple lives, worrying about things like whether their little shop made enough to expand their repertoire of products or how to get rid of the noise their neighbors made when they were trying to rest. But still, it made Diluc feel alone. Like he was standing between busy people and chatter, pondering the state of this world with knowledge he maybe would have been better off without.

He remembered the connections he had made in the underground network, remembered receiving the news of his comrades dying after being caught trying to gather intel. He remembered overhearing the Fatui soldiers laughing about how pathetic they had looked when they had killed them.

He recalled the ones who were raised and sent to fight for the Fatui; who never had a choice in where their lives were headed. The ones who had begged him not to hurt them when he destroyed their strongholds; the ones he let live. Those whose wounds he treated because they were people just like him, trying to make the best of the situation they were in. Who just wanted to go home to their friends and loved ones but were used like mindless worker drones in someone else's grand scheme. He had shared meals by the campfire with people he should have considered his enemy. People who should have killed him on sight but didn't. They had gone their separate ways soon enough, but Diluc remembered every single one of them. Dmitri who grew up in the House of Hearth to be sent to the front lines but always dreamt of being a painter. Alina who was pregnant and terrified for her child in light of her work but distracted herself by spending her evenings knitting plushies for her unborn daughter. Alexei whose colleagues loved the stew he made and who'd smile and tell the story of how an old lady had taught him the recipe after she had found him when he was injured from battle and nursed him back to health at her house. Diluc wondered if they were still alive and how they were doing.

And then, Diluc remembered the day the he and his colleagues from the underground intelligence network took over one of Il Dottore's many laboratories and investigated it after all the Fatui were gone. There was an apparatus Diluc could only describe as a "vending machine", filled with people Dottore considered his 'test subjects' and candidates for the experiment of the next day, squashed into the small space to wait for their end. A man was sitting in a corner, injecting archon residue into his already mutated arm over and over again while rocking back and forth. There was a little girl in a cell who flinched when Diluc opened the door. He had sat down in front of the door and waited, patiently talking to her and explaining to her that they had come to get her out of here so that she could have a better life. He had asked her for her favorite color and talked about what things he liked that were also purple. He remembered asking her for her name and her replying with a six-digit number. One of the network members had sat down next to him and asked her what name she would like to have if she could pick one. Diluc remembered giving little Sophia the teddy bear Crepus had given him when he was just a baby, deciding that the girl needed it more than him. He remembered the segment of the Doctor, not much older than 5 years, clutching a ruin guard hand in his arms and asking if anyone was coming back for him...

"Diluc?"

He had seen the abyss not only outside the gates of Mondstadt while fighting as the Darknight Hero but he had also seen it in the hearts of man. He had seen it in his own heart, in the moments when he left the dinner on the table because of the sinking feeling in his stomach. In the times he couldn't sleep at night, staring at the ceiling mindlessly. In the times he had cried and didn't even fully know why. In the hopelessness he felt looking at all the problems he couldn't fix and how small he felt in comparison to them. Diluc had left Mondstadt, the little bubble that kept him safe from the horrors of this world for 18 years, and now it wasn't letting him back in. He doubted it ever fully would.

"Diluc."

He snapped out of his thoughts, being met with your concerned expression. Looking into those eyes he loved so much. It was a sunny day in Mondstadt and the two of you had decided to visit the Cat's Tail, sitting across from each other at a small wooden table outside, playing Genius Invokation TCG.

"I'm sorry for zoning out", he apologized, looking at the cards on the table, trying to make sense of the state of the game in front of him, but failing to do so. His mind felt like it was scattered all over the place. You obviously noticed.

"We don't have to continue playing if you don't feel up to it", you reassured him, taking his hand in yours. You could see how he hesitated, not wanting his negativity to put a damper on your afternoon. You got up and walked around the table, sitting down on his lap and cradling his face in your hands. You pressed a soft kiss to his forehead, brushing a strand of his red hair aside. "Would you like to go home?", your voice sounded so kind and your smile told him you'd be okay with whatever answer he gave you.

And so Diluc wrapped his arms around you, hugging you close and nodding. "Thank you."

"You know you can tell me whenever you want to do something else or things get too much for you, right?", you reminded him and he helped you pick up all the cards and put them back in their box. "I know", he sighed and pressed a kiss to your cheek, "sorry."

You held his hand as you exited the city; the sun already setting. You were pointing at the sky, pointing out how the clouds looked a little like his hawk right now. "I guess they do", he commented, watching you amused and a smile finding its way onto his face again.

You always did that. Distract him in the best way possible. When destruction had him in its clutches, you would be there and around you everything else seemed so much more alive. You reminded him that there was beauty in this world. That there was hope.

You reminded him of the flowers that grew by the wayside and what a miracle it was for life to even exist on this world. You reminded him that he was loved and that there were so many things he had grown to love.

There were the afternoons you'd drag him to the library to pick out a book with you, reading it to him in the evening as he rested his head in your lap and slowly fell asleep to the sound of your voice. There were the idle moments you'd spend sitting on a bench at the market place, listening to a woman play the violin as you rested your head on Diluc's shoulder. There were your walks to Mondstadt and back to the Winery; there was the little boy in Springville who had stopped Diluc to show him the cool frog he had found by the pond.

There were the cats he'd pet and sometimes feed at night as he was walking the streets of Mondstadt. There was that time you tried mixing grape juice with honey lemon tea and asked him if it tasted good, unsure of your own perception of the taste. These were the golden moments he'd frame in his mind like a work of art.

Your smile and the butterflies he felt in his stomach everytime he looked at it. How excited you got whenever he sat down at the grand piano in the winery, playing some tunes his father had taught him. You brushing his hair before the two of you went to bed, always ending up trailing kisses down his neck and telling him how many things you loved about him.

And he didn't know whether he could ever truly be at peace again. But there was you and there were things he cherished. There was the monsters he protected Mondstadt from and the moments he allowed himself to just be a winery owner and a bartender, deeply in love with his significant other. That was all he could do at the moment and you showed him over and over again how much that mattered.

author's note: remember that however many bad things are out there or haunt your mind, there's so many little things all around us to cheer us up. it's easy to fall into the trap of tunnel vision and feel like there's darkness all around you but there's strangers that could grow to be your friends and people dedicating their time and volunteer work to help others. allow yourself to see the good in the world around you. allow yourself to look at a cool frog or listen to someone play the violin too. ❤️