#Dice really should learn to share

[gemwing1988]

Cuphead: 😟😟??

King Dice: Mine! 😡

Geez, Dicey, haven’t you heard of “Sharing is caring”?

[jromanoff]

Study Break II R. George

Pairing: student!Regina George (2024) x law student!Reader

Warning(s): Reader not eating enough

Authors note: I’m in the middle of uni exams this week so I wrote a little something to indulge myself :)

Summary: College!AU - Regina is worried about your study habits and decides to intervene.

Word count: 1.6k

Regina leaned against the door frame, watching you hunched over your textbooks, completely engrossed in your studies. The thick civil code books were laying open on the side, several coloured tabs sticking out to keep track of the laws you needed to use for your upcoming exams. Regina thought it almost looked like a rainbow at this point. That was the only pretty thing about the stuff on your desk though, it looked like a bomb exploded with the mess you’ve made.

"Babe, can you take a break? I miss spending time with you," Regina pouted, hoping to draw your attention away from the books in front of you. Her pout usually did the trick. She wanted to have some quality time with you since you haven’t been spending time with her these past few days, too engrossed with your studies. You even stopped having dinner with her.

You glanced up briefly, your brow furrowed in concentration. "Sorry Gina, I really need to focus. These exams are important."

Regina sighed dramatically, crossing her arms as she walked closer to you. Did you just really resist her pout? "You've been studying nonstop for days. Don't you think you're overdoing it a bit?"

You paused, looking at Regina with concern. "I know, but I need to do well in this. It's important for my future. I don’t want to be a failure."

Regina softened, her concern for you overriding her desire for attention. Regina almost laughed at this realisation, her High School-self could never. "I understand, but I'm worried about you. You need to take care of yourself too."

You reached out to take Regina's hand, caressing it. "I appreciate your concern, babe. But I really need to study now, I’m fine.” you said with a reassuring smile, concentrating back on your books.

Regina frowned and decided she needed to change her approach, this was clearly not working. So instead of complaining or outing her concerns, Regina tried to engage in a conversation with you.

“What are you studying, anyways?” Regina curiously inquired as she saw her girlfriend so intensely focused.

She never asked you about the content of your studies before, because she probably wouldn’t understand it. She, on the other hand, always excitedly rambled to you about whatever she learned that day. From fashion designers to fashion history, Regina shared it all. You didn’t mind it, though. Seeing your girlfriend so excited about her studies made you happy too and extra knowledge never hurt anyone. It was a nice contrast to your law studies.

“Legal philosophy” you replied curtly.

“Sounds boring” Regina remarked. Her efforts were met with a dismissive attitude from you, causing Regina to frown in disappointment. But Regina wouldn’t let this deter her from trying again.

“What are you reading about now, then?” Regina asked once again, looking over your shoulder at the book you were currently reading.

“The Case of the Speluncean Explorers” you responded, perplexed by Regina’s sudden interest in your ‘boring’ law studies. Especially after she just complained about not getting any attention from you.

“The what explorers?”

“The Speluncean Explorers,” you explained, slightly exasperated. “It’s a fictional judgement where five judges with different opinions shed their light on a fictional case. Five explorers got stuck in a cave and eventually ran out of food so… they agreed to eat one person so the other four could survive. They decided who it should be by throwing a dice and when the remaining four explorers were rescued they got a murder charge. I really need to study now if you don’t mind.” You hoped this elaborate answer would satisfy Regina’s curiosity so you could refocus on your studies.

When Regina kept silent after your explanation you thought you managed to fend off your girlfriend for the time being. Wrong.

Regina felt increasingly ignored by your continued focus on studying and your dismissive attitude towards her. So she decided to retort to an old tactic – a kiss to divert your attention. Despite being in college now and attempting to leave her manipulative ways behind, Regina deemed this situation an emergency. You would definitely cave in after a kiss.

Regina put her fingers under your chin, turning your face towards her. Then, she leaned in and pressed her lips softly to yours.

That sudden display of affection caught you off guard, but as Regina deepened the kiss your resistance immediately faded away. The tension in your shoulders eased as you gave into your girlfriend. Regina gently took the book you were holding from you.

“Regina, no. I need to study” you pulled away and protested, but Regina just kissed you again.

“What was that for, anyway?” you questioned her as you finally broke apart.

“So you’d be focused on something else than your studies. I deserve some attention too, you know? Not only your stupid books” Regina smirked.

You narrowed your eyes at her “I know what you’re trying to do” you told her and turned back to your desk. As you attempted to pick up your books once more, Regina shot you an ice cold glare. "If you don't put that book down right now... I swear to god you'll regret it," she warned, her tone leaving no room for argument. Regina rarely used that glare on you, but when she did? She was serious about it. Her glare and tone of voice caused you to immediately put your book back down, holding your hands up in surrender.

"That's what I thought," Regina asserted, a smirk playing on her lips. "Now, you’re cleaning up this mess of books and notebooks on this desk first," she declared, taking charge of the situation and asserting her authority over the chaotic study environment you created over the last week. How you could even study in this mess was a mystery to Regina.

Reluctantly, you set aside your textbooks and notes as Regina took charge of making dinner in the meantime, bustling about the kitchen.

The aroma of home-cooked food soon filled the air, causing a low rumble to come from your stomach. You quickly finished cleaning up your stuff and walked to the kitchen where Regina stood behind the stove.

“That smells delicious” you told your girlfriend as you embraced her from behind, resting your chin on her shoulder.

“It does, huh? Can you set the table for me, please?” Regina requested.

“Of course” you replied, giving Regina a kiss on the cheek before removing yourself from her. You set the table for dinner and sat down, waiting for Regina and the food.

As Regina set the steaming hot plates of food on the table, you immediately started eating before Regina herself had even the chance to get seated.

Regina observed you quickly shoving down the food she made with concern. It's a confirmation of her suspicions – you hadn’t been eating well all week, too consumed by your studies to the point you forgot to eat. With a pointed look, Regina breaks the silence. “I'm definitely keeping a closer eye on you when the next exam period comes up. You're not taking care of yourself properly. You’re never skipping dinner with me again in an exam period," Regina said, her gaze unwavering.

You frowned at her and attempted to deflect her concern. “You really don't need to, that's asking too much of you." you insisted

But Regina's resolve remains unyielding. "I don't care what you think. I'm keeping an eye on you. And that's final," she declares, her words leaving no room for argument. With a sigh you accept defeat, knowing that Regina can’t be swayed once she has her mind set on something.

That’s one thing that hasn’t changed since high school: Regina always gets what she wants.

After dinner, you cleared the table and did the dishes together. Then, Regina insisted on cuddling with you.

Entering your room, you see Regina is already situated on the bed. She already removed her makeup and changed into something more comfortable.

"Come here, you," Regina said, opening her arms wide with a playful smile. "I need some cuddles."

You hesitated for a moment before relenting, changing into comfier clothes and joining your girlfriend in bed. As your head hit the silk pillow (that Regina bought for you, because according to her it’s better for your hair) you sighed in content. "I guess I could use some cuddles too," you admitted softly, smiling back at your girlfriend.

Regina pulled you close, wrapping you in a warm embrace. “Now, I know you’re tired so I’ll let you go to sleep in a bit, but you do need to promise me to give me attention tomorrow.” she said, softly stroking your hair.

“I promise, my love” you murmur, pressing a gentle kiss to Regina’s forehead.

Eventually exhaustion takes hold of you both, and you drift off to sleep, wrapped in each other's embrace.

The next day you would spend no time on your studies, but only on Regina. You were determined to make it up to her. You even took her out on a spontaneous date to one of the high end restaurants she loved to make up for the lack of attention you gave her the past week. Afterwards the two of you went shopping and then cuddled for the remainder of the evening.

And your exams? Passed with flying colours.

[svt-kiki]

( 🖇️ ) RELATIONSHIPS WITH HYUNG LINE ⌅ .

기키 + 승철　／　KICHEOL

🍒 ── 99% ... old married couple *for real*

everyone can see they love each other

he can be the sea and she’ll be the ship that floating on it

every time he needs to play the 'scary eldest' role, she always felt sorry bc she knew she can’t do it ( she’s too pacifist for that )

kiki is his no.1 listner for whatever his thoughts are

they basically tie the knot already *blinks*

his parents basically adopts her lol

the reason why they have such a strong bond is not only they share the most trainee days with another

but they keep fighting to protect the group and members before and after the debut

seungcheol: *being sulky*

kiki: *judging side eye*

honestly she wasn’t totally sweetheart for him from the beginning ( not in the public eye i mean )

more like teased and pretended like judging him

but after he got into hiatus in 2019 ( it was HER darkest time too ) she just went like “f*ck that, i won’t stop expressing my love for him anymore”

well it’s always appearant that he goes down on her knees like-

not only within the group but recognized as one of the strongest ships among the kpop industry

the ‘knights line’ 1/3 - such a protective of her all the time

기키 + 정한　／　KIHANI

🐰 ── 80% ... devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes

kiki in the most of gose : IM WATCHING U YOON JEONGHAN *in mute*

she pretends like she was offended by his cheating in the contents

but she’s the one who always cheers him and giving compliments

“u got this jeonghanna!” “u did so well~ i’m proud of u :)”

she always trust him through the trainee era, support him for both dancing and mentally

she knew he’s kinda type to get nervous often

so she always has his back, says something nice, holds his hands

and is she his soft spot? OBVIOUSLY

he always treats her meals and little gifts like sweets, cosmetics and accessories

she really takes care of his long hair bc if she doesn’t who does

late night walks, hanging out at the park

mostly she’s kinda ‘good girl’ type but when with him, her ‘devil mode’ would be activate ( and seungcheol would cry at the end )

jeonghan: *speaks japanese*

kiki: *proud mom*

personal space [ 404-not-found ]

well he kisses to her cheecks ... and forehead ... and top of the head ... and back of the hand ... ( and list continues )

when he turns low buttery mode, he goes towards her and either leans on her shoulder or rests his head on her lap ( mostly be witnessed in the concerts )

sometimes they are the completely opposite, but the other time share the same energy

기키 + 조슈아　／　KISHUA

🦌 ── 85% ... the mf soulmates

like i said, SOULMATES. that’s it, that’s the tweet

they’re like puzzle pieces ⸺ get along well bc it’s different

he brings out her active energy

she learned the guitar from him

and handles his silent chaotic energy pretty well lol

they always make plans and daydream abt trips they want to go

sometimes josh stans confirm he’s alive through her social media

joshua: *planning something crazy*

kiki, whispering: DON’T ( he’ll do it anyway 🤷🏻 )

cafe dates, drive dates, movie nights

his mom lowkey hopes for kiki to be a daughter-in-law which is never gonna happen lmao

he came up with ‘kit kat’ as her nickname

and yes, the treatment is sweet as the treat ;)

he normally acts like a twin but never forgets the gentle behavior as the gentleman should

especially in the beginning, she prefers not to be treated exceptional cuz she’s the only female member, but his manner and considerate changed it slowly ( and surely in a good way )

he’s kind of the friend who doesn’t say the words such as “oh r u okay” “i’m worried about u” out loud often but always there for her and take her to the night driving when she got stuck

기키 + 준　／　KIJUN

🐱 ── 70% ... the cat and the lion ( aka the owner )

they have the most pure kind of love

he has always been her protector in the airports and clouds

THE VISUAL

she really looking forward to go to shenzhen one day and visit all the places he wants to take them

she’s always so proud abt his acting career and calls him the movie star, now she’s too

and her secret dream is to costar with him one day

he never forgets to escorts her in the award shows and concerts, helping her in stairs, no hesitation to do arm in arm, lends her jacket if he worries she’s revealing too much of her bare skin for gowns ( in his eyes )

many skinships !!

they always share a bite to the other, both LOVE to have tasty foods and willing to let the one try

his little brother always wanna talk to her when he was a kid ( lowkey childhood crush ) then now he’s totally shy about that past and tries to avoide her when jun did the facetime and let the lil bro talk to her just to tease him

he won’t say anything until she went too far and overwork through days, but once he felt okay that’s enough he’ll just kidnapp her to the bedroom and tuck her in bed and like SLEEP

the ‘knights line’ 2/3 - he behaves like a cat playing with dearest owner and sending a nonverbal message to people around them like “ don’t look at her like that she’s OURS ”

기키 + 순영　／　KISOON

🐯 ── 70% ... conqurer of the stage

everybody clear the way, the MAIN DANCERS are coming thru

but they really are THE all rounder, multi talented, just good at everything

they created their own handshake

she’s a secret no.1 supporter of horanghae

but she also LOVES his hamster pelsona, enjoys silently when it popped out randomly

in fact he is the reason that she determinded to be an idol for sure ⸺ she entered to pledis without firm belief about her future profession, but after his entry she was so impressed by his skills despite the gap of dance training experience. moreover, he was so sure about his future, to becoming the idol as his dream, and she just woke up as if she’d been slapped on the cheek like “what the hell i was thinking, of course i’ll be the idol too”

and he always admires her as a dancer and the respective person. he dreamed of not just being an idol, but standing on stage next to her since they met

surprisingly they quarrel most among the ship of kiki and members, but all of them are professional argument as they are in charge of choreographing and stage creation

and they always made up at the end of a day by eating ice pop side by side

he’s the one who encouraged her to do it when the other idol group reached out to her for their choreography production cos he believes in her talent more than anyone just as she does

both have hUGE gap between on and off stage, when they go hard it’s HARD 🔥🔥🔥 but otherwise they can be softest marshmallows

기키 + 원우　／　KINWOO

🐈‍⬛ ── 85% ... the book fairies

he’s nearly worshipping her *ships tea*

it’s not a big secret that she’s his first love ( at first sight )

and after all these years, she’s still the woman of his dreams

yall know wonwoo wasn’t really talkable person at first but more shy and quiet

well same things can say to her

so she understood his silent and calm yet passionate personality

and kiki really stood by his side and just being his comfort space

she listens to him well, even he express his thoughts into words not that much

she always recommends his glasses and he’ll buy her choice without HESITATION lol

they can spend whole time together without chattng, just reading or sleeping alnogside

and it’s so CUTE

he gave the camera to her for the birthday present, and it made her enjoying to take photos more than ever and he loves the influence he made on her

art museum date, hanging out in the night town and ww just keeps taking photo of her

they have a ritual as they go to the night walk when the group is off to the overseas in tours, strolling the town and find the cozy cafes

she can notice whenever he is stressed or gets nervous and so does he, she often pats his back in those situation and it comforts him really well

u can see ww stares her a LOT in behind contents or gose ( he literally gave up to hide his affection at this point )

tries to teach her how to play pc games but fails everytime

기키 + 지훈　／　KIHOON

🍚 ── 55% ... the vocal boss and the dance queen

trust me, they ARE strong. it’s just not as aloud as others

woozi found japanese beatuful at first bc it’s the language she spoke

and kiki loves the words and lyrics he weaves, his korean is like a poet to her

he doesn’t wanna admits outspokenly but it’s hard to say she hasn’t owned the special ( and soft ) place in his heart

even makes him to do slightest physical contacts: pinches her sleeves, fiddles with her hair, plays with her earrings... and the list continues

kiki’s the one takes care him when he starts to get stuck in the studio for the work

takes him to the short walk, late night drives, make him foods and be sure he gets rest

sometimes they just sit together in the universe factory and chats about the song, anime and composing stuffs, eats takeouts and sessions or duets randomly

she joins as a recording direction besides him time to time, esp in the jp songs recording: she’s the lyricist of the jp songs is one of the reasons but also she has the good ears and able to hear the subtle difference like he does

woozi: *points out the differences* others: okay but WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE kiki: ??? wasn’t it obvious...???

well apparently she’s the closest female to him on the planet ( except his family ofc )

he rarely calls her noona but mostly just calls her kiki, there’s no paticular reason it’s just what it is

(    📁    )   :   NAVI   :  MASTER LIST     

( tag list / open ) : @smh-anon

[deepreviewvoid]

- Beyond Magic -

lyney x gn reader

Genre : Loads of Fluff, Crack, Angst, and Magic. You name it all!

Synopsis : a collection of scenarios with our favourite magician filled with comedy, magic, and bittersweet occasions; Siblings included!

Background : magic was something you didn't think you'd appreciate in life, untill you became beloved to his heart, and now, you see the world through his eyes.

Reader is an herbalist who has formed a great bond with the Magician and his facade.

Scenario #1 : The cat in the hat

There are plentiful of perks that come as a package when befriending a magician, you may learn all the tricks of the trade or gain access to the backstage; you may finally understand the term 'cards up the sleeve' or doves hidden in clothes and many more.

Your world may rain colourful confetti, your closets will be stacked with hats upon hats, cards upon cards; your coats? Stuffed with dice, handkerchiefs, and balloons.

But, all these items lack meaning had you not been aquiatined with a magician, and that's why ...

the world through his purple hued eyes was truly the most magnificent.

The time you spent with Lyney pretty much qualifies you for a career shift, but that wasn't a plan of yours on the short, or even long run. You are a simple herbalist. Medicinal herbs are your absolute favourite, but perhaps magic and herbs can come a long way!

His world contains wonderful and lovely perks, but Lyney had an extra feature one which you found most joy in knowing . . .

That he has a cat in his hat!

Now, the history of the cat in the hat was very simple; one day, an adorable Rosseland adopted Lyney's hat as it's flat. He hardly left his new magic abode, and every time Lyney would chase him before a magic show, the cat would meow in distraught!

Lyney then tried to commission a specialised hatter to produce an exact replica of his hat, but the cat didn't budge, and never did he leave his rent-free flat.

That was around the time Lyney approached matters from a different view, he instead incorporated Rosseland into his magic shows and as time went on, the cat has instinctively caught on the secret trades of magic itself and has become a staple to the twin's shows.

Since Lyney shares such a close bond with Rosseland, it wasn't surprising that you'd form that bond with ease. Rosseland was used to your presence — and scent!

Speaking of scents, Lyney has a habit of handing you flowers from all over Teyvat. Sometimes, he'd study their meanings (and usages concerning herbalism) first and then choose based on the occasion.

He's a romantic at heart, really.

Over time, your wares and clothes have caught the flowery scents. As an herbalist that sounded normal, but what wasn't normal is the sheer amount of flowers he'd gift you. It made you indulge even more on floral perfumes — subtle perfumes — because cats have sensitive noses.

.

.

Imagine your surprise today, strolling out under the clear skies of a beautiful morning in the city, and you see Rosseland in an alleyway.

First impression?

It's god damn illegal to leave unattended pets in Fontaine, PICK THE CAT.

You calmly searched the alleyway, looking left and right. Your first assumption is that Lyney should be around if Rosseland is here, but before anything else there is an important question to be raised...

Did you find Rosseland? Or was it Rosseland that found you?

Rosseland rarely leaves his home, and it's very unlikely that Rosseland is alone. The former possibility should be disqualified according to your instinct. That leaves the latter, Rosssland found you. In other words, Lyney is looking for you.

He usually leaves cards as a means of communication, sometimes even trained birds..but to use Rosseland.. what could be the occasion?

You knelt down to pet the cat, its body reacting to your touch. The cat spun once, brushing its tail against your hands, then sat in front of you. Waiting.

Upon closer inspection, there's a small tag on Rosseland's bow tie, it reads:

Fₒₗₗₒw ₘₑ

Rosselands mischievous looking eyes were glimmering, he's an intelligent cat. He took on, and as expected, you followed.

"Rosssland! Wait!"

The streets were busy, it's afternoon, countless of steps are marching back and forth, it was a struggle to keep up, but you somehow managed to follow the cat's trail, barely catching it's frame everytime before it disappeared.

The cat was dedicated to getting you to the destination, but even more dedicated, it was to go back to the comfort of its nocturnal home.

Eventually, the crowds subdued as you reached one of the city's corners — a less quiet place. There were a few pedestrians in the clearing, and Rosseland was there in the middle of the clearing, sitting. It stared at you with those exotic eyes and sharp smile.

You saw from your peripheral vision a couple of gardes stationed nearby. Cursing under your breath, you rushed towards Rosseland before they could notice him.

Not having your pet on a leash is illegal in Fontaine, so you hastily searched your little cross leather bag. Aside from herbal pouches and vials, there were colourful strings and confetti.

The perks of befriending a magician is that these items had meaning.

You crouched down on your feet in an attempt to tie a string around one of its paws. You could see that a Garde was approaching, time was running out, and Rosseland's tail was wagging left and right like a timer of sorts. You quickly secured the knot and stood up frantically.

"Good day to you!"

But the garde didn't bat an eye. It wasn't out of disrespect or anything, but just.. he was focused on something else. His eyes that weren't looking at you were captivated by something else, or rather someone.

"Excuse me, Mr. Lyney, could I have an autograph?"

You turned to your back to find Lyney happily signing one of his cards, "avec plasir" he said, handing the card over.

"My daughter admires your shows very much. She'll be happy, Thank you"

And with a small gesture of polite gratitude, the garde returned to his post.

"I was over there," he pointed behind him at a familiar building with an unmistakable ridiculously long sign that read "Fontaine's Pet Spa and Boutique for Special Pets"

yes, that's the full name for a pet centre in Fontaine. If the citizens can already enjoy the luxury of fashions, then pets come second, and that's why this pet centre exists.

"Hello to you too," you stood up with a grin. What an unusual opening to today's act. Lyney smiled casually and then continued, "Rosseland has been picky lately about what he eats, I was going to ask for recommendations, but.." he looked down at Rosseland, who brushed its tail against his boots, a silent plea for wanting to get back into the hat.

"Well, he ran off with one of my cards towards you, I'd say problem solved, right you little trickster?" Lyney propped down his hat and Rosseland, with the forever mischievous smile climbed in.

"How peculiar..." You sort of had no comments on the situation. You were still dazzled from running around chasing the cat to the anxiety that built up and winded out in a mere minute with the garde. But, nevertheless, you doubted Lyney's story of Rosseland running on his own... with that particular card...

"Are you sure that--"

"What say you to dinner?"

He beat you to it. He made a small 'didn't hear you whistle' as he focused his eyes up.

He looked ridiculously silly.

Every aspect of this was silly in your view as well as Lyney's view. The magician that perfects his shows almost every time, no matter the audience, was now laughing at how absurd his excuse sounded.

"Obviously, I'm glad you're here"

He grabbed your hand, planting a kiss on its back, his signature greeting. His other hand appeared with a rose. Who knows where that came from? Except you did. after all, the art of the trade was yours too.

You accepted the rose with an appreciative smile regardless, "You'll help wash the dishes this time, right?" You mused, and he just chuckled in slight embarrassed dishes duty was often skipped by Lyney. At least, that's what happened during the times you stayed at their home.

"I'll do anything else but those!" He feigned annoyance then smiled. "But, I meant an actual dinner. I've been meaning to take you out for a while now"

"Oh," it wasn't going to be the usual at his home, but the thought of a dinner date? How lovely! He led the way as you two walked side by side.

6pm - Le Restaurant

Lyney is a gentleman by heart. He admitted he's been keeping an eye on this restaurant for a while, but what you didn't know is that he's been keeping track of your work, trying to estimate the days when you're both likely free at the same time.

Usually, going out for dinner is somewhat of a luxury experience in your book. It's often you eat with the siblings by cooking with Lynette or simply having easy one person meals at home; but on second thought luxury isn't the right word to use. However, perhaps it's best to say that it just makes every dinner with him all the more memorable.

Oh right, where were we?

Yes, Lyney is a gentleman! in every action he takes, there is loving intention behind it. Lyney is extremely considerable, too, to everyone, not just you. It's a very charming trait that you get to see often... how does it not mend a broken or hurt soul?

"You're thinking again"

Lyney, who sat from across of you, had the gentlest of smiles, his hand in on his cheek as he comfortably propped his elbow on the table.

"I'm always thinking"

"About me?"

"It's mostly about you" you grinned as you matched his pose, and then you spoke..

"Just as waiting for food at a restaurant happens to be the slowest moments in our lives. It's also an opportunity... for well, appreciating what I've always admired about you.. every moment is also a chance of drawing even more conclusions as to why I appreciate what I do about you!"

"Aww... there is it again, the way you manage to make me the one who is charmed first rather than the charmer." His other hands' fingers were drumming the table. It was his body language of deep thought. after all, he loved just hearing your voice ..

"You're the one with charming attributes," you retorted to his statement, but it looked like he was already with a myriad of charming words for you.

"I'm always happy to hear that you see the best in me. the truth is, I value listening to you more than you know."

"What gives?" You smiled with a curious subtle nod of encouragment.

"It's refreshing. I already know how I speak and think, and given my life experiences, I find myself as 'the one who does the talking'. To listen to you? It's always a pleasure. To have the chance to hear things your way? It's always interesting, sometimes even inspiring"

"Who's charming who now!"

"We take turns, thankyou!"

You both laughed, and as the waiter soon announced their arrival and started placing your plates, your eyes were still focused on each other.

When you see beauty, it is your eyes that see beauty in his eyes, the window to his soul. You often wonder as you gaze if he knows how you truly feel about him? the way you'd do anything to ensure that his smile is always 'beyond magic' ...for he, the Magician has always secretly desired to be seen for who he truly is.

"Bon appetite, my love"

That was your personal idea of confirmation. He appreciates your love by calling you by its very name... ♡

and perhaps, he, too, wonders as he gazes unto your eyes.. if he's done enough to make you happy every day.

_________________________________________

Scenario #2 : Fortified Love

Freminet isn't the loudest person. No, he's really quiet and tends to step aside when it comes to magic. He'll be merely the audience, the witness and listener alone save for the time of feedback.

But, you and Freminet have a certain bond of understanding. He can express many matters in front of you without stuttering or feeling awkward. That's an upgrade, considering he has a lot of conversations with sleeping blubberbeasts.

But to some extent, Freminet will always be reserved, although when speaks openly to you it's because he trusts you.

Today's topic, however, was mostly because of a concern regarding his siblings, not because he's generally opening up against his timid self.

"I never brought up that topic with Lyney ever since... and ..there's been tension in the waters I feel. " Freminet spoke with an obvious hint of despair. You and him were sitting on a bench watching Lyney's street performance right in front of you in the near distance.

The children's giggles could be heard from where you sit, which sort of contradicts and agrees with the topic at hand.

Freminet confronted Lyney about his facade

"Lyney is simply selfless," you replied. He has a general facade, or mask, raised up in front of anyone, especially the ones he loves.

That mask? It screams the words "I am ok"

But Lyney denied it, shunned Freminet.

"Correction! He's overly selfless" you corrected yourself before Freminet could reply.

Freminet shook his head with a sigh, his exhale a little longer. He's frustrated.

"I don't mean to burden you with .. certain trifles. I know that you worry but I felt that you should know... Im sorry"

Freminet's voice returned to its shy hesitant self, but you assured him. "No, actually, thank you for taking to me about it. Do you want to hear my verdict?" You smiled at the show. The kids were racing to find out who could collect the most confetti. Lynette was helping all of them on the side.

You glanced at Freminet, expecting a reply or a gesture for you to continue, but instead, you found him smiling too, that ghost of a smile. He then snapped back, "o-of course!"

You crossed a leg over another, then turned your attention to him, after a long inhale and exhale you spoke...

"Lyney built a fortress long ago, I don't think it's just a simple mask, Freminet. That Fort is called Family. He'll do anything to keep you and Lynette inside so that you'll never see the ... roughed up walls. Anything to keep you away from harm. No matter the cost. No excuses made to himself"

"But, I know it's become too... ridiculous of a concept to you as you already know everything about Lyney's foundation, and.. that he's prone to cracking and falling hard in his own paradoxes"

"Back when I wasn't so familiar with Lyney, I first and foremost thought his magic was wonderful! I mean, as an herbalist, to have a lovely magician hand me flowers and herbs from his hat every now and then? Charmed! He played games with me, joked, and showed me his magic and art of trickery"

"But, one day, he asked me a question. He asked if I find his little games absurd... and that made me sad too, Freminet. The real Lyney, as we know him, glitter aside, is just as vulnerable... but he considers himself the leader of this group, and so... you get it"

A sigh went out of your lips as you contemplated what you said. Doesn't Freminet already know all that..? Was this useful? So out of impulse; you looked at him and added what felt right to add.

"I won't lie, I sometimes feel helpess too, but love is truly the best gift we can use to mend this fortress... make him realise that he needn't always worry"

Your words were left unanswered for a long moment as Freminet contemplated what he said next,

"Do you think .. he'll ever realise that?"

You didn't have a certain answer. That was Lyney for do.. nevertheless, you smiled. "He'll never stop worrying, but I think soon enough he'll realise that you and Lynette are the best pillars of his life.. it's a matter of how he'll realise that.... and when."

Applause

The children clapped, still in awe with joy that'll probably last for a good weekend. Each child had a brilliant smile on their faces, and the way Lyney smiled in turn was heartwarming.

Freminet was with his own smile too as he watched the show. "I understood what you said, I hope my brother realises that .."

"One more please!" One child clasped their hands together, pleading for more! All the other children tuned in. "One more Mister Magician!" "Last one we promise!"

They love him, and the children love Lyney very dearly. How could they not love the very boy whose heart is incapable of saying no to such a request?

Lyney glanced at Lynette, and with some secret code, Lynette understood the trick he chose. Lyney knelt down to their level, Lynette doing the same next to him.

They both warmly welcomed the child who first asked for an encore. He looked around excitedly to his friend group and then walked over.

"I love that trick" said Freminet as you both watched.

Lynette raised a flower which she showed then placed into the child's ear, Lyney then plucked the very same flower from the other end, then it disappeared, then it reappeared in Lynette's hand as she made it look like it came from her own ear..!

Laughter, Joy, Reverie!

Even if Lyney's confidence is all a facade, it's also the most heartfelt facade, the most considerable, kind and joyful. What is there to not love about him?

Hardly anything

and the children saw that, so they can only love him back.

And with love, comes appreciation...

So, they'd often bring him various gifts like pretty buttons and flowers that are illegally picked from the public gardens. It's quite adorable, a wave of warmth they are.

Yes, there are indeed many ways to fortify the fortress with love. You just hope Lyney realises that those who cherish him, which for him to be genuinely happy.

.

.

.

"Refreshments?" You beamed at Lyney and Lynette, having drinks ready as always after every street performance, and a snack.

A croissant for Lynette which she didn't hesitate in taking a bite of, and a simple sweet cracker for Lyney.

"Thanks" Lynette walked over to the bench to sit beside Freminet.

"I appreciate that" Lyney's voice was really thawing to your heart, there was no ice, but it felt like the perfect way to describe his effect on you. You handed him the crackers with a smile, and opened the canned juice for him "So, tested the new trick?"

"Mhm.. it was perfect, I think that's another one certified for a stage" he took a bite.

These tiny street performances are a great way to test new tricks, especially on children, out of everyone, children tend to invest the most attention into a magic performance, so much that they don't notice tiny errors, imperfections, or that minor slip of the finger that almost blew the cover of the trick.

All together, it's the perfect opportunity to test those nifty tricks before an actual Opera house performance or grandscale acts.

You both chatted for a while, just standing there, chuckling and bickering.

Lyney looked back his siblings, Lynette was still in place with a cup of tea, chatting with Freminet who noticed Lyney; he averted his eyes at once.

You let out a sigh, theres no way Lyney didnt notice the way Freminet's body tensed. The poor boy Freminet just feels guilty and perhaps sad.. surely Lyney knows this too.

A frown was already forming its shape on Lyney's face. He quickly broke the gaze gaze once he realised he was staring for too long at Freminet, guilt also panging his heart.

The scale of the conflict wasn't clear to you. in fact, the siblings often bicker, albeit it happens more often between Lyney and Lynette rather than Freminet.

One thing was for sure, there was nothing more Lyney wanted than to apologise and hug his brother. .. but he couldn't bring himself to do right here and now.

Either way, you had to nonetheless comfort him, and help him see the matter from a different eye. So then, you placed a hand on his shoulder to direct his gaze back to you.

"He's not avoiding you"

And with a gentle smile, you continued, "He's nervous because he's worried about you, and he worries because he loves you"

Those were the words that felt right to say Lynette and Freminet just worry about his actions and saying out of pure love.

"How- is that you are a magician with words?" His eyes were fond as he spoke, indicating that it struck a chord within him.

"Naturally, I can't best the real magician here"

"Sharp tounge"

"Witty magician"

"Do you think, I push them away that much? Push away their concerns I mean"

"They wouldn't be so worried if you weren't a tad bit conservative about your true feelings. I won't lie to you"

"Well, what do you propose?.. actually, scrap that I'll propose something." he lowered his hat to fetch a deck from inside, a special deck you both knew very well.

This deck contains cards that you and Lyney have written about suggestions for various locations across Fontaine to visit and even simple things to do together.

These cards had plenty of uses. It could be a date, but it could hint at something else.

Each card had a purpose.

He shuffled the deck masterfully and then spread them out.

"Pick a card"

"Need a distraction?" You looked into his eyes very deeply, silently asking the question 'is this the best course of action to take? The siblings still worry, are you sure you want to escape for now?'

He only smiled at you in return, but it wasn't a smile that reached his eyes "Desperately"

That was your cue. You picked a card.

𝒕𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒆

.

.

.

.

Your shoes and socks were now behind you. The soft sand felt nice as you both have been walking barefoot by the shore near the walls of the city for a while now.

Leaving imprints in the sand for someone else to follow or for the gentle waves of the lake to erase.

The Great Lake of Fontaine had fresh water even though the people call it a sea, but no matter, this shore is something for everyone here. From fishermen and divers to nobles and judges, fontainans take pride in their water and its purity.

For the siblings, you knew that there was a shore they used to play at when they were little. However, with age and time considered; that shore is probably long gone beneath the waves.

You looked at the boy walking beside you, quiet and solemn he was, a thousand chaotic thoughts in his head, yet he managed to speak relief and gratitude.

"I needed this"

"Think so too," you replied. You looked around shore. It was pretty, luminescent, ethereal, and all the words possible to describe the grand lake of Fontaine.

"So?" You asked.

He took a couple of thoughtful seconds before replying, "Sandcastles?"

You grinned at his childlike tendencies, which you loved dearly. "I'll bring the water"

.

.

.

For this one, Lyney had to take off his gloves of, don't be deceived, he's actually a really professional sand castle builder. He's artistic with it.

Lyney likes nostalgia, the good type of it.

It shows because his face had an eternal smile the entire time, that of a Cheshire cat, but on a much more subtle tone. Speaking of cats, Rosseland was napping nearby on a giant rock.

Making the details with wet sand, decorating with shells and pebbles, seaweed for style and engraved windows and doors.

It was a perfect castle, and it was so much fun that no sooner had the sun began to set had it felt like a forever type of fun.

You both sat at a perfect angle where it set down the lake, so you watched it until it dived underwater.

"A little more..." his voice was quiet and soothing. Documenting the sunset was a favourite shared activity as you lathered on its last rays that make the soft sand the cosy temprature of warm.

"and... gone. " it was now behind the lake; probably still setting down in other parts of Teyvat due to Fontain's unique elevation. Some couples like to watch it in Fontaine and then take the elevator down to one of the ports for a double sunset.

The moment was silent, serene and beautiful all in good ways; but you know him better than anyone that his true feelings are bottled, a bottle filled with scrunched papper of emotions that he has yet to organise.

"What are you gonna do about it?" You asked, in the gentlest manner possible, observing his face for his geniune reaction.

Indeed, his eyes fluttered shut in subtle solemnity. He knew he had to do something about his siblings, they worry about him, but he didn't want them to do so because he'll always...always gladly shoulder it all.

His face was beautiful, nothing short of a prince or a young king... and one day, a leader. You placed your hand on his, gently intertwining your fingers. They squeezed back almost immediately.

He knew that he had to take real action; but every time he attempted to think about it, his mind flashed with imagery of one of his loved ones hurt, but with your hand in his, why should he face it all alone? why should these images still linger in his mind?

Perhaps something else is in control

In this moment of serenity, Lyney made a breakthrough. It's not just love and fear that makes his siblings and you worried.

Something is controlling him. It's not only keeping him more conservative but also utterly exhausted; the wild thoughts and scenarios that carrousel in his mind every day are getting tiring to keep track of.

The missions he does with his siblings, the external risks of being considered fatui; and you, his dearest who's connected to all of his risks. Lyney thinks he's a walking hazard.

Will thinking about a solution really beget one? Or will it really spiral into a bigger mess of self-guilt and pity...?

He doesn't know what it is quite yet that's taking control of him.. but he's starting to dislike it, its presence, how it plagues his mind, how it self-centered his opinion becomes, an opinion that he dispersed on everyone unconditionally.

In the end, he managed to smile, and as he lay on the sand with you, he reached out for his hat, grabbing your shared unique deck of cards once more.

As soon as your eyes glazed over them, some sort of disappointment hit you, was he going to run away again? But a part of you, a big part of knows that Lyney is capable of solving things on his own. He's a great thinker.

He knew that you'd roll your eyes and perhaps sigh again, so he placed a finger on his lips. "Trust me, mkay?" He was in your view, surprisingly excited, which is eccentric given the fact that he has a problem to solve, and familial problems are usually complex.

"If you accept another card, I promise, I pinky promise on my love to you that I'll solve this.. mistake of my own"

you let out a tiny chuckle, but not for the reason that he's readily giving a promise on such high stakes, but because of something else.

"You've got that look in your eyes." Said you, pointing a finger with your free hand at him, gently booping his nose. "Mischievous, what's the condition that you've failed to mention?".

He smirked knowingly, on the brink of laughter, "that I get to pick the card"

"Well then, may I do the honour of guessing the card you'll pick?"

"Enchante, please, go ahead." he once again spread the deck evenly with just one hand; the other still intertwined with yours.

You scanned the cards carefully, looking for a specific card; it's accurate to say that in that moment, you two shared the same braincell. Both of you knew where this was going. Moreover, both of you know the very card you'll pick.

Both of you already had your eyes on it.

"I choose this one"

he was beaming, and so were you because this is the only card in the deck that is distinguishable from the others. Perhaps it's because of the countless times both your fingers grazed it.

It has a unique scratch mark.

You flipped it ever so slowly, and ever so dramatically, even if you both knew the result of this card, a card that was written by you.

𝒦𝒾𝓈𝓈 𝓂𝑒

He wasted no time, pulling you closer. The anticipation is high, but it always contradicts the way you two kiss, which is always quiet and gentle.

When his lips landed on yours; both of you shared the most silent yet passionate kiss; an undeniable sweet declaration, promise, and hope for the future in the light of today's anxtities and challenges.

the warmth of the last rays added more to this atmosphere, the sun was the only witness to this moment of change and love.

When it ended, a moment of clarity went by, Lyney placed both of his hands on your shoulder as a wave of new found confidence washed over him.

It was now his time to say what felt right, and he need you to be his witness of this new prfound change.

He spoke:

"I am who I am because my future is sealed as a leader, and responsibility of the future weighs on my present"

"I don't despise it, I just dread it, I dread that I won't be capable..."

"I look up to father, and I become impressed. How do you become someone so great like her? So giant.. yet caring?"

"Father never hurt us, even if her lessons went to the extreme side, so I began to wonder.."

"Why shall I knowingly hurt those around me when I love them so much? This is not my intention, even if it regrettably became reality"

"I'll never stop caring for Lynette, Freminet, and you, ever. That is out of question"

"But, I promise... I, Lyney Snezhevich, promise on he frozen lake that I'll stop being a worry wart of a leader on the very beloved people who fuel me"

"I'm sorry"

---

Later that night~

Lyney had already regretted making you pick a card and leaving his siblings to go to the beach with you, even if it was for a little while, but in contrast..

It was the clarity of his mind at the beach,

It was your gaze that gave him the morale and confidence he needed,

It was the certainty in of his eyes, heart snd soul at that moment that gave him the breathrough of a lifetime.

He deeply apologised to the siblings and felt a pang of guilt even if they shook their heads and smiled at him, already regrading it as a problem solved in a bittersweet manner.

Lynette and Freminet placed their own sighs of relief. They were so happy.

That night, he hugged Freminet and Lynette so tightly, as if afraid of the crawling future, and as if he wants to forever etch this memory into his mind.

It was at that moment that he silently shed tears of relief? Happiness? Content? Nostalgia? Sadness? as they patted his back and muttered the words that they knew work best with him.

It was an emotional moment for the siblings, and a reinforcement of their relationship towards a challenging future.

After all, Lyney loved them so much that it hurt ... now, in a good way.

(I'm gonna brawl my eyes out. Why did I write something so painful? eughhjhhhhsjs)

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Scenario #3 : Surprises & Family

Good morning!

You woke up, the sun was shining, birds chirping, what a wonderful day to begin!

The normal routine was effortless, a quick skim of the steambird's news, preparing and grinding medicinal herbs and checking the mail.

A couple of letters were recieved! And a card of Lyney's with the heart shape, which is a code for something in Lyney's standards. Everything meant something when it comes to Lyney.

You sat by your little coffee table, going over the letters one by one. Some of them are your clients, updating you on their health and needs, as well as expressing gratitude for your continued care even after their symptoms died out.

Other letters were about all the articles you've subscribed to. Apparently, authentic Glaze Lilies are at risk of extinction in Liyue. That sucks!

One annoying letter was from the Palais; It mentioned a defendant who allegedly trashtalked your medicine as the reason he skipped work during his trail. That's a business trip on your list because the Palais requires a testimony, proof of profession, client records, and a bunch of documents...

You were in disbelief by the time you finished that letter from the Palais, such a hassle.

After skimming through letter by the letter, it all dwindled down to Lyney's card and a mysterious looking black letter with red lining. Naturally, you saved best for last and grabbed the letter to open it.

However, before doing so, you took the chance to simply observe it. The choice of colour for this letter was eccentric, to say the least. It had a scent to it, not a perfume, but a scent of rich wood.

Holding it felt weird. The paper's edges were sharp and defined, way too sharp. You finally fed your curiosity and opened it.

_________________________________________

𝓣𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓴-𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓯𝓸𝓻 𝓽𝓪𝓴𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓰𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓽 𝓬𝓪𝓻𝓮 𝓸𝓯 𝓶𝔂 𝓬𝓱𝓲𝓵𝓭𝓻𝓮𝓷, 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓗𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓽𝓱 𝓻𝓮𝓶𝓮𝓶𝓫𝓮𝓻𝓼.

-𝓐

_________________________________________

Thank the Archons, you didn't have tea in your mouth. You would have spat it hard right here and now.

You've only seen her handwriting a couple of times from Lyney, but for her to send to you? Does she know you've been shopping for gifts recently? Or is she randomly expressing gratitude based on past experiences?

The signature is no other than Father's, even tho you are no child of the hearth, but you got used to calling her that because of the siblings.

Sometimes, it's embarrassing to know that perhaps she asks about you since you're acquainted with the siblings, but you do recall Lyney telling you that "When Children of the Hearth trust someone, Father respects that opinion too" it makes you feel better, but still... the knave is.. a high figure.

The real question is, what begs the occasion?

The fact that perchance that the siblings talk about you in front of her, especially Lyney, what does he day?

So flustered! Stop thinking!

Your thoughts were frantic, so you decided to pick up Lyney's card to distract yourself (not the best distraction).

---------------------------------------------------

ⱽⁱˢⁱᵗ ˢᵒᵒⁿ, ᵖʳᵉᶠᵉʳᵃᵇˡʸ ᵇʸ ⁿᵒᵒⁿ! - ʸᵒᵘʳˢ ᵀʳᵘˡʸ

ᴾˢ: ᵖᵃᶜᵏ ᵃ ᵇᵃᵍ!

---------------------------------------------------

You smiled, then tossed the card into a nearby drawer alongside the hundred or so other special cards. After finishing your breakfast, you packed your leather suitcase, grabbed the 'Surprises' you had been working on for the past week, readied yourself, and went outside.

The first destination? The bakery... at least before the crowds line up, next is delivering some medicine then you'll be able to visit by noon as promised.

Two hours later, Noon, the Sibilings home~

knock ~ knock ~ knock

The door swung open, and Lynette was there with a friendly smile and a welcoming stance. "Glad you made it safely," she greeted you, opening the door wider. Her eyes landed on the numerous bags you were carrying.

Freminet was right behind her. He had a polite smile and his usual shy yet polite stance,

"Hello y/n," his eyes went down to what you're carrying, and he immediately stepped down the porch, "Oh! Allow me!"

You gratefully accepted his help and handed him the leather suitcase that had your clothing and some of the belongings, which was the heaviest. It wasn't your intention to make him carry the heaviest item! But you just needed to keep the other two bags in hand personally.

"Thank you, Freminet, i'll handle the rest"

They're surprises, after all

As you stepped inside, Freminet was climbing the stairs to the second floor while Lynette was the first to catch on. Her sense of smell worked quite well, so she smiled and asked, "Are those croissants?"

You gave her a proud look as you nodded. "Why yes, they happen to be the limited edition new collection too," you handed Lynette her respective bag. She peeked inside and indeed saw the rarest croissants from the see-through box.

"But, they only bake ten of these each day"

"The Baker and I are acquaintances. I give him special herbal ointments for his roughed hands, and in return, he gives me the best croissants! Simple barter"

"Thank you, I really appreciate that" Lynette was over the moon, even if she didn't show much, that subtle swinging of her tail just said it all "It's great to have you here again, this time how about a week long sleepover? My brothers and I insist"

"A week long?" Your heart was warmed by her words and the implications of staying here to a week.

The siblings truly had a wonderful home; there was always a unique feeling to it, and this feeling can be associated with warmth and belongness.

Oh, to belong here is akin to the feeling of being wrapped in a soft blanket held together by love.

"Yes, a week long." Lynette reiterated with a hint of a smile on her face. "Fancy some tea? I made cookies yesterday as well"

"That sounds wonderful," you gratefully accepted her offer, then went to lounge in the living room. It's scent and look hit you with nostalgia.

Truth is, the second floor, while it has bedrooms as well as a guest room... no one actually calls it a guest room. It's your room.

How many days have you spent here? In that room? In this living room? Countless. They're family.

The only reason you didn't move in is because of your workshop and the apothecary work back at your home, which has been getting busy lately given that you don't have an apprentice to help.

The living room is your favourite place in the house. The two signature arm leather couches were draped with many blankets and pillows.. Rosseland was sleeping on one of the couches too.

Not to be specific, but the siblings had the most comfortable couch. You'd always sulk around here, either napping or laying down for a book read.

"Oh, by the way, Y/N, Lyney is out on a shopping spree. He'll be back any moment, I forgot to ask, would you like Chamomile or Herbal tea?" Her voice rang from the kitchen, and you replied "Chamomile sounds great!"

You plopped down the couch, your hand instinctively finding its way to Rosseland, scratching behind its ears in the good spots.

"Sounds like a great time to have the croissants as well, no?" You called out, encouraging Lynette to press on for the desserts today. Usually, Lyney often reminds her of sugar intake.

"Of course, It's my free day," she snorted, you could imagine how silly she looked while saying that so you laughed.

The hearth that at the centre of the room. Just Its appearance reminds you of the warmest of winters, and the most joyful of nights took place here with the sibilings.

The soft sounds of footsteps descending from the wooden stairs flowed into the living room, Freminet walked to the hearth and knelt down to light it with the gentlest of flames.

"Tea?" Lynette raised her voice from the kitchen. She probably heard Freminet's footsteps. "Hot Chocolate. " Freminet raised his voice in reply, but not too high, then he sat on the couch next to you.

"I'm really happy that you're here," he confessed. It warmed your heart way faster than the hearth. Indeed, you couldn't resist placing a hand over your heart in immense gratitude. "I'm happy you continue to feel that way, I'm so lucky to have such a warm second home"

You then looked down at the bag beside you, the surprise for Freminet, reaching a hand inside you took out an intricate deep blue colored box with a black and white ribbon presenting it to him.

"This is for you" carefully you held it with both hands, extending it towards him. Freminet couldn't hide the faint blush of overwhelming heartfelt gratitude that he felt as he reached out both hands to accept it.

"Thank you... May I open it?"

"Yes! Of course"

He took his time in doing so, as if whatever gift was inside was already treasured by him right here and now. He lifted the box to see a large queen conch, settling on a soft white pillow, with it a very tiny musical box that was attached to it.

His eyes were wide open in awe, a silent breath went out of his lips as if appreciating its beauty.

"A Queen conch," he said, taking a long while of purely gazing at it, holding it intricately to check it from all sides. "Queen conches are not of Fontainian origin. They're from the warm seas of Liyue.. a place I've yet to dive"

"Do you like it?" It was obvious that he did, he was adorably immersed in it for a whole two minutes now, he immediately nodded.

"Yes! Thank you" his fingers traced the little music box, spinning the handle. It played a soft melody, a childhood one that you knew he liked because Lyney mentioned it before.

"I love it" he emphasized.

.

.

.

Lynette soon walked back into the room with a tray of three mugs. She sat next to Freminet, and then . . Time happened.

Discussions came by; Freminet telling stories of his recent dives mostly about his encounters with the blubber beast friends and many more; Lynette is more of an avid listener but she still had some interesting stories to share like breaking the record for the amount of croissants consumed in an hour in the local cafe.

Time went by so naturally. It wasn't too fast nor too slow. It was perfect the way each second went by with meaning. Each sip of tea held warmth and affirmation that this is your home, too.

.

.

.

Lynette's ear twitched, and she stood up, "I'll go get the door." You looked back at Freminet, and he shrugged."Super hearing, still not used to it sometimes, but it makes a great code for.. missions"

Cheerful foot steps approached, they way he stridded was unmistakable and it wasn't long before his voice graced your ears.

"Freminet? I found the bolt size for Pers you were looking for, and I have a few more surprises! " Lyney's voice rang from the hallway; a smile could be seen as it slowly lit up Freminet's face. He is beautiful when he smiles. To that, you also smiled as if it was contagious.

Lyney was also a fan of surprises, and he'd always say that the best kind of surprises are those used on loved ones. When he said that, it rang with you really deeply, so much that you'd grown to love his surprises and the surprises you'd give to the siblings too!

Freminet stood up to help his brother and Lynette as it sounded like he had a lot of bags. His voice could be heard as you imagined his facial expression while he thanked Lyney.

You could hear their conversation:

"so many bags"

"Enough to last a week or so in food, but most of it are just flowers and props"

"I hope you considered my free days accordingly. " Lynette's soft voice stepped in. Soft, yet with a hint of sassy demand almost acting as if you didn't just surprise her with croissants earlier!

"Good thing it wasn't your turn in groceries. You would have gone all out on the bakery"

You put a hand over your mouth, smiling too hard. Their conversation alone just made you happy, but to have heard the word flowers? Oh it made you ecstatic!

You stood up from the couch and walked towards the hallway, but Lyney beat you to it when he entered the living room first.

They way his eye beamed in recognition, happiness, and utter love were all words you'd associate with those eyes in this core fragment of a second you managed to preserve.

Between the moment and the next, you were already in his arms, spinning. Yes, he picked you off the ground cheerfully and spun you around for like two rounds, "Welcome home!" He was ecstatic as you are; he was as happy as a boy can ever be.

You were initially embarrassed as a yelp made its way out, but then it was followed by giggles.. then an uncontrollable laughter!

Once he set you down, you two were already off in words:

"What's all of this!" You asked.

"Which This? I have many of these things you call surprises!"

"Armed to the brim with them too huh?"

"Of course, I presume you have one or two hidden up your sleeve as well? Lucky me then, but prepare yourself for surprise one!"

It was a surprise hug. He hugged you tightly yet it felt comfortable, maybe because you were used to surprise hugs.

"And surprise Two!"

He kissed your face full of butterfly small kisses as soon as the hug ended. You chuckled at his actions, giggling and giggling. Joy never knew limits when he was around... the way he pampered you full of love and fondness. It's like therapy to the soul.

"Surpise overload!"

That was the keyword for indicating well... an overload of surprises! It was your turn, so you dug your hands into your pockets for his gift, but he spoke first. "Charmed my way into your heart yet?" He looked at you full of tender and joy, the way he spoke? Soft at heart, sincere by word.

"That was already long ago, magician of hearts," you were now holding the chainless amulet you've been working on for a while. You had carefully deconstructed a small rainbow rose into a unique shape before preserving it with clear, perfect resin lacking of any bubbles or imperfections.

Lyney let it out a playful, dramatic gasp of sorts; taking his hand, his palm was already open for you, ready to receive and appreciate the gift with all attentiveness possible. He held it at an even level as he observed all the details and to share this amazement with you.

"This is.. captivating" to him, it was, to you, it was his smile that captives you. His smile, their smiles.. it was always the best part of a surprise.

He flipped it to see a small pin, so he wasted no time in pinning it in his shirt by the collar. The action alone signified a plethora of meanings... feeling.. and everything else of good word.

He loves it.

"Lucky me, I now have the best of charms to carry everywhere I go"

Safe to say, you blushed. Saying that while wearing it? It carried a different weight.

He hugged you once more with an appreciative tone he said, "Welcome home Y/N"

.

.

Time passed again, Lyney was even more overjoyed after the siblings showed him what you got for them, too. Today already became one of those days that would make you wish for good health of mind to remember it for years to come.

---- Later that night

You wake up, it's 2am, and you're hungry. After some little mental arguments with yourself, you finally decided to get up from the cosy warm sheets and head down to the kitchen for a snack.

Yes, a quick croissant from the leftovers would suffice. It was a short trip to the kitchen, but then, there was light coming from the living room.

The flames of the hearth were still crackling.

You looked over, Lyney was lying on the couch, sleeping? You couldn't tell from the hallway. The feeling of hunger couldn't simply be shaken away, so you continued to the kitchen with the original plan in mind, but instead of one croissant, it was two brought.

That was the effect he had on you.

"Chocolate or cream?" You asked as you stood by the entrance of the living room, half expecting a reply, half not expecting one. Depends.

"You like cream, so give me the chocolate," he replied, your face lit up, and you entered the room. "You like chocolate, so I'll take the cream" you reiterated in a different perspective.

Lyney shifted his position by getting up and leaning on the sofa's arm instead. You saw that he had the amulet in hand, which he tucked into his pocket for later.

You sat next to him and offered the chocolate croissant, to which he smiled and tapped it with yours.

Your conversation went a little something like this...

"Hey you", he said.

"Hey yourself, why are you still up?"

"I honestly don't know, with all that shopping, and having done the dreadful duty of dish washing, you'd think I'd be fast asleep right now"

"Sometimes the body aches, but the mind remains restless. That's fine, not unheard of. Is there anything on your mind?"

"Not really... just a blank state of mind. I admit, it's been a joy these past few days. Especially today... thank you for being the top contributor"

"I'm glad"

"By the way, I've been meaning to talk to you about something. This morning, I received a letter.. written were these words..."

You took a moment to recall the letter, its words unmistakable, and hard to forget.

"'Thank you for taking great care of the children. The Hearth remembers' signed A"

Lyney was impressed, to say the least. His eyes first widened in joy, and then he had this cheeky smile on his face.

"Oh, hoho? Someone has gotten father's respect!" He continued as he felt the need to clarify..

"I've mentioned to you before that father understands the bonds we make beyond the Hearth can be beautiful. She often trusts our judgement because.. well, she's already rooted everyone's principle of picking the right people, being careful, and all these social precautions. Most children often end up having the best bonds with other children inside the Hearth only, but when it's beyond.. Father becomes.. let's say.. subtly appreciative"

"I knooow but.. why send a letter now? Did you recently speak to her?"

"Ah well, if father ever asks, I always provide how I truly feel about her questions" a faint stutter in his words, this was a little embarssing for him, but nevertheless, he felt the need to tell you a story...

"In my opinion, I think father cares for you deeply because in her book, anyone who makes the children happy unconditionally is a friend of the Hearth."

"Althought, Father is in principle 'strict' it has been mainly to protect us whilist still maintaining the appearance of a Fatui Diplomat to whoever got to see her with the Hearth."

"I remember one time when I was young, I was late to the choir, when I entered the hall, I thought the first thing I'd see was father's eyes reprimanding me for being late."

"While yes, Father did reprimand me that day, the first thing I actually saw was a smile that she allowed me to see before turning her head back to the choir, and then she commented strictly on my retardness infront of everyone else after the choir ended"

Lyney cleared his throat, croissant still in hand as he continued..

"As to why send that letter now? Let's just say father likes the element of surprise, as well as the concept of a red herring. I wouldn't worry too much about the timing."

"All that aside, I'm happy that you've received that letter. Sometimes, you need to hear it from someone you look up to for everything you thought you controlled to finally fall into place... at least, that's how I feel"

.

.

.

"Hearing you say that makes me relieved" you confessed, "I'm starting to understand more about her.."

All that talk you were avid to hear, while he was keenly talking about his experiences and opinion. The two croissants are untouched save for a bite or two.

Lyney took a bite, then you felt it again, that hint of deep embrassment in his eyes. He spoke first, aware that you already knew something was up.

"I know what you'll say... It's just that this topic made me recall something.."

"Whatever it is, it's making you a tomatoe.."

He chuckled and then escaped the answer by taking another bite to fill his mouth. You didn't comment on that. You just grinned at his action and let him be.

Lyney appreciated that, but, he spoke his mind anyway...

"About two weeks ago when Father was here, she asked, but it was rather a request as to if she could meet you"

"For the first time in my life, I think I was very shy in front of Father. She caught on, and ever so calmly said,'I can arrange for a visit on my own, that too, is possible.'"

"Despite my shyself, I was happy, I was looking forward to formally introducing you to father, just as I was about to express that.."

"She smiled with a sense of her own mischeif, 'Never mind, I'm afraid I dont have much time during this visit, untill then, do send my regards will you?'"

.

.

.

"Goodness, are you trying to keep me awake now?" Your croissant was finished by the time he was done.

He giggled, "That's not my intention. Besides, there's nothing to worry about" that of course, wasn't helping.

His 'Father' is a diplomat, a harbinger, a whole character who is worthy of so much respect considering her deeds.

Lyney leaned closer with a warm smile, "Seriously, Father has a good intuition. She'll understand how kind and amazing you are. " he placed a quick kiss on your cheek. "Sleep well, I'll just finish this pastry and..call it a night"

You nodded. "Thank you, I'm quite content to hear you speak so fondly about her. When that day comes, I'll be sure to let her know how much you've grown..." You also kissed him at the cheek before getting up and bidding goodnight.

Lyney returned to his ponder once more as the living room emptied. He felt the amulet in his pocket, he took it, held it, observed it, it meant so much more to his heart now.

he brought to his mouth and softly kissed it, bringing it close to his heart.

---------------------------------------------------

Bonus! Scenario: Dear Lynette, Dear Freminet, Dear Lyney.

They say that when you get acquainted with someone, you also get acquainted with their family. Spending time with all of them resulted in the best moments of your life.

(I'm just gonna write letters of Y/N being appreciative to them all)

Dear Lynette,

My favourite time together is when we secretly go out to the cafe. I cherish every moment we bicker about some silly things we remember and share in memory as we down the sugary sweets. Yeah, I agree Lyney should increase your intake, I mean, you give your all in every show so flawlessly.

It's a bit uncanny, but I love every time I get to help you in the kitchen. Yeah, I also agree that complaining about chores is a constant activity in life, but at least we do it together! :)

There's so much to learn from you.

Dear Freminet,

I remember that day you invited me to dive in the lake. I knew nothing about diving, but your serenity and calm soul were my lighthouse that guided me and made this day stick out ever since. Sally, the blubberbeast was an honour to meet in person. She was just as you described, chunky,lazy yet gentle.

Speaking of which, I have a crazy.. (or maybe not so crazy if its possible) idea!

What if we make Pers waterproof? I'm sure he'd love to tag along next time!

Dear Lyney,

I love you.

Those are the right words to begin every letter, every conversation with you is a declaration of such.

I remember the day by the shore when you apologised for "being a worry wart of a leader to those you loved" Did I ever mention how proud I was? and I'll forever be. Just watching you grow sends me to and beyond the moon.

For all I know, I could keep writing like this forever because you forever make me happy. I have memories of us that would make boredom nonexistent till the rest of my life as I grow in age; Because of these times we spent and continue to spend together, I have the luxury to reminisce on so many joyful, loving occasions...

For example, when you usually take me out for ice cream after a grand show at the Opera.................

After each show, it was customary for Lyney to have ice cream with you. Somehow, he often got brain freezes, which always makes it entertaining.

"Brain freeze!" He tittred, abruptly placed down his ice cream cup, and closed his eyes as if willing it away. "On it!" You chuckled, then quickly rubbed your hands together, heating it with friction, and then you placed them on his cheeks.

"And just like that, the Magician was brought back to life!" He said dramatically, placing both of his hands on top of yours, sliding one to his lips, littering small kisses all over it.

"Brought back to life, and the first thing you do is kiss?"

"Theatrical classic, no?. The next step is thanking you from the bottom of my heart and then expressing my undying love to you~"

"Mhm.. very classical"

"I really mean it y/n," Lyney held your gaze, and with his hold still in your hands, you were forced to see his eyes ... both of you exchanged a gaze for a long minute till he said..

"You're thinking," in a mused tone.

"I'm always thinking....

it's hard not to stare into those eyes as I document each second into my mind"

❤️

_________________________________________

A/N :

If you've read this far, then congratulations! Thank you for sticking until the end.

Lyney was love at first sight for me, and I triple crowned him for good reason. I'm just happy to say that I've poured all the utmost love I have for 'how his character was written' into this fanfiction.

I'm sure this wonderful boy will have a crazy, magical, and wholesome influence in the Genshin story in the future.

Thank you for reading. I sincerely hope you enjoyed it!

If you're interested in this style of Fluff & Crack (because god help this community), I do have a Wriothesley fiction on my profile! Hopefully, I'll write more in the future?!

Have a great day/ splendid rest of your day/ goodnight!

[ms-demeanor]

So I love your computer information and advice - but I have never used a password manager because I’ve always figured it’s just putting all my most sensitive information out there to be stolen when someone gets into the password manager. What am I missing here?

The primary thing is that, in the normal course of time and space, given the limitations of computing technology, if you are using a decent password manager, nobody should be able to get into your password manager.

Good password managers (I recommend Bitwarden) are essentially impossible to access through cracking the encryption. It just won't happen. It's not going to happen.

In a decent password manager, your data also will not be available to the company that made the product. They can't get it. They don't have access, and anyone who breaks into their systems doesn't have access.

So there is one way that someone could get into your (decent) password manager: if they know your password.

That's why it's important to create one complex, memorable, unique password for your password manager that you do not share with anyone except in the most dire circumstances with someone you are 100% certain that you can trust (I've used the example in the past of my spouse giving me the password to his password manager when he was being prepped for an emergency bypass surgery - outside of situations like that, my spouse and I don't share passwords with each other).

Now, let's look at the flipside: if you do not use a decent password manager (which will generate nonsense random passwords for you on demand), you are probably creating passwords that are comparatively very easy to crack either through dictionary attacks or effortless to crack with credential stuffing.

Part of the problem here is that our data and security landscape is garbage. You have almost certainly had personal information leaked in a data breach that you had no say in participating in. You have almost certainly had your email address and multiple passwords exposed in breaches over the years. You have almost certainly used the same answers repeatedly for security questions, and there are only so many sites that will allow you to update those questions and answers, and those answers have almost certainly been exposed in previous breaches.

And the thing is, people are predictable. People reuse passwords, which makes credential stuffing extremely easy, because someone just has to find a leak from 2009 to identify your email address and then see if you used your 2009 password on any other accounts that you also registered with that email address. If your email address shows up in multiple leaks, they can compare the kinds of passwords that you used with different accounts.

Did you use the "unique password" hack that so many people do of "[site abbreviation][basic password][birthyear][punctuation]"? FBpassword95! TWTpassword95! TMBLRpassword95! - that's really, really common because passwords are hard to remember and people behave in predictable ways when they're trying to save themselves some labor.

Perhaps you are an XKCD reader and learned the CorrectHorseBatteryStaple trick, but unless you read the follow-up studies after the fact you might not know that those passwords are actually pretty crackable unless you're using words that are more like IndubitablyNematodeErlenmeyerRisome. And if you're using a unique combination of uncommon words it's going to get pretty hard to remember a hundred of them. And you'll start repeating. And then it's back to credential stuffing instead of dictionary attacks.

The point is that you are substantially more at risk of having your accounts accessed if you are repeating or using non-random passwords than you are if you are using a password manager. Some people do actually sit down with dice to roll up random passwords and write them in a book, but the vast majority of people are relying on their predictable human brains to come up with "complex" passwords and we are just not good at that.

Password managers also make it a lot easier to change things after a breach, and they make it a lot easier to generate and store random gibberish for your security questions (which you should be doing; at this point security questions are a liability, not an account recovery tool).

Using a password manager would make most people's passwords significantly more secure AND more accessible than something like writing randomized numbers and characters in a book (because a good password should not only be difficult to remember, it should be unnatural for you to type because there shouldn't be any words in it and it should require a lot of use of the shift key). A properly used password manager can also help to protect you from phishing sites by recognizing the correct site and not allowing an option to fill on a phishing site (which is why using a password manager with a browser plugin or an app can be a better option than one that is stored on your desktop and needs the password copy/pasted instead of filling the field for you).

So yes, if someone gets access to your password, they can get access to your password manager and you now have one point of failure instead of hundreds of accounts. However, because of the way that human brains work and because of how balls-to-the-walls uncrackable a good encrypted password vault is, you are likely to be more secure with that single point of failure than you are using the kinds of passwords that most people make up (we are really, really, really not good at making up nonsense passwords; go look at the top thousand passwords and think about how many of them you've used as a PART of any of your passwords. Most languages have a very small number of words that people use on a regular basis and it isn't that hard to get a computer to scan for a few thousand words if it has unlimited attempts to get into your account - mix that in with the fact that there are SO, SO many breaches out there and it is frighteningly easy to get into a lot of accounts).

However, you can then also make your password manager even MORE secure by setting up 2FA to access it. At which point the only way someone is getting into your password manager is if they know your password and have access to your 2FA account.

Generally I find that what most people are worried about isn't that their horrible ex or an abusive parent will get into their password manager, they're a lot more worried that the contents of their password vault will be exposed in a breach. And that is just not going to happen if you're using a securely encrypted password manager (like bitwarden).

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi, do you have any advice for indecisive writers? <3 Anything in general would help, I'd love something specifically for autistic people (whose brains shut down the "decising-making centre") too if possible <3

Tips for Indecisive Writers

My number one tip for indecisive writers is to not be afraid to go "old school" and literally pick something out of a hat or roll some dice. For example, if you're deciding between three different plot ideas, you can write each one on a few folded up pieces of paper, throw them all into a bowl, mix it up, and whatever you draw is the one you go with. Or, you could say 1 and 2 are idea #1, 3 and 4 are idea #2, and 5 and six are idea #3, then roll dice. And, actually, if you type "roll dice" into Google, you can roll digital dice and you can choose up to 20-sided dice or customize your own number of sides. This is particularly helpful if you have a list of items, such as several names you're trying to decide between.

If you Google "online decision maker" you come up with a bunch of different online tools. Easy Decision Maker lets you type in a question... for example, "What should I name my character?" Then you can enter up to 26 options. When you click the "answer" button, it chooses one for you. Picker Wheel lets you put in the various options, then spin a wheel to decide.

The trouble I tend to have is sticking with whatever "fate" decides at that point, but one thing I've learned is that sometimes when my brain plays that game... where I roll a 4 meaning I go with plot idea #2, and then I'm disappointed, I know that is because some part of me knows I want to do either idea #1 or idea #3. So, even though it isn't working exactly as planned, I've still accomplished something... I've eliminated a choice. Now I can roll again, with 1 -3 being idea #1 and 4 - 6 being idea #2, and I know if I'm disappointed again with whatever I get, then the remaining choice is the one I wanted all along. For whatever reason, though, my brain can't just make that decision. It needed to go through that process to get there, and that's okay!

Now, as helpful as decision making tools can be, they're not always helpful in the moment, when you're writing and you're not really stuck between particular choices, but rather you're facing an empty void and aren't sure where to take the story next. For me, this is where pre-writing comes in really handy. I always go into a story with a beginning to end summary at the very least so I know where things are going. There's still often some decision making to be done, but I find it easier to do before I write rather than during.

When it comes to finding things to even decide between... like when you're planning your story and you come up empty on something, I find inspiration sources to be extremely helpful. For example, let's say I want to write a romantasy, and I have no idea what I want the setting to be like. That's the worst kind of indecision, because it's not like I can just type four or five locations into a decision maker and let it pick for me. I don't have a list to even pick from. So, looking at inspiration sources helps. Maybe I saw a travel show about Bavaria which really intrigued me... that could be a great inspiration location for my setting. Or, let's say I'm not sure what I want my character to look like. I might scroll through a list of up and coming actors, through the cast of a random TV show or movie, or think about actors in TV shows or movies I've recently seen. As I scan past thumbnails of head shots, when I see someone who looks like my character, I can stop and note down the name or save the photo. And with any inspiration source, if I find myself unable to decide between multiple inspiration sources... it's back to the ol' decision maker!

I hope that helps!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[cottonlemonade]

Hello!! I hope you can do this order for me because it sounds so cute 🥺🥺

A medium macchiato for here for Ennoshita please

Thank you so much!!

When Your Husband Is Sick

request: fluffy, taking care of your sick husband Ennoshita

“Uhm, honey, what are you doing?“

“Making dinner.“

“Yeah I can see that. But why?“

Last night when Chikara had come home from work it was obvious that he had caught a cold. He was swaying on his way to the shower and even insisted on sleeping in the guestroom to not spread his “dangerous disease“ (the common flu) to you.

And right now, your feverish husband stood in the kitchen, dicing vegetables while wearing a face mask and nitrile gloves.

“Sorry to interrupt your surgery, doctor“, you said sarcastically, putting the bag with the new groceries on the counter, “but you should be in bed resting.“

“I don‘t want to leave all the work to you.“, he protested, barely allowing you to banish him from the kitchen.

“I think I can handle the chores on my own for a few days, hon. And believe it or not, I have actually successfully made soup before aaall by myself.“

He frowned, obviously torn between standing his ground to do his share of housework and really needing a nap.

“Go on.“ You grabbed his shoulders and pushed him towards the bedroom.

“Now lay down.“

He did as he was told and let you tuck him in. You took off the gloves and his mask and lopped them across the room into the trashcan in the corner.

“Impressive.“, he mumbled, his eyes already growing heavy.

Using the handy technique of pressing your chubby cheek against his forehead you determined that (while also physically) he was still very hot. You grabbed a soaked washcloth from the bathroom and returned, dabbing at his cheeks and neck and combing through his hair with your fingers.

“I‘ll finish the soup and bring you some, hm?“

He finally gave in, mumbling, “Fine.“

“Great! Oh, and one more thing.“

You gave him a quick kiss and he looked at you in alarm. What if his terrible affliction would hit you next?

“In sickness and in health, honey.“, you sing-songed as you went back to the kitchen.

a/n: thank you for the request ^^ what we learn from this is even when he is sick, Ennoshita will still try to take to care of you 😌 sorry that it took so long ��� please enjoy 🌟

[forlorn-plushie]

Games that only work here? Games that only work there!

I'm thinking about games that only work in certain mediums, specifically in the context of tabletop. So, I just learned about The Houses of the Sun by Night. One of the minigames within involves stacking dice.

I play almost wholly online. I don't think half of the people I play with have their own dice. Certainly not enough to build stacks with an equal versatility. We can't play the Damnation minigame!

I think, perhaps, games can (and should) be made with the opposite 'problem'. A game which in some essential way is still a TTRPG - being largely manual and, I think most importantly, run by people (this definition is off the top of my head - litigating it would be its own post) but which cannot be effectively played in person, or which can only be played on a computer. Video 'TT'RPGs.

Large tables and even more advanced generation which couldn't be done at a table.

Minigames which actually have the netrunner play a minigame, like a Bethesda lockpicking or hacking mingame.

Precise timers.

Hidden but definite enemy placement (a pain at the table, especially with more than one of them).

Exact calculations like true radii, height adjusted ranges, and even arc calculations that, while possible at a table, would be a huge pain - but in a virtual tabletop, they're easy!

Hidden information, shared without having to go outside or send someone to the next room

Inventory grids are cool in theory but kinda painful in paper. On a computer? far easier

Calculations that are easy enough to think about, but just plain slow/annoying to do repeatedly. I'm thinking of the Orbment system from the early Trails/Kiseki games (I have a physical setup that works, but it imposes a monotonicity requirement that can be a problem)

You can get away with a lot more math in general when it's automated, really. Frees up a lot of mental space, eases access for players who suck at math and rules memorizing, and even for those who are good it's still nice.

I think I'll mostly design my games to be played either online or at a table - but the idea of a minigame that is requisitely digital intrigues me. I have a website - I could host it. Your DM gives you an link with the difficulty ciphered into a parameter, you input your skill level or what have you, and you play it. If it's digital, you can stream it - if it's at a table, they're all gonna be staring at your phone over your neck (if there's not something else happening - they can keep playing while you work, of course).

[namelessghost04]

since it's (still) wednesday where i live, i thought i'd share how i started worshipping Lord Hermes :D WARNING this willl be very long :')

so this happened around a month ago, when i was still researching the basics of helpol. i didn't know which deity i should approach first so i was sort of just doing devotional acts for everyone 😭 but one day i had a literal epiphany. see, I was about to go on a road trip with my friends, and it just so happened we left on a wednesday. And i don't know how but i managed to put two and two together, and of course i felt drawn to Lord Hermes. it was late at night and i couldn't sleep, so i began to research more about him and even made a small collage (i didn't even know digital offerings were a thing). at that point, i didn't know Lord Hermes was also the God of Languages, or that one of his epithets means "translator" or "interpreter". i realized he's my patron deity and i remember being so happy because i have loved languages since i was young, to the point i'm currently majoring in translation (and i recently started working as an interpreter).

it was like 1 am but i put up a small altar for him; i had two dice and a dream, but that would do for now, and i also said a short prayer: my first prayer ever to a hellenic deity.

the next day, while on the bus with my friends, i kept researching about him. i listened to a podcast about him on spotify and overall just tried to learn as much as i could. i prayed that he would protect us on this trip, and i also dedicated it to him. now here's where the fun starts: i began to see him literally everywhere. tiktok, pinterest, and yes, i know you're not supposed to rely on social media, so i was feeling quite skeptical, but there's more. one day, my friends and i went to the beach, and when we arrived, the first thing we saw was a souvenir shop. and that's when I see this cute quartz tortoise I had to get for him. and i also got the pendulum i now wear every day. that's when i notice a caduceus on the shop's first aid kit. but okay, a caduceus is quite common nowadays. I didn't think much of it. but the next day, our last day, we almost missed the bus. we managed to get a cab and arrived just on the nick of time, and since our suitcases were placed in the cab's trunk, guess what i saw when the driver was helping us with the luggage? a box with goodyear's logo on it; a winged sandal. and again, I'm like: "well, it's a car. makes sense, right?"

well, during the trip I had made a playlist for Lord Hermes, and i had been listening to it while on the bus taking us back home. so i'm having my MC moment, looking out the window with my headphones on, and i catch a glimpse of a truck going full speed. it went so fast i almost couldn't see it well, but I know i saw a picture of Lord Hermes on that truck. i remember seeing the caduceus and the winged hat, all gold in colour. and that's when it hit me, He really had been trying to reach out to me as well. as soon as i got home, i prepared a makeshift altar (ofc i placed the tortoise) and well the rest is history :D i'm so glad I started worshipping and devoting so many aspects of my life to Him. i really do appreciate Him <3

[toxintouch]

Cooking headcannons for touchstarved Li’s when? 👀

Apparently now, anon! Some Cooking/Baking/General Meal Time headcanons. Sorry as always that I am so late, lol. I got distracted by Halloween/October things. ✦✦✦✦✦

Vere: ✦ Canonically, he’s bad at it. But W H Y?? ✦ When I thought about why Vere might be a bad cook I decided he is likely the kind to get distracted, try to make everything at once, get bored with the instructions, etc. It's not the kind of food he craves, so cooking is very low-stakes to him. ✦ I’m trying to decide if I think his sense of taste is remarkably different from a human. Since his nose is impeccable, he SHOULD be able to determine if something is going to be good or not… ✦ Perhaps the real issue standing in his way is: Human food does not satiate him.

✦ Though he does have human foods he likes to eat. He's a texture person.  Loves a delicate texture, easy to slice through with his fangs.  Something supple. ✦ When he gets the cooking urge, he cooks a ton of food at once. Absolutely no intention of eating most of it. ✦ MC: “Who is going to eat this?”   Vere: “I’ve been fairly blatant about my interest in doing so, but you are willfully obtuse.” ✦ If you'll allow me to quote myself:

"Vere cooks how others might enjoy a leisurely stroll. 

Which is to say: he seems to be having fun, but you’re not convinced he intends on really going anywhere." The journey is often the destination. ✦ You ask him to cook or bake with you?: (If he likes you:) "I suppose. If you think you have the stamina." If he doesn't like you it's still a yes but you're the meal. ✦ If you're helping him cook, BE CAREFUL WITH THE KNIFE!  If you nick yourself and draw blood...you might get more than you bargained for...

Leander: ✦ The fandom has spoken. This man can't cook. He's just...too innovative.~ He could follow a recipe. He won't...but he could. ✦ You ask him to cook or bake with you?: He actually sounds awkward for a moment. “Ooohh, uh... you want to cook together?”  But he bounces back quickly.  “Of course we can do that! Sounds like fun. I’m sure our favorite barkeep won’t mind, we can use the kitchen here!”  (She minds.  She looks in on the two of you frequently to make sure you’re not going to burn the Wick down.) ✦ If you know your way around the kitchen already, he's happy to take a backseat. :) He measures out ingredients and has them all neatly ready for you. ✦ If you make him take the lead: Is that sweat sliding down the back of his neck? And his face is awfully red. "Ah, actually, I just thought of a better idea." How about the two of you rely on the expertise of your favorite cooks/bakers from around town for this one? Really immerse yourselves for a day (er, a few hours), learn from a professional. Who would you like to teach you? He can pull some strings and make it happen! :) :) :) ✦ ~Magical meal prep.~ He slices and dices with spell work. Like it's a party trick and not a potentially grisly weapon. Don't think too hard on the other potential applications of that spell, okay? :) ✦ Everything can be improved with cheese! (AKA: He puts cheese on top of everything.) ✦ He's unlikely to share this part of himself of his own accord, but... Naturally, he still knows all of his high society dining etiquette.  He can tell you all about place settings and the correct formal silverware order and how to tell which fork is the dessert fork, etc. Hopefully you'll never be put in a situation where that's knowledge that you need. He really doesn't want to subject you to that kind of person, if he can help it. Those people are closer to the Senobium and most would do anything for a favor. Best to stick to places where it's more safe. Right here next to him is free. ✦ He has a brilliant mind for what wines go with what foods. One of the few drink recommendations you can trust him on. "Of course, these are all just suggestions. What matters is that you're drinking what you like, right?" (<- He's trying to sell you on his new mixolology concoction. Do not trust.) ✦ Could hold a formal tea for you but you will really have to wheedle it out of him. And he'll only say yes if you agree that it stays between the two of you. "You have to pinky promise." ;) and it only counts if it's bare skin. ✦ That said, he's at his most comfortable when he's in some little hole-in-the-wall, enjoying great local food that someone else made. ✦ Extremely interested in any dishes you enjoy that are local to your home/culturally significant to you. Will hunt someone down who can make them for you if you're feeling homesick. (Or will find the ingredients if you prefer to make it yourself.) He's a good guy like that. :)

Kuras: ✦ He tries to make the recipe but he just makes things worse. Like many things in his long life. ✦ He's worse than Vere. A lot worse. 'Possibly the worst cook in the entire city' type worse. ✦ Cooking is just so outside of his realm of existence. ✦ It doesn't help that Everything tastes like p u r e n o t h i n g to him. It's not just that he doesn't need to eat, the very sensation of taste is beyond him. ✦ But he occasionally likes to try to make food for his friends and loved ones. He understands that food sharing is an important human social behavior and he'd like to participate how he can and show that he values his bonds with the people he chooses. ✦ He is uniquely awful at it though. Time has made very little improvement. ✦ Ever since that Valentine's Day cake, baking is his ✨passion.✨ Mhin had a good reaction, so he's decided not to give; he made such an obvious breakthrough with that one. ✦ You ask him to cook or bake with you?: He accepts immediately. He's overjoyed. "I'm sure this will be an enlightening experience. I confess myself as rather lacking when it comes to this activity so please consider me your humble student. Anything you wish to teach me would be appreciated." ✦ Of course, the two of you will have to work around the clinic's schedule. (You ought to realize quickly that he does not have a good gauge of time when it comes to meals. Take the initiative or starve tbh.) ✦ He is very attentive to everything you say.  His earnest face while listening to you is unbearably adorable.  Frequently tilts his head like a cat. ✦ He hangs off your every word and even asks questions.  Though, some of the questions you don’t quite know how to answer.  (“When you chew, do you instinctively know how many times is appropriate, or must you count?”  “....I…what?”) ✦ You think that particular question might be a joke... Hard to say. ✦ Even when you are running the show and watching him to make sure he does everything right…every time something somehow ends up going wrong. ✦ Pro tip: don't let him put anything into the oven or determine the cooking/baking times. Otherwise, things will get...strange. ✦ You are the test subject–I mean: taste tester.  Kuras insists that your opinion is of the utmost importance.  Are you brave enough?  If not, are you tough enough to politely decline when his eyes are sparkling softly with affection and excitement like that??

Think of it this way:

If you get sick (which you will) you’re already at the doctor’s!  ✨Convenient!✨ ✦ Comfortable silence in the kitchen when they two of you are working together. <3 ...As soon as you accept that nothing will be edible. Actually, maybe you should stop this. This is probably more food waste than a post-apocalyptic world can afford.

Ais: ✦ Of course he knows how. ✦ Well.  Maybe not him specifically. But give him a moment, he’s pretty sure he’s got the equivalent of a Michelin 3 Star chef (or two, but who’s counting?) “in here somewhere.”  (He taps on his temple.) ✦ He doesn't have an interest in human food. "You want recommendations try asking Pretty Boy." ✦ He does like to experiment with making treats for his Soulless.  He’s bought them snacks from the market on occasion, but he likes the feeling of taking care of them and providing for them contributing with his own hands.  Plus, he can make them treats that are a lot less grain heavy.  They prefer meat.

✦ (Most aren't stupid enough to try and poison the treats he buys, but he did kill someone for trying once. Not that the shit they put inside was strong enough. He ate the stupid biscuit right in front of them just to prove a point. Last thing they ever saw.) ✦ If the Sea Spring has a kitchen…look, he hasn't been in there in a while. There might be mold.  There is almost certainly mold. ✦ Luckily, Kuras has a kitchen!  And he doesn’t seem to use it, so it’s basically free real estate.  If Ais is ever in need of somewhere to cook or bake, he’ll be using Kuras’ space. ✦ He can do meat preparation really well (he’s an absolute butcher with anything sharp) and smoke meat really well but spending an overabundance of his time preparing meals (meals that aren't even the preferred sustenance of Monsters like him) feels like a poor use of his life. He's got shit to do. ✦ You ask him to cook or bake with you?: "Huh... Nah. Don't think I will..." <- neutral bastard “Or what?” <- He feels like riling you up a little extra today. ✦ (You're more likely to get that experience if you catch him doing it of his own accord and join in/keeping him company in the clinic while he works.)

Mhin: ✦ Diametrically opposed to Leander (and Vere), they will follow the recipe exactly whenever possible. ✦ The only one you can trust to make something edible without fail. ✦ Mhin is an alchemist.  Cooking and baking are both easy for them.  None of these components are even going to explode or create poisonous gas if mixed.  The worst thing that will happen is that they’ll eat a meal they aren’t completely satisfied with.  (And honestly, what else is new these days?) ✦ They are impressively quick and precise in the kitchen!  They can cut things so fast! Can also cut fruit into animal shapes for reasons that they will not explain. ✦ When they cook, they are making meals to feed themself.  It’s a necessity that they are performing to keep themself able to tolerate their strenuous life. At the same time, it relaxes them to an extent–it grounds them, it’s something concrete to focus on that isn’t … –but it’s a necessity first and foremost. ✦ Mhin’s cooking has a tendency to be b l a n d.  They are filled with too much self-loathing to season more interested in the nutritional value of the meal than its flavor.  Plus, spices are costly and they aren’t about to spend any of their hard earned money on the luxury of taste. ✦ Mhin’s baking is significantly more inspired than their cooking.  If they have the good fortune and the wherewithal to bake themself a little treat, they have a good intuition for (delicate, sweet) flavors.  They never get the opportunity, but.  The ability is there. ✦ In another life (an easier life) baking could have been a hobby. ✦ You ask them to cook or bake with you?: "..." Mhin isn’t the type to teach someone, but… If you're any good, you could be a useful second pair of hands. If you're hopeless...they should really leave you to your own devices, but… someone needs to tell you to stop holding a knife like that. It's annoying to look at. It will just take them a few seconds to correct you. And then you're on your own! (They still stay. They were using Kuras' kitchen first.) ✦ Will scold you for holding the knife wrong.  Tries to explain the correct way–which is to say, the safest way–to handle it but...  They’re not used to having to verbalize their thoughts/instructions to people, since they are always alone. ✦ So they'll finally just settle in behind you and show you how to position your hands and cut away from yourself. ✦ Backs off ASAP because being able to feel your body heat and being so close to you flusters them.  (Not to mention whatever is happening with your hands.) They go off into their own little corner to meal prep extra because they want to be prepared–definitely not so that they can look away from you and focus on something else for a while. ✦ Mhin can tell you about the chemical reaction that makes bread rise.  Mhin can tell you why and how each ingredient is important, which ones you can skip and substitute if supplies in this post Fogfall world are running low.  Mhin can tell you that you are not doing that right, what are you doing?  Stop.  That is way too much vanilla extract. ✦ If you ever reach their maximum affection level: Their face looks like it is absolutely on fire when they offer to share their favorite dessert this dessert they’ve really been craving with you.  They’ll even teach you how to make it, and you two could make it together if you'd like...

[cblgblog]

Hey. so that AU where Lilia Calderu is trying to ignore the world and do her thing in quiet in the early 2000s when her past and future self keep showing up to yell at her until she blinks and finds herself on the streets of Sokovia staring down two small recently orphaned and now homeless children, one of whom has the most terrifying magical aura about her. Or the Maximoff twins, raised by Lilia, and oh how they'd annoy the Avengers.

Oh my God, the chaos though. So much chaos.

Orphaned children who do not know who this random crazy woman is, and why should we go with you? Lilia who’s like, because I’m sick of talking to myself about you, that’s why. But also magics up some decent, warm clothes for them, some food. And hey, you’re welcome to stay in this Sokovian orphanage that looks like the most Dickensian, stereotypically bad orphanage I’ve ever seen, and I’ve lived a really long time.

Wanda and Pietro who think for awhile that Lilia must’ve been in some kind of explosion too. At least something that caused a head injury. Because they’ll be having a perfectly reasonable conversation—by Lilia standards—and then Lilia will just blurt out these random things that make no sense. They’re honestly kinda terrified she’s an escaped mental patient, especially when she starts going on about how Wanda’s a witch with all this untapped power.

“Like on Bewitched?” Because of course that’s where Wanda takes it.

And, mistake, because then there’s this 20 minute rant about how offensive and demeaning and stereotypical that show is, that the kids are just staring at wide-eyed, hoping Lilia interrupts herself with one of her random bits of gibberish. Alas, no dice that day, so they have to suffer her entire spiel about how terrible that show is, which just leaves Wanda deeply offended because shut up, she likes that show.

Pietro just, I don’t like it either, I told her it was stupid. Which gets him a “Good boy,” and a pat on the head from Lilia, not unlike what you’d give a dog.

Twins who think she’s absolutely lost it with this witch stuff, okay, okay, clearly Lilia has some weird ass hidden talents, but Wanda sure doesn’t. Until Lilia coaches Wanda into reading her mind, just a little bit, and oh, okay well, this is new. Wanda who immediately wants to learn more of that please, but no, nope, we’re starting out small, kiddo, you don’t need to be reading your brother’s mind.

Wanda asserts that there’s no trouble there, Pietro’s head is totally empty after all, and then Lilia’s refereeing a bickering match between 10-year-olds and just, sigh.

Lilia telling people that these are her poor, oh so tragically orphaned niece and nephew, and threatening to hex Pietro when he says grandchildren might be more convincing. She also totally uses them in her act, for cuteness and sympathy, oh how about a reading so I can feed my poor little orphan niece and nephews? Did I mention they were orphans?

Pietro grumbling about the unfairness of why Wanda gets cool witch powers and he doesn’t. They’re twins after all; shouldn’t he be a wizard or something? Wanda who lords her new skills over him at first, haha, look what I can do, then realizes that 1, it actually does make him feel bad, and 2—more importantly—he’s gonna be really boring to play with and unable to keep up with her if she doesn’t throw him some sort of bone.

Lilia comes down to breakfast one morning and suddenly Pietro has speedster powers, because of course he does, sigh. Well, that was nice of you, Wanda, sharing is caring, but also never do that again. Partly because it’s incredibly reckless and dangerous, mostly because it’ll now make my life even more complicated.

Lilia meeting up with a fellow witch for something, someone who clocks what Wanda is, or has the potential to be, and just, you have the most powerful magical being in the universe, someone who might be on track to destroy the world, you have this kid hanging out with you in your dumpy little shop shuffling tarot cards?

Lilia’s offense at that, I have a scared, orphaned child with me, who yeah might destroy the world, jury’s still out on that, but who is much, much more likely to do so if she’s running around with all this power and no training. Also, my shop is not dumpy, shut the fuck up.

Kids who are utterly thrilled when Tony Stark is missing and presumed dead, and look at Lilia with complete disgust when she has one of her walkabout moments and tells them Stark isn’t actually dead, he’s gonna come back and be a superhero and they’re gonna help save his life soonish. Twins just, no, absolutely not, thanks but no thanks, mom, we refuse, take away our allowance if you must but no.

And then stuff happens and they end up in New York where all these aliens are causing trouble and they wind up stopping Tony from having to fly into space with the nuke—he still makes the sacrifice play, he still tries to do the right thing, he just gets his play interrupted by a girl in a Hot Topic getup who’s really good at stopping missiles from going off, huh, who knew, where’d she learn that? Which stops Tony from having his Thanos visions and embarking on his descent into paranoia and ‘I must save the whole world by myself even though I literally just joined a team of really powerful co-workers who’s whole thing is helping each other save the world.’ Which ultimately stops the Civil War from going like it did, which in turn means the Avengers are whole and united when Thanos comes to Earth, and are able to stop him. Which stops the Snap, which stops Endgame, which means Tony doesn’t die.

So, Lilia is once again always right, much to the annoyance of the twins who really weren’t that interested in saving Tony’s life but eh, whatever, pluses and minuses to everything.

Also, Stephen Strange showing up at Lilia’s door at some point to discuss the twins because Lilia just, yeah, yeah, Sorcerer Supreme, whatever, such an ego, no, you’re not just whisking my kid off to your little health spa in Tibet, yeah, no, that’s not happening.  If you do, you're gonna have to take him with you, they're a package deal, yes even if he doesn't have magic.

Strange meeting Pietro and just, yeah, maybe I don't actually wanna do this after all, maybe we can discuss some kind of alternate arrangement for continuing her training.

[maddiem4]

Well, I wanna be working on a novel right now, but apparently it's time to make a certain kind of post again, as is periodically necessary, because young queer folk keep trying to reinvent the Hayes Code for a variety of misguided reasons. So you know what? Let me lead with the TLDR, and then give my reasoning. If you DNI stuff like incest, I am not just going to unfollow you, I am going to block you.

Now, if you're the type to make assumptions, you might be surprised to hear that I'm not into incest. Sorry to disappoint. Well, unless you count selfcest, but people don't usually lump those together except by technicality. But incest is really not my thing.

That said, I have mutuals who are into it, and harmless about it. Whether it's fictional, RP, or consensual, it's not my business and it hurts nobody. Get used to those words, they're gonna be a mantra here. Further, I've seen how Hayes Queers (hey, I needed a term for them) talk about harmless members of their own community who give them The Ick. The post I'm writing here is a direct reaction to seeing a Hayes Queer post from someone I followed! Reading that, and the comments on it. And lemme tell you: y'all are very quick to throw your peers under the bus with the exact same logic (respectability politics, personal disgust, "making a bad name for us as a larger group", lurking threat to our moral purity) that the conservatives are using to argue for the mass extermination of queer folk. You are bringing pitchforks and tiki torches to the party. So no, I am not going to give you access to my vulnerable mutuals. That's the heart of it. You are a danger to your community, and I'm going to limit the scope of harm you can do. The broader queer/kink communities have worked hard to define harm more carefully than "well I just personally think it's gross." Scat and piss are gross to me, but my mutuals who are into those things do still deserve love and safety, not to be sacrificed on an altar of conservative family values for imaginary "one of the good ones" points. I have a responsibility to look out for my people. So do you, FYI.

So here's the recipe for living online with people whose kinks aren't your business and hurt nobody: learn to scroll past those posts or block those tags, or even block that person. Be an adult. The world does not exist to be personally palatable to you. You are not being harmed, you're being inconvenienced. If you can't handle that, you're the one bringing real-world (rather than imagined) danger to your community. Fuck's sake.

This also finally convinced me to look up what "proshipper" means after seeing it in discourse for years, these dreaded dangerous devils who apparently must be purged from the internet, and... holy fuck, how is this contentious? It literally just means you can disagree about fandom pairings without harassing people? That's just mature behavior in a shared space. That's what the argument is about? Oh my god. If you're arguing about this in 2024, your Aunt Maddie is fully ashamed of you for real.

The dumbest part is that people get doxxed for saying the stuff I'm saying, and maybe it'll happen to me. Guess I'll roll the dice. Which comes full circle: if you're looking at this post and trying to decide how to punish me for it IRL, you are literally being the danger. Stop and think for 30 milliseconds. Maybe I have a point that you are a bigger threat than two trans girls who like to pretend to be sisters for sex reasons. And I don't wanna hear no trauma excuses from any of you little monkeys, fetishes come from trauma a decent percentage of the time, so a lot of the people you're persecuting are victims of the same kind of assault as you.

This is more words than I ever should have to write about a self-evident topic. I know if you're young enough and still figuring out a lot of life stuff from scratch, it may not be self-evident to you. But hopefully it is now before you fucking hurt somebody. Thanks.

[gorbalsvampire]

What does social combat actually look like in-game? Do I announce to the ST that I want to insult the harpy, roll Charisma + Etiquette and follow up with an IC response of matching quality? Do I just say stuff IC and then roll to figure out how the NPC reacts? And how do I deal with attacks on player characters? Do I just let the harpy roll to intimidate the player character? How much agency do I give the player, should they be successful?

At first, this question baffled me. I mean, it's just like combat. You say what you want to achieve, roll a bunch of dice, I roll a bunch of dice, we narrate something that reflects those dice rolls.

I suppose the problem is people are really used to "just roleplaying" the social stuff - the rules are for the things you can't pretend your way through. Or they're used to role-then-roll, where you improv-theatre your way through a conversation, and either the Storyteller says you don't need to roll because you've amused them, or the dice say you fail no matter how amazing your roleplaying was, or maybe you actually succeed. That's two potential fail states, if you're counting, and that's assuming you're any good at the improv theatre bit, or aren't playing a character who's more socially adept than you are.

Tangent: ever notice how it's perfectly fine to play a character who's more physically adept than you are, because we have tons of rules for that and we don't generally get up and spar during the session? and it's usually okay to play a character who's more mentally adept than you are, unless your ST is seriously into that "player skill not character stats" mindset that I think of as more of an oldschool D&D thing. It's the poor buggers who want to play social-prime characters as their power fantasy who are told "nope, shape up or ship out, no dice for you."

Anyway, here's how social conflict works in my games.

Generally, it's initiated by a player, who wants their character to achieve something that an SPC doesn't want them to achieve. I fall back on social conflict rules because - well, I share information and try to oblige people, it's how we learn and get things done, and I struggle with the idea that people wouldn't default to doing that. So I need a mechanic for SPCs who aren't going to say yes in improv, as it were.

So I'll say something like "this sounds like you want to initiate social conflict - what does a win look like for you, here?" so everyone involved knows what we're aiming towards. Then we roll, with my usual eccentric approach to dice pools (I got a Charisma + Investigation out the other day, very pleased with that). Because Requiem is always lurking in the back of my head, I usually think of the attribute grid as horizontally split between power, finesse and endurance attributes - so if your character's turning on the raw charm you're probably using Charisma as your base, whereas if they're trying to outwit or ensnare the other party you'll be on Manipulation, and if you're just sticking to your guns and refusing to take no for an answer, that'll be Composure, or maybe Resolve.

Doesn't have to be a social stat, either. Strength plus Persuasion or Intimidation is a classic - that's either implying someone's gonna get beat down, or expressing physical actions with social conflict rules because the outcome is "SPC spills the beans" rather than "SPC is looking for their teeth in the gutter."

Anyway, we put our dice pool together, and it's usually going to involve Etiquette, Intimidation, Leadership, Persuasion or Subterfuge, maybe Investigation - or maybe we'll switch into that in later rounds.

Now we know who's going to come off better in the first exchange, and who's going to take Willpower damage, so we know how to target our roleplay - thus we avoid the "OK that was a great speech but you rolled a 2 on your Bluff check" fail state.

Once we've reached a point in that roleplayed conversation where someone's shown that their character's on the back foot, or wants to make a comeback, we roll again, and then roleplay for a bit longer. Sometimes I might change the dice pools if it feels like the characters have shifted their approach.

I don't formally use the Doors system from Requiem because it's a little bit dry and over-detailed for my taste, but I am often thinking in terms of "your first roll is getting someone to talk at all, your second roll is getting them to talk about what you want them to, and your third roll is getting them to tell you what you need to know."

And then we might do that one more time, unless someone's racking up the aggravated Willpower damage. Once the Willpower tracker is full and we're looping back around, that's normally what "defeat" looks like. Aggravated Willpower damage is no joke to "heal" and that's usually when a player will want to tap out. In the social context this represents a serious loss of face or equilibrium - you realise you're not going to win this argument, you say something that dramatically alienates the other party, or you simply give up under pressure and reveal whatever it is you're trying to conceal.

There's another layer on top of this: Disciplines. I often use social combat when social Disciplines are in play. I think this rewards the people who've gone deep into Presence, or who've picked the willpower-damaging track in Oblivion, or who took Dementation or Scry the Soul. It lets them feel powerful, and describe their characters doing dark and powerful things. It also makes other vampires, especially elders, feel powerful, when I can say "all right, opposed roll, now he's got Fortify the Inner Facade so that's twelve dice, shall I Rouse I wonder?" Using social conflict in these moments reifies the soft power vampires have over mortals, and each other.

It's also a lot "fairer" to telegraph that this is a conflict situation, with Disciplines involved, rather than asking a player to make a resistance roll against Entrancement out of the blue. Social conflict smooths those situations, showing the player that there are rules here, not rails.

[quillyfied]

Real talk for a minute because I fucking need this:

I’ve been a fandom nerd since age eight. Formalized when I first got online at age thirteen. My first real fandom was Harry Potter. It was my personality. It was everything. It introduced me to the fantasy genre, which I still haven’t really left. It made me want to be a writer. It made me realize there are stories inside of me that I want to share, that I hope touch someone else as deeply as Harry Potter touched me. Brain chemistry-altering type stuff. Loving Harry Potter is the only thing that extended family members who don’t really know me anymore remember about me. An ornament gifted years ago from an aunt who died suddenly. Thousands of words of writing. Hundreds of hours talking about it with friends and family. Toys, stickers, notebooks, clothes, gifts from others and some bought with money I shouldn’t have spent but did because it made me happy. Core childhood memories with people I don’t talk to anymore but remember so fondly.

It took a long time to be okay with tucking away my Harry Potter things. I disagreed with JKR’s political stances the second I heard them, but I held out hope for longer than I should have. I went through the very real shame and guilt and agony of something so foundational to my sense of self having to become a private, nostalgic sort of sad love instead of the loud, joyous proclamation it had been for years. It took a long time to be okay with losing the connection it brought with other strangers who also loved this story like I do and the giddiness of common ground and common excitement with other human beings. I’m still not okay with how something I still have so much love for is now an indicator of a person’s moral quality. I’m not okay with how my love makes me sad and uncomfortable instead of happy.

I’m a fandom nerd. It’s my biggest hobby and my biggest escape and coping mechanism. In May 2019, the thriving and small Dice Camera Action fandom exploded and then crumbled because of the show’s players’ interpersonal dramas, which in turn exploded and then crumbled me. Fully took out a pillar of my mental health. I learned a lot about parasocial relationships and my own relationship with them, about the dangers of them despite their very normal and common advent.

July 2019, I found Good Omens.

You can infer the pattern: brain chemistry-altering love, thousands of words of fanfic, more money than I had sometimes spent on stickers and plushes and shirts. Creating my very first cosplay, hours and hours talking about it with friends, some very fulfilling new creative relationships. A story that gave me hope, that felt True in the way that all great stories feel when they hit the right emotional chords. I’ve found new stories since then, but Good Omens remains an anchor that found me during a time I desperately needed it.

July 6, 2024.

Real people are more important than fandom. Obviously. I don’t think that’s ever truly in question.

But goddammit, fandom is people, too. Fandom is community. It’s the driving dopamine-sharing communal experience that has shaped my life for twenty years now. There is something in me that pushes back against the idea that the stories that have shaped and affected me so deeply must now be cast aside because their creators are unworthy, and at the same time, I have a hard time enjoying art knowing something on this magnitude taints it. It’s almost religious, in a way; avoid the appearance of evil, cast aside the unclean thing, repent for the sin of loving something made by a bad person.

Fuck you, my love doesn’t require repentance, art and artist can have some degree of separation and what I do and enjoy is nobody’s business.

Fuck you, how dare you give even verbal support to a monster by giving their work, and by extension them, the gift of your attention.

I don’t know how I’m going to handle this one yet, because the situation is more complex than JKR’s. There is still information coming out (more victims coming forward, I think more journalistic investigations under way), and Good Omens wasn’t just NG’s work, not the book and not the show. I’m in mourning. A little stuck and paralyzed. I’m not ready to put away and privatize another love that gave me such joy to be open and proud of. I resent the feeling that I need to or I will not be a Good Person.

In the meantime the bills need paid and my antidepressants need taken.

[avantguardisme]

Could you share your picadillo recipe? Id like to know what other kinds there are since I'm Mexican and have always made it as like a ground beef, tomatoey soupy meal

oh yeah for sure! the version i ate growing up is a cuban (or at least cuban-floridian) variation that my dad always made-- it's also a ground beef & tomato-y sort of meal, but with some extra ingredients and served over rice! idk where he learned it from exactly (we are not cuban) but there are similar versions of the dish that show up in the gasparilla cookbook, which is a collection of a bunch of local recipes from tampa in the 60s (and is something of a bible in our house tbh)

anyway, recipe below the cut! i really recommend trying it out, it's a favorite of mine and everyone i've ever made it for has loved it

ingredients:

1 onion (yellow or sweet), diced

1 green bell pepper, diced

2 cloves garlic

2 tbsp olive oil (this is to cook in, i usually just eyeball it)

1 tsp black pepper (or to taste)

1 tsp goya adobo seasoning (i usually use the type with pepper-- if you don't own this, its basically a mix of garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, and some salt and pepper. idk the exact proportions off the top of my head atm but you can find some recipes online) (this is the secret ingredient though, you cannot leave this out)

1 to 1.5 ib lean ground beef (or your red meat of choice, i've made this with stuff like lamb or venison before)

1/2 cup green olives (i usually get the manzanilla kind in a jar), chopped (in halves or fourths)

1/2 cup raisins

2 tbsp capers

2 cans stewed italian-style tomatoes

white rice (probably 1/2 to 1 cup to make 3-4 servings)

instructions:

In a large skillet or sauce pan, sauté the onion, green pepper, garlic in olive oil with the adobo and black pepper over medium heat until onions are clear, stirring occasionally.

When onions are cooked, add the ground beef, olives, raisins, and capers, stirring occasionally until beef is browned.

Add canned tomatoes and let the whole thing simmer for at least 30 minutes. It's the type of dish that often tastes better the longer you let everything sit together (so it's often even more delicious as leftovers!). Season to taste.

Serve over rice and enjoy!

You can adjust the amounts of most things here to taste. If you do change stuff up though, I recommend using more or less equal amounts of raisins and olives, the salt and sweet elements should balance each other out here!

anyway, enjoy!! this is my favorite food & my big comfort food, so i'd recommend it to anyone even if the ingredients might seem like a strange combo at first!

[sug01s3al]

I'm curious, you did say that you created puppet designs for the rest of the Spiritfarer cast correct? If so, 1) can we see them, and 2) will you ever revisit those designs one day to make them reality? Love the Gwen puppet by the way.

My sketchbook ended up being a total of 195 pages so I think I would explode my tumblr if I uploaded everything for every character plus the npc's 😅 But I can share a few of my favourites- granted the art is a year old at this point so don't judge too harshly I promise I can draw much better now ^u^

My design process basically went: pick a character -> make a moodboard -> sketch ideas & explanation -> puppet and puppeteer designs -> puppet schematics (this was only for a few of them that I had time to get to, I did get told off by my tutors for doing to much planning because I couldn't settle on who I wanted to actually build). Given the time and resources I'd love to revisit building one of them using what I learned but at the moment I am seeking theatre jobs (not too fabulous in my area sadly) so I only have my spare materials to work with at the moment and many sets of dice to make :'''). I still don't really know who I'd want to make though, even now they all seem so fun to make because not all of the puppets were in the style of Gwen's so each one poses a different challenge to tackle.

It goes without saying but spoilers for Spirit Farer below, ye have been warned~

I should also mention that with curriculum stuff I wasn't allowed to simply replicate the designs so you'll see quite a bit where I talk about changing and adapting the design for stage so if you wonder why its changed thats why :') (I'm aware Gwen doesn't really deviate much from her design but she was supposed to come with a fully sewn costume too which I sadly didn't have the time to make)

I was quite a big fan of the npc designs

Our boy Alex as imagined as a segmented puppet in the style of those wooden hand crank puppets. I think he'd be really easy to make in EVA I want to see if I can replicate the mechanism.

Hades was a particularly fun design to do too

I 100% am gonna reuse my design for Hades for an oc later down the line, that being said they already look a bit like a love child between my oc's Lazarus and Aster :''). I designed Hades to be a giant team puppet with the main actor (above design) pupeteering the head and voicing the character whilst the rest of the body was made up of actors who blended into the puppet whilst still having their own unique costumes. Hades is by far my biggest design, in scale and also with the amount of actors playing him because I really wanted to get that omnipotent, ethereal, imposing vibe down.

As for individual puppeteer designs :3 ->

I won't bore you with the character analysis pages for Jackie but he had a similar puppet design to Gwen.

(That is gold ink on the final page I promise you 😅)

Controversial opinion but I actually love Bruce and Mickey, I know they're the heels (well Bruce at least) but they're such a brilliantly layered character which is probably why his design got a lot more analysis then some. My thoughts are mostly there on my notes but I'll write it out so you don't have to squint at my awful handwriting. Bruce and Mickey are another really interesting character in that Mickey isn't really there at all (spoilers) as Mickey passed away in an accident before Bruce did so as Bruce takes focus in the game (speaking for both and doing the character interactions) I wanted him to be centre stage as the only puppeteer. Mickey's death was in a car accident that left him in a coma, if i remember correctly, Bruce blames himself for so I had this idea for the puppeteer (just like Bruce in game) to literally carry the Mickey puppet around the stage like a physical burden, a physical manifestation that the pain of carrying his brother's death weighs on him. And this idea of a struggle of grief, paired with Mickey being represented by a bull gave way to the idea for their puppeteers costume design being inspired by a bull fighter, a hybrid behind this teddy-boy greaser and bull fighter - of course the colours being big and bright and bold as their personalities.

Cw: Cancer. For Summer I wanted to use a lot of organic colours, shapes and textures within the puppet and costume design because of her love of nature and gardening (I still tear up everytime I play for my crops and she isn't there playing along). Summer, as mentioned in the game, was the girlfriend of Stella's Aunt Rose and inspired Stella's nursing career after witnessing her battle with cancer; in her minigame event you face off against a giant serpent that is 'infected' in a way, it has veins of ores running through it symbolic of the cancer running through her body. Which is why for her puppet design (a long with being able to conveniently hide how she moves) I wanted her puppet to be literally intertwined with her costume. The Klimpt inspiration for her scales I can't really tell you why I picked that other than Klimpt is one of my favourite artists and I thought the organic shapes and motifs in his work would suit her :').

Plans for Buck, my best friend.

Stanley I would say was the closest competition to Gwen and probably the one I would want to make the most if I was able to pick this back up. He was designed to be a smaller marionette style puppet so you could get those large, exaggerated, energetic movements from him that you do in game (for reference he does a lot of bouncing and jumping along with launching himself at Stella when he hugs her which is absolutely adorable). Like Buck, Stanley was planned to be a mixed material puppet, mostly cuddle fleece for body with different textures for the embellishments, like mushroom gills and his spot patterns. It was important to me to try and have an element of sympathetic movement in each design so the puppet was constantly moving in someway. Bonus picture of the costume design ideas for his puppeteer- if it wasn't feasible to have him as a separate puppet I liked the idea of Jacob (his pet beetle) being included in the design somehow which ended up being either as a hair pin or brooch :3.

I'll finish off with Stanley, I have designs for Daria, Astrid, Giovani, Alice and Atul but I'm not as happy with the old art so I'm not going to post it. The Beverly update hadn't been released at the time of this project so she never got a design :')

As for who I wouldn't make it would have to be Atul- for as much as I adore his character and love the design I drew for him having to have a giant Atul hanging around my house would make me sad, he makes me feel like this

That being said I do have the plush of him sat on my bed rn :')

I could keep yapping but this post is long enough lol

Also merry christmas everyone!!