#and you're on the right track!

[sylvia-forest]

[CN] Shaw's 2024 Birthday Event - Prologue

⚡Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for a content which hasn’t been released in EN yet!⚡

[Released Date: 17 June 2024]

MC: The train is about to arrive. Let's meet at the exit in a bit.

Shaw's text message: 1 MC: Why did you only reply with "1"? That's way too sloppy...

I muttered a bit unhappily as I picked up my luggage.

Shaw had been visiting an old acquaintance of his master here recently, who was said to be researching ancient Chinese magic tricks. Shaw had been collecting academic materials along with him.

If it weren't for his upcoming birthday, I would have suspected he had completely forgotten about going home.

MC: But if his birthday is going to be celebrated in this town, I have to make good arrangements…

As I pondered Shaw's birthday plans, I moved slowly towards the exit along with the crowd. Soon, I noticed something conspicuous at the exit...

Two giant candied haws?!

MC: Hahahaha!!

I finally understand why Shaw could only reply "1" just now.

Shaw held up these two bunches of exaggeratedly large candied haws, and his eyes wandered among the crowd. Soon, his eyes locked on mine, and he smiled at me and raised his chin.

The joy of meeting reached its peak at this moment, I couldn't help but quicken my pace and jump to his side.

MC: Which one of the candied haws is mine?

Shaw: ...Tsk, why is that your opening line? MC: So what should I say? Shaw: Shouldn't you express your thoughts first? MC: I've already shown it through my actions~

Shaw raised an eyebrow, acknowledging my statement. He handed me one of the candied haws and took my luggage.

As the candied haw melted in my mouth, I savored the sweetness and playfully tugged at his arm.

MC: Then shouldn't you also express your thoughts?

Shaw: Isn't a candied haw enough of an expression? MC: That's not enough. On the way here, I felt that you were very happy and in a special mood these days.

I hummed thoughtfully and bit into a strawberry.

MC: Seems like you don't need me anymore. Shaw: What nonsense are you guessing now? Shaw glanced at me, then turned his head and thought for a while.

Shaw: But I'm definitely in a good mood lately. MC: Is it because your birthday is coming soon? Shaw: No.

Shaw tilted his head slightly, the silver stud on his ear reflecting the sunlight, his voice tinged with a faint smile.

Shaw: Hard to say, hard to explain. MC: What's so hard to explain about having a good reason to be in a good mood?

Shaw shrugged his shoulders and made an expression of "Who knows?”

MC: All right…

After all, it was just casual conversation as we walked along, so I didn't push for details. Instead, I started chatting with Shaw about recent events in each other's lives.

He and I turned a corner and suddenly ran into several children wearing cartoon masks.

I didn't think much of it and was about to continue saying something to Shaw when suddenly, these few kids exclaimed in surprise.

They rushed in front of us like a small whirlwind, and one of the children pointed at me.

Child: Great King, who is this enchantress! MC: ??!

•───────•°•❀•°•───────•

MC: Although it was customized hastily, the quality is still pretty good.

Although the birthday venue was temporarily moved from Loveland City to this town, I found that the effect was better than planned.

After all, this kind of dreamy setting is my specialty~

These quaint pavilions and towers, adorned with charming decorations, and then when the dry ice machine starts...

Hiss——a misty white fog billows up, instantly transforming the scene before my eyes into a fairyland from Yaochi.

MC: Humph, I don’t believe that this time, everything I did was within his expectations.

I checked the lights and gifts one last time, ticked off everything in the plan, and finally only…

MC: I hope this gift is what I guessed it to be.

Although Shaw hasn't told me, I think this should be a small dream hidden in his heart.

—

R&S

Date

[akanemnon]

Yeah, Kris is definitely NOT alright.

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[dailymanners]

If you live in a place that gets snow, always kick the snow off of your shoes or boots as best as you can before entering any homes, businesses, vehicles, or anywhere the snow could make a mess.

With entering homes and business you can just kick the toe of your shoes or boots on the ground until you get off as much snow from your shoes or boots as you possibly can.

With vehicles it can be a little more tricky because there's often snow on the ground around the vehicle, but quite a few people don't like having their car kicked. So what you can do when entering vehicles is sit first, while keeping your feet outside the vehicle, then kick your feet together until you've gotten all or most of the snow off.

When snow melts it makes an awful and miserable mess. Anyone who's worked in a store or restaurant over the winter in a snowy place will tell you how miserable it is to have to constantly mop up all the dirty slushy water all day.

And most people aren't going to want their home or car to have a dirty slushy mess all over the floor either. The snow stuck to our shoes and boots often has other debris in it, like dirt or salt.

Give people the courtesy of minimizing how much they'll have to mop up the floor over the winter by minimizing how much snow / slush / dirt / salt you're dragging into their home / workplace / vehicle.

[post-it-notes7]

Didn't Mir Falspar imply long ago that whatever news he was sharing was something dark "might've actually wanted to hear"? How all is his own job promotion meant to be exciting for dark, or am I missing something?

Mir Falspar hasn't quite told the whole story

[amebelladonna]

thinking about how these three were all connected to manuela, those are her biggest fans, your honor!

[emotsper]

brain has been beaming me with the visions of partially deaf airi. i'm deaf so i know what im doing HEAR ME OUT

[alackofghosts]

a lil yeehaw

[vaguely-concerned]

ingellvar must have so many strange off-putting little personal habits in their day to day life that they don't even realize come across as weird, especially if they haven't ever dated outside of the watchers much. in rye's specific case I think lucanis has a capacity for such immaculate 'sure my life is already so fucking weird this might as well happen' energy that I believe he'd be able to roll with the punches admirably given the time, but it really would be a situation like

(what was going on there was that rook was placing down some experimental wards, by the way, it's what he does to calm down before bed and if he wakes during the night. what with the necropolis itself being a liminal space of lf sorts on a cosmic scale, watchers take the additional liminal space between wakefulness and dreaming extremely seriously b/c they know there are things drifting through that would just love to get their foot/tentacle/conceptual spores in that particular half-ajar door that should not be allowed inside. or outside, I suppose, depending on your point of view. rook and lucanis are also experimenting with whether solid wards can help any with lucanis' weird post-spite dreams even if they can't do anything for the more mundane ptsd ones. third reason because in my worldstate they still live in the lighthouse after the game: unless gently dissuaded wisps will sometimes drift by while you're asleep and hover over your face curiously as they sense your mind doing stuff in the fade, and no one likes waking up on an eldritch sneeze with a well-meaning yet terrified wisp zooming about the room. important watcher novice 101 lessons.

blessed mental image of rye cross-legged on the floor, barefoot in his PJs with his hair down and no makeup, peaceably tracing out elaborate geometric shapes that somehow make your eyes scared when you look at them* while lucanis sits on the bed and reads out loud to both him and spite and occasionally sneaks some carnal looks at rook's fully unleashed curly hair and bare wrists & throat...... okay I think I've found the thing that will help me through the day thank you for coming on this journey with me)

*what is the paint he's using made out of and why is it such a deeply unsettling colour? don't worry about it! :) patented mostly well-meaning yet also borderline condescending mortalitasi hand wave of 'don't worry your sweet little non-nevarran head about it we both know you don't actually want to know. do not ask questions lest you learn the answers, especially if you're going to be annoying at me and freak out about it. let the things man was not meant to know stay unknown. unknown by you I mean I'm built different'

[pokimoko]

Hello!! i just discovered your blog and firstly i wanna say that your art is gorgeous! <33 and secondly, if youre still taking requests could i get a lesbian/non binary cheetah? /nf

Thank you! Cheetahs be upon ye!

[finemealprompt]

DP x DC Prompt #85

Bart was told he could run track as long as he didn’t break any records and didn’t win all the time. And he isn’t! But this is the first race where he’s running against a fellow meta! He’s just gotta not lose control in the heat of the competition. And he won’t … probably.

[menlove]

you ever go on someone's blog and go oh of course you're catholic

[bitchfitch]

Do y'all ever see a post that just like. Haunts you forever? And which consistently comes back up when you're trying to get to sleep

Anyways, if you do comms the whole "2+ characters in a single piece costs less than if they were bought as separate commissions" thing Isn't supposed to be a buy one get one x% off type situation.

Your commission prices should be accounting for the time you spend communicating with the client, the time you spend on file storage and prep, and the time it takes to properly document your communications and the transaction. Those things all take time and it Really adds up when you do enough comms. And the time they take? doesn't usually change much based on the number of characters.

That's why the second, third, etc, character can cost less. Not because you're giving a discount. Right. Right? Y'all aren't cutting yourself a bad deal, right? You're Not paying yourself less than an exploitative boss would pay you for that time and skilled labor, right?

[brainrotcharacters]

Have a romp in a Honda Odyssey now and fix your marital disagreements today!

[lucabyte]

music making followerrrrs i have a question for you about. programs and soundfonts and where to get them/utilise them

getting ahead of myself perhaps (though i likely need the extra time for. practice. given my musical ability is 'can play both hands on the piano so long as you don't scare me with anything above a child's level') but wondering what the 'reccomendation for amateurs' is wrt: making something that sounds snes-adjacent.

i have a copy of the.... well named... program Magix Music Maker from a charity bundle years ago, and some vague knowledge of famitracker. So while i'd like some software suggestions im not totally out on my ass on that one. but no idea how i use/get soundfonts/custom instruments tbh.

where i'm actually going to need to utilise this is like. a ways off so it's not urgent, i've got time to learn-- but mostly I know what I *need* is the ability to get something sounding 16-bit, and to be able to seperate out the channels, play them individually, slow them down, chop them up, etc. And my budget is Nil so I'm going to shoulder this myself where I can, since even if I could get my hands on the stems/channels of someone else's royalty-free stuff, intentionally mangling it feels a touch rude if i'm otherwise using it wholesale(?)

[batcavescolony]

Left: Jason making Bruce chose between killing him or the joker in UTRH.

Right: the trolley problem

[justinegreenpie]

does anybody else feel like a lot of sso's features aren't fully implemented lately? for example the championship season pass thing, I think that was so hidden. for no reason. i've had multiple people tell me they didn't even know it existed until somebody told them about it. and that seems like such a big flaw for a timed event and brand new feature?? i also felt very thrown into the deep end with the collections lately. both gm bee's bees and erissa's dolls didn't tell you anything about what you had to do! i loved the stars, i adored the spiders, this would be right up my alley. but all the confusion ruins it for me! why doesnt sso tell us how many things we have to collect? what's the diary even for if they don't add the new collection quests to it? i loved it as a way to keep track of your progress and get hints of the areas of the collectables you're still missing. the way it is right now it just incentivizes looking up guides instead of trying :(