nesting (xiao x reader)
1.5k. established relationship. fluff. suggestive but nothing explicit.bird xiao traits tho i didnt lean hard enough into it i dont think so mb ill try again soon.
The first time it happens there’s frost on the ground when you wake up. You have to force the window open. The frost cracks. You wince, half expecting to have broken the window.
Cold air invades the already drafty flat at the top of Wangshu Inn.
You cross your arms over your chest. The cotton robe did little to protect from the start of the winter season. Snezhnaya did have a monopoly on snow. All too soon snow would cover the Liyue landscape. There were only a handful of snow days and the sun melted most of it away by noon, but you still shivered as the sun rose.
You strike the flint, restarting the fire in the wood stove. Xiao must have put it out accidentally. It was a common occurrence with his anemo fuelled comings and goings. You didn’t want to say anything, worried your lover would take it the wrong way. This was new. He’d only just asked you to move in with him.
You rub your hands together.
No, you would simply relight the fire.
Striking the flint again, you light the incense, dispelling any lingering demonic energies. The smell of herbs and resin was familiar by now. Xiao had taught you the ritual, the ancient Liyue words to recite, to keep yourself free of his taint.
You sigh.
You can see your breath.
The ink would have to be warmed for you to work.
You pull on your warmest trousers, think about purchasing some meters of wool from the Mondstadt traders to sew a warmer set, and set out a fresh new sheet of paper. Your calligraphy was well liked in Liyue Harbor. The smooth lines were auspicious for merchants most worried after Morax’s passing.
The ink was smooth liquid once more. Lately, your head has been filled with tales of Skybracer. You flip through your books, looking for a passage that speaks to you when a gust of wind enters the room atop Wangshu Inn.
“You’re back,” you smile, knowing it was Xiao. “I didn’t even feel you come in last night.”
“I did not want to disturb you,” your lover sets a knit blanket over your shoulders, “while I have little use for rest, I would not deprive you of sleep.” Xiao carefully places a flawless chunk of mystic ore on your desk. It sparkles in the early morning sun.
“It’s pretty.” You’d never use it to enhance anything. A gift from Xiao, you’d treasure it forever.
“The shine caught my eye,” Xiao admits, ducking his head down, “was your sleep undisturbed?” He worried his nightmares would leak into your dreams.
“I still think you could’ve woken me up.” You snort when he traces the marks on your collar bones. “We mortals can take naps Adeptus Xiao,” you tease, raking your fingers through his hair. “And I never mind when it’s you.”
Xiao scowls, “who else would it be?”
You kiss his jaw, “my alarm clock.” You set your work aside, focusing the sum of your attention on your lover. “Where did you get this,” you ask, feeling the heft of the cotton used, the intricate knit. All knits were intercrate when you’d given up on knitting entirely.
“Do you like it,” he asks softly, taking your hands in his.
“Mhm.” You plant a kiss against his brow.
“The surge in demonic activity in Cuijue Slope has coincided with an increase in temple offerings,” Xiao explains. “Given the change in weather. . .” he trails off.
“Are you staying long,” you ask, wrapping your arms around his neck, intent on keeping him to yourself. You had gone far in teaching Xiao the benefits of cuddling even if he didn’t need to sleep.
“No.” Xiao’s amber eyes met yours. He wraps his arm around your waist.
“Mm,” you smile, knowing you’d won. Then you kiss him, welcoming the warmth of his lips against yours.
--
You help Verr Goldet spread salt all along the ramp up to Wangshu Inn. The bags of salt were heavy and it was hard not to feel like a freeloader when you didn’t know the specifics of Xiao’s arrangement with the Innkeeper and her husband.
“There,” Verr Goldet wipes her hands on her apron, “that should do it.”
“I’d hate to fall from this far up,” you look over the railing. The frost took longer and longer to melt with each passing day.
“It’s a good thing the Traveler took up our commissions to fix the stairs,” the woman agrees. “Smiley Yanxiao made chicken and dumpling soup if you’d like a bowl.”
“You are too kind Auntie,” you address her warmly. Everything else felt too cold, this was the best form of address for her you decide on.
“Come now, you just helped me lug salt up and down five stories. That’s at least worth soup. It’d have to pay 10,000 mora for the adventure’s guild to do it.”
“Well,” you laugh, “when you put it that way.”
You have dinner with the staff of Wangshu Inn. It’s past midnight when you finally make your way up to your home. Your home with Xiao. You have to take a deep breath when you linger on that for too long, waiting outside your door because it was true and your heart felt like it wanted to explode from happiness. Your’s and Xiao’s home.
You step inside.
It wasn’t anything special. You doubted the most pious of Liyue imagined an Adeptus to reside in a studio cluttered with jars of ink, a tiny stove, and your clothes carelessly tossed into a pile on the trunk, and yet there Xiao was, fluffing up pillows on the bed in a simple act of domesticity that had you swooning. His spear was set against the wall, Yaksha mask on his belt and he was arranging the blankets that had seemingly appeared out of thin air.
“Hey,” you set your shoes by the door, changing into your house slippers. “have you been waiting long?”
Xiao shakes his head, focused on arranging the pillows. “I do not mind. My duties are solitary in nature.”
You feed more wood into the stove. The thing was well built, filling the room despite being the size of your night stand.
“Will you join me,” Xiao sits up in bed on his knees, red dusting his cheeks. He could be so bashful for an adeptus that regularly slayed demons. You loved the fact the he flustered easily even when he’d fucked you on the grass.
“I’d love to,” you hang up your jacket, “will you stay with me?”
He doesn’t answer right away, waiting for you to crawl into bed with him.
You discard your sweater and trousers, adding more to the pile on your trunk. Laundry day was fast approaching. “Do you want me to make you anything to eat?”
Xiao shakes his head. “There’s no need.”
You slide under the covers, sighing against the plush blankets. There were furs at the foot of the bed that your toes grazed when you stretched out. The pillow covers must be silk you think, tapping Xiao’s arm, “lay down with me.”
He lays down next to you, cupping your cheek with his hand. “I am glad you are here.”
“So will you stay?” There’s so much raw love and fondness for you in Xiao’s eyes as you stroke your hands over his chest, feeling up his muscular arms. You wanted nothing more than to feel his naked body against yours. You wanted Xiao, wanted to feel him inside you.
“Mm,” Xiao tips your chin back, kissing the side of your throat. “That was my intention when I asked you to lay with me.”
Your body flushes with heat. You doubt Xiao said the innuendo intentionally, but you don't care when he nips your bottom lip with his teeth.
You’re greedy.
You kiss him back readily, pulling his body flush against yours, canting your hips, rubbing against his leg shamelessly. You kiss him, stroking his tongue with yours.
Xiao leans back, all puffed up, pleased in a way that’s new to you.
You lay your head back, catching your breath, already thinking of new ways to entice him to lay with you. To fuck you. To make love to you, whatever so long as it meant having Xiao.
“That can’t be comfortable,” you pull on his gloves, “to sleep in,” you allude to his usual warrior’s gear.
“Your intentions are transparent,” Xiao huffs, sliding his thigh between your legs and you know that he’ll spend the next few hours making love to you.
You slip your hand under his shirt, “I love you.”
“As I love you,” he whispers softly against your cheek.
--
Xiao hangs crystal cores from the ceiling.
They twinkle in the night like your own private stars.
Xiao sets chunks of Cor Lapis and Noctilucous Jade on the windowsill as if jewelers didn’t pay a small fortune for raw gemstone this pristine. There’s slices of bright blue crystal chunk on the wall next to your line paintings that alchemists would covet for their potions.
But it doesn’t click for you until you leaf through a book on Dihua Marsh, painting abstract cranes for practice on brown recycled paper. It doesn’t click for you until you read the description on the finches and their nests that you remember what type of illuminated beast Xiao is.
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honestly so happy that its easier to grind in hsr then genshin cause im actually able to properly build my characters instead of whatever mess i had in that game (i got the right artifacts but trying to get materials for anything was a bit of a pain to me)
also that the resin (i dont know what its called in this game im using genshin terms) can like. overflow into this other thing??? is. so helpful. (i stopped playing at one point so i just came back to both being full. and then when i realized what it actually did it was a godsend because it made it so much easier to fully commit to grinding. i know in genshin you can make the resin this little thing? condensed?? but thats a thing you have to do yourself i think)
all im missing is leveling up the lightcones and traces
and im only missing the traces because i already used up weekly bosses. THATS IT.
robin and ratio have the same boss material so all i have to do then is get the other resources which isnt actually that hard (ill only have an issue if i cant material synthesis or exchange or whatever since i need to do it for the robin stuff that you get from enemies that can ambush you, i dont know what you refer to them as, but cause i havent unlocked penacony yet lol)
and the only lightcones that might give me issue is because highlighted is penacony material stuff
(yes i put final victor on ratio LMFAO)
so YEAHH i feel like im doing pretty good in that department. also ive caught up to penaconys story i just havent started in-game because i wanted to see where it all leads up to and then go back to see all the foreshadowing and get a better understanding of what happened since it also confused me, so im waiting for a time i can just sit there for countless hours and focus. i even switched to eng vas so i dont end up misreading something
(anyway i only got to trying to max out my characters as much as i can until i can level them higher because before i got stuck on so many quests that required a fight 😭, yanqing, argenti, i hate battling you oh my god)
actually on that topic everyones relics arent fully maxed out.
ive only been leveling this cause 5 star dan heng is my main damage dealer
and the healer because im fucked without them (its natasha, but im open to changing it if i find a better healer or shield 🙏)
on that topic:
i returned to honkai star rail because aventurine. i focused on the story because aventurine. (got spoiled his story, realized 'what the fuck hes cool i like him' and watched someone go through the story) i came back in time for his banner but you know what? i had like zero wishing stuff because id stopped playing so i missed out unfortunately
i have friends who have aventurine as like one of the support characteres thingy tho? like the the where you can get support from other peoples characters
so thats been fun. but also auto is kind of bad with aventurine. or maybe because it thinks 'oh theres already a shield, so i wont e' which is pain. on the other hand actually playing instead of having it on auto is fun with aventurine. i like planning around it and thinking of who to have use their skills while keeping in mind when i should have him refresh his shield. i cant explain to you how it hurts seeing hp missing with a shield around it because i cant do anything about it (im the type of person who likes to keep my characters hp full ngl)
probably not the best decision to want shield over a healer but. i can make it work. maybe. i just want aventurine ok. (except for phantylia who as far as im aware is the only one who can just TAKE hp like that? without even affecting shields???)
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Well I haven't found any heads that might work to modify for Ramus yet, but going through my heads and parts gave me ideas for other creations and, well...
So far 7 different figurines contributed parts to these customs! (might end up being more by the end if I decide to modify another head instead of sculpting Laike from scratch.)
The base for both was a bootleg Death Note L nendoroid I thrifted for $2 several years ago
Ghaleon's head is a heavily modified Rock Candy Huntress
His ears came off an Equestria Girl
Bottom of his hair came from a blind box anime figurine I was never able to identify
His hands were off a Rock Candy Arwen (the rest of her went into my custom Rock Candy Midna and Zelda figurines a couple years ago)
Neck piece is a legit Nendoroid joint piece, since the knock-off joints that came with L were all broken
Laike's flower came from a resin fairy figurine I bought over almost 2 decades ago that's been slowly breaking over the years (her flowers have ended up on a number of my customs by now lol)
And the rest is a combination of kneadatite (greenstuff), Aves apoxiesculpt, Tamiya putty, acetone goop, zap-a-gap, and assorted jewelry findings.
I'm basically ready to start painting Ghaleon, though ideally I'd like to blend the various pieces of his hair better first. I've done the best I can with a few passes of Tamiya putty and sanding, but it's too tedious due to Tamiya having basically no body. Ideally I'd prefer to use liquid greenstuff, but I've been out of that for years and kinda can't afford to get more right now. (Plus I'm impatient, I dont wanna wait for stuff to ship here I just wanna paaaaaaint XD)
Might add some prison cell bars to one side of the figurine base at some point, tho I'm not positive I have any dowels of skewers the right thickness left at the moment...
Have some earlier progress photos:
The customs I make from absolute scraps and trash are the most satisfying I gotta say. :3c
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i played honkai star rail as a genshin player
highkey exceeded my expectations!!! i thought i wouldn't be toooo into it bc i like open world games but the fact that iit has some small but still explorable maps was nice.
so as a gi player some things that i thought hsr ate with:
higher trailblazer power (resin) cap
better story pacing
SOOO GENEROUS ?!??! i feel so spoiled in hsr and then when i went back to genshin i felt like i was scraping the bottom of the barrel. but at the end of the day ik hsr has more competition but genshin doesn't so everyone be serious and understand that's why there's a disrepenacy there
i like how you can talk to the characters vis messages and you can still see them out and about in the world.
REPLAYABLE EVENTS HELLO???? not having this is one of genshin's biggest flops like?
back to the quests, i like how it'll show new quest locations on the map, no matter how far you are. on genshin, it'll only show up temporarily if ur nearby
skip dialogue button LOL also can't rly apply this to genshin but i also like the fast forward combat feature
i feel like trailblazer is more viable compared to traveler
things that made me appreciate genshin:
super nitpicky but i use a dual shock controller and i find it easier to open the map on gi rather than hsr
rly could j be that im used to genshin but i feel like the genshin ui is more clear/simpler (in a good way) compared to hsr. i think hsr's is fine tho
not reliant on missions/story for content; u can literally j explore the world
going off of that genshin HAS been out longer but it j has sm more content. i get from a business standpoint there's no reason to release a game with hella content if u dont even know if it'll do well but w hsr it's just so little idk what og hsr players could even be doing rn. like nearly another whole year for one more planet ,,, bruh ? unless there's j a lot more side quests idk about
this is all i can think of rn but all in all i think i'll keep playing both. so glad i gave hsr a chance bc it was like a breath of fresh air
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So let's talk about stl files for bjds bodies. I've printed a few and wanted to share some links and info about them.
So first and foremost, let's talk free files.
Polaris
Link:
Pros: polaris is a free file that alone gives it some good points. It's also a fairly nice-looking body. I like the fact that the hands are in a fairly neutral pose.
Con: The knee joint by far is the worst part of this sculpt. If not sueded and wired, she's nearly impossible to stand. Even with it, she's fiddly
Male Ball Jointed Doll
Link:
Pros: This body poses well prints well and generally has pretty solid jointing. The details are nice and I enjoy working with him. Sitting poses are super easy to hit. Like polaris it gets points for being free.
Cons: the porportions are slightly off mainly in the shouldrr reigon. This causes the arms to stick out oddly when at rest. I'm also not a huge fan of how small the hands are and ended up replacing them...tho a second pass is needed as they are still too small.
Now onto the payed files
Skellydaddy
Link:
Pros: ridiculously poseable, amazingly sculpted, and generally a great body. I honestly love most everything about this body tbh.
Cons: He's an unusual shape and may be hard to find clothing for. Jackets and sleeved just dont fit, right so you will have to sew for him.
Mars
Link:
Pros: Just like the skellydaddy body, this one is rediculously poseable and well sculpted. Its generally a decent body for more slender male dolls.
Cons: he is very wasp waisted, which leads to him buckeling there a lot when not being actively posed. Some of the parts are much thinner than they should be, and it can lead to breaks.
Samum Creations BJD
Link:
Pros: Uses very little resin for a 1/4 bjd and poses fairly well.
Cons: She's smaller than most 1/4 still within the scale but on the short end. This is an easy fix with scaling. I also dislike the fact that she doesn't come with flat feet.
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shrinky dink earring tutorial ^_^
finally posting this as @purplequay requested, sorry this took so long lol
ok so basically shrinky dinks aka shrink art are these sheets of plastic that can be heated so that they shrink and become thicker and more durable, you can buy them at craft stores like micheals tho i believe target has them as well. no clue if they can be found outside the usa tho :/
so first youd want to take whatever design you want and draw it on paper, then trace said design onto the shrinky dink sheet. you can technically just draw directly onto the shrinky dink but i prefer to do it on paper first cus its easier to erase
the plastic shrinks to abt 1/3 of its original size so make sure ur design is larger enough for whatever u wanna do
if you have the kind that has a rough side you can use pretty much any medium on it as far as i know. but if you have the kind thats smooth on both sides id recommend using some kind of alcohol-based ink like permanent marker or dry erase marker
also if youre using yours to make earrings or jewelry id recommend leaving some space at the top to punch a hole thru
after that you can go ahead and cut that thang out w/ scissors or what-have you. id recommend getting a hole punch to cut out any holes you might need but tbh you could just use a needle or something. BUT make sure that hole is big enough cus itll shrink after you heat it
ok i dont have any pics for the next step but you can just put ur dink on a flat surface like a cookie sheet and pop that thing in the oven at 325 F for like 3-5 min depending on the size
your dink might curl but dw itll flatten out while baking. if it doesnt you can quickly flatten it w/ a spatula or smth before it cools. unless you have the off-brand kind which cant bend after baking in my experience
then BOOM. you have two little bits of plastic you can use to make jewelry or charms or whatever your heart desires. im making earrings outta these two
id also recommend adding a layer of resin or mod podge dimensional magic (cheaper but less durable than resin) to help protect the dink and make it look more glassy
the whole process is pretty easy and i believe that most packs come with instructions but lmk if u need me to clarify anything 👍
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