#like dayplanners

[heqrts4chuuya]

Hypothetically if I were to start making comics of my bsdxmha au which involve skk leaving the Port Mafia together would anyone read them?

Like I'll be honest, updates would probs be inconsistent since I'm a high schooler with little to no motivation who can't function without having my entire day planned out step by step but I do wanna try.

I might give it a shot...

[six-of-ravens]

think I'm going to schedule a Big Cleaning Day as well as an Errand Day once a month. maybe Cleaning Day will be the first weekend of the month and Errand Day will be the last?

Big Cleaning Day will be for things that don't need to be done very often like mopping, dusting, washing the bedding, cleaning the whole bathroom etc, plus seasonal things like cleaning the windows. AKA the stuff I either forget for too long or do way too often bc I can't remember when I did it last.

[paulmescalsnose]

[mitskicain]

navi | m.list

. ⁺ . ✦ the doghouse — ken sato x reader

© mitskicain all rights reserved. the modification, translation, and plagiarism of my work is strictly prohibited.

synopsis: date night; you talk about dealbreakers and what you want out of life, and each other.

content warning: cursing and profanity, suggestive, innuendos

word count: 1.4K

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003: play date

He arrives fifteen minutes early, with Indian, Chinese, Italian and Japanese takeout.

“I didn’t know what you liked,” he says, letting himself in and kicking his shoes off by the door, setting the bags on the counter. “So I got a little bit of everything.”

You stare at the food with a bewildered look in your eyes. This would last you the whole week. What the hell is this guy—made of money? Well, okay, granted his apartment and how he didn’t even ask you for the 400 bucks back suggests maybe, but christ, doesn’t he have other things he should be spending this on, like supercars or thousand dollar clothing?

Your train of thought is interrupted by him shoving you a greasy tub of butter chicken, alongside some garlic naan with a side of udon noodles. Interesting combo. You take your seat on the floor, setting the food on the shallow coffee table that’s littered with unopened mail and receipts.

“Do a lot of shopping?” He asks, mouth full of lasagna—he’s already chowing down on the food without as much as waiting for you to have taken your first bite. What a gentleman.

“No, well, not for me,” you reply, pushing around the food on your plate, “it’s for them.” You point towards your two dogs that are eyeing him keenly from behind the screen door, their eyes a flash of light in the dark. From a stranger's perspective, they must look absolutely vicious, but to you they were just Lassie and Strauber—from childhood, from the old days.

“Mm,” he hums, taking a sip of his Diet Coke. “Not much of a dog person, I’m afraid.”

You make a face.

“Date’s over, eugh,” you say, “dealbreaker.”

The both of you laugh, faces cracking up and all teeth—a flash of canines, again—something in your stomach churns.

“Seriously?” You ask, looking over at Ken who’s still hunched over, trying to stifle his laugh. “How could you say no to dogs?”

“I got chased by one as a kid, I guess it stuck.” he says, scooping up another mouthful of lasagna. He motions over to the two, “they bite?”

“Hard,” you grin, reminded of the time you asked him the same question. “When they bite, they don’t let go.”

He grimaces a bit, imagining the bloody, messy scene. You dip the naan in the curry, mopping up all its goodness. Ken devours his plate, and reaches for more—it’s a disgusting sight, like he’s been starved for days—but there’s something fulfilling about it too, like watching Strauber absolutely demolish a serving after you run an extra mile with her.

“You’re a mess,” you say, leaning forward and wiping a sauce streak away from the edge of his lip. You see the surprise on his face when your finger meets his skin, like he doesn’t expect it—didn’t know you were capable of being tender. Part of you didn’t expect it either.

Silence for a moment; the atmosphere still. The two of you realize you barely know anything about the other. You were just two strangers sharing a meal in your apartment.

“I read some of your stuff from the dayplanner,” he says, clearing his throat, hand on the back of his head. “It’s really good, I mean—you’re a writer?”

You give him an incredulous look, and laugh, shaking your head.

“No, not me, well—” you set the plate on the table and reach for your drink, some Indian rose milk he picked up that actually tasted really good, “not yet, at least. I’m hoping to make my big break soon.”

Silence, again—just for a second.

“You’ll make it,” he says, voice soft, looking over at him. His head is resting on the cushion of the couch, hair messy and cheeks slightly warm. Did he run on the way here? From restaurant to restaurant, trying to figure out what you would like before deciding: fuck it, and getting everything? You feel his fingers twitch slightly, inching towards yours. You turn away and wrap your arms around yourself.

“Don’t do that,” you struggled to pinpoint the feeling—the twisting, the churning—it made you feel sick, like you wanted to puke. The world seemed to spin. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you believe in me,” your voice falters. “It’s cruel, you know—giving false hope.”

He presses his lips into a thin line. He reaches for your hand again, this time you turn to look at him.

“I do mean it.” He says.

God.

You tear your gaze away from him—it’s too much, all of this. You can’t possibly comprehend it. His fingers tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. You reach for his hand and look up at him—his eyebrows furrowed, gray irises shimmering in the low light, mouth slightly open.

“Hey,” he breathes, voice just barely above a whisper.

“Hey,” you reply.

“Am I still just a one night stand?” He asks, and your stomach sinks. You frown a little.

“What does it matter?” You ask.

“Because I want to be more than just that,” he says, quick and easy. He sucks in a breath, as if preparing himself. “I want you.”

Your shoulders fall, and you lean forward into him, his lips finding the sensitive skin on your neck; nibbling and sucking. You squirm underneath his touch.

“Please,” he sighs in between kisses, his breath hot against your ear. “Please.”

His teeth sink into your flesh, followed quickly by his tongue rubbing soothing circles, then a kiss—like apologizing. He does this throughout the entirety of your neck, from underneath your jaw all the way along your collarbone. Your skin is slick with saliva and sweat, face red from the heat. Your hands find their way up his neck, when they grab a handful of his hair—you hear him moan.

God, the way he sounded.

“Please,” he says again, begging. Breathlessly. Desperately. “Please, I’ll be good.”

You whine, and push him away, trying to catch your breath. He falls back but catches himself by his arms, biceps flexed and straining underneath the black shirt he wore. It’s tight enough that you can make out the rouse of muscles underneath. His face is flushed, eyes half lidded, mouth open—breathing shallow. What a sight.

God.

He’s about to lean forward to reach for you again when he knocks over the half full cup of rose milk all over you, splattering all across your legs and the floor. His face twists into a look of panic, and he frantically grabs a fistful of tissues, trying to dab away at the mess before you change your mind or yell at him.

“Stop,” you say, and he freezes in his tracks, looking up at you. You tilt your head, gauging his reaction—the way he looks up at you with wide curious eyes, arms still frozen in position, so eager to please—like a dog.

“You said you’d be good, right?” You murmur, leaning back, “then clean this up.”

He tries to wipe at the mess but you stop him again, making a sharp ‘tsk’ sound with your tongue. He stops, perplexed gaze fixed on you, trying to figure out what you mean. You smile at the sight and raise a pointed foot, his hands instinctively reaching for the flesh of your calves.

“Lick,” you command, a glint in your eye. He stays still for a moment—breath hitched in his throat—before leaning down, eyes still fixed on you, and kisses the skin of your legs. His tongue is warm, gliding over you in slow strokes, sending shivers up and down your spine. You can feel the soft, velvety texture of him as he moves upwards, savoring every inch of you. The sensation is both soothing and electrifying. A mix of gentle pressure and lingering heat.

You lean forward, and push him back again, his back against the couch. He’s surprisingly lenient, not struggling when you climb onto his lap and straddle his hips. You trail your hands on his chest and you feel his heart, thundering against his ribcage. His hands feel up the milky skin of your thighs, resting on your waist.

“Please,” he says again, so close you can feel his breath on your lips. “Please, I want you.”

You grab his hands off your thigh and pin them by his side, a gasp escaping his lips. Your other hand grabs his face roughly, forcing him to look at you before you turn his head to press a wet trail of kisses up his jaw. He shivers and moans underneath your grasp.

“Mmm,” you hum into his skin, pulling away to whisper in his ear. “I love it when good boys beg.”

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author’s note: Lassie and Strauber watching you make out with him from out the backyard be like 👁️👄👁️ HAHAHAHAH i love men when they beg and yearn like 💥💥 need him crawling, sobbing on his knees 🫡🫡‼️‼️‼️ my favorite genre of men is when they’re a little bit pathetic HEHEHEH����🤭🤭🤭 BUT ALSO‼️‼️ I wanted to ask: do you guys have any specific dealbreakers when it comes to dating? Like for me I absolutely can’t stand when they’re rude to staff like waiters or salespeople 😭😭🙏 or when they’re messy eaters—what about you guys?? feel free to share them in the comments, and as always, thank you for supporting my work ‼️‼️‼️‼️ MUAH MAUHHH👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

taglist: @luneariaa @moonjellyfishie @sweetcheeksbby-deactivated20240 @shittingonyourgrave @shauu @witcwitchy @fcklxnaa @despacito-uwu16 @mqshido @miffysoo @ybbayk @hore4ken @mochminnie @femmefqtqle @miratastic @lovingyeet @mythicalmo @yourfellowmarzipan @softdumplingposts @shinebright2000

[notchainedtotrauma]

matted hair my grandmothers pulled out in their sleep trees that held their backs well mixed watercolor tea and whale intestine * white paper i waxed and blackened with every crayon in the box popsicle sticks i collected the slow way the blue of candied teeth and fraying frizzy yarn * flannel clarinet reed hypercolor spiral plugged-in phone * dayplanner covers stacked soles of platform shoes newspaper ink flatiron cord * the jeans i wore until they fell apart the floors of dorm room nights the printer acrylic of t-shirt transfers the ropes that lift the windows * glued spines of books reclaimed church fan handles blood cheese * photocopied poems cheryll’s picture frame markers staining fingers yard grass * letters of invitation well-maintained forest trails likes luggage tags * boarding passes tea stirrers honey the word yes * blanket sweatpants houseplant stems spice mix mask loops * most of the fabric is paper most of the wood is actually wood most of the paint is edible most of the string is still here

material elements of some years of the artist’s life or fabric, wood, paint, and strings (reprise) by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

[holiday2008]

Like ok fine I’ll keep my suspect list in my dayplanner now I’ve tabbed my logs in the book removing my list from my lab won’t make me forget

[byakuyasdarling]

I like to think that S/I occasionally gives Byakuya little origami crafts amongst other things, like paintings she makes for him. Obviously, he can buy pretty much anything he wants, so she makes his gifts instead; after all, that makes them one of a kind. 

[swashbucklery]

Happy June you will all be shocked to hear that I’m a big lesbian

[six-of-ravens]

im procrastinating dishes so time to make a cheeseballs self improvement post:

in September I made progress on unfucking my sleeping schedule, started doing hobbies more regularly including writing, and developed a basic skincare routine that's actually working. excellent progress!

goals for October/the rest of winter are to continue with those and also add some new things (not sure if I'll stick with all of them, but I want to see how much I can do and some of them are as simple as "don't buy that thing" so):

start waking up at 7:15 instead of 7:30 on office days (goal is eventually to wake up at 7, which will give me plenty of extra time during the winter when traffic is shitty) and 8 instead of as close to 9 as I can get on WFH days. don't need to get out of bed at 8, just be awake, bc stumbling to the computer bleary-eyed is a horrible way to start the day, shockingly. also start going to bed by 12 on WFH/weekend nights.

go on an Unnecessary/Impulse Spending Ban, with a few caveats: i can spend money on ✨ experiences✨ like tickets to a show or park or whatever, i can buy ✨fancy✨ food from the farmers market or cocktail supplies as long as I have a recipe planned for it, I can treat myself to lunch/coffee on Fridays (that's my motivation to go for a walk lol) and my Thursday Final Office Day PSL Treat, I can buy gifts/make donations, annnnd I can buy up to 3 "hobby items" per month, ie. a book, DVD, puzzle/miniature kit, wool, etc. but ONLY 3 items, not 3 trips to the store *glares at my inner child*. If I REALLY REALLY want an Unnecessary Item I need to come up with a good, real reason why I need it, and none of them can be "because I want it" or "I'm sad and need a pick-me-up." or "I need to kill time so I'll go into the bookstore whoops now I have an armful of new releases!"

start meal planning for once in my life. I've never really done it, aside from that time a couple years ago when I was making 1 recipe a week to replace my takeout habit lol. I need to reduce my grocery bill and food waste though so if I have a list of staples I always keep in stock and then plan what recipes I want to make on what days it'll be easier to only buy what I need. currently I just like, write "veg x3" on my grocery list and then buy 5 random vegetables bc I have no plan and think I need more, and eat maybe half of them.....

in addition to that: make a list of recipes I want to make this fall/winter (both old favourites and new ones) and plan to make one special cooking and one baking thing per week, in addition to a simpler recipe Tuesday night so I can eat leftovers Weds/Thurs and something I can freeze for lunches. currently trying to map out a schedule for this since sadly I think I am a Schedule Girlie and if I don't have one I simply Won't do the thing. Also while my freezer is not very big, I think I can make/freeze 2-3 weeks of lunches (about 9 tupperwares) so I might start doing what my aunt does and batch-cooking those instead of scrambling to make lunch every week

annnnd also to reduce my grocery bill, stop buying random vitamin water/iced tea/sparkling water/whatever. the silly little drink culture in this household is getting out of control and the cost is adding up even if I do buy sale stuff. Instead I'm gonna try and make more coffee/hot chocolate/tea....and drink more water. I am badly dehydrated. The one caveat is alcohol, since I don't buy a whole lot of it and it's a weekend treat rather than a daily indulgence. Also my Princess Bride cookbook has a bunch of cocktail recipes I want to try so I'm going to make some of those for fun.

another food based one, but I want to also stop buying so much junk food, particularly chips, and try making my own snacks/desserts more often. Basically my Silly Little Treats recently have been junk food-based and it's starting to just become a habit and not a treat I'm actually excited about, so it's time to try something new (and healthier bc hooo boy between the all the butter pasta, sweet drinks, and chips, I'm going to die of heart disease at 35)

on that note: try and develop an exercise habit. much like my writing one, my goal is 5 days a week, and I can take up to 2 days off but not in a row. any exercise is good (walk, exercise bike, yoga, whatever) right now, but I'm hoping to refine my goals in the future when I find what makes me feel the best. I would like to start forcing myself to go for a walk on at least one office day as long as the weather is good. maybe I'll do that Thursday at lunch and then I can buy my Reward PSL.....

actually *finish* a craft before starting a new one, especially when it comes to knitting. visiting my grandma reminded me that knitting and crochet can be super basic and still rewarding! she's knitted a whole garbage bag of baby hats/blankets/swaddlers, toques, and scarves to donate to charity (baby stuff to the hospital and the rest to a shelter) and like. yeah it's all basic with no fancy patterns or colorwork or whatever but it's *done*. i need to step back with that hobby and just focus on finishing things while learning the basics instead of lusting after everyone's gorgeous sweaters lol.

not really a goal but a change: going to try alternating 1 new book/series with 1 reread going forward, so I stop feeling FOMO for whatever I'm not reading at the moment lol

Lock the amount of time I'm allowed to use my social apps/news app at 3 hours (which I think I can do with the StayFree app). that should be plenty of time to keep up with things and prevent me from doing what I'm doing now which is spending almost a full hour blathering.

Anyway, yeah. Trying to use the delicious fall season as a springboard into better eating habits, spend less specifically on impulse buys I'm making bc I'm bored/depressed/anxious, and continue to do more hobbies and Self Care better.

[inonesingleline]

other very serious questions include: how do ghosts work in the grace and frankie universe?

[sheepfulsheepyardinspace]

palpatine: [checking off evil to-dos in his evil dayplanner] ah, tyrannus, my dearest and definitely most favoritest sith apprentice who will not be replaced anytime soon. im happy to say that i’ve masterfully engineered the complete and total collapse of the galactic republic & the jedi order. ten years ago i stealthfully manipulated a jedi master into ordering a clone army while at the same time building factories of droid armies. i secretly had the clones engineered with special chips so they can turn on the jedi at a single command. since then i’ve manufactured my rise to the highest office of the republic all the while strategically killing off colleagues and gradually replacing senators with toadies and reorganizing the senatorial procedures & republican structure with the beginnings of a military dictatorship; laid the groundwork for coups on multiple planets; secretly started building not one but two planet-killing death machines! and since then i’ve spent a decade carefully grooming a young man’s psyche into a nuclear bomb utterly loyal to me and sanity ripe to be squashed like a grape. the pressures of war will collapse the republic in on itself and the jedi will be engulfed in the chaos while i rise on the broken backs of both separatists and republicans. tell me, darth tyrannus, what—what is it

dooku:

dooku: ok so just on the separatist thing…u know the side of the war im supposed to be running. i know we’re doing it for the sithly values of death, chaos, and dictatorship but like…why are the separatists trying to secede from the republic. like. what will we tell people? what r our problems with the republic? why are we seceding? what are the grievances we’re outlining with the republican system of governance?

palpatine:

palpatine: uh. er…taxes? big fun cool vibes?

dooku:

palpatine: [throwing his hands up] i mean—just come up with something. jesus christ dooku contribute something for once

[meduseld]

Anyway my new headcanon is that Nurse Mary Lane took the book at the end of Fear Street, for non-nefarious purposes. 

Not only is it a nice parallel to the book being in “the Widow’s” possession but you know that when Ziggy brought her notebook, she realized no one got The Devil’s Dayplanner and the cops can’t be trusted even if Goode is gone and the lady knew her tunnels. 

Plus we don’t know if the book can be destroyed and no one had reason to suspect her anyway so it’s hidden away in her house under a mound of sweaters like a low budget version of the Warrens’ museum/vault of evil objects.

[sacrificethemtothesquid]

Mmm, been awhile since a State of the Squid. Cut for yammering.

Big news: we have A PLUMBER and I am so excited I could SCREAM. We are getting a NEW SHOWER and we are paying SOMEONE ELSE to INSTALL IT so I DON’T HAVE TO which is DECADENT. I feel like I should be lounging on silk pillows for the occasion. 

I mean, I still need to demo and prep everything, but I don’t have to deal with the cast-iron drain and that alone is worth it. Also: it is damn near impossible to find a plumber here right now. This is the fifth guy I called and one of two that called me back, and the only one to send a written estimate. If anyone is looking for a new career, be a plumber. 

The new shower will fix the leak, so we can get OUR ELECTRICIAN in to remediate the exposed knob-and-tube that I also do not want to do, which will get power back to half the downstairs and also the garage. We have been very thankful that we’ve been able to quarantine as successfully as we have, but eighteen months with a hole in the ceiling and no power to my workspaces has been A CHALLENGE. I will be glad to get back to work. (I love having Husbandthing home, but he went to the office yesterday and I was able to run noisy power tools without worrying he was in a meeting, and it was liberating. Might have just revved things for fun.)

****

In OTHER big news: new diagnosis! During a seemingly unrelated conversation last month, my psychiatrist threw an ADHD assessment at me and...well, it was embarrassing how completely I scored. She recommended I try a stimulant to see if it helps with focus, so now I’m testing an almost-homeopathic dose of ritalin. It’s not sky-opens-up-angels-start-singing clarity, but fuck me if it doesn’t clear away some of the blur I didn’t know was there. 

I’m mad about it. I’m not entirely sure where this sudden emotional baggage is coming from, but I’m weirdly, viscerally furious this is a thing. I’m grateful for the assessment, grateful that my mood is stable enough for her to have picked up that something else is going on, grateful for her for not pulling punches and being so willing to work with me, and grateful I have access to insurance for both doctors and meds at all, but yikes. ADHD was mentioned as a possible component to my flailing when I was in high school, but there was no follow-through and I haven’t been a) seen a particular psychiatrist more than a few times and b) ever been as stable mood-wise as I am now. I’m doing All The Reading and All The Research and ugh, it all feels so accurate and I am Mad. 

Maybe the hardest part is the sudden realization that I was never going to be good enough. If this is how I’m wired, no amount of dayplanners or drawer organizers was ever going to control the chaos the way I thought it would. My therapist is being amazing, and I’m slowly realizing how much effort I put into compensation. These are symptoms, not personality flaws. This isn’t just carelessness, and there’s relief in that, but also so much anger, maybe because if it’s how I’m wired, that means so amount of willpower alone will fix it. It isn’t something to be fixed. The only solution is radical acceptance and boy howdy, I am Not Good at that.

So for the moment, I’m focusing (ha!) on taking my meds and being mindful of how I’m feeling. Any stimulant runs the risk of kicking me into hypomania or god forbid actual mania, so I really need to watch myself. The intro dose of the ritalin went so well I tested the next level and my god my brain exploded. Once I came back down, I spent two days after just abjectly depressed as things healed up. We will be staying at the toddler dose for now. 

****

Finally, it is ZUCCHINI SEASON and I am DELIRIOUSLY HAPPY ABOUT IT. I made a zucchini sausage pie last night that was ugly as all hell but delicious, and today I will be outside praising my plants for their sumptuous bounty. 

The heat dome was not kind to my tomatoes - they’re alive, but I don’t think it’s going to be a good year - but my god the PUMPKINS. I had grand visions of trellising them along the fence but quickly gave up when they went full feral. Now, the entire side yard is a pumpkin jungle, and when I ventured in yesterday, I found THREE of the white pumpkins already the size of my head. Halloween is going to be awesome. 

[star-anise]

I absolutely hate my Member of Parliament and don’t believe he’ll ever do a single goddamn thing for me, but every so often I’ll write him a letter demanding to know what he’s doing about a certain issue just to make him spend the time writing back to me, at length, to try to persuade me that doing sweet fuck-all is the best course of action.

Normally politicians are way more centrist and wishy-washy than you’d expect them to be but federal Alberta Conservatives are wildly worse than you’d ever dream. Like if you sit them down for five minutes together they start talking about how the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was the worst travesty ever perpetrated on the Canadian people. It’s so wild.

And then this asshole sends me fucking Christmas cards? Thinks I want a fake leather dayplanner with his name stamped on the front? Dude, go away. I don’t understand you. If I can’t duel you with swords until one of us is dead, leave me alone.

[bomberqueen17]

geralt says fuck cops

so we resume our tale on the streets of Novigrad, with Aiden’s murderers punished and Lambert off to parts unknown. (The post title begs the question: are the witch hunters really cops? I say so and I say fuck ‘em.)

We went to the Rosemary and Thyme, which is a brothel that Dandelion recently inherited. Once there, we immediately were confronted with a dwarf named Zoltan flinging some ne’er-do-wells out a door. Apparently Geralt knows Zoltan, as he seemed delighted to see him. Zoltan was in return delighted to see Geralt, because he had time to utter a happy greeting and cordially invite Geralt to help him in a fistfight. A mob came through the door, and we immediately had to leap into the fray.

We died, of course, because that’s a thing that happens to Geralt distressingly often in Death March mode: he gets literally killed in fistfights. Argh. 

So, behind the cut is more about this sort of gross quest which treads that fine line that Witcher 3 is so good at-- This Is A Little Bit Gross And Has A Slightly Misogynist Premise, But Geralt Himself Is Largely Not Gross And Mostly Manages To Be Respectful About It (mostly?), So Enjoy That Entirely Unnecessary Mindfuck. 

“Wait,” I said, “can you use a blackjack in a fistfight???” “Maybe we shouldn’t have been declining to loot those all along,” DF said. 

So we reloaded, and this time survived, largely because Zoltan did most of the fighting. 

(As an aside, apparently Zoltan bears a truly uncanny resemblance to a coworker of DF’s, who is a very short, stocky, gay biker with a mohawk. So every goddamn scene he’d be like “Jack, it’s super weird to see you here.”)

To regen health, you consume food. Various loot lately has been booze so DF figured why the fuck not and downed a bottle of wine. So we had to search the Rosemary and Thyme while drunk, which in Geralt’s case means sort of tunnel-visioned and unsteady. Kind of hilarious, no other consequences, the effects lasted a couple of minutes and the health regen actually worked, so whatever. 

So it’s Dandelion’s brothel, but he’s gone missing. To find him, Zoltan and Geralt find his dayplanner and find his list of recent meetings, every one of which is a woman (with one semi-exception, tw for weird treatment of a gender-non-conforming person-- I say weird because it’s... just sort of weird and clumsy and you don’t have any really respectful dialogue options but it’s not like, actively... mean? I don’t know, brace yourselves my friends; also brace yourselves because the entire quest is that Dandelion Lies To His Trollops, And That’s Kinda Funny, which is not exactly not-gross. At least Geralt is reasonably gentle about it with most of them, and is clearly disgusted by his bro’s behavior, not that he’s not enabling him...). So Zoltan tears the page in half and says “Geralt you take this half, I’ll take that.” And off we went.

(Well, we searched the place first, and found nothing interesting, so whatever.)

Apparently there’s only one woman who isn’t a dead end, and I was spoilered for which one, and offered the spoiler to DF, but he declined-- the first one was like, right there, so why not, let’s go. Annnnnd it turns out you get MASSIVE XP just for talking to each woman, so that’s worth doing. 

The first one was a laundress, and Geralt saves her nobly from Whoreson Jr’s men shaking her down for protection money-- by dismembering them into bloody bits all over her washing. She’s not that excited about this, and Geralt is sarcastic; he seems to have no appreciation for the finer points of laundry.

The next one is... oh. The weird one. It’s a man, or well a male elf, who runs a tailor’s shop, and when Geralt is confused because he expected a woman, the man leaves the room and comes back dressed as a woman (like, dress, makeup, but still the same hair), and Geralt is visibly discomfited and most of the dialogue options seem to be him being like “ew weird”, but DF, to his credit, was like, “I’m not fucking asking him why he’s fucking dressed like that, that’s a gross way of phrasing it, no thank you” so we muddled through as best we could with the other bits of the dialogue tree. The man (I think it’s meant to be clear that he still uses male pronouns?) makes it clear that he and Dandelion never had a sexual relationship and in fact he is completely and explicitly disinterested in pursuing men, and that’s fine, and DF was like ugh why did they have to make this weird. Like... I could see that maybe they assume their target audience would be weirded out but like, it wouldn’t have taken much to make it not weird, it doesn’t have to be like, perfect-- just, like, it doesn’t work as a joke (was it supposed to be funny??) and it doesn’t work seriously so what is it doing here; it would have been enormously improved by like, the tiniest bit of uhhh maybe a sensitivity reader or something. I don’t know what they were going for. Anyway...  We got the info we were supposed to get, got the XP, and bought some stuff from the tailor shop that had some yellow exclamation points next to it. (Masquerade masks. why not.)

This boosted us to level 14 and DF realized he had, like, a pile of Experience Points to distribute. (There’s a mechanism in the game where you get, like, a point per level plus a point every so often from something else, and you can take those points and distribute them into a Skill Tree thing that makes you better at fighting, Signs, recovery, things like that. So your Signs can individually get more powerful as you gain points. You need to level up Axii in order to access certain dialogue tree options, for example (only in a few quests but still, they exist); you can also put points into your strong attacks to make them stronger. Things like that.) “Level up Quen so it’s worth using,” I said. “What’s with you and Quen?!” DF said. “I don’t like it when Geralt gets hit,” I confessed. He laughed, and gave Geralt the ability to regenerate health off of adrenaline points instead, so (hopefully) he’s much more difficult to kill. We’ll see which of us was right, soon enough, most likely.

We were beset by witch hunters at this point. Not because Geralt has been killing cops and murdering his way through the city-- no, but because on our first day in Novigrod which in game-time is like a month ago now, we got harangued by a priest of the Eternal Fire and verbally humiliated him in front of a crowd of people. The witch hunters tell Geralt he’s under arrest and he should hand over his swords. Geralt’s dialogue options are “give me a receipt for them” or “over my dead body” and we dithered for a moment, but I was like “we’ve killed so many cops, what’s two more?” and DF was like “Fair” so we opted to fight. 

Turns out we slaughtered them, consequence-free, and went off into the night two chicken sandwiches richer for the experience. (Why does every single thug have a lunch entree. It’s so odd.) In the midst of the fight an unrelated NPC glitched straight through the combat and unconcernedly kept walking, as Geralt rained down a hail of sword blows directly through his body onto one of the witch hunters. It was... interesting. 

It just sort of makes me remember... I think circa 1998... I had mono and was in Norway over Christmas break and my cousin would play Grand Theft Auto on the computer and I did not have the energy do to anything but sit there and watch him and part of the game mechanism was that as you committed crimes you’d get more and more cops following you around with sirens on and you’d eventually have to do something to clear them off your trail but if you didn’t you could wind up leading this like, high-speed parade of you plus a hundred cop cars around the city. I’m just envisioning that happening in Novigrod with Geralt, where he’s just wandering around and there’s like, a hundred guards after him, and he’s just going about his business and trying to stay ahead of them like a demented game of Snake.

Anyway, that doesn’t happen in Witcher 3, as far as I can tell, but the mental image is amusing. 

Immediately after the encounter with the witch hunters, we walked down an alley and Geralt automatically got into a fight to the death with some thugs who their over-the-head title text informed us were Whoreson Jr’s men. I guess we’re at war with Whoreson Jr., so that’s cool, there was basically no volition in this but I don’t imagine we’re going to wish we were friends with him instead. So Geralt hacked his way through the next pile of thugs-- like, there was no volition here, he just got within proximity of them and just-- threw hands-- we were like okay i guess this is how this works. Amusingly, every thug had a lunch entree except one, who was a man wearing only braies but his loot was a shirt. WTF. 

Anyway we show up at the next place and it’s 2 am and raining, and this noblewoman just happens to be stepping out onto her porch, dressed in the weirdest fucking dress we’ve seen so far this series-- it looks like a normal dress suspended from a bright red bra, for no reason-- but who knows. 

So the noblewoman, whose name I forget, is accompanied by Morvran Voorhis, a Nilfaardian nobleman who I know from Astolat’s fanfic. He is slightly off-putting at first but winds up to be wholesomely obsessed with horses and refreshingly straightforward about it? So we go to the races with him and wind up riding a horse in a race and-- well, DF got stuck in a fence ten feet shy of the finish line, lost, and rage-reloaded the game from the last save point because that was so annoying, but that means that I know whether geralt wins or loses the race everyone is super nice about it for once.

Anyway on the reload Geralt ran out of horse juice but still managed to win the race. After that, we got to talk to Molly, who Dandelion had clearly been stringing along. She was also none too bright, but innocently told us all about Dandelion’s sister. Geralt gamely tried to go along with Dandelion’s lies, I think partly to be a good bro but also, I felt, because it would have bee sort of cruel to disillusion the poor woman, but eventually even still he had to be like... girl he doesn’t have a sister and I need to know who that woman actually was. 

We didn’t really find out, but presumably we got all the info we needed, because the quest updated and gave us our XP. So... we made nice with Voorhis and traveled with him back to Novigrad because otherwise it was going to be rather a slog to the closest fast travel marker, and once there we decided to leave the last woman, Rose Var Attre, for the next day.

[findingmypeace]

Are you comfortable sharing what you received for your birthday?

I don’t mind. I just don’t want people to think I’m spoiled or that I don’t realize how privileged I am in the way my family has always done birthdays. I do realize that and I am extremely grateful.

The way birthday and Christmas presents work in my family (as far as what my parents buy us kids) is we each have an allotted amount of money (which to be honest I don’t even know how much that is) and my parents will buy us as many gifts as can fit within that allotted amount of money. So with that said, some of the presents I got this year are smaller which is why I got more gifts.

I got a phone case with a popsocket, a mandala coloring book, a Law of Attraction dayplanner/journal, a new pair of flats (shoes), a diamond painting, and a smallish canvas picture of daisies in jars. My Mom says I have one more gift coming but according to the tracking it’s not supposed to get here until next week. My sister also bought me something but that’s also not supposed to come until next week. So I don’t know what those things are.

Again, I realize I’m incredibly privileged to get gifts like that. I absolutely love and appreciate everything I got/am getting. As a kid presents were the most important part of my birthday but as I’ve gotten older it’s really been about spending time with my loved ones. That’s why I was really sad this year. Because my family now lives in another state. But I have to admit the presents are nice and, like I said, I really appreciate them. I’m excited to get started on the diamond painting.