#time for a murder mystery I guess

[evcryopeneye]

@hua-cheng-silver-wrath [ shudder ]  –  for the sender to shudder a little at some gentle touch from the receiver. from Hua Cheng - to the muse you pick

A hand snapped back, so fast that it almost cracked the air. It wasn’t as if she had meant to overstep a boundary, “I’m sorry.” The apology is soft, quiet, but heartfelt. It had never been Jinmi’s intention to cause discomfort. Though…that left her with so many more questions than she could process. “It was not you who summoned me.” A statement, not a question. It felt pretty given, he didn’t seem like the summoning type already. 

With practiced silence, the flower goddess surveyed him, before she turned to the forest around them. It was dying. Once lush chlorophyll is now languishing. Swirled with darkness that seemed to permeate everything it touched, through the soil, stems and trunks. Silence hung heavy, animals having long fled…and Jinmi had never seen anything like it before in her so far long life. Yet, it felt different from him, the auras didn’t seem to match, while she couldn’t put her finger on who he was by feeling, she knew it wasn’t his handiwork. 

A heavy sigh left her as she shook her head, eyes catching paper stuck to one of the dead trees, familiar characters brushed upon it. She guessed whoever had written it had called her, a hand raised, energy tugged the talisman off the trunk and she caught it mid air. “Amateurish.” She crushed it in her hand before she sighed. “More importantly, are you okay? You seem…uneased.” If it was because of whatever was going on here, or something else, she didn’t know. 

“Though I think anyone would be uneased by this…”

[devilsskettle]

The X trilogy + "psycho-biddy" influences

[unproduciblesmackdown]

imagine...

...that some things have changed (including some marigold ventures?) and Atlas May is like uh oh both lackadaisy & i are doomed, but if i set up my own death maybe only i'll be doomed and lackadaisy might have to shutter but perhaps more so on involved people's terms, such as mitzi being fine financially, but also if she thinks it's her fault that'll be good for maintaining my posthumous Image to her, perhaps she did some defrauding again? and i'll have mordecai, my trusted & effective gunman, be the one to fatally shoot me, & of course he doesn't want to, but it's Mere Work Ethic time, what's he gonna do besides argue at all maybe, ultimately refuse? (no) and he may hate it but he's not going to want to fully turn on mitzi or anything after because then what would have been the point

[kazoosandfannypacks]

heartbreaking. my church is doing a performance that is both christmas and pirate themed and the role they typecasted me in only has two scenes, one of which is nonspeaking 😔

[stinkrascal]

i played this game for? so many hours. its actually embarrassing how many hours i played today. its 3am. ok. goodnight

[kingdomoftyto]

...BIG FEELS AND BIG PLOT DEVELOPMENTS AT THE END OF THAT BOOK, HUH

[atomicsheepscientist]

Some days I wish no one would miss me if I disappeared

[lannisterdaddyissues]

who's calling death the wolf toxic? is it the x reader community i bet it's the x reader community

it’s them for sure but also people in the ao3 tag are writing death/puss fics where he’s acting like a stalker or a toxic boyfriend and i’m just standing here like 🧍‍♂️

to me he is so vanilla aside from all the murders like i just know that he takes up crocheting as a hobby when he is not out reaping souls

which isn’t to say i don’t like the stalker/toxic bf dynamic bc i read them anyway and enjoy them (put the orange cat in situations, heh) i just don’t think they’re as true to his character LOL

[pochapal]

OH??????

[earl-grey-love]

Honestly to say I am a fan of the sims is understating it because I have hands down played more sims than any other game/franchise. Ever. Like I'm not just talking the mainline games, no, I have played almost any spin off/console game you can name too. Religiously. Since I was 5 years old.

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread    

The Battle Drum

sequel to The Final Strife, a queer Ghanian/Arabian high fantasy world where people are divided by blood colour

the nightly hurricanes are getting more deadly, and Sylah travels to unknown lands to discover the truth and find help

meanwhile Anoor is trying to manage her new political position while framed for a murder she didn’t commit

[unproduciblesmackdown]

woah... that's some premium human (kittycat?) heart in conflict with itself

(fr everyone in lackadaisy is kittycats to me lmao. going like, whoa, neat humansona ideas....)

and also fr like everyone get in on "mordecai killed atlas even though of course he didn't do it b/c he Wanted to: bet on it" if only for the fun drama of it all....it Is fun & funny to me that like, sure there's only so many major characters, and sure there's no incorrect one to point to like "wow what a delight" but i wasn't really That previously aware that mordecai is like a fan fave like omg the bad bitches (especial popularity) he pulled by being autistic :'] we just don't expect to see it lmao. like this theory should also be more popular then if even just by virtue of that premium kittycat heart in conflict with itself material it supplies. pointing at mordecai like haha he's sooo upset about all this and That Is Why He Quit, not to go investigate marigold which he's also just said he Wasn't doing until just now. we've seen the [oh grief? besot? interesting] bonus material....not that i don't think most people do imagine that of course mordecai has a good amount of emotional investment in things driving him here, but this does ramp it up which i think also works as an argument in its favor; like i'd be inherently more skeptical about any theory that required mordecai to actually care less about things lol than about any that gives him more personal emotional motivation

truly like "we know mordecai wouldn't want to kill atlas..." (agreed) "...so he can't have been the one to kill him" like first of all lol no way is it a Writeoff anyways, like we've got a mystery here but we Won't imagine ways in which [nobody could ever kill someone they didn't want to kill] wouldn't apply? second of all: Think Of The Drama Of Him Killing Him Even Though He Wouldn't Want To

[fionnalovesanimeboysandholo]

Me: I really would like to read the Oshi no ko manga. It looks so good 😌

Also few weeks later: *anime released*

Me:

[phosphophylight-of-my-life]

How to defeat Diona's serious challenge in Genshin TCG (I failed 10+ times before finally winning)

How Diona will obliterate you

How to defeat Diona

Suggested deck

Diona's deck

Diona's deck consists of herself (w the special card that gives her skill +1 shield), Ningguang and Benny, in that order.

Her strategy is to simply be impossible to kill. She has 3 ways to create shields (Diona, Ningguang's Jade Screen & Crystallize reactions) and 2 ways to create +2HP heals (Diona and Benny's ults).

On top of that, she can quite easily kill you with Melt reactions and Ningguang's ult.

Given how easily she procs heals AND shields, you're going to need multiple turns to kill any single character, letting her easily accumulate energy to proc her healing/offensive ults.

--

How to defeat Diona

If you give Diona time to set up, she'll continue to be a menace while off-field. Her shields makes it ridiculously difficult to kill the on-field character, while her heals does this AND enables Benny's Melt and Ningguang's crystallize.

Diona's pretty annoying to deal with, so you might be tempted to shut down her offensive power by killing Benny & Ningguang. Unfortunately, that still doesn't give you breathing space because of Diona's ability to shield AND heal. She can easily win a 1v3 when well-built. Here's a demonstration by someone who lost to a Diona this way.

She just won't die. Her shields will negate most of the dmg you do. So by the time you get her HP within killing range, she'd have accumulated enough energy to proc her ult and heal herself back to almost full health.

You just don't want to let Diona take the field at all. You need to keep her off-field and defeat her while she's off-field.

--

Suggested Deck

The best way to keep a character off-field AND damage them at the same time is through swirl reactions, specifically Sucose and Jean's skills.

The goal with this deck is to keep forcibly swapping the opponent between Ningguang and Benny.

Ningguang and Benny should have a swirlable element on them so that you can deal dmg to Diona while she's off-field. Make sure not to kill Benny and Ningguang before Diona dies, so that you won' be stuck with Diona's never-ending shields and heals.

Characters

Jean: Skill switches opponent to the character on the right. Healing ult can sometimes come in clutch.

A character of swirl-able element: I use Benny because he hits relatively hard and his ult can also heal, if game becomes a long one. Do not let this character die until Diona herself does.

Sucrose: Skill switches opponent to the character on the left. Because her normal attack is weaker than Jean's (-1 instead of -2) and because she doesn't have an ult, Sucrose is the character I suggest you sacrifice if you are forced to do so, especially after Diona dies. Her normal atk is great for swirling though; that might be a consideration.

Must-Have Action Cards

Quick Switch cards (Katheryne, Noelle, Shenhe): Helps ensure you can proc swirl reactions before the character with the element switches away. And that you can juggle between Jean and Sucrose to switch between Ningguang and Benny as desired.

NRE and healing food: Diona hits unreasonably hard for a support character. And Ningguang's ult hurts.

Jade Chamber/Favonius Library: to get your die in the right element. Pretty standard.

Good-to-have cards:

Send off: For if Diona does proc her ult. Benny's melt will hurt a lot and the healing is annoying.

Free Anemo dice: for the desperate swapping or card-playing situation

Card-spawning cards (Liyue Harbour, Kokomi): to ensure you get to play the must-have cards early in the game.

--

A very detailed gameplay example is available here, by Vystaria on youtube. They explain their considerations for each move in detail, which was how I learned this strat. I did make some changes though.

[pory-z]

american election is so dumb they had to push back the drawtectives season 3 announcement back a week

i'd rather have that

[sunvylovebug]

A bath together

↬Warnings: There are mentions of nudity but this is NOT NSFW, Y/N is a killer, mentions of murdering …⁠ᘛ⁠⁐̤⁠ᕐ⁠ᐷ

↬ Gender Neutral!Reader, they/them pronouns and third person narration (⁠*⁠˘⁠︶⁠˘⁠*⁠)⁠.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡

↬Author Note: He's such a green flag, such a sweet boy, I want to give Me. Crawling a big hug. Btw finally posting something that has warnings lmao.

↬Summary: Y/N teaching Mr. Crawling about something basic in the daily routine; a warm bath.

↬ Word Count: 1,435 Words

Masterlist

"Mr. Crawling please. I promise you it'll be fun! Fun? You like fun?"

Y/N's question was answered with a vigorous shake of the head. "No... Me no like. No like there. Not going."

"Please? Would you do it for me?" Of course they were gonna try to convince him that way, Mr. Crawling couldn't say no to that look after all.

It's been some days since they left that mysterious world. They went back to their usual activities like going to school and killing people, just the usual stuff for a human their age, right? They have been teaching Mr. Crawling about the human world and the routines that generally develop over time, a very important part of the daily routine is cleaning the body but Mr. Crawling was so hesitant to enter the tub, it was filled with warm water and soap, of course it looked comfy but then why was he acting that way?

Mr. Crawling stood firm in his decision. "Not going."

They sighed. "Would you enter if we did it together? Would you agree that way? You, me, together?"

He smiled and nodded, so he was throwing that whole tantrum so he could be with them. They weren't surprised really, he was a clingy being.

They took off their clothes with some hesitation, how would Mr. Crawling react? Would it be a good reaction? Now they were the one hesitating. And he noticed. "You okay?"

"I'm okay, it's just..." They shook their head. "Nothing."

Once the two were without clothes they shivered a little. "I already took a shower today, taking a bath is not necessary for me..." Y/N said to themselves as they stepped into the tub. "Your turn. Come here"

This time Mr. Crawling stepped into the tub without protest, a happy smile on his face. After feeling the temperature, he giggled, he looked happy. "Fun fun." He said, splashing a little of water.

"See? Told you it was fun... But you usually take a shower first, then get in the tub to relax, you know? The problem is that my shower is too small for someone so tall like you... I mean, this tub is also pretty small but I guess it works, not that bad hopefully. I hope you'll enjoy it." Indeed, it wasn't that big of a bathtub so they were pretty close, his cold back pressing against their chest.

He was happily listening to their yapping, not understanding a lot of course, but Mr. Crawling just liked the way they voice sounds when they're speaking to him, it was a sound that made him feel nice and warm inside.

"I'm gonna wash your hair, okay?" Y/N grabbed the bottle of shampoo, Mr. Crawling didn't understand what they meant with that but he was happy to let them take care of him. It made him feel special.

They started to gently massage his scalp, Mr. Crawling tried to eat the foam and bubbles that the shampoo produced but after they told him it wasn't food he felt somewhat disappointed, it smelled so good, how is it not something he cannot eat? "No food?"

"No, it's not food. It doesn't taste as good as it smells."

Mr. Crawling didn't get what Y/N said but he understood that he can't eat that and he was a well behaved boy so he didn't try to eat it again.

They spent a lot of time just washing his hair, making sure the tips and roots were clean, his hair got dirty when he crawled around and they wanted to take care of it for him. "Your hair is so pretty." They whisper softly.

He giggles. "Me pretty?"

"Your hair. Your hair pretty. But you're right Mr. Crawling, you pretty too."

He smiled and giggled, wanting to hug and headpat them but not being able cause of their position, Instead, he just rubbed his head happily against her neck. They took care of cleaning his body as much as possible while teaching him the basics of how to do it himself as well. He was very cheerful, as usual, always giggling and smiling, enjoying the experience, the attention he received and the gentle touches, the nice words and all the spoiling and pampering they gave him. They made him happy.

They started talking after starting to scrub his legs. "Next time I'll try to kill someone with money... Maybe we could put soft carpet on the floors or something... Your knees get bruised cause of your crawling and... I'm sure you don't feel it that much and you heal pretty fast... but I don't like seeing you like that." They gently kisses his temple, Mr. Crawling smiled and giggled happily.

Mr. Crawling He was having the best day of his life, the warmth of the water, Y/N's body heat, the pleasant aromas of the soaps and shampoo, listening to them humming while they took care of him... It was perfect.

But eventually the water turned cold and soon they got out of the tub, they wrapped a towel around their body to help Mr. Crawling dry himself with another towel. He liked that, it was soft and it smelled good. Everything in that room smelled good, it was different from what he was used to in his world.

"So? Did you liked it?" Y/N asked.

"Yes. Me like this." He nodded his head, smiled happily. "Me like you."

"Thank you. I like you too"

It was time for a new lesson; getting dressed. Mr. Crawling wasn't used to clothes and how humans dress, so they got him a new robe and some underwear. He protested a little at first, something so restrictive felt weird at first but once he got used to it he even liked it. His new robe looked a lot like the old one he had, that made him happy cause he really liked that robe.

"Me pretty, me pretty." He repeated over and over again when he saw himself in the mirror.

"Yes, you're pretty. Very very pretty."

He loved their praises, now that they were dressed and out of the tub he could hug them and give them the headpats he wanted. That made them happy too. He was so clingy. It was new to have someone so in awe of even the smallest detail about them, Mr. Crawling was a faithful devotee and Y/N a deity that he would worship for life.

"Let's dry your hair okay? We're done here."

They went back to the room, having Mr. Crawling sitting down on the edge of the bed, they were behind him, dryer in hand ready to take care of that beautiful and silky hair that Mr. Crawling had.

"This is a little loud but it's okay. It won't hurt." They wanted to make sure Mr. Crawling wouldn't freak out cause of the noise the air dryer made. He nodded and Y/N started doing their thing. The hot air felt nice, it took a good amount of time to dry all of his hair but they did it happily, Mr. Crawling felt excited and that was enough of a reason to do it.

"I'm done, what do you think?"

Mr. Crawling grabbed the air dryer and held it in front of his face, the air was moving his hair back, making him giggle. "Fun fun! Me like fun!"

"I know you like fun." They looked at him tenderly, Mr. Crawling was easy to impress, even the smallest detail could make him very excited, it was refreshing to have him by their side. "You know, I wanna braid your hair... Want me to show you something? You'll look pretty, I promise."

He tilted his head to the side but nodded gently, giving them the hair dryer back. They braided his hair gently, once it was done they made him look at the mirror.

They smiled, he was so excited. "You look pretty."

"Me pretty!" He looks at them with a big smile. "Me pretty... Thank you..."

They looked at the clock, it was almost midnight. "I should sleep now, it's getting late."

Mr. Crawling nodded, understanding their need of rest. They lay down together in bed after turning off the lights. He was hugging Y/N as if they were a delicate piece of art made of glass, something he had to protect. "You pretty... Thank you." He said against their neck.

"This could be a part of our routine... I like it, I wanna do it again."

"Again?" He asks happily.

"Yes. Not now! But tomorrow... Again"

He giggles. "Again! Again! Tomorrow again!"

They kiss his forehead. "It's time to sleep for now, okay? Goodnight Mr. Crawling."

"Night night... Pretty."