To follow up, I am giving them a little test drive. If you hear me laughing in the background, then you know that I am gratefully amused. 🤣 Yes, they kissed.

Thank you again @heph for them and a cute sticker!

goofing around on the job ✨️👖✨️

they promoted me to team lead last week; it's a new kind of hell, but i'm jazzed abt the pay!

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x

My friend made me this and I'm already picking the best books to put them in.

I think she knows what I am 🏳️‍🌈

now im thinking like, after months-long separations due to mr hawkins sending mina and/or jonathan to boarding school, teenage jonathan thinks that his crush is waning down and is normal when they reunite

but then mina does something like clap her hands when he says something that excites her and then he's mentally lying on the ground going "oh no no no, i got it bad"

Jonathan: I love Mina a normal amount!

Mina: -is Mina-

Jonathan, already on one knee: Actually I think I will devote my life, soul, and sanity to her, ha ha

Prompt 30: Amity

"Do you think anyone's going to show up?"

Esredes crossed his arms and leaned against the banquet table, looking around the large, rented out ballroom. In its current, mostly empty state, it felt as if he were in a very bright labyrinth. "Because if they don't, this is going to be. A lot of food to give away. Did we send out enough invitations?" “Of course I do." Elouan replied. "I think everyone will. We sent all the invitations we could, nay? Besides, people care. If there’s something you’re in or—or involved with, they’ll come. You mean so much to people; why celebrate alone when we can celebrate with friends, nay?” Elouan was the only member of the planning team who wasn't actually a harrier. Otherwise, behind him, Dione, Vette, and Heilyn were busy cooking with Vette, Mythirel, and Maylis doing a lot of the setup, Rae, Marcelloix, Verdant, and Artorias were put to work having to move things in, Rae using the help of his Titan egi and reminding Esredes those things can actually pick up matter. And that was it, his entire planning team for the feast, versus around thirty to forty invitations sent out. "But we're essentially faking a holiday, for all they know." Esredes said, putting his hands on his hips. "Friends' Day Feast, ugh, it sounds more stupid the more I say it out loud. I should've come up with a better name. Why did my name win the vote." “I guess any holiday can be fake if you think like that,” he mused, head cocking aside. Elou flashed a gentle smile. “A holiday’s a holiday if people believe in it. So why can’t this one be just as real as the others? It doesn’t have to be Starlight, it can be—smaller. Celebrated by people close to you. And Friends’ Day Feast isn’t dumb! It is very, um…on-the-mark? Is that the saying? Because it is about friendship and faith and trust, right? Like back—back when the dragons and people were friends, kind of like how we’re trusting each other again.” "We're not exactly trusting each other again, man and dragon." He remarked. "But I see your logic. If you stretch it enough, I guess maybe it is a decent coverup for the Saint Day Feast. I just hope the rest of the team can keep quiet about what this actually is. There's no guarantee a loyalist won't show up." They couldn't celebrate the holiday at the camp, not really. They couldn't afford to overindulge on food out in the wilderness. When it came around each year past the war's end, it was usually a private movement celebration. And Esredes would still help do that, but this year he was trying something different. What if they put on the feast for a public audience, pretending it was for something else? The loyalist friends Esredes wasn't out to would get to be exposed to their world without knowing it, and Esredes could use it to make them let down their guard later and accept they weren't the monsters. How could they be, if they put on fun events with food? Sometimes it was that easy to get someone in. “But we’re getting there, aye? It will take a while, sure—and maybe can’t be like it was. It could get close to it, though,” he hummed, head nodding. Elouan smiled loosely towards his friend. “I think they’ll be quiet. To be trusted and—and help here, they’d know by now to not share what they shouldn’t share. People like being trusted and don’t want to break that trust, most of all with you. If there is one, maybe they’d not know. Maybe seeing so many people will—will get to them, too. Start thinking about how, how this new era of ours isn’t that bad.” Esredes opted not to correct Elouan on just how many people were perfectly happy to break trust with him. Instead he turned his head towards the empty ballroom and sighed softly. "I sure hope so," he offered. "That'd really make this entire ordeal worth it."

It was half an hour to the time sent on the invitations. Thanks to the strict coordination of himself, Vette, Heilyn, and Mythirel, it looked as if the team had managed to get everything in place, even if Mythirel was being extremely blunt and sparing not a single drop of honey, even worse than Heilyn usually was. It certainly made the others shrink away and stay on task, especially Verdant, who he was pretty sure was terrified of Mythirel. Now the blue banners were hanging down by the entrance and above the banquet buffet tables, the blue tablerunner was straightened into place, and the orchestrion was playing the censored Ishgardian version of what they'd adopted as a traditional song of the feast. Could something be a tradition in three years? Debatable, but Esredes would say yes.

"Okay, everyone." He said. "Act natural and normal. Pretend Friends' Day Feast is important to you. People are due to start arriving any moment now." And arrive they did. In the next few minutes, Marie, Xavierre, Nostrada and Kotaide, Fuyu, Kainen and Azarah, and Trosta all made up the first wave of early arrivals. Esredes took on the task of greeting each one of them, smiling to each. "Hi, hi, thank you for coming to the Friends' Day Feast. I'm glad to see you here. Help yourself to the food, socialize, and dance around the room if you'd like. We'll be having games as the afternoon goes on." He'd been memorizing this spiel all day. Xavierre already knew from his sister, but he was pretty sure Trosta and Nostrada caught on immediately to the true purpose of the event from the looks in their eyes, to which he just smiled and nodded. For Nostrada, he gestured back at the table and told him to help himself. That boy ate so much Esredes was still convinced it was a medical condition. Hopefully there'd be any leftover for all those arriving on time.

Esredes didn't know how many to expect right as the event started, but sure enough, a small crowd of people ended up making their way through the doors. Of all people, he hadn't expected Jude to be the first person on time, the young man walking right through the doors and then stopping to regard Esredes. "Esredes." He said. "Jude." He responded. These two greeted each other like this a lot, nowadays. It was still awkward for Esredes to talk to him, truth be told. They'd spent quite a while apart and Esredes was still getting used to the idea he wanted to be friends again and wouldn't leave with another outburst. "Thank you for coming," he offered to him. "Uh- help yourself to the food, socialize, and dance around the room if you'd like. We'll be having games as the afternoon goes on." By the time he'd finished this brief interaction with Jude, Flavien, Victor, Judie, and A'leigh had all come in behind him. Esredes smiled and waved to the first three, his beloved typical components of nights out with his lowborn circle of friends, but put on an extra coat of paint to his smile at A'leigh. In truth, he didn't know if him and A'leigh were friends or not. He would personally say no- a relationship that formed entirely on an atonement complex was hardly one at all. Even if Leigh had, against all expectations, wanted to keep him around after the truth came out as the last connection to his deceased brother and put the past behind, he figured it was the only reason he tolerated his presence. "...Thank you for coming." He repeated to A'leigh. "Help yourself." And he left it at that. Following him was Adel, who Esredes could spot before they even came through the door, emerging with their usual enthusiasm as they greeted Esredes wholeheartedly. Adel was certainly a character, an unlikely one but a character nonetheless. He'd befriended the Inquisitor despite all odds of such a thing when the Elezen was content to protect him against other Inquisitors and not put on a pity party about their actions. Perhaps the two of them were ignoring things by having a relationship at all, but so was Esredes by knowing loyalists at all, really. So he smiled at them and made some light jabs before they took their place at the banquet table besides Nostrada. Esredes prayed to Shiva now they made enough food after all. Cammie said hello next, a young Temple Knight and Hospitalier Esredes mentored in an unofficial sense. She was accepting of his true nature now, that wasn't a problem- instead Esredes worried more about her ability to socialize at an event. So he greeted her and encouraged her to go talk to people, and watched as she went to join Azarah and Kainen. Well, Azarah could do the heavy lifting in that group, maybe. Two people he hadn't expected to show up followed- Crescens, the wandering Triple Triad champion of the Gold Saucer who'd been showing him he actually had potential in the card game, and her boyfriend Rossignol, who Esredes... had certainly met. He greeted them both and ushered them onward, turning to greet the next trio of guests who brought a bright smile to his face. It was Clover, her daughter N'theya, and their former ward Teagan, who he'd been friends and associates with for a long time now. He shared a brief hug with Clover as N'theya immediately wandered over to the dessert table, and asked both her and Teagan how things were going.

Once they joined the party, the door space was quiet for a few minutes... And then more people showed up. Quincy apologized profusely for being a few minutes late, citing an appointment at the clinic, and Esredes had to reassure the young man it was fine and no one cared if you weren't at a big event on time. Evianne and Astraea arrived at about the same time without any fanfare, and he said his hellos to both. Alastor came next, and that prompted Evianne to move on quickly. Esredes could only guess he was late because he found a rock on the side of the road and tried to shove it in his mouth, but there were half a dozen other possible reasons the airheaded Miqo'te came late, and he could only speculate. Mizzie was next, and as he often did, he came with a new tale of what unusual and wild occurrence had happened to him last week that rest assured, the conjurer had recovered from. Esredes greeted him and thanked him for coming, and in turn got questions about what Ishgardian holiday this was. "Ah, it's... not. This is just a special event being put on." Mizzie knew about his true nature, but he was not about to explain the truth in front of earshot of people. But the explanation was enough for him, and he moved on. But someone he hadn't expected to show up followed him- the man whose first name was not Mercer but for some reason insisted everyone called him by his surname. Esredes liked Mercer- he was a lowborn who was well-reasoned without taking peoples' shit. Him and Esredes found a lot in common with each others' thought process. He just hadn't expected him to show up, not that it was unwelcomed. Mercer chatted to him about how he was doing for a minute before Esredes had to move on to the next guest, Magdelaine. The older, motherly Inquisitor apologized and cited her knee as the reason she was late, but from the way she smiled at him Esredes could tell she suspected what was truly going on immediately, and that it made her all the happier to be here. The bigger question was who she'd end up talking to. Perhaps she should've been an omen for the next person who made Esredes blink in surprise. Alvere came through the doors in his usual heavy fur coats, his hair as much of a disaster as always. "Alvere." Esredes said. In truth, he hadn't sent him an invitation. The cover was a Friends' Day Feast, and they were coworkers, acquaintances, but not friends. And yet somehow he'd found his way here anyhow. Was it a problem? Eh, he decided not really. He said hello and motioned him onward. Alvere had regained more than enough of his conscience to not make a problem of Esredes' activities by this point, and the man needed to get out more. Speaking of Inquisitor who needed to get out more who Esredes forgot to invite, Mikhail showed up next, causing Esredes to blink up at him as well. Mikhail outdid Alvere for being an awkward associate. They used to know each other, as Temple Knights, they were in the same chapters together, until the man left for the Inquisition. And though he quit before Esredes' network came into existence and was left a pathetic and sad mess, Esredes would not want to relive their post-war reunion for anything. Still, he had a right to be here, despite everything. Esredes smiled at him, said his hellos, and directed him to Marie and Judie. From there he'd manage somehow, he hoped. After that, the doorway laid silent. Had everyone besides those to trickle in found their way? Well, then maybe Esredes could turn around and see how the mingling was going. Perhaps now it was time for- The doors flew open, and Rusty came in, bellowing out a hello to all and causing a lot of heads to turn his way. And Esredes was reminded once again the large Roegadyn had adopted this need to outdo every dramatic entrance of his at each event. He sighed to himself.

The doors were silent for real after that. Esredes turned his head now to observe how the event was going. A quick headcount lead him to quickly realize there were about forty people in the room. He'd expected twenty at absolute most, good gods. And thankfully for his fears, people had managed to mingle. [It's prompt 30 lmao, do come back later for the rest!]

Oh how about we add james vowles asmr on your pile?❤️📚

Next thing we know, this has turned into an ASMR channel with me going "HI SISTERS WELCOME TO MY ASMR BLOG" every time i post 😭

🔥👀🤤🤤🥵😏🍆🦪

The Mad Lads - You Don't Have to Shop Around (1966)

The Mad Lads were a Stax vocal group, but on this tune they lean heavily to the doo-wop side of things.  But it’s an unusual sound; with Isaac Hayes on piano, Booker T. on organ, and John Gary Williams’ lead vocals, they created a one of kind song, perfect for late night listening.

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