week four | mingle

[marriagebroker]

Final week at the estate! Final week with your friends. Final week with your beaus. Time to make the most of it, everyone!

In fact, to celebrate this fact, today there is a cake. It's nothing special, just a nice little cake to enjoy with your morning coffee or throughout the day. Yay, cake!

And when Wei Wuxian arrives that morning, he is going to call out once again for everyone to join him, near the cake.

"Everyone, I have another announcement!"

Hell yeah, announcements.

Boom Boom Room | Dates | Property Damage
Truth Booth Voting | Match Ceremony Voting

Comments

[embellwish]

Yes... that's right.

[ Poppy's put it so succinctly. She confirms it for her not because she's looking for comfort or to be pitied, but because she knows such matters are out of the realm of imagination for most. It had been for everyone the falling star killed, too. ]

That star carried a strange substance from space... I happened to be able to withstand it. Me and the wisteria. [ Everyone else, though... she won't get into the gory details. ] That was all a very long time ago.

[fireball]

... Still.

[ Still. She should probably be comforted? That's just — at the very least it should be something she should check in on her for, shouldn't it? She's visibly uncertain. ]

Are you okay? I mean... is there anything I can do?

[embellwish]

[ Oh, Poppy... she can see how visibly uncomfortable this is making her. This is exactly why there are some people who were better off not knowing the intimate details of this — it was enough for Poppy to understand that she was alone. She hadn't needed to know all of this. Her brow furrows sympathetically, seeming to hone in on Poppy's feelings rather than her own. ]

You've all done a lot for me, just by giving me a place to belong.

[ Her smile is strained with sadness, but it's a smile nonetheless. ]

You remember, don't you? About how I can't communicate with others. [ She knows she does, but she asks just to guide her along the conversation. ] This form before you is a bit like that, hmm... "virtual reality" that we saw together. An illusion. The catastrophe left my health quite poor...

[ ..... ]

So, without knowing it, you've helped me feel a lot more hopeful, being so eager to help me.... I don't know if you know how much that meant.

[fireball]

[ But the thing is, she still recognizes the sadness in that smile. And the thing also is, it makes sense for it to be there? How does anyone come out of something like that not feeling sad all the time? She doesn't want it to be there, but it's probably for the best overall that Yingying still is kind of sad, but—

It's all... a lot. Poppy is just going to try to hug her anyway. ]

I get it, how a moment like that can help. I, uh. Had that too. With my whole... thing.

[ She doesn't think she needs to officially confirm to Yingying that the pandemic one is hers, so she'll just move right along. ]

But I think it's even better when you know it can be more than one moment, or a month, or whatever. So we'll keep working to that, okay? If the wishes— [ pause. She truly doesn't know what to use her wish on— ] don't work. We'll still get you a more permanent solution.

[embellwish]

[ She doesn't need to confirm it. Poppy had resonated so much with the idea of Yingying's loneliness — it only makes sense that a similar thing might be weaved into her past. When Poppy hugs her, she returns the gestures loosely and affectionately, pressing her face into Poppy's hair, so that she might remember the smell. ]

I believe you.

[ That she's going to keep working at it, keep trying to save her and find a solution to her predicament, if she can't be freed with her wish. She presses a gentle, affectionate kiss to Poppy's temple in thanks, before squeezing her a little tighter. ]

When you do figure it out.... talk to me everyday, okay? As long as we're connected, you won't be alone.

[fireball]

[ Oh. No matter how much time may have passed since her own period of isolation, it's still nice to be so physically close to someone else. To be so embraced by them. It's instinctive to lean into it a little further — not too much, not trying to overwhelm or suffocate, but to just. Take it all in.

And she smiles. ]

Every day. Got it. [ A little squeeze to her hug before she's ready to pull away, at least a little bit. ] That way you won't be alone either.

[ Poppy still has a life to go back to; she's less sure about Yingying now, so... maybe that's more important. ]

[embellwish]

Hehe. Don't forget, or I'll get really disappointed...~

[ How is she supposed to cope with the trials of day to day life without her beloved Poppy-chan dose... impossible.... ]

As Shoko told me, there are still a lot of things left for me to see... I hope we'll get to see more together after this.

[fireball]

[ Please, as if she could disappoint Yingying— Wait she totally could end up disappointing her. Okay, new motivation: Do Not Disappoint Yingying. ]

Worst case scenario, we'll just get you on YouTube.

[ A beat. ]

I think we can shoot for higher than that though.