So I Have A Request 👉👈 How Would Darla And Mc's First Kiss Would Be (Take Your Time Doing This,

So I have a request 👉👈 How would Darla and Mc's first kiss would be (Take your time doing this, I can wait patiently😊)

Written by @an-awkward-ghost

The last thing you had ever imagined was to do magical training with Darla, of all people

She had been growing on you lately. Both of you had tried to be less snappy, and Darla was actually fun to be around when she wasn’t firing off insults as if she were a machine gun. She was fiercely protective and surprisingly patient once you got on her good side. She had taken the whole fairytale world in stride, slightly shocked and skeptical at first but rolling with it afterwards.

You hadn’t planned for her to discover it, honestly. She had been at the wrong place at the wrong time, and it had only been thanks to Lucas’ quick thinking that everyone had made it out alive. Who knew the Pied Piper of Hamelin would be such a bad guy? You had been hoping he would be different from the story, like Ezra, but he turned out to be even worse.

And now, here you are, practicing for the plan Nora and Arin had hashed out an hour ago, trying and failing to learn to play something to counter the Pied Piper’s own brainwashing melody.

For that matter — who knew Darla was so good with the flute? As the only one who knew how to play it, but also the only one without magic, she had taken it upon herself to teach the rest. Everyone had already left for the day, so it was only you and her now.

You, too stubborn to leave without at least accomplishing one note right, and her, too passionate about her task to deny you an extra lesson.

It could be going better, though…

“Do you even have air in your lungs, Beth? I swear I can’t hear a thing—”

“I am blowing!”

“Remember that it’s like you’re smiling. A little smile. You’re good with that, right? We don’t want an ‘o’ shape unless we need a low pitch.”

Darla’s eyes are fixed on your lips, analyzing the shape. It’s distracting. You know she only does it in the professional sense, but at some point over the lessons, you’d found that your breath stuttered every time she did it, smile widening more than intended for blowing out the flute, cheeks darkening.

“Let’s take a short break,” the brown-haired girl finally announces, turning away, and the tension in your chest you hadn’t acknowledged until now instantly disappears.

I’m a mess, you think, frustration creeping into the lukewarm feeling you get every time Darla looks at you.

“Sorry.”

“No problem, Beth, I know how learning an instrument can be.”

“But isn’t flute supposed to be easy?”

She shrugs. It’s a calm little thing, just a slight, elegant movement of her shoulders. Once again, you’re in awe of how patient she is. You would have stormed off a while ago.

“Any skill has its ups and downs, even the ones that are supposed to be easy. And hey, even that varies from person to person. Don’t feel down about it. I’m sure you’ll have it down by the end of the week.”

“Great advice as always, Darla.”

She smirks that smirk you used to hate, coated with confidence and typical Popular Girl Satisfaction™. “You know it.” And then her expression softens as she turns to look at her flute, twirling it slightly with a reverence that has you mesmerized. “I can’t wait to see you all work magic with these, or the look the Pied Piper’s gonna get.”

“It’s difficult. I don’t know how to explain it... Um. Well, it’s like the music keeps bouncing off any spell I try to combine it with. Like they aren’t compatible or something.”

“Nora explained that to me. That’s why she’s going to enchant the flutes instead, right? Once she gets the necessary materials?”

“Yeah… it’ll make things easier, too. We usually use incantations — they are way easier than just trying to image the spell. Hey, maybe that’s why it keeps bouncing off? But then again, I can’t exactly say the spell when I’m blowing…”

Darla frowns, looking up from the flute. “Who knows? All of this is too complicated for me. I’d rather stick to what I know… speaking of which, let’s try one more time. You’re going to hit the note, I’m sure of it.”

“Uh…”

The instrument feels heavy on your hands. You rise it towards your lips, clumsily placing your fingers the way Darla had instructed you before, but pause just before blowing, noticing the way Darla’s eyes focus on your lips as if magnetized.

“I…”

“C’mon, Beth.”

Shouldn’t her focus be on your hands…? She must know how much she’s distracting you, doesn’t she?

“It’s just… well…”

Her eyes flick upwards to your eyes, curious. “Yes?”

She has to know. There’s no way she can be this oblivious, right?

Your mouth opens and then closes, at a loss for words. The seconds tick by in the background like a restless pulse, and you lose whatever bravado you had managed to gather.

“Maybe I should just call it a day.”

Darla looks a bit surprised at that. There’s a pause as she looks at you, her expression impassive for all of two seconds before a soft, amused smile breaks through, eyes as alluring as a dark bottle of wine. The change is so instant it leaves you stunned; she’d been slightly distant throughout the lessons, more concentrated on the technique than friendly banter, but now she had seemingly abandoned that.

“Is something distracting you, Elizabeth?” She asks, voice soft and composed, and a shiver runs down your spine at the sound. The fact that she doesn’t use your nickname and how it makes her every word so much more intense means she’s probably aware of the effect she has on you…

And the realization sets the butterflies in your stomach alight.

“Well?”

There’s no sense in beating around the bush. Darla may be patient once one manages to get into her good side, but you know her well enough to know she appreciates direct answers more than anything else.

“You.”

She hums, leaning slightly forward, hand coming up to grasp your chin. Her hold is delicate, but firm.

“We can’t have that. You need to concentrate if we want to have any chance against the Pied Piper.” She slides the flute out of your grasp, leaving it on a table nearby without sparing it so much as a glance. Her eyes are locked on yours.

“T-this may be counterproductive…”

She stops.

“Don’t you want this?”

“I do!” You blurt out, fast. Too fast. Darla chuckles lowly, not pulling away but not advancing either. “What about you?”

The blush that spreads over her cheeks is answer enough.

“You really were using the lessons as an excuse to stare at my lips, huh?”

“N-no!” She grows still, all the suave energy she was exuding before fading like a dream. “Well, just a little bit, but mouth shape is important to play the flute—”

“A-ha! So you were!”

“Wha—hey! Didn’t you just hear what I just—?”

“That’s not important right now.”

She actually frowns, not truly offended but still irked you dismiss her just like that, but you don’t give her a chance to actually voice her thoughts. You tilt your head upwards, feeling the way her breath stutters, and lean forward.

Slow, so she’ll back away if she wants, but she doesn’t even hesitate.

Kissing Darla is like kissing an inferno—she’s intense, pushing you back until you hit the wall, her hand on your hair cushioning the impact. She kisses you as if you were to disappear from her hands in a puff of smoke, as if you were a receding tide and the setting sun, and she only had this second to capture the shape of your lips, to capture your existence in her mind. It’s almost dizzying, but you surrender to it completely anyway, your arms snaking around her waist and pulling her closer.

The only reason you even pull away is because your lungs demand air. Darla blinks, probably expecting a longer kiss.

“Too much?”

“I just… give me a second…”

She smiles against your lips when you pull her down a second time after you catch your breath, and this time it’s sweeter, gentler, more like a soft petal.

When you finally part, she sighs and melts against you.

“Will you try to focus more, now?” She whispers.

You give her an incredulous look. “After that? No way.”

“C’mon, Beth. You need to save the world.” She laughs, and you roll your eyes.

“Maybe I will stop getting so distracted if I had more time to get used to this. More demonstrations would help, certainly.”

“Certainly.”

You are, officially, on cloud nine.

So You Need To Buy A Computer But You Don't Know What Specs Are Good These Days

Hi.

This is literally my job.

Lots of people are buying computers for school right now or are replacing computers as their five-year-old college laptop craps out so here's the standard specs you should be looking for in a (windows) computer purchase in August 2023.

PROCESSOR

Intel i5 (no older than 10th Gen)

Ryzen 7

You can get away with a Ryzen 5 but an intel i3 should be an absolute last resort. You want at least an intel i5 or a Ryzen 7 processor. The current generation of intel processors is 13, but anything 10 or newer is perfectly fine. DO NOT get a higher performance line with an older generation; a 13th gen i5 is better than an 8th gen i7. (Unfortunately I don't know enough about ryzens to tell you which generation is the earliest you should get, but staying within 3 generations is a good rule of thumb)

RAM

8GB absolute minimum

If you don't have at least 8GB RAM on a modern computer it's going to be very, very slow. Ideally you want a computer with at least 16GB, and it's a good idea to get a computer that will let you add or swap RAM down the line (nearly all desktops will let you do this, for laptops you need to check the specs for Memory and see how many slots there are and how many slots are available; laptops with soldered RAM cannot have the memory upgraded - this is common in very slim laptops)

STORAGE

256GB SSD

Computers mostly come with SSDs these days; SSDs are faster than HDDs but typically have lower storage for the same price. That being said: SSDs are coming down in price and if you're installing your own drive you can easily upgrade the size for a low cost. Unfortunately that doesn't do anything for you for the initial purchase.

A lot of cheaper laptops will have a 128GB SSD and, because a lot of stuff is stored in the cloud these days, that can be functional. I still recommend getting a bit more storage than that because it's nice if you can store your music and documents and photos on your device instead of on the cloud. You want to be able to access your files even if you don't have internet access.

But don't get a computer with a big HDD instead of getting a computer with a small SSD. The difference in speed is noticeable.

SCREEN (laptop specific)

Personally I find that touchscreens have a negative impact on battery life and are easier to fuck up than standard screens. They are also harder to replace if they get broken. I do not recommend getting a touch screen unless you absolutely have to.

A lot of college students especially tend to look for the biggest laptop screen possible; don't do that. It's a pain in the ass to carry a 17" laptop around campus and with the way that everything is so thin these days it's easier to damage a 17" screen than a 14" screen.

On the other end of that: laptops with 13" screens tend to be very slim devices that are glued shut and impossible to work on or upgrade.

Your best bet (for both functionality and price) is either a 14" or a 15.6" screen. If you absolutely positively need to have a 10-key keyboard on your laptop, get the 15.6". If you need something portable more than you need 10-key, get a 14"

FORM FACTOR (desktop specific)

If you purchase an all-in-one desktop computer I will begin manifesting in your house physically. All-in-ones take away every advantage desktops have in terms of upgradeability and maintenance; they are expensive and difficult to repair and usually not worth the cost of disassembling to upgrade.

There are about four standard sizes of desktop PC: All-in-One (the size of a monitor with no other footprint), Tower (Big! probably at least two feet long in two directions), Small Form Factor Tower (Very moderate - about the size of a large shoebox), and Mini/Micro/Tiny (Small! about the size of a small hardcover book).

If you are concerned about space you are much better off getting a MicroPC and a bracket to put it on your monitor than you are getting an all-in-one. This will be about a million percent easier to work on than an all-in-one and this way if your monitor dies your computer is still functional.

Small form factor towers and towers are the easiest to work on and upgrade; if you need a burly graphics card you need to get a full size tower, but for everything else a small form factor tower will be fine. Most of our business sales are SFF towers and MicroPCs, the only time we get something larger is if we have to put a $700 graphics card in it. SFF towers will accept small graphics cards and can handle upgrades to the power supply; MicroPCs can only have the RAM and SSD upgraded and don't have room for any other components or their own internal power supply.

WARRANTY

Most desktops come with either a 1 or 3 year warranty; either of these is fine and if you want to upgrade a 1 year to a 3 year that is also fine. I've generally found that if something is going to do a warranty failure on desktop it's going to do it the first year, so you don't get a hell of a lot of added mileage out of an extended warranty but it doesn't hurt and sometimes pays off to do a 3-year.

Laptops are a different story. Laptops mostly come with a 1-year warranty and what I recommend everyone does for every laptop that will allow it is to upgrade that to the longest warranty you can get with added drop/damage protection. The most common question our customers have about laptops is if we can replace a screen and the answer is usually "yes, but it's going to be expensive." If you're purchasing a low-end laptop, the parts and labor for replacing a screen can easily cost more than half the price of a new laptop. HOWEVER, the way that most screens get broken is by getting dropped. So if you have a warranty with drop protection, you just send that sucker back to the factory and they fix it for you.

So, if it is at all possible, check if the manufacturer of a laptop you're looking at has a warranty option with drop protection. Then, within 30 days (though ideally on the first day you get it) of owning your laptop, go to the manufacturer site, register your serial number, and upgrade the warranty. If you can't afford a 3-year upgrade at once set a reminder for yourself to annually renew. But get that drop protection, especially if you are a college student or if you've got kids.

And never, ever put pens or pencils on your laptop keyboard. I've seen people ruin thousand dollar, brand-new laptops that they can't afford to fix because they closed the screen on a ten cent pencil. Keep liquids away from them too.

LIFESPAN

There's a reasonable chance that any computer you buy today will still be able to turn on and run a program or two in ten years. That does not mean that it is "functional."

At my office we estimate that the functional lifespan of desktops is 5-7 years and the functional lifespan of laptops is 3-5 years. Laptops get more wear and tear than desktops and desktops are easier to upgrade to keep them running. At 5 years for desktops and 3 years for laptops you should look at upgrading the RAM in the device and possibly consider replacing the SSD with a new (possibly larger) model, because SSDs and HDDs don't last forever.

COST

This means that you should think of your computers as an annual investment rather than as a one-time purchase. It is more worthwhile to pay $700 for a laptop that will work well for five years than it is to pay $300 for a laptop that will be outdated and slow in one year (which is what will happen if you get an 8th gen i3 with 8GB RAM). If you are going to get a $300 laptop try to get specs as close as possible to the minimums I've laid out here.

If you have to compromise on these specs, the one that is least fixable is the processor. If you get a laptop with an i3 processor you aren't going to be able to upgrade it even if you can add more RAM or a bigger SSD. If you have to get lower specs in order to afford the device put your money into the processor and make sure that the computer has available slots for upgrade and that neither the RAM nor the SSD is soldered to the motherboard. (one easy way to check this is to search "[computer model] RAM upgrade" on youtube and see if anyone has made a video showing what the inside of the laptop looks like and how much effort it takes to replace parts)

Computers are expensive right now. This is frustrating, because historically consumer computer prices have been on a downward trend but since 2020 that trend has been all over the place. Desktop computers are quite expensive at the moment (August 2023) and decent laptops are extremely variably priced.

If you are looking for a decent, upgradeable laptop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

14" Lenovo - $670 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD

15.6" HP - $540 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD

14" Dell - $710 - 12th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD

If you are looking for a decent, affordable desktop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

SFF HP - $620 - 10th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD

SFF Lenovo - $560 - Ryzen 7 5000 series, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

Dell Tower - $800 - 10th-gen i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

If I were going to buy any of these I'd probably get the HP laptop or the Dell Tower. The HP Laptop is actually a really good price for what it is.

Anyway happy computering.

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an-awkward-ghost

2 years ago

Happiness Will Come To You.

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I need all the luck I can get

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an-awkward-ghost

3 years ago

Hey did you know I keep a google drive folder with linguistics and language books that I try to update regularly

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an-awkward-ghost

4 years ago

I’m living for this

So Franmaya is cute!

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an-awkward-ghost

4 years ago

Oh god, I can’t wait to see the new artworks!

THE TIME HAS COME. Pre-orders for The Enchanted Library, physical edition are officially live! You too can now hold your own copy of The RariTwiest RariTwi to ever Raritwi! The two volumes cost 60 USD together, and because they’re shipped from Russia PLUS Covid prices, shipping is coming out to 30 USD, so 90 total. Shipping is a bit hefty, but it’s also helping the cover THE 20 NEW ARTWORKS INSIDE AND THE SICK COVERS

AAAAAAAAAA Pls reblog if you think you have followers that might be interested!

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an-awkward-ghost

3 years ago

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this is so cute

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an-awkward-ghost

4 years ago

It’s missing Yvette hours 😞

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yvette holte hope she's on the schedule soon

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an-awkward-ghost

4 years ago

Lovestruck’s Ask Game!!

17, 18 and 20👀

Ohhhh thanks for the ask! 😄

17. do you write or draw fan content?

Yup! Everything I’ve written for LS can be found over at the @wlw-lovestruck-fiction blog! I’ve been meaning to reblog them here but always forget lol

18. favourite ships, not including the mcs?

Darla x Jo, Ruelle x Piama and Onyx x Yvette! Not only are the dynamics between those characters interesting, but all the pairings are also very cute and the interactions are just golden – I mean, can someone honestly tell me they didn’t smile at least a little bit with Darla’s interactions with Jo? I’m always up for seeing different sides of each character, especially considering Darla’s whole “queen bee” persona, and the side Jo brings to light is adorable!

And the amount of Ruelle x Piama in Xenia’s route is just 🥺🥺🥺

20. How do you feel abt the routes that end in marriage and/or kids?

It makes me feel all fluffy inside. The first route I read that ended in marriage was Serena’s, and I could have melted right there and then. I couldn’t stop smiling! When the weekend challenge came for her, the episode I reread the most was that one. I definitely didn’t think I would care so much for a proposal or wedding scene yet here I am, hoping desperately it happens in Yvette’s route. It all just hits different if it has or ends with scenes like those.

I haven’t read a route that ended with kids yet, but I’m sure I’ll like it all the same!

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virtueassassin

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