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[lithopus]

for the ask game: 1 and 9

thank you for the great fics u've written ❤️

have a great day/night!

Thank you for the ask, and I'm glad you enjoy the fics 🫶

9. Do you visualize scenes in your head before you write them? (Can you picture the setting, character body language, etc.)

Yes, to an extent! I’m actually not the best visualizer, though—in fact, I sometimes end up physically acting out conversations in front of a mirror before I’ve written them (and then I grab my phone or run to my laptop to jot down everything I can remember from what I just acted out, lol) 😅

Describing settings is definitely my weak point. I’ve gotten better at imagining scenes over the years, but sometimes I still need to look up reference images and stare at them to figure out how to describe something in a scene. I guess I tend to focus more on the characters and less on the space they’re in…but of course they can’t exist in an empty void, so I have to remind myself to include some physical details to “ground” a scene.

(And even after all this time, I still have to pull up images of Kaveh and Alhaitham to double-check their physical descriptions. Like, at some point, I started accidentally sticking hair clips in places that Kaveh doesn’t actually wear them, so…uh, well, I guess he wears them there now 😂)

Visualizing character body language is a lot easier for me; I can mentally see most expressions and actions, though I do occasionally need to look at my face in the mirror to figure out how to describe certain things. And I can pretty much always hear the tone/flow of dialogue in my head—but dialogue has always been the part of writing that I struggle the least with, so I guess it makes sense that it’s the easiest thing for me to visualize.

But, yes, I usually “play out” scenes in my head (or, uh, mirror) before I sit down to work on a fic! However, some visuals—like the room the characters are in—aren’t really “there” until I’m actually writing the scene and remind myself to stop and figure out what things look like.

And I answered Question 1 in this post here, but since you also asked about that one, I’ll add: even though I write in third person, whenever I’m imagining a scene before I sit down to write it, I do often visualize things in “first person” through the eyes of whichever character is the POV character!

Although, uh, I almost always zoom out and visualize in third person if things get too physical 😆 I think one of the only exceptions is if I’m imagining a moment—like the one part in Chapter 3 of “testing, testing”—where the POV character pauses to carefully look at their partner. In those cases, I do tend to visualize in first person again, since I’m seeing what the character is observing. That also happens if I’m imagining a moment where any of the POV character’s other five senses is significantly engaged. Like, if they’re in a field outdoors on a chilly night, I’ll visualize those sensory details as if I’m inhabiting the character’s body, too.

Once I’m actually writing the scene, though, I’d say it’s a more even mix of first/third person, as far as visualization goes.

[lithopus]

Okay, continuing with my additional thoughts about writing Alhaitham’s POV:

Although I feel like I have a better understanding of Alhaitham’s brain than Kaveh’s, his perspective does have its challenges.

For one thing, even when I’m inside his head, he’s not an open book. He still obfuscates things with that veneer of “rationality”—if you want a canon example, look no further than his character story about Kaveh. It’s not outright dishonest, but Alhaitham certainly lies by omission there.

And while I don���t think that Alhaitham necessarily lies to himself (especially since he’s a person who’s concerned with knowing the truth of things), he does strike me as someone who evades extremely difficult emotions when possible, and who therefore might try to explain away any feelings/urges that seem inconvenient. So, in a fic where I’m portraying that interpretation of him, writing his perspective can get tricky.

Another thing that makes his perspective a bit challenging is that we’ve never really entirely gotten to know him in canon. Even in his character stories, the narration puts things through a “filter” that essentially strips away his emotions and leaves only the facts. The first example that comes to my mind is the straightforward, factual way his character stories report his grandmother’s death. We’re only told that the woman who raised him passed away at some point, and that he organized her funeral and inherited some things from her. And that’s it. There’s nothing in there about Alhaitham’s feelings of loss, or how his grandmother’s death affected him.

Compare that to what other characters’ stories tell us about their feelings regarding a loved one’s death. Just for a quick example, I looked through Diluc’s lore and found that his character stories directly tell us about:

the passion and motivation he felt because of his father’s praise when he was younger

his desire to make his father proud

how his “hopes and dreams” were “extinguished” when his father died

how he completely lost faith in others after his father’s death, and

how he viewed his Vision as useless because it didn’t enable him to protect his father.

I know that Diluc’s loss was more intense and had more of an impact on his development, so I’m not using him as a foil for Alhaitham in that respect—but as you can see, we get a fairly extensive look at Diluc’s feelings about losing a loved one, as opposed to the neutral way that Alhaitham’s stories recount his loss. Alhaitham’s emotions are conspicuously absent from the information that’s conveyed to us; we’re definitely being held at arm’s length when it comes to certain aspects of his experiences.

(And, yes, if we really analyze Alhaitham’s stories, we can certainly infer that his grandmother must have meant a lot to him, given how much she’s mentioned; after all, Alhaitham’s stories wouldn’t waste time focusing on things or people he considers to be insignificant, since that would be contrary to his characterization. But we aren’t actually told how Alhaitham felt about losing her—he’s strikingly silent compared to other characters, whose stories describe their grief to some extent.)

Point being, Alhaitham’s feelings are rarely included in the information we learn about him, even for things that almost certainly had an emotional impact on him. We have a better understanding of him than that of the random Sumeru citizens who keep their distance from him, yes, but we still aren’t completely privy to his inner workings; by avoiding any displays of vulnerability, Alhaitham limits/controls our perception of him.

However, that doesn’t mean that other facets of his personality don’t exist, or even that no one has ever glimpsed a less controlled/more vulnerable version of Alhaitham’s demeanor. Based on what we know, I’d say that Kaveh is probably familiar with those more “unseen” aspects of Alhaitham’s personality—which further lends credence to the idea that those sides of Alhaitham must at least exist, even though they remain unseen by us as players.

From what we’ve seen in the game, it’s safe to say that Kaveh likely knows Alhaitham better than anyone else does. And that makes sense: as Alhaitham’s closest friend of many years, Kaveh has almost certainly seen weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and mistakes that we as players haven’t seen. He was even personally involved in one of the most emotionally charged aspects of Alhaitham’s backstory (the demise of a close friendship)…which, naturally, Alhaitham’s character story handles in the same detached way that it glosses over his grandmother’s death.

Additionally, because Kaveh literally lives with Alhaitham, he frequently sees what the man is like when he’s in the comfort of his own home—i.e., when he’s most at ease, and when he isn’t maintaining a “public image” that makes people wary of bothering him.

And then there’s this line from Kaveh, referencing a side of Alhaitham that doesn’t quite match up with what we’ve witnessed ourselves:

If he ever gives you the impression that he’s […] rigidly logical like a machine, then you just don't know him well enough yet. He definitely has a personality, it's just…too big a personality. Most people wouldn't get it.

So, Kaveh has seen Alhaitham act less logical at times, in a way that “most people” wouldn’t understand (or expect). And, indeed, we do get an occasional glimpse of Alhaitham’s alleged “personality”…when he bickers or argues with Kaveh. Which, again, makes sense: if Alhaitham is close enough with Kaveh to feel comfortable sharing his home and life with him, then it’s not surprising that the few times Alhaitham has slightly deviated from his usual demeanor, it’s been when he’s around Kaveh.

I’m not saying that Alhaitham becomes an entirely different person around Kaveh, but there’s a difference (in terms of intimacy, vulnerability, and comfort) between his relationship with Kaveh and his relationship with others. Essentially, there are certain sides of Alhaitham that he’s pretty much never going to directly show us, meaning that we need to infer those things and fill in the blanks ourselves.

Which, going back to my original point many paragraphs ago: figuring out how Alhaitham’s mind works isn’t really the thing that gives me trouble. What’s difficult for me is conveying Alhaitham’s thoughts and feelings in a way that still feels accurate/authentic (“in character”) to the reader—and even to me as the writer! Because even if we agree “Oh, yeah, Alhaitham would definitely feel hurt by that” or “Yes, he’d absolutely feel happy in this moment”…we haven’t seen him outwardly express those things in canon. So, at least for me personally, it’s very easy for something that is “in character” for Alhaitham to nonetheless feel “out of character” due to the limits of his canonical portrayal.

For example: if I were to write about Alhaitham feeling hurt by his falling-out with Kaveh, there’s nowhere in canon that he’s shown us that kind of pain. There are definitely indicators that it hurt Alhaitham a lot—but when he discusses the subject during Kaveh’s hangout, he acts like he was never bothered by it, and in general, he’s never once admitted to being emotionally hurt by something, even though that must have happened at some point in his life. As as result, any portrayal of Alhaitham internally experiencing emotional pain won’t quite look like the Alhaitham we’ve seen in canon.

And that sort of thing creates this feeling of “Alhaitham wouldn’t do that” or “Alhaitham doesn’t act like that” when, really, Alhaitham has just never openly shown that sort of vulnerability. It exists in his head, which means that we can see it when a fic narrates his perspective—but it can sometimes feel unfamiliar or “wrong” to us as readers and writers because we’ve never really seen a direct portrayal of it.

So, that part of writing Alhaitham’s perspective can be a nuisance. I often second-guess how I portray him in fics that I’m writing from his POV, because it feels like something is “wrong” when you compare that portrayal to his demeanor in canon. That’s why writing from Kaveh’s POV usually eliminates that issue for me, because in those fics, we’re mostly seeing Alhaitham the same way that we typically see him in canon, without the internal feelings/thoughts that can make him feel “out of character” in many cases.

For the ask game! 1! Who is your favorite character to write for and is this the character you find easiest to write for?

Thank you for the ask!

I guess for fanfiction, I pretty much only write Alhaitham and Kaveh’s POVs—although, actually, I’ve also written two (unposted, sfw) fics for my friends that contained Xingqiu’s POV, and he’s really fun to write for 😂 Now that I think about it, he’s probably the easiest perspective I’ve written. I enjoy his chivalrous and overdramatic way of speaking/narrating, and the guy is such a simp for Chongyun that it cracks me up. I definitely have a lot of fun writing him.

But, going back to Alhaitham and Kaveh…it’s difficult for me to choose! I like writing both of their perspectives for different reasons, and both of them are easy to write in some ways and challenging in others.

I’ll answer the question about whose POV is easiest first.

Technically, it’s Alhaitham’s—his way of thinking is a lot more accessible to me, whereas I sometimes struggle to relate to Kaveh’s perspective on things. It’s kind of similar to how Alhaitham “knows” Kaveh’s philosophies on a theoretical level, but doesn’t emotionally “understand” them the way that someone who personally shares Kaveh’s beliefs would. I more or less know how Kaveh’s mind works, but since I don’t usually approach things the way he does, his attitudes and ideals sometimes aren’t personally familiar to me. There are times when my brain has to work a bit harder to figure out how he views the world.

Because of that, though, I think that it might be easier—counterintuitively—for me to write stories from Kaveh’s perspective. Since I “understand” Alhaitham more, I can more easily convey what he’s thinking/feeling whenever I’m outside his head. Conversely, being inside Kaveh’s head allows me to get a closer look at how he’s processing things, which then makes it easier for me to work through his thoughts and figure out how to portray him.

So, Alhaitham’s POV is the easier perspective for me to write, in a vacuum…but if I’m writing a story about him and Kaveh, writing from Kaveh’s POV often makes things easier for me.

As for my favorite POV to write…if I had to choose a perspective to be stuck in, I think I’d choose Alhaitham’s. I love the unspoken depth of his love for Kaveh—like, his devotion is clear even from Kaveh’s POV, but being inside Alhaitham’s mind lets us see just how much he cares, even though he often hides it behind his sarcastic/detached attitude. I like being able to explore that side of him; it’s kind of like “looking behind the curtain” in the sense that we still see Alhaitham’s usual attitude with the way he speaks and acts, but we also see the contrasting tenderness he feels toward Kaveh (although, when I write him, Alhaitham’s narration does often try to bury that tenderness, lol).

That said, I do also like the idea of leaving Alhaitham’s unspoken affection…well, y’know, unspoken—so, being stuck in Alhaitham’s POV all the time wouldn’t be ideal for me.

It’s also interesting to get inside Alhaitham’s head and dismantle the “rational” barriers that he constructs around some things. That is, he’s clearly capable of caring deeply about certain things—like Kaveh—and I love writing about that kind of quiet intensity. And while I do believe that he’s the calm, logical person we see in canon, I also know that he can’t be invulnerable; he’s human, which means he’s capable of being hurt, and I like seeing how he processes those types of emotions.

But there are things that I enjoy about writing Kaveh’s perspective, too. For example, Kaveh’s artistry and ways of thinking give me more opportunities to be poetic with narration. When I’m writing Alhaitham’s POV, his analogies are usually more practical and functional; they tend to focus solely on explaining a concept, so while they might be creative sometimes, they won’t necessarily sound pretty. With Kaveh, though, I can let loose and be more indulgent with metaphors/imagery to explore a feeling or concept. I haven’t written poetry in a while, but his perspective gives me more room to flex those muscles, lol.

Kaveh’s perspective is also more straightforward, at least for me. Yes, he’s got a lot going on, and his psychology can get complicated at times—but he’s pretty much told us about all of his problems either through dialogue or his character stories, and we’ve seen him when he’s excited, happy, morose, angry, et cetera; he tends to acknowledge his feelings in a more “head-on” way, even when he’s trying to avoid his problems or downplay his emotions. So, I like that he’s a more “direct” kind of character, as opposed to the mental gymnastics Alhaitham performs in order to seem like An Incredibly Chill And Totally Unemotional Guy Who Is Never Bothered By Anything Ever.

(Now that I say that, it’s kind of funny that we joke about Kaveh’s mental acrobatics to misinterpret the things Alhaitham says, when Alhaitham is an Olympic gymnast in his own right 😂)

That’s my main answer, but I do have some additional thoughts about why writing Alhaitham’s POV can sometimes be a challenge for me. I’ll include those thoughts in a reblog, though, since I don’t want my response here to get too lengthy.

[lithopus]

For the ask game! 1! Who is your favorite character to write for and is this the character you find easiest to write for?

Thank you for the ask!

I guess for fanfiction, I pretty much only write Alhaitham and Kaveh’s POVs—although, actually, I’ve also written two (unposted, sfw) fics for my friends that contained Xingqiu’s POV, and he’s really fun to write for 😂 Now that I think about it, he’s probably the easiest perspective I’ve written. I enjoy his chivalrous and overdramatic way of speaking/narrating, and the guy is such a simp for Chongyun that it cracks me up. I definitely have a lot of fun writing him.

But, going back to Alhaitham and Kaveh…it’s difficult for me to choose! I like writing both of their perspectives for different reasons, and both of them are easy to write in some ways and challenging in others.

I’ll answer the question about whose POV is easiest first.

Technically, it’s Alhaitham’s—his way of thinking is a lot more accessible to me, whereas I sometimes struggle to relate to Kaveh’s perspective on things. It’s kind of similar to how Alhaitham “knows” Kaveh’s philosophies on a theoretical level, but doesn’t emotionally “understand” them the way that someone who personally shares Kaveh’s beliefs would. I more or less know how Kaveh’s mind works, but since I don’t usually approach things the way he does, his attitudes and ideals sometimes aren’t personally familiar to me. There are times when my brain has to work a bit harder to figure out how he views the world.

Because of that, though, I think that it might be easier—counterintuitively—for me to write stories from Kaveh’s perspective. Since I “understand” Alhaitham more, I can more easily convey what he’s thinking/feeling whenever I’m outside his head. Conversely, being inside Kaveh’s head allows me to get a closer look at how he’s processing things, which then makes it easier for me to work through his thoughts and figure out how to portray him.

So, Alhaitham’s POV is the easier perspective for me to write, in a vacuum…but if I’m writing a story about him and Kaveh, writing from Kaveh’s POV often makes things easier for me.

As for my favorite POV to write…if I had to choose a perspective to be stuck in, I think I’d choose Alhaitham’s. I love the unspoken depth of his love for Kaveh—like, his devotion is clear even from Kaveh’s POV, but being inside Alhaitham’s mind lets us see just how much he cares, even though he often hides it behind his sarcastic/detached attitude. I like being able to explore that side of him; it’s kind of like “looking behind the curtain” in the sense that we still see Alhaitham’s usual attitude with the way he speaks and acts, but we also see the contrasting tenderness he feels toward Kaveh (although, when I write him, Alhaitham’s narration does often try to bury that tenderness, lol).

That said, I do also like the idea of leaving Alhaitham’s unspoken affection…well, y’know, unspoken—so, being stuck in Alhaitham’s POV all the time wouldn’t be ideal for me.

It’s also interesting to get inside Alhaitham’s head and dismantle the “rational” barriers that he constructs around some things. That is, he’s clearly capable of caring deeply about certain things—like Kaveh—and I love writing about that kind of quiet intensity. And while I do believe that he’s the calm, logical person we see in canon, I also know that he can’t be invulnerable; he’s human, which means he’s capable of being hurt, and I like seeing how he processes those types of emotions.

But there are things that I enjoy about writing Kaveh’s perspective, too. For example, Kaveh’s artistry and ways of thinking give me more opportunities to be poetic with narration. When I’m writing Alhaitham’s POV, his analogies are usually more practical and functional; they tend to focus solely on explaining a concept, so while they might be creative sometimes, they won’t necessarily sound pretty. With Kaveh, though, I can let loose and be more indulgent with metaphors/imagery to explore a feeling or concept. I haven’t written poetry in a while, but his perspective gives me more room to flex those muscles, lol.

Kaveh’s perspective is also more straightforward, at least for me. Yes, he’s got a lot going on, and his psychology can get complicated at times—but he’s pretty much told us about all of his problems either through dialogue or his character stories, and we’ve seen him when he’s excited, happy, morose, angry, et cetera; he tends to acknowledge his feelings in a more “head-on” way, even when he’s trying to avoid his problems or downplay his emotions. So, I like that he’s a more “direct” kind of character, as opposed to the mental gymnastics Alhaitham performs in order to seem like An Incredibly Chill And Totally Unemotional Guy Who Is Never Bothered By Anything Ever.

(Now that I say that, it’s kind of funny that we joke about Kaveh’s mental acrobatics to misinterpret the things Alhaitham says, when Alhaitham is an Olympic gymnast in his own right 😂)

That’s my main answer, but I do have some additional thoughts about why writing Alhaitham’s POV can sometimes be a challenge for me. I’ll include those thoughts in a reblog, though, since I don’t want my response here to get too lengthy.

UPDATE: my additional thoughts are in this reblog

[lithopus]

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[lithopus]

I posted this little fic on Twitter for Alhaitham's birthday—although I missed the actual day in almost every time zone—but here's my little tribute to our favorite Akademiya Scribe!

◈ ◈ ◈ ◈ ◈

Alhaitham sits up and swings his legs over the side of his bed, his eyes adjusting to the shadowy blue of early morning. As his feet touch the carpet, he notices the silhouette of an object on his nightstand that wasn’t there before, something rectangular with a square of white sitting on top of it.

Leaning forward, he grabs the object—a book, he realizes, feeling the familiar shape in his hand—and flicks his lamp on, squinting at the piece of paper atop the book. It’s written in a familiar ancient script, the slant of each line penned by an equally familiar hand, and the rough translation is:

To another year of knowledge gained.

Alhaitham studies the book itself. It appears to be a Fontanian text titled The News Media’s Influence on Language and Culture in Fontaine and Beyond, written by an author he hasn’t encountered before. He idly opens it and scans the table of contents, spotting a number of headings that catch his interest, then flips through the pages to the foreword.

Immediately, he recognizes the author of this section: it’s a linguist whose works take up almost an entire shelf in his study, each book full of Alhaitham’s own personal notes and annotations. Over the years, he’s frequently referenced her works in his own essays and research.

He begins reading the introduction without even meaning to, but manages to tear himself away after a few lines, his eyes returning to the small piece of paper.

Historically, Alhaitham has never cared about his birthday unless someone else cared about it for him. When he was younger, that person was his grandmother; it was tradition that every year, she would leave a new book at Alhaitham’s bedside overnight, and when Alhaitham woke to see the book in the morning, he would voraciously read that text until it was time for breakfast. The two of them had always seen birthdays as a marker of knowledge gained in a year, and the start of another year’s worth of learning.

After his grandmother passed, the tradition ended, and Alhaitham saw no need to continue it for himself. That changed when he met Kaveh, who learned of the bygone custom and began gifting a book to Alhaitham each year—although it wasn’t quite the same, since Alhaitham no longer awoke to a book at his bedside. And when their friendship ceased, of course, Alhaitham no longer expected to receive any books at all.

Here, today, he had not expected to wake to a new book on his nightstand, with a message from an old friend that echoes his late grandmother’s words.

The morning air holds a chill, but the book in Alhaitham’s hand feels warm like the sunlight that used to fall through the windows of his grandmother’s living room each afternoon, lulling him to sleep as he napped with his head on her lap, soothed by the quiet sound of her hands paging through a book.

With a small smile, Alhaitham settles back against the pillows with the book in hand, and begins to read.

◈ ◈ ◈ ◈ ◈

[lithopus]

Fanfic Writer asks

1) Who is your favorite character to write for and is this the character you find easiest to write for?

2) What is your favorite fic of yours?

3) What fic of yours do you think is underrated?

4) What fic of yours were you surprised by how popular it was?

5) Do you like one shots or multi-chapters?

6) Do you outline your fics? If so, how?

7) How do you edit your fics? What do you look for in your edits?

8) Do you take inspiration from real life? If so how do you incorporate it into your fics?

9) Do you visualize scenes in your head before you write them? (Can you picture the setting, character body language etc)

10) How do you feel about writing plot, setting/description, inner thoughts, dialogue?

11) What perspective do you write from most and/or least and why? (1st, 3rd limited, 3rd omniscient, deep pov, etc)

12) Do you like to switch pov's a lot or stick to one character?

13) Are you a fast or slow writer?

14) What is something you wrote in a fic that you are hoping readers picked up on but you don't know if they did? And/or, what is something that you were excited that readers did pick up on?

15) If you could only write one type of fic (angst, fluff, etc.) for the rest of your life what would it be?

16) Do you have a method for getting characters to sound/feel in character?

17) Do you have any wips that you can tell us about? What are you most excited for in you wip?

18) What's the most obscure thing you've researched for a fic?

19) What is some random info you happen to have that you used in a fic?

20) What is your favorite thing about writing fanfic? What about writing in general?

21) Writers choice - pick any of these questions that you want to answer.

[lithopus]

Playful smooches 🥹

[lithopus]

i'm finally free from twitter's search ban jail...just in time for twitter to die 😂 but as long as the site is still technically working, i guess i'll keep posting over there & will work on setting up this blog in the meantime 🫠

[lithopus]

twitter please met me out of search ban jail 🫶 i've been on my best behavior 😭

if this lasts much longer i'll probably lose my mind and start posting thousands of words of textual analysis about alhaitham's and kaveh's characterization...this is what happens when you force lithopus back to the platform where there's basically no character limit 💀

[lithopus]

I recently posted this ficlet on Twitter for Kaveh's birthday, and figured that I might as well post it on my blog here, too! Happy birthday again to our favorite architect 🫶

◈ ◈ ◈ ◈ ◈

Rosy morning light tumbles through the bedroom window, spilling beams of gold and turquoise onto the blankets. Facing Kaveh, the sun-gilded silver of Alhaitham's hair glints like coins at the bottom of a fountain, and that muted gleam draws his hand closer, fingers grazing the soft strands.

Alhaitham lets out a gravelly hum, and his sleeping face twitches at the touch. Kaveh quickly retracts his hand. "Sorry," he whispers.

He takes quiet, shallow breaths, afraid to disturb Alhaitham any further. Alhaitham is constant, but moments like this are not; they bloom brief as lotus flowers, petals furling the moment the light shifts. Rarely does Kaveh wake first, so when he does, he tries to preserve these precious glimpses of Alhaitham's warmth.

In the minutes before he fully wakes, Alhaitham's fondness is unguarded. It unfurls completely, a scroll without end, revealing infinite lines inscribed with love—until he rouses and carefully rolls it shut once more, preferring to show only a single page at a time.

Kaveh doesn't begrudge him that restraint. The entirety of Alhaitham's love is too expansive to be parsed in even ten lifetimes, and regarding it for too long makes Kaveh start to question how he could ever deserve it. These fleeting instants are sweetest, allowing Kaveh to bask in that affection before it becomes overwhelming.

The mattress dips as Alhaitham moves closer and tucks his head beneath Kaveh's chin, his arm winding around Kaveh's waist. Kaveh feels the warmth of each exhale against his shoulder, and his heart anchors itself in that steadiness, trembling with its own immeasurable love.

"Happy birthday," Alhaitham murmurs. His hand wanders along Kaveh's back, charting the pattern of moles by memory.

Smiling fondly, Kaveh combs his fingers through Alhaitham's hair. "I thought you didn't care about those."

Alhaitham grunts. "Yours," he says, and after so many years together, Kaveh understands his laconic reply well enough: I don't, but I care about yours.

Not so long ago, Kaveh would have told Alhaitham not to bother, and to care about more important things but he, too, opens his heart wide when the flowers are in bloom. "Thank you," he says instead, and hugs Alhaitham close, pressing a kiss to his hair.

Alhaitham mirrors the gesture, planting a soft kiss on Kaveh's shoulder. With a contented sigh, he presses closer and tangles their legs together, his limbs heavy and warm with sleep.

And Kaveh closes his eyes, welcoming the morning.

◈ ◈ ◈ ◈ ◈

[lithopus]

quick apology to everyone who's followed me on here, since i haven't posted anything or interacted yet 😅 when i first tried to use this account, my tagged posts wouldn't even show up on my own blog, so i decided to put it on the back burner until i figured out the problem.

my guess is that i'm in "new account" jail—although i'm not sure why that would hide things from my own page?—so i probably need to follow some accounts and reblog some stuff first, so that tumblr recognizes me as a legit account. but, uh, once i get that sorted out, i'll try to post here a bit more often.

that said, my inbox and dms are open! so, if tumblr is your preferred method of communication, feel free to reach out to me here.

(and a side note, for anyone who's new to tumblr: if you want me to answer a question privately, make sure that you ask from your account, and not anonymously! i can only answer anonymous asks publicly.)

[lithopus]

a few quick things about me:

writer

he/him

20↑

not very active on tumblr or twitter

a few quick things about this blog:

mostly genshin impact content

sometimes nsfw 🔞 minors dni

no top/bottom discourse

no ship hate or discourse

for updates on my writing projects, click here