hi epi! first of all i'm in love with your buildings! second of all, this may be a weird wcif but i fell in love with it so i need it XD post/683976232745975808/i-wont-get-these-posted-if-i-dont-post-them-so do do you see that yellow rug on the first floor? there's another one above it which is purple. is it a rug? wcif it??
Hi! Ah, thanks!
If you mean the one on the left, it's a very beautiful magic sigil by @pforestsims :)
does anyone know of any good mohawks and mullets? or just your faves? alpha and mm are both good (though i would for sure like to have some alpha). this is my first time specifically looking for these styles n i’m struggling a bit lol
okay, okay. its short (1.3k words rip me) and doesnt really have a plot but idc have a drabble about raleigh (and the rest of my favorite characters by extension)
~*~
On the night she meets him, it’s a dark, gloomy, late-October evening. She’s coming in for the night shift at Brewster’s – though, why a cafe would need to be open 24-hours is beyond her. Customers rarely come in after 10 pm.
(“It’s for Blathers, mostly,” Brewster told her once.
“Blathers? Like, the museum curator?”
“He doesn’t sleep well. I like to keep him company.”)
She’s wrestling with her umbrella (it’s off-black, and crooked, and she’s needed a new one for months but she can’t bear to part with it) and backing into the door, and the little bell jingles merrily as she steps blindly inside.
“Brewster?” she calls in greeting, grabbing her apron and looping it over her head in one fluid movement. There are two customers perched on stools by the counter (Digby, with his iconic yellow rain coat; and Walt, face sour as ever as he nurses a mug of hot coffee) and Raleigh can’t help but find them an odd pair.
Her employer is wrestling with his finicky, beloved, “antique” espresso machine under the counter when she slides in beside him.
“I’m here to relieve you,” she says, lazily saluting him as he glances up at her. He pats her shoulder before disappearing into the back room.
The evening is quiet, and the cafe is deserted by 8 pm; Raleigh realizes why that is when she catches a glimpse of some trick-or-treaters through the tall windows by the door. She purses her lips, closes the book she’s been reading, and props her head up on the heel of her hand.
This time last year, she’d been well into her first semester as a business major. Her roommate (a plump, soft-spoken girl with rich brown skin and the largest eyes she’d ever seen) had been nice enough, though they rarely saw each other; Raleigh tended to spend most of her time in the wooded area behind their dorm, and she didn’t turn in for the night until long after the girl had gone to sleep.
Raleigh is staring into the mug of coffee (kilimanjaro beans, a little milk, and two spoonfuls of sugar) on the counter in front of her when the door swings open. A forceful gust scatters dead leaves across the tile floor, and Raleigh sighs, reluctantly stands, and searches around under the counter for the dustpan.
“What’s this?” comes a too-loud, too-out-of-nowhere voice above her; she tries to jolt upright in her shock, slamming the back of her head audibly against the underside of the counter.
“Fuck, shit,“ she hisses as she sits back on the cold tile, legs splayed out in front of her. She’s grateful, somewhere in the back of her mind, for the extra cover her apron gives her. It takes a second before she realizes there’s a customer here, and she’s just cursed and fallen in front of them.
She’s glad Brewster’s in the back room. Raleigh can’t afford to lose this job.
And then she finally looks up.
Raleigh almost screams as her eyes meet the black pits of the creature staring down at her. An eerie, unnaturally-wide grin is affixed permanently to its face, and the traditional triangular nose cut-out is in the center.
Oh, it’s a mask, she identifies.
The mayor told her about Jack this morning; stood outside her house hollering into her megaphone until Raleigh came outside.
(“He’s an esteemed guest,” she’d said, as Raleigh rubbed the sleep from her eyes, “and you need to treat him with the utmost respect. He’s... problematic, when he’s angry.”)
She’d given Raleigh a description of him, but it hadn’t really registered in her dreamy haze.
“Jack?” she asks hesitantly, pulling herself unceremoniously up by the sturdy chair by the register. The visitor tilts their head and puts one smooth, copper-colored hand up to the mouth of their mask, as if pantomiming amusement. “... Not Jack?”
“What’s this?” they repeat; their voice isn’t deep exactly, but it isn’t thin like the mayor’s or throaty like her own. It’s like they’re singing every word, almost, Raleigh thinks.
“... The coffee? Kilimanjaro beans. Would you like a cup?” she asks professionally. The person picks up her mug, throws their head back, and pours the entire serving through the mouth of their mask in an effortless, practiced motion. “Uh...”
“This is amazing,” they shout, slamming their hands on the counter and leaning forward so much that their magenta mask is almost touching Raleigh’s nose. The person smells like sage, and roses, and mint; it’s so far from what she might have expected that she takes a moment to process the pleasant scent before taking a step back.
“Um, I’m glad you like it. Brewster will be really happy to hear it- but, uh, how are you going to pay?”
The stranger straightens and squares their shoulders; Raleigh notices how ridiculously tall they are for the first time. She has to tilt her head back to look them in the eye (or, what she assumes is in the eye, anyway).
“You know, money? Um, the currency here is bells; I’m not too sure on the conversion rate right now, but you can ask Isabelle or the mayor, or even Pelly if she’s still in the post office... “ Raleigh rambles, “though, you really don’t want to deal with Phyllis – she’s the, uh, purple one...”
They tap the mask, directly below the mouth, in what Raleigh assumes is thought.
“I don’t have any of that,” they say.
“Are you new in town? Did you maybe, uh, come for the Halloween festival?” she asks finally. “Let me call my boss, I think he’ll find a solution. I just, I can’t let you off or I might lose my job or something and I really, really need this job, so-“
“It’s okay,” they interrupt. She thinks their voice sounds very warm as she rouses Brewster from his nap in the back room. The old pigeon coos serenely as Raleigh explains the situation.
“A trade?” her boss suggests. The stranger fishes around in their pockets before dropping a handful of candy on the counter. It clacks loudly in the empty cafe. Brewster and Raleigh exchange a look when the masked person drops even more candy onto the pile a moment later. The pair of cafe workers tell them to stop when the pile is almost too high for Raleigh to see over.
It’s just so bizarre – like their pockets are limitless.
“Is this enough? Can I have more?” they ask enthusiastically. Brewster puffs up contentedly and goes about making more coffee, despite it being both his break and Raleigh’s shift. She sits at one of the tables to get out of his way, and when the stranger gets bored of watching Brewster they come to join her.
“I’m Peregrin,” they offer as they sit.
“Raleigh,” she responds with a small, weary smile.
They make small talk while Brewster finishes the coffee; Raleigh blushes and apologizes when Brewster serves them both, but he smiles kindly and pats her shoulder before disappearing again into the back room.
Peregrin is easy to talk to, despite being so high energy. They seem genuinely interested in what she has to say, and she appreciates it. Raleigh is usually too busy (literally) cleaning up after the mayor to speak to her, and even if she wasn’t, they don’t really mesh. Isabelle is nice enough, but Raleigh feels too indebted to her (she was the one that had set Raleigh up with a house and food and firewood with no stipulations besides cleaning the mayor’s house, after all) to let her guard down around the mayor’s secretary.
And, well, it’s hard to really connect with people when they’re mourning the mayor’s disappearance (which seems to happen every other month, honestly, and Raleigh feels like she never has free time when the mayor is around).
The festivities quiet down around 3am (Wayside loves its events, though she isn't very into them) but the pair ends up pulling an all-nighter in the cafe and Raleigh introduces Peregrin to the mayor at 6am sharp.
Peregrin still hasn't taken off the mask when Isabelle drops the key to his new house (a small cabin on the cliff overlooking the town's small harbor) in his palm, but at that point Raleigh is too tired to notice or care.
@Pixelpixies: OK! I remember there was this tumblr community that pimped out custom made sims for the public, and I forgot it. There was this really cute African-American sim with glasses and I remember you reblogged it. Help pls.
