☕Kalon Winter Event - Daily Specials☕ - Raffle Results

[Mnemosyne]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━☙ ☕ ❧━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▹ username: Mnemosyne
▹ team: pie
▹ link to sign up: here
▹ Prompt: Kassik looked at the quote and sat back, tapping his chin as he thought. Having multiple faces, right? It made him think of his mentor, Melusine, who liked to pretend to be grumpy and mean but who was actually kind. Or at least that was Kassik's intepretation. She hated hearing that he thought she was nice.

But for Kassik himself? It was hard to say. He hadn't ever really tried to be different to different people. He liked to think of himself as helpful and kind all the time, but of course nobody could always be happy. What about the days when he was tired and grouchy from waking up early and pretended to be fine? Did that count?

Head spinning, Kassik stepped up to the mic. He wasn't sure what he was going to say. "Maybe... this quote means that you should always be true to yourself. That you don't always have to be perfectly happy when you don't want to be. Sometimes you can pretend to be okay for so long that you actually think you're okay, but then something happens, and... well. You can have a hard time afterwards." He thought back to one particular incident, where he'd insisted that he could make the long trek across Melusine's territory despite the fact that he was feeling sick. Of course, he'd ended up collapsing on the way as she rolled her eyes and ended up bringing him home. "I think it's important to be honest, both to yourself and to others."

With that said, Kassik stepped back, feeling confident. He wasn't sure if there was a correct answer, but he felt like he'd spoken his true feelings. [ 279 words ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[quiche cat!]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━☙ ☕ ❧━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▹ username: quiche cat!
▹ team: soup
▹ link to sign up: boop
▹ Prompt: ​“No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, 1850.
What does this quote mean to you?

éowyn sat down on a barstool as he thought, tapping his chin to the beat of the music playing in the background. in all honesty, this kalon was the last kalon you'd probably want to ask deep questions to. he wasn't very good at... deep thinking. nor did he ever really think about anything, for that matter.

"I think I understand," he chirped after a few moments. he hadn't actually thought about much of anything, unsurprisingly. "you're talking about when people pretend to be someone they're not, right? it gets tiring after a while." éowyn absentmindedly rubbed his finger across the condensation on his glass of water as he spoke whatever came to mind. "I've seen a lot of people try to do that. eventually they kinda forget who they really are." his voice trailed off as he spoke, and after a moment of silence, he chugged down his water and slammed the glass down.

"and that's exactly why I just be myself! it's much less stressful, and it's easier than pretending. plus, I won't forget who I am!" éowyn cracked a smile to lighten the mood, then hopped off the stool. "I feel like singing now. do you guys do karaoke here?!"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Broccoli_Bento]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━☙ ☕ ❧━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▹ username: Broccoli_Bento // 965616
▹ team: soup
▹ link to sign up: here
▹ Prompt:

Cassiel pondered the quote for a moment as he sipped his green tea, trying to be thoughtful of the words he'd reply with.
"To me this quote means that no one can handle the weight of hiding the truest of oneself whilst upholding the facade you've crafted of who you are to everyone else without it ultimately tearing you from the seams".
He swirled his index finger along the rim of his cup and sighed softly, "it's quite relatable to me honestly, as I had grown in very strict household by which I was forced to be someone I didn't desire to be, and in the end of every week I found my identity breaking apart from the exhaustion from upholding who they wanted and thought I was... I'm in a better place now though" he smiled adjusting his gaze from his cup to the window.

As someone entered the coffee shop Cassiel turned his gaze to them and chuckled before returning his attention to his tea.
"It's funny, just now I was reminded of my girlfriend Jamie. Her roommate told me a story about them in high-school having to write a report on the 'Scarlet Letter', and my poor Jamie broke down in tears halfway through the novel  because every line confused her so much that she couldn't stay focused".
He stretched his shoulders back and ran his paw through his hair, "yeah... she's never been much of a reader because of her adhd, so it's always up to me to read instructions and whatnot for her" he smiled softly from thinking about her.

[265/200 min]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[allu]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━☙ ☕ ❧━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▹ username: allu
▹ team: soup
▹ link to sign up: ♡
▹ prompt:

nico looked toward suni and tilted his head, pondering the question and taking in the possible meanings of the quote. he took a careful sip of the hot drink beside him, a simple hot coffee with some cream and sugar. setting the cup down, he opened his mouth to give a reply "to me, it means that, though it may be easy to put on a mask, and to never give the whole truth about yourself, perhaps giving bits and pieces of a story that isn't true, or to put on a.. false bravado of confidence, you may eventually lose your true self." he made a low humming noise before continuing "trying to be someone you are not, whether it be to please those around you, or to make you feel better about yourself may not always work. i know that from experience, and it made me question myself sometimes when i'd forget which part was a lie and which was true. it was like i always wanted to be someone who just wasn't me at all, and why? to please the people who didn't like that i was a bit different?" nico scoffed and picked up his drink again. he shook his head a bit. "i got a bit carried away with my explanation but.. you can only keep that mask up for so long before it breaks is what i mean to say. you can lie all you'd like, pretend to be someone you aren't but eventually that mask will crack, y'know?" he sighed softly and placed his drink on the table once more. "thank you for the coffee, it was delightful but i must get going now." he muttered before getting up from his seat and walking out of the establishment. once out of the place, he let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding in. maybe he'd read into the quote wrong, or not understood it at all, but what he got from it hit a nerve he didn't even know about. his own explanation was, in reality just covering the things that he'd gone through when he was younger, pretending to be a different person with different experiences and even a different personality, all to please others around him. but within time he stopped doing that, and settled for being his true self, no matter what others might think of that. he didn't wish to be confused about who he really was ever again, and it was a promise he made to himself to not do that. after a final shaky breath he glanced back at the coffee shop before taking off into the snow.

[442/200 words]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[_silentsiren_]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━☙ ☕ ❧━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

▹ username: _silentsiren_ + 804746
▹ team: pie
▹ link to sign up: link
▹ Prompt: ​“No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, 1850.

"I do understand the quote to some degree..." Ace fiddled with the coffee in his hands, frowning a bit as he looked down into it. "I used to be the really fun happy friend, and even when I felt sad, I put other's happiness above my own. It made it hard for me to recognize when I was sad." His brows furrowed, swirling the tea in his cup as he sighed.

"I still struggle to recognize when I'm sad at times, and I lied about it a lot when I wasn't." He looked out the window, staring off into space a moment before he inhaled sharply, returning back to the moment. "Thankfully I have gotten better with time about recognizing my feelings, and understanding what triggers me. I am really grateful to have wonderful friends that helped me open up about my feelings and allow me to talk to them." A bittersweet smile made it's way onto his face, taking a long and slow sip from the latte. "I hope one day I can repay the favor to the people I love most."

His eyes shut, his expression to changing to one of content as he thought of his friends around him, feeling his body relax. "I hope everyone has the opportunity to feel the love I have."

[ 218 ]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[FluffyBirdie]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━☙ ☕ ❧━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▹ username: FluffyBirdie
▹ team: soup
▹ link to sign up: xxx
▹ Prompt: “No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, 1850.

What does this quote mean to you?

━━━━━━━━━━━

Sonatina shrugged. The idea of pretending to be someone else when speaking of others seemed like a complete waste of time. She had never tried it herself, nor really considered it. Why pretend? To spare someone's feelings? To please someone? Those seemed like a waste of energy. Which is why she never wanted to rise the ranks, or gain large amounts of responsibility. To an extent, at least to her, having many eyes on you means you end up pretending, in some way or another. Pretending things were okay or under control. The nobles around her, even royalty - they all seemed so fake, and she would sometimes wonder how they behaved in private or with their close friends. Did they talk behind peoples' backs like everyone else? Maybe they were secretly a petty person? Secretly cruel?

For the second part of that quote - does it matter which side is true? Maybe Tina put too much faith in the idea of faking it until you make it. She would say both masks are true, to some extent. Regardless of what personality you were acting as, you still said those words. You can't pretend another mask, another person said it when it came out of your own mouth. It was you who thought of those words, you who spoke them, you who claim responsibility.

"I would say," Sonatina replied, "that this quote seems to be filled with falsehood."

[236 / 200 ]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[PleaserOfCrowds]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━☙ ☕ ❧━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▹ username: PleaserOfCrowds
▹ team: Pie
▹ link to sign up: x
▹ Prompt:

“Oh. H-huh. I’m not exactly the philosophic type, y’know? But… I suppose maybe this does mean something to me…” Spectre anxiously replied.

“I suppose that it’s impossible to construct two separate identities without confusing yourself, I… guess? How you change yourself around others in comparison? S-sorry if that’s not super interesting… I’m just some simple pilot for a spaceship in the middle of nowhere… Although, I’d rather be known as someone… who’s not a coward… But I suppose I’m only playing into a lie here…

I guess it’s tiring to pretend to be someone you’re really not. You sort of… lose yourself and forget who you are… Even if you want to become that person, sometimes it’s really just not in your nature to be like… that. I guess even all this time, I’ve always been… just me despite my every attempt to be otherwise. My folks on the ship… they know me too well. It’s something I’m grateful for, but I don’t really hold myself in high regards…

Sometimes, I don’t really don’t know what I want or who I want to be. Everything and everyone’s just… really intimidating.”

Spectre paused, not really knowing what else to say. They just wanted some coffee, not whatever… this was?

“Can I please get a caramel macchiato? Forget what I said…”

[219]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[waffle02]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━☙ ☕ ❧━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▹ username: waffle02 | 153327
▹ team: Soup
▹ link to sign up: X
▹ Prompt:
Nanouk listened to the quote and was honestly bewildered at first. It did not really make any sense to him. He sat there for a while just thinking about the words. How could a person wear a face other than their own, that just sounded gross and kind of difficult. Then it finally hit him. Oh, not literally wearing a different face it meant like a personality face or how one presents themselves. That made a lot more sense honestly and he was kind of embarrassed by his original thought. With this new understanding, Nanouk thought about the quote once more. The more he thought of it the more he thought of his old friend Kavik. Kavik had left the tribe long ago but he was never entirely sure why, but it made him angry. Kavik was always such a happy guy, however Nanouk guesses that there was more beneath the surface. He does remember there were many days that Kavik seemed a bit distant or like he was lost in thought, especially in the days before he disappeared. Maybe Kavik had gotten tired of pretending to be happy in a place he was not and was so confused if he actually enjoyed living on the island or was just faking it. Well, Nanouk hoped that Kavik was doing well now wherever he was.
(Words: 224)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ThatPinkThing]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━☙ ☕ ❧━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▹ username: ThatPinkThing
▹ team: soup
▹ link to sign up: link
▹ Prompt: (284 words)

Both Mau and Omicron pondered the quote, Mau looking significantly more confused. Omi blinked after a while and looked at Sunil. "If you pretend long enough, the pretending may become real," he said plainly. Mau looked over at him and inhaled as she thought.

"I don't know... for me it's more like 'be your real self or risk sadness'," she shifted her paws a little and looked at Omi rather than Suni. Omi tilted his head and Mau elaborated. "'Cause like... we change form, right Omi? And I like this form best, where everyone can see us best. Yeah the other forms are useful for when we need to lay low or when you need a rest, but then I worry, 'cause we aren't... us. It's just me. I can still hear you, but I miss being us. So I'd rather be in this form."

Omi looked surprised and touched. He hadn't heard her talk about what it's like for her when they're in other forms. He felt similarly, but realized they'd never had this conversation. "I like being us too, Mau," he said with a smile. "When people can only see you, I try not to talk, because only you can hear me then, and I don't want to stress you out. I know I don't say much in general, but I like having the option to be here for you when you need it. Or to speak freely without worrying about making you look odd in front of others."

The two looked at each other for a few moments and then both smiled and leaned forward, bonking their foreheads together. Mau giggled a little.

"Love you, Omi."

"I love you too, Mau."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[rem sleep]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━☙ ☕ ❧━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▹ username: rem sleep
▹ team: soup
▹ link to sign up: here!
▹ Prompt: Greyson couldn’t help it. His first reaction was a chuckle. A chuckle that slowly poured out of him into a laugh. It was a peculiar reaction to the question, he knew. He sensed it as all the eyes in the coffee shop came to rest uncomfortably on his shoulders. He wiped his eyes, a chuckle still bubbling from his lips.

“Sorry, sorry, couldn’t help myself,” Greyson replied with another chuckle. He took a minute to stabilize himself and to breathe, exhaling a sigh of finality, “It’s just so funny! It’s such an odd question, is all.”

He felt that those around him didn’t understand, because their eyes lingered on him. He blinked. Was it unclear…? He didn’t think so, but then, he tended to see things differently than others did.

He steadied himself, and tried again, “I just mean… it’s a funny question because you can never know which it is. Which face is real or fake, I mean. If you really, really think about it— they’re both real and both fake. Both sides of the same gemstone, but the gemstone is manufactured— cut to have unnatural sides. It’s too complicated to know, and in a way it’s a logical paradox. People only ask these kinds of question if they want to make someone else have a crisis.” He smiled, shrugging his shoulders, “So I can’t answer because it’s an impossible question, that’s why it’s funny. You can’t trick me with that one anymore. I’ve thought too much on it for that. Both the public and private face are, at the same time, both real and fake— in the same way a natural gem is artificially cut, in the same way it is both natural and manufactured.”

He glanced out to the coffee shop with calm red eyes, “Is that a better answer?”

wc: 303
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━