#I just REALLY LIKE PRETTY GRAPHS OKAY

[snickerdoodlles]

there's a lot of things people blame for why fandoms feel like ghost towns these days, but no one's really talked about the way discord's contributing to it

[dira333]

Big, butiful and nice - Fatgum x Reader

I have carried this idea with me for a while. This features a single Mom! Reader, so if kids aren't your thing, you don't have to read it. Pure Fluff. Tagging @missalienqueen @bbglay @pixiesavvy @itsyoursunshinebabe @marti-mp4

“UP! UP!” Chubby arms reach for him and huge eyes twinkle up at him over a row of missing teeth.

“Oh?” Toyomitsu reaches down and picks the little girl up. “Who are you?”

“Etsuko.” She tells him proudly, trying to reach for the zipper of his costume. 

“Hi, Etsuko. Where is your mommy?”

“Dead.”

He stills. Oh.

“Etsuko?!” A woman in a business suit rushes around the corner, spots the little girl and halts. “You can’t just run off!”

It’s only then that you notice him - not that he’s trying to hide in his big form.

“Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr. Fatgum, Sir! I was just showing Etsuko the on-site childcare when she ran off! Please, let me take her, I don’t know why she bothered you.”

“Big!” Etsuko explains simply. “I can see the world!” 

“Yes, you do!” Toyomitsu bounces her once, twice and revels in her giggles. “And don’t worry, it happens.” He transfers the little girl to your arms, watches with fondness as she immediately snuggles into your side. “Your…?”

“Niece, Sir. She’s my niece. I just… uh, I just transferred this week and this is all pretty new for us, but I promise we’ll be totally professional from now on.”

“Oh, please don’t.” He laughs, waving his hand, “That’d be boring, right?”

You look a little dumbfounded. It’s pretty, he notices, when your features soften. When you’re not constantly focused on looking all-serious.

“Boss?” A voice asks from the other end of the hallway. He turns to see Kirishima, all dressed up in his costume and eager to get going. Toyomitsu nods and turns back to you. 

“I guess I’ll see you around. And Etsuko,” he boops her nose, “Keep smiling, okay?”

-

“Mr. Fatgum, Sir?” Toyomitsu looks up from his Desk and the assortment of food spread across its expanse.

You’re dressed in a different suit this time, the dull grey color of it making you look like a banker coming to collect his soul. He shivers. 

“I have the analysis. Do you want to go over it now or later?”

“If you don’t mind me eating while you talk, we can go over it now.”

You nod and slip into the chair on the other side of his desk.

You’re a professional, he can tell. You stick out of their agency like a sore-thumb, but you’re probably also the voice of reason they need the most. 

Yes, he’s on Number 58, but he’s also too slack with his employees. Lord knows there are many things he could improve.

You show him charts and numbers, studies and graphs. You’re smart, he can tell, to the point that he can’t help but interrupt you.

“Did you just do that calculation in your head?”

“Oh… oh yeah, it’s my… it’s my Quirk.” You explain, seemingly embarrassed by it. “I’ve got a computer for a brain, basically.”

“That’s cool.”

You shrug. Your eyes flicker to the Takoyaki. He pushes them towards you, silently offering them.

“Oh, no, I shouldn’t.” You wave your hands but he shakes his head. “Take one. Tell me about yourself for a bit, will you? You transferred here from Endeavours Agency, right?”

“Yes.” You nod, still eyeing the Takoyaki. He picks one up and hands it to you, watching the emotions flicker over your face. Eventually, you pop it into your mouth and chew and he’s lucky to have been watching because happiness flickers over your face like a shooting star over the night sky.

“Another?” Toyomitsu hands you another one. It doesn’t take long for the dish to vanish.

You must have been hungry, or maybe it’s just your favorite dish, but the food has softened your features, blurred the harsh lines that you draw yourself in.

“My sister died unexpectedly. I don’t know who Etsuko’s father is, but my parents died when I was a teen and I’m the only one she has left. I did love working for Endeavour, I really did, but it’s no place for a single mother. I heard you offered on-site childcare, so I applied.”

“And what do you think of us so far?”

“Well,” you reach for your tablet again, but he stops you.

“Without the numbers, please?”

You hesitate for a second. “It’s… it’s warm, I guess. Everyone’s really nice here and no one minds when Etsuko runs off yet again, coming to find me in my office. I know it’s my job to look for opportunities to improve your brand and your agency, but I am constantly at odds.”

“Why is that?” 

“If you could have an Agency like Endeavour, would you do it if it meant giving up all the things that make you special?”

He considers it. If there’s no on-site childcare at Endeavour’s, and he’d have to give this one up, quite a few of his employees would fall away. Like Kuno-kun, who brings in his daughter and his wife’s homemade baking. Or Noda-san, who knits scarfs for everyone in the winter and who’s using the child-care for her grandsons. 

There’d be no longer the laughter of children heard in the hallways, no more drawings handed over at the end of a semester.

“No, I don’t think I’d want to give that up. At least not all of it. But we could find a compromise, I guess. Make the best of what we are. If that means we’ll stay at Nr. 58, I’m fine with that. Being a Hero doesn’t mean to have the highest rank, but to save the most people, right?”

Surprise flickers over your face. 

It’s gone as fast as it came but he likes to believe that he made an impact on you.

-

“How are you all doing today?”

Almost fifteen children surround him. The older ones are holding back in favor of the younger ones, he can tell, but they’re all so eager to tell him about their adventures.

“One after the other, okay?” Toyomitsu settles on a nearby chair. “But first we have to ask: who’s our newest member?”

Etsuko steps forward. Her hair is pulled up into little pigtails and she looks adorable.

“Hi, Etsuko. Do you want to sit on my lap today? You have to be careful though, because if you lean too much into me, I might suck you in.”

Her eyes widen, but the kids around her giggle. “Do it!” They tell her. “It’s so much fun.”

So she does, giggling almost hysterically as the fat absorption kicks in. Only her head’s left out, her pigtails whipping around as she shakes her head, giggling.

“If you want out, all you have to do is tell me, okay? No kicking.”

She nods. 

At the end of this month's visit to the children, he leaves with a hand full of drawings and one sucker, tucked into his hand by one of the older children. 

Toyomitsu’s almost down the hallway when he feels someone tugging at his legs. He turns to see Etsuko toddling after him. She reaches for him. 

“Up?” She asks and he can’t say no to her big eyes and her small pout.

If he walks around the agency for a bit with her sitting on his shoulder instead of directly taking her back, that’s his secret and his secret alone.

-

Months pass.

Toyomitsu implements the first of your proposals. His ranking moves, slowly at first, until he finds himself at Nr. 35. 

Etsuko has begun sneaking into his office once a week, handing him a drawing or a slice of fruit, left over from her lunch. Sometimes he lets her sit on his lap, listening to her talk about her day. 

Certainly, you must know about it. How else could she bring in expensive chocolates one day and have your handwriting on her drawing the next, clearly pointing out that the yellow blob is him? 

He’s been thinking a lot about you lately. 

More than he should about one of his employees. 

But he likes the way you talk, all serious one second, rattling down numbers and statistics, until he makes a joke and you can’t stop giggling, your voice suddenly smooth and soft.

He likes the way you look in the early mornings when Etsuko’s done her best to make you late, when your hair’s not done up perfectly and you’re missing your usual makeup. Or when you’d been with her for lunch and no one’s told you yet that there’s a sticky handprint on your blouse or your skirt is wrinkled, no doubt from Etsuko pulling on it.

You love your niece and he loves to see all signs of it, like an imprint you cannot wipe away.

So far, you haven’t shown any signs of interest in him.

You’ve started calling him by his last name, though, foregoing the “Sir” for most of the time. 

But that doesn’t mean that you’d consider a date with him, right? 

Or is he starting to get delusional?

-

“What do you think, Daddy?” Toyomitsu freezes. 

Etsuko’s sitting on his lap, fingertip moving over one of her drawings as she explains.

It had been a perfectly fine moment up until now.

“What did you just call me?”

“Daddy!” She looks up at him, grinning so wide it must hurt her face. “Because you’re my Daddy.”

“I… well…” He struggles. He doesn’t know what to say. “Etsuko, you cannot call me that.”

“Eh? Why?” She pulls at his shirt. “Are you not my Daddy?”

“No, Etsuko. I’m not your Daddy. I like you a lot and I want to be your friend, but I’m not your Daddy.”

Her eyes start to water and he can feel himself panicking. He’s normally not that bad with kids, but this… this is just catching him on the wrong foot at the wrong time.

“Look,” he tries to explain. “It’s like with your Aunty, right? She loves you a lot, but she’s not your Mommy.”

“But you’re my Daddy!” Etsuko’s hands are balled into fists now. “Mommy said that Daddy was big and butiful and nice! You are my Daddy.”

“Oh, Etsuko.” Toyomitsu pulls her in, realizing her mistake. She’s crying into his shirt now, her tears more fueled by confusion and anger than real sadness. He lets her cry it out before he picks her up.

“I think we need to talk to your Aunty for a moment about this, okay?”

-

He hadn’t thought your face could turn any more serious, but he’d been mistaken. 

There’s no softness left in your features as he explains. Etsuko’s sitting on your lap now, face snuggled into your blazer. He’s pretty sure that’s going to leave stains, but he’s also sure he shouldn’t point it out right now.

“I didn’t know,” you say. And “I’m sorry she bothered you this much.” And “I will make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

At some point he realizes that you’re no longer listening to him, ears closed off from his explanations. He can do nothing but leave you, wondering if he’s just ruined everything that could have possibly been.

-

For the following week, he gets no visits from Etsuko.

Toyomitsu does not dare to visit her in childcare either, unsure of what you want.

But he’s got an appointment with you on Thursday that he puts all his hopes on.

When you come in he can tell that you must have spent an extra minute preparing yourself beforehand, because there is no hair out of place and you’re wearing lipgloss like battle armor.

He feels wholly unprepared for this fight, even less so after losing a quarter of his body fat in yesterday’s fight.

But the sight of him, so much smaller and thinner than you’ve gotten to know him, seems to soften the resolve in your eyes.

“Are you okay?” You ask. 

“If you refer to my body, I will be. I have to eat a lot in the next few days to get back to my usual form, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. If you refer to something else… No, I’m not okay with how this played out.

“About that…” You gingerly sink into your chair, hands folded over your lap. You’re not looking at him. “I did some more research. I should have done that ages ago. I… I’ve found Etsuko’s father.”

His heart beats painfully.

“Who is it?”

“His name’s Kan Sekijiro. I don’t know if you know hi-”

“Vlad King?”

“Ah, yes. So you know him?”

“I know of him. One of his students interned here. He’s… did you contact him?”

“Not yet.” You purse your lips. Considering that all Etsuko knew about her father… I am sorry that she got you confused. I know this is highly unprofessional and-”

“I don’t care.”

You still. Your eyes flicker over to him.

“Look,” he leans forward, can’t help it. He needs you to understand this. “This isn’t just Etsuko’s doing alone. I like spending time with her. I could have stopped anytime, bring her back every time she came over to my office. I didn’t put a stop on it and maybe I should have, but I…”

“What?”

“I have to preface this by saying that I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, or… or put you in a tight spot because I’m your employer, but-”

“Spit it out.” Your words are harsh and rushed and he can tell you regret them the second they leave your mouth. But you’re right. He’s stalling.

“I am interested in you.”

Your jaw slackens, your features soften with that well-known dumbfoundedness. 

As you bury your face in your hands, he can feel his heart sink. Fighting criminals is so much easier than facing rejection.

“Are you okay?” He asks when your face doesn’t come back up. You nod into your hands.

“Are you sure? You’re not looking too good there.”

“It feels like my Quirk is overloading. I am…”

“Overthinking? I am familiar with that. Not that I suffer from it, but you’ve met Suneater, I guess.” He tries to joke, make light of the situation. It’s what makes you finally lift your head.

“If you’re serious,” you bite through your teeth, “About this. About… Etsuko and me. I… I’d take you out to dinner.”

Toyomitsu blinks. He’s expected everything but that.

“Are you serious?” He asks and you groan. 

“No, I mean yes. But… you know how much I eat, right?”

You huff, looking away. He’s not the worlds expert in flirting, but you do look kinda flustered. 

“I might have looked up All-You-Can-Eat-Restaurants ever since I’ve gotten to know you,” you mumble and the pout on your lips looks eerily like Etsuko’s.

-

“I’m home!” Toyomitsu calls out from the Genkan.

To his surprise, no tiny feet come running. When he peeks around the corner he finds you curled up on the Couch, an open book next to you on the floor. You must have fallen asleep reading.

“Hey,” he cards a hand through your hair to wake you gently. “Shouldn’t Sekijiro be back before dinner?”

“What?” You try to wipe the sleep from your eyes while snuggling into him. “Oh, no, he called before I took a nap. He’s bringing her back after Dinner. Apparently, they’re making pancakes.”

“Ah, did you tell him to bring leftovers?” He jokes, chuckling when you nod earnestly.

.

Life is good. 

He’s got a wife and a daughter and his daughter’s father has turned into a good friend.

He’s got a job he enjoys, a Quirk he can rely on and so far he’s been able to stay himself.

There’s not much he’d wish for nowadays. 

Well, except maybe some more food.

.

You’re still on the Couch when he walks into the kitchen, fully intending to make Dinner as soon as he’s gotten a little snack from the fridge.

But inside the fridge is a huge box. He furrows his brows and pulls it out. He recognizes the branding, but you only buy a cake at this bakery for important dates, like your wedding anniversary or Etsuko’s first day in kindergarten.

“Baby, did I miss an event?” He asks, flipping open the lid.

“Why do you ask?”

“There’s a cake in the fri-”

“Don’t open it!” You yell, rushing over. But the lid’s already open. The buttercream frosting is light blue and the icing a dark blue. Big, bold letters write out “World’s best Dad!”

“This is nice,” he says as you reach him, clearly out of breath and a little haggard. “But you didn’t have to buy an expensive cake to let me know. Not that I mind. Or is it for Sekijiro?”

“Ah,” your face is doing some weird contortions. 

His eyes flicker back to the icing and something in his head clicks at the color.

“Taishirou, I’m pregnant.”

[thelostmagicians]

Booksmart | Steve Harrington

Summary: Steve Harrington’s head may be full of air, but his heart is full of love. [4.4k]

Fluff, comfort, slight angst, insecure Steve

♡

Steve Harrington isn’t a genius. He barely passed his classes in high school, couldn’t get into college, and can barely keep his minimum wage job. He’s been belittled by his parents too many times to care about their opinion and he knows compared to his friends he isn’t as clever or witty, but he’s okay with it - at least he thinks he is. It might sting when Robin and Eddie tease him for being too slow or when Dustin sighs in frustration because he can’t keep up, but the ache dissipates when they look at him in adoration. 

He blames his failing love life on his lack of intelligence. Although girls find his himbo-ness endearing, his relationships never last long.  Most of the dates he goes on end up as dirty hookups in the backseat of his car and on the off chance a girl stays longer than a month he can slowly see the irritation replace the endearment in her eyes. He was just something to do during the inbetween phase of graduation and moving out of Hawkins, a trophy to conquer - to finally have slept with the previously known King. He used to be okay with that at the beginning, he got his needs met while girls crossed him off their list, but over time he craved more. He saw how Nancy looked at Jonathan, how Joyce laughed with Hopper, and how Robin blushed around Vickie. He was desperate for that feeling of being wanted and loved. 

Even though he's surrounded by people who love and accept him as he is, he can't help but wonder if things would’ve been different if he was just a little smarter. 

_

“Robin I’m telling you she started speaking a different language halfway through dinner,” Steve grumbles as he’s shelving the horror section. 

Robin rolls her eyes at him, “Just because you don’t understand the words she’s using doesn’t mean she was speaking a different language, Steven. I don’t even think she knows anything but English. 

Steve sighs under his breath. 

He had gone on another date last night, but didn’t even make it past the appetizers before he made up an emergency and left. The night started off great, the Indiana summer evening had a cool breeze, he opened the door for her, and was rewarded with a kiss on his cheek when he presented her with  flowers. Valerie had been nice, beautiful, and smart - maybe a little too smart for Steve. Don’t get him wrong, Steve loves strong, smart, and capable women. He loved hearing Valerie speak about physics and graphing linear equations, he loved learning about what interested her, but as the night went on he could see the light in her eyes fading as he kept asking her questions. The final straw had been when he told her he hasn’t read a book since high school and she laughed lightly before saying “you really are only a pretty face.” 

“Maybe, I’m just destined to be alone, or like a back up plan for girls who come back to Hawkins after giving up on their big city dreams.”

Robin sighs and gives him a reassuring pat, “Steve, you’re a good man. You’ll find your one, trust me on this.”

Before he can say more the bell jingles as a gust of hot air is let in. Steve groans as he spots Dustin’s mop of curly hair and hears the chatter of 6 other teens. He holds the door open with his arm as he sees Lucas struggling with Max’s wheelchair. 

“You guys can’t keep coming in here, Robin and I actually have work to do you know.”

“We wanted to pick a movie for movie night,” Max says. 

He sighs softly as he meets her eyes. Steve’s always had a soft spot for Max ever since they’ve met and it’s only gotten softer since then, everyone knows this, but the kids tend to take advantage of this and use Max to get their way. 

“Alright two movies max and no rated r ones.”

As he hears the bell jingle again he starts his greeting in a monotone voice, “Welcome to Family Video, my name is St—” he chokes. 

“Oh my god, are you okay?” you ask softly. 

He’s still coughing and panting slightly as he tries to give you a reassuring nod. Robin makes her way to the front to hand Steve some water and finish introductions. 

“What he means to say is his name is Steve and I’m Robin. You can come get us if you have any questions.”

You nod politely, finally tearing your gaze away from Steve as you start browsing through the racks. Steve, however, can’t seem to stop looking at you. He’s seen a lot of beautiful women in his life, but none of them held a candle to you. Everything about you was just perfect to him and he didn’t even know you yet. His eyes repeatedly traced the slope of your nose, down to your plush lips, and back to your furrowed eyebrows as you read the back of a tape. 

You lift your head up and he blushes as you make eye contact. 

“Do you have any recommendations for sci-fi, I just moved to town and need something to keep me from getting bored?” you ask shyly. 

“Err- We have a sci-fi section over there” Steve points to the rack behind him where the kids are gathered and quietly arguing over which movie to pick. 

You speak as you make your way over, “Yeah, but do you have any recommendations for me? I feel like I’ve seen all the good ones already.”

Steve's face falls as he tries to come up with an answer. 

“Have you seen Star Wars?” Dustin speaks up

Max and El groan loudly as you shake your head. 

“I tend to stay away from franchises, but what’s it about?”

Before Dustin can answer, Mike beats him to it, “It’s about galactic adventures of these characters, it’s pretty cool.”

“We were planning on watching it tonight, we always have movie nights at Steve’s on Friday. You should join us!” Dustin exclaims as he tries to shoot Steve a sly wink. 

Your eyes grow wide at the sudden invitation as Steve rests his head in his hands too embarrassed to speak. 

“Is that alright with you, Steve?” You ask kindly. 

Steve’s breath hitches as he hears you say his name, he slowly meets your gaze as he gives you a slight nod trying to avoid choking on air again.

Robin smirks at Steve as she hands you a post-it, “Here’s Steve’s address. Movie starts at 7 and bring as many snacks as you’d like!”

You grab the post-it and shoot everyone a small wave “I’ll see you guys then!”

Steve feels like he can finally breathe after he hears the soft slam of the door behind you. 

_

“I can’t believe you would do that, just invite a stranger to my home like that,” Steve groans as he fixes his hair, again, in the hallway mirror. He glances down at his polo debating if he should change his shirt for the fourth time. 

“Steve, she agreed to come while seeing you in a Family Video vest, I don’t think your outfit is what you should be worried about,” Jonathan teases him as he passes him a coke. 

Steve shoots him a sarcastic smile before checking his watch. It’s 7:02, you should’ve shown up 2 minutes ago and he’s a nervous wreck. He sees your headlights before anyone else does and trips over Will’s backpack as he waits to open the door on the very first knock. 

“Sorry I’m late, the petit fours took longer than expected.” You smile at him holding out a large container filled with small cakes. 

He gives you a confused look too embarrassed to ask what petit fours are, so instead he takes the container and waves you in. 

“What brings you to Hawkins?” Eddie asks.

“I actually came here for work, Hawkins laboratory needed another scientist to look at all the crazy stuff that’s happened here.”

Everyone basks in the uncomfortable silence as you mention the lab before Nancy speaks up, “You work as a scientist? You seem pretty young.”

You hesitate slightly, folding your hands in your lap, “I am young, but I graduated college at 16 and recently got my PhD and my advisor recommended me for this job, so here I am.”

Steve’s heart falls to his stomach, you were a genius, a child prodigy of some sort and you’ve accomplished so much at such a young age. There was no way you would even be slightly interested in him, but part of him was willing to take that risk - be okay with whatever you spared him because it was better than not having you in his life at all. 

The movie is ignored as everyone pays more attention to you and your genius-ness. He hears voices all at once but all he can focus on is yours. The way your laugh ends in a higher pitch than it starts in, the way you softly reassure Nancy that college isn’t hard, but his favorite is when you say his name when you ask for his opinion on the theories the kids present to you. It makes him feel important like you care about what he has to say and you value his thoughts just as much as you would anyone else’s. 

Steve might’ve only met you today, but he was already enamored. You might’ve knowingly opened the door only to Family Video, but you also unknowingly opened the door to his heart and started to fill every corner of it with you. 

_

Steve doesn’t think he’s read this much in his entire existence as he has this month.

The first thing he did the morning after movie night was go to the library and check out as many books as he could about everything that sounded smart. He’s inhaled almost every book on poetry (specifically Shakespeare), astrophysics and European history. You’ve come to every movie night since the first one and you try your best to visit Family Video after work just to chat with Steve and Robin. He was slowly falling in love with you and he wasn’t going to let his dumb brain be the reason he lost you. He forcefully read every book from cover to cover, prying his eyes open with the memory of your impressed smile anytime he fell asleep. He’s made countless flashcards and pesters Robin to quiz them during their shift. 

After two months of revising and memorizing he thinks he finally finds the courage to ask you out. You’re the last one to leave tonight, helping Steve clean up after everyone either left or claimed a spare room. 

Steve’s hands are clammy as he ties the trash bag into a pretty bow, “I was wondering if… I mean you don’t have to… but umm, like if you wanted to go out. With me, I mean.”

Your eyes trace his face as you clench the empty red vines wrapper, “You mean like a date?”

Steve nods, unsure of your reaction. Part of him hopes you’ll say no and put him out of his misery, so he can finally stop learning, but a bigger part of him hopes you’ll give him a chance. 

Your lips upturn in a shy smile as you fiddle your thumbs, “Yeah, I’d like that a lot. What did you have in mind?”

“How about next Friday, we ditch the losers and have our movie night? I’ll pick you up at 7 and we can catch a movie?”

You respond with a quick kiss on his cheek as you grab your purse and head out. Steve rests his head on the back of the door as he pumps his fist in the air and tries his hardest to not  wake Robin and Eddie with his cheering. 

_

You’re nervous as you pace in front of your door. Steve makes you nervous, but you don’t hate the feeling. You’ve never felt this way about a boy before, boys always had a competition with you, a majority of your dates ended up with the two of you trying to up each other with accomplishments, but with Steve everything is different. Even though the facts he tells are wrong, it was still endearing to watch him try. 

You’re broken out of your thoughts with a knock on your door. You smooth down your dress and look in the mirror once more before swinging the door open. Steve stands there in all his glory, hair perfectly done, snug jeans, and a bouquet of flowers covering his stupidly handsome face. 

“These are for you,” he pushes the bouquet towards you with a surprise force that you have to step back to avoid them pressing into your nose. 

“Thanks Steve, they’re beautiful.” You set them down gently at the nearby table mentally making a note to find a vase after you come back home. 

He opens his car door for you, waiting until you’re settled in before jogging back to his side. “There’s a French movie playing tonight, I think it’s about Marie - Annette, you know the queen who liked cake?” 

You giggle quietly but opt to ignore his mistake because he just looked too fucking cute with furrowed eyebrows and a nervous smile. 

“And after the movie I was thinking we can stop by somewhere for a late night snack?”

You nod excitedly eager to finally spend time with him far away from the eyes of your prying friends, “I didn’t know you knew French?”

“Uh, yeah.”

The movie was… boring and bland. Steve didn’t understand anything happening so instead spent the entire time admiring you, the furrow of your eyebrows, the tilt of your head, and the gentle bite of your lip. He remembered you mentioning to Robin that you were fluent in French, so thought a foreign film would be a good idea for a first date, but now he regrets his choice especially since you spent the drive to the diner asking him questions about the movie. Questions he didn’t know the answer to. Steve has charmed his way through life, but he wasn’t sure how much longer his charm would last with you, he had an inkling that sooner or later you would be able to see through his facade and you would see him as a disappointment.

_

You had a hunch that Steve was lying about knowing French and your hunch was confirmed when his shoulders tensed as the ticket guy told him the movie didn’t have English subtitles. He played it off with a laugh and a wave of his hand, but you could tell it made him nervous. You thought the movie was alright, but your favorite part was feeling Steve’s eyes on you. You try to be mindful when asking him questions, keeping them vague and more about opinions rather than asking him questions that have a right or wrong answer. He responds as vaguely as possible, gauging your reaction to see if you’re pleased with his answer or if he needs to backtrack and fix his opinion. 

Your conversation at the diner starts to get more personal as you ask each other about your likes and dislikes. You learn that Steve broke his arm learning to ride a bike, his favorite color is green, and he’s always wanted a dog. Everything you learn about Steve just makes you like him even more and the potential of falling in love with him makes you giddy with happiness. Your hands brush occasionally as you walk back to his car. He bites his lip hesitating to grab your hand as he peeks at you from the corner of his eye. You make the decision for the both of you and take a hold of his hand swinging both your arms as he blushes. 

“You’re really cute Steve Harrington,” you say as you force him to face you before gently pushing your lips to his. 

_

You spend every free time you have with Steve now. It’s been a month since your first date and since then you’ve gone out plenty of times and if you’re not physically together then you’re talking for hours on the phone. Steve’s able to open up to you more than he has to anyone else and it’s only been a few months of knowing you but he knows he’s in love, yet he can’t ask you to be his girlfriend. He does everything a boyfriend should do, calling you during breaks, kissing your bad days away, and hugging you just right when you’re on the verge of tears, but he still can’t find the courage to ask you to be his, officially. 

You express your concern to Nancy and Robin at an impromptu girls night, thrown together after a rough week for all of you. 

“I just don’t know why he won’t ask me, I always want to ask him myself before I see him, but then I lose my nerve. Maybe he doesn’t even like me like that and I’m just reading into things,” you whine as you smear a homemade face mask on Robin's face. 

“Trust me, Steve is a goner for you,” Nancy replies as she squints to make sure her brushes on the nail polish perfectly. 

“Nance is right, Steve is in love with you, but you just make him nervous.”

“I don’t understand why though, how do I make him nervous when he’s Steve Harrington,” you sigh dreamily. 

Nancy and Robin giggle as they see the childish frown on your face. You push your face into a pillow whining into it like a petulant child. 

Nancy rubs your back gently, “Look it’s not my place to say, but Steve isn’t the smartest tool academically. And you’re this child prodigy and that makes him nervous.”

Robin nods in agreement, “Yeah, you do know he spent months reading all sorts of books just to impress you right? He isn’t actually as smart as he pretends to be. He just memorizes a bunch of stuff the days leading up to your date.”

You huff in annoyance, “Yeah, I knew that on our first date when he took me to that French film. But I don’t love him because he can tell me facts about the mesozoic era. I love him because he’s him.”

Nancy and Robin share a knowing look.

“You love him?” Robin whispers.

“What?”

“You just said you love him,” Nancy clarifies.

You breathe in deeply before letting it out, the weight of what you said finally sinking in. “Yeah, I do. I really do.”

Both girls squeal as they pull you into a hug, face masks and nail polish quickly forgotten. 

You fall asleep that night knowing the next time you see Steve you’ll tell him. Tell him how much you love him and how he means to you.

_

Unfortunately for you and Steve, you aren’t able to spend any time alone lately. Work is crazy for the both of you and any time you have off it’s spent with the group. While you love spending time with your friends, you’re dying for a second alone with Steve. A second that only you both can cherish when you finally tell him how you feel. 

You’re hoping you can finally catch a moment alone with Steve at the summer bonfire by Lover’s Lake. Almost every young adult in Hawkins comes out of hiding for this annual bonfire, usually thrown by college kids as a final hurrah before summer break is officially over. You hung out with Nancy and Robin for a while and meet some new people, but you’re aren’t able to find the one person you want to see. You finally spot him parking his car and hurriedly shoving his family video vest in the trunk, but before you call out to him you’re blocked by a freckled boy wearing a smug smile. 

“Well if it isn’t the new genius of Hawkins,” the boy teases, voice filled with malice.

You smile politely, “I’m sorry you’re–”

“I’m Hagan. Tommy Hagan, surprised Steve hasn’t mentioned me considering we used to be the best of friends before he became a loser.”

You’ve heard about Tommy, mostly through passing from Nancy and Jonathan and based on Steve’s disgruntled face every time his name was mentioned, you decided Tommy Hagan wasn’t worth your time. 

“How can I help you?” You ask in a monotone voice to show how disinterested you are. 

Before Tommy can start you feel a pair of arms wrap around your waist and lips brush against the side of your head. You turn to see Steve’s grimace at Tommy before his eyes soften landing on you. 

“Hi hon,” he whispers gently, his left arm moving from caressing your hip to soothing the ache in your shoulder. 

“Hey baby.” For a second it’s just the two of you lost in each other’s eyes, you wonder if everyone else can see how lovesick you are for Steve. Before you can whisk him away for yourself Tommy interrupts again.

“Damn, Harrington. Didn’t think I’d see you go all soft again after what Wheeler did to you.”

You rolled your eyes at the mention of Nancy. It’s been years, both Steve and Nancy were over it, being happy for each other and supporting each other as friends. Yet everyone still brought it up because they had no other dirt on Steve. 

“Didn’t know you were home for the summer Tommy,” Steve replies ready to end the conversation with his former friend. 

At this point you see Jonathan and Eddie glancing from their spot near the fire. Both of them looking at Steve, silently asking him if he needed them. Steve shakes his head at them and squeezes your shoulder readying to lead you away. 

“Yeah, summer is the only time I have off now. Between college and my internship. It’s hard out there man, but you wouldn’t know that, would you?” Tommy smirks knowingly as he pushes Steve’s buttons. He knows college has always been a sore spot for Steve especially since he was still stuck working at Family Video. 

Steve grunts in response hoping his disinterest is enough to stray Tommy away from the both of you, but with Steve’s luck Tommy turns his attention to you. 

“Surprised he can keep up with a genius like you sweetheart.”

You wrinkled your nose in disgust, the term of endearment turning sour coming from a mouth other than Steve’s.

Tommy continues to go on, swaying from the few too many drinks he’s had. “Did he tell you he barely passed high school? His dad complained to mine about how much of a disappointment he turned out to be. Can’t even get a job at his dad’s firm with the brain he has.”

Steve loosens his grip around your shoulder, cheeks flushing in embarrassment. 

“You’re telling me your girl hasn’t caught on to the kind of screw up you are Harrington? You sure she’s a genius, or maybe you found someone that aligns with your IQ.”

At this point everyone is watching the words fly out of Tommy’s mouth, some snickering others shooting Steve looks of pity. Tommy Hagan is ripping him to shreds in front of everyone and yet all he can focus on is you. A look of disappointment mixed with frustration glazing over your otherwise sweet disposition. He sees his friends pushing their way through the crowd but before they could defend him he hears your honey like voice calling out for Tommy. 

“What university did you say you go to, Tommy?” you ask sweetly.

“Indiana University of Business,” he smirks behind his beer.

“And I’m assuming your daddy paid for it? Cause you sure as hell didn’t get into school by your merit, considering you spent most of high school with your head so far up people’s asses that you couldn’t get enough oxygen to your brain. Hence, why you and your stupid ass are still playing into high school politics at your grown ass age.”

The smugness on Tommy’s face disappears. 

“And what do you want to do with your future Tommy? Join daddy’s business? Turn out exactly like him? Cause last I heard he spends more time with his new family than he does with you. Maybe he finally got a child he actually loves.”

You knew it was a low blow, bringing up Tommy’s family issues, but you couldn’t care less. After everything he said to Steve, he had it coming and you only wish you were around in high school so you could’ve put him in his place earlier. 

You heard a low whistle from Eddie, “Well guess the shows over folks. And looks like we have a clear winner.”

People start clearing out going back to mind their own business and you grab Steve’s arm leading him far away from Tommy’s frozen stance. 

“Guess the secret’s out,” Steve mumbles.

“Huh?”

“Now you know I’m not really smart, so..” he trails off.

You smile, arms twisting around his waist pulling him close. “You know, I’ve met a lot of smart people in my life, but don't you dare, even for a second take Tommy’s words to heart. Because I know you, and I know that you’re the greatest person I’ve ever met.”

Steve pinches your chin, holding your gaze before whispering out a shy “yeah?” 

You hear the insecurity laced in his voice as you nod fervently. “I kinda figured you weren’t as smart as you let on from our first date, but I said yes because even though you aren’t a brainiac you have a heart of gold. I see the way you take care of the kids, how you take care of your friends. And I love how you take care of me. I love you and everything about you, Steve Harrington.”

Steve blushes, his cheeks turn a rosy hue as he grabs your waist pressing his lips to yours in a kiss so sweet you think you’ll get a toothache. 

“You really love me?”

“I really do.”

Steve presses another kiss before murmuring out an I love you against your lips.

Yeah, Steve Harrington is stupid. Stupidly in love with you. 

[centrally-unplanned]

To talk about monopoly & antitrust, I want to start off with your first day in Econ 101, when you learn "how prices work". The toy model that nearly everyone learns as one of the first things ever is that classic supply-and-demand graph of price and quantity; you know it, I don't need to show it. And in relation to how firms set price in a market, the explanation you get is something like:

"In a world with perfect information, zero transaction costs, rational agents, and no barriers to entry, new firms and/or increased output will enter the market until marginal price equals marginal cost"

This (seemingly) portrays a model where new companies "entering the market" is how prices go down. Like say there are Firms A, B, and C, engaging in oligopolistic pricing for a normal good; what happens is some new Firm X (with the same production costs) emerges with the sole business strategy of "offer prices lower than them because they are skimming" and it drives everyone's prices down in a race to the bottom. That, in a sense, competition between identical firms drives the price equilibrium.

That isn't very true, not in practice and not even theoretically; the 101 stuff just sort of biases you to see it that way. Firm X above is being rational in one way but silly in others; why would it enter a market where its competitors are making healthy profits just to fuck that up, knowing it has no advantage they can't immediately replicate in response? And pay all the fixed costs other firms have already paid to make that 0.1% profit? In real life firms almost never do this, they compete over (actual or perceived) advantage or market segmentation. And it also means that - if all firms are truly the same in a market - cooperating on price, far from being aberrant behavior, is the natural thing to do. Why would I look at my rival firm and lower my price to "undercut" them, knowing that they 100% can just lower it too? We both lose, immediately. In practice, companies often set their prices by looking at the prices of competing firms and matching them!

Many things actually drive the price equilibrium of course, but one of the biggest - and most useful for our purposes - is the substitution effect. If companies defacto cooperate on prices all the time, why is the price not infinity? Well because if you are selling steaks and set the price to infinity, I'm not gonna buy it! I can just buy chicken, for me it's pretty much the same. And chicken is cheaper to make than steak. As a chicken firm, I totally can set my price under your steak and you can never, ever match it; that is a real advantage, one from asymmetries of production. The price of steak is driven by the need to compete with chicken much more than it is driven by the need to compete with "other steaks". And so on down a chain of a million desires and costs and needs.

So to wrap this around to antitrust, there is a common idea out there that monopolistic pricing is increasing from the past because if I look at different industries, so many of them today are consolidated into 2-3 big firms. Your grocery stores are all Giant or Safeway or w/e it is in your city, if you are buying a TV Samsung & LG are half the entire US market. How could these companies not collude on price? Of course they do, and they don't need explicit agreements that would violate extant FTC regulations to do it; they can just softly communicate and feel out cooperation. So you gotta break them up and change the rules so they can't do that.

The trap is thinking this is any different if it was 10 firms - it really isn't! Maybe marginally, sure, and if it was 2000 firms yeah okay the sheer chaos would probably create some price churn; but in the past prices were not driven down by the diversity of firms making price cooperation impossible. The long history of guilds, business associations, chambers of commerce, and so on shows that they had plenty of avenues for cooperation - and often did straight-up set prices. Meanwhile, when Wal-Mart, Target, Aldi, and others all cut prices at around the same time, they are not mainly competing with each other. If they were they would just mutually agree to not do that, without even saying anything! How stupid do you think they are? That isn't hard to do. Instead they are competing with Amazon; with boutique local stores; with restaurants; with the changing price of labor; with shifting consumer sentiment and expectations. The industry concentration doesn't matter.

Until it does of course! Because what is the substitution good for oil? They exist of course, but they ain't cheap; people will still buy gas at gigantic ranges of prices. Here, the fundamental structure of the market is monopolistic - and also a geopolitical clusterfuck, but let's not get into that. Producers openly rig prices sometimes, and antitrust actively regulates against it, and it is a hot mess of governments and companies and all that. Are people who hold patents engaging in monopoly pricing? Obviously, that is the point of patents! It is by design; but there are tons of arguments to be made around creeping exploitation of the IP system. Sometimes hundreds of firms in a dominant market niche will offer complex, bundled products where the price of each piece of obfuscated and the value is subjective, but consensus is you can't not buy the product or you will be screwed and since you can't tell what the product even is, let alone how valuable it is, you can't object when they set the price - I hear these are called "universities", but they go by other names in other sectors.

All of the above are something like "monopolies", which maybe are getting worse over time, but they are monopolies for different, product-specific reasons. I think there is a good deal of FTC work and other reforms that could be done in the US to identify areas where this kind of rent extraction is happening. But what it doesn't look like is opposing blanket industry consolidation. And in fact the correlation is honestly pretty weak. Because identical firm competition does not drive the price equilibrium.

[1800classiccherries]

Slideshow!

⚘ 1610!Miles Morales x black!fem!reader

⚘ fluff! use of n word like once, teen romance

⚘ summary: Miles and Y/n make a slideshow to convince his parents to be able to be in his room with the door closed.

⚘ wc: 631

You and Miles were on his bed, sitting in silence a foot or so apart, which was odd because you two were never normally this awkward. Occasionally one of you would glance at the wide open door, revealing Miles's parents walking by here and there, which is why you two kept your distance.

For context, when you and Miles first started dating, you two weren't allowed in his room and had to stay in a public space like the living room; however, y'all are obnoxiously loud. When you two were playing games, loud. Even just talking, you two laughed loud. Except, when it was a movie night, it was quieter because y'all were so wrapped up in the plot.

To be honest, y'all were fine in the living room, but it was rough always being told to quiet down. The volume of you two in the same room was too much, so Miles suggested to his parents that you two go to his room instead of being confined to only the living room. Under one condition, the door stayed wide open.

And so there y'all were sitting side-by-side in a semi-awkward silence.

You feel the weight on the bed shift closer to you, and an arm makes its way over your shoulder, "Hey."

"Nigga, what?" you say without thinking at his cheesy attempt to make a move on you.

With a pout, he takes his arm off your shoulder and leans back upright, "You ruined the moment."

You giggle at his pouting, feeling a little bad about your reaction, "My bad, stink, it was a natural reflex. Try again," you offer, tossing your locs over your shoulder.

Miles clears his throat before leaning back over, putting an arm over your shoulders again.

"Hey." He says with a smirk and a tilt of his head.

"Hi," you respond, tilting your head the same way, your eyes glancing down at his lips before back up at his eyes.

"You look really pretty right now," He compliments, leaning in.

"Thank you," you whisper with a smile, leaning in as well.

You hear someone clear their throat walking past the doorway of his room, causing both of y'all to quickly move away and back into the awkward silence.

~

A week or so later--that situation happening again and again--you and Miles were on Facetime brainstorming ideas for the slideshow y'all planned to make to convince Miles's parents (mainly his mom) to let y'all have the door closed.

The both of you knew it was ambitious to shoot for something so big, so that's why you had to create the best slideshow presentation of all time.

"Okay, what do we think about this template?" you ask, turning your camera around to show a classy slideshow template.

"Perfect." he nods, and you add him to the slideshow.

~

A few days of hard work and planning go by, and it's now the day you two scheduled to present the presentation.

In preparation, the two of you coordinated your most trustworthy-looking outfits and practiced how you would present. Y'all knew you both were being extra, but at the end of the day, it didn't matter because y'all were having fun.

"Greetings, esteemed guests," Miles opens, gesturing to the title slide on tv.

You and Miles alternated presenting slides, explaining how having a door closed is reverse psychology, decreasing the chances of anything happening. Also, the classic, if the door was closed, grades would improve (don't know how, but there was a graph to prove it), along with a few other random and made-up examples.

"Thank you for your time," you close, and the two of you bow.

Following suit, his dad gives a round of applause, "That was actually pretty impressive."

His mom sighs, "We'll think about it."

Thanks for reading!

Ngl i wanna do a part two but at the same time i dont know if it'd be any good... if youd be interested in part two lmk

part 2

[httpsdana]

heyy! i feel bad for putting in a request hopefully ur not busy. just wanted to say i love ur fics sm and hope u are having a great day.

so today im like not feeling myself and upset and wanted to know if u could make a cubarsi fic with fluff.

so i have a science project and im the only one working and we have so much to do and my friends are stressing me. my parents are helping but yk when it’s too much.

so anything with Pau x reader with Pau comforting her would be amazing tysmm! 💕🫶🏽

Heartfelt Equations~Pau Cubarsi

・❥・prompt list

・❥・masterlist -> part 2

・❥・who I write for

y/n is staring at her laptop screen, eyes glazed over, feeling like she's drowning in numbers, notes, and complicated diagrams.

The clock on the wall ticks loudly, reminding her of the deadline creeping closer, and she can feel the stress building like a storm inside you.

Her group of friends was supposed to be helping, but one by one, they’d left her to handle everything alone. Her family offered what help they could, but it was clear that science projects weren’t their strong suit. She was in this alone, and it was overwhelming.

Suddenly, she heard a familiar knock at the door, followed by the gentle creak as it opens. Before she can even turn around, a pair of warm arms wrap around her shoulders from behind.

“Hey, mi pequeña científica,” Pau’s soft voice fills the room, his chin resting on top of her head. (my little scientist)

“You look like you’re about two seconds away from throwing this laptop out the window.” he joked, sensing her overwhelmed situation.

y/n let out a sigh, leaning back into his embrace. “Two seconds? I think I’m already there,” she muttered, closing her eyes to keep the frustration at bay. “This project is impossible, and none of my friends have helped at all. I’m just… I don’t even know where to start anymore.”

Pau gently spins her chair to face him, his hands resting on her shoulders as he looks down at her with a soft smile. “Let me see this mess, then. I’m here now, and I’m not leaving until we get this done together, okay?”

She looked at him, a flicker of hope sparking in her chest.

“You mean it? You don’t have to—” she started

“Of course I mean it,” he interrupts, pulling her up from the chair and guiding her to the kitchen table where all her papers are scattered. “What kind of boyfriend would I be if I let my amazing, hardworking girl drown in science notes?”

y/n let out a laugh at his words, feeling some of the tension slip away. “Alright, you asked for it. Welcome to the chaos,” she said gesturing to the mess of papers, half-finished calculations, and diagrams that don’t even make sense to her anymore.

Pau grins, sitting beside hee and picking up a stray page. “Wow, you really went all out here. Let’s see, we’ve got… a million equations and some pretty impressive doodles on the side of this page.” He points to a little sketch she'd absentmindedly drawn of a sun with sunglasses.

she blushed, reaching to snatch the paper from him, but he holds it out of reach, laughing. “No way! I’m keeping this as evidence of your creative genius. But seriously,” he says, his expression softening, “you’re incredible for even attempting this all on your own. Now, let’s break it down together, alright?”

With a deep breath, she nods and explains the project to him, pointing out all the sections that still need to be done. Pau listens carefully, nodding along, and as soon as she's finished explaining, he grabs a pencil and a fresh piece of paper.

“Alright, my love. You take care of the data, and I’ll start on the graphs. Let’s tackle this step by step.” he said, giving her an encouraging smile.

They both dive into the work, and it’s like a weight has been lifted. Pau’s presence grounds her, his little jokes making her smile as he meticulously draws out her graphs and even colors them in with highlighters he found in her pencil case. Every now and then, he looks up at her with a grin.

“You know, you’re gonna owe me a big thank-you kiss for all this coloring,” he teases, holding up a bright yellow bar he’s highlighted.

“Oh, trust me,” she laughs, “I’ll give you all the kisses you want after this.”

“Deal,” he says, his eyes twinkling as he reaches over and plants a quick kiss on her forehead.

Hours pass, and the project finally starts coming together. With one last click, y/n saves the final document, and an overwhelming sense of relief washes over her. She slumps back in her chair, exhaling deeply.

“It’s… it’s done,” she whispers, almost in disbelief.

Pau immediately pulls her into his arms, lifting her off the chair and twirling her around. “I told you we’d finish it. Look at you, mi genio. You did it” (my genius)

Giggling, she wraps her arms around his neck, clinging to him as he spins her. When he finally sets her down, they're both breathless and laughing. Pau cups her face, brushing his thumbs gently over her cheeks.

“You know, I’m really proud of you. You didn’t give up, even when it got tough,” he says softly, his gaze filled with admiration. “You’re amazing.”

A blush rises to her cheeks as she smiles up at him. “Thank you, Pau. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

“Of course you could have,” he says, pressing a gentle kiss to her nose. “But I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. Now…” He pulls you closer, wrapping his arms around her tightly. “How about we celebrate?”

y/n snuggled into his embrace, feeling the last remnants of stress melt away. “What kind of celebration did you have in mind?”

“Hmm,” he says, pretending to think, “how about ice cream? The biggest sundae we can find?”

She laughs gently, looking up at him with a grin. “You know the way to my heart.”

He chuckles, leaning down to kiss her softly. “I know, hermosa. And for the record,” he murmurs, brushing his lips across hers, “I love you. Stress and all.”

Her heart fluttered as she reaches up, winding her arms around his neck. “I love you too, my little science assistant.”

He laughs, pulling her in for another kiss, deeper and slower this time. The world feels calm and steady, and in his arms, everything feels perfectly, wonderfully right.

[frenchgremlim1808]

So after being in school alone with my thought, i wondered the question no one dared to ask, what is my friends daily account activity? Do they really hold up as dailies? How much dailies account even in there? Did brody cause 9/11? All those questions went trough my brain like wildfire, and after a very long 15 seconds of thinking i too the harduous task of finding every single daily accounts and using the power of MATH to see their overall activity.

so follow me on my little rambling as i see the RISE and FALL of the yttd daily community

So lets say some ground rule, when i mean activity i mean that the blog has posted adn actual daily blog post and not just talked or respounded to asks, so for example brocoli respounds to asks but he didn't post a daily since a certain time. Rule understood, okay okay.

First part of this task was to fin every single daily blogs and look their last posts, and this was the longest part for sure.

forget my very bad typos this was written in a moment of euphoria. What we can see from this is that there is 1 billion blogs actually but also that a ton of those blogs are in fact desactivated. THose which are classified as today are actually yesterday post i just was very lazy to change it.

Second phase was to put them all in different categories on a exel sheet to see the overal proportions and see the average of month since a last daily was posted.

as we can see there is no joke 53 FUCKING DAILY ACCOUNTS. But more importrantly about 16 of those accounts are either gone and dissapeared out of the face of the earth or they are simply stated as inactive by the daily in question. The second largest numbers are didn't post in 8 months and 4 months.

third part was to make a graphical illustration of my point, so i made a camembert.

so yeah i'm not gonna do a big study but its pretty clear that if we only consider daily accounts who posted today or this month as actual dailies then we can consider all the others as inactive dailies.

What was the point of this you might say? Well i wanted to prove my theories, first off most of those daily accounts were in fact born from the brody genesis, so when brody created his daily keiji account. It became a popular idea and everyone impulsively created accounts. The thing is that having a daily account is not some funny bussiness its extremely tiring and extremly difficult, and since most of the yttd community on tumblr are teens to young adults, we mostly have school to deal with. So keeping up with pace is pretty much impossible. Second my guess was that honestly all daily accounts would burn out in two months, and i was kinda right. Yes the graph seems to show that they lasted longuer, but actually, this doesnt count the time of inactivity in betwens or the long breaks. Most account burned out after 1 or 2 months which is pretty logical. LIke dailyshinai/rune burned out in two month for example.

I think the overral if we did a competion winners would be @rekofan101 who posted for a year straight and just terminated being a daily on their own account and janice/ @daily-dose-of-bucket who despite longs breaks are still posting. The dailies had an immense rise at one point but the fall was even harder slowly has the accounts and trend started to burn out. As someone who is on a dailies account i will say out of the maybe 30 blogs on it only lik 8 are actually active and only 1 post regularly.

This is isnt' at all a judgement or anything but its an interresting depictions of how waves of trends affect certains populations.

Tho if i had to give advices to make a daily account it would be:

-make it a weekly, more time better results last longuer

-don't do it alone perhaps do it with a friend and alternate betwen one another

-if you have adhd, a job, memory issues or overall issues that will make it evn more difficult for you to make an account a daily, i would consider not doing it, instead perhaps just do a regular fan account like me

But anyway thank for reading my useless unemployed friend rambling and keep doing what you love!

[cherrywhite]

TSV Fan Favorite Survey Results

Last week I made a small TSV survey for the heck of it and ended up getting way more results than I originally expected!! Wanted to share the results.

When I'm in a "Who's your favorite TSV main character" competition and my opponent is Carpenter 🤯 (Okay but.. is anyone surprised?)

Fun fact: for a while Hayward had only one or two votes and idk why that surprised me so much. Though I'm shocked he got more than Faulkner overall

Top 5 minor characters, as voted: Val > Shrue > Sibling Rane > Gage > Sid Wright

Also unsurprising! Though I regret that I didn't word the question as "Pick up to 5" instead of top 5. Val almost got 100% of the votes in this category... off by 4.. I respect you but also who are you 4 I just want to know

Top 5 side characters, as voted: Acantha > Nana Glass / Greve > Charity / Elgin > The Homesick Corpse > Chuck Harm (though Cross came very close to tying!!)

Acantha at the top is also unsurprising! Though.. looking at the top one.. looks like we all have a thing for old ladies, huh? Definitely my mistake in that I didn't add Em and Vaughn in there to begin with💦 Shoutout to the one person who voted Helen. Also, we love to see that Daggler got 0 votes.

Favorite God, as voted: Th Cairn Maiden > The Many Below > The Trawlerman > The Watcher in the Wings > The Saint Electric

The Beast that Stalks in the Long Grass and The Last Word each got one vote. Also, The Chitterling got a vote. Henge, the god Hayward mentions in s1, the one that takes things people wish to lose, got two votes! :D Idk why, but it's such an unexpected pull to me, it makes me happy to see it was remembered!

Top 5 s1 episodes, as voted: Chapter 4 > Chapter 7 & Chapter 15 > Chapter 1 > Chapter 13 > Chapter 3, 8, 11, & 12 (tied with 3 votes)

Fun fact: of season 1 episodes, only 4/15 episodes weren't picked as someone's favorite!!

Top 5 s2 episodes, as voted: Chapter 24 > Chapter 29 > Chapter 19 > Chapter 17 > Chapter 23

Also not surprised because chapter 24 is also my favorite (probably my most relistened to episode and it still makes me cry). Though, I will say, I was surprised chapter 20 didn't have more votes since that one also seems to be a favorite writing wise!

Fun fact: of all s2 episodes, only 1 episode wasn't picked as someone's favorite! (okay, idk why it's important to me to point out, I just think it's interesting!! Though I can admit I could probably phrase it better. I think the fave episodes are spread out pretty evenly for each season though, which is really neat in my opinion.)

Top 5 s3 episodes, as voted: Chapter 46 > Chapter 38 > Chapter 37 > Chapter 36 (we are not immune to a good tragic love story, I see) & Chapter 43 > Chapter 44

For a while, Chapter 38 had the most votes which I thought was.. idk how to better phrase it, but.. sweet. Because Carpenter's returning home episode was the fave of s2 and if Faulkner's returning home episode had also been the fave... something something we sure do love these terrible siblings, huh? But! Unsurprisingly the finale is the big fave of the season. How many of us have recovered from it??

Fun fact: Of season 3, only 3 episodes weren't chosen!

Boooo I shouldn't have given y'all the option to abstain from picking!! "Don't make me choose," you cowards!! /lh

mandatory link to this recommendation

Favorite episode title:

Hi. So, um. I'm an idiot. And didn't realize that Google Form automatically turns short answers into a bar graph. So unfortunately, the results for this one is..well

And half of these are the exact same title with slightly different phrasing 🙃

BUT I'm nothing if not determined so I went through and organized everything though I didn't make a pie chart. Needless to say. I think we all know the favorite episode title (care to make a guess?)

Favorite episode title: But We'll Never Be Rid of Each Other (25%)

Its Wrath Shall Scald the Sun came second with only 9% of the vote. We sure do love our doomed siblings, huh?

[serendipnpipity]

Favorite DnP Tour Song Statistics

Settle round, little ducklings, do I have some statistics to share with you all!!

A grand total of 156 people participated in this survey, so thank you if you took the time to fill it out! 🧡

As a teaser, here’s a pie chart of the votes for your favorite song! We’ll be discussing this in depth in its own section but I know some of you f*ck vibe with pie charts more than the bar charts I use there…

To give you a clear vision of what we’ll be looking at, here are the categories of the upcoming analysis:

Phandometrics (community growth on a viewership & fandom scale)

Favorite Song (general)

Favorite Song vs. Phandometrics (the main hypothesis!)

Honorable Mentions (fun little quirks I noticed along the way)

Ready? Time to read on.

PHANDOMETRICS

Lag between year started watching -> year joined the phandom. This can be seen most obviously in the 2009-2015 portion of the graph, likely when the community was just building up. I went back to check individual points, and many people seem to join a year or two after starting to watch.

Three distinct peaks of phandom growth: 2015 (dnp popularity peak), 2019 (coming out), and 2023 (dnpg comeback, dnp renaissance). Pretty expected, but still cool to see!

The difference between the peaks when you look at viewership vs. phandom is interesting though! Especially 2019 seems to be a huge spike in viewership, but the phandom growth seems a little more gradual (maybe more people lurked at first, then joined the phandom in 2023 once they were more active?).

The 2012 peak is really interesting. Most popular year to start watching from this sample, apparently!

FAVORITE SONG

"The Internet is Here" won 51.3% of the votes... which didn't surprise me all that much. It's iconic, okay?

II is about half as popular, and beyond the song qualities themselves, I wonder if a contributing factor to this pattern could be its lack of availability as an officially released song.

I think Everything's Fine is so low partially bc I closed the poll before WAD released to prevent the recency effect from skewing the data. (Especially because I thought we were getting "Everything's Fine (Acoustic)" smh.)

FAVORITE SONG VS. PHANDOMETRICS

By era...

I had a hypothesis: based on the year you joined, which I now realize in my head wrongly equated with the year you were most active in, you'd be more biased towards the song of that era bc a) you were more likely to go to the tour or b) epic nostalgia hit.

Yeah, I was wrong.

When you group the eras you see that TIIH wins in almost every single group by a similar proportion to the total, which means this attitude is fairly evenly distributed amongst the phannies.

By year...

Separating by year, you begin to see that, hold up, the hypothesis could have some merit! In either 2017 or 2018 on both graphs, the II finale actually does win.

The super high TIIH votes bleeding in from 2015/2016 and from 2019 seemed to mask this pattern.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

I have no idea what happened here but both ways you slice it, Interactive Introverts was fighting for its life amongst the 2012 phannies???

We got three phannies that have been watching since 2009!! The fact that people have been sticking around so long (up to fifteen years!!! and this was only a sample of 156 of us!!!) is really heartwarming for me bc it's a testament to how strong of a community dnp have built their viewership to be.

At the end of the day, what can I say? That was a lot of statistics. I hope you enjoyed or took something away from this little survey. Lmk if you notice any other cool trends or have any theories on what the data means!

Thank you for listening to my yapping; have an orange heart.

🧡

[regular-gnome]

Absolutely /adore/ your art and overall take on the Demon Realm world + it's history and the Archivists. Especially coming from someone who adores speculative biology and trying to find logic/science in magic (I'm not sure how to word it so it makes sense - basically almost everything you are doing here)

Curious if you have any ideas on how the titans managed to inhabit the planet, because Papa Titan's hand managed to reach the atmosphere just from lying down. There's no way that planet was big enough for a bunch of titans to walk around comfortably.

Idk much about planetary stuff, but is there some way the planet may have changed? Maybe the Archivists did something?

Sorry this ask got kinda long, hope you have a lovely day doing little gnome things :}

glad you like them!:D

So, one of the gnome things is overanalyzing things and avoiding doing math, but here we are, you actually made me read my biophysics notes from 4 years ago. There are a few things to really focus on and think about, but I gotta preface this by saying I am very much not an expert on speculative biology xD I just have the internet and some books I am basing my theories on

Titans:

First the titans themselves. A while ago, I made an approximation of how large the Boiling Isles titan is and got that it would be around 27 km in height post-mortem. Buuut if the titan was this height during its life is another question because it would run into some biophysics issues

Issues like the atmospheric pressure. At ground level, it is 101.3 kPa, but at 27 km, it falls is 1.6 hPa (titan bless wolframalpha for counting this as exp funtions are the death of me). That is 63 times higher pressure on their legs than on their head! Blood circulation would be shot to the moon. The blood is liquid that in general transports gasses so travelling fron upper body parts to lower ones where there is diffrent dissoving of oxygen would end up in gas bubbles, which are NOT GREAT. Additionally, their ability to stand up or lie down quickly would be pretty much non-existant as that would be super fast change of pressure and more bubbles. But okay, lets say they are like some kind of abyss fishes and keep constant internal pressure.. that would still mean their hearts would need to be either massive or they would have multiple pumping mechanisms to handle their size (maybe like the single-chamber hearts in fish??) And the thing is we saw their heart, it was big but not THAT big so unless it was just one of many, maybe the last beating heart there might be diffrent explanation. And Im not gonna even go into how temperature changes every 100m around 0,6C, lets say their fur makes them warm and cozy and blue blood avoids freezing problems like some arctic critters

bringing those graphs up again cause they show the altitude change nicely

All of this to say the titans during life were probably smaller. They would still have been massive, but maybe not three times the size of mt Everest massive. So next thing to consider is their magic. Their powers are closely tied to life, healing and creation and so, the demons on the Boiling Isles are said to have originated from it and their evolution waas likely sped up a lot thanks to it. Next we saw size-changing spells affecting King in the carnival episode, so it's not a stretch to believe that all titans could be affected by this kind of spells, with the strength depending on the particular titan's magic. So anyway as the titan was activly dying, its magic could have desperately attempted to save it by rapidly generating more cells to repair its failing systems, ending up in expansion of all tissues and their overall size. (Maybe thats why the vains were so big and empty in the mines, you cant create more energy so maybe the magic going with simmilar concept expanded everything around but not made more of blood?) However, despite these efforts, the magic would ultimately fail to save them. When it reached a critical point, maybe after using up most of its magical energy, the process would stop or change focus. There are some fun grusome possiblities on how that might have went down but this is already pretty long

So in short, I think the titans during life were big but only got island sized after death, otherwise theyd have some wild biological mechanisms battling physics and them becomming bigger would explain where did most of the blood go after death. Not to mention how much food they would need

Planet:

Next the size of the planet. While we don't have many clues to determine whether it's bigger or smaller than Earth, one clue is Luz's lack of reaction to changing gravity after passing through the door. If the planet were larger (or denser I know), she would feel change in g-force, so like the feeling of being on a lift going up in case of bigger planet or down in case of smaller. If the diffrence was significant she would develop issues with circulatory system and fatigue. But thats not the case and I do not have the energy to calculate min change xD

So let's say the planet is Earth-sized. This is still a lot. We don't know if there are any continents on the planet or their sizes, but even if there were same like earth, the scale is immense. If the Boiling Isles were the size of New York (based on titan's height) or even larger, say the size of Hawaii, compared to the world map, that's tiny. If Earh is 510 100 000 km², while NYC covers 1213,3 km² to cover the same area, we'd need 420423 titans lied up neatly next to each other. And thats if they are isles sized their whole life. There can also be landmasses where they can lay on, oceans deep enough to cover bodies, they can be stacked.... I don't think the planet necessarily needs to be much larger to accommodate creatures of this size

TOH as a show:

One thing to remember while analyzing shots from the show is that we we will run into contradictions because it's a show, one that is not focused on speculative biology. While most elements are well-constructed, some details may show inconsistencies. For example, determining the direction of north on a titan becomes challenging when one shot shows the sun setting in one direction and later another. Finding the titan's height poses difficulties when one shot shows their arm reaching the atmosphere while another barely shows them reaching it while standing. But its not due to carelessness, its more about serving purpose of the shot, conveying the atmosphere. They both show the titans are giant, the view from above is beautiful and if they were more focused on keeping them some arbitrery size it might have taken away from it

And Im pretty sure that I'm wrong around a lot of aspects here, how it wasnt supposed to be interpreted like that or its more convoluted than I realize. Thats just my take on this. World we live in can seem small as we can only see a tiny part of it but Earth is so amazingly vast. It's larger than we can comprehend, and yet, it's nothing compared to the vastness of the universe. So, yeah, some of my thoughts on titans and the demon realms planet xD peace

[theamazingmaddyas]

So, I've been hyperfixating on Michael Yew as a character in general (No, I'm not okay, all the fanfictions have emotional destroyed me) and I've been going through everything Michael related, and recently have been looking at Michael fan art, and I've realized that almost every fanart where he's with someone else he's oddly tall? Like, this isn't hate towards the artists, they're out here doing the gods work drawing minor characters, but it leads me to wonder if people really realize how small Michael truly is.

Michael's described as being four foot six, and while one could technically try and argue that Percy is an unreliable narrator and is estimating Michael's height, there is quite a bit of evidence on the contrary. Michael is one of, if not the only person who Percy gives an exact height to; even Annabeth, Percy just describes as being tall, never giving the reader an exact height. Besides, Percy's description of Michael is as followed, "Michael stood four feet six, with another two feet of attitude." If Percy were estimating, or even exaggerating, he'd probably use a preposition in his sentence. So, it's safe to say that Percy is 100% certain of Michael's height (which does leave the question how Percy's so certain of this fact, but we'll never know that, as much as I wish we did.)

I know most countries don't use feet, and as someone who read the U.S. edition, I cannot be positive, but I'd assume if other dialects of English, or different languages, had their prints, it would be in what's common there (probably centimeters?) But if not, here's a conversion chart for everyone:

4ft 6in = 4.5 ft = 54 in = 137.16 cm = 1.37 m

Okay, so we all know how objectively small Michael is, but how does that compare to other people? It's difficult sometimes to make such comparisons between two characters, so I found a height comparision thing to show the height difference. As you, hopefully, can see, the first picture I put Michael (4'6" or 137.16cm) next to Percy (who's about 6' or 182.88 cm). And the second, Michael next to Coach Hedge (5') because his height is made explicit in heroes of olympus, while Percy's is just a guesstimate.

Michael doesn't even reach Percy's shoulder in height, despite the two being the same age, or Michael being older (which I genuinely believe: see my previous post about Michael). Even with Hedge, who people comment on how small he is, has a noticeable few inches on Michael, who reaches to probably about his nose or upper lip.

Now, mostly Michael is drawn with the other Apollo boys, and I've rarely see a fanart where Will's taller than him. Maybe it's because Will is explicitly a few years younger than him (at minimum, 2½, at maximum, 5ish), or maybe not, I'm not sure.

According to the wikipedia page, Will Solace is 6', but again, we take everything on the wikipedia page with a grain of salt, because Will is just described as tall in the books, specifically in Heroes of Olympus where Will would be about 14 or 15 (though, this is also a bit iffy. I could write a whole thesis on Will's age, specifically how I believe Apollo's description of Will's age is overexaggerated in THO, but that's for another post). Using this math, Will would have been approximately 13 to 14 when Michael kicked the bucket. The average height for a 13 year old boy is 5'1" to 5'5", meaning, if Will's height were truly above average, he'd be, at minimum, 11 inches taller than his brother in TLO, which is:

Even if the fanart is depicted a young Will like starting it camp, there is no plausable way for him to be taller than Michael.

Here's a chart for average heights of a white boy (while we do not know Michael's ethnicity, this chart is easiest to show). The red dot is Michael's height in The Last Olympian, if he were 16, and the yellow dot is Will's approximate height, at 13.

If you were to graph out Michael's height, it'll be pretty obvious that the only ages he's taller than Will is when he's really really young (I study neither biology nor math, so I couldn't be bothered to actually figure out the formula, but maybe I will someday) if Michael grew at an average rate. If his growth was normal until about ten and then was stunted, that would be a different story, but we, as readers, will never truly know the reason.

I might not be a bio or math major, but I do double major in creative writing and psychology, and that means I'm interested in why Michael is drawn taller in comparision to who he's with. And for this I have a few theories.

The first one, which I mentioned a bit ago in this post, is age. People percieve being taller as being older—though once you reach adulthood this becomes less infallible, though since they are kids that doesn't matter much—meaning if Michael were drawn his actual height, he'd be percieved as younger. While I'm not positive, I have an inkling this stems from ableism, but I have no proof to back up that claim.

My second theory is that, much like the fact that many people in the fandom say Connor and Travis are twins even though it is explicitly stated they are not, people genuinely forgot. Or one person said something, and it snowballed from there.

My third and final theory is that people just can't fully comprehend the height difference in their mind. I struggle with creating mental images, and it's possible that many other people do.

It's interesting to think about, really. And I'd really like to know if other people noticed this, or if I'm just overthinking everything again.

[tigreblvnc]

BLUE LOCK OPTION MATCHUP EXCHANGE — @lapsthings

— Karasu Tabito

✦ Laziness?

✦ No daily schedule?

✦ Acquaintances but no friends...?

✦ Stop.

✦ Karasu's your guy.

✦ Well, not really.

✦ :)

✦ But I'm saying he has the qualities of someone active, responsive—even proactive—which can create a balance with your more laid-back, passive side.

✦ Sure, determination is kind of a driving force for all the characters in the manga, but Karasu has this direct and insolent streak that could make for quite a fiery combo with your Nagi-like temperament.

✦ (Plus: his voice..........)

✦ Technically, he's the type to say, "Move your ass!" to get what you want, when you really want something. He's not paternalistic, but rather relentless; they don't call him the assassin for nothing—once he's set on a target, he won't stop until he hits it.

✦ "Although I'm shy and have social anxiety, I can engage in conversations with an individual or a small group of people depending on the situation." On an outing, he's the one who initiates the conversation without effort, knows how to follow up, throw in little jabs, and, most importantly, put himself between you and others if something makes you uncomfortable.

✦ I see him more as a protective type who shows it through actions rather than words. Like, I don't really picture him leaning in to hold your hand and whisper reassuring words; instead, he'd verbally tackle whatever is bothering you. And similarly, I don't see him resorting to fists—he's savvy enough to take down an ego instead of wasting energy throwing punches. That's what they call winning a battle with flair and without breaking a sweat.

✦ I also think he's pretty good at reading you—like he gets that you don't actually not care; it's just that showing your emotions and being explicit isn't really your thing. You don't quite know how, and it's awkward, but that's okay because Karasu is good at reading between the lines. Honestly, the guy probably spent his childhood analyzing people around him to make sure he didn't mess up or leave himself vulnerable; he's had to get good at understanding the underlying reasons behind people's actions.

✦ So, I think he can tell when you need some alone time, to be at home and do your own thing. He does his own thing, too—resourceful, independent, and entrepreneurial, he handles his business solo.

✦ Unlike you, I'm convinced he's a financial mastermind, missing nothing when it comes to his expenses. He keeps track of his money and watches what he spends. I think this could cause some occasional clashes if he sees you spending your savings on things he deems unnecessary. You might resent him for it, but deep down, is he wrong? Wouldn't it be smarter to wait for a better time to spend what's left in your wallet on goodies?

✦ Actually, I lied. He's a bit paternalistic.

✦ He's a pro at making quick decisions, even over little things: choosing a meal, which route to take, what to wear, when to leave. I think this could be a big motivator for you and help you assert yourself more. I sense some uncertainty in you—you're not always sure what's best, even somewhat neutral. When someone asks what you want to eat, you're the type to say, "Whatever you want" and then reject three suggestions in a row.

✦ Not with the raven around!

✦ I'm sure there are times when you don't know what to choose, so you want everything just to be sure you won't regret it.

✦ Please, don't stay glued to your phone when Karasu's around and talking to you; it'll annoy him.

✦ "Learning how to make money (because I'm broke and want to be rich)"—I think this is the most direct key to Karasu's heart. I believe that right after performance, being the world's top striker… comes money. Investing, playing the markets, checking out NFTs, dominating the world, basically. So, he'd happily sit down with you in the living room to show you how he does it. And I think he could go on for ages about the charts, graphs, and projections he works on outside of his sports career. Do you think you could keep up?

✦ "Love language: giving - acts of service, gift giving" I like to think acts of service are something Karasu would appreciate. I picture him as a guy who takes initiative and wants to handle things on his own—not because he doesn't trust others but because, to him, most people just aren't capable of helping him. So, if you handle some of life's small annoying tasks without asking, he might be thrown off at first because he's used to dealing with everything himself. And then... bit by bit, it becomes part of his character development, and he starts appreciating not having to handle everything alone. Especially when it's coming from you, let's be honest—it has an effect.

✦ "Preferred dates: Amusement parks, arcades, aquariums, cafe/dinner." Honestly, I think the places where you're most likely to spot the crow are quiet, nature-filled spaces. Somewhere he can observe from on high, analyze, think, get lost in his thoughts. That said, I can totally picture him in a café; we already saw him like that in the manga when all the players were on break before the U-20 match. It's a pretty classic, casual setting that works well with Karasu. Same with an amusement park—I think he'd save that for special occasions.

✦ In moments like these, I think he spends more time focusing on whether you're enjoying yourself than on actually having fun. Like, the guy's always on high alert, watching everything and everyone, even the security systems. And in the roller coaster car... I think he's more focused on assessing the height and potential damage from a fall than actually enjoying the ride.

✦ That's where I think your chill side could help him relax a bit.

✦ So, now it's the perfect time to pull out your phone for a selfie on the Ferris wheel. ;)

A word about your match: Oh my goodness, it's been ages since I've done a regular matchup, I missed them! I even forgot how I usually do the formatting lol. So, thanks for your input, it was a big pleasure to write this one. I almost depicted Karasu as a man in working life, he's so serious in this matchup lmao. Hope you liked it, and feel free to come again for another matchup :)

© TIGREBLVNC 2024 | INTERESTED IN A MATCHUP EXCHANGE? CHECK THIS.

[utilitycaster]

Hi there,

You said in the answer you just gave that, "the Nein mechanically played really well to the casts strength." Could you talk more about that? I'm someone who hasn't actually played D&D before, and everything I've learned has been through osmosis with CR, and your more crunchy posts have been really interesting to read, too.

Hi anon,

Thank you! I can answer but this is definitely pretty subjective in terms of how I see the classes they played and my view of the cast's mechanical strengths so know that you're getting one very specific perspective here. You will notice as a theme that I am not one for indecision.

Anyway: I think Liam and Travis are both notable within the cast for being decisive, in and out of combat, and both played characters with a huge array of options, as arcane utility spellcasters (plus Fjord's melee and, later, paladin abilities) and so having people who can make a quick, confident decision and stick to it with their spellcasting was crucial. Travis also has, as I once put it, court sense, and so having a character with options at basically any range in combat (from melee to eldritch blast range) was extremely good for him. I also just think they like utility casting, which, as my url indicates, I obviously think is awesome; but not all people like it and that's okay! I also just think they like it - both have mentioned on 4SD that Orym and Chetney are much more limited in what they can do.

I think Sam can get really hung up on the optimal and ideal thing to do at times. Really, the best way to put it - and FCG's death is a great example actually - is that Sam is not precious at all with his own characters but is worried about letting other people down. So I think the fact that Veth had a limited but interesting number of choices was actually quite good for him - he could make creative decisions (and even think outside the box, as with fluffernutter) but didn't have an endless list. It also still provided spellcasting, which is important to him.

I think Marisha is one of the strongest players on adding flavor to combat which is purely non-mechanical but is important in actual play if you are playing a character who does mostly the same thing. For what it's worth a lot of the things Beau played to her strengths were on the RP side (give the notetaker a character who has a reason to know a lot of lore) and also, I like monks but they are very straightforward characters to play in battle for the most part so there's not a ton to say, but I think she had a good sense of melee combat and would love to see her play more melee characters; Keyleth was obviously incredibly versatile, but this meant she did spend a lot of time in melee! Marisha also has decent instincts for tanking (Keyleth as regular tank thanks to wildshape and Beau as a dodge tank) so Beau allowed her to exercise that.

Taliesin is also a generally strong player in terms of mechanics and I think, honestly, his strength is that he doesn't seem to have a strong preference on what sort of class he plays and therefore was able to lean into a character who was almost purely support without any resentment over not getting the kill. In general I think Taliesin is very good at just...doing what his character is built to do, which seems damning with faint praise but honestly I think people who get really obsessive about Subverting Their D&D Class are annoying so this is praise and respect.

Laura is an interesting one in that I think she really likes to do Big Damage but she actually is quite skilled at utility casting. Having Caduceus definitely allowed Jester to shine in that she didn't have to serve as dedicated healer, but she also was a strong healer. Laura can be somewhat precious about her characters and I think being a healer is a good antidote for that in that you have the power to heal yourself if you get worried (honestly, this is why I started off as someone who played healers until I allowed myself to accept that dying on graph paper, as Taliesin once said, is fine). Being a prepared caster is also good for someone who, like Laura, can be competitive - it's interesting because she and Sam have a lot of similarities but I think respond in different ways, and Laura having a lot of options and knowing she can change them works well for her approach.

Ashley is also quite strong at flavor descriptors but I also think she likes doing damage, and I think Yasha was very much a "right character at the right time" for her in that barbarians are complicated in the sense of maneuvering, but not in the sense of options - it's a much easier character to jump back into after being away because she is, for the most part, going to be hitting things with a sword. I think she's doing a great job with Fearne too, but wildfire druid is MUCH harder to put down and pick up.

Really, in short, I think the cast members who thrive on having a ton of decisions had them; the cast members who at times have trouble picking what to do had a much more limited list which helped them; and those who don't really have a strong preference had other stylistic elements that were a good fit.

(I also happen to think, as I alluded to especially for Marisha's portrayal of Beau, that the Nein played to the cast's RP strengths as well and/or were given the time and space for the cast to grow into things they were less confident doing, eg: Travis and romance; and I think that does bleed into combat in that it helps you take actions that feel right for the character which in turn helps the other people around you predict what you'll do. It's the drift compatibility.)

[dreaaspeaks]

How Tokio Hotel members would be in Hogwarts

idk why no one has thought of this but thanks to my irl, this idea has been rotting away at my brain (these ain't my gifs ya'll)

Bill Kaulitz

I know some people might disagree but Bill is a Slytherin, HEAR ME OUT

he is ambitious, cunning and highly persuasive

He is definitely one of those students that no one really knows why at face value why he got into his house

People presume, if he isn't in uniform, that he is a Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw

He takes his passions and ambitions very seriously and is willing to overwork both himself and sometimes unintentionally, the people around him to reach his goals

I feel like he hates potions and transfiguration but loves more easy going subjects like Care for Magical Creatures and Divination

He probably likes the idea of Defence Against the Dark Arts but hates the amount of essays required

Bill took Astronomy because it looked and sounded cool but after he saw the graph paper on his table during the first lesson, he has been trying to drop it ever since

No one believes that him and Tom are related let alone twins, people just thought that their last names were a coincidence

Very personable so I think he would be quite popular amongst students but his dislike for too much authority doesn't make him too popular amongst professors teaching subjects he doesn't like

Professors teaching subjects he is passionate about however, LOVE HIM

always doing random extra studies just because he wanted to and for extra credit

The type to not study and fail for subjects he hates

But will still pass even if he didn't study when it comes to subjects he likes

Likes to watch Quidditch matches to support his friends but will rather die than get on a broom

Barely passed Flying in first year

Is that one friends that knows everything about everyone in Slytherin and surprisingly, Hufflepuff (why? even he's not sure)

Has gotten so many detentions because of going against dress code

He bedazzled his robe and tie with fabric pens, bleach and rhinestones and never changed them back no matter how many warnings he got

He got asked to the yule ball by a Beaubatoux boy and istg Bill laughed at first thinking it was a joke

When he realised the guy was fr he said he would think about it and get back to him

He literally put off thinking about it until Tom and Georg sat him down to talk about it so he could finally make a decision

Bill said yes to the date literally three days before the ball but mumbled it so fast and left so fast that Gustav had to repeat what Bill said to the boy

Tom Kaulitz

Tom would be a Gryffindor.

Do I need to elaborate?

okay I probably should

He is less outwardly warm compared to Bill but he is more reliable

Tom is a loyal mf especially when it comes to his friends

However, he is in Gryffindor because he is very much willing to take a leap of faith

He is impulsive when it comes to a lot of things especially when it comes to school life

Went to Quidditch tryouts during second year as a dare from Georg and Bill with neither expecting him to do well

Bitch came out of tryouts with a Quidditch uniform and an inflated ego

Plays chaser for Quidditch team, pretty good player and uses Quidditch practice as an excuse to put off every other subject

"Why isn't the essay finished? It was due three days ago"

"Quidditch practice..."

that convo happened on the last week of school and he fully thought the Professor would buy it

To say he sucks at Potions is an understatement

When he found out he could drop potions in 6th year he ran a lap around the Gryffindor common room

He goes to every house party and gets absolutely smashed

SO.MANY.RUMORS

He is surrounded by rumors, literally unless they are in his inner circle, no one really knows what is true or fake when it comes to Tom

People think he is some mean asshole that pushes people away from Bill but in reality he is just protective when it comes to who Bill mixes with since Bill is in Slytherin

Plays the student population's need to drama well so he is a traditionally popular type of guy

At some point he ends up ACTUALLY liking a girl and everyone doesn't recognise him, like he is stumbling over himself and begging to do projects for just a slight chance to do the project with her

Starts to show off more during Quidditch games like tries to do tricks

almost falls off his broom but he will deny it and swear to Merlin that he meant to slip off the broom

Georg Listing

he is a Ravenclaw you cannot change my mind

He isn't like the nerdy super studious type of Ravenclaw (but really is any Raven though?)

He is the seven cups of coffee in the morning, two hours of sleep a night and getting constantly distracted by small side topics when studying type of Ravenclaw

off topic but I think he would be a muggle born who just adjusted really quickly to wizard life??

He would be into Defence Against the Dark Arts and charms like the hands on subjects mixed with essays

He HATES herbology, he could never keep the plants alive no matter how hard he tried

No one thinks he studies like everyone writes him off as the guy who didn't study because he doesn't do homework but he does really well in tests

Horrible credit

Great grades

Georg doesn't really speak up in class unless necessary and I see him falling asleep during Astronomy class

Like when his voice dropped after puberty people didn't even realise it was him talking because he talked so little in class

OUTSIDE OF CLASS HOWEVER

he parties just as much as Tom but stays more sober just incase they come across Professors

Georg plays Beater for Ravenclaw after he was asked to go to tryouts

When Tom and Georg are on the field together it is a bloodbath, Georg targets Tom and only Tom

One of those lowkey popular students, think Cedric Diggory

always helping the guys study and convincing them to at least study a bit

He isn't a sought after guy as a tutor but will accept to help anyone if asked

Kinda scary looking and isn't as open as Bill nor as big a party animal as Tom so he isn't approached very often by younger students tbh kinda feared for no reason, Gustav makes fun of him about it a lot

When it comes to dating at Hogs he is very straightforward, think how Fred asked Angelina

Romantic enough for it to be endearing but not too much for it to be creepy to a random cute girl yk?

Is definitely a Quidditch player boyfriend if you get where I'm going like will make the girl wear his jersey at his game and would magically become a better player after getting into a r/s

Gustav Schafer

I know people will argue that he is a Hufflepuff but like bffr have you actually seen how he acts on Tokio Hotel TV??

Gustav would be a Gryffindor

He would be a Gryffindor in like a Dean Thomas kinda way

If Tom was Cormac, Gustav would be Dean

Becomes besties with the House Elves during first year because he got lost on the way to potions

Never went to Bill's dorm because he is scared shitless of the Black Lake and that damn squid

the muggle born that never got used to magic

Like he would be sorting out his trunk or cleaning his house and halfway through he remembers he went to fucking magic school for 7 years

BIG Quidditch fan

Paints his face and has merch like the whole nine yards

If Tom misses ONE shot during a game, he would not hear the end of it from Gustav for like a month

Refuses to use a quill

Will straight up in front of a Professor use a pen

He would not get an owl, Georg talks so much shit about it because they can't write to each other the 'aesthetic' way

Gustav just gives people his email/number

Naturally with that he isn't the best in DADA or Transfigurations but he would be good in Herbology and Arithmancy

Throws Tom under the bus SO OFTEN

That's why everyone thinks he is so sweet and innocent, he would push Tom into the way of a Professor on the way back to the common room from a party

Sends Howlers to his friends as pranks

He doesn't know he's popular but he is popular and gets so many confessions every day but just shrugs them off

Like the confession letter could be from the hottest girl in their year and he would go

"Awe that's sweet"

AND MOVE ON

He is a sweetheart so he will ask a close friend to the Ball if he isn't interested in anyone

Even if he isn't interested in a romantic way he will still make it very cute and sweet to make his date feel special

If he is asking a girl on a actual date he would bring her to HoneyDukes and insist to pay for all her sweets

That's his big move, the HoneyDukes date (It's his thing)

(anyways so this is the first post of miiiine kinda long ngl)

[socialistexan]

I can't find a version of this graph that's not from this tiktok (because Google is officially garbage at it's one main function), but this is genuinely one of the funniest graphs of all time and really shows the difference in mindset between conservative voters and liberal/progressive voters.

See, to Republicans the economy was an awful terrible mess until the exact day Trump took office, then it was amazing. Then as soon as Biden steps foot on Pennsylvania Ave, suddenly it's terrible again. Day of. 60% swing from good to bad.

Meanwhile Democratic voters pretty gradually started thinking the economy was worse under Trump after thinking it was pretty okay at the end of Obama's 2nd term. Some small spikes and dips, but general throughline is pretty consistent.

Though the actual funniest thing might be that big swing to positive on election day for Biden with Democratic voters. I genuinely wonder if that's a consistent thing, like I don't remember the hard swing when Obama was elected, but there was a slightly faster gradual one. Is that a signal that they match now or if it was just relief for Trump being gone.

[wormdebut]

Part One | Part Two | Part Four -

Steve had been popular in high school, he never asked for it. He didn’t really want it, but he was the captain of the Swim Team and the Basketball team, he had happily coasted through the Hawkins High Show Choir Revolutionaires. (Blame Robin for that one, he didn’t know he would have to dance, which he did not like to do but he sang like a song bird thank you very much.)

Popularity just kind of came to him. He was in the GSA, which Robin had been the president of (she was also the choir president) and when he came out as bisexual his senior year, that kind of solidified his King of Hawkins throne. He and Robin had been Prom King and Queen of the class of 2019.

Robin thrived with it, but honestly? It burnt Steve out. So when he and Rob moved to Chicago to “expand their homosexual horizons”, thought courtesy of one Robin Buckley, Steve was happy to take a back seat and let her be the social butterfly she loved to be. Steve was happy just taking things a step and breath at a time. High school and the years following had moved so fast, it was nice to just listen to people and see things that he may not have had an opportunity to before.

Ever the codependent pair, they had gotten jobs together at an insurance office in the city. It was graphs, phone calls, and paper work but Steve didn’t mind it temporarily. They both had accepted the job with the intention of getting to their destination, neither Steve nor Robin were intending to keep the position with Murdock Insurance Agency.

It had been a few days since Steve had had his absolute shit rocked by the hot as fuck barista at the coffee shop he and Robin had decided to try,

“Steve, he liked you and their lattes were delicious can we please go back? You’re being just a little teensy bit irrational with this.”

“Robin he’s just so—he—oh my god, I can’t talk to him again.”

‘Talk? That’s a little generous Steve, I’m pretty sure you like, heavy breathed at him like Ghostface does on the phone in the Scream movies.”

“Oh come on Rob! He had just gotten through a super hot, sweaty, ridiculously sexy fi—“

“Steven Richard Harrington I am begging you to shut the hell up and go get us coffee on your lunch break, please. If not out of love, then due to the fact that you owe me for listening to whatever the fuck that just was.”

“Fine, okay, but if he’s there and I embarrass myself, you’re going to miss that experience, so sucks to suck.”

Robin laughed and waved as Steve made his way through the office floor, taking the elevator the few floors down to get to the exit in the lobby. It was nice weather, a little chilly, but nothing Steve wasn’t used to from Indiana. He would’ve put in effort if he knew he was potentially seeing Eddie the sexy ass barista today, but alas, all he could hope for was that his khaki pants and the olive green windbreaker on his back made him look decent enough.

The Daily Grind was surprisingly quieter than it had been the morning Steve and Robin met Eddie. He stepped inside and vaguely recognized the curly headed kid that had been with Eddie last.

The kid popped his head up from the register at the tingling sound of the bell above Steve’s head, “Welcome to—“ curly head cut himself off and his eyes doubled in size, “Oh my god you’re the guy! MAX” he yelled towards the back of the store, “Max! Eddie’s guy is here, right now! Oh my god he’s gonna be so mad.”

Eddie’s what? Steve blushed, and he wasn’t able to hide it, he was kind of overstimulated by the very loud greeting from this kid and was suddenly very confused by whatever was happening here, “Um hi?” Steve questioned more the greeted walking up to the register.

The kid smiled a toothy grin at Steve and stuck his hand out for him to shake, Steve didn't necessarily want to shake this strange little mans hand, but it was the polite thing to do, “I’m Dustin and this—MAX,” Dustin yelled again. Steve politely pulled his hand away, Dustin was so loud. Steve turned his head the direction Dustin had yelled and saw a red head pop her head out through the door.

“Christ Dustin What—“ Max turned her eyes to Steve and gave him the full once over. What was with kids these days? Were they all so loud and unapologetic? Jesus, Steve was clearly older than this girl and she was just full on ogling, “Well hello. I’m Max, it looks like you’ve met Dustin, you are?”

Steve went to speak, hoping the heat he felt on his cheeks wasn’t painfully present and showing his embarrassment on his face. He left Hawkins to get away from the spotlight, he wasn’t fond of having it forced upon him these days. “I-I’m—“

“Hes the guy that Eddie was telling you about? You know the dude he met after he cussed out Cappuccino Brenda?”

Steve really didn’t have much choice but to watch the exchange, no one had come in after him and these two seemed very distracted by Steve being here, so he just waited for them to finish talking…about him apparently.

Max’s eyes went wide “Oooh, Oh! Yes! Hi, what’s your name?”

She looked at him expectantly and Steve was so confused about this whole situation. His fairly impenetrable fortress of wall that he had built up over the King Steve of high school cracked just a little, and while King Steve loved most everybody, King Steve was also a bit of a bitch, “Oh do I get to speak now, instead of being spoken over?” He looked to the two baristas with a smirk and his hands found their way to his hips.

They both looked at him with eyes wide, out of the corner of her mouth Max said, “I thought you said he was shy?”

Dustin broke out in a goofy grin, “I like him.”

Steve huffed, “I’m seriously right here, what is even happening right now?” Steve dropped his hands from his hips and tried to rear in whatever pieces of him that had come lose, “I’m Steve, so what do I gotta do to get a couple medium lavender oat milk lattes?”

Dustin went to speak, but Max cut him off before he could, “Y’know what? They are totally on us, as long as you just give us your number for our new loyalty program.” Dustin looked at Max with an eyebrow raised.

Steve watched her wave him off toward the machines, and shrugged, “Okay? Sure.” Max tossed him a sticky note pad and a pen, he scribbled his number down, “Uh—Thanks Max, this has been great.”

She grabbed the notepad and hopped to the back with a two finger salute, “Catch ya later Pretty Boy.”

Steve gave a brief wave and shuffled over to Dustin, who smiled as he handed off the lattes, “Nice to officially meet you Steve! See you around.”

Steve offered a small smile and a brief thanks, before stepping back out onto the street, god. The Daily Grind was trip, every time.

-

Taglist - @gay-stranger-things @savory-babby @trashpocket @itsfreakingbats @steddiereid @lovelyscot @booksandsience @breealtair @nightmareglitter @misty-inferno @dazedandinked @child-of-cthulhu @bookworm0690 @martzja @exhibit-no-restraint @imzadidragonfly @live-the-fangirl-life @sidebarre @bejeweledbaby

if you wanna be added or removed just let me know ✨