#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

[deansbeer]

★ in his arms, the world fades // clark kent.

synopsis. feeling unwell and overwhelmed, you seek comfort in clark's arms. his warmth, soothing touch, and sweet words make the ache in your stomach—and your heart—feel bearable.

warning(s). fluff | comfort | f!reader | s1!clark | reader feels unwell stomach aches | nausea | difficulty eating | mild angst | distressing moments | academic stress | brief mentions of exams | studying | cuddling | kisses | superman references.

kari yaps. last night, i had horrible stomach pains and wrote this <333 + a lil disclaimer! i'm on ep 5 of smallville (the ads on hulu r mad annoying) so i only know a little about clark. but don't worry i will get to know all ab pookie soon !!! trust <33

it starts with the ache. sharp and twisting, like someone's wringing your stomach out like a wet rag. it's been days now—days of barely keeping food down, of your appetite wavering between nothing and everything, only for nausea to win every time. eating has become a battle, and losing feels inevitable. but you haven't told anyone, not really. maybe it's pride. maybe it's not wanting to worry anyone. maybe you're just hoping it'll go away on its own.

still, it lingers, and today's no different. you pull up to the kent farm, the gravel crunching under your tires, the sight of the red barn and yellow farmhouse somehow grounding you. you're supposed to be here to study. algebra—not exactly something you're excited about, but clark's always been good at making the hard stuff easier. it's one of the many things you love about him: his patience, his steadiness, the way he seems to know when you need a little extra reassurance. and maybe you need that today more than ever.

"hey, pretty girl," clark greets you at the door, his smile soft and familiar, like it's meant just for you. "you okay? you look…" he trails off, squinting at you in that way he does when he's trying to figure you out. "…tired."

you force a smile, shrugging it off. "just didn't sleep much last night."

it's not a lie, exactly. the ache had kept you up most of the night, twisting and turning beneath the covers, unable to find a position that didn't make it worse. but clark doesn't need to know that. not right now.

he nods, stepping aside to let you in. "i made us some lemonade," he says as you follow him up the stairs to his room. "my mom said it's good for focus or something. i don't know, but it tastes good."

you hum in response, though the thought of drinking anything right now makes your stomach churn. you'll figure out a way to avoid it later.

when you get to his room, it's the same as always—neat but lived-in, the bed made but the desk cluttered with papers and books, a small stack of cds next to his stereo. it smells faintly of pine and something distinctly clark, like sun-warmed hay and fresh laundry. it's comforting in a way you didn't realize you needed.

you settle on the floor with him, textbooks and notebooks spread out between you. he's already flipping through his algebra book, pen tapping idly against his knee as he scans the pages.

"okay," he says, glancing at you with a smile. "where should we start? graphing inequalities or quadratic equations?"

you groan, letting your head fall back against the bed. "do we have to start?"

he chuckles. "the exam's next week. i don't think mr. phillips is gonna let us wing it."

"worth a shot," you mutter, but you sit up anyway, flipping open your notebook to a blank page. you try to focus, really, but the ache is still there, dull and persistent, and it's hard to think about numbers and graphs when all you want to do is curl up in a ball and sleep.

half an hour in, you're staring at your notebook, pen tapping against the paper. clark's voice is distant as he explains something about parabolas, the words blurring together in your head. you're not even sure when you stopped listening. all you know is that your chest feels tight, your stomach twists again, and suddenly, you just can't anymore.

"hey," clark says, his voice soft with concern. "what's wrong?"

you don't answer, don't even look at him. instead, you set your notebook aside, shifting closer to him until you're wrapping your arms around his neck and burying your face in the crook of it. his skin is warm against your cheek, the faint scent of his cologne lingering there. you don't say anything, and neither does he, not at first. he just sits there, still and quiet, letting you hold on like he's been expecting this all along.

then, slowly, he moves. his arms come around you, strong and steady, and he shifts your things aside before effortlessly pulling you up with him onto the bed. his back hits the mattress, and you're lying on top of him, your head resting against his chest. his hands find your back, warm and soothing as they rub up and down in slow, gentle strokes.

you close your eyes, letting out a shaky breath. his touch is enough to warm you, enough to quiet the ache in your stomach, at least for now. you don't know how he does it—how he makes everything feel a little less heavy just by being there.

your hands move to rest on his collarbone, fingers brushing against the fabric of his t-shirt. the side of your head presses against his chest, and you can feel the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your ear. it's grounding in a way you didn't know you needed.

he doesn't say anything at first, just keeps rubbing your back, his touch slow and deliberate, like he knows exactly how to calm you down. but then he starts murmuring soft, sweet things in your ear, his voice low and soothing.

"you're okay," he says, his lips brushing against the top of your head. "whatever it is, you're okay. i've got you."

his hand moves to rest on the side of your head, his thumb tracing gentle circles against your hair. he presses another kiss to your temple, then another, each one softer than the last.

"you don't have to say anything," he whispers. "just let me hold you."

and you do. you let yourself relax against him, let yourself melt into his warmth. his chest rises and falls beneath you, steady and strong, and you match your breathing to his without even realizing it. the ache in your stomach is still there, but it feels distant now, muted by the way his hands move against your back, by the way his voice wraps around you like a blanket.

"you know," he starts after a while, his voice still soft, "i'm not great at algebra either. but i'm pretty sure lying here with you is a way better use of my time."

you let out a quiet laugh, your breath fanning against his chest. "you're supposed to be the responsible one."

"yeah, well," he murmurs, his fingers threading through your hair, "even superheroes need a break sometimes."

you tilt your head to look up at him, catching the small smile playing on his lips. "superhero, huh?"

"what? you didn't know?" his grin widens, teasing. "i'm kind of a big deal."

you roll your eyes, but there's no real bite to it. "you're ridiculous."

"maybe," he says, pressing another kiss to your forehead. "but i made you laugh, didn't i?"

you hum in response, letting your head fall back against his chest. the silence that follows is comfortable, the kind that wraps around you like a warm blanket. his hand moves back to your back, tracing slow, lazy patterns against your spine.

"i mean it, though," he says after a while, his voice quieter now. "whatever's going on, you don't have to go through it alone. you can tell me."

"i know," you whisper, your fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. "i just… i don't know. i've been feeling off lately. stomach stuff. it's probably nothing."

he frowns, his hand pausing mid-stroke. "how long?"

"a few days," you admit. "it's not a big deal. it'll pass."

"you don't know that," he says gently. "have you eaten today?"

you hesitate, and that's enough of an answer for him. he sighs, his hand resuming its slow movements against your back.

"you're stubborn, you know that?" he murmurs, but there's no heat behind it. just concern, soft and steady, like everything else about him.

"takes one to know one," you shoot back, your voice muffled against his chest.

he chuckles, the sound rumbling beneath you. "fair enough. but promise me you'll let me know if it gets worse, okay?"

"okay," you say, and you mean it. because if anyone can make you feel like everything's going to be okay, it's clark.

you stay like that for a while longer, wrapped up in each other, the rest of the world fading away. the algebra books are forgotten, but neither of you seems to care. right now, this is enough. he's enough.

and for the first time in days, the ache in your stomach feels bearable.

⎯⎯ SPECIAL TAGS. @titsout4jackles @floralscented @aileenunfiltered @st4rfckerz @jasvtsc . . . ୨୧

[facefullofsadness]

Okayy okayy listen ceo!jimin g!p like how would she treat fem!reader they're married too

they're like barely married in this but yk wtv, they're sweet and fuck a lot (I really forgot how to write it's kinda crazy)

OKAY HI I NEED TO KNOCK SOME OF THESE OUT TO GET BACK INTO THE SWING OF WRITING!!! ceo g!p jimin who's married to reader is actually such a softie for her wife. tell me why I envision the fifty shades of gray concept where you're her assistant at the start/you work for her and after some time you get closer and get together? idk it just seems right for rina.

I think that jimin has the absolute softest spot for y/n which actually makes them working together really counter-productive for the same reason. the way rina gets easily distracted when you're in the room, averting her gaze from whatever is in front of her and what her company would say is more important to instead look at you mesmerized, the woman who so obviously is actually more important. they wanna separate the two of you so work can actually get done but well, when the ceo says you're working in her office and that's final? you just have to concede.

at first it's pretty civil, working on documents together, her using the most gentle and calming voice to make sure you don't feel stressed or pressured, exchanging flirty glances and smiles, just for her to run her hand along your thigh as she intently studies marketing graphs, glasses on the bridge of her nose making her look more enticing than she needs to be. you try not to let it phase you but it's karina ykwim, eventually you're on her lap and pushing her back against her chair, her hands holding you by your hips and her lips on your neck, making involuntary noises escape your mouth.

her office is soundproofed and only has one way windows for this exact reason, yall just can't stop fucking! no one dares knock on miss yu's door when you're in her office, knowing it was more than likely her cock was deeply sheathed in your wet and clenching pussy, drilling in and out of you as you screamed into her neck. she's fucking you so aggressively and desperately into her desk, pinning you almost painfully into the hard wood as she thrusts her long dick in and out of your cunt, the juices spilling all over the surface and painting her pelvis with your combined wetness as it seeps down your slit.

she pounds into you with no remorse and pants pathetically into your ear as your throat hurts from the sheer amount of screaming you've done, her cock ruining your insides so perfectly that you can't think logically. moaning into your ear sweet nothings as she encourages you and tells you how good it feels to have her cock completely buried in that hot and juicy hole. fuck y/n you feel so fucking good, I'm gonna breed you, pump you full of our kids yeah? you'll let me do that right, sweetheart? ahhh shit, baby oh my god this pussy belongs to me, my wife's cunt is made for my cock... she continues to word vomit all up in your ear without even thinking as you mumble incomprehensibly just how delicious the feeling of her cock inside of you feels.

needless to say either you're fucking each other or you're disgustingly clingy, workplace or home. don't even mention the honeymoon... somehow though through all those distractions, you both manage to get the work done in no time so much to everyone's dismay, they can't really complain. jimin is the ceo after all, no one is gonna mess with her or her precious wife.

[itsbenedict]

That's Right: It's Another Hot Take About That Dead Healthcare CEO

The websites are abuzz with debate on the utilitarian calculus of whether some guy getting shot was a good thing. What are the odds that the assassination will scare the horrible greedy health insurance companies into changing their ways and fixing the system? Is it worth killing someone over? Will the fear of being blasted by some guy with stylishly-engraved bullets put the fat cats in line? Or will their greed win out over their fear, leaving the nightmarish system unchanged?

Well, what if that was totally irrelevant?

You may have seen a graph that looks like this:

I've seen a few of these going around. These are the rates at which various health insurance companies say "no, you don't get the money" when someone says "hey I need money for this medical thing". UHC, the one whose CEO got shot, is notably really bad in this respect. They've got algorithmic claims denials and all kinds of nasty things that people don't like. All that money they're saving on paying out on claims must be making them rich, right? Let's look at their own financial reports:

Whoa! Big numbers! Six percent looks like a small number, but multiply and they make like thirty billion dollars doing this! That's a lot, right?

Well hang on. They're an insurance company. We can roughly model their profit as the amount people pay them for insurance, minus the amount they have to pay out for claims. Let's look at 2023: simple subtraction, their expenses are $339.2 billion. We simplify other overhead and assume that's all claims. So... that represents those 67% of claims they don't reject. What happens if they approve all the claims?

Multiply: $506.3 billion. They don't have that kind of money. They have $371.6 billion in revenue. So okay- they have to deny some claims. That's pretty normal. But let's pretend they're extremely afraid of assassins now and want to be completely non-greedy: they're okay making zero profit. They make $32.4 billion in profit- how many otherwise-rejected claims can they now afford to approve?

...uh. Well, they can afford to pay out, at most, 73.4% of claims. Still a denial rate of 26.6%, higher than most of their competitors. Not a huge improvement. And in reality, they can't afford to make 0 profit- a company that's making 0 profit is a company investors pull out of immediately, leaving it to collapse, because they can make more money investing in the ones that aren't as afraid of assassins. They've got to at least hover around the same profit margin as their competitors. Which is...

That's average profit margins for the whole US healthcare industry. So, okay, if we match those other companies' profit margins and try to hover around 3-4%... uh. Wait. Hang on. Here's another graph with more recent data on UHC specifically:

Wait, they're still just making that little 3-4% profit margin, even with all these shady automated denials- so how are those other companies doing better on claims? They're obviously not less greedy. They must be making more money somehow, right?

(My guess, sight-unseen, would be that they charge more for their plans, or offer less comprehensive coverage, or use a network of less expensive providers, or other things that make the amount they have to pay out smaller and the amount they're taking in larger. I don't feel like doing a comprehensive consumer review of what every insurance provider's healthcare plans are, but there's always these tradeoffs to make. UHC seems to be offering the tradeoff of "better or cheaper care, on paper" for "but there's a higher risk of getting denied", which is one annoying tradeoff among many.)

Okay But That's Enough Graphs

"Yeah yeah yeah shut up about profit margins and coverage tradeoffs. Is it a good thing that the CEO got shot or not?"

Well, their profit margin at the time he was shot was 3.63%. A company can't survive making 0 or less, so whatever effect fear of assassination has on UHC's greediness, it is going to be no larger than 3.63%.

They may learn the lesson that having their denial rates too high will get them assassinated. Accordingly, they may decrease that metric- by charging higher premiums, kicking expensive doctors out of their network, or reducing their stated coverage. They will not (because they cannot, without ceasing to exist as a company) simply start approving more claims without squeezing their customers elsewhere. They legally cannot do that. No matter how afraid you make the CEOs, you cannot make them afraid to a degree larger than their profit margin.

Well What The Fuck, Then

Like, what, are we supposed to accept that things will literally never get better and that this horrorshow is the best we can hope for? That's some bullshit! If we can't scare the CEOs, who can we scare?

Man I dunno.

Like, for some reason healthcare is stupid expensive! People can't afford to pay for healthcare without insurance- it's like thousands of dollars for basic procedures! Why? Maybe...

Doctors inflate their prices 10x because they know insurance companies will use complicated legal tricks to only pay 10% of the asking price, and this is a constantly escalating price war that serves mainly to fuck over the uninsured

Drug manufacturers and health technology companies fight tooth and nail to maintain monopolies over treatment, so they can charge gazillions to make back the gazillions they had to spend on FDA approval trials

(Trials those same companies lobby to keep necessary because the more money you have to pay for FDA approval, the harder it is for competitors to enter the market since they don't already have the gazillions)

Doctors operate as a cartel and lobby to gatekeep access to medical training so that they can keep doctoring a prestigious and exclusive position, and keep their own salaries high enough to pay their medical school debt and make them rich afterwards- leading to a (profitable) shortage of medical professionals

There is no limit to how expensive things can get but how much people are physically capable of paying, because frequently the alternative to "pay a ridiculous amount for healthcare" is "die", and so healthcare is subject to near-infinitely inelastic demand

Also like a thousand other equally annoying and complicated perverse incentives and stupid situations

This is the human condition: Shit is annoying and complicated and difficult to fix, pretty much 100% of the time forever. A few bullets in some fucko's back isn't really going to make a dent.

(But like, sure, fuck that guy. He probably sucked, as do the hundred other identical suits in line to replace him. Just... don't expect this to help.)

[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.

[moonstandardtime]

mostly based on vibes. love putting characters on graphs. elaboration under cut

siffrin — i think this is pretty self-explanatory. least self-aware mf in the room (mostly due to being unaware of everybody else too). their perceived "normal" is very different from everyone else's.

loop — more self-aware than siffrin due to. siffrin. definitely more aware that shit's fucked. but they also for sure have a VERY warped view of "normal okay things to experience" (in a different way than siffrin—siffrin is more "that was a fine thing to experience. [symptoms of ptsd] are just part of life :)👍", while loop is "that was bad but it wasn't THAT bad. i'm just a big crybaby loll")

mirabelle — writes fanfiction and has anxiety meds. next

isabeau — seems like something defenders should know (and by that i mean its relevant so he did more research than strictly necessary) and he's very self-aware. he knows his placement on this graph. he's telling himself it's not a problem and it's working out... alright. has a very solid(ly Not Great) coping strategy of Play Pretend.

odile — she knows what ptsd is conceptually at the very least. and she's coping in a way that works. she knows what she's doing and it's working fine for her. (is it good? ehh debatable. but you can't deny it works.)

bonnie — children are both extremely aware and extremely not self-aware. they know what's normal and what's not but it doesn't really click that bad things result in bad feelings beyond a surface level.

[katyahina]

Gwyn's family tree members references and genetics (! slight updates on 12/30/2024 and 02/01/2025)

(An ask reply to an anon)

(A graph for convenience)

Alright, I will go with what we can certainly make out of the family tree! ...almost. There are definitely some missing links! You don't have to accept all of my suggestions here and only focus on 100% confirmed ones, but I will explain why I added them! Let's start in order!

Gwyn, his mother, his uncle Lloyd and... sister? cousin? fifth known child?

Unfortunately, yes, we can't be sure of Gwyn's eyes color since it appears to be just reflection of fire, nor of his hair color as he looks pretty aged!

UPDATE 01/12/2025: There is a datamined image of Gwyn without facial hair by kingborehaha on Bluesky ( x ):

So, he had a really strong and square jaw XD Might or might not get inherited by Nameless King?

However, Lloyd is his uncle, as well as certain locations connected with the Way of White stuff (Sunlit Altar, altar in Undead Paris that Reah prays at, and altar in Catacombs where you find Darkmoon Seanse ring) all feature a statue of a woman in a crown, that holds an infant with a sword:

I do not believe it is mother of Nameless King at all, since 1) statues of his were destroyed, so why keep the infant one? 2) his trademark weapon is spear, not sword, but Gwyn's IS sword and 3) this statue appears to be some 'common' object connected with Way of White!

UPDATE 01/11/2025: Found this concept art, that also confirms this statue IS of a Goddess, and also shows it in better detail!

Now, I am going to do something I normally dread to do. I am going to..... *swallows nervously* quote the text of the items descriptions in this post, instead of posting screenshots. :s Okay this will be VERY trying, but I have to do it to fit within images limit per post!

WHITE SEANCE RING

A divine ring entrusted to the head bishop of the Way of White and apostle to Allfather Lloyd, uncle to Lord Gwyn. It grants additional attunement slots. The head bishop of the Way of White is the guardian of law and caste, and one of the great royals of Thorolund.

LLOYD'S SWORD RING

Ring given to knights of the Way of White. Depicts Allfather Lloyd's Sword of Law. Boosts attack power when HP is full. Much time has passed since the worship of Lloyd was common in the Way of White. The clerics of Carim had always strongly asserted that Lloyd was a derivative fraud, and that the Allfather title was self-proclaimed. (Japanese script has 'collateral relative' (傍系) rather than 'derivative fraud')

GOLD COIN

Coin made of gold, with Allfather Lloyd and his white halo shown on its face. (...)

Lloyd have been a very relevant figure amongst clerics, taking Gwyn's role after his death until Gwyndolin grew some backbone, and 'white halo' is basically a symbol of the Way of White! However, as an uncle, he'd have to be a brother of either Gwyn's mother or father (I choose mother), and Gwyn's parents are never mentioned... I assume they died earlier. Maybe, like the statue with Gwyn in infancy suggests, too early and Gwyn was basically raised by Lloyd!

We will get to Seath and Shira properly in due time, but in Japanese, Seath's description uses 外戚, which means in-law, related by marriage to a (female) relative of Gwyn! I don't think it is Gwynevere; she is only ever stated to marry Flann, besides, Yorshka calling Gwynevere a sister while also being child of Seath feels like a dealbreaker to me! I don't think it is Fillianore either, since she was given away to keep Pygmy away! But, Shira is a "daughter of the Duke", and also can use lightning that can be a gene if both Gwyn and NK owning it is of any indication!

The thing is... I am not sure who this mysterious relative of Gwyn is, specifically. Sister? Cousin? Unmentioned child? (if Gwyndolin and Filianore were never "showcased" unlike NK and Gwynevere, maybe someone else was dodging the spotlight? heh) Lloyd's element appears to be simply sheer, clear white light, in it's purest form, whereas Gwyn's element is sunlight and lightning, so I feel like this relative at least has to be of the same generation as Gwyn himself or below (like NK)! But, yes..... this family tree is really weird, right?

Nameless King / Faraam and... Izalith?

(This ( x ) video by Crest)

He is another character with whom I am not sure! It appears that he not always had his wonderful mane, but I am not certain whether his hair always was white or not! Unlike other known children of Gwyn, that appear to combine Gwyn's traits with second parent's, NK is also kind of just "Gwyn at home", having nothing much to stand out by his own...? Gwyn's hair is most likely grey from aging, and this could apply to NK as well since he lived for a very long time. He also looks like a husk now!

On the other hand, white/grey hair might be an actual gene running in the family that doesn't depend on age! Just write NK down, this is something that will be useful later! Remember about the jaw shape tho

+ I played around with the idea that Velka could have been his mother since crows are following him too until I got a better idea, but this would be just a fun headcanon! Here ( x ) is a short post if you want to read, but in simple words; Caffrey Goddess of Fortune might have been his mother, to which he owns the chance to rebuld as God of War Faraam instead after having lost everything, who is also a sister of Velka as someone connected to birds too with the wings!

UPDATE 02/01/2025: I actually ended up loving the idea that Nameless King might be a child of affair between Gwyn and Izalith! Like I said, his siblings all have unique traits to stand out for (Gwynevere's healing and "bounty", Filianore's connection with Darkness and Gwyndolin's Moonlight), but he is simply like Gwyn and just has his lightning! So, perhaps his second parent did not have a unique affinity to stand out for, ie was not a God (or a dragon, for that matter)! I think Izalith might fit into this scheme as someone who would still be a figure important enough to be a mother of someone accepted as a legitimate heir of Gwyn, when Fire/Chaos was not always something she'd just pass onto her children:

IZALITH STAFF

Ancient catalyst of the Witch of Izalith and her daughters, used long before the dawn of chaos and of pyromancy.(...)

Him not having any flame or chaos corruption might be simply because he was born before flame became part of Izalith's body! At the same time, him being God of War is thematically appropriate for such parenting! Even putting aside the fact that Izalith and her daughters, indeed, waged war against Gods in the end, Fromsoft consistently has at least one region per game inspired by East Asian places on our planet be torn apart by war or idealising it or both! Izalith (the place) takes inspirations from both Japan and Cambogia, so with their track record it'd be entirely possible if culture of Izalith was pushing heavily on war, and Nameless King inherited the mindset for the lack of better term! After all, Gwyn's sunlight is not just a weapon, yet Nameless King had a focus on this specifically!

Additional point towards this idea is that Queen of Venn (Lost Sinner) and King of Alken (Old Iron King) both had an affair that went nowhere if ended in disaster and inherited souls of Izalith and Gwyn respectively! Souls of the Old Ones resonate with ones with most similar fates and essense, so would not it work even better had Izalith and Gwyn had an affair as well? + a sillier possible """evidence""": Lion people of Forossa are to Nameless King what crow mutants are to Velka, and they are all either brown or dark yellow! Whereas Quelaag and Quelana have brown hair, datamining revealed another daughter, Grana, has dark blond hair ( x )! Who knows, what if that's her genes x)

We only see the appearances of four of Izalith's daughters, and whereas three have normal humans appearance (ignore the lower body mutations!!!), Fair Lady is a little off! Izalith, on the other hand, appears to have a grey skin and blue lips! And it isn't necessarily a result of Chaos corruption or illness or anything of the sort (like look at Queelag having regular human skin tone)! Whereas intended game's lighting makes Fair Lady look as though she has grey skin and pale yellow-ish hair, her textures reveal grey hair and also a normal human skin-tone albeit sickly pale, as well as her stated to be a "deformed" member of the family:

WHITE HAIR TAILSMAN:

...This lock of hair belonged to a deformed member of the chaos witches,mothers of the art of pyromancy. (...)

That clearly refers to how she was born rather than her current mutation, because by this logic Quelaag would be "deformed" too, and yet she isn't singled out like this! Yet some gene that effected Fair Lady independent of Chaos is within the family. What remaining three sisters are like is up to interpretation, but for all we know, the mysterious cold colored skin of Izalith could be inherited.. With the idea of her being the mother of Nameless king, there is a non-zero chance that he'd have grey skin even in his healthy state, independently of what he ended like! Or dark red eyes like Quelaag and Queelana. That'd make an interesting design I guess x)

Gwynevere and her mother Fina / Nehma

Thankfully, Gwynevere HAS decent references, and could even shed a light (ba dum tss) on some genetics!

Her eyes look rather orange, just like the sunlight associated with her healing miracles (Bountiful Sunlight and Soothing Sunlight), yet there is a little grey circle at the pupil! x) It might become relevant later! Fun fact: she has distinct moles on her body ( x )! Though you can observe from her textures too:

As for Fina, I really think she is a SUPER likely candidate for her mother!

Notice how her symbol is Estus Flask, and Gwynevere is strongly associated with healing! As for why Nehma = Fina:

NAME-ENGRAVED RING

A special ring that can be engraved with the name of a god. Becomes easier to connect to worlds of players who chose the same god. There are countless vestiges of long-lost gods in the ruins of Drangleic. Or perhaps they are the very same gods as ours, only known by different names.

Another case right here is Pharis being named Evlana in Drangleic! Similarly, Fina got another name, since she IS Goddess of Love!

EMBRACED ARMOR OF FAVOR

Armor of Lautrec the Embraced, representing the goddess Fina's love. The goddess's arms wrap around it, as if to embrace the wearer.

^ This line makes me wonder whether Fina was not a regular humanoid God, but had literally golden body! There is a nameless and faceless Blacksmith Deity in the setting whose death gave birth to Titanite Demons, so why not another atypical God like this? I can imagine her being mostly non-physical save for some... obvious places

ESTUS FLASK

The Undead treasure these dull green flasks. Fill with Estus at bonfire. Fills HP. The Estus Flasks are linked to the Fire Keepers. The Dark Tales also make reference: An emerald flask, from the Keeper's soul She lives to protect the flame, And dies to protect it further.

^ Lautrec kills Anastacia and takes her soul, and his next destination past that point is Anor Londo, but specifically the hall that leads to "Gwynevere's" chamber! He made Fina's love his whole guidance, Estus Flask is a symbol of Fina in Dark Souls 2 menu, Estus Flask is made of a Soul of a Fire Keeper, Gwynevere seems to be very much connected with love and healing too, and he goes to where "she" is! I would not put it past him that "Gwynevere" messed up his radar, he seems to act irrational in his delusion about being "loved by Fina", but you can see everything about this questline is thematically connected! ...there is also the fact that if Lautrec's armor is of any indication, Fina was wearing a crown! Gwyn was the king, so another one crowned would be his wife, right?

I think whereas Gwynevere didn't inherit Fina's (presumed) golden body and turned out a regular humanoid deity, the orange glint of her eyes might be Fina's gene, a color of healing (the liquid in Estus Flask)! Gwyn's eye color might actually be grey and only show in her eyes vaguely! (This is a surprise tool that will help us later). Brown hair might belong to either Fina, or to Gwyn when he was way younger! Or.. to Gwyn's parent? Put a pin on this!

Rosaria, Anri and Horace

I think Rosaria's line is the furthest diluted from the divine ancestry, since having children with a human resulted in JUST humans, not sort of Demigods! Also, Irithyllian preset does say these humans have "features of old gods"!

(Video by Bonfire VN ( x ))

Unfortunately, Rosaria doesn't have eye texture! Grey skin looks cool, but oh well. I suppose it is more fair to take the look from the final version, which is just normal, if only slightly less saturated!

Her hair appears to be not black but actually just dark grey, like Filianore's, however, Anri, Horace and average Irithyllian appear to have black hair!

(From this ( x ) page, without Hollowing filter)

dggsdfsfd Yeah I know, most of Dark Souls 3 face data is just bald, and their hair color data is just black, but! I think it is kind of "legit" since you can see their eyebrows, that are black too! Sorry for a cursed joke about Artorias though, he does have black hair and I just thought it was a funny idea that he did sleep with Gwynevere at some point- look, Gods were wery proud of his accomplishments against the Abyss and even gave him that medal ok? fsjjfd xD

Why Anri's Hollowing is "regular" and Horace's is green-ish that was introduced in Drangleic is another topic tbh. But, I think that Anri takes more after Rosaria, whereas Horace takes more after Aldrich! Anri's grey eyes are from Rosaria, and I think Aldrich would have blue eyes like Horace's! look it is thematically appropriate right?

Also an idea: maybe Anri's gender thing should be taken at a face value? Although basically just a human at this rate, they are still a kid of a mother of rebirth, so maybe they legitimately can have either biological gender for the purpose of being able to have children with any person? Just an ability inherited from Rosaria, because this is what Rosaria's power is about! What do you think?

Flann and Dancer of the Boreal Valley

Flann was a God of Fire, and Dancer is stated to be a direct descendant in the royal line!

RING OF THE SUN PRINCESS (DS1)

This ring is granted to those who enter a Covenant with Gwynevere, daughter of Lord Gwyn and the Princess of Sunlight. This slightly warm ring boosts the synergy of miracles. The Princess of Sunlight Gwynevere left Anor Londo along many other deities, and later became wife to Flame God Flann.

SUN PRINCESS RING (DS3)

(...) Gwynevere left her home with a great many other deities, and became a wife and a mother, raising several heavenly children.

I think that the place the Gods of Anor Londo left to was Heide in Drangleic, and even there we arrive long past its ruin! Not certain where they are now and how many generations of these children appeared, but at least some direct children or even descendants returned into Lordran continent! Aldia, Creighton and Gilligan travelled from Drangleic to Lordran continent, so why not some of these relatives too? (Considering how oddly nobody in Drangleic knows shit about Lordran continent despite it being literally there oversees, I take it as it got concealed for undefined time, and maybe these descendants of Gwynevere, along with some other Gods, opened the path back to it?)

SOUL OF THE DANCER

Soul of the dancer. One of the twisted souls, steeped in strength. Use to acquire many souls, or transpose to extract its true strength. The Pontiff Sulyvahn bestowed a double-slashing sword upon a distant daughter of the formal royal family, ordering her to serve first as a dancer, and then as an outrider knight, the equivalent to exile.

(In Japanese, 旧王家の末裔 - 'descendant of the Old Royal Family')

DANCER'S CROWN

Crown worn by the Dancer of the Boreal Valley. The mirage-like aurora veil is said to be an article of the old gods, permitted only for direct descendants of the old royal family.

Dancer can conjure fire in her hands, which the Pontiff and Fire Witches who use the Profaned Flame can't do, which might imply hers is all natural, and does this smoke-like thing when using her dark magic sword (which is, again, unlike the Pontiff's actual arsenal with HIS dark magic sword). Considering Flann is God of Flame, her capacity for using fire and ash "naturally" convinced me that she descends from Gwynevere and him!

Unfortunately, nothing to latch onto considering her or Flann's appearance, really.. But I'd suggest that if she takes his abilities more than Gwynevere's, whatever you imagine Flann looking like, she'd look more like him as well!

Queen of Lothric, Lothric, Lorian, Oceiros and Ocelotte

Well, first things first: I do not think Queen of Lothric IS Gwynevere! There are no damning evidences for this!

For one, Gwynevere's name is not forgotten or obscured by the events of Dark Souls 3, it is mentioned in descriptions and by Yorshka, so why would it be omitted under just 'Queen of Lothric'! Second, Gwynevere is still referred to as a princess consistently, she never queened-up! The only exception from this is illusion of Gwynevere calling herself a queen, and... well, it was needed, to support the legend. :p Third, Rosaria is also linked to items associated with Gwynevere, same as Queen of Lothric, so this is just descent, really!

But what truly cemented my opinion is that in Japanese script, Queen of Lothric is said to be compared with 'the' Goddess of Bounty and Grace! (Taken from this ( x ) document by Last Protagonist, it is for Bloodborne but it has a Dark Souls WIP folder). Why would Gwynevere be compared with herself? :p

(Upper image of the ribbon in statue by Lokey's Lore ( x )) The ribbons seem to miss in the concept art, but I feel like they got added to further hint at descent rather than to... well, add a plot hole...? x) Miyazaki initially wanted Gwynevere to have motherly vibe and the design we have now only exists because the guy who drew that concept liked it too much, so maybe his initial idea for her got a second chance in another character?

Like I said, the grey in the eyes WAS important, because, look! The brothers' eyes ARE grey! :p Their hair is actually very grey as well; with a very slight hint of blond for Lothric and slight hint of brown for Lorian, but you can tell game's lighting makes their hair look way more saturated than they actually are! Lothric's eyes are also blind of course, you can more clearly see from the texture that the pupil is ruined..

Notice that Oceiros is also lacking scales, but is growing fungi-like things that are otherwise found in Vagrants!

UPDATE 02/01/2025: Ocelotte's model is a cut content, but apparently the model does persist in finished game still, even if we cannot see it!

(From this ( x ) video)

In Dark Souls 2, essence of Seath lives on same as Gwyn's, Izalith's and Nito's but in a form of nearly an "element", and corrupts the Duke of Tseldora into madness, driving him to indulge in mad experiments and create weird beings! It is possible that this happens again in Dark Souls 3 when now the vessel of "Seath" becomes Oceiros instead and similar descent into madness repeats! Very ironically, Seath DID reach immortality if you think of it, but he no longer realises that he did fhdfhds As for Vagrants, I wonder whether it was intentional too, since Seath did experiment with marine life forms quite a lot (Pisacas, Giant Clams)...?

I think the grey eyes and hair is linked to Queen of Lothric; the orange hues must have weakened over generations, and it is not the last of grey hair you'll see x) Really have no idea what Oceiros would've passed onto them, though...? I imagine brown-ish hair from the side of Queen of Lothric (passed in a much greyer form to Lorian), and blond hair from the side of Oceiros (passed in a much greyer form to Lothric)!

Gundyr, Gertrude and their parents

GUNDYR'S HELM

Ancient helm of a set of cast iron armor, belonging to Champion Gundyr. Modeled after a former king. Gundyr, or the Belated Champion, was bested by an unknown warrior. He then became sheath to a coiled sword in the hopes that someday, the first flame would be linked once more.

古い王 - king from long ago, king from the past, etc

Gundyr doesn't appear to be one of Oceiros' children, but I've been thinking about it for a while.. I figured out what made the most sense for his story is being a collateral relative to the twin princes, considering he was sent out to replace Lothric (well, this is what he was told..) It will be a tangent to explain, so here ( x ) are my conclusions on what exactly happened with Gundyr!

Granted, I might end up making him more of a distant relation than her direct son from previous marriage- it'd be even better, to be honest! But, this is a base draft of the family tree. His helmet resembles his ancestor, that, again, would work better as someone several generations apart from him!

UPD 12/30/2024: I did decide it made more sence if "ancient king" was... well, ancient fdgfdsd And appeared to be ancestry of Oceiros instead, with Gundyr being collaterally related to Oceiros! I am not strong with familial terms so I am not sure what this relation is called now if I move him further than being half-brothers with the twins and Ocelotte :o Just thought it worked better!

BOUNTIFUL LIGHT

Miracle taught to knights of Gertrude, holy maiden to the Queen. Gradually restores a large amount of HP. The Heavenly Daughter is said to be the Queen's child.

DIVINE PILLARS OF LIGHT

Miracle of Gertrude, the Heavenly Daughter. Brings down multiple pillars of light in the vicinity. The Queen's holy maiden Gertrude was visited by an angel, who revealed this tale to her.(...)

The fact that her own daughter is simultaneously described as her servant of sorts gave me an impression of being the bastard child! I guess one thing Gwynevere certainly passes down to her descendants is sleeping around, except this is ACTUALLY Fina's fault hdhfshfgsdh

Seath, Gwyndolin, Filianore and Priscilla. How Caitha could fit into a family?

I think this is apparent that Gwyndolin is a child between Gwyn and Seath, as serpents in this lore are "imperfect dragons", and Seath himself is inherently connected to Moonlight element (Moonlight Butterflies he created, Moonlight Greatword being literally made from a part of his body)!

COVETOUS GOLD SERPENT RING

The serpent is an imperfect dragon and symbol of the Undead. Its habit of devouring prey even larger than itself has led to an association with gluttony. This gold ring, engraved with the serpent, boosts its wearer's item discovery, so that more items can be amassed.

MOONLIGHT GREATSWORD

This sword, one of the rare dragon weapons, came from the tail of Seath the Scaleless, the pale white dragon who betrayed his own. Seath is the grandfather of sorcery, and this sword is imbued with his magic, which shall be unleashed as a wave of moonlight.

And, yes, needless to mention that Gwyndolin is a sorcerer. Sorcery is THE Seath's thing!

I would actually take Aldrich's render with a grain of salt; right, we don't know what Gwyndolin's eyes were like in Dark Souls 1, but also Gwyndolin has white/greyish skin, when Aldrich using this body has a pretty much human skin tone! The hair on Aldrich also appears to be way more white (a trait of being corrupted by Dark, check Four Kings or Abyss Watchers), not grey like Gwyndolin's 🤔 I guess his look is more of an approximation than literally just using Gwyndolin's body! Though, pale eye color can still be used as a headcanon! Just maybe less dead looking..?

UPDATE 02/01/2025: I've been thinking about inconsistency of Gwyndolin's design a bit more, and here ( x ) is a separate post compiling those! (don't worry it IS actually short!) The gist of it is that white skin and even the snakes might even be a result of prolonged exposure to estrogen Moonlight Aura, so his parenting is up to more intepretation than I initially assumed! My interpretation lingers on the idea that relation between Gwyndolin, Priscilla and Yorshka is a biological one, not spiritual or adopted! Yet even then, who can tell if white skin (and snakes, and boobies) is NOT a trait that will just "wear out" without contstant nourishment by Moonlight aura? Aldrich's version of Gwyndolin's body honestly opens more questions than it answers, but I say remarkably grey hair of Gwyndolin IS his natural hair color and Aldrich's body's white hair is an alteration! I am bouncing off of these pointers.

Filianore also has this grey hair with a very slight hint of brown that might as well be neglected! Her eyes also appear to be corrupted by sort of wooden texture, and after time runs wild, she honestly reminds me of what Elana looks like...? Turning into wood is a common sign of devolution in this setting as everything that isn't a Dragon evolved from the trees! But... furthermore, connected with darkness.

It is Humanity when it is not running wild! Four Kings becoming very tree-like is the quickest example! The void-face type of Giants also turn into trees upon devolving and, interestingly enough, their particular souls have a spot of darkness within! Further clue towards Filianore having some Dark in her by nature is the very fact that she was sent away with Pygmy lords! Would not a God that actually has some Dark/Humanity in them be THE best candidate to keep them in check.... and the one most likely to remain safe there in Gwyn's eyes, you know?

Priscilla has a little scales and eyes, unlike Seath, despite being most likely his child! Seath being white-colored is accentuated, and so is her being "stark-white" crossbreed!

SOUL OF PRISCILLA

(...) Use the soul of this crossbreed bastard child and antithesis to all life to acquire a huge amount of souls, or to create a unique weapon.

LIFEHUNT SCYTHE

Scythe born from the soul of Priscilla, the stark white crossbreed trapped inside the Painted World of Ariamis. Even the Gods feared Priscilla's lifehunt ability, and in the hands of a mortal, its power will turn upon its wielder.

I think Priscilla and Yorshka have to have a shared second parent, since you can get a miracle version of Priscilla's Lifehunt Scythe when Aldrich dreams of Yorshka! At the same time, Gwyndolin is the lastborn of Gwyn yet Yorshka is their younger sister, nor Priscilla or Yorshka are recognised as Gods by the narrative! Basically.. Gwyn got cucked dfggffd I keep telling you all and you don't believe me!!

Okay, but what connects Priscilla to Darkness is definitely not from Seath's ancestry, as Dragons are beyond Light or Dark! I absolutely agree with the idea that Priscilla and Velka were connected; Velka's crow people and some clerics are in the Painted World of Ariamis, Occult Ember is here, Priscilla's Dagger has Occult affinity, in Dark Souls 3 the Crows worship Priscilla, there is a statue of mother holding a child... But, I think Velka rather adopted her than was her biological mother! Another thing is that Velka is a "heretical" deity, implying she made Darkness her own weapon rather than was naturally aligned with it or corrupted by it to the core! What Priscilla inherited though, had to be inherited directly, biologically, naturally and not learned, since her "ability" manifested since infancy:

PECULIAR DOLL

A strange doll in strange dress. There once was an abomination who had no place in this world. She clutched this doll tightly, and eventually was drawn into a cold and lonely painted world.

The Daughters of the Dark in Dark Souls 2 are fragments of Manus' own darkness, and their elements naturally oppose everything about Gods and their world! Nashandra's element is Death and Alsanna's element is Ice/Cold, both opposing Life and Fire respectively! Elana is the devolution into a tree life form, whereas Nadalia is ash - both oppose the concept of time as Age of Fire created it! Elana by devolution, Nadalia by exhaustion as ash is final result of burning, when nothing IS left to burn! And in every game, death more blatantly goes hand in hand with the darkness, too.

Priscilla embodies two of these: Ice and Death! She is even connected with invisibility, too! At the same time, since Gwyndolin's hair is AKTYALY grey, Yorshka's hair is brown and Shira's hair is brown also and was white only in the concept, her white hair might also be result of the Dark settling within, not same as her white fur!

As for who IS that mysterious parent that passed the 'Darkness gene' to Filianore, Priscilla and Yorshka...? Okay, here I will slide a theory about how Caitha of all people fits the role well ( x ) compiled very well by @val-of-the-north, if you want to read! It is too hard to just put all that here and deserves a separate post, as there are many clues towards this theory but.. let's say this takes more than five minutes to explain. It is her connection with Death that is here for Priscilla and Yorshka (since in DS3, Priscilla is not really "young" nor "in hiding"), Aldrich literally using exact copy of Nito's Blade, Church of the Deep formerly being Caitha's chapel and taken from her, Caitha being connected with the Dark without a doubt, Filianore's egg being too much like Vagrant's shell to be ignored, Nito's wife being hinted as water goddess, Vagrants being marine creatures, Seath himself being interested in researching weird marine creatures (that might even work as reason to work with Caitha a lot even before his insanity arc), Caitha's tears crystallizing when it is otherwise an effect of draconic curses (wear protection when you fuck a dragon, kids fsfds)....

Look it's a lot and. It fits into a separate post better. I really liked it and honestly think it fits within lore! Besides, Gwyn sure likes to flirt with the danger, as scared as he is. 🙄 He was enemy of the dragons but let Seath close and kept Midir alive, he feared humans but still trusted Four Kings... would not put it past him to look at someone aligned with the Darkness and go "I should not put my dick in it, however," fhsdhff

Shira and Yorshka

(Shira's face data from this ( x ) page)

Her hair is dark blond, in the final version? Her eyes are also green though, even if not as radiant in color as Priscilla's! Her name literally means 'white' though, and she is 'daughter of the Duke and descendant of the Gods'! You can also see the original intention for her was white hair! or..... is it grey hair? AGAIN? x)

SHIRA'S CROWN

Crown of Shira, knight in service to Filianore. Finely crafted with silver and fashioned with a pearl from a Man Eater Shell. (...)

SHIRA'S ARMOR

(...) apropos to both a handmaiden of the Princess and one whose veins coarse with royal blood.

I am not sure why she turned out to be so humanoid, not showing draconian features whatsoever! Perhaps how many features manifest is a random chance, and her mom's genes just turned out to be much stronger than Seath's, especially if she was one of the Gods on Gwyn's family! Or maybe whereas Gwyndolin was raised through Moon aura, Shira, on the other hand, had exposure to Sunlight aura? Whereas former possibly enhanches dragonic features, latter would suppress them by an effect?

This also makes me wonder if Seath's "intended" eye color is green, and that would be the color if he had eyes?

(Images by Moonlight Ruin on Twitter ( x ))

I think Yorshka has her mother's eyes, as they do not have draconian narrow pupil! (Well, if it was Caitha, she very likely has blue eye and red eye, and this is just the blue!)

Seath is not only white, but also cyan/blue/purple/pink, and Yorshka displays these features! As well as taking after the mysterious parent with the 'Dark genetics', specifically with the ability manifesting as Death / Lifehunt shared with Priscilla:

LIFEHUNT SCYTHE (DS3)

Miracle of Aldrich, Devourer of Gods. Steals HP of foes using an illusory scythe. Aldrich dreamt as he slowly devoured the God of the Darkmoon. In this dream, he perceived the form of a young, pale girl in hiding.

All things considered, I feel like brown and dark blond hair gene comes from somewhere in Gwyn's family! However, the grey hair gene apparently suppresses it on every occasion! There is also a possibility that both Yorshka and Shira were born with white hair and either 1) this gene is weak and wears out on itself over time 2) this gene is connected with Seath's moonlight energy and wears out without nourishment or 3) white hair reacts on moonlight in general and is now darker color because moon is darker!

Dunnel and Painter

I just think Dunnel is a likely candidate for whoever was father of the Painter:

PYROMANCER'S PARTING FLAME

The pyromancy flame of Livid Pyromancer Dunnel that attracts the echoes of the death. When Dunnel lost his hideous spouse, he gave his own pyromancy flame as an offering, which transformed into a parting flame. Not long after, Dunnel became a mad spirit, cursed to wander the lands.

Priscilla is referred to as an abomination within the lore, and hideous spouse is not quite far off! It clearly refers to the context of what life itself fears rather than... well, like, her actual appearance. And Priscilla is connected with Death, whereas combining his flame with her changed it into something connected with Death as well! He also invades in a place that looks a lot like her arena in Dark Souls 1!

Bro just looks like old Patches -_-

(Video by BonfireVN ( x ))

Her skin is definitely more grey and dragon-ish, but I am not sure to which family member I could link orange eye color to :') Just the fact that she is meant to envision the Flame, I guess?

_________________________

Okay, thank you for giving me a reason to organise all this! I thought I'd just dump some references together, but it turned out to be sort of an analysis, and I figured some useful things for myself too! So, my conclusions are:

Grey hair gene is very real, it might even be natural hair color of Gwyn and Nameless King, not reliant on their age! Gwyndolin's hair is also grey, and Aldrich's version having white hair is reasonable since Darkness corruption seems to cause white hair!

Brown hair gene most likely appears from Gwyn's mother, or other relative of his

Descendants of Gwynevere tend to have grey hair and grey eyes, seems like the brightness of sunlight have worn out over time genetically in this family

Dancer is the only known 'apparent' descendant of Gwynevere and Flann, others appear to be either much more diluted or not having ties to Flann at all

There is a 'Darkness gene' running in the family in Filianore, Priscilla and Yorshka that manifests in different forms like it was with Daughters of Dark (ice and death with Priscilla, death with Yorshka, defiance of time with trees/ash with Filianore)

Mixing with a dragon genetically has very random results, from apparent to absolutely indiscernable

Someone GOT to inherit Gwyn's super square jaw shape at some point XD

Seath's "intended" eye color is most likely green, so it is one of the variants for what Gwyndolin's eye color might be!

[frenchkanna1808]

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?

[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.)