#still i got 13 sets from the entire game

[kousuisetsu]

Final Fantasy Type-0 scenery:

➟ Akademeia [Part 1]

[wilwheaton]

hello mr wil wheaton when you were my age (like exactly i think) you were filming stand by me

I turned 13 during production, so if you're about to become a teenager, I hope you'll let me offer some thoughts that I wish an adult had shared with me, then?

I know this is a wall of text, and giving someone this much of your attention is a HUGE ask. Maybe bookmark this for another time, if you're not into hearing an old man talk.

I wrote this a few days before I turned 50. Thank you in advance for listening, and I wish you a life filled with joy, unconditional love, kindness, and adventure.

Hey everyone! An old man is talking!

In seven days, I will be 50 years-old. This is ... weird. I do not feel the way I expected I would feel when I was approaching 50, nor do any of my friends. The only time I feel like I'm middle-aged is when my body does some bullshit that takes me down for hours because I had the nerve to stand up quickly. And I really hate it when I have to use the flashlight on my phone to see a menu. I mean, at that point, I may as well be dropping my pants for free and singing the Old Gray Mare.

Anyway. This has been on my mind for a little bit, so I had something to say when someone used my tumblr ask me thingy earlier this week:

Q: I hope I'm as cool as you when I'm 49. I'd like to think I'm taking the right steps towards that version of myself. A: So I'm not sure I'm cool, but I do know that I don't suck, and that it's a choice I make every day. I desperately wish someone in my family had told me, or shown me by example, that getting older doesn't mean getting stupid and boring and stuffy and extremely uncool. I wish I'd known that, because I spent all of my life until I was in my 40s feeling like there was this day coming very soon when I would have to stop listening to punk, stop playing video games, put on a suit, and start yelling at kids for no good reason. I didn't know that you don't have to suddenly stop being who you are and become something or someone you hate, just because of a certain age. I know that's super obvious, but to young me, it was not. My dad was an asshole, my mom never showed up for me. Directors and people on set had been treating me like a thing for my entire life. I got yelled at for no reason from adults who knew better almost every day. Most of my elementary school teachers were authoritarian, evangelical assholes. All of these different adults, consistently, shut me down and made me feel like I didn't matter, the things I liked were stupid, and my opinions were invalid because of reasons I didn't understand because I was a dumb kid. So I presumed that when you got to be a certain age, that's what happened. I didn't want to be that, at all, and I was sincerely afraid of the day it would happen. But as I got older, I discovered that all that stuff I hated about adults doesn't automatically happen. Those adults I just mentioned all made a choice to be an asshole. I just didn't know it. I was in my early 20s when I did a movie with a cinematographer who was, I think, 45 at the time. He was the coolest, kindest, most artistic dude I'd ever known. He mentored me and we had epic fun making great art together. I remember telling him, "I'm not afraid of being in my 40s like I used to be. I didn't know you could still be cool." It's sad, that I grew up in such a toxic environment, and didn't know any of these things. So, 9 days before I turn 50, here are a couple things I have figured out: You know who sucks when they hit 49 and 50? People who sucked when they were 20 and never grew up. You know who is an asshole at 49 and 50? Yep. Someone who was an asshole as a kid and never experienced consequences for being an asshole. Hitting middle age has been awesome for me. Other than the aging of my body and its reluctance / refusal to do what I want it to do, I love everything about it. I wish I hadn't spent so much of my life being afraid that, when I hit 50, it was all over. Because honestly it's kind of just starting. The coolest stuff in my life to date has all happened in the last ten years, and I'm so grateful that it coincided with me figuring out a lot of shit so I could enjoy it.

The best part of getting older, by several thousand light years, is the part where we figure out how to stop putting up with other people's bullshit, and we contract our social circle until it's only populated with a VERY few people who deserve us. And I am incredibly grateful for these occasional opportunities to be a 49 year-old dad who can say all the things that would have been reassuring for 19 year-old me to hear (he wouldn't have understood, but 29 year-old me would have remembered, and he would have understood. I think.) I sincerely hope someone hears it and finds it helpful. Anyway, you're gonna be fine. Just remember that being cool, kind, honest, honorable, reliable, listening and showing up … they are all choices. If you want to be cool when you're 49, make the choice and set the example for someone to follow you. Treat kids the way you wanted to be treated when you were young. Listen to them when they offer you the privilege, because that means they trust you, and you have credibility with them. Be a mentor. Be supportive. Show up. Make a choice to be the person you need in the world, and never stop being that person. Start today, and when you're nearing 50 like I am, hopefully you'll remember who you needed right now, so you can be that person to someone else in the future. You're already asking the right questions and taking the first steps. I believe in you. You've got this.

Okay, if you've come this far, perhaps you'll follow me a little bit more, and read a thing I wrote about talking to students just a tiny bit older than you, which contains my core values.

Be honest. I’m a very old man, relative to y’all, and I’ve learned that the only currency that really matters in this world is the truth.

Be honorable. This dovetails with number one. You attract to yourself what you put into the world. Dishonorable people will take everything from you and leave you with nothing. Do your best to be a person they aren’t attracted to.

Work hard. I don’t mean, like, at your crappy minimum wage job you hate. I mean do the hard work that makes relationships work, that gets you ahead in your education, that gets you closer to your goals. Everything worth doing is hard. Everything worth doing requires hard work. Sooner or later, you’re going to run into something in your life that’s really hard, and you’ll want to give up, but it’s something you care so much about, you’ll do whatever you can to achieve it. It’s going to be hard, but it’s going to be less hard for someone who has practiced doing the hard things all along, than it is for someone who doesn’t know how to do the hard work because they’ve always chosen the easy path.

Always do your best. Even if you don’t get the result you wanted, doing your best — which will vary from day to day, moment to moment — is all you can ever do. We tell athletes to leave it all on the field. Whatever your version of that is, do it.

This is the most important one. This is the one I hope you’ll all hear and embrace. This is the one I hope you’ll share with your peers: Always be kind.”

When I read number 5, I looked up at them. I was so happy to see a classroom filled with teenagers who were all listening intently, even the ones I thought had tuned me out. “Here’s the thing about being Kind, versus being Nice,” I said. “I have interacted with lots of nice people who are incredibly unkind. Why is that? How do you choose to be nice but not kind?”

I pointed to my head. “This is where nice comes from,” I said. Then, I put my hand over my heart. “This is where kind comes from.” I put my hands out, like, “get it?”

There was this collective gasp of realization that I did not expect, at all. One kid said “Oh damn!” I saw a few kids look at each other like the trick had just been explained to them. They heard me. They really, really heard me. And it was amazing.

Okay, that's all. If you're still here, thank you for giving me so much of your time and attention. I hope you'll come back in a few years, and let me know how you're doing.

[reminiscingtonight]

Sick Days

Alessia Russo x Reader

Word Count: 883

[WOSO Masterlist]

It’s the quiet shuffling that wakes you up.  Despite it being minute, it still grates against your ears. 

The wince is automatic, but the action only sets off more discomfort.

As consciousness starts slipping in, you start to notice how hot and stuffy you feel. Your head’s feeling fuzzy, muscles uncomfortably tender. 

A quiet groan escapes your mouth before you can stop it. All at once the shuffling stops. The air around you is still for a moment before you feel the bed dip beside you.

A gentle hand running through your hair has you cracking an eye open. 

“Less?” Despite all of your muscles protesting, you lift a weak hand to rub at your eyes. Squinting, you try to ignore the steady pain pounding in your head. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have a game or something?”

Your girlfriend frowns at you, not missing the grimace on your face. “I did. We won. Are you okay?”

It’s your turn to frown, ignoring the way the throbbing intensifies when you shake your head. “No, I literally just laid down and closed my eyes for a second, there’s no way--” you break off before finishing your sentence, eyes widening at the sight of your bedside clock. It read a harsh 9:13 PM, hours after you had originally laid down. You didn’t even realize how much time had passed.

“I missed the game?” This time there’s a slight waver in your voice, sadness starting to pool. In the couple years you’ve been together, you have never missed one of her games. Either watching them in person or on the television, you always made sure to catch it live.

“Baby,” Alessia starts, coming to sit down next to you. Her hand comes to your forehead, frown deepening when she feels the heat. 

Suddenly you jolt forward. Alessia nearly clashes her head against yours, but she jerks away last minute. There’s a slight crazed look in your eyes as you struggle to get out from under the sheets. “Wait, I was gonna make you some food and run you a bath before you got home!”

Alessia gently pushes at your shoulder, making sure to keep you in bed. “Babe, it’s fine. You’re obviously not feeling well.”

You open your mouth to protest, but a harsh round of coughs interrupt you before you can. You only just turn your head away in time to avoid coughing right into your girlfriend’s face.

A hand comes up to rub soothingly on your back as you whine out in discomfort. 

“Have you eaten yet?”

“I’m not hungry,” you mutter, knowing full well that Alessia’s going to force you to get up regardless of your answer. 

You could count on one hand the number of times you’ve gotten sick over the course of your entire relationship. Every time Alessia goes through the same procedure. She’ll run you a bath (ignoring your attempts to convince her you’re fine), force medicine down your throat (you really hated those pills), and then tuck you in with a loving kiss on your head.

There’s no use in protesting, so you let her drag you out of bed, albeit with a frown placed firmly on your face. Alessia rolls her eyes at your dramatics but helps you into the bathtub regardless. She ignores all of your protests that you should be the one pampering her after her game, but she shushes you, more than happy to give you a couple minutes of comfort that she knows will soon be overshadowed by the discomforts of your cold.

By the time Alessia dries you off and redresses you again, you’re pretty much half-asleep on your feet. You murmur sleepily against her neck when she carries you back to bed. 

The blankets are warm beneath your quickly cooling body, and you’re quick to burrow yourself into a nice little cocoon. Alessia’s shuffling around the room again but all you can focus on is the sweet call of sleep, gently dragging you back into unconsciousness.

Before you can fully slip back into dreamland, you hear a chuckle and then feel Alessia’s fingers dancing along the edge of your jaw. “Open.”

You know she’s talking about your mouth but you crack open an eye instead, mustering up all of your strength to glare at the pills in her hand. “You know it’s mean to force a sick person to do something they don’t want to.”

“Boo-hoo, love you too, but you’re still going to have to swallow these.” There’s amusement dancing in her eyes as she takes in your fake annoyance. 

You both know you’ll end up swallowing the pills anyways. You always do, if not just to make the excuse of needing Alessia to cuddle you afterwards.

After you’ve begrudgingly taken your medicine and Alessia has joined you in bed, you roll over to face her.

“Hold me?” Your voice is small, the exhaustion of being sick finally catching back up to you.

Alessia’s quick to tuck you against her chest, arms wrapping firmly around you. She presses a soft kiss against your forehead. “Sweet dreams, my pretty girl.”

You know the next couple days are going to feel like hell, but with the comforting feeling of Alessia everywhere around you, you slip off into a peaceful sleep.

[ladykailitha]

Icarus Part 18

Hey, guys! I'm back!!! I had a great and very productive hiatus, the results of which can be found here.

But tl;dr is that this story is complete, so it will be regularly updated on Sunday until it's done. Then I will release the story that started this all "The Rise of The Fallen" in two parts, also on Sundays. Which will take us all the to December, if you can believe it.

I'm still working on the other stories and at least The Hellfire Exotic Club (stripper), The Caged Bird Still Sings (sugar!baby), and Of Butterflies and Backstrokes (Olympic swimmer) are all going to be fairly long so that should be exciting. Then I'll be working on the fun little game show story now called "A Love Connection". Which won't come out until one of the others ends. Sorry. But WIP Wednesday will show you teases of it until then.

I recommend rereading the previous chapter to refresh your memory and away we go!

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17

~

Steve was riding on the best high. Their next song was “Kiss the Boys/Kiss the Girls”. The song was about finding love in whatever form that took. With a full verse on non-binary folks, despite the title. There was nothing in the world that could compare to crowds screaming your name. It didn’t even matter that the name they were screaming wasn’t Steve, it was Abbadon.

He stumbled into the green room that had all their stuff in it. Corroded Coffin had taken the stage and him and his boys were relaxing with their masks off, Hopper at the door.

“I’ve never been so nervous in my life!” Shane said after downing an entire water bottle. “That crowd was massive! And diverse! Usually we just get college aged kids but there were literal kids out there and old time rockers too.”

“Shit, yeah,” Spence said, pushing his hood off his head to splash a little water on his head. He didn’t have a spotlight on him but wearing all black still made for a hot set.

Shane laid down on the floor, sprawled out spread eagle. “Is this is what real fame is like?”

Steve slid off the chair he was sitting in, to sit next to him. “God, I have such mixed feelings about that if it is. Because the energy was off the charts and I’m pretty sure I sung my heart out...”

“But you aren’t sure you keep up with it for the whole tour?” Simon asked quietly.

Steve threw his head back to rest on the seat of the chair. “Yeah. I don’t want to burn out before I turn thirty, you know?”

“You should talk to Eddie about what they do not to burn out,” Spence suggested. “Because they’ve been doing this for ten years and longer tours than this.”

Steve hummed his agreement.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door. “Celeste, incoming,” Hopper muttered, before opening the door.

Anyone in view of the door, put their mask over their face and then off again when the door closed behind their manager.

“Good job, guys,” Robin said cheerily and sat down on the floor between Shane and Steve. “I just got off the phone with Vickie and she says social media is going batshit insane about the song and Steve’s intro. And it’s good. Like really good. There are some assholes, but it seems that even the media and music critics are calling it the next gay anthem.”

“What are they saying?” Simon asked, sitting up on the sofa and scooting to the edge.

Robin grinned. “This is my favorite one: Heaven is where the assholes are, we always knew all the good people were in hell. Keep up the good work, Abbadon and all of the rest of The Fallen. From Metallica’s official Twitter.”

The room was deathly silent for all of two seconds before they all erupted into gleeful screams. They all jumped on her and started hugging her tightly.

“Get off me! Get off me!” she shrieked. “You’re all sweaty and gross!”

They deliberately smeared themselves all over her before they got off, giggling like children.

“Boys!” she huffed dramatically. “So gross. I swear you lot don’t grow up you just get older.”

Steve leaned over and gave a huge kiss on the cheek. “Probably, but you wouldn’t love us if we were any different.”

Robin swiped her cheek in an exaggerated fashion. “Maybe, but boys are still gross.” She went on to tell them all things that Vickie was sending her about the world’s reaction to the song.

Then after a while she bumped into Steve’s shoulder. “Go on. I know you want go watch some of the show, I’ll hold down the fort here.”

Steve smiled at her and gave her shoulder a squeeze. He got to his feet and put his mask back on. After checking to make sure no one was in view, he knocked on the door for Hopper to let him out.

Once the door closed, Robin let out a long sigh. “I worry about those two.”

“Who?” Shane said, sitting up for the first time. “Steve and Eddie? Why?”

She nodded, pulling her knees up to her chest and tucking her chin between her knees. “Being in the closet is hard. And I know Abbadon has come out, but he’s still in the ‘closet’ as it were about his identity and Eddie and Steve having to hide their relationship on top of Steve hiding who is... let’s just say that great relationships then theirs have crumbled under the pressure.”

The room was silent as they all took that in.

“Are we just doomed from having relationships?” Spence asked. “Are we all destined to be lonely?”

Simon’s lips quivered. “I hate that I have all these women throwing themselves at me but they really don’t care who’s under the mask.”

“I hit up every gay bar in every city we tour in as me,” Shane muttered picking at the skin around his nails, “and I don’t know if it’s worse they don’t know who I am than if I had gone as Astraeus.”

“I’m trying to have a girlfriend,” Spence said bitterly, “but all I can tell her is that I travel for work. And yeah it’s new enough she isn’t asking as what, but how much longer can I dodge that question?”

Robin let out another sigh. “I know, and it’s not as though I can really date either. Are they dating the goofy lesbian Robin, or the sophisticated fashion plate, Celeste? But with Eddie I think Steve has it harder.”

“It’s because Eddie is famous, huh?” Simon asked, sliding off the sofa to sit next to Shane on the floor.

Spence got up and curled up around Shane. Robin inserted herself into the pile and they just cuddled until the show was over.

~

Steve wanted to be on that stage more than anything, just singing with Eddie, happy and free. But he was Abbadon right now and while he might get away with it, Steve didn’t feel comfortable with the not being able to kiss his boyfriend senseless.

He waited until the it’s almost time for the encore before he slipped back into the green room. Everyone else is already changed and gone. It’s just Robin as Celeste waiting for him.

“How did he not have a boyfriend before now?” Steve muttered as he pulled on the khakis and blue polo shirt of his ‘uniform.’

Robin snorted. “For the same reason you went pretty thin on the dating field. He was hung up on a special someone.”

Steve blushed and ducked his head. “I’m assume you think it’s me.” He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to get it lay straight after being hidden under the hood for so long.

Robin got to her feet and leaned down to look him in the eye. “Are you telling me you don’t?”

Steve looked away. Robin gently lifted his chin and then held his face her hands. “Steven Kincade Harrington, you listen to me close. You are worthy of love. You are worthy of care. You are worthy of attention. And Eddie Munson is one hundred percent onboard to give all three. Of course he was waiting for you. Any person with eyes can see how much he loves you. Fuck, Simon bristles every time he’s brought up now because instead him being your protector like it used to be, it’s Eddie.”

Steve stared at her with his mouth wide open. “Simon’s jealous of Eddie?”

Robin laughed and kissed his stupid head.

“Babe,” she said fondly. “Spence and Shane have been beating him off with a stick every time Eddie comes around.”

“But Simon doesn’t protect me,” Steve said tilting his head to the side. “I protect him. He’s so painfully shy outside of the band and he’s always curled up on my lap.”

“Please tell me you aren’t that naive,” she said. “He is always sticking up for you about your writing, about your singing. When it comes to band stuff Simon is the biggest mama bear of them all.”

Steve blinked at her for a moment and then mouthed the word “Oh.”

“You are such a dingus,” she said shaking her head. “But you’re my dingus so that evens it out a bit.”

He pushed her playfully. “I’m going to get out there before people wonder where the missing EMT is.”

He slipped out a different way from when he came in and she watched him go. Steve was brilliant at a lot of things, people included. But he always had a blindspot when it came to when other people caring for him.

She sighed and then made her way out of the green room so that Corroded Coffin could unwind now.

Robin passed Chrissy on the way out.

“Hey,” Chrissy said with a huge smile. “My boys want to go afterwards with your boys, you think they’d be down?”

“Of course they would!” she replied. “As The Fallen or no?”

Chrissy slapped her palm to her forehead. “Shit I forgot. As The Fallen. But they have casual masks to go in right?”

Robin smiled back at her. “It’s fine, of course they have casual masks. I’ll let them know. It’ll have to be much later because they have to be see as normies for a bit before they slip back into The Fallen.”

Chrissy winked and tapped the side of her nose. “I got you.”

Just then all the Corroded Coffin boys came bursting from the stage into the wings, whooping and screaming. They huddled together, arms around each other and counted to twenty.

Once they got to one, Eddie screamed whooped again and all four of them ran back on stage.

Robin blinked at them for a moment. “Didn’t they just have an encore?”

Chrissy threw back her head and laughed. “Depending on the city they can do anywhere from two to five encores.”

“Holy shit!” Robin said in genuine awe. “That’s insane.”

“It’s not even their record,” she said.

Robin’s eyebrows shot up. “There’s no way.”

“Six in Salt Lake City,” she explained. “Just coming off their third album, the one with eight singles. Which was too many in my opinion but apparently a couple radio stations thought there were a really good deep tracks and played. Then it got around, yaddy yadda. You get the drift.”

“But six?” Robin asked a little unsure.

Chrissy nodded. “Salt Lake is crazy for that shit though. I’ve heard bands go there if they want their ego stoked.”

“Any bands avoid it for that reason?” Robin giggled.

“I have no doubt there are,” she said with a hum. “Most of the time bands whine about the lack of boobs and booze when they refuse to go back.”

Robin rolled her eyes. “Men are so gross.”

“Agreed,” she replied with a wink. “Go lesbian power.”

Robin fist bumped her. “I’ve got to go look like a PA schlep for awhile. I’ll text you when they’re free.”

“You’ve got it girlie!” Chrissy said.

~

Eddie was not pleased that they were at a bar. A bar was the last place he wanted Gareth to be right now.

But he insisted he would be fine and seemed for the most part to be sticking to a cherry coke, but Eddie was keeping an eye on him.

Things were actually going well until...

Astraeus let out a yelp of pain.

Abbadon and Azrael were on their feet in an instant, Asmodeus close behind. There was a little action going on so Eddie couldn’t see what happened, but oh boy did he see the aftermath.

Standing behind The Fallen’s bassist was an asshole with his phone up, filming and another guy yanking on Astraeus’ hood.

“Get off of him,” Abbadon hissed. “Or else.”

Abbadon was the shortest of his band, but fuck in that moment, he looked the most intimidating.

The dude with phone scoffed. “Or what? I’m filming you, you can’t do shit.”

Steve let out a huge ear-piercing whistle and yelled, “Security!”

The two dudes’ eyes went wide as they turned to scramble away from their table, but ran into two very meaty looking guys flanking Hopper.

“You two boys going somewhere?” the head of security asked, low and dangerously.

“We weren’t doing anything!” the one dude said. Not the one with the phone, but the one who had pulled on Astraeus’ hood.

“Yeah?” he asked. “And would these boys say the same?”

The asshole with the phone scoffed. “They’re just a bunch of weird, rich assholes, they’d say whatever.”

“And the security cameras won’t show you filming your friend here, yanking on this man’s hoodie?”

The two dudes looked at each in actual fear for the first time.

“And by the way, that’s assault,” Hopper continued to press. “So unless you want to be arrested, you’ll delete that little videos of yours unless you really, really want to broadcast your crime to the internet.”

The guy with the phone had Hopper watch him delete it off his phone.

“Good,” he said, “now these two gentlemen are going to escort out of the building, a building you’ll never be allowed to come back to ever again.”

After Hopper left with the bouncers and the two idiots, Gareth turned to them.

“Shit,” he said, “that was fucking terrifying. Does that happen a lot?”

Abbadon and Azrael exchanged a glance.

“More than it really should,” Azrael said. “It’s why Ellie designed a hoodie that would be harder to yank off. The trade off unfortunately is that hurts like a bitch when it’s pulled.”

“That fucking sucks, man,” Jeff said. “The next round of drinks is on me.”

Eddie nodded, but inside he was screaming. He didn’t know that this was something the band experienced at all. And even if he didn’t know who they were, that would still freak him out. But it was worse knowing it was Steve that they were doing this to.

Abbadon squeezed his hand under the table. It didn’t reassure him, not really, but it was still nice that Steve recognized his turmoil.

The night was a little more subdued after that as the Corroded Coffin boys thought about the implications of what just happened and The Fallen boys because all they wanted was a fun night out and it was ruined.

~

Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25

Tag List: CLOSED

1- @mira-jadeamethyst @rozzieroos @itsall-taken @redfreckledwolf @zerokrox-blog

2- @gregre369 ​@a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @messrs-weasley @val-from-lawrence

3- @goodolefashionedloverboi @carlyv @wonderland-girl143-blog @irregular-child @blondie1006

4- @yikes-a-bee @bookworm0690 @anne-bennett-cosplayer @awkwardgravity1 @littlewildflowerkitten

5- @genderless-spoon @y4r3luv @dragonmama76 @ellietheasexylibrarian @thedragonsaunt

6- @disrespectedgoatman @eyehartart @dawners @thespaceantwhowrites @tinyplanet95

7- @iamthehybrid @croatoan-like-its-hot @papergrenade @cryptid-system @counting-dollars-counting-stars

8- @ravenfrog @w1ll0wtr33 @child-of-cthulhu @kultiras @dreamercec

9- @machete-inventory-manager @useless-nb-bisexual @stripey82 @dotdot-wierdlife @kal-ology

10- @sadisticaltarts @urkadop @chameleonhair @clockworkballerina @garden-of-gay

[writingforatwistedworld]

Another bread era?

Otome au

I do not take any responsibility for you reading this no matter which age group you are from!

WARNINGS: Yandere themes, obsession, possessiveness, stalking, threats, death, murder

Malleus Draconia/Lilia Vanrouge-“I’m gonna take your bread sir… let me take your bread SIR SIR STOP WALKING AWAY FROM ME SIR!!!??”

Malleus Draconia, the hidden king behind the roses, a legend who even the highest of kings and queens whisper in fear about... is holding back a laugh from watching you

Ok, to be fair, you can only do so much as a ruler of a Kingdom which has been isolated from the others for so long which probably also resulted him in being a bit (or maybe a lot more than a bit) for social interactions

Malleus adores you to a level which is incomprehensible for the ordinary human mind. Heck, most likely for any mind

Yet his most beloved is at the moment pretty much the opposite of him. Most unelegant they screamed at the poor bakers of the Queendom of Roses for their bread

Not like those humans, pardon, NPCs could hear you but it was a rather silly sight to see you sprinting up to the next person like you were possessed and demanding their bread

Could it be that there was a famine that led to you now demanding the food of others? But why especially bread? (I am not joking he is seriously asking himself that)

After sending Lilia out to check, just to be sure, he finally found out that no, you are not on the path of starvation, you are just silly

Might as well enjoy the show then. It's not every day that you see an otherworldly bring controlling a body being this interesting... not like he had seen another bodysnatcher like you before

When he noticed the havoc you caused in your wake he could not hold it back anymore, bursting into laughter he swiped tears of joy from his cheeks

Why this moment was so funny to him was beyond him. Perhaps it was that small memory of another place far in the past, a human from another world, a room filled with all kinds of individuals enjoying their rather mediocre meal together

Perhaps he should humor you

Sending out Lilia yet again (the poor bas-) he ordered that you were brought a basket filled with the finest sentiment of breads

Soft bread, hard bread, bread with seeds, bread with a crunchy crust, bread that tasted spicy and much, much more

When that NPC tried to trade all that bread for a meager price which could barely feed a person for a day the oh-so-lighthearted atmosphere shifted immediately into something that can only be described by “Oh f, he did it”

“Lilia, when was the last time you sharpened your blade?” “Pardon?”

But hey, at e end off the day you had still your bread and everything was great and fine and dandy and yay and oh my god someone just got killed in a PG-13 game what the heck is going on??!

Lilia is someone who takes his duties very seriously

Be it conveying messages to all those that have paid the price of his ruler's benevolence or monitoring the one who connects the one controlling them and this world

At first, Lilia assumed that the one controlling the puppet wearing white and blue would be a cold-hearted tyrant who loved to watch an entire world being nothing more than a game to them

But then...

“SIR GIMME UR BREAAAAAD!” A most frightening battle cry, Lilia nearly fell off from the tree branch he was dangling from when he first heard it

Were you finally setting out to conquer this world? Was it finally time to draw his sword and- uh... huh? *Insert confused expression*

Instead of attacking a defenseless person you sprinted to the next one, repeating the same actions you did just a second ago

The general had expected something of a crueler nature, just how the Gods were at the dawn, not someone jumping up and down whilst demanding bread

But perhaps, this could be used to his benefit?

The next day you found a new NPC. How strange, haven't you walked down this path in the game many times before? His did you miss him?

Interacting with the young man you found out that he was a baker who specialised in bread

How funny! You made a show of wanting bread just yesterday

It was almost like the game was interacting with your real-life self... Nah. Must be your imagination

To your delight, the dialogue seemed to change every single day, ending with the baker telling you stories far too dangerous for a normal person like him to experience

Every following day the interactions with the young man became more and more interesting, and by interesting I mean they went more and more off the grid

Lilia had to tell you more stories from the past he could still remember. This started with him investigating by talking to you but after time, he got attached. What if you were to move on and leave him behind from boredom? After some time his filter started to stop much less from his past than before. Things that he would have sugar-coated before we're now on full display.

Just don't turn your affection to somebody else. You were such a refreshing new sight that he simply had to own your attention

Now now, play nice and do what he says. Otherwise you might find a few NPCs missing

[angelcakestarlet]

salvatore pt 2

richie jerimovich x reader

warnings: age gap, cheating (eventually) (guys it's for the plot i swear), drugs mentioned, swearing.

as requested here is part two!! thank u for the support cuties <3

"hands, fuckers! i need hands table 13, someone come on!" richie's voice echos through the bustling kitchen. it was a busy saturday night, the kitchen was in the weeds, and the restaurant was full as shit. the chicago bears were playing the packers tonight which meant men, drunk men, who would camp out the entire game sitting at the bar or at a table ordering one meal for the whole night. while your apron was stained and you hadn't reapplied lipgloss in the last three hours, you took a quick peak in the mirror and concluded you still looked good enough for that 20% tip. your cheeks were flushed from running around the restaurant getting beer refills and pitchers for nearly every damn table. you should've called off, honestly.

"I got hands!" you came up behind richie. he passed you the plates with a rag beneath them, "here wouldn't want you to burn yourself, sweetheart". you smiled at him, something about richie made your stomach drop in a way that made you feel guilty. every time he spoke to you, it churned your stomach. you knew it was wrong, the whole 'older man' ordeal, you knew that you should probably feel disgusted at his little remarks towards you. but if anything, that was the cherry on top. you walk out the kitchen, feeling his eyes burning into your back. tina smacks richie's shoulder, "staring at that girl like you wanna eat her" she scoffs disapprovingly. he smirks, eyes trailing you.

"alright guys i have the italian beef sandwich, fries on the side?" you ask the men in front of you wearing their grey bear jerseys, setting it down on the table. "they got you on the side too?" one of the guys snickers, shoving his elbow into his buddy. you fake a sweet laugh, "depends, there's an upcharge for me", anything for that tip. glancing up at the clock, "two more hours to go," you sigh. and for the next two hours, the game finishes up and people start slowly leaving the restaurant. you get those who linger, collecting their betting pool winnings or reaping their loses at the bar. you start getting ready to cash out, calculating your earnings for the day when richie creeps up behind you. "how'd you do today, doll?" referring to your tips racking up on the screen, "guess" you look over your shoulder at him. his face is glowing with a sheen of sweat, rag draped over his shoulder, chain having fallen beneath his shirt, he looked good. "a girl like you? i'm gonna say you made 200 tonight." "try 350," he peers over your shoulder, he lets out a whistle and you can feel his breath blow past your ear. "they like you out here huh?" you turn around to completely face him, his face merely inches away "why wouldn't they?" he chuckles at your response. "god you've got a mouth on you" you notice his eyes pan over you, his response makes you go red. you can only feign confident for so long, his words strike you somewhere deep inside. he notices your flushed state, smiles, and makes his way back to the kitchen. when the doors close behind him you realize you've been holding your breath.

you make your way to the office to check out with carmen, "how did you do today, y/n?" he's seated in his office chair, legs spread and obviously tired. "really good, i'm really liking it here, chef. thank you for the opportunity to work here" you smile hands behind your back, "that's good to hear, you let me know if anyone gives you any type of trouble alright? including fucking cousin over there." you laugh, "trust me, everyone's been really welcoming". once you're done cashing out, you take your purse and head out. outside you find yourself two lingering drunks from the game, "where are you heading to so fast? hold on," one of the guys approaches you, you roll your eyes and continue making your way down the sidewalk. "hey, i'm fucking talking you, you too good to respond or something" you can smell the alcohol coming from his breath as he comes up to tug on your wrist. "fuck off, don't touch me!" you shrug his wrist off, "is there a fucking problem here or something?" you hear richie's scruff voice behind you. before he gets to say anything else the guy backs away from you, you turn around to see richie lifting his white shirt just above his stomach to reveal his gun. the sight gives you that familiar feeling, you almost feel a shiver down your spine. "cause I don't think we would want any problems, right?" he gets closer to you, putting a finger through your belt loop to secure you. "you're right man, we're good, we're good." the guys shuffle away almost tripping over their feet. richie tugs on your belt loop, turning you to face him, "you okay, sweetheart? what are you doing walking home at this hour, do you want to get fucking taken by some jagoff?" he put his shirt back down, covering his gun. you stay a bit stunned, "let me give you a ride, come on." you grab his wrist lightly, "thank you, richie, fuck. um fuck..." you grip your hair, about to follow him to his car you see headlights behind you. "shit um... thank you for the offer, and for helping richie. i was just already waiting on-" you hesitate catching his eye as he looks off to the car pulling over in the distance. "I was waiting on my boyfriend." you peer behind you to see him behind the wheel, he usually picks you up from work. richie nods, smirking almost "your uh boyfriend shouldn't make his girl wait for him like that, especially at night. have a good night, doll" he rubs his chin, turns and makes his way to his car. you sigh, questioning your own moment of hesitation before saying 'boyfriend'. you stare at the silhouette of his tall stature walk away, envisioning the cold gun that rests between his jeans and his stomach and bite down on your lip.

"how was work, babe?"

[phr3ia]

Love Game (Toji Fushiguro x Fem!Reader) [Chapter 15 : Mood Swings V.2]

A/N : Hey guys!  This is the final version of this chapter.  The last one was kinda "meh", and I felt like it was too cheesy.  I just didn't dig it, so I rewrote the whole thing...I also don't want to give Suguru more screentime in the future because obviously it's an x Toji fanfic 🥺✨...

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

You kicked off your heels, letting out a sigh of relief as your feet finally got some much-needed freedom. You tossed your bag onto the couch and your file case onto the coffee table, as you made your way to the kitchen to pour yourself a glass of wine. You took a sip, savoring the taste as you closed your eyes, letting the tension of the day melt away.

You took another sip of your wine, before setting the glass down on the counter. You picked up your phone, scrolling through your contacts until you found Toji's number. You pressed call, putting the phone to your ear as you waited for him to answer.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

No answer.

You frowned, hanging up and trying again. Still no answer. You sighed, "Where the hell is that guy?" you muttered to yourself.

You poured yourself another glass of wine, trying to push the thought of Toji out of your mind. You chewed on your lower lip, debating whether or not to call him again. Finally, you gave in, dialing his number for the third time.

Still no answer.

"Fine. If he wants to be alone and not answer his phone, then I guess I'll just have to make dinner for one."

You hummed to yourself as you chopped vegetables, swaying slightly as you moved. You took another sip of your wine, feeling the alcohol warm your cheeks. "I wonder what Toji likes to eat..." you mused aloud, adding more vegetables to the pan than necessary.

You stumbled slightly as you reached for the salt, catching yourself on the countertop. "Whoops!" you giggled, taking another sip of wine. "Maybe I should slow down..."

But you didn't. Instead, you poured yourself another glass, dancing around the kitchen as you cooked. You sang loudly, off-key, not caring who heard you. You were having fun, and that was all that mattered.

Finally, the food was ready. You dished it up, placing one plate on the table and carrying the other to Toji's bedroom. "Dinner's ready, Toji!" you called out, knocking on his door. "Or at least, it would be if you were here..." you muttered, taking another sip of wine. "Gosh, I ended up making dinner for two!" you giggled.

You sat down on his bed, looking around the room. It was sparse, just like Toji. No personal touches, no decorations. Just a bed, a dresser, and a closet full of weird things and condoms. You shook your head, smiling to yourself. " Typical Toji."

You ate your dinner, drinking more wine as you went. By the time you were finished, you were feeling quite tipsy. You lay back on Toji's bed, closing your eyes. "Just a little nap..." you murmured.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

[13 minutes later]

Toji unlocked the front door, pushing it open with a sigh. He had spent the entire day trying to distract himself, trying to forget about you and Suguru. But no matter what he did, he couldn't shake the feeling of jealousy from his chest.

He kicked off his shoes, tossing his keys onto the counter. He headed towards his bedroom, but as he opened the door, he froze in place.

There you were, sprawled out on his bed, with your eyes closed. Your hair was fanned out around you, your lips slightly parted as you breathed softly. An empty wine bottle sat on the bedside table, along with an empty glass.

Toji stood there for a moment, just watching you. He didn't know why, but the sight of you in his bed made his heart pound inside his chest. He took a step closer, reaching out to brush a strand of hair away from your face. He then sat down on the edge of the bed, looking down at you. He didn't know what to think, what to feel. All he knew was that he didn't want to move, didn't want to leave you. Not yet.

He reached out, tracing the curve of your jaw with his fingertips. You sighed softly, nuzzling into his touch. Toji's heart skipped a beat, and he quickly pulled his hand away, standing up abruptly.

"No." he muttered to himself, shaking his head. "This is stupid." he silently exclaimed to himself, staring at you.

You opened your eyes, blinking blearily as you looked around the room. "No, what?" you asked, sitting up slowly.  "I wasn't sleeping." you said,  "I was just...resting my eyes. They felt heavy."

You saw him standing beside the bed, looking at you with a strange expression on his face. "Hey." you said, waving at him. "I made dinner for you. Well, I meant to, anyway."

You swung your legs over the side of the bed, standing up on wobbly knees. "Want some? I made plenty. Although, I might have added a little too much wine to the sauce..."

Toji took a step back, his eyes widening slightly. "Shit, you were awake the whole time? I-I didn't mean to uh-....I was just...checking on you." He ran a hand through his hair, looking uncomfortable. "

He cleared his throat, avoiding your gaze. "How much did you drink, anyway? You seem...awefully tipsy."

You giggled, "Oh, I dunno. A lot, I think." You stood up, wobbling slightly. "Whoops!" you laughed, grabbing onto Toji's arm for support

Toji tensed, looking even more nervous. "Careful." he muttered, helping you stay upright. "You shouldn't be drinking so much. It's not safe."

You pouted, looking up at him with big, drunken eyes. "Aw, why not? It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside." You leaned into him, resting your head on his shoulder. "Don't you like it when I'm all warm and fuzzy, Toji?"

You giggled, tightening your grip on Toji's arm. "Come on, Toji. Don't be such a party pooper." You tugged on his arm, trying to pull him down onto the bed with you.

Toji resisted at first, looking uncertain. "What are you doi-"

But you cut him off, using all your strength (which admittedly wasn't much) to yank him down onto the mattress. He landed on top of you with a grunt, his eyes wide with surprise.

You grinned up at him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. "There, that's better." You locked your legs around his waist, trapping him in place. "Now, look at me, Toji." You commanded, tilting up his chin to meet your gaze.

Toji stared down at you, his eyes searching yours. "What are yo-"

But you didn't let him finish. You suddenly pushed him down, flipping yourselves over so that you were straddling him instead. Toji let out a surprised noise, his hands gripping your hips as he looked up at you in shock.

You smirked down at him, running your fingers through his hair. "I like it when you look at me."

You pushed your hips against him, feeling him harden beneath you. You smirked, leaning down until your lips were brushing against his ear. "Well, well, well. Look what we have here." You purred,  "Always so eager, aren't you, Toji? Tell me, does this happen every time you're around a woman?"

You leaned back, causing him to groan. "And don't lie to me, either. I'm not dumb, Toji. I can see it in your eyes. You want me. So, tell me, have you ever fantasized about me? About this?"

You trailed your fingers down his chest, stopping just above the waistband of his jeans. "I won't tell anyone, I promise. I just want to know."

Toji grabbed your hips, pressing it down further onto him. You gasped, your eyes fluttering closed as you moaned loudly. Despite the clothes, Toji could tell how wet you are down there at the moment.

But then, he suddenly stopped, and pushed you gently off of him. You landed on the bed beside him, looking dazed and confused. Toji sat up, and sighed.

"You're playing with fire." he said, his voice stern. "And you're drunk. You don't know what you're doing."

You blinked, looking up at him with a frown. "What do you mean, I don't know what I'm doing? Of course I do-" You paused, swaying slightly as you tried to stand up. "Okay, maybe not. I am a little...wine-y, and I probably won't remember anything by morning..."

You giggled, covering your mouth with your hand. "Oops. Did I say that out loud? Silly me." You shook your head, trying to clear it. "Anyway, I should go. Before I do something...stupid..."

You stood up, still wobbling. Toji reached out to steady you, but you waved him off. "I'm fine, I'm fine. I just need to...go to bed.."

You took a step towards the door, then suddenly turned back to Toji. Without warning, you leaned in and pressed a quick, clumsy kiss to his cheek. "Night, Toji." you slurred, before turning and stumbling out of the room, leaving him staring after you in shock.

Toji stood rooted to the spot, his hand still raised where he'd tried to steady you. His heart was pounding relentlessly, his mind racing. "What the fuck just happened?"

He collapsed onto the bed, burying his face in his hands. "Goddammit." he muttered, his voice muffled. He felt frustrated, and angry. At you, for making him feel this way. At himself, for not being able to stay mad at you. "Why does she always manage to turn everything upside down?"

He lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. "I need answers. I need to figure out why I feel this way. Why she makes me feel this way. And I need to find a way to stop it. Before it drives me crazy."

•┈••✦ ❤ ✦••┈•

End Of Chapter 15 🥀....

@meowforluv @miizuzu @geniejunn @scorpiosugar

[wolfjackle-creates]

Ghost!Robin Part 7

All right! Here's part 7. I hope you enjoy. I don't think I really have any opening notes to go over this time, so I'll just leave it there. Check out the ask game I posted yesterday if you're interested.

This week you get a bit more than usual at 1.6k words.

First, Previous

----------

“What was that you meant about me being Jazz’s second dead boyfriend?”

Over his surprised laughter, he heard Jazz’s groan from across the hall. Yeah, he really did like Jason more than Johnny.

“One of my former rogues, Johnny 13, pretended to be human and started dating Jazz for a period. He was trying to mold her body into a vessel for his equally dead girlfriend Kitty. He had a similar bad-boy vibe to you but was actually awful. We might be cool now, but I’m still pissed he did that.”

Jason blinked at him before a slow grin took over his face. “So Jazz has a history of bad choices, does she? She always acts like she’s always had it together.”

“Oh definitely not. No child raised by our parents could have it always together.”

“Jazz refuses to talk about your parents, will you tell me what they did?”

Before Danny could answer, Jazz shouted his name. “Danny! If you’re done apologizing to Jason, start helping me explain!”

Danny rolled his eyes to Jason. “Later, I suppose. Duty calls! Come on, you’ve got to have a lot of questions, dead boyfriend number two, and yours will get priority answers.”

Jason’s surprised laugh made him grin despite the deepening glares of the other Waynes.

Surprisingly, it was Duke who blurted out a question in a high, freaked-out voice first. “Why do you have a crown?”

Danny, who’d turned and took all of one step in the direction of the dining hall, paused and turned back around. “How can you see that?” And then he realized the ground was still littered with broken glass and ceramics. “Never mind. Later. Let me clean up the broken glass and stuff first. Least I can do.”

Bruce’s hand landed heavy on his shoulder. “No. You will answer our questions now.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “Yeah, no. Look, the short of it is that I died when I was fourteen because I was stupid. It didn’t take and now I’m only half dead. I have a ghost form and a human form and all the standard ghost powers. The main ones being invisibility”—he turned invisible for a moment—“intangibility”—Bruce’s hand fell through his shoulder—“and gravity manipulation.” He raised in the air until he was floating a foot above the floor. “I also have some more unique powers, such as ice.” With a wave of his hand, ice grew around the shards of glass.

Alfred and Duke quickly backed away from the mess, but once every piece of broken china was encased, the ice stopped growing.

“So, if you’ll just tell me where I can dispose of the shards, I’ll be happy to do it. And this way no one has to be at risk of hurting themselves cleaning broken glass. Plus I got up all the fine powder, too. No little bits that can barely be seen but will fuck up your vacuum cleaner.”

“A handy skill,” said Alfred before anyone else could speak. “I will lead you to the bins.” To the rest of the group, he said, “Jason, would you and Duke collect the desserts from the kitchen and set up the dining room? As it appears we are all allies here, there is no reason to have this conversation standing in a hallway when we could have it sitting down with good food.”

“Alfred—” started Bruce.

Only to be cut off by the butler. “Master Bruce, I will be quite safe with the young man, I am sure of it. Jason’s… ghost has explained a few things already.” Only the slight pause before the word ghost betrayed that the man wasn’t entirely at ease.

Tim stepped forward. ��Let me come with you both, Alfred?”

With a put upon sigh, the man agreed. “Very well, Master Tim, if you must. Mr. Danny, please follow me.”

“Yes, sir.” Danny followed obediently, the ice floating along behind him with barely a thought.

“You don’t need to make any sort of gesture to control the ice?” asked Tim.

Danny shook his head. “Nah. It’s my ice. It’ll do what I want it to. Most ghost powers are based on thought and emotion, honestly.” They took another turn. His castle didn’t even have this many hallways.

“So when you said the ghosts in Amity, you meant that literally.” Tim acted like it was a revelation.

“Of course I did. Shortly after my accident, ghosts started attacking on a regular basis. Took years for me to get things under control and by that point I’d already failed out of high school.”

“But if it was so hard… why didn’t you call the Justice League?”

Danny threw back his head and gave a hysterical laugh. “And then have to fight an overshadowed Superman? Or, worse yet, speedster? No. No thank you. Never. A representative of Justice League Dark stopped by about six or eight months after I got my powers and I told him to keep everyone out of my haunt. He gave me a phone number in case I came across something I couldn’t handle. But I kept being able to handle it, so I never used the number.”

“Overshadowed?” asked Alfred, “I do not believe we know that term. Ah, here we are.” He opened a door that led outside to a drive where a collection of garbage bins sat. “That container there”—he pointed—“is for glass recycling. Will the ice leave the bin filled with water?”

“Not at all. It’ll be completely gone.” Danny had the ice hover over the bin and made it disappear slowly enough that the shards were released without any falling outside the container. No water remained to show how he had transported them.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Danny. Now, overshadowing?” he asked as he held the door open for the boys to precede him inside.

“Oh, um. It’s like possession. Ghosts can take over a living being’s body. But when we do, we don’t have access to memories or knowledge or anything. And after the ghost leaves, the human just doesn’t remember anything from the time they were overshadowed.”

“And is this another of those basic ghost powers you have?” Tim’s voice was hard.

“Yes,” Danny answered simply. “It feels gross, though, and I’ve only done it a handful of times. Ever. First on my dad to get out of some school trouble, but I kept making things worse. After that on my friends and Jazz, with permission, so we could document limitations and if it hurt humans. Far as we could tell, it doesn’t.”

“You sound like a very conscientious young man. I have no doubt you use your powers responsibly.”

Danny laughed. “I screwed up more than a few times before I found ghost mentors. And ghosts are always a little chaotic, so some messing around is not only expected but encouraged.”

Alfred smiled. “I’m sure we will love hearing some of those stories as we get to know you and Ms. Jasmine better.”

“I can’t… I can’t tell you everything. There’s far too much and so much of it just doesn’t matter on Earth that it’d be pointless to go into.”

Danny saw Tim open his mouth to speak, but Alfred cut him off before he could. “I only want to know one thing: will Jason be all right?”

Danny smiled in relief. “Yes. That I can promise. I don’t know for sure how best to help him, but I’ve some ideas and I’ll consult with my doctors. They’re the leading experts in human-ghost biology.”

“Then I am glad you came tonight and were able to notice something was wrong. Thank you.”

With a shrug, Danny just said, “It’s literally my job. This is what I do.” Up ahead, he could see the doorway back to the dining room.

“If it’s your job, how much do we owe you?” asked Tim.

That question brought Danny up short. “Owe me? What are you talking about?”

“If you’re doing this for work,” said Tim as they entered the dining room, “Then you need to be paid somehow. If not by us, then how?”

“What are you lying about now, Danny?” asked Jazz, shaking her head at Tim’s question.

“Nothing! Tim asked why I’m planning on helping Jason and, besides the fact that he’s dating you and I’ll obviously help, I just said it’s literally my job. You heard his reaction to that!”

Bruce grunted. “Then I suppose you know where your explanations should begin. What is your job? A full explanation this time, please.”

“Right, yes, I can totally do that. I’m so great at explaining things.”

Jazz snickered at that statement and Danny poked her as he sat down next to her. Tim and Alfred took their seats as well.

“Now, Mr. Fenton.”

Danny winced at the name. “Don’t call me that. I’m not allowed that name anymore.”

“Danny, your job,” repeated Bruce, face expressionless.

“Right. Um… Well, I do just kinda do whatever is necessary or find someone who can. Because, um, well, I’m… kinda the High King of the Infinite Realms? There’s a bunch more titles after that but I refuse to memorize them because ugh.”

Danny looked down at his plate, not wanting to see everyone’s reactions. Jazz must’ve made sure he got a piece of pie because it sat in front of him. It looked so good. Did they even know about the Infinite Realms? Justice League Dark members did, but did Batman? Jazz reached over and took his hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

----------

Next

Looks like Danny found another excuse to delay the interrogation! (I honestly forgot about the broken glass before Duke spoke up and asked about the crown. But I did always plan to have Danny clean it up.)

Tag List: I'm getting posting errors, so I'll be splitting the tag list in two.

@addie-lover-of-stories, @justwannabecat, @gin2212, @amercurio, @regonold, @overtherose, @readerzj, @sjrose1216, @echoednonny, @deeterzz, @blu-lilac, @number-one-jew, @rowanaway-fromthisbs, @vythika96, @tired-yet-awaken, @themirrorghost, @emeraldcorpral, @all-mights-asscheeks, @darkhinauniverse, @blep-23, @phandomhyperfixationblog, @larkcoe1, @thegatorsgoose, @job-ross-the-second, @britcision, @lenacraft, @bubblemixer, @androgynouslordofescapism, @purefrickingspite, @leftmiraclechaos, @lizisipancardo, @starlight-sparks

[collecting-stories]

Not in Chronological Order ch. 5 - Orange Magic

setting: Central Park// Saturday morning

summary: Reader and Sonny are watching his niece's softball game on Saturday morning and he is interrupted by a series of work calls.

A/N: This takes place 13 months into their relationship. Also, I mentioned on the series page that I've taken some creative liberties with Sonny's nieces and nephews, which still stands. I'm giving his sister Teresa three kids, including a daughter named Sofia.

<- Not in Chronological Order Masterlist | Lie Like This ->

...divider by @saradika

“Thought ya weren’t gonna make it,” Sonny called his tone light and teasing. It was still cold for the middle of March and he had his Fordham hoodie on, hands in his front pocket though he took them out as you approached, pulling you into a hug. You were careful of the coffees in your hands as you wrapped your arms around his waist, pressing your face against the collar of his hoodie and kissing the side of his jaw. 

Once you’d extricated yourself from his embrace and handed him one of the coffees you said, “And miss a softball game for six year olds?” You asked, “doesn’t sound like me.”

“Yeah, alright, I don’t appreciate the snark,” he joked. 

Dating Sonny had just been dating Sonny until about three months into the relationship when he decided he’d waited long enough to introduce you to his family. Now, over a year into your relationship, you felt like you were dating the entire Carisi clan. Dates turned into family parties or Sunday night dinner or watching his nieces and nephew play sports early on Saturday mornings and it all felt bizarrely more domestic than any of your previous relationships. Maybe that was simply because the last time you had a serious boyfriend was ten years ago when you were twenty. 

Today you’d gotten yourself out of bed early and taken the subway into Manhattan to see Teresa’s youngest daughter’s softball game. You’d been invited by Teresa before Sonny could even remember the date. She’d texted an entire schedule for each of her three children’s sports and school activities to you at the beginning of their school year when you’d only been dating Sonny for six and a half months. 

“Just FYI,” you mentioned, shifting your coffee to balance between the crook of your arm and your body so you could clap as Sofia came up to bat, “I’m mad at you.”

Sonny’s eyebrows furrowed, looking at you with a mix of concern and confusion, trying to wrack his brain for a reason that you would be upset with him. Between both of your busy schedules you’d managed to keep any dates that you scheduled and he’d been on time to every apartment tour for the last two weeks. 

“What? Why?” He finally asked, unable to think of any particular reason you had for being mad at him. 

You turned your face toward him, that sly smile creeping over your features, causing him to realize that you’d been teasing him. “Because you didn’t tell me about that Italian place on Locust.”

“Near my parent’s house?” He asked, not concerned anymore but twice as confused. The two of you had been over the bridge almost every week for Sunday dinner but he couldn’t think of another reason for you to trek to Staten Island, at least without him. 

“Yeah, I went last night with your mom." 

"You went to dinner with my ma?” Sonny was more than positive that you hadn’t mentioned a Friday date night with his mom at any point during the week. 

“She said she wanted to take me to dinner for my birthday, just the two of us,” you shrugged. 

“Ya went to dinner with my ma?”

“Yes. She texted me like, two weeks ago, and asked if I wanted to have dinner,” you explained, “anyway…the point is, why didn’t you ever take me there? The food is so good!" 

"I can’t believe you went to dinner with my ma and didn’t even tell me about it,” he replied, “I can’t believe she’s texting you.”

“Jealous?” You joked, bumping his hip with yours. “Where’s Teresa anyway?”

“Paul’s got the kids this weekend,” Sonny replied, nodding his head in the direction of the bleachers on the other side of the diamond where his ex-brother-in-law sat with two small children. 

“Oh fun,” you muttered. Teresa had introduced you to Paul only once but that had been more than enough for you to get a measure on him. 

“So, what did you and my ma talk about?” Sonny asked, looking at you over the rim of his disposable cup as he took a sip. 

“Well, she spent a good half of the time asking me when I was planning on making her a grandmother again,” you replied, “although, at least your mom has more of a filter than you do." 

Sonny had ungracefully blurted out, halfway through dinner on your second date, that he wanted to have kids someday and he was looking for a serious relationship. As if two dates in a week was enough to know whether you were going to devote the rest of your life to him. You were planning on it, in fact, though you had avoided saying so two dates in. 

"What’s that supposed to mean?” He asked, looking incredulous at the accusation. 

Before you could answer, his cellphone went off and Sonny stepped away from you to answer it, already falling into ADA mode. You turned your own attention back to the game, scanning the game to see where Sofia was and finding her in the dug out, waiting for her turn to bat again. 

“…I can email it to ya first thing tomorrow morning. I’m not in the office right now,” Sonny said, looking back toward the Little League diamond, his gaze softening as he watched you clap for his niece. “Yeah, yeah…I’ll talk to ya later, alright, bye Liv.”

Sonny made it over to you after hanging up, wrapping his arms around your waist from behind and kissing your cheek. 

“Do you need to go?” You asked, turning your head to meet his eyes. 

“Nah, just some paperwork. Nothing I can’t get in the morning,” he replied. 

“Are you sure?” You knew you sounded surprised as he looked over at you, the beginnings of an apology already forming on his tongue.

“Yeah, ya just got here and we’re supposed to look at that apartment after lunch.”

“I know,” you turned back to the game, “but if you have to-”

“I don’t." 

A year and a month into dating Sonny, you knew that his job was more than important. It was demanding on a good day and soul-draining otherwise. The work he did was necessary and hard and you understood. Yours wasn’t an easy job either, though you had more structured hours than Sonny sometimes got. Both of you had brought up jobs and relationship expectations somewhere around the three month mark but neither of you had really gotten anywhere solid and the discussion had been shelved for later. For further down the road when things were more serious. 

Talking babies with Serafina Carisi and apartment shopping seemed like the time to unshelf that conversation but neither of you really wanted to. 

"So, dinner with my ma?” Sonny asked, trying to get back whatever you’d had before Sonny had answered the phone.

“Oh yeah, we covered all the topics. Jobs, children, future wedding, why you haven’t proposed yet,” you laughed at Sonny’s expression, “her question, not mine.”

“She’s something else,” he muttered, pressing his face into your neck. 

You reached up with one hand to pat the top of his head, running your fingers through the soft, salt and pepper, waves. No work meant no hair gel. “She told me that we should move to Staten Island so when we have kids she can babysit and we don’t have to worry about work or daycare.”

“We just have to worry about commuting back into Manhattan?” Sonny asked, slightly muffled by your sweatshirt. You could feel his mouth against your neck as he spoke, breath warm in the cold morning air. 

“What, you don’t wanna sit in hours of traffic every day?”

“Dream come true,” he hummed. 

Sonny’s phone rang once more and he groaned against your neck, giving you a gentle squeeze before he pulled away. You heard Liv’s name leave his lips as he stepped further away from you and the game. Serafina had referred to the relationship as a test of patience. You wouldn’t put all the blame for busy schedules on Sonny though, there were plenty of dates that you had interrupted with a phone call or times when you’d brought work to his house when you were supposed to be having dinner together. 

“Are you sure you don’t need to go in?” you asked when he made his way over to you again.

“No,” he pocketed his phone, “sorry.”

“No you aren’t,” you laughed, stepping away to throw out your empty coffee. When you came back over he was frowning. “What?”

“I am-”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” you sighed, wrapping your arms around his waist and tucking yourself into his side. He slung an arm around your shoulders instinctively. “I just meant, I’m not mad that you have to work when you’re off the clock. You know I get it, I just…wish you wouldn’t apologize. It gives me false hope that maybe next time you won’t go into the office or answer the phone and I know you won’t.”

“It’s just, the case we’re working on-” Sonny started to explain.

“Dominick,” you huffed, cutting him off, “I literally just gave you an out, you don’t have to explain. I’m not mad.”

“You seem a little mad.”

“Well…” You turned into Sonny more, fiddling with ties on his hoodie for a moment before meeting his eyes, “it’s 10am on a Saturday and I’m watching your niece play softball and thinking that maybe your mom wasn’t so crazy for asking me about kids cause I could totally rock being a ‘soccer mom’ someday and then I just spiral further into my head like…will Sonny answer the phone when our future children with Italian names are running around playing baseball and then I realize I’m being totally irrational because half the time I’m the one on the phone and then-”

“Hey,” Sonny cut you off this time, pulling you closer to hug you, kissing the side of your head, “we both have crazy jobs and we knew that getting into this and I know you are more than understanding about my schedule but that doesn’t mean I’m not sorry that I gotta answer the phone when I’m with you." 

"I know,” you replied, “I just feel like, the interruptions happen whether you make excuses for them or not…I just don’t want us to be those people that like, make the excuses. I don’t wanna lie and say that next time I won’t pick up a second shift and I don’t want you to say that you won’t stay late at the office cause then we’re just lying to each other.”

Sonny looked contemplative as he considered what you had said to him. Finally, he nodded, “I agree…I just feel guilty sometimes hassling you with interruptions when we’re supposed to be off.”

“I don’t think this is a compromise we can figure out over the course of one conversation,” you replied. A Little League baseball game probably wasn’t the best place to be hashing out your feelings as it was but there was certainly no easy end or compromise to the situation at hand. Down the road, you imagined, it would have to evolve into other conversations too, more nuanced, about family instead of just you and Sonny. “But if you do have to go in to the office…”

“Just for like an hour tops, I promise we’ll make the open house." 

"We better,” you tried to sound threatening but it was hard to do when you were smiling, “cause I showed Serafina the places we were looking and it’s the only one she likes.”

“She’s not living in it,” Sonny pointed out.

“Yeah but she said it’s got three bedrooms so that’s at least two grandkids.”

“With Italian names,” he teased.

“Depends,” you replied, detangling yourself from Sonny as his niece ran over to say hello. 

“On what?” He asked, though he was looking at Sofia and waving, a massive smile on his face.

“I’ll tell you when little ears aren’t around,” you joked. 

Sofia made impact with his legs before he could answer you and Sonny lifted her up, settling her against his hip despite her being six and all limbs, happily kicking him as he hugged her. She launched into a recounting of the game, as if neither of you had been there and seen most of it. You couldn’t help thinking that maybe Serafina was right when she told you that a year and a month was not too short a time to already be thinking about kids of your own. Interruptions be damned, you’d spend the rest of your life with Sonny if you were given the opportunity.

[megumi-fm]

this fortnight in megumi.fm ▸ bye bye march👋

ft. unchecked ambition to recreate of the hardest Kpop dances (only in vain), lots of code debugging, and using Yeolpumta the wrong way

💻 Internship // progress tracker

-> detecting pockets in protein structures using 3diff pipelines -> finding consensus pockets using outputs of pipelines -> pocket alignment of protein models by structural alignment with a set of known binding site structures -> read base paper -> weekly presentations [2/2] besides these tasks I've been trying to modify all my code files such that they can run directly from the system terminal (i hate edge cases and this entire process has taken years off my life) so that I can upload it on github

🎓 Uni Stuff

-> charted out a timeline for master's applications deadlines and related work

👟 Kpop dances!!

completed! 🔥bye bye ankles ⇒ I'd started this way before I messed up my ankle and then I abandoned it but we are so back... I picked it up last week and finally! it is done. 💪 bts' magnum opus ⇒ the main challenge is ensuring to hit every beat at the right speed and my rendition is still far from refined but hey. atleast my moves have developed some fluidity currently <3 🧢 left, right and just vibes ⇒ really needed a breather after the first two dances and now I'm here xD although the main reason I picked this dance was bc I loved the part switch version and all the references // ✅chorus + prechorus ⚡ crush...ing my motivation ⇒ so much for taking a breather. I've been obsessed with this song and I tried to start learning it and... four seconds- that's how much I've learnt in past three days. but the satisfaction when I got those four seconds? immeasurable. // ✅1st chorus pt1/3

💿 Other Things This week

📅 started my 18day habit challenge! by which I simply mean I'm using Yeolpumta as a daily tracker app rather than a study app and I'm loving it <3 I get excited seeing different colours marked on the daily calendar and as a consequence I've been more productive lately :D 🍊 been eating healthier! lots of fruit and water intake and I've also been learning to cook! 📖 The Myth of Sisyphus <3 I don't read a lot of non fiction but this piece is hella intruiging and I'm having a lot of fun 🍕 Lunch with the besties [x2] 🎰 Gaming Arcade shenanigans yet again 🎆 Fest at Uni! One of the best bollywood singers of all time showed up and he sang bangers from our childhood; we had a blast 🎧 lots and lots of kpop and for some reason I keep coming back to Advice by Taemin

[ 18th - 31st Mar; week 13+14/52 || and with that, 1/4th of this year is done. I'm pretty satisfied with how I how i spent the past two weeks, hopefully I'm able to stay consistent 🤞]

[tagidearte]

"Pongo, the Imp Clown. Some say he used to be a Star, others say that's just his delusional ramblings." -Original Character for a (so far) unnamed Original Story.

I'm still in the early stages of designing him and his "friend" Pinga. However, I decided to share these initial drafts regardless! This way someone other than me can join in on the character design journey! Let's see how much he changes until the final design! Thoughts below.

Concept Log #1 - Pongo

Aka I want to ramble and my friends don't care robot clowns. Really big rambly rant below.

Also no, this is not a d/ca oc. Trust me, making a robot clown/jester is like walking into a laser trap when you've been obsessing over those two for the past three years. The only d/ca inspiration here was making Pongo warm coloured and Pinga cool coloured. If anything, this was more inspired by the Funtimes.

For now, I hate all the outfits. They don't fit his vibe, his personality, his whole persona. He's an imp clown, but he has... Delusions of grandeur. I need to make him more princely, perhaps? I'll attempt that next time. I already have the chibi base, so it'll be relatively quick.

I also want to make his casing... Different. Either paler with pink shadows, or a darker, more solid pink. He's meant to have only warm colours, contrasting with Pinga (you'll see him some other time) who only has cold ones, so no blues or greens... But I must say. Darker pink will probably win. When I painted his face white it looked too much like a Slay Button En/nard. In fact, I added all that eye and lip makeup to make him look less like En/nard.

The coil torso is the most important part. On a final drawing I'll make it have more loops, which should give the impression the thing is stronger and capable of more powerful bounces (which can hurt you if he decides to launch) - but for these concepts I merely half assed it. The star shaped hat with the back cone coming out is my favourite part!

Hope you enjoy his star shaped nipple coverings as much as I did coming up with them! Originally (not pictured here) he was going to have a big star on his chest, to mimic what I see in a lot of jack in a box's boxes. But the nipple coverings were so raunchy and funny, yet still appropriate for younger audiences (in world), that I left them in. Him being a reformed villain (in the media he's built after, inside the world) allows for messing around with the makeup and eccentricity, but we can't go to far - he needs to look PG while being predominantly adult/teen entertainment as an amusement park bot.

For context... Ever since I got into FN4F I've wanted to do something similar - with a location and mascots -, but instead of an USA animal band, I wanted it to be based on a cartoon set in a magical forest (like Noddy from my childhood - with a city of living toys and two imps that lived in the eViL wOoDs-, but funny for all ages rather than so 5 year old centric). Overtime, the thought of sentient robots forced to work - objects that were given a soul, trapped in a synthetic shell that is their body, dependent on humanity and property to it despite technically being alive, easy to manipulate via some changes in code - wormed itself in.

But I never really had the proper setting or characters for it. That, and I have another original story that has plagued my dreams ever since I was 12/13.

Until now.

I won't go into setting details yet. Let me just say Pinga and Pongo are a ping pong pun, because they both bob up and down with coils - Pongo on his torso, which makes him kind of like a jack in a box; and Pinga on his legs, which allows him to jump really high. They are based on cartoon characters that exist in world, from a movies series that ended up with a cartoon too, sort of like disney stuff but... Not disney. The entire mythos of that company's content takes place in one single world/franchise, it just explores different parts of it with each new series/movie/game.

Pongo is an egomaniac, programmed the be flirty to adults, who struggles on the line between property and self. He used to give a lot of trouble to the park, because his AI allowed him to learn new tricks rather quickly... and most weren't really all that safe or appropriate. So, time and time again, he got sent back to fix it. Having his "brain" messed with has made him deeply afraid of not behaving like a machine, which clashes with how self pleasing he is - you just don't realize it at first, because he's programmed to be a flirty little demon with an attitude. It's just that his real attitude is much more... intense.

Let's see if posting this online makes me not put the project aside too quickly lmao.

[lookslikethatsallthetimewehave]

In your opinion, what's the darkest thing in Poptropica?

Oh... wow. You know, some people might be surprised at some of the dark stuff that's happened/implied throughout the franchise. And from such an innocent looking world too :)

I guess I'll make a list of some stuff that stands out to me:

24 Carrot Island 

The 4 children were kidnapped and brainwashed by Dr. Hare probably for months.

Astro-Knights Island 

Mordred almost died in a crash, and had to replace half of his body with robotics. 

Mordred kidnapped the princess because he wanted to marry her. And her parents most likely thought they were never going to see her again, since they had no way of going after her.

Counterfeit Island 

It's implied that Black Widow was gonna torture the player in order to get answers. 

Reality TV Island/Wild Safari Island 

Villains allowed to be on reality tv… and being treated as celebrities... WHAT.

Skullduggery Island 

Captain Crawfish probably killed a lot of people. Cause… pirate.

Steamworks Island 

The entire backstory of this island: the people were doing experiments on plants, when the plants mutated and tried to kill them. The only way they could survive is by freezing themselves.

Captain Ziggs sacrificed himself to hold off the Plant Monsters. Mayor Crumb must be feeling pretty depressed now that she's free and forced to live without him.

Red Dragon Island  

The Shogun being a pretty terrifying tyrant. 

Shrink Ray Island  

POV: you're an elementary school student and your teacher's star pupil. You trust him, because he's a nice teacher. And then he goes crazy and kidnaps you.

Mr. Silva threatens to shrink CJ and the player to the point where they can't be seen by anyone, which is kinda dark honestly. 

Blimp Adventure 

Dr. Cumulo Nimbus sets fire to the rain to all the islands. 

Game Show Island  

Robots take over and enslave humanity. 

Ghost Story Island  

A really depressing murder mystery/ weird love triangle story that involves several character's deaths.

S.O.S Island  

The ship sinks and everyone inside almost dies. Also a child.

Vampire's Curse Island  

Count Bram outlives his wife, and goes crazy. And he kidnaps a child due to insanity. 

Cactus von Garlic has killed many vampires. But not all vampires in Poptropica are evil (if Haunted House is any indication). 

Twisted Thicket Island  

The forest creatures turning into stone. I'm not 100% sure if they're still alive in there or not...

Poptropolis Games Island

The island sinks back into the ocean, with people still on it. Some of the ancient islanders are waterlogged (but still alive, for some reason).

Lunar Colony Island (Book)

The PASE workers are oddly sociopathic to Glen John's situation, only caring about Glen helping them. Glen is 13 btw.

Super Villain Island  

Zeus almost winning. He blew up the world for no reason. Also, there's something really scary about the way he blew up his own island.

Zomberry Island  

Zombie apocalypse. 

Virus Hunter Island  

A pandemic almost happened. 

Monster Carnival Island 

Ringmaster Raven's backstory: Pretty messed up. 

Edgar is an orphan who ran away and joined the carnival. He put a lot of trust in the Ringmaster and seemed pretty happy… and then the Ringmaster hypnotizes him and uses him for his scheme. Pretty messed up. 

Survival Island 

Myron Van Buren. Enough said.

Mission Atlantis Island 

The alien was trapped underwater for years and died.

PoptropiCon Island  

Omegon taking over the convention center, and turning the people into Hench-Bots.

Arabian Nights Island 

Scheherazade attempted to steal the player's soul… what the heck.

Graphic Novels

The kids almost died… several times. (A Saber tooth tiger and polar bear almost maul them, they almost fall to their deaths, they almost freeze to death, they are almost stabbed to death by Lieutenant Rogers, they almost got erased from history on the Ancient Egypt Island, they almost burned alive in a volcano eruption, etc)

The ancient Egyptians are erased from one timeline, and a bunch of people on earth died... and it's unknown if they were brought back, or what.

When Spencer Albright is murdered, Jonas is so overcome with grief that he completely loses it and becomes murderous like Octavian. Jonas is 18-20 btw.

The backstories for the main characters (Octavian is forced to let Paulla die, Mya's mom abruptly dies and she goes through depression, Oliver’s dad walks out on the family).

Octavian's fate at the end is this: he accidentally jumped through the portal before the universe he wanted to go to fully formed. Because of this, he jumped into the in-between point of universes, and was split into an infinite amount of versions of himself. Sounds complicated, but is incredibly messed up.

Mya was seriously considering leaving her own timeline, even though she would be leaving her family and friends behind. Whether or not she knew this is unknown, but if she did... kinda messed up.

And… that's it. No more dark things that stick out to me after that. Probably because after this, they fired the writer who was responsible for most of the dark undertones in the franchise. OOPS!!! >:(

I think the darkest stuff comes from Monster Carnival, Survival, and the graphic novels.

[w1ldthoughts]

AJ’s Analysis- Week One Preview⚡️:

Raiders at Chargers

Disclaimer: I am a Chargers fan so this will obviously be biased BUT I have been a football fan for the last 12 years and absolutely love dissecting the game and making comments so I figured I would give this a try! Please feel free to make comments and let me know your thoughts in my inbox!

Players to watch:

Los Angeles

Justin Herbert QB- Oregon- Year 5🩵

Pookie. Angel. Perfect prince. Idk. He’s just my favorite player in the NFL to watch. The arm talent, the decision making, the…everything. Ok so, this is honestly his coming out year. He’s finally got a coaching staff that is competent and hopefully working in an offense that doesn’t put the weight of the world on his shoulders. He’s also coming off of finger surgery and a minor foot injury so he should be healthy and ready to take over the league. Simple. I can’t wait to watch.

Stats: carried the team on his back pretty much all of last season, lost a finger nail, lost most of his sanity and then lost his season to a broken right index finger. Best game last year by far was the week 10 loss against the Lions where he threw for 323 yards and 4 touchdowns.

Cameron Dicker Kicker- Texas- Year 3

Little angel bean. Best kicker in the league. No further comments.

JK Dobbins RB- Ohio State- Year 5

Coming off of an Achilles injury and trying to shed the “injury prone” rumors, Dobbins is set to make his Chargers debut. One important thing to note, he’s only fumbled twice in his career…iykyk

Joe Alt RT- Notre Dame- Year 1

Here we go people! Fifth overall pick, mixed reviews from the audience. I’m rooting for him and the entire o-line to be much improved so I hope this first test shows that this investment in the “trenches” was worth it.

Khalil Mack EDGE/LB- Buffalo- Year 11

Recorded six sacks the first time these teams met last year. Was drafted by the Raiders in 2014 and has 100 career sacks, last season being one of his best in the last five years with 45 solo tackles and 17 sacks.

Joey Bosa DE/EDGE - Ohio State- Year 9

Also trying to shake injury prone rumors but seems to have taken on a new outlook and a new sense of excitement and motivation due to this new regime. Played in 9 games last season, starting 5 and still finished with 6.5 sacks. Honestly, looking forward to Joey making a big impact this season.

WR Room

I’ll preface this by saying I still miss Keenan Allen BUT ready to move forward. Very excited for Josh Palmer to get his time to shine hope he can stay healthy. DJ Chark excites me I’m gonna need to see some big plays from him. Quentin Johnston needs to have a breakout season. Ladd and Brenden are rookies but I need some huge contributions from them. Simi I know will show out when his number is called and if Derius the punt return king gets some targets I know he’s gonna put on a show. Nervous but excited to see how this goes!

Las Vegas

Gardner Minshew QB- Washington State- Year 6

Played in all 17 games for the Indianapolis Colts last year, made 13 starts and somehow always seems to know exactly what a team needs to get a win when his number is called. On his third team in his NFL career, looking to prove himself so he should come out looking to make a statement to keep his starting spot over AOC. Made the Pro Bowl last year with 305 completions and 3,305 passing yards, both career highs.

Davante Adams WR- Fresno State- Year 11

Your favorite wide receiver studies his film. Six Pro Bowls, three-time First team all pro, 39 games with 100+ receiving yards and has 9,637 receiving yards over the span of his career. Will get targets, will catch the ball and will probably score a touchdown (hopefully not two but who knows) this weekend.

Brock Bowers TE- Georgia- Year 1

Rookie Tight End making his NFL debut. Voted First Team All American by just about every single sports outlet in the country last season. Had 56 catches for 714 yards and six touchdowns for the Bulldogs in a 13-1 season falling short of a 3-peat not making the college football playoff but defeated Florida State 63-3 in the 2023 Capital One Orange Bowl.

Maxx Crosby DE- Eastern Michigan- Year 6

AKA Mad Maxx, neck tats can play football. Played in all 17 games last year and started. Heart and soul of the Raiders defense with 48 solo tackles and 14.5 sacks. Did get shaken out of his shoes by Justin last time and I’m sure he didn’t forget so he’ll be coming for vengeance.

Christian Wilkins DT- Clemson- Year 6

Entering his first season with the Raiders after a very successful five years in Miami. Recorded an NFL high 9 sacks for defensive tackles last season, started all 17 games and recovered two fumbles. Wilkins makes this Raiders defense a lot scarier and this will be a great first test for the often shaky Chargers o-line.

⏳FLASHBACK⌛️

Last time these two teams met, we all remember where we were…

1. Justin was injured, fresh off of surgery and Easton’s presence in the pocket is like a kid running late for curfew, very rushed and deer in the headlights

2. Defense quit and was ready to start fresh having lost faith in the entire coaching staff

3. We were all praying on the Charger downfall on this day and got what we wanted so sorry Coach Staley but…not sorry

Had to include this because baldy is gone and I couldn’t stand him. This was very embarrassing.

That’s it for week one!!!

Bolt the absolute fuck up

[incorrectmahabharatquotes]

r/AmITheAsshole: Mahabharat Edition

AITA for taking revenge for my friend's murder?

Act like you're the reddit comments, go!

Bonus cookies for guessing everyone's identities correctly.

This AITA text post is created by our lovely server member @warriorbookworm. We remain in awe of him.

-Mod S

[Image Description: A dark mode reddit screenshot that reads-

"Hi everyone, long time lurker first time poster. I wanted some clarity on a horrible dilemma I find myself in since due to circumstances I will describe (my friends being murdered) I am unable to ask them for guidance.

I(M54) had 2 close friends since I was quite young. My father taught one of them(let's call him S) and the other was his friend(Let's call him R). We enjoyed a lot when we were young but S got caught up in an inheritance battle which kind of put a strain on our relationship. S wasn't aware of the existence of his cousins, so them coming to his place was kinda a surprise. With more kids, his grandfather decided to get a good private martial arts tutor apart from the one their family had already employed for general teaching. Here's where my father and I come into the story. My father favoured a cousin of S'(let's call him D) and he was my father's favourite student. Meanwhile, S had a similar skillset to D's brother(Let's call him V), and they became really bitter rivals. We then met R at an archery contest that my father had organized. D refused to compete with R because he wasn't of the same birth so S decided to give R his own estate and they became really, like, *really*, close after that, if you get what I mean. Now S's uncle and father wanted him to get the inheritance and spoiled him a lot. Finally the estate ended up getting split between S and his oldest cousin, Y. S' maternal uncle, G, was not satisfied with this outcome, and so we all planned a game where Y would be forced to bet the estate. Y lost the game, which led to the cousins having to leave and exile themselves for 13 years(one of the conditions of the game). At the end of the thirteen years S and R tried to trip them up but their grandfather, who had always sided with the cousins didn't let us do that.

D's boyfriend then tried to trick us into giving the cousins their estate back but S wasn't having it. What happened later was nothing short of a bloodbath where P, my father, and many others were killed. I am honestly feeling the angriest about my father who was unfairly disarmed by D's BIL and beheaded in cold blood. I feel sad about his death even though he never really approved how close I was with R and S. but he was still on our side since he was employed by P. He has voiced his disapproval many times when R was in our bed and didn't let him make any decisions regarding this conflict. It was only when my father died that R could step into a leading role. Finally after like 16 long days R was unfairly murdered by D and his boyfriend H while V broke the rules of the wrestling game and murdered S on H's instructions. This made me really mad as my two best friends were gone. With their family's tutor, K and another commander, (H's cousin.) I went to their camp in the middle of the night and set fire to it. I wanted to kill Y, V, D, and their brothers but instead killed their sons(S' nephews) in their sleep. I also gave blunt force trauma to their BIL and idk if he's alive or not.

H called me a heartless monster who killed his nephews in their sleep and took away an implant I had on my forehead(it's supposed to be for my brain) and also gave me a deadly disease. I asked him if he was entirely fair in how my father, R, and S were killed. He said it was the result of their past actions but I don't really see it.

So, people of reddit, AITA for taking revenge for my friends' murders?"]

[theconstellationprincess]

I'm having so many fantasy high thoughts so here are some headcannons about the bad kids based on this ask game

How did they find out about age regression?

I think the Bad Kids would have learned what it was/what it was called from Jawbone after the end of freshman year. Prom was a nightmare and they've all experienced some really messed up situations over the entirety of the school year, but especially that specific day, and I think for a couple of them (Kristen, Riz, Fabian) it would be their first time really experiencing regression of any kind.

Adaine I think is intimately familiar with what it is and how it effects her, but she never wanted to look it up on her crystal, because giving a name to this shameful, small feeling she gets would make it real and she didn't want that because she was scared.

I think Fig would already know what it is, though she'd never want to admit it, and pretends to be just as surprised and thoughtful as the rest of the group when Jawbone sits them all down and lays out what he believes some of them may be experiencing, ways to cope with it, ways to cope outside of it, etc.

Do they have a specific age or range they regress to?

Fabian is a solid 6-8 range. He's a big kid! But he still wants cuddles and to be played with. It's an age where he still believed his parents were proud of him, loved him without conditions, where he wasn't incredibly insecure about his place in the world, his place in his family, it's before everything got complicated.

Riz and Adaine are both younger regressors, like 2-4 range, because for both of them it's a time where they still felt very secure and safe around adults, where they still felt a proper reliance on their parents and it was okay for them to do so. If they're both regressed, Adaine will take on the big sister role, regardless of how young she feels.

Fig is all over the place, at one time she'll be so incredibly small, and the next minute she's 13 and angry and upset and so hateful, and then she's 6 and wants Gilear and Sandra-Lynn because she loves them and they're her whole world.

Gorgug is similar to Fig in that his age range is all over the place, but it doesn't change much once he's regressed. The actual age is entirely dependent on how upset/excited he is, whatever triggered the regression, but generally the stronger he feels the smaller he gets.

Kristen is complicated, mostly because when she regresses, she doesn't feel any specific age. She's just not her age and that's it, which confuses some of the other bad kids, but they're happy to let her ;ead the way in what she wants when regressed, even if it bounces back and forth between pacifiers and horror movies.

Do they try to hide it from friends/family?

Absolutely. All of them at first, because (for the most part) they're confused and ashamed and they don't want to admit out loud that they feel like they're losing their minds.

After the sit down with Jawbone, they have a sleepover at Seacaster Manor, all piled in Fabians truly massive bed, and spill their guts up to eachother.

Riz does his best to hide it from Sklonda, and since they aren't able to see each other very much, it's not too difficult. He's having a terrible time over the summer, everything is awful even though he saved Penny, he was a real detective, but he killed a demon and almost died and it was terrible. Jawbone tattles on him, in the end, after helping Riz through an insomnia and stress induced panic attack.

Adaine and Kristen don't have to worry about telling their biological parents, but they're staying with Gilear and Fig and walking on egg shells around them and each other. Fig eventually sets some ground rules about communication (to everyone's surprise), and things get easier from there.

Gorgug tells his parents right away because he hates keeping secrets from them and they're really good at emotional stuff.

Okay that's all for now bye <3

[accirax]

Eden’s Garden Mastermind Theory Ranking (Least to Most)

Greetings, Eden’s Garden fandom, and happy... uh... two days past the three month anniversary of the prologue release! I know I’m really late to the punch on this, but after thinking it over for a while I have ranked every student in Project: Eden’s Garden based on how likely I think it is that they are the mastermind. Also, I drew them all, because their designs are really cool. So, without further ado:

#16: Grace Madison

Out of all of the characters, I think Grace would be the most bewildering mastermind. This is the girl who screamed “get me out of here” so much that she got shocked, clubbed Tozu until he was writhing on the floor, and nearly got executed for it! She’s been shown to be violent, but not in a particularly manipulative or intellectual way. Yes, you could argue that all of that was an act, but she’s been shown as so honest and blunt that it makes me doubt whether she could really pull that off. I personally believe that Grace may make a deep run in this game (even to the point of being a survivor), but I can’t think of any particularly compelling reasons as to why Grace would be the mastermind.

#15: Jean DeLamer

So… it’s the pirate guy. No, a ship captain! Either way, I think Jean would be a pretty strange mastermind. To me, it feels like a mastermind Jean would have to lean into the sea aesthetic somehow, and given the locale and theming of Eden’s Garden Academy, I can’t see how that would tie in. The way that Jean portrays it, Ultimate Ship Captain is a title built on bringing people together. So, the writers would have a lot of work to do to justify him being someone who would lead his friends to tear each other apart. Overall, this seems pretty unlikely to me.

#14: Damon Maitsu

And here he is, our protagonist boy! While the protagonist being the mastermind certainly isn’t a foreign concept, I personally don’t think it’s what the Eden’s Garden writers were going for here. Protagonists secretly on the evil team, such as Hajime, are typically missing a lot of memories, and Damon doesn’t seem to be missing any more than the average student. It would certainly be bold to have Damon be an active and aware mastermind under the players’ noses for the entire game, but based on how difficult Kodaka has said it was to write just a single case in which the protagonist was a killer, I find it dubious that this is a realistic possibility. Personally, I also didn’t see any thoughts, actions, or dialogue of Damon’s that would indicate that this was the case. If something weird was going to happen to prevent Damon from being the long-term protagonist, I think it would more likely be a shockingly early death as either a victim or killer. However, I think that Damon has a great character arc set up before him, and that he’ll probably survive to the end as our innocent protagonist and POV character.

#13: Jett Dawson

Jett is pretty similar to Jean in that they’re both big, sociable guys with a seemingly killing-game-irrelevant talent. Because of that, it might seem strange that I put Jett above Jean, considering that he’s even sillier and dumber than Jean. However, I think that because of that, it would be more fun for him to have an eleventh hour heel turn and become the mastermind. I also think that him being sillier would allow him to better blend in as a simple comic relief character and believable survivor nearing the end game. And, of course, he’s wearing that mask, the taking off of which could be a fun twist in Trial 6. Despite all of this, however… he’s still 13th overall. And that’s because, overall, I still think it’s pretty implausible for our goofy, Scooby Doo-impersonating Jett to be the mastermind.

#12: Mark Berskii

I’m pretty indifferent on the concept of mastermind Mark overall. His alligator imagery is questionable, given his apparent personality; and having a tech-related talent could be helpful in creating a killing game, somehow…? But, he also seems pretty soft spoken and anxious during introductions, and more of a sarcastic straight man in the Class Trial, neither of which scream “mastermind” to me. Really, the most suspicious thing about him is that Damon specifically points out that Mark is staring at him on the train, and that Mark was sitting in the back of the train near the sleeping gas bag. Currently, I don’t really have anything that can argue him better or worse than 12th place.

#11: Eloise Taulner

Given how much Eloise has already demonstrated how much she cares about her family, I find it hard to believe that she would put herself in danger by placing herself in a killing game. But, on the other hand, maybe her family is her reason for starting the killing game in some twisted way, and her loyalty to them could explain her actions…? I can’t deny that it would be fun to see such a shy and sweet character flip in the final Class Trial to reveal her masterminding ways– sort of reminiscent of Mikan’s character flip, though hopefully on a more solid foundation. Fencing is also a violent talent, one that Eloise specifically pointed out is a calculated mental game more than a physical sport. However, I’m a pretty strong believer in early killer Eloise, so personally, I don’t think that she’ll make it late enough in the game for her being the mastermind to be a real topic of discussion.

#10: Ingrid Grimwall

Being the Ultimate Blacksmith, Ingrid has a weapons-based talent, specifically one that fits in with the old fashioned stylings of Eden’s Garden Academy. She thinks pretty highly of herself and her skills, and is shown to be flippant about safety laws when it comes to cleaning supplies. These traits, in my mind, make her a more viable candidate than Jett or Jean, but I just can’t shake the feeling that Ingrid would be a really random mastermind choice. I don’t know what her being the mastermind would say about her or people like her, or what it would add to the story and world development. Ingrid isn’t a terrible choice, but I think there are far better options to consider.

#9: Kai Monteago

Yes, Kai is incredibly silly, and I probably shouldn’t have even had him this high just due to how much of a meme it would be if he were the mastermind. But, I think that out of the more silly mastermind candidates, Kai stands out for one reason and one reason alone: attention. Kai has already presented himself as someone who wants everyone to know his name, and what better way to do that than slaughtering some of the country’s brightest? The way Kai initially resigned himself to being an observer of the practice Class Trial before jumping in and eventually providing a lot of commentary could speak to him being a fan of killing games or mysteries in a way he couldn’t manage to contain. And, look– I know that his behavior was probably just to communicate that even when he’s underinformed, Kai is still a chatterbox who wants to be the center of attention, alright? I know that he’s probably here primarily as comic relief, especially if he winds up an early death. But at least compared to most of the students ranked below him, I can imagine a point or message that the writers would be trying to convey about social media and fame with him being the mastermind. His other limiting factors prevent him from cracking the top half, but that alone gets him part of the way there in my list.

#8: Wenona

In terms of actual feasibility, Wenona has to be high up there on students who we know could logistically be the mastermind. Cited as a billionaire, I’m sure she has the resources necessary to run a large production such as this killing game, as well as a shrewd, business-oriented mind that could potentially diminish the value of people’s emotions and lives. Plus, depending on what the writers’ collective political leanings are, I could see some kind of message about the evils of capitalism cropping up if she was revealed as the mastermind. Ultimate Entrepreneur is a talent that Damon already respects, so there’s also potential for drama there if she turns out to be evil. So, after all of that, why don’t I have her higher? To be honest, I don’t know. To me, there’s just something about Wenona that makes me think she isn’t the mastermind. It’s not because she’s so sweet or innocent that I couldn’t believe that she could pull it off– to be honest, it’s the opposite. Even if Damon respects her talent, she came off as fairly antagonistic and cold to me in the prologue. If she is the mastermind, I would imagine that she’d keep that attitude throughout the rest of the game. Then, in Chapter 6, we’d be faced with the revelation that, wow, the mildly antagonistic character was actually a really antagonistic character all along! It just doesn’t seem like enough of a dramatic hook to me, I guess? There are a lot of good reasons why Wenona could be the mastermind, but for those reasons, I don’t think she’s it.

#7: Wolfgang Akire

Similar to Wenona, Wolfgang for me is hampered by the fact that he’s already been set up as Damon’s rival. A lot of people are already suspicious of Wolfgang in one way or another, so if he’s revealed to be the mastermind in the end, players might feel vindicated, but not necessarily surprised. That’s why, if Wolfgang is the mastermind, I think the most interesting thing the Eden’s Garden team could do would be to reveal him as such early. I’m talking, like, first Class Trial early. We’d get to see Wolfgang’s calculating mind openly act as the mastermind throughout the killing game, let the other students deal with repercussions of having their trusted leader be the mastermind for a while instead of just in the last chapter (after he may have already done some morally gray things), and explore what people would think about Bargain Bin Damon when they know that Wolfgang is the mastermind. Would they make Damon their new hero, now that they can’t rely on the Ultimate Lawyer anymore? Or would they distrust Damon, potentially thinking he’s working with Wolfgang? Wolfgang being the mastermind also has the benefit of his talent. Given that Damon is so good at Class Trials, I feel like pitting him against, say, the Ultimate Music Producer might be too easy of a fight for him. Lawyer vs Debater is something that would not only be an even match, but has already been set up and, in some ways, executed. For Wolfgang, I think there are a lot of ways that him being the mastermind could go “wrong,” but if the writers play their cards right, Wolfgang could be one of the most interesting and unique masterminds we’ve ever seen in a Danganronpa game, canon or fanon.

#6: Eva Tsunaka

While Eva has a blunt and cold personality, she has the benefit (as compared to Wolfgang or Wenona) of being a character that the player is supposed to feel aligned with. You wake up with her, you investigate with her, she’s the one to agree with Damon when he takes a stand against the common complacency at the end. A lot of people have compared playing as Damon to if we had seen Trigger Happy Havoc through Byakuya’s eyes, and in that case, I think that Eva would have to be our Kyoko. And, although Byakuya and Kyoko had their disagreements, if Byakuya were forced to designate someone as his support character, who could he really trust and intellectually respect enough besides Kyoko to give that title? I think Eva will be our support character of the game, which would only make it more devastating if she betrays us in the end. That would also be a pretty unique road to go down, as I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fangan in which the support character was actually the mastermind, as opposed to a traitor or garden-variety killer, especially in a situation where the protagonist isn’t evil as well. It would also be brutal to make the player confront the Ultimate Liar really being the untrustworthy mastermind all along, after we presumably come to trust and like her. Given the comparison to Kyoko, I think it’s more likely that Eva will not be evil, and instead have a character arc about opening up and being more vulnerable, potentially dying in a late chapter or surviving. However, I would be super excited to see what would happen if Eva were the mastermind, and especially how Damon would react to it.

#5: Desmond Hall

Desmond is this high on the list because, really, I can’t see any reason why he wouldn’t be the mastermind. He’s the Ultimate Marksman, a talent that’s obviously tied to killing and violence, especially when we already have guns at play from the practice Trial and Mara. And, yes, he claims to have never killed anyone himself before, but 1) that could be true and he still could be evil, or 2) he could just be lying. Along with Eva, Grace, Wolfgang, Toshiko, and Eloise, Desmond is one of the characters that you meet before entering the room that contains the other half of the cast, which automatically makes him stand out more as compared to those who were grouped together. He’s shown to have a chill personality, but in a way that (at least to me) could totally be an act. Or, he could even retain that cool attitude as the mastermind, but in a way that just makes him detached from caring about life or death. However, given that we don’t know much about him, I don’t have any particularly damning evidence that he is the mastermind, either. After getting an initial look at him, I really didn’t have any strong inclinations on where his character might go– early death, late death, survivor, what kind of arc he could go through, etc– which is what makes him a more compelling suspect, to me. I plan on keeping a close eye on Desmond to see if there’s any future evidence that swings my opinion of him in one direction or the other.

#4: Toshiko Kayura

Alright, raise your hand if you didn’t think that Toshiko seemed suspicious from the first time you saw her. Given that she’s introduced eavesdropping on your conversation and always conceals half of her face, it’s no wonder that she gave a lot of people bad vibes. While Ultimate Matchmaker might seem like a silly talent to give the mastermind, it could also be a ruse to distract us from the fact that Toshiko has a talent that allows her to read people well and make choices that will impact their lives dramatically. Toshiko obviously stands out from the rest of the cast due to her age, though some people might consider that a reason to avoid suspecting her. However, it’s not like the canon games have strayed away from evil children– in my opinion, Monaca is Danganronpa’s best written villain– and a 14-year-old mastermind could bring up a lot of interesting scenarios which haven’t been popularly explored. Maybe Toshiko has a point to make about child prodigies, and how putting so much pressure on someone to be talented at such a young age is bound to mess them up. Maybe Toshiko grew up in such a terrible, Tragedy-inflicted world that she would be more vulnerable to corruption than her older peers. Maybe killing games are a family business, and traditional Toshiko is being raised to carry on that ritual. On that last note, though, I do think that Toshiko is more likely to be a traitor type than a mastermind, assuming that a role like that exists in this game. I could definitely see her working under the influence of someone a little older and wiser, which is why she’s still only at 4th place. She did seem to have a genuine, screaming reaction when Cara’s fake body appeared, which also points to her not being the manipulator behind it all. Still, I’m wary of Toshiko’s cuteness, and will continue to keep an eye on her and her fan.

#3: Cassidy Amber

Out of all the comic relief-based characters, I think Cassidy has the best shot of being the mastermind. She has Kai’s media and fame angles with the added benefit of being someone who streams games. You know… like killing games! Through that hilarious ladder/stepladder reference, we even know that Cassidy is a fan of Ace Attorney, a trial-based mystery solving game. I think that if Cassidy is the mastermind, a great way to foreshadow it would be to use the games that she references to show the potentially dark subjects she’s into and how she could be blurring the lines between reality and a video game in her head. Similar to Wenona, we know that Cassidy could have the resources to pull off a killing game, even if she usually donates most of her proceeds to various charities. She could also potentially have Wenona’s political angle if the writers wanted to use a killing game to critique communism… somehow? (Personal leanings aside, I genuinely don’t know how a killing game would be a good metaphor for communism in any way. I also feel like Cassidy is a communist mostly for the meme.) An Ultimate Pro Gamer mastermind could also draw on the meta elements showcased in SDR2 and V3, given that Eden’s Garden is, y’know… a video game. While Damon is initially opposed to her after she starts calling him Bargain Bin (stirring up that drama for the viewers), I think it would still be surprising if she was the mastermind because of how hard she reads as a comic relief character. If she made it to the end, I think people would expect more of a Hiro than a Junko. However, that could be just the trick that the writers are trying to set up to make Cassidy a fun and surprising mastermind. But, that’s just a theory… a GAME(r) theory.

#2: Ulysses Wilhelm

I wasn’t all that sold on Ulysses being a good mastermind candidate before I watched Ocean Unknown’s video, Project Eden’s Garden: Who Is the Mastermind?, in which she laid out some really interesting reasons why Ulysses could be it. I’ll summarize her main points here, though, because it’s mostly those I agree with. First of all, Ulysses’ name means “wrathful,” something of note given how uncommon Ulysses is as a name in the modern day. His last name, Wilhelm, means “vehement protector.” While this sounds nice, he could just as easily be protecting his wrath, the legacy of the killing games, or something else evil like that. Secondly, some of the very first words to appear in the original trailer for Eden’s Garden are “HISTORY REPEATS,” which is obviously suspicious for the Ultimate Historian. Ulysses’ symbol is the owl, and while it can symbolize wisdom (befitting an academic like Ulysses), it also means death and bad luck in many cultures. Damon also makes a really interesting comment about one of the paintings in the hallway, a woman with an owl’s face, when you click on it: “Sheesh. Owls always gave me the creeps.” Why would the writers give Damon that character trait, knowing that they have a character symbolized by the owl, unless they were trying to foreshadow something? It could just be a joke about how some owls eat snakes (Damon’s symbol), but… isn’t that kind of suspicious, too? Ocean Unknown also pointed out that we never actually see what Ulysses is taking notes about, meaning that they could be about the killing game in some capacity, although that particular trait of Ulysses’ screams “victim’s unique truth bullet/trial mechanic” to me. Despite all of this, Ulysses isn’t my number one mastermind suspect just because I think he was a little too underdeveloped in the prologue to have a huge role later on. I think it would be really easy for him to fall into a victim role as a relatively unimportant character. However, that lack of focus could just as easily be a front to save Ulysses’ true nature for later on. Don’t sleep on the sleepy boy– he might just be the mastermind behind it all.

#1: Diana Venicia

What a shock: the number one most suspected character in Eden’s Garden is my number one suspect for being the mastermind! Who could have guessed? Although this does feel a little basic, there are just so many things that make Diana suspicious. First of all, she’s the Ultimate Cosmetologist, symbolized by the chameleon. This has obvious parallels to Junko and Tsumugi, two canonical masterminds with fashion-based talents who disguised themselves (Junko via Mukuro, and Tsumugi in chapter 6). The fact that the practice trial featured the hyper realistic mockup body could also be something that Diana did using her talent. Speaking of the body, Diana excused herself from investigating like Toshiko, but wasn’t shown to have the same panicked reaction that Toshiko, Eloise, Jett, or Kai did. That would make her uneasy reaction much easier to fake. Also, is it just me, or does she kind of look like Cara? Secondly, there’s the decal on her shirt that’s oddly reminiscent of the Hope’s Peak Academy logo. It lacks the Monokuma eye that would make it really suspicious, but it’s still notable that she nearly references Hope’s Peak in her core design. Diana has a bubbly and sweet personality that would make her seem innocent, but just like a good foundation, that could be a cover up. It would be a little strange to have the mastermind be, after age revisions, one of only two minors (Diana being 17), but again they could be making some sort of point or connection there. Really, the main thing that holds me back from believing that Diana is the mastermind is just that it seems so obvious that people would suspect her immediately, which takes away from some of the surprise. It almost makes me think that she might be part of the cast as easy mastermind bait as opposed to a true mastermind. But, it’s possible that they could go for something non-standard with her (like an early mastermind reveal, as I talked about with Wolfgang), or they may have hoped that people would get more tripped up by Diana’s cute demeanor and young age. I’d still say that Diana is my #1 mastermind candidate for now, but I’m excited to see whether my prediction is correct or if they’ll go for a different option.