#when i designed him the main thought was just high school athlete and i think i accomplished it

[qweenofurheart]

my oc, luke

[secondhand-trash]

Put a Ring on It

A/N: I started it with the intention of writing a thirst post but it ended up being 1.7k of pure fluff lmao

Pairing: Miya Atsumu x reader

Description: Miya Atsumu had a thing for wearing rings.

Word count: 1772

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Miya Atsumu had a thing for wearing rings.

Maybe it was how he thought that they made his hands looked bigger, or how the accents never failed to draw even more attention to his slender fingers. Likely, it was just the way how most teenage boys went through a phase of wanting to look stylish and edgy without really bothering to look into having an actual style of their own, resulting in him halting a baggy t-shirt, cargo pants and an unnecessary amount of rings as the peak of men’s fashion. You had your own thoughts on how he was so determined to slip a ring or two into whatever he was wearing whenever he was out of his uniform. You made fun of his sense of fashion none stop, pointing to his bleached hair that has faded from the gold it was supposed to be into a sharp yellow and cheap chunky jewelry as the main culprit.

“You look like a delinquent who smokes cheap cigarettes in parks after school.”

You sniggered when he let out an offended ‘huh’. His chunky silver rings that had obnoxiously prominent carvings on the side brushed dug into the gap between your fingers as he squeezed your hand tighter when he snapped towards your direction. Your free hand, the one that wasn’t in a lock hold by his ring clad one, reached out to brush away his side-swooped bangs. His hair was fried from the boxed bleach he used regularly but as a side perk, the dryness did add to the volume of his hair.

He stood there still as you carefully pushed his hair back, his upper body leaning towards your direction just a little so you didn’t have to struggle to reach him despite his initial protests. You were messing with his hair and he was looking at you, only at you, with his fingers still linked with yours even though you always complained about his rings making it hard for you to hold his hand.

You finally pulled back and your gaze dropped from his bangs to his eyes. Your heart skipped a beat when you met his eyes and they were full of you.

You cursed your weak heart for its sudden moment of swooning when he stood back up straight and his ring scratched against the inside of your finger.

You sighed, “You are so lucky you have a nice face so that people will be too caught up to notice how you dressed.”

Atsumu pretended he couldn’t hear the second half of the sentence and decided to focus on how you said he had a nice face instead.

But then you graduated from high school and he slowly started dressing less like a disastrous teenage boy and more like a proper adult. That athlete money did him well and he was finally able to dress the way he wanted to dress without having to turn into a questionable direction because of monetary limits. The baggy pants were gone from his closet, replaced with pants that actually fit his body and elevate things instead of holding back the visual upper hand he was supposed to have because of his physiques. He finally stopped bleaching his own hair after your many years of nagging but you nearly lost your composure when he showed up in front of your door to pick you up with his new hair for the first time.

“I got the stylist to trim my bangs for me,” he said as he ran his hand through the curl sitting at the side of his forehead and you gulped when you realised that his hair was soft enough for fingers to go through them with ease now, “I’m still trying to get used to not having things over my eye.”

“Oh?” you replied, your voice breathy as you tried to calm down your sea of thoughts at the sight of your boyfriend’s new look. 

You were aware that he was good looking, but everything that he was not born with used to be questionable so it balanced things out. Now he was wearing tight-fitted jeans that made his legs look even more toned as if it was even possible, with a white t-shirt that was tugged in loosely. He had a blazer on too, probably because you made him take you somewhere nice in celebration of his first VLeague cheque, but at this point you were almost certain he had that thing on just to drive you insane. 

And his hair, his god damn windswept fluffy no longer bright yellow hair.

“Do you think I should grow it longer?” he asked as he rubbed the tip of his bangs between the pads of his finger. The silver that sat at the bottom of his digits contrasted starkly with the pale gold and it finally dawned upon you that he stopped wearing the cheap rings you used to make fun of him for a while ago. 

Oh dear, now he was actually hot.

“No,” you blurted out, “it looks nicer this way.”

"You think so?” he asked as you forced your legs to move past your door before shutting it behind your back firmly. You had to force yourself to go out before the urge to make him come in could win, or else you would most certainly end up doing things that would make you miss your reservation.

And you had been excited to leech off of his athlete money.

“Yes, yes I do think so,” you said as you grabbed his hand to pull him along with you. 

You groaned in satisfaction when you realised his new rings did not stop you from sliding your fingers between his like the old ones did.

You started having fewer objections towards his choice of accessaries after his general fashion sense shifted for the better. You even started liking the rings after a while, crediting it to him opting for designs with more simplicity. You liked the way the metal was already warm from his heat when he put his hand on your thigh out of nowhere because he was bored, or when he was at the driver’s seat and the pad of his finger drummed against your skin steadily as he waited for the lights to change. The warmth of his hand always brought you security and he was well aware that nothing called your attention to him like it did. You were not even sure if he was aware, but he had a habit of toying with his rings whenever you were neglecting him because you had your attention on something else. The band he was playing with always ended up off his finger and up yours when you were least expecting it, the feeling of his calloused finger holding your hand as he slid it down always managed to call your gaze back to him.

‘What a child,’ you chuckled to yourself when he looked at you innocently like he could not be having any hidden thoughts, his hand still holding onto yours as he held the ring that was too large for your finger from falling down.

So being the child he was, who always couldn’t fathom the thought of letting you leave his side and was equally eager to let the world know he wasn’t leaving yours, it did not surprise you at all when you were tidying up your drawers one day to find a velvet box tugged all the way back into his sock drawer.

You had a feeling it was exactly what you thought it was, and you laughed at the image of him trying to find somewhere to hide it in the house while you were not around.

Of course, leave it up to Miya Atsumu to hide a ring at the back of his sock drawer because he thought it was the one place you wouldn’t look into unless you were left with no choice.

You giggled to yourself and closed the drawer, letting the box stayed right where it was.

You weren’t looking. You wanted to, but you weren’t. Because you knew he would whine to no end if you didn’t look as surprised as he wanted you to be when he finally showed it to you for real.

He still had no clue that you already knew it was coming when he got down on one knee and took the box out of his pocket with shaky hands. He cried when you said yes and you cried when he started crying, even though you had already rehearsed in your head for a million times on how you would say yes ever since you saw the velvet box inside of his sock drawer. 

He was still sobbing when he realised he needed to get up from the ground, wiping his tears away on the sleeve of his very expensive blazer before clumsily taking the ring out of the box to put it on your finger. Miya Atsumu was an ugly crier through and through and you finally admitted to yourself that you were a whipped fool when you still wanted to kiss his stupid face even though his eyes were swollen and he missed your finger a few times before finally getting the ring in.

“Now we match,” he said with a hiccup, laughing but sounding like he was about to break down into another round of tears as soon as the chuckle left his mouth, “you can’t make fun of my rings anymore.”

He was so dumb, and you felt like crying again when he took out an identical ring from his pocket and put it on his own hand. Who the hell does that? You wanted to laugh at him but you couldn’t, because you knew you would start sobbing again if you do that.

“You’re an idiot,” you said, grabbing his hand to steady him because he was shaking and you were sure he might just drop the ring if he kept fidgeting.

He sniffled, grinning ear to ear through his tears when he saw the ring that sat on your finger.

“So?” he said, happily holding your hand in his to look at how perfectly it fits, the rings and your hands, “You can’t get rid of me now, I got the ring to prove it.”

You huffed, but couldn’t stop yourself from smiling when he rubbed his fingers along his engagement ring like he was making sure that it was still there.

You decided that it would be your favourite ring of his until you get to put the wedding band onto his finger yourself.

[4rainynite]

Infinity Train Headcanons

Just a bunch of Infinity Train headcanons I've come up with, I'm only doing five per character so it won't too long. I'm mainly gonna focus on the passenger characters and do the denizens later on. Majority of them have been posted on @infinity-train-headcanons already (awesome blog by the way), but whatever here we go:

Tulip

The reason Tulip loves onions so much is because when her mother was pregnant she craved onions a lot. Mrs. Olsen thinks onions are okay at best, but Tulip loves them.

Tulip is fairly athletic (that explains why she could do all those stunts on the train), but prefers gaming and coding. Her classmates that are on sports teams are greatly annoyed that she won't join.

Despite Lake being gone she can still take pictures of herself on cameras or through a selfie (and sometimes see herself in water), because those are images not reflections.

Tulip would so adopt a corgi and name him “Atticus the 2nd” and put miniature crowns on him.

When Tulip goes to Oshkosh she'll based her game on her adventures on the train. Not only will it be super popular, but some of the other campers and counselors will suggest some cars because some of them were passengers as well.

Lake

After, Lake left she accidently started a revolution in the Chrome Car. In the end (in a future fanfic of mine) there will be peace and Lake and a certain group of passengers will help.

Lake won't be able to start school immediately (due to Tulip being in middle school and Jesse being in high school) , but she is able to do homeschooling. Come next school year she'll be at school with Jesse

Lake lives in the Cosay's attic. They've tried to convince her/him/them (other pronouns) to take the guest room, but Lake's cool with it. Mainly, because she/he/they gets a view of the lake she/he/ they named themselves after.

Lake is super into art! It's mainly abstract and black, but she loves it! The problem is Jesse's parents have to buy the spray paint for her.

Lake loves traveling to new places and Jesse brings her/him/them along when the swim team travels to different places.

Jesse

After, the train Jesse decides to join theatre class/club. He mainly gets background or understudy parts, but he loves to sing.

Is a Chicken Choice Judy fan and gets Lake and Nate into them. Jesse and Lake theorize that Chicken Choice Judy were passengers at one point.

Jesse becomes closer with his swim team to be friends, he is currently co-captain.

Jesse really misses Alan Dracula, so, Lake got him one of those deer plushies as a gift. Jesse put glasses on it and named it Alan Dracula the Second and Cuddliest.

Jesse always picks vampire movies during movie night at the Cosay house. I believe he really likes vampires .

Grace

Grace's parents so would've sent her to boarding school after the shoplifting thing instead of just talking to her.

Grace will be the last former Apex member to leave the train due to her number still being high. In the meantime she still helps passengers lower their numbers.

There is no way Grace was the only person to form a cult on the Infinity Train. Grace's was just the longest surviving one of eight years, I won't explain why Grace's was the longest due to... cult stuff.

Grace rarely got to see her maternal grandparents, due to her mother wanting to reject her low-class upbringing. From what little memories she had, Grace misses them.

Grace regrets what she put Hazel through and wants her back, but she knows her leaving was for the best no matter how much it hurts.

Hazel

I don't know why but I see Hazel as a vegetarian.

When Tuba found her she was a baby, not a baby turtle, a baby- baby.

She and Amelia will be close, but will never have a true mother - daughter relationship. I know Amelia is trying to get better, but she admitted she's not a caretaker.

She'll sing Tuba's Lullaby to comfort herself in stressful situations and whenever she feels she'll forget her.

Hazel will be adopted by Ryan and Min-Gi when she gets off the train and Tulip, Lake, Jesse, and Nate will be like siblings to her. Okay, okay, okay, I know that's a very long shot, but Hazel deserves happiness!

Simon

Was a boy scout or took a survival class, I mean how else would he know about frostbite in Le Chat Chalet Car.

Probably went to way too many funerals as a child. I'm going by what he said to Hazel about neighbors brining casseroles.

Simon would get into fights with his teachers and classmates about being right about every little thing, even as a he was a narcissist.

Simon so had a crush on Grace way before their 'awkward middle school kiss' . After, Grace's betrayal whatever feelings he had were gone.

Was a fantasy nerd and wanted to be a fantasy writer. His trilogy book would've had his character based off himself being made a king.

Ryan

Ryan and his youngest brother are the only two in their family who wear glasses.

Is still on good terms with his ex-girlfriends (Disco Girl, Punk Girl, and Hippie Girl). Yeah, they broke up, but Ryan wasn't their worse ex and was nice to them. They love telling Min-Gi embarrassing dating stories.

He most likely had suicidal thoughts, once off the train he tells Min-Gi and gets help through therapy.

Despite not gaining attention during his solo gigs he did make a friend or two during his stops like the lesbian couple at the party in the Twin Tapes. Which helps spread Chicken Choice Judy's music.

Ryan is very strong despite his scrawny appearance, due to carrying equipment, changing tires, and other heavy lifting activities.

Min-Gi

Was diagnosed with dyslexia at an early age. His parents worried this would hamper him so they would hire a tutor after school when he wasn't playing with Ryan.

Is a really good cook, but his main specialties are Korean dishes (his mother taught him) and breakfast food (working at Dumpty's Diner).

Has an artistic side, but rarely used it except for the Chicken Choice Judy t-shirt. Later on he designs the covers for CCJ's CDs.

He most likely has a bunch of older cousins. I think Mr. and Mrs. Parks had Min-Gi late, so he's the baby of the cousins.

To me Min-Gi never shown in interest in dating or romance. His parents tried to set him up a few of their co-workers' daughters, but nothing ever happened afterwards. He does love Ryan though.

Amelia

I believe Amelia will get off the train, but when she does majority of her friends and family and friends will be gone and will return to the train.

Amelia will allow Hazel to play with the denizens while she works on the train. She may not be a caretaker, but she remembers being a child and children need to have fun.

I think Amelia was jealous of Min-Gi and Ryan, since the two remind her of Alrick and herself in their youth and what could've been if he lived. She dubs them 'Destiny Rubbish Duet'.

Amelia would monitor the Snow Car frequently to make sure One would never leave or any passengers interacted with him. But, the one time in thirty years she set her clock on the wrong time to wake up, allowing Tulip to find One-One.

The day Amelia picked out her wedding dress was the same day she got the news of Alrick's passing.

Well, that was a long post. I may do more in the future, so I'll just end it here.

[bughead-in-the-comics]

Thank you so much for introducing us to Big Ethel Energy! My friends have been trying to get me on Webtoons for quite some time but it looks like I just needed the right story. Ethel is so underappreciated and the butt of many jokes so it's refreshing to see her in the spotlight! Happy holidays!

... unfortunately I'm not liking it as much as I thought I would. I was excited when the news about Big Ethel Energy came out because I was curious about how they're gonna tell the Riverdale gang story through Big Ethel's POV. It's nice that you're enjoying it, so please don't let my opinion affect yours. It's still too early to judge the entire series since they've only released 16 episodes so far (17 by the time this gets posted), so there's still a chance that I would change my mind. Maybe I'll like what happens in the end. I don't know.

My main problem with the webtoon is probably how the writer is trying so hard to paint Jughead as an "immature jerk" when he's just an introverted foodie who doesn't go out of his way in the name of conformity. The characters are all adults in the webtoon, so it's perfectly fine for Jughead to work on his vlog instead of choosing to hang out with the gang. Also, can we really blame him if he's not romantically interested in Big Ethel? Not reciprocating someone else's feelings - regardless of how genuine they are - is not a crime. It's not like he was purposely leading her on (like Archie does to Betty). And no, saying "hi" to her that one time in episode 5 doesn't mean he's trying to keep her hopes up. People should really stop confusing friendliness or politeness with romantic interest. But like I said, it's probably too early to judge the entire thing, so I'm hoping there's a plot twist somewhere that will sort of redeem Jughead in the eyes of those rabid commenters who bash him every chance they get.

Another problem I have with this webtoon is how they gave Betty's journalistic sensibilities to Big Ethel. The Blue and Gold staff in the comics has constantly changed over the years except for Betty. Though she sometimes share the editor-in-chief position with either Archie or Dilton, Betty has always been a reporter for the school paper. She even became an intern for a local station during the Betty and Me era. Writing is also one of her many talents. She's the go-to girl for any competition that involves journalism or creative writing. It's also not an exaggeration to say that Betty Cooper is also Miss Grundy (and probably every other Riverdale High teacher's) favorite student. While I appreciate the fact that they didn't make webtoon Ethel's interests revolve around Jughead's (like how she uses food and dogs to lure Jughead into giving her a bit of attention), I also don't think it's right to give her the qualities that were heavily associated with Betty in the comics. Big Ethel is a fine cook, a reliable babysitter, and a talented athlete. She also loves dogs. I do understand that the writer must come up with a way to rope Big Ethel back into whatever's going on in Riverdale, but I don't think forcing her to write a book about the town is the only way to make her come home.

The art is very pretty though. I'm still not used to the character design they chose for Big Ethel, but the illustrator is really talented. It seems like she's on a personal mission to make everyone in the webtoon look hot and that's okay, but it somehow makes it difficult for me, the reader, to accept that Big Ethel was such an "ugly duckling" in high school when the character design looked really pretty. I mean, it's still possible for someone as pretty as her to have insecurities (especially if Veronica Lodge exists to crush every bit of self-esteem she has left), but it's quite hard to buy Big Ethel's "glow up" from high school to adulthood when she basically looked the same.

Sorry for ranting. I didn't really mean to, but I guess I got carried away. Again, please don't let my opinion of the webtoon (so far) affect your enjoyment of it. I promised myself that I'm gonna read it until the end, so I really might still change my mind. Maybe I'll eventually like it? I mean, it did give us this cute Bughead interaction from episode 5, so I'm gonna cross my fingers and still hope for the best. Anyway, thank you for always supporting this blog. I really appreciate the likes, the retweets, and the little replies you sometimes leave in the posts. Thank you again! 😊 Happy holidays to you too! I hope you get to enjoy lots of yummy food like Jughead probably did hehehe. And please explore more webtoons. There are a lot of good stuff out there! ♥

[since-it-must-be-so]

Choujin X: Chapter 1

So I'm really excited to read more of Sui Ishida's newest manga, and I'm arriving just in time for the front seats! I don't want to let this pass without writing down my thoughts on the first chapter and possibly look at it in the future as the story progresses. You can read it here:

Having said that, please note there will be spoilers ahead!

Tomato Girl

The chapter starts with this cute little girl with that native(?) farmer-like hat, who supposedly grows big fruits (it's huge in Japan, look it up!). I think she will also be a main character since she's the first person we see. From this point I'll call her Tomato Girl. She is obviously from a rural area and is a farmer. We see her motivation is money (and that big dog... which, I think we will see in the future lol). She also wants to marry a "handsome goldilocks hubbie", lol. Wonder if this means she's going to be a love interest of the other cast? She also wants to have 9 kids. Naki and Miza, is that you?! Lol. So here, we have a girl with lofty aspirations! We shall see if any of this will happen or if it will change or if she's lying!

Also an observation - Tomato Girl is also close with her granddad, since she said she's going to the contest in lieu of her granddad (whose back was hurt). She obviously has this strong personality, standing up to the creepy bad guy, who was going to hit the old lady.

Bad Guy

The Bad Guy (since this guy doesn't have a name yet) is obviously a terrorist-for-hire. Also seems to be obsessed with beauty and elegance. I would guess his power lies in blowing things up?

I think, though, that Tomato Girl is a choujin herself, considering she didn't immediately get blown away. Plus, Bad Guy was on fire, and so was she. So, it doesn't necessarily mean Tomato Girl is already dead. She also seems to be reaching out to the Bad Guy as that scene ends.

It's later revealed that despite the plane crash, there were 200 survivors. Hmmmmmmm. Maybe they were turned into choujins?Only the hull was burned but the frame wasn't.

Tokio Kurohara and Azuma Higashi

Yes, the MC! He's notices the plane catching fire. Then, for some reason, Tokio's teacher (Ms. Bazonkas) has a weird voluptuous design. BUT, I think there's something afoot there. She might actually also be a choujin. Possibly a mentor role for Tokio? She seems to be very knowledgeable.

Anyway, going back to Tokio. He's introduced as a sixteen-year-old high school sophomore from Tsuru High. Like any high school kid, he finds studying math to be useless. We're also shown that lives in a district which has destroyed buildings. Possibly dystopian future?

We next find a girl getting harassed by a Mohawk guy and his 2 honchos. Tokio calls for someone, turns out to be Azuma. I just thought it's funny how he called for Azuma, he sounds like a police officer. Haha. But right after, Azuma is introduced, flying from a building.. a very dramatic, heroic entrance. He kinda looks like a hybrid of Haise and Armin from AOT for me. Haha. He's so cute and tiny but he's strong and is apparently the town hero. He breaks the arm of the thug, which Tokio thinks is going too far.

The girl seems to be a pretty girl, and I think she will play a role later on. She's a lot older than them, since she said she's going to an interview. She will possibly a love interest or a villain, but I think more of the latter. I just read CSM so I'm wary of pretty girls lol. Anyway, I think there's something there to link her with Azuma, considering, Azuma introduces both Azuma and Tokio but she only seems to thank or acknowledge Azuma. Tokio even says "don't mention it" even if the girl didn't even thank him, lol.

Azuma and Tokio talk about the plane crash, and it's revealed that choujins seem to abuse their power, and that the attack is kinda normal. We look at their hometown which is really wrecked. Buildings are dilapitated in an abnormal manner -- one building looks like it was done in with a circular force... They live in Yamato Prefecture which is described as an ordinary, self-governed prefecture with some areas partially destroyed. Wonder what self-governed means, but my guess is that it's kinda like a state and the national government is different altogether.

Roly-Poly

Well I never really thought of pill bugs or rolly pollies until I read this. Azuma talks about how roly polies roll around in dry areas and when they find a damp rock, they hide under it. He questions if the roly polies like damp places. And Azuma wonders if choujins are anything like roly-polies. Tokio is confused, so am I. I'm not going to make solid convictions what he means by it, but I think... what Azuma is driving at is that, roly polies and choujins DON'T like damp places. I don't know, I have no reason for this, it's just a guess. We'll see what Azuma means eventually. Haha.

It also appears that choujins are generally bad guys, since Azuma wonders why they don't use their power for good. Maybe something about being a choujin corrupts? Just a guess based on the succeeding events.

They end their conversation with Azuma thinking if he can help with the plane crash. Tokio comments, "seems noble of you" and Azuma says, "it's just a habit". Wonder if Tokio finds Azuma pretentious or if he's genuinely impressed. Azuma's answer is also quite concerning, "just a habit", a question arises if he's sincere in helping in the first place.

The Mohawk Guy

So this guy is supposed to be a funny, evil villain, now bent on exacting revenge from Azuma. Then, a guy (possibly gay guy because he is wearing a lipstick?) with a briefcase offers him an injection.

Tokio's Family

So Tokio has a bigger sister and a dad who seems to be very quiet. Not sure if that's their dad though, it wasn't clear. It's possible they don't have parents anymore and that guy is just an associate. Anyway, it appears that the sister pays Tokio's tuition and she's the breadwinner.

Tokio and his sister talk about Azuma. Azuma is apparently very smart, very athletic (proficient in judo and karate), girls love him, and that his dad is a big shot in the police. The sister questions why Tokio is so proud, and Tokio funnily admits that it's because he feels popular because Azuma is popular. A leech!

Vulture

I just finished re-reading Tokyo Ghoul and :re, and I was blown away by Ishida's art and story. To say I love Kaneki is an understatement. I think I'm going to love Tokio too! I also want to discuss the cover.

So it appears that the cover is the Tokio with an image of a vulture. Tokio is naked and it feels like the vulture is seducing him. From here, I get the vibe that Tokio might be corrupted by the power. "It's something of an affliction" is a dead giveaway. It feels like becoming a choujin or superhuman also corrupts, in a way?

Also since, there seems to be a commentary on the negative view on vultures being scavengers or "steals prey". (Though TBH I always thought vultures wait around for the predator to finish eating and then it eats the scraps??)

On the other hand, Azuma, Tokio's best friend who's mighty strong and brave (almost to a fault), is viewed as a lion by his peers. Also, an uncanny observation is the when Tokio cries about while sitting on the floor, above him is a hyena. Hyenas are known to prey on the carcasses of lions' prey.

It's almost uncanny when Tokio himself says, "I can be a lion too". But Azuma makes Tokio feel better by telling him that buzzards can fly higher than any bird -- telling Tokio to focus on the strength

But even if Tokio admires Azuma, Tokio thinks of telling Azuma when he's going too far. I think this comes from a place of concern. But maybe secretly he's also jealous?

Tokio also even tells Azuma that maybe they should hold hands so Tokio can be more like Azuma, implying that Tokio wants to be like Azuma.

Praying Mantis

Just before Flexi Choujin attacks, Tokio mentions that he bought an insect guidebook and was about to say a factoid about praying mantis near water. I wonder what Tokio was about to say? A search on the internet about praying mantis and water shows this disgusting video of a parasite exiting the praying mantis leaving the mantis to die. Ew. Let's see if this is the factoid Tokio was thinking of. If so, who's the mantis and who's the parasite? Is it Azuma and Tokio, respectively? Hmm. Also, love the insect symbolism. Throwback to Kaneki's centipede!

Flexi Choujin Attack (Johnny Kiyoshi Takeyama)

Mohawk Guy, now a choujin, is a flexi monster who's now more resistant to hits. He attacks Azuma indiscriminately with his new powers. He also kinda goes crazy... His subordinates fear his super violent side, begging him to go back to his "kinda naughty mama boy self", but he ends up snapping their heads off.

For some reason 2 injections fly up into the air?! Maybe someone tossed it. Because as Tokio brought Azuma to the water and brought him back out, he sees the 2 injections. Azuma wants to use it on himself.

Tokio hesitates to have Azuma use it but Azuma insists. Tokio remembers how Azuma saved him from bullies as a kid, and they agreed that Tokio will help Azuma beat the bad guys... Tokio gets the other injection and points to himself. Azuma says Tokio can't but Tokio insists because he feels that it's the only way to stay friends with Azuma. They also promise each other that they will have no regrets over this. This is kinda alarming for me!! Let's see what it will mean in the future.

But instead of both of them transforming into a powerful choujin, only Tokio transforms into one. He looks like a vulture, very beast-like. Looks even like Kaneki's Centipede! I think the other injection might have resulted in a bad/weak power, or maybe it's empty, or maybe Tokio didn't inject Azuma? But I doubt the last one. Anyway, Tokio's choujin look is amazing!

Can't help but feel this scene is related to the praying mantis thing... Maybe my hunch is correct? The parasite exits the mantis when near water, which is why Tokio manages to muster up some courage on his own?

We'll see!! I'm really excited to see this develop. It will be the first manga I will be able to see from the start to finish!

[writersneedtherapyy]

Writing Sports Players

This one's written based on my experience with Walker Finley. I mean, if you really want to write a sports player, you don't exactly need the amount of research that I put into writing Walker if their athletic background is just that... solely the background of the character. But if you are going to talk about your characters experience with sports, their team, or even if you're going to write them playing the sport, you are obviously going to want to research.

Walker is the first athlete that I've written, and I was a complete mess when I wrote him, especially since he begged to expose his high school football career, and I couldn't shut that down even though I didn't know one thing about the game of gridiron football.

I more thoroughly understand football after writing him, and certain areas regarding what it takes to be an athlete. I am not much of a sporty girl myself, but the whole point of character writing is stepping outside of your comfort zone... and that's what I did.

What are they? The first thing you have to consider, obviously, is what sport they play and what their role is (if they play in teams). In my case, Walker's a quarterback, and at first, I would throw that word around because I didn't exactly know what the QB was or how they're important in any way. I just put the word where it made sense and used it however I thought was right. Of course, you might have it easier if your character is a swimmer or a gymnast. Depending on what area, these disciplines can be done alone. Therefore, it is easier to write a character who is their own team. You research what they do and what the rules of the sport are and cater that research to whatever you want your character to experience, whatever the character wants to experience. 

The Game: When it comes to the game itself, research the rules. What will your character be doing? What are their positions? Put yourself in the game. Also, learn the vocabulary of the game. For football there were obvious ones like 'touchdown' and 'end zone', but there are more terms like 'downs' or 'sack' (especially considering that Walker is the QB). Learn your character's position, what role the others have, how the game begins, etc. If you are writing an athlete that plays a sport that doesn't require a team, consider: what are their main goals? What do they have to do differently than there competitors in order to win (or lose)? Is there one person that is better than them? What can they do that others can't? What is considered cheating? etc.A lot of research goes into your sport (especially if you don't play it yourself). So prepare yourself and your athlete before throwing them into a game or competition. 

Basics: How many people does your team make up?What field do they play on (what does it look like)?How do you score a point/points?What is considered a penalty?Are there certain scores with a specific number of points (e.g. in football, along with touchdowns, there are Field Goals and Safety shots)?

Highlights (study the sport): This one is so useful. Look up sports highlights on YouTube. This is great because you can take certain player moves and throw them into your game. When I was writing the scene of a football game in my wip, I watched Super Bowl highlights because they were the first thing that came to mind. Walker is supposed to be a really good quarterback, so I studied Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes and even Walker's idol Joe Montana. If your character also plays football, you are in luck, because you can type in things like "Super Bowl" and insert the year you want. Most of the time, you will get the full show as a result. I'm not sure if that'll be the case for any other sport, but I don't think it should be any different. Plus, you don't have to look up finals, general highlights and player highlights work too.   You can even look up Olympic highlights and check out the winning swimmer, gymnast, boxer, etc. Anything you want, you can check out. The point of this is to notice strategy and insert something similar in your game or even your characters method of play. 

Health: I don't really take Walker's health too seriously because he doesn't eat "on screen". Although, I know for a fact he wouldn't eat something fried every day, which makes sense. If you are going to include your character's diet into the story, I recommend you give them something realistic. That being said, don't make their health center completely on hEaLthY FOoDs. I think even players like Tom Brady take something unhealthy every now and then, which is only human.Also, make your healthy meals realistic. If they're grabbing a snack... don't grab an entire bAlANcEd pLaTe because that ain't a snack, that's a damn meal (have them grab a fruit or granola bar, maybe). 

Body: When describing physical description (if you are going to be specific when describing the way a body looks) you can try to fit a general body shape that belongs to the athlete of that designated sport. I'm not talking SIZE, because there are athletes that are chubby and others that are thin, not all of them are pErFEcT, but they all have different figures. For example, the body shape and height of a swimmer might differ from those of a gymnast.  The body of a football player might differ from that of a basketball player or a volleyball player. They are all built differently because the sport requires a certain part to be trained better than the rest. The sport requires a "main" body part (at least, that's what I notice). Whether it's a wider back or a more petite one, bigger arms, bigger chest, taller figure, slender figure, whatever it is. You kind of notice SOMETHING in common with most of the athletes within your chosen sport. 

Uniform/equpment: What uniform is required? Do they need to wear a helmet? Gloves? Jersey? Swimsuit? Goggles? Leotards? Cleats? Eye black grase/no-glare stickers? Skates? Pick out your uniform and be creative with the designs if you have created a new team (or new sport ;))

- C. 

Follow our ig! @ writersneedtherapy

[seokiloquy]

Paradise - Tendou Satori

AU: Regular/University 

Fem! Reader

Word Count: 3.2k+

            The wind blew quickly through the trees outside the Sendai City Gymnasium. Boys of various statures stood in groups around the area wearing distinct uniforms that separated them from the rest. Amongst the mayhem of excited volleyball players, a girl stood gripping a binder to her chest. As she typed quickly into her phone the girl’s nose scrunched before looking around the main lobby of the building. Walking up to the fold-out desk by the entrance, she approached the two girls handing out pamphlets.

           “Have either of you seen a group of adults, wearing the same jacket as I am?” She asked, pinching her white jersey.

           The girls pause for a moment, their brows pushing together before handing her one of the pamphlets from the table. On the inside was a map of the building as well as a list of teams that would be participating. One of the girls stood up from her seat and leaned over the table.

           “Ya, I think I remember them talking about going in the middle of the stands to see everything,” she said pointing to the East side of the building.

           The girl nodded and gave the two a nod of thanks as she tucked the map into her binder. Huffing, she walked past the bustling players in the direction of her group.

           “Coach! You said to meet you in the park!” a yell rang above the voices in the stadium grabbing the attention of players and viewers alike.

           “Ah, (L/N). Sorry about that. The wind started to pick up and we decided to head inside. At least you found us. Do you have the info?” the man said. He wore a matching white jacket with the word ‘coach’ trailing down the side of his arm in red letters.

            “I do. A thank you would be nice, I’m the one that called all the schools to get their student information. That’s your job, Ito!”

           Ito chuckles but says nothing more as he leads (L/N) to their seats. With the binder tucked under her arm, she slips her hands into her pockets and takes a seat next to the other coaches and administrators to watch the players warm-up. As the whistles blew for their minute warning before the started, the head of the program spoke up.

           “Johzenji doesn’t have any third years, but keep an eye on their players for next year. Do you all have their papers?” Kawasaki asked as he spun a pen between his fingers. After receiving confirmation he went on, “Okay, one person per team for today. (L/N), you go with Ito. We will all watch the last game together and discuss it later when we go to eat.”

           “Eh? Wakatoshi, do you recognize those jackets? I haven’t seen them before.”

           Wakatoshi looked to where his teammate was pointing. A group that dispersed themselves along the edge of the stands were wearing white and red jackets that he wasn’t familiar with.

           “I’m not sure, Tendou. Go ask the coach.”

           Pouting, the third year swung his legs in the direction of his coaches, humming a dejected tune as he went. They sat on their designated bench talking to each other slowly as they watched their opposing team warm up. Washijo’s stare deepened the lines on his face and as he shifted his gaze towards the spiked redhead the teen shivered. Instead of speaking to the old man directly, Tendou turned on his heel to look at the team’s assistant coach.

           “Hey, Saito,” he started, swinging his arm to point at one of the people in the jackets. “Who are those guys? I’ve never seen them before.”

           Saito adjusted his glasses before staring up into the stands.

           “Ah,” he paused, “I believe they are the ones from the volleyball program at Miyagi University. They’re scouting.”

           “Scouting?” Tendou blinked.

           Washijo tightened his arms across his chest with a huff, “Those idiots don’t know what to look for, they search for outliers.”

           Saito let out a weak laugh wincing internally. I went to Miyagi U.

           “Washijo, you do know Miyagi U is home to one of the top teams in Japan. It wouldn’t be wise to put incorrect information in the minds of your subordinates.”

           Tendou slouched, waiting for the younger coach to continue.

           “Tendou, they’re looking for talented players to give scholarships to. If someone gets one they either get to pay less for university or get to go for free so long as they abide by the rules of the scholarship.”

           Tendou didn’t say anything at first but gave a small grin with a huff as he bowed to his coaches, “Let’s be sure to with this round then, hmm?”

           “So, (L/N), what did you think of the players today?” Kawasaki asked before taking a bite from the meat that was laid out in front of him.

           The group ate in a small restaurant with people talking loudly over their meals about whatever was going on in their lives. Separated from the crowd -as per the admin’s request- they all sat lazily around a table with their shoes off and jackets draped across their shoulders. The thin paper wall didn’t do all that much in terms of blocking the sound from coming into their little alcove but muffled it enough to decrease the likelihood of distractions.

           Unzipping the top of the collar of her jacket, the girl smiled. “Everyone was amazing, so I’m really happy I got to come and watch. I wrote down some of the players that I thought stood out.”

           Reaching for her binder, the (H/C) pulled out a small notebook. She flipped the pages before handing it over to the volleyball admin. As he turned through the pages, Kawasaki took note that the student in front of him had taken during the girl’s tournament as well. Looking at the list of players of the boys she had seemingly kept her eye on, one seemed to stand out.

           “Tendou Satori from Shiratorizawa? What made him pique your interest?”

            The girl rubbed her thigh, letting her tumb dig into the muscles that froze in position. Taking a bite from the food on her plate, she used the opportunity to think of a justified answer.

           “Satori is sharp, he may not be a prodigy but he’s honed his reaction time to the point of a sword. Outstanding middle blockers are hard to find because they blend in so much. They aren’t flashy like most of the people you scout. But when you find a passionate blocker or any player for the matter, even if you’re just observing from the sidelines their energy becomes contagious.”

          “Satori? Are you familiar with him?” Ito asked as he set his chopsticks down.

           The girl gives her coaches an awkward smile, “Ah, not really. We were acquainted with each other in elementary school. He’s hard to forget, but I doubt he remembers me.”

            “Ah, Tendou!” Saito yelled out to the third year as he ran around with his teammates in the large gym of Shiratorizawa, “There’s a letter here for you!”

           Tendou stumbled as he tried to stop his momentum looking over with a tilted head. His coach wore a large smile as he waved a thin folder in the air. The sight only confused him more. He took hold of the white binder and read the words that were written in bold red print along the front of the cover. His confusion isn’t eliminated when he opens the mail up though. He looked up at Saito.

           “I didn’t even apply. I never planned..”

           Saito’s smile dropped when he saw the look of distress that tore on the typically happy boy’s face, “Satori, I know your plans for when school is finished. But I think that this would be a great opportunity for you. You’ve always called it your ‘paradise’”

            “Tendoou,” Ushijima had walked up behind the middle blocker with his hands flat at his sides, “why don’t you call them?”

           Tendou hummed before asking Saito if he could take a moment and collect his thoughts. It was just over a month ago after they lost their match against Karasuno. He remembers laying down on the glossy wood floor of the large gym, twisting his hips and pushing his crossing knee into the floor along with the rest of the team for their cool down.

           “I’m going to quit volleyball after high school,” he said to Ushijima, “I’ll be watching you on TV and brag that we were best buds.”

           He bit his lip as he looked at the binder in his hands, reading through the various sheets that had been presented to him.

Dear Mister Satori Tendou,

           Congratulations! On behalf of Miyagi University, I am pleased to offer you admission to the Volleyball (Athletic) - Competitive Sports and Health program.

           He looked at the page on the inside cover.

Dear Mister Satori Tendou,

           In recognition of your outstanding academic and athletic achievements, you have been selected and offered a Full-Ride Scholarship award to Miyagi University.

           Tendou looked at the personalized contact information at the bottom of the papers and picked up his phone.

           The volleyball division at Miyagi U was situated in one building. It had excessively large gym floors, that in all likelihood could hold four courts each when there were only two on either side. Between the gym space for the two teams was a raised flat platform for viewing practices at a higher angle that was supported by a mostly glass room that was used as an office for the coaches so they could still see the players while doing work. On either side of the partial wall, the two teams were stretching after a long day of practice when the phone in the office rang.

           “(Y/N),” called Ito as he stood with the other coaches on the platform, “Could you get that?”

           (Y/N) sent a thumbs up in the coaches’ direction, knowing that they were discussing the applicants they received for the program. Picking up the phone, the player continued with stretches as she talked.

           “Miyagi U Volleyball Office, how can I help you?”

           “Uh, hi. I received a scholarship from your program when I didn’t even apply? I just wanted to ask some questions about it?”

           “Ah, of course, could I get your name?” (Y/N) asked as she reached for a pen and paper.

           “Tendou Satori.”

           “Ah! Satori. From Shiratorizawa Academy,” she smiled as she quickly noted things down.

           “Do you know me?”

           “Well, somewhat I guess. I’m (L/N), 1st year at Miyagi U. We met in elementary school, and I was the one that put your name forward for a possible scholarship. So, Congratulations.”

           At his end of the line, Tendou began picking around stray pebbles as he combed through his memory for the name (L/N). He couldn’t remember much about elementary school except the times he played volleyball but Tendou wasn’t able to think of a reason to not believe the girl on the phone.

           “Sorry, I don’t remember much about elementary school. But could you explain this scholarship thing to me?” He asked.

           She noticed that his voice had a way of picking up and dropping as if his vocal cords were a roller coaster.

           (Y/N) smiled into the phone trying not to laugh at the thought, “Don’t worry about it. Anyways, scholarships from my program go out to about six people every year, they are either partial or full-ride scholarships depending on the group. Students don’t apply for these scholarships because they are scouting scholarships. They are chosen by the coaches after watching games and deciding who they want on their teams, so no application is required.”

           “And you put my name forward?” Tendou paused, “Why?”

           There was a bit of silence on your end as you thought of an answer. Tendou waited patiently hoping that your response could brush away the stress that had been building on his shoulders.

           “Well, I only gave a recommendation. Our school looks for special talents, and it was my coaches that chose you. But, as I watched from the stands, I could see just how happy you were to be playing and the passion you put into it. Like you were in your little world. I want to keep watching you play.”

           When Tendou’s parents found out about the scholarship they were, to his surprise, ecstatic. Although his family wasn’t low on money, Tendou had planned to start working after high school and not spend money on university. His parents were initially against the idea.

           “What are you waiting for? Accept it!” His mother yelled at him.

           So, come April, a week into spring break, Tendou was standing at the main entrance of Miyagi U’s campus with a feeling of nostalgia as he remembered his first day at Shiratorizawa. With a suitcase at his side and a bag on his back, he takes his first step onto the school delicately placed bricks.

           “Hey! Satori! Glad you could make it!”

           Pausing mid-step, he turns his head to the call of his name with his brows pushed upward, “(Y/N)?”

           “Okay, Line up!”

           Midway through April came the new year and with it came new teammates. Tendou wasn’t used to being separated from Ushijima, who was currently attending a school in Tokyo. But despite his immediate qualms about attending university, all his teammates shared a similar goal, making it easier to get along with them. Though a few did occasionally send him teasing glares as retaliation for beating them in previous years.

           As he stood in line with the rest of his teammates and listened to his coach -Honda- explain the warm-ups that would be led by their captain, Tendou looked through the glass walls of the office to where the girl’s team stood. (L/N), who was now a second year, smiled up to her coach as she went through the same spiel that Honda was doing for their first years. Trying to keep his head tilted towards his coach, Tendou let his naturally wide eyes wander in the direction of the female wing spiker.

           “Tendou, pay attention,” His teammate whispered as he dug his elbow into the red-heads side, grabbing his full attention. “We’re warming up now.”

           Tendou nodded quickly before looking back through the glass walls. The girls had already started.

           Only a few lights were left on in the gym. Focusing solely on the boy’s side where Tendou was hard at work. Despite being a middle blocker -and a good one at that- all players need to be well rounded enough to stay on for a full rotation. As Tendou was on his own, he worked on his serves continuously until he had to collect them all again.

           “Looks like everybody left for the party. Mind if I join in?”

           Coming out of the office, likely walking through from the girl’s side, (L/N) stands on the edge of the court with her bag lazily hanging off the tips of her fingers. Letting the bag drop, she lifts her hand, asking for a ball. Catching the ball as it flew in her direction, she ducks under the white line of the net.

           “Scared, Satori?” She smiled.

            From where he stood in the center of the court, he could see the change in his perspective in his mind. After regular midnight practices in an empty gym with no one but themselves to keep each other company, a once acquaintance turned stranger had transformed into his greatest ally. Looking at her now, the regular gym lights seemed to act like a spotlight giving him tunnel vision. Tendou gave her a curled grin.

           “I understand you (Y/N). I have no reason to be scared.”

           Practicing spikes and blocks gradually turned into a poor attempt at a 1v1 game that ended with them dropping to the floor in front of the net (She had won 17-15). Panting heavily with their limbs spread wide the two of them looked up at the lights that seemed to become brighter as time went on.

           “It's 11:48 pm. Jeez Satori, you truly are a monster.” (L/N) laughed.

           “I used to hate that nickname,” He said joining the girl in her fit, “But now I think it makes me even more intimidating.”

           That didn’t help to quell their laughter.

           “Intimidating? Satori you are the most childlike person I know, like a cute kitten knocking things over.” She panted.

            “Cute eh?”

           “Shut up.” She laughed again.

           “(Y/N), what did you think of me in elementary school?”

           The girl sat up, crossing her legs with a groan and turning to face the thin boy who still laid flat on the wood floor.

           “I didn’t know you well, no one did. But, I always thought that your talent and drive to play volleyball was admirable, something to see, you know? Either way, I don’t think either of us would be here now if you had never picked up a ball.”

            “MI-YAGI DAIGAKU!”

            The first official game of the year in Miyagi U’s official stadium had members from every sports team come out to support the boy’s team. Rivalling schools screamed at the top of their lungs, trying to drown out the other team’s support with their yells. The girl’s team sat in the front row of the seats, leading chants as they pointed fingers across the court to their enemy. (Y/N), although she chanting along and partaking in school spirit, kept her eyes on the game, focusing on a particular middle blocker who was easily staring down his opponents.

           The game was at match point with Miyagi U in the lead, but the points kept climbing and with it the chant of players’ names grew louder. Every play was a chance to win. The ball soared over the net into arms the opponent’s libero, sending it directly to the setter with perfect accuracy. On the other side of the net, the players in Miyagi’s white jersey shuffled to their defensive position. Tendou, along with the front line Setter and Wing Spiker, set up a triple block to go against their Ace’s accurate spikes. Tendou watched the setter carefully along with the other wing spikers. Seeing his eyes dash across the net, Tendou followed, taking his two teammates with him. Coming off the Setter’s hands the ball followed the same path as Tendou towards the Ace’s oncoming spike. Mid-air, the spiker looked over the net for an opening only to make eye contact with an ecstatic looking Tendou. The ball hit the court.

           As everyone cheered (Y/N) took her vice grip off of the railing before running down to the entrance of the gym. Tendou was celebrating with his teammates, who weren’t afraid to smack his back or ruffle his hair within the chaos. (Y/N) easily caught his attention though -along with everyone else’s- as she screamed out his name while barreling toward him. Tendou, surprised, opened out his arms to catch the hyper girl before she fell.

           (Y/N) threw a toothy grin up at the younger boy as he easily carried her around, “You’re a monster, you know that?”

           Tendou only held her tighter.

I like to think that (Within the AU) players that come from schools with a particular talent, Date Tech and Ubugawa for example, are the ones that typically get scouted to Miyagi U. But prodigies like Nishinoya, or quirky players like Tendou and Hinata do as well. - Bacon

Posted: 02/07/2020

[jitterbugperson]

Talentswap Au Pologue: Part 3

This isn’t getting much attention, but I’m still working on it! I really hope more people see this soon, I’m working hard on it and it’s a real passion of mine. Also sorry for any spelling/grammar mistakes, I didn’t read this over before posting this, I wanted to get it out quickly.

Kaede looks at the list in her hands, and goes through it quickly, not dwelling too long on anyone in particular. Each person got pointed to as she went through the list, allowing Kaito a few seconds to try and memorize and match names to appearances.

Kirumi Tojo, Ultimate Martial Artist- Light green long hair tied up with a ribbon, wearing a  short button up and tie with a few colored bandaids on her arms.

Himiko Yumeno, Ultimate Pop Sensation- Short bob of red hair, wearing a frilly light red and pink dress with several bracelets on her arms and pins in her hair. The one currently putting the colored band-aids on Kirumi’s arms.

Angie Yonaga, Ultimate Clairvoyant - White hair cut straight and short, wearing a  purple cloak, several piercings, scattered tattoos on her exposed skin of her arms, legs, and stomach. Currently talking to Rantaro.

Rantaro Amami, Ultimate Gambler- Short green hair, wearing a vest and bowtie, sleeve of tattoos. Currently listening to Angie ramble.

Gonta Gokuhara, Ultimate Moral Compass- Long green hair in a loose ponytail, very muscular, wearing a school uniform. Trying to get Ryoma to stop smoking

Ryoma Hoshi, Ultimate Biker Gang Leader- Very short, wearing a beanie and leather jacket, carries a pack of cigarettes. Currently smoking and being worried over by Gonta.

Tsumugi Shirogane, Ultimate Swimming Pro- Long blue hair in a high ponytail, wearing a baggy jacket and athletic shorts. Currently talking to Tenko.

Tenko Chabashira, Ultimate Softball Player- Dark green hair in a braid, wearing a star covered ballcap and a jean jacket with pins on it over a t-shirt and pants with holes in them. Currently talking to Tsumugi.

Kiibo Iidabashi, Ultimate Programmer- White hair, wearing a green and grey hoodie and headphones. Currently standing away from the others with his headphones on.

Korekiyo Shinguji, Ultimate Writing Prodigy- Long straight blue hair, round glasses, a small black mask over his mouth, wearing a sweater and jeans. Currently standing next to Kiibo, also away from the main group.

After going through the names, Kaede looks at him with a small smile.

“Got it alright?” She asks, still holding the list. Despite not fully memorizing the people, names, and talents in such a small window of time, he nods. 

“Yup.” He’s lying, but she doesn’t seem to catch on, simply folding the paper and putting it back into her pocket.

Kaito lets his eyes wander, gazing over the grouped up people. For the situation they were all in, they seemed surprisingly put together. At least no one was freaking out, so that’s a good sign. They were all ultimates though, so that is to be expected.

He cleared his throat, turning to Kaede.

“So, what now? None of us know how we got here, the windows are closed off, I’m assuming there’s no exit. And there’s no teachers, from what I’ve seen.” He questioned, almost into thin air as Kaede had no answers for him.

Thankfully, there was someone who could answer his question for him. As soon as he asked the question, an annoyingly high pitched voice called out.

“Ahem! Ahem! Mic check, one two! This is a test of the school broadcast system!

It rang out throughout the room, followed by a loud chime.

Ding dong, bing bong

Everyone turned their heads to the noise, and saw a monitor at the front of the room spark to life. Through static, a small, bear shaped silhouette could be seen.

“Am I on? Can everyone hear me? Okay, well then, to all incoming students, I would like to begin the entrance ceremony! We’ll be starting at about… right now! Please make your way to the gym at your earliest convenience. That’s all! I’ll be waiting~”

After the sing-songy voice cut off, everyone stood silent for a few moments.

What the hell?

“What the hell?!” Someone shouted out, speaking what everyone was thinking. Kaito turned to the voice, seeing Miu still staring at the monitor, her face one of confused shock. At her comment, everyone else looked around nervously, unsure what to do,

“Hey now, let’s just stay calm. This is probably just to get us excited for the entrance ceremony, that’s all.” The green haired guy in the vest and bowtie stepped forward, a calm smile on his face. Rantaro, Kaito reminded himself.

“A-Are you sure? This all seems too strange to be normal for a school, but I don’t know.” The kid with the headphones replied nervously, his headphones now dangling at the sides of his neck.

“I’m sure we’ll be okay Kiibo, I mean, we’re all okay now, right?” Himiko smiles at the taller student, who looked away, avoiding eye contact, and instead stared at the ground. 

“Yeah, alright.” Kiibo nods, and Himiko grabs his hand in a comforting gesture. 

As soon as she does that, there’s a scoff from the front of the entrance hall. Facing the noise, Kaito notices it’s the purple haired kid from earlier, looking at the scene with a small sneer.

Without saying a word, he turns around and walks out of the room, heading down the hall and towards the gymnasium, leaving everyone else behind.

Tenko and Tsumugi exchanged looks.

“What’s his deal?” The girl haired girl commented, snarky and obviously not a fan of his attitude.

“I’m not sure, but he does seem to have the right idea. If the entrance ceremony is starting, wouldn’t it be a good idea to head to the gym?” Tsumugi adds, talking to no one in particular. The others look around, before unanimously deciding that heading to the gym would be the best idea at the moment.

The group of 15 split into smaller groups as they walked down the halls, similar to the groups in the entrance hall. Maki and Shuichi, Tsumugi and Korekiyo, Gonta and Kirumi, Angie, Ryoma, and Rantaro, Tenko, Himiko, and Kiibo, and Kaito, Miu, and Kaede. Together they headed to the gym, the purple haired kid already there waiting for them. 

Next to Kaito, he heard Kaede speak up to both him and Miu.

“Don’t you think it’s odd we didn’t see any other students on our way here?”

Now that he thought about it, yeah that did seem pretty weird. Judging by the look on Miu’s face, she thought so too.

“Hey, you’re right. Where the hell is everyone?” Miu shouts out, a little louder than necessary.

The response she got was similar to Kaito’s in the Entrance Hall, replied to by the same high pitched voice.

“Hey there, howdy, hello! Is everyone here?”

Without waiting for anyone to answer, they continued.

“Good! Then, let’s get things rolling!”

As soon as those words were spoken, a small, animatronic teddy bear popped out from behind the podium on the stage, its body split into a half of black and a half of white. No one dared to move or speak for a few seconds, trying to take it in.

“Is that… a stuffed bear?” Korekiyo asked out loud, voice quiet and full of disbelief.

“I am not a stuffed bear!” The bear cried out, angry at that notion.

“I am Monokuma! This school’s headmaster.”

Just when I thought this day couldn’t get any weirder.

The bear stepped down from the podium and walked closer to the students, and the knot of anxiety that’d slowly been accumulating in Kaito’s stomach turned to outright dread as he realized how absolutely screwed they were. This was definitely not a normal school, much too weird for Hope’s Peak, and certainly not a school that made the tiniest bit of sense.

“Nice to meet you all!” 

After Monokuma finished his introduction, everyone stood still and quiet, just staring at the bear.

“Um, is anyone else seeing and hearing the same thing? I’m not hallucinating this?” Tsumugi asked, looking at the other for confirmation.

“I am not a stuffed bear!! How many times do I have to tell you!” He yelled out angrily, jumping out at her and causing her to flinch back.

“Eeeeek! Get away from me!!” She yelled, putting her hands in front of her face. Quickly, Tenko, who’d been standing next to Tsumugi, jumped in front of her, hands out wide.

“Back up little dude.” The green-haired girl hissed out, glaring at the bear.

“Stop it, both of you!! It’s not like it can do anything to you, even if it can… walk and talk, for some reason.” Kaede tried to reason, not wanting people to get worked up for no reason.

“No no, little miss jumpy over here has the right idea. I could kill you if I wanted!” The bear chuckled, causing a few people to exchange looks.

“Well, anyway, do you happen to know why we’re here, mister...Monokuma?” Gonta speaks up, ignoring the potential death threat in favor of getting some answers.

“Ah, yes! Of course, that is why I brought you all here!” Monokuma exclaims, and a few students relaxed a bit at the notion that their questions would soon be addressed.

Kaito wasn’t one of those. He wasn’t sure why, but he just felt…off. Something wasn't right here, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Monokuma cleared his throat(?).

“Now, continuing with the entrance ceremony! First, we should address what your school life will be like here! Yes, this should be the first thing to talk about since you’ll be living the rest of your lives out here.”

He said it so calmly, yet Kaito felt his heart stop. Looking around at everyone else, they seem to have heard it too, all wearing similar expressions

“Yes yes, you students are the hope of this world! You will all spend the rest of your life designated only to the grounds of this school, protected from the outside world!”

“H-Huh? That’s not… you’re not serious are you?” Kaito spoke, now hoping that this was all an extremely elaborate prank like he’d thought in the beginning.

“I am one hundred percent serious, my little luckster! But do not worry, we have quite the budget, so your life here will be quite comfortable! You will be more than accommodated for here at the academy.”

“Wait, so we’re stuck here? With no way out?!” Tenko shouts, her eyes wide with fear.

“Yup! You’re all completely cut off from the outside world! You can call for help all you want, but you’re stuck within these walls for the rest of your life!”

The room was silent, everyone quietly panicking at the news that they’re stuck in here forever. What about their f”milies? Their friends on the outside? Their lives on the outside?

“Aww, why do you all look so glum! You all came here of your own free will, didn’t you?”

Well, he isn’t entirely wrong.

“I guess you’ll all be happy to hear, there is something I forgot to mention. There is one way out, and only one.”

Everyone perked their heads up at that, some skeptic, others willing to listen.

“I’ve created a special rule, allowing those who wish to leave the ability to do so! With some conditions of course.”

“Spit it out already, we’re tired of waiting.” Ryoma grumbled, looking heavily annoyed at all this stalling and back and forths.

“Hold your horses, I’m getting to that!” The bear shouted, angry.

“Now then, what I was trying to say is that this school has what is called a Graduation Clause. The lifestyle you all will have here is one of order, but should someone interrupt said order, they and they alone would be allowed to leave.”

Kaito quirked an eyebrow.

“Interrupt the order? What does that mean?”

“Ah, curious one, aren’t you. What I mean by that is, in order to leave, someone needs to commit a crime most unspeakable, one that would truly disrupt the natural order. Murder, to be more specific.”

At that, everyone’s face paled a good few shades.

“Asphyxiation, blood loss, snapping of the neck, cutting off all blood flow to the brain, get creative! It doesn’t matter the process, all that matters is someone’s heart stops beating! That is the only way to escape this school.”

Katio could feel his breath picking up, panic becoming the leading emotion in his head. Kill someone to leave? That’s insane!! He was losing his grip, heart beating out of his chest and his hands gripping the sleeves of the others absurdly tight. A hand dropped to his soldier, surprisingly calm. He looked up and saw the Ultimate Affluent Progeny, lips in a taut line as she stared at the black and white bear.

“What makes you think we’ll just go along with this? Do you forget we’re children? The chances of us getting the nerve to kill someone is absolutely absurd, and this is considering you’re telling the truth. Chances are, this is some trick, a prank of some sort. Why someone would go through this much trouble to prank us, I don’t know, but there is no way you would be allowed to do this, considering some of our home lives.” Kaede spoke with such confidence and authority, the kind Kaito likes to pretend to have but could never amount to. A kind of confidence bread by experience, one she could only get in the kind of life she lives.

The bear quirked his little head.

“You all keep acting like this isn’t real. What is it gonna take to convince you that you’re stuck here forever? Because this isn’t a joke you know.”

As soon as Monokuma finished his sentence, there was a short rustling sound, a blur of motion, and suddenly, Monokuma was being held in the air. Holding him up in a death grip was the short purple haired kid, an ice glare on his face.

“I don’t know what your game is, or what psycho decided it would be a fun idea to mess with us. Whatever your reason, I’m not a fan, so I’m giving you about ten seconds to cut this shit out before I destroy your little toy.”

“A-Ah! This is certainly unexpected!”

“10.”

“Hold on now! You have no idea what I’m capable of little boy-” The grip on the bear’s face tightened.

“9.”

“You don’t want to do this, trust me.”

“8.”

“Alright, if this is what you want!”

“8.” An autonomous voice joined in with the smaller boy’s counting.

“7.”

“7.” 

“Hey, m-maybe you should put it down.” Himiko stepped forward towards the boy and the robot.

“Stay out of this!” The boy snapped, causing Himiko to yank her hand back.

“6.”

“6.”

“She has a point, I feel like you should let go of the-” Kirumi tried to reason, but was interrupted.

“5.”

“5.”

There were some metal clanging noises.

“What the hell is that?” Kaito shouted out.

“4.”

“4.”

“Seriously man, put the damn thing down!” Ryoma shouted, but he was ignored as well.”

“3.”

“3.”

“2.”

“2.”

The metal clanging got louder, and Kaito moved before he could think, his panic fueled adrenaline making him do something he normally wouldn’t.

“1.” 

As soon as he spoke the last number, Kaito pushed the bear out of his hands, stopping him from destroying it. The boy turned to the much taller one, the icy glare now directed to him.

“What the he-!” He was cut off as metal spikes sprung out of the belly of Monokuma, shooting straight up and out to the spot the kid previously stood, and still would have if he had still been holding the bear. The spikes pierced through the air, ripping through the fabric on the short kid’s shirt sleeve and the side of Kaito’s sweater, cutting through the skin with the tips of the metal. Both let out a surprised cry of pain, and Monokuma dropped on the floor with a small CLANG.

Kaito gripped his side with his opposite hand, a pained grimace on his face as he stared at the bear. He heard a few startled cries from behind him, and soon felt a pair of hands on his shoulders. Turning around, his face met a worried Miu’s, with Kaede soon behind him.

“Holy shit, you alright dude?” 

Breathing heavily, Kaito nodded.

“Yeah...yeah I’m okay.”

No one had time to move much before the metal spikes returned to the belly of the robot, sinking back in and being covered up as though they weren’t even there in the first place. Monokuma sprung up with a hearty chuckle.

“Looks like you got saved before I could skewer you! Well, at least now you know that I am serious about this! If that nosy kid hadn’t saved your ass, you’d be good as a shish-kebab!”

He laughed again.

“Now, it’s important to know that violence against the headmaster is strictly against the rules! I’ll let you off with a warning this time, but anyone else who disobeys the rules won’t be let off that easily.”

Everyone was silent, the gravity of the situation finally dawning on those who’d been skeptical before.

“I’m not unfair though! I’ll be giving you all fully digital e-Handbooks so that you know the rules of the school and what not to do! Remember, there are surveillance cameras all over the school, so don’t even think about getting away with anything naughty.”

Dread settled over the entire gym, everyone staring down at the handbooks being held to them as Monokuma went down the line. Once all were handed out, Monokuma straightened out.

“Well then, that’s the end of the entrance ceremony! I hope you all have a wonderfully depressing school life here at the school, and I look forward to what kind of murders you decide to come up with!”

He gave us a small wave, his unnerving half-smile still plastering on his face.

“See ya!”

And like that, he was gone, leaving us all to our own devices.

“Well, shit.”

[mrwinterr]

Death of Me (Chase Collins x Dark!Witch!Female Reader) - Part 1

Series Masterlist || Main Masterlist

Pairing: Chase Collins x Dark!Witch!Female Reader

Summary: The reader is addicted to the idea of love and Chase is addicted to the idea of ultimate power – both can help each other out.

Warnings: Movie spoilers for The Covenant (2006) and The Love Witch (2016). Supernatural elements [witchcraft], dark themes [mentions of death and really bad people] and smut [18+ only please].

Disclaimer: This story contains dialogue, characters and references taken from both films. It essentially follows the plot of The Covenant with a reader insert. The reader is loosely based on the main character of The Love Witch. I take no credit for any of those elements used. They belong to the creators of the films. I just wanted to try my hand at having these worlds crossover.  

Title Inspiration: “Death of Me” by New Politics

A/N: I don’t know who still reads Chase Collins fanfics, but I wanted to get this one out. This will have multiple parts. Comments, likes and reblogs are all appreciated! Enjoy!

Now entering the town of Ipswich.

It’s a bit dreary, but that didn’t bother you. It always appeared as if a dark cloud followed you. Miles and miles away from the city you last called home, driven away by another failed attempt at a relationship – you were no stranger to those – was becoming somewhat of a routine for you.

The earliest unsuccessful relationship of yours recorded was with your parents. They were hardly a part of your life to begin. It wasn’t like you didn’t try at building one with them; they were the ones that didn’t. You might as well had been invisible to them. A parents’ love was the first kind of love one was supposed to encounter, and it was to be unconditional. They simply didn’t care for their own daughter and it hurt you. Maybe if they showed you any ounce of love or what it was really like perhaps you wouldn’t be so obsessed over trying to understand it. Ironically for two individuals who expressed no love at all, you had so much of it. It was just the matter of finding the right person to give it to.

For as long as you could remember, you’d been fending for your own. So, the first thing you did when you managed to save enough money, you packed up and left your parents. The next city was supposed to your second chance, but you were so young. You hadn’t even begun to plan your own future. Hell, you were living in the car you’d purchased on your own by accepting countless odd jobs and getting paid under the table. For a few months, you had waitressed at a small restaurant, where a group of interesting people, to say the least, caught your attention.

They were regulars to the eatery and had been watching you with a purpose. They could smell you were somewhat of a troubled youth that needed guidance. They welcomed you to their inner circle and soon into their coven. Yup, they were witches and surprisingly that didn’t bother you about them. They were good people to you. You owed it to whoever these people worshiped because they helped provide you an education, shelter, food and lessons in magic – practicing spells and concocting potions – and even more so in taking back control of your own life. This was now your family. You finally felt a sense of belonging with this group.

None of them had any actual internal powers, but they each individually excelled in different aspects of the craft. They taught you how to focus on concentrating energy, using your magic, to gain results; if you could achieve that you’d be the one in control, and essentially have power over the subject. You also learned that there were different types of witches – ones that were made into witches and ones born as witches. You had never known to encounter one that was born into a bloodline, but you had been warned that they would be much stronger than you, so that alone motivated you in perfecting the craft should one come to you as a threat.

You became enamored by witchcraft. You felt reborn through it. In a sense, it saved you. On top of that, you had nothing to lose, so why not sell your soul, right? While you certainly felt loved by the witches, you still yearned for a different type of love.  

The first failed relationship in which you were intimately involved in was with a guy your age at the time. Looking back at it, you can’t help but to laugh. Oh boy, what a mistake that was.

With the help of your newfound family, you were able to enroll into the local high school. Unwanted attention came with the territory of being the new girl and you were no exception to one of the most sought-after guys in your class. The next thing you knew, you were losing your virginity to him then only for him to leave you the following day. At that tender age, you thought you loved him, and you wanted him to love you. This is why it was comical. What did you know about love at 16 anyway? So impressionable and so naive.

This was the first time you experimented with love spells and potions and he was your first victim. You had been warned about messing with love spells before, but what spell didn’t come without a warning? It seemed to work, but the more time you spent with him the less you wanted to. It turned out he wasn’t in any way what you wanted at all, an even bigger mess than you were portrayed...and maybe even loved you too much. At least that’s what was mentioned in his suicide note.

His death traumatized you for the first few months and the High Priestess decided it was best you continue elsewhere. Initially, that scared you because you thought they were kicking you out, but you were bonded to them and, with another warning about love spells, she assured you that there are plenty of their kind willing to take another in, you’d just have to be sworn in all over again.

As soon as you recovered a year later, with the immense support of your new coven, you were almost an adult and ready to find the one...the new one. And this one seemed to have it going for him. He was attractive, smart and respectable, but he just had too many feelings and it turned you off. He was a fucking pussy. You swore you could still hear his sobs ringing in your ears. You wanted to love a man, not care for a child. The mental institution he ended up being committed in would be able to give him that.

You moved on fairly quickly not wanting to be reminded of the previously failed conquest, however, you should’ve seen the next one coming, but, again, you were hopeful. Third time was not a charm, it was a tragedy. Two lost individuals, one with a broken past and the other battling with substance abuse, trying to find solace in each other was a recipe for disaster. His problems were soon becoming humdrum. As if you didn’t have any problems of your own to deal with, but who was ever there for you? He constantly ached and ached for you, begged for your help. Fucking clingy. You just couldn’t bring yourself to feel remorse for him anymore. Long story short, he’s six feet under a makeshift grave. Metaphorically, he had dug it on his own a long time ago.

Determined to bounce back, you found yourself traveling to a quaint colonial town in Massachusetts. A member of your previous coven recommended Ipswich and believed you would find the one in your cards there. Not sure whether or not to believe them or if “the one” really existed and was waiting for you, the notion of having nothing to lose decided for you and made Ipswich your new destination.

You’re unloading box after box in your single dorm room, a special request you made so you could practice magic in peace, when someone pokes their head in the door you left opened. It was only open because you weren’t able to drag in some of the larger boxes inside yet and they must’ve spotted them.

“Need any help?” The deep voice causes you turn to the doorway, where a guy, who’s tall, no doubt athletic, a head full of dark hair, a hint of innocence surrounding him, greets you with a sweet smile.

“Um, yeah actually,” you reply with a smile to match the tone. You could carry your own, but why turn down the free labor and perhaps even a show. He was cute. That much you deduced from watching the way his body moved, the skin that peeked out from when his shirt would ride up as he bent down and lifted boxes of your belongings into your room.

“Oh! Please be careful with that one!” You warn seeing the box he was currently handling marked as fragile. It contained some of your bottles and they were practically sacred to you. He absorbs the warning and places the particular box gently aside.

“I’m Tyler by the way,” he says after setting the final box next to your feet and standing upright with a respectable amount of distance between you two. You introduce yourself and offer a now genuine smile. You didn’t want to fall victim to yet another nightmare of a relationship, but you kept thinking about what your fellow member told you – the one is in Ipswich and the one could be in front of you right now.

Tyler ends up staying a little longer as you expected that night and you let him. He had a presence you didn’t feel with towards the others. There was just a different kind of energy there.

The two of you were getting along just fine, but you decided to take it upon yourself for safe measures with him and sneak in a little something you made. You say to yourself maybe he’s worth a shot. And he was. You went on a couple of dates with Tyler, met his three closes friends Caleb, Pogue and Reid, but you wouldn’t consider yourself close with them; they just came with the territory. Yet that energy Tyler had around him kept haunting you.

You weren’t sure if you were losing your touch or had a typo in your spell book, but you began to notice the effects didn’t last long with him in particular. He was almost immune to it. The spells were designed to enhance qualities and features about the other person and if you noticed any trend in using love spells was that it showed one’s true self.

Tyler started to become dull to you, like there was no sense of excitement with him. Harsh, not even magic could help you. Afterall, you can’t work with what’s already there. He had his looks going for him, he was a nice boy, and he was certainly several steps above the others in bed, but he never challenged you and you began forgetting he was even in the same room as you. You could’ve sworn he was about to cry when you told him you wanted to just be friends, but he accepted it because he was whipped. No backbone whatsoever. Well, at least he was still alive.

His loss would’ve probably hit you a little different because he was still a sweet guy…and you didn’t need to be given a reason to leave Ipswich too soon. You were just getting started here. His friends didn’t even seem to hold anything against you, not that you really cared. You weren’t interested in going down the line of the Sons of Ipswich; a little history lesson you learned from Kate, Pogue’s girlfriend, whom you unwillingly also formed a friendship with by default. Apparently, these boys were a little prominent here descending from four of the five families that colonized the town. Besides, if Tyler was boring, you weren’t willing to get into the whole mama’s boy routine Caleb kept up with and Reid proved to be too obnoxious for your own taste.

A private school full of rich kids like Spencer Academy, there were bound to be more guys at your disposal. You internally praised the member of your coven for recommending Ipswich. Your conquest to find real love never wanders too far off, but why not have some fun along the way?

Lately, you kept to yourself in your dorm; biding by with your teenage life in regularly attending your classes, occasionally hanging out with Kate – shopping or listening to her rant about another one of Pogue’s jealousy episodes – show face at Nicky’s once in a while and of course practice magic. There was a party tonight near the woods and almost everyone who was anyone was going to be in attendance. You thought you could use a break after a long week.

You parked your car nearby a bunch of others and managed to spot Kate waving you down to join her. Next to her was someone you hadn’t seen before. Kate introduced her to you as Sarah, her new roommate this semester. She seemed nice. Being in her shoes not too long ago, you decided to try and make her feel welcomed.

“So, tell me. Who is who that’s here,” Sarah asks, loosening up and it’s nice to see a sense of normalcy in your life; making new friends and having a good time like a person your age should. There’s a sense of danger and risk being at this party with violating trespassing signs, a huge fire and lots and lots of drugs and alcohol with underaged teenagers.

“First things first. Him over there,” Kate starts pointing at a source of one of your disgust, “that’s Aaron Abbot. He’s a prick. He treats girls like shit; just ask y/n.” Sarah looks at you with a look of curiosity and hint of concern, but you just give her a mix between a shrug and nod letting her know you’re okay and that Kate is right.

Aaron was someone you messed with in private to test a new potion out after failing with Tyler. You’d seen guys like Aaron before. If you learned anything from the first one it was that guys like Aaron were your textbook high school jackass. Thinking about it made your blood boil. The humiliation you felt when you realized he had only pursued you because you were fresh meat and to become just a notch on his bedpost. How’d that saying go? Fool me once shame on me, fool me twice…

If there was one other thing you loved more than the idea of love, it was sweet revenge. You anticipated for it to be nasty with Aaron after you cut ties with him. No one even seemed to believe him when he tried to spread awful things about you. You had a decent reputation at Spencer. You mentally praised yourself at job well done with that one. Maybe you weren’t losing your touch after all.

You briefly excused yourself from the girls to look for a drink. You scan the perimeter trying to locate a cooler, but you become distracted when you see a hint of a flash between some trees in your peripheral. As it occurred something seemed to also blow right past you; something you only felt with when in proximity of other supernatural elements, but yet unlike any other. You look to the other attendees and realize no one noticed anything unusual. When you look back towards the direction where the light came from, you see a figure walking out from the woods.  

You take a hard look at the person trying to recognize them, but you don’t. A new guy. He’s got a certain swagger in his steps, dark hair tousled and a little spiked at the ends, a sharp jawline and eyes that were too dark for you be able to tell what color they really were, and it being nighttime didn’t aid you in figuring it out.  

He must’ve caught your gaze because he’s now staring right back at you. His stare is cold, and you feel frozen, even unable to turn away. And yet again, something feels different and it only gets even more prominent the longer you look at him. You try not to ponder too long about it and decide to avoid him. You concentrate enough energy on your body until you were finally able to get yourself to walk away. Not wanting to stick around long enough for anything to come out of that, you continue your quest to find a drink, not looking back.

Unsuccessful, you head back towards the girls that were clearly in a scuffle with mega bitch Kira Snider, who is actually dating Aaron and has a personal vendetta against you. How were you supposed to know he was already dating her when you were fucking with him? Poor girl doesn’t love herself enough to be with trash like that.

You notice the Sons of Ipswich have already arrived and are trying to defend Kate and Sarah. Right before a fight is about to ensue, someone intervenes and successfully calms both parties down...well sort of. Kira didn’t really take too kindly at his words and Aaron at the puke that was dripping off the back of his letterman all of a sudden.

It was him. He looked a lot nicer up close. The guys thank him for helping diffuse the situation and you hear him introduce himself as Chase Collins. You can feel his eyes on you, but before the line of introductions could get to you, the DJ is announcing the party is a bust and the cops are zoning in. Soon, you break away from the group and take off in the direction of your parked car.

You happen to notice that Sarah is struggling to get her car started. You think about helping her, but see Reid is already on it. The sons are always saving the day, aren’t they? Was your last stance on that before you drove away from the scene. The adrenaline didn’t subside until you were on a clear road back to the housing buildings.

You just about have the key inserted and are about to unlock your door when you hear a voice.

“Some party, huh?” It sounded like just a couple of steps away.

You look down towards the hallway and see Chase standing a few doors down.

“It was kind of boring,” you admit. The only thing that would’ve probably made it exciting was if someone almost died.

He laughs lightly at that and nods showing he agreed to some degree.

“You didn’t have the least bit fun at all?” He asks.

You cock your head to the side a bit for show and pretend to think, but your mind was already made up. The party was a total bust and waste of your time, so no, you didn’t have any fun at all, but you could have some fun now. Hot guy you barely knew in front of you, attempting conversation – you thought he just had to have wanted something.

“You want to have some real fun?” You challenge as you reach deep into your coat pocket and produce a custom flask. It sparkles slightly from the lights of the hallway reflecting it as you wave it around giving him a devious look. 

Chase presses his lips together and brings a hand to the back of his neck to rub at it, showing some form of nervous or conflicting habit, before looking around to see if anyone was watching this happen. You’re not sure what he’s thinking, but you don’t give him much time to reply and proceed to push open your door and walk in. You don’t close it though.

You’re shrugging off your coat and kicking off your shoes when you hear the door shut behind you. You smile to yourself because he’s fallen right into your trap.

“You know, I never got your name,” he says while admiring your room. The only source of light comes from a dimly lit lamp and the strings of light surrounding the tapestry against the wall next to your bed. You always kept your secret hidden and out of plain sight in fear of someone breaking in, so as far as you were concerned, you weren't at him catching onto anything. 

“It’s y/n.”

Chase nods and says he likes it. You try not to roll your eyes at that before you turn his way, throwing the flask you were flaunting earlier in his direction and then plopping down on your bed. He swiftly catches it and walks towards the bed.

“You’re trouble, aren’t you?” He teases taking a seat next to you.

“Why don’t you find out?” You sit up matching him.

He smirks while unscrewing the cap and taking a swig. You watch as his initial reaction is to cringe at its contents. His eyes wring shut, nose scrunched up, lips pressed tightly together and the rest of his expression showing his body’s response at an attempt to process the hard liquor.

“Shit! That’s fucking strong,” he comments staring at the flask as if he could see through the silver and inspect the liquid.

“Finish it,” you command, your voice was smooth but still assertive – a deadly combination. He’s almost hypnotized by your cold and striking stare, he only feels compelled to listen. You observe the way his lips shone from the liquid that coated it, the way his throat contracted when he swallowed it down and how he peeked through one of his eyes to get a look at you watching him ingest every last drop and when he’s done he lunges at you. Chase doesn’t miss a beat when his lips meld with yours.

You pull him down and closer by the lapels of his thick coat before you’re kicking at the ends of it with your bare feet trying to help you rid him of it. You momentarily feel all his weight press into you as he nimbly tries to remove the outerwear, his lips never leaving yours. You hear a click at your door and pull away from him to see if someone had entered.

You don’t see any sign of disturbance, but you could’ve sworn you heard something. Chase doesn’t let that distract you as he brings you in by grabbing the back of your neck to reconnect your lips with his. The moment he slips his tongue in to meet with yours you melt. You had to stress this one, but he was a really good kisser. You might’ve met your match as his tongue continued to show dominance against yours.

His drive only fuels you and you’re able to summon enough strength to roll over and get him underneath your body. You place a few kisses on his face and neck, running your hands down his clothed chest before you lift the end of his shirt up to reveal his toned torso and also begin planting kisses there as well.

Your fingers deftly unfasten his belt and pop open the front of his dark jeans. Chase lets out a small sigh in finding relief to the sudden tightness in his clothing. The sound of you slowly dragging down his zipper is loud. It’s only that excruciating because you’re taking your sweet time. You pull apart his pants to get a close look at what you’re going to be dealing with. The outline of his cock just with what you can make out through his boxers is rather impressive. It twitches from your hot breath due to the close proximity.

You shoot him a crooked smile before wrapping a hand around his length. He hisses at the action and tries his best to keep his hips grounded as you continue to stroke him and every now and then give a little squeeze to his heavy balls, the soft vibrations of your nails scratching through the fabric torturing him. Cute. He’s trying to hold back. So, you kick it up a notch by licking a fat strip along the base and ignoring the fabric that sticks to your tongue.

It works because suddenly Chase props himself with one hand behind him and using the other to grab yours, the one that is still gripping at the waistline of his jeans and he stares you down. This is the first time you’re getting a good look at him; at the eyes you couldn’t make out earlier and make a mental note of what color they were. He’s fucking gorgeous. Clouded with lust, you don’t even sense it but it’s almost like you’re under a spell until you feel the tight grip he has on you loosen up and he lies back down allowing you to carry on.

You sit up, between his spread legs and reach around to pull his footwear off. He instinctively lifts his hips up when your fingers sneak their way into the elastic of his boxers. You expertly pull them down along with his jeans before they’re joining the rest of his clothes on the floor.

You reclaim your position back on top, your dress draping over his exposed bottom half as you straddle him. Chase’s hands start bunching up the material to caress the soft skin of your thighs and hips before he’s tugging at it. You help him and cross your arms to pull the material over your head and leave you in your undergarments.

Chase runs his tongue along his lips and sucks in a harsh breath taking in your appearance. You love the way he’s biting his lip when you add pressure into grinding your clothed core onto his bare one; so much you want to see him draw blood. The material of your underwear is so thin, it slides off to the side with each passing grind of your hips that get sloppier and sloppier than the next, it’s now skin on skin contact. You feel the ridges and prominent under vein scrape across your growingly wet pussy along with the way the crown of his engorged cock nudges deliciously against your clit.  

You’re gripping harshly at his shirt; it starts to stretch when you pull it in a downwards motion because the sensation you’ve both created from the constant gyrations causes a rise out of you. You feel Chase grab at the rolled-up material and pull it down your legs. When you’ve discarded of it, he takes over reigns this time and kicks your legs apart to make room for him.

The unseen and unspoken tension between you two was enough foreplay in itself. There’s no hesitation when he slips right into you. It’s a smooth entrance from how wet you from the grinding and the cum that managed to escape prematurely from him. There’s an abundance of euphoria that the each of you emote from the ragged breathing, provocative moans to the sting of your skin slapping. 

You think this isn’t anything more than pure want, but with a snap of his hips, you feel another strange feeling blow right through you. It was like the one you felt at the party, only a little more intense, but you didn’t even have time to mull over it when he finds the right spot in you. He hits it repeatedly and he’s not missing at all.

Chase sees the spaced-out look on your face, so he starts kissing you again. Your limbs wrap themselves around his body as you tightly cling onto him. Your hands desperately rake themselves on his back, trying to hold on from the immense pleasure he’s brewing in you, but you have a hard time with his pesky shirt still on until you finally manage to pull it over his head and have him fully naked.

His grunts and moans increase in volume when your walls retaliate by clenching around him from the perfect aim of his thrusts. You bring his head up to yours and smoosh your lips together with his. Chase then hooks an arm under one of your legs and hikes that leg up higher for a better angle. It’s so good you let out a string of lewd moans that causes your lips to repeatedly pull away from his. You curse at the insane amount of pleasure that he’s giving you like none of the others have before. You even catch the stupid smug look on his face when your orgasm washes over you. You grip tightly a handful of his cheeks, your hips lifting off the bed as they press against his to leave absolutely no space in between and in the process effectively allowing him to completely bottom out. You wanted to feel every inch of him when it happened.

He places a hand next to your head to help his stance, it’s a shaky one because he’s just about ready to bust. The tempo Chase sets, so relentless, had caused your breasts to bounce out of the confines of your bra.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum,” he warns shamelessly. The way your breasts swayed, the harsh intake of each breath evident from the sight of your stomach tightening and untightening, your legs quivering around him and the fact that you were still riding through the aftershocks of your release, your walls were helplessly fluttering around him – just watching you wrecked with the satisfaction he brought on should’ve done it for him right then and there.

“Then cum,” you dare at him, your lips brushing his with each word that comes out next, “inside me…do it.” And like a snap of your fingers, you feel Chase spill deep inside you. You open your eyes wide enough and see something unusual when you look at him. A ring of fire flashes in his eyes very briefly before he closes them from the exhilaration. Each pump of cum that shoots out of him is followed by the accompanied throb that causes the head of his cock to poke at your sweet spot again, and in doing so initiates a small tidal wave of pleasure to crash right through you again.

Once he regained some composure and control of his breathing, his eyes reopen and they’re back to normal. Guess you were just seeing stars, or fire, in him. You carefully cup at his face with both hands and absentmindedly trace along at his boyish features; from the brow line of his eyebrows to the tip of his nose. He’s a fucking work of art. A lethargic smile splays out across his mouth and you return the display of affection with a smile of your own and giving him a kiss, which he immediately reciprocates to; no tongue or fervor in it, just of sweet contentment.  

While it was good, more than good, you’re too sensitive, you’re not sure if you have enough in you for a second go. Careful to not elicit another round, you wiggle your hips a bit with him still inside in hopes to get him to move off of you.

Chase slowly and cautiously pulls out, and you feel the trickle of his cum leaking out of you. He inwardly praises at the filthy sight of it all before settling next to you. As you’re about to drift off into sleep, your mind starts turning. Something about Chase made you feel strange. There was a different aura about him, and it was evoking a certain emotion from you.

A/N: This is me holding back on smut. This series is going to be quick because as mentioned, it’s The Covenant just with a reader and her own agenda caught in the crossfire...and an excuse for me to write Chase Collins smut, so if you're craving some of that then stick around! 

[douchebagbrainwaves]

IT WILL BE ABOUT WHATEVER YOU DISCOVER IN THE COURSE OF TECHNOLOGY, AND SOME TRAINS OF THOUGHT JUST PETER OUT

If you're going to have a deep understanding of what you're doing; the kind of people you want to work on them, and investing is for most of the founders spent all their time building their applications. PayPal cofounder Max Levchin showed that their software scaled only 1% as well on Windows as Unix. The tragedy of the situation is that by far the greatest liability of not having gone to the college you'd have liked is your own feeling that you're thereby lacking something. But it was hard to say at the time that this was a big market. When you notice a whiff of dishonesty coming from some kind of exit strategy, because you couldn't establish the level of university you'd need as a seed. Would a basketball team trade one of their own, you can make yourself do it you have a list of all the things you shouldn't do, you can prove what you're saying, or at least lacked some concepts that would have made their lives easier. Result: this revolution, if it isn't, how do you pick good programmers if you're not a programmer? A recruiter at a big company, for whom ideally you'd work your whole career. A few CEOs' incomes reflect some kind of wrongdoing. So the real question is not how to convert that wealth into money.

Underpaying people at the beginning of their career only works if everyone does it. The idea even flowed back into big companies. But I do at least know now why I didn't. Maybe it would be a well-paying but boring job at a big company—and that scale of improvement can change social customs. There is some momentum involved. But if you look at how famous startups got started, a lot of catches as an eight year old outfielder, because whenever a fly ball came my way, I used to think the good ones, at least in the US are auto workers, schoolteachers, and civil servants happier than actors, professors, and professional athletes? Indeed, one of our habits of mind to invoke. Wikipedia may be the most famous recent startup in Europe, Skype, worked on a problem that seems too big, I always ask: is there some way to bite off some subset of the problem was that he wanted his own computer.

Which means that any sufficiently promising startup will be offered money on terms they'd be crazy to believe your company was going to study philosophy remained intact. The difficulty of firing people is a meaningful test, because although, like any everyday concept, human is fuzzy around the edges, there are ways to decrease its effects. The best they can do whatever's required themselves. So if you want to start a startup. If it's a subset, you'll have to ram them down people's throats. A list of n things. A startup is a company designed to grow fast, I mean it in two senses.

So if you're going to start a startup, you're probably going to have to do whatever it is eventually. If you want to attract to your silicon valley. The war was due mostly to external forces, and calls itself I. There continued to be bribes, as there still are everywhere, but only a few of them. All the unfun kinds of wealth creation slow dramatically in a society where I was the richest, but much more on them than the college. But it means if you have a free version and a pay version, don't make the free version too restricted. The usual way is to hire good programmers and let them choose.

Why bother checking the front page of any specific paper or magazine? People did start their own company. I thought she was being deliberately eccentric. But it's not humming with ambition. The key to this puzzle is to remember that art has an audience. P 500 in 1958 had been there an average of 61 years. He called a maximally elegant proof one out of God's book, and it was practically impossible to find alternatives. Who would rely on such a test? At the beginning of his career, an actor is a waiter who goes to work for you without giving them options likely to be of the simplest possible type: a few main points with few to no subordinate ones, and your knowledge won't break down in edge cases, as it would if you were willing to sell early on. And if you don't let people into it. I think the root of the problem, then gradually expand from there?

Most people who write about procrastination write about how to make a conscious effort to find smart friends. Within a few decades of the founding of Apple, Steve Wozniak still hadn't quit HP. People tend to; I'm skeptical about the idea of delivering desktop-like applications over the web. If you write software to teach Tibetan to Hungarians, you won't have any habits of mind is to ask whether the ideas represent some kind of art, stop and figure out what's going on. To do that well meant to get good grades so they can get into a good college. There's nothing more they need to do more than find good projects. In particular, they don't have any is that they don't enjoy it. I doubt I believed I understood them, but though they can end up in the same business. In high school I decided I was going to take care of you. It's significant that the most famous examples is Apple, whose board made a nearly fatal blunder in firing Steve Jobs. Yuppies were young professionals who made lots of money. You needed to take care of the company are the real powers, and the granary the wealth that each family created.

I don't know if I learned anything from them. This probably makes them less productive, because they don't know what you're going to have to think about the future, just that you think may be due to a crime well enough executed that it had been a time of consolidation, led especially by J. If a successful startup usually has three phases: There's an initial period of slow or no growth while the startup tries to figure out. I spend a lot of users, so they must be smarter than they seem. Whereas if you want to achieve, and to hold true to it no matter what setbacks you encounter. But change was coming soon. Even Microsoft sees it, but it's not part of any specific paper or magazine? 0 referred to whatever those might turn out to be more entrepreneurial, and less afraid of risk. The reason they don't have good colleagues to inspire them.

Another place democracy seems to win is in deciding what counts as news. A couple months ago, one VC firm almost certainly unintentionally published a study showing bias of this type. Materially and socially, technology seems to be a police state, and although present rulers seem enlightened compared to the last, even enlightened despotism can probably only get you part way toward being a great economic power. No matter what you do. You need a big prime number? It's as if they had. So long as you can, and you'll leave the right things undone. Culturally we have ever less common ground. What happened to him? For example, many startups in America begin in places where it's not really legal to run a business.

Thanks to Matthias Felleisen, John Collison, Erann Gat, Ron Conway, Jessica Livingston, and Robert Morris for inviting me to speak.

[charmergirl2468]

Past Life AU! Part 4

Misc. characters

Just for future reference, none of the teachers will remember anything except for Byleth.

Manuela

She’s a choir teacher at the local high school.

She tries so hard but she can tell a majority of the kids who signed up were just looking for an easy A.

Her favorite students are the ones who she knows signed up to actually sing. Even if they are just Musical nerds :P

She’s really proud of Dorothea since the two actually went to state when Thea was in her choir.

She’s confused on the whole “my past life is hitting me like a truck” situation the kids are going through, but she’s trying to help as best she can.

Hanneman

He’s a history teacher at a university. Like, high end rich bitch university

He mostly does research papers on crests because even about 900 years later there’s still a lot to find out

He’s the only one who actually studies crests. Everyone else is content thinking crests powers were an exasperation of the real history. Think King Arthur and all the Celtic shit that’s in those stories

When he hears about the kids getting their past lives memories back, he morally knows he’s suppose to help but at the same time he wants that crest info. Needless to say, Seteth smacks some sense into him

Seteth

So because of support spoilers, this Seteth is the great-grandson of the OG man

He’s a guidance counselor at the high school and he’s the best one they’ve had in fucking years. He actually listens to the fucking kids and applies their strengths and weaknesses to their studies accordingly

He’s also one of the main designated adults when these kids get their memories back. He may not understand the situation fully, but PTSD is PTSD even if it’s from dreams and flashbacks

He does have a Flayn but he’s also got his wife. #letSetethbefuckinghappy

Flayn

She’s a middle schooler. Her school is near the high school so that’s the worlds best commute

She still acts like Winne the Pooh and does stuff like talk to herself and just generally say weird things. It’s because of high functioning Autism

She doesn’t get any memories back, but I’d like to think she gets more premonitions of what the other kids need? Like “Ingrid, Glenn would not want you to hold him so tightly as you live. He’d wish for you to live happily for both him and yourself” “how tf do you know that?” “I don’t! Yay! :D”

Basically she fills in the gaps of advice that Seteth can’t fill because of obvious reasons

Catherine

Give it up for the schools gym coach!

Even if some kids like Ashe, Felix, and Raphael aren’t in high school anymore, she still checks up on them and makes sure they’re ok.

Now everyone assumes that she’ll act like a Karen, but she’s very much progressive lesbian and is married to Shamir.

After the Bombing event, she kinda drifted but then found Sothism. Then promptly dropped it when people started saying she couldn’t be a lesbian because of Sothism.

Shamir

She does freelance security work for just about anyone in the country. She’s protected celebrities, foreign dignitaries, even drops by the school every once and a while

She also keeps up with the kids in her own Shamir way. Like she’ll subtly tell Ashe to rest his voice when it gets tired and reminds Leo to take off his binder if he’s complaining about pain.

She Married Catherine at first because she thought it was a good tax break. There were dating but a tax break can be hella tempting

She’s hilariously not the other designated adult. She tries to help but she, like a lot of other adults, has no fucking idea how to help kids getting PTSD from a life they lived nearly an eon ago

Byleth

They’re the other designated adult for these poor traumatized kids

They not only remember the war, but every single past life they’ve had since then. They essentially get reborn constantly because of the crest stone inside them.

They’re nonbinary. Y’all can die mad about it

They’re perfect at comforting the kids because they have a little over 900 years of experience to work with

Everyone respects them not only because they’re the wisest person they’ve talk to in years, but also because they all low key have a crush on Byleth

They still have Jeralt, who didn’t die because fuck that let Byleth be happy too!

Cyril

Still Almyrian

He’s a child immigrant who tries to support himself with a self employed house keeping service.

He tries Sothism but finds a lot of the morals Karens try to use the religion for to be… contradictory. Like Sothism is about trying to be better people, not excusing mild racism ya cunt bucket

He’s still an adult trapped in a child’s body mostly. He’s as blunt as a brick to the face

He doesn’t get all his memories but he does remember his past life’s devotion to Rhea and just thinks “past me needed to ducking chill”

Alois

He’s still got his wife and daughter who he’s endlessly proud of

He helps Shamir with freelance security work when they’re close enough together. He may be as subtle as a giraffe but he can still pin a bitch

He’s mostly emotional support for the kids as they get traumatized by the flashbacks. He can’t give advice but he’s a hell of a shoulder to cry on and sometimes that’s all you need

He actually weightlifts with Raphael and a lot of the more athletic kids! He’ll act as their spotter when they do reps and junk.

The next parts probably going to be the world building post and where I’ll explain why these kids are getting their past memories back

[sotellmemoreaboutthat]

Sooo, here are my babies! Some of them have more personality than others, but I love them all the same!! Also, they are in order of creation.

Name: Eliza, Lizz for short, Lizzie for friends

Department: Pure & Applied Sciences

LI: Raquel

Lizz is my main account, she is also the one that is probably the closest to my personality, she tries her best to be nice to everyone, but know how to impose herself when she feels something is not fair. She speaks fluent spanish since her family from her mother side is Mexican. She used to do cheerleading during middle school, but had to give up on it after a bad knee injury, so going to high school she choose to focus on her grades and she found a passion for math and physics, and seeing that she had potential, she thought it would be worth it to at least try to get a scholarship at the most prestigious school in the country, and that’s how she got into Arlington. She gets a bit nervous around Raquel, but flirts back as much as she can, slowly getting more confused whether is actually flirting or not.

Name: Matthias, Matt for short

Department: Fashion

LI: Tadashi

Matt was created while I was really into the Mean Girls musical, so I decided I would make them have a crush on Tadashi while being friends with Karolina. They are probably one of my characters with the best relationship with Karolina, they are genuinely worried with her and they are a little bit relieved that she doesn’t is that angry with them about their crush on Tadashi.  They don’t have the best relationship with their parents and since they were able to get into Arlington but choose the Fashion department instead of the Business or Health, but they try their best to be proud of their kids. Arlington is somewhere they can be themselves, designing and creating pieces that they are passionate about. They are slowing getting out of their comfort zone and becoming friends with more people. 

Name: Harry

Department: Performing Arts

LI: Tegan

Harry was created to be a counterpoint to Tegan, so I thought that the opposite of a introvert nerd was a extrovert arts kid (keep in mind, no i didn’t knew Tyler’s personality or department yet). Anyway, he is the kind of person that is effortlessly good at what he does if he sets his goal into doing something, but he is so nice that no one gets angry at him for it. Dancing is his passion, but he also knows how to play drums and sometimes helps the other performing arts students (like Shawn, my other Performing Arts oc) with their compositions. He is the tallest out of all the ocs, but he is still shorter than Tegan, but is not a huge difference (Idk how inches and foot work and I won’t even try at this point).

Name: Charlie

Department: Business Commerce & Politics

LI: Claire

Charlie came from my realization that I would actually be at the Business department and not the Science one based on what I want to do when I graduate. They are professional and reliable, but are not that great on social skills, they’re rather shy and were really grateful when they were invited by Claire to hang out with her and Raquel and it definitely  helped for their crush slowly grow, they don’t really know how to deal with those feelings tho, they are just going with it and hoping for the best. After a rocky start their relationship, Tadashi and them got into a point where they are kind of friends, but really formal friends and until the whole Nakano scandal they weren’t really vulnerable to each other.

Name: Janet

Department: Fine Arts

LI: Neha

Janet was another person that was created as a counter to her LI, Neha is very organized and Janet is very chaotic and messy. She is from a small town and the Academy is very different from everything she knows, so she was really impressed at first by the diversity, she was not used to it, but she feels blessed she gets to have this opportunity to meet so many different people. She usually jokes about how the arts department is full of nice and fancy materials and she was used to make it work with cheap materials back at home. She usually have some trace of paint on her face or clothes (but she is trying to keep it clean because the uniform is way too expensive to have paint on) and her hands are always with some colorful pen marks. She is described as talented by people around her, but she’s been drawing since she was a small child and works really hard to get on the level of people are Arlington. She is a little bit scared of Karol, but she is always nice to her and is genuinely concerned about both her health and how her situation affect Neha. I don’t know when, I don’t know how, but someday Janet will give Neha an original design for a print.

Name: Krystian

Department: Athletics

LI: Alistair

Krys was created when I realized I really liked Al and that I wanted someone who could like, work out and be athletic with him (is this what athletic ppl do? idk, can’t relate). He is a short king, probably the shortest among my ocs, he plays volleyball as a libero (and yeah i decided that literally this week bcuz i rewatched haikyuu and it inspired me). Alistair makes him feel all kinds of things and he is so sweet and nice, I can imagine him and Lizz complaining together about how hot ppl from Athletics are. He doesn’t really like Karolina, he thinks she is rude and prejudiced and it took a little while form him and BIanchi (the other Athletics oc) because of that, he ends up warming up to her after the Nakano Scandal because she seems very genuine about her feelings for Tadashi and he can respect that.

Name: Angel

Department: Fashion

LI: Axel

(So... Here is when I start getting out of ideas and they may have less personality, sorry)

When I was thinking about Angel I was just like, pretty and fun, a little bit edgy. He is pretty in a kinda unconventional way, too feminine for most of the male models demand but he choose to remain authentic to himself (And also he will never be able to have a six pack and he accepted it). He probably heard about Axel before (I mean, he is a sensation, isn’t he?), but didn’t actively look for him, he consider himself a more indie kind of guy. In the process of falling for Axel he did question himself if he was not falling in love out of interest, but he soon got over it, because he couldn’t avoid the feelings that were growing.

Name: Bianchi

Department: Athletics

LI: Karolina

Bianchi was created using “jock” as the first thing that came to my mind about her. After a little research I figured Bianchi is actually a surname, not a first name, so I decided she doesn’t vibe with her first name and she decided she would like it better to be called by her last name. She is kinda cocky, she knows at what she is good at and is very confident. She works with Karolina because she won’t let her put her down without fighting back and she knows what she has to offer, Karol would eventually see her as a equal and Bianchi is very weak for pretty girls, she would probably also flirt a lot with Karol, just to piss her off a little bit. She hopes to become a professional swimmer, but she also does weightlifting as a hobby.

Name: Yuri

Department: Health Sciences & Biology

LI: Ellie

Yuri was created because I needed someone who was around the conversation about Arlignator to be into the Health Department to actually do the Arlignator and undertsand the reference. It’s hard for me to relate to her because I would never in my life go for a health area, so it’s hard for me to develop her. But, I did develop her family (cuz u know, i needed to be able to talk about her in someway amirught), so her father have a Japanese heritage and her mother have a Chinese one, her dad is not that in touch with his heritage because he was raised by his single white mother, and her mother’s family on the other side is very connected with the Chinese culture, and that’s why despite the Japanese name, Yuri speaks fluent Mandarin. Ellie is someone who takes her a little out of her comfort zone, and that works for her because she always wanted to be a little adventurous but never had any stimulation for it, and now she have it (with a little crush as a bonus).

Name: Shawn

Department: Performing Arts

LI: Tyler

Shawn was heavily influenced by AJR, which is a band I listened a lot when I started to play SE. He is a songwriter and a composer (no, i don’t know the difference, I’m sorry ppl who know music I’ve failed y’all) and he wants to make music that are more than love and sex and still have a kinda pop feeling about it. He is the most confident after Bianchi out of my ocs and he is very restless. Him a Tyler hit it off from the beginning since they have a similar sense of humor and sometimes he feels like he understands a little better all the love songs out there, and even promising himself he wouldn’t sing about love (a la Hayley Williams, but maybe one or two actually are actually created.

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales: Challenge of the Senior Junior Woodchucks! and Quack Pack! Review/Thoughts

Hello errybody, I’ve decided being a huge fan of this verison of Ducktales, and someone who likes reviewing stuff and going on and on at length about it, to review this season’s episodes as they come out, both to get me writing critically again, and to get more non chat content on the old tumblr.  First, while you likely don’t care a little about my history with the ducks; While I , sadly though i’m trying to correct it, haven’t read MUCH of Carl Barks classic donald duck comics nor that of his avid fanboy and clear sucessor in quality and talent Don Rosa, I did read Rosa’s utter classic “The LIfe and Times of Scrooge” mcduck in high school and the story stuck with me sense. I’ll go into Life and Times another day hopefully, but naturally when the reboot was announced I was excited.. a great voice cast, and donald,my boy, as part of the main cast. The show has been a joy to behold and with steven universe having taken a bow JUST a week ago and Covid ravaging our lives, it coudln’t of picked a better time. But do these episodes keep the momentum from an utterly marvelous second half of season 2? The short answer is “Fuck yes” but the long answer is under the cut. 

Challenge of the Junior Senior Woodchucks! While “Challenge of the x” is a popular snowclone title I can’t help but think of superfriends with the title... or now I thought of it shortly before writing this, hearing “Meanwhile at the legion of doom” when they cut to fowl.. or rather “Meanwhile at FOWL” but in that same announcers voice. I”m a dork, that should be obvious But I was hyped for both episodes: Violet is a faviorite mine, I ship her with huey so them interacting for the first time was wonderful to me, and.. okay the subplot didn’t hook me and we’ll get to that, but we had her dads and one of my other faviorites (I have several, get used to it now) , Lena , at least putting in an apperance. And honestly.. the main plot lived up to it. As I said I didn’t really dig the sub plot, more on that in a second, but I REALLY enjoyed this. From the begining Huey was my faviorite of the three triplets, easily, as it’s fairly easy for me a grown ass dork with anxiety, self confidence, anger issues, depression and constant self doubt, to relate to a little duck with the same and I’ve loved Danny Pudi since community, so naturally I was excited for his turn for a spotlight season.  And again the show didn’t disapoint.. Huey has a rather decent arc with some unexpected turns: First unexpectly, the trailer lied as while Huey and Violet look ultra competiive, theirs no real confilct..s econds after that bit the two shake hands (after a good 20 seconds of adorable and hilarous failure to do so that fits both like a glove.), and try to be good sports. The problem is instead internal: As Huey muses to his siblings (Webby very much included, getting her own great bit of encouraging Huey while also assuring Violet she’s also great he just needs it more, which is accurate) “If i’m not hte best junior woodchuck who am I”. Like Louie last season towards the begining (when he didn’t have a clear purpose in their adventuring dynamic) and towards the end (When della nearly took it away from him), he’s nothing without his sense of who he is. It’s easily why he’s the one to comfort him when his other siblings are either torn between two friends or you know, Dewey. Louie knows what it’s like to be rattled about who you are.  And WHY Violet outclassing him rattles him so much is intreating and to me makes a ton of sense: Huey’s identity to me is so wrapped in his intellegence and woodchuckery because , besides being oldest, it’s what he HAS on his brothers. When you think about it, Louie is the charmer, Dewey is charsmaticin his own way and loves hogging attention not to mention being fairly athletic... to stand out Huey NEEDS his brains to be the one with facts, and plans and his book.  He may not be the first on the front lines but he’s the first to solve a trap or figure out where they are if scrooge or his mom hasn’t already.. and if someone’s markdely better at that, and worse in an activity that’s wholy his own and now it’s been revealed impmortant to his mom.. just who is he.  The poor kid simply breaks down at the thought and takes bigger and stupider risks, which is sad to watch.. and thankfully lightned by his delightful mental brekadown in the form of the stephen root voiced JW Guidebook, a talking hallucination who gives huey his knowledge and edge back in the contest.. but it’s STILL not enough. And that’s when the other intresting bit comes into play: Huey.. has a moment of weakness. Despite the guidebook saying to always save your fellow woodchucks when violet gets stuck slipping in a tree.. he does nothing and leaves, despite JW  , whose now become his concious, begging him not to. It’s a sad, well done moment, and one that makes the story richer. Naturally violet escapes and when huey falls off the lava bridge to the finish line in a nother moment of desperation, and after a returning JW burns because apparently ducks and sabrewings are fireproof but imaginary manfestations of knowledge arne’t, she saves him... and is a good friend and woodchuck in NOT chastizing huey for his moment of weakness earlier, but comforting him, revealing she’s tried three times before and adding some more depth to her character: Despite her awkardness with people, she’s a kind, caring person, and gives Huey the lesson he needs: faliure, and the ocasional bout of moral weakness, is okay.. what matters is you learn from it, dust yourself off and keep going. Huey bows out due to this, as while violet is more than willing to let him pass with her, Huey knows he hasn’t earned it, yet, but he can keep trying and that this is her moment, not his. And in that, I feel learns that he dosen’t NEED recognition to be his best self.. he just needs to be a good person and a good woodchuk. I’ts a damn fine story and despite not being the intended premire, works as a great one.. mostly. And also yes I ship them.. as much as two ten-elven year olds can be, but they are adorable and geninley have a good repore.  And before I get to the dispaointing subplot, i’d be an idiot if I left out Violet’s family: We meet her dads, hilariously wearing shirts that say i’m with dad which is also really fucking adorable, and have our first onscreen conformation that Lena’s now her adopted sister, with Lena loudly screaming it in one of the best lines of the episode.. it’s clever to me: it over the top makes sure that we know yes, these men are gay and her parents.. but in a needed way given disney’s tendncy to dance around that or loudly proclaim a minor character no one cares about is gay in a way they can edit out. It’s a great step forward for the channel and the company and good on the crew for going ahead with it and good on disney for not beign dumb about it, nor, like again they have a bad habit of doing, loudly shouting about it to the media. Excellent work. 

Now i’m done rambling about Huey’s psyche and america’s new faviorite gay couple, I gotta get the suplot out of the way: while the whiporwill is freaking adorable as is dewey’s bond with it, otherwise this plot is.. really damn weak: it has some good jokes (Louie’s blunt no when Scrooge asks if hte family wants to fight a bear, Webby’s disapointment when she finds their not walking in the path of literal giants, Donald’s runner with the spy drone mosquito (and Della’s instiance to just let it suck his blood), and Della proving she has the family temper with her own donald brand angry dance) it’s just.. not enoguh. It feels like it’s an oblogiatory plto for the family and while it does set up the season’s overaching plot with a strong character, as it’s intresting learning that Scrooge had an idol at adventuring and thus is following a legacy himself, overall the subplot itself is just there and distracting from the much more intresting A-Story. That being said it was at least sorta worth it for the ending bit where huey and violet suprisingly find launchpad at the end of the trial in a cave.. as do the duckfamily, both groups crying out “Launchpad?!” with launchpad giving out a hilarious “that’s me, i’m launchpad” and while the setup for it was weak, the idea of the family going around the globe to find missing mysteries wile fighting fowl over them is a great concept. Overall a really damn strong start to the season with a weak b-plot and i’m gald even if this isn’t what htey planned to start with it’s what they went with.  Quack Pack: Quack Pack.. is one of disney’s secret shames.. I mean it’s not SO secret as it’s on D+ while this show’s predecessor wonder over yonder and superhero fantasy classic american dragon jake long are not for reasons I sitll don’t get, but that’s a rant for another day. It clashed badly with ducktlaes,was meiocre most of the time (It helps the two episodes I did watch were donald focused as he, a nicely redeisgned dasiy, and their co-worker kent were the highlights), with the boys somehow being more obnoxious than they were at their worst in the original ducktales.  Now that’s off my chest the episode itself.. is really damn good and a nice take on sitcom parody, with the family getting ready for a photo. Dewey’s “since the internet” line in paticular killed because, having watched boths ome of the best sitcoms (roseanne, designing women) and some of the absolute worst (My wife and kids, last man standing,home imporvment etc), most modern ones i’ve seen, even the good ones, have kids written this terrible way. Otherwise though it was highly enjoyable and having Jaleel “Urkel/Sonic the Hedgehog” white here to take the piss out of his former genre as Gene (and doing such a great job I really want to see Gene back next season), is the icing. That and Huey going half insane trying to figure out what’s going on, as well as the unsettling reveal of the studio audience.  Really the ep is a laugh fest, as well as the glorious arrival of goofy who to my relief, wasn’t a hallucination.. which itself is a great gag as is the offscreen internal thought of “okay so now htey ahve to take goofy with them on this deadly adventure all the way back to the states?”. The using of the adults old designs, as well as having dewey do the triplets dance and wear an outfit similar to theirs from “Mr Duck Steps Out” (Which I saw earlier this year and other than daisy’s horrifying early voice it wasn’t half bad). It’s just hard to go into and throughly enjoyable. But analysis right the real meat is in my boy donald: Going into the ep I genuinely expected Dewey to be the obvious source of the wish: while knowing gene was involved meant it was easy to see it was his fault HOW was a good question.. but having Donald do so and throughly enjoyable, and naturally gives us two great gags int he rwo: Donald’s VERY donald response “I wish for that 6 times a day! how wsas I supposed to know I was rubbing up against a magical lamp” and everyone spouting off their catcphrases, all either actual ones, basically something she does all the time turned into one (della) or poor beakly who gets “i’m not a spy” for some reason an dis cross about it. But the fact Donald not only figured it out quickly but wants to stay.. is perfectly in character. Donald in general, and especailly here, dosen’t WANT to be an adventuer anymore: he does it for his family, but he’d probably perfer the tgif lifestyle where problems are minor and solved with heartwarming lessons.. not full of lingering restiments, damage you caused, or loosing a decade of your sisters life and having to struggle to care for her kids. The rest of the familys looks when he gives his reasoning say it all: they really get why he wants this.. but Huey, who nicely got to be the one to break the sitcom news to them on top of everything else, makes an even better one: their lives are who they are.. this.. isn’t real. LIkea tgif sitcom it’s a plastic imitation of life that’s nothing like it: it’s comforting sure since hte real world is fucking complicated and miserable at times.. but hiding from it dosen’t fix things.  And while Donald, of course angrily denies this while his family ends upf ighting the studio audience, it’s Goofy, loveable guest star and everyone’s other faviorite dad, who gets his friend to see the truth: eveyr family has thieir own normal. He and max are  widower and his kid. Just a family of three (I”m counting PJ since , by his tene years at least, Peg is missing, though Iw ish she’d come back as her and goofy would be cute and she deserves better than Pete but whatever, and his dad is an emotionally abusive douchehead). But their happy, they make memories even if goofy like donald can’t walk five feet without the universe, and that’s what counts> it’s a touching sentiment and i’m happy Donald now has a friend whose also a parent and probably made similar sacrifices, and some Donald hasn’t had to just yet and probably won’t now dellas back, but made it through. So donald helps his family fight the  humanoids, take sa picture and it’s just a genuinely sweet ending... a great episode with a great concept that also opens the door for the return of the world’s other best dad more times. And again I want to see him smooch pete’s ex wife. This is the hill I will die on apaprently.. and with that I leave you. it was a good start a fun thing ot dive into and I hope for more.. oh and before I go, while i’m not a GIANT max and roxanne shipper, Idon’t dislike the ship I just don’t hav ea large attachment, it was absolutley WONDERFUL to see that they went to prom together. Okay i’m done, until next week, courage and stay safe. 

[dobriking]

Bend Into A Break (1)

Summary: Not one, but two vlog-squads came with the death of Vine. And the rumored beef between you two is absolutely true! So, you and David (begrudgingly) set up a month long-retreat among your groups to film team challenges and go against each other. Y’know. For views. Pairing: David Dobrik x Readers, Enemies to Lovers, living together. Warnings: Profanity

1 | 2 | 3

“Y/n…I, I don’t know about this.” David sighs and pushes back your iPad.

And you grit your teeth, stomping gently and saying “David!” With a whine. Your emotional tactics (no matter how playful) have never had any impact on him. He simply shrugs, and with the reminder that your fluttering eyes and pouty frown do nothing to affect his decisions, you straighten out and go back to your less inviting face. One of anger, disdain.

“David come on, you know this would be great for the both of us.”

“Well,” he fills his cheeks with air before quickly letting out, “ I know. It’s just…”

“There’s the fans, the views. I know you just love selling 40$ T-Shirts. Think of the merch! Contrasting team colors. We could recreate every piece of clothing we wear in our videos. Wear nothing but that for the few vlogs — you get an average of a couple million views a video, right?” He nods. Likewise, you point to yourself. “Th-this is a good idea. It’s great marketing! Nothing gets people more riled up than picking sides but if we play it off as a fun little Youtube thing then there’s no bad press. Only fan publicity.” He opens his mouth but — “Even if nobody gets along behind the scenes it’s what we get on camera that matters and you know just as much as me that when our groups hang with each other it’s actually fun.”

It pains him being opposed to something so genius.

Though he scoffs at himself for pairing together you and the word ‘genius.’ You’d probably like that, wouldn’t you?

The problem is if you’ll be able to get both of your squads to agree on not just this as a whole but a tiny, single thing.

Red for his team.

Blue for yours.

You could have bandanas, knee-high socks, and shorts for the more athletic challenges your two groups decide to participate in. If you go far enough you can even sell thermoses and Tupperware if you went ahead with color-coordinated eating.

Minus the formalities and getting ready for this event, the event itself would be fun.

He just wonders if he’ll be able to get through the initial torment of having to be around each other.

He rubs his eye and holds out his hand. He beckons the iPad and you slide it over. He’s yawning and couldn't look any more bored as he swipes through the presentation you put together for him. He almost looks a little too disinterested and bothered by it. You think to question but “I mean…yeah?”

He picks at his lips, puffing his cheeks up in ‘boredom’ but subsequently rubbing his palms all over them to hide their puffiness. “Gonna need to make some changes,” he murmurs.

And throwing your hands to the table you shout, “Well of course!”

His eyes jump to yours. He has his lips pursed, cheeks collapsed now which sharpens his jaw and cheekbones. His thick brows furrow too, and overall it is quite the good look. But enough about him — you’re genuinely happy you’ve come to some agreement, and he can’t deny it's a nice change in pace. Finally, you give him something real. For once.

You take your iPad from him and place it between you.

The presentation explains as follows: Over the course of one month, his vlogs would consist of at least one challenge per vlog (spliced between other daily shenanigans) on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Your channel too would consist of at least one challenge per vlog on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Somewhere in there you propose a live-stream or something your two channels could share on Sundays to aid the constant stream of content.

His team would dawn red clothes, and your team blue. You would be your team leader and he would be his team’s leader.

You had a photographer queued up (given David agreed) to take team-photos; a group photo for each, separate photos for each member, photos of each group’s corresponding members together, and an ultimate team versus team photo. So far the theme you had in mind for the photoshoot was sports (hence the idea for athletic shorts and sports T-shirts for merch). Your mind lingered over the possibility of a “War of the Roses” type situation but Zane Hijazi (who irks you purely because his jokes manage to bite so hard yet so effortlessly) organized the royalty-themed photoshoot for his 200th video.

Of course you guys watch each other. It’s the only way to keep your head in the game.

David picks at his lips again, imagining headbands, bandanas, knee-high socks, 70s shorts, even leg warmers. He isn’t focused entirely on the march or financial benefits of the event but he can’t deny both would wind up being fantastic in design and outcome.

“Uhm wh-what uh,” You dig through your bag and take out a notepad and pen, “changes did you have in mind?”

He reaches and makes an effort to sigh as obnoxiously as he can while scribbling some of his ideas down. Your brows twitch when you come across words you can’t comprehend, his handwriting so jumbled with how fast he wrote so he could get the hell out of here and think this over.

And you find his main idea quite…odd.

“An uh…?” Why on Earth would he want this?

He’s amused.

“You want us all to…what—a boarding school scenario?”

He blinks, previously lost in thought. “Yeah! Uh yeah just,” he takes the notepad and reads what he wrote over. Seems right. He slides it back and folds his arms over the table. His cheeks make even the slightest of smiles so incredibly poignant. It’s hard for you to tell if he’s casually smiling, grinning at your expense, or plain existing.

You admit it’s a good idea — two teams so notorious for being pitted against each other in the realm of Youtube not only performing casual competitions and questionable stunts for a minimum of two minutes a vlog each but in an environment where content is inevitable. Non-competition related stunts and shenanigans will still have a competitive spirit, and with you able to get content of the other’s team in a casual setting it’s going to be a lot harder to manipulate someone’s behavior through editing. Teams so notorious for being pitted against each other in the realm of Youtube living with each other, sure to hate one another’s guts for the entirety.

In this case, that entirety would be a month.

A month of shared living spaces.

A month of side-by-side editing.

A month of competing, a month of interacting.

David shrugs, shaking his head. “I dunno. We could find a place. I mean, we have what it takes.”

“Suppose we could, huh?”

He nods and writes more ideas down. You watch, fighting a smile seeing his little tongue poke past his lips.

He hums then leaves you in silence while collecting his thoughts.

Is this a good idea?

You know it is financially, career-wise. But like David, you wonder if the absolute torment your group will have to deal with at the hands of his own is worth any of this.

David gets up and hovers above his seat to collect his things. His eyes flicker and catch your confused face. He blinks rapidly, scrunching his face up and going “Oh yeah, uh,” before pulling out his phone and sending you a text.

Yes, you have each other’s numbers.

It’s a location (his home), time (1:30), and date (tomorrow).

“Bring your group.”

You stand with him. “oh no no no they uh — they have no idea about this.”

He shrugs and you swear he chuckles. “Well, neither will mine, so.”

David walks off but before he leaves he holds onto the shop’s doorframe. He turns and lazily gestures you and your space. “Good job by the way on all of this. Uh, actually a really good idea.”

Huh. “Thanks.”

[bipolarwitchcraft]

How do you think Kevin will fill his time post exy career? Volunteering? Coaching? Just being a dad?

Lmaoo first off, I love that you sent this my main blog instead of my aftg blog ( @kevindayprotectionsquad you should def follow if ya not :) ) we love goin feral on main

I fucken love thinking about how Kevin gets to spend the rest of his life. To start, I personally don’t like extra content Kevin if I’m going to be real. I don’t think he marries Thea and I don’t see him havin a kid with her at all. So we gonna ignore all that and let me handle it :)

I think kevin plays exy for as long as he can. I really do. He dedicated too much of his life to it to not play as long as possible. That said though, I think he finds his own little passions other than exy on the side. He enjoys cooking, he likes volunteering both at animal shelter and with youth programs, he finds writing to be therapeutic, etc. He’s got these things, so when he does retire, the transition is a lot easier. He also finds himself with a few “normal” friends that don’t care about exy, and just care about him. When he retires, he doesn’t regret it as much as he thought he would.

I can see him coaching. I can see him really enjoying coaching youth teams. Possibly high school. College and pro athletes can be too difficult for him. Not in a coaching sense, but an attitude sense. His expectations would be too high for them. Youth leagues however are literally just there to learn, and who better than the son of exy to teach them? He’s very particular when coaching his youth teams. He’s understanding that they’re learning and mistakes will be made, all while pushing them to be their absolute best possible. He’s the type of coach that really shapes a kids passion for a sport. The type they remember when they’re playing for pros. I think he would volunteer for the little league teams in the area. Instead of being assigned to one team, he helps all of them. He coaches the All Stars team in post season. He’s more proud of them winning state titles than he ever was winning his own awards. I can also see him taking up a teaching position to coach high school. He is a history major and the majority of coaches teach history, so why not right? His two passions in one job. He’s happy.

As for his domestic life I like to think he does settle down with someone. Who? Can’t say, but I know it’s not Thea. Maybe she’s a vet tech that works at the shelter he volunteers to walk dogs for, and they have a plethora of foster pets in their home at all times. Maybe he’s a website designer he met trying to set up a website for his little league teams, and they spend their time discovering new passions together. I can’t say I see him having kids with anyone, he’s still terrified of fucking them up. He wouldn’t know the first thing about raising a child. I can see him having a lot of pets, though. Regardless of who he is with, he wants to travel the world with them. He makes a bucket list of everything he wants to do, and they slowly cross things off. I know one day he wakes up, knowing he is free do as he wants and love who he wants, and he is happy.

Wymack (and Abby) is proud of him.

[lesbianrobin]

☕️ steve’s beautiful character arc

god bless you for sending this ask also i am so sorry this is gonna be long as FUCK and it’s not gonna be REMOTELY coherent

TL;DR: steve’s arc is the second-best in the show behind el, largely because he maintains his crucial traits and motivations while changing his actions and beliefs to try and be a better person

okay to start off i’m obviously biased as fuck because steve is my main hoe and i love him to death. that being said i genuinely think steve has the most solid character arc in the entire show save for el, and i think the biggest factor in that is the fact that joe keery has been so involved in the shaping and direction of steve’s character ever since he was cast. obviously every actor brings a lot to their character, but what’s unique about steve is that he was initially meant to be a true villain and die in s1, and joe convinced the duffers to change that. joe’s done an excellent job of keeping steve’s most basic traits consistent as the writers developed his character so that Steve feels real.

what makes steve’s character arc so good and believable is that, at his core, he... doesn’t really change That much? throughout the show, his defining character traits never really change: he’s loyal, he pays a lot of attention to other people and what they think of him, he’s more of a doer than a thinker, he has some issues with his father, he doesn’t have a personal vision for the future so he tries to stick to the designated path of “success,” and he wants to be a good person. what changes isn’t necessarily his intrinsic motivations, but his actions and thought processes, which makes for an excellent character arc!!

to start off with: controversial opinion, but i don’t think steve was That much of an asshole in s1. he was definitely an asshole! he just wasn’t evil or a total piece of shit like b*lly. he was just a dickhead high school kid, yknow? he was short-sighted, selfish, and didn’t take anything seriously. at the same time, he clearly cared a lot about other people (and what they thought of him)- demonstrated in little things like him sharing his lunch with his friends without them even asking, and the fact that he went to apologize to nancy after he blew off her concerns about barb because he was too preoccupied with not getting in trouble. he goes along with the crowd and does whatever he thinks he Should do, like letting tommy and carol vandalize the marquee (i can’t recall the exact dialogue but i think he says like “i shouldn’t have let carol do it” or whatever anyways it wasn’t his idea but he didn’t stop his friends). the fight with jonathan is steve’s only real Asshole moment for me. obviously he was dismissive of barb being missing which was shitty but he had no real reason to think that barb was dead yknow? he was approaching the situation from the stance of a teenager in a small town where bad things don’t usually happen. he was blinded by his own petty concerns of getting in trouble, and while insensitive to nancy, i think it was an understandable offense for a teenager (and one he apologized for).

and... since i Must address the camera thing... i personally think steve 100% had the right to break jonathan’s camera. of course he said some shitty things that he didn’t need to, and a lot of people argue that since jonathan was taking pictures of nancy, steve had no right to be outraged on her behalf, but i disagree with that argument. just because nancy was willing to forgive jonathan doesn’t let him off the hook! he was in steve’s backyard, taking pictures of an intimate moment through steve’s bedroom window. steve’s privacy was violated just as much as nancy’s. so, even if you don’t think that “sticking up for nancy” and being protective of her was a valid motivation, i still think it was justified. so yeah anyways.

back to the fight!!! steve lashes out and says like the meanest shit he can think of to jonathan because he’s so deeply hurt by nancy’s perceived betrayal and he Wants to get into a fight, which goes along with his deep sense of loyalty, preoccupation with what other people (his shitty friends mostly) think of him, his tendency to do whatever he’s “supposed” to do, and his desire to act rather than sit around and ruminate. some guy sleeps with your girlfriend, you’re supposed to kick his ass, and if you don’t then you’re a pussy, and if you can’t hit him to let out the anger and heartbreak then you have to sit in it and think about it and feel it. so basically what makes steve so cool is that these traits of his fuel both his biggest mistakes and his biggest hero moments!!

what many people see as steve’s total 180 at the end of s1 is actually, in my view, very consistent with his character up until that point. he went to nancy’s house to apologize earlier in the season, and this time he does the same thing for jonathan, because he’s realized how shitty he was and he knows that he doesn’t want to be that guy. once he’s there, he’s worried about nancy (consistent with prior protective/concerned behavior), and of course he chooses to run back inside! he cared enough to look up jonathan’s address and go to his house at night just to apologize after jonathan beat the shit out of him just hours ago, which is pretty serious- as someone who clearly feels guilt pretty deeply and wants to make things right, someone confident in his athletic ability, someone who thinks he might love nancy wheeler... why the fuck would he not go back in the help them?

his development in s2-s3 is a lot more about, like, being better to himself than it is about being better to others like it was in s1. at the beginning of s2, he basically defines his future in relation to nancy and his father. after he gets his heart broken (and i’m not gonna go into why he and nancy were incompatible bc that’s a whole other post and this shit is already ungodly long) and loses his “king” reputation, dustin and the other kids give him something to believe in, fight for, and care about. something that has nothing to do with the prescribed outline for success (popularity, sports, marrying a nice girl, working in the family business) that steve’s been basing his whole life on. he still misses nancy by the end of the season, but he’s realized that their picture-perfect future was never gonna happen, and he’s content with her finding her true happiness even if it’s not with him. also when he takes dustin to the snow ball he’s super encouraging and when he notices that dustin is feeling insecure, he shuts that shit DOWN and reassures him that he looks amazing which is just... so precious...

as he finds people to care about and things that bring him real joy in life (basically the kids and robin), steve also grows more and more expressive throughout the show, dressing more stylishly/flamboyantly, allowing his hair to become more and more wild, and goofing around/laughing a lot more. he’s basically a fucking angel in s3 and he finally lets go of all the high school bullshit that he was allowing to define him! he’s still very loyal, still pays very close attention to the people around him and how they feel, but now this is less about protecting his reputation and more about being a good friend. much like how he reassured dustin in s2, he prioritizes robin’s comfort and happiness during the bathroom scene in s3. he still acts fast in a pinch and tries to do the right thing whenever possible, always taking responsibility for his mistakes, and even though he doesn’t have a vision for his future, he’s okay with living in the moment and enjoying his life even though he hasn’t attained traditional “success” of any sort. he still has all of the same core character traits as he did in s1, he’s just learned how to be kinder, less selfish, and less concerned with fitting into a certain mold.

so yeah uh this was a goddamn mess and i’m sorry and i hope it all makes sense!!! thank you again for asking lmao