#I CANT GET ENOUGH OF THESE SETS THANK YOU SIX SEEDS

[saintviscera]

ᴛᴀᴋᴇ ᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʜᴏᴜꜱᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴡᴏʀꜱʜɪᴘ

[ayankun]

Agents of SHIELD Season 1 Rewatch Update

Ok so I’m having a difficult time remembering what it was that made me hate this show so much (aside from the unforgivable Minecraft reference) and stop watching in Season 1.

Just got through ep 14 and holy cow, I’m honestly not sure whether the storylines for seasons 2, 3, and 4 were planned this far in advance, but if they were then these folks did such an overwhelmingly good job of keeping their eye on the ball.

Best I can figure, I’m having a good time on this attempt thanks to prequel-goggles.  I already know where this story is going, who these people will become and what’s going to make them into what they will be, and I can appreciate this older storyline in light of the circumstances it precedes -- rather than for what it is without that context. 

(It certainly helps that some of the dumber stuff is already starting to be replaced by the better stuff, like it’s ep 15 and the “night-night gun” was just replaced by the much more palatable “icer,” and they haven’t tried to call the individual dwarves by name for ages now)

Also there’s some pretty good cinematography, the graphics are really respectable, watching this found family slowly realize how much they love each other is sooo charming, and the affectations required of a MCU-spin-off-sci-fi-spy-show are really well balanced with the character drama which is its true heart.

I know ep 1x08 (”The Well”) is six and a half years old so maybe spoiler warnings are not necessarily required but here we go

Remember when Thor 2 came out and then this show had to earn its stripes as co-existing in the MCU so they had to address the fact that aliens ripped up London and the whole world knows about it?

Not being able to afford the likes of Chris Hemsworth was something they obviously had to work around, and plopping in that rando dweeby Asgardian as a twist was definitely one way to do it. 

But the real showstopper is that the through-line of the episode is the examination of the similarities and differences of Ward and May, especially once they both come in contact with the Asgardian rage-stick.

Seeing Ward nearly incapacitated by his traumatic childhood memories serves two important purposes.  First, it makes some good strides towards humanizing the man, who until now has been that hot-and-cocky kind of character that just expects to appeal to an audience but hasn’t yet earned any appeal whatsoever.  By now, we’ve had a reference to his toxic dynamic with his older/younger brothers, and seeing him reliving his experience with the well suddenly opens him up and gives some dimension to that tall-dark-handsome cardboard cutout.

Second, those experiences are a really good twist!!  When it’s revealed that he’s not remembering being tortured in a well by his brother, he’s remembering allowing his brother to torture his other brother down a well and not having the guts to do anything about it.  It’s a good one-two punch because you weren’t expecting to pity the guy, and now that you’ve spent twenty minutes pitying him for being victimized, you get to grapple with the much more complex emotion of the kid!Ward not knowing how to get out of this lose-lose situation and understanding that his current character must be in some way informed by this regret and guilt.

THIRD, after seeing Ward go through all this and barely hold it together, we get to see how May handles this level of relive-your-worst-trauma-and-incinerate-yourself-with-unbridled-rage when she has to pick up the rage-stick and .... instead of it leaving her on the ground like it’s just done to Ward, she somehow experiences 0.00000% change in personality or capability WhatSoEver.

She not only isn’t affected, she summons all the broken pieces of rage-stick and effortlessly wields the fully formed berzerker staff to defeat the rest of the baddies single-handed.  It says so much about her character, about the depths of the trauma that sent her to the place we met her in in the pilot.  We still don’t know what happened, but this her “my secret is I’m always angry” moment, and it’s a  level of anger has been repeatedly and thoroughly cataloged throughout the episode so far.

It also gives these fools something to bond over.  And while I’m seriously disinterested in their weird little Thing that didn’t go anywhere and didn’t really impact much, it was a nice way to avoid progress in the “Skye’s falling for her SO” storyline that I don’t care for either.

But Skye makes her move in this episode!  She and Ward dance around the possibility that maybe they’re into each other and they could possibly move from antagonistic strangers to folks who are a little into each other.  But he does the gentle thing and turns her down! (without closing the door entirely, I must add)  And then he wanders off on his own and ... May’s wandering off on her own ... and they share some micro expressions and then, seriously you guys this sequence is so tasteful and understated, just look:

Ward leaves Skye at the bar with a parting “I’m beat, another time, maybe,” and off her wistful look we cut directly to this chiaroscuro hallway.

Ward enters the frame, starts unlocking his hotel room. He's just another monochrome shape in this monochrome place.

But then there’s May entering the shot at the far end of the hallway, and her motion and his turning to look at her frames her monochrome shape in this nice little white triangle between him and her door.

And there’s a tasty little rack focus that pulls the instant she passes in front of the door, making sure our attention is on her and the little white label of her bottle that really pops in the sea of black.

By this point in time, we’ve been shown, graphically, intimately, a dark shadow in his past, and we’ve been shown the physical and emotional toll its taken on him (an insight provided by the magic alien macguffin, btw).  We haven’t been told anything, we experienced his experiences with him via the power of cinema.  Her specific trauma is still a mystery at this point, but we’ve been given enough information to understand and appreciate its effects on her character.  So not only can we sympathize with Ward now, we can sympathize with his empathy for May in this moment.  

She catches him looking.

I mentioned micro expressions and screenshots do not do these performances justice.  How does one catch in a single frame the millisecond that an eyebrow ticks in asking a silent question?

Typical for her, May’s answer is also communicated through body language.

From that canted, inviting look, we pan down as she unlocks her door and enters.  She passes through the frame and disappears inside, after giving us a reminder that her plans are to apply alcohol to her issues.  (Remember that Ward turned down Skye’s invitation at a bar of all places)

Oh, and what has our framing left us to contemplate?  Is that a bed I see in there?  (Remember that Ward turned down Skye’s invitation)  Let me point out that this shot of just the bed after May walks by is on screen by itself for maybe a fraction of a second.  Just a suggestion of a thing, really.

Ward contemplates.

I love returning to this shot because it’s literally the same set up, and my instant reaction is that it’s another insert, a POV shot, and I fully expect to return to the single shot on Ward to discover his decision the second he makes it.

INSTEAD.  Ward walks immediately into THIS FRAME, too, black-shape-on-white-shape in the same way May was introduced to this scene.  And we stay here as he closes the door behind him ...

Letting us know everything we need to know without a single word needing to be spoken.

Another fraction of a frame dwelling on that shot and then immediately fade to black.  Credits.  Show’s over, folks.

And not that there’s any particular meaning in it, but they were super careful to minimize what colors were allowed to appear in this sequence?  Like there’s a particular sort of green in that weird armchair, which sort of matches the green-glass of her bottle.  And there’s the red of the fire alarm fixtures which more or less matches the red of his, y’know, fresh facial wounds.  EVERYTHING else (other than, I guess, their skin tones) falls somewhere along the white-black spectrum.�� NICE.  BEAUTIFUL.  I LIKE IT A LOT.

And the Netflix synopsis for this episode is “In the aftermath of the events chronicled in the feature film Thor: the Dark World, Coulson and the S.H.I.E.L.D. team try to pick up the pieces.”  1) I’m realizing that they literally go around picking up pieces of the rage-stick and that’s hilarious but mostly I mean to say 2) this MCU-tie-in episode could have met the brief being as vapid and non-impactful as that blurb makes it sound.  But it took the opportunity to open up its characters for us to see their gooey insides, and hell they picked two of the best characters to dig into for this one, considering Ward’s tragic backstory plays as both a misdirect and actual inciting incident for his betrayal of SHIELD, and May’s tragic backstory feeds a couple of B-plots this season as well as being the major catalyst for a lot what happens in season FOUR.  SEASON FOUR, PEOPLE.  THE SEEDS ARE WAY BACK HERE IN SEASON ONE.

REMEMBER HOW THESE CHARACTERS WERE INTRODUCED THOUGH??  I DO, I JUST WATCHED THE PILOT LIKE YESTERDAY.  WE MEET WARD FULLY ENSCONCED IN HIS GUISE OF SHIELD BADASS SUPERSTAR; HE IS LITERALLY ASKED TO EXPLAIN WHAT SHIELD MEANS TO HIM, AND WE GET TO HEAR THE FIRST OF HIS MANY LIES.  WE MEET MAY IN HER OWN PERSONALLY-DESIGNED WHITE-COLLAR HELL, TURNING COULSON’S OFFER DOWN THE SECOND SHE HEARS HIS VOICE BECAUSE SHE’D RATHER STAPLE DOCUMENTS FOR ETERNITY THAN BE OUT IN THE FIELD WHERE SHE CAN MAKE ANOTHER MISTAKE LIKE THE ONE SHE CAN’T FORGIVE HERSELF FOR.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  This show knows how to weave a character-driven story, and it’s done it for six seasons straight, juggling constantly evolving -- grounded, nuanced, impactful -- character arcs with the external factors (Thor: The Dark World, for one) that force certain narrative decisions.

(until they decide to ignore those factors altogether, lol, I’m looking at you, season 5, you wacky maverick you)

[pasteljeon]

The Clarity of Love (m)

Summary: He loves the games you play.

Pairing: Jungkook/Reader

Warnings: sub!jungkook, dom!reader, cockwarming, overstimulation, teasing, edgeplay, impregnation kink, dirty talk, masturbation (male), noona kink, subspace, minor assplay (buttplug)

Length: 1.5k

Notes: sorry this is just filth and i released it early bc i got excited. it’s supposed to be a short drabble before the next chapter of nymphet is released. looks like i can’t stick to the deadlines i set for myself but i hope you guys enjoy regardless!!

.

.

.

He sits with his legs spread out casually on the couch, clad in a pair of loose grey sweatpants, drawstrings untied, and a thin matching Puma sweater. His eyebrows are furrowed in concentration, lips pursed and long fingers dancing over the controller with ease as he fights to dethrone Jin in Mario Kart for the fifth time this week.

God, he looks good enough to eat. His manspreading makes you want to fuck him stupid. You want to devour him. “Babe, what are you—” he struggles to peer over your shoulder as you block his view of the widescreen TV momentarily, leaning over him as you hitch a leg over his thigh. You settle on his lap with a happy sigh.

He barely bats an eyelash, too focused on the game to notice the way you’re slipping a hand under the cotton material of his shirt. Your palm is cool against his skin, and Jungkook sucks in a breath when your nails rake down his abs to tug at the band of his sweats.

His muscles tense beneath you, and you smile when you feel his soft cock begin to swell. “Always so responsive baby,” you murmur, nosing along the column of his neck. Jungkook tilts his head back, throat bobbing as he swallows. Still, his eyes remain trained on the screen, though his attention is visibly impaired given the way his pupils are blown out and hazy. Your hips roll against him slowly, catching the slit of his length.

Jungkook chokes on a stifled gasp as the console jerks in his clutch. “N-noona—”

“Go on, Kookie. Play the game,” you whisper, pressing a kiss against the mole on his upper jaw. His eyes widen when he feels you pulling down his sweats, darting to you as he silently pleads you not to tease him. He knows the game you play, knows he’ll lose horribly, yet he can’t seem to find it in him to resist, not with how much he loves when you ruin him.

You admire his length as you free it from its confines. His cock is long and thick, curved at just the right angle, leaking with precum and twitching against your delicate touch and the cold air its exposed to. A moan escapes his mouth as he shuts his eyes briefly, struggling to stay still, your fingers pressing down on his hipbone firmly as you sink down.

The stretch burns slightly and you adjust leisurely, smiling at the way Jungkook lurches forward with every movement. “Don’t drop the controller, baby,” you sing, and his hands automatically tighten over the plastic.

You hum, seemingly unbothered as you reach to the side and prop open the book you were pouring over earlier, flipping through the pages with ease. He grits his teeth, the heat of your walls, the feel of your body pressed against him, the sweet scent of your shampoo wraps his head in fuzzy cotton.

It closes in on him until he can’t breathe. With every inhale, he loses a bit of his sanity. He squirms beneath you, lips parting as he pants, eyes half-lidded and knuckles white. He isn’t even sure if his fingers are still moving. He can’t even see where Jin’s character has disappeared off to. Fuck, even after all this time, he’s still weak as the first day you took him against the wall.

He drops the controller.

Jungkook tosses his head back, letting out a whimper as he gasps your name. “P-please. Y-you know I c-can’t take it!” You clench around him, cradling his cheeks as you bury your fingers in his thick, ebony-coloured locks. Tugging on them lightly, he moans, cock throbbing.

“My little pain slut,” you coo. He makes a soft noise of agreement, eyes rolling back as you rock against him gently. “Tell me what you want, baby.”

“W-want you,” he pants, sweat beading at his temple as you ride him lazily. “A-ah, w-want you to f-fuck me, please noona! I’ll be a good boy,” he cries out when you pinch his nipple in warning, twisting harshly.

“Yeah?” You lift yourself off him abruptly. The loss of your warmth had Jungkook whining in protest, reaching for you blindly. You tilt your head, eyes innocent as you say, “I want to see you touch yourself. Get yourself off for me, baby. Then we’ll see about fucking you.”

The veins in his neck strain, and you suckle at his pulse point as Jungkook squeezes himself, hand coated in your combined juices. He quickens, flicking his wrist as he nears the edge, he can taste his relief already—

“Stop.” Jungkook sobs, unwilling to stop but ever so weak against that that lilting voice of yours, sweet yet edged with something a little darker, a little danger, something that says you wouldn’t hesitate to punish him if he so much as tries to resist.

“Again.” His orgasm has long since faded, and he shakily reaches for his cock.

You leave him teetering at the edge six times before you’re satisfied and he’s openly crying, lashes wet and cheeks stained. His lower lip is swollen from his constant worrying, and you roll the tender flesh between your teeth as you sit down on him once more.

His moans are staccato, breaths stuttering as his chest heaves. “Kookie,” you say. You sound so distant, his mind muddled with nerves frayed with pleasure. It rolls down his spine and lingers in his stomach, electrifying his blood. “Kookie,” you repeat. “I want you to come inside me.”

His hands come up to rest on the swell of your hips, and the hope that blooms in his darkened mocha orbs has you smiling down at him. You run your fingers through his damp hair and nod. “I want this. Want you to fill me up, want you to pump my stomach full of your seed.”

“Y-you want to have my kids?” Jungkook whispers hoarsely. His cock pulses at the thought of knocking you up, stomach round with his children.

“I do,” you say, and he dips his head to crush his mouth over yours, the kiss messy and more teeth and saliva than lips. “But you’re going to have to wait until I come first. Do you understand?”

Jungkook nods frantically, eyes wild as you slam into him. He keens instantly. “N-noona, I can’t! Fuck, I c-can’t hold it!” The edging takes its toll, his nerves alight with a scorching kind of pleasure. His cock seems to swell, and you let out a moan at the way his cock splits you apart.

“You can and you will,” you warn, but he’s too far into his lust-driven haze to register your words. He grips your arms and pushes you flat onto the couch, actively thrusting into you without rhythm, his hips a blur as he fucks you. “N-noona!” He explodes, warmth coating your insides as he moans, tears of relief streaming down his cheeks. You follow soon after, and he jolts at the feeling of your walls pressing into him as he comes down from his high.

“Kookie.”

Jungkook jerks, head shooting up as he tries, voice wobbling, “K-Kookie’s sorry, h-he d-didn’t mean—it f-felt s-so good,” he babbles, dread creeping into his veins as you prop yourself up, the familiar glint in your eye means you want—

“Again.” He wails, body shuddering as he cums in feeble ropes, thighs slick and stained with his release. The vibrations drill into his prostate, his cock alarmingly red and still somehow managing to remain half-hard despite you coaxing three more orgasms from him.

He collapses, muscles aching as tired moans leak from his lips. He floats in and out of consciousness, thoroughly worn. You gently tug the buttplug from his abused hole, Jungkook fidgeting slightly. Setting it aside, you fetch a wet towel and run it over his skin tenderly. You press a cup to his lips and he reluctantly opens his mouth, drinking greedily. His eyes stay closed, murmuring a croaky thank you, noona and you kiss his temple, heart swelling at his adorableness.

“Now sleep baby. I’ll wake you when dinner’s ready.” You tuck a blanket over his neck, but he catches your wrist before you can leave.

“I love you,” he says sleepily, smiling lopsidedly, brown eyes soft and warm as they peer up at you.

You feel yourself die. “I love you too, Jungkook.” And he knows. He knows just how much you do when he sees the way your lips tremble and eyes glaze over. He knows because he loves you just as much.

He’s yours, just as much as you are his.

[voidselfshipp]

Puppet Show au

《◇》

Leonard's little neighborhood in Sydenham is pretty calm today.

He plays with the keys in his hand, twirling them aroun on his finger, as he exists his home,walking his mind dwells into memories that arent relevant in this exact moment, good moments with his sister, little stupid stories , time spent with Friends and family.

Suddenly an eldery woman stops him, her beautiful face, with traces of the years that went by contorns into a small smile,he knows her,its ms.Pietro from a couple of houses away.

-Hello dear, are you in a rush?-

"Not really"leonard thinks and shakes his head.

-Could you take care of my grandkid, Jerico this thursday?, Im going to the hospital that day for some check ups and to pay some bills, and you know that the Banks are usually filled with lot of people-

-Sure ms.Pietro, do you need anything more?-leo asks, he was always a bit reserved,maybe quiet, but with a heart of gold.

The woman shakes her head.

-Im heading to see your mother, is she around?-

-Im afraid not, but she Will be soon enough , ill see you on thursday ms.pietro -

They exchange goodbyes as the englishman checks the supermaket list his mom left him before heading to work.

His steps are short and slow.

" ms.pietro's grandkid, jerico,...wait arent they the kid thats always on the swing on the local park?...Wait yeah!,they are" jerico was just like him, quiet, softspoken, humble and kind,but Something tells him that under all that kindness there is an iron Will" then it should be easy" he thinks.

Eventually thursday rolls around and now Leonard sits on the couch in ms.pietro's house, he is playing chess with jerico, the kid is Smart and playful,they always have a smug grin on their face.

He also finds them hilarious, they bring him something that he feels rarely.

Peace, and happiness.

Even tho they are temporary, the kid knows how to make people smile.

Wish he had Friends like that.

At around ten pm, miss pietro comes back with the kid's mother, Kina, he says goodbye and heads home,he still has to finish some Papers for the writing contest.

Contest that he couldnt attend because the goverment picked him as a sniper.

He had to go.

But before he enters the car that Will lead him to his New home, jerico arrived, with a plushie in the form of a cute chibi plaguedoctor.

-Mr Leonard!,before you go-jeri says out of breath, did...did they ran to get here?-their name is void!, they helped me trough rough times , And I think its time for them to help you too, if you have any problems just talkto them!, they Will answer-

Leo softly grabs the plushie and his eyes water, thats the cutest thing anybody had done for him, he hugs the kid.

-Stay safe,alright kid?-

-I will-

He nodds and enters the car.

-Farewell Leo!- he hears them say.

《◇》

Its been a couple of years after he left, now Leonard works as a mercenary, he often ponders about that kid, what are they up to?, hows their life going?.

He also still has the plushie they gave him,To this day, he diminished the comment about the plushie being able to talk as just imagination,even tho late at night,after a long day of work and complaining in his room he could hear the faint murmurs of words of reassurance coming from the Shelf where he left void on.

Its a cold winter morning in london, he walks the snowy sidewalk and enters his usual coffee shopp " Beans,bindweed And sunflower seeds", the ambient there is cozy,the strong but gentle smell of coffee makes his grumpy face a bit happier, the corners of his mouth lift up with a slight smile.

He orders and waits, his eyes catch a glance of a woman,black leather jacket,a little plaguedoctor painted ,and around the sleeves various patches and pins,some crows,sunflowers, dragons.

He mindlessly walks to his spot, and bumps into someone, its that same Lady from two second ago,luckily nothing is spilled.

-Oh my god im really sorry-the woman says, fixing her hair with an embarassed look.

-Its okay , dont worry-his tone is relaxed, with a hint of shyness.

But now that hes up close,there is something really familiar about her.

-Im sorry for the out of the blue question but, have we met before?,you look a lot like a kid I babysitted Back in Sydenham...-

The woman tries to solve the puzzle in her head,and then it clicks.

-No way, Leonard is that you?-

-Holy shit, yeah its me, hell, how much youve grown little jerico-

They talk and sit besides the Window.

-Man, youve grown into a beautiful woman-Leo says.

-Well, not quite woman,see I uh, im genderfluid, long story short I change my pronouns every now and the,its him today tho..-

Leonard quickly recomposes.

-Youve grown into a handsome Man -

Jerico smiles and his eyes spark.

They talk and chatter most of the morning, until the englishman is called to work.

-Tomorrow, same spot, six am then?-jeri asks.

-Yeah sure, ill also bring the little doll you gave me when I left-

-Holy shit, you still got that?-

-I wouldnt throw it away for nothing in the world-

Jerico Coos.

-Thats really cute-he says.

-they are well kept,washed and it still smells like vanilla-

-Thats adorable Leo, thanks for taking care of void that way-

-No need-Leo checks the time...fuck hes going to be late.

Jerico senses the distress and quickly grabs his motorcycle helmet .

-Need a ride?-

-Fuck yes, im going to be bloody late!-

Both speed to the little bridge that separates mercserv from the rest of london.

-here take my cellphone and call me if anything comes up, okay?- Leo says quickly scribbling his number in a spare pice of paper-Thanks for the ride-

-Dont mention it, now go-

Leonard nodds and runs trough the bridge.

Jeri turns the motorcycle around and drives yo his home.

《◇》

Jerico's face hit the pillow, its been a long and wonderful day, he looks over to the ceiling and grabs his phone.

《》

Leo☕

-Hey, wanna come over to my place and stay for dinner?

《》

It takes less than five minutes for Leo to answer.

' sure,im on my way'

Jeri quickly tidys up the place and just when he is done , Leonard rings the doorbell.

-Good evening jeri-he says entering the house with something behind his back.

-Hey Leo..., what do you have there?..-

-Oh nothing-the englishman says-just a little something very important to me- he shows him the little plushie.

-oh god , you actually brought it!,god I havent seen void in ages!-The other Man grabs the plaguedoctor plush and smiles,he hugs Leonard and smiles-Thank you Leo!-

-dont mention it-

They order food and set the table.

Suddenly a song comes in.

I met this girl and she drove me wild.

She looked at me and I looked and smile.

The cutest girl you could ever see.

I never thought she'd go out with me.

-Im in love! I just cant wait because tooonight I have a daate!-leonard chimes in and starts to sing.

Jerico smiles and looks at him ,he does have a good voice, and he is in synch with the song too,he swears he can see void dancing besides the fruit basket.

Both of them start to goof around and suddenly Leo has his back against the counter, jeri hovers above him and they are really close, the woman's hands are on either side of the counter, trapping the englishman's torso around them.

I never dream it would come to this.

She leans over and the Man closes the gap between them.

I drove her home and she gave me a kiss.

Im in love and its safe to say, she really wants to see me again.

They eventually pull apart and smile, the womans head snuggles into Leo's chest, he hugs her and chuckles.

The old feelings are coming back.

Peace and happiness.

Im in love,I just cant wait, because tonight I have a date.

I have a date!

Im in love, I just cant wait,becuase tonight I have a date.

The song finishes and the doorbell rings.

-Perfect timing!-

They kiss one more time and jerico goes and pays for the food.

Late at night both lay on the bed , the woman is atop of him,face resting on his chest.

-Im so in love with you -Leo mutters, half asleep.

-Me too...-jerico mumbles as they exchange one last loving look before falling asleep.

In between their hands, its the little plushie, who squeals when they see them cuddling.

'Mission accomplished!' Void thinks.

《◇》

-The end.

[teenwolimagines]

Part One

The next twenty minutes of lunch was spent awkwardly setting things up.

Such as when to announce the engagement publicly, back story and living arrangements.

You woukd announce the engagement in six months, you two met in a crowded restaurant, and you would be staying with Jordan in his condo.

Everything seemed taken care of.

‘Wait.’ your mother said.

'Yes?’ Karen asked.

‘Well it seems to me you and your family is getting a lot out of this arrangement, but what exactly does my family get.

‘Mom.’ you groaned.

Could she sound more like she was selling you.

‘Oh of course, anything we can do.’ Dave said.

‘We don’t need much.’ your dad said before mom could open her mouth.

‘I just want my parents to be comfortable, they are behind on a few bills. I’m not asking you to put them in a mansion, just loan us enough to keep the house. 

‘No sweetie you don’t have to pay us back.’ Karen soothed.

‘But I will, I’m not going to take your money.’ you replied seriously

The Parrish family all seemed taken aback by this, but you held your ground, you weren’t a beggar. You wouldn’t take advantage of this nice family just because they were rich.

‘If you insist Darling, we’ll give you an interest free loan of a hundred thousand dollars for all your bills and whatever else you need.’ Dave agreed.

You and your parents sigh, a huge burden had been lifted from your shoulders.

‘Well, now that everything is officially taken care of, I think we should give these two alone for a while.’ Karen smiled as she stood.

Her husband and your parents followed suit, you watched with mild panic as they gathered their items.

Before walking away from the table your mother bent down to whisper in your ear.

‘Do not mess this up for us.’ she hissed before walking away.

You sigh as you turn back to Jordan who looks absolutely lost as to what he was supposed to do now that the parents were gone.

‘So, hello Jordan Parrish, I’m (Y/N) (Y/L/N), your fiance.’ you smiled, politely holding out your hand.

He smiled, letting out a nervous breath.

‘Hi, I’m Jordan Parrish, your husband to be, you can call me Parrish. Only my mother uses my first name.’ he introduced.

‘Parrish it is then.’ you smiled.

You looked down at the six empty plates on the table then down at the big lemon colored dress.

‘I’m sorry Parrish, but would like to get out of here? I cant stand being in this damn dress a second longer.’ you said honestly.

Parrish chuckled as he placed a few hundred dollar bills on the table and stood up.

You quickly followed him out of the restaurant, hiking up the dress to keep from tripping over it.

‘My car is parked right here, I have a change of clothes in the backseat, it will only take a few minutes.’ you said as you pulled your keys from your bra.

Parrish gave you a strange look as you unlocked your car.

‘I’m only carrying two things, a phone and a set of keys, why would I need a purse.’ you joked as you got in the back seat.

You tore yourself from the cursed dress, eager to get on your black tank top, tight ripped jeans, and combat boots.

As you put on the top you look up and catch Parrish watching you through the rear view mirror. 

You smiled as you winked at him, laughing when he blushed and turned away.

After you finished tying your boots you got out of the car a smug look on your face.

‘I should call you Tom, you peeper.’ you teased while opening your trunk.

‘I-I uh I’m so sorry I hadn’t meant to.’ Parrish awkwardly apologized.

‘It’s alright, we’ll be married soon. Can’t blame you for wanting to see what you were spending your life with.’ you said as you pulled your your red plaid over shirt and tied it around your waist.

‘Just know one day I might want a peep show as well.’ you grinned.

Parrish’s blush darkened as you wiggled your eyebrows.

‘You’re really are a little tomato aren’t you Parrish, come on.’ you said as you took his hand, pulling him along.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

‘A date, I want to get to know my fiance.’ you answer.

‘What will we be doing on this date?’ Parrish asked.

‘Walking, talking, telling jokes, embarrassing secrets, blushing, sneaking glances. Having our own little montage.’ you replied.

‘Montage?’

‘Montage.’ you nodded.

‘So why don’t people use your first name?’ you asked.

‘In school I knew more than ten other Jordans, and that was just in my grade, and four of them were in my class. At first they tried calling me JP, but the Jordan Pride transferred, so then I was Jay, but the two other guys named Jay didn’t like that. Finally I just by my last name. Parrish.’ he answered.

‘So complex.’ you commented, tangling you fingers with his.

‘What about you? Any nick names?’ Parrish asked.

‘A few, but only two that ever get used, both a bit embarrassing.’ you answered.

‘Well, let me hear them.’

‘The first one is... Baby I Love You.’ you mumbled.

‘What?’ Parrish laughed.

‘Shut up, they literally called me Baby I Love You, because apparently when I was learning how to talk I watched a shit ton of Barney so for a while I only knew how to say I love you. Said it anytime I heard my name.’ you confessed.

‘Aw that is adorable.’ Parrish cooed.

‘Its embarrassing.’ you whined.

‘What’s the other?’ Parrish asked.

‘This one I have no clue where it came from or who even started it, but its FooFoo. Over the years its been altered every which way, Foofy, Foofidalia, Foofs.’ you rambled.

‘Very unique. Alright, What do you do for a living?’ Parrish asked as you two rounded the corner.

‘I’m a vet’s assistant at the moment, but while I love animals, my passion is writing. What about you?’ you returned.

‘I’m the CFO of the Hell Hound Law Firm, and despite my father Owning the company I did earn my position.’ Parrish stated.

‘Oh I yeah I read that you started off working as an intern.’ you said.

‘Yeah, while I was still getting my law degree I took the internship for some extra money since my parents were only paying for tuition, Dad said it would build character and respect for the company.’

‘Did you always want to run the law firm?’ you asked him as you waited for the cross signal.

‘Well, when I was seven I wanted to be a squirrel I think, but when I was eight my parents too me to work with them. Back then it was just this five story building were renting, but they showed it to me with so much pride and so much hope. They told me they were building it all for me, even then I think I understood that they had put everything into that company for me. For me and my kids and all their kids after that, for the family.’ Parrish answered absentmindedly.

‘Wow.’ you said in awe as you both crossed the street, entering the local park.

‘Your parents are really great, to build a multi million dollar law firm from the ground up for you.’ you said.

‘What about your parents, how are they?’ Parrish asked as you both walked in the shade.

‘Well, my parents didn’t build a company or anything, but I doubt there s a bigger cheerleader than my dad. At my high school graduation he printed a huge cut out of my face and screamed “THAT’S MY SEED RIGHT THERE, LOOK AT HER BLOOMING BITCHES!” when I walked.’ you laughed.

‘He did not.’ Parrish doubted.

‘I swear, he almost got kicked out.’ you swore.

‘What about your mom?’

You let out a long sigh.

‘I’m sure she loves me, in her own way, but me and her have never been that close. I think she blames me for a lot of things.’ you answered.

‘Like what?’

‘She got pregnant in high school, dropped out. When she would have a bit too much wine she would tell me all the dreams she had of becoming an actress. She would try to put me in beauty pageants, but Dad never let her thank God. When I told her I was going to be an English major she almost popped a vein.’ you said sadly.

‘I’m sorry.’ Parrish apologized.

‘Its OK, I love my Mom and like I said I know she loves me too.’ you replied.

‘Well what’s an embarrassing secret that no one knows?’ you asked, getting away from the serious buzz kill of a topic.

‘I wont say a word.’ he said defiantly, crossing his.

‘Come on, eventually I’ll find out, why not tell me now?’

‘If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone.’ he said seriously.

‘When I was twelve, I took a girl I liked to the movies and she asked to see my...you know.’ Parrish whispered.

‘No, in the movie theater?’ you gasped, hand over your mouth.

‘Yes, so at first I’m like, not a chance, but she convinces me so I do it anyway, so I pull it out. So she’s looking at it for like a minute, then she pokes it, one finger. Looks at her hand, runs out of the theater.’ Parrish tells.

‘Hang on, I feel like we need to sit down for the rest of this story.’ you said as you pull him to sit on a bench under a tree.

‘So you’re sitting there literally with your dick out, then what?’ you asked.

‘Well I put it back and go try to find her, I see her come out the restroom wiping her hands, so I’m like why did you leave? She said I had to wash my hands, I touched your penis.’ he continued, moving closer to you.

‘Was it dirty?’ 

‘Absolutely not!’ Parrish said defensively.

You rose your hands in mock surrender.

‘So go home, I tell my friends t just didn’t go well, we met at a party a few months back. She and her wife are very happy together.’ Parrish finished.

Before you could stop it a small chuckle escaped your lips, you bit back the rest of your laugh when you Parrish glared at you.

‘I’m sorry, it’s just aha ha, yours is so much worse than mine.’

‘Well what’s your secret?’ Parrish pouted.

‘I slept with girl my ex cheated on me with.’ you shrugged.

‘You-you what?’ Parrish stuttered, eyes wide.

‘I wasn’t into her or anything, and at that point I was over him, but you know it was back when YOLO was a thing. After I did it I just ever told anyone, felt kinda bad for it.’ you sighed as you leaned into him.

‘So I seem to have a thing for girls who do things with girls.’ Parrish joked.

‘It seems so.’ you smiled as you looked up at him.

‘You are an odd little thing aren’t you?’ he asked as he leaned closer to you.

‘You have six months to find out.’ you whispered before you pulled him into a slow kiss.

As you two shared your shared your first kiss you didn’t see the guy watching you from the other side of the park, or the hate is eyes.

[theextraspoon]

As the second week of 2020 is coming to an end, its become very apparent that Illinois has no idea what it's doing when it comes to marijuana legalization, most likely because Illinois dispensaries don't care much about green they care more about just the money. Is patients over profits truly done better in the CBD industry than that of total legalization or is it just Illinois, as usual, dropping the ball on its civilians? Let's find out five major blunders having us asking, what the **** are they doing with all the money we've been giving them in medical taxes for the past 10 years gone to?

If you're at all familiar with Natural Healthy CBD you'll be familiar with the many helpful things they do for their local, national, and even international communities. From secret shopper missions, dispensary tours, data audits, disability advocacy and education, we don't shy away from a challenge. It's often hard to walk the line during this time of legalization because half of people will always think you're a rat, the other half won't quite know what the catch, if there is a catch. We feel our moral compass to guide us to the sick and the people who need a fair fight but aren't given even playing fields but still stand up to with a scream and try.

No one is on your side, my side, anyone's side because there are no sides. There are sick people and not sick people. We try to understand every side and have learned a lot over the years. We've always been patients, but we're not victims. We're a business but we're not greedy. We're in medicine, kinda, but not diagnosing and we're not paid a kickback every time we prescribe this over that. We're disabled with jobs. We love animals but not like that. We have service dogs that are still learning during laws and medical change, hell, world change. So when people decide they can't play nicely with one another it makes it hard for us to know who's in the right and who has more than enough playing field. That's why it's hard to step between business and patient when the government just give us these toys, and you broke them. You broke them Illinois. This is why we cant' have nice things, er laws, in illinois.

1. No One's checking These People

Illinois, specifically Chicago, is the criminal capital, illegal gun capital, drug capital, crime capital of the world.

I'm sure from out of state it sounds like the law is easy here to get away from, that's not it either. We have, or had in marijuana for as long as I'm willing to tell you I've been in the industry, self regulated crime. I know that's not a good start but just listen for a moment and understand the we're nearing the end of prohibition. The end. Have you met someone that hasn't tried marijuana? Not very many. Self regulation. We all did our own little thing in our own little areas and we share what we can and mellow out, man.

That's why I can tell you other than collecting the money and stamping the licenses there's no one checking these places. They heard we're pretty gangster over there in California and Colorado, so who's going to tell on the weed man? We will. Most of us with medical licenses were treated like druggies with a fix and still are in many instances. Just to give all that away would be against the point, no?

The first day marijuana was legalized, there were lines around the block, venders with felonies, and the weed magically grew, was cut, dried, packaged, and delivered overnight because there was a lot of it. A lot of it is now gone again, even with those legal limits.Unless you're a patient, then what weed? Ha ha, there was never any weed!

2. Laws for thee! I have money!

These dispensaries aren't used to patients fighting back, not in Illinois it seems. That or they must think all of us are fat, lazy, stupid people that can't work because even though I hold a position of CEO even the lowest level bud tenders have shown me disrespect, as a paying customer AND patient. They make sure that you know about the lines they have to cross to provide... for you. Aww!

Thing is, every time we've seen cresco or revolution buy a place the service AND product goes INSTANTLY downhill. Every time and I've witnessed them buy out 3 now. Maybe they should spend more money on their seeds or something. We know they can because they don't spend it on background checks. We'd say this was a law thing, but it's not. You still can't work in a dispensary having just walked out of prison but wouldn't you know it.

Now, all of you know that I come off a little harsh, especially when pushed into a corner by people who do it to intimidate me. Maybe it's because I work and industry from a city littered with criminals that have learned intimidation or maybe my relationship with my dad I don't know. What I do know is when online want to be celebs attempt to gaslight and stalk me, I gaslight and stalk back. Call it a defense mechanism, or maybe horrible trait but need when it comes to getting into the mind of real scumbags like the kind that buy no-tested product to sell as product from another place or those selling stuff illegally made because they didn't know there was more than one kind of oil or when they join a dispensary to set it up for a robbery, or when people start dying from bad vape carts and mold maybe the powers that control that kinda thing will take care of it.

Now, I'm not a journalist and I don't share identities, I just think they should invest in background checks in 2020 if they don't want to invest in lawsuits. Looking at you Mindful. Earthmed... you're next.

3. Lawsuits

Lawsuits! There's already three of them! Ones even a class action!

Now, I've been in the industry a while and while I really, honestly tried to knock some sense into these people having worked with their parent companies for years now, or the industry, or patient advocacy and medical, or service dog law or literally any of the many hats I fill my time with (...thanks to CBD) or I've warned dispensaries I have to go to of what I do, they'll still do whatever they want because you don't have money. You're sick and you're a cripple, okay? You don't have real people money. At least it might as well sound that way with the way they've stacked up on the lawsuits. In fact, people started reporting to me thinking I knew to go about obtaining one.

Now, it wouldn't be fair transparency if we didn't mention one of them to be ours. Sadly, that's all I really can say because a lot of people have been coming forward and I think I'm going to stay quiet for a little bit. However, our friend Service Dog Paws doesn't have to stay quiet about the screencaps that were posted by Service Dog Headquarters posted from Mindful Dispensary to our Service Dog Training Log for Gotham and that is just the start of the bullshit I've gone through since people found out I was successful in CBD distribution and in fact, we've been informed they've been threatening our friends, but again... I'd like to stay quiet for a moment while I collect more information.

Gee thanks, Dom!

Say, did I also mention how I work in media and know about the websites being used by these kinds of people? I didn't?! We'll you see, the owner of these sites has been having people harass me for months but because we're unsure if he still works for or owns one of the dispensaries under investigation we'll say that pretending to be people isn't nice and threatening that people better never come to Chicago, when they aren't afraid of you and live here, also not a good idea.

4. Harboring Medicine from Patients

I know the look of a dispensary about to sell out. Everything goes away and becomes one brand for a little bit. That's how it happened with 3C and now Aurora with Mindful, IL in Addison and even our current site of investigation, EarthMED. We knew about the limit they've placed on their customers claiming it to be the cultivators who I've spoken to, all of them, there's no shortage. In fact, the only place with that two concentrate cap... is EarthMED.

That's why I find it so weird that they have products from October since our shortage started in Novemeber. Could it be to sell to recreational people at a higher price or maybe its because they're selling it illegally? I'll get back to you. I'm literally STILL taking in complaints.

Check out the public post about it. This is me, because I don't want you to threaten and intimidate sick people anymore courtesy of your family owned dispensary.

View this post on Instagram

"We're out of weed for medical patients," they said. "Only two medical products, *they said. "We're almost out, totally low on product," they said. How are #recreational #customers that pay 33% more getting this Today if you've been out of stock or low in stock for #illinoismedicalcannabis #patients since December? @earthmed (this is not my picture but I don't want to tag who's it is because I don't want to dox them or get them penalized for reporting to @vigilantecannabis)

A post shared by Kimber Kush CBD (@thekimberkush) on Jan 7, 2020 at 9:32pm PST

It's not the cultivators, but we feel like it's odd how long the owners of EarthMED have been harboring medicine, most likely to sell to recreational patients, who spend on average $33 more than medical patients.

We'll be sure to keep you up to date on legal dispensaries, behaving well for the right reasons and doing the right thing with real labs and honest people and you concentrate on getting better. We can't fix all these problems ourselves. For now if you've been intimidated by remember how their intimidation of people not only is just words, and it's done happening.

5. Shane Gentry and Vincent Nicotra

Vincent Nicotra is a problem. 

Grab your tinfoil hats for a moment with me because this one's a doozy. Over the past six months I've been on an audit to a case I detailed for the FTC regarding Google's wrongful ban of legal hemp ads. Much like the Hemp Industry Association did with their Timesquares ad to catch the attention of Facebook admins, it's much hard to grab their attention if their email and social media is guarded by their new hire, untrained pet dog owner, Vincent Nicotra. 

It's bad enough he threatened and harassed me, but he used my own family. He got into my friends list, made fake

profiles, fake companies, fake profiles, all to set others up with friend, Angel "Janis." It wouldn't be a problem if I wasn't forced to listen to twitch, discord voice chats, youtube videos and livestreams. Furthermore, because he'd studied me and my friends list, I was forced to listen to them mock me with personalized insults about my weight, my seizures, being raped, having my children taken, past abuse, a trusted flagger admit to gaslighting and stalking, a dispensary worker admitting to finding and running someone's debit card without their permission, doxxing paypal users, harassing porn stars and how they were going to frame people for it. 

I've seen people other than me suffer far worse. I've overheard it as a hunt for mental illness which, check. Others claim a legion, a group of people set to out people for making false allegations... unless the allegation of the allegation is false. I actually went to someone in this legion, someone I once held a lot of respect for. I sent him pictures of being threatened of being doxed and projecting... a lot. See Vincent likes to use the same couple insults like Lazy and if you show people he'll claim libel or slander. While Shane Gentry aka Spaceboy was playing character Norm, someone who suffers from a seizure disorder, Vincent was also playing in my information. Vincent got a job at a dispensary, my dispensary, Mindful dispensary where he continued to dig through my personal friends and attempt to sell them PLANTBASED or oneplant cbd, CBD products that never passed inspection and we do not sell due to failed labs in some weird MLM type of deal that I'm getting accused of but should ask Shane about. 

So, Vincent was feeding all my information back to a bunch of strangers on the internet to use against me for god knows what but I wasn't alone. If you've applied for a business license in hemp or cannabis, or you've ever purchased it, he's got you too. 

This man attempted to ruin careers like Petty Paige and Nick Schneider, in fact pitting us all against each other. He mass flags, scams, and lies then accuses others for it. I've been told that they'll use CBD Piggy to get in, whatever that means and not only told I've cost someone money and will never work in the industry again by Tommy C, but they threatened others as well in an effort to control the creative space. They're even threatening me using the name of my own father because they're to pathetic to use their own, but that is something for another time. I'm not sure what that has to do with medical or moral benefit. I've witnessed people become suicidal, relapse, I've lost friends, was mocked for my federal service dog rights, I was banned from my dispensary for having a service animal, threatened by to shut the fuck up, kept up countless nights, had my ex abuser contacted and then stalked by a legion I didn't know existed of people I respected. When I went to protect them and tell them what was happening, I was asked for proof of where some other dude asked to touch me 2 years ago because they don't associate with false allegations, of which there are none, because people who don't expect to accuse people of thing don't have every time they've rejected sex on video. This is worth two years of stalking from someone you sponsored. This sort of feels like you're going after sexual assault victims or women who speak up to force them to change their story. Classy.

That said, it concerns me that this lunatic has total access to the biotrak system with everyone's private information of which they're using to find, neigh set up pedophiles, for Chris Hansen.

I know, that's the crazy part. This man who mocked everything from my seizures to getting "throat fucked" is in charge of children that are victim of sexual predators. This man, has all your personal information and has been threatening and doxing celebrities and youtubers for god knows how long, the guy mocking and harassing sexual assault is in charge of the child victims on Hansen vs Predator. 

Don't take my word for it, I'm just going to let trusted creators of the Youtube space and the city of Chicago explain it to you.

Not to mention he dug through my friends, their friends, your friends, we're friends at this point. We all said and did some stupid stuff in the name of protecting ourselves and for that, I take responsibility and am truly sorry for my part. I'm very protective of my business and the partnerships, I've made and this guy has come between that, I have half a mind to wonder if there's anything else illegal being done at Mindful since Vincent works there and they hire felons. I'll keep you updated on that, and the current investigation and dispensary secret shop mission, now that I know Vincent won't manipulate it. I leave you with this video by Baked Salmon once again about this criminal working for Mindful and Chris Hansen because it was his channel that first was wrongfully flagged and taken down during the audit. I'm sorry it took me so long to see what was going on.

Please support each other and if you stream, don't be an asshole. Maybe you're not getting sponsors because you think it's funny to talk about their rape and throatfucking them and how abusive that must be for them mentally because you don't know who really is listening on that audit. 

If I can say one last thing out of court, I hope Nick and Paige wipe the fucking floor with you, because I'm going to.

For real products by real people or to sell yours, you know the place.

For ada law visit our new infopage here.

via Natural Healthy: Latest News

[lookingatinterestingthingsf-blog]

Invisible unicorns: 35 big companies that started with little or no money

Joseph FlahertyContributor   Joe Flaherty is director of Content & Community at Founder Collective. More posts by this contributor: Theres no shame in a $100M startup Overdosing on VC: Lessons from 71 IPOs Venture capital is a hell of a drug, and its possible tooverdose on VC, but for most founders that is a champagne problem. More often the question investors hear is how do I get a VC to back my startup? These founders arent worried about how overcapitalization will make their IPO prospects trickier theyre scrambling to get someone, anyone, to sign their first term sheet. Theres a widespread belief among founders that venture capital is a precursor to success. VC is a common denominator of the most successful tech startups, but it isnt a prerequisite, especially at the early stages. Entrepreneurs can prove out quite a bit with little to no capital. Capital wont make your company insightful. If you cant creatively turn $1 into $10, why do you expect to be able to turn $1 million into $10 million? To help illustrate how startups can move forward, here are 35 examples of companies that started with a few thousand dollars, or even just sweat equity, and went on to become exemplars of what I call efficient entrepreneurship. Many of these companies have subsequently earned billion-dollar valuations, some even have billions of dollars in revenue, but none started with anything other than what would be considered a seed round. Most of these startups raised money from VCs, but only after they established the fact that their success would come with or without a wire transfer from an investor. Even now, many of them arent widely known they are the invisible unicorns of the tech industry. So before scrambling to schedule meetings with investors, read these stories. They provide a counterbalance to the VC-centric outlook held by many founders, and provide alternative ways to think about funding. What follows are brief and simplified descriptions of these companies (categorized by approaches they share) and links to stories where you can read more about them. Remember, taking venture capital should be a choice, not a compulsion. These companies show how its done. Figure something out, then ask for money You dont need venture capital to get started in most industries if you can solve a real problem for customers and charge money for it. Here are three ways to think about this: Automate your workflow The easiest way to build a useful product is to automate some part of your daily workflow. This will ensure youve got proven demand for what youre building and a pre-existing funding source for your project. MailChimp: Co-founder/CEO Ben Chestnut was running a design consulting business in the year 2000 and had a stream of clients who wanted email newsletters created. The only problem was that he hated designing them. So, to spare his team the tedium, he decided to build a tool that would streamline the process.MailChimp, a $400 million run rate business, was born. Lynda: Lynda Weinman started as a teacher in need of tools to instruct web designers in the late 1990s. The offerings at bookstores were bland, so she began producing training films that better educated her students. Tutorial by tutorial her company helped software developers and designers improve their skills. She spent two decades building a content library and tech assets that had enough scale to entice LinkedIn to pay $1.5 billion to acquire the company. Start with a capital-efficient product Many entrepreneurs make frontal attacks on industry leaders, usually resulting in failure. This is especially true in the case of hardware. Instead of trying to compete with a company like Apple, these scrappy startups filled the gap left by RadioShack and built businesses worthy of respect and emulation. AdaFruit Industries: Limor Fried started her DIY electronics e-commerce empire as a student at MIT by assembling DIY kits comprised of off-the-shelf parts. Fried merchandised the same building blocks found at electronics stores, but also crafted quirky content that made the prospect of soldering a replica Space Invaders cabinet seem reasonable. Now she has 85 employees and earns $33 million per year. SparkFun: Similar to AdaFruit, Nathan Seidle started SparkFun out of his dorm room by selling electronics kits and oddball components to a coterie of engineers who wanted to explore exotic new sensors and systems. Now his e-commerce empire employs 154 and has revenues of $32 million per year. Solve an existing problem and leverage an existing business model Startups dont have to be particularly innovative in terms of business model. Building a better mousetrap on top of a more modern technical platform, or with a UX layer, can be enough. None of the companies that follow reinvented the wheel, but all wound up creating real value. Braintree Payments: Exchanging money online, without being fleeced by fraudsters, is one of the oldest problems on the web. All parties to a transaction happily agree to pay a fair tax for a superior experience. Braintree built a better tech solution and survived on the proceeds of those transactions for four years before raising $69 million in two rounds of venture capital, which preceded an $800 million acquisition. Shopify: Shopifys founders were looking for a shopping cart solution when they were starting an e-commerce site for snowboarders. Unable to find one, they decided to scratch their own itch and built a bespoke solution on the then red-hot Ruby on Rails framework. It turned out to be a perfect solution for plenty more people, and the founders ran the business independently for six years on the revenue they generated. They ultimately raised money from VCs and later IPOed, which rewarded them with a billion-dollar valuation. Self-reliance rules Many entrepreneurs waste their time playing CEO, crafting a strategy and drawing up a dream org chart for what their business might become. Dont do that. Instead, figure out what you can do, today, to advance this idea using only the resources you have. Ipsy: Sending boxes of makeup to amateur beauticians has become a growth industry thanks to pioneers like Birchbox. YouTube star Michelle Phan didnt have first-mover advantage, but she leveraged her online celebrity (8 million+ YouTube subscribers), relationships with cosmetics brands and <$500,000in seed funding to build a subscription box startup that generated $150 million in revenue before raising $100 million in VC. Capital wont make your company insightful. ShutterStock: Jon Oringer was a professional software developer and an amateur photographer. He combined this set of skills and used 30,000 photos from his personal photo library to start a stock photo service that is currently worth $2 billion. His capital efficiency paid off and ultimately turned him into a truly self-made billionaire. SimpliSafe: People scoff at the idea of trying to bootstrap a hardware business, but SimpliSafes Chad Laurans did it. He raised a small amount of money from friends and family and then spent eight years building a self-install security business, literally soldering the first prototypes himself to save money. Eight years later, the business has hundreds of thousands of customers, hundreds of millions in revenue and $57 million in VC from Sequoia. Everyones money is green Funding doesnt always come millions of dollars at a time. Founders can scrape together money from grants, incubators and angels, or even pre-sales. The savviest entrepreneurs design their business model so they collect payment before they deliver their product, turning customers into a source of growth capital.   Tough Mudder: Track & field entrepreneur Will Dean turned $7,000 in savings into a company with more than $100 million in annual revenue. The secret was pre-selling registrations to races and then using those funds as working capital to construct the electrified obstacle courses that have made Tough Mudder a global phenomena. CoolMiniOrNot: CoolMiniOrNot started out as a website where geeks could show off their ability to paint Dungeons & Dragons figurines. Eventually, the sites founders decided to design and distribute games of their own, leveraging Kickstarter as a channel. They have run27 Kickstarter campaignswhich have raised$35,943,270million dollars of non-dilutive funding. Game on. Sell! Sell! Sell! Usually the best source of capital is a customer, and selling has two benefits. First, you make the cash register ring immediately. Second, you quickly learn what resonates with customers and can use those insights to refine your offering. Scentsy: DNVBs are hip, but they are over-reliant on twee launch videos and Facebook ads to drive revenue. Scentsy sold candles at swap meets when they couldnt afford to buy ads. It wasnt glamorous, but it did give the founders a solid grounding on the messages that resonated with buyers now they have more than $545 million a year in revenue. CarGurus: This app leverages data analytics to help customers find the best deal on used cars, but the companys CEO credits its $50 million a year in revenue, and profitability, to hiring a sales team early in the companys life cycle. Nearly half the companys 350 employees are busy making sales calls, not writing software. LootCrate: LootCrate had more than 600,000 customers and $100 million in revenue before they raised institutional capital. Part of the reason they were so efficient was that the company started charging customers from its first weekend in existence. The founders were at a hackathon, set up a landing page, collected orders and used that capital to buy the geeky goods that would fill the packages. Be miserly with marketing Startup marketers might not want to waste time with unmeasurable brand marketing. Efficient entrepreneurs need campaigns to be additive, immediately. Wayfair: The home goods e-commerce company was profitable from its first month of operation because they skipped brand advertising and bought up hundreds of domain names that were exact matches for common search terms. This model kicked off a decade of profitable growth until they ultimately raised a Series A worth $165 million shortly before going public and earning a market cap that is currently over $4 billion. If you cant creatively turn $1 into $10, why do you expect to be able to turn $1 million into $10 million? Cards Against Humanity: With just $15,700 in funding from Kickstarter, the Cards Against Humanity team built a business that grossed more than $12 million in its first year. Theyve also sustained their brand with a series of canny marketing stunts, selling cow poop, cutting up a Picasso, digging a big hole representing the ennui of a post-Trump America, then selling Trump bug out bags and simply asking for money. These promotions arent cheap to run, but they make enough money to defray costs while earning a disproportionate amount of free media. GoFundMe: Viral marketing is dismissed, rightfully, when it is tacked on to a business model, but it can be a powerful driver when properly integrated into a business model. Paired with hyper-efficient conversion rate optimization (CRO), it can be unbeatable. The founders of GoFundMe were able to use these twin forces to bootstrap a business to the point where it was valued at ~$600 million. Efficiency > Capital Startups are often measured by how much money theyve raised. Its more important to ask how efficiently those companies use the capital. Efficiency doesnt mean penny-pinching, but instead, finding entrepreneurs who orient their business around a technology or business model that is intrinsically more effective at multiplying capital. PaintNite: The idea of combining Monet and Merlot has been around for a while, but the founders of PaintNite wanted to make the model more cost-effective. While their competitors relied on a slow, expensive franchise sales model, PaintNite paired art teachers with existing bars that wanted to sell wine on weekdays and created a business that did $30 million in revenue the year before it raised venture capital. Plenty of Fish: The dating site was founded in 2003 and didnt change dramatically regarding functionality or aesthetics over the next decade. Other sites had more features, flashier graphics and copious amounts of venture funding, but PoF was free and spent most of its resources fighting spam accounts. As with Craigslist, Plenty of Fishs biggest asset was its reputation as a well-stocked pond. The company iterated on the product over time, but never needed massive infusions of capital. Ultimately, the company sold for $575 million. Mojang: The masons behind Minecraft never raised any venture capital, employed just 50 people and earned nearly a billion dollars in profit before selling to Microsoft. The Swedish studio never got sucked into fads like Zynga-inspired social spamming and predatory microtransactions. Minecraft grew by charging users a flat fee, resulting in a $2.5 billion acquisition. Fortune favors the boring Boring isnt a value judgment. Many of the most impressive, successful companies that managed to grow without capital thrived by solving acute, if somewhat dry, problems. If you solve a hard problem, customers will happily fund it. SurveyMonkey was founded in the dot-com bubble of the 90s and though it wasnt as disruptive as peers like Kosmo, it was more durable. It survived the dot-com crash and steadily grew into a nine-figure run rate, only raising $100 million 11 years after getting started. Protolabs does for plastic injection molding what Vistaprint does for business cards, and is currently worth $1.2 billion. Cvent, worth $1.3 billion, builds event management tools and Textura, acquired for $663 million, handles construction management neither typically considered a hot or hip market. Grasshopper is a phone networking company that had 150,000 customers and more than $30 million in annual revenue, but no VC on the books, and was eventually acquired by Citrix. Epic was founded by Judith Faulkner in 1979; the Wisconsin-based electronic medical records provider may be the largest bootstrapped software company operating today. eClinicalWorks was founded in 1999 when the mantra was get big fast, and many of its contemporaries crashed and burned. By focusing on excelling at the dull, yet profitable work of managing clinical data, the company survived and now employs more than 4,000 workers and generates $320 million in annual revenue. Unity became a backbone of the mobile gaming industry by focusing on all of the unsexy aspects of game development, like cross-platform compatibility and bump mapping. They went years without raising capital, but now have a valuation over $1.5 billion, and are more successful than the majority of branded game startups. GitHub took the pain out of version control and became a critical part of the tech ecosystem before raising capital. Qualtrics started as a tool to administer surveys for schools and businesses in a basement in Utah and now employs 1,000 and rakes in $100 million a year, profitably. Blessed are the unfundable Sometimes raising capital is almost impossible. Weve seen companies with tens of millions in revenue, triple-digit growth rates and other advantages struggle to raise even small amounts of money. Fortunately, these startups tend to prevail in the end, despite this apparent disadvantage. Atlassian: One of the benefits of building a startup outside Silicon Valley, NYC, LA or Boston is that there isnt much VC available. This may sound like a curse; after all, how could it be helpful to have no access to capital? It can be a blessing in disguise. This kind of isolation prevents you from daydreaming about what youd do with millions of dollars and forces you to make happy the paying customers you do have. Atlassian, based in Australia, bootstrapped its way to a $4 billion market cap. If it had easier access to funding, they might have found themselves chasing low-quality growth and gone under before they figured out how to scale efficiently. You dont need permission from funders to found and scale a startup. Campaign Monitor: One of the odd features of capital-efficient companies is that their first rounds of funding tend to be eye-popping sums that look more like proceeds from IPOs. This is the case for Campaign Monitor, whose first round of funding amounted to $250 million. Sydney-based Campaign Monitor didnt have easy access to venture capital, so they bootstrapped the business and built a unique technology that offered superior email analytics to companies like Disney, Coca-Cola and Buzzfeed. Time will tell if raising a quarter billion dollars helps or hurts the company, but it is certainly a validation of the progress theyve made so far. The Trade Desk: While he had a unique view of how to power the programmatic advertising industry, founder Jeff Green started The Trade Desk late in the funding cycle for modern adtech. This overcapitalization of the market, combined with investors getting burned by bad performers, made every round of funding a struggle throughout the life of the company. Green was a consummate startup CEO, who raised only $26.4 million in venture capital during the companys first six years and turned it into a billion-dollar business traded on the NASDAQ. How? By embracing the constraints of having less capital, focusing on the highest return activities and building a culture of innovation powered by ideas rather than infusions of capital. (Disclosure: Founder Collective is an investor in The Trade Desk.) VCs arent perfect, and even the best miss out on ideas that seem like sure things. It is shocking how common it is to hear founders talk about how they couldnt sell investors on an idea that went on to become a billion-dollar business. AppLovin founder Adam Foroughi sold his business for $1.4 billion, but found it hard to raise venture capital, even with serious revenue. I couldnt find anyone to give us an investment at what I thought was a reasonable starting point valuation (maybe $4 million or $5 million) and, by the end of our first year of operations, we were profitable and doing over $1 million a month in revenue. The rest, as they say, is history. Takeaway: Avoid designing your business around VC Too many founders orient their businesses around venture capital from day one. Startups used to figure stuff out and then ask for money. Today, they ask for money to figure things out. Outside of drug discovery or aeronautical hardware, this is usually the wrong decision. In fact, making progress without resources is the best way to get VCs to take an interest in your company. The companies mentioned above chose not to raise money for protracted periods of time, but when they did, they had their pick of investors and could set the terms. Our advice isnt to try to bootstrap a business in perpetuity. Venture capital has powered nearly every major tech company from Apple to Zappos. Just remember that you dont need a penny to get started. You dont need permission from funders to found and scale a startup. So the next time a VC tells you they pass, remember these three principles: Its possible to get a tech-enabled business off the ground with no capital. Its feasible to scale a tech business rapidly with very little capital. Its often in the founders best interest to limit the amount of capital they take. If you know of some other companies that self-funded their way to an extraordinary outcome, please let me know.