#also wow there is surprisingly good internet here given i had been told there would be none ovo

[mitamicah]

Draw in my tent at Roussalo camping just now waiting for the door to open 🥰

(It is a need!!! Please let it happen 😭)

[whatifxwereyou]

The Oncoming Storm Part 17: Blackout

Liu Kang x Reader and Kung Lao x Reader (gonna do both, two paths!)

Oh no, you made things complicated. Lol. I'm having more fun writing Kung Lao than should be allowed. Hopefully you guys enjoy! And yes, I know this is tropey but I also don't care LOL, it's a fun trope.

Part 16 Part 18 Chapter Index

The hotel was surprisingly crowded. You weren’t sure what you’d expected but you hadn’t expected it to be bustling with tourists. There was a festival happening, you should have expected this. A bit outdated, the hotel was still clean and inviting. A welcome reprieve from the stone walls of Raiden’s Temple. You’d arrived early and still had to wait in line. Raiden had ‘transported’ you there which had been a wild experience in and of itself. You’d walked into a bolt of lightning and had come out in a quiet alley unseen.

It had been so long since you’d walked amongst the average civilian that it felt straight up bizarre to be walking along the streets of the modest city, especially in your hanfu. It was all you’d had, after all. No one looked at you twice other than to greet you politely. Most of the other folks staying at the hotel for the festival were couples on a romantic getaway which had made it instantly weird to be waiting in line with Kung Lao to check into your respective rooms.

Thankfully, the line moved quickly and once you’d checked in, you dropped off the few belongings you’d brought with you. The room was tiny with a single bed, a desk taking up nearly the rest of the room. Atop the desk was a television and beneath that was an old, ancient mini fridge. It would do well enough. This was the most technology you’d seen in weeks. Afterwards, you’d found Kung Lao and told him that you would meet him in an hour. You’d made note of a clothing store down the road and wanted to see if there was anything worth buying.

He, of course, decided to join you. No one trusted you alone anymore. He didn’t say it like that, but you knew that Raiden had told both him and Liu to keep an eye on you. You felt like a ticking time bomb.

Once at the shop you were disappointed to find that it sold mostly yukatas and kimonos. You supposed it was better than the flowy hanfu. At least you could pick out something that would be your own rather than something that had been handed to you.

Boy, you missed the internet.

You picked out a few pieces that you could work with a bit easier. Most of the hanfu were dresses or long flowy robes. Here you’d been able to find a few women’s kimonos that had hakama pants as an option. You had never been so excited to see pants in your life. You didn’t need the whole kimono, just the pants. Some constricted around the ankles while others were left open. You grabbed both and were extremely pleased.

“Sometimes, you’re a very simple woman.” Kung Lao had patted you on the back when you’d showed him the pants in excitement. You had to agree. In that moment you were very simple. Pants had brought you joy. You’d wandered away from him after that to find a few tops, belts, and jackets. Thankfully, you’d had your wallet on you when this had all begun so you had some money on you. In Raiden’s Temple, money hadn’t been necessary, so you were happy to spend it on the few things you did need.

They weren’t jeans and a t-shirt or even cute dresses, but it felt like a step in the right direction toward feeling like yourself again. You hadn’t realized how much it had bothered you until then.

Kung Lao had purchased just enough for the day in flattering red and black. That seemed to be his aesthetic though you could picture him in blues too for some reason. Then you made your way back to the hotel and to your rooms on the top floor. You had gotten rooms next to each other. You went to get changed and were happy with what you saw even in the half mirror on the desk. You stood on the bed to get a better look. Black hakama pants and a grayish-lavender and black top with a white sash tied around your middle. You then pulled your hair back in a ponytail and admired yourself in the mirror. Even though your hair was a mess you looked much more like yourself.

Your white roots had grown out a couple of inches now. It didn’t look bad, but it definitely didn’t look like it was on purpose either.

Oh well! You jumped off the bed and then left the room to find Kung Lao waiting for you, leaned against the wall next to your door. He had one foot propped against the wall, arms folded across his chest, hat obscuring his face as it often did. The clothing he’d bought wasn’t too terribly different from what he usually wore with the notable exception that he had sleeves which was truly a shame. He tilted his head up just enough to greet you before stepping away from the wall. You hadn’t left him waiting that long and yet he acted as though he’d been there for ages.

You noticed the jade ring from his usual outfit was woven into his outfit with the sash around his waist laced through it. It was kind of sweet that he always seemed to have it on him.

“Is that significant in some way? Special?” You asked, gesturing to the ring. He looked down at the ring in surprise and then nodded down the hall. You walked slowly through the hotel toward the stairwell.

“It’s a relic from my ancestor, the Great Kung Lao.”

“Oh, wow. About that, though… I’ve heard people mention him, but I had never heard the name before you. I know that he’s of some importance which has made you important…”

“I am incredibly important, thank you.”

“Yes, very. Keep talking.”

“He was the first champion of Mortal Kombat who had come from the Shaolin Order of Light. He defeated Shang Tsung and won the tournament.” Kung Lao seemed as though he had told this story a hundred times but was still proud to tell it. It was oddly sweet. “He was champion of Earthrealm for fifty years before the tournament was corrupted and he was killed. Even so, he is held in great reverence. He was a remarkable warrior.”

“Is that why you have a dragon mark?”

“Yes, that is why I have the mark. It’s also why I was sent away so young. I’d already been training long before I’d met you. When I left it was because it was time for me to go live at the temple.”

You stopped walking before the stairs and he stopped just in front of you and turned to face you. “Then why were you so bad when we would pretend to fight?”

“I held back. I wanted you to have fun too. Besides, it felt nice to be normal back then.” He laughed and you caught up to him and started down the stairs. “I was thinking that we should come up with a story as to why we’re here.”

“Should we?”

“Obviously. We need a reason to be here.”

“Other than the reason we actually have?”

“And when a bunch of strangers ask you why we’re here, are you going to tell them the real reason we’re here?”

“Point taken.”

“We need a cover.”

“Do we really though? I don’t remember ever having to justify my actions that intensely to strangers before. We can just be visiting.” You jumped down the last two stairs to the landing between flights. Pants felt great. Kung Lao seemed to either be overthinking your trip or grasping at straws to get to some end point. Or he was going to cause trouble. You would never forget the look that both Raiden and Liu had given him on their way out.

“I’ve been asked three times what brings me to Mount Osore during the festival. I came up with a lie on the spot but I’m no terribly proud of it or anything.”

“And what is this lie you came up with?”

“I said I was here on a date. Everyone else seems to be here on a date, so it was the first thing that jumped to mind.”

You rolled your eyes at him and he laughed in surprise, waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs. You caught up to him. “Really, Kung Lao?”

“What? It’s the first thing I could think of! The people asking me were on a date and so I stuttered that I was too.”

“Kung Lao, no.”

“Come on, Y/N.”

“Can’t we just say we’re visiting and that it’s no one’s business?” You walked into the lobby and he hurried in front of you and took your hands, clasping them between his. You sighed. “Would you…” The lobby was very crowded.

“I hate you so much right now.”

“Would you,” he continued, talking over you, “do me the honor of going on a cute little pretend date with me so that we can sneak into an ancient Buddhist Temple built within the caldera of a volcano so that we can uncover an ancient and possibly cursed artifact together?” You stared at him in disbelief, but it was taking every ounce of your energy not to burst into laughter. He was such a dork. “I will get down on my knees and ask you again if you don’t answer me.” He got down on his knees and you broke. Laughing, you pulled your hands free, grabbed his arms and tugged.

“Oh my god, get up, Kung Lao.”

“It’s a great cover, Y/N.”

“It is an exactly okay cover. But fine. I haven’t done something terribly embarrassing in a while, so I guess I’m overdue for this.” You agreed at least. He was right. It was a good cover considering this whole place was filled with couples. Besides, if it got Kung Lao to drop the subject then you would be happy to agree. The whole display had made your cheeks burn.

“Embarrassing, huh? Come on, Y/N. It’s not such a bad thing, is it? Could be worse looking guys to end up with, right?” He walked at your side again, making a teasing kissy face and leaning close to you. You leaned away with an awkward and nervous laugh.

“If you keep doing things like that then you are going to get smacked.”

“Worth it.” He held the door open for you and together you left the hotel. Outside a bus waited to take tourists to the shrine for the festival. People were already loading onto it. Kung Lao offered you his hand and you looked to him skeptically. He grabbed your hand anyway and then you walked onto the bus. “You’re going to have to get better at pretending.” You found seats near the back of the bus and even as you sat, he didn’t let go of your hand. You felt incredibly silly. Yet, it also made your heart flutter. As much as you had given him a hard time, you also happened to think it was an incredibly sweet and kind of wholesome idea.

Funny enough, you had thought of this moment before but in a much different context. Maybe in a life where your childhood together hadn’t ended so traumatically. Where you’d stayed close friends and he’d have asked you out when you were old enough. In a way, you felt like a silly schoolgirl, something you hadn’t felt in years.

If he hadn’t died then this was exactly where you would have wound up. Somehow that made you feel much less silly and you finally relaxed. Kung Lao pointed out several interesting things on the side of the road through the window and you listened to him chatter on until the bus was pulling up to the shrine. You waited for the others to get off the bus and then you walked ahead of Kung Lao and stepped off it.

The shrine was huge and it took your breath away.

So much so that it made you dizzy.

A river flowed before you then beneath a red bridge. To the left of the bridge there was a white beach lining the bluest and most artificial-looking water that you had ever seen in your life. Rocks were piled alongside the shore in strange formations. Beyond the bridge there was a stone path that led to the shrine in the distance, and it was lined with old lanterns. You walked to the edge of the stone path where the bus had dropped you off to try and get a better look at the water.

That was a teal color you had never seen before in nature. In your mind’s eye, you recalled your vision and it made your stomach drop. You took a step further and were suddenly grasped around the waist and pulled away from the edge of the stone. Then Kung Lao looped his arm in yours. “You looking to take a dip?”

You hadn’t realized that you had almost walked right into the river. You hadn’t been thinking. The water had bewitched you, it seemed. You needed to get a closer look at it but now that you’d been turned away from it, the feeling had gone. From there you could smell the acidity in the humid air. That was likely why it was so blue. “Pay more attention, okay?”

You weren’t sure what to say to him. It was surreal being there. This place was exactly the same as it had been in your vision but also years, possibly centuries had passed since then. The shrine buildings themselves were much larger than they had been then. They were even a different color. Your head was spinning as you tried to take in everything at once. It was an overload. You grabbed Kung Lao’s arm to try and ground yourself. You felt as though you were floating and the wind would take you away.

Kung Lao led you onto the bridge and at its apex you sat and watched the water trickle beneath it. He helped you lean your elbows against the railing and then placed a supportive hand on your back.

“It’s okay. Take a second.” He seemed to realize that you were having a difficult time. How could you explain that you were struggling to wrap your mind around being in a place where you’d had such a vivid and violent vision? You were grateful for him. Your heart was racing and you watched the water flowing beneath the bridge, over the rocks. Your stomach had dropped. It felt as though you were intimately familiar with this place, as though you had spent years there, but you had never once seen it before. At the same time, everything felt completely new. Your brain was waging war with itself. “You okay?”

“Yeah, this is just… surreal.” You were finally able to collect your thoughts enough to talk.

“You went a bit gray. Figured you needed a minute.”

“I appreciate it.”

“So, where do we go?”

“There’s a well inside one of those buildings.” You nodded to your right where the shrine was at the end of the stone path.

“Vague, but okay.” He peered to the right and then pointed. “It’s off limits.” From there you could see a series of ropes that blocked off the building from visitors. “Great.”

“It’s crowded enough here. I’m sure we can sneak in just fine.”

“Of course.” He leaned next to you on his forearms, hands clasped together. “This place is a little spooky.”

“It is. I read a brochure from the hotel lobby. The monks here believe that it’s the gateway to hell. The river beneath us is supposed to represent the Sanzu.” You pointed below you. It was a little spooky, you supposed, but it was also incredibly beautiful.

“I read about that. I also read that there are holy water bathhouses and volcanic cauldrons with crazy colored water.”

“Yeah, and a lake of blood.”

“I hate that, Y/N.” He stuck his tongue out at the idea. You laughed. He was too funny. He had this way of making you feel at least even about the big and often uncomfortable things sometimes. Other times he drove your anxiety through the roof. Thankfully, this wasn’t one of those moments. “What do you say that we get to sneaking in and find this thing so that we can have a bit of fun for the rest of the day, huh?”

“That sounds nice.”

He took your hand once again and you walked over the bridge and along the stone path. The lanterns were decorated for the festival along with the rest of the shrine. Monks walked about, greeting visitors and answering questions while explaining various attractions. Most visitors, and there were many, were straying from the temple in favor of the white sands or the volcanic cauldrons. You and Kung Lao walked until you reached the ropes before the shrine. You stood there for a time in the shade, waiting for your moment to sneak in unseen.

“Coast is clear,” you whispered and turned to keep watch while Kung Lao snuck into the shrine. Once inside, you waited for your opportunity and followed him. Inside, the building was ancient but to you it seemed oddly brand new. It wasn’t the same shrine that you remembered from your vision. Much had changed since that wicked man had been there.

No one was waiting for you inside the small entryway or in the room beyond. That seemed like the central room, with space for prayer and a dip in the center for dining. The floor was lined with tatami mats and the ceiling was high, windows on the second floor spattering sunlight throughout the room. Halls branched off in each direction and you suddenly felt overwhelmed with choice. It had seemed so much simpler in your vision.

“Lead the way but be cautious. We’re not alone.” Kung Lao spoke in a hushed tone, staying close to you but alert.

“Yeah.” You started through the room and down the closest hallway, checking to see if it was empty first. Kung Lao took your hand and you urged him along with you. Your stomach was in knots and his hand there continued to keep you grounded. Several times you encountered monks going about their business and you had to duck into other rooms or sneak back around corners. You somehow managed to remain unseen, having to huddle together in strange spaces and hide in enclosed areas. It would have been fun had it not been so damn frustrating.

None of it made sense! As you turned down another hall, you sighed in frustration. You’d wound up there twice already. Your gut kept sending you there and back to the central room but there was no indication that it was the same place that the vision had taken place in. Kung Lao suddenly pulled you back into the side room and held you against the wall near the door. There were footsteps in the hall, and you held your breath until they had passed. You made to go back into the hall, but Kung Lao pinned you in place.

“You’re leading us in circles.”

“I know. It’s hard to explain. It’s like someone’s moving everything around while we’re walking. It doesn’t make any sense. I think I’m going one way and then we’re back to where we started.” It was making you sick to your stomach, as a matter of fact.

“You can do this. Just focus.”

“Kung Lao, you have no idea what’s going on in my head right now. I am focusing.”

“You’re right I don’t. So, tell me.”

“I’m not sure that I have the words to explain that the room we’re looking for should be right around the corner but then it isn’t.” It really was disorienting to expect to be in one place and end up in another. “It shouldn’t have been this far back but also this place is ten times bigger than it had been in my vision.”

“I need you to try still.”

You were mixed up. It was like someone was moving rooms in your head and before you knew it, you had once again led him back into the central room which made both you and Kung Lao groan in annoyance.

“Oh good. We’re back. I was worried.”

“It should be right here, but everything looks so different!”

“It’s okay, Y/N. We’ll figure it out.”

“It’s not okay, Kung Lao. It should be right here. I wish I could just show you.” The frustration was radiating off you, you were sure. “I can’t-”

“Is someone there?” A voice from somewhere down the hall called and footsteps approached from a distance.

“Fu…” Kung Lao whispered and then grabbed you and searched for somewhere to hide. The closest hall was too far. You were caught. “Don’t panic.” He urged you to the wall with surprising care and you made a sound of surprise. What did he mean don’t panic? You were instantly panicking. Don’t panic? What was wrong with him? He leaned against you and tilted your chin up and his head toward you like he was going to kiss you, obscuring you both with his hat. “Act natural, Y/N.” His lips brushed against your cheek, just next to your lips. “I swear, you’re terrible at this.” You were stiff as a board, so he had every right to scold you, but also he was pretending to kiss you so what the hell were you supposed to do with that? What was natural in this case?

You gave him a swift but soft punch in the gut and he laughed against your cheek in return. That made you feel a bit better. He lifted his head just enough and you peered toward the door nearby, waiting for the monk that would inevitably kick you out. You could have had time to hide at this rate. Kung Lao’s lips were pressed against your cheek and they were soft even if it was just in a mock kiss close enough to your lips to look like you were sneaking a private moment.

You peered around the corner, thinking maybe you were in the clear. Kung Lao did the same and when you turned back to tell him that maybe the monk had decided to turn away, you found him extremely close to you. Intimately so. His dark eyes were serious and that always scared you for whatever reason. He tilted your chin toward him and all other thoughts slipped out of your brain.

What were you doing there? Where were you anyway? And why? Did it matter?

Not right now it didn’t.

His hand was on your chin, thumb brushing just below your lip, urging your lips to part just enough. You dared not breathe to break the tension of the moment. The sneaking and searching were gone completely from your thoughts. All that was left was the boy that you’d so admired in your youth grown into a handsome man with his hand against the wall at your side, the other inextricably lost below your lower lip.

His eyes were searching you, but you dared not look back into them for fear of what you might find, for fear of what it might reveal to you. His breath warmed your lips before they were on yours, parting them like a blossom in a soft and singular tender movement. A far superior kiss than the one he’d pretended to give you for the sake of saving your skin.

His lips were sweet. Not like sugar or candy, but sweet like the lingering taste of honey at the bottom of a cup of tea. It was a feeling of sweetness rather than a flavor. The moment was still and soft, his lips treasuring yours as though they were something sacred and special. They pulled back just enough from yours that you could feel your lips resisting to part as if they had minds of their own. His eyes were searching you still for answers and in wonder, but you didn’t dare meet them. Yet, you could feel his gaze and beneath your fingertips, that had betrayed you and now rested on his chest, you could feel his heart beating almost as hard as yours.

His breath graced your lips again, but you dared not breathe. You wanted to say something, even just a whisper of his name, but no words would come and you sat there, lips parted in waiting, avoiding his eyes, hand clutching the cloth at his chest, unsure of where you even were or why. This was Kung Lao.

Your Kung Lao.

A soft sigh escaped his lips as they were on yours again, but the softness was gone, though there was something about them that was still sweet even so. The force of his kiss pressed you against the wall, leaving you no escape- not that you wanted to escape. This was a moment that the ten-year-old inside your head had both longed for and not understood. You would have been a fool not to return his kiss, to taste and experience his lips the way that he was with yours and so you did. You kissed him and it was like a storm inside you beyond your control, building with electricity with every moment that passed.

There was a tender moment of acceptance where it felt as though time stood still. The soft moment faded quickly to frenzied desperation. There was no space left between you. Kung Lao was pressed against you, body warm and strong, hat nearly pushed back off of his head as he favored kisses over his possessions. Your hands moved up his chest, to the sides of his neck, fingertips then tangling in the short, messy tendrils of his hair at the base of his hairline. Your heart was doing flips, brain completely turned off to anything that had happened before this, even if somewhere in the distant reaches of your mind you could hear your instincts telling you that you had to stop. Whatever muting effect had been triggered in your brain had seemed to impact Kung Lao as well.

In one swift motion, fluid and strong, his hands were at your thighs and he had lifted you and pressed you against the wall, urging your legs to wrap around him. Your arms slipped naturally around his shoulders, pulling him closer between hot and increasingly sloppy kisses.

“Excuse me?”

Ah, yes. The monk. That was right.

You stopped kissing him.

Kung Lao’s lips finally pulled from yours and you could feel that your own were left slightly swollen from the desperation and passion of those precious few moments. When had you gotten so tangled up in each other? His chest was rising and falling against yours quickly and even though he’d pulled back his lips lingered close to yours as if to consider defying the monk further.

“My apologies.” The monk sounded embarrassed and bowed multiple times. “This area is closed to the public for the festival.”

You finally managed to regain your thoughts and untangled yourself from Kung Lao. You placed your feet on the ground and cleared your throat though your face was likely as red as his robes. He released you from his grip though he made no effort to step away. You swallowed the lump in the back of your throat and forced your brain to work.

“Is it?” You sounded surprised and were grateful that you had. You hadn’t expected to be a very good actor after all that, but you had been surprised to be interrupted and also confused as to where your mind had gone. It was more feigning innocence than lying. The monk nodded and looked as though he sincerely felt bad for interrupting you. “I’m sorry. We had no idea.”

“It’s no worries. I will happily escort you back to the festivities. Follow me.”

“Sorry about that.” Kung Lao, who you had never seen at a loss for words, seemed to finally regain himself. Just like that, he was back to the goof he’d been when you’d first arrived. “We were just sneaking off to have a private moment. Didn’t realize it was off limits.”

“It happens all the time. You’d be surprised.” The monk led you back through the central room and into the entryway. You elbowed Kung Lao as you followed the monk and he laughed beneath his breath. Once outside the monk bowed to you and then left you alone. You leaned your head back and stared into the sunny blue sky with a sigh. You needed a new plan. That one had gone off the rails in a way you hadn’t expected.

[rhyming-fellowship]

If Flynn had been there, it wouldn’t have happened. She will maintain that until the day she died, and going by the presence of their ghostly friends, for long after death as well. But Flynn wasn’t there, so when one of the labels they’d tentatively been looking at said they needed to reach out to the boys to make sure they signed as well, Julie was stuck with her own lying skills - which hadn’t improved in the three years she’d known the guys - and the Greek chorus of himbos that called themselves her band.

“Tell them we don’t have the internet.”

“No, that we’re dead!”

“We trust you; you can just sign for us.”

They weren’t especially helpful. Of course, what came out of Julie’s mouth was equally bad, so she really can’t talk.

“They only speak Swedish…?”

Behind her, she heard Alex groan, but his idea had been that the hologram band that regularly streamed into their performances didn’t have internet. Not speaking English wasn’t terrible in comparison.

“I didn’t know you spoke Swedish!” The label exec said at the same time as Reggie. There was the definite sound of hand hitting head, which either meant Alex facepalmed or he slapped Reggie. Either way, there would be no support from them.

“I don’t? We just… use a lot of Google translate?” God she wished she could stop making everything sound like a question.

“Wow! Well, no worries, we can get a translator. Can you give me their info?” 

“Haha, for sure!” Julie said, the rushing in her ears growing louder in the quiet office space. "The only thing is I can't spell their names, you know with all of the... special letters? So, um, I'll set up a Zoom meeting for you guys to meet?" Maybe it was a good thing she kept digging the hole deeper, soon it would be big enough for her to live in so she'd never have to see these people again.

“Your eyes are doing the panic thing, Julie. Want a distraction?” Luke whispered next to her. She nodded hurriedly and when the fire alarm went off a few seconds later, she was out of the office before anyone could stop her.

“So… fuck. Am I right?” Alex casually loped along next to her as she ran down the street, getting as far away from the building as she could before she called her dad for a ride.

“Someone’s going to have to learn Swedish,” Luke said, laughter in his voice, and Julie couldn’t help but look at him and grin.

“There are probably better ways to go about it, we just need to think of one.”

Somewhat unsurprisingly, they couldn’t.

Luckily, Reggie, it turned out, was surprisingly good with languages. Alex was too anxious to speak to anyone in anything other than English, and Luke was great at hearing the slight tonal changes when listening but tended to just throw out whichever words felt right when speaking. Reggie, though, would meet someone who didn’t speak English and hang out with them for a few months, or he’d get obsessed with a show in another language, and next thing they knew he was conversational with a perfect accent; just so long as he didn’t have to spell anything.

So Reggie disappeared to go live in Sweden for a few months, coming back every few days with a new story about the family whose house he was haunting. (They have four horses! And two dogs! And they have blueberry soup sometimes that made him wish he could eat again!) Meanwhile, Julie set up a Zoom meeting as far into the future as she could, and cancelled it a few times, pushing the meeting farther and farther away to give him time to become at least passable.

And they practiced. She and Luke and Alex worked for hours to see how involved they have to be in the singing to be visible. If they could be in separate rooms and still show up on the camera. If the guys could ignore Julie’s pull long enough to make this work. It wasn’t easy, but by the time the meeting came around, they’ve figured out the best song, set up the studio in a style they’re hoping looks vaguely Swedish, and given Luke and Alex several crash courses on how to work Zoom so that they don’t look like people who are stuck in the 90s.

At least technologically speaking. Three years later and she still couldn’t convince them to wear something from this century.

“Everyone ready?” Flynn asked, standing between the couch the boys are on and the table they’d dragged in for Julie to sit at across from them. With a collective nod, they started humming together and logged into the meeting where they were immediately met with the label execs (Nadya and Micah) and someone new.

The translator.

“Hej!” Nadya said happily, waving, “I’m glad we could all finally meet up. And I was sorry to hear about your illness, Reggie. It sounded… unpleasant.” Reggie just smiled blankly at her as the translator spoke, then continued to smile blankly.

Luke elbowed him and leaned over to whisper, “We told her you had violent food poisoning and were shitting yourself,” he paused, “We might have panicked a lot thinking up the excuse and then Alex cried after because, you know, food poisoning.” Alex reached behind Reggie and shoved Luke off the couch. Micah and Nadya kindly pretended not to notice the scuffle as Reggie finally unmuted to thank them for their well wishes. 

“So, boys, Julie hasn’t mentioned a lot about you, why don’t you introduce yourselves and where you’re from,” Micah said, staring at them expectantly and Julie’s heart sank. They’d planned for Reggie to have a passable accent, for him to be able to speak well enough that the translator wouldn’t notice and to brush off missteps with an excuse of a bad connection. They hadn’t planned for Reggie to have to know anything about Sweden. But he pulled it together, mostly talking about the small town where he’d been, telling a touching tale of the three of them meeting at choir practice in the middle of winter and starting a band to get through the long dark months.

It was a surprisingly good story and Julie had just started to relax when Nadya spoke up. 

“And what are your last names again?”

Deer in headlights, all three of them. (A small voice in the back of her head says Reindeer in headlights and she has to stop herself from giggling hysterically.)

“Skarsgård,” Alex said first, stretching it out in a way that spoke of immediate regret.

“Alexander Skarsgård?” Micah asked, “Like the actor?”

Alex shook his head quickly and muted the call, “What do I say?”

“Just tell them it’s a common Swedish last name!” Luke said and Alex was just about to unmute when Flynn stopped him. 

“You can’t speak English or Swedish. Reggie has to tell them.”

“Oh thank god,” he muttered, letting Reggie take over, and then it was time for Luke and Reggie to reveal their last names and Julie was just waiting for one of them to say their last name was ‘Sweden.’ Somehow what happened was both better and infinitely worse.

“My last name is Pettersson,” Reggie said happily, choosing the name of the family he’d taken a shine to, still pleased it was so close to his own last name. Then he looked at Luke and paused, seeming to realize, “And his last name is also Pettersson. Because we are... brothers?”

Well, at least Julie wasn’t the only one making statements into questions.

“That’s awesome, we should definitely leverage that in our marketing,” Nadya said, writing something down, and then the meeting was ending and they gave some vague promises about their next meeting and Julie could have cried in happiness.

They’d done it. Three American ghosts pretended to be three Swedish lifers and no one had to know. Luke leapt off the couch, pulling everyone into a hug of sheer relief, and that’s how Carlos found them a few minutes later.

“Why are you guys always so weird?” he asked, unable to see the guys, but noticing Julie's awkward empty air hug.

“We’re celebrating!” Flynn said, launching into an explanation about their plan; from Reggie learning Swedish to their attempt at Swedish decor in the studio.

“Why didn’t you just give them email addresses?” he asked when she was finished. “Lots of people sign contracts digitally without ever seeing the person on the other end.” 

“Oh. My. God.” Julie slowly dropped to the couch. “Fucking email addresses.”

There was a beat of silence in the studio, then Flynn snorted. “Finding an unused email address for the name Alexander Skarsgård is going to be hell.”

After months of stress, it felt good to laugh.

Even if they were all idiots.

You can find this fic and the rest in my series of band shenanigans on Ao3 here!

[mindthump]

Language supermodel: How GPT-3 is quietly ushering in the A.I. revolution https://ift.tt/3mAgOO1

OpenAI

OpenAI’s GPT-2 text-generating algorithm was once considered too dangerous to release. Then it got released — and the world kept on turning.

In retrospect, the comparatively small GPT-2 language model (a puny 1.5 billion parameters) looks paltry next to its sequel, GPT-3, which boasts a massive 175 billion parameters, was trained on 45 TB of text data, and cost a reported $12 million (at least) to build.

“Our perspective, and our take back then, was to have a staged release, which was like, initially, you release the smaller model and you wait and see what happens,” Sandhini Agarwal, an A.I. policy researcher for OpenAI told Digital Trends. “If things look good, then you release the next size of model. The reason we took that approach is because this is, honestly, [not just uncharted waters for us, but it’s also] uncharted waters for the entire world.”

Jump forward to the present day, nine months after GPT-3’s release last summer, and it’s powering upward of 300 applications while generating a massive 4.5 billion words per day. Seeded with only the first few sentences of a document, it’s able to generate seemingly endless more text in the same style — even including fictitious quotes.

Is it going to destroy the world? Based on past history, almost certainly not. But it is making some game-changing applications of A.I. possible, all while posing some very profound questions along the way.

What is it good for? Absolutely everything

Recently, Francis Jervis, the founder of a startup called Augrented, used GPT-3 to help people struggling with their rent to write letters negotiating rent discounts. “I’d describe the use case here as ‘style transfer,'” Jervis told Digital Trends. “[It takes in] bullet points, which don’t even have to be in perfect English, and [outputs] two to three sentences in formal language.”

Powered by this ultra-powerful language model, Jervis’s tool allows renters to describe their situation and the reason they need a discounted settlement. “Just enter a couple of words about why you lost income, and in a few seconds you’ll get a suggested persuasive, formal paragraph to add to your letter,” the company claims.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. When Aditya Joshi, a machine learning scientist and former Amazon Web Services engineer, first came across GPT-3, he was so blown away by what he saw that he set up a website, www.gpt3examples.com, to keep track of the best ones.

“Shortly after OpenAI announced their API, developers started tweeting impressive demos of applications built using GPT-3,” he told Digital Trends. “They were astonishingly good. I built [my website] to make it easy for the community to find these examples and discover creative ways of using GPT-3 to solve problems in their own domain.”

Fully interactive synthetic personas with GPT-3 and https://t.co/ZPdnEqR0Hn ????

They know who they are, where they worked, who their boss is, and so much more. This is not your father's bot… pic.twitter.com/kt4AtgYHZL

— Tyler Lastovich (@tylerlastovich) August 18, 2020

Joshi points to several demos that really made an impact on him. One, a layout generator, renders a functional layout by generating JavaScript code from a simple text description. Want a button that says “subscribe” in the shape of a watermelon? Fancy some banner text with a series of buttons the colors of the rainbow? Just explain them in basic text, and Sharif Shameem’s layout generator will write the code for you. Another, a GPT-3 based search engine created by Paras Chopra, can turn any written query into an answer and a URL link for providing more information. Another, the inverse of Francis Jervis’ by Michael Tefula, translates legal documents into plain English. Yet another, by Raphaël Millière, writes philosophical essays. And one other, by Gwern Branwen, can generate creative fiction.

“I did not expect a single language model to perform so well on such a diverse range of tasks, from language translation and generation to text summarization and entity extraction,” Joshi said. “In one of my own experiments, I used GPT-3 to predict chemical combustion reactions, and it did so surprisingly well.”

More where that came from

The transformative uses of GPT-3 don’t end there, either. Computer scientist Tyler Lastovich has used GPT-3 to create fake people, including backstory, who can then be interacted with via text. Meanwhile, Andrew Mayne has shown that GPT-3 can be used to turn movie titles into emojis. Nick Walton, chief technology officer of Latitude, the studio behind GPT-generated text adventure game AI Dungeon recently did the same to see if it could turn longer strings of text description into emoji. And Copy.ai, a startup that builds copywriting tools with GPT-3, is tapping the model for all it’s worth, with a monthly recurring revenue of $67,000 as of March — and a recent $2.9 million funding round.

“Definitely, there was surprise and a lot of awe in terms of the creativity people have used GPT-3 for,” Sandhini Agarwal, an A.I. policy researcher for OpenAI told Digital Trends. “So many use cases are just so creative, and in domains that even I had not foreseen, it would have much knowledge about. That’s interesting to see. But that being said, GPT-3 — and this whole direction of research that OpenAI pursued — was very much with the hope that this would give us an A.I. model that was more general-purpose. The whole point of a general-purpose A.I. model is [that it would be] one model that could like do all these different A.I. tasks.”

Many of the projects highlight one of the big value-adds of GPT-3: The lack of training it requires. Machine learning has been transformative in all sorts of ways over the past couple of decades. But machine learning requires a large number of training examples to be able to output correct answers. GPT-3, on the other hand, has a “few shot ability” that allows it to be taught to do something with only a small handful of examples.

Plausible bull***t

GPT-3 is highly impressive. But it poses challenges too. Some of these relate to cost: For high-volume services like chatbots, which could benefit from GPT-3’s magic, the tool might be too pricey to use. (A single message could cost 6 cents which, while not exactly bank-breaking, certainly adds up.)

Others relate to its widespread availability, meaning that it’s likely going to be tough to build a startup exclusively around since fierce competition will likely drive down margins.

Christina Morillo/Pexels

Another is the lack of memory; its context window runs a little under 2,000 words at a time before, like Guy Pierce’s character in the movie Memento, its memory is reset. “This significantly limits the length of text it can generate, roughly to a short paragraph per request,” Lastovich said. “Practically speaking, this means that it is unable to generate long documents while still remembering what happened at the beginning.”

Perhaps the most notable challenge, however, also relates to its biggest strength: Its confabulation abilities. Confabulation is a term frequently used by doctors to describe the way in which some people with memory issues are able to fabricate information that appears initially convincing, but which doesn’t necessarily stand up to scrutiny upon closer inspection. GPT-3’s ability to confabulate is, depending upon the context, a strength and a weakness. For creative projects, it can be great, allowing it to riff on themes without concern for anything as mundane as truth. For other projects, it can be trickier.

Francis Jervis of Augrented refers to GPT-3’s ability to “generate plausible bullshit.” Nick Walton of AI Dungeon said: “GPT-3 is very good at writing creative text that seems like it could have been written by a human … One of its weaknesses, though, is that it can often write like it’s very confident — even if it has no idea what the answer to a question is.”

Back in the Chinese Room

In this regard, GPT-3 returns us to the familiar ground of John Searle’s Chinese Room. In 1980, Searle, a philosopher, published one of the best-known A.I. thought experiments, focused on the topic of “understanding.” The Chinese Room asks us to imagine a person locked in a room with a mass of writing in a language that they do not understand. All they recognize are abstract symbols. The room also contains a set of rules that show how one set of symbols corresponds with another. Given a series of questions to answer, the room’s occupant must match question symbols with answer symbols. After repeating this task many times, they become adept at performing it — even though they have no clue what either set of symbols means, merely that one corresponds to the other.

GPT-3 is a world away from the kinds of linguistic A.I. that existed at the time Searle was writing. However, the question of understanding is as thorny as ever.

“This is a very controversial domain of questioning, as I’m sure you’re aware, because there’s so many differing opinions on whether, in general, language models … would ever have [true] understanding,” said OpenAI’s Sandhini Agarwal. “If you ask me about GPT-3 right now, it performs very well sometimes, but not very well at other times. There is this randomness in a way about how meaningful the output might seem to you. Sometimes you might be wowed by the output, and sometimes the output will just be nonsensical. Given that, right now in my opinion … GPT-3 doesn’t appear to have understanding.”

An added twist on the Chinese Room experiment today is that GPT-3 is not programmed at every step by a small team of researchers. It’s a massive model that’s been trained on an enormous dataset consisting of, well, the internet. This means that it can pick up inferences and biases that might be encoded into text found online. You’ve heard the expression that you’re an average of the five people you surround yourself with? Well, GPT-3 was trained on almost unfathomable amounts of text data from multiple sources, including books, Wikipedia, and other articles. From this, it learns to predict the next word in any sequence by scouring its training data to see word combinations used before. This can have unintended consequences.

Feeding the stochastic parrots

This challenge with large language models was first highlighted in a groundbreaking paper on the subject of so-called stochastic parrots. A stochastic parrot — a term coined by the authors, who included among their ranks the former co-lead of Google’s ethical A.I. team, Timnit Gebru — refers to a large language model that “haphazardly [stitches] together sequences of linguistic forms it has observed in its vast training data, according to probabilistic information about how they combine, but without any reference to meaning.”

“Having been trained on a big portion of the internet, it’s important to acknowledge that it will carry some of its biases,” Albert Gozzi, another GPT-3 user, told Digital Trends. “I know the OpenAI team is working hard on mitigating this in a few different ways, but I’d expect this to be an issue for [some] time to come.”

OpenAI’s countermeasures to defend against bias include a toxicity filter, which filters out certain language or topics. OpenAI is also working on ways to integrate human feedback in order to be able to specify which areas not to stray into. In addition, the team controls access to the tool so that certain negative uses of the tool will not be granted access.

“One of the reasons perhaps you haven’t seen like too many of these malicious users is because we do have an intensive review process internally,” Agarwal said. “The way we work is that every time you want to use GPT-3 in a product that would actually be deployed, you have to go through a process where a team — like, a team of humans — actually reviews how you want to use it. …  Then, based on making sure that it is not something malicious, you will be granted access.”

Some of this is challenging, however — not least because bias isn’t always a clear-cut case of using certain words. Jervis notes that, at times, his GPT-3 rent messages can “tend towards stereotypical gender [or] class assumptions.” Left unattended, it might assume the subject’s gender identity on a rent letter, based on their family role or job. This may not be the most grievous example of A.I. bias, but it highlights what happens when large amounts of data are ingested and then probabilistically reassembled in a language model.

“Bias and the potential for explicit returns absolutely exist and require effort from developers to avoid,” Tyler Lastovich said. “OpenAI does flag potentially toxic results, but ultimately it does add a liability customers have to think hard about before putting the model into production. A specifically difficult edge case to develop around is the model’s propensity to lie — as it has no concept of true or false information.”

Language models and the future of A.I.

Nine months after its debut, GPT-3 is certainly living up to its billing as a game changer. What once was purely potential has shown itself to be potential realized. The number of intriguing use cases for GPT-3 highlights how a text-generating A.I. is a whole lot more versatile than that description might suggest.

Not that it’s the new kid on the block these days. Earlier this year, GPT-3 was overtaken as the biggest language model. Google Brain debuted a new language model with some 1.6 trillion parameters, making it nine times the size of OpenAI’s offering. Nor is this likely to be the end of the road for language models. These are extremely powerful tools — with the potential to be transformative to society, potentially for better and for worse.

Challenges certainly exist with these technologies, and they’re ones that companies like OpenAI, independent researchers, and others, must continue to address. But taken as a whole, it’s hard to argue that language models are not turning to be one of the most interesting and important frontiers of artificial intelligence research.

Who would’ve thought text generators could be so profoundly important? Welcome to the future of artificial intelligence.

[17mounteens]

Hi^^ wow the stories are really good, i really enjoy itㅠㅠ can i requst too? A session in the class, you as a student and wonwoo as a teacher. I seriously cant get over him with that glasses omg he looks smart yet hot :""""

I might have overdone the build-up a little BUT I FELT LIKE THIS NEEDED IT. also I agree with Wonwoo in glasses omg now that is a look!

» If you’re using the tumblr app and can’t see the scenario, which is under a “keep reading”, please try opening the post in your phone’s internet browser (or a computer)! 💕

» 5,033 words

”W-Wonwoo, ah–”

As your alarm started ringing, your eyes shot wide open, and you were immediately painfully aware of the wetness pooling between your legs as well as the dream you had just had, and the memory only increased the heat in the pit of your stomach, and you winced when you got out of your bed.

“I can’t believe I just,” you mumbled, half-asleep, while turning your alarm off, the pulsation of your pussy clouding your thoughts. You swallowed, trying to think about everything but the dream you had just woken up from. Shivering, you shook your head. “Thank god I don’t have his lessons today.”

You went on about your morning as per usual, but you were unable to get your thoughts off the handsome - hot, actually - substitute teacher who had been teaching you literature for the past three months and would continue until the end of the school year, which was still a few months away.

From early on you had found him attractive, with his sharp eyes and rare yet incredibly cute smile, and it hardly helped that he was fairly young, too, and treated each of his students kindly. Sure, you had played with different lewd thoughts before, but you could never have even thought that you’d one day see a wet dream about him.

The worst part was that you weren’t bothered by it, really, and were instead mostly frustrated because the dream was so damn good and left you annoyingly horny: not even a cool shower before heading to school eased it.

Gritting your teeth, you left to school and checked your schedule on your way. When you realized what day it was, however, you froze.

8:05 - 9:00 : Literature

“First thing in the morning?” you whispered to yourself, frowning, and continued walking with your heart beating fast in your chest.

Of course you had mixed up the days - fate just wasn’t on your side.

You got to school, got your books from your locker and went to class, fidgeting in your seat as you waited for Wonwoo to come in.

And when he did, you couldn’t even look at him without remembering your dream.

“Good morning, everyone,” Wonwoo greeted the class and closed the door behind himself, after which he walked to his desk and put his bag down. His lips curved into a smile when he saw at least half of the class yawning. “I’m sure you’re all very excited for this lesson.”

“Yes, Mr. Jeon,” most of the class said in unison, none of it coming from the heart, but Wonwoo took what he could get.

He scanned the classroom and quirked his eyebrow a little when he saw you, your hand covering your eyes so that he couldn’t see them as you stared at your notebook and doodled in it.

“Y/N, what about you?” he asked, his voice steady and the slightest bit husky, which went straight between your legs, especially with the memory of the previous night.

You jolted a little, and without raising your gaze to him, waved your hand in the air, signaling that you were fine. “Yes, yes, perfectly!”

Wonwoo squinted his eyes momentarily, but decided to let it go. It was very unlike you to not look at him - normally you wouldn’t have let any opportunity to look at him pass by, much less any opportunity to look into his eyes.

Regardless, Wonwoo went about the lesson like he always did, but he found his attention drifting to you more and more as you continued avoiding his gaze. It might’ve been partially because he had found you attractive for a while and knew just how much time you spent admiring him during his lessons, but he was also genuinely concerned about what had happened to bring about the sudden change.

“Alright, the class is over,” Wonwoo announced when the clock had, in your thoughts finally, reached 8:59, and watched all of you get up and leave the classroom one by one.

You packed your bag quickly and left the classroom quietly, which again made Wonwoo quirk his eyebrow a little. What had happened to your usual, cheerful “Bye”?

As soon as you were out of the classroom, you let out a sigh of relief. If it hadn’t been the most painful lesson of your life, you didn’t know what was.

The rest of the day was much easier to get through, with your friends effectively bringing your thoughts elsewhere and the lessons, some of which you enjoyed and some of which you dreaded, keeping you too busy to think about the painfully attractive substitute teacher or the wet dream you had had.

When the afternoon rolled by, however, you faced another problem.

“Oh, Mrs. Lee isn’t here today,” one of your friends mumbled when you were seated in your classroom, waiting for your English lesson to start. You hummed.

“Who’s going to teach us, then?” you pondered curiously, and your friend shrugged.

“That would be me.”

Shivers ran down your spine as you slowly turned to look at the door, where Wonwoo stood with a small smile on his face.

You could hardly keep a wince off your face. ’Really? The first and the last lesson of the day?’

Wonwoo took note of your expression and shook his head in amusement as he assumed his position at the front of the classroom and began holding the lesson according to the notes that Mrs. Lee had given him. It was mostly individual work, so you didn’t really mind, and were mostly immersed in your book and assignments that you were doing.

However, it being individual work for the students meant that Wonwoo had a bunch of time in his hands, during which he checked some of the essays he had to grade, although he also spent a fair amount of time looking at you.

He just couldn’t wrap his finger around what was up with you. You were normally fairly active in his lessons, which he enjoyed, but that day you were everything but that.

If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve guessed you were purposefully avoiding him.

Amidst your assignment, you slowly moved your gaze up to Wonwoo, hoping to see him focusing on his own work, just so that you could appreciate his looks for a while.

Yet instead, you were met with his eyes, staring intently right back at you.

Your eyes widened, and you hurried to return to your assignment, but dropped your pen in the process, cursing in your mind as you picked it up from the floor. As if you hadn’t been a mess for the whole damn day, the eye contact truly messed you up to the core.

Wonwoo stared at you curiously, chuckling a little at how embarrassed you seemed. Something was up, and he’d make it his goal to figure out what.

It felt like the lesson ended surprisingly soon, and you were about to stand up and leave when Wonwoo spoke. “Actually, Y/N, could you stay for a bit?”

You froze, and without even looking his way, nodded slowly.

You were screwed.

The others left the classroom one by one, and when the last student had left, Wonwoo went to close the door, which he then leaned against as he looked at you, now seated back in your chair.

“So, would you like to tell me what’s wrong?” he asked, his voice soft yet husky, and looked at you warmly. Your cheeks heated up, and you shook your head while pursing your lips.

“N-nothing is wrong,” you said, painfully aware of just how unconvincing you sounded.

Wonwoo hummed and started walking to his desk, where he began packing his bag. “You’re not like you usually are. Something’s going on.”

“I promise it’s nothing,” you assured with a nervous laugh, shaking your head a little again. Wonwoo squinted and placed his hands on the desk in front of him, leaning forward a little.

“Then why can’t you look into my eyes?”

’Because last night I had a dream where you fucked me into oblivion while staring into my eyes.’

“T-that’s…” your words trailed off at the memory of your dream, and you could feel the familiar heat starting to pool at the pit of your stomach as you remembered it all. Your heart beat fast in your chest, and even Wonwoo could see how nervous you were getting.

He squinted a little. “Yes?”

You were quiet, and so Wonwoo began taking small steps towards you. “Does it have to do with the way you look at me?” Your eyes widened at his bold question, and finally you looked at him, sinfully good-looking with the suit he had on, the round glasses only making him more smart-looking and attractive. Wonwoo chuckled quietly. “No, I haven’t missed the way you look at me. But why is it?”

A part of you wanted to hit him, although only lightly, because you could’ve sworn he knew the answer. With him walking closer to you all the while, you finally sighed, too weak to continue fighting. “Because you’re hot.”

He stopped in his tracks, right by your desk, and processed your words. His lips curved upwards while you wanted nothing more than to hide under a rock.

“Hot?” he asked, slightly amused, and took a seat on the desk in front of yours. “Y/N, I’m your teacher.”

“I know,” you grumbled and hid your face a little in embarrassment, feeling just how hot your cheeks were. “Do you think I haven’t told that to myself at least a million times?”

Wonwoo looked at you warmly and shook his head in amusement. “If it helps, I’ve had to remind myself quite a few times, too.”

Your eyebrows rose in surprise, and you lowered your hands slowly, moving your gaze to Wonwoo. He was smiling a little, and your voice was quiet as you spoke. “…What?”

“I’ve had to remind myself that you’re my student,” he said, sounding the slightest bit nervous but also calm, and it all only made your heart beat faster.

“But why?” you asked quietly, too mesmerized by Wonwoo’s sharp, dark eyes to look away anymore.

You were hooked.

He chuckled lowly. “Probably for the same reason you have.”

Swallowing hard, you nodded. Wonwoo sighed.

“But I am your teacher. I don’t want to use my position wrongly,” he said slowly, and his smile got a bitter hint to it.

You found yourself almost pouting a little. “Would it be using your position wrongly if I wanted it?”

Wonwoo’s Adam’s apple bobbed quickly, and he cleared his throat. He wanted to be sure he wasn’t misunderstanding anything. “Wanted what?”

Blood rushed to your cheeks as you averted your gaze. “…Never mind.”

“Y/N,” Wonwoo began, and you slowly moved your eyes back to his, and were now faced with his slightly hooded ones. “Do you want me?”

The nod of your head was almost automatic, and it scared you. But you were tired of lying, tired of fighting against your desires, especially when it seemed that he felt the same way.

Wonwoo looked slightly troubled. “It’s still ethically questionable…”

“But I’m over 18,” you reminded him, barely even in control of yourself anymore, and gave him a meaningful look. “It would be against the school rules, but I’m still an adult.”

He nodded and bit down on his lower lip, allowing his eyes to scan your body, as if he hadn’t been thinking and dreaming about it enough already.

Wonwoo got up from the desk and got closer to yours, and you found yourself standing up, too, your heart beating fast. The suspense was turning you on fast, and you could already feel your nipples hardening and your pussy getting wet with anticipation.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Wonwoo asked, his voice low as he stood right in front of you, looking into your eyes yet not daring to touch you.

You swallowed and nodded. “I need you, Mr–”

“Just call me Wonwoo,” he interrupted you and chuckled, his eyes playful as he looked into yours. “Mr. Jeon is too… formal.”

“Wonwoo, then,” you giggled and bit down on your lower lip and slowly slid your hands up your school uniform shirt. “But it still stands that I need you.”

He watched your hands move, and by the time one of your hands reached your breast, he was a goner.

Placing his hands on your hips, Wonwoo breathed heavily and pulled you a bit closer. “I don’t want to do anything you don’t want me to.”

Intoxicated by his closeness after all the hours you had spent wanting to experience it, you wrapped your arms around his neck, your voice merely a breath when you spoke. “I want it all, and if it does get too much, I’ll tell you. That way we’ll both be happy, won’t we?”

“I don’t want this to be something you’ll regret later,” he said quietly, already leaning down a little until his nose was brushing against yours. “Are you sure, Y/N?”

Your breath nearly hitched in your throat with how close Wonwoo was and how awfully tempting his lips were, so close to yours. “I’m sure.”

With that, you leaned up to bring your lips together for a kiss that sent tingles down your spine, and as Wonwoo’s tongue danced with yours daringly, the only thought in your mind was that wow, you were really doing it, kissing Wonwoo, and about to make your wet dream come true.

You got up on your desk and Wonwoo stood between your legs, his hands holding your bare thighs as you continued kissing passionately, your hands moving up to his hair and down to his shoulders, broad and attractive yet unfortunately covered by the white dress shirt he was wearing.

The kisses were hungry and needy, and if those weren’t enough to tell both of you how badly you wanted each other, then the way you were touching each other did. Wonwoo’s hands moved up and down your thighs, sliding underneath your uniform skirt and nearly under the thin fabric of your panties, and your hands were restlessly moving on his upper body. Neither of you seemed to be able to get enough of the other, and both the kisses and hasty touches only turned the two of you on more.

“The door is locked, right?” you asked against Wonwoo’s lips as you began unbuttoning his shirt, and he chuckled lowly as he popped the first few buttons of your shirt open, too.

“It is, and this is the time when the school gets empty,” he murmured and pulled back to take a look at you, deciding to open the rest of your shirt buttons, too. Then he moved his hooded eyes to yours. “We’re safe.”

Once you had finished opening Wonwoo’s shirt, you smirked at him and pulled him closer from the tie that was now loose around his neck. “Good.”

Wonwoo’s lips tugged into a smirk, too, as he kissed you again, with even more passion and hunger than before, and placed his hands on your waist underneath your shirt. You shivered slightly under his touch, at which he chuckled softly. “Just relax.”

“How,” you breathed, your breath only growing heavier when Wonwoo slid his hands higher on your body, until he could slide his thumbs underneath your bra. “God.”

He pulled back and bit lightly on his lower lip as he looked down at you. “Should I just… slide the straps down?”

You nodded quickly, and so he slid the straps of your bra down until he could also drag the garment itself lower on your torso, until your breasts were easily reached. He grinned to himself and leaned down to brush his lips by yours again while his hands found their way to your breasts.

“Perfect.”

Wonwoo easily slid his tongue into your mouth while massaging your breasts, teasing your erect nipples just how you imagined him in your dream. You were almost painfully turned on, the pulsating need between your legs only growing more intense with his thumbs rubbing your nipples and his lips so sensual against yours.

“I… I need your touch,” you whispered as you broke away from your kiss, looking up into Wonwoo’s eyes almost shyly. Taking a hold of one of his hands, you brought it down on your body.

He swallowed hard and nodded in understanding as he, for the time being, placed his hand on your thigh that he then rubbed with his thumb. “I’ve got you.”

You leaned back a little as Wonwoo slid his hand higher up your thigh, until he could rub your slit through your panties with his thumb. Holding back a whimper, you shut your eyes and clung onto his shoulder with one hand while the other was resting on the desk.

“Damn, you’re wet,” Wonwoo mumbled, his voice thick with lust, and spent a moment just sliding his finger up and down your slit, feeling just how wet your panties were getting and taking note of how good it made you feel.

“That feels good,” you breathed heavily and forced your eyes open so that you could look at him. “But I need more.”

You could see his Adam’s apple bob, which made you feel a sense of self-satisfaction, which was just what you needed to be daring enough to slowly slide your hand down his upper body.

“I take it you could use some attention, too?” you asked with a meaningful raise of your eyebrows when your fingers had reached the waistband of Wonwoo’s suit pants.

“You’ve always been a smart girl,” he noted with his lips curving into a smile and let you unzip his pants and helped you get his cock out of his boxers. You swallowed hard as your hand met his half-hard length, and you gave him a tentative, slow tug. Wonwoo hissed and shut his eyes. “Yes.”

You bit down on your lower lip as you stroked him to full hardness without much trouble, your mouth watering at his size, but felt your composure crumble when he slid your panties to the side and rubbed your swollen clit with his forefinger.

“You’re doing amazing,” he breathed into your ear, grunting quietly as his hips bucked into your hand. “Good god, Y/N.”

“Please, Wonwoo,” you whispered with a whiny edge to your voice when his forefinger would merely tease your entrance instead of sliding in. He chuckled lowly and pressed his lips to your neck, and only gave you what you wanted when you bucked your hips against his finger impatiently.

“Okay, okay,” he hummed in amusement and straightened his back, looking into your eyes as his index finger began pushing into you slowly. “Like this?”

Your breath hitched in your throat as you were finally getting what you had been after, and nodded eagerly. “Y-yes.”

Wonwoo nodded in understanding and leaned down to lock your lips in a series of kisses again, which effectively muffled both of your sounds as he fingered you with ease and you stroked him steadily. You were soaked, which he knew more than well, and so it didn’t take too long for him to be pistoning two and later three fingers in and out of you fast, the desk underneath you shaking about as much as you were.

You clung onto Wonwoo’s shoulder with one hand and stilled your hand on his cock, hiding your face in his shoulder when a wave of pleasure coursed through you, and he only stopped fucking you with his fingers when you suddenly shut your legs and took in a sharp breath.

“Close?” he asked huskily, panting a little, and looked down at his fingers, which were coated with a thick layer of your anticipation. You nodded in a daze as an answer to his question, and Wonwoo brought his fingers up, a playful grin on his lips as you moved your eyes to his fingers. “I wonder, what should we do about this…”

Much to his surprise you didn’t hesitate to open your mouth and take his fingers in, sucking them clean of your own juices. Wonwoo bit down on his lower lip and thrust into your hand, cursing under his breath.

You let his fingers fall from your lips and smiled. “That.”

He nodded in amusement and blinked in surprise when you let go of his length and got off the desk. “What now?”

“I’m going to have to sit there tomorrow,” you pointed out with a laugh, referring to your seat, and began walking towards the teacher’s desk. You smirked at Wonwoo when you had reached it and bent over it, your cleavage as prominent as ever. “And this is a more stable surface anyway.”

“I see,” Wonwoo chuckled and followed you to the front of the classroom, bending down over you and bringing his lips to your left ear. “But you’ll also have to see this desk tomorrow and try not to think about what we’re about to do on it.”

You held back a moan when you felt his cock against your ass, and nodded. “I think that’s just going to make school more interesting.”

“Oh, you bet,” Wonwoo whispered in amusement and gave you a kiss on your neck before pulling back and reaching for his bag.

Curious, you turned to look at what he was doing, and clicked your tongue when you saw him casually flip out a condom from his bag. “Do I want to know?”

Wonwoo laughed, grinning so widely that his nose was crinkling in a way you had only seen it do a few times during classes, and shook his head. “One of my friends put it in my bag a while ago and I just never took it out.”

“And you’re sure it hasn’t expired?” you asked with a quirked eyebrow, and felt a sense of relief when Wonwoo nodded and showed you the condom.

“See for yourself.”

You moved your eyes from the expiry date to Wonwoo and bit down on your lower lip. “Then there’s nothing stopping us.”

He hummed and, once he had placed the condom on the desk, reassumed his position behind you and lifted your skirt up so that your lower body only had your panties covering it. Soon he pushed them down to your mid-thigh, however, and squeezed your ass with a quiet grunt. “Damn, Y/N…”

You held back a moan as he merely kneaded your ass for a while, his cock between your cheeks as his hips rocked back and forth. You could already feel your arousal starting to drip down your thighs, and grew impatient rather fast.

“Wonwoo,” you began pleadingly and looked at him with puppy eyes, “please fuck me already.”

He swallowed hard and let go of your ass to unbutton his pants, which fell to his ankles rather fast, at which he stifled a sigh: nothing to be done about that. Wonwoo then opened the condom packet and put the rubber on himself, giving his length a few good strokes while looking at you hungrily, taking in just how wet your pussy was, especially with you swaying your hips invitingly.

“Wait,” you said suddenly and stood up before turning around and sitting on the desk as a small grin spread to your lips. “I want to see you.”

Wonwoo smirked and raised his eyebrows when you got comfortable on the desk and spread your legs, having managed to get your panties off from one leg.

“I can’t say I’d be surprised,” he hummed in amusement and got closer to you, smiling against your lips as he kissed you. “Especially considering how much you enjoy looking at me on the regular.”

Your cheeks heated up - while he was right, your wish had a lot more to do with the dream you had had the night before that you were more than determined to re-enact.

“Ah,” Wonwoo mumbled suddenly, as though remembering something, and started taking his glasses off. You shook your head quickly and took a hold of his wrist, which caused him to look at you in surprise.

“Keep them on,” you said with a small smile, and Wonwoo raised his eyebrows. “They look good on you.”

His expression melted, and he lowered his hand with a soft smile on his face. “Alright, then. They’ll stay on.”

You grinned playfully and leaned back on the desk, propped on your elbows, and watched Wonwoo intently as he moved his cock up and down your wetness, gathering some additional slickness to it. When you wrapped your legs around his waist, he finally smirked and aligned himself with your entrance.

“Ready?” he asked huskily, looking into your eyes as his hands held your hips, and when you nodded, much more than ready, he finally pushed into you little by little.

You kept your mouth shut, but your sated moan was everything but silent as your eyes fell shut and pussy clamped down around Wonwoo’s length, and he breathed heavily, too, hardly able to hold back a grunt with how amazing it felt to be inside of you at last, surrounded by your hot wetness.

The fact that it was all forbidden only seemed to heighten the pleasure for both of you, and it was as soon as Wonwoo had bottomed out that you realized that it would be much, much more wonderful than it had been in your dream.

“Mr. Jeon…” you whispered, purposefully calling him what you always did in class, and moaned quietly when he instinctively moved inside of you at that.

Wonwoo wanted to, at the very least, hide: while he had been the one to tell you specifically not to call him that, having you refer to him as that turned him on. “Shit, please don’t.”

You grinned, mostly to yourself, and got your hands to Wonwoo’s chest, from where they slid up to his shoulders. “Sorry, I’m just messing with you.”

His lips tugged into a smile, and as he began thrusting into you steadily, he leaned down to kiss you desperately. You wrapped your arms around his neck, similarly as your legs were around his waist, and responded to his kisses, both for the intimacy and the attempt to keep your moans muffled.

Wonwoo breathed heavily as he fucked you, one of his hands roaming on your ass and thigh while the other began slowly moving from your hip to your chest, where he began playing with your nipple. Your breath hitched in your throat, and he chuckled quietly when you clenched around him.

“Aren’t you sensitive,” he noted amusedly while rubbing your nipple with the pad of his thumb, his hips meeting yours one smooth thrust after another, each of which hit all the right places inside of you. “I wonder how you’d react if I touched you somewhere else…”

You whimpered at the implication behind his words, and shook your head as your hips bucked against his. “Not yet, I don’t want to come too soon.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Wonwoo breathed and slid his tongue into your mouth with ease and began thrusting into you a bit faster and harder, by then certain that you were feeling good. You moaned into the kiss with nearly every thrust, and as the knot in the pit of your stomach started getting tighter, your legs began tightening around him, too.

“I-I’m close,” you whined as you broke away from the kiss and hid your face in Wonwoo’s shoulder instead, taking in the faint scent of his cologne. He grunted and slid his hand down from your breast, until he could rub circles into your clit while moving his hips back and forth, reveling in how good it felt on his end, too.

“Just let it go,” Wonwoo muttered into your neck that he was kissing sloppily, intoxicated by both your scent and how you felt, and chased his own high desperately. It didn’t take long for you to come around him, your back arching and your lips parting into a silent cry as your body convulsed underneath his.

He fucked you through your orgasm, and before long, he was coming into the condom, too, grunting against your neck as he held your thigh tightly, his other hand back to your hip as well. His hips continued rocking into yours throughout his climax, until they slowly came to a stop, which left both of you panting, still clinging onto each other.

As you both came down from your highs little by little, you caressed each other slowly, and eventually he pulled out of you and got the condom off, tying it before placing it on top of a paper on the desk so that he could dispose it better later.

“This probably shouldn’t become a thing,” Wonwoo panted, his lips against your neck, but his hands never left your hips.

You held his shoulder with one hand and played with his hair with the other. “This meaning us having sex, or us having sex in the classroom?”

He chuckled quietly and pulled up so that he could look at you and stroke your cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Us having sex. I’m still your teacher, Y/N.”

“But you’re a substitute one,” you mumbled with a small pout, closing your eyes as you leaned into his touch. “Doesn’t your employment end at the end of this semester? And I’m going to graduate, too…”

Wonwoo blinked in surprise. “It does, actually.”

“So,” you began, shy yet playful, and grinned at him. “Would you like to see where this goes when the summer is here? Then there won’t be any obstacles.”

The kiss he gave you told you more than enough.

Wonwoo didn’t quite take pride in the few times that he gave in to you before the end of his employment at the school, however, one of which he actually was able to end in time after merely making out with you, but one of which ended, much to his shame, with you riding him on the backseat of his car.

Admin Scooter

[milsapfan29]

THE JOURNEY TO SALINA

The third time I saw Ronnie was in Salina, Kansas at the historic Stiefel Theatre.    

This one came very easy for me, and it came about because my husband made a remark that he wished he could have gone to Iowa with me. We were in the Walmart parking lot the day he picked me up at the bus stop when he said this.  I said, "well, in under two weeks, the nearest to us he'll be is Salina, Kansas. "   He said, "OK".    So I went home and bought tickets.  

I could not get two seats together but I did end up scoring a front row ticket!  I could not believe the luck.  I knew Richard wasn't going to like it that much if we didn't sit together but the way I looked at it was this:  he's a fan but not as an enthusiastic one as I am, because I am the one with the internet presence.   I would have been in the car with him all the way up and all the way back and even in the same hotel room with him.  It would be my only break from him and my superfan status would have meant he would need a break from me.    It didn't matter: there was a front row seat available and we flipped a coin to see who got it.  I won.  He said that was only fair since I was the photographer anyway.   We were going to do a swap but he didn't want to do that when all was said and done.  

Now something about my husband you must understand: he's a griper.   He'd gripe if he was hung with a new rope.   So all the way up to Salina, which is about 350 miles from home, all  I heard was him grumbling and grousing about how many miles we were putting on the car, slow tractors, and how much the trip was costing despite the fact that I was the one financing it all.  All he had to do was drive.   (I do not drive btw. I have epilepsy and even though my seizures are rare because my disorder is under control, my doctors feel it's best that I don't. If not for that, I have zero qualms about going to a concert alone. I've done it many times.)

Also there is a funny inside joke that my whole family and concert travel buddies tease me about: corn.  When I went to Iowa, my son remarked that when I did the sightseeing stuff that all I was posting photos of outside of the concert was corn.   Well, it's Iowa so....Kansas is just like Iowa in that regard.  It wasn't long before we saw corn, corn, corn, and more corn!    I asked, "good grief, doesn't Kansas grow wheat or sunflowers anymore?"    I noted that I saw it in Iowa and there is a  corn field belonging to the Quapaw tribe behind Downstream Casino so now when I go to a concert, it's a personal tradition to see corn in some capacity.   Kansas is also unremarkably flat.   (I was surprised Iowa was so hillyby comparison .)  We took a main highway going in but until we got outside of Wichita we barely saw any cars.   

We found the theatre easily and then went onto Abilene to relax at our hotel room a bit before the show.  We found this great restaurant that served a chicken fried pork sandwich, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy and more.  It was amazing.  I had plenty left over so I ate half and got a doggie bag and put it in the hotel room fridge for after the concert.   Fourteen dollars fed both of us, so the prices were awesome too.

  The people in there were friendly and noticed my Ronnie Milsap shirt I was wearing.  Several people in there said they were going there too and I said, "cool see you there!"  And THAT is one of the things it's all about right there.  Making fast friends with fellow fans on the road.  In Iowa I ran into a lady from Joplin, MO who came up for the show as well as a bunch of people who had been to the show the night before at the cafe where my friend Suzanne and I had breakfast, and I met several fellow "groupies" that I only knew through the Facebook groups.     This is one aspect I kind of enjoy despite the fact that I am more introverted in person than I am online.   Online I can just block somebody who is giving me grief, but in real life I have to deal with it.    I think I enjoy this because of the common ground bond. 

It came time to leave for the show.   We were freshly showered, primped and dressed.  Our one main concern from earlier when we found the theatre, was where we might have to park as it doesn't really have a parking lot except a few spaces in front of it that nowhere near cover its capacity.   So, Richard and I agreed that we could park in front of a business or somewhere like that and just walk the rest of the way.  

Richard whipped down an alley and I was fiddling with my camera which decided it was going to start acting up so I wasn't paying attention to what he was parking next to until I got out of the car and turned around.   I gasped.   He was already out of the car and waiting on me, and I hollered "Richard!  I don't think we're supposed to be back here!"  He went, "why not?   It is a public parking lot and I saw a parking hole. What's wrong with it?"  

I pointed and said, "that's Ronnie's BUS!!!!!"  He parked right next to the big, black, shining home on the road of the one and only Ronnie Milsap.    He goes, "well take a picture of it and come on!" He didn't have to tell me twice! I wondered if he was on it and heard my little freak out.  I'll never know.  (Since it was so close to show time, he probably wasn't.) 

We went through a little bit of a security detail and I was met by the theater manager who told me, "Mr. Milsap is completely OK with you taking photos."    I was pleased to hear this.  Previously I had emailed the theater manager and asked if my camera and photos were OK, since many theaters have a policy against pictures and many leave it up to the artist.   Ronnie is one who doesn't like a lot of restrictions on his fans, so I was given a personal blessing.  I decided to ask since after Iowa and that usher who made me put my camera away, I didn't want a repeat of that.   I was handed off to a very sweet usher named Linda and she led me to my seat.   She made me feel like a VIP.  She even told the lady she seated next to me, "This is my friend Beth and she's going to be photographing Mr. Milsap tonight."  

The lady did not seem impressed or even friendly to be honest.  There are two types of fans.  The first kind is "once is enough" and then the frequent flyers, that I was becoming.    Linda told her, "this is Beth's third time seeing him."   The lady asked me, "what do you do, follow him around or something?"    I said, "no, he just happens to coincidentally hold a concert wherever I travel  to!"  She kind of snorted and didn't say another word to me all evening.    The man to my right was a bit friendlier and told me he had seen Chicago 14 times.

 But man was my seat awesome!  I had a camera with 35X zoom AND was sitting just about seven feet from Ronnie. I could stretch my toe out and touch the stage edge!    His piano was all ready to go and I was just in front of it.  I said hello to Jamie, Marty, and other band members who were coming out and getting ready.  I asked Marty about the things that went in Ronnie's ears and he said they were just in ear monitors. He was untangling them and getting them ready. 

Then it was show time.  A DJ from a radio station came out and talked about how much he wished he could run his fingers through Ronnie's hair. I could hear his bellowing laugh as this was said and knew he was close.  Then Marty helped him to the piano and it was showtime.  Ronnie did joke, "hey do you know what food Kansas is famous for?"  I blurted out, "for the love of God Ronnie, please don't say corn."   I think he heard me  because he chuckled and then patted his belly and said, "STEAK!!!  And it was GOOOOOD too! 

And his show WAS. AWESOME.  I hate it when they end.   I didn't get a meet and greet but I was still too shy to ask for one. I probably would have gotten one if I had asked but I was happy just to be there.

 I went back to the hotel room that night and uploaded my pictures.  I took more than 200!   

The next morning we were homeward bound and took a wrong turn and ended up in Iowa.   We turned around and got going in the right direction and went back the way we came after we got through Topeka.   It was storming that morning and I saw some of the most amazing lightning I'd ever seen in my life and this is saying something because I was born and raised in Okahoma.  My camera however was acting up and I was unable to get any photos of this amazing lightning.   It looked more like sprite lightning.  I reveled in its beauty and had to commit it to my memory banks instead.

 Richard may have griped all the way to the concert about how crazy it was to drive 350 miles just for a concert but all the way home he was raving about how it was worth the drive.   

We stopped in the middle of nowhere for food and a bathroom break, and I went out to the car with my chili dogs and he was nowhere to be found.  I thought, "maybe he's still in the bathroom."   I went back in to look for him and found him chatting with a store employee about the show.  Not surprisingly, she was a Ronnie Milsap fan and then another person joined in the conversation.  "Where did you all see Ronnie Milsap at?"    Salina, Kansas. "Man I wish i had known he'd be there. I love him."  

Then somebody broke out a story about their past concerts.  I love to hear other peoples' Ronnie stories and so one of these ladies told me about the time the saw him at an outdoor concert in Kansas City that had to be abruptly halted due to  a pop up thunderstorm that would have shorted out their equipment.  So whlie they were waiting on the storm to pass, Ronnie joked around with people.   Suddenly a clap of thunder reverberated the whole place and Ronnie suddenly stood up and yelled, "wow! Did you see that?"     

I know somebody online said they thought this may have been the same show where they got to share a roller coaster car with him and a sudden dip got him to say, "well I didn't see that coming!" Gotta love that humor there. Anyway number three was a great experience and I am so happy that I got to  go to that one too.

<3   Beth 

Join our fan network:

facebook.com/groups/MilsapMemesfacebook.com/groups/WeLoveYouRonniefacebook.com/groups/RonnieMilsap29  Also find us on IG, Pinterest, and Tumblr! 

[camgirlsurvivalguide]

In light of recent events being spewed back and forth all over the cam “community” social media platforms, and even on MFC itself, I’ve been thinking about what it means to be together as a recognized group - as Cam Models and Members - and if this concept is standing in a more or less make-or-break position right now. I haven’t been on the site for all that long in the grand scheme of things, but four years has given me enough time to watch things change and grow, and I personally view the past year as one of the most major in terms of conceptual changes to being a cam girl and spending time on cam sites.

Cam models themselves know that we’ve always had something of a community. There is a degree of social sacrifice to stripping on the internet - it’s a job that not many people understand or even accept, and in that comes a particular kind of isolation that we seek to remedy by turning inward to our fellow models. The relationships I’ve had with other camgirls are unlike any else - we know one another intimately, we’ve seen one another at our most vulnerable and our most comfortable, and when we get together with people that not only know what we do but really fucking know what we do, the sense of real freedom to talk to one another is incredible. It’s a huge relief, to have one another. It’s a massive reason why I enjoy being a cam girl, and why I’ve continued camming for as long as I have.

There are a couple psychological principles at play here, though, that can make things seem a lot shinier than they are. Humans tend to believe that beautiful = good, and god damn, are we beautiful. This is great for fostering a fast sense of trust and security, but obviously, that comes with it’s downsides, too. We also tend to believe that a common interest reflects a common attitude or personality, which is great for forming a shared identity, but not so great when you consider that we are more than just our jobs. We want to believe that the people who are interested in what we’re interested in are similar to us, so that we can feel safe identifying with this “camgirl” hive - but as much as we may be similar, we can also be very, very different. 

Last night a “controversial” (see: racist) cam model did a show involving black face, and not surprisingly, outrage tore across the community. Not only was it not the first time this individual has been put on blast, but it’s also not the first time that a particularly charged topic has come forward in cam land - not even the first time this fucking week, if we’re being honest. I think a huge portion of why the drama is so apparent is because models who display these horrible attitudes and behaviours on cam threaten our sense of community, and like I’ve mentioned, this community is incredibly important to many of us - perhaps the only sense of community that some of us have. 

I’ve heard a lot of this word “community” these days. Lately I’ve been hearing it from the site administration itself, which is interesting to me for a few reasons - but the one I’m going to talk about here is the most obvious: money. The community we’ve built is a beautiful thing, but it’s also an incredibly profitable thing. By promoting the warm fuzzies of camming to potential models, we’re now in the business of marketing this environment we’ve built over the years. We’ve got more free clothing, more branded products, more opportunities to come together and even more customer service (wow!) from the site than I’ve ever seen. This, to me, boils down to a particularly inviting environment. Let’s go back to four years ago when I was considering starting camming. If I’m being blunt, it was something of a move of desperation. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that. I was in debt and needed a way out, and couldn’t think of anything else - and I knew there was money to be made, so I gave it a try. If I was also told that beyond money there was a whole world of acceptance and friendship and love from other beautiful women who I could hug and party with - like I see in the promotional videos these days - well hot damn I’d have signed out that registration form even faster!

If the community that we built - by and large without the added marketing - is going to be promoted and marketed by the site we work on, then it’s also their responsibility, just as it has been ours, to protect it. I think that in most situations there are two sides to every story, and it’s important that we don’t turn into some head hunting group that removes anyone we don’t like (because that’s a whole other shitstorm in and of itself), but when a matter is incredibly clear - oh, I don’t know, maybe like repeatedly profiting off of racism and hatred - I think we need to be able to unanimously decide that behaviour like that won’t be tolerated, and accounts that participate in behaviour like that will be removed.

Drama is free advertising. There are plenty of people in the world that would be happy to throw their money toward a racist show, because there are racists in the world that literally support that. So the conversation and outrage that our community is having about this, if no further action is taken by the site, is nothing more than free advertising, both for the racist in mention and for the site who, by doing nothing, profits directly from racism and from our attempts to remove it from our community. If the site wants to profit off of the love we have for one another, they absolutely may not profit off of those who oppose it. 

MFC has been promoting this love for a while, and while I think that it’s a great stance to take, it’ll only be validated if they choose to stand with us. 

This isn’t an isolated incident, and there is no other side to it. Remove the individual and show us that the community we sacrificed so much to be a part of is more than a marketing perk. 

[ciathyzareposts]

Missed Classic 85: Drive-In Adventure (1982)

Written by Joe Pranevich

Sex sells. Whether you personally consume pornography or not, it is undeniable that whenever a new media technology came along, it quickly adapted for adult entertainment. Pornography influenced the rise of VHS in the 1970s, the early internet in the 1980s, and eventually the broadband push in the 2000s. Some of these claims are spurious, of course– do people really favor phones with larger screens now because of porn?– but it is undeniable that adult entertainment is a massive and often hidden economic lever that has shaped our technology landscape.

Adventure games were not immune to this pressure. In 1981, On-Line Systems (later known as Sierra On-Line) released Softporn Adventure; it supposedly sold so well that 25% of Apple II computers owned a legitimate copy, not even accounting for piracy. In 1986, Infocom released Leather Goddesses of Phobos, their final true hit. Even though it came out late in Infocom’s lifespan, it still became their 5th best selling game of all time. Both of these had remakes (Leisure Suit Larry, for one) and sequels. Larry sold 300,000 copies in its first year! There was a market for lewd (and more than lewd?) games.

And yet, none of those games could be called “pornographic”. At best, they contained sexy situations and innuendo. Graphical nudity, where present, was censored. In honor of making it to Leather Goddesses in my Infocom marathon, I am taking a detour back to the dawn of the genre to investigate the very first X-Rated work of interactive fiction, 1982’s Drive-In Adventure. It’s not a great game by any stretch, but at the time it must have seemed revolutionary. It also must have evinced a certain sense of nostalgia for those that played it; it warranted, by my count, no less than three ports or updates in the years that followed. In the interests of our readers (and Google search ranking), I will keep this review as close to PG-13 as possible. I’ll talk about the naughty bits, but forgive me if I must be a bit circumspect.

“Le Coucher de la Mariée” (1896) was the first adult film.

Let’s start with the basics: Drive-In was written by Douglas C. Rogers and distributed by Program Dynamics for the Commodore 64. As far as I have been able to determine, this is Rogers’s first and only adventure game, although he remained close to the genre for many years. The game credits name a distributor, but I have been unable to confirm that it was sold commercially. My guess is that the game primarily made its rounds through the early Commodore 64 BBS scene, no doubt helped thanks to its unusual subject matter. Even so, it includes this note at startup:

THIS ADVENTURE DEALS WITH SEX AND OTHER ADULT THEMES. IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED, DO NOT PROCEED! RETURN THIS COPY TO THE STORE WHERE YOU PURCHASED IT FOR A COMPLETE REFUND! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Following his work on this game, Rogers remained active in the interactive fiction community for many years. Through the 80s, he ran “Adventureland BBS” (also known as “Mister Rogers Neighborhood BBS”), one of the largest repositories of interactive fiction at the time. He operated it until approximately 1994. In 1990, he released “Adventure Author”, a front-end to simplify the process of creating Adventure Game Toolkit (AGT) games. Although he helped others to write and distribute adventures, Rogers does not appear to have written any further works that survive to the present. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to reach Rogers in time for this review. I have a million questions about how this game came to be, what choices he made when designing it, and how it was distributed. I’d also love to learn more about his work to improve AGT authoring and what games, if any, took advantage of his toolkit.

Before I begin, I discovered one more interesting coincidence: After Rogers closed his BBS, Bob Newell (who we introduced last week as the author of Pesach Adventure) launched the “GobblerNet Adventure Games BBS” as an unofficial successor. It was strange to see Newell’s name pop up again so soon, but I love that for their very different games and approaches, a common thread connects these two promoters and lovers of interactive fiction.

Are you ready for some smut? It’s time to play the game.

Is watching the movie an option?

Journey to the Snack Bar

Well, here it is! The big evening! Your buddy Arnie set you up with this little number named Andrea, and here you are! What do you know? She LOOKS OK, at least! After that last blind date of Arnie’s, his LIFE depended on that. Thing is, he didn’t tell you a damn thing about her. What she likes and doesn’t like, how far she goes and how fast… all the important stuff you need to know. With this background, your DRIVE-IN ADVENTURE is about to begin. As with all adventures, you direct the computer with VERB-NOUN two-word English sentences. Your sensual computer will be your eyes and ears and hands and… well… you’ll find out.

The game opens and we find ourselves sitting in a car next to our blind date, Andrea. We immediately discover that we cannot even hold hands with our date because the “noise from the movie” is too distracting. If you are not familiar, drive-ins worked by parking your car facing the screen in a large open space. Next to each car would be a pole with a portable speaker. You bring that speaker into your car to listen to the film in beautiful monaural glory. Even in its opening moments, we already hit the first parser problem: how the heck are we supposed to turn off the speaker? We cannot drop it, move it, or turn it off. You can beat your head against this all you like, but the answer turns out to be “loudspeaker off”. Moments after being told that you have to enter commands in “verb noun” format, we have to break the rule to continue. This won’t be the only case like this! Not only will we have similar constructions (“radio on” will be needed in just a moment), but we have weird commands like “put arm” if we want to snuggle up. The author clearly knew how a good parser should work but chose to make one of the first commands of the game nearly impossible to guess.

Beyond cosying up to our date, we cannot do anything more at this stage except hold hands. If you ask for “help” (one of the nice features of the game!), you are told that refreshments are in order. It’s time to take a trip to the snackbar!

Let’s all go to the lobby… er… snack bar.

Leaving the car is easy and we find ourselves in a sea of parked vehicles. Unfortunately, the unfairness of the parser gives way to the unfairness of the adventure itself. We can explore, but going more than a room or two results in the message “You are lost!” and we have to restart the game. The game practically taunts us to explore: there are different cars in different spaces, debris such as a broken speaker, and even a (ewww) used condom. An explorable children’s playground is to the north, with swings, a slide, and a see-saw. You can even climb up the slide! Despite having a few things to see, all of these rooms and objects will turn out to be red herrings so I’ll just skip them.

Beyond the playground is the snackbar and bathrooms. Even getting inside is an exercise in parser frustration. It might seem that since you got there from the south, you’d just go north again to enter. Nope! You have to type “go snackbar” then “go counter” to walk up to the salesperson. The menu is surprisingly inexpensive (popcorn for $0.50!) and we can easily buy whatever we want then return to the car. As a good adventurer should, I check out the bathroom. (That is also an exercise in frustration: a sign shows the men’s room to the west but we can only get in by typing “go mens”.) Once there, we discover a machine selling “Super-Chiefs” for $0.50 for a package of two. Of course, we have no change. The puzzle is that we need to order something at the snackbar to break our single $1 bill so that we can use the rest to buy… something. No explanation is given for what a “Super-Chief” is, and the game’s parser pours salt in the wound. Even if we guess (correctly) that it is selling condoms, the game only recognizes the word “rubber”. There is no hint anywhere that “rubber” is the correct synonym for condom; the game doesn’t even recognize “super-chief” as a synonym! There is a small final trick in that everything we buy in the snackbar is bought in pairs, one for us and one for our date. We must factor that in and not buy anything over $0.25 or else we run out of cash. I grab colas for Andrea and use the change to purchase condoms. Time to head back to the car!

Lucy in the sky with Super-Chiefs.

Heavy Petting

Returning to the car, we arrive at the heavy petting portion of the game and there’s no more adventuring to be done. From here, we have to slowly seduce our date. We can start with “hold hands” and “kiss neck” and usually we have to do the same command over and over again until the message repeats. That lets you know that she’s happy with what you have been doing and you can escalate. Here is an example exchange from early in the session:

> kiss neck The perfume is sweet…maybe jasmine. > kiss neck Nice curve right THERE, where the ear and the neck meet.. > kiss neck OK > kiss neck OK

You get the idea. Honestly, there’s a lot of trial and error since we don’t know what’s possible. I was stuck for a while because we reached a point where the only thing to do is blow into her ear. (And she responds by blowing back into yours…) Without a help system or consulting the source, I’m not sure I would ever think to try that. Kids in the 80s sure did strange things…

In all honesty, that is just one of many examples where the text seems “off”. Unless I miss my mark, Rogers was in his mid-30s when he wrote this game, but some of the sexual descriptions seem immature:

> kiss lips WOW! Her tongue just flicked yours!

While I can think of many ways to describe the amazing feeling of making out with a woman in the backseat of a car (an activity that I’ve partook in once or twice), “flicking” is not a term I would use.

After making out, the game tells us that it is too cramped in the front seat for further activities. Getting into the backseat is easy enough (“go backseat”), but getting Andrea to join you requires the inscrutable command “call andrea”. Once there, we can get her shirt off and do some biting and sucking until she gets bored. Where would you go after that? I’ll give you one hint: she likes to have her tummy rubbed. Yes, we move from heavy petting to actual petting. After that, the hints state that you should move to her legs and I’m sure you can see how the progression of clothing removal and fondling continues from here.

The climax of the game, if I can abuse that word, is similarly inscrutable. You reach a point where you can have sex with her (using the command “f*ck p*ssy”), and while she likes it, the game does not end. To reach the ending, we have to type “f*ck andrea” which somehow– and I have no idea how– is a different action than “f*ck p*ssy”. Hopefully by now we also remembered to have safe sex; if we did, the game ends and we get a “Congratulations!” message. If not, we lose because she gets pregnant. Since I had spotted the condom at the beginning of the game, I was well prepared. I won!

Time played: 2 hr 15 min

Once is enough, thanks.

This is a strange game. Just from a pornographic side, it’s tremendously vanilla. The parser doesn’t recognize the word “ass”, there is no girl-on-boy oral, and none of the sexual descriptions are very descriptive. Basic aspects of female arousal are either never described or feel off in some way. Prior to researching the game, I was sure that I would discover that the text was translated from another language. How else could you explain the strange word choices (“flicking”) and the bizarre differences between the two uses of the word “fuck”. Alternatively, I expected to find that the game had been written by a 13-year old who knew all about sex from reading stolen Playboys and Piers Anthony novels. I try to never be rude when I review these games; their creators put a lot of their blood, sweat, and tears into making something for us to enjoy. This game is no different, but I would be remiss if I didn’t try to explain how the text came up short.

Despite my own reservations, the game was well-liked enough that it was ported or remade several times:

In 1987, someone adapted the original Commodore BASIC version of the game to QuickBasic and compiled it for DOS. This version keeps the original copyright date and is listed as a 1982 game on the sites that include it, but the QuickBasic v2 library it was compiled against didn’t exist before 1985 and the timestamps on the file place it in 1987. There are a handful of textual differences between this edition and the Commodore one that I played, but it is unclear when those differences were introduced.

In 1988, Alan Pilon posted the game to QuickBasic v4 and released it as Passion Pit. Despite saying that it is “so totally different … that I have absolutely no qualms about representing this program as mine”, much of the text appears to be the same with added colors, a rotating name for the female companion, and other details. Pilon released the game through Western Reserve Automation, Inc. a company that he incorporated in 1986.

In 1990, “Stark” ported the game to the Adventure Game Toolkit as Crusin. I have been unable to get this version of the software to run. Reviews state that he removed the adventure portions outside of the car in favor of a more streamlined experience, but I do not know that from personal experience.

I first played this game through the DOS version, before realizing that the Commodore 64 edition was the original. That version includes one further change which I found unconscionable and which initially made me decide not to review the game: the ending is much more explicitly “date rape” with Andrea saying “No” and you continue anyway. I could say a lot about this– about how American culture through the 80s made light of date rape through movies like Sixteen Candles, or even objectified it as “manly” thanks to James Bond and similar films. It is also true that many pornographic games fall prey to this trope as well, from Larry Laffer’s use of the “Spanish Fly” in the first Leisure Suit Larry (1987) game to the mind-control antics in Voyeur (1992). That is a much larger discussion, but suffice it to say that I was not comfortable playing a game where the solution to the final puzzle of the game is rape.

Shakespeare could not have put it better: “No more yankie my wankie. The Donger need food!”

Final Rating

Let’s get to the final score. I have a feeling this will not score high…

Puzzles and Solvability – There is an adventure game puzzle or two with the snack bar and the condom dispenser, plus many red herrings scattered around the drive-in lot and adjacent playground. Unfortunately, “seduction” consists of typing the same things over and over again until the message changes. I have to give credit for the novel help system, but hinting what body part to touch next could have been better integrated into the text of the game itself. My score: 1.

Interface and Inventory – I have never played a game that seemed to hate its player so much. Moments after being told to only use verb-noun commands, the game forces you to do something else. Movement is inconsistent. Everything is so much harder than it needs to be and I still have no idea what the difference is between the two “f*cking” commands. I suspect that this game was remade so many times in part because someone saw the promise in the premise, but was frustrated by the engine wrapped around it. My score: 0.

Story and Setting – There is a setting and a nugget of a story, although the game punishes you for trying to explore thanks to the “You are lost!” failure messages. The story is unfortunately as deep as a mud puddle and there isn’t a ton to say about it. My score: 1.

Sound and Graphics – No sound or graphics. My score: 0.

Environment and Atmosphere – I feel dirty playing this game, so I guess the environment is good in that respect. The drive-in theater has a sense of gloomy seediness with broken speakers, discarded condoms, and similar, although the overall presentation is sparse. We just see “red” or “blue” cars, for example, but no beaten up Ford Focuses. There’s not really enough detail to help you really feel the location. My score: 1.

Dialog and Acting – For a sex game, the text is mostly unsexy and the dialog is sparse. You never learn a single thing about your date, or even have her say one word to you that isn’t gasping thanks to your touch or pushing you away because you haven’t turned her on enough yet. My score: 1.

Let’s add that up: (1+0+1+0+1+1)/.6 = 7 points! I think I’ve said quite enough rude words for one evening so we’ll leave that score stand.

Drive-In Adventure wins the prize for being the lowest-rated game on the site, a record that has stood since Trickster’s days. Fans of Psycho can finally breathe easy that a worse game has been found! In all seriousness however, it is not unexpected that a 1982 game written in Commodore BASIC would struggle with an interface, overly sparse text, and a limited depiction of a NPC. These were very early days for our industry. You may be shocked to learn that this whole game fits into 400 lines of BASIC code, although those are very dense multi-statement lines that are quite challenging to read and parse through manually.

I especially don’t want to sell Douglas Rogers short for what he created here. My frustrations aside, he was the first person (that we know of) to cross that barrier from erotic to lewd. He saw the limits that had been set by Softporn the year before and set out to cross them. The fact that his work was ported at least twice to newer systems shows that it resonated with his audience, and I have no doubt that those later implementers looked at this game with a sense of rose-tinted nostalgia. We also cannot sell short Rogers’s other contributions to our industry, including distributing titles on his BBS and his AGT front-end. Writing smut just wasn’t his calling and I hope that he looks back on this game with a sense of bemused embarrassment, but nothing more negative than that.

Up next for me will probably be a bonus Leather Goddesses review. I had intended this as a placeholder post for the LGoP playthrough since TBD already played and rated the game, but we decided that a one-off post won’t hurt. Until then, stay safe and stay healthy.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/missed-classic-85-drive-in-adventure-1982/

[cadem28]

180804 Dreamcatcher Fanaccount

Dreamcatcher fannaccount

Hello everyone, I went to the dreamcatcher concert in Bogotá and I’ll try to capture how my experience at their concert was. Obviously I’ll preface this with the fact that English isn’t my first language and it’s been a while since I’ve written essays or any long form piece so just try to bear with me and if something isn’t clear just ask me and I’ll try to clarify.

Going back a bit I bought the tickets the day they went on sale, one for me and one for my friend who isn’t really into dreamcatcher but thought it was gonna be fun (which it was) so he tagged along.

We got to the venue and started lining up at around 4:30, the theatre was in a somewhat sketchy area on a closed street (idk how you call that someone help me here) so for the most part I was a bit paranoid that something was gonna happen, either to us or just in general. Stuff actually did end up happening, for example someone broke a glass bottle, and we saw a guy scream at a woman on the street over some altercation they had, initially I thought the guy was shouting at his wife, who promptly responded “No one IN THIS COUNTRY speaks like that to me”, but in fact it was just some random woman and he went with his actual wife and baby later, real crazy shit.

Interestingly enough, there were a lot of street vendors selling unofficial merch to the people in the line, mostly hats and t-shirts with different DC logos. I noticed the guys weren’t selling too well considering that every time they passed they had the same exact pieces and people didn’t seem too keen on buying them. Originally their asking price was 15K pesos for a hat (around 5 US dollars, exchange almost 3K pesos for 1 dolar) and 25k pesos/12 USD for a t-shirt, at the end of the concert the guy was selling them for 10K pesos/3 USD for the t-shirts so I hope it wasn’t too rough of a day for them. Annyways damn this is getting long and I haven’t even begun with the concert.

Anyway, at around 5:40 the line started moving and we began entering the venue, which was really pretty inside and gave me a good vibe. When we got in we were given a number which was going to be used for a raffle but I didn’t win so idk what they got. At around 6:40 the venue started playing the dreamcatcher songs so we were sure that the concert was finally starting but the curtains weren’t opening, so I thought it was a mistake and that someone from audio had fucked up but no, they let You&I, Fly High, Good Night and Chase me play. Surprisingly people were going fucking crazy JUST for the audio of the songs, they did the fan chants and clapped and cheered after every song, and they screamed loud as hell too, the gender distribution of the concert was around 65% girls and 35% dudes so the girls screamed for literally everything and anything. People really where having a mini concert with just the audio before the concert actually started.

So the concert eventually began, and immediately people started putting their phones up to record. We had floor/pit/idk how you people call it tickets and it was standing room only so essentially this meant that we were gonna have to see the concert through these people’s screens and I was just so heartbroken that it wasn’t gonna be the experience I thought it was going to be. Fortunately, my friend had the genious (and I mean it) idea of actually moving back, because due to the angle or elevation or like physics dude idk, and we actually had a clearer view of the girls that way.

Fly High, Emotion and their other ballad uhhhh how is it called.

The curtains opened and RRAH, they were there, these K-Pop people we had all been seeing on the internet for our entire fan lives were there, they existed, Siyeon, Gahyeon Dami, JiU, Handong, Yoohyeon and SuA, they were REAL, but even more so, people in this country haven’t had a K-Pop concert in like never (aka 5 years) so for this new generation of fans that attended it finally felt like K-Pop was something real, that it existed outside of the internet and it was finally in front of our eyes, it was extremely surreal. As for these first 3 songs I personally was just kinda sorting my view so I didn’t really pay too much attention to them, plus Dreamcatcher’s ballads are kind of weak and Fly High isn’t their greatest title imo so yeah didn’t miss much (I think).

Group, Individual and unit covers and You&I

Here’s where the real concert started, at least for me. I didn’t look at any of the setlists of the previous concerts in the tour so every cover or special stage was unknown to me. I don’t exactly know the order in which they came so I’ll just try my best to remember. At first they started playing this sort of weird dubstep freaky music and I was confused as to what was happening, but then the song started playing, Imagine Dragons – Believer and holy fucking shit, I had seen videos of the cover and was personally underwhelmed by it, but IRL? Just Woah, they hit every move with inch-perfect precision and “punch” in it, they really out here looking like they were trying to prove a point, to who? For what? I don’t know but they made it look like if they were doing some indigenous exorcist ritual that their life depended on. Every kick, every move, every time the chorus hit they just fucking unleashed, I adored it and at multiple times I audibly screamed “Que gonorrhea”, the upper latin america equivalent of holy shit to my friend, who despite being as impressed at me didn’t really show it, but more on that later.

I think after that they did You and I which was the performance in the entire concert, just the intensity and Dami doing her magic trick which idk where it even came from blew me away. People did the fan chants super loud and went even crazier for this song than the others. If this concert was an album then this was the title track.

After that, the unit covers started, for every one we’d get a mini VCR/Video on the screen hyping up which members where to come. First came Yoohyeon and Gahyeon covering Tayeon – I. This was a special song for me since I knew Dreamcatcher had a cover of SNSD ITNW so I really wanted them to do it since I love SNSD, so instead of that we got this and just wow. The song being the power ballad it is gave Yoohyeon the chance of hitting the incredible high note in the middle of the song and it was this magical moment where everyone in the audience could feel it, her strength and the power in her voice. Having never seen anything like it live, through my mind came the thought of “Wow, this really what we live for, this K-Pop stuff might be weird and a lot of people might not get it but damn, moments like this are what we’re here for”.

Next up was JiU and Handong doing Troublemaker – Troublemaker. Obviously I knew the song was a bit raunchy but JiU and Handong really said fuck this PG shit we doin it how it meant to be done and they WENT FOR IT. There was none of this hover hand stuff I had seen on the performances on Korean shows, they were grabbing each other’s ass, breasts and anything in between and not apologizing to anyone for it. On the contrary every time they crossed any physical line people went nuts, screaming like I had never heard. Real strong cover.

Coming up was SuA and Dami with Taemin – Move. Strong cover but I don’t remember much of it, Dami was the most popular member but she also seemed kinda tired.

Finally came Siyeon’s solo with Alan Waker – Faded and god damn. Ya girl was born to be a rockstar, I figured it out 2 seconds after she started singing, her voice just had such projection and she had the superstar vibe going on so hard. When she sang people payed attention, she grabbed us and didn’t let us go ever. At the end she set up the microphone stand and kicked it down in a real power move which kinda made me realise that she was the one running shit around here. Thinking back she 100% was the MVP of the concert, not just because of her stage but also because in every performance she was the one who went the hardest, both singing and dancing, she put the concert on her back and if I you asked me who is main dancer and main singer in that group, just based on this concert it would be both her. Back to the song however, my friend commented to me that he actually did know this song, so I was like “okay, my boy gonna get hype finally, maybe sing it a bit or something” but nope, he just stood there and I know it’s just the way he is but I think on some way he certainly affected my concert experience, I saw everyone going crazy and in some ways I felt like I was separated from that because I payed attention to my friend having a good time, which he didn’t seem to be having even though later he told me he loved it, but also because we were so far back in some ways it felt that yes we could see better but we weren’t really part of all the concert.

Then came the Q&A segment which was just messy all around, Dami did despacito and every girl did some variation of sexy dance to a song I couldn’t really recognize. They did great, all of them. They tried answering fan questions later but the translator was just not good at all, I couldn’t understand anything she said so idk what they were asked or what was answered, groups that come in the future get a better translator please, also they did the raffle with the numbers for the prizes but since I didn’t win I don’t know what they won, maybe I would’ve talked about it if you had chosen me @WhoeverOrganizedThis but no. They also did the usual K-Pop fan service stuff like aegyo, however they did at one point start “kissing”, I use the quotation marks because they did that thing of turning around and covering themselves with their hair so no one could see their faces which tells me they almost certainly were faking it. Personally I really disliked this, they more than likely aren’t kissing like that in their personal lives and I just don’t see the need of these world class dancers, singers and performers lowering themselves to doing something they probably aren’t all that comfortable in doing even if they’re faking it. It ain’t necessary and unlike in the Troublemaker performance there wasn’t any rhyme or reason for doing it other than getting a reaction out of the fans, but they did that all throughout the night based on their talent alone so I just don’t see why. Please cut it off.

After that I think they did the B-sides of their newest album, the You&I one which personally I don’t care for so I just remember they used Which star as the fan engagement song (i.e to wave to people do hearts, finger hearts, take the flags given to them, etc.) and that I went to the bathroom, nice bathrooms in the venue but for reason the door started opening when I was peeing so like if anyone that owns the theatre is reading this please fix the left room door dude that shit don’t close I promise.

They also did some Maroon 5 covers but who cares about maroon 5, their only good songs are Maps and Animals.

Remaining title tracks, Sleepwalking and Full Moon

This was the best part of the concert. Re-energized after the break they went HARD on every single track, the formations, the timing, these girls danced like they had a death wish or as if their lives depended in this concert only. The line they form in Sleepwalking with the gun sounds, the riffs before the chorus on chase me, good night and full moon as a whole, just woah. By the second these girls were redefining what I believed was possible to do with the human body and the crowd were with them every single step of the way, screaming, fanchanting and getting lost in their music in a way I wish I could have done too, but just my friend wasn’t with the hype and I could never immerse myself in the vibe and the mind of the crowd unfortunately. They closed with Full moon and we left after that.

Closing thoughts

Couldn’t have asked for a better show, on the girl’s side everything was sharp as diamond. External factors like my friend, who I love but I don’t think this is his scene or the translator took me out of the event enough times that I feel I didn’t get to enjoy the show as much as I should’ve, which makes me incredibly sad since this is probably one of the top groups in terms of performances in the entirety of the genre. Unfortunately I think my friend was the biggest factor out of those, and like I said I love him but it did really feel like he was there as a favour to me rather than enjoying himself, which I don’t want at all. KARD is coming up so I don’t know what I’ll do, I could get him a bit drunk but at the end of it I just think it’s better for me to go with people who are more into the genre and allow me to be my real crazy fan self which obviously is hard to be with people who don’t entirely “get it”. Annyways this shit long as fuck I don’t think anyone actually read it up unitl here considering I’m not that good of a writer, so I’m sorry (again).

Best original dreamcatcher songs: You & I

Best Cover: Imagine Dragons – Believer & Siyeon – Alan waker Faded & JiU Handong – Troublemaker, actually all of them man this group talented af.

[joyfullightbouquetblog-blog]

Easy Viral PDF Brander | Rebrand PDFs On The Fly

New Post has been published on https://www.uberbuyer.com/2018/06/21/easy-viral-pdf-brander-rebrand-pdfs-on-the-fly/

Easy Viral PDF Brander | Rebrand PDFs On The Fly

Product Name: Easy Viral PDF Brander | Rebrand PDFs On The Fly

Click here to get Easy Viral PDF Brander | Rebrand PDFs On The Fly at discounted price while it’s still available…

All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors. Easy Viral PDF Brander | Rebrand PDFs On The Fly is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked.

Description:

What is now the easiest way in the world to plaster your marketing message all over the Internet while at the same time lining your pockets with GOLD?

In This Letter, I’ll Show You A Never-Before-Revealed PDF Rebranding System With A Jealously Guarded Secret That Will Generate Sales Faster Than A Speeding Bullet.

From The Desk of Jay Hines:

Have you ever tasted the richness of success?

Now, I can already see the wheels in your mind spinning. You are thinking… “This software sounds too good to be true, and there’s no way on God’s green earth I’ll ever figure it out.”

But I have to tell you, it’s so simple a 5th grader could do it!

Picture yourself on the leading edge (by the way, there’s NEVER a crowd on the leading edge), driving a boatload of exposure, traffic and MASSIVE sales to your own websites through your own links in your PDF reports.

Haven’t you ever wished there was a “no cost”, “no effort” way to make your products stand out from the crowd?

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had the power to give fellow markets the added boost they need to ignore the rest and promote the best – YOUR PRODUCT?

Below are the major highlights of this package:

You see this amazing breakthrough new software will almost magically help you rebrand PDF’s easily and effortlessly – Guaranteed!

Listen my friend, I won’t beat around the bush here…that time is NOW, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll jump on the bandwagon before it’s too late.

What you’re about to read are true stories from our customers:

“The Most Simple And Easy To Use Set Up I Have Ever Seen…”

Wow Jay, I love this rebrander, I cant believe you are just practically giving it away. I would have kept coming back and buying it over and over again for every site I use it on.

This is the most simple and easy to use set up I have ever seen. Did I already mention that I love it?

William BrantListBuildingTragedies.com

Based on the infamous ‘Viral Marketing’ concept – The Easy Viral PDF Rebrander is all about making it as easy as pie for you to create a product SO valuable that people are fighting hand over fist to share your maketing message with everyone they know.

Use the software to sweeten the pot by allowing affiliates to add their own affiliate ids and PROFIT from your amazing message.

In my experience, it’s a win-win situation.

In fact, viral marketing is the ace in the hole for affiliate marketers in ANY niche because it’s FREE.

Better yet, it can skyrocket your profits and explode your subscriber list.

How in the world can you beat that?

But wait, there more, MUCH, MUCH MORE…

As you are envisioning how much sweeter life will be when you order Easy Viral PDF Rebrander, take a look at what our product can do for you:

In short, it can create huge wonders for your online business. So if you’re not taking advantage of it, now is the time to start!

Other rebranding tools simply pale in comparison.

So, let me ask you this… what are you going to do?

Imagine you need to get more traffic to your website…

How will you go about it?

You can create a PDF report that is filled to the brim with valuable information that your target market will eat up and allow others to “giveaway” your report (that’s embedded with your own links of course), and worry if you’re doing it right.

Stop. Isn’t that the old way of viral marketing? Isn’t that time consuming and no fun?

Here is a new, smarter way to accomplish your marketing goals, and all you need is a web host that supports php:

Simply Install Easy Viral PDF Rebrander

Now let the most incredible new software in the history of viral creativity almost do the marketing for you!

Here’s all you have to do:

Surprisingly enough, that’s all there is to it. Just follow the easy screen prompts and watch for the big bucks to start rolling in.

The actual rebranding is so easy. All you do is enter your affiliate ids, and click “Rebrand”! Just check out the demo below.

Your browser does not support iframes. Click here to rebrand.

Why not upload Easy Viral PDF Rebrander right now?

I guarantee that the Easy Viral PDF Rebrander will meet (and exceed) your greatest expectations…

And what if you LOVE THIS SOFTWARE?

What if all your marketing efforts become easy and almost effortless?

What if the tips, tools, tricks, and more on the program are so good you’ll SMILE and laugh all the way to the bank?

Listen to me carefully now, you need this product if you want to:

Drop Everything Right Now and Order This Tool!

Easy Viral PDF Rebrander will do more for you in less time than any other tool on the market today.

Just think about all the possibilities, the increased sales, and enormous amounts of traffic you will gain by simply using this one tool!

C’mon, do yourself a favor and get it now. This is the real deal and you’ll be totally blown away.

If you are not 100% satisfied within 60 days with Easy Viral PDF Brander, I will personally issue you a timely refund of the full purchase price.

Go ahead—take these words as a challenge and prove to me, and to yourself, that the Easy Viral PDF Brander is a magical tool that will effortlessly skyrocket your profits and help persuade the masses to promote your products for you –even while you sleep!

Here’s what some customers have told us:

“Rebrand… Without All The Headaches!”

I have been building my business with viral reports for a few years. It’s hard enough to find quality content that people want to share but when you start asking them to download and install complicated rebranding software it creates all sorts of problems.

With Easy Viral PDF Brander my customers can now rebrand reports quickly and easily and start sharing them without all the headaches. Thanks Jay!

Jerry IannucciGetRichWithJerry.com

This first-class PDF-creation tool is not only 100% compatible with Easy Viral PDF Brander, but it also is one of the easiest PDF creators to use. Making PDFs doesn’t have to be hard.

You also can make money selling this awesome software tool, with a high-converting prewritten salesletter fueling your paypal account!

This guide takes you step by step through the process or writing a successful viral PDF report. If you ever needed that little extra bit of motivation to get a report written or had questions on just how reports should be written, this masterpiece is just for you.

Sunny Suggs just wrote this short report that explains viral marketing in super-easy steps. With this knowledge in hand, your viral marketing efforts may double… overnight!

I confidently guarantee that you will be completely satisfied or I’ll refund your full purchase price and you can even keep the bonuses.

P.S. Don’t let procrastination, hesitation or fear stop you from increasing your profits. With a full 60-day, unconditional guarantee, you have absolutely no risk, and everything to gain! It’s a no-brainer. Seize the opportunity.

P.P.S. My customers absolutely love the software, and have been trying to convince me to raise the price. I think I’m starting to see their point. Take advantage of this excellent offer before I overcome my inertia and follow their advice! Click here to order now!

Copyright 2015 Jay Hines | Contact Us | Affiliates

System Requirements: Web Hosting With Support For PHP4 Or Higher (This is Most Webhosts)

Discover How To Unleash An Avalanche of Highly Targeted Traffic, Opt-Ins, and Sales So Powerful It Practically Buries You In A Goldmine!

Enter Your Details Here For Free, Instant Access

Your information is safe. We respect your privacy.

Click here to get Easy Viral PDF Brander | Rebrand PDFs On The Fly at discounted price while it’s still available…

All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors. Easy Viral PDF Brander | Rebrand PDFs On The Fly is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked.