#i tried uploading it when i originally made it but it failed rip

[lobotomy-jpeg]

Love me tonight and let the devil take tomorrow.

[id: Digital sketch of Dolokhov and Anatole from the Great Comet. They are dancing, Fyodo's hand on Anatole's waist. Fyodor's half smiling half smirking at him. /end id]

[lilithsaga]

Happy Birthday to the lovely Lilith Saga! (aka me) 🥳

I dont have much to offer other than sincere gratitude for everyone who supports me. Thank you all so much! 💜

That said, here is a short lore/origin excerpt of my story:

Or, better yet, feel free to read it below!

In my darkest moments, when everything seems hopeless, the one thing that consistently saves my life is a good story. This doesn't apply to every good story out there, of course; everyone has their preferences. I'm not going to pretend my tastes are better than anyone else's. But the kind of stories I appreciate are heart-touching enough to rip out dormant feelings that were buried deep, awe-inspiring enough to keep me invested in a lifestyle I never knew I needed to learn about, and thought-provoking enough to shatter my world to pieces and mold a new one from the remnants of what once was.

My name is Lilith Saga. I am a writer, succubus, and PNGtuber. I'm sure these titles that I label myself as seem a little strange at first. How can an introverted, shy, bookworm writer be the same as a sexy, alluring, tantalizing succubus? It's simple. Contrary to popular belief, succubi and incubi consume strong emotions to live.

Given our indecent reputation, desire and arousal are considered the most common emotions to consume because of how powerful and simple they tend to be. But for those of us who don't wish to get involved in that way, we also collect other human emotions. Anger, sadness, fear, disgust, joy, etc. The triggers for these emotions are different for every person, and are never guaranteed to work the same for everyone. However, there is one tried and true method that never fails to evoke deep emotions.

Storytelling!

So, for me personally, I prefer to say that I consume stories.

My heart swings against my rib cage when a story captivates me and takes my breath away. I adore listening to tales that make me laugh, make me cry, and keep me intrigued in a person and their world. Often times, when someone is telling their story, they go through the highs and lows of emotion when relaying it to me. Hearing their tale sparks a connection of mutual understanding, and we tend to grow a little closer because of it.

It's become an addicting feeling, one that I can't help but chase. If I had more time, I would spend every day searching for new stories to consume. Books, movies, TV shows, stage plays, musicals, comics, poems, songs, podcasts, fanfiction—every available format possible! There are so many different stories to consume that it can be difficult to keep up!

But... I know I can't.

I can never consume them all.

I'm not as healthy as I once was, not as happy, not as free. The older I've become, the more responsibilities I've acquired. More responsibilities mean more busy work. And more busy work means less time to indulge in stories. I feel as if I'm stuck in a cage where I'm so busy with mindless work that I neglect to take care of myself. I never found the key, nor do I expect to anytime soon. But, despite this, I found a warm blanket to make my stay more comfortable.

"Hellooooooooo Everybodyyyyyyyy~!"

This is my reality.

Channeling my creativity into YouTube like this was the best decision I've made in centuries. What started as an impulsive decision after getting laid off from my day job, turned into an outlet for me to enjoy storytelling once more. Currently, I play visual novels and RPG Maker games. Then I upload my playthroughs to YouTube. It allows me time once a week to go down the rabbit hole and experience stories I've always wanted to explore.

At first I thought it would be fun to document my journey to hold myself accountable, making sure I kept to this new habit. But then I noticed something. I wasn't the only person watching my videos! It never occurred to me that other beings around the world would tune in to my commentary and find it entertaining. I was just a silly succubus enjoying stories from games. And yet, without realizing it, I found a way to share these stories with others and connect on how the story impacted me.

My mind escaped to a world of creativity that I've been longing for. I've learned how to do social media, branding, public speaking, networking, project management, the list goes on. I have story concepts reaching me like how they used to when I was younger. I can feel this invigorating energy coursing through my veins. There's nothing in this world that can stop me-

Bzzt.

Oh yeah. Time. My mortal enemy.

...

Well, let's get to work, shall we?

[hypocrisyofandrewdobson]

Dobson's Patreon: An Addendum to His Monument of Sins

(The following is a submission from @soyouareandrewdobson, meant to be an addendum to the multi-post submission @ripsinfest made a while back. Ironically, this one also had issues when being submitted, so I’ll be copypasting it here with all the images and links originally intended.)

In 2018, user @ripsinfest wrote a multipart series of posts for THOAD, recounting Dobson’s attempt to establish a patreon in 2015 and how it resulted in failure on a massive scale, to the point that his patreon is arguably “a monument to all his sins”.

Personally I think the post series is extremely well researched, rather “neutral” in terms of tone (letting the posts provided as evidence speak more for themselves than the opinion of the writer) and gives a detailed but quick rundown on what went wrong. Primarily that Dobson overestimated his own “value” as an artist and did NOT attempt to give his few supporters what they wanted through his artwork posted around the time.

I do however want to use the opportunity to also point out at certain obvious things that in my opinion (and likely the opinions of others) added to the failure of the patreon account, that were not accounted for in detail and are primarily related to how the internet perceives popularity and Dobson’s inability to understand, how to “sell” and make himself look good to the public.

To begin with, let’s just point out a certain truth about making money via Patreon: To do so, depends a lot on your popularity as a content creator online. That is simply because the more popular you are, the bigger your fanbase is and as such the more likely a certain percentage of people may be willing to donate money to you and your work in hopes they get something out of it, even if it is just the altruistic feeling of having helped someone they “like”. It doesn’t take a genius to see, how e.g. internet reviewers such as Linkara or moviebob (around 2800 and 4400$ earnings via patreon each month respectively) can make quite some money, while other, more obscure content creator or artists barely make money to go by, earning essentially pocket money at best.

In addition, popularity is fleeting. A few years ago e.g. internet personality Noah Antweiler aka The SpoonyOne managed to earn 5000$ a month via patreon, just shortly after establishing his account. But his lack of content over the years AND his toxic behavior online resulted in a decline of popularity and with it people jumping off his Patreon. As such, Antweiler only earns nowadays around 290$ a month via Patreon and most of that money is likely form people who have forgotten they donate to him in the first place anyway.

And Noah is not the only one who over the course of the last couple of years lost earnings. Brianna Wu makes barely more than he does, despite having once been the “darling” of the internet when the Gamergate controversy was at its peak. Many Bronies who once made more than 2k via video reviews on a show about little horses at the peak of its popularity (2013-15) earn less than 300-800 on average nowadays because interest on the show as well as people talking about it has declined.

Heck, in preparation of writing this piece I found out, that one of the highest grossing patreons nowadays is “The last podcast on the left”, a podcast that earns more than 67k a month by making recordings on obscure and macabre subjects on a regular basis.

So there you have it folks: As the interests of the internet users change, so does the popularity of certain people online and -in case they have a patreon account or similar plattforms- their chances of making money via their content.

Which now brings us back to Dobson, who was not popular at all at that particular time and managed to become even less popular as the months and years passed by.

Sure, Dobson had his fans via deviantart, people knew who he was. But the later was more because of “infamy” than popularity and the number of fans he had accumulated online were representing people interested in him at least since 2005 and did not quite represent his actual present day numbers of supporters at the time.

And mind you, the number of supporters was less than 100k, most of them likely underaged deviantart users. And if my research indicates something, then that most content creators with a halfway decent patreon earning need at least 100k+ followers in total. Because of those fans, only around 1-3% will on average then spend money on you, if you actually create content they enjoy and on a regular basis.

Which brings up the next major problem: Dobson did not create content people enjoyed and that in more than one meaning of the word.

On one hand, as pointed out by ripsinfest, he barely released any content at all over 2015 after a few initial months, despite the fact that he was obviously active online a lot, as shown by his presence on twitter. On the other hand, the few things he did create were not the stuff people wanted.

As an example: If you go to a restaurant and pay for a pizza, you expect the cook to give you a pizza. If however for some reason he just gives you a soda, you get ripped off and never come back. In Dobson’s case, the thing people wanted was not pizza but comic pages. But what he delivered was mostly bland fanart, such as of Disney and Marvel characters crossing over or KorraSami. Sure, a few strips of “So…you are a cartoonist” were still released at the time, but not really many.

To give an overview: Taking the release dates on Dobson’s official SYAC site into account, he released around 16 strips of it between March and August of 2015, the last two being “No Leia” being titled “Zip line”

Afterwards, the next official strip released was “Anything at all” in October of 2016.

Now to be fair, there was at least one more strip at the time Dobson released via patreon, that is also save to see on kiwifarms and other plattforms, which has not been uploaded to his official SYAC page. Likely because he simply forgot about it.

But I think that in itself should tell you something about Dobson’s work ethics when it comes to his webcomics. He promoted his patreon in his own video as a way to ensure he can make comics in a timely fashion again for others to enjoy, but in an environment where certain artists are capable to create multiple strips per week at minimum, Dobson could overall not manage to produce more than 16 over a course of six months, which means an average production of 3 strips per month.

For comparison, Tatsuya Ishida of the infamous sinfest webcomic (a garbage fire of epic proportions from a TERF who I think should be put on a watch list) has produced on average 4 strips per week, including full page Sunday strips, for years and nowadays even releases stuff on a daily basis to pass the covid crisis. So a mad man who wants to see trnas people die, has better work ethics than Dobson.

In other words, people expected Dobson to actually get back into creating comics (with some even expecting a return of Alex ze Pirate), but he got in fact even lazier than before, releasing only SYAC strips and random fanart as a product. Which he then also tried to justify as his choice to make because a) he had mental health issues and b) no one can tell him what to do.

And sure, people do not need to tell you what to do. But when people pay/donate money to you expecting to get a certain product in return, they should get the product. Linkara e.g. by all means doesn’t NEED to review comics to have a fullfilling life, but he got famous for his reviews, people want to see his reviews and they pay him for those reviews. So obviously, he will continue those things.

Then there is also the fact that despite Dobson’s claims how he wants to create comics for everone to enjoy and that he aims to keep his artwork online for free so anyone can view it…(his exact words in his promotional video AND text on his patreon once upon a time)

…the reality was, that he wanted to use patreon as a paywall. Something I actually kinda pointed out at on my own account (shameless self promotion) once, but want now to elaborate a bit. Basically at the time Dobson opened up his patreon, he also was on the verge of leaving deviantart as a platform people could look at his work behind. Which he eventually did.

Meaning that the only major platforms for people to watch any “new” stuff by him were his patreon or art sites such as the SYAC homepage or andysartwork. Which granted, he did EVENTUALLY put his stuff on.

But unlike other content creators who would put “patreon exclusive” new content up on more public plattforms often within a few days, weeks or a month after making them “patreon only” at first, Dobson waited longer and did barely anything to promote his sites as places to look his stuff up for a public audience. In doing so creating a “bubble” for himself that hurt him more than it helped, as Dobson made himself essentially come off as a snob.

A snob who did not create content for everybody to enjoy, but ONLY for those willing to pay him at least one dollar per month. As evident e.g. by the fact that as time went by, certain content was never released outside of his patreon at all, such as a SYAC strip involving Dobbear screaming at the computer because he saw a piece of art that featured tumblr nose.

Lastly, there is the issue of his patreon perks and stretch goals.

See, his perks were essentially non existent. Aside of the beggars reward of “my eternal thank you if you donate 1 dollar”, two other perks that come to my mind were the following: If you donated up to 5$ at minimum, you got your name thrown into a lottery to potentially win buttons and postcards of his artwork. Unsold cheap merch from years prior he failed to sell at conventions basically. There was just a problem with that thing: That lottery thing, which he also was only going to initiate when he reached a stretch goal of 150 dollar a month? It was illegal!

Patreon itself has in their user agreement a rule that forbids people from offering perks that essentially boil down to “earning” something via gambling, which this lottery by Dobson was.

(THOAD chiming in here to add that, in addition to all this, he fully admitted he would be excluding Patrons that he “knew were clearly trolls” from the lottery. Which made the already illegal lottery also fixed, so...yeah.)

The next thing coming to mind was his “discount” on previous books of his he offered online, if you donated at least 10 bucks per month to him. Or to translate it: You would get a bare minimum discount at pdf files of books such as Alex ze Pirate and Formera (you know, the permanently cancelled Dobson comics) if you paid up 50-75% of their original price on Patreon already. And considering the quality of his early works, he should have given you at least a book per month for free if you dared to donate him that much.

As for the stretch goals… lets go through them, shall we:

100$: A wallpaper per month. Something he did provide with eventually, but barely. And after less than five of those he stopped to make them overall

150$: Monthly Gift basket Lottery, which as I stated, was illegal and almost got him into serious trouble with his account. Also not an initial stretch goal he made up but instead came up with a few months into his accounts existence. Finally it got temporarily replaced by Dobson playing with the idea to use 150$ per month to open up a server and art site where people could upload stuff for free similar to deviantart, but under his administration. Promising a “safe space” for other artists. Which considering Dobson’s ego and inability to accept criticism or delegate responsibilities would have likely ended like this:

175$: Establishing a Minecraft server for him and his fans to play on. Meaning Dobson would have just wasted time he could spend on creating comics to endulge in his Minecraft obsession.

200$: Writing a Skyrim children book. Aside of the legal nightmare that this could have been (I doubt Valve would have been happy of someone else profiting of their property) I have to ask, who was even interested in Skyrim by 2015 anymore? Sure, Skyrim was a popular game and it had its qualities, but it was also a trend that had passed by that time. So in other words, there was not a market to cater towards here.

300$: A strip per week guaranteed.

… are you fucking kidding me? 75$ per strip essentially? Something people expect you to produce anyway if you want to be considered a “prolific” creator worth supporting online? Imagine if certain internet reviewers would do that, telling you that if they do not earn at least a certain amount of money, they will not produce anything, period, or less than usual. And Dobson had already proven that he can release more than just one comic within a few days, if he is motivated by enough spite.

600$: Starting a podcast with his friends to talk about nerd culture. In my opinion could only work under the assumption that people even like the idea of listening to Dobson and his opinions. Which considering how very little people like talking to him sounds doubtful. Also, considering how Dobson tends to be late to the party when it comes to nerd culture, likely tending to be out of date faster than he could upload. Finally... what friends?

700$: Returning the love, as he says it, by donating some of the money patreon users gave him to other content creators. This in my opinion is the most self defeating cause possible. On one hand sure, being generous and all that. But essentially Dobson admits here he would blow the money people give him to support HIS art on others, essentially defeating the purpose of HIS own account. He also does not clarify how much of that money he would donate, meaning there was a high chance that he would spend less than 10% of it on other creators, only creating the illusion of support while putting the actual earnings/donations into his own pocket.

2000$: A massive jump ahead. 2000$ per month would result in him getting better equipment (as in a new computer e.g.) and as such “potentially” make more comics. Mind you, only potentially.

This goal in my opinion is also the most fucked up one. Primarily for the following reasons:

Lets say Dobson would have achieved the goal and actually earned over 2000$ per month for at least a year. His annual earning would have been 24k, minus whatever he had to pay as taxes and payment for using the patreon service. And what would he do with this money? Get himself a better computer and equipment by paying a minor fraction of it once. Then he could use that computer for years to come while still having over 10k in his account, plus his monthly earnings. And he may still just produce 3-4 comics a month of a series that has as much depth to it than Peppa Pig if not less.

Sure, many patreon users have 2k+ as a stretch goal on their accounts to signify that if they could make that much monthly, they could have the necessary financial security to focus their time primarily on their content instead of a regular job. And if the content they create is actually well made, many people would support that or be okay with it.

But 2000 dollars to buy ONE computer and not account for how this money will add up over time? And that in light of such profits people may actually expect you to create more than you barely do already? That is either a case of narcissism, plain stupidity because you can't look further than 5 feet or just shows how Dobson did not understand at all the tool he had at his disposal.

Bottom line: Dobson, like many times before, fucked it up. He overestimated the potential support and resulting profits he could make, he expected that his name alone would be enough to assure gainings instead of creating content to justify support and he was unwilling to really give his supporters anything worthwhile back.

And while I am sure that there were also many other factors guaranteeing his failure, those at least to me, were his "common" mistakes most other people familiar even with the basics of internet popularity would ahve avoided.

[imaginesmai]

Peter Parker - Far From Home

This is long, angsty and fluffy! It follows the film, mostly. 

Plot: Peter Parker has just been run over by a train. However, he has biggest worries. Like, Beck having you in his grasp. 

“Oh my god, Happy”

Peter let out a loud hiss when the needle hit his skin once more, and swallowed down the tears that threatened to leave his eyes. He bit his lip, closed his eyes and endured the pain for a while longer. No more than a few hours ago, he had been all over the moon because you had asked him to go for a walk through the city. He had been inches away from kissing you, had gripped your hand and had told you the truth about his identity; well, you had figured it out, but no one needed to know that. It felt like a dream, that had turned into a nightmare because of his stupidity.

“Just a few more to go, don’t worry” Happy said, using a soft voice that Peter thought he didn’t deserve.

Another pinch, another hiss. The needle, however, wasn’t what hurt him the most. It was a mash up between the betrayal of who he thought he could trust, the guilt crushing into him like waves, and his mind running a mile per hour with the possibilities of the disaster that he had caused.

He tried looking out of the window and focused on the low hum of the plane. It was hard to disassociate from Happy stitching up his shoulder without any anaesthetic, and just when he thought he had managed to keep his breathing under control, the careful man hit some nerve and Peter jumped on his seat.

“Happy!” Peter slammed his fist on the desk, an empty cup making its way to the ground.

“Relax, Peter!” Happy tried to calm him down, but it only angered Peter more. The boy got up in a sudden move, with half of his wound still bleeding. Happy was about to drag him back to the chair when Peter turned around and faced him, showing the angry tears on his eyes.

“Don’t tell me to relax!”

Happy had known Peter for some years by then. He had thought he knew the boy fairly well to say that Peter was nothing but sunshine and rainbows. The kid made videos, introduced himself to everything – and anything – , and sometimes brought sandwiches for him when he thought Happy might not have eaten yet. But the way Peter spoke, showed him that the pain he was feeling was nothing like sunshine and rainbows. In fact, Happy thought no one should ever felt it – especially not a kid, his kid.

“How can I relax when I messed up so bad?” his voice broke at the end into a messy sob, and Peter pressed the back of his bloody hand to his lips. “I trusted – I trusted Beck. I thought he was my friend, I gave him the only thing Mr Stark left behind for me.”

“Kid, maybe – ” Happy started, but Peter cut him off.

“And now, he has her.” Peter let the tears run down his cheeks, supporting himself against the side of the plane. “He has the most important person for me and the deadliest weapon, because – because I can’t take care of anything without messing up”

His legs gave up and Happy didn’t have time to catch him before he stumbled into the nearest sit. The autopilot was, once more, the only thing that could be heard in the plane, besides Peter’s quiet sobs. Happy didn’t know much about what had happened, just that he had received a call from a very long number and had to fly through half of the world to get Peter. Since then, he had had to calm the boy down from a panic attack twice, where he had only muttered your name and asked if everything was real.

“So, please… do not tell me to relax.” Peter breathed out.

He let his body fall down until his head was nearly hitting his knees, and ran a desperate hand through his hair. It was damp with blood and sweat, and he missed so, so much the brief feeling of your hand running through his hair. It had been just a second, after he had freaked out after the whole discovery with Mysterio, and you had done it by chance. But he wanted so desperately to feel it again. Peter and Happy let the silence take over for a few minutes, and Peter used that time to get his shit together.

Finally, he heard movement and raised his head. Happy was sitting now in front of him, leaning towards him with his hands clasped together. There was only a desk between them, and that reminded him of the abysm that dissociated both of them in that moment. While Peter was witnessing his whole word crash, Happy still had to understand where that awful wound came from.

“You have to talk to me, Peter” Happy tried to sound as friendly as possible. He searched Peter’s eyes with his own, and held the smile even when he saw the pain in them.

“Y/N… she’s the girl I had the plan with” Peter started, lowering his gaze again. “I was supposed to kiss her at the top of the Eiffel tower, because she loves those awful love movies and I really, really like her Happy”

Peter started to tell him how Nick Fury had crashed his plan by changing the trip, how Beck had appeared from another universe and he had been fooled like a kid. How you had found a drone that proved his lies and had showed it to Peter, discovering his secret identity in the way. Peter avoided the details about how you had almost kissed in the bridge and how you had hug him for a while longer when he had jumped from that window; not knowing Beck was already at the hotel and had targeted you before Peter had the chance to do anything about it.

“It was all a trap. It – I-I fell for it. A-and he had her all the time, but I couldn’t… reach her” Peter tried to explain how the illusions had messed up with his head, and hadn’t let him save you. “Then – the train, I was hit by a train and I fell unconscious. I woke up before I called you”

“And that guy still has Y/N” Happy finished for him, and Peter nodded.

The shadow of you reaching for him, in Beck’s grasp, just before the train ran him over clouded if eyes. Peter wondered if you knew he was alive; you hadn’t known he was Spiderman until that night, and his powers were still some mystery for him sometimes. He wondered, too, if you were alive. If Beck wanted to, he could have killed you just after the crash.

But his ‘peter tingle’ told him you were still alive, with Beck, in case the plan had gone wrong and Peter came back. That was, probably, what scared him the post. That you would have to endure just an inch of what the illusions made to him.

Peter pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes and rubbed them until he saw white spots, and then looked up to Happy.

“I don’t know what to do, Happy” Peter wasn’t afraid of sounding weak, or childish, in front of him. The man sighed. “I just – I just want her back”

“You’re Spiderman. She counts on you” Happy told him with a small smirk, and his eyes were the most real thing Peter had seen since the fight with Mysterio. “You’ll figure something out”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That Flash had a public account with no self-preservation, where he announced himself the biggest fan of spiderman and uploaded the most embarrassing things, came in handy. Peter decided to take care of the suit while Happy drove them to London, where the students were and where he hoped Mysterio would be. Ned also knew about the fiasco of the monsters, and probably MJ did too, so they were probably a threat too.

The suit he was creating was nothing like the old one. He decided to go with the original colours, eliminating the blue and using only black and red. He added a few new webs designs he was working with Tony the last time in the lab, something similar to a parachute so that he could fly down from the plane, and a thicker cloth around his body so that he wouldn’t be defeated so easily.

Like last time. Where he had seen you for the last time.

Breathing through his mouth and giving Happy a hesitant thumb up, he decided to rip the band-aid at once, jumping out without looking back. Suddenly, he was surrounded by air, clouds and pressure. Peter fell through the sky like a crumb, right into the bigger mess he had seen in a long time.

A bus was in flames, flying in the sky and being torn apart like if it was made of clay. People were running everywhere, screaming and looking for their loved ones. As Peter went down, he could see more of the scenario; like Ned gripping Betty’s arm with one hand and leading MJ away with the other, or Mr Harrington trying to calm everyone down while screeching like a fire alarm.

Peter landed on the top of the bridge, hidden from plain sight but still in a good position to see everything above him. Like, Mysterio controlling the drones with a big helmet from inside the glass tunnel, while gripping your arm and dragging you around. He sucked in a breath as he quickly searched for any injuries. You seemed fine, wearing the same floral drees you had been wearing for the opera, then stained by grease and blood. Your hair, that had been pulled up, was obstructing your face as you tried to break free from Mysterio.

But you were alive, still having the will to fight against him, and Peter could almost laugh in relief. He didn’t waste much time in relaxing, instead going for the plan that he had made up in the short trip there.

“Happy?” he muttered against his earpiece. “I – Y/N is down there”

“That’s good, kid” Happy muffled voice came through the earpiece.  “You know the plan then. Turn off the earpiece and cause a distraction. I’ll be waiting on the ground, just bring her to me and I’ll put her to safety”

“Alright” Peter smiled shakily. For a moment, he hesitated. He knew he was far from just a kid, but he had really, really wanted to be a trip without any problem. Where he could talk about his feelings with you, and maybe kiss you. His hand trembled for a second; then he pressed the earpiece. “See you in a minute”

The lines of drones designed to protect Mysterio failed to detect Peter when he entered into the cloud, and the boy let his mouth hang open. There were, at least, one thousand drones flying around an open air, shooting and creating an illusion for the rest of the world. In the middle, stood the real Beck, talking angrily with someone and still holding your arm.

From where he stood on one of the drones, he could see some kind of wound on your ankle, that stopped you from moving freely. Peter gripped the end of the drone where he was resting with so much force that the mental bended under his fingers, and he had to stop himself before throwing everything through the roof. Instead of just going for Beck, he focused on the drones.

They seemed to be following a path. Move left twice, then right once, up and down three times. The plan was simple; destroy one of them so that Beck would be forced to check it out, and use the opportunity to lower you to Happy, who would put you in a safe place while Peter ended up the fight.

Peter decided to go with one that seemed lonely. It was probably in charge of something small, like the monster’s finger or his eye. He threw an explosive web to it and hid under the glass bridge when it exploded. From there, he could hear everything.

“No, I want the cape – what was that?” Beck turned around like a maniac, hissing venom into the earpiece. “Why the fuck has a drone exploded?! I said I wanted a perfect job this time!”

A unintelligible response came out of Beck’s helmet, too low even for Peter’s ear to pick up. He watched, from his place under a piece of metal, how his face became redder and redder until a vein popped out of his neck. It seemed that Peter was finally seeing Beck’s true face; a mad man that couldn’t control his emotions.

“I don’t care! I don’t – if this goes wrong, you’re dead! You hear me?! I’m gonna fucking rip you apart!” he threatened into the earpiece. Peter winced each time you were shaken around like a piece of rag, but forced himself to stay in place. “Like everything, I’ll go and solve it. But be fucking prepared for when I come back”

Beck took out the earpiece and threw it over the bridge, emitting a low grunt. Your lip trembled and more tears fell down your cheeks when his grip on your arm became more rough. Over the past few hours, you had cried, begged, yelled, insulted, sassed and said everything you could think of to the man. Still, the only thing you had received had been a nasty bruise on your cheek and a hard stamp on your foot that probably was broken.

“Now, listed to me” Beck kneeled in front of you and frowned. When he talked, spit hit your cheek. “You stay here. Quiet, still and being a good girl. If I find you an inch to the left, I’m going to throw you to the river tied to a drone. And that’s not gonna feel nice. You hear me?”

“Yes” you answered, knowing that if you didn’t he would only get angrier. “Yes, I won’t – I won’t move”

“I know you won’t” Beck scoffed, and inched closer. “But if by any chances certain spider boy comes around, you will stay put too. Because I don’t think his body would take two thousand drones shooting at him, alright?”

You nodded quickly and another sob rose up your throat. Beck got up and dragged you to the side of the bridge. He didn’t bother in tying you, because he had played with your mind enough times to know you wouldn’t move.

A drone appeared in front of him, simulating a small platform where he could step on. Beck spared you a final glare and drifted away into the mass of drones.

Peter, still hidden under the bridge, saw his chance and crawled up to where you were. He took his mask off with one hand and clenched his jaw. His body hurt and his spidey sense was screaming at him to leave, but he kept moving until he was besides you. He took a second to look at you thoughtfully; from head to toe, from how your hair was messy from being dragged and the way you hugged yourself.

It took him a while to move, because he could feel the panic attack rise to his throat, and the bile with it. He was tempted to turn to the side and empty what he had left in his stomach, but swallowed and gave you a hesitant smile. You didn’t move, neither, and he was afraid you thought he wasn’t real. Been there, done that.

“Hey” he whispered, and stepped – or crawled, since he was still in fours – forwards. “Hey, Y/N. It’s me”

“Oh my god” you squealed out, and unfolded the protective shell you had created around your body to put your hands on your mouth. “Oh my –“

“I know, I know��� he stopped you, and looked quickly around to check Beck was still busy. “But I’m here. I’m – I’m real. And I can prove it! Ask me –“

“Oh my god, you’re alive!”

Peter barely could do anything before your body crushed into him. He wasn’t prepared for it, so he fell onto his butt and caught both of your bodies with his elbow. Swallowing the hiss of pain, he wrapped his free arm around your middle and hid his face on your neck.

Suddenly, he felt like a kid.

Spiderman wasn’t supposed to do that, but Peter let the first sob break through his throat and pressed you tighter against his body. Time was hot on your trails, and Peter knew that; yet he only took shaky breaths against your neck. You were talking, saying something about Beck, your class and the drones. It was all white noise, compared to his heart beating loudly against his ears.

You smelt like blood, sweat and Beck. It wasn’t a pleasant smell, because Peter was sensitive to them and, after hours of captivity, they weren’t nice. Behind them, there was also your natural smell, the one he found himself sniffling in class when you sat in front of him. It was there, just like Peter’s sanity, hanging by a thread.

Slowly, Peter pulled you back until your faces were only inches apart. He had to shift his gaze to see your features, and his lip shook dangerously. There were tears on his cheeks, and his eyes were glossy.

“I’m gonna get you out of here” Peter whispered. He didn’t want to sound weak, but it seemed that he was the one seeking your comfort. “I – Happy is down there, and he’ll take you to a safe place. I’m sorry… I couldn’t save you. Sorry.”

“It’s okay” you reassured him. “You’re saving me now, Spiderman.”

“But I couldn’t – “

“We can discuss it later” you cut him off with a small wet laugh. “I think I’m going into cardiac arrest if I spend one more second here”

Peter nodded once, twice and a last one more firmly. He got up and helped you to stand by his side, your ankle making your lean against him. Again, with just one hand, he put on his mask and jumped out of the bridge in a blink of an eye. Wind rushed past him like the familiar feeling he was used to, and he felt as if he was just in Queens, swinging back to his apartment after a rough patrol.

The occasional yelp from you and threat woke him up from his daydream.

He landed in an alley, away from the mess and destruction. Happy was waiting for you like the loyal friend he was, with a black car already on and a gun ready on his shelter. The plan was to run in the opposite direction, run by a hospital in case it was needed, and wait for Peter to go back home. It was a rushed plan, open to many problems and obstacles, hence the gun, but Peter didn’t have anything else. With a sigh, he unwrapped his arm from your waist and let you catch your breath.

“Peter – that was – we were, they were just seconds!” you smacked his shoulder lightly, and Peter didn’t have the heart to tell you it had been stitched in the ride there. “Why didn’t – I’m taking so many advantage of that.”

“We can… talk about that. At home” Peter said, voice muffled under the mask. He didn’t want to risk breaking down again, so he didn’t take off the mask. “I’ll see you there. I have, you know, to go back”

“I guess” you shuddered, and Happy honked. Neither of you cared. “Be careful”

“I will”

There went his plan, probably. The beautiful blue necklace he had brought you in Venice was probably destroyed in his backpack, wherever it was then. The kiss, shattered by an improvised kidnapping. His date, ruined by a mad murderer. And the girl he wanted to do all of that with, in front of him ready to go home.

Peter swallowed around nothing, because his throat felt dry.

“I, uh, we could do that again. No the swinging. The – the other part” Peter blushed under the mask, and you raised a brow.

“The part you got it by a train? Or the kidnapping?” you teased.

“No! No that’s – isn’t happening again. I promise. Never, ever again” Peter shook his head and raised his hands. “Like in a million years? Never. I’m sorry. Not that, it shouldn’t –“

Happy honked again, and both of you jumped a bit. He shouted something to Peter and signalled inside of the car and behind you. The place wasn’t ideal, but neither was probably kissing Spiderman. After all, you had just been kidnapped and Peter was going to risk his life for the sake of the humanity.

So nothing wasn’t ideal, but Peter wasn’t either, and that was where the magic of things laid.

There was a sudden breeze hitting the lower part of his face, and the mask rested uncomfortably against the bruises on his cheeks. Shivers ran down his spine and for a moment he was afraid, because his vison was being blocked because of the mask and his ears were covered. Probably a second before having a breakdown, he felt your lips on his.

They were soft but decisive, your hand cradling the back of his head. It wasn’t as good as what he had planned, yet he could live with that. Leaning forward and ignoring Happy’s indignant shout, he responded to the kiss. There were no fireworks or angels singings, and his body still hurt from the beating. Nothing was being solved by kissing, but he surely felt a lot better.

The kiss was awkward because of the mask, and Peter was too petrified to even think about removing it. One of his hands was resting on your hip, while the other just clenched and unclenched at his side. Your fingers cradled the baby hairs of his neck and he shudder, making you smile and push yourself tighter against his.

As quickly as it had come, it went away. You stepped back, lowered his mask and the world screamed for him again. Peter wasn’t sure, for a second, that it had been real; but then he saw the blush of your cheeks, the angry-proud smirk in Happy’s face, and the tingling on the tips of his fingers.

“Yeah, we can repeat this later” you said, and kissed his masked cheek. If he hadn’t had the mask, he would probably had been as red as it. “See you later, Peter”

Not the first date he had imagined, but he was fairly okay with it.

Want to know more about me? Here is my Masterlist! Feedback is always appreciated!!

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[strangebrews]

@madam-metaphor​ asked: 69. Ventriloquist

So Eddie was still out of a job. Not an ideal state to be in, by any means, though he’d excused the situation on being busy with other, more pertinent things—diverting an alien invasion, for starters.

But it’d been 2 months since anything urgent had come up and here was Eddie during a Wednesday afternoon, on the couch with a microwave dinner in his lap. TV shows had gotten worse nowadays, he was thinking, no respect for plot anymore, just pure drama. 

His bills were piling up—the stack of envelopes was becoming painfully apparent on the island in the kitchen, giant red notices bleeding onto the paper—but it wasn’t like Eddie hadn’t tried. He had tried—at the grocery store, the pet shop, even the fucking video rental place—yet none of the leads had amounted to any promising offer. He was just unlucky, that was all, he thought and took another bite.

You’re very lucky, Eddie. I decided to live in your body. Venom regarded itself quite highly.

He was flipping through channels now, irritated with his lack of options, Venom’s head perched on his shoulder. A streaming subscription, that’s what he needed. Another bill added to the mound, but it was necessary, because, “I mean look at this shit,” he gestured towards the TV with his remote, mouth full, “You cannot expect me to want to watch this kind of crap.” It’d been some ventriloquist—third fucking episode in a row—and Eddie jammed his finger into the skip in frustration. 

Wait.

Venom pressed a tendril to the back button and slithered closer to the screen, head cocked in interest.

How did he get that little human onto his arm?

Eddie gave Vee a crooked smile. He would admit, providing Venom explanations of silly human behaviors was one of his favorite aspects of this cohabitation. “It’s not a tiny human. It’s a puppet—not alive. You stick your arm up the hole in its ass and make it do things.” He laughed, amused at his own explanation. 

Venom’s eyes glimmered. Don’t we do the same thing?

 The laughing stopped. “No, no we do not do the same thing—it’s different. It’s very fucking different. You’re supposed to make jokes, create a show, have people watch you.”

The glimmer intensified. Let’s do that.

“Do what? Become a career ventriloquist?” a slow nod was Eddie’s only answer.  

Venom’s proposal was unsurpring, actually. It had grown increasingly frustrated recently—angry that Eddie could walk the streets now without anyone suspecting anything out of the ordinary, providing no indication they knew Venom was living inside. But the issue was that Venom wanted to be seen—wanted everyone to know that Eddie was taken, that this was Venom’s Eddie. It didn’t want anyone looking at him. Considering him.

Venom had thrown a fit once or twice in public already, accidentally shoved someone out through the glass doors of a bus because they’d brushed up against Eddie a little too often. And that had been an accident—the person was fine aside from a few scratches on the nose—but Venom had been sternly warned that day to never try anything like it again. 

“I’ll rip you out of me, Vee. I promise I will.” Obviously it was an exaggeration, but the image it produced was painful enough for Venom to agree.

So this was its roundabout way of being present in public. They could star in a show together—much like the one on TV—and Venom would have an excuse to stay on the outside, make itself known. It was a perfect idea.

I would make a great puppet, Eddie.

Eddie just laughed and brushed the crumbs off the front of his shirt. He used to be an esteemed journalist. He was not going to become a fucking ventriloquist for the afternoon broadcast. It was stupid. It was ridiculous. It was not an option. It was—

+

They were standing in front of the bathroom mirror, Venom’s head bobbing out from Eddie’s right hand, while another piece wrapped around his arm before cutting off entirely before the elbow. 

A puppet. A gooey, terrifying, alien puppet.

Venom had succeeded in getting Eddie to try the idea out—there was no harm in just trying, it’d argued. And yes, fucking had been a factor in the convincing process, but there was no need to focus on silly details.

They’d been glued to the same spot for nearly an hour now, Eddie trying to mold Venom’s mass into something a bit less menacing. He’d tried giving it pointed ears, a nose, some makeshift hair strands that were supposed to cover a part of Venom’s eyes, but they resembled creepy noodles, if anything else. The attempts were useless, so with a sigh Eddie gave in and moved onto the next issue. “We’ll just be really funny, to distract from the unconventional look.” Unconventional was his way of describing it, because there was no reason to hurt Vee’s feelings. 

Mouth movements proved to be a problem too. “You have to move it based on the shape of the words I’m saying. What you’re doing is not convincing at all.” Venom was just opening and closing its maw haphazardly, disregarding any authenticity. 

I’m meant to be a puppet. They lack the same facial mechanics. 

“Yeah, but—” Eddie cut himself off, because there was a point to be made here, he just wasn’t sure what it was. He set that aside for later. 

The tongue—the tongue had to go.

“It’s just a bit unsettling, is all, when you flick it all the way out like that, you know? Some might find it suggestive, others might think it's insulting.” So Venom curled it back into its maw, with some difficulty, but it’d managed.

Then they encountered an issue with the flow of the conversation. Eddie should have expected Venom to hit a few bumps in the road when it came to witty comebacks, but it really killed the vibe when it kept answering with things like Eddie, do you really think I look like a nasty talking tar ball?

Eddie even tried feeding Venom dialogue through his thoughts, but on the fourth failed attempt he decided they were done. “We tried, we basically failed. I’ve got more important things to do.”

Staring into your empty fridge so you can ignore your real problems isn’t very important. Eddie did not entertain Venom with a response.

+

Yes, he should have been looking for a job still, but Eddie chose to write a script instead. 

They had stopped after that fourth try, but returned to the mirror an hour later. Eddie was going to get it right—he was going to squeeze at least one original, funny thing out of Venom. 

On the seventh try he decided the only way out of this was writing a script.

Recording the video, with his phone resting on the dresser and the script hiding beside it, was also, just a one-off thing. A quick hyperfixation, nothing more.

He worked on their conversation for 2 days, smoothed out all the kinks in their performance during the 10 rounds of practice recordings. Venom could now shape its mouth around the words, kept its tongue inside, and even spoke at a higher pitch to make it more convincing. The pair was ready.

+

Uploading the video to Youtube had also been Eddie’s idea. He had not given up on the project, and neither had he given up on being in denial towards the fact that he was absorbed by said project.

“It’s just—I refuse to have wasted 5 fucking hours on this and keep it private, you know?” It was a weak argument, and he suspected Venom would have raised its eyebrows in doubt if it had any, but it stayed silent. 

He’d done some minimal editing. Nothing too fancy—just an intro and an outro, simple things he’d learned during his journalism days. “It’s not gonna get any views.” he was talking to himself at this point, mouse hovering over the Publish.

“It wasn’t even that funny.” The video had successfully appeared on the recent uploads page—Eddie had checked to make sure, but he didn’t necessarily care. 

“I’ll probably delete it in a day or two, anyway, mind you.” Venom continued to hide away.

+

Venom was only ever quiet for two reasons: it was tired, or it had won a battle with Eddie and had nothing more to say. This case slotted under the latter category.

Because Eddie had not deleted the video after a day or two—it was still floating around on the Internet and Eddie’s finger was beginning to cramp up from refreshing. And refreshing. And refreshing.

The result wasn’t anything major. It was only 100,000 hits in 5 days and the title was pure bait—kinda hard to pass up a video called “Famous Ex-Journalist Stuffs Hand Up Puppet’s Bumhole, Calls It Coping” (That’s a misleading title, Venom had noted. “I know, just trust me.”)

“It’s not even that funny of a video.” Eddie said again on the 6th day, but there was a smile tugging at his lips—nearing 200,000 now. 

Cooksucker3000 said your puppet is fucking dope, Eddie. Venom hummed along Eddie’s arms in satisfaction. The comments were its favorite part, for quite obvious reasons, and Eddie was too preoccupied with his own shower of compliments to correct Venom’s reading mistakes.

this is so hilarious!! 

i love the idea! 

good to see ur doing well - i remember u from tv! 

u r really fucking hot xx

Delete that. It has nothing to do with the contents of the video. So not all of the comments were Venom’s favorite.

+

When they hit 300,000 Eddie said, “Fine—I’ll write one more script. But after that, we’re done.” Venom did not put up a fight this time either.

Because fine, Eddie could say whatever he wanted, but they shared a fucking body at the end of the day—as if Venom wouldn’t have noticed him finishing up the 4th script of a series last night.

[pxjiminsi]

First Encounter

Chapter 1 from the series: Before you Go

Pairing: Jimin x reader, Taehyung x reader, Jin x OC, OT5 x reader platonic love

Fic Type: Slice of life au

Genre: slice of life, fluff, mild smut, and a healthy amount of angst

Warning: few cuss words

Word count: 2.3k

A/n: Hi! This will be my first BTS Au in tumblr, I’ll be also uploading my old works here! Friendly comments and criticism from my fellow writers and readers as I want to improve my writing further on. I hope you enjoy my series.

"This is exactly what I needed" sighing to yourself while handing your boarding pass to the flight attendant. Realizing that after a year of Architecture school and a whole lot of failing, a getaway is what you needed. 

It's not like you don't try and don't study hard enough. Architecture interests you, you just think that you're not good enough in doing anything, not school, not singing, not dancing, nothing. Talentless. Jack of all trades, master of none, as they say. On top of failing Architecture school, going to this unplanned and impulsive decision to go to L.A is your parents' disappointment and your very romantic boyfriend who couldn't seem to care less where you go and end up. 

You don't even think if he knows how long you're leaving even if you had mentioned it to him a hundred times before, but he never looked away from the TV to give any response. "Fucking Diablo" scoffing as you struggle and push your embarrassingly large neon pink luggage in the compartment. "crap, I can't do shit" deeply breathing to avoid having a breakdown because of your stupid arm strength. 

Until this boy wearing a white shirt, black shorts, and a black snapback who is relatively annoyed because you were in his and his group’s way, easily picks up your luggage and shoves it into the compartment like it was nothing. His muscular and vein bulging arms left you dumbfounded to his sudden appearance, smirking while he comfortably sits next to yours.

What a prick, you thought. At the same time, you knew he's just being nice and you're the asshole for having a bad mood and attitude problems. 

It's a 13-hour flight from Korea to L.A and you try your best to shake your mind off of things that remind you of anything back home. "It's only half a year, I deserve this. Even if I have to start providing for myself, as long as I’m happy." you try to convince yourself as the plane starts to take off. 

It’s been 2 hours since the flight took off and you’ve been nothing but restless. You tried resting your head on the windowpane but you can’t help yourself be intoxicated by the asshole guy next to you, his ripped arm covers the whole armrest and you’re not even complaining. His head rested back in his seat and tilting to the side, cheeks were slightly flushed due to the cold air, his scent is so alluring, he smells like fresh and soft blankets that cover you on a rainy day. You can instantly fall asleep in his arms if not it being inappropriate and if you weren’t in a relationship. For God sakes y/n you have a boyfriend back home, internally screaming. 

His eyes opened as he seemed to notice your restlessness, shifting from one position to another. “Are you okay? Was I snoring?” You want to say that no, he was fine, that he should continue sleeping. Feeling guilty for creepily glancing in his face. “No, you’re perfect, it’s just my first time being this far away from home. Sorry, I woke you.”  pulling a fake smile not believing you just called him perfect. 

He then gave the most amazing eye smile, because you called him attractive and said “It’s okay I can’t sleep that deep either, it’s also my first time being away, but for training, we’re kind of a boy group back home.” You were not that interested in boy groups back then, but the way he talks with that grin on his face, listening to him all night might not be bad. “I’m Y/n”  finally having the guts to introduce yourself. “Yeah I know, I saw your name in your luggage tag, I’m Park Jimin” You were surprised at how fast he saw your name while helping earlier. Was he curious about you as you were of him? 

You began to ask him questions to get around your awkward first impression. He began telling how he was originally from Busan as a contemporary dance student and how he transferred to Seoul to finish High school and train with his group. He even showed his audition tape 5 years ago. You can’t believe how he bulked up so much since then, and they just debuted 3 years ago. He also introduced his friends in the seats up front, Taehyung and Jeongguk who just both nodded at you and went back to sleep. He stated that other members were separated due to booking problems. “So what about you, Y/n, what’s your story?” He asked, putting his left knuckle under his jaw ready to listen. 

You breathe deeply hesitating to let him partake at telling your sad backstory, not wanting to dim the mood, but he has this spirit that screams comfort. That whatever you tell him, he’s not going to show pity and judgment. His eyes are so deep in yours as you start to speak. “Well, I kind of ran away from home. Needing to breathe, pausing to trail his reaction testing the waters but he gave nothing but fascination on your story. “Honestly, I don’t know what I am doing here on this plane to L.A. I’m trying to find what I want to do in my life, if I want to continue my Architecture program, If I’m making right decisions, or If what I’m feeling right now full of uncertainty and fear is what I’ll feel for the rest of my life” you start to stutter, feeling panicky all of the sudden because It’s the first time you spoke out all your doubts and what-ifs. 

“Sounds cliché sure, but I know for sure I will not find answers back home. So here I am.”  laughing lightly to prevent creating a dark cloud around with your pathetic stories. Eyes wide open he said “I can’t imagine being brave as you, you are amazing. I hope I can be adventurous like this.” He pushes his hair back as he leans more towards you wanting to hear more. 

Brave? Adventurous? Be like me? Those were not the words you usually describe yourself. Dumb, careless, and worthless were the words you heard people describe you all your life. You quickly backed away with a hand in your chest as he leaned in, not wanting him to realize that a stranger made your heart flutter. 

Who the hell is this guy?

He probably felt he crossed his boundary from your reaction as he backed away feeling embarrassed. Regretting your reaction, you break the ice asking him if he wants to watch a movie instead. He smiled, happy that he didn’t ruin this nice thing that’s happening. 

A Walk to Remember started playing, a movie you both had already watched but will always be one of your favorites. Halfway through the movie, you notice that you’re the one he’s watching, discreetly, of course, his eyes tracing features from your eyes, the bridge of your nose, to your lips, and your exposed neck and collarbone. You can feel he’s trying to get a grip of himself for wanting to kiss you. You did the same thing to him when he’s the one watching. How can anyone not stare at his features. His perfectly brushed hair, almond-shaped eyes, cute, pointy nose, and oh god how can you start describing the most beautiful pouty lips and sharp jawline.

At some point in the movie, he begins to shake his head and blink his eyes trying to shake off his drowsiness. “You can sleep, you know. You’re not obligated to watch this with me,” you said not leaving your eyes off the screen to avoid eye contact. “No, I like having someone I can talk to and spend time comfortably. it’s been a while since I had a friend other than my members.” 

You unintentionally pout.

‘Friend’

Yeah right, you didn’t know why you’re so disappointed hearing that when you’re not single and you just freaking met. 

Realizing that what he said made your eyes drop suddenly, a small smile forms in the corners of his mouth as he gently uses his finger to lift your chin. It felt like time slowed down when both of you met each other’s eyes. You bite your lip and fix your eyes on the screen quickly resisting the urge to kiss him, trying to calm all this sexual tension you both had ever since the plane took off. You have no idea what he was thinking, but you can feel his stare on the side of your face. You offered to finish the movie avoiding his stare as you plug the earpiece on, handing him his. He grins as if he’s proud he made you pout and flustered. 

After a while, all that sexual tension was long forgotten as you made fun of each other for crying after the movie. You also helped each other by stuffing your faces with provided snacks while watching their music videos. Seeing him dance so passionately makes him a hundred times more attractive, and you’re already a hundred percent attracted to him. Jeongguk and Taehyung also woke up and introduced themselves properly this time. Jimin describes Jeongguk and Taehyung as the most playful members of their group, probably because they were the youngest. He shared that the other members were anxious about how Jeongguk continues to grow, scared that one day he’ll be the tallest one and forgetting he has Hyungs, but they’ll love him nonetheless. Taehyung on the other hand is only a few months younger than Jimin and they’ve been friends since Jimin moved to Seoul enrolling in the same school as Tae. 

Jeongguk and Taehyung were perplexed at how the two of you became this close in a short amount of time seeing how you two laughed regardless of how many times the flight attendant looked sternly at the both of you. Steering clear of the chaos, they proceeded to eat and play video games. You and Jimin shared earphones finally settling down to listen to his favorite tracks on his phone. Having no sleep the whole flight, after a while you doze off to his shoulders. “How beautiful” he whispered as he bit his lip from wanting to smile so much and not wanting to wake you up. 

"Good morning passengers. This is your captain speaking. On behalf of Korean Air and the entire crew, I would like to thank you for joining us on this trip and we are looking forward to seeing you onboard again in the near future. Welcome to L.A"

Jimin wakes you up by brushing your hair away from your face and with a heavy look on his face. “Hey, we’re here” gently whispering. You woke up confused, instantly regretting falling asleep as one of the nights you felt something again has come to an end. “I’m sorry for sleeping on you, you must’ve had a hard time not moving” he stretched for a bit, grinned, and said “It’s nothing, I fell asleep too. Hey I was wondering if --” he was stopped mid-sentence as Taehyung got up in his seat and said “We got to go, Namjoon-hyung’s waiting already outside” He started pulling bags on the compartment “Nice meeting you, Y/n! Please continue to support us in the future.” showing his boxy smile while dragging half-asleep Jeongguk along with their luggage. 

You quickly got up and brushed your way past Jimin, steering clear of eye-contact and the awkward Hey this will be the last time you’ll be seeing me but hey I had an amazing night last night goodbye. You drag your heavy ass luggage, he tried to help you but you wouldn’t let him. “I’ll be going now, good luck with your training, I’ll be cheering for you.” You look at his confused face with a forced smile. Eyes downcast, your heart starts to race as you exit the plane, leaving Jimin at a loss for words. 

You struggle to pull your luggage to the baggage claim for your other bags, almost sprinting to avoid bumping into Jimin and his group. "I hope she's already here" whispering to yourself while sending a message to your best friend and whose house you'll stay in while you get by.

“Y/n!!!!!!” Soo Yun embarrassingly shouts your name as she waves her hands frantically to get your attention. You wanted to sink and place yourself in the baggage conveyor belt and disappear from all the unwanted attention your name was getting. Despite having an embarrassing friend, you run up to her, forgetting your bags and giving her a big hug. Not seeing each other for 5 years was torture as you grew up together from elementary school and halfway through high school. Her family’s decision to move to L.A put a strain on your relationship but thank the millennial gods of social media you both managed to survive. 

She grew her bob already, you noticed. Now having this long hair until his mid-back with her matching bangs. She also wears contacts now as she was made fun of before for wearing nerdy looking glasses. Of course, you were there to save her every time.

“Are your bags ready? The car’s waiting outside, because there are a lot of people on the arrival platform. Did you fly with someone famous?” As she roamed her eyes around the baggage claim area. “No, I don’t think so. I’m ready, I’ll just grab my bags” pretending that the best flight you ever experienced was all a dream. You hurry as people from other flights we’re coming down. You grab your neon pink luggage and dash to your best friend waiting outside. You wonder if it’s the adrenaline of being in a foreign country that your big ass luggage wasn’t too heavy anymore. 

[dragon8641]

The Soldier and the Empress 1

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Just a couple of things before you start reading this fanfic.

I won't be using subtitles for the vast majority of it, only when not everyone can 'hear' these characters is when i'll use them (Like Senketsu).

This fic assumes you’ve already watched Kill La Kill as it contains spoiler and skips a lot of story for different purposes.

This fic is (most of the time) written in first person perspective to add to the immersion.

This is a Satsuki X Reader/Insert Fic, I just think that leaving the name blank takes away from the immersion. Also the 'good shit' will come in tiny bits here and there as well as some big ones so be patient.

The story will curve away from the anime later down the line, specially after the biggest event on the anime happens.

I appreciate feedback and grammar corrections greatly, as long as you ain't an asshole about it it'll be Okay. (I do spelling mistakes on purpose when I'm the one 'talking')

Originally uploaded to wattpad exact same way under the limitations on this site.

With all that said, please enjoy and tell me what you like and what you don't of it. Thanks for reading.

/

Lizard Among Pigs

Satsuki Kiryuin

That's the name of the woman who stole my place as the student council president at my high school.

Back then i didn't rule the school out of greed or desire for power, but out of fear, i wanted everyone to stay away from me. So i recruited followers and with them i made my dream school and it looked like my second year would been just as peaceful, that's when she showed up.

Long black hair, blue eyes and a stare that could kill. She completely destroyed the defences i built over the last year. Not even an hour past her arrival, many of my followers had left me for good and the ones who attacked her were already on the ground.

Satsuki Kiryuin

She shouted her name as demanded my presence. There was nothing else to do, i had to go out and face her myself.

Once i was alone in front of her, four other figures showed up, a pink haired girl, next to her a blue haired four eyes. To Satsuki's other side, a green haired punk with a bamboo sword and finally behind her a two and a half meters tall blonde buff man.

I had no chance against her, let alone any of her goons. However, I also had no reason to surrender. my weapon was a pair of claws made out of scrap that i slowly put on without taking my eyes off Satsuki. Either fear or something else kept me from looking away as to which one was, i got my answer soon after.

"Surrender!" The long haired woman in white uniform shouted at me, almost making me kneel from that alone. seeing that was not the case she seemed somewhat impressed.

I let out a groan, her shout did not beat me, but sure as shit left me tired.

"Impressive" She sounded way different now "You who ruled over this people with fear, you were right to do so, but you lacked something very important!" she went back to shouting, draining more and more energy out of me with every word.

"Hm, and here i thought this one was going to be some pushover… i need to reexamine the data" the blue four eyes spoke to no one in particular.

"Like a lizard under a hail..." the other girl with satsuki 'answered' to the glasses guy.

"Oh ho" the green haired punk said surprised while the big blonde man said nothing.

Satsuki Kiryuin

She took a step forward, a single step, then a blinding light appeared from behind her, i could not see it's origin.

"Come at me and if you survive, I will tell you what you lack!" She hit the ground with her sword and again more energy left my body.

I only had enough strength in me for one single attack, so i had to make it count.

With the last of my pride of the position i got for myself i managed to speak back at her.

"Then so be it!" thus i readied my weapon. I put all my strength on that attack, or so it seemed, it was a feint, when i got closer to her i would change direction, that's all i had to work with.

And she still stopped me effortlessly and calmly as when she first showed up. a strike from her sheathed sword to the stomach and with my Scrap Claws broken i fell to my knees in defeat. I barely manage to lift my head, i saw Satsuki at my left, three of the four goons she brought were far more relaxed than just a second ago, but the tall blonde one looked way more serious than anyone else.

Finally she spoke.

Satsuki Kiryuin

"Determination"

That was the last thing i heard before i fell to the floor barely conscious. With my defeat she was done here, so they were preparing to leave. And just as she gave a final speech to the ones who were still somewhat awake, a speech I could not hear. I saw her in the distance, that same blinding light i was now able to see perfectly through it. before i was almost lost to fatigue but now i was lost for words at her beauty, why was it so different now from the one that beat my ass just a moment ago?

She wasn't, the moment i laid my eyes on her i felt it, but i didn't realized it yet…

"I want to follow her." That's all that went through my mind after that, i had to act fast, i had to move. I managed to get some strength in my hands and rip some grass, as i slowly raised my head once again, i realized that they weren't that far from me as i originally saw, probably a trick of the fatigue.

I was now kneeling, and all five of the spectators were in complete silence, i didn't know why then, but now i know it was them acknowledging the strength i had to get up after one of Kiryuin's strikes. I remember the blonde man smiling if just a little, the glasses guy typing at a computer and the punk was definitely happy, the pink girl was looking at Satsuki, like waiting for her to say something.

Next step was to get up, i just knew it. So i tried and tried and tried until i lost count of how many times i tried but failed. i felt pathetic.

Then in the endless white noise i heard a voice, Satsuki's.

"GET! UP!"

Inexplicably i sprang up and got on my own two feet, stumbling a little, but i did not fall i was not going to fall ever again.

Somehow now I could clearly see the faces of the four, the big man was now all smiles, the four-eyes was typing even faster, the other two were still the same but the punk was looking at Satsuki this time. She was smiling, i was lost to her sight again but now i was breathing heavily trying to regain consciousness.

"Well Done Tadasuki! You have proven yourself! Join me at Honnouji Academy!"

That's when i pledged my undying loyalty to Lady Satsuki, The woman that stole my heart.

From there on out i expressed my love for her in form of loyalty, hoping once all this is over, once her little sister and father are avenged, once Ragyo is defeated maybe, just maybe i… no, i'll restrain myself from such thoughts for now.

"Tadasuki, sir, is everything in order?" Omiko Hakodate, two star leader of the tennis club asked me, her superior, to check if everything was in ok after i inspected it.

"Yes, there seems to be no problems with your equipment, Sanageyama should be here soon for the last adjustments… by the way, what happened to the new girl?"

She told me what happened to the new girl after one of her club members didn't showed to practice the day before.

"I see, she'll most likely show up again… ah! whatever, it's Sanageyama's problem now (and i still cannot follow what happening inside of her pretty head… i'll ask Nonon later… no that sound like a bad idea...)" with that i left the tennis court to examine other clubs and their equipment, such is my duty as vice-president... well that and follow her orders.

[romancingromanoff]

Imagine Being In The MCU And Going On Ellen Part 1/3 (Scarlett Johansson x reader)

Part 2

You’re a guest on the Ellen show and also currently dating Scarlett Johansson. I just really love Ellen and pretending that I’m a part of the Avengers cast family like it’s a huge fantasy of mine that will never come true (rip my hopes and dreams) so I decided to make it three parts haha. BONUS POINTS IF YOU KNOW WHERE CARLA SHAW IS FROM. Reader is of an unspecified gender, I use they/them pronouns. Also, part 3 of What Happens At Disney is coming soon :)

Jumping up and down in front of the mirror in your dressing room you kept trying various dance moves to see how they looked. It was Ellen so of course you had to dance out onto the stage when she introduced you! Though you had technically met with her before at Chris Hemsworth’s birthday party, it was really just a quick “hello,” “how are you,” and a funny comment from her that made you laugh. So nerves were naturally part of the reason why you were so angst at the moment and felt like you had to get rid of a bunch of pent up energy.

Your door opened which almost made you choke on the sip of water you had in your mouth. “Y/N, you’re one in five!” the crew member tapped her watch and you could only respond with a noise that sounded a little bit like “mmhmm” with your mouth still full of your drink. Taking one last glance in the mirror, you flashed some finger guns at your reflection, immediately regretted that cringed decision, then stepped foot out into the hallway where another crew person was waiting to escort you to your place.

From stage right behind the curtain you could hear the audience’s hysteria gradually calming down after they had all won $1000 Target gift cards and Ellen sat down to introduce you. “Our next guest has taken the world by storm since we fell in love with them as Obie’s hilarious best friend, Mason, in the Netflix Original Series ‘Time To Dive.’ After a suspenseful appearance in the modern remake of ‘High Noon’ with John Hamm they joined the Avengers as a recruit with some pretty neat morphing abilities in Marvel’s newest film which is coming out next Friday. Please welcome Y/F/N Y/L/N!”

You were so overwhelmed by everyone in the crowd jumping up and down that a huge smile covered your face as you tried waving to them all while also keeping a beat in your step, which was hard to do when you couldn’t hear the music very well. Approaching the couches that you had watched all of your favorite celebrities sit in was just surreal and Ellen opening her arms up to hug you was the cherry on top. “Hi, how are you?” she said underneath the wave of all the cheering so that only you would hear.

“I’m good, thank you so much! Thank you so much for having me,” you repeated what you last said as you sat down and the clapping had died down.

“So, this is your first time on the show,” Ellen smiled.

“Yes, yes it is. And I’m so happy to be here!”

“Well, thank you so much for taking the time to stop by. I know the press tours Marvel has you doing keep your schedule super busy.” The audience let out a series of “whoos” at the sound of Marvel being mentioned.

“It’s certainly crazy and I never could have dreamed about being a part of something like this but really it’s the fans that keep it going. We owe so much to them.”

“You must have your fair share of crazy run-ins since you, you know, signed a contract with them and everything. How has going out in public changed for you?”

“It’s funny, actually,” you laugh a little bit remembering an incident that occurred about a month ago. “I mean since ‘Time to Dive’ I’ve always had fans come up to me asking for pictures and autographs; stuff like that just at restaurants and a few public places. But since I was announced as a part of the Avengers cast and started filming the run-ins have gotten a lot more frequent and I’ve found that the Marvel fans are very... um... adamant,” you laugh. “They definitely know their stuff which never fails to blow my mind.”

“I guess ‘adamant’ is one way of putting it,” Ellen jokes and you chuckle along with the crowd. “But you actually had someone like demand to take a picture with you after you had just gotten out of surgery? Is that right?”

“Oh my gosh,” your pitch got so much higher when you turned around and saw the picture from that day on the giant screen behind you. “Yeah, so it was just wisdom tooth surgery, nothing super serious but I was pretty drugged up on painkillers and loopy to say the least. Wow, okay, yeah you can see how swollen my cheeks are, aw man, and that gauze in my mouth I just look completely dead!” you remarked on the image of you with your messy bun, glasses, and sweats on as you were being pushed out of the hospital in a wheelchair.

“But you were 100% fresh out of the operating room where you were under anesthesia and a complete hot mess?” Ellen laughed as you squirmed in your seat from a mixture of embarrassment and just laughing at how hilarious you looked and how strange the situation was then.

“I don’t know if ‘hot mess’ is how I would put it, but it was definitely strange.”

“And they drug you up pretty well for this surgery, right? Like there are a lot of people who film themselves or get a relative to film them post-surgery because they’re prone to say really crazy things.”

“Honestly, I think that a part of me just thought it was standard procedure,” you admit which makes the audience crack up. “I don’t remember it too well but the fan who’s crouching next to me in the picture basically stopped me and asked for a picture and I was probably just like ‘sure, why not?’ you know? Like everything was normal.”

“Speaking of pictures, there’s a photo of you and one of your co-stars going around that’s been building up a ton of talk over the last six months,” the audience cheers as the screenshot of your instagram post comes up. It’s probably your most favorite photograph in the whole world and you can’t help but smile upon seeing it. You are your girlfriend Scarlett weren’t too public with sharing all of the details about your relationship and you both valued privacy pretty highly. As a celebrity on instagram you were pretty inactive compared to a lot of others your age since you never went live, rarely posted on your story except to promote big press events, and would go weeks or even months before you’d upload something new to your feed. Even though the photo was from six months ago, it was actually the 4th most recent on your profile. Scarlett, of course, didn’t have any social media at all and you respected her wishes to try and keep a low profile online by never posting any photos of her and you, but this picture was the one exception that she had allowed.

“That is just adorable,” Ellen smiled and the audience followed with a giant “awwwwww” which made you blush. “So this was taken on snapchat?”

“Yeah, that’s the dog filter,” you point to Scarlett’s face which has the staple dog ears and nose on her in the center. But she’s also laughing so the big pink dog tongue is sticking out with her face all crunched up as you’re giving her a big kiss on the cheek. “We’ve been dating for a little over a year,” a lot more “awes” and hoots instantly follow which makes you laugh. “But that was the first time we both felt okay with posting a photo of us just being together. It was a surprise for a lot of people; including myself too.”

Ellen gets a mischievous look on her face and leans in really close to you. “You know, it’s funny that you mention surprises because I-”

“Oh no,” you gasp suddenly clutching the arms of the chair really tight and spinning your head around to check behind you. Absolutely EVERYONE in the cast had warned you about the pranks Ellen loved to play on her show that almost made some of them pee their pants in fear. A couple of years ago when you were just another regular Marvel fan that followed all of their talkshow appearances you had watched the videos of the Chrises or Scarlett being surprised by someone in a crazy costume on repeat. It was hilarious of course, but now being in a position where it might happen to you was terrifying. You were embarrassingly easy to scare and in that moment you took back all of the times you had laughed at others being surprised on the show.

“You can relax, nothing’s back there,” Ellen reassures you while chuckles and excited squeals fill the studio. “Or maybe there is.”

Your eyes widen again and your heart drops as you turn back around.

“But, no, no there isn’t,” Ellen corrects herself. “Or is there? I don’t know.” You anxiety keeps dropping then shooting back up as she plays with you and by now your neck is hurting from straining it back so much. “I’m just kidding, I do know. And there isn’t anything,” she finally settles the tension before looking straight into one of the cameras. “But we do have a good surprise and it is not scary, I swear, coming up after the break.” You’re clutching your speeding heart in both your hands as the Ellen theme music plays cueing the commercials. The  clapping dies down quickly as a bunch of set workers being moving cameras and lighting and you follow the blonde you’ve admired for so long as she stands up and goes in for another hug.

“Hey, Y/N, you need some water?” she picks up a bottle from behind her chair and you nod. “HERE you go!” she pretends she’s about to splash it all on your shirt and you jump back making a panicked sound before you realize that she’s kept the top of it on and there’s nothing on you.

“Scarlett said to watch out for you!” you laugh and are happy to hear that your mic is off.

“Really? She did?” Ellen smiles like the two of you have known each other for years and it makes you a hundred times more comfortable. Most interviewers were so stiff and acted like robots off camera but you were finding Ellen to be extremely friendly and caring. “Me and Portia love you guys by the way.”

“Wow,” you can’t believe what you’ve just heard. “Thank you. I mean, thanks that is just crazy to hear. We love you two as well and I’ve always been a fan of your show; it’s what got me through school, haha. And, yes, Scarlett almost made me too scared to come on but I really wanted to meet you.”

“Well I’m glad that you came too. Hey, I heard that you and Scarlett were thinking about adopting a new pet?”

“Yes!” you nod your head excitedly. “We really want a dog. I grew up with two but I’m just worried about having to leave the little guy or girl at home for long periods of time or having to make them travel a lot with us.”

“Yeah I totally understand. But like for me, going home to my cats every evening and just laying on the couch with them and Portia is what keeps me sane.”

“Absolutely, same for me.”

“Woah, okay, can you just come stand over here for one second?” she pulls you to the side as a set worker instantly lifts your chair up and takes it away only to be replaced by two other crew members that have a full sized couch. That was strange. Usually you’d be told if there were going to be guests or fans that you’d have to interact with on shows but you just shrugged it off and assumed that a fan from the audience would be coming up to meet you and it was just a surprise. “Thanks.”

“And we’re back on in ten!” one of the producers yelled and you and Ellen took your seats. “Five, four, three....”

The audience was cheering once again as the music played. “Alright, we’re back with Y/F/N Y/L/N,” Ellen said looking into the camera. “And before we left we told you that there was a surprise for you.”

“Yes, and I’ve noticed that you’ve expanded the seating area so- oh wait,” you interrupted yourself to turn around to check and make sure nothing was behind you again which made the audience laugh.

“No, there’s nothing there. We actually have someone in the audience today who is a huge fan of yours that would just love to meet you.”

“Cool beans!” the audience starts shrieking and jumping up and down not knowing who it’s going to be.

“So the fan is actually completely blind but is a part time worker at Barnes & Noble and also operates rollercoasters at six flags during the summer.”

“Oh.... oh my God, I mean, that’s amazing I’d love to meet them,” you were suddenly very nervous about meeting this person.

“In a letter they wrote to us, they said ‘even though I cannot see my only dream in life is to see Y/N in person.’ From Duluth, Minnesota, please welcome Carla Shaw!”

Scanning the audience you finally catch sight of a very timid woman with frizzy red hair and dark sunglasses get up towards the top and smack dab in the middle of the aisle. Not so sure of what to do, you almost get up from your seat when you don’t see any crew members going over to help her as she shuffled her way past other audience members who are simply clapping and leaning away from her as she feels the tops of the chairs to walk towards the stairs. “I should probably help her,” you get up and jog off the stage to go assist this poor woman who’s waving her cane around feeling for where the steps are. You are shocked and almost appalled that no one else getting up to help her and you jog up the steps carefully and go to lock your elbow into hers so you can guide her down.

“Allow me,” you offer before she completely spazzes our in front of you tripping down two steps and throwing her cane in the air. “SHIT!” you scream and forget that this is daytime television. You immediately fall to your knees and go to try and help them up when you notice that they’re just sitting there laughing. That laugh. You know that laugh.

“Oh my God-“ you breath as they reach for their hair and pull off what is actually a wig and then take off the giant black glasses. “I cannot believe you!” you yell at Scarlett who’s laughing hysterically at your dumb face.

“Hey baby,” she says cheekily and you roll your eyes as the two of you get up together. The crowd is going completely bezerk and girls all around you and covering their faces with their hands, mascara dripping with tears of joy and disbelief. She pulls you in for a hug and the screams get louder which you didn’t even think was possible.

“Scarlett Johansson everybody!” Ellen is clapping from the stage as your girlfriend waves to some fans and the camera. You playfully bump your shoulder into her and she pushes you back like you’re two bumper cars as you walk down towards the stage. Once you’re up there, the two of you turn around to wave at the audience some more and you’re certain that your eardrums are permanently damaged.

“I’ll sit on this si- AHHHHHHH!”

“AHHHHH SHIT”

You both scream with horror in your eyes as you see the cushions from the couch launch into the air as a beastly looking guy dressed like a yeti explodes two feet in front of you. His growling almost gives you a heart attack and you and Scarlett instinctively clutch into each other with both of you trying to hide behind the other.

Your grip on your girlfriend is so tight and you don’t let go until the yeti guy has completely disappeared running offstage. Ellen is in a complete fit of laughter that has rendered her unable to stand. She’s laughing, struggling to take breaths when she needs to from her chair while high pitched screams continue to get louder and louder.

“WHY!?!” Scarlett looks at the blonde woman in horror and your fingers are up by your neck feeling for a pulse.

“Is that all the surprises? Please tell me there are no more surprises,” you cry for mercy.

The next part will be an interview with you and Scarlett where you discuss the upcoming movie, choose your favorite Chrises, and talk a little bit about your relationship

[radabadabing-bing]

Xander eats cake and gets ridiculously fat

Hey I sold you on the title eh? This is a pretty straightforward story. I pulled it off my deviantart and edited parts of it so people can read it without being a formatting disaster. I will be uploading two more, one on Niles, one on Keaton, in a bit. Don’t want to overwhelm people. I’m also gonna say this...gets pretty dicey. You should be 18+ if you want to read this. Or, uh, any of my stories here on out. I will tone things back a bit, but these three were kind of super super self indulgent and kind of shared on a whim. Anyways that’s enough of a tangent, you came here for Xander getting ridiculously fat and here it is.

Smart would be not eating a piece of cake that showed up out of nowhere.

That would be gluttony.

Why Xander felt so gluttonous that day, he did not know. Perhaps he had failed to eat breakfast or lunch while training his sword arm. Perhaps he had been busy in strategy missions that day. Or perhaps he really was just hungry. But either or, he ate that slice of cake.

The true unusual part about the cake was it's location. Xander had ended up in the ever winding basement of the astral castle. It spread on for miles...Each direction going on forever and ever. Just...dust and hidden things. And those hidden things...were not always kind. Most things in the deepest reaches of the basement were terrible artifacts or potions, made in an era long past. And those brews and artifacts had terrible effects on the users.

Xander didn't know this. No one could really blame him- it seemed rather innocuous at first. Of course, one may find basement cake...strange. However, to Xander, it looked and smelled fresh. The crown prince had gingerly used a fork located next to it, just as fresh as the cake, to take off a piece and eat it. It was the best cake he had ever had- far surpassing that of Camilla's or Peri's (The surprisingly good chef she was). He could not resist- he consumed every last crumb of that cake, leaving an empty plate in his wake. He began to wonder if there was more of said cake, but simply couldn't shake this strange feeling that washed over him. He felt so heavy- yet was the same size as before. He gave up on his cake conquest and was about to get back to his original task of finding a few steel weapons that were sent down a while back when it hit  him. Intense gurgling from his stomach was the first hint of what would happen.

And it wasn't just a hunger gurgle. This gurgle was something that was...indescribable. Like a pot of water bubbling after heat was applied. Unnatural.

Next was a burp. Very un-prince like, but excusable. But he...really wasn't feeling good now. "Ygh...perhaps that cake was stale..." His stomach continued to burble and glub. He couldn't see, but for some reason...he felt it puff out? Of course not. It was just the cake. It was just a silly feeling.

But...he couldn't shake it. Everything tingled. Did his butt just swell? He turned to see it- a little more puffy than usual. No, no, he shook it off. It's just the cake. The cake...That could've been

lined with...? No, no. It couldn't be happening. Not to Xander.

His armor was not bulging out. That's how it always looked. His armor always made strange clanking noises as if it were falling apart.

His hips were always that wide. He was not getting fa-

The straps on his armor began stretching out.

Yes, he was definitely gaining weight.

His pants were getting tighter and tighter and so was his armor.

Whatever that cake did to him, it was bad. He took refuge by using the wall to support him, putting a hand on the wall. Another surge of fat hit him, and several straps failed around his body. "UURP!" He released a roaring bolk. "Uhng...this is really bad UUURP!" Clang! A piece of his armor fell off.

His pudgy belly spilled out. Clink clank clink, more armor fell off, more flesh spilling out. He scooped it up with his hands, feeling it slowly grow and jiggle as it grew out. Another piece of armor gone, more of his belly exposed. It was rotund, his navel deep.

It's grumbling was bad enough, but Xander forgot about how it wasn't just his belly- With a rip, he remembered his butt was blowing up too. Bwump, bwump, it got bigger and bigger,

tearing away at his pants. His thighs blew up, larger than Camilla's or anyone else in the army. More armor popping off, thighs chafing  against one another. He was stripped of his armor now, wearing his light clothes, which were meant to be comfortable to a muscular Xander, not a Xander whose pectorals had been blown out of proportion and belly rode up the shirt. He was becoming a swollen caricature of himself, no longer in fighting form. He felt his pants tighten in the front...perhaps some sort of bloodrush, or the sudden movement of whatever that cake was filling him with. Pudgy and puffy, he put a hand to his distended belly. It gurgled and slightly trembled as it bloated out of control.

The zipper of his pants burst apart, the button holding it together wasn't doing so well either. He felt the growth emerge out from it, freed from it's constriction. The tear in his pants was growing larger and larger as his ass grew larger and larger. His shirt ripped in two, thanks to his set of perky manboobs, blobby and rounded. "I need to get huuuuuuarp!" His words were interrupted by another burp, "UUUUURP! Help!"

To even reach the cake in the first place, Xander had to enter it's own little "room". It had a normal sized door any normal sized person could enter through. Of course, at this point Xander was not normal sized. Regardless, he tried to go through the door, wedging his fattened

body in place, much to his horror. He continued to burp, along with grunting as he tried to jiggle his body free of the door. The button of his pants, which had been rather good in holding on for so long, finally failed, and with a ping blasted off the floor. He felt his face get chubbier as he

pried himself through the doorway, at least trying to. Embarrassingly, he was stuck- his swelling body not making things easier. Seams all around his pants were popping off, coming undone. Eventually, Xander was only wearing his underwear, which weren't doing too good- heavily intenting his plump and thick thighs.

Just as his arms began to expand out and grow to immense size, good luck was upon Xander, as he popped out of the doorframe with a stumble. His body wobbled and jiggled as it was freed, Xander nearly falling on his back due to his fantastic weight. His erection was really beginning to become noticeable in his tight, tight underwear. He bit his lip as the seam of his undergarments began tearing. "Mm...mm..." Something was welling up in his stomach. A big burst. Something bad. "Mm...mm...muuup, urp, urp..." He let out tiny burps first. And then... "Muh, muh, MUUUUURP, UUUUUUURP" Xander gave out his loudest bolk yet. His underwear snapped off with the loud belch, leaving him naked. It was a miracle he was standing at that weight, though given the pace of his growth he wouldn't be standing much longer.

How had no one not found him?...That might actually not be that bad. He shuddered to think what would happen if someone had seen him, especially like this. His belly was gurgling loudly now, growing very quickly at his freed pace. A wave of fat hit his butt, knocking him off balance.

He began to stumble, becoming too heavy to stand- and promptly fell on his squishy rump. "Guh..." He managed to let out a grunt in between his various belches and burps. And he really could not ignore his enlarged member, despite being hidden under layers of fat. It's growth was not ceasing…

He couldn't take much more of this. He was approaching the ceiling at this point. Xander felt like he could burst...Could...could he burst?

He didn't like that thought. His stomach was still expanding out, with louder and louder growls. Xander tried to reach for it, but found his arms were too large as well, too fat to adjust properly. Even his hands were hard to move, hardly able to close into fists. Everything felt so...big. Much, much too large. "Uhhhng...Mmm..." That feeling was welling up again in his chest again. There was a big burp coming. "Mmm! Mmm! M-UOOOOARP!" A final burst of fat hit him, pushing him against the walls.

"Uuuuhn...It's...over..." Sweat dribbled down his face. He felt disgusting.

"Ugh...So...Tired..." The groaning of his stomach lulled him to sleep, exhausted by his immense growth.

Xander woke up much, much later. And he was much, much lighter.

He picked himself up off the ground. He was still quite flabby, with a prominent belly, fattened thighs, and a rounded rump. Xander sighed, how could he explain this to the others? Being naked and fat. And his stomach...His stomach ached, still reeling from the cake...cake...the cake...he could smell it. He turned to the doorway he had been stuck in. There wasn't just a single piece of cake now.

There was a whole one. Just sitting there, waiting to be eaten. He looked down at his belly. He looked towards the cake. He was salivating...Xander shouldn't of eaten that cake. Any under circumstance.

But before he knew it, he was shoveling the cake into his mouth with reckless abandon...

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z Movie 7: Super Android 13!

Movie 7 premiered on July 11, 1992, after episode 147 and before episode 148.  The original title is “Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Battle! The Three Great Super Saiyans.”    That may be the most coherent movie title I’ve come across so far. 

We open on footage of 17 killing Dr. Gero in his lab.  Toei went out of their way to reanimate this whole scene, although the Z-Fighters aren’t in it.   I’m pretty sure that big energy blast at the top is Vegeta blasting the door open, but he’s not actually shown.

And the Z-Fighters ought to be standing at the doorway, watching 17 finish Gero off, and yet they’re completely out of sight.  You’d think their shadows would be visible here.   

But Gero’s supercomputer in the lab’s basement is still hard at work.  We first learned of the computer in Episode 143, because Cell credited it with his creation.   And it was destroyed in... Episode 145, because Trunks and Krillin wanted to make sure it didn’t send any more surprises after them later.   So yeah, we’re not even ten minutes into this movie, and we already have a continuity issue.  

In the anime, the supercomputer just has a tank with the embryonic Cell next to it.    But in this movie, that’s nowhere to be seen, and instead there’s three chambers, like the kind that once held 16, 17, and 18.   What could be inside?????

And here’s the title screen.  

This movie’s pretty thin on story.   That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because it’s got plenty of action, but there’s not a whole lot for me to write about.   As far as I can tell, this is set in some possible scenario where the good guys beat the androids and maybe Cell too, although it sort of looks like Cell just stone cold never existed in this movie’s world.   So the gang is in the big city just sort of relaxing.  

This is Trunks’ movie debut, but it seems kind of weird having him just stand around and kill an afternoon with the others.   He seems to feel even more awkward about it than I do.  If the androids are beaten, why hasn’t he gone back to his own time?   Instead, he’s tagged along with Master Roshi, Krillin, and Oolong for some beauty pageant.   They wanted to get good seats for ogling the girls, so they showed up super early.  Krillin tells them to quit being lecherous pervs around Trunks, but earlier he was the one going ga-ga, so yeah.  

The punchline here is that they ended up getting the date of the even wrong, so they stood in line for nothing.

Meanwhile, Goku and Gohan are helping Chi-Chi at the store, because women be shopping, amirite?  

Outside, these two mofos show up and just start walking through everything.  

I mean literally.   If a bus gets in their way they just rip right through it.  

Pretty sure they could fly straight up to where they’re going, but they take the escalator instead.

Then they open the elevator shaft, fly up it, through the car, and then rip their way to whatever floor they want.

All of this so they can shoot at Goku from the floor below where he and the gang are eating dinner.    This whole assassination attempt seems kind of poorly thought out.    If they were going for stealth, why were they so sloppy about getting this far?   If they didn’t care who saw them coming, why didn’t they just smash right through to this floor and attack directly?

They manage to save everyone on the floor from the blast, though, so no worries.   Goku suspect the attackers are here for him, so he tells everyone to get as far from him as possible.

Sure enough, the pair follow Goku, and he deduces pretty quickly that they’re more of Dr. Gero’s androids.  

It takes a while to get the introductions made, so let me get this out of the way here.   This one is #15, he has a hip flask and he likes to drink out of it.  

And this one is #14.   He looks like some sort of reject from the movie Highlander.   I’m not sure why their skin looks that way.  

Gohan insists on helping, even though Krillin says there’s nothing they can do at their level, and even though Chi-Chi wants him to come home for summer cram school.   Gohan refuses, on account of his dad’s life being more important.   So Chi-Chi tells Krillin to go after him and make sure he’s okay.

Back at the lab, the supercomputer activates a third android, #13.    Why not just send them all out together?   Is this just because #14 and 15 are having trouble?   Because they haven’t really gotten very far into the fight yet.

Trunks tells Goku that they should take the battle to the polar region up north so civilians won’t get hurt.   There, 14 and 15 manage to do a pretty good job working over both of them.  

Then 13 shows up.   The good news is that he’s more talkative than the others, but the bad news is that he doesn’t have much more to say, really.   Practically every one of his lines is just a restatement of how they were sent by Gero’s computer to kill Goku.

That’s pretty much the whole problem with this movie.   The villains are just... more androids.   Are they cooler androids than the ones from the anime?   Well, I guess that’s a matter of taste, but they don’t really have the personality of 16, 17, and 18.   They might look cooler, but they don’t have character arcs or anything like that.   14 hardly speaks at all, and 15 just has that hip flask and a loud costume.   13′s got his hat, and not much else.  

This is where the Funimation dub really came to the rescue, becaue they dubbed the Movie androids with a lot more flavor.   15 was really sassy, and 13 had this beligerent redneck persona to match his costume.   My favorite line from the dub version is when he says “I was programmed to kill your ass”.  

We get none of that in the Japanese version.  These three are all business, and there’s not much to say here that wasn’t covered by #16-20 in the anime.   Dr. Gero hates Goku, they were built to kill him.   

The only real twist I can see in this movie is when 13 explains that Gero’s desire for vengeance was “transferred” into the computer.   So now the computer hates Goku just as much as Dr. Gero did.   Maybe that’s a distinction without a difference.    In the dub, the computer was just a plot device to explain how the androids got turned on.    Team Four Star’s abridged version of this movie had Gero upload his consciousness into the computer when 17 killed him.   I liked that idea, because it allowed Gero to actually be in the movie, albeit as a stationary object.   But the original Japanese script seems to be proposing that the computer itself could be the mastermind this time around.   Except it never speaks or does much of anything through the whole film.   It’s basically an even crappier Dr. Wheelo, if that’s even possible.  

On the other hand, it sort of explains why the computer went out of its way to send 13, 14, and 15 into action.    In the anime, it’s strongly implied that they were considered failures, either scrapped or put into storage.    Gero probably wouldn’t have bothered to use them again, not after all of his later models failed, but if the computer hates Goku too, then it might be desperate enough to try to hurt him with whatever it has on hand.  

So they keep fighting.   Trunks has to handle 14 and 15 by himself, and it doesn’t go well.

Then Vegeta shows up to save Goku from 13′s finisher.   Standard speech, no one gets to kill Kakakrot except me, yadda yadda.

So 15 goes after Vegeta, and now we have an even three-on-three fight.  

Now, you might be wondering why they haven’t all gone Super Saiyan yet.    Well, to answer your question, I have no idea.  I get the impression that these three androids are far weaker than their anime counterparts.    I mean, these would have to be the third string, or why else would Dr. Gero have left them on the shelf when he needed help?   Goku, Vegeta, and Trunks never would have survived against 16-20 without their Super Saiyan forms, so the fact that they hold their own so long here tells me these three ain’t all that.    It still doesn’t explain why they waited this long to turn up the juice.    When they do finally transform, Krillin exclaims “They’ve done it!” like it was hard. 

I suppose that’s the other explaination.   Movies 5 and 6 both seemed to imply that the boys can only transform when they’re backed into a corner.    So maybe Movie 7 is going on the same reasoning, but that’s kind of dumb, since we’ve had Super Saiyans for a while now and everyone ought to be familiar with how they work.    Hell, Trunks and Vegeta transformed immediately when they fought Frieza and 19 respectively.    They can all do it at will.  

I take it back, Gero’s computer is way better than Dr. Wheelo because it has colorful blinking lights, so I can actually distinguish it from the rest of the scenery.

For some reason, Goku still has trouble with 13, even in Super Saiyan form, so Piccolo shows up to lend a hand.   This seems kind of underhanded for a show that emphasizes fighting one-on-one.  

As for Vegeta and Trunks, they dispatch their respective Androids pretty easily. 

But then 13 reveals that YOU JUST ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD.   Turns out that when you destroy 14 and 15, some of their components will automatically float up and enter 13′s body, giving him a power boost.

So then he turns into this big blue monster with red Vegeta hair.  Well why didn’t the computer just build him like this in the first place?    Why bother with 14 and 15 at all?

So yeah, he kicks everyone’s ass, and no one can even put a dent in the guy.   

With the rest of the Z-Fighters down, 13 just tees off on Goku, eventually knocking him into a lake.

Krillin spends most of the movie convinced that he’s too weak to help, but then at the end he finally steps in to save Goku, and that’s pretty cool.  He eats an energy blast for his trouble, but that’s how it goes.

This gives Goku a chance to try the Spirit Bomb, which we haven’t seen him use since it utterly failed to kill Frieza.   

The others try to buy Goku time.   Trunks in particular gives a speech about how he’s from the future, and 13 doesn’t exist in the future, and that’s because Goku must be destined to kill him here and now.    Pretty sure that’s not how it works, but whatever.

13 tries to shoot at Goku, but Piccolo manages to suplex the big bastard.   He only gets him halfway over, but that’s enough to ruin 13′s aim, so good enough.

Then Piccolo calls for Goku to show him the power of a Super Saiyan, and Goku obliges by transforming.  

From the sidelines, Krillin points out that this won’t work, because you can’t create a Spirit Bomb with a malicious heart, and this apparently means that Super Saiyans just can’t do it at all.   I have no idea where Krillin is getting this from.    Goku learned the Spirit Bomb technique directly from King Kai, who invented it, and Goku’s the first Super Saiyan to appear in a thousand years.   He is singularly qualified to know whether or not this will work.    With all respect to Krillin, he has no idea what he’s talking about.  

So what ends up happening is that Goku’s body sucks the Spirit Bomb into itself, so now Goku is surrounded by a glowing yellow ball of energy.  

Is this a good thing?  Is this what Goku meant to do?    Was he just going to try a vanilla Spirit Bomb until Piccolo told him to turn Super Saiyan?   Who knows?

Anyway, 13 just dives right into this mess and tries to attack Goku anyway, but everytime he punches him his fists get all messed up.   

Then Goku makes this really angry face and he looks like Vegeta to me. 

He punches a hole through 13, and he explodes.   Fight’s over.

Then the computer just... shuts down?   That’s kind of convenient.   Maybe it figured it couldn’t do anything else now that all of its androids were destroyed, so there was no point staying active?    Maybe its power was connected to 13′s?   Oh well.   

Everyone’s okay, but they all go to the hospital instead of looking for senzu beans.   Krillin’s still trying to explain how Goku did that trick with the Spirit Bomb. 

But Goku himself has no idea, so what chance do the rest of us have?

But where are Piccolo and Vegeta?

Just floating around on a chunk of ice, nbd.   The fish jumps, so it’s over.

And that’s it.   

I don’t know.   From a story perspective, this one’s pretty weak.   It’s just a warmed over follow-up to the androids arc, with 13 as a cheap knockoff of Cell.   Movies 5 and 6 at least tried to raise the stakes with Cooler.   Sure, he’s just Frieza’s brother, but he had a fifth form, and his cyborg form was tied into a whole machine planet.    Turles was just another Saiyan invader, but he had the Tree of Might thing going for him.  13 really didn’t have anything like that. 

Honestly, I think they could have done better by having 16 be the main villain.    We never got to see 16 fight any of the good guys, so they could have done a movie where an evil 16 cleans their clocks.   At least then it’d be a familiar face.  

Nevertheless, I do enjoy this movie, just because it doesn’t skimp on the action.   The bad guys show up about 12 minutes in and they fight pretty much non-stop for the rest of the film.  It’s a good movie in that regard.  If you just want to see a bunch of DBZ characters have a good old ruckus, this one’s got you covered.    It’s bright and colorful and you can follow the action without any trouble.   

But you definitely want to watch the dub version.   It’s just a lot more fun. 

[jarpadandjensenaremyheroes]

Home: Chapter 1

A/N: this is the first chapter of my fic for the wonderful Angel over at @whispersandwhiskerburn for her 2k follower celebration! This whole thing got a little out of hand, so I broke it up into 7 parts. Each one is less than 2k words, that way no one gets overwhelmed trying to read it all at once. I will try to upload at least 2 a week. If anyone wants to be tagged, just let me know! Feedback is very welcome and much appreciated! Enjoy my lovelies!

This whole storyline is beta’d by my amazing best friend, Tori. She didn’t want me to share her tumblr info though, so I’m respecting those wishes.

My song was Love Don’t Run by Steve Holy (italicized in the fic, but it doesn’t show up until chapter 2)

My original quote (created by Angel) was “I told you I would never give up on you. Did you think I was lying?” (bolded in the fic, but it doesn’t make an appearance until later)

Blanket warnings for entire series: FLUFF, angst, implied smut, canon-typical violence, cursing, drinking, implied thoughts of drunk driving (don’t ever do it in reality, it’s never worth the cost), reader panic attacks (only one is non resolved)

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader, Sam Winchester x Reader (friendship)

Word Count: 1,530

Summary: The brothers rescues you from a group of Djinn.

Author: @jarpadandjensenaremyheroes

Italics are internal thoughts.

Chapter 1

“Dean I’m telling you, this is a Djinn!”

“Sammy this whole town reeks of rotten eggs. You can’t tell me it’s not demons.”

Sam is smart, but sometimes he could be a know-it-all pain in Dean’s ass. Especially when Dean was in the process of finding another pretty lady to warm his bed.

Sam and Dean had been going back and forth for two hours now about what kind of monster was taking people and killing them. In Dean’s defense, there hadn’t been any blue handprints on any of the victims so far. They were just drained of blood. But no bite marks, so they had ruled out vamps. The only other thing that made sense to Dean was demons using humans as sacrifices. Or just some crazy cult people. But that was unlikely.

“Dammit Dean! There is a Sulphur mine in between this town and the next!”

“Oh. Well why didn’t you say so two hours ago then?!”

Sam shook his head at his brother’s antics. He loved his brother to death, but sometimes he was a huge pain in the ass. “I did Dean. But clearly you were too busy trying to get the bartender’s number, that you didn’t hear me.”

Dean gave Sam his best bitch face, and simply said “Well then let’s get going. If this is a Djinn, these people don’t have much time left.”

12 hours later-Dean’s POV

After killing the 3 Djinn in the abandoned warehouse, Sam set off on the task of burning the monsters while Dean called in the locals to take care of these poor people. He went to each victim, checking for signs of life, knowing full well that they had lost way to much blood to wake up anytime soon. When he got to the last girl, after checking the other vics, he couldn’t help but stare. She was so beautiful. Breathtaking, really. With her long curly (y/c/h), and the little lines beside her mouth and eyes, the ones that tell him she laughs a lot. I wonder what her laugh sounds like? Dammit, no Dean. Now is not the time. Get her to safety, fantasize later! Just as he was finishing his thought, she started to stir. Suddenly, her (y/c/e) eyes shot open and her mouth let out a terrified screech at the man standing over her.

“Whoa whoa sweetheart, it’s okay! I’m not here to hurt you, the monsters are gone. My brother, Sammy, and I, we killed them. You’re safe now, I promise.”

As she continued panicking, he did the only thing he could think of. He wrapped his arms around her as he pulled her into his lap and held her as tightly as he dared. Soon, her breathing began to slow and the sobs stopped coming.

Y/N’s POV

“W-Who are you?” You asked him. You were finally able to breathe at a somewhat normal rate and looked up into his piercing green eyes. If you hadn’t been in such a worked up state, you probably would’ve found him extremely attractive. Not that he’s unattractive…no, now is not the time Y/N. As if this strange man knew you, he brushed the tears away from your face.

“My name is Dean Winchester. You can trust me sweetheart, I promise.”

And in that moment, you felt like you could truly trust this man. You weren’t sure why, you didn’t trust anyone. This is why you were on your own and an easy target for your kidnappers.

“Do you know what day today is?” he asked you.

“I…I’m not sure…I was in and out so often, and it was always so bright in here with the floodlights on…I don’t know how long I’ve been gone. I was leaving the library late Wednesday night w-when they…” You started to choke up again, silently cursing yourself for not being able to pull your shit together long enough to figure out what had happened. Come on Y/N. Pull yourself together.

“Hey, shh, it’s okay. You’re safe now. They can’t hurt you anymore. I won’t let anything hurt you anymore princess.”

A statement like that should have made you run for the hills. Who says that to someone they just met? But you stayed put, wrapped up in his large arms. You noticed, for the first time since he pulled you to him, just how fit and large this man, Dean, really is. And it only made you feel safer. While you were in your own little world, staring at this man’s body, you failed to hear him talking to you. Finally, as he moved his hand to turn your head towards his, you snapped out of it with a “hmmm?”

“I was asking you what your name is,” he said with a little grin. “And if you have a home we could take you to, to get cleaned up before we take you to the hospital.”

At the mention of the word hospital you could physically feel what blood you had left leaving your face. You hated hospitals. Of course, Dean didn’t know that. Or why you despised them so. He didn’t know you had lost your whole family, all in the same week. Or that a drunk driver had taken them all from you. First your mother, who died during surgery as the doctors tried to save her, but there was too much bleeding. Then it was your father, who survived the surgery, only to have a stroke a mere 3 hours later. Lastly, it was your brother. Your little brother, who you loved so much…he fought so hard. He was even awake for a whole day before the seizures started. Something about the pressure on his brain, you weren’t sure; the nurses spoke with a lot of big words. The doctors tried to fix it, but he had an aneurysm none of you knew about. You had come so close to being able to continue on with him, but he was ripped away from you too. His death hit you the hardest of them all. And you still, almost 10 years later, feel guilty for having walked away with only a broken arm and a few stitches here and there.

“Please! Please no hospitals! I’m okay…I-I’ll be just fine. Just please no hospitals.” You knew he heard the panic in your voice, and saw the fear on your face.

“Okay princess. No hospitals. I’m not a fan of ‘em either,” he told you as he winked. That made you feel a little better. “Can we at least take you home? You’re in no condition to walk anywhere like this…”

You told Dean your name, and agreed to let him take you home, and make sure everything was alright there before leaving you. Not that you really wanted this handsome, green-eyed man to leave you at all, but you would be fine. You’ve always been fine on your own. You felt yourself go stiff again as a door opened somewhere behind you, silently willing yourself not to have another panic attack.

“Sam, this is Y/N. Y/N, this is my little brother, Sam.” You exchanged a small smile with the giant moose of a man standing across from you. Dean leaned closer to your face and quietly whispered, “but I call him Sammy. He hates it!” You couldn’t help the giggle that escaped your throat. And truthfully, it felt good to be able to laugh in the face of everything that had just happened. Sam proceeds to tell Dean that the Djinn are taken care of, and that we should head out before the locals arrive. Less than 5 minutes later, the three of you are driving down the road towards your home. On the way there, you managed to tell the brothers that you lost your family years ago, and how it’s just you now. They were sympathetic, telling you they only had each other now as well.

As Dean pulls the beautiful classic car of his into your driveway, you can feel the fear start to creep up. You try to shake it off, but with no avail. Dean senses your insecurity, and silently moves closer to you, putting his arm around your waist to support you. He takes the key from your shaking hand and unlocks the front door while Sam keeps an eye out for anything suspicious around your house.

Dean opens the door slowly, and you peer around him to see an absolute shit show. The place has been trashed. Couches ripped up, pictures and mirrors smashed, walls have gaping holes in them, and the kitchen sink is gushing water like a geyser. You can feel the tears prick your eyes and know that there’s no stopping them this time. Dean grabs you by the shoulders and turns you into his chest, petting your hair as he lets you sob. The last few things you had from your family, this house, the pictures….they’re destroyed. Gone in an instant. You lose control of your breathing, and as your vision goes black, you pass out in Dean’s arms from hyperventilation.

@quackerstheduck663057

[hellbound2]

HELLBOUND’S FIRST BIRTHDAY

This post is long. There’s a lot to say.

Tomorrow is HELLBOUND’s first birthday. According to Game Jolt, I originally uploaded the game on February 17th, 2016. It’s been a good year, got nearly 1,000 plays, and we’ve built a small but dedicated (and soon to grow, with the release of Super Maria RPG) fanbase.

 I just wanna take a second here and thank everyone for everything. I really appreciate that people like the stuff I’m doing with game design. When I started working on HELLBOUND in like, early 2015, I didn’t think anyone would play it, much less like it. Around halfway through development, I tried to pass it through Steam Greenlight, and I failed pretty massively. I got around 450 upvotes, or something like that, and right around that many dislikes, as well. A lot of the salty Steam anons were ripping into the game, making fun of every aspect about it, based completely on a trailer that I made in a couple hours. There wasn’t even a game demo for available, and still they were quick to pass judgment. After that failure, I stopped working on HELLBOUND for like, a few months, and eventually picked back up on it and released the first version. Also, I had very little help making the game, and was subjected to a LOT of flaking and wishy-washy attitudes from nearly everyone I asked for help from. I ended up having to pump out the entire game basically by myself, at least the first version of it. 

Quickly after I released HELLBOUND (1.0), people started following me here on Tumblr, and started telling me that they liked the game. This was literally the first positive feedback I had received on the game, at all, during the entire development process. I wanna give a shot out to @queenwhiskey for being my biggest fan here; people like you telling me that you like the game means a lot to me. Trust me. After people started to take interest in the game, that’s when I was like “Oh shit, maybe I should improve it a little bit.” Especially when I saw people making fan art for the game, I was like, “Oh fuck, I really need to make a more polished version.” That’s when I started to work on the current version. I cleaned up some of the clunky parts of the game, and added a couple new things here and there. I was reached out to by @kk-dirge, who helped me make the maps look a million million million times better. They did it all  without me even having to ask, which was really really flattering and muuuch appreciated. Finally, I asked one of the fan artists, @emiix to make a new title screen for the new version of the game (pictured at the beginning of this post), and the rest is history.

Before I finish, I wanna give a shot out to Nathan Gray, Direct Hit!, and The Copyrights for giving me permission to use their songs in the game. 

Now, to get back to work on SUPER MARIA RPG. This final dungeon isn’t gonna design itself, now is it? ;-)

[topicprinter]

Recognizing my own long-windedness, I’ve added a TLDR after every paragraph and lesson learned for those not wanting the deeper details.Yesterday, I finally decided to give up on a business idea I've been working on for years. I say "business idea" instead of "business" because businesses generally have customers, and that's not something I ever got a lot of *insert Price is Right loser music*, and I don't want to give anyone the impression I consider myself an experienced business owner by posting this: I would very much put myself in the "wantrepreneur" stage of my entrepreneurial experience. That being said, having listened to quite a lot of “How I Built This”, listening to successful entrepreneur friends talk about how they got to where they are, and even being part of this subreddit, I’ve formed the opinion tenacity is the attribute that most contributes to the majority of entrepreneurs’ success. Because of this, I know by giving up on my project I’m defining its failure, but I feel that, due to my inexperience as a business owner, cutting this idea loose before investing further is a smarter idea as long as I take away lessons that will improve my next venture. For that reason, I decided to write this formal lessons learned and post it for those who are interested. I get a fair amount of phone notifications for success stories in this sub, but I think it’s important, especially for other lurkers/newbies like me that the failures also be heard from (in a constructive manner at least).TLDR: Shutting down my business due to lack of customers, making a formal lessons learned so I don’t feel I’m walking away from the experience empty handed, posting it here for any interested/other beginner business owners.BACKGROUNDProbably 6-7 years ago I was shooting the shit with my co-workers at lunch (all of us software developers) and talked about how the dumbest ideas are the ones that really take off, specifically, due to their virality. I’m sure you know the kind: things like MillionDollarHomePage.com, where a guy charged a dollar for each of a million pixels and made more money than would be thought for a website so ugly (not to offend, I’ve been told my website is ugly as hell and it didn’t make me a million dollars). Going further back, we can see this isn’t just a byproduct of the internet as the pet rock made its creator a millionaire in the 70s. Wanting to take advantage of what I hoped was an easily exploitable behavior, I came up with an idea, and this was my pitch: “Who do you hate more than anyone in the world? Who’s your favorite historical figure? What if, for 25 cents, I could show you what it would look like if that historical figure teabagged that person you hate?” And so was born, [NSFW] GhostTeabag.com (site is still up, but with no GIF generating/purchasing functionality, so please don’t consider this self-promotion. You can, however, see examples of what was produced on the homepage). For those who don’t want to risk visiting the site due to the NSFW or don’t know what teabagging is, I’ll give a brief explanation of what the site did: you upload an image (say of a friend, or person you hate, doesn’t really matter), you pick from an assortment of historical figures (e.g. Cleopatra, Napoleon, etc.), and the site generates a GIF image of that historical figure (caricatured), making a teabagging motion on the picture (a teabag being the act of placing one’s scrotum on another person). I’m sure many of you are wincing at this point due to the nature of the website, but it’s important you understand what it is as it was a key factor of my lessons learned.TLDR: People pay for all sorts of stupid things, and I wanted a piece of that market by making a website that generated GIFs of caricatured historical figures putting their scrotums on images you uploaded.LESSONS LEARNED1: Never start a business you aren’t willing to promote and have no idea how to market. As obvious as this seems when stated blatantly, it was by far my most crucial mistake.I live in what’s referred to as the “Bible belt” of America: people are very uptight about their scruples. Additionally, I have a very conservative, religious family. And while I generally consider myself good at living a life independent of people’s judgements, once I had a product I was able to promote, I nearly froze completely in doing so. I know the stereotypical entrepreneur answer to this is, “You just can’t care what people think,” but when you have loving, caring parents who have tried so hard to raise you to make ethically wise choices, there are very few excuses that pair well enough with, “I made a website where Abraham Lincoln puts his balls on people,” to avoid the shame they will stare into you for the remainder of your life working on said website, and for that reason, I never told them about it.My family aside, living in such a conservative area made it difficult to do the little promoting I was willing to do. I made stickers advertising the site and planned to go from bar to bar in our downtown district asking bartenders if they could place one on their freezer or wall (as bars often do). I received quite a few “No”s, a thimble full of “Yes”s, and a “I can’t put it in the main area, but I can probably put it in the bathroom,” which I was more than grateful for but have yet to see in said bathroom. There were public posting spaces and a few lamp posts I was able to tag, but my primary focus and hope had been the bars as that's where I expected my clientele would be, and that had been a nearly complete failure. A friend of mine suggested trying colleges, but if the bars had been a failure, my assumption was the local colleges would not take kindly to having my stickers posted around and figured I was more likely to end up with a fine than customers. I know the classic entrepreneurial response to this is, “You have to take risks: it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” but because of the nagging parental guilt in the back of my head, they were risks I wasn’t willing to take.Digital marketing was a little easier to attempt as I could remain anonymous. That being said, one of the first things I thought of was to join the Reddit community and make a post, but as I’m sure everyone here is aware, that’s not looked upon kindly and the last thing most people in the Reddit community want to do for self-promoting individuals is give their site a kindly visit, so I posted in the Thank You Thursday sticky with a coupon code for a free image, but did little else, as the fact it was NSFW content made it even harder to find a way to constructively post about it.I considered paid advertising, and did so with Google, which I was shocked I was able to do because so many heavily used websites (Facebook, Reddit, etc.) restrict advertisements leading to mature content. I think if I'd been more willing to self promote I could have been more creative about how to market digitally, but the anxiety of questioning my own product was continually a blocking point.TLDR: If you're ashamed or embarrassed of letting ANY particular individual/group of people know about your idea, give it up or alter it so you don't have those anxieties: they're self destructive to your business.2: When you have an idea you think is fresh, produce it while it’s still fresh. As I wrote in my background, this idea came to me 6-7 years ago. For another year or so, I talked to people about it. The next years to come I worked on it, off and on, with as large as an entire year gap in between. Likely unnoticeable to most individuals, the time period I was slowly putting the site together was also a time of peak GIF popularity and image alteration: Facebook added the GIF option to messenger, Tinder following (though much later), and Snapchat became popular, due in part to its filter abilities. By the time I finally finished my website, I felt like GIFs/animations were everywhere, but in the worst possible way: they had trended to the point of oversaturation. My site lost out on what should’ve been a key period of growth due to my lack of get-shit-done-ness. That being said, this is a much lesser lesson learned as the opposite is also possible: get shit done too early and you can be, “ahead of your time” (RIP Sega Dreamcast), but having something done early and releasing it when the time feels right is infinitely easier than have the product done late and trying to release it in a time passed.On a more technical note, aside from your idea getting old, so will how you build it. My site is built in C# and originally began, I believe, in MVC 3, and at a certain point of return from one of my longer breaks away, I found it no longer worked. If I recall correctly, the component I was using to delete images after 24 hours was deemed obsolete to the point it was no longer in the .NET library, so the code wouldn’t even run locally on my computer.TLDR: The old adage, “Strike while the iron is hot,” applies well to unique and/or technical business ideas. Get shit done while it’s fresh or you risk your idea and/or the technology it’s built on aging out.3: This whole, “Minimum Viable Product” thing...it’s a good idea. I’m sure if you’ve been around this sub enough, you’ve heard people talk about producing MVPs. I made the classic mistake of requiring a lot of things be perfect that didn’t need to be before releasing. For a long time, my delay was coupon codes. I made the decision to not save images for longer than 24 hours of inactivity because I didn’t want people to have to make an account as I believed my users would mostly be drunk in bars and therefore not want to take the time or effort to make one. Instead, their images would be tied to a 24 hour session token and be deleted once it expired. Because I wasn’t saving images though, I worried people would claim they never got them and request a refund and I’d have little to no proof if they were lying. My solution was to instead give them a coupon code as repayment. Coupons, however, tend to require a particular unit of measurement on the buying and receiving end (e.g. buy 1 image get 1 image free trades an item for an item, but buy 5$ of images get 50% off your total purchase trades money for a percentage). This required I add coupon codes and units as new tables in my database, add a datascript to populate them, and add UI and backend code to take in and process it. So how many purchases were made vs how many people requested a refund? During the lifetime of my site I received 4 purchases. 1 from my wife’s friend, 1 from my friend, 1 from my brother, and 1 lone stranger who felt his time and money was worth a generated image of a historical figure teabagging someone. None of them asked for refunds. Even the coupon code I mentioned earlier for promotional uses never got used. At least 2 weeks of effort went into planning, designing, and implementing coupon codes, and it never got used by anyone but me, but I was so sure at the time it was something I needed to have. The saving grace of this particular example is coupon codes are something I’d like to implement on future sites as well, so it wasn’t a complete waste, but this is one of several items I spent time trying to implement that never needed to be done for me to start sharing my site so I’d realize ahead of time people’s lack of interest and my lack of willingness to market.TLDR: Regardless of your aspirations, odds are against your product becoming a craze over night, so don’t treat it like it is. Be realistic about your Minimum Viable Product: you can always add more features, but you can’t get back wasted time.4: If you can, always initially offer your product for free. My original intent was to offer images to people for 25 cents. Because of the costs involved with online transactions, I changed it to 69 (seemed fitting for the site), but my next step if I continued to work on it was to make them free. Offering something for free is, on its own, a type of marketing. As I mentioned earlier, I only ever got 1 stranger to buy from the site, and that person purchased 1 image. But if my product was free, how many more images would that person have made? How many more friends would they have sent those images to? And how many of those friends would be interested in visiting the site because, hey, it’s free, what is there to lose? While my site offered a watermarked version of your final image for free, it’s just not the same thing. And if you did want to purchase an image, you had to enter credit card information, and even I, a small business owner, find myself hesitant to do such a thing on an unfamiliar website: take away that fear and you increase users, increase users and you become trusted, become trusted and people will enter their credit card information on your website. If you want people to talk about your business, give them a small piece of your service for free, no strings attached, and once people are hooked, then you charge them for it (as unethical as it's framed, think of the cliche TV drug dealer who gives out a free sample first). And this doesn’t just apply to virtual businesses: nowadays, everyone knows about Sam’s Club and Costco because they’re everyday stores, but how many people, when those businesses first came out, only heard about and paid attention to them because of the free samples? I would count myself as one.TLDR: Make your product as free as can be until people want it enough you can lose the customers that aren’t willing to pay and still grow your user base.OTHER NOTEWORTHY ITEMSWhile the above lessons learned are what I set out to do for myself as a post-business learning experience, there are a few things I learned WHILE creating GTB that might be interesting to other people starting out:-Paypal basically comes in two flavors: plug and play, and full control API. The plug and play seems easy enough to use, but the API, which I had to use (I forget for what reason at the moment), absolutely sucks. I mean, everything about it sucks: how to use it, the documentation, and the fact my business account and personal account are somehow merged now, so when I make online purchases using Paypal it’s not uncommon for my package to be labeled to “Ghost Teabag”, a happening I’m lucky my children haven’t picked up on yet. Go with Stripe. It’s easier and has better documentation. It’s not as popular yet, but I would highly suggest using it if you need a payment API for ease of programming (it may also have a plug and play version, but never looked into that).-Commenting my code was never more important than when I was building my own website. I expected the opposite starting out: it’s my program, I know everything I’m doing, so I can cowboy code the whole thing. But, and I’m sure this is in large part due to my inability to consistently work on the project, there was a surprising amount of refactoring done to my own code wondering WTF old me was thinking as well as a great deal of decrypting my logic to understand why particular methods even existed. In a normal work setting, if you don’t understand uncommented logic, you can try to track down the person who made it or ask a coworker to have a look. When you’re the only developer though, all the burden falls on you.TLDR: Paypal sucks, go with Stripe, and comment your freaking code, especially when you’re the sole developer.Hopefully this write up actually helps some people out, it certainly helps me have some closure for the situation. Feel free to ask any questions, whether it be about the technical or business side of my experience. Additionally, I’m open to all comments regarding others similar or contrasting experiences. Thanks for reading!

[adindesigncontexts-blog]

Are Games Becoming Derivative?

A look at derivativeness in gaming.

By Adin Holland

Design Context-DES202

Are people genuinely inspired by other people’s creations or are they just making the same game to get the same results?

Coming up with new ideas

I thought that a look at derivativeness in gaming would be an appropriate subject to cover for my negotiated response as in our design context class we have covered a variety of unique creators. Each of these creators have tried to create something unique and it got me thinking about some of the creators in the gaming industry. There are creative people in this industry for sure but I got to thinking of harmful practices that are completely devoid of creativity in the industry that I thought should be addressed. Firstly, I wanted to look at a certain aspect of creativity, idea creation. This is not the harmful practice I was talking about but it is an interesting place to start, after all how do all creations start, as an idea. If someone asks you to come up with an idea for a game what do you do? For most people (myself included) we look to other games, we look for inspiration in other games that are so brilliant they not only give people an enjoyable experience they inspire many creators to make their own games as well. Now I do not know the process for professional game developers as I haven’t had the chance to work in the industry but I am basing this of my time as a student. I’ve spent a few years at college and one year at university so I am looking at how ideas are created from the student point of view. When myself or other students are coming up with an idea most people start out by saying something like “our game is like a cross between ‘this game’ and ‘that game’”. It can be argued that it is only to help other people understand what the game will be like at this early stage of development, it’s easier to compare it to other games that people know very well than it is to describe your new idea right of the bat. It’s a valid point but I don’t think it will be like that for most people, most people will have those games in the back of their mind whilst creating their own game as well, influencing any of the decisions made about the game, I mean it’s a lot easier to look at a successful game and think “what worked well, and how can my game succeed like that” than it is to just do your own thing.

Copy and Paste

Is there a problem with this way of thinking? It depends. Some people have the best intentions when making a game, others not so much. One problem I see in the gaming industry is the copycat games, these games are made to piggyback of the success of other popular games, most notably in the mobile market. You see it happen all the time the most notable example from a few years ago was Flappy Bird. This game was everywhere when it was first released, say what you want about the simplicity of the game but the creator tapped into a competitive aspect of the mobile audience and grew in popularity because of it. Then came the clones, the knock off games like ‘clumsy bird’ or ‘flappy fish’ to name a few. These were made with so little effort, so little regard for creativity or innovation that it was kind of insulting every time you seen one. According to Forbes.com at one point “there were sixty Flappy Bird clones a day uploaded to Apple's iOS app store”. Those are crazy numbers and according to digitaltrends.com at one point there were “at least 864 Flappy Bird clones” on the Google Play Store. These games were made for one reason and one reason only, to make money off the success of the original game. Now it can be argued that these numbers got to this size because the original was deleted by the creator and that meant there was a gap in the market and someone had to fill that role but still there was an opportunity to give players something new whilst filling that role but all people did was basically copy and paste. Flappy bird was a simple game that just caught the public’s attention at the right time, the game itself can be accused of copying other games in terms of its assets but it doesn’t excuse some of these lazy practices

Bigger budget, similar problem

Some of you may be thinking “well it’s just mobile games who cares” but bigger games aren’t immune to this problem. Yes, in the early days of the video games industry cloning was not an uncommon thing to see, from Atari’s ‘Asteroids’ and the copy ‘Meteors’ to Donkey Kong and the copy Crazy Kong. It is still prevalent in the mobile market place but in terms of big budget games you rarely see it. Cloning isn’t the problem with bigger games though, but there is a growing sense of derivativeness in some big budget games. Sometimes it’s mechanics like how climbing in Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor was similar (if not the same) to climbing in the Assassin’s Creed franchise or sometimes it’s just that feeling of “I’ve been here before”. Ubisoft games are bad for this kind of thing, game series like Far Cry, Watch Dogs, Assassin’s Creed, Ghost Recon as well as the division all feel similar to each other. They are all open world games with tonnes of things to do with beautiful graphics (most of the time) and quite unpolished gameplay. Some of the in-game tasks are similar as well, most notably the ‘towers’ in these games. It started with Assassin’s creed, you would go to the towers in the city, climb up them, press a button and some of the in-game map would be revealed to you. There is at least one form of this in most of the previously mentioned games and it reusing mechanics like this make all these games feel like slightly different versions of the same game. What makes it worse is that they are making games like this that used to be different. The Ghost Recon series used to be quite a linear game but the most recent entry Ghost Recon: Wildlands is now an open world game. They sacrificed solid shooter gameplay and varied interesting set pieces of the previous linear games for an open world that isn’t interesting, gameplay that isn’t polished and boring missions. It might just be one company that does this (to their degree anyway) but that is still a lot of potentially great games that are affected by this derivative approach.

Ubisoft do however show that there is another approach, they also released a new game in the Rainbow Six franchise ‘Rainbow Six: Siege’. Now is this a perfect game? No, it’s quite flawed. It can lack content and gameplay can be a bit clunky sometimes but overall it’s a good game. What I like most about this game is that Ubisoft tried a new approach with this game, it’s not another open world game, it’s a multiplayer focused game with emphasis on having a tactical approach to multiplayer scenarios. Some of the aims of the game are similar to others, like one team must plant a bomb and the other team must prevent it, this game mode is seen on countless other first person shooter (fps) multiplayer games like Call of Duty but this games changes the way you go about completing your objective. You can’t just run about like a headless chicken trying to take the whole team on your own, you must plan what you’re going to do, you must talk to your teammates and you must be patient sometimes. This makes what could have been just another fps multiplayer games into a wholly unique multiplayer experience and I have to commend them for that.

So even Ubisoft show that even though they have a problem of making their own games feel like they’re all the same there are still some cases where they are trying something new. There is another approach to take, they don’t have to keep doing the same thing, they have proven it themselves.

Conclusion

So, what do I think of all this, what point am I trying to make? What I’m trying to say is simple, be creative. It’s fine to take inspiration from a game or multiple games, just make sure your learning from them and not copying them, that each game is a next step in evolution and not the next product off the assembly line. Also, if there is a gap in the market and there is an opportunity to make something successful, go for it, try to make something that fills that gap that is unique and isn’t just a cheap rip-off. And if you have made successful games, don’t try to boil down their success to a formula and use that formula in various other games to try and recreate previous successes. Creating something wholly original is hard, creating something that is successful is hard, making something that is original and successful is even harder but I think it’s better to create something that is unique, that represents who we are and what we have to say than to try and emulate other successful people’s work. There is a risk that you can fail when you do your own thing but it is better to take a risk than to play it safe. By all means learn from others but don’t copy them, after all everyone has heard what they have to say now it’s time to hear from you.

  Sources:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/187385/clone_wars_the_five_most_.php

https://www.destructoid.com/five-most-notorious-videogame-ripoffs-of-all-time-245807.phtml

http://pnwstartuplawyer.com/copyright/software/copyright-illustrated-video-game-clones/

https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/03/06/over-sixty-flappy-bird-clones-hit-apples-app-store-every-single-day/&refURL=https://www.google.co.uk/&referrer=https://www.google.co.uk/

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/crazy-flappy-bird-clones/