#not until I got a switch and actually got my hands on those IPs

[wp100]

Started Pokemon Legends Arceus and oh boy, I've been missing out.

This game is very fun. Now all Pokemon games must have battles that work this way. They can't go back to having battles happen as a separate thing (for lack of a better term, I'm tired) anymore.

Makes me realise how linear Sword and Shield are. The Wild Area opens it up a tiny bit, but not as much as this game. There's so much more I need to explore, and I can't wait to see more of the story unfold (I have been spoiled about some things sadly but that's the nature of being online everyday i guess)

[wirewitchviolet]

Here’s me starting the rumor that Street Fighter 5 spent a good chunk of its development actually being Dark Stalkers 4

OK everybody, strap on your tinfoil hats, because I’m going to pullan idea partly out of my own butt but also back it up with some solid physical evidence. I put to you the following premise: In 2015 or so, Capcom had a team working on a version of Street Fighter 5 which never saw the light of day, seen here:

while another, smaller, less experienced team was working on finally releasing a 4th game in the long dormant Dark Stalkers series, which was to finally make the jump to 3D. For whatever combination of reasons, the plug was pulled on both these projects, with the more ambitious and presumably costly Street Fighter 5 being cancelled outright, and the mostly finished but supporting a basically dead IP Dark Stalkers 4 getting a hasty last minute retrofit to become the Street Fighter 5 we have today.

So what do I have to base this on? Well, the cancelled version of Street Fighter 5 is plenty well documented. It’s technically speculation on my part that they scrapped everything they had and picked up a partially completed game they had sitting around to retrofit instead, but well... the alternative is that after reaching the level of polish seen above, someone decided it was imperative that they scrap all those art assets and that engine and switch over to a visual style of uh... this:

Which to me feels decidedly less “stylistic choice” and more “hastily modeling characters and sketching out plot scenes at the 11th hour in a different engine designed to light stuff in a cartoonier style that doesn’t work here.”

More importantly though, this guy here, F.A.N.G?

He was originally designed as a new character for a scrapped Dark Stalkers game according to this, at least to go by this thread’s translation:

So, that just on its own makes a ton of sense. Cartoony design, really stylized proportions, weird poison hands gimmick. Doesn’t fit in at all with Street Fighter, but he’d make perfect sense in Dark Stalkers as some kind of like... plague doctor? Additional jiangshi type? So, he got recycled. Also his cartooniness works a whole lot better with the general visual presentation of the whole game.

But wait, there’s more. Because see as soon as Halloween rolled around, Street Fighter 5 came out with a new costume pack for everyone, which included a whole slew of Dark Stalkers homages... and by that I mean full on models of Dark Stalkers characters bearing new resemblance at all to the Street Fighter characters ostensibly wearing them as costumes.

Well, really, it’s more of a mixed bag. But, Morrigan there is 100% Morrigan, nothing from Chun-Li, ditto Lilith-Juri (which is decidedly telling as the former has... complex gender things going on I don’t want to label with how sketchy I am on the exact backstory, and... flattening the chest and broadening the shoulders of Juri, specifically, is rather antithetical to how that particular character is treated. Also Khaibit is a deep lore cut who had never been a playable character but would have made sense to bring in as a new playable character if they were, you know, making a new game.

The other thing with these is that they, you know, don’t look like weird gross distorted lumps of clay, like all the normal characters do. They look like they were actually designed for this game’s lighting and palette and general visual style. Meanwhile new characters and new costumes (which for the record as a rule otherwise do NOT do this sort of full body and face model replacement) would otherwise take until the last couple of DLC seasons to stop looking so very very off.

A friend who plays way more fighting games than me says this would also explain a thing or two about the whole V-Trigger mechanic. Something about the uniformity of it feeling a bit Dark Stalkers-y or the way pre-existing moves are forced into it feeling odd for something organic to Street Fighter. I’m not fluent enough in Fighting Game to have fully followed.

What I do know though is that all of this would explain a whole lot of otherwise baffling things. Why did Capcom spend several years hyping up a new game that never materialized?

Why does Street Fighter 5 have this weird cartoony shading that doesn’t match the model detail?

Why was that prototype of a much nicer looking SF5 scrapped for this?

Why does the latest game in one of Capcom’s big tentpole series seem like it changed hands a lot mid-development?

Because for most of its development life it was gonna be Darkstalkers 4, that’s why! Probably. I mean again I’m just speculating here, but it all fits together weirdly well, right?

[carelessannie]

maybe it goes like this: steve builds his pack (part 1)

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three

Read on A03

Read the Tony courts Peter wip

Stucky focus (Steve x Bucky)

A sweet, slightly angsty backstory in three parts (ending in Stuckony).

Major warnings: D/S Au, A/B/O Au, Middle/High School Au, talk about family death, public non-sexual submission, steve beats the shit out of some bullies

---

Maybe it goes like this:

Steve can’t remember life with a pack, but knows for certain that his Ma grieves for them. Ever since he was a boy, he would catch his Ma staring at fading photos of strangers, wiping tears from her eyes, and denying it when Steve would ask why do they make you cry.

It’s not until later in his life that Steve learns the truth about pack bonds, about the decision an Alpha makes in life to form a familial or an intimate bond with their packmates. His Ma refuses to let him learn about packs from school, instead sitting him down across the table, like an adult, Steven, and he learns about orientations and secondary genders when he’s nine years old.

His Ma explains the way kids will turn into adults: first establishing their orientation as Dominant, Submissive, or Versatile, and later in high school, presenting as Alpha, Beta or Omega. She threads their fingers together, and asks Steve if he can notice what she is, and he concentrates real hard, trying to decide, as his Ma laughs.

It’s okay, Steven, you won’t be able to tell what other people are until your own body has developed.

Steve nods, pretending like he understands, and asks his mom about her presentation. She gives him a sad— sad? — smile, and says she’s a Submissive Beta.

It’s silent as Steve puts those two things together with the strong, beautiful woman he admires as his Ma, and is still confused. He asks about packs, and Alphas, and what intimate and familial packs are— gaining an amused shake of the head from his Ma.

Why don’t I just tell you about my pack, yes?

Steve nods eagerly, desperate to hear the story of a family he never had,

My pack was intimate, Steven, which means we all loved each other very much and decided to live together. I met my— our Alpha when I was in nursing school, before you were born. She was already mated to two Omegas, and they had been searching for a Beta to join their pack. We fell in love. I met her Omegas, and all four of us were very compatible— do you remember what that means, hun?

Mhm, like when you know you belong with someone even more than anyone else.

Right, good, so we all belonged to each other, understand? We lived in our Alpha’s house, and all of us worked jobs in the city. About a year after joining her pack, I met your Pa. He transferred to the hospital I worked at, and he was also a Beta, like me, but he was Dominant. I introduced him to my pack, and they loved him too. Within a year, we were mated and I had you. Makes sense, Steven?

Yes, Ma. But… What happened to them?

At this, his Ma goes silent, breathing deeply before finishing the story for her son.

Do you remember the difference between packmates and bondmates, Steven?

Um. One is forever, right?

Yes, good, if you are in love or committed to a pack, they are your packmates, whether you are intimate or not. But sometimes, two people, or a whole pack, want to make their relationship last forever, and they become bondmates. All people have the private part of their necks, remember? You have to know, sweetheart, the only way to start a bond is to bite each other there while mating. We’ll wait to talk about mating until you’re in middle school, okay hun?

Yes, Ma.

Good boy. Now. The other important thing about bonding is that it ties your soul to another person’s forever. Any person of any orientation can bond with whoever they’d like, as long as they’re compatible. But you have to know, and this is so important, that once you bond, your souls become one. My whole pack was bonded, but… Daisy… hun, our Alpha died of cancer. She got very sick, and died. And when one bondmate dies, everyone who shares the bond gets sick and dies too.

… Ma, but. Why didn’t you die?

I decided, once I got pregnant with you, that I didn’t want to risk bonding to my pack. Your father and I loved each other so much, and you were the symbol of our love, not a bite. And I’m thankful, sweetheart, because I get to be your Ma and watch you grow up.

Do you miss them, Ma?

Every day, Steven.

Steve doesn’t remember his Ma mentioning her pack again after that day, but he did start to notice that she would get sad a few times a year, around forgotten birthdays and anniversaries. She would spend all of her days working hard to provide for the two of them, and always made sure Steve knew he was loved and valued, even when she denied herself the opportunities to find a new pack.

Looking back, Steve can see that they didn’t have a lot of luxuries or comforts, and definitely didn’t live in the best part of town. He had a few friends in Bushwick, growing up in the nineties it was a poor place to live, but they were perfectly happy to play in the streets during the day, and lock their doors tight at night.

As he ties up his laces, he thinks about his small family and is immeasurably happy. There’s no one he loves more in the world than his Ma. He hates the thought of getting on the bus and driving far away to switch middle schools, but his Ma reassures him that he will love meeting new kids and making new friends.

So he grabs his backpack, tightening the knots holding the straps in place, and hops down the stairs, only sparing one look to his Ma on the front step.

It’s a long bus ride to the school, more than thirty minutes. Over the summer, his Ma found out that the school system wanted him to transfer to a better school because of budget... something and overcrowding—? He’s actually not quite sure why he can’t go back to his old school, but his Ma made it seem like William Alexander Middle School thinks he’s special and has asked for him specifically. So yeah, Steve is really excited.

He’s going into Seventh grade, and gets his own locker, and gets to go to art class.

Steve spends the whole bus ride reviewing the schedule he already has memorized, and comparing it with the school map that his Ma printed for him, tracing his finger around from class to class. Bus to Nurse to Homeroom to Algebra to English to Nurse to Lunch to Gym to Art to Nurse to Bus.

The day passes this way, Steve confidently following his map around the school and taking notes in his small notebook. It’s not until Gym that he gets nervous, remembering his last asthma attack, and hopes the nurse told his gym teacher about his restrictions as he files into the gym and takes a seat on the floor.

“Steve Rogers?”

“Here.”

“No, Steve, I need to talk to you,” Steve looks up and sees his gym teacher, a really large man with a beard, waving him to the front of the class. The other kids turn to whisper to each other as Steve walks forward.

“I— did—”

“Steve, I have a note here from the nurse, saying you cannot participate in most exercises because of your health issues. Because of this, I’m going to suggest you join the sixth grade class, which will go at a better pace for you, and let Mr. Howlett help you further, okay?”

He feels his entire face flush dark red as the other students behind him whisper and laugh. He’s a seventh grader, not a baby sixth grader. He holds eye contact with the gym teacher, folding his arms across his chest, but still grinds out a, “Yes, Sir,” like his Ma would want him to.

“Good, it’s settled. Here, Mr. Howlett has sent James to show you where to go.”

Steve turns to find a small, smiling boy waiting for him at... parade rest? What—

“Alright Stevie, let’s go,” and the boy turns on his heel, marching across the gym as Steve scrambles to keep up.

James slows down slightly, letting Steve catch him, “First things first, my name is James Buchanan Barnes, but most people call me Jamie. I hate it, but it’s better than nothin',” he looks over at Steve, eyeing him up and down, “Second, Mr. Howlett is friends with my dad. You stick with me, and this class will be a breeze, capiche?”

Steve swears his eyes are falling out of his head, and he nods his affirmation.

“Good,” is all Jamie responds with before grabbing his hand, tugging him to join a younger, smaller group of kids in the gym. As they approach, Jamie lifts their hands in triumph, “I found him!”

Feeling betrayed, Steve rips his hand free in embarrassment, but Jamie just smiles wider and pulls him towards their gym teacher, Mr. Howlett.

How this man could be bigger and scarier than the last teacher, Steve doesn’t know, but refuses to hide behind Jamie as they approach, and instead stands up even taller. Mr. Howlett makes a grunting noise, flipping through a few papers on his clipboard, before looking up at the two boys.

“Rogers?”

Before he can respond, Jamie pipes up, “Yeah! Here’s his note from the nurse, and he’s my friend and— and can I help him out? Please?”

It’s pretty clear that Mr. Howlett couldn’t care less either way, but all Steve can see is the raw, eager look in Jamie’s face as he begs their teacher to help Steve.

Huh, he thinks, the only other time I've seen this look is when Ma begs the pharmacist to refill my inhaler prescription when her paycheck's late.

“Whatever, Jamie, just keep outta trouble, ya hear?”

“Yes, sir!” Jamie delivers, with a crisp solute to match, and pulls Steve towards the back of the class.

They settle down, and Jamie keeps holding onto his hand. Steve glances over and sees Jamie quickly look away, suddenly shy.

“Jamie?”

The smaller boy looks over, hopefully, “Yeah, Stevie?”

“Thank you, I didn’t think I’d get a friend on my first day, much less the best one in the school.”

Jamie ducks his head again before turning his brilliant smile in Steve’s direction, and Steve continues before he has a chance to respond, “and Jamie?”

“Yeah, Stevie?”

“I swear, cross my heart, that I’ll find you a better nickname.”

Jamie’s eyes widen, and then he’s laughing, loud and doubled over. He grips harder onto Steve, who can’t help laughing along, even as they get funny looks from the class and a gruff, c’mon, quiet down, from Mr. Howlett.

Shaking his head, Jamie tries to catch his breath as he responds, “ I— I think— I’d love that— Stevie.”

And all Steve can do is smile back.

---

It takes a week for Steve to settle on Bucky, and when Bucky says he loves it, Steve runs all the way home to tell his Ma.

---

Steve and Bucky have Gym class and Lunch together almost every day for a year, and spend the whole summer waiting for their schedules to be mailed, hoping for at least two classes together.

They get their wish.

---

Halfway through eighth grade, Steve gets sent home with a stamped letter from his guidance counselor. For the past few weeks, the guidance counselor has asked him and Bucky to have lunch in her office, and the boys always shrug and agree. Today, after finishing lunch, she hands both boys an official letter for their guardians to discuss with them.

“Whaddaya think’s in it, Stevie?” Bucky asks, squinting at the letter as he holds it up to the light. The boys are heading straight from lunch to the nurse’s office to get Steve’s medicine, like they do every day, and Bucky grips tight to his hand, intertwining their fingers, like he does every day.

“I dunno, Buck. Maybe she’s gonna tell your Ma that you smell and needa bath,” the comment earns Steve a light shove, and an affectionate, “Punk,” in response.

“Jerk,” Steve replies, a reflex, and reaches out to pull Bucky closer, “I wouldn’t worry ‘bout it, Buck. She’s been real nice up ‘til now—”

“Yeah, I know, I just don’t wanna bother my dad if it’s somethin’ bad.”

They fall silent for a moment, both boys knowing how busy and strict Bucky’s dad can be. Steve sees Bucky’s head drop, lost, as he looks at the letter in his small hands. He slows them to a stop, turns Bucky around to face him in the school hallway, and hums in approval as Bucky meets his eyes and slowly tilts his head back. He grabs onto both shoulders, squeezing lightly, and pulls Bucky up close. Fingers tighten in the back of Steve’s shirt as Bucky clings to him, and he nuzzles into his best friend's hair, comforting, while rubbing across his shoulders.

“So sweet, Bucky. There’s no way your dad could be mad at you, alright? Believe me?”

He gazes down into soft, glazed gray eyes, and freezes. Bucky is slightly trembling against him, looking at him like he’s a revelation. Steve feels a calm settle into his bones as he reacts purely on instinct, reaching up to grip Bucky around the neck.

A few things happen in quick succession.

First, Bucky’s eyes roll up into his head, breath leaving his body in a woosh along with a high pitched whimper.

Second, Steve widens his stance, straightening his back, and Bucky sinks, fast, to his knees, gripping onto Steve’s thighs for balance.

And then, out of the haze—

“STEVE ROGERS, YOU RELEASE THAT BOY IMMEDIATELY,” and the trance is broken.

Steve is horrified to see Bucky curled up on the floor, and he stumbles back. Large arms wrap around him, herding him away from—

“STEVIE, no, please—” the voice of his best friend, his Bucky, follows him down the hallway along with small broken cries, and Steve fights hard against the strong arms that hold him,

“C’mon, kid, it’s okay. Just gonna call your Ma and getcha settled,” but Steve doesn’t care.

His boy is back there, somewhere, calling for him, needing him, and he can’t get back, he can’t protect, he can’t save, he can’t— breathe.

---

It’s okay, hun. Shh, sweet boy, it’s okay.

— Sarah, he had Jamie on his knees, submitting—

— no, I don’t think Jamie has stopped crying yet—

— only a few more months, it’ll be fine—

---

Steve wakes in his bed at home, confused.

“B— bucky?”

“Hey, sweetheart,” his Ma pushes past the door, “you up alright?”

He blinks his eyes a few times, disoriented, “Where… what—”

“Shh, hun,” she holds out a glass of water, which Steve takes gratefully,

“Ma, where’s Bucky?”

His Ma looks nervous, and straightens the sheets on the bed, “Steven, Bucky is just fine. How much do you remember about what happened?”

The memories are sticky, “I was just hugging Bucky. He was scared that his dad would be angry about the— oh! The letter from the counselor. Ma, I have an important letter for you. Officially stamped and everything,” his Ma just nods, so he continues, “I dunno, I was hugging Bucky in the hallway, and then something was… different. Like really heavy between us? And all I wanted was to keep him safe, but then… Then they took him, and—”

Steve looks into his Ma’s eyes, suddenly horrified, “I hurt him, didn’t I?”

He must’ve, that would be the only reason they knocked him out and separated him from his— from his—

“No, Steven, not like that. You absolutely did not hurt him,” then what... “You were the perfect Dominant, hun, and it’s not your fault, okay sweetheart?”

“Dominant? Ma…”

“Hush, Steven. I’m going to tell you something important, and you’re going to listen to me,” he nods once, so she continues, “the letter from your counselor was very important, Steven. Remember how boys and girls start to present around your age? Your guidance counselor has been monitoring signs of presentation between you and Bucky, signs that were confirmed today in the hallway. Steven, today you presented as a Dominant, and Bucky submitted to you. Do you know what this means?”

“T— that we’re… compatible?”

His Ma nods solemnly, “Yes, exactly. The doctors are not sure yet if Bucky is Submissive or Versatile, but you are a strong Dominant. My strong boy.”

“But Ma, why was it so bad?”

She sits on the edge of the bed, scooting so that she can pull Steve closer,

“Because, hun, both of you dropped.”

“Dropped...”

Ma hums, finding the words to explain,

“A lot of times, when a Dominant and Submissive are together, they go into a headspace. It’s calm, it feels right and certain and instinctual. Usually a Dominant will take more control, and the Submissive will allow it, naturally. If this doesn’t happen in a safe, private space, or if it’s interrupted, both parties are at risk of dropping. That means you could feel sick, lost, and upset— and even panic or become depressed,”

Exactly like what happened to me, Steve thinks,

“— and with you and Bucky, you both passed out from the stress. That’s why I need to know if you’re okay, Steven,”

It makes sense. Now that Steve knows what to look for, he can easily recognize not only moments where Bucky has submitted easily to him, but also moments where Bucky challenged him and he ended up claiming Bucky’s submission in an argument. His best friend, the boy who fights for him and is always at his side— it’s overwhelming. All Steve wants to know is—

“Ma, please, what happened to my Bucky?”

“Steven, don’t—“

“I need to know—“

“He’s still in a drop, hun.”

Steve swings out of the bed, “How? It’s been hours,” he hears his Ma stutter out something, but feels a resolve settle, “I’ve gotta be with him, Ma.”

“No.”

“But—“

“I said no. His pack is sending me updates, but was very clear that they want you to stay away from Bucky for now. He needs time to recover and understand what’s happened, as do you. And, as your principal recommended, both of you are switching lunch periods and transferring classes, to help reduce the stress of being around each other, is that clear?”

Not even sure he’s heard right past stay away from Bucky, Steve drops back into bed in shock. No more Bucky? He can’t even comprehend what his day would look like without his best friend next to him, and just like that, he’s destroyed one of most important relationships in his life.

Hot, wet tears fall through the night as he wraps around his sheets, wishing he was holding onto a smaller, dark haired boy with crystal blue eyes.

—

There are only two months left until summer, and they feel like two years without Bucky.

Steve cries himself to sleep for the first week.

In the second week, he tries talking to the adults in charge, all of whom give him pity and suggest he’ll get over it and move on.

By the third week, Steve is angry. He snarls at classmates, teachers, anyone who looks at him the wrong way. He gets sent home with a note about his behavior, and his Ma just gives him more useless pity.

During the fourth week, he’s walking the hall to his last period of the day, when he hears a plea for help and the slamming of a door echo from the boy’s bathroom. He runs inside, ready to take down a bully, and sees two eighth graders pinning someone to the bathroom stall. He steps in just as they punch the boy across the jaw,

“Hey assholes, why don’tcha pick on someone your own size?”

The boys whirl around and sneer, dropping the smaller kid in a heap on the ground.

“Look what we have here, a pint sized savior,” the larger of the two smiles wickedly, as he sizes up Steve, and the other one delivers a kick to their initial target for good measure, “Wonder where you got the balls, tiny?”

Steve throws his fists up, and the boys smile even wider, amused. The larger bully lunges for him, suddenly, and Steve absorbs his tackle, trying to roll them around on the floor to get on top. He delivers a well aimed elbow to the guy’s throat, which has him sputtering, and drives his knee down between the kid’s legs, earning him a satisfying howl.

“Yo, kid, it’s okay, c'mon it was just a joke—“

The other boy’s words barely register as Steve lands one, two, three hard right hooks to the bully’s face, before pushing off his chest and standing to his feet. The second kid scoots past Steve, hauling his friend up and escaping out the entrance.

“St— Stevie?”

All of the rage expels from Steve’s body as he turns to find Bucky smiling up at him from the floor where the bullies had dropped him just moments earlier.

He approaches slowly, and notices just how bruised Bucky is, just how tired he looks. Steve catalogs the blood on his face, dark circles under his eyes, possibly dislocated shoulder, and gaunt expression with care, touching as little as possible.

“We should— we should go to the nurse, Buck. It doesn’t look good.”

Bucky nods and attempts to get to his feet, but lets out a weak groan and sinks back down to the floor.

“C’mon, jerk,” Steve teases, trying his best to hide concern and devastation, pulling Bucky back to his feet on his good side, “do I hafta carry ya the whole way?”

There’s a weak laugh that could also be a sob from Bucky, and Steve tries to take more of his weight as they limp towards the nurse’s office.

He feels hopeful after hearing a barely whispered, “Punk,” in return.

---

The nurse lets the two boys cling to each other on the small cot, and proceeds to call both of their packs, asking for both kids to go home early for the day.

Steve glares at the nurse the whole time, knowing that he only has a few precious moments with his best friend before they’re separated again.

“Bucky?”

“Yeah, Stevie?” the younger boy looks up adoringly, “you okay?”

“I’m fine, Buck, how— are you okay?” He does his best to hold back tears that are welling up in his eyes, and enjoys the solid feeling of Bucky, safe and warm in his arms.

Small fingers run over his cheeks, wiping away a few stray tears that had slipped free, and Bucky’s smile just grows, “So much better now, that’s for sure.” He wiggles a bit, and Steve laughs lightly, gripping his friend’s waist tighter.

He leans down, brushing his nose against the shell of Bucky’s ear, and whispers, “Nothing has been the same without you, Bucky.”

A shiver goes through Bucky’s body, Steve feels it by proximity, and Bucky remains silent, until Steve hears one hitched breath, then another. He pulls away slightly, looking into Bucky’s face as the smaller boy dissolves into tears. Bucky pulls himself closer, burying his face in Steve’s neck as great, giant sobs tear him apart. All Steve can do is shush him gently, kiss him on the head, and rock them back and forth, waiting for his Bucky to calm down as the minutes pass in silence.

“I can’t say I’m surprised,”

Steve looks up, turning his body to guard Bucky’s vulnerable one, and sees Bucky’s Beta father and Omega mother standing in the doorway, expressions both shocked and resolved.

“Steve, can you tell us what happened?”

It takes a few minutes for Steve to explain how he saved Bucky, and when he finishes, he watches the Beta and Omega exchange a knowing look, before they take a seat near the nurse’s cot. Neither move to take Bucky away, which is perfectly fine with Steve, who just holds his friend closer. A quick glance gown confirms Bucky has stopped crying and fallen asleep, sniffling lightly.

“We need to talk to you, Steve,” he hears Bucky’s dad call for him, and reluctantly looks up at both of them, noticing the guidance counselor also waiting in the doorway. He nods to allow them to continue,

“I’m afraid we haven’t handled this situation well, son,” Bucky’s dad continues, “and it seems to have hurt both of you boys. I’m sorry, and want you to know we only wanted the best for Jamie.”

“I get it, sir,” Steve shifts slightly, uncomfortable with the sudden attention. “Does this mean I can see Bucky again?”

The Beta leans forward on his seat, making sure to focus on the younger boys, “Yes, Steve, we want you and Jamie to keep being friends, at least until you go to high school next year.”

He can’t even help the relieved sigh and small smile that take over his face, letting his eyes fall shut as he relaxes back onto the bed. Good. He doesn’t even spare a thought for their friendship after middle school, completely convinced that in this moment, him and Bucky will be together, forever.

---

Steve and Bucky fall back into their old routine, classes and lunchtime back to normal, and the news of Steve’s fight spreads like wildfire throughout the school. Both boys find themselves surrounded by new friends, many of whom knew Bucky but hadn’t hung out with Steve before, and he enjoys watching his best friend thrive in newfound popularity.

As summer approaches, Bucky starts talking more about going out for football in eighth grade. Steve always knew he loved sports, and had often encouraged Buck to keep playing baseball when the younger boy would get frustrated, so he naturally pushes his friends to try out. What he isn’t prepared for is how little he sees of Bucky over the summer. He barely notices at first, still seeing Bucky a few days a week, but then he starts to get rain checks on his invitations.

“Sorry, Stevie, rain check— I’m doing drills with the guys all day,”

“Aw man, rain check? I’m at conditioning every day this week and literally can’t get free,”

“Maybe rain check for this weekend? The guys are running plays all day, and I just gotta be there,”

“— you understand, right Stevie?”

And Steve does understand. He decides to give Bucky a little more space, only asking to hang out once a week, if that, and focuses on preparing for high school. He spends more time with his Ma, and she helps him pick out a brand new backpack from Walmart. When he protests, saying his old backpack is just fine, she shakes her head and insists on buying a product that will last. He fills it with notebooks and new pencils and pens and even a pack of colored pencils with a shiny dual sharpener.

It’s a few weeks before school starts that his Ma receives a letter from the school system. He’s decorating the cover of his notebook, laying across their living room floor, when his Ma comes and sits next to him on the floor.

“Steven, I have something to tell you.”

“Okay, Ma, one sec,” he takes a few moments to gather his pencil shavings, packing up his colored pencils, putting them in the correct order, and closing his notebook, stacking everything neatly on top.

“What’s wrong, Ma?”

“Remember when you went into middle school, and the government had to move you to William Alexander because the school closest to us was overcrowded?” Steve nods, he does remember, “Well, they don’t have the same issue with the high school here. So you’re going to be going Bushwick High, which is just a couple blocks away from us.”

“Oh, I thought I was gonna be going to school in Park Slope again, near Bucky?”

“I know, Steven,” his Ma gives a small pat to his head, before standing up and heading for the kitchen, “why don’t we have a snack and talk about it more? They sent a list of classes, and you get to choose electives and everything.”

Steve tries calling Bucky that night, eager to tell him about his news, but just gets the answering machine. He tries two more times that week, and comes up blank.

Within a few weeks, Steve is walking into Brooklyn High, confident and proud, and barely spares a thought about missing his best friend at his side.

[wordstro]

mingi + mafia au + you shouldn't have done that

mingi x gender neutral reader, 1.5k, thank you!!!!!!!!!!! 

Part 2

you were meant to do great things. at least that’s what your parents, your teachers, even your best friend used to tell you over and over and over, beaming at you and whatever your newest accolade of the moment was. you had ranked number one in your class all throughout high school. you had your pick between the top three universities in the country. at graduation, you were on top of the world.

and then, things went downhill and never really stopped. 

you’re still not quite sure when you’ll hit rock bottom, when you’ll finally get to turn your life around. or maybe, you missed that chance long ago. your father grew incredibly ill and your mother fell into debt. you worked too many part time jobs to help pay it off and your grades slipped. eventually, your father passed away and your mother was too busy dealing with grief and debt to really be a mother. you failed one too many classes and got kicked out of university. you still felt like you needed to help your mother pay off the crippling amount of debt and you indulged yourself in people you would have never given the light of day. and, to top it all off, your best friend slowly stopped answering your calls and your texts, drifting out of your life as if he hadn’t been there since you were both children, as if all those years and late nights and time spent together meant nothing.

it’s been years since then, but the mere thought of him still brings tears to your eyes, still makes your stomach curl with guilt, still makes you wonder what the hell you did wrong. during your brief phone calls with your mother, she would ask about him, and you never had the heart to just tell her. but, maybe she noticed your short answers because, nowadays, she’s stopped. nowadays, she’s even stopped asking for details about your job.

you’re grateful for that, really, because how the hell are you supposed to tell your sweet, tired mother that you work as a freelance hacker for an underground network of crime syndicates? it’s a bit of a mouthful, really, and you don’t think your poor mother’s heart can take such news.

sometimes, you wonder if this is your rock bottom. especially when you catch sight of yourself in the blackness of your screen before you boot up your laptop. the debt hasn’t stopped and you don’t think it ever really will because interest is a fucking bitch, but it’s become manageable. sometimes, you think about how you could go back to school. you could get decent work in an office somewhere.

but, you kind of like the thrill of this. you could go back, but you won’t. you know you won’t. you enjoy the rush of adrenaline when you receive a notification from one of your clients instructing you to extract information for them. you never ask too many questions about the whos. you only really care about the compensation. and this particular task has a price tag of several million won.

you raise your brow, stretching your fingers and cracking your back, already thinking about all the things you plan on buying with the extra money, grinning because the task in question is easy. almost too easy. you just need to root out a location from within a shit ton of security walls, as if whoever built it absolutely does not want anyone to find them. you grin and get to work.

~.~.~.~.~

you’ve seen your fair share of security systems over the course of your career and you’d rank this one as one of the tougher ones. still, you get in. you always get in.

and, for a moment, the IP address appears on your screen. the tension falls from your shoulders as you sit back admiring your work. for a moment, all is well.

until it isn’t.

your screen turns red, filling with white static, and it’s fucking terrifying. especially when it starts keening, high pitched, shrill, ringing in your ears, until it goes black.

you freeze, slowly peeking out from behind your chair, eyeing the computer in concern. you wonder if it’ll explode. white symbols fill the screen, cursor blinking. it takes a moment to register the message and when you do, your heart drops into the pit of your stomach, your breath catching in your throat. it’s your full name and your current location, written out in full, almost as if it’s mocking you. a chill runs straight down your spine and, for a moment, you’re frozen in your spot, crouched behind your computer chair. you were always cautious. you switched between VPNs constantly, you kept your work computer clear of anything and everything relating to your identity. this shouldn’t be happening. holy shit, you need to go. you shoot up, rummaging through your closet for the getaway bag you made long ago, just in case. you knew you needed a contingency plan when you started this. you just never expected to actually need it. but, now, you need to get out. you need a burner phone and cash and -

knock, knock.

the things in your hand slip, clattering all over the floor, and you flinch at the loud noise, glancing between the laptop and the door. you contemplate jumping out the window, but you’re on the third floor and you doubt that -

beep. beep. beep. click.

the front door sits ajar and the hairs at the back of your neck stand on end. for a beat, you are so terrified you aren’t sure if you can even move. then your brain jumps into overdrive. you need something to defend yourself with, though. you’re frantic when you yank the lamp off the table beside the couch, scurrying into the kitchen.

it’s so quiet you could hear a pin drop and you hate it. you swear your own heartbeat can be heard in the quiet of your apartment. there is no force used, you notice, as if your brain is clinging to the tiniest details as a way to keep calm and collected. nothing about the knocking at your door nor the technical break-in is forceful or loud, and it’s somehow worse than if someone had just kicked your door down and stuck a gun in your face. you lift the lamp over your head, just as you hear the creak of the front door opening and the faintest of whispers. you hear footsteps, slow and measured, so fucking casual, echoing throughout your apartment and your grip on the lamp tightens. it doesn’t take long for the footsteps to approach the kitchen. you don’t even try to catch a glimpse of the intruder; the moment they step into reach, you bring the lamp down over their head with a loud thud.

a man cries out in pain - the loudest noise you’ve heard yet this evening, the sound making you flinch - and you back out of the kitchen, nearly tripping on your own feet, not even bothering to watch the man crumple to his knees. you just hope he stays down.

but, you didn’t account for the other voice, the other footsteps.

you yelp when you run face first into a sturdy wall of a person, thrashing as their fingers wrap around you, holding you steadfast with such ease. you think, holy shit, holy shit, I don’t want to die, while you’re being dragged and tossed onto the floor of your living room. you hit your head too hard, vision swimming, pain shooting through your skull, but you manage to put space between you and where you think the intruders are. you stare, wary, terrified, thinking, thinking, thinking. you open your mouth, ready to scream, but there’s a pretty boy with dark eyes and sharp features staring down at you, head tilted, a gun cocked in his hands.

he says, “scream and i’ll shoot.”

you didn’t account for three intruders, the man with the gun, the one you hit over the head with the lamp, and whoever is helping him up. your eyes flicker past the kitchen entrance, frantically searching over the man’s shoulder for an opening. you notice the lack of face coverings - from what you’ve picked up throughout your years of working in the underground, you know that is not a promising sign, it usually means they don’t plan on letting you live long enough to expose their identities - and you scoot further back until your back hits the wall. the man’s eyes and gun follows you, a kind smile playing on his lips, out of place in a situation like this. it’s just as unsettling as the lack of force behind their break in, the silence with which they work under.

two people emerge from your kitchen, the man you presumably hit over the head grumbling under his breath while the other one holds him up, towering over him. the man with the gun speaks up, pulling your attention back to him, “now, tell us.” he steps forward and you have nowhere to go. “why exactly were you trying to hack into our systems? who put you up to this?”

“I…I don’t know.” your voice comes out steadier than you expected and you’re grateful for that. the man with the gun sighs. you glare, you can’t help it. “I really don’t know. I make it a point not to know who my clients are.”

the man sighs, yet again, and somehow that angers you. you watch as he steps back from you, gun still directed at you, turning his torso to face his friends. your gaze flickers up to them and you -

“holy shit.” your fingers dig into your palms, your eyes locked on him.

because it’s song mingi.

memories that you have spent years trying to forget floods into the forefront of your mind. birthdays spent with him, his soft smile, the first memories you’ve had with him, playing tag in your parents’ house. the way he sometimes insisted you be the big spoon when the two of you cuddled, laughing at the way you could barely contain his long limbs in your arms. the way he cried into your shoulder when his family dog had to be put down. the promises of forever he made with you. his laugh, the way his eyes would scrunch up and his smile would get so big. memories and feelings and everything just floods through you and you can feel tears prickling at your eyes, your chest heavy, words stuck in your throat.

he has red hair now, his arm curled around the man you hit over the head. still, he hasn’t changed much. he’s taller, broader, older, but he is the same in so many ways. his eyes, though, are different. the light and love they always held has dimmed and there’s something dark about his gaze, something ancient and sad and irredeemable, something broken. your breath catches at the sight, at the way his eyes widen ever-so-slightly, before they narrow, at the way you can’t read his face easily like you used to be able to.

“mingi?” you speak, then, your voice less steady than before, barely audible really, if it wasn’t for how quiet the apartment had become. both his friends startle at that, but your eyes are on him. there is a mix of anger and relief and yearning that curls in your chest. you’ve missed him, you realize. you’re angry because he left you so long ago, that he is standing here now, on the side of the man with the gun pointed at you, and you should be mad, should be screaming, but you missed him. maybe this is your rock bottom.

for a moment, mingi softens, eyes returning to the way he used to look at you before. for a moment, you can pretend he still cares about you.

but, only for a moment.

his gaze steels, his lips pressing into a thin line. he slips his hands off his friend, stepping towards you and there is an aura surrounding him that is unfamiliar and, frankly, terrifying.

he crouches, until he is at eye level with you. you hold your breath. he says, “you’ve built a very notorious reputation for yourself you know. makes sense, though, you’ve always been the greatest at whatever you put your mind to.”

there’s something so very foreboding about the way he says that. you blink, manage to respond, “why are you…what do you want from me? what are you…what are you going to do to me?”

mingi looks at you like you are a stranger and you think, no, this is your rock bottom. he leans in close, red hair falling over his unreadable eyes, elbows resting on his knees. the world falls away and all that is left is you and mingi, mingi and you.

he breathes, “hacking into our systems? you really shouldn’t have done that, sweetheart.” then he tilts his head and stares you down. you cannot breathe as he tacks on, “now we have to make an example out of you.”

[yoitscro]

First thought: Homestuck^2 should've just been called Beyond Canon, and more people should call it that. 

The 2 was put on for chuckles; HS trending the day it was announced with it being a sequel spoke enough about how such a thing shant be underestimated, and why Homestuck is ABSOLUTELY more than just our small twitter crowd (and the scrap of us still on tumblr). I say that because remembering the Beyond Canon part slightly reassures me about the fact that this is a fanwork that will do some weird shit, and things I don't agree with, but isn't something that I have to subscribe to enjoying all the way with how I engage with Homestuck.

Homestuck 2 is not the canon continuation. Homestuck 2: Beyond Canon, is an OFFICIAL continuation.

Not having it on such an important stool and as the only content we all are only allowed to digest should come from both people who obsessively dislike it, and people who defensively support it. If a character says they kick babies then I can say, hey that's weird, maybe not great writing, but I can pretend they don't in my content, and i dont have to send threats or call people cishet white men for it! and, it's an absolutely great thing that we were all encouraged to create our own ideas without anyone who's influenced us to do so squinting their eyes when we actually go through with it. Glad I don't have to put this story up to the expectations of being a sequel to a 11 year, worldwide IP that's shooketh the internet landscape since it's merely optional, Death of the Author persists, and ideas aren't just dominated and revolved around the perspective of a 1% in this entire fanbase.

That said.

As an OFFICIAL continuation versus a canon one, HS2 is ok. It certainly has that fanfiction vibe, and a story it wants to tell. I can't really tell what that story is since we have like, 10 sub plots rn though. There's not a real a clear indicator on where the focus of main conflict is that connects all these stories together.

I thought that the prose in replacement of Vriska's battle was jarring, but not teeerribly surprising for the format HS2 is going for. It's more so using drawings to compliment text versus Homestuck's usual of panels being side by side with visual importance, or even itself being the one compliment. It sorta feels weird tho that it brought old fans back in with art just for them to get sneered at when they get a bit upset that there won't be main staples of art known to progress the story forward. 

Also people who mock people for “having to read homestuck” knowing there’s language barriers and struggling focus from those who’ve been use to something that was never so dense, are ridiculous.

Personally this could be solved by knowing how old flashes worked, having way more artists on the team, maybe even an art director if not already, and noting that we're not asking for the next Cascade. Rome wasn't built in a day, but Rose Ride sure was, and Homestuck’s animation is absolutely not the same as a 12-24 framed 12 minute cartoon. That, or just snuff the illustrative art as a whole since it's very clear on where the focus is.

I’m sure you’re not here trying to see my opinions on how the outer workings are though, versus plot.

Uuuuh, let's see. Yiffy's still a name I don't care to use until I eventually get tired of any of my art that do not show up in tags. This is fine and not as offensive as people are saying it is. Minors who want to cosplay this character don't have to call themselves this character. Not wanting to be one letter away from accidentally entering a very NSFW space of twitter is fine. Also the lot of people call Tavros, Tavvy.

I hope Kanaya's anger at being cucked is actually seen versus being implied through fan guesses and another character having to say she was.

Roxy needs to be more of an involved character. Where are they during all this?

Jane should have a mention of her relations to HIC being a main/bad influence on her current parallels to Alternian dictatorship.

The PRE-RETCON GROUP should have a fun one-shot update for fans who like them, since they oughta be around if they fell through the ghost hole. Most of them. The sprites that aren't Jasprosesprite should also show up too, since they're around.

Aaaaaand I think we should be extra careful going into the future when it comes to the alien rebellion. It's weird that a lot of the writers are white and toy around with concepts that can be a not so great parallel to racism. Currently not great timing rn! If the characters are going to remain aracial, but with them still doing not much to reference other non-white earth cultures or getting new hair cuts that have different textures (looking at you, Rose), we shant make the species with actual biological benefits a racism commentary. the xeno joke at least had a play on words. If any writer has happened upon this then a, please don't get mad at me again haha, and b, consider having more black writers or directional assistance on your squad. You know who they are.

In the future. I casually want the ghost from the Dream Bubbles to be shown since it's a big elephant in the room to not have a single one of them in the bg despite a load of them appearing from the ghost whole. Don't gotta give them speaking lines, especially the dancestors. I personally don't know if I want that right now.

I also hope in the future that we don't get HS content that is only going to revolve around HS2, if it's optional enough to engage with without being the only option. That's why PQ could ended a bit better for me, and why I hope it's not the main thing that's keeping Hiveswap on the backburner. I don't think it's farfetched to consider that multiple HS content could come from more than just one team; to relieve work load, but to also strengthen the idea that Homestuck can be a various amount of perspectives when it comes to the ideas fans have. The most dedicated fans leading the direction of the story is not just a handful of them. If anything, at least acknowledge the massive ass fan projects going on once in awhile to showcase the different avenues.

"Hey Cro, you sure have bitched about this alot. Do you have anything good to say? Why don't you stop reading if you hate it so much!"

Not every comment needs to be golden, love. Again, some of these decisions I eck at, but ultimately they're just words on a computer that I'm not holding anyone at gun point to do, and I'm curious to see how the story handles itself going forward, since again, it's just a fanwork. Sometimes I wish to not only see where the plot goes, but to see a writer's craft in action.

Good Things:

The Art. Again, please have more artists. It'd help so much, especially since the main one is also double timing for VE. That said, HS2 sticks out to me because of the way the color composition is used. Aside from hair and other tiny things, I haven't seen black used a lot, which makes colors pop. It's really nice to look at. I hope we get more sharper styles of character in the future, since it builds on nostalgia and makes the trolls feel much less like they're from Repiton, but I can deal with it for the most part. I also like that one panel where the omega kids and vriska are talking in the dark room, and based on where they're standing, the text aligns. Tasty as hell.

Meat and Candy still do hold neat logic in the direction the stories go. Candy, while it could be more tasteless in some areas, is chaotic and too much of a good thing. Meat is having something a little more straightforward, though I'm not sure quite yet where it's going. I always found Candy to be the part of the epilogue that actually entertained me the most, from how much of a surreal Robot Chicken skit at 3am it felt. Sometimes the jokes slapped real nice and made me wonder, going in, how is this monkeys paw gonna play out and, hopefully, make people laugh or smirk like they got a good roast at themself?

The slightly episodic feel of each update is what I wanted from the Epilogues, so it's interesting to see that play out when it comes to switching different perspectives.

The bonus updates get points for featuring characters that a lot of us have been wanting to see for ages.

Hopefully this isn't unpopular, but I think the tension of Yiffy's introduction was nicely composed and written (ignoring some of the things I wish for Jane). It leaves you with enough want to see what'll happen next time. You could also say that despite her growling and making a lot of noise, it's not actually bad writing: I see it as the audience being forced to see her in the same perspective that Jane see's her; a dog. Upon no context we're seeing the same thing while knowing things are obviously off, and once we see this character in a new environment where their personality shines, it'll have a bigger impact her own character being humanized. So I like that.

Okay, I think that's all I got. I improv wrote most of this; hopefully I won't be taken out of context since I don’t think that HS2′s writing should ultimately be a judgement of the writers as people, nor treated as if they should hold the same unhealthy work environment that Andrew forced himself to do when writing the og comic. And I'm still like, donating to the patreon and everything, lol.

[runs away]

edit: i was going to put the cw as another positive thing for the comic...but...yeaaaah.

[danwhobrowses]

A Personal Rant before Sword and Shield comes out

I’ve sat idly by for months, tried to weather a few negative responses but given that it’s now 6 days from release and I’m hearing that devs are getting literal death threats I’m going to put my foot down

If you’re already shitting on a game that hasn’t been released yet, you are all juvenile bitches, and I’m about to tell you why.

Before we begin, I’m not saying that you’re not allowed to dislike a game, that happens, but usually it happens after you play a game, not before.

You are viewing this game through a keyhole and judging the room and what you’re seeing is not worthy of this much hate. Let’s start with the big one Dexit: Not as Big as You Think Having No National Dex is of course not ideal, but it doesn’t ruin the game. Let’s Go has no National Dex, all it had was Alola forms and nobody whinged about it. Ruby and Sapphire didn’t have a National Dex until FRLG, and nobody whinged about it. Sun and Moon and Ultra Sun and Moon do not have a National Dex And Nobody Whinged About It Do you know why? Because it’s not actually a big deal. People who complain about it are bandwagoning because ‘Dexit’ is a meme, its name literally parodies an event in current Britain that many people don’t actually want to happen.  Now currently, the anger of Dexit is that Bulbasaur and Squirtle are not in it, which frankly is hilarious because the last wave of bitching was ‘Kanto mons are getting all the new stuff’. You wanna know how many main series versions Bulbasaur and Squirtle have not been in? Seven, only way to get them is trade and event. The other complaint is that there’s ‘only 400′ Pokémon. Remember those days where people were fine with 150? 400 is huge, in fact it’s 3 less than USUM and it’s not accounting for the Gigantamax forms Don’t let headlines fool you either, Sun and Moon had 302 Pokémon, it’s far from the ‘lowest dex number since 2003′. Do your own research with these things. Kalos’ regional dex was 151, BW2 was 300, BW 153, Sinnoh 210, RSE has 386 and GSC had 252 Don’t get me wrong, it smarts that some Pokémon isn’t there, but it’s not a dealbreaker, like let’s be honest here. For a good year and a half all your pokémon are gonna do is sit in an unused cartridge or a PC box, you’re literally whining about the fact that you can’t move your perfect IV Pokémon from one box to another. You could simply just let them stay in Let’s Go or USUM, you don’t have to use Bank or Home on continued subscription for that, so your complaints are only set on the foundation that you feel like you have to continually pay to not transfer your Pokémon, Finally, people act like these Pokémon are deleted forever, they’re not, this is for spacing to make sure this game doesn’t break down from the sheer mass of models and textures it has to maintain in a massive open world space, the local and online camping and battles. Just use the Pokémon that are there! There’s new Pokémon don’t you wanna try those? You can also look at FRLG or Emerald and consider that maybe more Pokémon will get patched in once the game proves to be stable. I don’t think you’ve noticed, but the Nintendo Switch isn’t as powerful as the other consoles out there, sometimes it runs like shit. Believe me on that one, Switch is still in a very buggy development phase. Let’s Go was kept small to test it’s capability and Sword and Shield can’t just fly in and give you all 1000 Pokémon just so one of the ones you want can be in there

You have to be much less obtuse with this, I mean this was a long time coming. You’re gonna have to live with the fact that not every Pokémon ever can be supported on one game alone. Disk, Download, Cartridge and Patch Sizes have limits in Compliance, you can’t just throw everything at it. Waah, the New Pokémon Don’t Look Good They do, you’re being petty. It happens every version, the people dislike the starter evolutions or just one in particular. Remember all the Oshawott hate? This all comes and goes because people have simply gone on the first instinct that ‘new and different is scary and should be shunned’ You’re that Simpsons meme when young Homer accuses Grandpa of not being ‘with it’ I won’t spoil to those who haven’t seen it, but I like the new starters, and some of the new Pokémon will need some growing but not every Pokémon looks good at first glance. If Mr Mime, Hypno or Gastly came out nowadays they’d be crapped on so much for lacking creativity or for looking weird. Look at Drampa as well, thing looks like Falkar from The Neverending Story, when I first saw it I thought it look weird but now I like it. You should offer these things time And actually fall back on past experience, you’re reacting like this isn’t the same thing that happens every version; the dex gets leaked, people whine about the evolutions, people get over it and accept that they overreacted. hIgH QuAlItY aNiMaTiOnS I’ve seen that video, 2 clips and you judge a whole game how classy of you? If you don’t see improvement you’re blind. You can’t shit on a game for keeping the battle animations, you can’t expect every Pokémon to move their own unique way to the exact position of the body part the opponent needs to get hit by, that’s just unrealistic. You’re also failing to equate to the new moves and all the new movesets. You have to ensure that each Pokémon is capable of calling this animation as well. The second clip in that video was Hop and Hau having the same rigging, and once again, that’s not abnormal. Rigging is not easy either, do it wrong and it sticks and deforms texture. There’s nothing wrong with Hop having one animation that matches Hau’s, you’ll probably find that many models actually have similar rigging as previous games. Because it’s not that big of a deal and it saves money, as an example look at Disney they copied hand-drawn motion and stuck a different character on them, Robin Hood’s Little John dances just like (animated, for those too young to know otherwise) Jungle Book’s Baloo The thing you’re also ignoring from that clip is the graphical improvement of Hop compared to Hau, Hau looks like a balloon with a smiley face but Hop’s face has depth and his mouth actually moves like a normal person, his clothes have far more contrast and complexity, but no just zero in on one fighting animation and one rigging that’ll surely be worth abusing a game that’s not even out... B-But Charizard I’ve already explained this before but Charizard is Leon’s main, it’s obviously going to have a Gigantamax, ergo it’s also going to be in the Dex. Does Charizard get a lot? Yes, but the reason is because Charizard is popular. One of the rarest cards is a Charizard Hologram Card, Charizard is one of the first version mascots, it is one of the most recognized Pokémon Ash has in the anime Reality of the matter is that like Pikachu, Charizard is a recognized Pokémon for all ages, it appeals to a demographic that’s not playing In Layman’s Terms: that part is not for you A reality you really need to face. Pokémon is a game for all ages, so elements of the game are not always going to be tailored to your age range. The gimmick of Dynamax and Gigantamax is for merch sales and young children because it’s got an audience there, you can’t expect the Biggest Entertainment Brand in the World to simply shut out a large fraction of its demographic just to appeal 100% to you And again, it’s not a big deal, so there’s a Charizard there, just save a Stone Edge and be done with it, if you hate Charizard so much this’ll be catharsis, but in actuality you’re complaining because it’s something to complain about Kanto are getting Everything That went down like a lead balloon didn’t it? Reminder that the first Gigantamax forms were Galar Pokémon, so you can’t really say that anymore. There are Galar forms from non-Gen I Pokémon too I assure you, but the reason Kanto gets a lot of them is because Kanto is the oldest. Let’s not pretend that other gens don’t get love either Or should I remind you of Mega Ampharos, Scizor, Heracross, Houndoom, Tyranitar, Blaziken, Gardevoir, Gallade, Mawile, Aggron, Medicham, Manectric, Banette, Absol, Garchomp, Lucario, Abomasnow, Steelix, Sceptile, Marshtomp, Sableye, Sharpedo, Camerupt, Altaria, Glalie, Salamence, Metagross, Latias, Latios, Rayquaza, Lopunny, Audino and Diancie? It’s true that the Johto starters could use something, but I don’t think they’re being purposefully ignored, perhaps the right design hasn’t come along. Rather it be done right than poorly wouldn’t you agree? The Devs Should’ve Done <Insert Thing Here> People who say this kinda stuff have no idea how a game is made. I have a First Class Bachelor’s degree in Computer Gaming and Animation Technology and I can tell you that none of the stuff you want them to do is easy. Even getting grass right is a complete hassle. You want small insights you should watch Corridor Crew react to Good and Bad VFX, they tell you about the mechanics of CGI a few times on those vids. This is what annoys me with the prior swipe at the Battle animations and rigging, even with 2 years this is a heavily massive workload and Game Freak have only recently expanded the team that work on Pokémon which makes communication much more widespread and difficult to manage, likewise they are working on other games too they are not just Pokémon, currently their next IP is why Toby Fox was able to do a bit of music for Pokémon, because he’s collaborating with them on another game. The work doesn’t stop, most of these people are overworked and still doing overtime, they bring out a good product and all it gets is ‘but it should have this’, and unless it’s a huge part of the game that’s needed to function then that’s really disrespectful Before you start critiquing on what the people making this game ‘should’ve done’ perhaps you should try to make a game yourself, because it is not easy even for pros, I call back to Toby Fox because creating Undertale took 32 Months to create, that’s 2 years and 8 months for those slow with math, it also took 3 years before it could be ported to Switch because the Engine couldn’t support the platform, Pokémon has less time to do that, greater graphical and animation quality to achieve and more characters to battle, attacks to animate and more songs to compose. Conclusion: You’re All Just Bitter I’ve already seen it happen recently but this group of people senselessly bashing something because of ridiculous demands, expectations or arguments based on a lack of understanding all combine into something I’m simply calling the ‘Bitterness Fandom’. It’s people hating for the sake of hating and trying to bring something down just because it’s been a popular force for so long, and it’s not just Pokémon that’s getting it It’s already been happening to Star Wars. The Last Jedi and Solo were great films but the Bitterness sank its fangs in and act like neither are as good as the original trilogy (like killing Snoke without knowing anything about him and Phasma before she could do anything is any different to killing Sidious and Boba Fett in Jedi or Maul in Phantom Menace and Grievous in Revenge of the Sith), a lack of awareness to reality and the desire to complain for the sake of complaining continues to infect Star Wars. We even have a thing called ‘Star Wars Fatigue’ Star Wars can’t release a film every year because of ‘Fatigue’ but Marvel can release 5 MCU films a year and nobody bats an eye. Those frustrations aside, I refuse to let the Bitterness sink in without me calling them out, because you are not Pokémon Fans. If you were you’d know that having no National Dex isn’t new, you’d know that the graphics have improved and leaks of the game happen every time, you’d know why Charizard is popular and that some features are not intended to be targeted at you Shock and Horror to the heavens above but games can’t do everything And if you’re that naive to think so then you’re clearly not doing your homework So let’s throw out an absolutely WILD suggestion shall we? Let’s decide our opinion on a game After playing it? Because shitting on something you don’t even have hands-on experience with it is a fragile pedestal to put yourself on. If we all think it’s bad then, so be it, but I sincerely doubt that is the case When my copy of Pokémon Sword gets delivered to my house I am going to enjoy it because I will not let petty and incorrect statements sway my feelings and I swear to Arceus if you think the Bitterness will bring down Pokémon that easily then you did not see the queue to the London Poké Center that had been amassing since midnight and was forced to stop taking more people when the doors opened What should matter is how you enjoy the game, play it before you judge it And honestly, don’t send death threats, why we need to tell you that is beyond me, the ones who made these games are people who have worked their asses off day in and day out to provide something you aren’t even going to play because one Pokémon isn’t in it, the irony is not lost on me when I say this but deep into the very bottom of my heart: Grow Up. If you don’t like the game, don’t play it, don’t bother people about it, we don’t need your shit here Enjoy the Game People

[neshabeingchildish]

League of Extraordinary Geniuses || Chapter 1

A/N: I never actually rated this, I don’t believe, but there’s a little bit of cussing here, I can’t tell you yet exactly which direction everything is going in. I’m predominantly an angst writer and I do have a lot to give to this story, mainly with Chase, just because, plain and simple... I don’t know if that man has really had people in his corner the way that he’s needed in the past, so there’s things to work through with him in particular and there’s always things to sort of try to get over and into in relationship dynamics and moreso when more people are involved than two. Also, at least two of these people are workaholics, so work projects, assignments, flashbacks, etc, will be something that is likely to appear a lot as a backdrop. The work won’t always be things that we, or even sometimes they agree with, but it’ll be there. Tagging only who I heard from last time @kiddangers @sunbeameyes @just-a-j-reallly @supercasperprincesslove-blog Let me know if I need to take you off. Edit: Thunderbolt headcanon from flashback was introduced to me by @famousflowermagazine (You don’t have to read, but I wanted to make sure that I credited your idea)

They’re the Same Picture

Charlotte woke up to the hyper sounds of the excited yipping of puppies and she immediately got out of bed and headed for the courtyard. The caretaker was out there, minding them, but when they saw Charlotte, they rushed back to her and she waved to let the caretaker know that the puppies were coming with her. They were light brown with black ears, and wearing matching little malleable outfits. She brought them to her lab and let the caretaker worry about accepting her guests, because she left her phone in the bedroom and she was not going to pick it up any time soon. 

She had one group chat titled Defenders for herself, Henry and Jasper, and it was the most used one in her phone. She had one titled Bionic Forces, for Chase and his siblings, and sometimes Donald. She had been added to that one at one point by Leo, whenever he had to casually ask her a question that she could somehow feel was tied to a catastrophe that he and his older brother, Adam were trying to evade at the Academy (and if she was being honest, one of them probably started), and she didn’t get involved again in that one until after she met Chase and he at’ed her to say that he realized that she had been in this old GC of theirs before. Now, she frequently visited and used it. 

She had one titled Elite Force, one titled T-Force, and one titled Danger Force and she hadn’t thought about how many Force teams had a GC with herself and the members, or even the fact that she knew several Force teams, until those three were active and she kept switching between the 3, one particular day. IF. EVER. There was another triple crisis, she vowed that two androids would have to get onto cloned phones and be her, because trying to sort out more than a dozen names and comments for a foreseeable incident was… a mess. 

Fortunately, Chase, Max, and Mika each took initiative in their respective chats after a while to be the point of contact and unclutter the chat at the time. But still… There were androids capable of evaluating very accurately exactly what Charlotte might think and say to responses.

She had several GCs that were business related, several that were science-for-fun related, one that was the Bionic Academy mentors, one that was everyone that she knew who had bionics, one that was everyone that she knew who was a superhero, one that was her team of androids, and one that was her lab workers. 

She was a busy woman who knew busy people, but she also was the type that liked to be helpful to friends and associates and to keep up with her loved ones and business relationships. So, most of the ones who she had GCs with… They also individually texted with her, as well.

Currently, her most frequent ones were from Henry or Jasper, who truth be told, would likely be texting her frequently for the rest of the three of their lives as lifelong best friends. Almost as frequently though were Chase Davenport and Max Thunderman.

It was a little shocking to her after she met Chase, to find out that they were extremely alike in a lot of ways, considering how differently the conversations she had with each of them went. Chase was always the perfect gentleman. If she mentioned a problem, he would factually assess it, give her stats, numbers, wish her well and ask her to touch base with him later to let him know if his assistance was fruitful. 

Max was less precise, but as correct in advice… he could probably give her stats, but knew that they weren’t usually needed and it wasn’t his default to calculate outside of an invention or something where exact numbers were necessary. Also, he was a little more profane. 

Whereas Chase might say something like, “I’m sorry that they’re making you jump through these hoops at a place of business. That is terrible customer service. Do they not realize who you are?”

Max would say, “Those guys are dicks. Just drop your name and get ‘em fired.” 

Which… was in essence the same response, to her, as their responses frequently were, and yet worlds apart. That was who they were, in her mind too. The same great person presented in two extremely different, but equally attractive ways. She valued them on the same level, though she was closer to Max, because she had known him longer and gone through more with him.

Whenever Max posted his video journal of gadgets and inventions, Charlotte noticed (and this was whenever she was in Dystopia, towards the beginning of the trio’s rise in popularity there), that he had both artwork of Dystress, her alter ego on his wall, and Charlotte Page accolades. News and fanfare!

She honestly lost her shit for a moment and squealed to Henry and Jasper, “This guy that creates gadgets and shares them online KNOWS ABOUT ME!” They had been in the habit of listening to her, but what were the odds of some dude from Hiddenville who posted science projects online for nerdy strangers like Charlotte to wind down, chewing on ice and making comments like, “I didn’t expect that to work out so well. This dude’s a genius!” just knowing about Charlotte, tucked away in one of the most silenced charities in Dystopia?

She pointed out and zoomed in on things on his wall - framed photos of her at gizmo fairs, plaques of her stats in Swellview, etc, and on THE SAME WALL, her with her purple hair and the mask that covered the bottom half of her face, many, MANY shots of her and stories about the mysterious new three Defenders who appeared in Dystopia and began vigilante justice. “That dude knows who you are, Char,” Henry said, worried.

Stressed out, she made a whole account and sent a private message, “So, I saw on your wall that you have the Dystopian Defenders. That’s cool. I like them.”

He almost immediately answered, because he was simply at home, and he was interested in fanboying any chance that he got. “Not so much interested in the Defenders as The Damsel.She’s currently my muse.”

She replied too quickly, “She prefers to be called Dystress.” The she winced and wished she could take it back. How would someone know that? Maybe another hardcore fan? There were a lot of clips of her online...

Well, that had done it. Because, now this complete stranger seemed to be trying to suggest to Max that THEY knew his favorite underground vigilante better than HE did, and before he decimated them, he was curious who he was about to destroy. “Is that something she told you?”

“I’ve heard it around Dystopia...”

He kept up the conversation long enough to trace her IP address and phishing her account. He almost fell out of his chair.“Are you Charlotte Page???”

“WHAT?” She screeched out loud, then typed, “Is that the other Black woman on your wall? You know… People are gonna think that you’re obsessive… or have a fetish... or something unbecoming.”

“I’m a fan. I didn’t mean to alarm you… So… WAIT… You’re Charlotte Page AND you are a Dystress fan AND you’ve seen my series??? This is perfect! This is like a DREAM for me! Or… is this like one of those things where you contact me and tell me that it’s creepy that I have your stuff on my wall? Because, honestly, that’s fair. It’s just… I looked up some of your work and you were super brilliant, but we’d met previously under not so great circumstances, so I didn’t want to be that guy and make it weird, but this is just how I’ve decorated my workspace. I just admire your work, a lot.”

Charlotte had watched --she didn’t know how many of this dude’s invention videos -- Every time she saw his face, a glimmer of a thought that he looked familiar passed through her mind, but his face wasn’t on screen most of the time. The focus would be on his hands and his inventions, so she didn’t notice his face too much. The way that the human brain works, she simply put it out of focus and subconsciously presumed she’d seen his face there, in the videos.

But, now that he said it, she gasped again. Realizing the familiarity, she dropped a phone number. She did NOT want to continue this conversation on the same device he had just hacked, and she had a burner phone on her.

“Hello?” She said. It took him only long enough to pick up his phone and dial while looking at the computer for him to call her.

“Is this real???” He asked. “Are you honestly Charlotte Page?” Before she could even answer, he continued, “I am absolutely freaking out!” 

It was a far cry different from the first time they crossed paths, the time that she had remembered only after he made it known that they had before. When he was a little villain-to-be. She hadn’t gotten a very good look at him, but her eyes had at least passed over his face a little, years before.“What do you want?” She asked, through her teeth. “To expose me?” 

“Expose?” He gasped and lowered his voice, but heightened his excitement, “Are you some kind of criminal mastermind, because I can totally dig that.”

“I’m…” She looked at the muted video where she had been studying his wall and she realized something. There weren’t photos of each, next to each other. There were no lines, or notes or string... He didn’t know that those were the same people. He didn’t know that she was the Damsel of Distress. He really was... just a fan of both of them. Maybe it was subconscious on his part, but she didn’t feel like he was playing mind games or anything. And… he had powers, so exposing her wouldn’t be wise for him or other supers. 

“Charlotte? Are you still there? I’m not gonna expose you, if you were waiting on an answer to that. But, I’ve gotta tell you… I’m a superhero now and if we gotta cross paths while you’re in your criminal phase… I mean… It’ll be AWESOME and like hella fun… but, I’d have to take you down. Duty and all that.”

Now, she laughed. “The Dystopian cops haven’t been able to, but give it your best shot.” There was a long pause and then a longer gasp, then the exhaling and declaration, “CharlottePageisalsotheDamselandIcan’tbelieveIdidn’tnoticeitbefore!”

“I prefer Dystress. With a “Y,” like Dystopia + Mistress… The Damsel of Distress was supposed to a clever one liner and nothing more. Some overgrown goon caught me about to tamper with supplies that we needed to steal from the criminals to give to the kids in our charity, and he said something like, “Looky here, a damsel in distress,” and…”

“And you, a 4’11 (I can’t believe that I didn’t even place your identical measurements to figure this out), you touched your wrist, hulked up somehow and beat him with his own weapon, then said, “More like a Damsel OF Distress,” and it was caught on security cameras. I HAVE that footage. I’ve gotten probably every piece of footage of you that has been recorded. I am not kidding when I say to you, that I am your biggest fan.”

“You’d think that with that wall you’ve collected,” she said, her wide smile evident in her voice. She knew that the kids in Dystopia stanned Dystress. They would tag her name and image all over the place and whenever in costume, girls and women always gave her stuff, sometimes, what appeared to be their last. She would refuse it and give them whatever she had on her to spare. 

Dogfight was in essence sleepwalking through battle, so even though he could reply to people (in Spanish), they usually didn’t understand it and generally didn’t talk much to him.  

Deflector was just that, on or off the battlefield. Henry had never mastered lying, that much was sure, but found that avoiding questions because he only spoke English, or if they spoke English, simply deflecting the conversation instead of making up something worked better for his mystery and his cover than lying ever did. 

Dystress was the one who spoke with the people. She spoke their language. She spoke to them as people. All of the Defenders were heroes to the Dystopian downtrodden, but Dystress was like a motherly hero. She could be both that ferocious bear whose cubs are threatened but she generally delivered the goods while Dogfight and Deflector fought off the criminals. Her covered face and purple ombre locks were what they saw right before they had meals that weren’t drugged to kidnap them or rotten. The image that they saw whenever they got clean socks, soap and towels...

“What are you thinking about?” Max wondered, his voice now soft, having regained control of himself after this wondrous discovery.

“I’m hoping that my secret really is safe with you and I’m appreciating being noticed by someone who I didn’t have to help save, first.”

He smiled, “Of course your secret is safe with me. I admire everything you do, apparently as you and her. I’d never let myself be a threat to you.” She was smiling on the other end and he knew it, but he also knew that this was a Dystopia line and probably a burner she got from a corner shop. He needed a doorway in. He didn’t want to let her slip through his fingers. “I can probably actually help you, you know? I have a lot of resources, with T-Force. Dystopia is a red level city. Every time the Hero League has assigned someone, they either die, quit, or turn, because the crime is like a hydra. It would only take a mention that the heroes there need supplies for me to get approval to bring some.” There was another long pause and he said, “I wish I could see your face right now.”

“You can see it… As soon as we get some supplies.”

“How do I contact you? I know this is a burner you’re on.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think this is a burner you’re on and I got your number when you called. Thanks in advance… what should I call you?”

“My name is Max.”

“Thank you, Max.”

“My pleasure, Charlotte.” They both smiled and hesitantly hung up their phones. But, Charlotte was looking forward to seeing “her biggest fan” in person… ESPECIALLY if he was using his power to come with supplies. 

After a few weeks, he made good on that. She sent him a list and asked, “Is this asking too much?” He was confused at first, because it was a different phone number, but whenever he saw the list, he knew who it was from and he smiled brightly. “Not at all. I can be there by Friday. Send me coordinates to wear to meet you.”

The Defenders were there. T-Force shook hands with them and commended them on volunteering to take on Dystopia. They unloaded everything onto a trolley and Thunder Man was explaining to Deflector and Dogfight that once everything was out of the transport, his youngest could teleport them to wherever they felt safe to bring it. 

Charlotte realized that they had brought twice the amount she requested when she placed the order, and Max added, “We also took donations up from the Hero League and transferred the total into yen, in case something comes up in between now and next time that you need us.” 

“You’d do this again?” She wondered.

“For you? Are you kidding?” He laughed, but was silenced when she practically leaped up so that she could throw her arms around his neck. Nobody was paying attention, because the rest were working. He was staring into her eyes, because that was all he could see, and it definitely was enough for him to recognize them from footage of her Spelling Bees and stuff, but, he wondered, “Could I see...” he didn’t get a chance to finish the question and she pulled down her mask, stuck her tongue out and smiled. “I’d do this however many times you need,” he finished.

Since then, they’d been gravy. Chase took much longer to warm up to her like that, and even when he had, his gushing in her presence, was generally due to some exciting news, findings, work, etc. He hadn’t gushed over her like that, and Max did not mind doing so, at all. Really, the fact that she was always comparing the two in her mind was how she came up with this idea to… well… to ask them to come on an adventure with her towards saving the world. 

She knew that she could tell Max to do anything and he would say yes and figure out how. Chase would WANT to say yes, but have some questions and need some reasonable answers. He would ultimately say yes, whether or not she was able to provide them, but he would be out of his comfort zone without a fully detailed, full transparency blueprint and trajectory. But, he would say yes no matter what she gave him because, if she knew one thing about both these people, it was that they both trusted, respected, and she hoped, loved her, and they listened to her for these reasons. SO, she would always try to reciprocate it. That was something that she knew that they didn’t always get. Max from knowing him and his family for several years and Chase from mostly Douglass and Leo’s stories. Chase only ever seemed to talk about his attributes and advantages. He never complained about the things that she’d heard about his life. Or maybe, he just didn’t trust her that much yet. 

She opened a GC with the three of them and asked them when they could all meet sometime in the near future. Max was getting ready for a furlough and Chase was finalizing another bionic mission team for field work. She was getting ready to take a hiatus on degree work for the first time in 8 years and get settled into her castle that it took 5 years to have built. For reference, it took longer to build her castle than it did to rebuild Dystopia itself, but of course, one of these things she was paying for and the other had been greenlit by a billionaire.

Eventually, the three found where they could make the meet happen and she could hardly wait to share her ideas with them and also just spend time with both of them, instead of having to always divide herself.

.

Max was visiting, spending his furlough in the castle and Chase was there “on business,” because Mr. Davenport literally never allotted vacations for him, so Charlotte told a half truth about requiring him at her place for a few days for a special project and since they scheduled it after the formation of the most recent bionic field team, Donald approved the request, but reminded him that he would still be on call, if needed.

“Firstly, I need to apologize to you both for the short notice, but whenever I realized that you finally both were free at the same time, I made sure that we could all get together! I’ve… introduced you two before, right?’

Chase raised an eyebrow and studied Max. She had never introduced them, but she talked about Max to him a lot, and pretty fondly from how he recalled. “I’ve never seen this man before in my life,” Chase said. It was partially true. He had not met him face to face or even crossed him in passing. They were once in Dystopia at the same time, but although she planned to introduce them, both had avoided allowing it to happen.

Max said, “That’s your boss’ little kid, right?” Max knew exactly who Chase was. He had read about him, seen his work, talked to Charlotte NUMEROUS times about his ideas, and even was impressed by him, sometimes, But he also knew that there was no way that this dude didn’t know who he was. Therefore, two could play that game. “The one that doesn’t really fight much,” he added for good measure. Chase narrowed his eyes. He fought all of the time, but people often reduced his efforts because he didn’t have feats like the members on his team. He had better feats…

“Chase Davenport!” Charlotte corrected Max and cut him off at the same time, seeing it might turn into a pissing contest if she didn’t rein it in, “Mission Leader of the world’s first bionic mission team, Mentor at the Davenport Bionic Academy, he creates most of the bionic teams that you see on the news during missions!” She proudly announced.

Chase blushed and shuffled his feet bashfully, then said, more confidently, to Max, “I do more than that, actually…”

“Cool,” Max said and made a little sound with his mouth, to which two puppies came trotting into the foyer to him. “Hey, Buddies!” He cheered and began to love talk to the brown puppies with black ears. 

Chase wondered, “Oh, you have pets?”

Max collected both puppies into his arms and stood, “Have you not been invited here, yet?” He asked, meaning for it to sting.

Charlotte interjected, “Chase is usually too tied up in missions for social visits, so this is his first time being able to stop by and his first time seeing them.”

“They’re her kids,” Max said.

Chase cleared his throat and wondered, “I’m sorry, what?”

“These are the Swagger twins,” Charlotte clarified.

Chase let out a sigh of relief, then immediately engaged with the puppies, while Max grimaced, still holding both. “They should be about two years old, shouldn’t they? Why are they puppies and not full grown dogs? Also, why are they dogs?” And both pups became toddlers in Max’s arms, causing Chase to flinch a moment, but he still petted both their heads. 

“They have shapeshifting bionics with identical coding,” Charlotte said. “Jack had very specific speculations for them. He wanted them to be male presenting, have certain traits from himself and certain ones from Cheyenne, and identical bionics that were allotted for them to transform into dogs. They are currently puppies because they’re too young to realize that a two year old dog would be full grown and probably too small to do it, if they knew it.”

“Why does Jack Swagger want his kids to be able to turn into dogs?” Chase asked, very confused.

Max grumbled, “Because celebrities are weird and gross!”

Charlotte laughed and said, “Jack’s fiancee is Max’s former celebrity crush. He’s been moody since the engagement,” she laughed. “I, on the other hand am DELIGHTED that celebrities are weird and gross. Jack has funded all of my private research on genomic architecture JUST so he can both have perfect babies with his future wife AND also have dogs.”

“Whatever happened to good old fashioned going to a third world country and buying a desperate mother’s kid from her because they’re both starving?” Max asked and scoffed.

Chase, ignoring the rhetorical question, asked, “Why do you have his two year olds at your castle?”

Charlotte shook her head and said, “Oh, these boys aren’t going to go to him. He’s not going to actually collect until I get the formula for the perfect sons who shift into the perfect dogs, with the perfect model bionic chips, and I’m going to take that to create the embryos for their surrogate.” She forced a smile and her eye was twitching, but it was extremely lucrative, if not incredibly privileged and highkey eugenics.

“Weird and gross,” Max repeated.

“Well,” Chase ignored Max again, “Where are they going to go?” He wondered, concerned about the Swagger twins. 

Charlotte laughed and said, “Budding Flowers,” like it was obvious.

“That orphanage?” He asked, a little bit horrified.

“It’s really more like a boarding school,” she told him. “And shelter for orphans. People aren’t exactly adopting them.”

“But… these boys are bionic. Aren’t the kids there all… normal?” Chase wondered.

She pointed to him and said, “You are absolutely right! We need a bionics specific orphanage/education center. I propose either in Dystopia or Centium City.”

“Why not on the island?”

“Are you kidding? You think she’s gonna hand her babies over to Davenport after how he raised you?” Max asked. 

“Max!” Charlotte hissed and held her hands out like wtf. Chase was definitely a little bothered. Charlotte tried to explain, “Excuse him for that. Sometimes Dougie complains about The Dom whenever we’re hanging but I don’t know WHY Max would bring any of that up!” She threw Max a look. Max looked unbothered.

Chase squinted, “He… knows my Uncle Douglas?”

“He’s your dad, Dude,” Max said.

“Douglas just TELLS people these things???” Chase said, highly upset, now.

“No. It’s mostly been said in what was supposed to be confidence. With the two of them both being on the board of the Max O. Thunderman Rehabilitation & Reformation Metropolis.”

“I like to call it the Maxtropolis,” Max said, smirking with his mouth and his eyebrows.

“And everyone hates when you do,” she teased. “They’ve got stuff in common.”

“You… wait… Your friend Max is ON the board at that place?”

“It’s literally named after me,” Max said.

“Yes, I realized that, but I thought it was because you were a donor or something. Douglas said that board is composed entirely of villains!” Chase said, now on alert.

“Reformed villains,” Charlotte corrected. “Like Douglas, and like Max.”

Chase ground his teeth and stared at Max. He didn’t fully always trust Douglas, at times. He certainly wasn’t ready to trust this very shifty character, so close to Charlotte AND with a villainous past? He REALLY needed to start paying more attention to others, even those that he was writing off. Now, he would have to research and review everyone that came into contact with Charlotte. How many other dangerous possible traitors did she trust in her midst? Charlotte and Max were staring at him and he realized that the puppies were too. Also, that the kids were puppies again. 

Charlotte offered, “Let’s go settle into the lounge and sit down.” She opened her hand to let Chase see were the lounge was and she caught Max’s hand and whispered as low as she could, “Why are you antagonizing him?”

“I’m not. I just don’t like him.”

“You haven’t even given him a chance!”

“I did whenever I came in and he started it. “I’ve never seen this man before in my life? You and I both know that waif has seen me before.” She covered her forehead with her fingers and lowered her face at the insult. “Furthermore, I don’t like his sanctimonious song and dance, just because he’s the poster boy for heroes, a position that he has only been granted because bionics in the past few years that they’ve been accepted have taken credit for every superhero’s victories and act like they’re doing us a favor by doing small percentages of the work and capitalizing on all of the victories!” He folded his arms and Chase turned around and looked at them. Max glared at him.

Charlotte noted still whispering, “He has super hearing. I think he’s heard us whispering.” 

“I did,” Chase said.

Max shrugged his shoulders, “Where was the lie? Bionics are just non-supes with technology. You’re only special because a madman put technology into you when you were too young to consent.” Charlotte covered her lips with her fingers this time and lowered her face again. 

“You obviously know enough about me to continue to personally attack me because of your perception of my position. If that makes you feel better, do it,” Chase said. What wasn’t about to happen was him losing his cool in front of Charlotte, or worst, inside of Charlotte’s home.

She shook her head, “I thought that the two of you would get along. There’s so much greatness inside of both of you, that I see, I guess I presumed that you would see that in each other. I had no idea that there was some kind of superhero vs bionics bad blood in you two.”

“Seriously? Because, I’ve heard that your friend here is pretty anti superheroes. Besides the members of his team, who he’s been openly negative towards (we talk, Bionic Boy), and the only super that you’ve really fully accepted was your sister, after she siphoned a little from Skylar Storm. You had supers right in front of your face, proof of our existence and you berated them and talked trash on them. At least that’s how Sky would tell it.”

“You… know Skylar too? Technically… she’s not a super. She’s an alien. All of her people are like that.”

“Wow. So not the point,” Charlotte said. “Are you actually anti-supers?”

“No! I may have said some of what he’s gossiping about, but I was younger at the time he’s speaking about, probably not much older than he was when he was aspiring to be a super villain.”

“So, NOW you know who I am?”

“I researched the information while the two of you were whisper arguing!” Chase said.

“You knew who the fuck I was when you walked into this castle, Boy! You, the smartest man in the world, who has been betrayed and bamboozled multiple times didn’t do a background search on someone who was going to be staying in the home of the woman you love and meeting up with you for possible business? I’m not the smartest man, but I’m not a dumbass, either. You absolutely looked into me, just like I’ve been looking into you from the first time she mentioned your name. Maybe you could get a fast one on the simpletons you’re usually surrounded by, but Char and I? We're in the genius leagues.” 

Chase was breathing hard and eyeballing Max, looking a bit menacing and sort of hovering over him. Chase scanned him over and Charlotte stepped between the two of them, into Chase’s line of sight. He seemed to calm down and she was grateful, because he’d looked pissed and she heard that could make things get really ugly. “I heard your response, Chase and it’s valid. You were younger and didn’t subscribe to the value of superheroes. Max was young and didn’t either! Yayyy! Similarities…” She looked at both of them. They both folded their arms and scoffed, then both groaned because they’d had the same reactions. Getting them on the same page might be a hard sell. But, she had a few days. “Let me show you your quarters, and maybe everyone can have a drink and kinda…” her shoulders slumped and she sighed, unsure of what words to use.

Henry and Jasper had been friends when she met them. Douglas and Schwoz hit it off right away. These two… SHOULD have too. But, they were both extremely pissed and she felt like she’d missed something that she should have considered before bringing them together like this. That argument proved that she missed several things. She was so in love with the idea of them being science bros, she didn’t think about Chase’s trust issues and how they might affect his view of Max. She didn’t think about Douglas telling Max things that she didn’t even know about, like Chase having a past with superhero hate, or maybe just a little bigotry, but, still… She was supposed to be smarter than that. She had been judging both of them with her heart for so long… it just seemed natural that anybody else, especially one another, would adore them too.

“Charlotte, are you okay?” They both asked her in unison. She looked up and both of them looked concerned and a little guilty. They were most likely going to at least squash it for tonight, for her benefit. 

“I’m sorry for not doing MY due diligence. I just think, if you two could get past it all, you’d understand why both of you are here with me as I embark on a new chapter. You two were my first choice and it was an equal choice. It wasn’t one over the other, it was… I know that you both bring what I want and need to the table. I want it to be a table of camaraderie.” The men looked at each other with a raised eyebrow and flared nostrils. 

“It’s fine,” they both lied. At least she knew that they’d try.

[somethingvaguetodo]

Signals Crossed

It's hard to balance two identities, especially when you are trying to do it all on one phone. Read on AO3 here

EDIT: Now with a second part!!!

Ladybug sat on the roof of the Palais Garnier waiting for Chat Noir to arrive for patrol. She was in the second minute of her deep breathing exercises when her yo-yo chimed with an incoming message.

Her eyes flew open to read Alya’s response. Unsatisfied with what it said, Ladybug chewed her lip as she thought about how to answer.

Marinette was having a crisis. Exactly 36 minutes earlier, she had received a text message from Adrien Agreste. The message read:

Hey Marinette! I have a photo shoot scheduled for Saturday and I just spoke to Père. He said it’s okay if you want to come along! Are you still interested?

In her panic, Marinette had screenshot the message and forwarded it to Alya, who told her to respond immediately and accept. Marinette, however, knew it was better to wait to respond so that she didn’t look desperate. Alya’s disagreement had continued past the time she needed to leave for patrol, so she was continuing the conversation from the rooftops.

I want him to think I’m cool and I have a life Answering in a minute does not show him that at all

Ladybug pressed the M icon at the top of her screen and sent both messages.

A few months ago, she and Chat had been playing around with the settings on their communicators when they discovered this capability. Chat was hoping to find a way to connect to Wi-Fi so he could start an official Chat Noir Twitter, but instead found a way to add another phone number to send and receive calls and messages. She had jumped at the chance to merge her two phones, but Chat didn’t.

“Honestly, m’lady, I love that you are the only one who can contact me when I’m transformed,” he had said with a wink.

Marinette had rolled her eyes and immediately added her civilian phone number. It made it a lot easier to cover herself and back up her excuses if she could contact Alya and her parents when transformed. All she had to do was be careful to choose the correct sender - Marinette, not Ladybug - when contacting them. Tikki had been nervous about the potential for making a mistake but Marinette knew better. Tikki was wise, but she was also old, and knew nothing about technology.

Marinette grew up with phones, computers, and tablets. She had this handled.

Alya had responded: It’s been what, a half hour? That’s long enough M

Ladybug rolled her eyes, but had to admit that Alya was right.

Chat Noir touched down beside her as she was typing her response to Adrien.

“One second, Chat. I’m making plans for the weekend.”

Chat groaned, and sat down beside her. “See this was why I didn’t like this, Ladybug. I’m trying to figure out my weekend plans too but I left my phone at home and will see later if my friend answered.”

Ladybug refused to look at him until she finished typing. “That’s good for you, Chat.”

Hey Adrien!!! I’d love to come to the shoot!! x

She sent it to Alya to make sure it sounded casual enough before copying it into a new message to Adrien. Alya’s response to add a kissing emoji went unacknowledged.

Ladybug reread the message twice to make sure there were no spelling errors. She made sure there were a different number of exclamation marks after each sentence so Adrien didn’t think she was strange or overenthusiastic.

Once she was sure it was perfect, she looked up at Chat and pressed send.

“Done!” she announced with a smile.

Despite his exasperation, Chat smiled back. “Excited for those plans?”

“Yes!” Now that she had finally sent the message, Ladybug could feel the excitement overriding the anxiety. “Oh, Chat, this is going to be amazing! I’ve literally dreamed of this happening but didn’t think it ever actually would!”

Chat’s smile faded. “Ladybug, do you have a date?”

Ladybug’s eyes widened in surprise. “What? No!” Then she thought about it. “Well, I guess it could maybe be thought of as a date...” She trailed off, the anxiety coming back. She grabbed hold of Chat’s arm and squeezed it tight. “Oh gosh, Chat, do you think he thinks it’s a date?!”

He studied her closely, oddly serious. “Would that make you happy?”

Ladybug nodded rapidly. “Very happy.”

“Well in that case,” Chat said, “I hope he does think it’s a date.” At Ladybug’s surprised look, he chuckled. “I just want you to be happy, LB.” Ladybug felt herself warm up, a blush dusting her cheeks. Chat’s smile turned mischievous. “Besides, I know we’re endgame. This will be a fun story to tell our grandkids one day.”

Ladybug rolled her eyes and shoved him. “Come on you crazy cat.” She pushed herself off the roof to stand, tossing out her yo-yo and pulling the string taunt. “Race you to L’Arc de Triumph.”

Chat Noir dove through his bedroom window, releasing his transformation as he went and landing in a forward roll on the floor. Plagg spiraled out of his ring, moaning for cheese. Adrien picked himself up and walked to the bed, collapsing on his back.

He still had to complete a chemistry worksheet, shower, and change before going to sleep, but he could afford to rest for a few minutes. He picked up his phone from where it was charging on his nightstand and scrolled through his notifications.

There were a number of unread text messages, but he looked for Marinette’s name first. Adrien was disappointed to see that she hadn’t responded to him yet. He was really hoping that she would come this Saturday to his photo shoot.

He went to respond to Nino when he noticed one new message from a number he didn’t recognize. In fact it wasn’t a normal number at all.

0000M0000C0000 SMS message

Convinced that it was a scam or robo-message, Adrien ignored it in favor of answering Nino.

After sending a message, he swiped out of Nino’s thread, intending to check and make sure his message to Marinette went through. On the main page of his message app, however, he could read the beginning of the message from the unknown number.

0000M0000C0000 Hey Adrien!!! I’d love to come to...

Adrien looked at it, chewing his lip as he decided what to do. It was clearly from someone who knew his name, but a scam could have found that out. If it was a scam, it would be better to ignore it. But it could also be something important, or something Nathalie or Père scheduled that he would get into trouble for ignoring.

Deciding the curiously would kill him if he didn’t look, Adrien opened the message.

Hey Adrien!!! I’d love to come to the shoot!! x

The message sounded like it came from Marinette. He was expecting a response from her about a photo shoot, and she often signed her messages with an x.

But unless Marinette bought a new phone with an unconventional number, it couldn’t have been from her.

Something about the number was bothering him, and he took another look.

It wasn’t so much a number as a string of zeros and two letters. He doubted it was coming from a phone. Maybe an IP address? Or an e-mail? One of his fathers’ colleagues had tried to send an e-mail to his phone number and it came out strange.

Deciding to find that old message, Adrien scrolled back through his thread, watching names pass by before something caught his attention.

0000M0000D0000

He pressed it. It was a series of unanswered messages, but Adrien recognized them all. They were reminders he had sent himself: things he had to do before going to bed, homework that was due the next day, people he was supposed to reply to. But he had sent them all from Chat Noir’s baton communicator.

Adrien’s heart was pounding, but the conclusion he was jumping to couldn’t possibly be correct.

“Plagg,” he called out, and the kwami appeared with a wedge of Camembert clutched in his paws. “Can you take a look at this?”

Plagg floated over, and Adrien switched back to the message from 0000M0000C0000.

“Could this be from Ladybug?” he asked, trying to keep his voice light.

Plagg glanced at the screen and shrugged. “You know I don’t understand all of your computer stuff,” he whined.

Adrien fiddled with his phone, trying to decide what to do. He finally gave in to his impulses.

“Plagg, claws out!”

Chat Noir sat on his bed, cross-legged, and took out his baton. He opened the messaging app. There were only six conversations: Ladybug, Queen Bee, Carapace, Rena Rouge, his cell phone, and the one time he tried to message Hawkmoth only to discover that he had deactivated that feature.

He clicked on Ladybug’s. There were a series of important messages about akumas and patrols, jokes, and silly memes usually sent by Chat. He navigated to her contact card.

Her face smiled out at him, information below the photo.

Ladybug Miraculous 0000M0000C0000

Chat stopped breathing.

He held his phone up beside the baton and compared the numbers to make sure they were exactly the same. They were.

He released his transformation with an exhale, his baton disintegrating from his hands. Adrien was left sitting on his bed, phone in one hand and frustrated kwami landing in the other.

“What was that for?” Plagg asked.

Adrien decided it would be best to logically present the data he had accumulated. “I got a message from a strange number, that I now can see is actually Ladybug’s yo-yo. The message was addressed to Adrien, which means that Ladybug knows me as Adrien. It was about coming to my photo shoot, and only Marinette would be sending me a message about a photo shoot.”

Plagg blinked up at him. “So?”

“So,” Adrien echoed, his voice calm and measured, “Marinette is Ladybug.”

They both let that statement sit between them for a moment. Then Adrien started hyperventilating.

“Marinette is Ladybug! How didn’t I notice that before? It’s so obvious! Ladybug is Marinette!” Adrien dumped Plagg unceremoniously onto his bedspread and leapt up, pacing the length of the room.

“So Ladybug sends a text to Adrien, but she thinks that she is Marinette sending a text to Adrien. But she isn’t, she’s actually Ladybug who is also Marinette who is texting Adrien who she doesn’t know is actually Chat Noir and was right next to her at the time.”

Plagg watched him. “Sounds about right.”

Adrien ignored him. “Ladybug isn’t interested in going out with Chat Noir, but Ladybug who is Marinette said that she wants the guy she was texting to think of their plans as a date. And Ladybug was texting Adrien.”

Adrien turned to Plagg, his hands tugging at his hair. “Which means Marinette wants to date Adrien, if I haven’t lost track,” Plagg finished for him.

Having reached the windows, Adrien rested his back against one and slid down to sit on the floor. “Which means Ladybug wants to date Chat Noir,” he said, a smile blooming on his face. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”

Adrien started laughing, and found he couldn’t stop. Now that the shock had worn off and the information was starting to sink in, he felt a little delusional. This couldn’t actually have happened, could it?

Plagg shook his head. “How are you going to tell her?”

Adrien thought about it, and suddenly a grin spread across his face. “This photo shoot is going to be fun.”

[ministraight]

My Journey To Making $100/day On Twitter

I’ve been earning a decent income on Instagram using different methods for close to 4 years now, but as the years go by, Instagram continues to make changes that have continuously made it difficult for small businesses on a budget to make a decent living working on their platform.

 We’ve had to make changes as they do, and have almost always adapted well to the challenges but the   recent follow/unfollow limits   that were enforced sometime around June are just impossible to get around. There once was a time when you could follow more than 1000 users/day on Instagram without encountering any issues.

 Today, the limit for the entire month falls at under 6000 total, which means you can only follow around 180 users/day.

 It can be very scary to watch your source of livelihood gradually dwindle with time.

 So, for the past few weeks, I have been towing with the idea of shifting focus from Instagram to Twitter. Twitter is a lot more lenient than Instagram in terms of the number of actions you’re allowed to take within a certain timeframe.

 Unlike Instagram, they’ve even   made it public   that you can follow up to 400 users/day.

    Why I’m I making my Twitter journey public?   First, I’d like to hold myself accountable. By having to update this post on a continuous basis I will have little room to procrastinate knowing there are people out there following along.

 It is also a good reason to push myself to succeed. I’d hate to have the world witness what a colossal failure this journey turned out to be.

 And lastly, I know there are people out there struggling to make a decent living. By documenting my journey, some will be able to borrow ideas from this and hopefully, I will have helped someone out.

 This is the part I have to remind you to bookmark this post because I really need you to hold me accountable.

 So, what tools do I need for this journey?

  Tools of trade    An  automation tool  for Twitter. I have     Jarvee     for this     Twitter accounts   . I’m starting slow with just a handful of accounts and will gradually add more  A     proxy for each account    . Proxies make accounts less suspicious by giving each a unique IP address   AD network . I picked the adult niche for this journey and will be promoting links from    ADVerten   . There are other equally good ad networks, like   iMonetizeIt  , but I will stick with Adverten unless I find it necessary to switch networks.    The strategy   It’s simple:

 Drive traffic from multiple ‘female’ Twitter accounts to a  SmartLink  given to you by the ad network. The basic concept is, depending on the country from which a Twitter user clicks on your SmartLink, they will be redirected to an adult website where should they register on there, the ad network will add money to your account.

 The amount paid to you per registration will depend on a number of factors among which, the country of residence the registered user lives matters. For instance, you can expect to make more money when a user from either the US or a country from the European Union registers.

 I will be having my Twitter accounts follow, like and message users that are following Twitter accounts of adult female entertainers. I will also target those liking and retweeting posts of these entertainers.

 On the face of it, it might sound like a lot of work but since I will be using an automation tool, once the setup is complete, there will be nothing else to do but to watch the money roll in.

 The initial setup shouldn’t actually take more than an hour.

 I have created a    Telegram group    where you can discuss your own journey with everyone else and get notified on new updates from this post.

 Watch out for the next update.

  Update 22/08/2019    

 The amount in the screenshot shown as  INCOME  was not made on this journey. It’s what was left over when I did this with Instagram accounts that later got deleted.

 What I’ve done so far:

  Collected about 50 Twitter usernames of female adult entertainers. I’ve added these usernames as  follow sources  in Jarvee (I obviously need to add more usernames).  Created and profiled 2 Twitter accounts. They’re already set up on Jarvee and have started following slowly.  Ordered 10 Twitter accounts from a source that sells them. As soon as I receive them I’ll get them set up on Jarvee.   It’s now a waiting game.

 I need to have about 20 Twitter accounts running on this tool before I can start optimizing for better conversions.

 See you in the next update!

  Update 25/08/2019   The 10 Twitter accounts that I ordered took quite some time to arrive, so I wasn’t able to get things moving quickly enough. Nonetheless, I received them yesterday and started warming them up by having them perform a few activities.

 On the positive side, we’ve just had our first conversion (2 leads)!

   This week, my plan is to order and set up at least 30 more Twitter accounts.

 Look out for the next update!

  Update 11/09/2019   I added 20 more accounts to my Jarvee campaigns and was playing around with Jarvee’s settings trying to optimize the activities of my Twitter accounts. My settings turned out to be a little aggressive and I lost 6 accounts before I slowed them down a bit.

   I also noticed that my conversions on Adverten weren’t exactly close to what I was aiming for, and so as soon as I hit the payment threshhold I switched to iMonetizeIt.

   So while my conversions on iMonetizeIt aren’t perfect yet, I have to admit that I’m very pleased with the way things have begun taking shape. The day is still young and expecting a few more conversions before the end of the day.

 From now moving forward, the only thing I will be doing to scale up this campaign is to add more accounts and watch the money roll in.

  What I have done next    Upgraded my copy of Jarvee to accommodate 150 social media accounts    Placed an order for 70 Twitter accounts    Bought 50 proxies and added them to Jarvee while I wait to receive the accounts I ordered.   Look out for the next update.

  Update 17/09/2019    

 On the 12th of September, my automation tool had closed and it took almost 2 days before I discovered it and restarted it. I’ve been a little busy with my other online ventures and haven’t been able to do much for this journey, but I’m pleased that the earnings are improving gradually. It’s about 10 AM here and we’re sitting at $4.76 so far.

 Oops… I think I wrote too quickly. There’s been an update in the last 30 seconds.   The balance hasn’t even updated   …

   I should be able to cross $20/day before the end of this week.

   This is all on autopilot!   So you can go about your day doing other things while your money here grows.

 Look out for the next update!

  Update 18/09/2019   I was hopeful that yesterday would end better than the previous day but that didn’t happen. Still, it didn’t end too bad and the earning closed at $13.14. I haven’t touched my settings yet but I’m looking at what could be improved before Friday the 20th. This far my automation on   Jarvee   is running well without a hitch.

   I’m glad that I shared this journey publicly because some people have reached out to me for help with their own journeys and in some of these discussions one guy who’s currently doing really well with this method mentioned the CPA network    Crakrevenue   . Apparently, their offers convert way better than those on other networks.

 I’ll continue to promote on iMonetizeIt until Friday and will switch over to Crakrevenue on Saturday.

 It’s 9 AM here so we still have the rest of the day to look forward to but here are the results so far …

   Until next time!

  Update 21/10/2019   There hasn’t been much lately to write an update about. I decided to switch back to Adverten and did so for the whole of last week and it looks like there some notable improvements.

 The plan now moving forward is to create my own Twitter accounts and add them to my automation system. The quality of Twitter accounts I have been buying is really not that good. In most cases, you’ll find that  the text used in the bio does not make sense and the accounts look utterly fake .

 So, for this reason, I will be creating my own accounts.

 Here’s how last week went on Adverten:

   Remember, this is all on autopilot and I did have to do anything.

 If you’d like to create a similar system for yourself you can join our   CPA Telegram group   where you’re to ask questions and get answers.

 Until next time!

https://socialtipster.co/make-money-twitter-journey/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=make-money-twitter-journey

#entrepreneurship #smm #smallbusiness #graphicdesign #seo

[perkdistrict]

My Journey To Making $100/day On Twitter

I’ve been earning a decent income on Instagram using different methods for close to 4 years now, but as the years go by, Instagram continues to make changes that have continuously made it difficult for small businesses on a budget to make a decent living working on their platform.

 We’ve had to make changes as they do, and have almost always adapted well to the challenges but the   recent follow/unfollow limits   that were enforced sometime around June are just impossible to get around. There once was a time when you could follow more than 1000 users/day on Instagram without encountering any issues.

 Today, the limit for the entire month falls at under 6000 total, which means you can only follow around 180 users/day.

 It can be very scary to watch your source of livelihood gradually dwindle with time.

 So, for the past few weeks, I have been towing with the idea of shifting focus from Instagram to Twitter. Twitter is a lot more lenient than Instagram in terms of the number of actions you’re allowed to take within a certain timeframe.

 Unlike Instagram, they’ve even   made it public   that you can follow up to 400 users/day.

    Why I’m I making my Twitter journey public?   First, I’d like to hold myself accountable. By having to update this post on a continuous basis I will have little room to procrastinate knowing there are people out there following along.

 It is also a good reason to push myself to succeed. I’d hate to have the world witness what a colossal failure this journey turned out to be.

 And lastly, I know there are people out there struggling to make a decent living. By documenting my journey, some will be able to borrow ideas from this and hopefully, I will have helped someone out.

 This is the part I have to remind you to bookmark this post because I really need you to hold me accountable.

 So, what tools do I need for this journey?

  Tools of trade    An  automation tool  for Twitter. I have     Jarvee     for this     Twitter accounts   . I’m starting slow with just a handful of accounts and will gradually add more  A     proxy for each account    . Proxies make accounts less suspicious by giving each a unique IP address   AD network . I picked the adult niche for this journey and will be promoting links from    ADVerten   . There are other equally good ad networks, like   iMonetizeIt  , but I will stick with Adverten unless I find it necessary to switch networks.    The strategy   It’s simple:

 Drive traffic from multiple ‘female’ Twitter accounts to a  SmartLink  given to you by the ad network. The basic concept is, depending on the country from which a Twitter user clicks on your SmartLink, they will be redirected to an adult website where should they register on there, the ad network will add money to your account.

 The amount paid to you per registration will depend on a number of factors among which, the country of residence the registered user lives matters. For instance, you can expect to make more money when a user from either the US or a country from the European Union registers.

 I will be having my Twitter accounts follow, like and message users that are following Twitter accounts of adult female entertainers. I will also target those liking and retweeting posts of these entertainers.

 On the face of it, it might sound like a lot of work but since I will be using an automation tool, once the setup is complete, there will be nothing else to do but to watch the money roll in.

 The initial setup shouldn’t actually take more than an hour.

 I have created a    Telegram group    where you can discuss your own journey with everyone else and get notified on new updates from this post.

 Watch out for the next update.

  Update 22/08/2019    

 The amount in the screenshot shown as  INCOME  was not made on this journey. It’s what was left over when I did this with Instagram accounts that later got deleted.

 What I’ve done so far:

  Collected about 50 Twitter usernames of female adult entertainers. I’ve added these usernames as  follow sources  in Jarvee (I obviously need to add more usernames).  Created and profiled 2 Twitter accounts. They’re already set up on Jarvee and have started following slowly.  Ordered 10 Twitter accounts from a source that sells them. As soon as I receive them I’ll get them set up on Jarvee.   It’s now a waiting game.

 I need to have about 20 Twitter accounts running on this tool before I can start optimizing for better conversions.

 See you in the next update!

  Update 25/08/2019   The 10 Twitter accounts that I ordered took quite some time to arrive, so I wasn’t able to get things moving quickly enough. Nonetheless, I received them yesterday and started warming them up by having them perform a few activities.

 On the positive side, we’ve just had our first conversion (2 leads)!

   This week, my plan is to order and set up at least 30 more Twitter accounts.

 Look out for the next update!

  Update 11/09/2019   I added 20 more accounts to my Jarvee campaigns and was playing around with Jarvee’s settings trying to optimize the activities of my Twitter accounts. My settings turned out to be a little aggressive and I lost 6 accounts before I slowed them down a bit.

   I also noticed that my conversions on Adverten weren’t exactly close to what I was aiming for, and so as soon as I hit the payment threshhold I switched to iMonetizeIt.

   So while my conversions on iMonetizeIt aren’t perfect yet, I have to admit that I’m very pleased with the way things have begun taking shape. The day is still young and expecting a few more conversions before the end of the day.

 From now moving forward, the only thing I will be doing to scale up this campaign is to add more accounts and watch the money roll in.

  What I have done next    Upgraded my copy of Jarvee to accommodate 150 social media accounts    Placed an order for 70 Twitter accounts    Bought 50 proxies and added them to Jarvee while I wait to receive the accounts I ordered.   Look out for the next update.

  Update 17/09/2019    

 On the 12th of September, my automation tool had closed and it took almost 2 days before I discovered it and restarted it. I’ve been a little busy with my other online ventures and haven’t been able to do much for this journey, but I’m pleased that the earnings are improving gradually. It’s about 10 AM here and we’re sitting at $4.76 so far.

 Oops… I think I wrote too quickly. There’s been an update in the last 30 seconds.   The balance hasn’t even updated   …

   I should be able to cross $20/day before the end of this week.

   This is all on autopilot!   So you can go about your day doing other things while your money here grows.

 Look out for the next update!

  Update 18/09/2019   I was hopeful that yesterday would end better than the previous day but that didn’t happen. Still, it didn’t end too bad and the earning closed at $13.14. I haven’t touched my settings yet but I’m looking at what could be improved before Friday the 20th. This far my automation on   Jarvee   is running well without a hitch.

   I’m glad that I shared this journey publicly because some people have reached out to me for help with their own journeys and in some of these discussions one guy who’s currently doing really well with this method mentioned the CPA network    Crakrevenue   . Apparently, their offers convert way better than those on other networks.

 I’ll continue to promote on iMonetizeIt until Friday and will switch over to Crakrevenue on Saturday.

 It’s 9 AM here so we still have the rest of the day to look forward to but here are the results so far …

   Until next time!

  Update 21/10/2019   There hasn’t been much lately to write an update about. I decided to switch back to Adverten and did so for the whole of last week and it looks like there some notable improvements.

 The plan now moving forward is to create my own Twitter accounts and add them to my automation system. The quality of Twitter accounts I have been buying is really not that good. In most cases, you’ll find that  the text used in the bio does not make sense and the accounts look utterly fake .

 So, for this reason, I will be creating my own accounts.

 Here’s how last week went on Adverten:

   Remember, this is all on autopilot and I did have to do anything.

 If you’d like to create a similar system for yourself you can join our   CPA Telegram group   where you’re to ask questions and get answers.

 Until next time!

https://socialtipster.co/make-money-twitter-journey/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=make-money-twitter-journey

#smm #entrepreneurship #startup #Pinterest #seo #LinkedIn #entrepreneur

[cs0127]

A detailed review of the OnePlus 7T from :wired:

I TEST A lot of phones here at WIRED. Smartphones incrementally change each year, and they’ve become more of an essential utility and less of a source of the tech world’s greatest innovations. I often appreciate their new features, but few of those enhancements spark actual joy. The OnePlus 7T, however, has done just that. Putting down the glossy, fingerprint-plastered Galaxy Note10 to review the matte glass 7T was both a relief and a reminder why OnePlus has continued to gain popularity as a smartphone brand year after year.

Like the company's previous devices, the 7T is a phone that showcases much of the best smartphone tech introduced in 2019 at a $600 price—more than $100 cheaper than many top rivals from Samsung, LG, and other manufacturers. What I’ve come to appreciate more is how it uses all that latest tech to enhance my life, often by getting out of my way. Its touch interface is simple and looks just like the brand new Google Android 10 OS it runs on, only a little easier to navigate. It’s just more pleasant, like a PB&J sandwich where mom cut the crust off just because she loves you.

Smooth and Frosty

If you’ve seen an expensive smartphone in the last two years, you know what the 7T looks and feels like, but I’ll describe it anyway. It has a 6.5-inch AMOLED display (that means deeper blacks and richer colors) that takes up its entire front. A teenie teardrop cutout hanging from the top of the screen holds a 16-megapixel selfie camera.

Like the similar and more expensive OnePlus 7 Pro, this display has a 90 Hz refresh rate, which makes the entire interface noticeably smoother. OnePlus calls it a Fluid AMOLED display, and it may live up to that name. Phones have been bumping up the resolution (this one has a 1080p HD screen), but the bump in refresh rate is more noticeable. Everything feels smoother and faster, with richer color than many displays.

The power and volume buttons are in all the right places, and OnePlus has kept its sound/mute/vibrate switch on the right side. It’s a dead-simple little toggle and worth every millimeter of its cutout, letting you easily silence your phone or perk it up anytime.

OnePlus was one of the first companies to introduce an in-display fingerprint sensor, and the latest iteration on this phone is faster than ever. I’ve had trouble with Samsung's on-screen sensors in the Galaxy S10 and Note10, but the optical fingerprint reader in the 7T does the trick in a way that’s more convenient than the fingerprint sensors on the back of many phones like the Google Pixel 3A.

The phone's frame is metal, and the back is covered in shimmering Gorilla Glass because ... well ... trends. It’s silly that the back is made of glass at all, given that we probably drop our phones more than anything besides our keys, and there's no big advantage to the glass here since the 7T doesn’t have wireless charging. But the “glacier blue” color certainly is sleek, and the frosted texture repels fingerprints better than some phones. OnePlus thankfully includes a clear case in the box. I suggest you slip it on.

All Spec’d Out

Between all that glass is a list of luxury technical specs. The 7T runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ processor, which is half a tad speedier than the 855 on some earlier phones this year. It also comes with 8 gigabytes of RAM, and 128 GB of storage. (Sorry, no MicroSD slot; that’s all you get.) These are all fantastic numbers, as are the numbers you’ll see from benchmark performance tests. It’s a powerful phone, right up there with the best.

OnePlus doesn’t make a lot of changes to Android 10, but the changes it does make seem to (mostly) improve the phone's performance. You can more easily swipe up or down from anywhere on the homescreen to access the notification shade or pull up your entire list of apps. I also like the gesture controls that mimic recent iPhones, and the option to turn the back button into a swipe from the left side of the phone has worked well for me. Your mileage may vary, but you can disable these gestures controls and go back to a traditional back-button setup if you like.

The fact that the 7T even has the latest Google OS is a testament to the company’s focus on delivering software and security updates. It promises two years of updates for buyers of the 7T, and has demonstrated a positive track record on updates for older phones. This is notable—despite costing close to $1,000, most Android phones outside of Google’s Pixel line and Motorola's handsets do not get regular software updates, leaving security vulnerabilities exposed and new features out of reach.

With stereo speakers and a gaming mode that optimizes graphics (and can also restrict notifications and calls so you can play without interruption), this is an ideal machine for playing Mario Kart Tour, or any other high-end title, until your eyeballs fall out. Netflix looks lovely, as well.

I’ve ended most days having spent four or five hours with the screen active, and seen about 50 percent battery remaining. A few nights, it’s been closer to 30 to 40 percent, if I stay up late. This is good, but somewhat normal battery life. If you want to improve your power efficiency, you can turn the 90 Hz refresh rate down to a more normal 60 Hz. In a pinch, the included charger is very quick. It can juice the 7T up significantly in a half hour.

Sadly, like many high-end phones, there’s no audio jack (and no adapter in the box), but OnePlus sells an adapter for $13. And this phone also isn’t IP-rated for water resistance. OnePlus claims it will handle some rain pretty well, but you won’t want to drop it in the tub.

Ready to Zoom

When it comes to smartphones, you ain’t cool unless you have three rear cameras these days, and OnePlus always wants to be cool. Like the 7 Pro, it has a 48-megapixel standard rear shooter that outputs extra sharp 12-megapixel images, a 16-megapixel sensor beneath an ultrawide lens, and a 12-megapixel telephoto. This lets you take shots that you can both zoom out a bit, and zoom in to 2X. There’s also a portrait mode, which adds a bokeh effect, the shallow depth-of-field trick that keeps the subject in focus but blurs the background in a close-up photo.

I had a great time shooting plenty of outdoor shots around Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the past week, and I've even enjoyed the extra stability of the Super Stable video mode, which uses the wide angle lens to better stabilize 1080p video; 4K 30 fps video is also available. Everything looks good, especially shots in the Nightscape mode. Like the new iPhone 11 and the latest Pixel phones, the 7T enhances night shots, adding more light, color and detail to areas that would have just appeared as black splotches on older phones. Night shots require a steady hand and a second or two wait, but they are a definite improvement.

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In some of the above shots, you can see some examples of Nightscape mode and Super Macro mode. If you press the flower icon in the upper left side of the camera app, you can move in closer to small objects and still see them stay in focus. The effect isn’t perfect, but I was able to get closer to some plants and ants than I ever have before using a smartphone. It’s a blast to play around with modes like these, and they solidify the OnePlus 7T as a phone for shutterbugs.

Plus One

OnePlus isn’t tampering with the formula that got it to the dance, and that’s good. The 7T is one of the most powerful phones you can buy, and it costs hundreds less than its peers. It also runs on all four major US carriers, and T-Mobile sells it directly.

I've recommended the Pixel 3A ($400) as the best phone to buy for a few months now, and given the performance it offers for the price, for many of you it still is the best phone. But if you are willing to spend an extra $200, the OnePlus 7T will give you a taste of the luxuries you’d otherwise miss out on.

Correction: I referred to the display as a "Liquid" display. OnePlus calls it a "Fluid" display.

you can check out all Amazon has to offer in the One Plus lineup at:(https://amzn.to/35H33nU)

[professorprophetess]

Lost in Adaptation

Though there have been successful game based movies before, like Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, that was about a fictional game coming to life. It worked for a different set of reasons and they all had to do with the concept of half-real Juul talks about in the book of the same name(Juul 121-162). That begs the question, can real games get proper adaptations into film without having their attempts fall flat. The short history of video game movies does not really suggest that this is usually possible. Yet even then exceptions can exist. For the sake of simplicity I will be sticking to movies produced by the West AKA Hollywood that are not animated that feature real game properties being adapted into films. To get the greatest breadth of the attempts to adapt games into movies I’ll pick one per decade since the very first live action adaptation of a video game came out in 1993. That movie is one that I’ve often chosen to pretend doesn’t exist as it was a very disappointing childhood memory: Super Mario Bros. Next I’l jump ahead to the 00’s with 2008’s Doom. Finally, I’ll look at the recent game based movie Pokémon: Detective Pikachu. Where did the previous two movies from prior two decades go wrong where Pokémon: Detective Pikachu got things right is the question I seek to answer by analyzing these games based films from those decades. Please note, I will not be counting any movies made by Uwe Boll amongst adaptations that got things wrong as I am lead to believe he does not care about how far off track he takes his films and it would appear as if he does it on purpose. Therefore, all films he makes are anomalies and should not be counted.

First, the movie that started it all. Super Mario Brothers was a very big deal in the early ’90’s. As a child of that decade, I know first hand how ascendant Mario and Luigi were. My older siblings and cousins all clamored to play as much Super Mario Brothers games on their NESes as they could. Naturally, a movie based on their beloved game was going to be awe inspiring.Oh, it was but for all the wrong reasons. To be fair to Hollywood, games are hard to adapt into a movie because of that half-real element many games have to them, especially story light platforming games of the NES era. However, that still doesn’t fully explain how they went from a fantasy romp where the hero—an everyman Italian plumber— rescuing the princess from a monster into gritty sci-fi dystopia, extra emphasis on the gritty. The set design, cinematography, plot choices, and direction are all bizarre when one takes a step back to just look at it. For instance, their redesign of the iconic Bowser into a man with weird hair. Because of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film coming out three years prior, the ability to have made a puppet suit for someone to wear to bring Bowser to life in all his dragon-turtle glory existed. Yet, for some reason, instead of respecting the intellectual property, whomever had purchased the rights handed the project off to writers who clearly were so embarrassed to be adapting a video game that they didn’t bother actually adapting it. As a small child, all I’d cared about was that they’d made Yoshi look weird and the goomba’s looked wrong. Now that I’m older, I’m more perplexed by why they’d choose to go so far a field. Their idea had no business being grafted into the Super Mario Brothers’ universe. In fact, had they not been supposed to be adapting Super Mario Brothers, their idea would have been fun for a Sci-fi B-Movie. Instead they just went so far off to the side that it left a shadow that kept Nintendo from allowing anyone to make movies from their IPs. The actors did what they could but a bad script and bad direction cannot be overcome by anyone. (Super Mario Bros)

The shadow wasn’t just cast by Super Mario Bros but other movies kept the belief that video game movies just would not work alive. Thus we get to Doom. I was far too young to play Doom at its initial height of popularity but I knew what it was. So by 2005, after strings of other not-so-good-to-so-campy-its-fun video game adaptations, it was Doom’s turn. The trailers looks promising. Then what happened was a clumsily cobbled together film that used elements of Doom’s barely there plot, as well as plot threads from Alien and other space horror flicks to produce a B-movie that bears next-to-no resemblance to Doomat all. There’s an instance where the movie switches to first person POV like the game, and the human antagonist has become and alien creature called a “pinky” which is a demon from Doom, but ultimately being PG-13 could not deliver on the gore factor needed to fully capture what it was that Doom was: a bloody maze of gore and violence. In this case, it was likely based on the fact it was Doom that they thought adapting it was a good idea, but in their fumbled and neutered execution they made a so-so space horror that almost utterly fails as an adequate adaptation of the game of the same name’s fame it had tried to cash in on. Again, the set design is questionable as it is set largely on a space ship instead of in a maze of tunnels through Hell, and the tame levels of violence are not reflective of the core part of Doom’s appeal at all. The acting was decent enough, but otherwise the story direction and direction in general are suspect. 2005’s Doom failed because it did not try to be the by proxy gore fest that its source material was and without that gore, the classic Doom doesn’t have enough of an identity to fall back upon (Doom).

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu: A film I’d initially thought would also fail. One reason was because I thought the game it was based on was a silly idea when it came out, but also because it had become an almost accepted maxim that all video game based movies would continue to be awful because when it comes to gaming that Half-real effect I mentioned that Juul wrote about makes it hard to fully adapt a game because we, the players are not just passive watchers but active participants with game play, meaning what we do is projected into what happens so even with highly story based games, like a Final Fantasy title, no two people are going to have the exact same gameplay experience (Juul 121-62). Yet, those games have a higher chance of being adaptable.  Those games prior to Pokémon: Detective Pikachu that most consider to be meh-to-passable all tended to be those based on games that tended to have far more of a narrative world to them than something like Doom or Super Mario Bros which were adapted from a story light FPS and story extra-light platformer. In the case of Pokémon: Detective Pikachu versus the series it spun-off from, until Generation V, there really wasn’t much to the story to speak of, and though it’s still not central to the main games, it’s stepped up to keep with what Generation V did. Pokémon: Detective Pikachu is a point and click adventure the is full of story and characterization that is not dependent wholly on the player, making its world and story far more adaptable into film format. A second thing the makers of Pokémon Detective Pikachu got right was they kept the aesthetics of the Pokémon world whenever they were designing the set design. They only deviated as such to make sure that these things looked coherent and real in that sense but it still reflected the worlds the games had presented. The pokémon were also a huge factor. They had to be redesigned to fit with the humans in the movie, but those redesigns were made with respect to how these creatures would look were they actually real creatures, keeping the uncanny valley at bay. Also, in a start contrast to the Super Mario Bros movie, this world was not only vibrant but it was a live and full the the fantastical creatures people expect to see in a world full of pokémon. Which is to say, we expect to see pokémon and they fulfilled that and then some. The plot is nothing extravagant or especially complex, but it was fun, it had genuine moments of heart and it fit in perfectly with the insanity that can happen within the pokémon universe. It felt like it and the games took place in the same world (Pokémon: Detective Pikachu).

Doom and Super Mario Bros on their own are not actually purely awful films. Doom fits right in with a lot of passable sci-fi horror trying to be Alien—and failing— whereas Super Mario Bros is more like an 80’s sci-fi B-flick that is trying to be cool—and also failing. However, the problem is these movies do not exist on their own, they were in fact adaptations of other intellectual properties that their makers did not respect enough to properly adapt to the silver screen. Whereas the Pokémon: Detective Pikachu film had nothing but respect for the game franchise it was representing into a live-action/CGI hybrid. Pokémon Detective Pikachu fits into the Pokémon World. It feels like it belongs there, and these events could be in that same universe. That, ultimately, is where the other two films failed horribly. Both films, so caught up in trying to be appealing to everyone, lost their identities to the point that they no longer fit in the worlds they were supposed to be adapting.

Works Cited

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu. Directed by Rob Letterman. Performances by Ryan Reynolds, Justice Smith, and Kathryn Newton. Legendary Entertainment, 2019.

Doom. Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak. Performances by Karl Urban,Dwayne Johnson, Rosamund Pike. Universal Pictures, 2005.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Directed by Jake Kasdan, performances by  Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart , and Jack Black, Sony Pictures, 2017.

Juul, Jesper. Half-Real. MIT Press, 2005. pg 121-162.

Super Mario Bros. Directed by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton. Performances by  Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper. Allied Filmmakers, 1993.

[razzleryan]

Top 10 Most Wanted Newcomers and Echo Fighters

NiI’d like to start this post by saying this is all my own personal opinion. I respect all feedback, be it positive or negative, so feel free to message me anytime! Fair warning, there’s a lot of characters I’m not familiar with, so please go easy on me!  I’ll present my #10 echo fighter and then my #10 newcomer until we reach number one, each with a paragraph describing why I want them. Let’s start with...

ECHO #10 - KEN (Street Fighter) (Echo of RYU)

I haven’t played a lot of Street Fighter, but I do know that Ken is a fan favorite of the series. I can’t see any third party characters getting a unique rep (RIP Chun-Li) so the best thing would be a Ryu echo fighter. The only person who I feel deserves that role is Ken. As stated before, I’m a novice to Street Fighter so I can’t name any differences between the two, but Smash Bros. would be a fantastic way for me to see these differences.

NEWCOMER #10 - RAYMAN (Rayman)

Remember when Artsy Omni made that fake leak of Rayman in SM4SH? I was one of the many people who thought it looked too real to be fake. Nearly everything about the leak looked real, and the fact that there was a Rayman trophy in the game only lead me to believe it further. With his detached limbs, I could see Rayman having one of the longer grabs in the game, with his hands and legs flying far from his body to deal some damage. 

ECHO #9 - FUNKY KONG (Donkey Kong Country) (Echo of DONKEY KONG)

I’ve been playing a lot of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and with the Switch port adding a fifth playable character in the form of Funky Kong (only in Funky Mode), he’s gaining a new following that he hasn’t had before. Rather than rolling in his dash attack like Donkey Kong, Funky could ride his Surfboard. If not a dash attack, it could work similar to Wario’s bike where it will disappear for a bit if it’s destroyed. His recovery could involve him surfing upwards, too!

NEWCOMER #9 - REX AND PYRA (Xenoblade Chronicles)

I haven’t gotten around to beating Xenoblade Chronciles 2 yet, but I really like the dynamic between these two. I don’t have much to say about them, they’d probably function semi-similar to Shulk but not close enough to be an echo fighter. Rather than giving Rex alternate costumes, each costume could be a different sword rather than Pyra.

ECHO #8 - IMPA (The Legend of Zelda) (Echo of SHEIK)

Using her Hyrule Warriors appearance, obviously. She’d play as a fast moving just low damaging attacker like Sheik, but I could see her dash attack and other moves using her sword like she does in Hyrule Warriors. 

NEWCOMER #8 - SPRINGMAN (ARMS)

So I’ve heard that Sakurai is primarily drawing from the Smash Ballot back in SM4SH, which means we may not being seeing any ARMS characters in the base roster. The game may have been underwhelming, but Nintendo rarely releases new major IPs, so bringing in a character from ARMS may help with sales. As Springman is the primary posterboy, he would fit best into the roster. Similar to Rayman, he’d have long range due to his spring-like arms.

ECHO #7 - NINTEN (Earthbound) (Echo of NESS)

I know absolutely nothing about this character because the only Earthbound/Mother game I’ve played was Mother 3, but I’d love to see another representative of the series. Seeing as Ness and Lucas were the protagonists of Earthbound 2 and Mother 3, I see no reason to not include the protagonist of the first game in the series.

NEWCOMER #7 - DECIDUEYE (Pokémon)

I’m going to be quaint. I don’t want Incineroar to be our Gen. 7 rep. It may be easier to implement than an owl with a bow and arrow, but we already have Greninja to represent a water starter and we have/had Charizard to represent a fire starter, so I would much rather have our first grass starter in the form of the unique Decidueye. He’d have a fantastic recovery due to his being an owl, but his kit would be primarily ranged based. You could take a lot of his movement from his Pokkén Tournament incarnation.

ECHO #6 - ISABELLE (Animal Crossing) (Echo of VILLAGER)

Isabelle’s assist trophy has not (at the time of making this) been reconfirmed, so I believe there’s a strong possibility that she’ll make it as our second Animal Crossing representative. She’s quickly become one of the most popular characters of the series and with her very expressive faces, I’m sure Sakurai can make her into one of the cutest characters we have.

NEWCOMER #6 - FAWFUL (Super Mario)

Nintendo seems to have forgotten about the Mario & Luigi franchise, which saddens me because they were my favorite games. Fawful is an important character in Superstar Saga, Partners in Time, and Bowser’s Inside Story, even being the main antagonist in the third. He could be a very unique fighter, using his head-jetpack-thing for his recovery and his final smash could be the Dark Star Core.

ECHO #5 - VIRIDI or MEDUSA (Kid Icarus) (Echo of PALUTENA)

Viridi is a fan favorite who could echo Palutena, but rather than using general light magic, Viridi could focus on more nature-based magic. Another echo of Palutena could be Medusa. I’m not quite sure what a moveset for her would be like, but more villains is a must.

NEWCOMER #5 - SKULL KID (The Legend of Zelda)

Apparently there’s a lot of people who believe Skull Kid is confirmed already? I don’t know if I’d go that far, though I admit the proof is very believable. I don’t know what a potential moveset for Skull Kid could be, and his final smash probably wouldn’t be the Moon, as it’s an assist trophy now. But who knows, maybe it’s possible?

ECHO #4 - SHADOW (Sonic the Hedgehog) (Echo of SONIC)

Shadow just makes sense to me. We know third party characters are open to echo fighters, and Chrom showed us that “echo” doesn’t mean “exact copy”. Shadow could echo Sonic but keep his unique dark and edgy attitude. He could be a stronger but slower Sonic who skates on his shoes and uses the power of the Chaos Emeralds for his attacks, with Chaos Control and other emerald-based powers. No guns though.

NEWCOMER #4 - PAPER MARIO (Super Mario)

With five games to take from, the Paper Mario RPG series is a classic and loveable series to Nintendo fans. While the recent games have failed to live up to what The Thousand-Year Door built, the series still has a strong following. He could use jump based moves and his hammer would be an integral part of his moveset. Various partners from the series, like Goombella, could also be part of his moveset.

ECHO #3 - OCTOLING (Splatoon) (Echo of INKLING)

Now that we know that not all Octoling are evil, this may be their chance to make it into the lime light as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. The major problem I see with the Octoling is how to differentiate between their ink and the Inkling’s ink. Plus I just really want an Octoling amiibo.

NEWCOMER #3 - MONSTER HUNTER (Monster Hunter)

I have never played any Monster Hunter games and to be honest they just aren’t my cup of tea, but since Rathalos is in the game as both a boss and an assist trophy, I’d be kind of upset if we didn’t get a hunter as a character.

ECHO #2 - DIXIE KONG (Donkey Kong Country) (Echo of DIDDY KONG)

Another fan favorite character that I’m honestly surprised hasn’t made it yet. Her hair could whip forward like Shantae’s does in the Shantae games, and it could also be used as her recovery, working the same as Donkey Kong’s, low height but long distance. 

NEWCOMER #2 - GENO (Super Mario)

I haven’t played Super Mario RPG personally, but I’ve seen my friend play a bit of it and I know how popular Geno is. With his appearance as a Mii Costume in SM4SH, I don’t think it’s unreasonable that Sakurai put him in. It seems like all those who got Mii Costumes have made it in as playable characters (except Ashley, RIP).

HONORABLE MENTIONS  Amaterasu, Banjo-Kazooie, Chibi-Robo, Chorus Kids, Dillon, Elma, Isaac, Leon Kennedy, Lloyd Irving, Marx, Quote, Tetra, and Wonder-Red

ECHO #1 - DARK BOWSER or MIDBUS (Super Mario) (Echo of BOWSER)

Psst, hey. Fun fact. This is actually my most wanted character in the entire list. Even more than my #1 Newcomer. Dark Bowser is the final boss of Bowser’s storyline in Bowser’s Inside Story, happening the same time as the Mario Bros. fight the Dark Star Core. He’s bigger than Bowser and a lot tougher. He breaths blue/purple fire among other powers, and I plan on making a whole separate post dedicated to why I want this character in Smash Bros. For now, I’ll just leave you all with Dark Bowser’s battle music.

NEWCOMER #1 - BANDANA DEE (Kirby)

Bandana (Waddle) Dee has become a stable character of the Kirby franchise, usually being a boss character or a playable character, his popularity rivals that of King Dedede and Meta Knight. He could throw his spear as a neutral attack, and spin it around for his recovery like he does in Star Allies. If you want to see what this looks like in action, I suggest checking out some gameplay of him in Super Smash Flash 2 (Please ignore Goku, he’s never getting in).

[this-is-a-witty-url]

the great reylo fanfiction apocalypse 2018 part 25.4

the moral of the story that i have taken from the great reylo fanfiction apocalypse 2018 part 25 is that i don’t know how some of these kids survive in enc1102 or ap english comp.

their general consensus is that ‘fanfiction shouldn’t be criticized’ and the whole point of literature, no matter what medium it is in, is that it is open for interpretation and through interpretation comes criticism. that means that even if the author ‘does not want criticism, only praise’ for their work, the fact that they have posted their work on a public forum and have enabled comments on their piece automatically means they have opened themselves up to both criticism and praise.

whether they take it amicably and maturely is a whole another ball game. but for this writer here, nah. she’s trash.

moving on~

literally using the ‘rick and morty’ meme as a basis of argument to deflect the problems in a story is just down right fucking h i l a r i o u s.

and while historical, the writer has no idea how interracial marriages work or how racial tensions impacted interracial marriages. so to defend a historically inaccurate trashheap and tell poc that they are absolutely wrong about the way she has approached the sensitive issue is also f u c k i n g hilarious.

there’s nothing in the trash story that even remotely connects to any interracial issues that either character experiences in the story. in fact, the only line that remotely brings up the issue of interracial struggles is some brief one-liner,

faux!Finn and faux!Rey‘s marriage works until faux!Kylo with the Green Eyes decides to torment and sexually assault her repeatedly. When faux!Rey finds out that faux!Finn is having an affair with her friend faux!Roase, she is angry and resentful to both. faux!Finn then leaves faux!Rey for faux!Rose, but not before faux!Kylo with the Green Eyes brutally murders him and rapes faux!Rey.

faux!Rey’s entitlement here is one of the many problems that run rampant in this shitfest. the issue of an interracial marriage is treated so carelessly and the flimsiness of the events leading up to this so called ‘divorce’ in order to get faux!Finn out the picture so faux!Rey can become faux!Kylo with the Green Eyes sex toy is the reason why POCs are pissed off with this story.

not once does evil-shenanigans ever once tackle the race issue or struggle of race in her story. it is not once a driving factor, but suddenly out of the blue, time spent at a bunch of protests and rallies is enough to set them off. and when faux!Finn, a black man, declares that he feels marginalized in his marriage because he feels that his white wife is hiding him of his race, faux!Rey immediately rejects him and declares that in this instance she is right.

it doesn’t matter what he thinks because she sacrificed her little white privileged world to be with a black man.

this is white entitlement. this is the reason why a town in florida in 1920 was burned down to the ground and it’s citizens murdered and lynched. because a white woman suddenly felt affronted by a black man.

now, of course, faux!Rey does not run to faux!Kylo with the Green Eyes and sets up a murder pact. in fact, it’s far more disgusting than that as i described earlier, but the mishandling of the interracial issue is why people are upset and to dare call this historically accurate is a fucking joke.

the rest of the story is just pure snuff trash with faux!rey being physically and sexually assaulted for multiple chapters on end, faux!poe being complicit and faux!hux accompanying faux!Kylo with the Green Eyes on their walmart brand clockwork orange tour of a rape and pillaging (faux!Hux brutally rapes and murders faux!Rose for no other reason).

and don’t get me started on how offensive it is to use mental illness as a deflection for problematic behavior. 

racism is the last fucking problem with this story. the biggest offense to this thing is taking established characters to forcefully twist and deconstruct them into empty husks with the names that happen to be the same as the star wars characters. this is not a fanfiction. it is an original work that is written by someone who is trying to seek validation from a fandom that quite honestly does not need it. darkfic can be written in a way that does not sacrifice the integrity of the source material.

there are a shit ton of novels that focus entirely on psychological and physical harm. a clockwork orange, the hannibal series of books, stephen king’s it (and many others), the handmaid’s tale, to name some. there are also stories that cover the issue of race and sexual abuse such as the color purple, beloved, the joy luck club, etc. not to mention a decade of films just dedicated to vigilantism brought upon by a violent sexual act such as the death wish movie series and shows focused on criminal profiling like netflix’s mindhunter (good show btw do recommend).

so no one is saying that rape and murder and race can not be talked about. it is the way in which it is presented. but there is a point and time where things just go too far. stephen king got a lot of shit for writing a multi-page graphic orgy scene between 11 year old kids in his book, “it”, and it is never included in any film adaptation for a reason. the rapists and murders in most stories are never glorified and usually end up either dying in the end, suffering by the hands of their victim, or put away for good.

but when it comes to fanfiction there’s just lines in the sand that shouldn’t be crossed. star wars is one of those IPs where stories like this just don’t fit. if this was a hannibal fanfic or a mr. robot fanfic or an IP that actually touches upon and has characters with those tendencies, then it makes sense to go this deep and write a story covering those topics. but this trash here is not star wars. it’s not in character. it’s not even remotely trying to even come off as a star wars fanfic.

faux!Kylo with the Green Eyes is not kylo ren of the star wars franchise. he is a made up character from another world that was once named Nikolai Gunther. faux!Rey is a woman named Adel Pathsia. these characters do not represent nor belong in the star war fanfiction universe.

if you wanna know how the story ends, its all right here under her fiction press account. spoiler alert, faux!Kylo with the Green Eyes is going to impregnate faux!Rey in the last chapter.

and apparently they have two kids that are also fucked up and then there’s a third part but i can’t be bothered.

basically, there’s a bunch of white knights defending rape and racism and that’s why there’s so much trash on ao3 and why people like malovent-reveire/evil-shenanigans can get away with literally copying and pasting their original novels by just switching a few names. fanfiction is not original fiction. the two do not belong together. if people wanna write original fiction, then write original fiction but keep chewbaca out of it.

thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[tronicplace]

My Journey To Making $100/day On Twitter

I’ve been earning a decent income on #Instagram using different methods for close to 4 years now, but as the years go by, #Instagram continues to make changes that have continuously made it difficult for small businesses on a budget to make a decent living working on their platform.

 We’ve had to make changes as they do, and have almost always adapted well to the challenges but the   recent follow/unfollow limits   that were enforced sometime around June are just impossible to get around. There once was a time when you could follow more than 1000 users/day on #Instagram without encountering any issues.

 Today, the limit for the entire month falls at under 6000 total, which means you can only follow around 180 users/day.

 It can be very scary to watch your source of livelihood gradually dwindle with time.

 So, for the past few weeks, I have been towing with the idea of shifting focus from #Instagram to Twitter. Twitter is a lot more lenient than #Instagram in terms of the number of actions you’re allowed to take within a certain timeframe.

 Unlike #Instagram, they’ve even   made it public   that you can follow up to 400 users/day.

    Why I’m I making my Twitter journey public?   First, I’d like to hold myself accountable. By having to update this post on a continuous basis I will have little room to procrastinate knowing there are people out there following along.

 It is also a good reason to push myself to succeed. I’d hate to have the world witness what a colossal failure this journey turned out to be.

 And lastly, I know there are people out there struggling to make a decent living. By documenting my journey, some will be able to borrow ideas from this and hopefully, I will have helped someone out.

 This is the part I have to remind you to bookmark this post because I really need you to hold me accountable.

 So, what tools do I need for this journey?

  Tools of trade    An  automation tool  for Twitter. I have     Jarvee     for this     Twitter accounts   . I’m starting slow with just a handful of accounts and will gradually add more  A     proxy for each account    . Proxies make accounts less suspicious by giving each a unique IP address   AD network . I picked the adult niche for this journey and will be promoting links from    ADVerten   . There are other equally good ad networks, like   iMonetizeIt  , but I will stick with Adverten unless I find it necessary to switch networks.    The strategy   It’s simple:

 Drive traffic from multiple ‘female’ Twitter accounts to a  SmartLink  given to you by the ad network. The basic concept is, depending on the country from which a Twitter user clicks on your SmartLink, they will be redirected to an adult website where should they register on there, the ad network will add money to your account.

 The amount paid to you per registration will depend on a number of factors among which, the country of residence the registered user lives matters. For instance, you can expect to make more money when a user from either the US or a country from the European Union registers.

 I will be having my Twitter accounts follow, like and message users that are following Twitter accounts of adult female entertainers. I will also target those liking and retweeting posts of these entertainers.

 On the face of it, it might sound like a lot of work but since I will be using an automation tool, once the setup is complete, there will be nothing else to do but to watch the money roll in.

 The initial setup shouldn’t actually take more than an hour.

 I have created a    Telegram group    where you can discuss your own journey with everyone else and get notified on new updates from this post.

 Watch out for the next update.

  Update 22/08/2019    

 The amount in the screenshot shown as  INCOME  was not made on this journey. It’s what was left over when I did this with #Instagram accounts that later got deleted.

 What I’ve done so far:

  Collected about 50 Twitter usernames of female adult entertainers. I’ve added these usernames as  follow sources  in Jarvee (I obviously need to add more usernames).  Created and profiled 2 Twitter accounts. They’re already set up on Jarvee and have started following slowly.  Ordered 10 Twitter accounts from a source that sells them. As soon as I receive them I’ll get them set up on Jarvee.   It’s now a waiting game.

 I need to have about 20 Twitter accounts running on this tool before I can start optimizing for better conversions.

 See you in the next update!

  Update 25/08/2019   The 10 Twitter accounts that I ordered took quite some time to arrive, so I wasn’t able to get things moving quickly enough. Nonetheless, I received them yesterday and started warming them up by having them perform a few activities.

 On the positive side, we’ve just had our first conversion (2 leads)!

   This week, my plan is to order and set up at least 30 more Twitter accounts.

 Look out for the next update!

  Update 11/09/2019   I added 20 more accounts to my Jarvee campaigns and was playing around with Jarvee’s settings trying to optimize the activities of my Twitter accounts. My settings turned out to be a little aggressive and I lost 6 accounts before I slowed them down a bit.

   I also noticed that my conversions on Adverten weren’t exactly close to what I was aiming for, and so as soon as I hit the payment threshhold I switched to iMonetizeIt.

   So while my conversions on iMonetizeIt aren’t perfect yet, I have to admit that I’m very pleased with the way things have begun taking shape. The day is still young and expecting a few more conversions before the end of the day.

 From now moving forward, the only thing I will be doing to scale up this campaign is to add more accounts and watch the money roll in.

  What I have done next    Upgraded my copy of Jarvee to accommodate 150 social media accounts    Placed an order for 70 Twitter accounts    Bought 50 proxies and added them to Jarvee while I wait to receive the accounts I ordered.   Look out for the next update.

  Update 17/09/2019    

 On the 12th of September, my automation tool had closed and it took almost 2 days before I discovered it and restarted it. I’ve been a little busy with my other online ventures and haven’t been able to do much for this journey, but I’m pleased that the earnings are improving gradually. It’s about 10 AM here and we’re sitting at $4.76 so far.

 Oops… I think I wrote too quickly. There’s been an update in the last 30 seconds.   The balance hasn’t even updated   …

   I should be able to cross $20/day before the end of this week.

   This is all on autopilot!   So you can go about your day doing other things while your money here grows.

 Look out for the next update!

  Update 18/09/2019   I was hopeful that yesterday would end better than the previous day but that didn’t happen. Still, it didn’t end too bad and the earning closed at $13.14. I haven’t touched my settings yet but I’m looking at what could be improved before Friday the 20th. This far my automation on   Jarvee   is running well without a hitch.

   I’m glad that I shared this journey publicly because some people have reached out to me for help with their own journeys and in some of these discussions one guy who’s currently doing really well with this method mentioned the CPA network    Crakrevenue   . Apparently, their offers convert way better than those on other networks.

 I’ll continue to promote on iMonetizeIt until Friday and will switch over to Crakrevenue on Saturday.

 It’s 9 AM here so we still have the rest of the day to look forward to but here are the results so far …

   Until next time!

  Update 21/10/2019   There hasn’t been much lately to write an update about. I decided to switch back to Adverten and did so for the whole of last week and it looks like there some notable improvements.

 The plan now moving forward is to create my own Twitter accounts and add them to my automation system. The quality of Twitter accounts I have been buying is really not that good. In most cases, you’ll find that  the text used in the bio does not make sense and the accounts look utterly fake .

 So, for this reason, I will be creating my own accounts.

 Here’s how last week went on Adverten:

   Remember, this is all on autopilot and I did have to do anything.

 If you’d like to create a similar system for yourself you can join our   CPA Telegram group   where you’re to ask questions and get answers.

 Until next time!

https://socialtipster.co/make-money-twitter-journey/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=make-money-twitter-journey

[scopehot]

My Journey To Making $100/day On Twitter

I’ve been earning a decent income on #Instagram using different methods for close to 4 years now, but as the years go by, #Instagram continues to make changes that have continuously made it difficult for small businesses on a budget to make a decent living working on their platform.

 We’ve had to make changes as they do, and have almost always adapted well to the challenges but the   recent follow/unfollow limits   that were enforced sometime around June are just impossible to get around. There once was a time when you could follow more than 1000 users/day on #Instagram without encountering any issues.

 Today, the limit for the entire month falls at under 6000 total, which means you can only follow around 180 users/day.

 It can be very scary to watch your source of livelihood gradually dwindle with time.

 So, for the past few weeks, I have been towing with the idea of shifting focus from #Instagram to Twitter. Twitter is a lot more lenient than #Instagram in terms of the number of actions you’re allowed to take within a certain timeframe.

 Unlike #Instagram, they’ve even   made it public   that you can follow up to 400 users/day.

    Why I’m I making my Twitter journey public?   First, I’d like to hold myself accountable. By having to update this post on a continuous basis I will have little room to procrastinate knowing there are people out there following along.

 It is also a good reason to push myself to succeed. I’d hate to have the world witness what a colossal failure this journey turned out to be.

 And lastly, I know there are people out there struggling to make a decent living. By documenting my journey, some will be able to borrow ideas from this and hopefully, I will have helped someone out.

 This is the part I have to remind you to bookmark this post because I really need you to hold me accountable.

 So, what tools do I need for this journey?

  Tools of trade    An  automation tool  for Twitter. I have     Jarvee     for this     Twitter accounts   . I’m starting slow with just a handful of accounts and will gradually add more  A     proxy for each account    . Proxies make accounts less suspicious by giving each a unique IP address   AD network . I picked the adult niche for this journey and will be promoting links from    ADVerten   . There are other equally good ad networks, like   iMonetizeIt  , but I will stick with Adverten unless I find it necessary to switch networks.    The strategy   It’s simple:

 Drive traffic from multiple ‘female’ Twitter accounts to a  SmartLink  given to you by the ad network. The basic concept is, depending on the country from which a Twitter user clicks on your SmartLink, they will be redirected to an adult website where should they register on there, the ad network will add money to your account.

 The amount paid to you per registration will depend on a number of factors among which, the country of residence the registered user lives matters. For instance, you can expect to make more money when a user from either the US or a country from the European Union registers.

 I will be having my Twitter accounts follow, like and message users that are following Twitter accounts of adult female entertainers. I will also target those liking and retweeting posts of these entertainers.

 On the face of it, it might sound like a lot of work but since I will be using an automation tool, once the setup is complete, there will be nothing else to do but to watch the money roll in.

 The initial setup shouldn’t actually take more than an hour.

 I have created a    Telegram group    where you can discuss your own journey with everyone else and get notified on new updates from this post.

 Watch out for the next update.

  Update 22/08/2019    

 The amount in the screenshot shown as  INCOME  was not made on this journey. It’s what was left over when I did this with #Instagram accounts that later got deleted.

 What I’ve done so far:

  Collected about 50 Twitter usernames of female adult entertainers. I’ve added these usernames as  follow sources  in Jarvee (I obviously need to add more usernames).  Created and profiled 2 Twitter accounts. They’re already set up on Jarvee and have started following slowly.  Ordered 10 Twitter accounts from a source that sells them. As soon as I receive them I’ll get them set up on Jarvee.   It’s now a waiting game.

 I need to have about 20 Twitter accounts running on this tool before I can start optimizing for better conversions.

 See you in the next update!

  Update 25/08/2019   The 10 Twitter accounts that I ordered took quite some time to arrive, so I wasn’t able to get things moving quickly enough. Nonetheless, I received them yesterday and started warming them up by having them perform a few activities.

 On the positive side, we’ve just had our first conversion (2 leads)!

   This week, my plan is to order and set up at least 30 more Twitter accounts.

 Look out for the next update!

  Update 11/09/2019   I added 20 more accounts to my Jarvee campaigns and was playing around with Jarvee’s settings trying to optimize the activities of my Twitter accounts. My settings turned out to be a little aggressive and I lost 6 accounts before I slowed them down a bit.

   I also noticed that my conversions on Adverten weren’t exactly close to what I was aiming for, and so as soon as I hit the payment threshhold I switched to iMonetizeIt.

   So while my conversions on iMonetizeIt aren’t perfect yet, I have to admit that I’m very pleased with the way things have begun taking shape. The day is still young and expecting a few more conversions before the end of the day.

 From now moving forward, the only thing I will be doing to scale up this campaign is to add more accounts and watch the money roll in.

  What I have done next    Upgraded my copy of Jarvee to accommodate 150 social media accounts    Placed an order for 70 Twitter accounts    Bought 50 proxies and added them to Jarvee while I wait to receive the accounts I ordered.   Look out for the next update.

  Update 17/09/2019    

 On the 12th of September, my automation tool had closed and it took almost 2 days before I discovered it and restarted it. I’ve been a little busy with my other online ventures and haven’t been able to do much for this journey, but I’m pleased that the earnings are improving gradually. It’s about 10 AM here and we’re sitting at $4.76 so far.

 Oops… I think I wrote too quickly. There’s been an update in the last 30 seconds.   The balance hasn’t even updated   …

   I should be able to cross $20/day before the end of this week.

   This is all on autopilot!   So you can go about your day doing other things while your money here grows.

 Look out for the next update!

  Update 18/09/2019   I was hopeful that yesterday would end better than the previous day but that didn’t happen. Still, it didn’t end too bad and the earning closed at $13.14. I haven’t touched my settings yet but I’m looking at what could be improved before Friday the 20th. This far my automation on   Jarvee   is running well without a hitch.

   I’m glad that I shared this journey publicly because some people have reached out to me for help with their own journeys and in some of these discussions one guy who’s currently doing really well with this method mentioned the CPA network    Crakrevenue   . Apparently, their offers convert way better than those on other networks.

 I’ll continue to promote on iMonetizeIt until Friday and will switch over to Crakrevenue on Saturday.

 It’s 9 AM here so we still have the rest of the day to look forward to but here are the results so far …

   Until next time!

  Update 21/10/2019   There hasn’t been much lately to write an update about. I decided to switch back to Adverten and did so for the whole of last week and it looks like there some notable improvements.

 The plan now moving forward is to create my own Twitter accounts and add them to my automation system. The quality of Twitter accounts I have been buying is really not that good. In most cases, you’ll find that  the text used in the bio does not make sense and the accounts look utterly fake .

 So, for this reason, I will be creating my own accounts.

 Here’s how last week went on Adverten:

   Remember, this is all on autopilot and I did have to do anything.

 If you’d like to create a similar system for yourself you can join our   CPA Telegram group   where you’re to ask questions and get answers.

 Until next time!

https://socialtipster.co/make-money-twitter-journey/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=make-money-twitter-journey