#streams where someone plays their favourite game and rants about how good it is are my FAVOURITE

[struggling-with-time]

How to spiral out of control [Simpbur x reader]

Pairing: c!Wilbur Soot x fem!reader (Simpbur x reader)

Summary: How simpbur became simpbur. And how you grew up and lived with him.

Warnings: Obsession, unhealthy obsession, stalking, murder, drugging, unhealthy relationship, and Simpbur being a creep.

Words: 5K

Masterlist: Wilbur’s Masterlist - Full Masterlist

A/N: Listen I had brainrot. And I don't know how to defend this. (Also requests are still open! Click here!) And it's unedited for now it's 5:12 am here I will edit later today

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Wilbur was a pretty insignificant child. The death of his mother being one of the most interesting things about his childhood. While he claimed not to blame his youngest brother for the loss of his mother. He certainly had a funny way of showing his youngest brother affection.

Wilbur is the middle child of three. A charming but quiet and well accomplished older brother, who seems to never have to end to his dedication neither success. And his youngest brother, a loud ball of sunshine that just seems to make everyone in a good mood. Truly good with people, something Wilbur never seemed to grasp.

His whole childhood tainted by that fact. Always living in the shadow of his brothers, the clear favourites of everyone who came near the family of four.

So his grades was just average, never good enough to get acknowledged, never bad enough to need extra attention. Just average, like the rest of him. He grew up lanky, not athletic neither unable to run. Wilbur was grey in a family of golden people. His father raised them alone for most of Wilbur’s life. His father that despite never saying it out loud had clear favourites in his brothers. It was always, oh and Wilbur too!

Never him, never just him.

So, Wilbur spent most of his childhood lonely, disregarded and weird. A pitiful child. A pathetic child.

The thing is there was one thing, that made Wilbur worth anyone’s time. One person. You.

His childhood best friend.

Well, that’s what anyone who only knew Wilbur would say. Because you were the only friend he had. However, it was different for you, although the two of you were good friends, you wouldn’t call him your best friend for years. That didn’t happen till you became teenagers.

You had always tried your best to include the weird kid in playdates, birthday parties, and playground games. But nobody else seemed to find him worth their time, with his weird and morbid comments. But you persisted that he wasn’t that weird, besides his older brother was really cool.

So, you stick around, you stick around as playdates become hangouts, as dolls become makeup, and homework goes from learning to read to writing essays.

While you had many friends, both come and go and stay, Wilbur had been there for as long as you could remember. A playground proposal documented on home video. And a remake of it on the day of your school dance. You had played along, but it was known to everyone that your childhood friend wanted to be more than friends. But you stayed, smiled for the camera and laughed it off.

Then the school dance was over, and the last exam had been taken. That’s when you moved a country over, and slowly you lost contact with the people you used to call friends, but Wilbur stayed. Wilbur always stayed.

He finally got the spot as the best friend in your mind too. A definite win in his book.

Wilbur had always been odd, a bit to the left of normal. But now, with distance and screens in between you, he only started to act more concerning. This was around the time he started talking about feeling depressed and useless.

Of course, you always told him you didn’t believe that, what else were you supposed to say? Your friendship turning more and more into therapy sessions once a week for Wilbur on your end. While for him it was the highlight of his week.

Clicking the call button beside your profile picture, an anime girl from one he had recommended to you himself. One he had stayed up an entire night to shift through different animes to find the perfect one to send your way. One he was guaranteed you would watch.

“Wilbur, I should really get off.”

“C’mon stay on just a bit later, please.”

The silence deafening over the video call, he watches you intensely as you pull your legs into your chest, your shitty webcam standing beside you on your bed.

Wilbur reached out for the energy drink beside him, a new habit he has picked up. The more hours spent on the computer, the more he seemed to consume.

“Fine, just half an hour more. But then it’s the last half hour.”

Wilbur smiles at that, you choosing him over everything else in the world. He likes that, he likes that a lot. You valuing him. Spending time with him, and only him. Your attention is his.

“We could always fall asleep on call, then we could keep talking.”

“Another day Wilbur, another day.”

That. That sentence he on the other hand didn’t like. Not one bit. A promise never kept. A promise left unspoken and unpromised from your side, but a broken and abandoned promise on his side.

Then there was the wall incident.

Wilbur wouldn’t have told you if it weren’t for you noticing the hole in his wall. One that matched his fist quite neatly. His father had taken his PS4 in punishment for Wilbur using so much the WiFi plan to call you. At least that’s what he told you.

In reality, he had gotten into a fight with his older brother, his brother had asked about you, how you were doing, and if he could say hi during a call. There was something about the words that had irked Wilbur, something that set him off, something about him that made his brother seem dangerous to Wilbur. So, he had decked his older brother in the face. Causing a blackeye to occur.

In return, Wilbur now sported a big black and blue spot from where he hit the floor. His brother having immediately tackled him.

And to Wilbur that had confirmed his thoughts. Other guys are dangerous, he’s the only one you should rely on.

The wall had taken the brunt of his rage that night, a screaming match with his dad that ended with his little brother getting sent to his friends' house, and his PS4 getting confiscated until Wilbur had gotten a job and was able to pay back the damages.

And he did get a job, much to your surprise. But you had encouraged him throughout it all. A dead-end cashier job that only seemed to make his world staler and more bothersome than before.

A time where he searched for every distraction possible, gaming, music, you.

You were proud of him when he got the hole in his wall fixed, and even more when he kept his job. And Wilbur doesn’t remember you ever giving him more praise than the day he told you he was starting to investigate going to university.

Naturally, you helped him, and along the way, Wilbur picked up a guitar. A new asset to his den of depression that his room had become, decked in led lights, and overpriced RGB gaming stuff.

The university acceptance came rather quick, and suddenly Wilbur was packing up his life and heading to university. Boxes filled with stuff he barely remembered owning, and kitchen appliances that would never see the light of the day.

And he can feel you starting to drift, already busy with your own life. But he clings to you.

He stays, Wilbur always stays in your life. Even when you drift.

Wilbur knows it’s affecting him. It’s not hidden from anyone. The longer that goes between the two of you talking, the sourer his mood gets. The longer you don’t respond to him, the more messages he sends. The more information he craves to know.

Who are you talking to?

Who are you seeing?

Who is so much more important than him?

Hadn’t he always been there for you?

Hadn’t he always stayed?

You owe him.

Wilbur grows bitter and resentful. But not to you, never to you. But for everyone around you. His biggest joys in life now coming from the ungodly amount of caffeine he drinks, and whenever you reach out first.

This is why the day you call him asking for help is forever a day that will bring him joy.

“Hey Will, you’re really good with tech, and I was wondering if you wanted to help me start streaming.”

He chokes on the energy drink. He chokes on his words. He chokes on the air. He drowns.

His heart aching. His anger festering. His-

“Sure.”

He hears himself respond before he can even process the thought.

It takes him 2 days of absence from university, and what feels like 2 even longer nights, before he’s an expert on how to stream. He reads everything he can find, he watched everything that gets suggested.

You asked him for help, so he will help.

But Wilbur, spends these hours conflicted. You want his help, not someone else’s, someone lesser than him. Him.

But at the same time. His mind keeps wandering, isn’t he enough any longer? Isn’t he good enough for you? Why isn’t he good enough for you? Why? Why?

And thus, he learns you how to use the software, and beings alongside you. He finds comfort in knowing most of your streams whenever possible is spent with him on a call with you.

Although that happens after hours of pestering, that doesn’t matter. He gets to talk to you, while the rest is limited to a measly chat.

You seem to find yourself comfortably in the gaming category, slowly growing. Slowly rising.

Wilbur’s own streams, on the other hand, feels more like incoherent rants interrupted by his guitar plays. And once in a blue moon, you are on call with him.

It doesn’t take long before he gives up, watching you grow. Finding more comfort in watching you, instead of being the watched. Not that anyone really did watch him besides for you.

Wilbur stays out of a camera, as you only seem to grow more comfortable being in front of one.

The first time you have someone on a call with you on stream, who isn’t Wilbur. He just can’t help but break his bedside lamp. It’s a guy nonetheless. A guy from the internet. The type of guy Wilbur has never been shy to tell you horror stories about.

And this is where another bad habit of his started to emerge. He just can’t help himself. But you’re laughing with someone else. You’re smiling for someone else. You’re his. Not anyone else’s. His. His. His.

Wilbur is quick to find the donating button he had helped you set up himself. At that time it had only been used a couple of times. Nothing big. But Wilbur wants big. He wants attention. He wants you.

He fumbles with his credit card as he keys in the numbers, he’s a bit too familiarised with them. Because anything he can get from the internet will be delivered that way.

And then the notification pops up on your screen. A donation number you had never expected. And you start crying. Right there. Right on stream. And Wilbur sucks it up. He sucks it right up that you’re crying for him, whiling praising him, and only him.

The match you were playing ruined, and Wilburs smile only grows as he hears the familiar tone of discord receiving a call.

That night. You had ditched the fellow streamer to thank Wilbur and hang out with him.

Something you never thought you would regret.

But oh, how you did. How you did.

It takes Wilbur around 2 months to get used to a large sum of money means special attention to him, and only him. For everyone to see.

And he can feel you pulling away, so each time he donates, it’s bigger. Larger. Grander.

He’s never on your stream without a donation anymore. Never on call for free. But Wilbur doesn’t mind, because everyone gets to see you’re his.

And he keeps increasing the amount as you keep growing until he hits a stalemate. He’s using half of his paycheck on you, while he doesn’t mind going hungry a couple of days. His bills won’t wait for him. And he has been living away from home for far too long to ever think about calling up his father and ask for money.

Not to mention his oldest brother would never. Then neither will Wilbur. Because Wilbur is better. Better than all of them.

The larger your stream grows, the closer graduation arrives, and then Wilbur is sitting in another apartment. Another dead-end job. Another grey life.

Another dull life passing him by. Your voice constantly on loop his apartment. Constantly filling his life. As it always has. But to you, Wilbur is barely a part of your everyday. Only really showing up when a donation comes in. As you once again tell him not to spend money on you.

But he seems to stay. Wilbur always stays.

He’s the first to like anything you post on social media. Always online never off. Always lurking. Never missing. Never absent. He’s always there.

Wilbur never misses a stream; he schedules his life around yours. Even if you’re a country away.

And then one day you’re not. You’re not a country away, you’re moving back. You’re moving closer. And suddenly you live an hour away by car. Instead of an airplane ride, and shitty trains.

Suddenly Wilbur can see himself get a foot in the door. No longer grasping onto his parasitic parasocial friendship with you. He can see himself being more than the childhood friend who has always been there. He can see himself as the partner that always is there.

Wilbur is giddy the entire car ride. He’s giddy as he feels his bag burn on his shoulder. And he’s giddy until the second you embrace him in a hug and welcome him into your new apartment.

It’s bigger than the one you’ve had since university.

And then his future crumbles. You start talking about a guy named Jared. Fucking Jared. Why did even his name have to leave a sour taste in his mouth? A guy you met over the internet. Not just any guy. No specifically the fucker from the first time Wilbur had donated.

Apparently, he wasn’t a streamer, but a friend you had made during your 2 years you lived at university but never told Wilbur about. Not a single mention of him, and suddenly he’s all you’re talking about.

How could Wilbur have known? You hadn’t even mentioned him on stream. Wilbur always listened so carefully, writing down everyone you mentioned. You had called him attentive once, and he would never want to disappoint you. Maybe if he was attentive enough you would look his way.

Instead, here you are talking about this Jared guy. And Wilbur knows what he has to do. A thought he has been toying with for around 3 years now. Ever since you went to Disneyland together. A trip he paid for, and a trip that was streamed, so everyone could see you were his. You were always his.

That was easily his favourite video.

In the week up to the vacation, Wilbur had done everything he could to learn about cameras so he could help you, and do the most for you. He had even helped you sort through some of the non-streamed videos he filmed too for a YouTube video for you.

Which is where he found the clip of you changing.

The camera had been resting on your hotel bed, the video having a clear Dutch angle, leaving the hotel room slandered. But there you were, right square and centre still. Changing. It takes you a minute to finish before you turn around and pick the camera up again. Mumbling something as you turn it to show off your hotel room, and then the clip cuts to black.

He never told you about it, instead just saving that specific clip on a USB stick. A piece of tech he valued more than his life. Not that his life had ever been worth much in comparison to his.

Wilbur rips his bag open, careful not to make a lot of noise. He removed his clothes, and then the fake bottom. And underneath it reveals small security cameras.

Wilbur has never been more thankful for you being a heavy sleeper and letting him sleep on a mattress on the floor of your bedroom. He quietly sets up two in your bedroom, before moving into the rest of your house. One in your office that has been converted to a streaming room. His own personal angle to your public life.

Two more in the living room, he skips the kitchen and hesitates at the door of your bathroom. For the first time, he hesitates. His hand hovers over the doorknob, the other holding the camera.

“Wilbur?”

You’re standing in the hallway, sleep evident on your face.

“Will why are you making so much noise?”

“No reason darling, go back to bed, just needed some water.”

His breath is stuck in his throat until he hears you close the bedroom door again.

That was the first time he hesitated. And his last. He couldn’t afford it. He couldn’t afford to lose you further.

The rest of the trip passes Wilbur by as you introduce him to Jared. The douchebag himself. The asshole. The guy who dares take away what is Wilbur’s. Even on the ride home. All Wilbur can see is Jared’s image etched into his mind. His god-awful fashion sense. The way everything, he wore around you, just seemed to be a size too small. Nobody wants to see that fuckers’ muscles. Wilbur’s knuckles turn white, as he grips the steering wheel.

Jared has to go.

He’s ruining everything. He’s not part of the dream you told Wilbur you had. Jared has never been part of that. Wilbur was supposed to be part of that. Even if the dream changed through the year. Even if the one you’re living now is the unimaginable future the two of you imagined up at seventeen. But one thing was sure. Jared wasn’t part of that. Wilbur was.

Wilbur easily finds himself a new normal at home. The trip giving him a refreshed sense of hope. A plan in the making. His daily routine now including watching you all hours of the day. Not just your streams any longer. Every single second he can wrench out of those cameras.

And suddenly his friendship seems to improve with you too. Because now he can see when you’re sad and in need of a friend. He reaches out at the perfect time. Abusing your vulnerable state. Because it’s the best to do. It’s for the betterment of your future.

The more Wilbur is there for you, the more he resents Jared. He deserved to be in your bed, not that asshole. He deserves to reap the rewards of his hard labour. He is the one that has always been there because Wilbur has always stayed.

A simple click is all it takes for Wilbur and the item has been placed in a cart. Mere keystrokes and it has been paid. A single click and Wilbur has truly gone insane, as a packet is shipped off. A packet containing a bottle of sleeping pills.

The next time you invite Wilbur down, you barely recognise him as you open the door. Eyebags so deep you’ve never seen before. His entire body slightly twitching, and that manic smile on his lips. Wilbur brushes your concerns off, claiming that’s just what happens in real workplaces. Not that you would know anything about that.

Wilbur hates the feeling of insulting you, but you had barely responded the entire week. You deserved to suffer for a moment. Before he caves and apologises for being rude. That’s the moment you can see the resembles of his normal being as he hangs his shoulders.

Jared comes over that night. Just as Wilbur had planned. And this time he won’t hesitate. He even bought a bigger car for this.

Wilbur offers to mix the drinks, claiming to have learnt a new recipe. Which isn’t a lie, he has learned how to perfect just the right cocktail thick enough that covers the chalky residue of the pills. And sweet enough to make the bitter taste disappear.

He serves them, keeping a watchful eye as the night drags on, and Jared never seems to shut up. But Wilbur can deal with it for one night. Just for one. And then he won’t ever have to worry about Jared again.

He serves another.

And then another drink.

And finally. Finally. You’re starting to get tired. Slowly leaning against Wilbur. And he takes pride in that. Great pride. You didn’t choose to lean against Jared, you’re leaning against Wilbur.

Wilbur sits still until Jared too is starting to fall asleep. Wilbur is ecstatic.

He gets up slowly, gently laying you down, a pillow underneath your face. A blanket over you. He kisses your forehead and smells your hair. Taking in the shampoo scent still lingering.

Then Wilbur gets moving, he has stuff to do. Plans to execute after all.

He does his best to get Jared’s left arm over his shoulders. But their awkward height difference makes it difficult, but he can make it work. It has to work. He only gets one shot.

Wilbur gets the front door open before he realises a fatal flaw in his plan. He has to drag Jared down 3 floors worth of stairs. He realises he can’t do it the way he is now. He has to drag him down by his armpits instead.

It takes him the first flight of stairs to realise Jared shoes are making too much noise. He has to abandon them, Wilbur awkwardly gets Jared leaned against the wall before he removes Jared’s polished black shoes. Wilbur leaves them there, making a mental note to remember them when he comes back.

The rest of the stairs, while difficult and definitely breathtaking for someone who has no muscle strength. He makes it work. Wilbur actually makes it work.

He made it work. It worked. Oh god. It’s working.

Wilbur repositions Jared once more, his arm once again over Wilbur’s shoulders. The night sky greeting him as he steps out of the apartment complex. With great difficulty, Wilbur gets the two of them over to his car, where he throws open the trunk. In the proceed shaking the car, setting off the car alarm. Wilbur is quick to drop Jared as he fumbles after his car keys. It takes him nearly a full minute to turn off the car alarm.

Wilbur curses under his breath.

Annoyed with the time loss. He finally gets the knocked-out Jared into his trunk, and he shuts it again. Just as a front door in the apartment complex opens. A man steps out. He raises a hand to Wilbur, before pulling out a smoke.

Wilbur shuffles on his feet before raising a hand. And then awkwardly gets into his car.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

He has a body in his trunk. Now he just has to get to the harbour. Wilbur starts the car and starts the ride to the harbour a town over.

Half an hour has gone past when Wilbur is pulling the handbrake, and taking the keys out. He’s quick to get out, and even quicker to get to Jared. Wilbur keeps thinking about you. Your smile. Your kindness. Your voice. Your beauty. Your grace. As his hands are securing zip ties around the wrists and ankles of an unconscious man.

He has to go.

Wilbur reminds himself.

A cloth is tied around Jared’s filthy mouth, and then Wilbur is back to dragging him. It’s both easier and harder. Easier before he’s just dragging him across the pebbles and over to the brink of the harbour. Both of his arms are under both of Jared’s.

But it’s harder because if someone sees him it’s going to get difficult to explain. But nobody does. As far as Wilbur is aware.

So a splash is made by a body, and Jared is unceremoniously sinking to the bottom of the ocean floor.

Wilbur takes one more breath of fresh air. Before turning around and getting back into his new car.

He’s quick to arrive at your apartment complex. The man was no longer there. Wilbur goes to grip the front door. It doesn’t bulge.

Oh yeah, it’s locked.

He fishes the copy he made of your house key from his keychain and lets himself into the building he doesn’t live in. An invited guest, that has turned out to be an uninvited one.

He can feel the tiredness setting in his bones, as he ascends the stairs. And the realisation that he just killed someone hasn’t dawned on him yet. Instead, all his muscles are aching, and his eyes barely staying open.

He stumbles into your apartment. Another kiss gets left on your forehead as he goes for your bed. The smell is so nice. It’s so obvious to him this is where you sleep. And he’s soaking in each moment until his eyes are giving out.

His night remaining dreamless, instead, he gets awoken rather rudely around noon. You’ve pulled the comforter off him and told him to get up, so the two of you can spend some timeacting together. and Wilbur happily does that.

Not at all acing like a man who purposely took another person’s life mere hours ago. You rush him to get into his clothes. As you have something planned for rest of the day out of the apartment. You’re talking his ears off as you descend the first flight stairs your personal puppy in tow.

When you stop dead in your tracks. Wilbur nearly stumbles into you.

“Will, is that Jared’s shoes?”

And right there is in fact Jared’s shoes. The pair Wilbur had forgotten all about. The pair he had left unintentionally.

“Are you sure about that? Thought he already left.” Wilbur lies, he may be awkward, but he has gotten pretty good at lying to you through the years.

“Yeah yeah, you’re right. Why would he leave his shoes?”

The question gets left unanswered, and the tension is thick until you get outside, and the sun is shining. It seems it knows too of how good this day is for Wilbur, a dawn of a new era. Where you will finally acknowledge him as the perfect one for you.

The man from the nightstand once again with a smoke and raises his hand to greet Wilbur, once again Wilbur shuffles on his feet before he raises a hand back. You look at him weirdly, and Wilbur shrugs it off.

The rest of the day happening without any mishaps or other incidents. But the shoes just can’t seem to leave your mind, despite how hard Wilbur is trying to distract you.

And then the afternoon passes, and the night, and the car ride, and Wilbur is once again home. And as soon as the door closes. He crumbles down on the floor.

Oh god.

He did it.

He actually fucking did it.

He isn’t useless.

He’s fucking Wilbur, and Wilbur stays in your life. Even when you make such stupid mistakes as falling for another person. There’s only one person for you and that’s him.

You’re actually the first one to call him this time, and the smile never leaves his lips. Even if the call is about Jared. And how worried you are about not having heard from him. Wilbur just tells you; you should have listened to him. Guys on the internet are just like that. And that you deserve better. Someone like him.

You laugh at this and thank him for calming you down.

Wilbur suddenly loves phone calls.

This bliss is perfect for Wilbur you’re talking to him more and more. And he watches, god he watches you. Every step you take in that apartment is filmed logged on his computer.

However, all good things must come to an end, and Wilbur has barely pulled off his tie after work when a group of loud knocks sounds at his door. He isn’t expecting guests.

A group of men in blue uniforms greets him.

“Wilbur Soot, you’re under the arrest for the Murder of Jared Yarrow.”

Wilbur barely registers what’s going on, before he’s in a holding cell. A psych evaluation under his belt. A phone call to his father asking him to help him out.

The days bleed together in the unchanging environment, and suddenly a defender is telling him to plead for insanity.

Then the defender comes back again days later with a court date, and all Wilbur can do is count the seconds.

Time for the first time since arriving slows down when the doors to the court open and Wilbur is lead into the courtroom. And there you are, looking beautiful as ever. Tears and despair clearly written on your face. You look away from him, and it makes him stumble for a moment. A quick look to the other side, confirms his fear. His father is here. Alongside his brothers.

The trial goes over what happened that night, the evidence, the sleeping medication, the car. Everything. Yet even when his sentence is received, even when he is told he won’t see the sun again for a long time. There is only one thing on his mind.

They never found the cameras.

And he just can’t help but smile at that as he’s getting lead away to rot.

Because Wilbur has always stayed by your side, Wilbur always stays. -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

#wilbur soot #Simpbur #wilbur soot x you #wilbur soot x reader #simpbur x you #c!wilbur soot x reader #simpbur x reader #c!wilbur #c: simpbur #c!wilbur x reader #c!wilbur fanfic #c!wilbur x you #c!wilbur soot x you #dsmp #mcyt #fanfic #female!reader #delias own writing

[caroldantops]

note from silver: this was not written by me but my lovely 🔑 anon!!! I had zero involvement and am just posting on their behalf ❤❤❤❤❤❤ and i would just like to say omg. omg its very good. so all praise should be directed at them!! [but u can send my way and ill post so they can see :)]

nothing i do better than revenge.

pairing: natasha romanoff x fem!reader

w/c: 2.8k

***= time skip

cw: 18+, mentions of cheating, brat reader, mean natasha (comes with her own warning), mdlg, mommy kink, d/s themes, choking/breath play, impact play (face slapping & spanking), crying kink, face riding, strap on use, orgasm denial, degradation, pet names, implied legal age gap, strong language

you had long forgotten about the consequences of what you were about to do, because all you cared about was revenge. you knew they were cheating on you, with someone you didn’t even care to think about. but it didn’t matter right? you loved them, or you at least did. the only advantage you had right now was that they had no idea that you knew.

you approached their house and braced yourself for what was likely to happen. you weren’t there for them, no. their mother, natasha, was always incredibly sweet to you, arguably too sweet. but you could hardly say you cared. you felt the effects she had on you every time her eyes lingered on you, every time she was obviously making excuses to be close to you, to touch you, every time she called you “honey, angel, sweetheart” your heart sped up so quickly, it made you dizzy. you had known for a while how you felt about her, it was obvious. but naturally you pushed it away, of course you did. at least now, what you truly wanted makes for perfect revenge.

“hi sweetheart!” natasha said excitedly when she saw it was you at the door. walking through her house, you heard her call out “they’re not here, is that okay? you can wait for them if you want.” you attempted to resist her offer, but it was quickly followed with her worry and fear that something had happened.

“they cheated on me,” you finally admitted. natasha’s shoulders dropped as she let out a sigh. “i’m so sorry, honey. if there’s anything i can do-“ you quickly cut her off, trying to change the subject to anything but them. “it’s okay, honestly. i’m not even here for them.” natasha raised an eyebrow at you as she leaned against the kitchen counter, “oh? then who are you here for, sweetheart?” she responded, smirking at you. ”oh, i, uh-“ you started, struggling to explain. natasha walked over to you and grabbed your chin to look at her. “come on, y/n, tell me why you’re really here. i know you didn’t come all this way to talk.”

in all honesty, you didn’t know where to begin, but you knew there was no getting out of this, “i just noticed some things about you, things you do” you felt natasha smirk at you again. “oh yeah? and what do i do, sweetheart?” you let out a nervous laugh at what seemed to be her favourite pet name. “that, you call me things like that and you always stare at me- i just thought-“ you felt natasha move impossibly closer to you, “such a clever girl, aren’t you? did you figure that out all by yourself?” she chuckled at the way you responded, all flustered and blushed. something in you couldn’t stop ranting before it came out, when it did, it was too late to backtrack. “i just- i think about you a lot, i can’t stop actually. i can’t stop thinking about touching you and-“ the words came out so quickly, you could barely make sense of them. “so,” she began. “let me get this straight, you came all the way here in hopes that i’d fuck you?” you could try and deny it but you knew it was pointless. you knew exactly what you wanted and so did she.

“would it be so bad if i did? you asked so softly, you doubt she even heard. gripping your hips and pulling you into her, natasha starts kissing and biting your neck softly, “no, sweet girl. it really wouldn’t.” you have to remind yourself to breathe, as this whole ordeal feels like a dream. it’s hard to believe you actually went through with it. natasha’s hand gets lost in your hair as she pulls your head back to look up at her.

“do you want this?” she said softly, and you quickly responded with “yes. i want this, i want you.”

“good,” she sighed. because once i start, i don’t think i’ll be able to stop.” you stared back into her eyes and whispered, “i don’t want you to stop.”

***

you left natasha’s house in the early morning, before she woke up. it felt like the right thing to do, but you couldn’t stop thinking about her all day. the teasing, the biting, the way she praised you, the way she had you whimpering “mommy… please, mommy i need it” over and over again. you were certain that the previous night was ingrained in your brain forever, and you adored every minute of it.

but right now, you had more pressing things on your mind, like exactly how this revenge on your, now ex, partner would go.

***

you felt natasha’s hand grip your shoulder and drag you to her car. you had just performed, a rather fitting, song in front of your ex partner, natasha, and most of the townspeople. your song of choice was “i fucked yr mom,” and maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea, but it did get you what you wanted.

once you arrived back in natasha’s house, you knew it wouldn’t be long before she snapped. she took you by surprise as she pinned you against the wall with her hand around your throat. you barely had a chance to speak before she did. “what the fuck was that, huh? what the fuck are you playing at?”

“didn’t you like it, mommy?” you said with your eyes gleaming up at her, leaving her trying to calm herself before she spoke again. “you know exactly what i’m talking about, princess. you can’t just do shit like that.”

“oh can’t i? you didn’t seem to mind when i was-“ you spoke out, but was quickly cut off by her slapping you across the face. “this is not the time to play games with me, little girl. i’m gonna give you one chance to-“ you interrupted her with something that resembled “when will it be time for that, then? cause this is really boring.” she almost looked offended, shocked even, that you were talking to her in such a way. you honestly don’t think you’ve ever seen her angry. definitely not like this, or directly at you. her sour mood could be felt from all around her, everything about her demeanour screamed “i’m furious and you’re making it worse for yourself.” granted, you probably should’ve stopped there, toned it down a little. but for some reason, you just couldn’t. you had to see how much it would take for her to snap. you wanted to see how far she was willing to go.

you watched as she tried to compose herself, taking deep breaths and almost trying to block you out. “when the fuck did you become such a brat, huh? i bet you thought about this every single time you came here, didn’t you?” you genuinely contemplated submitting for a second, but where’s the fun in that? “i don’t know, natasha. can’t you figure it out yourself?” you responded, blatantly yawning and mocking her. you knew you’d fucked up when you were met with her sweetest smile, “if you’re not in my bed and ready for me in two fucking minutes, this entire city is gonna know my name.”

***

it felt like an eternity before you heard natasha walk upstairs, and towards you. you figured that was a part of her plan, keep you waiting and needy, right? she definitely knew the effect she had on you, and knew how to use it to her advantage.

you knelt in the middle of her bed, and she seemed somewhat pleased that you followed at least one of her orders. apart from that, she continued to ignore you, shuffling through drawers. finally, she turned to pay attention to you, and gripped your face to look at her, “look at that, my little brat can obey me.” she almost scoffed at the sight of you, “you’re pathetic, you know that?” “not really, are you about to enlighten me, natasha?” you snapped back.

“you’ve got everyone fooled, haven’t you, angel? they all think you’re so fucking innocent. i guess only i know the truth.”

“worked for you didn’t it? so what’s that then, natasha? you’re boring me again.” you watched as she reached for something you couldn’t see, “you know what, if you wanna act like a brat, i’m gonna treat you like one.” she huffed, before she put you over the edge of the bed, and cuffed your hands behind your back. “oh, fuck.” you mumbled in reaction. “see, here i thought that you were a precious, innocent little thing. turns out you’re just a whore for mommy’s attention.”

“aw, natty, did you figure that all out by yourself? you retorted, repeating last night's words back to her.

natasha’s hand came down on your bare skin with a slap, making you let out a whimper. “oh pretty baby,” she started. “let’s see how much of a brat you are when you’re all red and raw for me. you’re gonna count every single one, angel.”

she pulled you back up close to her chest, whispering “and trust me, sweetheart, we can keep recounting all night if you feel like messing up.” you accidentally let out another whimper, much to natasha’s amusement. “something to say, baby?” you couldn’t see her face, but knew she was almost laughing at you.

“are you gonna count for me?” you let out a small mumble that she couldn’t hear. “what was that? speak up, brat.”

“yes mommy!” you sounded so desperate, you both knew it. but what you didn’t know was how much natasha wanted this, had waited for this. you looked so perfect to her, bent over her bed and tied up just for her, and her alone. she knew getting you to submit to her would be oh so easy. sure, you’ll put on the act of the disobedient slut for a while. but she knew it was just that. an act. one that she will gladly force you out of.

“twenty!” you exclaimed, with tears streaming down your face, after she spanked you over and over again. “please, it’s too much, mommy.” natasha hummed and undid the cuffs, “aw, my poor baby. did mommy make you cry?” she cooed while turning you on your back. she had removed most of her clothes at this point and pushed you down onto the bed. she stroked the hair out of your face before asking, “can you tell me your colour, angel?” “green, mommy. i don’t wanna stop.” you whined. “that’s my good girl, because i am far from fucking done with you yet” her response made chills go down your spine, and you watched her straddle your face. “now, you’re gonna be a very good girl and make me cum before i even think about touching you, am i clear?”

“yes mommy, wanna make you feel good.” you whined, and natasha chuckled at how pathetic how sounded. “what? no bratty remark?” she teased before lowering down to your mouth. as soon as she did, you could swear this was heaven. her pussy looked so pretty glistening above you, you were almost proud of how wet you made her. you gently licked and sucked her clit, “cmon my slut, i know you can do better than that.” she groaned. you licked long stripes through her folds and became completely lost in her, the way her thighs lightly squeezed your head, the way she gripped your hair, the way her taste and scent was intoxicating. she was perfect, you were sure of it. she began to buck her hips and grind against your face once you sped up your pace. “oh fuck, angel, that’s it, right there, don’t stop.” she rambled, as if you would ever stop. “you see what happens to bad girls that disobey me?” she said, tightening her grip on your hair. “bad girls get used like mommy’s toys until they learn to be good again.”

“oh fuck, you’re gonna make me cum, princess. you wanna mommy to cum all over your pretty face? you gripped her thighs and pulled her pussy even closer to you as you sucked her clit, “oh my god, right there, don’t you fucking stop. i’m gonna- fuck!” she moaned and whimpered as she came above you. you continued licking and sucking her pussy while she rode out her high.

natasha climbed off you and reached for something. once she was back in front of you, she had a strap attached to her hips, and smirked at you as you whimpered at the sight. “see something you like, princess? she teased. you looked up at her and nodded, with heavy eyes and slightly open mouth. “you look so pretty like this, sweetheart.” she hummed, lightly slapping your face “mommy’s pretty slut.”

natasha teased your slit with the strap, not quick pushing in yet. “you’ve been such a bad girl, haven’t you? i’m almost disappointed in you.”

“please, please mommy, i need it.” you begged. “oh, now you think you have the right to beg? i guess you’re dumber than i thought.” she teased as she pushed the strap all the way into you, making you whimper loudly.

“i’ve barely started, angel.” she cooed. “put on such a big show for me, and the brat can’t even take mommy’s cock. how pathetic.“

“no, no, i can take it, i swear, please! please give it to me, mommy.” you pleaded. natasha let out a low growl at your words, and began to thrust her strap deep into you. “where did my brat go, honey? you had such much to say earlier.” she was taunting you now, she knew it too.

“i just- fuck! please mommy, i’m so close. i just wanted your attention i swear.”

“oh i know, baby. you’re just a whore for mommy’s attention aren’t you? she continued to rock her hips into you, knowing exactly how close you were. “do you wanna cum, sweetheart? you wanna cum for mommy?” she asked.

“mhm yes, please mommy. please let me cum, i want it so bad.”

“no.” she abruptly pulled her strap out of you and stopped all her movements, making you whimper. “why did you do that, mommy?” you whined.

“why? did you really think i’d let you cum that easily? after the stunt you pulled tonight, you’ll be lucky if you cum at all.” natasha leaned in close to you, and whispered “show me how desperate you are for it.”

“no mommy,” you whined. “don’t wanna beg, please just fuck me.” she almost laughed at how pathetic you were. “i could fuck you all night, honey. that doesn’t mean i’d let you cum. now, come on, princess. don’t make a fool of yourself, tell mommy how badly you need it.”

“please give it to me, mommy, please. i’ll be your good girl, i promise. you don’t understand how badly i needed your attention, how badly i needed you. i won’t be bad ever again, i swear!” you could almost sob in desperation, you needed something, anything. “shhh, love. i’m right here, let me take care of you.” she whispered, before filling you all the way up with her strap. “mommy, it’s so so good, please i need- fuck” you whined, barely able to speak anymore.

“what, precious? what do you need?”

you tried your best to speak through breathy moans, “please play with my clit, mommy i need it” and natasha quickly obliged, circling your clit with her thumb. “oh my- fuck.” you gasped. natasha’s title left your lips like it was a damn mantra. you were completely intoxicated by her, the only thing left in your head was “mommy mommy mommy.”

“want you to cum for me, sweetheart. make a fucking mess on my cock right now.” she commanded. the world around you collapsed as you came, and you shook so hard, that you clinged onto natasha for any kind of stability. you felt her move around you, but couldn’t make out where she was, until you felt her lay next to you and pull you close to her. “there are you are,” she smiled softly at you. “hi mommy” you responded in a whisper. “hi precious girl, are you doing okay?” “yes mommy, i’m so good. can we sleep now, mama?” natasha pulled the blankets over the pair of you and placed gentle kisses on your forehead. “of course we can, sweetheart.”

you knew tomorrow would come with all of the questions, and none of the answers. but all that mattered was that you had natasha, and she had you.

#submission #natasha romanoff x reader #not mine #fic #smut #c: natasha #ITS VERY VERY GOOD KEY ANON #OH MY GOD #i love. #i feel like i got like an exclusive vip first look at this

[residentevilforeverr]

Uhm... Hey!

I'm totally new to this thing so... I'm sorry of anything is wrong or something.

So this short story is about y/n being streamer and youtuber, who happened to be being abused by her father. There is Jacksepticeye and Markiplier in it...so.

Something about 1200 words.

Take care!

I opened my twitch account, called t/a/n same as my YouTube channel. Quickly looking if someone was online or something but getting kinda sad when no-one did so.

Putting on the timer and starting stream, while adding some music for the ones that would wait, mostly some soundtracks from the games I did lots of lets plays on, like Resident Evil, Last of us, The Evil Within or just something normal like Fortnite/Pubg, but mostly because of f/g (favourite game) people know me because of that one mostly. I had merch of it too..

After some time setting it all and letting some of the fanart be on the screen, a lot of people started to come around, right now there were almost 89. It was a lot for me, of course, but my channel has 137 and we are really getting close to 138, which is great and made me the 'queen of the Youtube'. I just thought about my community for a second, remembering all of those kids that go and take photos with me when I just leave my /house/apartment/flat/other/ for buying ice-cream or something.

Moving my microphone a bit I sat timer on, 10 minutes would do. It started to count down and I slowly nod my head, satisfied. Chat was already blowing up, about things what will we play and so. I went to my kitchen and grabbed my /drink/ from the Starbucks and some leftover /food/ warming it up the microwave. Then I went with it to my room, glancing at the time. 6:34. I went to the bathroom and did my business, going back and just checking everything, turning off my notification on the computer and clapping my hands to synchronise the sounds. 3:09. I turned on my colourful lights, looking at my background.

Od all looked good so I just checked chat and saw them counting from 15 down. Glancing at the timer I saw that it was only 11 seconds. I checked the camera again, saw it recording so I got ready and when it came to zero I started the stream.

Looking at things, seeing the camera working I sipped from my /drink/ looking at the keyboard and then looking up at the camera, waving.

"Hey, guys!"

The whole chat started to send their hi's and I smiled at them doing so.

"So. I am really glad that there is quite a lot of you here, more like really lot of you! That's really great! Anyways, I hoped that someone would have an idea what to play or something, I didn't really though. Only thing I am not having actually have mood for is Minecraft and Reddit."

I watched chat again, a lot of them said Evil Within or Outlast. I smiled. "Alright so Let's play outlast," I said as I put on my headphones.

"Hey it's Jack I'm gonna go for a minute, will be right back. Sorry." I said as I exited the studio and picked it up right away.

"Hello?"

As Outlast strated to load, my phone started to play /f/song/ I quickly take look to see one of my best friends Jack or Sean, or for others mostly known as JackSepticEye. I blinked and picked the phone up, standing.

"Hey, y/n!"

"Hey, Sean!"

"Yeah, I was just thinking if you wouldn't want to play with me and Mark, something like for the stream!"

"Yeah, I was starting one."

"Great, so wanna?"

"Sure, why not. I will just add you to Discord or something."

"Great see 'a there!"

"Yeah."

I said as I hung up, going back into the studio, seeing the game loaded already. I switched to my discord but ended the screen sharing so they could only see my web camera and nobody would try to spam me or heck me or shit. I found Jack and started to call him, be picked up immediately and I decided that it would be good if I would use his camera too, so I add it to the stream, putting on the sharing when I jumped back into Outlast.

"Hey, lass!"

"Hey, Jack. What do you wanna play, I was about to go for Outlast but oh well... Just not Minecraft."

"Awww why not."

"I don't know, just don't wanna go and mine all day. Even Pew did a song on that..."

I heard him laugh his goofy laugh and I smiled with a sigh.

"Yeah, that's kinda having its point. How bout Overcooked?"

"Yeah, that's great! Can you add Mark please?"

"Sure thing lass!"

After like minute or so while I ended the Outlast and started Overcooked while thanking donations, I heard ding as Mark was added to the call.

"Hey, Mark!"

"Hey, guys!"

"Hi, we are playing Overcooked, you coming?"

".... Yeah, sounds good!"

As we started to play, having fun, right as we ended another level my phone started to ring, again. I peeked at the screen quickly, seeing the name I feared the most.

'Dad'

So I added him to the stream, all of our heads on the left side, with our names and Twitch, Instagram and Twitter account.

Ring...

Ring...

Ring...

"Hey lass don' you wanna pick it up?"

"Yeah, we will just wait for you."

"....yeah."

I whispered and stopped my microphone on the stream but let it be in the call, putting my headphones down I stayed in the chair, not caring.

"Hello?"

"Dad I'm at my /house/apartment/flat/other/ at /country/. I am home."

"Where the fuck do you think you are?!"

"No, dad-"

Before I could say more the call ended and tears rushed to my eyes. I started to sob harder, not realizing I turned around in the chair and setting the phone down. I pulled my knees to my chest and covered them into my oversized hoodie. I tried to wipe the tears away but they just came back again, even more of them.

"And what do you think you are to just run off like this?!! Don't make me go there, you useless bitch!"

I slowly with shaky hands looked up at the camera as my chin shook, and tried to wipe my tears away again. Hesitantly I put the headphones back on my head.

"Y/n?"

"Y/n is everything alright?"

I just shook my head and started crying again.

"Hey, hey, hey calm down there, ok? Just take deep breaths."

I did as Mark said and slowly calmed down a bit, my crying turned into soft, hitched breathing, my eyes were puffy and red, same as my nose. Looking at the discord call I saw their worried and concerned looks.

"Lass?"

"Y-Yeah?"

"What happen'?"

"I-I... My d..dad is coming to my place and-d h-h-he will..."

"Hey calm down. Where does he live?"

"Fin-land, Jÿvaskÿla."

"Alright, alright... Maybe you can go and stay at mine or Jack's house until it will be fine..?"

"I don't know Mark... I just started to renovate my whole place and payed rant and-d I don't know if I have money to buy ticket, hotel, food, and-d-d"

"Hey it's fine lass I can buy it for ya, and I'm definitely fine with you staying at mine house! You don't need to think 'bout money it's fine!"

"Sean I don-t want to be-e bother-"

"Hey don't ever say that!"

"Yeah, it's not true, ya never can bother me! I will buy it all for ya, don't worry! And I don't take no as an answer!"

"I- thank you so much J-Jack I-I... Than-k you Mark I- I don't have word-s.."

"Hey it's fine, 'k? Don't worry we got you."

"Do you wanna finish the stream?"

"I don't really. Maybe later?"

"Yeah, same here lass."

"You and your timing..."

We all laughed at it and then I ended the stream quickly saying I need to go that it's fine and they don't need to worry.

"Fine I will tell them. How bout 3 hours? About... 1. am? There doesn't need to be that much guys..."

#markiplier x reader #markiplier #jacksepticeye #jacksepticeye x reader #reader #reader insert #youtuber #gamernerd

[fyrapartnersearch]

Are you a beast?

Then look no further! (sorry for the strange title. Couldn't think of a better one at the moment :P) Call me Gil! Didn’t have that much luck the first time I submitted my ad. I hope it’ll change with my second try :)
 If you reach out to me, please be sure not to ghost me after the first few messages before we even get to the Roleplay itself. I am sick and tired of it, frankly. 
Apologies if this came off a little bitter, but this has happened so many times to the point where I took a break from roleplaying altogether. Now that my rant is over, let us move on with the fun stuff :) I am currently searching for a literate, mature (preferably 20+ partner) writer with a vast, creative mindset willing to push some boundaries. Someone who is not afraid delving into darker themes, or come up with new fresh ideas for a fantasy plot. Someone who is willing to commit to a long-term Roleplay. Are you that someone? I’ll swing you a few facts about me:

I am a 20+ woman, living in Europe, currently studying at a university that is fairly time consuming. With that being said, I am able to type out 3-4 messages per week. I think tis a good solid rate that can get the plot going. Depending on my schedule, my frequency will increase or decrease. Not to worry, I will let you know as soon if there is something coming up that might influence the Roleplay. I love detailed paragraphs that describe the scenery and emotion of one’s character. If you are someone comfortable or only willing to type one-liners, you are going to find your match here, sorry. I only role-play on either email or goggle docs.

Summary:

    Above the age of 20, thus mature and open minded

    Paragraph writer

    Detailed

    Experienced with 10 years under my belt

    Preference to doubling

I love a good brainstorming! Once we get to know each other, I would love to do a bit of brainstorming, a gathering of ideas that we can utilise for the story. I have an idea that we can shape a bit more to fit both of our narrative. 
Here’s a detailed description of my style and boundaries that I have for a potential RP. How I write: I am a multi-paragraph sort of writer, which means that frequently, my writing will exceed at least 500 words, and upward of 1000+ words. I love detail in description, and I am actively seeking someone of the same infamy. Generally, I tend to write in the 3rd person. But it can change based on the situation. My partner should have a basic grasp on grammar, punctuation and somewhat of an interest in erudite writing.   The genres I am into: I am versatile when it comes to genres and settings that I like to focus on. Supernatural is my bread and butter, especially urban and gothic fantasy, but also very much mythological stories. But I am not opposed to tapping into science fiction, action, romance, crime, action or thriller genres, though my most favourite is a combination of both fantasy and science fiction. What has struck my interest lately, is a world with gargantuan titan like monsters battling against each other, causing all sorts of havoc and devastation. I was heavily inspired by Pacific Rim, Godzilla and other monster themed movies, films and games. We could forge something original along those lines, like a clash of titans, ancient deities and creatures believed to be myth who now awakened to take back the world by storm. Romance: I openly play and accept characters of both genders, preferable m x f pairings, but I am open to m x m and f x f relationships as well. I have more experience with m x f relationships, so I might excel in this category more than I would do with the others. I do not fade to black - instead I encourage erotism and tastefully written romance scenes. The passion must be felt, even if its just an intelligent description of someone’s stream of thought. Characters, the center of attention: Faceclaims, GIFs, drawings, mood boards or just a plain physical description is absolutely welcome / sufficient. I am not someone who necessarily requires a face claim for a character in order ‘to get the picture’. There are many instances where I could not find a suiting match for my character’s definition, so I resorted to drawing them myself or leaving it with a simple description. Characters should have flaws - that is a no brainer obviously, because its what makes them most interesting and compelling to read. I think we’re also far past the Mary Sue and Gary Stu issue, so I am certain that anyone who messages me, is capable of forging great characters. World building & plotting: An active Roleplayer is wanted in this category, without a doubt. I love to build but I tend to lose interest real quick when I get the feeling I’m the only one who puts effort into it. I can’t do the thinking for two people, so I implore anyone to at least share the burden (which should not be regarded as such in the first place, because Roleplaying is a fun hobby and nothing more). Too often I find people shying away from it in this regard. If I feel that I’m carrying the weight of the world-building part with specific ideas, I will end the Roleplay with immediate effect. Be bold with your ideas! A bird cannot fly with only one wing. Content: I find writing erotic, dramatic or action packed scenes very enjoyable. I don’t hinder myself when certain subjects are mentioned that may be uncomfortable for the general public. But then again, as a reminder, a Roleplay is not reality but fiction. For example situations that heavily imply and involve brutality, mayhem, psychological and physical torture are things that don’t really bother me in a sense, because again, it is fiction. Characters should be fully fleshed out, even the not so pretty parts of one’s personality and actions.

Limits: I don’t do necrophilia, pedophilia & and any sort of underage pairings, bestiality, vore, toilet play, furries and other strange fetishes. What I’m also not particularly fond of are oneliners, text-talk ‘grammar’, or emails with the subject: ‘Hey wanna rp?’ or ‘RP?’. I also note that my partners must be around 20 years or older, I will accept no younger partners, sorry. The last thing I tend to avoid like the plague are slice of life Roleplays, because lets face it, our own lives are pretty much slice of life. Original plot lines / pairings I am absolutely down for are:

Supernatural x Human (non supernatural)

God x Human

God x God

God x Demigod

Demigod x Human

Witch / Warlock x Human

Witch / Warlock x Hunter

Witch / Warlock x Witch / Warlock

Monster x Human

Antagonist x Protagonist

Bully x Victim (sort of..)

Criminal x Regular citizen

Criminal x Cop

Soldier / Warrior / Knight x Civilian

Royal / Noble x Peasant

Royal / Noble x Traveler

Mentor x Apprentice

Knight x (Female in disguise) Knight

etc.

The list goes on.

Also, if an original doesn’t really suit your fancy - I am willing to do canon Roleplay, although I don’t feel as much inspiration for it as I do for an original story. I’m also very picky about it, so apologies if there aren’t too many things listed here:



Marvel

DC


Pacific Rim

Star Wars

Star Trek


Castlevania

Berserk

Carmen SanDiego

Harry Potter

Witcher

Dark Souls

Bloodborne

Devil May Cry (The original series, not the reboot)

Shadow of the Colossus

Kingdom Hearts 
God of War

I highly welcome ideas and other takes on a story. If you crave something different, I am down for it as well :) If you are still reading, congratulations! xD 
The journey has come to an end and I am glad you’re still alive! Usually I would also list my Discord on this platform, but since Discord did an update on me recently where I can’t log into it anymore - I thought it be better with email. That way I can better assess the person. Email is much safer and more professional that way. Contact me here! EMAIL: [email protected] Hope to greet you as my new partner!

-Cheers

#indie rp #indie roleplay #independent roleplay #oc rp #multiple paragraph #para #long term #email #marvel rp #avengers rp #spn rp #mcu rp #dc rp #submission

[elecman108]

(This is about to be a BIG rant on my part about MatPat’s video on YouTube he made today, so I’m gonna put my rant under the cut but you can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/iB7C7o920zE )

MatPat summarized my whole opinion on YouTube in the video I mentioned above. Content creators, especially gamers, give back to their communities more than most, in more than just monetary values. I’ll admit, while I personally want to go into a Psychology field, I’d love to BE a YouTuber. And one in the gaming sphere, for that matter! Or maybe more like a variety channel with gaming and the rest in it. But that’s beside the point.

YouTubers give content because that’s what they want to do. They’re entertainers, educators, and yes, some could be bad, some could do stupid things, but look: Humanity is inherently flawed. YouTube in and of itself is comprised of people. Cat videos? Done by people. YouTube Gaming? People playing those games. Beauty Vloggers? That’s people on the screen right there.

There is no way I can describe my outright rage towards ad companies pulling ads for a bad press story one niche channel did in one small video in a sphere of so much other content from the platform. If that were the case, why don’t they pull their ads anywhere else? Racism, sexism, bigortry, and so, so much more happens on the Television. But you still see Disney advertising their theme parks, their movies. You still see all these ads for products you’ll never need just there, on your screen.

YouTube is television, sort of, catered to watching what you want, when you want, from who you want. Television, you’re stuck with what’s on right now on the upwards of like, 800 channels out there. I want to watch the Kirby Anime! Where do I go? YOUTUBE. I don’t care that each of a hundred and one videos, each of which about twenty minutes long, have an ad at the start. That’s a hundred and one ads over the course of a hundred and one videos, for about forty hours that I’ve wasted of my life watching Kirby beat Dedede at his own game. But that’s beside the point.

“No one wants to hear good stories from YouTube.”

With today’s reality, the news is full of... shit. For lack of a better word. I’m in Canada, so I watch local news - car crashes, events, shootings, fires, sports, entertainment, weather - and some satirical comedy shows out of the US - presidential, presidential, oh my god can we hear something that isn’t presidential I want to gouge my eyes out, disaster, Stephen Colbert’s “Meanwhile” segments, and interviews - and it’s a whole lot of shit. I get no real “feel good” stories.

But here’s the thing: MatPat mentioned charity streams.

There was the one by... oh, my memory’s failing me again, but the Trans DK64 livestream. I heard about that! It made me so happy! I watched (not live, of course, I’m a bit slow for that sort of thing) Awesome Games Done Quick from their YouTube channel, and watched their Mario Odyssey playthrough when they hit two million just to make the runner do the re-fights, and to support the charity. It made my little heart so happy at like, midnight one night when I watched the whole thing, to see so much kindness.

Because all “real” news gives us is depressing.

Give me some feel-good stories about the Yogscast Jingle Jam raising 3 million. Give me some stories about AGDQ raising two million for cancer research. Give me some stories about Markiplier raising almost a million for charity. Give me some stories about that twenty million MatPat spoke of that YouTube content creators raised this past year.

You want to know why I think this?

Because the media can’t control the content.

They can’t control the creators and what they want to do.

They can’t turn to a YouTube channel and say “no more use of guns on your gaming channel” because, here’s your wake up call, a lot of games have guns in them.

YouTube lately has, from what I can see in my own personal watching, done something about their content creators, because the Yogscast seems to be... censoring some swear words. They censored cunt before, and it was funny at the time because it came out of nowhere in a TTT video. But now they censored Lewis saying “Duncan, I think I fucked up.” in the recently completed SevTech series on Duncan’s channel. You can fuck up - EVERYONE is entitled to fuck up at least once in their life - and Lewis, the idiot whom we love so much for being awkward and terrible and having almost no filter when it comes to stupid comments, thought he fucked up.

But they censor it, and the gravity of Lewis realizing with a sinking heart that he’s fucked up is lost, and it’s just irritating beeps and Lewis sounds worried in tone. I can get it being in a television show - Children may be watching! - but on YouTube, the only thing you can stop is age restricting things to 18+.

And you can just make a new account that’s over 18. I have a spam Gmail account I use for signing up for things for school that I really didn’t want on my main email, and through the random act of hitting random dates and years, it’s an 18+ account I can use on YouTube. I mean now I’m over 18, but still. 

I think they realize that kids have access to these 18+ concepts online, but there’s nothing they can do about it. Go online, look up boobs, the only thing stopping you might be Google’s Safe Search, which is easily turned off with a click of a button. Go on, look up Call of Duty with all its gun violence. Nothing’s stopping you! You can watch someone else play the games you can’t because of age restrictions.

I said before that I want to go into Psychology, and I’m currently in some Psychology courses at College - soon to HOPEFULLY be a Psych program next year for two years, possibly with Co-Op. Regardless, I think my class today in Developmental Psych taught me a couple key things. And I’m going to mention one of two here: Parenting.

Sounds kind of out there on a YouTube-based post, but bear with me.

There are four types of parenting, more or less, and I’ll just list them from my lecture slides (if they’ll load for me...) because I’m not going to bother with images that probably won’t load anyways: Permissive, Authoritative, Rejecting (and other terms for this one), or Authoritarian. I’ll cover each quickly for you.

Permissive Parents are parents who don’t control their children much, but are very nurturing. “We love you so you can do what you want”. Simple as that. Authoritative Parents are parents who control their children but care for them. I like to say helicopter parenting falls somewhere within here, but “I must know what you’re doing at all times because I love you and care about you deeply.” I know this part very well, and this is the “golden standard” which I’ll be returning to. Rejecting, Neglecting, or Uninvolved Parents don’t care and don’t control. “Do whatever, I don’t care.” Not good, lemmie say. The last is Authoritarian Parents, who are controlling with no nurture (or little of it). “You must do as I say because its my way or the highway.” I’ll return to this too.

Let’s talk about Authoritative. Take this concept and put it to YouTube. They want what’s best under their views for their users, so they control the content (or try to) that’s put on their side. Helicopter Website? But they don’t care about the viewer, they only care about money, I hear you shouting from the depths of this hellsite. Then Authoritarian, I raise to you. You must abide by these things to protect the children who may or may not see this content because it’s this way or the highway. Or the ban hammer. Whichever.

Now I said two things from my lecture today, so here’s the second: Gender Development. I can hear confusion. So here, let me clarify. Children around the age of two or three learn to differentiate the sex of themselves and others through physical appearance. Gender and sex are not the same. I’ll say it again. Gender and sex are not the same. Gender is a social construct. Sex is biological. Sex, in layman’s terms, is whether you have a puss or a wang downstairs, and if you have something else, that’s intersex. Gender is how you feel. I personally feel like social constructs don’t fit, so I am gender non-conforming. Because Society wants it to be black or white, I’m gonna be green like Luigi.

But think about it: YouTube has content for everybody. So... Children who go to YouTube for entertainment see these people and start thinking. I have another Yogscast example, bear with me.

Sjin, one of my personal favourites, does a thing (almost?) every Jingle Jam, and he dresses up as Elsa and sings Let It Go. He’s fantastic. And hell, he looks good in the Elsa dress. Think to these children told that boys can’t wear dresses and makeup and like girly things from a young age by society looking at this grown-ass man living the life and singing a Disney song for charity. That’s not something society wants, they want black and white. They can’t have Sjin in a dress because he wants to! They can’t have men wearing makeup and doing girly things! No way in hell that’s happening! And yet YouTube... is here... and Sjin is Sjelsa.

He gives open arms to people who don’t feel like they can conform to society’s standards and says, with his actions, it doesn’t matter, so long as you’re happy with who you are. No one can deny that Sjin loves Frozen, and loves Elsa. He’s happy. And some people, seeing a grown man in a dress go “I don’t want my kids seeing that, its indecent and not what a man should do!”

Dude. If you’re a woman wearing pants right now, then go put on a skirt. Its indecent.

Or so people would’ve said several decades ago.

Because Society is changing.

And these old crones need to learn that Society is being run by people who open their arms to difference, and instead of saying “its this or that and nothing else”, they kick the false dilemma fallacy that it originally held and say “Hey, you’re different, and I want to know why if you’re willing to share. Oh, that’s it? Cool! Let’s continue our lives both richer with the knowledge we’ve gained today.”

((God, I put both of my classes’ lectures into this rant...))

Life isn’t black and white anymore.

It’s not even monochrome.

Life is in colour. And society needs to catch up.

As per usual...

TL;DR: Society, as shown by MatPat with his video on YouTube, wants to paint any new thing in a bad light and really only a bad light even though its good. I theorize it’s because society is the helicopter parent nobody likes and the censorship to everything that nobody deserves.

Let people live their lives. Honestly.

#the disappointment speaks #honestly the words 'life is in colour and society needs to catch up' is such a powerful sentence #it reverberated in my SOUL when I wrote it #anyways here's a rant while I'm mid-youtube that took me over a half an hour to type and is long as hell #I have a midterm tomorrow and I need to study again for it #ANYWAY this is my hot take for the evening I hope y'all have a nice night and I'm probably gonna hit the snooze in like an hour #even though its like 11:30 my time when I post this #you know I just realized that with me giving aproximate times at which I post these rants from time to time #plus mentioning in this rant specifically that I'm in canada #y'all can probably guess where I live #spoiler alert: its canada #also spoiler alert: I'll never say you're right or wrong if you try so you dont need to bother trying #I wanna make a youtube channel.... but I need a gaming PC before I do that #so it'll probably be a few years at least while I save up money for it #IF I make a youtube after I buy one #because I might just buy it for modded minecraft #no joke none of my fat dang mods work anymore because they're all HD HIGH QUALITY EPIC 300+ MOD PACKZZZZ #All The Mods 3 Lite is the one I currently have and it doesnt even have bees in it #IT DOESNT EVEN HAVE BEES!! #it's got astral sorcery and thaumcraft as well as a mod I forgot the name of that looks real cool so like imma learn it #but otherwise IT DOESNT HAVE ANY BEES!!! #or like twilight forest betweenlands aether etc dimensional bullshit #rip me n my minecraft I guess? #sorry for the rant #and like incoherrent bullshit in the tags like hot damn #not counting like one line statements here I put 22 paragraphs into this #I doubt ANYONE's gonna read it but like its there #we exist in a society #and I hate it #not that we exist in a society but like the fact the society is kinda shit towards like

[wreathedwith]

Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones on Black Mirror, 01/11/2018

This Guardian Live event was to promote the Black Mirror tie-in book, out today.

Not a full write-up, but just a few observations I could recall. If you want to, you can watch pretty much the whole event here.

This event was... OK, but the host wasn’t nearly as good as James O’Brien at the BFI last year. I sent in a perhaps a bit wordy but trying-to-get-at-something-not-asked-a-million-times-before question about religion (or, rather, lack thereof) in Black Mirror, but that was NOT the correct level to pitch at: the host’s own and the audience questions (pre-selected) were all very standard and have been asked before: ‘did you know about Cameron and the pig’, ‘what’s your favourite episode of black mirror’ ‘why do you think people like watching a dark dystopian show’, ‘what’s coming up in the next series’, etc. And they spent a fair amount of the allotted time showing reasonably lengthy clips of ‘The Entire History of You’, ‘Be Right Back’, ‘San Junipero’ and ‘USS Callister’ instead of talking.

There’s not much of Annabel written about here, but she was GREAT and I love her.

- Brooker mentioned living in Ealing now.

- Brooker described ‘The Entire History of You’ as being ‘like a dark episode of Peep Show’ and so appropriate for Jesse Armstrong. He also said that Armstrong’s original idea had been more like a thriller, with a reporter following what was going on and a potential government conspiracy, but they always wanted to keep Black Mirror’s stories personal, intimate and small-scale.

- When asked if he would live on in San Junipero, Brooker gave a confident ‘yes’ but that he would try and come back as a looping gif of someone eating ice cream. Or doing a really good poo. Or perhaps both. This is a deeply Charlie Brooker idea. (He said he saw San Junipero as definitely having a happy ending.)

- Brooker has a VR headset and said adults go ‘wow’ and are floored by it but one of his children (aged five at the time) put it on and was non-plussed, picking up how it worked straight away. He later asked if he could put on the ‘magic hat’ (aw!) again later and Brooker said no, because he’d only noticed afterwards that the headset isn’t to be used by under 12s.

- Also one of his children said to him after coming back from school ‘daddy, do you do Black Mirror’. He said yes, and what do you think Black Mirror is. His son said ‘it’s the show where a man loves a pig’. :s

- Brooker confessed to Jones that one day recently when a meeting was cancelled he responded to all her emails late because he sat and played Forza Horizon 4 all day... (Also at the beginning of the talk Brooker said that they met at Endemol when he wasn’t doing much, because he was waiting to make Nathan Barley with Chris Morris and thought it would never happen. So he wasn’t doing much. So he would play Counter-Strike a lot. And Jones made fun of him playing video games.)

- Doctor Who: Brooker said he was asked to write an episode but he was too busy; he thinks Jodie is a great Doctor; he said he has met Chris Chibnall and they’d talked about it and Brooker thinks to write a Doctor Who episode would be a great thing to do. He said he has an idea of what he’d do for a Who epsiode. So basically, I think it would be quite likely if he ever has the time! (Black Mirror takes up way too much of his time in my opinion. Three episodes a year was perfect. Now 2018 Wipe is not happening and Jones jokingly (?) said at one point she’d uninvent streaming platforms so she could get her life back!)

- Brooker also has his kids watching Doctor Who and says they are terrified by it. One of them genuinely hid behind the back of the sofa.

- Brooker said that one of the ideas he wanted to do (Jones did not seem keen, nor keen on him revealing it) was a Black Mirror parody episode of Black Mirror. He also wanted to do a ‘trailer’ for National Anthem 2, showing the cast reuniting ‘behind the scenes’ (I presume including the pig).

- They (predictably) revealed nothing about the next season. Brooker said he once revealed something in a pub then someone posted it on Reddit (!) so he has to be careful.

- Both were asked what tech they’d uninvent. Charlie said the nuclear bomb, then went on a surprising rant about reaction gifs and how much he hated them. He said the news would soon be told in reaction gifs. However, post-rant, in typical Brooker fashion, he said ‘although I actually quite like some of them’.

- Also in true Brooker fashion, he leapt up at the end and forgot about the microphone attached to him. Never change, CB.

#charlie brooker #write up

[seawolvesanddragons]

Merlin Short - The Youtuber AU

Alright, to start with, Gwaine [Username: AngrIrishman] mostly does prank videos; his is primarily a comedy channel. It starts off as in the moment pranks (probably while he is uni). As he gains more followers and grows more confident he starts doing a few sketches, usually the same characters in different scenarios (the series “drunk Irishman confused by British things is the number one favourite.) After a semester or two he drops out of uni, deciding it isn’t for him and he was only following family pressure, and he wants to do follow this youtube idea. He mostly pranks friends and family, all harmless stuff. After he meets Merlin he does a good deal of his pranks on him, but Elyan and Percival show up the mst as his victims (or partners in crime) since he’s lived with them both. He’s always willing to help out his friends with their videos, and often appears in Percival’s gaming competitions. Occasionally, for when Gwaine wants to address something serious or do a straight video of something bothering him, he has a series of “what’s aleing me today” where he talks about the serious stuff under the guise of drinking. His is one of the bigger youtube stars and his fame only skyrockets after he meets the others.  Percival [AllTankedUp] started in youtube as just responding to some of the more ridiculous challenges (planking, cinnamon challenge, parkour, etc) but ended up accidentally setting a ton of records. He started getting a lot of followers suggesting more challenges for him to do. After a year or two he began  

uploading video game run throughs after he purchased a video game and streamed playing it, not expecting anything big to come of it. The first video ending up trending for a few hours and requests came pouring in. However his biggest project, and the one he is most proud of and best known for, comes along in year three, after he met Elyan. They began recreating live action versions of video games, giant board games, etc. The internet fucking loses it over these videos. Most of them are endearingly low budget - the first is a live action super mario, where they had set up mushrooms and platforms in the park and a plushie princess peach is the prize. Elyan did MATH for this, guys.  Percival has to do exactly what Elyan tells him to do when Elyan holds the “controller” and vice versa. The video is ten minutes long and mostly consists of them falling over. Percy barely wins in the end, but he holds the plushie up all proud, looking adorable. By the next day they have over a hundred subscribers asking for more. Some of the live actions are HUGE events, brining in all of Percy’s friends and acquaintances and even family members but that’s usually only once a year. Typically, it’s no more than Percy, Elyan, and Gwaine or Leon or Merlin. Elyan helps out a lot with most of the recreations, but Percival came up with the idea and is the driving force behind it. He also has a side channel for workout videos after 2 1/2 years of requests, where he posts irregular updates. Elyan [Elyuminati] gets pulled into youtube by Gwen, and starts out as the occasional guest star in her vlogs, before submitting the odd vlog video himself, usually just him ranting about whatever in his life is annoying him at the time. It was meant to just be a way to let off steam, he didn’t expect anyone to watch them, but Elyan has a certain kind of odd charm and humor that attracts a humble but loyal following. During his gap year he travels around Europe and posts a lot of video diaries as a way of keeping in touch with Gwen, and it steadily improves over time. He starts doing “day in the life of” or “creepy ghost tour” or just sharing crazy stories about his travels. Elyan’s not a bad artist, so he’ll sometimes recreate brief sketches of the crazy stuff that happened to him while narrating what is going on. After his gap year (which almost turned into two) he returned to the UK and ended up rooming with Percy, who he knew from youtube, and started getting a degree in maths. His channel with Percy to do live action games took off, and he ended up being offered a job at a radio station after a year or so. The radio felt he had a personality that worked over radio just as well as camera. His radio show has a little bit of everything in it: acting as a voice of the millennial people, sharing whatever crazy thing happened to him that week, traveling and reviewing places and (his latest obsessions) weird news stories and conspiracies. (Leon and Gwaine could be blamed for the last one.) He doesn’t post as much except for the game videos or guest starring in others, since’s he’s busy with his radio show, but he will occasionally do a vlog session now and again, usually on his theories on conspiracies, game of thrones, and why the cosmos hates him enough to stick him with Gwaine. Leon [GiantRedGnomes], unlike Percy and Elyan, actually means to start a youtube channel. He starts off with gaming videos, including a dramatic series of the SIMS that everyone gets a little too invested in. However Leon is very conscious of the good that youtube can do, and so he also starts doing more educational style videos with fun animation. His main topics are history (but the fun kind, he focuses a lot on the weird parts of European history that no one ever talks about) space and alien life, etc. He also reviews a lot of popular tv shows and movies and shares his thoughts, opinions, and predictions for them as well as how the nerdier stuff checks out. Being the gentleman that he is, he typically tries to post both spoiler and non spoiler versions. He and Merlin start a Dnd series where they do short campaigns with different members of their friend group and other willing youtube stars. Lancelot [Lancephew], like Leon, does youtube “for the greater good.” He started youtube in high school as a project to bring “truly great people” into the spotlight by interviewing the people in his town about amazing things they had done in their lives, and he still tries to post videos like that whenever he can. Half of his videos are him taking news stories, politics, economic theories, etc and explaining it in layman’s terms for the average viewer. He shares his own opinions in the video as well. During college Lancelot started adding a musical element to his interview stories, writing his own songs to bring into the background. This branched out into him writing instrumental music, which he often shares on youtube and itunes. Lancelot is currently doing a YouTube Red project in aide of a charity that is about small town civilians having to deal with a zombie dystopia in a realistic manner - asking questions such as “do we still have to pay for data?” “Can someone take my braces off.”) Also, he’s dating Gwen and they do really cute “ask us questions” and dating game videos that the internet loves. There are also several videos of his dog doing crazy things he manages to catch on film. Gwen [GwenSmash] is mostly a youtube vlogger, and she shares a little bit of everything. Her day to day life, sped up streams of the cosplay outfits she makes the group, sims and gaming videos, ask/advice videos, review videos, and stories in a series called “Growing up Gwen” where she shares moments of her childhood/teenage years having to deal with being the only girl in a household of guys, such as buying a bra, trying to find a video game character that is a female without exposed breasts, etc. After she gets to know all the guys better, she will share moments of being one of the few girls among many guys, and has no shame in calling them out. Half of her twitter is photos of the guys holding up a sign saying “I said/made *insert sexist remark here*.” She doesn’t really try to limit herself to one brand and just does all kinds of videos. She and Morgana are often work together/guest star in each other’s videos as flatmates and best friends.   Morgana [ExplodingSparkles] got into youtube during college at Gwen’s encouragement. She liked to create her own music mashups and Gwen starting encouraging her to share them on youtube. Nowadays, she and Lance will team up occasionally to do music together, and she has written a few of her own songs, all released on youtube/itunes. A LOT of her video vlogs are feminist, LGBTQA, and wealth inequality rants, typically following her having to talk to Uther. She as a popular series called “Ask Morgana” where she answers questions her subscribers ask her. The beginning/middle of her channel (when it was getting big) has a lot of anger and rant videos about everything wrong with the world. Morgana eventually grew out of her angry stage, and began discussing the issues from a healthier pov, such as how you can be an ally, etc. She also started doing a lot more comedy sketches, all written and directed by herself. Some of them just have her in it as multiple people, others have her and Gwen or other guest stars. Some of them are just sketches about funny moments in her life, but most are original content, such as “Smart Shakespeare in Five Minutes” where she acts out a sketch of Shakespeare’s plays where everything goes very differently, usually based on one character making a smarter decision. Arthur [KingCamelot] started doing youtube in his final year of boarding school, and for the first year or so he and Morgana both tried to hide the fact that they were doing youtube from each other, until one day Morgana stumbled across his channel after it was recommended after one of Gwen’s videos. This was over summer break and the result was her barging in during one of his vlogs, and the entire (loud and hilarious) conversation was caught on film. Arthur later uploaded it to youtube, and neither will admit it is one of their favourite videos. Arthur kept it in a vlog style during uni, sharing his thoughts on current events, challenge videos, his favourite books and tv shows, his daily life and his struggle with uni/the business degree his father wanted him to get. He ended up switching to film editing sophomore year after Morgana, Leon and other youtuber friends supported his ideas. While it made things rockier with his father, Arthur was much happier. Videos became much more frequently after that, and Arthur began to guest star in his friends videos as well. Arthur became a big name on youtube almost instantly, largely because of his good lucks and his notoriety as the son of a famous parliament member, but remained a big name through his own merit. About midway through his time at uni Arthur began to post videos about insightful topics about things that suggested he was starting to see the world a bit differently. After he graduated about 4 years ago, it started to turn into full blown advocacy and outreach videos raising awareness for social change. Of course, Arthur didn’t get to that point by himself. Enter Merlin, stage right. Merlin [MerlinTrixx] started youtube HIS final year of public schooling, about two years after Arthur. He started with just short simple vlogs and magic tricks that even professional magicians couldn’t figure out. He followed Gwen and Morgana and saw Arthur a few times in their videos or recommended suggestions. After picking up on Arthur’s rather one sided view of how wealth and poverty work he called him out on it in a private message. Arthur did NOT take it well. There began a video war where both boys passive aggressively mentioned the other. Before it got to far, however, they accidentally ended up meeting at a youtube convention. (Arthur was there to speak on a panel, Merlin went to learn editing tips). The recognized each other and ended up talking for the remaining two days of the convention and became fast friends. Gwen, who had known Merlin through uni for about a year now, had had no idea that Arthur and Merlin had been complaining to her for the past few months about each other and was ready to knock sense into both of them when she found out. After becoming friends, Arthur and Merlin began showing up in each other’s videos more. Merlin, who hated his roommates, began hanging around more at Arthur and Leon’s flat (they went to a different uni in the same city, but had moved off campus) instead of Gwen’s as much. By the end of sophomore year, Merlin had gained a decent number of followers and his channel consisted of vlogs, his magic tricks, him and Arthur hanging out and being weird, and sharing his vast and unparalled knowledge of all things fantasy and nerdy. He, Leon and Gwen get into the longest discussions when they do reviews together. Merlin takes some time off of school, still unsure what he wants to do beside youtube, and moves in with Arthur to split the rent. The videos continue in earnest, and views/followers for both boys continue to grow as they feed off of one another, make more compilation videos, and add more content. After a couple of years, more than half their followers are wondering if they are more than just flatmates, but they are keeping quiet on the matter. The both still have their own channel, which they update frequently, but they also have a shared channel where they do reviews of shows they both like, ask/challenge requests, gaming videos, a few prank videos - they got into a prank way with Percy, Elyan and Gwaine once. Morgana and Gwen somehow won. They also do a deep discussion on Arthurian legend and other mythos, in comedic style. They are known as the “Avalon Nine” - a nickname given to them by the internet after they learned they all knew each other and they frequently appear in each others videos now that they all live in the same city. Morgana and Gwen had met in boarding school, and are currently living together after Morgana moved back after Uni until Lancelot finally asks Gwen to marry him, which Morgana suspects will happen soon. Gwen met Merlin at their uni, the same city that Arthur and Leon were going to uni in. Arthur already knew Gwen through Morgana and they had hung out fairly often, which only increased after they both befriended Merlin. Merlin and Gwen both met Lancelot separately at youtube conventions, and thought it hilarious the day they found out they both knew him. Lancelot moved to the city after graduating uni. Elyan met everyone through Gwen and Morgana met everyone through Gwen and Arthur. Gwaine met Merlin at a convention and later Merlin recognized him auditing his film class for “free editing tips/ideas.” They became fast friends and Gwaine spent a few nights in Merlin’s dorm when his water or heat wouldn’t work. He moves in with Elyan when he comes back from his gap years. Lancelot and Percival, who knew each other prior to the rest of the group, lived with each other for a while before the landlord sold the building. Lance moved to a single while Percival moved in with Elyan and Gwaine. There have been a series of “who knows you better” challanges and games throughout the group, including ones based off of dating games, best friend games, and family games. Merlin and Arthur have won them ALL. Even against Lancelot and Gwen that one time. Leon shared in one of his videos that Arthur and Merlin are also banned from teaming up in charades, pictonary and catch phrase in the gaming videos because they are undefeatable and possible psychic.  Bonus:  Mordred is obviously much younger than the others (just now starting Uni while the others are in their mid to late twenties). So he grew up watching a lot of their earlier stuff and he just idolizes them. He somehow managed to befriend them through social media/convenstions and is a bit surprised he is actually on first name basis with these amazing, talented (giant dorks). He appears in their videos sometimes but is hesitant  to upload anything on his own channel for a long time, since it is harder to get started on youtube now than it was for his older friends. After some encouragement he uploads a few, and the whole  group advertises him since they all kind of adore him, he’s like a little brother. Unlike the others though, Mordred doesn’t vlog or do video games or reviews or anything. Oh no. His videos are all freestyle rapping/spoken word poetry. About whatever catches his fancy. The weirdest thing is they’re GOOD. Its at such odds with his personality but it is what it is. Gwaine has started a betting pool on when Mordred reaches 1,000 subscribers.  Cenred is a little asshole who does mean/staged prank videos and blogs full of sexist and racist remarks on youtube. The group hates him, half of youtube boy cots him and he has had several scandals.  Elena is a youtube they all know and are friendly with, but because she lives in Scotland they aren’t as close. She does a lot of gaming videos, embarrassing stories from her life, and videos about her horse.  Morgause is a powerful admin/part owner of youtube and constantly makes decisions that hurt most independent and creative youtubers. At one point she tried to flag coming out videos or videos with content/opinions she didn’t agree with. She also pressures them to do advertising and tampers with the recommended and trending list. The group pushes back against these regulations, and it turns into an all out war, where Gwaine, Merlin and Arthur are all nearly banned from youtube before Morguase is fired. 

[chessanator]

NDRV3: Trial 1

First things first, I really want to unsee that statue of Monokuma.

Protagonist fuckery it is then. I actually feel kind of violated; certainly Knox’s Decalogue has been broken every-which way. What’s the point of being in a character’s viewpoint if they’re hiding stuff from us. I do not approve. You know, it’s amazing how easy this is to spoil. Pretty much any picture of Shuichi without his hat shows his ahoge (I had this rant prepared about Kaede’s ahoge, but Shuichi has one too), which spoils that he’s a potential protagonist.

I’m also wondering about the thing that led me to predict that Shuichi was the killer: namely why Rantaro’s tablet doesn’t appear in the picture of him dead. Was it supposed to be hidden under him? Or is it a continuity-error. Making continuity errors when making controversial murder mysteries isn’t the smartest move, Spike Chunsoft.

I’m starting to regret playing on hard/hard, but also really proud of doing quite well despite it. One thing I noticed when starting the trial was how many perks were just for specific minigames, but even then I was surprised by how many showed up during the first trial:

I quite enjoyed the non-stop debates with the split screens. That sort of multi-stream information processing is something I’m quite good at, and though the first one was merely the tutorial and therefore incredibly easy, I’m hoping I’ll be good at in future.

Lying, huh? Well that basically doubles all the possibilities. My controls started to get a bit sluggish around this point, and as a result the lying took a load of health from me each time even though I knew what to do. Not sure if I’ll find any of the claimed backdoors (or if I’ve missed one already.)

Scrum debate has epic music, but I found the controls really sluggish during it to the point where I was having to hammer the ‘w’ and ‘s’ keys to get the game to respond. It doesn’t really say much about how easy or hard I find the logic in these games if I’m spotting the keywords but I can’t even get the pointer to move until they are halfway through their speech. PSA: It’s a known problem and I don’t know if they’ve fixed it yet, but during the final push the game asked for ‘A’ but really wanted ‘S’. Spike better fix this quickly; if it’s still there in the later trials they should be really embarrassed.

Nice change to the rhythm section. I had difficulty getting used to it at first but it really fits the tension not to be able to just press the button whenever you want. I don’t think the tutorial explained what to do when the prompt comes up in the centre well enough, though.

I really don’t like the changes to the final comic book. You can’t see the missing panels at all because they are so small, which means you lose all visual clues from them.

Kaede’s execution was nicely brutal, but those were never really an important part of the Danganronpa experience for me. On the other hand, it looks like we’ll lose a Monokub which each one, for which I’ll be very grateful.

Current favourite character’s list:

Rantaro Amami: RIP

Kokichi Oma: I really liked the way he pointed out that Kaede’s plan was exactly her falling into Monokuma’s trap.

Ryoma Hyoshi: I’m always going to support someone willing to take the brutal utilitarian decisions, especially if they’ll put their own life on the line to do it.

Kirumi Tojo

Kaito Momota

Kaede Akamatsu: It’s not her fault that Spike decided to use her to break the cardinal rules of the murder mystery genre. She had a plan, even if it failed.

Angie Yonaga: She is really starting to freak me out. If they keep writing her like this it’ll be incredibly powerful.

Korekiyo Shinguji

Himiko Yumeno

Maki Harukawa

Shuichi Saihara: He’s still a bit weak, but the protagonist role will suit him by giving a chance to develop and more importantly by giving me the chance to control his every action.

Miu Iruma

Tenko Chabashira

Tsumugi Shirogane: She’s improving, but she’s not there yet. Plus cospox is just ridiculous.

Gonta Gekohara

K1-BO: How is a robot so floppy?

Now to feed hundreds of Monocoins into the machine one at a time.

#ndrv3 #ndrv3 spoilers #Chessanator plays NDRV3 #PSA #Chapter 1

[jestbee]

Trope-A-Dope #1

@killingmeitsso2yearsago said: One of my favourite is when one of them is doing a liveshow and somehow they slip up and they coming out live :-)

I loved this, so I made it a 5 + 1 (I know, how many more times am I gunna do this with a simple prompt?)

Enjoy!

And don’t forget to Send me prompts for this project with the most-used Phanfic tropes.

It’s Worth Deciding

(~5k, Fluff, coming out, 5+1)

The five times Dan and Phil nearly came out in a live stream. And the one time they did.

Title from Half Life by Duncan Sheik: “Before the truth goes back into hiding I want to decide ‘cause it’s worth deciding”

AO3 LINK

1.

It was a stupid idea really. He should have known better than to move the time of his show without telling Dan, but he really had wanted to finish the level of the game he was playing before he started and Dan was usually tuned in in the next room anyway. Except this time.

This time Dan had gone to see Louise and had come home at 9pm expecting Phil to be finished with his live show and ready to settle down on the couch for the evening, had set about making them dinner, oblivious to the fact that Phil was still maintaining a one sided conversation with thousands of subscribers in their living room.

It wasn’t his fault, it was barely Phil’s, but Dan didn’t hear Phil talking and Phil hadn’t told him that he’d decided to move the live show to half 8. Consequently, he was still live to around 15,000 people when Dan came storming into the living room carrying a jar of pasta sauce and one of curry.

“Pasta or curry, babe?”

Phil whipped his head up. Dan was out of shot, standing off behind the laptop, but his voice was instantly recognisable to the thousands of people watching.

The chat was awash with ‘Is that Dan?!’ and ‘OMFGOD DID he just call Phil Babe?!!!!!’ it was moving so quickly Phil could only just make each message out before another one appeared.

Dan was quicker to react than Phil, jumping in front of the screen waving the jars and laughing it off.

“This guy” Dan said gesturing to Phil with one of the jars. Phil isn’t sure which one. “Slave driver, I tell you. You lose one little game of rock paper scissors and I have to cook his stupid dinner…”

“Fair’s fair” Phil said distractedly as he watched the chat still moving at lightening speed.

Dan stayed until the end. Moving the conversation on to commenting on other questions from the chat. Phil wasn’t sure they were even real, but he mostly just let the moment wash over him.

They ignored it, like they always did. Tumblr debated the audio clips of it for a few weeks, arguing over whether Dan’s voice had said ‘babe’ or ‘mate’. It became another thing in their history, more dubious ‘proof’ dragged out at random intervals but neither of them acknowledged it again.

Nothing really changed except that Phil didn’t forget to tell Dan when he moved his live show anymore and after that, Dan always left a moment’s pause before saying anything upon entering a room. It was another adaption they made, another concession to their ongoing secret keeping and it didn’t really bother them, much.

This is what they’ve decided.

2.

Rule one of a Dan live show: never take anything he says seriously. He’d tried to hammer this point home over the years, mostly he was successful and the ambiguity worked well with his branding. The end result was that most things he said were taken out of context, but they weren’t said with much context anyway so it usually didn’t matter so much.

Live shows were always a cause of mild anxiety for Dan, which is probably why he kept everything so blurry, fell unexpectedly into pseudo-intellectual rants and ‘accidental’ life advice.  

Phil obviously planned his, bringing props and conversation starters, as he often did in real life interactions, whipping out unexpected animal facts at the mere hint of a dip in activity. Dan planned too, but he planned what to say, wrote down bullet points of which life events he could talk about, referred to videos and tweets, inane stories about domestic tidbits that fueled the chat just enough to keep them from insisting he answer the bigger questions. In short, he walked a fine line kept only in tact because he tried his damn hardest not to be caught off guard.

Which is why a combination of tiredness and rushing causes him to unravel.

He’d run in from a busy day, barely had time to even log in to the site and battle with error messages and agonising loading times before his own face is staring back at him from the screen and he realises he’s forgotten his trademark post-it with acceptable anecdotes, left it on the desk upstairs in the office where it sits uselessly on their wall calendar.

It isn’t too much of a big deal at first. The chat is mostly tame, asking him how he is and about tweets he’d posted in the last week and the video they’d uploaded on the gaming channel and he manages to stay within the realms of acceptable.

But he’s tired. So tired from the day and running about and all he wants is to crawl into bed beside Phil who he knows is sleeping off a headache in the next room. He hasn’t been home all day but Phil had text him earlier to say that he was experiencing one of the bad ones and that he was going to take pain killers and get into bed early.

And Dan hadn’t been able to come home yet, being in so much of a rush from the meetings he’d had to attend alone, which meant he hadn’t even had chance to go and see him before he had to start the stream, so when he sees the five hundredth ‘get Phil’ appear in the chat he’s almost had enough.

“I can’t get Phil” Dan says with a sigh, “He’s asleep in the bedroom.”

It takes him much longer than it should before he realises his mistake. <i>The.</i> It’s simple. It should be <i>his</i> or <i>Phil’s</i> but it’s not. It is The really. The room he’s in now is, for all intents and purposes, Dan’s bedroom. In the sense that all his clothes and stuff are stored in here and all of Phils are stored in the other one, but they don’t sleep in here.

Perhaps if one of them is feeling particularly insomniac that evening they will, or when they are trying to avoid the inevitable sharing of germs when one of them gets sick, or for appearances when people not in their inner circle stay after house parties. They even, on occasion, make a show of sleeping apart after some stupid fight or other but it’s only a matter of time before one of them is crawling in beside the other, pressing cold toes against warm shins and sliding into each other’s arms with hushed sorrys and gentles kisses.

It’s all over the chat. It’ll be all over the internet come morning in ‘Phan proof’ compilation videos and gif sets and god knows what else. He’ll have the phrase ‘asleep in the bedroom’ tweeted at him for weeks and it’s enough to make him exhausted of it all. He ends the show early and doesn’t even bother to tidy up. Simply shuts his laptop, turns out the lights and makes his way to Phil’s bedroom.

He strips down to his boxers, lifts Phil’s laptop from his side of the bed and crawls in beside him.

“I don’t think it’s that bad.” He hears whispered into the dark.

“God, you were watching?”

Dan feels Phil shrug as he slips an arm over his waist. “I haven’t seen you all day.”

“Missed me eh?” Dan tries to chuckle, “You’re such trash for me.”

Phil rolls over to face him in the dark and nods. “Since the first time I saw you on skype. Kind of reminded me of when you used to ramble on while I fell asleep.”

“Yeah I was incoherent and stupid then too.”

“No,” Phil says, sliding his nose against Dan’s and dipping to kiss him softly, “You were perfect.”

He’s soppy and sleepy from the painkillers. Drowsy and beautiful in the dim light and Dan hugs him softly into his chest, heated skin again his.

There’s some silence as Phil lets his eyes drift shut again, relaxing into Dan’s arms, legs mingled together beneath the sheets.

“You really think it won’t be that bad?”

“No,” Phil sighs, “I think it will. And you’ll get it worse than I do as always, but we’ll ignore it and it will go away.

“Right.” Dan agrees faintly, because that’s what they do. “Is your head still bad?”

“Hmm” Phil says without opening his eyes.

Dan slides one hand into Phils hair and strokes it lightly, running his fingers over his temples and forehead. “Better?”

Phil hums at the contact and Dan continues stroking until his breathing evens out and he’s soft and pliant in his arms. He stayed there, a hand in Phil’s hair and the darkness of <i>the</i> bedroom surrounding them and they don’t decide anything, but then they don’t really need to.

3.

Phil doesn’t mean to. All he did was answer the phone to his mum like he had done numerous times before, always with the rushed ‘I’m in a live show’ at the beginning. Not that he’s afraid she’ll say anything, because she never would usually, there’d be no reason for her to and yet…

“Hi mum I’m in a–”

“I can’t stop love,” his mum barrels on over the top of his warning, “I’ve got so much to do. I just wanted to check whether you two are still coming up this weekend.”

“Yes but–”

“Good. Wouldn’t want you third wheeling with Martyn and Cornelia.”

“Err… Great. Yeah. Got to go mum, I’m in a liveshow.”

“You’re what–”

And phil puts the phone down. He doesn’t think he’s ever put the phone down on his mum before.

It’s not what she said exactly. Because the fact that Phil is bringing <i>someone</i> to his parent’s house this weekend, someone who will stop him being a third wheel, doesn’t mean that its Dan. But the implication is there. And the fact that he’d be third wheeling alone doesn’t mean that the person making him not be a third wheel is his own date. But the implication is there. So it stands to reason that nothing his mum said would imply that Dan is coming, as his date, to a wedding of a family friend and they’re staying at his parent’s house this weekend. But the implication is there.

And it’s that implication that makes him put the phone down and become distracted and lackluster for the rest of the show. It’s there in the comments, the speculation and the questioning, but Phil tries to ignore it. It’s the usual tactic.

“It shouldn’t be a big deal though” Dan says later when he’s hopped up on the counter next to Phil who is stirring spices into chicken in a pan.

“It shouldn’t” Phil agrees, “But that’s our life I guess. It’s the price we pay.”

“You always say that. But, I mean, would it be a big deal if we just, didn’t censor this stuff?”

Phil rests the spoon on the edge of the pan.

“What are you saying?”

“I don’t know, exactly” Dan admits, “Just that it’s fucking stupid that I can’t go to a wedding with my boyfriend without thousands of people on the internet commenting on it.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s quite as simple as you’re reducing it to there but… in a way you’re right.”

Dan huffs and Phil moves the pan from the heat, turns off the stove and moves to wiggle between Dan’s knees. He slides his hands to the tops of Dan’s thigh and squeezes gently.

“One day it will be that simple” Phil promises with a casual kiss pressed to the end of Dan’s nose, “One day we’ll just be able to say we’re going to a wedding and everyone will think we’re boring and be so over it that no one will even tweet us.”

“So we’re closeted and popular or out and no longer relevant. Great positive outlook on our future there Philly.”

Phil pouts and puts his arms securely around Dan’s waist.

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean then?”

“I meant that one day it won’t be a thing. We’ll be out and happy and everyone will just be used to it. It won’t be news.”

Dan sighs and ducks his head to rest his forehead on Phil’s shoulder.  “How do we get to your magical utopian future?”

“I don’t know,” Phil says honestly. “But we will.”

It feels like a decision. It’s not something they’ve vocalised before, at least not to each other,  but it’s out there now, swimming around them, tempting and vibrant.

“I want to go to there,” Dan whispers, only smirking slightly.

“Stick with me,” Phil assures him, “I’ll get us there.”

4.

YouTube parties. There’s a certain unspoken pact that everyone enters into in the environment that makes them drop their guard. It’s an unspoken rule that cameras are to be left abandoned out of sight. They all need a moment of reprieve, of being out in the world without fear, not trapped behind locked doors, hidden and secretive. They can share themselves with this corner of the world, because it isn’t just them that are tucking themselves back away as soon as the cameras come out.

And so they relax. Slips fingers between fingers, step into each other’s space, touch longer, smile wider and drop the pretence that so often lingers over them. They are not careful, because they don’t need to be.

Beyond the bubble they’ve created is the circling hazard of inexperienced youth. Unbeknownst to them a 16 year old YouTuber, new to the scene and recently denied the pleasure of ordering alcohol at this party, decides to make a name for himself. He loads up the live stream section of instagram and announces in a hushed voice, face illuminated by neon flashing lights, that he’s going to expose the reason why no one vlogs at YouTube parties.

They aren’t the only ones he captures on camera that night. A few other secrets are exposed, and in much higher definition than they had been. But even the blurry image of their backs, bodies pressed together from shoulder to hip, arms slung carelessly about each other, faces dipped close, is recognisable enough to send a shockwave through various social media platforms.

Tumblr blogs zoom in tight, Twitter accounts make their profile pictures this solitary still image of two dark haired blurs leaning towards each other. It’s not proof, but it’s damning anyway.

It doesn’t last, and neither does the young YouTuber’s career, but it’s enough to stir a conversation that’s long overdue.

“We need to decide.” Phil announces.

Dan doesn’t need to ask what about. “We do.”

“I have absolutely no idea how though.”

Dan shrugs, “Me either. We’ve sort of backed ourselves into a corner haven’t we?”

“Liars or hypocrites,” Phil agrees.

It’s a phrase they’ve said so many times over the years. They come out and they’re liars. Judged for keeping a secret that formed in the early days, when they were trying to protect the fragile, sacred thing they’d been building. Just holding it back between them until it felt more solid, more permanent.

So they lied, by omission if not by the constant use of ‘friend’ when they meant ‘partner’, ‘lover’, ‘everything’. By the time it felt real enough that they could have shared it, it was too late. Their careers and lives twined so tightly but so precariously that any tiny shift could mean eternal ruin, especially when they’d made so many sacrifices, taken so many risks, just to have a chance at it.

They come out and they’re liars. Or else they keep their secret and they’re hypocrites.

They have chanted a constant litany of self acceptance through the years. The mantra of ‘do what makes you happy’ put forth from both of them in various and prolific ways and it’s a small irony that they don’t take their own advice. But they’re never actually decided that this will be their lot forever, have never actually drawn a line in the sand that they’ll never step over.

They can be one, or they can be the other, and as the tweeted replies, tumblr tags and youtube comments roll in, each touting one blurry image as a demand for satisfaction to a question that has been asked more times that they would ever dare to count, they have to decide.

5.

In the end it’s not quite an accident, but not yet a conscious effort. They simply stop… trying. They don’t lower their guard, don’t start flaunting about everything they hold most precious, but they do stop the obvious denial and argumentative contradiction.

It’s a joint live show because they have news. There will be a video too but they’ve wanted to express it more fluidly, to feel an instant response perhaps rather than dragging themselves through the  effort of shooting and editing and waiting while the comments load. Instead they huddle close together on their couch, framed from the waist up and full of happy, excited smiles.

“So we’ve got some news,” Phil says about 40 minutes in, swiping his fringe back into place with the side of his fingers. It’s nervous habit that Dan grins at fondly.

“That’s right you fiends, hold on to your trashy bedazzled hats cus me and Phil, we’ve got some pretty big news.”

Phil wants to roll his eyes, because Dan playing up to a camera is just so typical but it’s something he’s grown so accustomed to over the years. So much so that now he’s exasperatedly fond of his weird over-egged danisnotonfire personality.

“Why are their hats bedazzled?”

“I don’t know,” Dan says with a side eye to the camera, “You’d have to ask them. Weirdos.”

“You can’t call them weirdos, Dan.”

“Course I can Philly. They’re weirdos, with their weird kinky group chat names and their meme trash shitposts. Yeah…” he leans closer to the laptop, pointing an accusing finger, “you know who you are.”

“Dan, Dan, stop.” Phil says with a tender hand on his arm, “Sit back down.”

“Fine Phil, protect those smol beans.”

“I will.” Phil coughs, “Err… so, news.”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to tell them?”

“Macie in the chat says HURRY UP, OMFG.” Dan laughs. He’s clearly enjoying the build up.

Phil is too, but he’s unnaturally nervous about it for some reason, there’s a lot sort of riding on it and they have no way to tell how people will react. The live show chat is just a tester anyway, so they can prepare for the onslaught when they actually do put out a proper video tomorrow. By that time it will be all over the internet anyway, and hopefully people will be used to the idea.

So Dan’s worried and is over acting everything. Swinging from one extreme to the other, loud and brash and fidgeting with things just out of eyeline of the camera. He’s distracted like he always gets when his head is full of the ‘what ifs’ and Phil is distracted by Dan.

Which is why he can be forgiven for jumping the gun and letting the phrase ‘we bought a house and we’re moving and we won’t be in this flat anymore’ spill from his mouth like rainwater where they’d agreed they’d remain ambiguous on the exact capacity in which they had acquired said new living quarters. They’d planned to hint at renting again, they’d planned to say ‘we’ in a way that didn’t imply they had made a huge real estate investment. Together. With joint finances.

They hadn’t planned to lie, just skirt around the truth. Phil, instead, had blurted it all out.

But they don’t see the expected explosion of ‘Phan is real’ in the chat, though it’s most certainly there. Instead it’s crammed between the barrage of ‘OMG’ and ‘I’m so happy for you guys’ and ‘yay storage’.

People are happy. And they aren’t focussing on the lie, aren’t calling them out on everything that has previously gone unsaid or been blatantly refuted, instead they’re focussing on the future and what is to come.

It’s harder when the video lands, and they receive far more of the expected commentary on the situation, even though they tried to tamper the message slightly so that not so much of them is exposed. Settling for, ‘we’re moving to a new place’ rather than Phil’s original, but more revealing, statement.

But the initial flood of positivity fills them with hope that it might not be as bad as they fear, and when they close the laptop lid after the live show and grin at each other with a sheen to their eyes they’ll deny later, they don’t need to voice their decision out loud.

+1 

“Hello” they say in unison.

“I almost said DanAndPhilGAMES and panicked that I hadn’t thought of a name” Phil laughs.

“Why would you–” Dan start in a high pitched voice, “No, best not to ask. Hi everyone, welcome to the live show.”

“I’m just used to doing it when you’re sat next to me,” Phil shrugs, grinning widely and spinning in his desk chair slightly.

“Oh cus of the computer chairs?” Dan asks, “Grace in the chat wants to know why we’re sat in the computer chairs and where are you and Blah blah blah. All in good time Grace, all in good time.”

“You can’t keep them hanging.”

“Can’t I?” Dan says, rubbing his hands together.

“No.” Phil shakes his head defiantly in Dan’s direction before turning back to the camera. “You guys know we’re in our new house and this,” he waves his hands about manically, circling the blank space behind them, “Is going to be the new gaming room.”

“Yeah, totally snazzy background. Don’t worry, we won’t be leaving it like this is just things are hectic people, there’s only so many boxes of stuff I can lug about before it becomes like, actual exercise.”

“I know my arms are killing me,” Phil demonstrates by wiggling his arm, “When did we get so much stuff?”

“I don’t know. But anyway, I’ve got lots of ideas about the aesthetic of this background, I can feel the creative juices flowing and…”

“Dan.” Phil interrupts. “The people just want the sofa bed back.”

“Well too bad you little shits, cus it’s gone.”

“Yeah, it was so broken guys, it never recovered from when Dan broke it so it was a casualty of the move. Like, the minute we tried to move it…” he makes a breaking noise.

“When I broke it?” Dan’s mouth falls open, “Right guys, write in the chat who you think broke the sofa bed.”

They watch it scroll for a moment.

“See.”

“I didn’t break it.” Phil insists, “I didn’t.”

“Whatever Philly. Megan wants to know when they’ll get a house tour.” Dan read, “We just moved in so probably not for a while. We have boxes everywhere, I don’t know how we’re going to get to the bed.”

“I know,” Phil responds without missing a beat, because this had been the plan, their decision to do it with as little fanfare as possible. “I swear the bedroom is the worst. Emily in the chat says ‘make a box fort’ that’s a brilliant idea.

“Nope. I can see you getting excited about it Phil but honestly, we’d have to stack stuff so high cus we’re like giraffes and it’s just asking for trouble.”

“You’re no fun.” Phil pouts.

“I’m tons of fun.” Dan insists, followed by an improvised little hum, “God the chat is going so quickly.”

“The bed.” Phil says, deadpan. “The bedroom.”

“Yeah yeah, old news. Keep up guys, its 2018, stuffs gone down in the past year, haven’t you been paying attention?”

“Let’s do some premium messages.” Phil says and then tips his head sideways slightly as if checking to see whether Dan agrees.

“Trashpile324- Good username there- says ‘Get a dog’.” Dan reads, “Maybe,” he shrugs, ”at some point.”

“Doggo!” Phil enthuses, “Cus, garden.”

“Yep. Totally Shibe-friendly the new garden.”

“Or corgi.” Phil insists.

Dan rolls his eyes. “Eternal debate” he says to the camera, “Don’t even think about what happens when we try to name it.”

“What’s wrong with Thor?” Phil asks

“Nothing exactly, except I’m not shouting Thor in the park when we take it for a walk.”

Phil laughs, tongue poking between his teeth.

“It’s got to be something that’s reflective of us as people and of the dog’s personality.”

“Rebecca says ‘if it’s this hard naming a dog can you imagine them with kids’ yeah I know! It’s difficult cus it’s like a huge responsibility naming something or someone. They have to live with it. Forever.”

“Whatever man, they can change it if they want to. No pressure. Like, they can be whoever they want to.”

They both giggle and they leave the subject there, move on to other things. That’s enough for one show, and the chat is exploding as it is. They don’t ignore it, not this time. And they don’t cover anything up or lie or hide, but they don’t come right out and say it either.

It’s all there though. Between the lines, hinted at, implied, in the footnotes. It’s there if you look, and this is what they’ve decided. Because the time for explaining and going over everything has long since passed. They were never going to be like that anyway.

Instead they decide to just, live. To just be. And it’s easier than they thought it could be, quieter and calmer than they’d thought possible.

Eventually they say ‘babe’ in a live show without it being a dreadful mistake. They slip ‘boyfriend’ and ‘love’ into conversations without much fuss. Letting it trip over into ‘husband’ and ‘family’ a few years after and ‘dad’ after a few more.

It happens without acknowledgment that it is, worked into the tapestry of their lives as if it had always been there, threaded through their world in ways that make you squint to see how anything is different to how it had always been.

They decide, and they keep deciding.

#phanfiction #phanfic #fanfiction #fanfic #trope-a-dope #fanfic tropes #prompts #myfics #fic prompts #fanfic prompts #ao3 #phan #phandom #dan and phil #phanfic fluff

[spraffin]

03/04/17

MARCH 

I know tomorrow is going to come because I’ve seen it. Sunrise is going to come, all you have to do is wake up. The future has been at war, but it’s coming home so soon.

March arrived quietly; entered stage left without making too much noise, and sat down without a fuss. It came with a warm breeze and new hope, new self-worth, and new goals. When February had finished its perfomance, it had bowed with feigned humility, and clambered undaintily down from the stage. February knows how impressive it was. February wore me out with progress, and had me sleeping so often that it took me a while to notice how much harder I was living while I was awake. On the day of my audition, I was finally able to access the sweeping confidence I adopt whenever I feel fulfilled - the same confidence I use when I’m working with kids at Glen and at parties with new friends. I felt tall and upright and genuine. Tara from my building in Granton was there, and I was struck by my progress since leaving from the moment I greeted her - I considered her a close friend, but until then I don’t think we’d ever had a conversation in which I was properly focused on her, since I was always so overwhelmed by anxiety. We took part in a two hour workshop and I charged into it with more energy than I knew I had. I delivered my monologue one and a half times without panicking, and I was congratulated for an entertaining and engaging performance. Following this we were interviewed privately. A stern woman with curly hair who Fin had described to me as a “terror” talked softly to me about my options and why I’d left Granton a third of the way into my course. She was very gentle and told me how brave she thought I must be. A few days later, I got an unconditional offer.  The idea of a future is so strange and foreign when you’re in recovery. It’s overwhelming to suddenly be confronted with a limitless stream of possibilities that you never thought you’d see again - to be re-met by opportunities you’ve already mourned. I am confused, but excited. I’m getting stronger and stronger.

We are all going to be part of each other one day. The future is a blue sky and a full tank of gas.

I accepted the offer and thought hard about performing. There’s little I feel more wonderful doing. I love comedy, I love singing, I love pretending, I love making up bits on the spot. I love being looked at and admired and laughed at. Empathy makes me so much better at being entertaining. I love feeling huge and bright. I love other people and I love them in a crowd, whether they’re sat in rows beneath me or gathered around me at a party. My entire understanding of self-esteem is about performance. I can’t function without it so I’m going to learn how to do it better. 

March came with warm days and tough mornings, slow nights. I spent time with Lauryn and skipped rehearsal more than once and slept and played guitar. Rinse and repeat. But then came the end of the month, and the journey to Northamptonshire. 

TRAVELLING 

Lord I’m one, Lord I’m two, Lord I’m three, Lord I’m four, Lord I’m 500 miles from my home. 

I took my medication and climbed onto the coach, and slept until we reached Glasgow. It was dark and gorgeous and raining, and I grinned and wriggled in my seat and fell asleep again. Birmingham at six A.M. The sun rose through thick white fog while I sat in the dark rail station. I felt euphoric but so relaxed. I smiled hard as the train pulled into Northampton. I got on an eight A.M bus full of English school kids who yelled in abrasive shrill accents. Spencer and I found each other in Kettering, and the weight of our friendship was overwhelming and so sweet and thick and heavy like honey. 

The next few days passed in a blur of blankets and patterned curtains and sunlight glowing into a cup of tea. I basked in the rare and amazing gift of total comfort in the presence of someone else. Alice turned out to be the most beautiful cat in the world. Megan and I swapped books and we visited a country park with Spencer’s nieces. The kids were adorably goofy and charming and told us they knew being gay was okay because they watched Shane Dawson. We had ice creams and then headed home for noodles and incredibly cheap wine, the kind that tastes like acetone and should really be saved for when you’re drinking in a public park in your school uniform. We laughed - I remember laughter as an almost permanent state that I lived in while in England - and made beautiful art and ugly art and explored Northampton. I was glum and drained for the return journey, and found Birmingham ten times as beautiful at four A.M than I had the first time I’d passed through. Chinatown glowed red in the darkness, like the last embers of a fire, the wind biting. I walked back and forth for miles to kill time before the coach left. I made it home after fourteen hours and fell immediately into bed. 

Then, the days were tired and nerve-wracking. I napped on Lauryn and painted blue and green and gold onto her eyelids. Heather went to a job interview and I sat next to her smiling smugly, internally screaming “that’s my friend!”. Imogen and I went to see a singing competition. Lucy was immense as usual, belting angrily, so much power coming from a tower of five-foot-nothing, commanding attention in her uniquely compelling way. Rachael was angelic and soft and sweet, and her face exploded into a smile when she won. 

My family left for the Lake District on Friday evening, and I packed frantically for Edinburgh. I was overcome with anxiety - my ribs throttled my heart like a cage and I breathed as if it was my last chance. I knew I wouldn’t be going near Granton, but my head was reeling and spinning as I pictured Princes Street. I thought about the frost underneath my feet in Sighthill, the sun over Leith Walk, crying on the tram, crying on the bus, crying in the rain, crying in my bedroom. I remembered my panic and anxiety about my friends from Glen, and how fervently I believed that none of them could ever or had ever loved me. I took my medicine and slept for as long as I could bear. 

EDINBURGH

Olivia was texting me, and kept me distracted for much of the train journey, but the coldness rose up my throat and choked me, and when I stepped into the station something inside me collapsed. I was shaky, but I walked until the sun hit me, and then I found Josh and Rowan. It was hard, but I forced myself to focus, and concentrated with all of my might on where I was and who they were, and then I was okay. My hands shook while I ate lemon tart in Costa, at the same table I’d sat at when I’d seen Holly at the beginning of October. Rowan was gentle and I looked at her and not out of the window at the city. By the time Elyse had arrived, I was stable. 

We made it to the cathedral early, and the sunshine was streaming through the stained-glass and I was teasing Josh and Rowan about their affection for each other. We found Gordon immediately, then Kate, then Tembu, and I made Kerridge’s lip bleed when I jumped into a hug with her, and when I caught Ley-Anne she said “Did you bring the posters? Good. Oh yeah - also hello, and I love you.”  

Tembu chose Josh and me to represent SEC youth in a video for General Synod. The producers recorded me describing my experiences with faith, then followed me around with a camera for a while. We knelt down to write our favourite memories from camp on a huge paper banner. We squashed around a table littered with chainmail materials and Tembu brandished pliers. We ate lunch with the Glen DVDs blaring in the background, cries of nostalgia and joy echoing from every direction. Finally, we were herded into an ante-chapel where Claire Starr sat wielding a copy of Winnie the Pooh. Time for a little something. Kiron, Tembu’s youngest, climbed over my lap restlessly until I scooped him up and we headed outside to run around. 

I found Aidan and Hannah, Rebecca and Iain gaggled together underneath the cathedral, singing. Samuel climbed the wall and stood miles above us. Rebecca and I breezed into the ceilidh hall to watch the band set up. I saw Claire BE rush her way into a red dress and hurry back into the throng like a hero to organise it all. When Andrew arrived, everything felt warmer. I’d missed my best friend. I danced all but one dance, sweated and laughed and jumped and whooped and ran. There is nothing more fun than a ceilidh. There is no better way to wallow in the experience of your love for your friends. 

Emily guided me to the tomato quiche and stuffed me with samosas, and Rachel and Claire congratulated me on my recovery in the cold dark outside where we drank water and Taylor smoked. I was in my element all evening, making everyone laugh, and I was never lost for words. I feel like I am becoming myself again. I am better. 

We roared Auld Lang Syne and charged at each other in a messy overexcited throng. Rebecca was so lit up and happy, and I felt exactly how she looked. I was so lighthearted. The delegates left and the leaders pulled chairs into a wide, messy circle, pulling out beers and wine and cider, chatting excitedly. I chucked an ice pack at my twisted ankle, grinning wildly and teasing Taylor, yelling protests at anyone who made a face at my Lambrini. “Get a fucking life, Thalia!” “It costs £1.50, ya dick!” 

For to see her was to love her! Love but her, and love forever!

We entertained each other with stories and jokes and games. Before the circle finally dissipated into several groups, Mark got up and sang Ae Fond Kiss. His voice filled the room and I watched as everyone closed their eyes, sat back, let it spill over them. I felt lucky. I feel lucky.

Kirsty and I shrieked with laughter twenty times per conversation, and Kerridge ranted about her overwhelming affection for me only three ciders in. Ley-Anne and I spoke quietly about all that had happened to us and I plaited her hair. I felt the night come in strong as I flitted between the clusters of my friends, laughing and chatting to each and every one of them. I drank Taylor’s rum and we held hands and giggled with Neil for hours on end. We charged into the kitchen area at three A.M like animals to a watering hole to eat bread and red velvet cake, and then I grabbed my blanket and we settled down on the floor and finally fell asleep. 

We woke because we were cold. My teeth chattered, and we climbed first to the thermostat and then to the plate of leftover quiche. Hannah ambled over to sit in front of our radiator, grumbling up a storm with sleep in her eyes. Everything was so easy. When did everything get so easy? 

Mark addressed the cathedral and told us all that Glen fuels his ministry. Tembu thanked us and God for the camp. I am so lucky. I am so lucky. Samuel and I read the intercessions and I gave Andrew the card I made for him and Rachel. It took so long to extricate myself from the group - farewell hugs occupied us for fifteen minutes. I can’t believe I once feared I’d never be back with these friends. I headed down Princes Street in the brilliant sunlight to find Jodie and Rebecca in the gardens. We ate lunch under a tree and chatted a little sleepily but so happily. 

I am tired now, but I can see how fast I’m improving. I want to feel ambitious again, and I’m working so hard. I’m really, really proud of myself. 

#p

[hishotandhaywireheart]

Survey from Esther~

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most? Janina Gavankar - Don't Look Down The Irrepressibles - Two Men In Love The Irrepressibles - The Arrow Flor - Warm Blood Shearwater - Animal Life Bastille - Laura Palmer 2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? I'm overwhelmed by this question and can't pick a single answer, sorry lol. This is like asking me what my favorite Pokémon is. 3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17. I'm in a dog boarding facility's kitchen at the moment, no books in sight, I'm afraid. But I am reading the first book of the Raven Cycle series in audio form, if that helps 4: What do you think about most? What a question. Art? Animals? 5: What does your latest text message from someone else say? It's my boyfriend saying he's going to sleep :3 6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on? *Gamagoori voice* I sleep in the nude 7: What’s your strangest talent? Even though I am not a smoker [unless you count a couple of hookahs per year], I can tell the brand of a cigarette by the smell of the smoke. The smell on someone's clothes, I know immediately what brand it is. Mixture of childhood exposure, sensory sensitivity, and the jobs I've worked lol. 8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence) Girls are powerful. Boys are powerful. 9: Ever had a poem or song written about you? I dunno. Maybe? 10: When is the last time you played the air guitar? Uhh. Not a thing that occurs to me to do, to be honest lol 11: Do you have any strange phobias? Big phobia of hypodermic needles, or generally anything like a splinter, tiny shard of glass or hook getting underneath my skin. Phobic of getting pregnant. I guess those are weird. 12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose? Uhhh probably? 13: What’s your religion? What a complicated question lol. Simple answer: I'm pagan. But there is literally nothing simple about my endless thoughts about spirituality 14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing? Taking a walk in the woods, or sitting by a stream or body of water [water sources are especially sacred parts of nature for me] 15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? Both. But I love taking photos and nobody really takes any photos of me. So I guess behind. Especially when it's behind a Polaroid. 16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band? Shearwater. Honorable mention to the Irrepressibles. 17: What was the last lie you told? Fuck if I know 18: Do you believe in karma? Not really. But as always I believe in the awesome power of the brain. 19: What does your URL mean? It's my name with "Irrepressible" after it, in the style of Jamie Irrepressible, the vocalist of, well, you can probably guess which band. 20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength? Weakness - I'm extremely prone to gaslighting and self doubt about my own reality. Strength - I might not be a fan of abrupt change, but I am very adaptable, given time to adjust. 21: Who is your celebrity crush? None 22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping? No, sadly. Remember what I said about my irrational fear of stepping on hooks or sharp objects? Interferes with my sacred need to swim in every lake I see. 23: How do you vent your anger? Ideally, art. Drawing, writing, even recording myself ranting to my microphone about it. 24: Do you have a collection of anything? I collect retro Pokémon merchandise and certain old video games. :> this makes me sound like a massive genwunner but rest assured, it's just an Aesthetic™ 25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? Text, to be honest. Us auties generally do better communicating in text based media. Skype calls are useful at times but I've always found them too awkward with delays and such to use reliably. 26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become? Hmmm. Tentatively, yes? 27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love? Sound I hate: male voices shouting. Sound I love: music bouncing off walls and becoming ethereal and far away. 28: What’s your biggest “what if”? What if I don't understand what this question is asking me? 29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens? Ghosts, no. I talk about them a lot though because the idea of them is dear and important to me, but literally, no, I have no belief in some vaporized version of your personality that goes on after death. Aliens, I assume are a matter of inevitability. But I don't believe we will probably ever find or meet them in the foreseeable future. Humans think they are much more fascinating than they actually are. Aliens are not crawling all over themselves to build technology just to come fly over to our house and meet us. Sry 30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm. Air both times lol 31: Smell the air. What do you smell? The heat coming on at work because morning is here. Faint dog poop smell. Gonna have to tidy that up lol 32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to? Buttfuck nowhere, West Virginia 33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast? East Coast, if we're talking america 34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender? I don't have an opposite gender 35: To you, what is the meaning of life? To create something meaningful and beautiful, and to enjoy myself to the fullest while helping others whenever possible 36: Define Art. If it makes you think about whether or not it's art, then it's art. 37: Do you believe in luck? Uhh. Like as an actual outside force that decides whether good or bad stuff will happen to me, no. 38: What’s the weather like right now? Coldddd 39: What time is it? 6 am. Time to get off work! 40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed? Yes, I drive, don't love it but glad I am able. No, but I did run over a bin once 41: What was the last book you read? A book about the history of heterosexuality as a concept, fascinating read actually 42: Do you like the smell of gasoline? As a kid I liked it but it's kinda gross now 43: Do you have any nicknames? Many 44: What was the last film you saw? Can't remember a film rn but I am currently watching The Story Of Film which I CANNOT recommend enough, it is a documentary series about, well, the history of cinema and even if you don't care about movie making... It will absorb you completely and make you not only care but be totally fascinated. I adore it. 45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had? You know, I've been really lucky. Never broken bone or needed stitches or even like, been to the hospital, lol. I think I chipped my shin bone on a brick stair once. And a couple years ago I missed a stair going down and sprained my ankle, and my work refused to let me spend any time off my feet so I was crying from pain in front of customers lol. But it healed fast once I had a brace. No problem. 46: Have you ever caught a butterfly? I dunno. I was taught as a child that if you touch their wing dust even a little, they will lose their flight and die. So probably I haven't. Even though I now know this isn't quite true. 47: Do you have any obsessions right now? The Story of Film, some bands, getting sucked back deep into my lifelong love Pokémon again lol 48: What’s your sexual orientation? Pansexual, or: Why Are Gender And Genital Shape Our Main Social Indicator Of Romantic Or Sexual Preferences, Of All Things, That's Really Weird And I Can't Relate, Please Save Me From This Bizarro World 49: Ever had a rumour spread about you? Oh yes, plenty back in school 50: Do you believe in magic? Ahh. I believe in the power of will. I believe in the ability to make your own life full of magic via willpower. I believe in the harmless use of willpower to try and cause a change in your environment. I believe the force exercised by children known dismissively as "imagination" have incredible power to influence the mind and soul. I have no belief in a metaphysical force in the universe called "magic" that could describe basically anything and everything unknown to current science. If you ask me flat-out, I will say yes, I believe in magic. But this is more of what I mean. I don't believe in "magic", except that I do. Adamantly. 51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong? I do not tend to forget. Forgive is a matter of situation. But I don't forget. And I am quite the talented ice prince when it comes to freezing someone entirely out of my life. This includes immediate family. I only speak to my little sister out of my entire family. 52: What is your astrological sign? Taurus-Gemini cusp! 53: Do you save money or spend it? Spend :T 54: What’s the last thing you purchased? Bread, milk and a couple very cheap, very pink, very glittery nail polishes. My weakness. 55: Love or lust? Yes. 56: In a relationship? Yep 57: How many relationships have you had? Uhh... Many? Serious, deep romantic relationships, which I suspect is your real question: three. 58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue? Nope 59: Where were you yesterday? Home, and briefly out at the store. 60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you? My nails are pink and glittery. 61: Are you wearing socks right now? Yep. I wear two pairs to work because my super comfy work shoes are just the tiniest bit too big. 62: What’s your favourite animal? You asked the impossible question. Today, your answer is: praying mantis. Specifically praying mantis godmothers. Ask me again in two hours for an entirely different answer. 63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you? Sorry, too socially awkward for this prompt 64: Where is your best friend? In bed, it is very late and/or early. 65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr. Don't really have favorites? Just people and stuff I like. 66: What is your heritage? Whitey white. Scots Irish, English, a bit of German, and like everything else you can expect from a family that's been in America about as long as a white devil could possibly be. My mother is a hobbyist genealogist, so this isn't just typical white folks bullshit, I'm vaguely more educated on my roots. I am in fact a distant cousin of notable American politician of the 19th century, Henry Clay. 67: What were you doing last night at 12AM? Playing Pokémon Blue! Beating the game for literally the first time ever! 68: What do you think is Satan’s last name? Uh. Um. Oh god, I don't know lmao 69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off? Yes, everyone has, normalize it 70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend? Hmmm. Yes. 71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do? Lose my job bitches, and maybe hope to go viral and boost my chances of getting a new job for doing this thing lol 72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid? A-Maybe. At least a few people. B-Travel, make good art, write my will, get my affairs in order. C- Yes, for a while. 73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love. Trust obvs 74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it? Many. First one that comes to mind is Empire by Jukebox the Ghost 75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number? Nope 76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship? Being best friends and trying to understand one another and willing to be open and honest, no ego in the way 77: How can I win your heart? Buy me sushi. 78: Can insanity bring on more creativity? Yes. 79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far? To not have children. 80: What size shoes do you wear? American size seven in men's, nine in women's. Sometimes half a size up or down. 81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone? No idea. I should get thinking on that. 82: What is your favourite word? Don't really have one favorite tbh 83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart. Glowing lights, core imagery 84: What is a saying you say a lot? Hell yeah 85: What’s the last song you listened to? Maxiimo Park - Going Missing 86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours? Long story short: indigo. 87: What is your current desktop picture? Some Pokémon, I forget which. 88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be? A random white supremacist, maybe, but honestly, I probably wouldn't press it 89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on? No idea rn 90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do? I'd be quite disturbed because I cut my teeth on Ocarina of Time and was very creeped out by ReDeads 91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power? Shapeshifting. Always my answer. Covers being an animal, or being a child, or flying, or swimming. 92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again? First thought is a marching band performance from high school. Second thought is back in that car in the vast moonlit Utah desert. 93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? Bad math teachers. Gave me a complex about math and didn't improve me as a person in any way like most of the others did. 94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be? No interest 95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go? Japan motherfuckers 96: Do you have any relatives in jail? Not that I'm aware of but I couldn't care less tbh 97: Have you ever thrown up in the car? If I have, I must have been very small. 98: Ever been on a plane? Yep, just twice. 99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say? If they actually absorbed what I had to say? Love yourselves. Love each other. Endeavor to understand each other. Try to figure out what you were taught wrong about yourself and your fellow humans, and unlearn those things. Embrace humanity in all its diversity. Open up and be vulnerable.

#Surveyz

[virginieboesus]

Why I Prefer Owning Physical Copies of Games

As of yesterday, there has a been a lot of coverages around the interwebs of Google’s latest project, Stadia; a streaming service for games that is comparable to the likes of Netflix. However, what I’m not going to do is rehash the same old article that you’ve probably read over a hundred times already. I’m not here to pass judgement on Google Stadia, especially as it’s only just been announced.

Instead, what I wanted to do was talk about the gaming industry’s move away from physical discs to digital downloads and, now, streaming of games. I wanted to talk about my opinions on this move, and why I still prefer to own physical copies of games rather than digital versions.

Potential Loss of Access

The first thing that we’re going to talk about is the fact that, with a physical copy of the game, no-one can take it away from you (except by breaking into your house and stealing it). Once you’ve paid for that game, you have it on disc for as long as you look after the disc. Naturally, there are certain types of games where you’ll still lose access to them eventually, such as MMORPGs when their servers are turned off. However, that’s the minority – for the large majority of games, we will be able to keep them and play them whenever we want.

However, when it comes to digital games, there is something that happened in the past that we all need to keep in mind. How many of you remember P.T? Judging be the playable teaser of Silent Hills’ popularity, I would guess that a lot of you do. Well, if you take P.T as a case study, it paints a potentially scary side to digital games. When you have “bought” a demo, even though it is free, you download it to the hard drive of your PS4 and added to your PSN account. From there, you should have access to it for as long as you have that PSN account. However, after the Silent Hills project was shelved, the demo was entirely removed from the PSN and you could no longer redownload it, even if you had already added it your PSN account.

The reason I want to bring this to light is that, if that could happen with a demo, it could potentially happen with a full release game as well. So, in my head, there is always going to be a concern in my head about whether the digital games that I purchase will just be removed one day. On top of this, with Google Stadia being compared to Netflix and other streaming services, it also brings is a similar issue.

There have been many shows and movies on Netflix, Amazon Prime and NowTV that my wife and I enjoyed. However, they all had a limited lifespan of availability on their specific streaming service and are now no longer available. If the gaming industry is moving towards a similar setup, then I must admit, I have concerns that we will have incidents where we will be enjoying a game and then it will be removed from the streaming service. And when that happens, we won’t have a leg to stand on, because we won’t actually own the game.

Ownership of a physical copy of a game means that you are able to ensure you continue to have access to it whenever you want to play it. That game can’t be suddenly taken away from you.

Games As A Service

Now, this one is a bit more controversial, potentially. Gaming as a service isn’t a new thing at all. I mean, MMORPGs have been charging subscription costs for years. However, until recent years, this mentality of monetisation was largely limited to the MMORPG genre. That was fine. The issue comes with the prominence of gaming as a service in other types of games now. For example, there are a huge amount of Freemium games out there now, where you can get the game and play it for free, but to get the most out of it you need to pay a recurring fee or buy in-game “coins” of some sort.

Again, this used to be limited to the likes of Free-To-Play MMORPGs or Mobile games, but has now flooded the PC and Console market as well.

The reason why it is possibly a controversial subject is that, for some games, it is a legitimate business model. For example, MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV use that money to help fuel development of high quality content that is added to the game (in the case of FFXIV, that includes free content every few months). So, gaming as a service can be a good thing. The issue arises when this mentality becomes the most prevelant thought in developers or publishers’ minds – when a game is built and developed purely with the intent of making it an ongoing subscription service, the gamers are the ones who lose out.

But that’s not really fixed by having physical copies of games, so you’re probably wondering why I’m even talking about it, right?

Well, it comes back to the Google Stadia again. You see, a single game that is pushed out with the sole intention of driving a subscription fee is bad (in my opinion) so an entire gaming library could be horrendous. At the moment, we don’t really know much about the games that are going to be on the Stadia. In fact, we only have a few named so far;

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Doom Eternal

An unnamed title from Q Games

So, as it stands, it’s unclear how many AAA titles are going to be ported across. There is a high possibility that we’ll end up having a lot of games added to it that are lower quality games with excessively long game time – this would purely be to ensure that you keep paying your subscription fee.

I am hoping that won’t be the case and that the Stadia will offer top quality games, but the cynic in me doesn’t think that will be the case. I do, however, really want to be proven wrong. If gaming as a service can be made into a positive for both the industry and the gamers, then that would be great. It is, however, still a concern for me.

Especially when I think back over all of the games I have played across the last 25 years of gaming, and realise that my favourites were all disc-based games before the internet was really a thing. Those games offered me hundreds of hours of enjoyment, without the need to pay money for them every month…

Preservation Of Games

The third part of this little look into my head and why I prefer physical copies of games comes down to the preservation of the medium. Relatively near where I live, there is a Video Game Museum, which is amazing. On top of that, collectors such as myself and those much bigger than me are storing and protecting the games that they love. This care and storage help to preserve the creativity and brilliance of these games that would otherwise be lost to time.

Now, I know full well that digital games can be made available at any time through online stores, or the files can be stored on the cloud for safekeeping. But, let’s take a step back and look at some recent news; specifically, let’s look at a MySpace. Now, this is a bit different, yes, but think about it – 12 years ago you added photos or music files to your MySpace. They should have stayed there forever, until you decided to remove them. However, due to an error in server migration (which happens far more often than you would think), all data from those 12 years is gone. It’s lost, forever – you are never getting those photos or music files back.

Next, imagine that those files had been your games that you had lovingly been collecting on your favourite Digital Store. All of a sudden, every game you have owned and collected over the past 12 years just disappear. Oh, and it’s not just your copies of those games, but every copy of every game from the last 12 years. All of a sudden, that’s 12 years of the gaming industry that basically no longer exists.

Yes, this is an unlikely thing to happen, but when you consider the fact that MySpace lost photos and music (which take up a lot less server storage space than games), there is the possibility. On top of this, even the likes of the PlayStation Network were hacked into, and there are numerous reports of Xbox Live accounts being accessed remotely as well. Hackers are always finding new ways to access digital data and networks, becoming more and more aggressive in their actions once they have access. With the way the internet landscape is now, there is an ever growing chance that someone will one day find a way to access and format the servers that hold your games. And that’s not me trying to scaremonger.

I work in the Digital industry for my day job, and we are also having to find new ways to secure servers. The problem is, these security “holes” can only be fixed when they have been discovered and it is usually hackers who discover them.

With physical copies of games, it doesn’t actually matter if those servers are compromised. You will still be able to play the games that you love, because you have the disc version of it.

Cases On The Shelves

The last aspect of owning physical copies of games is really a personal aesthetic choice. As many of you know, my blogging office also doubles as a game room and streaming area. In this room, I have bookcases and shelves that are filled with games. They are all sorted alphabetically by platform, and look beautiful! That’s something that you just don’t get with digital copies of games.

Yes, your PSN account or Steam library may look nice with a long list of games, but it really isn’t the same. I mean, think about how amazing a room full of old books looks. It’s an outstanding sight! That’s also true for games, with their cases and box art creating wonderful collages of colour and style.

That’s completely missing if you purchase the games digitally. Instead, you have a single console in the room, with all of the games just floating in the digital cloud. You don’t get to marvel at the beauty of those CD or DVD cases on the bookshelf. Yes, it’s not exactly a big thing at all. But for me, I would much rather have a book case full of games to look at then just the one console.

And That’s All Folks

That was a very long post, wasn’t it? I apologise if it ended up being more of a rant, but I really wanted to share my opinion on digital versus physical games. Naturally, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. I mean, life would be boring if we all agreed on everything. But I hope that I have at least managed to explain the mess of thoughts in my head in a coherent manner.

What are your opinions on digital games versus physical games? What do you think of the Google Stadia? Let me know in the comments below!

from More Design Curation https://www.16bitdad.com/blog/why-i-prefer-owning-physical-copies-of-games/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-i-prefer-owning-physical-copies-of-games source https://smartstartblogging.tumblr.com/post/183598845365

[smartstartblogging]

Why I Prefer Owning Physical Copies of Games

As of yesterday, there has a been a lot of coverages around the interwebs of Google’s latest project, Stadia; a streaming service for games that is comparable to the likes of Netflix. However, what I’m not going to do is rehash the same old article that you’ve probably read over a hundred times already. I’m not here to pass judgement on Google Stadia, especially as it’s only just been announced.

Instead, what I wanted to do was talk about the gaming industry’s move away from physical discs to digital downloads and, now, streaming of games. I wanted to talk about my opinions on this move, and why I still prefer to own physical copies of games rather than digital versions.

Potential Loss of Access

The first thing that we’re going to talk about is the fact that, with a physical copy of the game, no-one can take it away from you (except by breaking into your house and stealing it). Once you’ve paid for that game, you have it on disc for as long as you look after the disc. Naturally, there are certain types of games where you’ll still lose access to them eventually, such as MMORPGs when their servers are turned off. However, that’s the minority – for the large majority of games, we will be able to keep them and play them whenever we want.

However, when it comes to digital games, there is something that happened in the past that we all need to keep in mind. How many of you remember P.T? Judging be the playable teaser of Silent Hills’ popularity, I would guess that a lot of you do. Well, if you take P.T as a case study, it paints a potentially scary side to digital games. When you have “bought” a demo, even though it is free, you download it to the hard drive of your PS4 and added to your PSN account. From there, you should have access to it for as long as you have that PSN account. However, after the Silent Hills project was shelved, the demo was entirely removed from the PSN and you could no longer redownload it, even if you had already added it your PSN account.

The reason I want to bring this to light is that, if that could happen with a demo, it could potentially happen with a full release game as well. So, in my head, there is always going to be a concern in my head about whether the digital games that I purchase will just be removed one day. On top of this, with Google Stadia being compared to Netflix and other streaming services, it also brings is a similar issue.

There have been many shows and movies on Netflix, Amazon Prime and NowTV that my wife and I enjoyed. However, they all had a limited lifespan of availability on their specific streaming service and are now no longer available. If the gaming industry is moving towards a similar setup, then I must admit, I have concerns that we will have incidents where we will be enjoying a game and then it will be removed from the streaming service. And when that happens, we won’t have a leg to stand on, because we won’t actually own the game.

Ownership of a physical copy of a game means that you are able to ensure you continue to have access to it whenever you want to play it. That game can’t be suddenly taken away from you.

Games As A Service

Now, this one is a bit more controversial, potentially. Gaming as a service isn’t a new thing at all. I mean, MMORPGs have been charging subscription costs for years. However, until recent years, this mentality of monetisation was largely limited to the MMORPG genre. That was fine. The issue comes with the prominence of gaming as a service in other types of games now. For example, there are a huge amount of Freemium games out there now, where you can get the game and play it for free, but to get the most out of it you need to pay a recurring fee or buy in-game “coins” of some sort.

Again, this used to be limited to the likes of Free-To-Play MMORPGs or Mobile games, but has now flooded the PC and Console market as well.

The reason why it is possibly a controversial subject is that, for some games, it is a legitimate business model. For example, MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV use that money to help fuel development of high quality content that is added to the game (in the case of FFXIV, that includes free content every few months). So, gaming as a service can be a good thing. The issue arises when this mentality becomes the most prevelant thought in developers or publishers’ minds – when a game is built and developed purely with the intent of making it an ongoing subscription service, the gamers are the ones who lose out.

But that’s not really fixed by having physical copies of games, so you’re probably wondering why I’m even talking about it, right?

Well, it comes back to the Google Stadia again. You see, a single game that is pushed out with the sole intention of driving a subscription fee is bad (in my opinion) so an entire gaming library could be horrendous. At the moment, we don’t really know much about the games that are going to be on the Stadia. In fact, we only have a few named so far;

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Doom Eternal

An unnamed title from Q Games

So, as it stands, it’s unclear how many AAA titles are going to be ported across. There is a high possibility that we’ll end up having a lot of games added to it that are lower quality games with excessively long game time – this would purely be to ensure that you keep paying your subscription fee.

I am hoping that won’t be the case and that the Stadia will offer top quality games, but the cynic in me doesn’t think that will be the case. I do, however, really want to be proven wrong. If gaming as a service can be made into a positive for both the industry and the gamers, then that would be great. It is, however, still a concern for me.

Especially when I think back over all of the games I have played across the last 25 years of gaming, and realise that my favourites were all disc-based games before the internet was really a thing. Those games offered me hundreds of hours of enjoyment, without the need to pay money for them every month…

Preservation Of Games

The third part of this little look into my head and why I prefer physical copies of games comes down to the preservation of the medium. Relatively near where I live, there is a Video Game Museum, which is amazing. On top of that, collectors such as myself and those much bigger than me are storing and protecting the games that they love. This care and storage help to preserve the creativity and brilliance of these games that would otherwise be lost to time.

Now, I know full well that digital games can be made available at any time through online stores, or the files can be stored on the cloud for safekeeping. But, let’s take a step back and look at some recent news; specifically, let’s look at a MySpace. Now, this is a bit different, yes, but think about it – 12 years ago you added photos or music files to your MySpace. They should have stayed there forever, until you decided to remove them. However, due to an error in server migration (which happens far more often than you would think), all data from those 12 years is gone. It’s lost, forever – you are never getting those photos or music files back.

Next, imagine that those files had been your games that you had lovingly been collecting on your favourite Digital Store. All of a sudden, every game you have owned and collected over the past 12 years just disappear. Oh, and it’s not just your copies of those games, but every copy of every game from the last 12 years. All of a sudden, that’s 12 years of the gaming industry that basically no longer exists.

Yes, this is an unlikely thing to happen, but when you consider the fact that MySpace lost photos and music (which take up a lot less server storage space than games), there is the possibility. On top of this, even the likes of the PlayStation Network were hacked into, and there are numerous reports of Xbox Live accounts being accessed remotely as well. Hackers are always finding new ways to access digital data and networks, becoming more and more aggressive in their actions once they have access. With the way the internet landscape is now, there is an ever growing chance that someone will one day find a way to access and format the servers that hold your games. And that’s not me trying to scaremonger.

I work in the Digital industry for my day job, and we are also having to find new ways to secure servers. The problem is, these security “holes” can only be fixed when they have been discovered and it is usually hackers who discover them.

With physical copies of games, it doesn’t actually matter if those servers are compromised. You will still be able to play the games that you love, because you have the disc version of it.

Cases On The Shelves

The last aspect of owning physical copies of games is really a personal aesthetic choice. As many of you know, my blogging office also doubles as a game room and streaming area. In this room, I have bookcases and shelves that are filled with games. They are all sorted alphabetically by platform, and look beautiful! That’s something that you just don’t get with digital copies of games.

Yes, your PSN account or Steam library may look nice with a long list of games, but it really isn’t the same. I mean, think about how amazing a room full of old books looks. It’s an outstanding sight! That’s also true for games, with their cases and box art creating wonderful collages of colour and style.

That’s completely missing if you purchase the games digitally. Instead, you have a single console in the room, with all of the games just floating in the digital cloud. You don’t get to marvel at the beauty of those CD or DVD cases on the bookshelf. Yes, it’s not exactly a big thing at all. But for me, I would much rather have a book case full of games to look at then just the one console.

And That’s All Folks

That was a very long post, wasn’t it? I apologise if it ended up being more of a rant, but I really wanted to share my opinion on digital versus physical games. Naturally, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. I mean, life would be boring if we all agreed on everything. But I hope that I have at least managed to explain the mess of thoughts in my head in a coherent manner.

What are your opinions on digital games versus physical games? What do you think of the Google Stadia? Let me know in the comments below!

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