#edit: ID was present from the start; i just forgot to put a note on the post AGAIN | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

malebodysuittf · 3 years

Text

The Wrapping

In my last story, I wanted to write a dark thriller-ish story with a villainous protagonist, but I wanted this story to be a whole lot more wholesome (though still devious) for the holidays! It’s kind of silly and not as hot tbh, but hopefully it’s kind of fun for someone. It’s been one hell of a year, so here’s to a better 2021. Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays y’all! Stay safe, and make sure no one you’re close to is plotting to suitify you! ;)

edit: Oh crap, I totally forgot to post this yesterday! Here it is though, my message stays the same!

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

I sighed as I listened to the mundane tapping of fingers on keyboards, nails hitting the desk, pens clicking. Over and over, my head rang with the same sounds throughout the morning. No one who was here wanted to be here. Except perhaps my boss. That piece of shit put us all to work instead of giving us the holidays off. Only reason he might be happy to be here is probably because, if his wife has been hearing any of the rumors regarding his interactions with the female employees of our company, I’m assuming their marriage is disastrous.

I thought I’d be able to relax at home, spend Christmas with my boyfriend, Craig. We’ve been together for a couple of years now, and this was our first year living together. Our first Christmas spent together. The last one, we had both flown home to see our parents, splitting up.

But of course, my piece of shit boss had called me up. Told me to come in and work...subtly threatened unemployment if I objected. I wanted to quit right then and there, but money was tight and I knew how much Craig and I could use the cash. I had to break the news to Craig, but he was understanding. He promised that we’d open up presents tonight, or we’d open them up tomorrow if I was too tired. It was heartwarming to hear the support loved one, but made the act of going to work the next day no less grueling.

“Hey Lance, you get that call from boss too?” I jumped at the sound of my name being called and turned to see my coworker and one of the few friends I’ve made in the office, Trevor. He was a good lookin’ guy, though he only had a frustrated face at the moment.

“Yeah. Fucking ridiculous.”

“Right? Sick of this fucking job. Frankly, I’m not even sure what I fucking do at this point,” he joked. A hint of a smile popped up on his face. He slapped me on the arm and got up, heading towards the bathroom. I closed my eyes and imagined what I’ll do with Craig. It was the only thing that could motivate me to keep up with my work.

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

Hours later, the sun was setting and an orange hue painted the sky. It was a surprisingly beautiful sunset, considering it was Christmas. I finally finished my work. I watched the tired people around me cleaning up their desks, disgruntled and ready to go home. I glanced over at Trevor’s desk and noted he was still missing...weird. I hadn’t seen him the entire day ever since he left to go to the restroom. I guessed he had wisened up and just left. I sure as hell wish I could afford to...I know Trevor came from a pretty wealthy background. But at least I could finally find some respite with the end of the day approaching.

Until I saw the secretary walking to my desk.

She placed her hands on my desk and looked me in the eye, almost remorsefully.

“Mr. Campbell would like to speak to you.”

My heart sunk as I realized I’ll be spending more time in this shithole instead of celebrating the holidays with my boyfriend. I slumped in my chair and nodded to the secretary. She left me and I cleaned my act up. Surely it must be something quick, right? I couldn’t imagine him calling me in at the end like this for any reason.

Walking over to Mr. Campbell’s office, I opened the door and saw my dapper boss staring at me intimidatingly.

“Hello, Lance. I’m sure this little meeting may come as a surprise. Take a seat, won’t you?” He motioned towards a chair opposite from his desk, while seating himself in a larger one.

“I know you might be a little confused as to why I called you in. But let me assure it’s nothing bad.” He smiled at me, something I had never seen before on his face. He always looked menacing and unwelcoming. But right in this moment, something seemed different.

“I just wanted to give you this for being an outstanding part of this office. You’ve always been productive and loyal to this business. You deserve proper compensation. Especially for coming in on Christmas.”

From behind his desk, he pulled out a fairly large box, wrapped in a snowman-covered paper, perhaps the size of my torso, and slid it across the desk. I cautiously took the box, wondering what the catch was. There was no way he decided to just randomly give me this out of kindness or gratefulness. Not Mr. Campbell. This is the abusive boss who makes people work on Christmas, threaten their jobs and their records, and, allegedly, numerous women have quit and spoken up on him firing them if they did not oblige to sexual favors. On top of that, why the hell is he only giving this to me? Still, he was my boss for now, and I had to appeal to him.

“...Er, thanks, Mr. Campbell. I appreciate the gift. I’ll make sure-”

“Why don’t you open it?”

“Right here? Right now?”

“Yes. Open it. I want you to see it.”

Confused, I still obeyed and started to rip the wrapping paper off. I glanced up to give the boss an acknowledging smile as I lifted the lid up. I found a folded up suit and tie, along with pants.

“Clothing, Mr. Campbell?” I tried to feign gratitude with a hesitant smile.

“Keep going.”

I lifted the clothing and saw an ID on top of a peach colored object. On the ID, I saw a picture of...Trevor. A chill ran across my spine as I felt the peace colored object...it felt like skin. I pulled it out and lo and behold...it was Trevor in the form of a flimsy suit.

“Is this some kind of...costume?” The thing gave me the creeps, but I couldn’t defy my curiosity.

“You could say that.”

“Was that...you earlier then?”

A grim glare shot across Mr. Campbell’s face. “No.”

“Then...what did you do to Trevor?” My voice quivered as a ton of horrific scenes ran through my head.

“It was just an injection. Don’t worry, he’ll be fine.” He pulled out what looked like pink stickers. “All you do is slap these magic tags on, and he’ll be restored within an hour. Sorry to alarm you.”

A sigh of relief escaped my mouth, until Mr. Campbell said, “Why don’t you put him on right now?”

“What? Right here? I don’t even know-”

“Take your clothes off. Stretch open the mouth. You can figure out the rest.”

Something told me I didn’t have a choice. I laid the suit on the floor and started to pull out of my clothing, tossing it over the chair. I grabbed the Trevor suit and dipped my toes into the mouth. Surprisingly, it was soft and comfortable. I slipped into the legs and did a few test jumps. Mr. Campbell observed closely as the suit matched my form. I squeezed my way into the rest of the suit before pulling the face over my own, before a painful ache rushed through my body. Suddenly, a lifetime of memories flooded my mind. I recalled feeling a prick in the neck before everything went black...I wasn’t exactly sure what to say to Mr. Campbell.

“Is there something you would like me to do with this?” Trevor’s voice escaped my throat! It was like I was him entirely. But why did Mr. Campbell want me in this suit? I was confused on what to do now. I stood there awkwardly, naked with an admittedly sexier body. Mr. Campbell walked around his desk and came up to me.

“Why don’t you unwrap your second present?” He grabbed my crotch, though I immediately relented and backed up.

“I’m sorry Mr. Campbell, but I’ve got a boyfriend, and frankly, this is a little weird...”

“Don’t you want to provide for him?” I gulped, knowing my job was on the line. Craig would understand, he always does.

I started to unbutton Mr. Campbell’s jacket and slid it off of him. The white button-up was already partially open, displaying the man’s hairy chest. Despite how awful my boss was, I confessed I considered him an attractive man. I pulled off the shirt and was down to his pants. I looked at him, unsure if he wanted me to go all the way. He nodded, urging me to take it all off. I unbuckled his belt and slid it out, the pants visibly loosened and slipped down with ease. I looked up for another nod of approval before removing his shoes and socks, smelling the subtle rankness of his feet. Finally, i slipped his underwear down, and a lengthy member dropped in front of me. I examined the man in front of me, up and down. Were these the kind of sexual favors my boss wanted? Was he interested in men?

“Why don’t you keep going?”

I raised an eyebrow at him, dumbfounded. “What?”

“Keep going.” He walked closer to me, sensually looking me in the eye.

I couldn’t quite grasp what he meant, until he tugged at his cheek, revealing something else inside. I rubbed Mr. Campbell’s face and he closed his eyes, groaning in pleasure. Slowly tracing down his face, I hooked my fingers under his lips and started to stretch the mouth open. I could feel the scruffy facial hair move under my fingers as I tugged at his face, the face distorting as a familiar face was revealed under Mr. Campbell’s face.

“Craig?” I was absolutely speechless as I slipped off the entire face of my boss. The upper half of the face landed in a heap behind him, while the chin lay across his chest. I backed up in shock at the spectacle before me!

Craig gave me a devious smile and started to rip the skin off of himself. Still using Mr. Campbell’s hands, he grabbed at the mouth around his neck and started to pull. As he did, the skin started to give, and he started to rip it off, like wrapping. Truly like a Christmas gift! The face split in half and he tugged towards his left arm. With a forceful motion, the arm sleeve ripped right off and he tossed it towards onto the desk, the fingers hanging over the side as they flopped around. He continued to rip the other side off as the suit seemingly got shredded. With the torso hanging over his hip, the torn up skinsuit hung onto the cock in pieces, the face hanging by the side while the right hand of the suit laying flatly on the ground. Craig heaved as he pulled the rest of it off violently, further shredding the skin until it lay as a mess on the floor. He picked up it and slung the mangled skinsuit onto the desk.

“Merry Christmas, babe!” He held me by my hips and kissed me.

“Craig, what the hell is this?”

“I bought us some of these serums, and figured they would make a nice gift. I didn’t originally plan to use it on these guys in specific, but when you got that call and told me about your shitty boss...I figured we could get a bit of revenge. Plus, you’ve told me about Trevor being hot. So I figured, why the hell not?”

“But what about Mr. Campbell? You ripped him up!”

“Don’t worry, trust me, some tape and those little sticker things he showed...he’ll be back. And he’ll be humbled.”

He went back behind the desk and pulled out a paper and slid it over to me. I skimmed through it...this was a document giving the company to me!

“Oh my God! What the fuck? This is...”

“Yep. I always said you’d make a great leader. And whenever your coworkers come by to hang out with us, you have no clue what they say about you. They’re gonna love you. And Mr. Campbell over here, signed the document. Hopefully, he takes the time off to reimagine himself as a better man. All you gotta do is sign it yourself.” He rolled a pen over and I held it within my hand. I scoured through Trevor’s thoughts, and he had said some of the sweetest things about me, and his conversations with our colleagues suggested that maybe I could be the one to make this shithole better. I brought the pen to the paper and voila, my signature was on it.

“You get to be the boss now, Lance.” Craig got up and came to embrace me. I was too stunned at everything happening to give him much of a response. “You can make this place so much better next year. But for now, why don’t we enjoy that sexy suit you’re in?” He started to kiss me, and I returned the favor. I pulled back for a second and looked Craig in the eyes.

“This is the best Christmas ever...Why don’t I give you my present now?” I gave him a suggestive look, rubbing up against against him. I pushed him down across the desk and whispered into his ear, “I love you, babe. Merry Christmas.”

#male skinsuit #male bodysuit #male transformation #christmas special #male tf #boss

340 notes · View notes

the-brohood-of-hotties · 3 years

Text

Miraggio, Chapter 2: (Un)dead Part 1

Notes: Chapter from the manga: 76-77, just in case you wanna revisit :)

I ended up dividing this 3k word chapter into two parts so the story flows better. Also, maybe this part is a little bit confusing because it's staged in a illusion, so I've ended up by mixing some dialogue and narrator parts so it's not clear what is happening inside Celeste's head.

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

Candles lightened around the place, a crowd dressed in black silently watching the ritual for the one they had lost. She looked down, weirdly enough her body felt smaller, though she knew it wasn’t. She felt the presence of all the people reunited in that white church, but she just knew none of them were there.

“I am the resurrection…”

It was a bit like an overly edited movie, parts of scenarios that she has seen before being embroidered together with faces, crying whispers, and Bible citations mixed with the smell of incense and something old.

“And has sent us to heal the brokenhearted…”

The priest’s voice was quite muffled like he was inside an aquarium. Well, Celeste never really gave much attention to these traditions.

Resurrection, how ironic .

-” Stay quiet during the mass, Cel, think of your poor father.”- She heard her mother’s silent voice, and felt a hand gently touch her shoulder. But looking up, as her body was smaller and vulnerable now, all she could see was a figure with no face.

As soon as the figure appeared, the crowd vanished into the church’s corridor like it was made of dust, leaving behind just a piano, and a tall grey-haired man. She never has seen an illusion do that, her body started to shake with the thought that maybe Mukuro wanted to play with new thematics just to make fun of her attempt to escape. For a while, a harmonic melody was played by the man who hummed along with the song, she could not see his face, he wore a school uniform. Now it was her turn to touch the stranger’s shoulder, she felt curious to know what Mukuro was preparing for her psychological horror journey.

-” You need to wake up…”- The man said, or did Celeste simply thought out loud? Strangely enough, he had a face. Green monolid eyes, and a serious expression forming on his lips.

His words made sense to her, well, yes, she needed to go back home, to her sister, her mother, and The Rosiello Family. Though her plan would only be possible under the wing of a prestigious family like the Vongola, that if Mukuro hadn't... Killed them already.

Celeste’s knees went to the wooden floor, shaking, her hands protecting her eyes as the illusion of the church was partially gone and somewhere else started to form around her. But she didn’t bother to look at it.

Is it really worth it to come back? And if Mukuro already won? Even if I wake up, maybe my only destiny will be becoming a toy, so he can hurt more people.

She squealed and cried under the thought of him using her to finish hurting her family, wasn’t everyone thinking she was either dead or disappeared enough? Everything Celeste wanted now was for Mukuro to finish with this already, it was so tiring, she hugged her knees feeling overwhelmed.

Maybe if I just lay here and wait for it to end…

She heard birds chirping, it was pleasantly warm, the smell of coffee mixed with cake. Celeste could recognize this everywhere: The expanse garden where she would meet with her mother or just to breathe a little and secretly have cake after training. She couldn't listen much of the conversation, though.

The scene kept playing in front of Celeste, it was weird to see herself from a year or so before, she missed these little moments by her mom’s side. Her younger self sighed deeply and crossed her arms pouting. Present-time Celeste gently put her hand in the tree’s trunk next to her, smiling sadly. After this short meeting with her Mom, she would go talk to her father about going to Japan. She deeply wished this never happened, the accident with Ferdinando.

While the scenario around her was still green and full of life, her memories would keep bringing her back to the day that she died. Ferdinando was her company, driving her from home to a small town. By the end of the day when they were going back home the cousin started to play his cards, he wanted to please his future boss, probably his brother Fredo. Until he lost control of the car, which ran crazily in an empty street until it hit a wall.

They both died from the impact, Mukuro told her, dressed in white as they were surrounded by a field full of flowers. But she was...A special one.

If she accepted Mukuro’s terms, she would be able to get out alive, and once she disappeared for a couple of months, she would be powerful enough to confront the family. He promised, holding her hands with a gentle smile.

Mukuro just forgot to say that “confront” meant getting rid of.

That damn bitch. I should have known.

It was too much of an easy way out, though. But if the terms were never accepted, she would be dead that very day. Afterward, the only thing Celeste can remember is to wake up in a hospital bed, having her wounds healed while meeting Mukuro in flesh for the first time. He had such a threatening aura, even when being gentle and offering her a place in the gang, Kokuyo. She would have to travel to Japan with them.

At first, the idea seemed off, a bunch of weirdos and psychos in costumes traveling to meet the new Vongola Boss.

-“Your family is too weak, and…”- Mukuro proudly grabbed her hand, showing for the first time the new power she had, the Snow Flames flickering in her fingers. - “ Celeste, do you want to come back now? I will help you to develop this special Flame but you must work for me...And we are going to kill the 10th Vongola Boss.”

Killing the boss of the most powerful family she ever heard of? For a long time, they were heroes and allies, until her Grandfather became Boss. Nonetheless, she agreed to work with them. Not being the most honored choice, but still, it seemed like agreeing was her only choice at the moment.

As they trained shortly before starting the mission, she found herself to be a useful tool for discovering information and sneaking into places. How would they get fake IDs, passports, and such for traveling? The stolen information, false documents, and a bit of illusion made the trick.

Though, her choice and loyalty deliberately got tested. Knowing a bit about the extensive organization of the Vongolas, Celeste thought that, well, if by chance she made contact with them maybe it would be a chance to be under their wing.

Gunshots.

Heard from somewhere, but at the same time, it felt like they were fired right in that hospital room, while she was talking to Mukuro and he kindly held her. A high pitched noise resonated in her ears, hands cupping them to muffle the sound and her brown eyes shut tight. Weirdly enough, it wasn’t that dark even with her eyes closed. A beaming light, but from where?

Suddenly, her wrist and face started to hurt again, it became harder to breathe as if she was underwater this entire time. Unfamiliar voices started to whisper in distress substituting that irritating noise from the shot. Looking around, vision still a bit blurry, she could see a skinny brown-haired boy and a child in a black tuxedo and hat.

#KHR Fandom #KHR Fanfic #OC insert #oc fanfiction #khr gokudera #gokudera hayato #gokudera x oc

2 notes · View notes

violetsmoak · 5 years

Text

No Safety or Surprise [Part I - Excerpt]

Summary: A haunting broadcast reveals the Joker’s final act and sets off a chain of events that will destroy the world. Terry finds himself collaborating once more with the estranged members of Bruce’s former team. As the end nears, however, he and the other Bats are faced with hard choices about survival—and forgiveness.

Disclaimer: I don’t own anything to do with Batman. I don’t make any money off this. It’s just me playing in a sandbox. (And I’ll put a better disclaimer on this at some other point.)

Author’s Note: First fic in the Batman universe, yay! (Well, second, but the first one was high school ago and was a blatant self-insert lol). I’ve been toying with this idea for a while now. It’s taken some in-depth planning, but I finally have something to show for it. This is only one part of a very large first chapter, but I thought I’d throw it out there into cyberspace and see what people think. I’ll post it here in mini excerpts, but eventually I’ll put it on FF.Net and Ao3, once it’s all shiny and edited.

Spoilers: Everything in Batman Beyond until but not including the “Rewired” storyline or anything afterward. Also, references to events and characters present in the DC ‘verse up to the New 52 (after the “Robin Rises” story arc) but before Rebirth. (And JFC do I hate keeping all these timelines straight!)

Warnings: Leading up to canon-divergence; eventual main character deaths (except not really, because timey wimey stuff); a few minor original characters; multiple POVs

Timeline: Takes place after the events of 10 000 Clowns but before Terry McGinnis graduates high school.

Bruce is beginning to wonder if a Lazarus Pit might not have been a better idea than the liver transplant. Of the methods for artificially prolonging life, at least with the Pit, he would eventually start to feel like he was recovering.

After the madness subsided, at least.

On days like today—when it’s damp and chilly, and there’s nothing going on in Gotham to keep him glued to the computer screen in the Cave—it’s hard to remember the arguments he’s always made against using the restorative powers of a Lazarus Pit. He body protests with every movement as he eases it through several slowed kata variations. Part of his physical therapy, as suggested (ordered) by his doctors.

Since his procedure, he feels the exhaustion much more keenly. It’s a bone-deep fatigue that seeps into every muscle, emphasizing the way his bones creak and grind against each other, cartilage worn away from age and decades of abuse. It’s the way his energy levels drain so much faster no, to the extent that even his usual ability to will himself into action seems to wane every day.

Not that he really had a choice in the matter. He was in end stage liver failure, and the nearest Pit is in New Cuba. He’d just been lucky that there was a suitable donor in the hospital at the right time.

‘Luck’ is one word for it. ‘Cruel irony’ might be a better phrase.

Douglas Tan is one of the names he’s going to carry on his conscience for the rest of his life; or, at least on his liver.

Terry still makes jokes about Batman having a piece of a Joker inside him, but then Terry tends to use humor to cover up when he’s worried. Dick always did that, too; and Jason.

Bruce scowls, bothered by the direction of his thoughts, as well as the raggedness to his breath. He isn’t even moving very fast, but it’s taking him every bit of strength to keep at it.

Ace is curled up in his usual spot in the cave, watching Bruce with what seems to be narrowed eyes. As if to say, don’t overdo it or I will knock you over.

He knows the dog is smarter than most people.

Ace is one of the reasons the doctors were willing to leave him to pursue recovery on his own and not under some beady-eyed nurse in hospital. Money isn’t as much an incentive as it once was, with so many legal and health standards in the way; the older he gets, the less likely people are to trust his ability to make decisions, lawyers or not.

He tolerated a private nurse for about a day while having Terry make other arrangements and manufacturing a piece of paper saying Ace was a certified service dog. He’s not, but Bruce has no doubt the dog would activate the medical alert button at the computer if something were to happen. And Terry has an alarm set up, keyed into the surveillance and motion sensors in the Cave. If anything were to happen, he can be here faster than any ambulance.

Old age has fed into long-buried fears, and it gives him an embarrassing sense of relief knowing there’s someone to look in on him. It has always bothered him, being dependent—being weak.

Some days he’s more accepting of it; some days he wishes he had Kryptonian DNA.

Which is usually the point at which he forces himself to occupy his mind with other things, because envying Clark Kent can only lead down a dark, frustrating path of self-pity. One he’s determinedly avoided ever since meeting the other man.

After another fifteen minutes of forcing himself to think about nothing but the movement of his limbs, Bruce finally finishes his exercises. Sweat coats his back and his limbs ache with the same burn as if he just spent several hours grappling through the Gotham skyline. Even if it took less challenging movements to reach this point, that burn is comforting.

Familiar.

And that’s a word that’s been cropping up more in his thoughts lately. History tends to repeat, after all, but it’s still strange to experience. Terry’s been an excellent example of that.

Like Bruce, the McGinnis boy started out with nothing but a suit and an old man’s voice in his ear. Now, he’s got a network. Friends who he trusts and who will keep his secret. A steadily growing list of allies in the field.

The Police Commissioner. The Justice League.

And a Catwoman too, for Christ sakes.

He wonders what Selina would think about that.

Bruce just hopes the kid won’t make his mistakes. Forty years is a long time to rack up regrets.

At least Dick’s back in contact now.

Sort of.

He showed up the second night that Bruce was recovering from his procedure at the hospital; he’d managed to convince Terry to go out on patrol instead of wasting his time watching an old man sleep.

“Batman doesn’t get a day off.”

Bruce had dosed for a bit, but not deeply; it wasn’t difficult to discern that he wasn’t alone.

One minute the room was empty and in the next, Bruce could feel that familiar presence—the one of a man who had carried the mantles of Robin, Nightwing and Batman—and somehow lived to tell the tale. Then his estranged son was stepping out of the shadows, glaring down at him, muscles in his jaw working and fists clenching and unclenching.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Bruce had croaked, wishing he had thought to ask for ice chips before the nurse left. “I’m too stubborn to die.”

The silence hanging afterward was filled with everything he couldn’t say yet. For once, Dick didn’t call him on it.

“You’re more stubborn than God,” his boy countered.

(He’ll always be a boy to Bruce, grey hair and eye-patch be damned.)

And yet, he sat, arms crossed and spine stiff for the rest of the night. Still angry, but there nonetheless. He stayed until morning rounds without saying anything, and then left.

They haven’t seen each other since, but sometimes Bruce can hear feedback on the comms when he’s directing Terry’s patrols. The tinny whisper of signals crossing from the bug he pretends he doesn’t know Dick planted on the underside of his medical ID tag.

It’s not much, but it’s something. The opening of the possibility that at some point, he’ll come around.

Barbara did, after all.

Mostly because of Terry, but afterward Bruce started making the effort. They can have conversations alone now that don’t end with her yelling at him (or punching him, on one or two memorable occasions). Bruce forgot how much he enjoyed her sense of humor and intelligence—how much he enjoyed their friendship—from before they slept together.

(That might be one of his life’s biggest shames. Oh, he has regrets associated with all of the family for one thing or another, but this is the one that still wakes him up at night feeling dirty.)

In a way, it’s easier with Tim, and that’s a bridge Bruce thought had been obliterated long ago.

Granted, he’s leaving Gotham again—the last incident with the Joker army rattled him enough that he put in for a transfer to the Chinese division of Wayne Enterprises—but he stuck around long enough to collaborate with Bruce on a subdermal antitoxin deployment implant against Joker venom.

(None of them want to be caught unawares again.)

It’s in the prototype phase, with only five of the devices in existence; he, Tim and Terry are testing them personally. It’s not exactly something the FDA is going to approve for human testing anytime soon, not with all the new legislation, but with the state of Gotham, it’s unwise to wait on it.

(He sent one to Barbara and one to Dick but doesn’t know if they’ve bothered to activate them. At least they haven’t sent them back.)

If the implant works, Bruce is seriously considering modifying the tech for the Wayne Enterprises medical division. There are a lot of illnesses and viruses out there which require regular dosages of medicine to keep them under control.

Maybe that’s the next project, after CAIN, he muses, grabbing his towel from where he draped it over one of the computer processors.

His global Clean Air Initiative Network is something he’d been working on before stepping back from the company. It was shelved almost immediately by Derek Powers when he took over, but since Bruce has been back, he’s been revisiting a lot of old projects.

Lucius’ boy did most of the technical work on it, and Foxtecha will have joint ownership of the patent when it’s ready for public consumption. Bruce would have asked Tim, but he knows how determined he is to get out of Gotham. He can read it in the tone of his emails, which have thankfully lost the stilted, formal business tone they’ve had since he returned to the company.

(Bruce mentioned paying a visit in the future, and Tim didn’t say no, so he counts that as a win.)

It’s a little disconcerting how the family is coming together again; disconcerting but welcome.

He’s received a vid call last week from Cassandra expressing concern over his surgery, and then a short, gruff email from Duke all-but ordering him to get better. There’s even a letter from Stephanie—or Eurus, as she goes by these days—smelling of dust and desert sun and incense found only in Nanda Parbat. Her messy, looping scrawl, echoed Dick’s sentiment about Bruce’s stubbornness and alluded to its genetic inheritability.

(That said more than if she had actually mentioned Damian outright.)

Bruce lost track of her not long after his son’s short and brutal stint under the cowl; it had surprised him to find out she ended up in Tibet.

It also relieved him. Because no matter how dark a path his son wandered, there would be someone to challenge him. To not obey without question. To give him a link to the life he once had, to being human and alive.

(Bruce very carefully doesn’t think about Jason—doesn’t wonder if things had been different, if he wouldn’t have reached out as well. Even after so many years, that wound is still raw.)

The whole thing is a stark difference from the last few times he ended up in the hospital, including when he was dosed on Joker venom several months ago. He didn’t hear anything from them at that point, which makes him think someone really thought he was dying this time and reached out.

Barbara, maybe. Or Dick. However much tension there is between himself and Bruce, he does keep in touch with the others.

Hell, it might even have been Terry. The kid doesn’t know the rest of them personally, but he’s gotten adept at navigating the computer in the cave. And he’s always been curious about his predecessors.

Bruce’s first family.

Or maybe just the first phase of the family.

Bruce shies away from that secret bit of knowledge he has about Terry, and his brother Matt. What he discovered the first time the kid returned to the Cave with bloody gashes that needed stitching up. The files and medical information buried beneath every firewall he could fashion, so the boy never stumbles upon it accidentally.

The most he’s allowed himself to acknowledge it is an amendment in his will setting aside trust funds for both boys.

As if triggered by his thoughts, the screen of the Bat-Computer flickers to life. He rolls his shoulders, expecting an alert on some heist or robbery going on in the city; another case to add to the docket for Terry to investigate after school (depending on the severity).

Bruce doesn’t expect the Cave to suddenly fill with a jaunty, haunting carnival tune that makes his entire body seize in recognition. And yet, he already knows what’s coming even before the words HA HA HA coalesce upon the screen.

TBC

8 notes · View notes

todokori-kun · 7 years

Text

For

the queen, I’ll try my best (seriously tho why are you so nice? Like ???? how ??? Queen Luna is so freaking amazing)

AND NO IT’S REALLY NOT YOUR FAULT ADS:DLFJK omg

That really does sound fun! (lowkey jealous lol) hope you have a fantastic time!

Thanks! And, well, I was thinking of a very neutral blue-grey color scheme because it’s Ilumi, but then that also feels weird because of his green outfit? (like sure he has different oufits too but that weird green needle suit is the most well-known. Like, it’s the thing cosplayers always wear, the one he’s drawn wearing in most of the fanart…)

Illumi has his eyes on you

(this is probably true)

Do you think Kikyo and Silva (Mr. and Mrs. Zoldyck) ever bothered to teach that to him? They must have encouraged it. From a clip I watched recently it seems that Silva knew about the needle Illumi put in Killua’s head and was pretty much cool with it(…)

He’d drag Armin along with him. If Armin’s genius somehow wasn’t enough to put him into the top ten, Illumi’s really not above using Dead Eyes Intimidation + Zoldyck connections to make sure he’d get there…and then the needle would make sure Armin would never, ever dream of joining the Survey Corps or the Garrison.

That’s extremely accurate XD

Also, look at this cut exchange from Cabinet Battle 2:

Jefferson: Can you do me a favor?

Hamilton: Depends. I can try.

J: Can you tell Angelica Schuyler I said hi?

H: She’s never mentioned you.

J: She’s not the type who shares. But since you’re so interested in foreign affairs…

(Ouch.)

Yes, Eliza’s awesome ;-;

Well, the word got around, they said, ‘This kid is insane, man!’

Took up a collection just to send him to the mainland

‘Get your education, don’t forget from whence you came and

The world’s gonna know your name.

What’s your name, man?’

Kuroiwa is very much dead. Wonder how Takeomi’s gonna feel about this…first Yoriko, then his dad…;-;

Awww, at least you have tumblr friends? *hugs* and tbh I don’t have any fellow manga/anime fan friends over here either (though maybe that’s just because I don’t have any friends here at all lol)

Please join me in HxH hell. Please. I- I need someone to sob with me because I’m only like seven or eight volumes in and I just met Chrollo and omg please I have literally 0 friends in the HxH fandom (jk jk, just the fact that you listen to me rant out my favs is enough for me. TYSM for being such a queen <3)

And actually, it’s nowhere near as bad as TG or AoT! Like, it has emotional moments, but there aren’t that many character deaths? Like, sure, people die, some favs die, but so far it’s still reasonable and nobody seems to be rage-quitting the manga because of pointless angst.

Chrollo always looks good but yeah, that last style does uit him really well :)

Ging is horrible, but like you said, at least he tries and acknowledges that he’s a bad parent. In his own way. I mean, the whole journey to find him was something he designed himself to help Gon grow as a hunter (though that also connects to Ging’s slightly problematic habit of treating Gon more like a hunter to train than a child to raise…)

Excuse me Queen Luna do not compare yourself to this trashcan. He doesn’t deserve it.

I haven’t even met Pouf in the manga yet and I kinda love him.

ALL THE HAM/ELIZA FEELS.

I’m sad to say I did not cry at all during Hughes’ death/funeral. I felt a lot of pain but the tears just didn’t come OTL

I’m glad you appreciated the puns ;) (Seriously though seeing the blog back is so exciting <333)

Also: I will now send you some pics of Chrollo’s troupe members (AKA his loyal fellow criminals he’s so proud of them all), and of Ging’s student (Gon’s father figure), if that’s ok?

And I might gift you a surprise fic soon…I promise that it won’t be too angsty. Really. I would never lie to the queen :D

Last thing- is it ok if I rant more about OCs sometime? Mainly about the Love Interests for that Otome Game I mentioned a while ago (the thing I was trying to write a script for)…I’d just like some opinions on the LIs *Lenny Face*

Hi i’m back and ready to die.

I hate school, have I ever mentioned that?

Anyway, lately I’ve been losing my motivation for everything basically and that includes coming onto Tumblr, and I was wondering, do you have any app that has an instant messaging system? This is nothing against you personally, but my replies will be really slow, since I don’t even turn my computer on much these days… In fact, I feel incredibly guilty that I take so long to answer, I just don’t have the motivation…

On a happier note, I finally watched Civil War! And I ship Stony. My heart is not okay.

Um what else happened… Norway is absolutely beautiful? It’s a place where fairytales would take place, especially the fjords. And I also saw a ton of Thor statues lol

I’d scream if Illumi had his eyes on me. If I’d have the time to before dying that is.

While we’re on HxH, that picture of Hisoka you sent me is just mmmmmm nice abs He looks less trashy with his hair down.

well fuck kuroiwa is dead…

oh god trust me id be a shitty parent. a very very shitty parent. there’s a reason why i don’t want kids and the pain of giving birth is only a small part of it. not to mention i don’t have the patience to deal with a small human who can only shit or cry.

gah i know there was something else i wanted to tell you but forgot hnnnngh

uh well, ive returned to tg, so much about quitting. as long as my sweet sunshine is present, I’ll come back at any time. i just sincerely hope it is actually him and not a fake.

oh yeah, ive started rereading soul eater! it’s a good manga, you just have to get past the first 2-3 volumes for it to get good. the initial parts are pure ecchi.

i might spam the blog w some pictures of norway later ^^;;

sorry for the short&all over the place response, I’m just so so tired, even tho it’s only been one week of school. I blame my period.

Anyway, the next one will be longer, I swear! I hope you’re not too mad…

[edit:] I REMEMBERED WHAT I WANTED TO SAY

I SAW BOOK OF ATLANTIC. LIZZY. MY BABY. SHE FINALLY GOT HER SCENE IT WAS BEAUTIFUL ALSO UNDERTAKER. DAAAAAAAAMN

oh and i’ve gotten around to watching Death Note and it casually broke my heart. good to know, good to know.

#evans #submission

1 note · View note

superfamigos · 6 years

Text

samhat @ GDC 2018, Part One

I had the opportunity to go to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco back in March, and since then, a few of my friends have been asking me how it went. In normal conversation, it’s hard to get more detailed than “I met some cool people and learned some interesting things,” but I have a lot of thoughts about my trip. GDC for me was both rewarding and taxing, inspiring and exhausting. So with the extra time and space afforded me here, I’d like to get a bit more in-depth and personal about my GDC 2018 experience.

I’ve split this recap into two parts. Part one includes my GDC preparations, what I did before the conference, and discussion on what talks I went to. In part two, I’ll cover my social experience, what I did after GDC ended, and lessons I learned, both about game development and about attending GDC itself.

(As a side note, I went to GDC for the first time last year, and made a couple of posts last year about it. I meant to write a post for each day that I was there, but the amount of detail I put into the first couple posts ended up being too much work to continue as a side project while dealing with school and whatnot. I don’t like leaving that series unfinished, but I hope to fold some of what I wanted to say then into this year’s recap.)

GDC Video Travelogue

youtube

As a companion piece to this article, I’ve prepared a video travelogue of my trip to GDC. Basically, my process just involved grabbing a few seconds of video whenever I thought to, and compiling them into a series of small moments. There are a few things that I’m bummed that I forgot to film, but I’m otherwise happy with the result. Hope you enjoy!

Preparing for GDC

To be honest, I kinda fretted a lot about whether or not to go to GDC this year. I had a great time in 2017, but I worried whether or not the trip would be worth it financially. GDC is a really expensive proposition (passes alone are extremely pricey, not to mention the cost of a week-long trip to San Francisco), and I’m an (as-yet) unemployed recent grad. I thought it would be a good opportunity for job networking, but I knew from last year that GDC doesn’t have much in the way of a career fair. It felt like something of a gamble as to whether I’d meet the right people. And I was a bit nervous that none of my school friends were available to travel with me, since last year’s GDC was socially overwhelming for me at times.

All that said, I decided to go. I guess the main factor in that decision was just having a gut feeling that some good would come of me being where the action was, in terms of meeting people and being exposed to opportunities I might not have access to online. And I knew I’d really enjoy getting to be there again, listening to talks and checking out the show.

There were other factors in that decision too, of course. I made sure that there were talks that I wanted to see, and learned about a technical artist social, which sounded like a good chance to meet people with the job I’m hoping to get in the industry. Plus, I was lucky enough to have some support from my family, including staying with a cousin of mine during the conference.

Specifically, I decided to get the GDC Summits pass this year, which gets you access to talks from various special-interest bootcamps, tutorials, and summits on Monday and Tuesday, before the show floor and main conference opens on Wednesday. At first, I was thinking of getting a Conference + Summits pass, which would have gotten me into talks Wednesday through Friday too, but the extra cost was substantial, and I just couldn’t stomach it this year. On the other hand, the Indie Game Summit pass was cheaper than what I got, and would have gotten me into most of the talks I saw, since I was really drawn to the indie talks. However, there was a Technical Artist Bootcamp on Tuesday, which seemed like another good education and networking opportunity, so I decided to opt for the Summits pass.

Once I booked my ticket to San Fran, I decided to do whatever I could to prepare myself to go. I really wanted to make the most of my time, and hopefully find ways to deal with some of the stress I feel about meeting new people at big events like this. Threads of GDC tips started showing up on Twitter, and I read as many of them as I could. I particularly liked the Pixelles guide to GDC, as well as Darius Kazemi’s series on networking. I learned some important tips from those guides that I’ll touch on in my Takeaways section.

Pre-GDC: Flying in, hanging with friends & family

I flew out to San Francisco on the Saturday before the conference, arriving around 5pm in the evening. As I just mentioned, I was hosted during the conference by my cousin Liz, her husband Jeremy, and their two sons Finn (8) and Oscar (6) at their very nice home near Golden Gate Park in the northwest corner of San Francisco. They have a small guest room adjoining their garage, which made it really easy for me to come in after a late night without bothering anyone in the house. They’re also close to some bus lines that I thought I’d use, but I ended up just taking Lyft the whole week out of convenience.

So anyway, once I got into town, I took the time I had before the conference to spend time with friends and family. Upon my arrival Saturday evening, I took a train from the airport into the city to meet up with my friend Laura, who was then just a week from her wedding! (Congrats Laura!!) We went out and grabbed some ramen and ice cream, and caught up with each other a bit. I also bought myself a cool shirt at UNIQLO :D (It's a green shirt that says "non competitive action league" on it in reflective letters. Don't ask me what that means, I just think it's cool haha)

Sunday was a family day for me, which I really enjoyed. On Sunday morning, I went with Liz and her fam to church, which was a nice time. After that, we came back to the house for a few hours for lunch and some trampoline action with Finn and Oscar :) And from there, we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge (it was my first time really seeing it!) to my aunt’s house near Berkeley for dinner. There’s a small contingent of my extended family in San Francisco, all on my mom’s side: my cousin Liz and her family, my aunt Teri and uncle Peter (Liz’s parents), and my cousin Nick and his wife Bekah. Anyway, I was really glad we all got to meet up and enjoy some excellent home-cooked food together. (We also celebrated Oscar’s birthday, turning 6 that week!)

And Monday morning, I got up, got ready, and took a Lyft to the Moscone Center downtown for GDC 2018!

Talks, films, and presentations

The talks at GDC are one of my favorite parts of the conference. I enjoy them for a variety of reasons: learning game development skills and tips, finding out more about games I’m interested in, being introduced to exciting games I might not have heard of otherwise, and just being inspired by other people’s creations and experiences.

In addition to the normal talks, there are a few other sit-down presentations I’m lumping into this section. One is the GDC Film Festival, which was new to GDC this year! It consisted (I think) entirely of documentary-style films pertaining to video games. I went to a few screenings, and both were very interesting. From what I understand, several of the films are available to view on Steam.

And there’s also the IGF and Game Developers Choice Awards, a big old ceremony that happens in a huge meeting hall Wednesday night. Awards ceremonies can be kind of dry, but I kinda like to go and see the IGF awards in particular. I like seeing who wins awards and hearing their speeches, and there are usually some good jokes and video sketches mixed in with the awards presentations.

Last year, I got bogged down describing all the talks I went to in detail. I still want to give you an idea of what I saw, but this time I’ll settle for a much broader overview. Where available, I’ve added links to the recording of each talk in the free GDC Vault, so if any of these interest you, check them out!

Monday

Failure Workshop - Hugh Monahan, Tanya X. Short - A recurring talk on lessons gained through failure. Some nice tips here (and I particularly recommend last year’s edition: Tim Rogers gave a funny and poignant talk about his failure creating VIDEOBALL, a game I love).

Failing to Fail: The Spiderweb Software Way - Jeff Vogel - A really interesting walk through the career of a indie game dev who started making games on Mac in the 90s, long before the current indie boom. Very entertaining with some inspirational advice and lessons.

Branching Paths - Anne Ferrero - Part of the GDC Film Fest, this is a documentary about the small indie game development scene in Japan, directed by the filmmaker behind the Youtube series toco toco. Beautifully shot and very interesting.

An Evidence-Based Mental Health Model For Game Developers - Dr. Jennifer Hazel - Some ideas on how to manage mental health issues as a video game developer. Main idea is Audit, Accept, Act: Audit how you’re feeling and how you deal with stress and emotions, Accept your weaknesses and your strengths, and Act to improve what can be improved.

Don’t Break the Chain: Maintaining Productivity on Your 19th Game - Jason Rohrer - A case study on how working long hours impacts productivity as a work-from-home indie dev, backed up with some surprisingly detailed data points from the presenter. Included some productivity ideas that were very helpful for me, which I plan to share at the conclusion of this article.

|FIRSTNAME| and Tiger Emojis: Takeaways from Bizarrely (Un)successful Emails - Adriaan de Jongh, Ben Myers - Tips on how to write emails that people will read and respond to, with what I thought was a particular focus on pitch emails. A fun and entertaining tag-team presentation with some funny examples and clear takeaways. Their tips: people respond to emails that are very short, have genuine personalization, have a perfect subject line, have one expressive image, and are bold, but not demanding.

Tuesday

(The Tech Art Bootcamp videos are locked behind the GDC Vault paywall, but you can find the slides here.)

Technical Artist Bootcamp: Shaders 301 - Ben Cloward - The third in a series of shader writing talks in the Tech Art Bootcamp. Walks you through creating shaders for rustling leaves, snow accumulation, and layers of rock strata.

Alternative Paths in Indie Dev - Nathalie Lawhead, Robin Baumgarten, Tj Hughes, Heather Flowers, Kaho Abe, Tammy Duplantis - A session of microtalks by a diverse group of indie devs that are doing things differently than most indies. Good for both learning how people try to make ends meet making alt-games, and discovering new and interesting creators and projects to follow.

Technical Artist Bootcamp: Zen in the Art of Rigging - Brian Venisky - Rigging isn’t my favorite thing to do, so when I saw this talk’s title, I thought it might be about how to apply zen principles to make rigging less frustrating or intimidating. That wasn’t really the direction the talk went, but it did have some good rigging tips for tech artists and tech animators.

Game A Week: Teaching Students to Prototype - Douglas Wilson, Bennett Foddy - I keep hearing a lot about the “game a week” idea as a way for people to get started making games, but that always sounded intimidating for me. Going to this talk seemed like a good way to understand better how that idea could work in practice. The discussion was specifically geared toward educators, but it was an engaging presentation that I was able to glean a few lessons from for personal use.

Technical Artist Bootcamp: Identifying Technical Art by Its Habits - Robbert-Jan Brems - Kind of a neat talk that discussed what technical art is, and what kind of habits tech artists can develop to better support the people they work with. I thought the presenter had a good, empathetic perspective on how to help people without becoming annoyed or jumping to conclusions.

Technical Artist Bootcamp: Learning an Established Content Creation Pipeline, Workflow and Codebase - Ross Patel - Does what it says on the tin: provides some helpful tips on how to jump into a new team and project. The presenter cited some psychology research that was interesting, saying that learning is more effective if you do it to solve a certain problem, and that stress can affect whether we approach problems with intelligence and creativity, or with habits and instincts.

Indie Soapbox - Johanna Pirker, Davey Wreden, Claris Cyarron, Danny Baranowsky, Adriel Wallick, Justin Ma, Dee Del Rosario, Frank Lantz, Rosa Carbo-Mascarell, Ethan Redd - The final session of the Indie Game Summit, where a group of indie developers give rapid-fire micro-talks on a variety of subjects, from “what makes people want to continue playing games” to the Tóth Sausage Conjecture. Lots of inspiring and thought-provoking messages here, some of which I’ll cover in my lessons learned section. In any case, this session comes highly recommended.

Wednesday

The Lost Arcade - Another documentary from the GDC Film Festival, The Lost Arcade recounts the history of Chinatown Fair, the last bastion of old-school arcades and fighting game culture in New York City. Includes some really interesting personal stories of the people involved. I found it really compelling and surprisingly emotional.

IGF Awards and Game Developers Choice Awards - I already described this above, but I’ll just add that a highlight of the ceremony for me was Rami Ismail’s acceptance speech for the GDC Ambassador Award. I heard that Tim Schafer’s speech was also good, but I had to duck out before he spoke.

Thursday

Mental Health and Making It: Succeeding Through the Struggles - Raffael Boccamazzo, Michelle Flamm, Job Stauffer, Jennifer Scheurle, Jason L. Blair - In contrast to the other mental health talk I went to, this was more of a free-form discussion panel, moderated by the director of gaming mental health organization Take This. I appreciated the perspective of people currently working in the industry, and they shared a lot of helpful insights on dealing with mental health challenges as a professional. (My pass can’t get into most talks on Wednesday - Friday, but this one was on the free Advocacy track that all passes can get into.)

Friday

Indie After College: Surviving the Transition - Asher Vollmer, Jenny Jiao Hsia, Ted DiNola - A session of three talks whose overall message was, perhaps unsurprisingly, “don’t go indie right after college”. However, after backing up this assertion, they provided paths to work towards becoming an indie dev, and tips for those who can’t be persuaded otherwise. I especially enjoyed Jenny’s talk and the excellent drawings she did for her slides.

Some Cool-Looking Talks I Missed

‘Splatoon’ and ‘Splatoon 2’: How to Invent a Stylish Franchise with Global Appeal

’ARMS’: Building ‘Mario Kart 8’ Insights into a Showcase Nintendo Switch Fighter

Nuke Possum Springs: A ‘Night in the Woods’ Design Postmortem

Classic Game Postmortem: ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’

Classic Game Postmortem: ‘NBA Jam’

#1ReasonToBe - This is a session where under-represented and under-privileged developers from all over the world share the unique creations and challenges from their regions. Last year’s session was really inspiring to me, so I was sad to miss it this year.

Been There Done That: Industry Veterans Share Experience and Advice - My friend Miko spoke in this session!

Experimental Gameplay Workshop - This recurring session was another favorite of mine last year. It showcases games with unusual and innovative mechanics or control schemes, and has previously featured games like Katamari Damacy, Portal, and flOw before they hit the big time.

If you’re interested in digging further into this year’s talks, I recommend using Yanko Oliveira’s handy GDC 2018 Vault Explorer, which I saw on Twitter. The GDC Vault website itself can be a bit janky: my pet peeve is that when you go to the homepage and follow links labeled “Free Content” and “Show All Free GDC 2018 Content”, it doesn’t actually do anything - all the paywall content is still included as if you had just gone straight to browsing all the talks. This site, on the other hand, is easier to browse and has much more useful filters.

To Be Continued...

And that’s it for Part One of my GDC 2018 recap! Thanks for reading, and come back next Friday for more about my social experience and reflections on what I learned!

#gdc #gdc 2018 #gamedev #travelogue #video game writing #gdc recap

0 notes

expanseofficial · 6 years

Text

EXPANSE NEWSLETTER Vo. 3, No.2 – 2/1/2018 DROPD NEWS, EXP.LIFE LOGO REVEAL, EXPANSE.TECH 2.0, EXPANSE: BEHIND THE TECH

Welcome to the second edition of the Expanse Newsletter for 2018. This publication is a bi-monthly newsletter issued on the 1st and 15th of each month to share happenings within our community. Keep in mind that breaking news can come at any time, but the Expanse Newsletter is a great overview of progress, news, and our current focus.

DROPD INITIAL COIN OFFERING ON TOKENLAB

As we previewed in the last newsletter, our first Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is about to launch on the Tokenlab™ platform and the Expanse.Tech blockchain. The Dropd (DPD) countdown site is up. You can view it at https://dropd.tokenlab.io.

Here is the ICO roadmap and for the project:

- February 1 ICO Countdown begins

- February 14 Exclusive sale begins ($.07)

- February 28 Presale begins ($.20)

- March 12 ICO (Final sale) begins ($.50)

Important Note: This ICO is not open to U.S. Citizens. Government ID validation is required when participating.

About Dropd

With its antiquated business model and closed system, the music industry is poised for a blockchain disruption. Enter Dropd, where artists will be able to create, promote, distribute and monetize their music without the need for an agent or a record label. Dropd users will be able to crowd promote and re-drop songs to their followers both inside and outside of the application. Dropd will enable both artists and listeners to directly connect, interact, discover and participate in a visionary music platform.

Dropd 1.1 is a free streaming music application, currently available worldwide in the Apple iTunes store. Version 2.0 will drop new artists LIVE on the air and allow users to re-drop songs to their followers both inside and outside of the application. Users will also have the ability to rise in “status” within the application and earn status badges as their follower base grows.

As you can see, Dropd is a working, viable product with a great track record—not just an idea or dream. Take the time to read the whitepaper from the website link. We think you will be as excited as we are about the opportunity to participate. The music industry is about to change forever. Expanse and Tokenlab are thrilled to be a part of it. Join the discussion in the Dropd Discord channel, https://discord.me/dropd

EXP.LIFE LOGO REVEAL

EXP.Life, long a dream of Expanse Co-founder Christopher Franko, is about to become a reality. Spearheaded by Omar Alvarez, the project is well underway. One of the first steps was to bring the initiative to life through a brand that reflects the innovation and aspirations behind the concept. The logo is revealed above. It is not just a logo, but a design that is a reflection of the ideals it is created to represent. Here are its origins:

In Maori art, the koru represents peace, personal growth and positive change. Inspired by the shape of an unfolding fern frond, its circular design tells the story of new beginnings and renewal. The varying shades of the color purple, with its mystic qualities, communicates a sense of calm and spiritual balance.

Koru is the Maori word for loop. As if in perpetual motion, the design’s inner coil symbolizes the start of a new life while the outer coil implies continuous and infinite rejuvenation.

This is EXP.Life, where even the end is just the beginning.

EXPANSE.TECH 2.0 WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT UNDERWAY

Many of you have noticed that there is a temporary landing page on www.expanse.tech, our company website. That is because, with feedback and suggestions from many in our community, a new site is in development. See the sneak peek of our landing page in the graphic above. We call it Expanse.Tech™ 2.0.

Among the many rich and innovative features are the ability to view content according to the user profile (miner vs. developer, etc.), curated news content, a knowledge base, and real-time exchange and Discord chat viewing.

We could not be more excited about bringing this new site to our community. Watch for an announcement about the launch soon!

EXPANSE: BEHIND THE TECH — OMAR ALVAREZ

Expanse — Behind the Tech is a new blog series that provides a glimpse into the people behind the scenes who make everything happen at Expanse.Tech™. Think of it as a window into the lives and driving forces of the people that forge our path and work hard every day for the community and to achieve the Expanse goals. Without our team members, vendors, influencers and contributors, we would not be on the solid footing we have achieved to date. I’m proud that our first profile focuses on Omar Alvarez, Expanse team member and Gameboard CEO. As is characteristic of the exuberance and motivation he brings to all of his projects, he has penned his own profile. I hope you enjoy the series.

— Christoper J. Franko, Expanse Co-founder

My Journey with Expanse

By Omar Alvarez

Everything starts with a wish…

I remember that I was sitting in the concourse of the Guatemalan National airport with some friends. We were heading to the Collision Conference in New Orleans, LA. We were reading about the attendees, informational sessions and new technology awaiting us at the conference. The year 2016 was amazing for the Dev Shop, my company, and 2017 was the moment to launch my gamification platform. Sitting there with business cards, web page and a t-shirt we created, I felt proud. I didn´t know what was coming was so big.

So, the Collision conference went fine, and I met a lot people, I got some new clients for the Dev Shop back here in Guatemala, and I attended a lot of fun meetings and parties. The NOLA food and beer were amazing. I was so excited to be there, waiting for an opportunity to introduce GameBoard, The Gamification Playground, to someone that would take the platform to the next level.

After meeting with some local clients, I knew something awesome would happen — and it did happen in a way I really did not expect. Let me tell you about it.

The AHA! Moment

So it was the last day of the conference, and I didn’t get a chance to present Gameboard to anybody. S I put my Gameboard T-shirt on, got my business cards ready, and had faith. I wanted to have breakfast in a small restaurant, run by some cool girls near the Convention Center. It was about 5km from the hotel where I was staying, and it was an amazing morning to walk. I started walking and thinking about how I was going to present the platform to somebody. (Have you ever had that feeling when you want to make other people believe in the things you do, like you do?)

After my 5 km walk, I arrived at the coffee shop, but it was full. I had no problem waiting, so I stood in line. After all, I was just looking for some feedback and validation, despite being successful in the local market. I needed to know if we were ready for the world.

Standing in line, I was approached by a tall, thin guy who introduced himself as Timothy Suggs. He said, “Do we have to sign in to have breakfast?” I said no, and after about 10 minutes waiting, he started talking to me about the blockchain with a passion that you don't see in many people. He told me what he did for a living, and began to talk about this amazing technology that would change the world. “This is the future and you are in the beginning of a new revolution,” he said. He mentioned that he is part of a community supporting a company named Expanse, which he described as pioneers in blockchain technology who are setting out to change the world. He was so passionate about the tech that listening to him was mind-blowing.

The Hamster in my head, stumble and fall

So 10 minutes before we finished breakfast he asked me what I do for a living. In my mind, the hamster running on the wheel stopped, stumbled and said, “Hey this is it, say it, go!!” and started running like hell. I said, “I created a gamification platform to add the mechanics to any platform. If you have an API to connect your system, I will give you dashboards, leaderboards, points, levels badges… it is a Gamification playground.” Then he asked me to stop talking and to explain it to the Expanse CEO. The hamster stopped again. “The CEO? Oh man.” He told me he would look for me at the conference so we could talk to him. He stood up and left — my mistake I didn´t give him my business card and didn´t get his number.

After the whole day in the conference talking to people about GameBoard and collecting contacts, suddenly Timothy messaged me in the Collision App and said, “Where are you? Come to the food area to meet my CEO.” The hamster collapsed and said, “The CEO?”(You imagine this 60-year-old guy with white hair with a young beautiful model by his side, 6’8”, 240 pounds, so direct and business oriented that you have 30 seconds to tell him what you do.

I was walking cool to the meeting with my heart pumping like hell and there is Timothy with a guy that looks like a “normal developer person” and a beautiful lady. Tim said, “This is Christopher Franko our CEO.” When I met Chris, he made me feel so confident — he was just a regular guy, a person, someone who had a dream and he was living it. He asked me about my life and my story, and then he started talking about his rap music, cryptos, kids, and Expanse.

The hamster sits down to open a beer and said, “This is dope!! Enjoy!”

(Oh!! I forgot, the beautiful lady was Chris’ wife, Heather — awesome person.)

This is the real AHA! Moment

After we explained our platforms and ideas, Chris said I have this project that I always wanted to do. It is about life and I am looking to gamify the experience. After he said that, we talked for an hour about it, creating this amazing platform in our minds. He said, “We will talk next week and do the necessary partnership paper work. This is awesome.”

We both shook hands and said goodbye, somehow, I felt like I knew this guy, maybe from another life. “The big CEO” became an accessible person with values and a dream.

After a few months designing and creating the EXP.Life project, we wrote the white paper and create the logo (coming soon) I started working with Expanse. I am sure this is the greatest opportunity that life gave me, I am in charge now of the project, creating new and amazing things for the platform, part of the Advisory board, and the Ambassador in Guatemala for Expanse. I already held the first meeting with the Blockchain Guatemala group that I created, and I am learning a lot.

For an entrepreneur in Guatemala, with a lot of dreams and the desire to change my country and the world, Expanse has become an excellent opportunity to dream, to work, to accomplish, to create the world that I want to live in.

I will try so hard that one day I will accomplish.

So, thanks Chris, Tim and the whole team, I feel very welcome.

Omar Alvarez — Husband, Dad, Guatemalan, Improv fan, entrepreneur, gamification lover and proudly Expanse Team member.

Original Article:

https://medium.com/@Borderless/expanse-behind-the-tech-omar-alvarez-6c9947f31ed

RECENT ARTICLES AND VIDEOS ABOUT EXPANSE

Top 10 Altcoins for February (Expanse Mentioned)

https://itsblockchain.com/top-10-altcoins-for-feburary

Posted Jan 28, 2018

Life is About Experience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=-sL1OdxnzTg

Posted Jan 24, 2018

Legal Services on a Blockchain — An Excellent Way to Save Scarce Resources

https://medium.com/@Borderless/legal-services-on-a-blockchain-an-excellent-way-to-save-scarce-resources-aefe4dfa90e

Posted Jan 21, 2018

Quiknode Tweets about Node Addition

https://twitter.com/QuikNode/status/954755828405473280

Posted Jan 20, 2018

Expanse Partners With CryptoBridge To Provide Expanse Markets

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=4Jo84AdRU24

Posted Jan 19, 2018

Bunny Ranch Brothel Plans To Accept Bitcoin (Brenna Sparks in Article with Expanse T-Shirt)

http://www.ibtimes.com/bunny-ranch-brothel-plans-accept-bitcoin-2642057

Posted Jan 17, 2018

Thank You For Playing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=31&v=1R03xxKyEY8

Posted Jan 17, 2018

How a Borderless Society can End Humanity’s Struggle for Food and Shelter

https://medium.com/@Borderless/how-a-borderless-society-can-end-humanitys-struggle-for-food-and-shelter-bae35812baf1

Posted Jan 14, 2018

Trade Recommendation: Expanse

https://hacked.com/trade-recommendation-expanse/

Posted Jan 11, 2018

Earn Cryptocurrency for Experiencing Life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g64rc38Z1Ko&feature=youtu.be&a=

Posted Jan 10, 2018

Education on a Blockchain — Can it truly democratize the way we learn and impart knowledge?

https://medium.com/@Borderless/education-on-a-blockchain-can-it-truly-democratize-the-way-we-learn-and-impart-knowledge-645523536c59

Posted Jan 7, 2018

Is it time to accept cryptocurrency? (Christopher Franko of Expanse is quoted in this article by American Express)

https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/is-it-time-to-get-paid-in-cryptocurrency/

Expanse Analysis ($EXP)

https://steemit.com/expanse/@thescoop/expanse-analysis-usdexp?

Posted Jan 7, 2018

A Borderless Financial System — A Dream or a Reality?

https://medium.com/@Borderless/a-borderless-financial-system-a-dream-or-a-reality-4f9c69018b91

PRESS RELEASES

Borderless Corp., Inc. to Launch Expanse DAO

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/borderless-corp-inc-to-launch-expanse-dao-300551075.html?tc=eml_cleartime

Posted Nov 7, 2017

Borderless Corp. Inks Deal with Compound Films for Multimedia Creation Services for Tokenlab and its ICO Clients

http://www.einpresswire.com/article/409575287/borderless-corp-inks-deal-with-compound-films-for-multimedia-creation-services-for-tokenlab-and-its-ico-clients

Posted Oct 13, 2017

IJI, Inc. Selects Tokenlab for ICO Management Services for Dropd, Its Revolutionary Decentralized Music Platform

https://www.einpresswire.com/article/408142091/iji-inc-selects-tokenlab-for-ico-management-services-for-dropd-its-revolutionary-decentralized-music-platform

Posted Oct 6, 2017

The Praetorian Group Taps Expanse/Tokenlab for ICO Management in New York State’s First-Ever Crowd-Funded Token Sale

https://www.einpresswire.com/article/405227711/the-praetorian-group-taps-expanse-tokenlab-for-ico-management-in-new-york-state-s-first-ever-crowd-funded-token-sale

September 21, 2017

Expanse Partners with CHCK-N for ICO Management Services; EXP to Reside on Millions of Mobile Devices Worldwide

http://www.crossroadstoday.com/story/36241015/expanse-partners-with-chck-n-for-ico-management-services-exp-to-reside-on-millions-of-mobile-devices-worldwide

Posted: Aug 29, 2017

youtube

EXR (EXPANSE REWARDS) INSTRUCTIONS

http://forum.expanse.tech/topic/150/how-to-buy-bonds-and-redeem-your-coupon-using-the-expanse-bond-dapp-version-1-0-ebs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dzhbDCXyQM

DOWNLOAD THE EXPANSE REWARD SYSTEM (EXR)

https://github.com/expanse-org/bond-dapp/releases

LIST OF CURRENT PARTNERS, CLIENTS, AND WORKING RELATIONS

AXIA PUBLIC RELATIONS

http://www.axiapr.com/

COMPOUND FILMS

https://www.facebook.com/compoundfilms

DROPD

https://www.dropd.co/

THE PRAETORIAN GROUP (PAX)

http://www.praetoriangroup.io/

CHCK-N (CHECK-IN BAR)

http://www.chck-n.com/

JAXX

https://jaxx.io/

GAMEBOARD

http://gameboard.site/

HONGICO

http://www.hongico.com/portal.php

CENTURYLINK

http://www.centurylink.com/

MICROSOFT AZURE

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-blockchain-update-7/

MICROSOFT BIZSPARK PLUS

https://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/startup/profile.aspx?startup=693057

CHANGELLY

https://changelly.com/exchange/BTC/EXP/1?ref_id=expanse

CHANKURA

http://chankura.com/

COINOMI

https://coinomi.com

EXPANSE DISCORD

We recently launched Expanse Discord, Discord is a communication system much like Slack, but Discord has much better security and is safer for users, so due to greater security we have switched from Slack to Discord for the community. To speak directly with the Expanse team or others in the Expanse community we suggest signing up for Discord, thank you.

https://Discord.me/expanse

Be sure to follow Expanse on Linkedin. Additionally, our lead marketing director, Marcia, is now taking lead at expanding and improving our Linkedin presence, as she is the most experienced with fortune 500 companies and Linkedin standards.

https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/16212682/

EXPANSE TELEGRAM

If you prefer the Telegram platform you can follow and chat about Expanse here.

https://t.me/ExpanseTech

TOKENLAB TELEGRAM

This is the channel for Tokenlab on Telegram

https://t.me/tokenlab

TOKENLAB FACEBOOK

https://www.facebook.com/pg/TokenLabIO

INTERLEDGER PROTOCOL OF RIPPLE XRP

Expanse is one of the first Alternative Blockchain projects to join ILP, Interledger protocol of Ripple. There are a few “Internet of Blockchain” projects out there, but this is perhaps the most promising of them all. Expanse is staying ahead of the curve and ready, just in case this works out and is a success. It is an open source project and anyone can join, but the Expanse team was one of the first to sign up to be a part of it back in September 2016.

SHOPPING WITH EXPANSE MADE EASY BY COINPAYMENTS

You can shop at many merchants right now using the Coinpayments Platform. We are one of the Alternative Tokens listed on Coinpayments, and they are a reliable trustworthy payment provider that works much like Bitpay does for Bitcoin.

https://www.coinpayments.net/

DOWNLOAD BORDERLESS TECH ALPHA PREVIEW

Current features include Marriages, Status updates, Web Of Trust, Notary, Citizenship, and many more features on the way soon!

https://github.com/borderlesstech/borderless-dapp/releases/

TOKENLAB WHITE PAPER

http://www.borderlesscorp.com/docs/tokenlab-whitepaper.pdf

EXPANSE WHITE PAPER

http://www.expanse.tech/docs/whitepaper.pdf

BORDERLESS WHITE PAPER

http://www.borderless.tech/docs/BorderlessWhitepaper.pdf

ADDITIONAL EXPANSE LINKS

http://blog.expanse.tech/

http://www.expanse.tech/

http://www.borderless.tech/

http://www.borderlesscorp.com/

http://www.borderlesscharity.org/

http://forum.expanse.tech/

http://slack.expanse.tech/

https://twitter.com/expanseofficial

http://www.exp.life/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ExpanseOfficial/

https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/16212682/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/expanseofficial/

https://www.facebook.com/ExpanseTech/

https://www.tokenlab.io/

https://www.facebook.com/TokenLabIO/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIo8vX6P_O0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dzhbDCXyQM&feature=youtu.be&a

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R2EK1Cnink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWPeWQrnYVg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyiJOCDUUcY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFzA7w7FScc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lql75D1q3Yg

POOLS

http://dwarfpool.com/exp

http://clona.ru:8083

http://exp.hashpower.farm/#/

http://exp.hodlpool.com

#expanse ethereum bitcoin tokenlab

0 notes