#I love this show the most out of any watcher program

[watchersleuth]

Adam joins Steven and Andrew for the last "cheers" in Seoul

Travel Season 1x06

Congratulations to the travel boys and all the crew! It was a fantastic first season and everyone should be so proud ღ

@wearewatcher @stevenkwlim

[the-third-fish]

What's most tragic about this move from Watcher is that they claim to do it because more money = higher quality shows, but it's that same "high quality" that made me stop watching most of the shows in the first place. Ghost files just isnt fun when every 3-5 minutes they roll some 3d information animation abt a gizmo or gadget that i already think suck and have already seen in every single episode. It's annoying to watch them use them and place any stock in what they produce because it's so obvious the machines are just programmed to produce "ghost data" on their own randomly. To take something funny like the spirit box and smother it another gizmo that cleans it up and takes the fun out of it.

The reason i loved buzzfeed unsolved was never EVER the "evidence" they gathered or even the history of the ghost story. It was the boys. Ryan scared out of his mind and shane laughing at him but still comforting him even though he thought it was all bs. The banter. It was never ever the ghosts that made the show

[terriblepersongreatseamonster]

I want to start this off by stating that I was a $5 Patreon patron for Watcher. For years, I watched the guys make content, and I couldn't afford to give any kind of support. Towards the end of last year I reached a point where I could just manage the $5 tier. As someone who is a creative, I know how important it is to be able to have the finances to make the things you want to make. And while $5 might not be much for some, it's still $5. Money is money.

I was absolutely stunned by the way Watcher handled things this past weekend. And while I am willing to continue watching them after seeing their apology video, I will be hesitant to give them any financial support in the future.

There has been quite a bit of discourse regarding things that were said in the "Goodbye YouTube" video, and since others discuss those things far better than I am able, I'm not going to cover most of the things I found myself questioning. However, there is one point I do want to tackle.

Watcher's claims of making TV quality content.

Do the guys make quality videos? Yes. For YouTube, their videos are excellent. Do I think that they are TV quality? No. Just because you have enough staff to fill out a TV show's credits, doesn't mean your content is TV quality. What they make are shows that I would expect to find on YouTube.

The show I keep coming back to regarding this claim is Puppet History. I adore that show. Puppet History is clever and endearing. I sense that Shane truly loves making it. That said, Shane is not a TV quality puppeteer.

I started learning to be a puppeteer when I was 5. From ages 5-34 I was involved with puppetry in some way, shape, or form for all but four of those years (that's 25 years of experience). I performed, I directed, and I taught basic puppetry. At my best, I was an average puppeteer, but I have helped train kids who were excellent at puppetry.

I say all this, because I want to make it clear I'm not just picking on Shane. He is a talented and smart man. I believe that if he had some training and practice, he could be a TV quality puppeteer, but right now he is not.

I would love to see the guys be able to make TV quality programming, but I think they need to pull back on some of the bells and whistles and focus on what actually works and make an effort to improve that.

Edit: I haven't done any puppetry since 2018, but here are a few photos of a couple of my puppets and myself.

[raisinchallah]

i am really fascinated why did xena fall out of public consciousness so hard like everyone in my circles loves 90s tv and yet most havent watched xena whats the hurdle like it was a huge internationally popular tv show at its time could go toe to toe popularity wise with most other genre programs of its era i think its lack of a streaming service presence has hurt it and idk is it kinda in the shadows of stuff like buffy and the x files that the popular long lasting shows take up more oxygen i think people might just hate women a bit cuz its literally everything people often claim to want and yet act like its gay homework i dont think season 1 is like much worse than anything a seasoned genre tv watcher training in the depths of watching early seasons tng or whatever cant handle and yet its like crickets and theres barely been any new influx of fans since the show ended like the fandom feels like a relic of the past its so strange to me… again maybe people really just dont like women… no vampire boyfriends to argue about under the guise of feminism.. tch

[simslegacy5083]

Today's (10/29/2024) Episode: Wholesome Morning Fun

Luigi and Noemi had successfully launched Watcher Tales right before their originally planned New Year’s Eve release date.

With that deadline off their backs, the family was able to relax and enjoy the holiday in style. In honor of all the relatives who had helped with his game launch, Luigi orchestrated a charity stream at the local gaming center, raising money for the family's foundation for at risk youth.

They kicked things off early in the morning, gathering a group of sims to participate in a timed Watcher Tales build challenge.

“You’ve got 2 hours to create a rockin’ party venue” Luigi told them “I’ll be checking in throughout on your progress, and at the end we’ll take turns touring all your creations, while our online viewers vote on their favorite. Good luck everyone!”

The winning build wound up being a futuristic nightclub lot, designed by the foundation’s volunteer computer science tutor, Mauricio.

Luigi had known this fellow computer lover since their teen years, when he’d been captain of Copperdale High’s computer club. The now much more mellow sim had put his interest in technology to good use both at the foundation and as a teacher at their old alma mater.

“I love your game, and so do my students.” he told Luigi when he came over to offer his congratulations. “The logic and data puzzles you added to the gearhead career are genius. It’s a fun way for kids to learn some of the basics of programming and I’m excited to work it into my lesson plans.”

As the attendees enjoyed placing their creations into their game worlds, Luigi was setting up breakfast with Grandpa Don and his friend Anderson.

“Anderson, this is Lalani. She wants to open her own catering business someday and today she’ll be helping you prepare your famous waffles for our event. Meanwhile, our volunteer Bradley here will be helping Don prepare drinks for all our guests. Nothing too potent now, he’s still a teen!”

“Brunch will be served shortly” he hollered to the crowd. “In the meantime, feel free to enjoy any of the fun activities we’ve setup throughout the center and thank you again for coming out to support this great cause!”

While Luigi was busy hosting the event and gathering footage for the foundations future promotions his son was unloading his most recent woes onto his friend Elyse “…then a clown with pliers started yanking out my teeth. It was awful! That wasn’t just a dream either…” he finished with a sigh “A bunch of my baby teeth are loose, and I hate how they’re all wiggly in my mouth. Daddy said I could just pull them out but I’m afraid to.”

“I totally get it” Elyse replied “I have nightmares too, and losing teeth is the worst! I yank mine to make sure I don’t swallow any in my sleep!”

“Oh, I don’t want to swallow them” Skye whimpered, more scared than ever, just in time for Bruce to jump into the conversation.

“I heard when you swallow a tooth it stays in your stomach for SEVEN YEARS!” their feisty friend grinned evilly at Skye’s horrified expression. “Now quite your bellyaching and come upstairs so I can kick your butts on this HUGE Space Invaders arcade game I found!”

After the meal Noemi gathered the children and teens for a little programming workshop. “Today I’ll show you how to program a simple music player and synthesizer so you can make your own tunes. I’ll also show you how to add your music tracks to Watcher Tales so you can hear them in game!”

Luigi filmed the kids working on their players, providing tips and tricks as he went. The sight of his friends, relatives, and the at-risk kids playing and learning together warmed his heart and made him proud of the good work the foundation was doing to help sims who might otherwise fall through the cracks.

Checking the donation counter Lugi was excited to see they’d already raised a healthy sum, and the day was just getting started!

View The Full Story of My Not So Berry Challenge Here

[vintagegeekculture]

Hi, I need information about a movie I couldnt find anything on the internet 1967 the purple monster Strike I watched the series there are some pictures form series like you published but l can't see it in the series?

There's a reason those images are not in the serial itself: the Purple Monster Strikes was chopped up and stock footage from it was used in the 1949 serial Radar Men from the Moon. The images from it come from that serial.

Republic Pictures were almost like predecessors to the great Roger Corman, Haim Saban, and the Shaw Brothers in their skinflint tactics straddled the borderline between asshole and creative (though I certainly wouldn't want to work for any of them). For example, Republic Pictures had Roy Barcroft wear the exact same outfit in Radar Men from the Moon, playing a similar villain character in a completely different movie, in the exact same weird space outfit, so that they could cut in footage of him from Purple Monster Strikes to save money and pad out the length of a 12-episode serial. The trouble is that Roy Barcroft gained a bit of weight between 1945 and 1949, so you can always tell which was Purple Monster footage and which wasn't. I think that might have been why they had him sit down behind a desk an awful lot in Radar Men (shades of late period, physically inactive Steven Seagal!)

In the days before repeated viewing on home video, nobody noticed, and the serial creators were counting on the fact the kid audience weren't paying attention too closely, so they could "cheat" quite a bit (as Annie Wilkes screeched out in Misery).

The reason you say it's a 1966 serial is that, for 60s television syndication (which is almost assuredly where the baby boom generation, notably Spielberg and George Lucas, discovered the serials), they were chopped up into movie length in order to cheaply show new material on television. It is stunningly easy to cut a serial like Undersea Kingdom to movie length, since most of their episodes tend to just go back and forth in repetition.

It's actually kind of stunning how much the urge to re-air cheap old material from the 30s and 40s defined the earliest generations of television watchers a decade later in the 60s. For example, most fans of the Three Stooges who discovered them in the 50s-60s fell in love with them because their 30s shorts, designed to be a shown before a feature before television existed, were the perfect length to be packaged as a cheap TV series. Same thing with the Johnny Weismuller Tarzan movies. Notably, "Saturday Morning Cartoons" started off as just a time to cheaply re-air old Warner Brothers shorts (Bugs Bunny, etc).

We like to think that we are the first generation that is "held hostage" to the cultural totems of a past generation, but the first generation of TV viewers were essentially just watching the same thing that their parents were in the 30s and 40s.

The world of 60s television syndication deals is fascinating. It's amazing how NBC once built their entire programming schedule around the fact they got the rights to broadcast James Bond movies.

[zyonsay]

La nuit se calme.

Fem aligned people may read but not f3tishize my work!!

Summary: You want to escape your worries at the ice rink, but Oscar feels that you're not doing well and wants to support you.

Reader: Genderneutral

Warnings: Reader has problem communicating their feelings, and bottles them up

Now playing: "Eyes dont lie" by Isabel LaRosa

AN: I wanted to feed y'all something lol. Also, i think Oscar is such an empath. I love his calm attitude so much.

The ice beneath you sounded crisp and the rink just opened so it was still untouched, smooth, and shiny. the music was blasting through your headphones, shushing away any worries you’d had before putting on your skates.

your day was stressful, and you haven’t been feeling well lately. talking about your feelings wasn’t your strong suit, so you’d just escape to the ice rink with your favorite playlist.

left, right, left, right. you were mindlessly hovering over the ice, though your shoulders felt tight and achy. you knew that this wasn’t the solution to your problems, just skating around won’t help you in the long run, but it functioned well as a band aid solution.

a loud whistle blew through the air, startling you. you puffed out a lungful of air, creating a little mist cloud. your beloved partner, oscar, was standing by the watcher stands and motioned for you to come over. You happily obliged, but you had a heavy feeling in your stomach. he always knew when something’s up.

“hey there.” he smiled sweetly, ruffling your hair. you shot him a worried smile, which had him alerted immediately, but he would never force anything out of you.

“wanna show me the program you’ve been working on?”, he took your hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze. you have indeed been puzzling together a program with your trainer, you’d be attending a competition soon. “yes, i still need to practice the last part though, so ignore that part.” you gave him a quick peck on the lips before gliding towards your starting position.

…

you were rubbing the blades of your skates dry as oscar was talking to you about the press conference he had today. his eyes looked tired, but as always there was this friendly glint in them. you packed all your belongings into your bag and slung it over your shoulder. “ready?”

“mhm.”, he took your hand in his once again. you said goodbye to the owner at the exit, giving her dog a gentle pat on the head. “See you on sunday!”

it was already dark out and bats were swirling in the air. it was a crescent moon tonight; the air was cold and crisp. your nose was red, and a little cloud formed with every exhale you made. oscar smiled down at you, admiring you. you were the most precious being in his life and he wanted to take care of you, especially since you tend to not do that yourself. he put his free hand in the pocket of his jacket as he began speaking: “do you want to tell me what’s up? I know you’re not feeling well.” he carefully glanced to the side, as to not make you feel pressured.

“I’m really tired. but not in a way of ‘I want to sleep’, it’s just… I can’t explain it.” you bit the inside of your cheek lightly, you wanted to confide in him, but it was so difficult to put your feelings into words.

“I get it.”, a talent of his was his empathy. he always knows, even if you don’t tell him.

you gripped his hand a bit tighter, cuddling into your warm scarf. “thank you for looking after me.”

his eyes met your gaze, a soft shimmer played in them.

he gently pulled you into him, embracing you with warmth and calmness. oscar was the sun to your winter landscape, warming you, even in your coldest moments.

“I love you.”

[whatsinyourstory]

SELF LOVE STARTS WITH BOOK LOVE

Recall how we needed to expound on how books are our dearest companions in each paper challenge or test? What's more, we expounded a ton on nature, kinship, information, etc, all of which we learned to get passing marks. Notwithstanding, as we become more seasoned, we discover that it has both a strict and a significant importance. Each feeling is substantial. We didn't have the foggiest idea what confidence or self improvement implied in those days, yet all of us are mindful of the more prominent impact that watching movies or television series has on us. We respect a person's qualities and start to envision ourselves as them at whatever point we watch a film or a Program which is likewise a piece of confidence or self improvement. I can in any case envision myself moving the entire day on AAMHI JE TOMAR in the wake of watching Bhool Bhulaiya. We begin to picture ourselves as those fictitious people to us; this is a decent close to home capacity. Psychological wellness influences discernment, insight, and conduct and is impacted by close to home, mental, and social prosperity. It likewise influences how they adapt to pressure, cooperate with others, and decide.

Psychological well-being is the main viewpoint that is frequently disregarded, yet there is a conviction that can assist us with feeling improved. "THERE IS Trust, In any event, WHEN YOUR Mind Lets you know THERE ISN'T"- JOHN GREEN. We are mindful that emotional well-being is a delicate point that many individuals try not to examine for different reasons. How improve? Certain individuals talk about their thoughts to look for counsel from others, while others share it basically to dispose of the stuff, nevertheless, others like to hush up about it.

Others urge us to counsel specialists, which may without a doubt help us in settling our concerns and upgrading our psychological well-being. Yet, managing it is challenging for individuals like me who struggle with communicating their thoughts. I'll educate you concerning my own insight during the pandemic. It was only excessively hard for me to converse with my family since I was apprehensive I'd begin crying. In any case, on one occasion I saw a post about the notable book The Shortcoming in Our Stars and I chose to try it out. At that point, I had extreme nervousness issues and had secluded myself to the place where I didn't actually address my relatives. I wasn't a book lover in those days. That book caused me to understand that life, as NAVRASA, is brimming with highs and lows and various feelings. Anything it is, we as a whole prefer to win subsequent to investing some parcel of energy. Albeit troublesome from the outset, whenever you've dominated it, you'll feel large and in charge. In the wake of completing the novel, I started to contrastingly see things. I understood what confidence and self-realizing implied. I believed constantly in myself. I started to deal with myself and was effective. I'm simply infatuated with my new character!

Perusing works on our psychological well-being and shows us confidence and self-learning, though screen time makes the contrary difference. We can decrease pressure, pulse, pulse, and muscle strain by perusing. Perusing healingly affects our perspective as well as giving us information. For what reason how about individuals preferably read romance books or self improvement guides over watch them? Most of movies depend on the tales in the books. They are planned to show watchers how their creative mind could become reality, yet in all honesty, you can feel each of the feelings while understanding them! HARRY POTTER, THE Issue IN OUR STARS, Half Sweetheart, alongside a lot more ring a bell.

We generally track down engaging data via online entertainment stages; for instance, on the off chance that we see a reel or post about self esteem, sentiment books, or double-crossing, we find a great deal of articles about it that we appreciate perusing/watching. A genuine book is dependably a choice, however the drawback of innovation is that it strains our eyes and redirects our consideration when a notice springs up on WhatsApp or Instagram. Books, in contrast to contraptions, can encourage us, quiet us down, and eliminate any abundance negative energy that has amassed in our current circumstance. We start to see things in new ways and according to new viewpoints. We can look for self improvement guides or sentiment books on the web and get different outcomes, for example, Nuclear Propensities, Take on a similar mindset as a Priest, It Closures with Us, It Starts with Us, and so on.

Allow us to attempt to discover a sense of reconciliation through self esteem and self-learning, and usher in energy by perusing and smashing on our number one person, which is an exceptionally fun and imaginative method for unwinding. Perusing fundamentally affects our characters since it builds our insight, extends our jargon, and makes us more familiar. So why not ? Buy second hand books from the best online bookstore - Whats In Your Story.

[earthboundvalkyrie]

Murder Or Banish? Decisions Abound On The Traitors (Review)

New Post has been published on https://www.ebvs.blog/2023/01/30/murder-or-banish-decisions-abound-on-the-traitors-review/

Murder Or Banish? Decisions Abound On The Traitors (Review)

NO SPOILERS

In my recent review on “Pressure Cooker” I mentioned how I disliked it during the early seasons of skilled competition shows when people made decisions based on “game strategy” rather than on merit. It may surprise you, then, to learn that I absolutely loved Peacock’s “The Traitors.” On “The Traitors” “game strategy” is the whole point.

The show is set in Scotland, ostensibly at the castle of our host, Alan Cumming, who was born to play this role. He has invited 20 people – 10 who have been on other reality shows (most of them from Peacock’s corporate sister, Bravo, but a few others as well) and 10, well, normal people to join him at his castle for a little game. Not being a big watcher of reality shows, I didn’t really know who anyone was, and in all honesty, it didn’t make a difference as far as enjoying the program went. There are some references to their previous stints, but nothing you can’t follow just by the dialog on this show.

Traitors players Michael Davidson, Anjelica Conti, Cirie Fields, Brandi Glanville, Rachel Reilly, Kate Chastain, Robert “Bam” Nieves, Ryan Lochte, Arie Luyendyk Jr., Christian de la Torre, Cody, Calafiore, Kyle Cook, Amanada Clark, Azra Valani, Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick, Reza Farahan, Geraldine Moreno, and Quentin Jiles (Photo by Euan Cherry/Peacock)

Each day, the contestants engage in a mission of some sort. One day, they may be trying to blow up wood frame Scottish beasts, another, they’re struggling to roll barrels through the castle grounds. The point of the missions is for them to collectively earn money toward the prize pot of up to $250,000.

The contenders have been divided into two groups, but not everyone knows who’s in which group. Some have been selected by Cumming to serve as the titular Traitors, who’s job is to get rid of as many of the other players as possible without getting caught. The rest are known as the Faithful.

The Traitors all learn who’s on which team because each night, they don heavy cloaks, sneak through the castle carrying a lantern and meet in a creepy castle turret to decide who they’re going to murder. Once the victim is picked, their judgement is delivered to the victim, who is now out of the game.

The Faithful, however, are watching each other to try to determine who the Traitors are, and each night, the full cast – Faithful and Traitors – gather at the Round Table to discuss who they think are Traitors and should therefore be banished from the game.

In the end, if the Faithful banish all the Traitors, then the remaining Faithful will share however much of the $250K they’ve earned. However, if any Traitors remain, the Traitors split the pot.

Cumming is an exceptional choice to host this event. His Scottish accent is simply gorgeous, and he switches between witty, mysterious, devious and charming as he greets the surviving cast members each morning at breakfast, explains the missions and hosts the Round Table discussion each evening. His presence is unmistakable, and he’s an integral part of the show, but he doesn’t overwhelm the events. It’s not an easy balance to strike, but he does it extremely well.

Of course, players start quickly forming alliances and comparing notes as to whom they think they traitors are. Contestants try to decipher the Traitors’ strategy in whom they choose to murder, declare who they “know” is a Traitor and cozy up to those they believe wouldn’t lie to them. Since we know who is on which team, we recognize just how right or wrong they are, which can be pretty funny. Listening to the Traitors trying to decide whom to murder is interesting, as they work out the logic behind their choices.

But the big event is really the Round Table meeting and voting. Here accusations are made, defenses are presented, and pleas of innocence are heard. It gets raucous, to be sure, but it never feels out of hand, and the producers show enough of the dialogue to follow how the voting gets decided, but not so long that it becomes tiresome or overly repetitive. Once a person has been banished, they then reveal to the other players if they were a Faithful or a Traitor.

While the rest of the show leading up to it is a great deal of fun, and well worth watching, the ending is something that must be seen to be believed. Don’t worry, I will not go into details except to say I did not see it coming and It. Was. Epic.

So, if you’re looking for a nice bit of backstabbing, lying and traitorous deeds, you’ll want to give this a go.

[alkhale]

change the channel (Ko-Fi Request) Kenma Kozume/Camgirl!Omega!Reader

hello! Id love a kenma x reader fic (maybe a/b/o) ?? Also, thank you so so much for writing so many amazing fanfics :) every time I read a new chapter from any of your stories, it makes my day <3 

OFC COURSE YOU CAN!!!! And thank you so much for your support and for your donation! AND THANK YOU!! I know this one is long overdue, but I hope you enjoy!

I’m also killing two birds with this one, it’s substituting for Typetober Day 16: back and forth (using change the channel instead)

title: change the channel

pairing: Kenma Kozume/Omega!Reader

rating: T/very slight M

summary:

Kenma taps his phone again, right back at your picture. He stares at you with wide, piercing eyes, leaning across the table and quickly saying, reverent and eager—

“I want to buy your game from you.”

Today, sitting here beside you in your bag, are fully equipped items to try and protect you from the creepy, deranged, rich stranger you’d been about to meet. Today, you were fully expecting to unleash a fury building up inside of you over an injustice you can’t tackle on your own in your society on some poor, unsuspecting alpha—

Here, sitting in front of you, is a self-claimed internet game streamer, who wants to buy your… special edition… game?

“You want…” you say, slowly, making sure you don’t have this wrong, “...my game?”

He nods.

You open your mouth. It closes. You open it again, raise a finger, and then press your lips together, staring at him.

“I’m sorry,” you say finally. “What?”

link to AO3 for easier reading: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27446191

Omegachion has signed on!

The monitor screen flickers to life. 

An empty room appears. A plush, pink cushioned desk chair is in view. Along the cream, soft colored walls are a series of posters that usual garner less attention. A bookshelf is tucked to the side, complete with a set of potted plants hanging in clean pots—clearly loved. Within the stack of books sits shelves stuffed full with what looks to be discs and an assortment of other items.

The website's main frame appears—SecondGlanceStreaming.com. The design is sleek and black—clean and unassuming. A password is prompted, followed by a series of typed keys and then a click.

On the side of the screen a chatroom appears, coupled with a monitored security system in place established by the website. A cherry icon pops to life. Once the chatroom opens, the entire website flickers with light.

Omegalovers has signed on.

Rockyroadncream has signed on.

Omegasarekings has signed on.

Cumqueen324 has signed on.

Mrknottt has signed on.

Msbyjackalboi23 has signed on.

Openwideandsmile has signed on.

Sunnydayandnight has signed on.

Marshmellowtime has signed on.

Thecoolestalpha has signed on.

Bettagetbeta has signed on.

KingKodzuken has signed on.

Kodzu00 has signed on.

The chatrooms explodes with messages. A series of greetings are quickly issued by long-time fans and watchers of the streams, asking how your day was and how you’re feeling. A few more perverse, slimy messages are mixed in-between, demanding for the crude and obscene. A few others snipe back, telling the users to get their hands out of their pants while a series of other users greet each other instead, talking about the excitement over tonight's stream.

You hang back a bit, one arm crossed under your chest, puffed up with the fleecy soft fabric of your jacket while the other hand holds a jelly drink, sipping it in silence. You watch the chatroom explode, quickly gaining more and more users as others signed on to your stream. You check the time on your phone, sighing before you finish off your drink and toss it into the trash can.

You place the fuzzy bunny mask over your eyes, checking how you look in the mirror. You swipe your mouth with your thumb, applying your lip gloss and then smiling cutely at your reflection.

“Alright,” you say. “The goal tonight is 7,000 cherries… you got this!”

You clap your hands over your face and beam. Showtime.

You slide into the monitor’s view, the webcam flickering to life. The chat comes back with more force, messages spamming into the box and a series of cherries already floating into the screen. You beam, laughing as you wave to your viewers and blow them all kisses. “Hello! Hello everyone! I love to see so many of you are so punctual… Needy omegas like me… we love reliable people, you know?”

You hold back a snicker as the chat increases with your words. People shooting messages back at you as you let out a cute giggle. Tonight’s outfit is nothing but a cotton candy pink fleece zip-up that falls to the top of your thighs, also exposing your bare, smooth collarbones. It’s a special occasion, so you’re going the extra mile.

“How are we all doing tonight?” you ask sweetly, holding your chin up with your hands as you watch the chatroom, skimming over the responses. “Aw, Bettagetbeta, I’m sorry to hear that! I hope things get better for you… do you need a hug?”

Cherry icons pop up over your screen. 50. 30. 10. You smile, opening your arms to the camera. “There! I’ll make all your problems go away, okay?”

You bat your eyes under the mask, showing them your bare wrists and giving them a little rub with your thumbs. “You can scent me if you’d like… would that make you feel better?”

Bettagetbeta has gifted you 30 cherries!

Bigboialpha has gifted you 350 cherries!

“Bigboialpha!” you squeak, covering your mouth with your hands. “That’s too sweet of you! Did you want to scent me that badly?”

Your chatroom shakes from the force of scrambled messages. You smile, shyly running a finger up and down the slightly swollen scent glands of your wrist. You’ve timed this just right—and just as you thought, your viewers notice too, instantly spamming the boxes with more fervent messages, begging to scent you, begging to be with you, wrap you up in their smells—

(God, you make me want to vomit.)

“If you’re extra good,” you say sweetly, “you could… maybe even…”

You tease show off more of your bare shoulder, showing a pink bra strap. You slightly expose the side of your neck, bringing your fingers up dangerously close to your most sensitive scent glands. Cherry icons flash across the screen and you hold back an excited grin, feet tapping anxiously underneath your desk.

There’s a new flurry of disgusting messages, of big, handsome alphas promising to do all kinds of things to you if you’d let them. You roll your eyes under your mask, holding back curling your lip in disgust as they prattle on about how they’d take care of you, make you feel so, so good and—

“All right, all right, that’s enough teasing, right?” you say. “Everyone, thank you so much for signing on again tonight! If you’re new to my streams, welcome! We’re so happy to have you. I’m lucky to have you. It’s a special night tonight, you know why?”

Gonna come for us on screen?

Face reveal! Face reveal!

Omegachion i would do anything for u

Pls let me touch u

Take off ur jacket

Stfu and let her talk u horn dogs

Fking disgusting dont ruin the stream

Open ur legs, baby girl

“Because!” you say, throwing your arms into the air. You spin once in your chair, showing off the room and stopping right in front of the screen again. “I just got it in the mail today…”

You bring up the sleek red box that’d been waiting to the side of your desk. You beam, showing it off to your viewers. “Tadah! Do you know what this is? It’s a gift from our generous website hosts—a gift for reaching the Gold Status on streaming! Everyone, thank you so much! I couldn’t have done this without you!”

The chatroom pops with congratulations. There’s some demanding comments, ordering for a consolation prize. You skim through them all, smiling a bit at the paragraphs of kind words and thanks. They’re the viewers you wish you could treat with a little more care, give them something a little more for all they do.

“Want to see what the gift was?” you ask. You pop open the lid and show off the gift—a dark red, leather collar coupled with a golden dog tag. It’s a stylish thing, slim fitted and clearly of great quality, there’s a thickened edge to the leather, coupled with a lock and key.

It’s an omega collar.

You smile through your teeth. The stench of the perfume from the box makes you want to wretch, but you hold it for the camera as your viewers beg you to put it on. “Oh, I don’t know… should I?”

You play with it, showing it off to them against the column of your neck. They’re feverish and desperate. 

“I don’t deserve something this nice,” you say, shaking your head.

Tease

Don’t cover up that beautiful neck

Dont blueball us

I only want to see u in my collar

“That’s right,” you say innocently. “I don’t want to cover up what belongs to you guys…” you show off your neck to them again, touching with your fingertips your own bonding gland, unmarked and bare. The chatroom is almost unrecognizable, going off into a feeding frenzy.

You turn back to the screen, smiling.

(You’re like babies.)

You drop the box out of view of the camera into your trashcan, kicking it under the table with more force than necessary. You ought to burn the fucking thing but leather probably doesn’t burn well. 

I can’t believe I’m already at 4,000 cherries. You feel excitement replace the disgust, toes curling against your hardwood floor. You got this, amp it up a little bit.

“Since I couldn’t have made it this far without all of you,” you say, touching a hand to your chest and playing with your zipper. “I wanted to do something special—not just this stream! But a nice little event, how does that sound?”

You click your mouse, opening up a new box and icon for your viewers. “Can everyone see the royalty program alright? Yeah? Perfect! If you look, you’ll see the cute little banner we had set up and everything.”

You hold up your phone, smiling beside it. “For these set prices, I’ll be doing a series of special events, just for all of you guys for all the support you’ve given me!”

You point.

“50 cherries and you get a sweet text with a picture from me,” you say. “Each picture will be different, and none of them alike! Keep it between us though, okay? Hehe, I mean it! For 100 cherries, I’ll do a one minute call and for 300 cherries, a three minute call, just with you! For 500, we’ll do a private web-chat session and finally, the big one…”

You smile, “For 1,500 cherries, I’ll be doing a special, in-person meet and greet! How does that sound?”

The reactions are instantaneous.

Cherries already start popping up all over your screen, users filling out the roles and eagerly thanking you for everything while others spit at the prices. You ignore those comments, secretly marking certain users to be blocked. You know the last one is outrageous, how could it not be? Did they think you’d want to meet with any of them? You’d discussed this with several other streamers and they’d all done similar things—this deterred creeps and kept you safe. Usually no one ended up doing the meet and greet. It was too expensive. 

It was foolproof.

I can’t wait to hear your voice

Will it be nudes

I want nudes

Thank you so much for doing this!

“I should be the one thanking you guys!” you squeal. Your eyes dart to the corner of your screen, watching the cherries roll in. Your heartbeat accelerates and you do the quick math in your head. “Oh my goodness! Sitwhereveryoulike, thank you so much for the Cherries! And you too, theprettiestalpha! Thank you!”

As it should be. You grin at the screen, prattling on with sweet words and thanks. You teasingly unzip a little more of your jacket, greedily watching the cherries pop-up all over the screen, trying to make conversation where you can and—

A single chat bubble pops up in the corner. You almost miss the question, but you’re almost certain your eyes don’t betray you. If you hadn’t seen the title so many times, you would’ve blown right past it.

(But you’re a true fan, down to your core, you could never miss a mention of—)

Is your username based on Water Emblem?

“Hello, Kodzu00!” you say quickly, trying to stifle your surprise. “Yes, it is! You must be new to the streams.”

You gesture behind you, smiling shyly at the poster of Varth on the back of your wall. “I’m actually a bit of a fan! I know the series is old and everyone’s excited for the new reboots, but I grew up with the old one.”

Ah, stop right there, don’t keep talking about it. You’re going to lose viewers! Your fingers fly back to your zipper, teasingly dragging it down another inch. You could talk about Water Emblem for hours, but you can’t—this is a stream after all. “Bigboialpha! I guess we’ll be having that private webchat after all… mhm! I’m looking forward to it—huh? What I’ll be wearing? Well…”

You cutely run your fingers up and down the column of your neck, bringing their attention back to your scent glands. “Would you… pick for me?”

You almost gag at the comment suggestions. You watch more cherries roll in—shit, another 500? I might make my goal after all! No, you would make your goal. You have to. The sooner you rake in the dough from these streams, the sooner you could—

For the meet and greet, would it be in person?

You blink, startled by the question. You quickly glance back to the username. Kudzu00 again? “Uh, yes! Yes, it would be~ I’d pick a nice location for us and we’d meet. Wouldn’t that be nice everyone?”

For how long?

Who even is this lol

Damn big bucks

Show us the tits already

Pls sit on my face

Your outfit is so cute today!

You swallow nervously. Calm down. What are you even freaking out for? No one in their right mind was ever going to drop that much money to meet with some stranger from the internet—no one.

“Fifteen minutes,” you say cheerfully, keeping one eye on the chat. Have I seen this user before? “There’s a lot we could do—ah, I mean talk about in fifteen minutes, right?”

Kodzu00 is typing…

The chat bubble disappears. You eye it for a few more seconds before shrugging your shoulders. Shake it off. You needed to keep this celebration stream going. You slyly bring your bare knees up and watch the chat go a little more wild, quick questions being shot about whether or not you’re wearing anything under that jacket. You keep the conversations going, sweetly asking the users about what they’d like to do, what kind of pictures and if—

A bright icon flashes on your screen. You glance over.

Kodzu00 has gifted you 3,000 cherries!

You freeze.

On your monitor the chat continues to fire off. A few people notice the notification. You blink, once, twice, before taking a second glance at the numbers.

3,000.

3,000 cherries?

3,000….

The calculation is quick in your head. You’re terribly good with money, sadly. The final statement minus the small deduction for processing appears in your mind’s eye and you balk.

HOLY FUCK.

Lol i think u broke her

God damn

Congratulations, Omegachion!

“K-K-Kodzu00!” you say, head spinning. “Thank you so much! Oh—oh my goodness! Thank you so much for your donation!” What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck— “I can’t believe you’d be so generous! Thank you so much! I’m so excited to meet you! Our first meet and greet!”

WHAT THE FUCK?

You quickly try to hold your composure, continuing with the stream. Calm down. Calm down. Calm down. Finish the show! You laugh, trying not to look at the history of the notification and focusing on your show instead. You thank every piece of good sense inside you for using a mask, hiding the sweat rolling down your face as you teasingly stand up for your audience, bending down a bit.

“Now, how about we end the night with a little… cuddle, hmm?” you say shakily, unzipping your jacket the rest of the way to show off the lacy, soft pink color of your bra. The chat bubbles pop up by the dozens, but you never see even a lick of Kodzu00 again. What the hell? “C’mon, you know how badly I wish you were here to scent me… wrap me up in that smell of yours…”

(Give them what they all want.)

What feels like hours finally passes in a span of minutes and you quickly say goodbye to your watchers, blowing them a kiss and zipping your jacket backup as you finally sign off. You sit there, staring at the screen of your loading page, dumbfounded.

Limply, your finger finds its way to your mouse. You give it a click.

The final total for your earnings tonight appears in a tacky, almost shady colored box. You stare at it in silence.

9,750 Cherries.

Nine…. Nine thousand…

Almost 1,000,000 yen? 

“Yes!” you screech, grabbing your head with your hands as you fly up from your chair. You kick the stupid, plush pink thing aside. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

This is insane! You almost want to cry in disbelief. This is—this is it! This is what I needed! I’m so close! I’m so close! You know the other streams won’t rake in nearly as much, but this is the final push you needed—if you kept up this kind of participation for another few months, your fees would be nothing! You’d be able to even afford a little extra and get something nice, replace your bathtub and treat yourself to an expensive dinner and all thanks to this stupid job and—

The grand, generous donation of Kodzu00—

You freeze. Your pure, unrestrained elation plummets. Reality clocks you sideways in the face and you slap yourself for being so dumb—how could I even forget? Your eyes dart back to the screen and you pull up the donation history, staring in dark silence at the simple, blaring donation of cherries, already transferred to your account and not even pending and—

Your joy is quickly replaced with something much more dire. You gape at the amount. The award title beside it appears. You stare.

And stare.

A thirty minute meet and greet.

You’d be meeting in person with this person for at least half and hour and—

What the hell?

You power off your screens, flying to your room and kicking the streaming room door shut behind you. You lunge for your bed, scrambling for your laptop, covered in Water Emblem stickers. You pop it open, quickly pulling up your admin account for the streaming sight and accessing your private passwords. You pull up the user history for all your past streams, typing in the username Kodzu00—

Nothing?

You stare at the blank history. The only entry is tonight’s stream. The very first time this user has ever showed up.

Alarm bells start ringing in your head. You pull up your emergency tab, a self-made list of all your red-flag boxes to check in cases like this for your safety. You click on Kodzu00’s account, searching through their profile.

MADE THIS MORNING? You gape in disbelief, staring at the entirely blank profile. It’s even void of an icon for a profile pic. The account was literally made today, just for this stream, and this god damn stranger just gifted you basically 300,000 yen—

This is insane! All your alarm bells nearly fall off their stands. You search for any kind of information, scrambling and double-checking your banned users lists for any potential matches. Was it some creep trying to meet you from before? A stalker? Were they under a different name and made the separate account just to do this to you so they wouldn’t get caught? What’s their deal?

(What’s your selling point for this whole thing?)

You pause, fingers halting over your keyboard.

You’ve had rich donations before. Users with too much time and money on their hands—users you’re gladly willing to take from in the pursuit of a better life for yourself. Your crowd ranges anyway; from nervous, shy little dorks to kind, quiet people looking for company to disgusting, wretched lechers and stupid alphas who like nothing more than little, docile omegas to rub their garbage scent over—

You stare at Kodzu00’s user profile, feeling something bitter and dark and ugly bubble up in the pits of your stomach.

Any person, male or female, who’d be willing to drop that much money to meet with a streamer like you, notorious for what you do, for what you market—can’t be a good person by any means.

They only want one thing.

You grind your teeth, knowing you’ve got no choice but to reap what you sowed. This was the path to quick cash you chose, so you can’t back down now. You’ll just have to do everything in your power to make sure you remain successful.

You close your laptop screen, ripping your stupid mask off your face and tossing it to the side.

You weren’t backing down.

--- (change the channel) ----

You started streaming in high school.

The middle of your last year, to be exact.

It started off simple enough, to be honest. Nothing eventful, nothing worth writing biographies or harrowing documentaries off of. It was another story amidst the thousands in Tokyo’s Metropolitan streets.

By all legal health records and means, you are an omega.

(What does that mean?)

Within Tokyo’s urban and suburban streets, it means a collection of different ideals and social norms. It means nothing to plenty, it means everything to others—to your youthful eyes growing up, it’d just meant you were a little different from some of your other peers, but not isolated, no, never isolated—there were other omegas, after all, despite the smaller population.

You get along with people fine. You make friends fine, have a few crushes, get average enough grades and have a particular fondness for social media—you just live your life on top of having to deal with certain physiological functions others around you may not experience the same.

You think by all means until your last year of high school, that it really does mean nothing. Society is so modern now, people don’t even blink, right? There’s none of those second gender stereotypes or outrageous cult worships—you’re just another person trying to live their life to the fullest.

“A doctor? Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

You smiled at your teacher in the faculty office. See? Normal—

You stopped.

“See, that’s a great dream,” the teacher said, pointing to your paper. He tapped it, scratching his rough stubble. “But it’s not very realistic with your current standing, you know?”

“You mean my grades? I can work extra hard. They’ve been more than above passing, and what really matters is the entrance exams and testing—”

“Not just that,” he said. He pulled up your student file. He gave you a second look, up and down, and he seemed to find pity in your hopefully confused expression. “Listen, (L/n), here’s the thing—a doctor… is a pretty important position, you know? Very important.”

You nodded like you didn’t already know that. Like you hadn’t been spending the last years of your educational life aspiring toward that goal, that dream.

“They need to be physically… available,” your teacher said. “They have to work outrageous shift hours, they have to work hard on top of that, and then they have to take special medication to regulate their pheromones if they need to, and then the schooling on top of all that is hard work.”

You waited for your teacher to explain why any of those things was supposed to get in the way of your one and only dream of saving lives.

“I’ll make this easy for you to understand, kid,” you teacher said. He taps his nametag, pointing to his little alpha symbol.

“Omegas just don’t become doctors.”

Your dainty, prettily crafted world of normalcy and mundane content shattered around you in one violent, screeching halt.

You smiled at your teacher, nails digging painfully into your thighs.

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s just not a typical job preference,” your teacher said. “Look, you’re not the only one, I promise. There are a few omega doctors, sure, we need them anyway to make things easier or make sense of stuff alpha based doctors or betas might not understand, but the demand isn’t high and the placement is extremely competitive. Trust me, kid. I know.”

You kind of wanted to spit at your teacher that no, this pot-bellied, alpha gym teacher couldn’t possibly know more than you do about trying to break into the medical industry as an omega. But the thing is—what are the statistics? You hardly see any. Every website you’d researched thus far has always been welcoming, nowhere on their platforms or pamphlets saying anything about omegas being doctors or not and—

You froze.

“Everyone is welcome!” the videos all said. “Everyone is encouraged to try!”

“This is the real truth,” your teacher said. “They’ll all tell you you can do it because they’re not allowed to discriminate or turn anyone away. They’ll let you do whatever you want, but when it really comes down to the acceptances or not? You’ll just get turned away and you’ll have wasted all that time for nothing.

“Omegas aren’t considered suitable candidates for doctors,” your teacher said. “That market tends to go to betas, believe it or not. A nice little mediator.”

Your teacher tossed your career planning forms onto a stack of dozens. You stared at it, smiling continuously with your fingers digging harder into your thighs. He sighed, waving a hand.

“You should shoot for a hospital receptionist,” your teacher said. “It’s the next best thing, right? Or you could teach biology at a school instead. You might even be able to get by as a school nurse—”

“I’m going to apply to medical school.”

Your teacher stopped, looking at you.

You smiled back at him.

(Being an omega was supposed to stop you?)

What a load of shit.

“I don’t really care about anything else,” you said. “I’ve wanted to become a doctor my whole life. If people say I can’t do it because of something they can’t even see, then I’m still going to do it. They can’t stop me.”

Your teacher stared at you for a few minutes. He leaned back in his chair, considering his next words before he finally said—

“You got the money?”

You stopped.

Your family is pitifully lower middle class. Your parents make enough to pay the bills, afford a vacation every now and then, and just get by fair enough without being too stressed—but small issues, like your own medical costs for heat suppressants or a flat tire can easily set your family back several paychecks.

No, you don’t have money for medical school. You’d already known that looking at all the pamphlets. But there were scholarships and stipends and loans—

“If you want to waste your time with this pipe dream, it’s not my job to stop you,” he said, pointing to your career form. “It’s not really ethical either, so don’t come back and file any lawsuits against me. But your medical schools don’t offer many scholarships, and the ones they do aren’t going to go to that one, average ranking omega they’d rather not even have to worry about.”

Your teacher shrugged.

“Go ahead and be a doctor, kid, but you’re going to need money to do it.”

(This is the reality. People are not equal. Being an omega means—)

Means what?

-- ---- (change the channel) ----

You remember laying in your bed that night, scrolling mindlessly through random social media outlets. You’d spent the last several hours searching extensively for any and all scholarships you might even remotely be able to apply for, but none of them seemed willing to help an omega into their waiting hospital wings—your best bet was going to be taking out a loan. Several. That’s on top of cram school costs, textbooks, entrance fees and whether or not I can pass the exam—

No, you would. You had too. You weren’t about to let some stupid, invisible consensus a group of people somewhere or another had decided on stop you.

“Thank you again for the generous donations! You guys are too good to me!”

You’d paused, staring at your bright screen. One of the streamers you followed from time to time—he was an omega, cute and docile and in all honesty, probably the picture perfect cookie cutter definition of one. He always posted great tips on fashion or about cute cafes he enjoyed, and always seemed to be proud of the fact that he was an omega despite how cringingly he played into the stereotypes—

You glanced at his caption, freezing in disbelief.

Designer bags littered his floor. He showed off his pretty watch, batting his lashes at the camera, talking about how the donations from last night’s stream helped him live a good, cushiony life, making him feel like he was being taken care of even without an alpha by his side.

You’d stalked his account almost religiously for the next few weeks, watching his streams, watching the way he… flaunted his nature as an omega. Your parents had always told you you were fine the way you were, but being an omega had never been something to be proud of—you’d just preferred to act like a beta more than anything else. What was the point? To some extent, your teacher was right, there were no benefits to being an omega except—

“Thank you again for all your donations!”

You pulled up your laptop, searching extensively for every little obscure article you could find on the nature of streaming services. You’d never taken social media outlets that seriously, always looked at influencers and vloggers with a grain of salt—you were aspiring to be a full-time heart surgeon after all, but if there was actually something...reasonable behind the way all these people would act, proudly showing off the fact that they were omegas in exchange for something monetary…

(Did people enjoy this?)

Yeah you can make money from it, lol.

You stared at the internet thread, blinking in disbelief.

One user amongst thousands in the thread had responded to your question.

Ppl always keep saying that omegas are this and that. Society likes to paint a pretty picture of what we call equality. Ads and those videos u watch in school and stuff, they all tell u you can be whatever u want to be if u try, but that’s not rlly the truth. The only thing they were honest about was that you’d have to work hard for what you want in life.

You scrolled down.

You have to do the research on ur own and find respectable sites. I can give u recommendations, but u have to kind of get yourself prepared for what you’re signing up for too. Everyone likes to go on television and talk about how all three genders are the same, but we’re not. It’s not even just whether ur female or male anymore, everyone always finds something to pick at, don’t they?

U might get hate for it but whatever, those people who sit on a nicer chair than you and don’t pay your bills don’t get to criticize you for what you want to do and how u do it.

They always tell us we can’t do things because we’re omegas. That we have to be a certain way because we’re omegas and we’re only good for one thing.

So just give them what they want.

And suck them dry.

You remember clearly, that night, pulling up the user’s account and shooting them the message that would change your life.

What sites do you recommend for beginners?

Youcanruletheworld is typing…

----- (change the channel) -----

You triple check all your items, rearranging them on your bed in front of you.

Your outfit is cute, matching your streamer personality but remaining modest enough to keep you protected from unwanted attention. You’ll be wearing a face mask on top of it, just for the extra mile too. You’d already reached out to this Kodzu00 and sent them the notification for where to meet and when, and what you’d look like so they’d be able to find you. Wisely, as always, you picked a neutral location—an extremely popular cafe two hours away from your house just to be safe.

Safety alarm—check. Pepper spray, check. Pheromone repellent, check. Emergency contact button, check. Location synced devices and emergency heat suppressant pills on top of—

You stare at the last item. It comes special with the standard emergency omega safety kit—you almost spit at the name—it’s a quick, easy attachable lock-on collar to protect your bonding glands in the case of an unruly and disgusting attack.

You want to call it ridiculous.

(Behind your eyes you see the comments scrolling over the glowing screen. You see the leering words and the lecherous promises and the disgusting sentences that rattle your brain and make you stand a minute longer in the shower, fingernails digging into your skin—)

You don’t say anything, zipping the bag closed and taking all your items with you.

---- (change the channel) -----

Thirty minutes, it’s just thirty minutes, you can do this. You aggressively slurp on your straw, furiously dogging the cafe patrons with your eyes, keeping them narrowed and peeled for anyone who ought to fit the bill over what you were expecting to meet today. Thirty minutes.

The black iced coffee with an added two shots isn’t doing anything to calm your nerves, but it’s doing everything you need to keep yourself pumped and ready to go at a moment’s notice. The cafe is busy, just as always, with people swarming left and right, in and out—this creep won’t be able to do any of their normal creep tendencies in a place like this.

You bite your straw, tapping your feet under the table.

Alright, Kodzu00, do your worst. I’m leaving here after the thirty and I’m taking the cash with me—

“Excuse me,” you stop, mouth hovering and open over your near chewed through straw, “are you… uh… Omegachion?”

Hearing your streamer username in real life makes you both want to gag and sigh in happiness. The username was arguably the only way for you to feel remotely sane logging into the streaming service every time for your scheduled program because Water Emblem got you through anything, including all the cram sessions to get into medical school.

Your eyes swing rapidly to your right, moving your head so fast you take your straw with you. 

Ice coffee drips onto the table.

The young man standing in front of you is… is, truthfully, not what you expected. Okay, sure, weirdos on the internet come in all shapes and sizes, but to your own bias, you’ve crafted a bit of a face for the specific types of users who flood your streams. He narrowly passes even an inch of those ideas, with the slightly messy hair, the baggy clothes that look like all he does is stay in front of his computer all day and the dark lines under his eyes, but other than that—

He’s a lean young man, from what you can barely tell, underneath the baggy black sweatshirts and the sleek black joggers, lined in white with a logo you don’t recognize. There’s a dark cap on top of his head as well, and he’s sporting a simple black face mask, just like you—the most color the damn guy has is the bleached blonde tips still growing out past his roots, spilling a bit past his shoulders while the rest is gathered back into a bun.

In an instant you quickly size him up—the guy’s probably only a few inches taller than you and he can’t be that much older or younger, somewhere probably around your age.

You pluck out your straw. He squints faintly at you, holding his phone, glancing back at his screen and then back to you and shifting, albeit uncertainly. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else but here right now.

“You’re,” you start, “uh, you’re Kodzu00?”

“Yes,” he says. “That’s… me.”

You stare.

He stares right back.

(His golden eyes are almost like slits, you realize, a bit stunned, they drip gold and heather.)

He has pretty eyes.

“It’s,” he says, awkward, not sounding friendly at all, “...nice to meet you…”

And then reality comes back, this time with a spinning roundhouse right to your face.

This is the guy who just dropped money to come and meet you here today.

This guy.

You stare at him in disbelief.

Kodzu00 stands there in front of you, looking as though he wished he could melt right through the floor and disappear. He slowly starts to make his way into the chair opposite of you, pulling it out and taking a seat, setting his phone down beside him like it’s a lifeline and—

Your eyes bulge at the sight of his watch. You know how much that watch costs.

Your alarm bells start firing off again. For a brief moment, unease colors your scent, lightly flooding the area until you instantly reel it back in. Kodzu00 glances up at you for a second but you keep your face calm and friendly, quickly slipping back into your streamer personality, your best mask and first line of defense against whatever the hell this weirdo wants with you and time is ticking—

Before you can even utter a single word, Kodzu00 pulls down his mask.

(He’s… well, he’s not bad looking either, in a… weird kind of way.)

“Look, I need to clear the air first and get this on the table,” he says it a bit quickly, despite the low, almost uncaring inclination to his tone. You blink at him. The tips of his ears are staining pink beneath the fading streaks of blonde and he continues, “I’m not here for your streams.”

You blink.

You stare at him, dumbfounded and hopelessly confused.

“I’ve never even seen them before until last night,” he says just as quickly, looking embarrassed to even utter those words. “Let’s get that straight, okay? So I’m not… here for… that.”

That.

“That?” you say like a robot.

He looks more and more uncomfortable, but he presses on, whispering quickly over the table, “Yeah. I’m not here for… that. So… you can… uh… just be normal, I guess.”

You stare at Kodzu00, the man who’s just payed off nearly the last of your student loans in debt, who’s only here in front of you today because he got in touch with you through one of those very streams which very much markets that, which is meant to appeal to all the what-nots who just want to see an omega bat her eyelashes and act like an omega, to feel comforted or have their egos stroked and—

“I don’t watch any streams like that,” he adds for good measure. “I don’t. One of my viewers reached out to me because… well… because they watched your streams and noticed something and mentioned it to me, so I wanted to check it out myself.”

Oh my god. You sit there in the middle of the bustling cafe. Am I about to die? This is it, isn’t it. Kodzu00 is actually some kind of crazy internet stalker or person and you’re about to get stabbed right across the cafe table and this will be the end, you’ll never even get to save anyone’s life or help anyone and their bad hearts or do anything beyond your stupid streams and that’s all you’ll be remembered for.

“Kodzu00 is just a name I made for that night,” he says quickly. “Online I run a gaming channel under the user Kodzuken—you can just call me Kenma though. Kenma Kozume.”

“Uh,” you say. “Kucina. You can call me Kucina.” You are not giving your real name out to this stranger who can potentially threaten your entire standing in your medical career and out you for the unethical nature of how you’ve been procuring money to pay your school fees—

Kenma briefly pauses, eyes flickering up to you. He looks a bit pleased with your choice of alias but quickly glances back to his phone. You feel, strangely, a little… a little happy too.

Wait, wait, wait. No, this guy is a weirdo and don’t forget that he’s a complete stranger online claiming to be a game streamer and—

“The only reason I’m here today is for this,” he says, pulling out his phone. You instantly grow wary, inching back a bit from the table. There’s a bit of excitement finally creeping into his otherwise mundane voice, and it’s giving you the spooks. Kenma taps, quickly navigating his screen before he pulls up one blurred, pixelated image and turns his screen to show it to you.

“Why is this a screenshot of my room?” you say roughly, narrowing your eyes at him. You point to the screen shot of your streaming room and your face caught mid-speech, making you look dumb. “What are you trying to—”

“It’s not that,” he says, sounding a bit stressed out by this whole ordeal. He looks visibly uncomfortable with the image of you, only in your bright pink bra and you raise an eyebrow at him, suspicious as he zooms in and quickly moves the screen to—

“This,” he says, fervent, almost reverent actually, “is what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Carefully, still suspicious, you lean over the table and look closer at his phone screen. You follow his finger, quickly recognizing your bookshelf, your posters, and then right beside Kenma’s fingertip is—

You blink.

You know exactly what he’s pointing to.

You also know exactly what it looks like in perfect detail despite the blurry picture. It’s a large box, big enough to hold against your chest, sleek white and blue, with silver lettering line in a kind of glowing, aqua teal—the cover art for the product had been top of the line, complete with an engraved metal clasp that opened up to reveal an entire, glossy artbook, coupled with a cd of the game’s soundtrack and also—

“Water Emblem’s Special Anniversary Edition?”

“Yes!” he almost shouts. You jump. Kenma quickly gestures to his screen, to your room and your game and points at it with fervor. His eyes are actually shiny, you stare at him, a little in awe. “Do you know what this is?”

“Of course I do!” you say, offended. “I own the game. It’s Water Emblem: Light Dragon! Personally my favorite game in the entire franchise and the game that really got the series into the world market—it’s part of what started its entire cult following. This is the special edition that came out years ago, wow, I can’t believe it’s been so long! I remember waiting in line for it and—”

“That’s exactly it!” Kenma says, throwing his hands up into hair, grabbing it beneath his cap. You blink at him, getting a little excited. “This game—this particular edition re-launched for one night of sales only in the creator’s hometown and here in Tokyo! It came with a companion edition and most people were only able to get one or the other because it was sold on opposite ends of Japan!”

“Yeah!” you say. “I know! I stayed with relatives in the summer and timed it out so I could grab it! They only sold so little copies… that was the best night of my life, I couldn’t believe it, even though the game didn’t seem to do that well at first until later…”

“Because no one respected the greatness of the game back then,” Kenma says bitterly. You nod. “Now everyone knows but the rest of the editions have all either been trashed or are kept by collectors somewhere else, I’ve been searching for years for a copy that was at least still playable, even without the extra goods—”

“But the goods are the best part!” you shout in disbelief. Kenma looks at you like your crazy. “The art book, the soundtrack, the interview with the creator—they all play their part in bringing the game to life!”

“This is what I wanted to discuss with you,” Kenma says seriously, lacing his fingers nervously together and staring you down across the table. You suddenly feel uneasy, unnerved by the piercing, golden gaze.

“You own what might very well be one of the last, in-tact, best kept qualities of this edition in Japan,” Kenma says. “When this edition and its counterpart launched, the second issue, the black one—it came with a playable DLC code that can only be activated when you have its partner code and it unlocks an entirely new, almost never played secret storyline that’s supposed to reveal another part of the story—”

“I heard about that,” you say in disbelief. “But I thought it was just an online rumour because no one ever proved it or could figure out the code…”

“Because no one could figure it out,” Kenma says, getting the loudest you’ve heard him since. You stare at him with wide, round eyes. “But recently because of the work I’ve been doing, I was able to meet with the creator—”

“YOU MET WITH THE CREATOR OF—”

Kenma furiously motions for you to shush. You clasp your hands over your mouth, watching him with round, adoring eyes, sparkling in disbelief. This guy right here in front of you got to meet your hero—the envy and awe collide altogether, rumbling up and—

(Your heart starts to do something a little funny in your chest.)

Who even is this guy?

“He gave me a hint and I was able to find the code in the other edition,” Kenma says, quickly pushing his phone to you to show a picture and you blink, eyes shiny. “Which I currently own because I was able to secure one when it came out in Tokyo. But your edition is the last part I need to unlock the unplayable path.”

This guy… you lean back in your chair, unable to stop the excited tap of your feet. This guy—he loves Water Emblem. He’s crazy for it! I don’t know anyone except people online who like it this much and he’s…

“That’s why,” Kenma coughs suddenly, becoming smaller in his seat. You stare at him with a raised brow. “I needed… to get in touch… with you.”

You blink, remembering the whole reason the two of you were even meeting in the first place.

Your cheeks grow hot, bright red in a flash of rare embarrassment. Kenma’s ears are just as red, but he pretends it’s not even happening, continuing on.

“Why didn’t you just… message me,” you squeak out, feeling more and more mortified that this man has literally paid you thousands just to be here and… it’s not even… a scam. It’s about your favorite thing ever. Water Emblem! “Instead of… my streams…”

“That was the only way I knew how to contact you,” Kenma says, looking a bit defensive. “I told you, I’ve never seen your streams before. One of my viewers told me and you keep everything private, so this felt like my only chance.”

You open your mouth, feeling more and more uncomfortable but Kenma sweeps in, “Keep the money. It… works out better this way anyway.”

You stare at him in confusion.

Kenma taps his phone again, right back at your picture. He stares at you with wide, piercing eyes, leaning across the table and quickly saying, reverent and eager—

“I want to buy your game from you.”

Today, sitting here beside you in your bag, are fully equipped items to try and protect you from the creepy, deranged, rich stranger you’d been about to meet. Today, you were fully expecting to unleash a fury building up inside of you over an injustice you can’t tackle on your own in your society on some poor, unsuspecting alpha—

Here, sitting in front of you, is a self-claimed internet game streamer, who wants to buy your… special edition… game?

“You want…” you say, slowly, making sure you don’t have this wrong, “...my game?”

He nods.

You open your mouth. It closes. You open it again, raise a finger, and then press your lips together, staring at him.

“I’m sorry,” you say finally. “What?”

“This might be my only chance ever to play the game,” Kenma continues, pulling up another tab and clicking away at his phone. He tucks a strand of blonde behind his ear and the action is almost endearing to you until the reality of his words slowly starts to creep into the forefront. “I’ve never found another edition like yours, and it seems like it’s in perfect condition too. I’d be willing to buy it at complete full, current market price—”

“Market price?” you say in disbelief. “How much is my game going for?”

Kenma looks at you in blatant disbelief. You raise a critical brow at him.

Wordlessly he turns his phone back over to you and you glance down—

You almost fall out of your chair. Kenma doesn’t look impressed, hunkering back down and taking his phone as you spin, head swirling at the numbers and figures, math flying around in your head at the sudden realization that all that money could literally be yours, that the game you love so much is worth that much, that all that money, all that money you’ve been trying so desperately to scrape for could just—just fall into your lap—

You could pay off all your loans with that kind of money. You could… you could stop streaming with that kind of money, finally wash your hands of it and get back on track and hardly have to worry as you work toward the job of your dreams and… 

“I want to buy your game.”

Your heart quiets. The fancy dreams stop. You sit there in the chair, head buzzing with the reality of what he’s asking of you.

He wants to buy your game.

Your game.

And you think then, about a moment far away from this one. About a time when the books and papers crowding around you made you feel like drowning, about lonely summers and arguments bouncing off the rooms around you, and a time where there was nothing else but that loading screen and that game to take you away from all of it…

(The game that you’ve kept all these years, loved all these years, because it…)

“I’d be willing to pay whatever works best for you,” Kenma continues, the excitement is low in his quiet voice and his eyes sparkle as he shows you his phone. “I can even pay upfront in cash, have a fund drawn up or—”

“I’m really sorry.”

It’s the first time in a long time you’ve ever felt the need to apologize to anyone. Not when the whole world has been treating you like the sorry sack for so long.

Kenma glances up. His expression is calm, unreadable, but you get the feeling he can see right through you so you stare at the tabletop instead.

“I don’t know…” you start. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to sell that game to you.”

(He doesn’t seem like a bad guy.)

Anyone that talks about Water Emblem with as much love in his voice as he does can’t be, not at all by your books. His methods of getting to you here today might’ve been outrageous and roundabout, but you’re not really doing things the normal way either, so who are you to judge?

But that game…

You risk a glance up. You stop, staring in surprise when Kenma doesn’t look the slightest bit outraged or tense or anything. He looks just a bit disappointed, but the only thing you really see is understanding and something like a bit of grudging envy, a warmth in his gaze you don’t think is particularly meant for you but still comes through regardless.

“I was,” Kenma admits, a bit quiet. “Worried that would be the case.”

“Do you want,” you start quickly. Kenma looks at you. “Do you want to, uh, see it, at least? Take a look… see if it’s even in the condition you want?”

(You just… you can’t sell it, but you don’t want this conversation to end. It’s been so long since you’ve talked with anyone about this game, it’s felt so long since you talked to anyone in general and…)

Maybe, just maybe.

(You feel a little desperate.)

“Uh,” Kenma says, awkward. “Is that… fine?”

“Well, sure!” you say, hoping you don’t sound too eager. “Of course it isn’t a problem! I mean, I know we just met, but you seem pretty legit and I can just check you out later—plus, I’m perfectly capable of handling myself, even against an—”

You stop, sniffing the air. Kenma doesn’t look bothered, but he rubs the back of his neck.

And you realize, suddenly, you haven’t smelled a single damn thing because Kenma Kozume is—

A beta.

(Oh.)

---- (change the channel) ----

The entire way back to your apartment, Kodzu00, or as you now know him, Kenma Kozume, complains.

He does it quietly, but he still complains.

“We could just take a taxi,” Kenma says, quiet and unhappy when you start making your way toward the train station. “I can pay for it…”

“It’s easy to remember an address but tough to remember a bunch of stations and stops,” you say, ignoring his offer. Kenma follows, unhappy but he still follows. It’s kind of cute.

He walks with a bit of a hunch, you notice. Like he’s doing everything he can to remain out of everyone’s vision, but he watches, careful and observant because he avoids people before they have the chance to bump into him, glancing this way and that and picking things out with particular ease.

Kenma doesn’t look very confident, but he’s comfortable. You stand there beside him on the train, calmly holding onto the railing while he taps away at his phone beside you, sighing every now and then. He’s different, you realize, very different, from what you’ve become accustomed to when it comes to the kinds of people you let surround you for the sake of money.

You almost want to say it’s because he’s a beta, but you feel that’s a disservice in all its entirety. Maybe Kenma will turn out to be a snob of some kind. The guy’s strangely loaded.

You sneak searches on your phone, paling at the articles about him that come up, about stocks and investments and companies and you realize in seconds, this guy is completely and utterly the real deal.

But despite everything, Kenma still does as you ask. He lets you lead as you navigate the string of trains to get back home, doesn’t ask any questions, only comments on the occasional thing, and the entire affair is two hours, but he doesn’t even blink.

Either he really, really wants this game, you think, or he’s just weird.

Quiet, weird, but fairly quaint, and you’re a little alarmed by how much you… like that.

(You’re a weird guy.)

A rude, burly man makes a pass at you on the last train home, breathing down your neck and letting his greasy fingers try to slide against yours on the same railing handle. Kenma makes a face, eyes narrowed into slits in disgust and he quickly looks at you, blinking at your unbothered, nonchalant expression.

His scent wafts over you, thick and uninviting. Alpha. You rub your nose, inhaling your own familiar scent. Kenma looks more and more uncomfortable, shifting from foot to foot, starting to lean your way and scanning for open seats when you calmly turn to the man directly behind you, meeting him dead in the eye.

“Get,” you say calmly, digging your fingernails into his skin, threatening to draw blood—the man stiffens, he pales, surprised, startled by your confrontation— “The fuck away from me before I scream.”

He scurries back, shouldering past people in seconds. A few people shoot him disgusted looks, glancing your way in pity—but you ignore all of them too. They didn’t care seconds ago when they knew what he was doing, if you hadn’t done anything, they wouldn’t have either.

That’s just how it goes.

“Sorry,” you say, even though you probably shouldn’t. You look at Kenma, lips curling a bit. “I was expecting to meet a guy like that today instead of you. I think all that pent up anger and anxiety needed to go somewhere.”

Kenma opens his mouth, closes it, stays quiet for what feels like minutes and then he starts up again.

“You don’t really act the same way you do on your streams, do you?”

“Of course not,” you say. “If I acted like that in real life—no offense to anyone who does though—I’d probably lose my shit.”

Kenma sniffs. He doesn’t say anything after that, and you quaintly let your shoulder brush against his ever other jostle of the train.

(It’s been awhile since you’ve been around anyone. It feels nice.)

---- (change the channel) -----

Kenma balks for a bit at the front door of your apartment, but you quickly usher him inside, kicking your shoes off into the entryway and flying inside. He toes off his own shoes, eyes scanning briefly around the entryway, around your home—it’s neat, he realizes, even if he wasn’t sure what to expect. You keep it clean enough, but there’s bits and pieces where your life slips through, making it feel lived in. You keep plants in the corner, healthy and well but you’ve got a few dishes still sitting in the sink.

He guesses he wasn’t really sure what he was expecting to begin with. 

Kenma pauses for a second, rubbing his nose. He looks uncomfortable, eyes flickering around your apartment and back to you, but you’re already steps ahead of him, too excited to pass a chance like this up.

“It’s in my streaming room,” you say, “come on.”

Kenma follows warily behind you.

You almost kick the door to your room open in your haste, unable to stop the ecstatic beating of your heart as you scramble toward the back. Kenma pauses a minute, sniffing the air again. He glances behind him, back toward where your bedroom is left ajar and then to your streaming room. He looks a bit thoughtful for a moment, but quietly keeps it to himself, slipping inside and lightly closing the door politely after him.

(He’s not one to snoop, but he’s here, it’s not like he can’t look.)

Kenma tries very, very carefully not to consider the fact that he had seen you on that screen only a few nights before, and tries even harder not to remember what you’d been doing and how you’d look. He hyper focuses instead on the stand-out merch that becomes very, very clear to him.

He’s almost amazed your users haven’t said anything more about this—maybe it’s because of your camera angle.

Poster after poster of Water Emblem decorates the entire side of your wall. Kenma finds himself instantly drifting up to it, spotting your shelf in record time. He scans the collection of game titles, eyes growing brighter and brighter as he ghosts a finger over the well-kept discs and the old games…

“You play a lot,” Kenma says, quiet, glancing your way.

“I used to be a bit of a shut-in because I had to study,” you say, squatting down beside your other shelf and moving a few books aside. He finds himself watching the way you tuck your hair behind your ear and smile. “They were great breaks for me and helped keep me company. I’m not as social as people think, so it’s nice.”

Kenma considers your words. He looks at you, trying to reconcile the image he’d had of you from your stream with what he’d been witnessing all day today—how different it all was.

(If he’s honest, he’d been expecting to deal with someone different.)

“Do you do PC games too?” he asks. What are you doing?

“I’m not as familiar with them compared to console games,” you admit. “After exams I might try though. Got any to recommend?”

Kenma does. Plenty. He could go on but he doesn’t even know where to start, turning from your games to try to look at you again and think about how strange this entire meeting is, how different from what he’d been expecting. It reminds him of his meeting with Hinata, sudden and vibrant and impossible to categorize, left—

Pleasantly surprised.

“What happened to your chair?”

“What, the pink one?” you glance over your shoulder, noticing where Kenma’s looking toward your streaming station. “I shove it into the closet when I’m not using it. Sometimes the color hurts my eyes.”

Kenma looks at you like you’re crazy.

“...You keep two chairs?”

“Well, the chair’s mostly for looks anyway,” you say. “Some people like that kind of simple stuff. It’s a nice contrast, you know? Sweet and spicy, I guess? My boss said something like that. My ratings are good so I don’t complain.”

Kenma considers your words. He looks at your station, almost engulfed with stacks and stacks of what he can easily recognize as textbooks. Biology, medical tech, chemistry—all of it nearly crushing the fuzzy bunny mask you’d been wearing on the stream.

Kenma takes it all into his head and he looks again at your small back.

“...Do you even like your job?”

“It’s not my job,” you say. “My job is studying and working at the athletics complex to try to help figure out ways to help people stay in shape, take care of themselves and be better. This is just… part-time.”

You pause, staring at your shelves. It feels weird to be saying this outloud, but it’s nice too. It’s refreshing. You think you can take advantage of it anyway, what if you never even meet this guy again? You hardly know him, he probably doesn’t care.

“And I guess,” you say, a bit quieter. “Sometimes it’s kind of rewarding… sometimes people are nice, you know?”

Kenma says nothing, watching your back. You rub your neck and then finally beam, pulling free the reason for all of this.

You cradle the box in your hands. It’s weighty. You run your fingers over it and stand up, turning proudly to Kenma, beaming from ear to ear and—

You almost jump back in surprise, near squeaking. Your ears almost flash red in embarrassment at how close Kenma is all of a sudden, sneaking up right behind you with shiny, adoring eyes as he stares at the box in your hands, looking at it in awe and disbelief.

“Can I see it?” he asks reverently.

Your heart swells in happiness and you eagerly nod, handing it over to him.

Kenma receives the gift with care. He runs his fingers over it, carefully, as though afraid to even leave a single print behind before he pops the metal engraved latch and opens it up.

You and Kenma sigh together in unison, swooning at the sight.

“It’s amazing,” Kenma says.

“I know.”

“I can’t believe I’m seeing it in person.”

“I know!”

“You took great care of it.”

“I—” you flush at the praise, wilting a bit. “I-uh, thanks…”

“Can I see you play it?” Kenma says suddenly, looking almost desperate. You freeze. He looks up at you, expression completely different from his near lifeless one. His face is vibrant and full of excitement, thrumming just under the surface of his nonchalance. “The loading screen even? I—I have to see what it looks like logged in and—”

“I...actually can’t,” you say quietly, embarrassed. Kenma looks confused.

“I… I sold the console for it,” you say, feeling more and more guilty to finally have to admit one of your biggest regrets. Kenma pauses, expression quieting as he looks at you. You stare at the floor, trying not to look at the computer and web camera sitting in the corner. “I needed to buy some stuff… so I had to sell it in. I still kept a lot of the games, thinking I’d buy another one when I got the chance…”

You ruffle the back of your head, trying to quell the stifling scent of embarrassment that tries to escape you. You rub your wrists. Kenma’s eyes are briefly drawn to the action before he looks at you, still holding your game. You bow your head a little. “Um, if you want though, you can take it to your place and see—it absolutely will still work. I can just, take something to make sure you don’t run off or I can just—”

“Do you want to come over and use mine?”

You pause, looking at Kenma, dumbfounded.

Kenma stares right back at you. You can’t read a single inch of his face.

“We can use my place,” Kenma says, calm, unbothered. Your eyes grow round. “I really… really want to see the game in action… it’ll probably be more fun to see you play it anyway first.”

“Is that,” you start, uncharacteristically shy. “...okay?”

Kenma wordlessly nods.

(Your heart does something a little funny. You just write it off as an exaggeration. You’re such a sad sack.)

“Um!” Kenma looks up. You flush, hating how embarrassed you feel, hating how much of your bravado is missing, but you almost stutter out, “I-It’s (L/n) by the way… (L/n) (Y/n)...”

“... okay,” Kenma says. “It’s nice to meet you, (L/n).”

--- (change the chanel) ---

“You know, Kenma,” Kuroo said once, leaning back on the train ride home as Kenma tapped away at the buttons on his console. “For all you say and stuff, you’re pretty good at putting all the pieces together, aren’t you?”

--- (change the chanel) ---

One month.

Non-stop, several days a week, for hours on end—that’s how long the two of you play the game together.

You nearly miss streams, spend hours at Kenma’s house, laughing when you come to find him half-asleep in his sheets, barely rolling out to come greet you and instead just buzzing you in. You think it’s insane—how quickly this… this thing builds. You think you ought to be dreaming, but you don’t really want it to end.

(You’ve gone too long without anyone to laugh like this with.)

 You pull late-nighters that are terrible for your complexion, eat take-out like you’re cramming for exams all over again, laughing while Kenma quietly watches and scrolling through Water Emblem merchandise and fan bases and—

You spend time with him. With Kenma. You spend hours and days and what feels like endless forever and fun. It’s so sickeningly amazing you almost don’t believe it’s real. Sometimes you two argue, getting into heated spats over calls on how to move your characters, critiquing each other’s moves and then laughing when the other fails, sometimes it’s outright cheers from you while Kenma nods in satisfaction when you clear another mission and proceed forward and—

You haven’t even been alive that long, but compared to everything else, it almost feels like the best moment of your life.

“I did an entire episode on why moving this character is better than the rest,” Kenma mutters one day beside you. “I’m telling you, we need to deploy them. They’re wasted as an adjutant.”

You pause beside Kenma, blinking at his massive screen. You stare at your hands, and then you look at Kenma, blinking again in realization.

And in all this sudden time you’ve spent with him, you realize you’ve never seen one of his streams.

--- (change the chanel) ---

“Uh, hey everyone, thanks for stopping by again.”

You snort. Kenma doesn’t look the slightest bit at ease, his small face-view camera appearing in the corner of your screen as the old stream starts. It’s only of his earliest ones, the one where he replayed Water Emblem for his channel.

“I like this game a lot… it’s the one I always wanted to do a stream for… so I hope you enjoy it too.”

Is that it, dude? You laugh, shaking your head and kicking your legs out as Kenma gets the loading screen started and adjusts his chair. His camera shakes a bit and everything about the video attests to its age and its novelty. It makes you smile. He must’ve come a long way from these videos to the freaking multi-millionaire he was now.

(He worked hard.)

At first the show starts off rather quiet, maybe a bit awkward. Kenma hardly talks, quietly playing through the beginning sequences of the game and only commenting once or twice on the music or graphics. It’s kind of nice, peaceful, just watching someone go through the familiar motions until the real first part of the game starts and then—

“I never get tired of this part.”

You pause at his voice, glancing to the corner of the screen. Kenma’s eyes glow. He smiles, low, small and quiet, and he leans so far forward, almost out of his seat as he starts to play, quietly talking, describing the things he’s doing, the parts of the game he’s in love with and—

You roll over onto your side, watching the stream. Everytime Kenma mutters something under his breath you laugh, when he flubs you grimace, when he succeeds—you cheer, kicking your heels into the air. It’s really like playing the game all over again—even if the comments say he hardly shows any emotion, you can see it.

Kenma Kozume loves this game.

He loves what he does.

The thought makes you pause, staring quietly at the screen.

The dark corner of your room looks a little bigger. The quietness is a little louder. You lay there in your bed, watching Kenma thank everyone for watching with a sigh, giving the game a second glance, like he’s thinking of playing more even though he said he’d stop and—

Your alarm nearly startles you out of bed. You quickly glance over, shooting up in realization.

“My stream,” you murmur, dropping your phone and hurrying to your video room. “Gotta do… my stream…”

Your eyes glance back to your phone. You stare at the dark screen.

“Do you even like what you do?”

You shake your head, closing the door behind you.

--- (change the chanel) ---

“Thanks again everyone for coming! Your favorite omega is going to be lonely without you~”

The screen clicks, turning off.

You sit there in your plush, bright pink chair. Your open jacket hangs on either side of you, revealing your bikini for the beach theme you were going with today. The video room is near silent, save for the soft, quiet hum of your computer running while your monitor blinks, turning to a save screen.

Your game sits in your lap, carefully cradled by your hands. Off to the side is a thorough stack of medical textbooks you still owe money on. You were planning on studying for your test tomorrow after the stream tonight.

You run your fingers over the amazing edges of the collector’s box. You thumb every part of it, retracing the familiar memories, even the small little dent in the corner when you dropped it the first night you got it and almost cried.

You hold it there in your hands. It feels so, so warm, even though you think that shouldn’t really be possible.

There, in the darkness of your video room you sit. Quiet in the near-silence, head lowered, gently running your fingers over it, again and again.

Kenma’s lulling voice is the only thing you hear, playing over his stream, and you shut your eyes, bringing your knees and the box up to your chest. It jabs your ribs, sits uncomfortable, but you don’t really care.

“Do you even like what you do?”

(What I’m doing now, at least… yeah, I do. I really do.)

--- (change the chanel) ---

(L/n) is typing...

Hey, can we talk? 

It’s nothing important, let’s just meet up for dinner if you’re free!

Is that fine?

Kenma is typing...

Yes.

Location sent.

Let’s go here. I’ll make reservations.

Okay! :)

(Y/n) is typing…

(Y/n) stopped typing.

--- (change the chanel) ---

The place Kenma picks is some ridiculously nice looking Japanese Restaurant. It’s dimly lit and elegant and fancier than anything you’re used to, and you’re not really sure why he picks it until he orders for both of you and then the wagyu comes out and you know.

Seeing the steak, knowing you’ll get a good meal—it kind of makes this whole thing a lot easier.

Kenma sits comfortably on the floor right across from you. It’s a small, private room he’s rented out for the both of you. He’s dressed in the usual—baggy sweatshirts and athletic but comfortable joggers, and his hair is pulled back a little more neatly tonight as he pours tea for you and then for himself.

“This smells so good,” you say, mouth watering as you pick up the smooth, fancy wooden chopsticks. “Mind if I start?”

“Go ahead,” Kenma says. He leans back, picking up his spoon to dig into his own soup first. “What did you want to talk about?”

“The game,” you say around a mouthful of wagyu. It melts like butter on your tongue. “I’m going to give it to you.”

Kenma freezes, looking up at you in shock. His spoon clutters back into his bowl.

“What?” Kenma says.

“I’ve thought about it,” you say. “You were right. I don’t even have the console to play it anymore. It kinda just sits, collecting dust. It’s not fair when that game is literally everything.”

Your hands still a bit. You stare at the sizzling hot plate.

“I think you have a lot of fun with your streams,” you say, softer. “I think… I think Water Emblem would be well off in your hands. I think… I think it’s what it deserves, you know?”

Kenma is silent, frozen like a statue in front of you. You continue, lightly tracing a thumb over your other wrist, as though in comfort. Moments like this, you do wish for the chance to scent or be scented by someone again—just something familiar, something warm and nice. Your family is miles away and you just...

“I’ve had too much fun playing it again thanks to you,” you say, warm, full of happiness. Yeah, this is what feels right. “And you never once asked for the money from that night back, even though it should’ve just gone into paying for the game… that’s why I want to just give it to you. You’ve already done too much for me, and it’s more than paid for the game.”

“Hold on,” Kenma says. “I—hold on, one second.” He rushes for his phone, fumbling. You shake your head. “No, hold on—”

“I’ve still got my streams to do,” you say with an awkward laugh. “I can’t spend all my time playing video games again. Once exams come up and then—”

“No,” Kenma tries, looking a bit frustrated. He curses at his phone, “Give me a second to explain before you—”

“I’m doing this,” you say resolutely, standing up from your seat. Kenma balks. “There’s nothing you can do to stop me. Besides, I guess I got to meet you. That’s not so bad. Now stop making this weird and let me just do something cool for once in my life—”

“I want you to do a streaming series with me!”

You stop, staring at Kenma. He holds out his phone, showing the screen to you—but your eyes are on him, round and disbelieving and then—

Your entire face flushes bright red, cherry like a tomato.

“Y-Y-You w-w-w-want to d-d-do a s-stream with me—”

“Not one of yours!” Kenma blurts. You blink. He curses, ruffling his hair roughly before he gestures again with more vigor to his phone, “This—just look at this.”

You glance to Kenma’s phone.

“...you’re doing a new stream series,” you say, eyes widening in awe. “It’s going to be on the secret, never played route for Water Emblem—see! That’s perfect! If you’re going to do that, you need my half of the game and—”

“I want to do it with you.”

You freeze, mouth falling open.

“I’ve been thinking about it since you came over to play,” Kenma says, quietly setting his phone down on the table—he takes on the tone that means business, the calm, lulling one he your hear him use on the phone sometimes to make sure deals are delivered and he gets what he wants. “It’d be a great idea, and it’d be… fun. I’ve been letting you play because I wanted to see if the style would be compatible and I think it’ll be more than fine.”

Kenma taps his phone again.

“Of course, you’d be compensated,” he turns it to you, “we’d split the profits 50/50 from each streaming episode. Considering my normal projected view count and ad revenue, you can expect at least this much.”

You look at the numbers.

Your mouth stays open, knees sinking to the floor.

“If you’re willing,” Kenma says quietly, “to take a break from your streams to do this series with me… I think it would be mutually beneficial.”

Can things really, really work out, just like that?

“Besides,” Kenma says, even quieter. You close your mouth, looking at him in disbelief, in awe, in reverence, and he meets your gaze with his golden one.

“The secret route is meant for dual players,” Kenma says. “Water Emblem is known for being a single player, but what makes it special is it needs two for this route… it… it would be a disservice to the story to do it any other way.”

You can’t help it.

Your scent and pheromones you struggle and try so, so hard to always keep under lock and key explode forth, nearly flooding the entire room. Kenma stiffens, going ramrod straight and grabbing onto the top of his pants as your happiness engulfs the two of you. You’re sure it probably alarms everyone in the hall or anywhere near. Your happiness crashes and lulls and your entire face crumples in disbelief—

“Is it really…” you start, like a whisper, “really okay?”

Kenma shifts in his seat. He pulls at the hood of his sweater, opening his mouth before he quickly closes it. He mutely nods, resolute, and you stand up, lunging across the table to grab his hands. Kenma’s face flushes a bright red, his body stiffening in alarm.

“Kenma!” you say. “Kenma! Kenma, you’re a godsend! A guardian angel! My guardian angel! You don’t understand what this means for me—you don’t know what you’re doing for me—”

“(L/n),” Kenma says, he sounds strained. You pause, looking at him with round eyes. “I’m… excited… but I need you…”

Kenma lets out a slow, ragged breath. “Please… tone it down… just a little…”

You tilt your head in confusion. Your eyes drop down, noticing the sweat beading at the corner of Kenma’s temple, at the hard, rigid look in his hazy, warmly golden eyes and…

A soft scent teases your nose. You pause, blinking in disbelief. No way. You’re crazy, right?

“Um, Kenma,” you say, a little nervous. There’s no way, right? “You’re… you’re a… beta, right?”

Even betas could be sensitive to pheromones. You were being too careless right now, you must’ve just been too much and—

Kenma rigidly shakes his head.

You blink, feeling very, very, very small.

“Alpha,” Kenma exhales, holding his hand to his nose, scrunching in on himself while he peers up blearily at you, eyes swimming with something you’ve never seen once in his gaze before. He sticks his wrist out to you. 

“Uh,” you say, hating how nervous you sound. “C-Can… I?”

Kenma wordlessly holds his hand out to you, keeping it in the air. You tentatively step closer for a moment, sniffing lightly. His smell. 

Kenma’s scent is so quiet, it’s no wonder you… you never noticed. It’s become so familiar, always felt so calming and subtle and soothing, but if you look for it the way an omega would, pheromones in tune and acute—you do catch it, just the faint hint of something sharp, the familiar, light tang of alpha and—

You quickly pull back. You open your mouth, close it, open it again, and then close it.

“I’m so sorry—”

“You’re fine,” Kenma says, quick and quiet. You mutely nod, mortified. Kenma motions for you to relax as he stands, grabbing his wallet. “I’m going to take care of the bill. Get… fresh air. I’ll be back—”

“You should let me—”

“You can get the next one,” Kenma says. Something in his words makes you strangely complied to listen, ridiculously docile, and you blink in surprise when you sink back to your knees and Kenma’s eyes seem a little warm, a little—

(Pleased?)

“I’ll be right back.”

“Okay!” you say jovially. Kenma nods, leaving you. You can’t believe it. This is it—this is—

The start of something great.

You hold your head in your hands, unable to contain your happiness.

Oh my god.

You stop, blinking again in realization.

BUT I’VE BEEN SUCH AN IDIOT, HE’S BEEN A—THIS WHOLE TIME—HOW RUDE MUST I HAVE—

You fall back into the cushion, kicking your feet up in disbelief.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid—I better apologize over and over—”

--- (change the chanel) ---

Kenma quietly steps out of the private room, sliding the door shut behind him.

He stands there, silent, basking in the faint afterglow, of the leaking, intoxicating feel of your happiness wrapping thickly around him, clinging to his skin.

Kenma lifts his hand up to his nose. He sniffs, once.

Your scent floods him.

Kenma’s tongue lightly drags up the inside of his wrist. He closes his eyes, briefly catching it—the soft, sweet taste of you against his lips, on his tongue. Kenma waits there, inhaling softly before his eyes slide open, thin, golden slits.

This would be the start of a fairly interesting partnership.

Omegachion has signed off!

Thanks for watching!

[somanyerikas]

Nostalgia sells - or does it? About BBC’s rehiring of a previous showrunner for Doctor Who as a marketing strategy

All, right, this is the one where I deal with my issues about RTD’s rehiring from the standpoint of BBC’s business strategy . Brace for passive agression, swearwords, brief history of british television and numbers. So, so many numbers.

Allright, so I already wrote a post about my problem with RTD’s (re)hire from the creative standpoint (it’s here in case you’re interested), but hey, I can bitch about it all I want, but we all know what caused the BBC to make this decision, right? You’ve heard about it for sure. The Dropping Ratings. You’ve read about it on so many posts, lots of them probably oh-so-gladly conflating this fact with their own opinion about the deteriorating quality of the show. (Don’t worry, we’ll get to that.) So Obviously the execs at the Big BBC Quarters needed to do something about it, and what better way to go than rehire a guy who’s run at Doctor Who is a warm childhood memory for so many in it’s fanbase? After all, it’s what we’re seeing nowadays: from Star Wars return to wave of 80′s nostalgia to every old blockbuster star doing a comeback, there is but a single conclusion - nostalgia sells.

Or does it?

Part One: Moving with the change; or very much refusing to.

Let’s start this off with some facts about the ratings for Doctor Who. (Well, I warned you there’s gonna be numbers, didn’t I. Stick with me, I’m going somewhere with this I promise.) In it’s beginnings, in the sixties and seventies , the series flown high, averaging a viewership from 8 up to 10 million viewers per season. Collin Baker’s series 17 brought in a record of 11.21 milion viewer asses in front of a good ol’ TV screen, real champagne opener here. But, as it happens, things were downhill from here. During the eighties, the rating started dropping steadily, reaching an all-time low of 4.15 milion couch-warming bottoms in 1989, the last season of the classic era. 

Years passed, 16 of those years to be exact, and here comes our saviour RTD. Under his wings, the revived series premiered, bringing in over 10 milion viewers to the premiere episode of season 1, Rose. A viewership this high did not last for long, but still, RTD’s seasons averaged between 7 and 8 milion viewers per season, which seemed pretty respectable. But then, as the story likes to repeat itself, not unlike the bbc execs just did, along came the decline again. Ever since 2010, the ratings began steadily dropping again, from 7.95 in 2010 to 5.46 in 2017. Then DW experienced an unexpected peak in 2018 with the premiere of Jodie Whittaker’s first season, which averaged 7.96 viewing asses, but then continued the dropping trend on the next season, averaging 5.40 viewing butts.

So what went wrong?

You see, part of the reason that Doctor Who was bringing in such great viewership numbers in the 60′s and 70′s, was that, to put it simply, BBC did not have much competition. Or, to be exact, only had one competitor. ITV was literally founded in order to break BBC’s monopoly over British television. But in the 80′s, with the launch of Channel 4 and Sky, the british viewers had more and more options to choose from. So logically speaking, they no longer had to watch BBC’s programming just because there was nothing else on. There was more and more new programes to boredom-watch. And here’s something y’all need to know about the tv industry: the boredom-watchers, the casuals? That’s the most important demographic. As hard as it might be to swallow, us hardcore fans, forum dwellers and Ao3 gremlins, we’re not as big of a group as we’d like to think. Loving fans are important to the tv execs as providers of word-of-mouth advertisment, but the real numbers come from the casual, everyday viewer who will just put on the next episode cause the other one was kinda fun I guess. Or more fun than the other options, anyway.

And this is why, by the way, when someone is conflating low viewership with the show Dissapointing The Fans, they’re full of shit. I’m sorry, but we’re really not that much of a force here, definitely not enough to make such a big impact on the numbers. Another factor, that some of you probably noticed already, is that the numbers I’m quoting are from british tv only, while the online fandom is very much international, so our opinions matter even less to the british execs, I’m sorry again, hard pill to swallow I know, but true nonetheless.

But I digress. So, to sum up the previous paragraph, Doctor Who’s viewership decline in the 80′s was the effect of the changing landscape of the TV industry, with which the BBC struggled to come to terms with.

Sound familiar?

Let’s move on to the 2010′s, shall we?

2010 was is actually a good marker of a year to choose, because it marks one important thing that begun a big change in the industry. This was the year in which Netflix expanded their services overseas, from being a DVD rental company to providing VOD services. Over the next decade streaming services grew in importance, from being an add-on to your cable TV that you didn’t really want but they were throwing it in for cheap, to very much self-sustainable media services you might very well buy instead of buying the cable. And if you look at the numbers for Doctor Who viewership declining over the last 10 years, that’s precisely what’s been happening. It’s not that people don’t want to watch Doctor Who on tv, they don’t want to watch tv in general. Do you know what was the most popular channel in Britain this year? Can you guess? Fucking Netflix that’s what. It’s just slowly-yet-steadily ceasing to be the way we use home entertainment anymore. Again, not much to do with the audience approval, because for that matter, let’s see about the specific episodes that saw the spikes in viewership. 

Rose, which i mentioned at the start of it, was for the longest time the unquestionable queen when it comes to viewership, at 10.81 milion. The next episode, The End of the World, pulled in 7.97 - almost 3 millions worth of lost viewer-butts in one week? Is it because it was so much worse than it’s predecessor? No, it simply did not have the smell of Newness, the Event You Must See, and as such brought forth less of the casual viewers who were simply curious about The New Thing. The next season followed the similar formula, peaking at the premiere, when the marketing was at it’s strongest, going down during the season, sometimes rising slightly for the finale, sometimes not. The most popular episodes are, of course, the specials - yet again, the vibe of The Event To Be Seen worked here, but one more thing working to their advantage is they often aired in spaces between seasons, serving as both a long-waited Crumbs of Content for the fans, and the basically stand-alones for the casuals. Do you know what the single most watched episode of revived DW is? No, it’s not Tennant’s goodbye with the role (yeah I know, I thought it had to be that as well). It was Voyage of the Damned, between seasons 3 and 4. The perfect standalone for the casual watcher. And last but not least, you know one more special feature that brought, maybe not as much, but definitely more than expected? The 1996 movie Doctor Who, with 9.08 million. Again, a perfect standalone.

But the standalones aren’t the only way to grab the viewership. The currently-highest viewing non-special episode of DW? The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Jodie Whittaker’s introduction. In 2018 no less, in the year when the streaming was the ruler supreme, this episode brought a whooping 10.96 million buts to the good ol’ TV again. Let me reiterate: this episode brought in more viewers than Rose did in 2005, while having WAY more competition and way less favorable circumstances of release that RTD’s debiut did. Not only that, it managed to bring on some numbers for the entire season as well, not as good of course as the premiere (because again, the Event vibes faded), but still brought a better average than the last six seasons did. (Again, let me reiterate: more than the last SIX seasons. More viewership than any series since 2010, since the Streaming Wars.) So clearly, this must be the way, right? Catering to this Weird New Trend, that saw directors notice there do in fact exist other actors than white men, that surely brought in some profit, even Marvel does it now, right? Out with the old, in with the new!

Part 2 The Deceitful Charm of Nostalgia

Well, it turns out the whole Doing New Things deal didn’t work out that well after all, now did it? The second season penned by Chibbnal averaged 5.40 milion, that’s 2.5 million drop from the previous one! It must mean it didn’t work, right? Well, yes and no. As much as the refreshment of the formula as simple as Let’s Put A Woman In It absolutely worked for one season, it very visibly did not hold up for longer. An Event-Episode is something that can still happen on TV, Event-Series? That’s pretty much reserved for streaming now, if you think about it, and it’s honestly kind of a miracle that Series 11 did as well as it had. Two consecutive Event-Series on network tv? Flat out impossible. 

So how to make those ratings great again? How to get those butts in seats of the Good Ol’? Well, the execs of the BBC have a plan for that. They brought in a devouring beast, and it’s name is: Nostalgia.

Without a doubt, there is a number of people who feel nostalgic about RTD’s era of Doctor Who. It’s a lot of people’s fond childhood memory, or the series they started with, and judging by the numbers, there should be quite a lot of them. So the new plan, as it appears, is to get to those who maybe lost interest in the show and lure them with the promise of the thing That Is Totally Like The Thing You Used To Love, Remember? (This is why I don’t actually think that RTD will be allowed to do anything new and interesting, that’s not what they hired him for. And that’s why I think this is bad from the creative standpoint.) So there are two questions here: One, will the people be lured? And two, for how long?

Nostalgia as a marketing strategy is something that you’re probably sick of seeing already (I know I am). But it has very much been effective on many levels, especially the eighties-baiting, Stranger Things style, can bring a new IP up to relevance. But what about old IP’s that want to have a comeback? 

It’s kind of dificult to find another TV show that I could compare to Doctor Who. Most series that have been running for that long are mostly soap operas, that operate on slightly different rules, and are also targeted to a different audience. So as much as the movie series is still not exactly the best comparison, when I think about a big IP, campy sci-fi, family-oriented (at least in theory) on its path back to relevance, I think about Star Wars, obviously. The Force Awakens gambled on that nostalgic feeling and won big, but the next two movies, while still financially successful, were nowhere near the astounding success of the first one. And that’s because - you guessed it - it created the Event You Must See again, The Great Comeback, but merely two years later, the comeback became old news. So what we can gain from that is that nostalgia can create an Event as well as a new trend, if not better. But the question remains: how long will that last?

That is, after all, the main difference between a movie franchise and a TV series in the traditional, network TV sense of the word: movie franchise must bring in the viewership every year or two, and TV series must bring in viewers every week for at least two months. Is RTD’s Nostalgia Vibes enough to provide for that?

I’ll say this: I’m absolutely certain that the 60th anniversary will be very popular. I still don’t think it will break any records because, as I’ve been trying to explain for this whole post, it is not 2007 anymore no matter how much the tv execs would like it to be. But ironically, the almost-certain success of the special is the very thing that could undermine the effect of bringing their precious Nostagia Boi back onboard. Remember, the first Event Episode is The Big Oof. That’s the one that gets asses to the Good Ol’, if anything ever does. After the first big event one, that’s the point when things start going down. They’re wasting their Special Event Boi for something that already would be an event, dear fucking gods, I hate your plan and I would still execute it better. Either have RTD be the Anniversary Guy and then hire someone new, use that hype and keep it going, OR have RTD come in after the anniversary, then at least you get the Event Effect for the premiere of his first return season. Fukin’ amateurs.

But even if they did that, here’s the thing: do you think that the people who departed from the show years ago actually want to watch another three to five seasons of The RTD Show? I mean, I’m sure the thought warmed some hearts, for sure. A number of people will definitely gladly watch the anniversary, probably the first few episodes of the first return to the basics, but after that? In the world when, due to streaming, they have an easy way to revisit the actual thing they’re nostalgic towards? I honestly don’t think so. And you’re not really gonna get many new people by going back, if that nostalgia factor isn’t there. And then there’s casual viewers, the backbone, as we established. And here’s the thing: lots of those people don’t even know who the current showrunner is, cause they’re not Terminally Online like we are, and the second thing? Lots of those people ARE JUST NOT WATCHING NETWORK TV, IM SORRY GARRY. They’re just. They’re just not. I don’t know how to spell it out better. Even my mum has netflix now. Your biggest base is in another castle mate, gotta get moving and gotta get moving quick, cause here’s another thing: all the nostalgia in the world will not do SHIT for you if your target, people who were kids/teens when the RTD era was airing, PROBABLY DON’T EVEN HAVE A FUCKING TV ANYMORE CAUSE THEY MOVED OUT OF THEIR PARENTS FLAT AND LOTS OF YOUNG PEOPLE JUST DON’T BOTHER. Just. I’m sorry but you’re trying to resuscitate a decade-deceased corpse there buddy. It just won’t work. The times have changed and you gotta swim or drown, and it’s just not gonna be 2005 again, no matter how hard you pretend it is. It’s not your content it’s your business model. Just push more marketing for your iplayer or whatever, focus on streaming as your primary not your secondary cause that’s just what it is now, and maybe don’t rely on the viewer-counting systems of the yesteryear to evaluate your business. Or else you’re gonna get stuck sacrificing the creative growth of your show for a marketing strategy that probably won’t even fucking WORK.

There, I got it of my chest. Feel free to reblog, and also: you somehow got to the end of this, congrats! I’ll make numbers nerds out of y’all yet.

[votederpycausemufins]

So, took a bit longer to write this since I was moving back home now that the school year is done and as you probably saw if you follow me, I created the Shared Space au! I’m really proud of that too, so check it out! and send asks for it too!

anywho, tagging time! @petrichormeraki @helleborusangel

Jrum stood facing Grifect, sword at the ready. He just needed to buy some time because there was something easy he could do. Instead of having an actual communicator, it had been built into his system at one update, so he didn’t need to get it out and type. Instead he could just send it mentally, though it could be a little odd at times.

But right now it was important. Jrum got a message ready and sent it to Mumbo, then to Grian. Telling them he was in danger and Tommy probably was too. But there was a problem, he didn’t get a message back from them, but an error.

“Sowwy, but I can’t wet uwu caww fow hewp! Thawt wouwd make my dad mad. If they gow aftew Tommy, they’ww see youw bwothew iws gone.”

Jrum jumped at Grifect, slashing his sword at the other bot. An arrow hit him as he ran forth, a second when he hit Grifect. Not wanting to get shot anymore, Jrum kicked the dispenser, pushing it out of Grifect’s reach. He attacked with his sword again, but a shield materialized on Grifect’s arm and deflected the attack. “That’s not fair!”

“Why wouwd I make iwt faiw? I wawnt tuwu win awnd hacking iws easy. You’d awweady be dead if I couwdn’t wisk wetting a message out thawt I was the owne who kiwwed uwu.” Grifter explained with a giggle, hacking in a new dispenser. “At the vewy weast kiwwing machines won’t duwu thawt, then I cawn pwetend iwt was juwst an accident whiwe you’we fine! But if aww my data iws wight, once you’we dead, you’ww be whisked away fwom thiws wowwd again!”

Jrum hesitated at that. He would? But he lost a life in the SMP and came out fine. But then again they had weird respawn rules, Tommy was proof of that. Jrum thought about trying to run, but then had an idea. If he would have an issue with respawning, Grifect would have to have the same issue!

Jrum pulled out a bow and fired it at Grifect before pulling out an axe. The helsbot put their shield up for the arrow, so Jrum was quickly able to chop it in half with his axe. Grifect’s eyes widened which let Jrum know something else, the other bot wasn’t good at combat or have a program for it. “You asked Xannes how to be a better hacker?” Jrum swiped his sword at the bot. “He’s a good hacker because he had to train all his skills. Xisuma is the best admin, so he needed to beat that. But he also needed to be good at everything!” The sword managed to tear into a weak part of Grifect’s body at a join. “You may be a hacker, but you have no clue how to actually use what you have! And that means I win!” And the sword sliced Grifect in half, the robotic body disappearing in smoke before it could reach the ground.

Jrum panted, having used a lot of energy for that. He wanted to close his combat program to conserve power, but he didn’t know if anyone else would show up. He wasn’t even sure where his hels version would respawn. But the fact that he needed to respawn at all was good news, so Jrum attempted to send another message and smiled as it went through. Now people would know what was going on.

.

.

.

Grian kept glancing at his comm, worried out of his mind while he wasn’t with either of the bots. He had just gotten them back and while they looked like they were getting better, he couldn’t help but imagine the worst. It also didn’t help that he was dealing with NPG, Xannes and Sense all in one room. 

He couldn’t help but sigh in relief when he got some messages from the boys. Jrum was still having fun playing with his hels copy and Tommy seemed to be taking care of Grum. The best part was the message that Grum was cuddling with Tubbee, which was great to imagine. It was just a shame Tommy could send a picture without disturbing them.

“So are you guys close to being done arguing?” Grian spoke up, getting up from where he was sitting. “I’m getting a headache from it all and Mumbo’s not here to help.”

“You can always go for the next best thing.” Sense suggested, making Grian scrunch his face up in disgust.

“What would Grifter think?”

“As if he wouldn’t want some fun with a clone.”

Grian shuddered. “Why are you like this?”

“Because Grifter and I love each other, which is surprising that you can’t do that as the ‘good’ versions.” Sense replied, crossing his arms.

“Hey! Those two of course love each other, they’re just not gross about it.” NPG argued for Grian. “And Even Xannes is okay with his stuff.”

“Ye-Hey!” Xannes complained, but then was stopped as their comms buzzed. Everyone looked away, Grian going over to his own and reading two messages, watching as a third appeared.

Grifect was slain by Jrumbot

<Jrumbot> Something’s wrong with Grum and Tommy. Grifter’s been up to something and my copy’s been hacking.

Grian was slain by PerfectSense

Grian watched as his own death message appeared as he was blasted in the back by a death ray Sense had on him. When his eyes next opened, he was in bed and heard a scream in the distance. His comm was still in his hand since he was holding it when he died. There were three more death messages, one for Xannes, one for Tommy and one for NPG. 

The one for Tommy was the most concerning with Jrum’s message, so Grian jumped out of bed and broke his window to go through, not wanting to go through the main hall and run into Sense again. A few shards of glass cut into his wings from the shoddy break and Grian’s recklessness, but he didn’t care, needing to get there fast. He flew as fast as he could to get to the old hobbit hole, glad it wasn’t too far away.

Grian’s eyes widened as he got into the place. It was a mess and Grum was standing in the middle of it, holding a sword and staring at Tommy’s bed. Tubbee flew near him and was stabbed by the sword, making Grian hold his breath before the bee popped out of its hive again. The avian was glad that Xisuma had set it up so that the bee could respawn since Tommy had been scared of something happening to it.

“Grum, put the sword down.” Grian said. He wanted to reach for a weapon, but realized he hadn’t grabbed any before rushing over there. He frowned as Grum didn’t move, instead killing Tubbee again. “Grum, put it down!”

Grum put the sword down, slowly laying it down on the ground. Grian started to take a step towards the bot, but they immediately turned around, pulling out a crossbow and shooting Grian with it. Grian yelled as the arrow struck him and he looked at Grum, now realising it wasn’t his son, but the hels version. “What did you do with Grum?! And it said you killed Tommy too. How? You left the world with Grifter and didn’t-”

Sefter moved so fast Grian barely comprehended it. Grian’s wing deflected the attack, though an axe chopping into it still hurt. At the very least it was weak as Sefter was just bringing the weapon out, but he was just after any damage. Another attack came down on Grian’s arm before the bot changed to another crossbow, shooting Grian point blank.

Grian attempted to attack back, even though he only had his fists and wings as weapons, but Sefter kept dodging them. Grian huffed, finally noticing the magic radiating off of the robot. A strong speed potion. There was no way he could land a hit on Sefter, especially without a weapon. But that was fine, because it finally made sense. Tommy wasn’t here, likely in the other half of the hobbit holes. Grum also wasn't around because someone messed with the messages and he had left the world, not Sefter. Because of that, there was no reason for him to be here.

When Sefter next attacked, Grian dodged, letting himself fall. He opened a portal just below himself, letting the magic envelop him before closing it again so the bot couldn’t follow. He felt like he was falling for a few moments before opening a second portal, taking him out of the Watcher’s world and into the SMP.

.

.

.

The first thing he heard was someone crying. It sounded familiar, but at the same time he couldn’t place it. A voice that spoke up definitely was recognizable though. “Hmm, not sure it worked. Why not hit him again harder this time?”

“Tech-” He got out before something slammed into his gut, winding him. “Wh-What the fuh?” He managed to wheeze out.

“I-I’m s-sorry. I d-didn’t… You s-said he was- wh-why are you laughing?”

“You’re a f-fucking bitch Techno.”

“Nice to see you too Tommy.”

Tommy groaned as he sat up, having trouble as he found Grum sitting on his lap, holding a book in his hands like he was ready to bludgeon Tommy with it. That was probably what hit him in the gut now that he thought about it. “What the fuck happened?”

“The kid got the revive book that Dream had and used it to fix you. Did the same for Wilbur.”

Tommy sat up just a little bit straighter. “Wait, Wil’s alive? You’re serious?””

Techno gestured to Grum. “Yeah, apparently this one half revived him while we were all gone.”

“This one? His name’s Grum.” Tommy said, crossing his arms.

Techno crossed his arms back. “Does it matter?”

“He’s our fucking nephew!” Tommy complained, making Techno huff.

“And? So far all of my ‘nephews’ have tried killing me.”

“B-because you did it first.” Grum piped up. “I tried to be d-diplomatic with y-you and-”

“Yeah, well I hate government.” Techno cut Grum off.

“Yeah. I know. It was sort of my job to account for people like you. But it’s fine! One uncle is enough!”

Tommy chuckled. “Hey, maybe you’ll like Wil as an uncle too. Then you’ll have two.”

Grum turned to look at Tommy again. “I was already accounting for him in my count as I already had encounters with him here before. That is the one I was referring to.”

“Wh- Hey! Why am I being excluded?!” Tommy shouted while Techno smiled slightly. 

Grum recoiled slightly, which made Tommy back off a bit. “You… you said I could call you something else. Just because you’re actually my uncle… you’re sort of not.”

It took Tommy a bit to realize what Grum meant. He supposed it was true, a week ago, they hadn’t known they were actually related to each other. “Well, alright, if you’ve only got one uncle, I’ve only got four brothers! Take that Techno!”

The hybrid just rolled his eyes while Grum tackled Tommy with a hug. Tommy patted the bot, rolling his own eyes, though it was more sarcastically. “So kid, why not start with Tommy?”

There was a moment of confusion from Tommy before Grum suddenly stiffened, letting Tommy know that whatever was being talked about wasn’t the greatest thing. “What are you talking about?”

“Something got brought up before we came here. I figure since you two seem close, he should be telling you, especially if I’ve already been told.”

Tommy leaned back to look at Grum. They didn’t look scared as much as they were nervous. “Hey big man, what is it? If it’s something that happened because of Dream, I won’t be mad. I mean, you kinda killed me and I’m fine.”

Grum fidgeted a bit, still looking nervous, but then he answered. “Um, I think I have something called chat? At least that’s what Techno called it.”

Tommy was taken aback and looked at the piglin. “Yeah, well, chat’s just what I call it. They’re basically just voices.”

“Right… sorry.” Grum apologized.

Tommy looked between the two of them again. “Wait, so you’ve got your own form of chat? They’re not telling you to be as bloodthirsty as Techno, right?” Tommy asked, and Grum quickly shook his head. “Then yeah, it’s fine. Besides, even if I didn’t like it, your dads do so-”

“They don’t.” Grum cut Tommy off. “You’re… I’ve only told two people and you’re the second. I thought it was bad.”

“No, you’re fine. It runs in the family.” Tommy assured the bot. “Plus, they don’t sound too bad, so it’s fine.”

Grum fidgeted some more. “Well… Dream isn’t the nicest-”

“Wait, you hear Dream in there?!” Tommy couldn’t help but stand up in shock, causing Grum to fall off the bed. “Uh, sorry Grum. I just- Dream?! Really?!”

Grum rubbed his head. “Yes and no? He’s not like the one that was admin here, at least mostly. And they’ve kinda been around before I even knew you.”

Tommy didn’t look entirely convinced, but he didn’t want to make Grum even more upset. “I guess that’s okay. Who else do you remember the names of?”

“Um, all of them. There aren’t many. There’s Dream of course, but also Eyes, Gor-”

Tommy didn’t need Grum to continue. “I found your book. You hid it in your charger. Their names were in there. I mean, I don’t know how you got PM in your chat, but it sounds cool.”

“You found my book?” Grum asked, tilting his head. “And it was in my charger? Who put it there?”

“Uh, I thought it was you. I mean, you sent me a message to go there, though you used Eye’s name.”

Grum shook his head. “Then I didn’t do that. Eyes did.”

“What do you mean Eyes did?” Techno asked. “How can your voices do stuff like that?”

Grum looked even more confused now. “But… Is that not supposed to happen? Eyes and Console have both been doing that.” And then Grum’s confusion turned to panic. “I thought you said it was okay?”

“Shit.” Tommy cursed, sitting back down to pull Grum into a hug. “Yeah yeah, it’s okay. Just different. Fuck we need Mumbo and Grian.”

It was perfect timing, as just as Tommy said that, Techno’s communicator buzzed. The hybrid took it out and read the message before showing it to the teen.

Grian joined the world.

[inventors-fair]

Club Decks: What We Play

Fifteen decks, fifteen archetypes, fifteen strategies. For my students, not everyone can make a good deck, and/or they don’t necessarily have the resources to make what they’d like. Commander and stuff is the most difficult, but they enjoy Oathbreaker with the inexpensive and more or less accessible planeswalkers, and they don’t usually worry about Standard, Modern, or Pioneer. 

Club decks have a number of cards of different rarities that I use to model them off of my first starter decks, back in Alara. There’s a fair amount of repeats and a good chunk of power, and they’re easy enough to model so that students can make their own.

Depending on the year (2020-21 being pretty disruptive), there are different criteria for “leveling up,” which means beating a number of students and then beating me to get a booster pack and a level in my ledger. There’s no limit, except you can’t level up more than once a week. Hey, I make enough to make kids happy, but not enough to give them a zillion packs.

Below the cut are my club decks, some notable cards, and why I made them the way that I did. Enjoy this little slice of Magic! If you’re looking to start similar programs or you’d like details as to how things are run, let me know and I can provide extended decklists and explanations.

1. White Equipment Voltron

Notable cards include:

Healer’s Hawk

Taj-Nar Swordsmith

Strata Scythe

Little things turn into big things. With a little bit of destruction and a whole lotta keywords, this deck is all about building up to a single aggressive Voltron creature that wrecks shop. It’s good about teaching different card types and keyword interactions, and hey, it feels good to swing with an 11/11 creature that started off as a 1/1, right?

2. Blue Tempo Control

Notable cards include:

Pestermite

Everdream

Tidespout Tyrant

This is the deck for advanced players. The big blue comes out with a lot of disruption, and this is the deck that often gets described as either “unfun” or “my favorite deck.” Bounce it, counter it, bounce my land to cycle, return your threat, disrupt, and so on and so forth. Not every deck has a difficulty curve like this, but it’s satisfying to say the least.

3. Black Sacrifice Everything

Notable cards include:

Butcher Ghoul

Whisper, Blood Liturgist

Priest of Forgotten Gods

“Synergistic” is an understatement. The number of death triggers and sacrifice triggers can easily win someone a game if they know how to interact properly. Forcing decisions upon your opponent and exploiting some awesome stuff from your side of the field makes this deck easy to play if you want to have things die and VERY easy if you know how to manipulate the board.

4. Red Discard into Madness

Notable cards include:

Spinehorn Minotaur

Dragon Mage

Glint-Horn Buccaneer

I’ll admit, this deck is a bit of a pet project and one of my favorites. Ditching cards to draw cards feels great to me! I love madness, I love looting, and I love throwing a bunch of stuff away to make big things before getting it all back later. As much tuning as it needs, this deck is another advanced joy for people that love to make niche ideas work to the best of their ability.

5. Green Lands & Boys

Notable cards include:

Timbermaw Larva

Howl of the Night Pack

Kalonian Twingrove

Sometimes you just want an easy ramp deck. The small end of this gets lands and has some landfall, and the big end just wrecks shop with the big and powerful creatures that we all know and love from green. It’s easy to play and it’s easy to win with and sometimes, stomping is all you need to do. A great card for the Tim-Tams of the world.

6. UW Fliers Beatdown

Notable cards include:

Squadron Hawk

Watcher of the Spheres

Windreader Sphinx

I recently got my butt handed to me with this deck, and it’s not to be trifled with. Each deck has its own kind of evasion and whatnot, but this deck has got the early-game down and the late-game? Unstoppable. It’s designed to massacre you in the air and that’s what it does. Pumps, beats, and more. One of the first decks the kids loved.

7. UB Surveil Control

Notable cards include:

Notion Rain

Price of Fame

Thief of Sanity

“Really?” Yeah, well, here’s the thing: I built this deck when I didn’t have a whole lot of spare cards sorted, and that’s why I did it. As a block mechanic, though, surveil really is fun, and as a control player, the deck is pretty darn sweet. It’s beefy, powerful, and great flavor for the city. Fun fact: the Thief of Sanity I had is actually a misprint! It’s missing the rare sticker.

8. RB Goblins Snarl Rage Win

Notable cards include:

Goblin Instigator

Fodder Launch

Weirding Shaman

And this is another deck that the kids absolutely love. Fast fun, and furious, Goblins is a great tribal introduction that people go to when they want to show how easy and cheeky it can be. Burn ‘em out, make ‘em attack, turn ‘em sideways. This isn’t necessarily an easy deck, but if all you know is attacking, then you’re golden. Or, you can kill someone only through noncombat damage!

9. RG Monsters of the Jungle

Notable cards include:

Ruination Wurm

Footfall Crater

Mina and Denn, Wildborn

This is, surprisingly, the deck with what I feel is the lowest barrier to entry. You give big things trample. Now, there IS a fair bit of complexity in the number of combat tricks, with some buffs and some bloodrush cards along with it, but everyone knows that big things are big. The difference is in the variety of strategies available to you with access to red mana. 

10. GW Token Swarm

Notable cards include:

Raise the Alarm

Selesnya Guildmage

Growing Ranks

If you can be fast with this deck, then you can run someone over faster than they could ever react. If you can be slow with this deck, you can build up enough life and army power that you literally can’t be beat. There’s a lot to love about this deck and it’s not as easy as it might seem. Tokens are popular with a subset of MTG players, and I’m glad that they have lots of support.

11. BW Ghosts of your Past

Notable cards include:

Pillory of the Sleepless

Vizkopa Guildmage

Ethereal Absolution

Basically, this is in the same vein as the surveil deck, but like the surveil deck, this has been modified so you get the best out of the deck. There’s a little nasty sacrifice, some draining, lots of good stuff. This is a deck for players who want to be mean, but with the option to beat down as well. After all, the best games are one you play in good spirits!

12. GB Elves Reclamation

Notable cards include:

Eyeblight’s Ending

Shaman of the Pack

Immaculate Magistrate

Everyone loves elves. Except for the people that hate elves. You get them out, go wide, or go narrow. Either way, you’re beating in face. This deck can be impossibly fast and I love it, but without breaching the barrier of being overpowered. Heck, I’ve won and lost with all of these decks, but elves put up a struggle, and I love that for them.

13. UG Defenders and Butts

Notable cards include:

Axebane Guardian

Assault Formation

Feed the Pack

I’ve been 100% blown out by this deck before by a student who I underestimated. That’s fantastic. This is the kind of deck that students don’t understand until they see it being played, and that’s honestly great. It’s fantastic to watch them learn and I love watching them pull out all the stops to get the biggest butts possible. Can’t beat seventeen angry wolves!

14. UR Spellslinging Recursion

Notable cards include:

Thermo-Alchemist

Thoughtflare

Call the Skybreaker

Flashback, Jump-Start, and Retrace: people love to cast spells. There’s so much fun stuff that can happen in a stormlike brew, and though it’s definitely not storm, it encourages playing spells, and that’s what makes it fun. It appeals to burn and control players alike and makes them feels skillful to the max. It’s Izzet in everything but perfect flavor.

15. RW Combat Control

Notable cards include:

Thatcher Revolt

Intimidation Bolt

Citadel Siege

I actually let my kids down with this deck before. It was an underpowers Firesong and Sunspeaker deck, and it just wasn’t working. What else can you do? Blow things up and make ‘em big. This deck is a powerhouse of unimaginable proportions and I love playing with it. Smart combat makes for some tricky strategy, and it’s humbling for the reckless opponnent.

That’s all for now! Ask me about questions and I’ll tell you no lies. And hey, if you know any kids, play around with ‘em and see how they engage with MTG. What do they lean to? How can you use that to teach them? It’s an amazing game and I’m glad to be sharing it with you, too.

—Abelzumi

[thestellardeep]

NO TIME TO DIE

I am not usually a watcher of James Bond films, I have not seen any of the ones with Daniel Craig, and despite having watched multiple Bond films as a child, I don't remember much about them. All of that said, when I saw the trailer for No Time to Die, I thought it might be a good reentry to the world of 007. I've got to say...whoever edited that trailer deserves ALL of their money.

It’s not that No Time to Die is a bad movie, per se. It's just blustering and lazy, and one of the first places we see this is Madeline Swann's secret. With lines like this:

I guess I was just expecting it to be...important. I mean, what was it? Like I mentioned before, this was the first Daniel Craig Bond film that I’d not seen Spectre, so I was waiting for Madeline to be Blofeld's daughter, or raised by Safin, or actually a daughter of Spectre. Now that I’ve looked up the previous film, I'm even more baffled. It's not like Bond didn't already know who her daddy was, and although she did have some useful information, and she'd given birth to their daughter, the movie didn't show that she had any secret so earth shattering that it was worth all of the fuss they made over it.

Something else that ended up being a loud let down is the movie’s villain, Safin, who spends part of the movie killing Blofeld and destroying Spectre in retaliation for murdering his family, who were criminal poison makers in Spectre’s employ…and then spends the rest of it trying to kill off most of the rest of the earth’s population for vague  “world domination” reasons. I mean, this is his explanation:

“The thing that no one wants to admit is that most people want things to happen to them. We tell each other lies about the fight for free will and independence, but we don't really want that. We want to be told how to live and then die when we're not looking. People want oblivion, and a few of us are born to build it for them. So here I am - their invisible god sneaking under their skin.”

Also, he’s kind of obsessed with possessing Madeline, who he met when he murdered her mother, tried to murder her, but then decided to spare her life. He later mentions being in love with her, but he also shows zero sign of romantic, or even sexual interest in her, which I guess is consistent with his “You belong you me” type spiel. A huge problem, when it comes Safin, is that we don’t even spend enough time with him to be creeped out by him or his plans, everything about him is vague and not in a shadowy and mysterious sort of way. More like in a not fleshed out type way, which leaves him to look like your standard, generic, world domination (or mass murder, take your pick) villain, who makes empty monologues, and wants to possess the girl.

Since we’re on the subject of disappointing payoffs to much ado, we’ve got to talk about Nomi. I wanted to like Nomi, there was a lot of potential with something fresh and new, and a lot of eyes were on this character for good and very bad reasons, so there was a lot of responsibility to get this right and , whew Chile did they do Lashana Lynch DIRTY.

Any character taking on the 007 number is going to be compared to Bond in the yes of the viewers, and the movie repeatedly reminded us that, although she was assigned the number, Nomi is not 007, to the point of having her willingly give up her own number and return it to Bond, and by giving her just two character traits…being threatened by her predecessor, and an adherence to rules.

I don’t know how things are in Britain, but there is some..unfortunate subtext to having a black woman be thanked for her greater level of deference in comparison to Bond, by a white man, and not just any white man, but an extremely mediocre boss, who somehow lacked the imagination to see how keeping an off the books bioweapon that infects anyone who comes into contact with it and can be programmed to kill specific people could be stolen  and then programmed to kill lots of people.

Anyway, the writers give the viewers no reason to accept Nomi as 007, or even as a character that would show up in a future 007 film, because outside of the previously mentioned character traits, we don’t really get to see who Nomi is as a character, and she’s never given a chance to shine. It’s one thing for it to be implied that she’s competent, it’s another thing to actually let us see her be competent, solo, or at least let us see her do something that couldn’t have easily been done by an expendable teammate.

This movie gives us at least two side characters with less screen time than Nomi (Paloma and Primo), and still manages to let us see them shine, so the fact that Nomi…doesn’t get to is quite telling, especially in an industry in which “Show, Don’t tell” is a rule. It’s almost as if they didn’t want that character in the movie, so they made a film that would have been almost exactly the same without her, made her an angry black woman  on the verge of losing her 00 number for a good half of the film, and an unnecessarily deferential one, who gives it up, for the other half. Really, she’s almost not a character, and then they sidelined her so much that it ends up giving the impression that her inclusion was a publicity stunt, or that the writers had zero clue how to what to do with her. Given the rest of this film, I’ll leave it up to you guys to decide.

I kind of wonder if one of things that hurt this film was that it had to be about Bond, or from his perspective. Here me out, I get that this is a 007 movie, but the people at the center of what turned out to be going on were Blofeld (because his organization’s murder of Safin’s family turned him into what he is today, and kind of kicked off the film’s story), Safin (because he’s the one hunting Blofeld, trying to destroy Spectre, and then trying to off a good potion of humanity), and Madelyn (because Safin wants her, and because of the events of her childhood). In the grand scheme of things, Bond is not really an important player here, but it seems like the writers really wanted him to be, so we got a movie partially about Bond’s personal life, and partially about a world destruction plot, that commits to neither one of these things fully so the more we know, the more generic it becomes.

[darkarfs]

my favorite WWE matches of 1997

Though I officially started watching wrestling in 1995 (my family famously first bought SummerSlam that year, which would be my first wrestling show ever, because it was $25.00. 1995 was a bad year for wrestling), I became a regular watcher of both WWE and WCW Raw and Nitro, and was able to buy my own PPVs, around summer of 1996, when Hogan turned. The first show I bought with my own money was In Your House: Buried Alive, though I kept up with weekly TV. And, for better or worse, I've been a fan ever since.

1997 was a REAL rollercoaster year for wrestling. The NWO was becoming a bloated mess in no time at all, Bret Hart was riding high, while he and Shawn Michaels publicly hated one another, a young Rocky Maivia was slowly transforming into the most charismatic wrestler of maybe all time, a young Steve Austin has broken his neck and can only work 5 minute matches but is somehow the most OVER wrestler in the company, and by the end of the year, the Screwjob happens, Bret's in WCW, Shawn's on handfuls of SOMAs (yet main-eventing). In a lot of ways, I'm grateful, because I side-stepped all of Hogan's WWF and WCW run. But it was a tornado of a year for a business always on precarious footing, as it ever has been.

And it gave us some CRACKING matches! - The 1997 Royal Rumble I love me a Rumble, and it's REALLY hard (but not impossible) to find a bad one (1993, 1995, 1999). And I personally love one with a storyline that runs throughout, and in this case, it's the ultimate heeling of Stone Cold Steve Austin. He visibly dominates the match until he hears Bret Hart's music, and then goes into panic mode. And it furthers the characterization of Bret's hand-spun narrative as being rightfully pissed that he's being taken advantage of by the roster, screwed by the company, and booed by the fans. Fun bonus: this is also the only Rumble appearance of lucha legend Mil Mascaras, who was so full of old-school carny spirit he famously refused to let anyone else eliminate him, so he eliminated himself, pissed Vince off, and was not spoken of again on WWE TV until the 2012 Hall of Fame ceremony, where he was inducted by his huge prick nephew, Alberto del Rio. - Bret Hart vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin, WrestleMania 13 This match is considered legendary, and for good reason. The greatest technical wrestler in the company vs. the best brawler, months of build, the world's most iconic (and off-the-cuff) blade-job (so much so that the visual of Austin bleeding in the Sharpshooter going "DAAAHHHH!" became the cover for his first VHS) and the wrestling world's most exquisite double-turn. It's fun, it's thrilling, it feels at once timeless and modern. Fun fact: there's a fun version of this match you can watch with just Austin doing commentary over it, and it's entertaining as hell. A true classic, and one of the greatest 'Mania matches of all time. - Ken Shamrock vs. Vader, No Holds Barred match, In Your House: a Cold Day In Hell Vader, famously, while a big teddy bear and a for-all-accounts lovely guy outside of the ring, had a reputation of being a bit "snug" with other wrestlers. Meaning he hit a little too hard, had little self-control, and took liberties with people, especially rookies and younger guys. It's supposedly why Shawn Michaels didn't want to work a world title program with him from summer to fall of 1996, because he was "too rough." But what never occurred to Vader is that trying that with a guy who's had 2 matches but has almost 5 years of MMA experience might not be the smartest or most prudent idea. Shamrock gives Vader as much as Vader gives him in this match, and there are moments where you can tell the guys are going into business for themselves. There's a moment where Shamrock is clubbing Vader with punches, and you can hear Vader, as he's turtling up and putting his arms up to block, yell "SLOW DOWN!" and then he rolls out of the ring to catch a breather. Vader, by the end of this match, is bleeding through his mask, a product of a broken nose, which is why I assume he gives Shamrock the stiffest short-arm clothesline I've ever seen. It's brutal, it's stupid, it weaves in and out of the script SO many times like a drunk man trying to stand up straight on a canoe, and I'm fascinated by each and every instance. - Owen Hart vs. the British Bulldog, European Championship Tournament Finals, Monday Night Raw, March 3rd Somehow, a workrate classic is stuck on a rinky-dink episode of Raw from Berlin, Germany. Smith and Hart blended some of their acquired WWE-style of work with classic junior heavyweight wrestling, complete with intricate reversals and fast-paced offense that was unlike either man's designed ethos of the time. Hart's shift toward his underhanded instincts as the match wore on provided enough story to balance the beautiful grappling from two men with impressive resumes. You can feel that these two knew one another, grew up together, and most importantly, wrestled together. An honest-to-God sleeper hit, but everyone who knows this match calls it a classic. - Shawn Michaels vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin, King of the Ring It's a concept that would be beaten into the ground in short order: Tag Team Champions that hate each other's guts. John Cena, seriously, has only been tag champions with people he's feuding with. That's

not even a joke. Austin and Michaels won the belts out of mutual dislike for the Hart Foundation, and then were programmed together for a wild match at the King of the Ring, one without a winner. Early on, the two actually pieced together a tremendous wrestling match full of nifty counters (prior to Austin changing his style after August for obvious reasons), before it degenerated into chaos after both men assaulted referees in the heat of the moment. Granted, neither man could really lose this one, so the screwy finish did serve its purpose. Until that point, it's a different type of incredible Austin match. You're never so happy to see a double-DQ finish. - Owen Hart & the British Bulldog vs. Shawn Michaels & Stone Cold Steve Austin, Monday Night Raw, May 26th And now we have a match set! The previous 4 participants in a brilliant and brutal tag team match. The Tag Team championship switch marked Austin's first piece of recognized gold in WWE, in a match on free television no less. That's not to insult the match any, as it was a pay-per-view quality fracas that barely slowed down. It is a mere 14 minutes long WITH entrances, but it moves at a clip, and everyone has their working boots on. It was a harbinger of days to come for this new period in WWE's history, and the crowd ate it up.

- Taka Michinoku vs. the Great Sasuke, In Your House: Canadian Stampede What happened here? Just when you think WCW had the cruiserweights cornered, WWE pulls this shit...and then kind of ignores it for a few months. But not before importing two of Michinoku Pro's finest to have a TakeOver-length exhibition. At first, the crowd in Calgary wasn't sure what to make of the undersized performers, but it wouldn't take long to win them over. From Michinoku's hands-free springboard dive to Sasuke's beautiful Thunder Fire Powerbomb, the expansive crowd was positively hooked on the daredevils with each passing minute. Although Sasuke wouldn't be long for the company, and Michinoku's run as Light Heavyweight Champion faded as 1998 wore on, the display at Canadian Stampede was a wondrous experience. This wouldn't have looked out of place in a Chikara King of Trios tournament. - The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Jim Neidhart, Brian Pillman, the British Bulldog) vs. Team Austin (Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Legion of Doom, Ken Shamrock and Goldust), In Your House: Canadian Stampede I would have put this match on the list for the entrances and the finish alone. The crowd is at fever static for the entire match, seriously at the level of Punk/Cena at MITB 2011. And even though the Harts are the heels, they're in Calgary, and they get rock-star level ovations for merely existing. Everyone plays it mad and delighted, and you can tell they're all having a ball. Especially Pillman, who is just magically unhinged, a template for a young Dean Ambrose during their feud with the Wyatt Family. It is a magical, unreal main event, one of the best B-ppv main events maybe of all time. Well...other than MAYBE... - Shawn Michaels vs. the Undertaker, Hell in a Cell, In Your House: Badd Blood The very first Hell in a Cell match may very well double as the greatest of its kind. What stands out to me (other than how the match ends) is just how GREAT Michaels' selling is. When he's running away, he's constantly looking around for an exit, like a scared rat. When he finally gets caught and struck, he sells almost to the level he did for Hogan at SummerSlam 2005. But while he was doing that to make Hogan's offense look stupid, he's doing it here to make Taker's offense and anger look legit, and it somehow WORKS. But as fabulous as the match and the psychology is, it somehow takes a backseat to the debut of the Undertaker's monstrous little brother Kane, finally confronting his older brother in perhaps the greatest character debut in WWE history. - Mankind vs. Kane, Survivor Series I dunno what it is about this match that does it for me. Mankind's emotional lead-up to the match, where he's sad that Uncle Paul (Bearer) left him. Maybe the fact that Kane sells like Michael Myers, not so much that he's in pain, but as if he's never been hit in the face with a steel chair, a DDT or a piledriver. Maybe it's because Mick takes more horrific bumps than he needs to to make sure Kane looks like a legit monster. Maybe it's the broken Virtua Boy lighting. But it's genuinely unlike any other Mankind, Kane or ANY match I've seen before or since. It's a perfect somehow sympathetic serial killer vs. bigger, scarier serial killer that feels nothing story in a wrestling match. I didn't even know you could DO that.

[rigelmejo]

My dudes wasabi Japanese is so cool this site is so cool literally my dream site ToT (thank u @yue-muffin for all those free reading links <3 which is what included wasabi Japanese)

I know what I’m doing after I finish reading Japanese in 30 Hours! (I might keep reading Reading Japanese for fun too just cause... I might as well we will See).

So like curse me if, when I say I will, it makes me not lol. I hope I DO actually do this. Because it sounds so much more clicks-with-me right now than my alternate study plan (which was Nukemarine memrise - which I WILL eventually do ToT I plan it ok, and tae Kim’s grammar guide - which I’m happy to replace with any grammar guide I’ll finish fucking reading tbh).

1. Remembered bilingualmanga exists and I am making no commitments to read anything (tho I have 4 mangas open and an urge to read them for the first time in years since I read yotsuba earlier and followed it). But I will say it’s quite cool I could um read and look words up (ditto for just regular iOS word lookup and Japanese scripts... I’d say ditto for Animelon too and I DO recommend it but I’m just not really an anime watcher).

2. Wasabi Japanese has a: a grammar guide. So my ass is gonna try reading it (in my defense it has audio which I find marginally nicer than the other sources I’ve been looking at... like I literally read Japanese in 30 Hours aloud audio helps me... also why I suspect in part Nukemarine’s decks help they make me listen a lot). https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-grammar/wasabis-online-japanese-grammar-reference/

3. Even better (to me) wasabi Japanese has b. A grammar drills lesson course that has you shadow and practice SENTENCE PATTERNS AND GRAMMAR. I was literally considering buying a Japanese shadowing textbook for just this purpose (but that textbook was random phrases whereas this is targeted sentence patterns). Also I learn best by just fucking seeing sentence patterns so I kind of suspect an activity like this would click with my brain better than actual grammar guide reading (tho grammar guide reading gives me a useful overview of what to start noticing). Like I literally own the book Japanese Sentence Patterns just cause it was the only thing that clicked... Bonuses about this lesson course wasabi Japanese has: it’s me Doing stuff, I learn best just Doing tbh (it’s why just brute force reading clicks well with me lol). And better, Doing stuff in a streamlined way so I can not bumble as long lol and I have reference if I’m confused (Also why I like graded readers). Info: https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-lessons/how-to-proceed-with-the-instantaneous-composition-method/ The lessons: https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-lessons/materials-for-japanese-lessons-intensive-reading/

4. Wasabi Japanese has lessons through stories, listening reading and shadowing. Phenomenal. Both the perfect chance to test if Listening Reading works some more (which I’m currently into), and to actually DO some things I wanna do like read and practice listening (versus Nukemarines memrise courses which are just flashcards, or playing Japanese video games which is... doable but too draining to be enjoyable or efficient yet). I’m excited. How to use: https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-lessons/japanese-lessons-how-to-proceed-with-read-aloud-method/ Actual lessons:. https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-lessons/fairy-tales-and-short-stories-with-easy-japanese/

5. Assuming you’re better at Japanese than me - wonderfully wasabi Japanese has a course I could use, right after finishing that last one, at a slightly more difficult level, with manga: https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-lessons/materials-for-japanese-lessons-intensive-reading/

6. Alternatively, want a different N3 course that’s radio program based? Here it is: https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-lessons/materials-for-japanese-lessons-read-aloud-method/ so yeah, wasabi Japanese looks like a quite nice alternative to flashcards or a textbook if a babe just wants to learn from stories with audio for a while ToT

7. Also I am again contemplating the benefit of just playing audio in the background more. Will I do it? I don’t know. I’d love to play SpoonFed Chinese audio, Japaneseaudiolessons, and Japanese core 2k audio on in the background. As it’s all comprehensible input I know I’d mostly pickup if I just heard it enough to Review it (whereas rn I just hear each audio file once ever on a walk then never again cause I have little time for focused audio only listening). But I feel bad when I play them in the bg and don’t fully listen ;-;. Ah the dilemma. Truly though they’d help so much if I played them in the background I know it... as of this month as an experiment since reading The Word Brain, I’ve been listening to SOME Chinese audio more. Specifically Guardians audiobook, a random Chinese hp audiobook, Alice in wonderland audiobook, silent reading audiobook. You would not believe how much it’s been noticeably helping. Usually it’s avenuex’s Guardian audiobook and every time I catch a bit of it casually in the bg while working, I’m blown away I understand clearly what I didn’t the time before. In particular I’m probably having the most improvements in this novels comprehension, since I’m Listen Reading Method with it too. But like... the first time I focused listened to it during L R? I caught everything with difficulty during the only-chinese audio but English text step 3. And then listening alone only caught the main story beats/scenes (which was already a major improvement for me). Now when working I can actually catch the paragraphs about Guo Changcheng’s family, his uncle, going to McDonald’s - these are details I very specifically remember being the ones I could NOT catch doing listening only the first time post L R. So after idk 3-6 listening of this chapter, just listening again in the background (since L R takes too much time I’m lazy I only do L R once), I’ve made this much progress. I only saw the full definition of everything ONCE one time during L R step 3 once. But just listening more I catch more and more. And of course, as I catch more the unclear parts become easier and easier to maybe figure out. All I know is I severely underestimated the benefit of repeated listening - at least when (at one point once) you comprehended the material. So considering this... I think now with hindsight, yes listening to condensed audio of a show or just a show, that you’ve seen before with English subs/dual subs/in target language and looked unknown words up, in the background probably could help. If at one point you comprehended it before. (So for me Guardian cdrama is hella on this list lol). With hindsight yeah, repeated audio of an audiobook chapter or audio drama you followed the target language subs for before, or that you could read but not hear alone, would probably help listening skills. Definitely my audio flashcard files where they’re literally Built to be comprehensible since it’s English then target language each line. So... yeah in hindsight more audio, even background audio, can help. Guarantee when I’m not L R with the guardian audiobook I’m barely even listening. And still I find myself catching parts of it.

8. My roommate got too excited about Final Fantasy 14 and informed me it’s free to play now.. which I didn’t know. So of course I foolishly looked up if I could play it in Japanese on a PlayStation and looks like answer is probably yes and I am sorely tempted...

9. It’s gonna be wild for me looking back on may progress at the end of the month because: I did almost nothing I planned, I got demotivated then intensely motivated, I’ve done a ton ToT, I also did a ton of Japanese immersion which?? I’m not even counting?? I don’t track my Japanese immersion yet because like... it’s not my priority right now. I read a ton of manhua the other day and just forgot to log it. I watched some of the woh concert and just did not count it, I read a surprising amount of Japanese this month for someone “not studying it much” yet (aka maybe more than I read last time I studied Japanese??). I did a lot of L R method I didn’t even track, I did a ton of background listening and I’m not tracking just hoping for the best. Did I finish 小王子 this month or last month? Whatever month that was I read like 4 Chinese books. I just remembered I read like 3 Japanese graded readers but didn’t count them cause they felt too simple to count (only 28 pages each). I watched 10 Cure Dolly Japanese grammar vids tho not sure how much help it is long term. Whatever time I did the Japanese video games had to count for something even tho it was draining af. Anyway my point is just... count on me to not do what I planned but be more productive when I do that. All that said: I’m more productive when I set plans even if they aren’t always followed, so I’ll keep making them lol. I think I just needed to hit that turning point of “do anything you want, just continue to do something” instead of “complete this first!” (Although I’m still aiming to complete things - or at least go for progressively challenging things). I dunno... I want to say I want to consider just trying to finish things imperfectly just finish them (to motivate me to finish my Hanzi books, Japanese books, courses I find). But knowing me.. I have no idea what will get me to keep going. Just need to remember it’s ok to do it imperfectly. Just need to remember to place what I will care about and actually do, as priority over what it is I think “must be fully done.”