#gotta catch up on posts... be prepared for post spam

[m00nbuggies]

YAYYY I LOVE THEM

[spiderrmax]

tweek + gen. headcanons

request: "gotta love my man tweek. can we get him some good old fluff head cannons" author's note: i love tweek sm. he's probably one of my fav characters. also since u didn't specify i did platonic & romantic bc i only write romantic tweek w a male reader :)

platonic

You’re going to be the one who starts the friendship; his anxiety causes him to be too scared to say anything to you. It also takes a bit, his mind finds something wrong with everything, so he’ll believe you are talking to him for malicious reasons. Just consistently being nice to him will break down his walls, and allow him to see you as a friend.

Once you’re friends though, expect a lot of frantic texts and calls. He knows you’ll listen, and you’re one of the people he trusts the most. He’s a spam texter too, so you’ll have like 8 notifications if his anxiety gets really bad. He appreciates it when you take time to respond, whereas other people would've just laughed at how ridiculous he is.

Might have your contact pinned in his phone so he doesn’t have to scroll to find it.

Acts like a lost puppy when he’s not with you. He just stands idly, playing with his fingers, until you enter the room, then he starts to follow you! He doesn’t need you to address him or anything, before in close proximity with you eases his worries.

He is definitely a protective friend! He hates fighting and confrontation but doesn’t let anyone say anything rude about. 

Will, if in a good mood, let you get free refills at Tweeks Coffee Bro’s. Doesn’t even mind his dad’s ramblings about losing profit.

Speaking of the cafe, loves when you’re studying there. Again, just being close helps with his anxiety, which gets at an all time high when he’s working.

Eventually feels confident enough to mock your drink choice. If you get a frappuccino or add three sweeteners he’ll say something like, ”That’s not even coffee.” He’s probably a black coffee drinker don’t take it personally

The type to wait for you when you’re tying your shoes. The moment you drop to the ground he stops walking and waits. You can try and tell him he can keep going and you’ll catch up but he’s stubborn

Always assumes you two will be partners in class. The moment the teacher says “partner assignment,” he is making eye contact with you. You always agree, because he’s definitely a good partner, making sure to do his fair share of work.

I think he’d like making friendship bracelets; it gives him something to do with his hands. You guys probably have matching chevron patterns!

romantic

Similar to how your friendship started, you probably have to ask him out.

However, he has probably liked you for a while! His crush definitely would start a few months into your friendship

He thinks you’re really nice and cute but what if you don’t like boys? What if you’re homophobic? That’s too much pressure!

So, you have to ask him out. He says yes, with a completely red face that doesn’t fade for hours. He’ll think about you and it comes back with the same intensity, it’s really sweet.

Tweek would rather keep your relationship private. He’s not embarrassed of you, but hates being the big talk of town. Especially because his parents would make it a big deal.

Once you’ve been dating for a while, I feel like he’d be the type to soft launch you. He’d post a photo on his instagram with two coffee cups, or maybe just a photo of you two holding hands. Something subtle, and with a heart as the caption.

If you guys ever decide to come out, he’ll have you tagged in his bio. You asked if he was cool doing it and he was just excited to do cool couple stuff with you!

Using those lame coffee pick up lines causes him to roll his eyes but the flush in his ears give him away.

“I like you a latte!” “Gah! That was so lame.” 

He probably memorizes your order after a bit. If he knows you'll coming to the cafe, he'll have your drink prepared.

When he goes to write your name on the cup, definitely doodles little hearts around it. He got embarrassed the first time you pointed it out, but keeps doing it.

Brings you up so much in conversation, not even really meaning to. He just loves you a lot; you’re on his mind frequently. 

His favorite things are sleepovers. It takes a bit of convincing to get your parents on board but he sleeps so much better when he’s with you.

Can be a big spoon or little spoon depending on the day and how the both of you are feeling. However, he prefers to lay facing you. When he can’t sleep he enjoys memorizing the freckles and moles on your face.

Whenever you stay over, he loves making you breakfast. He finds a lot of comfort in cooking/baking and enjoys sharing his creations with you! He’s actually really good at it, from years of practice.

His love languages are probably words of affirmation and quality time. He gets in his head a lot so he needs you to be able to ground him. He loves going out on little dates or just hanging in the cafe or one of your guys’ bedrooms!

[heroquills-a]

Dang man. It’s about time I hosted one of these, huh?

As of April 15th it will have marked an entire year i’ve been roleplaying in this community, and I gotta say it’s been a real blast. I’ve met so many awesome people, made such incredible friends, and have overall gained a lot of experience as a roleplayer that I’m super thankful for. All the ridiculous dash shenanigans, fun and interesting interactions, and emotionally gut-punching threads have been one heck of a ride and I’m definitely eager to continue on in this community for plenty of time to come. I figured, since this little anniversary is coming up soon, what better way to celebrate it than to host an event?

So what’s happening?

On Saturday, April 13th, Sonic’s gonna be throwing a big party for all his friends and acquaintances to come have fun!! It will be taking place in a rented ballroom hall on Mission Street (Central City), starting at 6 PM pacific time and ending 11 PM pacific time! Now, I know that sounds a bit fancy, but trust me. Sonic’s keepin’ it casual! fancy ballgowns and tuxes aren’t required for this shindig!

There will be plenty of fun activities for your muse to partake in! things including:

music & dancing!

a snack bar, as well as dinner & dessert being served at some point in the night.

party games such as musical chairs, charades, truth or dare, never have i ever!

face painting, courtesy of Tails the Fox! 🦊

karaoke!

an indoor pool!

alcoholic beverages (but only served after a certain time so ppl can avoid it if they want)

and of COURSE a talent show!

basic guidelines will be as followed, although you can ask more questions about the event itself over at @party-event  (which i highly encourage you to follow if you’re planning to participate because it will contain very crucial information you’ll need to stay in the loop of things during the event itself. you will also be able to have your muse sign up for the talent show here as well.)

PLEASE READ:

duplicates, AUs, villain characters, and OCs are allowed, but they all must be sonic related! sorry to any followers who have a muse from a different fandom !! ;o;

don’t godmode/infomod/whatever you know the basics.

villain characters are NOT allowed to disturb the peace/use this as an opportunity to cause harm for other characters/make villainous schemes. however, harmless mischief is absolutely encouraged, just make you run it by the mun of the characters you plan to mess with first and ofc don’t do anything they don’t want you to do to their muse

do not start any fights at the party. if your muse has beef with another person’s muse and for some reason you can’t keep ‘em under control, your muses will be forced to leave the party till they settle their conflict.

this goes for OOC too. don’t start drama/arguments OOC. don’t harass other muns. if i catch anyone doing this you will be banned from the rest of the event. no exceptions. lets just keep this a peaceful fun event, yeah?

this event will be taking place here on tumblr, so i encourage EVERYONE who participates to tag their posts as #party event. not only so i can track the tag and pay attention to everyone who participates, but also so people who wish to block the tag so it’s not spammed all over their dash can do so. PLEASE tag your posts, this will be very crucial.

there will be a discord server too, however it won’t be for RP reasons. IF you plan to have your muse participate in the talent show, it’s required that you join this server so that we can discuss the performance line up. this server will also be used to commentate OOC on stuff during the party too, and for you to chat and mingle with other muns, and also will allow you to find people to interact with if you’re struggling ! this server will be opened a few days before the event takes place so there is time to prepare.

remember, you can learn MORE about the rp party over at @party-event. it will be a very useful tool for you and will contain all the info you need to know for this thing. and remember, tag all posts regarding the event as #party event so i can track it and so ppl can blacklist it.

Secondly, a movie.

what, did you think that was all that there would be? nah man! on the 14th, the day after the party, I’m planning to stream Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse on rabbit!! this movie has become one of my top favorites as of late and i’ve been wanting to stream it for a hecking while! so, at 7PM pacific time, I’ll be streaming it. anyone is welcome to join !! it just note, it wont be an IC stream. you’re free to have your muse make crack commentary of course, but this is mostly just an OOC stream for muns to come and hang out and watch a movie. sound good?

important note about the movie itself: it contains a lot of flashing colors and imagery, so if you are someone who is sensitive to that/deals with epilepsy i strongly warn you to take caution in watching this film, if you haven’t seen it already.

ALRIGHT. i think that just about covers everything. thank you so much for reading and i’m looking forward to seeing everyone who joins in on the fun !! you know the drill, if you could maybe spread this around a little bit and get the word out there, that’d be real great! thank you so much!!

~Blu.

[emmaekay]

Galaktikon II - Post Lyric Release Analysis

Hello friends! If you follow this blog for Dragon Ball content, avert your eyes from what is about to be a full critique, breakdown, and analysis of my favorite metal album of the last 5 years. 

Released on August 26, 2017, Galaktikon II is the 2nd studio album of Galaktikon, combo metal outlet of Brendon Small, Gene Hoglan, and Bryan Beller. I say “combo metal” because what the fuck even is this, other than holy?

 At times, melodic death, at times speed metal, at times operatic metal - it’s everything good about all those subgenres and none of the trite or campy elements. This weekend, to celebrate the year’s anniversary of the release, the official lyrics were released to the album - that’s a big deal for a lot of reasons.

See, Galaktikon II is special in another way, too. It’s the unofficial end to the Metalocalypse story. Criminally cancelled before the story could draw to its planned close, fans everywhere have protested, petitioned, spammed, come just this side of rioting... and a certain exec at Adult Swim just can’t be arsed. Small has said in this-side-of-legal ways that Galaktikton II is the true end to Metalocalypse. 

But when I listen to it, I hear something else, too. I hear the story of someone who spent 10 years building a world, only to have it burned down by someone else. I hear a love letter to the fans, but also a plea to let the end be the end. To accept that that world is over. From The Ocean Galaktik to Rebuilding a Planet, this is Small’s story, of trying to find the right combination of factors that would force that network to allow him to finish his tale, to his own acceptance of the fact that that will never happen. He has been clear about that in interviews - it’s over, and he’s ready to move on to the next project - the next world - he’s ready to rebuild. In this album, I hear an ask - will you, my friends and fans, come with me to the next? 

So, here it is - everything I heard and everything I think about each track on Galaktikon II. SIDENOTE - this review is in the VINYL track order, which is also the “story” listening order. The CD/digital track order will not be followed here, and I really recommend listening to it in the vinyl order only.

1. Some Days Are For Dying

This track picks up right after the end of The Doomstar Requiem. The “Doomstar” is not the same thing as the Dethlights, which is the power that the band gains control of when they get Toki back. There is a huge asteroid or meteor heading for the earth. It’s freaking people out, destroying satellites, causing chaos. It’s being predicted that it will hit the Earth and destroy the planet.

Triton is nearby, but doesn’t appear to want to get involved. 

Fuck this, never was my occupation. 

He sings, correctly, since he’s not a planet savior but a bounty hunter. 

On the Earth, various forces are mobilizing, militarizing, magnetizing. Nathan is still drawn back to the Whale goddess in the sea: The voice in my heart still speaks to me / It beckons me back to the deep. Nathan seems to want her help, for the first time - he doesn’t want the planet to be destroyed and actively wants to seek out that “Right Song” that has been eluded to since season 4. Any gift in this haze that the gods bestow / remove the blindfold, enlighten my soul / Would aide in the poetry I’m to sing.

The Church of the Black Klok is predicting the end of the world. We forsee blackness. We forsee doom. 

Both the soldiers in the Falconback project AND the Gears are assembling for a serious battle. Fall in - Fall in - Fall in. (This cadence is echoed in Could This Be the End when Nathan asks the band “Alright?”) Prepare your captains. Prepare your flag. Prepare the battlements. Prepare the bloodied ram.

The song ends with a threat. 

I will make you twist and burn. (Nathan)

I have waited, clock must turn. (Halfman)

Who is threatening who? I take it as both the Halfman and Nathan threatening each other, noted above, but it’s the Halfman who gets his say in the next song.

2. Nightmare

Full disclosure, this is my favorite track on the album. Man, this manages to be powerful and sinister even as it touches on a poignant key of sadness. 

This song is a soliloquy by the Halfman. He was cursed with this demonic affliction, but says he isn’t the devil - Mephistopheles isn’t me - he sings, though people have made him into the devil. He explains how he died, then came back from the grave... half alive. Half of what he used to be. Based on later tracks, one can infer that Vater Orlaag is who brought him back to life and imbued him with the powers and overall creepiness he displays.

He doesn’t want to let go of the half life he has, but the impending star will change that life into something entirely different. Even while expressing feelings that he was misunderstood and even of fear, he still stands out as a villain. He seems to vascillate in the context of the song between fearsome and fearful. He has, after all, lived this way - waiting to see what would happen - for a very long time. 

This cold heart keeps on beating

I’m the darkness you’re feeling. 

The delivery of that lyric, at the same time powerful and ominous even as it hints at uncertainty. The song ends with the Halfman’s trademark “we’ll see” sort of sentiment. 

I still wait

Time will tell

Falcon flies

Magnetize 

3. The Ocean Galaktik

This song, I think, is where Small really gets the most personal on the album. This is the story of both Nathan’s return to the deep to find the music - the right song - and of Brendon’s own quest to release the end of this story, to come to terms with the falling out on the network, and to find the right way to release this music, these songs, and to end this story. 

Some hearts will grow cold (The network)

Some of them outshine them all (the fans and the band)

Show love through it all (Small himself)

Breathe through my soul (Release the story the only way he can - through the music.) Leave this all behind, and look within (stop trying to get the 5th season)

Though we must all die, we don’t all live (Everything has an end, not everyone gets to do 4 seasons + a rock opera on tv, so he’s grateful for what he DID do)

and of course, the obvious: “Could this be what I need to set me free?” Small is asking himself, could this denial from the network, and also this album, be what sets him free from doing the same thing over and over - allowing him to invent and explore?

“I’m ready to serve my planet now.” I also hear the word “storm” laid over “serve” in this lyric. Officially, it’s serve, but Small is a tricksy little minx, so I’m not ruling out storm. In fact, the dual lyric makes the most sense - Brendon is ready to storm the planet with his next project. The “storm” thing comes into play later in the album, too. But also, Nathan, storywise, is ready to serve the planet because after meeting with the Beast Queen (who I think is Abigail but might just be that cool ass whale, who I’ve taken to referring to as the Whale Goddess) he has THE Song. 

4. The Agenda

This is, simply, Vater Orlaag and the Halfman programming a poisoned Murderface to do some fucked up shit. 

Oh - be anything I want to be?

Oh - is this just a dream?

Oh - give away so willfully

Oh - please carry me away. 

These lines are Murderface himself, seeing the immortality and adoration offered by the two villains. Already poisoned, Murderface falls for it. 

“Just lock the door, and trap accused. Just flip the switch & light the fuse.”

5. My Name is Murder

Well, yeah, it is. This song describes Murderface luring the rest of the band into a trap where they nearly die. The idea is that when the rest of the band dies, the Dethlights will all flow into him, which I can only assume Orlaag and the Halfman intend to take from him at that point. Murderface runs away after lighting Mordhaus on fire, the Gears chase his ass down though. He thinks about taking his own life. He chooses not to - I interpret this as Murderface himself breaking the possession/poison a bit. The Gears appear to catch him. 

6. Exitus

Oh man, if this song doesn’t give you chills, check your fucking pulse. 

The rest of the band tries to think of how to cure Murderface. The reason that “there’s gotta be a relationship between the water and” the Halfman based on the fact that water has been protective and healing for the band in the past, and appears to have driven the Halfman out of “the man in green” which I think is General Krozier. 

The Gears & the Band take Murderface to the cove from the end of Season 4 and literally fucking drown him. Brutal. 

I have always thought this next verse was from the perspective of Ofdensen:

Come back to me.

Blink if you hear me. 

You gotta fight to breathe.

Hold my hand - look in my eyes. The klok within your chest gives back your life. 

Too soft for Nathan. Anyway, Murderface is cured and comes back to life. Holy shit this bit kills. 

You live, you live in your body

You live, you live in your soul

You live, you live in your heart

And we live, we live with you. 

And now we stand here believers - a pentagram of black faith. 

So Murderface is back with the boys and the Dethlights are powering up again. Next stop? FUCKIN SPAAAAAAACE BOYYYYY

7. Icarus Six Sixty Six

The boys literally go to space? Based on the video for Nightmare, where the whale goddess meets up with Triton, I’m guessing that Triton shows up and is the “UFO” referred to in the lyrics. He helps the boys rig a fucking planet wide sound system like the one in the Dethkones Israel/Palestine episode but EVEN BIGGER. (This is also the current cover photo on the Metalocalypse Facebook as an additional clue.)

Louder than the world believes

Defying physics all perceive! Shit goes tits up and they end up having to eject from a crash landing on their way back to Earth. 

Not now! Eject? Not now! Eject? Not now! Eject? BUT NOWWWWW. 

Thanks for helping the boys save the planet, Triton. 

8. Become the Storm

Nathan literally uses a planet wide PA system to notify the whole population that the Earth is about to get fucked up royally by the Doomstar - a possessed star with a demon inside it that’s going to take up residence in the Halfman’s body and really, really wreck up the Earth 

Nathan inspires people all over the world, civilians and fans and Gears, to unite and “become the storm” that will wipe this evil out. 

From the land to the sea

There’s no them - only we! 

That might be the warmest thing said on this entire album, not leastwise because I’m starving for some kind of unity in humanity lately. No division here - it’s the people of the planet vs. Orlaag & the Halfman. 

Also there are robots on Orlaag & the Halfman’s side. That’s the Falconback project. Robots that will serve them and the demon - literally soulless people who have been mechanically augmented. Bwomp. And also there appears to be some kind of big machine at work - also hinted at in Some Days Are For Dying and later in the album in Could This Be The End?

“We march forth to his throne

We will die for our home.”  The Army of humanity heads for the Halfman. Look out, motherfucker!

9. To Kill a God

Well, the title says it. They’re heading out to kill a god - or really, prevent the birth of a new one. Orlaag and the Halfman are holed up in a snow covered mountain range. The band sends the main wave of soldiers to “dismantle their magnetized machines.”  The sky will part to let the demon soul descend. 

Yep. The star is a demon. And it’s coming to chill inside the Halfman’s body. The rest of the song is a battle between the robotic Falconback soldiers and the Storm. Nathan urges them to fight on - “Don’t leave the gods alive.”

10. Could This Be The End?

This song is a fucking rollercoaster. Okay:

The Storm is fighting outside and the band is waiting in place. They turn the Falconback magnetized weapon against the star, trying to destroy it or override the machinery. It, of course, goes tits up. The band decides to use the Dethlights against the Doomstar, even though it will probably kill them.  They form a “pentagram of power” and basically go toe to toe with this fucking demon asshole. They’re willing to die. The machinery is overloading. The star gets nearer and nearer to anchoring in the Halfman.  Oh oh, leave their souls. We were always meant to go. 

Let it be one last strike with our sword

Save them

Call the lights

We must die

But we lived our lives

They choose to save the Storm soldiers and all of the planet, opening themselves up completely to the destructive power of the Dethlights. 

The Falconback machine explodes.

The demon tries it. 

Doesn’t win. Dethlights fuck it up totally. 

Because of their bond, their commitment, their pure brutality - the Dethlights are strong enough to repel the demon WITHOUT killing them. 

Nathan compels everyone to hold on - “We know that we must die,” he says, “But for now we live! ”

Alright

Alright

Alright

Alright, we live!

He asks each of them and by context gets an affirmative answer. 

The song closes with the question - Could this be the end? 

11. Rebuilding a Planet

This is totally instrumental, so you know, imagine whatever scenario you want. Do they return to playing music? Do they rule the world? Do Nate and Abigail have the most metal wedding ever? Do Toki and Skwisgaar still pretend to hate each other? Whatever you want “rebuilding” to mean, it can and it does. This, maybe even moreso than The Ocean Galaktik, is truly a love letter to the listener. A gift. An absolute salve on the burn we’d all felt for so many years of unresolved plot line. A promise, that Small isn’t done and Galaktikon will be rebuilt with new stories and new potential. Overall the tone is hopeful, peaceful, soothing - a satisfying goodbye to five goofballs Small loved, and that we all loved, too. 

[natsuxlucyfanfiction]

A NaLu Marriage (Newlywed AU One Shot)

Hello! This was inspired by a prompt posted by @moeruhoshi . I asked for permission to write this and permission was granted, but this was a while back. I definitely put this one off lol, but am glad that I wrote it. It’s basically just a bunch of shorts combined into a one shot.

"Lucy," Natsu whispered into Lucy's ear, desperately trying to wake her up.

"Natsu," Lucy groaned. "Not this again." She flipped over and covered her ears with the pillow.

"But Lucy, do you even know how important today is?" Lucy opened her eyes and looked at the clock. It was 12:01 am.

"What is it Natsu?"

"It's officially been 16 days since we got married. Happy 16th day anniversary, Luce."

"We didn't get married at exactly 12am though."

"Why you gotta be no fun?" Natsu whined.

Lucy opened her eyes just to roll them, but she couldn't help giggling at his silly antics. "Happy 16th day anniversary, Natsu."

***********

Sixteen days passed since the newlyweds got married. Two days have passed since they've got back from their honeymoon. While they did have the essentials, such as a bed, an alarm clock, kitchen essentials (thank you, wedding gifts), they didn't have anything like a couch, tv, coffee table, etc. After hours and hours of walking around the store, the couple was tired and ready to get off their feet. Seeing so many different options didn't comfort them anymore, it only got more on their nerves.

"That couch is nice, let's get it," Natsu said for the thousandth time.

"You didn't even look at it! And we gotta take the measurements to make sure it'll fit and-"

"Well I don't want to." He turned his head away and folded his arms, showing his refusal to comply.

"Stop it," Lucy whisper-yelled. "You're acting like a child and embarrassing us!"

Natsu screamed in exasperation. "No, I'm exhausted! There's no point in even looking around, you're always gonna find one tiny thing that's wrong with it. Why do we even need a couch?!"

"So you'll have a place to sleep when I couch you tonight," Lucy seethed after seeing all the heads turn to glare at them.

Natsu hmphed in response.

***************

The couch was decent enough. Not entirely awful, but he knew his back was gonna hurt the next day. Nevertheless, he couldn't be bitter with his wife. He loved her too much, simple as that. Sleep evaded him for what felt like hours. To pass time, Natsu blew tiny fire sparks into the air and counted how long it would take to dissolve in the air. The shortest time was 2 seconds, longest was 8. He only stopped when he heard strange shuffling sounds. It couldn't have been an invader since the silhouette had the familiar scent of vanilla. An aroma he knew, loved, and cherished. His lovely wife, Lucy Heartfilia.

"Natsu," he heard her whisper, "are you still awake?" He hummed in response."Then scoot over," she murmured. He did, even though there wasn't much space to scoot to. Lucy joined him on the couch, wrapping her arms and legs around Natsu to pull him into a tight hug.

“You know, we could take this to the bed,” Natsu mentioned, hoping to get off the couch.

“Yeah, but the small couch forces us to stay close with each other,” Lucy mumbled into his shirt. His heartbeat was steady and lulled her half to sleep.

“Don’t worry, Luce,” Natsu sighed with contentment and overflowing love for his wife, “I’m never gonna let you go.”

*******************

“Lucy, can you get the mail?” Natsu managed to groan from the couch. It was early morning. Well, early for Natsu. Though Lucy was already up and prepared for the day, he remained sprawled out on the couch.

“Of course baby Natsu,” Lucy pretended to gush, adopting an annoying high-pitched tone. She pinched his cheeks and shook them harshly. Natsu mewled in annoyance. Lucy threw her head back and laughed. “What the heck was that? You some sort of wild animal now?”

“Yes,” he responded with eyes still closed, “a tiger.”

“More like a rabid bunny,” Lucy snickered. She turned to go get the mail and halfway to the door, she heard another mewl. This time it sounded very realistic. “Woah, Natsu,” Lucy spun around, “do you practice cat impressions in your free time? Loser.”

“That wasn’t me,” Natsu admitted, finally getting up. Lucy’s curiosity piqued, and she opened the door to see a blue cat on their doorstep. It meowed and rubbed itself against her legs. Before Lucy could even say anything, Natsu was already at the doorstep cradling the cat.

“It’s freaking blue!” Natsu exclaimed. “It’s ours now.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“Too bad. I’ve already named it. Welcome home, Happy!”

****************

The doorbell rung, signaling the arrival of their guests. Lucy was still cooking dinner in the kitchen, and with the loud crackles of fire and sizzles of food in the pans, she completely missed the ring. Natsu, however, heard it loud and clear. The doorbell rung again, this time paired with a booming knock. Still, Lucy didn’t catch it.

“Natsu,” she finally asked, “are the Fullbusters and Fernandezes here yet? It’s not like them to be late.”

“Nope,” Natsu lies. “By the way, when is the food gonna be ready?” He teased Happy with a little red laser beam, like Lucy was teasing him with the tantalizing sweet smell of a home-cooked meal.

“Should be soon,” Lucy responded. “I shouldn’t have started as late as I did. Maybe it’s good that they’re not here yet?”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Natsu took advantage of her uncertainty. The truth was, Natsu was going to hog all the food to himself. Yeah, it was immature and kind of mean, but he didn’t care. Other than Lucy herself, nothing made Natsu go wild like how he did for her cooking. He bet that her food was better than Gordon Ramsay’s. Just then, Lucy’s phone began to ring on the counter.

“Natsu, could you get that for me please?”

“Got it,” he rushed to her phone before she could check the caller ID. Natsu grabbed the phone and quickly declined, just barely seeing Erza’s contact. “It was just a spam call, some number from Portugal,” Natsu lied for the second time that night. Just as quickly as he declined Erza’s call, he deleted the unread texts on her phone from Juvia, Gray, and Jellal asking about what was going on. His clueless wife hummed, finishing with the last of the meal.

“It’s been 50 minutes since they should’ve been here, do you think maybe they got hurt?” She pondered while setting the table. “I don’t even know why I’m setting the table. It doesn’t seem like they’re coming.”

“They’re fine, Luce,” Natsu reassured. “You know Jellal and Erza, it probably has something to do with the little one.” His words were believable because they stemmed from truth. Little Justine took a lot of the couple’s time. No one could blame her, she was only 4 months old. Adding the combined forces of Jellal and Erza’s overprotectiveness to the situation, it seemed that the parents depended more on Justine than Justine relied on them. One second away from their precious angel was torturous to them.

By then, the Fullbusters and Fernandezes long gave up on trying to get in. They went back to their homes and ordered take out. Lucy stretched her arms, studying the beautifully set table with pride. Unfortunately for her, she had no friends to share the feast with.

“I cooked enough food for two armies. It’s been an hour and a half and they haven’t come. What are we going to do with all this food?”

“No worries, Lucy. Leave it to me.” Natsu gorged down serving after serving. Lucy giggled, watching the mess her husband was making with amusement. Little did she know that her “perfect” dinner party was successfully ruined by Natsu’s evil schemes.

******************

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand captivated Lucy. She was enthralled by the story and the characters. Natsu was taking a shower, meaning that she finally had some quiet time to read the book in peace. Happy rested in her lap, purring as Lucy stroked him in between flipping pages.

“Hey, Luce, have you seen my brush?” Lucy looked up to see Natsu standing there wearing only a towel. Droplets of water dripped down his chest, bringing his well toned abs to Lucy’s attention. In that moment, she became an innocent middle school girl again. Blood rushed to her cheeks, and she averted her eyes before she could stare any longer.

“Yeah, it’s in the bathroom,” she sputtered, still not looking in his direction.

“I was just there and the brush wasn’t there,” he retorted.

“You’re pretty blind for a guy with amplified vision. It’s there, look harder,” she sassed with a fierce attitude that contradicted how she was feeling. If Natsu didn’t leave that instant, she would shoo him away.

“Fine, I’ll check again.” On his way back to the bathroom, he stopped and faced her. “By the way, Luce. You’re my wife, you can look at me as much as you want.” And with a wink, he left, leaving Lucy more flustered than before.

She was peeved. Her arms crossed and her nose crinkled. “I’ll get my revenge,” she promised saltily, like the sore loser she was.

[adamhhutchins]

Analyzing Twitch chat during a Pokémon Marathon

We dove into Twitch chat during the Pokémon Marathon, and found key moments when viewers sing, cry, and laugh together. Sometimes, weirdly, all three happen at the same time.

Context and dataset

Twitch ran a marathon of all Pokémon episodes and movies. The first 13 episodes aired on August 27, from 10am to 4pm PST. While watching Pokémon, we noticed a lot of meming and spamming in chat, even by Twitch standards. So we decided to dive into it.

Our dataset has two tables. One consists of all 269k messages posted by viewers during these 6 hours. The messages are lowercased for convenience. The second table consists of emotes usage, it’s also indexed on message id, and has one row per emote use.

Twitch chat likes emotes: 61% of chat messages have at least one. Twitch chat also likes to spam emotes: a total of 359k emotes were used, i.e. chatters use on average 2 per message with an emote.

Gotta Catch ��Em All

Each of the 13 episodes opens and concludes with the Pokémon theme song, “Pokémon, gotta catch ’em all”. It is a catchy song written in common meter with classic anime lyrics. Its most frequent non-stopword token is “pokemon”, appearing in 14 out of the 45 lines of the theme song.

Throughout all 13 episodes, viewers sing along in chat to the theme song, during both the intro and outro. While the average 10-second window during the marathon sees 1.5% of chat messages with the token “pokemon”, this can reach up to 18% during the theme song.

The graph below shows a heartbeat-like pattern in the proportion of chat messages with the “pokemon” token. Since each episode is 22 minutes, and intermissions between episodes 4 minutes, this proportion spikes twice every 26 minutes.

The proportion of chat messages with the “pokemon” token spikes when the theme song plays.

Text memes: “never seen again” and “pity badge”

Throughout his adventures, protagonist Ash encounters various characters whom he leaves but promises to see again. Twitch chat, in disbelief, spams “never seen again”. This goodbye meme started modestly in episode 4, peaked at episode 8 at 17% of chat messages in a 10s window, and dwindled in the following episodes played that day.

However, another raw-text meme stayed strong after episode 7. When Ash challenges the three Cerulean Gym leaders, they tell him their Pokémon are exhausted and forfeit their Cascade badge to him without a fight. This prompted chat to spam “pity badge”. This meme peaked at 25% of chat messages during episode 13, when Ash showed his badges proudly.

The proportion of chat messages like “never seen again” and “pity badge” spike at different moments.

Viewers love these text memes.

LDA topics

We’d like to explore trends involving both emotes and raw text throughout the day. Moreover, in Pokémon, the scenario moves quickly: one minute is slapstick running-around, with chat laughing, and the next tearful melodrama, with chat crying. LDA seems appropriate.

We first remove stop words (“the”, “is”, “are”, etc.), then treat each minute of chat as a document for LDA. LDA then treats each minute of chat as a mixture of topics, and outputs the top words for these topics. A topic is an assignment of a weight to each word, for example {‘pokemon’:0.9, ‘sourpls’:0.8, …}. All words appear in all topics, but the topic’s top words enable us humans to interpret it. We played around with the number of topics, and ended at 11, a local minimum. The resulting topics are displayed below.

Let’s deep dive into 2 of these topics: the sad topic, and the Team Rocket topic.

The sad topic

The BibleThump emote

Topic 9 is about the sad moments in Pokémon. It loads heavily on tokens like “biblethump”, which is a tearful Twitch emote expressing commiseration, sometimes used sarcastically. It also loads heavily on words related to the Pokémon Charmander.

Topic 9 covers the sad moments in Pokémon.

We believe that words related to Charmander are prominent in topic 9 because of episode 11, in which Ash meets Charmander, and a very sad and melodramatic story unfolds. Chat was ready to react. Here’s a close-up of episode 11’s BibleThump-ness.

While the episode is very melodramatic in the beginning, it quickly turns around, and chat spams PogChamp, an emote indicating amazement.

These flip-flopping emotions remind us of the 6 shapes of story arcs. In our case, Twitch chat lets us analyze these story arcs via the audience’s reactions.

The Team Rocket topic

The top words in Topic 10 come from the Team Rocket motto!!

Prepare for Trouble Make it double To protect the world from devastation To unite all people within our nation To denounce the evils of truth and love To extend our reach to the stars above Jessie James Team Rocket Blast off at the speed of light Surrender now or prepare to fight Meowth, that’s Right!

Starting with the Team Rocket’s first appearance in episode 2, and every time they appear thereafter, chat just spams the villains’ motto.

Topic 10 tracks with Team Rocket appearances.

Wrapping up

This article dove into chat during the first day of the Pokémon marathon on Twitch. Pokémon brought viewers together in chat, via memes involving raw text, emotes, or both. LDA helped us discover that the most intense memes stem from silly plot elements, melodramatic moments, and catchy theme songs and mottos.

This article was co-written by Thomas Debeauvais, Sanjay Kairam, and Brendan Rocks.

Analyzing Twitch chat during a Pokémon Marathon was originally published in Twitch Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

[sugirandom]

365 days of writing: day 116

Day 116: fan needs

               So this is odd, it’s a Wednesday and I’m actually still a t home. I’d be almost at work by this time if it was a normal Wednesday but I’ll actually be taking next Wednesday off too. I do have to walk to the library this morning for an appointment with the employment resource people. I have to tell them I don’t want to go to the mock interview event they invited me to. I’m pretty confident in my ability to interview and really the only reason I can’t get hired at most places if that I don’t have the required experience and therefore don’t even get the chance to interview. So, it’s basically the resources to get hired that I need rather than more interview practice.

               I also have to contact that darn secretary who was supposed to get back to me but didn’t. I need to know what I have to prepare for insurance to pay for my surgery. This is always the biggest pain, I don’t understand....in theory insurance companies should make things easier but they try their best not to pay for what you need them to pay for and make it as hard as they can, I guess hoping you’ll give up. I guess that’s basically a good example of the direction our country is going in. I won’t say much more than that because I can already hear people sharpening their blades and I won’t get political on here.

Anyway, my best bro is coming over this afternoon for our usual hang out. We might not be able to hang out very long on Friday because of my procedure so I’m hoping that he’ll come over decently early since it’s been almost a week since we last hung out and I want to catch up with him before we start watching Anime. I really gotta show him OnePunch Man someday but I haven’t had the time since we’re watching Gundam and trying to wrap up on Chrono Trigger. I think we only have one or two more endings to do though and then we’ll probably try to play Chrono Cross together. I just hope we have time before I go to make some decent progress. If not, I might consider looking up a playthrough of it, preferably one where the player doesn’t talk so I can just experience the game. I will try to at least show my best bro one episode of OPM since I think the humor would be up his ally.

               I also have had this dire need for Piccolo related stuff like out of left-field. I literally don’t know that much about him even so I’m really not sure where my fandom head is at this moment and it doesn’t help that one of my followers is posting DB Super stuff and both posts they made had Piccolo in them. I mean, at least I could conceivably do something about those feels unlike most of my Chrono Trigger feels that range from feeling for the Anti-hero, who I ultimately made more of tragic character with my angsty af headcanon about what happened to his father and will ultimately be his fate as well, and for the bond between one of the main’s and his close-friend who is dead in the present of the story. Why did I hyphenate close friend? Lol, it looks like I’m doing a quotation marks thing, ha ha! That sounds about right if he didn’t marry the queen in one of the timelines.  Seriously though the whole cast is lovable, I have never felt such intense emotion for pixelated characters before, I will probably spam the CT tag with my sobs one of these days.

                               Not sure what I’m going to do when I get back yet. I might watch some DB if I have time before my best bro comes over ha ha. I’m already a lot further than I was when he last came so I have quite a bit to talk to him about. I swear, I gotta stop liking villians in the first episode they appear because two episodes later they leave the show completely. Enough of these Otaku problems. If it’s too close to the time that my best bro is going to come over I guess I’ll watch some youtube videos but I’m pretty sure I’ll have enough time for two episodes of Dragon Ball. The fansubbed version I watch cut the opening and ending out. Is it for legal reasons? I don’t really know but I’m kinda disappointed cause I really like those fansubs that do a karaoke style subbed opening and ending. I think I’m done now…at least on here.  

[quesadellaarts]

Time to play catch up!

Apparently across time, I’ve posted to my Instagram but failed to post here! So prepare for an onslaught of old posts - sorry for the spam but it’s gotta happen, friends!