#i already have so much trouble taking any of the stuff in this show seriously is. is it meant to be a joke or are you meant to like. cry

[sludgekludge]

did NOT know you didnt know about the leaks what if i told you theres a scene where sir pentious puts a gun to his head cuz he wants to kill himself and go back to hell

anon i'm being so fucking for real you can't just say this to me.

[jweekgoji]

more yandere d-16 !!!

Yandere!D-16/Reader [hcs]

tw: unhealthy obsession, possessiveness, overprotectiveness, jealousy, yandere themes word count: ~880 additional tags: gender-neutral reader, cogless!reader. a/n: I think other writers already made various posts about yandere!D but why not have 2 cakes?

D-16 is one of the individuals from the main 4 that you would never suspect of having an unhealthy obsession with you. I mean, look at him, a total sweetheart! He would never become a cruel and ruthless tyrant in the future, nuh-uh.

Just like Orion, if he sets his optics on someone, D-16 will make sure that no harm will be caused to you. He lacks some strength to stand up for himself at the beginning, but if someone he deeply adores needs his help, he lets himself forget about the protocols and rush in to help you.

Once he checks that you're okay, that is the moment he has to lecture you about your own safety. He has a little grumpy side, grumbling 'you shouldn't have disobeyed our supervisor!' when the bigger bot accused you of slacking off, but it is actually because he's concerned. The side of his face still hurts, too, after getting punched for sticking his nose into someone else's business.

Yandere D-16 is nothing like Megatron. Never, never expect him to be violent with you or with someone else. He is still innocent, in some way, uncorrupted from the yet-to-be realization of the truth.

Like I mention in the first sentence in the beginning paragraph, D-16 doesn't show any bright yandere traits. It somehow parallels with the style of his life and how he looks in the society of the lower class bots. The grayish paint job, the way he tries to stay out of trouble and follow the rules set by the higher-ups. Even when he's jealous or insecure, which is tied to the object of his obsession, he's not the mech to jump into the fight right away.

^ I think he'd rather stay silent and keep up with his responsibilities if he notices some other bot being a little too affectionate with you. He knows there's not much time for all the relationship stuff; therefore, it will be ridiculous to demand anything from you. It's even harder when you're a close friend of his, someone close enough to stay around but not enough to develop the feelings into something more.

Yandere!D-16 is overprotective with a tiny bit of jealousy. He wants to tell you how much he adores you. The way you lighten up his mood after the last incident Orion put him through, this just makes him all warm and happy inside. These feelings only motivate him to work even harder since he believes that in the future, in much better circumstances, it is the best time to finally confess. It might be a little insecure if you think about that, but probably just realistic, as he thinks.

^ The more time passes, the harder it gets to keep his own emotions in control. At one point, if you continue being a reckless cogless bot, causing trouble here and there, or maybe you're that weak-willed, that can't clearly tell 'no' to others (especially if they're all flirty and too nice with you!) he'd confront you about it, pressing in the corner.

^ How could you be so blind! Can't you see the obvious? You're so, so infuriating sometimes. It doesn't help that sometimes his own thoughts get darker. He never acts upon them, but even thinking about doing something violent towards someone who hurt you in any way...One day, he might snap and tell you everything he thinks about it. The question is, will you take him seriously?

^ At the same moment, his overprotective side wants to smack some sense into you. He can't keep his optics on both Orion and you now; give him some break! When he tells you to stop doing whatever the problem is, his jealous side also shows up. If only you could be his, all of that wouldn't happen. He'd keep you close to his side forever; he would make sure that no one will hurt you once you tell him that 'I love you too'.

Until then, he's content with just looking at you from far, far away. You might now even spare a glance at him during the whole day, and he would already be on cloud nine just because he saw you today. D's optics truly are the mirror of his spark. The way those big, bright orange optics widen the moment you walk past Orion and him, his friend is already having that knowing smirk. Oh yes, D-16 is so screwed.

Yandere!D-16 will idolize someone he loves so deeply. He just believes you're so...so perfect for him. It's like he is blessed by Primus himself every time he's in your presence. He can't explain why his spark beats faster every time you're in his sight, but Primes, help him! He's not even sure he deserves you at that point. Of course, you're both in lower class, but for him, it doesn't make sense at all. He can't do much as just a miner with no cog, but his loyalty, dedication and protection towards you are guaranteed. Good thing he's one of the strongest bots among the other miners; he's willing to be at your service any time of the day.

[scorpioriesling]

TikTok Thirst Traps

･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *

Featuring: Rhysand, Cassian, Azriel, Lucien, Eris, & Tamlin

Warning(s): none

Summary: Nothing much, just the ACOTAR males as TikTok stereotypes / thirst traps.

SR’s Note: Guys I’m soooo sorry I swear I’m working on Invisible String and THTH — I have so much personal life stuff going on too and it’s been hard finding time to write! Anyways, here’s a little sum sum in the meantime for you all. <3

Tags: @mellowmusings @rcarbo1 @lilah-asteria @kitsunetori @velarisdusk (inbox me or comment if you'd like to be added!)

･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *

Rhysand

major businessman / entrepreneur vibes for rhys’ thirst traps

a man in a suit is just… *chef’s kiss*

he has money and he knows it and does not care to show it on social media

his page is definitely a dark colored theme, most of his attire is black, and he comes across super professional

however

he knows what the ladies like

occasionally his car will make an appearance, or what he would deem “risqué” (ahem, the middle inspiration photo)

doesn’t care too much about comments… he actually finds that the women who frequently spam his page are a bit annoying more than anything

regardless, he would never say anything rude to anyone

keeps his pages mostly professional to avoid conflict in the workplace; but lets be honest, everyone in his office is down bad for this man, he’s not getting in any kind of trouble

genuinely couldn’t find just one that was a perfect fit for rhys, but his page comes very close if it were a bit darker themed and more luxurious / CEO-ish? is that a word? more suit content? you get the gist

Cassian

i almost feel like it’s a given that his tik tok thirst traps would be the “gym bro” / hot guy workout videos

a lot of these are simply him working out, not necessarily trying to get girls attention or anything but simply provide content for his fitness account

to take this a step further— when the girlies start commenting on his posts with emojis and such, he gets a little flustered. he wasn’t expecting this… he just lifts, that’s all

but, he can’t complain

his page is chaotic; videos of him lifting, flexing, what he eats to stay in shape, and even some videos of self reflection

it’s the comments like, “let me come to the gym with you!” or “you could lift me instead” etc that he turns into videos of how to get into working out / body building… not realizing the girlies just like to look at him. lol

he would respond to just about every comment with something kind or positive, even if it was sexual / silly in nature he’d find a way to make light of it

best example i could find would be this man

Azriel

i think we already know modern!az is a biker boy. there. i rest my case. that’s all.

i’m kidding

he thrives off the attention from booktok ladies; he doesn’t respond much, but he secretly reads every comment / mention / dm and takes every suggestion seriously when considering new content to create

yes, he films a few with a scream mask on

again, i rest my case

of course he has a darker themed page, lots of slow bass music on his videos and many videos of him riding at night

he’s always in a tight tee to show off his body that he’s spend years honing — and yes, he knows the girls love his arms too

not too much humor online from this guy. no full face reveal either.

however, when he reveals his smile for the first time…

let’s say his followers just about loose their minds

there’s so many tik tok pages like this yall already know what im talking about… here’s an example in case you don’t

Lucien

at first, he didn’t follow trends or do any kind of thirst traps of any kind. he thought those were kind of dumb and mainly used the app to send funny videos to his friends

however

lucien is creative, and his outlet here is music

apparently being a sassy redhead wasn’t enough, so he started filming himself playing his guitar

shirtless… of course.

the jump in followers may have prompted him to continue filming such content… or maybe the types of comments he was getting to boost that ego of his HAHA

anyways, his vibe is more acoustic / beachy / peaceful and light, very beach boy vibes with him but he will dabble in the electric guitar all the same once he gets used to playing it

per mentioned previously, he used to not make many videos, but now that he does, he finds himself being very real on this app and a lot of times recording small snippets of his own songs and talking into the camera

he enjoys the comments that show he is clearly capable of snagging the attention of the ladies; however, he responds to a lot of the ones that pertain to his talent and are interested in more than just his pretty face <3

i like this example best, with a lighter / more beachy and acoustic aesthetic … this may be more accurate

Eris

i’m really hoping you guys understand what i’m going for with this one… eris cooks.

like, very handsome, very demure, very good looking, cooking alone, but also… he knows what he’s doing and likes to play with his food, so to speak.

walk with me here.

he knows that a man with expensive taste already gets the ladies going. but a man with expensive taste AND in the kitchen? sir-

he will show every skill he has. baking, cooking, mixology…

and of course, some implied skills as well

he reads his comments — especially the ones where the girlypops are horny on main. he doesn’t give af; he loves that shit. in fact, keep it coming

sensual music, low lighting, expensive clothes… he’s a man that gets it. he could get it. and he knows that.

i think his videos would be a combo of this page and this page if you can use your imagination

Tamlin

tamlin is a hot ass, gentlemanly, mothafuckin cowboy and i will die on that hill — don’t play with me

while some videos are very pg, very church-boy, very homegrown… there are also the shirtless, sweaty, pickup-truck ones

don’t lie. you know exactly what i’m talking about.

he is a built dude. he works all day in the sun, he’s very caring for his land and the animals that live on it, and when he realized the attention he got from filming himself doing simple things around the ranch…

boy oh boy.

it started with simple things — throwing hay bales, riding horseback, etc…

but then he read his comments. people wanted more. the pretty ladies on the tik tok wanted more.

so he yanked off his shirt and jumped on the trends.

did he particularly like it? no. he didn’t like filming himself walking around his oversized pickup in just his jeans and boots, the sun kissing his skin over the rim of his hat…

but what he did enjoy was the cuties in his DMs and all their sweet messages for him.

he was a countryman at heart, so naturally his page was filled with images of the great outdoors and him in it — though many of his comments went unanswered. he was a bit shy, as social media wasn’t something he liked to use regularly

nonetheless, he did enjoy reading positive feedback after a long hard day of work

his feed would look a lil like this or THIS

ﾟ:* ✧

[lowkeyrobin]

can we get a phoebe spengler dating and/or friendship hcs please im starving out here 🫶🏼🫶🏼

oooo yeah sure!! I apologize if this ends up being kinda short 😔🙏 ; thanks for requesting and I hope you enjoy!!

PHOEBE SPENGLER ; dating hcs

summary ; dating stuff with phoebe

warnings ; language

disclaimers ; I'm not a professional when it comes to autism (because it's like 50/50 canon) so please give me feedback if any of the traits or anything in general is wrong for phoebe and if I should change it!! the sources I used don't seem like they're written by autistic people themselves but I'm putting my trust into these psychologists

word count ; 471

masterlist

she caught your eye with those horrible dad jokes of hers

it was the effort and thought that counted

tried using a science fact to reel you in but you were already head over heels 😭😭

you were just like "can I please take you out to do something fun? just us? please?"

she's like "...sure?" like she hasn't had a crush on you for the past solid 15 minutes from across the room

she talks about it to her mom, and she's all excited for her and she just doesn't understand the hype

baby's first date because trevor lives a double life around callie 💯

callie actually takes pictures 😭 and phoebe is just wearing a casual outfit like?? this isn't a fancy occasion mom

she's literally so scared but doesn't really know how to feel

you find it cute and endearing 💔

once you actually start dating, she's still very nervous around you because she's not trying to drive you away

she's obsessed with you though, you're actually perfect in her eyes and she'll do anything to prove that to you (vice versa as well 🫶)

she just stares at you sometimes and it's the cutest thing ever, like whole ass loses focus on whatever she's doing just to look at you. whether you're just chilling across the room or laughing and talking with podcast, she can't take her eyes off of you

she'll ramble about whatever she's fixated on / her special interest at the most random times, it's adorable

trevor will just see her staring at you while you're busy fixing something and be there like "stop staring" and without loosening her gaze on you, will reply "I can't help it"

he's mad she found actual love before him 😭 /hj

she'll hang on to anything and everything you seem to have an interest in

she seems like the type to make one of those pages long essays about how much she l-words you and mail it to you because she's too scared to give it to you herself

she's genuinley head over heels, there is no honeymoon phase that is just how she is

will proudly ramble about her ghostbuster duties to you whenever she can

loves taking walks with you even if it's just in silence

will 100% show you how everything in the proton packs and traps work

she'll have late night theories and scientific ideas and text you to not forget and just to let you know, even if you're asleep

"y/n I have an idea" "hit me"

you're her biggest fan

you made her a little "I got arrested" pin after she did actually get in trouble with stuff LMAO

she got you a little ghostbuster patch because you didn't want to really join them, but she can't help but wanna make you feel included

you, her, and Podcast are seriously an unbreakable trio

[strqyr]

Also do you ever think about the legal processes of the Academies? Bc i do. All the damn time. "The Academies let students die or get injured all the time and get away with it!" Where??? Did we forget the safety measures put everywhere to prevent that from happening?? Did we miss the fact that there's an entire process where if something DOES go wrong (either during a training mission or even outside of the Academy), those in charge (i.e. Ozpin) have to make sure what happened doesn't happen again (like interviewing the students) otherwise they can get in real trouble and held responsible?? Or the fact that there's no legal waiver prior to joining the Academies, so it's safe to assume you can sue them if something does happen?

Oh wait, these are all easily missable details held in side books or are subtle and easy to pass over while watching the show (like Ozpin lying, saying the students WILL die and that they won't intervene, vs the cameras all around the Emerald Forest and Glynda suggesting they intervene bc of Jaune iirc. Shocking, the liar lied /sar). I guess I can't blame people for missing these things bc most ppl aren't nearly as autistic as I am about this show.

Oh also, like,, when talking about the Academies supposedly being really dangerous and letting students die. If this were a real issue I feel like it would've been addressed by now? Cinder absolutely would've brought it up in v3 (it'd be ooc for her NOT to), and while Hazel's story revolved around Gretchens death, it's not painted as a common issue that's happened to a lot of people (which would've been an interesting plot, if they went that way), just that Gretchen's death was highly unusual and a tragic accident (based on how it was handled). Like. It happens but it's absolutely not common!! And it's surprising it doesn't happen MORE considering the world RWBY takes place in (magical Australia with magical Florida men. Hell of a place. Wdym you have giant desert crabs more dangerous than Grimm and a desert hot enough to turn sweat to steam and wdym Remnant humans are able to just. Casually shrug this shit off?? This deserves its own post it's actually insane).

Just. Gestures vaguely. It's something I think about all the time and it drives me bonkers when people get this stuff wrong. I think it stems from the belief that Ozpin is bad and he made the Academies so the Academies must be cartoonishly corrupt even when it makes no sense, not for the world or the characters involved (seriously, Oz would NEVER allow students to regularly die on his watch, based on how guilty and responsible he felt over Gretchen's death). I just. Aughugghdg gnawing on drywall.

Sorry for rambling about fictional laws in your inbox, it might happen again

tbh i think this is a perfect example how much simple words—no matter how truthful or not—take higher precedence in peoples' minds than anything else, no matter how much proof there is against the very same words. and if that proof also requires you to stop and think about it rather than just having plain words delivered to your eyes or ears, well. . .

it's a lot easier and quicker to directly quote ozpin than it is to pile all the proof that proves otherwise—especially when that proof is hidden in side material, which not everyone has access to in the same capacity as the show itself. if the show had had something like, either ozpin or glynda sending a message to some unnamed hunters to be on the stand-by during the initiation, or even something as simple as on a later date showcasing the cameras used during the initiation also having a taser that can be used against grimm, that'd already make a huge difference.

but when all you've got is "do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path... or you will die." and "you will be monitored and graded through the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene." it's like. well. what can you do lol.

and like it wouldn't make any sense for them to not intervene and just let new students die on their first day like. the world presumably needs hunters and it's not very good practice if you allow those willing to learn and train to become one to die before they even get properly started. like i feel like any headmaster who was losing even just one first-year student every year during initiation would get kicked out pretty quickly. i mean, who would actually accept that? even as a civilian i'd be like, hey, those people want to actually do the pretty important job, why aren't you keeping them alive while at school so they can actually do that, ya know?

it's one thing to accept the fact that hunters die during a job; it's another thing to find it acceptable when they're still in school training, and to treat the latter as a norm is the same as treating the populace of remnant as idiots with no regard to human lives.

but there's definitely bias at play, too. while i am of the mind that the academies—or more like the system they're part of—needs changing ( namely the whole "the combat schools start training kids at age 13" part ), there's definitely some of that "character bad so their every action is bad, too" mentality running around too.

which i'm not too surprised about. i've seen it a lot with people criticizing ironwood's actions like. . . ya can't really say that ironwood having two seats at atlas council is bad while also saying that he was wrong to report everything directly to the rest of vale's council and not just ozpin, just bc it got ozpin into a hot water. like that just doesn't compute, and i feel like the same applies to a lot of discussion around ozpin and the academies, as well.

sure, there are things to criticize about ozpin's methods—like yeah sending scouts first is smart, but those scouts being first-year students who shouldn't be in that area in the first place bc special treatment for secret war reasons and stuff? not that smart, send pros pls—, but that doesn't mean you need to throw the baby away with the bath water.

i hope this makes any sense lmao i feel like i lost the plot multiple times writing this and trying to get back on track 😭

[celorangeine]

hello everywan... here is more info about bennie and yuudai that I need to talk about before I DIE

I've never explained why Bennie got expelled from bullworth.... so to put it simply, Bennie has a massive case of fear of missing out and is a huge people pleaser 😎. half of the things he does is based on that; getting along with the jocks, getting into fights when he really doesn't like fighting, getting into trouble simply cause he was invited to (he does nawt think of the consequences) and that's why he was expelled in the first place. I'm not creative enough to think of what trouble Bennie and his friends at the time were up to (😢) but it was big enough for him alone to get expelled (since he was already known to be a troublemaker) but not the other guys 😎. now Bennie kind of dislikes the jocks and secretly accuses them of doing this in purpose because of how salty he is over the fact that only he gets expelled and not his friends. but then again, the jocks barely talked about Bennie when he got expelled so. was it really that personal???

him being a people pleaser is also the cause of his. loud personality . because if the only thing you show is happiness then what is there to hate him for? erm. there's a lot and Bennie knows but he does not want to think about it because he can't think of any other solution. for the most part it comes from how he grew up in his home in the first place; show any displeasure you get BEAT UP!

this is the lore that you'd probably get from his dialogues or something. also Bennie likes glocks because he likes classics. thank you very much

now for Yuudai.... as I have mentioned before, he hasn't seen any of his other relatives except for his dad, and he isn't even that close to him and they barely talk despite being in the same house because of his dad being a severe workaholic. Yuudai never learned how to make friends and the only ways he knew how to is by either forcing them by death threats (that's how he acquired his old gang) or letting himself be dragged into a friendship... which is what happened with him and the greasers when he got into bullworth. Yuudai didn't mind much because they actually seem like they have things in common with him

Yuudai pretty much hates the fact that his dad had to move to the US, mostly because he hates change and also because now he's unfamiliar with everything....he can't act like he owns the place like how he usually does because no one takes him seriously here . intimidating people - and by relation, having people do stuff for him - is a big part of his ego and now that it's ruined, Yuudai wants nothing more than to go back to his country where everyone's scared of him and no one wants to get close to him 😢 Yuudai doesn't really care if he was perceived badly, never will because he's actually comfortable with that fact. it's just that the problem is, Yuudai doesn't do anything to try and bring his old reputation back now that he's in bullworth. it's out of laziness

he also is shocked by how open the students in Bullworth are... especially the preps. he's really passionate in insulting them it's awesome

[vynnytypesstuff]

Umm hello!! I hope you don't mind me requesting this, I saw your dating hcs for Sun and Macaque and I loved them! May I request some marriage hcs?? Like what would include being married to these mistical monkeys?? Please and thank you! ^^

꒰୨୧﹒Lego Monkie Kid - Marriage Hcs for Sun Wukong and Macaque 

I swear I'm not dead it's just been busy lmao

Ofc I don't mind!! Here you go <33

Warnings: None

Sun Wukong

• Dating him was one thing, but marriage? That's a whooole other ballgame. Definitely has its ups and downs and they are very prominent

• Not going to lie, you’re probably the one who proposes. Wukong is immortal, so the thought of proposing has never really crossed his mind (neither has marriage tbh). He doesn’t see the point in getting married since you two already act “married.” If you want to make it official, though, he’ll give in 

• He doesn't stress over taking you on extravagant dates or giving you expensive gifts when you're dating, and it's the same attitude when married. Hell, your wedding only consisted of family and a few close friends and there wasn't much planning involved 

• There’s not much discussion on the topic of moving in together, it kind of just happens on its own? When you were dating you’d always show up at each other’s homes (often unannounced on Wukong’s end) so there’s not really much to talk about since you're both already kind of used to staying in the same place together

• I hope you know how to cook because he sure can't! He travels a lot and ends up snacking on peaches and peach chips so he hasn't tried to learn. The most he can do in regards to "cooking" is brew you a cup of tea. Don't worry about preferences, at this point he'll eat anything as long as it tastes good.

• This man leaves his stuff all around the house. There's probably an extra room somewhere dedicated to some of the stuff he's hoarded over the years. Unless you want to spend days cleaning everything, make sure he picks up after himself

• One word. Commitment. We all know that Wukong can have some trouble when it comes to commitment Don't be surprised by his tendencies to run off on adventures while notifying you at the last second. You're going to need to call him out on his behavior because he most likely isn't aware that he may be hurting you 

• After you both start to get settled in the marriage, there are lots of traveling together, whether it be for business, adventures, or vacation. You've probably seen more little corners of the world now than before you were married

• Watching the sunrise together. I know, cheesy, but honestly, a relationship with Wukong is going to be a little cheesy sometimes. He loves watching the sunrise because it makes him feel at peace and boosts his mood (especially since the view from his home is incredible) and he wants to share that with you

• Personally, I think Wukong wouldn't mind trying to start a family, though he wouldn't be in any rush to do so. Don't get me wrong, he likes the thought of it, but even he's aware of how much knowledge he lacks when it comes to familial relationships

Liu'er Mihou/Macaque

• His anxiety really said [insert upwards trend chart emoji here]. He didn't think he'd ever get married to anyone (not that he isn't over the moon about it). He's both excited and anxious

• Like Wukong, Macaque prefers a smaller wedding with a shorter guest list, though he takes wedding planning a bit more seriously. Part of the reason for this is that he likes things organized. The other part is that he wants your wedding to be as memorable for both of you as possible

• Congrats, you've domesticated Macaque /hj. Seriously though, he finds himself spending more time at home with you. When he leaves the house, it's typically to do something absolutely necessary (ex. when the Lady Bone Demon needs him for something). He sees both home and you as an escape from his troubles

• There's this brief period after you get married when he won't stop doing nice things for you (making/buying you gifts, doing tasks for you, etc.). Of course, it's because he loves you, but it's also because part of him thinks that the marriage is too good to be true and that he needs to prove that he's worthy enough for it

• Splitting chores because he doesn't think it's fair for one person to take all the workload, nor does he see a point in doing so. You'll take on the bigger chores (such as cleaning out the house) together

• Has a huge rush of pride when he sees you wearing the ring on your finger. Sometimes his eyes will linger on it, though he'll immediately avert his gaze if you notice

• You thought he couldn't get any more protective when you started dating, but that was only scratching the surface of it. It's still not too overbearing but it's on thin ice. At this point, you've probably become best friends with the shadow clones he sends to look after you when he's gone

• Speaking of shadows, he teleports around the house a lot. For example, you'll be doing a mundane chore (let's say the dishes) and he'll just jump down from the ceiling out of nowhere

• There's this sort of unspoken rule between the two of you where neither of you can go to bed upset/angry at the other. What I mean by that is if there's an argument, you can't leave it unresolved. It helps encourage communication between you two

• Ngl,,, I think Macaque is a family man at heart. Is it something he's going to admit on his own? That's debatable. He thinks that if he ever has kids he'll end up scaring or hurting them. He'll open up to you about the idea eventually, he just needs time

[self-indulgent-paw-patrol]

Ask game for Chase?

The pupper ever!! Also two other people asked for Chase while I was already working on it XD I'm sorry it's taking me literally days to get them all done, I'm having trouble to think properly on what to say for some stuff in these

My first impression - I'm not tanking this. His car is blue and white, he's a cop and HIS NAME IS CHASE. HMMMM WHERE HAVE I SEEN THIS BEFORE, OH I WONDER--

My impression now - He's precious. No, really. A+ for effort in everything he does but he should learn to relax a little more, just a liiiiiiiittle more

Favorite thing about that character - He's always willing to try new things out of his comfort zone and he always gives it his best, plus his loyalty levels are off the charts

Least favorite thing - He's too much of a people pleaser Istg-- Chase, sweetheart, you're supposed to be a figure of authority XD And this will sound like a dumb thing to dislike but I dislike the fact he's a German Shepherd. I think it's too obvious a breed for police dogs and he doesn't LOOK like one at all for me. When I first saw him without his gear, I was like "Wait is he a Belgian Malinois??? Omg please yes that would be cool to not have a German Shepherd as a Police Dog for ONCE" but yeah my dreams were crushed quickly on my first Google Search on him

Favorite line/scene - It's not specifically the line, but mostly the scene: Have you EVER seen Chase refuse a job or go against Ryder???

I know he ended up changing his mind after that talk with Ryder, but IN THIS MOMENT, he stood his ground and said NO. It's even in his body language: His ears are slightly back, his expression is serious like "don't even try arguing with me on this", his tail isn't relaxed, his paw stomping on the floor to make his point. Notice his frown even deepens as the elevator door closes just before it goes down. This is SO IMPORTANT to me you have no idea, especially considering how much of a people pleaser Chase is and how he holds Ryder as the most important person in his life. We know Chase would do anything for Ryder. But at this exact moment? He was decided to NOT do something for Ryder. This is such a powerful, yet overlooked and underrated scene, as well as character development. It encapsulates perfectly how there's so much more to Chase than any of us knew so far.

Favorite interaction that character has with another - Mighty Movie Skase moment #2 (I think? I counted at least 4 big moments) when Chase goes to check on Skye when she was sulking on the back of the Aircraft Carrier. Her problems there are totally out of his league, he literally cannot relate to anything she's currently going or went through in the past- still he tries to show support the only way he can at the moment, by being there for her, by listening to her. He's a keeper, Skye, go for it XD

A character that I wish that character would interact with more - Marshall and Zuma. They used to play a lot before, but now...? I'm still at the 8th season and I'm seriously missing those fun and slice of life moments

Another character from another fandom that reminds me of that character - Leonardo, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, specifically 2012 series

A headcanon about that character - I think Chase was one of those kind of puppies who just didn't know when to fucking STOP. 24/7 playful baby. Also a natural explorer, always sniffing everything, licking everything, maybe biting, touching, scratching, growling, barking at anything new for a while. Ever curious, always being the puppy to go ahead of the others, "exploring the waters to open the way and make sure it's safe for the others to come after him". On a second note, I've seen one too many people returning adopted puppies for this reason here where I live, because "they're a handful and I wasn't expecting this" 🤦🏽‍♀️

A song that reminds of that character - "Nothing Can Stop Me Now"

An unpopular opinion about that character - Idk why all the hate, even if you're ACAB, it's not like Chase even does a cop job at all XD Have you seen him arresting someone outside from movie verse? If anything, you'd WANT your cops to be like him LMAO

Favorite picture - Y'know how in the first movie Chase was in absolute awe when he saw his new car for the very first time? YEAH, like, he KNOWS Ryder designs and gets them crazy cool stuff, and it doesn't stop him from getting UTTERLY AMAZED every time. Tbh I had the same reaction as them all when I saw that sick af Mustang-looking police cruiser like HOLY SHIT YOU GET THE COOLEST TOYS-- AND YOU GET TO CATAPULT THEM DOWN THE HOT WHEELS RAMP AT TOP SPEED TOO??? Win for life.

[eggwhisper]

Lanolin The Sheep

Well since the new issue dropped I decided "hey why not throw gasoline onto an open flame?" so this is my totally unwanted take on Lanolin, her characterization, and how I think issue 63 and beyond could've been fixed by swapping two characters roles around so uh-- Yeah! (Also light spoilers for the newest issue/issue 69 but only the Lanolin portion/the stuff you've probably already seen/read.) tbh, this is kind of a fix-it/wishful thinking/thoughts I hope the writers have in mind in the future for issues going forward as steering Lanolin back to being a "likeable (but bossy)" character is going to be difficult. And is also so I can get my own thoughts out of my head.

Anyway here goes (sorry if I don't articulate my points succinctly in advance btw) I think Whisper shouldn't have been the one to see "Duo" kick Silver but Tangle. Like swap Tangle and Whisper in the story kind of- (trust me I'm going somewhere with this) and here's my reasoning.

Tangle doesn't wear a mask that records what she sees unlike Whisper. So if it was Tangle who saw Silver get kicked she wouldn't be able to jump right to "It's Mimic" or at least she wouldn't have any reason to believe it was Mimic (even at the "eyes changing color" topic. Albeit this should be used to make her suspicious which leads to them spying on Duo.)

Now I think it should've been Tangle and Silver spying on Duo rather then Whisper and Silver for two reasons: First- Tangle's been shown to be actually really bad at stealth. (Ms. Sneak Sneak song, anyone?) So it makes sense that Lanolin would know they were spying on the cat the whole day. Secondly- It doesn't make Whisper look like she's bad at stealth when she's the literal SNIPER. (Like seriously- half the job of sniping is hiding! It doesn't make that much sense that she'd be bad at it and I wholly blame Silver for getting them caught.)

Of course they get caught (Tangle and Silver) by Lanolin and now it's here I'd like to veer a bit more into her characterization and how she handles her interactions with the cast (Specifically Tangle). Which is with a level of reserve/mild dislike in the form of Tangle. Let's not kid ourselves here Tangle and Lanolin don't get along as much as we (and Tangle herself) would like too. Tangle's bouncy and energetic, Lanolin's a no-nonsense spoilsport so it would make sense if she doesn't believe Tangle or heck even dismisses her in regards to Duo after the incident earlier with Silver. (As this would be an actual "he said, she said" situation unlike in canon where the mask that records is right there- seriously if it doesn't come up in canon or is otherwise properly addressed in the story I'm gonna be really disappointed.)

Anyway Lanolin doesn't like Tangle, that's the baseline we're going with here. (Or at the most generous reading Lanolin finds Tangle to be "taxing".) Point is the two aren't nearly as good of friends and Lanolin's dedication the job would be more substantial here as nobody by this point has any reason to suspect Duo is Mimic.

So cue the argument, Whisper shows up/comes to defend Tangle when Lanolin inevitably tries to lecture/chastise her and Silver claiming the lemur would have no reason to be suspicious without good cause. The argument continues and BOOM! Tangle drops the tidbit that Silver said that Duo's eyes changed color and now Whisper's suspicious. Leading Whisper to try and shove past Lanolin, now also a bit more paranoid. Cue the whole "act like soldiers not children" line with Lanolin grabbing Whisper first and the scuffle ensues with Duo rushing off and Silver "hurting" him when nobody's focused on them.

Now why do I feel like it should be set-up like this instead of how it was in canon? Well obviously because in canon Whisper should've also been punished like Silver. Possibly just as severely but isn't because again- plot. (Like c'mon, Whisper technically assaults a commanding officer, she should have gotten in some trouble regardless of context.) But with how this is set-up now Lanolin instigated the fight by grabbing Whisper so punishing the wolf for the fight is out of the question and Tangle would like in canon- rush to Whisper's side once she was downed, not fighting at all meaning beyond stalking their new recruit Tangle didn't do anything worthy of getting "kicked out" for.

Meaning Silver getting kicked out still happens (hey, got to find some way to make it end the same way it did, right?) But now Tangle and Lanolin have more reason to be antagonistic towards one another. Leading to the most recent issue where Tangle and Lanolin are dealing with Sonic and co. after the boards went haywire. (Like I said super minor 69 spoiler.)

Ergo I think Lanolin's character arc should've be more focused on her actually viewing her friends as well- friends. And I feel like exploring the relationship she has with Tangle is probably the best way to go about it because of how they've interacted so far. (Or use the lemur who more then likely would forgive her in ten seconds to get the sheep a bit more on the others wavelength.)

That's just my thoughts on the whole debacle concerning Lanolin and I really do hope the writers figure out a way to make Lanolin enjoyable to read again cause right now she just comes off a little mean-spirited with little reasoning for her actions beyond "strung-up military type" (Which is a great trope btw and it can be written extremely well). I guess I really just hope they nail down the blocks making up her character in a satisfying way.

Anyway this all just sorta popped into my head after reading issue 69 and glancing in Twitter's general direction for five seconds I just hope this riders arc ends up being really good because Eggman's drip is (As Starline would put it) Immaculate.

[eternalwritess]

jjk matchup exchange with @tigreblvnc

i match you with... 𝓢𝓾𝓰𝓾𝓻𝓾 𝓖𝓮𝓽𝓸 ██ 20% _ ████ 60% _ █████ 80% _ ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ 100% ᴄᴏᴍᴘʟᴇᴛᴇ!

➠ I have no doubt in my mind that you both met at Jujutsu Tech High school (or whatever its called i such at remembering this stuff-). Of course he most likely asked why you were here and regardless of what you told him he likely didn't show much of any emotion only saying that he was here to protect the weak. Something that Satoru overheard and laughed about behind his back.

➠ You thought that it was a noble cause though and congratulated him on it. He liked you since then but never really thought much of it. He thought that you were too loud, but he never really hated you. More that he didn't care about being around you or getting to know you.

➠ You likely became Satoru's friend pretty quickly which meant that you and Suguru would spend more time together seeing how those two get along. You and Satoru would constantly fight and bicker and he began liking how persuasive you could be and how you managed to even get Satoru to shut up at times when he got too frustrated to argue with you.

➠ He would be dragged along with you and Satoru whenever you decided to mess around with Yaga at the time and be forced to get you both out of whatever predicament that you put yourselves in, constantly looking after you two, however he never minded it. He liked being dragged along and watching you both get in trouble for what you did, only to do the same thing again.

➠ It was through this routine that the two of you became closer and closer. Soon enough you began annoying and teasing him, something that he took a challenge on. If you poked him he'd poke you right back. Throw paper balls at him during school and during training you'd have about 500 flyheads chasing you around the school. He would bother you back and found that it was fun hanging out with you.

➠ If you'd ask him a tricky question he would get confused before answering it. Ask him a hard one and he would go for whatever he thought was the noblest answer. But after you were done he'd ask the most random questions ever to confuse you right back without hesitation.

➠ He liked everything about you, the way that you made him smile and the way that you lit up his day. He liked everything about you and everything that you did. Even when the things that you were doing were getting you in trouble with others he still liked you. Eventually that like began to grow and grow until he found himself having a full on crush on you.

➠ He didn't even want to admit it to himself at first because he thought that it was childish of him. Not to mention that he didn't want to ruin what you already had, and you both were already good friends. If he was to confess what would happen then? He didn't even know if you'd take him seriously.

➠ So that's why Satoru did it for him. Against Suguru's wishes of course. Apparently 'Suguru was just being so obvious with his like of you. Staring at you from across the class, insisting on sitting next to you, going on any and all missions with you and making love-dovey eyes towards your way' (all of this were Satoru's words by the way) that he thought that you knew that he liked you.

➠ When he saw that you didn't know he laughed it off and bolted it out the door shouting that he was never here and that you heard nothing. A few minutes later you saw Suguru grabbing Satoru by the ear and yelling at him. The moment that he looked at you though his face turned red and he grabbed Satoru (who was shouting for you to help him) and walked off.

➠ A few hours later he said that you didn't have to except his feelings and that he was terribly sorry that Satoru was being such an idiot back then. He was really prepared to get rejected but when you didn't he was so surprised. Just ask Satoru, he caught the whole thing on camera.

ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ♡

➠ One thing that he doesn't mind about you at all is your anger issues, he'll sit through them with no complaints, no matter how long they last. He's a patient man, although if he senses that they're getting a bit out of hand he'll make you talk about whats going on with him as he doesn't fancy seeing you so mad all of the time

➠ Your first date was a wreck, the whole gang was following you practically everywhere (courtesy of Shoko and Satoru). He got so annoyed at them that he ended up releasing a curse just to deal with them so that they would run away and take the hint. (Satoru could've defeated it easily but decided to take the hint).

➠ I think that you two would garden together, and if not that then at least take walks around the campus and just look at the nature there and sometimes even take care of it yourselves. He just loves seeing you happy. Sometimes he'll even try to get water on you if you water the plants together.

➠ He would take you out to eat very often, not minding where you went and would also get you little snacks when he came back from his missions telling you that he wants you to try them and tell him what you think so he can get you some more next time if you like him.

➠ Satoru would tease you both nonstop whenever you did something remotely couply. He would also gag if you ever kissed in front of him (it doesn't even have to be on the lips, just like on the forehead or cheek is enough for him). But he is happy for you both.

➠ Since you're both Satoru's friends he shoveled talked both of you- at the same time... for a presentation... that was about curses. He went on and on and on and halfway through Yaga just stopped him and told him that he's getting an F on the assignment.

➠ I forgot to mention that he would try and take you on his missions sometimes, like if it was during a break and he was going out of town he'd see if you were open to go with him and would get you both the best seats on the plane and the best hotels.

➠ Every now and then he would make an out of pocket joke of a serious situation to make you laugh cause hearing you laugh is one of the bests things for him in general as it makes him feel nice.

➠ He sometimes feels like he's too different for you and that one day you'll decide that he's too boring for you and just leave him which is one of the things that he's most scared and terrified of.

➠ When the 'Hidden Inventory' arc happened he didn't talk to you for days on end, didn't even send you a text to confirm that he was okay and when you did see him you would get worried and try to ask him what was wrong and if he was eating well but he would always avoid the question so you decided to put it off.

➠ He never told you the full extent about what happened to Riko, not really. All you ever got from him was that the girl they were meant to be protecting died. That's all you ever got from Satoru too as he was constantly on missions so you never really understood.

➠ You were traveling on a mission when you were told to come back to the school. You had just finished it anyways so you obliged, it wasn't Yaga who told you what had happened but Satoru, he said that he even confronted Suguru and that it was best that you forget about him and who he was.

➠ Of course you pushed him for answers but he never gave any, he just walked away leaving you in almost complete denial. This didn't sound like him, he became a sorcerer to protect the weak, not to kill them. Yaga allowed you access to the file on what had happened and you saw first hand that it was true.

➠ His plan probably didn't make sense to you. You knew what he was going for, to end all curses but in the long run the whole thing was pointless. You killed curses to protect people, you don't kill people to kill curses. You wanted to tell him that...

will you?

hope you like my moodboard at the end! also hoped you enjoyed this!

[raygirlramblings]

So I'm trying to make a Captain Laserhawk joke (turned kinda serious?) AU where the characters lean more into their game counterparts in looks, personalities, and even stories (except for Dolph because he doesn't have a game counterpart to speak of, so he's the guy who literally has no real idea on what's goin on x11) (and I guess Bullfrog's left to be untouched because he's fine) while the comedy's also cranked up a lot more, and I've already made a post explaining the main cast, but upon doing my research on how to understand the source source material more through people's posts, I stumbled upon your "Orphans of Eden" AU and discovered certain parallels between it and my AU:

Jade and Pey'j find Dolph unconscious in the past and decide to fix him up and treat him like family. This leads to Dolph and Jade forming a nice sibling bond (and also Pey'j is much more like a caring, sane uncle in both AUs)

Rayman works for the good guys as a double agent of sorts and doesn't get guns out of nowhere? •o• (although I guess the main difference is that in your AU he actually gets to do stuff while in my AU he's just some mostly pacifist guy who doesn't want to totally ruin his reputation but he still tags along because Bullfrog gave him some food so now he trusts the gang now even though he's more conflicted with their beliefs lol)

Hmm, what else, what else, uhh... I guess Alex didn't show up before Jade and Pey'j found Dolph, so that's a bonus..! (Though, in my AU, Dolph still went through whatever happened in episode 1 of the series but it's like... a different guy we don't know of yet while Alex is working in this organization called "S.P.I.R.I.T." as an agent mentoring rookie agents and stuff because of his backstory in "The Crew")

And I think that's about it. I really like the concept of your AU and I hope that mine's about on par with yours :D

Have a nice day! ^v^

Nice! it's always fun to see people come up with alternate universe concepts ^-^ It's nice to imagine a more playful version of CLH. It feels a little 'Super Smash bros'-y, which fits Rayman's personality at the very least and allows characters like Jade and Alex to be a bit more relaxed. If anything it's an opportunity to add more game elements from different Ubisoft properties. How about a nod to Valiant Hearts, Tonic Trouble or Child of Light?

I like how Alex and Bullfrog team up too. That's a unique idea. It would be interesting to see how their very different perspectives on life affect how they interact, what their moral standings are and how those contrast one another.

I will say I found it really distracting how the characters were called 'Farts' over and over. I'm sure it's a reference to something but it made it really hard to take the plotlines of the characters seriously, and any serious aspects of their backstories (being used as a tool of Eden, getting into fights, death of families and friends) were undermined by its inclusion.

I'm glad you like Orphans of Eden! I really need to draw more stuff for it. I wanted to draw some of the orphan hybrids Jade, Pey'j and Dolph are caring for XD

[talentpiper11]

Okay so: what follows is a little ficlet drabble I wrote to respond to/ expand on @mapleapplepiee’s lovely Pie and Prince AU. It was made and posted with her permission, but is not necessarily canon to that au, just an idea taking place in the same space of thoughts. It’s seriously necessary to read her stuff to understand what I’ve got going here, but it’s great stuff and also not super long, so just go do it!

Also, please be aware that this isn’t beta’d— it isn’t even properly proofread, since it was just a fun little exercise for me rather than a full planned fic.

That said, I hope you enjoy!

Pie and Prince Continuation

The fact that Bitty has mistaken Jack for a guard actually comes in handy, for now. Once Jack pulls his foot out of his mouth— possibly he insinuated that baked goods have no place in the diet of anyone seeking to be any kind of athlete, and when Jack compliments his muffin-pan-bludgeoning, Bitty forces him to agree that the muffins themselves didn’t exactly slow him down, now did they, hun?

Jack relents, and at the price of being expected to try one baked good for every time he makes Bitty do this, he’s able to convince Bitty to join him at the castle’s sparring grounds under the promise that he won’t come to any harm.

Being the prince, he’s able to arrange for private training time, but lies and says it’s just the time the guards usually eat lunch— which it technically is, it’s just that he’s not a guard and wouldn’t usually be expected to eat with them, or at this time. The fact that he’s apparently skipping lunch, though, makes Bitty even more determined to get a little bit of pastry into him each time; he even starts mixing in things like quiches to count as both a baked good and a sensible guard’s meal.

When they meet for the first time, Jack decides to show Bitty a sort of sparring pattern that the guards (and he, because he was trained by the best of the guards), use to practice all the relevant moves for a sword fight in one flowing pattern. They start out flowing through the motions of it side by side, like a sword-based tai chi, but as Bitty gets faster and better, Jack convinces him to do it in a proper sparring session.

Now Bitty had some sort of training growing up which means he’s skilled at this sort of thing in general (jousting or fencing or something? The kind of thing that you would see on display at a gathering, not used on a battlefield) so he’s picked up the motions without much trouble, but actually facing Jack while his (wooden, practice) sword swings at him? It’s terrible. And Jack’s moving at an almost ridiculously slow clip, not the kind of speed he’d displayed in the bakery, eons behind the actual pace of battle. But Bitty only sees his trauma, and collapses into the dust before Jack can even get close.

They work through it— slow and halting— over weeks, fitting in time between Bitty’s bakery work and Jack's real princely obligations. As they do, they start to open up to each other, just a bit, just enough to see the light peeking through each other’s facade.

They’re eventually able to work up to crossing blades, and then from there they slowly increase the speed until they’re spinning around the fenced-in practice arena, complex footwork keeping time with the rhythmic hammering of their blades. It’s truly something like a dance— Jack swings his sword with enough speed, now, that it’d certainly hurt if it made contact, but Bitty’s (wooden) blade is already there to meet and redirect it.

They dodge and parry and weave and spin through the whole perimeter of the yard, their feet throwing up puffs of dust, breathing hard but focused entirely on the pattern of each other’s movements. When they come to the end of the movements, they’re standing chest to chest, crossed swords trapped and immovable between them as they heave from exertion.

That’s when cheering erupts from the edge of the practice ring. It’s the assembled members of the SMH! (The Samwell Majesty’s Honorguard, obv). They, and their frogs, ahem, sorry, their squires, have been watching from the lunch hall for months now, and finally made themselves known after that impressive and not at all sexually charged display. They applaud their well-toned asses off, then introduce themselves. Bitty is intimidated for a bit before he recognizes some of them as bakery customers, and then he’s in Work Mode.

He leaves that day with a collection of orders for baked goods, and a sinking feeling that he’s started to fall for this guard— who is almost certainly straight, and would definitely stop training with him if he let it get out that he’s got a crush. So he smothers that crush as hard as he possibly can.

Just in time for the annual dignitaries ball! Or, well, the several-month lead-up to the ball. Bitty is slammed with food orders as the delegations from various countries come into the city, and Jack is slammed with actual Prince work, so neither of them notices at first that they’ve gone longer and longer between practices— then they both notice at once, and assume instantly that the other has detected their budding romantic feelings and is trying to let them down easy.

In a moment of bravery, though, Jack arranges for an invitation to be sent to Bitty that he might attend the culminating event of the visitations, the masquerade ball itself. Bitty— caught off guard— agrees to attend, and the squire who’d come around to announce his invitation leaves before he can change his mind, just after depositing a beautifully inscribed ticket in his hands.

Bitty’s friends leap at the chance to dress him up for the ball, helping him out as much as possible to be presentable, and in the end, he looks ravishing— and very different from his usual garb. He feels a bit gaudy and strange, but his friends swear up and down that he looks perfect, so off he goes.

At the ball, everyone dances with everyone else. The aim, in theory, is to create a sense of equality— the masks mean that anyone could be anyone else, and so you must always treat your partner with respect, because they could be the king or a visiting dignitary as easily as they could be a random lady in waiting or, say, a baker. (In practice, the delegations almost exclusively wear the colors of their nation’s livery, so you can make an educated guess based on your partner’s age, colors, and dancing skill— but a baker wouldn’t be trained to make those calculations.)

When he gets onto the dance floor, Bitty gets passed from person to person, as is the tradition of the ball. He dances with a woman old enough to be his grandmother, a boy who couldn’t be older than him, a middle-aged man, a lovely lady just his height, the list goes on and on and on. Finally, he’s passed into the arms of a man in a stunning dark blue getup, with gold accents at the buttons, the shoulders, and around his mask. They make a dapper pair, with Bitty in scarlet.

Neither recognize the other at first. Jack isn’t sure what country this small blond belongs to, and the guy is certainly not a good enough dancer to be properly-trained royalty, anyway. Bitty is so focused on not tripping over his own feet that he’s not even trying to parse each new partner— though the quick glance he spares for this one tells him he’s definitely his type.

They speak in quiet voices, and Bitty makes a joke at his own expense that pulls a laugh out of Jack, and suddenly they’re both a bit more relaxed in the moment. Then Bitty puts his foot into a puddle of someone’s spilled drink, and he slips to the side. He recovers quickly, his hand in Jack’s firm one giving him plenty of purchase to pull upright, but suddenly they’ve slipped out of the rhythm of the circling dancers.

Bitty, frantic and unsure and embarrassed, falls back on what he’s been practicing for months, and takes the first measured step-step-turn of the sword dance. To his shock, his partner mirrors the movement, stepping in time and sliding backward as he turns so that they’re kept in sync.

After that, they just fall into the dance together. It’s a little different, doing the footwork without the swords, but they hold tight to each other and glide across the dance floor adroitly.

Everyone who’s anyone in the room, save Bitty, has already figured out that the dashing gentleman in blue is the nation’s prince, and nobody who’s anyone has any idea who this shorter man in red is, but they all move to leave room for the pair to spin across the floor in tandem. At the close of the song, the pair are brought chest to chest with each other— and then just as quickly, they’re separated. It’s time to switch partners, after all.

Bitty’s next partner can’t believe their luck, to get the first chance at the gossip scoop, and immediately starts asking Bitty where he’s from, where that dance is from, how does the prince know that dance?

The prince?

Bitty extricates himself from the dance floor after that dance. He’s tired, and he certainly must’ve heard wrong. The prince? No, surely not.

He looks towards the man, still at the center of the whirling maelstrom of dancing, standing out in both grace and color— those are, of course, the colors of the country that they’re in, and so… huh. The prince.

Bitty, having gotten entirely too close to two handsome and ridiculously unattainable gentlemen with blue eyes and dark hair, runs. He leaves the party entirely, making his way into the dark garden outside the ballroom. Of course, some partygoers have filtered out here, but really the only inhabitants of the space are the guards, posted two-by-two at each entrance. He finds himself on a bench, as far away from the glittering colors of the ballroom as he can get without leaving the grounds entirely.

He’s wasting an irreplaceable opportunity to network for his bakery, he tells himself. He should go back in. He’ll never get to be on the inside of a party like this again, either. He really, really should go back in. Come on, Bitty. Get up. Go.

He doesn’t move.

Some interminable time later, he feels someone sit down next to him, and pulls his face from his hands.

It’s Shitty, from the bakery event. From *Jack*. Like Bitty didn’t already feel miserable enough, here’s a guard from Jacks own team, closer to Jack than he’ll ever get to be, to rub his face in it.

But of course, Shitty doesn’t do that. He sits there, not touching Bitty, not even saying anything, but aiming an understanding and open expression at him. An invitation.

“I…” Bitty starts. His voice breaks a little, so he takes another go at it. “Have you ever…” He trails off again.

Okay, deep breath. He pulls off his mask, turning it over in his hands to look at the glittering garnet-red decorations as they catch the light. When he speaks, he’s talking towards the mask more than Shitty.

“There’s… something that I want,” he begins, deciding to keep it vague. “Something that would make me so happy, but I know I can’t actually have it. And I’m worried that if I keep wanting it, it’s going to ruin things that are already good where they are, you know?”

Shitty fixes him with a searching gaze, and Bitty flushes, feeling exposed, almost wishing he kept the mask on so that Shitty’s eyes couldn’t pierce all the way to the core of him.

“Bitty, you wonderful angel sent from above to bless this kingdom with pastry, thank you for telling me all that.”

Bitty didn’t think he’d told all that much, but he got the sense that now was not the time to interrupt, so he smothered his protest.

Sure enough, Shitty continued, “If you want the advice of this guard, all I can say is: if things are really that good, I don’t think you can ruin them so easily. You just gotta ask for what you want, and if the answer’s no, that doesn’t mean that every other nice thing in life has to go that way, too, yeah? And hey. I think there’s always a chance it’s a yes, you know?”

Bitty flushed further, and busied his hands fixing his mask back over his face, tugging the ribbons back into place to hold it on. After a long moment (and once he was safely hidden behind gaudy scarlet sparkles) he looked up at Shitty.

“Thanks,” he said, voice small in the expansive courtyard. “You know, you’re really good at this?”

Shitty laughed. “So I’ve been told. If guarding ever doesn’t pan out, I suppose I have a back-up profession being a supportive bench friend, huh?”

Bitty laughed at that, and the tension that had blanketed the area moved along like leaves in an autumn breeze.

Shitty stood and brushed invisible dust from his breastplate— clearly more of a habitual gesture than a necessary one.

“Look, man, I should get back to work now, but are you good?”

“I’m good, Shitty. Thanks.”

“Anytime, you incredible pie wizard, any time.”

Bitty took a few more moments on the bench to collect himself, but talking about his predicament with Shitty seemed to have shaken something loose in him, and now he was restless. If Shitty was here, surely the rest of his guard squad was as well— surely Bitty could find Jack, and maybe by then he’d know what to say.

He abandoned the bench and started walking back towards the balcony that looked over the garden, where the doors had been thrown open to allow the sounds of music and revelry to spill into the night.

When he came within sight of the balcony, though, he came to such an abrupt stop that he almost faceplanted on the flagstones. There, standing at the railing and looking out into the garden, was the prince. It was hard to tell with the mask, but Bitty was almost certain that he was looking right at him. Oh lord.

Before his brain could catch up with the situation, his legs had carried him behind the nearest hedge. The garden wasn’t quite a maze, but the paths that wound through it had clearly been designed to obscure the perspective of those walking along them— each one curved and planted such that you felt alone even when you knew, intellectually, that you couldn’t be far from the nearest couple taking quiet advantage of the evening’s shadows amidst the foliage.

Bitty wasted little time contemplating the garden’s clever architecture, though, instead devoting his attention to weaving deeper into the twisting paths— further from that balcony, and the prince’s stare. Two turns into his escape, he glanced behind him and was surprised to see the prince was following; when he saw Bitty had spotted him, he called out, “Wait!”

Was that a royal command? Was running away from this situation now technically a little treasonous? Bitty wasn’t sure, but he also wasn’t sticking around to find out. He increased his pace, grateful for the well-tended pathways under his feet as he took each turn faster than was strictly advisable. His heart was hammering in his chest, but he couldn’t lie to himself that it was from exertion— his workouts with Jack had done many things for him, but among them was certainly an increase in fitness. Even in his ballroom attire, Bitty’s breaths came smooth and even.

The footsteps behind him faded to silence, and Bitty heaved a sigh of relief even as he slowed his gait to a trot, then a walk. He took a moment to get himself in order: physically, to straighten his disheveled jacket, and mentally, to rearrange his thoughts. He still had to find Jack, and then—

Bitty turned the next corner and found himself facing the prince.

Of course the man who lived in the palace would know these gardens better than a random visitor. Of course. And now he was cornered— even if he turned back now, he’d still be in the prince’s territory. But just because there was no chance of escape didn’t mean he wasn’t tensing his leg muscles to give it an honest try.

Just before he spun off back into the darkness, though, the prince spoke up. Or, well, it was hardly speaking up, the man’s voice was hardly louder than a whisper, but it was enough to carry clearly across the narrow distance that separated them.

“…Bitty?”

Bitty froze. What? How did the prince know— why was he— why had he— what? Bitty’s thoughts tumbled over each other in a roiling mess. At a loss for what else to do, he cautiously replied, “… yes?”

A beat passed, and then he hastily tacked on a “Your highness.”

The prince, bizarrely, seemed taken aback by the formal address. Bitty watched as he schooled his expression— the parts of it visible beneath the mask, at least— into something neutral, though almost… sad?

“Are you angry with me, Bitty?”

I’m sorry, what? “I’m sorry, what? Your highness.”

There, again, the prince flinched. “No, no, it is I who should be sorry. I didn’t mean to mislead you, I just… I’m sorry, I’m doing all of this wrong.”

And then, before Bitty could muster any sort of response to that, the prince reached up and untied his deep sapphire mask, the ribbons trailing away as he pulled the elegant thing from his face.

Bitty came face to face with Jack, and nothing in the world made sense. He felt, distantly, that he ought to reply to this revelation in some way, but he couldn’t seem to find where he’d misplaced every word he’d ever learned. Instead, he stayed frozen to the spot, mouth agape like some kind of unfortunate fish, staring at the utterly un-processable sight before him.

Jack clearly took his silence (and probably his expression) as a negative sign, and he started to talk again. Bitty struggled valiantly to focus on the words as they spilled from Jack’s— the prince’s— Prince Jack’s mouth.

“Look, I know I should have told you before, and I’m sorry. It’s just— nobody ever looks at me and just sees ‘Jack’, you know? So when you didn’t treat me like I was something special… it was just nice to be a person for once, not a title. But I know I shouldn’t have lied, and I understand if you’re angry with me now. I’d get it if you didn’t want to see me again, and… and I promise to respect that, if that’s what you want. Just, please, Bitty, talk to me.”

Bitty held his hand up, cutting him off, heedless of the fact that he was being distinctly rude to the prince of his kingdom. He just needed a minute to process, okay? A minute, and perhaps a seat. Yes, this would be much easier to think through sitting, wouldn’t it? Bitty glanced around, and then, for lack of better options, sat squarely on the stone path. Jack reached for him as he did (trying to catch him?) and ended up on his knees before Bitty. With both of them on the ground, they were almost at eye level with each other. Bitty pulled his mask aside, much as Jack had, and contemplated him.

Jack sat there, eyes downcast, as Bitty’s gaze skated across his face, his elegant costume, his sapphire-studded mask. When he looked back to Jack’s face, he was surprised to see him restraining a cringe; it looked like he expected to be hit, and was preparing to take it with dignity. Dignity befitting a prince, which Jack apparently was. All at once, Bitty realized that it had been far too long since he had spoken, and that Jack— prince or not, this was still Bitty’s Jack— was bracing for the worst.

“I’m not angry,” he started, finally finding words in the revelation that Jack needed to hear them. “I’m just a little confused, okay? I just… this whole time?”

Jack mutely nodded. Duh.

“And Shitty was…”

“Sworn to secrecy. I made him promise not to tell you before I was ready. He didn’t have a choice.”

Bitty waved his hand dismissively though the air— he wasn’t mad at Shitty, either, and didn’t need the excuses right now. “And the training? The sword dance?”

“Taught to me by the head of the guards— that much was always true. I just thought it would help you, so I booked time at the training ground to show it to you, and then it became something l looked forward to, more and more each time. It was how I was certain it was you, in there.” He jerked his head towards the distant echoey music from the party.

Bitty chewed on that for a moment, turning the words over in his head, and found that he believed him. Jack had kept one thing from him— one enormous thing, to be sure, but he understood the reasoning— but had been unfailingly straightforward with him otherwise.

“Okay,” Bitty breathed.

Jack looked up at that. “Okay?”

“Okay, help me up.” Bitty offered his hand, not with the decorum of a ballroom dancer, but with the camaraderie of two men who had trained on the same field. Jack grasped it and pulled Bitty to his feet even as he stood himself, reasserting their height difference and pulling them in close.

Bitty didn’t release his hand, and Jack didn’t try to extricate it.

“Jack?” Bitty turned his face upward, meeting Jack’s eyes, their piercing blue softened by the low golden light of the garden’s lanterns. “I have one more question.”

“Yeah?” The word sent a puff of breath dancing through Bitty’s carefully coiffed hair, and he shivered despite the warm weather.

Bitty tipped his head even further back, raising himself up just a little on the balls of his feet, trying to ask his question with his body as much as his voice, as he felt the latter might abandon him at any moment.

“Would you like to—“ and then the rest of his words were lost, not to fear, but to Jack. They kissed, gentle and deep as the warm night around them, and the world made sense again.

[clatterbane]

My first real appointment through orthopedics to finally try and get set up with an aftermarket leg is coming up on Monday.

The previous referral last year just didn't work out, for multiple reasons, and I was a bit bummed over that. I think part of the problem was it falling through the cracks because nobody really seems to be sure what to do with somebody showing up from completely outside their system already minus a leg.

But, we thought to ask that new endo for a fresh referral. So, I did get an intake appointment set up through ortho, with no schedule collisions this time.

In one way, I'm excited to hopefully get moving toward with the process of getting set up with a prosthetic. I would really like to be able to get around better again! And, you know, be able to take my sorry ass off paved surfaces and up steps and stuff again!

OTOH, due to the person I am? I am trying not to borrow too much trouble and drive myself crazy worrying in the meantime. Especially the closer that draws.

Frankly, not least that somebody is gonna just say, "Oops, it's been so long and this entire situation does not fit into any familiar procedures. We just can't/won't help you!”

Yeah, I know there is going to be an awful lot of PT ahead, likely before I even get to the point of any fitting. I have some other concerns about that, after some sufficiently unpleasant experiences as a troublesome-bendy individual, with rehab-focused PT after injuries/knee surgeries (directly coming from the probably-EDS) in the past. My knees are also pretty damned terrible, and also kinda further destabilized by said surgical tinkering.

But, I am much older and more confident now--and not nearly as eager to take any "no pain, no gain!" bullshit seriously. Much less push in ill-advised ways until I do my bendy self an injury.

But yeah, even right now? I would place good money if I had it on the likelihood that I am currently in better shape than 75% of the new patients they see much sooner than this after surgery. Who are statistically much older and otherwise in pretty damned bad health. Probably I've been staying more physically active over the past few years than a lot of that demographic have been able to, even under the current circumstances

Mean age at the time of the first registered amputation in our sample was 74 years (SD 14); women were older (78, SD 14, CI 77–79) than men (72, SD 14, CI 72–73). 43% of the patients were 80 years or older by the time of the primary amputation (Figure 3). The mortality rate of the registered patients was 19% within 6 months and 24% within the 1st year after the last registered amputation. The 1-year mortality rate after TFA was 40%, after KD 38%, and after TTA 24%.

("Lucky" transtibial/TTA here. Those figures are from the Swedish national database, BTW. Because there is one. You see dire mortality rates after this sort of surgery come up? That's a lot of why. Those demographics and the occasional nasty accident requiring amputation seriously skew things.)

There were reasons they kept going on about how young and healthy my middle-aged ass that had just barely cheated death was when I was stuck in the hospital in Romford. And therefore considered a candidate for prosthetics at all under that system. Not going off on that rant right now.

Still, the majority of those elderly patients in otherwise not great shape DO get successfully set up on replacement legs here. Which is encouraging, that they are likely not looking hard for excuses to avoid spending the money. (We're talking the equivalent of a new not-cheap car, back in the US. Region Skåne is still set to lay out a fair chunk of change here. We are thankfully not directly.)

I do rationally doubt that I would get turned away just because I have been off that leg for several years now, and my knees were terrible even before that. And I fucking suck at trying to use forearm crutches, which I am not at all used to and have a very different feel than the type I do have too much experience on.

But yeah, my brain just won't leave things alone as usual. That's just one of the crappiest possibilities it's seized onto right now.

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hello!

This might have already been answered in a previous post. However, tumblr on mobile hates me and doesn’t want to work half of the time so I’m having trouble locating stuff.

I’m working on a second draft of my manuscript and am trying multiple POVs along with having each chapter either be a different day or different character. For example: chapter one is date ‘xx’ with ‘character A’, while chapter two is date ‘xy’ with ‘character B’. (My story takes place over eight months with four distinct POVs). One of the very early chapters doesn’t have many plot points, but has a major one in it, as the major plot point leads to the kick off the inciting incident. (I usually do 5-6 basic points/events I want to hit in a chapter). But I’m only coming up with 1-2 for this specific chapter.

Would it be a better idea to combine this chapter with the next chapter? Or should I rework this chapter to have more substance? I could leave it as is however, I feel as if the chapter wouldn’t hit the mini word count I set for myself or highlight what I’m trying to show. Would it be a good idea to flesh out the world and this specific character more— or would it seem to info-dump-y?

Thanks so much! Also sorry if my question makes barely any sense.

Hitting 5-6 Plot Points/Events Per Chapter

First: tumblr on mobile hates everyone, so no worries there.

I'm curious about this idea of hitting 5 to 6 plot points or events per chapter... this isn't structural method I've ever encountered before, and honestly, it sound like a lot to cram into a single chapter. Most chapters would revolve around a single plot point or event, with maybe a few minor ones where necessary.

I mean, the bottom line is if it's working for your story, don't change it. If you feel like the chapters are solid and not too busy, keep doing what you're doing. But I definitely wouldn't worry about chapters that aren't overflowing with plot points and events. Just the 1 to 2 plot points/events should be enough for that chapter. If you're worried that not enough is happening, it might be a good place to illustrate something important about the world or characters, but you don't want to do it as an info dump. For example... let's say you realize this chapter could be a good place to explore the POV character's internal conflict. Rather than doing an info dump, you can find another event that would illustrate that conflict. Like, perhaps this character is dealing with a confidence issue related to a past event, so you can find a way to showcase that issue by showing how their confidence is impacted.

Ultimately, as nice as symmetry is, you generally don't want to make story decisions based on symmetry rather than what is best for the story. :)

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[andro-dino]

heya, I think your vampire and school au for takasakyo pretty cool and want you to ramble more about it. mfb school au's are endlessly hilarious to me, so how are they're doing?

WOOOO YEAHHHHH I LOVE TALKING ABOUT THIS AU‼️‼️‼️‼️ I will start by saying the first thing I made for it was this fic (which was originally gonna be a mini comic but I didn’t feel like drawing it)

I’m pretty sure I came up with this au in the first place just bc I was thinking a little bit too hard about sakyo’s fangs and then that led my brain to go to vampires, and now we’re here. The thing that I thought abt that I find really amusing (which is what mostly inspired the fic) is like, a subversion of the usual vampire trope of biting on the neck, bc when you really think about that, tis a tad bit intimate and also probably not the most convenient, so I had it so that Sakyo bites Takanosuke on his arm instead (much to taka’s surprise). I also did that kinda thinking about like, actual blood drives and stuff, and I’ve personally never donated blood but they have opportunities to do so at my school sometimes and I know they always give people like snacks and juice afterwards, so I thought it’d be cute to have Sakyo do that to.

In general Sakyo’s character is probably the thing that’s most different in this whole au because although I tried to translate some of his actual character arc and motivations into the context of him being a vampire, it’s a very different lens overall. and like also yk it’s just me making Sakyo a lot cuter just for my own funsies BUT THATS THE LESS IMPORTANT PART. in the actual series his motivations are a lot more “because I’ve inherited dragoon and am ryugas successor it’s my destiny to Cause Problems On Purpose and be stronger than everyone and fuck everyone else up and be a loner and I’m gonna take pride in that,” but vamp Sakyo feels a lot more shame in being a vampire so his motivations are more like “it is my destiny to be this horrible monster and despite the fact that I don’t really like most people anyways, I don’t really wanna cause any real harm either so I’m gonna Cause Problems On Purpose so that they stay away” yk. And also again the aspect of him not drinking blood often basically makes him hangry like all the time so that also adds to the Issues.

I feel like the context I’ve built up in my head is kinda vague in all the ways I’ve tried to post about it but like, the idea was that similar to the anime, in Sakyo’s pursuit of causing problems and just being a general asshole, all the same people who he battled during his introduction also got into trouble with Sakyo at some point during the school year. I made this joke to some friends I was telling about this au but like, Sakyo through and through is a dorkass loser. In the show, people take him seriously bc he has the bey and the power to back it up, but outside of that he is SO lame and such an edgy teenager, and in this au, he has the exact same attitude he usually does except now he doesn’t actually physically fight people to the same degree so everyone basically just sees him as this edgy emo asshole who hisses at people in the hallways yk. And so everyone just kinda avoids him bc nobody likes him. Except for Takanosuke that is, who still has his whole thing with Sakyo and ren, and similarly, becomes intrigued with Sakyo afterwards. Call it intuition or something, but immediately after actually having an interaction with Sakyo, he can sense that there’s something else that he’s not letting on. That’s when he starts following Sakyo and trying to talk to him, but Sakyo continually ignores him. It’s after school one day where he finds Sakyo in like, an alley or something, basically doing as bad as he could possibly be doing, and at this point Takanosuke’s already been connecting some of the dots, but seeing Sakyo as he sees him there is the final confirmation in the realization that he’s a vampire, and that kinda explains a lot for takanosuke. It makes all of Sakyo’s strange behavior and aggression make sense to him and he also realizes, seeing the state Sakyo’s in, that he’s really just hungry, and feels compelled to help. That’s when they make their whole deal and their friendship begins.

It’s funny because Sakyo has like absolutely no idea how to go about any of this now, both because he hasn’t really had a friend in like ever, but now that he has a steady source of blood, he doesn’t really need to be doing like everything that he’s been doing, and doesn’t really know how to go about that. At school, he really only hangs out with Takanosuke now, and basically everyone else has taken notice to it and how he’s basically changed completely pretty much over night. A lot of people start drawing their own conclusions. If Takanosuke’s with his other friends, Sakyo usually stays on his own somewhere else, unless he really needs a refill, in which case he and takanosuke will go off on their own somewhere so that no one else sees that. Everyone else still has no fucking clue that Sakyo’s a vampire. This does not help with the conclusions (I really wanna make a mini comic about this too)

In general, the two become pretty attached at the hip for the most part. Their arrangement basically bonds them for life in vampire culture or whatever, and in turn, Sakyo becomes pretty protective of Takanosuke. I think it’s both an instinctual “defending my food” kind of thing, but also a way of keeping their deal even. Takanosuke gives Sakyo blood, and in turn, Sakyo becomes very loyal to Takanosuke. This is mostly where the “uncharacteristically cute and caring” Sakyo characterization comes in. This is another one I wanna draw but this not only comes in the extremes of “is this guy bothering you do you want me to kill him for you,” but also in little ways, such as the post-bloodsucking juice boxes, Sakyo offering to carry Taka’s bag or walk him home, general things like that. It kinda catches takanosuke off guard bc he really wasn’t expecting much in return, but Sakyo insists on it. And again, to people with zero context of their dynamic, this is all VERY interesting.

Thinking about later down the line, although idk how it’d really happen, I think Zyro being Zyro would eventually find out about Sakyo being a vampire as well and help him out if he ever needed it. Perhaps it could start a chain reaction of people suddenly becoming a lot more tolerable of Sakyo, ensuing even more kooky hijinks involving Sakyo suddenly needing to understand how to have a social life

[coolgreatwebsite]

Happy 1 Million Views to the Video That Broke Me

This is a repost of something I wrote over on my Cohost, but I figured a year later it should also probably live on the domain I pay money to have. Better late than never!

This is the most successful piece of content I have ever created. At one million views it is the thing I've made that people have seen the most. It is the thing that the most people have seen my name attached to. And it's total trash.

It's 2017 and we're a week or so out from the release of Sonic Mania, a game that I'm, at that point, pretty damn excited for. A kindly poster from the Something Awful forums (that I have known from many forums previous) poses a challenge: be the first to beat his short kaizo Sonic the Hedgehog 2 ROM hack and he'll gift you a copy of Sonic Mania on Steam when it comes out.

I was already getting the game on PS4 but I figured whatever, everyone else seems to be having trouble with it, I'm bored, I got nothing better to do, I'll give it a shot. I load up KEGA Fusion, start a low bitrate and resolution OBS recording because it'll probably take a few hours and who cares it's a forum contest verification video, and get to work. A hour and half-ish goes by and I'm finished with the hack. I upload the video to YouTube, post it in the thread, win my free copy of Sonic Mania, and that's the end of the story. Thanks for reading.

Except of course it's not the end of the story. A few months after I got done thoroughly enjoying Sonic Mania, I realized that I'd been getting a weird amount of new subscriber emails from YouTube. I decided to actually look at my metrics and noticed a uh, highly localized spike of activity. Give you one guess on which video (hint: it's the one this post is about). "The Algorithm" had suddenly taken it and was running away with it at lightning speed.

In the timespan between posting the video and this spike, YouTube had announced they were drastically raising the bar on the metrics you needed to hit to have your channel monetized. I was by no means a large YouTuber at the time, but I was meeting the old requirements for monetization just fine. I wasn't anywhere near meeting the new requirements until now and this video was blowing the hell up for whatever reason, so I decided to do what any good opportunist would do and made it an unwatchable experience.

I set the ad frequency on that thing to the maximum that it'd let me. I forget exactly how frequent that was but it was something absurd like an ad every 5 minutes. Maybe even more than that. I figured I'd either get rich or maybe it would make people stop watching and leaving the worst comments in the world. Seriously the comments on this thing are their own nightmare, a bizarre soup of people ascribing meaning to nothing, trying to suss out emotions where there are none, saying complete gibberish, I'd need an entire second post to unpack whatever the hell is going on there.

Well, I wouldn't quite say I got rich. The money you get off what most people would conventionally call a popular YouTube video is just not much in the grand scheme of things. But holy shit they didn't stop watching. If anything they were watching more. Why didn't they stop watching? This video was less than nothing. It was an ordeal to watch all the way through. Why were they doing this? Why was the algorithm showing this to everyone? Why this and not one of the things I put effort into or something that was at least meant to be entertaining at all? I didn't have the answers and I still don't.

Before this I personally wasn't lamenting the possibility of losing monetization on my channel as up until this point I had made around $40 total on YouTube in the decade or so I'd had a channel. But I had been spending a lot that time watching friends with channels around the size of mine who were actively hustling to, and unfortunately failing to, meet the new hurdle. They were putting out some really good shit. Way better than my stuff, frankly. And here I was getting launched to the finish line by... a throwaway, blurry, hour and a half long, commentary-free, save state abusing playthrough of a crummy Sonic ROM hack? That I had made as a means to a completely separate end?? That got promoted by a computer program for seemingly no reason???

It felt shitty. One of the friends I mentioned in that last paragraph was my longtime friend Fotts who was in the middle of getting their (sadly now dormant) series TAS Force off the ground. They were constantly tweeting about the ordeal of trying to meet the new monetization requirements and it was a damn shame because they were putting in a ton of effort and it was great. The kind of thing I'd watch even if I wasn't friends with anyone on it. It was a million times funnier than anything I was doing, and the complete opposite of my shitty contest video. If there was any justice in this world the views I was getting on this dumpster fire would be going to them. But as it turns out, there is no justice online.

I recalled a conversation I had with them a few years back while they, I, and a group of about 7 or so other friends were all wandering around an Orlando Wal-Mart wearing identical black t-shirts that read "MARVEL CAN SUCK MY COCK" in big block letters (long story). They had actually kind of gone through this sort of thing before. See, they're the uploader and one of the voices of this video you may or may not have seen with 6.5+ million views on it.

They lamented to me many of the laments I was currently lamenting. "This was just a stupid throwaway thing", "why is this so much more popular than the stuff I put effort into", "it's just me making PaRappa the Rapper say the word 'Chinese' over and over". Ok maybe that last one was a bit more specific to them. Anyway, I responded with (and I admit a lot of the reason I felt this way was because I thought and still think the video is funny) something along the lines of "you can't pick what hits for people, it might have been throwaway but at the end of the day you posted it because you thought it was at least a little bit funny, try and focus on the fact that you have a popular video at all rather than the fact it's not one of the videos you're particularly proud of".

But yeah damn turns out that advice is easier said than done when it happens to you, and it's even harder done when it happens to a factually not entertaining video. One you could have uploaded as unlisted and achieved your intended result with. The runaway success of this thing genuinely broke me on this whole "Internet" deal.

I should stress I mean this in a good way. I realized that it's not so much that you can't pick what hits for people, it's that you physically cannot pick what gets put in front of people. The people cannot pick what hits for them. A computer does. You can try and promote and affect what gets seen in your own small sphere of influence, but ultimately we are, on YouTube and on all of our social platforms, at the mercy of a black box of computer programs that I'm not even sure the people who created them understand anymore. I'd obviously known this on some level prior to this video existing, but bearing witness to it all happening firsthand to this video in particular was another thing entirely. Anything prior that I had achieved marginally similar success with (there were a couple that had broken 100k) was meant to be entertaining. It was meant for people to watch and go "I liked that", not for one guy on a forum to see and go "good work solving my maze Superman". I could classify the success as "neat, people liked that one" in my brain. This defied classification.

The only logical conclusion was that it truly didn't matter what I uploaded. It's all decided by a random machine picking things at random to serve random amounts of people, and the people click on it and watch it simply because it is there. You can poke at the machine, prod at the machine, try to guess what the machine likes, try to iterate on something the machine has previously demonstrated that it likes. It's all an effort to get the machine to put it in front of the people who will click it because it is there. That's what all the bigger capital-C Content Creators do. From the high level stuff of "what kind of things do I upload" to the low level minutia of "how many curse words can I say in the first minute", making it Big On Line in any capacity is about trying to appease an unknowable mechanical entity and nothing else. It's either that or you're "old money" in a sense, established before this all became the case.

And again, the bigger names do this. Entire companies do this. If I were "smart" I would have pivoted my entire YouTube channel to nothing but hour and a half long commentary-free bullshit hard ROM hack playthroughs. Maybe another one would hit like this did. But for the life of me I could not and cannot think of anything more soul crushing.

I wouldn't say I had aspirations to be a Big Time YouTube Man, but at that time I would have maybe liked to be a Moderate Size YouTube Man. Or a moderate size Twitch man. Someone who had people watching but was still able to have fun with it and do his own thing. This newfound realization that it was truly a random lottery, even beyond the random lottery that most of human life is, that becoming any size bigger than Small Time was literally decided by an actual factual random number generator, freed me from the desire to do anything that I didn't want to do. If actively chasing success on these modern, algorithmically-driven platforms, actively going after "Kaizo Sonic 2 Full Run" numbers, meant putting aside the things I like and reinventing myself and the things I do down to the minute details in order to appease a literal ghost beyond anyone's understanding or control that changes what it's looking for on a whim, then I did not want to do that. I did not want to keep a timer for when I could talk normal, I did not want to announce my streams on Twitter with the link in a separate reply one day, in an embedded image the next, and in my display name the next. If there is absolutely one thing I do not want to do in my life, it's dance for a robot.

But the most freeing thing about realizing this is that it also meant if I just kept doing stuff I liked, maybe, someday, I could get lucky enough to where the unknowable internet robot would push that in front of a million or so people. In the grand scheme of things it's about an equal chance of that happening on something I like and am proud of versus something I made in a desperate cloying attempt to placate an algorithm.

Anyway damn this got long and rambly sorry about that lol. This was initially meant to just be a little toast to the 5 year-ish anniversary of me fully becoming an Internet nihilist. Remember folks, it's meaningless to chase success in an algorithm dominated landscape. In the words of a certain extremely Normal-type man, "real life isn't all just being true to yourself", but I reject the notion that the Internet is not or should not be, in spite of the legion of ghouls and freaks at the top of the chain actively trying to make that the case every day.

Be true to yourself. Do what you love, make what you love, post what you love, and maybe if you're lucky a computer somewhere will decide it's your turn, because that's the single deciding factor in all of this. In the mean time, you'll end up slowly and naturally surrounding yourself with cool people who get you, if only a little bit. At least that's what's happened for me so far. I've been pretty alright with it.