#i know they have a discord server that i'm not in. even though they've mentioned it but idek

[eggmeralda]

no feeling worse than hearing there might be another group chat that you're not in

[red-carter]

Giving Thanks

Now, I've seen my friends and their posts and replying. I wanted to make my own because I know that this one is going to be pretty long. At least, I have an idea that it's going to be pretty long. I won't be able to tag everyone, seeing as I don't know everyone's tumblrs and such like that. There's also going to be some not tags because I'd be too scared to actually tag these people.

I'm so very very thankful for everyone who's come into my life in the last year. I'm thankful to those who've been in my life for several years. My bestest sibs who won't likely see this for the many years that I've been with them, since first grade, middle school, beginning of high school and everyone in between. Those who I call family (not blood related), because you, and everyone I'm about to mention, have helped me in so many ways. As well as just because I'm so happy to have met you. Even if this is just for a season, long or short, I'm so glad to have made the friends and family that I've come across. Who've just been chill, or been there for us.

Thank you @imaginethat0327 for being an inspiration and being the person who helped me step out of my scared and anxious lil bubble I'd created around myself. You're such a lovely person, and I really look forward to our talks, no matter how long apart they are from the last one. Also big thanks to Livie because they've also been such a joy to have met and chat with. Always look forward to our chats <3 Through them I've also met @nyxcentury who's just as lovely. Though we've not talked too much, always love seeing you around. Same goes with Tipthewaitress (dunno their tumblr, so I hope that they see this), and the other lovelies of the Rescue Fire discord server.

@cat-in-the-desert .... I... There's so many things I'm thankful for from you. I'm so thankful that we got to meet, and that you've been such a wonderful friend to the point I consider you one of my closest friends. Genuinely. You're such a lovely person, always looking forward to our chats and hangouts <3

Really quickly, I'm so thankful to have come across @\nightdreamdraws art and animatics, and her AUs... They're so cool and I always look forward to any new art or ideas that they share. Cherrifire with seeing her creative take on the life series, and the amazing things they've done in this community. Magnifique! (Wish I could properly spell that word, apologies if it's wrong, or has no accents, I'm just trying to be wholesome here.... :)) There's so many others, their animatics, art, animations, edits, that I'm so thankful that I've gotten to see because everyone is amazing! I swear-!!! <3 <3 <3 <3

@ezzriin stares and blinks with an ever growing smile You're a lovely lil guy that I'm so grateful to have met. I wanna squish you /pos. I might have to DM you another paragraph I swear— So lovely, and a wonderful chaotic gremlin that I hold dear in my heart.

@foxhunter350 I would write a full paragraph if I could right now, but I'm trying to keep these short.... I'm thankful to have met you. Getting to write ideas and such with you has been such a blast, looking forward to more with you mate. So very grateful to have you in my life. /gen

@nine-of-diamonds, @1watermelontea, @crabbri stares blankly at you three You're all so amazing, I'm thankful that I came across Chasing The Horizon Line and got to meet you. The butterfly affect is something I think about constantly, and so thankful for in this situation. The chaos and fun that we've all had, I cherish it with my whole heart. Thank you for the amazing series to read and the fun times we've had and will have in the future. (please leave me out of this big ass polycule, not professing my love to you lot just yet, again.... /vsilly)

@writingwithaglassquill Quilly, Eilly, my beautiful darling of a muse? /silly /lh /p Lmao, sorry, that was a weird way to start this. I'm thankful to you, and I know I've told you this many times, but I'm forever grateful for coming across your story IHTH because it really gave me the urge to want to write again. You've done so much, you're a fabulous person, and I'm so glad to have met someone like you. A steady head to keep me from just completely sinking. (this is me professing my love /vsilly /j /p) Genuinely so thankful to have met you when I did, looking forward to the future ahead.

@gildedmicah18 Meka-Meka... Darling Micah. /vsilly /lh /p You're such a wonderful person to chat with, always looking forward to our chats. Thankful to have you in my life you amazing cutie you! (Really really wanna squish you and also may or may not see you as a little sibling.)

@nyxtheeclipse Hai. You're a cutie. <3 .... Yes, I was tempted to just leave it at that. My bad XD Anywooooo!~ Thankful to you Nyx for everything you've done. You're an amazing person, love you lots mate! Very creative, and always looking forward to what you make and share!

@yourfavouritevigilante (hoping this tags.... it's being funky) You're such a lovely individual, along with your system. We all love you. You're all like siblings to us and we're so very very thankful to have met you Tobes. Genuinely, we're always looking forward to getting to chat or hang out with you lot. So fun to joke with, or pick fun with each other or stopping fights (like earlier XD). Genuinely though, and I may say this far too much, we love you so very much. See you like a little sibling for reals. Or child, depending on if it's us, or Impy, Skizzy, and Jess. So grateful to have gotten to know you and hang out with you lots, squishing you all. (except those who don't like getting hugs which is a-okay)

@peridot-the-kitten .... Okay, I genuinely forgot the words I was going to start off with XD. I love that I've just confused you in CTHL hahahahah. I'm so thankful to have met you Lain. You're a lovely and creative individual that now? I can't believe you scared me before XD. Grateful to have met you, and gotten to know you. So many jokes and fun has been had, and you've been a wonderful grounding point in lots of stuff that's happened as well. Always looking forward to our chats and hangout sesses.... sessions.... Love you lots!!! (totally professing my love /vsilly /j /p)

@moonstarsongs You're a darling sweetheart of an angst lover. You've been such a wonderful friend and lovely individual to chat with. So very thankful to have met you and that I get to chat with you whenever we can (since different time schedules and whatnot). <3 <3 <3

@archaic-dragon You're very lovely, so glad that we've gotten to chat and whatnot. Seriously, so very thankful. You're amazing, got so much creativity, it's been wonderful to get to hang out and whatnot. Always looking forward to chats with you or gaming and such. Thank you Arcy!

@will-falling-fell Haven't chatted with you too much, at least that I'm thinking back on. But you're a sweetheart from what I can remember. I see you chatting with the others in CTHL and stuff, and it always brings a smile to our face. Grateful to have met you, even if we don't talk much right now, hoping to get to chat with you more in the future. <3 <3 <3 <3

@tinydekuscrub Hai darling! Love you lots. So very grateful to have met you. Pretty sure I say this almost anytime we chat really. You're a lovely person, and we love chatting with you and everyone else. Thanks for dealing with our smart and dumbass XD, and looking forward to all future chats and hangouts. (Guys, I swear, I'm too gay for this person, I really really wanna write more XD)

There's still many more people I could write out thanks for, but for now, I think it's best that this be it for a bit. Again, thank you to everyone who we've gotten to meet, who's given us ideas, given us new life and fun things to look forward to. Lots of good times in the future. Here's to another year of fun and laughter and even in the not-so-good-times, love you all so much!

[butchsophiewalten]

03/09/24 Twitter Space Recap

Quick recap of the twitter space from yesterday. Another one with Martin, Kyle, Coral, and eventually Eva. They tried to make this another Q&A but they mostly just talked and joked between themselves. Here's a rough recap of what they talked about:

-Martin talks about how it's always difficult for him to answer questions like, "Can I get a fun fact about [Character]?", because he doesn't just have a bunch of information pre-prepared about every character in his webseries. He specifies that it's not bad to ask those questions, just that he has a hard time answering them.

-Martin tells Kyle to give his idea for what each of the Showstoppers would dress up as for Halloween, and he says, "Boozoo is a lion, Sha is a sunflower, Banny is a horse, and Bon doesn't dress up." Martin says he agrees, but that he thinks Banny could also be a pirate.

-Someone asks for confirmation on whether Chris' last name is 'Easterday' or 'Easteryear', and Martin says that it was always supposed to be Easteryear, but after the fandom caught in calling him Easterday, some of the crew caught on to calling him that, too. But "Easteryear" is what his name is supposed to be.

-Martin mentions that just the other day he was talking about Chris with the rest of the crew, and how they've worked on polishing his character arc into something they all think is much more cool.

-Martin says that they explained some lore stuff to Coral, about something that happens "very, very later," in the series, and how they were extremely upset and heartbroken over it. They mention a drawing they had posted to Twitter a few days before, of them hunting Martin down with a knife, and how that was the context for it.

-Eva talks about how Martin was explaining the series lore to Felix's new VA in the crew discord server, and how it apparently took him an hour and a half of explaining just to get to the point of explaining the car crash.

-Martin says, "Everything that happens after Brian's death, after BunnyFarm is so much! I don't know how I'm going to write all that down!"

-Kyle asks Martin how he comes up with last names for characters, because he knows that Martin never googles to find authentic or realistic American last names, and just makes them up. Kyle says that he knows "Walten" is a portmantaeu of "Walls" and "Martin", but wants to know what some other ones are.

Martin explains how he came up with 'Easteryear', saying "Back in 2020, when I was doing research for The Walten Files, I started looking for, like, show tapes of like, 70s animatronic bands. And I came up with Chuck E. Cheese show tapes, and there was this one that was called "Broadway Yesteryear", and I kept mispronouncing it with 'Easteryear, Easteryear', and I was like, 'That would be a fun last name,' and I kept it in my pocket until it was, like, useful. And then I started coming up with all the names, and shit like that. I think Easteryear and Letterson were like, the more creative ones i did."

Kyle asks him how he came up with 'Letterson', then, and Martin says, "Letterson- Letterson is like 'Letterman', but instead of Letterman, it's just 'Letterson.'

-Martin says that he's always trying to find ways to insert Brian Stells into The Walten Files, even though he's a character with absolutely no depth, and was never intended to do more than teach the audience that Bon is dangerous, but he appreciates Brian's place in the legacy of The Walten Files, with him being the first human character to speak and the first character to die, and he likes to kind of honor that by trying to find small ways to include him.

-Martin says something vaguely about Chris in season 2, which confuses Eva. She asks him if Chris appears in Season 2, because she doesn't think he does, and Martin responds, "Yeah. Yeah, he does."

-Coral is confused about how many seasons The Walten Files is supposed to have, because last they remember, it only had two. Martin explains, "There's three seasons. Season one is like, y'know. Season two is like, shorter, and it's about Sophie and Jenny, and Season three is how everything, like, ends. What happens after."

-Martin reads a question, "What character is the community's perception of most inaccurate?" and then says, "I think we can all agree that it's Jack." Kyle then says that he thinks another good candidate answer is Sophie, saying that he thinks people tend to characterize her as much more "bubbly" than she even remotely is.

-Martin takes the time to specify that there's nothing wrong with misinterpreting these characters, because we've seen so little of them in the series and it's been so long in between episodes that people are bound to come up with their own ideas of what characters are like, but that he wants everyone to keep an open mind when we start to see more of how those characters are actually depicted, because it may not line up with that people are imagining or hoping for, and how that's not necessarily a flaw with the series.

-Martin says, "The Walten Files, when we make the series, we don't create the characters and go, 'oh, he's a villain, he's that,' we create the actions they make, and we let the viewer decide whether or not this character is a good or bad guy. The characters make good and bad decisions."

-Eva says, in reference to "Bon", "You guys have not even scratched the surface. I'm so fucking excited for his character."

-Martin says, "Here's like, a message to the audience. Do you wanna know a word that can, like, fucking destroy the crew, but to you guys, has like no fucking meaning? Y'know what fucking word it is? 'Sayonara.'" The second he says this, everyone else in the space starts groaning in agony, or shouting at him.

-Eva reads a question, "If Sophie was a cat, what kind of cat would she be?" Martin does not answer, and instead posts this drawing to twitter:

-Martin talks about how, for the upcoming episodes, Kyle & Coral recorded their lines (as Charles and Susan) separately, but their dynamic is so good, that it sounds very authentically like they could've been recording in the same room. They say that they'd love to record some audio in a call together at some point, but that it'd be difficult to coordinate around Coral's timezone.

-Eva reads a question, "Would Jenny like My Little Pony, if so, what would her favorite pony be?" Martin answers, "Uh, she would definitely like Applejack, in my opinion."

-Martin reads a question, "Will any of the episodes take place past the Relocate Project?" and answers, "Not in season one, but in season two, I think all the episodes take place after BunnyFarm."

-Martin reads a question, "Will you guys get a new band for The Walten Files after Sweet Tuesday?" and answers, "Uh, No, I don't think so. We don't talk to Sweet Tuesday."

-Martin reads a question, "How would Rosemary's sister react to hearing about Rose going missing?", and answers, "They weren't close, but I think she would be very-" and then Coral interrupts him, going "Rosemary has a sister?" to which Martin responds, "Yeah, it isn't brought up in this season, but yeah, she does have a sister. But they're very- they're not close. They don't have a very good relationship, so. Uh, it's Laura Peony."

-Eva asks, if Susan would be like a cool aunt to the Walten kids, and Martin says, "Yeah, she would be."

-Martin reads a question, "Was "Bon" planned from the start, or did you come up with him later?" and answers, "This is really good! Okay, so, Bon was always a character, but, uh, the idea of "Bon" as a ghost, it was born after episode 3. But this character always existed, just not in this way.

-Martin says, "'We know Jack used to make sandwiches for his employees, who was the one that always got sandwiches, and someone who almost every time didn't get one?' Um, the one who almost every time didn't get one was probably Richie."

-"I like the idea of Richie just being a lazy piece of shit, and he would just like, hide in the bathrooms so he can just smoke and do shit, and Jack would just ominously stand next to him until he notices, for just minutes and minutes."

-Martin says Susan is 6'2, and that Jack is "a few inches" taller than her.

-Eva reads a question asking if Sophie & Jenny would keep their relationship a secret because of the time period. Martin says, "Okay, no, I don't think they would keep it an entire secret, I don't think they'd be like, 'oh, dude, we can't say it,' I feel like they would just be, like- I feel like they would just- they don't feel the need to like, tell it to people. They don't feel the need to be like, 'oh, we're girlfriends,' y'know?"

-Martin and Coral joke that Sophie wouldn't even know what homophobia is, growing up around so many other queer and accepting people. During this conversation, Coral says, "Charles is like, the ultimate lesbian." (I assume they meant 'lesbian ally'? but this is way funnier.)

-Martin has spent much of the space repeating a joke about Jack telling Rosemary to "make [him] a sandwich", stemming from a conversation about how funny it would be if Jack in the series was just this terrible person. He jokes now, approaching the idea a little more seriously, that Jack would say that to Rosemary as a joke, and she would give him an absolutely terrifying death glare.

He says it'd be funny if Jack made the same 'make me a sandwich' joke to Rose, and she went, 'oh okay!! ^_^', to Jack's surprise, and then came back with a sandwich that is just a "gallon of salt" in between two slices of bread, and she forces him to eat it.

-Coral tries to answer a question about whether or not Richie would sell weed, and Martin interrupts them to say that he thinks Richie would try to sell weed to the BSI crew, and they would be like, 'yeah, no thank you.'

-Someone asks if Susan would like the Showbiz Pizza animatronics, and Coral says they think she would like them from a technical standpoint.

-Coral reads a question, "How did Susan find out she was a lesbian?", and says, "I feel like she never 'figured out', it was more of a case that she always felt like that and didn't care what anyone else said," to which Martin agrees.

-Martin reads a question, "Does Sarah Evelyn have a favorite animal?" and says, "How the fuck do you remember Sarah Evelyn? She was just like, an animator on Bon's Burgers, that's it. I don't know." Coral corrects him, saying that she was a writer, but agrees that it's really funny for people to remember that character at all.

-Izzsplash, Jenny's VA, joins the space! She's recovering from Covid.

-Martin reads a question he really likes and seems excited for, "Will we ever see a clip of Jenny angry?", but answers it by quoting the same "Make me a sandwich!" joke he's been quoting for the entire space.

-Martin reads a question for Izzy, "How has your perception of the character of Jenny changed from the first time you voiced her to now?" Izzy answers, "That is a good question! I think, when I first met Jenny, I was like, 'that girl looks silly,' but now that I've talked to everyone and like, really, like- after BunnyFarm, I was like, 'this is not just a silly, that's- that's an actual, like, good friend, person. Like, she's a lot- there's a lot more to Jenny than people thing. I'll put it there. She's not just a silly- she is silly! She can be '/j', but she's also '/srs'.

[thecrazyphantom]

Just some interactions that happened to me a couple of years ago.

The person I'm referring to is probably stalking my account as I post this 😕

(This is just a vent of mine, you can skip if you don't want to read it ❤️)

Btw both of us are Female(well idk what they are but they're afab)

I was so uncomfortable trying to respond to them saying this, let alone in response to my photo.

When they broke our friendship (In a very cringe way btw. I can elaborate if anyone asks) they told me how I "treated them horribly" even though I was the one who constantly just had to deal with their Bullshit when they texted me.

They'd also constantly oversexualize all the female characters I Roleplay/I like

Ex: Saying that Peko has (AND I LITERALLY QUOTE.) "phat juicy tits".

When we had a Simp channel in our Discord server That was Yk... Dedicated to fictional characters.. or people in their class they thought were pretty. They posted a photo into it of Me in a Byakuya Cosplay looking down at the camera and then started going on and on about how they'd give me everything they owned and such and it made me so uncomfortable that I couldn't even response logically so i just sent "<3" and didn't respond to the text.

They would also talk constantly about their AUs and stuff about The Cuphead show. I rlly did like a lot of what they talked about since I liked Cuphead the Game and have a very open mind to others Aus. But the thing was was that I had openly talked about how I didnt want to watch the Cuphead show because I just didn't like the voice acting ((Well they've got good voice acting, good Animation, and funny plots , but I just don't think the Cuphead cast should have voices. But I did watch the show after all this, and it was pretty good)). But i just remember that one day I was getting tired of them talking about Cuphead and I texted them "I don't mean to be rude but can you stop sending Cuphead content? You're slowly making me dislike it 😕" (that's the exact quote), and then they got annoyed and was like "that was the only direct cuphead thing I've sent" And I ofc denied that bc I don't rlly loose interest in things through only one message unless it's controversial. And I wasn't gonna deal with pulling up all that evidence so I just said "Omfg *name*" "Nah I'm done with discord" and they instantly started to "im so sorry" bomb but I told them I wouldn't talk to them until I calmed down bc I was just pretty grouchy at the moment. When I came back I sent some words abt me calming myself down again, then said "I apologize for my outburst". And bam we were somehow friends again????

What was even worse was that they did this all in front of our mutual friend (well at the time it was mutual, now they're just my friend ^_^) that they were at the time dating.

(I don't even remember if they sent more cuphead and I'm not even gonna dig for it)

All I know is that that could've been easily resolved by either just saying something along the lines of "I'm sorry I'll try to send them less" or even being like "Cuphead is my Hyperfixation, just like how your hyperfixation is Danganronpa"

They'd also text the gc that me and my friend were in that they were going to commit Slick-a-Slide and then disappear for weeks on end. So ofc me and my friend would be worried and get in a depressive state because we were under the false narrative that they Unalived, just for them to come back after a while and just brush it off. Each time we asked if they were okay they would always be like "Yeah Sorry my mom just took away my phone." And for a while I started to speculate that they were just in a Mental hospital but they never mentioned it (and they Kinda told us EVERYTHING that happens in their life/day/week.) So not only were they treating me wrong, they were dragging my friend into it and Worrying them. (This happened multiple times while they were dating, so I can't even imagine the levels of depression that could've spiraled my friend into. Like having to hear your lover say they were going to commit, then go offline for a long time, is actually petrifying.)

This is a small one but I also remember that a couple weeks or months before they broke ties with me, We were in a server with all of their friends (+my friend and I), they texted the public channel asking if anyone wanted to call, and when I said that I was down to call that literally responded something along the lines of "someone who isn't Phantom" and then they kicked me shortly after I responded with a sad emoji. That made me lose all left over respect I had for them. My friend confronted them on how that wasn't too nice to say, and then they got kicked too.

Also this is off track but imma bring it up since I'm currently obsessed with Korekiyo, but the way they Roleplayed Korekiyo made him seem like he's some Holier than thou character that could pretty much read minds and just tell what they were doing prior ((for example a character could make and excuse to walk off to give something to someone they're currently seeing and come back to Korekiyo and they'd respond "Oh were you giving something to *name*?")). Idk this just made me not like Korekiyo for a while after they broke ties with me.

Anyways that's all my ranting for now. Pip, Ace, whatever you're going by rn. If you see this, please get off my page, for you've made me dread each second and more that you've talked to me ;) ❤️

[northwest-cryptid]

I will openly admit that to this day my biggest disappointment in indie vtubers and being an indie vtuber was that vtuber teams were not nearly as cool as they could have been because no one knew what made a team good in the first place.

If you don't know, a Vtuber team is essentially a small collective of streamers (roughly 3 - 5) who would work as a sort of "team" or group. They'd collab and promote one another and often had their own discord servers or ways to keep in touch with the various different members.

Now, lets say you're a sane everyday person, who is actually friends with your fellow team members. You wouldn't say; go around bad mouthing them for clout, backstabbing them and trying to assimilate their audience into your own after they prove to be more successful. You likely wouldn't plan "mandatory" meetings and then get mad at them when they refuse to show up because they've not had a day off from their actual paying job in over 5 months and they're literally so sick they can't get up the stairs to their computer and would rather spend their time with their significant other. You certainly wouldn't tell them they should voice their concerns about a big group change to everyone and then immediately double back on what you said when the rest of the group decides to ostracize them for having a bad opinion even though you just told them their thoughts are more in line with the goal of the team.

Right?

If you can't tell, as someone who has been in a handful of teams I've become somewhat jaded by them. They're a great model for actually promoting one another, having constant collabs so you don't need to constantly stream alone, and generally having some kind of group atmosphere which helps raise popularity since I can promote you even when you're not streaming, and you can promote me when I'm not streaming. However this doesn't work in reality because too many people are too focused on their own personal ambitions and are far too willing to jump into the fire of drama and throwing-each-other-under-the-bus bullshittery.

If it wasn't extremely clear, everything I mentioned above is shit that ACTUALLY has happened to me. I've never in my life had to say, verbally, aloud; in a call with other adults "I am going to hang up, because I am sick; I have not had a day off in months, and you call me here to yell at me over shit that doesn't even matter. Grow up, and learn that you do not hold power over others; if you want to make mandatory meetings, control my voice and my content, and tell me what I can and cannot do; you can pay me. I will leave my paypal in the general chat." Until I was in a team.

So what goes wrong? It can't just be that people get a taste of being popular and suddenly throw it all away, right?

... I mean. Yea. It sorta can be.

I'm not going to say this is exclusively what always happens all the time, but I will say it was what I saw happen the MAJORITY of the time. Essentially, it becomes fandom bullshit levels of cliche-y real quick.

You will inevitably have some members of the team who are more popular than others, and some who are by proxy less popular. Some might be better at holding a more dedicated and consistent audience while others, despite having more numbers on twitter; can't actually get numbers on their streams.

If you've made it this far, buckle up because I'm going all in here.

To properly explain this whole ordeal I'm going to walk you, yes you; through what it might be like to be part of a Twitter Indie Vtuber Team and you will see exactly why it never worked.

So if we're going to join a Vtuber team we need to be a Vtuber, the fun part here is that it literally doesn't matter who or what you are. You might be someone who cares deeply about lore, plot, and character; you might be more like me and not really think that matters so much as putting on a show for your audience. You might be somewhere in the middle. Maybe you're a sci fi character, maybe you're high fantasy, maybe you're some really generic anime character; guess what? None of that matters because Twitter Indie Vtubers teams fail to understand one huge guiding principle behind Vtuber teams, Classification.

See, I think the biggest issue I saw in the way Twitter's Indie vtuber teams (god that's getting exhausting to type, is it getting exhausting to read yet) ran things, was that they HATED Corporate Vtubers. Like, they HATED them. You couldn't bring up any of them, it doesn't matter how humble or how popular or whatever. Mention Vshojo? You're the devil. Mention Hololive? You're worse than the devil.

So what's so bad about that?

Let me put it like this, what do Vshojo and Hololive have in common that the majority of Indie Vtubers on Twitter do not?

They're successful at earning a living by streaming. Simple as that, they're doing something right. What are they doing right exactly? Well I'd love to find out but I can't discuss it with anyone because if I bring up corporate vtubers it's seen as a horrible very bad no good thing to talk about. We HATE Corporate Vtubers here and if you talk about them at all you're out buster, that's that.

But wait, going back to what I was saying about Classification, why is that important? Well simply put it makes things easier to understand for the audience. It keeps things coherent and it all just makes sense.

Here's a quick example, let's look at some Vtubers and you tell me if you think you know which ones are in a team together;

One of the Vtubers is a Lion. One of the Vtubers is a Crow. One of the Vtubers is an Isekai Protagonist (Generic, no definition) One of the Vtubers is a Harem Anime Protagonist (again, generic) One of the Vtubers is a Demon. One of the Vtubers is an Angel. One of the Vtubers is a Robot. One of the Vtubers is a Starship Captain. Lastly, one of the Vtubers is a Bear.

Now if you look at these Vtubers, and you had to group them into teams; how would you do it?

Logically you might group the Isekai and Harem protagonists together, they could have a Vtuber group for generic anime protagonists and they could actually make a joke out of putting a spin on their respective tropes.

Then you could pair off the Demon and Angel, the Robot and the Captain since they're both sci fi, and lastly you could group the Lion, Crow, and Bear since they're all animals right?

Well to put it super bluntly and not try to dox myself with how much I've said in this already, none of those examples were made up. All of those are actual Vtubers I've met during my time on twitter. Fun fact: they were all in the same team. Yes, all of them. Then they split off into smaller teams because they learned the team was too big and the audience split too thin.

But why does that Classification actually matter? Well it matters for the same reason being a Vtuber in the first place matters.

You see, if you're going to be a Vtuber you need to ask yourself why you're wanting to be a Vtuber over any other type of streamer.

Seriously, give that a thought for a second.

For me it was pretty simple, it started with not wanting to put my face out there. I got generally tired of how many people would comment on how I was dressed or how my hair was that day, or the fact I have a big nose; or just... whatever they felt like saying about ME that day. I'd play a ton of games I wanted to show people, things I actually enjoyed and wanted to bring to others. Yet no one cared about what I was streaming, they were all too caught up on how I look, and how do I look? Well, extremely everyday normal person-looking.

No seriously. I am not really someone who's like, "cool" or "handsome" or whatever. I don't look striking in any noticeable way. This isn't some fishing for compliments attempt either I'm being real, there's nothing about me on a GOOD day that says "I'm worth looking at" and yet people would always comment on SOMETHING and it normally wasn't about me looking good.

However if you turn off your webcam you DO get less engagement. This is just a sort of proven thing, so you need SOMETHING to represent yourself right? For me that was an easy fix, I could use a Vtuber avatar and in doing so I figured maybe I could rep some of my Native culture while I'm at it.

Later down the line I met some cool people who were more character focused, they enjoy the idea of playing a character and ultimately growing and changing that character as they streamed. It was something I felt forced into by the Twitter community at large so I always tried to come up with SOMETHING for the character, but everything felt forced (because it was) and bad (because it was) so I would often quickly drop any characterization before it even hit the stream.

Okay so let's say you personally have the ambition of playing a character, you want something closer to Hololive or Holostars, where your character comes from a place, has an occupation; a goal, a reason for streaming beyond just "I stream because I want to make money as a streamer for whatever reason." Alright cool let's see where that goes right?

Now remember, as Twitter Indie Vtubers we HATE Corporations and we will not be looking at how Hololive does this right at all. Instead we will constantly remind people about our character without ever really doing anything with it.

Yes. This is how it was done.

Say you meet someone who was an Angel. Maybe they were an Angel who was kicked out of heaven because lol they play too many video games XD (please excuse my cringe I'm doing my best to emulate shit I actually ran into here). So okay cool I'm not going to say that's NOT a valid character I guess. Alright so they're streaming because they like playing video games, what does being an Angel have to do with anything exactly? Well they'll tell you their entire lore dump of a backstory, they'll remind you they're an Angel, and they'll likely have some kind of definition of the difference between them as an Angel who got kicked out of heaven and fallen angels who... you know, basically the same thing BUT IT'S NOT.

You might ask again, what does this have to do with ANYTHING. Why does it matter? Why does them having a backstory, having this persona; why does it matter? What are they doing with it? Is it worth all the investment in a backstory and lore; or would it simply be enough to just explain "yea I'm an Angel and that's why I look like this" or whatever?

And Again they'll remind you of their backstory, they'll explain all their lore; and you'll find that this literally DOESN'T MATTER.

But then all the big corporate vtubers have backstories and lore, so we should too right?

Well... about that.

Can we, and now listen; I know... we HATE corpo vtubers here... but can we take just a second to look at WHY they have those backstories and lore and such?

Okay so here's the thing, if we look at the Hololive English branches we can see some specific things, first off Classification is a big one.

HoloMYTH? Grim Reaper, Phoenix, Cthulhu; etc (I'm not going to explain how a Shark or literally just Watson who is somehow a time traveler fit in here ask COVER man.)

HoloCOUNCIL? Warden of Time, Basically Mother Nature, The Embodiment of Chaos; again we have characters who are the COUNCIL of things like Space, Time, Civilization, Nature, Chaos; etc.

Council would later become PROMISE but I digress.

Now I'm not honestly too sure about Advent? But that's mostly because I haven't really looked into them much admittedly they're very hit or miss with me personally, but I got nothing against them and wish them the best.

What I'm saying here is, Classification matters! Everything from theme to color schemes and names comes into play. The one in charge of Nature? Ceres (a planet) Fauna (...yea I don't need to explain how that one ties in). The Warden of Time? Literally named Kronii (obviously meant to be similar to the word Chronos and such).

A lot of this is pretty self explanatory but my point here is everyone is designed to fit together like a D&D party. Everyone feels like they belong in the team. It's not just a random Cyborg, an Angel, some random Bear, and an Isekai Protagonist all bumming out in a discord call going "oh man I have no idea what to do today so we're just chatting lol"

So if you're an Indie Vtuber who understands Classification you're likely going to look for other people who fit your general theme and identity. But this can be difficult because of either one of two reasons.

One being that no one seems to fit your general classification. If you're too unique or too specific to a setting, time period, or general genre it can be hard to find others who fit into that with any level of similarity.

The other being that TOO MANY people seem to fit your classification EXACTLY. If you're a random God of such and such, and you find other god Vtubers, you likely find other people who are literally the same thing you are. Same goes for Angels, Demons, Anything Anime, Most forms of Object Heads or Robots or Cyborgs.

The biggest problem I see with the second is that no one wants to be anything short of "the best" at what they are. You're not just an assassin, you're the best assassin to ever live; well shit now you can't be in the same team as the OTHER best assassin to ever live.

But what if you were?

See this is where I think Indie Vtubers don't have the ability to laugh at themselves nearly as much as they should.

Because I personally think it would be really funny to have two people in a vtuber team who are the same thing, but from different backgrounds. Give us Spy x Family but as a Vtuber Team and I think it would be fucking hilarious.

No seriously, imagine for a moment that there was a 5 person vtuber team, 2 of the members of the team were from different backgrounds, they could be anything; for the sake of generic bullshit let's say one is like the top Angel from heaven, the other is the top Demon from hell. Except they both seek to keep this information secret, "only their chat knows" except the other 3 people in the team are VERY much aware, for literally ANY reason it doesn't matter how they know, it just matters that these two are such stupid idiots that they're constantly showing their hand in such specific ways that the other wouldn't see.

If you have the improv skills necessary, and the ability to laugh at yourself; you suddenly have a very VERY potentially funny team on your hands.

Imagine them playing Phasmophobia, one of them (doesn't matter who) points out the ghost must be a demon, they know all this information about demons, clearly this is a demon; they wouldn't be wrong about this. The other, also knowing this information (either because they're well researched on demons, or because they ARE one) is suspicious of how they know all this and doesn't know how to call them out so they try to one up them by providing MORE information in an attempt to see how much they ACTUALLY know, only now the first person is starting to question how THEY know so much. Meanwhile everyone else in the collab is dying and neither of them acknowledge this until it's brought up as a last ditch effort out by one of the two when asked a particularly difficult to answer question and they just respond with "OH SHIT THEY'RE DYING!" Before running off to save their team members. THAT'S GOOD BANTER BAY-BEE!

But see, this requires classification, an understanding of everyone's characters; and enough similarity to play off each other's characters.

So what about if you can't find anyone? You join into a random Vtuber Team and hope for the best.

Alright so you join into a group with 4 other people, so far things seem fine, everyone is nice enough; you likely sit in a discord call and talk about life; become closer friends, discuss what kind of games you like to play. You know, general normal people stuff.

Then a few days later you get a message about doing a collab, you don't have many viewers at this point; maybe 4 - 5 regulars who show up and actively chat. Good people, you are excited to sort of introduce your audience to your new team, and get to meet their audience. You might even be a little stressed because you only have about 100 followers on twitter and they have well over 1,000 so you expect a much bigger turnout on their end.

The stream collab starts, you notice there's maybe 3 people watching them, you are one; they are another. Which means they only really have 1 viewer. You tell yourself this is because the stream just started.

Then a half hour goes by, the only viewers showing up in their chat are from your team. Mutual friends, other streamers you know; they trickle in now and then but you notice neither of you are particularly popular. That big four digit follower count seems to all be just for show. Likely coming from a basis of follow for follow vtubers and the like. Looking at their twitter you notice they don't get much interaction outside of the team there either.

This sort of puts your mind at ease, it feels more comfortable knowing you're not somehow accidentally jumping ahead to having an audience of hundreds to entertain.

That is until you begin to notice a shift in the way you're treated by your team. It's very likely you'll be asked to do more collabs, they'll absolutely swing this as it being a matter of keeping the team together; or because you're fun to be around. However during streams you'll often be put on the back burner, you'll be brought into collabs but never really engaged with. You'll never be raided by your fellow team members. This is because you have a small, but real following.

You'll find that when you're unavailable it's suddenly a big deal, you'll see words like "mandatory" or "regularly scheduled" popping up to make it seem like you SHOULD be there, it's part of being in a team. You'll be told to "act professional" if you have a disagreement with someone, whether this is over something like gender, sexuality, or even other basic respect issues. You'll be asked to stream with people you don't like.

When it comes down to it, if you show opposition; you'll be told that the majority of the team disagrees with you, but they won't want you gone. They won't oust you from the team, because they know your audience will still most likely follow you out. They don't want that.

So they'll keep you around as long as possible, until you make too much noise; or say something they don't agree with a little too loudly. Once they believe they've done enough collabs, and gotten enough of your followers to follow them; they'll kick you aside and find someone else to do this to.

They will even turn on each other; I've gotten messages from people, months and even sometimes years after leaving a team. These messages all say similar things; they always start with an apology; and then go into talking about how they were either too naive, too scared, or just too confused to understand the manipulation and crowd mentality they were being indoctrinated to.

The key reason behind all of this is because you are never actually a valued friend, you're an additional audience member; you're a viewer, who has more viewers to bring to the table.

But clearly that was just a bad team, they're not all like that; that's true; that's genuine. So you go back to the drawing board and put it out there that you're in the market for another team, probably a bit more picky this time than you were last time to be fair. I couldn't blame anyone for being such after going through something like that.

You'll find another small group of people who don't know each other, who don't have anything in common other than a want to be successful; and likely who are willing to throw the weakest link under the bus to replace them with a fresh set of eyes and a new audience to grow their follower count.

But what happens if it DOES work out? What about when it's made by friends? What about when the people streaming don't actually hate each other?

Well then you still have to contend with burnout, with setting up times to stream together; with the sheer amount of work it is to work as a singular unit rather than as a "stream whenever you want" solo vtuber.

This can be difficult for some people. I remember having times when we'd plan group collabs and then my chronic pain would act up and I couldn't make it. Some would make it out to be a big deal, others would be understanding; either way it was a bit of a let down. Then you'd have the issue of not just everyone having the same games but the same interest in playing them at the same time. Then you'd have issues with if someone is getting more popular, or if there's a difference in ideas for how the group should be handling things.

At what point is it a team and not just a group of friends?

So alright, what do I think? Personally?

I think if you want to have a success vtuber team you should find some method of Classification; even if it's really weird and out there. Give us something to unify you all to the same group. Then you should decide on whether or not as a whole you're a character driven group or a streamer driven group:

Character Driven = investing in the characterization of your avatars, the in character interactions they may have; the "story" or "plot" that exists around them being a key feature of the streams.

Streamer Driven = investing in the streamer behind the characters, the connections of the individuals, their audiences; and the games they play.

Think Hololive vs Jerma.

Jerma doesn't have an anime he uses to explain his more characteristic properties of himself, because he doesn't really need that in order to come out on a stream and go "hey guys it's me, Jerma; the funny white dude on the internet." He can just do that and you already kinda get it because he's invested a lot in you knowing who JERMA is.

Meanwhile every Hololive stream opens with a catch phrase or a sort of characterized opening. Some more elaborate than others; and some even going so far as to call out their generation/team. They DO have an anime, and various other productions that run alongside the streams that serve to amplify them as characters, and even their inside jokes and developments within streams will loop back around to becoming elements of their anime counterparts.

So, once you've figured that out it's not really too difficult.

As long as you're willing to grow as a unit and pick each other up when someone gets ahead, without feeling a need to stab each other in the back or throw each other under the bus; you're solid.

If you're character focused, I strongly recommend you focus on your extended universe, explain to me who your characters are not by taking time out of the stream to stare me in the eyes and say "my character is blah blah blah" but by SHOWING ME through bumpers, skits, or other media. Make comics, make short video bumpers and tiktoks or something I don't care. Just don't sit there on stream EXPLAINING shit at me, because trust me I will tune out I do not care it is not an interesting way to convey who and what you are.

If you're character focused I need you to prioritize SHOW don't TELL.

If you're Streamer focused then I think you have it a lot easier, because you can prioritize getting to better know your audience, their preferences for streams/collabs, and you can get to know each other and use the information above to best sort out who should be pairing off for the best experiences for both you as a streamer and your audience as viewers.

I do believe these two things can mix well.

If you want a really solid example of EXACTLY what I mean, look no further than my (streamer focused) interaction with Nea (character focused)

A lot of the time our interactions work just fine because she understands that I am a streamer before I'm a character, and meanwhile I'll comment on her being an Ice Cream Lion before ever bringing up who she is outside of streams (at least while on streams, we're good friends outside of streams and I know her as her obviously). We're not in a team together but we collab plenty and consider each other to be good friends. We do our best to help one another get ahead in very casual ways and don't seek to bring each other down because we don't hold jealousy or envy towards one another's followings.

And yes, it REALLY is that simple to get along.

The core problem with Twitter's Indie Vtuber scene is that drama and bullshit gets attention and they crave attention over long-term proper collaboration and friendship. I don't doubt for a second that if Nea ever hit it big time and became a full time streamer she wouldn't hesitate or shy away from streaming with me and collabing with me all the same and you better believe that I'd be the exact same.

I used to often talk about applying to corporate vtuber agencies and I always said that if I was to ever get accepted I'd fight tooth and nail to be able to collab with my friends in hopes of getting them in front of the audience they deserve to have.

But yea that's it, that's the big keys to successful Vtuber team right there;

Classification helps a TON.

Be good to one another, don't allow yourself to succumb to the jealousy and envy of seeing one of your friends and team members gaining popularity faster than you.

Actually being good friends does help a lot too.

Actively support one another.

[misscammiedawn]

Apple Music Round-Up 2024

Welp, our mental health results came in for the year. Fun thing to crack through. Because I'm going to be a basic bitch and post my marketing algorithm data online.

It does actually show some interesting insights into our system, though. It's an impartial switch/mood counter that I really can't manipulate.

Let me be a bit self-indulgent.

Artists

So, yeah. We mostly listen to music when we're at the office so that's one day a week. 40 hours of Rush is about on par for us, to be honest. I feel we could have done more.

Anyway. Let's break them down and give a little analysis of where our head may have been at for these times.

Rush - It's Rush. Honestly 40 hours is kind of low for us. Though there's 120 hours of playtime represented on this list which means 33% of all music (in our top 10) was Rush. --Still seems a little low. Doesn't include the time we were listening to Geddy's autobiography, Neil's books or listening to Rush music on YouTube or Winamp on our personal computer. This is Apple Only. The First Constant - Sample Song

CHRVCHES - If Cammie had a favorite band outside of Rush it'd be CHRVCHES. Personally I really enjoy Screen Violence but Cammie likes everything they've ever put out and is pouting that Mayberry is putting the project on hiatus. Every Open Eye is a damn near perfect album and Bury It was a "Camden Song" before we even transitioned. Cammie-Coded - Sample Song

Porter Robinson - The new album dropped this year and as you'll see we ran the Hit Single of the album a bunch of times. We listened to the first two albums a lot in the build up and made a friend on a Discord server over enjoying Porter's work. Also Cammie-Coded. - Sample Song

Left at London - Kind of a surprise as Nat hasn't released any new music this year. I love her work a ton and am a little sad that Tyler didn't show up on either list because, not to be too white on main, she was our entry point for him. Nat's music resonates with us on the topics of transgender topics and mental health stuff, particularly BPD and identity dissociation. Camden-Coded - Sample Song (cw: suicide mention)

Genesis - Genesis (and Phil Collins) are our back-up band for when we need a break from Rush. Kind of surprised we listened to so much. Don't really have much to say. I know we added Home By The Sea and Driving The Last Spike to our favorite songs but can't think of a time we sat down and listened to Genesis with intent. A mystery to be solved, I'm sure. Dawn/Wynn Coded?- Sample Song

The Streets - Okay, The Streets returned after a lengthy hiatus in October 2023 so it's no surprise that we were binging the new album. Craig loves Skinner's work and thinks Original Pirate Material is early 2000s London encased in amber. It feels like home when we listen to it and the boy needs to feel a connection to the things we lost every now and again. Craig-Coded - Sample Song (cw: drugs/alcohol overdose)

Vienna Teng - A little bit of Michigan that we took with us. Wonder if this is a Dawn thing? Vienna Teng has a gentle country/folk mix and has poetic lyrics that try to draw intimate connections between characters. Her songs feel like a voyeur writing poetry about the other people in a diner and I kind of dig that. Dawn/Camden-Coded - Sample Song

Grace Petrie - Queer British folk music, emphasis on the queer. Grace's music has a lot of anger about the current political climate and has a lot of blissful gender euphoria. Cammie/Dawn-Coded - Sample Song

The Narcissist Cookbook - Queer British folk music, less emphasis on the queer. I'm actually sad Cookbook isn't higher. We wanted to see him play live this year but were worried about COVID. Camden-Coded - Sample Song

Yes - It's prog rock. I imagine a decent amount of this time was spent listening to Closer to the Edge alone. Dawn-Coded - Sample Song (cw: 18 minutes)

Individual Songs

...fuck.

So this is obviously a little weighted by the fact that certain songs are the only thing we listen to by their particular artist. 40 hours of Rush is spread over a couple hundred songs where many of these songs are the only thing we even know their individual artists from.

Plus--- I'll admit it. There are times where a certain song just hits and we have to suck the emotion from it like a Capri-Sun by playing it on repeat. I'd say "I" as Camden because there's a lot of yearning/angst songs there but track 4 is 100% Dawn being an extravagant Fae.

Also funny thing. Craig was fronting when we started pulling this and the moment I saw our top songs I jumped in. I almost didn't post to avoid "outing" myself here but if we're going to do the Camden Walk Of Shame then I'm writing my own fucking excuses.

This Means War ~ Marianas Trench (39 Plays) - Look. I'm not going to beat around the bush. I miss my friends. I miss them so much it tears my stomach inside out and makes me cry into a pillow at night.

Cheerleader ~ Porter Robinson (31 Plays) - The hit single from Porter's new album got a lot of spins this year. Cammie absolutely loves doing the dishes while dancing or singing to this one.

I'm Spent ~ Housewife (29 Plays) - "Old friends fading, am I still in your good graces?" - Fuck this entire playlist really is the Camden walk of shame. "I guess that's all in the past. No we're not getting it back." ...god damn it.

Mine (fear. Linnea Olsson) ~ Daniel Olsen & Jonathan Eng (29 Plays) - Dawn, you little shit, this song is pure Fae energy.

Bad Friend ~ Cheese on Bread (26 Plays) - The lyrics on this one are so specific to the artist that I don't really project onto it any but if I did I'd cast myself as the bad friend. Either way the chorus carrying the wish that a broken friendship can be repaired is just... *sighs* ...why the fuck am I posting this on the internet where humans can read it?

Reverse ~ Minimall (26 Plays) - Ever seen the movie Eternal Sunshine? There's a reason that movie is held up as a movie about BPD. I hate the secrets I carry in relation to both my marriage and my former best friends. It's this intense intimate Knowing of a person and... I can't even talk about my part in any of that. It's just, parts of my own history are gated behind bars and it fucking hurts because I'd never tell those secrets because they're not mine, even if the things that I experienced impact my life and I'm left in limbo processing things in solitude. If I could... I'd reverse it. Let all those secrets and experiences pour out of me. That way, maybe there'd be peace?

Do It, Try It ~ M83 (24 Plays) - The scene at the end of Letterkenny season 8 got us into this song and made me reevaluate Junk. Mr. Robot and my love of Daft Punk already sold me on M83 but Junk wasn't that good so we slept on it.

Something's Always Wrong ~ Toad the Wet Sprocket (23 Plays) - Always loved this song and Toad. Craig does too, I believe? Prior to transition and going non-contact with our family of origin we edited a recording of a 3 hour Skype 'conversation' with our father put it on like 10 times speed while the song played and paused the song whenever we spoke. There was about 80 seconds us us speaking. We timed it so "another day, I call and never speak" played before we got our first word out. Fun times.

Keep You On My Side ~ CHRVCHES (23 Plays) - Used to play this on repeat at the end of our marriage. Seems old habits die hard. Cammie loves CHRVCHES. This song is a fucking banger.

You're Gonna Go Far, Kid ~ The Offspring (23 Plays) - Fuck yeah this song is awesome!

-

Okay. Now I'm done shaming myself in public I'm going to just pout for a while.

Maybe listen to some Rush.

[rabbit-of-mugenri]

I wonder, what do you ship in Len'en?

Oh hey, you're the one who made the Fanfic Discord server right? This is Starrot Vanity! And I finally made a Tumblr for Len'en stuff 'cause the hyperfixation is back I caved in and wanted a larger space for my headcanons/AUs that Discord couldn't provide. You've asked me this question before, but for the audience at home (also so I can elaborate on some of them):

Ooookay, so, this is a bit of a complicated question to answer, since the ships I'm interested in on a relationship analysis level and the ships that I find think would make a good couple are two separate circles. Not to mention there's a third, equally separate circle consisting of ships that aren't actually ships in the romantic sense, more in a platonic/"they have a really good dynamic" sense.

So I'll split this into threes parts: Ships That are Good, Ships That are Interesting (but please for the love of God don't emulate the behaviours of these ships they're unhealthy as fuck), and Platonic Ships.

(Also content warning in the second section for abusive relationships and Suzumi being Suzumi)

Ships That are Good

AkaYabu

This is just a pure, simple "idiots in love" ship, with a dash of "no homo" since they're just friends. So what if they tuck a homie in bed, give their homie a little kiss sometimes, that's just what bros do!

...As you can see, the main conflict in this ship is that both of them think the other sees them as just a friend, alongside their own denial about being in love. Doubly so in Hooaka's case: Why should Yabusame be interested in them when they have Tsubakura? Hooaka can tell the two have a deep, complex relationship with each other, and they don't want to intrude. Which leads to...

YabuTsuba

Oh boy, these two. Yabusame has a deep, unwavering loyalty to Tsubakura that neither know exactly why. Tsubakura's especially confused by this, but at the same time they need that. After all the pain and suffering and death they've gone through, they need someone who's just there. never asking why like everyone else.

(As for how these two ships are resolved, usually one is more down played than the other. So for example, if the focus of something is on YabuTsuba, then Hooaka simply sees Yabusame as a friend. Occasionally though, I'm reminded that Yabusame has two hands.)

TsuruTen

This one's interesting, since it's essentially YabuTsuba in reverse. Or, to put it another way, Tsurubami is (ironically) a more human Yabusame. Whereas Yabusame's reasons for staying by Tsubakura is shrouded in enigma, Tsurubami's reasons for staying by Tenkai is much more simple: Tenkai represented a alliance with Azumaterasu, a barrier workshop rumoured to have been founded by a god.

But Tsurubami began to feel that Tenkai represented much more than that; Tenkai was a way to starve off the loneliness that came part and parcel with ruling Mugenri. Tenkai added colour to their world, and soon Tsurubami realized that they didn't want to use them as a pawn, they wanted a friend.

Ships That are Interesting (but please for the love of God don't emulate the behaviours of these ships they're unhealthy as fuck)

HibaTsugu

So like, there's no canon basis as to how badly Hibaru treated Tsugumi, but in my headcanon it's pretty badly my dude.

Both of them are old as balls, but while Hibaru has seen shit, Tsugumi was oddly spared from most of the horrors living for hundreds of years has. Perhaps out of luck, perhaps out of a preference for plants over people. They heard of Tsurubami and their dictatorship, though, and they weren't fond of that.

Neither was Hibaru. And so, the two of them paired together in an effort to take down the Senri Shrine. Along the way, the two became friends, possibly even more.

And then the final confrontation happened, wherein the pair learned the truth behind Mugenri, its purpose. Hibaru's response? Snap Tsugumi's wings and leave them behind.

Adding on to this, Hibaru's got like a thousand years of moral decay to work with, versus Tsugumi's somewhat sheltered life. How fine were things, truly?

Suzumi + Shitodo (SuzuAo, SuzuAka, SuzuKuro)

Sure, Tsubakura-sama was their main target, but Suzumi can work on multiple projects at once. And, well, hurting those close to them also counts towards Tsubakura-sama's suffering, doesn't it? Since Yabusame's too...strange in a way that Suzumi doesn't like, that leaves the Shitodo family.

Kuroji's their main target, being the one closest to Tsubakura-sama. And oh, how close they are to the real thing! How beautiful it is to see their normally aloof behaviour break down, crying and begging for their life! Alas, their only a pale imitation to the great Tsubakura, so they're soon disposed of.

Hooaka, now there's an interesting one! They play dumb, but Suzumi knows better. It's just so fun to push their buttons, see what causes them to drop the act and show a more serious side. It's like a gift only they get to see!

And Aoji, oh, Aoji. They're pretty, they're in tune with nature, they're small and quiet and just a little slow on the uptake. What isn't there to love? Just cute enough to kill.

SuzuTsuba

I...don't actually know what to add here that hasn't been said before. Suzumi is their own warning.

Platonic Ships

Hooaka and Kuroji

Man, these two. These two. They care for each other, they want to protect the other, everything the do for the other is out of love. It's just their definition of showing appreciation for the other is so covered in layers of irony and an inability to be honest that the other misunderstands and assumes that the other just hates them.

A tragedy, isn't it?

The rest of the Shitodo's

Honestly the dynamics of all the Shitodo's is just so good. They're all varying degrees of dysfunctional, but at the end of the day they all care about each other. It's just...a struggle to get any of them to admit it.

The Fujiwara's

Speaking of dysfunctional families that still love each other at the end of the day, how about Mugenri's own home-grown Fujiwara's? Possibly even more of a mess compared to the Shitodo's, since murder's on the table for dealing with family scuffles.

[fiercynn]

yes, they report all their numbers legally, i'm not disputing that. that's why i said, very clearly, that i'm not claiming this is a scam in any way. however, this is what otw treasurer/finance chair yuechiang luo said when asked about their surplus at the 2022 public q&a, which is what i was referring to:

given that this is the public meeting where they are supposed to be available to answer questions from people who might not have the capacity to dig deeper into their finances, it is at best disingenuous to say we have "over $1 million" in fall 2022 when, as you've noted, they reported having $2.3 million at the end of 2021, and had certainly already raised a good amount by that point in 2022 as well.

(that meeting is still up in the otw board meetings discord in the #public-finance-meetings channel, i just went and got the screenshot right now, if anyone wants to read through it. you can even read through the october 2021 finance q&a, where a lot of similar questions were asked and where mostly the same answers were given)

otw needs to be operating from the idea that transparency with their members and donors is a priority – especially given all the other issues they've been rightly called out for, including racism and mistreating their volunteers. and they have not been transparent about their surplus in ways that are accessible to most people who might want to understand them. they don't include any mention of their surplus in the budget spreadsheets they release, and this very much has an impact: i can't tell you how many people have argued with me about the numbers i'm sharing for their surplus because they "would have noticed that if it showed up on their budget reports".

it's just not reasonable to expect that your average otw donor should know to dig through their audited financial statements and form 990s to find these numbers. and at the very least, when the treasurer is asked directly about otw's surplus, by people who are not financial experts, the treasurer should be transparent about it.

a couple other responses to your points:

i said that they got most of their legal expenses donated. i still haven't had time to go through their 2022 docs fully because they put them up so recently, but what i'm seeing from my skim is that they had $199,235 in donated legal services. i'm not seeing where the $84k number comes from, but that would still be 70% of their legal expenses donated, which i feel comfortable calling "most", especially when we're talking about these expenses in the context of almost $2.8 million in surplus. either way, my point is that their surplus is not intended for legal expenses, but for some reason this is a common argument that comes up whenever people mention the surplus, even though i haven't ever heard an actual fincom member say that's what it's for

i never said the transfer of $10 was a singular transfer? but fine, i could have been clearer that i meant a net transfer over the course of 2022. it doesn't change my underlying point, which is that they have an interest-bearing account with some money in it and have not added any significant amount of their $2.8 million surplus to it!

it's true that their operating expenses grow over time but to be clear, the highest that they've been so far is $578k in 2024, at least according to their budget spreadsheet actuals (i do not have the energy to look at their financial statements for this rn). here are the numbers for several years before that: $298k in 2018, $310k in 2019, $444k in 2020, $306k in 2021, and $519k in 2022

it's all very well talking about an ambitious roadmap when they have been saying the same things about paid staff, investments, and server upgrades for years without progress. it's part of why i harp on the investments piece so much even though i personally would prefer to see the money spent – because it's evidence that even the one of the simpler things that they have been talking about for, what, at least a decade? hasn't been implemented meaningfully. and they've been talking about paid staff for even longer, so the idea that we need to keep giving now, on top of their surplus, for them to be sure they can pay staff in the future, is also spurious. (i also have been a part of many nonprofits, including nonprofits that are all volunteer run, and many of them have ambitious roadmaps that they still make progress on much faster than otw, with far less volunteer power overall)

it's also hard to take seriously that volunteers can make real change from the inside when many who try are mistreated by the org, including being lied about and thrown away like azarias; including through racism towards chinese and chinese-speaking volunteers; including through censuring of volunteers of color like dhobi ki kutti who try to address racism internally; and including censuring volunteers who just have "from the river to the sea, palestine will be free" in their slack statuses. otw has not been meaningfully accountable to any of those things yet.

anyway, i'm going to stop responding to reblogs of this post after this because i've spent way too much of my limited energy on this topic already, but here's my underlying point: why should i, or any other prospective donor, believe in their roadmap enough to donate even more money than we've already donated in the past, given their failures to implement so many of the things they have claimed they want to do, for years, AND their history of harm done to volunteers, especially volunteers of color? given that context, it is entirely reasonable to say that you don't need to donate until we start seeing tangible impacts of that roadmap.

on ao3's current fundraiser

apparently it’s time for ao3’s biannual donation drive, which means it’s time for me to remind you all, that regardless of how much you love ao3, you shouldn’t donate to them because they HAVE TOO MUCH MONEY AND NO IDEA WHAT TO DO WITH IT.

we’ve known for years that ao3 – or, more specifically, the organization for transformative works (@transformativeworks on tumblr), or otw, who runs ao3 and other fandom projects – has a lot of money in their “reserves” that they had no plans for. but in 2023, @manogirl and i did some research on this, and now, after looking at their more recent financial statements, i’ve determined that at the beginning of 2024, they had almost $2.8 MILLION US DOLLARS IN SURPLUS.

our full post last year goes over the principles of how we determined this, even though the numbers are for 2023, but the key points still stand (with the updated numbers):

when we say “surplus”, we are not including money that they estimate they need to spend in 2024 for their regular expenses. just the extra that they have no plan for

yes, nonprofits do need to keep some money in reserves for emergencies; typically, nonprofits registered in the u.s. tend to keep enough to cover between six months and two years of their regular operating expenses (meaning, the rough amount they need each month to keep their services going). $2.8 million USD is enough to keep otw running for almost FIVE YEARS WITHOUT NEW DONATIONS

they always overshoot their fundraisers: as i’m posting this, they’ve already raised $104,751.62 USD from their current donation drive, which is over double what they’ve asked for! on day two of the fundraiser!!

no, we are not trying to claim they are embezzling this money or that it is a scam. we believe they are just super incompetent with their money. case in point: that surplus that they have? only earned them $146 USD in interest in 2022, because only about $10,000 USD of their money invested in an interest-bearing account. that’s the interest they earn off of MILLIONS. at the very least they should be using this extra money to generate new revenue – which would also help with their long-term financial security – but they can’t even do that

no, they do not need this money to use if they are sued. you can read more about this in the full post, but essentially, they get most of their legal services donated, and they have not, themselves, said this money is for that purpose

i'm not going to go through my process for determining the updated 2024 numbers because i want to get this post out quickly, and otw actually had not updated the sources i needed to get these numbers until the last couple days (seriously, i've been checking), but you can easily recreate the process that @manogirl and i outlined last year with these documents:

otw’s 2022 audited financial statement, to determine how much money they had at the end of 2022

otw’s 2024 budget spreadsheet, to determine their net income in 2023 and how much they transferred to and from reserves at the beginning of 2024

otw’s 2022 form 990 (also available on propublica), which is a tax document, and shows how much interest they earned in 2022 (search “interest” and you’ll find it in several places)  

also, otw has not been accountable to answering questions about their surplus. typically, they hold a public meeting with their finance committee every year in september or october so people can ask questions directly to their treasurer and other committee members; as you can imagine, after doing this deep dive last summer, i was looking forward to getting some answers at that meeting!

but they cancelled that meeting in 2023, and instead asked people to write to the finance committee through their contact us form online. fun fact: i wrote a one-line message to the finance committee on may 11, 2023 through that form, when @manogirl and i were doing this research, asking them for clarification on how much they have in their reserves. i have still not received a response.

so yeah. please spend your money on people who actually need it, like on mutual aid requests! anyone who wants to share their mutual aid requests, please do so in the replies and i’ll share them out – i didn’t want to link directly to individual requests without permission in case this leads to anyone getting harassed, but i would love to share your requests. to start with, here's operation olive branch and their ongoing spreadsheet sharing palestinian folks who need money to escape genocide.

oh, and if you want to write to otw and tell them why you are not donating, i'm not sure it’ll get any results, but it can’t hurt lol. here's their contact us form – just don’t expect a response! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[greys-dawn-archive]

TGCE shenanigans

this is not a callout. we aren't interested in making callouts. you can do with this information what you want and what you will. if that means including it in your own callouts, so be it- we just won't be making one ourselves

that said, this is a collection of things that we've dealt with regarding TGCE (aka the-gender-collector-emself, aka Alex J Brimmer, aka Stormy&). we've been pretty quiet about it bc we knew ey were a large part of the mogai community and we didn't want to get harassed, nor ruin anyone's fun. however, now that more issues are coming up and others are coming forward sharing issues they've had with em, we've decided we may as well come forward about it

important sidenote: i will probably fuck up eir pronouns. this isn't on purpose, nor is it meant to be disrespectful- i use neopronouns myself! however, i'm used to thinking of people as being plural (which, TGCE is) and thus use plural they/them by accident a lot, even for folks who use different pronouns. i apologize in advance and will correct any mistakes i find, if there are any left after posting

also note that all of this is from 2019, so it's rather old news (but it's clear that nothing's changed since then, so it's still technically relevant). a lot of screenshots will also be from a discord conversation we had with someone else on December 1st, 2019

some background

TGCE was following us last year, mostly back in September. I'm actually not sure how long ey were following us before ey started sending us anons and angry replies on our posts, and we have em blocked so I don't think we can check

At some point we were also a mod in a server of eirs. I don't remember much that happened in that server itself, though, and we don't have any screenshots from it as far as I know. Just know that we were "close" enough to em that we modded a place ey owned before all this hit the fan

veganism stuff

note: veganism isn't inherently a bad thing. we aren't saying that. however, vegans who are extreme in their activism are. that was the point of posts we were making at the time

the first instance of anything regarding this that we can remember is probably back around september. we can't get the exact timestamps anymore due to a blog purge/shift, but i think that's about when things went down

we reblogged something criticising vegans, tagging it as "anti-vegan" specifically for others' tag blacklists. in the tags we also explicitly mentioned a negative view on extremists. this is the post in question:

shortly after this, we received an anon ask that we're pretty sure was from TGCE. here's that:

we didn't end up finding that other reply, unfortunately, and because of the blog purge + blocking it's likely long gone

-

below is another thing we have saved regarding veganism. the "us leaving" part is a reference to us leaving the server of eirs that we were modding for em, because we didn't feel comfortable being there anymore

unfortunately, this isn't all of it. we have multiple friends who received similar harassment, including one person who owned a server that TGCE was in at the time. TGCE directly told them to unfollow/not to interact- which is pretty hard, when they owned a server ey were in. to be fair i don't think ey made the connection due to the difference in platforms, but that doesn't really help much

(if we get permission to add things from our friends then we will. we have at least one screenshot regarding the above on hand)

misc stuff

we have near exact proof of em sending us an angry anon over one post. it was about a girl nearly dying over eating something spicy, with a chain of people making fun of her underneath it. some people spoke up about it, and the bottom comment (not from us) criticized the fact that people wouldn't be doing the same thing to a person of color. it wasn't a great post and i'll admit that- but eir response to it wasn't great either

here's the bottom of the post and the timestamp on it:

TGCE then commented on the post itself:

when we didn't say anything about it (likely due to not actually seeing it at the time), ey sent us an anon over it:

i guess we're "all lives matter" because of one post that we didn't even actually comment on, huh

-

other than that, we've also got this post from after we left eir server:

when asked about it i'm pretty sure ey made up some excuse for it and claimed it was because of something else, but it was very coincidental timing at best

we also got a string of other anons after all of that:

which, surprisingly... looks very familiar to more recent asks we've gotten

even though the anons from before were blocked. hmm

---

i think that's about all we've got right now, though we do have some things saved from other people's blogs. this isn't the first time ey've been accused of harassing others (including minors, which we weren't at the time but had friends who were) and it likely won't be the last, unfortunately :/

[blow-ur-mind]

Season 3 Episode 8

I've falling behind again on writing my thoughts, but I'm still watching.

I enjoyed this episode minus the war bits. I found it kinda boring. I still really hope they arent going to take until the end of the season or worse until next season to explain what happened to Nicky. The preview is saying they'll be answers so we'll see.

It was a break from the usual Thanksgiving tradition episodes, but there was still a nod to it in the flashback. I liked that though especially cause we got some interactions we hardly or never get. I liked the Kate/Tess scenes and even the bits with Toby. How old is Tess though? I thought she was like 10.

This campaign stuff, there's been some good parts and Randall means well, but at the end of the day I think he won't win. I really like Jae Won though can he still stay even if/when Randall doesn't win. He was right, though I don't love him and Beth clashing. Im sure we haven't seen the end of that. I wished they'd just let Beth find another job/path elsewhere.

The William/Jesse scenes were interesting and we got backstory on their official first meeting. I still wish they didn't kill William off.

Glad we finally got some backstory on the situation with Miguel and his kids. However, their attitudes are terrible. As strange as the whole marry my dead best friend's widow/my dead husband's BF is, Rebecca did not steal Miguel. That's not even possible to do anyways, and we know they didnt get together until a decade after Jack's death and Miguel and Shelly were long divorced. I wonder what she thought about Miguel and Rebecca since she and Rebecca were best friends. I guess they've never had one big family dinner that would be a mess. I was curious about the relationship between the big 3 and their step-siblings as adults.

Still no mention of the "her" yet again.

I have a discord server for the show join here: https://discord.gg/TakBju3

I'm gonna go watch the next episode.

[teaveetamer]

I don’t just treat Edelgard Critical like enemies 24/7

We ain't an enemy at all, friend. Just people with opinions. You should let others have those sometimes! You know Moonlitboar even liked Edelgard? Guess they just didn't like her the right way for you, though.

...I didn’t make Moonlit close his account. That’s on him.

"I didn't make them shoot themselves! I just held the gun to their head, put my finger over theirs, and gently nudged the trigger! Totally different!" The things you do have consequences, you know. Take responsibility for your actions.

I never sent harassment his way and I stridently condemn people who harass under anon like cowards.

You think I didn't see when you did this exact same thing to Nilsh? I'm not buying it, no matter how you try to justify it. Oh, and your little celebrations on your Edelgard discord server over getting him to leave Tumblr were cute. You know that's just as public as our Tumblr blogs, right? Funny how you insist you aren't obsessed and you didn't encourage harassment when you and your friends have mentioned him over four hundred times. The mods even had to make a fun little rule that you weren't allowed to mention him by name anymore!

That’s... fascinating. Well when I see you make points worth refuting I’ll refute them, if that makes you feel better.

Can't wait. Do be sure to try and keep it civil with me this time, yeah? And if you send them to your friends, give me a heads up. I'll put on some tea for them.

tried to shut me up via blocking me

You're telling on yourself, hun. What do you even mean "tried to shut you up"? You don't have a right to his time or his takes, and you certainly don't have the right to continue trying to drag someone who has made it very clear that they no longer want to interact with you. He told you that he didn't want to talk to you anymore and he intentionally created an environment where you would not have to see his takes any longer, and you intentionally and maliciously continued pursuing him. For what? I don't know and I won't speculate, but that is the definition of harassment. And why wouldn't he have kept reading your posts? You were HARASSING him, and your harassment sent others his way.

And I don't care how much you disagreed with his takes or anyone else's. When you saw you were hurting him, you should have stopped. And you didn't. You kept digging, and digging, and digging because the feelings of an actual person didn't matter to you more than your fandom grievances. And I don't know what to say to that, other than "I hope I never become like that".

And now you really want me to believe the same thing didn't happen with Moonlitboar, when you have a pattern of behavior? And you've outright admitted that you were harassing Nilsh. How hard is it to leave well enough alone and agree to disagree? Not everyone is going to agree with you, and that's just a fact of life. And I don't have a problem with you disagreeing with anyone so long as it doesn't result in this. But it has. TWICE.

Oh nah, I’m just calling out your hypocrisy.

I actually had you blocked for months before now, because I know how to avoid people I don't agree with :) However, I will not stay silent when your behavior is impacting the mental health and wellbeing of real people, and worse you're gloating about it. You will do this again, I know you've already got your next targets set because they've had a lovely little uptick of interaction from you and the anons that always follow your presence. I will not let anyone say I did not speak up against it, so I unblocked you to have my "little meltdown" as you put it earlier (nice sexism, by the way, but just because a woman calls you out doesn't mean she's in hysterics).

But you know what? I hope you prove me wrong. I hope this stops, because I really didn't want to do this. I hope no one ever has to experience the kind of harassment I've seen go down twice now because of you. I don't even wish it on you.

Well well well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions

So evidently our favorite Faerghus/Lambert stan, Moonlitboar, was saying some very stupid things on Twitter (like, for instance, Lambert taking over half of Sreng was good because it made him interesting as opposed to boring old Ionius) and got rightly criticized for it.

I’m only discovering this now: it all played out while I was at work today so I thought Edelgard Critical was randomly getting upset over the Nilsh saga again (another instance in which somebody was saying stupid things, got called out on it, turned out to be a gigantic paper tiger, and ran away).

Here’s a news flash: public social media isn’t your private place to say whatever stupid thought enters your head without criticism, and when you get mocked for the things you say, that’s not targeted abuse, that’s the consequences of your own fucking actions.

Moonlit fucked around and found out.