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keferon · 18 days ago

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Two Peas in a Pod: part 4/?

Hopefully the dialog isn't confusing.

______________________________

"Still dizzy?"

"Not really," Jazz answered with a comfortable smile, though stole a quick glance over to the gate. The first since Blaster had arrived for the morning routine. The other mer wasn't awake yet last he saw, but he was shifting more. The medication had obviously long worn off by now, but Jazz still hoped they weren't in too much pain.

But Blaster noticed and it prompted him to pause his checks to ask, "did he wake up last night?"

"Kinda? He could have been talking in his sleep though."

"Hm, there's a good chance he'll be up soon, then."

Jazz's expression of his usual cheerfulness shifted, just slightly and if it had been anyone other than Blaster, they would have missed it. He flipped the clipboard over in his lap and rested his elbows against his crossed legs.

"You're nervous," Blaster pointed out gently and gave Jazz an encouraging smile. "Is this about their injuries, or is this about making a friend?"

The mer's face soured and he looked away. "I thought I wasn't supposed to ask."

"That was about the gate, and I'm sorry about that." It was just the two of them on the pier, but Blaster still practised a surveying sweep of the area with what looked like stretching. Then with a lower voice, he continued, "The Vet Chief wanted to fully isolate them from you, to keep them in a transfer-crate, at least until the injuries had a low risk of reopening. I argued that it would put them under a lot of undue stress, and you because you knew the Mer was here. Which is part of why it took so long for–"

"–and it's fine to say this now?" Jazz snapped and turned back to him with a small scowl.

"Jazz, how many staff members were in your area yesterday? When we talked about the gate?"

He paused, trying to recall. Blaster was with him and the group that went into the bay had five… seven?

"There was thirteen, Jazz," he supplied, knowing that any answer coming would be incorrect. It was a lot of people, and with Blaster already known for making waves on the regular, the sudden addition had eyes and ears on him. That, and because he had fought so hard against the 'great idea' brought up in the first meeting after emergency treatment had ended. "You didn't even clock the vet on standby at the pier entrance."

Jazz huffed and laid out flat, resting his chin on his crossed arms. Okay, so he wasn’t paying attention to who was around. "Then what is it about the gate? I get the bit about climbing the walls, but…"

"That one is on me, I was – am – being overly cautious. Not of you, but of others misunderstanding your excitement or anxiety as aggression. And I know how persistent you can be when something catches your interest. But that's not the point, what is, is that if the team reports you showing signs of aggression, they'll… remove him."

Now looking worried, Jazz glanced from Blaster to the gate. "But what if he shows aggression?"

"We're expecting that, at least at first." Blaster wanted to reassure him, but there were still too many unknown variables. "Unknown place with an unfamiliar face, and likely limited communication. There is bound to be backlash."

Jazz looked down with an expression of growing despair, before dropping his face against his arms. His words muffled, "so whether he stays or not depends on me being able to talk with him."

Blaster reached out and placed his hand on the orca's shoulder. "Listen, buddy, this might be hard to hear. But let me explain, okay? … So far it looks like there are no issues and the current plan is to have him released once he recovers." As he feels Jazz tense, Blaster frowns in understanding and begins to rub his shoulder to comfort him. "There is only one reason that the aquarium wouldn't go through with it, and honestly, I don't want that to happen. It's all sorts of fucked up and would only make things worse– but I don't want you to distance yourself from him. I want you to try and befriend him."

"… why," Jazz asked weakly, cursing him for telling him the truth – for reminding him of the truth – for breaking his small piece of hope of not being alone anymore. If he was going to be taken away, if he was just going to lose him no matter what, then it would hurt less if he just ignored him.

All sorts of answers bounce around in Blaster's mind. From wishful thinking – because I want you to go with him. To long term goals – anything we could learn could help Mers everywhere. But he settled on as close to the truth as he could. "Because I'm trying to make sure that no matter what happens, it's the best result for both of you. But I can't do that if the two of you can't at least work together. So, I'm asking you to try."

"Right," because he doesn't need to be kept here to survive… he just needs time to heal. Where I – "–right. Okay, I'll try… but where do I even start?" Jazz took a deep breath to compose himself before he lifted his head.

"Well, why don't we see if sleepy-head is waking up? Maybe he'd like breakfast." Blaster offered, first with a reassuring smile, but then twisted it into something more mischievous. "And maybe you could find out if he's got a beautiful name, too."

It took a second to realize what Blaster was getting at, and for the first time in his life Jazz felt bashful. "W-what are you talking about?" He hid it terribly.

"He's beautiful~" he whispered dramatically, and Blaster learned that mers could in fact blush.

—

When Blaster left to get food for the wild mer, Jazz calmly made his way over to the view port. Only to be taken by surprise, he was looking directly at Jazz. Though, glaring, might be more accurate with how his face was pulled tight with focus and the sheer intensity of his stare.

But otherwise, they were completely calm. Jazz wasn't sure if that was a good sign or bad. Yet, it didn't stop his nervous excitement from returning. He waved with one of his best smiles – one without teeth – and greeted him with a friendly, "hello!"

What he got in return was a slightly more intense furrowing of their brow – irritation or confusion?

"Oh! Sorry, habit." Jazz switched to mer. {Hi!}

The tension didn't leave his face, but there was slight movement and, again, Jazz didn't know how to interpret that. But he did answer, {||၊|။||||•။၊|။|။|၊|။||၊၊၊|?}

"Uh…" Yep, didn't understand any of that.

Then the door opened on the edge behind them and Jazz for a moment thought that it would startle the wild mer. But they didn't even flinch. And while their eyes remained on him, Jazz was fairly sure now that they had been using their sonar to track the human's movement.

"Are they still asleep?" Blaster asked, puzzled.

"Nope, very much awake." He shifted lower to try and get more than the man's boots in his sight.

"Ah…" He sounded uneasy and began to make small careful steps around the edge closer to Jazz while he spoke as calmly as possible. "Well, I'm going to keep talking, just so you don't think I'm trying to sneak up on you."

When he reached the point where he was straight across from the wild mer, they lifted their head to turn their glare on the human. Blaster to his credit did not flinch, but he did freeze. "Whoa– that's – wow, t-that's quite the look."

A series of slow clicks came from them, but their lips did not move. Jazz didn't think it was echo-speak, as it reminded him of his own searching clicks when he was trying to get a better picture. "Oh! I think he's trying to see what you have."

The wild mer glanced to Jazz, becoming silent once more before looking back up at Blaster.

"Fair enough, alright new buddy, I'm going to be real slow about it okay?" Back to narrating his actions calmly as he knelt down. Showing the long pole with a thin, blunt hook, "just an arm I don't mind losing if you decide that you don't like the breakfast I brought," and poured out the fish from the bucket.

Still the wild mer glared, unblinking and watching every little movement.

"Okay… I'm not sure what to make of this, so far everything has been nothing like previous encounters."

"Ya, didn't you say he'd be freaking out?"

"You got anything to calm or reassure our new buddy here that I ain't going to hurt him?" Blaster was doing his absolute best at trying to remain calm, but even his hands were starting to tremble under the pressure the wild mer was giving him. He wasn't even moving, just watching, but it felt like the human was being stalked.

Honestly, Blaster was probably one bad move from being lunged at. Though, if that was the case, he had maybe one chance to get away. The hammock would throw him off on the first strike, the supports could probably take two or four hard thrashings before it snapped under the mer's strength. Injuries be damned, this mer was in peak physical condition.

Jazz gave a small chirp to try and gain the other's attention, and failed, but continued with trying to talk. {It's okay, you're safe.}

He was given a very tiny dip of his finial facing the gate – a tell that he had heard him?

{You're safe,} Jazz repeated.

The mer didn't look away, but he did at least respond. {•၊၊|•|၊|။။၊|။•|||။||||။၊|။•၊၊||၊|။||||။•၊|။•၊၊||၊|။||||။၊|။•} Though, far too fast for Jazz attempt to understand.

"I'm hoping you two are talking about your favourite fish." Blaster joked to cover his nervousness.

Jazz sighed and admitted the truth, "I haven't a clue to what they're talking about…"

"Just let me know if I should run, kay?" He shifted slowly on his knees, trying to find a comfortable spot without making himself too vulnerable.

But Jazz hadn't given up yet. {Hungry?} He tried instead.

More chirps and clicking that didn't translate.

{Hungry? Yes? No?}

The heavy huff that came from them caused Blaster to flinch, but the mer finally focused on Jazz. There was clear irritation in their face now on top of glaring. And the damns broke, he started ranting at him loudly.

"Hey, don't yell at me, I'm trying okay!?" Jazz glared back, not backing down. Though wasn't all that intimidating with him just having a little porthole to look through.

"Jazz, buddy, please don't aggravate him." He, after all, was the one in the room with the wild mer.

"He fuckn' started it!"

Silence came quickly as the wild mer plunked his face into the soft floaty that had been his pillow. Blaster would have found it utterly hilarious if not fearing for his life currently. With another heavy and long huff, the wild mer looked back at Jazz, still glaring, but slightly less than before. {•|||။||||။၊|။•၊၊||၊|။? Yes? No?}

Jazz blinked at him for a moment, depending on the question, no could be a yes. {No…?} He answered tentatively instead.

{It's safe? Yes? No?} And he pointed his nose towards Blaster briefly, but clearly wasn't happy about it.

{Yes!} Jazz nodded vigorously and smiled for extra encouragement. Out of all the staff, Blaster was safe, Jazz held some trust in the human after all. {[Blaster] safe.}

"What about me?"

"He asked if you're safe and I told him you were. Relax a bit or something to show him."

Easier said than done. Blaster cursed, but did his best to ease the tension from his shoulders and smile a little. Even, daring to slowly lift a hand to wave.

The mer did not seem convinced, but his glare lessened some more and looked over the human with more curiosity than before.

{Hungry? Yes? No?} Jazz tried again.

There was a long pause, but they sighed and answered. {… yes.}

"Progress!" He cheered and then stuck his hand through the little window. "Blaster, hand me one of the fish. He's hungry, but I have a feeling that he'll trust you more if he sees me eat what you have."

"Okay." He made sure that it was clear as possible what his intentions were. Taking a fish under the gills, Blaster looped the blunt hook in and out the mouth. Then, very slowly, began to feed the length of the pole towards Jazz's waiting hand. Once Jazz felt the tail touch his palm, he grabbed it and waited until Blaster twisted enough for the fish to slip free. Then the pole was just as slowly drawn back.

The whole time the wild mer watching the exchange intensely.

Jazz pulled the fish over to his side, chirped for the other's attention before he swallowed it whole. Smiling once more as he said, {safe.}

Blaster had to admit, he was surprised when the mer shifted slightly in the hammock, and then cautiously held out his right hand. The glare never left, but this one felt like a threat, that if he messed this chance up, there would not be another.

Though this was the first time Jazz had been able to see any of his injuries. The colourful tape-bandages almost covered every inch of his skin from his hand up to his bicep. It reminded him that just yesterday he had been mortally wounded. Which was probably a key reason the wild mer seemed so calm, they had only started to recover and every action was either painful or exhausting. Likely both.

Jazz watched closely as Blaster went through all the careful steps as he had with Jazz and held the fish out. The only difference, was that the human's grip was loose, just in case the wild mer decided to try and yank him into the water with it. But they didn't, doing exactly as they saw before, allowing Blaster to release the fish and retreat. The whole process was so slow that the wild mer's arm started to shake from being held out.

But both Jazz and Blaster let out a breath of relief as there had been no backlash.

He eyed the fish in his grip with a mild sneer before he swallowed it and then held out his shaky hand for another. It was clear that the pain was getting to him, but nothing in his expression showed weakness.

The feeding got easier and quicker as Blaster relaxed a bit, not fearing that a normal pace would come off as threatening to the wild mer.

When the shaking got bad enough, the mer rested his arm back in the hammock, but kept his eyes on the remaining fish. As if to convey he wasn't finished, just needed a break. Blaster was more than happy to comply and gave him a few praises, even if they didn't understand.

"Hey," Jazz called gently, chirping for the other's attention. He waited until they looked his way, then pointed at himself. "Jazz," and then to the human, "Blaster," and back to himself once more, "Jazz," before pointing to the other mer with a questioning tilt of his head. He hoped it was clear what he was asking for.

When the silence stretched on for a bit, the human also joined in. "Blaster," to himself and to his mer, "Jazz."

There was a brief moment that Jazz could see that they were working over something, opening their mouth a few times before the sound of a sharp zip came out. "… 'tzz?"

Jazz snorted, before breaking into a few chuckles. "Ya, missing the Ja, but you'll get there. I'm Jazz." He placed a hand over his heart.

The gesture was reflected, {•၊||၊။}

It was his turn to try and work out the sound in his head. Jazz tried the word out soundlessly on his tongue once. It was like a popping roll? {•၊||၊၊၊၊၊?}

{•၊||၊။} they repeated, firmly correcting him.

"Nice to meet ya, {•၊||၊၊၊၊၊}!" While the mer scowled at him for not even trying to fix his pronunciation, Jazz just smiled brightly.

"So... what is his name?" Blaster asked for a translation, very interested in the development between them.

Jazz laughed, "I have no idea."

______________________________

Don't ask about my attempt to make sound-wave-like-text, it's gibberish, lol, and going forward only •၊||၊။ (Prowl) & •၊||၊၊၊၊၊ (Prowler) will be used until Jazz has a English (common?) name to attach an understanding to.

Keferon, I just wanted to say that every comment or tag you leave on the fic is like serotonin being injected into my veins. Every silly little image is like rolling down a grassy hill in the warm sun while I laugh with manic joy. When you add art, it's like an adrenaline shot to the heart that makes me want to run across the globe just to frantically wave hello with both hands, give you a hug and run back to get started on the next part.

And the next part will be Prowl joining Jazz in the main pool and Jazz learning just how fast he is, even while injured. >:)c

-GLC

𓆝 Previous 𓆟 Next

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

Me looking in my inbox and seeing that there's two peas in a po

Odjndgdjdkfhdkm PLEASE. Blaster is so nervous EVERYONE IS SO NERVOUS Ooohhhnooo he's gonna freak out and kill everything he can reach oh no we all know how all those wild stupid creatures are oh no watch out While Prowl is trying to blow their pancakes with mind

And I juswannasay I love it so much ehehejgknfbfkdn THE SOUND WAVE SPEACH? I LOVE THE LOOK OF IT EHEHEH

Always a big fan of creative ways of showing imaginary languages. This thing?? ||ll•|Il It looks hella stylish >:O

Aaannnndd I got excited and made some art hehe

#maccadam #transformers #apocalyptic ponyo #jazz #prowl #jazzprowl #blaster #Blaster is slowly but steadily growing on me....huh #kinda torn apart with his design because technically all staff has to wear swim suits around pools. But also the whole Blasters design?#it screeeeammms “big hoodies and jackets”. he is SO blocky in canon. I can't imagine him in a swim suit lol #also IM SO FUCKING EXCITED FOR JP TO GET IN A SAME POOL OHOJFNFB ITS GONNA BE SO FUN #I love how you write them #I LOVE how I read the fic and from time to time I go #“huh I didn't consider that before”#like. I loooove when characters in a fic can do stuff in a way that is smarter than what I expected #and I have this little “oh wow okay” moment #it's not even about big plot. just. little things haha #also ahahahah I love how Jazz keeps “talking” to Prowl while simultaneously having NO idea what are they even talking about #like of course they have to have their first argument before they can even properly understand each other. My favorite JP flavor right here #fuck wait I need to add important tags before I run out of the space for them #ponyo jp writing #GLC #............I just realized I drew almost identical sketch with Jazz and this tiny ass window......#the pose is literally the same but it's drawn from scratch. lmao. oh well #Blaster is actively fearing for his life is the only real one here😔✊#Ohhhhoho Prowl is about to see how fucked up Jazz's situation is #everything. how he is too thin how his fins are curled and fucked how he has to perform for humans EVERYTHING #This fic is a fucking national treasure of this blog I tell you

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royalarchivist · 1 month ago

Text

How to Archive VODs and Clips

Whether you want to download VODs and/or clips for your own records or because you’d like to share them online, knowing how to archive things is handy, especially when so many streams become lost media once they’re deleted off Twitch and/or YouTube.

Here are a few programs that I use for Royal Archivist!

—

Of all the programs on this list, my personal favorites / the ones I most strongly recommend are Cobalt and Twitch Downloader! (When all else fails, OBS is also a good backup).

Cobalt

Cobalt has gained a lot of popularity the past few months, and for good reason! It's a very reliable, extremely user-friendly website that lets you save videos in MP4 formats, convert them into MP3 formats, or video-only without sound.

Cobalt is currently compatible with: BlueSky, Dailymotion, Facebook, Instagram, Loom, OK, Pinterest, Reddit, RuTube, SnapChat, SoundCloud, Streamable, TikTok, Tumblr, Twitch, Twitter, Vimeo, VK, Xiohongshu, and YouTube.

Twitch’s built-in download feature

If you’re downloading your own clip, this is the easiest method to use

First, navigate to your clips page.

To do this, click on your Twitch icon and go to “Creator Dashboard.” There will be a row of icons on your left - click the fifth button from the top (the one above the settings icon) and click on the link that says “Clips.”

At the top of the page, click on “Clips I’ve Created” and you should see a list of every clip you’ve ever made (regardless of whether or not you’ve published them, the clips are there!)

If you're having trouble, you can also type: https://dashboard.twitch.tv/u/ YOUR USERNAME HERE /clips/created

Click on the share button, and the list shown in the photo below will pop up.

After you click on the “Download” button (for landscape or portrait), a new tab will open up with the clip (which will autoplay, so heads up if you have your volume turned up high!)

Right click on the video and click “Save Video As”

That’s all there is to it! Please keep in mind that Twitch’s download function only works for clips you’ve made! You cannot use it to download VODs, or other people’s clips.

Twitch Downloader

Twitch Downloader is by far the BEST Twitch download program I have ever used. I’ve used several different ones, some which have broken because of Twitch’s updates, others which have fallen into disrepair because their creator no longer updates the program, but this one has been working consistently for me for a little over a year now. I’ve kept it very close to my chest because I’m terrified it’ll stop working one day, but it’s better to share resources than horde them out of fear.

Pros:

HD quality for all downloads! Whatever quality the stream was, that’s the quality the download will be (unless you adjust anything in the settings).

The best feature of this program is you can adjust how much you want to clip! Only want a 30 second clip from a 6 hour VOD? You can specify the section you want to download so long as you know the timestamps where you want the clip to start and where you want it to end.

You can download entire VODs.

When saving the file, it will automatically enter the original name of the stream and the stream date. (You can change this, but it’s very handy when you’re downloading an entire VOD and not a section of one).

It will automatically prompt you to update it when a new version has been released. (You do have the option to opt out of this, if you want).

There are a lot of other features available, however, I’ve never tried any of them so I can’t say how well they work. The Github page has a lot of examples and a Q&A section though, so check that out if you’re curious!

On the rare occasion that the program encounters issues, it's easy to use a past version, and the creators are quick to release new updates that resolve any problems. As of today (February 21, 2025) the latest version is currently 1.55.2, which updated last week.

Cons:

Sometimes when you click “Get Info” it won’t immediately load the VOD. This is pretty easy to solve by just restarting the program, so it’s not a huge issue imo.

You can’t preview clips before you download them, so you need to know the exact timestamps you want.

You can’t download VODs that are privated or no longer on Twitch.

How to use:

Download Twitch Downloader from Github and install the version that works for your computer. (In this case, I would download the GUI Windows-x64.zip version. Make sure you’re downloading the GUI version if you want a user-friendly version of this program).

Enter the URL of the VOD you’d like to download.

You can adjust the quality of the video and the length. If nothing is specified in the “Crop Video” section, it will download the entire VOD.

Once you’re ready, click the “Download” button and you’re good to go!

Open Video Downloader

If you’ve ever wanted to download any kind of video, I’m sure you’ve heard of Youtube-dl. There are different versions of this program, but some of them are a bit finicky and if things stop working, it can be difficult and frustrating trying to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it — which is why I recommend this program.

Open Video Downloader, aka youtube-dl-gui, is one of the best video downloaders I’ve ever used. It’s basically Youtube-dl with a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that makes the program very easy for anyone to use.

Pros:

No coding knowledge required! VERY user-friendly.

The creator fixes user issues very quickly! Whenever the program experiences a problem, a new update is released within 24 hours.

It can download videos from pretty much all major social media platforms, including Youtube, Twitter, Tumblr, Twitch clips, Instagram, and more.

Cons:

You can’t adjust the length of what you want to download. If you want to download a 2 minute section from a 5 hour Youtube VOD, you’ll have to download the entire video.

On rare occasions, I’ve had issues where it cannot download an unlisted Youtube video. There are sometimes ways to get around this, but it’s a pain and usually not worth the effort.

How to use it:

Download the latest version of the program from GitHub. Scroll all the way down to “Assets” and select the version that’s right for your computer. (For example, I use Windows, so I would download the .exe file).

Once you’ve installed it, you can start downloading things! For this example, let’s say I want to download Quackity’s “Welcome to the QSMP” video. All I need to do is copy the link and paste it into the white box at the top of the program.

Once that’s done, you should see the video pop up in your download queue. You can queue multiple videos to download at once (you can also download entire playlists too). When you’re ready, click the green download button on the bottom right (as shown in the picture below) or if you only want to download one specific video from your queue, click the download button (circled in red) next to the video.

You can adjust the quality of the video you want to download, and in theory you can choose whether to download just the audio or just the video of a video, but personally that’s never worked for me. That might just be a me issue though.

If you’d like to change where your videos are saved to, click the Folder button (circled in yellow) and choose a download destination. If nothing is chosen, it will default to your Downloads folder.

There are ways you can customize this program, but like I said earlier, this program is very very easy to use and does not require any tinkering whatsoever. You open it, download what you want, then close it. Nice and simple!

Other Recommendations

OBS is a good backup when all else fails! I have to use OBS pretty frequently for YouTube VODs, since there aren't a lot of tools that let you clip parts of a YouTube video (and I'd rather not download an entire 7 hour long VOD for a 30 second clip). There are already a lot of good tutorials out there explaining how to use OBS, so I recommend poking around and seeing what works best for you. If you're new to video downloading / archiving things, I'd still recommend starting with some of the tools I mentioned above first.

I’d recommend making a folder on your computer for clips. I find it very helpful to name all my files with this method: [Stream date] Streamer name - Something that helps me remember what this clip is about / something that will help me find it later, or a quote.

Example: [2-6-24] Mike - I hate capitalism

If you’ve got a significant amount of clips on your computer, I’d recommend backing them up and/or saving them to an external harddrive!

That’s about it! I apologize if I’ve missed any steps, but hopefully everything is more or less easy enough for folks to understand! I’m someone who does not like downloading random programs onto my computer and I’m very paranoid about cyber security, but I’ve used these programs for over a year now, and they’re very reliable and trustworthy. 10/10, I recommend both of them.

Lastly: if anyone has a recommendation for good Youtube clip downloaders, please let me know! I haven’t found any good programs that let me specify how much of a Youtube video I’d like to download, and I am suffering. Help your friendly neighborhood Archivist so I can share more clips from the early days of QSMP.

#Twitch #Resources #FAQ #This post is brought to you by me teaching my coworker about Cobalt today #Coworker: Wow this is amazing! How did you learn all this stuff?#Me: I edit a lot of goofy gay cubito clips ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿#I didn't tell her that but I'm pretty honest about my fandom hobbies when people ask me directly lol #I've put so many sideblog shenanigan things on my resume #I ran a character design blog for like... 5 - 7 years or so?#and I still have stuff from that in my portfolio #Literally any ''silly'' fandom thing you do can be used for your resume #You just need to know how to phrase it #It was very funny when one of my past bosses looked me dead in the eye and said ''You're kind of a nerd aren't you?''#It made me laugh #I'm more of a geek than a nerd but I wear both titles proudly #Anyways that's your RA fun fact of the day #I've posted this before (as an addition to one of Bell's posts) but that one's a tiny bit out of date now #So here's a (slightly) more updated version

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