#now with Actual Fucking Streaming!

[starsandauras]

Entry 22: Close

FFXIV 30 Day Writing Challenge Prompt 22: Close Streamer AU Sunday!

“Alright,” Moenbryda said to herself, pressing the start button. It selected “Arcade Mode” and brought up a gauntlet of opponents for her character to fight. She turned to her camera and grinned. “Now, let’s see how it goes!”

As usual the first couple of battles went quickly and easily, Moenbryda’s eyes fixed on the screen as her character made short work of their opponents. “Oh, I remember this one,” she said, mostly for her chat’s benefit. “He favors kicks and mid attacks.” She bit her lower lip in thought as her character blocked and moved away from the attacker.

Sk8rTalented: Oh come on, attack! GravityWitch: If you want her to lose the run, sure.

Moenbryda rolled her eyes, ignoring chat for the moment. No matter how many times she played this game, she never could keep this one in her memory. It took several minutes, blocking the whole time, before it finally clicked. “Oh yes!” she cheered, and pressed the attack, uppercuts and lower kicks, and soon enough the battle was won.

GravityWitch: See, she knows what she’s doing.

She sighed, leaning back in her chair. “One day I’ll remember his moves,” she said with a wan smile.

A hand reached over her shoulder, placing a cup next to her mousepad. Steam rose from it, along with the scent of jasmine, lemongrass, and green tea. “A brief respite is required, I believe,” murmured a low voice, and she smiled up at the face it came from.

SuperVibrant: GLIMPSE

As the chat began repeating the word, like a pack of seagulls, Moenbryda laughed. “Thank you, Urianger,” she replied, lifting the cup for a fortifying drink. He smiled and leaned in to press a kiss to her temple, where her shorn hair began.

“Thou art most welcome, my dear,” he breathed into her skin, and she giggled lightly.

“Alright chat, a quick break before we continue the gauntlet,” she said, though she was looking only at Urianger. And he looked only at her.

Then she turned back to her streaming rig, pulling up her “back soon” screen and turning off her camera before turning back to him. “I think I can spare five minutes,” she said on a laugh, picking up her cup with one hand and wrapping her other around Urianger’s waist.

“Brigid hath sent an assortment of sweets, perhaps we shalt find some to our liking to accompany our tea,” he replied, wrapping an arm around her hips in turn.

“Oh, I hope she sent her double chocolate chip ones!”

[starry-bi-sky]

on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.

Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.

Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.

Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.

There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.

[boygirlctommy]

i love the bit from oct 17 2020 when tommy and quackity trapped wilbur in a cobblestone box to keep him from pressing the button... wilbur punching through the blocks with his bare hand to try to get to the button... tommy frantically replacing the block in front of him yelling for quackity to do something... the moment when tommy stops, blocks the exit, and tells wilbur to do it. press the button. but then theyd die with him. quackitys like "wait, wait-" but tommy holds his ground and wilbur. ohh wilbur. "why'd you have to make it so hard?"

[b4kuch1n]

siren

[andi-o-geyser]

something about the show treating percy's use as only being to serve vex's joy kinda fucking hurts. like vex is distraught, she was in the stream and she was here, that's true. but they are framing this as if it's a romantic loss only and it's making me lose my mind. people don't lose their use to others when they enter a relationship. they don't just become somebody's partner. they're still a person. percy was a full person and vox machina is a family and everyone loved him. that was the point of tearing ripley apart in the original glintshore fight, they were nothing but pure rage because they just watched somebody they love die and at the end of the day, past the monsters and world ending threats everything is about their love with each other, as a group; platonic, familial, romantic, but love as a FAMILY. that is critical to understand. they are who they are because they all love each other, they love each other to the ends of the earth. and the show just. doesn't acknowledge that. percy died so vex could feel sad and that's it. truly what even is the point if nobody else cares. the death doesn't matter if nobody else cares. so percy's death doesn't matter.

[ipushedthewrongbutton]

Imma do this final vent and then I’ll shut up about it.

This was a dumb move, from every possible perspective.

In the og goodbye video, they really made it sound like they were doing the streaming service because they wanted to go bigger, make cooler videos, really see what they could do and let their creative vision take the lead.

Growing as an artist is what you do when you Already Have The Money To Do So. You don’t tell your audience “give me money and then I will use to it to make cooler bigger things”. That’s not a streaming service, that’s a kickstarter.

They didn’t have the numbers to pull a streaming service off either. “We think we’re ready for television quality content” no you don’t. Sorry, no you do not. Television quality content means 30-50 crew per project, means at least 4-5 production being worked on at the same time, and at least 4-5 productions being broadcast at the same time. Watcher has maybe 2 series they upload simultaneously and they have 25 employees TOTAL. Not even CLOSE to tv levels of content, who the fuck do you think you are???

Did they really think all 3 million of their subscribers were going to follow them on this? Including kids, whose spending is dependent on their parents? Including the casuals, who only subscribed for the occasional video? Including people for whom $6 dollars on another streaming service just isn’t an option? Why DIDN’T they poll this, was this being a surprise really that important??

AND why would you completely cut off another revenue? Even if YouTube is restrictive, it’s still another source of income. Cutting that off completely is… bold.

Especially since in the apology, they let it slip that no, actually, it’s because Watcher is on the brink of having to close up shop because they’re not making enough money with just the patreon, the merch sales, the ad reads, etc.

So… one of those is a lie. Or at least part of the truth.

But let’s assume they are in financial trouble, then this was still the dumbest they could’ve done.

Welcome to the entertainment industry where we follow 1 giant fucking rule: Kill Your Darlings.

Fellas, pals, amigos, bros, dudes. If your projects spend more than what they make, it’s time to downsize. Not upscale. Cut the shit that’s spending the most money, start concentrating on how you can conserve without having to fire your crew. Put the projects where you have to fly out and buy new stuff all the time on the back burner, you can get back to them once you actually have the money for them. Work with what you already have. You have a MASSIVE studio space, fuckin use it. You HAVE sets, you HAVE props, you HAVE talent and you have ideas. Start workshopping all the crazy and shit ideas you thought weren’t gonna work and start thinking how you could make them work with the lowest possible budget you can have. Your audience is there, they’ll watch whatever you throw at them. Now is the time to go crazy and see what sticks. You HAVE viewership. Collab. CONSTANTLY. Get it the fuck out there that you exist. A lot of people had no idea a patreon existed, mention it ALL THE TIME. To the point that it becomes annoying. Do it!

If your studio is becoming too expensive, get rid of it. Sorry, kill your darlings. Move some shit around in Steven Lim’s tesla garage, put up some green screens, this is where you work now until you can afford a studio in LA again, you dipshits. Editors can work from home, sound designers can work from home, writers and researchers can work from home, meetings can happen in someone’s kitchen or living room.

And finally: be transparent. Be honest to your audience and communicate. “We’re sorry to put Ghost Files on hiatus, however we can no longer justify the cost of traveling to locations.” The majority of your audience will understand and show patience. The part of your audience that matters will wait and enjoy your other wacky shit in the meantime. Hell, they might spontaneously start their own kickstarter because those who can, will want to support you financially, if you’re just hONEST WITH THEM.

As a business, you constantly have to choose between your financial stability and that of your employees, your vision and the future of your company and what you Want to do with it, and your integrity, the trust between you and your audience. (Especially that last one, businesses can’t pretend they don’t have a relationship with their audience, that’s not how business works, guys.)

When you’re in financial straits, one of those has to go. Watcher chose the latter, they should’ve picked the middle. Their grand television quality ideas can fucking wait, if money is a problem.

Look, I’m an artist too. I had a vision too. But it was either my creative vision or being able to afford food and rent. Creativity can wait, creativity will always be there once I can support it. Living comes ALWAYS first. Asking my audience to fund my huge artistic dreams though, with only the promise of something cool, NEVER even crossed my fucking mind. That’s what donations are for, that’s what the patreon is for.

They apologised. And good. But this was a dumb decision from the goddamn start. There were like 500 steps in between and they skipped all of it. And for what? For money? For grand ideas? For greed or for hubris? How many of their original subscribers are actually gonna come back? How much money did they lose with this stunt? If they really are in financial trouble, this MASSIVE risk -which is what it has always been- might just be their downfall. And it’d be 100% their own fucking fault.

[riacte]

so hey guys i finished dungeon meshi yesterday and i'm still thinking about it

[64sue]

he knew what he was doing 🤤

welcome all Lando girlsss 😽😽😽

[dismas-n-dismay]

Yuurivoice Twt <3

[shima-draws]

So. I just watched One Piece: Film Red,

[twpsyn-who]

People saying "Don't boycott Eurovision or Israel will win!!" - they already won the second they got past the semifinals. Israel is going to be the winner of this year, especially with the way things are going down at the moment.

You wanted Israel to not win? You guys should've made sure they didn't get to the finals to begin with- though I wouldn't doubt EBU would've changed some votes or pulled some bullshit to add Israel in the finals regardless of making it or not.

[freakinator]

268 hours of vods to catch up on across 22 streamers... in just 4 days

[skitskatdacat63]

Netflix added ads??????? Bruh why even purchase a streaming service atp. Ads, only one screen, etc. It's worse than cable atp

[hana-bobo-finch]

I’m shadowing at the vet clinic in 2 days and I’m clearly not nervous at all because I definitely didn’t have a long winding, distressing dream in which the veterinarian made me play a game in which leif had to throw food at people and maki kicked his ass so bad that leif fucking died but don’t worry because the vet was there and he has magic healing powers and he brought leif back to life but he made sure to mention for some reason that leif doesn’t have chlorophyll because he’s not a plant

[reinabeestudio]

More familial posting. He's like a squeaky toy to me

(also the reference in the first doodle) ↓↓↓

[invinciblerodent]

yes, the location or the lighting aren't the greatest, but, little Iona is done now! they're sitting in my yarn bowl ❤️

(which is something of an issue because I kinda don't have the heart to take them out of there so that i can use the bowl)