#on there that worked on this project but i tune into the twitch stream to basically be told im ruining creative content for everyone

[xxepherr]

.ೃ࿐ELECTION DAY | HP

summary — in which austin accidentally lets it slip that hasan’s faceless (yet public) girlfriend is the woman they’re currently watching analyse the maps on CNN. 

pairings — hasan piker x politicalcorrespondent!girlfriend!reader

pronouns — she/her

word count — 1893

note — i personally would have “6’4 jacked boyfriend” as his contact name so that whenever weird men try to hit on me they see that but thats just me (and this reader insert ofc) (also this is nothing special just me rambling tbh — what’s to say this political!reader doesn’t become a mini series)

THE DAY WAS HERE. election day. not only was it the day your boyfriend had spent hours upon hours preparing for for weeks, but you, too. you were a political journalist and correspondent currently working the map for CNN during the weeks in the lead up to the election. 

it was a big day for you. four years ago you were streaming your own map coverage to fifteen thousand people on twitch, accessing your sources across multiple states to provide statements on what was going on nationwide. being asked a couple months ago to run the maps in front of millions was certainly a step up, but it gave you control to speak objectively without bias unlike most of the other news anchors and correspondents that were pushing right-wing sentiment over any other coverage. 

you hadn’t seen hasan in a few weeks now unless you counted facetimes and tuning into his streams. you’d get texts while he was streaming and the occasional kaya video ( because apparently she’d been whining with your leave ). it wasn’t the same, but you were both incredibly career-driven people, so being hours apart by plane wasn’t as daunting as it probably should’ve been.

“you’re gonna be late to stream,” you laughed softly, fiddling with the cap of the bottle of water someone had gotten you. endless tabs were open on your laptop in front of you, following aspects of every state because there was still hours to go before the polls closed, so you were only needed in short segments for now to go over 2020 and 2016 county votes in particular states at a time. 

“you’re right,” hasan’s voice was slightly staticky through the phone. “i might have to focus on kornacki or fox news so that i don’t spend too long staring at you.”

“aw,” you let go of your phone, holding it between your ear and shoulder to screw the cap back on the bottle. one of the directors caught your attention across the room, holding up his hand to say that she had five minutes before they were back on air again. “i’m back on in a few . . . i’ll have your stream open on my laptop, though!”

“good luck today,” hasan said softly as he started his stream, leaving it on his opening scene while his mic was muted. people were already flooding in by the thousands. “i’ll talk to you in, what, twelve hours? i love you.”

“twelve hours,” you hummed in agreement, “i love you more,” you sighed softly, noticing that the twitch tab was reloading to take her to his ‘starting soon’ overlay. “good luck.” you ended the phone call first, quickly putting it back on do not disturb and placing it over on the table that was full of analytical notes. the board that now had the map of the united states of america was lit up again, an empty canvas waiting for you to load up the old votes to load up projected blue and red areas.

TOO MANY HOURS TO count and three hundred thousand viewers into the election, hasan was still going strong. despite the pull to watching CNN more than he probably should, he managed to force himself to switch between fox news to laugh at republican propaganda and msnbc. though, he would one hundred percent lying if he said he didn’t have CNN up on his second monitor. 

things were steadily climbing, and josh ( ettingermentum ) was back after mike from PA left the call. josh, who had been raging on ( no seriously, no one had really heard him be that loud all day ) about how the democrats fucked up was finally broken up when austin joined the call, the atmosphere shifting.

christmas sign in full view and a cold slab of a slice of pizza being shoved into his mouth, austin’s discussion on if he was being sent to prison if the republicans dominated was dwindled until josh left the call to analyse the polls for twitter. 

“ugh, can we watch something else?” austin asked, barely swallowing his mouthful of pizza first. “all i’ve done is watch fox today.”

“yeah,” hasan chucked humourlessly, clicking around mindlessly between tabs as he tried to find msnbc’s coverage. because the tabs were so small thanks to the fifty million twitter tabs he had open, he almost groaned in frustration when he accidentally clicked on the CNN tab.

 the tab where you were conveniently fiddling with the data of state of pennsylvania. it was already a dangerous game having you on screen when the chat knew what the silhouettes of you looked like — photos from behind of you walking with hasan, photos of your eyes after he tried to do your makeup, mirror fit checks with your face covered by the phone . . . chat only needed to be railroaded enough to work it out. 

just as he was about to switch tabs again, austin opened his mouth. “oh, man, i miss her,” there was a shift in his tone, more than just him speaking without thinking. familiarity shone through. from the way he casually uttered your nickname to the sigh, it was probably worse than railroading. it was the train forgetting to slam the brakes on worthy. 

hasan wisely kept his mouth shut as he switched to fox news — anything was better than CNN currently — and his eyes slowly zeroed in on the chat. question marks upon question marks until it eventually morphed into ‘holy shit she looks familiar’ and ‘girlfriend reveal????’ to ‘omg face reveal’ and his breathing faltered. 

someone switched the chat to emote only mode in the few moments he was silent for, austin thankfully following suit. glancing at his second monitor, you were still doing your thing, this time discussing the iowa flip from blue to red, completely oblivious. 

“austin,” hasan finally said, tone flat. there was no use making a big fuss out of denying it — that would just make it more obvious. 

austin chuckled nervously, awkwardly. “uh . . . sorry, hasan. i didn’t think about it . . . awkward.”

“clearly,” he grumbled, digging his fingers into his hair for a moment as he thought. the election was put on hold in his mind for a moment as he switched the screen to the full facecam. he wasn’t going to directly deny or confirm anything, so instead he said, “take what you will from what austin said. in saying that, don’t go harass her, clearly she was faceless for a reason. anyway,” hasan cleared his throat, “moving on, back to the election . . .” and he swiftly moved on like nothing ever happened ( while the mods were timing out anyone who asked about it for an entire week ).

“PENNSYLVANIA AND NEVADA ARE expected to be the closest as of currently,” you gestured to the map that demonstrated the slight wave from the blue shift. “we’re looking at about half a percent, but election night is full of surprises so . . . we’ll continue to keep an eye on that for now.” the directors in the back signalled that the camera was no longer live, and you nodded and took a deep breath. the polls weren’t looking as good as everyone had expected it would look for the democrats.

finally off the air for a much needed break, you wandered back over to your little table off to the side. notes were piling up, but upon noticing the spam of notifications flashing across your phone. weird, you thought, your notifications usually not showing up unless it came from verified accounts across all social media platforms . . . until you noticed that it was coming from your private instagram and twitter account. super weird. 

and then the text from hasan. 

6’4 SUPER JACKED BOYFRIEND: uhhh so austin accidentally told 300k people we’re dating 

6’4 SUPER JACKED BOYFRIEND: call me when ur done? so sorry

oh. on one hand the first part was exciting. three hundred thousand? it was a new viewership record for him. on the other? that means a shit ton of people knew the secret you guys had spent almost two years safeguarding. you’d wanted to keep your face out of everything because you had your own career and didn’t want his to intertwine with it. a healthy work-life balance was keeping that shit separate, but it was only really time until people found out anyway. it wasn’t the best kept secret, anyway. 

still, you weren’t mad. you sent off a quick text saying ‘it’s alr’ with a smiley face emoji and shut your phone off completely, shoving it off to the side and turning your laptop back on. you’d be back in california tomorrow, anyway, it could be dealt with then.

THE AIRPORT WASN’T AS secretive anymore. tired after only getting a couple hours of sleep because you got back to your hotel at some god awful hour this morning, it was an instant relief to see hasan waiting for you, dresses comfortably to not draw too much attention to himself — which was difficult because he was fucking huge.

either way, you had no energy to do anything but collapse into his waiting arms, letting him engulf you until you were suffocating. “this is nice,” you mumbled. “sorry i didn’t call, was so tired.”

“you’re fine,” he promised, pulling you back slightly to look at him. “i missed you,” he slipped his hand into yours, and he took your suitcase with his other hand. it was nice to be able to publicly be in his presence without worrying, so much so that you leant into his arm, tiredness dragging your feet.

“missed you more,” you said honestly, but there was more on your mind than just small talk. “where’s austin? motherfucker’s been blowing up my phone.”

hasan chuckled, “if i hear him apologise one more time i’m gonna commit a hate crime.” he then shook his head, “he wanted to stay at the house but i told him to come ‘round tomorrow . . . want you to myself first.”

you knew what that was code for, so you shook your head with a silent laugh. “let me sleep first, god.”

and sleep you did. the house was silent thankfully so you were content tucked up in hasan’s arms, stealing him from clocking in with his twitch chat for ten hours in a fit of selfishness that you were entitled too.

“austin might’ve saved our relationship,” you teased, trailing your fingers up his arm that was tightly wrapped around you, both on the verge of falling into dreamland. “now we can go out on proper dates again.”

“you can tell him yourself,” hasan’s arms tightened around her a little bit more, so full of warmth that the blanket was starting to render useless. “when he knocks our door down tomorrow morning.”

“aw, come on,” you tapped his arm a little harder, fighting the urge to gnaw on his forearm. “you love him.”

“i love you, he’s just my side piece,” he kissed the side of your neck tenderly, “night, baby.”

“g’night,” you mumbled back with a soft smile, the world drifting away for just that little bit longer until tomorrow rolled around. you could deal with your very public relationship then.

[loaksky]

— 𝘮𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦

the lowdown — the one where neteyam screws up and he notices the distance between you.

the who — neteyam x fem omatikaya!reader

the word count — 1.6k

the tags and warnings — a lil angst (i must be a masochist), hurt / comfort, fluff. 

the notes — based off of this request! 

masterlist

The pressure on Neteyam’s shoulders makes him tense. 

He’d been thrown task after task, whiplash impending as villagers and clanspeople called his name left and right for assistance with responsibilities both great and menial. 

It was a day he cleared to spend time alone, too immersed in playing the threads that held the clan together. But from morning eclipse to now, as the forest is shrouding in darkness, the duty of being a diligent leader-in-training weighs heavy like an anchor. 

He breathes a sigh of relief when he finally settles near a stream, feet in the water as he leans back on both hands and basks in the natural soundscape of the abundant jungle. 

It’s short-lived though, his eyes closing in defeat when he hears someone calling his name. 

“Neteyam?” It’s you, his lover, his star that shines so bright. “Teyam?” 

He stills, hoping the quiet rush of the stream’s waters will blanket his breathing. 

You come poking out of the brush anyways, excited when you see your partner for the first time since last night’s eclipse. 

You kneel behind him, arms coming around his neck as you lean over his shoulder and start planting kisses against his cheek and jaw. 

“Missed you,” you admit, pressing your face again his. “Today was so exciting, you won’t believe what…” 

He’s tuning you out, a heavy sigh blowing past his lips as your voice projects and seems to fill the space. You chatter, and you chatter, and you chatter a mile a minute as you rehash your entire day. 

You’re only excited, still caught up in the throes of your extended honeymoon phase, but Neteyam, quite frankly, is fed up. 

“For once just stop,” he says sharply, and your babbling dies down. 

“Hm?” you hum, hand coming to tuck one of his braids behind his ear.

“Just stop talking, please,” he says firmly. “You’re being noisy and I just want a single moment of peace.” 

Your hold around his neck loosens and he lets out another deep sigh when he feels you settle behind him, opting to brush your fingers across the upper expanse of his back. You’re trying to work out the knots in his shoulders, but he’s grabbing your hand to stop you. 

“Alone,” he reiterates. 

He doesn’t see the way your face falls, the way a flutter of insecurity shutters over your softened expression. He just feels you withdraw, fingers slipping from his grasp as the grass rustles and you stand to your feet. 

He expects you to bid him a farewell, but by the time he’s craning his neck over his shoulder, you’re disappearing back into the brush where you came from. 

Neteyam seems to sleep the weariness off, that much is clear when he takes a seat next to you the following morning for the first meal and kisses your temple. It sits with you, though, that gutting feeling that maybe Neteyam has underlying feelings that you overlook. 

“Sleep okay?” he asks you, flashing you a small smile as he brushes loose hair over your shoulder to see your profile better. 

You nod despite the lie. Truthfully you had barely slept at all, wracking your brain for signs you missed, moments you spent being overbearing. It still haunts you now as you pick through the fruits and grains on your plate, focusing extra hard. 

“The next batch of warriors will be attempting their rite soon,” he says, biting into a chunk of dried meat. “After everything is said and done…” 

You can’t help but wonder if he’s always felt that way. If every moment with you drains him and he’s just good at keeping up the facade. 

“My love?” Neteyam calls gently, pulling you from your trance. 

You look up at him with wide eyes. 

“Yes?” Your voice cracks, hoarse as you clear your throat.

His brow bone twitches as he seems to search your face. 

“Everything alright?” 

You nod again. 

“Yeah,” you affirm. “All good.” 

But things are not all good, Neteyam comes to realize after a few lonely eclipses. You hadn’t met him at your spot near the waterfalls for evening swims and as he kicks stones on the way back to the camp, he tries to fit the pieces of the puzzle together.

When it hits him, he feels so stupid, freezing in the middle of the buzzing forest. 

“Oh, ________,” he whispers to himself, padding quickly through the grass. 

It isn’t hard to find you, reclined in a hammock, reading a book some of the lab guys had lent to the village for practice. 

As he closes in on you, things seem fine, but he knows better. He knows his sweet girl better than to leave things unsaid. 

You finally look up when your hammock begins to sway with Neteyam’s gradual weight. When he settles in across from you, pulling your smooth legs over his, he speaks. 

“Where have you been, my love?” he tests, fingers absently toying with the threads fastened around your ankle. 

“Here,” you say simply, turning your attention back to the book to flip the page. 

“You didn’t meet me at the waterfall,” he presses, fingertips skimming over your calves. 

“There were many tasks in the village today,” you reply. “I wanted to rest.” 

A prolonged silence envelops you as you continue reading, leaving Neteyam to filter through his thoughts. 

“Can we talk?” he asks, delicately pulling the book from your grasp to draw your attention. 

You blink at him with round eyes and his heart squeezes in his chest. How could he say something like that to someone like you, always so tender and gentle. 

“I want to apologize,” he says, leaning forward to capture your hands in his. “About that night near the stream.”

Your expression doesn’t falter, you just continue to watch him quietly as he mulls over the words. 

“I was really overwhelmed and I took it out on you,” he says, thumb brushing over azure skin. 

“S’okay,” you say softly, smiling at him lightly. “I’m sorry for being annoying.” 

Neteyam’s gaze softens.

“You could never be annoying,” he says, hand coming up to stroke your cheek. “I like when you’re happy and you tell me about your day. I like being with you.” 

He’s pulling you into him so that you rest on his chest, hand coming up to smooth the hair on the back of your head. 

Neteyam doesn’t notice that the smile doesn’t quite reach your eyes as his voice rumbles in his chest.

You had him fooled for a while, that things were okay between the two of you, but Neteyam was learning to read you. Knew your little tics and nuances. 

You wanted to shake that night, wanted to fall into him again, but it was like an itch that couldn’t be scratched, an ache that couldn’t be soothed. 

You were so in your head that you hadn’t even realized that others were starting to notice, too. Murmurs that there could be trouble in paradise. 

You were starting to read more, blowing through the books in the lab. Anything to take your mind off the burn. You were too busy trying to preserve the peace, of trying to find comfort in your own, that you don’t notice that Neteyam is growing restless. 

It’s another missed meet up when he finally decides that enough is enough. 

When he doesn’t find you in your hammock, his brows furrow, shaky breath blowing past his lips. 

The village hasn’t seen much of you either if his unanswered inquiries are anything to go by. So he follows his gut, searching the ins and outs of the camp for you. Every empty space is added stress, but he tries one last place. 

And of course you’d be there, the place that started it all, fingers skimming the surface of the water as you watch the creatures in the water swim happily. 

“My love,” Neteyam says quietly. 

You ministrations on the water ceases. 

“Hm?” you hum, eyes still glued to a particularly luminescent fish. 

“Look at me.”

You don’t realize how close he’s gotten until you hear him right behind you. When you turn your gaze skywards to meet his eyes, you see the worry etched into his features. 

“Are you alright?” you ask, standing to your feet. 

“I should be asking you,” he replies, hands cupping each side of your neck to coax you to look up at him. 

“I’m fine,” you assure him, unable to meet his gaze. 

“________,” he urges. 

At the sound of your full name, you melt like putty in his hands, eyes squeezing shut in embarrassment. 

“It’s stupid,” you whisper. 

“Talk to me,” he implores. 

You look like you’re chewing on the words, like they want to come out but you’re wrestling with them. When his thumb brushes your jaw like a silent okay, you crumble. 

“Just wanted to give you space,” you mumble.

Neteyam looks wounded.

“Why would you–“ 

“You have many duties to the clan,” you reason quietly “I don’t want to add to it.” 

“Is this about what I said the other night?” he asks fearfully. 

Your silence is answer enough and he crushes you in his arms like you’ll float away. Something tingles in your nose, like you could cry, so you push your face into the smooth planes of his chest. 

“I was being thoughtless,” he says, voice like a roll of thunder behind his ribcage. “You are the highlight of my days, my first and last thought, do you hear me?” 

You mumble something and Neteyam nudges you away gently so that he can look into your eyes. 

“I wouldn’t trade you, change you, for anything,” he says. “Mark my words.” 

You nod, but the gesture is not enough. 

“Are we understood, my love?” he iterates. 

A smile plays at your lips as you nod again. 

“Understood.” 

neng © 2023

taglist: @nao-cchi , @jkiminpark , @philiasoul @amart-e , @s-u-t , @netesbby , @tayswiftlovebot , @dumb-fawkin-bitch , @ewackmn , @fanboyluvr, @neteyamoa , @itssiaaax

[nnnyxie]

More Fan!Izuku because it’s sO good-

Imagine Fan!izu x Streamer!Reader..basing this off of myself shamelessly🤭 basically reader is like a singer or something…like does choir(me🤭)and sings in bands(also me🤞) and musical theater(surprise, me‼️)..also plays an instrument…but something fancy like harp yk?(I Play the harp💅) And they do like cosy lil streams of just singing and playing their instrument and Izu as the busy lil hero he is just likes their voice it somehow enchants him??? Helps him relax and calm down and he just loves hearing it and rewinding to it after a long day and reader ofcourse a loyal Deku fan but because reader is ✨shy✨ they don’t show their face while streaming (I just love any kind of reveals of identity idk) and they also keep their background minimal to not give away anything about them but one das they just have a little fangirling moment showing off their new favorite Deku Figurine and hearing praise from them drives Izu insane(in a good way) and yeah idk hope that gives you a good baseeee

#𖢥 izuku anon

omg choir twinsies !!

(also i love the harp??? i have NO CLUE how to play but it’s just so!!!! ahhh!!!! it’s so pretty look and sound wise)

so yk that one artist that does the omnichord songs?? so like— that’s what you do EXCEPT!!

it’s not the omnichord!! it’s the harp!!!

rn i’m a teensy bit obsessed with lana del ray and mitski so!!! you mainly perform their songs <3

i wholeheartedly believe izuku is ‘i bet on losing dogs’ by mitski and ‘dark paradise’ by lana del ray personified!!! (lowkey projecting?)

our dear boy loves when you perform their songs. he’s tried listening to the original artists but— your covers just hit different yk?? your covers are just so pretty!!

he found you thanks to ochako and mina!! one day they were talking about streamers and youtubers they watch (because mina games obvi) and ochako talked about your streams and your channel!! she talked about how your musical talent was amazing and how soft your voice was!! izuku loves trying out things his friends like so he decided to give you a shot!!!

and he just fell in love— the moment you said ‘hi’, he felt like fainting.

from then on, he started falling asleep to your videos, and tuning into your streams when he had the free time.

from time to time you’ll do asmr streams. like whispering and talking about your day!! talking about some of the new things you’ve gotten or some of your favorite heroes!!

when you do these asmr streams they always somehow lead to you ranting about pro hero deku!!

izuku usually isn’t around when you do these asmr streams but today??? this night??? right now??? he can!! and he most definitely will!! he was lucky enough to have today off and spent the majority of the day binging your videos while catching up on sleep.

anyways

he was cooking dinner (i like to think that he cooks dinner for his mom when he visits) when he heard a ‘ting’ (he keeps his sound notifs on for work!!)

he went to check it andddd it was a twitch notif from your channel!! the title being:

asmr chat pt.15 ; p.o. box

he’s quick to open the app, immediately pressing on your streaming clip.

“hello everyone!” you whispered. only your desk showed. it had various bags and wrapped boxes on top. “i was sent gifts through my p.o. box and i’ve decided to open them on stream.” you ran your hands over a box. “we’ll open this one first!”

as you sifted through each gift, you grew increasingly excited. your fans knew you well— as they all had gotten you some form of pro hero deku merch!!

when it came to your last box, it was a sweatshirt. the fabric was soft and the perfect texture. the design— the design was your favorite. it was black with small, thin green writing of his hero name on the forearms. the upper left front of the jacket had a green outline of his hero helmet. the sweatshirt also had green accents— his signature green on all of this, of course.

“i really appreciate all of these! you all know me so well! ah! i’m seriously in awe of all of these!!” you smiled behind the camera. “i love deku, he’s my favorite hero. ever since he started out, i knew he’d be the best. he’s always saving everyone with a smile, and god— it’s amazing! he’s amazing! i don’t know him personally but i’m sure that he’s just as kind on tv as he is in real life.” you ran your hand over the outline on the sweatshirt. “i bet he’s just as cute too,” you laughed along with the chat. they knew about your big crush on the pro hero and would tease you about it during small talks like this. izuku’s face flushed and it grew hotter as he read through the comments.

oilspill.in.a.cup : manifesting the love of ur life for you bae!!!

veianna.sausagezzz : ur in love w/ him atp just find him nd kiss him

nylie.kei : VEIANNA THATS ASSAULT??

pinky✔︎ : wiggles eyebrows

you laughed as you read through these. “i’ll have to agree with nylie, here. no matter how pretty his lips are, i wouldn’t do that.”

izuku typed out a comment— not sure whether to send it or not. you two have developed a sort of parasocial relationship with one another, a one-sided admiration. though, now it isn’t exactly one-sided.

he decides to send it though. ignoring the absolute anxiety he’s feeling as he waits for your reaction.

midoriya.izuku✔︎ : i dunno, i wouldn’t mind one!

carpool.toenail : AYO!?

vieanna.sausagezzz : SEEEEEEE SEEEEE @/nylie.kei

oilspill.in.a.cup : MANIFESTED 😩🤌

nylie.kei : OHMYGODBSLEVSLDB

pinky✔︎ : IZUKU??????

“oh— uhm. oh.” you were flustered. honestly, you couldn’t speak. you were both extremely embarrassed and very flattered. and very happy that he watches your streams. “uhm i gotta go clean up— see you all later!”

edit;

omg i forgot to add an end note????

ANYWAYS!! had fun writing this heheheh

[varteeny1234]

I COULDN'T THINK OF A BETTER TITLE LMAO. @cursedthing this is revenge bc you got us locked in sudoku jail for 2.5 hours /silly (viking solved the sudoku on stream earlier)

Summary:

Viking's alone time is interrupted by Avid, who is concerned about the safety level of the top of the ant farm. Absolutely nothing goes according to plan for either of them!

Chapters: 1/1

Words: 1207

Warnings: Incredibly brief mention of noise overstimulation but only a mention

Ship: Vivid

ENJOY THE VIVID FLUFF! (feat. catboy viking)

The many sounds of the many farms scattered throughout the Dark Oak kingdom's giant glass tube were loud enough for the average person, but for Viking, whose ears were considerably more sensitive, it often became too much and he needed an escape. Whenever this happened, he would usually end up flying to the top of the frame of the ant farm. It was so high up that it was nearly silent. 

And that was exactly what had happened today. 

There weren't many clouds in the sky, sadly, so Viking couldn't cloud-watch from above like he wished. He sat with his legs dangling over the edge of the frame, staring out at the islands below. His own kingdom was full of moving parts, all packed together. The Jungle kingdom, which was more in front of him, was full of lush plants and vines that waved lazily in the wind. 

Viking closed his eyes, feeling the soft wind blow through his hair. He'd left his hat down in the Dark Oak tube- not something he would typically have done, but he wasn't going to fly back down just to grab it. 

Up here, in the sky, all alone, it was peaceful. 

That peace was unfortunately shattered when a faint, familiar voice called out his name. 

What did Avid want with him? 

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes. A shape was flying around the ant farm, coming closer towards the top, and Viking with it. Viking debated not letting Avid know he was there, but he spotted him a second later. 

"Viking! There you are, I've been looking all over for you!" Avid exclaimed. He swooped up, then semi-gracefully landed on the frame. Viking noticed that he was wearing his OSSHA uniform, with a suspicious glance. If Avid was here on OSSHA business, it couldn't be good. He didn't trust that organization one bit. And now Avid was interrupting his quiet time! 

"What do you want with me," he deadpanned. "What does OSSHA want with me? Last time I checked, the Dark Oak kingdom is plenty compliant. And if it isn't, then you should go talk to Fix."

Avid sucked in a breath through his teeth, tsk-ing. "Well, you see, it's actually the top of this ant farm that's not compliant! There's not a hand-rail to be seen up here, so high up above the ground, where even if you didn't fall into the void there's no way you'd survive the drop..." 

Viking tuned out the rest of his rant, shutting his eyes again. He was pretty sure that any handrails added to the frame would be removed again the same day. And it wasn't like anyone was going to die from falling off it- they all had elytra now! 

"...Are you even listening to me anymore?!" Viking's ear twitched, when he tuned back in to whatever Avid had been saying. 

He simply shrugged in response. "Nah, I don't really care about your OSSHA business. No offense, of course. I just don't see the point in putting handrails on the top of this thing." 

Watching Avid splutter as he struggled to figure out how to answer that, he couldn't help but snicker. It was way too easy to break Avid's train of thought- if he had one, anyways. His brain was already all over the place 24/7!

Unfortunately, he recovered, now sporting a somewhat-offended glare. "Oh, so you think that safety is just something to laugh at, huh? Well, what happens if you're just chilling up here, and someone were to just give you a little push-" 

He stepped forwards, obviously trying to push Viking off the edge to teach him a lesson or whatever. Viking saw him coming from a mile away and, much faster than Avid had moved, kicked out his leg and hooked it around Avid's, knocking him off-balance. 

Avid toppled over and landed directly on top of Viking- who, as funny as it would have been if he had, did not plan it at all.

No one said anything. Viking and Avid stared at each other. Then, Avid grinned.

"Proving my point exactly, honey. You could fall so easily here!" He poked Viking's nose with his index finger. Between the action and the incredibly unexpected pet name, Viking found himself the one struck speechless. That wasn't something that happened often, he knew. Avid knew this, and his smile stretched wider. Both of them were now sporting a flush across their cheeks. 

Well, he couldn't let Avid win... whatever this was, could he? If he wanted to flirt, then Viking would flirt. 

Viking matched his smirk. "You fell for me pretty good, I guess." He let his hand trace over Avid's side. "Hmm... but I can't add any handrails anywhere with you lying there." 

As he expected him to, Avid froze for a second before rolling off of him. He started to say something, but Viking's plan had a step two. He flipped himself over, so that he was now on top of Avid, completely reversing their positions from a mere few seconds ago. 

"You're really easy to trap, you know that, monkey-man?" Viking teased. 

"Hey! Wait- you did that on purpose!" Exclaimed Avid. Viking laughed as he nodded. 

"Yes, I did. I remember you were saying something about handrails, honey?" For one last final touch, he called Avid by the same pet name he'd given him. 

Avid blinked, blushing madly. "Yes- Yes. Handrails. Uh- build some, please. Safety is important! Do- do that!" He stuttered. Viking felt something on his leg, and realized Avid's tail had wrapped itself around it. It was cute, how it always did that when he got flustered. He let himself lie down on top of Avid completely, his chin resting on his chest. His own tail flicked back and forth, and he smiled. 

"Nah, still don't want to. It's nice here right now. The sun feels nice." 

He wasn't kidding. The cloudless day meant that the sun was beaming directly overhead onto them, and whenever it was like that, the heat tended to make Viking's brain go all fuzzy. The combined warmth from his and Avid's bodies was only making him sleepier. 

He didn't really like to call it purring, but he hadn't yet thought of a better name for the rumbling sound he made in his chest. 

In spite of himself, Avid laughed again. "You're purring, Viking! I- oh my gosh, that's adorable! You know, I heard from Ruby that you purr when you get really cozy in the sunshine, but I've never witnessed it in person! How could you hide this from me?!" He squealed. The noise grated on Viking's eardrums. 

See, this was why he didn't purr around other people. Their reactions always ruined the moment! 

Viking made a grumpy noise that sounded like "Mmrp." 

"Aw, what, do you not want me to talk? Hey- ugh. How about a deal. I let you go and stop bothering you about the missing railings here, but you have to let me enjoy your purring. It's just so cute!"

"Sure," Viking said. "I can agree with that."

...He hoped Avid didn't find out anytime soon about the sensitive spot behind his ears. Now, that was something he would never live down.

[outcaststars]

I've been streaming on twitch for over 4 years. I've made a great community and a wonderful group of friends but I've also had to deal with a lot of aweful people. Recently I've been feeling particularly upset about it all so I'm going to air all my grievances here. TW this mentions bullying, grooming, self harm and abuse. If anyone mentioned in this post trys to comment im just gonna delete it, i also dont care if your fav streamers is here, this is my authentic experience. Also dont go attacking anyone i mention here, the whole point of this is to be better then them.

Rat_emoji

The first streamer I ever had an issue with was Rat_emoji. It all started when I tuned into one of their DbD streams only to find him streaming another, younger, streamers live content.

He had just died to this kid playing Myers, he had TTV in his name and Rat was so mad about what had happened he streamed this kids twitch live to his viewers, all the while making fun of his appearance and stream quality.

A day later I would go back and screen record this whole interaction so I can share that if you want to see it. It felt so disgusting to watch this happen live, he has 100 viewers in chat and they were all being nasty. The only person who told him to stop was drag streamer Suttonfister (i think, 90% sure) who was in the same game and discord call at he time. the whole scene was aweful to witness, it felt like such an abuse of power. Rat didnt directly say anything mean but they made a lot of mean girl comments and didnt moderate anything cruel their chat said, it was obviously intentional.

After this I blocked Rat, it would have been easy to avoid him if he didn't found the stream team "Aussie pride", he got a lot of attention for that and a lot of praise and all of it made me sick. Funnily enough I heard that Aussie Pride was an aweful team to be in. The creators didn't care about the smaller members, planned no events and then disbanded the team with the release of Hogwarts legacy because they didn't want to take a stance on JK Rowling. Honestly it seems like the whole thing was a vanity project. That's why I don't like Rat_emoji.

Dcypherpup

DCpup was the first streamer I tried to network with. He hired me to make some art for him. He wanted me to work on merch for his channel, I declined, saying that I wasnt comfortable with the idea of someone else selling my art. I counter offered to just make him a profile icon, this way we could see how my style suited him and i could work out how to tackle the idea of eventually doing merch.

When the icon was done I sent him the high res file, he asked for my signature (my artist tag, a very small "outcaststars" in the corner) to be removed. When I asked why, he told me he needed it gone in order to upload it as merch.

Naturally I was upset. I explained that we had already made a deal not to do merch yet and I also explained that I was uncomfortable with the idea of removing my tag. I went on to explain why visibility was so important for artists. At the time I was a much smaller content creator and DCpup platform was much bigger.

He apologized and said he would give me a cut of the sales. I said don't bother and reluctantly let him do what he wanted. At the time I was too scared to make enemies so I fell into people pleasing.

I took more work from DCpup because I needed the money and I hoped it would be good for my channel growth. He would upload my work to his store and wouldn't credit me. I was frustrated.

The tipping point was after the final comm I took from him. An animated ending screen. During this process DCpup would message me everyday asking for updates which was annoying. When I delivered the final product he once again asked for my tiny, half transparent signature to be removed. I was so upset and defeated, I told myself I'd fight it but I didn't. I removed my sign from every layer, reanimated the whole thing and vowed not to take work from him.

After the piece was done he wanted to commission me again. I left him on read, then I found out what he was saying about me to other people. A good friend of mine showed me a message he had sent in his stream, telling him not to bother commission me, because I would be too busy doing work for him. I was furious.

Another week later I got raided by someone and told the new viewers to check out my work, it broke my heart when someone who looked at my insta, told me he had no idea I made all of DCpups stuff. Why would he? Dcypherpup went to ridiculous lengths to hide my credit. He was telling people not to contact me and not tagging any comm work with my name. One day he came into my live stream and I was so mad I banned him on the spot .

I wish I had done more to be assertive, live and learn. Funnily enough I found out he posted a big rant, telling people off for supporting JK Rowling when Hogwarts legacy released. Only to be called out for buying it and playing it on his steam, which he had forgotten to make private. He deleted the tweet. What a cunt.

Undertheredmoon and Greenypika

Redmoon is furry streamer that I use to really like. They were funny, had great energy and I would even go as far to say that they were a friend.

All this came to a grinding hault the day he invited furry artist and accused child groomer Daveoverlord to join us on Monster hunter rise live on stream.

Dave wasn't in voice chat and I wasn't reading Redmoons twitch chat at the time, so although I was aware of who Dave was, I didn't realize it was them. When someone messaged me about it a few days later I was mortified, I assumed Redmoon didn't know and I messaged them immediately.

I asked Red if he knew who Dave was and what he had done and the kind of artists he was friends with (cub artists). Redmoon ghosted me, left me on read for a week. I messaged again asking why he wasn't talking to me. He said he was too stressed to deal with this "drama" and didn't care to get involved. He mentioned that if Dave was guilty cops probably would have gotten involved and said he just wanted to focus on his own work.

When I asked Redmoon where he stood on cub porn, he stopped replying. We haven't spoken since.

The same person who told me about Dave joining stream also pointed out that Greenypika was inviting Dave onto his stream. They dm'd greeny and asked them if they knew and greeny said he had no idea and that he'd look into it. Greeny hadn't responded for a few months so I dm'd him with the same message and got the same copy paste reply. TLDR greeny knew and was just lying about it so I blocked him too.

Daveoverlord

Dudes a fucking groomer and now he streams. Blocked.

Cidermarten

Cider and I got into an argument once, the topic of which is no one's business.

His bf weyland got mad at me for it and vague tweeted about it so I decided to start a group chat with them to sort it out. And we did.

I apologised for what I did and cider took some time away from interacting with me. Everyone in this situation wanted what was best. And weyland is now one of my best friends.

Cider and I aren't as close as we could be but that's my fault. They're honestly a wonderful person and I appreciate their friendship. There inclusion in this list is to prove a point later but they're also the only person here who I think deserves success.

Stripeydragon and Break trail.

This one is complicated because it involves someone who ment a lot to me.

Back when the exclusive stream team Break Trail formed, my good friend Marsh joined the team. Being an artist he did a lot of the teams promo art of all it's members. Marsh had a lot of anxieties about the team because he was one of its smallest members and often told me he felt underappreciated or out of place. This feeling for worse when artist/streamer and fellow team member Stripeydragon decided he was going to do a redraw of all of marsh's promo work.

I didn't see Marsh much at the time but when this began he spent the better part of a week in my mod chat expressing how upset he was about it. It didn't help he was already anxious but he felt stripydragon was replacing him and even mentioned a time when he tried to give feedback on stripys work only for him to disregard it. Marsh was really fucking upset.

After stripeydragon posted the work my moderator, Ibn, who had been listening and consoling marsh for a week, decided to comment on the art publically. He said he didn't think stripyes version of the art was better and criticized him of slimming down the fater characters.

I wanna pause this to say I don't condone what Ibn did. He ment well but it wasn't his fight and he shouldn't have commented a critique on something no one asked him to judge. Don't do this. Anyway...

Stripeydragon fucking hated this. Not only did he respond to every tweet, he went into the break trail discord and rallied everyone to defend him and attack Ibn, a lot of break trail members also rushed to the comments to defend stripey and attack ibn. He also posted ibns comment in his own discord to encourage others to dog pile on. This shit got out of hand super fucking fast. Ibn was crying and marsh was pissed. It was betray of trust on Ibns part, but the way stripey responded was downright scary.

Shit was at its peak by the time I woke up (Australian timezone) and I immediately went into damage control. I gave Ibn a huge lecture, I was mad af and told him to apologize. I dm'd breaktrails stream team manager Mari, and tried my best to defuse the situation so that both parties could stop. Everyone deleted their tweets. Ibn apologised a dozen times and Marsh told everyone that ibn was just an asshole.

So the story everyone believes now is that marsh actually loves stripydragons work and Ibn is just a weird jerk. There where no consequences for stripydragons weaponizing a stream team and their fan base against someone on twitter. They're still a member of break trail but the team has been dead for a long time. I understand that Ibn was in the wrong and marsh should have just talked about his issues with his team. But this is another case of someone with a big platform and bigger ego not hesitating to use that to attack others.

Starkymorph

this one is fucked up.

Starky mods for a bunch of break trail members, so he had an inside look into the whole stripeydragon thing. Keep that in mind.

About a year after the stripey incident, I woke up to a message from starky. I had recently finished a commission for starky but apart from that we didn't know each other well.

He claimed that ibn had harassed him on stream by bringing up controversial topics and that because he was my mod he wasn't going to support me any more. I was pretty angry, Ibn was causing trouble again. I dm'd ibn and told him I didn't want to hear what he had to say and instead I just wanted the timestamp on Starkeys VOD so I could see what he did myself.

I watched the VOD and what I saw didn't line up with anything starky had said. He made the whole thing up.

What really happened was, starky decided to bring up "cancel culture" and went on a rant about how it was inherently bad and that anyone who participates in it only does it for "self-aggrandizing reasons". A lot of the shit he said was very thinly veiled right wing bullshit dog whistles.

Ibn asked him to elaborate and said something to the likes of "what about people who cancel pedos and rapists" and starky banned ibn and ended the convo.

Ibn didn't start the controversial topic and he didn't harass anyone. But starky was mad and wanted to attack him, he knew Ibn had a history of starting shit so he came to me with a bullshit story thinking I'd believe him and Ibn would lose his friends. And it almost worked.

I tried to talk some sense into starky, I pointed out that his original message was dishonest. Starky doubled down and made up more lies. He continued to claim that things happened during the stream that aren't in the VOD. He even bought up weylandshere and claimed he was harassing him too, out of nowhere! which if you watch the VOD is also completely made up. He said some ablist shit about "high functioning autism" aswell, its all really incoherent. Non of this is true and I downloaded the VOD so he couldn't hide the evidence.

Starky tried to use my argument with cider and Ibns argument with stripy as evidence that we were bad people. I found this really sinister, because my initial reaction to Starkys story, was that i believed him, pretty much everyone reacted this way. It upsets me that i was almost convinced to distance myself from my best friend because of a lie.

A ton of people didn't watch the VOD and took Starkeys word. Starky blocked me and started asking all his followers and mutuals to do the same. A whole bunch of people sub tweeted about ibn being an abuser and me being an enabler. It was fucking aweful. It went on for days.

This only stopped when Kyziethewolf stepped in and defended me. Even tho starky was one of his best friends, he had watched the VOD and told everyone he was lying. Starky doesn't talk to kyzie now and it really broke his heart.

A lot of people still believe starky and I lost a bunch of mutual streamers support because of this. It's one of the worst attacks I've suffered on twitter/twitch to date.

I found out a few months later he's added "outcast is racist" to the narrative he tells people and there's nothing I can do about that

This also basically ended my friendship with Marsh. I've known marsh for 7 years and hes a friend of Starkeys too. During this whole ordeal he never spoke up, it was only kyzie. I was really upset about this because i feel that Marsh could have made a significant change to how this played out if he had of just stepped in.

When he dm'd me a few weeks after asking if I'm make some free art for his project I told him no. I told him I was hurt. He said he just didn't want to get involved in drama. i think its really harmful to reduce harassment to just "drama". We've stopped talking.

Jayedskier

I met jayed though my friend weyland. I needed a 3D artists and he needed work.

Jayed had recently lost a lot of friends because during COVID he tweeted that people not social distancing at a furcon where putting disabled, high risk, people's lives in danger. Totally righteous imo.

He however also tweeted that anyone who doesn't where a mask should kill themselves and deservingly got a lot of hate and backlash. Lost a lot of friends. Since then he was pretty unwilling to comment on any political shit. Publically that is.

The first fight I got into with jayed was when Ibn reposted a Tumblr thread about the YouTuber keffals, and some of the problematic things she'd done. Jayed loves keffals so he dm'd Ibn about it and started a huge fight defending his favourite YouTuber. I stepped in to try and resolve the fight but no one was really happy.

This argument made jayed realise that he didn't have the same values as the friend group he was in. He liked keffals, he thought it was ok to say the R slur and he felt people should be allowed to support JK Rowling.

He left my discord and I contacted him trying to smooth things over. We talked for a long time and I settled on agree to dissagree the hopes to change his mind on some of these issues.

That didn't happen. Jayed kept starting fights about woke shit, even though he's a self proclaimed "leftist" and it slowly drove a wedge between us. He stopped talking to everyone in our friend group, unfollowed us all on socials.

Artists/streamer and friend Ixu had drawn a big group shot of all of us together. Weyland (who is in this friend group) was pretty angry about the whole ordeal so he asked Ixu for a version without jayed edited out. When he posted this jayed got super pissed about it.

Jayed tweeted about how unwelcoming my community was. Screen caped some DM's and changed the context. I was so angry, I had spent months continuing to offer my friend ship and trying to change his mind. One of the last fights we got into he said he was mad that "people" expected him to show support for Palestine and thats kind of the end of it.

This one hurt because it felt like a betrayal. Jayed you can get fucked dude.

Socksthewolf

This one is super recent and is basically why I decided to write this.

I can't remember how I met socks. They work in the games industry and they have a LOT of money/connections. He gives away a lot of stuff, Donates to people a lot. He very affectionate and Everyone loves him. I even accepted a bunch of charity/gifts from him and in return drew a bunch of gift art.

Socks success made a few mutuals of mine uncomfortable. He had a lot of money to put into stream so his channel grew insanely fast. I'm also told he made comments to some mutuals, comparing channel growth that made them feel bad. He ran multiple giveaways and got partner almost a year after starting stream.

There was some drama between socks and one of his mods. I tried my hardest not to get involved. Socks employs a lot of parasocial strategies in order to retain an audience so he flirts a lot and also has a persona of "I'm you dad" on stream. Idk if this counts as love bombing, but it feels similar.

I heard that one of his mods developed a crush on him and when rejected, he drank himself into the hospital. He almost died.

I spoke with this ex mod about it. He doesn't blame socks for what happened even tho he feels the rejection was harsh. I still feel that socks takes advantage of people with his gifts and parasocial friendship. This is a result of that going unchecked.

One of our mutuals found out about this and was really upset. They tweeted about it and tried to hold socks accountable. Nothing came of it.

I grew distant from socks when he started hanging out with Redmoon a lot. Because I felt close to them at the time I messaged him a about Redmoon and what happened between us. He never replied.

This story takes a dark turn when jayedskier, friend of socks, decided to make that tweet mentioned in his section. Socks also went in on someone jayed had mentioned.

This is about my good friend Weyland. Weyland had had someone very close to them pass away recently. Socks complied some tweets and chat screen caps, and made up a story of weyland threatening to kill themselves.

Some of the messages were about weylands dead friend. Socks knowingly changed the context and lied to make weyland look bad.

I honestly think this is the worst thing on this post. To use the death of someone and the personal anguish of someone and ammo for you bullshit story about them is fucking horrifying.

I replied to socks tweet about weyland, I told him what he was doing was wrong. He told me that he feels bad I'm surrounded by toxic people and that he hopes they get better.

After seeing the way socks treats his audience and the way he lied about another streamer, I genuinely believe hes some kind of abuser. Idk the vibe is REALLY off with this one. This feels worse then bullying, there's an ego about it. I've blocked socks on everything. Frankly they scare me.

Final notes

Anyway that's been my aweful experience with aweful twitch streamers. The whole thing has left me bitter and sad and I no longer want to interact with anyone. idk where to go from here.

Twitch TOS doesn't care what people say or do on other platforms. And with other streamers/mutuals so unwilling to get involved or show support I just feel alone.

I do feel compelled to speak up when I see or experience something I think isn't right. I think a lot of neurodivegant people, like myself, feel that way. But I think it's been terrible for my career. I hate the feeling that I'd be so much more successful if I'd shut my mouth and looked away. Maybe even be partner by now. I know a lot of this comes across as just "furry drama" but i think its reductive to label it as that. Content creators who engage in these kind of harmful behaviors need to be held accountable if we want to see any positive change. And im not saying that means "CANCEL" them. some (not all) of these content creators can still learn and grow and be better. Negative attitudes and dismissive statements of "its just drama" create a space for bullies to thrive

Finally, please PLEASE do NOT under any circumstances harass anyone involved in this post. This is not an attempt to rally the masses to lynch some people, im just telling my story so that next time you see someone come forward with claims about a content creator you like you'll see the situation differently.

If you made it this far, wow. Thank you. Dunno if I'll post the vids/screencap evidence. I don't know if I care enough.

[average-submas-enthusiast]

My Experience with Wilbur Soot

So, the Wilbur Soot situation. This is mostly going to be me ranting abt the whole situation, so don't keep reading if you don't care.

I mostly just had to type this out and post it so I can vent and (hopefully) get over Wilbur Soot.

Wilbur supporters DNI

I've been a fan of Wilbur's for a long time, I believe the first time I watched him was in January 2021. Initially, I just knew him from Technoblade's (Rest in Power, king) videos, but after a while, he kinda grew into his own thing for me.

I wasn't huge into Dream Smp as it came out, as most of the time I couldn't tune in for personal reasons.

I started seriously watching it in September of 2021 if I remember correctly. It soon became a hyperfixation of mine. I knew basically every crumb of lore like the back of my hand, and I loved what Wilbur did for both the server and its stories. I still do, to an extent, as the Dream SMP is still really near and dear to my heart.

Then, Lovejoy’s Pebble Brain album came out. Previously, I had no idea Wilbur had started a band, so it was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. So when I tell you that that album had been my single favorite album of all time up until this point, you better believe it. I spent hours listening to the songs, over and over again, whether it was on a good day or a bad one, I always had a small comfort.

After about a year or so, I fell out of MCYT again. I still kept up with it occasionally, mostly just watching Tommy and Wilbur.

Frankly, before Tuesday, I hadn't even thought about Wilbur Soot since about 2 months ago. So, when all of a sudden, I saw he was trending on here, I was somewhat excited. I thought he had announced a new project or something. So, I clicked on the hashtag.

I am truly disgusted by Wilbur Soot's actions. To think, someone who I personally looked up to, did such horrendous actions is horrifying to me.

A part of me feels almost ashamed that I didn’t see it, that any signs in the past of Will being a bad person I swept under the rug, choosing to ignore it because “He was young'' or “He said he was sorry”. However, I have since realized that I COULDN’T know what was going on behind the scenes. I only saw his persona, the mask he put on when he streamed or was recording. TBH, this situation has really affected me, if me writing such a long post about the situation didn't tip you off already.

And worst of all was his "apology”. I first learned about this situation on Tuesday, about 3 hours before he made his public “apology”. When I read it, at first I was semi-satisfied, because he claimed he was/had gone to therapy and felt his previous actions were “slobish, disrespectful, and selfish”. I felt like he had downplayed his actions, but that overall he had felt bad and was seeking help.

Then, I realized a ton of things were wrong with it. Not only did he downplay his actions, he completely skipped over like 75% of it, he also JUST DIDN'T SAY SORRY. He somewhat vaguely apologized, if you turn your head and squint, but the words “I'm sorry” never appear in the text.

With all these things coming together, plus all the reactions by creators that have met him IRL/talked to him in private, I can't in good conscience support Wilbur Soot. Whether it be in music, youtube, twitch, whatever, I just can’t. I have removed all of both his and Lovejoy’s songs from my streaming playlists, and have pirated a small few that I’ve used as comfort music. I plan on eventually fully cutting him and his work out entirely, but I need a little time to adjust. I feel bad for not supporting Lovejoy, as there are other members than Will, but I feel it is the best course of action unless they fully remove him from both the band and the cash flow.

Hopefully reading through my experience has helped anybody else who has felt a familiar experience to me. I truly hope Wilbur gets the help he needs, he is a messed up individual, and needs psychological help.

Small note: Please, don't tell Wilbur to kill himself, while his actions were bad, that's not an excuse to tell somebody to end their own life. His actions were horrible, but verbally assaulting someone online is not a reasonable reaction to this situation.

Go support Shubble. She's very brave to talk about her experiences. Support SA victims. Go support both Tommy and Phil, Tommy has most likely been a victim of his manipulation and abuse and Phil is a close friend of his that most likely feels betrayed and hurt by his close friend’s actions.

I don't really have anything else to say, so bye everyone, stay safe and vigilant.

[shizucheese]

Shizu's Official Pinned Post Yay!

Updated 10/31/2024: Added YouTube and Bluesky ^_^

Hey Everyone! I’m overdue to write a new pinned post for this blog, so here it is! I’ll be editing this as time goes by with new info, so be sure to follow me for update announcements! (As well as to know when I go live on Twitch, post new stories on AO3, and other writing news!)

I’m Shizu, and if we haven’t met before, it’s nice to meet you! I’m a queer romance and fanfiction writer, freelance editor, and Vtuber! If you want to follow me on Bluesky, you can find me here!

If you want to read my fanfiction, I mostly write BG3 fanfiction about my Tav Lysander and Astarion, and post Mag200 Magnus Archives fanfiction. You can find it here! Updates may be a little slow because besides my fanfics I'm also working on an original novel I want to get published, a story for Ko-fi and a story I intend to post on Patreon in the near future, but I can promise updates will come.

If you’re a writer and want to hire me to edit for you, my rates are listed below. Feel free to DM me here on Tumblr if interested, or email me at shizucheesevt@gmail.com! If you would like me to do an editing test ahead of hiring me to edit a full manuscript, I will edit up to 2 pages for free! I am also willing to negotiate a payment plan if you need one! Alternatively, you can commission me for my editing services via my Ko-fi if you would prefer to do it that way!

Proofreading: $10.00/ 1,000 words (or $0.01/ word)

Combing through your work to check and correct spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Copyediting: $15.00/ 1,000 words (or $0.015/ word)

Combing through your work to check and correct spelling, grammar and punctuation

Ensuring tone is consistent throughout your work

Ensuring that your work complies with the style guide you designate

Fact checking

Developmental/ Content Editing: $20.00/ 1,000 words (or $0.02/ word)

Feedback on narrative structure, characterization and world building

Notes on dialog, voice and tone

Highlighting any plot holes

Creation of a style sheet to ensure the spellings of names and locations in your story are consistent, as well as any other word use that might be unique to your story.

If you want to support me on Ko-Fi, you can do so below! Currently you can buy me a Cocoa (because I don’t actually like coffee) or you can commission me to edit your writing; in the near future, I’ll be opening up commissions for VTuber Lore writing! I also have plans for a monthly membership that will get you access to monthly updates to a story I’m writing about my VTuber! If you like magical girls, be sure to check it out when I officially open up memberships!

I don’t have a Patreon yet, but do have plans for one once I have enough of a buffer written for the story I intend to post there. Consider this a placeholder for when that happens.

Finally, if you want to tune in and watch me play video games or hang out while I write on stream, be sure to drop by my Twitch streams, where I play mostly Final Fantasy and other RPGs, the occasional visual novel, and if it’s October or if I get bullied enough by my chat, something spooky! I also do a writing stream on Fridays that I call Friday Night Writes where it’s all cozy chill vibes and communal support and productivity!

Streaming Start Times: Sunday: 4:30 Central

Tuesday: 7:30 Central

Wednesday: 7:30 Central

Friday: 8:00 Central

Edit: I'm also on YouTube now!

Finally, be sure to join my discord for streaming and writing news, as well as chill community fun times! (Streaming-related polls I hold here on Tumblr also get held in the Discord, so you can even double dip on voting if you want to!)

[multifandumbmeg]

Twitch Stream! Be there or BEWARE!

Hey guys!! So I've started working on a major project undertaking... compiling a complete explanation and analysis of the BTS Hwa Yang Yeon Hwa story. The culmination of these efforts will be a massive Youtube video chronicling my descent into madness.

But on the road, I've decided to make a Twitch channel to bring anyone interest along with me during part of the process. We'll be watching the videos put out by Big Hit/Hybe relating to the HYYH story and analyzing them in heinous depth for research that I will use in my actual video. I will explain more in depth on stream and am happy to answer any questions you may have about this endeavor! But if you're interested at all, please tune in or just drop by! I'm going to be starting with the Butterfly Prologue tonight, and I would love if you came and gave your opinions, theories, or even just told me "I saw X Youtuber made a theory vid about this one, you should watch it!". I am eager to consider all theories and give them proper credit, and maybe I can even collab and chat with that creator in the process!

SO! Tonight, 9pm EST (US Eastern Standard Time)! I will be on twitch on my channel of the same name, Multifandom Meg, desperate to infodump about this special interest of mine!! Please come say hi if you're interested, or reblog if you think any of your followers might be! :)

[canmom]

「viRtua canm0m」 Project :: 002 - driving a vtuber

That about wraps up my series on the technical details on uploading my brain. Get a good clean scan and you won't need to do much work. As for the rest, well, you know, everyone's been talking about uploads since the MMAcevedo experiment, but honestly so much is still a black box right now it's hard to say anything definitive. Nobody wants to hear more upload qualia discourse, do they?

On the other hand, vtubing is a lot easier to get to grips with! And more importantly, actually real. So let's talk details!

Vtubing is, at the most abstract level, a kind of puppetry using video tracking software and livestreaming. Alternatively, you could compare it to realtime mocap animation. Someone at Polygon did a surprisingly decent overview of the scene if you're unfamiliar.

Generally speaking: you need a model, and you need tracking of some sort, and a program that takes the tracking data and applies it to a skeleton to render a skinned mesh in real time.

Remarkably, there are a lot of quite high-quality vtubing tools available as open source. And I'm lucky enough to know a vtuber who is very generous in pointing me in the right direction (shoutout to Yuri Heart, she's about to embark on something very special for her end of year streams so I highly encourage you to tune in tonight!).

For anime-style vtubing, there are two main types, termed '2D' and 3D'. 2D vtubing involves taking a static illustration and cutting it up to pieces which can be animated through warping and replacement - the results can look pretty '3D', but they're not using 3D graphics techniques, it's closer to the kind of cutout animation used in gacha games. The main tool used is Live2D, which is proprietary with a limited free version. Other alternatives with free/paid models include PrPrLive and VTube studio. FaceRig (no longer available) and Animaze (proprietary) also support Live2D models. I have a very cute 2D vtuber avatar created by @xrafstar for use in PrPrLive, and I definitely want to include some aspects of her design in the new 3D character I'm working on.

For 3D anime-style vtubing, the most commonly used software is probably VSeeFace, which is built on Unity and renders the VRM format. VRM is an open standard that extends the GLTF file format for 3D models, adding support for a cel shading material and defining a specific skeleton format.

It's incredibly easy to get a pretty decent looking VRM model using the software VRoid Studio, essentially a videogame character creator whose anime-styled models can be customised using lots of sliders, hair pieces, etc., which appears to be owned by Pixiv. The program includes basic texture-painting tools, and the facility to load in new models, but ultimately the way to go for a more custom model is to use the VRM import/export plugin in Blender.

But first, let's have a look at the software which will display our model.

meet viRtua canm0m v0.0.5, a very basic design. her clothes don't match very well at all.

VSeeFace offers a decent set of parameters and honestly got quite nice tracking out of the box. You can also receive face tracking data from the ARKit protocol from a connected iPhone, get hand tracking data from a Leap Motion, or disable its internal tracking and pipe in another application using the VMC protocol.

If you want more control, another Unity-based program called VNyan offers more fine-grained adjustment, as well as a kind of node-graph based programming system for doing things like spawning physics objects or modifying the model when triggered by Twitch etc. They've also implemented experimental hand tracking for webcams, although it doesn't work very well so far. This pointing shot took forever to get:

<kayfabe>Obviously I'll be hooking it up to use the output of the simulated brain upload rather than a webcam.</kayfabe>

To get good hand tracking you basically need some kit - most likely a Leap Motion (1 or 2), which costs about £120 new. It's essentially a small pair of IR cameras designed to measure depth, which can be placed on a necklace, on your desk or on your monitor. I assume from there they use some kind of neural network to estimate your hand positions. I got to have a go on one of these recently and the tracking was generally very clean - better than what the Quest 2/3 can do. So I'm planning to get one of those, more on that when I have one.

Essentially, the tracker feeds a bunch of floating point numbers in to the display software at every tick, and the display software is responsible for blending all these different influences and applying it to the skinned mesh. For example, a parameter might be something like eyeLookInLeft. VNyan uses the Apple ARKit parameters internally, and you can see the full list of ARKit blendshapes here.

To apply tracking data, the software needs a model whose rig it can understand. This is defined in the VRM spec, which tells you exactly which bones must be present in the rig and how they should be oriented in a T-pose. The skeleton is generally speaking pretty simple: you have shoulder bones but no roll bones in the arm; individual finger joint bones; 2-3 chest bones; no separate toes; 5 head bones (including neck). Except for the hands, it's on the low end of game rig complexity.

Expressions are handled using GLTF morph targets, also known as blend shapes or (in Blender) shape keys. Each one essentially a set of displacement values for the mesh vertices. The spec defines five default expressions (happy, angry, sad, relaxed, surprised), five vowel mouth shapes for lip sync, blinks, and shapes for pointing the eyes in different directions (if you wanna do it this way rather than with bones). You can also define custom expressions.

This viRtua canm0m's teeth are clipping through her jaw...

By default, the face-tracking generally tries to estimate whether you qualify as meeting one of these expressions. For example, if I open my mouth wide it triggers the 'surprised' expression where the character opens her mouth super wide and her pupils get tiny.

You can calibrate the expressions that trigger this effect in VSeeFace by pulling funny faces at the computer to demonstrate each expression (it's kinda black-box); in VNyan, you can set it to trigger the expressions based on certain combinations of ARKit inputs.

For more complex expressions in VNyan, you need to sculpt blendshapes for the various ARKit blendshapes. These are not generated by default in VRoid Studio so that will be a bit of work.

You can apply various kinds of post-processing to the tracking data, e.g. adjusting blending weights based on input values or applying moving-average smoothing (though this noticeably increases the lag between your movements and the model), restricting the model's range of movement in various ways, applying IK to plant the feet, and similar.

On top of the skeleton bones, you can add any number of 'spring bones' which are given a physics simulation. These are used to, for example, have hair swing naturally when you move, or, yes, make your boobs jiggle. Spring bones give you a natural overshoot and settle, and they're going to be quite important to creating a model that feels alive, I think.

Next up we are gonna crack open the VRoid Studio model in Blender and look into its topology, weight painting, and shaders. GLTF defines standard PBR metallicity-roughness-normals shaders in its spec, but leaves the actual shader up to the application. VRM adds a custom toon shader, which blends between two colour maps based on the Lambertian shading, and this is going to be quite interesting to take apart.

The MToon shader is pretty solid, but ultimately I think I want to create custom shaders for my character. Shaders are something I specialise in at work, and I think it would be a great way to give her more of a unique identity. This will mean going beyond the VRM format, and I'll be looking into using the VNyan SDK to build on top of that.

More soon, watch this space!

[thechurchoftheradiodemon]

Salutations, dear tumblr people!

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a short ficlet for a streaming event a friend of mine planned (on Twitch: AquaYuki_121, the event was "Tertulia de Fanfics" and the theme was "Primavera" - Spring). And I just posted it on my AO3 account, so if anyone wants to check it out, here it is.

It's in Spanish, I don't have currently the time to translate it to English.

Anyway, thank you for listening, and stay tuned!

[chromorbid]

it feels so bizarre that i suddenly have this huge spike in followers when the number has been relatively the same for three whole years lmao um. hi new folks. i've been on here for almost twelve years now. crazy huh??? ahaha oh fuck oh god

anyways i'm Marlow!! i also go by Lesath so if we are friends call me Les! i currently am really into the Fate series so you'll see some of those guys! i stream on twitch and am barely enduring the other blue site that is currently shitshow central (besides reddit i guess? idk i dont go on reddit [lying]) and yeah.

Fun Facts!

i'm genderfluid and go by he/him or they/them

i draw sometimes but rarely (i drew my icon!)

i main DNC and DRK in FFXIV

my qpp is @mossspores and we're musicans who are working on a project together rn so look forward to that if you like really REALLY experimental electronic music where one half of the duo is very talented and the other only vaguely knows how composing electronic music works but can write tunes and sing? lol. ALSO go and listen to things she has worked on :)

i hope the time flies post fed you well bc you will starve here if you expect more of it, oops

TYFTF

[ebonydraygon]

So it's been a bit of a year... I'm fairly sure someone left a monkey's paw around somewhere, and I tripped over it by accident. That and getting a shiny new diagnosis of Crohn's Disease (does not make you an actual crone, that is a lifestyle choice, not an autoimmunity condition). As such I'm going to be very gentle to myself with these.

Creatively

Complete two writing projects

Technically? I finished the long form Gloryhammer fanfic I have been plugging away at for the last few nanos, as well as a few one-shots. I also did a bunch of writing work for larp but like my nano this year, it was hampered by my new health condition flaring up.

sew a piece of clothing for myself or Ben

Didn't manage this, though I did make a pretty hooded caplet for a friend! And have stuff together to make actual clothing things for people next year! Closest to a clothing piece I made would be a white plague doctor mask I made for Ben. It apparently needs more ventilation holes...

rework a cosplay

Not managed this year... though I suppose I am working on a new one, which is made via reworking an existing dress. Does that count?

Personally

eat more regularly/healthily

I'll just settle for actually eating at least once a day. Again, Crohn's is not a fun one when it comes to digestion and eating.

post progress pics more often

Semi managed! I managed to get into the habit of taking pictures of my work after each stream. Mostly at least. So my discord server has regular updates! Now for all my other media accounts...

support other crafters more

I like to think that I did actually do this. I certainly made a number of friends in the twitch crafting community, and I'm recognised by them in turn. I may also be very bad for throwing plushies at them, though that is mainly because I like giving people things...

General

Leave the house more

So funny story... at the start of the year, whilst I was in hospital, our washing machine broke. Thankfully, we have some really lovely friends who have a washing machine and a dryer. Which has meant we make weekly trips over the city with a bag or few of laundry and to hang out. Its leaving the house! It counts!

sort and clear spare room

Again, I've made progress, my fabric is all sorted, I've even started trying to remove the mould from the walls. Next steps are dismantling the old bed in there and giving it to our Pathfinder DM and then getting a new loft bed in there. Progress!

Get to the stage where we can get a cat!

One day!

This year has been a hard one. Most of it is finding a new balance with my diagnosis, as well as trying to get it under control. It has meant I have been more exhausted and it's let things slip. But over all, I am proud of what I have achieved despite it!

Highlights of the year include getting to stay in a castle for a week, discovering a new craft joy in cross stitch and medal making! Plus the joy when I made a bunch of medals for the local nanowrimo group and handed them out to people before November began. That joy is why I love crafting (and why I had to be bullied into actually selling them rather than just giving it away all the time). Plus getting to meet a bunch of my partner's online friends at last!

Tune back January 1st for the new resolution list and the thank you list for those that kept me going through the previous year.

[cisthehuman]

2024--Wow it's in 2 days!

It's been a wild ride both personally and stream wise!

What Went Down in 2023:

Graduated w/ my Masters, and with that paid my way through grad school

Got diagnosed with PCOS and began treatment!

Got a part time job in my field!

Rebranded and started streaming again!

Started the CisLunar Visual Novel

Started a new music youtube!

(Please check it out! I put all of my tunes on there!)

What to look forward to in 2024!

I have major goals/projects I want to accomplish!

Project 1: The CisLunar Visual Novel!

My multimedia project, CisLunar, is one that has been in the works since I first started streaming possibly 2 or 3 years ago. It is only recently that I decided to take streaming seriously so while I've had my account for a while, I feel like I've only gotten in the swing of things earlier in December. Cislunar, a real word, means "between earth and the moon". It was a random word I found out about while I completed a word search on my phone and ever since, a story has been growing. Plus, as I go by Cis, it really fits lol

The crux of the story is about grief--acknowledging it, processing it, and adapting from it. Almost 3 years ago, I suddenly lost my father. I have been riddled with several emotions that I wanted to process and thus this story is born.

The story follows Lunar Sun (she/they), an alien cat woman who lives on Planet GJ504b (the pink planet). She is a radio host by day and a mafia informant by night. While she smiles and laughs, she's been making a dangerous habit, one that leads her to a new up and coming job. Online entertainment is at an all time high with entertainers reaching different people across the galaxy. The trouble is, people would like to keep their anonymity. Thus the now booming job of Mutualistic Parasite is born. Because they have nothing else to lose, Lunar takes the job leading them to Cis the Parasite (she/they). Cis the Parasite is quiet, stoic, and clearly a loner. Lunar believes they can be partners, but doesn't realize they have more in common with the earthling...

Ooooooh So Interesting! So Wonderous! It's So Unfinished LOL

So we have some goals for this year regarding the VisNovel:

Finish the script for the CisLunar Visual Novel!

Finish designing characters for the CisLunar Visual Novel!

Actually learn ren'py programming!

Project 2: Streaming

I started streaming part time on December 6 (I believe lol I'm bad with dates)! It's been so wonderful so far! Thanks to some wonderful artists, things look much shinier and new! Please take a gander at my twitch page (and follow! you know you want to):

I've been having fun playing games and drawing and I can't complain! However, there is one small issue--I don't get many viewers. While it is true that with whatever I make, I don't do things for numbers or follows, it is also true that streaming alone can be quite lonesome (shoutout to calcium for making it when they can and being a trooper in the chat! I genuinely perk up when you pop in because it is not just me anymore LOL).

That being said, I have a couple of goals for streaming this year!

Get 50 followers

Have at least 10 people chatting in chat.

Slowly but surely complete the PC-98 inspiration for my streams (I actually got a head start on this one; already got a new overlay commissioned~)

Learn more things I can do with obs plugins, to help with the PC-98-ification of the streams

Buy a better laptop to stream on (this one is nice and it lagging helps with the old school vibe I'm going for, but I need some better performance!)

And a big far away goal--have a big named vtuber say I'm their fave obscure streamer lolol

Project 3: Music!

Honestly, because of work and at the time how tired I was due to my health, I didn't have enough capacity to put out the big bulk of music I made. I literally have at the least 40 tracks that are just on soundtrap LOL

With that being said, starting in the new year, I plan to finally put this music out there! It needs to be out into the wild! I'm also going to do my best to draw a cover for each album as well (this is where the backlog gets created), but I've allowed myself to be happy with a cool free use image as well lol. With that being said, there are already 5 albums ready to be posted. They just need cover images and they'll be put up!

I'm also close to finishing Vol.3 of Cosmic Canary Radio aka the stream music! Getting close to 50 tracks so it's the biggest one so far. I believe I have 5 tracks left and then I'll be done! Here are some tracks as a preview of what's in Vol.3

(lol not all the bands use caps in their name, that's just a hilarious coincidence for the ones I chose to put here)

For this project, the goals are:

put out finished albums!!!

Put out Vol 3 of Cosmic Canary Radio!

Make a section (or separate tumblr) for the fake bands in this universe!

Project 4: Quasar

This is a very far away project, but I'd like to get much farther on it in hopes of working on it while finishing CisLunar Visual Novel.

Quasar has been in the works for at least 8 years now, but I've finally worked on it in earnest the past two years. It's influenced by shows/movies like Redline, Motorcity, Speedracer (the movie more than the show), etc. It connects with the zeitgeist within CisLunar loosely so unfortunately I need to get CisLunar started before I can start posting some things about it (I might break that rule though).

Goals for this project include:

finish designing characters

finalize how the story will be provided to readers

complete the plot lol

I have some personal goals too, but I won't go into to much depth here. Most of them revolve around my own mental and physical health, and while I said I would be open to a degree about my issues to help convey there is a real life human in reality behind this screen, I'll leave it at I'm gonna learn to live with PCOS and I'm tired of having a mentally sick mind. While this year has been quite positive for me, I also had some major lows that stopped me from doing what I love--creating things.

LOL ALSO--I plan to update this tumblr more! More sketches and designs and me putting my stream schedule on here and stuff! That was a run on sentence but it is to show how much stuff is going to be on here now!

This was an EXTREMELY long post, but I wanted to write out all of my goals. Maybe I'll come back at the end of next year and see how well I did!

Until then, seeeee youuu neext tiiimmeeeeee!

[retroswimyt]

Hey, how's it going?

My name is Sam, and I am the owner, operator, and editor for VineSwim. Yes, everything you see on this channel is all done by me. But, I'm not here to brag today. I'm here to talk about the future of this channel, and some other stuff I have planned as well. Buckle in.

First off, I just wanna say, no, I am not ending this channel. I will still be posting videos here for the foreseeable future. I have a few coming down the pipe right now, so stay tuned for that.

Also, some of you may have noticed that the Vinny ‘Kirby and the Forgotten Land’ and ‘Ocarina of Time 3D 4K’ highlights series are no longer present on the channel. That is because I unlisted the videos, but don’t worry, they’re still available to watch through the ‘unlisted’ videos playlist that you can find on this channel. I unlisted them because they represent a kind of content that I no longer wish to make on this channel. I started this channel with the intent of doing edits for any concurrent game, or games, that Vinny was playing as he was playing them, and that just became tedious, and very unfun to make and to edit. It was taking the fun out of what was supposed to be a fun project, and I just don’t want to worry or think about them at all anymore. But, If you’d still like to watch them, once again, you can find them on the playlist titled ‘unlisted’ that is on this channel.

But, speaking of this channel, I just want to thank everyone and anyone who has watched my edits or subscribed to the channel. This started as a silly side project to express my love for the streamers that I watch, and give back to the community I love so much, in the only way I really knew how to, so once again, thank you all.

I will admit, though. I’ve also been using this channel as a testing ground for how to “play the YouTube game,” so to speak. A way to figure out the ins and outs of uploading videos and reaching the widest audience possible, and what gets people interested in your content and what you might have to bring to the table. Which brings me to my next topic.

For those of you already know, the username and handle I use pretty much everywhere on the internet and social media, is “retro dog.” Well, that all started with my YouTube channel of that same name. I have used that name on the internet for about 7-8 years now, and have tried multiple times to make YouTube videos. I tried streaming on Twitch, but I could never get anything off the ground.

Well, now, I’m going to get serious about it.

If you’ve paid any attention to my main channel or second channel, retro dog after dark, you’ve probably noticed the bios for both channels kind of spell out the kind of content I want to create on both channels.

I already have some video ideas I’m working on for my main channel, where I’ll post editorials and more formal content about general geek culture, specifically animation and video games. On my second channel, I’ll be posting more informal, more personal content, about just things I’m interested in, off the cuff talking into the microphone, and just things that generally wouldn’t fit on the main retro dog channel. I also plan on doing basic live streams on the second channel, where I just plop down with my Switch or whatever and play games for a few hours. I plan on doing them Thursdays, because that’s just when I’m most available, but nothing’s final right now.

Now, I don't plan on doing any of this right now. This is a work in progress, but will all be coming in the near future. I plan on writing and editing at least 3 unique videos for the main channel and for them to all come out one day after another. Then, I want to do a livestream on the second channel during the same week, so basically I plan on doing a ‘launch week’ for all of the ‘retro dog’ stuff, and you guys will be the first people to know about when it will happen.

This has been in the back of my mind for a long time now, and doing this channel, being really passionate about YouTube stuff, and also my general dissatisfaction for where my life is heading right now, has all led me to this moment, where I really want to get serious about doing something that brings meaning to my life. I’m a fairly creative person, and I like to work on multiple projects at the same time in order to stretch my legs, and express my ideas and passions in every single way possible. I’m working on other things right now like music and the Zinesauce fan magazine, so that should tell you where my mind is right now. But, I just want to thank all of you for giving me the courage and the spark I needed to get things going, and get my ideas off the ground. I really, really hope that these upcoming projects gain traction, and pan out for me appropriately. Because, for the longest time now, I’ve wanted to do something more with my life, something that actually feels like me, and contributes something to the world, even if it’s mundane and basic, as long as it maybe offers some value and entertainment to someone, and offers an outlet for my passions, I would be happy with wherever it goes. To some, this may sound kind of self serving, but honestly, I just need to do this. That is all. It’s been too long, and I’m ready to do something, anything, that makes me proud and happy, and whatever shape that takes, I am excited for it to happen and to just be there for the journey. And, I hope you are excited too, or at the very least a little bit interested. And, if you are, I implore you to subscribe to both ‘retro dog’ channels. I’ve left links to both of them in the pinned comment below. Of course, click the bells, as well, to know immediately when I upload and when I go live. I’ll make sure to keep you all updated on when things start happening, when things start brewing.

Boy, I’m starting to sound like a real YouTuber already aren’t I?

Anyway, thank you all, for caring about VineSwim, and any other projects I have going on. It really means a lot to me to contribute to this community in the way that I do, and that is not going anywhere, I promise that. I’m very grateful to all of you for giving me and my concepts any attention at all. And, I know it sounds cheesy, but I love you. I mean, not really, that would be kinda parasocial, but you know what I mean.

So, thank you all for watching, and I will see you whenever, and wherever it may be. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much. My name is retro dog, I’ll see you next time.

LATER.

[synthsizedproductions]

Moderation Monday March 20th, 2023

Hey hey, guys, gals, and in-between pals!

Sorry to have missed last week. Needed a small break, but I’m back this week, so that’s the important part. Right? Right.

Anyway, work is picking up a bit for me, which is nice, but it means that handy schedule I just made is a bit more difficult to follow. However, we’re going to carry on as planned, just with more solid timeframes. So, without further ado, here is this week’s plan!

Twitch Tuesday

We’re going to be live on Tuesday with some Hotel Renovator! I’ve been playing it off stream and I’m excited to show y’all what I’ve been up to. Like any good simulation player, I started a save, realized I wasn’t playing the game quite right, and restarted that shit. So, y’all will get to see the slightly less buggy and better designed hotel. You’re welcome.

The stream will begin at 1pm EST.

Wildcard Wednesday

Our Discord poll has spoken and I will be doing a drawing stream! This does mean there is no early content for my Patrons and Ko-fi subs, but stay tuned for next week when there will be.

As I do have work on this day, this will be a bit of a shorter stream. I plan to begin around 12pm EST and ending around 2pm EST.

Thorough Thursday

I have work this day and will be unable to put enough time into any game to get anything productive done. This is one of the reasons I’m playing Hotel Renovator on Twitch Tuesday as I am rather close to getting to the 50% achievement mark.

Fiction Friday

To make up for skipping Thorough Thursday’s stream, I will be doing a co-working stream on Twitch where I work on editing chapter 10 and writing chapter 11 in hopes I can get a bit of a jump on my posting schedule. I may also take this opportunity to work on the script for the second episode of The Watkins Report.

Join me on Twitch around 2pm EST and work on your own projects.

Settle Down Saturday

As always, this is my day of rest. Nuff said.

Sunday Funday

We will have officially made it through another week and this week I don’t have work! This means that we will be hanging out in Discord for most of the day. We can play games, watch videos, and just in general have a good time together. Who knows, maybe we’ll even watch a movie!

Well, that’s the plan for the week! Hope you enjoy the show!

~Chance

[airadam]

Episode 183 : The Natural

"Posthumous ain't the wave..."

- Mega Ran

For this month's cover art, I couldn't resist calling back to one of the most unexpectedly popular stars of the Olympics I was glued to earlier in the month, and going a little Griselda with it 😁 Music-wise, we're almost entirely Hip-Hop this episode, but visiting a lot of different chambers - got some brand new stuff, some tracks that are older than I realised, and we open up with a gem that never got a commercial release...

Mastodon : @airadam@mastodon.me.uk

Twitch : @airadam13

Playlist/Notes

Warzone : Take It Or Leave It

I left the drop on the front of this track to respect the blog DubCNN, from where I got this track way back - one I've never heard anywhere else! Warzone was a supergroup made up of Kam, Goldie Loc, and MC Eiht of CMW, who drop unapologetically gangsta lyrics through all three verses of this fire tune. Sadly, even though they did record a full album, the world never got to hear it due to them being unable to get a distribution deal - if anyone somehow has a copy, I would love to hear the whole thing! I think Mr. Porter is on production, which makes sense, with the drums having a distinctly Detroit timefeel which really adds to the overall flavour.

Sndtrak : Inhuman

The Detroit stalwart House Shoes was recently playing some beat flips by Oakland producer Sndtrack on a Twitch stream, and before he was done I'd already bought two of his albums, including "FLIPS V2: FLIP​-​TUCK" from which this is drawn. He deconstructs Michael Jackson's "Human Nature" on his Maschine and turns it into a dark, gothic, booming track which lives up to its title! This is an artist well worthy of your support.

Layfullstop : Did I Stutter

Brand new single from a double-threat MC/singer you might know from her work in the Manchester scene over the last few years - she posted a clip on Instagram and I immediately had to buy myself a copy! Layfullstop kills it in less than three minutes with flows and bars galore over a wicked self-produced beat that features smooth keys under an irresistible rhythm track. An artist to always keep an ear out for!

Mega Ran ft. The Outlawz : In The Game

It was great to see Mega Ran return to play in Manchester this month, and while it would have been easy to just reach for his most recent release, we're going back to a personal favourite, the "Live '95" LP. As someone who grew up loving Hip-Hop, hoops - and of course gaming - in the magical time of the 90s, this album explores the intersections of them all. Edi Mean and Young Noble of The Outlawz, best known as 2Pac's crew guest here with a couple of short and positive verses over Yon Li's production, but it's the headliner who really shines here with an excellent first verse. His lines about "anybody I ain’t rock with, don’t put them on my projects" ring truer than ever in a world where some are excusing the use of AI deepfake tech to put words in the mouths of the deceased. We don't support that necromancy over here.

Zion I : We Got It

Accidentally deleted my notes for this - let's try again 😂 This was a nice B-side on the flip of "Here We Come" by Skhool Yard, both taken from the 2001 compilation "The Funky Precedent Vol. 2". The production by 418Hz is sparse enough to allow the straight-ahead dopeness on the mic from the late Zumbi to breathe.

Diamond D ft. Torae and Bishop Lamont : MERK

Jo-Jo on the low pro, the Forest Projects and DITC legend Diamond has returned to bless us with a new release this month, the nine-track "The Diam Piece 3 : Initium", loaded with featured guests all doing their thing over his top-shelf production. The crispy drums and guitar sample with a subtle bass backing create a clean but still grimy backdrop for all the MCs - Bishop Lamont from Cali and Brooklyn's Torae, both true insiders' choices - to bring quality bars. Well under three minutes long, this is concentrated dopeness.

[Jay Dee] Slum Village : Fall In Love (Remix Instrumental)

The original version of "Fall In Love" was at least at some point removed from retail copies of "Fantastic Volume II" due to sample clearance problems, but this remixed version is an underground classic in its own way. I recently picked this up as a 45, though I'd expect that there are some 12"  and digital releases containing this excellent J Dilla beat as well.

DJ Premier & Bumpy Knuckles ft. Flavor Flav : Shake The Room

He may only be on the hook, but I thought we needed the Public Enemy legend, US Women's water polo team sponsor Flav, and general US Olympic hypeman on the episode somewhere this month! As he has done so often for Chuck D, he brings a different tone and change of energy to this track to contrast the gravelly-voiced and aggressive style of Bumpy Knuckles, with DJ Premier switching up the beat in those sections to match. The first single from the "Kolexxxion" LP, this one has a beat that Busta Rhymes apparently rejected, but Bumpy and Flav have made it what it needed to be.

Black Milk ft T3 and Phat Kat : Danger

Into the crates for a Phat Kat feature after getting the chance to play an all-Detroit warmup set before he performed in Manchester earlier this month! This cut from fellow 313 native and beast producer Black Milk's debut LP "Sound Of The City, Volume 1" has him taking the mic for the opening verse, before T3 of Slum Village takes the baton for the second, and finally Phat Kat burns it down on the close with pure aggression. Some of those that Kat said should "stop rapping and drive a cab" might well prefer to look into rideshare options if they were on the receiving end of this torching 🔥

Jel : Delete Sound

Just a short instrumental bridge courtesy of Jel, co-founder of the Anticon label as well as, of course, a producer in his own right. This is a great drum workout entirely done on the legendary SP-1200, from the 2002 "10 Seconds" album, named after the total sampling time the SP has available!

O.C. : The Inventor

I have to credit DJ Rolling Adam for introducing me to this track after playing it on one of his Twitch streams! It's a bit of an O.C. obscurity that had passed me by, with Ogee cleverly using the intro of a much loved jazz track that has been sampled on some classics - none of which made much of this part of the original. On the mic...standard solid performance from O.C., who can always be relied on to hold up his part of proceedings. You can find this on the 2006 "Hidden Gems" collection, or on 12" if you're willing to buy one of the relatively few copies that seem to be available on the used market.

Kev Brown : The Cause (Instrumental)

Absolutely fire beat! Not a crazy number of elements, just the basics done flawlessly, which is a real strength of Landover's Kev Brown, one of the most respected producers of his generation by those in the know. Of all the tracks from his "Selective Hearing" project with LMNO, this was by far my favourite, and the instrumental works well in a standard DJ set, an MC cipher, as a scratch backdrop - it has a quality and restraint that give it ultimate versatility.

Verb T ft. Malek Winter and Da Flyy Hooligan : Mere Mortal

Heavy UK business. The "Restoration" project is a collaboration between the veteran MC Verb T (who may be best known to many as one quarter of The Four Owls) and Malek Winter, who comes through with the 21st century lo-fi boom-bap styles on production. North-West London "gourmet rap" purveyor Da Flyy Hooligan features here, as one of the very few guests on the LP, as the MCs speak on how no matter how bulletproof you may feel, it's never quite so.

Sean Price : Title Track

Ok - in a total inversion of Ronseal naming conventions, this tune is called "Title Track" but the album it comes on is entitled "Mic Tyson", meaning that this is actually not the title track in literal sense! Classic merry rulebreaking from the late great Sean P, whose brutal bars on this 2012 release jockey for position against Eric G's slow, grinding, dramatic beat for sheer aggression. As always, R.I...P!

DJ Quik ft. David Blake II : Shine

There are all kinds of things I've seen in Hip-Hop as time has gone on that remind me of my (thankfully) advancing years, but this one is up there - DJ Quik, who I first heard as a nineteen-year-old MC on  the 1990-recorded "Tonite", being in the game long enough that on this track his son is the featured guest! Quik's production is low-tempo with the double-time hi-hats doing work to add a feeling of extra pace as son and then father get on the mic for each of the two verses. This pick from 2014's "The Midnight Life" is certainly not "Just The Two Of Us", but it's an interesting union all the same.

Trae Tha Truth : Trunk Gone Glow

We go deep and dark sonically as we approach the end of the show, taking it down to Houston, Texas, for a track from a true legend of the scene. This comes from the "Another 48 Hours" mixtape, the second of two albums released by Trae that were recorded in a mere two days each! Trademark Houston lyrical content, talking about the famous SLAB cars and the light-up trunk kits that make them extra-personalised. MOXIII and Watson The Great are credited with production over the whole LP, and this track is a spaced-out, screwed-up synthy soundscape with quality drum machine work over the top.

[El-P] Run The Jewels : Job Well Done (Instrumental)

If I see the instrumentals for a good album available for sale, I make a point of picking them up, so this month I was glad to notice that the beats for the first Run The Jewels LP had been released as a standalone collection. If you already know the album, then you know that it was packed with raw beats and this one is no exception - no crossover style, no chill, just banging, menacing production from El-P.

Justice & Thundercat : The End

This played during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics and sent me - and a lot of other people - scrambling to Shazam it before they switched to something else! The combination of the French electronic duo Justice and Los Angeles bass force of nature Thundercat (although he's primarily on vocal duties here) is sonic bliss, and makes this year's "Hyperdrama" album one to seek out if this is anything to go by. If you have a nice, clean, tuned sound system...this is going to sound spectacular.

Please remember to support the artists you like! The purpose of putting the podcast out and providing the full tracklist is to try and give some light, so do use the songs on each episode as a starting point to search out more material. If you have Spotify in your country it's a great way to explore, but otherwise there's always Youtube and the like. Seeing your favourite artists live is the best way to put money in their pockets, and buy the vinyl/CDs/downloads of the stuff you like the most!

Check out this episode!