#this one I'm actually actively writing though

[strawberrynull]

──☆ ˙🌡 ̟ colds

엔하이픈 | Enhypen | Nishimura Riki

──Pairing: riki x afab!reader

──Genre: fluff

──Synopsis: Your boyfriend Riki gets sick, leaving you to care for him for the day

──Warnings: teeth rotting fluff, Riki without the nonchalant mysterious act

──A/N: SORRY I HAVENT BEEN ACTIVE. I have a few filler posts and then I’ll get back to writing Hallway Crush since I know some of you have been waiting for it

masterlist

You could immediately tell your boyfriend, Riki, was sick the second he stumbled out of him room in the morning. He was pale in the face and looked like he was about to collapse. Way different from when he was exhausted from practicing. After being with him for so long, you noticed more little details in his behavior. This time, he was definitely sick. He made his way to one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter and sat down as if he had been on his feet for hours.

Last night, you had fallen asleep at his apartment while watching a movie. He invited you over for the day since he had been busy recently. By the end of the night, you two ended up watching multiple movies on the couch. When you had fallen asleep, he didn't bother waking you. It was already late at night and he didn't want you going home in the dark. Though, a few hours after you fell asleep, he started feeling unwell and went to sleep in his bedroom. Riki didn't want you to get sick too.

"Are you feeling okay?" You asked gently, handing him his plated breakfast. He reached out with a trembling hand to take the plate.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He said in a groggy and scratchy voice. You shot him a look with raised eyebrows. "I just need to eat before practice." He lied straight to your face. He wasn't a very convincing liar. You already had your answer no matter what excuse he gave to convince you he was okay and healthy.

"You're sick, Riki. Don't lie to me." You stated, reaching into the medicine cabinet for the thermometer. "I'm taking your temperature."

"No. I told you, I'm not-" he coughed mid sentence. "I- I mean I'm-" and he coughed again. After he had recovered from him coughing fit, he slammed his hand on the counter and insisted "I'm not sick!"

You sighed, ignoring his excuses. "Open your mouth." You demanded, holding out the thermometer in front of his face. He looked up at you and furrowed his eyebrows. "Now, Riki." You said sternly. He reluctantly opened his mouth, letting you take his temperature as he crossed his arms angrily. After a few seconds you took the thermometer from him and held it up to reveal the little screen that read 38.3°. You raised your eyebrows and gave him a told-you-so look.

"I feel fine, Y/n." He stated, turning to eat his breakfast. You stood behind him and brushed his hair with your fingers as he ate. When he was done, he picked up his plate and began to stand up but was interrupted by you taking his plate to put in the sink yourself. "I was going to do that. I'm not incapable just because I have a high temperature." He sulked.

"Well now you can preserve energy. Go lay down." you insisted.

"But I have practice-"

"You're sick. Go lay down." you said seriously. Riki stuck out his bottom lip making his mouth form a small pout, your weakness. He knew you would always give in when he acted this way. You couldn't resist how cute he was. But today was different. He was sick and you were very serious about him staying in good health. You scrunched your eyebrows to prove that you were serious. And to show that his antics weren't working on you today.

"But then I'll have to call the boys and cancel practice. It's so much of a hassle and-" He began to complain before being interrupted again.

"I'll text them. Go lay down. Now." You pointed in the direction of his room. He huffed and turned to leave reluctantly. You followed close behind to make sure he actually laid down. Riki's cough only seemed to worsen as you walked him to his room. You assumed his throat was probably sore too. You made a mental note to make him soup and tea.

As Riki pulled the blanket over himself, you sat down beside him at the edge of the bed. You ran your fingers through his hair and looked at him sympathetically.

"How do you feel? And be honest with me this time." You asked with a slight pout. You felt bad for him whenever he wasn't feeling well. He would have to skip practice and stay at his apartment doing nothing. Riki was always very active. He never liked to stay in one place for too long.

"Um... my throat hurts and obviously I have a terrible cough." He explained. "My whole body feels sore too. I feel pretty weak and shaky."

You looked at him like he was a hurt animal. It was awful how he could become this sick in such a short time. Feeling sorry for him wasn’t going to make him better though.

"I'm sorry, my love. Would you like me to get you cough medicine?" You asked him, rubbing his cheek gently. He nodded before coughing again. You frowned and stood up to get medicine for him. You left a quick kiss on his forehead but before you could leave, Riki grabbed your hand.

"Y/nnnnn" He whined, pulling your arms back toward him.

"Yes, Ki?" You asked and placed your free hand over his.

"Can we cuddle?" He asked, trying to subtly pull your arm so you would sit back on the bed with him.

"No, silly. You're sick." You cooed, trying to free yourself from his hold on your arm. Still, he refused to let you go.

"Pleeeeeeeeeease? I'll hold my breath the entire time so you don't get sick." You laughed as he tried to convince you.

"Riki, you're ridiculous."

Of course, he refused to give up, though. "What if I die today?" and his over dramatic antics started. "What if this is your last chance to cuddle with your super hot boyfriend? You're really going to pass up this chance?"

"Yes because I need to be healthy in order to care for your needy ass."

"Come onnnnnn. When was the last time you cuddled with poor old me?"

"Yesterday." You deadpanned.

"Fuck." You start to walk away to get his medicine. "Wow, you really don't love me, do you?"

"If I don't love you, I guess you don't need medicine or soup or tea, huh?" You stop in your tracks and turn back around, crossing your arms over your chest.

"Nooo!" He whined, draping his arm over his face dramatically.

"You're impossible to deal with.” You reply dismissively, shaking your head. “You act like I’m leaving forever. I’m only going to the kitchen. You’ll be fine.”

“But what if your cuddles are the only remedy to my fatal illness!?” He yelled as you walked out of the room, ignoring him with an amused grin.

After a few minutes, you came back into the room holding a tray with soup, tea, and some medicine. You placed it on the nightstand next to him, which was now littered with tissues. Riki happily ate the food you made for him. When he was done eating, his antics picked up again.

“So, since I’ve been cured with your superior cooking, that means we can cuddle now, right?” He asked with a huge smile plastered across his smug face.

“Absolutely not.” You sighed heavily.

“Awww come onnnn” he whined like a child throwing a temper tantrum. He even crossed his arms, which made you laugh. Upon seeing his pouting face once more, your mind had been changed.

“Alright, fine. You win.” You were quick to tackle your boyfriend in a big hug. He let out a quiet “ouch” as you laid on top of him. His grin was quick to return to his face though.

“Does this mean I get a kiss too?” Riki smirked playfully.

“You’re so hard to say no to.” You rolled your eyes before leaning in to connect your lips. The kiss lingered for a longer time than intended. You were always so careful with him. You took care of him no matter what. Riki had a hard time expressing his gratitude through words, so instead he used actions. A meaningful kiss. His gratitude to you.

© strawberrynull, 2024. Do not copy my work. Please DM for permission before translating or reuploading. Thank You

[bilehwit]

Hi, another ask kinda indirectly related to the Bilehwit AU

But what are some of your personal headcannons about the bishops, that may or may not be in this au but as a personal interpretation of their character?

+ Who's your fav Bishop(excluding Narinder for now) ?

Favourite has to be Kallamar - gay coward??? Me coded fr fr.

That being said, I somehow always write more about Shamura???

But headcanons!

Kallamar:

🐙My man has a skin tone for gold, and he lets it be known by wearing enough to be heard janglin' a mile away.

🐙He has never once in his life done that! (He has done it 1 billion times, but he must appear better than thou.)

🐙Scared of Shamura when they're not lucid.

🐙Once drunk Leshy under the table only to then get decimated by Heket.

🐙Many spouses, does not like sexual activity. In my eyes he's asexual but a hopeless romantic.

🐙Will stop whole processions to look at bacterial growths on the floor.

🐙East Asian - South Korean, modern day would be a K-Pop beauty influencer.

Leshy:

🌱 Is Chaotic, but not in a fun way, more in a "Oh my God 3 people are dead" way.

🌱Used to biting to show affection.

🌱Cries when he's angry.

🌱Wants Shamura to be proud (they are.)

🌱Turns spouses into Witnesses. Also doesnt know what a spouse is/is for.

🌱Is the most physically violent.

🌱Ate scraps of metal on a dare (digested with no problems.)

🌱Russian.

Heket:

🐸Hates mushrooms (shockingly).

🐸Bought a cowboy hat.

🐸Likes to garden and cook but hates washing up.

🐸Says shit like "four score and twelve moons ago" to piss off Kallamar.

🐸Likes writing on Papyrus.

🐸Egyptian and will complain about heat.

🐸Lesbiab. Lesbaen. WOMAN LIKER.

🐸Tells you to go fuck yourself if you compliment her looks.

Shamura:

🕷When lucid, talks about the good old days.

🕷Most crimes committed as a mortal.

🕷Writes nursery rhymes for their followers.

🕷Used to have dancing rituals to gather sin - now can barely twitch their legs to a beat.

🕷"Oh, thank you Leshy- sorry, Narinder." "I'm Kallamar." "That's what I said." - common occurrence even before.

🕷Wants a pet so so bad. Do not give them one.

🕷Attracted to people with long hair and excellent grammar.

🕷Once did a kickflip so bad they had to kill the elderly congregation watching them.

🕷Tanzanian and speaks swahili when angry.

Narinder:

🪦Likes to bite Kallamar ("I can't help it, cats love fish." "I AM NOT EVEN CLASSIFIED AS A FISH." "You could be.")

🪦Indian, but spent so long in Purgatory he can no longer handle flavourful foods. At least at the start.

🪦Didn't realise Bilehwit had an ACTUAL CRUSH on him and thought they were like. Just that devoted. Pious. That's why they never took a lover.

🪦Cat baths when no one looks - gotta look constantly refined.

🪦Uses his third eye to scare people, namely children.

🪦I Would Never pt, except he definitely is still doing it while you watch.

🪦Finds children hilarious (to torment).

🪦Best dancer, worst singer of the Bishops. Can play music very well though.

🪦First time in Bilehwit's tent, he paid no attention because they were arguing. Then snuck in later to actually see the place.

And that's all my headcanons!

[chocolatepot]

Well, I think that incongruity is part of what helps people to read the actual body of Rhys Darby as something separate from what Stede Bonnet looks like. One valid interpretation is that he is Rhys Darby and they're lying or completely misperceiving him, but it's also valid to interpret him as being more physically "soft"/less muscled (particularly since he's shown repeatedly as uncoordinated and awkward) though obviously they're still wrong about his body to some degree.

Part of why I'm so laid-back about this is that I have no real stake in it. Being aspec, I don't think that much about bodies (when I write Ed being attracted to Stede it usually relates to his manner or his hair or his smile etc. etc.) and when I do focus more on them it's in my genderbent universe, where there's much more latitude for imagining what Stede looks like, and where frankly my goal is more about making myself feel good than trying to exactly reflect Rhys's body as a woman's.

But I also find variation in fannish interpretation really cool in and of itself! I used to focus on correctness to an unhealthy degree and while I still have my own personal standards of which interpretations seem most correct, I just really love the way that different people come to different conclusions about conflicting information in a canon, or straight up rejig canon to conform to their own kinks or emotional needs or taste. Even, to some extent, when it comes to interpretations I actively dislike. I'm glad they exist even if I don't necessarily want to read fic/meta based on them.

I can admit defeat by the Rhys faction 💚 I will continue to be quietly baffled and y'all can continue to see him as buff.

In my defense, my ex was way too into powerlifting and I have consumed probably too much strongman content, largely against my will. I never intended to know who Eugene Sandow was.

[cogglebee]

Hello tumblr, I come to you humbly with nothing but a leshycat fic and a dream LMAO no I'm just gonna info dump about it here because there's some important information that I think some people are gonna want going into this.

So the whole thing is inspired by the Motorcycle.jpg ep by Slaughter Beach, Dog, there's gonna be 4 chapters, one for each song on the ep. The whole thing is based around the idea that each of the mini bosses you fight was once a regular critter like the rest of the followers you see in the game until they were transformed by the bishops in a dark ritual. (Pulled from the most recent dev ama on reddit)

So following this, I decided to make Amdusias and the Yellow Cat the same guy. The concept is that once indoctrinated into the cult, the Lamb wants to keep him around for as long as possible.

He was the first real beast they defeated after all. Amdusias is like a living trophy to the Lamb. So every time he dies he gets brought back, and every time he comes back he looks a little more like his old self (green fur fading back to yellow, horns shrinking down and becoming fuzzy till they're his cat ears again)

Amdusias is incredibly adverse to the whole cult and the Lamb and anything to do with the Red Crown in general. The first chapter mostly focuses on him slowly becoming more and more part of the cult, the deaths and resurrections, basically all the set-up before we get to the leshycat stuff

He is eventually entirely devoted to the lamb, as much as the can be anyway. Afterall, how can you worship a dead god? So he is made a disciple of the Lamb, and everything is fine (Its not, he is unwell)

But then Leshy is indoctrinated as a follower, and shenanigans ensue

Shenanigans being Amdusias coping with both seeing his former god just HERE, ALIVE, OUT AND ABOUT

More happens, but I don't want to be too spoiler-y with the rest, there is a lot of emotional angst and romantic fluff. The romance part is probably going to look super cringy because I literally know nothing about that (aromantic author) but I'm writing about a worm chaos god and some fucking cat from a video game about cults becoming boyfriends so how much does it even matter???

[tiktowafel]

do you ever think about how all you used to draw when you were 10 was ponies and that you should still know how to do that, then get an idea and proceed to draw something like these in nearly one sitting and it turns out better than any drawing you've done in the entire past month

sooo anyway does anyone have cutie mark or pony name ideas for them?? lol

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

I wouldn't really agree that boys are just arm candy in magical girl shows and only there to look cute. Yeah, sure the girls' friendships are the focus, but the boys are usually very much involved in the plot and most shows do explore their feelings about the odd things that happen due to magical shenanigans even if they aren't in the know (It's why ML baffles me even more with how they screwed up Adren's arc when he's the deuteragonist, when all these boys are supporting cast and get well rounded arcs)

I'm not much of a winx fan, but the specialists were very much not arm candy. Did the girls talk about them being cute? Yes, it's what teenage girls do. Did the narrative suggest they were good looking? Yes, but that's standard for most love interests in any genre. But we still got scenes with them talking amongst themselves about how they themselves feel and they got a fair share of badass fight scenes even if they wield no magic. A large amount of episodes actually included the boys and girls working as a team solving a mystery or fighting a villain. The girls might deal the finishing blow but the boys were still integral to the plot.

I hope this doesn't come across as hate, it definitely wasn't my intention. I'm just a bit too passionate about the magical girl genre.

I do think you have a good point with ML having a problem choosing a genre or blending two genres successfully.

For the CCS fans, I will add though that Cardcaptor Sakura had both Tomoyo and Syaoran serve as sources of motivation for Sakura. And both Sakura and Syaoran collecting cards even if Sakura is the only one who could seal them and yet never made you question whether Syaoran was even necessary for the job the way ml does with Chat.

I wasn't trying to say that boys have no part to play in magical girl team shows or that they're always treated as having no lives beyond the girls, that's why I mentioned that the Winx Club boys - aka, the Specialists - have their own (mostly off screen) lives and occasionally show up help the girls:

the boys are usually off doing their own thing and only occasionally show up for a date or to give the girls a ride on their cool bikes or magical spaceship

Even then, this is certainly a simplification of the roles that they play in the story, but I kind of had to simplify their roles down to their base components for the original post's discussion as I was talking in broad strokes of how these stories are written.

In terms of those broad strokes, the Specialists are absolutely only there for shipping fodder. That's why each one is assigned to a girl from the start and why their main role in the narrative is supporting their assigned love interest or causing relationship-based drama for their assigned love interest. If it weren't for shipping, then the Specialists would not exist.

While the Specialists do have fleshed out characters and may even effect the plot, the execution of those elements is designed around the girls. A really obvious example of this is the character Timmy, who has character development as the boy's tech guy. Why is he into technology? Because he's the designated love interest for the fairy of Technology and we have to show why they're a good match. Along similar lines, the boys don't really get plots that are removed from the girls because this is the girl's show. Every episode features one or more of the Winx, but the boys are optional and often don't appear.

This is because, narratively speaking, the boys are just love interests and that brings us back to Miraculous' big problem. You can't have a show where Adrien is written like a Specialist while also being part of the Winx Club and where Alya is written like she's part of the Winx Club while technically being more of a Specialist in terms of power set and actual narrative role.

I'm was thinking back to my memories of various Winx Club plots to find one that really highlighted what I mean here and I remembered that one of the big dramas in season one was the reveal that Bloom's love interest - Sky - was in an arranged marriage and had just never told her. As it turns out, that's a great example of what I'm talking about re Adrien!

Is that plot line technically based around Sky and letting his life effect the plot? Sure, but the fallout of that reveal revolves around Bloom, not Sky. The story doesn't really care how Sky's feeling as the conflict progresses. Instead, it focuses on how it affects Bloom and her friends because of course it does! She's the main character. It would be really weird if that plot suddenly focused on her side character love interest and his friends during one of her darkest hours/biggest moments.

Think of that and then consider how the ending of season five is written. Notice any similarities? Sure, this is Adrien's family drama, but because he's just a Specialist, the focus isn't on him. It's on Winx Club member Marinette and Adrien only shows up at the end for a kiss. That is the problem. That is what I'm talking about when I say that Miraculous will randomly write him as if we're watching a magical girl team show where Adrien is just the love interest.

In fact, let's really dig into this example because it's a good one.

You can have a look at the transcript for the finale episode of Miraculous season five here and see for yourself that Adrien doesn't even show up on screen until the final scenes when the big drama is over. The Winx Club wiki also has episode transcripts, so I took a look to see what happened in Winx land during the arranged marriage reveal plot (I love that this is a thing. It's so useful for fact checking myself!) This is the script for the episode after Bloom learns the truth. Sky does not appear even though his lies and family drama are the fuel for this episode's events, which are a major part of the season's arc. Note how perfectly that matches Adrien's writing?

Similarly, Sky's dialogue in the reveal episode is all about Bloom. He's worried about her learning the truth and thinking less of him. To match that, here's Adrien's only real dialogue in the penultimate episode of season five (full transcript):

Adrien:(Covers his ears.) I cannot transform... (Looks at his ring and tries taking it off.) Plagg: What are you doing?! Adrien: I'm not in my right mind. I'm too angry — at myself for falling short of Marinette's love, at my father for sending me here in London, at this stupid app and these rings that use my image... it makes me sick! This nightmare is giving me the horrible feeling that, if I transform, I'll get akumatized and destroy everything with my Cataclysm — Marinette, Ladybug... (Takes off the ring and hands it to Plagg.)

Switching back to Winx. After Bloom learns the truth about Sky, bad things happen because she's depressed. This results in her and the Winx going off on a journey to learn the truth of who Bloom is. After the girls share this big plot moment and Bloom gets her mojo back, the boys show up to be their ride home and to give Bloom her romance moment where Sky wins her back by declaring that he broke off the arranged married because he loves her.

Sky notably doesn't get an arc about choosing between his arranged marriage and his true love. We don't even know that the marriage is broken off until he tells Bloom because that was never really a conflict as far as the narrative was concerned. Of course he's going to pick Bloom! He's her designated side character love interest! He only exists to be with her. We don't need to treat this as a serious thing for him. The arranged marriage plot was never about him anyway. It was about giving Bloom a reason to have a darkest hour moment that moves the plot forward. Similarly, Sky calling off the marriage is nowhere near as important as him telling Bloom that he's called off the marriage to be with her in a grand romantic gesture.

This perfectly mirrors Miraculous' season five ending where Adrien doesn't appear until after Marinette is done fighting her big girl power fight against his father. As far as the writing is concerned, that fight isn't about him. His connection to the villain only really matters in terms of how it affects Marinette's actions during the final battle. Then, when the battle is over, Adrien shows up to give Marinette her big romance moment because, while the plot may be driven by Adrien's family, he is not a Winx club member. He's just a Specialist. Or, in the words of the head writer:

[image text: She's Barbie, he's Ken. You don't like it. I get it. It won't change. Anything else?] (The full, even more damning context of this tweet can be found here.)

What else can I say other than, "I rest my case."

Oh, and also that I didn't take this as an attack. I just thought it was a good opportunity to really dig into the nuances of this and what I was talking about in that original post as I never know how obvious this stuff is if you don't closely study story telling. As this case study hopefully shows, if a show is about a group of girl friends using the power of friendship, then their love interests may have important roles, but the boys are never going to be more important than the girls and most of the boy's screen time will be focused on romance and how their existence effects the girls because it's ultimately the girls' world. Without them, the show wouldn't exist. Without the boys? Well, then we just wouldn't have a romance plot.

[milkyspine]

— no matter how hard you try, forgiveness isn't a death and you can't bury this while it's alive

[lee-sol]

i might do an updated post w/ the oc reference sheet, just because i've absorbed new media and there are characters where i point and go "they remind me of sol"

[arklay]

WIP DAY.

tagged by @girlbosselrond @morvaris @aartyom @risingsh0t @phillipsgraves @leviiackrman @indorilnerevarine & @denerims over the past month! sorry it's taken me so long to get to anything at all, i'm sure you guys have heard me address it enough, but thank you all so much for continuing to tag me in things while i've been inactive ♡

tagging @aelyosos @brujah @calenhads @florbelles @jendoe @lightwardens @liurnia @nokstella @nuclearstorms @shadowsofrose @shellibisshe @steelport @swordcoasts @wrymbloods @voerman & all of those who tagged me again cause i'm so behind + anyone else who'd like to share anything they're working on, not just writing! ♡

i haven't written anything since the last wip game i did, but i started trying to put diana's timeline together at the start of january, so i mean... i'll show that instead. as you can see, fatigue hasn't let me do much with it even though i've got all of her timeline already done and strewn about all over the place.

started with 1995 onwards cause it was originally going to be an ewskers timeline situation, but then wanted to include all of her backstory so i went back to the start and still have the late 80s and early 90s to get through before then, but yeah :]

it's going to include like all little moments i've thought of between the ewskers just for me and placing them on the timeline, so you can imagine how long this is going to get if i have to go to 2021 for village... like just 1996-1998 is going to be so much... she's very special to me if you couldn't tell already lmaoo

never sharing this though, it's just for me, and like will help for when i do her timeline page (more in-depth version of what's on her oc page) to just run through canon events and brief descriptions and whatnot. you understand.

everything is blurred out besides 1995 ewskers momence and the years, just cause like idk her i feel weird sharing her in-depth backstory unless it's in dms or something, just cause there's lots going on there and yeah. things. idk

i also made a carrd for twt if you wanna have a look at that :] there's some cheeky subtle things with the two resi items i used as pics hehe

actually, you know what, i'll give a lil bit from where i left of with that rewrite anyways, even though it's been months since i wrote it. but why not

Wesker left a fleeting kiss behind her ear then reached around her and hooked his fingers beneath her coat, prompting Diana to glance back at him. But all he did was gently pull it from her shoulders. She watched him from out of the corner of her eye as he hung it up on the rack by the door, his movements careful and almost calculated, until he turned back towards her, and the warmth of his body returned once more. He pressed up against her side this time, as opposed to her back, and one of his hands found a home on her waist. The way the arm it belonged to was resting firmly against her as he began leading her towards the kitchen was comforting, secure, yet unmistakably possessive. And she revelled in it. He had quite the knack for handling her just the way she wanted.

[uhuraprime]

Does anyone else have any old fics they wrote like a decade ago that they're not super proud of but also deleting/orphaning them feels... wrong? It's like throwing away your childhood drawings. You might want to look back on it at some point, even if they're 'cringe' to you.

[buckleydiazmp4]

i do like going to college (at least for now lol) but the way it has rewired some of my thought processes is actually very jarring

[foxmulderautism]

no but like there's writers out there attending classes by garth greenwell ocean vuong brandon taylor etc meanwhile the intro to creative writing class i did in my first year was run by a guy who declared repetition 'lazy' and called one of the student's pieces perfect in workshop as if that's how you should run a workshop

[gxlden-angels]

the only person who was actually right about the world and human nature was Max striner everyone else is a fucking moron

Striner? I hardly know 'er!

Anyways, I'm not a philosophy expert. I'm just some guy. I like the egoist belief that there isn't a universal moral truth. I like the absurdist belief that, because nothing matters, we should be radically sincere. I like the christian belief in a place without suffering after this life. I like the Universal Random Number Generator idea my therapist and I talk about

All of them have their flaws though. Egoism gets used to condemn social movements and civil rights advocacy. Absurdism and the RNG can create a sense of existential dread and a loss of motivation. Christianity encourages the loss of identity and free will

I'm just some psych student with a weird ass therapist that understands my weird ass brain. He encouraged me to look into absurdism since I took a class on absurdist literature my freshman year of college and he said I might enjoy looking into the actual philosophy. And I do! At least a lot of it! I like the idea of a chaotic universe and us humans trying our best to control it. I like the idea of letting that go and living authentically instead of with a direct purpose. There's chaos and mayhem and entropy and I'm just here to react to it. And I can react in ways that makes others happier if I wanted just because I can

Egoism/egotism feels too disconnected from the human need to connect to me. It traps me into that feeling that doing something good for someone is selfish if you're doing it to feel good. I'm actively working to get out of that spiral Christianity put me in now

I don't know, though, anon. I'm just some college student with an ex-christian tumblr blog and a lot of trauma. I like to believe there's some Universe-sized Abstract Computer with a random number generator that causes the chaos we call home. I skim wiki pages and reddit posts and decided if I want to engage any further/look for textbooks. I could possibly be looking at the wrong page about the wrong philosophy. I'm honestly just on this earthly plane for the bit

[thestripiestshirts]

Back when I was majoring in elementary education we had to do these presentations of lesson plans in which people went up and gave a lesson as if the rest of us were the elementary students they were teaching. This one guy's lesson was about the phases of the moon, and he very confidently did his whole lesson... explaining to us that the moon's phases were caused by the shadow of the Earth on the moon. At some point I finally couldn't take it anymore and raised my hand to explain that that's not how the phases of the moon were caused. I forget the presenter's response to this, but good number of people in the class got annoyed with me for "ruining it."

I used to be a grader and an occasional substitute prof for an introductory astronomy lab. That means that the majority of the people in this lab are only taking it because it’s a requirement and about half of them think it’s an astrology class.

I was grading midterms and this one girl. She was so nice and I think she was a business major. Fuck. The question on the midterm was to draw a diagram of the solar system and this poor girl. This fucking girl had drawn a Mars-centric solar system. As in every planet and the sun were orbiting Mars. I now actually have a custom Cards Againsy Humanity card I got at a con that says “A Mars-centric solar system”

I had a boy argue with me that there was liquid water on the moon (this was around when they had found liquid water on Mars in ~2015) and he wouldn’t believe me that he likely meant Mars and not the moon. After I marked his answer to the relevant lab question wrong, he took it to the department head who had promptly laughed him out of the office.

And there was another boy who, during a lab in our observatory where we would look at certain things in the sky, asked where the sun was. At 10pm in November. After some questioning it was revealed that he thought the moon and the sun were the same thing.

[rugessnome]

I had a finished poll about least favorite doctor come across from one of my tracked tags but it's no longer rebloggable (which... I kinda get. fair) so I couldn't put MY little tag commentary on it...

[changeling-droneco]

Hi I'm that person who made the original post about "no doesn mean no" when a small bit of the mr beast company document was leaked, well, now we have the full document (thanks rosanna) so I'm going to go over it. Please note I am not a lawyer or a business man, I'm in college for psychology, so I might misunderstand some things or make the wrong conclusion. However, if this is a document made for the average mr. beast employee, if I cannot understand it properly, then im sure some employees also struggled

First of all, the opening paragraph. Like I get it's supposed to be like, to put people at ease, but

This is so strange? Like, first of all, this is your EMPLOYEE MANUAL, you should have run it through like, a spell check? Or had someone edit it? This is already incredibly unprofessional. Also the promising of a thousand dollars if you pass a quiz on it? It's bizarre and I'd love to see if it's an actual quiz.

Jimmy, hun, please god get an editor for this you're already trying my patience.

YOU SHOULD, you genuinely should, while interconnected these are all COMPLETELY different jobs, if you think you could write a separate manual for each branch you SHOULD

I'm sure I'm about to get an answer but what the fuck is the best YOUTUBE video then? If it's not comedy, its not production, its not quality, its not look, then what the hell is left? (monetization, it's monetization)

First of all, Jimmy, why are you using internet lingo in this, it's not a text message, this is not a place for, idc, and lol, and not capitalizing your headers correctly??? Also like I said, he's chasing trends for monetization, and also he's just wrong, there are plenty of hollywood level shows and the like on youtube. You fully admit you do not care about trends and actively rush things?

This is just fucked??? Like of COURSE IT MATTERS??? Results based company is bullshit, your employees that worked for five weeks and failed aren't "lesser" then James, it's a structural failure! They still worked for HOURS to try and succeed?? That shows merit and loyalty??? What the fuck???

Rosanna covers this one in her video but it's worth restating that this is FUCKED??? It's clear overwork "your job is your family" culture. Especially the use of the word obsessive? If you do not OBSESS over your work, you are considered poisonous. NO WONDER we have so many reports of employees doing things they feel is dangerous or unsafe, if they don't they're considered POISON to the company.

The formatting in this doc continues to fucking kill me, what are you DOING man GET AN EDITOR

This feels like such an easy fix of just...make the thumbnail after the fact? Or only make a rough draft of one first? Like if production makes a red bouncy castle instead of a yellow one, that feels like an easy fix to the thumbnail OR a communication error, and again, that's on management

A lot of the next stuff is like analytics stuff that for the most part I can't really speak on as someone who does not do any of this stuff. There are a few things though

Which like???? what??? a lull??? what do you mean "watching a video without even realizing they are watching a video??" That doesn't scream good or even mediocre content to me. If I'm actively tuning out as I watch a video, that's bad. Especially because there have been plenty of times I've been like half way through a video i go "hey this sucks actually" and click off. They actively want their audience to not be paying attention to the video so it runs all the way through, that's kinda pathetic.

I don't actually know if this is common or not in this industry, but as an outsider this seems INCREDIBLY micromanaging to me, to an immense degree.

Jimmy why are you putting swears in your employee manual?? sir??? and also something about this whole thing icks me out, I don't quite have the words but the whole emphasis on "im different im special no one else can be me" just reeks of something kind of manipulative

Why is production changing so much Jimmy??? Infinite growth is the mindset of a cancer cell Jimmy! This is incredibly unstable working conditions! Also again with the word obsession, if you take time out of your own day on your own time to watch hulu, that's seen as not being obsessed enough for the company. This is nonsensical!

Again, this is INSANELY micromanaging, and also so fucking unhinged??? "God himself couldn't stop you from making this video on time" is NOT a healthy work mindset, things HAPPEN!!!

In this segment he's actually talking normal things but I did just want to highlight his use of "freaken" who the hell puts that in an EMPLOYEE MANUEL

Again with the micromanaging, and the immense pressure on employees for problems OTHER people do. While he's not fully wrong that you should be in more contact with the contractor then the example, this is too much in the other direction. How much time in the day does he think people have?!

My kingdom for a fucking paragraph break dude, my fucking eyes. Also this is a lot of "im so great and do everything and you should do more for me and if i dont know something that's your fault" for something titled "I am not always right"

I'm getting lazy with my highlighting, but again, the micromanaging? If you're SOOO busy, the first question should be the ideal? it's quick and makes a quick decision, while the second one meanders and meanders

Again, Jimmy is pushing blame for HIS mistakes on OTHER PEOPLE. For again, a section called "i am not always right" hes taking NO accountability for that and just making the SAME excuses he's berating in other places.

I can't even tell what he means here AN EDITOR JIMMY

Autism Hell tm, PLEASE email me so I can DOUBLE CHECK IT, things in writing are SO useful

Again the language towards "C-Players" which as mr beast has said, are the people who y'know, are NORMAL employees who DON'T live and breathe this company

Okay first of all, a Lamborghini is like 300k so that's already A REALLY hard task, and i sure hope don't usually put typos in the tasks. SECOND of all the fact he thinks its okay to go "hey if the studio is literally on fire around you and you stop working to get the Lamborghini, you're not doing good enough" even if he claims it as a joke is NOT OKAY what the FUCK

We've covered this before, but to reiterate this segment is named after a sexual assault reference when it could have been named ANYTHING ELSE and harasses employees and pressures them to break rules, don't do that.

I'm not an editor, so maybe this is normal, but as someone from the outside it seems strange to put this much emphasis on dividing focus between so many videos at once.

Jimmy, hun, are you paying extra for this? Because if I'm an editor and you want me FILMING stuff then i want to be paid more for doing TWO jobs and I probably still wont be as skilled a TRAINED CAMERA MAN

First of all now THAT'S a type, consteatants. Also the fact they are aware that leaving contestants out in the sun is bad, why are you not doing MORE TO STOP IT BEYOND "hey maybe giving them three hours of heatstroke is bad, try only two next time"

Don't we love favoritism, more shitty unprofessional writings, and a completely unstable work environment?

If your people have to pull all nighters period something is wrong, and if something happens to an employees car that could have seriously hurt someone, i sure hope you care more then just "LOL FUNNY" Who's picking up the broken glass? Who's reimbursing the car owner? That one meme of "your first care should be commitment to the bit" is a MEME jimmy, it's not ACTUAL ADVICE

Ah shit I hit image limit, well, you've seen enough screenshots to know these are screenshots, we're almost done I'll put them in as quotes

"Let’s say you are tasked with finding us a castle to live in for 50 hours and while doing research you find a castle and a number to call for the owner. So you do call, and he answers. Only problem is he says he quit the castle renting business to pursue his dream of building a 100 foot tall lego catapult. You can obviously tell where i’m going with this. Ideally you’d recognize that’s badass as fuck and try to convince him to let us use it when we do find a castle. This is a bad example because it’s so obvious but if you’re doing your job right you will be doing an absurd amounts of calls and data collecting. While trying to complete your prios and prepare for the video you should always be on the lookout for new things you can bring to your creative team to inspire them. Because just like me, they don’t know what they don’t know and you can’t just say “i’m in production and i’m not very creative” because that’s literally the equivalent of saying I suck at what I do. You also need to apply this same mindset when problem solving because many people lose sight of this stuff when in the weeds. If a problem appears, always always always ask yourself if your new plan is whats best for creative, not just the easiest bandaid."

First of all it's really funny seeing all the red lines pop up, second of all this insistent blurring of everyone's job seems so strange? Again maybe this is normal, but it really feels like Jimmy wants everyone working every job, instead on focusing on what they are actually hired to do.

"What is the goal of our content?

To excite me. The goal of our content is to excite me. That may sound weird to some of you, especially if you’re new but to me it’s what’s most important. If I'm not excited to get in front of that camera and film the video, it’s just simply not going to happen."

That's fucking weirddddd, like I get that he's trying to be like "im authentic" but it always feels like a bad sign when the goal of a company is literally just "What amuses the boss" like...bad sign

"this is youtube and there are constraints. You know the video can’t be a minute so you’re obviously going to need a story to hold the viewers and there are rules to storytelling. Our audience is massive and because of that you have to be simple, for 50 million people to understand something it must be simple. Content can be anything but there is structure and rules that we must mold it into that I want to teach you about, because virality doesn’t just happen. Every frame of our videos will be seen by 10s of millions of people"

Gross

"I'd say the average MrBeast viewer is a teenage memer that likes video games."

Mr Beast is completely aware of his demographic and puts screen shots of it, he is very aware his stuff is aimed at kids, even when its about gambling or hiring people not around near minors

"I feel silly for having to write this but all the time I talk to 32 new people that have at most seen like 5 or 6 of our videos and it’s mind blowing that they don’t see a problem with that lol."

It's almost like your audience is teenage memer and that people who working here are not in fact, teenage memers.

"What you consume on social media, when you watch youtube, tv, the games you play, etc. are what I like to call your information diet.

How do you stay up to date on the latest memes? How do you know what’s going on with celebrities? What’s trending on youtube? What other creators are doing? What’s popping on tik tok? Your information diet. Consume things on a daily basis that help you write better content."

If my job as a creative writer had my boss tell me to have to see whats "popping on tik tok" as part of my job i'd quit also again, the micromanaging of someone's life as well pops up again, it's weirddd

"It’s okay for the boys to be childish

If talent wants to draw a dick on the white board in the video or do something stupid, let them. (assuming they know all the risks and arn’t missing context on why it’s not safe) People like when we are in our natural element of stupidity. Really do everything you can to empower the boys when filming and help them make content. Help them be idiots"

More favoritism

"If you’ve made it this far you are probably at least semi interested in this being your career. So I wanted to chat about it. Because if you're ambitious and want to dedicate your life to work, you picked the best company in America to do it at. I really don’t care to hoard a bunch of money and I deeply believe in rewarding the people that help this business get where it needs to be. But before I get into that, let’s talk about the future. As I write this we have 2 teams, that will grow to 4 in the next year. (and possibly 8 in the next 2 years but I can’t talk about that cause james will kill me haha). We need more leaders in the company. Weneed hard working, obsessive, coachable, intelligent, grinders that can step up and take some of these leadership spots over the next 2 years. Every single department has an opportunity for you to grow in and you’re in luck because we don’t do yearly reviews. We do whenever the fuck you want reviewes"

Lack of communication from management, and more emphasis on grinding and crunch culture, goodie, all while riddled with typos! God.

"I see a world where this company is worth billions and one day 10s of billions. And those of you that help build this will be rewarded. I want nothing more then for you to go all in, obsessive all day everyday, and become so god dam valuable this company can’t operate without you. And in return for becoming so valuable I hope to give you incredible experiences, a fun place to work, and of course, more money then you could ever dream of making at any other company."

I feel like I'm reading a fucking pyramid scheme document here, "youre so so valuable spend literally every minute of every day on this company haha" good GOD man