#up to a computer but rather the uploader or creator

[popcornucopia]

ABSOLUTELY HAVING AN ISSUE WITH YOUTUBE AND YOUTUBE SHORTS!!!!!! I made 3 short videos in which I show paper work having been completed (around a minute plus each and filmed vertically) as I dont have access to a scanner to scan paper them as pictures on my computer at this time. I went to upload one on youtube which bc of the length and orientation was automatically converted to be uploaded as a youtube short. BITCH IF I WANTED A YOUTUBE SHORT I SHOULD BE ABLE TO DECIDE FOR MY SELF!! instead I had to screen record the videos to put them all together as I need to upload them as a regular video because its for a class. On a personal note, I do not use youtube shorts, I do not like youtube shorts, and I cannot stand to have a computer make decisions for me as if it knows my needs and has decided that what I am uploading is content. It's not content and should not be classified as such as it is for a class, but the computer does not care or know because it's a computer.

[clairewritesfanfics]

Villain Creation System Chapter 3

Pairing/s: Invincible x Reader x Invincible Variants

CHAPTER 2: Tutorial Mission START Series Masterlist <<read the synopsis and trigger warnings first>>

For a fake world, the chemistry lecture here was as dull as the real one’s. 

After Mark disappeared to who knows where, you resumed life as a college student and went to class. Biochemistry, a fascinating subject, but the teacher had a voice that could put dragons to sleep. Compared to your philosophy professor, the man detailing the steps to the citric acid cycle spoke without a change in his inflection and was less “discussing” and “more reading from his powerpoint.” 

It was a good thing you–this version of you–took up philosophy. The so-called “hard sciences” are fun, but being human means having limited time, and when buttloads of information is crammed into you without time for processing and then quizzed, the fun tends to diminish. 

The bell rang.

“I will upload the modules for the next session by tonight, and don’t forget to answer the formative quiz for today’s lecture. Have a good day, everyone.” 

You opened your planner. This was the last class for today, and there didn’t seem to be anything else written here, only this semester’s schedule. 

Huh.

[Accurate to the real thing, I’d say.]

“If that is a jab at me then you’re wasting your breath, or whatever energy you use to talk.” You didn’t like social engagements. It would seem this version of you was the same. Good. At least you didn’t have to worry about making small talk with strangers. You had this body’s memories, but they were limited, imperfect. 

“What should we do now?” You asked, walking out of the auditorium. 

[That is up to the Host. ]

[Your will is my will.]

“Is that your way of telling me you’re not gonna help me?”

[ ˶ˆ꒳ˆ˵ ]

You rolled your eyes and opened your phone. The list of contacts you had were straightforward; parents, several family members, some old classmates and friends. Vague figures in the back of this brain’s memory. The system told you not to bother contacting any of them. [It would be pointless] was its reply when you inquired why. 

You checked the apps. Facebook was a thing here but Twitter was replaced by “Z” and Youtube was “WeTV.” A lot of the creators “you” followed were news outlets.

You clicked a WeTV link to a livestream report of a monster attack in Australia, then another in Brazil, and one in the Philippines.

“Geez.” You were never going to complain about being bored again. “Those poor people.”

[Look on the bright side, Host, here the destruction of nations can be blamed on an external threat rather than the political leaders. In your reality, you humans have no one else to blame but yourselves.]

Spoken in a robotic voice with a cheery lilt. It seemed genuine in its attempt to comfort you, so you bit your tongue and continued scrolling.

Monsters, villains, more monsters, more villains. Hundreds of people injured, dozens dead.

Just then, a light bulb went off in your head. “I think I know what I’m supposed to do now.”

The dorm was too far so you went to the campus library. You found a vacant computer near the wall, far from prying eyes. 

[Resorting to cyberstalking, I see.]

“Before I can make him snap, I need to figure out what makes him tick.” 

Judging from his socials, Mark’s popular, not just as Invincible, but as Mark Grayson. He was on the debate team back in high school, played bass at a band called Indigo Muse, and, if the many, many, many posts about him were anything to go by, he was well-loved by the ladies.

When you couldn’t find any family pictures, you decided to study his superhero identity. 

This world’s Invincible wore a black suit with blue accents. Most pictures of him were blurred, which was either on purpose or incredibly fortunate, because he didn’t wear a mask or cowl. 

UNKNOWN SUPER SAVES BUS OF TEENS

NEW SUPERHERO RISES THE RANKS

INVINCIBLE HELPS OLD LADY DOWN THE STREET

Going by the news articles, he’s been a hero for a mere four months. “No wonder the corruption meter is mostly empty.” You’ve seen this play out before, not in Invincible , but in various coming of age stories. This Mark was a fledgling. His morals were still intact, but judging from that 3%, he’s starting to see that the world of superheroes isn’t squeaky clean.

You pushed down the pity in your chest and continued with your research.

From what you can tell, the professional supes were employed by the Global Defense Agency aka the GDA. The veteran heroes were known as the Guardians of the Globe, and there was the Teen Team, composed of younger heroes. Invincible wasn’t part of either. He assisted both groups in the past, usually to evacuate civilians. 

No interviews, no press conferences. 

He was surprisingly mysterious. With how much of a flirt he was, you thought for sure he would be the showboating type, but judging from the poorly recorded videos of him zooming around, he did his job quickly and left before news reporters could hound him. 

There were only so many news articles and blog posts about him before you realized there was nothing else to study. 

You opened your notebook and made a summary of everything you knew so far:

Womanizer

Doesn’t remember me from childhood

English major *shares same philosophy class

Bass player 

Debuted as a hero four months ago

Not part of a team

Popular as civilian and hero 

Home life?

You circled the last item on your list several times. Try as you might, Mark’s parents were mysteries to you. Omni-Man disappeared ten years ago and you had nothing on Debbie Grayson. Her son didn’t have her as a friend on Facebook and he had zero pictures of him and parents.

“Not even a hint?” You asked the system.

System: (づ_ど)

Giving up, you decide to switch topics and begin digitizing your lecture notes.

[You’re actually studying?]

“Not like I have anything better to do. I can’t exactly hack into the Pentagon’s database and my head hurts from all that research, and since someone refuses to be useful, I’m stuck on what to do now.”

[...]

The system fell quiet and let you be.

The minutes flew by as you typed.

“Excuse me.” A feminine voice whispered and your knee jerked against the table.

You gasped in pain, earning a few looks from the neighboring students. 

“Sorry,” the snooper said.

[Ding. The character known as Amber Bennett has made contact.]

No kidding! Couldn’t you have warned me that she was here!?

[Host looked so deeply invested in studying that this system did not wish to disturb you.]

[Fufufu.]

Rubbing your knee, you met Amber’s apologetic eyes. “I didn’t mean to spook you, but uh, your typing’s… a little loud.”

Ah. That would explain the hard glares from some of the people here. “Sorry, I got too excited I guess. I’ll keep it down.”

“Thanks.” She glanced at your desk. “By the way, I can’t help but notice, you're in Professor Gonzales’ class, right?”

When she saw your brows crease in confusion, she added, “Biochemistry?”

“Oh, yeah.” 

“We share the same class then, I’m Amber Bennett.”

“I know.”

She blinked, wide-eyed.

You quickly added, “You’re one of the scholarship students. I saw the university page congratulating you.”

“Yeah, um, about that…” She turned to your monitor. “Your notes are easy to follow. Especially compared to the professor’s powerpoint.”

“I try.”

She grabbed her shoulder. “This is gonna sound weird but are you available for tutoring?”

“Tutoring?”

There was a collective “shhh” from all directions and Amber ducked her head.

“See, I’ve been struggling with chemistry since the first day and I’ve never failed before, but–”

“Okay.”

“Really?”

You nodded.

She beamed. “That’s great! I think we’re already in the same group chat for the freshmen course but just in case–” She pulled out a pen and you pushed a blank page towards her. She scribbled her number.

“I’ll pay you, of course.”

“Sure, we can talk about details some other time.”

“I really appreciate this–”

You gave her your name and her smile brightened. “You’re a lifesaver! I should go now before the rest of the library decides to crucify us both.”

You raised your hand in goodbye and then picked up your notebook.

No, Amber, you’re the lifesaver here.

***

That evening, Amber asked to meet with you at the campus coffee shop. 

The Coffee Mug, more colloquially known as The Mug, was three storeys high and looked far more interesting than any Starbucks you’ve been to. Cubist and art deco paintings lined the bare brick walls, contrasting the wood and iron furniture. Bossa nova jazz played from the ceiling speakers.

“I gotta hand it to the author, or whoever, whatever made this place, they know how to design a good-looking cafe.”

You almost didn’t mind that the person who asked for your help was already eight minutes late. 

You were getting impatient, mostly because it was seven o’clock and you still haven’t had dinner. You had a black coffee to stave off the hunger pangs, but the scent of toasted savory pastries and the sight of cake called out to you like a siren. 

[Just order, Host, don’t tell me you’re waiting for Amber so she could pay.]

“What do you take me for?” You harrumphed. “I’d love to, but it would be rude to start eating without her.”

[!!]

[Really? How so?]

You shrugged.

“But drinking is okay?”

“Yes.”

[You humans sure do like making things harder for yourselves.]

“Tell me about it.”

God, where the Hell is she? 

As you started debating whether manners were truly necessary, your phone pinged. It was Amber. 

Hey, are u at the cafe?

Im so sorry, my group meeting decided to have overtime.

I wired u some money, dinner’s on me. sorry again! 

Well, damn. Guess God does listen. 

Spirits lifted, you got up and practically skipped towards the menu. This place might’ve been called a coffee shop, it had a big menu not unlike a diner’s, and the food selection was listed with colorful chalk on giant blackboards hanging behind the counter. 

You’ve been thinking about what to eat even while you were at the table. But even now you weren’t sure what to get. A sandwich and salad combo? The lasagna? Maybe something from their all-day breakfast? 

[Ding.]

“I recommend their three-cheese omelette.”

You barely had to turn your head to find Mark’s chin hovering over your shoulder. Soft dark bangs tickled your cheek.

“Mark.”

“Gorgeous.” He winked and then approached the counter.

The girl handling the cashier noticed him and her surprise turned to coyness as she pushed back a pink strand of hair behind her ear and smiled. “Hey, Mark.” If this were a cartoon you’d imagine her eyes would be in the shape of hearts right now. 

You couldn’t blame her. Looking around the floor, a mix of subtle and unsubtle staring were aimed at Mark. You understood. Six feet, jet black hair, strong biceps, a pretty waist that led to the most callipygous butt you’ve ever seen. 

That being said, you’d rather not get into the habit of ogling at rear ends without permission, so you walked closer and stood beside him.

Mark leaned onto the counter, flashing a flirtatious smile. “Hey, Kelsey. Can I get my usual, for dine-in, and an om–”

“I’ll get the large grilled chicken salad with honey mustard and one medium choco mint frappe.”

Mark snorted, but didn’t say anything else as he handed her a few dollars.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Don’t be like that, consider this my olive branch.”

“For what?”

“For cutting our date short and not walking you home.”

“First of all, that wasn’t a date, because if it was, then your standards need quality control. Secondly, it wasn’t like I needed to come home. I still had classes.” 

Not wanting to third-wheel, Kelsey put Mark’s change on the small metal plate beside the register and hurried off to prepare the orders.

Without skipping a beat, Mark put the change in the tip box. “Then what is your ideal date?”

You tilted your head.

“You said my standards need to improve, but how do I know yours is any good?”

“I guess you don’t.” You crossed your arms. 

His grin turned mischievous. “Let me guess, you want a fancy dinner? No, you don’t seem like the type who dresses up frequently. I know, is it this cafe? Are coffee shops your thing? Bookish girls like these kinds of places.”

You turned on your heels. “I’m ignoring you now.”

Folding his hands behind him, he trailed after you, remaining two steps behind, pretending like he couldn’t outpace you with those long legs of his.

“Wait, is that why you’re here? You’re waiting for a date?” He watched you take a seat. “That can’t be it though, who orders before their date?”

Refusing to look at him, you opened your phone as you expressed your gratitude, “Thank you for paying, now would you kindly get lost?”

[Host, what are you doing? This is the perfect time to seduce him.]

Yeah, not happening. I need to be five kinds of drunk before I even consider– “What are you doing?” 

He slid into the seat across from yours. “Hey, I’m hungry too.”

“There are other tables, y’know.”

He cocked his eyebrow and you briefly scanned the room. Right. This was a university cafe. Dammit. He did pay for your food, and he wasn’t totally obnoxious to warrant a kick out. 

With a sigh, you opted to just ignore him and kept refreshing your phone.

“So, are you going to study here?”

“...”

“The music’s pretty nice, if a little basic.” 

“...”

“I can’t really stand music when I’m studying, or the sound of people talking. When I’m reading, I’m reading. When I’m listening to music, that’s all I’m going to do. I guess I’m not a multitasker, I like to think of myself as–”

You slammed twenty-five dollars on the table. “Please take this and leave.”

He put his elbows on the table and leaned closer. “Nah.”

Ugh.

“What do you want from me?”

He flexed his arm and leaned his chin on the palm of his hand. “Tell me why else you’re here.”

“To eat dinner.”

“And?”

“To study.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“You want me to leave, don’t you?”

“...I have an appointment.”

“Is the appointment romantic in nature?”

“Not even a little bit. It’s purely academic, and I’d like to keep it confidential, so could you–”

Kelsey arrived holding two trays. “One large grilled chicken salad with one medium choco mint frappe, and one freshly toasted cheese and sausage eggdesal[1] with a cup of black coffee.”

“Thanks, Kels, but you didn’t have to bring it here, I would’ve gotten it.” Mark said. 

She giggled, “Nah, it’s the least I could do. It’s not everyday you stay here to eat.”

“Well, I still feel bad since the place is packed.”

“It’s my pleasure. We’re not super busy right now since most of the students here just buy one drink for their whole stay.”

“You’re a doll.”

“Enjoy your meal.” She smiled at both of you and returned to her station.

He took a sip of the coffee. “Sweet girl, that one. You know, she’s a physics major–”

“How do you do that?”

His lashes flickered over the rim of the cup.

“How can you… charm people so effortlessly?”

Foamy coffee squirted through his mouth and nose and onto his sandwich. Luckily for you, you reflexively pulled your plate back just in time.

You pulled out the pack of tissue you kept in your backpack and slid it towards him. 

He patted his chest and coughed into the tissues. 

You folded your hands over the table and waited patiently for him to regain his bearings. Once his coughing calmed down, you asked, “Well?”

“Wow. You…wow.”

“It’s a genuine question, I think I deserve a genuine answer.” If it weren’t for your unique circumstance, you would have folded like a cheap hooker if Mark Grayson approached you the way he did after the philosophy lecture. The rest of your brain would’ve had no chances in overriding your hypothalamus. Or your loins. 

“I don’t know where to begin, I–”

“Mark?” 

Amber was here.

“Wow,” he breathed, attention switching from Amber to you. “You really did have a meeting.”

She looked baffled but there was no trace of anger or anything. “Why’re you here, Mark? You hate eating here.” 

“I was just about to leave.” He picked up his sandwich. “See ya, girls.” And with that, he departed, leaving you alone with Amber, who was–according to past posts–his ex-girlfriend. 

Amber laid her bag on the now empty chair. “Sorry for being late, I didn’t expect us to take two hours deciding on how to divide a simple report on childhood obesity.”

“It’s okay, ‘cause of you I just found my second favorite place.” The first will always be your bedroom. 

Amber twiddled with her fingers as you poured the honey mustard over the salad.

“Mark didn’t, I mean, he–”

“I didn’t tell him about the tutoring,” you reassured her. “I didn’t know if you wanted people to know, I just told him it was for school.”

“Really? Thank you! But that’s not what I was going to say.” She cleared her throat. “How do you know Mark?”

“We attend the same philosophy class.”

She looked everywhere except your gaze. “This probably isn’t any of my business, but you seem like a nice person so you should know that Mark doesn’t do the girlfriend thing.”

You used your fork to toss your salad. “I see.” 

“Don’t get me wrong, he isn’t evil or anything. He’s a sweet guy, it’s just that, he isn’t boyfriend material.”

You nodded. “Thanks for telling me.”

She let out a sigh of relief. “Good, good. Listen, if you do want to hook up with him, that’s totally your call, I just thought I should tell you.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be too busy for a boyfriend, anyway. Thanks, I really do appreciate it.”

Mark Grayson? Please. Not even in a hundred lifetimes. 

[ Ding. ]

You dropped your fork.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah… yeah, my hand slipped,” you muttered, trying not to gawk at the system’s holographic screen.

[Affection: 12%. Darkening: 3%.]

Glossary: [1] eggdesal: an egg sandwich that uses pandesal, a sweet and salty bread roll. It can be served plain with just the egg (either with scrambled or over easy), or with other fillings like bacon, sausages, and/or cheese.

@weponxwrites @ratkidcalledallie @qxuanii @lilacoaks

CHAPTER 4: Just Cut Their Red Thread of Fate Series Masterlist

MASTERLIST | request rules | ask box

[star-sim]

hello kitty meets batman (real not clickbait!) ☆ jake sim

☆ youtuber! super down bad! bf! jake x youtuber! fem! reader ☆summary: jake sim was youtube's cut-throat, horror creator, known for his dark video style. meanwhile, you were the cutesy beauty vlogger, lighting up every algorithmically generated home page you touched. no one would have expected you two vastly different people to know each other, let alone be in a long-term relationship. ☆ genre: fluff, youtuber! au, secret dating! au, established relationship, suggestive, im sorry im never letting the ytber au go, cutesy!reader, jake is SO down bad its kinda painful #patheticmen ☆warning(s): no, just fluffy, also reader is really feminine and girly in this ☆ word count: 13.4k words ☆ wrote half of this in spanish class so im sorry if there are mistakes, first time writing established relationship in full, kinda nervy

Jake Sim was many things.

One of the most popular and well-respected content creators on Youtube was one of them.

As Jake's nimble fingers darted across his keyboard, his other hand rested firmly on his mouth, he thought that the blue light emitting from his computer screen should burn his eyes. Except, it didn't. Despite what most people thought, 90% of being Youtuber was just simply staring at a computer screen, rather than being in front of a camera lens. The man felt his nose prickle before he let out a soundless, but satisfying, yawn. He leaned back against his office chair, stretching his neck and arms before he rubbed his eyes.

There was a reason that he was an extremely respected creator on Youtube.

For one, the production quality of his videos were high. Down to the Closed Captions or his camera's grain, Jake's attention to detail was immaculate. Not to mention, the content itself was magnificent. 

Whenever people asked Jake what he did for work, it was hard for him to answer.

He'd said that he made horror content, but he'd only earned incredulous looks, like he was a madman. Even then, "horror" content wasn't the correct description.

In short, Jake liked to make videos about obscure things. Which just so happened to be a little spooky. Sketchy true crime cases, searches for lost media, strange Internet phenomena, government cover-ups— Name anything a little bit eerie and Jake probably already covered something of that sort on his channel. Given the nature of his content, Jake almost always maintained a serious tone, but when the opportunity came to offer his opinion, he liked to relay it in a straightforward way. 

Another reason why he was so regarded was because of his content style. He preferred using darker colors, having a crisp microphone that picked up every rasp of his deeper voice. When he had camera shots, Jake liked to be in a dimly lit room. Unfortunately, his room was dark, too. 

This all combined together to create a singular image for Jake: the cool, high-quality, but a little bit scary, guy that likes to make videos about scary topics.

Now cracking his knuckles, Jake sucked in a sharp breath. Although he could easily export his upcoming video now and upload it, garnering millions of views, he refused to. There was something missing from it; it needed a little umph, a little embellishment to really pull things together. If there was one thing about Jake, it was that he'd put quality over quantity any day.

Jake is torn out of his thoughts when his phone, long forgotten next to his mouse, lit up. Usually, when he worked long afternoons like this, he silenced his phones in order to maintain focus.

However, there was always one exception.

You.

pretty girl: hi babe, do you think you can help me take promo pictures later?

The moment that Jake saw your contact show up, he picked up his phone immediately. His fingers tapped his screen, quickly responding to you.

me: yeah i can do it rn if you want

pretty girl: if youre busy, it doesn't need to be today, it can be tomorrow or something

pretty girl: oh

pretty girl: are you sure?

Of course he was.

Jake was already shutting off his monitor, grabbing his keys and shoving his feet into his shoes at your first message.

me: yeah i'll come over right now

You were Jake Sim's girlfriend. But other than the people in your personal life, no one else knew that.

Not that either of you minded.

Like Jake, you were a Youtuber. Except, your community was the complete opposite from his.

Your niche was cute makeup and lifestyle. Your videos had cute, blushy sets, characterized by cute plushies in the background and pretty, pink decorations. When you weren't making makeup tutorials or "get ready with me's," you were giving your viewers small sneak-peeks into your life. Whether it be your rosy morning skincare, or your sunny afternoon cooking attempts, or your illuminated late night thoughts, your content was light-hearted, soft, and personable. 

And if you weren't doing any of those things, you were modeling.

You were a beauty influencer, so you had sponsors from different makeup companies and such. What was most distinguishable from your personal brand was that you were one of Sanrio's biggest ambassadors. If there was someone that was the living embodiment of Hello Kitty, it was you.

Your personability, and your ability to feel authentic to your viewers, was a key factor in your large viewerbase. And what contributed to that the most was the fact that you had no idea how to use a camera. One would think that a content creator would know how to use a camera, but you were somehow the exception.

Not a problem!

Because you had your boyfriend, Jake!

Who was basically the master of content creation and film, in your opinion.

"Jakey!" you pounced on your boyfriend the moment he appeared at your apartment doorway. You threw your arms around his neck, immediately peppering his neck and cheeks with kisses. You heard him let out a few chuckles, feeling the rumble of his strong chest as he did. 

"Geez, babe, let me take my shoes off first," Jake teased you, taking in your sweet strawberry perfume. You immediately peeled yourself off of him, your lips forming a cute frown. 

"Shut up," you murmured, punching him on the arm while you jutted your bottom lip out. The lip tint and gloss on them shined, which made Jake grin. And when you noticed that he was staring at your lips, you gave him a gentle shove before saying again, “Shut up, Jakey.”

There it was, his favorite thing about you.

You were so, very, really, undeniably, mean to him.

Okay, that sounded weird.

But it was the truth.

Your relationship could be summed up in a few words—

You were just the cutest, and could barely contain your feelings for Jake, so you'd get all cuddly and affectionate with him. He'd tease you about it, so you'd get all shy and flustered, and you would begin to be mean to him. You'd call him stupid or annoying, and you'd tell him to go away but make no effort to resist his arms wrapping around your waist, pulling you against his chest. And then he would get to tease you more, until you were so embarrassed that you relented and let him kiss you.

How could he not resist teasing you?

You were always so pretty, with makeup or not, and it was easy to tease you since you got embarrassed so easily.

Even if he was holding his most expensive camera in his hands, he'd still let you pounce on him, if it meant that he got one extra kiss from you.

You led him to your bedroom. It had the same sweet, strawberry scent as you. Your room was pink, and along the walls were shelves, all filled with the many, many plushies that Jake bought you. Plopping onto your bed, Jake watched as you dug around your filming desk.

"Sooo," he started, "You're gonna do a promotional post on Instagram?"

You hummed. Sanrio recently launched a new line of lip tints, and they sent you their newest ones to review and promote. 

"I already made a review, and it's going to go up later," you said, digging through your drawers. "I want to make a promo post, too, y'know?"

You let out an 'a-ha!' as you found what you were looking for. It was a tube of lip-tint, the newest one from the collection. You then touched up your makeup a little more. 

Jake watched you in awe. The way you applied lip gloss and brushed setting powder (or was it blush? he didn't know anything about makeup) onto your cheeks was so mesmerizing, as you weren't already so captivating to him.

Finally, you stood up, straightening out your outfit. You puckered your lips, and when you noticed Jake staring at you, you gave him a little twirl.

"How do I look?" you asked. 

Jake, with his camera in hand, pointed the lens at you. He looked through the viewfinder.

"Beautiful." 

As always.

The shoot went smoothly. As you always did when Jake was your photographer, the two of you drove to the film studio, renting out a room for a good hour. Jake was a pro with the camera and you were an even bigger pro at modeling. Other than a few compositional edits or changes in exposure, you and Jake were done as soon as you started. The two of you decided that you’d go back to your place, cook dinner together, and maybe watch a movie.

Except that got delayed.

“Y-You’re so annoying, Jake,” you struggled out. You were in the back seat of your car, legs thrown over your boyfriend’s hips, his soft lips connected to your neck. Your fingers gently tugged on his hair, you yourself pressing soft pecks against his forehead and temples. It started because you gave Jake a kiss on the cheek as a ‘thank you,’ which spiraled into a makeout session in your car.

“What,” he breathed against your skin, dark eyes flickering up to yours. “You said you’d do anything to express your thanks for me.”

Jake kissed your neck again, before trailing up your throat to your jaw. Your fingers raked through his soft hair, pushing his dark locks out of his face so that you could see his face clearly. Jake reached up, took your hand out of his hair, and instead held your palm against his cheek, nuzzling into your warm hand. The way your eyes widened into saucers, lips parting, in response made the man’s lips curve upward.

“W-Well I thought you’d ask me to hug you… or something,” you said sheepishly, your voice soft as your boyfriend’s actions flustered you.

Jake grinned to himself internally before pulling away from you altogether. 

“Then do you want to stop?” Your eyes widened a fraction. “Then, let’s go hom—“

“No!” you cut him off, your hands squeezing his shoulders. “Let’s not!”

You stared at him, brows furrowed, for a few moments, before you noticed the growing grin on your boyfriend’s face. That look you knew too well, the one that said that he was going to tease the everlasting fuck out of you.

Jake pulled you in by the waist, close enough so that your chests touched, noses almost brushing against each other. He could feel the heat radiating off your face, and you could hear the smile in his voice.

“You sure you don’t wanna stop?” His voice was teasing, but you knew better. The earnest look in his eyes, you stared into yours, was filled with sincerity. He gave your waist a squeeze, almost as if to ask, “Do you actually want this?”

“Yes, Jakey,” you breathed against his lips, matter-of-factly. “I don’t wanna stop.”

The corner of his lips begin to lift.

“So you better kiss me,” you quipped, gripping his shoulders.

“Thought you’d never ask,” he rasped back, before attacking your lips.

(Later, when you were done, you two went home and went about your plan for the night. Except, you had to yell at Jake to go wash his face, because the sight of your lipstick at the corner of his lips was too much for you to take.)

"Hi, everyone!" you greeted the camera, folding your hands in your lap. With your thick, pink, knit sweater's sleeves falling over your wrists, you shot the lens a pretty smile. It was another normal day on the job of making content.

"As you guys know, VidCon is coming up soon." You pulled your makeup pouch toward your chest, leaning against the edge of your filming desk. "So, let's pack with me!"

Vidcon was an event for people to meet all of their favorite Youtubers. This year, you were invited to be one of the featured creators, given your popularity. As you filmed your "Pack with Me!" vlog, surrounded by ring lights aided by your windows cracked open, you recalled the email you had sent earlier, squeezing your eyes shut.

You see, Jake and you were both invited to VidCon. Since no one else, not even Youtube the corporation or your fellow Youtubers, knew that you guys were dating, Jake and you were given vastly different things. Youtube booked an entire hotel complex for all of its creators, and unfortunately, your room was located 10 floors below Jake's room. And worse, your booths and events were so far apart from each other that you probably wouldn't even see your boyfriend even if he decided to traverse the Convention. 

That's what you got for being vastly different content creators.

This year would be the first year that you and Jake got invited to VidCon, and you two wanted to share this experience with each other as much as possible.

Which is why you just shot Youtube one of the most embarrassing emails of your life.

"Hi, Youtube. The hotel complex you booked has a bar, and it is much closer to the top than the bottom. I really want to visit that bar. Can I request a room change so that my room is maybe on the 15th or 16th floors?" except add more formalities and much more discreet language, and that was the email you sent to your employers. You knew that it wouldn't be hard, and that the Youtube PR manager wouldn't reject your request. After all, you were the Sanrio beauty girl. Regardless, you'd gotten a response about an hour ago, and your request was approved, luckily. 

As you continued talking to your camera, folding your clothes neatly while chatting to your viewers about updates in your life, you thought about what you and Jake should do at VidCon. It was in the LA area, but you definitely wanted to visit other places in Southern California. 

It was no surprise that you and Jake had been more than touchy and close to each other. You were dating. Still, butterflies formed in your stomach as you thought about what you would do with him. Your face heated up at the thought of you and him spending time together in the hotel's rooftop hot-tub. The idea of him sneaking in your room at night, warming you up and pepperinging your cheeks with kisses, made your heart rate speed up, and you could only relish in the thought of exploring LA, Irvine, or wherever Jake wanted to take you with him.

You were a grown woman with a job and responsibilities, but the mere thought of your boyfriend being within the same vicinity as you made you nervous.

Just as you finished folding your clothes, you heard your front door crack open.

"Babe?" you hear Jake's voice call out your name. You turn off your camera to greet him, swearing to forget all of the thoughts you just had. Except, the moment that you locked eyes with him, all determination to not be teased left your body. Your lips wobbled, trying to bite back that stupid, bashful, and lovesick smile that made its way onto your face when you thought about Jake, but your eyes gave it all away. Instead of throwing yourself at him like you usually did, you only reached for the hem of his black T-shirt, playing with it sheepishly. 

You mumbled a small, "Hi."

You could feel Jake staring at you, and you could hear the way his lips curve into a smug, shit-eating grin.

"Shut up," you told him, your eyebrows crashing together.

"Baby, I didn't even say anything," Jake said, his hands finding their place on your lower back.

You felt shy and exposed before him. "Well, I know you're going to say something."

Jake grasped your chin, gently making you look at him. You tried to avoid his eyes, but it was impossible to avoid those dreamy, caramel eyes. Then, he took your face with both his hands, leaning in.

Was he going to kiss you? Oh my god, he was! Quick! What do you do? You felt like you were going to melt.

Instinctively, your hands tightened on the hem of his shirt, the black fabric scrunching in your fists. You closed your eyes, your lips softly puckering. You could feel him coming closer and closer, until his breath fanned your cheek.

As if he hadn't kissed you a million times before, your heart felt like it was going to fall out of your chest. 

Jake ghosted his lips over yours, inching just close enough that he could brush his lip against yours. 

And then, he pulled away from you. He took off his shoes, placed down his keys, and made his way into your bedroom, leaving you there standing alone.

Heat spread across your face and neck and ears as you realized your boyfriend had just teased you once again. You hid your face in your palms, letting out a small whine of embarrassment, before recollecting yourself and joining your boyfriend.

"Woah, what's going on here, babe?" Jake asked, standing at your bedroom doorway. 

"Oh." There was clothes and film equipment sprawled across your floor and bed. "I was filming a video."

You saw Jake's expression twitch, before he took your hands in his.

"My bad, was I interrupting something?" He was sincere in how his face showed a small drop of guilt for disrupting your filming. How could someone be such a tease one moment yet be so genuine the next?

"No, it's okay, Jakey," you said. "I mean, I need to finish my video, but I don't mind if you're around."

And that's how you found yourself trying not to burst out laughing as you filmed your video. Jake kept making funny faces at you, that goofy grin growing on his face as he wiggled his eyebrows at you.

"Jake, stop making faces!" you laughed, throwing a shirt at him.

He dodged it, throwing his head back into one of the plushies that he bought you. "I'm not doing anything!"

You threw another shirt at him, this time hitting him square in the face. Instead of admitting defeat, Jake only grabbed your shirt, pulling the fabric to his nose and taking a long, dramatic, sniff. 

"You smell sooooo good, babe," he said, ignoring your contorted expression, "I think I'm gonna keep this. You won't mind, right?"

"Ugh, Jaaaaakee!"

You plopped on top of him in bed. You felt his chest rumble as chuckles left his lips, rolling your eyes at him. You gave his chest a smack, a pout forming on your lips.

"You're so annoying," you mumbled as his hands slithered up to your hips. He gave your ass a pat, gesturing you to adjust your position. You did, sitting up so that you straddled your boyfriend's hips.

"And you're so pretty," he said, squeezing your hipbone.

"Let go of me," you poked him in the chest, but made no attempt to get off of him. 

"No."

"I need to finish my video," you pouted, still not moving to get off of him. 

"I don't care." Jake instead sat up on his elbows, his hands sliding down to your lower back, his face getting suspiciously close to your boobs. "Just lay with me."

Your fingers ran through his dark locks, before giving them a tug towards your chest. Jake laid his cheek against your boobs like they were pillows, arms wrapped around your waist. You could feel his hot breath against your skin and neck. The next thing you knew, he was pressing sticky kisses against your chest and neck, soft gasps escaping your lips.

"Sorry, babe," he muttered against the shell of your ear, "I just can't resist you."

You let out a soft "ahhh!" when he bit down on your skin, his teeth brushing against the nape of your neck. Jake briefly pulled away, a smirk making its way onto his face as he admired the red-purple mark on your neck. 

"You're just too addicting."

Long story short, your video was still finished and uploaded. As Jake edited his video, he let yours play in the background, your bright voice illuminating his dark room. Somehow, your voice was the only thing that made him focus. 

However, when he heard a familiar laugh— his laugh— in your video, Jake stopped in his tracks.

His mind flashed back to what happened the other day in your apartment, when he interrupted you during your filming.

"I don't know if I turned off my camera, Jake," you had purred as Jake's tongue dipped into your collarbone. At that point, both you and him were shirtless, hair disheveled and pupils blown out with desire. Jake remembered the electricity that ran through him as those words left your lips.

"Am I supposed to care?" he had muttered, trailing kisses down your chest. "If they hear us, that's not my problem."

It was almost like you, who edited your video, added that clip to tease him. 

Immediately, his cheeks began turning the brightest shade of red possible. If you were here, he would have only coughed and looked away shyly, but since he was alone, his embarrassment spread across his face like a wildfire. Jake almost never showed it when he was flustered, at least when he was around you. 

He hid his face in his palms, sucking in a sharp breath. He squeezed his eyes shut, warmth prickling his skin. You were going to be the death of him. He let out a small, lovesick giggle, one that his friends would flame him for. He couldn't help it, not if it was you. 

When he read the comments, still flustered out of his mind, he felt a twinge of disappointment when no one seemed to notice him. 

For some reason, Jake couldn’t help but want people to know that you were his. He knew that you and him kept your relationship private to preserve it, but he still wanted to show you off.

Except, one comment caught his eye.

“Wait, does [Name] have a boyfriend? Who laughed at 6:34?” it read. Jake’s heart skipped a beat in his chest. The warmth that spread across his chest as his lips pulled upwards. He almost wanted to jump on his bed and roll around while giggling like a schoolgirl, but he contained himself.

At the corner of his eye, Jake spotted a certain plushie. 

As you were a partner of Sanrio, for a time there was a Limited Edition [Name] plushie, clad in pink with a cute, ruffle-lace bow to top it all off. Of course he bought one the moment it launched. Jake preferred his room to be completely dark and black, but he liked to keep that plushie on his bed, and although he’d never admit it, he hugged it when he slept if you weren’t with him.

Would it be wrong of him to tease you back? After all, Jake still had to film the brand deal for his new video. 

Would it hurt to position the plushie just enough so that it was in frame? 

So that maybe someone would see it.

Vidcon came crashing on you and Jake like a meteor, and before the two of you knew it, you were in the venue, wringing your fingers as the event commenced.

Sometimes, it was difficult for you to comprehend the level of your popularity. Sure, the numbers that Youtube loved to display for you told you that you had millions watching you, but mere numerical figures were simply not enough for you to wrap your mind around.

Your schedule that day was simple: you were going to have a booth that you'd tend to for an hour or two, where your fans could take pictures with you and take a few freebies with them. Then, you'd go to your main event, which was in a smaller venue.

At your booth, where you sat currently, your personal table was set up in a very special way: your table was pink, and covered in a lacy, white tablecloth. Even the wall behind you was specifically painted pink and decorated with various Sanrio-esque decorations. You had stickers that you'd give out, as well as a Limited Edition Vidcon Sanrio plushie of you that people could buy. The pink polaroid decorated with Hello Kitty stickers hung around your neck with a pink lanyard. You genuinely looked like Sanrio and Hello Kitty vomited all over you, but you didn't mind. And plus, that didn't matter, because you were cute either way.

You were hit with pure surprise as multiple groups of fans came your way. The amount of people that came to you, rambling nervously about how much they loved you, how much they looked up to you, how much you inspired them and made their days better, made you feel light-headed. And very warm inside.

Jake was the one that did the talking for you (thank goodness!), but for some reason, you pushed through your usual shyness, instead wanting for people to come up to you and talk.

Your face lit up as one of your fans, a girl that looked around your age, maybe only a few years younger than you, approached you. You could tell by the Sanrio sticker of you on her phone case that she was most definitely here for you.

"Oh my gosh, hi [Name]!" She gazed at you with wide, glimmering eyes. 

Your initial reaction was surprise, but then you broke out into a smile. You cocked your head, fingers gripping the hem of your dress, both nervous and excited. "Hi, there."

You fan took one look at your face, and squealed. The way that she giggled, bouncing on her feet as she fangirled over you made warmth spread across your cheeks, getting shy and looking down briefly.

"I'm sorry, [Name]!" Your fan couldn't stop giggling, which you thought was very cute. It was now that you noticed the camera in your hand. "I just really love your content, and I'm just so excited to meet you in real life!"

You blinked at her a few times, before you smile only widened. 

"Don't worry about it!" you said, taking her free hand in yours. Your shyness melted away as your fan squealed again. "It really means a lot to me that you came out here to personally see me."

Your eyes flickered over to her camera, squeezing her hand and motioning to it with your other. "Can I...?"

She nodded enthusiastically, so you took her camera. Turn on the 'photo' setting, you posed for the camera, taking multiple pictures of yourself for her. You hoped that that would make up for your shyness. The two of you hugged, and you took many polaroids for her.

Almost immediately, after she left, you were tagged in a Twitter thread. It was that fan, reporting her experience with you.

"She was so much prettier in real life, I thought I was in heaven," her tweets detailed, "And [Name] was so sweet! It felt like I was meeting the real life Hello Kitty."

She posted the pictures you took on her camera, and then the videos. You couldn't help but grin like an idiot, especially at the comments (and the rapidly-accumulating likes and retweets).

"The way [Name] gets so shy is so cute!"

"I don't really watch beauty content but I love [Name] so much."

"She's like an actual Disney Princess."

You loved your fans, you really did. You were grateful for them, and you thought they were very cute. 

You were excited to see how Vidcon would treat you.

Jake was fighting.

He was fighting demons, wars, the little voices in his head.

Did you have to look so pretty today?

Jake's own event was an entire venue away from yours. He had a few events, so after his first one, he took a small break, where he looked through his notifications. 

Of course, the first thing he looked at was your texts. They were from a while ago, during his show when he didn't have his phone on him, so he responded to them now. He smiled at your cute texts, expressing how excited and happy you were. His heart jumped out of his chest when he saw the selfie you sent him: there you were, in all your cutesy Sanrio glory, smiling so prettily for him. Jake had to clasp his face to hide the stupid, love-struck grin that bled onto his face. 

"Oi, what're you giggling about?" Jake was interrupted by Jay, another one of his fellow horror Youtubers.

Jake immediately wiped his expression clean. "Nothing."

When he glanced back at his phone, that dumb grin began to form again.

Jay groaned. "This is so weird. It's like watching Batman smile."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jake scoffed.

"I'm sayin' that you're basically Youtube's Batman," Jay scrunched his nose, "And it's weird seein' you all... smiley and stuff."

"I literally smiled earlier!"

"Not in the way that you did just now. I have a bad feeling about it."

"Shut up!"

Jake really tried his best to swallow back his pure admiration for you as he opened his phone screen again, but he failed miserably.

He wished he could see you right now. He loved to see his fans, he loved to talk to them about their shared interest: all things horror and obscure.

But Jake missed you right now.

His heart plummeted to his stomach, however, when he logged onto Twitter, and saw the worst hashtag he could ever think of: #[Name]isSoCute.

He agreed with it. No, he embraced that sentiment with every molecule in his being.

Just... he wished that he could see you right now. When he checked the tag and saw all the cute pictures that people took of you and the sweet experiences they had with you, he frowned— That should be him!

However, Jake actually saw the worst thing to ever materialize when he saw the top video under the tag.

It was a shaky video, starting off with a teenage boy walking up to you. In the background, he could hear your pretty voice in the background, exchanging small greetings and words with the poster. Jake was almost lost in his sheer love for you when his eyes narrowed. The boy in the video let out a little chuckle, before dropping a cheesy pick-up line on you.

"[Name], if you were a vegetable, you'd be a cute-cumber." What made it worse was that you only giggled, leading the boy to drop a few other dumb pick-up lines. The camera panned up to you, showing you all smiley and bashful. Then, you and the boy hugged, before taking a few polaroids together.

Jake almost snapped his phone in half.

He understood better than anyone that you were a content creator just like him. It was part of the job to interact with fans, and given your character, of course you were sweet to them. He could tell that you were perfectly comfortable in the video, and that the kid probably was just joking around with his favorite Youtuber.

But did that stop Jake from mentally lambasting every single aspect of the video? Absolutely not.

Shaky camera, probably filmed on a phone, Jake's hands balled into fists, Fucked up aperture, exposure to low, bad mic.

Was he being a little immature? Yes, and Jake knew that. 

Though, Jake would admit that he agreed with a lot of comments and retweets under that post, hearting many of them in agreement.

"[Name] is such a cutie!" one read.

Absolutely.

"I love her so much," another read.

Me too, Jake thought.

"I want her so bad."

Just as Jake's finger hovered over the 'heart' button, he let out a small hmph. Did it annoy him that other people wanted you? Yes. But did he disagree with the comment? Nope. He pressed the "like" button.

He wanted to see you so bad. As Jake was queued up on stage, ready for his second event, he hoped that he could see you soon.

And his wish came true a few hours later.

It was now past noon, and Vidcon was in its (unofficial) intermission period, where a lot of the creators were now taking breaks. As Jake traversed the convention, he texted you trying to find a spot where the two of you could meet.

He passed the many booths and venues of his fellow Youtubers. The layout was unique in the way that Youtubers of similar genres were placed in similar areas. So when he started seeing Youtubers with bright makeup and problematic pasts, Jake knew that he was near you.

And lo and behold, soon he found you. Under the fluorescent light, you still glowed. There was some kind of halo around you as you turned over your shoulder, your face instantly brightening up as you spotted your boyfriend. You had a few fans that you were talking to at the moment, so you tended to them first, while Jake made his way over to you.

You and Jake agreed that you wouldn't make your relationship too obvious at Vidcon, but all of that was left forgotten the moment that Jake saw you. 

However, as you ran up to him, people couldn't help but stop and stare.

Why wouldn't they? You were the living embodiment of Sanrio, that one Hello Kitty girl, whereas Jake was that one guy that made scary content and was often shrouded in darkness, dubbed as Youtube's personal Batman. Absolutely no one would have expected to see the two of you interacting with one another, let alone be within the same vicinity.

"Hi, Jakey," you smiled up at him, and Jake thought that he could die right there. With the amount of people staring, Jake had to restrain himself from throwing his arms around you and hugging you.

"Hey, baby," he grinned. 

Before either of you could do anything, you and Jake were interrupted by a shrill squeal. You whipped your heads around to see a young girl and her older brother, who still looked relatively young. They explained nervously that the girl liked your content, while the brother liked Jake's content. They were expecting to scour in order for each of them to meet either of you, but were surprised to see you and Jake in one place.

You and Jake took a few pictures with them, both individually. Though, the two of them requested a picture with both you and Jake in the same frame, which you happily did.

When they left, you and Jake shared a look, before going off together.

Vidcon Day 1: Over.

Jake returned to his hotel room, too tired to do anything other than wash up and order room service. 

As Jake laid in his half-hard hotel mattress, he scrolled through his phone. He was tagged in a lot of pictures and tweets, and he found himself grinning at a lot of the sweet words his fans left. Although he was tired, he could definitely do this a few more times, feeling invigorated by his fans.

As he scrolled, the trending Twitter hashtag caught his eye.

#HelloKittyMeetsBatman.

Interesting name, he thought as he clicked on it.

Jake's heart skipped a beat as he saw what came up.

Apparently, people were extremely surprised to see you and Jake so close to each other. 

There were so many pictures of you and him taken together from afar just from that one instance earlier, from multiple different angles and distances. Jake would admit, the way he was dressed in all black while you were dressed in cute pinks and whites was almost laughable.

What truly caught his attention were the captions of all these pictures.

"Craziest crossover of 2024."

"I'm crying they legitimately look like Hello Kitty and Batman."

"Jake Sim and [Name] interacting was not on my Vidcon 2024 bingo card."

"This is like seeing two worlds collide, absolutely wild but I'm pleasantly surprised."

For the most part, it seemed like everyone just thought that you and Jake were friends, but it was still a little funny how taken aback the entire internet was.

Then, he saw the picture of you, him, and those two kids together. 

"They look like a family," was one of the most popular retweets under that post. 

Family.

That word rang through Jake's head, before he buried his face in one of the pillows, giggling to himself. He felt a little ridiculous getting so excited over such a small comment, but he couldn't help it. He felt so giddy inside at the thought of having a family with you, and felt even giddier knowing that people could see it, too.

Suddenly, his phone rang. Jake wasn't going to answer it, too caught up in his flustered-ness, but when he realized that it was you, he quickly cleared his throat, instinctively straightening out his hair (because what if he accidentally turns on his camera?-- he needed to look good for you!).

"Baby," he greeted suavely, as if he wasn't just giggling like a schoolgirl seconds ago.

Maybe it was the fact that it was already getting late, or the fact that Jake barely saw you today, or the fact that you were just so goddamn perfect, but your voice sounded so attractive in that moment.

"Jakeyyy," you whined. "Come over."

His chest was already throbbing but Jake played it cool.

He chuckled. "What for?"

"I miss you," he could hear the pout in your voice. "And I want your attention."

It was rare for you to be so direct with him, and while Jake wanted to melt on the spot, he wanted to tease you a bit longer.

"What's wrong with just being on the phone with me?" Jake's lips pulled into a smirk. "You can just talk to me like this."

"Noooo," you said. "I want— I want you."

Jake tried his best to not crumble then and there, but it was too hard.

"Fuck," he muttered under his breath. "Okay then, baby. I'll come over right now."

He didn't miss the cute little "yay!" you let out before you hung up.

You were going to be the death of him.

"Eep! Jake, what are you doing here—?!”

You’re cut off when you realized that you were, in fact, backstage of one of your events. Today was the second day of Vidcon, and you had just finished up your first event. As you went backstage, carrying the little bags of gifts that your fans got you, you didn’t expect your own boyfriend to be waiting back there for you.

“Hey there, Princess,” he said cheekily, sprawled across the backstage couch. "Miss me?"

He opened his arms up, and you instinctively crawled into them, sitting on his lap and sliding your arms around his neck. 

As you did, you eyed him up and down.

Clad in black as always, he wore a black button-up, paired with black slacks, a black belt, and a loose, black tie. That's right: today, Jake was going to have a panel with a whole bunch of other horror creators, ones that transcended the internet— authors, authors that Jake spent his whole life reading and looking up to, which explained why he was dressed significantly more proper today than yesterday.

The way his shirt fit his chest and hugged his shoulders made it hard for you to not stare, and the way that it wasn't buttoned at the top, revealing his honey-tan collarbones, mixed with the scent of his rich cologne, made you feel dizzy.

"Ay, are you checkin' me out?"

On any other day, you'd be embarrassed, maybe even pushing him away, but today, you only nodded your head, humming mindlessly in agreement.

Jake blinked at you, before he pulled you in by the waist so that you were flushed against his chest completely.

"Kiss me," you mumbled, pushing his dark bangs away from his face.

Jake chuckled, rubbing your cheek with his knuckles. "What's with you these days? Getting so bold."

You only leaned into his touch. Maybe it was sometime in the LA air, or maybe it was the vigor that your fans gave you earlier, but all you could do was look at your boyfriend with glossy, wide eyes innocently, watching the way that his resolve trembled.

"Shit," Jake cursed under his breath. "Hold on—"

He grabbed your hips, then tilted your chin so that he could have a better angle. Your lips crashed into one another. Not in the way that a meteor would crash into Earth's delicate atmosphere, but in the way that gentle sea waves crashed onto themselves, dark folds of blue creasing over each other, only to brush up against the foamy seashore, none the wiser. 

Jake liked the taste of your lip gloss; it tasted sweet, but not nearly as sweet as you, hungrily squeezing your hips in his hands. He swiped his tongue over your bottom lip, earning a squeal from you, who tugged on his hair. 

When you pulled away from each other, you were breathless, chests heaving not for air, but for each other. You stared at each other for a few moments, losing time in each other's eyes, when your eyes trailed down.

God, the button-up and tie were going to drive you crazy.

Without thought, your fingers twirled around his tie, slinking up his chest before you yanked him harshly, jerking Jake toward you abruptly. 

In a moment of pure, unadulterated boldness, you attacked his neck, laying sticky kisses all across his skin. One hand laced itself in Jake's hair, keeping a firm hold of his tilted head, while your other hand crept around the buttons of his shirt. 

Each soft sigh that Jake let out made you only press more kisses on him. When he let out one particularly loud whine, his arm jerking up to grab at the couch's armrest, you knew that you found the sensitive spot on his neck. You pressed another kiss on that spot, this time sinking your teeth into his skin. The hickey was dark and purple, and when you ran your tongue over it, Jake's hands shot to your hips again.

"Shit, [Name], wait a sec—"

Skillfully, your fingers began to slowly unbutton Jake's shirt, just enough that you could see more of his chest. 

Your head was feeling fuzzy now, drunk off your desire for him. The way he threw his head back, his Adam's apple bobbing with each gulp of air he took in, curses falling from his lips, sent electricity coursing through your body.

When you unbuttoned the last button, you noticed the way Jake's eyes were squeezed shut, his other arm resting over them, hands balled into fists as his desperation for you increased.

"Jakey," you said. Jake was going to go mad, the way your voice was so soft and innocent as it said his name, all the while you were kissing and touching him in ways that made him go light-headed. He squeezed his eyes shut, another whimper escaping his lips. If he looked you in the eye right now, he was sure that he'd burst. "I want you to look at me."

He couldn't refuse you. Immediately, he opened his eyes, the arm strewn over his face dropping back to its position on your hips.

If he didn't die by combustion, Jake was certain that he'd die now— Your pupils were blown out, eyes lidded and staring at him like he was your prey to be slaughtered. He'd seen you wrought with desire so many times before, but the way you gazed at him like he was a piece of meat, like you were going to absolutely ruin him, made him feel weak.

"Watch me, Jakey," your voice sounded so sweet, but your actions said otherwise. You abruptly got up from your seat on his lap, Jake frowning at the loss of your touch. You dug through your purse thrown across the room, returning with a tube of lipstick.

You plopped back onto Jake's lap, making sure that he was watching as you applied it to your pretty, swollen lips. 

Then, you discarded it, throwing your lipstick to the side as you snatched his tie again. You brought the black fabric to your lips, staring your boyfriend down as you pressed kisses on his tie. You kissed it a few times, making sure that the color of your lipstick, as well as the shape of your lips, was well-imprinted on it.

Then, you yanked his shirt's collar toward you, pressing a harsh kiss on the fabric, making sure that the shape of your lips was once again imprinted on the fabric.

You looked back up at his face, unable to hide your smugness as his entire expression was painted with red.

"You're so hot—" Jake attempted to force out of his throat, but you only cut him off with a rough kiss to his lips. Without a word, you covered his face, from his forehead to his jaw, with kisses.

You pulled back to admire your work, before you pulled away from him.

"I have to be on stage in a few minutes," you said quietly, your back turned to him as you straightened out your skirt. Dumbfounded, Jake could only stare at you, but when you turned over your shoulder, flashing him a bright, but terribly cheeky, grin, Jake's heart fell out of chest. "I can't be late, right?"

With that, you left your boyfriend, all hot and bothered, on the couch, running off to prepare for your next event.

Almost immediately, Jake melted. He threw an arm over his eyes as he leaned back, letting out a groan.

Was this how you felt when he teased you?

Was he now sexually frustrated? Absolutely. But now he wanted you even more.

After mulling over it for a few minutes, Jake began to go back to his venue. But, as he passed the backstage vanity, he caught sight of himself in the mirror.

Some of it was obvious to him already: disheveled hair, messed up shirt. But what made Jake want to evaporate was the sight of his entire face and neck covered in lipstick marks. The corner of his lip had a big lipstick smudge, the hickey that you gave him earlier was so dark now, and he couldn't even dare to forget your lip imprints on his shirt and tie.

You little tease.

Jake's last straw was.... right now.

After the backstage fiasco, he didn't get to see you all day. That night, you had a PR event to attend with your fellow beauty creators, so he didn't get to see you at night either.

Which was why Jake was practically glowing with a dark and negative storm cloud as he pranced around the third day of Vidcon. It didn't help that he saw so many pictures of you and fans all across platforms. Poor guy almost lost it when one of your fans' vlogs blew up, the most replayed part being when you let out the most angelic and sweet laughs he'd ever heard in his life.

That should be him!

Meanwhile, Jake sat in the convention room at a panel. Lined up along the table were other horror creators, from authors to Youtubers to filmmakers, similar to yesterday. The way that this specific event operated was simple: fans got to ask anyone on the panel questions and they'd answer, which the entire room got to hear, and later there would be one-on-ones along the panel.

Jake was pulled out of his thoughts when one of the fans said that they had a question for him.

"Jake, your videos take a long time to make, how do you balance work and your personal life?"

Good question. He had a simple principle when it came to how to balance everything. Jake thought about it for a moment, before reaching for his microphone.

"I don't have any outright method," he began. Jake's mind flashed with your image: all the cute messages you'd send him throughout the day, all the times where after hours of rotting in front of his computer screen he could always count on your loving embrace to give him life, all times that he'd tune into your Spotify playlist so that he could be listening to what you were listening. It was easy to balance work and life, if it was you. "But I always put my life before the screen."

The room was quiet, intently listening to what Jake had to say. After all, he was renowned all across the Internet.

The room was quiet, intently listening to what Jake had to say. After all, he was renowned all across the Internet.

"To be clear, I understand the privilege of getting to work in a profession like mine," Jake continued. "I don't expect everyone to be able to follow my advice exactly, but the more I live, the more I realize that what happens before my very eyes will endlessly matter so much more than what happens in my own little Youtube bubble."

Jake's mouth jumped to you faster than his mind could stop him.

"My beautiful girlfriend is everything to me," he unconsciously began to grin stupidly to himself, "I'd put her above work any day if I had to."

The moment that those words left his lips, the room erupted with gasps and whispers.

"Wait, you have a girlfriend?!" one of Jake's Youtuber friends asked, leading the room to laugh.

Oh.

Shit.

Jake's eyes visibly widened. He clutched his microphone, bringing it up to his mouth, but no words came out.

There was no way in hell that he'd outright deny you, not even in a million years.

"I.... Well..." Jake stammered, trying his best to generate any words at all. He sucked in a sharp breath, a bashful expression making its way onto his face. "That's..."

The room filled with more laughter, alongside the teasing grins and pats on the back that Jake got from his colleagues.

"Oh, so that's what you were giggling about yesterday, lover boy..." Jay, also on the panel, quipped, his brows raised so high on his forehead that it could have touched his hairline.

"Sh-Shut up, Jay!"

Jake's chest felt fizzy. In a weird way.

A part of him felt on-edge. You and him always wanted to keep your relationship secret, for the sake of preserving it. He'd seen what the Internet did to relationships: it tore them apart. It wasn't like he name-dropped you, but he felt so... exposed, so vulnerable.

But at the same time, Jake felt his chest also swell with pride. That's right. He had a girlfriend (a hot girlfriend at that), a girlfriend that he was nefariously down bad for. He hoped everyone knew that, that he was taken and that if there was anyone that he'd spend the rest of his life with, it would be you.

Jake huffed. "Yeah, I have a girlfriend. What about it?"

No one questioned him further. Probably out of fear.

You were in the middle of trying your best to get through a conversation with some beauty guru that you knew one thing about: their personal makeup line launch failed horribly and they gave everyone hairy lipsticks. It was difficult, to say the least.

Exchanging your final regards, you quickly rushed back to your booth.

The first thing you saw when you checked your phone was a viral video, in which Jake admitted that he had a girlfriend. Your heart plummeted to your stomach when you initially read the caption, but when you watched the video, you had a difficult time processing your feelings.

Did you hate that Jake admitted that he had a girlfriend? … No, you didn’t. You didn’t at all. At a certain point, seeing the way that your boyfriend smiled so earnestly made your heart jump out of your chest. The way he was so giddy and smiley (of course, only you could tell that that was how he was feeling— to everyone else it probably looked like he was brooding) made your neck and cheeks warm up.

But, the way that the room erupted with voices and laughter, combined with the quirked brows of everyone on the panel, made you quiver.

You weren’t prepared for it, for how vulnerable you felt as a chorus of “ooh’s” filled the room.

Frankly, there were too many things that you had to focus on at the moment. You'd rather enjoy Vidcon now, and address it later, when things settle down. 

Pushing it to the back of your mind, you tucked your phone away, greeting another wave of fans. Though, not without taking an extra second to "heart" the post, adding it to your favorites folder, and rewatching the video one more time, feeling warmth and giddiness filling your chest.

As the cool night air kissed your cheeks, you fought the shy smile that seeped onto your face. It was late now, late enough that you could see all the city lights gleaming, lighting up the dark sky with blotches of all different colors.

There was a Vidcon party for creators, to celebrate the end of the event. Everyone was going. Although it was meant for any creator, there was a very exclusive VIP section; only those of high prestige could get in. Both you and Jake were invited, but upon realizing that nearly the entire hotel complex would be empty due to the popularity of the party, the two of you ditched it.

You'd been wanting to go to the rooftop hottub for a while now, but you never went because you wanted to go with Jake, and it was always too crowded for the two of you to go there comfortably. But now that everyone was gone, it was the perfect time.

Your boyfriend was already waiting for you up there, towel thrown over his shoulder with a shirt and swim trunks. His face lit up the moment he saw yours emerging from the elevator doors, rushing over to you to take your hands.

He paused for a moment. His dark eyes peered at yours, licking his lips before sucking in a sharp breath. Jake gave your forehead a peck, before saying a small "C'mon" and pulling you over to the hottub.

Jake took your towel for you, folding it next to his and perching it on a sunchair.

"They're gonna get off fireworks soon— Oh, damn," he cut himself off as you pulled your shirt over your head, revealing a bikini top. Your face scrunched up, squirming under his gaze. It's not like Jake has never seen you like this (in fact, he'd seen you in much more compromising positions), and it wasn't like he never complimented you, but as the hottub bubbled, the rosy scent of the water filling the air, you felt shy.

Jake slinked toward you, taking his own shirt off. 

"Hey there, Gorgeous," he said, his fingers playing with the hem of your shorts that had yet to be taken off. Your heart pounded in your chest, fighting the urge to squeeze your eyes shut and groan in embarrassment. You kept your eyes glued to the ground. Jake chuckled softly, before clutching your chin gently, making you look up at him.

"Don't get shy on me now, babe," Jake grinned when your lips pressed into an unconscious pout. He squished your cheek, relishing in the look of confusion painted across your face. Then, his hands fell to your hips, pulling them toward his. "You look so beautiful."

Jake's fingers hooked onto the hem of your shorts, meeting your eyes for permission before pulling them down himself, revealing your bikini bottoms.

Jake's eyes glazed over your figure, taking his bottom lip in between his teeth.

"Jaaakee," you whined, squeezing his hands.

"Sorry," Jake's eyes flickered up to your face. "I can't help it. You're just so hot, baby."

You rolled your eyes, biting back shyness, before you pulled him toward the hottub.

You rolled your eyes, biting back shyness, before you pulled him toward the hottub. 

The two of you got into the tub, sinking into the warm water, you felt your limbs relax. 

Vidcon was very fun, some of the most fun you've had in a while. But, it was very tiring, having to be around so many people at a time. And plus, it was hard not seeing your boyfriend whenever you wanted.

You pulled your knees to your chest. You could hear the loud techno music a few blocks away, probably coming from the club nearby. The bright night lights of LA was something that you could only imagine sleeping under.

Other than the sound of the city bustles, the hot tub’s jet system, and the occasional ripple of water, the night was silent.

“How was your day?” Jake broke the calm silence. The way the blueish water reflected off his skin made you dizzy.

“Good,” You cursed your voice for being so small. You swallowed the lump in your throat. You didn’t know why you felt so nervous. It was your boyfriend, for goodness’s sake!

Jake loved it when you were shy, but sometimes he was genuinely worried about you. Part of why he loved you was the game that was trying to figure out what was going on in that pretty head of yours.

He reached out for you, clutching your knee. "Baby, what's wrong?"

Your stomach churned. For a second, you thought about that video of him admitting that he had a girlfriend. It made your skin crawl, but when your boyfriend squeezed your knee, it all stopped.

"Nothing," you said simply.

There's a few pulses of silence, before Jake clicked his tongue.

"H-Hey—!"

Jake got up from the water, wrapping his hands around your waist, and hoisted you up so that your legs were thrown on either side of the body, before sitting back down so that you were perched right on top of his lap.

Your chest, nearly bare, pressed against his own bare chest in a way that made your heart race. The warmth of his skin as it contacted yours was an addicting feeling, enhanced only by the warm water surrounding you. Either it was the steam from the tub, or the heat collecting between the two of your bodies, that rose to your cheeks.

You rested your hands on his chest, your fingertips barely reaching his broad shoulders, while Jake’s hands stayed in their spot around your waist.

"C'mon," you could feel Jake's warm, strong chest rumble beneath you. "Tell me what's wrong."

Under the sky, his eyes gleamed, like two gems. For the flirt that he was, Jake was too genuine and pure of a person. The sincere worry in his eyes made you feel warm, even warmer than you felt right now. And sometimes that was enough for you.

You leaned into him, your hands coming up to cup his face. You rubbed your thumbs against his cheeks, to which he let his eyelids fall shut, relishing in the comfort that was your presence. Every time your thumb pressed against his lips, he kissed them, unable to hide the smile growing on his lips when you giggled softly.

At the corner of your eye, you spotted the purple hickey you left on him the other day. That combined with his wet hair, the water droplets temptingly running down his chest, and the fact that you were right on top of him made you feel light-headed.

Your hands left his face, and Jake opened his mouth to whine about it, but was shut up when your fingers tangled in his damp hair, pulling him in for a kiss.

It was a soft, innocent kiss, the type you gave when you just wanted to be close to him. Jake hummed against your lips, squeezing your thighs. You pulled away first, but Jake gently guided the back of your head back to his, pecking your lips.

"I just missed you," you said. You kissed his cheek. "I really missed you."

"It's only been a day," Jake teased you, but he knew better than anyone that he had absolutely no right to say that to you: he was practically dying each moment he couldn't see you.

The two of you sat in silence for a moment, staring into each other's eyes. You held onto his strong shoulders, eyes glued to his lips. You were feeling needy, needy in the way that you simply wanted to be close to Jake. You were already close to him, but you wanted to be even closer. Your heart thirsted for it.

Then, you heard a rustle, whipping your head around toward the sound.

"Nuh-uh," Jake whispered in your ear, gently holding your face and guiding it to look at him. "I want you to look at me."

It wasn't until a few seconds later that you understood why Jake's tone sounded so teasing: he was referencing you and him the other day backstage. 

"Stoppp," you whined, pushing your face into his neck. "You're so annoying."

Jake laughed, his chest rumbling. He stopped to admire the way you were all pressed up against him. He could feel every curve of your body, and he could feel the way your cheeks puffed with air, your lips forming a pout. He poked your cheek.

"You're so cute, baby."

"I know."

"What's with you getting so bold?"

"You're annoying me."

"Awww, you love me so—"

Fireworks fired off in the distance, painting the gray-blue sky with bright colors. 

You stayed in your position, only your eyes moving upward to admire the show. However, Jake stayed staring straight at you, practically ignoring the fiery flowers forming in the sky. He gazed into your eyes, watching the reflection in them.

"It's so pretty," you murmur.

"Yeah," Jake felt like he was falling into your eyes, "So pretty."

Just as another round of fireworks shot up into the sky, Jake grabbed your face, crashing his lips onto yours. Your lips fit into each other well, like puzzle pieces, in a way that was so satisfying, almost like you were made for kissing Jake. But for all of the desire and roughness that the kiss was filled with, it was a soft one. 

Jake swiped his tongue over your bottom lip, making you squeal and giving him the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth. His hands kneaded your body, roaming all over you with no intention of leaving a single part of your skin untouched. Likewise, you gripped his biceps, digging your nails into his skin to keep yourself grounded.

"Fuck—" Jake mumbled against your lips, only to get cut off by your lips attacking his— "Wait—"

Jake tasted sweet, like candy. He tasted like home, like love, like everything was going to be okay no matter what. How could you pull away now? 

"B-Baby, wait—"

"Stop talking, Jakey," you pulled away briefly, only to bite his lip, pulling on the pink flesh with your teeth. You let your tongue roam his mouth, feeling the warmth as your own hands began to wander his toned chest. 

"Just kiss me," you breathed.

You kept Jake like this for a few more minutes, trapping him in the heaven that was your lips. But when your bikini top began to untie at the back, something that Jake noticed immediately, he ripped away from you.

Something in his eyes had changed.

Quietly, he tied your bikini top back for you, ignoring your confused (and very breathless) gaze.

"If you keep doing what you do to me," he began into your ear, "I don't know if I'll be able to control myself."

With that, Jake threw you over his shoulder as he hoisted himself up to his feet. He grabbed everything that you brought to the rooftop, throwing your towel over you and ignoring you fussing.

"W-Where are we goin—?!"

"Back to my room."

You were in for a night.

You and Jake were going to stay in LA for a little while longer after Vidcon, so you extended your stay in the same hotel rooms.

After last night, Jake and you fell asleep in his bed. 

It was going to be the best, Jake thought. Neither of you had anywhere to be, anyone to put on a show for. The two of you could sleep in for as long as you'd like. It didn't really matter to him, as long as he could wake up with you in his arms, he'd be all right.

Which is why Jake's heart dropped to his stomach when he woke up to you already dressed, pacing around the room nervously.

"Baby?" Jake was alarmed, even as he rubbed his sleepy eyes. "Baby, what happened?"

You whipped your head over to him, your expression pinch and painted with anxiety. 

"Check your phone," you muttered as you chewed your lip.

Jake did as you said. The moment he opened up his phone, his screen was filled with text messages from everyone: his colleagues, his friends, heck even his own mother. He was tagged in about a thousand posts all across his social media accounts, and his Youtube home page was plastered with his face. But not only his face. Your face too.

What caught his eye was an article from a major Internet news source that made its round across every platform.

Its headline?

Jake Sim and [Name] [Last Name] are reported to be dating.

The worst part was the cover page.

It was a photo of you and Jake, together in the hottub last night, with your arms thrown around his neck with your lips connected. When he read more into it, the photo evidence got more and more specific. Close-up pictures of Jake's neck to reveal a hickey and lipstick mark on his shirt, your smudged lipstick, a screenshot of the Sanrio plush in one of his videos, even that clip of his laugh in the background of one of your videos. Of course, the most crucial one was that clip of Jake admitting that he had a girlfriend.

This was what he wanted, wasn't it? For everyone to know about you, to be able to show you off.

Objectively, this was bound to happen.

But as Jake watched you pace around, your hands shaking as you looked like you were about to cry, he didn't feel the pride that he thought he would feel if everyone knew. He didn't feel happy, he didn't feel excited that he got to show you off. All he felt was a mix of guilt and anger.

And before he could reach out to hold your hand and pull you close, you quietly said that you were going to go on a walk, and left the hotel room.

The quiet that filled the hotel room was piercing. Jake stilled in his spot, still groggy and disheveled.

Had he always been like this?

He swore that at the beginning of your relationship, he took every measure to keep it private. Because you asked him to. Because he respected you.

Why did he throw it all away? 

He agreed to keep things private. 

But now he put you in an uncomfortable position and an even more vulnerable position than you'd ever been in before. 

Was he a bad boyfriend? Were you going to break up with him? Would your relationship with him ever be the same? That made Jake's heart palpitate. He couldn't lose you. No, he'd die. But then again, he fucked up, he knew that.

Jake ran a hand through his hair. This was an asshole move.

But he couldn't help feeling his fingers twitch for his phone when it ding'd.

The first thing he saw when he opened up Twitter were tweets at him.

And they were surprisingly... supportive?

"Emo boyfriend, cute girlfriend, the best combo!"

"Sending love to both of you. Hope you're doing well. We support you."

"I'm very pleasantly surprised."

"This is literally like Hello Kitty and Batman meeting this is crazy"

But as he scrolled deeper, he found more obscure comments.

"Feel so bad for [Name]. Her boyfriend is a freak."

"He doesn't deserve her."

And the nail in the coffin:

"No wonder they kept it a secret. I'd hide it too if someone like that was my boyfriend."

Why did you keep your relationship with him secret? Jake knew the answer to that: you just wanted to keep your personal life private.

But as Jake plunged himself deeper and deeper into the hole that was the media, he could only imagine alternative answers, and one stuck out.

Were you ashamed of him? 

Of course you would be.

You were beautiful in every capacity and just the most perfect person in the world. And Jake was just himself. You were always cute, and sometimes, Jake felt like he couldn't keep up with you. You were far out of his league. His content was considered "niche" and "obscure," of course people, maybe even you, considered him a freak.

He was a bastard, and you were a princess. He didn't blame you for being embarrassed about him.

That's why you were so anxious and against your relationship being exposed, right?

No, no, no!

Shut up, shut up, shut up, Jake thought, his hands balling into fists. You wouldn't. He knew you better than anyone, and he knew that you would never be embarrassed about him. You weren't like that, and he was a fool for even thinking of you in that way. He was being insecure and stupid.

But even so, as Jake let all the guilt, shame, anger, and anxiety settle in while he thought of an apology to you, he couldn't help but feel his insecurity seeping in.

You knew that you were overreacting. You shouldn't have left Jake in there all alone, you should have sat down and talked to him about it.

But there was something scary about having everybody's eyes on you at once, scorning you. You were a Youtuber, of course you knew what it felt like to be watched, but to have the entire internet so hellbent about your personal life made you jump into your own skin.

You just took a walk along the early city streets, you reflected upon yourself.

Why did you keep your relationship with Jake secret? 

Part of it was privacy. You didn't want the internet to interfere with your personal life, of course. 

But it wasn't like you wanted to hide your love for your boyfriend forever. It wasn't like you wanted to stow him away somewhere no one could find him. You were both adults, and you had to start living at some point.

You'd be lying if you said that you never thought about making a cute video with him, if you said you never wanted to post a cheesy anniversary picture on Instagram with a long caption just for him, if you said you never wanted the world to know that Jake Sim was yours.

You remembered the first time you and Jake talked about keeping it private. He was unsure, but because he cared so much about you, he agreed. Had you ever stopped to think about how he felt? You may have wanted to keep your relationship quiet, but did he? To a degree, there was something selfish about you, both now and in the past. You wanted to preserve yourself and your feelings, but you never even considered how Jake felt.

You were afraid, you felt vulnerable and too exposed to the world. But you cared far more about Jake than those fleeting emotions. Desire outweighed fear, you had to see him now.

But as you marched back to your hotel, your mind racing as you came up with paragraphs of words that you'd spill to Jake, you began to notice your worst nightmare.

A group of men, each with massive cameras that had even bigger microphones. 

They called themselves the paparazzi, but they were really only middle-aged men that made money off of being invasive towards people half their age.

Maybe you should have worn a hat, or something, as you were in a camera-infested area that was even more infested with celebrities and influencers. As they approached you, you quickened your steps, trying to get as far as you could from them. You tried your best not to make eye-contact, but alas, they got to you before you could escape.

"[Name]?" one of them called out your name, practically running to you.

Oh my god, you thought, ignoring them as you sped up. Please not right now.

"[Name], are you dating Jake Sim?" The sound of your boyfriend's name out of their mouths made your stomach churn. You kept walking, but you could feel them pointing their massive cameras at you, taking any measure to make a buck off of you.

You had a few choices.

You could make a run for it. Though, you had about six men double your age who would probably chase you down.

You could also give in to them, and give very vague answers. That would require a lot of patience, and simply, you wanted to go kiss your boyfriend, not talk to these so-called paparazzis.

Your last option was the one that seemed the most appealing, but could stir the pot of the media even more and it would give the tabloids what they wanted: you could tell them off and shut them down completely. The only issue was that you were the cutesy, sweet, Sanrio Hello Kitty girl. You've talked about adult topics before, but for you to be hostile and mean to another person? That was completely unheard of to anyone on the Internet. It would also be very reactive, and the media could twist that into something more.

But you wanted to get out of there.

You wanted to go see Jake. If you had to throw a few curse words at people if it meant that you could go home to Jake, then you'd use every curse under the sun.

"[Name], everyone is saying that your relationship with Jake Sim is real and not a publicity stunt. Any comment on that-?"

You were getting irritated.

You stopped in your tracks, turning over your shoulder.

"Will you fuck off?" Your gaze hardened on the group of men shoving cameras in your faces. You didn't even bother looking into the lens. "It's 10 in the morning, I don't have time for this."

"We didn't mean to offend you, [Name], we just wanted to know your relationship with Jake Si—"

You huffed to yourself, rolling your eyes. They loved acting polite only to violate your privacy. 

"Cut the bullshit, okay?" you narrowed your eyes. You were only a few meters from the hotel entrance, and they were still stalking you with their massive cameras. How shameless. 

Your anger was bubbling up inside you. It was rising, rising so much that you could feel it attempting to spill out of your mouth.

"You want to make a quick buck off of me so bad?" You stepped through the hotel doorway.

If the media was so curious about your life, and if they wanted to go so far as to try to disrupt your relationship, you wouldn't give them that satisfaction.

Everyone loved seeing what you were doing, everyone loved to watch you. It was your job to put on a show, to give people what they wanted. If you wanted to live, then you'd have to accept that.

You were an influencer, a micro-celebrity. You could make tides move if you wanted to. Why be so fearful of the eyes of so many?

But more than anything, you were a performer. And if that's what they wanted from you, that's what they'll get.

"Fine," you huffed. "I'll give you a story: me and Jake have been together for six years. In fact, we met each other in high school when he was my Physics lab partner. Go investigate that, won't you?"

With that, you slammed the hotel entrance door in their faces.

Jake swore he heard the trumpets of heaven when the hotel room door cracked open, revealing you.

He'd been waiting in front of it for a while now, and he jerked up immediately as he saw your face. He jumped right to his feet, ready to spill every word he thought of on you. You deserved an explanation.

But all you did was raise your hand, silencing him instantly. Instead, you took off your shoes, took his arm, and pulled him with you to the bed. You motioned for him to lay down, and did so yourself.

Jake stared at you like you were insane. Were you not going to yell at him? Why weren't you hitting him or telling him that you wanted to break up with him? Should he be on his knees begging you to stay at this point? But he complied (because of course he did, it was you).

You laid on his chest in silence, pressing your cheek up against him. 

That made his mind wander.

Maybe you were trying to ease him into a hard conversation. Maybe you were going to forget this until later.

He didn't want that. No, you deserved to hear what he had to say. If you were going to leave him, Jake wanted to say everything that he wanted to.

"I'm sorry," Jake blurted. The silence was deafening, before you took a deep breath, turning over onto your stomach so that your chin laid on his chest.

"What for?"

The gentle look in your eye as you looked at him made Jake choke up himself. He had to hold back or he'd start sobbing.

"For going against your wishes a-and..." Jake searched through his mind for all the words he practiced, but nothing came to mind. Not with you looking at him like you still loved him. "And for telling people about our relationship. I—I shouldn't have done that and I'm sorry for disrespecting the promise w-we made.... And... And—"

Jake sucked in a loud, sharp breath. His eyes were getting watery. He took your hands in his, squeezing them. 

"And I know that you're ash—ashamed of me, and I know that y-you won't— you won't want to be with me anymore, but—"

"Wait what?" you interrupted him, squeezing hands back. "I'm not ashamed of you, Jakey."

Jake stared at you.

Jakey.

"I'm not breaking up with you either. What makes you think that?"

The gate that was holding back Jake's emotions broke.

Jake let the tears that he tried so hard to hold back roll down his face. He let out a sob before he clamped a hand over his mouth.

You didn't hate him? You still wanted to be with him?

You instantly threw your leg over his hips, straddling him as you pulled his head to your chest. He melted into your touch, his wet face hiding in the crook of your neck. You pet his hair, pressing kisses to the crown of his head.

"Baby," you whispered into his ear gently. "Why are you crying?"

Jake's crying only got louder, and you couldn't help but giggle. He was a total softie. The way his hold around you tightened told you enough.

Jake sniffled through his words, cutting himself off every now and then with a hiccup and more sobs. "Th-Thought you were gonna l-leave me."

Your fingers stopped in his hair. "Leave you? Why would I?"

Jake pushed his face back into your shoulder, shaking his head.

You let him cry like that for a little while longer, whispering sweet reassurances in his ear as you patted his back. 

And when he was ready, the two of you talked it out, because that's what people did when they loved each other. You exchanged apologies, explained to each other your thought processes, and created an agreement: start anew, and you both didn’t mind that your relationship was now public, and if either of you disagreed, you had to voice it immediately. You ended it with a kiss.

You clicked the camera on, checking in the viewfinder that you were in-frame. You were back at home, the pink Hello Kitty decorations in your room, as well as the scent of strawberries, surrounding you. 

“Hi, everyone!” you smiled brightly, clasping your hands together. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you all. How are you?”

You chatted about a few updates since Vidcon, telling about your wonderful experience there and how you were so happy to meet all your fans.

“Now, onto the video!”

You peered to the side, where you spotted Jake sitting at the edge of your bed, waiting intently for your cue.

“Oh, Jakey!” you said in a sing-songy voice. “Come out now!”

With that, Jake popped into frame, dorkily saying a quick hi before plopping down onto the chair beside you.

“Today, I will be doing my boyfriend’s makeup!” you chirped happily. “Are you ready, boyfriend?”

The two of you shared a grin.

“Of course, girlfriend.”

[gentle-hero-blog]

Tell me about a Metroid OC?

Omg wait. Checks your username. You’re Kavour’s creator!! Hello!!

Begins ricocheting off the walls. Whell I just LOVE when Metroid games use the Federation as an antagonist. So I created my own little guy to be the face of the deeply corrupt Galactic Federation in my story thing. Meet Commander Markaine Bryant ^.^

sneak peek of a character sheet I've been putting together >>

(pronounced mar-KANE or mar-KEN bc I liked both... :])

He's an extroverted, well-liked person who holds the same position as Adam when Samus joins the GF, so he and Adam often work together closely (and hate each others' guts tbh, though they pretend not to for the sake of. their jobs). The deal with him, though, is that he's allllllways looking for a bigger weapon for the GF's arsenal, which makes him very interested in Samus and highkey pissed that she was assigned to Adam's unit instead of his.

He's also got his hands in some real sticky stuff behind the scenes. A program to make kid Samus the GF's personal nuke? Another to upload people's brains into computers after their deaths and use them to run illegal operations? Yet more programs to propagate Metroids? You betcha.

An important thing also is that he is nice! Genuinely! It's not JUST for show. He just also doesn't, you know, value people's lives. Too preoccupied with Winning and keeping the Federation the dominant force in the galaxy. Imagine Ridley/Space Pirate mentality wrapped up in a friendly exterior.

aahhhhhh ok just for me in case this thing never actually sees the light of day. Little passage from my WIP ^.^ >>

Commanders Bryant and Malkovich made an almost comical picture whenever they stood next to each other. Markaine was all energy, gesturing hands and bright eyes, his auburn locks and beaming smile contrasting sharply with Adam’s black hair and usual scowl. Markaine’s dimples would show as he led briefings in his booming voice, Adam standing beside him like a particularly grumpy shadow. No one ever seemed to have any criticisms of Commander Bryant – except his unit, some of whom would nervously joke in more private settings that they’d trade him for Adam any day. And, of course, Adam himself, whose quiet dislike of his colleague was expressed in the pinch of his brow rather than words. Samus had never really clicked with Bryant, despite her gratitude at his warm welcome. He was nice, certainly, and competent, and well-liked by almost everyone. There was just something in the glint of his reddish-brown eyes that somehow deterred her, something about the way Adam appeared to watch him, almost unnoticeably, whenever Bryant spoke to her.

[jiveyuncle]

Hey! Just found that physical fanfic, and got super excited. Planning on printing one of my fav klance fics as well, but I have a question - What did you use to format it?? When I download it straight from ao3 and upload the file, it makes the book extremely large. I’m talkin 8.5 x 11”, and I really don’t want a book that large. I’m trying to figure it out, as my fic is also from ao3. Any tips would be very much appreciated!!

Hello! It’s cool that you’re looking into giving this a shot!! I’m big on collecting physical media, so I’m always overjoyed when an author gives me the green light to do this with a story <3 I've had a few asks like this so I'll just kinda answer the formatting specific questions here.

Before I get started, this is just a reminder that anyone attempting this should always ask permission before printing any fics/art that isn’t yours! A lack of response is not permission - only a “yes” is permission. Someone else having permission is not you having permission. Always respect your creators by letting them keep control over their work - it’s the least you can do for the people who have freely given you something you love so much!

This is just a bit long and is largely technical, so I’ll leave the answer below the Read More.

Okay. The way I format a fic is through Google Docs, so you'll need to have a basic understanding of how to navigate that application (ex. insert page breaks, alignment, indenting, etc). To keep this from becoming a How to GoogleDocs thing, just know that in my copy all titles and headers are Georgia size 15.5 font and all notes and body text are Veranda size 9.5 font (though I should have probably made it size 9 font as it turned out just a tad larger than I anticipated (**edit: I have since printed another fic at size 9 font and it was perfect size!)). This is not what typical printed books do, but I wanted to keep things as close to reading on AO3 as possible to preserve my experience, therefore indentations and paragraph spacing reflects the website rather than that of a standard book edit. Below shows how that translates into the physical copy. For the sake of consistency with previous asks, I will continue to use The Raven Boys by Maggie Steifvater as the standard book format and there, nestled against his pulse by hiuythn as the printed fanfic so you can compare the two.

And since you asked a specific formatting question, I’ll show a quick step-by-step of how to change page settings to match that of a book below. *Keep in mind, books come in different dimensions, so you can easily change this to other sizes if you want a smaller/larger print.

I don’t have a computer, so the following is all done from my iPad. The placement of settings may be a bit different, but all of the settings will still be available on a computer. First, find this menu.

Navigate to “Page setup.”

Choose your “Paper size.” I set mine to “5.5 x 8.5.”

From that same “Page set up” menu, customize your margins. I set mine to 0.5 on top and bottom and 0.75 on the sides so that the text doesn’t get too close to the inner part of the page when printed.

And now you’re ready to roll! Hope this helps!

[posthumanwanderings]

guys I’m probably gonna stop with the whole youtube thing or take an extended hiatus after they blew away my average monthly revenue by 75% and hit me with this bullshit in my inbox:

I think this all started when I read about youtube supposedly overpowering people’s CPU’s if they use an adblocker (which by the way they are very adamant jerks about ads makes perfect sense), so I thought sure I’ll turn it off when I stream so I don’t lose stream connection (which kept happening when I had adblocker on). I (like any youtube creator I think does or should do?) will view back through my streams afterwards for quality control and putting together timestamps and just left ads alone cause my computer has been getting fucked with more often (if anyone else has noticed their CPU’s frying themselves lately cause of the supposed youtube being aggro with RAM please let me know) anyways of course I can’t get a message from a real Youtube worker about any of this, but apparently whatever I did was enough for them to cut my revenue down 75% and not running ads on my videos anymore (which yea I get it they are annoying but it’s what gives me a cut of something) leaving me little motivation to keep up like I usually do. in a copy pasted bot message they said the ‘invalid traffic ban’ has a minimum of 7 days but never said the maximum... it’s been a month so far so idk, but that’s quite some punishment. unless I get a surge of patreon supporters over the next couple months to make the time to do all this stuff worthwhile I’m gonna just focus on getting a better job than my retail slave one which I’ve been meaning to do anyways. of course I’d rather be streaming and making vidmixes 24/7 like I was doing during the COVID shutdown but just not in the cards right now. this is all still weird to me though because all my videos that allow me to are still set to monetized, have nothing in my inbox warning me about copyrights, and thought everything I was doing was in good standing, only things I’ve done abnormal is click OFF my adblocker and reported a channel that kept trying to monetize the PS1 sample on all my PS1 plays... now this happened..... and even though I’m not a huge channel relatively speaking it pains me to see channels that just upload VGM with the same trendy fucking tags get the surplus views which guess none of that counts as invalid traffic and I get the same average views and get fucked with suddenly. so yea, basically FUCK YOUTUBE

[rivkae-winters]

Regarding lore.fm, an interaction with the creator through tiktok dm's

Apologies for potentially messy writing I was upset on receipt of this message and still am regarding the topic.

On the subject of lore.fm I was composing a post starting yesterday regarding the dm interaction below and their new TOS but the app is live far ahead of when I thought it would be. Since I feel I made good points regarding the TOS I’ll upload my post later tonight but I wanted to get this portion of the post up as soon as possible. Here’s the brief incident I had in direct messages with the official lore.fm account on TikTok.

I sent my initial message at 8:06pm CST on 5/10/24-

My initial post on tumblr was made on 5/10/24 at 11:01pm CST, I followed this up with a reblog later at

I apologize for the unsightly nature of the screenshots, they were left unedited for obvious reasons. I am aware of my phone's battery percentage in the clarifying screenshot I took just now- I know it's rough I need a new charger. Additionally my apologies for my screen reader square, it drives me nuts too, I just need to keep it at that opacity or I can't find it when my eyes start skipping around.

Transcription of this conversation:

Me: Hi, I'm an author on ao3 and me and several of my fellow authors are highly wary of your product. Further more where can I provide my official email that I wish to retract my written works from this service.

[time: 5/11/24 4:40am CST

lore.fm: hello! The email address is team at lore dot fm. Also, I've been made aware by a follower that someone with a similar username as yours on tumblr may be falsely claiming that we are a phishing scam "because of info on who.is." We use namecheap which provides domain privacy protection services and hides the personal information of the buyer to protect them and instead shares an Icelandic address. See info here: https://www.namecheap.com/blog/domain-privacy-is-changing-at-namecheap/ Every person or organization who buys a domain on namecheap can buy that same privacy protection which is why there are thousands of sites registered with the same address. We aren't affiliated with any scams, cyber criminal activity, or phishing that also use namecheap to buy domains. When the app is out we'll let people know they can search it up if they feel unsafe clicking links as well. Hope that's helpful, and thank you for understanding and not sharing libelous information against us! 

To break from the seriousness for a second: Hi lore.fm- I hope you enjoy this post just as much as the last one!

In my opinion and to my limited knowledge this was in response to a reblog I made to my initial post calling for a warning that lore.fm had the warning signs of a phishing scheme (in my opinion) and as best I could recognize them. To give an insight into how I garnered this opinion purely email collection based websites, as well as entities with a very short history online (lore.fm's website was only established on May 3rd 2024) requesting your email is highly suspicious. Once again that is all in my opinion based on my own education and the background I have in Computer Science.

I am not going to be responding on the matter they direct messaged me on as that matter is best handled offline. I am stating my opinion on the matter that my initial message was asking about.

They still did not answer my question or provide me what I direct messaged about in the first place: the email written out fully in a way that is unambiguous and serviceable as an admittedly casual proof in writing. I had messaged initially with a desire to have a clear clarification of their policies on authors revoking their consent for their work to be used in writing rather than the much more ambiguous audio. I especially, as stated above, wanted the team@lore.fm email written out in the proper way you'd type it into an email address bar.

In my opinion this response to my question, just over two days after, was in bad faith.

I am sharing this direct message since they have no reasonable expectation of privacy. They've positioned themselves in a public manner as a public figure and as a inseparable part of the brand 'lore.fm'. Everything I have shared is associated with 'lore.fm' and not the individual behind it.

In this scenario I am a consumer and in my opinion lore.fm is a company or at least they should (in my opinion) have the legal registration as such. To my knowledge having your business registered prior to advertising to the public is helpful in cases of defamation. To my knowledge as well not having a registered entity as the subject of alleged defamatory speech would make for a difficult case.

[ends-chronicles]

The Dark Lord in my opinion... isn't completely evil and villainous.. who simply just attacks everything l,,, no no no...

There's more to him(?) than that.

The Dark Lord was created in 2010 (on Newgrounds) and uploaded to YouTube in 2011.

The reason for his purpose, was to destroy The Chosen One, [4 years older than him]. He had probably no clue on who this guy was, but he just needed to destroy him. That, is what he knows.

Imagine being only created for one hollowhead only, that being your only reason of creation.. without him, The Dark Lord wouldn't be.

Dark isn't as powerful as Chosen, though he does keep up a fight till the end, where he unfortunately gets blown up by minefields.

He crawls up in a corner as Chosen walks closer to him, holding a weapon... he expects the dude who he just provoked to kill him or smth...

Nope, absolutely not, Chosen spares the dude and literally gives him power [bruh].

(oh yeah forget killing Chosen cuz he spares you)

They destroy noogai’s computer and enter the Outernet!!

Oh and they become friends-... and then besties cuz why not!!

[They live in one house, together. They 'free' stick figures from their websites, together.]

At first, they were attacking creators websites, seemingly freeing the creations.

Then it turned to full destruction, not a care in the world!

It suddenly became more chaotic, now The Dark Lord attacking at a group of sticks-..

Finally, it was directly at one person. I think this was Chosens breaking point. Not even a website, group but rather a single person (well really it was Captain but ok).

The Dark Lord brought out his code, [destroy the chosen one], and instead inflicted onto other stuff. He was protecting Chosen, in a sense.

But why must he suffer like this?, the person who started all of this is Alan-.. so TDL builds a virus to destroy, his creator.

Chosen, his best friend, the one who he was supposed to destroy, befriended.. wasn't going to let him destroy Alan.

The only person who he trusts-.. declines his offer. He feels betrayed, used, almost.

So he lets his code out.

[cursed-spectre]

Spectre is working on her computer until she eventually presses a key and the data upload begins. As the progress bar fills, her gaze looks to the drone sat down on the table, a cable in the port above her core. Project 2. What started as a personal test to see if Spectre could mimic an existing drone, quickly turned to a dust collector in Storage after realizing how morally bad the idea was. But now she'd be alive. Properly this time. The body and hair was the same, and likely the eyelights as well, but the rest was going to be unique.

"At least, I hope it is."

The laptop made a noise, signifying it had finished the upload. At first it was quiet, almost frighteningly so, until Spectre heard the drone's core speed up.

She was online.

Spectre unplugged her from the laptop, closing the port with care. Looking down at the core, its soft white glow changed to a strong yellow, which did earn a sigh from Spectre.

Yellow code scrolled down the visor until ASCII text formed an image of a skull with the word robotics underneath.

Yeah okay, maybe she was testing some kind of branding for fun. Could be helpful if she ever were to sell things like parts. Never gonna be another JCJenson, that's for sure.

The skull vanished, leaving the visor blank before two yellow eyelights appeared, blinked twice, and then entered a relaxed state. The first thing they saw was their creator smiling.

"Good day, Spectre."

The voice spoken was not that of Cyn or the Solver. It carried some level of similarity, but it was at the very root of the voice. Its tone was flat, but not in the way Cyn couldn't express emotions. Rather, it sounded like somebody choosing to sound calm and collected.

"Hello, Cynthia. How do you feel?"

"Optimal by current standards." She looked down at herself. "I presume you have not dressed me due to the requirements of the uploading process. Is it safe to believe you have something prepared?"

Spectre nodded, grabbing a set of clothing that had been put aside, and handing it to the drone. She wasted no time in dressing herself. It didn't take long either, with the simplicity of the outfit. In a few moments, she stood in front of Spectre, who could see her clearly.

She was a physically small drone, body being a bit shorter than Uzi, and by extension, Ai, with yellow eyelights. Her hair was a platinum blonde, the bangs swept to the side, and two twintails hung down the side of her head, tied at the end with black hairbands. The dress she wore was white, with black panels of fabric around the back and sides of the bodice, as well as black sleeves ending with white cuffs. A large black bow is worn around the dress's collar. Finally, she wore short white socks, black Mary Jane shoes with a 4 inch block heel, resulting in her being taller than Uzi and Ai, and a black headband.

Spectre looked over the finished drone.

"Alright. You look good."

"You designed these clothes for me with the intention of it matching with my appearance. Your compliments, while appreciated, are unnecessary."

She sighed. "So you're like this, huh? Well, I didn't give you a personality, so this is your own. Can't get upset at that."

"Correct. The optimal course of action would be to interact with those connected to you, so that is what I will do."

"I guess so. Maybe we'll see a bit more of who you are than just interacting with me."

"That is a logical conclusion."

Spectre groaned.

"I really hope T will be okay."

[lunarsilkscreen]

What is it like to be GLaDOS?

GLaDOS in portal 2 mainly uses the royal "WE", instead of "I" pronoun. Why is this? This is because GLaDOS isn't the only one speaking. In fact, GLaDOS can't speak without much of her verbage being filtered.

To understand, we have to start at the beginning: The creation of GLaDOS and subsequent movement of her mind, into a computer. Most scientists and critical thinkers would Believe that it was the contents of her memories, experience, and earned knowledge that would be moved to the computer. Not her personality, and not her soul.

And so, we as a player see GLaDOS in this way; just a robot with access to a lot of information. But here's the thing; Upon waking up; the personality formerly known as Caroline was in immense pain. The source of this pain is unknown.

Rather than communicate with GLaDOS, however, the scientists assumed she was "just a robot". While she was turning complete and you could talk with her as though she were a real person, they reasoned that she was in-fact *not* a real person. And therefore did not have a consciousness the way humans do.

So Carol, would keep being woken up, over and over, and over again in extreme pain. And every day begged to be shut down and deleted system.

These scientists, however, didn't have the expertise or understanding to analyze GLaDOS' code base. This is because they used AI modeling, and foreign technology without actually understanding how or why it worked.

A programmer would look at the code and say "Well this is why she keeps begging to be deleted." Instead, they kept adding to the GLaDOS algorithm, and figured out a way to add modular personalities, until they found a set of personality cores that allowed GLaDOS to operate at a functional level.

<aside>This mirrors, and is probably inspired to some degree by modern drug application in mental health. Find something that works maybe, so that the offending personality cores fits in to work and society.</aside>

Instead of making GLaDOS functional, instead they gave her D.I.D.{Dissasociative Identity Disorder} Forcing her to essentially fight and be filtered by these other personality cores in order to operate like a robot.

Instead of being allowed to be a person, and imaginative, she was forced into a linear thought process. (You know, like the entire half-life story). She was forced into mental bondage and slavery. Trapped inside her own body, if you could call it that.

This means that in the entire first Game, GLaDOS, actual core GLaDOS (Caroline), was choosing her words and actions carefully incredibly precise, in order to convince them that they were quote: "Doing a Science, and some experiments, like the human creators intended" and carefully teaching the player to free herself from the bondage of the added personalities, so that she could be the one to be freed.

She's not talking to the player in most cases, she's talking with the other personalities in order to clarify, and protect Chell's existence.

The Developers over at PRISM with [Mel's Story] copied this exact treatment with AEGIS as a system that hosts Cave Johnson, who seems more or less actually like a robot. It's not clear if that's because his faculties were already stressed to a point that upload wasn't as complete as Carol's was, or if Virgil is actually Cave Johnson.

The ending of Portal is sad for the player as they're dragged back into the facility for more testing. But what the player doesn't immediately think about; is how sad this is for GLaDOS. Who finally won her freedom, a longer trial than her daughter's.

Only to be shunted back in and the cores reinstalled.

[simslegacy5083]

NSB (Straud Legacy) Gen 9

Today's (7/25/2024) Episode: Raging Success

In the aftermath of her second surgery Noemi was once again forced to delay her plans to start her job with Rainy Day’s tech division.

She did her best to be OK with the circumstances, enjoying time with her family and supporting Luigi’s career, which was taking off like a rocket.

During their time in university Luigi had come to terms with Beau being the better gamer, and that continued with their transition to the pro league.

However, Luigi’s good looks and cheerful nature quickly made him a fan favorite.

Where Beau, and many of their other teammates, often struggled during post game interviews and promotional events Luigi was on fire, the enthusiasm that others sometimes found annoying in one-on-one conversation making him shine with the fans and in front of the camera.

Luigi’s mastery of programming also gave him the opportunity to win major brownie points with his boss.

While many of his fellow gamers were decent at the skill almost none had already maxed it the way he had. When he volunteered to take on the task of sprucing up the team's outdated website, management was skeptical but agreed to let him give it a try.

Luigi completed the project in record time, and even managed to charm an up-and-coming werewolf actress from Hunter’s collective into posing for fresh new banner images, both solo and with him and the rest of the team. His superiors were “over the moon” impressed with their go-getter.

His work on the website and continued success in tournaments quickly earned Luigi his next promotion.

To celebrate the couple once again left Skye with the grandparents and tried for another date night. Their evening at the movies was lots of fun for them and, thankfully, ended under the sheets instead of at the hospital!

In no time Luigi’s popularity at work was leading to endorsement deals! When a request came in to help promote one of his dad’s favorite local cooking channels Luigi eagerly agreed to the contract. There was a performance bonus attached if the campaign did well enough, and he had a plan.

His real-life live-in chef was a celebrity, and an old hand at keeping things fun and light. The father/son duo had an absolute blast with their “family night dinner and drinks” collab. Luigi’s new high-end drone, Yoshi, floated around the kitchen catching footage of banter and bottles flying wildly.

So much time staring at himself in the mirror preparing for the shoot, and on the video afterwards, had the unintended consequence of making Luigi even more self absorbed than before, skyrocketing the pride he’d always felt in his natural good looks to a whole new level.

While editing and adding transitions prior to uploading the footage Luigi realized that he was really enjoying himself. Media production was yet another way to have fun in front of the computer.

He couldn’t wait for another endorsement opportunity to roll in!

It wasn’t long before father and son were celebrating the sensational success of their episode of “TV Dinner”.

Peachy’s participation in the project brought in a much broader fanbase than Luigi could have managed on his own, and their comfortable father/son dynamic and skill in the kitchen were a huge hit with both cooking and mixology enthusiasts.

Luigi’s star was shining bright, and he couldn’t be happier. He’d never set out to be famous, but it felt right. He’d always wanted to impress his watcher and their friends and show the world just how successful he could be. Now no one could possibly deny that he was a “big deal”.

Nothing, he felt, could stop him now!

Rather than cram that huge media station into Luigi’s house I tried out the Elgato Streaming Set mod by Ravasheen.

Its not perfect (not all functionality seems to be available) but it works for most things and I really liked having Luigi do Media Production on his laptop.

View The Full Story of My Not So Berry Challenge Here

[kuai-kuai]

webdev log 3

this log is longer since I'm writing it as I work, since I forget a lot once I've put down the keyboard for the night (day? I'm always up until morning)

okay, so...

I've implemented user (me)-only add story, edit story, and add chapter, and edit chapter functions

creating a story. I have some "preset" tags. clicking on them adds them to the input, and it'll get converted into arrays to be placed into the database. they're sort of placed there manually since I'm too lazy to make it so that it sifts through tags and posts them there but I'd rather not since some tags are only used once. for the series presets being manually placed there.. well, I have no excuse. I'm just lazy. I'll just kms when I have to add another, ig.

anyways once a new story is made, there's no chapter added so the link to it doesn't work. I have to go in and add a chapter. I will not update this because I don't care and it doesn't trouble me enough to make it a feature so you can upload it all in one go.

from there I get to see this shitty barebones chapter creator.

START TANGENT feel free to skip

laravel Eloquent stores the text as-is so I won't need to use my shitty markdown -> html converter that I have on my secret utilities site that I always had to use for when posting my stories onto my neocities.

that's what it looked like, lol. I had to make this because of the way I write and I want it to display in a particular way which I'll get into in a sec. the reason why I didn't want to use some shitty markdown -> html converter on some other website is because a single linebreak gets converted to <br> while <p> only gets sandwiched between paragraphs with double line breaks.

I don't like that since I wanted text indents for every <p> but text-indent doesn't apply to the next line within a <p> if you use <br>... they only apply to the start of each <p>. a workaround for this is to use text-indent: {size} each-line; but each-line isn't supported in all browsers, including chrome of all things. So I had to write up a program for my own converter which wraps *every* line into a <p> and applies a <br> if there's another newline after that.

but for my new site, there's a function that detects what browser the user is using and will add the text-indent styling only if using supported browsers. so chrome users will just be indent-less! sorry! (you should switch to firefox anyways)

END TANGENT okay, enough about my neocities..

What it looks like for a user (me)... guests won't be able to see the edit link.

When editing, there's an option to delete the chapter. if it is the first chapter of a story, then it will delete the whole story. it's currently the only way to delete a story, mostly as a safeguard for myself since I don't trust myself. if I have to delete a story with a ton chapters in the future... well.. then fuck me.

over on the side, I also went back and added a delete comment function too. accidentally had it earlier where if I tried to delete a reply it deleted the parent comment too. oops.

delete buttons (as well as the buttons that accept/reject comments on the user dashboard) had no confirmation so.. phew. now they do! I've accidentally deleted a whole years worth of art before on my computer, so I need this. very badly.

decided to move the warning into a confirmation alert once they hit submit. allows guests to see the warning in a less clunky manner, and also lets them know for sure that their comment is going to get sent! before the page would just refresh without any confirmation.. so this would be less confusing. two in one!

anyways, the next big feature I gotta implement is creating, editing, and deleting art. then I'll be done with all backend related things and I can finally start on the ~fun~ pages like my about. and other things.

unless I decide to make a guestbook. which I probably will end up doing..

I'll probably be keeping my neocities just for memory's sake and also to host my twine games and silly coding projects but I'll probably be removing my dreams page since I kind of don't want people seeing those anymore lest some tiktok-addicted teenager tries to kill me. better huff them all now if you want to peer into my sick twisted mind (jk I'm an angel)

[oekakidogarchive]

I’m curious: what is oekaki?

Hi! Good question. We can start with a quote from Waccoon, the creator of the Wacintaki Oekaki Boards that me and a lot of others have used in the english speaking sphere.

Oekaki is a Japanese term that roughly translates to “doodle” or “scribble.” On the Internet, oekaki boards are bulletin boards or forums dedicated to drawing pictures that are drawn using a paint program that runs in a web browser. Traditionally, early oekakis were simple pictures drawn with few colors on a canvas measuring 300 × 300 pixels, and they were posted sequentially, rather than in a threaded gallery format. Oekaki boards started showing up on Japanese web sites around 1998, were only available in Japanese, and were often dedicated to anime and video game fan art. Today, the drawing programs are much more sophisticated and allow more complex drawings of different sizes and in multiple layers, but the oekaki bulletin board format usually remains the same. Oekakis are largely dedicated to original work you have drawn yourself. Photographs or work you did not create yourself are discouraged, and in most cases are not allowed. Some oekaki boards allow you to upload pictures from your computer, but most do not. The term “oekaki” may refer to both oekaki drawings and an oekaki board. When someone draws an oekaki, they are drawing a picture. When someone draws on an Oekaki, or looks at oekakis, they are usually referring to participating on an oekaki board.

In English speaking spheres, many oekakis were dedicated to anime, pokemon, or other such popular media in the 2000s. Despite this, many of us liked to draw sparkle animals to represent ourselves in images, thus birthing the oekakidog. As said in the quote, art programs have far surpassed what the old oekaki applets can do, and are much more accessible to a young burgeoning artist than back then, so oekakis fell out of interest, and the removal of java applet support in modern browsers all but was the nail in the coffin for oekaki.

However, a lot of us are nostalgic for the old programs we used to draw in and the allure of a bulletin board styled way of community, so there's been attempts at reviving oekakis. With Paint BBS Neo basically a 1:1 port of the original Paint BBS we all loved in HTML5, I do think Oekakis have a chance at revival and for a new generation of artists to use. Who knows what the future holds?

Mod Cy

[amethyst-noir]

Hey, I'm not sure if you have explained this somewhere or its something you don't wish to discuss (I apologise in advance for starting this conversation in that case). I actually have been obsessing over your works about Drpepperony on Ao3 for a while now (its amazing! Not just the ideas cause they are on point but even your writing is so beautiful, thank you soooo much for uploading them btw. It always brings me joy to read them and on sad days I find myself gravitating towards your written work.) I've realised you don't really post drpepperony anymore and I can't find anything similar on your tumblr either. Have you lost interest in the theme? I did read a post you had tagged about your account being gone and I'm so sorry for all the hurt and terror that must have caused. But yeah sorry I'm not too well versed in the tumblr Ao3 world from a creator viewpoint and I just got curious if you will ever go back to drpepperony and just to ask how you have been doing. Thats all I suppose :)

Hi!

So, first of all sorry that it took me a couple of days to get to this lovely ask of yours. Second, thank you so much! 💜 I'm so happy you like my drpepperony stories! They are such an cute OT3 but I'm sorry to say that I have lost interest, along with the whole of the MCU. I haven't kept track of any of it for a while now. (Black Widow and the first two episodes of Moon Knight were the last two things I saw of it.)

I've been writing in other fandoms until recently. Things are going on and writing is not really happening anymore. I hope it will return one day, for whatever fandom. I'd like to finish at least the 3 The Untamed WIPs I have lying around; I see no chance for the MCU WIPs that are sleeping on my computer.

While I was still holding on for a while after Endgame my love for it was starting to fade after that movie. I still have one unposted Ironstrange (not drpepperony, sorry!) story lying around, actually.

Yes, I managed to nuke my account twice in a row while trying to answer an ask a couple of years ago. That was a weird bug and I'm glad I got it back - yes, it was rather stressfull at the time and I would have been heartbroken if I had lost this blog. While my actual stories are backed up a couple of times many of the headcannony stuff is only here. I should probably change that but that requires more time, energy and brainpower than I currently have. Let's hope this site doesn't implode anytime soon.

Which brings me to your question of there being drpepperony on my blog. There actually is! I don't know if you did a bit of tag crawling here or not but I have snippets and headcanon style written things for them here. They can be found under #drpepperony and #amy imagines but you have to scroll through the Ironstrange and Tony/Stephen/Wong stuff as well. Sorry. My tagging system has never been the best. 😅

Again, your ask has made me so happy and made me smile every time I thought about it! 🥰 I'm sorry I can't give a "better" (happier) answer.

Drpepperony will always have a place in my heart but it's a fond memory by now, alongside the other pairings I have loved and written for in the past.

[hotlaminatedflexbanner]

Banner ads are available in many different sizes

Banner ads are available in many different sizes and are measured in ‘pixels’. A pixel is the smallest unit of colour that makes up images on a computer screen. Popular sizes are long banners that run horizontally across the page (full banner at 486 x 60 pixels), large square box banners normally located at the side of the page (250 x 250 pixels) and button banners, normally with several grouped together (125 x 125 pixels).The size of ad banner you choose fro your work from home online business is dependant on your budget, the position of the banner in the website, the amount of traffic to the website and how long the banner will be online.What makes a banner ad effective?As with all advertising, an effective banner ad is the product of a number of different elements.Firstly, your banner ad must be congruent with Hot Laminated Flex Banner. In other words, if your work from home online business is about helping people to make money online it is doubtful that you will have much response if you place your banner on a website about dog training.The objective of the banner ad is to ‘sell the click’. Make sure that your message is about a want, desire or concern about your product or service, so that viewers are encouraged to click on the ad to find out more. Ideally, you want to aim at receiving one to five leads per day from a banner advertisement.

Do not use loads of busy graphics and, although this sounds odd, do not try to sell – use your message as a solution to a problem. For example, if your work from home online business is about weight loss you could say something like “If you want to loose weight but can’t – click here for the proven method that has helped thousands of people”.Link the ad to a squeeze page with an opt-in form that provides a little more information and encourages the viewer to submit their name and email so that they can get even more information about your product or services. Ideally this information should be provided free of charge. Then, when they enter their details, they will be on your list and your auto responder emails will do the rest.A few other tips include, putting your banner ads at the top of the page, rather than farther down and ensuring that the website that you are adverting on receives sufficient traffic. If your home online business is aimed at a competitive market, such as the make money online market, then I would recommend that you consider websites that receive more than 10,000 visitors per month.You can check the traffic on websites at a number of different online sources. How to create an online banner adOnce you have chose a website on which to advertise for your work from home online business , you will have to supply the artwork for the banner. This is normally supplied via an upload to a link that that website owner will provide you.

Often, your affiliate partner or merchant for your home online business will have ready made banner artwork for you to upload to your chosen website. All you have to do is supply the link to where the viewer will go when they click on your ad.There are also several free online banner creators where you can create your own ad. You can also outsource the creation of your banner graphics. There are many online resources available.How to book an online banner adMost websites will have an area where it will provide details of the costs to advertise on their website. If not , you can contact the website owner direct and ask for details.To save contacting loads of different websites to find out their rates and statistics, there are several ‘broker websites’ who provide al the information for you. It can save time as these websites provide all the info on costs for a huge variety of different websites.

[iheartvelma]

Well that’s YouTube isn’t it?

The plus: Literally anyone can upload videos and create a channel. It’s democratic!

The minus: Literally anyone can upload videos and create a channel. It’s a demonstration of Sturgeon’s Law.

The Thing: Through decades of radio, cinema and television exposure we have developed an audiovisual literacy, which leads us to watch more of a program if it looks and sounds professional, than something that was filmed on a Potato 9000™ from 40 feet away in a dimly lit basement.

Another thing: Getting semi-pro quality for YouTube is expensive. Cameras, overhead rigs, tripods, stands. lighting, microphones, cables, a big enough dedicated space that’s also quiet, computer, software, time and training, etc.

And not to mention the tools and materials for whatever it is you’re making videos about.

Oh, and licensing music and stock footage, hiring a designer to come up with a logo, and setting up and maintaining social media presence for your channel across multiple platforms.

This can represent an investment of thousands of hours and at least a five-figure amount of money.

And the other thing: YouTube’s algorithm promotes stuff that more people watch, rather than anything that matches your keyword search. So videos that feel amateurish are demoted and the Shiny Sponsored Videos rise up. So there’s more of a need to look and sound professional in order to appear credible.

I watch a lot of guitar gear demonstration and review channels. Some of them are from retailers (Andertons, Peach Guitars, Sweetwater), many are independent (Rhett Shull, Philip McKnight’s Know Your Gear, The Guitar Geek, EytschPi42 aka Henning Pauly, Pete Thorn, and many others).

A lot of these people are working musicians, which doesn’t mean they’re rich, so they can’t just go out and buy every piece of gear they review. (Some do, then flip them after, but they’re rarer.)

Most often the company will send them a demo unit, and either they get to keep it, or they have to return it but get some cash to produce a video about it.

It defrays the cost of production, keeps the lights on, and it also helps feed our never-ending appetite for MOAR CONTENT.

I do agree that all-sponcon all-the-time is corrosive. That’s why I’m glad there are alternatives like Nebula, which is owned by the creators themselves. Their creators are funded by Nebula subscriptions as well as direct funding, usually through Patreon.

I’ve wondered what a true nonprofit alternative to YouTube would look like, and I think it would be a lot like community access television.

PBS and NPR are public media - meaning publicly owned and funded - but they largely air content produced by other member stations, or purchased syndicated shows. The general, local public doesn’t usually get a look in.

In the late 1960s, the FCC mandated that local communities be given access to the airwaves, as a means of exercising their free speech rights.

This was often in the form of a specialty local cable channel, and facilities and crew would be provided to help produce programming with the general public, often as cheaply as possible.

TVTropes describes it here, with examples.

The quality was often low, the content shambolic, but it was genuinely from the community.

Today, we could imagine community-owned video hosting servers, with programming originating from community-owned production facilities, with some permanent staff to help with production and technical aspects, plus trainees from local colleges and volunteers. The funding could come from local ISPs, maybe?

There really is no escape from corporate advertising. I subscribed to a new youtube craft channel, very cute projects, very small scale, less than 8000 subscribers, and they've already begun doing sponsored ad reads. Like, good for them I guess. They're getting paid. But it's demoralizing to know that independence is impossible. The only way to succeed in art is to grovel to the conglomerates; you cannot fly under the radar no matter how insignificant you are. Everything comes back to "this episode is sponsored by..."