#LETS TALK ABOUT SOME NICE STUFF

[monarchisms]

so this is the unintentional part two of that summary post i made with geoff talking about the end of achievement hunter. for this post, i'm going to try my best to sum up what michael, trevor, and joe (but not alfredo because he was sick at the time 😔) have said about what will happen in the future on the penultimate episode of off topic, #403. there won't be a transcript this time as i am busy with schoolwork and stuff, so i'll try to make this summary as filled with as much accurate information as i can to make up for it :)

so basically,

trevor starts off by saying they'll be doing the last of various series to wrap everything up. he also notes that some of these finales will be "more nostalgic"

one of the series finales that's up right now is vs episode #150: joe vs BK. the game they played is cooking mama!

after the series finale of off topic (#404 lol), the final AH video ever will be a let's play in the remastered version of burnout paradise, and the cast will consist of geoff, jack, trevor, and michael. this is a callback to the first ever AH video they did back in 2008, and it's already been filmed! trevor says it was more emotional then he thought it would be :')

michael explains that the video will essentially be a ~70-minute podcast. in it, they'll talk more about the end of achievement hunter, where the cast members have went/what they've all moved on to, and new projects that they'll working on. he also says that he thinks that people will call this video "cathartic" while comparing the vibe to their old gta v series, sunday driving

not as important, but michael said that he was mindlessly driving and turning in burnout paradise in the same way that he'd run and jump in minecraft because he "fucking hated" playing minecraft lmfao

as said before, they decided to close AH and start something new with dogbark instead of continuing like they used to. michael acknowledges that in the last few years, most of the crew had already left rt in some way or moved on to other stuff within the company, leaving just michael, trevor, alfredo, and joe as the most consistent on-screen talent by the end. *bonus bit that wasn't mentioned until later, but alongside these 4, jarren from the post team will be their channel manager for dogbark :)

as this group makes videos for dogbark, michael says that their stuff will be both "tonally different" and "very fluid" as they're still figuring it out as they go, noting that they were balancing it and AH/let's play content at the same time

michael also talks about how he's been doing what he's wanted to do at AH for a long time, but there were some things he still couldn't do within the constraints the AH crew had put on themselves

while there will be some gameplay stuff on the dogbark channel, as mentioned in this episode and the channel trailer, they will primarily focus on live action content. trevor makes a point by saying that the style/theme in the trailer will "not be pervasive throughout the entire brand", and michael adds on to that by saying the trailer "is at 100, but every video won't be at 100"

michael and trevor make a point by saying that there will be more variety, as in "a dozen little formats", not necessarily like the shows/series they made at AH, with joe saying that they're not trying to "tie themselves down" to strict uploads and such, like they were when they were previously fitting into a mold at AH

trevor says that he has seen achievement hunter, and rooster teeth as a whole, having a unique challenge ahead of them. he refers to making content that appeals to an audience who had been following them since the early days while trying to also find new faces, both out there in the audience and internally at the company, in order for AH to stay around

he also points out how difficult it is to do that with a long-standing brand that has had different eras of content, since there would be an audience with differing expectations for them. with that, it became hard for the AH crew to balance said expectations with the authenticity they tried to show in the content they created. the crew has changed as people alongside their audience, and the stress that came with it was challenging

michael stresses that the group not only chose to make a new channel completely, they also had to fight for it for a while, and wanted to slow down on AH content before properly closing/archiving the channel to create dogbark. beyond the struggles of creating something new from scratch, they now have the challenge of preparing the audience for the jump from AH to dogbark while thinking about all the pros and cons before going forward

this week (the week of september 18th) and next week (the week of september 25th) are the last weeks of new AH content. after that, there will be a 1 or 2-day break before dogbark properly starts making new content on october 2nd. trevor feels like people will get a better idea of what dogbark is after a month or two of them uploading content

finally (subject to change, of course), they want to aim for full uploads every monday and friday, with patreon-like exclusive videos with rt first every wednesday and saturday. one of the confirmed things to expect is a first-exclusive podcast. the first week dogbark officially starts, all that content will be public as a sample of what to expect, and every week after that will follow that schedule

[lover-of-skellies]

As it turns out, genderfluid people seem to love me. I am a theydam magnet

[bedforddanes75]

i just think im the funniest person alive actually

[dumbstupidfandomblog]

I feel like if Ashton met Lucien he would've been like "Man . .. . smoke some weed or something you need to calm down"

[longagoitwastuesday]

I finally met Nanami

[try-set-me-on-fire]

Ok well now I do have a follow up idea for that last bthb

[llitchilitchi]

people always complain about a story not making sense because they refuse to read the notes and stuff found around in the world and call it bad game design, but when a story has a lot of exposition in dialogue its bad writing because its exposition dump, and when the notes and dialogue are made to be minimal so people can only learn the lore they feel like learning the story is "badly delivered" because it was not spoon-fed to us? just say you hate spending time learning the lore and go

[whump-n-comfort]

when you read a fic that gives you a hyper-specific whump scenario that you know would either A.) take forever to find in another story or B.) hasn't been written at all so the obvious conclusion is that you have to write it yourself

[indigodawns]

.

[em-b-sides]

I think about that tiktok trend where you like paint your partners eye color on your nails or make a bracelet or something with the color a lot actually

[gatheryepens]

So I’ve kind of been MIA…….so I thought I’d give some updates on my life

[einaudis]

In case you're wondering, I made several posts private ended up deleting several posts. I hope you're capable of imagining why.

[beesorcery]

google how do i tell my dad that the reason i keep bringing up elon musk's transphobia isn't that i've got gen z political tunnel vision that makes me blind to his "innovation" in electric cars but because i am desperately crying out for you as the father of a trans child to feel just as outraged and angry as i am that that man has so much power

[distortedmoondisc]

hiiai for the ask game thing 🥺👉👈

Hi!! Thank you so much for asking for my otp vi 🥹💖💖💖

So! I hope I don't get too rambly with it ahdhfj

1. What made you ship it?: oh boy, the first and second chapters of the !! Main Story made me become so obsessed with them it wasn't even normal. I went into ensemble stars without any idea or notion about the franchise or the writing beforehand and I was absolutely confused with the way the characters talked to each other (the enstars writing is definitely an acquired taste imo lmao). So you must imagine how insane I felt when I, who wasn't used to male characters having such blatant, shameless and obviously deliberately flirty/romantic/shippy intended dialogue with each other such as.... This:

This was!!!! On their first meeting!!! They have known each other for less than 5 minutes and Aira has already fondled Hiiro's bicep!!!! Are these two normal??? (If you've been into enstars long enough you'll know that the answer is !!! No !!!)

And what's funnier is that after Aira does the (rub, rub), the next dialogue is literally this:

so like.... Akira (writer of all of the !! Main story) here had to force a switch on the conversation so these two could focus again on the topic they were discussing before (about whether or not they're underachievers and about Ensemble Square) from that fondling muscles scene. This means Akira didn't have any need to write that scene between these two, it wasn't necessary for the plot. The madlad just added that scene in there out of nowhere. Just for the funsies. For a silly little laugh. Because there's nothing more fun than making your OCs flirt with each other this shamelessly in your own story. He really gets the assignment.

Listing a few honorable mentions for hiiai interactions from the first and second episodes of the !! MS that made me imprint on them so hard that they became my biggest otp since july of last year and has taken hold of my heart ever since 🫶

Hiiro fawning over Aira's beautiful name 🥺🥺🥺

Hiiro here was really like yeah you're my soulmate, my soulmate bestie (no but seriously do you ever think about how hiiro became so attached to aira so quickly and wanted to become his friend so bad, and how he also saw their meeting as fate....)

He is so dramatic, he didn't even get directly rejected here

This is a personal favorite. I can't stress how mentally ill I was when I read Hiiro saying "I'll do my best to destroy the future where you'll feel sad" DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF???? this should be added to the "is this Russian literature or enstars" online quiz

If you are observant enough you'll see that Hiiro is the one shamelessly flirting all the time AHDJF but Aira himself (mostly in later chapters) also says some questionable stuff about Hiiro in some parts that makes you go... Huh (Aira saying to Hiiro "Aira-kun's route is no longer available for you!" Aira why are you equating yourself and Hiiro as the protagonist and romantic interest of a dating sim game? Do you have anything to share with the class?)

But yeah... them (vaguely gestures with hand). They give a very strong first impression to say the least, so it's not hard to imagine how I came to ship them as quickly and as strongly as I did ahdjf

2. What are your favorite things about the ship?: God, there's so many things I like about hiiai I don't think I can ever list them or rank them, but I'll try ahdjf

For starters, I just really like their dynamic (very basic answer, I know). A thing I really love about their dynamic is how Hiiro is so openly affectionate with Aira, and I think it's cute how Aira is so tsun about his care and affection for hiro-kun, but he just can't leave him alone and thinks of him so often (he mentions him all the time in the game's home lines wwww).

Another thing I love is the way their relationship develops throughout the !! main story. How Aira stuck to him and to Alkaloid due to obligation (in order to survive as an idol in ES) but actually became attached to Hiiro and formed the unique dynamic with him where Aira feels like he can't leave Hiiro alone to prevent him from getting into trouble (and while there is truth to that, there's also the fact that just genuinely Aira loves Hiiro because the first friend he's had in a long time, and a very loyal and loving one at that). In Hiiro's case, he also got attached to Aira very quickly since he was also his very first friend on the city 🥺

In general, I love that hiiai are each other's first friends in ES when they were completely alone, and that by finding each other they found the solution to their chronic loneliness (because Aira and Hiiro both suffer a lot from severe loneliness ever since their childhoods. Aira has never been able to keep lasting friendships and Hiiro's only company in his hometown was Rinne. So them finding each other and hitting it off so quickly and easily means a lot for the both of them, and they both try their best to make the friendship work because they want to keep it and make it last, yk?)

Another facet of hiiai that I like... how Aira always teaches Hiiro new things and helps him understand the world around him. I like to think about how Aira is, literally and metaphorically, the reason Hiiro loves the city, and how that is what leads him to stay there instead of going back to his hometown with his brother (and I just sit here and wonder if the rinniki parallels were intentional from Akira's part?)

I mean literally because Aira is the one who taught Hiiro what idols are, and that was what made Hiiro realize that yes, this is something he likes and a thing he wants to do with his life. And metaphorically, because I believe that for Hiiro, Aira is a representation of the city. Aira is a city boy, he has an upbringing and worldview completely different from his. Aira grew up in a world that is completely unknown and new to Hiiro, a world in which Hiiro didn't plan on staying for long in the first place, a world that Hiiro didn't plan on getting attached to, but that he still came to like at the end — so Hiiro, by loving and accepting Aira, is metaphorically loving and embracing the city and coming to understand it*. And we know that Hiiro deciding to stay in the city and becoming an idol for real is one of the most important parts of his arc of independence and self discovery, so this gives Hiiro's relationship with Aira another layer of depth that makes their bond more important and essential for each of their characters and arcs.

*I almost forgot to clarify why I think that Hiiro coming to like the city is such a big deal (and note, this is a personal interpretation). Basically, because Hiiro was so dead set on bringing his brother back to their hometown so he could become the monarch, he was still close minded about the outside world and stuck with the old arbitrary rules taught by his hometown. But just as Rinne predicted and hoped, Hiiro ended up being marveled by the city and all the things it offers and so many things he's never seen before (and you can extrapolate that marvel he feels for the city as the marvel and interest he feels for Aira when they first meet). So just as Rinne left his hometown in favor of the city—which was a thing Hiiro didn't understand before because he didn't know what even made the city so good in the first place to make his brother want to leave—Hiiro ended up liking the city as well and choosing to stay there instead of going back home, therefore chosing his own path like Rinne.

But then again, this is just my personal interpretation of the text ahdjf

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?: I probably do, but I can't really think of one at the moment ahdjfj I guess one unpopular opinion is that I think that Aira isn't as stereotypically tsundere as people tend to depict him as in fanworks.

Don't get me wrong, Aira def is very tsun (and he is deliberately written as a stereotypical tsundere sometimes for the comedy bits and/or to make his feelings about others obvious. It might seem paradoxical, but the more tsun the acts—the biggest reaction he gets out of one of Hiiro's actions, for example—the more obvious his true feelings come across), but I also think it is often overlooked his character development in the !! MS where he grows to become more honest about his feelings and doesn't reject Hiiro's displays of affection as much and is even openly happy about them (like when he was happy that Hiiro held his hand and said it made him feel reassured). But this characterization isn't the most consistent throughout stories (and that is a thing that bothers me a little but talking about enstars' lore inconsistency is a story for another day ahdjf), so this is something very personal 😅

And that's all... thank goodness it was only 3 questions AHDJF I was hoping I'd write a short post, but it seems I *did* end up rambling about hiiai after all 😔🤙 what bring prompted to talk about the otp does to a person.

[seventh-district]

this song ain’t got no right to be scratchin’ my brain as much as it does

[littlest-bugz]

MY PHYSICAL THERAPIST ASKED ABOUT MY BOOKS AND MY OCS AND IT MADE MY DAY RAAAAAAAAAAA