#hiddenblock

[beautifully-lumpy]

i randomly thought up this meme and immediately had to make it

[aloftmelevar]

on august 21st, 2014, i was a 12-year-old in 7th grade who was just finding out about the hidden block/normalboots collective of game reviewers.

on august 21st, 2014, i found caddicarus - who would have a huge impact on my life for the next 4 years.

during those 4 years i had many fandom shenanigans. made some great memories, made some not-so-great memories.

i remember when he was an android fanboy. i remember when he didn't like pizza. i remember when his voice was higher and when he had the buzzcut. the stock grungy background and aesthetic. the frosty cooltext generated logo. that iconic gong noise at the beginning of the intro. when the intro didn't even have music at all - do fans these days even remember that the intro was once a heavenly chant with no music?

"🎵ay ay ay ay ay, ay ay ay ay, subscribe...🎵"

"that's how we do it in my garden!"

"CYOAR!"

i remember rushing home one day in march 2015 to watch him on PBG's minecraft hardcore. i remember when he first got his tattoos. i remember how the audience was divided over his mohawk.

many sunday afternoons were spent waiting for the new video to come out. being the young devoted fan i was, i started drinking pepsi after he said he preferred it over coke. i called it "the official drink of the beautiful people".

i remember in 2016 when he got rid of all those extra shows and made the caddicarus show weekly. and i remember when the sub count slowed around the same time. but we as the fanbase made do with what we had.

i left in late 2018 around the time he hit 600,000 subs. i left to pursue other fandom endeavors - long story short, i moved onward. 😉

in the 4 years since i've left, caddy pretty much addressed every criticism people had with his videos and he's been thriving more than he ever has. and even though his videos are no longer for me personally, i still respect him with every fiber of my being.

now, it's august 22nd, 2022. i'm 20 years old. i haven't watched a caddicarus video in god knows how long. when i think of caddicarus, the color blue still comes to mind. that shows you right there.

yet, as i sat silently in the college library, on the first day of junior year, i held my hands on my heart and teared up as i saw caddy do the same and then lie down on his side as he saw the long-awaited number show up on his screen.

i took a big sip of the pepsi sitting next to me. and even after i found out that he hates the US version of pepsi, i still drank it with pride. because it shows that the impact he and his videos made on me is still visible to this day. and also because...pepsi really is better than coke.

i am aware of what caddy thinks of the pre-2020 era. i recognize that he wasn't exactly making the videos he wanted to make and that he regrets them now. but we wouldn't be where we are today if they never existed. they still made an impact.

i remember when we never thought he'd hit 1 million subs. i remember checking socialblade and the prediction for the 1 million sub milestone was...actually pretty accurate. it projected he'd reach 1 million when i was in the middle of college. but at the time, it was still 6 years away. which is a long time in internet years.

but he's so resilient. that's 10 years of blood, sweat, and tears poured into the channel. and within those videos - no matter what he thinks of them now - are the childhood/teenhood memories of many, many people. nerdy and geeky kids who found a part of youtube that understood their nerdy and geeky interests. kids who finally felt validated after finding other people who enjoyed the same videos. kids who then had internet friends to talk about their interests with. kids who finally found their voice...and began to make videos of their own.

thank you so much jim. thank you for all you've done. you have given me and now a million other people so much happiness and joy. i hope you continue to thrive and inspire millions of people. stay beautiful. 💜💙💜

[asagaos-in-the-window]

normalboots emotes for all your asagao academy needs <3

[adakechi]

not to be a fucking boomer or anything but ive been around the block unfortunately and when it comes down to things like people enjoying and writing stuff you don’t like i’m gonna give you some advice that will save your blood pressure in the long run

bestie just ignore it

[misseswallard]

I tried my hand at animation for the first time for a while. It is definitely not really my strong suit honestly, but it was good for me to try it again!

But I decided to animate @brutalmoose 's cat MJ cause she is a very pretty cat and she is great!

[lotsofdreamb0ats]

asagao academy as shitpost generator posts: 2020 edition (part two)

asagao academy: shitpost club (2020) electric boogaloo

(part one)

[caddicarustv]

WOOOOOT CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY!! Thanks so much to @nintendouk for the free #NintendoSwitchLite in a lovely #HiddenBlock yellow! Or, a ‘Mario Sunshine Yellow’ as @choccaboo said... https://www.instagram.com/p/B2y4EC8hekn/?igshid=1p7g6q9j39nu1

[peanutbuttergamer]

Having a 2 MIL SUB PARTY WITH ALL MY FRIENDS!!

...In the Sims 4. Introvert style. 

- CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

[shutupsprinkles]

I broke the last version of this somehow oops

Long live the D.K. Curse!

PB&Jeff&Jack&Todd playing Mario Party 2 has one of the best moments of PB&Jeff ever. Please go watch it on PBGGameplay.

@peanutbuttergamer @spacehamsterg

[beautifully-lumpy]

do you like caddicarus? do you like retro 90's/2000s fansites? do you want to see an autistic person discuss the huge amounts of history she knows about a chaotic youtube game review series? well...

come on down to the brickhouse!!!

the brickhouse is a caddicarus fansite filled with history, archives, cool web graphics, and my own ramblings about the PS1 man and his wacky show. give it a whirl!

[sleepyteacaddy]

As someone who was a fan of ProJared I think I may switch to Hidden Block full time now.

[vec-animations]

A while back Mr. Ian “BrutalMoose” (LastName) did a livestream where he was embarrassed to reveal he had bought a Kurama figure. Now, despite no provocation, here is a drawing of Ian and his anime boyfriend.

[asagaos-in-the-window]

hello. ive been considering replaying asagao academy for the first time in like six years. any advice/tips/recommendations i litch rally do not remember the optimal route order or anything like that and idk if i trust 2016 fandom abt it tbh.

this is an insane ask to receive in the year 2023 on anon i hope you know that BUT i got you!

my personal recommendation [aka the order i should’ve replayed the game in, and the order i actually replayed the game in] kinda changes depending on how much you remember of the game, and if you’re trying to/willing to play the entire thing (which... okay, i have opinions on that, but we’ll get to it. for clarity’s sake, i’ll be including jared and jon routes, but it’s up to you if you want to play those.) 

strap in. long post under the cut.

#1) if you want to actually enjoy the game (subtitle: 2016 fandom wasn’t wrong but they weren’t right either)

if you don’t remember the game, 2016 fandom’s order of completion isn’t... bad?? but it isn’t very fulfilling narratively for your second time playing. you should only play pbg route first if you don’t remember his plot twist -- if you do remember it, leave him till last. it’ll make all of his sad guy shit in the background of every route a little funnier, and a little sadder, and it solidifies pbg as (if not the “canon” route) the standard route to play him at the end. 

additionally, the level of quality in each route varies a *lot* more than 2016 fandom would have you believe. this is purely subjective, but the “optimal route order” REALLY assumes all routes are written equally, and going from a fantastic route to a meh one is going to kill the mood a little. in my recent replay of the game, i went from jared route [unfortunately the best-written route in the game] to continue route and had to quit from whiplash. HOWEVER: if you’re looking for the funniest experience, which is also my personal choice of playthrough, ill give you a good -> bad -> good -> bad ranking.

my order in this scenario:

*#1. pbg (if you remember NOTHING of this videogame, play pbg’s first -- if you remember his twist but nothing else, play him last.)

#2. jirard (play this before the more heavy routes; it’s insanely sweet and the whiplash will be too strong anywhere else)

#3. jon (you can put this before jirard route or after it, but this is basically just a long haul to get to better routes, so if you don’t want to play it -- it is HILARIOUSLY subpar -- you can skip it pretty easily)

#4. continue (i can’t support playing it last but i can’t support playing it first either. i don’t care for the paul/hana romance, because hana’s kind of miserable throughout it, but if you like josh and nick [plus some kick ass ian characterization] continues got something for you. this is also the only other appearance of mai bikini sprite outside of jared route.)

(**bonus: #5. hiddenblock route (play this as an intermission before jared route, it’ll make the absolute roster of hb members in that one so much more fun)

#5. jared (the best written route in the game. i played it again for the irony and sadly its narrative is fucking incredible. 10/10. you can’t play this route before paul because if you do, dating paul is going to be miserable. believe me. i did that and literally had to quit continue route even though i was thoroughly in love with josh [and, yknow. jeff and ian content is good.]) #6. satch (you have to play satch and jared right after each other because they’re weirdly relevant in each other’s lives. either order is good, but there’s a joke at the beginning of shane route that begs me to say satch - > jared. so ill say that in my personal order.)

#7. shane (i switch satch and shane’s routes around for maximum whiplash <3 no seriously, play this route as one of the last. i have some insanely mixed opinions on it [it’s the funniest route but it definitely wasn’t trying to be] but you can’t play it as one of the first.) *#8. pbg (again, if you remember his whole deal, play him last.)

if you’re a real trooper and you want to play jacques route... kinda got no opinions on that. play it whenever you want so long as its in the later half of your run. 

#2.) my personal order (subtitle: don’t play the game this way) 

in my personal run through, my friend and i decided to pair each Really Good route with a less good one. you can play these pairs in any order, but you cannot separate them. [good/bad]*

*(the only exception to this is satch/hidden route, in which both routes are fantastic.)

#1. pbg/jon:

they’re roommates, and jared’s route is too good to be paired with pbg’s. nothing will make it more apparent that jon gives zero shit about hana than playing pbg route before or after jon’s route. if you’re in it for a depressingly hilarious romp that ultimately culminates in hana settling for second-best to a BIRD, the poor writing of jon’s route goes from dreadful to insanely funny. watching pbg treat her like a human person after or before that is both comedic and speaks to the pbg route’s strengths.

#2. jared/paul:

 i don’t hate paul route -- far from it, actually, even if i’m biased in saying that. but jared route is simply and utterly, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the best route in this game. and there is just nothing more cathartic than watching hana break down in tears in paul route because shes in love with him and he fucking sucks  before watching jared and hana have the most beautiful dating sim romance ever written [alongside paul’s clowning in chapter 4]. like i don’t hate paul but how do you even compete with the romantic lengths jared goes to for hana. simply isn’t possible.  

#3. jirard/shane: 

i know this would be controversial in 2016 asagao fandom but jirard and shane are inseparable in every route that isn’t shane’s and that’s why shane’s route fails. they’re like “what if we made shane so sweet and niceys” and then didn’t even give him the guy that forces him to be sweet and niceys until the end of the route.

 jirard’s route is a nonstop fluff-fest of sweet hana characterization, accurate hidden block characterization, with an insanely good, if simple romance at its center. it’s got so much heart and earnest love to it that you can’t help but feel like jirard is the perfect match to all of hana’s insecurities. how can hana be as bad as shes convinced she is if someone like jirard loves her so much? and on top of that, jirard has to convince her that’s a bad way to think -- that his goodness is not a marker for her goodness, that she is good in her own right. it holds a lot of weight, surprisingly, and even when it gets tropey, it still feels earnest, sweet and new. (i’ve replayed this route eight times.)

shane’s route on the other hand. squints. i don’t know how they made every possible bad writing decision but they absolutely did and unless you’re SUPER invested in shane, but not invested enough to care that they butcher his characterization from every other part of the game, it’s going to be obvious. the favoritism is real (the only NB members that show up with any notable screentime are jon and jared), the hidden block characterization is utterly insane (it’s not only violently out of character but has some insane implications on shane’s relationship to hidden block. ALSO LUKE DOESN’T SHOW UP EVEN IN PASSING), and the crux of shane’s issues does not excuse nor explain his actions in any other route. just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s good. 

Dont be fooled though shane route is the funniest one and i love her for it. But yknow. They probably didn’t mean for it to be funny in this way. 

*#4. satch/hidden route:

i should preface this by saying this is the only pair of routes where both are equally great, and i’ve put them together because they promote the same agenda. this agenda being hiddenblock supremacy.

i’ll spare you the details since i just went on and on about jirard and shane, but satch’s route is deeply sad while remaining endlessly kind to hana AND satch’s plights. it’s a great balance. and at the crux of it all is the fact everyone in normalboots sucks aside from satch, who OPENLY CRITICIZES NORMALBOOTS’S WEIRD HIEARCHY AS PERPETUATED BY SHANE, and you might as well go sit down with hidden block afterwards with satch in your heart. when shit goes down, satch, mai, and the hidden block club remain oh so sweet to hana and that is fucking refreshing. 

(personally i enjoyed playing satch route *before* shane route. shane is such an unbearable dickwad in satch route and i love him SO much for it. his feeble attempts at cottagecore cannot fool me.)

hidden block route doesn’t need a lot of elaboration. it’s hidden block shenanigans featuring hana, and there’s no party like a hidden block party. have fun with it. 

thank you for coming to my ted talk anon let me know how it goes!!!!!!!!!!!!

[adakechi]

im sorry for literally never posting here 

i drew this ian like... a month ago. im sorry tumblr. you deserve better than this.

[strawberrypirates]

big fan of reflective chrome balls

[applexcat]

fanart for Jeff, aka SpaceHamster!