#probably shouldn’t have been so quick to drop those lessons lol

[peridotsarelongterm]

Today on My YouTube Stalking Endeavor…

It’s a McCoy and Nancy Crater AU!

Jk, it’s something about a singer and a sleazy clarinet player on an 1890s riverboat. He doesn’t get a huge amount of screentime, but what there is is pretty dang adorable. Plenty of smarmy smiling, tongue blepping, and manhandling (which just makes him tease harder).

[ikroah]

The strangest gal I ever had never happy ‘less she’s mad. Oh, I got a woman mean as she can be, sometimes I think she’s almost mean as me. —“Mean Woman Blues,” Elvis Presley (1957)

It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin’ #16 - Crimson Caravan

Collaborative Issue! Guest Artist: Esseress

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Notes / Original Pencils / Transcript:

Notes:

Girls’ night! Girls’ night!

I want this issue to speak for itself so I’m going to cut right to gratuitously thanking our latest guest artist, Esseress, who did a completely phenomenal on these five pages. We’ve been working on it for a long time and I’m over the moon to finally bring it to you now on this blog. I love writing this comic, and I loved doing the lettering and composition for it, but my goodness do I love Esse’s art. It was a real privilege to have that art as part of It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin’, especially since the artist was such an immaculately pleasant collaborator. If you’re reading this, thank you again for such a fun project (and talking about Naruto with me lol).

Original Pencils (click for full size):

This issue was one of my most fun composition challenges yet because something that you want to avoid in comics as much as possible, I think, is talking heads. You want to avoid shots that are static, overly repetitive, and uninteresting. Now the challenge is, how do you do that when your whole comic takes place in a small storeroom and is nothing but a conversation between two characters?

Playing with angles and expressions, and using repetition intentionally with the percussive referent of Agnes cutting into the floorboards, made for some really suspenseful page layouts that complemented the script in a major way. I’m especially proud of the third page, with its quick cutaway to the exterior of the office and the cutting continuing beneath Agnes’ dialogue. Also, did you notice that you only ever see Agnes’ left side this issue? You never get to look her in the eye this issue, and given how cagey she’s acting, that evasiveness was an intentional compositional choice. It was satisfying to pull off, but hear me, it took a lot of planning in the thumbnail stage to pull off well.

The other fun challenge of this issue was lighting. When you’re in a closet a night and don’t want to be seen, how do you see? The delightful answer was to have Agnes actually use that damn flashlight she wears on her shoulder; attentive readers will notice that this is the second time she’s used it in the comic, with the first time being back in Boulder City at the end of Volume 1. Hmm…guys, I wonder if it’s a bad omen that she only seems to turn it on when she’s about to commit or assist in a murder…

Speaking of lighting! One last fun hiccup about this issue was the final page. The script I wrote called for it to transition from night to morning between the first and second panels, but in a case of unforeseen and magnitudinous pedanticism, it was while coordinating the lighting on that page with Esse that I looked up the actual time of sunrise in the Mojave Desert for the time of year this issue takes place, which is November 5th if you’re curious. Turns out the sun shouldn’t be rising until after 7:00 AM, which hardly makes McLafferty the exceptionally early riser her planner says she is. That’s not to say it’s actually 7:00 AM in the comic…go ahead and play the CinemaSins ding for the wrong sunrise time, or whatever. And it’s not like any of you would have known or cared if I didn’t say anything! It was just too weird of a writing quirk to not bring up. The lesson, folks, is to always remember your temporality when writing. It’ll help you sleep a lot easier.

Transcript:

EXT. CRIMSON CARAVAN, night. The lights are out and everyone in the caravan compound have retired to their barracks for the night. From inside one of the compound buildings comes a soft sound.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH…

INT. CRIMSON CARAVAN OFFICE. AGNES SANDS is bent over on the floor of a storeroom, carving into the wooden floor with her bootknife. ROSE OF SHARON CASSIDY leans against the door behind her.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH…

AGNES: So…have you ever killed anyone before?

AGNES continues cutting into the floor without looking at CASS as she speaks.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH…

AGNES: And I don’t mean a raider or fiend or something, nothing in self-defense. I mean in cold blood.

CASS: You mean like you killed those Khans?

(NOTE: *IKROAH #14—Lou.)

CASS: Hmmm…no, I guess I haven’t. When it comes to bloody vengeance just for myself…

CASS: …be gentle, it’s my first time.

AGNES doesn’t react to CASS’ joke. CASS becomes equally serious.

CASS: …I’d imagine this ain’t your first rodeo, the way you asked.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH…

CASS: I mean…this Benny guy, in Vegas. When we catch him, which notch on your blood-spattered bedpost is he?

AGNES stops cutting into the floor, raising her knife. CASS’s expression tightens with concern. The silence is uncomfortable.

AGNES: Second.

CASS: Oh, thank God.

AGNES: What?

CASS: No offense, but the way you got all serious, I worried for a second you might be some kind of serial killer nutjob.

AGNES: No, no, I’m sorry. I was just…thinking. I really know how to meet the wrong men, apparently.

CASS (smiling): Dead men, right?

AGNES frowns. Her knife plunges back into the wooden floor.

SFX: SKRITCH, SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH…

CASS: Wanna talk about it?

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH…

CASS: Not like we have anything else to do.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH… 

AGNES: I really don’t.

CASS: Fine. That said, though, I did imagine this whole revenge thing being a bit more…exciting. Can’t say I like being stuck in a closet.

AGNES (smirking): You get used to it.

CASS: Why, though? You picked the lock to her fucking office like a cheap office toy. Why not break into her barracks and we shoot the bitch now?

AGNES: First, because that’s a great way to get us both killed.

AGNES keeps cutting as she speaks, deeper and deeper into the floor.

AGNES: Second, you want her to know it was you, so we have to get her awake and alone.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH…

AGNES: Third, her planner on her desk confirmed what I already suspected—that she’s an early riser—so we’ll see her sooner rather than later, while the rest of the company is still asleep.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH…

AGNES: Fourth, we want to send a message to everyone else. So it has to be at least a little spectacular.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH...

CASS: Oh…you’ve really thought this through.

SFX: SKRIT-

AGNES stops cutting. She slowly lifts her knife out of the floor.

AGNES: Yeah.

CASS: Where’d a medic get so good at murder?

AGNES rises from bending over the floor to a kneeling position, turning back towards CASS and frowning.

CASS: Sorry. You probably don’t want to talk about that, either.

AGNES: Maybe another time. For now…

AGNES leans back, kneeling over an intricate cross-hatch, about three feet in radius, of deep cuts and gouges into the floorboards in front of her.

AGNES: …just trust me.

EXT. CRIMSON CARAVAN. Night turns to early morning, and ALICE McLAFFERTY, the boss of the caravan, walks up the steps of her office and enters.

AGNES (from inside, whispering): Alright. Now. Quickly.

From inside her office, a door is kicked open.

SFX: DTHUMP

ALICE: What the hell, who are you—!?

CASS: Rose of Sharon goddamn Cassidy, of Cassidy fucking Caravans, you bitch!

ALICE: No, you’re—

SFX: KABLAM

The sound of a shotgun going off in the middle of the compound wakes up the whole caravan. Crows scatter from the courtyard while guards start rushing towards the office door.

AGNES: Alright, now let’s go! Shoot the floor here where I—

SFX: KABLAM

The guards close in on the office while wooden shrapnel falls from a new hole in the floorboards of the office, and AGNES and CASS drop through to the ground outside, and crawl away from the caravan guards under the hut just as they reach the McLAFFERTY’s front door.

[thelazyhermits]

Now that I’ve probably covered the Joint Training Arc, I think I’ve covered all the manga events that happen between the end of the TABF main story and the Heroes Rising movie except for what happens with Todoroki & Bakugou after their provisional license course lessons come to an end and the interview chapter. 

So, I plan on covering those chapters in this post, meaning there will be manga spoilers underneath the cut

The events of chapters 218 & 219 happen pretty much like in canon. However, there is one slight change.

Before Bakugou & Todoroki leave the dorm for their last lesson, which will lead to them getting their provisional licenses, Fortune sees them off, and as she does, she receives a vision about Todoroki & Bakugou going after some villains who are robbing civilians.

When the vision comes to and end, both boys are watching her expectantly, but rather than tell them what she saw, she just says that she’ll make their favorite food for dinner.

When Todoroki asks if she can’t reveal the contents of her vision because of her drawback, Fortune explains that the reason she’s not saying anything is because she doesn’t need to. She knows that they’ll both be fine without her interference, so she has no intention to get involved.

With a smile, Fortune tells them that she has complete faith in them and that she knows they have everything under control. 

Both boys are pleased by this show of faith. While Bakugou is his normal cocky self, proclaiming that he can handle whatever’s thrown his way, Todoroki says that he’ll work hard and meet Fortune’s expectations.

So, in the end, the boys don’t know what’s in store for them because Fortune decided this is an event that’s best for her not to meddle in since they have things completely under control.

However, while they don’t know what to expect, Todoroki & Bakugou get the feeling that something is gonna happen, and that it won’t be just related to their provisional license course lesson.

That’s why the two are on guard during the car ride to and from the lesson. As a result, when they stumble upon the villains, the two are even quicker to react and get their gear ready because they were half-expecting something like this to happen.

When the boys eventually return to the dorm, Fortune warmly welcomes them back with hugs and hair ruffles as she congratulates them on getting their licenses and for handling those villains so well.

Todoroki is quick to show his license to her since he promised himself that he would once he finally got it which earns him an extra bright smile from Fortune and another hair ruffle.

When Fortune asks Bakugou about his license, he shows it to her, and she gives him a proud smile, which deep down makes him happy but he would never admit it in a million years lol

Just as she promised, to celebrate the two getting their licenses and handing those villains so well, Fortune prepared a feast filled with their favorite food for dinner, which is ready for them to enjoy by the time they get back to the dorm.

The rest of the evening is spent with everyone congratulating the two boys and celebrating the day’s events.

That evening, Fortune also keeps a close eye on the news channels so she can see when the incident with the villains that Bakugou & Todoroki took care of gets covered.

Unsurprisingly, she’s like a proud mom when she sees all the positive reports on her students’ actions. It makes her happy seeing her students’ skills and hard work getting acknowledged.

It’s as she’s watching the news with her students that she gets a vision of the interview with Todoroki & Bakugou that happens in chapter 241. When she sees how it ends, you takes Bakutou aside and tells him what she saw, saying that if he doesn’t want to be completely taken out of the interview that he’ll have to turn down his antagonism toward Todoroki. 

As expected, Bakugou is not a fan of that idea. However, he hates the thought of being completely taken out of the interview even more.

So, in the end, he agrees to try to tone things down during the interview. In hopes of helping him, she practices with him by doing mock interviews during the days leading up to the interview in hopes that that’ll help the interview go more smoothly.

She also practices with Midoriya after later receiving a vision of him doing a mock interview and having an incredibly difficult time with it. So, he slowly becomes more comfortable with the process.

Thanks to Fortune’s efforts, Bakugou isn’t taken out of the interview. However, his behavior still leads much to be desired, so the interview was still kinda disastrous, which leads to their class going through hero interview training.

While Fortune doesn’t normally join in Class 1-A’s training nowadays cause she’s always with Eri, she does end up coming by to watch this training with Eri since she was curious and Eri had been hoping for an opportunity to watch Class 1-A during a lesson/training.

When the two arrive, it’s during Todoroki’s interview, just as Mt Lady says that his smile would have ladies dropping left and right. When Todoroki appears worried that his smile could kill people, Fortune laughs, instantly earning everyone’s attention.

While Class 1-A happily greets Fortune & Eri, all of them pleasantly surprised to see them, Fortune heads for the stage while Eri runs over to the students who beckon her over.

Once she’s right in front of the stage, Fortune explains to Todoroki that he shouldn’t take what Mt Lady said literally. She was just saying that he was very handsome which would lead to ladies being charmed and falling for him. Fortune adds that it’s just like how she once told him that with his good looks he’ll be stealing hearts left and right once he’s a pro hero, and as a result, will become very popular.

Todoroki is relieved to hear this. While he’s used to those kinds of comments from Fortune, he doesn’t know Mt Lady well enough to know if she was being serious or not with her earlier comments, so he’s still working on properly understanding comments like that.

After explaining things to him, Fortune tells Todoroki he should try to smile when he’s being interviewed since it’s important for heroes to have a good smile. Plus, it’s a waste for him to not show the world what a great smile he has.

That comment leads to a small smile appearing on Todoroki’s face which gets Mt Lady really excited. 

Much to Fortune’s and everyone else’s surprise, Mt Lady drags her onto the stage and hands her the microphone, telling her to be the one to interview Todoroki. Since Fortune is able to make Todoroki smile, Mt Lady wants her to be a part of the interview since she wants to see Todoroki make that face again lol

Much to Mt Lady’s delight, the rest of the interview goes by smoothly with Todoroki either wearing a small smile or having a happy glint in his eyes because he’s talking to Fortune who is very good at getting those kinds of reactions out of him. 

After Todoroki’s interview concludes, Midnight tells Fortune that she doesn’t have to help with the other mock interviews, so Fortune moves to leave the stage with Todoroki.

However, before she can get far, Mt Lady asks Fortune if they’ve met before since Fortune looks familiar. This confuses Fortune since this is her first time seeing Mt Lady in person.

When Fortune says as much, Mt Lady dons a deep look of concentration since she swears that she has seen Fortune somewhere before today and it’s bugging her that she can’t figure out where.

At one point, she mutters, “For some reason, Kamino Ward keeps coming to mind, but that doesn’t make sense. It has to have been somewhere else...”

As soon as Fortune hears Kamino Ward, she freezes as realization dawns her features. Could it be Mt Lady saw her while she was at Kamino Ward? Fortune remembers hearing that Mt Lady was one of the heroes there that night, but she thought Mt Lady had been knocked unconscious by AFO before she got to the battlefield. Was she wrong?

(As I mentioned in this post, Mt Lady did in fact see Fortune before she passed out, but because of her injuries, she doesn’t clearly remember seeing Fortune. Instead, she just gets the feeling that she has seen Fortune before but can’t remember for sure where.)

As Fortune begins to panic over what she should do, Midnight & Aizawa quickly get ready to take action, while the latter curses himself for not considering the possibility of this happening. However, before they can, Class 1-A, who have all figured out by this point what’s going on, take matters into their own hands.

One by one, they all start clamoring for Mt Lady’s attention, asking her who will get to have their interview next. Thankfully, that does the trick. With Mt Lady successfully distracted, Todoroki is able to quickly pull Fortune off the stage.

In order to avoid Mt Lady from figuring out the truth, Aizawa tells Fortune that she should head back to the dorm with Eri, so that’s exactly what they do.

So, all in all, nothing really major changes with the interview aside from things going more smoothly with Todoroki’s and also Midoriya’s who greatly benefited from the practice he went through with Fortune. Unfortunately, Bakugou hasn’t really changed much from canon for his interview despite all of Fortune’s efforts so that development is gonna take more time lol

Also, once Fortune leaves the scene, Mt Lady eventually forgets about her and the fact that she found Fortune familiar, so Fortune is able to maintain her cover.

[silver-wield]

I want to know what your thoughts are on the optional Aerith resolution scene? Particularly around the time where Aerith says the "love" line?

Awww man, you're gonna make me watch that? Lol

Ok let's do this then.

Ok, spoiler warning for ppl who haven’t played – do I still need to do this? Eh ok, (I tag FF7R spoilers as final fantasy 7 remake spoilers) and it’s gonna be reasonably long.

Also, this is one person’s interpretation of the scene, so if you disagree that’s cool and we’ll agree to disagree.

You’re also gonna have to excuse the janky quality on some of the screens, I’m grabbing them from Youtube and it’s frustrating af trying to get the exact moment I want.

Other analyses if anyone’s interested.

Shinra HQ vision scene (Cloti/plot analysis) 

Chapter 3 (Cloti reblog) 

Tifa character analysis 

Aerith Resolution (plot analysis/theory – I should probably update this since I’ve had other ideas since then) 

Train graveyard (not really an analysis, but I got some sweet screenshots of Cloti) 

Clotiscrew tunnel analysis 

Cloti reunion analysis 

The Promise Analysis 

Andrea’s approval (Cloti ask response) 

Leslie analysis (not mine, but a good read) 

Cloti action touching 

Aerti friendship analysis 

Cloti body language chapter 3 

Cloti healthy disagreement 

Cloti post heliboss battle (chapter 15) 

Clerith playground scene 

Cloti body language plate fall 

Cloud and Barret friendship 

Now, strap in and enjoy the ride.

Recap time!

So, Aerith's been taken by Shinra and the group is still feeling the after effects of the plate fall. Everyone's pretty demoralised and after they visit deep ground and Cloud gets the aborted flashback of himself inside a chamber being experimented on, he says to Elmyra they should go save Aerith before the same fate befalls her.

Elmyra asks they sleep on it.

During the night Cloud “wakes up” to see a ghostly Aerith heading downstairs. He follows her outside and they talk on the hill top where the lifestream can be seen glowing in the background.

It’s important to note that Cloud has literally just gone through both the train graveyard and seen a bunch of ghosts and the plate collapse where he’s seen a load of people he cares about die. 

Cloud looks surprised. Hmm I wonder why....

Yeah, this is a no brainer opening. Aerith shouldn't be there and he doesn't think he's asleep at this moment. He looks around and figures out it's a dream, but isn't totally sure because how often does anyone have cognisant dreams?

You can see the doubt about if she’s a ghost or not and she doesn’t clear that up, so Cloud’s left wondering if Aerith’s dead already. The following conversation doesn’t reassure him.

Aerith's “Maybe. You tell me,” doesn't actually help here. If Cloud's having doubts about how real it is – and she's aware of his fake persona and wants to know the real him – then causing further doubt in his mind seems counterproductive. It's like she's implying an illusory nature to their relationship. It also feels like foreshadowing the moment Cloud thinks he’s not real. 

She's also not looking at him when she says it, so even if it was a teasing moment between them, she's automatically set a distance between them. Because eye contact matters, remember? When someone can't meet your eye it's for a reason, whether they're uncomfortable or hiding something or whatever. Eye contact is a conscious connection between two people. Deliberately not making eye contact has meaning too.

Aerith exposition. Lots of fidgeting. No eye contact. She seems like she's making small talk to avoid something. Even when Cloud faces her head on she quickly turns away again to stare off into the distance. Cloud remains in her peripheral vision only. When Aerith does turn to reassure Cloud, he looks away.

And after is the immortal line “Don't be silly” in response to Cloud's sarcasm. I mean, isn't she supposed to be the sweet one? So wouldn't her saying silly fit with her vocabulary? Or should she have said something like “Cloud, don't be a fucking moron” because she swore that one time and everyone erupted into cheers over it? Let's say it is a callback to Claudia, who somehow had a prophetic vision of Aerith being “the one”. Aerith didn't say “silly goose” which was the exact line Claudia said, so technically Aerith's only half of what Claudia suggested. If Tifa says “goose” at some point does that validate her being in the running too?

Yes, I'm being facetious. Point is, unlike the promise between Cloud and Tifa when it was Tifa reusing her own words, this relies on Aerith having meta knowledge of what Claudia said to Cloud when he was 16 and Aerith was with Zack. So, with that in mind, why would Aerith care what Claudia had to say about some other guy she doesn't even know when she's already got a boyfriend? The implication of this is that Aerith already knew everything that would happen to Zack and she'd already moved on from him to Cloud before they ever met and yet she kept writing letters to Zack the whole time.

But then after meeting Cloud she decided to take him up on the slide and talk about her dead boyfriend...as a way to let him know she's single?

This is Cloud's face when Aerith says in a perky voice “You worried about me?” This is the bit where he says “Of course.” It's a very neutral expression tbf. There's not anything being given away and the way he says the line is very simple too. Nothing suggests he's revealing a big secret to her or that he's embarrassed by his concern. I'd say it's SOLDIER!Cloud at rest since we know from the devs that Cloud still puts on a front with Aerith because he doesn't know how to deal with her. Which is typical for Cloud since he's emotionally 16 and never dealt with girls.

That perky persona visibly drains from Aerith's face and body language. Her posture sags, she breaks eye contact, she looks sad. This is the image of someone who isn't happy to hear that Cloud's worried about her. Now, if she was into the whole ship wouldn't she be happier to hear that line from him? She's regretful and turns away again, using her body as a barrier to any possible intimacy.

I'm sure people disagree, so imma explain. If she'd turned her back that would be an outright rejection. She'd be fully closing herself off. By turning away, she's indicating the conversation isn't over, but her degree of attention on Cloud is less than if she'd face him head on. If she stayed facing him, then that builds intimacy since face to face is open body language which can have several interpretations – some of which I've mentioned before like confrontational when Cloud steps up to Rude. When it's between a couple, it's suggestive of building intimacy and trust.

And when Cloud takes a step towards Aerith, she steps away again, towards the lifestream in the distance. Not permitting the closing of distance is a sign she doesn't want to encourage intimacy with him. That she walks towards where the lifestream is means that's where her attention and focus is. Whether that's an overarching plot reason or from a “Zack is there” reason is up to your interpretation.

Another immortal line. Considering Aerith just stepped towards where we can see the lifestream and that she's taking up her priestess pose we can reasonably assume she's thinking of Zack, unless you're once again subscribing to the theory that she's meta!Aerith aware of her own death and speaking of that. In which case, yall need to make up your minds whether she's one or the other because you can't swap between the two when it suits you just to justify your arguments.

When Cloud says “I'll remember that” in response to Aerith's advice that “every moment matters” it definitely comes across as one of those character building life lessons that Cloud's had over the course of the game. He got one from Barret about how not everyone has a choice to run away, one from Marle about listening to others and caring and now he's got one from Aerith about making the time they have count. These are mentor moments.

But more importantly, look who Aerith's looking at when she says that line. It's not Cloud, not the lifestream. Us. The players. She is talking to us. This isn't just wisdom for Cloud, it's for us, too.

After a 9 second pause from Aerith, in which she looks at the ground, Cloud offers a suggestion of what she wants to say next. She seems very lost in thought during this time, and almost reluctant to speak. Considering she always seems to know what to say in any given situation, this is off. This very long pause is the longest she's been silent in the whole game. It's notable. She almost seems to be warring with herself as her eyes narrow and she subtly shifts from side to side.

I may well be wrong about the length of time she’s silent. It could be 7 seconds in a callback to the 7 seconds it took for Sephiroth to drop and kill her in OG. 

I'm one of those who does subscribe to the whole OG!Aerith vs meta!Aerith theories – which I stick to throughout every scene involving her so don't even try and @ me and say I'm a liar – and to me, this looks like OG Aerith trying to assert dominance over the situation, while meta Aerith wants to refuse.

When Cloud speaks, Aerith looks grateful for the cut in. It pulls her out of that warring state, while he's trying to look cool and mature still lol (dork)

Okay, so that whole speech she gives about thanking him is definitely coming off like she's aware of things she shouldn't know yet. This may be what OG!Aerith was trying to prevent her from saying. This isn’t something that Cloud should know yet, after all.

After some physical humming and hawing, eyes downcast, then glancing away and we get a shot of her feet – remember all of this is intentional to build a story here – she looks up and we get this line that's making certain people freak out with joy.

Quick lesson on intonation.

Intonation is the rise and fall – the pitch – of how you say certain words. The way you say them gives them their meaning. You can say the same words in many different ways to convey different meanings and/or emotions.

I've previously focused on Aerith's choice of the word “can't” here because this is the key word in the phrase.

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how certain people are interpreting this line to turn it into a positive. The word “can't” is synonymous with an impossibility. It means “there are specific reasons why this isn't possible.”

Aerith didn't say “Don't” as in “you shouldn't”. She said “can't” as in “not able to”. She is telling Cloud that he's not able to love her. The specific intonation on the word “can't” supports this evidence. If yall wanna examine it more closely then I suggest you turn the sound down slightly so it's actually harder to hear the whole sentence and see which words have more emphasis. Can't has specific emphasis, which wouldn't be there if she wasn't stressing the word.

As for her facial expression. I mean, this doesn't look like the earlier one where she's sad or regretful. This is matter of fact. She's telling him this as a kindness because he's not yet aware of the reasons that she is.

(Note: I didn't say which specific reasons because some of yall say it's her death and others say it's Tifa, so that's up to you. There's reasons, is my point).

So up until she said that, Cloud was actually looking at her. But this made him turn away in dismissal. Not with embarrassment. He's not caught out and flustered. He's SOLDIER!Cloud, remember? He's all front and super cool facade.

This isn't the first time a girl has thrown herself at him. Jessie did it too, only more ott. Cloud's used to brushing off girls and does it without effort.

I'm sure up to this point some people have been screaming about how biased I've been and unfair and this is so cloti (excuse me while I roll my eyes).

So, if I'm biased why am I about to point out that the above screen is real!Cloud popping in for a visit? This is him overriding the SOLDIER persona to question if Aerith might have a point. But not about her. About Tifa. Because within the previous few hours, Cloud and Tifa shared an intimate moment. And it wasn’t soldier Cloud who did that. It was real Cloud. Aerith is calling attention to real Cloud’s feelings for Tifa, which makes him look to the house where Tifa is sleeping. He gets soft eyed and starts to smile, but then seems to want to question himself, which we know isn’t a good idea. Real Cloud and Soldier Cloud aren’t ready to meet yet.

And while real!Cloud is busy debating with SOLDIER!Cloud about Aerith's words, she's approached completely silently – because, ykno, she's not actually there – and he's caught sight of her hand in his peripheral vision. The second she touches him he jerks back looking surprised. This wasn't a telegraphed move where he saw it coming from 10 feet away and chose to do nothing.

I also question that if he can feel her hand here then it's solid, but when he goes to grab her it's not? So, she chose to let him feel the first touch, but then rejected him grabbing her? Or is it more likely that having caught sight of her hand in his peripheral vision he didn't actually feel her touch his face then or the time after because Aerith's not there. There's no actual physical interaction between them.

This is pity. Not much else to say about it. Meta!Aerith knows Cloud's future and that by introducing these future concepts to him, she's causing confusion ahead of the time it should happen. She feels bad about that and probably about her OG behaviour that she had no control over thanks to the Whispers forcing her to go against her real nature.

Well, I was going to say that Cloud going to grab her wrist – not her hand – is just further proof of her intangible presence. She isn't someone he can hold onto. But having grabbed this screen it's clear he wouldn't have grabbed her wrist at all either. His hand is open and aimed at her forearm and already passing through her well before he tries to close it.

And the reason why goes back to the ghost thing. Cloud thought she wasn’t there in person, that she might be dead or it’s a dream, but then she touched him. So he wants to grab her the same way he did Jessie in the pillar, to try and keep her alive. But his hand goes through her and he’s left looking confused again.

“Do I get a say in all this?”

Well now. That's a bit different. I'm sure like everyone else we've all been convinced that Cloud said “Don't I get a say in this?” like he's arguing with Aerith's decision. That he's admitting he's already in love with her.

“Do I get a say in all this?” is a totally different kettle of fish.

Don't connotates a confrontational tone. It's argumentative. It's rejecting whatever previous statement was made.

Do is a question. It's inquisitive. Placid. Neutral. It's neither confirming, nor denying the previous statement. It's merely asking for more information.

Funny how those little word replacements some people use end up twisting the narrative.

Cloud’s not just speaking about Aerith’s most recent statement either. He’s talking about the whole conversation they just had. The possibility that she’s dead or dying and he doesn’t get any choice about it. This is a throwback to the OG theme of life and death and how the dying get to say goodbye and decide how to leave, while the living don’t and have to figure out how to move on from it afterwards. 

Anyway, Cloud has his back to us, so we don't even know if that's coming from SOLDIER!Cloud or real!Cloud, so that's up for debate and I won't even bother since he's got his back to us and we can't see either way.

And then we've got the cool SOLDIER!Cloud (screen) telling Aerith he's gonna save her. We already know that Cloud does his best to sound cool and confident when talking to Aerith because he doesn't know how to be himself around her. This is the kind of line you'd expect to hear from him.

She replies, “If that's what you want.” which is also very non-specific. It's a neutral statement that leaves things up to Cloud. It could imply an answer to the previous question he asked, since the two do stand beside each other and make sense. However, the interjected “It's almost morning” line breaks this up and makes it less of an impactful statement from her. She's done her upmost to neutralise any romantic context from this scene.

Conclusion

If yall saw romance then okay, you must be right.

I sure af didn't. I saw a regretful Aerith telling Cloud things he shouldn't be aware of yet, feeling more regretful for confusing someone who's already suffering from mental illness and then making non-committal statements that neither reject or encourage his attention.

Maybe she's regretful for her own sake as well, knowing what she does about him and still doing this to push some future narrative only she's aware of, but I wouldn't say this is romantic. It's clearly some kind of goodbye from her. Cloud, for his part, looks confused and guarded through most of the scene. There's one moment when his real self peeks out to question Aerith's meaning, but then he's gone again. We can't say for any certainty that his question was asked by his true self or his SOLDIER persona and without visual context I won't speculate.

[krillin-fanfic]

Entwined

So I figured, as part of Chestnutfest’s free day, it seems as good a time as any to unveil that new fic I’ve been working on! Part of me had always wondered what might happen if Krillin had met “Lazuli” beforehand, and how that might affect his path in life. Would he be much different? Very different? More or less confident? And so, I decided to explore that with this story. So here we are, the prologue to yet another new work. lol Hope you enjoy!

“Keep it moving, shrimp!”  Krillin groaned under the weight of several heavy boxes strapped to his back as he and two other students of Orin marched through East City. When his upperclassmen had offered to bring him with them on their supply run for the Temple, he'd jumped at the opportunity; it had seemed, after years of teasing and bullying, that maybe some of them were starting to accept him! It didn't take long for him to learn his role as a pack mule.  And all the treatment that came with it.  The shorter monk gave him a swift kick to the rear and Krillin yelped. “Move it, you little runt! We're gonna be late!” “All this stuff is heavy!” he protested. “I don't see you offering to help at all!” The taller, slender monk stood over him and snorted. “Wow. We decide to be nice, bring you along for a change, let you actually be useful for once in your life, and this is how you thank us? Ungrateful little bastard!” He gave Krillin a rough shove sending the boy and his boxes tumbling over onto the grimy pavement. “Aww, now you've gone and made a mess of all our supplies, nut head.” The shorter monk kicked him in the shin. “Clean it up!” Krillin grunted. “Why should I? You're the one who shoved me, you jer-” a sharp slap across his face silenced him. The taller monk laughed and cracked his knuckles. “Looks like the little imp wants to get uppity again. Guess I gotta teach you some manners!” He grabbed Krillin by the front of his uniform and hauled the boy off his feet. “Rule number one-” a sharp smack echoed in the empty street. “Don't talk back to your elders, brat!” Krillin grit his teeth, tears welling in his eyes. This was nothing new, he knew that. They did this sort of thing to him regularly. But for some reason... here, now, in this moment... he felt an emotion he'd not felt in a long time. Rage. Tall monk balled his hand into a fist and raised it. “Rule number tw-” he stopped suddenly, eyes widening, and looked down at the foot that was still planted firmly in his gut. He dropped his prey, clutching at his stomach, howling. His short companion was shocked for a moment, but quickly composed himself. “Hey! You little goon!” He charged at Krillin. Krillin braced himself, and, at the last possible second, sidestepped and stuck out a foot. “I'm gonna jack you up for tha-AAA!” The Short Monk tripped, and went flying, his trajectory aided by a well-placed elbow in the back. He hit the pavement hard and rolled next to his companion, both clutching at their respective injuries as they fought to regain the wind knocked from them. The haze cleared from Krillin's mind, rage finally subsiding. His jaw dropped in shock at what he'd just done, and he felt just the smallest tinge of pride. The pride quickly gave way to dread, however, as both his attackers stood, finally catching their breaths, their eyes wide and full of malice. And so, Krillin did the only sensible thing he could. He ran. “GET BACK HERE, BASTARD!” Krillin could hear the footsteps of the others catching up to his own. He cut through a nearby alleyway, eyes locking onto a fire escape. If he could get up there, climb that, he might have a chance. He lowered his head and sprinted, leaping for the ladder, grasping the bottom rung. He struggled briefly to lift himself higher, managing to finally get footing, until he felt a giant hand clutching his foot. He felt himself be pulled, violently from the ladder, sailing through the air until his back thudded off the brick wall on the other side of the alley. Dazed, Krillin looked up in fear at his two tormentors, as they cackled with glee and prepared to rain blows. Suddenly... BAM! The loud blast of a firecracker resounded off the alley walls, causing the two to jump, followed by two more in rapid succession. “What the-GAH!” Tall Monk's head snapped forward. He could feel something wet and slimy slipping down the back of it. He reached back and ran a finger through it, and found a very familiar viscous substance. “Some punk threw an egg at me!” Short Monk looked around scanning the area. “How? No one's even he-” another well-placed egg flew down from the fire escape, slamming into his face. “Dammit! Whoever you are, you're so dead!” He gasped and threw his arms up over his head as a torrent of eggs rained down, rapidly pelting the two. Krillin also looked up to see two figures standing on the fire escape, slingshots in hand. They were kids, he realized. Probably not too much older than himself. One of them, a boy, had his black hair pulled back in a ponytail, with a dirty white shirt and jeans that seemed to be torn off at the knee on one leg. The other was a blonde girl in shorts and a long-sleeved black shirt, sharp eyes glistening as she lit two more of the firecrackers and tossed them down at her targets. The monks jumped back as they exploded near their feet. The boy on the fire escape laughed. “Looks like someone's got egg on their faces.” His companion audibly groaned. “Ditch the shrimp, let's move!” The two ran and the boy jumped down, peeling off after them. “Hey, baldies, we ain't done!” Krillin blinked a few times, his body suddenly feeling very heavy as the adrenaline left his system. He stood, brushing off his uniform. “Oh man, whoever you are, thank you so much!”  The tough girl slid down the ladder and leaned back against the wall, eyeing him with a smirk, and Krillin couldn't help but feel a tightness in his chest and butterflies in his stomach. She pointed and gestured for him to come closer. He obliged, face turning red.   'She sure is pretty...'  “I'm impressed,” the girl said, patting him on the head. “Not bad for a little guy.” She cocked her head down the alleyway her brother had chased the other Orin students, his whooping and their frightened shouts echoing back to them. “Those punks there give you trouble a lot?”  “W-well yeah,” he sheepishly admitted. “I mean I kinda live with them, so it's not like I get much of a break.” He looked down at the alley floor. “And it's not like the monks at the temple really discourage it all that much.”  She snapped her fingers in realization. “Ahh yeah, you guys must be from that temple up there on that hill.. Nice place.” She wrinkled her nose. “The people, not so much.”  “Krillin raised his hands defensively. “Well, not everyone's so bad. I mean, the monk who agreed to let me stay was nice, I guess. Even if he did kinda say he shouldn't have because I don't have much skill. Or talent.” He scuffed his shoe on the alleyway floor. “I mean, it's meant for students, not 'charity cases' and whatnot...” The girl raised an eyebrow and stood up straight. “Hey now, I just saw you fight, kid. You got some pretty good skill. Wouldn't manage to get two 'proper students' twice your size on the ground without it, yeah?”  Krillin smiled, cheeks flushing a bit. “Yeah, I suppose so.”  “How old are ya, anyways?” she asked.  “Uhm... 13?” he replied.   The girl let out a chuckle. “Ha! Looks like I got almost a full year on ya then. Already that good and you're barely a teenager though.” She put a hand on her hip. “Gotta say, I am impressed. Krillin snorted. “Yeah. Wish the masters at the temple saw it that way.” She cupped his face to look up at hers, cool leather of her fingerless gloves feeling even more intense against his flushed cheeks. “The way I see it? If they won't believe in you and give you a shot, you oughtta find someone who does. Then come back and teach them losers at that temple a lesson or two of your own.” She smiled and him, and he swore he felt his heart stop. “Who knows, might even wind up bein' a master in your own right, take over the school, start your own. Just don't let a buncha jerks push you around or live your life for ya.” “YO! SIS!” her brother called from down the alley. “Gotta scram, cops are comin', along with one very pissed off egg salesman!” The girl rolled her eyes. “I don't even wanna know.”  “No, but I'll probably tell you anyways. C'mon.”  She turned back to face Krillin. “Well kiddo, I gotta scram-” she paused mid-sentence, peering down the street and alley, as if to see if anyone was in view, before leaning down and placing a feather-soft kiss on his cheek. Krillin felt his face turn beet red and he froze, unable to move a muscle. “I gotta go, but I figured I'd leave ya one of those. For luck.” She shot him one last quick smile. “What's your name?” “K-k-Krillin,” he managed to sputter out. “Well, I'll be sure to look you up sometime.” She winked at him. “Gotta see how strong my future boyfriend is after all.” “B-b-BOYFRIEND?!” Krillin half-shouted, before getting a gloved hand firmly placed over his mouth. “Not so loud!” the girl half yelled in a hushed tone. “I got a reputation ta protect, you know.” Her face softened and she smiled before turning and trotting down the alley. Krillin stood there, stunned for a moment before hurriedly calling out after her. “But I-I'm a monk! I ca-” “Nah, you'll leave,” she laughed and called back. “I can tell. Then you're all mine.” Beet red, the boy called after her one last time. “Can I at least get a name?!” “Name's -” ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Krillin sat straight up in bed, shaken. He peered over at the clock and noted the time. 3:00 AM. May 7th.  He wiped the sweat from his brow and tried to shake off the fog of sleep. He knew he needed to rest. It was a long 5 days ahead. It was one of the most important days of his life. Yet, as he felt the cool ocean breeze drift in through the window, he also knew he didn't want to sleep again tonight. Because every year, without fail these dreams would come. Every year, he would remember what he lost. He would remember this day not as the day they defeated the “son” of the evil King Piccolo, nor the day his best friend was crowned World Champion, nor even, he noted with a pang of guilt, as the day of his best friend's wedding. To him, this would always be the day he lost her. And with that thought, he broke. Tears fell, unbidden, accompanied by heavy sobbing for what felt like an eternity.  When he could finally breathe evenly and regain his composure, he noticed the first tiny rays of sunlight dancing over the blue horizon. Mentally cursing himself, he lay back down to try to get at least a bit more rest before his regimen for the day started. He couldn't afford to miss a day, especially now.  Because in five days, the end of the world would begin. 

[unreadable0]

prompt answer

A PROMPT ASK AT LAST! Remember, requests are still veyr much open!

Ahhhh! Thanks, anon! Uh... I’ll just pick up one of the prompts that I reblogged, if that’s fine with you... there are probably so many errors in this, because I was typing it on my phone, so sorry. 

51. Hand over the cheese grater, or else.

-------

“Hand over the cheese grater, or else.”

The thief’s words were slow and reassuring, as if he was talking to a cornered animal. Kurapika’s eyebrow ticked in annoyance at the thought, and his grip tightened over his make-shift weapon. 

“No.”

Raising an eyebrow, the other continued in a casual tone of voice. “I have a gun, and you’re holding a kitchen tool. You think you have a chance?”

A toasting fork whizzed past the man’s head, burying itself in a nearby wall. Flinching, the crook took a step back. “Okay. That just happened.”

“And I’m not afraid to do it again,” Kurapika hissed, one hand still brandishin his mighty cheese grater. “Steal from me? Ha! I think not.”

“Stealing? No! It’s just... surprise borrowing,” the dark-haired man protested. “Think of it as a kindly donation... from someone as enchanting as you.”

Scoffing, Kurapika readied another fork, ready to let it fly. However, the thief seemed to have disappeared, retreating into the inky darkness of the dimly-lit culinary shop. 

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a voice spoke, right next to his ear. The cold metal of a gun tapped against the blond’s temple. 

Kurapika knew that he should have been scared witless, but instead all he felt was disappointment in himself. He really shouldn’t have offered to take the late-night shift for his parent’s cooking store! Not when the notorious ‘Phantom Troupe’ was running around and wreaking havoc, at least. There had been so many reports, one even from his best friend Pairo’s shop, and yet he hadn’t even batted an eye before taking up the job.

At least he’d had the foresight to have the police on speed dial, just in case.

“Go ahead. Do it,” some foolish and brave part of Kurapika challenged. “Great to know that the police will be able to haul in a thief and a murderer.” If he died tonight, at least his parent’s store would get more publicity. Wow, now that’s a morbid thought. 

“The police?” The man laughed, and the surprisingly warm sound traveling down Kurapika’s spine. “Please. They’ll never catch me.”

“And why do you say that?”

As the thief began his long monologue about his amazing law-avoiding skills, Kurapika readied his arm. 

“Well, if you really must know—”

Whatever he was going to say next was abruptly cut off by the quick snap of Kurapika’s arm, sending the cheese grater slamming into the other’s skull. Immediately, the gun pressed to Kurapika’s head disappeared, clattering to the ground, and the blond quickly retrieved it. 

Putting enough distance between the him and the criminal, Kurapika clicked the safety, thanking the heavens that he knew how to handle a gun. He guessed that all those lessons from his mother weren’t completely useless. 

“Now that is one hard cheese grater,” the other man exclaimed, groaning. Kurapika watched in amazement as the man stood back up, looking no worse for wear. 

“It’s ceramic.”

The dark-haired man nodded in acknowledgment. “Ah, that explains it.” He started to move forward. 

“Don’t come any closer, or I shoot,” Kurapika threatened, his voice remaining mercifully steady. 

Again, to his chagrin, the other just smiled, pulling out another weapon from his jacket. “What? Did you really think that I come with only one gun?”

A small frown knitted itself at Kurapika’s eyebrows. Gripping the handle tightly, he took a deep breath. At least he’d put up a fight. 

“Relax,” the thief soothed, making his way closer seemingly without a care in the world. Kurapika’s finger hovered over the trigger. “I’m not going to shoot you. At least, not now. You’re way too interesting.”

“Excuse me?” Kurapika’s gun lowered a fraction. The man took it as a sign to come closer. 

Without warning, the thief was barely inches from the blond. Shit. When did he get over here? The gun was taken form his hands with a quick movement, and Kurapika was immediately aware of just how close the other was. 

Dark grey eyes raked over his figure, and Kurapika had the distinct impression of a predator surveying its unsuspecting prey. 

“Hmm...” was all that the other man said. Kurapika’s brain screamed at him to run, to scream for help, but all that escaped him was a confused yelp. 

“Wh—”

A pair of lips interrupted his statement, and Kurapika’s mind reeled at exactly how they had went from fighting at gunpoint to french kissing. For the few seconds that the kiss lasted, the blond remained shock-still, too astonished to push the other away. 

And no. He certainly did not enjoy it. Well, that’s what he tried to tell himself. 

The shrill screech of police sirens made the thief break away, and Kurapika just gaped at him. 

“That’s my cue to leave,” the other man told him, both of them slightly out of breath. 

“Uh,” Kurapika replied intelligently, “um. Hm.” He wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to say.

The other made a pleased noise. “I’ve rendered you wordless, I see. Just as I expected.” Seizing the blond’s limp hand, he kissed it grandly. “Until next time.”

“W-wait. You’re not going to steal anything from me?” Kurapika asked, his words coming back to him. 

“I’ve gotten what I wanted,” the thief responded merrily. “I’ll be back for you soon, don’t worry.”

And then he was gone, leaving Kurapika standing alone in the now-abandoned culinary store. 

“What. The. Hell.”

Bonus:

The next day, Kurapika was drifting through his afternoon shift when he had just about stuffed the strange encounter of last night into the dark corners of his brain. That is, until a nicely-dressed customer stepped up to pay. He looked vaguely familiar, but Kurapika pushed the thought away. Perhaps the man was in one of his morning classes. 

 “Did you find everything alright today, sir?” Kurapika asked, the obligatory  phrase coming out automatically. 

The man looked up, and Kurapika’s breath hitched. 

“Yes. Yes I did.”

“No,” Kurapika gasped. 

“Yes,” the dark-haired man countered, and Kurapika couldn’t hep but noticed that he was quite attractive. In an annoying, ‘I’m-going-to-rob-you-blind’ kind of way, of course. “And it’s Kuroro, by the way, not ‘No’.

Kurapika’s eye twitched. 

That bastard! 

Well, it’s done, and I managed to squeeze in a bit of a Shop!AU, too. Sorry for the rushed ending: I was running out of time to write this. Lol. Please drop off any requests that you may have!

[trendingnewsb]

5 YouTube Personalities Who Escaped From Scandal Unscathed

I’ve come to the conclusion that a big YouTube personality could hunt people on a private island, make a video about it called “Human Death Prank,” and that it would A) get several million views and B) would have no lasting consequences for the YouTuber.

We’ve fallen into a pattern wherein there’s a new scandal featuring one of these people every month, and it always ends the same way. The performer will lay low for a few weeks. YouTube might slap them on the wrist, maybe an advertiser drops. Then they’ll just start churning out the exact same content, having learned nothing and making just as much (in some cases more) money than before. Here, let’s revisit some recently scandalized social media celebs and see where they are now …

5

Logan Paul

You probably know Logan Paul as one of the many YouTube celebrities who looks like all of his hair is trying to escape from his head.

Logan Paul/YouTubeHis father is a Bloomin’ Onion and his mother a can of Red Bull.

You might also have heard of his most recent scandal, in which he posted a video of a suicide victim’s corpse in Japan’s Aokigahara forest. After a public uproar, he spoke to Michael Strahan on Good Morning America, saying, “I am a good guy who made a bad decision” — a claim that is 100 percent true if you remove the word “good” from it.

For you see, good guy Logan Paul has a storied past of doing things that are objectively dumb and also terrible. Like the time he pretend to be shot in the back of the head in front a crowd of screaming 10-12-year-old children. As soon as he returned to YouTube after the suicide forest video controversy, he immediately showed his respect for the sanctity of life by pulling a fish out of a pond and pretending to give it CPR and tasing some dead rats.

YouTube cited Paul’s “recent pattern of behavior” (corporate speak for “We’re secretly worried this person might be a budding serial killer”) when they decided to suspend ad revenue on his account, which has 16 million subscribers, many or most of whom are children. The suspension lasted for two whole weeks. It’s been reported that he actually gained around 80,000 subscribers after his recent controversies. And why not? He made international headlines. You can’t buy that kind of publicity!

And the next time he thinks his channel needs a boost, well, now he knows exactly how to do it.

4

Carter Reynolds

If you Google “Carter Reynolds,” the first result is a Business Insider article titled “The Rise And Fall Of Cater Reynolds.” Directly below that is the link for Reynolds’ Twitter account. He has 3.08 million followers. That … seems like a pretty cushy fall, but we’ll come back to that.

Reynolds got his start on Vine (remember that?), where at some point he is reported to have had four million followers — enough that he was able to get sponsorships from brands like Coca-Cola and travel the U.S. with “The Carter Tour.” He’s the kind of social media star who’s not particularly famous for anything more than being affable and good-looking in a non-threatening way that’s especially appealing to young girls. A few weeks ago, he tweeted “frozen yogurt sounds so good right now” …

Carters Reynolds/Twitter

… and it was retweeted 451 times. That’s pretty representative of his creative output.

Read Next

4 Mistakes We Shouldn't Let Movies And Shows Get Away With

In June of 2015, a video was leaked of Reynolds (19 at the time) and his ex-girlfriend, fellow social media star Maggie Lindemann (16 at the time). In it, Reynolds tries to pressure the visibly intoxicated Lindemann into giving him oral sex while he records it. Lindemann continuously repeats “I can’t” and “This makes me so uncomfortable” until he turns off the camera. Reynolds at first apologized in a single-line tweet, but then did a quick 360, saying on a YouNow stream that Lindemann owed him an apology for “things you guys don’t know about.” He added, “I didn’t rape her. She knows that herself … The fact that she’s trying to be all innocent now or something … it didn’t affect her that much. I know it didn’t.”

When Lindemann tweeted that she was in the hospital shortly after the video was released, Reynolds responded by tweeting, “Maggie is saying I’m the reason why she’s in the hospital … lol nah you’re just crazy and psychotic. Fuck you.” After receiving backlash, he then threatened to commit suicide on Twitter, apologized for it, and took a social media sabbatical.

The result? Well, in addition to his 3.08 million Twitter followers, today he has 3.2 million Instagram followers and 817,000 YouTube subscribers. While he’s no longer sponsored by Coca-Cola, he still does sponsored Instagram posts, including a recent one for Core water. He also sells merchandise and is getting ready to launch a clothing line with his new girlfriend, who is an Instagram model. Don’t follow his example, kids, or else that wretched fate may befall you too.

3

Sam Pepper

Sam Pepper is a former Big Brother UK contestant who managed to translate his brief reality TV fame into YouTube fame. He’s known for “pranking” people, which to be fair, isn’t some outrageous new trend. When I was in high school, guys were trying to punch each other in the dick and film it like Jackass, or screaming, “You just got Punk’d!” after knocking a friend’s book out of his hands.

The difference between Pepper and Ashton Kutcher is that Pepper’s audience is younger, and there’s no “Don’t try this at home kids” warning running in front of his content. His first controversy came in 2014, when he uploaded a video he called “fake hand ass pinch video,” which was just him pinching unsuspecting women’s asses with his real hand. After the backlash over the video, several women came forward with detailed accounts of sexual harassment and rape by Pepper. At least one rape accusation was investigated by the LAPD, but Pepper was never charged because the victim was not willing to testify after her father told her it would hurt her career.

Pepper continued his successful YouTube channel until 2015, when he staged another hilarious prank in which he convinced a young Vine star that his best friend was brutally murdered in front of him. After months of criticism about this incident, Pepper publicly confessed that his pranks were all faked, because if you did the things he pretended to do in public, you would be arrested. He then made his YouTube account private and deleted all of his tweets, going dark online for three whole months.

Today he still has 2.3 million YouTube subscribers despite infrequent posting (his latest video is called “HOW TO BUY ALCOHOL UNDERAGE * IT WORKED *”), plus he can boast another 1.3 million fans between Twitter and Instagram, plus some unknowable number of Snapchat followers. Oh, and he’s out there on the front line defending Logan Paul’s suicide forest video. Everyone is so triggered, you guys!

2

PewDiePie

PewDiePie is the Titan of YouTube. There’s really no comparable star in the old media world right now. You would have to make a human centipede out of George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, and Ryan Gosling to approximate the star power that PewDiePie has on YouTube. He currently has 61 million subscribers, ahead of his closest competitor by 23 million. Like a medically resistant staph infection, there just doesn’t seem to be anything that can stop him from growing.

In February of 2017, he paid two men on Fiverr (a “Pay strangers to do things for $5” site) to hold up a sign that said “Death to all Jews,” under the guise of this being the weirdest thing he could think to have somebody do for that amount of money.

PewDiePie/YouTube“Don’t forget to ‘Like’ and ‘Genocide’!”

Thanks to an article in The Wall Street Journal, the outrage went mainstream and a whole generation of old people had to figure out how to say “PewDiePie.”

The incident caused Disney’s Maker Studios to cut ties with him, as well as YouTube to drop him from their Google Preferred ad program. PewDiePie responded with a video saying his actions were a joke, which kind of isn’t the point. (Meanwhile, neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer featured a blog post congratulating him for “making the masses comfortable with our ideas.”)

But hey, anybody can screw up once. Seven months after this apology, however, PewDiePie loudly and clearly yelled the N-word while streaming an online game, noting later that he’d forgotten he was streaming to the public (you know, it’s the kind of thing he normally only says among friends). This time he said, “I’m not going to make any excuses for why I did it, because there are no excuses for it.” He went on to say he was disappointed in himself.

By now, you know how the story ends. The kind of thing that would have permanently sank the career of, say, a Seinfeld co-star is but a scratch on the hull of PewDiePie’s Star Destroyer. According to Forbes, he made 20 percent less than his 2016 earnings … which means he netted $12 million. Meanwhile, he gained about two million subscribers after the controversies, seemingly without losing any.

1

JonTron

Since this is 2018 and we find ourselves involuntarily grading racism on a curve, it’s easy to argue that PewDiePie isn’t as bad as the swarm of unapologetic racists that fill YouTube. He repeatedly says he doesn’t believe those things, that it’s all just shock value humor, that he’s learned his lesson, etc. That is not the case for JonTron, who was extremely eager to tell the world that those are in fact his views.

JonTron has 3.9 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, and turns up on a couple of others. He’s actually pretty funny — his whole persona is the cuddly nerd next door. Which is why it was so shocking to his fans when he took to Twitter to defend Republican Senator Steve King’s comment that “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”

JonTron/Twitter

When people called him out for it, he decided to clarify his views on the subject by discussing them with Steve Bonnell, a Twitch streamer knows as Destiny. Over the course of an excruciating two hours, JonTron clarified in great detail that he thinks racial purity is extremely important to the future of America, and that he fears the day whites become a minority (which he estimated would happen in 2042).

In response to angry fans, he said, “The fact that people think it’s troubling is what’s troubling.” In the course of the debate, he also claimed that wealthy black Americans commit more crimes than poor white Americans, that Mexicans are somehow attempting to recapture American land, and that “We don’t need immigrants from incompatible places.” Gee, I wonder which places he considers incompatible?

He then issued an apology for his clarification, saying, “I do completely understand that historically the African American community has had a raw deal in this country. Discrimination certainly exists but I do believe it goes all ways.” And later, “Any of the things in the stream that could be considered weird sounding or off-putting, I probably agree with you that they were. So, I hope you don’t read too much into it.”

OK? He seemed to swing wildly between “I’m a comedian, I don’t want to talk about politics” and “But here are my terrible politics, and if you don’t like them, you’re policing my thoughts” before finally landing on “Don’t listen to the things that I say.” At this point, do we even need to point out not only that JonTron still has his millions of subscribers, but also that his videos are still sponsored? The only lasting effect seems to be the entry about the controversy on his Wikipedia page.

The promise of the internet was always that there’d be no gatekeepers. You can publish directly to the world, bypassing editors, publishers, censors, TV networks, etc. Well, here it is. There is nothing between these guys and their audience, and what we’ve found is that their audience is not scared away by sexism, racism, or anything else.

The rest of us will have our weeks of outrage, and we’ll see vague headlines about boycotts and suspensions. While we’re patting ourselves on the back, these guys know they just need to hunker down for a bit and weather it. They know the audience isn’t going anywhere, and as long as the eyeballs are there, the money will follow. No matter what.

Ever notice how normal photographers are never embroiled in scandals? Stick to still-life with a Nikon DSLR camera.

Support Cracked’s journalism with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

For more, check out 5 Crappy Sides Of YouTube Stardom No One Talks About and The Fate Of 4 Internet ‘Celebrities’ After Viral Fame.

Also, follow us on Facebook, if you like jokes and stuff.

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-youtube-personalities-who-escaped-from-scandal-unscathed/

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[sanguinesprout]

Therapy/Counselling Diary #10 (plus some nuggets of cheeriness and tidbits of gloominess)

Eeee! I’ve been feeling quite the bit more chipper this week me thinks, I feel my efforts and confidence have grown some and even my sis has been noticing and congratulated meeeee ;w; I hope this continues onto next week and beyond! To infinity and beyond! ^^ (Too bad it doesn’t help my terrible memory all that much tho but hmm feels good, man lol and I did make sure to write a few notes so that’s something! :D)

So, my 10th appointment. It actually went pretty good! That sheet which I had to do with the emotions/thoughts/evidence columns and the sort of recap of what I learned, I did end up leaving them till last minute again (like literally less than an hour before the appointment, such badness ahh) but I scrawled it quick and I am so glad I write these posts here because without them I wouldn’t have remembered a lot of the stuff I needed to write! :3 Both physically and mentally, repetition is key! Accidental rhyming wheee!

So, as usual she asked how I was and I just said same-y same as usual, then we went over the sheet I wrote on. She told me to read them out to her and it kinda felt like uhhh but I guess it’s better than her attempting to read my scrawly writing haha. I didn’t read them word for word and some sections were omitted because she asked me for specific columns and stuff though but the main stuff got across. I re-wrote the few things I wrote on the previous sheet, about me going to shops on my own and walking to the post office and trying to converse with customers.

Generally with all of those situations and other similar ones my feelings would be stuff like ‘anxious, tense, nervous, self-conscious, tense, alert, awkward’ rated at a score of something between 80-95% and my thoughts were things like ‘they’re probably wondering what I’m doing there’, ‘they probably think I’m weird/awkward/look a mess or am even stealing’, ‘maybe someone will recognise me or can see I’m anxious’. The evidence to support this was uh, well, tbh I think I wrote nothing (or very little) and I kinda expected this in a way but I guess it depends on how hard you try to nitpick and negatively view the smaller details. 

The lesson is not to speculate and not jump the gun and make all these negative assumptions. Those irrational thoughts up in your mind have no real support, proving they hold not truth and are not to be listened to. They shouldn’t hold you back from doing things you want to do because they’re not real, just your mind conjuring ways to try bring yourself down with false beliefs of things based on past negative things and things that will never actually happen. You ain’t fooling no one no mores mr.snarky pants negative mind! >3<

I did manage to go to the post office again on my own, this time to post something and it went pretty smoothly, except on the way back this one random guy smoking outside his house commented to me something like ‘you should smile, you’ll get up the hill’ and then I kind of awkwardly smiled and walked past quickly and he was like ‘that’s better’. I was walking up a kind of hilly street, maybe a bit huffy looking and deep in concentration, when I saw that guy (he was conversing with someone else at first) and made eye contact a few metres away I actually did try to make myself smile a bit, but I was still feeling kind of tense (especially in my walking too) and I guess my super resting bitch face just didn’t shift and so came the awks.

Because of all the shizz in my past it instantly made me think he was well, mocking me about my appearance, but I pushed that aside immediately because I know this is just a negative assumption, but still I kept thinking back on it and feeling uncomfortable, especially because I actually kind of tried but the opposite happened, sucks. The counsellor told me that she had a similar situation in the past (except it was a gesture to smile while in her car on the road) and at first she felt kind of annoyed and was like wtf because whether she smiled or not was not this person’s business and she needn’t follow a strangers instruction. Yeah, that’s the feeling I had too exactly. But she said that even though this happened, she didn’t let it get to her and ruin her day and even though she wanted to flip him off she just ignored him (she talked quite colloquially and it was pretty awesome lol)

On the other hand though, I do definitely see the comment I got could have been something intended to genuinely try encourage me or cheer me up and I just took it the wrong way at first (though the comment it self is kinda uncomfortably worded imo). I don’t want to overanalyse the words or situation too much though, but I do feel it leans way more to the positive intention, or that’s what I’m gonna stick with, gotta not let my mind make it a negative. Anyways I got past that and idc about it anymore bc it’s true, it’s my face and imma do whatever I want with it *glares infinitely with short sightedness*. I remember reading an article online in the past about people expecting women to be all smiley all the time or something but who on earth would even be able to smile 24/7 and anyways do everything for yourself as always. 

Even the counsellor agreed that no one could walk around smiling all the time, but when you do smile, even a forced one, it is proven to make you feel a little more happy and it sure does, helps me feel a little more confident and positive too. My sis says she has problems with smiling a lot and sometimes asks me how she looks and I’ve read other people struggle with it to and have to practice it. I’ve kinda been inadvertently practicing it myself, but never really held one out in public unless I genuinely felt cheerful, though lately I have been trying to get more comfortable with it and it’s going alright. Being more observant of others and the little things that naturally bring smiles helps too, there’s a lot to appreciate out there like the pretty scenery and weather, cute kiddies and elderly people, it gives back the feeling that everything’s not all that bad out there and that there’s a lot more things to smile about ^^

Anyways back to what I was saying about the sheet. There was also a column supporting against the thoughts and I put some things like ‘no one recognised me or approached me about things’ (maybe excluding dat 1 guy of course lol) and there was a column for a more realistic view on things and I wrote stuff like ‘everyone is busy doing their own thing’ (aka. no1curr lol) then proceeded to re-score my feelings and they dropped down to something between the range of uhhh ‘30-70%’ (I don’t have the sheet on me so moar memory fails lol). It shows that everything is actually nowhere near as bad as you’d assume, if you never tried you wouldn’t have been able to see this and would have been stuck still thinking the same catastrophic things and even escalating them further and scaring yourself more. You need to take a more realistic view on things, base things on facts and not believe what you hear from the dark space in your head or see through pessimism clouded glasses.

During all this discussion she praised me a lot, told me how far I’ve come and I was like ‘uhh ahhh thanks’ and ‘it’s thanks to you’ and she was like no no it’s all your doing >< She also praised me about going to the shoe shop and getting my refund (lol) and going to other places especially on my own. I am very thankful for her help and her pushing me to get my lazy mopey ass up, counselling/therapy do recommend! ^^ I’m glad I decided to go and I’m glad I tried because it really helped me get out of this dark hole I fell in and lived in for so long, though I still roll back down there a lot but at least I know how to get out now! Only one session left, feel kind of sad about it *sigh* I kinda feel like I wanna gift something but idk if I should (or what I would give anyways, I’m so hella poor and indecisive rn) ;;

The next thing we did was talk about my next steps towards my goal of getting a job. She told me to volunteer at some places like charities so that I’d be able to gain the experience and have references. I took the idea on board but was thinking maybe I could get some work experience at where my sister works if possible. I’m kinda chickening out a little I know, but I have actually gained a little bit of experience from a charity shop before in the past during school time and I can’t say I loved the experience, not to say this time would be the same but idk... tbh I really like where my sis works, I would love to actually apply for it someday, to have a taste of it now would be very useful to me. Who knows how things will go or where I’ll be next, it could go really great if I try hard enough, I really need to believe in myself more and learn to just go with the flow.

My sis was feeling a bit sad about work lately though, that the pay is not high enough and said something to me like ‘if you were working we wouldn’t be struggling as much’ and it totally drained away any cheerfulness I had that day. If I could have, I would’ve been working years ago like I wanted to, it’s just... ahhhhh..! *eternal wailing and angst*. My sister helps my parents financially often when needed and funds things for me too, there’s that feeling of me being a burden again, but I am trying this time..! Feels bad man ;; Now’s not the time to be falling back into gloominess, one of my biggest motivations to work and make money is so my parents won’t have to, so they can rest and have free time to have fun, so we can spend time together too! I want to be able to save up enough money so we can all go somewhere nice and afford nice things. I need to try much much harder, c’mon I can do it..!

She didn’t ask about the recap notes I was asked to write, so I prompted her about it and I’m glad I did (and didn’t just hope she forgot so she wouldn’t look at it like how I always tried to wiggle out of my homework being seen at school lol), because none of it was wrong or silly like I thought it may be, in fact it was great! (Hah! Eat those facts silly thoughts!). I read it all out and she was impressed and praised me about that too, that I had learned all these things and remembered them and taken them on board successfully. For next time I have a whole bunch of sheets to fill in, ones to do with what I’ve learned and my goals for the future etc. I‘m already feeling that mental fatigue just thinking about it, but I’m not gonna leave it till last minute this time! Time to break the habit and just do it!!

In my own time, I do feel I am more comfortable going out more, even though its just something as mundane as going to the supermarket, but not feeling so anxious or afraid feels great! I feel like I can almost be ‘normal’ in those kinds of environments. I went to the big shopping centre again, this time with my sis’s bf’s mum there too and I made lots of effort to converse with her even though I suck at speaking my second language, I tried real hard and it was good and my sis was impressed and even I’m proud of myself. I wanted to be less awkward with relatives and I feel I’ve begun to slowly bridge that gap lately, build up better relationships or impressions and such.

In the shopping centre I browsed around feeling pretty comfy and chipper, the only time I tensed a little was when buying food in a busy food court, passing some guys (lame I know) and when I had some awk but kinda comically awkward moments with the store guy at this shoe shop I went to, but I tried real hard there too and I successfully got some shoes in the end for me (and my mum too) and they were much comfier than that previous shop I had to refund to lol! I still haven’t worn them out yet and they are still a lil snug for me but I hope they loosen a little over time and become real comfy like the old ones I have and wear all the time. (Afterwards I noticed that guy at the shoe shop reaaaally reminds me of this one from one of those viral twitter posts too and I can’t unsee it lmaooo xD)

I feel like I’ve been taking care of myself a bit better, so my appearance improved a little and my self confidence has gone up a little more which is also why I’m feeling better about going out. I wanna continue to try do things to improve myself, for myself! As with everything, the more effort, the better the result! :D I want to stop bringing up excuses for why I can’t go out or do things, because there is nothing really stopping me but myself and my habitual unwillingness. I can do everything if I put my mind to it hoo! (Or maybe not put my mind to it? You know ‘cause it likes to go off on it’s own spiral of doom haha)

I also baked the same cookies I made previously but with an improved/non-improvised recipe and it turned out even better omnomnom ^^ I also tried making hummus and well it wasn’t great but it wasn’t bad, it was good for a first try! I wanna try make something else next, I’m pumped! Keep trying, keep learning! :D

In my art related postings, I’m still kind of hibernating and I really really hate that I’m still like this, I’m still seriously overthinking things here and it makes me so mad at myself uuuugh! I keep itching to comment on things too but have been holding myself back there too cause I still feel ashamed and am just hiding and avoiding again. I keep waiting for the motivation to come or a spell of confidence or even numbness to the fear of judgement but it’s just wasting more time because I’m not doing or moving forward. I don’t want to be too hard on myself though, because the other things have been taking up my time and thought space and are technically much more important but I do want to also get somewhere with this too. Man, I’m such a frustrating person .___.”

I read somewhere recently that motivation only really comes after you tried and showed yourself you can do it and then it spurs you on. I feel this is very true. Even though I have not been able to sit down and commit myself to drawing or experimenting with mediums seriously yet, I’ve still done some small comforting doodles on scraps when driven by my feelings or boredom and even though they aren’t the most beautiful and detailed things, I still like them and impressed myself a little too, it does make me want to try some more. So why aren’t I doing so? Remember it doesn’t have to be perfect silly me! It doesn’t matter what other people think! Do it for yourself! >w<

Now that I’ve written this post imma do something good and useful and fulfilling! I’ll either fill in those sheets for next week, do some art related things or spend time with my parents! I can do it! I’m doing well! I can do even better! Go go go! *^*

Have a great evening! Keep going! ^^

[sportsandfitnessinfo]

New Post has been published on http://fitnessandhealthpros.com/fitness/smells-like-team-spirit-altitude-training-at-camp-brooks/

Smells Like Team Spirit: Altitude Training at Camp Brooks

The FBG/Brooks Running connection isn’t anything new. We’ve been part of their blog ambassador program for years (and that means you’re likely to find some affiliate links here, so if you see something you like, we’d be honored if you purchased through our link! Each year, either Jenn or I have attended the annual trip Brooks puts on for us (2016, 2015, 2014, 2013). I’m not alone in saying that we’ve formed a really tight knit community with the other bloggers in the program — seeing them each year is an absolute highlight.

I adore these women SO HARD. (Find all their blogs at the bottom of the post!)

But what I hadn’t realized until my recent trip to Albuquerque for Altitude Camp with Brooks is that this feeling of being a team? It’s not unique to the bloggers. It’s a huge part of the Brooks culture — a part that we saw firsthand while spending a weekend training and learning with the Brooks Beasts (a group of middle-distance professional athletes based in Seattle, but attending a few weeks of Altitude Camp in New Mexico).

(Before I tell you all about camp, let me be clear — Brooks generously paid for my travel and accommodations, and also hooked me up with some sweet gear that I’ll share later in the post, but I’m under no obligation to write about it all, so anything you read? That’s all me, baby. If I say it rocked, it rocked. The end.)

Meet the Camp Counselors

The weekend started on a hilarious note with an introduction to the Beasts who’d be our “camp counselors” for the weekend. They introduced each other, sharing their teammates’ accomplishments, some funny and surprising facts (like, I now know who really likes spending time in their robe, who will feed you pancakes … but only if you catch them in your mouth, and who’s been detained in a foreign country for unwittingly crossing the border on a long run without a passport), and the affection (not to mention admiration) they felt for one another was evident.

The introductions were followed by a fascinating presentation on the benefits (and risks) of altitude training by the team’s physiologist, Dr. Corey Hart. There was a whole lotta knowledge dropped in a short amount of time, but one of the key takeaways for those of us living at sea level is something I’d also learned in my USAT training: if you’re gonna race at altitude, either show up less than two days before your race or plan to be there for a minimum of 10-17 days prior to race day. In between? Nope, nope, nope.

Track Time

Then, it was off to the track, where the team building really got going. We were broken into several teams, each with a couple other bloggers, some other athletes/influencers/editors, and two Beasts as our coaches. Team Yellow (which was NEVER mellow) totally lucked out with Jess Tonn and Izaic Yorks — they were positive and encouraging gave us some great dynamic stretches, which you know I am all about.

Here’s the gear we were provided: Pick Up Tank (although, sorry, had to be there to get the Altitude Camp graphic), Juno Bra (not pictured but hella supportive) and 5″ Chaser Running Shorts — I’ve been wearing the heck out of my 3″ Chasers, and found the 5″ to be a nice option for days when I want to flash a little less booty. We also checked out the Greenlight Running Capris (not pictured here), which were a huge hit with the group.

I really loved having a chance to go all out in a group like this. There were some elite runners there, as well as some runners who were more my speed, but there’s something about giving absolutely everything you have in a workout — and knowing others around you are doing the same. We might not have run the same pace (lol forever), but we were all there, sweating and cheering each other on, and the energy was infectious.

(This is where I probably need to give a shoutout to my teammate Dan — who I’d known for all of maybe five minutes — for forcibly keeping me upright after that last 200m effort. Otherwise I might still be flat on my back on the track.)

Hey, it was St. Paddy’s Day — what was I gonna do, wear normal shoes?

Launch 4 pictured here. You can’t get the special St. Patrick’s day design anymore, but there are still a bunch of fun colors (plus Boston Launch 4)!

(Don’t worry, I’ll be sharing the workout with you guys soon. Stay tuned.)

After the track workout, we had a group dinner at the hotel while listening to Coach Danny Mackey talk about how he works with the Beasts, and how each one of his athletes works differently and it’s his job to bring out the best in them.

The most powerful part for me — and I think for a lot of people, really — was how passionately he talked about that team atmosphere, and how important it was that any new athlete joining their team not only bring the required athletic talent, but also the right attitude. That’s not to say there are no egos — this is an elite team of professionals, with Olympians and world record holders and people who are very much used to winning — but when you bring that kind of drive and pour it not only into your own workouts, but into your teammates’, you get some real magic. I’m so excited to see what the Beasts accomplish in the coming years.

Running Trails With New and Old Friends

I think everyone was seriously excited about the trail run at Michial M. Emery Bear Canyon Trail, but I’ll admit, I was also a little nervous. This is a fast group and even if I could keep up, I also wanted to enjoy this run and take in the scenery. Fortunately (for me — less fortunately for some of them), a few of my fellow bloggers were running a little slower than usual (pregnancy and injuries), so I had a photography-friendly group with me as I kicked up dirt and searched for sunbeams.

All of us were ready to run … and all wearing (mostly) the same gear!

All suited up here in the Caldera Trail-Running Shoe, which everyone seemed to really love (myself included) and Cascadia Shell Running Jacket, which — fun fact — has tons of ventilation and packs down into its own front pocket.

Running mountainous trails at an elevation of over 6,000 feet is not the easiest thing for a Florida girl who lives in a city with literally one hill, but I’d be shocked if I stopped smiling at any point. It was just too beautiful.

Cactus: not recommended. Calderas? Definitely recommend.

Well, maybe once, when I almost ran into a cactus. Pro tip: When running in the desert, don’t touch the cacti. You are welcome.

#WORTHIT

Lunching and Learning

After an inspiring run (seriously, the weather was just perfect, the company sublime … I wish I could bottle that feeling and take it home), we wrote down how running made us feel (I went with “invicible”) and headed back to the hotel for a quick shower and then lunch with Brooks Beasts’ nutritionist Kyle Pfaffenbach. His primary message: every body is different, so it’s important to find nutrition that works for you. And it’s not only about what makes one’s body function best — he also puts a serious focus on what each athlete wants, because forcing them to follow a diet they hate, even if it benefits their performance, won’t work in the long run.

But, as Dr. P said, you can’t outrun a bad diet — and that’s not only true at the elite level. (So eat yo’ veggies and protein, guys, and don’t skimp on the recovery drink. I’ll have more on this on Fit Bottomed Eats coming soon.)

The learning continued in breakout sessions. We shared our favorite running gear and apparel, discussed why we run, and then got the scoop on what really goes into designing new Brooks shoes. Hint: some of the athletes wear test and provide feedback on them, which not only helps the finished product rock, but also gives these world class athletes a real feeling of ownership over the shoes they’re wearing when they walk up to the start line.

Okay, granted, they don’t look super jazzed here. But I SWEAR it was a really lively conversation, and it was awesome to hear how passionate these runners (Nick Symmonds, Katie Mackey, Drew Windle and Garrett Heath) are about their shoes and the Brooks Running brand.

Eating Like a Champ at the Beasts’ House

Our final event was a trip to the house all the Beasts were living in while in New Mexico for a cookout. But first, we broke up into our teams one last time for an energy bar contest. Team Yellow came in second place (although I maintain we were robbed — who’s gonna vote against our Balls From Heaven?), and were rewarded with a prime spot in the beer line. It was definitely shaping up to be my kind of night.

Nice digs, huh? Wait ’til you see the view.

We enjoyed chips and guac, burgers (veggie with green chilies and cheese for me), but, most importantly, conversation. I chatted with lots of the Beasts about all kinds of things — Drew Windle about what he wants to do when he’s done running professionally, Katie Mackey about her 11-mile tempo runs (ZOMG), Garrett Heath about … how hard it is to find beach parking in Florida? Ugh, I am so awkward. I swear I’m more interesting than that. But hey, he was totally nice about it (and probably learned some very valuable lessons, right?). I also learned that Cas Loxsom has super fast reflexes during a heated game of Left, Right, Center. But this shouldn’t be all that surprising given what he does for a living, I guess.

It probably won’t make you even more jealous that I snapped this pic surrounded by a bunch of super-friendly pro runners, right?

If this seems like a long recap, let me just say that the amount I had to leave out is probably double what I wrote. Those Brooks peeps sure know how to pack in a weekend! But if you want to read a little more about our Albuquerque adventures, check out what the other bloggers on the trip had to say.

Jesica: rUnladylike

Anne: fANNEtastic Food

Janae: Hungry Runner Girl

Lora: Crazy Running Girl

Tina: Carrots ‘N’ Cake

Ashley: Healthy Happier Bear

Emily: Daily Garnish

Meghann: Meals and Miles

And I’d strongly recommend heading over to Instagram and checking out the #CampBrooks hashtag — you’ll get an inside look at the weekend, and I can almost promise you’ll find some fun new people to follow. I sure did!

But before you go, drop a comment below telling me why you run. Bonus points if you keep it to five words or less! I’ll go first: Because I CAN. —Kristen

Originally at :Fit Bottomed Girls Written By : Kristen

#Altitude, #Brooks, #Camp, #Like, #Smells, #Spirit, #Team, #Training #Fitness

[trendingnewsb]

5 YouTube Personalities Who Escaped From Scandal Unscathed

I’ve come to the conclusion that a big YouTube personality could hunt people on a private island, make a video about it called “Human Death Prank,” and that it would A) get several million views and B) would have no lasting consequences for the YouTuber.

We’ve fallen into a pattern wherein there’s a new scandal featuring one of these people every month, and it always ends the same way. The performer will lay low for a few weeks. YouTube might slap them on the wrist, maybe an advertiser drops. Then they’ll just start churning out the exact same content, having learned nothing and making just as much (in some cases more) money than before. Here, let’s revisit some recently scandalized social media celebs and see where they are now …

5

Logan Paul

You probably know Logan Paul as one of the many YouTube celebrities who looks like all of his hair is trying to escape from his head.

Logan Paul/YouTubeHis father is a Bloomin’ Onion and his mother a can of Red Bull.

You might also have heard of his most recent scandal, in which he posted a video of a suicide victim’s corpse in Japan’s Aokigahara forest. After a public uproar, he spoke to Michael Strahan on Good Morning America, saying, “I am a good guy who made a bad decision” — a claim that is 100 percent true if you remove the word “good” from it.

For you see, good guy Logan Paul has a storied past of doing things that are objectively dumb and also terrible. Like the time he pretend to be shot in the back of the head in front a crowd of screaming 10-12-year-old children. As soon as he returned to YouTube after the suicide forest video controversy, he immediately showed his respect for the sanctity of life by pulling a fish out of a pond and pretending to give it CPR and tasing some dead rats.

YouTube cited Paul’s “recent pattern of behavior” (corporate speak for “We’re secretly worried this person might be a budding serial killer”) when they decided to suspend ad revenue on his account, which has 16 million subscribers, many or most of whom are children. The suspension lasted for two whole weeks. It’s been reported that he actually gained around 80,000 subscribers after his recent controversies. And why not? He made international headlines. You can’t buy that kind of publicity!

And the next time he thinks his channel needs a boost, well, now he knows exactly how to do it.

4

Carter Reynolds

If you Google “Carter Reynolds,” the first result is a Business Insider article titled “The Rise And Fall Of Cater Reynolds.” Directly below that is the link for Reynolds’ Twitter account. He has 3.08 million followers. That … seems like a pretty cushy fall, but we’ll come back to that.

Reynolds got his start on Vine (remember that?), where at some point he is reported to have had four million followers — enough that he was able to get sponsorships from brands like Coca-Cola and travel the U.S. with “The Carter Tour.” He’s the kind of social media star who’s not particularly famous for anything more than being affable and good-looking in a non-threatening way that’s especially appealing to young girls. A few weeks ago, he tweeted “frozen yogurt sounds so good right now” …

Carters Reynolds/Twitter

… and it was retweeted 451 times. That’s pretty representative of his creative output.

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In June of 2015, a video was leaked of Reynolds (19 at the time) and his ex-girlfriend, fellow social media star Maggie Lindemann (16 at the time). In it, Reynolds tries to pressure the visibly intoxicated Lindemann into giving him oral sex while he records it. Lindemann continuously repeats “I can’t” and “This makes me so uncomfortable” until he turns off the camera. Reynolds at first apologized in a single-line tweet, but then did a quick 360, saying on a YouNow stream that Lindemann owed him an apology for “things you guys don’t know about.” He added, “I didn’t rape her. She knows that herself … The fact that she’s trying to be all innocent now or something … it didn’t affect her that much. I know it didn’t.”

When Lindemann tweeted that she was in the hospital shortly after the video was released, Reynolds responded by tweeting, “Maggie is saying I’m the reason why she’s in the hospital … lol nah you’re just crazy and psychotic. Fuck you.” After receiving backlash, he then threatened to commit suicide on Twitter, apologized for it, and took a social media sabbatical.

The result? Well, in addition to his 3.08 million Twitter followers, today he has 3.2 million Instagram followers and 817,000 YouTube subscribers. While he’s no longer sponsored by Coca-Cola, he still does sponsored Instagram posts, including a recent one for Core water. He also sells merchandise and is getting ready to launch a clothing line with his new girlfriend, who is an Instagram model. Don’t follow his example, kids, or else that wretched fate may befall you too.

3

Sam Pepper

Sam Pepper is a former Big Brother UK contestant who managed to translate his brief reality TV fame into YouTube fame. He’s known for “pranking” people, which to be fair, isn’t some outrageous new trend. When I was in high school, guys were trying to punch each other in the dick and film it like Jackass, or screaming, “You just got Punk’d!” after knocking a friend’s book out of his hands.

The difference between Pepper and Ashton Kutcher is that Pepper’s audience is younger, and there’s no “Don’t try this at home kids” warning running in front of his content. His first controversy came in 2014, when he uploaded a video he called “fake hand ass pinch video,” which was just him pinching unsuspecting women’s asses with his real hand. After the backlash over the video, several women came forward with detailed accounts of sexual harassment and rape by Pepper. At least one rape accusation was investigated by the LAPD, but Pepper was never charged because the victim was not willing to testify after her father told her it would hurt her career.

Pepper continued his successful YouTube channel until 2015, when he staged another hilarious prank in which he convinced a young Vine star that his best friend was brutally murdered in front of him. After months of criticism about this incident, Pepper publicly confessed that his pranks were all faked, because if you did the things he pretended to do in public, you would be arrested. He then made his YouTube account private and deleted all of his tweets, going dark online for three whole months.

Today he still has 2.3 million YouTube subscribers despite infrequent posting (his latest video is called “HOW TO BUY ALCOHOL UNDERAGE * IT WORKED *”), plus he can boast another 1.3 million fans between Twitter and Instagram, plus some unknowable number of Snapchat followers. Oh, and he’s out there on the front line defending Logan Paul’s suicide forest video. Everyone is so triggered, you guys!

2

PewDiePie

PewDiePie is the Titan of YouTube. There’s really no comparable star in the old media world right now. You would have to make a human centipede out of George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, and Ryan Gosling to approximate the star power that PewDiePie has on YouTube. He currently has 61 million subscribers, ahead of his closest competitor by 23 million. Like a medically resistant staph infection, there just doesn’t seem to be anything that can stop him from growing.

In February of 2017, he paid two men on Fiverr (a “Pay strangers to do things for $5” site) to hold up a sign that said “Death to all Jews,” under the guise of this being the weirdest thing he could think to have somebody do for that amount of money.

PewDiePie/YouTube“Don’t forget to ‘Like’ and ‘Genocide’!”

Thanks to an article in The Wall Street Journal, the outrage went mainstream and a whole generation of old people had to figure out how to say “PewDiePie.”

The incident caused Disney’s Maker Studios to cut ties with him, as well as YouTube to drop him from their Google Preferred ad program. PewDiePie responded with a video saying his actions were a joke, which kind of isn’t the point. (Meanwhile, neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer featured a blog post congratulating him for “making the masses comfortable with our ideas.”)

But hey, anybody can screw up once. Seven months after this apology, however, PewDiePie loudly and clearly yelled the N-word while streaming an online game, noting later that he’d forgotten he was streaming to the public (you know, it’s the kind of thing he normally only says among friends). This time he said, “I’m not going to make any excuses for why I did it, because there are no excuses for it.” He went on to say he was disappointed in himself.

By now, you know how the story ends. The kind of thing that would have permanently sank the career of, say, a Seinfeld co-star is but a scratch on the hull of PewDiePie’s Star Destroyer. According to Forbes, he made 20 percent less than his 2016 earnings … which means he netted $12 million. Meanwhile, he gained about two million subscribers after the controversies, seemingly without losing any.

1

JonTron

Since this is 2018 and we find ourselves involuntarily grading racism on a curve, it’s easy to argue that PewDiePie isn’t as bad as the swarm of unapologetic racists that fill YouTube. He repeatedly says he doesn’t believe those things, that it’s all just shock value humor, that he’s learned his lesson, etc. That is not the case for JonTron, who was extremely eager to tell the world that those are in fact his views.

JonTron has 3.9 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, and turns up on a couple of others. He’s actually pretty funny — his whole persona is the cuddly nerd next door. Which is why it was so shocking to his fans when he took to Twitter to defend Republican Senator Steve King’s comment that “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”

JonTron/Twitter

When people called him out for it, he decided to clarify his views on the subject by discussing them with Steve Bonnell, a Twitch streamer knows as Destiny. Over the course of an excruciating two hours, JonTron clarified in great detail that he thinks racial purity is extremely important to the future of America, and that he fears the day whites become a minority (which he estimated would happen in 2042).

In response to angry fans, he said, “The fact that people think it’s troubling is what’s troubling.” In the course of the debate, he also claimed that wealthy black Americans commit more crimes than poor white Americans, that Mexicans are somehow attempting to recapture American land, and that “We don’t need immigrants from incompatible places.” Gee, I wonder which places he considers incompatible?

He then issued an apology for his clarification, saying, “I do completely understand that historically the African American community has had a raw deal in this country. Discrimination certainly exists but I do believe it goes all ways.” And later, “Any of the things in the stream that could be considered weird sounding or off-putting, I probably agree with you that they were. So, I hope you don’t read too much into it.”

OK? He seemed to swing wildly between “I’m a comedian, I don’t want to talk about politics” and “But here are my terrible politics, and if you don’t like them, you’re policing my thoughts” before finally landing on “Don’t listen to the things that I say.” At this point, do we even need to point out not only that JonTron still has his millions of subscribers, but also that his videos are still sponsored? The only lasting effect seems to be the entry about the controversy on his Wikipedia page.

The promise of the internet was always that there’d be no gatekeepers. You can publish directly to the world, bypassing editors, publishers, censors, TV networks, etc. Well, here it is. There is nothing between these guys and their audience, and what we’ve found is that their audience is not scared away by sexism, racism, or anything else.

The rest of us will have our weeks of outrage, and we’ll see vague headlines about boycotts and suspensions. While we’re patting ourselves on the back, these guys know they just need to hunker down for a bit and weather it. They know the audience isn’t going anywhere, and as long as the eyeballs are there, the money will follow. No matter what.

Ever notice how normal photographers are never embroiled in scandals? Stick to still-life with a Nikon DSLR camera.

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