#who seems to be self-aware and aware of the viewer

[seewetter]

Mono-cultures absolutely bother me too, but I'm not sure that's a universal rule of the quality of writingTM.

Many of the most beloved shows (like all shows based on Star Trek) do this.

It tends to irk people as an indication that the fantasy culture is disposable. Let's say Captain Kirk/Picard/Janeway are trying to help a planet of aliens whose planet conveniently seems to have exactly one (1) moral dilemma or cultural conflict. Because that's their only issue, it might get neatly solved at the end of one (1) Star Trek episode. So what did our human Federation accomplish? Do the aliens live in a Utopia now that space racism is solved? Or did the crew of the Enterprise / Voyager just do the equivalent of lending a stranger a hand whose car broke down at the side of the road.

Basically, when the Voyager or Enterprise starts the next episode, the extremely planet-threatening problem from the previous episode is mostly forgotten. They don't behave like people who lived through that planetary crisis, which is not due to specifically writing a planet with 1 culture, but instead due to the writers not building on each others ideas and the showrunners keeping the show simple for new viewers. Basically, Star Trek (and Stargate and countless sci-fi shows in space) have lots of self-contained episodes and the writers are afraid of risking too much complex politics and throwing around too much alien terminology: if we are on the equivalent of space Malaysia, maybe offhandedly mentioning the rest of space Asia will only distract viewers. Stories like this often have an Odyssey-like format of their adventures, making only brief pit stops at various "islands" (islands the size of planets).

But this wasn't / isn't a problem for the original Odyssey. Do we expect cyclopses from the small island where they live to have great cultural diversity? Do people widely complain about how the land of lotus-eaters is a mono-culture? No, because even in the real world, islands can be mono-cultures. New Zealand has one indigenous group living on it and Japan has Ainu and had Emishi but otherwise is very mono-cultural too. And that goes even more so for smaller islands and island groups, from Tasmania to Hawaii and from the Maldives to the Canary Islands.

So the mono-cultures that bother me are the ones where the world feels disjointed. This comes down to presentation. Guild Wars Prophecies presents "the Deldrimor dwarves" as ancient allies of the humans of Ascalon who might lend a hand to your ragtag group of refugees while fleeing through "their" mountains. The story leaves it completely up to your imagination how many other groups of dwarf may inhabit (or have inhabited in the past) this world. Traveling through the mountains then makes you aware of the civil war between them and the Stone Summit and you don't know how much further this part of the world has been developed or where you will go, but this is clearly an interesting regional conflict that ties into your character's desire for freedom. For all I know, the Stone Summit might also be Deldrimor, just a disgruntled internal faction. This might be a dwarf mono-culture. And yet, because they are at war, a war that doesn't exist just for the Federation humans to solve it, they gain agency, they appear to exist beyond the needs of "creating some content" for the audience, they appear to inform the themes of the story in a way that more directly ties to our world, where conflicts also often precede and persist beyond our own involvement with them. So even though traveling through the mountains is a chapter of the story, it's not disjointed, it doesn't give off that feeling like this world doesn't matter. Obviously that's partly because it's part of not a tv series but a video game and viewers aren't "just tuning in", players are playing the entire game. The Guild Wars franchise has the exact same problems as Star Trek once people buy more than one game... then it's just as disjointed and disconnected, held together only by post-hoc rationalizations.

Mono-cultures tie into many problems in fantasy such as

worlds centered on homo sapiens which feel just like all other worlds centered on homo sapiens, with all the non-homo sapiens coming across as small modular additions to the fantasy world...their mono-cultures further reinforcing the impression that they exist to build on one (1) archetype that interested the writer, with some added world-building to flesh out their one (1) culture

worlds with unacknowledged ethnostates. The country isn't just majority dwarf, it's a dwarf state, with non-dwarfs inexplicably absent. This is obviously politically appealing to alt-right writers or whatever, but lots of progressives will write these kinds of societies without using even one of their self-awareness related brain cells. Ethnostates are bland and grim, but that doesn't come across in fantasy with long journeys that take brief pit stops with the "culture of the week".

societies that don't contribute much to the stories they are in, because you quickly learn everything there is to know

stories that read very allegorical, which isn't necessarily a problem unless you are trying to avoid allegory. The more monolithic a culture, the more their universal traits seem to be symbolic of some specific thing. This works if the beings are a hivemind like the Borg or if the logic and subduing of emotions is a virtue their society wishes to promote like with Vulcans, but it doesn't work so well if your name is J.R.R. Tolkien, all your orcs are evil, all your elves are blessed, beautiful and (in LOTR) embodiments of virtue but you really don't want people to read your work as allegory even though all your cultures have these essential simplified features that makes people wonder why that feature is there and what it meaaaannnns.

There's probably more problems I'm not thinking of right now.

But basically, my point is that the problem with mono-cultures isn't "when they are a mono-culture that's bad and when there's lots that's good". After all, you need to connect your audience with the material you are writing. For example, when I learn about history IRL I usually need to know what to do with the new information, otherwise I forget. I can learn a list of likely suspects to have caused the late Bronze Age collapse, but the ones I remember are the Sherden (because they wore viking style horned helmets and were sea raiders, which is funny because vikings did not wear viking style horned helmets), the Philistines (because the Bible keeps complaining about the Philistines), the Terramare culture (because they built all their houses on stilts even after moving to an environment where that wasn't necessary) and the Mycenaeans (because the idea that the sack of Troy is presented as a heroic adventure but is in fact part of the collapse of civilization is wild to me). There were plenty of other cultures causing the collapse, but I remember those four because I can relate this to something I already know about (cliche Vikings, stilt houses to ward off comodo dragons, the Iliad and Bible). A lot of people complain that "all [Vulcans] are like [this]" and then proceed to create the kind of world-building where "the [late Bronze Age collapse] was caused by [long list of peoples that mean nothing to the audience]".

What generally works better than just adding more content that makes the world more complicated at the expense of reader interest, is to find ways to hook people into ideas they can somehow make sense of, then put a handful of cultural/political/religious/linguistic/economic actors into motion (possibly literally moving them from one geographic location to another but more likely having them do something, having them intervene or escalate or de-escalate or deliberately avoid a confrontation etc.). You can have isolated societies (like Japan/Ainu/Emishi or like Maori) and you can have cultural histories (and expected and unexpected connections that come from that) and conflict zones and trade routes and so on. You'll usually get a sense for what ideas you are interested in and what you would like to show your readers. And that is the direction you can move your world towards, so you get to explore those ideas.

In other words, how much complexity your world has is dependant on if it is meant to be complex or not. Most highly successful fantasy and sci-fi isn't very complex. The empire (called The Empire) fights the rebels (called the rebels). The empire of Alagaesia is located on the continent of Alagaesia and fights the rebels (called the rebels) as well as getting in trouble with the dwarves and elves and Surda, the human nation to the South. Stargate is quickly understood as United States vs Goa'uld or in later seasons and spin-offs, United States vs Ori or United States vs wraiths. The xenomorphs are the main alien species to worry about in Alien. The Fifth element does not force you to grapple with more than an evil force trying to destroy the universe and some benevolent aliens trying to save the universe by creating the fifth element. Any cute heterosexual pop stars with interesting hair are purely incidental to the main conflict. Whether Tom Cruise is fighting AI in the newest Mission Impossible or Will Smith is fighting alien invaders in Independance Day, things are often surprisingly non-complex. There is often little time to get to know the aliens in Men in Black and I don't know if what happens there is anything other than mono-cultural.

And that's not to say there aren't lots of complex worlds that work very well and have loads of fans. But the complexity is often a matter of thinking about how you will present a thing. I love Labyrinth, the movie, and I think it's a wild odyssey through a labyrinth, not a treatise on diversity. I think The Princess Bride is one of the best books I ever read and one of the best movies I ever watched, but I don't think we are dealing with cultural complexity there. I love Francois Place's Phantastical journeys, which is highly culturally diverse, but really features mostly mono-cultures that are experiencing a period of cultural contact with outsiders of some sort.

That's how I interpret OPs (warthogreporter's) complaint. A lot of new writers over-estimate the importance of adding diversity or complexity to their worlds. They get confused about why diversity works so well in certain settings. But I wouldn't say that I liked Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive more than Labyrinth or Princess Bride, though it's a weird comparison to make. I love The Neverending Story and Guild Wars Prophecies and their diversity is a part of what I love, but it's how these worlds are diverse that makes them interesting, rather than wanting to see more worlds that badly imitate them and create a muddled mess (in the sense that the audience doesn't know which parts of this world will be relevant to the story).

As a writer, you want to avoid infodumping trivia. And you'll never finish that story if you don't start writing until your economic system and geography and magical physics are completely air tight to all scientific scrutiny.

That's why I agree with warthogreporter. I can appreciate that if a world has tieflings or dragonborn, you may want to have them be members of more than one culture and you may want lots of predominantly naga societies that are very different. But that doesn't mean putting your world first and your story second, unless you are mainly a world-builder and not trying to mainly be a storyteller.

My stance is that if you're a young and/or beginner fantasy writer, you need to stay far away from online fantasy discourse because it will get you obsessing over shit that does not actually matter to anyone other than online nitpickers.

If someone can't read one of the foundational works of fantasy about the importance of seemingly insignificant persons because the map has unrealistic geography, that's actually a them problem. You don't need to research geography, agriculture, economics, or any other logistics so that everything is realistic, you need to tell a story.

[monkee-mobile]

okay random headcanon but peter likes to nuzzle with his nose!! he gets all smiley and snuggly and just nuzzles in!!

also the monkees set aside time in the day to snuggle, usually before they crash for bed. this probably starts sometimes in the 70s and continues as they get older

okay thank you bye!!!

[evellynssocbrainrot]

Kaz and Inej both wear emotional armor. But here is the difference.

Kaz's armor is very obvious to anyone who spends a little while with him because he wears it all over his surface. So when bits of his true self fall through the cracks, anyone can tell. That's why it makes Kaz seem so vulnerable to the readers of the books/viewers of the show. That's why the emotions that follow are so overwhelming.

Inej, on the other hand, wears her armor beneath a thick layer of humanity, which makes it much harder to see. You'd think she isn't wearing any armor because she already seems very expressive about who she is. But jokes on you, she isn't. There is so much about her that nobody in the entire Grisha world is aware of. Her armor runs even deeper than Kaz's. Her humanity is bear for the world to see, but her soul is concealed somewhere in her darkest most hidden depths.

And this also leads me to believe that the time it will take Inej to fully heal from her trauma might be even longer than the time it takes Kaz. As soon as Kaz lets his walls down, as soon as he accepts his brother's fate and lets go of his past, as soon as he begins to touch without being triggered, he's free of his trauma. Because in simple terms, all Kaz is doing is ridding himself of his armor, which is on his surface.

Inej though, she needs to find a way to express her repressed rage and sadness in a way that doesn't destroy her humanity, her faith, which are very important to her. In fact, she's out in the world hunting slavers and attempting to save everyone. As badass and girlboss of her that is, it's also a small indication that Inej still hasn't recovered from her trauma. She still hasn't let go of her past. She is attempting to fight the world one on. I can't fully put it into words because I'm half braindead right now, but I fully believe that it will take Inej longer to properly heal from her trauma than Kaz.

[lennythereviewer]

Theory: Jax is NOT a self-aware NPC nor is he actually trapped in the circus: He's a hacker who can leave at any time.

Even what little we got in terms of Jax content in episode 3 has been reinforcing a belief I've had for awhile, and in fact Jax's brief standout moment in ep 3 added a new wrinkle to my thought: That he's not some NPC who gained sentience and slipped in with the humans, he's actually a hacker who backdoored his way into the Digital Circus, and he's not trapped there.

Jax seems to have an affinity for keys and getting into places he shouldn't belong. Twice now he's done this thing of spinning a key on his finger while boasting about it. He mentions in episode 1 that "I got keys to everywhere" and in episode 2 he swiped the key to the kingdom from Ragatha, and the candy monster calls him a "Master of Unlocking Things" which I think could be genuinely some subtle foreshadowing. A hacker would potentially be able to do something like clip out of bounds, find security keys, crack passwords, and so on and so forth. All he's done with this however is seemingly just pull pranks and leave things in peoples rooms; he's a troll.

We've all speculated about the mysterious pin-back covers: The official pin merch line showing everyone's rooms except for Jaxs, which only shows his door and peeks of The Void tearing through the wall. We're not privvy to what's in Jaxs room if he even has one at all. His room door might actually be his own sort of exit door since he's not trapped. For him it's like loading into a VRChat server and he can log off any time he wants, he's just always sure to be there when everyone else is active so no one notices.

A small stupid thing but, "Jax" is not too far off from "Hax"

Okay, so if Jax is a hacker who can come and go as he pleases, a question is why? Why does he keep coming back to torment everyone around him? His brief gag in Episode 3 I think filled in the blanks for that: He's not just a hacker, he's a streamer and he's broadcasting everything that's happening in the Digital Circus to a watching audience.

He's the one character who has consistently broken the fourth wall in all three episodes so far, the first two episodes were him mugging to the camera and giving comical shrugs and knowing glances to the viewer, but in this episode he outright addresses the audience while seemingly talking to no one to the POV of the other circus members. He's acknowledging his chat. Plus in merch promotion Jax has openly acknowledged his IRL popularity, another form of fourth-wall-breaking.

This may also explain his overall behavior; the reason he's always causing problems on purpose or forcing the group to go on the most dangerous path or take the most 'exciting' option in their adventures: It makes for a good show. Audiences don't want some stupid silly candyland fantasy! They want car chases and explosions! They want to see what wacky things happen to the other circus members! The show must go on! Jax is chasing content, and when he can't get that content it upsets him like the end of Episode 2. Maybe that ties into his self-worth, maybe he needs that sort of validation from his chat and audience.

This angle also adds a bit of a meta angle to the entire series: We the viewer also tune in to watch our favorite circus buddies suffer through whatever zany adventure Caine cooked up. Are we any better than Jax's livestream audience who tune in to see how they're tormented by Caine this week? Heck maybe in-universe we're the audience Jax is playing to! We too want to see them sweat and suffer to get that sweet character growth so are we part of the problem?

Time will tell whether this comes to pass and whether or not I'm overthinking this, but I've had this thought for awhile and only after this episode did the livestreamer angle come to mind.

[noodlesarecheese]

So Watcher is launching a Dropout (it's not called Dropout but they're clearly using the same template format platform thing idk what it's called, and the same pricing structure), and the reaction so far has been wildly different than what I remember from Dropout's launch. I was curious about why that was or if I was just misremembering the Dropout launch, so I went back to the Dropout launch video to compare them and I think I can see where some of the difference is coming from.

If you want to make the comparison yourself: Watcher's Video, Dropout's Video.

I wanna clarify first though that this isn't a knock against Watcher or the fans who are reacting one way or another or anything like that, I genuinely am just fascinated with how different the reactions are to what seems to be the same business decision. This also isn't a 'wow watcher sucks and dropout is so much better' I'm just using them for comparison because they did the same thing with different results. ALSO this isn't about the business decision itself, just the presentation! Disclaimers out of the way, here's the analysis.

Title and Thumbnail So the Watcher.tv announcement video is titled "Goodbye Youtube" and the thumbnail is Ryan, Shane, and Steven sitting on a couch looking serious, with a dark background. That really makes it seem like they're quitting (which, ok, they are quitting youtube but not quitting quitting). Viewers are already primed to be upset, and it's easier to go from upset to angry than upset to excited, curious, or neutral.

Compare to the dropout announcement video: "How the Internet is Ruining Comedy" - inline with other collegehumor video titles, might make you curious. Thumbnail - Big News! with Sam smiling and a bright background. We know its big news, but he looks happy, and the exclamation point let's us know they want us to be excited. Viewers are primed to be curious and excited.

Tone The Watcher announcement has 2 main tones. The first half is very sentimental, almost sad or wistful at times, and while there are parts that veer into pride at achievements, it's mostly bittersweet and sentimental. The second half is a bit more uplifting, but still quite serious. It reminded me of a tech announcement, like when they introduce the new iphone or something like that. Very professional, sleek, and serious, which isn't automatically a bad thing! But I do think that's not the vibe a decently-sized chunk of the audience expected or wanted. Many people watch Watcher for the cast's dynamic with each other, humor, and the more relaxed/conversational/friendly feel that most of the series have.

Compare to dropout - excited and comedic tone. Still professional, but also fits the expectations of the viewers. People watch collegehumor for the humor (it was in the name, after all). They also poke a bit of fun at themselves, which lightens the mood, shows self-awareness, and alleviates some of the bad feelings about paywalling.

Focus The Watcher announcement focuses a lot on the creative journey of the cast and company, as well as how this move will benefit them. Which isn't a bad thing, that's actually quite interesting! The problem here, I think, is actually more about what isn't here - a solid explanation of how this will also benefit the viewers and why the viewers should be excited. There's a brief description of one new show, and the promise that existing shows will get an upgrade, but we weren't given many specific details about how they'll be improved, and there's only one new show to tempt us into subscribing. Some people will be excited for that, some people won't, and some people will be excited but not enough to subscribe. Having 2 or 3 series (even if it's 1 fleshed out plus a few teasers of what's in production or what is being planned) plus some more details about how existing shows will be improved would've helped. Without that, it really does seem like it'll just be the same stuff viewers were getting for free, but now paywalled, rather than new and exciting stuff. That makes a big difference. I think with the fans not getting as much focus, this also led to some (accidental, I hope) hurt feelings. Based on what I've seen from fan reactions, all the talk about hitting the peak of what they can do on youtube and wanting more, translated for many people to 'youtube isn't enough' which became 'you (the current viewers) aren't enough.' Which I don't think was their intent! But I also don't think fans are wrong for feeling hurt by that.

Compare to dropout: They clearly explain how the move will benefit fans, and reassure viewers that existing content will stay where it is, and only new content will be behind the paywall. (Watcher clarified this too, but in a comment. It's not in the video itself, which is a huge problem.) They include clips of several new (at the time) series that would be premiering on dropout, including things that specifically could not be made on youtube (due to weed, violence, and sexual humor), so the reason for the shift is clear to the audience.

Advertisers Both videos contain the sentiment that being monetarily successful on youtube means working to appease the advertisers, and that over time what the advertisers want and what the creators want drifts further and further apart, putting strain on the creators.

However, I think the message gets lost a bit in the Watcher vid. Instead, it leaves viewers with the idea that the main problem is just ads are annoying instead of advertisers putting constraints on content. I'm not even sure what the specific constraints are for watcher, because they didn't give any examples. And the focus on ads being annoying leaves viewers frustrated because people typically either don't mind ads or they already have an ad blocker.

Timing and Size Okay, this isn't exactly about presentation, but it is still a factor that impacts perception so I'm tackling it. And I'm actually going to do dropout first. CollegeHumor launched dropout in September 2018. Pre-pandemic, but also pre-Sam Reich as CEO. The company was still owned by IAC. It was a Company, and while it wasn't huge it wasn't tiny either. So launching dropout was a Company Decision, a Business Strategy. Some people were upset about, but it wasn't a personal betrayal (generally, anyways). If I remember correctly, this was also not a high point for the company. They kinda needed dropout to do well to keep things running smoothly (which is why they shut it down and sold it to Sam just 1 1/2ish years later), so the sudden shift made sense.

Watcher Entertainment is a company, but it doesn't feel like one. Ryan, Shane, and Steven own and operate things, but they're also the faces, and they're youtubers. Which makes every business decision they make feel more personal to viewers, especially those who have been watching for a long time. They've also seemingly been doing well on youtube, which makes it more difficult for viewers to understand why the sudden change is happening now. They do talk a bit about it, about the company expanding and wanting to do things that advertisers don't like (which I've already covered). However, mostly the choice to start a streaming platform is framed as 'the next big step' without much clarification on why it's the next big step. Plus, it's post-pandemic, and a lot of people are still struggling financially with the ripple effects of that. Yes, $6 isn't a wild amount of money, but there have been some months where $5 absolutely meant the difference between paying all my bills or not, and I know I'm not the only one. This, coupled with a lack of clarity about why exactly they're doing this, leads to fans feeling hurt, betrayed, bitter, and frustrated.

Now, presentation and framing isn't everything. No matter how perfect your announcement is, some people are still going to be upset. It's a big change, of course people will be upset! But I do think a more careful presentation would've alleviated some of the hurt and anger that fans are feeling. While I do think a lot of the reaction we're seeing is due to the decision, I think (based on what I've seen) that some of it is also based on the poor communication in the video itself, and that could've been avoided!

So I'm gonna get a little speculative and describe what I would've done. In this hypothetical, they've decided to launch the streaming service and brought me on just for the announcement.

Firstly, switch the title out. If they're married to Goodbye Youtube then add a (and hello...?) after so it's at least obvious they aren't fully quitting. The dark color scheme of the thumbnail fits their regular vibe, but they want everyone to be excited so they should look excited. Next, let's lighten the tone up. Being proud of what they've done so far is great, but we don't need the sentimental music and bittersweetness. Remember, the goal is to get viewers excited about what come's next - so let's focus on what actually comes next! Talk about specific show plans and mention why they wouldn't work on youtube. Then, take some time to reassure the fans. Predict a few likely worries and address them in the video. Acknowledge that it's a big change, that it will take time to get used to, and that not everyone will be onboard, and let the fans know that it's ok if they aren't onboard.

Like I said, this wouldn't fix everything. There are a few differences in between dropout and watcher that don't have anything to do with presentation. Dropout launched with primarily new shows rather than new seasons of existing shows, and they continued uploading to youtube relatively regularly in addition to the content behind the paywall, which I do think went a long way to keeping fans happy. At this point it's unclear if watcher will do either of those or not. But, while I don't think it would fix everything, I do think improved communication in the announcement would've helped.

[cl0udy-wolf]

Self-aware Liu Kang (Mortal Kombat 2021) x GN! reader!

an: the inspiration for these headcanons was this post by @pyrodolls ! these headcanons are less yandere-ish and more focused on the self-aware part since I just. didn't want to write yandere. who knows what the future has in store. but anyways.

trigger warnings? : brief mention of death, movie spoilers, nothing else unless you count liu kang being lonely i guess 😭

It starts with the subtle glances from the corner, Liu Kang's eyes set on the camera, just barely noticeable.

He's hidden behind other characters (for example during the scene in the temple when Shang Tsung and his little guys had come to attack, but Lord Raiden stopped them), just slightly peering at the camera, unable to contain his curiosity. Before it becomes too noticeable he looks away, but eventually it becomes obvious to the viewer and Liu Kang's friends.

He does try to tell them at some point, he feels a presence, something or someone watching them. The others just respond as they would, sticking to their predetermined script, playfully questioning Liu Kang's sanity or asking if he's joking or just brushing it off.

^ “Of course someone is watching us, it's probably Lord Raiden.” but Kung Lao is the first to break and begin to notice, too.

Liu Kang starts doing small things to get you to notice him. There's shots lingering on him, extra scenes you hadn't seen before, new lines from him. He'd prefer not to take away from his friends, but he wants to learn more about you. And he wants you to know he's there.

There's just something about you that intrigues him. Perhaps the way your life is so simple, so…unlike his, that captures his attention at first, and the fact that's there's a whole new world out there. As he gets to know you, though,

He's captivated by your smile, your laugh, your personality.

There was one night you fell asleep with the movie on. Liu Kang felt the need to just watch you- make sure you were okay. You seemed so peaceful when you slept. Was it because he was watching over you? Maybe you were even dreaming of him. He was glad you neglected to turn the TV off. Everything felt…cold when you weren't around.

Especially because he'd basically be sent on the same journey over and over and over and over again. He knew how everything would play out. He knew Kung Lao would die, and he'd have to watch it, and go through that same anguish over and over and over again.

He knew he'd feel that same chill.

But your smiling face brought warmth.

You hadn't watched the movie for a few months, which led to that feeling being prolonged.

Cold, bitter cold. Silence. Stillness.

When he finally felt your warmth again, Liu Kang was ecstatic.

He didn't want to be without it again.

part two maybe??

[bumbled-bees]

Lily's Dual Streaming Dilemma

For years, Lily cultivated an audience on YouTube by carefully controlling her persona—she was abrasive, sure, but in a way that was palatable within the context of her edited video essays. The aggression in her content was always aimed at designated targets—bad media takes, problematic individuals, or social issues she framed as worth attacking. Because her audience only saw her through that curated lens, many casual fans didn’t realize how she actually behaved when she wasn’t behind a script.

Core Observations About the Dual-Streams

Casual YouTube fans were largely unaware of Lily’s behavior on Twitch

Before dual-streaming, Lily’s YouTube audience only saw her in edited form. On Twitch, however, she had already developed a reputation for being rude to chat, belittling her audience, and shutting down dissent with open hostility.

Because most of her YouTube audience didn’t follow her on Twitch, they had no idea how she actually treated people in real-time.

2. Bringing her YouTube audience into her live streams is exposing them to her real personality

Now that she is streaming to both platforms at once, YouTube viewers are seeing her unfiltered self for the first time. Unlike Twitch, where her audience is primarily made up of hardcore supporters, her YouTube audience includes a much broader range of people—some casual fans, some new viewers, and some people who just liked her videos but weren’t deeply invested in her community.

Many of these viewers are seeing her be openly hostile to her audience and immediately getting turned off.

3. The moment someone questions her, Lily responds with dismissal and hostility, driving people away

There is a moment in a recent stream where a YouTube viewer said, "I’m not sure I like you anymore."

Instead of responding with any degree of understanding, Lily snapped back with “Okay, the fuck you want me to do about that?”

This reaction instantly alienates people who might have still been on the fence about her. A more self-aware content creator would recognize this as an opportunity to de-escalate and win back a wavering fan. Instead, Lily outright pushes them away with zero effort to retain them.

If this is happening regularly during streams, then she is hemorrhaging casual fans in real time without even realizing it.

4. YouTube fans are turning against her because they see the discrepancy between her edited content and her live personality

When you edit a video, you control what gets shown and what doesn’t. In her scripted content, Lily could fine-tune her tone and make sure her arguments were framed in a way that seemed logical and justified.

In live streams, she has no filter, so her raw, unedited personality is fully on display.

As a result, fans who liked her polished content are now realizing that Lily is actually just… mean. And not in a fun, performative way, but in a genuinely off-putting way.

Essentially, Lily’s own decision to dual-stream is exposing her worst tendencies to a larger audience, and it’s making people second-guess their support for her.

5. Lily’s response to this shift will likely be to double down rather than self-reflect

Lily does not handle criticism well, even from her own fans. She sees any form of questioning as disloyalty and responds aggressively.

If more casual fans start leaving because they dislike her live-stream personality, Lily will likely interpret this as a sign that she just needs to be even more combative.

She has already developed a habit of blaming fan loss on “haters” or “transphobes”, even when the people criticizing her are actually long-time fans who simply don’t like her attitude anymore.

This is a self-destructive cycle—the more people she pushes away, the more defensive and bitter she will become, which will only push away more people.

Why This Will Hurt Lily in the Long Run

Lily is alienating a segment of her audience that she probably didn’t even realize she was relying on. YouTube is a much bigger platform than Twitch, and the vast majority of her audience was only familiar with her scripted videos. By forcing them to see her unedited, she is undoing years of carefully cultivated branding.

If this trend continues, Lily will find herself in a shrinking echo chamber, surrounded only by her most diehard supporters—people who will excuse everything she does, but who are not large enough in number to sustain her long-term. It’s a systemic problem that will only get worse over time. Lily’s refusal to adapt or reflect on why people are leaving will eventually lead to a major decline in her influence and audience engagement.

This entire situation is an example of how excessive arrogance and lack of self-awareness can lead to a creator’s downfall. And, based on Lily’s track record, she likely won’t realize it’s happening until it’s too late.

[rapunzellovesbooks]

"My only concern now is with her well-being and our future together"

This statement from Colin to Eloise only becomes even more poignant as soon as he learns that Pen is LW. He has to make peace with the fact that the person in the way of what he wants most, to keep Pen safe and to be with her happily, is also Pen. That same person has the entire Ton against her, is even putting up a reward for her "capture", is making Pen do things in the dark of night. Colin cannot keep away from Pen and, by extent, from the person in the way of their happiness, because LW is threatening Pen. That secret stands in the way.

Colin never wants Pen to give up her love for writing, he only wants LW to stop threatening his wife. Him keeping his distance after the wedding is literally him becoming aware that he cannot win this fight against LW because LW as it is will not stop being.

"I cannot accept that", is Colin talking to LW, the person threatening to ruin it all, who has gotten inside the head of his Pen. At this moment, LW is only damage. But then he goes back and re-reads Pen´s letters and sees that LW has always been there in their relationship, but never in their way, if anything, it was strengthening it. When he tells Pen at the Butterfly Ball that he finally realises that "you are her" it might seem obvious to us the viewers (likes, yes we have known since season 1) but Colin has been the only person who has known this subconsciously since they met. Pen never had to hide that voice at all, and she never did with him. But it is hard to put two and two together when you are the only one who has always seen what is behind the curtain. Everyone else, not even Pen herself saw it.

That is why Colin tells her that the secret is what is in the way. Once Pen is able to be free of that secret, Colin is also able to be free of his, his insecurities. They built each other up, they make each other better. Sure, there are bumps in the road, but they are the youngest couple in the show, they have been friends since they were kids and they know, deep down, they know that even things said in anger or sadness or frustration, do not matter. What count are the things said in love. Which is why Pen knows why Colin said the entrapment line, why Colin forgives Pen about the things she wrote about him and the others once she explains. His only concern truly was her well being and future together, and the only way to be truly loved is to be truly seen. Colin always saw Penelope and Penelope always saw Colin, she always knew that he searched for a purpose, that he does not feel like enough, she tells him so. Pen does not push Colin until both have had a bit of drink and are honestly just wanting to get the fight over so that they can kiss each other again. Pen´s "girl boss" speech is her backtracking to the same person she was when she fought with Eloise, all she knows is defend herself with little self-editing. That rationale is what also makes her write about Colin and then immediately regret it. When she sees the BGTs and Colin at Francesca´s wedding she understands that that family is open and honest about who they are and lying to them and making Colin lie for her would be destroying what she also is, someone who loves Colin. And, yet, Colin was going to do that, she did not even have to ask. Because his only concern was her well-being and their future together.

They only have to look at each other, nod at their wedding to know that every bump will pass. It will be messy, as bumps are, but they will always make it.

God I love them and their arc so much.

[emotionallychargedtowel]

What's different about Hatano, part 2

(Part 1 is here; part 3 and part 4 were posted later.)

The second thing about Hatano that isn’t like other characters who’ve chased after Mob is the fact that he has a unique relationship with…well, let’s say Mob’s equally unique experience of reality. So first, a little background on that. 

Mob’s version of reality

Most people in Mob’s world don’t experience it the way he does. It’s not just that he’s one of the few who realizes they’re all living in BL World, though that’s a big part of it. (The only other person who does, as far as we know, is Mayama, the mangaka who has some degree of control over Mob’s story. Though, interestingly, he actually didn’t realize he lived in a BL manga world until Mob told him in season 1.) 

In most of his relationships, Mob is completely inauthentic. His priority is remaining a side character, and sincerely connecting with others not only doesn’t serve that goal, it has a lot of potential to undermine it. He does seem to care about his family somewhat, particularly Ayato. But that’s about it. 

Except that he has one other relationship, of a sort: his relationship with us, his audience. It’s kind of strange, when you think about it. Mob’s whole thing is being a side character. And yet, he narrates his own story to us in a way that’s unmistakably protagonist-like. Maybe he justifies it through his emphasis on advising us on how to evade story traps like him. He may not have anyone else who shares his awareness of how BL World operates, but offering advice on how it works and how to avoid L with a B implies that maybe one of these days, someone else will embrace side character status like him. Maybe someday he won’t be alone. 

For now, his voiceover comments are a big part of his personality, and they’re very distinct. Sometimes Mob goes so far as to overtly break the fourth wall, like in the first episode of season 3, both when he brags about escaping the situation with Kikuchi and boasts that he’s BL-proof (above), and later in that episode, when he asks us if we’ve guessed yet why he’s exercising (below). (And of course, every single time “Bubble Mob” appears in the corner of the screen, he does nothing but directly address the audience.)

The rest of the time, he does this in a more subtle way. His voiceover commentary isn’t like a typical voiceover in a show or movie that’s less self-aware. If we watch a something that uses voiceovers in a typical way, the person speaking doesn’t acknowledge who they’re speaking to, or even that they're speaking to anyone. In most stories, unless some kind of context is used to explain who is being addressed (e.g. a frame story), calling attention to the fact that the voiceover implies that someone is being spoken to would undermine the realism of the story. Mob never acknowledges that he’s the protagonist of his own TV series, and in fact doesn’t seem to be aware of it. (Well, except when he does things like speculate about whether there will be another season.) But he constantly acknowledges the viewer through his advice and narration. He may not know how or why, but he knows there’s someone out there listening to him. 

So Mob goes through his world with this important knowledge that practically no one else shares, pretending to have friendships and so forth but never forming any sort of authentic bond with anyone (with the possible exception of Ayato), and the closest thing he has to a real friend who he can be honest with is the audience. 

And the other characters he interacts with don’t seem to notice any of this, even when he shows outward signs of how he’s experiencing this world. Sometimes he makes his observations out loud instead of in a voiceover, but no one seems to bat an eye. He regularly says and does things in front of Ayato that strike him as strange, but when Mob shrugs them off, Ayato does too. 

Hatano’s relationship to Mob’s experience

Most of the time, Hatano seems to be like the other characters in Mob’s world. Despite his keen interest in Mob, he usually doesn’t seem to see how he’s different from other people. Except that occasionally, he does! Every so often, he sees into Mob’s reality in a way that other characters can’t. 

The first time we see this happen, he hasn’t even met Mob since the interaction they had when they were children. At the end of episode 2, Mob’s voiceover tells us, “What I didn’t know at the time was that a destined age-gap love was looming just around the corner.” Hatano stands in the foreground watching a blissfully ignorant Mob walk away in the background. Then “Bubble Mob” appears in his little green circle in the lower left corner of the screen to talk about how more will be revealed in the next episode. That’s when something weird happens. Hatano turns his head and looks right at Bubble Mob, who is seriously disconcerted by this. “Why are you looking at me?” he asks. Then he hastily wraps up the episode, as if he’s eager to do so in order to escape from Hatano. 

This is the most overt example of Hatano being able to perceive things other non-Mob characters don’t, but it isn’t the last. 

The next time happens in episode 3, when Mob is desperately trying to think of ways to put Hatano off. “In order to squash a flag that was raised in the past,” he thinks in a voiceover, “it might work if I tell him I’m a different person from this guy he remembers.” Immediately, before Mob has said a single word out loud, Hatano says, “I’ve always liked you. I could never mistake you for someone else.” It’s as if he just heard Mob’s voiceover. He clearly doesn’t hear it all the time, unless he’s incredibly good at pretending otherwise. But it almost seems like for Hatano, the boundary between Mob’s reality (the version of reality that we experience as viewers) and the reality inhabited by Hatano and the rest of the people in BL World occasionally becomes more permeable. 

The third time happens in the other direction—instead of Hatano seeing what things are like for Mob, Mob sees something through Hatano’s eyes. Specifically, he experiences a daydream of Hatano’s. 

It isn’t completely unprecedented for Mob to see something from someone else’s mind as if he’s seeing it himself—but it is unprecedented for someone with Hatano’s role in Mob’s life. The type of thing he sees through Hatano is also unique. 

The one other person whose eyes Mob sometimes sees through is Ayato. When Ayato tells a story, not only is the viewer able to see a flashback of him having the experience he’s recounting, but often, it’s clear that Mob can see it too, in a very literal sense. We see a perfect example of this when Mob asks Ayato what kind of guy Hatano is and he tells the story of what happened when a girl confessed to Hatano at school. We know that Mob actually sees this flashback because he identifies the specific type of flower that surrounds Hatano (the same way other BL main character types that he encounters have some kind of accompanying burst of flowers). Mob sees Hatano’s face ringed with gerbera daisies, which he’s able to identify despite Ayato saying nothing about them (and not seeming to perceive them at all). Mob’s face is even lit by a mysterious light as he comments on the gerberas, as if Hatano’s “sparkling aura” has been conveyed through the story into Mob’s bedroom. 

So it’s not completely unheard-of for Mob to be able to see what someone else is picturing. But in Ayato’s case, he has only seen flashbacks connected to stories Ayato tells. (I’m not counting fantasies about Ayato that are clearly just Mob’s imagination, which Ayato is completely unaware of.) That makes Hatano the first person besides Ayato whose eyes Mob sees through, for starters. More specifically, he’s the first of Mob’s suitors to have that effect on him. And it’s also noteworthy that the narrative of Hatano’s that Mob sees 1) isn’t narrated—he’s not picturing it because Hatano is telling him a story, he’s just spontaneously inside of it without warning, and 2) isn’t a memory, but a scary fantasy—a daydream about something he’s worried about. Specifically, Mob finds himself inside of a scenario from Hatano’s mind in which Mob is arrested for “deceiving a minor” due to their relationship. Hatano goes on to talk about how he heard something on TV that led him to believe that people wouldn’t accept their relationship if they dated, but the fantasy clearly swallowed Mob up independently of that. Hatano only comments about the TV thing after the fantasy has ended, and he’s just talking about social disapproval, not Mob getting arrested. Nothing he says here would lead Mob to picture the jail daydream, and anyway, the daydream happens before he even raises the topic.

The fact that Mob found himself inside of this fantasy is remarkable enough that he’s clearly thrown off by it, commenting “Hang on, was that Hatano’s daydream just now?” He doesn’t dwell on it, but he gets that it’s weird. 

There’s something else about this fantasy scene that I only noticed after seeing it a ridiculous number of times for the fansub project. I’m not certain that it’s significant, but I think it’s worth mentioning. Mob mentions in the scene that he’s a “mobu,” an anonymous side character. Specifically, he asks the guards for a trial and then, more specifically, “a trial worthy of a side character”—basically, the kind of trial that would befit a “mobu.” Now, you could justify this in a few ways. Maybe Hatano’s fantasy is just a setting that Mob is dropped into, and he says what he would say if he were actually thrust into that situation. We don’t know if Hatano is even aware of what he says. But this is Hatano’s fantasy. It seems like the things the police officers/prison guards say to Mob come from Hatano’s mind. Maybe the things Mob says do too. If so, it suggests that Hatano knows about Mob’s “mobu” status. Again, it’s hard to say how to interpret this, but it’s a possibility. 

A brief digression about characters who engage in direct address

In the next part of my post I'm going to be comparing Mob to another character who sometimes breaks the fourth wall, but first I want to situate Mob in the pantheon of characters who use direct address for a second. I'm not going to try to do an overview of this whole topic. This post is going to be long enough as it is, and plenty has been written before on this subject. But I want to stop and think for a second about what fourth wall-breakers tend to be like and why they do what they do.

Direct-addressers are almost always funny, often sardonically. This takes different forms. Sometimes you get Garfield, other times you get Deadpool, other times Clarissa Darling. Sometimes they’re douchebags, like the Woody Allen character in Annie Hall. Sometimes they’re actual sociopaths, like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. They’re almost always at least a little bit cut off from their world, as if they have one foot in the audience’s world and one in their own and this gives them the perspective they need to make trenchant comments on the people around them. It can be as simple as the fact that the people around them are a bit absurd, or as stark as the fact that they believe themselves to exist on a different moral plane from everyone else. But it seems pretty much universal that there's some kind of difference between them the the people around them.

Mob is certainly cut off from his social world. Most of the time, this is simply a result of his trying to avoid falling in L with a B. But he can also be a creep. He constantly spies on his peers, manipulates them, and lies to them. For example, in season 3, he causes two friends to fall in love as a sort of experiment, then gloats in the distance while cackling to himself. Though that last part isn't so remarkable for him, since he’s always laughing at everyone behind their backs. 

One big subcategory of fourth wall-breakers is, well, smug buttholes. Ferris Bueller is the archetypal example. Parker Lewis was created to be the off-brand Ferris Bueller. Zack Morris is the absolute bottom of the barrel in this class. Basically, these dudes (and they are always dudes, in my experience) seem to talk to the audience because they feel so superior to everyone around them—even their supposed friends—that when they want to talk about what they really think and feel, only an unseen adoring public will do. 

Mob is hardly the opposite of this. He has a real smug streak and he can definitely be a dick. But he's more anxious and more alienated than the typical smug butthole type, and he has a kind of low-key but profound ennui just below the surface. In other words, he's a bit like a really stressed out, subtly despair-filled Ferris Bueller.

Another fourth wall-breaker who found someone who noticed

The first time I saw Hatano look at Bubble Mob, it made me think of another example of a character who habitually broke the fourth wall, then encountered another character who, on some level, noticed her doing this. I’m thinking of Fleabag and the (Hot) Priest. 

Directly addressing the audience is Fleabag's raison d'être. In the first season of Fleabag, she does it continually, sometimes at times that would shock or offend the other characters if they were aware of it (including while she's having sex). None of the people around her notice this.

Then, in the second season, something different happens. Fleabag meets the Priest, starts to bond with him, and then he starts to do something that takes her completely by surprise: he notices when she's addressing the audience.

During one of their first times hanging out alone, she addresses the audience like she normally does, and he shocks her by noticing this and asking her about it. “What was that?” he asks. “Where’d you—where’d you just go? You went somewhere.” When she tells him “nowhere,” he accepts it and backs off.

In another scene, when she does it again, he once again comments on it. “That thing you’re doing,” he says, “It’s like you disappear.”

When Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the creator, writer, and star of Fleabag, was asked about the Priest’s ability to sense when Fleabag is breaking the fourth wall at a BAFTA event, she said that the Priest can tell what Fleabag is doing because of his relationship with God. She said that Fleabag "has a relationship with the camera the whole way through and it was interesting to have somebody who has a similar thing. He's mirrored 'cause he has God. And she's witnessed by the camera the whole way through…I just felt like it would be a really good way to mirror each other's journeys."

Respectfully, I don’t buy this explanation. It may be what Waller-Bridge was thinking about when she wrote season 2, but it doesn’t resonate at all with my experience of the series. I vastly prefer the explanation given by Kathryn VanArendonk in her piece “Fleabag Breaks the Fourth Wall and Then Breaks Our Hearts,” written for Vulture. 

Fleabag’s sly, secretive, sometimes resentful tendency to break the fourth-wall of her own story is an escape hatch. She dissociates from her own life whenever things get to be too much….The Priest feels her leave him, even though he can’t quite see that she’s leaving him so she can speak to us….But when he notices Fleabag talking to us, he’s barging into our secret relationship with her, pointing at exactly the place she assumed no one could see — pointing at us, her distancing strategy, her audience who can’t ever speak back to her. That false intimacy she shared with us? Suddenly it’s real, and it’s not between Fleabag and her silent viewers. It’s between Fleabag and the one person who can still see her whenever she tries to take a step away.

This is a profound kind of engagement with Fleabag’s attachment to her “secret camera friend” (Waller-Bridge’s term for the audience Fleabag addresses), much more profound than what we, as Mob’s secret friends, ever see from Hatano. But it does tell us something about what the stakes are in this kind of situation. 

While VanArendonk analyzes Fleabag and the Priest, she ends up saying some things that could easily apply to Mob. 

It’s tempting to think of Fleabag’s compulsive habit of looking to the viewer as a form of intimacy.…But that sense of intimacy, however effective it may be for the viewer, is only ever one-sided….Her intimacy with us is also a way of distancing herself from anyone who could actually speak back to her. The scene where Fleabag sees a therapist played by Fiona Shaw underlines that idea very directly: The therapist asks Fleabag who she confides in, who her friends are, and Fleabag turns to us once again with a knowing, happy smile. We are her friends, because we are the recipients of her private disclosures. That scene is thrilling and crushing at the same time. It’s so flattering to be her confidant, and so sad. Her closest relationship is with a presence she can neither see nor hear.

But Mob isn’t Fleabag

Mob’s situation is very different from Fleabag’s in most respects. Her situation is realistic; his is fantastical. Her history is traumatic; the worst thing that has happened to Mob is the realization that he lives in a fictional universe. (Though to be fair, if you give that enough thought, it’s fairly horrifying.) He isn’t avoiding engaging with the people in his world because of psychological turmoil or alienation of the sort Fleabag deals with…well, not the psychological turmoil part, at least. 

There are two kinds of distance that Mob puts between himself and other people. Often, he simply avoids relating to others. This is mostly due to his calculated assessment of the risks involved. Sometimes he gives people a wide berth and sometimes he only avoids certain types of interactions with them, but either way, he’s not engaging because he can see that there are certain risks involved. This is very different from what separates Fleabag from those around her, both in type and in magnitude.

Except when he kind of is

At the same time, the fact that he’s realized that he lives in this contrived sort of universe and that he has to watch everyone around him allow themselves to be buffeted about by it without noticing it, much less attempting to fight it, does have an effect. I’m not trying to dig too deeply into the implications of realizing you live in a fictional world. If you were to go deep enough, it would have some pretty disturbing existential implications that might be more fitting for a Philip K. Dick novel than a BL parody. But that’s not the story being told here. Still, the emotional distance Mob maintains between himself and the people around him is clearly caused by his alienation from his world and their lack of awareness about it. How can he get close to anyone who is so far from understanding his daily experience? How could he even respect them enough to relate to them authentically at all? So Mob’s inability to authentically bond with others does have some of that existential dimension to it. And in that respect, his alienation bears some resemblance to Fleabag's.

Whatever the cause, VanArendonk’s statement above applies as thoroughly to Mob as it does to Fleabag. Like her, “[his] closest relationship is with a presence [he] can neither see nor hear.” And by the same token, if someone was able to see him clearly enough that they noticed the ways he disconnects from the world, as the Priest sees Fleabag, that would represent a kind of closeness that would mean something, that might even be enough to make relating to a person in his world more worthwhile than always prioritizing his “secret camera friend.”

Hatano isn't the Priest—but they have some things in common

As I wrote above, Hatano's ability to notice Mob's fourth wall-breaking and his tendency to act on it aren't nearly as profound as what we see the Priest doing with Fleabag. Nevertheless, that more concentrated example of the phenomenon does tell us something about what it means, even in smaller doses.

It means that a person who notices fourth wall-breaking is attuned to the fourth wall-breaker to an extent that others aren’t. Maybe they’re just more attentive or perceptive when it comes to that character. Or maybe they’re also alienated from their world in some way, and that puts them on the same wavelength as the other person. If, as Waller-Bridge says, the Priest’s relationship with God has something to do with it in his case, it’s a possibility that someone like Hatano could prove, on further investigation, to have something or someone outside of himself that he’s somehow in dialogue with.

In any case, it seems unequivocally true that such a person is poised to relate to the fourth wall-breaker in a more meaningful way than the other characters they typically encounter. After all, having some understanding of how someone sees the world is a prerequisite for really relating to them, much less having feelings for them in a way that actually means something.

Mostly, this tells us something about how Hatano's feelings for Mob are different from the feelings most of Mob's suitors have for him. But this might point to the possibility that Mob's feelings toward Hatano differ as well (though not necessarily in the way Hatano would like). Mob seems to treat people's feelings toward him with the most contempt when they're unfounded, seemingly random. After all, as he says in the opening theme, "this Boy's Love is too absurd." It's hard to respect someone whose feelings are so ridiculous, when they have so little basis in anything. Kikuchi seemed to touch his heart in part because he was quietly observant, noticing things about Mob and basing his feelings on actual information about him instead of pouncing on him on some thin pretense the way most of his pursuers do. If Hatano also shows that he sees Mob in a real way, a way that no one else has before, it has the potential to make a difference in how Mob sees him, too.

Next up, part 3, followed by part 4.

Thanks to @my-rose-tinted-glasses for helping me out with gifs and by being a sympathetic sounding board.

Looking for a fansub for Zettai BL 3? Check out this masterpost by @ikeoji-subs.

[doomedtoxicyaoi]

I try to stay off OP reddit, but I saw a post today that intrigued me and it pissed me off so bad I had to get my thoughts out. 😭 There was a conversation about Doflamingo and whether or not people feel bad for him (the question itself was vague so I think people didn't understand what exactly that meant) and then the discussion got into the whole "Doffy manipulated the audience to feel bad for him, and if you empathize with him that means he won," thing.

Now as someone who likes the character, I really disagree. I feel like it would be out of character for him to want people to pity him, at least for the traumatic stuff as a child and for being raised by a gang.

He definitely paints himself as a victim in some situations like his dad deciding to leave Marie Geoise and the whole Corazon fiasco, but in other ways, I think the things that make people sympathize with him would be things he thought were 'right'. The whole ordeal of Trebol offering him a gun, and then the gang treating him like a god instead of a child. Those are key aspects of his character that I always found disturbing, but he never acknowledges it as an injustice upon him when he traumadumps on Law and Luffy.

This is probably the only time it seems like he's trying to encourage sympathy for him, and it's in the silliest, most self-aggrandising monologue, where he tries trauma-scaling against a guy he knows survived a literal genocide. (like dude, you are losing this one.)

In fact, this particular flashback is given to the viewers by Trebol, not Doffy, as if it's not something he sees as important. Instead, it seems more like he thinks those were 'good' for him. I don't think he saw what Trebol did as grooming or the way he was treated as unhealthy. This is someone who canonically has PTSD induced nightmares and chugs a whole bottle of wine as soon as he wakes up. He saw himself in Law and thought he was making him better by grooming him to be his second in command. Thanks to Corazon, Law genuinely got help and started to heal, but in Doflamingo's eyes this made Law worse. I don't think he needs to be deliberately misleading the audience if his perception of the world is already warped. He's a messed-up guy, and manipulating people is one of his skills, but he's not as self-aware as people seem to think he is.

And one comment that really had me raise my eyebrow was the implication that when he was being strung up on the wall with his brother and father, he deliberately cried out to pretend that he'd been hit by an arrow so his dad would say 'train your arrows on me, not my sons!' Now we're getting into 'Law made up his backstory so people would feel bad for him,' levels of child slander. He's literally blindfolded, I'm pretty sure the implication was that he didn't know when or where the arrow would hit and got scared?

I think its totally valid to think he's a terrible person in the story and not feel a lick of sympathy, there are other characters who have arguably sadder backstories and don't let that influence how they treat people. But the way people talk about him specifically when he was a child feels like we're missing the point of Dressrosa. This is an arc where we see the effects of dehumanizing children, with Cora and Doffy, with Law, with Rebecca. Saying that Doflamingo was just one outlier who was always born evil because his brother didn't turn out that way just doesn't make sense given the structure and goes against the themes of freedom that are so prevalent in One Piece. He was a little brat, but he was still a child. Treating him like some devil incarnate that was a super evil genius is giving way too much agency to a ten year old.

And Doflamingo and Rocinante have always been established to be very different, why would they react the same way to a traumatic event? There's a reason why the term fight or flight exists (and freeze and fawn). Doffy's claim that he would kill them is just as extreme as Rocinante saying he wants to die, its just easier to sympathise with someone when that pain is internalised rather than externalised.

Again, i'm not saying you shouldn't hate Doflamingo or that he isn't a villain, but I think seeing him as just 'pure evil' flattens the nuances that make him interesting.

The debate over whether or not he loved his family also always ends up being "yes he did," or "no he was just using them," without considering that it's not as black and white. He definitely is using them and the way he treats them is abusive, the Donquixote family is much more of a cult than a healthy functional family, but that doesn't mean he doesn't care about them at all. It's not like the people he finds are under the impression they aren't expendable for his sake, Monet was already planning on sacrificing herself before he asked and Giolla told him to let Law kill her so he could go after the Straw Hats. He isn't rubbing his hands together at the thought of killing off his family, he is just selfish enough to be able to go through with it even if he does like them.

In some ways, I understand the desire to not want to conflate that kind of abuse with love, but I think seeing those relationships as purely good or bad lacks any kind of self-reflection. Anyone can be abusive, it's a set of patterns and actions that you foster in a relationship. You can love a person and still mistreat them, especially if you never unpack your perception of your world and the people around you (like seeing yourself as a god and them as lesser). But the concept that you can care about someone and be abusive seems too scary for some people, because then they have to reckon with the fact that they can be an abuser even if they aren't the evil boogy man character of a person with low empathy (usually NPD or ASPD). The things that happen in Dressrosa are cyclical - the celestial dragons enact violence upon the citizens which is what caused them to enact violence upon Homing and his family. Whether or not Homing had that coming as part of an oppressive system, his two kids were clearly caught in the crossfire despite not doing anything. And then he is enabled by Trebol and his gang, where they recruit more people who have been abandoned by the world and try and encourage them to also become violent back. Law broke that cycle because Corazon showed him compassion rather than hatred, letting him process the emotions rather than using them as a justification for hurting others. That doesn't mean Law and Corazon were magically born good and saved the day by being themselves, they were able to break a cycle of violence that existed (and still does in the OP world) before Doffy existed.

[mintedwitcher]

I've been following this discussion about Eddie, the writing and racism and figured I'd contribute my own 2 cents.

I think the thing about machismo/toxic masculinity culture and Eddie is that it would be a super valid way to, well not excuse, but explain Eddie's behaviour and still make him sympathetic to the viewers. This already has worked in the earlier seasons and it was connected to his upbringing in a strict Mexican Catholic family too, but there is a problem:

This only works as long as Eddie is unaware of it. It works as long as Eddie thinks it's normal to repress his more complicated feelings and mask the soft parts behind a tough attitude, sarcastic humor and anger because that's what the man of the house is supposed to do.

If Eddie recognised that this is in fact not healthy then he would have to actively work on doing better to keep the viewers' sympathy. If he was like: "I know I'm being an asshole by yelling at others and refusing to admit my own flaws, I know I'm not being fair to the people around me and that I, too, deserve better, but I'll just keep behaving like a textbook example for toxic masculinity anyway." Then why should the viewers still sympathise? Having a character flaw is fine, but recognising your own flaws and leaning into them on purpose even though it hurts the people you love the most? Sorry, but that's where my capacity for sympathy has reached its limit.

And this is where the show fucked up because Eddie has had his whole "my parents should've done better by me, I should've done better as well and from here on out I will do better both for myself and my son" arc in season 5. He repressed, had a breakdown, went to therapy, confronted his dad and decided that the cycle would end with him.

Now to say race has nothing to do with this conversation wouldn't be quite true, there is racism in this fandom and Eddie's character has been a victim to it, but I think we've passed that point. By now it's not a "the fans are racist" problem anymore, it's a "the writing is terrible and makes Eddie look like an arsehole" problem. Eddie's tendency to mask his "weakness" in front of other people is of course valuable representation of the way machismo culture in Latino families is alive and well and nobody can blame Eddie for how he was raised. But. Bringing this topic to the show, giving Eddie an entire storyline about it and addressing how harmful it can be should logically result in Eddie growing as a person and working on shaking off that tough guy persona. It's a struggle to overcome and we'd all cheer him on. (I for one really enjoyed Eddie's season 5 arc.)

That's not where the show went though. They addressed Eddie's flaws and how the Diaz parents' parenting played into it, gave Eddie some lines where he claimed he'd work on himself and then they dropped the whole thing. So now Eddie knows how his own behaviour hurts himself and others and he seems very content with not changing it.

YES.

I have no sympathy left for him anymore. He is actively aware of his harmful behaviours and yet he makes no attempt to curb those habits or even apologise for them. In season 8 alone we have seen him consistently degrade his "best friend", and lovebomb his son, without there ever being so much as a second of self-reflection. That, to me, is exhausting to watch. And to be told that we're supposed to cheer for that? For him basically being handed everything he wants with very little effort on his part? By the end of season 8, he has his son back, he's dunked on his parents (who, let's be real, weren't doing anything wrong), he's got his job at the 118 back, and he got his house back from Buck. And all of it, without even a fraction of thought or consideration into how his actions and behaviours affect others, even though he's supposed to be aware of it.

It's exhausting, and it makes for an extremely boring character. There's nothing interesting or special about a man getting rewarded for the bare minimum.

[mikaleialt]

Caught in 4k

Bada Lee x Youtuber!Reader

Synopsis: A famous youtuber who uploads dance covers and sometimes even her own choreographies is actually Bada Lee's girlfriend?!!— or — you suddenly got exposed during a livestream, now people knew of you and Bada's relationship

Cw: nothing just fluff

After your youtube channel reached the 5 million subscribers milestone, you decided to do the most requested content of your viewers which is a livestream.

They wanted you to do a livestream where you perform some dance covers and teach some of your latest choreographies. Of course to make it more fun and interactive you decided to add some Q and A segments, to be more interactive.

You started youtube way back, but before your contents used to be just a simple vlog about your everyday life, but soon shifts into posting some dance covers and sometimes even posting some of your own choreographies. Your old viewers are already aware of your talent in dancing and are so happy that you finally gained confidence to showcase your talent.

You still do some vlogs here and there, but most of your content now is about dance.

Now in the present, you are standing in your bedroom, the camera setup is facing one of your bedroom wall that serves as your background, while your monitor is next to it, where you read the live chats and manage the whole stream.

The title screen "live starts in 5..." is the only thing your viewers are seeing at the moment as you do some warm ups first. You stare at the viewer count that reads there are almost 15k people waiting on your live.

Once you feel that you are all set, you removed the title screen and waved at the camera.

"Hello everybody!" You did your intro and started doing small talks with your viewers as your chat feed floods with more people, telling you how excited they are.

"Your top looks familiar" you saw the comment passes by your screen which made you realize that the shirt you're wearing is one of Bada's shirt, and not just any shirt. It was the same shirt she wore on her first dance battle with Redy on swf 2.

You tried to ignore the comment and continue reading a few more before your viewers started begging you to teach one of your latest dance choreography, which you did.

You stand at the center of the screen once again and looked at the camera before looking back at the monitor.

"Ok ok, we'll start with the 'dance lessons', you guys wanted" you said as you prepare the first song you'll dance to.

"Oh before I start, just a quick announcement, I am not a dance teacher, nor do I have any experience teaching dance. This is literally my first time teaching, so thank you for being my guinea pigs for this experiment" you joked before starting teaching the choreo to your viewers.

Coincidentally, the first song is 16 shots, which made the person who commented earlier appear again as you read the comments in-between teaching your choreo.

"The song and the shirt really makes me feel like I've seen it already somewhere before" the comment said. To which you ignored once again.

You feel a slight blush, it's really all just a coincidence, you're not really thinking of anything when you decided to take Bada's shirt on her closet to wear for the livestream, and it's also a coincidence that you made a choreo to the 16 shots a few days ago.

Your livestream goes on for a bit over 30 minutes now and you are currently taking a break mid-stream and just chatting with your viewers.

One question after another you answer your viewer when a particular question pops up.

"You dance so well, are you taking any dance class?" You read the question out loud and the question seems to catch the viewers attention as they flood the chat feed once again with comments about how they are also curious about it.

"Honestly, I was self taught, in terms of dancing that is. But a few months ago, I joined this dance academy just for the fun of it. I just wanna improve my skills more, you know what I mean." You answered, but your answer just sparked more questions.

"What dance academy?" Is the only thing that you can read from the chat feed. You contemplate whether you should tell them or not. And after tons of viewers begged for your answer and a chat dono appears, sending you 500 dollars with a message "please tell us", you finally give in.

"It was at JustJerk" you said and immediately viewers went wild. Some even commenting "maybe it's time to enroll for a dance class too" or "no wonder your style seems familiar". But another question pops up and it caught everyone's attention.

"Do you see Bada Lee on JustJerk?" The chat read. And every viewer saw it so you can't ignore this one.

"Yeah, sometimes..." you said, and it was a lie. You always saw Bada there, no scratch that, you are always with Bada there. How can you not see her everytime you go there, she is your girlfriend, you always go to the academy together.

"OMG YOU SHOULD COVER BADA'S CHOREO FOR SHIRT" a comment pops up again and the chat once again goes wild.

"Fine, fine... wait give me a minute I'm trying to remember the step again" you search up the dance cover and watch the video before learning the choreography once more.

Meanwhile, Bada had just arrived at your apartment and was looking for you, when she heard Shirt by Sza plays over and over again coming from your shared bedroom.

Slowly, Bada creeps in and peaked by the door to see what's going on and saw your livestream setup. You are too focused on your live that you didn't even noticed her leaning by the door frame, watching you.

"...ok I think I got it" You said as you ready yourself before playing the song once again and you start moving to the beat.

Bada is in awe once she realized you are dancing to her choreo, and to Shirt even. Her jaw drops as you execute all the moves perfectly, but boy it doesn't stop there.

"...Damn, you ain't deserve~" the music subsides for a bit, you twirl around before the beats drop ones again as you move your hips to the beat before looking up the camera and hitting the beat once again.

Bada squeals as you finish dancing, she can't get over at how sexy you look earlier. You turn your head to the door as you see your girlfriend kneeling on the ground.

"Oh my god, when did you arrived?" You said, your viewers were curious on who were you talking to as they flood your chat feed once more with questions.

"Wait I moment... I know that voice" the same person who commented earlier appears again.

Bada runs up to you, and hugs you tightly, planting tons of kisses on your face. "You look so sexy just now" your girlfriend gushes over you.

"I KNEW IT! THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING" the chat feed was bombarded with surprised emotes and messages like "holy shit, they are dating?!!!!".

You face the camera shyly as Bada breaks off from you and hugs you from behind as she hides her reddened face on the crook of you neck.

"Uhmmm yeah so... I think this is where I will end my stream" you chuckled lightly as Bada cowers in embarassment behind you, now realizing that your relationship was revealed to more than 35k people right now.

"This is not really what I planned when I first decided to do the livestream but yeah, I hope you had fun dancing with me... and yeah me and Bada are dating... anyway that would be all byeeee!" You quickly cut the cameras and ended the live.

A/n: and that is all for this story, thank you all for choosing this. I hoped you liked it. Sorry for any grammatical errors.

Requests are open

[collapsedsquid]

The great dilemma of the news media industry is that people want to be told that they’re right, but they want to be told they’re right by an organisation that’s credible.  If people think that a news source just tells them what they want to hear, it’s not as satisfying; it’s like getting a valentines card from your sister. So a lot of the art of editing a newspaper or tv station is that of giving the impression that if your viewers were wrong in their political beliefs and worldview, you’d give it to them straight, while of course never actually giving it to them straight.  The nature of the art is very different depending on how dumb the people are that you’re practicing it on.  There are plenty of people out there in the world who are happy to receive the cognitive equivalent of a valentines card from their sister; there are even economically viable audiences who are prepared to believe that the stripper really liked them.

Media outlets which have to sell themselves to an intelligent, educated and self-aware audience spend a lot of their time on the project of convincing the audience they would give it to them straight.  Famously, the Financial Times is one of the only places you’ll read left-Keynesian economics, and the Guardian is absolutely famous for castigating its middle class progressive audience for various largely aesthetic awfulnesses of their lifestyle.  The New York Times usually has two or three opinion columnists whose sole and entire job is to annoy and disgust the readers. The name of the game here is to throw a load of bracing but peripheral criticism, to reinforce the credibility of the central message of agreement. At the other end of the scale, well, Fox and the Daily Mail. 

Been thinking of the maximally truth-seeking AI that seems to be asking Elon what he thinks.

[robbie-wallis]

I need to vent about Watcher, endure it if you can

Relax, this isn't a parasocial thing, but it is a long ass post, which suits me as a long ass human.

I need an outlet to discuss the terrible business decision Watcher has made by announcing their plan to leave YouTube, and this long-forgotten Tumblr account reached from its grave to grab at my ankle.

If you didn't see their video, good for you. It's extremely cringe-worthy in its sentimentality and editing, with blurry shots, pensive pauses and obligatory sad piano.

But at least there's no f'ing Ukulele.

Although, I think we might get the Ukulele in a few months.

Even though anyone who reads this is probably familiar with what the "Ghoul Boys" have done, I feel as though I need to add a little history.

WATCHER HISTORY

You can skip this part if you've been obsessively following the shenanigans, this is for the noobs who were never a "shaniac" or a "boogara".

Shane Madej and Ryan Bergara used to work at Buzzfeed. They hosted the successful Buzzfeed Unsolved shows. In 2019 they followed in the footsteps of the Try Guys and Safia Nygaaard and left Buzzfeed to create their own YouTube channel named "Watcher".

They brought along Steven Lim, another Buzzfeed person who is most known for the "Worth It" series. This series followed Lim and his friend/s spending obscene amounts of money on obscenely overpriced and indulgent products.

Think of it as being similar to the $100 V's $10,000 Sidemen content, only without the self-awareness and British "bad lads" humor.

Notably, even the Sidemen seem to have cut back on those adventures, perhaps understanding how bad it looks when so many people are struggling to pay their essential bills.

Steven became the CEO of Watcher while Shane and Ryan continued to create and present for the new channel.

They were wildly successful by YouTube standards. At the time of their self-spanking on Friday they were close to achieving 3 million subscribers, in just 4 years, based on basically only 2 cornerstone shows. If Social Blade is still a reasonably trusted source in everything but estimating income, they were gaining thousands of new subscribers every week.

Their most successful shows were Ghost Files, Puppet History, Too Many Spirits and Mystery Files.

Ghost Files is the only one of these shows which requires heavy investment, travel, a large crew and impressive production costs. These videos are shot on-location and require a lot of work. The rest are basically Good Mythical Morning style, just the two hosts and their banter.

Aside from Ghost Files, their content could be created with 3 cameras, 2 lapel mics and a good editor.

They were massively successful, solely because of Ryan and Shane.

THE DEMISE

So, what did they do on Friday 19th April? They decided to announce the launch of their own subscription platform.

Not a Patreon for extra content, behind-the-scenes, audience interaction etc, (they already had a Patreon with 6,000 paying subscribers earning them at least $50k a month), but a bespoke streaming platform which looks like a clone of Netflix.

The cost is $5.99 a month, or $60 a year.

Comparable to Netflix.

And by that I mean the price is comparable to Netflix while the content is comparable to a 4 year old YouTube channel.

Don't get me wrong, their production quality is incredible. The quantity, however, is not.

From the end of May viewers will have to pay to be a subscriber on their own platform in order to watch their shows.

They'll still be posting their trailers on YouTube, and the first episodes of new shows, but to watch it all you'll have to pay up or miss out.

Edited to add: Variety originally reported the Watcher crew were planning to remove all their existing content from YouTube to monetize it on their own platform. It's since been confirmed they will not be removing their old content. Fans are undecided whether this was a back-track after the announcement or a misunderstanding by Variety. You be the judge.

Of course, they're entitled to do this. They are creating a product and you can either enjoy it or not. No one is entitled to see it, for free, whenever they like.

Why did they do this?

Half of the sombre video gushes about their "humble beginnings" as "struggling young guys in a big harsh world", which comes across as extremely self-indulgent and ego-stroking.

A quarter of it explains how insanely successful they've been on YouTube and how this is all thanks to the fans who stuck with them after Buzzfeed, how it's allowed them to hire 25 people, how it's given them the freedom to create what they enjoy making and what the viewers want to see, and - most importantly - how it's allowed them to increase production quality on Ghost Files.

The final quarter of the video explains that this isn't good enough, the quality isn't high enough, the finish not glossy enough, it's not "TV caliber" enough! They want more, they need more, you have to give them more, mostly (apparently) because their CEO Steven Lim wants to bring back his show where he flies around the world with his bestie sipping Champagne and eating gold-leaf-covered lobster.

In short, they want more money to make even bigger things, even though their audience never asked for that.

WHY IT WILL NOT WORK

Oh my goodness, this is going to be a ride so strap in.

I'm not a YouTube creator so there are a lot of things I do not know. Having said that, I know a little about business.

This ain't Buzzfeed, y'all

Watcher became successful because of Ryan and Shane. It was their friendship, their personalities, and the content we loved to watch featuring them at Buzzfeed, that brought us along for the ride.

The audience they poached from Buzzfeed is there for them and Ghost Files. It's not there for Steven Lim and "Worth It". His show worked under the Buzzfeed umbrella only because they had numerous sub-categories in that community to support it.

The Try Guys left and created their own channel from their Buzzfeed fans.

Safia Nygaard left and created her own channel from her Buzzfeed fans.

Shane and Ryan left and created Watcher from their Buzzfeed fans.

Steven Lim left and became the CEO of Watcher. He didn't take his audience with him.

The audience of Watcher is not the audience of "watch me fly around the word with my pal and spend $100K on hand-reared, Whiskey marinaded, diamond-encrusted Kobe steak".

And... IN THIS ECONOMY?

Steven chose to become a CEO instead of a presenter. He's missed the opportunity to take that Buzzfeed audience with him.

This is made clear by the Watcher channel itself. Their "man eats food" content rarely breaks 500K views while their Ghost Files breaks 2 million consistently.

If a million of their viewers followed them from Buzzfeed to Watcher, the other 2 million have joined them since, based almost entirely on their spoopy content.

Not only did they base their channel on this genre and format, they have distilled their audience further ever since the creation of their channel and no matter how hard they try to diversify into "man eats food" it's just not working.

This ain't Netflix, y'all

As mentioned, the $5.99 charge is comparable to Netflix and just about every other streaming platform. Only Watcher can't give you even 5% of what a competing platform can offer for that price.

Other platforms also tailor their content and their pricing based on geographical location and localized economics.

You're paying far less than $5.99 a month if you live in an economy where the median household income is $300 a month. YouTube has a global audience. Their subscribers don't all live in a stable economy where $5.99 is considered disposable income.

We don't know the numbers, but I would guess only 60% of their subscribers are based in the USA, Canada, and the UK.

Even for those who do live in a stable economy, their audience is predominantly young adults and students. Most young adults are currently facing the reality that they will possibly never own their own home, they're living day-to-day trying to budget.

They've instantly priced-out a large % of their audience.

I confidently predict that diehard fans who can't see anything wrong with this will sign up for $5.99 a month, binge watch for a couple of weeks, realize there's no new spoopy content and cancel.

They'll come back when a full season of Ghost Files has arrived, pay again, binge it and leave.

Steven Lim thinks they're gonna get $5.99 a month, every month, from thousands of subscribers. In reality they're going to get maybe $12 a year, from people signing up to binge watch what they want, then leaving.

This will then decline naturally as attention wanes during the months where there is no spoopy.

This ain't good marketing, y'all

They're going to be posting "trailers and season pilots" on YouTube.

Sure, I bet YouTube is gonna be totes okay with a channel doing nothing but trying to hijack traffic for an external site.

Posting nothing but trailers and season premiers will mean maybe one full video per month during busy seasons. That's not enough to remain relevant for the algorithm.

If 80% of those posts are also just trailers saying "leave YouTube and come here", the channel will be smacked down quicker than a crypto scam using an AI generated Elongated Muskrat.

Their channel was growing steadily, but that was with full content regularly posted. When the schedule drops off, and when most of it is considered spammy by YouTube, it's going to collapse like a flan in a cupboard.

A streaming platform needs a constant flow of new subscribers just to replace the gradual drop-off (maybe ask Rooster Teeth about that). When your global audience at YouTube is gone, where are those new subscribers coming from?

The platform is also an additional overhead. It's going to cost thousands a month to keep the servers going.

This ain't good financial management, y'all

I don't know if they've already spent hundreds of thousands of $s on Lim's "men eat food" gamble, but I suspect they have.

I know they have spent hundreds of thousands of $s on a new season of Ghost Files, flying to the UK to host live events while filming those episodes.

This means they've over-extended their finances just at the moment where they've cratered their opportunities to see a return on investment.

Just that, on its own, is enough to destroy a production company.

They do not need 25 employees any more than I need an editor and proof-reader for this long ass post.

They do not need a production studio in Hollywood any more than I needed an office to write this.

They do not need to spend tens of thousands of $s on glossy graphics that appear on screen for maybe 4 seconds in one episode any more than I needed to add screengrabs to this painfully long essay.

By leaving YouTube they've lost:

Adsense revenue (which might not be much on a per-video basis but adds up with a back catalogue over years of productions)

Sponsorship deals, which allegedly contributes almost 50% of their annual revenue.

Merch sales, which is about to crash if the only people they can promote merch to are already paying per month in their smaller ecosystem.

Patreon. Why would someone pay $5.99 twice, for the same or less content?

And they've abandoned all of this for maybe a few thousand people who will probably end up paying just $12 a year when a new spoopy season arrives for them to binge.

I'm no Will Hunting, but no matter how hard I try to make the numbers work they just don't, and I don't need Robin Williams to tell me it's not my fault.

This ain't nice, y'all

Some of you are feeling like Ned's wife right now, and some of you will have no idea what that's in reference to.

Most of you will hate that I made that reference more than you hated the SNL skit.

I get it.

Maybe the worst part about all of his, from a viewer's perspective, is the dismissive nature of their sign-off.

They didn't mention the Patreon members once, not one single time in the whole video. It's like they consider the Patreon "too YouTube". They're the deformed cousin locked in the attic. They're the relative who wasn't invited to the wedding because they can't afford a Tom Ford suit. They're the colleague who isn't invited to the staff night out because they only work in accounting and no one has anything in common with Janice anyway.

These are diehard fans who were actually paying them extra to support them and enjoy a little bonus behind the scenes, and the boys didn't even consider them worthy of an utterance.

They also finished with "If you don't follow us and pay up it's been real, peace out". I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically what it was.

They spent so much of the video saying how awesome and great it was that the fans and YouTube got them to this point, but they didn't thank their Patreon members, and they ended with a blunt suggestion that if you don't follow them and pay more then you're not a real fan anyway and they don't really need you.

"Thanks for getting us here, sucks to be you, bye now!"

You made them wealthy, you helped them hire 25 people, you helped them increase production value to "TV caliber" even though you didn't ask for that, but your job is done and now you're superfluous. Only the real fans are wanted.

In the words of the great George Carlin - "It's a big club, and you ain't in it".

They're okay losing the vast majority of the people who got them here if a few thousand of those are comfortable enough to be able to pay $60 a year for a YouTube channel.

Can it get worse? Sure!

We've had a weekend to enjoy the constant heat of this bonfire and it's predictably worsened with each hour of silence from the company and its employees.

The fact that they haven't back-tracked, despite almost unanimous agreement that this is badder than the baddest thing that could happen to their company, suggests they're okay with it.

Consensus seems to be that they knew it would be this bad, and they're cool. They predicted 90% of people would scream "Boo to you good sirs! Boo indeed!" and they could still survive on the 10% who don't see a problem here.

The lack of response reinforces the narrative that they're totally fine with discarding almost their entire audience if they can just squeeze the cash they need out of whoever is left.

This ain't fixable, y'all (maybe)

Note: I don't want this to be mean, but it's going to sound a little bitchy no matter how I try to say it.

If they'd brought out the Ukulele on Saturday, or even teased Ukulele's on their socials before putting out a video on Sunday, they probably could have survived this with much hand-wringing and a little groveling.

But now I think they've grilled this Kobe steak for far too long.

They've lost 100K subscribers, and counting. The venom among Patreon members is allegedly worse than the public comments section under the video, which is startling. Dozens of YouTubers are torching them harder than a $100 crème brûlée.

People are scraping their channel content in case it's nuked.

Shane "eat the rich" Madej's sentiments over the last few years look disingenuous, to say the least. To shamelessly steal someone else's comment: "Imagine being all 'eat the rich' right before throwing yourself on the plate". He's silent while his McMansion burns down, at his own hands. "Why not!?" indeed.

Steven "I drive a Tesla" Lim's socials now make him look like a tech-bro try-hard and his use of words like "early adopter" and "soft launch" in the video only compound the belief that this was all his brainchild. He is the CEO, and that comes with responsibility and the associated blame. You can't steer the ship into the Bermuda Triangle and then disappear without looking like the bad guy.

Okay, you can disappear, but that convoluted metaphor is a mystery for someone else to solve.

Ryan "TV caliber" Bergara now sounds like an elitist who thinks YouTube is "too pedestrian" for his big plans, not big enough to meet his artistic vision. You see, he's more James Cameron, while YouTube is more like your student film club. He's grown beyond this pesky platform with billions of daily hits offering exponential growth with almost zero financial risk.

Even if they released a video today admitting they messed up big time it's still going to be hard to get the taste of this Ghost Pepper Warhead out of the collective mouth of their viewers.

This hasn't just burned their shared brand, it's singed their individual reputations among an audience upon which their careers rely.

What they should have done, on Saturday, is release a video (Ukulele or no) confessing their error. They should have announced their new platform will instead just be a bigger and better Patreon, with early access to everything, behind-the-scenes content, extra features, audience interaction etc.

They should have reversed to make clear their YouTube channel will stay the priority, their main source of revenue, but that you could get more on their own platform if you want it.

And, maybe, over time, people will pay for that. If they grow their channel to 6 million subscribers in the next 4 years there will be a couple hundred thousand of them willing and able to pay $5.99 a month for 8 years of shows, 8 years of behind the scenes content, 8 years of community involvement and regular early access to new episodes.

Maybe then they could try out their "privileged guys eat expensive food in expensive places" show and see how it does? Maybe a majority of people won't be living on the cusp of poverty by then and it won't look as tone-deaf as a 13 year old YouTuber trying to cover Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah"? Maybe then they could hire another 50 people and make Bergara's "TV caliber" (I still don't know exactly what that means) game shows and reboots?

The clock has been ticking since they hit that "publish" button on their career ending video, but that clock is about to count down to zero and silence will permeate throughout their previously lively community.

That 1980s basement set needed someone crying in the corner, right?

The problem is, their own platform is not a terrible idea. Really, it's not the worst thing they could do. The badness came in the timing, the switch, the middle finger and the f you. They could have released this as an extra, their own Patreon alternative, waited, developed it over time into something sustainable and established.

They could still try to do that and hope this dark chapter is forgotten.

Maybe I'm wrong? Maybe Lim is a financial genius with more skill than the management of Rooster Teeth and their corporate parent company combined? Maybe this gamble will be wildly successful despite all streaming services down-sizing or just going bankrupt? Maybe they won't be back on YouTube in 3-6 months begging for views after having to lay off 20 of their employees?

I know this... if I were one of those 25 employees blind faith would not be enough to stop me from looking for another job.

I suppose this will, for now, remain... a mystery.

EDIT:

I'm not writing another essay about this, but I'm glad to see they've backtracked and made the right choice to use WatcherTV as any sane creator would - to host early access and exclusive content in addition to their YouTube channel.

Over time, while promoting it in every video, building up that trust and fan base, it can be a secure and long-term financial bonus helping them to expand their business incrementally as finances allow.

Why this wasn't the plan all along is anyone's guess. Gambling everything on this was never the sane decision.

I still think they need to scale back on costs. I still think the food content is not currently a viable source of income while being a serious drain on resources. I still think they need to stop hiring all their friends and they need to hire one person who doesn't have personal relationships with everyone there and can make the tough business decisions.

No one likes firing people, it's ten times worse when it's a friend. But this is a reality of business and just wishing it wasn't so isn't going to make it go away. It would be awesome if we could all run a business where we can hire all our friends and family, never have to rely on any outside funding, make whatever we want, make a great living in one of the most expensive cities in the world and continue to grow.

That's just not the reality.

Their apology was genuine, in my opinion. I just hope they can work out the right financial balance.

[fatalism-and-villainy]

This is gonna sound like a morality cop sentiment without the context that I am a person who is deeply enthusiastic about the aestheticized, eroticized violence of NBC Hannibal. But with that context in mind… I often find myself deeply put off by how violence is handled in fanfic, particularly post-canon fanfic.

Because Hannibal is a very dark show. It is thematically centered on the darkness that resides in all human beings, as embodied by the irresistible black hole that is Hannibal Lecter - a theme that most obviously manifests in Will Graham’s corruption arc, but also in subtler, more mundane ways with characters like Alana Bloom and Jack Crawford, who keep repeating their mistakes despite their self-awareness. And it’s a very nihilistic show, concerned not with ethics but aesthetics, with the pursuit of beauty in the absence of moral scruples.

And yet, violence and death always feel significant on this show. Despite (or perhaps because of) the frequent surrealism and black comedy in their presentation, they feel as if they have gravitas. And that’s precisely because of the show’s aestheticism. The corpses we see are so exquisitely mounted, and presented with such deliberation and intention, both in-universe and in the show’s cinematography. And thus these deaths feel as though they have weight, as though they mean something - even if the only meaning we derive from them is that they look beautiful, if ghastly, or that they convey cinematic symbolism.

But there is so much Hannibal fanfic where the violence feels so… disturbingly banal to me. Where the deaths don’t have any narrative weight and are completely trivial to our main characters. And this is imo completely out of keeping with even Hannibal Lecter’s own philosophy on the show, when he says that life is precious - not because he places particular value on life’s preservation for its own sake, but because he fully understands the gravity of what he is doing. His arrogance and sense of superiority is contingent on the understanding that the taking of a life is a serious thing, and a transcendent thing. Not flesh and blood, but light and air and colour. And I don’t see much light and air and colour in the kinds of fics that I’m talking about.

This is all very much entwined with the fact that a lot of these representations of violence seem to be bound up in the understanding that the show, and Will’s arc, is subtextually queer. And it absolutely is. But I often get the sense that these representations of violence, and the relationship between Will and Hannibal, are trying to overlay them with a very 2020s Positive Queer Representation approach, wherein Will and Hannibal’s love is misunderstood by the world, and thus their violence, as the symbol of their transgression, has to be portrayed and received by the audience an unalloyed good.

And this feels hard to explain, because of course this is a show that is very much about the pleasures of transgression. And it invites the viewer to share in that pleasure, in all the aforementioned ways. It’s drawing from a very 19th century Wildean mode in that regard - a sensibility that irreverently collapses all transgressions into one, and deliberately refuses to differentiate between the morally repugnant and the merely socially unacceptable. And that is very powerful as an engine for queer subtext, as it takes the very real feeling of being corrupt and tainted and wrong and leans into the seductive glamor of that corruption, rather than attempting to counteract that narrative (in ways that can feel, when in the throes of internalized homophobia, shallow and artificial).

But, within Hannibal, that thrill of transgression is inextricably bound up in horror. The pull of violence - and the bond it engenders between Will and Hannibal - is irresistible, but it is also a source of deep seated pain and terror. And those things are fundamentally not separable. There’s a sublimity to violence, and to desire, on this show - pleasure and pain, wonder and horror, are intertwined.

And a lot of the portrayals of violence-as-transgression as symbolic of queerness in fanfic just don’t grasp this. There’s an attempt to paper over the horror and the sublimity of the violence, and how it serves the queer symbolism. It always strikes me as though writers grasp that symbolism, but are trying to fit it into the mold of representation-as-a-means-of-social-advancement. It never lands for me and it leads to the aforementioned callous disregard for life that I just find distasteful. Which is not to say that I think portraying violence and murder in a manner that strikes a similar note to the show is an easy needle to thread - certainly not. (Not the least because it’s hard to translate the show’s visual language to writing.) But it is something I notice and that breaks immersion for me very quickly.

[justchillandshipit]

Here I go again.

Buck asks Eddie if his son is the real reason he doesn't date. Eddie responds with, "That and, they weren't my type."

This has been a flag for everyone who reads the subtext, but let's take a moment to look at the last GIF.

Eddie says they weren't his type. Buck turns around to look at them and probably assesses what makes them, 'not' Eddie's type because the girls were all subjectively pretty. There were also a variety of types of women there.

But look closely at the GIF. Eddie said they weren't his type. While Buck is glancing back, Eddie gives Buck a quick look that really screams, "You are it. You are the type." When I noticed this from the GIF edit, I thought it might be the creator slowing it down, but nope. If I look at the episode, it is the same or nearly the same. This is early season two, and I have always thought, in the early episodes, there was no intent to pair Eddie with Buck as anything but a friend. However, this scene makes me wonder at what point Tim M or whoever was writing changed their minds about adding in a subtextual narrative.

I find it very difficult to see this scene as a heteronormative exchange. In fact, it even feels like Eddie is pushing back a little to test where Buck stands. Buck as a character who lacks self-awareness gives a mixed signal answer. (which tracks with his character at this point and matches his coming-out arc.) **edited to clarify** Buck's mixed signal response to Eddie saying they aren't my type is, "Not mine either, at least not anymore."**

A few seconds later, Buck says Eddie has a weak excuse. My lovely and wonderfully sassy Eddie says, "You live in your invisible girlfriend's house, and you're telling me about weak excuses." He essentially points at Buck's closet door, but of course, this is something that Buck couldn't see or pick up on at the time. These moments are small in the grand scheme of the show as a whole so I'm afraid it will be forgotten. It would be nice to have some sort of throwback acknowledgment that this scene hasn't been retconned.

To backtrack a little bit here, I would also like to point out something else about the early timing or the writing of these characters as potentially queer. They are outside. (True I don't understand the ins and outs of filmmaking so there may very well be a reason for this.) But the shot itself is making them walk close together. Not just close, their shoulders are literally bumping against each other, hitting and knocking at each other in a way that might appear "unintentionally" intimate--until you remember they are outside. It seems to me like there are dozens of ways to shoot this thing that don't require them to be so casually physical with each other. For the scene to be shot like this and then consider the canon conversation that took place, it feels quite intentional that the writers wanted viewers to look closely for something else.

Whenever certain people call Buddie shippers delusional, I think about this. Subtextual language aside, the scenes are shot in such a way as to plant the idea of "More." There is attraction here. There is flirting.

Someone, somewhere wanted to tell this story from the start; and I'm not mad about it. I'm 100% here for it, and I'm ready for it to go down as the most epic love story I've ever watched or read about, but I also admit that I want it to be canon, not so I can throw it in anyone's face that their ship is wrong, but so I can prove I'm not some weirdo putting two hot guys together. I'm seeing a real romance being built. I want that validation as much as I want everyone under the LGBTQ umbrella to see representation for themselves on screen.

If you want to see the scene, go to about 3:05.