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This chapter should have been added between chapters 7 and 8 of "Video Love," but it was written too late to be added to the timeline. These chapters can be read as one-shots, although they may not make much sense out of context.

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January 6, 2011 at 11 PM, Fort Worth, TX: Preston

"GG, dude. Are you up for a rematch sometime? Because that was bad," I laugh as normally as I can but some of my nervousness shows through it. I want to ask him to record with me again but that's always the most awkward part of the whole thing. I don't wanna look desperate to work with him again and look like an idiot, but I totally am. Wait, I meant the desperate part, not the idiot part. Whatever. Now I'm not even thinking straight. There's just something about Rob that makes me lose my ish and it's so stupid.

"I don't know. Are you?" I can hear him smiling on the other end of the Skype call and for once I'm really glad he doesn't have a webcam. At least it's a good sign that he isn't gonna turn me down, right?

"Yeah, dawg, 'course I'm down. I'll always jump at another chance to kick your butt."

"Oh, really? That wasn't what happened today." He has to be grinning ear to ear now. Just hearing his voice when he's smiling like that makes it impossible for me not to smile, too. This guy is infectious. "When are you available to get rekaroonied again?" I pull out the planner they gave me in homeroom at school that I only ever use for YouTube stuff and flip to this week.

"I have nothing going on Sunday. Would that be good?" Rob pauses for a few seconds and I can hear him shuffling around at his desk while he looks for something. "All the noobs on Black Ops would love you. It'd keep me from nuking their butts all freaking day and night."

"Sure, what time?"

"Same time, same place for a rematch?" He hums in agreement and I can hear him scribbling away on a squeaky whiteboard like the pleb he is. Could he be any more nerdy, like seriously? "I still can't believe how bad you pwned me with that bow. That sucked so hard, dude."

"What can I say, man? I'm good at sucky things." I don't even know why it's funny but whenever he does that weak little pitiful voice it just hits me right in the giggledick and I can't stop laughing.

"Tell me more about these 'sucky things,' MrWoofless."

"Oh, indeed, good sir. Seriously though, do you have a few minutes before you go? There is something we need to talk about." Oh, crap. What'd I do this time? It wasn't Jerome was it? Did I screw something up and get him on my case again?

"Yeah, sure. What is it?"

"Okay, first of all, it isn't that serious so lighten up a little." He sounds like he's still smiling but I don't wanna let my guard down and have all my hopes and dreams crushed. "You okay there?"

"Yeah, it's all good. That's just usually what my parents say before they turn off the internet for a week." He laughs again and that makes it just a little less terrifying. What could he wanna tell me off about?

"No, I didn't mean for it to sound like a punishment. It is what you make of it, so whether or not you call it a punishment depends on how much lemonade you put in your glass. I just wanted to take a minute to talk to you about our lord and savior Katniss Everdeen." Where the frick is he going with this? Is he drunk?

"Sure, but Benja's gonna come axe you a question if he hears you talking about his babe."

"I can deal with Mitch later. Right now, he is the least of my concerns." Uh, oh. This doesn't sound good after all. "Okay, man, chill out and stop making that face. You don't even have your webcam on and I can still see the mushroom cloud over your head all the way up here in Canada. I didn't mean it like that. Just take a chill pill, sit back, and try to learn something."

"Fine. What do ya want?"

"Now, I have a good time working with you, you know that. You seem like a nice guy and I don't want you to take this the wrong way."

"Go on." Who told him to do this and why? I thought we were good after what happened last month.

"You do a good job on your YouTube channels and I applaud you for that, but if you want us to keep working together, we both need you to be doing a great job. You need to step up your game a little before the game steps on you." Okay, so this might be more useful than I thought but I still won't like it.

"And how do you propose I do that, Your Majesty? Add a butt ton of flowers?" He gives a snort of laughter and I can hear him messing around with stuff again. Maybe it'd be nice to have a video call after all because I don't know where this is going and it's getting weird.

"Before you get too geeked out and hang up on me, just hear me out. I have this system I use, like a checklist, to make sure I have everything done on a video before I publish it. You might get more use out of it than you think." I can hear his marker squealing on the whiteboard and I try my best not to roll my eyes even though he can't see me. I take back what I said earlier: apparently he can get even nerdier. "So the acronym is 'Katniss E.' with a C instead of a K."

"Should I be writing this down, senpai?"

"If you think you need it, kohai." My face breaks out into the dumbest grin ever and I should feel bad but I totally don't. For as lame as he is, that comeback was on point. "Okay, so the first thing you need is 'color,' which you have the right idea about. On your COD channel all of your thumbnails have that disgusting mustard yellow, which is certainly colorful, but that might not be what you want your viewers to picture when they think of your channel."

"Where're you getting this from?"

"I saw it on your channel. You know... online?"

"No, I know that, you pleb. Where're you getting this advice from?"

"Oh, I don't know. Three years on YouTube and a bachelor's degree in business management might have helped it along." He has a point there and it'd be a good idea to listen to him even if the whole thing is really freaking dorky. I sigh and fish a pen out of the desk drawer and write down his dumb cheat sheet.

"Fine, I'm listening."

"Don't sound too excited there."

"I am surry senpai, continue plz." He laughs for a second before he goes back to torturing the whiteboard.

" 'Color.' You can keep your current theme if you want to, but you should make it eye-catching and consistent on each channel. If you could somehow come up with a color scheme that would encompass both of your channels, that would be even better. The content is so different, though... That might be harder to do."

"So you want me to color code everything?"

"In a way, yes. When you go to the store and try to find a box of cereal in a hurry, what do you look for?" He pauses for a second but when I don't answer he just continues. "You look for the artwork, right? You look for something familiar, something the company is known for. In other words, you need to make yourself into a brand, something your viewers can always identify when they scroll through their video feed."

"Catch their attention."

"Right, but in a consistent way. You want to catch their eye the first time, but you want them to recognize your signature or logo every time after that. It builds a relationship with your audience when they know they can depend on you to have reliable, easily-identifiable uploads. Whether they like to admit it or not, people like consistency."

"Alright, that makes sense. Then what?" He seems a little too excited about this and it's hilarious and horrible at the same time. He did this in college for how many years? That must've really sucked.

"The next one is similar, but different enough that it gets its own category. You need to draw 'attention' to your videos how ever you can without making yourself look like a try-hard. This can be thumbnails, titles, collaborators, prerelease advertising, or anything else you can think of. You do a good job on this already, but you need to refrain from body slamming the Shift key and stabbing the exclamation point and question mark." I can't help but snicker at that and I nod even though he can't see me.

"Got it. So no screaming in the title."

"Right. Keep the screaming in the video, not on it."

"Yes senpai, plz continue ze rant."

"Patience, kohai, or you will never reach the level of 'senpai.' Being a cute little cactus is only going to get you so many views before being cute and prickly just isn't enough." I pretend to give a big sigh right into the microphone and he just laughs.

"What next?"

"T is for 'theme,' which can mean the kinds of content you upload or a recurring trend in your gameplay. For example, Mitch's theme is playing Hunger Games until his eyes bleed and mainly posting the games he wins. This boosts his viewers' confidence in his skills and builds up his brand name as 'The King of the Hunger Games.' Jerome's theme, on the other hand, is 'humor over victory.' He posts games he finds personally amusing, usually at the cost of him actually winning. As a result, his viewers watch him for his jokes, not his PVP skills. He markets himself as Mitch's funny sidekick."

"And you're 'The Flower King' who hits every bow shot ever but can't complete a parkour map without crying?" He huffs and scribbles on his whiteboard again.

"Yeah, but we don't talk about that."

"You know, if we're gonna keep recording together you should really let me teach you how to parkour. You have to step up your game before the game steps on you." Rob just chuckles at his own line being used against him and I fill in the spot next to the T. I wonder if this weird video outline thing of his is gonna improve my sub to view ratio or if he's just talking out of his butt.

"Honestly, I might take you up on that. The next part is 'names,' which includes not just your name but also the names of everybody in the video." I cringe at that and write it in next to the N. I still wish I hadn't left him out of our first two videos even though I went back and fixed it. That's still a sore spot for both of us and I swear I'll never do that to anyone ever again.

"Got it."

"Good. Now we are on to 'image,' which is the overall image you want to have for your channel. This is all about building a reputation for yourself and your work, and the best way to do that is to have high standards for your uploads. This would also be a good time to go back through your old videos and private anything that doesn't meet those standards. Don't delete it, but make it so your viewers only see uploads that you would want to watch. Sitting through something and wanting to watch something are two very different things." He makes a good point but that's gonna be a whole lotta work I wasn't counting on doing. I already have a couple hundred uploads and watching my old stuff isn't my idea of a nice Sunday afternoon.

"Yeah, I'll start working on that this weekend. Sounds like that'll be painful."

"Just a bit. You should make sure you know where the nearest garbage can is. I almost lost my bagel the first time I cleaned out my videos." He still has his original videos somewhere? I need to look that up. Who could pass up the chance to watch a noob-y Woofless try to make a video? Now that sounds like a good Sunday afternoon.

"And then?"

"Next is 'social media,' which I doubt you need any help with. Just remember not to abuse the Caps Lock and punctuation and everything looks gucci. The second 'S' stands for 'spacing,' or releasing your videos evenly over time."

"Okay, I'm not that big of a frickin' noob. I know how to schedule uploads."

"I know that, but sometimes you still release multiple videos on one day, then nothing for a day or two afterward. Space it out a little more and you can build your credibility with your audience. People don't like change, and if you make yourself reliable, they will never have the chance to complain incessantly in the comments about how you posted seven videos last week but only five this week."

"And then they always want more."

"Exactly. It creeps up on you and explodes right in your face. Keep it steady but reasonable, and make extra uploads a treat instead of an expectation. If you start doing three a day then switch back to one a day, the comment section is going to turn into an absolute shitstorm."

"Good to know, senpai. That sounds like it'd be fun to see, though."

"Oh, it is. Just watch Mitch's channel in a few weeks when he cuts down his uploads to study for his exams. You would think someone had just bombed Disney World and set the legions loose." I crack the heck up at that and I just can't help it. After a few seconds Rob starts chuckling, too, but I guess the flashbacks from his own fan wars are just a little too real.

"And then?"

"Then the last one is 'editing.' This one is pretty obvious, and it includes adding visual and sound effects and cutting out unwanted footage. No one wants to see massive chunks of AFK or grinding footage or an excessive number of fails. It hurts your credibility and it makes you look like a noob."

"Don't show your chunks. Got it." He snorts into the mic and I can hear him snap the cap back on his marker.

"Any questions?"

"Yeah, uh... Are we there yet?"

"Yes, we are finally there. Are you good to go?"

"Of course! I'm always good to go, but you already knew that, bby."

"Oh-ho-ho! In your dreams, Cactus-kun. Only in your sweetest dreams." We sit in comfortable silence for a minute while he types something on his computer. As late as it is and as silly as it sounds, I really don't want him to hang up.

"Actually, I do have a question for you."

"What's up?"

"You be my senpai now?" He stops typing and I wonder what his face looks like right now. Was asking him that a big mistake?

"Do you want me to be your senpai?" Does he really have to ask? If it was any more obvious I have a bro-crush on the guy I swear I'd be beating on his door with flowers and a freaking wedding ring.

"Plz? I fan?" He sighs and pauses for a few seconds and I hope he's just screwing with me.

"Sure, I guess. I mean, I wanted to call you my 'Wooflett,' but I guess 'kohai' will work."

"Well, I was just gonna call you 'The Big Pleb' but I guess 'senpai' will work." He starts cackling and that just makes me laugh, too. His laugh is like a disease and I don't know if I love it or hate it. Every call we have is full of us just constantly laughing and it makes my ribs hurt, but in a good way.

"I should let you get back to the real world now, before you pass out at school tomorrow. I will see you Sunday?"

"Of course, you cactus. I wouldn't ditch you on a recording date."

"Oooh, a date," he coos in his cutesy voice and I just facepalm and try to hold back the smile.

"See ya later, pleb."

"Bye, kohai-chaaan!" I end the Skype call before my face can get any redder and before I have to slam my head on the desk and wake up Caleb next door. I throw the pen back in the drawer and just sit there for a while, staring at the notes from our little business meeting. It takes a minute for it to sink in, but when it does it feels like my stomach is full of fireworks. I just started a partnership with a big Tuber who knows what he's doing and he isn't even a smarmy, self-absorbed jerkwad. If it wasn't so late at night I'd start cheering. Anyone who said I wasn't gonna make a name for myself on YouTube is gonna eat their words and choke on 'em.

"Woof woof, mother fudgers."