Huh. Well, this certainly seems familiar.
Though, I do get the feeling that a certain amount of weirdly targeted passive aggression is missing. Which feels a little oddly specif-
"This is no time for dry meta humor. We have a title card to get to." DYN2 said, bursting in, and once again being the sun, for some reason.
"But I didn't say that out loud." I point out.
"Trivial things like that don't matter in the variety show dimension. Anyways, BRING ON THE TITLE CARD!"
"Naturally, a star needs to show up in the intro!"
"Right, we're also here, for some reason."
"I'm also here this time. Cool."
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!
(lie)
ANOTHER VARIETY SHOW!
FEATURING:
NEW FANTASTIC WORKS OF 'ART'!
"Like this one."
ICONIC, BELOVED CHARACTERS LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THEM BEFORE!
"This guy's had, like, a dozen lines at most."
NEW CHARACTERS!
"New character, technically. Singular."
OLD CHARACTERS!
Real meeting of the minds, that one.
AND SO, SO MUCH MORE! STAY TUNED!
COMING TO YOU, (not) LIVE FROM THE VARIETY SHOW DIMENSION, IT'S THE BLLGRASFSH CHAPTER 100 SPECIAL CHAPTER VARIETY SHOW POWER HOUR!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
"That's a bit excessive, isn't it?"
"Right, Beyes, I've been wondering this for a while, but does your condition impact your eyesight at all?"
"Actually, it sort of helps, believe it or not. According to my old optometrist, my eyes are bad enough that, under normal circumstances, I would need glasses. But, since I'm always squinting, my eyes refocus themselves."
"Huh. That doesn't make much sense."
"That's what my optometrist said, too."
"Huh."
"What's the point of this bit?"
"There isn't one. Just looks funny."
"Huh. Cool."
(both of them greatly enjoyed that encounter)
"Ok ok, so, you might be wondering how a creature who's only means of defense against predators is killing itself can exist and evolve in an ecosystem. It's actually pretty interesting."
"See, whenever this fish explodes, it sends out a ton of tiny little bits of debris, only visible to the naked eye upon very close inspection, and the kind of debris that is pushed out varies depending on the sex of the particular fish. For females, the debris is actually a barrage of eggs that spread throughout the entire body of water, and, for males, the debris is the substance that fertilizes those eggs, thus allowing them to grow and eventually hatch and create offspring. Ironically, these fish depend on predators, (like bigger fish or fishers) to actually reproduce, or face they might extinction. Pretty interesting, right?"
"Right?"
*flip*
*sniff*
*yawn sfx*
"Uh... Why're we here, again? There ain't nothin' happenin'."
"Beats me."
Say, do you ever feel like life can be... Inconsistent? Like, you swear something happened like this, but actually it happened like this? Or something that just didn't make sense, perhaps shouldn't have even been possible, given all the information you have? It happens to the best of us. Sometimes it feels like reality just hiccups every so often. In truth, it's almost scary how little we can trust our own minds and memories.
"Well, sometimes you just don't have all the information."
And sometimes it's this guy's fault.
"Yeah, sometimes it's me. Hi! You don't know who I am. And that's okay, you don't need to. Just know this: I've been here for a while."
He's a real bastard.
"Yeah, I won't argue with that. See, I have 2 major hobbies. And those are pickpocketing and reverse pickpocketing. I get a real kick out of it. Not sure why. That's really all you need to know about me. Oh, and there's also this thing where major characters and protagonist types can't see me and are rarely able to acknowledge my presence. It doesn't come up much. Except for that one time..."
"Man, why do we always have that empty seat in the middle of the classroom? Who planned th-"
"Teacher! That guy's right there, remember?"
"Yeah, think there was some weird rom-com thing going on back in weapons class. Which, normally wouldn't have been a problem, but the teacher was somehow a part of it, I think, so he couldn't see me. Got a little awkward at some points."
But that's not why this guy's here today, is it?
Say, do you recall anything odd about, well, every chapter after 38?
Think about it. We'll give you some time to think, don't worry.
"Take all the time you need."
Or you could just skip ahead, to the answer. We have no way to enforce anything. Actually, you should probably do that anyways.
. . .
. . .
That's right!
A majority of chapter 38 was about Beyes obtaining something to write with so that he could purchase a can of nondescript, copyright free cola. In the end, while he was able to briefly use a writing tool (a quill and ink), he never actually obtained anything that would allow him to write later. Yet, in chapter 49 going forward, he's able to purchase cola, and, thus, write anyways! What's up with that?
"It's me. I'm up with that."
Wowie zowie! Gee, how'd you manage that one, buddy?
"Why are you talking like that."
Just tell the story.
"Alright. So, it's quite simple, really. So, first, it was just a normal day in Starsford. Seemed that way, at least. I was walkin' around, doing my thing, and I decided I'd take a shortcut that I use every now and then, a lesser used and kinda creepy alleyway a few minutes away from that one blacksmith. And, to my surprise..."
"... there was a corpse on the ground! Well, almost a corpse. Think he was still alive. And he was right in my path! It was crazy! Also, there was a sickle on the ground, for some reason. Weird place for farming equipment, right? Oh, and he was loaded! Naturally, I took the liberty of snatching his coin pouch. I noticed that the guy's hands were bound with sand, of all things. I figured this was the work of that 'S' guy I'd heard about, so I just left the guy alone after that. But, see, now I was carrying around all this cash with me. That's not good, I was basically asking to get mugged. Anyways, I decided to spend my newfound fortune on a bunch of pencils."
"I tend to buy weird stuff with pilfered profits. Not sure why. Anyways, for a while after that, I just started handing out pencils. And by 'handing out', I mean I was randomly placing them in peoples pockets. Sometimes on their ears, if I was looking for a real challenge. It was pretty fun. Anyways, a day or so later, I'm down in the town of Basenholm. Nice place. Basically nobody can see me there, so it's a great place to lie low and relax."
"Anyway, while I was there, I happened to see some strange looking green fella having the weirdest discussion with some kid who clearly couldn't possibly care any less, in front of this weird red box. Didn't seem like either of them could see me, so I decided to give the both of them the last of my pencils."
"So, yep. That's that. That's how that happened. As you can see, it was the consequence of an entirely logical and simple chain of events that could have happened to anyone."
Of course.
"Yeah."
"Whelp, that's all I've got for today. I'll probably be back soon enough, though. I have plenty more stories to tell, and I'm sure I'll just be getting more and more as things go on."
Undoubtedly.
Undoubtedly...
"Hey! You make things, right?"
"Hm? What? Where did you come from? And wh-"
"Not important! Could you make me a grenade launcher? I'll give you a looooooooott of money!"
"A grenade launcher?"
"Thing that launches a thing that explodes after a bit. Like, tchk, boom! Tchk, boom! Like that."
"Hmm..."
"Couldn't you just use magic for that?"
"It'd be fun as a prop!"
"What are you talking ab-"
"THAT SOUNDS AWESOME! ALSO, HI CATFACE!"
"This guy gets it!"
Riveting.
The simple locked door. There's no older enemy for most adventurers. It's a tale as old as time, really.
So, how do our heroes fare against this ancient test?
"Easy enough. Neat."
"NO LOCK IN THE WORLD CAN COTAIN A TRUE HERO!"
"Good thing I learned how to pick comically large ancient locks that one time!"
"Who cares?"
Wait, no, that's not how this is supposed to go.
"I don't care."
W-wait, what if we put a... Lake back there? Or something?
"Ok, fine."
Wait, where are you going?
"Gonna get the key, obviously."
Oh.
. . .
We'll come back to her.
"Hmmm... How should I..."
. . .
"Eh, whatever."
Wha- You too, of all peo-
"FLYING BATTERING RAM!"
oh
*tchk chk*
"Why am I even here?"
"I found it."
Excellent work.
"I found the key ages ago, but I made another one out of sand."
"Oh. Back here again. Guess that means..."
"Yep. It's about over, once again."
"Huh. So I guess that means..."
"Yep. I'm gonna hit you in the gut again, and we're gonna be back in the field."
"I see."
. . .
"Got anything you wanna say before that?"
"Nope. Nothing."
"Huh."
. . .
"Anyone else?"
"Not really, but a star's gotta show up for the ending!"
"THANK YOU, EVERYBODY!!!"
"Right, did you know that, back in the intro sequence, the frame under 'NEW FANTASTIC WORKS OF 'ART'!' was actually a re-used frame from the last variety show?"
"You got anything to say, Zram?"
"N-no, I-I'm good."
"ThisPlaceIs...MostPeculiar..."
"We're here too, for some reason..."
"Right we are. Though, I reckon we're gonna need more space soon."
. . .
"Right, almost forgot about that guy! Man, I'm gettin' all nostalgic!"
"Why is he still passed out?"
"I wouldn't *hic* worry about it. Looksss fine to me! Thumbbbsss up!"
"Pat! Quit acting foolish in front of heroes!"
"Bah, 'tis a shame we'll not be here much longer. This realm's simply teeming with magic!"
"I do hope you've been safe with your experiments, Maurice. I don't want to see another 'chicken incident."
"Ohoho! Quite the ensemble we have here! How exciting!"
"Oh my, it's getting rather crowded in here, isn't it?"
"Let me in, too!"
"Ameila! You mustn't run just off like that!"
"Amelia! Are you alright?"
"Is... Is that everyone?"
"Right. Looks like nobody else is comin'."
"Yeah. Man, I was starting to think knife guy was gonna show up."
"Who?"
"Oh, uh, don't worry about it."
"Anyways, should we, uh, end this off?"
"How?"
"Uh... what Michaus said works."
"Works for me!"
"YEAH! AWESOME!"
"Alright, uh, I guess just whenever everyone's read-"
"THANK YOU, EVERYBODY!!!"
"... Yeah, that works."
"Anyways, with that over with, I'm gonna hit you with this giant key now."
"Yeah. Just, uh, if you don't mind-"
"Shh... Just close your eyes, and think about shuffleboard, or something."
*Pfough!*
. . .
"Hey! Thanks from us, too!"
Yes, many thanks indeed! It was a pleasure having you.
Coming to you, not quite live from the variety show dimension, it's been the BLLGRASFH chapter 100 special chapter variety show power hour. We thank you for tuning in, and we hope to see you again soon.
Good night, everybody.
WARNING! LONG ASS COMMENT FULL OF BASICALLY 0 INFORMATION THAT YOU ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT. SERIOUSLY. IT'S JUST A BUNCH OF INCOHERENT RAMBLING. BY NO MEANS DO YOU NEED TO READ THIS COMMENT. IN FACT, I RECOMMEND YOU DON'T. REALLY, THIS IS BASICALLY JUST A LETTER TO MYSELF, ABOUT MY CURRENT feeeewwings uwu oh god why did i write that. THE WORDING AND FORMATTING IS ALSO GONNA BE ALL OVER THE PLACE BECAUSE I'M WRITING MOST OF THIS IN A HALF ASLEEP STUPOR. IF YOU VALUE YOUR TIME, GO DO SOMETHING ELSE. YOU KNOW WHAT, HERE'S A TLDR WITH ALL THE IMPORTANT INFORMATION IF YOU REALLY CARE. AFTER THAT, GO HAVE FUN. YOU'VE EARNED IT.
TL;DR : Thanks, everyone.
Uh, hey. This sure took some time. When I started this chapter, I truly thought I'd be able to get it shipped by Wednesday. And, in fairness, I might've actually been able to achieve that if a bunch of real life stuff didn't pop up out of nowhere, but I'm doubtful. This became a much greater undertaking than I ever initially expected. In terms of words, this chapter's actually on the longer side, and that's not even considering all those crappy drawings interspersed all around. Apparently even awful drawings can be really draining if you make a hundred of 'em.
Speaking of which, I did that. I drew a hundred of those stupid little pictures. Granted, a lot of them are just slight movements or zooms in, but, hey, a hundred's a hundred. Plus there's that one I reused from chapter 50, making 101 total images. If a picture's worth a thousand words, then I just wrote a novel, baby.
Speaking of writing a novel, actually, I sort of did. According to google, a novel has about 50-70 thousand words. Currently, this story has 150,566 words (before this chapter was released, anyways. I'm typing this comment in a google doc before I publish the chapter). Which means I guess I wrote about 2 and a half novels, or, like, one really big one. Well, I did the easiest part about writing novels, anyways. I'm not seriously about to pretend that anything I've written would be in any shape to be published. That would be silly. I mean, all those words, all those chapters, and barely anything's even happened. Still, I am at least a little proud of myself that I've kept this up thus far. Sure, what I wrote isn't great, probably not even good, but I wrote it. I'm proud of that. And nothing's gonna change that. And, I'm not gonna lie, a hundred ish chapters feels pretty dang good. And, as I said at the end of this chapter, I'd like to do a hundred more in the future. And even more beyond that.
But, this is the present, and the future is, well, the future. Entirely different beasts. To be frank, I have no idea what the future holds for me, and, by extension, this story. For all I know, come this time next year, my being a writer will be little more than a distant memory. It's a little scary to think about, but, hey, it happens. What that basically means for this story is that, as much as I really hate to admit it, it's probably never gonna have an ending. Well, it will end, obviously, all things do, but I probably won't be able to give it an ending. At least, it won't end in the flashy, satisfying way that ties everything together masterfully, the way it does in my dreams. It'll just end like most web novels like this, just whenever the last chapter is posted. Probably accompanied by me saying 'I'm taking a break.', which, of course, will never end. I don't have any idea whenever or why-ever this might come to pass. But I can guess. Maybe, in some pipe dream reality, I actually make it as a writer, and become too busy with other stuff to work on this. Or, more realistically, I'll succumb to reality and leave this dream and this hobby behind. Or maybe I just drop dead. Anything could happen. And anything will happen.
But, that's the future. For now, there are a few things I want to have happen before the end. Not that the end is happening any time soon, mind you, it's hopefully at least a year or, hopefully, many, many more away, but, still, I want to tell myself that I won't let myself give up before I put what's currently in my head on the page. Even if I have to move around a bunch of stuff.
Right now, I like to think that this story is still in its first act, still in its introduction, but maybe nearing the end of that. Bit of a long intro, I'm sure you'll agree, but… Yeah, I don't know where I was going with this. Point is, there's plenty of story left to go. That's not to say I have all the ideas in the world, but, well, I have a few, I guess. Big things, anyways. I dunno. Again, not sure where I'm going with this. I guess I'll finish this paragraph by saying that I think about this story a lot. Even though that thinking rarely produces any immediately usable ideas.
There's more I think I wanted to say, but I don't really remember it. And I'm starting to ramble at this point, anyways. I'll tell it to myself later if I remember it. Anyways again, I don't want to end this off without saying some thank you's. I know I threw a bunch of them out during the chapter, but I'd like to get a little more specific here.
Thanks to everyone that's even opened my silly little story. Regardless of how much you've read, It means so much more than you know.
Thanks to those who've stuck around and read it, too. Whether it's just a bit, or most of it, or even all of it, thank you so much. Not sure how you've been able to stomach it, really, but the idea that some people have enjoyed and gotten excited by these silly words I put on the page has really helped me. In a lot of ways.
Thanks to those who leave hearts or favorites or likes or whatever. Seeing those funny numbers go up always brightens my day.
And a big thanks to everyone who leaves comments. Every single one. And especially thanks to everyone for not leaving any hate. Not gonna lie, whenever I see that little bell grow a little red square next to it, there's a good bit of fear that immediately builds up. That someone's gonna tell me that they've wasted their time, that everything sucks, that I suck, or something like that. It's silly, but I've never created much of anything before. I dunno how I'd respond to real hate. That said, every single comment I've received here has been nothing but positive thus far, every criticism has been helpful and constructive, and I cannot thank you enough for that. Scribblehub's got a great community, and I'm so, so thankful for that. Specific shoutouts to users Kigol and Otakusociety. Every comment from those two always brightens my day. Even the ones that correct my many, many grammatical and spelling errors. Seriously, I know I don't respond much, but that's just because I really don't know what to say a lot of the time. Just, thank you ever so much.
Sorry for getting cheesy. I just feel that I don't say thank you enough, so I wanna get it all out here. Thank you, everyone.
I feel like I should put more down here, but I really don't know what else to say. I'm very tired.
Uh, I guess I'm gonna try to pick up the pace a little bit more. More short timeskips and stuff, things to make days go by faster. That way there's less pointless filler content, and I can get to the good stuff. I've been itching to write a fight scene, personally.
Anyways, it's very late, I'm gonna go eat cookie dough and go to bed.
Thanks.
Oh, shoot, forgot to write about something important. Well, kinda important. Important to me, anyways.. New day, btw, when i'm writing this. Probably gonna upload the chapter today. As such, I'll mostly focus on making the chapter itself all good and spiffy and I won't really put much care into the proofreading and formatting of this comment. Anyways, not really sure how to start this train of thought and I don't have all that much time so I'm just gonna skip to the important stuff.
When I started writing this story, I had actually intended to write a sort of fantasy slice of life, where nothing much really happened, just goofs and gaffs. Something fast paced, with a lot of very simple characters, a lot of shenanigans, a lot of magic, all that fun stuff, with a protagonist that was truly uninterested and uncaring, with just a shred of comical overpowered-ness. I thought it was a good idea, if a little generic. As you know, that idea fell through by the second chapter, and it became an even more generic, more character focused fantasy adventure, basically. (though, I did retain at least one of those previous elements) I didn't even realize it, at first, but, before I knew it, Beyes was a lot more than the loathsome apathetic creature that I initially wanted him to be. He had all these adorable little quirks, and a whole personality and I'm not even sure where any of it came from. And the pace of the story was anything but fast. And the characters weren't nearly as gimmicky as I wanted them to be. Really, the story as it is now is nigh unrecognizable compared to my initial idea. I think this mostly happened because of my decision to write the story in first person, which meant that the main character would naturally flesh themselves out, as well as my inexperience and general lack of skill as a writer, of course. But, really, I don't dislike the direction I ended up going. I like this story. Of course, I do have some qualms, I want to make the characters stand out more, use their gimmicks a little more often, and the pace definitely needs a boost, but, generally, I like the more character and adventure focused little romp that I created. I don't know if I like it more than my initial idea, but I like it.
One thing I am a little disappointed about, however, is that I kinda failed at the whole 'bored guy' trope. Not that Beyes doesn't have some of the characteristics of that sort of character, but it's certainly not the first and foremost thing about him. Kinda just became a kid with a weird face at some point. I tried to remedy that by having 'Sis' / DYN2-A fill that niche, but, once again, they sort of grew beyond that as things progressed. They still mostly fill the niche, I think, but it's not quite what I envisioned. I guess I learned pretty quickly how hard it is to write apathy. There's this natural urge to have characters care about the world and the people around them, because, well, that's life, isn't it? It's a lot harder than I thought to break that idea. Still, I do still like how all the characters turned out. But, I dunno, maybe I'll try a little harder with the gimmicks going forward. A little flanderization is better than decent into blandness, right?
Anyways uh… crud, I swear I'm forgetting something again. Well, this comments gotta end at some point. Guess here's a good a point as any.
Cool.
And, once again, because I can never say it enough,
Thanks.
The absolute legend dropped a chapter.
Dyna is cute.
And the whole ensemble of characters at the end was wholesome.
Who knew there was a character that none of the protagonists could see that helps them. Is he plot armor?
Thanks for the chapter.
And this novel inspired me to write my own. Go check it out.
Kisses. PS I read the entire comment.
@otakusociety
Cool stuff! I'll be sure to check out your work at some point! (though, I can't promise I'll comment all that much, as I'm not very good at thinking of useful things to say.) I'm quite honored that I inspired someone else to write! (please note that I will be jealous if/when you end up better and more successful than me, and I might send you a handwritten letter that says "poop >:[" on it using a blue Crayola crayon, which I will then take a hefty bite out of. This is a threat.) (Seriously though, that is very cool and I wish you the best of luck!)
And, as for that one character that none of the protagonists could see, it's important to note that they were definitely there the entire time, and that they are totally not just a lazy way to cover up gaping plot holes.
For sure. 100%. It would be preposterous to think otherwise. 
Also, I'm very glad you liked the ending. To be honest, I was a little concerned that it was too cheesey, but I liked it too much to get rid of it (Or maybe it was the fact that I only thought of that after well over an hour of 'work'. Maybe.)
Sure, what I wrote isn't great, probably not even good, but I wrote it. I'm proud of that.
The amount of stories on this site (and probably all the others) that are just abruptly dead in the water (don’t check my profile >_>) is staggering so having anything ongoing for as long as you have (and continue to have) is impressive. Consistency is damn hard and having anything ongoing for more than two years is already a major achievement (I don’t think I’ve done anything that isn’t required for basic sustained existence for two whole years). Next chapter is 300 which is (presumably) another variety show so good luck with that and I hope I continue on to see it, I am awful at following through with things. (Also your’e welcome for replying to your retrospective thoughts from two years ago, very helpful I know
)
@ReversedThree I'm thankful for any kind words, whether they're on a 2 year old comment or not, haha.
Seriously, thank you for your time and for all the kind words. it really brightens my day... Even if I am horrendous at coming up with responses to comments.