Chapter Text
Flick felt like he was in over his head. This felt impossible -- where was he even supposed to start? All he wanted to do was start a Leaftube channel so that he could upload videos about his many bugs and even show off the commissions he had started on. Or, really, his prototypes. It was something that he had been thinking about doing for a while, and so one night he had finally broken down and headed out to one of the nearby shops and bought up a bunch of supplies. They weren’t anything special, he hadn’t even tried painting any of them yet. But he was making progress, and it made him feel proud.
Now, if he could only work up the courage to actually put his work out there.
Come on, Flick, just do it! he could hear Mable’s voice in his head. Just do it! Press record!
“If Sable can do it, you can do,” he muttered to himself. That was always Mable’s punchline. Sable was shy and reserved around people she didn’t know or weren’t close to. Flick felt much the same way. Not to the point where he’d hide from people, but he knew he wasn’t your average chameleon, and so tended to keep mostly to himself. But Mable was right, Sable had started recording videos, and she was starting to get more notice.
So, he could do this right?
“Do it for the bugs,” Flick chanted to himself. “You can do this,”
Flick took a couple deep breaths, trying to calm his nerves. It’s just you. No one else is here. He leaned over and pressed the record button on the computer.
“Umm… hey, Flick here,”
*Stops recording*
“Well, that was stupid,” he said to himself. He shook himself out. “Okay, okay, let’s try this again,” he said, pressing the record button again.
“Hey, and welcome back to --”
*Stops recording*
“There’s literally nothing to come back to -- this is the first video,” Flick muttered to himself. “Okay, okay, you got this! Third time’s the charm!” he hit the record button again.
“Hey what’s up you guys! The name’s Flick, and today, we’ll be talking about….” Flick paused for a minute or so, before stopping the recording again.
It didn’t feel… natural. Not even halfway into his first video and he already felt as though he was putting on a facade. Don’t over do it, he thought to himself. Just… talk like you’re talking to Mable….
He pressed record again. “Hello there. So, um, today, I caught a butterfly. Well, it was a yellow butterfly to be specific. They're in the common butterfly family, and -- fun fact -- they’ve got scales that flake off when touched,” he said, moving slightly off screen to grab the container it was currently being contained in. “I really want to start making a sculpture of it,” he continued, starting to show off all of his materials. “I figured that I would just start with some wood and go from there…”
Living on your own had lots of pros and cons. Such as, since he only needed one bedroom, the other spare rooms could be used as various different things. So, the room across from his bedroom was essentially his work office. It’s where he kept his workbench and all of his supplies that he needed for bug hunting -- and more recently, for building his sculptures. It’s also, where he decided he would set up his little home studio. It wasn’t much, just a desk and an old desktop he’d been able to snag out of his parent’s garage. But it had a webcam and Mable was nice enough to give him some old speakers to work with. On top of downloading a few editing software and finally plucking up the courage to create a Leaftube account, he figured his setup worked just fine.
There wasn’t much else to look at in the room. He thought of Sable’s setup whenever she posted a video -- she was always in her home studio, the walls pink with flowers lining them, the floor a matching hardwood surface, never littered with anything, everything neat and put into its place. Her work area was so clean and organized, it never took her more than a few seconds to find the right sewing needle or fabric sample.
As he ended his recording for the day and looked around his room, he figured maybe it could use a change itself. Things were sort of placed just… everywhere. His trusty net sat by the door, he had empty bug tanks just piled everywhere, and the ones that did contain something in them were taking up any and every free spot available. He had hardwood in one spot, softwood in another, bags of medicine stuffed in the closet, as well as various other supplies.
Maybe I can convince Sable to come over and help me organize. Flick laughed at the absurd thought. “More like get Mable to come and help me,” he said, turning back to his computer screen. He was surprised to see how much he had actually gotten recorded. He didn’t realize he could even record such a long video. His editing skills were nothing more than basic, but he tried his best to edit and cut it down a bit.
By the end of it, he’d gotten it down to twenty or so minutes, and figured it was good enough. He sent the final cut of it over to Mable who sent him a message back about forty minutes later squealing you did it you did it! Omg Omg POST IT!!.
Flick chuckled to himself. Of course she was supportive, it was in her nature. Being the youngest of three sisters, and with Sable focusing most of her energy into her work, well… it was nice to have someone like Mable in your life to bring you that ray of sunshine. So, Flick didn’t even think twice about it, he opened up his web browser, typed in the link, logged into his account, and before he could second guess himself, he typed up a quick caption, picked out a simple title and posted the video.
He gave a sigh as he sat back in his chair. Now we wait….
He knew that nothing was going to happen. He’d be happy if he got three views on it that weren’t from Mable, Sable, or Nat, his mentor. Speaking of which, he needed to stop by the local museum and have a chat with him. Flick looked up at the clock on the wall in front of him. It’s a little too late now….
So instead, he decided to call it a day. He didn’t have a Leafgram or Flutter to promote his video -- not that he would have even had any followers to promote too. Sable had accounts, but he knew Label was behind them. She was the marketing genius behind everything.
I could give her a call… but he quickly shook that thought away. He didn’t see her all too much, and wasn’t as nearly as close to her as he was to her other two sisters. He and Mable went way back, and it had taken a lot of effort for Sable to finally warm up to him. They were the two closest people he had outside of his own family.
Flick pulled out his cellphone and figured he would look at what videos were trending at the moment. He wasn’t surprised to see another one of Sable’s videos among the trending page. They never quite reached the top five, but you never had to scroll for long before one of her videos would pop up. K.K. Slider was always among the top three. Reese and Cyrus was a popular duo that showed up quite a bit as well. Chrissy and Francine uploaded vlog videos that tended to get lots of traction as well.
There were other people who he spotted on the page that he knew of but couldn’t tell you what they did or why they were popular, like Bangle or Kidd who would appear on the trending tab from time to time. But a name he had been seeing a lot more often recently was someone by the name of C.J. He didn’t have a lot of videos uploaded up on his channel, but whenever he would post one, they would garner a bunch of views within a short period of time. Flick wasn’t sure how videos were picked or labeled as “trending” but he had to imagine that if your video was getting well over 100k views within an hour of posting that that would certainly account for being trendy. He’d never watched any of the videos that he posted because he was always holding a fish in the thumbnail, and Flick had absolutely no interest in it at all. But this particular one caught his attention.
It was in the top five most trending videos, and in the thumbnail, he was holding a hermit crab. The title of the video read "Catching a Hermit Crab! Tips n Tricks". While Flick credited himself on being a huge bug person, he did know a thing or two about hermit crabs. He’d never caught one himself as he lived in the city and he couldn’t just walk to a beach. But, they were an interesting creature nonetheless, and so he clicked on the video.
”Hey all you fishionistas! C.J. here, and today we will be talking about an interesting fella -- the hermit crab!” he said, holding up a small one that fit in the palm of his paw. ”Fascinating, isn’t it? Well in today’s video, I’ll be teaching ya how to catch one for yourself! We’ll talk about the kind of net you need, the best kind of bait to use, and how to properly take care of it in your very own aquarium!”
“He’s very animated,” Flick thought to himself. “Wonder if he’s like that in person,”
”So! First of, some facts about this little guy,” he said, showing off the critter to the camera. ”Did ya know that there are over 500 species of hermit crabs? You’re probably only aware of the two most commonly found -- land and pincher -- but there are so many more to be found!! So, in order to identify your crab, here are a few things you want to look at. First of all…”.
Flick watched the video and became enthralled in it. C.J. was rambunctious and so animated, but so very cheerful. You could tell that he felt very genuine towards the little things, and would never dream of hurting them. He talked about proper care, the best places to sell them if you come across one, what to do if you find one without a shell -- it was all very educational and Flick learned a lot from the beaver.
”Now then, if you don’t already, make sure to follow me over on LeafStream, where I live stream almost every single day!!” he said, his username popping up on the bottom of the screen, along with all his other social media accounts. ”That’s all for me today! Stay tuned for next time when we talk about the world’s greatest cuddler… the cuttlefish!! Nyuk nyuk!! C.J. out!!” and then the video was over.
“Hmm…” Flick thought, exiting out of fullscreen and going down to the description of the video. He clicked on the link to his livestream channel, where it opened up his app store and prompted him to download the app. After doing so, he fired it up, looking for his username, and finding it instantly.
“Started streaming five hours ago… how long does he livestream for?” Flick looked incredulous, as he tapped play on the video. He couldn’t find anything interesting enough about his life to make him want to livestream for any longer than five minutes.
”....and then BOOM! A big ole coelacanth, right there in my bear paws!!” the beaver exclaimed. ”I couldn’t believe it!! Y’all should have seen the look on Blathers face when he saw it!!” the beaver said, laughing.
“Blathers… he owns the museum Nat works out of…” Flick had never met the guy, but he’d seen pictures of him and had heard a ton about him. He owned a ton of museums in a bunch of different places. He’d stay around long enough to see the museum fully completed, and then he was on to the next one. The museum in Flick’s hometown had been completed when he was still a little kid. He had fond memories of it, begging his dad every Saturday to take him down so that he could stare at all the rare bugs all day.
The museum where Nat was working and where Flick was mentoring had also been completed some time ago -- actually having just gotten an upgrade to now include an art gallery. It was nice, but Flick would be lying if he didn’t say that one of his biggest dreams is to one day help Blathers fill up a brand new museum. That would put him on the map for sure.
”So! We’ve been out for quite some time now, and have yet to find us a golden trout,” the beaver gave a heavy sigh. ”What do y’all say? Should we give up?”
Flick frowned for a minute, before he realized the chat underneath the video was spamming messages.
SeaBass45: No way!
CJ4lyfe: No, keep going!!
IttyBittyFishy: You’re so close, come on C!!
”Aww, you guys are too much!!” the beaver cooned. ”Well all right!! Onward we will go!!” and so he did. At first Flick had been boggled by the idea of such a long livestream, but then he realized he’d been watching him for over an hour, and realized he was… well, for a lack of a better term, he was hooked. He was so energetic and filled with knowledge. And he was so confident!! Flick wished he could go on and on about bugs like C.J. could about fish. And sure, Flick often did do so, but only around Mable and Nat. They understood, they got it. They knew how much it meant to him. For others… it was a weird obsession. It wasn’t cool, it was…gross. Disturbing. Not something the average chameleon spent their energy on, certainly not something to devote your entire life to.
But… sitting alone in his room, surrounded by the things he loved most, he felt as though C.J. got it. Like he knew and he was there saying it’s okay, embrace it.
Flick shook his head. “He’s not even here, you don’t even know him,”
But maybe you could…
Flick bit his lip, looking up at the clock on the wall again. He had work to do -- he was meeting Nat first thing tomorrow morning. But… he needed to make dinner, and really, he could stay up a little while longer to watch a few more videos. Flick exited out of the app and went back to C.J.’s video channel. He changed his video page to sort from newest first to oldest first. The first video that he had ever posted was only ten minutes long.
“Okay, watch this, make dinner, go to bed. That’s it,”
He leaned back in his chair and pressed play.