Pull Yourself Together [TheOdd1sOut x JaidenAnimations]

The Night Before

     36 hours. 36 hours he had spent sketching, lining, editing and re-drawing. All he wanted now was sleep, but that was a luxury he couldn't afford.

He had to finish the video.

      James had set himself on a tight schedule to get this done by Thursday morning, which gave him maybe 6 hours? 5 hours? Last time he checked the clock it was around 4 A.M. and now he'd lay on his bed for a least 2 hours, aggressively fighting sleep but unable to get up. It was like his body had just given up, which made sense- he hadn't eaten anything in those 36 hours because of the 5 minute long video he needed tomorrow he had just started to work on, 36 hours ago.

   It would have been a lot easier if he had help, but he'd told his team of animators that he could handle this one on his own. Boy was he wrong!

     He'd managed to finish everything but the backgrounds. Maybe he didn't need the backgrounds. The animation would (probably) be fine. Right? No point in trying to stay awake when he couldn't even get up to do anything. In fact, he needed rest; a lot of it for this weekend.

This weekend was VidCon.

     James had promised to make a video exclusive for an Animation panel he was hosting with Jaiden Animations a few other animators he was too tired to remember the name of. He'd made the mistake of hyping it up on his channel and completely forgetting about it while he worked on another video. A text from Jaiden on Tuesday asking about how it was going sparked his memory and led him on his nearing 2 day long trip which now found James near passing out in his room, with only the light of his abandoned drawing tablet and the glare of the Red Bull cans around him on the bed reflecting it's glow accompanying him.

    After one last desperate attempt to will himself up, he gave up and let his fuzzy thoughts take him over. A part of himself deep down refused to let him catch a wink knowing there was a video to finish, but maybe he could distract his tired mind and get a little sleep so his face wouldn't scare everyone who got within 5 feet of him.

    He would be seeing his friends again. The last time he saw any of them was last Vidcon, a year ago. The entire year since then he'd spent cooped up in his house making video after video, making his channel consistent but his mental health not. There had been days where it took all of his strength just to get out of bed in the morning. There had been a lot of those lately. Hopefully that would be over soon. He was happiest with his friends.

    Last VidCon had been amazing. On the last night, he and Jaiden and some other friends had drank an insane amount of energy drinks and proceeded to stay awake the entire time and just be themselves. Not mobbed by a crowed, not having to put a face on.

    After chugging a few milkshakes at the nearby Johnny Rockets, they raided a dollar store for every plunger they had and stuck them on cars in one of the hotels' parking garages. It was irresponsible, probably illegal, and they had possibly woken up the entire hotel with their roaring laughter, but it was the first time in a long time James had felt like a kid again- or least as young as he should feel at his age.

    For a weekend a year he didn't feel so tired and trapped in the endless loop of making video after video before people lost interest, making his views, and income along with it, drop.

    James lives in Los Angles. James has no degree. If he's going to survive, he needs to keep his views up. Good luck doing anything in LA as a washed up college drop out that no one cares about anymore.

    The views had become almost an obsession for him. If a video didn't perform as well as the others, he'd lay awake wondering what he didn't wrong and when it was small gonna come crashing down. Which might be soon, considering his current state, but a weekend with his friends should be a enough fuel to last him a while.

    Even as tired as he was, he still felt the growing excitement inside of him. There mere thought of the memories of previous VidCon's brought him a smile. One time him, Jaiden and another Youtuber were partying in his hotel room and in a blur he ordered 27 cheeseburgers from a nearby McDonalds. Another time him and Jaiden made full body Pokémon costumes to hide their faces from swarms of children so they could get to panels on time. One time him and Jaiden played the Wii together for so long that-

    Wait. The last one never happened at VidCon, it was just a memory from when they hung out a few years ago. It felt like yesterday though, probably because of how much he'd thought about it.

    A panel once ran 4 hours over because Jaiden and.... James groggily scoured his mind for the name. John? Jacob? No, it was a guy he collaborated with once. Or was it?

    He slowly realized that all of these memories had one thing in common. It wasn't the fans or all of his friends or even the con itself that made him so excited to go.

It was Jaiden.