A long awaited sequel with a rhino photomanip by this one has been in the drafts for over 2 years, and is probably worse for it, but it became something I had to get out before my brain would let me move on to new things... please. Also this was supposed to be the custom thumbnail and the image was a higher resolution of the photomanip but Ive never got custom thumbnails to work so ehh

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Klari took off her headphones and stood up from the computer to get some water and use the bathroom. Her teammates constant arguing was giving her a headache and she rubbed her eyes while pulling out her phone on the toilet. Another screen to look at, more crap to scroll through. The notifications didn’t even stop for her to take a shit. In a matter of minutes she was back in front of her desktop, the blue glow of the victory screen washing her pink highlights and red eyeliner into shades of purples. The squad she’d won with had disbanded, leaving her alone in the game lobby, no real loss since they were all a bunch of dickheads. If they’d known she was streaming the game, the harassment would have only been worse. And she could barely keep herself from blowing up every rando as it was now. Being better at the games helped her ego, but it wasn’t perfect. She was only better, not the best, and team games chopped that advantage into fifths.

Her chat hadn’t changed in the last 20 minutes and 2 out of the 5 viewers were people she knew, probably in games of their own. “Anyone still watching?” Klari muttered while looking through her post-match stats.

<Revalax7832> Yeah sorry
<Revalax7832> I think im heading off tho. Later K

Klari had no idea who that was, though she wanted to think the username was familiar. “Thanks for sticking around.” There wasn’t a point to stretching her bandwidth for the sake of a few ghosts so she unceremoniously closed the stream. Her mouse briefly hovered over the desktop launch icon for BattleZone 2 again, but the thought of trying to play this slop just for her own enjoyment was laughable. It was made for streaming and watching, actually trying to engage with such a buggy mess of a game was unpleasant. There were plenty of other single player movement shooters she could have turned to for a more enjoyable experience.

Klari kept staring at the screen, feeling her shoulders slump down into the padded gaming chair. Ok that was enough wallowing, she mentally groaned to herself while refocusing her gaze. She was skilled and she could show it off; it was just the matter of getting more eyes on her. Playing the damn algorithm, or something like that. Maybe it was time for a change up, see if there was something more popular, potentially a new single player game that had just released she could bandwagon onto. Or maybe this was her wakeup call to get into speedrunning, those people always seemed to be having fun. Video games *were* fun, something she’d much rather be able to make a career from then an office job. Every day of fumbling that chance felt like a push towards failure, to just be someone ordinary.

“Lets see what’s new.” She navigated to the Twitch front page for ideas. “Huh?”

Among BattleZone2, Marvel Universe Legends, and Cat Stacker was a French ecology sim game with almost 20k concurrent viewers. It didn’t even have a streaming icon, just the default pixelated gamepad that was used for anything truly unknown to the platform. Strangest of all, there was only one person streaming it, MiscMaddie. More baffled than truly interested, Klari put her headset back on and opened the channel.

“Wow, our herd keeps growing! This was supposed to be my special stream for reaching ten thousand subs, but we’re already way past that.” A woman with dulled ginger hair was broadcasting through a phone held up to a bathroom mirror. She wore a cream-colored sweater and olive t-shirt atop torn jean shorts that left her midriff exposed. “Thank you so much!”
It was her face which stood out, drawing Klari’s attention right away to the massive horn producing from the woman’s face.

Her skin was cracked and grey, blocky hands with three hoof-like fingers that barely secured the phone’s pop stand. Cupped animal ears fluttered against the side of her face and a thin tail occasionally lashed up from behind her, striking the countertop she was filming in front of. “I can’t wait to meet all the new faces.” She turned her head to the side slightly, showing how her mouth and nostrils merged into a rhinoceros snout, two horns of uneven size at the tip. The slight shadow of the horn cast against her face helped to darken her eyes, dusky lips that cracked to reveal a flat toothed smile.

“Weird…” Klira muttered, flicking back through the chat for a crumb of context. Lot of rhino emojis and key rolls. If this were makeup and prosthetics, it was very well done, but still hard believe that alone was drawing such a large crowd. There was no sign of any game being played, so maybe it was just getting started? An automated message kept repeating with a browser game link and text about 'joining the herd'. Klira clicked it open to find out more, but was met with a wall of French text. Meanwhile MiscMaddie kept talking in the other tab.

“I figured I’d give everyone an update. Might be my last face stream for a while, sorry, I know.” She held up her three-toed hand that wasn’t balancing the phone, pushing back some hair over her shoulder. “Walking on two legs is just so uncomfy now. Eldie was helping me with a new setup, but now she’s about as far along as I am, so we have to figure something else out. Anyway, who’s already feeling their horns growing in?” The chat exploded in the affirmative as Maddie flared her nostrils with a deep inhale. “It feels so good, right?”

Klira didn’t understand what was going on at all, and fiddling with the foreign language game page got her stuck in the settings menu quickly, so she minimized it. It would have felt cultish if the streamer was trying to sell anything, but she just kept talking about her horn and the chat was eating it up. Rubbing her nose a little, Klira tried to think if this was some kind of code, oblivious to a flesh-colored lump that was moving upwards through the center of her vision.
“Don’t feel bad if it’s not quite at my size yet, this took at least a week to grow out. And no, males don’t automatically have bigger horns.” She gave a loud snort. “Seriously guys, you don’t need to compensate for anything to get a mate. If we’re interested, you’d know, ok?” There was a loud thump as Maddie’s tail struck against the countertop causing her to huff and step back shakily.

“I was going to go over some questions I keep getting. But honestly, that’s what our instincts are for. I was figuring this out all on my own by just doing what felt natural, sooo…” Klira took her attention away from the computer screen for a moment to feel at the hardened nub emerging from the end of her nose. “We should start with skincare, cause I know that’s a big one for us rhinos. It’s really not complicated. Here are some of the lotions I use…”

“What the hell?” Behind the screen, Klira pinched at the sharpened cone that was curving her nose upwards, with another small spike forming right in the middle of her nasal bridge. She leaned forward in her seat, shifting her hips against an unfamiliar pressure at her tailbone.

“… if there is a place you can go to mud baths safely, that’s like the best. I recommend letting it dry over you, and then just take a quick shower whenever it gets crusty. If you don’t have a back scratcher, it’s a must buy. I used a flyswatter while my tail was still growing out, but you don't really need one after that point.”

In the very initial stages of panic, Klira nearly typed “Something is happening to my nose!” into the chat, but it looked like that message would be lost among all the others like it. She wasn’t the only one expressing some concern, though there were plenty of reassurance too, with noticeably worse spelling. At the very least it seemed like Maddie was getting a ton of engagement from all sides, drawing in more people to fuel the fire.

She grinned across at the mirror, looking somewhat idiotic with her rectangular snout and wide teeth looking straight ahead. “Wow, everyone is so excited, huh? I guess if you haven’t already figured it out, you’re turning into a rhino now.” That brought out a torrent of new chat messages, with Klira just adjusting her headset to make sure she was hearing this right. A tail nub bent up against the band of her sweatpants, calling her to attend to her backside before it got more uncomfortable.
“No way…” It was real, a small boney growth that wiggled on its own from her tailbone. She didn’t have much chance to take it all in before Maddie kept going.

“Well, maybe more like a rhino person? We don’t really know how far the changes go. Every day I wake up feeling something new, but I’m still standing her and talking with everyone right?” Her horn bounced against a series of small snorts in succession. “I kind of freaked out about it too at first, but its not too bad. Just like the game says, we have to save our species from extinction. I me-“ The screen spun wildly as Maddie lost her hold on the phone, flipping the view right into the ground. “Whoops, give me second here…”

Klira had mostly tuned out from the stream at this point, one hand softly stroking her tail, and the other hand still pinching against the bridge of her nose. She could feel the rims of her ears curling up and growing inside the confined space of her headset, but she already had her hands full on the other changes.

“Ok, got it…” Maddie’s face came back into focus, the phone now wedged between the thick nails of both her hands for stability. “Sorry about that. Touch screens have been the worst part of all this, honestly. I hope we have some rhinos in tech who came come up with a solution? Anyone else got so frustrated they tried using their horns and broke a monitor? Yeah… I did that too, its ok.”

The thought occurred to Klira that she ought to take a look at herself too, opening the webcam app and undoing the plastic slider cap over the camera. Her nose was solid bone, ending with a spike-like horn half the length of her thumb, accompanied by a smaller sharp ridge protrusion behind it that only came into focus when she crossed her eyes. She was leaning into the camera to get a closer look, sweat pants pushed down to near her asscrack with her tail nub twitching side to side. When she pulled her headset off, her ears flopped free, swaying against the strands of her pink tipped hair. It all felt so unreal, yet so grounding at the same time. She blinked quickly, focusing back to the other rhino woman who was still sharing her tips so casually.

“For those of you asking how I’m still so slim despite all the changes, I’m not sure myself. Probably cause of my new diet, switching to just grass and vegetables was like magic.” She peered down at her midriff. “Not that I’d mind getting a little thicker, you know? Anyway, what does ev-“ Klira accidentally closed the stream trying to open another tab, her hands lightly shaking. The following silence sat with her, amplifying the feeling of her facial bones stretching out, though it could have been her imagination at this point.

“I need a break.” A trip to the bathroom helped slightly, with a glance in the mirror to confirm the growth of her horn. It looked even sharper under the focused light. Klira glided a finger up from her jaw, tracing a line over her nostrils which has slightly pushed to the side. “Nice.” It was a good look, she had to admit.

Back at her computer, Klira stood stretching her spine straight against the desk and pushed the mouse to hover over the launch icon for Battle Zone 2. She blinked quickly, her focus flicking between the screen and her horns. “Actually, fuck this.” Swatting the mouse away, she cracked her back and pushed off from keyboard. The sky outside was gray but sunlight still shone through. “I’m going to go eat some grass or something.”