It has been five years and a lot has changed. My YouTube subscriber count has hit 600K, which is pretty underwhelming for five years of content, but in all honesty I haven't paid the greatest attention to it. I had focused a bit more on other stuff, more specifically my Spice Club and chess, whose content I had uploaded regularly once a week.
I have a strong fanbase for chess analysis and tutorials, but I have an even stronger fanbase for my Pokemon and Mario related content. Over the years, I've been creating longer series for games like Emerald, FireRed, the original Red, and Crystal. For some of the older games, I tried speedrun challenges that got pretty popular—turns out people love watching a twelve-year-old rage quit at Brock's Onix for the fifteenth time.
My most popular series was probably "Perry's Journey Through Every Region," where I used a Mudkip (or its equivalent) as the starter in every Pokemon game I could get my hands on. The running gag of naming my HM slave "Larry" in every game somehow became a meme in the Pokemon community. Who knew that a disaster-prone Zigzagoon could launch a thousand fan art pieces , I even named Ratata as larry for my firered run ?
But the real growth happened with the Spice Club.
We now have six members excluding me, so seven in total. All the other members have varying personalities, and most were helped by me in some case while others wanted to join after hearing about what we did.
There's our Watson figure, "Harry"—Harry Peterson, no relation to our old teacher Mrs. Peterson. Harry's got this methodical approach to everything and takes detailed notes during every case. Normally you might think that makes me Sherlock, but no. There's actually a Sherlock in our club.
Called Lawliet.
Yes, you heard that right. There is a fucking L Lawliet in this world too, who ended up joining our school. Apparently he had a habit of switching schools because he didn't mesh well anywhere. My question was what the heck was he even doing in America—shouldn't he be in Japan fighting Kira? But is Kira even real? Am I in some fictional world? God damn it, I shouldn't overthink this.
After working with him, I realized he's smart but not that smart—not like the L from the anime. While he behaved somewhat similarly and had this habit of sitting in weird positions and eating sweets constantly, he didn't have L's signature look or that otherworldly deduction ability. He was more like a really bright kid with social issues and an obsession with solving puzzles.
Still, he seemed to respect my skills, and I learned a lot about what to read to develop my Jane abilities from him. He recommended books on behavioral psychology, criminal profiling, and even some advanced texts on reading microexpressions. This club was originally just a way for me to develop Jane's skills and help others, but after L joined, it became something more systematic.
Our other members include:
Sarah, a quiet girl who's amazing at research and can find information about anyone in the school within an hourMarcus (yes, the same Marcus from the wallet case), who turned out to have a talent for understanding financial motivations and tracking money trailsJenny (also from that old case), who despite her initial dismissiveness, proved excellent at reading social dynamics and understanding popularity hierarchiesAnd David, the former wallet thief himself, who became our specialist in understanding why people do things they know are wrong
Real help and cases came rarely at first, so I used to work on my YouTube content or chess skills during club hours. But after recommendations and books from L, I read extensively on psychology and practiced cold reading on many subjects at school, which improved my Jane skills dramatically.
Patrick Jane – Intermediate (4000/ 30,000) +18725
The breakthrough to Intermediate had come six months ago when I successfully mediated a conflict between two teachers who were feuding over classroom resources. Turns out adult problems aren't that different from kid problems—they just have bigger consequences.
The student council and even professors respect us a lot now. We handle the more complex case-based problems that traditional disciplinary action can't solve. When there's a cheating scandal, a bullying situation that's hard to prove, or mysterious vandalism, they call us in.
Our biggest case last year involved someone systematically sabotaging the school's computer lab. The administration was ready to install security cameras everywhere, but we solved it through careful observation and interviews. Turns out it was a junior who felt ignored by the computer science teacher and was acting out for attention. Instead of suspension, we helped set up a mentorship program.
Cases like that made me realize how much I'd grown. The Patrick Jane template wasn't just about tricks and manipulation—it was about understanding people and helping them understand themselves.
My chess skills had grown tremendously too. I was now regularly placing in state-level tournaments and had even managed to beat a few adult players in casual games. My online rating had crossed 1400, which wasn't world-class but was respectable for someone my age.
Mikhail Tal – Intermediate (3500 / 25,000) +12,500
The jump to Advanced had been the result of intensive study and practice. I'd analyzed hundreds of chess games, learned to see tactical patterns three moves ahead, and developed an intuitive sense for when to sacrifice material for initiative. My YouTube chess content had evolved from basic tutorials to complex game analysis that even adult players found valuable.
My most popular chess video was "Tal's Most Beautiful Queen Sacrifice Explained," which got picked up by several chess websites and brought me thousands of new subscribers in a week.
The gaming content remained the crown jewel of my channel. My "Larry Chronicles" series, where I documented every ridiculous thing that happened with my HM slaves across different Pokemon games, had spawned fan art, remix videos, and even a few tribute channels.
Kazuma Satou – Advanced (8,500 / 25,000) +9425
The gaming template had advanced through years of consistent content creation, learning video editing, understanding audience engagement, and developing a genuine entertainers' instinct for what people wanted to see.
My latest project was a "Nuzlocke Challenge" run of Pokemon FireRed, where I could only catch the first Pokemon in each area and had to release them if they fainted. The series was currently at episode 15, and the comment section was more invested in my team's survival than most people were in their favorite TV shows.
But beyond the numbers and the growth, something fundamental had shifted in my life.
As for my personal life, it had been moving smoothly, although the same couldn't be said for Jay. The divorce between Jay and DeDe had finally happened six months ago, and it had been messy in the quiet, devastating way that adult problems usually were.
It started with small things. Jay working late more often, coming home in increasingly foul moods. DeDe's volunteer committee meetings stretching longer and longer. Family dinners becoming exercises in polite conversation rather than actual connection.
The breaking point came when DeDe couldn't bare any longer with Jay.
I remember the night they told us. Claire cried, which made Haley cry, which made Mitchell stress-clean the entire house twice. Alex just asked if this meant we'd have to choose sides for holidays. Cam made his "this is a safe space for feelings" speech, which somehow made everyone feel worse.
Jay moved out two weeks later. He rented a condo closer to his work, and suddenly our weekly family dinners became awkward custody arrangements where everyone pretended things weren't different.
The worst part was watching Jay try to act like nothing had changed. He'd still show up for my chess tournaments, still ask about my YouTube channel, still slip me twenty dollars for "whatever kids need money for these days." But there was a hollowness to it, like he was going through the motions of being a grandfather without feeling any of the joy it used to bring him.
DeDe, meanwhile, threw herself into redecorating the house and joining every social organization in a twenty-mile radius. She'd call Mitchell daily with updates about her book club, her garden society, and her new pottery class. It was obvious she was trying to fill time that used to be filled with marriage.
The divorce finalized on a Tuesday. I remember because it was chess club day, and I spent the entire afternoon teaching elementary kids how to avoid back-rank checkmates while internally processing the fact that my family had officially broken apart.
Mitchell took it hard. He'd always been the mediator between his parents, and now there was nothing left to mediate. Cam overcompensated by planning increasingly elaborate family activities that everyone attended but nobody really enjoyed.
The strange thing was how normal everything tried to be. We still had Sunday dinners, just alternating between Jay's condo and DeDe's house. We still exchanged Christmas presents, just with more awkward coordination. We still functioned as a family, just with visible cracks running through the foundation.
But Jay was different. Quieter, more withdrawn. He'd sit through dinner making conversation but never really engaging. It was like watching someone play the role of themselves rather than actually being themselves.
I found myself worrying about him in a way that felt wrong for a twelve-year-old. Grandparents weren't supposed to need worrying about. They were supposed to be the stable ones, the ones who'd figured life out already.
During the worst of the divorce proceedings, YouTube became my escape. I threw myself into content creation with an intensity that probably wasn't healthy. I uploaded daily for three months straight, covering everything from chess puzzles to Pokemon challenges to random gaming attempts.
My audience seemed to sense something was different. The comments became more supportive, more personal. People started sharing their own family stories, their own coping mechanisms, their own ways of dealing with change.
One comment stuck with me: "Your videos always make me feel better when my parents are fighting. Thanks for being consistent when everything else isn't."
That's when I realized my channel wasn't just entertainment anymore—it was a small piece of stability in other people's chaotic lives. The responsibility of that felt both overwhelming and purposeful.
As 2007 wound down, I found myself in a strange position. I was twelve years old with a six-figure YouTube following, advanced skills in chess and psychology, and a reputation as someone who could solve problems. But I was also a kid whose family had fallen apart and whose grandfather was struggling with loneliness for the first time in decades.
The Spice Club cases had become more complex, often involving real emotional damage rather than simple misunderstandings. My chess games had gotten serious enough that I was considering whether to pursue it competitively. My YouTube channel was big enough that I was getting partnership offers and sponsorship requests.
Everything was growing, everything was advancing, but somehow it all felt like preparation for something bigger. Like I was accumulating skills and experience for challenges I couldn't see coming yet.
I didn't know it at the time, but those challenges were already in motion. Jay's loneliness wouldn't last forever. Change was coming to our family again, and this time it would be the kind that made everything bigger and more complicated and, ultimately, better.
But first, I had a Nuzlocke run to finish and a chess tournament to prepare for. Some things, at least, stayed wonderfully simple.
[Status Screen: 2007 Update]
Mikhail Tal – Intermediate (3,500 / 25,000)
Kazuma Satou – Advanced (8,500 / 25,000)
Patrick Jane – Intermediate (4,000 / 30,000)