#my next planned project will be analog again

[adozentothedawn]

Took me multiple days, but I have committed an art. It's an illustration for this fic of mine and making it has driven me insane. Anyway, hope you like it because I spent so much time on this just trying to learn the program and getting it to cooperate, aside from just generally not really knowing how to draw things. But honestly I think it came out well! At the very least I learned some things about art which is nice.

[paingoes]

🫘 Spill the beans. What's a new project you're doing this year?

idk me and my friend were talking about creating an analog horror project together and im interested in doing more collaborative projects w my friends. also tossing around the idea of adapting a different and ongoing urban fantasy project ive been working on into a comic or mixed media thing. i feel like im going to be too busy w school and work this next year to give anything too much of my attention but then again i always say that….. @_@

i dont have anything “planned” tbqh i just go where the vibe takes me….

[dr-cross]

Some Bunny Man Facts and Fun

Thought I’d throw my hat in the ring here since I prefer to use Twitter to browse funny stuff, save cool art, and look at news. It’s been 2 months since Tales of the Bunny Man released and from what I’ve seen, it was received very positively with the hope for a sequel of sorts coming sometime. The latter is happening, but not for a while since the team are sort of in recess to some extent. (We’re working when we can.)

Let me hit you with a big fact; did you know the game had to be remade because my PC died? The graphics for 90% of the modelling was done on a laptop, so it was ultimately a case of “it works, let’s move on” with that period of time. There won’t be a repeat of that this time. I’m actually in a mindset of remaking the models; keeping the designs the same, just improving and getting shit together. I’m glad my PC died because what we have now is better than what we could’ve had, and it would’ve been awful on my end.

Another fun fact is originally this wasn’t going to be a game. When we first thought of ideas for it. Zeriq proposed it to be analog horror at first, while I suggested we have an entry for a game somewhere. Suffice to say, it’s kind of both, minus the realistic monochrome eyes and the crappy vhs filter.

Sparky the dog is in the game somewhere. He exists and is very real.

If the sequel does come to fruition and releases, then this game will be the only one with a custom night. Since people only play for challenges, we’ve got you covered and there will be quite a variety.

At one point, a Weezer themed cheat screen existed during the old version’s development. It was designed to erase your data if you changed certain troll values in the saves.

The reason Poltergeist isn’t like the other Phantoms is because it’s more tangible than the others, meaning it is as close to a physical entity as they get. Phantom Fredbear, BB, or Puppet aren’t a thing because spoilers.

Vincent’s fate is unknown.

The main day segments didn’t have the markers to show your objectives, but they got added during testing. Thank goodness.

JJ was set to appear at one point during development, but it wouldn’t make sense to add another kid to the pile of possessed characters already.

Outside of the additional Mimic stuff, the story and plans have remained consistent for two years straight. Suffice to say, having a document to reference is a very good thing. We’re continuing to use these.

Originally, the gameplay was going to be free roaming with an At Dead of Night style to it. Since the building is so small and there are up to six roaming characters, it wouldn’t work logically. Post-night tasks were going to be a thing too, but those would mess with the pace of the story. This was before we had everything written down.

Development started with me setting a challenge to Zeriq. I said we weren’t allowed to have a phone guy at all and no other door in the office, so that the player feels cornered constantly. That’s where the comics and the idea of giving characters different behaviours came from. These may return in some ways.

Lastly, Tales of the Bunny Man is the game that’s sort of made me like FNaF again. At times, the boat was shaky and uncertain, but we locked in and made something that Dawko of all people took interest in. A project that for once, I know I’m happy with and one that outdoes anything I’ve done before on a serious level. Things are getting better going forward, so stay for the ride if you feel inclined.

That’s a lot of rambling, but I felt this was the best outlet to spill some beans, say some facts off the top of my head, and allude to the future. What comes next? You’ll have to bark up another tree for that answer.

See ya.

[kivinelock]

Hey, sending this on anon bc im a lil nervous to show my face [and if it doesnt send over anon dont post, feel free to dm back a response] , but I heard you and one other person took over the Mind the Analog podcast. Is that true? And if so what happened to the prior project lead? I wanted to ask bc I worked with this project leader before [on, i believe, 2 diff projects] and he kinda ran off and dipped after things didnt go his way and I was worried the same thing happened to you guys.

Is there any way to keep supporting the project and make sure the funds go directly to the team thats still on board?

Hi Anon! No worries about not wanting to show your face, but if you want more info past what I put here or want to clarify on anything, feel free to shoot me a message. I always want to be open about my business practices so I'm more than willing to tell you what happens on any project I involve myself in!

That said, we did take over the project for a while but are no longer continuing (per request of the original Creator, Theodore). @fishymossdraws and I had taken charge of the project in mid December. The following is a screenshot from the Mind The Analog server on Discord, specifically from the announcement channel (the server still exists, but is no longer active).

As for what happened to the prior project lead, this change in hands was originally for personal reasons like stress, but I'm not sure why the project was entirely cancelled on his end. I just know that I asked to keep our relationship business-related, and about 12 hours later the cancellation was announced to me (in our Discord DMs, where I asked to have a professional relationship), which I can understand for most things, but as we were managing a project together it seems extremely unprofessional now that I look back on it. I don't have a problem with him personally, I simply do not have the energy to engage emotionally with very energetic people as I did when I was a few years younger (or on days where I myself am feeling energetic). I also know this is odd to say, so if you'd like screenshots of that, let me know and I can get that to you.

A few months after the project was originally transferred, it was cancelled on 29 March 2025. The public announcement came a few days later, on the 29th. This next screenshot is also from the Mind The Analog Discord server's announcements channel.

This last section about the physical items is partially incorrect. I was planning to ship the physical items to Theodore so he could ship them himself (and save a little money), but I'm unsure if that's going to happen because I alone cannot afford that (I'm still a student in college, which is what most of my money from commissions goes towards funding: education and food) and I haven't been paid to do so. It's been a few months since and the items may have been damaged where I had them so if they're damaged, I don't want to make him pay to send them off to him; they've been 4+ months in my possession, but I don't have the funds to ship anything nor do I want to ship or charge to ship anything that could have potentially been damaged.

As the project has been cancelled, there's no way to support it, but you CAN support all the wonderful people who helped work on it, and I think you should! If there's anything else you need, let me know. Again, I want to be as transparent as I can so feel free to reach out to me if you have questions!

[thefifthnetwork]

Week 17: April Reruns Bring May Sweeps

After a light month that luckily coincided with me being on vacation, I'm now back home just in time for the first May sweeps of the project. We get a packed slate of shows each of the next three weeks, so let's just jump in.

This is part of a project where I watch The WB and UPN on a 30 year delay. This is crossposted from my website, where you can find an interactive schedule for both networks, including where you can watch these shows today.

Monday May 1, 1995 Star Trek: Voyager S1E13: "Cathexis" - 8 PM on UPN

There's some okay stuff in this week's Voyager, but it felt mediocre overall. Maybe I was just subconsciously remembering it from when I watched through the first time, but it felt like it was extremely obvious from the beginning that the presence controlling crew members was Chakotay.

The scene where the Doctor demonstrates knowledge of Native American medical practices would be a good example of the Doctor's programming inclusively drawing from medical knowledge outside the out-of-universe Western norm, but it's undercut by pretty much all of the Native American elements in the show being made up.

Pig Sty E11: "The Maltese Falcone" - 9 PM on UPN

Neither of the two plots on this week's Pig Sty really worked for me. The plot about Johnny babysitting a mob informant felt like it had more potential, but then it never really went anywhere. The plot where P.J. tries to refuse his quarterly $10K check from his father at least had a halfway-decent resolution [1], but it still wasn't anything special.

Platypus Man E11: "Lower East Side Story" - 9:30 PM on UPN

This week's Platypus Man has Richard converting to Judaism first for his girlfriend-of-the-week and then for an attractive rabbi after said girlfriend breaks up with him for becoming too Jewish. It's all as cringeworthy as it sounds.

There was one joke that I really liked, where Tommy suggests that an advantage to Judaism is that you don't have to miss any football games, Paige brings up college football, and then Tommy admits that "no religion has all the answers."

Tuesday May 2, 1995 Legend E04: "Legend on His President's Secret Service" - 8 PM on UPN

Purely as an episode of television, this week's Legend works quite well. Pratt is saved from a mob of Confederates by a young woman named Abigail Steele, who tells him that she's worried her father plans to assassinate President Grant. Pratt ultimately learns that Grant and the elder Steele were rivals prior to the war and that while Steele does not intend to kill Grant, he does plan to kidnap him, to demonstrate supposed negative impacts of Reconstruction on the South.

Pratt and Bartok ultimately engineer a reconciliation between the two men that suggests a parallel reconciliation between North and South. That works fine as the resolution of a TV episode, but when considered more broadly, it makes it seem like Steele has a point about Reconstruction, and he absolutely does not.

It is the firm position of this blog that the United States went far too easy on the Confederates following the end of the war. Reconstruction should have been much stronger and lasted much longer. Steele and the real life traitors like him should have considered themselves lucky to have survived the war and should never have been allowed to wield an ounce of power again for the rest of their miserable lives.

Marker E11: "Snowballs in Hawaii" - 9 PM on UPN

Anyway... Marker was great this week! Pipeline joins Richard as his assistant and is initially disappointed that this week's marker comes from a bickering divorced couple who needs help finding their runaway dog. He ultimately gets more than he asked for when this simple case ends up involving two dead lawyers,

The bickering couple was my favorite part of this episode, particularly the husband speaking almost exclusively in sports analogies, but really the whole episode just worked quite well.

Wednesday May 3, 1995 The Wayans Bros. S1E11: "It's Shawn! It's Marlon! It's Superboys!" - 8 PM on The WB

I really liked this week's Wayans Bros where Shawn and Marlon become their building's superintendents, to predictably disastrous results. "First Class" is probably still my favorite episode so far, but I think this is a close second.

The Parent 'Hood S1E11: "Nice Guys Finish Last" - 8:30 PM on The WB

The Parent 'Hood also returns with an excellent episode, as Zaria is concerned when her new boyfriend gets along with her dad a little too well. It's a very well put together sitcom episode that I thought ended in a really nice way.

Unhappily Ever After S1E01: "Pilot" - 9 PM on The WB Unhappily Ever After S1E11: "Daddy's Little Girl" - 9:30 PM on The WB

Unhappily Ever After similarly deals with a father meeting his daughter's boyfriend. True to form for the show, it's much worse. This is at least an above average episode for Unhappily, and it seems like they're expanding Tiffany's characterization beyond "gold digger" to being concerned with money in a way that codes more positive [2]. Hopefully the show can continue to develop her in the future.

While the Monday shows weren't great, everything else this week ranged from excellent to at least above average for their respective show. We get another new episode of every show next week, so let's see if this continues.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

P.J. plays a song about how he doesn't want to take his father's money, so then his father buys the rights to the song in exchange for the $10K he would have given him anyway. ↩

Most prominently in the diary entry that Jack and Jennifer read where she talks about ↩

[squidhominid]

An update on plans made and broken

Hey there gamers and gamettes!

I know I promised stuff in September. You must be wondering what happened, right? Well, if you were on my Discord server or saw my prior Tumblr announcement, you'd have heard some of this already. For those of you who aren't, let's get down to it.

Consider this an updated and extended form of my previous announcement, for those who saw that. This contains some of the same information, however it is more up to date, and contains some additional information about recent developments. It was originally written for my YouTube Community tab, hence why it retreads some old information.

Firstly, for all of August I was in Denver spending time with one of my partners. And that was great! But when I got home, I noticed that I was having a lot harder of a time focusing than I normally do. And when I thought back, I realized that a lot of my issues historically, with schoolwork, with streaming, with projects, really come down to a matter of focusing, and of untreated ADHD.

I decided to take September off to work with my psychiatrist adjusting my ADHD medication. And so far, so good! I'm on Strattera now, and while we haven't figured out my final dose yet, I'm starting to see effects!

The downside of that is that I didn't feel entirely comfortable launching my analog video glitch art content when I had planned and promised. And for that, I'm sorry.

Unfortunately, to add to that, my university classes just started back up. And they're a lot more intensive than I expected. Streams are going to be sporadic for the next while. I'm sorry, but we aren't quite at the end of the long dark just yet.

If you want a summary of what happened, the advisor I spoke to who told me to take CSE 132A instead of CSE 130, lied to me when she told me to take CSE 107 instead of CSE 127. CSE 107 is a DRAMATICALLY harder class. I took one look at the first homework and knew that if I stayed in that class, I wasn't going to graduate in December. I very quickly employed measures to take a different class, but it required me contacting multiple advisors at my university and filing a significant amount of paperwork. One of the advisors I spoke to told me that she's every quarter having the same exact discussion with other computer science majors who had the same experience with CSE 107, and that she thinks the majority of people who filed the paperwork I did to switch catalog years, did it because of CSE 107. It's brutal. Even with the class I'm taking instead, COGS 123, it's going to be brutal. Two classes that combined will require me to read 6+ articles/papers a week, which is already a struggle due to my reading speed problems due to my neurological vision issues, one of them having me prepare slides to give a talk on one of the papers in a discussion period, both of them are intensive project-based classes… Things will be rough for a while.

HOWEVER. I will still be streaming when I can. I have ideas and plans. And when the end of the quarter arrives in December, I'll have all the time in the world to devote to this.

I'm sorry for letting everyone down once again. But things are happening in the background. I'm still actively working towards my 3D redebut. I'm still making plans for games to stream. I'm still working towards my renovated setup, with all of my game consoles and affordances to do analog glitch art streams. Things are happening. They're just taking longer than I'd like, and so I keep having these false starts, because I want things to happen as soon as they can, only for life to bite me in the ass. I know that's not ideal for you. It's not ideal for me, either. I just want to create things, and share them with people.

If you want to stay updated on what's happening, the best way to do that is always going to be my Discord. I'll make an attempt to keep YouTube more updated. I'll start posting longer-form updates on my life to social media again like I used to. Things have just been really complicated. I'm sorry. But we're getting there, and I can't wait to see you all again.

I'll see you on the flipside.

[forgottenyear]

The projects are on pause for the moment. This leaves me front. I tried to initiate a new project to escape again, but we have too many going already, so I will have to tough it out. There is a good one waiting for a new machine part, and that will take up every spare moment while we finish the month-late birthday present.

And like that, nothing stands between me and the past.

--

That what I have described fits the broader definition of addiction has not eluded me (a word I rarely use, but “escaped” repeats in the next sentence, so). This is the point in recovery where the addict is vulnerable to the full weight of the negatives they have long escaped.

My first thought is to organize a plan to process the negatives. To catalog the trauma so I know what I will need to do.

You can see where my instincts steer me wrong.

--

A poorly timed headline, while looking for something to listen to, was – poorly timed.

How do I process seemingly disembodied helplessness? How do I heal the wounds of another?

How do I cope with fear and distrust when I am a member of the class that I fear and distrust?

The analogy to the problem is sitting there, just waiting for me to notice: I am allergic to myself. This body is allergic to itself. It is painful in places and in ways that one does not want to feel pain (a silly thing to say, I know, but still). This body has painful physical reactions to its maleness.

My mind has emotional reactions to the body’s maleness. The word, “dysphoria,” is not necessarily a good fit to this reaction. “I” could not care less if the body is male. But I am not the source of the fear and distrust. I experience and feel the fear and distrust, but only because I share this mind with the source.

[I hate that I cannot discuss this stuff without feeling like someone will fetch the butterfly net. I feel self-conscious, and I start to walk it back. I try to tone down the DID talk, and then I am left with contradictory feelings for which I have no reasonable explanation.]

I passively accept that the body is male, and I fear and distrust all males, including myself. How much of myself do I hate because I did not stop or prevent what they did, and how much do I hate because I am the same, unsafe and untrustworthy, gender?

This is chaos I cannot afford in my life.

Damned if I do, and whatnot.

Is my unique form of addiction really so bad? At least it gives positive purpose to the DID crap.

[blog-imtsupdates]

week 4

start concepting creature designs with previous critique in mind.

Rember i am going to use (sucessful) properties as inspiration to create a new and orignal design thats intersting.

with the use of refrences found on google (NON AI) i practiced more anatomy and this time some flat rendering to practice texturing like meat, mucles, feathers and fur

a Utah raptor, a not Golden retriever (horse + lemur and skinned animal insp), a not Border collie (pterosaur + fetus/raw chicken insp)

wanted to still give the Utah raptor a shot because they are incredible animals and i would love to make one with feathery coat and all but i suppose I'll do that in my free time.

for the not a bordercollie(black and white "dog") I took inspiration from creepy pastas like suggested, i looked to classics like "The Rake" and smiledog.jpg (the husky version) which scared me to death as a kid. Though those were more in the background, main influences came from "The Thing"(1982). i wante dit to be off but not so much to emidiatly tell its wrong, just a slight feeling of unease. i dislocated the neck and set it far too high up, extended the corners of its mouth too far back, gave it hand like paws and made it skinny. though i kept the body pretty dog like i felt like it was too clearly off especially the sharp eyes though collies often have very piercing light eyes.

after that i expanded on the idea with the golden retriever as i wanted a more family friendly looking dog, one you wouldnt expect to be a danger but again something being clearly off while still inviting. same inspirations of The Thing and smile dog.jpg (red version this time) and also "Annihilation"(2018) this time. The people yearn for body horror(recent spike in attention on franchises like "The thing" and "Fear and Hunger" body horror : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRIkWHo1SJY a recent 50 minute video with 3.5 million views on fear and hunger)

i also thought about doing a nod to annalog horror but felt that that specific type of eyes would defeat my original intent of creating a whole new intersting creature not seen before. the eyes are over done as they are found in many analog projects such as "local 68", "The Walten files", "The Mandela Catalog" and "Smile tapes", its a cute nod but not fit in this context.

i chose a horse/canid mix skull to poke out from under the dogs skin as i felt it would be spooky. it looks cool but after finsing the concept i realized that horse, ungulate and dog/predatory mamal skulls are also a common trope in horror, think of Annihalation again and "The Ritual" as well as others that i cant recall at the moment. as well as the welsh tradition of Mari Lwyd

images of all of the mentioned properies abov e in that order: (these are still inspirations and refrences)

these are far from the only refrences used

putting that aside, i had given a second stage to the retriever instead of just having the dog stand up. though i still liked that idea, i decided to also make a second stage for the collie with the new information i had gathered from making the retriever. i wanted the new form to be stranger more thing like and less mamalian, just giving a bird tounge to a horse head didnt do the job. i took inspiration from pterasaurs as my friend had said that they thought they were so unsetteling and weird while watching "Prehistoric Planet". thier skulls are weird and almost alien and thier arms have odd proportions. i also took inspiration from the beasts from The Quiet Place again as they also have these odd body plans. i gave it the look of raw chicken or a fetus and eyes like those of a dead cow just to bump up the weird factor.

when show casing these the client suggested trying some other deisgns.

i was planning on refining the creature, he didnt really state what kind of "different stuff" he was looking for but kalina wanted to give designing a creature a shot so i would have time to refine these designs into one next week. Kalina is currently working on a design that is like the video that diego showed and also a design based on dutch mythology? We are already four weeks in, other groups had started development and we would need a lot more time to make a detailed sculpt and animate.

aditional cartoony dragon like creatures just to practice creature design, based on the descriptions of a snellygaster, an american cryptid (I made in the second week to fit the magic show theme from Kalina but it fits best here)

[queermarzipan]

Hooooooo boy. I definitely have some stuff I'm not happy with. They were written on paper, however...

not in my school folder. not in my CTYI bag.. wait I found SOME. from like the single school class where we were instructed to collaboratively write a short story. ....OLD PLANS FOR MY UNWRITTEN DRARRY FIC!! and a SONG??? THAT I'D COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN I WROTE??? AAAA???

I don't think I'm gonna find what I was originally looking for (written and rewritten versions of "Draco smells Harry in the Amortentia without copping that it's Harry" lol). But I think we have enough to be getting on with😅

First up is the ones that I love.

Numero Uno:

...He'd started treating it like a project.

That had been his first mistake, he supposed, as he stared at the fruit of his labour like it was a sentient guillotine with a vendetta against him specifically. 

He was good at projects.

I just really like what I did there. With the metaphor. Analogy. Thing. Lmao

Second up:

Crowley was vaguely surprised when he wasn’t the one to break the silence. That hadn’t, he didn’t think, ever happened to him before – some stranger recovering from his presence enough to speak before the reverse happened, that was. It was unsettling.

I'm quite happy with all of the larger snippet I took this from, but this paragraph doesn't reveal the identity of the stranger, which I am not ready to embarrass myself by revealing. What I specifically like about it, though, is that it revealed something new about Crowley to me. I hadn't considered what Crowley's response to the stranger speaking would be before I wrote it. And that just stuck. That was the first way I wrote that, I think, and it just. fits. There's nothing I wpuld change there.

Uimhir a Trí:

And I know that I'm lying to you  And I know that I'm lying to me  And that we will never be okay without us  I know that you're lying to you  And I know that you're lying to me  And I hate that I've turned you into a liar  And I know that if I don't tell you the truth  That it's over, I'm over  I won't love me anymore  I won't be okay, nor you, no  I'll be dead to me...

OUCH. Hey look, it's a bit of the song I JUST FOUND :D. And, okay, it's two verses, but I couldn't pick between them, and they come right after each other, and the symmetry of the first one is so great and the second one is just OW. This is from 2018. I was thirteen years old. What the fuck, 13yo me. What the fuck.

...anyway, next up is the ones that I hate. HOO boy. Okay. Here we go.

Numero Uno:

Only way. The only way. Fluorescent lights lined the sign of Corey's Diner, illuminating her stark blonde hair. Ironic, that this had been where she'd followed Annabelle on her first date. She'd never found out, of course. Penny was, for all her faults, not careless. The door stood ajar, spilling warmth and light of a very different kind than the sun provided onto the street.

Ayyy, another thing I only just found!! It's the collaborative short story!! ...*sigh*. It's just. I like what we learn here, about their history. How the context for the thought occurring builds tension for what's going to happen in the here and now. But the setting. I would redo every line that describes the environment. And the had been where was would've worked fine, and been less confusing to boot. Hnmmrr. >:(.

Numero Dos:

All I'll ever want All I'll ever need All I'll ever ask you to be is my owner

...yeah. I was starving for BDSM music, as you can tell. It just. Doesn't. Work. Tonally, conceptually... Being an "owner", in this context, is hard fucking work. Gh. I remember trying to finish that sentence for so long, and then finally giving up and just sticking the right number of syllables in. It still irks me, now I've found it again.

Numero Très:

Your bedroom, your favourite book The straws you grasp at in the dark They haven't let you fall yet

This is the least done piece of my attempt at de-Christian-ifying Overcomer by Mandisa. I like the concept of the verse, but it just doesn't feel metrically equivalent to— The same Man, the great I Am / The one who overcame death / Is living inside of you. Especially that third line. I don't know. It feels like it needs more punch. Only the concept doesn't really.... maybe spite?? Spite is a powerful morivator. Hm.

SO. THAT'S IT. That took ages, I was here literally as this was posted. I clicked on it while its timestamp was counting in seconds. I'm positive there are plenty of entries by now, lmao. But I WAS HERE FIRST!! XD. Kidding. No prizes for seeing it ig, right? Haha

Tagging the only people I've interacted with in here who I know are writers (excluding Asmi, uh... obviously *gestures upwards*): @howmanyholesinswisscheese and @derinthescarletpescatarian !! Hey Derin, come join us here! Arthur, I don't care that you're getting tagged twice, no way am I ONLY tagging a big name author. You get to be the buddy. Well done.

ALSO OMG ALMOST FORGOT (cause ur never on here grrrr): @urlocalrockstar GIVE US IT. GIVE US IT MS. RIDICULOUSLY POPULAR ON WATTPAD

starting a tag game for writers

Hi, it's Asmi! Okay, so, I've seen so many people afraid to start/continue writing because they're afraid it'll be garbage. And it's so sad how much joy and creativity is getting lost because of that fear. I've written utter shit before, and looking back on it is actually hilarious, and also, it's a reminder of how far I've come as a writer.

I really, really want people to be less afraid of the written word and of creating, and to get rid of that aura of mystery and elitism that often covers the writing process. Writing is messy and it's hell and it's torture. And it's amazing.

So here's the tag game:

Give me three lines/paragraphs that you've written that you love [fiction, non-fiction, from different works or the same, from completed stories or poems or WIPs, from yesterday or ten years ago] that you love. If that seems hard, even one will do. It doesn't have to be perfect. It can just be something silly that gives you joy.

And give me three lines/paragraphs that you've written that you dislike and find shitty. Anything at all as long as you wrote it. If you think it's ridiculous or absolute fucking garbage, even better! That's the point of this game. To see that we all write good things and bad things. Yeah? You can do this. And remember that both these categories are subjective.

I'll start. It's not as scary as it seems, I promise.

Things I've written that I find shitty:

The first man grabbed him by his collar, pinned him against the wall of the cave in which they were standing, and spat, “It doesn’t matter what you’ve done before. If the Queen’s not in the graveyard tonight, King Baza’s going to plan a most delightful execution for you. And even if he doesn’t, you being his nephew and all, I will arrange an accidental blowing up of your house when you are, tragically, inside.” [discount wall slam scene courtesy of 2016 Asmi, you're welcome]

“Overreacting?” said Dextor in disbelief, staring at Jay like, ‘What is wrong with you, dude?’ [sigh. my serious-scene-writing left a lot to be desired.]

“Don’t go,” I said, fighting tears. “Please, don’t leave me, too! You’re all I have left.” Strange thoughts for a child, but I meant every word. She looked at me with anguish. “I am sorry, Phil. Believe me, you are all I have, too, and this hurts me more than it does you. You’re like my son.” [I'm hysterical rereading this melodramatic shit, which was NOT the intended effect]

Things that I've written that I love:

He dropped the books onto a nearby chair and pulled her into his arms as he’d been longing to do all day, the smell of blueberries and hair product and her. The books she was holding were pressed against his chest, and he didn’t care. Why did he need to love the stars when he could love her, why did he need to look up at the sky for answers when they were right there in his arms? [I love this because when I first wrote it, I thought it was romantic, but I realised later that the boy, Ant, is aroace, and it doesn't change a thing about this scene, except that their love is platonic]

"Maybe being happy is the best that we can do. Maybe that’s more than most people manage, anyway.” They stood in front of the entrance, over puddles that reflected all the broken skyscrapers and the colours of the street and the grey-yellow sky. “Whatever you do with your parents,” she said. “Don’t let your guilt get in the way of doing ballet. It’s not wrong to be happy. It’s not.” [This is from the book I finished and I published, and I just really like this paragraph. It's not my favourite, but it makes me smile.]

The last you may leave wherever you please, wherever it is birds land to die. [A line from a poem I wrote in 2022, I like the rhythm]

(It took effort to find ones that I wanted to share, oof. If you find this difficult just know you're not alone. I usually like my writing, but turns out it's hard to take something you created and go hey, look, I'm proud of this. But we can do it.)

Alright, of course anyone who sees this is welcome to join, and tag the writers you know so we can all be uh writerly together :") but to start it off, no pressure tags @howmanyholesinswisscheese, @1800ineedshelp, @queermarzipan, @thescholarlystrumpet, @madfangirlontheloose.

Oh, and also tagging @neil-gaiman, @dduane, @drchucktingle just because maybe if you see this and join in, new writers will find comfort in knowing their role models have ups and downs, good and bad days too :")

Have a lovely day, everyone, and keep writing.

[thehumanfront]

Simone de Beauvoir’s garden of meaning

What is existentialism? For Simone de Beauvoir (b. 1908) the discipline is a response to the human need to find a ‘place in a world turned upside down’. It cannot be explained succinctly. Still, let’s have a go.

Pyrrhus and Cineas

In her 1944 essay Pyrrhus and Cineas Beauvoir looks to explain humanity’s quest to find meaning by way of analogy.

Pyrrhus has a plan:

‘We are going to subjugate Greece first,’ says Pyrrhus.

‘And after that?’ asked Cineas.

We will vanquish Africa.’

‘After Africa?’

‘We will go onto Asia … ’

‘And after that?’

‘We will go on as far as India.’

‘After India?’

‘Ah! I will rest.’

‘Why not rest right away?’

According to Beauvoir, Cineas’ question haunts our projects. For why do anything? What’s the point? We’re only going to end up where we started.

However, it’s only Pyrrhus who leads an authentic life. Whereas many people fail even to question their lives, he directs himself towards goals, having the imagination to forge something for himself from the world.

Pyrrhus doesn’t leave to return home, where he started: he leaves to conquer; then to conquer again ... Each time he decides a new end. Each time he ‘transcends’ his situation.

‘The paradox of the human condition is that every end can be surpassed, and yet, the project defines the end as an end.’

The garden

The values we draw from our projects are never intrinsic, ready-made, or universal. To believe they are is to possess bad faith.

‘By identifying himself with his sex, his country, his class, with the whole of humanity [or God], a man can increase his garden, but he increases it only in words … [T]he fly on the stagecoach claims he is the one who led the carriage to the top of the hill.’

We give the world meaning through our engagement with it, an act which is accomplished with freedom and subjectivity. We throw ourselves towards ends with uncertainty: the price of leaving the world of ennui and inertia behind us. But, by choosing the locations and the limits of our projects, we snatch ‘the world from the darkness of absurdity’.

This garden must belong to me; I cultivate it. It even transcends me when I die.

‘I am enclosed within it until death because that garden becomes mine from the moment I cultivate it.’

It matters that our values are not given to us. My garden cannot be merged with the sterile void of the Universe, a passive equilibrium.

Being is not fixed to things: being is fixed to itself in a mode of transcendence. Like Pyrrhus’ journey, projects don’t end: ends are surpassed by other ends. Conquer or rest: it doesn’t matter which you choose. Just choose!

⁂

‘Is that my business? What does India matter? And what does Epirus matter? Why call this soil, this woman, these children mine? I brought these children into the world; they are here. The woman is next to me; the soil is under my feet. No tie exists between them and me. Mr Camus’s Stranger thinks like this; he feels foreign to the whole world, which is completely foreign to him … The inert existence of things is separation and solitude.’

[blakbonnet]

I was tagged by Jams @not-nervous-jester to share my writing process so here you go, I'm sorry but this will get a bit long and it'll not be proofread cause life's too short (and my laptop has 4% battery left) 🙃

Do you write in order?

Yes and No. I start off any writing project (whether it be fanfic or work) with a detailed outline of the major plot points. I do the endings first more often than not when I'm planning a fic, then the middle, and finally, once those are out of the way, then I'll tackle the beginning kinda.

Because I write like a person possessed, the beginnings sort of just happen on their own but I need a guideline for hitting the major points or it will be all out of whack.

How fully formed does your writing come out the first try?

About 100%. Because I am so incredibly stupid and anal about this stuff, my first try is essentially a weighty tome of garbage. You can only throw out the garbage once I'm done, you can't add more to it. I guess this analogy doesn't work but it works in terms of the ✨ vibe ✨ I'm trying to create, stay with me people!

How many drafts do you go through?

Just one actually. If there is stuff in the first draft that I am not okay with, I will stop writing and simply leave it for a week or a month until I feel like picking it up again later 😐 The only time I actually create a new draft is when parts of the original are unreadable. Actually I'm lying, I just add stuff to the first draft while whistling and being inconspicuous.

Tell me about your process.

First comes the playlist. It HAS to start with a playlist. Every project has a separate playlist. Songs can be repeated, playlists cannot be the same though. It's a thing, and if I don't do it, it'll be a whole separate thing tbh.

The playlist has to be instrumental, it has to be mainly cellos and violins for the meatier scenes, piano is okay for the fluffy non-plot filler bits that I'm writing for my own entertainment. There can be no words or bits of the fic will turn into a Metallica song, I'll be sued, I'll lose everything and most importantly, the fic would never be finished.

Next comes the poetry, stuff that is actually inspiring the work and pushing it forward. That usually goes in tumblr drafts so it's easier for me to access from my phone. This is usually screenshots from e-books or actual pictures from physical books.

Because I do a fairly detailed outline beforehand, I usually start writing the beginning because that's what I haven't planned out yet and am most excited by. This takes me the longest amount of time and I also do a LOT of rewriting at this stage because personally, as a reader, I do abandon a lot of fics if the beginning isn't doing it for me.

I use google sheets cause I'll sometimes reread my stuff over the phone but I only ever write on the laptop, my phone is mainly for rereading and obsessing.

I also edit as I go along based on feel and make notes where I need to add stuff. If I edit later once I'm done, it usually doesn't come out like I want it to.

Once chapters are done, I copy paste them into Google Translate so I can hear them being read back to me. I catch a record number of missed typos and errors this way. I'm very conscious of the way I write dialogues because I'm so nitpicky when I'm reading other people's dialogues and this also allows me to correct issues with those (the "he would never fucking say it like that" errors)

After the first couple chapters, I'll share the google doc with mutuals and friends (mostly Ara @stedebonnets ) and I don't have a beta reader. Plot points I'll discuss with Josh and Joy 😭 and I don't publish fics on ao3 until the entire thing is written cause I'm a big stinking fic abandoner lmao (smauglock fic from 5 years ago rip 🪦 sorry readers)

This is the writing process that went into Need for Stede ✌️which was incredibly fun to write!

I'd like to tag @wearfinethingsalltoowell @abigailpents @talkstoself @red-sky-in-mourning @ratchet @stedebonnit and anyone else who wants to do this!

[starry-knight-skies]

Defying Fates Plans

It’s that time of year again for the @sandersidesbigbang ! It was a lot of fun getting to work on this project again this year, and I have to give a big shout out to my betas @wistful-wish and @shadow-rhelm , and of course to the artists who helped! @thecrowslullaby and this lovely art of Remus and Logan and @pompomqt and their lovely little comic of Logan and Virgil’s first meeting 

Summary: Virgil should be dead. He knew this, fully, without a doubt. And yet, here he stood in the Underworld, still very much alive. How?

Little does he know, a certain set of twins have been plotting and making plans. Logan's a little too stuck in his routine and they've decided that Virgil was exactly what he needed to get out of his funk. It doesn't go as smoothly as they had hoped, but hey, Virgil and Logan will have plenty of time together to work it out. Hades and Persephone au

Word count: 7242

Pairings: Analogical 

Warnings: murder attempt, mild manipulation

--

The Underworld was orderly. Monotonous. Things continued as they always had, the dead either awaiting sentencing or having already been sent to their eternal rest… Or torment. Nothing out of the norm had occured in millenia, and it was looking like nothing would in the next dozens of thousands of years either. Endlessly, deceased mortals arrived and were eventually processed. Things were as they had always been, since the gods overthrew the Titans. Until, suddenly, everything changed. 

A young man raced along a path, heart pounding in his ears, legs aching from exertion. 

Dark hair, which had been so carefully and lovingly braided just that morning by his father had come loose, strands being ripped out of place by grabbing hands and low branches of the dead trees that lined the path. His senses were on high alert, tensing up and flinching at each thud of unknown footsteps or screeches in the distance. 

Virgil couldn’t understand what he was doing here, in the land of the dead. As terrifying as it was, he knew he was in the Underworld as no nightmare had ever felt so real. He knew that things were different down here, that time was perceived differently, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple hours since he last felt the sun on his face. He shouldn’t be here. He and his father lived a simple life, and food was scarce sometimes, but he was healthy! He couldn’t possibly be dead! He just had to find a way home!

[ao3 link!]

[ajroach42]

Welcome to the new year! I’m glad you made the transfer without incident.

It is my Duty and Privilege to announce the public launch of a project I’ve been working on for the better part of a decade, This is Jupiter’s Ghost! It is a podcast set in the creative commons CC-BY-SA licensed universe of the Solar Federation. It’s a community initative, written and record by a small but growing group of contributors, which you are formally invited to join!

What is Jupiter’s Ghost?

Many things! Jupiter’s Ghost is a podcast (and possibly soon to be a cartoon from New Ellijay Television) set in the universe of the Solar Federation It’s a big universe against which lots of science fiction stories can be told, and it is my hope that Jupiter’s Ghost is the first of many.

Why is Jupiter’s Ghost?

The simple answer is that I’ve always wanted to tell hopeful stories about the future, and the crew of the Jupiter’s Ghost gets to exist in a world that, while still imperfect, is much better than our own. It gives me a chance to tell stories about how the world might be, if we work together, and how Freedom is a Constant Struggle, not something we reach, but something that we continue to reach for.

Basically, it gives me a chance to tell stories in a way that aligns with my values.

Please give it a listen, subscribe, review us on iTunes and Stitcher and Spotify and, eventually, when Google decides we’re worth indexing, Google Podcasts.

Share it with your friends, consider participating in the universe. Help us turn this in to something special.

That’s the meat of the post, but if you want to stick around I’m going to talk about what we’ve done, and why we’ve done it, and what we’re going to do next.

Like I said at the top, I started working on this thing nearly a decade ago. It before we closed Analog Revolution’s first physical location, before we moved across the country, before we moved back, and moved back, and moved back again. The current iteration of the thing entered the planning phases on the fediverse circa 2016, and then So Much life happened.

Thankfully, I have some great collaborators, and we’ve got it going. So let’s talk about what and why.

Why CC-BY-SA?

Jupiter’s Ghost is creative commons licensed, which means that anyone is free to share it, adapt it, remix it, or contribute to it. It’s specifically CC-BY-SA licensed, which means that if anyone does remix it, adapt it, etc. they are required to release their adaptation under the same terms. They don’t need my permission, approval, or support. They can, you can, just do it.

This was an intentional decision, and one carefully made to align with my values, but it has been a point of confusion for some folks so far, so let me unpack it.

I have written in the past about my appreciate of DIY Media and Fan Fiction, and the need for more creative works from normal people. I won’t rehash those things here, but the gist is that most of our modern collective folklore, the stories we tell one another and use to relate to the universe, are owned by Disney and a small handful of other companies and they use this position of power and control to harm us.

On this, Public Domain Day 2023, I invite you to consider the cautionary tale of Star Trek New Voyages. New Voyages should be a shining beacon of DIY Media. For those who are unfamiliar, it’s a fan series that imagines and recreates the rest of the Five Year Mission of the original Enterprise. It was a wildly ambitious project that dramatically improves in overall quality as it progresses, and it was made possible by the labor, skill, and creativity of a huge community of people.

and in 2016, Paramount decided it was illegal.

This is their prerogative as the owners of the “Intellectual Property” that is Star Trek under modern copyright law, but it stung. It stung even more when I discovered recently that there were Three finished episodes in post production and Crew on set Filming another episode when they ruling was handed down. Those episodes will never be released, they are lost, they are empty space in history. We are terrible stewards of history and Copyright makes it worse.

Now, I can imagine many of those reading this rolling their eyes at the idea that something of value was lost here. “Don’t want your project to be shut down? Don’t use someone else’s IP!” I can imagine you saying, and if our Copyright system was at all sensible, I could understand that argument, but it isn’t. Our copyright terms are too long, and they’re stifling and restrictive.

So, here’s Jupiter’s Ghost. Here’s The Solar Federation. Here’s a big open universe with Spaceships and Aliens and history and a future, in to which any number of stories can be positioned. You can use it however you want, as long as you credit us, and give back to the commons.

Now yes, it’s wildly optimistic to think that anything like Star Trek New Voyages would ever exist for our little old podcast, but it’s legal, it’s allowed, it’s possible, and it’s encouraged. That’s a better model for how copyright might exist and it’s a way we can live our values while producing media that reflects what we believe.

[gitaroopals]

Flying Diary: Little-O's "COIL End of the Century Recording" Report! [translated article]

(Original article in Japanese is from the official Gitaroo Man website)

Bibibi and biii!

You may refer to me as “Little-O No. 11.” While collecting information about Earth, I came across the recording site of COIL, the music producer for Gitaroo Man. All right, I will now sneak into the studio, biii.

Today is, don’t you know, December 31st in the year 2000 according to this planet’s calendar! It’s the last day of the century, and I’m impressed they’re working on such a day, biii.

The place is Ropeland Studio in Tsunashima. It’s COIL’s studio. As the name "Toyoko System Twisted Unit" implies, the studio is, in fact, located along the Toyoko Line.

…They call it a studio, but isn’t this a regular house? Right, COIL is an icon of home recording, so this must be fine. But are they really making sound here?

Wow, Koei's producer (P) is dead in the corner of the room. Let’s listen to what he has to say.

“Biii- uh, Mr. P, are you ok?”

“...It’s close to the company, so I’m fine…”

※The Koei headquarters is in the Hiyoshi area along the Toyoko Line. Hiyoshi Station is the next station down from this studio.

“Umm, what are the reasons why you chose COIL to produce your music…?”

“...It’s close to the company, so—”

…Weeell, this won’t do.

Mr. P is already dead, so whatever. I’ll look around by myself.

I'm a little surprised to see so much old analog equipment. Is this what home recording is like? Why analog? Is it because they’re broke?, I wondered, and asked. They say they like the way it sounds. It seems that analog recordings have more guts and warmth than today's mainstream digital recordings. You may be convinced if you listen to COIL’s CDs.

I’ve learned that the audio produced by COIL in analog is fed directly into the computer.

Because COIL doesn’t use computer mixing, which is the mainstream nowadays, each recording is a one-shot like a live performance, they said. They tell me it will never sound the same again. It must be a lot of work. Or is that the strong point?

Then after that, they plan to convert it to 24-bit at another studio before putting it into the game.

Why do they do it in such a roundabout way? Well, whatever. The whole staff seems committed to creating a game sound unlike anything before, so I'm looking forward to the game coming out.

The audio is partway done. I was surprised when I heard it! Th-this is the sound you can make in just an ordinary room? When I asked the COIL manager about this, he said, "Yes, and everyone laughs out loud at the sight of it.”

They do a little bit here and a little bit there, like mess around with the guitar, fiddle with the machine knobs… I was like, what’s going on, then all of a sudden, bam, a cool sound out of nowhere. What can I do but laugh? What's more, it doesn't feel like synthesized or computer-made music at all. What the heck is this? Hmmm, have I just witnessed the essence of home recording?

When I ask about the sound concept of this project, everyone says “tamashii” this and “tamashii” that. Apparently they’re talking about "soul." Hmm, partway through the conversation, I wasn’t sure whether they were referring to Gitaroo Man's music concept or COIL's new album, but anyway, they say things like "There’s no soul" or "More tamashii!" as they work, so I'm sure it's a key word.

Having an appreciation for ParaPara, I said that I’d love for them to create ParaPara music with tamashii for me, but I was told that basic recording was finished and Mr. Harada was working on sound making. Please don’t forget my request, biii.

(Translation note: “Sound making” is the use of different amps and effect units to manipulate the instruments’ sounds, sometimes very drastically. In this way, one takes instruments’ original sounds and, from them, creates the sounds heard in the finished song.)

“But Mr. P makes so many demands and is so nit-picky and such a pain in the—”

I-is he talking about a struggle or an internal conflict? Oh, I see—this Mr. P, who’s laying right there like a dead tuna, is rather annoying. Gitaroo Man seems to use the regular studio and also Koei's studio, but COIL basically finished the project right here. Incredible.

Meanwhile, I start to hear people around me going “Ahhh, it’s over~” and “It’s done, it’s done~”

Is it done? What’s done? The Gitaroo Man recording is finished? This century is over?

It looks like the work of the 20th century has wrapped up for now, biii. Good job, everyone. I hope you all have a safe and happy New Year!

But this sound COIL creates! This is really the sound you get from home recording? So if you’re thinking about recording music in your own room, you should definitely check this out, biii! I heard them recording all kinds of music, so I can’t wait for the game to come out!

By the way, according to my research, it is customary for people on this planet to visit their hometowns during the New Year. I, too, kind of miss the Gravillians, biii. Reporting to the boss can wait, I’ll just go ahead and visit home for a bit.

(Translation source: Gitaroo Pals Wiki — if I ever update the translation, that page will be the one most up-to-date.)

[systematicmasspoisoning]

Who is Sam's prison for?

If you're not up to date in DreamSMP lore, Awesamdude, resident Redstone expert, was paid stacks of diamonds by Dream to make an inescapable prison. It is located in the ocean next to Bad and Skeppy's mansion and is VERY large. Supposedly it will be using Elder Guardians to keep a prisoner from mining out due to Mining Fatigue. Even if the prisoner dies of hunger, they will respawn inside. This brings up the question of how

1. they force the prisoner to click a bed inside the prison

2. how they keep the prisoner from breaking the bed.

Regardless of the mechanics of the second one, I think the first is a clue as to who Dream will trap inside the prison. Consider the 3 canon deaths lore. He has used the threat of permanently killing Tommy to get the boy to comply and click on a bed in Logstedshire. So a 'permanent death if you don't comply' is definitely an effective tactic but ONLY for people with one life left.

The main two options are Tommy and Tubbo (or Philza). Or, Dream is planning on knocking another one of his potential opponents, such as Quackity, Fundy or Techno, down to one life in the time it takes to build the actual prison.

Quackity and Fundy aren't big enough threats yet, although Quackity certainly has the potential to be a threat, in this season of the SMP, El Rapids isn't big enough of a threat yet.

Most people would assume Dream's biggest enemies on the server are Tommy and Techno. Techno's role in the grand scheme of things is, as of now, undetermined. However, as Techno is one of the authors of this SMP season, he likely has something up his sleeve. He is currently 'retired' alongside Phil in their Antarctic Empire skins in a snowy biome, but he has made appearances in Tommy's streams to mock the boy for getting exiled (just like Techno predicted with the Theseus analogy.) An alliance between the sleepbois is possibly in the works, but right now, both Tommy and Techno have made it clear there is still a lot of animosity between them. So I don't see Techno, and by extension, Phil becoming much of a problem for Dream (for now.)

Tommy, on the other hand, has been visited by Dream almost every stream while Tommy is exiled; Tommy has been manipulated by him, gaslighted and threatened. Despite making the very real threat of giving Tommy his final death, Dream has stopped Tommy from any, um, self-harming actions. Dream told him "I need you alive." Narratively, that means that Dream has plans for Tommy (they are, after all, each other's main antagonist). But Dream has also said that Tommy will remain on exile for a long time and he told Bad and Sam as they were building the prison that he doesn't intend on using the prison on Tommy (unless he begins to act up was implied.)

Because Bad and Sam (and Eret) are working with Dream, I would assume imprisoning anyone from the Badlands is out of the question. But I think it's interesting how Sam is the primary leader of the building project.

Dream said that Sam is the only one who will totally know the ins and outs of the prison. So that possibly means Sam is the only one who would know how to escape the inescapable prison. The interesting thing about Sam being included in this storyline is his connections. He and Tubbo are very close, and Sam is also friends with Tommy. Its not long of a stretch to assume that Sam's storyline might eventually lead to HIM breaking out whoever Dream imprisons. Tommy, for now, is out of the equation, so who does that leave?

Tubbo. Someone who many people are now considering Dream's puppet. Dream has been laying on the manipulation lately, playing chess with him, complimenting him and trying to increase the wedge between Tubbo and Tommy. You would think Tubbo is safe, so long as he remains pacifistic and continues to make decisions that are to Dream's benefit. But there are things going beyond the scenes that we, the audience, need to consider. The script.

Symbolism and chekov's guns have been sprinkled into the story line for a long time, and it feels as though the roleplayers have upped the ante. It's hard to think about Ghostbur' compasses without crying, but I literally can't stop thinking about what they mean. When it comes to the duo, despite their estrangement, Tommy still considers Tubbo one of the most important things in his life. He placed the "Your Tubbo" compass right beside his discs in his enderchest. Meanwhile, Tubbo held his "Your Tommy" compass in his offhand nearly all stream today. They still care for each other, obviously, but think about one of the reasons Tubbo exiled Tommy in the first place.

He felt like Tommy was choosing the discs over everything else. He felt as though the discs were the only thing Tommy cared about. There has to be a resolution to this. It's been shown by the story that the discs and Tommy's other obligations (L'manberg, his friendships) cannot coexist together for long without it driving a wedge between them.

Tubbo has been streaming more Among Us lobbies and modded Minecraft lately. When he comes onto the server, he nearly has nothing to do. He loves big project and building houses, but as of now, Tubbo has so little materials to even bother making a home and his largest project, the ocean monument, has been placed on the backburner while Sam builds the prison. Its almost....its almost like Tubbo is preparing his audience and for a period of time where he has no reason to be on the SMP. If he's imprisoned, that's not very good content to watch, is it? I also noticed that Dream pointedly did NOT tell Tubbo about the prison today, instead referred to it merely as a 'project.'

My biggest theory is that the prison is for Tubbo. Tubbo is complacent to Dream now, sure, but Tubbo is very, very smart, and- most importantly to Dream - he still has one of Tommy's discs. And Dream wants it.

When talking sweet to Tubbo no longer works, I think the prison will be the next best option. Its possible Dream will frame Tubbo for some crime (foreshadowed by how Quackity and George tried to frame Eret for Karl's murder), or someone will threaten to overthrow Tubbo and Dream will bring him to a 'secure location' to protect him. Tubbo is very nervous about losing his one life, as exhibited by the safe room under the L'mamberg podium, and other comments about his fear of becoming the next Ghostbur. Dream said that he would protect Tubbo if someone tried to overthrow him. The only threats to Tubbo's current presidency is El Rapids. Ranboo is willing to wait until the next election to become president, but Quackity has shown a strong willingness to do terrible things in order to get power. In Quackity's war against Eret and Dream, Dream made many, many references to Tubbo being a better leader, possibly sowing jealousy in Quackity's mind. Sapnap, George and Karl, as apart of El Rapids also have a bone to pick with L'manberg and may also play a part in further separating Quackity from L'manberg and fueling his desire to be the most powerful nation on the server. Absorbing New L'manberg could be the next step.

Dream could pretend to protect Tubbo by bringing him to a 'safe location', the prison, and getting Tubbo to willingly set his spawn inside. Once it comes to light that it's a prison, with Dream his captor, Tubbo will have to make a decision. Give Dream the disc in his enderchest, or stay imprisoned. Freedom, or the disc, a compromise that has been made time and time again on this server.

I think that Tubbo will hold out and allow himself to be imprisoned, while Tommy returns from exile to make a prison break, with the help of Sam. I doubt that will end well, knowing Dream.

I also think at some point, one of the boys will need to bend. Either Tubbo choses to give up his disc to Dream for freedom, or he decides to take the disc with him to his grave. Its basically the Exile decision all over again. Life/freedom, or the discs/war. Selfishness vs. selflessness.

The two boys are learning throughout this current arc to be more like the other. Throughout his Exile, Tommy will learn to be self sufficient and has had to make big sacrifices consistently as Dream blows up the progress he's made. He's learning to chose his own life over property. Meanwhile, Tubbo (although he's only streamed on the SMP once so far this week) has already shown regret for exiling Tommy, and inherently by choosing to launch a war campaign against Techno, he is learning to chose war and bravery over peace and cowardice. He will gain an appreciation for the disks and/or recognize with greater understanding what they mean to Tommy. Maybe he will learn to care deeply for his compass and learns how willing he is to wage war if the compass gets stolen. It's about the symbolism - its what the object means that is worth protecting.

I think Tubbo will die protecting the discs. Or, Tommy will tell Tubbo to give it up. This is a better ending, in which Tommy will learn that the discs represent is his friendships. And, according to Ranboo, they also represent power, according to Ranboo. But on the server, according to Wilbur (when he asks Tubbo to spy for him) people have always represented power.

To Tommy, in this arc, I hope he will learn that keeping the discs is not worth losing his best friend.

[enigmawrappedinhypocrisy]

*Request* Okay. Thanks! Could the reader be in to wrestling and her and barley are best friends? And something happened and they find out they’re falling for each other? And Ian is always teasing the reader? And a kiss at the end? Sorry if it’s a bit confusing.. again thanks!

 Okay I’m not sure how to do this… and I’m not into wrestling… And i’m really bad at this getting things done thing… sooo… I’m sorry, I know this has been in my asks for 100 years. But excuses… And i’m tired of this being in my drafts sooo… However, Hopefully it's decent enough. 

Fandom: Onward

Pairings: Barley x Reader (mention of grandchildren once but nothing that indicates gender... I think...) 

Warnings: Bad writing, Quick Mention of drunk idiots harassing reader, I don’t know a thing about Wrestling, Fluff, very bouncy thoughts... a tiny little bit of almost angst. 

❀✦ Master List✦❀

You met Barley at a wrestling match when a few drunk idiots decided to hassle you. As they tend to do… 

You ran into the first, seemingly safe person you saw. You looked at him with puppy eyes and were grateful he understood your silent plea. 

Barley smiled warmly and put his arm around you. He pretended to be your boyfriend until the guys lost interest in you and left. He made some jokes to lighten the mood and struck up a casual conversation with you, as if you really did know each other. You found yourself amazed and feeling better, it seemed this elf boy radiated security and gentleness.  

Then, with a simple thank you, you’d parted ways; only to run into each other again at the local diner after the match. It was there you had sat and talked well into the early hours of the morning. 

You learned he was interested in many things you were, and you just felt… content around him. By the time you had to part, numbers were exchanged, and he’d texted you before noon that day. 

You began hanging out shortly after that. You were nearly always at each other’s house, and quickly became close with his family. His mother adored you and his brother felt comfortable enough to joke around with you. 

All in all you and Barley were quite close.

But not as close as your family's seemed to think you were… or maybe hope would be more appropriate…  

*

The weekend had finally arrived and you made your way to Barley’s house, as planned, after work.

There was a big wrestling event in the evening and you and Barley had plans to hang out and watch it together. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for you to spend a lot of time at the Lightfoot house so no one batted an eye when you showed up a little early. 

Ms. Lightfoot welcomed you and let you know that Barley had called saying he'd be a little late, and she was going out with friends. As she was leaving she turned to wink at you telling you, with a knowing look, to have fun. 

You thanked her as you felt your cheeks flush with warmth and made your way to the familiar living room. You didn't mind waiting for Barley, in fact, you'd be willing to wait all night if it meant spending time with him. Not that you would tell him that...

Lost in your thoughts about how dumb and sappy that sounded even in your mind, and the implications therein, you hadn't noticed Barley's brother come in.

You had spent a fair amount of time with both brothers since you’d first met Barley. So by this time Ian was pretty comfortable around you, sometimes even coming to you for help or advice. Especially when it entailed something he might have been too embarrassed about to ask his mother or brother about.  

 Ian had decided to take a break from homework, and get a snack when he found you lost in thought on his couch. When he came back from the kitchen only to find you with the same dazed expression several minutes later he decided to tease you a little. 

"Barley late for date night?" Ian asks, his tone even, leaning against the wall an apple in hand. 

"Yea- wait no! Why would you say that?" You blink taken off guard by the sudden question. 

Ian raises an eyebrow in a ‘really?’ expression. 

“Shut up” you try and fail to keep the blush from your voice. "We're just… eh… hanging out!" You defend a little too enthusiastically. 

“Interesting that’s the part you chose to respond to…” Ian chuckles, before heading back upstairs. If you weren't ready to admit your feelings, who was he to do it for you… besides, this was  far more amusing.

*

It wasn't much longer until Barley arrived home, a little disheveled. The match wasn't due to start for another hour, maybe more depending on how things went, and yet it looked like the elf boy had rushed home. 

Why? 

The only thought that continued to creep into your mind was you… he rushed home to see you. The idea of It warmed your heart, and filled you with a longing. A longing for a potential life where Barley was coming home after work each day to see you. 

He'd find you cooking… reading… working on some project… and kiss you. 

You'd ask him about his day… and he yours. 

You'd share a pleasant dinner and end the night cuddled on the couch… 

You’d be happy… 

Ian's words run on loop in your mind and you don’t notice the way Barley’s face lights up upon seeing you. 

Did Barley think you were dating? That this was a date? 

Did he want it to be? 

Did you? 

You hadn't noticed you were staring until Barley brought attention to it. 

"What?" You jump. 

"I asked why you were looking at me like that?" he gives you his charming little half smile as he repeats, what you assume was, his earlier question. 

"Oh, um… nothing… no reason" you blush and desperately avoid looking at him. 

Barley watches you for a moment, clearly not believing your answer, but gives in with a shrug. 

"I'm just gonna go put my stuff down and get something to drink… you want something?" He asks. 

"Okay, um… no thanks" you try to sound casual all the while you're incredibly aware of your quickening heartbeat. 

Barley nods before leaving you, calling to you from the kitchen. He asks about your day. You give a non answer in response and ask him about his. 

He goes on to tell you about some funny thing his boss said in response to an irate customer, and soon returns to the living room. He hands you your drink before flopping down next to you. 

You scold him as you nearly spill. Not really realizing he brought you something even though you told him you didn’t need him to… not only that, but it was definitely your favorite… why would he… how… 

"Sorry my love" he smirks, clearly not sorry. 

You roll your eyes giving him a little shove in response to the nickname. He often called you sweet things. Things you previously attributed to his personality or teasing but now they had you wondering.

When he called you those things, sweetheart, darling, dear… was he actually hinting at what he really felt? 

You look at him out of the corner of your eye and quickly squeak noticing he was watching you with an indescribable emotion.

"W-what?" You try to act casual. 

"What's wrong with you?" He asks, blunt and to the point. 

"What do you mean?" You try and play it off, as if your mind wasn’t playing that little game with the levers and ball… and see you can’t even remember what it’s called… and it’s your analogy… 

PINBALL! Your brain was playing pinball… the dinging buzzing things the ball hits against being the sudden and many thoughts… which makes you the ball? Or was the ball the thoughts… bouncing around… there goes the analogy again…  

"You're being all quiet and…” he indicates you vaguely,  “did my mom say something to you? She's been teasing me about grandchildren lately, she didn't say something like that too you did she?" 

Your eyes widen and you suspect Barley didn't mean to let that slip out by the blush now coloring his ears. 

"No… but um… what-what do you tell her when she asks about that kind of stuff?" Yeah super subtle… 

Barley scratches the back of his neck, “I tell her we haven't discussed that…" 

Wait…

"Why would we… Um Barley?" You push away your insecurities, fear that you’d read the situation wrong, and decide to just jump in with both feet. 

Or tip over the machine? Does it work now? The analogy? 

He 'hmms'. 

"Do you think we're dating?" You try to phrase it gently but cringe when you hear yourself. You don’t want to come across rude, like you’re making fun of him… but also don’t wanna let on how much you’re starting to suspect you want him to say yes… 

Barley looks away from you, practically purple at this point. 

"Uh… no of course not…" It sounded small, nervous but... hopeful? 

"Do… do you want to?" you manage to force out, slightly proud of your mostly even tone.

Do you?

You’re still not sure at this point yourself, you’d only just realized the way you feel about the elf boy that was your best friend. Did you want to risk that? What happens if this was just a little puppy attraction, lust thing… and whatever relationship you begin quickly sizzles out? 

Barley is looking at his hands as he nervously fiddles with the zipper of his vest. He bites his lip and tries to avoid your gaze. 

Oh… 

You soften, “It’s okay if you do… I mean… wanna… um…” Now you can’t find the words, which becomes more difficult when Barley looks up at you, hope shining in his eyes. 

“What are you saying?” he prompts, heart pounding in his chest. He hopes you can’t hear it. 

You shift, turning towards him slightly. “Well… if you wanted to maybe go on a date or something…” 

“Yes?” 

“I’d probably be okay with that… I mean… if you want to” you add the last part, now desperately hoping this wasn’t some awful joke. 

Barley smiles, reaching forward to brush a piece of hair from your face. “Do you wanna go on a date with me?” He asks softly, apparently having gained some confidence back. 

You nod, leaning into his touch before you realize you’re doing it. 

“Tomorrow night?” he suggests. 

Again, you nod, not trusting your voice. 

Barley smiles, his attention turning back to the tv. The match was starting soon, the announcers already talking about what they expect to happen. He leans back, his arm resting behind you on the top of the couch. Not an uncommon thing for the elf boy. What was uncommon, however, was you relaxing against his side and how right it felt.

Without a word, perhaps because he wasn’t sure he could trust his voice either, Barley brings his arm down around you, holding you against him. 

If you had the courage yourself to look up at him, you would have seen the flushing upon his cheeks. But either way this was comfortable and you weren’t in a hurry to end it any time soon. 

*

A few hours later Barley's mom returns home. Maaaybe a little drunk which results in her cooing loudly when she finds you and Barley asleep and cuddling on the couch. 

This, and her half stumbling up the stairs, manages to rouse you and Barley from your comfortable nap.

Barley yawns, and slowly gets to his feet. 

"Come on, I'll drive you home" he offers another yawn soon follows.

"Don't worry, I can drive myself" you stretch, not really pleased with the idea of making the trip home yourself.

"You're too tired- not safe" Barley half murmurs. 

"You're too tired" you retort. 

"You should stay here… on the couch… or I can take the couch" he stumbles over his words. 

You nod in agreement flopping back on the couch. When Barley doesn't leave you raise a brow in question. 

"I was just thinking…" he shuffles from one foot to the other.

You watch him with patient eyes, now a little more alert. You'd let him say what he needed, when he needed not wanting to rush him. 

"I mean… if I don't drive you home I can't kiss you goodbye…" 

His ears were a dark maroon by now and you can't keep the smile from your eyes. His sweetness, his bashfulness, just how God damn cute he was. And most of all… how much you wanted to kiss his pink tinted face. 

So you did. 

You stood, quicker than he could react, grabbed his face on either side, and brought his lips to yours. After a moment of shock Barley’s arms come around you, keeping you too him. 

You can't say for sure if the head rush you felt was from the kiss or standing too suddenly, but you chose to think it was the kiss as you give him several more little pecks before eventually breaking apart with a yawn. 

"Better?" You ask, your head falling forward to lean against his shoulder. 

Barley nods before pulling back, calling a good night to you, and hurrying to his room. 

You chuckle softly before flopping once again on the couch… there'd be time tomorrow to deal with all this… but for now… sleep was calling and the old couch was far too inviting… 

*And that’s all folks*