Love Is All I Need

zits the most wonderful time of the year

Meanwhile, Impulse seems so much more bashful about it. It takes him a while to start complimenting Skizz—and then it takes him a while to stop. You get the sense that, at all times, he has this abundance of warm, tender, soft, and affectionate emotions bubbling just underneath the surface, and he actively has to work to hold them down.

But any kid who’s tried to hold a floatie under the surface of a pool or squash down the bubble in the floor of a bouncy castle knows that it’s just gonna pop up even higher on the other side. Impulse tries to be casual. He tries to play it cool. He tries to be suave and jokey and “heh yeah that’s my best friend, it’s chill, anyway” like Skizz. And it doesn’t work. He can’t do it. He loves Skizz too much. Once he gets started, he can’t stop. His voice gets soft and his words get slow and gentle and all those fond and tender emotions just pour out of him like a dam breaking until he feels like he’s said too much and he gets embarrassed.

“I’m…I’m really blessed to…to have…” The quiet, vulnerable, almost confessional way he says this drives me insane. Because that’s how he really feels, deep down, under everything: soft and humbled and so so grateful and overwhelmed with a bone-deep aching love.

And the guy he’s talking about is the one who will happily stroll up while he’s in his AFK box in Minecraft and fart on his head.

OH SAMMY I’M SO GLAD YOU ASKED 8-D

So when I was taking my initial notes for my CyberPulse and SiloPulse designs, I noticed something peculiar about the two different skins: in the Cyber skin, the head implant is on the left side of his head…

…whereas in the Silo skin, the original implant is gone, and now there’s a different one on the right side of his head.

It’s clearly a different model of implant; more boxy, no pink circle. But curiously, the two prongs of the original implant are still there, imbedded into his skull, even though the rest of it is gone.

(I suppose you could also interpret the lower line of grey as just the arm of his glasses, but it’s a Minecraft skin, so. You can take it how you want.)

All of this coupled with the concept of a hasty escape from his home due to a hostile AI takeover set my imagination whirling. Yes of course this is a youtube series for kids and so Impulse is likely to never get into it, but you can’t tell me that angry machines ransacking your city wouldn’t come with some severe casualties and likely a high body count. As I hinted at in this post, I don’t think everyone made it out of PixelPulse Valley alive. And for the ones that did make it out alive, I don’t think they escaped without injury.

CyberPulse had a device on the side of his cranium. A device likely wirelessly connected to whatever PixelPulse’s version of the internet was. And when the angry AIs revolted, they had easy access to that “internet”, and to anything connected to it.

They're so cute 😭

Here's the new artwork for my Rare Joe Hills alter-ego card!

It takes a special artist to get excited when I ask for something creepier than Jonathan Yeo's King Charles III, and @luigra absolutely nailed this piece!

As most of you know, ACITW has 22 chapters (and some spin-offs), but only 12 chapters are up on AO3.*

*in CacophonyLights’ official account. Edit June 2022: someone has archived chapter 13-22 on a secondary account. You can find it here:

LINK TO CHAPTER 13-22 on AO3

Please note that these are just the 2012 chapters from Livejournal, there is no new material at that link.

A fan sequel, A Drop in the Ocean (complete) picks up where chapter 22 ends. 

-

The original posts can be found on livejournal, chopped into parts  A, B and sometimes C because back then, livejournal didn’t permit posts over 10K. 

Here is a masterlist of links. Should any of them stop working, let us know.

ACITW on AO3

Chapter 1-11  https://archiveofourown.org/works/363823 Chapter 12-22  https://archiveofourown.org/works/39859647/chapters/99800430

ACITW on livejournal: 

Chapter 0 (prologue) https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/7893.html

Chapter 1 https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/7992.html

Chapter 2 https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/8391.html

Chapter 3 https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/8523.html

Chapter 4 https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/8721.html

Chapter 5 https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/9179.html

Chapter 6 https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/9410.html

Chapter 7 https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/9524.html

Chapter 8 https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/9764.html

Chapter 9 https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/10001.html

Chapter 10 https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/10248.html

Chapter 11 https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/10760.html

Chapter 12 https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/11368.html

Chapter 13  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/11734.html

Chapter 14A  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/11957.html

Chapter 14B  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/12097.html

Chapter 15  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/12632.html

Chapter 16A  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/12994.html

Chapter 16B  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/13291.html

Chapter 17A  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/13531.html

Chapter 17B  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/13608.html

Chapter 18A   https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/14277.html

Chapter 18B   https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/14479.html

Chapter 19A  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/14716.html

Chapter 19B  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/15049.html

Chapter 19C  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/15289.html

Chapter 20A  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/15496.html

Chapter 20B  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/15622.html

Chapter 20C  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/16007.html

Chapter 21A  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/16181.html

Chapter 21B  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/16586.html

Chapter 22A  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/16928.html

Chapter 22B  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/17377.html

Spin-off 1 (One-Shot) : Porchlight Confessions  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/16757.html

Spin-off 2 (WIP) : Somebody That I Used to Know 

Ch 1  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/11045.html

Ch 2  https://cacophonylights.livejournal.com/12408.html

And a final disclaimer : I am not Cacophony in disguise, neither me or Daftydraw know her, have contacted her in any way, or claim to have any other knowledge about her original plans for this story. That said…

A Drop in the Ocean - an unofficial ACITW Fan Sequel (complete) on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24940372/chapters/60364543

A Drop in the Ocean - on fanfiction.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13634023/1/A-Drop-in-the-Ocean

Me: Oh, it's probably gonna be a cute, little build :)

BdoubleO:

Pre-cut veggies are easier for me with my tendonitis hands, especially during a flair up.