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Mary doesnt believe dogs exist [Backrooms YTP]

I've watched YTPs before, but what set me off this time was this Backrooms one: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFcf...

youtube.com

YouTube video by NORG

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This was fun to write and may be the single dumbest part of the entire Xeroverse series. A good 15% of why I'd want to see it adapted for TV is so someone makes this stupid YTP video.

[At the Condor Club, Condor confronts Doug.]
Condor: There is no / WHEELS / here, not that includes / WHEELS.
Doug: This is bigger than / WHEELS.
Condor: You expect me to believe they have a way to give people / WHEELS.
[Image of Cade, Angela, Ward, and Jack, all with wheels crudely photoshopped onto them.]
Condor: The stakes?
Doug: I win, you help me take down Project / WHEELS.
Condor: And if I win, you become my / WHEELS.
Doug: SA/UCE
[Outside the Bakersfield StrunkCorp facility, Doug and Condor face off with Ward.]
Condor: Which one were you?
War: Name’s Wa/ow Ki/ck”
Doug: No supervillain codename?
Ward sighed. C/o/ck. [rolls his eyes] And how exactly are you going to deal with me?
Doug: By giving you a taste of your own / WHEELS
Ward: Oh my god, you can / power / other people’s powers? That’s why Jack never / can / power.
[Doug hits Ward in the head with his skateboard.]
Doug: WHEELS / got wheels, asshole!

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What is happening i think i smell toast

ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

He sure says a lot of things that are blatantly wrong.

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I'm not entirely sure why I'm writing a fictional YTP video for a fictional movie that I wrote a fictional novelization of, but this whole Xeroverse project has been like that. It makes marginally more sense if you know that the crappy 2004 Xero movie had "the future's got wheels" as a catchphrase.

✄. [YTP] wheels
[Doug stands on a rooftop overlooking Los Angeles at night.]
Doug: I have a secret. An awesome secret. / The future’s got wheels.
[Doug walks into the StrunkCorp lobby. He throws his empty Monster Energy can into the trash can. The footage reverses, so that it looks like the can jumps into his hand, then moves forward again, briefly freezing on the can.]
Metallica: ♪SOME KIND OF MONSTER! ♪
Doug: Another day slaving over a hot / WHEELS!
[Image of a Hot Wheels toy car]
[In an elevator, Cade puts a hand on Doug’s shoulder.]
Cade: Morning, sunshine. Trouble sleeping?
Doug: Haven’t had a chance to get my morning / WHEELS / is all.
[Image of a Starbucks cup overflowing with little wheels. Cade knocks him out. The impact makes a weird splat sound.]
[Doug is emerging into a park.]
Doug: I can copy people’s / WHEELS.

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ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

But is it like with mechanical keyboards where no one’s really clear on what those words mean?

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ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

FYI Kamen Rider MY-TH includes Kamen Rider Datt, a rabbit-themed rider.

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ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I assume this came up in my Apple TV recs because I watched Abar the Black Superman a while back, but this sounds truly unhinged.

Welcome Home Brother Charles

1975
R
1h 31m

IMDb RATING
YOUR RATING
Marlo Monte in Welcome Home Brother Charles (1975)

After being released, a wrongfully imprisoned black man exacts vengeance on those who've crossed him via the power of his newly prehensile penis, which can hypnotize women and asphyxiate men.

Director
Jamaa Fanaka
Writer
Jamaa Fanaka
Stars
Marlo MonteReatha GreyStan Kamber

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ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

More Memes of the Prophets on Royal Road! Alyssa decides they really need a tank for the party, so it's time to head to the guild and try to find someone amid all the annoying weirdos there. #fiction #isekai www.royalroad.com/fiction/1841...

6.1 LFG - Memes of the Prophets

When Erica came downstairs the next morning, still shaking off a dream about slimes pouring through the streets of New Serenity and filling the house, she started as a man she’d never seen before spat...

ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Terms I made up for the Maw's origin stories: Star Plague celestial bacteria cosmogenetic matrix astropathologist microcycle entropist astronotic (like zoonotic but for celestial bodies) wormsmith

ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

That crowd will unironically say “weak men make hard times” without an ounce of self-reflection.

Coming up with lore in the style of 60s Marvel comics is really fun. The Maw, devourer of worlds, was once Maren of Maa, and the people of Maa used to worship Aaa, the Maker of All, as their god, and curse Zaa, the Destroyer of All, as their devil. Silly stuff done with utmost conviction.

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Sticking a little bit of comedy into Hero League: The Hunger (Xeroverse Book 4) when it has bits of fictional comics involving the Maw. I decided this was the place to do a sendup of when Squirrel Girl met Galactus.

THE AMAZING KITTY KAT #4 (2014)
Kathy Abernathy, known to the world by her superhero moniker Kitty Kat, swishes her tail and looks up at the giant space god seated next to her. It’s still amazing that she and Fraulein Fuzzyface (her cat best friend) are here on the friggin’ moon, visited only by the Apollo astronauts. And that one werewolf guy. And okay, several superheroes and supervillains. And several aliens. It was still a relatively small club, okay?
“And I heard you were originally named Maren of Maa? Is ‘the Maw’ just something people started calling you? Like if people called me ‘the Mirth’ or something?”
The Maw’s massive rhombus eyes look down at her. “It was billions of years ago, but yes.”
“And the big M you had on your chest when you first met the Quintessential Quartet? What was that about?”
The Maw looks away. Was he embarrassed? “A coincidence. The sigil for the planet Maa happens to look like your letter M. Any other frivolous questions?”
She tries to think, then snaps her fingers. “You don’t have like an evil brother called the Waa, do you?”
“…”
“Okay, that was silly even for me.” Kathy decides not to ask about the time he showed up in red and green armor. She clasps her hands. “Serious stuff. So, like, I get that you’re important to the cosmic balance and stuff, but I bet we can find something else for you to eat besides the Earth.”
“The Hunger is eternal,” says the Maw.
“I know, but dude, have you tried fish? Like a good tuna or salmon?”

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I like how he was weirdly incensed that people wanted to actually see the sign he had made.

I've been reaching a bunch of comics with Galactus and I didn't know that he had a weird little guy he called Punisher who he pretty much just sends down to beat up Ben Grim for a while.

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Guy boards a bus but it's the Omnibus that takes him everywhere in the universe simultaneously.

ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

They seem to be hoping for a breakthrough that’ll reduce costs, but as things stand they’re lighting money on fire and they have a product that no one would buy if they charged enough to actually make a profit.

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ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I think I may have managed to condense my feelings on apocalypticism down about as far as they'll go with this bit in the final Xeroverse novel.

“It never ceases to amaze me how mortals want things to endure so much more than immortals,” she mused. “Are you sure this world should really continue?”
“You’re really asking me that, now?”
She looked right at him. “Yes.”
The world had problems. It had suffering and war and death. It also had good things. Love and friendship and so on, but those weren’t why it should continue. “I’m sure. Fixing things is hard, but it’s worth doing. Being a superhero means not giving up. Apocalypse is… a copout.”

ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Reading the original Fantastic Four comics that introduced Galactus, and the 1960s Marvel dialogue is quite a thing.

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ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I have no idea what his beef with Sartre is, but my mind immediately went to how Sartre wrote a whole book calling out how dumb and disingenuous antisemites are.

ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I have friends whose parents are great. I also have friends who make me really wish I could help them escape from their parents.

ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I also watched Backrooms today (it was great) so now I’m writing a series of origin stories for my Galactus type guy, which are simultaneously comic retcons and the changing stories he told himself to try to forget that he destroyed his universe out of sheer greed.

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ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I would much rather be on a plane where the pilot is a furry than e.g. an Andrew Tate fan or a premillennial dispensationalist.

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ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Change is scary. No it’s necessary. Actually it’s terrifying.

ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Getting deeper into Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor’s new book End Times Fascism, which is depressing and also made me realize my Galactus stand-in has to be partly a metaphor for tech oligarchs who are destroying the world while steamrolling the objections of normal people.

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ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

New Memes of the Prophets on Royal Road! Now we get to see the immediate consequences of Erica introducing the Guild of Artists to some modern art! (The long-term consequences will play out over the rest of the series and beyond). #isekai #fiction www.royalroad.com/fiction/1841...

5.2. Oblique Approaches - Memes of the Prophets

Langella rushed up to them with brushes, paints, and a big canvas in tow. She paused, panting, and shouted, “Wait!” The artists paused and turned to her. “What now?” asked one. “I need to show you som...

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Following symbolism and intuitions somehow led to my surreal superhero novel having a scene where an eyeless Joe Rogan parody interviews a wolf.

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I can think of much worse things for a pilot to be into than wearing a fursuit. Dude really has no idea how weird people can get, including in his own party.

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Black evangelicals were a whole thing too, despite white evangelicals championing segregation and generally being at least as bad as mainstream America on race. Some Black evangelicals hoped that the End Times would put racists in their place.

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Apparently evangelicals at least didn't side with the Axis Powers during WW2. They did claim that Mussolini was rebuilding Rome and thus either the Antichrist or his herald, which Mussolini found amusing. When fascist Italy didn't amount to much, they quietly forgot that prediction.

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A new chapter of Xero to Hero is up on Royal Road! To help track down Dan's doppelganger, he teams up with the West Coast Hero League, the local super-team for Angel City! Who's been living in his place the past three years? #fiction #superheroes www.royalroad.com/fiction/1854...

The West Coast Hero League wasn’t as big of a deal as its east coast counterpart, but it was still an impressive building, a mix of gray metal and gleaming glass in sweeping shapes. They weren’t top-t...

9. Team-Up - Xeroverse

Also since I'm working on Xeroverse Book 4 and looking at apocalypticism, my having named Xero "Dan Dalton" (mainly for superheroic alliteration) is an amazing coincidence considering the Book of Daniel from the Hebrew Bible is about the titular prophet's apocalyptic visions.

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Calvin Rankin (Earth-616)

It helps that Xero was a superhero fanboy long before he got his power, whereas Mimic got his powers from a lab accident (and later lost his father) and became a villain before joining the X-Men for a while. marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Calvin_...

marvel.fandom.com

Calvin Rankin (also known as the Mimic) first gained his mimicking abilities after a lab accident involving one of his father's dangerous experiments. He was a villain-turned-hero-turned-villain who j...

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I read up on Mimic (the X-Men character) and the contrast between him and Xero is interesting. Mimic was desperate to make some copied powers permanent so he didn't feel like a pale imitation of others, whereas Xero's attitude is mostly, "I get to try out EVERY power and that's amazing."

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ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I'm a bit more than halfway through American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism (currently on a chapter about how they freaked out about FDR), and basically, evangelicals have been on the wrong side of almost everything for the entirety of their existence.

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Working a short The Boys parody into the Xeroverse, and coming up with deliberately dumb names: Sammy Slaughter Henry The Kraut Kanako And my favorite, Daddy's Drink (And also a Xero parody called "Ditto.")

ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Gonna vibrate into a better parallel universe, huh?

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ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I've been reading American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism, which led to Xeroverse Book 4 including some bits with a televangelist telling the faithful that the Maw (Galactus) coming to eat the world is a joyous sign of the end times. IRL they do that with most tragedies.

ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

You ever had a weird, annoying day that you end up spending 20 minutes telling all your friends about? That's every episode of Atlanta, except there's surreal touches like some guy has an invisible car.

ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I’m into season 2 of Atlanta (which Donald Glover described as Twin Peaks but about rappers) and it’s been amazing.

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ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Some people sure act like the problem with Palestine is that they have too many unexploded hospitals and non-murdered children.

The Onion @theonion.com · 18/09/2026

Reposted by ewen_cluney.txt

Olivia Rodrigo Releases Fantasy Tabletop Game ‘The High Winter Elves Of Girlville’ theonion.com/olivia-rodrigo-release…

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ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

If you want to know more about the thing with Flint Dibble in particular he did a video about it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0tM... And here's how Joe debated the moon landing back in the day: www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6v4...

youtube.com

Joe Rogan's Cult of Fake Archaeology

YouTube video by Archaeology with Flint Dibble

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ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I’ve listened to a bit of the Know Rogan podcast, and he likes to say he’s just a podcaster, but he really loses his mind when someone disagrees with him, especially if they’re not manly enough. Archaeologist Flint Dibble destroyed the Ancient Apocalypse guy on JRE, and Joe’s never forgiven him.

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ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I’m not entirely clear on who he is and I’m extremely unclear on why we should care all that much about what he says.

ewen_cluney.txt @nekoewen.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

A new chapter of Memes of the Prophets is up on Royal Road! The party takes a break from adventuring for Erica to see if anyone's interested in her Earth ideas. Introducing the Guild of Artists to modern art may have been a mistake though... #isekai #fiction www.royalroad.com/fiction/1841...