Stone & Friends

[ruleofthumb]

Haven’t logged into this account in a while. I’ve been around, but not feeling up to logging onto here myself. I’ve been letting Betty speak for us as a system for the most part. Well now she’s in wonderland so it’s time for me to speak again.

 

Recently we’ve decided to change our approach to developing and interacting with our wonderland. The goal is to make it feel more real and persistent. We are going to try to “yes and” things that happen more to take some things out of our control, have things happen in the background while we are away (through confabulation, sure), and try to more consistent locations (meaning more of them in number and trying to keep them each very consistent). Right now we are constructing a big house in Minecraft to serve as a blueprint for a wonderland house (our old ones are all based on real houses and we want to have something that is more our own).
 

Two days in a row we’ve had a wonderlanding/dreaming hybird experience and I’m hoping we do this as much as possible because it really helps.

 

Yesterday we had a dream that started with me talking to someone through text who remembered me as Betty. He said he liked a show and I said I liked the same show. Then he said, “I thought you couldn’t get into that show.” I said, “No, it seemed like I said that but actually Betty said that. You’ve been talking to Betty this whole time, not me.” He reacted ok but he wanted to talk to Betty, so we switched. Then it was Betty dreaming about making plans to play Dungeons and Dragons with this guy and he friends. At some unclear point she woke up and continued the story of the dream, half-dreaming (I’ll get to that in a moment) and revealing a new building (implied to be hotel) in our wonderland called Dreams”R”Us (we come up with the worst names for places while dreaming). Also, at some point, Betty and the dream group planned on going on a road trip to California.

 

When she fully woke up she was switched in. I was supposed to be fronting that day but that dream knocked me out of front. Usually it’s me dreaming to vividly as myself that knocks her out of front. She didn’t get to front for long though. We had to help my dad with something and talking to him normally is really only something I can do.

 

We had a normal day after that. Since it was finally a slow day, Betty and I finally had time to set up her new Tomodachi Life world. I’ll have her talk about that when she’s back, in here or the gaming thread. It might be surprisingly relevant to this report, actually. Tangent about how I conceived the idea of Betty in the spoiler.
 

Spoiler

I have explained how I made Betty the person but I have not explained how I made Betty the character and I’m amazed I have taken this long.

 

In 2020 I made a Tomodachi Life world in which almost every islander was a corrupted version of the person they were based on, which would be reflected by their name. This resulted in a lot of bad wordplay.

 

Examples:

• A character from a Let’s Play I had watched named “MR. STAKE” was now named “HI STAKES” and was now a daredevil.
• Rarity from My Little Pony was now “Ity.rar” and was now a Sonic.exe style creepypasta character.

I had lore in mind for my Tomodachi Life island. It was a strange but happy place that could be accessed by uncertain means. The way a character got to the island depended on their abilities and resources. The Pinkie Pie from Scootertrix the Abridged could manipulate the forth wall, so she might land on the island after doing that. Wilson from Don’t Starve may be transported to the island after using the Teleportato. Rick from Rick & Morty might arrive while trying to travel to a different dimension using his portal gun. For some characters, they simply died, and the island was their afterlife. The catch was that they would all* get corrupted during the transition from their old world to the island.

 

*when planning on adding Rick, I considered the possibility of him not getting corrupted due to being experienced with interdimensional travel and knowing how to prepare, and a few Miis were technically puns/jokes but didn’t have a clear original to be corrupted from

 

The island still exists but I haven’t checked it in a while and I have yet to add every character I originally planned to add (I had a document of all the characters I wanted to add and the lore behind each, but it is now gone).

 

One character I planned to add was Honey Sugarman from the show BoJack Horseman. Her story is a sad one so I wanted her to be on my happy island so I came up with a way to corrupt her. In the show she says “I have half a mind to do [x]” and once she’s lobotomized she says “I have half a mind.” She seems pretty out of it after the lobotomy, and she is treated as “already gone” by her daughter and husband and by the way she is animated (as a silhouette or almost completely obscured by darkness). My idea was that if Honey has an inert, glum half of her mind on earth, she has an energetic, joyful half of her mind on the island. Unlike any of the other islanders, she would exist simultaneously in her universe of origin and on the island. This made her an interesting character to me, and one of my favorite potential islanders. Her corrupted name was “Hey Sara” because that is her name with about half of the letters removed.

 

I never ended up adding Hey Sara to my island, but I liked thinking about her and the potential antics she would get to on the island.

 

Around this time I was researching tulpamancy and thinking about how I would make a tulpa if I were to make a tulpa. Hey Sara was a character I was thinking about a lot at the time, so naturally I considered making her. Before Betty’s official creation day (November 10th, 2020), I imposed Hey Sara a little bit, usually while trying to fall asleep. Her imposed form didn’t have a personality or say anything, but it was a precursor to the Betty I have today.

 

Betty’s name was almost “Honey” or “Sara,” but I decided to name her Betty after hearing an electro swing cover of “Black Betty.” That cover gave me Hey Sara vibes and Hey Sara was basically who I thought I was creating.

 

Also, we made a Hey Sara Mii for Betty’s island, so we looked up “Honey Sugarman” for reference, and this was one of the first results. I don’t know if this is a transformation fetish thing or just for fun, but the fact that this is (really roughly) what happened with us is hilarious.

Towards the end of the day Betty went to wonderland to look for bugs with another headmate. Then I did stuff in the physical world for a little bit. Later I took a boat to the island they were on. The other headmate was covered in bugs and Betty was ready to meet up with her dream friends. She and the other headmate talked while I looked around. I met a rat NPC and I talked to him for a while. Betty had told me I should try to have my own wonderland adventure so I told the rat I wanted to adventure and he said he’d come with and help. We rowed back to our temporary wonderland house. Betty and the other headmate went away to pack. Me, the rat, and Consig took a boat in a different direction. We arrived at a forest and found a castle in the forest. I went to the physical world to check on something and when I got back the stone castle was burning completely and the rickety wooden bridge next to it only burned a little at one end. I didn’t try to force control over my wonderland by correcting that. Maybe here, stone is highly flammable and wood isn’t.

 

I’ll spare you the details but to summarize I tried to keep “yes, and”ing (going with the first thing the brain generates without questioning it) and reminding the brain that things should be more realistic beyond our safe island home (meaning death and destruction are possible).

 

We continued interacting with our wonderland until I fell asleep and I dreamt about our wonderland (going back through the forest). As I slowly woke up I kept going through the forest, and then Consig and I went to the “racing lands” (came up with that while awake months ago) which is a vague place of racing thoughts. I half-dreamed for what felt like a couple of hours. By this I mean I was awake and could even open my eyes sometimes but everything felt super dreamlike and illogical. This is what happened to Betty yesterday. A hotel called Dreams”R”Us feels like a very dreamlike concept to us (why name anything after Toys”R”Us, let alone a hotel?) but I think Betty came up with that while she was technically awake.

 

Eventually I’m going to have to wake up to alarms but I don’t want to because I want to keep wonderlanding like this. Now I got to check on Betty.

[TurboSimmie]

3 hours ago, ruleofthumb said:

Haven’t logged into this account in a while. I’ve been around, but not feeling up to logging onto here myself. I’ve been letting Betty speak for us as a system for the most part. Well now she’s in wonderland so it’s time for me to speak again.

 

Oh honey I know just what that's like, Phil often doesn't want to communicate on the forum so he lets me speak for both of us! I always love speaking to Betty, she's wonderful! But I'm glad to hear from you too Stone! 😊

 

3 hours ago, ruleofthumb said:

Recently we’ve decided to change our approach to developing and interacting with our wonderland. The goal is to make it feel more real and persistent. We are going to try to “yes and” things that happen more to take some things out of our control, have things happen in the background while we are away (through confabulation, sure), and try to more consistent locations (meaning more of them in number and trying to keep them each very consistent). Right now we are constructing a big house in Minecraft to serve as a blueprint for a wonderland house (our old ones are all based on real houses and we want to have something that is more our own).

 

Ooh, I'd love to see pictures when you're done! (If you're willing to share of course, if it's too private I understand.) Trying to automate some background things in your wonderland sounds like a fun mental challenge. Phil and I never really got too far with that. I'm interested to hear what kinds of things you're hoping to have happen automatically in the background!

 

3 hours ago, ruleofthumb said:

Yesterday we had a dream that started with me talking to someone through text who remembered me as Betty. He said he liked a show and I said I liked the same show. Then he said, “I thought you couldn’t get into that show.” I said, “No, it seemed like I said that but actually Betty said that. You’ve been talking to Betty this whole time, not me.” He reacted ok but he wanted to talk to Betty, so we switched. Then it was Betty dreaming about making plans to play Dungeons and Dragons with this guy and he friends. At some unclear point she woke up and continued the story of the dream, half-dreaming (I’ll get to that in a moment) and revealing a new building (implied to be hotel) in our wonderland called Dreams”R”Us (we come up with the worst names for places while dreaming). Also, at some point, Betty and the dream group planned on going on a road trip to California.

 

Cool dream! It's so cool that Betty was dreaming!

 

3 hours ago, ruleofthumb said:

Betty’s official creation day (November 10th, 2020)

 

Oh gosh, happy belated Creation Day to Betty! 💚

 

I think Dreams'R'Us is a cool name! 😁 Really happy to read your update Stone, wishing the best for all of you!

[ruleofthumb]

 

We’ll definitely post pictures when we’re done and maybe WIPs.

 

One little quirk we added to our wonderland is that it’s night in wonderland when it is day in the physical (and vice versa), and it’s a full moon when it’s a new moon (and vice versa). I can “fast forward” some travel by opening my eyes but I can’t fast forward the time of day. I want to establish early on that some things will be out of our control despite it being “our wonderland” to make it feel more grounded. I still want it to be safe for any of us to retreat to so we can always leave and we have a safe area where pretty much nothing happens unless we make it happen.

 

By having things happen automatically in the background, I can’t be sure how much they are actually happening in the background or how much we are making up background things on the spot. We try to accept most things as they are and to not question what we think has happened while we’re away.

 

Sometimes weird rules will seemingly form themselves. Like stone burning but wood not. I can fast forward travel by boat more than I can by foot. Betty has an easier time summoning a bus that can take us places than I do. Some things seem arbitrary but that takes some of the control we have away, so I end up feeling pretty relaxed after going to our wonderland. I’ve been voluntarily going there instead of looking at my phone between activities and feels better for my stress levels.

 

I’ve been wondering why I like our new take on wonderland more than our old. I think it’s a good mix of the two types of wonderlanding we did before: just talking in a static and grounded place based on a real world location, and off the wall stream of consciousness nonsense. I want to incorporate both of these extremes in our new take and we sort of had with the “dream lands” and “running lands” for dream and dreamlike thinking and familiar real-life places we can visit when we want.

 

I think solo-roleplay with Mythic GME has helped us run with whatever ideas pop into our head.

 

I always get so excited when Betty dreams because it doesn’t happen much!

 

Betty: Hii Simmie! Thank you for wishing me a happy birthday. I had a great birthday this year. I played a video game with Stan and Cloud and Consig and we all voiced different characters. We when shopping and I got to try more food. I convinced Cloud to celebrate her birthday a few days after. I mostly hung out with her one and one and she got us to try a bunch of stuff Stone refused to try pretty much his whole life. I also made her a pixel art in Minecraft (I should post that soon).