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i know the lonely is more commonly associated with the vast, but i REALLY like buried/lonely together, actually.

seperated from any possible human contact by tonnes of unfeeling dirt, and you can't even move or try make a sound lest your lungs be filled with more wet earth than they already are..

also, graveyards are buried coded and those can be very lonely places, just saying ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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I think Radio and Kirby should kiss each other

Grumpy old man x energetic little lad

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Hey TBLT fans, what do we call Kirby/Air Conditioner? Airvac? Kirbcon? Neither of those sound right to me but they're all that come to mind

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haven’t posted any art in a bit sooo

FEAR WHEEL

(btw yes the dice is purposefully all snake eyes, just clarifying)

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Here are some solo shots of my coffin of The Buried display in different levels of lighting. Eventually, I'd like to build a better one and maybe get some fog pouring out of it or something, but I'm pretty pleased with how it looks.

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Tinselina but she's modeled after a biblically accurate angel. Still all organic

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He doesn’t know what the flag means 😭

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A Pragmatic and surprisingly comforting perspective about the Trump 2nd Presidency from the ACLU

***Apologies if this is how you found out the 2024 election results***

Blacked out part is my name.

I’m not going to let this make me give up. It’s disheartening, and today I will wallow, probably tomorrow too

AND

I will continue to do my part in my community to spread the activism and promote change for the world I want to live in. I want to change the world AND help with the dishes.

And I won’t let an orange pit stain be what stops me from trying to be better.

A link to donate to the ACLU if able and inclined. I know I am

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Note I wrote to myself: Radio says something Radio would say. Blanky replies with something dark and unsettling. Comic gold.

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(un)Familiar Faces

It never occurred to Lampy until becoming human that he never had a face to put Radio's voice to. Some things were lost in the switch between machine and human, but some features of their old faces remained. The Air Conditioner's moustache and frigid expression? Still there. Kirby's eye bags and thick unibrow? Still there. The gap in Blanky's teeth and round nose? Still there. Even Toaster's reflective face had brown eyes and a soft smile, and they were also still there. Everyone else had a face that he could connect to the appliance they used to be. But Radio? He had no face, and it never bothered Lampy.

At least, it never bothered him before. Now it bothers him a lot. It's unfair that he has to be Nico and Radio has to be Danger, unfair that unlike with the others he has to start over from scratch with Radio.

When he looks at the man who now calls himself Danger Rose, there's very little to connect this man to the radio he once knew. Looking at him as he is now, his feelings are almost always teetering between strangers and old friends at the same time. They're all so far from what they were that none of them recognized themselves in the mirror when they first saw what they'd become. There was never that mouth that curls up with mischief when Danger thinks of doing something crazy, but now it pours out with Radio's laughter as if it always did.

Even his voice isn't entirely the same as it was before. His voice sounds clearer coming from a throat than a speaker, but he... misses? Yes, he misses the way it used to crackle with static. And he misses that not-face so much so that he almost sees it when he looks at Danger hard enough. Not that he stares, at least he doesn't think so, but it's hard not to with that blue and green eye piercing into his soul when they meet each other's gaze. Especially when the way he looks at him sometimes makes Nico warm in a chest he still isn't used to having.

Maybe he'll get used to it. Maybe, he starts to think as he recalls their lives as appliances, it's not just the change that has brought on these feelings. Becoming human didn't turn Radio into someone else even though they are all now something else, just as it didn't turn Lampy into someone else. Even now, all Nico needs to know for certain they ever were something else is to look in the mirror and see that lichtenberg scar and remember why he got it.

They've all had to make major adjustments. Tony isn't used to her own face being the only one others see when they look at her, or Casper having such long hair to hide behind, or Kirk being about to see so high off the ground, or Aaron being able to turn his head to look anywhere but forward. Even Danger said to him in a private moment he still holds close in his mind that it's difficult getting used to having a face that can be so much more easily read. Getting used to each other's new faces was always going to be difficult because none of them are used to having flesh or blood. Maybe he only sees him differently now because he is seeing him through new eyes.

He just wishes seeing his old friend anew didn't stir so many feelings he doesn't know what to do with.

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suburbia is special because you can link/give it a domain to literally any of the entities.

like think about it. of course there's the obvious lonely unchanging and empty sprawl of houses, isolated and locked in their own little worlds until the quiet burrows into your ears and turns you into a shell of yourself.

but why stop there? what about the endless repeating expanse of sameness, vast stretches of flat concrete under a flat open sky, making you feel so small and insignificant standing upon it?

or, perhaps, the way someone always seems to have their eye on you? personal security cameras and neighborhood watch pages are all the rage these days...

now take that to its logical conclusion. think about why your life has been arranged in such a predictable and bland fashion, think about who benefits, what webs of systems are supported and strung together through white picket fences?

the streets do all look the same, and that just makes it even harder to remember where you were going. all those roads and cul-de-sacs spiraling across the neighborhoods. hard to tell whether that street was there yesterday. they all look so similar.

perhaps it's the residents themselves. you have new neighbors. these strangers don't seem quite right, uncanny somehow. but you get used to them, as always. until one day you have, again, new neighbors. what happened to the old ones? you don't want to know.

when it gets dark, everything is drenched in shadow. it's quiet hours out, and there's no streetlamps to reflect the dying light. something could be lurking. anything could be lurking. no one can see you waving for help.

you could be trapped, as well. wanting desperately to leave but feeling as though that hope's been buried by the fact that you've never known anything else. there must be a world outside, but strain as you might you cannot catch a glimpse of it, and it chokes you.

we all know landlords aren't really all that regulated. corruption runs rampant in real estate. how many infestations are hiding in the walls of foreclosed houses? what's eating away at the pipes and ceilings and floors, spreading, multiplying, unseen until the foundations finally collapse?

but maybe the houses themselves are alive, twisted mockeries of shelter, creaking and groaning in such a human way you could swear the walls were flesh and not plaster...

police keep the streets all nice and clean and picture-perfect. but is that really what's going on? or are they bored and hunting for something to do, someone to follow and harass? is the mirage of stability worth thinning the herd for?

these places seem so peaceful, but sometimes if you do a little digging you'll find blood money underneath. what does that factory on the outskirts do? what's with the gates, the guards, the secrecy? surely they aren't making anything designed for violence and slaughter. surely it isn't their industry keeping the whole town afloat...

prefab houses may be easy to build, but they aren't always the sturdiest. fires spread quickly, floods collect easily on the pavement, tornadoes fling debris through windows. one disaster, and suddenly the uniform buildings are left crumbled and desolate.

and how about the pollution? the stench of gasoline fumes and six-lane highway strips, the way nature is pushed out to make way for these places that aren't much good for humans either. suburbs necessitate the near-extinction of anything natural. those dandelions in the cracks? unlicensed organic material. there's no place for them. maybe someday there will be no place for you.

and in the end, of course, so many live by themselves. so many might miss phone calls, text messages, visitors. sometimes, when people die in the suburbs, nobody notices anything until the smell gets strong or the newspaper is uncollected...

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I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single person draw Nathaniel Beale, the snitch and best friend of Hezekiah Wakely. Also when I showed these to my non-tma knowing friends they thought they were ocs, I am taking that as a compliment.

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Happy Pride

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So uh if anyone in the brave little toaster fandom finds this, hello, hope you enjoy my ramblings. The themes of these two works are just so fascinating and parallel in ways I find very interesting. This movie was my first fond memento mori in fiction and gave me a safe place to explore existential and societal fears early on in life. It gave me a more conscious appreciation for the horror genre with how gently yet seriously it nudged me towards facing my fears.

Also I refer to Toaster in this post as a she because if Toaster were human I'd headcanon her as a trans woman and the first two movies taking place during her egg phase. I also headcanon Lampy and Radio as trans, Blanky as genderfluid, and Kirby as occasionally gnc if he feels more relaxed. All of them are gnc to me by virtue of how many people with a difficult or heavily tested relationship with gender love this movie. Gender norms are very arbitrary yet are used to define people by function. So, while it's not as directly applicable to the characters as appliances, the ideas sprung up about identity and purpose overall bring up interesting questions about gender.

🍞 All those nightmares robbed Toaster of restful sleep for years. Toaster tried desperately to protect everyone and keep them all together, so afraid of being the spark that ignites their doom that she kept her distance from them. But watching the gears of the crushing machine turn, its image inverted against her reflective chrome, she felt for a moment that she fully knew this was what fate had in mind for her all this time.

🥀 Blanky was swept up into the trees, shroud in a darkness so deep that a strike of blindingly bright lightning barely even glowed there. It was horribly homesick and wished for someone to hold it tight, feeling as helpless as the child it once warded from monsters under the bed and in the closet. The wind threatened to blow it away at every moment, but it held on tight all through the night, clinging to the branches that tore and dirtied its fabric.

📻 Radio got so used to trouble at the cottage that he readily took on whatever role the situation called for when they left. Leading the charge or signing off for good, he always made sure to put on a good show to keep morale up. But who would put their life on the line to save the one who brought their butcher to them, he wondered...?

💡 Lampy surrendered to the storm in a rare moment of certainty, surviving though he knows now he very much shouldn't have. That night, he would have done anything to pierce the cruel, unyielding darkness, and lightning struck to provide him the way out of it. He learned to trust in himself and others, and from that night on he let compassion be his guiding light.

🧹 Kirby stood at the edge of a cliff, heart heavy with regret for being too weak to hold on tight enough to keep them from falling, for being so closed off, for the last things he said to them, for the last thing he said to him. He's so distant up here that his friends disappear into the mist below. Choking down his fear, he steadies himself and takes a leap of faith.

List of episodes I associate with the main 5 and other important characters directly below the cut. Then there's a buffer space prevent spoiling those who haven't listened to the whole series.

Toaster: 8, 11, 26, 29, 37

Blanket: 9, 12, 15, 22, 32

Radio: 1, 7, 16, 29, 31

Lamp: 4, 12, 17, 23, 38

Vacuum cleaner: 2, 10, 13, 31, 33

Air Conditioner: 8, 13, 19, 26, 35

TV: 3, 5, 24

Rob: 5, 24, 38

Kris: 1, 3, 25

Parts Shop appliances: 14, 18, 30, 34

Junkyard appliances: 5, 15, 30, 32

Tinselina: 21, 24, 28, 34

Ratso: 7, 26, 31, 32, 35

Wittgenstein: 8, 16, 23, 32, 35

Spoilers for episodes 80-200 below this point.

Anyway so now that only the ones knowledgeable of TMA are here, the Dread Powers seem to both kick their asses and love them. Which dread powers I think they'd be aligned with, you likely get a clue based on my descriptions and chosen episodes if you're down here. But I'll make it clear here because the implications are so much to me.

Toaster: Terminus, The Mother of Puppets, The Lightless Flame

Blanky: The Forever Blind, The Crawling Rot, The Future Without Us

Radio: Butchery, Viscera, I Do Not Know You

Lampy: It Is Not What It Is, Beholding, Vertigo

Kirby: Too Close I Cannot Breathe, Everchase, The One Alone

Air Conditioner: The Mother of Puppets, The One Alone, Ceaseless Watcher

TV: I Do Not Know You, The Future Without Us, It Is Not What It Is

The scene where they all sink is like watching the swamp of sadness in The Neverending Story, it's so sad to watch everyone's last instinct be to save their own lives, if it ever comes to their minds. I've thought way too much about this subject in particular because this scene reveals their impulses under crisis very handily. That it's a scene that handles Kirby's greatest vulnerability after we see him overcome his greatest fear is heartbreaking in itself on top of everything it reveals about everyone else. It's his final instinct rather than his first to call for help, and Toaster doesn't even try to save herself when it comes down to the wire before trying to tell someone already sinking deeper to do so.

Radio then saves their lives by not shutting up, as usual, but the helper they receive puts them directly in danger. 😭 He's so slaughter aligned that he maladaptive daydreams about war and always picks fights with everyone even if it's clear he's outmatched.

Kirby calling Blanky crying "disgusting" is honestly so horrible because he's so averse to weakness he can't stand to see it in others, but it's also a perfect way to show the difference between them too cause Kirby likes things clean. It's like he sees Blanky's open vulnerability as a contaminant that will infect him, and Blanky really needs the kind of support Toaster provides.

If Toaster's chronic nightmare is not End and Desolation coded I really don't know what is. The inevitable loss and mortality vs lost potential burning out, it's kinda crazy to consider the fact that this movie's plot begins and ends with a death. If this movie were a Leitner, it would absolutely be of the End. I can even envision a corrupted version

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do you ever think about the connection with the flesh and buried

Anon I’m gonna need you to come back here RIGHT NOW and explain yourself because I’m not seeing the connection at all but that sounds interesting as fuck and I need to know more IMMEDIATELY

Completely blanking on any correlation rn but I’m also not very well versed with the flesh, that area of expertise goes to my dear mutual @the-bones-in-your-backyard

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Wakely digs to give the dead their final rest and send them to the oblivion Frankenstein dreaded seeing others go to; Frankenstein digs to rob graves and enact the very resurrection Wakely found so horrible he'd rather be buried forever. Victor defies the End, and Hezekiah embraces it.

I am not immune to fandom fear aesthetic nonsense. And let me tell you I’ve had a reoccurring Frankenstein fixation for as long as I can remember, which, you’d probably assume I was more into the stranger//flesh//end with those themes but the thing is, all of them fail to accurately convey a specific “aesthetic” which is what draws me to that type of fiction, a little piece of set dressing which in my opinion the buried EXCELS at

The “fuck you god” attitude, the pressure of passing time, the inevitability of the events which have been set in motion, unstoppable and crushing.

Especially Hezekiah wakely holds a dear place in my heart, he has a LOT of similarities to Victor Frankenstein in terms of characterization.