I almost didn’t do a newsletter this week because I’m tired from cleaning out my garage this weekend. But I’m God’s bravest little soldier for doing it anyways. Please clap. And now this brave little soldier has some stuff to share: ## Interesting Stuff ### Terrible Rules for Men Are you man, but need to know how to be the best man ever? [Boy do I have the video for you then!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BegTgCdeECI) ### Microsoft Pushes Xbox Division to Hit Higher Profit Margins [30% profit margins?](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-23/microsoft-pushes-xbox-studios-to-hit-higher-profit-margins?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc2MTIxNzIzNiwiZXhwIjoxNzYxODIyMDM2LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUNEtaV0FHUTdMMTAwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCMUVBQkI5NjQ2QUM0REZFQTJBRkI4MjI1MzgyQTJFQSJ9.bf1wS0et59C0q96ZZnfBqLTX_eTIqjZTmQbk_j6Pwok&leadSource=uverify%20wall) That’s definitely possible to achieve and not at all seemingly corporate sabotage! Between this and **Halo**’s remake being on PS5, it’s wild to see where Xbox has gotten this past decade. Good stuff (it’s not it’s terrible for the industry actually). ### MyNoise I’ve written about [[MyNoise]] before but I’m plugging it again because I love it so much. Check it out and maybe throw a few dollars its way if you like it too. It’s worth it in my opinion! ## Planted Recently [[Ghost of Yotei]] Wrote about a sequel to a game I was generally unimpressed with. How do I feel about the follow-up? I’m not telling you, you have to click the link and read it!!! That’s how this works!!! ## Media Corner ### Games Playing: - **Ghost of Yotei** - **Ninja Gaiden 4** - A bunch of roguelikes not worth individually listing lol ### TV/Film - **Project X** (2025) - [[Until Dawn]] - [[Heart Eyes]] ### Music - **Benzaiten** - Osamu Kitajima - **Kiki No Ki** - kiki - **Flowery Breaks** - Tiny Griffi, De De Mouse & SHIN-SKI ## Status Update I completely rewrote the outline for my longform story and like the new plot beats I’ve written out a lot more. I’m sure it’ll change again as I continue to write, but the old version of the story’s ending was too bland. Writing something that I actually like the idea of has been fun because it feels like I’m an archaeologist of my own story. It feels less like I’m coming up with things, and more like I’m learning about the world I’ve slowly been building out, and that’s neat. I even have a sequel thing in the back of my mind, assuming I like the final product of this first thing. Writing has been a deeply lonely process, which is kind of a bummer. I try not to bother my friends with what I’m making, and I don’t really have a writing “community” to share with either. In the brief attempt I made to find that community, I found myself surrounded by people who were trying to figure out what viral strategy would best work to pop off on TikTok and have a publisher notice them. More power to them, but I literally don’t care about that sort of thing, so…I trudge on, just grinding out a couple hundred words a day at a time. Maybe it’ll be easier to be more open about the process when I’m close to being done with a first draft. We’ll see! Anyways sorry I didn’t mean to yap about my creative writing process so much, my bad! ## Signing Off Thanks for reading! Hit the ko-fi link below if you like and want to support this letter. :) https://ko-fi.com/barquq