#ramble bramble

[watchmewhirl]

OKAY! So as I was getting my daily Catchy-Spinny for Pokémon Go as I've been getting for the past...(checks)...495 weeks?... Jegus... SO ANYWAY! As I was doing that I was FLASHBANGED with an idea for a Deltarune Au and had to drop everything to write it down and draw it. Jailbroken Tenna or, Time Traveler Tenna Au.

Any device you can think of has been made into a time machine in pop culture; cars, microwaves, cellphones, tape measures, pocket watches, gyroscopes, why not a CRT TV?

Premise: Tenna learns the truth about Spamton's benefactor waaay too late, but still makes it his mission to undoom them and keep himself from getting unplugged, y'know, go back to the good ol' days, fix everything (that certainly won't go wrong...right?). Even though he still sucks at using computers, he's TV, he knows video games and sci-fi movies inside and out and he figures out how to use the Deltarune UI. He manages to open a 4th save file and uses it to go back in time and stall Spamton long enough for his past self to catch up after picking up the phone. He then jumps back to the "present" (his previous file, file 3) and finds... that nothing changed. That's okay! He knows more now, he can fix it. He keeps jumping back and forth, each time making a new save file, trying to figure out what he's doing wrong.

He tries keeping himself from meeting Spamton

Acting in place of Mike

getting rid of the studio's phones

even replacing himself on one attempt

anything that could change something

He gets more frustrated with each failed attempt, but refuses to stop trying. NO, he'll MAKE IT WORK! He makes dozens if not hundred of attempts. The phone even rings again, ordering him to stop messing with the game because he's breaking it (he tells them to kiss his ass)! Not to mention, he doesn't have fans, this time travel business is overheating him... a lot. He completely ruins his old outfit.

In between each attempt he comes back to Castle Town in File 3 and talks to the people there, including Spamton. They talk and Tenna laments their current situation, insisting each new try will be the one where it works, but eventually... after they've talked enough, after they've reconciled and gotten comfortable together again, he gives up.

He can't get their former glory back, but he has what he wanted; people who care about him (including his partner), a purpose with the Lightners (he knows about MTT, he's just been... putting it off until he fixed this), and... he's here. He's still alive. Things might not be exactly how he wished, but that doesn't mean they're all that bad either. He doesn't "fix" the future, but he finally learns from the past, he grows from it.

Outfit inspos include: Tron (1982 and 2010), Outertale, and Euclydia Rises.

[acetrainertabris]

just played the crestwood scene for the first time and I gotta say.

finally get how this man could induce 10 years of truly cataclysmic yearning in y’all.

[pupusaa-papii]

I might be crazy tho

Boy asked me to go to his house for a hookup, but told me last minute that he had his best friends over and we couldnt do it anymore. It started as just me being horny but i told him i could wait for them to leave and him be alone and i ended up insisting on him that maybe we could just at least hang out for a half an hour even if we just talk and dont have sex, like...

Idk, hes like cute, sure, but in hindsight it actually doesnt make much sense for me to switch up and settle for so little from a guy

Also yeah, the curse of me always being stood up for some random reason

[painted-bees]

Thinking about the depictions of Magritte's neurospiciness vs Raf's and

Magritte's struggles are a lot more easy to depict in small little vignettes. Her impulsive, disorganised, scattered nature erode her relationships and hinder her obligations, all which are long term consequences, but the behaviours themselves are spontaneous and can be often adequately captured with in a single scene.

Raf's however…I  cannot fit so neatly into the same kind of 'single moment' vignettes. I can depict an instance of his overthinking and layered thoughts, and give a quick taste of how it colors his mood and outlook for a flash. Like--his ptsd and general anxiety symptoms, I can capture and depict in this way. But the real insidiousness of his personality disorder in particular is that it's always on, and it heats up slowly over days…weeks…months before it hits a boiling point. And if he's not attentive, it can make him mean--cruel, even. The same intelligence and quickness of mind that lends to his timely, insightful, nurturing sentiments and clever, kindly gentle observations are the very same traits he will wield as a violent weapon when he becomes like a fearful animal backed into a corner. He'll say the meanest fucking shit in the fewest amout of words. A snipey comment that'll cut straight to the core, and even if he, in his right mind, didn't mean it, it doesn't matter because it wouldn't be in his mouth if it hadn't been pulled from a thread of truth. No amount of "sorry" can heal that without a leaving behind a nasty scar.

But I can't just illustrate him aggressively shooting off this kind of commentary in a short comic without including the weeks of small, seemingly unrelated occurrences that built up to it. It would just be a comic of him being brutally mean over something seemingly benign, and then feeling bad about it…which I suppose is true to how it would look from the perspective of most people in his life, but it's not accurate to his experience and it doesn't actually say what needs to be said.

It would take more panels than I can afford–to illustrate the numerous tiny, benign comments and gestures made to and around him that get folded into the slowly-growing malignant mass of misinterpretations, uncertain observations, suspicions, and worries. He's gotten so good at identifying them, dismissing them as irrational, and pushing them to the back of his mind. The idea of overreacting to a 'non-issue' or an imagined slight is mortifying to him and doesn't align with the kind of person he wants to be. But--these things sit hot in his brain regardless of how he reacts to them--and often times, he will hold them there whether he means to or not. The temperature builds up with each new situation, thought, concern…and he may fail to notice when his brain has reached a boiling point--he'll meltdown. 

In fairness, his episodes usually see him shutting down and isolating for a few days…a few weeks…a month.

However, should anyone reach out during that time, it is most certainly because "they can't just leave me alone, people are always, always gonna bother me for shit they want from me. They just can't fuckin' help themselves, they can't let me be." And any attempts to converse with him will be stilted at best, unpleasant more often than not, and relationship-shattering at worst. Again, if he feels backed into a corner, if he can't get far enough away, left alone, given his "space"--he'll say the meanest shit. He'll make you go away.

Unfortunately, ghosting people; cutting them off and going completely awol for weeks at a time can be just as cruel and destructive to a relationship as a sharply pointed, brutally wielded comment or accusation might be. 

He has so many friendly acquaintances, but genuinely no friends. No one who will text him after work or ask to hang out with him on the weekends. Partially, he does not want this kind of relationship, and actively discourages them (as he once had done with Magritte). Largely, he still has not figured out how to maintain or enjoy them. They feel unsafe.

After all, not everyone is as patient, understanding, forgiving, communicative, and accommodating as Magritte has chosen to be. But even Magritte finds herself in the splash zone of his negative, paranoid moods and behaviours. She is quick to point out that, save for one time, Raf has never been mean to her. But the eggshells she has to walk on sometimes are there because she hates to see him upset and hurting--and it can be so difficult to know what will make him clam up or become defensively grumpy. That, and she can't help but feel personally responsible for his worst moods, even though he himself would rather hammer nails into his own palms than accuse her, in earnest, of being a source of misery in his life.

Raf works so hard at keeping a lid on his cruellest personality traits. It's exhausting, but "paranoid, mean, and unreasonable" is so far away from who he wants to be. He hates that it's who he is in his weakest moments. And--especially after reading online about the experiences of other people who've been in relationships or had parents with his particular disorder–the fear of exhausting Magritte's patience and becoming a "traumatic past experience" in her life is an ever present anxiety. 

But at least he can talk about it with her.

And trust her with it.

[accidentwithapen]

its so hard to like. translate the Vibes of the gigs in space au into actual coherent thoughts. Its like phasmo and lethal company and mafia movies and futurama all rolled up into a silly little package. like!!!!! the sillies turn into a space crime family!!!! they are so!!!!!

[mothballs-butgirl]

The return to work is so somber. I’ve been given just enough time off the chains to feel free but not enough to truly be so. I need sources of whimsy… rain’s gone from the lovely nature of the world to an annoyance. It’s so gut wrenching in the most mundane ways possible.

[faffreux]

(This is not a vent post and I just wanna make that clear... but it IS something I wanna talk about briefly..)

Too many people don’t seem to understand how special interests work in the sense of like… it not being a hyperfixation. Like sure, they can look similar on the surface but they’re ultimately not the same. (under the cut bc it’s long)

With hyperfixations there’s often an expectation from everyone around you (and yourself!) that you WILL eventually get over it, that you’ll move onto something else with the same intensity, etc. But here I am for three years straight,  fully expecting and KNOWING this will continue most likely forever. I don’t feel the same highs and lows as I do when I’m having a hyperfixation… I also don’t experience the fear of losing that interest that tends to be associated with them as well.

With this there’s a confidence and calm that it's something I get to continue loving the same way because it’s not going anywhere… ever.

This is a part of my life, a source of constant passion, a warm hug on a cold day, a warmly lit candle in the dark. The energy is steady, not erratic. There’s a stability about it that’s hard to put into words but I’m doing the best I can anyway, LOL.

In my experience some people have a really hard time wrapping heir minds around this. I’m just as sincere and passionate about Fawful as I was at the beginning of it all.

They have what essentially amounts to a threshold of tolerance for intense interests in that they’ll support you wholeheartedly at first but eventually grow tired and numb to it to the point where they no longer care at all. It can feel isolating at times, honestly... bc it makes me wonder for a split second if there really IS something wrong with me... even though I know I’m honestly just fine and I wouldn’t change anything for the world even so!

But I felt like bringing it up so maybe if any other folks can relate to this they might know they’re not alone. 

It sure is a journey, haha.

[so-you-betta-run]

ok kids

tomorrow I am going to do a exercise™

it has been awhile. a little bit o’ depression, a little bit o’ sickness, a little bit o’ my entire state being on fire has gotten in my way, but I’m gonna DO IT.