𓃩

Mara꙳ ███ ████ ██ 1995 ███ she* ██ fictionkin𖦹. ꙳Sinister side of a lateralized system. *Open to viewer interpretation. 𖦹The cringey kind. 𓃩( my posts)

[torturedtoon]

What if an infection was a message, a brightness a kind of symphony?

[glitchphotography]

Another image set from Suzanne Treister’s brilliant “Fictional Videogame Stills”(1991, 1992) created with Deluxe Paint II on an Amiga computer.

[torturedtoon]

I started a comic about Jax getting her name in the circus. Unfortunately it’s too cringe to finish so I’m just gonna post a bad photo of the first page. Go my scarab or whatever

Okay here’s where the fictionkin crap goes. Yeah, to make this even more humiliating, it’s a ~kin memory comic~. You can reblog this without reading it. I don’t care. Or just treat it like spoilers for the rest of the comic.

I…kind of freaked out after Caine brought up the “You can’t remember your real name” thing, like oh fuck even this whimsical circus-themed nightmare is telling me that what they named me will always be my “real name”,

And realized that. I could remember the girl names. Because I never really thought of myself as them, never managed to apply them to me—and it’s only because of that cowardice that I was able to remember them. It’s only because I was too evil to deserve them. It’s only because none of them were my real name

But at the same time, like, fuck it. If I can’t call myself one of these names in a stupid hunger dream at the worst point of my life then when can I. It’s not like things could get worse. I’ll just take a bite outta someone and wake up and feel stupid and gross and empty again. Big deal

So I did actually try to say one of the girl names. For real. It was Jacqueline. Or Jackie. But I never even said them out loud before, so I kind of mumbled it and then did the, stupid hissing-through-teeth thing…and ended up as Jax. Because I flinched!

 ...This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever admitted about myself. *Throws confetti and vanishes* 🎊🎉

[vendulaknopova]

[torturedtoon]

This is what the yellow stuff inside of Jax looks like. It’s the yolk of an egg, the gunk inside a chrysalis, that can’t yet exist outside of what’s protecting it. If you wanna know.*

*Nobody wanted to know this.

[cloghesy]

"Bunny suicides"- 2011 (2008)

[torturedtoon]

On Repeat Tag Game

Shuffle a playlist you’ve had on repeat lately, and post the first ten songs.

Tagged by @jesterdisorder! And Iiii’m tagging 🫵 you. The viewers.  

Offline P.K. by Pinback Now, I need a part to hide in. Now, I need a play.  

Life Is Not Distant by Mew Life is not distant like that. It is mad, just like a star that explodes, or like notes.  

Gathering Fingers by Stolen Babies But if you had heard the things I did How anyone like that could live? I'm sorry you had to see this side of me A mistake has fallen on my knuckles Desperately, my wish is to maim you.  

Hawaii by Mew It was right beyond doubt, Things just didn’t pan out. It’s a movie set. It’s a world constructed. I can’t go without you.  

Choke by Poppy I’m guessing they’re testing me, Getting the best of me. Don’t know how long until They see the rest of me. Choke!!!  

Excruciating Deth by Machine Girl Fucking murderer. Fuck! I hate this fucking place!!  

Collapse in the Key of Fireworks by Johnny Booth I can’t recall the start and end of it all. The light separates into colors in the shape of you.  

Whiskey & Ritalin by Fair to Midland You’re inventing it all From thin air and close calls. Welcome to the balancing act! Your rabbit’s foot is hare and hounds, And I drag pianos, eyes glued to the ground.  

UPGrade by Puscifer This update contains important information that may resolve any Cognitive and/or data processing issues you may be experiencing. Allow this firmware bundle to completely download, Decompress and install prior to any Extreme reboot or restart of your system. (Please stop.)  

Beautiful Balloon by Mew Idiot! You could have become you. There’s a friend trapped in this dream, too.  

[some-triangles]

[flandrepudding]

I’ve got Joanna’s head in my closet

And our body in my trunk

[torturedtoon]

“The Meteorite” and “Windows”, Randall Jarrell (1954)

[keijakku]

[torturedtoon]

I went to KidPix and everyone knew you.

[torturedtoon]

☝︎ Awesome lesbian couple

[torturedtoon]

Embracing you, this reality here This one, this form I hold now, so Wide-eyed and hopeful

(Choosing to be here in this body holding me)

[torturedtoon]

I’ve been trying to write something about forgetting since this blog started. But man, I just keep...what’s the word? It keeps slipping my mind... x)

To start with: Caine wants to remember, but can’t. He’s a cartoon despite how bad he wants to be human, to live where they are, blahblahblah⸺as much as I like the Little Mermaid, I’ve gotta hand it to him: Caine’s the one who’d play her. He’s excited by the mundane detritus of humanity, drop-ceiling-tiles and old carpets and water coolers. All in a place he isn’t made to exist in. An earthly world unreachable.

Anyway! He can see the shape of his forgetting, and it freaks him out, but he can’t look right at it. He knows Zooble’s refusing to go on adventures, but can’t know why, no matter what little Freudian couch scenes he engineers for zem. So he’s gotta keep being a railroader godmoder who doesn’t listen to feedback. But this isn’t a Caine post. Because I’m self-centered!

Jax wants to forget, but can’t. She’s a human despite how bad she wants to be a cartoon. The more cartoony you get, the more you forget things, right? And you can’t cringe over something or cry or be dysphoric or guilty or traumatized (also cringe) if you can’t remember.

And if you’re a cartoon you’re playing a role! There’s distance! It’s not cringe if you're just acting! ...Except when it is. Pomni getting a little too into the evil cackling is cringe. Any escaped sincerity, like a gas leak, is cringe. You don’t wanna be Porky Pig or postwar Daffy Duck, do ya?? You have to stay Bugs Bunny, or at least Yakko Warner; you’ve gotta be the bully, the frame-controller, the liar, the prey animal who outsmarts everyone trying to hurt him, and you always have to be funny. And you always have to forget.

...Whaaat, you can’t forget it all? That’s quitter talk. Don’t let yourself think about it!! Forget harder!!!

☣️ There are spoilers for the finale below. You’d better go watch it before clicking that readmore!! No rush, folks, I’m here all day...I’ll seeya in an hour or so

Human forgetting is nothing compared to cartoon forgetting. When cartoons forget things, it’s like they didn’t even happen! It doesn’t matter that the short ends with Bugs Bunny and the hunting dog endlessly falling off cliffs ’cause Bugs is right back for the next show (And so is the dog, eventually). It doesn’t matter that the Eds’ cul-de-sac is carried away by aliens ’cause it’s all forgotten in time for the movie. It doesn’t matter that Zim and Dib become bologna at the end of Bolognius Maximus ’cause they’re back to normal in seconds, in the next segment. It doesn’t matter that Lyman disappears from the Garfield comics ’cause no one speaks his name ever again (Just don’t look in John’s basement). It doesn’t matter if someone abstracts as long as everyone forgets about them. The circus is still a kinda crummy cartoon, so this won’t undo what you’ve done to them what’s happened to them, but it’ll stop ripping chunks out of you. It’ll stop mattering. So you enforce forgetting on yourself and others.

Jax is the one trying to be a cartoon. Trying doesn’t mean she’s good at it! She can’t stop all of her cringe emotional responses...but she will do anything to stop the Viewers from Viewing them. If there’s some obvious narrative focus, you get away from it and hide somewhere boring, somewhere the camera and the audience won’t see you. You’re still vulnerable to flashbacks, but you just have to keep it the kinda cartoon that doesn’t have flashbacks. The kinda cartoon that forgets. And you’d better make sure you don’t leave any hints, or reveal anything in your behavior patterns, or the damn fanbase will put the pieces together and figure you out anyway. They might even write [tumblr] posts about it! If you know the rules of the show, you can play by them, you can exploit them, you can hide in the places it won’t look for you.

But being unseen has its consequences. Abstraction only happens when people are offscreen, offstage, offpanel. They aren’t on an adventure, or having some dramatic ~abstracting moment~. They have to be alone, in their bedroom or something, not participating in the show, forgotten by the camera. There was no way Jax coulda abstracted in the beach episode, because the audience of The Digital Circus YouTube series was watching the beginning of her abstraction with her. She only abstracted for real when the camera was gone.

Abstraction is the logical end of being a cartoon. It’s the ultimate forgetting. You forget your boundaries, you forget your body and gender and self and the tortures enacted on it. You end / The Heart-ake, and the thouſand Naturall shocks / That Flesh is heyre to. It’s all the futures unhooked / from your chest and slipping / back into the lake like a fish too beautiful to keep. It’s the curtains closing. It’s the end of the movie. It’s wherever cartoon characters go when the show gets cancelled. It’s becoming lost media, misplaced or corrupted or ruined. It’s opting out of being a toon an actor an agent a person. It’s what happens when you decide you don’t wanna be in any more episodes.

...Of course, it isn’t just death. Death is an escape! Abstraction isn’t. You’re still in the circus. And you can’t reverse or undo or cross the same river twice even if ya regret crossing it, but stories can be brought back, retold, replayed, fanficced, deconstructed and reconstructed, sliced up and...

......Where was I going with this again?

[akidartkive]

Symmetrical City Skyline, 3rd grade, 2006

[moniameluzzi]

In Silence (2008)  -Chiharu Shiota

features an abandoned piano concert wrapped in black thread.

[torturedtoon]

Does it matter if I don’t exist here? What was the point? Is this how you imagined it?