august [cw sh/sui]
08/19 - Listening to Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F# A# infinity
Thinking about my art block recently pushed me through to a personal realization. Namely the realization that I don't really have one 'mode' of artistic output, actually I have many. The tone, aesthetics, message of my work seems to have a lot more to do with the environment I do it in than any specific skills or intentions I might have going into the thing. In a way, it is the place, specific moment in time which becomes the muse for me...
218-A: Gee, when you put it that way, it almost seems like ritual is sacred or something!
I remember the first time I felt this I didn't know what to make of the situation. I was just in my own head thinking to myself and I pick up this stone pencil cup I had, and painted this abstract spiraling design with 'LOVE' in big bubble letters. "Why the hell did I just make this hippie shit?" Chare thought, not even realizing she'd recieved a lightning bolt of momentary creative possession. That's really what this is, and to me art is like trying to find just the right conditions to summon one of these muses and let myself be controlled to recreate what they show me.. Without them I'm pretty bland, if I'm honest.
I'll list the artist muses I can distinguish most clearly:
1) The Shapeshifting Satyr, Which really is like a mirror edition of my body but projected to another plane. I draw myself a lot. Illustrating yourself has surprising and powerful magical effects, as far as I can tell. Every time I draw myself is typically in an intentionally 'different' way, with varying styles of horns and hooves and hair and nose and body. I did this unintentionally in the past, but when the self portraits are examined as a group, I begin to recall and see how my perceptions of my mythology go on to tint my general disposition in the following days and months. In general things get more real when you illustrate them.
2) Swan, my colorful goofball ducky daughter. She is a mind-implant refugee out of Toontown. Even when I stop playing, she sticks around and fills my pages with her honking face, welcoming me like a tourguide to my own sketchbook. When she is my muse everything becomes very colorful and playful, suddenly my cynicism and refusal to lower my brow go away. Toonified versions of my surroundings, objects with faces, and lots of silliness. Charese can hardly even reach us here, only storming in occasionally through the urge to scrawl random rants on the page.
3) "Reciever/Refractor". I can only describe the way creating in this state feels as 'hypnosis' in a way. And it is also one of the most difficult to attain. For autistics, there is this thing about us where we feel incredibly capable in perfectly tuned social environments. Honestly I think most people have a version of this and autistic people can distinguish it more clearly due to sensitivites. There's been specific places, art clubs, that feel to generate some field of creativity that can work alongside me in the moment to create something totally different from my usual work, something that feels representative of the place but through my lens and hand.
4) qu1ng kl3pt0 is Chare's alter ego.. When I am infected with a LOUD idea she wants to get out with disregard for anyone else, she takes on the task and somehow creates with a truly incredible speed. Usually through comics, but occasionally in other ways I probably can't discuss here.
08/16 - Playing Toontown Rewritten
Toontown is the ultimate vehicle for age regression. I'll admit, I never thought I would have much interest in age regression. Because for the longest time having heard of it, I only ever assumed it was a 'fetish' in the same sense that bondage is a fetish. But that would be like calling being a stoner a fetish. In reality, I think there are some aspects to non-sexual roleplay like age regression and puppy play that have only begun to be explored by people in more contemporary relationships. For me age regression is about finding a state of mind where you are able to feel as comfortable as you did as a kid, with some level of social reinforcement (this is more of an autism aspect honestly). And an MMO of a kid's game in some way fulfills all the needs of this: the time dilation, the indirect social reinforcement of the MMO environment, and the nostalgic satisfaction of playing a character named "Professor Firequacker" I have worked on for over a decade. But the real reason I am playing Toontown right now is because I always regress in my depressive cycles, and I've learned by now the best I can do to get through them quickly is cope it out. Also, Toontown is turn-based, so if you get bored you can start doing reps in between the battle animations, lmao.
I have had depressive cycles like this before but I have never felt quite this... angry about it. Well there's like multiple layers of it. The outer layer is totally apathy and uninterest in doing anything. The second layer is Chare clawing at the walls, banging on the door every morning screaming GET UP BITCH WAKE THE FUCK UPPPP!!!
The third layer is Chare's inner fear that I have somehow permanently destroyed my brain and body (probably by my most recent attempt) and that it will be depressed and out of energy forever, which is truly how it feels at any given time during a depressive cycle. This layer is the scariest, no question a lot scarier than a wimpy demon trying to bark orders at me. Chare wants to be this external force acting on me with more power than my own, but when faced with the reality that both Chare and I are weak to this cage we are stuck inside she gets uneasy and takes out her rage on the only thing she can control, I guess. And the deepest layer is another me who is dormant and waiting for something terrible to happen so she has another excuse to come out and do something dramatic. You'll notice none of these layers are someone being nice to me. I need a Toon-Up.
08/10 - Reading The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin
I got COVID a few days ago and so I am sitting here thinking about how staying inside feels like accepting death, somehow. Not literally as I am not going to die from COVID, probably. But it feels like accepting the reality that my strength has ultimately been crippled by forces outside of my control. It disturbs me, but it especially disturbs Charese.
Charese always wants to run. I am unemployed but I spent countless days this summer with a routine I followed extremely closely. After a couple hours waking up and getting the bare essentials done in my room, Chare would inevitably become restless and uncontrollable. She insisted walking around outside would lead to something productive, lead to the kind of results she wanted. So everything I wanted to do, drawing, drinking coffee, reading, it all had to be woven in with this need to be outside and on the lookout for signals. Eventually I realized, she led me to do this because I can hear her best when my hooves are stomping. She is an adrenaline addict. If you know anything about adrenaline, it tunes out the rest of the world and puts you into a powerful altered state. (Hey kids, this is gnosis!) So even though she insisted we were on the hunt as partners, looking for some mystery connection, in reality she was using our adrenaline to fuel her influence. She did this in other more troublesome ways as well, which I will save for another day.
What do I do now, with so much time in my room? For a good while, hell even right now, I was terrified of this place. Being inside detaches you from so much of what you think is true about the world. But we forget that the outside world is just as artificially constructed as the world inside. The hall of mirrors of our reinforced monoculture is seemingly inescapable. It's just that inside, the hall is so much more crampt than we'd prefer.
Even though I have to live inside for time being, I find myself unwillingly reinforcing the outside world's dogma in every little way. Three meals, spaced out about five hours, or else you are being human wrong. up by 7:30 am, or you're wasting your life and a bed rotter. Nevermind the fact that I get most of my real work done on my laptop in bed, in the middle of the night, just one of many tiny paradoxes making the world go round.
Since realizing this I am making constant efforts, conjuring internal hyperstitions in fruitless attempts to banish all this useless so-called 'meaning' that the world trickles down into us with social expectations. The truth, I say to myself, is that there's nothing more meaningless than living up to expectations which are not in tune with your intentions.
The truth I fear more and more, is that Charese is just a lot better at shattering expectations than I am. It's kindof in the nature of her archetype, a maniacal harlequin. But I can't access her here. I can't hear her unless I'm in a power-state. And I'm all out of battery. So its up to me, today.
218-A says: Nobody talks about how much temperature-controlled environments influence thought patterns! A comforted body is a conforming body! Not to mention, it makes every little change just a bit less tolerable.
08/09 - Listening to Chikoi the Maid - I'm Cool
Did you know this is the third time I have made a new website on neocities? Don't tell the cat, please, I know we're only supposed to have one. I imagine those who repeatedly make new personal sites have a lot in common with those who repeatedly nuke their Animal Crossing save files. You try to make this personal safe world that feels like you, but six months later you look around one day and think:
"really?"
"this is me?"
"this is the manifestation of my truth?"
"what the hell happened?"
this is why, when I started building yet another personal site I made the intentional decision to make one that is simultaneously non-personal. Instead of using it as a garden I am using it more like a free storage unit. This page is an exception, not the primary purpose of the website. The rest of what I put on this site is more or less things I've always wanted to talk about. Esoteric theories, fangames and mods, pages of my sketchbook. one-off comics. But I will not be focused on providing commentary about myself, because I don't want another hall of mirrors.
Stop looking at me. I'm not interesting. My name is Hunter Rose. My name is Tyler Durden. My name is Charese 218-A. Erratic Pulse. T-Horn. My name is whoever wants to lead me to my will.
Yes I'm edgy.