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ToaArcan

Doesn't want your goddamn llamas
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So, I disappeared and went mostly radio silent for a couple of years again, what's happening?


Well, a multitude of things, actually.


1) I collect disorders like Infinity Stones now.


The past few years have been a long string of diagnoses for things that were always there but until now, weren't properly named. The big two are autism spectrum disorder, and anxiety and depression. If y'all knew me personally, this probably isn't a shock, it certainly wasn't a shock to me, but it sure as shit does explain things.


Life isn't easy for me. Some days, I struggle to get out of bed. Some days, a long fall off a tall bridge sounds real fucking good, and what stops me is the possibility that it won't work.


But I've been doing better lately. I have meds that keep me mostly on the level, help me get through the day, I have a therapist I speak to every other week, and other coping mechanisms that are working. The employment officials have backed the hell off from me so I have slightly less stress in my life now.


However, this has caused a bit of a shift in how I work on creative stuff, because... I'mma level, my writing has been fuelled by my issues for a long time. My older work was cynical and depressing because I was cynical and depressed. I coped with the shit going on my head by blurting it out onto the page and having characters go through hell and come out the other side happy, healthy, and whole because that's what I wanted. I wanted my struggles to end with me happy and fulfilled.


The big blowout with my former friends that ensued around the close of State of Decay and Uncivil Union made me worse. A lot worse. Yeah, turns out that learning that a bunch of people you trust have a secret group chat where they shit-talk you doesn't do wonders for your mental health or stability.


It's a wound that I've recently learned is still open, unfortunately.


But now that I'm (generally) happier, I have less to vent. And similarly...


2) I now have different avenues for my own creative juices and other pastimes besides writing that take up a lot of my time and energy.


I've been spending a lot of my energy on D&D, which I like significantly more than Sonic these days. BTW have a look at some of my kids:



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(Surprising precisely no-one, I play mostly weird outcasts from stereotypically evil lineages that are powerful, somewhere other than straight on the sexuality spectrum, have wings, funky eyes, and one braincell.)


I'm in multiple games now, and a lot of extra-game RP. It was one such game that held my attention for most of the time I was gone, and they continue to do so.


Frankly, I enjoy writing for this lot more than I do for the Sonic cast, and I've been tentatively drawing up plans for a story featuring a bunch of them, under the title Chains of Destiny, but that's a far-off prospect for now.


Similarly, I've been spending a lot of time on Nuzlockes.


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A lot of time. There's a story here too, a story that covers a young hero struggling and eventually breaking under the weight of a grand destiny, and trying to undo everything that went wrong, and spiralling into madness in a desperate bid to save everyone they failed, before finally rising above it and achieving absolution and redemption. I had originally intended for it to be a comic, but that idea stopped when I remembered that I can't draw worth shit.


I've sunk a lot of hours into this saga, and I'm not done yet. I'm about 75% of the way through Sword, and near the very beginning of Ultra Moon, whilst currently waiting for my Island Scan to recharge.


And the reason why I'm devoting more time and energy to these is that, well...


3) I've lost a lot of love for the Sonic series.


I realised this late last year, when Frontiers came out, was decent, and I didn't find that exciting. I was more excited for it to shit the bed than I was for it to be a good game, and that was kind of a wakeup call for me. There's enough that it does wrong that I don't want to play it myself, but they're not so massive a problem that I can actually call it a bad game. The worst I can say for it is that it's not my kind of game.


And that should make me happy, but it doesn't. Maybe I'm just too used to Sonic succeeding twice and then fucking up majorly immediately afterwards, and I find myself just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or maybe I just don't care about official Sonic stuff anymore.


I still care about Revival, and I want to finish it, but my declining interest in Sonic and my increased focus on my other media loves mean that it's now taking a lower priority than everything else.


Certainly, my lack of immersion in Sonic material has been a downer on my ability to write Sonic material. It used to be that I'd read something or watch something about one of the weaker entries in Archie or the games and then I'd get mad and scrawl out something while thinking "I can do better!" Whether I was right about doing better, probably not, but I tried.


But now I don't have that. Archie is dead and I don't care about IDW. No FF + Boring Gemerl + Neo Metal being OOC + Zombies = No Thanks. All the Archie blogs pivoted from dunking on Penders to blind praise of Flynn, and that's.. dull as fuck. I've stopped expecting anything good from the games, but unlike before, I'm not motivated by that to create for myself, I just... don't give a fuck. Movie 2 was good... ish. I'm kinda excited for Movie 3! That's about it. Didn't watch Prime.


Also, that open wound I mentioned before won't go away and it specifically makes me doubt myself when it comes to writing Sonic stuff. It shouldn't, but it does, and the pills can only do so much.


4) Post-Eclipse DA suuuuuucks.


This new version of the site is so unintuitive. It's needlesly harder to use, all my comments are nestled away in a drop-down so I don't see them for weeks at a time, the Like Button now exists and it means that random people can now remind me of shit I said when I was 14 and stupid, and I hate it here.


With that in mind, if/when I start posting again... it won't be here. If Revival continues, it will exclusively be on Ao3 and Tumblr, because those sites aren't a pain in the ass to use.

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ToaArcan the RWBY fan: I can’t get FIRST until I get paid on Thursday, so I’m blacklisting as many permutations of “RWBY spoilers” as I can, and if I see one (1) person posting V8 content without any form of spoiler tag I will kill every last one of you.


ToaArcan the RvB fan: I could blacklist spoiler tags but like... Forewarned is forearmed, y’know?

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Orange Man has the 'rona.


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My computer is fixed. Fucking finally.


I'm going to take the Autumn to get myself back into the swing of writing, so I can get things going again.


Thank you all for your patience.

Project Gizoid- Omega Emerl
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Why the hell did they think this was a good idea?

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