#i haveeeeeee a neuro app SOON BYE

[sheepoftheseus]

lockstep

the end of wha ch 62 is loadbearing for my heart. essay under the cut

if you like what i do, you can tip me on kofi so i can keep drawing deer & gay people. all of my art will always be available for free but i do unfortunately need to feed myself also

my favorite part of wha by kamome shirahama is a very small insignificant addendum in ch 62. i talk about it constantly but have never written abt it. it's the one w/ the fire deer

i have a super weird relationship w/ art. i started drawing when i was like old enough to know what colors were. i used to make money freelancing thru commissions which i promo'd thru the fanart i drew. people knew abt me bc i was good at ace attorney men & i could afford food + nice things on occasion because of it. i worked way below min wage bc i'd rather drive myself into the ground than dare to assert that my art was worth more than 20usd + had many part time retail jobs. i unfortunately know a lot about selling myself abt best times to post for traction etc it was always for money

i am trying to repair my relationship w/ art bc it's something i just want to enjoy again. i'm super utilitarian about media i like it has to be meaningful or beautiful bc i refuse to sit around & watch junk food shows all day. wha is one of those things where i like it bc it is all these

62's addendum starts w/ a joke abt haha funny the gay artist freak has a deadline. gets up pulls back & does very small things that are just having a life outside of making shit. it takes presumably the whole day & there's another joke that goes like this

off the cuff makes a comment about well this ambiguous deadline isn't going away but it's not "we're fucked forever" it's "i don't have time to do other shit"

sits up, looks outside, some dumb gay shit about wondering what the kids are up to. mind begins to wander & naturally it settles on something that is so clearly a flashback to something traumatizing that his body physically reacts. next couple of lines are like this

the deadline doesn't fucking matter because i'm very sick. something very sweet about kids not fully realizing how they're traumatized that i'm not qualified to talk about even though i work w/ traumatized kids. he gets up & goes outside again

here's like my favorite goddamn page in the entire thing & also the reference i used for this thing

one of the girls asks him why he made this. he sort of struggles to answer but because he's talking to a child he is taking care of so there's not really space to go "hey i am traumatized & this is helping me"

a doodle is insane for something so like ostentatious which is super funny. like those artists who post mona lisas & go "quick fun doodle :)". maybe he's gay coz only gay artists will do shit like this

the end of 62 is "i guess there is good that comes even when nothing good comes to mind" & then some lofty shit abt childhood innocence. the last panel is this

which is something that people send to me a lot bc wow that's so you!

this is all to say that i live my life like this. i get my shitty body rocked by flashbacks especially after being abused on & off for 22 years. the things that have been working for me have been sleeping for more than 2 hrs & also trying to kill the part of me that instinctively goes "i don't have time to sleep"

my ch 62 moment started because i was running to the er after an urgent care nurse went "oh yeah dude the months long debilitating migraines probably are not good". complained a lot about how i didn't have time to be in pain bc i was putting together stuff for a zine fair. i had to uber there coz it was so unbearably painful despite being loaded tf up on painkillers. the guy who drove me looked exactly like my abuser there was a song playing that was named after the place where i was abused. he was very sweet but i did relive in vivid detail the moments where my abuser drove me to the er for migraines. this one was different coz i wasn't sitting in the passenger's seat or being antagonized for lying

it was very bad. i got home & collapsed instantly. i woke up & went yeah ok fuck it i need to do something cool that goes hard but i had to wait coz of deadlines

i met my deadline. the fair went great despite running on 2 hrs of sleep & i got consigned coz of a zine i wrote in a single day while in a state of complete delirium. i stumbled over the word consignment when i was given the paper at the distro. now i'm having my fun trauma doodle which i tried very hard to rationalize as good practice or i'm studying or i'm going to make this into a print. i think it's just nice

a sign that i'm getting better is that i've let stories move me again. this was the first time i realized that. i hope to god it is not the last