#bramble ramble

[bramblewhisker]

I'll make jokes about it (because heehee tongue), but I actually genuinely adore the concept of "sharing tongues" as introduced in Into the Wild. The later series sort of de-emphasize its role in clan culture, but it's honestly so important.

For one, it's a very real cat behavior, and I like when the warrior cats accentuate their culture with influences from cat behavior (it's cute!). But also in warrior society having a very physically intimate act that is divorced from romance/sex feels important. It's a way of sharing intimacy and vulnerability with your clanmates to help solidify bonds of trust, and I believe they even mention cats across clans sharing tongues at Gatherings sometimes? Don't know if I'm making that up but it makes sense for it to happen; it's a way for the cats to assert "we are different, but we are one." Having such close moments, the polar opposite of a border skirmish, feels so critical to keeping their society going.

In a world where your next meal needs to be caught and your everyday patrol might end in a fight, you need these soft intimate moments with the cats around you. Not just the ones you have a specific sort of love for, but even that other guy in the warriors den who's a little annoying but who you know will have your back out there. How can you not have the back of a cat who helped you groom yours?

Obviously it can be something more to cats who are romantically involved, and I think that just makes it a stronger societal element as a whole.

[bramble-scramble]

Hey everyone.

I wrote this up a few days ago, but didn't post it here immediately because I have already more or less been operating this way on tumblr for a few months. At any rate, it's definitely more universal and official. I've been testing this out and walking the walk the past couple weeks.

I won't be around except to post art, fanfics (rarely), and ocasionally to go through my ask box. I still want to express my appreciation for my interests, but I do not wish to be deeply involved in any fandom anymore. Not for a long time and possibly ever again.

The post explains my feelings and future plans with the greatest clarity I can manage right now, so I'd appreciate a quick read if you ever cared about my creations or presence here.

It was fun until it wasn't, for me. Thanks for a good 2023 and have a good 2024.

[griancraft]

♡ ͎. ｡˚ ➶ Peregrine/Grian Griancraft ♡ ͎. ｡˚ ➶

He/she, please do not use they/them for me!

Japanese-Canadian

Anthropology major

Professionally recognized DID system

Our system name is maplewoods

Dating @old-pine-woods 🫂

Currently on Skyjacks episode: 34

Help me get out of my abusive home situation

If I like your art and don’t reblog it is in the queue

♡ ͎. ｡˚ ➶ More about me below ♡ ͎. ｡˚ ➶

Hello! My name is Peregrine, but I also go by Grian sometimes on here. I am the host of our system and the one you’re most likely to see online here! I enjoy hermitcraft, Skyjacks, Bg3 (but really only Wyll Ravenguard his story is so so good), Band of Brothers, and TTRPG/fantasy stuff of all sorts. I am studying sociocultural anthropology with a hope to work in the anti-eugenics movement. I am an amateur (really amateur) at HTML website building on neocities.

A small disclaimer: I do my best to read the majority of recent literature I can find on DID. I’m not a source by any means at all, but I do know what im talking about. Diagnosis is dangerous in the current climate and im doing the best I can with the resources I have.

header by this amazing person

Pfp by this amazing person

Tagging system:

Original content: art, writing, photos

Birdseed: favs

Bramble ramble: ramble or rant posts

Ref: art or writing ref

(TBA)

I try to trigger tag these as of now, ask to add:

Nsft posts

Drugs and alcohol

Fire

[caprisun-wizard]

himb

[i-have-bees-in-my-brain]

Rereading tnp, currently in dawn where they arrive at the lake and Squilf gets her warrior name (It's Squirreltail in the german translation like firestar have some creativity dude) anyway. Bramble immediately makes a joke about how she still has to listen to the older warriors aka him, thats how consistently hes written as controlling or domineering over her. Man why is brambleclaw. And to think he'll keep doing this for the next 30 books at least...man

[delayshay]

my biggest goals this coming year are definitely learning radical self-love and how to ride a bicycle

[the-one-that-weeps]

I'm tired of the Virtual Singers being the only ones who change from world to world. We barely know how Sekai actually work or how the kids magically teleport there. For all we know they could all be holograms upon entering the virtual world.

Let's get creative about it!

Imagine that upon entering Sekai the characters' bodies shift to fit in the world better, much like the virtual singers.

Imagine that, upon entering Wonderland Sekai, Tsukasa isn't only baffled by the presence of Hatsune Miku and talking plushies, but that he too has acquired some plushie-like stitches. Imagine that upon inviting Rui onto his stage, he actually begins to glow like a real star, no longer an illusion.

Imagine Mafuyu watching over the strings attached to her body like a marionette, only ever visible in this world, origin known a little too well. Soon enough Miku and other virtual singers join her, the Kagamines gingerly playing with the strings. She ignores them, the presence makes her ice grow warmer.

Imagine Kohane, mesmerized, looking upon the graffiti-like markings painted all over her, glowing vividly even through the darkest nights. Each song, each victory, creates a newer composition. All her teammates have similar ones, all resembling Vivid Street's own graffiti. After all, aren't they one and the same with the street that shaped them?

Imagine Minori vehemently retelling Miku how the little wings behind her back made her jump higher than usual during today's practice, how they grow bigger and bigger each time More More Jump reaches another person. Miku listens intently.

Imagine Ichika slowly guiding her friends' hands while they trace the blue constellations staining her back, scars of heartbreaks and whatnot, lessons learnt the hard way. They decide to show theirs too, all radiant colours of the night sky and ever-glowling stars. They hold each other close. They all know better now.

[youngchronicpain]

I'm honestly so tired of people telling me they think I can do more. I am already struggling to do what I am doing now. I don't think it is a compliment, even when it is meant that way. It feels like they are saying, "What you are doing now is inadequate, you aren't living up to your potential." When I feel as if I am just trying to keep my head above water as it is. I'm trying so hard, why can't they see that?

[reunioninn]

REMEMBERED THE DATE

[kingscourthouse]

hold up i NEED to know more about your Xisuma Views thing.... I just saw the art with Joel and i'm obsessed

Well it's just how it sounds, it's Xisuma's view of the world. Unlike other players, he can't see the layers they have to hide.

Lemme put it like this. You're making a minecraft skin and have your second layer, yeah? That's their base layer. And then there's a second layer that's more heavily concealing.

Xisuma isn't from minecraft and his code is glitched, so not only do layers not work for him, but he can't see the layers either. Some people use only base layers to hide "actual forms" if they have one, and others use a second layer to hide scars or parts of their body that don't need a heavy cover.

So Xisuma sees people in a bit of a weird way. He thinks how he sees people is how everyone sees eachother. He sees their true character.

Skizz is a really nice guy. He's always looking out for people, tries to be there for someone, some people say he acts like an angel.

And so Xisuma never questions it. He sees Skizz as an angel, other people supposedly see him as an angel. Skizz is just an angel, why would anyone see anything else? It's just Skizz.

Though the Skizz people actually see is his layers with the torn suit and brown hair. The layers also affect his interactions with people too. If he's around Skizz, he tends to squint alot or avoid looking in his direction if he's not in his armour. Skizz is blinding to Xisuma, so he has trouble looking at him. Though Skizz does have features, but he's too bright to see any of them.

Xisuma also has a type of layer as well, but it's not on him. He's too broken in the games code (that's a whole 'nother can of worms) for him to use layers. So what does he do? He adds a layer to everyone else.

Xisuma doesn't leave hermitcraft too often, so everyone outside it will see what he really looks like. In the server though? Everyone has a layer that covers Xisuma from their eyes. He's lucky his admin panel isn't from minecraft or else he'd be screwed.

What's fun with Xisuma seeing people's real forms is that (in my au at least) he's kind of a grey character. If there's ever a fight or spat between hermits, he can have trouble taking sides. Not all Hermits are angelic or aliens like Skizz and Joel. There's hermits who are monsters and beings who do or did bad things in the past. Not all Hermits talk about those things.

He can get better insights to people's decisions or just things about them. Joel has a habit to make things around bright areas or access to a lot of light. Maybe because he's made of it. Skizz only ever keeps one pair of elytra. Maybe because he's missing his second pair of wings that can't glow anymore.

He can see people for who they were. Keralis is an eyesore (literally) and can hurt to look at. Grian has too many evenly split scars across his body and Xisuma knows what's behind them. Doc isn't a creeper.

There's a lot to Xisuma's View thing and I do wanna eventually start drawing how everyone looks to him, but I'm indecisive and don't know where to start. So idk maybe I'll open ask box for hermit requests. Can be interactions between Xisuma and specific hermits (both ones seen and not) or it can just be their design.

Idk but feel free to ask about them, I have designs for every hermit, empires member and even everyone in the life series. So he's got plenty of people to show you.

[cryptidclaw]

Au where hollyleaf lives, forgives everyone exept Bramblestar and then kills his ass after she realizes how abusive he is to her mom.

[bramblewhisker]

Warrior cat relationships were better in arc 1

I just hc that they never changed. I think it opens the door for so many more interesting relationship dynamics if we don't force two cats having kits together having to mean that they are monogamously tied to each other, or even anything more than friends, necessarily.

The broader warrior cat society has undergone some interesting changes since the first arc. The clans' inevitable move from several independent at-best-non-hostile groups to an interconnected and interdependent society of "nations" is natural and interesting. It's been what's driven a decent chunk of the narrative for multiple arcs now. That's all cool.

But the way interpersonal relationships worked in arc 1 is significantly more interesting (and fun for shipping) than the heteronormative, monogamy-driven shift that happened starting with arc 2. I don't even think "mate" was uttered a single time prior to arc 2.

The key element, raised several times throughout arc 1's plot, is the idea that a queen is under no obligation to say who the father of their kits is. You get the sense that it's a social faux pas to ask or even wonder publicly (though I'm sure it was the source of untold amounts of gossip every time). This could be because the father is from a different clan (something that's ~illegal~ but everyone realizes is necessary for some good old genetic diversity), but it could also just be because the kit-making was a purely transactional thing.

Take Brindleface, whose kits were retroactively assigned to Whitestorm. Were they "mates"? The text doesn't really support that. More likely the two of them decided that they would make some good, capable ThunderClan kits together, had the necessary interactions to make that happen, and then went about their separate lives again.

I think about Firestar and Sandstorm. They're the subject of the first use of the word "mates" in the series iirc. But are they? Sandstorm definitely had a crush on him, and they spend a lot of time together, but mates? I think they work a lot better as really good friends and confidants who decided to have a litter of kits together. Sure, she still shares his nest sometimes, but we all know that Graystripe is in there as much if not more. Firestar's got a wife and a boyfriend and no cat has a problem with it. It's great.

As another example, think about Lionblaze and Cinderheart. They spend a huge chunk of Omen of the Stars boring everyone to tears with their relationship angst. I say it's better if the two of them decided, hey, Cinderheart's brains and Lionblaze's brawn would combine to make some pretty great kits. So they decide to periodically have some kits, but everyone knows Lionblaze is dating Berrynose, come on.

It doesn't always have to be transactional. Dustpelt is the ultimate "I love my wife so much" guy, and he and Ferncloud have kits as a natural consequence of their romantic relationship. But arc 1 gave us such a better vehicle for storytelling by letting us decouple romantic/sexual relationships for the act of making more kits for the clan. I choose to believe that never changed.

[bramble-scramble]

It was a good attempt

Hey friends. I've had something eating away at me for a while now; I was going to give it a bit more time, but the anxiety around not talking about this is getting to me, so I'll just be direct.

I'm leaving tumblr (sort of).

Without being too melodramatic about this: I've had a lot of complicated thoughts about social media, fandom, the internet in general, being an artist/streamer online, and a bunch of related stuff over the past few years. It's always hard to sort out these thoughts properly, and even harder to talk about them, because I don't want anyone to attack me or assume I'm treating my personal experiences as universal, or belittling something that's important and meaningful to them. I will say I firmly believe that for many people, the modern internet is more harmful to mental health than we're all willing to admit. But I also know it's a great source of connection and friendship where I've met some of the people I love most. If I had a more solid black-and-white conviction or thesis about these complexities, I wouldn't be struggling so constantly to make sense of it all, and the internet's place in my life.

That said, the evidence of my own life points to the fact that the less "online" I am (at this point in my existence), the happier I am. That the remaining sources of self-loathing depression in my life are almost entirely triggered by the internet. That social media is a disaster for my OCD. For many months, I was hoping tumblr would be different. It's not. Realizing that the same old problems I have were just going to resurface here again was a painful process, one I kept denying.

I thought I'd be fine if I only checked in once or twice a day, but the more I do that, the more I find it hard to get myself to check in at all. Because when I do, I feel like I just can't keep up with everything anymore. I don't feel like a part of anything, I don't feel wanted or needed, and it just exacerbates my problems.

But I'm not going to disappear completely. I'll still pop in from time to time and answer any asks, and maybe post doodles. My art account @altermentality will still be active, when I have something worth posting.

You can still find me on twitter for now, and bluesky, but my presence of being truly "active" socially online will be limited to:

Discord- because I enjoy the few smaller, private-ish servers I'm in, and it's my hub for keeping in touch with people one-on-one.

Twitch - At this point in my life, I still greatly enjoy streaming, although my capacity to do it reliably varies. I also love the communities I'm in that I've developed with other streamers.

I'm altermentality on all the places mentioned above. If you'd like to keep in touch, please reach out.

My queue will run until it runs out.

It's been fun and I wish you all the best. Be well.

[griancraft]

I am so busy with work and when I get home I crash and fall asleep. This is my life now ig wooooo

[cerinelle-stellarium]

Tfw you look at a piece of media for the very first time and internally going 'This will be the death of me'.

[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.