#it'd also be easier to find / buy frames for it too now that i think about it

[itheume]

gritting my teeth

[decepti-thots]

okay well ACTUALLY i will elaborate on my Whirl feelings. fandom tends to parse 'I want my hands back' as Whirl very specifically being upset he has claws, because they are assumed to be less functional, and broadly that he wants a body which is not empurata'd again. but as I said in this post, we know people who underwent empurata can get new hands and faces- perfectly good ones. tarn used to be damus and damus was a victim of it too, and they got the guy a whole new body! there's no way that with ratchet as autobot CMO, he would not be insistent that they make time and find resources for any empuratee who wants new hands or a new face at SOME point throughout the war. let alone now it's over.

but they would be new ones. the point is that when whirl says 'i want my hands back' he doesn't (just) literally mean 'i want hands again instead of claws', or even 'i want the original hands i was forged with back'. i would argue he means he wants to go back to the person he used to be before the shit he went through beat him into a new shape he hates. (because whirl reeeeally hates himself. we are literally introduced to him during a suicide attempt as his defining character moment, i mean…) but he can't, because that's not possible, and getting new hands won't magically make him the person he was when he was a watchmaker even if it'd make it easier to make watches again.

and that's why whirl doesn't get new hands or a new face! because it's scary to admit that doing so doesn't make him the person he once was again, and if he did it and was still the same damn person, it would be that ultimate proof that nothing he does will ever acheive this. it's safer to remain as he is in a body he hates than to change it and not actually have solved the underlying issue.

it's also why he rejects the offer of ratchet's hands in LL #25. at that point, he has been able to accept the person he now is and will always be going forward, so they no longer carry the same symbolism. sure, that means he could choose to take them without fear, but it also means he can reject them as not really necessary anymore, and i think it makes the most sense for whirl's arc that he chooses the latter, tbh.

(sidenote: especially worth noting we never actually see if whirl can't make watches with his claws. he can at least make clocks! i've seen people suggest you can interpret it as him actually being perfectly capable with his current frame and he doesn't want to admit it and learn a new way because *points at above*, and honestly, intentional reading or not, i fully buy this. i like to imagine post-canon, he's perfectly good at making them with his current hands, because now he's not so hung up on all that baggage that teaching himself the necessary new techniques is unbearable to consider like it was before. this also has the bonus of mitigating some of the comic's uhhh. confusing? messaging around forged/constructed stuff and disability, so i'll take it.)

[horce-divorce]

We don't really have a deadline to leave other than "sometime when the weather is nicer," but generally speaking we have about 2 months to either find a new car or fix our setup for the summer. If we can't swap it out we'll still be okay out there, it's just so exhausting to have to move our stuff around constantly to make it fit inside a Murano. We can NOT stealth camp with this setup, it's boondocking only, which makes things a lot more complex, and we can't even really fit all of the supplies we actually need with us in there at all times. We also can't take anyone else in the car with us when we've got it set up for camp, which can make things weird in a pinch at times, too.

I've posted this before, but here's a couple pics of what we're working with: the whole house from the outside, and the view from our bed when its set up. I could probably keep doing this indefinitely if it was just me, but with both of us and all our supplies in here it's pretty tricky.

I've never sold a car before, and I know mine is NOT worth the full blue book value, but if I could get even 1/4 of it I'm pretty sure we could buy an equally used van with that. But I also have never bought a car bc my dad passed this one down to me... I know you need to, like, check the frame for rust, among other things? but idk how to identify other big deal breakers.

Anyway... saw the notif for ~60 days and I just got ponderous. I'm working on some posts for Ko-Fi right now as well, thinking about what kind of art and other incentives I'll be able to keep offering from camp this summer.

I've been trying to post more on Insta, too, as much as I hate it... I've sworn off all other social media and I don't really want my tumblr attached to my IRL stuff as much as possible (i know it already is to a certain degree, i just try to keep things tidy), so I guess Insta is where I'll be for now, unless a worthy successor to DeviantArt shows up. I suppose I could make a side/art blog too, but I already have one for photography and like, mehhh Idk.

In any case, I'm very grateful not to be out there now. Here's some pics from the last few days. Michigan is getting even more snow than here because of the lake effect.

We're hopeful of coming back here next winter as well... it'd be nice to be able to stay here long term. Our friend shares our dream of being able to bring the cats here and reunite them with Bel, but it's ultimately not up to them, so we're not sure if or when that might ever come to pass.

For now, the one thing that's for sure is that we need to be able to stay mobile, and we need more space in the car. But I do think that keeping up our usual lifestyle like this is feasible. We've both been making art here, and we do it out at camp more than anywhere else. If I can figure out a good sub tier structure for ko-fi and have subscriber stuff go out once a month instead of going to the post office every time I get an order, that would be way easier. And having some money coming in would mean ebegging less. I haven't looked into air fairs/fests yet either but maybe I can sell some art there too. But again, we either have to have a bigger vehicle or some kind of home base for all of it to work. It's tricky, but no moreso than trying to get housing.

I accidentally added a poll and I'm not copypasting this entire draft to get rid of it omg. End of post