Meanwhile, in Real Life · 8:19am Sep 29th, 2018
Hey look my webcomic is back.
Life can be rough.
People tell me I'm good at writing dark, sad, or tragic stories. On a few occasions, I've had someone highlight a twist they felt was particularly gut-wrenching and ask: "How did you come up with that?"
The answer is there's an evil voice in my head. It tells me the worst, most tragic, most inventively cruel thing that could happen in any given situation. It tells me that that thing probably will happen, and that it will be my fault when it does. And it tells me to kill myself.
But sometimes, I'm watching an episode of MLP and it says: "Hey, you know what would be funny? If the show suddenly had an episode about Rarity using Spike as slave labor. No jokes, entirely realistic, and it just ends with Spike staring straight and the camera and crying while he talks about child trafficking."
Then I say: "Wow, that's horrible, no one would ever read that. Unless I replace Spike with a griffon, then it's FiMFic gold. Nobody cares when griffons get enslaved."
And the evil voice is all: "Eeeey. There you go. Don't say I never do nuthin' for ya."
But lately, things are different. My boss says hello, and the evil voice doesn't tell me she's about to fire me. I see a car, and the evil voice doesn't say it's going to run me over. I don't wake up in the middle of the night covered in terror sweat and convinced the bed is filled with cockroaches.
And I go: "Hey, evil voice? I really feel like taking some time this weekend to write a dark story. Could you give me some advice?"
And the evil voice says nothing. I stare at the monitor, and nothing comes to mind. The page stays blank.
After awhile, I say: "Well, depression was my muse, but losing it is still a good thing, right? I write less, but at least I'm happy."
Then the evil voice snorts. "Oh come on. You seriously think you're happy? You just spent six hours staring at a blank computer screen, twiddling your thumbs and trying not to think about what a flaming wreck your life is. You're never going to be happy you dumb son of a bitch. Not ever."
I turn to look its way, and I imagine it -- were it personified -- giving a little click of the tongue and pointing my way: "But, eeey. It makes a good blog post right? Don't say I never do nuthin' for ya."
It goes back to what it's doing, and when I continue to stare, it gives one last glance my way. "You thought you were over me?" It laughs. "Bitch, get on my level."
— Man this better just be a very badly written story if it isn’t I feel sorry for you but if it is well OK whatever
"Hey look my webcomic is back."
Hey, so it is! :D
(Though does that have big box stores and Amazon's rival e-commerce entities allied?)
Ah. Sorry about that; good luck working something out.
...Maybe you can write about that, somehow?
I go back and forth on this a lot more than I should. To clarify, it wasn't my muse and I have always been painfully behind the curve at converting depression into word count, but it kept me so functionally useless in normal adult life that about all I ever had the energy to do was read, write, binge anime, and on some days spend extra effort not running my motorcycle into a wall in the hopes that it'd either kill me or I'd get poor-people insurance long enough to finally get some help.
Three out of four things I enjoy doing very much.
Now, instead of having a days long episode of catatonia every few weeks, I just get really down on myself—to about what my previous "good" day was, I reckon—every few months for a day or two before I pull back to my new normal. So I have enough normal function to hold a job and pay bills, which is great because my family desperately needs that and I need to feel something close to "normal adult." But...
I do miss it sometimes. And that scares me, because all I have to do to get back there is stop taking these little pink pills and wait two or three days to watch my life fall apart again. There's a certain surety in absolute helplessness, when just surviving is a big win for the day, that is all but impossible to replicate outside that circumstance.
I try to remember that I am not all about me. That, paltry though I am, people I care about rely on me being up and (mostly) operable, though not chipper (because morning people are a rare and terrifying breed). I'd wager there's at least, like, three people who'd rather have you sane and dry rather than miserable and going off like a dot matrix printer during tax season in the mid-90s.
As for a muses... that's trickier. I planned out a convoluted Kingdom Hearts reference 2 minutes ago but it kinda fell apart in my head, so I guess I'll very loosely paraphrase one of the few people I actually idolize: "We're in a culture where everything is inspired by something else, so watch good movies, read good books, and see what happens." Real quote is much better but I've been awake for like 22 hours, so forgive me.
Addendum: Fuck that evil voice. He doen't know everything.
Man, I feel you on such a deep level.
I can pretty much only write on two occasions- when I'm shitfaced or when my life is going to hell.
You should
stop calling that thing an evil voice
and start calling it Asshole.
Or Princess.
Oof. Yeah, depression is weird like that. So are a lot of other brain things, come to think of it.
The degree to which this is relatable continues to be painful.
It's compounded by the fact that writing requires a certain level of clear-headedness, right? So the voice always has some degree of power over your thoughts, because with nothing to block it out it *can* get a word in edgewise, and it never bothers to ask before giving its shitty opinion about the current state of affairs.
Otherwise, you could just use mindless distractions and constant stimulation to drown it out.
which works for meIn any case, I'll always be around to talk if you want or need it. Even if I can't help with story-writing, i might be able to get your mind off of things for a little.
I literally opened your webcomic page three hours ago and it hadn't updated.
Now I look at it again and there's an update.
Why. How.
Oh yeah, mine does that. Mine wised up and worked 'the only possible result of posting things on the internet is something from this menu of shit you wouldn't want to deal with' into the rotation, though.
I find it hard to talk about this in public, but let's just say the "depression was my muse" part is... relatable.
So, that voice is a little internal Professor Quirrell then?
Wait, is the Empire supposed to be Amazon in this comic or the Rebels? I have to know!
Wow big mood
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords!
Headcanon accepted. It makes so much sense.
4945817
A theme my comic has addressed before!
I can now say that my webcomic has continuity.
4945352
Princess Asshole!
Her Royal Highness, the Alicorn Princess of Depression.
4945849
The funny thing about this post is that Jaxie is still the most well-adjusted, has-his-life-together, could-pass-for-normal brony I know.
(Except maybe Aquaman and Thornwing. But I don't know either of them very well.)
4945930
I am super normal. Visually. Whenever someone visits my house they see the shrine to Luna outside the master bedroom (you know because she's the Alicorn of Dreams) and the whole thing falls apart.
4946000
Yes, but you have a great job, do it well, make presumably lots of money, are super smart and talented, have had a girlfriend in the recent past (a claim many people here can't make), and can be relied on to do what you've said you'll do and to do it well.
Everyone I know turns out to have personal demons that they think are unusually horrible, once I know them well enough. Except for the ones who have personal demons they aren't aware of. Those are the ones who do the most damage.
4946038
Almost everyone you know*. I rather like my demons.
4945849
4945871
She needs a cutie mark story and ascension story. I'm imagine she's super bitter about something, and that she spends most of her time just generally being an asshole to schoolponies. Every now and then, the Tree of Shit sends her on a mission to demotivate not-quite-famous people.
4946242
I was counting you as one of Jaxie's demons.
4946758
Ahhh. You're more right than you know. Or maybe you know something I don't know you know. Or maybe I know you know but wish I didn't.
This would be far less of a problem if I could just share (the good parts of) my demons, though I suspect my desire to do so is one of the things demonizing Jaxie. [deleted, then un-deleted because Jax responded too quickly: I realized this just several weeks ago, incidentally because of a pair of conversations I had with Jaxie.] I'm still trying to figure out how to turn off that part of me or replace it with something more productive, though doing so makes me a bit of a recluse.
Ugh. Why are these bodies so fragile?
4946834
I know, right? I had the same revelation probably as a result of the same conversations.
The flesh is weak!
4946000
Well, y'know. That's just a sign of good taste.
4947283
:Sunpout:
I think we would all rather you be happy than productive. Hopefully there can be a literal happy medium where both can occur.
4956815
I hope so!
and I do believe so. I don't think depression aids creativity, it's just good at taking credit for it.