Hi, Tiffany here (on Adderall to fix a sleep schedule issue)

This'll be the only time I can (completely) mentally withstand discussing what's been going on in my private life, and no, RATSiSYNE isn't cancelled btw. This is, like, the opening paragraph so I should get that out of the way lol

But anyways, on March 8th I had a intensely severe mental breakdown. The breakdown was a result of a heapload of stress that was put on me following a very subpar-rating modmail I had with the staff of the OneShot Discord Server. One of the people directly involved in that incident are on the staff team, so here I take the time to say that it's okay. I genuinely forgive you, and it's because of this Adderall that I can write this message because otherwise I would not be able to handle the... intense pressure that arises to my head when my brain reminds me of the desire to talk about it again.

It's okay specifically because it wasn't your fault that it was so painful for me- the 2 1/2 weeks in-between the incident and my full-on leaving from Social Media/the Internet (for the time being) were also when my Seasonal Affective Disorder just kicked in- which is extremely bad timing, as the varient which I have (of course the "summer varient") includes heavy insomnia & thoughts/idealization of death as the main symptoms. Isn't psychology just such a fucking fun subject?!

But yeah, I say all this because those 2 1/2 weeks taught me a very important lesson: the alter- who is what D.I.D. peeps would refer to as a "protector" of the malicious/ill intent kind- from back in 2020, is still inside my body. Although they do not control my thoughts directly, they do inherently have an effect on the way my fundamental brain processes work (as they are in my headspace), and so...

Working on a game like RATSiSYNE, which deals with both psychological topics (including heavily existential shit that I've worried a lot during the early parts of my break could've led to people irl wanting to die due to the onslaught of dread) AND simulations/recreations of real shit that I know and live through, is not a very good thing- not only to focus on- but to work on, in general, in a climate such as this.

So, basically, I came to the decision early on that, like Ratty naturally is themself already, I'm going to basically make the current staff... "shit"- the Tower, the Characters, the Details, etc- all a blank slate ala mannequin/puppet for right now. Not only that, but they very well may become more heavily detached from staff in general as I think it'd just do a lot to my psyche to have them involved with any one thing 100% completely. This means that the art styles that followed them are blank slates, too.

The basic details stay- 15 staff members total (including Ratty), The Owner vindictively created them to be failures, 42 & 27, and that things work fundamentally/physically like an online server would. ALSO, the SYNE Stage is the same- that's a fundamental, too. What is mainly taken out of the equation here is much of the details & context for things which were also going to be in the prototype in a more simplistic form for testing (areas, weapons, dialogue sounds/features).

Stuff not inherently related to staff things, such as Rockett Inventions (ironically- it being named after Lanterns, after all) can stay. But much of the filler which we depended on needs to go because I simply cannot survive if I let my own actual The Owner inside of me tear me down every second I spend even narrowly thinking about something related to even the word "tower" or "staff" (Final Fantasy 14 has towers- and god you can imagine the thoughts I was having just even reading that word).

I'm ultimately happy the staff application form I sent got rejected for this reason. I'm working on my longest running project- a passion project- just like my sister, wist, and I'm learning a very important lesson which I bet she's learned long long ago, way early on (which probably led to the server for OneShot being her longest running project now that I think about it)- you can't let the internet have what's... very personal to you. You just can't. It'll eat you whole, basically, if that even makes sense I'm just basically rambling now lol

But I digressed- emotional instability is kind of my thing. It's... me. And, in every single way, that and "staff" just don't... vibe. So I kinda have to ditch a lot of the existential shit, which makes me really happy as now I can (hopefully!) focus on gameplay.

I've been watching a lot of Simpleflips (very good youtuber- he does streams and stuff, he plays/hosts Mario 64/Mario Maker 2/Super Mario World custom whatevers and also plays Tetris like a god) and I've been honestly itching for some good speedrunner-friendly shit, so please don't bug me because I'm going to start doing some writing soon, and it's going to be really- exclusively- passive. I have Lulu to thank for teaching me how to do that back earlier this year.

I take what I said about how you can't trust the internet taking your burdens/personal lives seriously/handling it well to heart, because if I did go through with all that shit I had planned for the original game story then I'd have had an exponential load more mental breakdowns from just how many people know about and can abuse my personal traumas and deepest feelings/fears/regrets against my inner wishes. Seriously, I now really regret telling anyone about the 2020 shit at this point because it feels like everyone could give me the internal feeling of having bit my neck or slit my throat for one reason or another about how something I did was "similar to what I did back then" or how yadda yadda changes and people's different lives/different viewpoints/different experiences whatever, it just... like... feels everytime like it's feeding that demon that I personally have to suffer through. Everytime that it's mentioned. It sucks. I know paranoia sucks but I wish my trust issues were high enough in that department to just have never told anyone about it because now I can legitimately barely trust anybody with it at all. Feels like stepping on a spine, or broken glass. Or both!

I'm going to be gone from the internet for at least another month (until May 8th) because even now you can see I'm still... really fractured, judging by the things I say. I've been going through a lot all this time- more than any of you could genuinely know even if I just, told you,- and RATSiSYNE has always been my way of letting it escape. It's insane, because I'm insane. But at least I'm only insane "in the membrane" and not in total/general. I thank you all for caring about me, every last one of you have been the reasons I was initially still desiring to keep living (including all the staff peeps in and out of this little cool kid's club™️) and it really means a lot to me that you're all... so, human. And so... caring for a girl who for so long just called herself some random discord server's "traumatized little slut" until now, when I snapped out of it.

So I ask of you, please stick with me. RATSiSYNE's not even on the path to being done yet. There's still so much I want to do, and as it's my passion project, I... really appreciate the company of you all sticking around. To help me do what I've always wanted to do.

I just wanna write on my own. And not be distracted by burdens. I wanna keep feeling happy, and live in true simplicity. And I know that's possible, even on the internet, even though you have to tweak a lot to get it working like that. I know I can do it, and... just give me time. I do like being alone. But I also actually do appreciate being watched, if just from a distance.

Just... don't go too hard on me, okay? Remember that I'm fragile, and just barely got away from my breaking point before. I want to be myself, and in my own zone. I want to be happy.

Your loving little Alolan Vulpix girl of emotionally instability, Tiffany Parfait.

A-Tribute-to-Friends / A-Tribute-to-Friends.github.io

Hi, Tiffany here (on Adderall to fix a sleep schedule issue) #1