09/06/26
Man, I'm not sure what spark ignited, but something has drawn me back here. Usually when I get small urges to 'return' I deliberately extinguish the flame because I know the flame is only temporary. But for some reason this time, I want to keep the candle burning....Watch it die in a weeks time HA.

But seriously. Let me ramble into a void for a moment.
I joined TEF in 2012. That feels like so long ago now. This place became my safe space, it became my life. Without this place I never would have continued drawing. And even now, without this place I'd have no reason to keep drawing. I've thought about breaking characters away from this place entirely, but I can't do it. With every new character that may be primarily human, I still need to think of a deer counterpart. Why? Fuck knows, but I guess that's how engrained in my brain this place is.

At some point I lost my way here, I think. For multiple reasons. Burnout from work was a big factor, being physically and mentally exhausted and then having no downtime to enjoy...anything. The community itself was shrinking and as we moved over to Toyhouse, everything seemed to slowly fracture. Daily updates became once a week, once a month or never at all. Plots were happening but weren't being written about. And I found myself desperately trying to cling onto an old TEF that wasn't going to come back. I threw so many characters into the forest, hoping one would stick, and not realising that this quickened the burnout by having too many characters to do anything with. I completely burnt out, no I boiled, fucking melted. I couldn't RP anymore. I became so fearful of letting other people down. What if I can't finish this RP? What if my muse just dies halfway through? So I guess I self sabotaged in a way. I still wanted to play the game, but doing so without the RP is hard. Sitting simulator turns into 'why even bother logging on'. And then the nail in the coffin was getting a new gaming laptop that cannot load the game at all. Crashing on launch despite trying everything to fix it. That's gotta be a sign that enough is enough right? BUT FUCK ME GUESS NOT.

This bit is getting personal now, so hang onto your hats. The burnout didn't go away after backing away from TEFC. In fact it's slowly been getting worse. And now I realise TEF was more of a victim in a much bigger problem. Without going into too much detail, I started getting help for my mental health, and that has resulted in...SOME STUFF.

But I think, because i've been looking back at my life, and how every fucking sign that I was struggling got overlooked HAHA, I've realised how much this place meant to me, still means to me. It probably saved me tbh. Not to be totally over dramatic, but it legit distracted me and gave me an escape from so much stress and anxiety that i've spent years trying to supress and hide, which then gave fuel to the burnout and so on. I am still very burnt out, and I don't think its going to end any time soon. BUT JUST IDK. LIFE FUCKING SUCKS, but this game is still part of my daily brainrot despite the absences. My old laptop can still magically launch the game, so maybe some of my losers will pop up here and there.

But yeah that's it