You're 22 Your Life Is Just Be-ENDING! Because Its OVER! You're FUCKED!!!!

☎️FAQ☎️

Who am I? -> Ryan! I use he/him/his pronouns, trans and queer. 22. General interests are powerlifting/gym-going, cats, reading, DnD, being in a hammock, Garfield. English native speaker, moderately okay at German. Chicago based.

What’s the purpose of this blog? -> I’ve been dealing with TAPS for a while now, so this page will partly be about documenting my experiences with it. At the moment my career goals pertain to researching TAPS (I would specify what in particular about the condition I want to research, but so much about TAPS is unknown that it can feel hard to identify a starting point 😵‍💫); I was recently brought on by Fourcast as an intern, so that’s a very exciting step for me and I want to document my time with them! Will also throw in some non-TAPS/4CL posts as well.

TAPS? -> Temporal Alignment Permeation Syndrome. I’ll probably make a whole info post about this, but in extremely simplified terms, I get glimpses into alternate realities and futures. Some good, some bad, mostly while sleeping. It’s really a can of worms so keep your eyes peeled for more in-depth info later :).

Fourcast Lab? -> Yeah...Love-hate relationship with the 4CL. Doing good, yes, but also TAPS started popping off when they started messing with SPORE, so my feelings are mixed, to say the least. Not many other paths to take for researching TAPS except to head into the belly of the beast, so here I am.

Can I send in asks? -> Yes!! Very open to answering questions (as long as they’re polite!). I’m pretty open about my life with TAPS, so feel free to ask. Ask box is preferred over DMs (can’t promise I’ll read the latter, especially if it’s from people I don’t know).

Anything else? -> Page rules: be nice :)

All told I'm gonna be traveling for like 16 hours straight.

Okay I've slept off my edible and double-checked with 4CL. I am actually flying to Germany early July for work. God gives His silliest clowns His funniest battles.

sorry guys. can’t come in today. the creature

mini(?) life update

graduation, amongst other things.

I almost wish I could say that I've been inactive because the Lab has been giving me crazy work, or I've been busy with something or another, but the weirdest thing is that that's not the case, but I still feel off.

I graduated a few months ago, now. I'm probably not done with academics as a whole, but I had decided before graduating that I would be taking some time off before going back to school. At the same time, the Lab has given me a psuedo-summer break - technically I work there still, yes, but assignments have been unusually slow, to the point where I haven't actually had to be in the lab for...since graduation, essentially. Maybe it's their way of apologizing to me for putting me through how hectic they made my last summer (and fall, and winter).

So my social life, work life, and inner life have all experienced some drastic changes - moving away from campus, not being active with work, the resulting personal challenged with lack of motivation, routine, energy...I know it won't last forever, that once I find my next step in life it'll change, and that I'm definitely not the first person to graduate and feel this way, but I grow tired and frustrated with my own listlessness. Even with the prospect of using the time to pursue hobbies and projects, I find myself immediately deprived of the ability to do it. I just end up feeling tired. And that tiredness and lack of achievement makes me feel frustrated. Etc.

Rambling now - it's only about 8:30 around here but I haven't slept well for almost a week now (thank u taps so cool), so writing isn't my strong suit atm. Thankfully I'm still talking with my therapist, and will see him tomorrow. This will probably be the first thing to come up. Hopefully I'll see y'all around soon.

WAIT I NEDD TO FIND SOKEONE TO TAKE CARE OF MY CAT S H I T

Okay I've slept off my edible and double-checked with 4CL. I am actually flying to Germany early July for work. God gives His silliest clowns His funniest battles.

Happy Pride Month btw :) I made these because I'm trans + queer + a TAPS researcher at Fourcast Lab and all of those things are pretty neat! It's therefore my professional opinion that the all pasts, presents, futures, and alternate realities are queer :).

Hello from the depths!

Hi hi hi. I'm still kicking! Here's an update, from me to you:

I plan on being more active on here in the near future, as some fun stuff has been happening with me that has given me some more free time! First: time abroad for work is, as far as I know, wrapped up for the forceable future. Maybe one day you'll hear about my time in Europe (if 4CL gives me clearance to disclose :P - some of it was pretty silly + goofy, a lot of it was having an atrocious sleep schedule, missing my cat, and getting into my normal amount of trouble). Maybe I'll check with my boss and see if I can pass field notes? Could be big. Second: I graduated! Managing Fourcast time and school time was not easy at all, but now that the latter is wrapped up I will have more time for stuff that's not the Lab, which I desperately need. There are a lot of things I want to get back into the swing of (after I catch up on sleep), especially in terms of having something to focus my creative energy on; one thing is this page, making my little weird collages and all, but I have my little personal projects to keep myself entertained.

I've been running a (at best, semi-annual) DND campaign with some friends that I will hopefully be able to put more time into in terms of writing/planning/playing (I am the forever DM of my friendgroup, which has its pros and cons :,) ). I have also been incredibly tempted to get back into fanfiction writing lelelel - writing has kind of always been in my life, but it had to take a backburner these last few years and I've missed it, so being cringe but free may help me scratch that itch. Technically this is a personal blog so 4Cast couldn't stop me from posting fanfiction here, but if you're from the Lab and you're seeing this: you're not allowed to read my fanfiction. But who knows, maybe that will happen, maybe not? Maybe at the depths of a hyperfixation I'll be possessed to throw something out there.

But that's pretty much it :) happy pride month being queer rules ok bye now talk later yep sounds good ok bye

will probably not be posting much for the next few days as I scramble to get all of my paperwork together - hopefully I can document some of my flight out but obviously I have to make a pretty crazy turn around lmao

TAPS S.E. Disclosure - The Pink Desert

I got permission from Fourcast to disclose some of my experiences with TAPS, so here's some art I made after an S.E. (sleeping episode)! I lovingly call it the Pink Desert (for obvious reasons) - last time I checked 4CL hasn't been able to pin down when/where this is, so the Pink Desert will have to do. Being able to document and communicate what I experience during a TAPS episode is vital not only for my work at the Lab, but for other 4CL branches as well. I'm not the best at drawing or painting or anything like that, so I usually go with making collages that are as close to what I witnessed as I can get them, paired with some note-taking to get down as many details as possible. Some fun note excerpts from this S.E. are:

"-Despite the desert-like appearance of surroundings, climate was cold and dry with consistent, blustering winds" "-Probable that fine-particle terrain underfoot is garnet (or a similar mineral) that has been weathered by environmental factors - large deposits of garnet were seen scattered across the landscape, some with visibly scratched or otherwise eroded facades" "-Coloration of the atmosphere would suggest high chlorine gas content, yet wavering patterns like Earth's aurora borealis were also observed, which indicate electrons interacting with an oxygen-rich upper atmosphere. Chlorine is a poor conductor of heat and electricity; atmospheric content remain uncertain"

It's probably clear that Fourcast didn't hire me for my stellar environmental sciences knowledge (lmao), but even my rough guestimates can help the actual environmental science Fourcasters figure out what's going on. But yeah! First disclosure from my personal vault :). Overall it was a pretty calm episode, despite being a bit cold and waking up with a really dry mouth. Never know what you're gonna get with TAPS, thankfully this time around it was a beautiful, mysterious, pink desert.

Always open to answering any questions about my life with TAPS, feel free to drop a message in the ask box! The images I used to make this collage were sourced from Pinterest - the particular images I used can be found here!

Okay so. Good Omens.