#dougrattmannkin

Well, uhhhhh, Scout here! Dell, thanks for bein the best dad ever (better than my real dad at least) and for making me breakfast an stuff so i didn't just live off of soda and candy. If i could give you a mug that says number one dad I would!!

and, to my non-canon father as doug rattmann... thank you. you were the most wonderful parent i could have ever had. it's thanks to you that i kept trying to help others at aperture-- the way you always loved me and helped me made me want to help others the same way. i love you, chichi.)

heard glados saying 'i know you're there. i can feel you.'

promptly had to hide in the closet. much more calming.

my friend was playing portal for the radio achievement and i was helping to find them/where they should be put. honestly, it felt like home just to watch portal and draw.

i should go play my song again. it always feels nice to sit in my room and play it.

speaking of my song. it truly does feel like a trial to go through life with the knowledge that going back is impossible. exile, vilify, don't even try.

i miss the others. the others are dead and gone. i miss caro. she wouldn't even remember me. my adoptive children, although they were adults, are still my children, still the people i long to hold close and remind that it's all okay in the end, I'm still there.

and yet none of them probably even have that in their canon, because i am simply the rat in the walls, the unseen artist, the side-comic main character.

if i could ask for one thing of valve, or of the community, i'd ask for a mod or a short game where i am the main character. where i am hurrying through the facility, hiding behind things, anything.

please don't forget me. i am alive, and i am dead, and i will be both until someone opens the box to find me again. schroedinger's rat, one might say.

it does make me miss how things were before everything got so factory-esque. when things were more focused on science instead of the production of commodities. perhaps i am a relic of the past to the future of the company.

perhaps i am only the rat that scampers across the floor, never to be mentioned or referenced.

also i am going to adopt grady. you cannot stop me. dad rattmann is here and he is going to adopt all your cores.

My friends weren't stupid.

My children weren't stupid.

We were desperate. We didn't have any other choices. We had to stay because we didn't have any other choices. My best friend stayed because she cared about us and knew it would fall apart without her-- I stayed to try to protect my family-- Everyone there was there because we were already on our last resort.

Aperture was not a hub for idiots. It was a hub for the lost and the broken souls who didn't have the ability to run anymore.

Yes, I'm mad. I'm mad that people would think that way about my family. I'm furious that people would believe that of Caroline. Caroline was a lovely woman, one of the brightest people I knew! She wasn't a moron, she was the opposite of a moron! That's why I cared so much about her-- She was smart, she was kind, she was a human being who truly cared, and she was NOT a moron.

but yeah. feel free to call me an idiot. i should have cut my losses and ran.

Like. So many folks kin Glados or Wheatley and I kin the random guy who doesn't even show up in game. Who doesn't really have a canon voice. Who literally only appears in a side comic and a Lego game as a quick Easter egg. (I know about Ghost of Rattmann. That is not my voice.)

As well, just knowing so many people kin Glados while only about half of them really think about Caroline... It's kind of sad. I understand that it would be hard to remember that part, but I want to talk to Caroline again.

I recall being close with her. Or at least being acquaintances. And yet it feels like very few Glados kinfolk ever think about if we knew each other before.

Take care of yourselves and remember that you are loved. (Sincerely, a person who also kins a raggedy old man who lives in the walls and has rat themes)

We've got:

-Knew a plot point before it happened because I just KNEW Nona wasn't my mother (Augustus Aquato)

-A squirrel nodded at me when I tipped my hat to it (Compton Boole)

-The tree stopped dropping leaves on someone when I told it to stop (Bob Zanotto)

-I forgot I had limbs (an old kin I will not talk about since I left it behind)

-Felt so uncomfortable when my friend was playing the Sims and making jokes about what happened in a timeline that I had to leave the stream (Gravity Falls!Doug Rattmann)

-Started crying when reading Journal 3 because I missed Fiddleford so much and I needed to apologize to him (Stanford Pines)

-Said the same thing in sync with an in-game Scout while watching my friend stream TF2 (already knew I kinned him but that confirmed it)

-Projected my trauma onto him so hard that I didn't have a choice (Doug Rattmann)

....need I go on? My kin stories are freaking weird.