not so bad

So, uh, Tar decided to talk to me this morning.
Needless to say, I was thoroughly surprised when I showed up beneath the Cathedral and, instead of seeing a humanoid figure there, the Tar itself was unmistakably its own sentient self. Tar is strikingly monstrous in both size and form, somewhat spindly (lots of thick tendrils stuck to the walls and ceiling), and mostly shapeless... kind of like what Weiss' magic looks like in Nier... maybe close to this, but without the nose and mouth? It's hard to describe. Anyway, it's never looked like its own thing before, so that was immediately significant. Also noteworthy was the fact that I didn't feel threatened by it. That has NEVER happened before. When I first met it on 111211, the entire room felt anxiously ominous, like the calm before a hurricane. This time everything just felt like the world was on "pause"... unsettling, sure, but nothing tangibly threatening.
The Tar also spoke this time. I didn't remember how, back in 2011, it didn't even move and it spoke only in thought-feeling. Today, it's "voice" wasn't so much a bone-jarring terror than it was an actual sound, and it did move... mostly just weird tar-flow as usual, but it changed the angle of its head (like a skinny balrog? all tar though, two burning red holes for eyes) a little as it spoke, which was enough "body language" for the conversation to feel quite legitimate, actually.
I was not surprised, though, when I asked it about its motives again and got the same answer I did a year ago. However I had more insight this time so I was able to converse with it more, and get some solid answers and intriguing realizations. I wish I remembered the exact dialogue, but basically it told me these things:
- Tar exists as the Black slot in our system, BUT it pointed out that it lives in a white room, under my Cathedral. It said that it NEEDED that offset to exist, and that I was the same.
- On that note, Tar said that I AM the White slot in the system (as I was theorizing), although it didn't elaborate how (I DO hold Red but I still can't tell what my core color is, let alone whether it's possible to have two). I definitely need to find that out on my own, but hearing it basically confirm that has helped me get better footing on the issue.
- Tar also told me that it "couldn't make anyone do anything," but that by its nature it was constantly putting out tendrils to test others, to "put duality into practice" so to speak (bright lights=dark shadows and all that). It said that it was explicitly an "evil thing," but SINCE that was so clearly stated, it was the truth equivalent of a warning label: "This is exactly what this entity will do to you if you approach/ provoke/ engage/ disturb it. Continue on at your own risk." Once again, I had been told this last November but it was clearer this time. It was fighting me, true, but unless I responded to it, it couldn't harm me. The trouble is that Tar works on some seriously subconscious levels so unless I am seriously awake, I might not even notice I'm letting it slip through security, as it were. That's what happened yesterday, but we'll get to that.
- Tar said Jezebel is ITS splinter?? Like Razor and Jessica are mine? I found this very interesting, and it elaborated that this was the nature of the phenomenon: splinters spring from broken selves, whether consciously or unconsciously. Mine were the latter, but the Tar's (and Julie's by extension) were conscious: as far as I can gather, Jezebel is simply an unhindered, self-aware piece of the Tar's own consciousness that it breaks off (notice the tense) in order to do its work more efficiently: Tar itself works as a "devil on the shoulder" sort of thing, while Jezebel has always struck me as an offset to me, an active personification of Tar energy? Like if I'm Red but "internalized" White, then Tar "externalized" a balance to my Red as her? It's hard to explain in words but it makes perfect sense in my head; however that whole issue is something I need to visually graph before I can fully comprehend it so don't quote me on that theory yet. The BIG thing that I AM almost entirely sure of is that Jezebel has only become an autonomous splinter recently. I'll do more research and get back to you on the details.
Those were the big points from our talk. I'm just trying to siphon truth from all that; I need to take it with a grain of salt. Like Captain Jack Sparrow said: you can always trust a dishonest person to be dishonest. I'm the honest dude that often ends up doing something stupid, haha. On that note I did tell Tar that I didn't know if I could trust it, especially considering what it was, and it simply replied that I should keep that (its role) in mind. That's a double-edged sword though... as my offset, it's going to try and win this war, but it also has to play by the rules concerning that or it will negate its own existence. There's a surprising amount of mandatory sincerity in these matters concerning that, on all our parts within this entire system, even from back in the Julie days. Lies of omission are what I REALLY need to look out for.
Anyway I remember ending the conversation with a somewhat incredulous laugh and saying "you're not half bad" in light of who I was speaking to. I ended up laughing again when it replied by telling me that, despite being its "mortal enemy" as far as cold hard rules are concerned, "you're not so bad yourself."
It's kind of hilarious to me how my relationship with the Tar itself feels more like a friendly rivalry than anything now, despite its intensity. We know our roles, and we are dedicated to carrying them out, but beyond the battlefield that those roles play out on we seem to have this weird sort of mutual respect for each other? It reminds me of how in Bleach, when Uryū and Ichigo met, they had to work towards a common goal using vastly different methods and mindsets, and told each other "not to die" during that catastrophe because otherwise they wouldn't be able to beat the snot out of each other afterwards, haha.
I like that, to be honest. I really do like that there seems to be a sincere sort of love permeating everything upstairs, and its leaking underground now. I need to remember that too.

That brings us to yesterday's events, which are what pushed me to make such an unusual decision this morning.
Yesterday, as soon as I woke up I decided I wasn't going to get up, so I spent the next 90 minutes or so with Chaos instead. We haven't done that in far too long and it was worth every second (we've still got the infinity loop heartlink going on btw ♥). Unfortunately that seemed to put some major fuel on the fire of dying duality up here (it does not want to die and keeps fighting back viciously), so the rest of the day was a very disorienting fusion of my personal clarity and a barrage of shadow influences. The morning was gorgeous, don't get me wrong-- I finally started reading the Millennium World plotline in the YuGiOh manga and ran headfirst into a goldmine of headspace-relevant information (which I REALLY need to write about here soon), and I actually didn't feel sick for the first time in weeks, but as the day went on I began to feel progressively more and more "ungrounded." I can't remember 80% of the day because of it; I was so spacey that I thought I was going to pass out a few times, simply because it didn't feel like my consciousness could stay anchored well enough. As that sentence might betray, this led to some serious problems later in the evening... let's just say that I was trying to help two individuals out of some current troubles, and none of us could think or see straight enough to realize that we were being entirely misled in our actions and thoughts until it was almost too late. I can't say I regret the experience, because although it leaves me sick to my stomach that may be residual and honestly I'm just glad that made me aware that such a thing can and is happening, most mercilessly in situations where I am not actively projecting awareness of myself. This is forcing my hand as far as personal authenticity is concerned; I need to go all-out in holding fast to my truth, or there will be dire consequences. I am aware of this, and have been for a long time, but the stakes were just raised ludicrously high and there isn't a second to spare anymore. Excuses and hesitations have lost all merit. This really is the last run, but we've worked hard enough up to this point to have sufficient strength to succeed. I just need to remember that, and act upon it, always.
So this morning I woke up wanting answers, and the tar heard, and that's why I'm updating today.
However a few things happened this afternoon that deserve a mention too, so let's get to them.

While on iTunes today, "What Time Taught Us (Indigo)" by The Dear Hunter came on and immediately I realized that it applied to Leon's life shockingly well. Curious, I then brought up the rest of The Color Spectrum and started looking at all the lyrics, searching for more headspace symbolism... and I am dead serious when I say that album was practically MADE for our system. There are only two songs on the album I'm having a hard time finding fits for, but only in the context of their color: there are 4 songs for each color, which fits the formula of "three for that headvoice" and "one for the midspacer." For example, with the Indigo songs, three of them fit Leon and one of them fits Marik. It's fascinating. It really does match up...
I want to illustrate this entire album now. "Look Away (Violet)" fits Laurie so well I seriously started to cry when I heard it. Synchronicity with her usually does that.
However, synchronicity floods my life, so when I moved down the Spectrum and hit Red (my color), I was honestly shocked to find that three songs corresponded to each one of my old splinters, and the Black songs all matched catastrophic events in my past perfectly. It was kind of terrifying to read the lyrics, haha! Sounds like they were taken straight out of my old journals, no kidding. But reading all that made me wonder about those old dark things, as I hadn't given them any thought since I gained this new knowledge about our system... so I started leafing through our Xanga archives a little. Now there's SO much info here I am not going to get through all of it tonight, but let me summarize what I've realized so far...
The "ego" splinter is Tar/Jezebel (according to current knowledge; I'll elaborate on that mess another day). Thanatos IS Razor, although the causal relationship there is blurry. Fragment, however, is the remnant of Jessica. Yeah, remember her? But that's not even the biggest thing: the reason she became Fragment is because-- according to my current system spectrum theory, which I mentioned briefly on the 13th-- when my teenage years jumpstarted the "energy mismatch overload" in my Red slot, it tore the Brown slot in HALF. This resulted in Jessica's essence being ripped out of that slot and pushed down one, straight into Black, while the remaining "skeleton" in the slot became (you guessed it) Spine. That explains why we all thought she was evil for so long. It also explains why Jessica came back in a different slot once headspace solidified, and why, after that self-hating incarnation died, all that was left of her was an apathetic splinter that liked to tear things apart. This is what I meant by saying that Jessica was "still alive" on the 13th; her "essence" is still in the Black as far as I am aware, but dormant, as it's just energy now. She's no longer a splinter, but her essence can be forced back up into the Red to cause a temporary relapse if we're not careful. However I think that's all 'automatic' at this point, in the same way that if you pour too much water into a glass it overflows. Once again I will double-check this. There's a ton of info and I need to keep reading up on it... I love how I always learn new stuff about our system from old things.
OH also I figured out what's up with unstable headvoices having mismatched colors, I think! That was driving me bonkers for a while and I JUST remembered how Josephina called himself an "anti-id" when we first met him, in the most literal sense possible: we couldn't tell if his color was Yellow or Lilac because we didn't have the knowledge to make such an assessment. I do now, and it hinges on the fact that Lilac isn't a headvoice slot, but Pink IS. And who was supposed to hold Pink? Julie. However she was corrupted out of her freaking mind for years, so when Josephina came into existence as her "offset," his eyes were PINK just in case HE had to stabilize into that slot. Dead serious, his eyes didn't turn yellow until Julie started to stabilize into her true slot, and both of those events only started to happen about two weeks ago. But that gives me a lot to think about.

All right, I was going to type more (mostly about awesome things concerning the central gang, and Chaos as I love him so much right now) but it is already 2AM and I still have about sixteen tabs open in this window alone... I try to do way too much at once, I swear, it's why I always feel so overwhelmed. Ah well, I enjoy it so I can't complain. The other things I wanted to talk about today are all too brilliant to summarize anyway; they all deserve a great deal of typing and attention in their own right.
As a result I'm off to get some much-needed sleep (which is weird as I'm not even tired, but sleep feels like something I need, especially at this hour) and maybe chill with some of the gang upstairs; after yesterday that might be sorely needed. Plus Thanksgiving brought out so much love in me it was brilliant; I can barely believe how amazing our system is right now. Everyone is alive, everyone is stable, everyone is friends with everyone else... it makes me so ridiculously happy I could cry, dead serious. It's the sort of overwhelming joy that you can't possibly keep inside. I am so thankful for this, for all of us.

With that I bid you all a good night.