the spectrum heart cathedral system

So we've spent the past few days going through the archives (2008-2012) and writing down "notable dates," because we want to celebrate + remember more things.
13 years ago, at the beginning of January 2012, is when our Core became "Eros/Cupid." This year was so interesting, full of equal amounts of love and terror, and then SLC happened and everything just... shattered, apparently. But we want to re-read everything in full after we do this effort.

We added Spotify links to the Akoufoni entry, although we haven't cleaned up the old data yet. But this, too, is a huge memory-restoring effort, because those 'foni help us get a grasp on chronology when there's no actual experiential memory of the physical life, just music data.

We also... found the most recent System Census, from 2017. The one we actually have on our laptop wasn't uploaded, though, and has a few extra names? We started going through it, and... this is going to sound absolutely brutal, but we're starting to think that the post-CNC massive death was almost a pruning. I have no other way to phrase it.
We were horrifically splintered during CNC. We know this. We couldn't function at all so we had TONS of foni just manifesting at the drop of a hat in the desperate attempt to hold things together.
Now, we're going through this list, and... apparently, the foni that didn't resurrect were the ones that were shattered pieces to that effect, ones with hyperspecific jobs for hyperspecific circumstances. We don't even recognize some of the names.
But... we've been saying over and over to ourself since 2017, "God had a reason for letting that happen." That was the only "comfort" we had. It was the only way we could deal with the reality of coming back into consciousness post-Tilly and realizing that most of us were dead. But... was that merciful? Those foni maybe even deserve to finally rest in peace. I mean that, with as much aching compassion as I can, speaking of such a painful topic. But they couldn't survive now, let alone live. Their contexts, their jobs, belong to past timelines and locations and contexts that literally don't exist and aren't even possible anymore, so... if they don't come back, because they can't, then God give their broken souls the peace they never got in life. Please. However that works for nousfoni, give them peace.

...On a related note, I cannot put into proper words how much more alive and hopeful and joyful I feel, now that when I quietly "reach into" my heart-space and feel it, I can feel that "quantum entanglement" ping somewhere off in the ether, in unmappable space, but real. The other half of my internal heart is back where it belongs... in my daengel. 
Typing that, though, makes us aware of a concerning "split" yet. Jay, the "current" one, is alive. But is the current female-adjacent kardifoni a Jewel? Or not? Because Jewels deal with the Irispherae-- the new name for the "League," a term entirely ours at last. Still, the Jewel name STILL applies to ALL the Cores-- even the Jays, as is historically apparent. Or... did that change, to PROTECT the Irispherae, AFTER CNC???
Lord only knows. We're still trying to figure that out and we CAN'T until we actually upload and READ the archives from 2017-2018. We'll do that after we upload the TBHU journal & papers-- which we honestly should start ASAP, after we get these dates figured out.

That's all we're going to update for tonight. Just a brief little update. We're busy in datalogging mode and honestly this helps immensely, just doing this chronological runthrough of our past, and finally feeling the history in our heart, realizing that we have a past and it's beautiful and terrible and ours. It's making life feel real again, reviewing the years. So that's a true blessing.

Last good thing. Jay/Jewel (current Core with dual identity? unclear name, as we said) is STILL EMOTIONALLY OPEN. Like xe said, xer heart is not closed off, no matter how much hell we've been going through with the family. ...Actually that's significant. I think we have our koinofoni AND phagofoni to thank. THAT'S where the "many voices" are now, even if we've never listed them on a census before (we should, and will, soon). Those somafoni are saving our Core because THEY are taking the brunt of the stress and trauma, and yet they aren't alone in it this time-- WE are aware of them, and talking to them, and supporting them, and helping them heal as best we can, and trying so hard to protect them. We only started to do that in CNC; I do remember how novel it was to even THINK of talking to an esthiofoni. Now it's happening every time they show up. That's... immense, now that we think about it. It proves that system communication has dramatically improved since CNC and we didn't even realize it.
But as we were saying about the Core(s)... they're still entirely capable of love even if we are admittedly still grappling with some cathartic blocks due to family stress & religious fear. But that "even if" is amazing too. There's a devotion present, a dedication to love no matter what, a sort of courageously hopeful perseverance despite everything opposing it. No matter how bad of a day we might have, at the end of it, the Core is ALWAYS taking time to not only reconnect with the System at large, but to spend time with Chaos 0. They fall asleep together every night, and that is HUGE because in the past, broken Cores would be too ashamed to be near CZ. Now, that doesn't happen, even though we're struggling so much with body fear/ sickness/ loathing. I think we're more capable of mercy now, and compassion, even if we don't realize it.
OH. Someone said to write this down. We think a BIG part of this "not freezing up emotionally" is the fact that we have ANGRY FONI around. Somehow, that capacity for RAGE is burning through the apathetic risk??? Like, we CAN'T emotionally shut down because instead of doing that, someone is FEELING FIRE. And that's the Core element. That's a surprising thought. It makes sense though. God bless them.
We still need the capacity to feel sadness without drowning in it + triggering guilt/ shame/ religious terror + shutting down. We're emotionally crippled in that respect, even upstairs. This needs to be felt through & discussed further. Add that to the Xanga topic list.

We WANT TO and WILL have a Xanga ASAP btw. Life schedule hasn't allowed for it lately though; family stress, financial stress, and brutal insomnia have made it impossible to sit for ~6 hours of uninterrupted stream-of-consciousness transcription. But it's still a priority. Arguably I think the Core(s) want to finish this "important date" effort first, to get a stronger sense of self beforehand, and to refresh their awareness of collective history in general. We really did lose our general sense of "identity" post-CNC, and post-grandma, to be honest. We're slowly restoring it now.

Some other small but vital notes:
+ Sometimes in the morning, with all the steps of getting ready, our brain gets really discombobulated and we might end up in various states of undress because we can't pull our thoughts/actions together enough to complete that task. In the past Julie would try to front when this happened, but it would be very triggering for her. HOWEVER. APPARENTLY WALDORF CAN DO THIS NO PROBLEM. So she's literally been fronting when the body is undressed & we can't dress it immediately, because she doesn't wear clothes anyway and she's safe in that context. So GOD BLESS HER. We miss her so much regardless; it's actually wonderful for her to have SUCH a vital job, so we can see her more often and credit her with this to her honor.
+ GARRISON IS ALIVE. Jay has been "feeling hints of him" for a while? But the other night Jay "decided" to look for him/ "force the hand" of the Systemsoul (basically, "listen, I want to know if he can come back or not; show me RIGHT NOW if that's a yes or a no") and after some time Garrison DID "resurrect" IN LOWSPACE??? He's in the RUINED CITY, but it feels TIME-MANGLED??? Like it's POST-MASSACRE as well as post-CNC. Everything is ash-snow covered like nuclear fallout. The skyscrapers are hollowed out and blackened and fallen over. Everything is quiet and cold and there's a dread wind blowing and it's all so grey. And CANNON IS THERE, apparently "haunting" the hollow buildings Jay says? Like she's "damned herself" to that place. But it's SO WEIRD. This is NOT the "red apocalypse" place Scalpel keeps being haunted by, as the inheritor of Javier's trauma memories from the massacre. So WHAT'S GOING ON?? We NEED to look into this VIA HEADSPACE MEDITATION. To get data on this we have to LIVE IT. You cannot "reason it out." Logic won't get you answers here.
But Garrison IS ALIVE!!! Jay's showing me a memory that he "dropped down" into that "Lowspace-floatspace" (whatever/ wherever/ whenever it is) to meet him, and immediately gave him such a huge hug, haha. Tears of relieved joy from both of them. That's really touching.
We don't know about Isadora and Kalisha yet, but "a request has been put forwards." So we'll see.
ALSO. Archivists (Shirley/ Sirius/ Penny) and Communicators (Garrison/ Isadora/ Kalisha) are DIFFERENT CLASSES WITH DIFFERENT ROLES, and apparently there is a THIRD CLASS held by the "helmet girl/ commentator girl" and probably someone else (because trios are a big thing up here)??? So that's FASCINATING but it makes SO MUCH SENSE and the better we understand it, the better we'll function.

It's 2AM and we had dinner at 430-630 and it was the only meal we ate today and it was only 1000 calories. I don't think that's sustainable. We need to split it into two meals, and get at least 1200. We have to. But someone is saying "that's gluttonous" "stop being so luxurious" etc. Don't have a face for them yet. (THESE are the foni we have to pinpoint for a census; there are TONS of "discarnate" foni that slip under the radar)
I mention this because we're getting a headache & the body is cold. We may need to stop for tonight and sleep, so we can have a "breakfast" before 4pm. But someone is furious about that. We need to talk to these foni.
We ALSO need to CLARIFY COLOR ROLES so they HAVE SOMEWHERE TO GO in the System. Too many "faceless foni" just default to Brown because they don't know where else to go. And there are SO MANY FILES STARTED on this laptop SPECIFICALLY ABOUT COLORS that were never finished. That's something I know Jay is aching to do, so put that on top priority too, with the Xanga.

A few last notes.
+ We got the strong impression that if Nathaniel comes back, his name/face would have to change again. We don't know why that's a thing with him but it might be because he was born a blepofoni.
+ Josephina's essence must have a name change for him/her to manifest. Jay says it's sticking to a "Y" as the first letter instead of J, to "prevent blurring with Cores" (that's their letter).
+ We have no current blepofoni and that's a big problem; it might even be affecting the Core's ability to stabilize. The Core(s) have been striving to make the reflection "more resonant" though, especially with the massively fluffy hair we currently have, haha. But blepofoni are essential so we need to keep an eye out for them, and keep the door open for them-- if there's no openness to seeing them, it'll block them out, and it is very hard to get through bad days/ have a distinct sense of self without a blepofoni in the mirror.
+ Siobhan is alive and around but we have to keep calling her into the main room in the mornings. We don't know why she disappeared for a while but we're glad she's still with us.
+ We're still not sure what's going to happen with Spine. The TBHU journal had some interesting thoughts about that-- it feels like she might "come back different" too, with how so much has changed since she first manifested. This, too, requires more feeling than thinking to get a grip on.
+ Still not sure if, when the System FINALLY "moves CLEARLY into a new era" (we need a HARD SHIFT remember; we never got one after the several successive losses from 2018-2024), there will be duotone foni.
+ Still not sure if there is a somafoni split in truth, or if everyone is just a nousfoni. We think there are far less somafoni than we realize-- that term might (should) ONLY apply to foni who think they are singlets and act as such. Everyone else, even koinofoni who live primarily IN the body, should STILL be grouped in with the System at large.
+ Re-reading 2012, we don't know if the Eros bloodline is technically separate from the Jays or what. That whole topic is still a minefield but that color shut down after CNC and ANY sort of Spectrum hue-loss is deadly. We need that color back. Funny how history repeats itself in little ways. It's beautiful, actually, in this case; it feels like things are poetically coming back together, through repeats of our past, connecting our "now" to our "then" in a united whole.
+ IT SNOWED TODAY. Jay is very happy about this. It's actually still snowing a tiny bit right now. Snow makes him feel "real"; he says it makes "everything feel real." It makes him feel grounded and alive and connected to "the big picture"; it "gets him in touch with eternity." I can feel a bright ache in his heart as he says that, which is good. I know he can't wait until Infi comes back entirely. Honestly we're all waiting. Infinitii is essential to our System; when ze comes back, I can guarantee you things will change dramatically and quickly. It's inevitable. But Infi will have to heal too; ze has a lot of damage that was never dealt with, and that we all need to deal with alongside hir. But we will. It's time. It has to be. Do we have the right to "decide" that? Laurie says, "why not?" It's because there's a religious fear that "God will stop us from healing" because it's "not His timing." Laurie says, "well, we have to try. I think God would want us to finally heal from this so we can function for heaven's sakes, and do what He wants us to do with our life." And again, like I said before, there are "peripheral" foni we can sense, thriskefoni with vague colors and faces and no names, that we cannot clarify but who are definitely there. Man... there's more going on in our head on a daily basis than we realize. That's exciting though. Someone else says it's frightening, terrifying. DON'T YOU DARE SHUT US DOWN she's right, NO ONE has ANY right or authority to "prevent other people from existing." The "gatekeeper girl" especially. We all remember Christina's attempted "soft massacres" and the actual one that Jessica & Cannon inflicted in 2013. No more of that, ever. We let us exist. Have mercy for heaven's sakes. You claim to follow God, where is your mercy? You who are so ready to pick up the knife and slaughter the rest of us? "You're not real," they say. "Define real," someone else retorts, "considering you're just like us." They're screaming protest in response. I wonder if they're our biggest threat here. I wonder if they're also the ones pushing the starvation compulsions. Different ones than these, but same class, for sure.
Too much for 230AM. But I don't want to ignore it. Let us pause and listen. Jay is reaching out, asking. (He always does; I think that's a big part of his job as the Heart.) "What makes you real, and us not? Can't you see me?" and fear response on their part. No words. But that was a good reply. Laurie is saying to stop commenting and close up so we can continue working and get some sleep for heaven's sakes. That's a good idea.

This is a good entry. We haven't had a solid entry in a while, even just notes like this.
We'll do better in the future, once the Core(s) stabilize. I promise that. It's something we want very much and will achieve through love and effort and the grace of God. We haven't "lost" all of this beauty we're reading from our past. It's still very much who we are. We can, and will, be that again-- and even better, as we continue to heal and love and grow together.

For now, Laurie is right. We need to wrap this up and let the body rest, no matter how much we want to keep working. If we go to bed now, we won't have to sleep in as much, and we'll have earlier time to work tomorrow, which is better for focus and processing ability. So we will do that.

Good night everyone. We're very glad to be alive tonight. We have a lot of hope.

(Jay says Spotify keeps playing Chaos 0's songs and let me tell you, if anyone is proof that our heart is alive, it's Jay. Yeah we're still confused on bloodlines and bodymind splits and all that, but this white-haired prism-hearted boy-- however he may evolve and change in the future-- is so full of light and love and color and truth, when he feels things this powerfully we are all affected by the power of it. The fact that he didn't die is phenomenal. he's proof that we have a future. that's just how it is. he's alive and so are we. that's a good note to close up on.)
(no, even better-- the lyrics in this song. "i can tell, i can feel, you are love, you are real." the look those two are giving each other is a beautiful thing. that's worth living for, is the thought i get. it is. and we need to protect that, and we all need to live in that too. we'll get there. we'll rebuild better than things were even in the past, in the glory days. there's more light on the horizon than we realize. things have seemed so dark for so long, but no, the stars are still all shining in the sky. there's always hope. hope is a fighting thing. remember what jay told anxi-- remember what our core is for anxi, and vice versa. realize everything beautiful we still have now, and don't let go. whatever happens tomorrow, we are all together, and we are alive, and we will continue on no matter what, into eternity. love is eternal and we have it now. don't be afraid. you know the truth. live in it. fight for it. that's who we are, and always will be.)

"nsfw" warning for open discussion of intimacy.

 

1228. thursday.



We woke up around 8:30, and spent approximately 20 minutes in the frigid beautiful dawn, deciding whether or not we should go for a run.
...Actually, that's the problem. We didn't decide. Our poor sleepy social frontrunner(s) was/were trying to decide on his/her/their own, worried about whether or not it was "bad" to leave the Arrows alone and asleep, to get food for later in the day, to have any sort of opinion or preference or decisive thought. They were asking for "signs from God" to "tell them what to do," something Tilly and Iscah used to do constantly-- looking for "yes" or "no," "stay" or "go" in the words they saw on printed packages all around them, not trusting a single one because "what if it's my brain wanting to see a certain result?" Those poor frightened good-hearted souls. They are so afraid, so afraid to do the "wrong thing" that the simple reality of an undefined reality terrifies them. They want morality laid out in front of them clear-cut and unquestionable, undoubtable... but they look for righteousness with their mind, not their hearts. Their poor hearts are so full of love but it's getting choked under the whirling moral fear of their thoughts.
There is nothing wrong with buying food. There is nothing wrong with going for a run. There is nothing wrong with liking the cold air against your face, and there is nothing wrong with being too tired and chilled to want to throw yourself back into it after 5 hours of sleep. There is nothing wrong with waking, or resting, or sitting, or exercising, or eating, or fasting, or anything. Life is life is life-- it's all the purest white, a blank canvas, a blank musical score, an empty plate, all of it waiting with utmost divine affection for us to decide. 
That's the beautiful terrible beloved reality of life, of free will, of human consciousness, of the infinite possibility of the world, of the unfathomable palette of existence. It's all a work of art waiting to happen. It needs an artist, and That Which Is-- God, or Goddess, or Source, or Light, or whatever you may wish to call that primordial spark of the cosmos, that original Artist, that first Musician-- couldn't help but create a universe full of artists to join in the joyous act. 
We adore that. Creation creating itself, ad infinitum, through us. An endless dance. 
So it's inherently blank. Not white, not black. It's clear, like a prism, and we're all lights passing through it, splitting our lives into swathes of color. Everything and anything we do contributes to it, and none of it is judged, none of it is labeled as "good" or "bad"... none of it, that is, save for what our own mind labels it as.
We have a lot of thoughts on this, from years upon years of feeling and thinking both, and there's no time or space to expand on it here furthermore... but for now, suffice to say that those frontrunners of ours this morning were unable to trust their own hearts, were unable to see themselves as capable of doing anything But the "wrong thing." They were labeling all their paints as "bad" before they even opened them. Poor beloved fellow souls of ours. We adore them. We know their hearts. We feel their aching desire to be harmless and helpful, to be kind and true and good and pure, but they have let fear in, and fear only knows itself. Therefore, whatever decision they made, they would second-guess it. They would be too scared to surrender to the quiet warmth of their hearts, to listen to That echoed within them, to realize that whatever they ultimately chose, the canvas had opened its own heart to them and sang, paint. Create. Choose a color, any color, and continue me. 
God doesn't mind if you run or walk or rest or sleep or eat or not. God just wants you to act according to your heart, to your dearly beloved heart, for it can do no wrong. We firmly believe that. It is the core of our faith.
If God is Love, and our hearts are built for Love, then if we act upon that Love, everything and anything we do is sacred. Every choice we make is holy. 

To wake up with that lesson... we had no idea how relevant it would remain for the rest of the morning.

We went for the run. Someone wanted to get bacon and ginger and cinnamon and lettuce, and so we wrapped ourselves up in Kyo's scarf and Jewel's red boots and we jogged down to the local grocery store to do so.

We don't remember the run up, save for passing a fellow jogger by the bus stop, and we don't remember much of being in the store itself. Our brain was tired and confused and still scared, tangled up in "do I buy for the family or for myself," scared of making a foolish decision, scared of acting on impulse, scared of being spontaneous, scared of being neglectful. Memory recalls them buying two Christmas candles that were on sale, left over from that one day two weeks ago or so when we planned on buying them but had no money for luxuries. So basketed them both (one red spice, one vanilla cookie) and then memory cuts out again.
We don't remember coming home and going to bed or waking up. What few things we do recall are so soaked in guilt that we're being begged not to write them down, but we have to be honest, we can't hide anymore. They bought bananas and a tiny tin of oats with the intention of making banana bread, and one ripe orange to see if they still liked the taste (Iscah did; she likes everything, and the other socials still haven't differentiated between her preferences and their own), as well as a package of oregano for the same purpose, and four mini-pizzas for the family. They did get the bacon, and the candles, and the ginger & cinnamon, and that's all we can remember. It's not shameful, loves, I promise. They're just so guilty about buying oats; they knew they'd get in huge trouble if Oliver found out, so they hid them in the closet. They're crying upstairs, loves it's okay. You just wanted to try once more, remembering that one time Someone liked them, but someone else got horribly sick from them, but you don't want to hate anything, you want to know the truth, you wanted to check now that our brain is in a better place. But loves, oh loves, you bought it with fear, with guilt, with shame. You'll never know if it's healed, or if anyone likes it, if that's the mindset you go into it with. And you don't trust our intuition either, which is wincing at the thought of eating them again, remembering past contexts of pain and fear and compulsion. But, again, Iscah liked it, she treasured it, and you just want to learn to do the same. Not now, loves. Now's not the proper time, not if you're still terrified. Once your heart can release that shameful panic, you can learn properly, that door will be open. But it's okay. We forgive you. You're safe and loved and you did nothing wrong. We promise. Everything you did was done out of love, too, even if it didn't know how to safely apply itself. We love you, and we know you love us and the Arrows and everyone too. It's okay. You're good. We love you.  

So we don't remember going to bed, or waking up later. All we remember is sudden groggy kisses and someone, some poor social, wanting to cry from it because they were wracked with guilt and shame and couldn't feel that pure affection in return although they were begging God to, and then suddenly our beloved System anthem of Familiarity was playing in their head and Lotusheart was called out to that confetti chorus, that soaring heart-wrenching prayer, and it broke our heart wide open and suddenly he could return the love pressing softly against our lips and chest and self, God knows I mean it, God help me feel it, and our memory is just as soft with golden light in response, tearful and joyful and desperate to hold this forever, forever.

And then Infinitii showed up, soft and black and just as sleepy in the body, but with a mouth full of grinning loving teeth and the next thing we knew, Omen was there and she pulled Infi onto their chest and suddenly we woke up, aware and in love, and fangs met skin and we were alive again. Thank God for daemons. Thank God.
They just adore each other. There's always fangs tearing at flesh with the ardent desire to get beneath that, to blood and pulse points, but there's no malice, no harm-- just love, always love. The two of them, all kisses and claws, smoky shadowy laughter and snowy frigid gasps and humming and growling and I love you, where are your wings, why can't you be closer, this isn't fair, I love you--

Then suddenly we're hearing them saying that it isn't just Omen, that it's Kris and Oliver and Hiccup and who is around for us, where are We? 
Immediately Chaos Zero shows up, feeling like the ocean in our chest, saying that there's more of us around than you think," and then Genesis is on his heels, smirking golden bright and biting their cheek in a kiss, and then Laurie was there for a moment, and I was there, and Celebi was there, and then suddenly EVERYONE was there, wanting to feel this love, to give our love, to be part of this, to make this everyone's.
Everyone in Central moved through. Lynne, Spine, Javier, Josephina, Celebi, Nathaniel, Leon, Waldorf, Julie, Sherlock, Wattson, Eros, Kyaneos, Algorith, Jude... Knife, Razor, Mulberry, Jeremiah, Wreckage, Leanne... even the kids, David and Marigold and Simeon & Sylvain and Toby and Ashen, all of them shyly moved through too in the quieter moments, happy and hugging our partner System, deeply simply joyfully happy that they were safe, they were loved, and they could feel it.
Lynne pointedly kissing Omen with this secret sneaky joy at kissing a 'girl' in another System, Nathaniel learning to live openly, not as quiet and docile as he usually stays, hidden in green... Waldorf finally feeling herself, eyes red as rubies and smiling with her own teeth as she returned kisses without hesitation. Julie purposefully anchoring her lipstick and earrings into her overlay, refusing to reject her complete self anymore, tearfully treasuring the fact that even looking like this, a color scheme switch away from looking like she did as the ultimate nightmare of our nascent System, she was truly and completely loved, and she felt the same in return. Sherlock taking off his glasses and trying as hard as he could to truly feel this love too, to saturate his Gray with hidden color and light... Wattson there alongside him, smiling warmly at his friend's quiet scholarly courage, himself unafraid to show affection colored the same sunlit-page glow as he. Eros fronting for the first time in ages, still unsure on his name but being fiercely anchored into his true color, richly Cerise and feeling it in every atom as he channeled it through his every action... Jude fronting for the first time ever since his birth, not knowing himself yet but knowing he had been called here, knowing this was love and that was what he was born from and into, and he let it happen and let himself reciprocate simply but truly. Kyaneos wobbly in fronting as well, only there for a moment but feeling like a breath full of sky...Algorith smirking in amusement as she felt her goggles brushing against their face as they kissed her, felt how strange but lovely it was against her own robotic mouth. 
Josephina ended up being spoken to at some point, and I can feel his nervous surprised happy laughter as he returned a love bite in spite of his hesitance, in spite of feeling he "didn't deserve to be in such a position," realizing that he was in fact included in this global love and he had every right to embrace that. Leon, too, suddenly being wrapped in an embrace, breathing deep to still his shaking nerves, bravely relaxing into that closeness that was still so alien to him, learning. Spine curiously feeling hands on skin that she personally did not own, amazed at it. Javier feeling kisses on our collarbones and momentarily being surprised that their teeth didn't catch on his dermal studs, feeling his own snakebites and tongue stud and bridge piercings every time he ardently kissed them back, or when they peppered his/our own face with tiny kisses of their own. Altairre was hovering behind him, then in place of him, learning how to be in a body, learning about his own body, his huge broad red shoulders the only things clearly anchoring in, the suggestion of massive armor-like hands over our body's own. everything else about him still a mystery.
And I swear Scalpel was there, too. He's been in Javier's peripheral vision lately, seen only by him, his Red prince, this leader of the Darkspacers. We have no clear memory of him fronting, but there's the smallest bit of data that he did, just for a moment, a fiercely glad kiss, defying everything lurking in the depths he ruled over, a simple profound testament to what we were and would forever be in glorious spite of any and all terrors we did and will survive.
Knife was only there for a moment (and later, kissing the knuckles of their soft white hands), but he was entirely his color, claret pink, dark and soft and sweet. Razor followed him, also only there for a moment, letting herself curl up like a purring cat in the latter half of a kiss that felt just as warm as their hands soft in her blood-red shock of childlike-messy hair. Mulberry's twirling hair and facial scruff locking in immediately as she fronted, herself content to be there albeit surprised, wondering why she had been isolating herself from this. Jeremiah suddenly fearlessly soft in his own Cerise tone, kissing and being kissed, knowing there was no danger here. David knowing he wasn't comfortable with kisses on the mouth but still wanting to feel this love, and Joshua moved in affectionately to share that with him while returning that gesture in his stead. Marigold hugging the Arrows and smiling with her face in their shoulder, and Toby quietly moving in with her, suddenly alive and not knowing this but knowing he needed this, to be loved, to be safe and warm. 
Simeon & Sylvain showed up sometime elsewhen, with Infinitii, as they had spoken about this previously. Infi affectionately embraced them with one arm and let them share in hir deep black love, safely for them, but just as deep and pure as they needed to know. Both of them feeling it entirely, like anise gumdrops on their tongue, sweet and spiced and light and heavy all at once. They held each other inside and smiled, knowing four years ago they had been torn in two, separated by sudden death and despair, and now they were together, and alive, and loved and safe and free. Both of them such a soft light creamy yellow tint against that velvet black, both of them like french vanilla and banana cream pie, little sweet fluffy things held in the arms of something fathomlessly rich and dark, perfectly happy.


Rio and Markus were there, both of them feeling more joy than they even expected of themselves, finally feeling that they belonged, not just with us but here, with them, exactly as they were, as whoever they'd grow into being as we all continued in this loving growing process. Markus's back tattoos and chest scars and warm dark skin tone searing into our collective memory, Rio's lovely shaggy smoke-blue hair and paler delicate but craft-calloused fingers doing the same. Both of them so belovedly real, our collective heart treasuring this, missing them.
Their Daemons, too, were so clear and real, relishing their time with Omen, learning how to Be more strongly than ever. Lethe moving like dark blue poured out, all spindly legs but heavy and darkly elegant as water. Medallion fronted more than she Ever has before, shockingly lithe and graceful, all points and edges but still as poised as a dancer. She holds the body's hands so uniquely, almost cradling our beloveds with the sides of our hands, the flats of her blades. And yes, she too has learned how to facemouth, but I can still feel her actual main stomachmouth dormant and unusable when she fronts. Lethe, too, as well as the rest of his long insectoid body that does't translate.
On that note, both Rupture and Cake tried to front, but were too strange in form to come through so easily and suddenly, especially since neither of them have experience in a human form before. Rupture's overlay was a terrific burst of nonsense below our plexus, totally nonhuman, a crablike clatter of legs-- and if that wasn't bad enough, she cannot get a facemouth to work at all, and kept trying to talk out of her throat like she normally would. But she was aware that this wasn't the shape she was currently borrowing, even though the huge dissonance made her consciousness terribly hazy, and she was both surprised and intrigued by this. In memory, I can feel her filing this away in her mind, thinking upon it, what it means to Be, now, tangibly and real even away from her nebulous heart-host. And Cake, too, body too lithe and long to understand legs or  bipedal arm structure, let alone such a small face, still trying to figure herself out in the first place... but trying nevertheless, called in by the other Daemons' existences, herself also now feeling glimmers of wanting to Be, briefly wondering Who she was, who she was bound to, what it meant for her to exist at all now... wondering at her own shape, her own color, how many eyes she would have on her face should she choose to open some. Both of those monstrous girls only there for a few seconds, if that, but both of them remembered dearly, both of them real.
Nexus was there too, and Axis and Chocoloco and Iolite and Jess, every Daemon losing themselves in the ardor of things, all of them always madly in love with each other, and every nousfoni flooding with grateful relief at this love that they too were now a part of, seen and treasured for exactly who they were, unafraid.
Nexus didn't front long, unusually, choosing to let his fellows have the spotlight, choosing to stay within with Laurie, who was also mostly missing from this whole affair, hesitantly learning what she could and couldn't do, learning the difference between fear and simple preference and function clashes. But Jess and Iolite were there, not for long but long enough, both of them temporarily but truly releasing their frustration and sorrow to feel a new but complete love and acceptance that they'd previously only felt from their Daemons, both of them tearful with happiness, arms flung around the shoulders that embraced them in turn, their colors clear and healthy and good.
Axis and his skeletal fingers, huge and weirdly fused at the metacarpals, looking like bleached bone or plaster or old ruins, covered in tiny plants and fungi and moss and fluttering insects, his eyes deep spruce-green and surprisingly soft with compassion. Chocoloco, too, feeling more love than anyone previously expected of him, all coffee-harsh anger and fierce red-slash eyes, but here he was melted chocolate and cherry jelly and there was a depth to the kisses he delivered like his throat opened up into an endless warmth, deep down. A totally different vastness than Infinitii, a striking contrast to Axis's flung-open birdcage ribs, to Nexus's galaxian entrails studded with gold-hot lanterns. All of them so strange, so clear, so real. God bless Daemons, I'll say it forever. There's something about them, even just touching this form so temporarily with their lives, that makes us, too, feel like we're more real than ever, like we're something etched into the very essence of things, lead-lined stained glass figures in the church of existence. Indelible and true. It's a blessed wonder.

The Archivist trio showed up at one point, too-- Garrison first, almost as hesitant as Leon but driven by the love and pursuit of understanding, of System knowledge, and ended up getting his lip bitten, aha. He took it like a champ, learning that this was something others in both our Systems did in love, and I can feel his mind and heart opening a bit more in that memory, becoming less tense, less paranoid. Bless our Archivists, they all have Protector hearts in their own way.
Isadora and Kalisha were there too, of course, but they ended up in embraces, and Isadora had a split second of actual disappointment at not being kissed before smiling and laughing genuinely and just melting into that hug. Love is love and she was glad to have it, to be there. She actually drew Kalisha in with her, the two fronting side by side, and then unexpectedly, Kalisha in turn reached out to find Karissa! She hasn't been around in many many months, but those name sisters have forged a sort of passive fondness, and so even if our Chartreuse Protector wasn't all there, this experience still touched her heart too, and if anything can wake up a dormant nousfoni to themselves and the world, it's being loved On the outside. So we'll see how this affects her in the future.

One after another, flowing like blood and water and sunlight, a quiet multitude moved through this newly-beloved body to experience that same affection and compassion and devotion anew, whether or not we'd ever touched it before. Every time is the first time. That's the miraculous thing about it. It never gets old, never ceases to amaze us, never ceases to hit us as clear and true as an arrow to the heart.

And then Infinitii was back and someone was asking us, had been meaning to ask us for a long time now, can we do something, do you trust us, and the quiet careful deliberate emotion in their voice was like a singing glass in our heart and we said yes, Infi said yes, (please, whatever you want, I want), I trust you, we trust you, we love you too.

 

...I cannot even put into words how suddenly, starkly alive and adored we felt.

 

So many of us were there. So many of us. It was a total shock, but thank God it happened. 
Infinitii was there at the start, but suddenly and totally, Julie was there. Thinking about it, I'm not surprised. This is the sort of thing that her original days as a Tar-corrupted hacker were inundated with. In the past, the very thought of this would have had us kicking and screaming and looking for knives or pills or worse. We had suffered this enough, never again.
...Except that's not what this is. It's NEVER what this is. What we were experiencing now was love, total and pure, and Julie knew it, and if anyone in the System was going to make damn sure that was crystal clear, it was her.

But... Lord. So many of us were there. Lynne and Spine, Waldorf and Josephina, Eros, Markus... and then when the Arrows moved to kiss us, suddenly Celebi was there, her heart strangely aching and determined, and she said no, don't stop. Go back. I need to know what this is like. I need to know.
And it hit me, that even if she didn't live through the beginning of 2012, her heart did. Her bloodline did, inevitably. Tar-mangled or not, her soul was affected by both the love and pain of that time, and she had just as much a right and reason and responsibility as Julie to be there right now. 


...There's so little literal memory, at least, nothing that translates into structured language. Everything is color, light, emotion. 



----------------------------------------------------------

(rough notes, from the Arrow's writing on this, as their memory is inevitably different than ours)

(currently unfinished; it's 6am so we will refine this later.)


(eucharist feelings again, on both sides apparently. "being/essence/spirit." SEAWATER.)


omen, oliver, kristanova, hiccup, kyo. the fact that all of them were there... what that does to our heart is inexpressible, but we have to try. 
just... all of them. they love us that much. ALL of them. and god we adore them all too, we hope they know, we need to make sure they know, they deserve that so dearly.



javier after, embracing them like his heart would break, "thank you so much for this being the next morning." choked with tears.
swearing we'd never leave them, ever. "you have all of our heartbeats" and "we just want ours to beat next to yours."
"four years ago there wasn't much left behind that." his FEELING that time, that emptiness, barely 10 left.


(feeling their heartbeat, after, pounding and sincere. genuinely shocked that THEY were feeling for US in this. that hadn't even crossed our mind. that's sadly telling as to our past, to expect that this sort of thing was devoid of emotion from the other, but what bliss in that assumption being proven false.)

infi laughing like every easter carillon in the universe. the joy endless, all love and light like stars brilliant against the limitless cosmos. ze could not keep it in, could not help it, could not stop. it was beautiful.
"good things come in threes"
hir eyes were open. just like at the eclipse. feeling so completely, totally hirself, that hir overlay was flat-out eyes and teeth both and ze couldn't be otherwise. couldn't be half, as ze was feeling too whole.

oliver asking if "this was one of the things ze hoped for" 
later when he told me this, i immediately remembered this, the first time that was openly referenced in any form. lord we were terrified even that recently.



"this is like the first time i was with jay" 
"this is what i am-- pure transmutation"
the FEELING in those statements. god.


JULIE'S DAEMON. 
I FELT HER TEETH.
we were worried about her; since her "birth" last week or so she's been almost impossible to see. but now, good lord, today she came through clear as anything, hard as infi almost. she's still half (hot pink) viperfish and that mouth is Unmistakable in her overlay. all those huge needle teeth. and her other half appearance-wise is a feathered serpent, and that too is obvious-- she feels so sinuous when fronting, so elegant but lethal, so much bigger than the body.
the arrows say her voice is similar: hissing, seductive, beautiful. i don't doubt it. i have no idea what she said, or how it felt, but i can feel the echo of it, tinged with the lipstick terror of the old julie days, that sort of warzone femininity, and i wouldn't expect anything less of her. 
julie and her daemon were cofronting so hard, so totally. practically sharing the same breaths. their very beings meshing perfectly together, blurring into one, without losing any of their individuality.


DENDRITE!!!!
came out when the arrows were asking who was there? julie and her daemon responded first i think, then suddenly,
"and me, me, me, me"
FRONTING more solidly than ever, her spindly arms and claws and tentacles and feelers SO clear in her overlay, her color clearer than even that, a beautiful rich pastel red, glossy like flowers and candy apples and heart lockets
she was struggling to talk, couldn't get her voice to translate on such short sudden notice
"i don't have a voice of my own yet but i found her, i found her, i found her!!" "i found mine, she's mine!" not ownership, but recognition of the most blissfully aching sort. pure joy, overwhelming joy, weeping from it.
and THAT JEWEL. the pinkish one, different hair-- no klonoa ears!-- from 2004 or so. heartspace anchor. the one who was in love. i can feel her exact vibe now, in music. i know her soundtrack. but she resonated EXACTLY with dendrite's own heart, embracing her as her own, both of them so happy, so in love with each other's souls, like every daemon and their host should be, and ultimately always always are.


eros, "how could anyone call this selfish," feeling that so powerfully and unquestionably, that needs to be global.
that sad old religious-mangled teaching that to want to be loved was wrong. that to receive love was manipulative or demanding or otherwise sinful. that's a lie. this proved it.
remembering what chaos zero said on the porch. "there's nothing wrong with wanting love returned for love," effectively. it being a divinely mutual force. love naturally reciprocates itself, it aches for it, and that's pure as anything. 
us lying there, holding them, and eros recognizing immediately that we were feeling such deep love towards them, for them, about them, it wasn't selfish at all, but it ironically wasn't self"less" either. it recognized our selves and their selves, and it adored them both/all, and it wanted to share in that forever, and that is love.


one of their tears falling directly into our right eye. the exact sting of seawater. it was utterly transcendent, holy.


me, touching their chest, dying from love and holy fear, "who am i to dare"
then realizing we, too, have a heart just like that




------------------------------------------------------------------

we didn't get out of bed until like... 4:30. no regrets, ever. no better use of a day than this sincerity, this total living.

kristanova made the dearly-loved after-breakfast tradition of grits, eggs, & bacon (lord who would have expected This future for it that first morning he cooked for us, months ago). it was amazing.

we watched an episode of sense8, "i have no room in my heart for hate," as we haven't watched that show in months either, and we were feeling it so hard this morning, with how headspacey it is, with how much more clearly we are living as systems now and how much more clearly we can understand both the people and the topics of the show as well.

...

(we typed ALL NIGHT)