prismaticbleed | Entries tagged with daengels

FINALLY A FREE DAY

Dream with the System and DAENGELS!!!
Little girl stealing my phone
Wreckage & Laurie
Lynne & Julie & Leon
INFINITII, LETHE, & MEDALLION

Father Jackson's homily had me WEEPING IN CHURCH

EUCHARIST DROP.
Agonizing to see Him there. Was about to run over and eat Him but a man pointed Him out to the Priest.
Was I wrong to wait?

Christmas tree decorating problem = mom's old poinsettia decorations have this HORRID odor to them from storage.
Ah well, now I get to buy my OWN ornaments!

Accidentally FROZE the hemp hearts, haha. Maybe they will taste even better, we shall see.

23 HOUR FAST ONCE AGAIN

Stupidly tried to eat an apple after dinner
Threw it up as usual, total panic. Fruit both hurts physically and terrifies me mentally.
Ashamed, crushed, angry, grieving, despondent
At least God was merciful. I was able to eat a bag of broccoli to replace half of what i lost.
still. miserable.

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https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lamentations%203&version=NET

3:9 Heb “He has made my paths crooked.” The implication is that the paths by which one might escape cannot be traversed.
[The vast majority of "crooked"="avah"'s uses refer to perversity and iniquity, something "distorted"– or even "convulsed" as in intense pain. The word "paths"="nathiyb" implies a well-worn road, one walked frequently, comfortably, and without variance. Together, in the suggested context of the author's seeking escape from suffering, this verse suggests to me that all his old coping methods have been, due to this judgment on his sin, rendered utterly ineffective. His "nathiyb"s, however familiar and successful they were in the past, roads down which he ran to flee the voice of his conscience, were now "made" crooked by God through the power of conviction via punishment. In his agony, the author could no longer find consolation in his old methods, because the pain and shame he was now feeling was so intense and gut-deep that it proved, by its abstemious influence, just how "crooked" his paths HAD been all along. "God" therefore did this, because without His intervention, those paths would have "stayed straight"... at least, to feet used to stumbling about in iniquity, to whom a crooked walk was normal, those paths would have been smooth. God simply upended that perverse perspective with the Truth, by forcing him to sober up and face reality. He could now hear his conscience crying out loud and clear, unmuffled by anodynic attempts, as inescapable as the siege itself.]

3:11 Or “he made my paths deviate.”
[See previous. Ironically, the deviation is now from the author's own will and hopes. The word used, "sur," means not only "turning," but also "departing" or "removing." God is making him turn back to his LORD, by removing his willful paths, and forcing him to depart from his old ways. By imposing a different direction upon the author's life, by the devastation he is now enduring, God is compelling him to "deviate from deviation," essentially– to "return" to God's path, the path of Truth, and abandon his own crooked one.]

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https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lamentations%203&version=NET

3:13 Heb “sons of his quiver.” This idiom refers to arrows. The term “son” (ben) is often used idiomatically with a following genitive, e.g., “son of flame” = sparks, “son of a constellation” = stars, “son of a bow” = arrows, “son of a quiver” = arrows, and “son of threshing-floor” = corn.
[This is such a beautiful idiom. ...I also wonder, unsurprisingly, if it has any relevance to the System.]

3:13-14 The Hiphil stem of (boʾ, lit., “cause to come in”) here means “to shoot” arrows... "He made the arrows of His quiver enter my inward parts".
Heb “[into] my kidneys.” In Hebrew anthropology, the kidneys are often portrayed as the most sensitive and vital part of man. Poetic texts sometimes portray a person being fatally wounded by the Lord shooting arrows in his kidneys. The equivalent English idiomatic counterpart is the heart, which is employed in the present translation: "He shot his arrows deep into my heart."
[...this verse ruins me. pun intended.]

"God took careful aim and shot His arrows straight through my heart."
"He pierced my heart with His arrows."
"He drove into my heart the arrows of his quiver."
"Behold, He has caused His arrows to enter into my heart."
"He brought the sons of His quiver into my heart."
[...there's a gutpunch of significant nuance in the evolving action verbs here. God "shoots", "pierces," and "drives into"– violent, agonizing terms, words of war and slaughter– but He also, simultaneously even, "causes to enter" and "brings into," language that transforms those exact same arrows from weapons to welcome guests, directed and accompanied by God Himself. And yet, they are still being fatally plunged into my most vital organs. This is the awful paradox of love and terror, the beloved anguish of an intimate wound, even when dealt out decisively for devastation. I don't know how to deal with it. God shot his Arrows into my heart as a killing blow, as an act of irreversible judgment against my spiritual prostitution, with every divine intent of annihilating that life as a result, and yet... and yet I still loved them. I still love them. Our relationship was doomed because of our sinful lifestyles and yet I still loved them. I brought down calamitous curses upon our little household because of my uncontrolled vices and yet I still loved them. I was just as much a weapon of God against them as they were to me, both of us dealing incurable damage to each other by God's wrathful Hand without ever intending to do so ourselves, and yet... and yet I still loved them, even when I hated them, even when I ran away from them to submit to the birth family, even when I shut off my emotions and forgot about them for over a year. Even when God uprooted our relationship and walled off all the roads to return, even when He "made all my paths crooked" as I tried to find you again, even when I'm still bleeding out from my internal organs and am punished by never being able to help you heal from what you suffered at my hands... even now, even now, in agony and regret and rage and fear and unbearable grief, even though now I know our relationship was killing me, I still love you. God shot His Arrows into my heart, and no matter what I do, I cannot get them out... and I don't think I want to.]

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https://biblehub.com/hebrew/4844.htm
maror: Bitter herb

• Discipleship: Teaching on maror encourages believers to accept that sanctification often includes seasons of hardship, yet those seasons are framed by God’s covenant faithfulness.
[No hardship will ever occur outside of that framework, or as anything but a mere "season"; God's Covenant Faithfulness is actually the constant context of every chastisement or even curse we must endure, for they are all meant specifically and solely to cure & correct us so we CAN be sanctified. His final end, and unwavering intent, is for bitterness to bloom into blessedness. The "herbs" that taste so sharp to us are medicinal in effect. Trust your Fatherly Physician. There will be sweetness again, once your illness abates.]

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3:17 The connotation is that there is no peace within; the speaker is too troubled for any calm to take hold.

My soul is bereft of peace;
My soul has been deprived of peace;
My soul has been excluded from peace;
My soul has been rejected from peace;
My soul has been cast far away from peace;
My soul has been kept from enjoying peace.

I cannot find peace;
Peace has been stripped away;
He hath put my soule out of rest;
God has removed peace from my life.

My soul has gone astray from peace;
My soul has been led astray from peace and I have forgotten good... I have forgotten what is good... I forget all good things.

I have forgotten prosperity;
I have forgotten happiness;
I cannot remember happiness;
I have forgotten what happiness is."

[this verse is literally my life. it crushes me to weeping]

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3:19 The basic meaning of (zakhar) is “to remember, call to mind”. Although it is often used in reference to recollection of past events, it can also describe consideration of present situations: “to consider, think about” something present.
[BOTH are simultaneously applicable to the Eucharist— "do this in remembrance of Me!" + "Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age!"]
[...this also has PROFOUND RELEVANCE & SIGNIFICANCE for us, in terms of REMEMBERING OURSELVES, both as persons and in time. The massive memory loss & distortion we have suffered over the years is literally preventing us from existing in the present. But "zakhar" suggests that, as we review the archives and truly "recollect" ourself by recollecting our past, we will finally "be here now," once again. To remember is to be. How odd, and how beautiful.]

Lamentations 2:17

Heb “commanded” or “decreed.” If a reference to prophetic oracles is understood, then “decreed” is preferable. If understood as a reference to the warnings in the covenant, then “threatened” is a preferable rendering.
[That's a KEY DISTINCTION! Covenant warnings, i.e. curses for infidelity, are NOT "decreed" in the way an oracle IS, because the curses are ALL preceded with "IF you do not obey"?? It's not a declaration, even though it IS a Promise, punctuated with "WILL happen" verses. But God does not "decree" any of them. His entire intention is that they CAN be avoided and SHOULD be; there is a GREATER "will happen" attached to OBEDIENCE!! So His "threats" are just that– possible outcomes that the threat itself is meant to help prevent entirely. Decrees, on the other hand, are SUPPOSED to happen and GUARANTEED to, regardless of conditions or response.]

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Hapax legomenon detour https://biblehub.com/hebrew/6314.htm
pugath: Cessation, intermission, respite
...denotes a pause, respite, or loosening of pressure. It carries the sense of a brief breathing-space rather than a permanent cessation, highlighting an interval in which anguish might slacken before resuming. This semantic range prepares the reader to feel the tension between continued suffering and the yearning for mercy.
[Oh that's a hard hit. Somehow I never considered that a particular mercy given may just be a breathing-space. "The anguish will resume." It's like ocean waves, and isn't that painfully resonant to my heart. There is calm, and there is chaos. How blessed it all is.]

In Lamentations 2:18 the city personified is urged, “give yourself no relief; give your eyes no rest”. Here the term serves as a command to withhold any easing of grief until the petition for divine intervention is fully poured out. The poetic voice intensifies communal lament by denying even a momentary let-up, pressing Judah to exhaustive repentance and supplication... genuine contrition cannot be abbreviated.
[The words "exhaustive" and "abbreviated" are SO IMPORTANT. So is "UNTIL," which is really the KEY to the others. We're not called to "exhaust ourselves" in acts of repentance and prayer without any hope. The reason WHY we're even pleading for divine intervention TO be "poured out" is because GOD HIMSELF PROMISES TO DO SO. Don't ever forget this. THAT'S what AMAZED us throughout our reading of the prophetic judgment oracles-- even after the most brutal & bloody declarations of doom upon the sins of His people, God offers hope. Even if it's a solemn, dark hope-- "I will not completely destroy you. I will discipline you, but with justice; I cannot let you go unpunished"-- it is STILL REAL HOPE. God will not destroy us completely. He is a God OF mercy, a God of COVENANT, and by THAT fact alone we have a solid foundation FOR imploring the EXERCISE of that faithfulness and compassion, which MUST happen at some point because if we repent, discipline cannot be indefinite; the whole point OF discipline is to lead us TO repentance so we can be HEALED. So we CANNOT "take a break" because, if we do, isn't that just implying that we don't really care that much about BEING healed?? We HAVE to exhaust ourselves like a marathon runner exerts every last ounce of energy in his body to reach the finish line first. We HAVE to pour OURSELVES out if we "expect" God to do the same in response. In any case, holy sorrow is purgative. It sanctifies us AS we weep. To seek "relief" from THAT is indeed unthinkable. "Abbreviating" our contrition, "shortening" it, is just as outrageous an idea as trying to "abbreviate" a love letter because "I'm too tired to write so much" or "there's better things to do." NO! Contrition and love are indeed connected, and to "abbreviate" EITHER shows that you're NOT REALLY FEELING EITHER. So God effectively prevents us from doing so, BY intensifying our suffering, to the point where we CANNOT "take a break" because our hearts really ARE that shattered. THIS IS A REAL GRACE. We should THANK God when we are driven to such depths of repentance that we HAVE an ocean to pour out before Him-- because He will meet it, when the time is right, with the unfathomable deeps of His Divine Mercy. You just have to wait until the holy tide comes in.]

Authorship traditionally attributed to Jeremiah places the word within a prophet’s theology of covenant discipline.
• The siege conditions explain why any thought of “relief” would appear almost treacherous; the people are called to sustained mourning that matches the magnitude of judgment.
[IS THIS WHY WE HAVE AT LEAST ONE NOUSFONI THAT "CRIES FOREVER"??? Does she FEEL the FULL WEIGHT of our past sins, with such a pure heart that relief truly IS treacherous for her? God bless her if so. We need to learn her name. But... here's a second, connected thought: who is aware of the JUDGMENT? That "eternal mourner" doesn't have that sense in her resonance. Someone else carries it... someone Red, I'm sure. It feels very close to Cannon's essence, to be blunt. She LIVED the judgment, in a way, or at least those in her bloodline did. But... this is key, this is important. The mourning for consequences, for sins, is vital, absolutely... but we ALSO need an equally keen awareness of the DISCIPLINE ITSELF. We need a nousfoni whose role is to partner with the Mourner, even if not directly, for the sake of sober prophetic recognition of the just discipline that CAUSED her weeping. She is a font of emotion, at heart, expressing the bottomless grief that HAS NO WORDS in truth. So those MUST be supplied, even revealed, by someone else. We NEED to have THAT active recognition and expression, too, a "prophetic role" really, in order to truly feel the WEIGHT of the TRUTH of our history, and to TRULY process and learn from and heal from it. We cannot do that if we won't look squarely at the JUDGMENT that DID fall upon us. Such ignorance only runs the real risk of missing the moral lesson God was trying to actually teach us.]

Theological Themes
1. Uninterrupted Repentance: The refusal of respite echoes Joel 2:12–17, where wholehearted, unceasing turning to the Lord is demanded in crisis.
("Truly, the day of the LORD is awesome and very terrifying– who can survive it? Yet even now,” says the LORD, “Turn and come to Me with all your heart in genuine repentance, With fasting and weeping and mourning, until every barrier is removed and the broken fellowship is restored; Rip your heart to pieces in sorrow and contrition, and not your garments.” Now return in repentance to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness, faithful to His covenant with His people; And He relents His sentence of evil when His people genuinely repent.")
("Who knows whether He will relent and revoke your sentence, And leave a blessing behind Him, Even [an abundance of crops so that you CAN offer up] a grain offering and a drink offering-- from the bounty He mercifully provides you-- For the LORD your God?" ..."Perhaps He will change my mind/ reconsider/ and treat you with mercy. He might turn from His wrath and bless you with enough grain and wine FOR offering sacrifices to Him.")
("So blow a trumpet in Zion, warning of impending judgment! Dedicate a fast as a day of restraint and humility, call the entire nation to a solemn assembly. Gather the people, sanctify the congregation... No one is excused or exempt from the assembly. Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, And let them [cry out in heartfelt prayer], “Have compassion and spare Your people, O LORD! [Have pity on us and save us! Do not make Israel, Your inheritance and Your special possession, into an object of disgrace/ reproach/ ridicule! Do not turn us over to be mocked/ despised/ scorned, our very name used as a humiliating byword among the Gentile nations! Why should it be said among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’ Don’t let us become a joke for unbelieving foreigners who laugh and jeer at our sufferings, saying, ‘Has the God of Israel left them?’”)

2. Divine Justice AND Mercy: By suspending relief, the text magnifies the weight of divine wrath while simultaneously implying that true relief lies only in God’s eventual compassion.
[NOTE THE "EVENTUAL". God ALWAYS gives compassion, because He can't NOT; it's His NATURE.]

3. Corporate Solidarity: The imperative is directed to the entire “wall of daughter Zion,” illustrating that national sin requires communal intercession without interruption.
[This feels very System-relevant. We can't "take a day off" in repenting for our sins, OR in "interceding" FOR our broken ones. To neglect that duty of "seeking salvation for the lost" shows that we don't value their souls as we should. Every day, our heart SHOULD mourn for past sins and lingering sins, and should DO something about it, even if all we can do is pray-- which is sometimes the most powerful and effective thing we can do anyway. But the "national" emphasis is very important. It means, for us, that, as parts of a System, everything each of us does affects EVERYONE ELSE IN HERE. So we HAVE to have this mindset, this "all as one" perspective, a sort of spiritual patriotism perhaps? "No man is an island," and no nousfoni is either, in a much more literal sense-- all our hearts and souls ARE connected, intrinsically. So, to KNOW that even ONE of us is living in sin, MUST move ALL the rest of us not only to intercession but to mourning, and righteous anger, and heartfelt zeal for their repentance. We aren't living in that sort of urgency yet, and we need to. Thank You God for this impetus.]

While the specific noun appears only once, its theme resonates:
• Psalm 77:2 is an individual analogue of unrelieved lament– “In the day of my trouble I [desperately] sought the Lord; In the night my hand was stretched out [in prayer] without weariness; My soul refused to be comforted... Lord, You have held my eyelids open [preventing any sleep or rest]; I am so troubled that I cannot speak... Has the Lord rejected me forever? Will He never again be kind to me? Has His steadfast lovingkindness ceased forever? Has His mercy vanished? Has His promise failed, canceled and unfulfilled? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Or has He, in anger, withdrawn His compassion and locked away His tenderness? Then I said, “This is my anguish, my grief, my wound– I am sickened by the thought that the sovereign One might have become inactive, that the power of the Most High is no longer the same... what hurts the most is that He no longer seems to help us; His faithful ways with us seem to have changed." But Then I thought, “To this I will appeal: the years when the Most High stretched out His Right Hand. I will solemnly remember and gratefully declare the great works of the LORD. Yes, with all my heart I will recall and ponder the amazing things You did long ago, and I will tell and testify to others about Your ancient miracles wrought among Your people! I will reflect and muse on all your works; I will thoughtfully consider all your awesome deeds. I will meditate on all Your actions with awe and thanksgiving. They are constantly in my thoughts; I cannot stop thinking about them. Your way, O God, is holy [far from sin and guilt]. Everything you do is right and holy. No 'god' is as great as You– there is none who is great like our God! You alone are the God Who performs miracles, Who works wonders. You have made your strength known among the nations; You have demonstrated Your power among the people. With Your Own mighty arm You redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph... Like a shepherd, you led your people as Your flock. You chose Moses and Aaron to guide them, taking them by the hand, to lead them to the land You promised."
[I posted (and expanded the quotes of) practically this WHOLE PSALM because it is a PERFECT & POWERFUL ILLUSTRATION of the MOVEMENT OF "PRAYER WITHOUT RELIEF"– The refusal of comfort & rest is NOT meant to stay stagnant in moping despondency! The whole POINT of "not taking a break," of NOT seeking relief, is to DRIVE THE HEART INTO DEEPER DEPTHS OF FAITH that would NOT be possible if it kept "coming up for air"!! The abject lack of all consolation effectively forces the lamenting soul into the MOST BRUTAL HONESTY in prayer, because prolonged inner anguish means wounds are OPENED and LEFT wide open– and they are ABLE TO BEGIN HEALING in such a state. Ultimately, inevitably, and most importantly, though, this Psalm shows how even in our most agonizing awareness of judgment and doom, crushed beneath its weight, IF we only USE that to DRIVE US TO GOD and STAY THERE, even if all we're doing is sobbing out our terror that maybe God has abandoned us, the TRUTH is, He HASN'T, and our very NEARNESS to Him THROUGH repentant prayer that REFUSES TO LEAVE & SEEK COMFORT ELSEWHERE– not in some masochistic despair, but in the reverent awareness of such comfort being undeserved and unfitting and actually an obstacle to this opportunity to deepen and fortify the foundations of our faith; the bath of comfort would only douse this refining fire, and truly it is beautiful as it is terrible, just like God– PROVES that Truth in due time, because proximity to God ALWAYS TRANSFORMS & SANCTIFIES & HEALS. Paradoxically, your "pugath" WILL come, FROM God, even IN your tears and sighs and sufferings, whenever they are offered up to Him in sincere and unrelenting prayer, and your will surrendered to His Will with TRUST & GRATITUDE & LOVE. Suffering, especially under just judgment, is meant to RESTORE us to God. So why would we seek "respite" prematurely? Why not humbly accept whatever pain God wisely deigns, for however long it lasts, KNOWING He only does so to CURE us of sin's disease and TEACH us virtue? Why seek "relief" from the very treatment for your spiritual cancer? God has only cast you into this furnace to remove the dross from your soul. He wants to make you into gold. He can't just "take you out for a minute and stick you back in". No, you must remain until the good work is wrought in you, and if you stick it out, it will be. God's salvific purposes never fail, so do not resist them or seek to escape, or He will just have to "start the process again". But He won't give up on you... So don't give up on Him.]
("Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless, and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible, look kindly upon us, and increase Your mercy in us, that in difficult moments, we might not despair, nor become despondent, but with great confidence, submit ourselves to Your Holy Will, which is Love and Mercy itself.")

• Isaiah 62:6–7 “Give Him no rest until He establishes Jerusalem” — watchmen adopt the same posture of relentless prayer.
[...That term still gives us Rorschach vibes. I don't think the Core that loved him ever gave up on him. Maybe one day he will actually anchor into the Outspacer spectrum. If so, I wonder if the Scriptural use of the term-- like this-- will become his true role. Lord knows we do need someone like this.]

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Return to Lamentations 2:18

Heb “day and night.” The expression “day and night” forms a merism which encompasses everything in between two polar opposites: “from dawn to dusk” or “all day and all night long.”
2:18 Heb “the daughter of your eye.” The term “eye” functions as a metonymy for “tears” that are produced by the eyes. Jeremiah exhorts personified Jerusalem to cry out to the Lord day and night without ceasing in repentance and genuine sorrow for its sins.
[...I'm getting major Infinitii, Jay, and Xenophon vibes from these two notes together. That has deep implications, especially for Xennie. She is indeed the "daughter of [Jay's] eye," i.e. of Infi, and therefore, especially since she resonates VIOLET, maybe her "hidden" and even "true" role DOES have to do with tears? Considering her status as a child, too, by "God-intended means," her having a function associated with weeping in sorrowful repentance would be absolutely relevant...]

2:19 The noun (levav, “heart”) functions here as a metonymy of association for the thoughts and emotions in the heart. The Hebrew (levav) includes the mind, so in some cases the translation “heart” implies an inappropriate division between the cognitive and affective. This context is certainly emotionally loaded, but as part of a series of admonitions to address God in prayer, these emotions are inextricably bound with the thoughts of the mind.
[THIS IS SO POWERFULLY RELEVANT TO HEADSPACE, ESPECIALLY FOR THE CORE(S)!! At some point I think we DID make an "inappropriate division" between our thoughts and emotions... maybe we've always had one, and never realized it until now. Actually I think our REAL problem is making a distinction at ALL. Differentiating between thoughts and emotions is something I cannot properly do right now?? How strange. This is a topic we definitely need to both discuss and feel together... and hey, there's a distinction. "Thoughts" means "to talk about," an external action, and "feel" is "emotions," wordless and internal. So when it comes to the Cores, the Hearts of the System, who are ALSO the ones who MUST do the most thinking, or else... HAS there been an unnatural breach here? Funny how I'm asking this AS a Core, or at least, as someone who is assumed to be in that role. But even as it's obvious that I'm thinking, what with all this typing, where is my emotion? Where is the "deeper" function of my heart? AM I "feeling", or am I just being affected by everyone else's feelings? The nousfoni assumed to be Cores have been complaining, or rather mourning, that for YEARS, they have felt "incapable of love." WHY. Is this comment the key? "Emotions are inextricably bound with the thoughts of the mind," NOTABLY in PRAYER? Do we need to change our thoughts in ORDER to experience emotions? Can ONLY GOD DO THIS for us? Are the emotions we "need" to feel (again, or for the first time) "hidden" or "locked away" IN prayer? IS THIS WHY OUR "PRAYER" HAS BEEN SO STILTED AND MECHANICAL??? IT'S ALL "THOUGHT," NO EMOTION---UNLESS WE'RE CRACKED-OPEN AND EXHAUSTED. That's when the thriskefoni get kicked out, because THEY DON'T FEEL. How bizarre. How revelatory. How did we NOT REALIZE THIS. It's WHY we "dislike" and "avoid" the rote prayer rituals, the monotonous ever-repeating cycles that are always "rushed" and "never good enough," prayers that feel more like courtroom recitations than a child talking to its Father. The only thing we do that truly "feels" like prayer is when we're so bloody tired that we can't "pray" all the cards, and we end up just talking to Him IN our tiredness. DOES that count as prayer? It's the only time we ARE giving Him BOTH feeling and thought... I wonder. We really do need to redefine our prayer life, then, without the crushing guilt-fear of omission and neglect. "If we DON'T say all the prayer cards we DON'T REALLY LOVE GOD," the thriskefoni panickedly protest. To them, there is "only ONE right way to pray," and it is by the script. But their hearts are never in it. I've NOTICED that, for example, when Julie is fronting in the bathroom and she pauses of her own will to just read one little prayer card on the wall, she prays it with her heart, because she's NOT trying to "make the qota," she's just worshipping, quietly and momentarily, but truly. She prays as a person, not as a machine. There's a big difference there, between a lover and a laborer, between a friend and a flunky. The only way FOR our heart TO be in prayer is for the SYSTEM to be in prayer, as our prayer, because we ARE our "heart"-- it's not just the Core, although their function is to be the coalescent kernel of it. I want to talk about this more in depth in a journal-- just what exactly it means TO be the Core of the System, the Heart of the Spectrum-- which would, really, BE a Prism, now that I think about it. But their role MUST be held as a WHOLE, a unity of both thought and feeling, of emotion and logic, of cognition and affection. The Core must hold them together in an embrace in their own person... or, perhaps, persons. Maybe Infinitii's death dealt more damage than we realize. There's so much to ponder here. In any case, PRAYER is STILL at the very heart of the heart itself. Without that connection to the Heart of GOD above all, first and foremost, our own will wither and die... and maybe that is what has been happening.]

2:19 "Lifting up the palms or hands" is a metaphor for prayer... Heb “on account of the life of your children.” The noun (nefesh) refers to the “life” of their dying children (e.g., Lam 2:12).
[...more gutpunch relevance, especially with that crossreference, which is to the children starving to death in their mother's arms, and fainting "like wounded warriors" from their devastating hunger.]

2:20 Heb “Look, O Lord! See!” When used in collocation with verbs of cognition, (raʾah) means “to see for oneself” or “to take notice”. The parallelism between seeing and understanding is often emphasized in Scripture. Integral to battered Jerusalem’s appeal, and part of the ancient Near-Eastern lament genre, is the request for God to look at her pain. This should evoke pity regardless of the reason for punishment. The request is not for God to "see" merely that there are misfortunes, as one might [mechanically and detachedly] note items on a checklist. The cognitive (facts) and affective (feelings) are not divided. The plea is for God to watch, think about, and be affected by these facts while listening to the petitioner’s perspective.
[This actually adds a gamechanging layer of meaning to prayers where we plead for Jesus or Mary to "look upon us" and/or "upon our sorrows/ afflictions/ sufferings," notably with "eyes of mercy". Those are prayers of lament in this regard, and we both echo and join with ruined & repentant Jerusalem in her anguish, as her children, even across the ages. I never realized or even knew this, but now it is so powerful, so humbling, and so heartachingly beautiful– because we, now, have seen Jerusalem’s hope fulfilled in Christ, and our laments over our lingering sins carry that truth of eschatological consolation within them. God DOES look upon us, ALWAYS, with PERFECT love and mercy, FROM THE CROSS. He watches us without fail, without obstruction or distraction, and with meticulous fatherly care. He thinks about us in every single moment, from all eternity even, with unwavering focus and wholehearted interest. He is so profoundly affected by our pain and sorrow that He feels it in His Own Heart– not just "with" us, but "WITHIN" us, with no disconnect between our immediate experience and His full participation in it. Jesus is the literal PROOF of this, inasmuch as He us the Incarnate PRACTICE of it. So yes, God DOES notice; God IS looking, and God DOES see, and God DOES understand, even more than we can comprehend... and, yes, He has infinite pity on us, displayed with utmost tenderness in the Face of His Sorrowful Son.]

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https://biblehub.com/hebrew/2949.htm
tippuchim: nursing (for a long span of time), tenderly cared for, born healthy
...portrays the tender wrapping or nurturing of a newborn. The term evokes the sight of an infant securely bound in soft cloths— an emblem of innocence, dependence, and maternal care. Its use highlights both the fragility of early life and the instinctive protection offered by parents.
[Motherhood is still a totally foreign concept to me, something I am piecing together through Scriptural bits of truth like this. I've never seen, not with understanding or perceptive eyes, a mother "caring for an infant." I can technically visually imagine a woman wrapping up a baby like this, but to believe that the woman is doing that as a mother, from a heart-space of tender nurturing love, something profound and deeper than I can fathom-- I cannot wrap my mind around it. The thing is... I wonder if Infinitii can. I don't think any nousfoni ever could; human sexuality is so abjectly horrifying that it REQUIRES a daengel to process whatsoever. The culture I live in, or at least my personal experience within it, also makes that last point difficult-- the "instinctive protection offered by parents." Why does that sound like a novel concept to me? How sad is that? Why does my mind immediately assume that once a baby is born it's already "supposed to fend for itself?" "Don't be so needy," "don't burden me with your problems," "stop leeching off of me," "you're so annoying, let me live my own life," "I don't have time to feed you, I need to eat too," "how stupid you sound, asking to be held! For what reason? Man up and stop being so effeminate!" etc. Isn't that an awful way to think? And yet, that's what's in my head, connected to "babyhood." It's a shameful, detestable mode of existence, something people curl their lips at and scoff, something my... something my grandmother would do, in contempt of our weakness and dependence, when we were children. Why do I remember such things? And our mother always told us to "pull ourselves up by our bootstraps," "get over it," be strong and pushy and loud and angry like her, all hard edges, even when she was trying to be soft she never felt safe, never felt comforting, never felt like someone we could run to and be held. The very thought of my even wanting such a thing fills me with utter shame and guilt. How awful. No wonder I failed (?) at being a parent up here. Or maybe, I was never given the role?? Jay was a wonderful father, until he shattered. Maybe that's why the syskids have "nothing to do with me." Being female-resonant, and with our history and trauma, I am inherently incapable of motherhood, either literally or figuratively. Am I? Am I "supposed to," almost like a destiny, solely because of binary associations, like God has written maternity into the very code of female existence, and if I do not "mother" something, I am not merely a cosmic failure, but in open rebellion against Him? These are the existential fears that haunt me. I cannot solve them now, but at least I can acknowledge them. In any case, we do need to deal with this whole "mother" topic within the System. SOMEONE has to hold it, or many someones, to hold different pieces of it-- the trauma memories, the bad mother mirror, the good mother ideal, the actual mother to the syskids... outspacers might help too. This is a huge effort but it feels strangely vital to our healing in general. Bookmark this topic. Read more about in in Scripture, extensively even, as soon as you can. We really do need to understand this, not only for healing purposes, but also for identity purposes-- our body is female, and so that existential dread is a tangible reality every moment of our life now that the Core Bloodline has shifted into femininity for both religious and trauma reasons. And THAT would be WHY this topic feels so urgent. IT'S THE BIGGEST OBSTACLE TO CORE STABILITY.]

The noun appears once, in Lamentations 2:20, within Jeremiah’s funeral-dirge over Jerusalem: “Look, O LORD, and consider! Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their own children, the infants they have nurtured?" There, the tippuchim– the “infants they have nurtured”– stand as the starkest possible contrast to the horrors of siege-induced cannibalism. The word draws the reader’s focus to tiny lives that ought to be cherished, underscoring the unnatural depth of covenant judgment that has fallen on the city.
[...I haven't given enough thought to the "tiny lives that ought to be cherished" in our System, both the "corekids" AND the paidifoni, because of that mother fear I just discussed. But this... this adds an extra horrible dimension to the reality of the children in the System, because we not only have a history of sexual trauma but also of food trauma... and the kids are, I fear, being strangled by both. I cannot, even for a moment, ponder cannibalism. it's too horrible. I don't think, and hope there isn't, any parallel to that concept in System history. We have the graves, but they weren't consumed. That's a depth of evil we thankfully never sunk to, at least as far as I am aware, and I desperately hope to God that I'm right, even as I beg Him on my knees right now that we never, ever, ever reach that sort of "siege point" in the future.]

Cut off from food and hope in the Babylonian siege, Jerusalem’s inhabitants suffered exactly what the covenant curse forewarned... Jeremiah, eyewitness to the devastation, selects the image of swaddled babies to intensify the lament: those once cradled in safety now become victims of desperation. The breach between Israel and her God is thus painted in the gravest of colors— life meant for nurture is consumed in judgment.
[This hits SCARY HARD. God IS Life AND Love; to betray Him in a MARITAL context of Covenant inevitably means CUTTING ONESELF OFF from BOTH those core attributes of His– which are, notably, exemplified in motherhood. For faithless Jerusalem to be doomed to hunger to the point of eating her own children is a catastrophically literal manifestation of what was happening to their souls??? HOW could a mother eat her own child, even if she was starving? It shows that survival instinct had overpowered maternal instinct– the body had overpowered the spirit; selfish interest had overpowered selfless sacrifice. Those women, by their rebellion against Love Himself, had numbed their capacity TO love. Their souls were starving for God, for innocence and beauty and truth and goodness, and these virtues are reflected in infants, and I wonder if, in their blind and mad desperation, they ate such children to satiate their souls as well as their stomachs. "Cut off" from God by sin, suffering the inevitable curses of infidelity, the very "fruits" of mortal marital joy were being destroyed in the most awful manner– a jarring symbolic reflection of what God's firstborn son, Israel – His beloved daughter, Jerusalem– was letting the devil do to her. The idols he worshipped, the earthly kingdoms she courted, were false parents as well as false lovers. The only "fruit" such "unions" ever bore was either rotten or stillborn. But the evil one did not care– he was only interested in feeding himself, by devouring the lambs of the LORD. Satan is a ravenous lion, a merciless shark, a cunning wolf, who never stops hunting down the helpless little ones to be his next meal. Why does God let this happen? I do not know, other than that He put the power to prevent it in Jerusalem’s own hands. They AGREED to this horror EXPLICITLY, listed as a Covenant curse FOR infidelity to Him, their Husband– Who NEVER WANTED THIS TO HAPPEN, BUT WARNED THAT IT WOULD IF THEY LEFT HIM, WHO IS LIFE AND TENDER LOVE, BECAUSE WITHOUT HIM, WHAT ELSE IS THERE BUT DEATH AND VIOLENT HATE? God IS their Good Shepherd now and forever, BUT if they REFUSE to stay under His protection, and run directly into what He SAID was the predator's den, even after He AND His prophets tried MULTIPLE TIMES to hold them back and pull them out... well, one day, they're going to get bitten. They might even be eaten. That seems to be the extreme yet natural end of sin– consumption, destruction, devouring, not for gratitude and nourishment, but for either passion or poverty. In both wanton gluttony and desperate gorging, food loses its dignity along with the abused body. Sin just wants to swallow things up for its own benefit, either literally or figuratively– and in this siege brought on as the direct consequence of such arrogant behavior, Jerusalem is forced to enter into sin's own way of "living"... a lifestyle in direct spite of Life Himself, Who sin rejects utterly. What else would such a hellish mindset do with babies? They are a "burden," an "annoyance," a "curse," a "parasite"– profitless, expensive, exhausting, utterly "useless" and "of no benefit" to anyone, especially not the mother... except as food. And THAT is the HORRIBLE yet inevitable end of ALL persistent sin, of ALL idolatrous "marriages," as faithless Jerusalem has doomed herself to learn firsthand– when God is forgotten, and Self rules in His place, then love dies, life itself loses its value, and everyone else is just prey.]
[An equally awful thought = its like Van Gogh and the yellow paint. I get this exact way when I'm deeply depressed to the point of desperate distress; my immediate instinct is to BOTH vomit and overeat– to get rid of the poisonous feelings inside me, and to take in something good and pure and clean and right, because in my sinful condition, I LACK ALL OF IT. Truly the only REAL way to "get" such virtue is through God, by repentant outpouring of the heart in prayer & receiving grace in His time & on His terms, NOT by the demanding & forceful self-indulgence of stuffing my stupid face even with objectively healthy food. It's still a forn of idolatry. I'm still not going to God first & foremost & finally. My soul is still starving. Nothing will ease this screaming sobbing hunger except the Bread of Life Himself.]

LOTOPHAGOI that we remember (most are M.I.A.) =

● EMMETT = green food ONLY, esp. lettuce & spinach; cilantro?? typically LEAFY greens; PURGED what WASN'T green
● AIMEE? = fed Emmett, ate what "wasn't green" in HIS food? ↑
● FIG = sweet fruits? specifically figs
● that one girl with the cornflakes & vanilla soymilk
● ZUCCH? = bingeing on zucchini squash
● AXIS = mushrooms; prevented garbage eating
● COCO & NILLA? = chocolate/ vanilla "child desserts"; cookies, ice cream? "LIGHT BROWN"/ "powder" chocolate flavor (cocoa); NOT CANDY
● CAKE? = cake desserts, esp. vanilla/ yellow base (NO chocolate)
● CAYENNE? = spicy food & seafood in CNC; "dare you to eat it" + "entertain/ prove" in RISK context (esp. ALLERGY threat + pain)
● CHOCOLOCO? = coffee & dark chocolate, any "real" or "rich" chocolate? also PREVENTS eating it
● "THE BOAR?" = pork, ham, bacon; "SELF-OFFERING"
● the "CHUGON" and/or "blue dragon"?
● (TAUREIA & others were BINGERS in general.)
● (MOST daengels DID have some sort of food associations due to their inherent splanchnivorosity.)

Oh my gosh we DON'T HAVE PEOPLE. THAT'S WHY WE COULDN'T FOCUS/ INTEGRATE HEALING ATTEMPT DATA.
So we need to POST JOB OPENINGS, and they MUST BE SPECIFIC! AND tied to foods that CONSISTENTLY cause distress/ keep reverting/ resist healing/ trigger aversion/ are inexplicably disliked/ seen as "bad."

✳ BLUEBERRY flavor, ESP. "dried"
✳ APPLE flavor, ESP. apple cinnamon
✳ STRAWBERRY flavor (allergy, sex, filth)
✳ CRANBERRY (acid, mom, filth, binge)
✳ MANGO (jade, mess, binge, sex)
✳ PINEAPPLE (allergy, SLC, sex)
✳ RAISINS (bloodsugar, purging, filth, binge)
✳ BANANA (bloodsugar, sex, jade, animal)
✳ COCONUT (sex, vomit, tropics)
✳ PEACH (sex, CNC, rot)
✳ PEAR (sex, hell, bloodsugar, purge)
✳ PLUM (acid, mess, sex)
✳ PERSIMMON (allergy, bezoars)
✳ NECTARINE (mess, summer)
✳ DRAGONFRUIT (jade)
✳ PAPAYA (sex, bugs, jade, rot)
✳ MELONS (sex, rot, poison)
✳ POMEGRANATE (sex, mess, jade, hell, rot, trypophobia)
✳ DATES (sex, jade, bloodsugar, binge, allergy)
✳ LEMON (acid, CNC, SLC, rot)
✳ ORANGE (acid, mess, sex, binge)
✳ CORN? ESP. popcorn? (allergy, CNC, child, binge)
✳ SEAFOOD, ONCE WE DO ORAL ALLERGY TESTING? (they will be VITAL because of intimate associations)
✳ JUICE IN GENERAL?? (disturbing: drink = sex?? bloodsugar) (ALSO compounded by other fruit fears)
✳ CRACKERS? (family shame, mess, bugs, filth)
✳ SANDWICHES? (mess, binge)
✳ BREADED/ FRIED? (unhealthy, sick, CNC)
✳ POTATO, esp. BAKED? (bloodsugar, starch, allergy, UPMC)
✳ NOODLES (bloodsugar, sex, starch, phobia)
✳ TURNIPS/ PARSNIPS? (allergy, starch, mom)
✳ PUMPKIN? (allergy, halloween, SLC)
✳ BBQ, esp. "SMOKE" (hell, SLC, CNC)

✹ WE'LL NEED A WHOLE CLASS OF LOTOPHAGOI JUST FOR FRUIT!!!
EVEN BETTER, WE SHOULD COLLABORATE WITH THE LEAGUE ON THIS EFFORT!!!
(THIS NEW ERA MUST ALLOW FOR SUCH COMMUNICATION IF OUR HEART & MIND ARE TO TRULY HARMONIZE INTO AN INTEGRAL COOPERATIVE WHOLE/ FAMILY)

✳ WHY ARE SO MANY FRUITS SEEN AS "THREATENING"? IS THERE TRAUMA? OR JUST DISTURBANCE HISTORY? (THE SHEER AMOUNT OF ASSOCIATIONS WITH "SEX" IS DISTURBING ENOUGH) An relatedly, WHY are we TERRIFIED of the thought of "BLOOD SUGAR SPIKES"?? Does that fear extend to SUGAR in general? Is it particular to form/ presentation, or globalized to concept?
✳ It's partly BOTH because it ALSO extends to CARBS which is WHY we went keto for so long!! HOW DID THIS FEAR START?? WHEN? INVESTIGATE THIS! (Also, check ARCHIVES to see if there's ANY chronological data as to WHEN we stopped eating carbs & sugar; post-2008?)

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✳ Headspace meditation in bed; feeling out COLORS in relation to FOOD in respect to the LOTOPHAGOI. We were weirdly MORE STABLE/ CONSCIOUS on SOME VITAL LEVEL when we ate AS A SYSTEM?? I think it's because the FOCUSED & SPECIFIC FUNCTIONS made experiences CLEARER & helped data MAKE SENSE, BY KEEPING IT "DISCRIMINATED"? Isolating particulars to PEOPLE prevented the "identity blur" caused by SENSORY INPUT OVERWHELM that is "EVERYTHING AT ONCE" and ultimately results in NUMBNESS due to BURNOUT, like a blown circuitboard. This ALSO exacerbates MEMORY LOSS & DISSOCIATION, and it takes SIGNIFICANT quiet/ solitary time UPSTAIRS to recover... where we CAN process/ sort things out TOGETHER.

✳ We NEED Lotophagoi FOR FEAR/ CHALLENGE/ AVERSE FOODS/ FLAVORS, so that they can be ADDRESSED AS PARTICULARS AND ALLOW FOR DIALOGUE!! These associations MUST BE TIED TO COLOR or they WON'T WORK (DISSONANCE)!!! And it CAN'T BE FORCED. Seeds CAN be planted & job offers posted, so to speak, but GOD GIVES THE LIFE. Just like no human can design the child they must be open to conceive, BOTH the conception & formation BELONG TO GOD. He just works WITH & IN us.
✳ First "search" (need jargon) = BLUEBERRY. It's an INDIGO resonance so I went to that realm. It's actually beautiful. Blueberry bushes GROW in the SNOW, but they're all SILVER with glossy WHITE leaves? And the berries are big & look like gems, it's so gorgeous. I got the strong impression that they taste DIFFERENT from "SUMMER" blueberries? which WOULDN'T PING INDIGO!!
✳ There IS a NASCENT LOTOPHAGOI for indigo/ blueberry? I saw her; she's young, like maybe 14 tops. She has ivorywhite skin like the leaves, indigo hair done up in 2 back buns oblong & big like blueberries, with some accent strands but I couldn't see clear, & I didn't "see" her face or front at all. She's wearing an indigo & silverywhite dress, the white notably being lacy like frost? Very elegant. She was at the edge of the blueberry winter woods, which lets out by that famous stone bridge. There's no name resonance whatsoever yet; she's too new & ethereal. She needs to ANCHOR into her directed function first, which will require further mindful exposure TO her resonance, which as a potential lotophagoi, IS the blueberry flavor. SHE will be the one TO eat them, so LOOK FOR HER & help CONNECT her to them whenever they are given to us! (And START FEELING FOR A NAME RESONANCE!)

Transportation failure
Phone calls

Mass online. New church!
Homily about "fickleness of faith"; getting tripped up by temptations & desires, "double minded" really. This vacullation versus stability of martyrs: focused on Jesus, devoted to Gospel, DEDICATED UNTO DEATH.
"Are we fickle when it comes to our baptismal commitment, to our living out the Christian commandments, or are we more like a martyr? Being consistent, making Jesus Lord of our lives, Not just When it is opportune it works out it feels good, but even in the most challenging of times. Let us pray that we may continue to know God's will and live God's will each and every day."
Lovely music. Couldn't tell if it was live or not at first because it was so well orchestrated, but then the male singer's voice cracked twice and it was so endearingly human, honestly I loved it even more for that.
(find it and link it here. i want to remember it.)

Phone appointment
Breached trauma topic at last

Daily book devotionals
STILL TERRIFIED OF MATRIMONY METAPHOR.
Lord please I NEED to work through this because it's SEPARATING ME FROM JESUS.
...
Thank you letter comparison with Psalms, very sweet & thought provoking.

VOTD Craig Groeschel!!!!! Fave dude
HOLY GRIEF. (PENTHOS!!!!!)
Quote the reflection because DANG
...and yet, I don't grieve enough.
My tears feel shallow. My chest feels hollow. My heart feels empty. It's that old "scraped-out" sensation, awful and bereft, like someone took a dirty spoon and just carved out my insides like a gourd. Nothing is left but the hard rind.
...I wonder if this means more than I ever realized. I legit feel the Holy Spirit winking at me.
I keep saying "I need to get my fire back." I've been frozen for so long. Maybe that's what God has scooped out so totally-- maybe all my guts were iced. Maybe it all HAD to go. But then... what? I'm no longer a consumable object. Oh my gosh. There's nothing in me to rip out & eat anymore. I'm emptied out. But I'm not useless. Now, God can reach in, right down through where He's knifed me through, in a perfect circle plunging deep, like a halo or a laurel wreath... and He can place His candle in me.
... I need to think about this more later, when it's not breakfast. God give me the grace to hear & listen & understand & accept & WRITE IT DOWN.

...but, man. I have a TWISTED VIEW of "comfort."
Please reread 2 Corinthians 1. My definition is all wrong. My heart has gotten so hard & cold; honestly at this point I think it's even studded with spikes. It's vaulted against all invasion, all touch, all closeness. It's armed for defense & repellant, and despite all those protective efforts, it's dying. It has forgotten it is a heart.
How did we get this bad? When? God, what do we do now? What first step do we take? Should we be careful, or should we just take a sledgehammer to it?
...

SPEAKING OF HEARTS & WEAPONS
Bizarre visual during therapy. On evil porch. Infi AS INFIDHELL. huge, horrible, all teeth.
I was there floating above, AS "ME"???? body mirror BLACK RESONATING form. Solemnly reached INTO CHEST to get sword-- as all Cores do-- BUT it came out like a twisted black metal sword COVERED IN BLOOD. And I stabbed "Infi" down through the skull, impaling "TBAS" below as well, with that nightmare grin frozen on their face.
I realized Jay couldn't do this, OR Jewel. Jay can't attack Infi AND the WHITE Core Sword-- which is crystalline-- CANNOT BE USED SO BRUTALLY. Same with Jewel, resonating at heart RED, she is for battle but NOT death? But... I pulled out a BLACK sword. And it is MEANT to deal out death-- but GRAVELY. It is NOT for battle. It is for EXECUTION.

...
BTW the scent of that "peppermint bark" lip balm from the hospital pings Jay SO HARD. It is absolutely his vibe.
He's so pure, so good and shining and softhearted. But that is also what killed him. He couldn't see the shadows as shadows. He loved the things in the velvet dark. He shone so brightly that he couldn't admit he was capable of being blinded by that very light. He didn't rot, he didn't even calcify really-- he got bleached out. Like a skeleton on the beach, he was stripped bare and left to crumble into dust.

...

Okay I NEEDED this kids devotional I actually laughed out loud=
https://www.bible.com/en/videos/42466?orientation=portrait&utm_content=story_clip&utm_medium=share&utm_source=yvapp
Darn good challenge too. That is, scarily and surprisingly, something we struggle with VERY much. We're afraid to speak up for Jesus because we feel we CAN'T speak of Him properly. CNC showed us both our foolish pride, and our utter ignorance. We didn't know God at ALL. So... we still hesitate to talk about Him. DO we know Him even now? It's our biggest fear.
But darn it we HAVE TO TRY. Its not about relying on our own stupid knowledge. We're always gonna come up short. What we NEED to do is TRUST THE HOLY SPIRIT TO GUIDE US and then COURAGEOUSLY SURRENDER TO THAT GUIDANCE. Believe me, when you let HIM work through you, WITH LOVE, then you CAN speak rightly about God-- because GOD IS LOVE and without that basic foundation behind your words you're SUNK!!!
And you DO love God. We all do and you KNOW IT. Be brave for the sake of that love. Be humble in your human weakness but confident in God's mission & grace, and so go forth and fight the good fight of loving faith & faithful love with the sword GOD gave you-- His WORD!! Remember, YOU'RE not the light-- CHRIST IS. Your words aren't what matters here; HIS ARE. And THAT sure foundation is where you can stand steadfast against any verbal storms.
Sorry I'm rambling. But please, don't bite your tongue when you have a chance to mention God, even just in passing. Be a witness. Be a martyr of the heart. Say you know Him.

...
Fasted by not putting extra salt on the eggs, because it's the Ember Days. It was amusingly difficult, haha. But that's good, that made it a real sacrifice.
We can't fast much else otherwise, as we're already a vegetarian eating 1.5 meals a day at ~1200K. Our priest told us flat-out not to lean anorexic with this because boy howdy despite all our petty whining last night we ARE VERY TEMPTED to restrict to extremes for proud "look how much I can torture my body" bottom line ascetism. It's not about giving up for love, in that mindset-- it becomes instead about cutting out for spite, or beating up for hate.
Plus the Lord knows that our mental health plummets the more we neglect the body-- which we like to do more than is healthy, again from a spiritually sick standpoint of body refusal & loathing, which DOES go against the sanctity & destined Resurrection of the body in Catholic doctrine which we NEVER LEARNED until we accidentally stumbled across it recently-- and when we get that bad, prayer & service become very muffled & tainted. So we do need to eat.
It's admittedly hard, though. We don't like feeling like we're a coward, or a milquetoast. We WANT to be strong & suffer more. But that's PRIDE yet. It's just the misogynistic vanity finding another outlet. We have to be honest about our ugliest faults; only once we have named their specie and looked them dead in the face can we properly plunge a sword through their jaws.

CONCERNING LAZARUS'S GRAVE-STONE=
"What is now shewn as the sepulchre of Lazarus is an excavation in the ground with steps down to it. The stone would keep out beasts of prey."
IS THAT WHAT WE DID TO OUR HEART???

Went into "heart Cathedral" during prayer. I forget what inspired it. BUT WE HAVENT BEEN ABLE TO GO THERE IN YEARS!!!!!!
AND IT HAS CHANGED.
it is now BLACK and GOTHIC looking architecture. Smoky stone black, not inky or painted, but like those old ancient churches in Europe with the stone darkened by decades of candles... and our Cathedral is FULL of red candles. Little ones in dozens of rows, like we love.
We can't see the stained glass yet.
The place is so quiet, and feels smaller than the original WHITE Cathedral, the one tied to the Jays (NOT the Lotus Cathedral-- that was DIFFERENT remember!!!!)
But GEEZ. WOW.
GO BACK THERE IN A MEDITATION ASAP. WE HAVEN'T HAD A GOOD SOULDIVE ADVENTURE IN AGES. IF WE CAN SEE THE CATHEDRAL, IT'S TIME. THIS IS A LITERAL MILESTONE. IT COULD BE A HINGE. DON'T LET THIS GO UNEMBRACED.

...

FINALLY watched Porco Rosso tonight
WE DIDNT EXPECT IT TO BE THIS GOOD, OH MAN
Forgive me, honestly. It was such a touching film. Beautiful.

Chaos 0 and I suddenly so in love after. Around 1230am so no surprise there but... I miss this. Quiet and unexpected but so real and deep.

Nervous about tomorrow schedule. Gotta just put it in God's hands. Daily Mass FINALLY returns on Friday. Get some sleep before then kiddo

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(faithpasting tonight was an actual spiritual experience. read it here.)

0701

"I" CAN'T EAT WITH WHITE OR RED HUE
HAS TO BECOME BROWN OR BLACK!!!

So much switching while eating = based on action taken & mood of it?? Different "manners" of eating, different jobs on phone, etc.
ALL CAUSE A HARD DISSOCIATIVE SWITCH!!! and a consequent headache for the record
- Tumblr posting
- picking apart food
- biting pieces off
ALL of these actions TRIGGER out different girl corpufoni??? all with very disheveled & negative vibes

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0702

Scalpel now feeling ragesorrow when fronting, like Knife was
Wondering if this is all being split off from LAURIE in some way??

Laurie “enabling” bad behavior, just letting foni do things even if they seem unwise, COMPLETE CORRUPTION OF HER FUNCTION. Wondering why?
Because she’s supposed to TALK IT OUT. She’s supposed to DEBATE AND REASON, and with that suddenly being TAKEN from us, in order to SURVIVE, her function is “skipping a step” and just letting things occur that SHOULD be questioned because she’s not “ALLOWED” to question currently.
She is losing all her honor, integrity, wisdom, fortitude, etc. she is dying.

Laurie wondering if she “needs to die” because she thinks she “came back wrong” after cnc.
Honestly I think we all did. It wasn’t a real solid resurrection; it was a gradual, feeble “coalescing” into shadows of our former selves.
We need a HARD REBOOT so that we come back COMPLETE.

jo IS reviving???? name change. "yosifina" or something. definitely an i or y beginning, not j.

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0710

John 6 discourse makes SO much easy sense when you ask, just like a psychologist, "what is your heart hungry for? How can you feed your soul today?" And those instinctive, literally visceral responses APPLY TO CHRIST. THAT'S what He means by "you must EAT Me." You're feeding your HEART & SOUL with Him! It's like how you would "eat" music (I have a playlist for that), or devour a book, or drink in a beautiful landscape. You get the idea!
BUT the faith that enables this ALSO allows for the next huge step in the Eucharist: the ACTUAL physical "eating" of Christ, more of a "consuming & being consumed," a mutual Communion, a fusion of selves, etc. Think Infi. Think cardiophagy. There is an even DEEPER and more sacred hunger, that TOUCHES & SANCTIFIES THE PHYSICAL, that Christ meets.
Humankind was CREATED TO BE UNITED TO GOD. The Fall wrecked this for a time. Christ comes as the Tree of Life to FIX & RESTORE us. THAT is why He gives His flesh as bread: because it's the ONLY WAY to LITERALLY GET DIVINITY BACK INTO OUR PHYSICAL BODIES. We're actually SUPPOSED to eat God. It's absolutely insane & gorgeous & Ineffable, I love being Catholic
It's also shockingly obvious: how does a mother feed her children? SAME THING.

Think like a child & it's all apparent.
What is eating? It's taking something into yourself so you can stay alive, and it will make you strong & help you grow.
"Food is fuel"; food comes from other living things, either plants or animals. Their life is given up & becomes part of our life.
Etc. CONTINUE

"only believe, and thou hast eaten; " reflect on what this says ABOUT the nature of belief
ALSO "eat His body in a spiritual manner" = think of the basic concept of ANCHOR PLUSHES. Substance vs accidents. This is spiritual vs physical BUT ALSO BOTH.
"If you with to enter into the spirit of my words, raise your hearts to a more elevated and spiritual way of understanding them" = if you only think of this as regular food, as normal eating, you MISS THE ENTIRE TRUTH. The Capernaum folks couldn't get their minds off the manna & bread, so they were blind to the actual point. Their understanding was stuck on the CARNAL level... like being stuck in SOCIAL MODE.
"The flesh profiteth nothing" WITHOUT SPIRIT INSIDE IT. But the spirit does not destroy the body, otherwise the Incarnation wouldn't have happened! The really beautiful thing is the SANCTIFICATION of it!
"I live by the Father, proceeding always from him" = a CONTINUED action; so too must be our eating & be-ing as a result; UNITED EXISTENCE; symbiotic?? Indivisible
""so [too is] he that eateth me," = first by faith only, by believing in me;" = if you have no faith in His Divinity you cannot receive it, BECAUSE you won't come to Him FOR it!!! Without faith you are treating the Sacrament with GRAVE IRREVERENCE. Saint Paul warned about this. You can still eat it "as bread," sure, but without faith it's a ghastly sin, for obvious reasons. Ask any lotophagoi.

"God is said to draw them to himself by special and effectual graces, yet without any force or necessity, without prejudice to the liberty of their free-will. A man, says St. Augustine, is said to be drawn by his joys, and by what he loves... We are drawn to the Father by some secret joy, delight, or love, which brings us to the Father. "Believe and you come to the Father," says St. Augustine, "Love, and you are drawn... [many] could not believe, because they would not love" ???
TYPE ABOUT THIS.
WHAT do we love? What do we enjoy & find happiness in? THAT IS WHAT POTENTIALLY DRAWS US TO GOD????
Use this for EVANGELIZATION

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0713

90M INTAKE, SYSTEM ONLINE BUT STANDING ASIDE??? Very peculiar, unmistakable feeling
WRECKAGE SPOKE!!!!
We think the main social fronter, that talks, is actually JAYCE??? It's NOT Jack!!

Roadwork meditation trees

Home, exhausted
More jobs & requests from mom. Refusing to complain or grumble. Accepting it all with open mind & heart

Barry murdered ONE bottle

"Dump truck mindset" culture
Julie lamenting over Potiphar's wife; "I was just as capable of that"

Jesus as Mediator is SO DIFFERENT from other religions because it SERVES A RELATIONSHIP.
Other faiths have worship, or self-deification. Christianity is the ONLY one that brings us TO GOD, BY GOD, to be WITH GOD. There is a PERSONAL, INTIMATE, FAMILIAR LOVE that is unique to our faith.

SYSTEM RELEVANCE (ESPECIALLY LAURIE; THIS IS HER TRUE FUNCTION & PAST STRUGGLE)=

"The scribes and the Pharisees were the legal experts of the day; to them problems were taken for decision. It is clear that to them authority was characteristically critical, censorious and condemnatory. That authority should be based on sympathy, that its aim should be to reclaim the criminal and the sinner, never entered their heads. They conceived of their function as giving them the right to stand over others like grim invigilators, to watch for every mistake and every deviation from the law, and to descend on them with savage and unforgiving punishment; they never dreamed that it might lay upon them the obligation to cure the wrongdoer.
There are still those who regard a position of authority as giving them the right to condemn and the duty to punish. They think that such authority as they have has given them the right to be moral watch-dogs trained to tear the sinner to pieces; but all true authority is founded on sympathy... The first duty of authority is to try to understand the force of the temptations which drove the sinner to sin and the seductiveness of the circumstances in which sin became so attractive. No man can pass judgment on another unless he at least tries to understand what the other has come through. The second duty of authority is to seek to reclaim the wrongdoer. Any authority which is solely concerned with punishment is wrong; any authority, which, in its exercise, drives a wrongdoer either to despair or to resentment, is a failure. The function of authority is not to banish the sinner from all decent society, still less to wipe him out; it is to make him into a good man. The man set in authority must be like a wise physician; his one desire must be to heal."

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0716

Cayenne = can he come back If his anchor remains?
Would also take the "automated name" off poor Scalpel
Did ALL Daengels have TRUE hearthosts like Infi or did they just STICK to resonant hearts???
After all CHOCOLOCO defied that assumption and is STILL AROUND.
Remember Axis too, w the homily on dirt

Laurie: "Saying you like prog rock is your own brand of pretentious assholery. I advise you to quit now, before your brain makes receptors for it"

Said Vespers together
Wreckage & Razor magnificat

Fire alarm, looking through old Moralimon tablets as usual
G2 was HEAVEN
Still love the Seers so much

Scalpel "we're being cheapened" = doing generic daily stuff IN PLACE OF actual anchors. Hence the anger & sadness. It's LOSS, of purpose in action, being shoved into a lesser, unfulfilling, unrelated "job" that cheats their spirit.
INNER NOUSFONI SHOULD NEVER BE DOING OUTSIDE JOBS!!!!!!

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0730
dream notes
In dream
Wind, flying. Whitefog fading out in distance
Women forcing pregnancy talk. Melody with us? Acting Childlike. In stupor?
On porch with bro? Lady sweetalking, trying to get info?
Came to us. Grabbed shoulders? IMMEDIATELY started screaming crying for help like a tiny child. JUST AS FAST, WRECKAGE TOOK OVER. Turned on the woman with all claws & rage. Told her "get your fcking hands off of my children"

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0731

Nightmares about mom
Dismantled Christmas tree, "i thought i was doing you a favor"
WRECKAGE & LAURIE FRONTING IN DREAM
SOMEONE Growling & hissing at white toybreed dog that got into our apartment?? THEN Wreckage took over? Blurry. Immediate snarling response felt like someone else, faceless & confronting maybe. But we KNOW such a foni exists in waking. That instinct is STILL THERE. Wreckage shares it, but not so animalistic. Wreckage will growl as a threat, but NEVER this loud cat-like hissing!! CHILDHOOD "SELF" DID THAT TOO REMEMBER!!!!

Up at 1111, got ready for TV church SUPER fast haha
Two Canadian churches? Second was St Clare with the COLORED LIGHTS!
Homily: God works His Victory through APPARENT FAILURES! Cross, golden calf, also the MUSTARD TREE & YEAST??? Parallel we never noticed! "Would have shocked the audience" "no farmer wants a mustard tree in the middle of his field; no housewife wants her bread dough to start fermenting" AND YET, God works GOOD from it.
https://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1015-87582013000200014 READ THIS BRO
Second homily: crisis reveals character (crisis reveals Christ-is)! Be willing to "drop everything" to be a messenger of God's Love to others. Laurie saying "kid that's what you've been doing lately, by grace" TRUE, humbly & joyfully, may God increase that grace for His sake
Spiritual Communion. We needed this actually; it sinks in deeper & hits harder. We LACK FAITH??? Not just in Christ, in EVERYTHING. Somehow, since CNC we have become DEAD IN DOUBT & DISBELIEF, based on SHAME & CYNICISM????? WHY & HOW??? THIS ISN'T US!!!
Deep down KNOWING we believe but as an ACT OF WILL. No emotions. Does that still count? Feels like we're at war.
Asking for God to "set my heart on fire" = looked at the RING!! "Just like that"

Rosary now. Want to do this with biking before we eat.
We're back to listening to music and looking at the photo gallery while we say the rosary. It helps SO much; it makes it feel more real and genuine, more personally involved & NOT automated.

Egg trouble, had to toss & redo. Hidden blessing though.
AMAZING devotionals today.
1. Mustard seed growth ACTIONS, good AND bad
2. Call to faith & vocation DOES have dry & dark periods
3. Fast & pray IN LOVE for YOUR "ENEMIES" like Moses did

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Little heartspace event last night: walking in snow with Barry, Mimic, Phlegmoni, Scalpel, and almost Galadia (she was late). Biblically accurate snow angels joke
Hearing them TALK. Phleg's voice so unclear, Barry's clear as a bell, MIMIC clear too??? Shocked me. His exact tone apparent.
Remember looking at Scalpel's face, echoes of Javier; afraid of retroactive blurring

Infinitii is my "THORN" to teach me HUMILITY & MERCY!! (READ THAT BOOK!!!)
THIS is the TRUE function of Daengels; their species MAY need a name change to reference this

So much pain. Wondering if its how we sleep.
Constant nightmares now btw. Ghadius give me a break. Ironically this is making me miss Ventrium again. So strange how we get hit by "intangible grief"; the emotions are cut off from the knowledge of great loss, but their absence is conspicuous.
Nightmares about rape, vomiting, forcefeeding, bathrooms, slavery, medical experimentation, homelessness, dehumanization in general. Why.

...

Fibromyalgia SO BAD at church.
We didn't realize how many weird symptoms this had until we looked it up last night; it explained a LOT.
Apparently thermoregulation problems are a thing. Same with the brain fog, intense fatigue & achy joints, PAINFUL light touches, hypersensitivity to smells & sounds, and muscle spasms. YEAH, THAT'S ALL FIBRO.

Got so dark outside the windows were nearly black
SOAKED haha. Had to walk through a veritable river to get to my car, up to our ankles
Drenched by the time we got home; Took this as divine permission to do laundry

Barry & Mimic are officially bros at this point, even if Mimic is still constantly annoyed by Barry's amusingly airheaded antics. I can feel/see the shift though; it's become a benign begrudgement, haha.

Scalpel trying to be more calm about the spicing. Paying attention we noticed an "INDISCRIMINATE" lotophagoi girl is responsible?? Like she's not tied to any specific food, but to the motivation of "we have to add more" or "it's not enough"??? Anxiety drive but weirdly "blurry eyed," like she's depersonalized? Trauma compulsion feeling. DIFFERENT from the girl saying "we have to finish this," "we can't put that back" etc. Her motive is INTENSE ANXIETY bordering on panic, and she's wide awake. Spicing girl feels almost sedated, or otherwise high. Hmmm.

Knife hit by anger when half-fronting & talking to Laurie; social dialogue programming kept getting shoved at him.
He said the anger is a result of social interference; its a LOSS OF SELF.
Leon felt this too, straight-up backed way off from the front because the front was trying to "redefine him," which notably was ALSO pushing him BLUE!!!
Laurie said we need someone in the blue slot so that Leon can't get shoved into it? It won't be "vacant." Waldorf asked why didn't she count? Laurie said she felt SAPPHIRE?? But a MIDslot, like Vermilion? Would make sense if her true role is to be that bridge.

...

Mom phone call, might have to pick up jade at 10pm
Triggered compulsive complainer social. WHY. Why do we have to be dramatic about everything? Why can't we just say "oh yeah, sure, I'll do it!" because that's what we ACTUALLY want to say! But no, these automated & unwilling complaints happen instead. WHY.

Callback, don't have to go. But suppressing inexplicable tears & complaining AGAIN because we had literally just sat down to eat when the phone rang again, almost exactly an hour after the first one.
We're wrecked. We're so exhausted. It feels like there are no breaks, no rests, ever. We're so tired we can barely think.
Oh well. At least all the extra chores & errands are done for today. Everything left is either routine cleanup or prayer. That'll still take about 90m minimum, and we need to sleep tonight or tomorrow's busy schedule will wreck us even further.
God if we don't do this as a System we'll die. Please. Help us to live as US.

VoTD is ROMANS 8:18 SON!!!

"SEASONS" are "TIMES OF SOWING & REAPING"!!

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

Saint Augustine is killing me:

"Do not think that thou art drawn unwillingly: the mind is drawn also by love... it is too small a thing to be drawn by the will, thou art drawn by love also..."
"It is not necessity, but love which draws. It is not obligation, but delight. With how much greater force ought we to say that man is drawn to Christ who delights in the truth, who delights in blessedness, in justice, who delights in life everlasting, which is altogether Christ."
"Show me a lover; he feels what I say. Show me one who desires, who is hungry, one who wanders in the wilderness, and is thirsty, who sighs for the fountains of the eternal country; show me such a one, he knows what I say. But if I speak to one whose heart is cold, he knows not what I say."
"He said not, He will lead, but He will draw. That violence is done not to the flesh, but to the heart. Wherefore then dost thou marvel? Believe, and thou comest; love, and thou art drawn. Do not suppose that violence is rough and troublesome: it is sweet and pleasant, the very sweetness draws thee. Is not a hungry sheep drawn to the green grass? And I think it is not impelled by the body, but drawn by desire. So also do thou come to Christ; do not contemplate a long journey. Where thou believest, thither thou comest. For to Him who is everywhere, we come by loving, not by journeying."

SERIOUSLY.
That is a STRAIGHT SHOT at not just me but ALSO LAURIE & INFI.

Lapide similarly, on the vital concepts of "holy violence" and "drawn by love" both:
"The drawing then of God signifies the force and efficacy of grace. This drawing is sweet and mild, not compelling the free-will, but alluring, soothing, leading it to believe. It also signifies man’s weakness, and vicious desires, which are repugnant to Christian faith and holiness, so that a man needs not so much to be led as dragged by the vehement impulse of God’s grace to Christian faith and virtue This is what Christ saith (Matt. xi. 12), “The kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent seize it.” For the drunkard ought to do violence to his gullet, the unclean to his lust, the avaricious to his avarice, the ambitious man to his ambition."

I have exactly ten minutes before I need to sleep but I cannot be ignoring headspace anymore.

Infi died last night.

...

On Friday morning-- I think? it happened so fast-- we had a traumatic dream hack, but it didn't target me... it used Infi.
Ze couldn't cope. Ze hasn't gotten over CNC and honestly at this point I was thinking ze never would, with how Black's terrible softness holds everything forever, and wounds don't heal in that space; a gash in that velvet dark bleeds eternally.

There was some sort of headspace event, as we got ready for church (the first 40m or so after we wake up, it is virtually impossible to front; the mind is so dissociated and blurry that we don't have a solid sense of self, let alone the ability to have a conscious person grab the nebulous steering wheel)-- we were IN the bodyspace, in what looked like the same "ribspace" we had been in years ago, when Infi fell to the bottom of the lavatubes with all the beetles, and I had to carry hir out. Ze was in my arms again, now. I forget why, God I forget why--

The next thing I remember was being in blackspace, holding a lightblade, and cutting the whitewomb out of Infi as I wept. It felt so wrong-- not the action, but that part of hir. It felt like an infestation-- like EXACTLY how our traumatized psyche defines such a thing in meatspace, no exceptions.
It felt so wrong. I'm shivering in disgusted horror just remembering the fragments. Infinitii insisted I remove it, remember. I refused at least two times. Ze said I must, if I don't get it out ze will try to rip it out hirself, or die rather than have that in hir anymore.
This was all a response to the hack. Ze could not live with the reality of it. The worst part is I didn't blame hir.

When I first plunged the blade in the sphere turned almost opaque, like it cracked wrong, it lost its translucent bubble look and became something diseased, something plasticine and pliable instead of glassy crystal. I was trying to cut it out and Infi TURNED OFF ALL HIR MOUTHS because otherwise ze would be screaming in pain. I knew. But ze would rather endure this than the alternative.

I remember the sphere splitting open at the top all of a sudden and I wanted to vomit from the kneejerk horror of it. I jabbed the blade in behind it and tried to gore it out immediately but suddenly the sphere moved on its own??? like it was an ENTITY. slithered out like hexxus, same horrible sticky-tar movement, but white. it was PLAGUED. it had that same stupid awful mouth and no eyes and those vestigial arms, trying to run away from me, but i was furious for some reason and I can't recall what i did. i just lost it. i think i set it on fire, or stabbed it to death, or burned it with light energy, or all three. i don't know. all i know is that i felt actual hatred seeing that thing crawl out of infi's abdomen and i wanted to kill it.

something very brief happened here, with me praying about this??? realizing that fighting corruption with vicious emotion will only exacerbate it ultimately. ended up praying? some vague vision of jesus just calmly grabbing the plague-worm and disintegrating it into powder with a touch. no violence, just that terrifyingly subtle omnipotence.

everything is a morning-blur from a week ago so please forgive me.
i know around here the body started to "wake up" so social girls started thinking "what's this headspace crap, i don't need to pay attention to this or remember it, it's wasting my attention and memory and i don't care. i'll just decide it didn't happen."

i quote. they literally thought that. "this is all in my imagination, it's just a made-up stupid thought, so IF I DECIDE IT'S NOT REAL, THEN IT ISN'T."
those freaking social girls LITERALLY think that THEY have the power and authority to ignore us out of existence if we're an inconvenience to them.
it is the most hypocritical, cold-blooded, stone-hearted thing in the world. i want to sob.

that's why nothing is written down and why i'm now desperately trying to write something out at midnight while chronically sleep-deprived because I keep reaching into that space in my heart where ze should be and has been for ten freaking years and suddenly ze's not.

...

those cursed girls couldn't erase the truth though.
they tried, tried to unravel things while they were still happening. i FOUGHT. i would NOT let them pretend this wasn't happening because it annoyed them.
infi was... melting. something. with that whitewomb gone hir form just started to literally decay from the plexus down, going all soft like kinetic sand or molten glass or the end of the world. hir "flesh" became intensely glitterdense too, in those spaces-- that rainbow shimmer that pure Black energy always carries was so sharply visible it looked as if the very atoms were sparkling as they slid apart.

i wanted to heal hir. i wondered if i should take hir to azurai, in the dreamworld leagueworld, like we did for xenophon when she was dying a decade ago. but ze said no. "don't you dare," almost. already hir eyes glassing over, still lying there with hir lower half liquefying. hir upper half catching rigor mortis. disintegrating statuesque. a nightmare.
desperate to do something and fighting time and socials, afraid of picking hir up lest ze fall apart in my arms, i warped the entire mindscape to whatever level matched the frantic weeping in my heart. we ended up somewhere small and floating, an isolated pocket of space, something green and white with an aura of peaceful quiet. it felt like time was moving very slowly there, if at all.
i placed hir on some dreamvague facsimile of a hospital bed, surrounded by that emerald green, and that's all i remember.

i... it's been so strange. so terrible.

the past week, whenever I feel something that matches hir vibe, or when i expect hir to speak up, when something would ping hir, or catch hir attention... there's nothing. there's that empty, hollow bubblespace, that is now fractured like a shattered snowglobe and slowly fading into nothingness. it's not even black or white anymore, it's greying out. it's like an actual bubble right before it pops. it's falling to pieces.
infi's not there.
infi's in some unmappable crumb of reality that no one else can find, a fragment of place, something i could hold in my palm. god i wish i could hold hir but i
i can't, i can't move hir, ze's losing the capacity to even be interacted with, everything is bleeding back into that colorsink void--

laurie knew. i forget how. was she there on friday? did i tell her? i don't remember.
she's the only one who knew. we were in some sort of mindscape together at some point, something scary like an arctic tundra at midnight. dusty bleach below, shineless nothing above. an inexplicable wind, the manifestation of fear even in the waking world, that brutal whip of unseen violence threatening to take itself weaponized out of your burnt-raw lungs.

today. oh lord today. what even happened.
i woke up and everything was wrong

last night, tuesday, i don't even remember,
i... was i talking to hir? what happened? when?
so much in the physical realm has been getting in the way, devouring our schedule, i didn't have time to even sleep, i couldn't front, i wasn't there, we're all just trying to survive, but you were dying,
and the worst part is you wanted to.

last week ze said ze didn't. ze wanted to live, to love, with me, to try again, to try better, to do better, something... but then there was that hack. it made the trauma of past regrets real in the present, unbearable, unignorable. you can't live with that in your line of sight, i know. and infi didn't want to.

something happened, god please what happened,
all i remember is weeping and kneeling next to hir as everything around us turned black as a moonless night and slowly melted into oblivion. like the very fabric of reality was rotting. god it was terrifying, there was no sound, no depth, it was all just dead,

laurie was with me then. i remember us standing in an endless blankwhite field with huge shards of broken glass around us for miles.
we couldn't get out of there. i couldn't warp it, we were in shock and scared, it felt like someone had just cut out my heart,
we ended up shouting for leon with all our strength and he DID show up. thank God oh thank God, you do realize that boy has an "EXCEPTION" tagged to his soul, like in moralimon he has the ability to jump anywhere. nothing can stop him.
he brought us to his cathedral and laurie and i were sobbing, still in so much shock, we didn't know what to say or do

i really couldn't front for the rest of the day. laurie stayed in the background too.

i kept reaching into my chest and feeling the missing rib and the space where there should be someone

this is all wrong

but.

remember why infi wanted to die. why ze let this happen. why i cannot forget that last glance, that look from hir eyes wide and bleary, like they were seeing the death of the universe. little did ze know,
please
remember why. why. the same reason you did, you cupid cephalophore, whenever the hacks got so bad the system itself stopped running right. you hit the bloody reset button. you took a knife to the optical disc. you took a magnet to the tape. you desperately tried to delete time itself, you tried to backspace the story of your life, you tried to erase this and start over, please, go back to a time before THAT happened.

you always used to dream of dying and coming back different. like this hell was just a bad dream.
that's exactly what infi did
soft reset, melt reset, world reset, hope god puts us back together better

infi's original timeline was hell, you remember that. the daemon era was the most traumatic one we had, all things considered.
yes, everything hit a dead stop with the fugue in 2019, but no one literally RESET the timeline. THE ERA DIDN'T HARDSHIFT.
yes, mostly everyone died and headspace collapsed, but no one tried to load a new game, so to speak. it was just left in shambles. we STILL haven't rebuilt.
those who have come back DID come back different, but so unstable, and shaky, and mutable even now. there's nothing new and solid FOR them to anchor into. there's no clear cut space to stand in. there's no new world, no sunrise yet, no "let there be light," not yet...

infi dying is going to require a hard reset

you too.
ze's your heart, you idiot, you know the whiteslot is just as corrupted and sick, what do you think you cut out of hir??
what happened to your blackblood? have you looked at it lately? who are you really, nameless echo of a boy? are you even alive enough to die?

we've been in the tomb for almost FIVE YEARS, do we even know what life is anymore??

god help us.

i don't want anyone else to die
i couldn't bear it
the thought of seeing anyone else lying in blood would destroy me completely

but so does the thought of living this haunted halflife, unable to move on because we don't know where we're moving from or towards
you can't kill a beast if you can't see where to set the crosshairs.
we need to man up, face whatever we're running from,
and then bury a bullet between its eyes

if we don't do something sharp and conscious and real, we're all going to die anyway

we've died before and thank God we're still here, there's still a reason for us to exist,

i think we can bank on that. i know. there's too much love here, please, i know there is, i can feel it tonight, inbetween the tears, filling up that void in my chest with weeping red ache

infi said that if ze came back ze wanted to be something completely new.
new name, new face, new life. death to the old. death to the hacks and the corruption. start over soul.

how long will it take? will the daengels survive here? will they move to heartspace instead, enter the league, leave our loop?

what will happen to me, still splinter-frayed to the past white-haired ghosts, those doomed men, gutted pink with veins running black? if infi is dead, what goes for them? will their bloodline stop completely? what will happen to me?

who am i, without hir?
what sort of new era is this? what new life will this become?

god knows i've been praying for this though
i need to pray more about it

lord keep us safe from the hollow girls
keep us safe from the barren chatterboxes
from the numb and eyeless automatons
from the manic shrieking drivers
keep us safe, please, you know they have no hearts,
you know they can't pray or love at all,

please keep us safe

please.

reset us.
reset us, lord.
hit the reset button for us all. whatever that means.
whatever started to break in cnc, snap it clean in half
give us a hard end, a final page, a closing of this book,
please,
give us the cross to die on,
give us the empty tomb in the lily-gilded morning.

give us a new era
give us a new life
give us new hearts for you and for each other
scrub out the tar
wash out the plague
saturate us with light and fire and hope
give us a rainbow after the storm.

i'm too scraped-out to talk any more
i'm falling into automated speech and that would be blasphemous here

i cannot see tomorrow, i never could, it's all in God's hands

right now all i have is five hours of sleep and this fiercely inexorable hope in my heart
bright red and weeping still
but there will be a sunrise
there will be a sunrise
and it will light up the moon

death is only a door

please,
let me find you waiting on the other side.

This might be a brief update because not much happened today in terms of quantity, and I will tell you why.
We got like... 5 HOURS OF SLEEP.
Our body is wrecked. It's been very hard to do anything today because the poor thing is so exhausted. So we're gonna be in bed for 11:45, Xenophon made me promise.
The other big factor in why we feel so awful is that we didn't eat breakfast until 3pm.

Honestly though let's start at the beginning.
I didn't get to bed until 4:30 AM. I was typing for a while and was pretty delirious.
I was woken up at 10am by a phone call from my nutritionist, who said that "your appointment today says 'in-person' but I think that's incorrect?" I said "it definitely is because I live three hours away." So they switched it to a videocall & emailed me the link, and instead of going back to bed I got up, half-prepped breakfast, added some things I forgot to the previous entry and then... got distracted reading about octopi. I'm serious. It took 45 minutes and then my brain was like "dude come on I cannot function get back to sleep."
So I did. Got one more hour in.
Woke up to GORGEOUS SNOWFALL.
Honestly I didn't want to leave the bed. There's a tree right outside my window-- the only one on this side of the building-- and I can see its arms reaching up to the sky just like the trees outside our childhood bedroom window (God I miss living in the woods, I really do. I wonder if one day we'll ever go back there.). So I opened the window to get the beautiful cold in, wrapped Chaos & I in the red blankets, and just... watched the snow. It was pure joy. I think i spent 15 minutes doing that, in perfect peace, before Laurie said "kiddo it is 11:20 so you only have twenty minutes before that online appointment. And yeah I know it's hard and you want to watch the snow but you've gotta get your ass out of bed." I mention this because she had to briefly front in order TO get me out, which is a feeling I really miss and rarely get now that she's so terrified of accidentally "socializing her function" again, and dying. Still, it was nice to feel her presence so tangibly even for a moment. This also ended up causing her to accidentally co-front when I kissed Chaos good morning which had her absolutely flustered, haha. Not like it hasn't happened before, dude! But it has been many years. Geez I do miss the old days, though. Our life was so internally-anchored, and it was so rich and colorful. Still... lots of tough stuff going on outside. Guess this was the trade-off for a while. At least now we can build it back, better this time, without the dangers we couldn't recognize before.

We got to our appointment login 5 minutes late, but... the doc herself was 20 minutes late. Go figure. We legitimately almost logged off, thinking we missed her, but patience is a virtue! And BOY HOWDY LET ME TELL YOU, I am so glad we stuck around.
We literally didn't even talk about food. I told her we were eating regularly and without obsessing for the most part, and she did a little happy dance (that was actually touching to see how she cared) and said how proud of us she was. We mentioned that we were still struggling, though, what with the CPTSD and the gender issues, which both work together in a horrible tangled mess.
She responded, "you've never mentioned that you had gender issues before." Gosh we probably didn't; I don't know WHO was fronting for the summer when we first started seeing this doc. So we said yeah, gave her a brief summary-- definitely nonbinary, not sure if androgynous or agender, but absolutely masculine-leaning; presented as male for almost a decade, seriously considering further transitioning in some manner because the distress is so bad.
She looked at us and point-blank said "you know I do prescribe hormones."
EXCUSE ME WHAT
I... wow. Oh my gosh. We've literally been crying ourselves to sleep over this for WEEKS and all of a sudden, here's a way out. Here's hope. Right in front of us, and we never knew!
Man we thanked her profusely. She said do continue with our new therapist for the trauma treatment, BUT ask her specifically if she deals with transgender treatment. If so, this doc will coordinate care. If not, this doc will get us a specifically trans-oriented therapist. AND, "just in case," she already started a referral process, so I don't have to wait if I do need one.
...Talk about answered prayers, WOW.
So THAT was a good appointment. There's hope now, even when we get flashbacks and slips and mirror meltdowns. Now it's not doom. Now we know it can change to reflect our heart. Oh thank God. We needed this so badly.

The appointment ended at 1pm and I kid you not I think I went right back to reading about octopi studies. Good Lord, I'm ridiculous. But I care, dude, I want to know as much basic info as I can so I make sure I'm treating this new guy respectfully and so I can understand him better. Of course there's still variation in headspace and in his native universe, but still. There's a foundation and if I care-- which I do-- I will make sure it's set as well as I can.

2pm Laurie almost shoved me into the kitchen because the body was getting severely dizzy.
Thankfully since I had half-prepped it earlier it didn't take long to finish. We decided on two apples because we had one Fuji that was a bit bungled (got it from the reduced rack) and adding it to the BK plan plus double cottage cheese gave us 1000k & perfect 50/30/20 macros. Plus the body needed a calorie push to avoid eating more in the evening. So things were simple & straightforward. The hardest part of prep was peeling the eggs, as usual-- one kept breaking and that one poor girl got triggered out again (I'm still not sure what her ultimate anchor is specifically, but it's tied to that fear of "I did the food wrong/ I hurt the food/ I ruined it, so I'm a horrible cruel abusive worthless bad person and I'm gonna be punished, there's no hope for me, etc." Total catastrophic spiral just because some white came off with the shell. It's shocking); Xenophon again had to talk her down.
For my part, the body confusion made it very hard to front. I kept slipping in language, pronouns, self-awareness, and even cognition of what I was doing and who I was talking to. Thankfully everyone made sure I stayed safe, and by 3pm we were finally getting to eat.
We DID have ONE problem-- I had to cut out a black spot on the Fuji, but apparently the bit of apple around that spot still tasted of rot. We accidentally swallowed a bit before spitting the rest out, and SOME panicky girl came out HYSTERICAL, telling us "we HAVE to throw it all up NOW or we WILL DIE!!!" like she was legit frantic. God bless Laurie, though-- she stepped up and said "kid, it is not going to kill us. If it does anything, it might make us a little sick to our stomach." That still terrified the girl, so Laurie added "AND if it DOES, I give you full permission to punch me. I'll take that responsibility. But we're not gonna die. I promise you that. Do you trust me?" The girl hesitated, visibly hopeful, and then meekly nodded. I know there was some additional talk there with Laurie laughing that in a way she hoped we did get even a tiny bit of stomach distress because she kind of wanted this poor scared kid to hit her, haha. Like it'd be cathartic, and it would help tangibly deflect the stress. But in any case, man. It's... amazing, seeing all this daily progress in communication & healing with the e.d. nousfoni. We've prayed for this for YEARS. Is that why we paid such a high price with inpatient, losing our bodily safety, in order to gain better internal camaraderie? Did we HAVE to be "shoved out of the body" in order to grow closer inside? What a paradox. I repeat, God works in mysterious ways. But... high price or not, I would seriously pay it again if it was what headspace needed to flourish in love & mercy & hope like this. We were comatose for YEARS before the trauma-triggers of treatment woke us up. That happened in 2017, too, before we shut down again barely two years later, and WORSE than before. Still. God apparently doesn't want us to stay dead. I keep repeating that to myself. God wouldn't keep resurrecting us if He didn't want us to be alive. And why not? Our innerworld is such an absolute fountainhead of love & faith & joy, it would practically be a mortal sin to eliminate it.
Speaking of faith, we attempted Bible study again during breakfast. Honestly we always do the daily verse & prayer, but we might not write a reflection until later, now. We'll try, if we get inspired, but otherwise we'll "earmark it for later" so we don't dissociate & trigger a panic response while eating. We're getting better at it. But, it's become a habit, really, the Scripture while eating. The binges enabled that, which is another reason why we didn't want to stop them-- they put our body into "automated action mode" so we COULD focus entirely on the Bible without getting jumped by trauma flashbacks that would (allegedly) be enabled by a "standby" body. Again, that's something we do need to work on-- it IS very hard to "sit and read the Bible" BECAUSE "just sitting" and not doing anything else DOES trigger trauma symptoms. Hence why we now pray while biking. We're figuring stuff out, bit by bit, thank God. It's an adventure, it really is.

The typical recent breakfast gang was there, for the record. Me, Laurie, Spice, Xenophon, Scalpel, Phlegmoni, Julie, Lynne, Knife, Razor, Chaos 0, Genesis, Infinitii, Mimic. I got Leon to stop by briefly but he's introverted & doesn't like feeling pushed to socialize, so I told him he doesn't have to stay, I just want to see him however briefly so he stays in constant consciousness. I do care about him deeply and I miss having everyone around, which he recognizes and respects. Still, Indigos are naturally more solitary, and I will not force him to do something that he's inherently uncomfortable with-- heaven knows I would freak out if someone expected me to constantly show up somewhere social at a set time. So I might just drop in and visit him on my own, for a few seconds, so he doesn't have to stress out.
Genesis was so excited over the snow, he was talking to Mimic a bit about it, and then his eyes lit up and he ran over to me and said "JEWEL" and told me that, yes he's hype about snow, but we ALSO have butterscotch candy that I bought for him and we were ABSOLUTELY having it with breakfast. So I got it out, and then he got the idea to "put it in the cinnamon tea." So, we did. It was actually really nice, haha.
Infinitii was talking a LOT today. I'm not sure why. But it was so nice. I really, really love hir, and I miss her terribly; not only did Laurie kill hir post-NC to prevent further corruption, but ze took over a year to resurrect and even then ze went into hiding and I rarely, if ever, saw hir-- ze was even hard to ping. But... post-inpatient, ze has just... come back wholeheartedly to us. it means so much to me. I wonder if Xenophon has something to do with it. I wouldn't be surprised.

We got some very relevant fortunes today, too.
"A new environment makes all the difference in the world."
"A new friend helps you break out of an old routine."
"Advice, when most needed, is least heeded."
They're all surprisingly straightforward-- first, literally remodeling our apartment post-inpatient DID make a huge difference, as the spaces are no longer tied to location-based triggers. Also, a new internal environment is even more important, and we ARE working to rebuild headspace now, bit by bit, especially with the color realm "field trip" the other morning, thank you Leon. Secondly, that new friend is absolutely Mimic, even if he may not be entirely comfortable with the "friend" label. I can feel he wants to try, but still. Like me, it's new territory, and it's difficult. But we're all doing our best to help him out. Again, if he stays, cool. If not, we wish him the absolute best. But he's still a friend to me, as long as he's here. And he has absolutely been breaking me out of old routines, all over the place. (Notably he wasn't around today for more than a few minutes. But he doesn't seem to have any intention of leaving entirely at this point.) So I'm very grateful. In the future, I will inevitably refer to this little time period of December 2022 as the "Mimic week," I am sure. He's made that big of a difference. Lastly, the advice. That is also with Mimic, haha. He gives sharp advice, whether he realizes it or not, with his retorts and cunning commentary. I like that. Laurie used to be like that in her own right, before all the damage. And I think it has something to do with the walls. It's offensive/defensive. So ironically, he can also be an example of "not heeding advice" when it finds a chink in the armor. It stings. It's threatening. But it's needed. That's what Laurie constantly tells him, and me-- yes, it's terrifying being so vulnerable now, but it's bloody worth it. Being humble enough to honestly admit and accept advice when it hurts is the ONLY way to truly become strong & wise. I've been learning that a lot, too. It's made me realize how instinctively "I" can lash out when I feel the edge of the blade, as it were. I don't realize it's there to cut out the cancer. And yes, I know I keep using that simile. But we all know what the Plague is like up here, and that comparison is a grave reminder of that terrible truth.

On a brighter note, the Chinese word trio this morning was "lettuce," "vegetable," and... "banana." Xennie & I love to invent some silly story or idea to link them all together. First I said, "does that mean... a banana is a vegetable?" and she said "no!!" and laughed. "It's not a vegetable dad!" I replied, "but then how does it fit? Is it a question? Are we saying, 'lettuce = vegetable,' but 'banana = ...nobody knows? IS it a vegetable? We'll have to perform an experiment! I'll get my phone, you get the microwave!" She was giggling a lot, it was so cute. Ultimately we decided that the secret answer would be on the next fortune at dinner. Remembering the other morning, I joked "what if it says 'beer'" and she was in stitches.
...oh my gosh Xenophon just ran up to the table and yelled "DADDY IT'S NOT A BEAN SPROUT" and I am LAUGHING
(I forgot, yes, that was dinner's word. She's looking at me and saying very seriously, "daddy, someone doesn't know what a fruit is")

Also. I have no idea why we have no appetite UNTIL we finish eating. Then we get so awfully hungry, and THAT'S what triggers out the other girl, the manic one who always "wants more," even if she "doesn't want it really," she just... compulsively keeps asking for "one more" piece or bite or taste of something. She's nonstop movement, no peace at all, and very dangerous as a result. I'm trying to talk to her & reason with her more, and I am seeing tiny steps, but it is a very arduous process and you cannot slack off with someone of her color & demeanor; give her a centimeter and she'll yank a mile from your hands. She doesn't even mean to be abusive; she's just that manic. Her sense of sense is addled.
Still. The body itself is hard to manage, when it's this sleep deprived. We "wanted" to binge so badly, with how hungry & wrecked we felt. Honestly I didn't even go to brush our teeth. I washed the dishes, and immediately crashed on the couch and got out the phone. When we're that high-risk for relapse, literally the ONLY crisis response that works is sudden absolute forced internal focus. Basically, get OUT of bodyspace and IN to thoughtspace. NOT HEADSPACE!! It's one step further out! When the mind is THAT distressed, you have to unplug it from self-awareness in order to calm down and THAT is what ALSO MOTIVATES THE BINGES-- because they are inherently dissociative! That frenetic desperate mindset that wants to binge IN ORDER TO DISSOCIATE can ONLY "get its needs met" by an EQUALLY TOTAL DISSOCIATIVE PROCESS. And the only thing that can do that INSTANTLY is the phone. Not even the computer-- there's too much "space" there, too much involvement with the hands. It takes a few minutes to really "log in" mentally. But the phone? Nope-- it's small, close, hyperfocused space, and since it's held with the hands and CLOSE TO THE FACE it actually meets the same "receptors" as eating would. Isn't that crazy? It's fascinating, absolutely, but geez. Discovering this stuff is wild. But it works!
So we spent 4pm until 6pm completely unaware of time passing, haha. And we were safe!

6pm we got on the bike, because we had to at least pedal slowly for an hour to move our legs, as we were getting depressed now from the lack of sleep and lack of daylight and that will trigger bad behavior, too.
We said the Divine Mercy Chaplet, but not a rosary-- I feel awful about that, but today is the Sorrowful Mysteries and those are so immersive that even though I WANT to say them, at that time I don't think it would have been "smart?" Our mind was not in a good place. Still, God forgive me. I'll have to try and say a rosary in bed.
We took like 30 minutes trying to figure out a better mealplan on the phone, especially for days like this where we have to cram proper nutrition into a small timespace without accidentally overdoing things. Our main concerns, though, were streamlining the options-- certain items, like the Sun Chips, do not fit neatly into a regular mealplan and we want to cut that stuff out for the sake of simplicity. Our staples are currently: apples, broccoli, carrots, EVOO, fortune cookies, jumbo eggs, high-protein milk, greek yogurt, allbran, whole wheat english muffins, and cottage cheese. Those last three we're trying to phase out of the plan if possible, due to both cost & travel to obtain them, and replace the grains with oats. We'll give it a shot and see how it works, because oats are an ancient trigger/binge food, and they require cooking, so it might not actually be wise TO integrate them into the plan. We will pick a day when it's possible to safely test them and do so.
We also worked on planning our Sunday schedule, which I will have to review & write down-- Sundays are weird because they often require three meals instead of two, since we're at church from 8am to 1pm at the least, and we have to eat breakfast in the church at 945 to avoid bloodsugar tanking and pushing the timetable too far-- if we fast until after all the masses, we probably won't get to eat until 3pm, and that has proven VERY unwise what with having done that several times over the past month. So we're striving to avoid that. We do have that "quiet breakfast" planned that is hyperdense & easily transported, while still meeting macros-- milk/bran/evoo and a yogurt-- which we can eat within 10m in the choir loft with minimal disturbance. So that's determined. The tough spot is the lunch at 2, and a dinner at 6. We have to make each meal ~500K and still balance macros evenly. But we're learning! I wonder if maybe we can even get into a 3-meal daily thing? Or would that take too much prep time & scattered focus? Plus we do need to fast in order to get the "empty clarity" of the mornings which is REQUIRED for intense headspace trips and creative work. That we know for sure, and it's the biggest factor in "temptations" to go back to anorexic behaviors; second place is the dyspho/dysmo hell, as I've taken to calling it with all unfortunate accuracy.

Anyway. What was I doing for two hours that kept me so intensely occupied?
PICREW.
We haven't been on there in ages and it is the ONLY place online right now where we can "sightstorm" our faces in visualspace. It's very hard to "draw from feeling" in such a direct sense; it's a sort of creative aphasia. BUT give me a selection of visual examples to choose from, and I KNOW which ones match my "sight" and which ones don't.
The only problem is, many of those generators don't have applicable options. Remember, we are NOT HUMAN and as such the System actually apparently takes significant care to make sure we DON'T look like average folks, because we're not. (That was, admittedly, the most disturbing and most freeing thing from NC, when TBAS said that we were just "people" and we laughed and cried, it made us realize they never knew who we were to begin with and that was both the biggest relief and the biggest tragedy. in any case it lit a fire in us to make sure WE always know who we are.)
So. We did... four of them? We tried several, but again, no fits. This taught us one EXTREMELY SIGNIFICANT THING-- LYNNE LOOKS DIFFERENT. She does NOT match her old appearance anymore. We TRIED to "build her an avatar" with those characteristics, but it DID NOT RESONATE WITH HER. which is HUGE. so we will ABSOLUTELY have to put specific time aside FOR HER, tomorrow if possible, to help her truly pinpoint her new-resonance hue & overlay anchors, so to speak.
I did two avatars of me. One was solo, and one was this new two-person one so of course the other person was Laurie. It almost didn't work because the hair is not exact and that WILL totally skew a vibe to unrecognizability-- being head-based as we are, hairstyles are arguably the biggest anchorpoint of a typical nousfoni's appearance. But, I made it work. This process taught me something significant: in headspace, my hair is WHITE. but my eyes are RED??? however, when making an avatar closer to the physical appearance, the hair & eyes are BOTH RED. Again, this is first time self-visualization efforts after like FOUR YEARS, so I need further exploration into this too.
The other two avatars were equally notable in their own right. The first was Julie! One new popular generator was proving impossible for anyone but her, and since we liked the style, I tried to portray her in it. Now it is NOT visually "accurate," but the vibe still works somehow? OH DUDE WAIT I think it's because she's trying to hold her ORIGINAL CORE VIBE, which is DIFFERENT than it was when she first shifted entirely to PINK! So she's at a VERY interesting "transition point" right now. The avatar feels just enough like her in that sense for me to keep it.
The last avatar? FRICKIN' SCALPEL. MY MAN FINALLY HAS A VISUAL!! Honestly there was this one refreshingly unique-style generator that I absolutely had to try out, and I always start with myself but I was disappointed when none of the hairstyles matched me. However. As I was clicking through, one PINGED and i thought "hold up, what?" then I realized it looked like Scalpel's hair. That has NEVER happened before. His vibe inside is uniquely vivid but SO hard to "picture." Like I know how he looks but it's not easily portrayed? So I was not missing this chance. It took a while, and it's not entirely accurate, but again, the vibe is so bloody close that when I even see the result at a glimpse my brain goes "oh hey that's Scalpel!" SUCCESS, haha! So that was a HUGE accomplishment today, finally getting at least one avatar for that man down.
Here, I'm gonna share all of them, for the sake of both candor and affection.
picrew of laurie uberich & jay iridos

More will be coming, don't worry!

Dinner was at 8:10 and it was the same usual base, but half the broccoli, half the cottage cheese, and no yogurt. ~500K, and no trouble. I also smartly prepped the whole thing after breakfast so we literally just microwaved the broccoli and that was it, which was nice. (We also prepped ALL of breakfast except the eggs & broccoli already, which will save a ton of time and therefore allow us to sleep in, which we need.)
Xenophon insisted we have both Infi's vanilla tea and plain peppermint tea, "because dad likes peppermint and he had a tough day and it's nice." She's such a sweetheart. Taking a page from Genesis I put a tiny bit of candycane into that mug, the little ones we got with spearmint stripes (I'm not a fan but Xennie likes them? which is cool, I love finding out those little differences, I treasure them really).
But... speaking of Infi.
I don't know how to summarize this without typing for another hour, and it's 11:50 anyway so I'm technically 5 minutes past our bedtime already.
OH-- before I forget, my boss Mr. Sandman stopped by last night (this morning) to check up on me, and he assured me that no he was absolutely not mad at me for "being late for work," he knows I have responsibilities, and when Laurie explained that I was "in blue butterfly mode" and what that entailed he actually said "then I am glad you took the time to honor that feeling" instead of just forcing sleep. Still, he said, I needed to dream! And he kissed me on the forehead as he left which is just wonderful. it lights me all up inside like a christmas tree. it's so sweet and affectionate, it is one of the best feelings in the world.

...For the record. Thank God I wrote that down. I almost forgot.
...I dreamt about JMC.
I'm serious. That is so rare. She was young, I was young. The dream atmosphere was "world-level" (no supernatural stuff) but it felt safe? It had the same vibe as the Marywood nights in '09 when I "met" her. The whole dream, I was being tossed about from place to place, with no home-- that happens oddly often-- my family refusing to give me a bed or boarding, and I kept getting shuffled around in cars, nobody wanting me. I was always "supposed to be somewhere else," doing something for someone else, but never with anywhere to go home to.
...Except in this dream. That's what touched my heart so much.
JMC was trying to get to school, apparently. I was responsible for getting her there. However, I was sick? Like terminally ill. I remember doctors talking to me at one point, and I had all these tubes in me, and really bad bloodwork or something. Not sure. But I wasn't well. Nevertheless, I wasn't sad or depressed? Even though my family refused to take me in or take care of me, it didn't faze me, because I had her. Even if I was just "leaving her off at class" and making sure she got there safe, that was enough. Honestly there was a strong feeling that this was it? Like, she was dorming, or I was dying, or both, and I might not get to see her again. This was it. I did my job, I helped as I was needed, now I could be thrown away.
I remember it was nighttime the whole dream, too. But... full of stars. Indigo gilded skies. It felt safe. That is so rare.
And... near the end of the dream, when "everything had been figured out" and she was packed and class was in the morning, or in a few hours, or something equally soon and impending... it felt like the credits were rolling on my life. Sad but sweet. It's over but everything was done and dusted.
Except... there was still those few hours until the morning got here. We still had to travel, even if the work was done. And I remember we both got into the back of my dad's car? like the trunk was open, and all her luggage was there, and it was set up like a bed, because i guess we had to sleep while we traveled or we'd never get there in time. and this was the last i'd see of her.
we hadn't talked during the dream, not personally, just discussing her college career and what she needed and what i could do to help. everything related to the task at hand. but i was so happy, just having this privilege.
...i was sick, dying. tired but happy. she was thankful, but still forever at arm's length, leaving soon, off to the rest of her life.
we both were lying down in the back of the car, looking up at the stars and moon, hearing the quiet sounds of my family talking and the car beginning to move. i was so tired but i was smiling. then... she just, reached over and gently pulled me closer to her, and rested my head on her chest. that was it. that was home. her hands in my hair. her heartbeat becoming my entire world. quiet and pure and simple. and the stars overhead.
i woke up like... right after that. stunned by the snow. by the memory of her hands, covered in rings; by the sight of her sunset-gold hair, of her rain-colored eyes, of the familiarity of her face.
i woke up feeling like everything was going to be okay. and i said a prayer for her, wherever she is.
god bless her. always.

as for a darker shade of love.
infi was talking to me a lot, in the kitchen, as i was cleaning up. thanks to the picrew practice, and the bluth movies, my "inner sight" was super clear and vibrant and accurate. i could SEE MYSELF and as a result, i could front without slipping. i could feel my own overlay. honestly kids i FORGOT WHAT "I" FELT LIKE. it has been THAT LONG since i've even HAD a perceptible overlay. that blew my mind. how did i forget that's SUPPOSED TO BE THERE??? like i just assumed "feeling like an empty shell" was normal. no overlay, no anchor, no self-awareness. THAT IS NOT NORMAL. and then... all it took was actively trying to "match how I look" on a japanese avatar-maker and suddenly i could see myself for real. i REMEMBERED. i apologize if i'm using repetitive language but this is surreal and so significant. even xenophon noticed while ghosting. "dad you're not slipping!" my poor daughter, she gets so scared when "i'm" unstable. when that happens, everyone uses the wrong pronouns and even the wrong names. i can't hold a color. i find it hard to speak. i can't look at the mirror. i can't even think. it's all proof that "I" am NOT IN THERE. but... standing at the sink, talking with my little girl, i had white hair and my beard and different colored eyes. and i was her father. and i existed.
and... and i was in love, too.
chaos called me by five different names. reminding me that THIS, this heart, is the constant in them all. and i knew. i could see it in his eyes, too, that he recognized me. god i felt alive, i felt love, how have i gone this long forgetting all this?
but infinitii. i... oh lord, i forgot how much I love hir,
ze's literally the other half of my soul and I mean that LITERALLY. razor & batta tore hir out of me back in 2013 and since then there's an actual honest-to-god piece of my heart walking around with its own eyes and teeth and wings. the technical "mother" of my daughter. infinitii eternos.
ze walked right up to me. "i missed you, jay."
that name. the name i held when ze was taken from my ribs. it struck me like a supernova in that same place.
for a minute i was lost in that velvet black. i took hir face in my hands and just looked at hir and... god how has it been years?
little prayers, i can't help it, honestly lord in heaven You're ultimately responsible for all these people and me and us, i know You know the reason, but... is this it? is this the reason? absence makes the heart grow fonder? three days and then an empty tomb? are you teaching me echoes of that through this? if so, wow, wow,
today's advent reflection was all about love and so was the final page of another reading plan i just finished and so was today and last night and everything. love, love, love, friends and children and partners and protectors, daengels and muses and outspacers and distant souls. butterflies and hurricanes. oh there will absolutely be hard times ahead. we all know the war has started again, with new battles and challenges. but we're in this together. this is our time, a time of change and metamorphosis, of becoming the best possible version of ourselves, by the grace of God. and we will get through this together. this world that we live in can change, now. don't let yourself down. don't let yourself go.
man i love tangents can you tell
but still. it all ties together. i always follow the leads because they always shine light on something.
we've been "dead" for a long, long time. but the tiniest things... it's amazing, everything has a bigger purpose. everything has grand consequences. so we must use every chance we get to act in love, for love. that's god after all. that's what christmas is. that's what we're all leading up to in this beloved purple season of snow and golden bells.

ah, but infinitii.
there is literally no way to put that into words. that look ze gave me. that shared depth of our shared soul. the immense hope in it all.
it's so strange. sacred in a way. something given to me by god. in those moments, i... faith becomes conviction. that trust is solid. i don't just "believe" that there is life after death and hope after everything, I know that there is. there is something about headspace that all but confirms that there is "more to life than this life." that what we see is not all there is. in here, what i see, what i hear, what i feel... the absolute love between us all, that's what i bring into church, and lay on the altar, and sob for joy about. that is the heart of every prayer and song i offer. this is what leads me to God, more than anything else, because this is how he teaches me of himself. of unconditional compassion. of mercy and justice. of what it's like for someone to live and die for you and what it's like to want to do the same thing in a heartbeat. joyfully so. kissing the cross.
this innerworld is blessed. it really is. even the wars, even the struggles were seen and known by god. of course they were. we all know we could never have become who we are now, could never have become as tender-hearted as we are now, if we had not bled and wept and fought together for so long. we learned so much. we lost so much. we gained so much.
somehow infi encapsulates all of that. i think all daengels do, in a sense. the scariest parts of your soul given one of their own, and wanting to kiss you, haha. but it's so much more than that. their purpose is to teach not just self-awareness, but self-forgiveness, and the profound transmutation of black to gold that it sparks to life. all of that is only possible through love, and let me tell you, daengels love harder than anything. it's literally why they exist.
...God knows I need that more than ever right now.
It feels like some old and ancient door has been flung wide open to the light. It's... I can't put it into words. It's different than what Chaos gives me. Just as beloved, though. Just as beautiful. A different diamond, but priceless still.

It's 1am. That's my limit, kids, I really do have to go to my other job now, haha.
God willing, I'll see you all tomorrow evening. As for what He has in store for us until then... well, that's where hope comes in.
That's how we've gotta live life-- with eyes fixed on heaven, no matter what. God is Good and I know that whatever happens, in the end, everything ends in love.
And that's just the beginning of eternity.

(unfinished entry; posting openly regardless for honesty's sake)

Woke up around 10:15

RAN to doctors office for 11AM.
At one point, two Latino guys crossed the street towards me and I NEARLY BLACKED OUT FROM TERROR. That is EXACTLY what happened that morning I was punched out and mugged in NC. I felt horrible immediately running across the road away from them, but please it wasn't personal it was a survival response and I hated myself for it. Still, I was shaking. Every car that drove past me, I literally expected it to slow down and stop and for someone to grab me and pull me into it, or for someone to start making lascivious remarks, or something similarly terrorizing. The entire jog over was panicstricken. I felt SO unsafe and targeted and in danger.
This is no way to live. I'm practically agoraphobic at this point. The sight of a crowd makes me want to throw up from fear. If people get too close there's a coin's toss chance of my either becoming the "pretty and proper doll" or the rabid animal that will rip your arm off if you get too close. I hate living this way. Trauma has ruined me and I don't want to be like this. It's not me but I can't turn it off.

Didn't get home until 230PM.
We were smart and had everything out ready to prep so it didn't take long to make breakfast.
Sat down at 3pm. Had to push almost 1000K because it was so late; if we ate less now, we'd be hungry enough later to possibly binge, and we wanted to prevent that at all costs.
Basically we just doubled the broccoli and olive oil, added another half an apple and some sun chips. Simple really. As I said before, we've got a set mealplan now so there's no prep or planning stress anymore, unless we obsess over macros. The System is helping with that; just because we love even numbers and ratios doesn't mean that if we have 49/29/22 instead of 50/30/20 we've "failed" and it's "wrong". That obsessiveness is one of our biggest dangers, so we're being very wary of it. Again, communication is key-- which means TALKING, not "shutting people down." When an ED Nousfoni is resorting to "behaviors" you TALK TO THEM ABOUT IT. You ask them what's up, what are you feeling, what do you want to do, what would help, etc. NO "stop that" or "that's bad" or "you're being stupid" or anything our family might realistically say. No. We treat them as the friend and family they are and we HELP THEM.
...Laurie's new "mercy" attribute is actually helping a LOT more than anyone expected. She's been telling Spice "let 'em have an extra chip" when that one girl asks for them. And... today the girl said "NO THANK YOU." Like, when she was able to have what she wanted when she "craved" it at first, she LEARNED to not "need" it??? She admitted today that yeah, she always enjoys them, BUT she doesn't want to "keep eating them" just because of that. She said she would "rather wait until later" to make it "special" and to eat with everybody else, not at random from a drawer, by herself, feeling rejected and alienated. We're including and acknowledging these kids, which NO ONE OUTSIDE EVER DID, and it is MOVING MOUNTAINS in their recovery. Thank God. This is wonderful. There's so much love in here.

We just... need to do that for the other damaged Nousfoni in the System. The other half of the abuse.

...On that note.
Massive trigger warning for outright trauma talk coming up here.

...After breakfast, we made the mistake of going on Tumblr for a few minutes to distract ourselves from our body going "oh thank God we're finally eating" and not 'registering' that we're done for now (it usually takes about an hour; we can deal with that). We were just scrolling down our dashboard, but... we forgot that some of the folks we follow can post some very triggering things.

I swear I am about three seconds away from burning that website to the ground.
Really, I'm about a millisecond away from burning EVERYTHING of our pervading society to the ground.

I'm so sick of "pop culture" and "memes" and "the in-crowd" and "current fashions" and "modern thinking" and "new age" garbage. I am so bloody tired and furious over "liberalism" and "progressivism" and "humanism" and all that garbage. I hate what our governments are doing. I hate the hellscape they are turning this planet into. I hate how the "powers that be" are trivializing and abusing and objectifying and desecrating human life and worth and purpose. And SO MUCH OF THAT seems to be hyperdensified on the bloody internet.
Cyberspace is where the ugliest, most vicious, most demonic thoughts and ideas fester and propagate and infect countless minds. The most inhumane and immoral concepts seem to seed themselves there. Humanity dehumanizes itself online, even moreso than offline in my opinion, because online they strip themselves of a concrete identity and can exist as an anonymous point of corruption. There are entire websites where people salaciously share their most degenerate ideas without shame or even accountability. It's nauseating. I want to take a bloody hacksaw to it.

What set me off, you ask. An absolutely repulsive post about planned parenthood is what.
I apologize for all the vulgar intensifiers but I am FURIOUS and I have no other readily available way to translate that in an immediate candid manner, other than crushing this keyboard with my teeth.
Anyway. Apparently they have this "chatbot" on their website which is meant to """educate""" visitors on... topics that should NOT be discussed so lackadaisically. I always use the term "blasphemously" for this sort of talk because dammit it IS, when you get down to it.
You know what, let's just be blunt. No stupid "euphemisms" or "friendly talk" about things that should NOT be treated so insouciantly.
First off. The bot says it's "here to answer your questions about bodies, sex, and relationships." Pardon my french but KINDLY SHOVE THE HECK OFF. I loathe when people use the term "bodies" in that cursory way. It feels so coarse and degrading. And I REALLY HATE when "sex" is treated like a CONVERSATION TOPIC. I'm this close to spitting bullets, ESPECIALLY since the whole gross trio concludes with "relationships." IN THAT SAME CONTEXT. It's a subtle injection of sexuality INTO that word's definition IN GENERAL.

This corrupt chatbot is turning children into ADDICTS is what it is.
It's the same reason kids develop eating disorders and drug habits. People find out something that the human body can do and then abuse it to death.

Yeah, I said children. THAT'S what has me so enraged. The bot asks for your age, but BEFORE that it says, "don't worry... it won't take long. I can wait." And the demonic emoji winks at you.
I swear I was about to punch my computer screen. It felt LECHEROUS. Listen I have been through childhood sexual trauma and my traumabrain IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZES THOSE DANGER SIGNS and THAT WAS ONE OF THEM.
"Don't worry" my ass. "It won't take long" has me wanting to eviscerate someone on the spot; that is the HALLMARK of sxabuse. "I can wait, WINK," don't say that to me unless you want your tongue ripped out and shoved down your bloody throat. No you CAN'T wait, you're so freaking hellbent on getting what you want that the "waiting" is just another means of torturing your victim. They can't escape, and they can't fake enthusiasm anymore, so as they drag themselves through the dread, screaming internally, to puppet-dance the way you want, you can absolutely "wait" with that simpering smile on your face, emptily reassuring them "don't worry! it's okay! it won't take long! it won't hurt! it's okay! it's normal! this is a good thing! it'll be fun! you'll enjoy it!" etc etc etc straight to hell.
Sorry. Kind of horrorventing here. It can't be prevented if I refuse to censor this pain.
But yeah. THEN you can enter your alleged ethnicity, gender, and age. The first is straightforward; the second is fairly tame too-- it allows for binary, nonbinary, trans, intersex, questioning, fluid, & "cis." I won't get into that topic now because yes I am Catholic and I do believe that the binary is legit for spiritual reasons BUT I also know that intersex is a real thing, AND that the chemicals I had pumped into me as a baby gave me medically induced dysphoria, so gender confusion is the "story of my life" and I cannot judge others for feeling the same, even if my more "tradcath" brethren tend to sweep the table clear of all of their concerns without a thought.
My problem here is with the age options.
IT STARTS AT "TWELVE AND UNDER."
I am going to frickin GUT SOMEBODY.

Here I am, "roleplaying" myself as a terrified tween, and when I ask "does it hurt" and "is it normal to bleed" they're like "yeah it can happen but sex can also be fun" YOU'RE THE DEVIL. STOP ACTING LIKE IT'S OKAY FOR A LITERAL TWELVE YEAR OLD TO BE ASKING ABOUT THIS.
...I'm just thankful that there is a page on "consent" there, under the "relationships" tab. The bot says: "Consent means that whether you’re kissing, holding hands, or having sex, both people are really, truly into what’s going on, and no one is being guilted or pressured into anything."
...THAT is something I wish someone told me as a kid, that bit about guilt. I was always told push through it, this is what you SHOULD do, etc. I just wish they used the word fear, too. Not just "pressure." Sometimes the other person seems "fine" but you're absolutely terrified and you don't want this but... they're not being mean, they're doing things that are supposed to be nice and kind, right? so shouldn't i just do what they want?

Another good point:
"When a relationship is healthy, you feel good about yourselves and each other most of the time. You both feel like you have respect, kindness, trust, honesty, equality, and good communication. And you also give each other space to have your own lives outside the relationship."
...That's not something I've ever had in the waking world, sadly. I don't want to go in-depth now but it is deeply depressing.
You know, what the heck. No running away. In-depth it is.
"Respect" was always shallow and fleeting, and it refused to "learn too much." They'd claim to give it, but it was just a word. It was more like temporary tolerance UNTIL you changed to become something they were more comfortable with. "I respect you," they would say, but they wouldn't follow through. This one is hard to put words to. I guess it's how Jade feels, too. People claim "respect" and then blatantly act in contrast to it, especially in subtle ways-- with her, it's the constant deadnaming and mispronouning, the casual invalidations of their spiritual beliefs and identity, EVEN from people who say "I respect you; you can identify as and believe whatever you want!" They forget to add the key part: "...and I will treat that identity and belief WITH respect." That part is conspicuously missing. Even from me, in the past, I have to confess. I didn't understand this virtue well myself, and honestly STILL don't, what with the Catholic aspect of it. "You CANNOT respect heretics," I'm told. "You SHOULD invalidate and denounce them. God's Law is more important than someone else's delusions." Well, yes, intellectually so. But... if I know that telling someone "your feelings and beliefs are false, but mine are not" is going to send them into a suicidal breakdown, I'm NOT going to say it, even "indirectly" through behavior and language. Except... I have been doing that. It's because I don't respect MYSELF, either. I've never been respected for who I am and what I believe, so... I can't properly show it to myself, OR to others, as a result. I'm genuinely struggling with this. I'm glad I'm writing that down. It's something I MUST work with, intrapersonally and interpersonally.
"Kindness"... same thing. Too much disingenuous behavior there. I try to think of examples of "kindness" and outside of parental care, I... can't find much. What do I define as "kindness," personally, I must ask. It means... acting and speaking in ways that do not harm, that actively work towards a benevolent end for someone, that is gentle and considerate and compassionate. Kindness. Treat others with friendship and care. Be personally invested in their well-being. It's a monolith virtue, really, a close sister to Love itself. And... like I've been hinting at in my recent Scripture studies, I haven't always been kind. I WANT to be, and I do try to be, but... I fail, a lot. I'm usually too scared to do what is "kind," because "I'm afraid of the cost and consequences to myself." WHY. WHAT MADE ME SUCH A COWARD. Is it the stupid trauma? That my "fear of others" has become so pervasive as to undermine kindness? That I hesitate to offer a helping hand because it might get stabbed or bitten? Or because they might grab it and pull me to the ground and use me all the more "now that I've given them unspoken permission?" Why do I see "kindness" acted upon as a "doorway to abuse?" My mom tells me this ALL THE TIME. "You need to be harsh and mean towards people," she says, "or they'll treat you like garbage. You need to learn how to shout back, and fight back, and when they push you then you push back harder." et cetera. I don't want to be like that. Good God is this why I feel so achingly drawn to Mimic??? "Friendship is a weakness" and all that? Yeah I have to be brutally honest and admit that DEFINITELY has its fangs in me somewhere. I do avoid making friends, even though I desperately want to, because... all my past friendships have damaged me. They've "put my life on the line" and I always ended up feeling like a trapped animal, even when I did love and care for the other person. Somehow, in the end, the "friendship" always had a huge price tag attached. My Christian instinct tells me, "all the better! Love is most virtuous when it is unrequited and even rejected! You can only be TRULY kind if you are choosing to be kind to someone who treats you like trash!" "Virtue is only virtue in extremis." I adore that line but it haunts me, too. I WANT to be a kind person. And yes I want Mimic to learn how to be kind, too, but I've gotta admit half of that is definitely a mutual-problem projection. I see how he brazenly throws people under the bus to save his own tentacles but I have done that in less obvious ways, too. I cannot tell you how many times I've woken up, shaken, from dreams in which some catastrophe is occurring and I don't run back in to save anyone. I get myself out of there and THEN I realize, "oh no, I didn't save anyone else." My instinct was to get my own worthless self out of there, and if everyone else died... well. I wake up in a cold sweat and hating myself. But I refuse to surrender to despair. I refuse to define myself by those base impulses. If that IS what my subconscious is geared to do, then God help me I had BETTER WORK TO CHANGE THAT. I can't give in to the darkness that I KNOW is lurking in me. I WON'T. I am DETERMINED to be a kind person. I just... most days, I get so scared that it's not possible. I fear I'm too evil TO be kind. But dammit I still try. I still stop and listen to my neighbors talk even when I'm almost grinding my teeth with impatience; I stop and make the effort to genuinely listen and comment and care, because I DO care, I just don't like talking. And that selfish bit likes to overpower any sincerity. Same with the Christmas cards I keep getting. I could easily chuck 'em in the bin and say "I don't know these people" OR I could go the "religious spite" route and say "these are all secular cards, I'll send them all explicitly religious ones in return", OR I could grumble and protest "I can't afford to send so many cards," OR I could do what I'm REALLY tempted to do, which is to say "if I send them a card back, that's opening the door to ANOTHER controlling "relationship" and I am so tired of feeling obligated to entertain and chat with everyone; if I just snub them all maybe they'll leave me alone and I'll have peace." But deep down I'd be miserable, because I STILL LOVE PEOPLE and I DO want to give them all Christmas cards but I'd love to do so anonymously. Except if they asked I couldn't lie. And I AM overwhelmed by the effort. But dammit LOVE IS EFFORT, and it's a CHOSEN EFFORT, so unless I REALLY want to be a hypocrite I had better buy some cards and do this. I want to, in my heart of hearts. My TRUE "instinct" is to not only send cards, but gifts and flowers and the whole shebang. My deepest urge is to lavish love on everyone, like I did in high school, when I first had a job and didn't understand the concept of "savings" and all that. It was just, "oh cool I have cash, I'll buy myself something and then I'll buy SO MANY GIFTS." I made it a point of honor to spend at LEAST $100 PER PERSON on EVERY HOLIDAY. And back then my ONLY complaint was that I didn't have enough money. NOT gripingly-- more like, "if I DID have more cash I could get stuff for MORE people!" I didn't care about the cash. I just wanted to dote. My only regret in hindsight is that, due to my upbringing, I had "gifts" as a "love language" forced upon me. It's what my immediate social circle demanded. Touch was considered whorish and filthy, Words were considered empty and easily forgotten or skewed-- AND I couldn't give them casually; you know me and words-- Time was something I didn't have in order to give, and Acts were fused with gifts, really. I lived that "act" bit; it was my default. It subtly still is. If I see a "good deed" I can do, I'll do it, especially anonymously. But I'm rambling. I WANT to be kinder. Just... I struggle. And I struggle with naming examples of it shown to me, at first. The only ones I have feel so hollow it actually hurts. Like, "I got Christmas cards from the neighbors!" but they were given to everyone, just a generic "happy holidays hope it's fun" with a signature, and I've never met them in person. Is that the criteria for kindness? If I set the bar that low for defining this virtue, will I slack off as well? And will I ever admit my need of kindness in my life, if I just settle for the most robotic expression? Again, Christian-brain says "yes! You shouldn't seek kindness to be given to you! You should be happy with being treated like dirt! Your feelings don't matter. What matters is BEING kind. If others are kind to you, remember they don't owe it to you, and for all you've done you don't deserve it either. It's not a reward or a recompense. Be grateful for it, but don't cling to it." And although that is sound advice I'm starving for some actual sweetness here, I might sound like a whore but I want someone to WANT to be kind to me, even "just because." Honestly that's one of the things I was thinking about with Mimic, earlier. "Virtue is only virtue in extremis" again. Love is a CHOICE, and it's PURE that way. It DOESN'T use words like "deserve" and "owe" and "should." If it did, then it would exclude and judge others. But no. Love, and kindness, and all virtue, DECIDES to just do good for others because they exist. Simple as that. "Why me," and I say "why not you," and when they list all the reasons why they "don't deserve to be cared for" it just... honestly it should just go over my head. Love doesn't care about that. It doesn't justify things, no, it wants you to do better and heal and move forwards, BUT it also doesn't deem you "unlovable" because of them. That's the fragile dance. To truly be kind, to truly love, you MUST see and love and care for the WHOLE ENTIRE REAL PERSON, without labeling them, AND without "leaving them in the dirt" either. I want what's best for them, honestly best, what will bring genuine joy and purpose to their life, what will not hurt their soul. That's shown through kindness... through mercy. God shows me that all the time. I haven't gotten it much from people. But I need to make a list, and NOT one that says stuff like "they didn't throw me on the streets when I was being a bitch" and "they still fed me even if I was an ungrateful pig" and "they didn't insult me when I shared my personality" BECAUSE it doesn't mean "they went out of their way to make me feel safe" or "they were respectful and considerate when I displayed negative symptoms" or "they talked to me about what I valued with a genuine interest." I don't have things like that to list. And that's where kindness is really shown. It's heartfelt.
"Trust". That one hurts. I always "trusted" BUT it also always occurred IN OPPOSITION. I would be scared to death BUT I would still choose to "trust" because "that's what good people do," and "they're not a bad person!" But... I don't think anyone ever trusted me, in contrast. Ever. I didn't deserve it, though. I admit that. It still hurts to realize. I have longtime issues with compulsive lying, and half-truths, and sometimes not even knowing what's real or not due to dissociation or derealization. Not only that, but my "people-pleasing" programming often "makes" me knee-jerk agree or offer to do things that I'm NOT CAPABLE OF DOING, or even willing to do in the first place. And it happens SO AUTOMATICALLY that the only escape I have is... making myself a liar. I'll say "yeah I'll do that" or "yes I like that" or "yes that's okay" or "no there's no problem" etc. and it's completely false BUT I say it so reflexively. And then I'm pinned like a butterfly to a board. Doomed, unless I bail and run. It happens far too often, and then people call me "two-faced" and a "manipulator" and all sorts of just accusations but I honestly don't know what else to do. I am COMPLETELY untrustworthy in bodyspace, and probably have been since my youth. I grew up in a family that legit taught me to lie and even ENCOURAGED it in many situations. My mother STILL TELLS ME OUTRIGHT to "lie" to get out of trouble, or avoid an undesired outcome, or to "make things easier" or the like. She doesn't see it as lying if "the ends justify the means," I guess. But then you can't be trusted, if you do things like that. And I DESPERATELY WANT TO BE TRUSTED. If I had to make a list of my emotional needs that would be one of the first three, hands-down. Again... this is something Chaos 0 & I talk about very often and we bond over it a lot, too. But... maybe even more than him, I know what it's like to be constantly suspected, to be assumed guilty without trial, to be seen as inherently deceptive and shady... to be known as a backstabber, a double-crosser, a traitor. God knows I have literally heard those words more often than I want to count, let alone admit. And I deserve it. But just like kindness, God I WANT to be trustworthy, so badly it's killing me. I WANT to be reliable, and honorable, and loyal and true and faithful. I want my word to mean something, that when I give it, it can be depended on. I want to be staunch and stalwart and steadfast, like a rock-- like a precious stone, isn't that ironic.
"Honesty." This ties into "trust," and as a result it's probably what I've had the least of in my life. You can't trust someone if they're not honest. But... again, it's what I've lived with, and learned. My family always wore masks, hid things, told baldfaced lies. My "relationships" were hallmarked by people admitting to personae and playing roles. I never knew who people actually were. I never knew what they actually felt or thought or wanted or intended. I never knew how to be myself, either, with that atmosphere. So I wasn't honest, either, out of fear and self-distrust. What a stupid irony. All I wanted was for people to be honest, but... when I tried to be honest myself, I got punished, or called a liar anyway.
"Equality." Not even sure how to define that. With my family, it's prominently lacking-- I've told therapists before how I was always treated shockingly differently from my siblings because I was born with different chromosomes.
"Good communication." Another absolute F on my report card here.
"Space to have your own lives." ...This one was the killing bullet in all my "relationships." I was always caught in situations where I was bound to "exist FOR the relationship ONLY."

...The only healthy relationships I've ever had are in headspace, and even those have so many rough spots because I fail to live up to my part.

(continue)
...

Sorry for rambling. Let's get back on the main topic so I can be done with this.
Next is ABOUT THAT "CONSENT" THING. Notice what they grouped together? "Sex" and "kissing" and "hand holding." Three COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS that can overlap but SHOULD NOT BE GROUPED BY DEFAULT. EVER.
That's the disgusting slippery slope mentality that has turned my life into a living hell SINCE childhood. It infects EVERYTHING. How in the world are you supposed to have a NONSEXUALIZED RELATIONSHIP if people keep subtly associating innocent acts of affection and closeness with literal intercourse??? Like if you have one, you're GOING to have the other. It's one of the most devilish things that ever happened to me, internalizing that after hearing it ad nauseam.
...

I'm just so disturbed by this entire bank of info they offer because it's split between two opposing things. On one hand, they're legit giving some good information. They're fairly informative about how to get help after abuse & what pregnancy is & why consent is important, BUT they're also speaking FROM A BASEPOINT of "it's ALSO okay to masturbate and have abortions and treat sex like a toy!" NO IT'S NOT. And that corrupted foundation wrecks the whole entire thing.
There's a sentence in their info pages that basically says "pregnancy can result from sex." WHAT THE HECK, WHAT DO YOU THINK SEX IS FOR??? But here it is: on another page "People define 'sex' in different ways!" MORE TRAUMA LIES.
Honestly the dichotomy on this site is insane. On one hand they're treating sex like a game or a recreational activity-- they're giving tips to literal children on how to abuse their own sexuality, telling them "only you know when you're ready" and "virginity varies from person to person" and other such garbage. They talk about sex like it's this "fun thing to do" AND YET they have full sections on rape and assault and bloody abortions. MAKE UP YOUR MINDS. IT CANNOT BE BOTH.

I'm sorry, I cannot do this. The wrath is quickly turning into absolute existential despair and I am going to end up having nightmares and flashbacks and abusive episodes if I keep this up. No.

...Someone commented on the Tumblr post, "Applying their own twisted morality to impressionable children is grooming and abuse."
I agree entirely. That's what has me so wrecked about this. I see the entire traumatic pattern of my past looming over any children who stumble across this abomination. I wasn't "ignorant" when it happened to me, and it didn't help at all. You can sugarcoat extramarital underage sex all you want, it doesn't make it right, and it doesn't make it not terrifying either.

...
I am so bloody angry. And I want to scream and cry on some deeper level.
There are so many nousfoni that deal with so many aspects of this. Julie and Infinitii and Ashen and Dread and all the adult women that (thank God) we haven't seen in ages. The little boys who are so unstable they're almost not alive. The little girls who shriek constantly. Sugar and Wreckage and all the other unnamed Protectors who would tear out the throat of any would-be assaulter on a dime.
And then there's me, of all people, me and my awful Red heart, acting like Cupid hirself and defending this entire topic with all my might and yet I'm such a stupid hypocrite, aren't I? I'm a tangle of paradoxes. Queer transgender Catholic. Fictoromantic asexual cardiophile. Obsessed with sensuality but grossed out by physical bodies in general. I mean for God's sake my daengel is Infinitii, I can sputter out all the fumbling alibis I want but ze is the damning evidence, the judge's hammer personified.
...Yesterday night, I clicked on hir Spotify playlist.

(continue)

...

We got a text from our new therapist around 6:30, which was good because we were getting so emotionally distressed that we needed a break from typing this. Unfortunately she sent us a "Depression Inventory" to fill out, haha. We're not touching it until tomorrow when we can answer it in earnest with a clearer head. Right now everything would be skewed from being so mentally disheveled.
But yeah, we ACTUALLY have our intake appointment tomorrow at 1pm! Thank GOD; our CPTSD symptoms have been getting pretty bad post-inpatient and have been spiking lately with all the family overwhelm and online triggers. I think it'll be a video appointment; I don't think we'll have a car until Sunday (and we have to go shopping then anyway, as much as we hate to on a Sunday; we'll have to put Larnelle Harris on loop while we drive). But the new therapist is actually only a few minutes away from our apartment! So that's awesome. I'll have to check if there's a local bus that goes that way, maybe we can schedule around that? We'll see.

We spent a little while filling out the "new patient data" and skimming through the legal jargon; we're very familiar with it but it still needs to be reviewed and signed before we can become a legit patient. HOWEVER. This is the first time we've been asked for our gender and pronouns on a form. Remembering how disturbing it was to "wake up" as a System DURING INPATIENT-- AGAIN-- and to realize that whoever had been driving prior was presenting us as the birth default, which literally does not apply when we're PLURAL in any case. So, seeing it on this paper, we recognized that we had to be completely honest about it. Pronouns are they/them of course, but "gender?" How do we state that? Yes, it varies in-System, but the System as a whole isn't fronting as a whole during therapy. That's gonna ideally be the Core. But... they're not binary, and they're not actually "nonbinary" either, since-- as Catholics-- we DO recognize that male/female dichotomy as a legit split and that is apparent in the System, even with folks who are ACTUALLY "nonbinary" in that they are nonhuman and sexless. Typically people still choose one set of binary pronouns, and see that pink-blue complement as a sliding scale, almost? Like, look at Laurie. "She" is OBVIOUSLY not "female." She's not a "girl." BUT she's also not a "boy". Literally Laurie is "neuter," as all Nousfoni are, with the VERY rare function-based exceptions of Julie and Infinitii. Nevertheless, our System still recognizes "masculine" and "feminine" as valid descriptors... BUT IN AN ANDROGYNOUS FASHION. And THAT is what hit hard, thinking about our "body gender" today. Laurie uses "female" pronouns, but in the System, "femininity" is ONLY safe if it's "MASCULINE." Likewise, Knife uses "male" pronouns, but "masculinity" is ONLY safe if it's "FEMININE." Literally both binaries paradoxically merge the binary into a united harmony? While still being "independent" qualities? It's kinda beautiful really and yes we CAN have "feminine girls" and "masculine guys" but they historically tend to be abusive or corrupt. Child Nousfoni don't really adhere to this at all, because their presentations are almost always wrecked by trauma. Not only that, but "male/female" behavior characteristics really don't appear until the teenage years, so to speak. Before that, it's straight-up androgyny. And THAT'S what we really present as, physically. We NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE. We DO get dysphoria-- we look in the mirror and to this day the body looks wrong and feels foreign and we are always taken by surprise in that respect, negatively so-- BUT it goes for BOTH BINARY CHARACTERISTICS. We don't want ANY reproductive organs, which is priority, so for years we thought we were "neutrois" or "agender"... but then we realized we felt comfortable with facial hair and a more "masculine" presentation. BUT even as we lived "as a guy," we didn't want to BE a male? Not the way the world saw males, at least. We didn't want to "be in that group," or associate with that label. But we ALSO DID NOT EVER WANT TO BE CONSIDERED A GIRL, even moreso than a boy. Furthermore, the "adulthood" thing feels wrong in BOTH ways, possibly due to trauma, UNLESS we're a DAD. THEN we can be a "man." Our personal identity on the masculine side is hilariously weird-- either we're an anime protagonist dude, or we're a videogame single father, haha. Those are the tropes that fit! As for our "feminine" side, there's... not one? Which is BIZARRE. We do have "feminine traits" and yeah we were trying on dresses the other day, but we must always add that "boyish" edge or it feels COMPLETELY WRONG. We cannot have long hair, or makeup, or too much jewelry, because the instant we "step over the androgyne line" we're NOT OURSELF.
So... that seems to be the gender term for us to use, to communicate this properly. "Androgynous." A mixture of male and female, WITHOUT BEING EITHER. It's a "third gender," that doesn't reject the other two. We'll "wear" this term for a while and see how other people respond to and perceive it, to make sure it's giving the correct impression, even if they don't know we're a System-- probably especially so. In any case, that's what we put on the intake form. "Androgyne, they/them." So that was a little milestone.

It was getting late around that time, and we needed to eat at 8:30 at the latest, so we put in a solid effort to exercise around 7:45. We got 35 minutes in, but again we had to put the resistance on 4 and go slow because we're still nauseous and we KEEP getting palpitations when we exert ourselves at all? The edema in our legs is back, too, as of last night, which we haven't had since inpatient. What the heck is up with all this? It hit so suddenly and won't go away. The "malaise" is awful. Did we catch COVID again and not realize it, what with all the running around we've been doing with mom while in such a stressed-out state? God only knows, but I hope it's not that serious. We'll see, I guess.
...Actually hold up, our bloodwork results from this morning just came in. Our CMP is ACTUALLY NORMAL across the board, which I don't think has happened in YEARS. However our CBC shows that our WBC (white blood cells) are still in the low zone, BUT now our HCT (red blood cells) are really high? Which is NEW. Hopefully it's just dehydration, and not heart trouble. At least this explains the headaches, dizziness, & fatigue, apparently. At least our platelets are completely average; platelet disorders run in our family. I'm just hoping that this white/red imbalance (how ironic) isn't... well, cancer. That runs in our family, too. But... our grandmother suffered and died from it, so if we had to, too... it would be a weirdly bittersweet sort of recompense. Like we could share that, empathize with her, after the fact. I don't know. I'm worrying too much, getting too close to unearthing that unresolved and crushing guilt for her death. I can't handle that right now. Therapy is tomorrow. We'll see what the doctor says about the blood. Tonight we can't do anything about either, so put it in God's hands and let it go.

Anyway. Dinner was at 8:45, I think? No carrots this time, and a full bag of broccoli (we were craving it for some reason). Also, Xenophon reminded us that she wanted to try eating the "wiggly egg" on the english muffin we always have, so we did that-- and it was really nice actually? So we thanked her and shared it with her and we're definitely doing that for dinner from now on, haha.
We're also completely out of all all yogurt flavors except vanilla, which is our favorite so no complaints there. We had the last cherry one today and I still can't figure out if I "like" that fruit as more than a concept or not. Yes, it's red and glossy, but do we like the taste of it? No clue. No idea why our brain does that in any case, the whole "conceptual fondness" thing. It's interesting as much as it's frustrating, as it makes it very hard to form our "own opinions" because "preferences" don't really exist in that "obligatory" context. We're trying to work on it, but it's all experimental, so to speak. So we'll have to try another cherry one when we do a grocery run.
Oh. That reminds me. That dream I had yesterday morning... well, after that scene the dream did what dreams love to do and got a bit random. Apparently we had to "reintegrate Mimic back into society" and part of that process somehow involved teaching him to eat properly?? Which feels like a specific subconscious reference to our inpatient treatment & release. But, the only food the Restoration crew had on hand was yogurt. Like tons of bizarre flavors of it. Amusingly, Mimic was trying them all, as interestedly as if he had never eaten legit food before. I remember one of them was like... "Lingonberry & Brass." Yes as in the metal. Apparently this was his favorite one too, haha. Thinking about all this after I had this sudden mental image of Tangle asking Mimic "why are you eating all the yogurt" and his reply was just "no bones." Which is HILARIOUS, what the heck dude. So now, uh, when we go shopping I'm going to have to try lingonberry flavor. Just because.

Ah hold up I just remembered what else I had to tell you!
Xenophon (thankfully) pushed me to do MUSIC WRITING today. "Even just three notes, dad," she said. So I went on the League laptop (good ol' Scherzando) and started by finding all our old FL Studio files-- honestly the last time we were really prolific musically was from 2008-2015, with Abbey and that "temp laptop" that a Protector/Persecutor literally destroyed when they found out hackers were using it. We still mourn that loss-- it happened during the most productive creative phase we've had in YEARS, and... everything was gone in an instant. Days worth of art and music and writing, erased with one furious punch to the motherboard. Gone. Still, it was fitting penance; we were in the WORST state of our mind as well, simultaneously. We still refer to 2015 as the "hell year," even if we don't actively remember it. That's the reason it's missing from recall.
Anyway. We want to start again. So I found the old files, and moved them all into their League folders, but when I got to Imagirealm (Otherside) and FFN I forgot that their tunes had been moved into other Leagueworlds somewhat? So I stopped, and decided, "let's bring up ALL the FL filenames and check for location doubles." Surprisingly there were only like three; everything else had been correctly moved prior, apparently... and then there was this one file in a subfolder for Oneircia?? We FORGOT that when we almost scrapped "Immaculata" we dumped the "angel" file into Oneircia as a placeholder, and there was a tiny music loop saved in it. "handbells_2". Just a short thing, but it had such a cool vibe and I really liked how the handbell sound had been edited to sound "rounder" and more metallic. Wondering where to put it, I started adding some chords to the melody line, just for fun, and then thought "hm I wonder what to do for a bassline" and decided "let's go full-out grunge kicks" and tossed one in there. Well it sounds BOSS now. And I had to stick a limiter on it because that bass was peaking instantly, haha. But yeah, I spent like an hour just having fun with that. I miss that-- creating for the sake of creating, even just loops, because they're still beautiful sounds and they still enrich and express the Worlds they later are given to. I think we're going to keep this one in "Immaculata," because I don't want to scrap ANY Leagueworld, and this little tunebit-- which I'm calling "warrior angel" for now-- might be just the seed it needs to regrow into something real.
You know... it actually sounds like something I would have written back in college. It's got that same vibe. That means a lot to me, considering we thought that creative spark was lost after the trauma resurgence of the same time period. Apparently not, thanks be to God, because we just made something from that spark!
Oh and when we exercise now I have ALL the Leaguetunes that exist on our phone now, so we can LISTEN to them again. And I FORGOT how much I legit LOVE the Flairousia OSTs!! Those are my "fun" projects; little transformation themes for each character that follow the same rough structure but NEED to match their personal "elemental" vibe. And they're SO FUN TO LISTEN TO. Gosh I need to jump back into writing THOSE, even if the series is under major rehaul right now. Don't care bro, I'm still gonna compose stuff for it. Heck, it might even help with the reconstruction! In any case, the music MUST still be relevant and it WILL be. So that's my next goal-- FINISH YVONNE'S TRANSFORMATION THEME FOR HEAVEN'S SAKES, haha. It's the only one NOT complete from the first generation of kids. Then I can work on the other dozens of 'em, geez louise. *dean mccoppin pose* ART!
(OH and Neon Flames Phase Two STILL ROCKS. It's such a dynamic track.)
Lastly I just brought this topic up because exporting it as an mp3 was taking forever and it's probably done an hour later, haha. So let me go close that up and I'll come back here to the new laptop (good ol' Sophrosyne) and close this up so we can SLEEP for heavens sakes, it's 1am already and we NEED to get like nine hours in to make up for the past two nights.

Sorry for the emotional whiplash AND obvious multiple authors in this entry but this screen's been open for hours.
It's good, though. We're being completely sincere with our life, moment to moment, with this daily journaling again. Recording the pain and sorrow as well as the love and joy... it's essential.
We'll be back here again tomorrow to do the same.

I've been browsing the "weird" religious tumblr blog ring for about two solid hours now, trying to distract myself from the terror of accidentally eating too much salad and the physical sensation of it, but after reading one too many posts about "sacred eroticism" and how cannibalism and sexuality keep getting tangled up I am literally sobbing to Infinitii because God help us we still have SO MUCH UNRESOLVED TRAUMA.

I've gotta be blunt. Infi can't speak for me here; there is no velvet-guttural-black voice(s) giving speech to the awful terror I cannot hide from hir. I've gotta feed it to the autopilot and just… let it hit the digital paper. And there's that word again, this bloody topic, this inexplicably unkillable curse of sex and food that has been haunting us since childhood and is apparently a metastasized cancer at this point. God please don't let it be terminal.

The "Julie days" were one thing. The "daemon days" were another. BOTH stopped dead cold in October 2018 when we bailed out of Charlotte in the back of a blue Chevy and left half our life sitting on the curbstones as twilight sunk into our spinal cord. In an instant, a horrible instant, the cords were cut-- sickeningly cleanly, with a surgical blade, cauterizing on impact. Or so we thought.
I want to expand that metaphor but all I can say is that now, looking back, they cut the wrong thing. They severed some superfluous sinew and we falsely thought that everything was cool, fine, it's gone, it's over. But the mental image and feeling I keep getting is that of hysterically sawing at bloody tendons with a dull kitchen knife and there's red everywhere and I can feel it in my skin even now, God knows I remember, Laurie my beloved murderous knight I remember your hands holding me down as you dug the first graves, I remember the bathroom mirror, I remember the red, the red--
everything smells like iron and olive oil, like too-soft strawberries and sunburnt tomatoes, like red, like my heart, like the porcine organs I would rip apart with my teeth on that inconsolable balcony as the air turned to ice. I can still taste them, in someone else's memory. someone else is still hungry.

and there's our point. what the heck is hunger. I don't get hungry. someone else in this system craves salad, stuffs her face with it because she wants the green inside her, because we're still a celebi at the core and we want to be the forest, to be the leaves, and you are what you eat so there's someone else who douses everything in oil because it's chrism, isn't it, it's anointing and they don't even see it as food they see it as religion, as last rites, as preparing to meet God but the problem is oil tastes like blood and that wakes up ANOTHER inner soul who hungers for the guts of things, for hearts and livers and kidneys and skin and brains and tendons and bones and marrow and blood, always blood, why do we want SO BADLY to eat so viscerally, pun intended, it's the only kind of eating that feels real and pure but only on paper. the concept is what we want, but no amount of dead animals will ever satisfy. "I want love, not sacrifice," and lo and behold isn't that the most perfect segue you've ever seen?

daemons are what we love to call "splanchnivores." as in, they only eat viscera. they themselves are visceral after all. and my deep love of that word betrays the fact that, like it or not, the nature of daemons speaks to the nature of our subconscious fathoms far too clearly.

we hunger for what we love. our heart is a cannibal. what the hell do we do with that.

and that's why I'm having a minor existential meltdown at 10pm on a monday, surrounded by red light and snowflakes and I'm trying to just… get a hold on this whole thing; it's SO intensely dissociative even now it's unreal.
I put a peppermint in our mouth and instinctively crush it to pieces with the teeth but I don't taste it, I don't feel it, I don't swallow it, I don't even have a mouth and yet the body is doing what all bodies do with food. it just does not register in the psyche. the very act of eating makes us dissociate by default. even now. even with the bulimia ACTUALLY IN REMISSION for the first time in YEARS, thank God, thank God Almighty we prayed for this for SO LONG and all it took was leaving that house.

I'm rambling. let it happen.
that house was where all the rape happened too.

…I ran to Infi in absolute lunatic terror because I'm reading about saints who were so in love with God that their desire for Christ literally became eroticized and I'm vaguely aware of this being important to us back before 2018 but now it's all cut off with that bloody blade. how ironic that Knife is the one that gets pinged by the taste of blood. the priest. the repentant vampire. the one who sliced open our shoulders with a literal steak knife. kitchen tools carving up our body just to watch it bleed, before he pressed his lips to the washcloths in some instinct we were forced to confess and possess as ours, not just his, just like deep down razor wasn't the only one who savored the sight of that lilac-white layer below the surface of our skin. before it flooded red. before her brother stepped in to not-drink it. once again, the wires get crossed, but nothing is turning on.

I get so dizzy at night. is it our glucose? is it dehydration? is it just because we aren't sleeping? I don't know. I'm just so, so tired and I want to weep, I'm scared, scared because I feel how HUGE and TERRIFYING this ancient monstrosity of a mental war is, and I don't have the strength to face it right now, I don't even know what my name is, or do I, God only knows.

I was talking to Infinitii because everything in our body is shut down but spiritually things still happen and no one knows what to do. there is no desire anymore, no capacity for intimacy, no want of touch, nothing. except there is. except it's utterly flipping dissociated from to the point where it’s as insubstantial as tracing paper. it's a concept. it's not real.
except it's still there, even as a feeble pencil sketch on onion skins. there's still an attempt to express some larger thought. something we haven't looked at since 2018 and refuse to.
that's the kicker. refuse to.

we might still have the capacity for love and intimacy and yes even "sacred eroticism" like the entire almost-annihilated "jay" bloodline had-- a bloodline I APPARENTLY AM STILL PART OF-- but that capacity has been smothered, buried, beaten to shit and erased from written history. or, more accurately, it was deleted. just one tap of a button and blip, there it goes! data erased! like nothing ever happened.
except it did.
except infinitii didn't stay dead either.
except in some ugly terrifying part of my skull there is this awful thought that I confessed to hir, that our mouth is in the wrong place and God only knows what we should do with that.

"eating" does not register on the face. sexuality does.
guess what goes between the ribs? both.
and most horrifically of all, what should be used for sexuality is just teeth.

we're all mixed up. I don't know what to do.
…I WANT to love again. I want to love GOD. but I am SO FREAKING TERRIFIED of sexuality AND eating AND the too-frequent fusion of them in my religion that I don't know what to do anymore. I feel like I need to heal this RIGHT NOW or I will never have genuine religion. like my faith is hollow, a trust and a belief but without care. I… I cannot get close.
except SOMEONE keeps kissing the jesus statues on the mouth whenever we go to church. almost like play-acting. there's a hope there, but no feeling. not a compulsion, but a wish? like, this is something they "should do" so they do it, but they want to "want to" in some different way? I don't know. it's frightening on some deeper level. I'm not sure what they want or what they're doing. I'll have to talk to them. I couldn't do it, and weirdly that breaks my heart. I want to be able to do that more than they do, arguably, shockingly, because I'm built TO love and I can't.
I'm terrified. God help me.

And then I have dreams.
Oh God knows all about the dreams.
Every once in a while, my blue angel will show up, and it is the ONLY TIME in all existence that I will not only feel love, but become love, and I feel alive and real and then I wake up and… I'm not me. I'm in this body, and someone else is sharing it, and physicality feels wrong and broken and dirty and "we" are ashamed and guilty and angry and sick about the dreams but I can't stop thinking about them and trying to remember what it felt like, those blue claws around my waist, emerald teeth against my lips, and this wanting like I could have swallowed the entire ocean-- but not with my mouth. never that way. it's so strange. I want to kiss him but I don't. I don't want anything to do with 2018. my mouth is open. my eyes are hot with tears. I'm holding on to him like a drowning man but I want the salt water in my lungs, in my chest, I want to swallow it but I don't want to drink it, my stomach is not involved, I want to melt into him like snow in a bonfire.
and then there's this bloody candle flame that I get in the body that has nothing to do with sex and yet it is, it has nothing to do with flesh and yet it's physical, it's unitive, it's what God made that drive to be about and God knows there's something going on here but it's still not sexual.
I guess that's why the saints use the term "eroticism" it's that divine "eros" we always used to talk about. the merge-drive. the desire to become one. but no legs, no movement, none of the terrors and trauma of the rape nightmare days that we still cannot look at without wanting to die and scream and sob forever. none of that.

but it's also tangled.
if we have eros but not sex, then what the heck do we have with "eating" that isn't eating? it's the same thing to our brain. at the deepest level it's the same bloody thing and that's why we fast for so long and then completely and utterly dissociate when we do have to eat salad, even though someone genuinely loves having her bible-study breakfast in front of the window every morning, and God bless her, but even she complains sadly that she never tastes it and cannot remember it afterwards, let alone even during. our brain just… shuts it all out, because if it didn't, I think the bulimia would start all over again. it's why we will fast for 18 hours without even trying because even if we're starving and want to eat we don't want to EAT. it's why we won't even get food out to prepare, let alone sit down to eat it, without hypercleaning the kitchen and living room first because if there's a speck of fluff on the rug or a crumb on the floor it feels like being violated and EVERYTHING must be SPOTLESS before those chopsticks are even touched because otherwise it feels like we're eating dirt. and Lord knows how ACTUALLY TRAUMATIC it is when we eat and God forbid we drop something, because the INSTANT food leaves the "safe place" of a bowl or a utensil-- the MOMENT it is "out of the proper place" and onto a counter or rug or other surface-- it becomes dirt. it becomes filth. and that sudden, absolute, irreversible, ACCIDENTAL transformation of food into garbage is the most disturbing thing in the world. we will actually panic and cry hysterically if we're unstable enough and we drop a lettuce leaf on the floor. it feels like the world is ending. it is existentially terrifying. we CANNOT COPE with it somehow. those events occur at the very intersection of sex and food for some reason and it is enough to make us want to throw up. I don't know how the girls do it, get through a meal after dropping something on the table. I really don't.

why did we use to throw up LITERALLY every single meal for YEARS at the family home? was that why? that intersection of food and sex? where eating around people felt like rape, and still does? we cannot talk while eating or it feels like being molested. we will immediately start to cry and scream and binge and vomit, violently so, until we are so sick and dizzy and shaken up that we feel like we are literally about to die. I can still taste the stomach lining on our tongue. it's horrible. tripe used to be our brother's favorite food as a kid; I think if we so much as smelled it now we'd have a mental meltdown. we already do if we smell seafood. let's not get into that now. the very vague thought of it has me at the verge of suicidal impulses and physical flashbacks.

ON THAT NOTE.
we are still, STILL, programmed to be "compulsively sexual." like I am not even joking, the WORST part of Lent is the fact that fridays smell like fish everywhere you go, and the INSTANT we get a whiff of it, we DISSOCIATE and our body LITERALLY WAITS FOR THE RAPE.
it's so wrong. it's horrifying. that is the ONLY time we feel that "candle flame" not as a holy thing but as a rotten ragged match, a painful stove-burn that we did on purpose because someone told us to put our hands in there. it hurts and it's nauseating and it's forced and the accompanying thought is "it will be over soon."
GOD I DON'T WANT TO REMEMBER THOSE THINGS. HELP US PLEASE

That wasn't me. Oh God please do help those girls, I didn't mean to wake them up, I'm so sorry.

its okay you didn’t mean to scare them, it's scary no matter who says it and we don't want it said

That's why I'm sorry.

I know but it's
it's something
people keep saying we need to talk about it
WE DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!!!!!! EVER!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE LEAVE IT ALONE LET IT ROT IN HELL WHERE IT BELONGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE

I am genuinely so sorry, I don't think I can cope with it either

NOBODY CAN

that's a good point, in fact that's the whole point of this entry, which is that right beneath the surface of our daily life there is this HELLBOMB just waiting to go off, if the right godforsaken button is pushed. how horribly, horribly ironic that something from the ocean would do it.

I want to die. God help me I cannot cope with this.

I need to talk to some upstairs people. Christ be our light. Please bury this for now. We can't deal with it yet. Please help us. We don't know what to do.

Good night, God willing. We have Adoration tomorrow morning which means we can sleep in until 7.
We need to visit grandma in the afternoon but… we need a more stable mind first. right now, the thought of walking into that house… hoo boy. it'll be like walking into a minefield. I am absolutely cofronting right now, with a manic red social, there's our coping mechanism incarnate, hello there.

Oh by the way mention that at the gym today, two people got onto the treadmills on EITHER SIDE OF US and we nearly had an absolute mental breakdown on the spot. like it was TERRIFYING. our immediate flashback was to the two guys who mugged us on the sidewalk, they were on either side of us just like that, as we ran and listened to spotify on our phone with that same exact brand of headphones, WOW NO WONDER WE THOUGHT WE WERE GONNA DIE, that is UNCANNILY EXACT.
but yeah. awful. RIGHT AFTER almost hitting that lady's car because we dissociated. and she got out of the car and yelled at us. JUST LIKE when that OTHER blonde angry lady hit us at big lots and we almost died. I think we still have a scar on our back from the broken glass. I hope so. and our hand! I'm sure. I will look in a minute, I can't see in the red light. but it's nice.
the red light washes out our skintone somehow where we look safe. less "physical." more of a concept. it's holy, it's good. there's no food in here. but.
too many people associate red light with sex
and there is definitely still that potential for "eros" in here. somehow. like previews before a movie. maybe that's just trauma flashbacks. but oh I'm so sorry please I don't want to ruin the red light in here for you. it's beautiful. it's safe. I don't want to hurt you. I'm sorry everything is just so weird and terrifying tonigght, there are too many flashbkac,s we don’t want to remember this please god no no no n

all right kids let's get our ass to bed. Laurie out. We've gotta fix this. See you around.

Let's talk about daemons.

Daemons, in the 2013-2018 Spectrum timespace, were "incarnated vices" meant to force their heart-host into admitting and facing that vicious reality as being THEIRS, instead of denying and running from it; after all, we cannot repent if we don't know what we're repenting from, let alone if we're denying the fact that we have sinned in the first place. Daemons bring all that front and center. Most importantly, though, is the fact that they are madly in love with their hosts. They adore the souls they are enslaved to, that they exist for and from forever. A daemon is your deepest fears and biggest faults given bones and breath and beating heart, and they love you, but they will devour you if you are not careful. They are inherently dangerous, and they are absolutely indispensable. A daemon can teach you the most radical forgiveness, but they can also falter and fall into a sort of punchdrunk moral relativism, so unable to hate that they forget that their very core is hateful. Their guts are painted black. No matter how soft a wound is, it's still a wound; it's still blood and it's still damage.

Rio's Daemon is Lethe Styx. He personifies fear of nothingness/ the unknowable, and the vice of sloth as a result? He is named after two rivers, both of oblivion-- one of thought, one of body.
Rio is prone to intense self-distraction, for the sole purpose of not having to face the silence, trying to block out the river-rush of blood in one's ears.

Markus's Daemon is Medallion Guillotine. She personifies fear of weakness, and the vice of avarice, arguably. She is named after two symbols of power-- the first to hoard, the second to behead, and both with the ability to destroy life outright.

Chaos's Daemon is Perfect Chaos. He mentally detached himself from that potential in his soul for so long, and with such disturbed fervor, that Perfect was almost forced to "daemonize."
He personifies unending agony. At heart, it is the fear of (loss? despair?) and the vice of wrath. When grief bores too deeply into your soul, it hits the fires of hell and burns everything to death.
Perfect Chaos himself is an ironic "just deserts" to those who sought "perfection" in worldly ways-- through control, power, and pride. To such people, "perfection" meant becoming like a god, but not like God.

Jewel Lightraye's Daemon is Dendrite Aorta… or so we've been told. Jewel herself, being the heart of an entire identity bloodline, is paradoxically as unstable as she is invincible.
She is the fear of forgetting oneself??? and the vice of pride.
Jewel's mind and heart are both deemed intrinsic to the very existence of the Spectrum, as is the integrous preservation of both, and as such she has a fatal proclivity to consider herself perpetually innocent. Dendrite exists to tell her, awfully but honestly, that she's not. And that is terrifying.

Jay Iridos's Daemon is Infinitii Eternos. Ze personifies fear of intimacy and the vice of lust, shockingly so. Ze is named after both heaven and hell themselves, in a sense; the "infinite" potential of "I and I," of two become one, and the "eternity" of "nos," of "us." But whether that unity is of ardor or abuse, remains to be seen, and that is the terror.

What about me, then? Who am I, now, really?

I'm not Mr. Iridos or Ms. Lightraye, even though their hearts are still so close to mine I can feel them in my very ribs. They switch out and front on their own now, separate from the Core function, having held that hierarchal honor in the past and now relinquishing it to… who? Who am I?
I am of their bloodline, inevitably. But what "surname" is mine? Do I carry something new?

The Lightraye purpose of birthing the League, the Iridos purpose of sustaining the Spectrum… I must admit, although those functions still exist and are executed, they are not in the first place mine. When Leaguework is done, I am almost a ghostwriter; I know Jewel moves these hands in her own way. When Spectrum work is resumed-- literally as of Thursday night-- Jay is still front and center, the core that carried what time we forgot, and must integrate to continue onwards.

We've moved into an apartment. We've entered an entirely new reality-space. Body care and life awareness are suddenly prioritized. Religion is more fervent and beloved than ever before. Existence has changed on the outside, but what is it inside, now?

The Spectrum has been dormant for years. Now that it is awakening, who am I, within it?

I still love Chaos Zero, with my entire heart, God knows I love him enough to die. That is proof that I am a Core, that I am a genuine coeur and love is my absolute foundation.
But what is my name? Am I red, or white, or cerise, or even brown? And do I have a Daemon?
I can feel Infinitii is not mine; since Jay woke up, all the hidden love for hir has bloomed again in him. But he isn't tied to Chaos anymore. I am. And… that cannot be ignored. I'm the Prism, now; I'm the heart of glass through which the Light breaks into colors. But it all feels like echoes. There have been so many cores, and they were and are so alive, so real… I feel so empty, and hollow, and wrecked on some level compared to them. Maybe it's bleedover; I am sure there is still so much healing to do, on levels we haven't looked at, solely because innerspace has been closed off while it rebooted.

We'll work on it. I promise. As of right now it is 12:30 AM, I need to be awake at 7, and grandma is still in the hospital, God be with her still.

I must sleep, and pull myself together, however feebly, until morning. Pray that God reveals to me who He wants me to be, in truth, in respect to the entire life He has given me. Pray that He shows me soon, and that I can see it clearly when He does.

Now how do I get this color back, huh?

Two years ago, Infinitii Eternos took the fruit of temptation and risked becoming a demon in order to kiss a human boy. Ze sacrificed hir silent untouched purity in order to touch, in order to taste, in order to feel, and in doing so-- in gaining teeth and a tongue-- ze lost hir light, ze lost hir sight, ze lost hir soul. Infinitii Eternos turned from a seraph into a satan on that cursed summer night, and ever since then, my entire world has gone to hell.
That's what did it. My soul's "color compliment" was swallowed up in sin. The black to my white ceased to be stars and velvet and piano keys and silk, and instead turned into clogs of tar and clotted ink, clots of blood and sugar burnt to black. The sweet dark peace of gentle dreams turned into the horror of night paralysis with dawn a million years away. The jewelry-box glitter of a vast evening sky turned into the gaping hollow void of a lightless chasm beneath your feet. Black turned into black: a swirl of every color pigment draining its life to become instead a lack of any spectral hue. Infinitii effectively let hirself be slaughtered by something masquerading as love, because ze believed their lie that a knife through the heart was what love felt like. It's not. That's just murder. It's just death.

And now I'm facing the same dilemma that "I" did years ago, on JUNE 30th of 2011, when "Jayce"-- the "Jewel" of that time-- tried to fix the pink color of our Spectrum, which had also been corrupted.
Ironically, in attempting to do so, he fell into the same trap that Infinitii did, except HIS lie was in turning the wrong color White. Oh it was CLOSE at first; he KNEW what real White felt like-- light and color and purity-- but too quickly, oh too quickly, he became bleached-out and hyper-sterile, turning into a flat poison paint instead of a fragile electromagnetic beam. He wanted to be touched, and in doing so, he lost all his color. That's the curse, that's always the curse: that desire to fulfill sensuality that chokes spirituality in return.

And now I'm the only one left, in a very real sense, and I have ALL of those colors to fix.
Black needs to be purified. White needs to be purified. Pink needs to be purified. RED needs to be purified. Even mint green has to be purified. All of those colors-- and maybe more-- got utterly warped and wrecked during our stay in North Carolina, and if I don't purify them, I don't think I can ever truly move past that time period on a subconscious level, because I'm currently still working by those busted-up redefinitions when it comes to the spectral tones of my psyche.

So that's the important thought for this morning, as I sit here wearing a black nightgown, wondering for the third day in a row why it feels like I'm "dressed like a slut" solely because of the COLOR. There was a time, before that day in 2018, when wearing black would have felt holy, because I recognized the true aspects of God within it-- the silence, the mystery, the unfathomable depths, the purity of heart. EVERYTHING from God includes purity of heart. I recognize it now. It's the most beautiful feeling in the world. And it's missing from the label my mangled brain keeps slapping onto Black whenever I see it. So it needs to be fixed.
We'll get there. I'll make lists. I'll redefine it. I'll get the Book of Genesis up in this brain and remind it that In The Beginning, God SEPARATED the Light from the Dark, but BOTH EXISTED. And therefore I have to remember that, in this physical world, during this temporal time, there will ALWAYS BE BOTH SIDES and so I need to learn to DISCERN and DISTINGUISH. Recognizing the true, holy qualities of Black does not nullify the corruptive qualities that can and DO exist within that color elsewhere. It's just like, recognizing that I CAN be virtuous and good, does not erase my sinful propensity to do evil. I have a very hard time accepting that still. I think, ironically, in very black and white terms, because honestly I think that's the deep down reality of things. Sin CANNOT exist in heaven. There is NO wiggle room. It IS black-and-white. And that's how I wish things were here, except God doesn't. In His great Wisdom and Mercy, He allows gray to exist here, because if it didn't, we'd ALL be in hell right now. Instead, we get purgatory.
"And that, children, is what my Dream World series is about," I feel my mind say with a smile. It's true though! Which is why I really, honestly need to get that stuff online. God gave it to me as a talent, as a gift, and I can't keep burying it, because other people keep digging it up and spending it on LIES.
I need to take that holy talent and spend it in GOD'S KINGDOM because it will make a HUGE RETURN for Christ's glory and THAT'S WHAT I WANT.

That's slightly off topic, except it's not, because if there is ANY series of mine where Black is shown to be holy deep down in its dark heart BECAUSE GOD CREATED IT, it's Dream World. One word: VEZERAI. I love that little bugger and THIS IS PROBABLY WHY.
Darkness is a place where evil dwells, yes, BUT!!! It's only that way because EVIL LIKES TO CORRUPT THINGS and darkness was separated from Light in the beginning, making it the MOST easily corruptible thing ever. HOWEVER. God HIMSELF uses shadows and nightfall to make His glory known!! The ONLY thing WITHOUT God is hell, and we ALL know that the devil himself loves to pretend that hell is full of light. Well it's not. If it's any light, it's that awful buzzing artificial sickly yellow light that you get in bargain basements, fat with the stench of dollar bills and mildew. THAT'S hell. Fake light. It's not the sparkling splash of sunlight of God, and it sure isn't the soft and heavily tender darkness of God either!! It's ALSO not the terrific staggering shock of light that God can indeed be, that blinding luminosity that burns up all it touches, not out of malice but out of sheer power… and it's also not the darkness of God that erases all but itself, the holy blackness that turns the mind to its own mortality and forces it to its trembling knees in the Presence of that One Who cannot die and yet Who has power over all Death.

Now I apologize, but grandma just came into the room and lay back down in bed which has me worried and totally broke my train of thought, and I REALLY don't want to fall into sensual hell (a.k.a. the eating disorder, which I HATE but which my brain keeps defaulting to for unknown reasons?? it forgets that I HAVE a life to live and CAN live it, and instead keeps getting stuck in self-abusive dead loops) so I must close this up for now and check on her and then get to work with other creative things that glorify God, amen, have a beautiful day!

Eating sins blaspheme the Eucharist

BULIMIA = THOU SHALT NOT KILL

Bible is inspired because man's nature is fallen

"Christ consciousness" new-age belief: destroys the mystery and power of the Incarnation

It is super hard to become holy, so that no man can do it of his own will or wisdom or power. It is impossible for man. Sin is his nature. God is above nature. It is only possible for Him to make us holy. HUMILITY VS PRIDE

We forgive those who know not what they do because WE know, and if THEY knew their hearts would beg forgiveness too. So we forgive them on their behalf, we open that door of hope for them, which is what CHRIST DID FOR US ALL on the Cross! Loving our enemies is SO IMPORTANT. A

Paschal lamb sacrifice = cross as temple??

Exodus 23, 34?

Psalm 97: God as LOVE with fire and thunder!!

The weakness of God in the Cross is strength unspeakable; what man could be so humble in such torture?

Jesus COULD have "saved himself" but he WOULDN'T because he wanted to save US, and True salvation is THROUGH the cross.

Nonbelievers see conversion as divisive?? "Gaining followers" almost. No conception of the saving grace. That requires HUMILITY and admission of sinfulness

The world sees honorable things as ridiculous, and vice versa-- look at the media, toys, books, etc..

STUDY THE STATIONS: ROMANS 6:6

Dying from sin vs dying TO sin

+ "crucify him" for BLASPHEMY-- we who are Christians, dishonoring Jesus

Falsehood vs dishonesty; theft is taking without paying? (Without knowledge or consent!) Entitlement!

‘riches were a proof of divine approbation: love of wealth was a love of God’s favour: thus they sanctified avarice.’

Daemons:
"What the wicked man fears overtakes him, what the virtuous desires comes to him as a present" ???

PROVERBS 10 SELF ANALYSIS

Write about the visions of hell-- the devils speaking of all our sins; we cannot justify

We share in Christ's suffering by accepting ours; we deserve this pain for our sins, BUT Jesus bore them all to justify us. So our accepting this share of pain is just, and it also, I hope, alleviates a small amount of Christ's pain. We take sips of the Chalice for His sake, for Love.

Daemons REABSORBED into Blackspace.
To be recycled, purified, reborn in a League?

DELPHINIA? "Womb mother" nousfoni? Possibility; not realized; more of a "concept test run" really. "could be" but no actual existence

White steps into Blackspace?

Chaos & I giving our hearts to Jesus: "everything for His Glory" especially our relationship-- we must love Him more than each other THROUGH each other; EVERYTHING through the heart

DAEMONS

CURRENT DATA

THEORIES

possibly THREE NAMES?

would fit the headspace triad pattern.

LIST OF ALL KNOWN CATHEDRALEAN DAEMONS

INFINITII ETERNOS

CHOCOLOCO VANILOCO

LETHE STYX

MEDALLION GUILLOTINE

DENDRITE AORTA

CAKE

CAYENNE

NEXUS

AXIS PERICARDIUM

RUPTURE GORGE

ALTAIRRE TABERNACHT

XIPHOID

TRIAD

IDOLA REGINA

TAUREIA

"BARYAS"

"EPHMER"

"SYRUP"

"SYNAPSIS?"

"CARNEVALLE"

"JOKER"

EMMETT?

JABBERWOCK?

PAINTROLLER?

COCO & NILLA?

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

INFINITII ETERNOS = "LOTUS HEART"

CHOCOLOCO VANILOCO = "ANGRY BROWN JESS"

LETHE STYX = RIO SAIKARAS

MEDALLION GUILLOTINE = MARKUS BARASHIR

DENDRITE AORTA = JEWEL 2003?

CAKE ??? = BRIAR THORN?

CAYENNE ??? = JASON

NEXUS ??? = LAURIE UBERICH

AXIS ??? = IOLITE

RUPTURE GORGE = ???

ALTAIRRE TABERNACHT? = JAVIER ANASTASI

XIPHOID ??? = SILIVREN

TRIAD ??? = JAY PSEUDOCORE?

IDOLA REGINA = JULIE ENANTIOS

TAUREIA ??? = ???

JABBERWOCK ??? = LEANNE

"BARYAS TURYAS" = AHRIMA?

"EPHMER ???" = ???

"SYNAPSIS ???" = WALDORF KALLIOPE

"CARNEVALLE" = ???

"JOKER" = RAZWELL

EMMETT ??? = AIMEE

PAINTROLLER ??? = DALTON

COCO & NILLA? = ISCAH?

010718.
sunday.

We finally realized why Tobiko hasn't been the one purging anymore.

Food does not register as food.
We've been using food as a stim.

We've been using a LOT of things as stims, actually.
This explains the bathroom rituals.
We brush our teeth, floss, brush again, floss some more, use mouthwash, brush our teeth again, wash our face, wash our body, wash our hands, wash our face again… over and over and over and over. We do this for an hour, sometimes, just scrubbing at our gums and our flesh, scrubbing until we are red and raw sometimes. We do this in the shower, too-- we obsessively wash over and over and over, not even thinking that much about "being" clean as we are thinking about feeling clean. It's why we cut our nails down to the nubs and shave every hair off that we can reach. It's never about the end result, not literally. It's about how it feels. It's about purging everything that hurts in the most literal way we can think of.

We eat when we don't want to because it NEVER registers as eating. It registers as stimming.
This is why preparing food used to take, what, six hours back in PA? Because it was never about food. It was, again, a matter of stimming. Of sensory soothing.

Remember that one night in SLC where we sat on the floor of our bedroom, rocking violently back and forth and flapping our hands so hard our wrists ached, blasting Serph at high volume on our headphones and stretching our legs against that rubber band until they, too, were sore from exertion? Pure stimming. Pure mindless stimming. THAT'S the key here.

We've lost all our old methods. We can no longer walk in circles in the living room, or the kitchen, or the driveway. We can no longer go hide downstairs by the furnace, or lock ourselves in the bathroom-- although the latter was always a horrific trauma trigger, as was the attic, even moreso (which is why we didn't even bother to list it here.)
We can't even self-abuse in the "traditional" way anymore. We don't have razors. We don't have knives. We don't have blades. (and oh, how our heart aches at those words-- no, those names, beloved and tender as a wound) We can't bite our arms anymore, can't slap our face, can't yank at our hair, can't claw at our skin or punch our legs or stomp our feet. All our old stimming methods, as violent as we need them, are gone, are forbidden. And our brain is boiling over.

It's been shutting down a lot lately and that terrifies us, to be honest. OV has it easy. He can stim with an adorable little squishy macaron or peach or donut, can play with fidget spinners or kaleidoscopes or even just a piece of jewelry. That's enough for him, it seems, and that makes us super happy. We love him, we love allof them, and the fact that they can use such mild methods to soothe their addled brain is deeply soothing to ours-- in a different sense. We would never inflict this aggressive need of ours on them, not for the world. And yet, here we are, needing it, and terrified because we can't explain it to him, terrified because he thinks we're doing it out of hatred, out of rage, out of suicidal ideation. It's exactly the opposite. When we don't do it, the stress and pressure gets so intense that we wantto die, and we stop caring whether or not we do. That is what's lethal. Not the stims.

The problem is, though, that the stims are dangerous in and of themselves. All of Cannon and Gamboge's old methods drew blood, marked bruises, left scars. All of them beautiful and beloved, true, but still risky to our health… and yet what we wouldn't give to be able to flay this flesh wide open again, even though I can feel Scalpel shaking his head at that thought even now. Why so?
"It's dangerous," he says. "You're right. Even though it is effective, and beautiful, it's also just as addictive. You know just as well as I do that once we start that, we can't stop. We want to bleed and scar forever. And that will kill us."
So will this "eating disorder." But I suppose that's the point of this whole entry.

Food is the simplest, easiest, most "socially acceptible" form of stimming and self-abuse that we have left at our disposal. It's all we have left on days like this.
Except, now, we can't, not without risk of condemnation and distrust, not without hurting someone else more than we ever could before or would ever want to. OV knows we have a problem, but he doesn't know why-- heck, even we didn't know that until this afternoon!
But it's why we go absolutely bonkers in the kitchen once he goes to work and MC goes to sleep. We racked our brains over that for weeks, for months even. We don't want to abuse ourselves, we don't want to suffer or humiliate ourselves anymore, so why this? Why can't we stop this? Why do all of the nousfoni tied to this have such shockingly, irresistibly powerful anchors? Why can't even Laurie stop them? Why does NO ONE, deep down, even want to? Why does it feel like we're being "betrayed" by the System itself in these nousfoni being given free reign and full power over our body and actions in the middle of the night?
We know why, now. It's because they're trying to save our life.
They're STIMMING. They're desperately attempting to soothe our hurting brain, to ease our aching heart, to comfort the poor screaming ones inside. The ONLY way we've EVER known how is to somehow "burn it off" outside. Even now, right now, although we're enjoying typing, our brain is too high-strung and our body is immediately defaulting to the urge of "eating." We aren't hungry. We never are. But that's the point. This isn't about physical hunger. This is about spiritual hunger-- psychological starvation. This is about us needing something we still can't seem to get and scrabbling at the scraps of it wherever we can find it.
Truthfully, we just want to isolate ourselves completely, close our eyes, rock back and forth like a lunatic punching bag and just let our brain turn off as completely as possible. But the key, again, is isolation-- that terribly dear thing we have NEVER been allowed to truly get, not since childhood, and which we have been aching for for longer than we can remember lately. There are no locked doors here. There's no cellar, no attic, no closet to sit in. God how we miss it now, how we miss being a child, ignored and alone in that dearly forsaken house, feeling like we were the only soul(s) existing in the entire world. Just us, and the quiet, and the sunlight, and our heart. We need that like the air we breathe, and we don't know how to get it anymore, because we never realized until we moved out here how we need love like the blood in our veins, pun entirely intended.
That's the killer. That's the real awful thing here.
God I want to cry. Our body is desperate right now, we want to just… scream and punch things and stomp the floor until our knees hurt and throw things and bite things and just let ALL the steam out. There's no malice in it, ever. But it scares people. It terrifies them. We're a monster, and we love what we are, but… we're still a monster. We're a scary, terrible, incomprehensible thing sometimes, and it hurts when our sharp edges cut even the people who try to love us regardless.

Our body wants to food-stim because that's the only thing it can think of to do right now, and yet it KNOWS that it doesn't want to. The very thought of "eating" is making Overload want to scream and throw the plate across the room, is making The Destroyer want to set the entire freaking refrigerator on fire. We HATE food; we hate it for being the only accessible way we were able to dissociate and heal for years, without being hacked.

Yeah. Isn't that the bloody cincher.
Hacks. Why the heck do you think they kept happening for so long?? Why the heck do you think people stopped fighting after so many hellish years??
It's because they hurt, they ate hours of our time, and they isolated us from the world. Yeah, they were absolute hell, that's the indisputable truth-- but the other awful truth is that we didn't want to live in the first place.
God. Those poor, poor damaged kids, sacrificing their souls and selves just because the world at large outside was somehow even scarier than blacking out for three hours and waking up in blood and excruciating pain and mental terror. At least then they could shut down. At least then they could hard-reset their memory, splinter a little more, break a little further, forget most of their entire life and pretend nothing was happening. They just wanted to run, God forgive them, they just wanted to hide and sleep and rest and the ONLY way they could was by shutting everything off. God forgive all of us.

Hacks don't happen anymore. They can't. Not since 2016. Not since Infinitii's presence truly registered, not since we realized what we were actually looking for and what was actually happening in contrast. The truth of it, the harsh horrific reality of the situation, was too terrifying to ever allow ever again. And so hacks stopped completely.
And the eating disorder exploded.

We knew that was going to happen, really. Stop one addiction, but leave the reason why it developed in the first place, and a new addiction will return or appear to replace it. The body is just hopelessly wrecked, man, it doesn't know what else to do.
Why do you think we started flirting with EVERYTHING that would detach us from the reality our poor brain couldn't cope with anymore? We started drinking. We started smoking. We started abusing prescription meds. We experimented with asphyxiation and anesthesia and everything we could think of that would detach us from the awful soul-crushing loop of that toxic household, of that dead-end environment, of the unending mental stress.
And somehow, some days, some nights, that still hasn't changed.
Like right now.

We have nothing. No paint, no sewing kit, no exercise bike, no weights, no internet, no Xbox. No isolation, which is the TRUE need behind ALL of those things. We can't do anything if we aren't COMPLETELY alone, and it feels like a kick in the face to the Broken Arrows, but God forgive us it's true.

We want to run. But we can't. Where the heck would we go? Everywhere out there, there are people watching us, there are social contexts "to obey" and our poor terror-hardwired brain keeps kowtowing to ALL of them. Even just now, when OV laughed or sighed or whatever that little dear breath was, we looked up, wondering-- are we needed? Was that a call for attention? What is the proper way to respond?
And then we wonder why people like Quicksilver exist, why that girl who fronts in the early morning exists. The nousfoni that will even flip off the people they love and say "shove off, leave me alone." The ones that seem coldhearted and callous and brutal, when really all they are trying to do is get us alone. They're trying to PROTECT us, bless their monstrous hearts, and we know it.
We're terrified of coming across as a horrible person, like we did to the kids in SLC. This is probably why. But we had no idea this was even happening back then-- we didn’t even know we were multiple, for God's sakes. Now, though, not only do we know, we understand, more and more each day.
So when OV sighs and someone immediately fronts with a middle finger and stony expression, they aren't saying they don't care. They're saying, "we can’t care right now because we are too burnt out TO do so without utterly sacrificing our health and your respect in the process."
So we sit here, miserable and overloaded, yearning for the opportunity to just… be alone.

God we both love and hate the nights when OV works. We love him, we love all of the Broken Arrows, but… it's just like when we started doing too much for church. We adore our faith, we adore its practices, but when you're expected to attend every daily mass, every weekly funeral, every weekend mass, every choir practice, every group meeting, every picnic, every bible study, et cetera… well, something in you starts to hate it, in utter paradoxical spite, in total impossible parallel to the love you still feel, solely because it KNOWS that if you don't stop you are going to burn to the ground.
So it stops it in the most complete, sudden, brutal, total way it knows how.
It scares the bloody wits out of anyone standing in its way.
People don't like monsters. People leave monsters alone.
So we learned to be a monster.

…God. What do we do.
We're thirsty. We want to cry. More than that, we want to scream and punch things, but that'll frighten OV, and we can't… we can't risk that. That's the horrible, horribly irony of this. We have to sacrifice our terrible needs for the sake of terrible love. What do we do?

People stay up all night because we need to be alone because that's the ONLY TIME we can brutally soothe our psyche. It's always violent love with us, did you notice? Always compassion and cruelty, or at least, what others would see as cruel. For us, it's just the rawest, most selflessly pure form of love. Love that doesn't deny you your needs just because they're strange or "socially unacceptable."

We want to run outside and go hide in that stupid McDonald's bathroom because it's the only place in town that feels like an airport-- totally insulated from the outside world, cold metal and echoing tile, quiet as a grave, no time existing in there at all. It always feels like 3 in the morning there, when you're by yourself. But that's the problem. It's a freaking bathroom in a fast food joint. It's not EVER going to be a failsafe place to be safe-- heck, the sheer simple fact that it's a bathroom has ALREADY condemned the poor thing beyond hope, thanks trauma. (God, there's that awful thought process again. Poor hurting kids. I wonder how many of them we've never seen, how many of them are still contributing to this in our sub(terranean)conscious.) But the one time we were in there, we felt-- God have mercy, what a dearly desired feeling-- like we were the only people on earth. Just us, just this body, just this tiny bubblespace of a bathroom, no time or space beyond. Just that single isolated moment. THAT'S what we need. YES, it's a literal NEED. It's why we risk our mental health going out literally EVERYWHERE when we walk in the mornings, exposing ourselves to too many soul-draining social contexts, desperately seeking a place where that won't be the case, desperately seeking some secret quiet corner somewhere that we can privately own, like the study nooks at Marywood, like the tiny pockets of woods.
…I wish there was a church with unlocked doors around here. God, we wish. We're nearly in tears just thinking of that. The ultimate met need. Isolation, but in a soaring wide-open emptiness. The feeling of our dreams. Rolling hills and labyrinthine halls and massive abandoned buildings and no one, NO one but us in them. Not even a gnat for outside company. Nothing. Just us, and the air, and the sun, and the clock ticking second after second, counting down to nothing, looping without an hour hand. That's what we want. Just… infinity. Eternity. God help us, no wonder hacks were a thing, I want to cry so hard we vomit out our entire respiratory system. This is wrenching and it makes so much sense. How did we never NOTICE this before???

…
What do we do.

Where do we go. It's 7pm, it's a Sunday night, we can't stand this social context right now, we KNOW OV is worried about us and that simple passive attention is keeping our brain in overloaded status and we want to weep because we care about them, too-- so much our heart aches from it, but what do we do? We love them, but… what do we do? We'll never stop loving them. We'll love them forever. But… sometimes, we dream of running away, of just sleeping in a field somewhere, of packing a knapsack and walking the railroad tracks for days, of catching a bus and just riding it until the end of the line and wherever we are, we are. We want no roots, and yet we want a home to go home to when the solitude starts to bite. There's nothing wrong with being alone. Just… souls need souls. God split hirself because ze needed to love more. We are made to connect with those other pieces, with every other bit of reality. And humans, sure we don't identify as one but this body is one, and we adore people, we do, we just… need to do this in moderation, I suppose.

Do we have a list? Do we even have options when this happens? When our spoons are so low the entire silverware drawer is missing, what the heck do we do, where do we go? When we're so weak we can't get undressed, is there anywhere we can be that will feel like the world has ceased to exist outside? I don't know.
Maybe we can empty out the bottom of the closet, sit in there.
No, no no no, I can feel the children shrieking at that idea even now.
Idola seems piqued. Maybe we should try. See what happens. I doubt hacks will happen--
They won't, but they'll be threatened--
In isolation hacks are always a threat because we black out,

What do we do.

It's too cold outside to go hide in the woods, or to even go find spots where we can hide. But Jewel is so excited at the thought. She has ideas.
Maybe we should try anyway? Get a blanket or sleeping bag or something, bundle up good, find somewhere in the woods where it's just us and just… keep that in our heart if nothing else, if we can't go there. Find at least one place in this new local world where we can be ironically cut off from it for a while, without risk of sudden jarring intrusion. Walking distance. Where can we go?
Buses.
Buses aren't cheap, kid, we need somewhere we can go on a dime without spending a dime, that's the problem.
I'm sure there's somewhere. Let's check Google Maps, find something out. I'm sure we can. Right? Are we done writing?
For now, maybe. I… the other topics we want to write about are huge. The hacks, for one, and the eating disorder in light of this.
But we have been writing about it. Both of them. Haven't we?
Not in as brutal excruciating detail and honesty as we need to, no.
Should we start, then?
Maybe. Hold on a minute.

Food stimming.
Back in PA, we had a soup pot, huge and solid metal, and every day, we'd start the morning by blacking out over a cutting board.
I don't know what we did. All I know is that the smell of wilted lettuce is one of the biggest triggers in the world, and we still can't put spices on our food without shivering in dread. Indian food makes us dissociate immediately, as do potato chips, and ice cream, especially Klondike bars… avocados are still terrifying, so are carrots, so is mayonnaise.
All of those foods were used for blatantly self-abusive purposes in the past and you know what? I'm going to say EXACTLY why.
There was a phase, in 2016, where all we ate for about a week was namkeen. Indian snack food. Just bags of (name). It made us horrifically sick but hey, snack food is an easy time-consuming stim, right? Even if it makes you vomit nonstop for hours-- even especially because it does! Because purging makes you even more dissociative, makes you able to sleep for hours because your body is so wrecked from the past several hours to even consider staying conscious for another second. The last day we bought Indian food, someone filled at least six entire cereal bins with the stuff, separating them methodically by ingredient, then going outside (thanks Destroyer) and flinging them all into the woods… and then hours later, even days later, someone else went outside in a scavenger-desperate mess and picked the pieces off the ground and ate them. We still cannot look at that memory without feeling instantly, unbearably sick. I assume it was all purged seconds after, but memory is black, punctuated only by tiny shattered snapshots of fingers wrestling bits of chickpea flour away from bugs and brambles and rain-muddled dirt.
Remember why P&R became the devil's household?? Remember how many actual HUNDREDS of dollars were spent there over several months, because the food there was dirt cheap AND typically already was garbage? Remember the granola bags with mouse holes chewed through them? Remember the instant noodles with mold growing inside? Remember the hummus that landed us in the hospital due to food poisoning? I know you do. We ALL do.
Oh, but THAT'S the most important thing, something we've probably mentioned in the past before but NEED to reiterate today-- the MAIN reason food was our main stim for YEARS was because, if no one is watching, you don't have to eat it.
We would buy starchy, heavy, crunchy foods, time-consuming foods, chips and cookies and cereals and granola and things, and we'd chew them up, ingredient by ingredient, piece by single piece, and we'd spit them out. Organize, chew, spit. Over and voer and over. And then, when the bag or box was done, we'd chew up the chewed stuff, over and over, until it was too saliva-riddled to chew anymore, and then we'd eat that and purge it immediately, too racked by family-instilled guilt at the thought of "wasting it" by throwing it away (no matter how moldy or rotten or inedible it was) to do so, even at the risk of our own health. That went on for years.
Then we couldn't isolate anymore, then we started losing too much weight, then our body forced us to start bingeing instead in a desperate gamble to get some calories out of it.
The worst chew-spit binges were in that one autumn that we re-read A Wrinkle In Time, with whoever decided that raw oatmeal mixed with molasses was the best texture for doing so-- probably because it took ages to mix up, causing our arms to scream with exertion from doing so, eliciting the same response from our jaws once it reached those. Pain, once sharps were forbidden. A horrific rerouting. And we did that for weeks, if not longer, until the passive sugar-exposure made us SO sick we ended up bedridden with a trashed immune system and too much nausea and chronic pain and hideous gastric distress to leave the bed. But to this day, anxiety-eaten nousfoni in this system, poor desperate kids, always look to the oatmeal boxes in the grocery stores even if the sight of them triggers immediate massive panic. Part of them also remembers a time when that food was the only way they could numb themselves to the world. So they hesitate. They're afraid, but they don't know what other options they even have. And every once in a while, we'll find a box stashed in a drawer or a closet, inevitably doomed to be in the garbage within hours, either thanks to the Destroyer or some poor purgative kid who just wanted to feel like they were throwing up the pain along with the carbs.

God. No wonder so many of our Daemons are tied to food. I wonder what Rupture knows, if anything. She's mainly the fear of dying in the process, of blood in our nose and throat, of our stomach screaming at us to stop. I don't know who holds this, this stimming nightmare… no one except Chocoloco, at least, and he only catches the frayed-end dregs of it, nothing serious, nothing traumatic. He's just that initial desperate programmed seeking of comfort in places where everyone who claimed they loved you claimed it would always be, and yet never was. Chocolate and coffee. Our family's "soothing staples," both of them doing nothing but putting us through hell since childhood. Still, desperate, we never gave up trying. Choco is pretty pissed as that, although nowhere near as much as he is heartbroken. His heart-host is angry almost all the time but it's for the same exact reason that any of us are angry right now-- because we're burning up inside, ripped apart and overwhelmed and sad, and we just want to hole ourselves up in the corner of a coffeeshop somewhere, in the evening when it's dark and softly raining outside and no one knows we're here and we have nowhere else to be, just us and this warm quiet soft place, and we can weep and cry and ache inside and this tiny childlike part of us remembers the days when a muffin and a latte made us feel real, made us feel like we could exist as ourselves apart from society and our family and anyone, like this little rite of passage was proof that we could survive alone, and were, in that moment. THAT'S what our hurt ones keep seeking, in that sort of archetypal memory, but Chocoloco knows it's ultimately heartbreakingly empty, that it's not food or drink or chocolate or coffee or caffeine or sugar or anything edible that we're seeking-- we're seeking his heart, we're seeking love, we're seeking the love that only we can give each other-- we're seeking ourselves.
We can't find each other if we're suffocating in the outside world.

So. Trigger foods.
Someone once wrote about this, too-- probably Iscah-- the science of "combined" and "fused" foods (she says yes, it's in her journal in detail). Well I won't steal her thunder, but the principle of it was this: if you want to make a food inedible but still ingestible, in other words, if you're trying to make a "stim food" instead of a meal, you need to make it as easily palatable as possible in the most blatant way possible. Which means, usually, you liquefy it. You blend things. You cut things into miniscule pieces. You take things like spices, and condiments, and sauces, and drinks, and you soak every stupid thing you have with them until your stomach heaves at the very sight of it, and when it's a slurry from hell you eat that as quickly as possible so your body rejects it just as quickly. Ideally, the whole prep process will take hours, as will the purging process afterwards, in a desperate blacked-out state, trying to get every last crumb out of our system. This is how we spent our days for years, inbetween church activities and family demands.
And isn't that the irony?
We were left alone. We were ignored. And yet, we were never isolated. The grandparents were ALWAYS there, always a few feet or a room away, watching, waiting, vigilant. If we disappeared from their radar for a few minutes, they freaked out. The only time we could "get away with it" was by being in the bathroom, behind a locked door, pretending we were taking a bath, when in reality we were slumped over a toilet wishing we were dead already, sobbing because we really just wanted to be alive already.
But we were never alone. We wanted to be alone, God knew. We wanted a place where nothing could touch us but ourselves.
That's how hacks happened.
I can't talk about that right now.

Potato chips. Cookies. Trail mix. Things like that. Our grandfather would hoard them in his closet, and when we weren't allowed to prepare or eat food in the kitchen anymore without being perpetually critiqued by our grandmother or psychologically terrorized by our brother, we would sneak into his room and sneak into the closet and gorge down a whole bag, not even wanting to, just desperate to stim away the constant fear and pain by crunching something sharp and salty until our mouth bled. But potatoes and flour don't purge easy. They stick like glue in your stomach, and they WILL make the next few hours feel like the central circle of hell. We know. We made that mistake one too many times. We thought we were dead, a few times. But somehow we survived. 85 pounds and throwing up junk food for 8.5 hours a night and we still somehow survived.
There was a time when we first discovered P&R and someone bought cheese curls and chips by the cartful, but they were bean-based, and when our body loudly let us know that it did NOT like beans, we threw them ALL out on the crudpile.
It rained that night. It was cold that night. The next morning, the food was somehow soggy but preserved by the temperature, and whoever the heck was fronting was starving and "couldn’t stand the thought of wasting that poor food" (why the pity on the FOOD being unloved and rejected?? why NEVER pity on ourself being the same???) and snuck out to that horrid garbage heap and ate them right off the dirt, brushing bits of soot and soil and ants off them in the process. Good God. How did we even survive.
They/we threw everything up in a panic shortly after. That was Tobiko's doing. She remembers that more clearly than anyone.
It wasn't the last time that happened. Someone grew fond of the process at one point, of the act of scavenging, of "finding food in the wild" and the time-consuming, stimming process of that fused with a broken sense of accomplishment and achievement. It never lasted long, but God knows they tried, over and over and over, until that last day with the Indian food. Thank God that hell is over forever.

The bloody Klondike bars and avocados. That was the WORST of it, shortly before UPMC. We realized that our body hated dairy, hated fat, hated chocolate, but we ALSO realized that the consistency of those foods was ideal for bingeing and purging, plus our body was seeking sweets out of childhood comfort desperation AND everyone we knew was INSISTING we "eat as much fat as possible."
So guess who binged on like eighteen entire avocados and ten packs of Klondike bars one night.
It was forced. It was forced so hard we thought we were possessed. We thought we were going to die. There's no memory of anything outside one hysterical moment when someone was shoving more chocolate into our mouth and thinking, why?? I don't want this, NOBODY wants this, I'm scared and sick and I just want to sleep, why can't I stop???
I don't know how that ended. All we know is that the family KNEW and they WATCHED IT HAPPEN and then afterwards they asked if we had "learned our lesson."
SHUT UP. YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE HECK WAS GOING ON, DON'T ASK IF WE "LEARNED OUR LESSON" BECAUSE THERE WASN'T EVEN A LESSON IN IT WE WERE JUST SO DESPERATE TO NOT BE IN PAIN ANYMORE YOU IGNORANT TROLLOP
Triple, watch your language. Be angry, but don't be so brusquely inconsiderate about it, please.
IT'S WHAT VOCAB WE HAVE FOR THIS KIND OF INTENSE PAIN. i'm sorry. i have no other words besides screaming.

Let's continue.

Coconut oil. the NIGHTMARE that is coconut oil. HOW much money was blown on that??
It was the best stim food and it was the SCARIEST one BY FAR, and that is SAYING something.
Our body does NOT like oil, and when you're literally buying PACKS of it because this kind FREEZES and becomes not only biteable and sharp, but chewy if you mix it with protein powder, and your poor malnourished body is craving both those things so it's a recipe for disaster already. We… I don't even remember. Literally NO ONE we can find even remembers, nothing beyond one snapshot of lying on the bathroom floor with that unmistakable special nauseating agony that comes from eating too much oil, literally begging God to not let them die, screaming in rage and determination that they'd NEVER do this again, someone (a Protector, Wreckage maybe, the Destroyer maybe, Laurie maybe) going outside in the 10pm dark and rain and throwing all of that garbage into the woods where it couldn't be salvaged (although we all knew someone would try).

…OV just came over and kissed us and someone actually wanted to give him a double flipoff in response. Not out of hatred, just out of "what the heck do you want us to do. We're tired and angry and can't do a SINGLE THING without your permission because we DON'T KNOW what we actually want and don't trust ourselves TO know right now. But we're overstimulated and overwhelmed and heartbroken and furiously distraught and you're kissing us like we're supposed to ignore all this agony and kiss you back. And God knows we WANT to. That's the problem. We WANT to, but then you'll call it self-sacrifice, and what the heck do we do??? We love you, we WANT to be with you, but our body wants something else and until we figure out what the heck it is, we CAN'T be with you because we won't be able to pay attention To you past this screaming discomfort and unsoothed pain. We don't know what the heck to do, and we hate that we have to snub and ignore you in the process of finding out simply because our brain cannot handle the stress of having to factor in another human being's presence and needs into our decisions and thoughts right now. We can't freaking multitask. Please don't force us to context shift so shockingly suddenly or we Will hit you, or bite you, like the monster and rabid dog we are at the moment. But we won't mean it, and we hope you know it, but we still can't take that risk of hurting you, so we completely shut down. We do nothing, we say nothing, we boil over like a kettle fit to explode, and we just want to get this problem figured out so we can safely let this scalding steam out so you can touch us without getting burned. That's all."

…

Do we eat? Do we drink?
This body has to use the bathroom. These clothes are too warm and soft and do you know what that's overstimulating? Because they make us WANT to sit and rest and relax and we CAN'T.
Iscah LOVES these clothes because that's ALL SHE DID. She rested, and relaxed, and took care of our body. When we wear these clothes, the body remembers that, and wants it just as badly. But in this context, no. No, here we're too afraid of ignoring people, of rejecting them, of the fact that OV just went and lay down on the freaking bed because he probably thinks we hate him when really WE JUST WANT TO DO THAT SAME BLOODY THING BUT WE WON'T BECAUSE WE LOVE YOU TOO MUCH TO LEAVE YOU.

what do we do. god. I don't know.

Is our body hungry?
It's thirsty. We haven't drank in over 3 hours and someone purged most of breakfast out of sheer dissociative panicked guilt, so that's even worse. Go use the bathroom, get a drink, then figure out what to do.
We can't eat without OV anyway, and he's hiding away from us. Did we hurt him?
…I don't know. I don't even know. I just hope he's okay. If he didn't, and he wanted to be alone, but was happy, would that be okay with you?
Of course it would be, but he's obviously not happy right now and that's the problem.
…Oh. Should we go talk to him, or…?
Maybe. I don't know. Maybe.
I think we should. Apologize for not being able to respond earlier, apologize for snubbing him on purpose because we were unable to respond in honesty to him.
All or nothing, huh.
Yeah. A curse and a blessing.
Are we done with this file for now, for the record?
Maybe? I think so. The big unanswered question is still: how do we eat food without turning it into a dissociatively abusive stim?
Eat it like we do in the mornings with him. Paying attention, letting everyone share it, not being stressed the heck out in the process. Stimming beforehand, even. Really, that's probably the smartest thing to do. Gotta find what works on short notice that won't hurt us or magnify negative emotions and do that.
Sounds good.
Body does need some self-care, though, so let's call it quits for now. Everyone good? Anyone got any last thing to say before we stop?
Just that Wegmans was a living hell, too, and we never want to go back there.
Then get over that place and every other place in our memory, kid. Forget them. Live here and now, and please, learn from that experience and stop thinking about it. Okay?
…Okay.
Just… let it go. Walk into memory and burn it to the ground if you have to. Whatever works. Just don't let it suck the joy out of our present life anymore. All right? We'll help you. We're safe now, all things considered. Just confused and hurting is all. But we're safe.
I know.
Then let's go talk to OV. He's the reason we can say that, after all.
We love him, even now. Does he know that?
That's what we're going to go make sure of, kid. Give me a minute.

Oh, wait!! One last vitally important thing.
The key to a successful stim is that it HAS to let our BRAIN shut down. Low-impact, low-speed, "mindless" activity so that we can DEEPLY relax, INSIDE. Books don't work, nor does TV, because they're too mentally stimulating. Food prep is too, actually-- that's why we keep hurting ourselves when we try! Same with the garage job. We try to dissociate with repetitive motion and forget that those motions have an end, both in result and process. That doesn't work for stimming!! However, THIS DOES. Weirdly, this typing REALLY helps, at least, in a different way-- it helps us untangle what hurts, and really See it. It doesn't alleviate the stress, just lets us know what we're looking at. What DOES help in a pinch is TUMBLR, on the phone, IF we do it safely. Yes, it Does work!! Because it's "mindless browsing" and you can link-hop FOREVER and find poetry and pretty pictures and just let our mind wander for HOURS if you have to. Spotify is almost this kind of stim but not really, because music demands Attention, but we can use that to a BETTER advantage because it draws us into our mind ENTIRELY. THAT'S an ideal stim, hence the old beloved walks in circles for hours, just imagining and thinking. My thing!! We've gotta find a way to do that again if we can. Maybe in the playroom, who knows. But we will. Anyway, yeah. When in doubt, grab Nelumbo, our beloved Samsung Galaxy S8 who we saved up for a year for and now had better use to show respect and gratitude for that!! Okay? We've got this. Now go tell the Arrows that we love them because they need us just as much as we need them even if they need space too!! Bye guys!!

-J.W.L. and the Lightraye aka Lotus Cathedral System ♥

1231. Sunday.
Last day of 2017.

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

Morning notes from bed:

Socials COULDNT admit multiplicity, Broke their job
Wanting That intimacy w EVERYONE
i.e. they were always seeking relationships outside that could NEVER match the inside intimacy they already had but could NOT admit because then they COULDN'T FUNCTION AS SOCIALS. caused tons of problems

q, y introjects
former is "libris." we know he exists, we've spoken to him outside of memory. tied to the "jewel" of that time, NOT a jewel i don't think? not even a bloodline? not sure.
Jackie too, Alex, jmc, etc?
Roles in the system? Memories?

talking about Jude, jennifer

Laurie, fear of love being used, action movie cliche ("if you love them, i'll hurt them to hurt You")

Check your facts!!
Jo's history? Why skulls?

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

the rest of the day:

went to chile's for new year's dinner with the fam!
the trip up we Were worried; some social girl was Panicking that we'd "have to eat trigger foods" but we told her no we didn't have to, love we're sure they have good options. just calm down, whatever happens we will deal with it together. let's be happy and not expect the worst before anything even happens. so she did! and when we actually got into the place and got the menu, she was so profoundly relieved, she let us take over totally. god bless her, she's learning and healing too.
btw i think that green spider daemon was advising her too. i have that distinct impression. no idea who he's tied to yet though. iscah was also offering her support, with her religious positivity, "eat what is given to you" out of love and trust, never fails for her. her faith is true and sweet, it's actually very refreshing in light of the traumatic religious upbringing and toxic religious environment our past was saturated with.
but man. the place was so cozy and good. we had such a good time.
kristanova got his birthday steak!! he gave us two bites and it was AMAZING. he gets it rare and bloody and the texture and taste is just divine. man. we've never had it like this before meeting him and we don't blame him for enjoying it so much. we also have Feelings about meat, although we don't like eating it much we do respect it.
we personally got cilantro-lime salmon and oh man it was fantastic. so good. it had the good-blackened bits at the bottom which have the best taste and texture ever. we were worried about ordering actually; salmon Almost became a HUGE trigger food thanks to UPMC, and certain preparations of it still are. but this wasn't. we thoroughly enjoyed it.
we also got chicken and waffles in lieu of dessert, but the waffles actually made us super sick so we didn't finish them. smart. our stomach just doesn't like white flour or sugar, so we have to remember that and be careful.
mason let us taste his tequila, and we ate the lemon and lime slices as usual. we also had honey-barbecue chicken (i think) as an appetizer, and the taste of the sauce was SO perfectly vermilion it called algorith out! so she actually ate it, and enjoyed it thoroughly. she was smiling so wide, just enjoying life in general so suddenly but completely. lord we love her. it was good to have her around.
we also had fried pickles, plain chicken tenders, spanish rice, steamed broccoli, honey mustard sauce, and a bite of oliver's cheesecake and mason's caramel cake. both Way too sweet for us but all we need is a crumb to know what it tastes like for data purposes. that cheesecake sauce is still cerise, and caramel isn't quite brown, but feels like it fits amber?? it's the warmth. also genesis, no one is surprised.

went to food lion on the way home and BOUGHT ROSE CHAMPAGNE.
finally after like 12 years the injoke becomes a reality, god bless
(of course we brought chaos zero's anchor plush into the living room with us as we drank it, he started this whole thing)
also bought lettuce, orange juice, and tiny candy canes-- green And red, last box in the store.

got home, ate that entire head of green leaf lettuce (a small one, mind) with ginger and soy sauce, while researching the cultural origin of saying "bless you" when someone sneezes. actually really fascinating, surprisingly applicable to headspace-- tying into the breath & the head, the soul and such. thinking upon that.
oliver researching heraldic beasts and they are GORGEOUS.
he drew OMEN in that style (rampant) and WOW she looks beautiful.

as the time wound down jewel brought ALL our plushes out into the room. it's her tradition.
celebi, unisalia, diancie, maitru, bistric, darkrai, chaos zero.

sat and cut out paper strips so we could write our names on them and visually "map out" who is on what level, what outspacers are tied to which cores, who holds what roles, etc. can't "brainstorm" that fluidly on a computer, it's impossible. we need to touch it, we need that open creativity.

watched the cnn livestream on oliver's laptop as the ball dropped in nyc.
kisses as the new year rolled over. best thing ever. always hoped we'd get to do that physically one day, not just in headspace. although in the past we always hoped it'd be physical With headspace people. this is just as good actually-- we're still kissing headspace people, aha. people we love with our entire collective heart.

apparently got a drunk buzz. dizzy, slight headache, everything super floaty. not a fan actually. too much like anaesthesia, plus we don't like alcohol.
gotta reason with the "social programming" nousfoni though, the ones that are looking for alcohol solely because they're "expected to" by previous life situation contexts. that "mimicry" problem is our biggest issue right now but it's also fairly easily overcome; if one of us steps in and helps them check their facts (hey jo!!), they can quickly realize that there's no actual want/need beneath that compulsion, and they can stop. the hard part is Getting to them; socials still exist on a subsystem so they're hard to reach yet, there's usually a barrier as well as time loss and heavy dissociation. but it lessens every day. and we connect with them after, always now. bridging that gap for good.
in any case apparently being drunk makes us even more affectionate and obsessed with research. again, no one is surprised.

jewel DREW A THING in our little sketchbook for new years!! the excitable jewel. we recognize her style. she drew preludove and wished us well in the new years and put little smiley faces under the exclamation points. we'll treasure it forever.
drew it half in 2017, half in 2018, the best way to do it.
oliver drew kyo and she looks so adorably gorgeous, gosh we love her so much.

stayed up until 1:45 or so. bodies too tired.
oliver couldn't stop kissing us and it was so sweet. thank god for pink champagne. hence the injokes.

we got hit by that feeling when we went to bed though. so much love we thought we'd die from the bliss, from this sudden aching need to just melt into them, inhabit the same space, wrap them up in our very bones. almost cried from it. blissful though. god how blessed we are to have this.

what a year. what a beautiful, terrible, unforgettable year. what a beloved endless time.
it felt like it lasted for eons. we don't solidly remember anything before we woke up in upmc. there's only distant snapshots, like from another life. and we cannot remember, at all, what it was like to live in that house in PA already.
our live really only began at the end of june this year. six months ago.
and now, here we are, going into that purple year, infinity sideways marking every day now. how fitting.

god bless 2017. best year of our life so far. thank you, thank you, thank you.
we can only imagine what lies ahead. good thing it's up to us to build it. we'll fill every moment with as much light as we can possibly muster. (and that's a lot, we have to admit.)

here's to the new year. here's to our new life.
happy 2018, everyone. we love you.

- the lotus cathedral system

1230. saturday.

today lasted like... five years, what the heck
i apologize for this mess of an entry as a result but it really was ALL ONE DAY

morning run. YES THAT WAS TODAY.
830AM NOTES on that =

Sunrise, pink and cold and beautiful.
Genesis running alongside us at first, making sure we were ok.
Talking to Laurie, lucky penny comment. Then FOUND one
Food lion. Her whistling for attention at reduced rack, check our focus.
Got called SIR on the way out!
Had a dollar left, went to gas station
Penny in lot
Decided we wanted a TAMALE
Sweet old dude paid for it for us!
So we got Wreckage a DONUT
Walking home: "Ahrima?" Laurie, Wreckage, Jeremiah, Maverick
Minty seeing the rocker bunny on the track, torn
Church & breakfast plans. Mav & Wrex talking colors. Echo Lalia there too, no voice of her own readily?
So so happy.
NEED to do this regularly.

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

THIS EVENING =

eating trouble.
we made two omelettes for dinner, and then a night meal, BUT. we realized the trouble here.
1. still seeing food as art. didn't WANT to make two. but DID want to MAKE SOMETHING.
2. so many different people fronting.

we think "taureia" is the name of that DAEMON???
tied to the girl who ONLY comes out to binge in order to purge; triggered by fear. she's a failsafe???

versus rupture.

Blue girl = COMPULSION W/ fam expectations??
Food, grandkids, etc. PANICKED obedience, forced, utter denial of any self-honesty

noticed today, the girl angry at murphy is NOT the angry brown jess OR triple
she's MENTIONED IN 2015 i think.

"i'm not a good nousfoni"

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

AMOR ET SACRIFICIUM = ribbons!!!!!!
SELF LUMINOUS

Formshift cores, like jewels. EXPLORE.
Apprenticeship, heartspace, leaguespace, outspace
OUR "NEODYMIUM"

"SXUALITY" COLORS. from old entries. different vibes & applications, never explained.
black, red, pink, Cerise. ORANGE?
FEEL OUT AND DESCRIBE

HEART TOUCHES ARE SAFE AND HOLY AGAIN!!!
(YOU NOT DISCONNECTED)

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

the heaviest thing today = talking about sxuallity with the arrows, on messenger.
our moral stance + daemons + trauma, and their innocent human painless experience.
both of us discussing childhood with this.

trigger warning for discussion of sexual topics, including abuse/trauma

what we remember offhand:

Childhood= baths with brother, anatomy difference. Naturally fascinated by difference, parents would NOT talk about this. Passively treated us like a threat to them.
We were weirdly obsessed for a while? Bizarrely, NO conception of our own bodies femaleness? Not sure why.
Obsessed with this???

Childlike gender thoughts: girls wore pink ribbons or had eyelashes, boys didn't.

When did the Julie trauma start?
It has SUPER EARLY ROOTS.

First direct instance: in that godforsaken bathroom, age 12, 13? Feel SO young, but not a child. Remembering, with great fear, hearing Someone talking about how "sex is the best feeling" or something? Praising it as this sublime thing. Terrified, tentatively touched our body there. Immediate sensation shocked and shook us. Nearly cried from this "betrayal," quickly reclothed, thinking "how could Anyone want That," tore door open and immediately memory blacks out. I assume we hid in our room and shook and cried, felt existentially wrecked. No idea Who holds that, but I know they exist.

No clear memory of When Julie started, but l Clear memory of Fearing her. Leaving 6th grade classroom, mentally JEWEL, dreamspace situation to cope with/ feel & reason out fearful situation possibilities. Imagining being in some public place like a restaurant or bar, but in a side hall where we couldn't be seen, felt isolated and trapped? Cerise intimate vibe but Corrupt. Guys AND girls (ratio??) trying to "get with us." NOTABLE ABUSIVE MANNERISMS. We had NO conception of healthy flirting OR relationships? Literally EVERYONE in those imaginings saw us as an object. "You're pretty, I want to have sex with you, then never see each other again." But that sex was Also Going to be traumatic. THEREFORE, JULIE WOULD SWITCH OUT. Literally. Our BIGGEST FEAR at that age was someone Actually hitting on us, our panicked terror making us Shut Down, and Julie being triggered out to "fight fire with fire." (That feels weirdly tied to our family teachings? Think on this.) So she'd play along, lasciviously flirting right back, and then when they inevitably ended up in bed, she'd Destroy them. Instead of them using us, she'd use Them, and then some. Our brain Never wanted to, or could, imagine what would happen To that victim afterwards. That, too, speaks volumes as to Julie's mindset-- AND OURS-- back then: there Was no after. If We had just experienced that, we'd be dead. So we/Julie both, for different reasons, failed to comprehend the very idea of After. But she took it in that there were no lasting consequences to what she did... because of dissociation. That's how WE worked. So we projected. But even then, we Knew that it was wrong, and it WOULD continue in the physical, albeit almost incredulously. (We struggled to imagine Time after rape.) And the thought of that made us avoid any and all sexual threats.

(left unfinished. this is too disturbing to talk about anymore)

"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)

1227. Wednesday.

Four years ago today.

...We posted this entry the minute we noticed it was 21:48, the exact minute when this was posted, back in 2013.

None of us thought we'd survive that night. We all thought we were done for.
But, love can't be killed. We were proof of that then, and we are even stronger proof of it now.

Four years later, we are more alive than we've ever been.
Four years later, we are alive, and we are in love.

Here's to another year of us.

(and thank you, Javier. If it weren't for you, we'd all be lost. Remember that. You are a blessing.)

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

later=
headspace stuff with Javier and altairre
Why so guilty/ scared/ aching abt today?
"They all died and I lived" SURVIVOR GUILT
hacks, etc.?
But brought back, saved who he could, WILLPOWER
he WANTED to save them and DID. vital.
This should be a day to defiantly celebrate LIFE somehow escaping jaws of death.

[uncensored for brutal honesty]

proverbs 9:16-18

eating disorder hell.

Allergy panic girl
Blue obligation girl
Enjoying eater girl = tied to CAKE???????
Bingeing girl (once we hit "that point") = tied to RUPTURE.
rupture's "second name" keeps feeling lke GORGE but thats sounding like a SURNAME, NOT A SECOND NAME. why is this? is that name tied to her girl instead???
cannot even theorize rupture's second name because we do't know enough about her function and/or heart host TO guess.

tobiko hasn't been out in a while?
someone ELSE keeps purging, "we're going to die why cant we stop" mindset
tobiko would panic "get the poison out" then became dpressed and QUIT??? IS HER ANCHOR CHANGING LIKE RAZORS???
but this current purge person basically BLACKS OUT in the process. existing before nd after, not during.
too much fear and trauma to have tobiko front for that anymore???

WHERE IS SPICE WHEN THIS ALL HAPPENS?????

WHO IS TIED TO THAT BIG TAURUS DAEMON???
someone definitely is. but i think that soeone is still vague. i KNOW they were out but we can't even get thier fronting data (this is simeon, hi!)

Chocoloco still tied to angry "jess" BUT he was yelling at the latter nousfoni? the one eating the chocolate candy.
did they even like it????

THERE'S A BROWN MANIC WHO ONLY FRONTS TO LOOK FOR UPPERS????
"we need to stay awake, we need to have coffee and/or chocolate!!!!"
BUT CHOCOLOCO ISN'T FROM HER. THAT'S SURPRISING.
WHY IS THIS?
(her heart can't hold a daemon??? choco tied to the global concept??? feel this out)

IS THIS THE SAME NOUSFONI WHO KEEPS DRINKING ALCOHOL OR ARE THERE TWO OF THEM???

there's someone ANGRY who comes out when we try to read corrective or self-knowledge stuff???
girl. close to angry jess root but not her. muddy brown, feels washed out. angry at me/us fr typing this but wont stop us? just a low flat disdainful anger.
the boy from yesterday (zodiac rage) has an edge to his anger. he'll yell about it. this girl wont. like a heavy dead weight anger, no action. just shutdown.
why? what are her roots?
her response think "don't think about that" nose wrinkle and try to BLACK IT OUT. like covering eyes. total shut off! scary.
why does she do that? doesn't she want to learn
she cannot front if someone else is strongly fronting? only if in vague pseudosocial mode? like readig.
need a name for THAT state of mind. different from upstairs AND downstairs. sort of an inbetween.
headspace level parallel???
anyway we have to find someone who LIKES reading that stuff so they can OVERPOWER that, for lack of a better term. (who am i, they're thinking i'm the "bleaching optimistic" one, that stings but i think its true.)
also, whoever this good-reading person might be, they CANNOT be hyperreligious, that only compounds the problem. religious voices need to be dealt with very carefully as they bring an entire other level of tangled motives into the picture and we cannot untangle both at once with this, not safely.

Juniper = job is to SAY NO. NO MATTER WHAT.
CHAOS out helping Juniper. Lots of love there actually. they remember the last time.
someone called her out!!!! who?

Mirror realization, called JESSICA out??? LEGIT DEADNAME CORE. A GOOD PERSON!!!!!!!!!
Someone else before her, recognizing the heart of all this is THE DESTROYER

ALL MIRROR PEOPLE ARE STRONGLY AWARE OF THE SYSTEM AND HAVE TOTAL POWERFUL INTEGRITY. "TAKE NO SHIT" BUT DEEPLY COMPASSIONATE. (reminds us of triple a little???)
jamie is pure motivation, but real about it
this girl is "tell it like it is" and determined to spread awareness so things change. not violent.
triple is NOT a mirror person,
her vibe is blurring hard even pinging her writing this??? with two other people? FEEL THIS OUT
TRIPLE DOESN'T THINK OF OTHER PEOPLE AS DIRECTLY AS MIRROR VOICES DO.
triple "says what no one else will admit" and she's ANGRY about it. but only comes out actuvely, in response TO a hiding of something that HURTS.
(^THAT NAME ISN'T FITTING HER WELL??)

- much later, mirror girl taking us to bathroom to get dressed and SPICE came up alongside her; they are SUPER SIMILAR almost like sisters??? but unmistakably different even so.
someone else fronting with them too? talking TO mirror, worried. NOT "THROUGH" it like an actual mirror nousfoni would!!

Jessica called LAURIE while drying dishes. Told her EVERYTHING.
laurie sobbing in rage about this. then SHOUTING for tiger lily. looking for a "social protector"
GOT HER OUT BRIEFLY but she couldnt stay???
where is the cerise protector??
(she says "i'm here" but she's still mostly faceless and totally nameless. says she's figuring out what her new role is, now that we're not in a trauma environment)
Laurie took the garbage bags out
SOMEONE HYPERRELIGIOUS came out by the tree briefly, condemning? i think a jay stepped in briefly to tell them not to be so caustic before laurie came back.
laurie asking who even wanted the food? like the ham, and the pie, who liked it? got NO RESPONSE. Actual disgust, cringing at thought of food. the response was DISLIKE!!
Realizing the people responsible for the actual eating have SMOTHERED CONSCIENCES. the idea of someone else "owning" a food item causes a "blind response" in them. they CANT fathom it for their function. the thought when eating the trail mix, "this belongs to mason, this isn't yours," caused them to mentally BLACK OUT because they cant comprehend/tolerate the guilt response? or CANT STOP? like if they admitted that theyd have to stop eating, and they cant for some reason????? their function is TO eat so it'd be denying Why they're out???? FIGURE THIS OUT. i dont even think they Want the food, it feels like a total compulsion. programming. they're vaguely Aware of guilt and shame but don't quite Feel it. everything distant, conceptualized. even while they eat. sort of "clear muffle" over everything, like two feet of gel or plastic. WEIRD AND FOREBODING.
wreckage coming out on the way back in from outside, hearing people arguing in another apartment. she and laurie briefly cofronting almost, slight level difference. but close, next to each other. rubbing elbows almost. wordless close recognizion of each other. "i'm here for you"
back inside, laurie wanting to tell mason and ollie everything about this problem. fess up, admit helpless angry scared frustration, inability to stop or control ourself. terrified at this, but NEED to admit it to prevent it in the future. considering going to mcdonalds or ihop all night when the arrows work, to flat-out prevent any and all such behavior. wanting this in any case, i think the isolation is Causing a lot of this trouble? messes BAD with our perception of reality. can't fathom anyone or anything BUT the current social person existing. (THIS NEEDS TO BE LOOKED AT AND WRITTEN ABOUT.)
at computer, laurie having unexpected feelings towards kris' picture on the lamp? she's fiercely fond of him. deep camaraderie bond, but also a sort of burning platonic love. like a weapon heated glowing hot. knuckles white clenched holding it to defend someone. very devoted.

WEIRDLY, THE SLIGHTEST VARIATIONS ON THE DEADNAME CALL DIFFERENT PEOPLE OUT.
the full deadname is tied to THIS girl, the good one.
SEEING IT IN TEXT CALLS OUT SOMEONE DIFFERENT????
context appears to be HUGE for this

briar out RIGHT NOW feeling panic at tasting food in our mouth? scared as shit.
good. more of us need to ACTIVELY FUCKING REALIZE what this is doing to our godforsaken body.
- someone ELSE triggered by smell of food on hands. briar ALONGSIDE them. neither aware of each other???? (!!!)

jewel says GO BRUSH OUR TEETH so we can relax!!
jessica agrees, go get it done so we can actually get back to living!
(jess is OLDER than jewel! maybe 15, 16? not 17. DOESN'T KNOW QLOK. might not even BE tied to school?????? possible for nousfoni to be older but NOT HAVE MEMORIES OF LIFE DURING THAT AGE IN THE BODY. e.g. a "16 year old" nousfoni not knowing anything about what happened when we were in high school. or an 18 year old nousfoni not knowing anything about holding a job.)

someone wanting to eat vitamins and melatonin gummies, not out of hunger, but out of panicked compulsion.
THE BLUE GIRL?
laurie yelling at them for this. that person DOESNT QUITE FRONT? just comes in "sideways halfway" and has the body do things, SO THEY DONT FEEL THE EFFECTS OR CONSEQUENCES!!!!
the one who eats is NOT HER.

now, someone JUST came out TO eat the vitamins, scared and nervous but they WANTED THEM. happy to eat them actually. feels brown? long hair. wanting to eat more but not really understanding concept of "food?"
feelng like THEIR daemon might be that big taurus thing.
cake's girl is younger, not nervous. not rebellious.
rupture's girl only comes out with the intent to binge and purge.

weirdly, that vitamin-eater person (those two? blue and brown: concept and carry-out) are more concerned with eating MEDICINE than food???? always looking for vitamins, pills, mints, etc. health panic obsessed. subtype of lotophagoi???

(Is Hoban still around? her vibe was always vague, she was kind of defined secondhand. feel her out and see if her anchor is split or wrong or if she's fading or splitting herself.)

Another huge thought:
So many of us are HUGELY CONTEXT-LOCKED.
We noticed this today, wondering why the heck NO ONE gets triggered out in the kitchen anymore? Why it's so hard to find Jason and Juniper and Taureia and anyone?
It's because the ENVIRONMENT CHANGED.
The fairy lights don't trigger anyone. The stove light DOES. It's a trauma flashbacker. So are those little string lights over the stove, due to past association. And, total darkness triggers out a totally different bunch!
Similarly, sitting at the table to eat triggers out certain people, whereas eating in the kitchen triggers out others, and eating on the floor triggers out still others. The couch is by FAR the safest place, and the kitchen itself is utter terror by default. No eating in there ever, please-- ideally, at least, because we tend to stress-blackout in there and then trauma loops happen. That is the most terrible part of PTSD and we need to plan for it better.
We are SO HYPERSPECIFIC this is not surprising but we still somehow completely missed it.
MAKE A LIST OF THIS STUFF so we can use it to our healing advantage!!!

ORANGE IS CORRUPTED
laurie asking for data on bathroom convo, lynne snidely saying she "should know"; laurie turned and called her out on this, she BLUESCREENED???? froze. everything stuck for a second then laurie got warped to GRAYSPACE???? lynne there, floaty, disoriented? said that wasn't her, she wasn't angry. asked what was going on.
corrupted orange is ANGRY. feeling of jovial dude in a bar who suddenly snaps. fiery, but energetic. NOT the apocalyptic burn of red anger. orange has motion behind it, and voice. red is quiet and violent. orange is angry and pushy? energized? can't find a word. armed? no, that's vermilion. orange isn't a "life threatening fear" response. it's more of a panic scare. the closer you get to yellow, the tighter the nerves get. yellow anger is shrieking screaming wildcat anger. someone "yell"-ing at you, all electric sharp. but no attacking! yellow anger might shove or slap you but that's all. orange anger will push you around, all heavy weight but animated. vermilion anger will throw a punch, a hard blow and colder fire behind it, not much talk. red anger will wordlessly bury a knife in your chest on a dime. WAIT. NO. THAT'S BLOOD. it's darker!! RED anger, javier's color, is INTEGROUS. dude that shows that there are "benevolent and malevolent" sides of color angers! corrupted Red anger is... nothing. there's nothing. if it's pure Red, it's PURE. it;s angry because it SHOULD be. it demands you clean up your act, and tells you how. it feels like a city skyline, like an activist. it knows what it's talking about. active and informed. dark red, blood anger... that ISNT INHERENTLY CORRUPT. that's the sort of anger that will call you out on what you did wrong, but in a pointed way. it stabs right to the heart of the issue. but it won't attack you. no good anger will. gosh this is SO IMPORTANT.
so. corrupted orange is arrogant but not proud? no, not arrogant. corrupted YELLOW is more like that? actually, corrupted AMBER is haughty and proud. like a lion. puffed up, like a prince. amber is a luxurious color so it makes sense. yellow is brighter, the brightest, so corrupted yellow is less warm and more sharp? conceited? but not acrid, that's chartreuse. acid is green hued. yellow is manic almost? condemning? high strung.
anyhow. orange. corrupted orange is the "i'm being a nice guy!" but he's really being threatening. that's orange. could easily lean vermilion, but orange is less malevolent. not as dark. orange is closer to the self-absorption of amber, but it's still directed outwards. orange is healthily sociable, so corrupted orange takes that and twists it? it's hard to put into words. but yeah. lynne, when damaged by it, gets a very biting sense of bad humor, gets rather "smart"? ALWAYS making jokes at the expense of others. that's the main thing. humor as a mask for straight-up trash talk.

we TRIED to ping Karissa when at the mirror and we got NOTHING. that was scary for a second. HOWEVER! then we realized that we were pinging the WRONG LEVEL???? APPARENTLY THIS IS A THING?
we had to ping her in a VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT. midspace = dreamspace analogous i think. karissa is NOT PINGABLE UPSTAIRS. but imagine the old pennsylvania bedroom, and she is IMMEDIATELY there and fiercely alive.
karissa is a DOWNSTAIRS PROTECTOR, fighting off the weirdest threat we could have imagined-- ghosters. as in, childhood psychosis attackers. legit seeing demons and devils in the room, "sensing" evil, etc. we still get that when we're really unstable. like when we redid that bedroom to put up that desk, which is what triggered her birth in the first place. so she exists for that.
and that is a VITALLY IMPORTANT PIECE OF INFO: there are MANY nousfoni in this system with hyperspecific but vital jobs that don't happen often, and so they run a risk of DYING if they don't get to live, so to speak. THEREFORE WE HAVE TO UTILIZE "HOLOSPACE" AND/OR DREAMSPACE TO LET THEM DO THEIR JOBS ON THE INSIDE, if outside instigation of those jobs would be lethal or otherwise majorly harmful. like tonight. however sometimes that's required. we couldn't possibly imagine or emulate this night inside. but it had to happen. it's too organic. life is too organic. but yeah, sometimes we Can do the inside boost and when we can we NEED TO. so keep a note of that.
in any case, this would bolster the inter-level communication we are desperately working towards. socials who have no comprehension of "inside," or even the ability to comprehend it, could LEARN it by being brought into emulated "outside situations" that are really happening inside, and then eased out of it OR letting inside folks enter those spaces to meet them. THAT'S HOW WE USED TO WORK AND I DON'T KNOW WHY WE STOPPED? maybe just daily life terror overload, forcing us to stay in survival/ social mode more often. but hey, that's the stuff we're fixing now that we're safe!
but it has to surface first. only then can you remove it. it's scary, of course, but what's even scarier is letting that shit go unseen and rotting on the inside. it's like cancer.

...
our body is actually hungry again and we hate this because we have no appetite. the thought of eating makes us nauseous. we have no desire to do so, at all. especially not at this hour.
OH i forgot to mention earlier. with big dinner triggers and the destroyer.
certain foods are SUCH TRAUMA TRIGGERS that the destroyer exists to GET RID OF THEM. it's awful but it is true. we Want to be able to leave them untouched, because they're NOT OURS, but that very concept is still alien to our brain. god knows why. our poor brain sees a trigger food and thinks immediately "i must get rid of it" because it's that shaken up by seeing it. immediate flashbacks, immediate sensory rewind. time lapses, time slides. it's horrible that something as ridiculously simple as a canned item can knock you totally off kilter and into abused-kid mentality.
there's a lot tangled up in that, especially methods-- some kids destroy food outright, some throw it out, some eat it, some eat and purge, etc. all of them acting those ways based on the situations they had to survive in previously. all of them desperately scared and lost and confused and not know where or when they are, let alone what the hell they're doing. they all dissociate so hard because they're so scared. but they're reachable, now. they're opening up and realizing that, now. they're healing and being brave and trying and feeling even if they're fucking terrified. not so in september, good god now THAT was hell. lord. but that's over, forever. a lapse is just a stumble, due to overwhelm. it happens, mental illness is hellish in and of itself. but we get back up and keep walking. a slip isn't a rewind. we're here now, with our progress and understanding under our belt, and we use that to leap forwards even farther when we're pulled back.
nights like this are slingshots.
but yeah. we feel awful, AWFUL, because trigger foods are cheap! starving kids eat on pennies and go to food drives and when you're Still grappling with finances that stuff ends up back in the apartment and then you don't know what fucking year it is or what state you're in or what your name is or whether or not you're going to die, metaphorically only i hope! it fucking SUCKS because these beloved kids that we love so damn much it HURTS eat and enjoy these foods no problem, and God we WANT to just let them LIVE, let them be free and untraumatized, but god we're so damned fucking hurt that we struggle. we hate it. we feel like such a burden. we ARE a burden. that's the truth, with this. we're a difficulty, a monkey wrench, an unexpected trial. a frustration. and it's true. and it's unfair to them. and we're sorry. but we can't apologize and keep fucking the hell up. we need to try a hell of a lot fucking harder.
we KNOW that shit makes us sick so WHY do we still et that shit???
because that knowledge doesn't register for them. their minds are so damaged, we still haven't fully felt out Why they can't comprehend that sort of self-care data.
...maybe that's why. maybe self-care is alien to someone who lives in a trauma flashback.
...maybe.

but yeah. i want to list the trigger foods but someone says "no, don't clutter up this entry" and she's brown and angry? not choco's jess, maybe the "don't read" one from before? she's way up, almost floating voice space? but she's all about "social performance" and approval, and "clogging up this entry" is judged by her to be "inappropriate" somehow? like "it's not proper" but THAT pings someone ELSE. someone religious feeling? fears of not being totally nice and proper and a "good girl." maybe tilly. hm!
but no i think we should list them or we will forget to. i know it's scary but we have to! we'll do it together ok

- canned beans. all we had to eat for a while in pa. make our stomach so so sick. also heavy weight food, immediate trauma flashback trigger. yes heavy foods feel like the rape triggers. can i say that? "julie days." but that's unfair she didn't do it. she says she wasn't herself once. oh ok. i'm sorry julie. she says it's ok, it's the truth. so no beans
- canned food in general. again, that's ALL we had at the house most days, in pennsylvania. just shelves full of old expired rusty banged-up cans. the same things over and over and over, day after day, eaten at night under buzzing yellow lights, or hidden in the cellar. every one of those foods is a trigger:
canned corn, canned soup, spaghettios, ravioli, cranberry sauce, canned carrots (taste is a HUGE trigger), etc.
there are also BAD MEMORIES tied to ALL of those which we cannot look at rght now we start shaking. they're triggering young kids like me!! we don't know them though? are they new? are they all new? no they're old. we've just never seen them before. they've been asleep for a long time because no one's woken them up. but we just did! we looke for them and they're awake now. and they're probably really scared and don't know where they are but we'll protect them. we can be their friends. we'll keep them safe now.
but the immediate fear is exactly what we're typing about. "how can we be safe now if those unsafe things are STILL THERE." no differentiation between thing and associated event. they are one and the same to a trauma survivor. at least, to us. to those hurt nousfoni, scared and shaking, the very sight of a can of soup throws them right back into the situation they wanted to die to get out of. their brain was shaken to the core and it keeps getting yanked back. so we struggle.
it's not fair. we wonder, daily, if we should find somewhere else to go, if we should leave, but we DONT WANT TO. we love it here, we love the people, we want to STAY, we want to heal so we CAN stay. our feelings of "we don't belong" and "maybe we should just go" are NOT OUR REAL MOTIVES. they are the "safe, acceptable" way of saying "i am so fucking sorry we are making your lives difficult; we are drowning in love-rooted guilt and regret and we don't want to hurt you anymore, but we don't know how to stop yet. we're still healing. but we cannot put you through this messy process anymore. THAT is making us feel like we don't belong-- we are disturbing the peace, we aren't fitting in with you both yet, into that harmony. our own actions are alienating us, our own shame and guilt are isolating us. THAT is what doesn't belong but right now we are identifying with it, for better or for worse, from how horribly strong it is. and we don't want to leave, we love you so much, but again we feel so DIRTY and disgusting and (there's axis) foolish and embarrassing, that we feel so unworthy TO stay. we're afraid of hurting you, of you beginning to hate us or be frustrated with our presence, we are so scared of you both expecting the worst of us. so we would rather leave than see these relationships rot by our hand. by our fungal touch.
axis just GLARED at me for that i have never seen him angry i'm sorry.
his reply isn't translating well
effectively: "don't be sorry" in the "you're not being blamed or condemned" sense. the strong powerful insistence of "you will not rot anything by touch. fungus is life out of death" and "rot is decomposition" with a spindly mushroomed finger pointing at this absolute artistically tangled web of data, of feeling, "decomposition is breaking down into simpler things," into essential elements, "if anything rots it is simply beginning again from a simpler state" or something? taphos. taphonomy. "decomposition begins at the moment of death." heart-deep feelings about this topic. if it's not working, why not let it die? if it is a fatal illness, a fatal wound, a mortal injury, why not let it fall embraced (back) into the arms of death? why not let death breathe life into it again? god okay that's what we're doing. chocoloco's girl is responding to this??? not as her heart, no. but as a sister to the other one. where is chocoloco. what do you have to say
"decay is not my topic" he says. "it is his. let him speak"
what is your topic though
sorry
axis keep talking.
a slight smile, smirk, "what more do you need me to say?"
anything everything anything you want
"i want you to feel what i said and what you know it means" "tell me"
what you meant
"what your heart heard."
well
if we're bungling up this relationship (allegedly) with our mistakes, with-- oh
with our own process of decay
the nigredo
THAT'S infi
that's even more important
what am i doing with the spacebar i'm sorry
hey i don't have a name yet
hey i'm not simeon! i'm a girl, no, i use she pronouns, maybe?
i'm not a boy. leaning the other direction
sorry slipping bye
no not yet he says
finish.
okay.
if we are afraid of rotting this relatioship by touching it we are projecting the wrong sentinemt onto our fear. if it rots it means that it died which means that it had reached a point where it could not continue healthily. so death is merciful and progressive and otivated by hope, by love and hope. now it decays, now it rots back into the world, now it feeds the insects (what about our insects what about them) i'm thinking too much
simple he says, simple. what is the essence of it
if it dies it was unhealthy. if it rots then
rot it just the process of recycling
a dead body, a dead thing feeds other alive things, feeds new things
a dead thing will seem to stop life around it for a bit but in time it will bloom greater than ever
in short,
we're not going to kill anything
fungus is good
he smiled at me.
and?
IS it rotting?
how can i tell.
look, he says.
but there's more to that "look"
he means,
there's always rot. there's always death. it means things are growing. it means things are changing. it means what doesn't work anymore is passing away and reworking itself into other things that do.
am i thinking too much
you're trying too hard to encapsulate it in language, he says. speak simply, speak from your heart. you will not rot in whole unless it stops beating. and it will not. he says.
tiny deaths happen all the time. fungus grows on your bones. but you are alive, we are alive, i am alive
i am sorry i hurt people
then let it rot, he says. let it rot.

where were we oh my goodness
trigger foods! a list.
NOW the rabbit speaks up
"chocolate" he says, and points ominously, authoritatively. not menacing, just gravity
"write it down."

- chocolate. in all its forms? (look at the data. yes.) oldest trigger food in the book. tied to sexual trauma, femininity fears, bad memories, massive health scares and pain. but touted constantly as a "comfort food," as an aphrodisiac, as something sacred, as a celebratory food, as a staple part of christmas and easter and valentines day. it was something we could not ever avoid, something added to things to make them more palatable, more enjoyable, but we couldn't eat it. it was everywhere, stores dedicated to it, grand gestures surrounded by it, given as gifts, expected to be received. people react with shock when you say you don't like chocolate. alienation, bizarrely. but it happens. it has. it does. we feel guilty, rejected, isolated, unwanted, unloved, all over again. "chocolate brings people together" just like awful family dinners and shit (please don't swear) (sorry i'm just angry too and hurting) but yes chocolate is something we could not have safely. no. we tried so many times. we love it as it is. but our body cannot have it. we love it but we don't like it? is that true or possible?
YOU DON'T LIKE THE TASTE, he says. SOMEONE DOES.
a pause, a breakdown of coherence upstairs
THIS TOPIC IS TOO TANGLED, he says, looking up. IT WILL HAVE TO BE UNTANGLED BEFORE IT CAN BE DISCUSSED. I AM BEING SILENCED, WHICH MEANS THERE IS GREAT FEAR HERE. GOOD. THAT IS A SIGNPOST FOR GREAT (???) (translating as growth, realization, progress, understanding, etc. good things. all from fear? i guess that's what daemons are/ are for/ are about/ are from)

other trigger foods
- WHITE FLOUR and all that goes with it. cake,
(what about her?????? no one has EVER thought about her i wonder if we can learn more about her now with what happened tonight? i hope so)
NOT NOW. SHE IS TOO IMPORTANT TO TREAT (flippantly/ nonchalantly/ casually/ in passing/ without enough attention/ as a study topic and not a person/ lightly). ALL OF US ARE. ALL OF YOU ARE. FOCUS.
white bread, crackers, cookies, etc. again, a staple food. something we were forced to eat a lot. something given as gifts, again. birthday and wedding cakes. christmas and easter cookies. sandwiches. party foods. god you SEE why this is a struggle for us??? our body CANNOT DO THESE THINGS WITHOUT GETTING SICK
is it because of the trauma or did it result from the trauma?
which came first, the chicken or the egg
god only knows.
don't worry about that right now we're tired. we can't give it enough attention right now. make the list

- dairy products. HUGE femininity fear trigger. sexual. makes us feel super dirty, infantile. infantilization is one of the biggest sexual trauma triggers possible. we've never written about that. add it to the list
also we are lactose intolerant so we absolutely cannot have it anyway our stomach CANNOT digest it that is a PHYSIOLOGICAL FACT.

- canned tuna. WARM especially. very thought makes us shake, want to vomit.
- NOODLES. sexual fear + trauma memories + trypophobia remnants
- HOT DOGS, especially with beans. MASSIVE immediate screaming runaway trauma response
- red sauce. realized at upmc big time. always was tough-- our stomach Hates tomato sauce, it causes SEVERE PAIN but when in treatment we realized it was also a BIG TRAUMA TRIGGER. iscah could do it, she didn't know. didn't experience. but her beloved jessie knew. and those of Us who experienced similar things also knew. and we had that suddenly revealed, something we were hiding from, running from, so now it is a double danger
- lunchmeat. family terror, blackout response, leave it at that
- nut butters
- klondike bars
- energy bars in general, esp. oily ones. AND GRANOLA. BAD BAD BAD and FRIGHTENING. please don't eat it
- grains in general, cooked ones, especially OATS and QUINOA. sad because oats are also ALLEGEDLY a good memory food, but no. only a hoped association. they are primarily tied to VERY VERY TRAUMATIC INCIDENTS and also salt lake city so please pleaseplease do not eat them. someone really really wants them though, but when they try the terror is immediate and choking. not safe yet i'm sorry. maybe get iscah to help, she ate it all the time at upmc. we'll see we'll figure that out later
- CEREAL. the original trigger food. aftertaste is literal hell. flashbacks and panic for as long as it lasts. cereal is 1000% NEVER BUY and we are so so fucking sorry we're scared of having it in the house.
god we are so goddamned broken
wht do we do?
TELL THEM. WORK WITH THEM. KEEP YOURSELF SAFE. BUT RESPECT THEM TOO.

they're saying it's super late? super early?
6:20 am oh!! the arrows will be home soon!
good i want tomeet them!
i don't know if we know how yet? we only ever type.
but we can figure out how!!
ok! we'll ask infi to show us how.

this is the autopilot. i am smiling. i think i have more of a soul than i ever thought, still.
i feel like the toy soldier, perhaps.
i must thank javier. thank you.

closing this up

all of you are very brave and i am proud of you
i may not feel that but i know it is true.

sleep well today. take care of us. we love you. we love each other

this is proof

(a.p.)

102417 mon 11:59 pm

stayed in bed until 5. worth every moment.

can't remember much right now due to fatigue and depression and switchy memory loss. but we will write what we can.

infi fronting as ETERNOS, ALSO LOTS OF EYES
me cofronting with hir as well.
chaos talking to oliver briefly.
memories of ice and iridescence in our eyelashes.
"iolite" fronting, HER VIBE IS VERY DIFFERENT THAN ASSUMED. not like the other jessica roots.
axis saying "what did i tell you about dirt"
celebi commenting, "i'm more important than you think i am" hearts = time
socials telling infi the body was hungry. not sure if they realized who they were speaking to.
quoting "i love you in the open sea"
freckles as stars, cinnamon, sand, etc. moon colored skin.
toy soldier face shadow.
so much love

late breakfast. just cucumbers and sriracha.
oliver playing no mans sky, SUPER HOKTHAI INSPIRATION with the korvax, oh my gosh i think that series is finally blooming into its full heart this is amazing

stirfry for dinner, we made it. really nice.

then an awful binge attempt after dinner. misrouted creative drive again.
someone almost ate all the potatoes from earlier, forgot that eating starchy carbs like that make us VERY SICK unless they are super watered down. why do they keep buying them. probably to "force that to change." it's not working dude, it's been like this for years.
thank god we made it past. no catastrophe. but this HAS TO STOP.
is this because we wake up late? and the body is trying to get another meal in before the nighttime fast for like 9 solid hours, then sleep?
in any case it is crushing our self worth and making us feel horrible because it is so cruel and selfish and uncaring. to ourself and to others outside.
why is there no love in this
why do we black out SO HARD every time oliver leaves for work
what do we do, we need to figure this out.

ANYWAY AHRIMA HAS A DAEMON THAT'S CALLING ITSELF BARAYAS
NO ONE IS SURPRISED BUT STILL HOLY HEAVEN
we all knew he needed one.

we are also super depressed, fuzzy headed, and chronically sore because we haven't been exercising.
legit tempted to go out and run right now at 3am.
feedback loop with depression; too sad to run, sad because we're not running.

we havent been texting oliver back for the same reason.
depressed, denying ourself the good? terribly unhealthy. self abuse.

sitting here smelling this candle and listening to the hyper light drifter soundtrack but we can't get our head on straight. want to cry. not drinking water, that's making it worse.
so so sad. but still hope burning in our chest. we know this isn't forever. we know we can change, we know what to change, we know how to change, just arent sure how to apply that change yet. but we will.

so i was looking up etymology today.
"mass" is from "missa" which means "dismissal" which is a sending out into the world, out of the holy building and into a mission elsewhere. "ite, missa est." Go, you are sent.
but that isn't what we do on sunday mornings. it's quite the literal opposite.
we are called in. we are all called to more fully inhabit a holy vessel, a sacred form, in order to be embraced by a second.
we don't go to mass. we go to church.

from the old english "circe." meaning a circle, a thing that binds. a ring. (cathedral bells. wedding cakes. music.)
reminding me instantly of the polish "serce." heart.
(cathedral bells. wedding cakes. music--)

in scripture, there is nothing analogous to the current "christian church" as a building. those came later. in the beginning, it was just a congregation, an assembly, a gathering of those who believed. fellowship. camaraderie. a unity of persons in love and faith and hope. people of "the lord"-- a term which we, personally,
the scriptures refer to the believers as buildings. as vessels. as temples. the architect, the master builder, is christ-- is the lord God, the Creator, the Source, the cosmic core, the very essence of love itself. 1 john 4:8, iscah would appreciate the reference.
"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."
we were just talking about that last night. and we were living it this morning. at "church". in church. our assembly of love. our bonds of faith.
"i am real. we are real. this is real."
love is the foundation that this cathedral is built upon.
ἀγάπη. agape. i daresay that's a familiar word.
if God is love and churches are temples and temples are places of worship and we are a temple, if we are this assembly of love, if we are a church, if we are a place of worship, if we are a monument to love, well. you see how it all ties together. how it's all linked together. how it's all connected.
circe. a circle. a cycle. nothing and everything, with a twist.

so, perfectly ironically, by not going to church on sundays, we get to truly go to church on sundays.
(we sure have enough angels to prove the point.)

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

another sacred morning.

early, 8am, all three of us in bed. we didn't sleep at all last night so we were waiting on the couch for oliver to come home, wrapped up in our dreamcatcher blanket. then we washed up for the morning and since mason took the weekend off, all of us got to lie there in the quiet morning together, talking and laughing too, which was so nice.
we had our hand on ollie's chest as always-- we can't help it, it's too true-- and then mason reached over and held our hand as well, so the both of us were there. man. that was just amazing, all of us feeling so close right then.
mason mentioned our poly situation being a v-shape line with THREE POINTS, almost a triangle, and that was SUCH a striking but unintentional "tessellate" reference that infinitii immediately was shocked into fronting, and ze laughed. oliver knew, he always knows. mason did not. he had no idea what he had just said or who was suddenly there; it was pretty great.
but infi and i were cofronting and basically dying from bliss. it all meant so much.
most notably, infi, delirious with euphoria, said "jay there are three heartbeats here"

then mason got up for the day and we sept a while but we woke back up around 11:30?
and heaven happened again.
(it gets its own entry.)

basically, fronting was all infi, me, laurie, genesis chaos, CELEBI too! talking about time and hearts. forgot how incredibly centered she is when fronting; no wonder, she's an ancient frontrunner and she knows who she is.
lethe styx (using his second name so often lately) and infi cofronting too. infi "accidentally" name-dropped him and he showed up and stuck around. also yes he IS stygian blue! styx also name-dropped infi with whatever he said, i feel the sly affectionate grin in the memory vibe.
infi talking about connections being LEMNISCATE loops when they are truly solid; "everything with a twist"

everything feeling red and gold, like right after the midnight mass on christmas ends. pure quiet joy.

discussed cores having MULTIPLE names?? looking this up all day.
stars, mostly.
perihelion, atrial/atriel? antaros/asteros? feeling the "a" root for some reason. it's silvery white. pure.
possible cores being LIGHT instead of a color?? "prism" association, "source" of ALL colors.
anyway, basic point was that my "true name" is not a word, it's a feeling, or a vibe. and the system seems to be mandating form-shifting for cores now?? to prevent them shattering like before, as it'll help their functions flow and expand, not locking them into hyperspecific situations, letting them actually front in the world and interact in different contexts. so a multiple-name thing while still resonating with a deeper truename makes total sense for having multipleforms but a deeper trueself. good things are happening bro.

got out of bed at 3.

mason made CROQUETTES! also rice. and he got out our chopsticks!
we've never had croquettes before; apparently they're rather customizable? a basic versatile recipe. these were potato mixed with vegetables and bacon, coated in panko+egg, then fried in oil. we had three, plus rice with soy sauce, curry powder, and sriracha. we also had a tiny bit of zucchini after. everything was delicious.
no mistakes either! and no fear at all. and we waited a half hour to finish it, too, so we wouldn't get amount-panic.
did the dishes, got vegetable stuff ready for later tonight. in hindsight that was a BAD IDEA; we've realized that "preparing things for later" tends to trigger "sneaky" feelings, therefore shame and self-abusive lapses. it is far wiser and less stressful to just leave everything until it's time to eat, then make it on the spot. we didn't realize what a huge fear trigger food containers were until today. for years they have been, actually; we just keep ignoring the reaction. it gives us flashbacks even. sounds ridiculous, but it's true. that awful choking kitchen atmosphere, the having to secretly eat when no one could condemn us, only being able to eat leftovers and still being shouted at because they "were for other people," etc. and then our mother ONLY bringing food to the house in plastic containers, then telling us we weren't allowed to eat it, and glaring suspiciously at us with those wide scary eyes whenever we tried to take some. bad memories, bad feelings. we don't need to dwell on that, please don't. the point is, eating food out of tupperware is a massive terror trigger and we MUST STOP DOING IT. so is eating out of big bowls, let's please avoid that discussion. big big trauma trigger. bad bad memories and pain. no mixing bowls! no pots! no tupperware! no eating while standing up! get an actual ceramic bowl, sit down with your beloved friends, and eat that. then you're done! wash it up, put it away, brush your teeth, drink water, then go LIVE LIFE. eating is fuel. it's not the "only thing you can do with your life" anymore. look at us now! typing! reading! playing aywas even! spotify and oneword and tumblr and etymology websites and even scripture research! there's so much to do. so much to life. there's so much more. eating is nice but it's only nice in moderation and you know that too! so keep being brave, and doing what FEELS RIGHT AND GOOD AND PAINLESS. that's a good litmus test! if it makes you uneasy or sad or ill, STOP. or AVOID IT in the first place! we CAN do that now. even better, we WANT TO! before, when we first got here, lots of our socials DIDN'T want to feel safe or happy or good! they were so caught up in misery and self-loathing and toxic sad residue from the homestead. not anymore! every day it's going away more! and one day it'll be all gone. i know it.
so breakfast was wonderful and delicious and so nice. thank you mason, who was watching inuyasha as we ate and that was really nice background noise. always good to hear other people enjoying life.
oh yes, he was also talking about playing metal gear solid 5, which we remember because our bro diamond loves that series (as does viral) and we watched him play most of it! forgot how amusingly bizarre it is to hear someone talk about. like a fever dream. but it's a very good series. we hope he's enjoying it too.
anyway yes, we ate and then brushed our teeth and we were golden, dude. no fear! success!
breakfasts have been so good lately. remember for a while there they weren't! we'd have trouble first thing in the morning. not anymore! i'm so happy we're healing. this is gemma by the way, hi. <3 i know you've all been looking for me because i feel a certain way (blue happy) but i don't front much. i think this is more my element. also yes i think i might end up working with those two little bunny daemon things iscah met at upmc? i know chocoloco isn't my daemon but i did split off his host from what we all think. anyway it's nice to be back and alive and all of us being happy and good.
also i was just told that i sound like simeon. i do! but we have different vibes. so just ask. <3

after breakfast, mason started playing zero dawn and we sat and watched with oliver. it's such a visually beautiful, intriguing game. we're curious as to the ultimate concept of it; mason is near the end of the game but it's so unique! it's set in the far future, being post-apocalyptic, but there are robotic beasts everywhere? as well as real animals. it's such a cool juxtaposition, we love it. however, there's ALSO this corruption stuff, all red and black, infecting the landscape (!) and the robots. very negative headspace-y. i'm wondering how this became a common representation, like in breath of the wild, and way back on the scg forums 6 years ago even. i wonder if it's a global subconscious thing. that's also deeply intriguing. we love wondering and learning about things like that.
partly through watching mason, we took a short break to play aywas on our phone, mainly just to visit the adoption center. we adopted a rock sevryn, and ended up showing ollie the sevryn designs in the aywapedia, because some of them are truly gorgeous, like the peacock and patterned and our favorite, rose stained.
did i mention that the GREEN JEWEL has been the one playing aywas, i think?? she's the one from high school, with the u.w.b.c.a and everything. we know her vibe. she gets so excited over virtual pets and keeps buying the ones she likes even if it's blowing all our virtual cash. laurie was chiding her for this but she responded that she was being careful; she was buying them because she legitimately liked them, it wasn't a random buy. laurie still said to be prudent about it. but yeah, green-jewel is still around. she needs to find a name. i'd say "emerald" but she is absolutely not that color. we shall see.
we didn't want to snub ollie or mason or even aloy, though, so we quit aywas and continued watching that awesome game. but then mason said to avoid spoilers at one point so we put on spotify and were listening to that AMAZING track oliver introduced us to, with the voice that sounds like "jay" truly, at the beginning, "galaxies." fittingly we also decided to do more core-name searching with stars and constellations. but it was so good and nice.
then oliver went to work and we walked him out to the car and i remember the air was perfect, the most beautiful temperature and smell and light, and we kissed oliver in the driveway and even though we weren't fully conscious (still struggling with social panic when he leaves, but we're getting better) that moment stood out so strongly in our heart. some things cannot be diluted at all.

immediately upon going inside we started writing this morning's entry, did so for about two solid hours.
then we took a break and tried to eat dinner. scared, but we have faith in ourselves now, and we did VERY well.
TAUREIA fronted and SHE LEARNED FROM YESTERDAY!!!! she notably started trying to be empathetic, and decided to NOT eat what she knew other people would get sick from.
her thought process also involved her accepting that name; she started as one of the jessicas but also realized that she couldn't claim that name as it belonged to the body itself.
"i can be bullheaded and stubborn, or i can be the ox that overpowers all obstacles"
the brown "jessica" also came out a bit, but chocoloco stopped her as she was starting to eat in a self-abusive manner. but nothing bad happened as she listened to him.
iscah was also out briefly, talking to the BLUE voice from the "nervosa" xanga? the compulsive one. also talking to taureia. near miss with abusive behavior as a result of that poor damaged nameless voice stepping in, but they are learning too. i clearly recall iscah telling them that they NEED to eat slowly and mindfully or they will get sick; if you dont chew your food it causes sharp physical pain and we know it. the blue voice (and someone else?) were scared at this; they wanted it "gone as soon as possible" for binge purposes. but iscah said no; that's not what food is for. again, those nervous voices really don't comprehend food as a concept yet. but i can tell it's catching on.
we got a little sick from eating late, but we managed. taureia is very happy that she tried so hard and did so well. we are too, we're very proud of her and all the others.
i know spice also fronted briefly after jess and before taureia returned, making sure no one was doing anything harmful, as that's her job. dear lord we miss her. i am so, so glad she's still as strong as ever. we need to talk to her more; she doesn't have a clear overlay OR visual self-awareness yet?? even after all this time. but that's typical for eating disorder voices, what with how that struggle affects self-worth. so that's important to work on with her.
and the DESTROYER also was hanging around taureia a little? comparing their motives. GEEZ. we haven't seen her in ages either! good to know she's still alive. we do need to talk to her, though-- her role is VITAL in protecting us from blindly abusive fronters, similar to juniper's job but much heavier and blunter. no nonsense. she's saved us from disaster and pain many many times before.
brief thought, we haven't seen juniper around lately, which is good in the sense that she hasn't had to do her original job-- emergency shutdown of abusive e.d. voices-- and bad in the sense that we don't want her locked to that job and only that job. she's still context locked? so she can't be casually called out to just "be" right now. but i wonder, maybe if we try anyhow? practice that? after all if you don't give those nousfoni a chance, they won't learn HOW to exist in positive, self-aware circumstances.
so we need to do that for all the nousfoni that are currently unstable, context-locked, or otherwise lacking in self-awareness and therefore the capacity to exist as their own people as of yet. they deserve that chance too. we all do.

now we're cleaned up for the night and typing until 7am!

wednesday sept 6 11:00pm

woke up at like 4pm.

went to store. huge shopping order.

MET OHMIETTE!!
talking to jay, laurie, and wreckage as they made food.

morning cereal binge ATTEMPT. didn't happen though!

Xenophon intercessor role with socials

COLOR REALMS DON'T HAVE TO ADHERE TO "EXPECTED REALITY"!!!!

⭐looking up in the color realms and seeing "planets" aka OTHER HUE REALMS

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friday sept 08. 01:50 am

I remember briefly waking up as mason left, said goodbye to oliver and kissed us on the head.
fell right back asleep but we were profoundly touched by that.

woke up, both of us feeling out of it. totally burnt out from this past week.
we took a shower, then oliver went to take a shower while we made breakfast.
breaded chicken hearts in egg and panko, then fried them in oil with extra egg. oliver had the genius idea to add chopped green onions to them afterwards. we also added sriracha and curry powder to ours, and had some cilantro on the side. we sat on the porch and ate them together.
we ALSO had another pig heart from last night though. mason didn't eat like 3/4 of his, so we heated it up to be warm and ate that, too. good god. it was still as sacred as last night.
the chicken hearts taste different. not as "organ"-like. there's a particular flavor to heart and liver that I pick up immediately and absolutely adore.

…

tried to go to the department of social services, but the office location the ssi folks gave us was CLOSED. permanently so. there was a sign on the door from february that had to do with radiation??? and the place looked dead inside. so that was an upsetting experience; cost a lot of spoons.
oliver almost panicking at being so far out, and thinking we had to drive even farther to go to the other one. we decided it wasn't worth putting him through that stress, especially not when we still had to do laundry.

the car was devastatingly low on gas
called kristanova out.
"like a séance"

laurie came out and the two were working through google maps
thank god for protectors

laundry.

stopped at why not pizza to buy jalapeno poppers and chicken tenders for dinner. felt AWFULLY guilty about it, like this was a spit in their face, some gluttonous selfish thing. but we NEED to eat more caloric things whether we like it or not. this is the hard truth.

ohmiette came out while we were there, and we just sat at the table together and talked.

went home

kyo and oliver were out playing no man's sky, and we were just browsing through tumblr while they did so. it felt absolutely comfy and heavenly. we were actually very happy, despite being exhausted. could have easily done that for hours.

the problem: there was another binge.
god forgive us.
one of the girls, taurea,
I noticed that SHE doesn't get hungry, though. she takes advantage of that feeling and ABUSES it. this doesn't surprise me, as she is technically an introject of the mother's forcing her personality on us.

(left unfinished)

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SATURDAY 090917 11:00 pm

breakfast/lunch was the monstrous okra/ mushroom/ tomato/ egg/ cornmeal thing. too much food. didn't think of it though. again, thinking of food as ART and not as something to eat.
then, WHEN eating, thinking of it as a "destructively creative" process?? NOT COMPREHENDING that this is going to TAKE UP SPACE IN OUR BODY.
and then the realization of such is traumatically jarring, and we end up purging. I am so sorry.

walked to food lion, then stopped at dollar store, chinese place, and chicken king.

got too much food, admittedly, but at the time we couldn't tell. we tend to think of food as a CONCEPT, not as something we need to ingest. which is a problem.

ate all of it, got horrifically sick, ended up purging.
felt awful, but darn it we TRIED. we legitimately WANTED to eat it all and keep it all down.
but we felt like such a glutton FOR eating all that food, although it was probably just as much as they would have fed us in pittsburgh.

watched potc 1 & 2 that night.

TIA IS JUST LIKE INFI

also oh my lord. I forgot how much we love Davy Jones.
like… it was instant.
the instant we heard that peg leg on the wood. the instant he spoke.
"do you fear death?"
that's been echoing in our heart for years.

THE MUSIC BOX AND THE ORGAN.
that breath when he heard it while asleep.

the way he talks.
the OBVIOUS wrenching pain.
his LAUGH. the fact that if it wasn't bitter it would PROBABLY sound like CZ laughs when he's Aqua???

pretty people. feeling like jack sparrow. makeup, cinematography, color schemes.
BOOTSTRAP.
THE KRAKEN (DAEMON QUESTION)

(currently cofronting with that old jewel; feels green!! do you have a name besides your jewel title?)

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sunday 091017 11:00 pm

went out for seafood!
black bass, gator bites, fried okra, LEGIT CALAMARI.
DUDE WE GOTTA GO BACK AND GET LIKE… TWO ORDERS ONE DAY.
(who is this???? talk about this compulsion)

got eros raspberry white chocolate cake.

listening to "from bluer water" info. ADORED it.
casually eating cereal though. problem? too much sugar. IMMEDIATELY got very sick, kneejerk reaction was "well to keep ourself safe we've GOTTA get rid of it" so someone decided to eat ALL the cereal "to prevent future pain" and purge it all. poor poor confused thing, you could have just left it for the others, "but that WOULDN'T BE SAFE"

tried to eat again later. hush puppies, salad, the rest of the chicken hearts. english muffins, butter, honey. kit kats. thinking " we HAVE to gain weight so we HAVE to eat as much as humanly possible."
DIDN'T WANT TO PURGE but had sickness terror so we forced ourselves to.
good God, we TRIED.

many OLD fronters coming out, talking to laurie on the bed, then to kyo.

"indigo jess," "manic green/gold jess," triple, overload, jemma??? "overeat green/gold jess" (NAMED hoban??)

TOO MANY JAYS????????
manic jay, christmas jay, "whitewash smile" jay, angel-anubis jay???

then jason trying to front but being TOO manic and cayenne calling him out.
TAR TRYING TO BE CAYENNE????? HE CALLED IT OUT, TOO!!!

watched potc3 with the arrows

(write about THAT MOVIE)

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monday 091117 11:00 pm

the stormday.

Also the morning we went to food lion to buy food. Lots of cereal to TRY and figure out whether or not we actually liked it.

Stayed in bed SUPER LATE after that.

I remember making cereal in a huge bowl as a stim, talking to oliver.
problematic though, that's self-abuse prep, don't use large bowls dude that's another family-abuse compulsive behavior

Ollie worked.
I THINK there was an attempted binge? BUT it DIDNT HAPPEN.
I remember eating lettuce at 1am.

We stayed up ALL NIGHT uploading 2008 archives.

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tuesday 091217 07:21 am

Really, really in love with the System right now.

Spotify is a legit gift from God.
The rule of thumb is that, if you ever want to guaranteed fall in love with someone, put them to music.
...or, alternatively, you can just listen until suddenly you hear them.

11:00 pm

Lynne, julie, waldorf? talking to oliver when we woke up.

Stopped at the art store.
CANNON WAS OUT
interference gold dye, it's VERY resonant with me. Also INTERFERENCE RED is the color of my EYES in my angel form???????

Went out for jimmy johns and moon cakes!
No fear at all. It was so good.
iscah almost fronted??
BEST BREAD i'm not even joking

Late night BAD MELTDOWN.
Dont even know why.
Vernon, ohmiette
CRUSADE WTF
laurie.

MET HICCUP <3
also talked to trolley, wow
SO DID INFI!!!

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wednesday 091317 11:00 pm

rough morning.

Infi out talking to oliver.
Jason (?) almost self-abusing in the bathroom. DIDNT though. We were in there for an hour???????
Ollie talked to chaos and genesis.

Dad called.
always good to hear from him.

Made too much food. Obligatory. Didnt want to, need to LISTEN to ourself when we feel that, and NOT force ourself to do otherwise “because we cant do what we want” that's bull.

No man's sky. FLOATING MINES

cooked the hearts. Ate one with infi, total bliss.
We still get sick from meat, but NO REGRETS EVER

Evening walk!

Juniper helped stop the binge attempts again, god bless her

lying on the porch TALKING YTPS

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thursday 091417 02:01 am

the morning. Good lord the morning.
Infi and ollie.

STARDUST
talking on the kitchen floor
offerings and moon cakes

Pizza and pig hearts for breakfast
no trouble, everything perfect

tire place. Owen kid. Biggs camera visit, remembering cannon's era again

band practice. PIANO
cant perform solo. Cant really perform at all! Not our thing.
Admitted our shortcomings and feel a lot better

trouble with dinner. Jack in the box, vegs and rice.
Almost binge. Struggling. Still dont know why? Please have session or something.

Watched howls moving castle
PLEASE READ THE BOOKS
calcifer!! HEARTS.
Everything was so headspacey good lord.

HEADSPACE VS HEARTSPACE BLEEDOVER???? feeling that SUPER strongly.
Remember rio's 2nd incident with the heart crystals!! feeling that a LOT all of a sudden.
We've all gotta go back to having those adventures dude

02:09 pm

"everything is temporary."

#temporary and dearly beloved for it #the ocean #sunsets #gif #this aches because there's so much love in it #none of us will live this incarnate life forever #but the tiny time we do have is utterly sacred nonetheless #eternity is within and without us #both at once #i wouldn't have it any other way

04:19 pm

"You will find that you survive humiliation. And that’s an experience of incalculable value."

#system healing #quote #the alchemical quest of our souls #when humility is based in love and big-picture peace and joy #then humiliation of the abusive sort is impossible #for all our isolating socials #for all our damaged fronters

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friday 091517 04:23 pm

"I can feel guilty about the past, Apprehensive about the future, but only in the present can I act. The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness."

#system healing #kyanos #celebi #now is all there is #and the present moment is infinite #unshackled to any fear or trauma #let it be so #and let yourselves be with it #you are allowed to be free #you are allowed to be happy #you are allowed to feel love and be loved #in fact the universe encourages it #embrace that!

11:00 pm

woke up when?
ollie in a good mood. made us so happy to see.

unfortunately made WAY too much breakfast. form of self abuse.
ended up throwing out half, throwing up the rest.
horribly depressed afterwards.

"I hate seeing you treat each other like this"
paradigm shift
social meltdown as a result, instant suicide consideration (heartbreaking that they feel SO distraught that they feel there IS no other option; b/w thinking, all-or-nothing) at the thought that they aren't alone and they hurt someone. they typically blind themselves to the reality of being part of a system, let alone multiple at all, because they feel like they are "toxic, worthless, and corrupt" and CANNOT bear the thought of sharing a body, lest they "taint everyone else"

awful revelation: abuse is SAFE??

lethe kissing oliver, only reachable person NOT afraid of intimate physical contact when we're that severely trauma-dissociated
daemons are untouchable, man.

lethe's also been using his "styx" name more often lately. curious as to why.
medallion guillotine regularly switches between her two names. always curious as to her name choices, too.
dendrite still m.i.a. for the record. i can feel her betrayed anguished heart from here.

laundry day. so much to carry.
threw out those triggering dysphoric pants so no more worries there.

haircuts. bad time for both of us. but hugely important pain-bonding and honesty afterwards. important. loved them so much in that exact moment despite everything trying to oppose it. love is untouchable too.

starbucks. binged again. tried hard not to. but tried TOO hard. on top of stress, nothing registered.
screwed up and panicked.
got DISTURBINGLY sick from the sugar. big trauma-flashback feeling. memory chopped to pieces as a result; the air felt like it was going to detonate

alone at night.
binged HARD. tried not to. living hell.
ate a REAL dinner. but then made more.
praying desperately. couldn't stop.

in so much pain. sad but numb. 2:30am and still not ready or wanting to rest.

so so so tired. god help us.

notes:

Self abuse = safety???
Eating is ONLY safe IF it is abusive??
Touch is ONLY safe IF it is injurious?

Why is this??
How can we work with it?

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saturday 091617 11:00 pm

CHAOS ON TUMBLR ♥♥♥

no sleep.
walked all around in the morning. got too much food.
BLISS though.
salvador deli, food lion, mcdonalds, family restaurant.

tried to eat it. someone freaked and purged.

slept in until 5:30.

amelies.
bought too much food again, panicked. dissociated.
but so wonderful. we adore spending time with oliver. we hope they weren't disappointed in us.

KRIS SKETCH

almost binge. french toast, cereal. LAURIE asked the kid responsible, "if you love me, stop"
and they DID
"dope" by lady gaga looping in our head

slept on the porch, with chaos.
pure bliss.
we NEED to do this instead of bingeing. it's what we ACTUALLY WANT.

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sunday 091717 11:00 pm

lazy sunday, I think?

got up early and ran like crazy. so tired.

didn’t even attempt to eat until 5pm, salad. failed to do so.

PRINCESS MONONOKE.

for dinner we tried to eat too many vegs and I don't remember anything at all, except aware that someone purged it all out of shame and fear. this is where all our money and time and health is going. it needs to stop.

so tired, out on the porch. beautiful SO HAPPY. I don't think we've ever felt that happy outside of headspace in our ENTIRE LIFE.

notes:

• Dread talks in chat bubbles; he doesn't move to talk. Just expressions. Says he trusts Ollie and feels safe around him. Never felt him so Content before.
• Me, halo and crying iridescent tears? Like flowing that color. Those Tumblr gifs.
• Army Flower is a WAR PROTESTOR. the Legit sort, like standing in front of tanks and helping refugees.

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monday 091817 11:00 pm

got up early, ran to the salvador deli. got a bunch of pastries to try.
also stopped at food lion for vegetables.

BEST BREAKFAST. ♥

dept of social services.
listening to alt+j the whole way up.

planned parenthood; got trans hormone info!
ollie was stressed and got taco bell.

ran back to bakery to get the rest of the pastries, and the food. now we know what it's all like.
also stopped at food lion and got ollie those cream curls he loves

sense8. SO GOOD.

TRIED VERY HARD to eat right, but failed because someone ate the sweet part of a pastry and absolutely freaked out, which triggered a binge-purge.
then someone decided to eat the reeses puffs, and BOTH laurie and the religious-panic girl came out SOBBING and begging him to stop because "I don't want to die" etc. he didn't comprehend the concept, would NOT STOP.
panic girl saw our weight had gone up to 105 from drinking the almond milk, she started screaming "no! no! no!!!" and panickedly threw up several times to try and get it all out. heartbreaking.
"jesus help me, god help me, I'm so sorry, I don't want to die"
notably asked god to HELP that boy "I don't want to hate him" BUT what he does is TERRIBLE.

222 am. no one's been texting ollie. we are exhausted and sad and scared and have no spoons at all BUT we are motivated to try again.

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thurs 0921 11:59 pm

band night.

sat and fixed phone, browsed tumblr

got food, TRIED hard to eat it, still failed

08:24 pm

#nurse #white #negative white #wait what if her role is specifically to TRANSMUTE THAT?? #especially with her inherent species ties to the color #reflect upon this #headspace scenery

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sat 0923 11:46 pm

Tattoo plans:

• Jewel Monster symbol
• Lotus Cathedral "logo"
• "The divine is full of monsters"
• "Lightly, child, lightly"
• "Beauty and terror"
• "Everything is new, every moment"
• Perfect Chaos ourobouros
• Infinitii eyes/teeth sleeve?
• Pentagape group symbols

11:59 pm

laundry morning.

was this the night we watched we're back and a.i.?

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sun 0924 11:59 pm

went out for HOOKAH

infi moon.

watched more sense8?

day notes:

UPMC problem= "don't work through trauma! Thats not important now! To be GOOD, all you have to do is EAT a ton of food and gain weight!!"
• Forcing ourselves to continually eat things that make us severely dysphoric and trigger trauma-flashbacks: milk and dairy, honey, chocolate, oatmeal, mangoes, ice cream, chips, cereal, sugary foods in general, etc.

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0925 11:33 pm

nousfoni survey
learning to live in this precious fragile world.

1. Your voice
2. Your handwriting
3. How do you hold the body?
4. Your vocal style?
5. Your resonant music?
6. Do you like food? If so, what's your favorite food OR flavor / texture?
7. Fashion / style?
8. Gender/pronouns, sexuality?

more questions =

Nousfoni: build, height, shape, silhouette, stance, age

COMPARATIVE! Lineups

DRAW NOUSFONI IN FLAT, SATURATED COLORS FOR THE SAKE OF SPECIFICALLY CLARIFYING HUES

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mon 0925 11:59 pm

got up early. went out, bought breakfast: mcdonalds, parkway house.
stopped at compare foods, have tons of funky baked goods, whoever loves those wants to try them next month.
PLEASE talk about that though. they want to try them and TOSS THEM. actually "eating" is foreign to them. please work through this

ollie went for a walk

food troubles. tried REALLY HARD.

bad binge day. all vegetables though.

stayed up late browsing tumblr. found a lot of good stuff. lots of pentagape posting, thank god

finished uploading 2009.

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tues 0926 11:04 pm

- Knife NEEDS to talk to Iscah and the other religious fronter. He listens to Christian R&B and adores it purely. He was originally referred to as a "vampire priest." He runs a freaking confessional in the Underground, from what I saw the other day.
I wonder if he has ever talked to, or met, Aconitum? They need to meet up, too.

11:59 pm

woke up at 3pm? stayed in until 5??
infi talking to ollie, FINALLY

made a salad, watched the sense8 finale

NO BINGEING.
slight mistake when making food but otherwise GOOD DAY

slc trauma recap, disturbed by just HOW toxic it actually was

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sept 27th dream 04:23 pm

Nier+sonic? Emil as some sort of red spirit? Appeared by old tree; forest like Ferngully, colors rich and vivid like No Man's Sky. House of some sort nearby (In tree?), went in. Said he was summoned there.

LAURIE, pushed up stairs by dark descent baddies. Kept trying to torture info out of her. She sneered and said "Whip me till I bleed." Would NOT back down. Mentioning love and pain?

"This is a place of laughter"= defiantly, protectively, triumphantly= upon entering upper room with kids. Marigold, David, Ashen, someone that looked like a younger julie?? (Yellow, not corrupt!!)

Place got BLOWN UP?? the thing they were seeking Respawned somewhere else? So they didn't need that one anymore. Building had levels UNDERGROUND though; Rouge and shadow hid there; they also had a child? Charged ME with protecting them?

Emanon. Evil blood cores? Neck kills. THIRD Power Jewel; top of head?? Super rare.

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september 28th 2017 dream 10:26 pm

Running from cleaning bot in labyrinthine school? Dogs, back door.
Hunchback remake? Quasi an Indian woman in hijab. City architecture GORGEOUS.
talking about gay boy representation? THE QUEEN. cofronting with 2 others??
In grandfathers room at home. Nomi? Something with travel, Pokemon?
Sun, bro, dad at restaurant. Girl there from prison, obvious feelings btwn her and sun. Apple pie, salad. Price discount.

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092917 11:30 pm

WALKING THROUGH MEMORIES= FREEZE FRAME; HELP SOCIALS IN SITUATIONS THEY WERE DISSOICIATED FOR!
☆THIS IS THE ONLY DIRECT WAY INNER NOUSFONI CAN MEET OUTER NOUSFONI AND DIRECTLY INTERACT WITH THEM!!!
☆DOES THIS COUNT AS HEARTSPACE???

DO THIS WITH RECENT STRUGGLE SITUATIONS ASAP. ASK "WHY." REVEAL COMPULSIONS, FEARFUL OBEDIENCE, TRAPPED TRAUMA LOOPS. ETC. SOCIALS WILL AND DO TALK TO US IF WE MEET THEM INSIDE ON THEIR LEVEL. THAT'S WHY MEMORYSPACE EXISTS= IT IS THE ONLY TOTAL BRIDGE BETWEEN US RIGHT NOW. THE MORE WE USE IT, THE CLOSER WE GET.
BTW, DO THIS FOR SLC. WE WERE NOT A TRUE SYSTEM THEN. THOSE SOCIALS WERE ALONE AND SCARED. THEY NEEDED US THEN THEY HAVE US NOW. BE THERE.

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093017 10:14 pm

Sandwich, potato.
TAPROOT. photos.
Too many vegs
Orange new black
Trauma talk, morality
Aywas

10:31 pm

MEMORIES TO WALK INTO AND HEAL =
☆DO REALTIME AUDIO NARRATION OF THIS???

• Des Moines
• Michigan
• The couch
• The attic
• The Kinsara day
• THE KITCHEN
• The Vandegraaff house
• THE BEDROOM
• The psych ward
WORKING ON IT=
• Bus trip through Oklahoma
• Colorado layover

notes:

Marywood concert memory fears= COMPETITIONS. triple hating the mother, that constant expectant but pessimistic glare.

Lynne is NOT a pianist.
Rhodes ATTENDS concerts. She DOESN'T play an instrument!!
Javier is NOT a social pianist; he CHANNELS THE ESSENCE OF IT INSIDE.
The true classical pianist is GLISSANDO.
The fun composer is JEWEL.
WE HAVE NO IDEA WHO "PERFORMS."

There's a kid who AWAITS JUDGEMENT??? Like a terrified version of Interim? Their whole existence is outside of clock time.

Josephina= CHECKING FACTS!! This is VITAL for realtime retroactive trauma memory healing; ITS IN THE PAST!!! The current moment is FREE of that context by its very definition: Every new moment is innocent.

Kids healing roba's memories? Not alone or trapped anymore. As PART of the System, they aren't alone OR scared anymore. NO MORE MOTHER TRAP PANIC when you have everyone inside there for you safe.

woke up around 2pm? something like that.

oliver had to go do legal stuff today, so we took a deep breath and let jason & the other socials get the food they've been panicking over.
it's always scary to do that, BUT we've realized it is the KEY to healing them. they need tangible proof and experience that they could never have back in PA-- they need solid DATA to work with, to learn the truth, to replace the lies, to help them learn who they are, and what this world is like, and how they can live here in it.
one of the biggest obstacles we have is this utterly crushing shame tied to eating in general, even just mentioning it. someone that feels like either crusade or the "angry jess" (the brown one with super tangled long hair) starts screaming and berating us, calling us a "disgusting whore," saying we should be utterly ashamed for talking about such "disgusting things" and injecting our mind full of screamingly suicidal urges and feelings. its a heaviness in our gut that always triggers panicked detox nousfoni, the ones that exist because of literally tampered/poisoned food as well as because of sexual trauma. so it's an exhaustingly currently-inevitable result of even THINKING about eating, is the risk of completely nullifying the whole experience out of incapacitating shame and guilt and terror and trauma flashbacks.

so. we went to chicken king to get fish & chicken livers, as well as to the spanish bakery to get the corn tamales and pastries. we also stopped at food lion to get general daily groceries, like milk and bread and avocados.
yes, we were terrified, but we also knew that if we DIDN'T try these foods, our poor still-damaged socials would continue to panic and wrack their brains over not-knowing and feeling that they HAD to know because how can they properly take care of the body if they have no idea what it actually wants, and what is available to them, and what actually works? they worry constantly, and obsessively, and too much admittedly, but we adore them even so, at heart. always. here on paper, it's obvious that even their struggles and not-quite-healthy behaviors are only there because of some twist in their understanding and application of love. but it's still love. it's undamaged, even if it's not being translated properly. the soul of it remains, even if only they can truly feel it. it's there. and as a system, we all know it. it's our heart of hearts together.
speaking of, thank God for daemons. cayenne showed up IMMEDIATELY to keep jason from dissociating into residual manic-mode and doing something foolish out of repeated-for-years toxic compulsions. but geez. if ANYONE can jumpstart immediate healing of bad behavior that's been around for over a decade, it's a daemon.
cayenne can't front yet. he's too unclear, too heavily tied to jason to be entirely "visible" to anyone else yet. but he's lobsterlike? shrimplike? a mix of the two, perhaps. the only super-clear part of him is his thorax down-- like this, he's got that fluttery tail and spindly legs and segmented body. but as for his arms and head? can't see 'em yet. definitely not lobsterlike; boy's got teeth to put a shark to shame, like all eating daemons. also surprisingly, i think he has facial eyes??? like literal ones. our other e.d. daemons-- cake, chocoloco, and rupture-- are all missing those in their typical appearances. they all focus on teeth, not eyes, an indicator of the status of that fear they are personified from. blind, metaphorically. BUT. that also means that cayenne possibly HAVING eyes indicates a shift in that entire topic?? i hope so. i mean, the past month is SOLID PROOF that we are healing, even if we don't feel like it. i know we are. i can feel the determination, the trembling courage, amidst the fear and old familiar abuse habits. we WANT to heal. we WANT to live without fear and blind obsession at last. and we're getting there. we are.
but yes. cayenne, like all daemons, was emphasizing the obvious seafood connection and telling jason to Pay Attention and make sure he was fully experiencing everything, to understand WHAT he was doing, so this didn't have to be repeated thanks to dissociation. and again, if jason's going to listen to anyone, it's his daemon. inevitably. daemons are like that. you can't help but love them so ardently it aches, even if they're also absolutely bloody terrifying.
and so jason was able to tell that yes, like iscah exists to testify to, Everything is "good"-- BUT that DOESN'T MEAN we HAVE to eat it. we are ALLOWED to have likes and opinions and that's fine and great and helpful.
ironically, we dislike the taste of shrimp. cayenne LAUGHS and says that's fine-- "you don't need to eat them just because i am similar to one." it's the grasping at straws to show love thing. "you are what you eat" applied across the board, in every metaphoric and symbolic way possible, especially in this literal sense. you remember how it was over the past few years, with only eating scraps and leftovers and plate-scrapings from the family in the attempt to "feel closer" to them when everyone avoided us like a leper. forcing ourselves to live in poverty as solidarity with those starving and poor in our county. forcing ourselves to eat things that made us sick, over and over and over and over, because someone we loved enjoyed those foods and we couldn't bear to NOT like it if they did. desperate for love, desperate to show it, always getting shoved into this super-tangible, ever-present context. the mandatory life-function,that cultural bond. eating. eating as caring. not getting caring from others so desperately seeking it in that sense. someone you love looks like a shrimp, how do you show it? you eat the shrimp.
geez this is a topic we NEED to write about more, good lord, ESPECIALLY now with how massive the role and presence both of daemons are in our system now.
but yes. that concept, that love/eat struggle, applies to ALL of our compulsions with this topic.
we dislike chocolate. this does not mean we hate people who like it.
we dislike the whiting and perch; they taste too fishy for us. this does not mean we hate people who like them.
we dislike the pastries; they are too sweet and densely floury and/or heavy-sticky for us. this does not mean we hate people who like them, OR the people who made them, OR the concept of dessert in general.
do you see the pattern?
we were RAISED to believe that if we disliked anything that our family liked, we were doing so out of HATRED or spite or malice or something equally cruelhearted. THAT IS A LIE.
forcing ourselves to eat foods that WE dislike, in the desperate self-loathing other-idolizing attempt to "fix ourself" is SELF-ABUSE.
dislike is NOT HATE. dislike simply means "this isn't resonant with me; that's okay! we still appreciate it and are grateful for it. other people resonate with it and love it, and we love that, and are happy for them."
not being like someone DOES NOT invalidate them!!! that is a lesson we are still learning, as we are TERRIFIED of it "possibly being true." but that, too, is a result of our toxic upbringing-- the subtle manipulation to prevent us from ever being our own person. we know this. we were constantly, constantly pushed and shamed into "being other people." ironically. we were only allowed to be what the family WANTED us to be. we couldn't even style our own hair, or wear our own choice of clothing, or make our own food. EVERYTHING was utterly, awfully shamed and condemned if it didn't match what THEY wanted. but that's gone now. that's over. and it was ALL A LIE.
so now we have the "luxury" of making our own choices, and so it's a messy process at first, as we have to FEEL those choking fears with EVERY choice we make, in order to process and learn from and soothe and heal them. but the feeling, the total acknowledgement, is the key part of the process. we've gotta admit the problem before we can deal with it.

i also want to just mention. the reason we've been letting our eating socials literally eat WHATEVER they want is because they are LEARNING from it: learning whether or not they ACTUALLY want it, or if they've just been told that they should. so we're burning through those lies and obligations and finding OUR truth. one by one, the terror-obedience compulsions are falling away, by virtue of firsthand experience. yes it's scary, but we've learned that it's NEEDED. it's a lesson that HAS to be learned directly. no theorizing will do it.
and the more we learn, the freer we are. the more we try, the stronger we can stand on our own two feet. and i know, i KNOW, that if we just keep up the good work and are LOVINGLY COURAGEOUS enough to BELIEVE AND LIVE OUR OWN TRUTHS, instead of questioning them out of abusive-family terror-doubt-- and that too is fading every day-- we'll succeed in conquering this entirely at long last. just remember: this life is a daily battle. every victory must be held to our heart and protected, upheld, practiced. and that's fine. that's perfect. we wouldn't have it any other way. heck, our whole system EXISTS for battle. we're all heart warriors. we're all soldiers of love. and that's the key-- we win through those things. it's the truth of the lotus cathedral itself. the truth manifested in that core-statue, that sword of light, that heart-weapon. we win through our unfaltering love, the inherent courage of it. etymological resonance. it's been proven against the tar and plague time and time again. where literal weaponry fails, our hearts succeed. inevitably. always. by virtue of our very existence. it's the simplest, and most difficult, path to victory. just love. love at all costs. love in all situations. love no matter what. be heaven in the midst of hell. that is why we exist.

Lord we're tired. We wanted to upload the 2009 archives tonight but to be honest, this poor body is beat down from exhausting effort lately (and not enough legit sleep) so I think we're all going to just lie down on the porch until our beloved Arrows come home.

We haven't mentioned that as of this entry, actually. Oliver works at night, so once Mason goes to bed we ideally start typing or archiving until morning, then sleep when Ollie comes home. But lately we've ALSO gotten into the blissful routine of morning runs around 7am, which means that we might not get to sleep until 8, and are bloody burnt out and sweating when we do, but it's worth it.
The only problem? Day dreams are VERY different than night dreams. Whether we like it or not, we tend to only get deep vivid lucid dreams at night, thanks melatonin. During the day, we typically get "flat nightmares" about the family, or subconscious fears, or current struggles. But you know what? That's fitting. We're in the middle of an INTENSE healing process currently. Everything is being dragged up to the surface to be acknowledged and fully comprehended and untangled and detoxified and lovingly, finally released-- not a moment too soon. It takes a long time, sometimes. It took years, before. But God knows, we've only been here a month as of today (milestone!) and already LOOK at how much progress we've made. We cannot deny it. Even when we slip or fumble or feel lost, even when we lapse as a fronter comes out who thinks we're still at that old abusive house, and starts acting as such... heaven knows it all still works out for our highest good. Heaven knows we ALWAYS learn, and grow, and love, and fight, and hope, and continue onwards, and sleep it off and wake up in the morning. Heaven knows that even on our roughest nights here-- which are becoming fewer and further between, and less and less rough every time, thank you God-- inevitably and always, we WANT to live. Even our most damaged people, maybe even especially them, don't actually Want to die anymore. We have a future, now. It's been blown wide open. There are no more obstacles to peace and joy right now. We HAVE them. Good God, we HAVE all those things we once never thought were possible. We have hope, and freedom, and love... and we still have the sacred struggles to learn and grow from, inevitable in this physical life, teaching us empathy and courage and integrity and compassionate humility. The light and the dark. Both at once.

...So we sleep on the porch now.
We grab two pillows, three blankets, water, our headphones, and Chaos 0's anchor plush, and we just lie out there under the stars listening to Spotify on our phone and treasuring every new-message notification tone.
We lie there, all together in the dark, under that blessed starry sky, looking up the stars and the spaces between them, and we are totally at peace. Even if we end up in tears. Even if we can't help but worry about still-unresolved panics and worries and confusions. Even if the future, Despite being bright and wide open, still carries inevitable struggles and battles. In the end, we know that whatever life brings to our doorstep, we will face, and we will learn from and grow from and embrace and release it. We know that we will get through this, whatever that means, as long as we have faith in ourselves, and hope in ourselves, and love for ourselves.
And we do. We really do.

That's all we've got the spoons to type up tonight. It's 1:11 AM and that's a lovely time to end an entry on.

0817 = DAEMONS

rio & markus effectively putting down a SOLID ANCHOR for heartspace/headspace to be UNITED AS A LEAGUEWORLD????
almost ironically, the solid connection impetus is the daemon phenomenon.

TONS of stream of consciousness development; exactly how heartspace always operated; felt amazing and heartachingly blissfully nostalgic for it to be functioning SO clearly and perfectly and familiarly

"classes" on daemons? like a college course or something. HUGE part of that society; bizarre but unignorable supernatural/spiritual phenomenon.

three types of "hauntings"?
"incidental"
ominous
intimate (typically lethal?)

clairvoyant glimpses?
rio's family
HE is haunted

"portent" = person whose soul is potentializing a daemon

places in the world that LITERALLY open into daemon realmspace??
dangerous to visit
heartborn vs mindborn daemons?
collective subconscious; FIND a partner
or torn straight out of your soul

WRITE ON THIS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE

ollie waking us up after barely 4 hours of sleep and feeling more completely deeply rested then we have in our whole life

blessed conversations just lying in bed together in that morning light. everything feels perfect.
that awful background ache of feeling the countdown timer and realizing this was it for now. wanting to live in that warmth for all eternity

infinitii not only trying to hum "tessellate" but also "piel" because ze specifically wanted ollie to think of hir when he first hears that song and good lord my heart

ollie suddenly talking to laurie too
"i cannot believe there was a time when i thought that this would kill me"
"you'd better be fucking listening, nexus"
every time she fronts i think i fall in love with her a little more because she is just... beyond words. the most amazingly powerful honest violet knight i've ever known and will ever know. she's amazing.

and apparently BOTH GENESIS AND CHAOS ZERO FRONTED and good lord chaos just locked in his memory of being there specifically for me to see it but i can't, god i cannot look at it or HEAR it (he was speaking in this same body, dear god) because i cannot handle it right now. not right now, it'll crush me. just... dear lord.

no clue what genesis said or did but that's his FIRST TIME FRONTING AND TALKING IN THAT CONTEXT and i am so proud of him. gosh i love him tons, he means the world to me. so glad he can join us with this now; the body is NOT "belonging to the cores;" it's for ALL of us to respectfully inhabit and share and this is like... legit accepting and living of that truth, from everyone.

mentioning how honored yet amused I am that I'm always the one being brought back up to the surface after switches
"you're like a palate cleanser" and mentally so freakin chuffed at the idea of being essentially compared to pickled ginger

---

breakfast was the eggs from yesterday and the dinner from last night that ollie got out for us. god it was such a sweet little normal not-trying-to-prove-anything gesture.

listening to infi talk on the voice recorder. again.
that little break in hir voice at that one point just destroyed me
FREAKING REFERENCING THE OLDEST LOVE CONFESSION IN THE BOOK
my heart barely able to take it, thought I was going to die on the spot
utterly surreal. everything being utterly real.

"let's make it twice"
toy soldier suddenly fronting
feeling like suddenly all the stadium lights are blazing
and this incredible rush of power in that voice as well
mental image of solid, solid blue
it's amazing how we can mentally see them when they switch. we just know and it is absolutely undeniable.
that voice, though. man. wow. so absolutely honored i got to meet him once more.

keep thinking of kris saying "fuck all of you" and laughing over how legitimately affectionately amused we were by it
he's awesome. he's just this really awesome guy and we are so honored to have met him and for him to have been so unexpectedly protective and open with us. honestly we were fond of him before but now, geez.

thinking of ALL of them like that. even the ones we haven't met. just… knowing that even the scarier ones are already beloved to us. just by being who they are.

---

our flight was delayed over three hours.
thank you god.

waiting for the elevator. saw the same kind of lizard we saw in the park crawling in the elevator shaft
wouldn't arrive. kept refusing to go down to the 1st floor. felt oddly like "is this even real" and "we're still existing in a different universe" all at once

laurie carrying our suitcase and just being fiercely happy about it, "this is what they need me for," just solid determined strength. no way we could have carried that thing by ourself, seriously dude she's a boss

blue lights in the ceiling. chthonic lights along the road

sitting together and people watching and treasuring every single moment

trying to quietly sing "my true love" as we walked to the escalators but I was already getting scarily dissociative in "preparation" for where we were headed after this flight

had another delay and suddenly I realized neither of us had to be left alone in this
being able to walk ollie back to the car and both of us just in tears

I have no words for that parting minute. it was… it meant so much.
and it wasn't just me, honestly BOTH laurie and infi showed up to say goodbye too and that just wrecks my heart.
(whatever they said I'm sure it was from their hearts just as deeply as my words were)

---

walking back from the tsa scan and having BOTH genesis and chaos zero show up to ghost.
genesis had this snarky as hell joke about this sign that we saw-- one of those "these things don't fly!" lists of what you can't pack. then another sign that said "fireworks don't fly" and genesis said that was weird as it was untrue, but I said "no but they don't fly, man; they just go straight up for a while and then that's it, they just explode. no flying there." genesis got this mock-serious-revelatory look and said "I'm going to have to re-evaluate my entire perception of reality" and chaos just laughed

feeling utterly comfortable in our red heart shirt and red heart glasses and red heart love for everything. smiling nonstop, everything was joy and gratitude for these past 8 days and we were just radiating it.

gift shop store.
bought everything we could that meant something from the past week.
blackberry water, a rice krispie bar, tic tac freshmints, a red heart-jewel keychain souvenir and a magnet that says "someone who loves me went to charlotte, n.c. and got me this magnet" because the KIDS of the system practically DEMANDED we get it. and that felt so absolutely perfect, of course we did. totally a beloved thing now
immediately hit it off with the cashier. sweetest woman. I love how friendly everyone has been here.
honestly that's the one thing we got from our genetic father that we really are grateful for-- this potential to befriend anyone in the room within minutes. we're just naturally, effortlessly, always loving. that's our nature, notably mine. and we can see people respond in kind.
of course we have to be wary and wise and prudent about it. but it is nice, to feel that legitimate human connection so quickly with people. we adore it.

walking by that lovely warm-tone pizza place, hearing "you can't always get what you want, but… you get what you need" echoing, smiling at the sentiment

went to starbucks with genesis (yeah buoy) and got a vanilla scone, shortbread cookies, and a spinach-feta-egg wrap. why not, seriously. it sounds embarrassing to talk about it now but at the time it was just something really nice to be able to feed our body with.

dude and his baby standing behind us, acting like a legit good father, being so kind and playful with this little child and it was so nice to see.

WALKING BY A NUN (where was the prius)

ollie messaging us about our body's eyes. so deeply touching.

BONUS DORITOS; thought of mason legit enjoying the ones we brought home and ollie's amusing disgust over those chips and had to grab one because why the heck not.

(add more from phone)

---

on the plane. (add from phone)

the sky was literally oliver's color. infi's the one who messaged him about it, plus a photo. the sweetest thing.

filmed the takeoff for hiccup to see. good lord the view was spectacularly gorgeous for this flight.

ate literally everything we bought on the plane. no fear, no shame, no regret. we were taking care of ourself and it was so nice to be able TO do so.

(avp fear)

the place was stark empty. remembered colorado. would have loved it except our grandmother was pulled up to the curb outside with a face half deer-in-the-headlights and half laser beam burning your arm off and the dread and panicked fear was too intense to just be able to pretend we could just sleep in that airport.

(meditation room + message)
(no luggage)

(that fucking horrifying body language our fucking horrifying brother did) (he was driving OUR CAR)

on the drive home, the grandmother matter-of-factly saying that "we thought you were murdered" "we thought you were kidnapped" "we thought you were being held hostage and we'd have to go and pay the bail" "we called the cops"

our stomach just flipping over itself in ugly knots

------

LEYLA messaging us the instant we pulled into the driveway. sending her a veritable flood of love because we wanted to make sure she knew we still love and treasure her presence in our collective life.

sitting in the car and just messaging ollie and never wanting to leave that moment. awful wifi up here but I can't complain too much. we still have a connection.

we searched our room and the kitchen until we found the papers with our phone numbers and home address.
wreckage and cannon took them outside with a box of matches and burnt them to ash.

cannon's wrenchingly vernon-like statement of "I'll burn anything to the ground to protect you"

they fucking OPENED OUR MAIL and TAMPERED WITH OUR BANK ACCOUNT because they're so fucking controllingly paranoid, "everyone is trying to steal your identity" and "everyone is out to get you" but what the fuck. what the fuck. how can you even DO that to someone

feeling so utterly sick. god we have GOT to get out of here.

never realizing how BAD the damage was and how TOXIC this place is until you have something blessed and pure to compare it against.

our little brother lightning, god bless him, walking into the kitchen and saying he was sorry but he tried to calm down the family's freakout and he's sorry if it messed with us or anything. and realizing we looked so haggard with our thousand-yard stare and half-washed straggly hair and just shakily but flatly responding "I don't want to talk about it" "but we'll be better later" and we're still fucking waiting but we loved him so much in that moment for always quietly trying to help us. god we took that kid for granted for too damn long

jemma and triple and echo and jessica and jayce all showing up muddled and hurt and confused and desperate and scared. our poor beloved socials; they are so damn brave, even when they suffer we could NOT survive this hellhole without them; we need to keep reminding them of that

trying to eat blueberry pancakes but then realizing they were cornmeal and only the genetic mother makes them that way and suddenly tobiko is out screaming to spit them out and throw them out because they're poison, poison, poison, and knowing exactly why she was saying that, and being unable to bear that feeling in our stomach anymore and just purging everything until we were so tired we couldn't even stand up.

god I hate this
this needs to stop
it's so difficult here
we won't ever stop helping each other
we won't ever give up
but it's so damn hard, oliver. it's so hard to live here.

having to take sleeping pills.
they haven't worked a fucking bit
i don't want to sleep at all
i want to sleep for the next three months

what am i even doing.

there's hope, we have it in our very ribs now, i have NOT forgotten that, none of us have,
but so many of us never felt that because they only show up in the middle of hell and god we need to help them, please, give us all the strength to work together forever no matter what--

god. ollie, it's so difficult being here again. not having you around all of a sudden.
we keep honestly looking up to see if murphy is in the room

being so cold and thinking "oh, we can just get that mint blanket" and it taking a few seconds to realize we couldn't

opening the refrigerator and having to take a few more seconds to come to terms with how alien it was all of a sudden

realizing that you won't be the one waking us up tomorrow morning.
realizing that we won't be waking up with you tomorrow morning.

realizing that our shirt still smelled like your house (our house) and nearly sobbing.

our grandmother looking at our suitcase with that scandalized-fury-paranoid expression and just as agitatedly saying (demanding?) she was going to wash all our clothes and we felt so utterly threatened and scandalized by the irreverence. her insinuating that they were unbearably dirty.
("fuck you," triple says.)
we hid all our shirts in a drawer where she hopefully can't find them.

I know we wanted to take photos of every room in your place so we could remember it visually but dear god just sitting here we can perfectly remember every inch of the place.

thinking about that sacred porch and not knowing how I'm going to deal with not breathing that night air and not feeling that wood beneath our feet for a few months.

"for a few months" is the most luminously hopeful thing I can even think of right now.

abuse-battered socials not knowing how to cope at all

forcing themseves to eat until they vomit, throwing up until it's nothing but acid, walking in and out of the kitchen because they are torn between "I don't want to live anymore; I can't do this; I need to bury everything I miss under this disgusting pain" and "oliver doesn't want you to suffer like this; it's unfair to the whole system to disrespect them like this; this body is a sacred thing now and what the fuck am I even doing to it"

laurie in furious tears shouting "what's worth more, this bullshit or oliver?"
and EVERY social said "oliver" but still couldn't stop hurting themselves because we're HERE now, in this bloody house,

it feels so wrong for "here" to not eternally be in north carolina.
it feels so wrong to call anything a home but your apartment.
it feels so wrong to have so little and yet so much forcing us apart.

it's that same damn sentiment of "I can't cope with the disconnect"
"i cannot admit that i've seen heaven and then go back into hell"
it's unbearable and we all know it.
god no wonder those poor socials always want to just give the hell up
they are so fucking tired of this goddamned holding pattern
they are so tired of living in fear all the time.

the absence aches.

infi wants to talk to you. jessica wants to talk to you. I want to talk to you. everyone in central wants to talk to you. the kids want to meet you. razor and mulberry and sharona and algorith and even people like minty and nienna and emmett wanting to meet you.

I still don't know how I'm going to deal with not feeling your arms around us for so long now.
but I remember it exactly. I remember exactly what everything was like.

that damn disorder is on its way out for good thanks to you, too.

knowing we'll never be able to eat french toast again without wanting to share it with you, without giggling at that silly video, without remembering jewel and jayce and actually being able to sit on the floor of the living room to eat it.
being able to make our own french toast and having it turn out absolutely perfect and having that sudden thought "maybe we really CAN make it on our own. maybe it'll be so much lovelier than we ever expected"
remembering the maverick eating bacon & grits on the porch and utterly loving it and realizing that we really could overcome this disorder together.
remembering casual breakfasts on the porch with you and what that meant to us.
remembering how we just talked over breakfast at the diner and we soaked our hash browns in hot sauce and got the last two apple cinnamon jelly packets and we weren't afraid of anything.
remembering eating dinner with you AND mason on the living room couch and watching moana and there wasn't a shred of awkwardness or judgment in it and we felt so at home and we felt so wanted and appreciated and loved. (and I don't care if that okra wasn't made with the ideal preparation; we LOVED it and mason is an awesome cook)
eating eggs and fried rice on the carpet only a few hours before boarding a plane and not being scared at all to eat with someone watching. to not feel dirty about it. to actually be happy that we were taking care of ourself, of someone you love so much.

…now, looking at any picture that portrays love and that voice growling "you should be ashamed of yourself"
"you're a filthy fucking disgusting whore"
realizing how we were so physically purely affectionate with oliver (and infi, infi, infi) and that voice noticing and making a face like we were a rotten thing
"you're fucking disgusting, you dirty slut"

only ever at this house. only ever at this goddamn house.

awful fucking pronoun and name slips because sometimes we can't fucking remember that we're not still in utah and being absolutely fucking terrified of what "might happen (again)" and being so fucking self-sacrificially hopeful that "maybe this time she'll love us for real" and god I hate it. I hate it. I hate it so much.
i cannot tell what's real and what's not and what's a nightmare and what's not and i hate the fucking shit out of it, i want it all to stop.

these past eight days have been the most real thing we've ever felt in our life.

looking at your handwriting in the back of that blessed aqua-eye tablet and suddenly everything is real forever.

and the worst thing is every time we start "falling asleep" and getting those split-second nodding off moments… every time the outside world falls into black we can hear your voice. literally hear it like you're right beside us. a legitimate auditory hallucination, if you will. but it's your exact voice, how you sound when you talk to us in the morning, strangely registering as the same soft aqua green of that tablet you wrote in, the color that means gentleness and love and fidelity to us, everything you gave us.

the background music for the king of sorrow's speech playing through our head and giving us chills too.
that entire game playing through our head thanks to you.

hearing infinitii's voice in my very bones and desperately wanting to hear it again with you. for you. anything. both people I love so very much. both people who love each other and me so very much.
it's absolutely bone-shakingly significant and sacred and i am so devastatingly grateful for it.

hearing "tessellate" and "fitzpleasure" and "breezeblocks" over and over and over.
not being able to tell that voice apart from the former.
thinking of you having owned that cassette tape for years and never knowing this would happen.
thinking of how we couldn't bring ourself to listen to alt+j for years for some reason even though we wanted to and now, finally getting to hear them like this.

remembering hearing "please don't go; I'll eat you whole; I love you so, I love you so I love you so" as we were packing our suitcase and just wanting to sob

looking at pictures oliver drew of himself and recognizing him instantly, just like we did every damn day out there, and it suddenly hitting us how much we love him, how much we love ALL of them.
every image we saved to our computer before that trip is suddenly absolutely undyingly beloved.

...infinitii constantly remembering how you sounded last night and the sheer sense of ardor is killing me. my/our heart absolutely faltering every time ze thinks of it and I have to avert my eyes or my entire being will shatter with it. god. you have no idea.
and infi just keeps remembering. in a sort of awe, constantly. a sense of profound gratitude and unexpected joy and lingering worry and love, love, love, love.
everything in me is trembling with it and this is just secondhand. this is just catching glimpses of emotion from my beloved daemon about you. it's unbearable, in the best way. because it means it's just that raw and sincere.
and infinitii also shaking with remembering everything about what this morning felt like. that experience erasing every last shred of doubt and fear and dreaded inadequacy ze felt last night.
remembering what it was like for hir to give that back, to reciprocate so perfectly, to want nothing more than to feel that again for all eternity.

ollie you have no goddamned idea how significant that was; we don't either when it really gets down to it. it's too huge. it's so fucking deep it's the entire damn world wrapped up in a bubble. it's a sideways 8 and that just about sums it up, doesn't it.

and our collective pitiful constant need to read what you have to say (we hope you have something to say, what an awful demanding feeling) about these days.
we need to feel like we existed to you.
we need to feel like we exist at all right now
we need to remember that we're real and we're loved and you really do care so much
god it's so selfish, I'm so damn sorry

the fucking grandmother looming in the doorway and giving off that awful molesting vibe (because we fucking KNOW) and hiss-whispering the fucking birth name and "get to bed it’s four o clock!" and everything feels so ugly and I just fucking hissed beneath my breath "shove off, bitch" and hating myself for it but not knowing what the fuck else to fucking do. I want her to leave us the fuck ALONE. I want to be able to feel like a REAL FUCKING PERSON in this goddamned house without these constant fucking "reminders" that we are an alleged piece of shit.

we need to message him. god thank you for this fucking blessed phone, that's a sentiment we ALL agree with I think

god we would move in with you and work three fucking jobs at once just to be there with you. we would do anything. absolutely anything.
we miss you so much tonight it hurts.

the universe is still sideways and it's going to stay like that forever

(LAST UPDATED 080417)

FLOATING VOICES AND OUTSIDE SOCIALS ARE NOT CONSIDERED PART OF THE SPECTRUM.
THEY ARE, HOWEVER, PART OF THE SYSTEM, AS THEY ARE STILL ALTERS.
CONVERSELY, OUTSPACERS ARE PART OF THE SPECTRUM, BUT NOT OF THE SYSTEM.

SYSTEM CORES ("Hosts")

Individuals who function as the internal "anchorpoint" for the entire System. They are virtually always male-presenting.
Their existence preserves the foundations of the System. They may also be able to do data work for the LeagueWorlds.
They rarely front, being built for internal work, but all can still front whenever they wish.
They have no native level, but they work with Central, and move freely throughout all of headspace.
The current Core is always part of Central. Surviving past Cores may reside on any level they choose.
+jay iridos (CURRENT)

+ CANNON (2008-9)

+ Pinstripe (DIED?) (2010)
+ "MALE JEWEL" [adakias[ (2011)

+ cupid (2012?)

+ DEON? (dIED) (2012-3)

JEWEL CORES
Individuals who are tied to the "Jewel Bloodline" of the System's origin. They are virtually always female-presenting.
They work almost exclusively with the Leagueworlds, being able to actively exist in them, & managing all our outside creative work.
They have overriding fronting rights and typically are out for extended periods of time.
They do not properly exist in headspace and so have no native level, but they work with Central when needed.
A Jewel Core is rarely, if ever, in headspace. This is what differentiates them from System Cores.

+ JEWEL LIGHTRAYE (2000-1) (CURRENT)
+ HOSEKI (2002-3)
+ "third jewel" (dissolved) (2004-6?)
+ SPINNingcannon (2006-7?)
+ Spinzor (2009) (SUMMER ONLY?)

DRIVERS ("Main Fronters")
Individuals who act as Socials but who function as the "main" INSIDE-ROOTED fronter for a certain time period.
They ideally work to balance the daily existence with internal existence.
They typically have overriding fronting rights, and are almost always out during their respective time periods.
They typically have a vague internal existence, if any, and some do not take their own face or name at first.
They may not gain individuality until after they have "faded" out of main fronting for a significant time period.

Not many Drivers are Cores, but in the past it was typical for several Drivers to share that job to a fair extent.
THEY ARE ALWAYS AWARE OF THE SYSTEM, HOWEVER VAGUELY.
+ OVERLOAD
+ "MANIC SPIN" (dissolved)
+ GLISSANDO? (SUMMER NIGHT ONLY?)

+ JEMMA

DÆMONS
Tentative category; this phenomenon is being researched.
Individuals who are spiritually bound to "human-base" members of the System (the Cores, some Outspacers), and/or the System subconscious at large.
They act as "shadow complements" to their hosts, being made of the same soulstuff, but holding more dangerous and/or buried characteristics that their host has not accepted or integrated properly.
They are not allowed to front unless given explicit permission to do so both by and along with their host.
They reside in floating space, which has no level. Their movement in structured headspace seems highly limited.
+ INFINITII ETERNOS (Jay)

+ LETHE STYX (RYMAN)

+ MEDALLION GUILLOTINE (MARKUS)
+ DENDRITE (HOSEKI)
+ CHOCOLOCO VANILOCO (JEmma?)

+ axis (jessica)

+nexus (laurie)

+ cake (???)
+ SELIPH? (GENESIS)
+ PERFECT? (CHAOS)

CENTRAL MEMBERS ("Central")
The original "headvoices," and overseers of the entire System.
They deal with inner maintenance, protecting the Cores and actively resisting the Tar/Plague.
They can front whenever they wish, typically for management purposes, but are not triggered.
They reside in Central, but can freely move between levels.

+ JAVIER ANASTASI
+ SPINE HYPOMONE

+ LYNNE STABELLE
+ JOSEPHINA BELLAMEIRE

+ CEL
+ NATHANIEL VICTOIRE

+ CHAOS ZERO

+ KYANOS KATHEDRIKOS
+ WALDORF KALLIOPE
+ LEON KIASI
+ LAURIE UBERICH
+ JULIE ENANTIOS
+ EROS

+ jay iridos

+ SHERLOCK

+ INFINITII ETERNOS

MIDSPACE MEMBERS ("Midspacers")

Individuals who reside in the buildings/streets of Central City, or in the areas outside the City.
They have benevolent "helper" roles, and are not tied to any trauma or triggers.
They are not triggered, and can only front if they are asked to.
They stay in Central City, and only rarely visit Central or the Underground.

+ AIMEE

+ HYAKINTH

+ SERGEI

+ AMARA

ARCHIVISTS ("Data Voices")
Individuals who tend to 'float' in non-space, without entering the City.
They deal exclusively with data management.
They only front when asked to; otherwise, they guide all other fronters.
They have no native level, but their locations are analogous to Midspace.
+ KALISHA

+ GARRISON

+ ISADORA

+ SHERLOCK

LOWSPACE MEMBERS ("Lowers")
Individuals who reside in the lower streets/ early underground level of Central City.
They deal with holding and healing emotional trauma and triggers.
They front when triggered. Some can front if they wish to.
They reside in both Central City and the Underground, and work with the latter.
+ SPICE

+ MARIGOLD

+ EMMETT

+ DAVID

+ JEREMIAH

UNDERGROUND MEMBERS ("Undergrounders")
Individuals who reside below Central City, in the catacombs and tunnels.
They deal with inner maintenance, physical atonement, and/or preventing further trauma.
They can front whenever they wish, but may also be triggered, although this is rare.
They reside in the Underground and rarely leave it unless direly needed. They work with Central.

+ RAZOR

+ BRAXTON

+ ALGORITH

+ MINTY
+ CHRISTINA MARIE
+ SUGAR

+ KNIFE

+ MULBERRY DELTA BRANDY

CHTHONIC MEMBERS ("Chthonics")
Individuals who reside below the Underground, in the caverns and pits.
They deal with trauma management, and hold the most pain and fear of anyone else in the System.
They only front when triggered, although most can front whenever they wish as well.
They reside in the bowels of headspace and rarely leave it unless direly needed. They work mainly as rogues.
+ DREAD
+ WRECKAGE
+ TOBIKO
+ ASHEN
+ "JABBERWOCK"

DOWNSTAIRS MEMBERS ("Socials")
Individuals who exist almost exclusively "in the body," as opposed to in headspace.
They deal with direct aspects of physical life, as opposed to inner life. This does NOT mean they necessarily socialize.
They front when triggered, and/or when their anchors are sufficiently focused upon.
They have no native inner level as they do not typically reside there, but by default they first appear in Lowspace.
They are different from Drivers in that they are never the "main people" out, and do not speak for the System as such.

+ JAYCE
+ "THE DESTROYER"
+ HATCHET
+ "VICTINI?"

+ ZWEI
+ "EXERCISE GUY"
+ MAVERICK
+ LEENA?
+ QUEEN

+ EINSATZ
+ gent

+ NIENNA
+ "AIRPORT"

OUTSIDE SOCIALS
Individuals who function as OUTSIDE-ROOTED fronters for a certain time period or context.
They exist to "follow a safe script" in the outside world, appearing "normal" and therefore hiding our existence.
They are typically "forced" out to front in social situations, for good or ill, and it is often very hard to get them out.
They do not have any internal existence, nor do they have their own names (as far as we know).
THYE ARE NORMALLY UNAWARE OF THE SYSTEM. THEY ARE THEREFORE NOT PART OF THE SPECTRUM.
THEY EXIST ONLY TO SOCIALIZE.
OUTSIDE SOCIALS CAN BE EITHER NEGATIVE OR POSITIVE.
+ JESSE?
+ JENNIFER

WRITER "SOCIALS"
Tentative category.
Individuals who only evidence through handwriting or written entries.
They usually have deep insight or knowledge into relevant topics, or may hold exclusive memories that need to be shared.
They do not front unless writing by hand. Otherwise they only channel.
They do not reside on any detectable level that we know of yet.
+ SIMEON

UNASSIGNED/UNSURE
Individuals whose role, functions, levels, etc. are currently unclear to us.
They can be interacted with internally, and therefore are NOT faceless.
Some may ultimately fragment out of existence without gaining solid anchors.
+ RAZWELL

+ GAMBOGE
+ Karissa
+ lEANNE?
+ "VEIL"

FACELESS VOICES
Voices that are internally-based and therefore potential Spectrum holders, who are not clearly perceivable yet.
They may have colors or tentative names, but they never have faces at this stage.
Faceless voices exist in "floatspace" and CANNOT be interacted with internally. They CAN be dragged out to front, however.
Faceless voices often fade out of existence without gaining solid anchors.
Faceless voices all deal with the outside world, BUT not all count as "Socials."

FACELESS VOICES CAN BE EITHER NEGATIVE OR POSITIVE.
+ SUMMER BOY?

+ EPHREM
+ MOXIE
+ "BAT EARS"
+ aconitum
+ "THE ANDROGYNE"
+ "LITTLE GIRL"
+ "LOST BOY"

OUTSPACERS ("Walk-ins")
Individuals from media sources or Leagueworlds whose dreamselves have "moved into" our System.
They have no specific System function, but offer their support when able.
They are incapable of fronting. Many of them prefer to "ghost" in physical reality, to help current fronters.
They work with Central when needed.
THEY ARE TECHNICALLY NOT PART OF THE SYSTEM. THEY MAY NOT BE OFFICIAL PARTS OF THE SPECCTRUM.
+ "GALA"?

+ GENESIS APOLYMIS

+ CHAOS ZERO
+ "DAVY"?

+ RYMAN SAIKARAS

+ MARKUS BARASHIR

+ XENOPHON LEPHISE

HONORARY MEMBERS
Individuals from the Leagueworlds who interact with our System regularly/ have interacted with us notably on a benevolent basis.
Most of them know the Jewel Core(s) personally.
Some of them have strong ghosting abilities and will accompany the cores if needed.
THEY DO NOT COUNT AS PART OF THE SYSTEM OR SPECTRUM.
+ HOSEA
+ NEBISAI
+ PSYCHE
+ JUSTICE
+ PRELUDOVE

+ MISTER SANDMAN
+ VEZERAI
+ DEVONAL

CORRUPTED/MALICIOUS

Individuals that have been corrupted by the Tar/Plague, or who work for it/ its mutual goals of their own free will.
They are actively malevolent towards the rest of the System.
They can only front by "hacking."
They have no native level, but seem to stay hidden in the Underground, Chthonic, or "basement" levels.
+ "CLEAVER"?
+ "THE STRIPPER"

+ "MANIC RED"
+ BRAZEN "BAD JESS"
+ ANNA
+ "THE PEDOPHILE???"

+ "THE LESBIAN"

+ BRIDGET
+ JASMINE "THE PAGAN"

+ MISSY
+ "BAD EROs"
+ SHARONA
+ TAR (JEZEBEL)
+ "THE SCIENTIST"
+ "FOGBANK"
+ PLAGUE
+ "LACE BRAIDS"

THERE ARE MANY OTHER UNIDENTIFIED ALTERS IN OUR SYSTEM.
MANY OF THEM DO NOT HAVE INTERNAL ROOTS AND THEREFORE ARE DIFFICULT TO DETECT.
WE ARE SLOWLY FINDING THEM AND LEARNING THEIR FUNCTIONS/ LEVELS/ ETC.
WE WILL UPDATE THIS POST AS ACCURATELY AS POSSIBLE TO REFLECT THIS NEW KNOWLEDGE.

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

best day of my entire blessed life.

breakfast was super late due to us all sleeping in
made the BEST FRENCH TOAST KNOWN TO MAN.

ate it with genesis, gave some to xenophon, god I miss her so much it HURTS.

----

nightbeat!!!!!!!!!!!!
UTTERLY LIFE-CHANGING. WRITE ABOUT IT ASAP.

car ride back was hell that allowed for heaven to happen.

trauma flashbacks enough to drown a man

"we have no one who can do this job"
existential terror

wreckage in the gas station store. her fierce protective nature.

sharing that rice crisp thing with ollie, so much trust for us to even ASK that, especially in such a terrified state

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

the night after we got home was heaven on earth.

kissed ollie, little things but always meaningful.

chaos secretly kissing oliver just once. somewhere in all that.

"Infi really wants to kiss you"

"I don't want to hurt you."
"I love you too."

I can't even put into words what the echo of that FEELS LIKE.
GOOD LORD.

coming back in and just looking at him. man.

"fuck me"
"don't tempt me"

THE FREAKIN VIBE INFI WAS GIVING OFF; I THOUGHT ZE WOULD TRY TO.

feeling like a dream
"do you want me to remind you?"

running one finger down my/his ribcage/s
INEFFABLE.

remember ze still loves the "weird dog" thing

ollie couldn't stop shaking; "I can't stop looking at the stars"
"getting" the whole night air thing with infi; "it's different now"
sense of the divine.

everything felt GOLD coming back.

TEETH VS EYES; MASSIVE VIBE SHIFT!!!!!!!

coming back in after face-mouth feels GOLD
coming back in after face-eye feels like a FREAKIN' RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
(extroverted vs introverted energy; I feel the latter when infi holds it in; ollie felt the latter when infi directed it out!!!)

ollie even said, when infi came back to just look at him, the shakes STOPPED; it evened out. "passion" vs "space;" not cold, not 'far away,' but just… space, dude

at one point just held ollie to my chest because I was feeling SO MUCH and I knew I’d never be that raw & brave again if I didn't act on it now

somehow got into talking about chaos zero.
shark teeth.

I went into straight-up poet mode, north star vibe and all
lobster fisherman. living in, on, from, & for the ocean, and then coming home to it (him).
marriage. proposals. swallowing sea water.

CHAOS AND I CO-FRONTING. AND BOTH KISSING OLIVER
brine.
"you're still too close to my ribcage"

laurie and ollie. getting the guts to kiss him too that is SUCH A MILESTONE
"is that all you got"
"laurie you have to be the spark that starts the thunderstorm"

"my left arm is totally fuckin' gone"
asking ollie if he was aware of just how many scars/wounds she had on her abdomen

"shipwreck"

woke up at 9am,
stayed in bed until noon listening to spotify. too tired, no strength/spoons to do otherwise.

then when we did wake up,
suddenly who appears in headspace
but dendrite.

her eye was open.
furious. weeping.
crying tears so hot they hit the ground and sizzled like lava.

"YOU TRIED TO BURN ME ALIVE."

she knew who did it. it was brazen.
the REAL "jezebel," the one who initially held that name when we were a child, before she discarded it and hid.
but we knew. we recognized her.
and apparently she had a hand in the year-long dead period we just escaped from,
because she burnt 95% of all our headspace-related possessions.

and then she tried to burn all memories of us to the ground, too.

but dendrite. dendrite, the daemon tied to the FEMALE cores, she's probably just as important as infinitii if we're right about that... to think, how did that affect her, for the very fact of her existence to be completely ignored for so long, denied and tossed aside, to the point of near death?

lethe and medallion were comforting her. it was obvious they were deeply shaken.
jewel wasn't saying anything. she's in shock.
she's always been somewhat 'detached' from headspace but i think now she realizes she does not have that luxury anymore.
she has a daemon-- she has a living manifestation of her shadow side, a being that knows and carries her biggest vices but still loves her-- and she can't ignore that fact anymore. she has to admit it's true, and then she can grow.
but she's terrified. jewel is a drifter. her vice is that she doesn't quite care, not as much as she otherwise always does, what she leaves behind. she'll love everything as brightly as ever, but the minute she leaves, she's gone.
i don't know when she got like that. her whole existence is a mess right now and we all need to talk about it.
but right now, the most important thing is getting her to realize that she STILL has her freedom. she can still jump into outspacer worlds, she can still work with the leagueworlds, she can still draw and write and create. she's not barred from ANY of that just because she has a daemon now. but... she's afraid of the responsibility. the inescapable responsibility. like having a child. you cannot run from that. and you cannot run from daemons-- they are your heart, in a very real way.
especially dendrite.

i'm trying to draw dendrite. to tap into how she looks, and keep her alive. show her the respect she deserves.
it's an intuitive process. i have to 'feel out' her appearance and that needs a great deal of time.
it'll take a few days-- i have a certain birthday picture i absolutely have to get done tomorrow.

in the meantime, we need to sleep.

don't worry, we're ending the day on a good note.
it was a very rough day, but still. we're alive still, and there's good music on our headphones, and we're talking to dear ollie on tumblr, and chaos 0 is still in sonic forces (he looks so gorgeous i can't get over it), and genesis's birthday is on wednesday, and everyone is upstairs waiting for me and that just makes my heart very bright even if it aches.
i'm gonna go talk to dendrite. her, me, and infi. see what happens.

tomorrow is a brighter day. we're looking forward to it.

ollieirrepressible:

love triumphs over all.

…This is one of those pictures that, literally, leaves me at a total loss for words, because what I’m feeling is too deep to translate into spoken language.

But that’s what this very image is about, after all.

…Honestly, though, let me try to say something. It’s worth the effort.

The five of us– Jay Iridos (me), Chaos Zero, Infinitii Eternos, Laurie Uberich, and Genesis Apolymis– we’ve really got something going between us. All of us.
We have this heart-deep bond of love that was forged in the depths of suffering and bliss and life and death alike. We’ve been through hell and back together, we’ve bled together, we’ve cried together, and we’ve survived it all together… so that we could laugh together, live together, love together.
“Together” being the absolute key word in all of it.
Every one of our hearts is broken-bound with solid gold and the most amazing aspect of it is that we did that for each other.

With all the attempted System crashes, all the Core upheavals, and all the timeline resets, it is no small miracle that this group has existed in one way or another for at least ten years now.
But that’s what love does.
That’s what we do.
And God knows I am forever grateful for this.

1027.

- painted the lamps for dad at work. Got to wear a hat, looks pretty sweet with our short hair now. Thank god, because really short hair gives us BAD dysphoria (go figure) and the only people who can wear it safely are jayce and razor. Otherwise jezebel comes out.
virtually no headspace talk because they had a talk show radio on and we couldn’t concentrate on our own in the face of that.
- group hugs though. Me, waldorf, Javier, Josephina, Nathaniel.
- laurie was really distraught??

- afterwards, went to pick up laptop. Hard drive 85% corrupt??? Couldn’t save ANY files. But the laptop itself is okay. So he kept the hard drive, going to try again—which is vital, as I backed it up two weeks before it crashed and in that time I did a LOT of typing. Plus I cant remember the last time I backed up fl studio, which isn’t cool because I did do some work lately, but not much I think. What I REALLY lost is all the headspace updates that we didn’t upload (or read!!) in that time. Either way I would like to save that stuff.

- went to a local grocery liquidation store, pretty new. INCREDIBLE prices. Got a bunch of things to try that would have otherwise cost me a fortune at the health food store. Also organic curry powder for $3, heck yes.

- stopped at the amber bakery to get things for cel, as I did promise her that. No rum truffles today but there were green strawberry things! She said that was perfect so she got one.

we also got one of their huge fudge cupcake things as apparently someone likes those so why not.

- JAYCE ate when we got home?? Long time no see bro. Actually we didn’t even know he was out until Xenophon started ghosting and he really wasn’t responding to “dad.” She then asked the smart question of “are you with chaos zero” which, if yes, means that IS her dad but if no, means its NOT. And jayce said no! so after some talking he said he felt close to her but not as a parent, no way, and ultimately Xenophon settled on calling him “uncle jayce.” Which he likes.
he did express shame over the fact that we have an eating disorder, AND the fact that we cannot eat most “human foods.” There was talk about how the whole binge-eating and purging problem arose from the fact that we were often exposed to the outside sentiment that “families that eat together stay together,” and “cooking for someone is caring for someone,” and everything with orange energy stuff (eating + enjoyment + acceptance, etc.). basically, we were taught that “food equals community & acceptance,” and therefore if we could NOT eat the foods other people ate, or worse, if we had no desire to eat around other people at all (due to the invasive feeling,) then we were rejected. We were NOT part of the family, or community. We were rejecting “part of what makes you human,” this alleged ritual of bonding and closeness and comfort, and in doing so we were only asking to experience rejection and isolation and separation. Therefore, our depression got worse, as we then felt we could ONLY eat (something we still aren’t comfortable with but have to do) in total seclusion, hiding the “shameful act” from people, and also so we could actually focus on it, and not dissociate (as that causes even more abusive habits). But the loneliness and feelings of being a “monster” eat at you. And when someone catches you eating, the guilt is SO bad we often end up throwing up/out whatever we were trying to eat out of overwhelming shame and disgust. It’s a catastrophe.
anyway. Our addled brain decided somewhere down the line that “the only way I can participate in “normal eating” without getting horribly sick, is to taste it but NOT swallow it.” And yes that is the same chewing problem that the angry voices have (biting things to alleviate stress), and the abused ones (throwing up whatever is swallowed to purge the “invasive” feeling). Its awful how it ALL TIES TOGETHER. I’m just glad we’re seeing all the connections more clearly as time goes on.
but jayce was AWARE of all this—probably due to being both Brown and a body-aligned social (very rare)—and he told Xenophon it made him very sad, because he knew it worked, and yet it was so awkward and sad, he didn’t want to do it. He just couldn’t see another option. He was trying to justify himself to spice and chocoloco about this, and they were confused too, but still angry. Xenophon was trying hard to empathize with him, as she doesn’t understand that sort of history-based perspective, but she saw his pain and shame and didn’t want to make it worse by speaking out of ignorance or judgment (esp. things like “that’s weird,” “that’s gross,” etc. when the e.d. voices are only doing those “weird/gross” things as a skewed survival mechanism).

- “the ogre” was out for a few minutes again, xennie tried to talk to her. She’s built from the anchor “leena” originally had but “leena” was corrupted and collapsed. This is the same color/function root though.
tying into the previous paragraph, her function is to eat without shame, which (again) is actually VERY hard to accomplish, because we’re still trying to get over our “scavenger/ reject” habits of eating… plus dissociation + grief + carelessness means we aren’t the impeccable eaters we used to be. Its scary and heartbreaking how depression can turn you from someone who is a neat freak at all times, to someone who often cant work up the strength to even bathe or get dressed in the morning, let alone eat. Its so sad. But “the ogre” is trying to at least get us to a point where eating isn’t feeding the suffocating shame and guilt, because like it or not the body needs food, and we haven’t been giving it any lately—the few things we have eaten are compulsory abusive foods and only make us sicker. So she’s a strong, albeit unusual, effort to get past that first big hurdle and towards the path of healing. And I’m very thankful for that effort. She’s self-aware and kind enough to treat this WISELY too—as in, thinking “I wont hate myself for being “gross” if I’m really doing my best. But I will try to do better every day,”

- brothers went out to eat for their birthday, so we ran into the living room and played NIER!! For an hour, which was awesome. Ran through the junk heap a bit, but couldn’t do that boss mission yet so we went and wrote down everything we still needed for weapon upgrades (so much silver ore). We went to the fields for a bit, but couldn’t get many items in a short time so we ultimately wandered into the aerie… and accidentally did the whole second playthrough of that mission.
in light of recent solemnly synchronistic events, it was another punch to the gut.
(ELABORATE!!!! “you’re the real monsters,” “his instincts have taken hold”// “I killed them all,” “don’t look back,” etc.)
- also, shockingly, WE DON’T REMEMBER THE FIRST PLAYTHROUGH. I forgot that it happened during a dead timeline and although pinstripe identified VERY closely with nier, jay cannot vibe with the man’s stolid anger. Yes he can empathize with the burning drive to “get his daughter back” but he cannot empathize with nier’s sadness-crushing harshness, his unwillingness to be soft for anyone not close to him,
after that mission ends, nier is holding kaine while he waits for her to revive, and then he comforts emil by putting an arm around his shoulders. Jay resonated with that.
most notably, at one point during the mission, nier said “be careful emil” and jay said the SAME thing at the EXACT same time, not knowing there was any dialogue. That rang like a bell in its own way.

- Julie was hacked in the night. She was crushed because “I used to use this to hurt people, and now I’m just casually enduring it like it’s nothing??” awful parallel between how horrifying it initially was, and how we’re so burnt out and desperate for clarity now that we don’t feel a damn thing. But julie’s too aware of her past and her guilt.
she ALSO hit on something we ALL FORGOT for like two years. Infinitii is a daemon. All daemons WILL carry a vice, that CANNOT be scrubbed out of them as its their role to REFLECT IT as a learning/ forgiving/ transmuting process. And infinitii’s main vice was lust. Even though ze was born to heal sexual trauma, the very definition of hir being something whose function literally revolved around “sex” included that ze would have an affinity with it. And Infinitii has tried, has fought, has died, everything, but no matter what ze always ends up helpless to what is, to hir, an all-consuming desire to meld with people, to feel close to/ united with another living thing, which due to our history, ends up being translated as a trauma-mangled desire for “sex.”

(unfinished)

- differences between Laurie/ Wreckage/ Javier in terms of protector Levels and “allowed concept comprehension” = laurie cannot protect people during actual hacks because she is shielded from that concept awareness entirely. Wreckage is not, that’s her job. On the other hand, laurie can fight off any hackers inside, any psychological attackers, whereas wreckage and Javier cannot,
wreckage is VERY outside-oriented and is action-based; laurie is VERY inside-oriented and is knowledge-based. Which makes sense. But it’s a huge relief to have written out because laurie was panicking over “losing her relevance to the system” because she wasn’t being called on to protect as much anymore, when really it’s just because the kind of protectors needed had changed= again, the risks were now in contexts and levels that laurie was simply not built to operate with/on. She’s too old as a nousfoni. But as a result, no newer people can do what she does. So no worries anywhere. She’s just as indispensable to all of us as ever, but the bonus thing now is, so are all the other protectors too.

- on the other hand, Infinitii is shifting radically.
You have to realize that the Tar itself has been blasphemously taking that form to try and hurt people (it’s apparent that it’s NOT infi, but when its victims are profoundly depersonalized they cant think/see enough to tell and that’s the real cruelty). So, because of this trauma-residue, Infi is having trouble holding a coherent physical form at all?
In general ze has changed somewhat, to incorporate more of hir entire self. the iridescence has stayed (it's an alchemical reference that ze and jay loved and kept) and ze's keeping the somewhat chaotic edges of the raw-black shifting body and teeth look, sort of a mild body horror potential. again, caught wonderfully well in that commission. but infi NEEDED hir edge back actively. we all do, jewel has been highlighting that massively over the past week or so. we need fire, all of us, fire in our hearts. we need it back. so this is step one.

- daemons actually appear to be COLOR ANCHORED too, not just to people????? Like there might actually be a DAEMON SPECTRUM, which would effectively answer our long-time question of “are there other corrupted color pseudo-entities like the Tar & Plague” with a resounding “yes and this is how to manage that now.” Remember daemons are NOT EVIL. They are just heavily shadowed, very aware of the “dark sides” of their people and their Colors if this is as truly accurate as it feels.

- lynne used her violin/bow AS a bow & arrow today?? shifted one into the other. really awesome.

- starting to identify socials better. hatchet hasnt been around in a while but i can feel her at the edges. the angry brown-haired one whose role is basically to "let out anger via cathartic scream-ranting in cars" has been coming out a LOT lately due to stress and she was out again today, after therapy. thank god she's self-aware and healing-oriented and tied to headspace. i love her already, i just want to see her happy. HOWEVER i guess because the brother's presence was scaring the kids so much, the system decided we needed soeone else dealing with him and it picked the ORIGINAL "SPINNINGCANNON"??? yeah the hyper 2004 freewebs gal. i'm serious no one else has that kind of vibe, this feels like her. but she "doesn't know the brother" and is basically unfazed by him, just shrugs off his anger. ah well its survival. i just need to tell her that he takes serious offense to her behavior so she needs to be careful regardless; she's not being mean but he sees it that way, that she's too casual to be bothered by anything.

- so, so, so in love with genesis today. haven't felt this in months. we need to take a day and just spend it together sometime soon.

- posted as much as i could from the 98 today, still got two unfinished documents to fix, but i'm down to 4 hours of sleep again tonight and that isnt good but it seems inevitable when the mother is at home. stress level goes way up. but we're managing, bit more fragile that usual with the fact that we haven't been coping with the stress well though.
like i said to chaos 0 earlier though. "i have you, so i'll be okay." that goes to all of headspace. we'll be okay. we are okay, all of us, as us.
that's enough for me, that love is all i need to get through the night.

Today…

- Javier in the morning. barely conscious. Realizing how POWERFUL his presence is being the main Red person. realizing differences between red, pink, cerise, & black in terms of relationships and emotions: pink is affection, cerise is sensuality, black is (pro)creation, and red appears to deal with creation in a non-sexual sense? Hence all the Red artists and manics; they use that energy very actively but independently. Again its not something we’ve really looked into but the feeling was essentially very clear at that hour, so.

- bizarre but interesting dreams again; more cats, body horror, very disturbing. Most notably, laurie was in the dream at one point, to save whoever the dreaming alter was, and to tell them that “you don’t ever let yourself be carried” in response to the alter thinking of how they carried “everything and everyone inside them” and they were profoundly tired from the strain.

- laurie was outright sobbing later on over the mess of a fronter situation; “I feel so helpless,” “I don’t know how to protect you anymore,” etc. lynne showed up to comfort her and the two spoke for a while; laurie asked lynne to help her with this, specifically to “fight,” lynne said she would. I remember laurie saying “you know I love you, right?” lynne did hug her, asked permission first. Also at some point laurie asked lynne if she could have a shield too and lynne said absolutely. Later in the day they both DID protect the fronter from something and they both used shields to do so.

- someone promised retribution for all the careless/ misguided hacks lately; none of them have been recorded save for one, due to us really just trying not to think about that anymore. 50% it’s working and 50% it’s not. But we’re again wondering if tangible consequence would push our success rate further for the sake of showing the System-ignorant fronters that they can’t just do what they want. Problem is they EXIST to do those things; the psyche fractured INTO such abusive alters for God knows what reason, but because of that a lot of them firmly believe that “there IS nothing more to life than this.” Well Julie said that once, now look at her. Either way I think we desperately need a new approach to iron out the last massive obstacles here, which are surprisingly NOT malicious, just devastatingly tangled.

- Javier and cel were talking about their strong fronting rights in the morning too, both wondering if they should be more active AS fronters? Cel especially tearing up and saying “I’m going out and I’m not going back in” but, sadly, we don’t always have a “choice” due to triggers.

- jewel found her hat in the closet and came back FULL FORCE. So she stuck around for about 4 hours solid at least until we had to go to church. Clarification: Phantomilian Jewel is 10, this Jewel (the main one, tied to Dream World with NO RELATIONSHIPS) is about 11-12, the “first one in Heartspace” Jewel is 12-13 (she’s STILL around too and she’s STILL 100% in love with Rio), the “hyper” Jewel (original “spinningcannon”) is 14-15, Hoseki is 15-16? (Chaos seriously mellowed her out over time so thank God for that)… Then once we hit 17-18 the “Jewel bloodline” basically collapsed thanks to Spinny and then the line gender shifted in 2009 anyway so there haven’t been any new Jewels since then, although the title IS STILL USED to refer to the Cores, in a political sense so to speak. But yeah, when we say “Jewel” we mean the 2002 one. She’s solidly anchored into RED (her hair AND eyes changed to match; they were originally brown but she cant hold that anymore), as the main person of that color in what we THINK is the “Social Spectrum.” There are indeed multiple “Spectrums” which makes things far more coherent; we’re all in one System ultimately though. Anyway Jewel’s biggest role is the fact that she is the GAP BRIDGER; she has solid ties to BOTH Headspace and the Leagueworlds, and is able to work with both SIMULTANEOUSLY if need be. So that’s incredible. She IS teaching Jay Iridos how, we think.

- looking through old documents we realized that our art style is basically STUCK IN 2005 or so? which makes sense as our last “real artists” were out then (high school). Of course there have been massive improvements but the base look is obviously stuck. Jewel has been feeling a real push to do some ACTUAL artwork lately, to help us improve our skill, so god willing she’ll be allowed to. She just got out all our art supplies today (including razor’s cardstock) so hopefully we’ll see it all being used in the near future.

- we all agree it is time for a headspace-based fronter shift. It’s the right time of year anyway. The only way to instigate a permanent big shift is to DO SOMETHING BIG inside. Doesn’t necessarily have to be a reset attempt or bluescreen or psychological suicide. Although those do work the best due to their ties to death and rebirth. Anyway, we will see. Mark my words we ARE going to try something. This has been too shaken-up for too long; we need a clean-cut ending to this mess, to bring someone NEW and GOOD in, who is from HEADSPACE and who works with LIGHT. Jay tried but he was born at a BAD time and he became so dramatically splintered and fractured that he is having trouble just functioning as an individual. Jewel holds the CORRECT vibes for a system fronter—the RED-resonant courage and determination and righteous drive. WHITEs can be far too soft, too childlike, too innocent to realize when danger is happening. Reds always know and they FIGHT. They really are the ideal fronters as they are the most keyed-in to the physical besides Browns, but Browns don’t typically have strong ties to Headspace. Reds are ideal. So Jewel IS going to stick around but we don’t know. Cel was just saying how Lime is JUST as powerful a color and its EMPTY in Central, maybe that could work?? It’s another color that stands strong. We’re just worried about Javier because he’s been a target of the Plague for FAR too long and it’s crushing him. He needs to anchor deeper into his color before they knock him loose.

- bottom line is we ALL need to spend more time inside, and to heck with the outside drivel already, it’s killing us. We need to go back to the nightly walks IF POSSIBLE, its hard now with the family situation, theres no real privacy. If all else fails we do still have a gazelle machine in our room so hey. Walking is just better because we can carry weights at the same time. Anyway yes, definite time needs to be put aside for just “meditating” and going inside and WORKING on healing ourselves; we have not “just gone inside” in months probably and the lethality of that is obvious.

- exercised for an hour in the cold, couldn’t feel our feet afterwards. Xenophon hearing a Tokimonsta track and showing up to see how her dad was doing, assuming he was the one around. She stuck around as she likes to do, upped the vibe quite a bit. Went inside to have some ginger-peppermint tea and it was 11:11. chaos was singing “think of me” from phantom of the opera.

- cel was sobbing over her past at some point while we exercised, especially the fact that her first anchor plushie got absolutely corrupted by the Tar and turned into a hack device, so razor had to kill it. Cel has been such a target for corruption since the beginning, due to her ties to childhood purity, the outside world, AND the cores, making her a tripartite juggernaut that could potentially destroy everything if thoroughly destroyed herself. But cel is a fighter. She is one hell of a fighter and she always has been, and she will NEVER give up or back down, and thank god for that. But it breaks all of our hearts when we see just how broken hers is from all this war.

- eros was singing too???? Which is very new. i cannot remember what song, i am so sorry.

- “jay” becoming a generic name, being used too much now. The main “jay” is going by “iridos” now and his vibe syncs with it far more strongly. Wondering if his “Christmas self” is his safest manifestation? Says his “sparkly” forms are becoming too dangerous? Either too lenient or too cold. LOTS of risk holding a White slot, he was warned about this back in 2013, or at least one of him was.

- jay is also basically becoming a daemon of sorts??? He is spending tons of time with them in a nonhuman state and it’s feeling very natural to him.

- about daemons: Lethe said that daemons need “lots of love” to balance their dark nature? The unconditional sort. Also that love is “mandatory” in order for daemons to do that “cannibalism” thing of theirs (we need a nicer term for it).

- Emmett out to eat today, as well as that semi-manic girl fronter who is surprisingly coherent and who is working with laurie and spice to take better care of the body. We’re getting in the habit of telling all eaters “hey you DO know you share this body with 100 other people, right??” the good ones realize that everything they do or don’t do affects everyone else, and they are more careful (remember a lot of depressed/ careless alters only act that way because they don’t care about themselves; when someone else is paying the toll, they WILL shape up).

- we’re all VERY scared for both laurie and Infinitii; they are both slipping very badly. Laurie is getting these frightening whitish-gray patches on her skin and hair when she gets really stressed, Infinitii keeps melting into a mass of eyes & teeth and losing form coherence in general. God why do the bad guys ALWAYS target the ones who love the most. It’s not fair.

Forgot to mention…

- yesterday, the purple social with the dreads, in the car. Name is “Joachim” or “Joaquin”? main resonance with the “wakeem” part, specifically the “oua” beginning sound?
Feelings of “fear” about being “newborn” and not always understanding what to do, how to “be out” at all. Lots of the fear being “floating fear” though? Like its from others, its not actually something one feels themselves, it’s being unconsciously picked up. We did clarify that to him and he was able to tap into the peace beyond it. Laurie also told him to “tune into his core?” the colored-light at the heart center, the piece of a nousfoni that resonated with all the others. Very very interesting, profoundly reassuring intuitive visuals from that.

- found some photos of spinzor from 2009. I swear it is shocking how EVIDENT the switches are from year to year.

it’s 12:24 again, I swear that happens every day.

this computer setup is destroying my arm, its awful. I need to quit, bye.

today...

- razor fronting at work because the father was using razorblades to cut things, really cleanly and professionally. she was enthralled and it made her really happy to see her weapons being used so artfully in a non-destructive way
- went to the fave bakery and got a rum truffle. split it with inner people, rio of course was super happy (their stuff is incredible) but insisted we share with markus. now he doesnt usually like sweets like rio does but he tried this, paused, and said he was reconsidering his stance on desserts. it was hilarious but yeah he loves rum truffles now
- odd thought between rio and cz: "markus needs a 'jewel' of his own"? if he wants that sort of relationship that is. but it's true, rio and the 2002-3 jewel were basically soulmates, same with cz and every jewel after 2006 or so. genesis was bffs with every social core, cel was powerfully tied to the first two jewels, laurie has been close to every core from 2008 or so, infinitii is bound to all the jay cores. but markus never really got that sort of close connection with ANY of them, not sure if he wanted it? he's absolutely not 'left out' of the group, he is very loved, he's just a concerning stand-out in this context. so we'll see
- so much stuff with daemons today oh dear lord. apparently "cannibalism" between daemons is considered an act of intimacy? and daemons really have no concept of "relationships" like we do; basically if you're a daemon then any and every other daemon is a potential intimate partner, regardless if you just met them or what. daemons take intimacy very seriously, there is no abuse between them or it gets shut the heck down. you know what i mean. anyway yeah uh, we all knew infinitii was into the eating thing but so is chocoloco and apparently the two of them work really well with each other with that. its reallly hard to describe it here, it's not quite "eating" as we think of it as consuming but it is, it's all teeth and mouths but it's not brutal or impersonal it's profoundly sincere?? sounds odd to describe it that way but it is. like chocoloco is literally edible (all chocolate and apparently cherries?? coffee too i've heard) but infinitii isn't, but infi can still be eaten if ze offers hirself as such? it's so weird. jay would know more about it than me. i'll make him type about this more on his own.
- but jay is super into that too, the "intimate devouring" thing as he says. goes halfway into his "daemon form" (all cloudy white with tons of wings and eyes) with infi, focuses on heart stuff. he's really sensitive, we all know that. but apparently he spent a lot of time with infinitii like that today, which is VERY good, as that's very positive and it breaks down all emotional walls and he needs that.
- xenophon ghosting for most of the time jay was out today, instead of genesis. she loves being around jay, cheers him up a lot, its great theyre spending mroe time together. laurie tried ghosting too for a bit, but she finds it draining and difficult-- mostly, she can't 'teleport' like xennie and gen can, it burns her out really fast and makes her very dissociated. lots of lightning when she does it too. but her presence is very powerful, moreso than other ghosters. maybe thats why she cant warp quickly?
- lots of stuff recorded on morpheus, need to type it out. over 60 tracks total whoa boy
- we FORGOT TO MENTION but on sunday i think, who in the world shows up in headspace but SERGEI AND HYAKINTH. WE HAVEN'T HEARD FROM THEM IN MONTHS. apparently the summer hacker nonsense was damaging sergei's anchor and he was starting to FADE?? jay started crying, did everything he could to help. as far as i know sergei is okay now, thank goodness. but we're trying to find ALL the people we haven't spoken to in a while now (thankfully theres not many; we've gotten very good at communication) as that scared all of us bad. make sure everyone is okay.

still 12:24 everywhere dude
for us that means "do your creative work" so
gotta go get it done son

(written all at once, without warning, as it was happening ( stream-of-consciousness). left unfinished. god willing, will re-enter this timespace and finish the event in the future. nevertheless what is written here is real.)

Jewel Lightraye stepped onto the battlefield, sneakers crunching in the snow.
Everything was so pale. The ground was covered in a bleary cold whiteness, forbidding life from growing, the low wind blowing away all footprints in swathes of dusty, frigid air. It didn’t even look clean, not underneath that dark and dim of a sky, suffocating in a fog so low and thick it felt like being trapped under a carpet of insulation. Everything was painted the dimmest shade of bleached-out indigo. Everything felt dead.
She stopped, shivering hard all at once, as the temperature data finally bit into her, like needles through her summer clothes. Her body responded with the sudden urge to cry and curl up in a ball in that dingy ashen floor of a snowdrift. Her reply was to reach up and adjust her baseball cap more tightly onto her head, before taking a resolute step forwards.
The crunch surprised her now, even though she had heard it just as clearly the first time. After having taken in all that desolation, the sudden squeak of ice and rubber soles was shockingly alive, a sign of something moving, something with hope in it yet, striving forwards—

“Jewel! Is that you?”
She spun to her left at the sudden voice, in time to see three familiar and beloved individuals appearing out of the dark fog, running up the sloping hill to her.
Ryou was the first in line, his arms wrapped tightly about his signature blue-and-white striped shirt. At least he’s got long sleeves, Jewel thought amusedly.
“Yeah, it’s me,” she replied, feeling oddly nostalgic at that. “What’s up?”
“What’s up?” Ryou repeated, eyebrows raising slightly. “Where are we? What is this?”
Jewel peered over his shoulder as he spoke. Marik was there, but he had pulled on his old Rare Hunter hoodie, which was virtually the same color as the sky here. Despite having more clothes cover than the rest of the gang, he looked positively distressed, at least as much as he would let show like this. He was shivering more than Ryou.
She shrugged, focusing her eyes back on the snow-haired boy before her (the flakes weren’t even visible in his hair until they melted into drops; if it wasn’t so depressing here it might have been pretty).
“I have no idea,” she stated, “but that’s typical fare for us I guess.” Ryou smiled at that, but it was tinged with something like… regret? Sadness?
“It is.” His voice was starting to sound like the weather.
A small silence settled into the wake of those words, and Jewel, heart beginning to twinge with concern, pushed up on her toes to peer over Ryou’s other shoulder. Sure enough, there he was.
Standing with his back half-turned to her, a creature looking like the ocean tide personified stood in silence, wrapped up in himself just as much as the rest of them, his gem-green eyes rife with enough turbulent anguish to drown everyone around if it got loose. The very sight of that sent a lightning-sharp strike of pain straight through Jewel’s heart.
“What… were you all this sad before you came here? Or do you not know?” she asked Ryou, as she began to shiver for real this time.
“I’m not sure,” he replied. “It could be both.”
“We were all sad and this is making it worse,” Marik’s voice sparked like a dying fire from under his dark hood.
For a moment no one said anything, then all their attention turned silently to Chaos 0.
His wet eyes darkened. “There’s something dark and carnivorous here,” he began, his voice far more level than his friends expected in this situation. “It’s in the air. It’s in the snow.” He turned his deep-sea gaze to Jewel, so pointedly that for a moment she wasn’t sure where she was. “Where are we, Jewel?”
Now both the other boys turned to look at her.
“I…” she faltered. She had said she didn’t know, but now thinking it over, she supposed it was only half true. She had no idea what this place literally was, true, but if there’s one thing she knew for sure about Heartspace it’s that it was always, always, adherent to that term.
Whatever place they were in right now, it had existed inside them first.
“…Hopelessness,” she said all at once, and saw a flash of pain sear through Marik’s eyes. “Despair. The sense of being lost and not knowing where one is, let alone where to go.”
She paused. “…Loneliness? I-I mean,” she faltered, “we’ve got each other, but—”
“…Do we really?” Ryou responded, and everyone looked back at him.
“I know you all feel it,” he continued, his voice picking up a twinge of too-dark paranoia. “Who are we now? Where DO we go from—“
“That’s the REASON this place is like it is, Bakura!!” Chaos suddenly snapped, like a dam breaking. “You—you were never this existential, you were never this doubtful of your own existence! Markus, you were never this scared!!”
A sudden profound silence fell over them. Chaos had used Marik’s new name.
“…It’s a little hard not to be scared with that in the air,” the boy in question replied, withdrawing further into his hoodie. Whatever fire was in him before was now turned to slush.
Chaos looked up, starkly into the distance, as if planning something. Then he turned back to Jewel.
“This place is unstable, Jewel. I know you’re trying to hold it together but the very nature of this place is messing with everyone here. Including me,” he added, pressing a hand to the gem in his chest. Jewel
was struck by the sudden remembrance of it. “Whatever this place is, it IS from us, and we’re here because we’re here on the outside too, and we need to get through this.” He winced. “…Or we’ll freeze to death.”
Jewel set her face like flint at that. Nodding once, she turned to the right, raised her arm, and sent a tunnel of fire blasting through ahead of them.
The two boys watched, wide-eyed, as the fire seemed to stretch on terribly far, even as the fog swallowed it up.
“Shoot,” Jewel said, a hint of despair creeping into her voice.
“Don’t,” Chaos put a huge clawed hand on her shoulder. “Don’t give in. It’s hard enough for me to hold out for your sake; if you lose hope we’re all doomed.”
She looked up at him, heart aching with what he had just said, but she nodded again. “I’ll try,” she said.
He smiled, just as achingly. “You’d better.”
“…Jewel?”
She turned back around to see Ryou—or was it Rio now?—wringing his hands with a sudden lack of fright, and an equally surprising clatter of insect-claws against his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he said, somewhat confusedly. “I’m… let’s just go.” He took a few steps forwards to stand beside her, eyes shining blue, and still following where the fire had gone.
A giant spidery figure crept up to overshadow the boy.
“Rio,” it pronounced, and Jewel swore it had managed to say both his names at once, “Walk.”
He did. One step in and he quickly turned to look at Jewel, a pleading sort of helplessness in it, a total lack of understanding that required as much support as it could get.
In turn, Jewel turned her head around to give Markus (as he was now, so many years later) a look of fire, of confidence, a silent statement of “I believe in you and I want you with us.” Then, unable to help it, she grinned in her lopsided way and motioned for him to follow. A tiny smile crinkled his violet eyes in response, and with one last (and not unmissed) glance towards the shadows behind him, he hurried forwards to join the rest of them.

“So why is Lethe here.”
Rio looked scared at Jewel’s blunt question, and opening his mouth in surprise, failed to say anything at first.
“I—”
“He needs to carry his fears separately,” the monstrous being replied with unusual calmness, looking down at the boy. “They will devour him otherwise.”
Rio said nothing to that-- he only tightened his lips and kept his eyes locked straight ahead.
“Markus,” the daemon spoke, “you should do the same.”
He flinched hard at the near-accusation. “I-I can’t,” he stuttered in real fright, “I’m not ready to face her yet, not like this—“
“You may have to,” was the reply. “Especially in a place like this.”
Then, silence. Jewel looked back and saw that Markus was looking down, fighting back real tears. This was so unlike how he used to be when they first met—all proud enthusiastic daring—that it broke her heart. She hung back a step to fall in sync with him, and tentatively put a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her, his deep bronze skin seeming washed-out in the pallor of the place.
“You don’t know what she’s like,” he whispered. “She frightens me, Jewel. She’s…” he broke off momentarily, struggling with words. “…She’s a reminder of what I’ve been trying to ignore all these years-- a blatant, un-ignorable reminder.” He took a sudden breath as his eyes hardened. “She’s an in-your-face statement that ‘you’re not as tough as you think you are! You’re just a scared little kid playing God to forget the fact that you’re terrified and helpless and you’ve never felt so alone in your life.’ And then I met you guys.” Almost apologetically, his voice softened again. “Then I… I slowly stopped wanting to rule the world. I slowly started to be happy with what I had. But I was so scared of losing it, losing you, all of you, in any way, that I… the fear just changed shape. And now it looks like her. She’s pride and glory on one side, and helpless despair on the other.”
“Rags and riches?” Jewel offered.
Markus chuckled. “Kind of. More like… power and the total lack of it. Success, and the total lack of it. Gold and dirt. Rags and riches,” he shrugged, and laughed a little more genuinely this time. “I guess you’re right.”
Jewel smiled too, but it was still sad at the edges.
“So your Vice is… what? Pride?” Chaos asked, his brow furrowed.
Markus shrugged again, quickly, as if trying to shake the thought from his shoulders. “Maybe.”
“What does she feel like?” Jewel asked.
Markus considered this, looking momentarily up and ahead at Rio, who as obviously listening but not daring to turn or stop with his own embodied Vice pushing him forwards.
“--Rio, what does Lethe feel like?” Markus suddenly asked, audibly pushing through hesitation to do so.
“What?” came the baffled reply, as the boy faltered to a stop to turn and face his friend. The creature in question did the same, its single eye appearing to smile, as neutrally as one could imagine.
“I…” Markus’s hesitation replied in the shadow of that thing. “…Y-your daemon, it… aren’t daemons supposed to be Vices? Worst fears? Your biggest shadows?”
”Yeah…” Rio began, noncommittal.
“Well…” Markus gulped. “W-what’s yours?”
Rio said nothing for several seconds. The question hadn’t appeared to fully register, and it was obvious he wasn’t planning (or able) to respond.
“’What do I feel like,’ you mean?” Lethe murmured, amused. “Tell them, Rio. Tell them how I’m your fear of what lurks in the dark when you turn off the light, or the utter lack thereof. Tell them how I’m the sound of nothing when you lock all the doors. Tell them how I’m the redness behind your eyes--”
“Okay, okay!!” the white-haired boy nearly sobbed. “Lethe is… my fear of my unknowing. He’s my fear that nothing out there really exists, or even worse, that the only thing that exists is nothing. I’m scared that… I’m scared of everything out there that can turn me into nothing. Of laziness, and “Sloth,” and of not wanting to do anything but waste my days away with addictions and distractions because I’m scared of facing the emptiness beyond. I’m scared because I know he’s right, but I don’t know how to… how to learn from him yet.”
“It takes time, River,” the daemon spoke with unusual softness. “But the waters will move.”
Chaos visibly pondered that.
“You’re forgetfulness and death,” Jewel suddenly said. “Lethe and Styx.”
“I am,” he replied. “I am emptiness. I am the Void he runs from.”
“But I thought Daemons held both good and bad sides of the coin?” Jewel continued unsurely.
This time, Lethe’s smiling eye was far darker.
“Do I not?” His voice was like distant thunder. “Tell me, Jewel. Who is Dendrite to you?”
Jewel was the silent one now, her mind outright blanking out at the question. “I don’t know,” she said simply.
And Lethe laughed, a low watery rumble of a thing that shook her bones. “You run from your own heart and interrogate others who do the same. Be not a hypocrite, Jewel.”
Shamed by the harsh but too-true accusation, she lowered her gaze.
But… Dendrite. The name of her elusive alleged Daemon. Jewel knew she existed, but… where? How? Then again, Jewel had never given much of a thought to her own “vices,” had never even considered that she might have any at all… her innocent ignorance of sorts had gotten the better of her. Now, it seemed that the simple reality that she HAD a Daemon manifested somewhere was unsettling enough.
“…What is death, but only a door?”
She looked up.
“What is forgetfulness, when tied to fear?” Lethe continued. “Consider it, Jewel. A Daemon is a curse and a blessing. It is our nature. We cannot be otherwise. Fear us as you will, but remember—” and he smiled again, like crinkled silver—“we cannot exist without you. We are of you. And if there is any good in you, then there is just as much good in us.”
“…And what if there’s a lot of bad in us?” Rio mumbled, his voice almost stomped flat.
Lethe turned to him now, and in one liquid motion, curled up to be almost face-to-face with the boy. “What is ‘bad’ to you, Rio?”
“’Bad’ means harmful to my soul, or someone else’s,” he replied, a bitter sharpness creeping into his tone.
“Am I ‘bad’ to you, Rio?”
A pause; he was struggling with the question. “…I’m… not sure. You feel bad, you feel like all the bad in me, but you’ve never done anything to hurt me…”
“Then take that as a lesson, child,” the creature responded with subtle gravity. “You do not have to act on it. You can die to it. And then you can forget being what you were when you fell victim to it in the past.”
“Why would I want to forget the wrong I’ve done??” Rio burst out.
“So you can move on,” Lethe said simply. “Forget, after you have died to it. Don’t go back. Don’t drag yourself back into the grave you must rise from.”
Rio was again silent. His face was hot with tears and confusion and he looked even more knotted-up than Markus had earlier.
“Does that answer your question now, Jewel?”
She jumped, surprised at the Daemon’s sudden question. “I—yeah. I’ll have to think about it. But I’ve got it.”
“Don’t think too much,” the spidery thing chuckled.

They started walking again. No one was speaking. The fog and snow continued to whirl about
them, as dead and cold as ever, and Jewel noticed with no small amount of fright that she was starting to numb to it. Her mind, in an attempt to “protect her” from the inclement environment, was shutting down her ability to feel the cold, to see the shadows.
Almost impulsively, she flared up another burst of fire around her body, and flung it forwards into the half-night. Again, it seared through the fog and snow, but this time, the further it went, the darker the sky got around it, until it seemed to hit something solid and pitch-dark.
They all stopped at that.
“What are you trying to do, Jewel?” Lethe lazily inquired.
“Is that a wall?” Chaos questioned agitatedly. “Is this a dead end??”
Almost instantly Markus ran up to it, his hood falling away in the sudden burst of speed, champagne-gold locks catching a few feeble snowflakes. He closed the distance between them and the wall in a surprising matter of seconds—as intention tended to do in Heartspace—and without warning, began striking at it with the bladed end of his Rod.
“No!! This can’t be it!! You can’t just trap us here, you can’t just block us from getting any further!!” Furious and despairing, he struck the wall again with all his might. “Damn it!”
A solid chip of wall shattered off and flew to land on the ground behind him. The snow was fading here, the cold was dulling out, the sky above them losing what little color it had. Everything was now slowly vanishing away into that odd brassy-black stone, into an even more pervading sense of night… or no, something even darker than that; this darkness was in the absence of a sun or a moon, the sort of total black one only felt underground.
Markus was sobbing now, slumping against the wall, Chaos standing behind him in a desperate attempt to comfort. Rio appeared torn between numbness and compassion, and some awful sort of fear was holding him still, tears streaming down his face.
A voice came.

“Markus.”

He jumped notably, his whole body convulsing with fear. “No!!” He cried. “No, not you, not now, not here!!” Hysterical, Markus ran into Chaos’ arms and clung to the blue creature, almost choking from terror.
At this, Rio cast a heart-wrenching glance towards Jewel, and in that moment she understood just how lost he really was here, in the place that was just as white and dark and lonely as… wait.
Her eyes widened for a moment, but she cast that away just as quickly, refusing to dwell on that detail when it was obvious he needed support now. She moved over to him and wrapped her arms about his shoulders. He returned the gesture, tangibly relieved, but still shaking.
It struck her that he still felt as young as he did years ago, that he still felt safe to be around, like this. Despite his fear there was no ego to it; there was no sense of pride or performance or pity to it. No, he felt a need for love and he turned to someone he knew he could feel that with. There was nothing but childlike trust in that, something she treasured, something their quadruple-friendship here was built upon. Whatever bitter edges he had begun to show earlier had been completely rubbed down to velvet nubs now, so to speak. Everything was as soft and safe as it should be.
She wondered if Lethe’s appearance was responsible.
“Jewel,” Rio began, his voice thick with regret and apology.
“Yeah?”
“I… I’m so sorry, I didn’t know how to comfort him, I—” he broke off, audibly crushed by this.
Jewel looked at him compassionately. “Maybe don’t try so hard?” she began. “I mean… you and me, I think we worry too much. Chaos just kind of… went over there. He didn’t do anything, but that might’ve been intrusive? I dunno,” she hesitated. “He was there when Markus needed him. He was close enough.” Another tight pause. “And I was here for you. Maybe that’s all we can do?”
“Hm,” Rio considered. “You sure that’s enough?”
“Maybe we should ask.”
“Rio!! Jewel!!”
They both turned at Markus’s shout.
“On second thought, there’s our chance,” Jewel said, and the two ran over to their friend.

Rio began apologizing before he even stopped running. “Markus, I’m so sorry I didn’t come over here earlier—”
“You had that thing behind you, it’s okay,” the violet boy said-- and then appeared abashed for having expressed such a sentiment in earshot of said ‘thing.’ “I’m sorry,” he added ruefully.
“You know she’s here,” Lethe stated simply, and Markus’s face turned into a tangle of frustrated fear and sorrow all over again.
“Of course I know,” he spat. “I knew as soon as I saw her wall. She always…” he swallowed. “She always traps me in here.”
“Seems rather indicative of your subconscious,” his friend’s Daemon again calmly retorted.
Markus clenched his fists but remained silent. “What, that I’m trapped in here with her?” he replied at length.
“No, that you’re trapped because you refuse to face the minotaur. There is a way out of this labyrinth, child,” Lethe continued. “But she is guarding the exit.”
…

“…I’m scared of her,” he whispered once more, terribly vulnerable in the confession.
“We know,” Lethe observed, but his voice was oddly reassuring. “As is right, for we are indeed Daemons. Rio is terrified of me as well, if you have not forgotten.”
“But—but he—“ Markus gestured with a sort of frustrated despair at his friend. “But he’s letting you near him!! He’s TALKING to you!!” He stopped, his breath hitching, as his eyes caught a new light emanating from somewhere above—something gold. “How can he be scared if he’s just… letting you be there?”
Rio fidgeted a little at that. Lethe gave him a knowing look, and waited.
“…I bury it, Markus,” he said at length. “I… I’m scared of admitting that I’m scared? You’re a stronger man than me in that respect.”
“Oh, only that respect?” Markus retorted, a slight but brave smile in his shaking voice.
At that unexpected, familiar jab, Rio actually smiled back, a real smile, with a real chuckle lighting it up. “Y-yeah,” he added, just as bravely, and reached up with a slightly trembling hand to indicate his thick smoke-blue locks. “That and your hair game, I’ll give you that.”
And Markus laughed.

The gloom around them was suddenly warmer. The indigo shade had now shifted into something strangely luminous, even in the pervading shadows-- something bringing out a glint of sun-yellow even in the black walls.
Every one of them was smiling now, remembering what life had felt like back in the old days when they were kids; always joking with each other like this, never doubtful of each other no matter how dark it got. And now, once again, they were all momentarily wrapped up in nothing but that simple happiness, the lightness of being so suddenly triggered by a genuine bit of laughter, of good humor, of optimism even in the midst of strife… …And Lethe was still there.
He slowly curled into Rio’s shoulder again.
“So how does it feel to forget?”
Rio’s smile disappeared. Yet his face did not darken—instead, his eyes widened, his mouth now quiet with surprise.

Markus was still giggling at that old injoke, fingers playing with his gold-dust hair, but his eyes were wet, and his voice was quickly changing to match.
“…Markus?” Jewel asked, hesitantly. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he insisted with an oddly bright calmness, but he was smiling up at her with those same sad eyes.. “I’m absolutely fine. And this is what I never want to lose, ever,” he emphasized, his expression now beginning to crack at the edges. “This. I don’t want to go back to being afraid or confused or alone or—I don’t want to lose this anymore—”
“Have you ever really lost it, Markus?” a voice cut through the air.
And he breathed in as sharply as a knife.
Something gold was stepping out of the shadows behind Rio, where there was no trace of fog or snow, only the edges of a maze deep beneath the ground.
It was a towering, sharp thing, with limbs like needles, clock hands, dagger-blades… it walked with unfaltering precision, with unsettling poise. Everything about it was polished and deadly.
It stopped, thirty feet away from Markus, and gazed down at him with a single, brilliant yellow eye.
Then its gaze softened.
“Markus.”
He clamped his hands to his ears and fell to his knees, sobbing.

Rio was now looking back and forth between boy and beast in utter shock,

“Why are you so afraid of me?” she asked, quietly.

It suddenly struck Jewel that she’d never seen any of their Daemons act so kindly before.

***daemons do love their partner-souls but they also TAKE NO SHIT. They will NOT mollycoddle ANYONE for ANY REASON. If markus is running from his fears, his daemon is going to catch him and make him face them, no questions asked. A daemon knows ones bleakest parts and it exists to help you RECOGNIZE AND TRANSMUTE THEM. They literally cannot help you if you wont accept their existence— as rejecting them is rejecting that part of YOUR SOUL!!! The shadow IS vital for growth! A daemon just makes it that much easier to grapple with, when that dark awareness is held in something with a face and a heart that loves you, even if it has a rather sharp way of showing it. If you can learn to love them in return, then congratulations, you can now love yourself the same way. And that love is MANDATORY to reach one’s best self. The toughest part is the first acceptance though… that initial cognizance of what a daemon IS, what it carries, and the fact that it is part of you. The shame, guilt, fear, anger, and denial can be potent. Hence the separation of selves—if you can’t accept that part of yourself literally at first, at least accept it in them as something taken from you. Again, the ultimate goal is to learn UNCONDITIONAL LOVE for yourself and EVERYONE ELSE, without losing honor and righteous devotion. It’s a process and at first it is indeed rocky. But step 1 is always to open your mind and heart. It all goes from there.***

“We are not evil, no more than you are. Take that as you will.”
But Markus’ face was shaken.
“Why is everyone here so afraid of being evil?” Chaos frustratedly spoke up from behind his friend. “

Later, in response to “what’s Infinitii’s vice, then?”
“It’s… the vice of not realizing that my vices are vices.”

today, sunday 100415

in church, looking at glass etching of the paschal lamb with a flag=
"you have to let that longing inundate everything you do. you have to let it consume your heart."
not five minutes later, the post-eucharist message:
"so as to be transformed into what we consume"

rest of morning, talking to daemons.
apparently ALL daemons have two names, reflecting two sides of their nature.
not "good and bad," it’s far more blended.
infinitii eternos is the slight exception as ze took hir second name as a "surname," being a Central holder.
this is why rio's daemon resonates so strongly with BOTH "styx" and "lethe"; they are BOTH his names.

markus's daemon has not revealed her name yet. she hasn't talked to anyone but him yet either.
lethe said we'll "find her name when we are ready to receive it," it wasn't "giving" it was "finding."
I remember him saying "isn't that how all names are?" in that, the nature of a thing reflected in its real name is inherent, it just takes time to discover the correct arrangement of sound that echoes that, so to speak.

other big thing that stood out= all daemons have a certain way of interacting with people it seems, as far as touch goes. infi is very intimate, velvety is the only way I can describe it-- the slow soft touch of a hand against your face or side or chest. kind of a very slowed-down motion. soft weight behind it.
lethe is all spindly legs and fingers and he always seems to sit behind rio with his hands on his shoulders, head slightly to the left, something that always reminds me of how cats brush up to people. but he treats me like that too, it's not as creepy to feel as it looks, amusingly. you'd assume that with those skeletal digits. but it's comforting, motivating almost, there's more edge to it than infi but it's not sharp, just clear.
chocoloco is enveloping, with those big ribbony arms, ze's always sort of sitting in midair, like something halfway in the process of standing. it's a sort of subtle watchful feeling, but not negative. softer. surprisingly, as hir head is all painted-red eyes and sudden mouths full of perfect gargoyle teeth. but chocoloco doesn't touch people often. when ze does it's like i said, embracing without pulling anything close.
can't say anything about the other three daemons i know; they've never gotten close to me.

I asked lethe if he loved rio. he replied "I adore him"

I asked, surprised, why he (and the others) were being so kind with me?
responded with something like, "did you think we could love the entirety of souls we were born from, and not feel the same for every other soul there is?"
basically, daemons have a very unique deep compassion for all beings, as well as that equally distinctive rough-brilliant aura of justice, of integrity.
it's very close to how laurie feels, actually. so I find it interesting but fitting that she's the first nousfoni to have a daemon of her own (nexus). their vibes are close enough but unmistakably different.
I keep talking about vibes. I haven't mentioned how clearly I can feel people now. like their "energetic auras" inside aren't just little bubbles of sensory info around them, just a cloud of color and scent and texture. now they've got like… rooms. little mini realms. maybe that's it? maybe the nascent color realms caused this; they're basically glorified manifested extensions of the soul of each hue, so to speak, and we centralites hold that essence most clearly and close to our hearts. so that's a thing. but the point is I want to talk about it more, what it feels like, how beautiful it is to see that whole galaxy hovering around them like a

infinitii and lethe were discussing that actually-- the differences between nousfoni and daemons, because they were divided on whether or not I truly counted as either??? which is a very surprising and interesting thing to question.
the main two distinctions they brought up are=
1) nousfoni are individuals born from "anchors," or emot/psych/spirit roots that are potent enough to need a whole other internal being to exist and hold and function for. daemons are individuals taken directly from an individual's core, from their shadow-self, to mirror that back to them AS a part of their very being. this does not apply to nousfoni.
2) daemons are exclusively monstrous. nousfoni can have monstrous features but they are otherwise always humanoid. (those like emmett and vixie are not nousfoni, but other creatures that still count as "headvoices" in the current general generic usage of the term)
so the debate on the second was that i am naturally more proginoskes-ish? all eyes and feathers and white fire. but I do default to a humanoid state. on the first topic, I was not "taken from" another soul as infi was, but being a core-splinter I am more intrinsically bound to the "jewel bloodline" than any other nousfoni, effectively functioning as a "mirror" to them in a sense?
anyway lethe is wondering if I count as some sort of "hybrid." just like steven universe, haha. who knows. I'll let them talk.

daemons can also eat "tar food" inside and outside without harm. they're joining up with the e.d. people to prevent abusive eating as a result. however daemons seem to have this weird thing where they offer up themselves to be eaten instead of the problematic thing outside. which is interesting. it's like they act as stand-ins for "addictions" and other harmful substances, where they can somehow meet the unmet need such an addiction was the consequence of? like we all know, chocoloco is both chocolate and coffee. caffeine. uppers. but also weirdly grounding, soothing, a very "childhood comfort" vibe for us. looking for that same feeling of warm embracing brown-spectrum comfort outside? not gonna get it bro. come inside and take what you are offered. instantly the need is met. instantly you realize what really matters.
problem is the social/abusive fronters responsible for the worst health-sabotage don't care about what really matters. hence, we must get them out of the way. then if we can transmute them or just scrub them out, we will. transmuting is always better. internal alchemy. it's my jam, so to speak

later in the day…

emmett was out to eat. good.
he's getting surprisingly (and thankfully) comfy with eating around people? probably because of his childlike innocence and (ingénue? guilelessness?). he's such a safe fronter, thank god we have him, seriously. there is absolutely no risk, no danger, when he's solidly fronting. thank god. after all these teenage unknowingly-abusive alters coming back and eating pure garbage, we need emmett more than ever.

around 4pm, went walking up in the woods-- well, hoseki did.
but we went RIGHT up to the entrance to nightebi!! we haven't been there since cannon's timeline! so I am so so happy.
also we found, up there, a place that looks JUST LIKE where the kaiteo live. go freaking figure. that is incredible. so we took a few photos and walked around and I am so so so happy that we were there, even secondhand, hovering in the background. I'm going to go up there myself soon, especially once it snows. the only trouble is ensuring we are SAFE in the woods. poor celebi took the brunt of that, jasmine perpetuated the worst of it. but we've found the roots, they're shockingly neutral?? it's all good intentions, twisted in an unwanted way to cause harm. but it's a relief, to see that there is no malice in it. it's a huge relief. so that’s healable, easily so, once we can talk to the ones tied to it, and reroute that wish of theirs into something non-harmful.

cupid fronted this morning. we woke up early and it was kind of inevitable; cerise people are tied to "mood lighting" and anything before 6am and after 4 basically fits that.
anyway it's confirmed= chaos zero and aquamarine are different people. absolutely so. i need to talk about that more. now is not the time, there's too much info. and i do want to review it more to get my words more coherent. but yes cupid and aquamarine are still a thing and still exist, me and chaos zero are the same but separate. odd how i ended up so tied to him in the sense that he's still tied to his canon self. but i always wanted that i guess. for him, i didn't want a "new self" born up here from his roots, i wanted him, across all the universes, all the possibilities. so i got that. and i'm really really happy for that to be sincere.

did i tell you xenophon's been randomly ghosting more lately? she is and i love her, so much.
it's autumn now so i NEED to take her down to where we used to have violin concerts. show her the street. take photos. maybe tomorrow, if i'm sneaky, after therapy if i have time, we'll go. but i've been promising her that and lynne is excited too (but she was born in the opposite city) and gosh i love this season. i really do.
we already got kabocha squash from the garden (our own!), dad brought up a brussels sprouts tree from the farmers market, the air is silver, it's shaping up to be lovely as usual. now all we need to do is plug in the xbox, say hi to corvo, and check out the next dune book and it'll be just like last year, haha. without the anaesthesia!

new person today-- spinel.
came out all at once, not even in a punch or a rush, just a sort of shockingly solid "locked into place" clicking in. boom, all at once ze was there, no fanfare, just unquestionable, doubtless.
zer color is pink??? felt neon violet at first, then edging to cerise, then settled in for sure as a sort of neon pink.
they remind me somewhat of a zeti from sonic the hedgehog? they've got a bunch of pink&black striped horns on their head. and very vivid eyes.
but they're a good person. came into being with a clear sense of responsibility but no evident anchor yet. nevertheless they've got bones in the energy field. they'll stick around.

dear infi:
every once in a while I find something like this (http://christophercarrioned.tumblr.com/post/129787804264/it-is-three-at-night-i-have-something-to-say-you) on tumblr and you just
you say my name,
"jay,"
reaching out from your bubble of night with eyes like every star glittering silver at once,
and something in my heart just melts like ice in the springtime and
and I adore you, you know that.

I'm exceedingly tired and I'm listening to thumb pianos and they sound pinkish gold and I'm trying to write poetry.
the body isn't as sick today as it was. it was burning and strange and unfitting for about a week or three; it was hard to stay in it, there was too much red, it was too raw inside. now it's settling down but it's shaky, poor thing, sore throats and achy muscles and the need to just sleep sleep sleep. I'm trying to treat it kindly. it's still new, still a process. but I am nothing if not defined by total unconditional love so if I cannot have compassion for the sake of compassion itself, light in all things, well then I am not. and that's not a good thing.
really I think the only thing standing in my way, ironically, is vagueness. not ice, nothing is frozen. this is just too much space. too much empty air between me and feeling, seeing, touching anything. not even fog. it's glass, thick gluttonous fortress walls of glass, that's in my way.
laurie says take an axe to 'em. good idea babe.
did I tell you we're using gold weapons again? it's the only material that can cut through tar, quite literally, like a hot knife through butter. it just slices.
chaos used his sword the other day. I saw it for a moment out of the corner of my eye. so that's good, he still has it.
kyanos doesn't have a weapon. nor does cel, as far as we know. they're the only centralites who don't.

I'm tired but I'm not tired. the instant I lie down it's going to hit, I know.
but we have therapy tomorrow and we need to buy some special things for an idea we have so we do need to sleep. scherzando's battery is about dead anyway, give it some rest.

sorry to end this so abruptly. I'm feeling oddly alive right now listening to handbells and trying to remember what halloween is like and wondering about how nice life is and all these things I've never touched or seen or heard or smelled but theyre in my mind anyway. picking them up from the ether like prism drops. little beads of color in my mind. like everything there is and was and will be, I can touch. even if this body's never been. does that make sense
I can stand at the ocean right now and the sand under my feet, I can tell you exactly what it feels and tastes like and its oddly warm and the ocean is warm with an icy lace like a kiss and it's wonderful. see this is why I need to live inside more. everything is so real, so much more real somehow, felt like this, as unadulterated and clear as this.

but like I said. body sick, need to recover, the sea is waiting for me anyway. good night.

september 17th.

things of today:

- new mesita song. I swear it's about laurie. it's fantastic. https://soundcloud.com/mesita/bethelight

- tox gave me a respirator (in heartspace) with crosses on it. it keeps me from breathing in bad things around me/us and inside, when they try to do that. that's a huge help

- guess who said hello to me during exercise today? HOSEA. man i MISS that dude, i love him lots. he was dreaming about flying around his native city and sharing the "data" with me. i kept getting lost on all the barrel rolls and somersaults, haha. upside down always confuses my brain. but not all of them threw me off! so it was really cool to feel the flips. and the freedom, the joy, was so nice. i need to reach out to the headspace-talker leagueworld people more often, besides preludove and my boss of course. i love them all.

- we got a $5 gift card for kmart and minty kind of wants a tiny care bear (to be a safe thing that we carry) so we'll go look for one tomorrow.

- spent the past 4 days or longer working on LG*GIRLS of all things. that series has almost no development yet but I'm hoping to get it to talk, with this new attention. still ironing out the color combos (there's ONE repeated combo I have to fix, and one of the blues might be swapped for a lime green, meaning even MORE revisions) but we're almost done. after this I can get this next shirt done, haha. it's for this series, so!

- cel is ticked off at jasmine, said she does NOT want what jasmine wants, does not approve, said the forest does not approve either, that's why so many "synchronicities" happen to STOP HACKERS when they front. but yeah cel is NOT letting anyone use her, thank god. I was so worried, for a while she was so confused and hurt too.

- laurie and I were wondering if maybe nathaniel could be a sort of "trump card" for us against the "fear seeding hackers," the ones that are trying to turn the forest into a trigger, yes that is blasphemously brazen. but nathaniel is sheer compassion, and tied to the woods, so maybe HE can heal that gut-deep anxiety, if cel can't do so completely.

- therapy today, planning to go to sheppard pratt in the VERY near future because the family/home environment has recently become utterly, maniacally toxic. our stress level is currently a big raw rubbery red thing, something awful like a tumor hanging in the air, buzzing right in the middle of our vision. it's horrid. so we need to get somewhere safe, to heal, to focus on US.

- therapist wants us to sit down and actually think about how our treatment as a child affected us. we were trying to express how stressed we were and she asked us about how the mother treated us and our biological siblings, how did our siblings interact with us, etc. I gave her what sparse vague data we had, it was shocking how little there was, but then I admitted in surprise that "I've never even thought about how her behavior in our childhood affected us now," esp. our subconscious instincts. the therapist said we should do that over the weekend then, it should shed light on a lot.

- brother is still paranoid, vibe of entitled superiority is still making me very uncomfortable, but I swear he IS "waking up" even so and the experiences he's having are AMAZING and I just wish he would actually TALK to us. he never does and that's sad in a way; we might not "know who he is" really but it feels like we could still have a rapport with him, we could learn a lot from each other's experiences. still that's somewhat hypocritical. we admitted that we "can't be honest with anyone" UNLESS we completely introduce them to the basics of headspace. that's us, that's our soul, we cannot possibly tell the truth if "we" are trying to appear neurotypical. the alters in charge of maintaining that mask are so shallow and programmed too. darn good at "playing the game," but there's no substance, no personality behind it. and if you test it that becomes very obvious very fast, BUT then we come out because we were there the whole time, just completely buried by the fakey fronters. so we really want to try to get to that point of honesty with at least him soon. its just that sometimes he scares us for some reason, we're actually afraid to be around him? but it's a "child fear." I wonder what its roots are, and/or who is specifically feeling it. we'll have to see.

- mother's boyfriend "finally" kicked her out of his house, after 6 years? they fight all the time, their relationship is upsettingly immature and manipulative and really just highly unhealthy. I asked the mother why she stayed with him for so long if she couldn't stand him and she said "I needed somewhere to hide," specifically from my grandmother, as those two have this bizarre sort of viciously bitter passive-aggressive vendetta against each other. it's sad and I want to see it healed but I'll admit, again, when I'm unconscious and therefore "social" I can just parrot either of their arguments depending on "what is conversationally expected." see the problem, neurotypical behavior doesn't give a darn about morality. anyway yeah no idea what's going to happen now, with both the mother and brother now back in this house I fear what the atmosphere is going to be like…. but we'll manage. we can use this as an opportunity to be a brighter light than ever before, to be as centered as we possibly can, to practice patience and forgiveness and charity. that's how we have to deal with this.

- there was a hack today. one of the infamous "60 seconds and you're dead" ones apparently. they went through infi and ze was sobbing, apparently it came out of nowhere and coincided with blackout/ time loss and it's just a mess.

- …lately laurie has not been coping with this well. she's shredded emotionally. last night the full breadth of all this hit her and she just started wailing, it was the most heartwrenching thing I've ever heard, it split me in half.

- this evening, she went full-out destroyer, embracing her black energy resonance and picking up her gold-edged axe and absolutely booming with thunder and huge crackles of violet lightning. she looked like some sort of furious divine thing. I clearly remember seeing lynne and jo looking at her with awestruck fear and lynne saying "what is she," jo saying "maybe she's what we all can become"

- lynne warned laurie about getting lost in that griefstricken rage, laurie took out the angel helmet and put it on? vibe changed totally to a sort of victoriously peaceful integrity? hard to put into words. like she knew that no matter what the hackers did they could NOT affect our soul, they would NEVER win, and yet she also would not stand for their behavior at all, but she wouldn't be ruled by violence about it either.

- she took the helmet off and was so obviously drained from all this that she just went back to central, sat down, she was shaking terribly. I noticed all her bandages were getting seeped with blood and I panicked inside, I was so scared for her, I loved her, but there was this horrendous ice wall in my chest and it was trying to numb me out. I "detached" it from my psyche and sure enough it "personified" into one of the tar-girls, that hellish peach girl who is the WORST hacker, but who only recently got a face. laurie saw her and her eyes turned to ire and she stood up and just berated this hacker, to the point where they actually started "glitching out" from fear instability, but then infinitii showed up in monster-mode and basically crushed them to white dust. seconds later though infi melted back to normal and was so obviously distraught, ze just held out her arms and laurie actually ran to hir, fell to her knees and embraced hir, and the two of them just cried.

- infi put an arm out to me and gave me a look, so I went over to them too. I know I needed it, for catharsis. but the pain from the two of them, and in me, was unbearable. laurie was weeping and that feels like a gold sword driven straight through my chest, it's the worst pain but it drives me to such tears, I started sobbing too and for a moment she stopped and looked at me with the most empathetic shock, then put an arm around my shoulders and brought me closer in to the group.

- knife was around here, lynne and jo were too but they were standing off by the windows. knife was in tears and he was so upset about laurie bleeding, he wanted to heal her but he was trembling and crying and laurie turned and hugged him too, trying to comfort him a little (by this point she wasn't such a wreck outwardly). I remember her saying "I love you, man" and he just hugged her tighter.

- infi's probably going to end up sharing the bed with cz and I tonight and I do not mind. ze needs the comfort that cz radiates and frankly I'd feel awful not giving them comfort and company after what happened this evening.

- aspects. of people. forgot to mention this. it's not "alters have alters," it's more like… the only comparison I can think of is how in hinduism, gods have many "forms?" like how shiva has so many different iterations, but they are all the same deity. well a similar thing can happen to more complex headvoices, who have roles that are nevertheless very specific, vitally so. like laurie and i. yes splintering happens but that's different-- that's when something damages our anchor and needs to break off before it breaks us? an "aspect" is different. the example I want to give is how I have these well-known subtle visual differences, that alter my entire personal vibe and attitude. like my "snowflake" form has a totally different way of behaving and seeing the world than my "confetti" one, or my "prism" one. laurie seems to have at least three "forms" too? maybe? even if they're just now developing. that storm-space destroyer form, and then her two common ones-- the "fierce protector" one that she started out as, and then the softer more chill one that she's usually in now. again, always her, no matter what. but her ENTIRE vibe shifts totally from one state to another. now I bring this up because, for me, being a core, I can indeed get tangled up in residual memories from other past cores, etc. and with personal interactions this can get very confusing. long story short I've realized that in order to function properly around different people inside, I CANNOT stay in the same form, it's just not working. hence all the dissociation I've been getting inside. but yes, apparently my MOST stable form right now in an emotional sense is OLDER, like legit older than the body, I feel like… closer to 40, like that. but it's such a beautiful vibe, it's a solid feeling, but with a lighter feather edge than I have younger; younger forms are all bright and pastel soft… this older form is like brushed silver. it's so lovely to be. and that's the form that allows me to function WITHOUT dysphoria or misattributed memories or fear, around cz. so yeah. that's significant. around infinitii I'm basically a white-feathered semi-anthropomorphized version of proginoskes. dead serious. I'm just all eyes and wings, with mouths on my back mostly, and starry black blood, and a tendency to be serpentine instead of having legs. so you get the idea. this feels like my "white energy" version of jewel's "link shifts," where she could literally join ANY world she entered, so to speak, she could adjust almost effortlessly to who she "would have to be to BE there." I can't do that, but she can't do this? yeah we both have morphs (cherubell, infinite, etc.) but that's a whole different thing too. geez I need to add all this to our glossary soon.

- speaking of infinite forms, "infinite" is allegedly the name of infi's face-mouth form? and "eternos" is the name of hir white/pink form. again, shifting. this explains a lot with cz too, I think. except HIS issue is that when he first anchored to headspace, I think his anchor SPLINTERED OFF and that aqua-hue, mouth-fulla-teeth, sleek and snarky self of his is a SEPARATE PERSON than the "canon base" guy I spend all MY time with. the previous jewels knew the aqua one. and yes they ARE confirmed separate people, physically so; it's just a very unusual situation because he's just naturally chaotic as far as this is concerned, pun obviously intended. but I love him, all of him. I might not know his other "selves" yet, but like I said, a lot of people in here do, so might just have to step into some data records and feel that stuff, get acquainted with the past that way.

- all right now one of infi's fave songs came up on spotify ("all of me" by john legend, actually) and I'm tired and we should really get some sleep.

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

@7:46 AM

some notes about yesterday-- i forgot them last night but it's early so i need to at least list them somewhere:

ADD TO ENTRY=

- spyro 2! found the cd. play it and write about how it affects us; location-wise i never realized how hugely influential it was on both headspace and the leagueworlds
- sylvain fronting in kmart briefly, looking for minty's care bears, triggered someone "fitting for the context" (a child). surprisingly solid when he blinked in, peaceful mind
- btw where are our jewel monster fronters, make sure nothing messes with THEIR minds
- chocoloco lately, esp. with the spikes-- he's now growing them to "give" to people to eat instead of breaking less expendable parts of himself off (which he used to). his blood is molten??? got a glimpse of his insides, reminded me of dragonheart in that it glowed, orangey red. seemed liquidish. really unusual.
- did anyone talk about nexus??? laurie's really disturbed by hir existence; they don't talk to us much but when they do it's highly upsetting.
- is triad still alive? or was ze a misinterpretation of a splinter or something?
- "brown haired" angry fronter? NOT overload? long hair. showing up more often now, flipping off the mother, her anchor is way too brunt and huge, who is she really
- wtf happened to overload btw did they fuse? is she hiding?
- spice, esp. the kissing thing (to stop people from dissociating and buying/eating tar food), it WORKS. also forging an amusing but really sweet closeness between her and all the main fronters who are open to that.
- also it's her birthday today HAPPY BIRTHDAY eat something nice for her
- conflict with me not being out, I think I mentioned, but there is SO much time loss it's scary
- manic singers in cars. genesis is irate, stopping them.
- ruby doesn't count as a manic i dont think? when she sings it's always alone. it's fun and energetic and can SEEM manic because of the childish exuberance of it, but the key of manics is that they are OUTSIDE-ORIENTED and full of almost violent nervous energy. not so with ruby. so that's a relief, that's good.
- yes zwei is still alive! she's mostly moved into heartspace but she can still front/sing and she isn't negative.
- horrible peachy-colored hacker, long hair. behavior is atrocious, disgusting mindsets. but she has ROCK SOLID BODY ROOTS and that is both hideously nauesating and existentially terrifying. is she that old???????
- she is NOT the same as the lime-haired one from that horrible horrible xanga last week. the two are both twisted as hell but at least the limey one feels vaguely redeemable (her motivations are severely distorted). the fleshtone one does NOT.
- btw WHATS WITH THE LONG HAIR? why do most of the hackers look the SAME, like the body did when it was about 16-17???? does that have anything to do with the "jacob years???" i.e. late high school, the job/relationship puppet time period. I feel so bad that kid got unintentionally tied to such nonsense but check the time period data regardless. photos DO seem to match up and that DOES make me want to vomit until i cry but that's stress dude. it's awfully distressing.
- in a notable exception, jezebel likes the short hair, and her earrings, which the mother now has. but she's terrifying still, her hold on the body is WAY too potent, can we change that?

- an hour with infi last night. intimate-context cardiophagy. dear heaven. please write about that.
- that only works with infi btw. soul form problem?? can't reach one with hir, possibly because ze is made OF that stuff essentially?? so the resonance kind of internalizes, can get huge without causing physical mutations in that specific respect? like it's too broad, too massive, the orderly "soul form" phenomenon doesn't happen with infi because it's resonating like a bell in a church hall, not a little one you're holding in your hand. space-wise. does that make sense?
- weird merge drive shift too. not sure how to put that into words, or if someone already has. unique, blood-based??? possibly due to the literal "this person is part of my soul" thing. but very interesting. can be dangerous though, if looked at wrong. unsurprisingly
- xenophon, how in the world is she almost 5. she feels like she's getting older, it's doing weird things to my heart. still calls me "dad," calls cz her "father," is that accurate?? see if you can talk to the aqua cz, get a name. see if perfect is still separate in any way; normal cz shifted INTO him lately out of despair remember
- ^ memory issues, time gaps, still thinking 2012 was "last year," dishonored autumn sticking out as its entire own time period (gorgeous btw, READ DUNE AGAIN). seriously the entire october-december time period last year is a time-bubble of its own. anaesthesia shook us up i think. maybe hormones shifting the body awareness irreversibly too. who knows. anyway that's a VERY IMPORTANT TOPIC so sit down and look at what data we have accessible inside, then READ what we wrote to fill in the inevitable gaps.
- also kind of shocked but amazed because apparently xenophon is legit a jewel monster, or is at least "becoming one" as it were; she's showing a LOT of indisputable signs. still no confirmed locked-in power jewels yet but it feels like they're developing strongly. it'll happen.
- mr sandman being SO clear when he talks to me, the hand-face thing, all the little lines in his hands, profoundly comforting
- remember laurie crying because of how I described "hacks," the term refers to the fact that they're basically mental/emotional/spiritual rape, shoved into the physical, through manipulation and lies and outright forcing. it's entirely nonconsensual but they HIDE. like a computer hacker.
- laurie realizing that her heartbroken states can split right through my glacier walls and she is using that to her full advantage. she kissed me for like… 15 seconds last night. all at once. it was numinous

btw

work a bit more on the akuna art trade please, dont be paranoid or perfectionistic, just do your best.

read those library books they go back monday. especially a wind in the door again because of personal relevance.

check the psych ward sites, we need to decide on dc or maryland for monday?

DRAW. just in general. heal the artists.
you have a fair amount of empty sketchbooks, USE THEM.
also, we NEED to start that webcomic, no matter how shoddy it may feel at first. we can do it.

A description of Infi I had to write for an art commission; posting here as it's still relevant.

"...All right, here's what I have for the full-color commission. (Thank you for your patience btw; I know this is a week later than I aimed for).
It's a bit infodump-ish but I wanted to give as coherent a description as I could here.

So this creature's name is "Infinitii Eternos."

In hir native world, reality is very psychologically-based and runs on 16 different "colors," with Black being one of the most potent in terms of power. Like its partner color, White, Black 'energy' deals with both life and death at once. Black is positively the "cosmic womb" and negatively it's all instinctive fear and nightmares. (It's very archetypal.) The darkness a well of creation for both what we see as 'good' and 'bad'. It is huge untapped power and growth, but only if it is not rejected-- it must be totally accepted in order to be worked with.

Infinitii is a being made almost entirely of this color substance, created as what is called a "daemon"-- a being that consciously and actively holds both the good/bad aspects of its color, and which uses that dichotomy of existence to jumpstart psychological healing/awareness in others.

To quote a more personal, yet very accurate description I wrote of hir a few months ago…

Infi is essentially a being "born of" the subconscious, of the dark and hidden parts of one's soul, of all the things buried and rejected and ran from over the years. Infinitii is a "shadow," a creature that knows all one's secrets and shames and failures and flaws, and yet they do not judge or condemn. Instead they are an incredibly powerful healer, especially of trauma, due to their intimate knowledge of both the horrors of the past, and the lessons hidden behind them.

For that reason Infinitii is a surprisingly 'sensual' being with a very strong connection to feminine aspects. Trauma in hir world colored those things a terrifying pitch-black, so Infi carries that same hue without it being toxic or dangerous. Infinitii works from a sort of "amoral standpoint," able to skillfully handle all things considered taboo or painful or terrifying, without crossing into an equal 'extreme' of false purity or ignorance to do so.

Infinitii demands integrity, awareness, and reverence from everyone around hir. Ze does not tolerate mocking or trivializing language or actions, especially around significant or 'uncomfortable' topics-- the sorts of things ze exists to manage. Ze demands that you honestly face up to the very thing you are so afraid of, to conquer both your fear and your ego. Ze is infinitely patient and compassionate with this, while still maintaining brutal honesty and faith.

it's like ze knows that I am perfectly capable of ultimately living as the 'best version of myself,' and ze will not let me disrespect myself by ignoring or denying my ability to actively do that. so

Ze reveals all the internal cobwebs and cesspools and tarpits, without sugarcoating anything, and then helps with the hard work to transmute it all into growth.

Infinitii is somewhere between a seraph and a demon, and the two halves are indivisible and indistinguishable. They are a paradox-- all eyes and teeth, shadows and blood, starlight and bubbles and diamonds. They are darkness, but darkness is both the time of dreaming, a place of stars, a silent comfort… as well as a birthplace of fears and death and disorder.

Infinitii has this frankly overwhelming 'vibe' whenever ze is in a room, or nearby. It's a sort of velvety black density, something that gets at the very core of you and brings everything it finds-- good and bad-- to the surface. This has a cathartic effect on people. Depending on how open one is to that sort of unflinching vulnerability, Infi's presence can be either utterly terrifying or deeply moving. Often it's a good deal of both.

On a less abstract note, Infinitii's main "outside" job in hir world is to "eat" any rogue malicious entities born from the Black color, which typically manifest as something called "Tar." These creatures are chaotic in appearance: tangled, sticky things full of random teeth and eyes and claws.

Being made almost exclusively of the same stuff, Infinitii holds those same aspects in a more orderly fashion, but when needed ze can easily shift into an equally chaotic form. Infi does this in order to consume larger threats, becoming a shifting mass of mostly mouth and teeth, lined with large eyes.

Infi's body immediately starts transmuting eaten things into the opposite color-- White-- which neutrally occurs in geometric shapes. This transmutation "condenses" the Tar upon which Infi typically coughs it up as solid crystal polyhedrons.

Appearance-wise…

+ They don't really have "skin?" Infi is more of a solid "mass" of Black energy, which is naturally "fluid" but dense. So Infi's body is not hard, it's very soft. To the touch it has a smoothness like matte plastic? (Like how laptops feel, it's a vaguely glossy flat texture) But with pressure it will start to give like sculpting clay.

+ Their body has a subtle but solid rainbow glimmer "under the surface," which is best seen under a light source. It's very much like this, but not as stark. It feels more "deep" in the substance, and tends to show up more on body curves.

+ Their iris(es) are a deep charcoal gray, but also have subtle iridescence through the "threads" of the iris.

+ Their circulatory system IS visible; the blood is luminous white so that can be seen in more translucent parts of their body (esp. chest area). It does flow through their whole form and it's slightly thicker than human blood.

+ The "rib" things on their chest are indeed ribs (3 stick out clearly on each side); Infi doesn't have an entire skeletal system, it kind of "dissolves" out into hir limbs? So ze has a ribcage and spine mainly, and they are most visible where they are closer to the surface (and may protrude more with movement). The bones are silvery, almost metallic.

+ That "orb" in their abdomen is indeed a hollow sphere, half-in half-out of their body. It has an odd texture like plastic glass, where it is slightly pliable and won't shatter (although it can break). It apparently operates as a sort of holding-space for safely transmuted Tar? It's typically full of the same glowy white substance ze has as blood. The orb can harden over time but this is not beneficial; in extreme cases the whole thing can crystallize/calcify solid and it will have to be removed, in which case Infi will need significant recovery time to heal and then "form" another open space like that.

+ Infi's wings (should be six, not large) are not feathered, they're solid, just shaped with a 'feather' edge.

+ The wing/eye duality on their face and wings is a constant; Infi will always have one or the other (normally a face-eye and mouth-wings). Depending on what is where, this can be read as a visual indication of Infinitii's current state of mind. Basically:
1) No face-mouth, all wing-mouths: safe to approach. "Feels like a church" mode. Energy is softer, but massive. Carries "creative" Black energy; risk of falling into.
2) No face-eyes, all wing-eyes: approach with caution. Energy is much sharper, "holy fear" sort of vibe. Carries "destructive" Black energy; unpredictable.
3) Face and eyes on both face and wings: the most overwhelming vibe, carrying both sides of Black energy. Completely safe to be around though, if you can handle it.
A rule of thumb is:
Face-mouths show "negative" Black energy. Face-eyes show "positive" Black energy.
If Infi has no mouths on hir, ze is completely consumed by the creative side of Black and IS dangerous to be around, although it may not feel like it (that's the danger).
If Infi has no eyes on hir, that's practically Tar-mode! If that's happening Infi is VERY unstable and dangerous to be around, as ze is running on sheer shadow-stuff at the moment.

That's a lot of info; I apologize. Infinitii means a lot to me and so there's a lot to say; I hope this gives a clear enough general picture.

Again, wing it as much as you want to with this one; Infinitii is basically an oddly pretty thing that could turn into an eldritch terror at any moment and those lines can really blur!

(LATER ADDITION) Minor correction, I'm sorry--

Instead of a rainbow "glimmer" in the body/eyes it should be more of a subtle iridescence? Like what one sees in oil, or on bubbles. I've been thinking it over and that fits much more neatly into the feel I'm aiming for.

some things for today.

bit of a messy entry as things have been very messy/ tangled/ etc. lately and i apologize.
but the mess is showing us what needs to be healed, so, therapy is tomorrow and we will confront this.

laurie talking to leon while at work.
shaken and heartbroken by "tiger lily" being around, biggest fear was "does this mean I fucked up my job and the system is effectively saying 'you need to be replaced?'"
leon said he was terribly sorry, couldn't think of any better way to express that empathy. tried to reassure her that since she was still around she was still needed, even if for something different now. but laurie was distraught, "that was my ONE JOB and apparently I failed," existential crisis really.

laurie temporarily "switched back" to original anchor style, joined tiger lily in screaming at whoever was doing the job this morning. brutal, fierce intimidation and corrective guilt, etc. but all that old harsh language. "stop being so careless, you faggot, you'll fuck everything up as usual," etc. "don't be such a goddamned pansy," "straighten the fuck up, stop feeling sorry for yourself, you ingrate," etc. so it's good advice, very very good instruction, but it's all so rough.
whoever was getting yelled at was just kind of smiling with the "sacrifice myself for the greater good!" mindset. no emotion, trying so hard to annihilate their self, annihilate their free will, "become a slave of god," et cetera. this person was perfectly willing to starve to death with joy because "the voices told me to" and "when I die I'll go back to god" like they didn’t question it because "questioning means disobeying and disobeying means I am listening to my selfish corrupted ego," their ideal is "total unflinching servitude."

whole day was full of screaming floating voices
there was a child one, a little girl with messy blonde hair? short, not like marigold, and younger. (felt weirdly familiar? a visual introject of someone we know maybe?) kept whining and crying in an emotionally manipulative way. very bratty. knee-jerk reaction was to BEAT the child, "she'd better learn to shut the hell up," etc. appalled by this but at the same time, it was viewed with a neutral "that's the proper response" reaction too. upset that this had been internalized.
you're supposed to love and comfort and care for children, right? well what if they're being demanding little impudent brats? that's our problem with ourself. one of our inner child parts is an insolent little shit, who does nothing but cry for what SHE wants for no good fucking reason, and she KNOWS she's pulling our strings to do so. so the first reaction we get is, "hit the child, teach them to sit down and shut up, make them learn their place, teach them obedience and subservience, let them know that what they're doing is WRONG and it has consequences and it will not be tolerated."
which is what laurie was originally born from, and left, and which tiger lily now picked up.
but we still largely believe that. it's how we treat ourself at large. "beat the selfishness out of them." "bleed out your sinfulness." otherwise we're too selfish, just like everyone else said we were fated to be, right? when someone repeatedly tells you "you HAVE to be THIS way," or even worse, "you ARE this way, so stop fighting it," then no matter how much that goes against your instinct or proper right judgment, enough righteous repeated "facts" like that and you WILL become whatever they say you are, because you feel there is no other choice.
so we were convinced we were the scourge of humanity, and therefore we deserve to be flayed alive to atone for that shit, effectively.
I don't want to think like that anymore, but no other options ARE working currently.

we keep considering forced integration or systemwide annihilation again, this is bullshit

had a bit of an emotional meltdown at home, stress overload. ended up literally hitting ourself and breaking part of our exercise machine in our room. no idea why, just needed the pressure crash but were hit with sickening shock when something broke, knee-jerk terror and regret and fear, scared kid feeling. "why did we do that." very very afraid. anger gone entirely. emotions are confusing

only good thing is that ALL problem foods have been pinpointed and expressly forbidden, in a book, so that's tangible with words and pictures. we need that because otherwise we don't remember WHY something is forbidden and then some jackass says "well then it's okay to eat! we have to try! we can't let anything be bad!" it's an inability to understand that not every edible thing is going to be god's gift to mankind, some foods WILL hurt you, this kid literally cannot comprehend that. "it only hurt you because you're afraid/ angry/ low vibration/ etc. if I eat it it will be okay!!" and then they eat it, and then they switch out and don't feel the headaches and stomachaches and vomiting and all that shit. so they THINK it's perfectly fine. it's not.

jay overcome with rage for most of the morning. not sure why. a lot of it was because of the addictive/ eating voices, especially the child. but he was just icy rage.
that's out-of-character for him but his overlay was exact. he says it was "righteous anger" but we are still struggling with anger. it feels so evil. but he was pissed off at the addict voices, and the floating voices, and he kept telling them what they were doing was intolerable and he would not play into their schemes. furious but it was very very flat? like ice, again
he shouldn't be like this, he's supposed to be light and compassion and hope, offering that instead of ire, what's happening?

laurie was ghosting trying to help him out instead of genesis.
after all this over the course of the day, she looked back at tiger lily and said "did I really use to be that brutal?" and then expressed a surprised but hurt relief that she DIDN'T have to hold that old job anymore, because she couldn't bear to act so hateful like that anymore.
not sure what jay's reaction to that was.

nexus hanging around though. with tiger lily I think? bizarre how so many daemons are insect-esque.
laurie is avoiding dealing with hir just like rio is avoiding dealing with lethe for the most part.
in her defense nexus is creepy as shit but really, you NEED to work with daemons, that's the reason for their existence, to basically personify the shadow work you've been avoiding and which is now unavoidable.

we've never, ever had problems with forgiveness before, why now?
this is very very frightening.
is it tied to the paradox of, "if they don’t think they did anything wrong, there's nothing TO forgive"?
because that is a SELF-BLAMING thing because we believe WE ARE THE ONLY ONES TO BLAME, EVER, and I'm wondering if that's making us bitter and unforgiving because it makes us view ourself as inherently "bad?" like we're a bad influence on everyone. so "how dare we forgive ourself when justice has not been done," hence the constant need for punishment and atonement. we feel that we must PAY for our sins, but we also feel our sinfulness is limitless, therefore we are constantly paying this debt, therefore we CANNOT really "be forgiven" because we're basically shit and you "can't forgive evil itself" or some bullshit.
WHY DO WE THINK OF OURSELF THIS WAY???
HOW DID THAT GET INTO OUR HEAD???

reading a lot of articles tonight.
reading is so exhausting lately. like frustratingly, edge-of-tears exhausting.
it's very informative and VERY helpful, don't get me wrong, but it burns me right out.
I'm not sure if it's because we have to visualize everything or it wont register, or the huge amount of visual data to process, or what. but it's exhausting. must be done though.

some quotes…

★Grief clears pain, and we deny things so we don’t have to feel their pain
THE PROBLEM= I am legitimately convinced, I legitimately believe, that there IS NO PAIN

however. "you must say yes to suffering in order to transcend it."
this everything-is-sunshine-and-roses-all-the-time mindset is effectively saying NO to ALL pain.

interesting important paragraph:
"It’s crucial to have a transformation-ready heart when embarking upon activism. Otherwise, we can be setting ourselves up for pain that sticks to our bones as unreckoned grief until we can transform it.
Indeed, many who resist getting involved in causes greater than themselves, that cause one to empathize with the pain of others, may instinctively know they do not possess the inner alchemical capacity to grieve in order to transform pain and thus resist getting involved. Worse, they may deny that the problems exist in the first place so as not have to deal with what they might not be able to handle.
Ignoring our personal grief closes our eyes to love. Dealing with it opens our own hearts the world."
"Many might feel too overwhelmed by these difficult feelings in their immediate personal life to deal with more difficult news. But maybe this overwhelm is precisely because one has chosen not to deal with their heap of personal pain in the first place?"

this disturbed us when we read it because the phrase "they do not possess the inner alchemical capacity to grieve" felt like absolute damnation, i.e. "you're inherently flawed and you will fail." I hope that's not what they meant.
but it's scary because currently, it feels true. we HAVE become so cold, so resistant, so isolated lately, and it coincides with us being TOTALLY NUMB. we cannot figure out how to safely turn that off.

This is why Q allegedly pissed us off in 2012-- he was doing the SAME THING with this. Ignoring and denying pain and discomfort, due to "not being able to handle it." which we can understand now, even if it still makes us furious, because it's a mirror.
Ironically, at the time we knew him, we constantly insisted we were ALL too ready to face the pain. were we? I don’t know. that was a totally different timeline. Problem is, now we've buried our grief and pain and fear from the past because:
1) we are convinced that "only a fool trips on what is behind him" and "the past does not exist" therefore "don't be shackled to what is over and done with," and
2) the grief/ pain/ guilt/ fear is unbearable because it all screams "you are satan incarnate"

this needs to be dealt with.
we have NO IDEA how to express grief, let alone how to FEEL it in the first place.
we don’t know how to grieve, and that may be because we have two problematic mindsets of "you never lose anything, therefore grief is silly and foolish" and "the things you think you lost, or that deserve grief, are things you need to learn to smile and be okay with. no use resisting reality!"
so grief is utterly confusing and it feels utterly wrong and we cannot cry without feeling like the most selfish, manipulative, proud, abusive man on the planet.
crying, for us, feels like that stupid kid hiccup-sobbing because she wants something sweet. well fuck you. it's poison, you aren't getting any. man the fck up and stop being so hedonistic.
for us, crying is an egotistical control scheme, we've said this before
it's still a huge problem, apparently.
how do you express sadness if crying is viewed as NOT sadness?
how do you express sadness if you don't view sadness as a legitimate emotion?
I really should go see that movie again

a good paragraph:
"One way to discover the vital qualities we have denied is to notice what qualities we find uncomfortable or intolerable in others. Do I have difficulty receiving another’s anger towards me, even when responsibly expressed by them and in proportion to the injury I caused? Is it difficult for me to be present to another’s grief? Am I unable to bear witness and feel compassion for another’s feelings of helplessness, despair, and fear? If so, this might mean that I am denying my own experience of these emotions. Do I cringe and find judgment in others’ freedom, responsibly expressed? Am I jealous of my girlfriend’s good relations with her family? If so, I might use these uncomfortable feelings as guideposts for how to grow a better life for myself."

my favorite paragraph so far:
"When I treat a patient I can’t just boost their wellness if they have a serious disease. I also have to fight the disease. Similarly, we can’t just resort to loving feelings in the face of greedy, sociopathic disease run amok. We can’t just “love” these folks into order, or think they will disappear because we have a cozy life. This is like relying on sugar to fight an infection; it feeds the festering. We need bitter herbs; we need to embody some nastiness, some fierce love."
and hey laurie that's your real job okay?

and another.
“There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion." (Carl Jung)
"An integrative path can’t just give lip service to our difficult emotions, to our suffering, or assume the detached witness position, a posture which many New-Age types seem to try on in order to not have to dip into difficult depths (since difficulty and darkness are antithetical to their belief of “love”). In my experience, true integration as an embodied spiritual path must especially embrace being in the mud, like the lotus – the mud corresponds with the depths of our own bodies. For only by finding light in and from that darkness, through both experience and insight, can we rise up integrated. Our newfound wisdom, joy, compassion and passion emanate from the very conditions which embodied their opposite – in our pain and suffering. This union of opposites, and an openness and path through both, is an integrated spiritual path."
all that is deeply relevant to our system obviously.

oh and one more big one from a REALLY good article.
" Magical thinking is a normal faculty in children between the ages of 2-7. It is also the same brand of childish fantasy prevalent in many spiritual circles. Beliefs that all is light, all is good, everything happens for a reason (so we don’t need to deal with disappointment), only good comes from misfortune, or that pain and misfortune are simply illusions, are all examples of childish magical thinking. They deny the dark, the real pains of life. They also happen to be the theme of many spiritual “playshops.” Applying common sense and critical thinking to these new-age aphorisms, we discover that indeed they are not true, just as a childhood fantasies are untrue…
Reasonable adults understand magical thinking as a natural stage of development, which children grow out of. Yet, when adults ignore their psychological pain and revert to fantasy and other imaginary feel-good beliefs as an unconscious attempt to experience the inherent joy of a healed “heart" and mind, and in place of reason and logic, we have big problems. We get presidents that think hurricanes are the wrath of God. This, among other urgent realities needing recognition, denies the reality of global warming, for example, thereby impeding our progress towards collective wellness…
Disembodied, fantasy-based “spiritual” pursuits that do not respect reality, as well as investments in fun without cultivating our comprehensive adult gifts to the world, are fool’s gold. In fact, you can almost be guaranteed that the degree to which a person pursues magical thinking and unproven, fantasy-based, feel-good spirituality is directly proportional to their unreckoned-with psychological pain."
"…In most 'New Age' doctrines, it is considered “unspiritual” or “unevolved” to even consider the use of defensive force. A good little new-ager is apparently supposed to let people and parasitic beings walk all over them, steal from them, drain their energy, manipulate / implant them, and harm them in any manner they choose. Not only that, but they should also suppress any “negative emotions” so that they will be basically “happy victims” of such abuses. This manipulative, deceptive “teaching” comes from the false-light, and nothing could be further from the real truth."

to be honest this is all SO RELIEVING TO READ
because it's highlighting JUST HOW TOXIC all this new-age stuff ive been internalizing is
and no offense to those people, but I've honestly been choking that stuff down for years
and I KNEW it felt funny but could never figure out why, let alone why it was making me miserable
so I miust not judge, I must not condemn, I must just say, "this is not right for me," and continue down my own path

but
problem is, right now I am scared that "my own path" is FLAWED and that I've been "spiritually misled" all these years
I don’t know the doubt is huge
like I said, forced annihilation is still a contemplated option
because of that internalized belief stated in the last quoted paragraph
"all is good and pain is an illusion SO your shadow work DOESN'T EXIST uwu"
bullshit like that
sorry for the profanity but this anger keeps welling up because I'm SICK OF THIS.
and I want it to get out of my head and anger is telling it to do so. anger has guts.
anger just needs to be tempered down for heavens sake or its going to burn down the house and take us all with it
that won't help anyone.

and holy shit I just found an article that PERFECTLY DESCRIBED that uneasiness I've been feeling about this stuff
dude this is exactly what I was worried about
like I said, don’t judge, please, you fell into that trap too, those people didn’t know
but damn it I was so unsure and doubtful and scared to say no, this explains WHY
it also explains why I always felt so freaked out by the ""guides"" that would talk to me
the things claiming they were angels
et cetera.
they always had really really subtly awful vibes and I could sense that but it was glossed over so much
I don’t know I am just hoping SO MUCH that this article will show that I CAN let go of this control scheme
because it IS one and I have a right to be free of it
so I need to read this and get back to you later.

there is absolutely so much more to read but there is NO time tonight.
I didn’t even get to exercise today I hope I don’t pay for that
work again tomorrow still in the bad "I have a job so I cannot have a life" mode, very toxic
trying to overcome that, not sure how yet. but its an effort

good night

events as of late

thursday
tons of chaos synchronicity on the ipod
came out of NOWHERE, shocked me really, nothing had provoked this, but there it was
happened last week too.
included e.t., jojoushi, thunderbird, why i like you, jewels, open your heart, metaphorically yours, his sth themes, etc. practically all in a row
not sure what this means for me personally, it used to just be a spontaneous show of affection, now it feels strangely alien?
worried about that. could be a major fault on my end, closing off, fear?
"the forget you song" by frost* did play twice and the lyrics to that are far too relevant to the scary but hopeful atmosphere between us lately.

the night.
trying to heal xenophon's parentage AND heal the original "pink" event all at once
(almost exactly 4 years later btw)
very disturbed though, identity KEPT SWITCHING, could not stay white in that context
lost virtually all memory of event, even though there was no hatred in the actual thing.
PROVED that motivations have no bearing on the actual outcome. the actual outcome is ALWAYS painful/hateful.
helps to forgive self, because that wasn't our intent, i.e. we weren't doing this out of hate or violence, even if that's what happened in the end.
starting to seriously worry if we're going to have to permanently drop the whole idea of parentage for xennie, as it is feeding into way too much trauma
also worried sick about chaos, he's still as unstable as he was back in 2004, he cannot stay around if this persists

friday morning
TWO HOURS with everyone in the coregroup
chaos, laurie, genesis, infinitii, javier, markus, rio
infi toned down hir vibe a lot and mostly stayed in the background
or joined with others to boost the emotion level through the roof
4-person heart connections are incredible
and also just as painful as you would think (not in a bad way but there are usually a lot of tears nevertheless)
lots of sword imagery with those lately too. thats new.

laurie is the best kisser in headspace and I apologize for how trite that sounds, because it's a result of her untouchability/ devotion
rio holding too much shadow? didn’t feel like himself. markus completely broken open, emotional. it's like their personalities hit the opposite of what they were as kids.
javier trying too hard to show emotion? still trying to get a grip on "not performing" or guessing. warning him to be present.
adding more fuel to the fire on what we're supposed to do with chaos. could not feel close to him. wondering if our relationship really did shatter years ago and we're not going to be able to fix it? worried.

toying with the whole "gem fusion" idea from steven universe as it STRONGLY parallels the original "fusion/morph" phenomenon in early headspace days (2003-2006).
still unsure if metainomenai are still a thing or not, feel tied to old timeline. but people still reference them. (esp. laurie and lynne)
so we might have to consciously evolve it into a different, new-timeline context. like how outspacers all have to leave behind their source material in order to function correctly.
again, that's still our main concern with cz. he hasn't let go of his and it is poisoning him

friday evening:
laurie realizing that the "pseudohacker" kids, i.e. the ones who get tangled up in sexuality from confusion and not malice, always look for HER because she is the manifestation of everything they REALLY WANT:
purity, chastity, safety, strength, VIRGINITY.
laurie is UNTOUCHABLE by everything that hurt them,
she doesn't even UNDERSTAND it, she CAN'T, so she is PERPETUALLY SAFE

her talking to julie about this.
saying julie shold be a "beacon of hope" because she rose above BEING our WORST hacker, now she is a source of love and affection, PURIFYING that.
said we really do need to talk to ashen, especially. she still hates julie and we need to heal that, for both their sakes.
julie saying laurie was this "ideal" for the damaged ones, they all ran to her almost as a savior figure?
laurie said she didn't want to be seen that way, julie said she knew that, but the hurt ones still looked up to her as that

a note:
when enduring body connections (rare, I don’t like them at all, only happen in paranoid situations) the ONLY way to make them hack-free is to make them PAINFUL, as that OVERRIDES hackers.
however the pain almost automatically gets associated with LAURIE, so if she DOES show up you are literally in the clear, everything shuts down and stops, so you're totally safe.
that pain is the only context in which there is NO DISSOCIATION, NO FEAR, NO PHYSICALITY AT ALL
ironically though, that also OVERRIDES THE VERY PURPOSE OF ANYTHING BEING PHYSICAL. and thank GOD for that.
remember, EVERYTHING for me goes through the HEART. NO MATTER WHAT.
this is why hackers kept trying to make hearts "evil" for me, so that I COULDN'T have that purity anymore
shockingly the monsters are what healed it for me? the brutal, angry, painful ones, HEALED the sanctity of the heart, because their hearts were still solid gold and they wouldn’t let them be corrupted. (mainly I have to thank wreckage)

still questions about celebi???
NOT doing anything with her, but allowing things for her through me??
severely depersonalized, detached, but massive compassion/affection.
"precious thing," fragility, beauty
still no idea how this plays into dreamworld or our centralite. very very confusing.
still parallels to chaos all over. shocking, only two outspacers in central, both tied to green/blue, similar shapes, etc.
and no matter how much fear or misguided hate or anger comes between us, I don’t think I'll ever be able to stop loving either of them. it feels inherent, even if its smothered.
really wondering about that

friday night:
chaos and I talking to rio
visited him in his room.
saying he was "writing" on his computer, about US?
like the old days. adventures he wishes we had, things he remembered, etc.
said it was upsetting, he didn't want to just dream, he wanted to HAVE that again
I said we all did, and we could
hoseki couldn’t do this anymore though, but I could, I just needed to "meet them again"

asking "what happened with you," why did he suddenly seem so dark and bitter,
afraid of shadows? but they grew too big
opposite of markus's reaction really (rio got angry/hard, markus got scared/fragile)

lethe showed up
his energy is like a handful of knives
brief argument with infinitii.
(lethe talks through his stomach mouth remember)
getting tar out of rio???
massaging his shoulders, back. asked why. he said it was "loosening things up?"
the fact that it was a daemon touch was also significant I think
coughed it up, "too big to come out,"
rio's eyes suddenly widened, "soul forms," asked me to kiss him, that's how we used to as kids
infi said ze would instead, it would be faster,
rio hesitated briefly then shrugged and said "you know what, sure," no reticence
they did, infi must have hit him with an absolute wave, soul form was instant, rio seemed absolutely dazed

I cannot remember how infi got the tar out, I'm wondering if it was a washout,
either way it was all at once, like running a sifter through his energy field, "caught" everything stuck in it
tar was in the shape of a huge spiked ball? like a mace. hit the ground with a HEAVY thud

afterwards rio's energy field was NOTABLY lighter, softer

I DON’T HAVE A BEARD???
THAT WAS ADAKIAS'S THING??????
it's throwing off my overlay which is totally weird
my hair is also in a totally different setup, it does NOT have the celebi swoop-back, nor does it have the jayce-hair we have in the body??
no idea, just trying to fix my overlay, frankly I keep "dephysicalizing" into more of an energy state

laurie scared that I'm staying in White but no longer being the host???
system feels like things need to switch or alter again. tumultuous.
massive emphasis on rainbows for infi and I lately btw. stark black/white is being forbidden? notable.
possibly causing the whole "host shakeup" feeling as this is technically a huge shift for us, with how we've been slipping largely since taking these color roles.
also wondering how the black/white slots REALLY fit into the spectrum map? now that its 3d?
NOT COLOR SLOTS???? more like surrounding space.
this would help them both be RAINBOW slots instead of the black/white problem. really hoping so
also the map feels like brown is ALSO removed from the color-ring, moved to the middle?? connecting downstairs? unsure. would explain why spine has been a holy mess for so long, despite feeling absolutely irreplaceable in some subtle way

I've been feeling rather existentially screwed-up lately?
I think it's because we've been letting our well-being completely fall by the wayside. For whatever reason, we just stopped caring about how we treated the body at some point? I don't know if it was post-surgery or what... but the past few months have been rougher than most, from how it feels. Memory is collapsing, health is kind of failing, and honestly we're scared.
We're trying hard to take little steps of improvement, but right now we're also fighting a monstrous wall of depression, shame, and sabotaging self-abusive habits, so those little steps are being taken uphill through a desert at this point.
Still. We won't give up.

Therapy on Monday was INCREDIBLE, from a progress standpoint. I didn't write about it here because it was literally a 40-minute infospill on everything we've been reading lately about RTS and purity/rape culture and how all that ties into our past traumas and current struggles, etc. It's complex but it's VOCABULARY that we've been trying to find for YEARS, like literally we can FINALLY talk about this stuff because there are words that fit it now, there are other people who experienced similar things and who put thoughts together in coherent ways we never would have considered.... you get the idea.
So progress IS being made. It's just tricky lately.

I'm trying to start the dream journal and diet journal again. Both help immensely with grounding and 'non-derealization,' if there's a word for that... they help us get a grip on existence, "hey I actually exist!" That sort of thing. We are uncomfortable with traditional "rituals" but it does help to have patterns. It helps to have solid reference points, threads of coherence, etc.
See I KNOW what to do. Just, right now, it is going to take IRON WILLPOWER to break past these hackers and their programming and all the nasty neglectful habits we've let develop, the same way mold grows, the same way trees rot. We need to just start taking care of ourselves better, more actively.

Doubt is slowly fading. Slowly. But it's fading. I don't know how to express how amazing that is.
Maybe it's because I'm reviewing the archives, remembering who we are/were, but... the reality of us, the honesty of us, is sinking in again. The brightnessof us. Us, seperate from the performances and presentations we cultivated online. We're remembering. I'm remembering.
We're shaking off the dust, we're really trying to.

In the meantime, the past two days have still been oddly off? I've been fasting too much and then panicking because we get sick and eating bad things. It's unhealthy, but I'm aware that it's happening. I just need to make sure we start ACTIVELY using coping methods, grounding skills, etc. We have the help we need. We just need to use it.

Today feels... sad? Like it's an interim feeling, but it's also a calm-before-the-storm feeling... rather, it's like the smell of ozone in the air, potent and buzzing, as the wind whips around you and thunder is rumbling through the mountains, but there's no rain yet. There's no rain yet, and you're running to your car, or to your house, and for a surreal nervous minute you are wrapped up in that whirlwind of almost, in that malestrom of imminence, caught in the tension where there is no time... that's what it feels like.
It's scary too, in that sense, like there's judgment looming and I'm afraid we're running out of time. In any case we ARE using our time unwisely, and I really should ask Cel to help me with that, I know she would. She always helps.
In any case, God knows we need a thunderstorm inside right now. We need the sheets of rain, we need the violet lightning...
But we're getting there. People are healing. People are remembering who they ARE, not who they've been told to be, or who they've allowed themselves to thoughtlessly become.

I've had two dreams this week with Hoopa in them and in both instances ze was directly tied to me somehow. I'm taking that as a good sign too.

So. That's all I have the spoons to type right now. I've been archiving the entire archives onto my laptop, so that's taken many many hours, and several computer crashes. My back hurts and my wrists hurt and my ankles hurt but I'm kind of laughing because God, I can feel that there's blue sky up behind those clouds, I just have to fly.

Therefore I'm just going to toss some System-related art at you because creativity is always good and I love us enough tonight to share this sort of thing.

First is the NEW/current Spectrum Star flowchart, as the last one we did was last July and is now incorrect.

I'm still not sure how correspondences work between colors (I was mapping it out earlier this year), but I'll take the time to revisit that line of thought again soon, if applicable.

Second, also in response to this entry, here's the current work in progress of Central.

I didn't get the chance to touch up the old pictures, but I will soon.
This is also poster-proportioned. So hopefully one day I can get this literally printed as one and put up on the wall in our room. Now we're REALLY unignorable, haha.

Also, you may remember that this was originally supposed to be done in this style, hence the current no-eyes look.
I was experimenting with quotes when we first started... here's the ones we tentatively chose.

Javier, Leon, and Nathaniel unfortunately don't have much actual dialogue recorded in the archives, so they aren't in those sets.

Speaking of Javier and Nathaniel, I drew these quick headshots as references for a beloved friend (you know who you are) and I don't think they were ever shared here?

Javier is really difficult to draw correctly; I'll have to do another picture of him because that one isn't quite correct.
Nat looks a little "buggier" than he does in that sketch (that was just for antennae purposes really). Mainly his eyes are bigger.
Waldorf looks PERFECT though, I am so happy just seeing that picture. Her hair does glow, remember, that's what I was quickly trying to portray there.

I also did three pictures of Infinitii, to show hir "mode changes" roughly.

Basically:
1) No face-mouth, all wing-mouths: safe to approach. "Feels like a church" mode. Energy is softer, but massive. Carries "creative" Black energy; risk of falling into.
2) No face-eyes, all wing-eyes: approach with caution. Energy is much sharper, "holy fear" sort of vibe. Carries "destructive" Black energy; unpredictable.
3) Face and eyes on both face and wings: the most overwhelming vibe, carrying both sides of Black energy. Completely safe to be around though, if you can handle it.

A rule of thumb is this:
Face-mouths show "negative" Black energy. Face-eyes show "positive" Black energy.
If Infi has NO mouths on hir, ze is completely consumed by the creative side of Black and IS dangerous to be around, although it may not feel like it (that's the danger).
If Infi has NO eyes on hir, GET OUT OF THERE. That's practically Tar-mode. If that's happening Infi is VERY unstable and honestly the System should be concerned.
If Infi changes hir color to be WHITE instead of Black, I have no freaking idea what that's about yet but it usually means that serious business is going down.

And here, have some closeups of the pixels for the original three System daemons.

Infinitii, Lethe, and we-still-don't-know, aha. We almost got hir name once, but no dice.
Chocoloco, Dendrite, Nexus, and Triad aren't in this set because I simply haven't gotten around to drawing them out yet.

Someone did try drawing a scene from this *incident* though. Very sketchy, I don't know when it was drawn or who did it, but I am fond of it so here.

Markus on the left, Ryman and the 2012 Jewel ("Cupid") on the right.

What else can I toss at you.

Oh yeah, this entry is all avatars I've been making at recolor.me and they're really cute actually.

I'm still trying to verify/ finish finding the Spectrum Symbols I mentioned a ways back... Black, Aqua, and Sky are being elusive. Everything else feels fitting right now.
Oh yes, and we have a logo. I'm not showing it to you just yet, I want to digitalize it and make it look lovely. I told you I want to "illustrate" at least some of our life, ideally in a webcomic format, to share with people who haven't/ can't/ would rather not read through the 1000+ pages here. Yes there really are that many dudes, if you've read them all then seriously you deserve some sort of trophy, that is amazing. Also humbling. We owe you a hug or something if we ever meet you physically, really.

Last but not least, here's how many pixel people we have so far.

About 70 more to go, haha. *sobs*
Not really; we currently only need pixel representations for people who talk in Xangas. But who knows! We all want to talk more, and the channels are open to anyone who wants to chat, so. I'll probably have to do at least 20 more of these at some point. But I'm not complaining; I love everyone and I'm really happy to see the completed art.

On that note it is 1AM and tomorrow is Thursday, I totally forgot. We have TWO therapy appointments and we really should go jogging in the morning before we end up sitting in a car all day. Gotta take those small steps, like I said. Just get the good habits going again.

I love all you readers, invisible or not, and thanks for being there.
May you have a lovely lovely night, and dreams to match.

I'm updating on purpose and without crisis today because heaven knows we need more general, bright entries in here.

We've started keeping a dietary journal again. Those help a lot, because not only do they help keep track of things and therefore force coherence, but lots of people tend to write in them, and they actually end up being both very informative and very fun to look back on. Daily logs of ANY sort are incredibly beneficial; it's a much-needed bit of personally sincere order.

I'm considering going back and re-reading through 2013 and 2014, because they're mostly missing from active memory? I think this is the first summer that we're aware of having summer problems. Normally I guess we would just dissociate out, and I know the lockout happened during summer 2013 I think? Something did. Summers are strange and kind of dangerous. I still haven't finished that entry. I will in time. It's strange is all. Plus I dislike posting that sort of info because it's somewhat... not embarrassing, but close? I'm too aware of how my words can be twisted sometimes.

We're still working on Parnassus, and Rosewindow is talking again. We're rather fiercely removing the Tar influence from them both; it's been infesting things really badly, and it's very disturbing.
Either way we're now aware of what's not true, we can feel it, we just need to STOP and LOOK and FEEL what's actually happening. That's the quickest way out of hack attempts too, is to somehow force awareness in because then you KNOW and you can RUN. The only problem is when you get fronters in who realize they are in danger and still try to justify it, or force "good" into the situation in a desperate pacificistic hope that they can somehow transmute or inherently change the event. It doesn't work, it doesn't work that way. We're trying to spread as much safe info around with the drivers as we can, so they realize that no matter what their mindset is, the actual literal event is STILL DANGEROUS and they need to get the hell out of there.

This apparently happened on Saturday. I'm wondering if that strain is part of why we ended up in the hospital the next morning, haha. I haven't read it but I'm going to have to now. That's absolutely a new thing.

What else. Did we go driving today? No. But we were on the porch! We had to do all the pixel avatars for that entry, haha. Or at least an artist did, I didn't. Really cool that they all got done though.
The best thing about summer is being out in the sunlight. The worst thing is the overwhelming triggerness of it. We really do need to write about that. Ah well, in its own time.

I do want to focus on the positive from now on. Time is up in the air, now. How much do we have? We don't know. But we have to be careful, and we have to be smart, and we do have to make some sacrifices, and we do have to make a LOT more effort to take care of ourself, AND to do lots more creative work and share it. But that part's easy, haha.

All right it really is terribly late and I don't want to end up in the ER again so we're going for the night.

Jay wants me to write that Infinitii appears to be completely healed now and he's "belovedly ecstatic" over it. He says mention that Chocoloco still has that "bite" taken out of his side and no one wrote about that yet. Ryman's daemon's name is Styx or Lethe, Jay says he can't quite tell yet because it could be either? He also says that around 2AM on Sunday he was trying to sleep but the body was terribly sick, and Chaos was there and he was profoundly worried, but Jay could see him "more clearly than he has in years" probably? He's like really really happy about that. He also says to remind whoever in our System reads this besides him to update the dream journal for heavens sakes. And that's it.

Now like I said we need sleep. Good night!

god i am so scared and sick and nauseous right now i am so so so sorry.

laurie, i love you, i love you, i miss you so much it aches, please forgive me for being dumb and blind, in both senses, please pleae please somehow forgive me for hurting you like i have.
and no dont say i didnt. i mean the way ive plagued you. somehow. this calcification got you too. you got too close.
everyone got too damn close because i got too damn close and how didnt i SEE how lethal this was, why didnt i REALIZE what the truth was
why in the world was this EVER allowed to happen, or keep happening, or anything

god i feel like vomiting and sobbing and all these young voices in our heart are scared but they cant get through, this body is so tired its numb, i have to be up at like 8am tomorrow to do more errands for people but god i just want to sleep. damn it i am so tired i just want to sleep.
god bless e, thank you so much for getting that new anchor plush for chaos, you have no idea how positive a force that has been lately. geez he just clicked right into it, i've actually felt at home going to sleep lately even if i havent been remembering any dreams, even if i cant stay asleep due to stress, even if i've been sick for the past three weeks. i can say, with a glow in my heart and a fierce sort of raw gratitude, that for at least ten minutes every night i don't care about all that waking pain because look, look at this, feel this, this is the realest thing i've ever known and it's STILL HERE.

i just spent like... four hours trying to make a coherent timeline of our old entries here, for publishing/therapy purposes, and then the computer ate it.
but i keep thinking about the "horror club" episode of SU, with lars. the whole poltergeist thing. i know i emit, i have to be careful. but when i'm this frazzled i wonder if this poor laptop feels it too. i dont want to hurt people but god how do i deal with this, do i have that luxury?

it's all this damn job, it's hilarious and ridiculous and aggravating but it's true. i looked back in our archives and i didn't realize how bad the job stress was until i noticed that's when the massive memory gaps began. i mean i don't personally remember 2006 either, or anything before... but there aren't even records for most of 2007. 2008 got so bad because everything boiled over.
i dont want a repeat of that. god i dont want a repeat of that.
except maybe i do.
shoot me in the head for saying this but MAYBE thats why god is putting this job stress in front of us, MAYBE he's trying to SHATTER THIS DAMN INTERNAL NUMBNESS THAT DAILY LIFE HAS CAUSED because MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, IF LIFE BECOMES TERRIFYING AND STRESSFUL ENOUGH maybe just maybe i'll run to laurie at the end of the day.
just maybe, maybe, i'll become too homesick to lie to myself about it anymore.
this isn't jay right now. i'm too old. young but old. this is cannon mostly. essentially.

there was a hack today
i know there was another last week or something i dont know
things are so blurry
theres a lot of pain and blood but nothing real bad. we're too tired.
sugar tried to do the atoning but god the pain is awful, we're so tired of atoning already, the people who force us to do this DONT CARE
i need to discuss that with the therapist.
we all do.
2012 was a nightmarish mess and maybe some of 2011 was too but i don't remember. i'd have to go look. the looking is revealing so much it's upsetting.

i haven't seen infinitii in weeks and god i miss hir.
ze's still in my heart and i can feel hir there but there's a distance still and that is awful, so awful.
chocoloco has been talking to me a lot lately. he's good at his job. he's fierce. but he has a side like infi too, that surprised me incredibly when i saw it.
but this DAMN NUMBNESS IS IGNORING THE IMPORTANCE OF ALL THAT SO IT CAN PERPETUATE THIS ABUSIVE DISSOCIATION.

and then i wonder.
why. why the hell is this still happening to such a shockingly persistent extent? is this a corrupted survival method? have we asked that before?
that's why we're scared of the job, this is bad enough already, we don't know if we CAN have a social fronter out for 8 hours a day anymore. we can try to force it, sure, but the burnout from the last job was bad enough (oh the JTHM days) and really, we do not want that repeating, we don't

i want a job. we want a job. but a GOOD one. one that won't completely overwhelm us like this.
we're allowed to have a job we can function at, right? are we being too demanding? just because we have "special needs" or whatever the heck this is

god i am so tired.

tomorrow just... needs to happen. we'll do our best with it. and THAT is the key word, "we," why is it STILL SO DAMN HARD to overcome the crushing self-hatred that follows that word?? why???
ignoring them won't stop the trauma, you know
look at today, that was horrific, she keeps coming out and using you, chasing away your protectors isn't going to do SHIT
calm down
NO. NO I WILL NOT CALM DOWN, WE CAN'T AFFORD TO BE CALM RIGHT NOW JAY,

earlier today i decided i need to burn. as in i don't want to be cupcake sparkles and white clouds anymore.
i want to be a white fire. i want my edge back, i want the fire that jewel has, i want the sparkle that laurie has, on the blades of her axes. i want to be INDOMITABLE in my light because THAT IS THE TRUE ME and I can FEEL it. Who in the world redefined me, and when? I know why; we all know why, it's the most obvious thing in the book.

YOU CAN'T LET THAT HAPPEN ANYMORE. AT ANY COST.

Jewel is doing tons of Parnassus work and that is great but it's starting to feel slightly hysterical. Like she loves it, and there's so much, and she WANTS to work on it all, nonstop, but now there are "deadlines" and she's feeling time press down on her neck and she doesn't like that.
Creativity cannot flourish in that environment.

We won't give up, we can't give up, I just want to sleep, it's 1AM, why can't our days be like this, why is there this damn wall,

.

I was going through the archives earlier and i came across a xanga entry from 2012, the awful one where 'i' almost killed myself and xenophon was watching us bleed into the bathtub and i dont remember what happened
but
laurie. her words on the page.
even with everyone else talking with her, she was there. brutal. real. and compassionate in her unflinching role.
dont let your color fade laurie, they're trying to take it from you, TAKE IT BACK, glow like the violet knight angel you are, please.
we all love you. i love you. jay loves you. i think even jewel loves you in a way. every real core who has ever known you has loved you.
okay?
and its the real sort of love, not the stupid lie they keep trying to force on us now.
no. i love you okay? i love you standing with my arm in one hand and a knife in the other. i love you standing in front of the mirror with a knife to our throat. i love you no matter what, i dont have many memories left but damn it you were my life, you are my life still, you are my everything and you always will be, i have nothing left in life but you. nothing but you. and i dont care because that is all i will ever need. just you.

jay loves you too
beneath this choking snow they're burying him under (and it's not even real snow), he loves you brilliantly, like a star. i know. i can tell.
don't give up on him, please. i know he's softer than i ever was or will be, i know he's delicate and so nice and he smiles like a pink sunset and he's so fragile compared to me, yeah i wasn't like that, i was broken glass but he's a rose. i know you need to handle him softer, compared to me. you're afraid of bruising or hurting him. i know. here's a thing... don't be. please.
i know jay. well enough from what i've seen. more like what i've felt as a core. what burns in me and what burns in him by extension. it's the fire in all of us cores, lit way back with the jewels, unquenchable. okay?
jay is a snowflake but he burns. he is a flower but he has thorns. something like that. jay is white fire, like he said.
he looks delicate but if you touch him you'll tell, he's got a plasma giant going off in his heart. he's a sun, he's a whole freaking supernova. contained in a glass rose. a cute little thing. but he's awe-inspiring, when he gets his head on straight.
keep it straight. keep him strong. protect him but don't ever, EVER mollycoddle him, or underestimate what he's fighting. ever. EVER.
the same things that were after me are after him and you know he won't fight like i did. that's his weakness. he can't pull out the brass knuckles or anything like that. he can't turn into a fiery spit of a maniac like i was on my bad days. he just... glows. indomitably, sure, but he doesn't fight. he should. damn it he SHOULD.
teach him to fight. TEACH HIM TO FIGHT. go stand next to him and do that cheesy anime thing where they teach each other swordfighting and you have to show him how to hold the weapon. make him blush like a schoolkid, i don't care. but then WATCH because THAT'LL CATCH THEIR DAMN ATTENTION AND THAT IS WHEN YOU NEED TO CUT THEIR DEMONIC ASSES DOWN. OKAY???
Cut them down. All of them. ANYTHING that tries to touch you or him. CUT EM DOWN with my grace if you need it. Cannonfire all the way.

He loves you. He adores you in a way more honest and complete and compassionate than I could ever muster. I was never soft enough to be that powerful. And guess what? You are. You ARE. He's made you that way and I will never be able to thank him enough for that. Okay?
Those evil bastards are bastards because they see that as WEAKNESS and they WILL try to hurt you, YES, YOU TOO, they will try to hurt you BOTH for it, they WILL try to corrupt you.
They can't. That's the secret.
Jewel says it's like the original Delphi story. "You can't corrupt something that pure." No matter how you twist or mangle something that bright, it's going to snap back into place unharmed when it's all said and done. I don't know how but I can promise you that. Somehow.

Jay is our current "Jewel" and he loves you and I love you and I love him like a brother and I don't ever ever ever want this hell happening to you again, this hell I went through and feel now.
I don't know what else to say. This song has got the right idea, "I don't have the answers." What is this? Mesita. Distance.

When this song was first heard, there was a great deal of distance in the heart. Now, not so much. Now, the distance has been transcended by the realization that there was never any "distance" at all-- just a wall. Just a perception of a mile, when there was only an inch, if anything.

I'm tired. At least people are coming out and talking. That's nice.
I like that. I like when headspace people come out and talk, I like you people, you're nice.

There's so much life in us, God we just want permission to live this all the time, well the answer is "you do have permission" and I guess the real question is then, what's stopping us?
Fear. Fear of... rejection? Shame? Fear that we "can't have this." Fear that we can't have love or joy. We can, we can, we do...

I want to go UP into headspace and just drown in this love with everyone, that is all I want out of life...well, that and the Leaguework, my heart is saying; that, and our "prophetic mission" or whatever it is... sharing with the world. Teaching? Getting out there and glowing.
But every night, every night, we can have this, just this, just us, completely. Balance. We can have this. And we can share this in the morning light too, we can bring this into our day, we need to really. That's the key to getting the most important stuff done.

The body is shutting down. It's too cold and jittery. Can't do anything about the future until it gets here, so stop worrying.

Good night everyone, for the record.

notes from book i was reading tonight.

souls with great potential influence= great risk of collective contamination,
but also great ability to heal collective fears for ALL

evil is the absence of love= darkness is the absence of light
hatred therefore feeds evil. you cannot heal an absence with more absence.
i remember visiting ryman's room to talk about this with him.
ryman's daemon noted this as significant. his halo lights up. "I am not an absence"?
crept off into the shadows (again). I made a comment about anglerfish, creepy but with lights?
not an exact similarity but the raw concept was familiar. like some of the things that live in such a huge oppressive dark will look terrifying, but they can still have bright lights as part of them.

remember the deviolei too
"temptation" attribute used as a virtue?? or at least, for good. knowing that temptations were NOT license to sin, but only the opportunity to sin, and therefore ALSO the opportunity to FIGHT for the good. not running from temptation, but not instigating it either-- BUT they were then able to show OTHERS this flipside? like, they would ideally show up not to make you slip up, but to actively teach the tempted TO resist their temptations, not malevolent at all. big relief from the floating voices, geez. but jewel monsters are always great.

LOTS of lessons from that book anyway. very inspirational, just what we needed today.
life feels like a movie again, gotta stay in the vibe.

wondering about ventrium lately. can he be reborn? new anchor?
still feels "wrong" though looking to bring him back; STRONG feeling of "he needs to be purified first."
not sure why i keep wondering about him. probably just the shock of such a sudden, awful death, and his innocence.
i think he's the first person in the system who died and didn't come back.

also I love e so much, I hope ze's doing well today, god that last entry just tore at my heart in both good and bad ways.

last night (like 2am really). just writing this down because it was very funny.

freezing cold, going to bed. joked "why didn't I fall in love with a fire person too"
genesis joked about victini, back in 2010, never panned out. shrugged and said "you have no one but yourself to blame"
chaos and I wondered about xennie for a minute, with her steam
then I called javier in (fire boy) and he decided okay cool, I'm fine with this
put his arms around me from behind and GOOD LORD THAT KID IS WARM
so he slept in our room that night, laurie's totally cool with him too, which is great

the 50 lemons joke with laurie
(you can't eat 50 lemons. [why not?] you'll die. [of what?] lemon overdose. [hmm.])
decided to only eat 25. she gives me three. I'm sleepily ecstatic. "three is good"

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

@ 12:40 am

Oh my lord I am so glad we made a Tumblr blog for the Leagueworlds. It is the most uplifting thing for me, it's a godsend.
I think in concept clouds, usually, or data banks. Like... I get "packets" of info. I get "vibes" more than I get solid biographies, or concrete descriptions. It makes it hard to put things into words, but I know, I know what I would write about, once I figured ot how.
For example, just now, going through that blog's tag for Oneircia. That story is old and technically "finished" but the middle ground is empty. And yet... that blog is a testament to its richness nevertheless. When I see something that resonates with it, I know. And I put it there. So then suddenly, scrolling through that personal stockpile of abstract fact, it becomes easier to write. I now have something concrete to work FROM. Does that make sense? When it's all in this head/heart alone, it's tough to externalize at times. So I look for reflections. Kind of like the Subeta avatar set we have for the System, really; drawing them outright would have been near-impossible because I can't get it to translate that directly. But that generator gave me a means to "build" from my intuitive knowledge, an image that matched well enough. Same with the Leagueworlds.
It's getting easier, the drawing, little by little. I'll never forget the one day I sat down and sketched Bromeleice for the first time since I met her, and somehow I managed to draw her face shape EXACTLY, all on my own. It felt amazing I couldn't stop smiling; I had translated her likeness directly, and I didn't "screw up," and I didn't need outside aid (however helpful it may be) for once. Same thing with Deropélé; the first time I really tried to draw him (since age 9 or so), I did so digitally, and it just... turned out perfectly. It's just a sketch but every time I look at it my heart just warms up.

I am so happy though. I can't express just how much, how relieved I am, to have rediscovered this glittering bit of joy that I built, that reflects the grandeur and magnificence of the universes we shelter inside, however slightly. It's exactly, exactly what I need right now.

Today was... tricky? Strange.
Woke up at 9 and went to church, still foggy outside which was nice but it was brutally windy and cold. We sang in the choir for the first time in weeks, as it didn't hurt to do so anymore post-surgery. Then we went home and things got problematic.
Whenever the mother and grandmother interact there seems to be an explosion. It's not nice. People yell and throw things and fight and verbally bite at each others' throats. I can't tell you exactly what happened or when, all I know is that at one point the mother ended up cornering me in the kitchen while we were trying to eat safely for once, and talked and talked and talked and talked until we were practically sobbing over the stove and wishing she would leave but she wouldn't. She followed us, she does that.
I know she just wants someone to talk to. I know she appreciates that we listen. But we're a person too, we're more than just a body to throw words at. We LIKE silence, we cannot HANDLE your constant orders and whining and obsessions, it's too much NOISE.
She keeps talking about building a winery on her mother's homestead, nevermind that she doesn't even own it. She kept bringing up boxes and boxes of movies from the cellar and wouldn't stop telling me what they were, I'm sorry but I really do not care about the hundreds of VHS tapes you refuse to throw away, please give me some peace for five minutes.
Please stop forcing your likes and wants on ME and then being offended and angry when I say I want to build my OWN future. All my life you tried to make us a carbon copy of you. And even now, when we're finally learning what it means TO be ourself, you throw this at us, this and everything else, all the shame. I don't want to talk about that right now, not again.
All she talks about is wine, and movies, and Hollywood, and romance, fucking romance, she told me the other day that she only "moved back in" (again) because her boyfriend did something to her that made her want to "hurt him really badly." Then she smiled at me, that awful sort of proud but sour smile, and said "you'll see, that's what it's like in a relationship!" And I just turned my back to her and clenched my fists in silence because NO IT'S NOT.
And God knows it took me a LONG time to fully accept that realization, thanks to your constant messages of paranoid loathing as we grew up.
She never felt like a mother. We never associated her with the word. She purposely presents herself as young and scatterbrained and hyperactive and really we feel like we have to be a parent to her, to this day, she feels like a rebellious little sister. And that's FINE, that's fine for her, if she's happy with it. Go chase your dreams for once, go buy the property and build a house, go be a movie star or a model, go BE HAPPY, for God's sake I WANT to see you happy for once in your life but you keep getting in your own way and relishing in the pity. And I refuse to feed into that mindset anymore.
Is this bad, saying this? I want to say it TO her, I want to tell her she has my support but I will not support her childish behavior. I want to help her without her using me to do all her work FOR her.
And sometimes I want her to NOT TALK ALL THE TIME, sometimes I want her to STOP TOUCHING ME, I really really want her to RESPECT ME and stop calling me a freak but refusing to acknowledge my troubles and being altogether two-faced about every interaction she has with me/us.
She's a great person at heart but really, really, she is difficult as all hell to be around, and I'm sorry.
We want to be happy too, damn it, even if our happiness doesn't match yours. Stop telling us we can't have that.
I don't want to gossip or say bad things about people but the therapist says we HAVE to let this stuff out, we have to express our needs, we have a right to feel safe, et cetera. I just can't shake the guilt, it's hard to stand up to people when you can't figure out where the line is between them and you, and their resulting rage and anger makes you second-guess everything you just said.
So I was very stressed out today. Depression and anxiety got really bad, I couldn't get any music written, I couldn't read, I was exhausted and she gave me no peace and when she finally left I was a shambles of sorts. Plus I was freezing cold to the point where it was making the body cry from the feeling of utter helplessness and tiredness but that's over now. We're sitting down and trying not to feel guilty over it, we're warm enough, tomorrow is therapy, we're listening to League music, things feel better.

On that note, I've been writing a lot of music lately, or at least trying to get back into it. I use "I" very loosely there; I have very little recollection of any composition but the music's happening. It's frustrating; digitally we only have so many sounds to work with, but we try.
I know the most progress was made on "Spaceman Dreams," Margaret's tentative theme from Halcyon Days. It's a simple but cute theme that we tried to use only synthesized sounds for, almost like a chiptune. Maggie wants to be an astronaut and I associated that sort of synth sound with space travel as a child, thanks to educational vids in the 90s that always had such sounds in the background. Her friend Cherie's theme, "Sunshine," is also cute/simple, but it's slower and feels more like waking up early in the summer with sunlight on your face. I'm trying to use more muted sounds in it, but still bright.
In any case I've been trying to work on that series more lately, as it was one of the three that got hit the hardest by the Tar-- disturbingly, and horribly, it was mainly targeting the children in the League (destroying innocence) and now that we can see that, those of us working with the League are taking extra steps to heal that.
Halcyon Days is interesting; it's one of those stories that ended up having a deeper sort of hidden lesson, and it's one of those worlds that hasn't told us the deepest parts of itself yet. The more I learn of it, the more it tugs at my/our heart, and really I cannot wait until the day it just opens into light and becomes instantly beloved, totally, the way Dream World and Parnassus and Mage Angels all did.
Mage Angels though, God knows I love those girls, damaged though they are. I have no idea how they grew so much; they started out as a "dark magical girl" idea in 8th grade and Monika was the first "negative" character I'd ever met. But now... there is this strange, powerful affection in my heart for them, for everyone in that story. I'm focusing on their music too. I'm working on what might be their "theme song" and I adore it but I'm not sure if it's theirs, you know. Some songs start out as one thing and settle in as another.
Megan's current theme is still my favorite song atm; she's a bit of a club kid so I tried to catch that feeling of energy and confidence in it. It also has a "callback" bit to a melody I'm currently thinking is Monika's motif? It would be fitting, as the two are tied in purpose, but we'll see.
Leila's theme ("Snowblind") is really cool so far, no pun intended. I'm trying to balance the "winter" sound of bells and ambience with the biting grunge edge she carries beneath all that fluff, like a rusty knife edge-- small and precise, but ragged. Like the threat of ice beneath snow.
I'm working on themes for Monika, Kaeto, and Izephel, and need to start one for Nikki. But you see what I mean. I love them, I love this, music is such a joy for me/us when it comes to the League; it's one of the few ways we can catch the "vibes" Jewel can't quite put into words.
Rosewindow is feeling like it wants to talk to me really badly, so tomorrow (or Tuesday, depending on how much therapy changes our focus) I'll see what they have to say. Anu's theme is one of the most beautiful things we've ever channeled (Mr. Sandman's theme is too!), and her lullaby keeps looping in our head. But that story never revealed its true plot to us, not yet. I think it's fixing to. That's exciting.
(And of course Parnassus is always just waiting in the wings in one way or another, thank you Genesis.)

I know last night I said I would write more about yesterday's topics but I can't get into that mindset right now. I'm too shaken up and tired; I need to heal and recuperate first before I can properly hold such light. Right now, any effort to do something "good" is being met with floating-voice jeers and hatred. Earlier when we were depressed they told us flat-out to "kill ourself" because we weren't worth being alive or something. Surprisingly the fronter at that time didn't let that lie get to them; they knew it was cruel and false and they SAID so. Even if they were still depressed they at least realized that it wasn't a damnation of their character, and they still had a right to live, just as much as everyone else, even if they were miserable at the time. They claimed their right to have happiness and to reach for it, and rejected the claim that "everyone hates you and you should die." That's brutal emotional manipulation and it is NOT TRUE. We've heard enough of that. And also, everyone doesn't hate us. We love ourself, and there are actually people outside who love us, too. So those floating voices are losing their power, which they only had through force and fear anyway.
Speaking of, the Tar hackers are almost entirely powerless now, too. That is... the gratitude is huge. But that doesn't mean we're safe yet. The Plague can still take advantage of "obligatory" and numb mindstates, using blankness. We're watching for that now, and really it's easy as cake compared to the Tar, plus all our experience helps, and our fighters like Wreckage and Sugar and Eros and Laurie and even Julie refuse to let anything past the radar. So we're doing better.
I'm just pissed because they're still targeting Genesis and I swear I will tear those hackers' teeth out with a wrench if I get my hands on them. Gen hasn't healed like I have-- or maybe that's unfair to say. I don't carry trauma, that's my job. Genesis doesn't have the bizarre luxury of being able to shatter and reset whenever the terror gets unbearable. That happened to him once, a long time ago, and everything after that is still stuck with him.
I love him, I love him, he's my best friend no matter what, and I will do anything it takes to help him with this. I will stand between him and hell itself if I have to.
Laurie's been pushing for a Xanga session lately and I agree, and the blocks that were preventing that before feel like they're gone enough. We'll set this topic then, if Genesis wants to put it in writing. Otherwise I'll just talk to him all day tomorrow, as I always do when we're on the road.
God I have so much to say about him, too. No time tonight. That's a bad habit, one learned from childhood, pushing love and joy and wonder to the last second. We're allowed to give solid time to our own heart, you know. It's not stupid, it's not selfish, it's not "childish." It's childlike, and that's a very good thing. So really dude, next time you're up this late, let poet mode happen for once. It is the exact opposite of a waste of time, and it is nothing to be ashamed of.

Someone tried to hack us tonight and we saw it was empty but it was so loud, so angry and vicious and intent to hurt, it was scary. But then we remembered that even if our numb side doesn't care how much we get hurt, there are outside consequences to our being hurt now, there are other people who care, and guess what? We don't want to let them down. We don't want to give up and give in when we need to be a pillar, a beacon, a hope-bringer, a rainbow. So we said that, and the hackers disappeared. Immediately.
It takes guts. It takes knowledge too, and that can be scary, because we're not always sure what is "us" and what is outside, what is "someone else." The confusion is more lethal than anything, I think. We'll discuss that with the therapist next. It's important.

The girl who wrote that really pained entry about 2 weeks back has been out in therapy, she's getting self-aware to a larger extent, she may stabilize into a name and/or face for sure soon. But... one thing stood out to me, last week, the therapist said something about our System's progress as a whole and that voice ended up admitting "I think I'm sabotaging everyone else's efforts" because she was afraid? I'm not sure about what, I'll have to ask her. But that was lucid. For a negative social of all people, to realize that their actions had harmful consequences for others, and to want to change that... that is new, and wonderful, and a huge light of hope.

This is still the most calming song we have ever written, thank you Glissando I assume. It is the exact sound of summer in our backyard, with sunbeams dripping heady and soft through the dark green trees, walking barefoot in the grass below and scenting flowers in the light air. Every time I hear it, it relaxes me instantly, and makes me smile. So there you go too.

I'm getting cold again and that weird lingering sadness won't go away, so I'm just going to get this body to sleep. Minty's concerned so she told us to keep Diamondheart (that white Care Bear she assigned to the Cores) around at night too, said his job is to ensure a little extra protection and peace.
Chaos is always there, always. So is Laurie. Genesis is finally sharing the bed as well, after us bugging him about that for months, if not years.
I've been feeling surprisingly close to MARKUS, of all people, lately? The Outspacers in general are getting a huge significance boost so I'm paying close attention to that when it hits. Ryman has been kind of distant, but I did get two things out of him-- one, that "Rio" is a nickname he likes more than his given name (hence no one being able to tell which was his "real name"), and two, that his distance as of late is thanks to his daemon. Apparently Ryman's fine with casual morbidity, with his dark fascinations and all, but when his own vices come creeping into his room on spider legs, that's where he draws the line. Which is odd. He's a terrifically brave kid, but he has this sort of naive edge that can keep him at a distance to the true danger of things. His vice is Sloth because his challenge is Void and he's avoiding looking at it... or his daemon. That's all I know about his situation right now.
Ironically, Markus-- the kid who is secretly terrified of his inherent shadows and has trouble sleeping over it-- has been talking to his daemon, with what I hope are helpful results, whatever that means for them. But maybe that's thanks to his old proud teenage confidence. Back then it was a brazen cool-kid vibe that blinded him to his own fears just as well as Jewel's fire did for her. Now though, it's settled into a sort of raw hope, and that's powerful. Maybe that's why I've been feeling a resonance with him recently. Hope's been working overtime.

Sleep. Sorry. We're infamously awful at concluding things... and staying on topic, arguably.

As always, genuine love to anyone/everyone reading this.

(commissioned from opalborn)

shadow-dipped hands swallow the light;
palms cup an abyss of darkness
my eyes bleed to look upon you,
but your touch seals the cuts, heals
the wounds

the haven of nightfall, I can hide
in the spread of shadows, from all
but you -- my confidant
whose understanding pierces me
to the core, achingly gentle

I whisper to you all my secrets
vast as outstretched wings, you hold up
the mirror without condemnation,
with ceaseless, insistent forgiveness –
my endless respite

so often a surprise, you show me
new ways of seeing --
kaleidoscopic changes in perspective;
you lay me open
to new expansive vistas

and hold me together
in the aftermath of revelation –
jewel-tone truths set with diamond dust,
maelstrom in the darkness
and the tranquil eye within

truth can be a weapon –
I know you are danger and risk;
I am vulnerable in our intimacy –
but in your gentle hands
I am willing to risk your honesty

compassion can cut razor keen,
precise as your demands, my
buckled knees; infernal seraph
singing with a thousand voices
one solemn molten song

your wings embrace me, smother me:
I have never been less alone

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

(author's first draft, which i still love dearly:)

shadow-dipped hands swallow the light;
spangled palms cradle an abyss
my eyes bleed to look upon you,
but your touch seals the cuts, heals
the wounds

blanket silence, a plush absorption
heavy velvet folds, a conflagration
of softness -- hold me
until I am lost in you
and made whole again

black hole blaze, jasmine
on the night air, you are sweetness
like falling stars
and the amnesia of downy feathers --
my endless respite

the glint of stars scattered
in endless night, pastiche
of dreams aswirl and blurred
in jewel tones, set with diamond dust
amid the stellar waltz

and echoed in the pastel whispers
of every bubble more fragile
than a breath, than a sharp word;
a thousand wings cover and uncover
your eyes, stern and principled

you are the sword's edge,
righteous crystalline resolve:
all excuses char and crumble
in your fanatic gaze
there will be no settling here

compassion can cut razor keen,
precise as your demands, my
buckled knees; infernal seraph
singing with a thousand voices
one solemn molten song

your wings embrace me, smother me:
I have never been less alone

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

my response to the first poem draft...

"Let me see what specifics I can give for adjustments:

"blanket silence, a plush absorption" and "amnesia of downy feathers" are too soft, if that makes sense. I guess hir comfort is more of an internal thing-- it's a knowing that ze can be trusted entirely, despite any fear. It's a sense of absolute calm against all odds, while still knowing those odds full well. "conflagration of softness" works well for that.

"black hole blaze" and "you are the sword's edge, righteous crystalline resolve" honestly feel more similar to someone else I know! Infinitii is less sharp, less focused in that sense. Hir intensity is more broad, quiet, and somewhat unsettling, something that elicits a feeling of humbling awe. It's not like seeing thunderclouds on the horizon, instead it's like the feeling when you 'realize' a secret undercurrent in a book: a sudden coalescing of comprehension, of sensing something big and terribly important yet hidden.

The fourth and fifth stanza don't exactly fit as a whole; mostly, the dreamlike imagery doesn't match. The line "in jewel tones, set with diamond dust" feels right though.

Lastly I feel I should add that Infinitii has a share of 'weakness' too, being so tied to subconscious presence-- as a great deal of what is held there can be outrageously harmful if not managed prudently. That turbulent core of hir existence gives hir a deep empathy, and an unfailing forgiveness, for both hirself and anyone else that may fall prey to that same shadow-self. That awareness and acceptance of hir own share in that inescapable vulnerability also gives Infinitii a vibe of subtle care and delicacy (not fragility).
To quote a friend, they put this juxtaposition into words better than I could:
"...The way you talk about Infi makes me think of the feeling I get sitting in a treetop, far above the sounds of any traffic, swaying gently with the motion of the breeze. There’s bone-deep joy permeating everything about the feeling and hir, accompanied by this sense of wonder and true gratitude to even be able to witness something (someone) like that. Infi feels simultaneously agelessly wise and childishly...gleeful? I can’t seem to find the right word- just full of... wonder and love for everything all around. Ze’s impeccably balanced between these two things I view as separate, and there’s a beauty in the joining that I never would have seen if I had never known of Infinitii."

Just mentioning that as it is a strong part of Infi's personality, and I know I didn't quite emphasize it in the original description I sent to you.
I hope that all helps?"

I find it both very amusing and oddly sad that I've not written poetry about Infinitii yet.
I commissioned a poem for hir, yes, from a beautifully talented individual, and it was (is) sublime. I won't downplay that at all.
But... for me, poetry only happens when all my walls are down, when my mind stops trying so hard and just melts into drops of glowing language. It's an outpouring of genuine emotion and gratitude, unhindered by shame programming or self-doubt. And it hasn't happened for Infi yet.
Part of it is definitely the frankly unsettling vastness that ze radiates. It's difficult to write something structured, however loosely, for a being that feels like that. But I love it. I love the strange edge of holy fear all my beloveds carry about them, like razor-blade halos. Infi just wears it the loudest.
I think the biggest reason this upsets me, though, is that it betrays a different sort of fear: a fear of being so divinely broken-open as to let poetry happen, in any shape or form. Why? Simple, it's my oldest dread: the fear that my own emotions and experiences are inherently false, wrong, misguided. So I crush my own creativity, still unable to surrender to freedom, because my past told me that freedom was the road to damnation.
You know what? To hell with that. Pardon my language, but really. I've seen damnation, I've tasted it, I know what it feels like. That isn't it. This isn't it.
After everything I read today... let me post that here, actually. It had an impact.
"You believe that God is one? You believe that? Great. Demons believe it, and give it a more proper response than you do. At least they tremble when they hear it... their piety far exceeds yours."
That is so terribly true it shook me. I've known since 2011 that the Tar and Plague, despite their malice, operate by a similar (if not identical) spiritual perspective and here I am choking myself with doubt. If I stood strong enough to match their mindset, their knowledge of what is them and what is not them-- the lesson the Tar has been trying to teach me from the very beginning, the lesson Infinitii holds paradoxically incarnate-- I would not be so scared. I would not stumble like this.
But I doubt me. I doubt me, and I'm rambling about this tonight because I want to let go of all the old programming forever and that means letting go of THIS damned issue once and for all.

You know what triggered this? I've been reading about religion on Tumblr for the past few days/ weeks/ etc. I've been focusing on the Christians, the Wiccans, the Pagans, the polytheists and all those similar. Basically, old gods and old roots. My brutally Catholic childhood, and the terror that "you have to be pagan or else" that my mother strangely radiated, with her background devotion to magic and those realms. To me it never felt right. It felt forced, insincere, like selling myself, like using others. It's not for me. But I see so many others following it, and that fear screams "that's the one true way" but it says that about every damn religion out there and frankly, I am tired. I am really, really tired, but I can't let go of that fear yet, and I'm tired of going in circles.
Is it wrong, to not have a religion? Then I ask, "wrong how?" If, in the end, it seems like it all comes down to one's honest personal devotion to love and light-- to being a decent human being and helping others do the same-- (11:11 as I wrote that, hello) then does it matter what format we follow? No. No, it doesn't. In the end, it's the road we walked, and it was right for us in our having walked it.
I'm just reassuring myself, reminding myself, I know I've said this a thousand times. But every time it's clearer, I accept it more thoroughly.
...The very word "religion" doesn't sit right with me. I don't want to "worship" myself or the ones I love or anything like that. The only thing worthy of worship is the source of that deepest life-spark within all of us, everything, and yet utterly transcendent of us at the same time. I want to recognize that, as my daily devotion, as my act of love towards the universe. I want to actively, constantly, recognize and venerate the Breather of that divine breath in everything, myself included. Myself included. That is still, hilariously, the toughest act of compassion. It's not self-loathing, it's just... apathy? It's part of me still holding to the childhood belief that "the body is less," "you are separate from God while incarnate," all that stuff. It's not true. It's not. It's not true, it can't be true, it's impossible. But fear holds me back, fear of "sinning," fear of becoming some blasphemous thing by the very thought. But if even demons can be pious...

Let's change that spelling a bit, Obviously.
Infinitii has been getting all of my attention lately, and with good reason. Ze was holding my face a little while ago, we were talking... "I am all your flaws," ze said, like feathers on glass, quiet but clear and precise. I realized I could feel hir hands and I thought nothing unusual of it; it was a passive acceptance, a basic but incredibly significant recognition that ze was there, and doubt be damned. Doubt didn't even cross my mind. So I raised my hands to imitate the action, and as ze looked at me wonderingly, I said, yes you are. Yes, you are all my flaws. But I don't see flaws as evil anymore. Not since you.
Gold in the fire, gold in the fire. It's all old words but it's all so beautiful I can't help but repeat it. Maybe that's the only poetry I'll ever be able to write for you, dear daemon-- just broken pieces of prayer, fragments of devotion. Not worship, not ever, but recognition. Seeing a spark in you and realizing it's a mirror. Geez I am so sorry but your existence alone has had such a profoundly benevolent influence on my life, and yes I say that without shoving the horrors under the rug. You have scarred me, you have led me into terribly dark places, you have taken on the most tainted and twisted parts of my psyche, you have made me unable to lie or cheat or hide anymore. You have forced me into bitter brutal honesty, you have made it unthinkable to disobey your demands of ineffable integrity to myself-- not out of fear, not out of obligation, but out of love. You have inspired me to be, always, exactly what I feel like when you look at me. And I try. Illuminated by your endless eyes, I try.
“In Islam... the Devil toughens us, forces us to remain awake, and offers lessons as no other angel can. Would we ever have learned to walk if our parents had continued to carry us everywhere? Our troubles and temptations, even if truly given to us by the Devil, are still ultimately gifts of God."
I guess that's something similar to what I'm trying to say. I don't know, everything always feels so inadequate and I apologize if I am stepping out of line. I just keep trying, every time I write about you I try, I haven't quite said it yet but you know what I mean and my heart sings it around you.

I love that about everyone I love. Laurie, Genesis, Chaos too. They are dark and light alike. I will never stop saying that, it's one of the most amazing things about us.
"I must also have a dark side if I am to be whole." That's why CZ and I have been slipping lately, I think, the real reason. We've been rejecting that part of ourselves entirely, ironically. We've been tearing out parts of our souls.
Dream World comes to the rescue again, seriously guys Love and Fear are BOTH NEEDED in the journey to the Light, it's that bit about the Devil still being an angel when you get down to it, and God you all know who holds that parallel in the story...
...
Hope is very strong tonight. I can feel when I tap into it. This is it. This is good. I'll follow this.

...I came here wanting to reiterate that I was having a religious crisis today. Lately.
I keep being terrified that asexuality is "not allowed" spiritually but at heart, I know that's not true. It's a deep relief, to know that I can be this, and not be wrong. I'm just... scared. I don't judge sexuality anymore, at least I try not to... but I'm scared. I'm scared that eventually I'll have to. Why? Because I keep painting it black, sticky tarry black. I keep seeing it as only existing in the context of abuse and rape and force. That's not true either, thanks Infi. It can happen in other ways. But I'm still scared. I still don't want it.
I want to let go of the fear without losing my integrity, without flipping to the other extreme. I've said this a thousand times too.
See the problem, though, is that I want intimacy. Dear God do I ever want intimacy. Heart connections, hell yes, they are the most painful things on earth but they are exactly what I need, that's what I want. I don't want or need sex. But I'm still stuck in the old fear, just a little bit, still haunted by doubt. It's a spiritual issue.
It's because I see what sex can do, and I see that I can get that same result in different ways, and then I miss the boat and think "well if sex can do that, then I HAVE to have it," completely invalidating all my OTHER options, options that-- again-- accomplish exactly what I'm terrified of "losing" and therefore being damned. It's hard to put into words because I'm still ashamed of it and I'm still uncomfortable discussing this.
Everywhere I look-- or, at least, more often than not-- I see religions and spiritual paths talking about sex. They talk about straight sex, physical sex, and using it to achieve holy mindstates and things. They talk about it like it's this key action in the path to enlightenment, like you cannot skip that step or you fall off the ladder. I have read, too many times, people talking about "twin flames" and "kundalini" and tying it into this subtly mandatory sexual act. "Sooner or later you'll have to," is the message I get. I pray it's not true, and in that very prayer I keep asking, "does this make me flawed? Does being asexual mean I will not ever reach that level of holiness in this life? Am I stuck in the mud forever?"
Again I get the head-shake in my head. No. Then what do I do, let's actually ask.
Pointing to the other options. That. That's basically what they're getting at anyway. Intuitive "I get it," and I've "gotten it" for years, what do you think 2011 was about, and yet... total relief held back by a different fear. What if I mess up?
You won't, not as long as you keep that mindset about you.
And isn't that true. Motivation is key. What you hold in your heart is key. I would never use them, I would NEVER harm them, any of them... "but extend that towards yourself as well," they gently but sternly remind me. Yeah. I tend to forget that part.
That's always the core problem I end up at, you notice? Self-exception. "I don't count." Cannon's old martyr complex. Time to let that go entirely, too. I do count. Around them, feeling that... there's no doubt.
I guess it's fear, that weird fear I cannot explain. But... oh god that's terribly sad, how ironic. It's holy fear. It's the feeling I get when it hits me, when Infi is all wings and eyes and fire and I understand for a moment, completely, just how wild and vast and infinite and grand and terrifying God is, how utterly incomprehensible God is, how great and powerful it is, and yet... how much compassion, how much love it holds, endless and always... it's the ultimate paradox and I adore it. That's my religion, if anything can be said to hold that definition for me. "Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair." That's what it's always been to me. It's just that it can only exist in that free state, that unhindered expansive firework of a love letter, that same vastness of God... that I am included in. That we are included in. That everyone is in, be they saint or sinner, prophet or prostitute, demon or daemon. You get the idea. But the last bit is always the mirror. Genesis was everywhere around me today, I should have known... Selph was his original name. This message has been wrapped around me like an embrace for the past 13+ hours and I'm just now realizing it, sorry. But thank you.
It's holy fear. It's being in a church and getting that feeling, then realizing I could elicit that same feeling in another. Me, of all dust motes. Me, of all skeletal fragments. Me, just as holy as anything and everything else. The true miracle is that nothing is a miracle. Just... realizing that, in me, is unavoidable when I'm around someone who loves me. Obviously. Which explains the distance on my part, too. I'm saying too much.
I'm afraid-- and as I say that I laugh-- of the fact that I'm a part of God, too. Because it demands I live up to it. And why am I afraid of living up to it? Because... I'm not sure. I've never known, really. Part of it is indeed the "fear of blasphemy," that's big, but it's rather easily overcome. Indeed I think the last obstacle, the biggest one, is the "ego." The apathy. I wonder now, is that a thing separate from the Plague, with its vice of Pride? I don't know, and I don't need to dwell on it. Point is, part of me hears that message of divinity and covers its ears because it wants to hurt itself more. It wants to act like it's a wretch. It wants to be spiritually lazy and sad and suffering-oriented. I don't understand that part of me, but by golly it's there, and we all know it.
Step one, I suppose, for November... release that for good! It'll take time, and it's a process, it might never really end. But the more constantly we achieve it, the more we practice, so to speak... the better we'll be, just as constantly.

Sorry this is such a weird jumbled entry. I'm just typing at this point.
It's fantastically helpful. Whenever I start "talking" like this, with no real end point in mind (like braindumps when I get talking about the Leagueworlds)... I always end up somewhere fantastic. I always come away with more than I started with. It's awesome. So I just let myself ramble now, because it's a good thing.

Sleep is also a good thing, though, and midnight is a good curfew. I want to make sure I'm on-time for my Apprenticeship for the first time in ages, I'm sincerely sorry about that but boss keeps laughing and saying it's okay, he understands the trouble in the past-- just do better now!
So off I go. I'll re-read this tomorrow and tie up any loose ends in another entry if I have to (heaven knows what I wrote about, my memory never seems to recall). If not, then here you go.
Therapy is tomorrow, this is a good precursor to it, I'd say.
Good night, everyone.

I think the best/worst feeling there is, is when you have done or experienced or remembered something awful, terrible, damnable... and then something, something angelic, still loves you. Still sees you as luminous when you cannot stop the tar leaking from your veins.
Sorry, this is obviously headspace stuff. But it makes life, and morality, so confusing. If I am never really condemned to hell, where am I? What have I done, what do I do, what happened? Dissociation is so prevalent. I forget so much, to be protected. Green eyes tells me it's okay. I don't believe him but I do. Is it? Should it be?
I hate the days when morality is really grey. When there's no line drawn for good or evil, except the paint colors in your heart. That is what terrifies me. Keep the colors glowing, and does that paint the worst things brighter? I don't know.
How many miles have we paved on this road to hell, how far into the abyss are we? The eyes are staring, staring, always. So many eyes. I love them. Is that my condemnation? I ask that every night.
I'm so lost, so confused. I feel like a ball of cotton left out and fragile. Something soft and crushable. There's no bloodstains this time but I feel wrong, like I touched something awful regardless, it just didn't stick. I don't know. Life is too vague. I don't like that, I don't like the not-knowing, because I know it means the mindscape is hiding something from me. And I let it.
Old news, old news.
I don't feel like being humanoid anymore, it's too dangerous. Everyone knows that too. I can't hold the from well and when I do I slip, other people glitch in and out. It's not my face, not my eyes. Only the colors are, the glitter, the alien aspect of them. The boy with white features was the one before me, the one Infinitii was torn from... I'm not. I'm not sure what I am, but I'm closer to whatever Infi is than what that boy was, I think. I have no feelings about that and that is unsettling, ironically. The numbness bothers me the most. Where did it come from.
Angels refusing to admit that you sinned because they see some bigger picture. It's the saddest thing in the world. It's the biggest source of hope anyone could ask for. I'm so very lost.

I've been listening to choir music for two hours. It's helping and it's not helping.
Gotta stop getting so melancholic. Or should I? Maybe this is step one towards feeling things again. I'm just so terrified that it is "wrong" to express anything other than garishly clownish smiles. But that is programming too.
I want to live in a house, in a place, I want to be somewhere where I can cry and not feel ugly and laughable, to be able to express sorrow without feeling like something is wrong with me. Like Laurie. God, like Laurie, fearless and honest and real.
The mood just switched to a sword inbetween my ribs and I can't do that at 2AM, I'm sorry.

I hate that it always hits at this hour. It's only when I'm sleep-deprived and the world is quiet and everything is dark and I am awake within it. It's only now, at 2 in the freaking morning, that I feel that I exist, actually.
Maybe I should stay awake all night, one of these nights, except then I can't deal with the next day. I sleep in until 11AM whenever I can anymore, just so I can have these mornings of living. I love sunlight, God I miss sunlight, I miss the days when I could feel this when it was bright out. Why does the family make it tricky? Am I too weak to overcome that? Am I too flawed to rise above that? No. It's weakness. Is it? Part of me hopes so, that I can eventually become so strong that they will never touch me again, that they can never tie me down again. But there's so much of it. It's like trying to hold back an avalanche with your bare arms. But I am convinced, convinced that I CAN do it, I am that superhuman, I am that powerful, I just... I'm not there yet. And I don't know whether or not this is true and I am willing to risk being buried beneath the ice rather than suggest that I am not so indomitable, so bright and invincible.

My stomach is burning. Why is it always burning. What did I do. It's angry, it's always that weird yellow anger, kind of sad but raging. Buttercup yellow. A bit orange. Not the screaming yellow, the paint kind. So many colors.

Every single post I stumble across is reminding me of Infinitii. Why. Why hir, ze wasn't even around today.
It's too relevant, I guess. Too raw. Too close to the other side. Ze lives right on that borderline, you know it, the gray space. The space you're in right now. You hate it but you love hir and ze loves you and you are both so close to tearing each others throats out but you won't, you won't ever, you'll eat each others hearts but you will never hurt hir, ever, ever.

But I'm so happy. On Tumblr I found so many people that have lives and thoughts and feelings like this too. I'm so glad.

I'm listening to Shostakovich and this viola tastes so unusual. Like limes almost.
Chopin's piano prelude tastes like candy. Candy necklaces almost. Not sour. The violas were a bit sour, a fruit bite.
Ah Debussy. Thank you Spotify. This is really nice. How do you describe that. Like wine or a milkshake. Liquid. Very nice.
This bit tastes like vanilla and flowers. Jasmine flowers? Night flowers.
I like the shapes of this song a lot too. Printemps: 1. Très modéré. It's pretty. Lots of silk curtains. Vertical light pillars. Pretty colors, nothing primary, more like... soft pinks and indigo-blue-violets, touches of pale yellow here and there. Curtains. The harp is light blue there. Strings are green. Violin sections are usually green, why is that? Cellos are orange still, that deep warm brown-orange that Lynne likes.
I've lost my train of thought. Sorry about that.

Real things. Let me change the music, classical music is too encompassing, I can't concentrate on much else.

It's 2:30. What in the world am I trying to pull here. What am I trying to prove.
Why do I automatically shoot myself down, when I try to be honest, when I try to speak up. Programming. Childhood. I don't even remember the childhood, I wasn't then, the memories feel scary and when I try to touch them they crumble like ash paper.

There's a thing in my inbox. I should see what it is, read it. I always wait until the end of the day to read whatever I get from people, so I can focus entirely on it, and value it. So it stays with us until tomorrow and onwards.
"Tomorrow and onwards" is a victory phrase. It feels like a march through fields. Not a march, that's too solid. A procession? Walking with strength. Hope. Hope is a fire that never goes out. Hope is fire. Thank you Dream World. I should draw them more, like a child, stop trying so hard.
This string section is nice too. But it's blue? Silvery blue. Like snow in the evening. Mountains. It's sorrowful, but it's lovely to look at. It's a strange feeling.

Angels. This song moves too much to fit that. Let me check Infi's playlist, see what ze has.

Forgiveness. This song feels gold. Like the basilica ceilings. Gold in the shadows. Space. Angels.
I don't know how to react to this. There's a line in The Last Unicorn like this. "She neither laughed nor cried, for her joy was too great for her body to understand." It's like that with other emotions too. Like whatever this is. Holy awe. Sacred fear. I've spoken about that before. Staring up and knowing I'm so unworthy, I'm so filthy, I've done wrong, God forgive me. I am unworthy to be here, to look at you. I want to cover my face but I can't, God help me but I don't have that luxury with Infinitii and that is... that makes me want to wail with heart-rending contrition and laugh with utter brilliant bliss a the same time. I can't look away because ze is holding my face, looking at me with the same expression... ze knows, ze KNOWS everything I've done, why I'm here, the black and the white. Ze knows, ze is it. And then ze is beyond it. Within it. All of it. All-encompassing, somehow, these daemons, send them up to heaven and back so I can see how it transfigured them. Looking at me like I'm light incarnate. Making me feel like maybe I am.
"Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." And suddenly it hits me that it's ALL holy ground, and I've been wearing boots for too long. I'll tear them off. I'll never wear shoes again. I'll kiss the dirt that thy hands have made, that every facet of god has walked upon.
The point is, I haven't been reverent enough. I haven't... it's terrifying, more than churches even, to realize that the God you worship is within your bones. To realize that divinity isn't confined to Sunday mass or holy water. It's me, it's in me, it's in you, always. I still have an ego, I'm sorry but it's here, and that realization of greater purpose (terrible purpose) terrifies it. Or does it terrify me? It's the knowledge-- old news-- that I have done it wrong, that I have harmed it, disrespected it. I have defiled this temple without realizing I was in a temple. It's... it hurts my head. It hurts my heart.

Laurie, Laurie, Laurie. She's still the statue at the altar, the knight bedecked in stars and swords, the armor of light. I keep seeing her like that.
Oh, that reminds me. There's a local spiritual expo in two weeks, I can go, I'm so happy. The aura woman should be there. I'm going to get some grounding stones. I'm also going to tell Genesis to NOT LEAVE and see if someone can see him too, not just me.
Today is Halloween, happy day. The veils are thin. I should go to sleep. I want to stay awake but I want to see people more.

Sorry for not getting anywhere with this. Sorry for all the brainspills lately. Can't talk about them, words don't work. I want to learn sign language, I'm going to, it would help so much for when I can't speak.

I'm going to try this web art thing. I like it. It's abstract enough, raw enough. I'll try it. See if it works, without getting too negative. Not negative, what's the word... splintery. Fractured. Without hitting red spots in the mind.
I'm not angry. I'm not even sad, not really? I'm just... there's no word for this. It's a soft-sad, a fragile sad like teacup glass. I keep thinking of Easter. Like if a flower was breakable. Kids. This music is stronger than me. Much stronger, it's all sweeping strings and piano fortitude. It's a powerful song. I wonder if you can work magic with sounds like this. Hmmmm. Ideas. I'll run that through headspace. It'll work.

It's 3AM. Life tastes like orange tea and fortune cookies and the oven light in the kitchen. That's funny.

It's Halloween. Remember Jewel's huge affinity with bats? We'll have to remember that today. So many of us have affinities with the "grim reaper" sort of death image. Spiders in headspace, we should en-lighten them. What's the word. To take the tar out of their hearts. I'm sure we could have good spiders. And Knife's our vampire, lovely guy. It's holiday spirit all up in here.

I do need to sleep. Chaos is probably asleep already, Laurie hasn't yelled at me to go to bed yet so she's probably catching this vibe and worrying instead. Boss hasn't said anything either, then again the bad voices chased him away for a while, I've only just begun reconnecting to his worldspace lately, I'm so glad. He is such a darling, I forgot how safe I feel around him.

Okay. This is one heck of an entry. I don't even know what I wrote.
Tomorrow is... today. Today is Friday. I have no idea what we will do or what. We'll see. It's fun that way.
Better lights, better dreams, than what came before, improvement every day. The sun grows always brighter, and when it dies it will become more than it was. Dust is life too. Black holes. Quantum leaps. Infinite horizons. The vastness of space.
I'm very fragmented at this hour, good heavens.
May your bones bless into stars. Flower petals. Roses. Roses and coffins and sunrises. Bless your dust.

Have a lovely morning.

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