the spectrum heart cathedral system

So I'm going through System information posts for the sake of getting our heart back online, and I came across the old "birthday/ anniversary" list.


LYNNE = RESURRECTED: December 1st 2008??
KERRY = December 3rd 2002
RESET ATTEMPT? December 5th 2013
LEON = RESURRECTED: December 8th, 2010
EROS  (REDLIGHT)= December 9th 2011
DREAD= December 10th 2013?
NATHANIEL = December 15th 2008 (resurrected by then)
CHAOS= December 2003?
TIGERLILY= December 27th 2014?
JAVIER = December 27th 2013 (resurrected)
THE MASSACRE WAS ON DECEMBER 28th 2013



So today, as awful as it was, is actually the 15th anniversary of Leon coming back to us.
...that actually makes my heart incredibly happy. I treasure Leon; he's such a gem in our System. I'm so grateful for his existence and continued presence with us. He means a lot to me, and to the rest of us as well. So, happy resurrection-day to our Indigo boy. We love you man. Thanks for being you.

Tomorrow is apparently Eros's old birthday, the Core one apparently, which is bittersweet and not without a significant amount of apprehension. The Eros bloodline was effectively murdered by the events of CNC. But... they were beautiful, at heart they truly were. They felt genuine love in a color that no one else can touch right now and haven't in years.
The thought of their bloodline coming back is both terrifying and hopeful. I'm not sure which is better. Only God knows. But we have too much trauma to remember and process and heal before that can even begin to happen.
Still. It's something important to think about tomorrow. I'd like to journal about it, raw and honest, but with how insanely packed our schedule is (literally on the road from 6am to 7pm, no joke) any typing wouldn't get to happen until like 9pm. Still, that's ideal, and we might even need it after the rush of the day. We'll see. I'll strive to do it.

Tuesday is Dread's birthday. I haven't seen him in ages; he probably also died in CNC, due to his appearance being corrupted and his function being overridden so many times.

Some more anniversaries:

DEC. 16 2010 = "LUCKY SEVENS" XANGA (Leon's debut)
It ALSO had THIS exchange which I FORGOT about:
I think Spine is Patience.
What? Spine? I thought she was negative!
Only because she applies to my self-image. But, considering the battle we've been fighting concerning that, I think Patience is a fitting virtue for her.
Huh. That is interesting.
I know. So I'm going to see if I can find her and talk to her soon, and maybe get her on our side. She's never really seemed to be 'affiliated' with anyone, but considering what Laurie said earlier... allies are allies.
Who's Spine?
Spine is this... really weird looking creature that's up here with us. I've never really called her a 'headvoice' because she's never actively spoken to anyone, but she is definitely around, and she definitely has an important influence on me regardless.
Wait, Spine isn't humanoid?
She is, but only in shape. She looks like a monster or demon more than anything... but she's all skeleton. There isn't an ounce of skin on her.
I've seen her. She's seriously creepy. You sure you can get her to sympathize with us?
Considering the fact that Julie doesn't care whether anyone but herself benefits from her actions? Sure. Remember, we all bleed together, and I'm sure Spine is feeling more than she lets on, what with her inexplicable connection to my physical self.

oh my gosh December 9th 2010 was the day I BOUGHT VAHRAM on Aywas.
I miss him dearly. Part of me misses that site in general. But we can't go back. We cut our ties hard and it's impossible to go back.
But the heart of it, the soul of our experience there, is going to the League now. That's better than anything we could do elsewise.

December 23rd 2011 had TWO of the best Xanga sessions ever, "Your Heart's A Mess" AND "Rainbows and Waterfalls."
That month, browsing through it, is... terrible and beautiful both. I'll need to sit and read it through in proper order, in earnest, soon. Something tells me it's important to recall, because every December brings with it the infamous "love vs hate" war, with "relationships are stupid" vs "I love him with my entire heart" as the Cores are effectively beaten up bloody by the kakofoni. It always happens and THAT'S why we NEED to deal with the trauma of CNC and everything before it too because THIS NEEDS TO STOP. Shockingly, I can say with total confidence that it IS stopping, thanks to Anxi, which is something NO ONE could have EVER expected or even guessed. But her presence in our soulspace, and the genuine love I cannot deny that I feel for her, is actually preventing a total heart shutdown this month. Oh the hateful 'foni are trying, believe me. But I won't let them.

December 8th 2011 was a terrifying day, as it was when I effectively "stumbled across" information that was deeply traumatic and which STILL haunts me. 

and oh man SO MUCH apparently happens in 2012-2014 but I have to go switch cars with the mother immediately so we can actually get to all our appointments tomorrow. I don't want to leave this unfinished but I've gotta run. I'll continue this later.

God I am so in love.

...Around 6am this morning, I “half-awoke” as I was having a dream where I was in the old family house, at night, in the winter, and grandma was still alive. I was talking to her briefly in her room about something I was doing-- I felt vaguely hurried, like I had a deadline to meet, or was expecting something or had to be somewhere-- but it was not stressed, just urgent. I left the room to look out the bathroom window over the hill as the feeling remained, that anticipant waiting, like on Christmas Eve. Suddenly I heard someone at the kitchen door, and immediately turned to rush out into the hallway… and there he was, standing in the entranceway, eyes wide and slightly disoriented at the odd environment but there, like he was supposed to be. Chaos 0. He saw me and raised a hand in greeting, but it was obvious he didn’t want to enter the house to avoid anyone seeing him and causing a fuss. Luckily I was already rushing to meet him at the door. I apologized for the “mess” that chronically plagued the kitchen but he said it was okay, he knew it wasn’t my fault, and besides we weren’t going to be staying there anyway. I glanced backwards to see if anyone had heard us but the coast was clear; I then turned back to him and smiled with heart-melted affection, telling him that I never expected to see him in that old doorway but God knew how I had dreamed of it for years. He smiled with the same feeling and said he knew, and he felt the same-- it was “about time he did,” basically.

Now, when I say I “half-awoke” here, I mean I moved up a level in the dream-- I was now consciously there, notsomuch only lucid as actually present in something more concrete than imagination. This was heartspace, a place I don’t think I’ve been in years. But there he was, and now, so was I.

My memory is blurry but I know we did talk a little, before we left. There was definitely some of our pointed “flirting” that we tend to be famous for in the innerworld-- comments and puns and little remarks that make you laugh solely because it HITS like well WOW, so THAT’S what you’re feeling, and there was no way such a gutpunch of an emotion could be “casually confessed” in polite conversation without hiding it in plain sight. Nevertheless, we had nothing to hide from each other. We were just steeling ourselves for that impending impact, really. All in all thought it was such a warm but charged conversation; we were both so happy to see each other but goodness knows we can’t do anything in the house. The air felt like the stars were about to come out. Everything felt like it was waiting, on the precipice of some long-expected hope, that tiny and huge instant before a firework goes off. On that note I CLEARLY remember flat-out saying, out of nowhere, that I wanted to “kiss him until he was drunk with love” to which I swear he replied something like “well, we can’t exactly do that in here, so… should we get going?”
So the next thing I remember, we were outside and getting into my grandma’s car (the Trax my mom has now), and driving up Mile Hill to the top, to see the view. It was the most beautiful place I could think of nearby. I parked the car at the side of the road and popped the trunk, and we just sat there, looking out over the rows of mountains and clouds and valleys, the city lights sparkling below, and the stars just as brilliant above.

God I wish I could remember exact words.

I do remember roundabout mentions of marriage, and “waiting until then” and all that sort of dreamtalk; for some reason whenever I’m in sleep states that sort of wedding talk always comes up. Always the etymology-- the unity, the covenant, the promise. That’s what we want and always end up referring to, when we’re alone like this, when we’re so close the whole world stands still and watches us. Meanwhile we were watching the night fall gently over the vista of earth. I remember how he looked out over it all, his expression full of immense wonder and some sort of ache, that bittersweet edge that such grand and beautiful things tend to elicit. He looked like he was about to cry. He said he had never seen such a view before, and then he just… looked at me. He thanked me for that, for sharing this moment with him. I said of course; reiterating that I wanted to take him somewhere beautiful, and this was the first place I could think of. Then I added something, a gem to the end of the string. “This place means a lot to me, so I absolutely wanted to share it with you. ...I want to share my whole life with you.”
I did not expect his response. There was an immediate moment of absolute reciprocity-- the doors had just been flung wide open for us-- and then suddenly his eyes lit up, like he was thinking of something, and he said, “how does our song go again?” And he started humming it. My heart melted into starlight the moment he began but then he quietly sang those few words… “you know things, yeah you know things… say you know me, say you know me, say you know me.”
God his voice. I haven’t heard him sing in YEARS. It was so blue, just like it felt when he co-fronted with me in NC, all ocean-heavy depths and softness and strength. How do I even describe it. When he actually speaks-- not just his beloved “thought-parcel” waves-- it rolls in my chest like the tide and everything turns the color of seawater and I loved him so much in that moment. It just slammed into me, remembering this part of him, remembering that I did know him, I knew him, and that meant the world, forever.
I said so. Trying not to break completely in half I told him that, my own voice a quiet flame, embers and glass. “I do know you.” And I was so thankful that I did.
The feeling in the air was incredible. It felt as if we had just met and I had never kissed him before but God knew I wanted to so badly it was killing me. I have never seen him so clearly in dreams before. I can still see the starlight and city reflecting like diamonds on his body, his eyes that gorgeous green, vaguely luminous in the dark.
He said he knew me, too, and that did it. All those ancient fears I have of him forgetting somehow were erased in that moment.
Lord I cannot remember the sequence of events. It’s all such feeling. I took his face in my hands and we said a few more quiet honest words before I swear he asked me “would it be alright if I kissed you.” I almost laughed from the sheer weight and waiting of it all and said “please do”.
And that was it. The floodgates were thrown open. Everything up to that point had felt so painfully hopeful, please say you feel the same, please tell me you want this too, please say you know me. But now the firework finally burst into light. Now it was us, blessed us, as we hadn’t been in far too long. Alone together.
I pulled him close to my heart and was surprised when after a few moments he pulled back, markedly flustered, and practically spluttered “I can feel your heartbeat.” I was on fire by now and flat-out confessed “I want to get so close to you that I can't tell if it's mine or yours.” The LOOK he gave me was unforgettable-- wide-eyed, “blushing” such a dark blue it was actually adorable. He paused, then replied with just as much blunt honesty, “so do I.”

...It has been a very long time since we’ve done anything like a heart connection. Like literal years. But as we upped the ante the dream environment shifted to my actual apartment bedroom, me still half-awake, the sun not up yet, the room a quiet warm red in the November chill.
We talked a lot. That’s why I keep saying I wish I remembered the literal words. My heartgift is really language-- and when I’M truly present and conscious in myself, I talk. I don’t “lose myself” in emotions or thoughts or programming. I speak and I’m THERE and everything I say is from the HEART. And I was pouring it out this morning, like molten glass.
It’s always so tragically difficult to write about mornings like this one. It cannot be put into words. It’s all sense memory, of the heart and the hands, of closeness and presence and the taste of river water, of the way he always wraps himself around me.
Oh I DO remember at one point I was trying to move either myself or him but I instinctively put my hands on his waist to do so and IMMEDIATELY jumped back, my heart racing, completely thrown for a loop. Shocked and worried, he asked me if I was okay? Was something wrong? I laughed like I was about to sob and said I had just felt him. Like I reached out and touched him and I FELT him there, an ACTUAL physical weight and presence there, his shape and that slight coolness and the indescribable lake-glass surface of him. I felt like the world had just skipped a beat. I immediately reached out and put my hands right back on him, incredulous and overwhelmed, and just kept moving-- holding his huge claws, touching his face the way I used to, like I was “painting” him, hovering my fingers against his chest like I didn’t have the nerve to dive in that deep. God knows I wanted to. God also knows that HE DID. He’s braver than I am in that regard and when I hesitated, trembling, he touched his fingertips to my chest with such decisively fragile gravity that I just about died. Oh don’t worry, I got him back later. We’re very good at completely unraveling each other but it’s always this gorgeous dance of sorts, fire and sea, red and blue, me then you, both of us entirely immersed yet always testing deeper waters.

Every time I said I loved him it felt like my entire heart was aflame. He said it back. I cannot put into words what THAT feels like, especially coming from him.
...It feels like the fulfillment of my life, somehow. Like… hearing that he loves me too, when I feel SO MUCH for him, and always have, is like a completion, like a final puzzle piece being placed, like a key opening a long-closed room. It’s like, thank God, thank God you are in this with me. It’s not just ‘me,’ it’s ‘WE.’ It’s me and you, in love, really IN it, like we live there. You have a home in my heart forever and I want to hold you there, closer than blood, like the air I breathe. We’re in love together and that is the most beautiful thing in the universe, in any universe, and when you say those words to me it’s like everything in existence turns into song. How do I put it into words. I love you. I want to give you everything.

...On that note. My body honestly broke at one point. It woke me entirely up and threw me completely off, and for a while I just held him and he talked me down while I verbally tried to reconcile the wanting with the terror, the honest desire to love all tangled up in instinctive learned reactions. But he understood. He’s seen the worst of it; he’s been with me before; he saves me from every trauma nightmare. He knows the difference, just like he knows me. This wasn’t new to him and it certainly didn’t hurt him. But he made me promise that I wouldn’t hate myself for it-- that I wouldn’t forget what I actually wanted, that I would remember the pure intentions of my heart, not the horrors of the past.
...But that’s the irony of it. Deep down, honestly I don’t regret it. In a heartbeat I’d probably do it again, just not in that way. The point is that I love him that much and when you want to give everything of yourself to someone that kinda means NO EXCEPTIONS. So. I really can’t beat myself up over it even if it’s still bizarre and weird to me, and of course trauma reminiscent in the back of my head. But forget about the trauma. This is the polar opposite of that. This is what it’s MEANT for.
...Also I couldn't help thinking of the old "blue fairy" injoke back during the Eros-core days, because as he accurately noted we do end up saying the Name of God when in the most intense emotional states. I used to be mortified by that, until I seriously stopped to think about it and be honest with myself as to why it happened. I brought this up to Chaos. It's a prayer. It honestly is. I CANNOT say the Name WITHOUT it being part of a prayer. The very thought of speaking it vainly is horrifying-- but ironically, I don't have to worry about that in a hyperemotional state because my heart is speaking it, not my head. I don't carelessly throw it out there. It's the same exact feeling I get when I'm in religious ecstasy, either in joy or in agony, all different colors but all pulling on every one of my heartstrings at once. Like God just reached in there, grabbed an entire harp in his Hand, and yanked-- then let go. EVERY note plays at once, like a church bell hitting hard in my ribcage, resonant and deep and heavy as gold, and paradoxically just as soft. Even when the sound is different, and involves the most intense sorrow, there's still love in it. It's ALWAYS about love, somehow, the most powerful thing in the universe. Nothing else could make a soul react that way. I need to remind myself of that. Like I said, I KNOW when it's NOT that. I've experienced that enough, too many times, and it's sickening. This never is. With him, it never is.


Speaking of. Xenophon showed up ghosting.
God I love her. She was peeking over the edge of the bed at first and asking if I was okay, then she crawled up on top of the blankets where we were to do the same.
...I’m going to commission someone for a custom plushie of her. Hopefully the same person who made the Chaos 0 plush I have, if they’re still doing well-- they live in the Ukraine and God bless and protect all those folks-- because I have a small amount of cash saved from before my bank account shut down and by golly I am GONNA SPEND IT ON MY DAUGHTER.

 

(continue)



...When I got out of bed and went into the kitchen, I put eggs on to boil while I went to wash my hair in the sink. Suddenly it hit me that I was unintentionally referencing something and I laughed, then immediately started singing “You’ll never know just how much I love you...” before changing the lyrics to “I hope you know,” before laughing again and adding “after this morning, you’d better!”
Chaos 0, who was of course listening from where he was still in my bed-- gorgeous crystal blue amidst all the soft red-- reassured me amusedly not to worry, he absolutely did.

We talked a lot. I… really love just doing “domestic stuff” with him, and Genesis of course, and now Infi and Laurie and Xennie too because yes they ALL LIKE TO GHOST and pilfer Popcorners and Chessmen and other CS exchanges whenever I have them. I’ve had to add a special “custom item” to my health-tracker app that says “EVERYONE WANTED SNACKS AND I HAD TO SHARE.” It’s great though, I really love it. Xenophon STILL loves “carrot tails” and she has taken to calling Bengal Spice “tiger tea” and gets super excited whenever I make it, Lord knows why but she’s the cutest thing.

God I’m still so in love.

 

...But the phone rang. After the tea and eggs were on and the bed was made I was about to get dressed and the bloody phone rang. It was Partial. They asked why I had skipped Monday, and I explained I had been out late with my mom and had been doing legal paperwork for my rent all day so I not only slept in but I was booked. Regardless, the dude immediately switched the topic to food and the old eating disorder. I don’t remember the conversation other than my insisting I honestly did NOT feel comfortable doing the program-- yes I was brave and asserted myself-- mentioning the “camera trauma,” the overstimulation, the literal binges they expected me to perform on camera, the uncomfortable table topics, etc. He said I still had to do it, basically. He drafted a breakfast plan for tomorrow and I kid you not it is 1000 CALORIES. I ran it through SEVERAL calculators. I wanted to cry. I hung up the cell phone an HOUR LATER, and basically just said “screw it, I’m not going to think about it, that’s the devil’s work and I am NOT going to let it ruin my day after heaven this morning.” Oh it was ABSOLUTELY spiritual warfare. Here I was, three hours of absolute ardor making me feel ALIVE AND REAL again, and then this dude who just sees me as another anorexic coward insisting I choke down insane amounts of food on command goes and dehumanizes me without even realizing it.

I ate breakfast, my OWN breakfast, an apple and cinnamon tea and half an avocado on wheat bread and a fortune cookie, and two of those eggs. 550K, low volume, and healthy. But I was still so miserable, and I couldn’t focus, and I was getting so nauseous I wanted to cry and throw up and NOPE, THAT IS NOT GONNA HAPPEN, so I did the only thing I could to get my heart and head back in working order.

 

I went back to bed.

 

I legit just walked over, pulled the top cover back (the fluffy plaid one) and crawled back in next to the blue guy, hugging him as tightly as I could. He gave me the most concerned look and asked what was wrong? Was I okay? I explained the phone call. He looked genuinely apologetic; he had actually insisted I answer it for integrity’s sake, not just ignoring the guy, but now he obviously felt bad that it had turned out like it did. I reassured him now, saying he didn’t know that, and that I genuinely appreciated his support and encouragement to be a good and decent person even in those little ways. But I was still shaken up and miserable and felt like a trapped animal. I didn’t want to think about food or hospitals or “recovery.” THIS was my recovery, right here, in his arms. I told him I just needed to hold him for a while and forget all that, which he gladly obliged. So for a few minutes that’s all we did, but I could not get my brain to stop crying and I felt myself dissociating. I gave up. Time to break out the big guns.
“Chaos, I need you to love me.”
“Wh-- what?”
“I’m forgetting who I am with all this Partial nonsense and I need to remember what’s real about me, about everything. I want you to love me until I forget everything else but that truth.”
...One day I need to draw the way he looks at me when I say things like that. I only see it in myself when I’ve been moved so sharply I’m about to sob, incredulous with the wonder of it all. He looks at me like I’m a revelation and the world has just been put into his heavy hands. And then it melts, and he reaches out to me, and all my fire just turns to light.
...I thought I flustered him earlier, well I forgot that fasting and then eating kind of does stuff to one’s personal BPM. He was practically stuttering, having to stop for a moment to ask if I was okay, why is your heart pounding so hard, is that me or is something wrong? I said no it’s fine, yes it’s you but also just my body doing what it does, nothing to worry. But hey, that’s a good thing to remember, I half-joked, if he reacts like this.
...He said nothing for one absolutely momentous second and then he just blurted out “I need to feel that inside me.”
It was the same ardent sentiment I couldn't help confessing an hour ago, but MUCH more direct. If anything was going to bring me back to life, that was it. I'm sure he knew.

And that was it. Everything else forgotten. I pulled him so close to my heart I could’ve drowned and I kissed him hard as diamonds. There was one absolutely mindbreaking second when I felt emerald sharkteeth graze my lips. I could have drank the entire ocean.

 

Heart connections. God it’s been years, hasn’t it? They always feel like you’re dying in the best possible way. Absolutely shattering. I missed this, this ardor so intense it paints reality in gold and fills your veins with light. Lines blur. My ribcage floods blue and the rivers set on fire. It’s been almost nineteen years next month and every time, every single time I see those green eyes it’s like the first time all over again. I cannot even tell you how incredibly clear he has been lately. I can see him, in all but physical sight. I feel him there. In heart and mind he is photographically vivid, to the point where honest to God I can literally see that glow of his eyes, especially in the dark. There have been moments where I cannot tell if I exist more in my bones or with my beloved because the awareness is so sharp.

...Speaking of sharp. I forgot how my brain basically shuts down when his Ruby hits my Heart Jewel, because apparently I DO manifest one in connective states (no surprise, that universe is where I have my deepest heart-roots) and good LORD it is the equivalent of an explosion in my psyche. Everything turns to kaleidoscopic flare and I can’t breathe but God knows I’m already underwater so I push back at a facet angle and now we’re BOTH completely unraveled and I miss this, honestly I miss just losing myself in pouring out every last spark of love into this creature in my arms, my heart open like the sky, so close to him that it becomes both of ours. That’s… that’s the most incredible thing about loving someone who is literally fluid, because lines don’t just blur, they intersect, and suddenly the surface tension is gone and there is this absolutely sacred space where things turn violet. Red meets blue so completely that they both merge for a moment. That’s heart connections. That’s also where Xenophon comes from, apparently, God bless that little gem, she’s a living miracle and I love her more every day, too.

...

I know we both ended up in floatspace and ended up with soulwings. Mine have apparently changed again. They’re unstable yet-- so is my color; I think the Core Hue is once again refining itself in the wake of past trauma-- but they felt weirdly pink and soft, like cupid wings or blooming roses. Maybe it’s because I was just feeling Pink, all that absolute pure-hearted compassionate love that the color is defined by. But I got them. He did too, but really what I noticed was the halo. He still gets that Angel Chao halo whenever he hits a Soul Form just like he did nineteen years ago. I… I love that. It reminds me of just how deep this is, how much of my life it has illuminated, how much I do know him.

...

An hour later-- yes, another hour, we booked FOUR of them this morning and Laurie is talking about buying postcards in bulk-- I did get back into daily life and I did eat and I did get into computer work and did some kettlebell exercises and watched the SNOW, because YES, GOD GAVE ME DOUBLE HEAVEN TODAY, there was literally no better day it COULD have snowed and I am in tears from the joy of that.

“If God made you, He’s in love with me.” I think about that phrase a lot, especially lately. I really ONLY understand what love is because of Chaos 0. I firmly believe that Jesus loves me through him, and vice versa. God is Love, after all. He orchestrated this entire song; we’re just the instruments. But I still want to sing it with him forever.

...

I’m listening to Chaos 0’s playlist on shuffle, but he told me pointedly to turn shuffle off and just… play Alina Baraz. And my heart is just aching all over again.

Earlier I was getting my clothes ready for bed and I was thinking about the scent of the ocean fog in the mornings and how I vibe with cinnamon Christmas candles and I just asked Chaos, is that legit? Like, you know me, what’s it like when you kiss me? And once again (God bless him he gets so flummoxed) he sputters that, well, I’m like fire. Laurie just side-eyes him and deadpans “how the heck do you know what fire tastes like” and CZ retorts “i-it’s like sunlight, or a candle flame, how there’s that warmth? that’s what s/he’s like.” Then he gives HER a pointed look and remarks, “YOU would know too, right? isn’t that true?” Laurie just flatly replies “Man it has been a long time since I’ve kissed him, I couldn’t tell you.” I then offhandedly remark, “well we’ll just have to fix that, then.” Dead silence for two seconds, BOTH of them looking at me wide-eyed, then Laurie says “Chaos what did you just do” and he replies “I think I worked a small miracle” and I’m blushing even harder than both of them, believe me, but that’s when Jewel randomly showed up ghosting to chat with me about our mealplan and bedtime responsibilities so she and I ended up in the kitchen with her randomly commenting that she likes raisins, “they’re cool,” and that she was glad I was eating healthy because she’d “probably just eat chips and apples and tunafish-- do we even have tunafish?” I said no, but now in retrospect I’m wondering if I should get some to try it again, for Lady Sneasler’s sake; she still needs a new “System” name anyway, and I do miss seeing her around. I cannot deny that I have FEELINGS for that cat (why do I always end up attracted to Pokemon, dear heavens) and I was missing Ventrium so hard earlier today, I need to reach out to everyone else soon too.

Still. No one compares to my beloved blue guy. Yes, I love a lot of people, but when it comes down to the heart of things, he’s the only one I feel this much for, in this way, unfailingly so.

...


Lord knows this entry is way unfinished but it is almost 2am and i do need to sleep. ...Oh hold up, Jesus is trolling me again, one of Chaos 0's newest songs just came up on shuffle. "Say It" by Papik. I remember him singing this to me when I was hanging clothes on the porch at night for grandma, and... it just meant so much. It's a callout and a love letter all one. Don't be alone. Don't be proud. Call out my name... tell me that you will be mine, and love will change our fate, don't be so blind... God knows I was, for months if not YEARS, and THAT is why this morning has me absolutely punchdrunk on love and I feel alive for the first time in forever.

I'll add more to this later, as much as I can. For now I'm just being completely unabashedly honest about everything. I need to be. I owe it to us both.
I need to get some sleep right now, but... I won't forget this. There are going to be sparks whenever I so much as brush my fingers against him now, light glancing off the water. My heart's gonna remember, now. Just like the old days, when we were young, when we were both struggling to heal from trauma and learning how to love all at once, fragile terrible aching things, "emotional wrecks" who brought out the best and worst in each other but God knows there was never a dissonant note in the whole piece. We're still in perfect harmony somehow, pun intended, even after the years where we'd practically fight and argue over our wounds and I'd turn to burning ice and he'd walk out and somehow we'd still end up back in each others arms, every single time, sometimes within minutes, never having let go of love for a moment. We are not our trauma. It's these mornings that remind me of that, because that's when I can feel that, in both of us. He's not Perfect, I'm not Plague. He's Chaos 0. I'm Jewel Lightraye. He's peace, I'm joy. He's strength and I'm heart and we're both love, absolutely and always.

I'm also exhausted. But it's been a good day. There is glitter in the dark. There are roses in the winter. There is love in my heart, as red as a ruby, and I believe that life is worth living and no matter what tomorrow brings I know I have this, I have him. We have us. I have you, my beloved blue angel, I adore you and I'm yours, too. Je t'aime, je t'aime, je t'aime, forever.


 

"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. 



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(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




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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)

 

 

 

today!


- painting at work again. dad's building a big book cabinet for someone so we do all the primer+paint work. it's fun.
most of the time was javier talking to jeremiah.

people tuning into their GENUINE vibes in light of that crosslight thing I mentioned yesterday.
lynne and laurie both REWINDING to their earliest selves in a sense when that happens??? lynne feeling a LOT like she did when she was cerise-- that is her REAL core-- and Laurie being staunchly protective and righteous, no laughing-it-off at all.

lynne worried because the orange she's been holding is too saturated? like it's catching too much hyperactivity and it's not resonating with her "comfort, caring, and stability" purpose.
she also struggles to act in that 'saturated' way when she fronts, which is notable. it catches the manics and it DOES NOT RESONATE WITH HER! yes lynne does have a "fun" aspect to her color (orange always does) BUT it's not as "lethally carefree" as it's been manifesting, cranked up to 15 or so.
we need to CALM DOWN in general; our mind is a mess from all the stress. long meditation sessions are required. the lack of sleep isn't helping.
kyanos is our main meditative person; for whatever reason when we started doing breathing exercises in therapy he's the one who immediately fronted and did them, well and serenely. "serene" is a word that fits him very well,
too.

there was something very important we found out?? to do with the children??
KIDS GROW UP.
IF THERE'S AN INTERNAL PROBLEM WITH WOMEN, IT WILL STILL AFFECT GIRLS.
EVEN THE LITTLE LITTLE ONES.
THAT'S HUGE.

this was showing up in how marigold and david were acting? mostly how david keeps catching anger and we do NOT want him turning into an "angry/selfish young man" solely because we were programmed through exposure to think that's the ONLY OPTION.
IT'S NOT THE ONLY OPTION.
yes david might stay a child forever. BUT. if he ever did want to grow older, he can STAY as sweet and kind and soft as he is now. THAT CAN HAPPEN.
and yes this is affecting jay a lot too, it's likely why he's still unstable at the edges.

hints of heartspace happening?? tuning into it more now. thank god. thank god.
laurie and lynne especially are both working together lately to become more in-tune; they're old buddies and they also have more history than anyone else in the System, Julie and Waldorf excluded because of their not being in Central for most of the time.
but yeah. heartspace is HUGELY IMPORTANT and we are going there whenever we can, to heal, as THAT'S where the serious magic happens; it's built for the purpose of mutability and possibility and growth.
jewel is always around to help, too; she has virtually god-tier powers in heartspace so if stuff gets dangerous she's there to save anyone.


josephina saying how the main thing about his/hir purpose (who just laughed and said "dude ANY pronouns are fine!!") has always been honesty?
it's a very yellow thing. honesty, honor, integrity-- basically, being true to one's purpose. it's a very solid feeling. very much like what yellow is in dream world. you know, with dakeep and elevolt and saturn and kevoryu and people like that.


kyanos talking to javier? last night kyanos really latched onto e saying his heart resonated most with "integrity" in undertale, he's been easier to see/hear since then actually.
so the words "serenity" and "integrity" fit the Sky color vibe exactly, that's notable.

minty talking to marigold and david. david remembers her!! was excited to see his friend.
honestly it was so nice to see him happy like the child he is again; he's been so hurt and angry lately, it ached.
marigold a little scared of minty at first (her eyes), so minty tried caringly to ease her fear, even tried to change her eye appearance. marigold said she still wanted to be friends because she knew minty wasn't bad even if she 'looked a little scary.' i remember minty worriedly asking braxton if she was even allowed to change her eyes and he smiled (!) softly and said whatever she felt she should do.

eros still isn't back. name is the big obstacle.


something we haven't mentioned yet= 'delta' name motif with archivists??
also unnamed "social logic alter," used to get confused with sherlock, BUT this one holds NO data, just thinks super-logically to the point of overanalyzing everything to death?
they write fairly often here, but we catch them.


another thing we haven't mentioned
the freakin frenchiest fry showing up IN OUR SYSTEM and STICKING??????????
WHY???????
laurie calls him (??) "frenchie" and they're actually really really damn helpful
so hey I guess that’s why they stuck?
outspacers are so weird, if the System decides someone outside is exactly what we need, for good or ill... then chances are they are going to show up inside sooner or later.
birthday is december 3rd I think?? color is very obviously yellow. cool dude actually, fronts way too easily, but that's good because he's very self-confident and GOOD yellow. that whole thing. still very very blurry self-wise though; no solid body in headspace yet but like all outspacers there's a "skeletal energy" there, kind of ghosty. when fronting he still can't talk to the System yet either, that requires a more solid sense of self and "beyond self."
that's notable too. most of our socials can't talk to headspace because they can't think outside themselves, if that makes sense? like jessica, she's so obsessed with "physical pleasure" that she has NO sense of spirituality or abstractness, and she CANNOT talk to headspace because that's out of her realm of comprehension.
shockingly, jennifer is growing out of this. like we said yesterday, she's becoming linked to headspace which could be MASSIVELY HELPFUL if she doesn't get yanked out of social functioning altogether. she's so, so sweet. we actually all like her now that we're getting to know her. the only problem with her is that she's blindingly naive. she was created to be the "work social," basically the "people pleaser," existing to be that sweet kind nice girl that everyone always expected us to be, a "hostess" almost. and she does it very very well because she LIKES it and she likes people and she genuinely wants to be that kind. so she's a GREAT person. the only problem is she cannot handle any negative emotions. i don't know if she can even understand them yet. and we're afraid of breaking her. so... right now we're leaving her to do what she will. even if she gets inside connections we won't push anything, let her deal at her own pace and time. we NEED someone as hyper-innocent as her because she's unfazed by family stress, which is something we have a LOT of right now. even if someone says something awfully mean to our face-- which would typically trigger simeon and then wreckage-- jennifer can't integrate that thought process so she honestly smiles and figures "oh, they're just having a bad day. i'll be nice to them." and whatever they said didn't register. so it's a way of REALLY surviving right now. we need her around.
more on that as it develops of course.

i still wonder if nousfoni who are moving levels like that, the ones who aren't in headspace, could go through heartspace first as a sort of initiaion into the upstairs? because heartspace can be that sort of bridge, acting/feeling like downstairs at first, then introducing new upstairs elements and gradually changing as they're able until they're ready to fully anchor upstairs (if need be)?
it's a thought. it'd help them grow MUCH more strongly as their own people, too, as barely any socials think of themselves that way at first.



when shopping today= "I have no interest in buying anything that we won't actually eat."
THANK YOU JAY

getting much much better at intuition too. still have to be careful, but trust is big.
good isn't "goody two shoes" remember. TRUE goodness has honor AND compassion.
remember! if it seems wise but has no love it's NOT WISDOM!!!




later on, listening to tons of christmas music (kenny g!) and finding more on spotify.
favorite find so far= "carol of the banjos"


watching a "vinesauce" undertale video that someone randomly linked, did that for like an hour because he was voice-acting it and when he gets to asgore, he goes for a morgan-freeman type voice but there's a tone to that voice that still works and... it made me really… it gave me that sad-happy feeling, watching that scene again.
laurie was warning us strictly to actually stop watching because we were becoming too detached an observer, becoming too dissociated.
we want to try another playthrough. get a happier ending. we really should.


someone made some really good food BUT it made us sick. which was sad.
at least people are trying.

we drank so many lemons today

finally got to put up lights on the porch!
just wrapped three lights around the trellis because i didn't have a ladder to get to the roof. it still works. then i hung a line across the porch windows because otherwise that whole side of the house is dark.



NO HACKS TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.
it was so scary today after that girl yesterday.



last night btw= coming home from choir, genesis insisting we get in the christmas spirit, loudly started singing "jingle bells" and making jay sing along until he was laughing so hard he was almost in tears. It was fantastic.

I just realized tomorrow is thursday. it's going go be insanely busy.
laurie says we absolutely need sleep right now so off we go.

 

 

@ 8:22
All right. I'm going to TALK to these weird intrusive fronters and/or mindsets and see why the heck they're so powerful and insistent.

I'm Jewel Lightraye, age 17. I think.


(she never finished this but the fact that it was written by HER is important)



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


@23:59~


"blacked out" for most of today. very little memory.

- not much work today again. we scuffed down a bumper and scrubbed down a truck. waldorf was ghosting for a minute (she does sometimes), concerned for my mental health as i hadn't slept well again.
most notably, at the truck we were observing that all of central has been spending time together lately, except for kyanos and eros. kyanos was with wally and i in the mornings for a while, but then he disappeared, and eros has been mainly missing for even longer. but as we were talking eros runs in the room, looking terrified, says he needs help. laurie made a comment about 'perfect timing' and eros shot back not to joke; intention and focus are VERY powerful in headspace and they could attract anything if you weren't careful.
either way yeah stuff got glitchy and scary and we ended up facing down the tar/plague for a few minutes. my brain isn't remembering things well there. but lynne was the first to act, with her arrows. then javier went at it with a massive lance but something felt 'off' to me about the whole thing? i wanted to help and tried summoning the sword "i" used to have but it didn't work. i got a sudden strong impression that it wasn't my weapon and so i tried to give it to eros. he said he already had a sword (a rapier), but he hesitated; he'd never felt right with that either, maybe he needed this one?
anyway i ended up just listening to my intuition, which ended up being "go eldritch angel and just radiate" so boom suddenly i'm all eyes and wings and white light and i didn't even move, i just filled up as much space as i could and shone. the tar/plague got really pissed and started screeching and clawing at me but it didnt want to go near me so it eventually backed out of the room and left.
i dont remember what happened after that but we were okay.

- kyanos being "not quite human" just like waldorf, apparently EROS fits that bill too? of course, he's an angel like kyanos, and they both have the white-skin like sugar and sergei and hyakinth. anyway we wondered if this is why he kept slipping badly when the hackers tried to "humanize" him, because that went even further against his overlay than it would for most others in central? it's a thought.
kyanos still has all-blue eyes, if that's not noted anywhere. he's also a wild card with age; he looks and feels several numbers at once and he's not sure how to present. so we need to figure something out or else he can't really stabilize. and eros still needs a surname, as well as a possible first-name switch to let go of old abusive connotations. his visuals are slipping anyway so i need to focus on art of him to fix that, override any outside intrusions or confusions.

- only made $50 this week total, went towards food and gas and family stuff. scraped $15 left over to save for punch brothers tickets. have to hide it from the addiction alters and manic spenders.

- outside of work, JOSEPHINA was fronting mostly.
he drove for a bit; we had to drive the brother to the dmv and i clearly remember jo being at the wheel by the expressway. his main anchor overlay point is his jingle bell earrings. we can almost hear them when he fronts.
he also asked garrison "where are we going" at first and garry got kind of flustered with papers trying to tell him quick, it was cute

-most notably, josephina realizing his color has been VERY off. like laurie, he's been carrying too much negativity and so his yellow has been muddy? i DID suspect this but wasn't sure what to make of it.
jo's been out of it for a while, oddly depressed, morbid. that bothered us all because when he first showed up he was MUCH more openly optimistic, much brighter as far as yellow is concerned. but TOO light? jo says now he NEEDS to be like that openly again-- it's a key part of his personality and ze feels really off-key not expressing hirself that way-- but ze also cannot let go of the more solid aspect of her personality? like the unflinching honesty without being biting about it, the awareness of death without being upset over it, the indomitable shining brilliance of true yellow. it's a richer color, it's exactly what he already is at heart, but like i said, it's that odd depressive shroud of energy that needs to go. wherever it came from i dont know. but we're healing.

- also jo isn't "bigender" ze's an androgyne? both male and female identity at once, not switching from one to another, it's simultaneous always. so jo is okay with literally any set of pronouns, the brain keeps trying to use all of them at once anyway, so if in referring to josephina we rotate pronouns that's normal. unless ze objects in which case we'll settle on something less random.

- bro reminded us of how awesome culprate's music is, so we're listening to their new album and "acid rain" is super nice and "florn" sounds like a summer drive and "yin" is all deep matte-black caverns and electric-blue light glow. it sounds a lot like infinitii.

- infinitii has a totally new vibe after the concert reset, yes it stuck, yes it's still exactly how extra-vertebrae captured hir. GOOD. since then ze's been untouched by hackers too, i believe. chaos zero has been for MONTHS now i think?? god only knows. feels like forever, that says enough, we cannot remember a time when he was negative now. although we're aware there were instances of slippage and hacking in the past, we can't remember any. of course "i'm" a mess of fractures and non-self typing data so that's part of it, but still.



- apparently the abusive eater was out today. we do NOT remember what they did. they freak us out because we lose a LOT of time from them and it throws off our entire temporal awareness; we don't know what day it is.
laurie just told me it's a friday so we can actually SLEEP and that makes me so so happy. i've been so tired i need to just sleep a day.


- hackers trying to get at us. laurie stood guard, i held the fort, we're safe now.
problem is we ended up online for three hours, purposely diverting our attention away from everything, and then it hit me. this is how we survived high school. this is how we survived college. deviantart, last.fm, and tumblr. time-eating sites, absolutely, and lethal when abused... but... they kept us from suffocating from trauma memories we were not capable of facing, or even admitting, back then. they filled up the empty space with noise and light, and the cacophany did nothing for progress.
it... i don't want to do this again. i don't want to forget or bury things. i'm not capable of it now.
11:11.
the therapist said we need coping skills that WORK, otherwise we CANNOT truly move forward with healing because when you inevitably bring all that old buried stuff up to the surface to heal, you NEED to be able to COPE WITH IT or else it's just going to make things worse. and according to her we do not yet have the safe environment required to heal, inside or out. and that's top priority.
but this time-wasting is not helping.

those two weeks without a computer (well, without a laptop at least) were very informative. they were a sort of relief, not having any internet access, not having to worry about conversation topics, or art obligations that we lose sleep over.
(we cannot take any more after we finish these two. we can't. we've been trying for years but i have to be brutally honest. "drawing" like this brings us no joy. we need to just accept that and stop forcing past it.)
we typed a LOT. and that helped a LOT. so i kind of want to hide the internet plug for another week, just type, see what happens.
i'm just... reeling, horribly, from how much more we lost with that hard drive crash. thank god, thank god we had most of our written files backed up. but we still lost our most recent data, which-- ironically-- was the heavy duty work i dedicated weeks to and then was enough of an idiot not to back up sooner. same with the music composition. how much of THAT did we lose? and the sai/psd files we'd finally been gathering up the courage to attempt again... i can't remember the last time we backed those up.
god i dont know. what do you want from me?
"do your work," you say. or at least someone says. then why the heck did you DESTROY SO MUCH OF IT?? what the heck do you want me to do when our memory is shot and we CANNOT REMEMBER WHAT WE DID AS A CHILD and that breaks my heart but we LOST it all and now you're demanding I "do the work," god i WANT to do the work but what am i even doing now??
do i start over?
do i start them all over? is that what i have to do?

maybe.

voltage and "parnassus" both got total plot overhauls anyway.
mage angels is leaning in a new direction. so is puppetstrings.
halcyon days is changing its entire construction. hokthai might be too.
oneircia is still open enough for anything to happen. so is "lg*girls."
rosewindow and dreamworld keep getting bigger, and even they are changing hugely, in key ways i never knew before.

but that's making me stop and wonder.
yeah we lost a LOT. we lost like 15 solid years of work. it was devastating.
but... what if that slap in the face was a wake-up call? what if we were SUPPOSED to let go of all of that because all those worlds needed to CHANGE COMPLETELY?
maybe. maybe. it's a thought.
did i ever say this before? if not, here it is now. i'm thinking it's true.

i just... i miss the innocent honesty of all that old work. THAT'S what i miss the most, just the simple but priceless childhood drawings, amateur work but damn it it was gorgeous as far as i was concerned, because it was sincere. because it was done to tell a story and it had no fear or ambition or doubt or pride in it.
jewel still draws like that. and she still wants to learn. she's always our hope here.



what else do we have to say for tonight.


- still reading "a grief observed." halfway through and we still can't relate to it. we should write about that fact. it surprised me to find myself believing such different things from the author.

- i get bad triggering misophonia from people eating/drinking around me and that's never been brought up to a therapist? it's problematic because of boundary issues and personal emphasis on sound-- certain sounds are very very triggering and when we hear them, it's like the hearing has already embedded them in our skin. it's invasive. it's like touch, when someone touches you and it feels like glue on your skin, or fire ants, and you have to scrub it off, well the sound is like that even worse because you can't get it out. sometimes we end up coughing or spitting or screeching to try and get it out of our own throat, but mostly the overwhelming sensation of being invaded by the sound is so awful that we end up violent.
overload came out today as a result of that when we got home, broke our belt in half. that was our outfit staple, now we have to buy a new one or literally half our outfits dont fit. see, this is how we lost our computer. people cannot cope with triggers and end up exploding from the sheer psychotic frustration. this isn't safe.

- we're still sick from the abusive eaters. they are VICIOUS, and after today we think the WORST one (a long-haired teen girl, unsurprisingly) ISN'T an alter, but is instead an abuse-bundle and/or a tar aspect? like we tried to talk to them and couldn't, they couldn't exist inside. only a screaming mess of hatred and blindness outside.
oh but they're awful. we still get physical "feeling" from inside and when we fought back and went to throw out the poison 'food' (it was utterly inedible, the bad fronters literally try to eat garbage and it's appalling) she started screeching "give me back my food you bitch!! i hate you!! i freaking hate you!! give it back damn you!!" and jumped on my shoulder and started punching me. and i felt that and i HATE when i can feel what they do to the body even when they're not "in it" because that's what julie did when she was corrupted at first and
there's no emotion tied to that.
how the heck are we going to talk about that eventually. it's a dead timeline.
and yet ashen holds ALL the pain.
just mentioning this, i can feel the sheer agony welling up from deep deep down, from her, stuck in that horrible little introjected abuse environment, all dim awful fluorescent lights and cold tile floors and nighttime inside dull artificial silence. she's curled up on the countertop sometimes (??) but she's always a mess, always a terrible mess, hair mussed up and outfits worn and thin and rumpled with dark circles under her eyes and she's so tired, she's so hurt,
one day she has to talk, what does she know, are there any others like her?

god we need coping skills because I don't know ANY of the stuff from way back when but apparently we need to work through it because ashen's existence is proof, that pain is proof, that it IS STILL RELEVANT even if i have no awareness or understanding of it.

then spotify jumps me with a half-naked ad, GET AWAY FROM ME.
why is that sinful crap everywhere too.
you and your stupid asinine alcohol adds, SHUT THE HECK UP.
no one cares about your beer and hedonism and flirting and idiocy. your stupid brainless dirty jokes and shallow egotistic obsessions. LEAVE ME ALONE.
I HATE THAT YOU SHOVE THIS GARBAGE INTO OUR SUBCONSCIOUS ALL THE TIME. SHUT UP. LEAVE US ALONE!!!!


- someone atoned on the arm yesterday. knife knew about it.
data says he fronted briefly to sob over the bathtub again. that always reminds us of a certain day. we need to review that too..

- need to dedicate a day to doing innerspace feel-work again. we need to figure out the spectrum functions as it stands now, with the new multiple-spectrum things and the color maps shifting and stuff. laurie is also wondering if karissa is going to end up our lime centralite?? she's always felt oddly "solid" and her level has always been "unknown" so maybe it's because she fits up here? we'll see. she's cool.
aqua is still a total enigma, it's such a full slot but the only person in central ever associated with it was chaos zero. but he fractured to be able to exist up here. and he cannot function totally up here as a result. besides it's not his responsibility to take care of headvoices, he's not a nousfoni, he has a different important job. so heaven only knows who will be the centralite for that color.
also. black and white are still confusing too. infinitii said it's much safer for hir to stay in the daemon spectrum, and since then who's been moving into the black central slot but our rosequartz-y lady from way way deep down. she's still very much a mystery too, she's still not someone we can interact with up here-- she's projecting a sort of overlay up here, but if you want to talk to her at all you have to go way way down to blackspace which is where she still is, all big and nebulous. so yeah, no clue if she'll be able to move into central or not, but again, we'll see.
there's still debate about jay too, partly because he's so strongly nonhumanoid at heart, and partly because "jay" is a bloodline name and he's been fracturing WAY too badly lately to keep it to himself, let alone to keep acting like he's all in one piece still because he's not.
he's broken into little bits but they're all not nice and they're all not him, he's white and he's a core bloodline person so when those bits break off they break off of the bloodline he was built from, parts he can't keep

remember, both bloodlines have their problems. we heal and learn. but pinstripe was the first "jay" along with jayce himself, who is still around, although he may not be as "original" as he feels-- he's probably fractured too. but the boy has old roots. he's just so depressed now.
poor kid. jayce has been fronting a lot lately because he's a brown-resonant and he's safe to be in the body and he doesn't get shoved out of it either. but his job is, "be a male in the body and therefore be non-abusive," but he gets so overwhelmed by the environment he's in, "what do i do," he cannot function without headspace either, thank god, but it hurts because he's also aware that to "live in the body" he has to split his focus between here and there and that's very difficult and wrenching.

i'm so tired. i'm still sick from those darn abusive eaters. well guess what NO MONEY FOR YOU!! it's for our concert and you heard us earlier, that is worth more than your addictions, and you said that was bullcrap so you are automatically now labeled as someone who isn't worth listening to. you have no respect for us, you have no empathy for others, you have no care for the consequences of your actions, OR who bears them!!
we made her front when the stomach was in horrible pain earlier and she kept fighting us off, squirming out of fronting, depersonalizing, refusing to feel it. when laurie finally shoved her (the abuser) in and she felt the pain, she laughed and said "well if THIS is what you people are feeling then i don't care if i don't stop!" basically, she saw it as more reason to be abusive. i dont know what happened then,

we did okay. we stood up for ourselves. we tried to keep safe. yeah today was scary and tough but the weekend, we're gonna try real hard to do it well, to not eat any bad things at all, to get emmett and spice out to eat instead so we can TAKE CARE of the body for once for heavens sakes, we dont want to be sick anymore, we want to be HAPPY, we're ALLOWED to be happy.


i'm exhaused. someone should have exercised this evening but the fatigue is real bad.

i hope nothing is left unfinished here becayse i'm falling asleep standing up good night.

 

 

 

 

today.

at work, eros going into raw floatspace and ended up fighting the PLAGUE??
he was terrified, couldn't get any weapons to work. called for laurie, she jumped right in and went at it with her axe.

eros desperately wanting to change his name. wondering if that's why he couldn't find a surname yet, because the whole thing has to switch.



REMEMBER that on the 17th the "ORIGINAL EROS" from 2012 came out and hacked the body EXACTLY like he used to. his vibe has not changed at all.
he's not actively malevolent but he does not understand what the hell he is doing and so he is NOT allowed to front because that makes him toxic even if he doesn't "mean it."

…I didn't mention last week as a whole, did i.


razor was out one day. with the anchor plushes. she had to kill four of them that week and she told me this morning, in tears, that she doesn't want to have to kill anything anymore even if she has to because it makes her very very sad. she's never felt so sincere before. like when peoples hearts break like that… their vibe gets wider, broader, more solid. razor's never felt like that before. so I feel awful that she's hurting but at the same time… her being is expanding, from how this is testing her soul. does that make sense? she's feeling more now, thinking more.

there's some "80s cartoon princess" that was out with the hacks, she was being used. I swear she's been around before. no idea who though, she's locked to those situations so-- even if this sounds harsh and sad-- I hope we don't see her again anytime soon. it's so weird, people like her and jacinth and azalea are so hack-locked that it's like, what would it be LIKE for them to NOT be negative??
…


oh. have I mentioned? we have at least three jewel monsters in the "system," I really have no clue how to refer to them as this is so unusual but they front often and easily and they are some of the most calming presences we have.
the main one's a purganiuso. I think he has champagne-colored power jewels but I'm not sure.
anyway he is such a good fronter. I love when he's out, it's so centering and nice and effortless actually.

the second one's the angelorei with dioptase power jewels that was fronting all around last christmas. he's really, really happy all the time, but it's a "gold" happy, more of a jovial sort. very solid but genuine.
either he or the purganiuso are resonating with "jubilatio/ jubilate" etc. as a name?
can't pinpoint which yet.

the third one's the gold lephieros with poinsettia eyes that was also out in church for the holidays. he's quieter and is rarely out but they feel very peaceful, with a sense of wonder.

they all feel like alternate guardians?? like if they were in the dream world they would live IN D4, which is HIGHLY unusual, I'm rather uneducated on how that entire level works as of yet. but that makes sense.

I don't know if the green kaiteo from last summer has an identity of its own, or if she's more of one of jewel's personae. she hasn't been around in a while
nevertheless, yes. jewel monsters IN THE SYSTEM. I'm euphoric, really. it feels right.


reading two psychology books. "muses madmen & prophets" and "the divided self."
both are SHOCKINGLY ACCURATE to our life. like upsettingly so in some cases.
but wow. really. wow. I did not expect to see THESE parts of our bizarre life experience in a book, let alone two. so I'll probably end up buying these in the future.
I haven't really absorbed them well enough to talk about them yet but I will.


found my digivice! FINALLY. I've been looking for it for literal years. turns out mom had it buried in a box full of old plastic game parts in the attic. but no more!
I have T.K.'s green D3, which is the best because ANGEMON. our bro had ken's black one, and that’s been on our bookshelf for about two years because it lost the back clip and so we could never wear it. but we'd put it in our pocket sometimes.
jewel always wanted the translucent violet variant but as a kid we weren't allowed to buy it. ah well. we're happy now, green's a good color, and hope's a good crest. laurie still says I'd be Light instead but hey. it works.
so now we are even more of a 90s kid aesthetic-wise, along with my arms full of power bracelets and my laptop bag covered in tamagotchis and plastic pokemon keychains. now if only I could find my old game boy color again, haha. AND our original 1997 digivice. we had a navy blue one and I think our first digimon was seadramon. we cried when it died. I remember that.




other things for today.

julie and pink energy.
I have to call it that because it literally registered as such. just this soft cotton-candy pink aura all about the chest. lovely stuff.
she is the only person in the entire spectrum, probably ever, who can front in the body and deal with sexuality in a non-sexual, fully compassionate, non-traumatic context.
that is HUGE.
she's also found out that
(autonomous sexuality? union of opposites IS symbolic, feeling of total internal completion? also RED as bodylife, deeply grounded feeling, everything rooted in that warm color, not lustful in the slightest. we've been vaguely aware of this since childhood; we never got sexual impulses we got this drive to ground but it was always that same area, the base of the spine, internally, like the seed a tree sprouted from)



(ended abruptly)

 

 

 

today.

at work, mopping up floors, place was flooded with mud
talking to xenophon for most of it
"don't dirty your pretty feet" thing, she got a bit agitated about feeling "too constricted," she wanted to run around
resolved that though. mutual understanding. she was careful where she ran and i was more considerate in my phrasing
either way it was really nice to have her around for so long.

talking to eros, waldorf, nathaniel, leon, laurie, etc. basically everyone in central today.
eros very very upset. can't remember why not. probably recent problems w/ his association being totally misinterpreted.



day "too long," felt like three or four, very disorienting

spice doing the kiss thing to stop people from buying into addictions
IT WORKS shockingly well actually
in general we are making huge progress in an amazingly short time with healing this
btw if laurie so much as attempts this, jay will dissolve on the spot
literal 100% success rate


don’t remember much else until evening

hack.
written about in book.
unsettled by how often these have been occuring.

 

 

july 26th.

★★Jay not holding WHITE, per se, but being a "RAINBOW" QUITE LITERALLY
Laurie saying "there IS no Rainbow slot, you're EVERY COLOR."
possibly the TRUE role of the real Host, i.e. being able TO BE ANY/EVERY COLOR WITHOUT DISSONANCE??
jay has been reflecting this appearance-wise lately quite often; again, the subtlest shifts in hair color/style and eyes are MASSIVELY important (as certain qualities are tied to certain "bloodlines") and can mean there is an entirely different person around.

★ eros birthday bear? we still have it, does he still have it upstairs?
BEAR "SPECIES" UPSTAIRS?? (the underground bear, and all of his/minty's messengers)
also BUGS. (beetles, ants, glowworms, spiders, butterflies, etc.) maybe tied to CEL??? the clock-wings one, mind!!


thoughts on eros and the past:

November 27th 2012 said my "real center" is Red, even though I resonate with snow. Then said that the Angel Helmet AND my 'Eros form' were the inspirations for ALL OUR ASCENDED FORMS. Still no idea how those apply btw. Plus the triple-4th was the NEXT DAY (CEL WAS THERE)

February 10th 2012 was the discovery of the Blood Lotus Cathedral, an incredibly major event. First, I never noticed until now, but J put on the Angel Helmet three times under different circumstances-- first, in the Oasis Room, it made him look how MY Soul Form looks now. Second, talking to Laurie, it turned him red & white, like "peppermint," effectively the color scheme J himself held then… and third, with Chaos, it made him look like Eros (gold wings (he did have a color conflict at first), red ribbon). Since the Helmet outwardly manifests virtuous qualities, it's notable to see that it apparently changes with context, and the Eros appearance ONLY showed up with CZ.
Then, when fighting the Tar & Razor (pre-anchor) downstairs, those two fused and then TURNED INTO "CELEBI", after which J was stripped of his defenses and turned into Eros in response--
"…it kept bringing up the 17th, then it turned into the celebi form of my old self, still made of tar, it felt very frightening. lynne put a shield up between us because it was getting dangerously close, but after a while of it screaming i walked through the shield, said it was something i needed to deal with. this made me turn into eros form, like in the cathedral. the tar laughed and said i was more vulnerable then ever now, i was scared it would abuse me, but i stood strong. laurie was terrified for me though."
Sorry for the dramatic emphasis; it's just that those two seem to have many connections we overlooked.


January 18 2012: J was referred to as "Eros" as a name at least twice during this… which is shocking, because THIS ENTIRE CONVERSATION WAS ABOUT MISTRANSLATION, IN LIGHT OF THE SUICIDAL CELEBI FALLOUT. THAT SINGLE CONCERN WAS WHAT CREATED EROS, AND KILLED HIM. Since I no longer have the mistranslation problem post-Infi-- who WAS the love core in that Celebi shadow-- that is notable in and of itself, tied to this name and its behavior.

The first name-drop was by Laurie, BUT in this context: "You still don't believe you have the right to be who you are, Eros… you're love, not lust. Ever... but you still aren't sure if you love yourself, are you?" And J said NO. THAT'S VERY SIGNIFICANT. She also said, in response to J trying to fit the mythological "Cupid" title exactly: "Stop getting so hung up on names, boy. They're guidelines for missions. You know who you are."
The second name-drop was by CZ, after things had calmed down. He said "at heart you're only love," and when J questioned that, CZ responded by calling him Eros… a little disturbing how both of these name-drops were tied to denials of self-worth.

★★★ THE REAL EROS LOVES HIMSELF AND EVERYONE ELSE.
THE SEXUAL DRIVERS LIKE JACINTH AND AZALEA DON’T UNDERSTAND LOVE AT ALL.

EROS WAS EXPLICITLY TIED TO CELEBI AT FIRST. DOES THAT STILL APPLY IN ANY WAY?? even color?

about celebi:
"A small but powerful creature of time, incredibly rare, who protected old forests and their inhabitants, and was said to bring an egg from the future where it traveled. They can restore life, they're genderless of course, they can purify shadows... "It is thought that so long as Celebi appears, a bright and shining future awaits us.""
heartspace IS AN OLD FOREST
egg from the future POSSIBLY BEING THE LOST CHILD??? (xenophon's theoretical sibling) infi SENT their "egg" TO THE FUTURE months ago and they NEVER SHOWED UP. no idea but it's a thought. feels odd.
RESTORING LIFE/PURIFYING SHADOWS IS HUGELY IMPORTANT THOUGH


july 27th.

last night, tuning infinitii into STAINED GLASS in dark holy places, for hir rainbow resonance. TRUE black realms.
euphoric about it, "thank you;" infi had been sticking with sheer black with just pearls as accents, that was problematic because there was NO COLOR.

laurie looking through old images we had saved, got inspiration for HER realm at long last (she's been very troubled for weeks about that; she had no idea where to start, or what it should even look like-- felt this uncertainty was totally unfit for a centralite, let alone one with a job as huge as hers). so she was starting to build it as we spoke.
space skies, carpets of violet flowers, FLOATING LANTERNS!!! it's a big vast gorgeous place, you feel small but safe all at once.
she was so, so happy. it made my heart just glow.

in therapy today (27th),

therapist pointed out our "robotic persona"= tied to how we want to be "treated like an 'object?'" said it was protective? safe "dehumanization," to keep away "unsafe" people-- i.e. the people who would talk to us as a robot/object are safe, those who wouldn't aren't.
this roboticness tied to THIRD PERSON VIEW of self!!

machinelike SURVIVAL INSTINCT? "don’t feel, just do what you need to do."
mentioned how we present EVERYTHING as "data," it's all very logical and precise and precise. no feeling, just facts.
BUT emotions are SOMEWHERE. hence the "background hum of unease" the autopilot keeps mentioning but can't understand.


thoughts later in the evening...

cel= TIME
cz= SPACE
tied into heartspace in that they are BOTH 'demigod' figures for lack of a better term?
both the woods and the ocean open up into other worlds?? specifically headspace???
those two have always had this unignorable, powerful similarity on symbolic levels, from the very start.

 

 

 

 

 

After the huge and frankly legitimate blow to our self-concept the other day, someone apparently shut down these archives. I don't blame them.
I'm bringing them back though. Not only do we need them for therapy, but we may need to access them tonight to assist someone else.
Honestly though, last night I was reading a few Xangas from 2010... God I miss what that felt like, the early days of community, when we talked so mucheven if we weren't as close as we are now. There was more effort inside.
Now so much is outside, there's so much struggle, so much confusion... we don't really have the same amount of massive "free time" (work, school, etc.) to just be inside, to just talk to each other, and be ourself...
Work IS helping though. Waldorf, Kyanos, and Laurie are always there, with Lynne and Spine frequently nearby. Josephina drops in here and there, Leon and Nat showed up today. We've got four hours of talk time every morning now, if there aren't any negative wall fronters out (really more programming than person, Genesis and I noticed today; you cannot talk to them so they aren't people).

The situation with CZ is healing, bit by bit. It's taking patience and lots of love, both of which I infinitely have for him.
The key seems to be staying myself. I have a lot of splinters too, I can slip a lot.
But I'm getting a better grip. Biggest thing is confirmed, I'm not humanoid. I suspected that for a long, long time now, but it's solidified more lately and I can actually get a visual of myself now, despite how naturally I tend to lean towards incorporeality and/or ethereality.
CZ is also trying to "solidify" his base manifestation, which we're finding to be surprisingly difficult because we've also realized that his canon self IS important. Notably, we want his canon self to be up here. That connection was always a very dearly beloved thing to our past Cores, so that's probably why the poor guy couldn't entirely drop it even when he tried.
So we're going to try the whole multiple-verse-self thing that Jewel's a pro at. Links and the like. See if we can manage the splinters better that way. It's all hope and theory right now but the bottom line is, when you get down to the very heart of it he's still as innocent as he's always been. He's still 100% who he's always been, and I can feel that, and my heart always recognizes that, as I've said countless times before.

I've been talking to Infinitii more lately, even if only in little bursts during the day. We didn't talk much for a while and it was starting to eat at me. You know how the whole daemon thing works after all, thanks Philip Pullman.
Still working with all the other Outspacers, too, and their daemons when they show up. Oddly I'm feeling sympathetic resonance lately with OLD Outspacers, aka the ones with no Spectrum roots, probably because those people are moving into Leagueworlds and when they do they automatically become compatible with/ part of heartspace, and can therefore walk into headspace if they wish.
On that note I'm also still working on the "adaptation" of our story for the sake of a webcomic. I do want to present this as such, a sort of "based on a true story" bit that we might just end up living now in heartspace, if we want to. That's a really really exciting and interesting possibility, what with the color realms and the new Spectrum map and the way we're seeing this all fits together... it's really awesome and I do want to talk about that eventually but again, I have to do the hard data work first. I'm the best with concepts, it's all raw color and shape and string and that's what I basically am, haha.

Leagueworld stuff always gets a boost during Spectrum downtime. We got two more shirts finished, huzzah. Starting the next two!

Right now, in the daily life, our biggest concerns are 1) working with the E.D. voices, making them conscious of their choices, questioning programming, solidifying eating memory, etc., 2) working with the "fallen voices," aka the "unconscious hackers" (who are mostly young dissociated girls), questioning their programming and rewriting their entire behavior/thought codes so to speak, 3) getting structure back into the Spectrum, which I was again reminded of when re-reading 2010, because we have so much complexity up here but it's rich and coherent when you really look at it. I haven't been looking at it like I used to. So that's that.

All in all, I can't complain. Life is good, even though it's stressful at times, and we might feel like we're taking five steps back and one step forward. I just... I'm more at peace now? Like I've been confronted with the real possibility of death quite often over the past two months, so I've made my peace with it, legitimately so. It's helped immensely.

I'm going to try and go back through these archives and either weed out or label the major negative entries, aka the ones written by super-damaged alters or by malevolent faceless voices. I don't like them cluttering up these archives; they detract entirely from the spirit of what we're doing here and I'm well aware of the risk they pose to the mental health of our readers, however passively.

We do want to have at least one Xanga session weekly, I know we've been saying that for ages but we've pinpointed the problem down to "we're afraid of having them at home" for some reason? The channel openness somehow is clashing with the vibe of our current room/ workspace/ etc. It feels claustrophobic. So we might just move on the porch. Either way we all know we NEED to start having those sorts of hugeass heavy-topic talks again, slacking off is only harming us.

I had an idea for an alternate coloring of this, sharing it because I like how it looks so far.




Nothing else to say for now. We didn't eat yet today and like I said, we might have our schedule booked for this evening.
I wish you all well, with utmost sincerity.

 

 

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.

 

 

 

This is going to be an absolutely horrible entry and I apologize in advance but this needs to be written about, no matter how sick it makes us.




We're so close to completely healing this.
There's this weird sort of dichotomy left, with all the switching and memory blocking and bleedovers and different hearts and minds and experiences.
But there's no evil tied to it now, not anymore. Infinitii's job is done, in that respect, God willing. Hopefully now ze can heal hirself, and have some peace, and move on from that initial dark purpose. A shadow can hold good knowledge without becoming the bad thing that knowledge was gained from.

Real talk, let it fragment if it must.

There's guilt, and fear, and shame, but it's confused, because it's guilty and afraid and ashamed of something that only exists halfway now, something that barely any of us hold and which is alien to even some of those few.

The body still gets sick but it's so distant and weird and frankly, we dissociate from it still. That alone, the consequences, carry all the trauma residue.
Headaches, fatigue, major confusion, disorientation, bodyaches, emotional numbness/turmoil, a sick sort of flat unease…
…I just realized. Those are mostly symptoms of switching, aren't they.

Hacks are rare now. We've scoured their battlefield so many times, we're wise to them now. And they themselves have bleached it out so many times, to convince us it's "clean" and okay to traverse, even though it's still buried with mines… even so, the bleach has worked in our favor. Any murky forced confusion the Tar forced on us before we learned, is now unusable. Like I said, we understand the truth now, we know what they're actually doing, we know what we actually feel. They can't touch us anymore, unless they ambush us in the middle of a catastrophe, and even then we're on guard.
The problem is, there is still confusion, that isn't attributed to the hackers mostly. Yes, the hackers caused this confusion in the first place, but even now, untouched by that, it's still baffling, wearily and sadly so.

Nobody wants this.
That's the bottom line. No matter how holy, or mindful, or careful, or compassionate we make this, no matter WHAT we do… no one wants it. No one wants it.
Except maybe that's not entirely true. There are at least two people in the System, socials with vague faces, that do want this but no one knows why. They don’t have self-awareness so it might even be pure programming.
Anyway that's the point I'm trying to make.

It all comes down to pain. All of it.
Pain breaks you open. Pain forces vulnerability, and trust, and openness. You cannot hide emotions or lie when you are in pain. For us, when you are truly in pain, you can't even be cruel. Little nagging pains might make someone lash out, but when you get the kind of hurt that draws blood or stops breath, you can't do anything but collapse. You surrender, you let down ALL the walls, you want nothing more than healing and compassion and relief and love. At least, that's how it works for us.
…Why do you think the atonement got so confusing, too?
Even now, no one with the job can grab a knife or a razor without sobbing and shaking. The people who find themselves standing in empty fluorescent-dark bathrooms with steel hovering millimeters above their skin can only choke on tears, afraid, but unwilling to put the weapon down. Then someone is brave, and a red line appears, and then…
Then no one wants to stop.
Then, the body is open.
Atonement began with Laurie, with the graves. We have no memory of it, save for the physical sensation of the knife in meat that cannot be imitated by anything else.
But… it happened because we cared. It happened because we wanted so strongly to be better, to be brighter and stronger… we wanted to be forgiven. We wanted to be healed. We wanted the "pain" to stop… and ironically,
That's what's so confusing. I'm sorry if the words are jumbled. The real pain, it breaks us open, and we DON'T want it to stop, sometimes, IF it accomplishes that. Only sharp, clean pain can do that though. The atonement, the blades, they are the most marked.
The problem is, somewhere along the line, someone found a way to shove that sort of pain into hacks if they tried hard enough.
So every once in a while we'd have a hack with two seconds of screaming pain and the brain would stop, "wait a minute, that's a good thing," and… that's why hacks kept happening for a while. Someone, some poor lost someone, just wanted to be hurt. Someone just wanted the pain, to be broken open, to feel compassion and totality and sincerity… to cry and sob with the weird bleeding joy and the internal community that it carried.
They were looking in the wrong place.

This sounds stupid. I'm sorry.
Nobody wants this.
The body is scared and sick and our heart and head are scared and sick but an equally large part of us is not because the event and the aftereffects and the cause and the experience and the context and the consciousness are all separate. It's all broken up and that's what makes this such a bloody mess.

Laurie is the safest person up here. That makes her the most dangerous person up here.
…
There's at least one of our "inner socials," people who are rooted inside but who operate on the outside, who don't have names or faces as a result… there's at least one of them, who's tied into this issue.
That one person is an androgyne at about 20 years old, female pronoun choice. This child, ze has no name, no real "solid" sense of self outside of that vague "I exist" feeling tied to her being rooted to a timeline spot.
She's dimly aware of the rest of the System but, like all "major" inner-rooted social fronters, she is aware of Laurie.
The problem is, this person also recognizes Laurie as this paragon of virtue, of strength, of everything the hackers CANNOT touch… of everything she wishes she could be. But this child, their mind is still stuck in the empty-confused state of the past, and they were taught that sex=love, and sex=spiritual union, and "you need both those things to be good," and THAT is why this kid keeps running to Laurie, even if Laurie is incapable of and unwilling to participate in ANY of that.
Yeah. This is the kid we've been trying to track down for MONTHS, if not years. This is them.

…

Laurie is this spotless virgin of sanctity and no one can touch her. Not even the ones who would do so with the most pure intentions, for what it's worth. I think that's the lesson here. It's being debated over and over thanks to the outside world but it's what we keep getting.
Some things, no matter how good your intentions are, or how careful you are, or how bright you try to be, are still wrong.

No one wants this. No one, none of us, ever wanted this.

We wanted pain.
We wanted to be devastated in an environment where we could NOT be hurt on the outside.
We wanted chastity.
We wanted charity.
We wanted to temporarily forget about everything but her and the slicing ache and that's it.
That's it.

No one wanted the means. No one wants it.

There are two people in the System, one who looks like the "original" Eros (from 2011-12), and one who looks like a cross between Lace from the Akuna System and us as a little girl. Those two are the only ones who "get us lost" in sexuality because THEY AREN'T "PEOPLE." They are effectively numb fronters which means they DON’T store memories, they DON'T have self-awareness, and they DON'T "WANT" IT. They are simply following programming that tells them HOW to act, and in what contexts, etc.
It makes me ill and sad. They aren't even people. But they are introjects of what sort of people we were always expected to be.
After so many years of loud, forced, brutal expectation, it starts to feel like a demand, like an overriding fact, like we can't be anything different. And that seed of horrible existential self-doubt paves the road for the baobab trees. And they will choke our world to death.

Julie was all programming, at the beginning. My heart hurts for her, how she still regrets that and yet she's moved on so much. She's changed, she's cleared her head, she's gotten rid of all she was NOT and now she's not programmed anymore.
But she's still wrecked on the inside, knowing she was the first person to bring that fear to life, even if she was a puppet too.

We've been programmed really badly. It hurts and I'm sorry and it's scary but at least I know it's from the outside.

"If evil weren't nice, nobody would bother with it."
That's the thing that's been haunting me and making me bitter and furious and scared.
You see it everywhere outside, especially in the religions, the newer ones. "Sexual liberation!" et cetera. A loud part of us says "shut up" to that, and I want to agree, but I'm scared of saying "no" to God? If God's really speaking that through them?
Oh by the way I'm just a kid. Not a little kid but I'm young. Just saying because I know we have to announce ourselves.
See I don't know. My religion, Christianity, says "sex before marriage is evil." BUT what if I don't WANT to get married OR have sex?? THEN I'm going against some OTHER doctrine that says "good Christian women get married and have children" but what if I'm NOT a woman and the Mormons did this same thing to us, "you've gotta get married and have kids," see it's "you GOTTA" so even if they say "premarital sex is shameful and evil and dirty and wrong" they SUDDENLY CHANGE THEIR MINDS once you're married. Now you're a bride or a groom! Congratulations you can have sex (”must have" or the marriage isn't valid, I've heard some people say) and it's not evil anymore.
That's bull crap. And I'm scared because it's like that all over. Prophets say "don't use those stinking parts" and I AGREE but then some other spiritual people say "sex is a gateway to God" or something and I DON'T KNOW.
I DON'T WANT IT, OKAY??? AND YOU'RE SCARING ME BECAUSE YOU'RE MAKING ME DOUBT MYSELF AND THEN I WILL FORCE MYSELF TO "TRY IT" AGAINST MY OWN BEST INTERESTS AND INSTINCT OF SELF-PRESERVATION AND EVEN THOUGH I'M SCARED AND DON'T LIKE IT OR WANT IT I WILL STILL FORCE MYSELF THROUGH IT BECAUSE YOU WANTED ME TO. YOU TOLD ME THAT’S WHAT GOD WANTS IS THIS WHAT HE WANTS? WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME THAT I CAN'T LIKE THIS FOR GOD

stop. Stop. Please. That's where all these problems are coming from
How old are you? I've never heard you talk before

We didn't even know what "sex" was until we were like 16. 18? I don't know. Do I?
By the time college illustration class hit we were horrified, we were already so traumatized we couldn't bear taking a bath anymore, couldn't get undressed without our eyes closed. When did it all happen?

We need to talk about this with the therapist. Somehow. Even if it's "bleached out" it's obviously not a retroactive bleaching. There are old, young parts in here that DON'T have the luxury of "apathy" keeping them vaguely together when hacks happen.
Apathy will kill you. It will. I know it helped you survive once, when you couldn't stop it. It was the strongest painkiller, a shot of Novocaine straight to the skull. But the pain still happened. You're still gutted. Somewhere, you still have damage, a wound that never healed correctly. Yes, it scarred over, yes the bone fused back together. But the scar is deep and white and huge. And the bone isn't aligned properly. Yes it LOOKS healed, but get rid of the drip IV, okay? Get rid of the apathy, of the fear keeping you numb, and THEN tell me you can endure sexuality without total childhood crying terror welling up like lava in your chest cavity. You can't. It ALWAYS happens. And THAT counts as "damage."
I know it SEEMS to help you survive, this apathy, when you're facing the outside world.


You need to drink some water. Stop torturing yourself in little ways. Did you notice you do that, too? The forced eating of foods that make us sick, give us hives, make us vomit, cause us pain. The dehydration. The lack of sleep. The lack of exercise, or overexertion. You're abusing yourself in ways that "DON'T COUNT" in your book because they "don't scar."
Sexual abuse and manipulation doesn't scar physically, either. IT COUNTS.

There's that mysterious "you" again. I can't help but think we're talking to programming, to the shell that carries this body's name and just exists to be "normal." It just exists to be a façade, to keep us hidden and buried, to ignore all pain and joy and reality. It hurts and it makes me sick and God that's why we stay up until 3AM every night anymore, we just want to exist and this is the only time it's safe to. It's the only time we're allowed to. The "outside world" doesn't exist for the most part, at night.
The Internet is still dangerous. Terribly, horrifyingly dangerous. We need to be careful.


Laurie is impervious and we love her and that's never going to change and that is what makes this so painful.
She is the ONLY PERSON in the ENTIRE SYSTEM who can neutralize hacks. INFINITII CAN'T EVEN DO THAT because Infi carries the shadow side OF hacks. Infinitii can get in there and eat the Tar and purify it, but ze knows things, ze has experienced things and carries things that Laurie will never and CAN NEVER know or feel or even think about. Her function forbids it, just as Infi's demands it.






(unfinished; cannot type anymore about this)

 

 

 

 

things for updates

PHOTOS.
we found a picture of spinny. she's terribly cute and naïve but there is a terrible distance in her eyes
found lynne's concert date. only 3 days before her death I think.
even looking at lost years there is no data.


BTW START A PRIVATE JOURNAL AGAIN (old "thoughts" files!!)
You don't need to publish/perform for everyone else all the time.
Learn to love your own privacy again.
Let your thoughts out for their own sake, for expressive freedom.
Kill that ego, dude. Don't be a slave to its lies.
You don't need to "justify" or alter your truth for an audience.

 

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

 

@ 23:08 pm

 

march update snippets



sun march 8th
all I know is I was with infi. ze is very unstable lately. demon/daemon vocab slipping, that’s a red flag in general.

mon march 9th
with chaos, around 4am. completely conscious. 444 remember

tues march 10th
talking to genesis and eros about the "nonsexual touch" problem, found some relevant articles online about that

wed march 11th
more hack attempts.
realized the 'sexual forcing' with everything is actually a rerouting of our need for "intimacy" and privacy, something we don't get at home but which we were also told is a sexual thing only, that's an evil lie
wrote some music, wrote about halcyon days. trying to figure out why their vibes feel sick, possibly the influence of hackers?

thurs march 12th
big outspacer bit. feeling surprising amount of resonance with markus, I seem to just vibe with violet people

 

 

 

update for october 15th 2014


early today, went to the farmers market to get some food. it started to pour rain. jay stood in it smiling broadly, rain is sort of a synchronistic thing between him and cz and he'd been concerned about a "drought" lately, on a heart level. but this felt like the exact opposite, so that meant so much.

javier spoke to jay shortly earlier in the day too, he was scared of what was being put into the red slot. not much was said but it was a powerful concern.

headspace memory picks up around 6pm?
infinitii. slipping badly into tar territory. with jay. wreckage almost triggered, kept out by unknown socials. jeremiah showed up, angry, to protect kids. jay was around by then, said the situation was too volatile, was trying to get infi to calm down. jeremiah stuck around and did not leave, shocking, but he refused to let the children get hurt should anything go wrong here.
infinitii overwhelmed by vice, vibe totally off. jay LUCID and not hateful or apathetic, telling infi "I cannot do that for you, I'm sorry." much conflict there, as infi was reacting with heartbroken anger? "i love you, why won't you let me express that." but lethal context limits. plus there are lots of "blurred boundaries" as far as infi is concerned.
later, infi scared of being a "whore," jay saying ze is not, ze is not defined by hir darker tendencies, so to speak. plus that word does not apply at all.
infi wanted to be alone for a while. jeremiah still caught the pain to buffer it from the kids, that was awful to realize

talking to headspace later. started at 9:30? terribly tired.
jay and laurie first. listening to old voice recordings. "why'd you lay down the law on mel," what triggered that? jay said old hurt, mostly projection. we have no real memory so things got skewed. but the relationship was sadly not working, so putting it aside was needed anyway. however there is purely positive memory data IN the voice recordings so that was beautiful to tap into.

slipped into imagining in that context, what if laurie was channeled again, what would it be like this time? kept falling out of "what-ifs" though, both she and jay preferred literal communication. jay was also wondering if it was possible to channel infi at all. laurie at one point said "infi feels like a church" and to that, jay asked "even on hir worst days?" laurie caught the implying vibe and sternly asked "what happened." so the topic switched to earlier, with infi. laurie hadn't heard, unsurprisingly.

mention of the lime/sky slots feeling somewhat hesitant for potential? like they were still "growing into" actual colors.
lynne walked in, listening to a few more voice files, then stopped and just talked.

javier came in shortly after, in tears, revealed it was about the infi situation earlier. jeremiah had told him about it, as much as he could. javier was worried for him and the kids, as well as for himself-- the red slot is the closest to the black slot and that keeps bleeding into his function via subconscious programming.
javier yelled at jay about this at first (not angrily, just in pain), this got more info out about the infi situation in general.
his visuals were slipping, said this was because of the current red core instability, the tar kept trying to "rewrite his role" and he was distraught over it. said he "needed a bodyguard," but none of the retributors seemed fitting for the job (it'd be too much of an extra role). to that, lynne said she'd do it, as well as spine. "I'll shield you." she said it'd be pretty cool, plus she cared about him as her spectrum neighbor already. javier thanked her sincerely for that.

xenophon walked in, saw jay and curled up on his lap. she was tired but heard us around and stopped by. while she was there though, the immediate concern was again about her parentage, as jay is not her literal father and he is struggling with the "role." we figured out that the main problem was actually tied to the word 'dad.' the energy was tangibly linked to EROS, it was triggering his residual bloodline whenever jay heard it. xennie said she could just call him "jay," elaborated that "eros had never been there for her" and plus he was "mean once." either way, she said jay was her best friend and she loved him like a father regardless. jay said the "stepfather" term still fit, if she wanted, xennie said that was okay too.
however jay and cz had been discussing this last night-- neither of them really matched the "father" title and had taken it on without understanding the implications. so jay then said that maybe they could be her 'guardians' instead? xennie gasped and said "like dream world?" jay said yes. xennie loved the idea, ultimately decided cz is her guardian but jay is instead her "royal protector" to reference dishonored. she said laurie is also 'her bodyguard' which was cute.

discussed daemons with xennie there. figured out they are "right on the line" between vice and virtue; they are the "potential" to be either at any time. this is the key to their function: they elicit love from their core-souls, but also terror. they allow those most damaged and frightening parts of the psyche to be actively forgiven, healed, and accepted.
jay said infinitii's main "vice" was lust, effectively-- or at least the potential to be it. infi runs mostly on the spiritual battleground between "sacred sex," total purity and chastity, and carnal desire. there is a ton of fear and conflict there.
jay explaining that the biggest problem was that, he does love infinitii avidly, but he cannot be afraid of hir. and so when infi gets into dangerous territory jay is all too willing to forgive that as it happens. but today was monumental because jay asserted himself and recognized that what was healthiest for him was not what infi wanted/needed. this is new territory for him. it took courage and self-love to admit that he did love infi but their methods of expressing that did not mesh, at least not at that time. again the only reason why infi keeps using dangerous contexts is because that is what has been programmed into the subconscious, it is "obligatory behavior" based in confusion. so infinitii is suffering more than anyone else, according to jay. jay said that he will do everything in his power to help infi through this, he will not give up on hir ever.

as for other daemons, jessica's ("chocoloco") is wrath, markus's is assumedly pride, and ryman's appears to be envy? unsure, markus is very afraid of his daemon and ryman is pretending his doesn't exist, effectively.
xenophon asked how one gets a daemon, jay said it's "an extreme reaction" when someone gains enough internal conflict that it needs to be externalized to be healed. so it was better to love oneself strongly enough to not need a daemon. xennie said that was good.


later concern with "context-locked behavior?" tied to past core residue, and social fronters. tied to "why it's so hard for jay to front in the body," also worries about jess.
"heal" versus "transmute," lynne said the latter was better. it didn't have the implication of something "needing to be fixed"

archivists. "level windows" opened in the air for them as usual, we could see into where they were without going there. sherlock had a hair change? visuals not locked in yet. said jay could find it.
lynne complimented isadora's hair ("I could never get mine that perfectly straight"), isadora in turn complimented kalisha. also her "selective mutism" clarification, more like "I can talk but prefer not to use speech to communicate." also parallel between blue instability with not speaking, that did not apply to orange.
(later, garrison apparently tries to stay "tapped in" to active data whereas isadora and kalisha don't. this is why he's the "go-to guy" for immediate data and not them.)

jewel was "triggered" around here too BUT through a level split, not fronting! she was waiting for us to finish because she had been working on dream world.
ABOUT THAT, sherlock pointed out that we know what the gap really is-- we kept thinking of league people as CONCEPTS, instead of people!! we forgot that we can literally visit or talk to them, they aren't just ideas. once that is recognized actively, the gap disappears. this is why "discussing" leagueworlds in the past never worked, as it put them back on a conceptual level.
on that note lynne kept making jokes about "quantum mechanics" as far as the "observation makes reality coherent" idea goes; basically subatomic things allegedly only exist in a "state of potential" until consciously observed, then they take on a specific state? said that seemed to apply strongly to headspace too. jay said that was actually super important to keep in mind, oddly it cancelled out the doubt too. there's no questioning that we ARE when you're upstairs, after all.

laurie and lynne walked xenophon to bed
javier kissed jay, tearfully and without warning, followed by a total emotion spill on the "red instability" topic again. he admitted, surprisingly, that he understood what it was like for jay and infi, because he'd been with infi once too, and also with eros. and that is why he was scared and angry, because the lack of coherency and awareness in those situations-- followed by the fear and pain and blind consequence-- was something he was struggling to get a grip on as well. he didn't know what to do either. jay said that they both just needed to be more assertive? effectively. knowing that it was not wrong to say "I have different needs here" even if that meant they had to leave the situation entirely.
jay said he'd help him at any time, however he could. either way.

jeremiah eventually came up to get javier, said he "heard them talking" from below. paused upon seeing jay, just told him to be careful, "don't ever let that happen again." not angry, just solemnly concerned, shaken.

not long after, wreckage appeared rather suddenly, from circular stairwell. mood was shockingly calm, compassionate. said she wasn't mad at jay or infi, she heard about it and she "knew more than you know" due to being chthonic; black energy seeps into their level quite a lot, they have inherent knowledge of it that people don't realize as a result?
TAR VS SAND, she summoned some black energy and turned it from the first into the second. illustrating previous points. then added, "you're not corrupt," said NO ONE in the system was. there were only flaws or "taints?" like it was all surface-level. she knew this now. jay said "but my blood is black," wreckage said "then keep it dreamsand," if it was truly corrupt it'd kill him, it would be tar not blood. jay nodded understanding, that was true on a few levels. wreckage said it was the same with infi, ze was not corrupt even after hir fears of it today. emphasized this.
laurie said this was "new" for her, behavior-wise (she started out as our most violent retributor). wreckage said it was because she'd been thinking of her color lately, what it meant to be GOLD of all things. it demanded honor and compassion and strength. so she was simply acting more in tune with herself there.
either way wreckage left on a very hopeful note, which was amazing really, jay said he was very glad she was nicer now because he "always liked her"

lynne and jay talking, trying to be less distant. lynne put her arms around his shoulders, jay immediately froze up a bit. lynne laughably said to him "I'm attracted to girls" to let him know he was safe, as far as that context went-- programming was putting walls up. then she said she'd like for him to think of her as a best friend, like laurie. added that she wanted to see him think of everyone in headspace like that, which is his wish too.
jay hugged her, said she smelled like rosin and "peach pie filling." lynne thought that was hilarious, loved it.

laurie and jay talking for a while at the end. strong visual data, even after so long.
jay said there was a feeling of profound safety and strength about her. she said that whenever he needed that, she'd be there.

ultimately, everyone agreeing that "going upstairs" is effectively meditation, it's instantly centering and calming and it feels like it works on totally different brainwaves (hence the trouble writing things down afterwards; there is a tangible shift when you go back into the body). we're talking a lot more lately, but all agreed that we should try to have at least one solid hour, if not two, dedicated to nothing but headspace communication every evening. we did this in the winter I think? either way it would help us across the board.



that's all we have for today, it's almost 1am so there is no time to add on now.
hopefully that covers everything. see you tomorrow.

 

SESSION PARTICIPANTS
LAURIE UBERICH JAY IRIDOS




All right, let's talk. Bits and pieces is all.

Sounds good to me, kid. You gonna get distracted by deep-sea fish or what?

Maybe. Yes. It helps. Oddly, it helps.

It's not "oddly." It's been like this for as long as I can bloody remember.

At least I'm not scared. Or ashamed. I've somehow found the uncorruptible peace beneath all this pain. Thank Simeon, somehow he tapped into it.

You think that's his job?

Maybe. He hasn't been out in weeks, and usually when he is, it's in the wake of a hack, or a conversation with the mother…

Sheesh, that makes sense. Man. He's really important then.

Yeah. Strange how he's still faceless up here though.

Probably so he can do his downstairs job better. Anyway, where were we. Deep sea fish. You love them.

That I do.

That's relevant. But...

What?

What I said before, kid. I… I get so confused when pain is involved.

I forgive you.

Kid, I know you do, I just don't know if I can forgive myself.

Why?

Infi was furious with me when ze found out, okay? But then ze admitted that ze was "just as lost as I was," and I didn't know what the heck to do. If Infi is lost, then how the blood am I supposed to figure out what I'm doing?

We have to support each other, I guess. Not shoot each other down. But with that "lost"-ness…

What? Kid, you were flat-out M.I.A., I don't know if you're one to talk here. No offense.

None taken, that's a good point. I'm not allowed around when this stuff happens.

That's the bloody problem. You're not around, whoever is is talking to me in a way that I can't understand, Infi is caught up in the dregs just as bad as everyone else, I don't know. You got ideas, kid?

Yeah, just… questioning to the nth degree.

Heh, no kidding.

No, I'm serious. I know you are too but really. Question everything. Even if it seems "rude" or "inappropriate." Question it ALL. I need to ask Chaos to keep doing that. Genesis does now--

He does?

Yeah. Too many close calls, and he doesn't recover well from shock. When I slip out he freaks, and demands I "get back in there," no matter what we're doing or what's going on. He did that the whole time I was driving today-- I kept slipping out, Jayce and the manic girl kept fronting, and--

Who the heck is that manic girl? Sorry, please continue.

"Please continue?"

Buzz off, Jay, I'm distraught and I'm trying to be polite.

No, it's okay. Sorry.

Nah, I'm sorry, kid, I shouldn’t be yelling at you. You're probably terrified beneath the surface by this point.

Not really? Just numb. It's numb now. I think Fragment was responsible for this one.

That devil is still around?

From what's been happening lately, Laurie, it looks like no one really ever dies.

Geez.

Yeah. But it happened. Thank God their detachment style is so severe that it's just aftereffects and pain that I'm suffering from. Vaguely. It's pushed to the back of the closet.

See, this is what I mean. You push it all the way to the back of the storage shed where it gathers cobwebs with all the other traumatic things. All the other times someone used this body without your permission and left you to pick up the pieces and pay the check. Sooner or later one heck of a massive spider is gonna come out of there and we're going to have trouble.

Why "spiders," always spiders. That yellow one that came out of Infi last September.

Shoot, I forgot about that.

Not me. Jessica's daemon reminded me of it.

Jessica's daemon? Whoa, wait a second, what the heck is this?

You didn't hear? Jess has a "soul split" like me and Infi. Big rabbit-demon-golem thing, brown with red eyes, doesn't like me much. Orders me around a lot lately, but I'm grateful for the strictness, I'm afraid of him really so it keeps me on track. Funny how fear ultimately ended up being such a hugely benevolent thing up here.

No, stop right there. Fear is junk.

It is not.

...Fine, point taken. Maybe not to save yourself, it isn't. But motivating the good in you, it is. You shouldn't have to be bloody terrified in order to behave rightly.

I think it's the way I was raised? Either you "fear God" and be a saint, or you don't and therefore become a blasphemous heathen.

Ah. It's that black and white nonsense again, then.

Yeah. It's hard to see an alternative to "holy fear" when I legitimately believe and feel that on my best days.

…Even for me?

I used to. That's the problem.

...Yeah, yeah it is.

…Is that weird, that I want to be afraid of you again, but I love you too much?

…

I think that's why there's this problem. Pain was always synonymous with… euphoria? Forgiveness? Pain was a good thing for us. Not violence. We'd flinch and hide and cower and cry whenever a hand was raised, or a belt was waved, we knew the moment of impact and the rage behind it would be terrifying. I think that's what Dread and David hold. But the others… there have to be others, that's compartmentalized soemwhere, otherwise this wouldn't be happening-- once that instant was done, the pain stayed. It ached, it burned, it set our nerves on fire for minutes or hours afterwards. And it was addictive. There was something to that pain, something alive, something gorgeously real and frankly…

Tied to that.

Not that, specifically. But what other people said we'd get from that. And we never did, except for when it hurt terribly… and that's what made it confusing.

Damn it. God damn it.

I'm sorry.

Don't be sorry, I'm the one swearing, and this isn't your bloody fault. Is this where that thing came from that I heard of the other day? How you can't be as afraid of Julie as you were not just because the memory is missing, but because she'd make it hurt? Is that why?

Maybe? It's all just so convoluted. Humiliation and shame, something inherently tied to sex for us because it always coincided with… actually can I talk about that a bit?

Sure. Lay it on me, be as honest as possible.

Be as brutal as possible, please.

How? What the heck am I gonna do, tear it out of you? You be honest and I won't have to do anything of the sort.

I know, I guess I just mean don't let me lie or sugarcoat things.

Sure thing, kid. Now talk. Wherever you were going to start.

Okay. …And would you believe, already my mind is trying to distract itself.

Tell it to shove off. Center and let's talk. We've breached the topic you can never bring up to the therapist, so don't quit now. What was… what was the humiliation you talked about?

It was tied to the mother, and the grandmother. We brought this up in therapy yesterday, actually-- and when I talked to you in the morning.

How you feel 'your' body is public property?

Yeah.

That’s a lie, kid.

I find that hard to believe.

Why.

Because growing up we had no privacy. Privacy was a luxury, selfish and proud. 'Privacy' was pretending that you had a claim on something-- the idea that your 'personal' thoughts and feelings and such were yours alone.

And they weren't?

No. I was always terrified of being found out, you know that. It's why I burnt and destroyed my own creative work, because it was 'too emotional' and I would be utterly humiliated if my family found them.

Explain that. Were they looking for them?

I don't know. Sometimes I guess they did. I honestly don't remember, the entire childhood is a blur.

Hm. Go on, what do you remember then, to go on for this?

Uh… one memory came up yesterday, when I was talking to Genesis, I think. You or Genesis. It was a… I smelled something, some odd sterile scent that reminded me of the YMCA? Like we used to take swim lessons as a kid, I forgot about that. I can't remember the lessons, but now that I've 'seen' the locker room memory again, I at least have that visual map to walk through. No actual memory, per se, other than the fact that we always used to use an orange locker. It was special.

Heh. Now when you say 'visual map'-- you mean like Google Maps, just walking through that stuff no matter how old the photo is?

Yeah. Exactly, yeah! It's just pieced-together snapshots, a static collaboration of old memories. It's frozen in time and I can walk through it to study details, and maybe trigger further knowledge when I 'dig' in the subconscious memory for more data… but some places are big blurs, or black voids, where there is no data. I can't go there.

Huh. Do you get that for other things too, kid?

Yeah, most things actually. I think it's why all my dreams of schools are skewed. The fronters switched so many times over the years, some of them even died-- on that note correct what I said earlier, some people do dissolve and I found that out today--

Make a note of that, I want you to tell me about that later. Now go on, vision maps. Why are the schools skewed.

Because we don't know who fronted then, so we have none of their memories to search through. There's just "collective data"-- every time an existential moment happened, or awareness switched specifically to headspace, like in the bathroom by the cafeteria where I was looking in the mirror and talking to Lynne I think… before we "reintegrated" her at the time. That bathroom is a total void save for the general layout of it, as bathrooms are blackout rooms the way it is. But yeah, if no data is saved, I can't 'see' anything. But for other things, I can mentally revisit memories that weren't mine if there's enough residual info. Sorry, this is rambling somewhat.

No, it's fine, kid. So the YMCA, what did you remember about that that tipped this whole thing off?

Oh. There were changing stalls, by the door? They had Jackson Pollock-like paintings on the side, I remember that because the mother always brought it up.

Splatter paint?

Yeah. Like ketchup, I would always think. But the stalls only had fabric curtains, and there were always strangers there. Sometimes people would peek under the curtains to see if someone was in there, mostly little kids would, but still.

Geez.

Yeah, so I would never feel secure. And I would always wonder why. "Why do I feel uncomfortable with that?" Why the hell should I demand 'privacy' when my body basically was at my parent's mercy anyway?

Kid, that is messed up, you know that right?

I'm learning.

…

But yeah, never quite felt safe. But. I think there was one time, or a few, something, where the mother actually looked to see if we were dressed and we weren't. Something like that. Being forced to get undressed in cars, during the summer, in full view of whoever may have looked in. Getting dressed in the bedroom and the grandmother refusing to leave because "I'm not looking!" acting like we were ridiculous for being afraid of it. No privacy. Being told privacy was silly, not understanding why I felt people shouldn't look at me. Do you get what I'm saying?

They made you feel like your body was an exhibition, basically.

More like, if someone wants to look, let them look. "You have nothing to hide!" At least, until I was a young adult. Then you're not allowed to wear shorts even, because now you're corrupting somebody with your licentiousness.

Sheesh, that is screwed up. But I remember that though, from 2012.

That's a strong memory, yeah. We wore a crop top for two days, and got so much moral flak that we were terrified to wear short sleeves for the rest of the summer. And then we burned that top .The shame still hasn't faded, really.

…So. Is that why sexuality is "inherently shameful" here, because nudity or nakedness for you was never… consensual? What's the word. Like you never wanted it but were always forced into it, or…

It was more like, I never had the luxury of privacy when I was naked as a kid. There was virtually always the risk of someone walking in, and refusing to leave, or invading that space, or whatever. The only "safe space" was the double-locked bathroom, and you all know what happened there.

Yeah. Wish it didn't. So that happened today.

Effectively. I think. It's… I don't want to look at it. Should I?

No. Where were we, go back and look.

…Oh. Pain.

…Go on.

Pain, and Julie. It was humiliating and terrifying to be stripped naked by her and forced to endure whatever she did, but… dissociation kicked in then. The brain couldn't handle it, it tapped out and we were now no longer in the body. And the aftereffects from that, from what she did, hurt like hell but in a DIFFERENT way. You wouldn't know, but just ask Simeon or Ashen or Infinitii maybe. It hurts, sickeningly, when that happens.

…

Sorry. It just does and it is hell on earth. Even when I try to think positively of it, even when I tried to use it "benevolently" or for holy purposes or whatever. I regretted it every time I can remember, because it hurt so much and I felt filthy and violated and wrong. I don't want to think about that.

Then don't. I just… what the heck were they talking about. Fragment. Whoever it was.

With the pain?

Yeah. Asking me of all bloody people, what the heck. Why were the asking?

Because you are synonymous with pain, here. The positive sort. Sharp, brutal, bleeding pain, the kind that clears and cauterizes. Relief. Maybe… maybe that's why we have problems with this. It's the only source of pain we have left, however sick and disgusting that is. Someone always decides "it's worth the risk, if we can make it hurt badly enough," but it never works. It's the wrong sort of pain. So maybe they were just as confused as you were.

…Maybe. It's just corrupting me, is all. Making me slip. Corrupting my function. Infi said so, you heard 'em.

I know. I know it too.

…Kid, am I gonna die from this?

No, no I swear I won't let that happen.

Not before you die first, huh.

…I…

Sorry. That was uncalled for.

No, it wasn't. …I'm scared too. I can't front when that happens. Ever. I mean sure, I was out today, fronting with my cupcake eyes or whatever you call them--

Heh. Sparkles and sprinkles all over, huh.

Yeah, basically. But… it's so hard to stay in the body. I'm an upstairs guy. Even now I'm unstable because of the channel link. But I'm trying.

…Kid are you sure you're okay? How's the body, is it okay?

It is now, yeah. It's been an hour or so. We're good. Just nauseous is all, and… nausea, headaches, and that gut-deep wanting to cry. The scraped-out depression.

…Every time?

Mostly. I don't remember, Laurie. There was one time Chaos was hacked, I still can't look at that because it is a horrible feeling to remember-- and Genesis went through as much hell as we did, the past fronters. Anyway I know with Infinitii ze used to use this to heal the body, to try and repair the psyche, circumventing the trauma and trying to re-assign triggers, you know, programming positive into negative aspects. It didn't work, not past a certain point. The trauma wouldn't leave. Then the plague kicked in. Ze tried so hard, ze genuinely loved everyone ze was with and everything ze did was colored with it-- but there are some things you can paint over a million times but it won't change how they are perceived. If that makes sense.

Yeah, the metaphor does, but can you give me an example? If it won't hurt you, I mean.

Uh… well just the whole sex thing in general. Once it becomes physical, it's terrifying. I don't know who managed to get us trapped in that before. Some malicious fronters would, it's happened. And that's where the trauma has roots that bleed over into so many other things. It's why it's hard for me to be close to people physically, or to be in certain locations, or the like. Sometimes raw memory just comes up and I want to vomit or cry or scream or attack and it's never my reaction, it's never my emotion, but it's there.

…

Sorry. I forget what we were talking about.

Nah, it's okay. I just wanted to bring up the pain thing, because that had me distraught. As you'd say.

I understand. I really do.

Yeah, you would. …Kid, is there anything I can do to alleviate that? Like can I do anything to change the association, so I don't get dragged into this hell anymore, and neither do you?

…Maybe? Let me think… only atonement, really. Pain got rerouted, somewhere. Atonement stopped for a long time, due to outside threats, and it just… imploded.

…I can see that.

Yeah. But until we fix the pain roots, the sharp sort will always be benevolent, and we will always seek it when we feel sick and filthy because nothing else clears that from the psyche. That's the problem here.

…Come upstairs, I'll beat the the hell out of you, that'll handle this.

What, really?

Yeah. I'll try. I'll beat Jayce up, how's that? He's a freakin' prick sometimes, I'd have no problem slicing him up if I had to. Not you. I've tried, I can't. It doesn't sync. That's the problem.

…Why does this keep happening?

What?

The… the hacks. No one wants them. No one. Julie doesn't, Eros doesn't, Infi doesn’t.

Eros doesn't?

I've talked with him, so have others. I think his role is changing.

Thank God.

Remember it only became obscenely sexual due to corruption during that time. Religious misunderstanding, really. Which is why Chaos caught the brunt of the consequences.

…June 2011, huh.

Yeah. That's when Eros started to get really lost. Then 2012 hit, with the Celebi incidents, which I have no data on mind you--

Good, don't look for it. But yeah, I think that's when he really started legit dying.

He was gone by SLC, that's for sure. I don't know who was around then.

No one does, yet. You got a visual map for that or what?

Barely. There's data for the balcony view, and the steps from that one day Dad called when he was in Puerto Rico… just that one day, just that one spot. The balcony view is from the smoke pancakes evening, so the doors are wide open and smoke is pouring out. Don't tell anyone.

Heheh, I won't.

And we were laughing. So there's some data of the 'living room,' of the table where Chaos and I were talking and reading about the rain that day I got sick… there's some data of the couch from the other day we got sick and called the grandmother out of fear. That was weird, that's skewed due to being looked at too many times.

That can happen?

Yeah, if you look at a memory strongly enough, it can pick up residue from the present. Like a song, or a scent, or a feeling, that was a powerful presence when we were looking back just as strongly.

So memories can be redefined like that.

Somewhat, yeah.

Huh. That's interesting.

It is. Important, too.

No kidding, write that down somewhere. Garrison?

Yes?

Write that point down, about the memory reprogramming or whatever.

Re-associating?

Yeah, thanks Izzy. Now let me talk, keep the data coming when we need it, thanks.

I love how they're always there.

Hey, it's their job. Now back to the data maps. What else on the apartment, anything besides the porch and front room?

A little? The front room is vaguely complete, as all the times the missionaries visited we had that gut feeling of "this isn't right for us, we shouldn't be in this situation" and there were robotic social fronters out.

Really?

That's what it's stored as. It's 3rd-person memory. So we have a vague idea of what the door looks like, and that there was a couch, and a shelf to the left, and a TV behind. That's it. Oh and a pillow on the floor I think.

Snapshots?

Exactly. But… Mel's room, I know they had a desk, and I know there was a bed to the left and a dresser to each side… I don't know what those looked like at all. I know there was art all over the walls, but I don't know how that looked. And there was a closet to the left, that's empty of data too. If I "walk in" there, and try to look at things, there's just subconscious "shadow memory" which allows me to navigate physically. Like for the most part I won't walk through a wall, or into one, because I "know" where they were, roughly.

For the most part?

Yeah. Like if I tried to walk by Mel's desk I'd get stuck, like clipping in a video game. We know it was there, but not where it began or ended in space.

Ah, I see.

Yeah.

How about your room?

Vaguely. There's the view from where I used to stand and do exercise, that angle sight of the computer desk. We were listening to Serph at the time, and it was nighttime. Then there's a view of what it looked like from the top bunk that one beloved morning I woke up with "Reach Lines" playing on my iPod, and I felt perfectly, deeply happy. I will never forget that feeling, ever... it was so bright and serene, like summer in cinematic California or something.

Heheh. Sunny days and palm trees, huh?

And wide sparkling cyan water, yes. No idea what the rest of the day was like, either, after those moments. And then the only other visual memory is…

The lights?

In the corner?

Yeah.

No.

No?

No, the only memory I have of them is from the time Chaos was channeled was the moment I saw his eyes, and then… and then the moment when we finally kissed, when it hit me that this is really happening and the moment is stored as a bloom of deep fiery joy in the heart. It's… that's it. No room memory at all, just the color of the light, all dimly violet and blue and red.

…

That’s it, really.

Huh. …I'm glad you remember that.

So am I. I remember a ton of snapshots from outside the house, but nothing I can piece together and walk through. I can get a vague visual awareness, like I'm sure I could find my way around well enough if I went back there, but I can't tell you what it would look like ahead of time.

I see. Now can we please change the topic because you forgot to mention we had a 20 minute break back there.

Yeah, right when you asked me about the room. You said, "I'm not saying anything until you get back in there," and then stuff happened.

Please, talk about the stuff, that's too bloody important to leave out.

Okay. First I talked to Simeon.

What.

Yeah, actually that's super important too, I needed to tell you. The body started to get context memory again, and the next thing I know we were both asking each other if we were okay? But I SAW him. He's in raw whitespace, where Javier was re-forming last summer.

Whitespace? But he has a form?

Yeah. Oh!! It's the-- the place where the ground fell through, in Central City.

Really?

The city tiers. It's where Jeremiah was forced into existence, too. That floating area. Down in the ground.

Wonder if that's part of why they're connected.

Could be, I think it applies to the kids too. And Simeon, which is why I'm not surprised.

Shoot, yeah, all the kids stay with Jerry too. Does Simeon?

No, he doesn't quite leave the "whitespace" part of it. There's all raw stuff floating in the lower spaces, really, filling up the "ground" where there's nothing but solid space. Anyway we were in whitespace, talking. I asked him if he was Sylvain and reincarnated, he said no, that was his brother but he was "from another time" so there's no memory of him.

Makes sense. Kind of like you.

11/11 at the bottom of the page again, just wanted to point that out.

Heck yes, it's been a while.

Page 11! Geez! Oh that reminds me. Simeon looked at me at one point and said, "you're not Jay."

What?

No listen, I wasn't. I "slipped out" and that overly exuberant social "cover" was out, kind of like a mask or splinter program? Like Simile is for Melodia, I think.

Makes sense. But he saw it?

Yeah. So then I pulled myself in as strongly as I could, just surrendered to my own resonance however it manifested-- he helped, he could also tell when I felt 'off'--

That is so freaking weird though, how he could see it.

Probably because we were in raw whitespace, effectively. It'd be more visible there.

Ah. But yeah, what'd you do, kid?

I apparently am not humanoid, like I suspected. I'm halfway between crystalline and luminous, halfway between a glass-edge fragile explosion and a flowy miasma of light. I don't know about eyes, or limbs, but I do NOT have a mouth and when I "talk" it is purely telepathic and comes from somewhere behind me, like a foot behind my chest and my head both. It's weird. But THAT feels "right," totally so, at least as far as presentation goes.

Holy swords. So how about now, are you here?

Not entirely, because in order to be in that form, I cannot talk for extended periods. It's a very "being" state, not "doing," hence the exuberant overlay or whatever.

Ah. That makes sense. You were talking about that split the other day, I think. You always are.

Because it's a concern, "how do I be both," well now I know I already am, I just have to practice shifting and balancing and things. We'll see. But it's awesome.

No kidding, you'll have to let me see you like that tonight or whenever.

After we're done typing!

Yeah, get to the chocolate already.

Wait, I spoke more to Simeon. At one point he said "I took the pain away" and I asked him, if he really was someone who could heal us from hacks? And I think he is? Like he specifically implied that his function was to "smooth over" or "comfort" in the wake of those things… more of a feeling, like blanketing someone who is cold, or smoothing down rough edges, that sort of vibe.

I'm still laughing at "specifically implied."

I don't know how else to say it, haha! Feelings are clearer than words. But yes, we seem to be right, Simeon exists as a "pain manager."

You know who else is a "pain manager," effectively? Eros. Get to it.

Ah. Yeah, so after that we somehow ended up in the kitchen with Eros stuffing his face full of chocolate cheesecake-- oh!!

What, you remember something?

Yes. However we ended up in there, the moment we saw it, Jessica's daemon jumped up to the very front of the vision, as the resonance of it was very close to him.

What? How?

Chocolate, that rich sort, but also the cherries. It was cherry cordial cheesecake, and for some reason that clear drippy red along with the thick, dry chocolate cake was perfect for his vibe.

The "cheesecake" part was Eros, holy smokes.

We'll get to that, in a minute.

Yeah it was just hilarious. Keep talking though, I'm interested.

So the first thing this daemon does is look at me fit to burn a house down, and demand that I am not to eat it. I said I wouldn't, but then there was like 20 seconds of marked blurry hesitation, and then Eros was out, trying to do just that, outside of that daemon's view.

Wait, so he can only see you?

I think so. Jessica is the "body core," or at least, the consciousness tied to the body persona that the people we live with give it. So I'm tied to her as one of the main people, if that makes sense.

It does. So he can only see you because you're on his level, really.

Yeah. I mean I would assume so. It's just weird because we're in his floating space when we talk, which means he's letting me in temporarily to talk to me, and I can get in there to talk to him but he's not very happy when I abuse that right. Like he gets mad. It's a very "brown" anger, though. Compact and solid and heavy, but with that red burn of his eyes. Very different than plain red anger. The red is just a buzz edge.

Kid you say the weirdest flipping things but I think I get what you mean. Stern anger with an edge that could explode any second?

Not so much "explode" as "burn." It's red, not yellow.

Ah. Got it.

So that was that. Then Eros decided "oh my gosh cheesecake" and went to town.

What he said was seriously interesting, though.

Yeah, mind data says he only ate it because it was warm.

Really?

Yeah. Otherwise he wouldn't have touched it. But the warmth, on top of the rich sweetness-- NOT dense, that would have been a totally different vibe too-- was too perfect, and he latched right onto it.

He said it was, and pardon my language, "what sensuality tasted like." Specifically that combination of things, and especially the cheesecake, as I said.

I think it was the texture? Like it's hard to put into words, but it's… off-white, thick, but like a cloud. Heavy but full of air, like a pierzyna, and being wrapped up in it and warm. The warmth is extremely important, he's right.

Where does the chocolate come in then, Julie?

That's important too, I can feel the data. It's not just any chocolate, it was that dry cake chocolate, dense but crumbly. Not like a box cake or a brownie. This was packed but it crumbled like ground in your hands. For some reason that applied to chocolate was important, I guess it balanced out the influence somehow? Anyway that's not important. The emphasis was on the cheesecake. The cherries were visual for sensuality, that glossy glassy red that I adore, that Eros reflects in his own right.

So the chocolate is just whatever? Because Julie is tied to it, is why I'm asking.

That's why I think the dryness was important, the bittersweet aspect of it. Chocolate, when sweet or too dense or too milky, becomes a totally different thing. It becomes threatening, almost.

Ah. So this was a… property shift?

I think?

Got it.

But I find it interesting that Eros said "this is what sensuality tastes like." The not-exactly-sweet but incredibly rich warmth of it. And it does, it's hard to put into words.

Hey, you would know, not me.

Actually you could know, if you wanted to, and THAT is what's important here.

Sexuality and sensuality are two totally different things.

And Eros has very little to do with the former, if at all.

Yeah, no kidding, that shocked me. Someone tried to screw around with the body memory when we left the kitchen and he got so freakin' angry--

It was a trauma trigger, when we walked into the bathroom to brush our teeth, immediately the body started getting spasms and pain reactions, from context memory. And Eros did get shockingly angry, he jumped right up and demanded to know "who was doing that," that "no one had any right TO do that." Which secretly lit this huge flame of hopeful gratitude in my heart, really. He got so corrupted before he died, hearing that from him now just wiped all the doubt away that I had about that. He splintered into his own person and lost the corruption he had held prior. Which is such a relief.

No kidding, I was worried sick about him too, and about what he could do if he wasn't healed from all that.

Mm-hmm. So… I remember he actually fed Julie a bit of the cheesecake and she got the cutest smile, it was great.

Yeah, that was pretty adorable.

Like Knife!

And Xenophon, we kept joking about that, and you forgot to mention that people keep name-blurring with those two. Infi and Xenophon.

Yeah, that's weird, it's been happening for months on and off.

Eros said he meant to say Xennie but then said Infi, like an afterthought of hir relevance or something.

Yeah. Those two have a deep connection somewhere and I think that's proof of it, subconsciously. I don't know what it is, other than parentage, but that could be significant enough.

Yeah. That's just guesswork now, though.

Pretty much.

So. I know we had something else to say about the Eros thing.

Yeah, it was more relief on my part, as well as heartbreaking realization, of just how far the confusion went? Or could go? You had something to say about that.

I did, I was wondering why the hell pain was tied to sexuality and Eros began explaining that to me, before he realized that he didn't have that data and that's why we called Julie in.

Oh yeah! That was interesting too, the fact that Eros actually doesn't have any accessible memory for sexuality. I thought he did.

That's how far the role corruption went, kid. And then Julie said that sexual pain and non-sexual pain are apparently two totally different things as well, which infuriated me because who the hell is trespassing on my turf with this topic, and then the fear thing came up. "Would this all stop if you were terrified of it."

Jabberwock.

If pain was put back into these sexual hacks, pain you could be afraid of, would it stop? Would you stop bloody confusing it with me because you are too freaking dissociated to tell what is happening and you're seeking relief? And we figured, heck yes, if we saw that monstrosity associated with this we would run the second it was implied.

Jabberwock is terrifying. Ze really is. But ze's a Retributor, I think, at least the motivation is the same.

Good. She should be, the last thing we need is more corrupt reinforcement of the negative.

Meaning?

Meaning the next person to promote abusive behavior up here is getting my axe slammed into their face.

Good.

Yeah, no joke. I'm tired of this.

Mostly splinters and fragments and socials are promoting abuse now, though. No one in the System.

Yeah, and thank God. Wait-- why the heck would socials­ be-- oh. Societal garbage, right?

Yeah. Subconscious programming. Subliminal obligation. Dirty automated scary stuff that ends up in the cellars solely because there's no filter on what's shoved into your awareness on the outside.

That's why Infi's around though, right? At least halfway.

What, to protect me from that?

To remind you of what's true, not that. Infinitii is tied to the subconscious trouble more than anyone else up here, save for maybe the other daemons from what you've told me. But Infi holds our scary stuff from the outside. The whole bloody System, since ze's the Core-splinter of you. Ze has to deal with all the terrifying nonsense that gets to you in the dark, and ze's stuck twofold because ze's part of it, part of the dark, part of the Shadow that we need to turn into gold, as you say.

Infi is already gold.

That's the point.

…I suppose it is. Oh geez, I suppose it is.

Heh, got you pretty deep on that, huh?

Yes. I… you did. Also. Wreckage is more gold than ever now. Her teeth and claws shine with it.

Really?

Yeah, like a vague iridescent gold sheen. They're almost ivory-white otherwise, like bone. And her body was muted before, like a dirty gold, and now it shines. She's become so valiant lately, like you really, I admire her growth so much. And her eyes don't shadow red anymore! They're straight-up gold too.

Her eyes were going red?

Yeah, at first they'd turn red every once in a while, which is a sign of instability for anyone, the color differences. But now they're gold all the time, no flickers.

Geez, that's good news. Anyone else you got an update on, while we're here on the topic?

Uh… hm. Not really? Oh! I kissed Josephina yesterday. His doing.

Sheesh, you didn't write that down yet? That was moving, really.

Yeah. I got out of therapy and I was a mess, I think Genesis hugged me, I had been dealing with mother issues and feelings of unworthiness and stuff… everything we discussed at the beginning of this session and more. But then Genesis was there for me, and you were, I remember you hugged me and I swear I felt it, that was twice that day I think. The first time I almost collapsed into sobs on the spot because it meant everything in that moment, it was everything real and true and forgiving and I needed it more than life itself at the time.

…

So people were comforting me, for carrying that for everyone else. I know Knife was there, so was Lynne, Nat and Leon both, Julie, we called in Javier as he didn't know where we were… Waldorf hugged me so sincerely, there's a real friendship between us now, and I expected Josephina to follow her after last time but he got me back for that, still took me by surprise. I remember hearing those little jingly bell earrings he wears too. But it was so sincere, it meant so much to me.

"After last time?" Did you write that down?

What?

You kissed Waldorf, about three weeks ago. That's all I know.

Me too, it's not even my memory.

What?

It's weird. It was one of those dead-float mornings, the pale white ones.

Oh. Shoot. Were you okay?

Ultimately, thanks only to Nat and Leon, who somehow negated all the negative influence that was trying to choke me at the time. I'll never forget that feeling, I hope not. There was such sincere peace between them both, it embraced me like a flower or like moonlit wings, like greenery and indigo light. I felt totally absolved. And that's the only memory I have of that entire morning, personally.

Who the heck kissed Waldorf then? Who the heck keeps fronting in your stead, when stuff like this happens? It's not Eros, we confirmed that just now, so…

Yeah, I thought it was him, but again that was due to role confusion.

Who the heck really holds that confusing stuff, then.

I don't know.

We need to find out.

Garrison, write that down?

Heheh.

Kalisha did, there's a huge heaviness to having that set down as a "to-do" item though.

Meaning?

Meaning now it's written down. It's a tangible thing. And there is a heavy vibe to it.

From the job, or what it implies?

…From what we'll have to look through to do it, I think. It's a stony brown color, a light dustiness, but not in a comforting way. Like desert dirt. Dry and silent weight.

Huh. Guess we'll be taking Chaos along, then.

Hhhhf.

Hehe, have you mentioned how he's been trying to get your attention like crazy these past few days?

Since I tuned back in? No. I should.

Synchronicity has been up the wall, dude.

I know! Honestly it's been breaking my heart and glowing it both, it's insane. Wherever I look, or listen, there he is. There's oceans everywhere. Even when I don't look, or want to look, or feel worthy of looking. The messages keep coming. Go to him. Go back to him. "Do you realize how much love is there for you?" And not even as something apart, the feeling of this which makes it so significant and heartbreakingly true is that it's not at a distance, when these words hit me they resonate in my heart, deep within my ribs like the bottom of the sea, echoing like a bell in the depths. They catch and ring and I know there is a part of me there that matches him, that half of a taijitu, that infinite loop, I can't ever deny that even when I find it hard to believe… it's true. It still responds. And I can never ignore these calls, these synchronicities, because my soul has already wholeheartedly answered "yes" before my brain can hesitate in doubt. But it'll never say "no." That's always moved me to tears, the fact that even when I'm terrified, my poor mind still can't say no to that light because it knows, deep down it knows too that there's only joy on the other side. There's only light when you open the door and walk through it, only open arms and that reminds me, "Heaven" was on the radio today too.

Wait, what?

"Heaven." By Bryan Adams. Ryman's song, from 2002. It was playing over the radio when Genesis and I stopped at Wegmans, I barely heard it but I knew what it was. And I started laughing, and smiling, and suddenly it was impossible for me to ignore my health anymore. You know how tough it is to stay focused and centered in public, social programming likes to kick in and unhealthy obligations take over. But that song was playing, and I was pulled 100% into fronting, and… I felt worthy of it, for a moment. Like I was shining white and confetti-colored, as I should be, and it was impossible for me to hurt myself along with anyone else. So I didn't.

…Kid, that's great. That's great to hear that.

I know, it was so significant. And of course Genesis gets his due, we kept jokingly calling each other "babe" and then one time he gave me this look and I had to laugh, "are you flirting with me," he said "maybe." Oh and I jokingly told him later that if he really wanted to snog me, as you'd say, he'd have to wait until we got home. He's going to ask me about it tomorrow if I forget, so make sure he's in our room when we're done with this. I know he's been sticking around lately but the moment I lie down CZ gets all the focus and I'm sorry, I'm rambling on again. I guess I just want to say that I love them both but I do owe Genesis a non-social, more "introverted" show of love than I usually do?

And you should take Chaos with you when you travel more often too, "babe," he misses you too during the day.

That's true, haha. It's just weird, or at least unusual, because he is so much quieter than Genesis vibe-wise, except when Perfect shows up and then it's his old romancer vibe all the time.

Ah. Really?

Yeah, he's all teeth and grins and personal interaction, I don't know how good he'd be at social guiding, which is what Genesis does actually. Gen makes sure I can function in public places without massive fronter switching, or getting lost due to memory gaps, or the like. CZ and I don’t have much experience with doing that, yet at least.

Huh. Maybe you should, I mean you two are married, as far as relevance goes.

Yeah.

Sorry. Now I'm the one apologizing. I joke too much about this stuff, and I'm truly sorry.

I know.

…Too much bleedover. I'm scared to death, kid, I really am, what with this relationship pain thing, and my bloody apathy thanks to that fear. Not understanding what to do and not liking that one bit. I'm sorry, kid, I keep throwing you under the railroad tracks here and not realizing what the heck I'm doing in the process.

Explain?

Heh, you know what I mean, Jay. I keep… running. Terrible things happen to you and instead of jumping into action like I used to I freak the heck out, because "what if they hack me" and--

Wait, Laurie, they can't touch you, you know that--

No we don't.

Yes we DO. I swear I will NEVER let them hurt you.

They can pretend to be me. You know that.

…I do. I'm sorry. I just…

You know it's not me, but the residue is hell. The fear lingers. You look at me and you don't bloody know.

I do know, Laurie--

You don't know, kid, not when fear is ruling the roost. Not when you are so bloody terrified of what happened the last time someone pretending to be me showed up, that your visceral subconscious reaction is to freeze up or run. You're not afraid of me, kid, you're afraid of them, but sometimes you can't tell the difference and that is what I'm so afraid of.

…So you stay away from me?

Yeah. God forgive me, kid, I am so sorry.

…

I really am. I don't want to see you attacked by these demons, but God help me, I don't want to be responsible for more pain on top of that hell. I don't know what the heck to do.

Be there. Please. Be there for me. If you're scared, get Infi, bring hir with you.

Infi gets lost just as much as I do, and in totally different ways, kid, that's the bloody danger here!!

…

Infi gets lost worse than I ever could. Ze knows exactly what I'm terrified of in this. …And yet you're not afraid of hir, are you?

No. But that's what's lethal.

…Shoot.

I'm not afraid of you either, Laurie, I'm afraid of losing you. You and I have the same fear in this.

…So what do we do?

…Get a third person in this regardless? Sugar's your bodyguard now, isn't she?

Yeah, no kidding, I needed one.

They can't touch her, can they?

I doubt it. She doesn't have love-ties to you. She's a Retributor, and she's Pink, which means she has backup from other Protectors if someone tries to violate her function. Maybe Eros could help in this regard, who knows. I know Julie is iffy about it because she doesn't want to be reminded of the past, but… geez. I don't know.

We'll find out. We don't need to solve this overnight. We just have to stay strong, and stay together, even if that sounds like a platitude. Hope is important, as is faith in each other.

It is.

And love.

Which they're trying to mangle beyond recognition.

They won't. They can't. They can try to blur our perspective all they want, but they can't change the core of this, the truth. I think that's why I'm not afraid of Infi. Or you. Or Chaos, for that matter.

Or Genesis. I've heard the stories, kid.

Of?

He slips, too. You avoided him for a freaking long time because of that. And yet every time he knocks on your door, you let him in. Every time he ghosts, you say hello, and let him follow you. Unconditional forgiveness, that's what you've got, kid. I only ask that you do the same for me if I ever screw up.

Laurie. Love, that's guaranteed. I could never withhold forgiveness from you, ever, no matter what you did.

Are you sure?

…Laurie, I think the things we're both terrified of you doing, you're not even capable of. It literally hurts to think of, like massive dissonance.

Does it now.

Yeah. Your very existence clashes with those fears. They can't occupy the same space.

But it's the fear I'm afraid of, kid, ironically. It's them tying my face or my likeness-- which they're doing already-- to abuse, to what seriously hurts or scares you. I do not want that happening. I will stop this travesty if it bloody kills me.

You know I realize it's not you, right?

But it scares you, doesn't it, that they won't quit?

It unnerves me. It makes me scared for you, or at least, my knowledge of you in my mind.

See, that's the thing.

But I know you better than they ever will. No amount of forcing or lies on their part will ever change my mind.

You swear?

Absolutely. Cross my heart.

Don't you dare die.

Well. Not like that, anyway.

Don't. Too many times I've almost lost you, and once I did. Don't. I swear, kid, even if I fail you in the worst way, don't you DARE take a knife to your own throat, or heart, or wrists. Don't you bloody dare. There's more to life than me, I want you to go on living, heal from whatever the heck I did, you've got better docs than me and you know it.

I... Laurie. Please. It's not going to happen.

But the sentiment is true. All right?

…All right. …I really love you, Laurie. I do.

I know, kid, I love you too, and believe me when I say that.

I do. I never doubted you.

Good. Then that's step one, again, as always.

Yeah. But it's a spiral step, I think. We have made progress. It's just that this is the truth beneath all other truths, holding them up, lifting us higher. It's the baseline.

Base Zero. Pun intended.

Yeah, no kidding. …But that's the point, yeah. Love is there. Unfailing, undying.

…

Not much you can say to that, huh?

Nah, just stepping back and taking it in is all.

Words really do fail. It sounds paltry, to keep saying the same words…

What the heck else are you going to say, kid? It is how it is. Amen and all that.

Haha, yeah.

So. Speaking of love. You going up to meet the monsters yet or what?

Uh, after I color our text and post this, sure.

Remember you've gotta draw pixels for everyone else soon.

Oh yes, that is true. I'd love to. I do want to draw people, it's just the shock of not being able to photorealistically render everyone on the first shot is overwhelming sometimes…

Kid, you are too much of a perfectionist, I swear. Pun intended.

Really.

Yeah. Stop pursuing that dead end, you know as well as I do what the lesson is there.

…Yeah. We've talked about it.

So. Trial and error, I guess. Make mistakes. Grow from them. Learn. You can do it, kid, I have faith in you.

I've heard all that before and yet every time you say it it means the world.

That's the point, boy. But really, we done talking for tonight? It's 1:30 in the bloody morning and you still have Cold Dust Girl on loop.

Oh man, talk about relevant.

How the heck did that song even become relevant?

The chords. This is the Gemini Club remix, remember. I gravitate to harmonies in songs, mostly, half the time I don't even notice lyrics unless they catch me hard.

Like "Heaven" did today, huh?

Yes. "Now our dreams are coming true, through the good times and the bad…"

Next line is "I'll be standing there by you," and I gotta apologize to Ryman but I am stealing that tonight, sorry. You been hanging out with him recently or what?

No, the dead period made it tough to reach anyone, let alone the Outspacers of all people. But he showed up in my inner vision on the 19th, when Markus was singing…

Markus? Really?

Yeah, he sings.

Hey, that's pretty cool. Didn't know the kid had it in him.

Hey, he sings "Empty Streets" and that was the first song I ever heard him do, years ago.

Yeah, but not much else, right? Ryman's at least associated with communication and all that, blue stuff.

Plus Ryman was singing from the moment I met him, practically. But yeah, Markus was singing… I forget what song, I'll have to look and see if I wrote it down. But he had his rose wings activated, I forgot how beautiful they were… I've never seen those two boys so clearly before, not that I can remember. It was amazing. And it came out of nowhere, while meditating, after weeks of not having heard from them at all. And then Ryman's song played over the radio today. Synchronicity!

Heheh, that's what makes life worth living, kid, are the little things.

Hey, I just want to thank you for saying my name earlier. It means a lot to hear you say it, I know you call me "kid" all the time, so--

Geez, Jay, if I knew that was bothering you I wouldn't do it--

No, it's not a bother, I like it. But names are important. So hearing mine said by you means a lot.

…Jay, you know what I said about you always saying inexplicably romantic things. That was one of them.

Is "romantic" the right word?

Closest bleeding thing to it for me, at least. Whatever the heck it is. Things that make you pause and realize that "man, I really freakin' care about this person."

Ah, okay. I know what that is.

What what is?

That feeling. It's nice.

Yeah, no kidding. When do you get it?

Always, geez.

No, I mean examples.

Uh… hm. Let me think of one from recently… well, actually, the other week when Chaos told me "home is where the heart is" when referring to me. He was half asleep. It was the sweetest, most fragile thing, it had such an impact on me then. Still does.

Yeah, takes your heart a bit to recover, doesn't it?

Exactly! There's no term for it in the English language that I know of and there should be. Ironically "indescribable" is the closest match, so.

Heheh. But yeah, kid, that's it.

From me?

From you, yeah, I get that from you, why?

Just… same feeling in return is all.

Good. That's how it should work, I think.

So.

Hm?

Should I go up and toss this feeling at the monsters or what?

Haha, absolutely man, your lips are going to be bleeding five seconds in and you know it.

Geez Laurie, Genesis doesn't bite that much, you know that.

No I don't actually, and frankly it would be weird as heck if he bit me, so.

I think he shares the sentiment.

Heheh.

Oh. Uh, there was something I had to say.

What?

Have I mentioned that Infi has crystal teeth?

Have you?

I'm not sure. They're all diamonds, or something. All pointy and perfect. Chaos has teeth that are subtly green-clear like glass, but they're made of water too, or at least liquid energy, like the rest of him. Genesis has normal-colored bone teeth but they are crazy big, his mouth is just weird. The inside is dark blue and his tongue is amber.

How the heck does that work?

Dream demons, man, nobody knows. Chaos has a blue tongue when he needs one and Infi's is black. Shiny black, kind of silvery in the light, not pitch black like the inside of hir mouth, so.

Kiddo you know way too much about these people's mouths.

I have an aesthetic addiction. A fascination. I like teeth.

And?

And drippy things. There, I said it. But mouths are weird, I don't like mouths, at least not on faces? Is that weird?

Yes.

Which is why Infi is cool, because ze has mouths on hir wings, and CZ doesn't often have a mouth at all, so. But I wonder why that is, mouths on faces with eyes make me uneasy at times. It's too much focused manic energy.

What about for me, and Genesis? We got that too?

Genesis doesn’t faze me much because his energy vibe is charged, so I expect that. And you don't get romantic like Infi or quiet-intimate like CZ.  It's all about vibes. If someone gets too close, and there's too much mouth, it scares me a little?

Is that an abuse association? Did Julie do that during her bad days?

Maybe?

Shoot, I forgot you don't know.

I think it's less her, and more the family. But yeah, we should pinpoint that too, for sure, so we can release it.

Can I just say thank God we are releasing this trauma baggage because I am so bloody tired of some of it.

Most of it, for me. I'm glad too.

Yeah, no kidding. It feels good to get all this off our backs at long last.

Why'd it take so long?

You're asking me, kid! I've been trying to solve it since I showed up here, eight bloody years ago.

Happy late birthday, by the way. I mean that.

Kid, I don't care if you're two months late, I know you meant it back on the 4th. Like I said, you're alive, that's what matters.

Thank you.

…Kid.

What?

I know you always want to say "I love you" after things like that, and I just wanna thank you for being comfortable saying that around me, like that.

…That is important, yeah.

Sure. So I love you too. Now get your ass to bed.

Haha, again!

Yeah, the other night was funny. Hey, your boss still talking to you at night or what?

On and off. He got tangled up with the faceless voices so it was iffy for a while. I haven't seen him directly in a while, though, no.

Go say hi to him before you snog the monsters, tell him I said hi.

I will. I miss him so much, I realy do.

Then maybe we should close this bloody huge thing up, it's 25 pages already.

Geez. Feels good!

Yeah, you're telling me! I miss talking to you like this, kid. Jay.

Haha. I appreciate that, actually.

Good, 'cause I'm trying. Oh, also. Say goodnight to Xennie more often, okay? I know it's ridiculously late now, but she usually goes to bed around 11 o'clock, so pop upstairs for a second and tuck her in for heaven's sake, at least.

I will. Remind me.

I will, if I can reach you. But you need to spend more time with that kid, she loves you.

I adore her. I'm just a mess so often, I know it scares her sometimes.

Scares me too, doesn't mean I love you any less. Same with her. If anything it makes her want to help you more by being with you.

No child should feel so obligated to help their parents get better, enough to care for them. It's terribly unfair.

Kid. She's got a whole freakin' support system up here. Literally. You're not her only caretaker.

But I'm her father, whether I understand it or not.

…True.

So I want to be better, for her.

You think she doesn't know that?

…

She does, kid, believe me she does. She doesn't want to help you because she pities you, or because she feels obligated to. Not at all. She wants to help you because she loves you like you love her and she wants to see you feel better for your sake as well as hers. It's unconditional and you know it. Don't make me cite examples.

No, I can name several. I just… bottom line is, Laurie, sometimes I just don't feel worthy enough to be her father.

Nonsense. You're the worthiest man in the world because you are her father. Okay? Don't crush yourself into the dirt. You're fine. Remember what we said about perfection.

…Are you sure?

Absolutely sure, Jay. And let me add this. The moment you stop freaking out and worrying, is the moment you realize you are already the father you want to be for her, and the father she needs. As soon as you stop putting yourself down and selling yourself short, you can stand as high as you wanted to all along. You're standing in your own light, kid, that's all it is, simply because you can't believe that you're the one shining that brightly. Okay? I can see it, she can see it, Infi and Chaos and Genesis can see it, we all can. Don't be so bloody afraid of your own light. If anyone told you that being too bright was bad, or blasphemous, they can jump right off the roof of Central. That kind of talk is nonsense, as I will always say. You're a spotlight, kid, and you've highlighted everything that's bright in me even when I was blind to it. So let me do the same for you.

You always do.

Yeah, I guess so. …No, that means a lot to hear, actually. Thank you.

Always.

…Well.

Well?

Heh. Same sentiment back at you, right?

Oh. Yeah, I… thank you.

Always. Now we closing this up?

Sure, let's do that before I fall asleep standing up.

Therapy tomorrow, what we talking about?

Oh, uh… geez, I don't know, whatever comes up. This maybe, something else maybe. We'll see.

Sounds good to me.

Oh and I told Simeon he can front if he wants to, since that kid has a much bigger role than we previously realized, if today is any indication.

No kidding. But really, Jay, get some sleep. People are waiting for you.

True. All right, good night Laurie. I love you a lot.

Same to you, kid. See you around.

Yes, in a few minutes.

Hey, the chair will never leave.

As long as that means you won't either, that's great.

Heheh.

Okay. We need to do this more often. Thanks for being brave enough to start this one, too.

…Yeah, that was tough.

Your bravery in all things is a shining example to me.

Are you falling asleep?

Yes. Poetry.

Go write some.

If I can, I will. And then I will sleep.

Well, before that I heard you're going to be performing a different kind of poetry, so…

No jokes. Not about that.

Sorry.

It's okay. We just need to be more reverent, Infi said. It helps.

That it does.

Okay. I cannot talk anymore, I need to show you my wing-ness and the arms and the back mouth. Teeth. Talking. It comes from my head, I have no face.

Kid, you are practically high, this is hilarious.

is it. good. oh and my hair is shiny, like a crystal, it's kind of funny. I'm all iridescent spikes like a christmas ribbon. did I tell you autumn feels like the end of the year, but like new years? like for me, life ends at the beginning. life begins right before the ending. like in steps 1 to 4, step 3 is the beginning. does that make sense?

Kind of?

things that look like death, people think, "it's autumn, the year is drawing to a close, the leaves are dying, soon it will be the dead of winter and then it's the end. of the year. then comes spring, the beginning again!" but for me… autumn is both the closing of the book, and the opening of another? it is simultaneously new year's. maybe because of my birthday. but autumn is the first thing I remember and also it was an ending. that makes more sense.

That's interesting, and it does.

but… it's lovely. I'm glad to be alive. and I'm tired.

Then go to bed, kid.

okay. wait.

Wait?

we are so bad at closing these

Haha, you do remember that. Yeah, we really suck at conclusions. Endings are bittersweet and all that.

bittersweet is nice though

…I suppose it is. Kind of like those 'moments,' huh?

the nice ones yeah. no words for those

Maybe that's why we're bad at conclusions, huh?

maybe. I love you laurie good night

I love you too, Jay. See you later.