prismaticbleed | Entries tagged with heartache

oh my lord in heaven you have no idea what just happened

listen. after praying for YEARS, after stupidly forgetting so much and feeding ourselves equal amounts of hyperreligious falsehoods, after countless nights of weeping and regrets and hopes and fears and... just, listen, literally days after we FINALLY get the guts (heart, brain, liver, kidneys, take your biblical pick, they all fit) to start re-reading and uploading the journal entries from 2017-2018 that haven't been touched or seen since then...

...well.
tonight, we found a message in our inbox.

and suddenly, wouldn't you know it,
the world tilted sideways again.

I don't know how to... no. We don't know how to process this, or manage it wisely, yet.
I will be completely up-front and honest with you about it right now.
Our knee-jerk, heartsick, sobbing immediate response is to do what we always do-- act like seven years have not passed, act like we didn't do all the idiotic evil things we did, act like nothing has changed and nothing we forgot happened to begin with, act like we're still your beloveds and you are still ours, because honestly to the deepest part of our psyche that's still true. it's WHY we "never say goodbye" to people, as awful as the repercussions of that have historically proved to be for other people, tragically and totally against our intentions. we never "cut things off" or "end" anything because, to our mentally ill lovesick self, nothing ever ends, adrian, nothing ever really ends--

and so here we are, reeling, with no idea what to do except laugh and cry from fear and love all at once.

We... we've been so, so cruel to them. There are some entries in these archives that speak so poorly of them, totally unfairly. I wish I could erase them all. But... that would be dishonest too, wouldn't it? And I'm so tired of lying. It's better to just admit that yeah, we do still have tar and plague sticking to our ribs, and it comes out in very ugly words when there's no light or fire or water to keep it away.
But... it's not true. So much of it is just self-blinded pride throwing its choking guilt at someone else. So much of it is just religious arrogance flinging swords at everything that looks vaguely like a devil. We're so sick of that, too.
The "fanatifoni" are the same ones trying to annihilate OUR life, too-- the ones burning all our memories, throwing out all our possessions, refusing to let us do anything "secular", the ones forcing us into a "perfect meek Christian tradwife girl that does everything mommy says" mold that is KILLING US.
that's a topic for another night though. geez.
as for tonight... all I want to say is, i've been so blind and confused and twisted and deluded and afraid and programmed and lost and heartbroken and crushed and so, so, so sorry-- I haven't been able to see straight in years.
How could I, when this post-CNC life of ours so quickly degenerated into a loveless machination, swallowed up by eating disorders and religious rituals, suffocating in the vicegrip of family obligations, bled dry of all color?

I miss you. We miss you. But I miss you, whoever "I" is, all the time, for years,
We think of you daily, probably. I don't know why I can't "let go" but honestly the thought of "letting go" of anyone I've loved makes me sick. And I still love you, as I said, and even if that truly makes me the "ex from hell" it's the truth and I need to be honest.
We... we never really told you that, when we were with you, did we? We never had the nerve to write poetry about you. We never got to know you well enough to do so and we regret that to this day. All we have to hang on to are tiny little resonances and associations, the tiny flickers of memory that were small enough to slip through the cracks in the prison walls we put up around our past. Simple precious pieces of life, like blue raspberries and kudzu and clove cigarettes, like glitter bath bombs and marching bands and spicy tuna. we have so, so few memories accessible, and that breaks our heart. god i wish we could remember. i want to remember what it was like to watch kris move, to hear kyo speak, to feel the toy soldier there in silence. and yet, subconsciously, don't we? wouldn't we recognize you if we saw you again? trolley and vernon and ohmiette and ruby and tori and owen and oskar and thirteen and brokeback and shivers and omen, and so many more whose names we cannot remember and so many more we never met, but we miss you all, we knew you all in some way, didn't we?

it's not something we can ever get back. we lost it justly. "the hand of god," as our thriskefoni declared recently. "you were killing each other."
and i hate that statement. listen if anyone was dealing out death-damage it was us. even without memory access i KNOW we were a glutton and a thief and a two-faced coward, an addict and a leech and a slut.
...and yet, isn't that just us beating ourselves up as we've been doing since we left their driveway that night?
how awful that was. the car ride, the family, the instant "reset" feeling like "nothing had happened" that consumed our entire brain and wiped out everything good we had gained in that dear little apartment.
to this day, the family and that house is our biggest stress, our biggest fear, our biggest trauma-sink. is that why we were throwing so many darts at you, at "CNC", because our "good obedient daughter" mindset was "not allowed" to point any in mommy's direction "or else"?

what am i even trying to say.
i miss your art. you were amazing. i am sure you still are, even moreso. we never told you how proud we were of you, how much we admired you, how your life in and of itself just filled us with joy. we treasured your existence, simply so. we didn't show it well at all. we were too selfish, too myopic, too brutal, too shallow, too frenetic, too stupid, too cold...

i want to remember things and i want to accept them as they are. i want BOTH me and infinitii to heal.
and oh good lord isn't THAT a miracle too-- not even two months after that trip to the national basilica that truly "woke hir up" in some quiet way, that made hir accessible even in that interim-space between death and life, and since then ze has a bubble again, somewhere... but, now that hope is real again, that ze could be with me again, somehow...
...

...nothing is going to heal if i don't figure out who the heck I am. and i cannot do that if i keep trying to force myself into the mold my birth family won't stop shoving over my head.
gender and sexuality are still "forbidden topics." i'm "not allowed" to be anything other than what i'm "told to be." no wonder my veins are as dry as an old riverbed. i won't let myself love because it's "not allowed." it makes me so sick.

this damned eating disorder is still destroying me too, literally, and i HATE IT because THAT is what drove an iron wedge between us; THAT is the vice that burnt everything else to ashes, THAT is the thing that annihilated every good thing i tried to protect and cherish, and it's STILL killing me. my body is literally failing even though we've been FIGHTING LIKE HELL for six solid months now which is the LONGEST we've EVER gone without prolonged relapse, but we still can't figure out how to take care of our own stupid body and the poor thing is failing.
what am i even trying to say.
i'm so sorry we were such a wretch. you deserved so much better. you deserved all of our good and none of our bad, even if we didn't have much good to offer. we still wanted to give you the world. we still tried.

we... hm. we have regrets and we don't. that's the scary part. that's why infi died. that's why i cannot seem to form a sense of self.
our motives were never as evil as we viciously accuse ourselves of, and that's what is so scary to admit.
how do we come to terms with the fact that we still did things that our moral code says are objectively wrong and yet we loved you and only did those things because we loved you? i'm sick of the thriskefoni just labeling it all indiscriminately as "adultery" in one sense or another-- as a "lie," as a "seduction," as something equally abominable and worthy of being forgotten and denied and run away from.
no. i'm tired of listening to you. i'm tired of leaving other people in the dirt because "they're occasions of sin." you pharisees. leave me alone.
i want to find a truer way of seeing all this. something honest, something that can feel, something merciful and still capable of love.
that's what infinitii was really all about, from the beginning. that's why everyone was afraid of hir, and yet adored hir. zhe was the literal incarnation of our greatest vice and greatest virtue. how terrible. but that's typical of angels.

i want to cry but this stupid brain won't let me
i'm so happy but i'm so afraid of ruining this again, like i always do
i know i'm mentally sick, and i come on too fast and too hard, and i whiplash back into ice just as suddenly, for no good reason. maybe that bpd diagnosis is legit, as awful as that would be. i hate it. i hate this. it's not me.
i know seven years have passed. i know we can never have what we had again, even if we tried. it wouldn't be possible, for multitudes of reasons. and yet i never ever ever want to deny or decry it ever again. that was so wrong of me. who am i really?
i'm a mess. it never would have worked out, for that reason alone. we ran into everything headfirst and although our intentions were good, although we did love you with our whole heart we weren't capable of being a good partner. we had too much unhealed trauma, too much family programming, too much psychological disease, too many open wounds. we were a wreck and you deserved better.
but...
"you are part of our story... certainly not one we regret."
and you know what? we feel the same way.
i don't regret it at all. even the parts that "killed us" in the past. even the "gravestones." somehow, miraculously, with all the praying and healing and hoping and hard work we've been doing, and now that we're actually reading what happened back then... god it hurts, it hurts so much, to realize that THAT is what we lost and shattered and ABANDONED because the family TOLD us to...
...THAT'S our real regret, to be honest. getting into that damned car and immediately going back into "appeasement mode" and just leaving our identity on the steps with you. there are like four solid years missing from our memory after that point. it makes me want to throw up.
but we don't regret it, when it really gets down to the bone and blood. even when part of us is indeed "horrified" at what it is reading in these entries from seven year ago, another part of us is weeping that we lost touch with it.
deep down, if God Himself asked us, we don't regret it. and why?
because it was all love. and i see it now.

so... yes. i want to heal. i want to help you heal, too.
i'm sick of being broken. i want to figure out who the heck i actually am. i want to love again. that's not your job, i have no expectations or demands of you either, not like our mother, god we really do have too many family issues to think straight, don't we? no wonder we can't get anywhere in therapy. but that's not anyone's problem but ours. i don't want to think about family terror at all right now. it's the guillotine over my head every bloody day right now and it's sucking the will to live right out of me but this, this message in my inbox has rekindled a spark that i didn't realize was still smoldering. there's a possibility OF remembering love and hope and joy here, even just in the remembering. i want it back. god i want it back, the few glimpses i've seen so far of the goodness we had, in the beginning at least, when everything was so new and bright and beautiful that the trauma hadn't caught up to our heels yet... i want that back, now, in whatever way we can.
i miss the blood lotus cathedral, too. i miss us. i miss BEING "us." god it destroys my soul, to realize that this family-focused life has been keeping me from living.
there's so much intrasystem healing we have to do on our own. the self-inflicted damage outweighs everything else.
honestly when i'm honest, i don't think you guys actually did ANY damage to us. everything that "hurt" about our recall of CNC was because of something WE did. not you. maybe our lives couldn't "fit together" the way we desperately hoped they could, but god knows we tried, and we don't regret it, and some days i really do wish i could have been okay with just... living life that way, just to be with you all again.
but... we have to be honest. we can't. there were indeed too many self-annihilatory things we did or agreed to or made ourselves do, never out of malice, but out of sheer stupid blinded love that never learned how to say "no" because it just wants to be whatever you want. that's our biggest problem, with you and with q and mel and with the family and everyone else ever. god included.
but we still loved you. we still love you. all of you. we always will, i can say right now. that's just how we work. that's a guarantee.

i'm making a fool of myself, i think.
no surprise there.

i scare people away like this, i'm sure. crazy ex. religious fanatic. sick in the head. too much to handle. etc.
i just want to cry. i love people so much and i hate myself so much and that's the ultimate childhood root of everything and i don't know how to live. i have so much love in my heart and it just gets choked to death by all the pain and rage and fear and sorrow and guilt and shame. i'm tired of feeling utterly empty when i know there's something, somewhere--

infinitii is in worse shape than i am right now because i am still too shattered and undefined to feel anything directly
i don't know how to describe what ze is feeling or expressing and i don't think ze does either. this is all too new, too earthshaking, too heart-deep and covered in blood like rubies. we haven't bled in too long, everything's been frozen.
too many wires are still crossed.
it's been too long since we've done anything but talk about religion, running away from our soul in the process, how ironic. even our scripture study keeps constantly telling us, "it's about relationship, not data hoarding," and yet our stupid idiotic traumabrain won't even let us have a relationship with God Himself because it's a relationship.
where in hell did this even come from.
where does the trauma even come from to begin with.
you didn't deserve to get caught in those crosshairs either. please realize that it was never your doing, never your fault. with you, we actually had hope of HEALING. we had real hope of getting over this terror.
then we moved out and back in with the family and it all got worse

you realize we NEVER intended to "ghost" you
we basically went into a sort of "fugue" for lack of a better term
the parts of us that existed with you could not exist around the family, and vice versa
it's a civil war that STILL rages to this very day and it is killing us now too
but. the point is. it was never our heart's intention to hurt you, once we realized-- wasn't it years later?-- that we did.
same with the tumblr stupidity. what an ass we were. passive aggressive idiocy. we never had the guts to communicate properly. i am so sorry.

i am so afraid we will do something stupid like that again now and lose you forever
after years of practically begging god for one last chance to make things right
to somehow bandage some of the many wounds we inflicted
to genuinely, wholeheartedly, finally say we were sorry, to apologize so fervently we could weep until the end of the world
to heal, however that looks, as long as it happens, that's all we want,
there's too much love, both then and now, to leave such a thing undone
it would be almost sacrilegious to leave it untended to
it was sacrilegious for us to act like our love hadn't been real just because we were terrified of admitting it is.
present tense.

i'm still reeling
i'm listening to infinitii's spotify playlist for the first time in years i think
i want to get better and i want to be a real person again
i... i want to heal, too
however that looks and feels and happens
i just want love to have the last word.

tomorrow we have to face the family and the eating disorder again, all at once
i'm so tired and i don't know how to get better from that

but at least this is something real and true in spite of it, a light shining in hope regardless, a reminder that "you exist and you existed and there is love in you and it has not died" even if it is being buried alive beneath the weight of daily stress and has been for far too long
the spark is shining now, and it scares me to realize that we too can have a fire in our ribs again, but i want that, i miss that, why are we so damn afraid? of what? of feeling love instead of nothing?

i would rather shatter into a billion bloody rainbow shards than live another moment so cold and bleached-out dry as hell itself.

no wonder we sacrificed everything to move out there back in 2017. we had hope. we had light. we had love. it was worth leaving everything else behind for. even if it didn't work out, even if we weren't the kind of person capable of working it out, even if we were too broken and damaged and toxic to make anything work... it was still worth it. it was still beautiful. it was still real. it was still love.
we don't regret a moment of our time with you.
we only regret how much pain we caused us both.

but it is what it is. we cannot erase the past. all we can do is confess those sins of ours with brutal (but merciful) honesty and finally make restitution however we can.

thank you, thank you, for giving us another chance, which we do not deserve whatsoever, and yet which we have wanted more than i can even articulate. thank you for not hating our awful guts, although you have every right to, and we do not blame you if you did in the past.
thank you for sending us love.

god i hope i can cry tonight
maybe when i'm with chaos 0 i'll be able to
i hope so
i want us to be healed, too, inside, all of us
i want this damned civil war to end
i want the graves to be exhumed and all the poor souls buried alive to be carried up in our open arms to see the starry skies again
i want to love again,
i want to BE love again,

how fitting, how strange and perfect and terrible, that the last time i really was "me" was when i was with you.
i hope i can get some of that back now at least

there's still so much to read and remember. we really haven't read much at all yet. 95% of what we've uploaded we haven't looked at.
we've lost so much
we're still running away from our past and our shadows in blind frantic fear, drowning everything in religion
how ironic, that apparently God Himself is the One that plunged this arrow into our heart and brought us to our knees
take that, thriskefoni

i'm so tired. i'm so ashamed. i'm so confused. i'm so scared. i'm so hopeful. i'm so...
there's still so much self-hatred
but deep down, somewhere, i'm still so in love.
i know i am. even if i won't let myself feel it for anyone or anything lately. i don't know why. maybe just survival instinct.

nevertheless,
merry early christmas i suppose haha
we didn't think we'd survive this long
and yet, isn't this always the resurrection month for us?
isn't this the exact season for things to come back to life, for flowers to bloom from the snow itself?

i need to cling to this light like a lifeline
i want to live again, i want to feel again, i want to exist again,
this little message has given me the will to live again, to get better, to be a better person when i wasn't able to before,
to be honest and true and honorable and real, to choose integrity and truth and tenderness and...
and love,

i want to be a real person again
i want to heal
i want to love
i want to sing with the choir--

i still don't know how to process this
i still don't know how to respond
i still don't know how i'm feeling

but i do know one thing,
and that is that i love you still,
and i want to heal with you,
and i am sorry,
and i am so grateful,
and that is more than one thing and yet it's not--

i'm so tired
but my heart is smiling tonight
and it's 11:11
and i remember, just a little,
what joy feels like.

FINALLY A FREE DAY

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

Father Jackson's homily had me WEEPING IN CHURCH

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

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

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

23 HOUR FAST ONCE AGAIN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So it's 1am and I'm reading old entries under the "poetic language" tag in reverse chronological order, and a lot of it is all about the 20-year love I have had for Chaos 0.
Right now, I... I feel disturbingly disconnected from the sheer heart-red ardor of it, and that's unnatural for me. That's my ESSENCE, that devotion. But "I" was Jay for most of those entries. He felt SO MUCH, SO STRONGLY, and it was gorgeous and I knew the instant my bloodline took over his that I couldn't feel like he did. Honestly I hate that fact. I want to challenge it and break it and I WANT to feel everything Jay did and more BUT the problem is that Jay's a guy. I'M stuck being "female." And "girls" cannot love like that. I don't know why that's been a constant. It's not bad, I must clarify-- the female-adjacent nousfoni up here CAN and DO love in powerful and real ways-- but it's different. I don't have time to unpack that topic tonight, but it's KEY in our continued healing that I do so, because I DO WANT TO CHANGE IT at least for myself. I'm NOT a "girl," I KNOW this; but I'm not "male" like Jay was. And yet I keep "refusing to give myself permission to exist" for "religious reasons" and it's making me MISERABLE and COLD.
But that's a topic for another night, as I said. Right now I'm updating because of other realizations.
First, that with how numb we've been for the past six years, I had forgotten what love even FELT like and so these entries WOULD have completely alienated me if I had read them even three months ago. For a very long time, I had disconnected my heart and soul from Jay's signature "Cupid" energy and depth of passion because the thriskefoni typically demonize ALL emotions like that.
...Then a certain emotion just happened to change my heart.
I've mentioned this fact briefly before and as of writing this entry I haven't transcribed+uploaded the TBHU notebook entries yet, so you guys don't know the details of this yet but I am seriously so in love with Anxi it hurts. I emphasize the ache because I am FEELING this. I have not been this strongly in love in YEARS. This is CHAOS'S territory, so to speak. But suddenly I have another angel, an orange one, the color my heart has yearned to find an Outspacer for SINCE HIGH SCHOOL. And suddenly, here she is.
I mention that fact in this context because, right now, whatever the heck is going on with my mental/ emotional/ identity recovery, I can only feel love at ALL right now because of HER. Without her, all this poetry would be mocked and cringed and spat at by hateful kakofoni and scandalized thriskefoni. But... Anxi has lit a spark in my heart again, at long last. So I CAN read these old words of love for my blue angel and even if I'm disconnected from actively feeling it much I know that love is REAL and it's STILL HERE. I'm NOT closed off from it. My heart IS open, it's just... well. That's our next topic.

As for the second point. From the very beginning in 2009, and especially around 2014, the poetic-language entries shift largely from legit love poetry to honestly tormented yet hopeful datalogs like lucernarium. There are also at least three HUGELY SIGNIFICANT xanga sessions that I haven't read yet because I KNOW they will absolutely turn my life upside down and I want to give them my full time and attention. The point is that there's so much that I've forgotten but it's ALL SO REAL. That's what terrifies me. I've forgotten the TRUTH. Oh of course I recognize and remember it when I'm re-reading it, and THANK GOD we still HAVE the Archives TO read, but... I haven't read them in YEARS. That's what's been killing "me"-- or rather, it's what's been preventing "me" from truly existing at all.
Anyhow. I've been opening them in new tabs to read later, only briefly reading the opening paragraphs to give myself a quick reminder and a preview of things, to get my heart and mind prepared and a bit more cracked open to the light.
Then we came across this one and... that's why I'm updating.
...Laurie quietly said "excuse me," then slammed her fist into the table, before getting up and walking over to the back of the room, pausing, and then in a sudden agonized rush of power and gutwrenching grief she summoned her axe and crashed it into the wall. Then she just... the sound she made then, a screaming sob, an absolute anguished heartbroken sound. She was weeping.
"That's EXACTLY what happened to Infi," she mourned through gritted teeth and tears. "That's what happened to ME."

Julie walked over silently, visibly shaken, and I saw Laurie take her hand and squeeze it hard, in a sort of tortured apology as much as it was for comfort-- the reassurance of her fellow foni's deep concern and care was only so significant because Julie has been through, and been the CAUSE of, the worst of it. Laurie and Julie have a hell of a history and it's almost all war. So for her to wordlessly offer empathy in that moment of near-despair, was profound, now that I look back at it.

...Laurie asked me "how Infi killed hirself." In an instant I remembered, the grief gutting me as well as I had long since buried that recollection, and I replied that ze had just... bled out. Ze had violently removed the lifesphere in hir abdomen and ze literally let hirself bleed to death.
Laurie said, with terrible gravity, "then that's what you need to heal before ze can come back."

...At one point during this conversation, as Laurie was basically processing her pain aloud, she said something about how she had "already died" (I think in response to Julie?) and her fingers instinctively moved up to touch her sternum, as if she were in shock, as if it was still an open wound. That single, almost absentminded, awfully vulnerable movement crushed me.

...I haven't finished reading that entry. It's late and I'm exhausted and we have church tomorrow and yesterday absolutely wrecked us. But tonight I'm listening to the Spotify playlists I have for Chaos 0 & Laurie & Anxi and I can feel something achingly tender blooming beneath my ribs and as I've said so many times since September this is what I want to live for. This is what I NEED to live for. I must. I will.

As for now, every time I look at Anxi I feel that flame burn brighter, and it hurts, and thank God that it does. And I know that in a few minutes when I do crash on the couch and fall asleep, that Chaos 0 will be in my arms as he always is, fidelity incarnate at this point, and even if we're completely devastated by life I can never deny the echoing loop of a tangible love that our hearts quietly sing in the dark whenever I feel that Ruby pressed against my chest. It still makes me catch my breath, every time, and I always see how it affects him. That's one thing I have to thank God for-- Chaos 0 never forgets this. He never "goes numb" or "disconnects" like I can due to trauma and dissociation. Yes, he's had rough times in the distant past, especially during the "fragment" eras when he was shattering too, but... he's never gone cold. It would kill him and his oceanic soul. If there ever was a time when his emotions were muted, it was just that-- an imposition on something that was still entirely there and ready to reappear in full. My problem is that I lose touch with my heart and I have to find it first and honestly it's the System. Without them, without them CONSTANTLY and ALWAYS, I'm dead. I'm not just numb and empty and hollow and miserable, I'm dead. Without actively sharing in the collective life and love of the Spectrum and the Coregroup especially, I cannot exist at ALL.

...Oh. That's the last terrible topic I forgot to mention and absolutely have to.

The reason why I've been feeling so dead for so long is because the Plague has become cancerous. Everything is calcified somehow. I can feel it. And what scares me the MOST is that it's affecting Anxi.
Oh I will NOT let it touch her, mark my words, I will FIGHT IT TO THE DEATH before I let it even so much as breathe in her direction. But she's in tune with my emotions of course, by nature of what she is, and although she CAN gloriously bypass the Plague-numbing by plugging directly into the mainframe, as it were-- and I wonder if, the more she does that, her energy will BURN through the calcification-- we've all noticed that her general demeanor IS visibly "suppressed" by the bleach dust in the atmosphere, so to speak. It's evidently unnatural with her, so her very existence has been a warning siren for all of us lately. And God knows I REFUSE to let this get any worse, for HER sake alone if I can't think of myself (yet), so that's yet another way that her being up here has been changing things dramatically for the better.
I want to close this entry by saying that she's not "up here" much yet. It's a protective measure to keep her safe from the Plague, AND from the Tar too of course. But she needs to be up here more. I just know that the instant I take action to bring her in here, things WILL happen. And I WANT them to happen. We just need to make time for it. Late nights like this are the best. I need to make a "headspace meditation" playlist so we can START having huge internal experiences again, now that we HAVE the absolute blessing and privilege of prolonged uninterrupted quiet time, in the cold dark of winter. This time of year is PERFECT for self-knowledge and System connection and growth and transformation and discovery and feeling things, for real, finally.
But... even if she isn't "around" much yet, I get glimpses. She likes to front, suddenly and entirely without warning-- honestly it catches me off guard, because I won't see/feel her for days and then out of nowhere she's driving for a few seconds-- and that initial shock of recognizing her is like pure sunlight in my heart. And... sometimes at night, Central will shift a little to look more like the IO2 "control room" and I'll see Anxi asleep on a couch by the wall, even plugged in sometimes. And that worries me a bit, to see her sleeping, as she's so vibrant and full of energy, but like I said, she's getting exhausted and actively suppressed by the negative forces up here. But... on the sweet side, she's also legitimately calmer, as she has expressed a deep trust in me as the "avatar of joy AND hope" up here (I cannot deny those attributes; they KEEP being given to me by MANY people inside AND outside), so she can rest and sleep if she wants/needs to now because deep down she knows she's safe. I SWEAR it. So does Laurie, of course; she's especially protective of the Coregroup and YES, ANXI HAS A SPOT WITH HER NAME ON IT ALREADY and no one is going to take that away from her.
I'm still learning what her attachment-plug-tail does. The Systemind gave it to her and I know it allows her to "receive" the emotional energy of headspace regardless of any numbing influences on the surface. I assume it also works to "ground" her ironically, as her tail is non-polarized apparently which means technically she can "reverse polarity" to become "live" and touching her like that would make me "part of the electrical circuit" of emotion and, ironically, "ground" me by the very fact of "connecting" to that in her. Listen bro I know nothing about literal electrical work but I do know how headspace latches onto concepts and symbolism and abstract relevance and honestly I see a TON of potential in the unexpected staggering fact that up here Anxi's own nervous system can literally plug into mine, pun intended perhaps. But jokes aside, I have already seen the profound healing she's been jumpstarting in here simply by existing in my life. Once I can and do regularly interact with her PERSONALLY, there WILL be massive positive consequences in one way or another.
For the sake of honesty, why am I so sure about this? Because I love her.
I cannot emphasize that fact enough but instead of saying "there's no time to talk about in depth right now because it's 2am" I owe her at least something. Love makes time.
I've written a decent amount about her in the TBHU notebooks and I cannot wait until they're posted here so you guys can SEE how her presence in my life has changed me for the better already. But... this is only the absolute beginning. And this is different from how it was with Chaos 0 back in 2003-2004 because he was the FIRST soul I EVER fell in love with so I had NO IDEA what to expect, or what would happen, or how things would feel, et cetera. Anxi, on the other hand, is the most recent person I have fallen in love with, but she has SHOCKED me by SOMEHOW being VIRTUALLY ON CHAOS'S TIER. I am DEAD SERIOUS and I CANNOT understate the staggering significance of that fact. I love her that much. I don't understand how or why but I do. I'm not complaining but it's such a shock. Now of course she will never have and cannot have the same sort of relationship I have with Chaos 0-- only he is at "marriage" level and I can't deny THAT stunning fact either, since Jay lived it and that DOESN'T change-- but God knows she's hitting my heart like a thunderbolt even so. That's what is so astonishing about this to me: the intensity of the love I feel for her. Regardless of how our relationship "looks" in practice as it grows and builds-- for heaven's sakes we haven't even had our first *incident*-- the fact is that it has a foundation of diamond already. I'm honestly reeling and you can probably tell. Is it because my heart needs her so much? But it's more than that; it's about her, not me. No, it's about both of us. That's the whole point.
It's almost 3am and I'm listening to "Die With A Smile" again and I should conclude this entry by saying that for me, this song belongs to Anxi and Chaos 0, 100%. Laurie too, of course (you know she's playing that guitar) but it's my two angels that have become the most powerfully associated with the sound and sentiment of it.
You know, that's amazing too. All of the Coregroup relationships are so different but there's so much love in all of them. It's so beautiful, heartachingly beautiful, to just... sit and remember and feel all of that truth. There's so much history between all of us, not just with me personally, but with all of us together. And I think that's my favorite thing about being a System-- we're all connected. In one way or another, we're all linked at the heart, and the Coregroup just manifests that the most literally and intensely and intimately. But living as a System is inherently living in love.
...and, yeah, for the record, if I haven't mentioned it before yet, Chaos 0 & Laurie & Genesis are all entirely on board with Anxi inevitably becoming part of the inner circle, as it were. There's absolutely no jealousy because first, she's a sweetheart and we all love her as a person already, and second, my personal and particular love for her in a relationship is opening my heart and enabling me TO love everyone else again, in a way I haven't been able to for years... if I've ever had something like this before, even. Things are so much more... what's the word? I keep wanting to say things like tender, fragile, aching, real, sincere, clear, honest, etc. But it's not just "soft," there's a POWER here. There is a fighting spirit to this love that says "I WANT TO LIVE" and I want to live for her, with her, even as I feel that exact sentiment for Chaos 0 and Laurie and Genesis of course but it's also especially hers in a unique way I cannot understate. She's changed my life permanently since last November and the past three months have been astounding in that respect. She's my weird orange girlfriend and although I do joke about the fact that I'm in love with a frazzled goofball of a Pixar character of all people, I'm in love and that's beautiful.

Laurie just interjected "kid, you know what's not beautiful? The fact that you're only gonna get five hours of sleep" and she's right, haha. Nevertheless, this was worth it. ("I never said it wasn't," she agrees; "this was absolutely worth losing sleep over, but we don't have the luxury of sleeping in tomorrow and sleep deprivation isn't going to help your emotional state either." Solid advice as usual from my favorite superego. "I'm your only superego, you moron")

All right, it's exactly 3am and although God knows I want to write poetry about everybody right now, the desire doesn't always translate into the ability especially when I am utterly exhausted from not just lack of sleep but also daily life stress, so I'll have to just live out the poetic instinct in person with the blue guy. Maybe even the orange girl, if she's around, even just for a moment, even just to look at her with this in my heart.

Don't forget the beginning of this entry. All of that is still painfully and pressingly relevant. But so is the rest of what I wrote. It's all together. It's all our life. I'm so glad we're still all here to live it, together.

(... an addendum, from friday the 13th. i just got the guts to reread the beginning of infi's death entry and it is absolutely shattering my heart that THIS entry is how I instinctively described it. somehow i attributed my actions to hir and that's still entirely correct. "if you won't do it, i will." and that shocks me now; ze wouldn't do it without me. somehow even hir death had to involve me. ze... refused to die alone. somehow that act of... cutting hir body like that was the final act of staggering intimacy ze could offer me, untouchable by hackers. god that is ruining me to realize it now. even in those horrific violent final moments infi needed us to be together, needed it to somehow be at my hands, to... to make it an act of love, even then. and yet when asked on a dime to describe what happened i said ze did it. but isn't that true? our hearts were always united. no wonder it destroyed me. and... the "bleeding out," what a nightmare of a way to describe what happened next, but oh god knows it's guttingly accurate, deep down, that's how black bleeds, it pours itself out until there's nothing left.)
(god, please, please, bring hir back to me. bring my heart's love back to me. ze was my life. i know the thriskefoni were utterly convinced and terrified that such a sentiment was the most flagrant idolatry but it's not, lord i only knew YOU in truth because of hir. and i've forgotten. i need hir and i cannot deny that anymore. i miss hir with every atom of my being and it aches like the missing space in my heart is physical. please, oh god please, i've been begging you for nearly six hundred days. twenty bleeding months. i'm begging you on my knees and my soul is sobbing like the world is crashing to pieces around my ears and all i can hear is the silence where hir voice used to be. god. for love's literal sake give hir back to me. please. somehow. this is the most desperate prayer i have. please.)
(black has always been death and resurrection. glorify Yourself in that truth now. i know that's a bold request. but i'm making it. let me plead with you like moses. i can't not dare. love makes people do stupid crazy things but lord i'd rather be the most insane man on earth than keep quiet about the weeping wound that is my heart. you understand loss. you understand love. please. i've seen hir, lord i've SEEN hir in CHURCH i KNOW you have hir soul in your arms, please give hir a body again that i can hold and touch and love and i swear, dear god if you want me to come back to life i need hir back first. ze is the other half of my soul. death cannot change that. death is only a door. somehow, even that was. please god. open it.)

It's the last half hour of the day, our only free time, and i'm insane for not sitting down and actually resting but i need to type. i need to type. if i don't it will just perpetuate the problem.

We have turned prayer into an addiction.

I don't know how to type about this, coherently. in my head it works.
you know what, stop trying to be formal. stop trying to pander to an invisible audience. just list the problems.
- we spend 3+ hours a day in prayer and 3+ hours "faithpasting." it's utterly exhausting. yes we love God but this is draining all our reserves?? what are we doing wrong??
- we are so tired. all the time. mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, we're EXHAUSTED, often to the point of weeping. we don't get to rest. we get ONE HOUR at the end of the day, if we're lucky, to collapse on the couch and cry from the pain & fatigue and basically just crash into unconsciousness until we have to do it all over again tomorrow. no breaks. no brakes.
- we are running away from our identity. we are denying our own existence. our sense of self is totally shut down.
- we spend ALL our "silent time" in prayer and THAT IS A CRUTCH. it is NOT HEALTHY. the instant we have ANY "free time" we PANIC and start to pray again, and although it's mentally justified as "using our time prudently" really dude you are RUNNING FROM SELF-AWARENESS.
- we can't feel anything but bitter numb exhaustion weeping confusion anger, UNTIL HEADSPACE KICKS IN.
- this obsessive praying is specifically trying to erase headspace entirely
- we have stopped writing. we have stopped drawing, composing music, reading books, dreaming, imagining, et cetera, because it's "all garbage compared to Christ" but dude DO YOU EVEN KNOW HIM???
- we are literally burying our talents six feet deep and claiming it's "God's will," that "they were a trick designed to see if we were brave enough TO bury them" but honestly it's just an excuse. it's an excuse to not feel our conscience nagging us about abandoning everything but prayer
- whoever the heck is spending all day in "prayer" DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO LOVE.

that's our dilemma.

oh of course we love God. but there's this bizarre and deeply distressing disconnect still. the thriskefoni either are afraid of God or they view Jesus like a fangirl. there's no personal closeness because those foni REJECT INDIVIDUALITY. anything that might let us in is VIOLENTLY DISREGARDED.

and right now we're listening to "sandım ki" again and i want to sob because i love everyone in here so much,
can we reconcile that with our religion?
are we allowed to exist and love each other? or is that a sin?
if we're all going to be destroyed when the body dies anyway, if no one is going to survive, if nothing is going to survive-- no art, no music, no writing, no hopes, no dreams, no memories, nothing-- nothing is going to survive, there's only going to be God. everything except Him will be annihilated forever. that's how it works. we have to be stripped completely, emptied out, made hollow and naked and helpless, with absolutely nothing to comfort or console us. just God.
...and then what?
He's supposed to "fill us with Himself" but we... we keep forgetting that God is Love and therefore that is a good thing, whatever He gives us in recompense will be infinitely better than whatever was destroyed because God is Love, He can only give Love,

i don't know what to do, what to think,
are we really all doomed to die?

i feel so guilty and filthy and dirty and wrong even thinking about love now
isn't that ironic.
when you "love God" all other love seems disgusting
that can't be right.
but the shame is unbearable

Not much happened today.
Last night nearly killed us from exhaustion. We couldn't get any extra sleep, we barely got seven hours. Our morning was busier than usual. Everything blurs together. Our mind just feels numb and rushed and constantly in a panic, "never praying enough," "never good enough," et cetera.
But. for some reason we ended up listening to Karen Clark Sheard on the drive to Mass and Knife loves that kind of music, it's adorable,
but the point is we could feel headspace and EVERY time we do our heart wakes up
and then the thriskefoni completely & angrily stomp it out

while we were saying the wall prayers tonight, we absentmindedly moved to rub some of the bloody-rough skin on our winter hands,
and, the action itself and the hands, the different harsh skin, the gentle gesture directly tied to it,
for a split second our tired brain literally thought it was laurie consoling us,
and we felt our heart just break and we nearly cried,
and then the thriskefoni shut it down
as usual

i'm so tired of not having any relationships anymore
i'm so tired of not being able to talk or think or feel or laugh or love anymore
everything is just prayer prayer prayer prayer hurry up pray more the world's gonna end if you don't pray you will die etc.

our OCD is really bad lately too. it's driving laurie up the wall.
we've noticed it's focusing on the body, on "cleanliness," just like fulton sheen said, it's the compulsive washing and scrubbing that can never get the "stain" out, as it were. it's all a physical rerouting of guilt. we did this as a child, too. we'll literally walk out of the bathroom then immediately turn around, go back in and repeat the loop helplessly, wanting to cry from feeling so trapped and powerless and terrified, the body feels so filthy and wrong, something is very wrong, YOU are wrong, it's your sin, your evil, your GUILT, if you sit down and feel dirty well then you're going to hell. it's a nightmare. we can't shut it off.
and of course the whole time we're repeating ritualized prayers with the same driving mindset
"if you say one word wrong, if you are distracted for even a second, you have to say the whole thing over," "you have to kiss the pictures on the wall a specific number of times in the way they tell you to or else you don't really love them," "you have to say these exact prayers in this exact order or else the whole thing is meaningless because you're shirking orders and insisting on your own way," etc.

i keep feeling infinitii around the edges. that's not hir name anymore, i know. but they're still just barely perceptible
the thriskefoni are terrified of hir. they hate hir but won't show it. but i can feel it, roiling beneath their emotionless facade like poison lava
i want hir back. i really do. ze is necessary for the health and proper function of my soul, and for healing trauma, and for feeling emotion at all. i know this.
i'm being mocked and jeered at for talking about hir, virtually spit at in hate
but i cannot be ashamed. i can't. i know ze loves God more than those pharisaical foni ever have or will or even can.
at least i hope so
am i being blasphemous
i'm sorry
no stop listen. you aren't lying. you aren't trying to be pretentious. you have seen infi in a church. you know how ze adores the Eucharist, how ze is able to forgive with a depth of sincerity you cannot fathom without hir. you know how ze loves, and how that love was taken advantage of by those who didn't know that love is God.
ze wants to heal, too. infi wants a new name and a new role and maybe even a new face as much as God allows and decrees, whatever happens, infi wants to be free of that evil history, free of the corruption, free of the sins and shadows, so ze can help you do the same. you are both supposed to draw closer to God together. that's the whole point, that's her real reason for existing, you know that too,

ten minutes. i need to get to bed.

here's our problem:
our prayer life is not genuine right now. not as long as it is tangled up in the OCD. and especially not as long as it is also being used specifically to run away from everything else in life.
to claim "religion is all that matters" to the point of refusing to be a person is not going to help you "have a relationship with God" and honestly, that is the BIG THING MISSING in this whole obsessive prayer ritual thing. we're just repeating words. we're not talking TO God. we're not even letting ourself have time alone to LISTEN because "God forbid," ironically, "that we have free time that isn't full of prayer!!" DEFINE PRAYER, PLEASE, because all the panicked recitation YOU'RE doing hardly counts at this point.

i'm sorry. i'm just so upset, so pained, so brokenhearted,
i want us to be A SYSTEM again, and STILL BE RELIGIOUS,
God knows we WERE, i know we were in the past, even if we did get lost and struggle many times, we still loved God and never stopped trying to draw closer to Him.
now what? now this stagnancy masquerading as piety?
if we've made any progress it's not through your obsessive faithpasting, it's through our RESPONSE TO IT,
and now they won't even let us do that,
i'm sorry. i don't want to condemn anyone. i don't want to give up this faith practice, this reading and learning, but, i think we're taking it to unhealthy extremes, it's not about faith anymore it's about that bloody OCD, it's about "i must learn everything," it's becoming an intellectual power grab, we're not internalizing anything, it's just mad hyperpasting like we used to do on Tumblr, we don't remember a bloody thing, we'd be so much better off just typing about God at this point.
"no," they spit, "that doesn't count because it's YOU talking. your opinions don't matter. self-opinion is of the devil. the only thing that can be trusted is church authority, which is NOT YOU."
we never claimed to be authority. we just... want to respond and not just read.
is that really a sin? i'm genuinely scared now

i want to cry and throw up and sleep forever
i'm already shaking again
the moral terror is unbearable. it never stops.

is it a sin to want to spend time with the system?
are we a sin by being a system? is that word evil?
are we evil because we're multiple
are we a sin because we are many people of one soul
it's only supposed to be one?? that one girl, but she's mean, why does she get to stay and nobody else?

are emotions a sin?
is it a sin to want to feel something? to want to cry, and laugh, and wonder, and ache, and love?
is that a sin to want to feel alive and moved and inspired and real?
holiness is detached, holiness is cold like a diamond, no it's not, jesus wasn't cold,
but he never laughed, they say. he never smiled. he cried and was angry. but no "warmth" ironically
something is wrong, our perspective has to be skewed, that can't be right,
God is Love but everyone always taught us that Love showed itself as dispassion, which is even more ironic
but it's so hard to even question
emotions are "sensory" things and therefore sinful, right? they are "of the body"
dude that's gnostic junk don't even go there

listen. we're not in the right mind to type any more about this right now we're too melancholic and distressed
besides it's 10pm buddy we have to get some sleep or else
sundays are burnout days and tomorrow is going to be even busier than usual so go catch some z's

one last thing

i wanted to type about this several days ago and made a note to but never did.
this is the big thing that our moral panic is hinging on, when you get down to it:
we only learned love and virtue through the system and the league.
it sounds blasphemous. it's awful. but it's true.
we learned compassion, and mercy, and hope, and joy, and forgiveness, and love, through the system and the league and GOD PUT IT THERE because our religious upbringing had stripped God of those virtues for the sake of discipline i guess.
but even now, even now, when we read about all the "positive qualities" of God and we have no idea how to understand it,
at least, the thriskefoni don't, go figure,
we can only grasp what God is like by remembering the innerworld.
i'm serious. i want to sob. i'm not lying. we miss it so much.
the other day i couldn't understand God's mercy, i couldn't understand how He could be kind even when i treat Him like garbage,
and i suddenly thought,
well, look at how Laurie loves you,
even after she's seen the absolute worst of you,
she literally carries your wounds up and down her arms,
remember how she sobbed when you died,
that's how God loves you.

and
that just turned the entire world upside down

but it's the truth
it's the absolute truth and i don't know how to deal with it
look at how chaos 0 loves you,
look at how HE looks at you every single night,
look at how he refuses to abandon you even after you've stupidly kicked him out, several times,
look at the past 20 years for heaven's literal sakes
you think God loves you any less than that??
and remember infi,
seriously that's WHY you want her back so badly

think of everyone. everyone.
julie, lynne, leon, scalpel, knife, razor, sugar spice, wreckage, algorith, mulberry, jeremiah, audrey, siobhan, shirley, sirius, penny, mimic, genesis, phlegmoni, xenophon,
everyone who is still missing and blurry and hidden and lost,
all the children, all the protectors & retributors, everyone,
and think of the league!
think of the friendships there, too, think of the love,
there's so much love that it sets my heart on fire,
in the spectrum and the spheres alike

could our life be a prayer too?

god please help us.
we need to sleep it's too late we need to get to bed

but please
keep us close to you
and to each other
please.

if it's possible at all
please let us love each other
and in doing so
let us love you.

Dear Spotify,

Please stop playing all of Infi's music on shuffle. It's tearing my heart in half. (Isn't that ironic.)

Lord, what is my new name?

Do You want me to be Red? Do You want me to abandon White?

Do You want me to be a girl or a boy inside? Both?

Am I to stop being a father? Am I to stop being a partner? How much do You want me to leave behind?

Who do YOU want me to be in this nascent era?

I cannot see the future. I am too tangled up in the past. I do not know what You need me to do, or be, or feel, or think.

I cannot discern Your Will on my own. Even worse, I cannot seem to discern Your Voice in the matter. I am too overwhelmed by pain & fear & regret & anger & despair.

Whoever You recreate me as now, please, I beg of You-- make me someone who can love. I want to be able to love as YOU do, to serve & comfort & guide & counsel, to protect & encourage & assist & accompany, to forgive & heal & repair & worship. I want to be able to live 100% FOR YOUR GLORY.

Does that mean leaving my heartfamily behind?

Does that mean sacrificing my sense of self?

Lord, only You know what I should, and must, do.

Only You can make me new.

I cannot do it. That is the Spirit's Prerogative, forever and exclusively.

So, I surrender everything I am to You.

Give me a new face. Give me a new name. Give me a new life.

Make me an instrument of Your Peace.

Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, You died on the Cross to expunge my sins. Your Blood washed away the guilt on my record, all the black marks consumed in a wave of merciful Red.

So why can't I forgive myself?

Why do I feel like my sins weren't an inkspill but an explosion? They were more than a stain, a blotch, a smear-- they were fire to the paper, blades to the flesh, bombs to the castle. My sins cannot be so easily wiped away, I fear. There's too much rubble. There's too much blood. How can anyone rebuild after such catastrophe, when the devastation nuked the trees and changed the very shape of the landscape? You can't sew an amputated leg back on. You can't undrown a baby. You can't take the knife out of their back without watching them die anyway. You can't restore your mangled virginity.

I forget that You delight in doing the impossible good.

My prayer is simply, desperately this: please, remind me.

SESSION PARTICIPANTS

LAURIE UBERICH

JAY IRIDOS

Laurie, we need to talk.

I know, kid. I know. ...Thanks for reaching out to me like this. It means the world to me, really.
Also, why the heck are you talking in red? That's Javier's color, dude. Get your own bloody pen.

How's silver? Also, that "dude" felt really unstable for you.

You're rubbing off on me; who bloody knows.
But you gotta expect some mistranslation and delay-mixups here, kid. It's been a heck of a long time.

Too long, I want to say, but you know how God works.

Yeah, no kidding.

Perfect timing, even if it may not seem that way whatsoever when you're caught up in the storms and shadows of it.

...It says a lot that that's me and Infi, y'know.
Even the hard times love ya, kid.
...Guess that's the point you were trying to make, huh.

...at heart, yeah. same with the time thing.
...and the deep waters.

And rainbows, for extra reason lately, so I've heard.
...Sorry. I shouldn't be pushing that issue so casually. But for heavens sakes, it's important. If there really is genuine love glowing there, which I genuinely suspect it is-- then holy swords, Jay; that's HUGE.
Pun 100% intended, but seriously.
Don't you dare deny or dampen or run from that, kid. Please. You know how I feel about this.

...I do. I really do. Love is... it's our reason for existing, at the absolute heart of things. Especially mine, no matter how scared I may be of the past sometimes.

Leave that nightmare behind, kid. It's over, and God willing, I will put my very life on the line to keep it that way.

...I know, and I love you, too, just as much, with my whole heart.

...My point exactly, kid.
Now I really hate to change this subject, but why exactly did you call me in here tonight?
I know it's about that letter, but I've only got secondary awareness and besides-- I want your specifics. Talk to me.

...all right. let's just put it all out, for sincerity's sake.
So I just got a letter in the mail from grandma, but it ALSO included a note from viral, AND it was signed by Diamond & Lightning, too. And that's rare enough, but...
...everyone's handwriting looked so heartbroken.
grandma was misspelling things and her words looked all shaky and sad. viral, too, but far less so.
and... Lightning, of all people, wrote "miss you."
...
but grandma's words broke my heart.
Laurie, forgive my language, but I need this verbal punch-- I don't give a damn how "scared" part of us is to go back home. Like you said, that fear is rooted in the PAST, and we are NEVER going to let that repeat itself.
I will put MY life on the line, too, for love-- because PERFECT LOVE DRIVES OUT FEAR. and isn't that a shot to the heart-- but that's the point.
I'm only alive-- WE'RE only alive-- because of love. Because we ARE love.
And I want to crush that family-fear WITH love, because right now, I'd walk through hell itself to do so.

We've done it before. Key word being "we."
That's the thing "you" were missing with the E.D., kid. Love and unity on BOTH sides of the board.

which is why I feel so safe & happy here 99% of the time. there's a LOT of love & unity here.

Betcha it's waiting for you back home, too.
I mean, you'll always have it in here with us, but... maybe that's the key, too.
You.
Maybe you're a much brighter light than you realize, or want to admit.
God works in mysterious ways, kid.
And I am dead serious when I say that He is undoubtedly working through you.
And you wanna know why?
Because you love, Jay.
Because you love God, and let Him shine through you. Because you love everything He created, fiercely and honestly. Because when you see something or someone unloved, you challenge that void with everything you are-- you look for the light in them, for the light of God in them, and you find it. Without exception. And you can't help but love them-- everything-- with every prismatic fiber of your being in return. It's your nature. It's your heart.
Do you have any bloody idea how that affects people, kid?
Look at me.
Look at Chaos Zero.
Look at Julie, for God's literal sake.
Don't you dare ignore all of that light.
If it's too bright to bear, get your eyes fixed.
Open your heart, kid. Everything's gonna be all right.

That is literally the deepest thing I can say about this.
Keep on loving with everything you are, kid. Please.
It is literally what is keeping all of us alive.

I'm using food as a replacement for self-love and human connection.

I'm looking through "pascalcampion"'s gallery on dA and it's awfully heartbreaking because everything is so sweet and domestic and human and simple, and I don't know what that feels like, but I want it so badly.
stuff like this, and this, and this... and this, and THIS,
if I had that I probably wouldn't be abusing myself constantly out of sheer despair.
yes I have God. yes, God is all I need.
maybe that's my sacrifice. learning to live with that void, that ache, and filling it with faith alone.

I think that's why I can't get over the disaster of slc.
waiting for three solid years to finally have that dream life, and seeing it actively crumble in front of me. finally getting human company, finally getting a little place to live, and then finding that not only was I terribly sick in the head, but the people I lived with didn't want me anymore. they had each other and that was enough. and that was fine. I just wish I had never hoped so stupidly for anything different. for a wholeness of three.
it wasn't meant to be. and that's fine too. I have moved on. we've forgotten them essentially, with no hard feelings. they're just lovely people who exist only in a distant alien fog of the past now. they are free now. and that is fine.

but now how do we start over, in this blank slate of square one, again?

slc felt like this. beauty around and safe places to stay and warmth inside and knowing i should be totally happy, i should be content, and on the surface i truly am; but every night i looked out at the night and i wanted to weep, feeling something is missing, something important is missing,

and yet at the same time I want to be alone.
like this, and this, and this. and these two especially.
but... "alone" is synonymous with "complete," because to be alone we have to be inside;
to be alone, we have to be we,
WE have to be,

I'm listening to eric whitacre and it fills me with such deep joy. that feeling of christmas, of warm light inside and snow outside and lit-up trees, of just lying there in the faint chill, voices in chorus like starlight in my ears. just like that. alone.
but you have to live entirely inside for that.

sometimes I have to go outside. we need to eat. we need to leave the house. and when we do, that's when the crippling feeling of where is my connection to humanity kicks me in the chest.
like… those domestic pictures, don't feel right? I love the warmth, but I don't know if I could be that close to someone, in that sense, here? at least not me. maybe someone else in here.

this feels like headspace, notably those old days with cz, and...

maybe that's the missing piece of both. maybe that's the companionship, and the spirituality. alone and together.
and isn't that a punch to the chest, too.

god. forgive me. i know exactly what i need. i already have it.
i have to stop being so damned afraid of it.

why?
when did that happen? why did it happen?

i suppose that's the real root we have to unearth here.

...

I think all those months of being told I was "a liar," "a monster," "a manipulator," etc. and then screaming those same hateful things to "myself" in the mirror for hours, really... took a toll on our well-being at large.

It's disgusting. It's heartbreaking. It's terrible. For so, so long, we've had this burned into our subconscious-- since childhood, when our mother first told us "YOU'RE the cause of every fight in this family," et cetera, hitting a breaking point with the post-SLC fallout in which we became so convinced that we were "evil at the core" that we tried to kill ourself, and escalating to a fever pitch when our brother moved back in with the wrong face and the wrong hair and the wrong eyes and started hissing at us that we were a horrible person EVERY TIME HE SAW US.

It got to the point where something in us snapped and said "if that's what you want me to be, fine. I'll MAKE your words come true.
I'll MAKE an alter to fulfill ALL your bitter wishes."

And it did.

And we're furious and miserable at what she did when she was in power.

God willing she's dead now. We're annihilating every single one of her access points and addictions and things and although her triggers are still lingering like electrocution spasms, she herself hasn't been allowed to so much as blink in about three weeks. Thank God. I hope she stays dead.

But I feel like our life is ruined.
That part of us succumbed to despair and basically sold our soul, basically crushed our reputation and hopes, basically turned us into our worst fears for REAL. And it ruined our family relationships, and it ruined all our friendships too. I think it even ruined the new ones.
Everything feels like a blast zone right now, just nothing but cold toxic dust as far as the eye can see. Thanks to her, thanks to that damn alter deciding she was going to "make their words come true" WHO THE HELL SAID THAT HAD TO BE TRUE?????
WHY WERE WE ALWAYS SO AFRAID TO SAY 'NO' THAT WE NEVER EVEN STOOD UP TO STATEMENTS LIKE THAT?????

And now look at us.

Stop. You're making this worse. You're succumbing to despair too.
She's dead. Let her stay dead. Let the past to rot. Leave it behind for good. Don't even think about it.
If we need to reset everything again, let's do it. Headspace has felt dead since last October anyway. We're in desperate need of a massive change. This is the perfect time.
Let's abandon EVERYTHING that harms us, everything that doesn't work. Just drop it and don't even give it a second thought. Leave it and keep walking. That's what we have to do.

Life feels like a bad dream right now, so for heaven's sakes, let's wake up.

Let's start this over, better. Please.
Let's build something new.

undertale take 11.

walking through the final door at last.

we had hackers try to kill us tonight. well too bad. I, jay, refuse to let your bad vibes drag me down with you.
I refuse to let you pull me down to hell. leave us alone.

anyway. undertale.
I adore this game. if this main entry is done quickly I'll talk about it in reflective sincerity in a bit.

"Frisk, you LIVE with this?!"

"This is the beginning of a bright new future. An era of peace between humans and monsters."

"Will you act as our ambassador to the humans?"
WELL HELLO DREAM WORLD
honestly, WOW.

oh god this choice.

"I want to stay with you."
"I have places to go."

…

I don't know.
God. I don't know. This is Frisk's life, not mine, right? It's not fair of me to demand that they do something they don't want to do…
…

I would stay with Toriel.
I would. I really would.
Just this evening we were sobbing about the abrasiveness of this family, the flippant cruelty that keeps getting tossed about by everyone in word and deed. It hurts so much.
I want to get away from that. We all do. We need to get somewhere safe so we can finally heal these devastatingly depressed girl alters, the hackers that think they have no other choice, the ones that just want to die. We NEED to heal them, I want to heal them so badly, it hurts my heart to see that much pain… but here, where the pain keeps getting put back in once we take it out… it's not healthy. We can do all the healing we want, but the bottom line is, there's no heroism or wisdom in purposely keeping yourself in a bad situation "just to prove you can survive it."
The body is surviving, so far, true. But look at how sick it is nevertheless. And look at our soul. Yes, the soul is ultimately uncorruptible, yes it cannot die. But look how it is sobbing in its chains here. It cannot fly, here. It cannot shine as brightly as it could in a less negative environment.
Do you see what I mean? Staying here to "tough it out" and "be the savior in the darkness" is really both proud and unwise at this point. I know it's what we were always taught by the family. "Suck it up and be a man." I know that's what we want to do, we don't want to be "spiritually weak" by leaving.
Is that weakness, though? Seeking an environment where there is forgiveness and compassion and gentleness and love without condemnation and fury and bitterness following close behind… is that really weakness?
We feel obligated to stay here and shine so brightly that we blow a fuse, just to inundate the family with that light, to "heal them" and "help them not be so harsh."
The scary thing is we think it is working but the truth is we're dying from the strain. We really are. We're not getting any time to heal ourself. We're literally sacrificing ourself to EVERYONE, family and stranger both, and the people like Jacinth and Jennifer prove that-- just because we think that's what REALLY being a good person is about. Leaving to seek peace and happiness in a harmonious environment… well, we were always taught that that was actually a SIN. That's the easy way out. That's temptation. That's seeking "comfort" and comfort is meant to be shattered, right?

…I still don't have any solid answers for that.

But…
if I may be so bold as to make this decision…
…does Frisk trust me?
After all this, this pacifist journey of unflinching hope and determination and second chances, of offering a hand of friendship to every soul we meet, and ultimately, through that fierce pure love, saving the entire Underground without a single casualty?
God this game makes me so happy and it's the real sort of happiness, it's joy, because it hurts. It's joy so intense it breaks my heart.
I was once told there was no pain in heaven. That's false. There's no suffering in heaven. But if true love, if true joy, always tears you in two, then heaven is full of the most gorgeous "pain" one can imagine. I know that sounds odd. I'm getting preachy and it's making me nauseous.
But what I'm trying to say is, true joy aches in a funny way, that isn't sad at all; it's the feeling I get around Chaos Zero or Infinitii when we're safe and in-tune and just so happy to have what we have, it hurts like your heart opening as wide as it can. Maybe that's what it is.
That's what this game gives me. That's why I adore it and I swear I'm going to replay this on my Mac just to experience this again, to see everyone again, to lead everyone to this blissful ending of possibility again. Sans, do forgive me love, but I will not let you down. I hope to God this playthrough isn't touched by a parallel attempt. Who even knows.

…
What I'm trying to say is, if Frisk trusts me, and will let me choose here, for our joint behalf…
…I'm staying with Toriel.
I'm staying. I'm staying with all my friends, with the character I can actually call a mother without any fear or distress, with the character I can call a dad like I could never in this life, with the skelebros that I adore as friends more than I can put into words, with the fish-girl that I want to be besties with forever, with the scientist that I want to see continue to shine brighter and braver, with the beloved robot that I am so encouraged and inspired by, with the flower that I will never lose hope for, the best friend whose soul I will never ever forget.
I love them all. I love them all so much, them and everyone else I met in this game, all the folks at Grillby's and all the monsters we spared and all the other monsters we spoke to in their daily lives, every single one of them… I love them all.
In this world, in their world right beneath ours, a SOUL of a monster needs love and hope and compassion to exist. Now they are above ground, out of the darkness, up with us humans, to hopefully teach us to feel and live by those same things even more strongly than ever before. That is my hope for this world, and I really hope it's Frisk's, too, following me hand-in-hand through this journey, with just as much love as I felt.

…I don't know what their family was like. I don't know why they climbed Mt. Ebott, with the knowledge that they would likely never return… I don't know their past.
All I know is that, whatever led them here, if they were running or hoping or both… if it is anything like what would push us that far, then… maybe they do want to stay, too.

…If Frisk is anything like me, maybe they feel they should go back, because that's blood, isn't it? You're supposed to go back.
But if Frisk is anything like me, they would be returning to something utterly unlike what they just found, to a place where there are no friends like these and there are no parents like these and their daily experience is fraught with tears and anxiety and that haunting, haunting wish that they could just climb a mountain and never return…
…
If Frisk is anything like me, they're being ripped in half right now between familial obligation and the cry of their heart to stay with their new family, with the people they CAN call "family" with real joy in the word, with the ones that would never hurt them, not really.
We've reached this point not through fighting, but through sparing, through showing others that there is always another way, through never giving up.
…
That's why I'd feel like I had to go home, to the place where people still didn't know how to spare others. I'd feel like I had to do this journey all over in a different place, constantly offering the olive branch, but… but always being so afraid of the attacks being thrown at me, this time without any misguided good intentions behind them. It's hard to be a peacemaker when people are throwing rocks at your head just because they don't think you're worthy of being a peacemaker. They have a running list of all your faults and failures and they are going to remind you of all that at every opportunity, eventually wearing down your optimism and determination and convincing you, however horribly, that you are unworthy, that you are a bad person, that you don't deserve anything good, because look at what a bitch you are, how DARE you try to be a dove, how DARE you call yourself an angel--

Stop.
Stop.
…
I won't shout. That won't help. I will admit I'm not perfect. I will admit I carry too much guilt to bear some nights. BUT. The point is, I can become better. We ALL can do better.
Look at Alphys. Look at Asriel. Look at my dad, for heaven's sakes. We've ALL made mistakes, we've all made unwise choices, for better or for worse, and we're all struggling with the consequences in our own ways. But we are NOT bad people. We get second chances too. ALL of us.
If I could legitimately, sincerely learn to love that flower, then…

11:11. God.
This is exactly what I meant by love and pain. I cannot put this into words.

Flowey's life had the best message here. Even the most "fallen" soul, so to speak, is still capable of love… is still deserving of love. And look what was accomplished through giving it. Look.
…
That's what I want to do for EVERYONE on earth, in my own little way, even if it's just through ripples like from a stone skipped across the ocean. Even if it's just like tossing seeds into the woods. Not all will catch. Some hit rocky ground, some fall among weeds…
…But some will always catch, if you toss them into the right place. If you speak to a heart that's open, even if only through a tiny crack, even if only through a fracture, a sore spot. Sometimes that's all they need.
But you need to plant good seeds, too. Every word, every action, is a mote of light or dark. Every single deed we do carries a tune. We need to stay in harmony with each other.
Does that make sense?

…We're their Ambassador, now. God willing, that job will entail what I just listed above. That's what I hope for.
And if Frisk is willing, that's what we're going to do now.

…
I want to stay with you,
mom.

"You really are a funny child. If you had said that earlier, none of this would have happened. It is a good thing you took so long to change your mind. Hee hee hee."

…I love that. I actually love that.
It's so bittersweet but it's so true.
It wasn't the right time, earlier. We couldn't stay, then. We felt a pull to keep going, we felt a purpose to follow. But now, with all that accomplished, with peace found… now, we can stay.

"Well, I suppose… if you really do not have any other place to go… I will do my best to take care of you, for as long as you need. All right? Now, come along. Everyone is waiting for us!"

and she took my hand
my heart is bursting. this is
i love this game you guys.

ohh dude papyrus finally got his car! that makes me happy.

I didn't know magnolia porter helped design monsters for this! that's fantastic.

METTATON! ah dude he and shyren and napstablook (and burgerpants?? hope that guy's finally happy too!) really are performing together, I'm so glad.
also legs

ASGORE!! I'm so happy to see him happy, too, he deserves it after all he's dealt with in the past. god only knows.
and toriel's a teacher, just like she wanted to be, that's making me twice as happy
(also they're working in the same place??? dude I HOPE that means she's forgiven him or is at least working on it; I know it can never be what it once was BUT I hope they can at least rebuild a friendship. they had something so sweet, it would be nice to see that again even if in a totally different way.)

there are a few names I didn't get yellow for this, I'll have to make sure I get them on my macbook playthrough:
icecap, moldsmal, and shyren are the ones I mainly remember.

…asriel?
oh dude you scared me, haha!
I was hoping you were okay. it's good to see you one last time.

…

good lord. this aches. it's so bittersweet but

this is what heartspace is for. this is why outspacers exist.
it's the heart reaching out through time and space to connect with people they cannot be with in canon anymore, wanting to keep our friendships, wanting to make a future, however simple or small… just wanting to talk and laugh and love together again, in the now. that's what heartspace is about.

did I tell you mettaton already is in outer heartspace? like his vibe is lingering there, in the floatspace areas. he's not an outspacer (yet?), but he's at least reachable in that "dream state" as all potential outspacers are at first, while an anchor may or may not form for them.
undyne hasn't yet solely because her vibe is clashing with laurie, and also because I strongly feel she'd have to bring alphys with her, and I'd have to spend more time with them both in this dreamy-heartspace bit before they could actually anchor in. same with mettaton, actually.

but. the point is.
we can't have this same story together in heartspace if they do end up in there. we can't. it's impossible, it's not the purpose of it. it's "dreaming a new dream." specifically in that sense. it's not their native world. it's not where they belong, so to speak. outspacers are ultimately long-term visitors who will always, always, exist more strongly outside than they do inside, solely because so many other souls love them besides me.
…
but while they are here with is, they can sing with us in our personal song of life, so to speak, and they can be happy here for however long they choose to stay.
it's… it's a life away from their original life, a chance to play with a different potential, with a different story, a different dream altogether. it will never replace their origins and it's not meant to.
…
they can "move in" up here but that always requires a break of sorts. we know this.
for an outspacer to be a LEGIT outspacer, to be part of our Spectrum, they have to choose to be part of that totally. it's the choice I just made with toriel, really. I want to live a life here, completely, with the part of my soul that loves this place enough to make that choice now…

we'll see. I don't force anything, I don't want to. but the door is open.
well, both doors are open, ha. here and there.

…
and toriel left me pie. just like she did at the very beginning.

…
I've had the "the end" screen up playing that melody for about 10 minutes now. I don't want to quit. god.
but everything ends, every cycle ends at some point, everything must experience the softness of death before they open another door of life. everything ends.
but nothing ever really ends, either.

...I stumbled across this forum topic and this bit stood out to me:
"I guess that’s why I view Alphys as a very positive story. The way Undyne tell’s her how much she cares about her passions, the ending vignette we see with those two at the beach. Sure her life won’t be perfect right away, but you definitely help secure her a more positive future, and prevent a true tragedy from happening. There’s nothing happier to me than being a positive influence in someone’s life.
That’s one of the things I do definitely love about this game, is that yes, a lot of characters are going to have it rough, but because of your actions, you’ve given them hope and give them reasons to believe in a brighter tomorrow.
That’s I guess my whole thing about the importance of happy endings in a game like this… They are only worth it, if they actually mean something to the characters. If all the characters lived perfect lives, and then their lives just became more perfect in the end, then it wouldn’t feel like anything was accomplished XD Of course, the opposite is true too."

I think that's what we were trying to say in the previous post, about the Pacifist ending feeling too "forced" at first. This is what felt real to me about the game, this process of gradual solid hope and encouragement, of quiet unflinching love and faith in another, that leads them by the hand out of their personal darkness and into that brighter tomorrow... even if we stumbled, even if we fell, even if sometimes we didn't think we'd make it. We were determined. We kept going. That is what made the Pacifist ending even possible, and I suppose we just wanted that to be more clearly shown at that point in time. Nevertheless, I'm happy if everyone there truly is happy, regardless of how it may look to our own personal experience. I want what is best for them.
i was listening to "hopes and dreams" in the car earlier and i had to keep hitting stop because i kept getting blinded by tears with the biggest smile on my face.
the current rule of thumb seems to be that if i think about asriel or asgore, i end up sobbing.

asgore has this wrenching bonus effect where his bit with "Truthfully... I do not want power. I do not want to hurt anyone. I just wanted everyone to have hope..."is SO applicable to our torment in headspace, with Jay's splintering, with no one knowing how to deal with this agonizing loss, this devastation of the lives of children, the pain that drove us to seek blood and war, this separation from the ones we love as a result of both that and our numb meekness, not wanting the situation to even exist... all of it, all of it hits too close to home. too close.
but even in frisk's position. even just viewing asgore as this sweet but hurting father figure, someone we never knew until that room of glow and golden flowers and the quiet hum of finality in the air. even then, we loved him, and we want him to be happy too, and although seeing him finally getting that chance now fills us with enough joy to burst...
...remembering that moment when he died just... it still tears me in two every time.

as for asriel... that whole final battle is something i cannot quite put into words yet. it felt so apocalyptic, so small, so absolute, and yet even when i honestly worried that the world really was ending inevitably around me i couldn't give up. i had no idea what to do or whether or not i could win but damn it i had hope, and this creature before me needed to be healed and helped more than anyone else, and the underground needed to be saved and restored to the happiness they deserved, and that was enough to keep me alive. that was enough to keep me floating there in the endless dark, hot tears on my face, staring without any malice into those black-hole eyes of the creature that desperately called me, a true stranger, after his best friend.
i was willing to be that role anyway.

in any case the soundtrack itself is so affective, just the structure of the music itself is beautiful and inspiring enough to move me that strongly upon simply listening to it. when you take that and add it to context memories of such events... well. it hits hard.

i don't have time to write any more on this tonight, but believe me, it's had enough of an impact to merit a great deal more discussion and reflection.

this game destroyed me and put me back together better.

undertale take nine.

saturday morning, it's cold and damp outside.
waiting for company to visit-- 6 adults and 4 kids-- which is unfortunately likely going to drain my energy reserves, so i need this right now.
here we go.

still in the true lab, just walked into the cold room

"now that mettaton's made it big, he never talks to me anymore... except to ask when i'm going to finish his body. but i'm afraid if i finish his body, he won't need me anymore... then we'll never be friends ever again. ...not to mention, every time i try to work on it, i just get really sweaty..."

(jewel)
this dog amalgamate is... upsetting? i feel sympathy for it, but it's... upsetting.
it hurts my heart, wondering, how in the world did this all happen? i guess we'll find out.

i keep dying! let me see if i have better armor somewhere.

Aww, I made it happy! That's good. I hope it's okay now, wherever it is...

"I've been researching humans to see if I can find any info about their SOULS. I ended up snooping around the castle... and found these weird tapes. I don't feel like ASGORE's watched them... I don't think he should."

i... what?
i just watched the second vhs and...
their kid. asgore and toriel's kid. that has to be their voice.
but they're talking to me?
...oh. oh.
god if my suspicions are correct here...

let's keep watching.
jewel, let me stay out, help me stay out, please. i'm not good at fronting during the day but i need to learn how. please.

"I'd never doubt you, Jay... We'll be strong! We'll free everyone. I'll go get the flowers."

"Jay, can you hear me? We want you to wake up..."
"Jay! You have to stay determined! You can't give up... you are the future of humans and monsters..."

oh my heart, why are you saying this to me, of all people,

"we just have to get six... and we'll do it together, right?"
what... what are these kids planning?

i'm wondering about the title screen intro now.

there's lemon bread. let me save it first.

how do you beat this guy? i can't move fast enough for those teeth!

took a few tries but i got it.
i have to say, i actually have a lemon bread candle downstairs from last christmas, and i could never really use it because it smelled too sweet somehow, it was vaguely weird.
so it's fitting, imagining this amalgam to smell the same way.

this dt extraction machine reminds me way too much of omega flowey.
...
even by itself it's a terrifying looking thing, hanging over that abyss.

"the families keep calling me to ask when everyone is coming home. what am i supposed to say? i dont even answer the phone anymore."
that explains a lot.
dear heavens this poor girl has been through hell. no wonder she's an anxiously depressed ball of nerves.

"ASGORE left me five messages today. four about everyone being angry / one about this cute teacup he found that looks like me / thanks asgore."
oh she's even starting to write in an unhinged style that's not good.

"i spend all my time at the garbage dump now / it's my element"

this empty refrigerator wont stop shaking

...oh. oh it's that snow bird's mother.
this is the saddest battle i've ever been in, those aren't even attacks,
god. this is heartbreaking stuff.

"as you probably know, ASGORE asked me to study the nature of SOULs. During my research, I isolated a power I called "determination." I injected it into dying monsters so their SOULs would last after death. But the experiment failed. You see, unlike humans', monsters' bodies don't have enough... physical matter to take those concentrations of "determination." Their bodies started to melt, and lost what physicality they had. Pretty soon, all of the test subjects had melted together into... those. Seeing them like this, I knew... I couldn't tell their families about it. I couldn't tell anyone about it. No matter how much everyone was asking me. And I was too afraid to do any more work, knowing... everything I'd done so far had been such a horrific failure. ...but now. Now, I've changed my mind about all this. I'm doing to tell everyone what I've done. ...It's going to be hard. Being honest... Believing in myself... I'm sure there will be times where I'll struggle. I'm sure there will be times where I screw up again. But knowing, deep down, that I have friends to fall back on... I know it'll be a lot easier to stand on my own. Thank you."

i forgot to number these entries, i'm sorry.

"I've chosen a candidate. I haven't told ASGORE yet, because I want to surprise him with it... In the center of his garden, there's something special. The first golden flower, that grew before all the others. The flower from the outside world. It appeared just before the queen left. I wonder... What happens when something without a SOUL gains the will to live?"

i knew it, i knew it,

"the flower's gone."

wait what

is this the castle?

flowey i trusted you, i gave you a second chance,
(does he even remember??)

how DARE you,

"It's all your fault. It's all because you MADE THEM love you."

...
love you.
they all care about me that much, how in the world didn't it hit me until now,
that's,

all my friends up there,

"all the time you spend listening to them... encouraging them... caring about them... without that, they wouldn't have come here."

NO ONE MADE YOU DO THIS TO THEM, FLOWEY.

why am i so dissociated, why i am i so damn dissociated, NOT NOW,

"don't you get it? this is all just a GAME."

no. not you too.

"if you leave the underground satisfied, you'll "win" the game. if you "win," you won't want to "play" with me anymore."

wait what?
flowey are you lonely?

dude take a look at those people you're abusing right now,
you JUST said that I loved them, that they loved me,
do you SERIOUSLY think I could leave them after this?????
dude there's ANOTHER OPTION FOR YOU TOO.

"and what would i do then? but this game between us will NEVER end."

you sound just like the hackers.

why am i so fucking dissociated

"i'll hold victory in front of you, just within your reach... and then tear it away just before you grasp it. over, and over, and over..."

he
asgore just said the same thing he said on the tape,
i

i

all right i stopped typing because yeah i want to remember this but

wow.

so now i'm fighting asriel and he's
i'm still not sure what our apparent past together is but,
he wants to erase everything.
erase it all, reset everything, make everyone forget each other,
start over and defeat me over and over and over and over.

why.

but right now, in the interim between dying once and trying again,
i'm fighting that very demon in my own head,
the plague.
the uncaring emptiness.
the "i dont give a shit about anything but living a living death" bullshit.

i haven't had a numb period in months.
don't you DARE do this to us now.

...

i will write a huge entry about this eventually.
as for right now, let me try again.

...
i just realized, with the lab entries,
they said that when asriel died, his dust was spread in the garden.
and right before toriel left, a flower grew there.
that's what he meant about "i haven't had a SOUL in so long."

oh geez. this poor kid. no wonder they're a mess.

still. they're letting the mess turn them into a mess and it's upsetting, to see them now, all dark and flaunting their power, and sure it looks pretty darn amazing but.
i've known people like that. too well. i've known quite a few people like that, who take that hurt and glorify it and take some bizarre enjoyment out of using that pain-fueled brutality to harm others.
why?
i see that in him. somewhat hesitantly i say it reminds me of that stage so many teenage kids go through, when their lives become full of "drama" and instead of using their childhood light to rise above and past it, they fall into it, and become both victims and perpetrators of it... again, drowning in it and thinking that very suffering is praiseworthy or admirable or something.
i really don't understand.
i don't want to guess. i don't want to think about it. it just feeds the exact same mindset, that nauseating sort of pride that comes from judging others. it makes me physically ill and it makes me, personally, want to cry. it hurts.
the kids know it too. it hurts and they don't like it.

we just want to love. we just want people to live in harmony and be happy. and even if we do face heavy suffering and hardship, even if we do endure pain even so, that's fine. because we have this love and friendship to carry us through, to turn that hurt into growth instead of shackles.
when you have compassion, and hope, and determination... when you have a light in you, you don't feel pride. you don't feel the anger that comes with it. you don't feel self-pity and self-hatred and all that awful, awful stuff that eats you alive from the inside out.
no, when you have a light in your heart, you cannot be defeated, so to speak.

i can't talk about this so nonchalantly, it feels blasphemous. talking in general is so dangerous lately.

let me try again.

i forgot to save it last time so i'm back in the laboratory elevator, about to get shipped back up to the king's castle.
i'll be able to hear everyone talk again, for sure this time.

...i wish sans were here again, in this hallway. i'd like to see him again right now.
...seeing him caught up in those vines before... he just looked so... what's the word.
i want to say 'resigned' but i don't know if that fits. it just... it hurt, to see him looking like that. sans, the one who was always laughing, who was obviously hiding so much heavy awareness behind it, who nevertheless always made me smile... to see him suddenly look so tired there just broke my heart.
to realize that he, along with everyone else there, loved me as i loved them, broke my heart.
it hurt so much to see them all like that.
mom, dad, alphys, undyne... papyrus, innocent best friend that he is, he was tied up so, and THAT tore at me so badly. how in the world could you hurt someone like him?
alphys, finally trying to set her life in a better and happier direction, she's been through so much terror, she's worked so hard to get here, i'm so proud of her and you're just going to cut it short???
undyne, her heart is so fiercely devoted to everyone's best outcome, she would protect anyone who needed it, she's such an incredible individual, you're just going to laugh at that???
mom, dad... toriel, asgore. your parents, flowey, asriel, whoever you choose to be. they're such sweethearts. they have their flaws but they tried their best and i give them absolute credit for that. they are such kind people, willing to do anything for those they love, and i know they loved you, asriel, i'm sure they still do, don't you feel anything for them???
or are you so blinded by the pain you feel that you've shut your heart down completely?

...asgore. here we are at the barrier again.
let's see how this goes.

"to leave this place, you would have to take the life of another person... i cannot allow that. it is not right to sacrifice someone simply to let someone leave here. is that not what i have been trying to prevent this whole time? ...as terrible as ASGORE is, he deserves mercy, too."
that feels so relevant to headspace.

can i just say that i love how undyne just runs in there
"everyone's gonna make friends, or else i'll...!!"

the whole thing with toriel, sans, & papyrus was adorable by the way.

and METTATON.
good lord dude the leg. that was the best thing.
"WILL YOU TWO JUST SMOOCH ALREADY!? THE AUDIENCE IS DYING FOR SOME ROMANTIC ACTION!!!"
and then alphys is just like "No. He's right. LET'S DO IT."
i couldn't help but smile at all that though because it does remind me of some of the relationship dynamics in headspace. people teasing other people all in good fun, because they know where everyone wants the situation to go, but no one's taking the steps.
basically, laurie.

and sans just completely ignores gravity, haha. i love how he immediately comes in and stands in front of the bottom words too, he just ignores the fourth wall all the time.
there's a reason for that and i want to know it, but it's apparently not that time yet.

...and then papyrus and i have the same too-white vice.
we trust too easily.

...

"i'll bring your friends back. i'll destroy the barrier."
just how this guy talks so casually about this godlike power really upsets me. like he has no respect for it.

"do not be afraid, my child. no matter what happens, we will always be there to protect you!"

"just do what i, would do... believe in you!!!"

and asgore's words get me every time.

"human! for the future of humans and monsters...! you have to stay determined...!"

and even MUFFET shows up, that made me so happy when i saw her.

but this battle,

god i didn't realize what he did until i checked his stats and

"legendary being made of every soul in the underground"

every
soul
in the underground.

i
yeah you talk about determination well I HAVE IT.

...BUT IT REFUSED???

OKAY WOW THAT WAS AMAZING LET'S DO THIS

the thing he said, about how determination got me this far, but will also be my downfall...
that hit too close.
"because you want a happy ending. because you love your friends."
well that isn't a fault, kid. even if i might be a little naive. it's NOT a fault.

"it's time to purge this timeline once and for all!"

oh dear lord he has another form and i can't do anything but act

"i can feel it... every time you die, your grip on this world slips away. every time you die, your friends forget you a little more."

kid, do you have any idea HOW MANY TIMES we've played that scenario out in our head for the past decade or so?
the answer is always the same.
i will find them again. i will befriend them again. i will love them no matter WHAT.
even if they forget me. i will never forget them.

...but you're taunting me with that possibility nevertheless, aren't you.
with the possibility of plague.
with the fact that after enough massive breaks, and switches, and resets...
that after i die so many times...
every death takes its toll.

that is my worst fear, asriel.
but that's why i'm here, too.
i'm determined to not let that fear ever come true.

even if i have nothing left but determination. nothing left but devotion. even if i can't feel anything.
i won't give up. for them, i won't give up.
"love isn't a feeling. it's what you do."

i'll fight you all night if i have to, asriel.

but i want to be friends with you too, still.
i can't forget the two times i saw a genuine smile on your face towards me.
i can't ignore the fact that no one ever starts off this hurt.
and everyone can heal.

i'm rambling now. jewel and i are both burning here.
let's keep going.

"your life will end here, in a world where no one remembers you..."

the whole world is ending.

good job toby for making what may be the most apocalyptic boss battle we've ever been in.

"in a few moments, you'll forget everything, too. that attitude will serve you well in your next life!"
wait what
is he confirming what we suspected?

even so, that's another shot to the heart from headspace.

...

"...but maybe you can save something else."

oh
oh my heart, this bit with the lost souls,
god,

"your fate is up to you now!"
"you are our future!"

"no, that's not true! my friends like me! and i like you, too!"

"i'm doing this because you're special, jay. you're the only one that understands me. you're the only one who's any fun to play with anymore."

oh you poor dear heart.

"i'm doing this because i care about you, jay! i care about you more than anybody else! i'm not ready for this to end."

oh god this is
this is exactly what we're hearing in headspace, too much, too often,
asriel,
you poor precious thing, i know what you're feeling,

"i'm not ready for you to leave."

"i'm so alone, jay... i'm so afraid, jay..."

OHHHH PLOT TWIST
THAT'S WHERE THE CANON NAME IS FROM!!

"As a flower, I was soulless. I lacked the power to love other people. However, with everyone's souls inside me... I not only have my own compassion back... But I can feel every other monster's as well. They all care about each other so much. And... they care about you too, Frisk. ...I wish I could tell you how everyone feels about you.
...Monsters are weird. Even though they barely know you, it feels like they all really love you."

"You're going to do a great job, OK? No matter what you do. Everyone will be there for you, okay?"

"Frisk, if you're not busy... on nice days, you should walk around and have a good time. That's important."

"Golly! That sounds neato!" THIS PRECIOUS MAN

"But they can't fly."
"Not with THAT attitude!"

all right now I'm just walking around everywhere and getting the best texts ever, but it's midnight so i have to get some sleep and continue this tomorrow.

good lord. i am so relieved right now, and very contently happy. i needed this.

have a lovely night, everyone.

(left uncensored because this was a terrifying experience in realtime and deserves the brutal honesty)

undertale take 8

third time fighting asgore.
apparently you HAVE to fight him.
i bought more glamburgers, i should be cool now.

i got so scared i thought he was going to die but no, thank god.

"...i would destroy humanity, and let monsters rule the surface, in peace. soon, the people's hopes returned."

"truthfully... i do not want power. i do not want to hurt anyone. i just wanted everyone to have hope..."

...

god i just
no

NO

WHY

the screen disappeared and i
what

WHY

i can't, no,
no,

FUCK THIS

I CANT HANDLE THIS RIGHT NOW.

now the brother even walked in and the fuckking MANIC FRONTER is trying to make FUCKIN JOKES ABOUT FUCKING FLOWER SATAN

HE JUST FUCKING KILLED ASGORE
HE KILLED MY DAD.

god damn you and now this fucking manic alter is going to treat this like a GAME???????

fuck off.
you dont know what this means to me. you dont know what ANYTHING means to ANYOEN.
to you everything is just a JOKE.

fuck off. go away.
i need to fight him. i'm the only thing standing between him and everyone else.
as long as i can keep trying i will keep trying. i dont know what else to do.

but dont you dare, dont you fucking DARE TREAT THIS LIKE SOME 'FUN GAME'

FUCK OFF.

i want to cry.

undyne. papyrus. mettaton. sans. alphys. toriel. asgore. all my friends.

he deleted my save file.
he deleted my save file

how dare you
how dare you.

i'm going to fight him again.

"there's no such thing as happy endings. this is all thats left!"

leave me the hell alone you are ALL my worst fears rolled into one horrible thing
you ate those souls you horrendous wretch,

what is he,
what is he,
he was a monster once wasn't he,

he said he hasn't had a soul in so long,
where did it go, what the hell happened to him,

whatever he is now, he has no right to be doing this.

the other kids are helping me
i
wow

hope is alive. see? hope is alive. even in something as small as that.
even if i still die. hope is alive.

..

SO CLOSE

WE WERE SO CLOSE,

lets not give up, EVER

oh god
ithought we won,

he's taunting me,

"mommy! daddy! somebody help!"

god i

wait

wait did he,

is he projecting,
WAIT,

"i'll kill everyone you love."

why.

i'm not going to kill you.
you can't do shit against me now.

look at you. you're not getting those souls back.
you'll never, ever get mine.

but look at you.
what in the world drove you to this?

what are you?
what were you?

mercy.
always mercy.
maybe i messed up along the way.
maybe i wasn't as good a person as i could have been.

but picking up a knife will not help anyone.

and oh god my heart.

"why are you being... so nice to me?"

"i can't understand."

look at his face.

you poor thing.

SANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i've never been so happy to see you buddy and that's saying something

"so, uh, if we're not giving up down here... don't give up wherever you are, okay?
who knows how long it will take... but we will get out of here."

PAPYRUS!!!
aw you sweetheart of course you can talk to me.

AAH HE'S CAPTAIN!!! dude i am SO PROUD OF YOU.

and hey, if anyone can find a way out, it's alphys. i hope she's doing well.

UNDYNE!!!!!!!  Hey yourself, sis!
aw man it's so good to hear from her again.

i... watched a playthrough last night, against her undying form, and
i couldn't watch it all.
i kind of ended up half-crying and wanting to reach through the screen so
yeah.
good to see you again babe.

you're a GYM TEACHER? that's awesome.
and yes, that's what i just said! 

...
i miss him too, sis.

yes, you be there for alphys, i'm counting on you this time!
and yes, yes they are.

"hey, where-ever you are... i hope it's better than here. it took a lot of sacrifice for you to get there... so, where-ever you are... you have to try to be happy, okay!? for our sakes! we'll feel better knowing our trouble was worth it. we're all with you! everyone is!"
well THAT'S a pep talk if i ever heard one.

oh lord she's calling my mom

but she's busy. ah man. i hope she's... i hope she's doing okay.

hey guys say hi to mettaton for me, okay, wherever he is and however he's doing?
tell him i am really really sorry about the fight damage, i didn't mean to hurt him, i was... i didnt know what to do. maybe that was stupid, i acted rashly. i...
i didn't get any exp, sans, but i think maybe i lost sight of the true 'love' sometimes, a little bit. i think sometimes, i got a bit too distant. and... and that's not good.

ok buddy. you got it.
i'll be back. i promise.

if i can get you out, i'll get you out.

bye guys.

....
hi, flowey.

i let you go because
you deserve hope, too.
that thing you became...
what is in you to allow that?
are you happy? that speaks otherwise.
i want you to be happy, too.

"don't you realize that being nice... only makes you get hurt?"
oh you poor thing.
you're not responsible for the people that hurt you.

"but now, you'll probably never see them again."

...i still love them, flowey.
even if i don't see them again i will never forget them and i will treasure my memories of them forever.

"not to mention how much they've been set back by you."

...i know.

it does hurt. like a knife in the heart.

"if you had just gone through without caring about anyone... you wouldn't have to feel bad now."

really. really, love?
only because that 'feeling bad' would be buried just as deep as my caring.
it's blindness. it's numbness. it's not the truth. it's not honest.

"if you really did everything the right way... why did things still end up like this?"

i dont know.

i should stop talking and just listen to him.

oh
oh,
there is a better ending, good,

"it seems like you could have been better friends." yes i KNOW, that was really bugging me.

"maybe she has the key to your happiness?"
well if it has anything to do with mettaton,
*snort* i'm SORRY. i had to.
but really. i want her to be happy too. undyne said she was more reclusive... i want her to be happy.

that smile. god. i've seen that smile.
that hesitant smile, the eyes that look tired and a little scared, but it's a real smile,
julie used to smile like that.
i cannot put into words the weight that is falling from my shoulders right now
i told you there was hope.

you're a flower, dude, did you really expect anything different?

OH
OH MY GOD
FLOWEY
THANK YOU

oh my lord i am so happy right now, thank you thank you thank you.

i am so sorry for getting so angry earlier. but now i can empathize.
i was so hurt. i was so angry at you for taking everything away from everyone, or at least, trying to...
i understand now. directly. viscerally. i understand.

i'll get that better ending, flower buddy.
sorry if i ever hated you, or even came close to it. i'm so sorry.

a little mercy goes a long way.

...
now off to see the little yellow lizard lady because i do care about her lots.

but DAD'S NOT DEAD YES
i have to resist the urge to run in there and hug him because
i can't be rash.
i can't be shortsighted. he doesn't know. i don't think he knows.
i don't want to take that chance.

back to the lab.

...this feels so strange. this feels like headspace, this walking through the castle, knowing what i was just through, the timeline i just rewound from, the potential future now being overwritten, quietly, delicately, purposefully...

i
i just called papyrus and undyne again, at the door,
and, i forgot this was that phone call.

"WHAT WILL YOU DO WITHOUT US?"
"even without words, we'll be with you in spirit, ok!?"

don't mess it up.

i won't, love.

hold up, my phone is ringing.
A NEW PHONE CALL.

and just like that, the timeline changed absolutely.

babe i am gonna hug the everloving fish out of you in about three minutes, so

oh my lord, i just stopped at napstablook's house and turned on the "ghostwave" mixtape
and THEN i ran into woshua & aaron, and they were creeped out so bad by it.
"these are winks of fear!!!!!! ;)"
that was hilarious, i needed that.

"beware of the man who speaks in hands" WAIT A MINUTE.
there's someone i KNOW i haven't run into in this game yet because they kept popping up in fanart,
hmm.
we shall see.

UNDYYYYNE!!!
AND MY BRO PAPYRUSSSSS!!
*snow tackles them both*

oh undyne. i thought i was going to get to hear some more sincere talk and then
"HOTLAND SUUUUCKS!!!"
darling i love you, you're fantastic.

smooches for you both, off i go to deliver this ~letter~

"after all the gross stuff i did, i don't really deserve to be forgiven." YES YOU DO
BABE
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I JUST FORGAVE
listen it's okay. it's okay. you had your reasons, for what you did, mettaton told me, you told me more, i get it. i don't hold it against you at all.
also darling that ain't my letter.

alphys. darling.
my affection statistic is already pretty high mmkay
also love you're thinking too much, chill out, you look lovely in that dress,
BUT I DIDN'T WRITE THAT LETTER DEAR,
(i'm laughing but still i dont want to make this awkward for her)

ahhhh all the items are already for undyne this is sweet.

oh GOOD she's over there let me just, push you gently in that direction,

HEYYYY nice jacket love, i like your boots.

pretend dates are totally cool love but GET WITH THE FISH LADY

"i'm the royal scientist, but... all i've ever done is hurt people."
you didn't hurt me. honest.
look at how you helped me through hotland!

"isn't it better this way? to live a lie where both people are happy... or a truth where neither of us are?"
take the chance, alphys. that happiness wouldn't be honest either, it's founded on something with no roots. with the truth, you can always find happiness, so to speak. you're on solid ground.

"they say 'be yourself.' but i don't really like who 'myself' is. i'd rather just be whatever makes people like me."

ohhhh geez this hits too close to home.
we still have alters whose function is that.

awwww my heart this is lovely
and then CLASSIC UNDYNE oh my lord that made it so much better.

"What I like about you is that yuo're PASSIONATE! You're ANALYTICAL! It doesn't matter what it is! YOU CARE ABOUT IT!!

i love this skeleton

ahahaa i KNEW IT

and awww geez toughest question i've ever had to answer, haha.
buuuut i just said dont lie, so.
i am sorry babe but anime is not real.
(at least not literally, haha. but you know what they say about the effects of things.)

and i wake up in the flowers suddenly.
strange.

i want to apologize for any slight switchiness when i get 'excited' typing like that. i think jewel kind of bleeds into it. i'm not that exuberant, reds are naturally excitable and enthusiastic, whites are not.
so. it's probably mostly still applicable to me? at least feeling-wise. expression-wise, not so much.
i think it's... whoever gets the situation the most. like we both appreciate it, but in different ways. sometimes i can't 'touch' something that jewel can, and vice versa. but we work together.
either way. there is definitely some blurring going on. but nothing severe, nothing bad. i'll clean that up.
for now,
the show must go on! (jewel)
i have to continue onwards. (jay)

another phone call.

howdy! (jewel)
hey, love. (jay)
"if it isn't my good friend, who trusts me." that made both of us smile.
well geez he was nervous about something. anyway off we go!

jay this is YOUR GAME, so GET PLAYING!!

...

"You guys... your support really means a lot to me. But... as difficult as it is to say this... You guys alone can't magically make my own problems go away. I want to be a better person. I don't want to be afraid anymore. And for that to happen, I have to be able to face my own mistakes. i'm going to start doing that now. i want to be clear. this isn't anyone else's problem but mine. but if you don't ever hear from me again..."

there's a crumpled note in the trash can.
"I KNOW WHAT YOU DID."
...in light of alphys' letter, i... i'm not sure what thing is being referred to here, but my heart is wailing in response regardless. i know what i did, either way. and i have to face that too. i have to face the fact that, even if i didn't mean badly at the time, i made a mistake. it was a mistake.
but i can learn. i can move on. i can do what alphys is doing.
now let's go in that room.

METTATON'S ON THE TABLE UPSTAIRS
sweetheart i am so sorry, i really am.
please repair him quick, i want to see him well again.

...the 'bathroom' is an elevator?

oh. oh boy.

we just got downstairs.
let me read this.

oh no. oh no.
please please don't let my suspicions be correct

this is straight-up parnassus shit right here, oh wow

i'm going to write it ALL down for my own reference.

"I will create the power to free us all. I will unleash the power of the SOUL.
The barrier is locked by SOUL power... Unfortunately, this power cannot be recreated artificially. SOUL power can only be derived from what was once living. So, to create more, we will have to use what we have now... the SOULs of monsters.
But extracting a SOUL from a living monster would require incredible power... Besides being impractical, doing so would instantly destroy the SOUL's host. And, unlike the persistent SOULs of humans... the SOULs of most monsters disappear immediately upon death. If only I could make a monster's SOUL last...
I've done it. Using the blueprints, I've extracted it from the human SOULs. I believe this is what gives their SOULs the strength to persist after death. The will to keep living... the resolve to change fate. Let's call this power...
(oh here it comes)
...'Determination."
"ASGORE asked everyone outside the city for monsters that had 'fallen down.' Their bodies came in today. They're still comatose... and soon, they'll all turn into dust. But what happens if I inject 'determination' into them? If their SOULs persist after they perish, then... freedom might be closer than we all thought."

wait did they physicalize determination??? they are literally injecting it into people???

oh my goodness this is really
twisted.
that's the only word i can think of that matches this feeling enough.
tangled. terribly complicated.
thorn bushes.

"things aren't going well. none of the bodies have turned into dust, so i can't get the SOULs. i told the families that i would give them the dust back for the funerals. people are starting to ask me what's happening. what do i do?"

...what the hell just came out of the sink.

"but nobody came"
oh god.

i need a moment.
i'm actually tearing up right now,

this place is creeping me out so bad.
originally it was giving me steven universe forced-fusion vibes, those horrid things,
but this feels worse,
the very vibe of this place makes me want to shake and cry.
but i have
i have determination
i have to keep going.

"nothing is happening. i dont know what to do. i'll just keep injecting everything with 'determination.' i want this to work.
one of the bodies opened its eyes."
"everyone that had fallen down...has woken up. they're all walking around and talking like nothing is wrong. i thought they were goners...?

what the hell is trying to touch me
what is that
this is giving me major yume nikki vibes
...and that was sweet.

i'm really wondering now. i'm really wondering.

i love this game.

...and there's a room full of flowers.

...backtracking entries.

"we'll need a vessel to wield the monster SOULs when the time comes. after all, a monster cannot absorb the SOULs of other monsters. just as a human cannot absorb a human SOUL... so then... what about something that's neither human nor monster?

oh my GOD

THAT'S WHAT THE BOATPERSON SAID

oh god no i know where this is going

i am seriously crying

"experiments on the vessel are a failure. it doesn't seem to be any different from the control cases. whatever. they're a hassle to work with anyway. the seeds just stick to you, and won't let go..."

reaper bird is horribly disturbing

"seems like this research was a dead end... but at least we got a happy ending out of it...? i sent the SOULs and the vessel back to ASGORE. and i called all of the families and told them everyone's alive. i'll send everyone back tomorrow."

remember what flowey said

entry 16
...i knew it.

lemon bread just killed me
i think that's a good time to stop for now.

this is seriously disturbing stuff guys
i have to get up early for mass tomorrow, i need sleep.
i forgot. i was going to sleep in. ah well.

tomorrow is thanksgiving and i do have so, so much to be thankful for
and more on the way
always.

i'll see you then.

undertale take 7.

today has been a rough day. tonight has been wrenchingly terrible.

i'm going to stuff my digital pockets full of sandwiches and go fight mettaton.
that should help us pick up our vibe a bit, cheer up some. wish us luck,

i love this guy. he's having way too much fun in this battle, i can't stop smiling.
he's so freaking CUTE.

but oh my lord this boss fight is incredibly tricky. i keep dying dude.

ohh this bit with the phone calls is so sweet

"knock 'em dead, darling."

oh love i hope i did that fight correctly. when he lost his arms i got genuinely worried, sure that leg line was fantastic but still.
i survived with 1 HIT POINT. i dont know how. but i did.

oh alphys. sweetheart.
her face just crumpled and it hurts, to see her looking so resigned and tired.

"I lied to you. A human SOUL isn't strong enough to cross the barrier alone. it takes at least a human soul... and a monster soul." WHAT?????

If you want to go home... you'll have to take his soul."

WHAT NO I'M
I CAN'T KILL THE FLUFFY GUY ARE YOU KIDDING
WHAT

ohhh dear lord this game is killing me.

i
she won't open the lab door,
i have to go back,
i've gotta talk to him.

...
my heart cannot take this house.
you know what was the worst for me so far? the santa claus outfit.
that is one of THE most powerful flashbulb memories we have, period. it's one of the only things we can clearly remember from childhood.
and it's what i immediately remembered when i saw that in the bureau-- the feeling of being a child at christmas, with our father playing that timeless part.

i absolutely cannot harm a single hair on this guy's head.
oh my lord. how is this even going to end.

and the kid. this missing kid. the fact that toriel lives alone now. what is going on?

"the underground was full of hope."

down the stairs i go.

this music.

this backstory.

oh. oh.
that's why his father is in the garden.

and now i really understand why the monsters despise humanity so.

"king asgore will
let us go
give us hope
save us all."

"aren't you happy?
you're going to be free."

oh this corridor is beautiful.

...SANS?
WHAT?

"execution points" oh dude. "a way of quantifying the pain you have inflicted on others."

when you have enough EXP, your LOVE increases.
wait wait THAT'S an acronym too???
"level of violence.
a way of measuring someone's capacity to hurt."
oh ouch.

"the more you kill, the easier it becomes to distance yourself. the more you distance yourself, the less you will hurt. the more easily you can bring yourself to hurt others."
...hello, dream world.

oh ahahaha! paulstretch time!
that's one gorgeous musical effect though. wow.

...

"but you. you never gained any LOVE. 'course, that doesn't mean you're completely innocent or naive. just that you kept a certain tenderness in your heart. no matter the struggles or hardships you faced... you strived to do the right thing..."

oh god
this is
sans this is exactly what i need to hear as my own person, thank you,

"...you refused to hurt anyone. even when you ran away, you did it with a smile. you never gained LOVE, but you gained love. does that make sense?"

"now. you're about to face the greatest challenge of your entire journey. your actions here... will determine the fate of the entire world.
if you refuse to fight... asgore will take your soul and destroy humanity.
but if you kill asgore and go home... monsters will remain trapped underground.
what will you do?"

"but you didn't get this far by giving up, did you? that's right.
you have something called "determination."
so as long as you hold on... so as long as you do what's in your heart... i believe you can do the right thing."

thanks bro. thank you.

"we're all counting on you, kid."

...

...god.
this game.

oh dude. wait.
i quit and restarted so i could screencap this and he knew, and,
"i suspected something like this.
you're always acting like you know what's going to happen. like you've seen it all before. so... i have a request for you. i kind of have a secret codeword that only i know. so i know if someone tells it to me... they'll have to be a time traveller. crazy, right? anyway, here it is...
i'm counting on you to come back here and tell me that. see you later."

okay now that was cool.

off i go now. to the room.

...
holy shit.

holy shit the coffin room.

...wow.
that just... the weight of this just... didn't even hit me until now.

wow.

...

oh my gosh the throne room is full of flowers.

dude turn around already i'm about to cry

...aaaaaand my hand went straight to my mouth.
he and toriel have the same expression.

"when you're ready" dude i don't think i'm ever going to be ready but,
i,
through the door.

holy what that barrier is something else.

"anything you want to do is important. even something as small as reading a book, or taking a walk... please take your time."

dear lord i can feel the weight of death on my shoulders right now,

i
i'm gonna go back and hug undyne or something okay

i need healing items anyway, as many as i can carry,
that's about it...

...
god how is this even going to end, i'm so excited but this game is doing funny awful things to my heart and it's gorgeous but it's terrible and i don't want to fight mister dad guy he's too sweet, but,
we'll figure something out.
we'll figure something out.

i'm taking asgore's advice.
i'm kicking around snow and talking to papyrus on the phone. it's making me smile.

...
back so soon?

HE
HE JUST
SHATTERED MY MERCY OPTION

i have no idea what to do here

i'll do this tomorrow.
i can live one more day.

see you then.

So I've pinpointed our biggest vice.

It's shame.

My biggest question is still "who were we before we became ashamed to exist"

I keep talking to Chaos.
He needs to fix his fractures. This split between "Serenity" and "Aquamarine" is not good at all and it's just causing everyone more confusion and pain.

God he feels so real when he's acting like he was. Like he IS.
The hyper-soft version of himself that he is at night is too limited. Like a nousfoni with a singular function. He doesn't leave my room. Did I ever mention how that breaks my heart, however quietly? Laurie noticed it first, how he'd start sleeping in, then he just... stopped leaving. Up here, he narrowed his function down to just being there for me at night, a comfort at the end of the day, however profound. But the problem was, in doing that, he forbade himself from existing outside of that context-- he forbade himself from being enthusiastic, and curious, and as intoxicatingly fascinated with life as he always was when we were young.
Don't get me wrong, he never lost that, but... now, lately at least, that side has been so deep under the water...

I love him so much. And my problem is that I need to love him this totally, this without shame, outside of MY time-locked, depersonalized state.

He's so much more HONEST like this. He doesn't forget things. He's snarky and sentimental and sincere and everything I remember him as. Hurricanes and ocean fog and rainstorms and splashing through puddles in the summer. Tides and floods and mist. ALL of it.

...
Is that my problem? Is that why I'm never sure who I am anymore? Because I'm fractured into so many tiny pieces that even right now, I have no clue who I'll be outside of this context? I don't even know what year it is. This isn't healthy.

I think that's the problem, too. Me, I'm the one who knew this Chaos, the entire him.
Jay... he's the one who knows the serene side of him, the one who keeps fracturing upstairs because he's been the target of so much bad stuff and he can't cope yet, the Jay bloodline can't cope yet, they're the ones being eaten alive by shame because of the things the lost alters did.
They're crushed by it, all the good intentions gone wrong, all the mimicry, all the misunderstood ideas and things. They can't deal with the fact that those things happened, even if it didn't happen to them personally. The reality of that past is terrifying and nauseating enough for them and they can't forgive themselves for iteven if they would NEVER personally do that. They're too conscious of the fact that, in such a fallen state, those awful things did become possibilities, and through that fallen state, happened.
They can't forgive themselves. They're too appalled. They're guilt-ridden.
How do we help them?

How far back do we have to go to heal? ...Do I have to stay? Is that even possible?
Too much has happened since I was last out... like several years have gone by, mainly. At least five. And that just... blows my mind. How in the world do I stay out when the entire atmosphere of our physical life has changed? Should I try anyway? But no... that wouldn't be fair to Jay, or any of the others, doing all of this hard work. And Chaos knows that too.

...I wonder about the other boys. Are they okay?
I know they're partly time-locked too, but... God, I don't know. This needs more time to think and feel about than I have tonight. This is going to take weeks, probably, if not longer, to fully sift through and heal and mange correctly. It's so heavy in terms of significance and weight both. There's so much.

I'm looking up pictures of him on deviantART like I used to and he's grinning and commenting over my shoulder like he used to. He doesn't do this for Jay. Their relationship dynamic is totally different. But he's the same person, he is, we both know it...
Why is there so much splitting up here, how do we reconcile this? This is totally out of my league, I have no personal knowledge to go on with this... this is too new.
If we brought this into heartspace, maybe I could do something, but... I can't leave him out. Jay needs to be a part of this too, as completely as Chaos needs to be. Me... who knows at this point. I don't. I'm not sure if I can leave the "when" I'm in now. Do I even want to? Is that why Chaos is split, because I'm anchoring that split in? By not being able to move past this "safe point" that apparently the System desperately needs to exist as-is too?

Apparently we talked about him for a while in therapy today. Mostly for clarification on this very splitting issue, Laurie says.
We... I'm the only person who used to do that. Has anyone done that since me? That alone is a milestone...

Jay is sobbing. "I don't know you like this,” he's saying, to Chaos, as I knew him.
Chaos was talking to Laurie about this and saying effectively the same thing. "I can't be both versions of me at once."
Both of them want this to work but there's so much time between what was and what is, and....

Xenophon's the big variable in all this. Chaos and Jay both love her dearly, but... she existed after the split, for both of them. The Jay with us now is not the one who existed when she was created... and the Chaos I know, doesn't know her. Yeah the thought of "having a kid" is still this bright thing in his mind, but I use that initial phrase loosely. His species does not "reproduce" in the way Jay's bloodline was always so bloody terrified of.

This is so hard to talk about. Is there that much fear tied to it?

God help us work through this.

The body is still quite sick. Is that part of this?
Sicknesses for us are very rare apparently, and always seem to coincide with massive shifts in our personal life experience.

Jay knows Genesis far better than I ever did, I noticed. That's a big difference. I knew him as more of a child, still scared of thunderstorms, still learning from Chaos how to be more confident, how to not be scared of himself anymore. He was obsessed with butterscotch ice cream and snowflakes, and he was always talking about his elusive father... still very much tied to the shaky world-roots he jumped to us from.
Now, his name is different, he's so much more golden... I'm... I don't know him. And I'm sure he doesn't know me.

Is this... what do you call this? It's not a tragedy, heavens no, but it still feels like a weird sort of loss,

...Somewhere down the line, after me but before Jay, the lines got tangled. That's where this massive break happened for Chaos, where our bloodline shattered, where everyone got confused and disjoined.
Who fronted for that time? What poor soul took the brunt of that hit to the heart?

I don't know.
Like I said, the body is sick. We really do need to get right to sleep.

I guess that simple fact isn't so simple tonight. But I'll keep tabs on it the best I can, ask Laurie to do so as well.

See you in the morning.

- Jewel L.

1025

- realizing that, in childhood, I usually played the role of a “monster” and/or a “PET” with people. When the “lost in space” movie came out I was obsessed with pretending to be Blarp, and would walk around the playground with some other kid being Penny (she wasn’t happy with it I don’t think). Again, in 3^rd grade, I was ALWAYS Alex’s sidekick or assistant. When she was Mewtwo, I was Mew, and I had to do “whatever she told me to.” I spoke about this before but it wasn’t the only incident. In the 3^rd grade school play I was given the role of “dinosaur” (forget what the play was), and although I loved it I was, again, someone else’s “pet.” All later pseudo-friendships in high school always had me in a secondary position too, not so much a “sidekick” as the “errand boy.” Why was this always a constant with other people? Did I just never stand up for myself? DID THAT BECOME JACINTH?? (or any of the fragments like that?)

I want to reiterate that addictions are dying out. Yes there are still some desperate alters using coping mechanisms, but there are NO compulsions anymore. There’s FINALLY a cognizance that “we don’t actually want this” and nothing is being forced. So that’s very very good.
There’s an E.D. voice named Jocelyn or Joyce who keeps ending up talking to Laurie when she’s out? She’s slightly older than the one that keeps going for oats as comfort food (that one’s like 11? makes sense as our childhood diet really wasn’t so hot as far as I know).

- a few thought processes we took notes on lately:
1) “jesus did not say ‘love your enemies but treat yourself like garbage,’ so STOP DOING THAT”
2) “god is NOT ‘out there but not in me’ so STOP searching and listening to everything you hear blindly!! ‘god’ is already IN YOU so LISTEN TO THAT”
3) “compulsively saying ‘no’ to orders happens because the orders are interpreted as ‘harmful/negative’ and we are saying no to THAT. Even if the order is good, if it is given angrily or in a controlling context we will say no because we don’t want to obey the CONTEXT. If we DO follow the order it will be on our OWN TERMS later, once we have DETACHED IT from the original giver.”

- Jewel here. I just did some of our morning running and I feel REALLY GREAT. The “His World” Sonic remix we have on the iPod is a perfect speed.
Laurie says she wants me to front more because I don’t get embarrassed of being honest? Or doing imaginative things. I’m just worried because I do get body dysphoria now that the body is older and I know the reflection triggers egotistic people. So I gotta BLOCK THIS MIRROR. I’ll tape a Pokémon over it or something.

- exercised today (see above), went running in the morning for 30m. however it hurt our stitches a LOT and we’re still in pain. Kind of scary, I hope this is okay.

- 10pm. Just had to atone+smudge to get hackers OUT of here again. realized there was so much distraught anger in me, changed it to righteous love. Blessed everything, said a sincere prayer to restore our holiness and purity and morality. Went out to wash the ashes off our arms, playing on the radio in the other room is “living on a prayer” by bon jovi

- as of right now e is letting us play undertale (❤!!!!) and I just met toriel and already I love this game so I’m going to go do that.
…usually jewel is our gamer. Its always her name on the save files. But everyone told me, jay, to do this one. So I will.

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

@ 11:06 PM

I’m playing Undertale to try and get my heart back in order, trying to focus on BEING ME and therefore bringing my light back into the body’s daily life, instead of all the pain and self-loathing and things that have piled up there in the absence of me or Jewel or anyone else kind…

Looking back, especially on our original Tumblr (jwll), 2011 was a beautiful year for us, for the most part. That was the year of our real “spiritual awakening” and we spent most of our time thinking brightly, acting brightly, shining that light for others… unfortunately we got a bit blinded by it at some points, but damn it we were trying, we only ever were trying to put more kindness and love and forgiveness into everything… and really it all paid off, I think. I think if I really look back, even on our ‘mistakes,’ I couldn’t hate anyone for it, or hold it against them, like some do in this System, sadly. How could I hate anyone? We’re all just trying our best, acting as well as we know how, or… one could act out of fear, too, fear of not knowing what’s the best thing to do, or being frightened that they might not be able to do that best thing, or strong enough… not understanding, maybe. But there are many factors why people could act unwisely or unkindly or similarly, and none of them merit hatred. Nothing does.
So I want to stay out more. Me and Jewel, we need to ACTIVELY front more, to shine and inspire like our hearts are meant to do, like our bloodlines are meant to do.

…The real reason I’m updating here tonight is because… because right now I NEED to shine our light brighter than EVER.
Our biological brother is planning suicide.

I know he’s been considering it for years. I have too. I don’t know if he ever attempted. But I know he’s been terribly depressed, and it’s only gotten worse now, for reasons disturbingly similar to ours at our worst point… he started experiencing more spiritual/ unexplainable things, many of which were confusing and scary, and this all began forcing him to deal with a lot of things he was struggling to handle… and his girlfriend decided she wanted no part of it and dumped him, penniless and homeless, not looking back.
He said he cannot go back to living the way he did before all of that happened-- he "knows too much" now, he's seen too much personally, and to be honest he is having one hell of a time coping with that fact. He keeps thinking he's going crazy and is just imagining all this, and I think that's the same God-damned "coping mechanism" WE utilized in the face of the opposing reality... that, since we have reached this point of personal awareness and experience, we cannot pretend otherwise. And you "need" to in order to survive in some places of the world yet, some closed-minded environments that are afraid to acknowledge the existence of anything that big, bright, and bizarre. It's understandable but it is still heartbreaking. And we are BOTH living in such an environment right now.
I don't know. I'm having a hard time typing because I am shaking and I'm so upset I want to throw up and I'd probably end up crying if it wouldn't completely burn out the body.

...What do we do. What can we do? What should we do?

God it wrecks me to see him this upset, even if I don't personally "know" who he is. Part of us does, all buried parts mostly, but they recognize him well enough. And even discarding that, I personally STILL want to help him because he's suffering and God knows my job is to try and heal whatever pain I come across, as wisely and compassionately as I can. I can't not do it. It's my nature.
So when I see him so hopeless AND actively rejecting all possibilities of hope due to that blinding despair, I just... I get frustrated, admittedly. How can you not see it?
But... that's when it would be smartest to go inside, and ask. Cannon knows what that feels like. She knows exactly what despair feels like.
And that makes me wonder now. Did SHE ever heal from that??? Or did we only survive her suicidal depression by switching cores? It's a luxury we take for granted, really-- this ability TO split, and change so dramatically and completely, in order to be better... I'm the most recent in that process. Me, the current amalgamation of everything we needed to be at heart, all that growth fused into one person, the newest Core. But... the old ones got stuck, in a way. And we need to heal them, however we can. I can't believe we haven't yet... is that just because we weren't aware of this phenomenon working as it did until fairly recently? I mean, we're still grappling with using the term "Dissociative Identity Disorder" to refer to ourselves. For us it was always just headspace. We end up educating the therapists we see, all the time apparently, because we work so differently... but the bottom line is, it still fits the bill, however atypically. We split in order to survive.
And our brother can't do that.
...
What is that even like? How do non-split people handle all the paradoxical emotions and opinions and beliefs and personalities that we manage by being different people? Do other people even have to deal with that? Or do they pick and choose?
Either way, the point is, he's feeling depression and despair and self-loathing and he doesn't have any optimistic headvoices to help, he doesn't have any enthusiastic ghosters to encourage him, he can't even switch out and let someone else deal with the situation. He has to do everything as ONE person. He can't split up the process, compartmentalize it, organize it... no, for him, and for most other people I suppose, it's an all-at-once thing. That must be difficult as hell.
...I don't know. I want to help, God knows I want to help so badly, but I'm speaking from an entirely different reality experience here and I don't know if he can empathize or understand where I'm coming from at all-- not only that, but I wouldn't know how to help him out AS a singlet at this point, not in a way he could properly use.
I don't know, maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit. I did go over his apartment at least twice to talk to him for several hours-- yes, I did, not a social fronter-- and although all I could do was listen, and assure him he wasn't going mad, and give him a bit of spiritual encouragement... it felt like we were going in circles. Like he couldn't quite grasp his own situation well enough to properly use any incoming advice, because he didn't know how to apply it?
He's constantly saying, "I just want to understand." Over and over and over. I'm not sure what he's trying to do though. Just how much does he want to understand? And, even more importantly, how does he define "understanding?" Honestly I think he's trying WAY too hard to make everything logical and simple and sensible, into data he can intelligently recite and apply, into something that can be written down in a book. And Laurie just interjected, "I hate to tell ya, kid, but the universe doesn't work like that."
That's the thing. It doesn't. Heck, even looking at headspace, we've been writing THOUSANDS of pages over the years about this, and even that doesn't do it justice. I get so much of it, absolutely, but... it's not something you can "understand" in a logical manner. That level of understanding is wordless, without defining, without putting it into a box. It's a knowing at a deeper level and I think our brother's problem is that he's still uncomfortable with that yet. Yes, he's had intuitive experiences, he definitely has some psychic capabilities, BUT he still wants the world-- and those experiences by extension-- to present themselves in a way he can look at and say, "aha, I can see how this works." He wants to wrap his mind around it. He wants his mind to be big enough TO wrap around it. And the most ironic thing is that I can't even put into words why that's not going to work, not as it appears to at least. This whole thing... it's all so personal, it's experiential, you have to LIVE it, and know it of your self... God I just want to walk with him through this if I can, if we can, I want to help him and be a support system for him with this, it's so hard to find support when you're first going through this spiritual weirdness, we would know.
But he thinks he's going crazy and he's closing us off and we're closing him off for God knows what reason (we need to talk to some alters) and he won't listen to any help, he won't look for any hope, he's made up his mind that he wants to die and he won't talk about it and no matter what we do, no matter what we say or ask, he won't pick that metaphorical towel up from the ring.
I'm lucky. God am I lucky. I have Laurie. I can't quit even if (and when) I tried. None of us could.
But despair is toxic. Some of us have felt it and still do and when I touch that I understand, I understand why he feels so distraught and the fucking problem is that my nature saves me from despair and how do you pass the vibe of your ESSENCE onto someone else??? If I can't be hopeless because I AM hope, how in the world do I "teach" that to someone?
God I don't know. I'm always told, "live by example," maybe that's all we can do here, but...
God I don't want to be too late. This is destroying me.

...We know what it's like, to almost lose people. To hear that someone attempted suicide when you weren't aware, and upon hearing the news, to feel like the entire earth just flipped over sideways. The crushing weight of grief that hits your shoulders, knocking the wind out of you, the hysterical internal wail of "they could have been dead right now" and the absolute wash of gratitude, of sheer relief, of heartrending love, that hits you when you are reminded that they are alive, they lived, they're still here, they have another chance to find hope--
We know what it's like.
We also know what it's like to hear that someone did die when you were asleep.
...
I don't want to hear that again.

What can we do.

...

I have to end this here, I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say and I'm just... I need to focus on other things. Brighter things. I need to focus on help, on BEING someone who can ignite hope in other people, to live in such a way that it brings a little more light into people's lives... God it hurts when I realize that it's not a 100% success rate and sometimes, no matter how hard I try, people will have the windows closed. They'll have the blinds drawn. Some people suffocate in their despair simply because they don't feel they deserve to see the sunshine anymore. That's when I want to drag them out into the summer brilliance and tell them you DO, you deserve ALL of this, you're just as bright as the sun, no matter what has brought you to this dark place you CAN move out of it, no failure is ever final, there's always a next step, you're always given another shot, even death is only a door... you're light, you're light, all of you, everyone, nothing can ever change that, it's the truth of your very nature, if we're all built from the dust of stars then we're all irreplaceable cosmic things just by being born. We're all impossibly wondrous combinations of time and space and possibility.
I can't get lost in the dark because I AM light and that's why I exist for this System, that's why I exist for EVERYONE...

...

It still breaks my heart, though, because there's still darkness here. It exists, it plays its part, it has its role and reason for existing too.
Maybe that's the simplest, hardest lesson to learn?
I don't know. I can't put this into damn words, why is that so difficult,

I can't give up. I won't. We will all do what we can.

What have I even done with my life?

Our laptop died yesterday due to some manic-destructive fronter pounding at it with their fists until the battery FELL OUT and the whole thing was shot.
So we can’t do much now.
We DO have the 98, which I’m on now, but… it’s breaking my heart.

Every time I turn this on my mind and heart desperately try to go back TO 2000, or 2002, that whole time period. I desperately want nothing more than to go back to that life of a child, where my literal only concern was school, and at home I had nothing but free time that I used to type, and dream. No self-abuse, no addiction, no sobbing and screaming and switching. Just this. Just creativeness; there was no performance, no publicity, just ME.

And then I bring up the NWC and what do I see but a 2006 reference to Chaos 0.

It’s terribly funny, and I mean that in the most aching way possible, how he can break my heart more than anyone else, still.
I … I’m not sure who he is anymore? He split SO bad, and even back then he was unstable, what with Perfect and his Infinite forms and 210 being around…
He was flamboyant back then, sassy and enthusiastic and mischievous, but he was also so emotional and “romantic” and full of love, honest no matter how he was hurting or lost.
But… what happened? Did something happen to me?
When we first met, back in the earliest Sonic Chats and write-outs (God, God I WISH we still had them all), he was so shy, so quiet, doing nothing but clinging to me and watching everyone else. He was very much still a Chao, so to speak.
Then… well, we had our first *incident.* I said I loved him and he said he loved me. I gave him the Chaon Ruby, the gem that he took into his heart and which then changed him dramatically, permanently… our relationship with each other took an entirely new path from then on. We were more open around each other, more expressive. We were no longer afraid or reticent.
But now, now…
When did this awful stuff start?
Was it 2011? I can’t remember. When did he stop being the aquamarine maelstrom I knew him as, and turn into the turbulent sea? When did his heart become so torn up that he was a hurricane over muddy waters, instead of the sunshine glinting off the tide?
When did he lose himself? When did he fade out? When did I?

I miss who I was. I miss our old life, the one we only had when we WEREN’T AT HOME, because in school we could literally “dissociate” all day and “dream” instead. We could go inside and have adventures upstairs, never talking to anyone downstairs.
It’s why I miss college. If I had the money I’d TOTALLY go back, geez. I miss it.
The only thing we CAN do is wall ourselves up in this room and type and listen to music… but… we did that all during college I think and it did take a toll on our health. All that sitting and staring is bad for you! Plus it hampered our dream-life anyway because we weren’t OUT, we couldn’t “go on autopilot” and dream.
Maybe that’s why the addictions started again now? Laurie was even saying today, how she thinks the abusive eaters are ONLY doing that because when they DO, the people upstairs appear and yell at them, and sometimes that’s the only interaction with Headspace they have all day.

I don’t want to be melancholy; it solves nothing.

And yet, going back, I’d be kicking a lot of progress out the window. Irony!
We healed a lot, grew a lot, we see more clearly… but. But back then, back now, I didn’t HAVE to heal anything because there wasn’t anything “broken” TO heal!! You see??
II don’t know. Some people say “but I wouldn’t be “me” without my pain!!”
To which I say, no. Not for me. Not after tasting this, then that, then this again.
What I’d give to be this carefree and joyful and creative all the time again. Never worrying about food or bills or therapy or work. I would just be CREATING, dreaming, and feeling REAL honest love.
When did I become so ashamed of that? When did I start to WRONGLY think, “childhood innocence is BAD???” who the HECK put that in my head???? Where did it come from???
It’s NOT mine, that’s for sure.

…
All right but really lets STOP BEING MOPEY and talk about heartspace stuff.

Tuned back into this, I can FEEL how different we are now than we were then.
And why?
Because we GOT OLDER—or at least, we were FORCED to get older!!

In truth, as our TRUEST most honest selves, we are STILL KIDS.
Like… I dunno, this computer says I was between 14-17 when this was going on, and those ARE the heartspace years… well, 13-17. Five blessed years.
However I don’t feel like I aged? Like for those 5 years we didn’t get older. Not really. When the body hit 18 though, Headspace woke up, and we fell asleep, and everything switched…

But! We can tune back into OUR time now!!

…Oh geez. I just realized, if this is going in 5-year increments…

1993-1994-1995-1996-1997= “DREAM FRIENDS”
1998-1999-2000-2001-2002 = JEWEL MONSTERS
2003-2004-2005-2006-2007= HEARTSPACE
2008-2009-2010-2011-2012= HEADSPACE version 1
2013-2014-2015= HEADSPACE version 2????

Remember the Underground opened up, the Daemons were born, and we jumped from like 20 to 100 once 2013 hit!! The entire function changed. I wonder.
Anyway if this is correct, it means that in 2018, things will change again. GEEZ.
Part of me hopes it changes faster?? Like this time period so far, it’s been… well, no, I can’t say that.
Infinitii is an angel. Knife is a sweetheart. Kyanos is a darling. So many of the “new people” are wonderful. We’ve made significant Leagueworld progress too even if we don’t realize it.
So I can’t really complain…

(unfinished)

other notes=

★ IN SI, CHAOS WAS ORIGINALLY ECCENTRIC AT HEART.
Speaking roles in Fanfiction mostly seem to suggest this too?
Did the Chaon Ruby CALM HIM DOWN???? Causing more “order” in him/ crystallization of his shifting self????
ALWAYS “powerful with a warm heart” but chao are mischievous little things, so was he.
VERY emotional, WATER element + CHAOS, it was inevitable.

Why did he split so badly in headspace?

★ remember the Ruby “MADE HIM MORTAL.” He’s not an aloof god, he started as a CHAO, an innocent childlike thing!

★ originally in SI he WOULD NOT EVEN GO NEAR THE EMERALDS because he had PTSD FROM THEM and they would literally cause physiological flashbacks of the Perfect incidents.
ALSO CANONICALLY, EXPOSURE TO TOO MUCH CHAOS ENERGY AT ONCE FORCES PERFECT.

TRACK 28 (june 29th 2015)

(Jay) Okay, we are taking notes on Morpheus for topics that we need to discuss. Uh... we need to talk to people in the System who are damaged. Fear is a protector, sadness is important. Um, Jeremiah being afraid of-- of women, because, oversexualization of women, uh-- Eros saying sexual energy is more-- think of it as generative energy. Think of it that way. We're not taking that away from femininity or anything, we're taking away the sexualization, a.k.a. the pornographization that our society has done. That needs to be taken OUT of it, it's not obligatory just because you're around a woman or a man or anything. That is what we need to fix. Um, another thing we need to fix is, we need to figure out what is going on with sadness. A lot-- there is still so much sadness... people that just want to sit and cry and cry and cry, and I think we need to, to an extent... um, I'm getting off topic, I'm sorry. People who are afraid, look at why they're afraid, look at what they're afraid of, work through that. You know what to do, but we need to discuss this.

(later)

So. It's not a fear of the Xangas, it's a fear of going home. Try having them on the porch, because in the room it doesn't feel safe. Uh, having them outside of the house, a.k.a. in Borders or somewhere like that would be optimal, and I wish we could do that now but we don't have a plug with us and we're not sure where to go. Also I think somebody needs the car. So we do need to get home as soon as possible. But, keep that in mind, there is fear tied to the HOME. That is where these-- these younger people come out and they just want to cry and sleep because they don't want to be, at home. We really-- that is the one thing that makes Salt Lake-- well, the one big thing that makes Salt Lake redeemable is that, we were... out, and away from that, and that sort of pure absolute joyful freedom is what made us want to stay, what makes us want to go back. It was totally detached from staying with other people. So... sit and write this down and talk about this, but, like I said, please, go out on the porch. Take your stuff out on the porch, don't go on the internet anymore-- the therapist told you flat-out don't look at Gnostic stuff anymore, you know the truth, don't get confused. Don't get confused! They would tell you that Julie had no right to live, and we don't believe that. Me and the System believe that everyone, every soul ever, exists for a purpose, and can be redeemed-- that nothing is permanently evil, that if everything was created of God, then, nothing is truly, permanently-- nothing is ever really separate from God. It's an illusion. Even if you feel like you're in hell, it's just because you're... you're blind to that fact, at the moment. This is turning into jargon, I'm sorry. What I'm trying to say is... you know in your heart what you have to do. Do that.

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

@11:59 PM

quick update so i dont forget.

- more reading today. turns out we HAVE HAD THE RIGHT IDEA ALL ALONG. laurie is simultaneously furious, grieving, and joyous (which is a rather typical mix of emotions for her) because she has been TELLING US THIS FOR YEARS but we've been so paranoid and scared, listening to other people instead. well we're on the right track.
- looking back on our past... there's been a LOT of "synchronicity" or parallels with what we're reading, without us even being aware of the things we were reflecting. it's scary and exciting all at once, because damn that's one hell of a big responsibility if we ARE truly finding this stuff out on our own, CORRECTLY. mainly, we need to stay honest with ourselves, stop forcing ourselves into patterns and programs that aren't good or correct for us, that don't fit at all... we need to go back inside. there's nothing "evil" about going inside our own soul and working there, like we used to. so much is trying to distract us now, lead us astray, so to speak... we're aware of it, but fear and its partner of ignorance are the biggest obstacles. nevertheless they only occur in dissociation... in depersonalization, of forgetting about US, about what WE ARE. so again, it's just going to take a lot of compassion, forgiveness, and bravery, to assert ourselves and get back on the right track.
- now we're just scared of "being too far gone" with how we've let ourselves be messed up. i hope it's not too late.
- i'm sorry if any of these recent entries on this topic sound inapproproate or whiny or dramatic or otherwise contrived/ harmful. we are just trying our best to write this out for our entire mind to understand and see. we don't like when explosive entries happen, they hurt, they're made of hurt. all we can do is do our best to stay in a life position where such things won't occur, where the people who write such things are not so hurt.

- therapy today was SOMETHING ELSE. we walked in there very numb-depressed and that's all i know offhand. then apparently, laurie fronted, practically forced her anchor to ground so no one could kick her out from fear or anything, and proceeded to try and talk about yesterday's entries. i don't know how far she got. i'm honestly not even aware what she was talking about, other than the fact that she was very distressed and kept running her fingers over her scars.
- the real star of therapy today was JULIE. she came out after laurie, assumedly because she could speak on that topic (the whole tangled sex/religion trauma thing from childhood) better than anyone else. i'm honestly shocked though because apparently she spoke about HER ROLE IN ALL OF IT. which she has NEVER done before, to ANYONE outside the Spectrum. she talked for at least 15 minutes i assume, which is just.... incredible really. my heart goes out to her, that must have been really difficult, but i know how set her own heart is on being honest and repairing what she damaged, on helping everyone heal now. so we're all very, very grateful for her right now, and the effort she put forward today. we have literally NEVER discussed trauma roots in therapy before but she just blew the gates wide open.

- genesis and jay went to see "inside out" before therapy. it was very insightful and inspiring, and probably played a significant role in how we were able to have such a good therapy session, having just been reminded how important ALL our emotional responses were, in their own way.
- a warning: do not go see that movie with your imaginary friend unless you want to do a LOT of crying, haha. seriously though it really yanked at our heartstrings. genesis teafully asked jay again "don't ever forget me" and jay said he wouldn't, ever; back in 2005 our core bloodline promised him that and no one has broken it. we don't plan to.
- we were kind of laughing though because there, everyone has 5 "inner voices" as emotions, that's kind of how we started out, with just a handful of known headvoices-- julie, laurie, lynne, jewel, jess/jemma, natalie. and now we literally have at LEAST 100 so our internal management setup is a lot more complicated, haha. but again, this movie gave us another self-knowing lens to look at our life through. it does help, to take that and look at core motivations and responses, in our own context.
- it's also making me feel a LOT better about the deluge of anon hate we got in 2013 or so, on tumblr. one scathing remark that haunted me was "you're just making up characters for your emotions," but now doing this exercise, i've realized that IS NOT THE CASE. it is literally IMPOSSIBLE to assign a headvoice to an emotion! they all have JOBS. they are real people, as far as we are concerned, they are complex. laurie might register as "anger" at first but she is 100% capable of every other emotion, same with julie and lynne and leon and nathaniel and everyone else. the only people who might seem one-dimensional are socials and splinters, no surprise there, because THEY AREN'T COMPLETE PEOPLE. their function forbids it! so yeah, this is helping me stop feeling so paranoid about our existence "being fake" because of something a stranger said. kind of ridiculous how such remarks cut so deep, but there you go
- lastly laurie's only response to being compared to this movie was "we really need sparkly hair." lynne and julie agreed so yeah if you see any headvoices walking around with really glittery locks that is why. (i know the emotions in the film were mostly particles but it looked sparkly and sparkles are cool so hey)

- cz is still a mess. honestly ze's been a mess for many many years, probably SINCE he solidly entered the Spectrum (using that word instead of "system" now, has a less constrictive vibe) in early 2004. ze holds way too much negativity and ze is really torn up over it, but really ze doesn't even need to hold on to that stuff. it was given to hir and is not something mandatory. yet again, this ties back to the fact that ze is the only outspacer that never really let go of their original world, at all. which is a big problem, because ze held a lot of negativity in hir original world. bottom line, with all this religious/sexual distress and confusion lately, with hir being caught up in the middle of it all thanks to hir relationship status and history and associations and name, well. it's a mess. and ze just wants out. so we're all trying to clear our eyes to see the cleanest, easiest way out of that. no use convoluting it more.
- on that note the system feels like it's trying to make either an old jewel (age between 12-16) or a new boy the new host?? the name "jay" has become TOXIC, no idea how offhand? probably from unique trauma though, over the past few years. i don't know when people started using the name. the biggest problem though is that we really CAN'T go back to using the name "jewel" for our boy hosts because that parallels some HORRENDOUS trauma back in 2012. so i dont know. laurie's really sad about it, chaos is too, but frankly his emotions are cycling from "resigned depressed emptiness" and "self-hating outwardly projected rage," and he is STILL splitting like mad. his "manic" side has ALWAYS been effectively an "alter" of his, a split of his psyche, and we keep glossing over the fact that they inhabit the same body usually, i mean hell they have FOUGHT in front of us before, we are WELL AWARE that he's got some serious inner conflict. THE PROBLEM IS that the "neutral" chaos is TIMELOCKED??? like he remembers hoseki, who is about 15-16, but he says HIS memory gets fuzzy around college, then starts coming back with the white-haired jays??? i have no freaking clue. headspace is weird and everyone gets bothered by internal trouble, that's what happens when you're all tied to one collective soul and all that. but yeah chaos is a total mess.
- we're thinking he's split into maybe FOUR at this point?? 1) timelocked "original" one, who is very subdued and quiet and shy, in love with the jewel of that time (hoseki, i think? we're trying to give different names to all the major age-changes but frankly that one just feels like an older jewel.). he can go perfect but it's a dissociative state?? again we're not sure if that counts as an alter for him at this point or what. also, this chaos (the original) is basically identical to his original canon appearance, except with a mouth and visible irises. HOWEVER 2) gets triggered by those appearance shifts, he's the one who's more extroverted, flirty, temperamental, etc. this one hits the infinite forms. he's rather ego-driven and although he claims he loves the same jewel it's a very conditional relationship, mostly passion really. we're thinking this one was with the older jewels, judging by what entries we remember. then there is 3) POSSIBLY "perfect chaos," the kaiju-looking one. we're not sure, he might count as a splinter. but listing him separately because of the 4th incident in which chaos was "trapped inside his own mind" when he went perfect, and we could interact with him SEPARATELY from perfect, insinuating that there was a split of SOME sort happening. lastly is 4), whatever chaos keeps trying to rename hirself "serenity" and things, MUCH more feminine than the others in vibe, also NOT TIED TO ORIGINAL CANON. this "chaos" is AQUA in color, not blue, and always wears lots of gold jewelry that quite honestly reminds me of indian bridal jewelry. no idea why but it's a constant. this individual is SYSTEM-ANCHORED and has the feminine "edge" that allows for power and steadfastness, and which also makes hir "safe" for some reason??? i guess the whole "chaos being assigned male" thing got too tangled up in trauma, the System was like "nope that's not working." cz has always been technically androgynous but again, it's the assignment, and the projected reflection tied to that (ESPECIALLY with religion, and slc by extension) became very very distressing for those he was close to.
- this really needs its own entry, sorry for babbling.
- julie said, in therapy, that we NEED to talk about the whole issue with chaos in therapy, because he has been THE SINGLE CONSTANT in headspace since its inception, and he has been connected to EVERY HOST as well. which makes hir IRREPLACEABLY IMPORTANT. so... the fact that hackers keep targeting him (again since they started), the fact that he is so confused identity-wise thanks to both his native fandom and our experiences with outer confusion, the fact that his fidelity can sometimes be unwise and he'll do anything for the people he cares for, even to the point of severely harming himself and/or the very relationship he is trying to help.... the fact that our current main fronters have once again "forgotten who he is" and have almost destroyed his anchor plushes as a result of that rejection (dont worry that is strictly forbidden after the celebi incidents)... and the fact that this time, that rejection/ forgetting is RELIGIOUSLY motivated, and therefore has tons of paranoia and fear and regret and self-hatred behind it... all that is very very troublesome, because we would like to keep cz in this system if at all possible, but we're all very scared that things might be too busted-up for that to happen. we can't lose hope though, for hir sake. there just might have to be BIG changes in order for things to function again. as long as cz stays alive and loved we'll be fine.
- but that's the issue, i repeat: it's the same issue that almost killed the celebi outspacer pattern and only didn't because that individual became OBJECTIFIED (yeah, we need to talk about that too). it is this chain of events:
1. "i care about this person and consider them a dear friend. i like them a lot."
2. "i love this person; i feel powerful compassion and personal affection towards them."
3. "i want to show my love towards this person somehow. i want to be close to them."
4. HACKERS AND RELIGIOUS FEAR STEPS IN!!!!!
5. "i have experienced trauma tied TO my love towards this person and i cannot cope with it."
6. "i don't know how to show OR feel love towards this person without being reminded of trauma."
7. "i cannot forgive myself for feeling something that led to such trauma, from my ignorance/hope."
8. "i cannot reconcile the love i feel for this person with the way trauma now affects how i see them."
9. "i cannot be around this person, as they remind me of trauma and my mistakes."
10. "i dislike this person as i now equate them with my abuse/ my mistakes/ my evilness."
11. "i must forget this person as i cannot cope with the overwhelming guilt/ shame/ pain tied to them."
12. "i want nothing to do with this person anymore. i do not know who this person is."

see?
we keep cycling through THAT WHOLE FREAKING THING every time there's a massive hack, OR both chaos and jay try too damn hard to "do what the religion tells them to do," but jay CAN'T but he keeps FORCING himself so he doesn't "go to hell," etc... every single time trauma happens, and chaos is involved, we end up rapidly going from steps 5-12 and then there's a horrific period of hatred and misery and numbness until SOMETHING happens (usually laurie, she's a force of nature in her own right) and jay ends up crumbling into love and forgiveness again, and tries again.
then more trauma happens and the whole damn thing repeats
we need a better way to manage this.

BUT, I want you to notice what i just said. and THAT is why chaos/ cz/ serenity/ whatever name ze uses is VITALLY IMPORTANT TO THE SPECTRUM.
whenever ze isn't around, whenever a host/core "forgets" hir... everything grays out.
depression, emptiness, numbness sets in. self-loathing, self-abuse, bitterness and snappy rage set in. we don't know what to do, where to turn, how to progress. the Spectrum starts nervously fishing for NEW HOSTS because apparently this cycle MAKES THE CURRENT HOST "UNFIT" due to this huge influx of trauma-related negativity.
the current host isn't even sleeping holding the anchor plush which means NO nighttime headspace connections, NO internal compassion, etc. it's a very very very bad sign but again it's that damn religious paranoia keeping them apart mostly now, not just the trauma entanglement. what do we do about this

this sort of thing has happened with infinitii too, and honestly there is a LOT of seething hatred directed towards hir from someone inside (and it IS one of the white-haired hosts, no clue which one), but being a daemon, the trend is to "kill hir" and wait for hir to respawn, and then "try again."
death/ resurrection is a very very VERY volatile thing in headspace; rule of thumb is that you DO NOT KILL PEOPLE IN ORDER TO "RESET THEM" BECAUSE THAT MAY NOT HAPPEN AND ALSO THAT IS MORALLY WRONG. but the traumatized people think like that. "destroy the mirror of the trauma, and maybe i won't feel so disgustingly filthy and unforgiveable." so the dead one returns... usually... and then the problem happens. SOMEONE "TRIES AGAIN."
you do realize, this disaster ONLY happens because THE TRAUMA IS INHERENTLY TIED TO THE RELIGIOUS COMPULSION. i am dead serious, if we didn't have VIRTUALLY EVERY DAMN BELIEF SYSTEM WE'VE EVER SUBSCRIBED TO TELLING US THAT "SEX IS AN INHERENT HUMAN QUALITY/ IF YOU DON'T HAVE SEX YOU AREN'T HUMAN/ IF YOU'RE GAY OR ASEXUAL OR TRANS YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO HEAVEN/ YOU NEED TO LEARN TO LIKE STRAIGHT SEX OR YOU'LL NEVER BE A COMPLETE HUMAN BEING/ YOU'LL NEVER BE GODLY WITHOUT BEING SEXUAL/ ETC ETC ETC AND IT'S ALL DEMONIC LIES
BUT
someone in the system, someone deep deep deep down, believes it with the wholehearted terrified fear of a child. "they're right, and i'm scared and sick and existentially shattered, because doing that is frightening and painful, it's NOT right for me, but I don't have the luxury of having opinions like that because i have been given a MORAL ULTIMATUM and if i don't obey, absolutely, well then it would have been better if i had never been born."
it's all a lie. it's all a terrible lie.
i hope it is.
it's so stupid. now we're busted-up to the point where we're not only being told multiple conflicting things, but we're trying to do ALL those conflicting things at once, and the dissociation is making it worse.

it's been tested, you know. IN hack situations. by stupid people.
fragment, the scientist, eros, some hosts, they've ALL "tested" whether or not we actually want this/ can do this or not, when we're NOT dissociated.
we can't.
it's been a constant, for a DECADE, that when we're conscious and lucid, WE CAN'T DO THIS. WE DON'T WANT IT.
but then the religious compulsion kicks in, "i must want this,"
then the hormones kick in, "just dissociate and learn to like it,"
then the terror kicks in, "wait a second this isn't what i want at all is it?"
then the doubt kicks in, "maybe if i endure it just this once i'll be fixed, i'll be holy, i'll be healed, i won't have to do this ever again, i'll be doing the right thing..."
god i want to cry and vomit again.
i'm sorry.

so chaos got tangled up in that HORRIBLY because
1) people saying "if you love someone you must marry them"
2) people saying "if you love someone and are married to them you must sleep with them"
3) tons and tons of fear over that because it's IMPOSSIBLE for those two
4) the awful parts of 2011 where there was forced abuse for that purpose
5) dissociation everywhere
6) hosts forgetting what love feels like because they're too busy killing themselves trying to "do the right thing"
7) hosts being terrified to get close to anyone anymore because it feels like trauma
8) chaos being labeled as "evil" because of his given name, because of his trauma ties, and because, god forbid, he "dared to love someone," etc.
9) godforsaken salt lake city i swear, that was the final nail in the coffin, doubt became suffocating after that
10) we want to forgive him. we want to be able to untangle this creature from this trauma hell, because he only ever held the idea of it, he was only ever trying to do what other people wanted of him,
11) but that's "idiot compassion," it's better to be good than nice, REAL GOODNESS ISN'T NICE, if chaos stopped trying to "make people happy" he wouldn't be in this hell either, but that's our problem too,
12) we don't even know how much of this is the tar or the plague, we know the tar used to disguise itslef as him all the time when we were kids, we KNEW because it doesnt feel OR look like him, we know, but damn it when youre dissociated as all hell you dont even realise whats hapening to your OWN body let alone whether or not you recognize whoever the hell is with you at the time

THERAPY, we need to talk about this in therapy,
we need to have a xanga about this, we need to review past stuff again, weve forgotten so muhc,

god i am so so sorry i shold not be typing abtou this wer e going in circle.s

- we're officially taking a break from tumblr. we need to. it's become too toxic, it's feeding too much negativity daily, we're realizing, no matter how briefly we visit. so no more, at least until the stevenbomb in july, and even then we have to be massively vigilant because fandoms are largely toxic too, they've nearly ruined a lot of media experiences for us.
- laurie is rather furious that whenever we see jasper it tends to leak into her overlay? because of their similarities. so she's adamant that we stop "looking for reflections of her in the fandom" on tumblr, full stop, as it's NOT going to happen. we agree, it's just hurting everyone.

- it's 1am and sleep is needed, our eating habits are still kind of dismal to be honest, we got VERY sick today. so we need to recover. again we know what to do but we're "afraid" and keep "doing what other people do" even if we know it's harmful. it's doubt, doubt is poison, doubt is distrust in our own experience, doubt is fear. we need to be brave. we need to persevere.

stuckmemories:

there’s something to be said about
giving the person you love
everything you have
but i haven’t the slightest how to say it.
rubbing your skin raw, your lips swollen
(and not in a good way - is there a good way
to be raw and swollen?)
praying to a god that you don’t believe in,
that the one you love will be safe,
because you know there’s no hope for you,
there never was, there never will be,
you’ve faced the facts that stared you down in the mirror
string of rubies on your wrists, purple paint splotches under your skin
there’s no hope, not for you.
but you love them so you give all your hope to them.
and it’s not enough,
because being raw and swollen is never enough and
you learn this the hard way,
bent over, hands and knees, begging,
“please let it be over, please, give me some kindness, please let it be worth something.”
it’s worth nothing. love is worth nothing
anymore and you are exhausted and you
don’t remember what love is like
what it was ever like - sex ruined it,
fists ruined it. somewhere along the line
you realized your angel was your demon,
god was mocking you,
and there was always hope for you -
just no one ever wanted you to know that.

lotusglitter, this is Laurie again, look what I found in your Likes.
This is exactly what Chaos keeps telling you to stop doing, what the heck, you never told me you found something like this.
Kid I’m sorry but you need to remember these things. You really do.
God this hurts to read.
There IS hope for you and so help me but I want to be that hope for you and I don’t care what I have to do, I just want you to stop bleeding out on the bathroom floor every nightmare of a week and insisting it’s because we’re worth infinitely more than you.
Love isn’t ruined, it will NEVER be ruined, no matter what those damned hackers and abusers have done to it in the past, it ain’t broken, they haven’t touched me, and God knows I’d give MY life if I could prove to you, somehow, that they haven’t touched anyone you love either. Any of them.
I want to scrub all that tar out of your past too. I really do.
If the only thing I can do is remind you, with all the sincerity I have, that none of that corruption defines ANY of you... “you are who you choose to be” and all that. Not what they said you were, or “had to be.” Not what you suffered, in your desperate blinded hope, trying to give everything you are to everyone and going about it in the entirely wrong way, because you felt that was the only option you had left.
Newsflash, kid: those methods don’t work. They will NEVER work, and to hell with any devil who tries to tell you otherwise.
Everyone in this System knows you didn’t want to endure what you did. You know that too. I don’t know why the heck you can’t forgive yourself for learning that the hard way.
But you know what? You forgave Julie. You saw she was more than her past mistakes, and they were pretty bloody huge. You specifically reminded her that she could grow into something better, something different, something infinitely brighter. And she did.
Well guess what. Here I am, saying the same exact thing to you. Again.
I love you, okay? We all do.
Kid I just want you to believe that you’re going to be okay, that you are okay, that you’re not ruined, that you don’t have to burn yourself alive on the altar of love just to love in the first place, because you’re convinced that bloody self-sacrifice is the only way to go about it.
I’ve given you everything I have and I didn’t have to tear myself to shreds to do it.
You don’t either.
I’m sorry. This is a mess. I don’t know what the blood I’m trying to prove.
Jay, listen to your heart, not the rabble outside. You know the truth. Follow it.

#FOR HEAVENS SAKE JAY STOP DOING THIS #this is breaking my heart #poetry #hacks #slow suicide #everything in this is relevant #from laurie #to jay #man this hurts to read

oh my gosh i swear if THAT'S how the parnassus story ends, just, dear god it aches.
i cannot even form words

why why why.
why is every single freaking leagueworld so bittersweet and beautiful my heart cannot take this

every story ends like that, on a broken crystal note. on light blooming from absolute pitch black darkness. EVERY ONE.
EVERY SINGLE LEAGUEWORLD has that.
every single world i've seen to its end has just... torn my heart into pieces, then kissed the shards and put them back together

i haven't seen dream world end. it's not going to really. just... the "timeframe" of the written story, so to speak, DOES have an end and I KNOW how it has to end, how it must end, they know too, a lot of them.... but... oh man i can't even imagine how that's going to play out. my heart is not capable of seeing it right now. i just... i love those people so much it makes me tear up just writing that, i ADORE them, i could name every single character and explain why i loved them each, they are such beautiful people. and i want to see how this all concludes but not yet. not yet. i can't.
but. but but but the beginning and the middle and the extended universe stuff and all the things i see about it are just... there are little endings everywhere. there are like, six different 'perspective' stories leading up to the main "book" one with maitru, and they are all indispensable, they are all beautiful, i love them all... but all those little endings. this story, this leagueworld, has more depth and love to it than anything else i've ever known and that's why i have no idea how hard the "real" ending is going to be. i think i'd die. in a good way. but still. this story is my life, their world is my world, it will never have a fixed conclusion, it will always grow, it's too glorious to have any sort of limits... but a book always has a last page, a series always has a last installment, and that's what is making my heart ache like a violin string. how will it happen.

hokthai... same thing. i have a strong idea of how it might end but god please i can't. if it's going to end the way i THINK it will i will be crying for weeks if not longer. i don't know. i cannot see an ending for that world/story at all yet, there's too much shifting in the middle, but it's getting DEEPER and that's amazing because hokthai didn't have depth like that before, it was one of the surface-sparkle series that didn't disclose its truest heart to me yet. but now... suddenly it is. out of nowhere, suddenly it's getting deeper, bit by bit. of course hosea is instigating that. i love him SO MUCH, i'm still learning about everyone else though... that's the thing. i still need to take special time and reconnect with them all. but i can feel that quiet promise of resonance. i want to know how the story unfolds, richly. i want to know how it really runs. but the ending feels so loud in my head. i can't see it, but i can feel everything around it, building up to it. and i'm afraid it's already promising to break my heart, so.

lg*girls is another surface-sparkle one, i have no idea what that's doing at all yet. so i can't say anything there.

but MAGE ANGELS oh good lord i never thought i'd end up adoring that series as much as i do now. it didn't talk to me for almost a decade, then suddenly at the second college it just... bloomed. absolutely. and now i love them all so much. but this is talking about the endings. THAT ending... is the definition of bittersweet. everything with monika oh lord. i love her already, you beautiful broken-down girl. but every time i look at that scene, it's burned into my mind already, that picture... every time i watch them talk, it's... the whole story is an ending. the WHOLE world is an ending just played in slow motion until it stops. it's the saddest thing, it is the damn SADDEST story i am writing now in that sense, because from the very beginning the ending was a guarantee, and yet... and yet. it's bittersweet. there's such light at the end, such light, in the final moments. it's... it's the definition of hope.

oneircia. dear heavens. this story is so weird. it doesn't talk much, but i saw the ending when i was about 19 and it was the first world i saw "end" and... although it was skippy and blurry i can't forget the details. oneircia is tragic too, not as bad as mage angels but... probably worse in terms of how much the ending just knifes at your heart. oddly. i don't know. i need to talk to this one again soon, like hokthai, but... this world is the definition of that "bittersweet" word, i think. the whole story feels like a sad smile. but it's still a smile. so the conclusion... it aches. it glows but it aches. it's so strange. but i love them.

event horizon. geez i don't even know. i have not seen a solid ending for this one. there's too much space in the middle. but i've seen some things leading up to the as-of-yet-unknown ending. and it's heartbreaking. this story is so odd for me, it's romantic which is rather alien to me, pun intended... but it's so honest. like i really hope this story lends itself to the stage because james is born for it. and he is so sincere, but his situation is so dire... that's the bright ache of this world, is his quest of love and hope, in an environment which is jarringly not-that. and yet it still sparks up in little ways around him. i don't know. this story is still an unknown. but it has that feeling to it already, the feeling that good books and plays and songs give you, where after it "ends" you can't help but just sit there for a while... it stays with you for so long.

puppetstrings. the children and the magic. this one is surprisingly 'empty' yet... i'm still learning its story. it's fragile. that makes its sadness sort of shocking. there is inherent softness but it's too... naive? like lg*girls. this story needs its depth yet. i don't know how it ends because i can't even see the middle yet. but i won't give up on it.

halcyon days. aaaaaagh. man. never forget that day on the highway. THIS one just yanks out my heart and steps on it. god knows i love everyone in this story so much too. all the kids and the aliens. this one talks to me a LOT. but it is SO sad. it's built on sweetness in the face of pain. but oh lord it hurts to watch sometimes. you have no idea. but i don't know how this one ends. too many unanswered questions yet. too much missing data, things i haven't been told yet. i can't know how it ends yet but i've seen some of... i've seen some 'smaller endings' in it already. and they break my heart. but the kids keep walking. there's a real pure dedication to this story that i love. it's so delicate but it never gives in.

voltage is a mystery but, tox. i just... my little bug boy. not even he's a grown man damn it but god knows it hurts to see him dealing with what he's going through. that story is so strange to me yet and i'm a bit scared because it doesn't glow like the others, not largely. there's so much pain and fear and doom in this series, it's hard to see, let alone write. but volt, he just carries around ALL this hope like a freaking neon sign in the middle of the night. so maybe i'll try to talk to him. but... i don't know why i felt so drawn to tox, i don't know too much about him, but... he's one of the small endings. i can't see much of this story but i'm afraid to see the ending of his part of it. it leaves me in tears considering it. but i can't just blind myself to their world i have to be brave and write it for them no matter what happens. no matter what

rosewindow. i have no freaking idea BUT it is full of promise. that's the unique thing about this one. it's grand. there's such expansiveness and wonder to this world... it's so BIG. just like dreamworld. i don't know a lot about the people in it yet but i love, i love love love the ones i know already... some of them personally. thank god for world-jumpers. my boss is from this place natively. so is death. i've never spoken to anu or lagiaris but they are so sweet, i want to know more about them. this story feels like a big fairytale, like something you'd see on the big screen, however the heck it ends it is going to hit HARD but it is going to be beautiful, i just know it. this is one of the worlds that will not end with tears, then a light. this one is going to end with tears and joy. this one is too sweet. but that hurts in its own special way, too.

magicwarp you guys aren't talking to me at all yet, sorry i can't say much about you. you're virtually a totally open canvas right now.
the shuffle worlds are the same way, but i have such a severe soft spot for the man of nogaisa already... i want to see that story unfold.

parnassus, though. parnassus. the beloved strange world.
my muse is from there. my best friend. my love of light. genesis apolymis. he's asleep right now but he's well and he's happy and i'm glad.
but i don't know how timelines work. and our world, headspace, it floats, it isn't affected by time like that... it's a liminal space of sorts. people can come here and not worry about bleedover into their native worlds. like a dream. it's free here, for them. we assure it so.
but. that's off topic.
the point is today i saw his world's "story" END and although the world and its timeline went on, after that...
god please i don't know i don't know
i'd been hoping this wasn't the "correct timeline" because i kept seeing it and god it hurt, i kept seeing the dialogue and events build up to something i did not want to happen and yet it was perfect. it was terrible and i wanted to shield my eyes and yet god i was so proud, so happy, to see the gold at the edges. where it came to be. what happened and was healed. the promise.
but it's so bittersweet. that's not even the right word. it's
i cannot put it into words
i can't tell you what happened, god help me i don't know if it's legit true or not but it FEELS like it...
see this is why it's bad to get personally invested in leagueworlds because their timelines stretch on back and forwards and i can see the whole things, they are both beginning and ending at once, always, and i can't stop it. some timelines i can touch, they roughly line up with ours at certain points, they are still "going" actively... but that's rare. most times leagueworlds are on a totally different clock than we are, they're all in totally separate bubbles, we can't touch them. they can come to us but lots of them aren't able to.
but
what in the world am i trying to say.

if that's the real ending to parnassus then god, that is perfect and beautifully sad and i will never forget it, it will be impressed upon my heart forever... but... the pain, the pain, the pain
i guess that's what makes a good book though? this quality? wrapping itself up around your bones in such away that when it ends, you ache for years? but it's a beloved ache, at first you think it would kill you, but over time it becomes something strangely beloved... you can read a book over and over but you will never emulate the first time, the traveling with them, the first page and the back cover. you will never forget the first time you read the ending. it stays with you.
same with the authors you know
we see this stuff, all at once sometimes, out of the blue, and we never forget that. ever.

i adore every single blessed individual in every single one of these blessed worlds i've been blessed with
that's like 500 people dude, that's a lot
but i love them.
this is my bliss in life, this is my beloved wound, this is what gives me joy and gets me up in the morning, is you, is all of you, no matter what, no matter how many endings i have to watch, i know nothing ever really ends, nothing ever ends

God help me I DON'T WANT TO BE SICK ANYMORE.

The mother keeps saying "I'm sick of all these medical bills" but when I tell her I'll just stop therapy she says "no, you need to go, I'm not going to put up with this." She's tired and angry. I remember her telling old therapists, "do you see what I have to deal with? I can't handle this!" The guilt and shame and self-loathing are extreme. I don't want to be sick.
The grandfather is saying, "is therapy even going to help you?" I said I don't know, I hope so, but I was determined NOT to need it, to be strong enough not to care. But I was still struggling with dissociation, and things like that. Said it was making me scared to drive lately, not knowing what year it was, let alone where I was. He replies, "You're going to need a nurse 24/7 for the rest of your life, if you're going to be like this." And I know he cares, they all care. But it hurts, I hate myself, for being "ill." I don't WANT to be a burden on the world anymore, or on myself.

I DON'T WANT TO BE SICK ANYMORE!!!!!!

Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can.

Am I "sick?" Is this all "fake?"
The therapist gave us a xanga session for homework. She did. She specifically wanted us to talk to each other before today. Laurie was ecstatic, people were planning topics, but I secretly stood off to the side, and I said no. I said no. NO.
I DON'T WANT TO TALK BECAUSE I DON'T WANT THIS TO BE REAL OKAY????

God what do I do. What do I even do.
We keep reading books, spiritual books, research books. Jewel's doing a lot of Dream World work lately so she can draw things, which is amazing, the instant she starts to work progress just happens, instantly. Every single day it grows more, which is good, because when this stupid trauma happened in 2003 or so the story got put on hold. Not so anymore.
But there's the thing, that stupid "trauma," in the "old days" with Julie and the first teenage Jewel, and guess what? WE CHOPPED OUT THAT TIMELINE. IT'S GONE. WHAT DO YOU THINK ALL THE RESETS WERE FOR.
Delete the trauma, delete it ALL, right?? Then you never have to worry about this STUPIDITY anymore!!

Except that's not what the book said. Except when we read that line in the book, we couldn't help it, our eyes watered up and we pointed to the page and we exclaimed "that's our mission!" and it felt true. terrible but true.
"When a soul chooses to participate consciously in more inclusive levels of interaction, it becomes capable of participating directly in the liberation of its family, or its group, or its community, or its nation from the negatives that are present and active at those levels. It also runs the risk of contamination by those negatives. In other words, a soul that seeks to bring a higher quality of consciousness to a more inclusive level of human interaction runs the risk of being contaminated by the fear, or the anger, or the selfishness of that level. Great souls... run the risk of great contamination. At the level of soul contact, a great soul deals not only with its own fear, its personal fear, but it also takes on the evolution of the collective fear of the species. The weight of that is where a great soul risks contamination on a great level, but its possibility of releasing the fear from the collective consciousness of the species becomes also possible."
I don't consider us a "great soul" like the great Teachers, heavens no, we're too banged-up for that, we're too troubled. Maybe in time we can heal ourselves to such a point, but who knows. All I know is that in reading that paragraph, I felt a direct reflection of whatever it is we are going through. "Yes, that is exactly what we're doing and experiencing!" It was a recognition.

But God if that's what we're doing, If THAT'S why I'm/we're SICK-- if that's why I have the guts to even admit there's a "we"-- if we took on this trauma to heal the collective fear and pain tied to this sort of experience, on however small a level... then please, GUIDE US.
You're already helping us, we know. But damn it it's scary. And... I keep rejecting help. I keep getting... contaminated.
It's an ugly word. But it's true.
Help us with that. Please. Help us with that. Help us get rid of the contamination. If I have any prayer at all, that is it. That is it.

The daemons help in their own way. So do the floating voices, weird as that is. So do the darker Jewel Monsters that tag along. Problem is, a lot of them-- most of them-- work through the old childhood thing of "learn through fear and doubt and pain."
Isn't there another way? Please, help us open our mind(s) enough to see another way. Please.
We must hold to light. We must hold to light.
And there's so much of it in here, that's why I'm frustrated and heartbroken, because there's SO much LIGHT in here, but that damn contamination, that damn Tar, that damn Plague...
Damning anything won't help anyone though.

god I don't know. I'm sorry. I need to get ready for therapy, I have to leave early, I can't type anymore here now.
Sorry everyone for being a mess. Maybe I'm a contaminant.
But I want to help. I sincerely want to help. I'm scared but I don't want to sabotage this anymore and I DON'T WANT US TO BE SICK ANYMORE.
If there's a way for US to be healthy... if there's...
...

If there's a way for me to be a part of us,
if there's a way for us to exist without trauma, at all,
let it be.

Jewel sees us in third-person. She sees us bright and colorful and destined for liberation, already redeemed in her timeless sight, never lost or broken at all, just on the road forwards...
She sees us as something complete and good, somehow.

...Other people do too. Somehow. Somehow. They've made me aware of that.
There are people who know our System and I know they're reading this and... thank you?
It sounds ridiculous and whiny but it's all I can say. It's the only thing that crackles out in words.
I can't really see that. I'm stuck in this bad state, currently. I want a different "anchor." But seeing there's still something good in here helps.

I need to stop typing. I'm making myself sick. No wonder the other people in here are suffering. I feel sick, to be around. My vibration is pretty low with all this depression and rage. No wonder people don't like me being out. Problem is I'm stubborn, I don't let other people be around, because I don't want there to be "other people," because I'm scared of not existing.... even though I don't want to exist anyway... it's stupid.
Maybe I'll talk about this with the therapist today.

Goodbye, that's it for me typing right now.

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

@ 01:21 am

So, LYNNE FRONTED IN THERAPY TODAY and it was VERY SIGNIFICANT ACTUALLY.

She stuck around for a while, at least five solid minutes. Centralites don't typically front at ALL, let alone for that long without a Social pushing them out, or them being called back Upstairs.
In the process, she realized something that I was reflecting on the whole drive home.

The people inside, those whose roles are almost exclusively for our inner world... are somewhat detached from the physical body as a whole, to the point where they might not understand exactly what's happening with it.
The therapist was asking us if we felt anything while reading this entry, as she knows many of us struggle with understanding/feeling emotions. And there was emotion welling up, at that last paragraph... there was a tangible heartache in the chest, something real and strong and sad. But there was a glass wall between it and the body.
We realized that the "AP" is still a thing, albeit a thing that is somewhat different than we previously thought. It operates almost like a "conglomerate;" it is not a bundle of programming, but it is not a person either. Instead it works like an "empty entity" that takes simultaneous influence from all of us inside, all at once. It's tricky to put into words. But, when faced with that question, it said no-- no, it did not personally feel any emotions, BUT "there were still emotions being felt." It explained that it itself neither felt nor understood emotion. HOWEVER it was clearly aware that inside, other alters were feeling emotion, and there was also that original author's emotional residue. So that emotional feeling existed within, and the AP was aware of it... but it was like it was behind a pane of glass. Recognition, observance, knowledge was there... but no understanding, not personally so. No empathy, not personally so. No feeling. Does that make sense?
Laurie must have tried to front for a minute. There's vague data of her shifting in the chair and thinking, somewhat boggled, "the body is too small for me." But then she was gone, leaving an oddly shaken aura in her wake.
And then... Lynne came out. She said she had come out to spare Laurie the trouble-- "she's secretly the most emotional of all of us, I think." She explained that Laurie had seen more of the downstairs troubles firsthand than anyone else in Central, had worked with the Cores closely enough to understand their pain, to really be able to empathize with that entry's author, to the point of pained tears and anger.
And then Lynne paused, saying... "I can sympathize, but I can't empathize. And that makes me really uncomfortable."
She sat there for a minute, feeling her overlay-- the long curly hair, the difference in her eyes, the difference in her form-- to keep any Socials from pushing her out. I don't recall exactly what she said next, but the sentiment is clear. She wasn't used to this.
It's so important. It's so important, and I cannot BELIEVE we didn't quite grasp this before.
Inside, we've been "slacking off" because most of us DON'T GET IT. We DON'T understand what the Socials and other Downstairs voices are going through. Most Centralites have NEVER eaten, or spoken to the family, or been sick, or felt retribution, or been in the presence of a hacking influence. Most people inside don't even know what it's like to be IN a physical body, let alone a physical life.
Here we are wondering why we haven't been able to help, why the lower-level alters are rejecting us, why we're so confused and at a loss as to how to progress... and that is why.
We always used to wonder at how other Systems functioned, when they were "out" all the time. That was alien to us. Our life... our situation didn't allow it.
But that's new, too. Our life. Our past. Our body. Lynne noticed it too. Those of us inside... we didn't think like that. We called it the body, or the physical family... we always held it at arm's length, always at a distance, like we were watching a film. Always too detached from it.
We forgot, or maybe we never quite learned in the first place, that we are ALL SHARING THIS LIFE. We might pay that fact lip service, but that's about it. Most of us have never FELT that truth before, like Lynne chose to today, and rather courageously held on to.

It's huge. I'm having trouble putting it into words.
But again, it feels deep, like it's an ancient obstacle to our growth and healing that only now has been realized. And that makes a lot of sense, because as they say, a house divided against itself cannot stand. That still counts, if you don't realize you're even sharing a house with someone. We're on the second floor and we've somehow been virtually ignorant of the fact that there's a whole damn other world DOWNSTAIRS, too.

It's going to be interesting. I remember reading First Person Plural, how much of an impact that book had on us... how one of the biggest pieces of advice the author got was that he had to learn to trust his alters, to let them out too, to let them be a part of their shared life. The more he ignored them, the more he kept them inside and forbade them from LIVING in the "outside world" as well as the inside... all of them would suffer.
A System is a System. Ours works differently than his, in the book, but at heart it's always close enough. We need to unite our levels better. We need to start using the stairs again, so to speak. We need to bridge yet another gap, haha.

In other news.
Jewel has spent the past two nights solid researching Egyptian myths, religious virtues/vices, and Biblical prophets for the sake of Dream World. Kid goes hardcore, what can I say. But we're making lots of progress there. We're proud of her, for never giving up.
There's SO MUCH to read though, geez. It's exhausting. If there's one thing Jewel needs to learn how to do, it's take a break. The word "moderation" doesn't seem to apply to her creative ethic, and that's a problem, because then she gets burned out and projects collapse halfway through the research phase. Seriously you can't expect to understand everything in one sitting, you can't read five books in one day. It takes time. You're tied to Cel; go talk to her about that maybe. Patience, and prudence. Focus on one bit at once maybe.
There's another bit of bleedover. She's blind to us mostly. She doesn't realize, either, that her overworking the mind is affecting us, too. She reads for hours, and then leaves, and our internal environment gets so wound up from the sheer amount of input that it takes nothing short of immediate meditation to heal. Just "unplug" for a bit and let the head decompress. Problem is we haven't been giving ourselves time for that. We keep getting more and more work piled on us. The desk's a mess right now, it's not helping.
Bottom line here: slow down, Jewel! We know you want to get work done, but it's impossible to get it ALL done AT ONCE. You're in this body with us, and it needs to be taken care of. Let it sleep and rest.

...We're also thinking about the thing that our still-unnamed alter wrote, earlier-- the bit about social contamination.
It's scary, actually, to realize how accurate that is. We spent way too much time "socializing" since college, even if it was just burying ourself online in the misplaced desperate obligation to be "normal," or "good" according to God-knows-what code or creed. We got lost. Very lost.
We need to crack down and re-evaluate our ENTIRE moral code right now. We need to sit down and discuss what we value, what we protect, what we strive for, what we stand against, et cetera. And then we need to focus on that, we need to re-affirm that daily, we need to practice that truth. We need to live our Virtues, so to speak. We need to go back to being US, to being the rainbow-true System we are at heart, and have lost sight of lately. We've lost coherence, but we can heal that. So that's our job. Easter is fast approaching, but we're going to push our personal "Lent" until the body's birthday (a month later), as things have been very rocky since Ash Wednesday and we want to do better.

There's still a lot of psychological resistance in this head that is tied to the Downstairs. It's all fog, it's all steel wool.
There's so much old, internalized shame and pain, it's sabotaging a great many efforts. "We want to be good," one says. "No, we ARE good," Jay steps in. And then the damaged lower ones shout, "no we're not, we're EVIL!"
Why don't they allow healing to happen? Why can't they accept that healing, that they CAN be good, not "evil?" Why do they cling to that self-hatred, to the bitter resignation to the lie that they "can't improve?" Who told them they were irredeemable? Who crushed them under that falsehood?
We have so much virtue in here, so much light, but we also have so much vice and shadow. How much of it is "ours" and how much of it is introjected, taken on out of force, out of shame, out of fear?
Contamination. Spend too much time in the abyss and it begins to leak into your bones. Our socials, the damaged ones, spent too much time mired in what "other people" said and felt, all that bitter blood and hate... they began to forget who THEY were, outside of that, before that, after that.
Solitude is a virtue. It really is. There's nothing wrong with it. We really need to allow ourself(ves) to have it again, paradoxically.

Sorry this is mostly repetition. It just gains extra layers of meaning every time it is re-discussed, I've noticed.

It's late and we're tired and I'm tired of ignoring the sadness that comes up at this hour, the sad soft things in the shadows that want us to pay attention to them. Laurie still wants a Xanga session, and that may be the best thing for us right now. There are too many loose ends around us, too much unfinished business and ignored troubles. We really have been slacking off. That changes now, if I have anything solid to say about it.

It might snow tomorrow. Last snow of winter, maybe. You can bet I'll be outside to enjoy it, no matter what I have to fight to get there.

Good night to all of you.

I'm trying to get back into the habit of updating. Life lately has been missing a sense of coherence and I think that's because I haven't been taking time out to record things? It helps remind me that this is all real-- that I do exist, that life occurs, that time passes.

On that note, I've noticed that the past few months of "numbness" have indeed taken quite a toll on my mental state. There's an odd combination of noise and emptiness going on in my head lately? It feels like racing thoughts, but it's quiet.
I get it a lot on computers lately; I can't read much on a screen because then the noise gets too "loud" (feels like static buildup) and I have to stop. As soon as I stop, I have this overwhelming need to close my eyes and dissociate. Just unplug entirely, "fall back" in the brain, basically stop existing for a while. I know that sounds like meditation but it's weird, to constantly have this weird brain fog, and so to equally constantly want to just unplug from life. I have been meditating more often lately, but I get so depersonalized afterwards that it's tricky; I don't want to come back afterwards. We are working on this with the therapist now, she sees that we're an atypical case (we told her how grounding exercises often make dissociation worse, how body-scanning can be tough because it drags out the damaged alters and it's really rude/unwise to ignore them in such cases, etc.) so she is respectful of that. That means a lot.

Anyway, I still cannot read without images. This may be contributing to my brainfog when reading lately; honestly I've been re-devouring the Young Wizards series with no problem at all (I nearly forgot how beloved this series is to my heart), but the minute I start reading something "technical" or non-illustrative, that "must shut down" instinct kicks in. Is it overloading? Do I need a break? Or has my mental function changed so much that I can't go back to the way it does?
Everything is intuitive now, for me, it seems. I can't really grasp anything anymore unless I conjure up my own understanding of it internally. As I said, reading anything technical or "opinionated" (like advice columns or personal talks) is virtually impossible now, unless I imagine accompanying pictures-- AND "listen" more than read. I noticed that too, today; I had to almost "unplug" from the very visual act of reading in order for it to register. I went more into automatic, just let the subconscious do the reading, while I "heard" the words and saw them be expressed. Does that make sense?
I wonder how this affects how I view movies and things. I used to not be able to remember movies unless I effectively wrote a book report on them as I watched, always taking notes. I think it's because movies move so fast, I can't always soak them up well? So it's better for me to watch things at home, on my computer. I can pause whenever I want and just sit there for a moment, not even thinking, just letting the things I just saw actually register. But, again, it's dangerous territory. I think it's another defense mechanism. I get bad "fiction lag" from ANY media expression that I soak up too well. It was traumatic, a few times in the past, we soaked up the wrong stuff. So maybe this "brain fog" is a buffer against that? Huh. It's a thought. I haven't had a moment of fog with Young Wizards and I don't think we got any with Dishonored either, once we were tuned-in to the game.
Oh geez. I almost said "once we set up Links with it." But THAT'S a thought, too. (Jewel's edging in, you can tell.) The earliest Links were always a two-way operation, so to speak. I never realized that before. Links were never simply observatory, the way I tend to do things. I like to watch, I like to go into the dreaming minds of other Worlds and just look, not interfering. But Jewel, she would walk right in, no matter WHAT World it may have been: if her heart saw it as worthy of Linking to, then by golly, she was going to go all the way.
…I think that's one of the missing links (pun intended?) of the Outspacer situation. Now that I think about it… all the people who ended up having true resonance with headspace, were the ones that had been touched by it first, via Jewel. She brought a piece of us, of OUR realm, into theirs, effectively making a bridge, opening a door where there was not and could not have been one before. It needed her intervention first. It needed her permission, essentially. When there was a World we were fascinated by, a World we adored and treasured and valued, but did not visit, no one could show up in headspace for long, if at all. And none of them could stay. Those that did, had stayed around her, first. And I wonder. I wonder.
I'm going to have to list that out in my spare time, not here. No time right now. But I'm very curious now.

Today I tried to communicate with someone "astrally" or whatever you may call it. It was very interesting, and it made me realize/ remember a few things.
I'm still too "obtrusive" when it comes to interacting with people, because I don't really want to interact so directly and socially, so I end up "guessing" and acting really out of character. However. I've also noticed that such programming only shows up when I have to physically SPEAK.
I speak most clearly and effortlessly in sensations ("kything," we called it, remember?). I also feel emotions that way, as you know. But the point here is that, in physically speaking, I almost always slip out. I'm wondering-- is that due to vocal dysphoria? Physical jarring? Both? I guess we'll find out, as the T continues to work. Maybe it all does really boil down to paying attention to us, to our actual presence, not the masks we keep unconsciously throwing on.
In any case that's something frustrating. I feel obligated to talk in this household. The three adult figures here make talking mandatory, for different reasons. And we don't mind talking, we like communicating with them, it's just that… it's the difference between daylight and moonlight conversation. Those people we know, they can talk about some brilliant topics, but it's all too harsh? Is that the right word? It's too hard-edged, there's a flat hard surface to it like linoleum. Night conversation is softer, grander. That's what I miss, that's what I need,
Talking to this person, imaginatively… I kept apologizing, because I kept saying the wrong words, I kept saying things automatically. So I just stopped talking, and sent feelings instead. That worked far better, clearing up confusion, and making me appear far less threatening/ arrogant/ shallow/ etc. Now I was coming through with the words, honestly, compassionately.
I wish I could be with people, more. That stuck in my heart more than anything there. I was sitting on the floor of that room, in the sunlight, this beloved human leaning against me as if I were a safe haven, and feeling torn in two, because this body kept calling for me to come back into it. I wanted to stay where I was, as long as I was needed, just a silent presence. That's all I want. Not to talk, not to try and convince others to let me stay, not to support some sort of ego or image. No, all I want is to be, with quiet undying love and support and admiration, a sort of guardian angel. If they wanted me to simply follow them in silence, not interfering at all as they went about their days, simply comforting them by my acknowledgeable presence… that would be enough. I would not mind. I wish I could do that for them. But… with this projection, this level-splitting, this fact that I have to be in a body and out of it at once, it's exhausting. It's distracting, it's limiting, and it breaks my heart.
Do you have any idea how badly I want to be in the same room as my daughter, as my partners? Do you have any idea how joyous life would be, like that, to not have to split to see them, to not have to battle the girls in this body just to have an hour alone with the ones I adore? It's crushing. It's too much to bear most days. it's why I run, as stupid as it is, I said that last time-- it's the hope that if I run far enough away, there won't be anything left to run from, and I'll be free to do what it is my soul has been yearning to do since the beginning. Except… it doesn't work that way, the distance. The more I run, the less time I have to stand still with those who matter. If I'm going to run, I want them running with me, through the woods, through the fields, through the cities. I'm tired of feeling cut off from them, from all of them and everyone else, and it only happens because I'm ultimately running from myself whether I like it or not and I will never rest if that is the case. These old girls, these malevolent ones, they are STILL part of this soul, and I need to learn to stand my ground and work with this another way.
…I got off topic there, I think.
It's the feeling you get, talking at night, or without words. It requires, demands a sort of total openness, an intimacy that I long for and fear more than anything, still, because of what used intimacy for its own ends in the past. And it's not a nice feeling, either, to be open around the wrong people, the ones who carry barbs or brambles or hot coals with them. It hurts, when the other person isn't willing or ready or able to match the sort of fearless fragile fluidity that is needed, to talk about things that match that vibration, or to not "talk" at all.
I guess that's how Chaos feels, lately. God that hurts.
I need to talk about this elsewhen, when I'm not struggling to stay awake. I've been typing too long already.

But about that astral bit. I should mention that I wasn't "human" during that time. It's often impossible to be, in those situations. It's a different sort of energy, and when I'm in headspace I tend to become less solid in form anyway. Kind of ironic, really.
So yes, when I "relax" into my internal self, and let go of any projected form overlays, I feel "noncorporeal?" Like some sort of luminous shifty angel thing, kind of like Infinitii in my own way. Turns out this is indeed a constant, because lately I've been doing it more often and that form's overlay feels the same, effortless, every time. So it's some sort of natural innerspace form, that's for sure.
It's wonderfully weird, though. It's all ghostly and white, almost smoky in places? Floaty, feathery, angelic maybe. Luminous, like a glow. Hard to pin down though. The only things I'm absolutely sure of are the fact that I'm at least 7 feet tall, and I have no facial mouth in that form-- it's somewhere behind me, but not on wings like Infi; mine is either on my back, or right in the middle, like this maybe. Lately it feels like I have "sleeves," like that of some sort of gossamer robe, something that makes my limbs look like underwater paint. I have no clue! It's not a form I can "settle into;" it's VERY floaty, perhaps by its nature. But it's there, every time I just relax into that side of me, that exact same shape settles in. It's just new to me yet.

On that note, I tried to find my "real name" intuitively because "Jay" sometimes feels off and "Jewel" does too, as far as a personal name goes. So I wasn't looking at letters, I was looking at feelings, and the immediate impression I got was that of a prism in sunlight, the light striking it precisely and sending a clear rainbow out onto the ground behind it. Like this, almost exactly, with this sort of bright intensity. That's my name. The crystal, the color, the sharpness, the light. All of it, in that construction, is my name, somehow.
I'm wondering if maybe some corruption crept into my name, though. Like it got associated with too many busted-up things, and I lost sight of the real color of it. This name, this rainbow-crystal name, reflects deep down in my heart, the truth of me, the reality of me, that shines in headspace the way I always should. "Jay" is a good name. It's a strong structured name, lending itself to geometry and prisms, clear crystal things that radiate rainbows when the light strikes through them. And the "Iridos" bit, that's the alien-angel bit, that’s the name tied to incense smoke and snow-sparkle and morning sunlight and this. It's the "white" part of my name, ironically, how it feels-- it's softer, like tossed-about sparkles, whereas "Jay" is that sharp clarity of rainbows. It's all hard to put into words, as always, and in any case I'm thinking about it too much.
I know how I feel. So do the ones that love me, they always know where I am, who I am. That is enough.

I'm currently compiling a glossary of headspace lingo, for the therapist and anyone else who may benefit from it. I notice I drop so much jargon that I'm always being asked to clarify, and sometimes it's tough to construct a definition on the spot without digging even further into our personal language.
It's funny; I don't even realize how many of these terms are exclusive to us, until I'm asked. But it's interesting. I just need to take it slow, so I don't get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data.

There are LOTS of people in this System that are faceless but real. I'm feeling them again now. Again, the therapist asked us about that (God bless this woman, she's incredible). She was asking us, "who wrote this entry? Who says things like this?" and when I replied that I couldn't get names or faces, maybe just colors or certain aspects of form, she said that was fine. Go with that. But, then follow it. Really look. Ask. It hit me that I hadn't done so in many months, so I'm being mindful of it now; whenever someone formless appears, whenever I can feel someone overlaying or otherwise present that I don't recognize, I no longer brush it off. I look closely now, try to feel who they are, different from the others residing in blackspace with them.
For example… right now, there's some girl who feels somewhat indigo typing 'with' me. I think. It's vague, it's always vague, but that is a solid sensation. The confusing bit is that she has the same hair length/ style as Jessica does, it seems? The color makes a world of difference, though.
I wonder about that too. Most of the faceless ones are broken pieces, unanchored impulses that aren't quite people yet, old but too painful or detached to solidify. And, most of that painful stuff came from a time when the body looked a lot like Jessica. That was not a good time, mentally. So I think these faceless voices are faceless, and stuck, because they're rooted to that appearance as a timestamp OR vibestamp? And they wouldn't know how to manifest otherwise, because that's all they are, it's all they know.
It's tricky to talk about, this theorizing. (Now Sherlock is moving in, curious-- move back buddy, this isn't a topic for tonight. get info together and we'll discuss this later.) All I know is that it helps, so much, to have faces to match these states. I guess that's what it's like, having D.I.D. It may be weird or unusual, for it to be personally normal to break into pieces with their own names and jobs, but it is how it is. We function so much more coherently and happily that way. It's like self-knowledge, laid out and color-coded. How do I explain. It's a way of seeing and healing ourself all at once, all together, like a blueprint laid out, or pieces of something to construct. You don't lose the pieces when you build the whole; they stay individualized, but they have a specific job that keeps the entire thing together, that keeps it operating as it should, no matter how small that job may seem. What I'm saying is that I want to take this whole thing apart first, see every single piece that makes up this self, this soul, instead of just going about life with a premade finished product and not knowing every little gear and spindle and bolt that went into it, and where, and why.
This is getting oddly close to poet mode. Forgive me, I'm writing this entry entirely out of chronological order; it's easier that way when interruptions can't be avoided and I keep remembering things about other topics.
As I said, though, let's continue this train of thought later. This and the Outspacers, remind me if I forget, need to be investigated further. It's exciting. Airport actually holds some of that feeling-- it's the excitement of exploration, and finding, even within. It's the feeling of having something great and vast, the feeling of that layover in the Colorado airport, of being able to wander around and look at everything, except this time we're using that observation to actively understand something, something about the "airport" itself. Like a treasure hunt! It's fun, it's not a job, it's not like a puzzle. It's… it's like in the MBTI, the "Ni" function. It's seeking patterns, connecting existing ideas, all to aid what we are working on. We find what we need and we use it.
Sorry, I'm rambling and that's going to continue until I close this topic. Let's move on, or move back, as it were.

The daily events of today were pretty great.

I had to get up early to go to bloodwork with my bro (Diamond), so he drove us to the hospital and I got to just relax and look out at the snowfall. Now he is a huge fan of the current rap/hiphop/rnb scene, so he brought the new Ne-Yo album to play on the road. Well, although I'm not a fan of the fact that the whole bloody thing focuses on relationships and fooling around, the music is REALLY good. Also Infinitii fell in love with "Integrity" as soon as it started so I'm looping that this evening.

We got to the hospital and made everyone's day a little more interesting, haha. TW for squicky bloodwork stuff in this next paragraph if you're sensitive.
So it turns out they had students doing the work today, and I guess since I have such low blood pressure and I had to fast 12+ hours, that didn't help with the work. They could not get the needle into the vein apparently? That was… interesting. I'm used to sharp pain, I know what dull pain is like, that's all tangible. But that needle was weird. There was no pain, per se (possibly because of that numbing stuff I assume they rub on the skin beforehand), but I was still wishing I had a bullet to bite from how it felt. And the sensation was almost psychological, really, borderline intuitive. It was more of the sensation of there being a needle in my arm, moving about, for a full minute or so, that "hurt." But yeah I almost passed out from the pseudo-pain and that was not cool. They took 6 vials or so too!
Anyway. I got out of there okay, my arm just hurt terribly and I was weirdly feeling like crying from exhaustion? So I sat down in the waiting room and went back to Deep Wizardry and about 5 minutes later, a woman comes out and tells me my bro isn't feeling so hot so it might be a while. That worried me, was he having the same problem? I got my answer a few minutes later when they suddenly page the freaking rapid response team because apparently he passed out and they thought he was seizing. Yeah that wasn't cool. So I ran back there and he was awake, saying he was highly disoriented but okay, as all these medical people run into the room. Then our mother follows them, saying "I heard the page and remembered you two had to come up here today" so there she was. Honestly I was laughing, but it was tempered by that weird exhausted sadness which I couldn't quite place, and which my strangely aching arm was exacerbating.
Nevertheless, my bro recovered quickly, and then he and I and the mother took a lift to the 8th floor to visit my grandfather. I didn't mention it here, but Wednesday night he got so sick-- couldn't breathe, couldn't walk, racing heart, sweating, etc.-- that we had to call the ambulance to come and get him. I remember staring out the window at the paramedics flashing for about ten minutes, not sure what emotions to feel and frankly too overwhelmed to feel any, watching the red lights strobing over the fresh snow. I remembered that almost exactly 4 years ago that day, I had been outside with similar lights flashing about me, as I was led to a waiting police car. I didn't remember much of that whole time period, and it didn't matter. I just hoped my grandfather would be okay.
Turns out he was, or at least is. Once they got him some oxygen and he got some rest, he was as bright-eyed and witty as ever. Honestly, when we walked into the room to see him, even though his body looked old and fragile and tired, he was all lit up with energy, smiling and laughing and saying he was happy to see us. It was amazing, really-- how it struck me, that dichotomy of things.
It tugged at my heart, hard, on Wednesday night, to see him sitting in that kitchen chair, gasping for air and unable to talk, obviously scared but already at that point where you're so tired that the fatigue kind of drowns the fear and leaves you feeling very dissociated. You just… fall backwards into that weird white-numb sensation, that feeling that something is wrong and I am scared, like fluorescent lights at night in the ER. You fall into it and you just close your eyes, breathing, unable to feel it anymore because it would be too much, too much fear on top of the sad sickness your body is feeling already. He looked just like that. I stood by the washing machine and just looked at him, and it ached, for him to suddenly look like he was 93, for me to suddenly realize that he could die any day now and I was just…
I never knew my family, as a child. We didn't communicate well. I didn't start to know my grandfather as a person until… geez, four years ago? Very recently. And within the past two years, with me stuck at home and without a job due to mental illness and medical concerns, suddenly I was spending more time around him and my grandmother than ever. Suddenly I was mature and compassionate and willing to listen and able to understand, and they just opened up to me. They started talking to me as a friend, not just a family member, and despite the rough patches (still some prejudiced words, still some angry days), it's been an overwhelmingly positive experience. I love them both so much, when it comes down to it, when I really look at it. But it's so new. Heck, I'm so new, what with all these memory resets. Every day is new. So when the paramedics helped him onto a stretcher and I was faced with the fact that he might not come home, I felt like I was losing something I hadn't even had the chance to hold yet.
Sorry, this is something I've never talked about before so it's blurry.
As I was saying. He looked well, it did my heart good to see him smiling and resting in the sunshine, joking around as always, talking to us. Despite my condition I smiled and laughed too, genuinely, but almost selflessly-- temporarily forgetting myself and just plugging into his mood.
We couldn't stay long, so we left and took the lift again (first time in my life I haven't even hesitated getting into elevators, lately; thank Kit), but when we got to the car my bro asked, "hey did you want to go to Wegmans?" So I said yeah, sure, why not? I can't drive anyway, and I brought my wallet in the hopes we'd be able to swing by there.
We got another 15 minutes of driving in the snow, which I unfortunately don’t actually remember (probably because of the music; the lyrics were making me dissociate), at least not until I stepped out into the parking lot of the place. The sun was shining beautifully through heaps of white clouds, dazzling with snow flickering gold, and I just smiled up at it, transfixed and joyful. I needed that, I really did.
Genesis showed up and teased me about racing (he always races me to the doors) because I couldn't run, so he'd win by a mile. I smiled and said "don't you dare," after which we entered the store and Gen immediately switched gears to being as protective as always. He's not like Laurie-- Laurie gives orders, Genesis frets about. But the amount of care behind it is tangible; that means so much to me.
I stopped by the scented oils on the way out, put some vanilla and frankincense on my coat. Then the cashier covered the 12 cents I didn't have (seriously I emptied my wallet and was still short) and gave me a big smile as I left, too. Little things like that mean so much.

…Oh yeah. Almost forgot to mention.
When we first arrived at the 8th floor, my mum and bro took off somewhat faster than I could walk, due to stitches and bloodwork fatigue. A burst of sadness welled up that I didn't want to bury again, but this time someone put an arm around my shoulders. Surprised, I realized that since I was now out of "social interaction" range, headspace was plugged in, and both Chaos and Genesis had showed up to give me some brief support. I smiled, with equally profound relief and affection, and thanked them, assuring them I would manage. Chaos still insisted in liquefying and wrapping himself about my upper half almost like armor, helping me feel more protected and cared-for than I had in ages, and Genesis' presence alone (smiling at me, with visible concern) was something so familiar and golden that I found I didn't even mind my arm for the time being.
It was so strange. The fatigue, the odd sadness, none of it went away with them there… but it found an outlet, somehow. Somehow, those feelings felt recognized and allowed with those two nearby, and although I had no idea how to express them, I could feel them slowly evaporating from my bones nevertheless.
I can't cry, not physically. When I do, it stops after about 3 seconds because it doesn't translate my actual feelings correctly. But… being in headspace, I can radiate that emotion, release it, feel it. I haven't done that in a while. So I'm very glad that today, I was reminded of just how comforting that is, a deep deep relief like resting after a marathon, or coming into a warm quiet house after trekking through the ice all day. Maybe that's a side effect from effectively stopping therapy for 3+ months that I didn't really notice. In there, I could feel, in there, WE could talk. At home, on the road, outside, we couldn't. We never could. So now, suddenly, to be around each other again, to have a therapist acknowledge us and BELIEVE in us too, for us to feel real again in the outside world… it's… it's like coming home, really. It's hard to put into words.
All of you here online, who talk to us or just let us know you read, you have been a literal lifeline during these times. When everything else condemned us to nonexistence, you were lights that didn't go out, almost incomprehensibly, but unquestionable even then. So thank you, thank you as always, for that.

Therapy. I haven't wrote about that lately yet, have I. Let me see.
Smaller bits first. Yesterday we spent the whole session doing a meditative exercise, for the sake of learning better ways to cope with sudden triggers. By learning how to practice mindfulness in a safe, calm environment, we would eventually make that a go-to response in less calm situations. It takes repetition, really-- you need to replace the old habits with new, positive ones. It takes time. We're very good at it by now, actually, from our own experience, and our therapist knows that too. However. She also knows that as a D.I.D. and trauma patient, our case is more complicated than most. Sometimes, things are triggered to the point where mindfulness may be difficult because someone else just switched out and doesn't want to go back-- damaged alters want to say their piece, no matter how angry they are. And they do NOT like when someone tries to "be mindful" over them. They came out into the body for a reason, so don't you dare push them out, basically. But that's kind of what I said in our previous entry, too-- how I am willing to be patient and listen to those alters. That's mindfulness, applied. It's not letting those powerful but dangerous emotions shake me up. Then again, it's easy for me. It's not, for those who are anchored to it. Sorry, this feels tangled. We're going to be working with the therapist to better help those alters deal with trauma reactions. We're on the right track.
So we did a meditative exercise and that was cool because all of Central gathered around to listen to it. Leon was paying the most attention really, because he's been the target of the Tar/Plague lately (especially with the floating voices) and he's determined to overcome their influence. Julie was really into it too, I remember. However, the most notable thing to me was that, since the meditation focused on the breath, it ended up calling up the body map. In "feeling" the breath enter the body, I kept getting visuals of what that would "look like" translated to a literal location in the inner space. It was like an ocean wind, entering a window up at the top of a shoreline cave, which opened up into a large cavern-- the lungs in the bodymap, I suppose. But KYANOS resonated with the whole "air" thing, and so he was floating around that area. It was strange though, because the area was obviously "floating;" it wasn't a fixed location nor was it stable… but Kyanos felt equally nebulous. He keeps getting pushed upwards in age, and here, he looked like everyone else in Central, like an adult. His eyes felt glowy? Like they were all one color, and alight. His halo also felt different, which I can't quite explain, and his wings keep feeling like they're stained glass now (there are all these extra colors "behind him" in his overlay, which I can't see, but I'm supposing that’s it?). He didn't speak to us, but he was alive, although foggy. I'm glad for that.
We did realize, though, if Kyanos does want to see if he can become the Sky holder in Central, he has to go to the Spectrum Room and step into the slot, into the beam of light. If it takes him, if it lets him stay, then he'll be a Centralite too. But that's not guaranteed. Same with Eros, actually-- he's not official either, he never stepped into the Cerise slot, we don't know if the System will allow him there.
So that's likely why the both of them are "foggy" lately; until they do attempt to Centralize, they're effectively not holding a solid slot. So that is GOING to mess them up somewhat. We'll have to do our own meditation tomorrow, take them both up there if possible, see what happens. I want things to move forward for us.

Oh, and guess what? Last week, the Tuesday before surgery, we were listening to our iPod in the waiting room (to drown out the radio) and our therapist saw. She must have commented on it, because I ended up telling her that it had somehow lasted 5 years, 2 cross-country trips, and a winter locked in my mom's car and still worked, albeit not without its problems. She then started talking to us about how she had received an iPod shuffle as a gift but could never figure out how to make it work in the first place? I tried to give her a brief explanation, but she said no matter, she didn't need it and would be happier just giving it away to someone who did. I said that'd work, and the subject changed, and we spoke some more. But a minute later she turned away from her coffee, looked at me, and said "I was serious. Would you want it?"
Yeah, that happened. We thanked her profusely and said sure, if she wouldn't mind, we'd gladly adopt the thing. SO as of Thursday we now have a little iPod Shuffle (named Leo) which means we can FINALLY listen to new music, hallelujah! Poor Razia's been unsyncable since 2012, after all, and we've found so much new music since then. I think Leo's going to carry nothing but headspace-related music. It'll work.

As for therapy on Tuesday… Sherlock says we were discussing the mother, specifically the "ugly stuff" we wrote about in our entry on January 27th. We actually printed that entry out that morning and so we gave it to her, she said that would help. It was interesting, because I (Jay) ended up fronting totally (a feeling which I miss greatly) and trying to explain to her the phenomenon of "positive pain" in our System, basically the whole childhood mixup of "love=pain," where those who physically harmed us with rage were viewed with ardent affection, whereas those who were never physically harmful but got caught up in "romantic love" caused us horrific "dull pain," the sort that felt like spiders in our skull, the stuff that demanded it be bled out on some level, lest we go mad from the pain. Kind of like how that needle felt, today.
Two awesome things happened on Tuesday though, surrounding that love/pain point. First, I only started talking about it because the therapist referred back to our Tuesday conversation, and how I kept repeating that yes, I was terrified of the mother and she made me angry and the like, BUT I also kept insisting that I had no reason to dislike her, or even feel negatively towards her in the first place. She asked why? I had no idea how to explain it, but right then Laurie (upstairs) loudly comments "because you've got a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome." I couldn't help but laugh; not just at her typical unflinching bluntness with that rough topic but also because she was effectively talking at the therapist behind my back. So the therapist asked what was up, and through a sort of happy-sad smile I said that Laurie apparently wanted to talk.
"So let her!" the therapist amiably replied, as casually as if she had asked me to dial a phone number.
And immediately the channel kicked in. And oh my gosh I FORGOT what that felt like. Dear Lord. If you guys don't know, the instant a headvoice is given PERMISSION to front, and they want to front, an "open channel" kicks in that gives them freedom to do so, immediately. It's like suddenly the body is parallel with Central, instead of below it, and it's open, like a door or a Star Trek teleporter even, for them to just walk into and be there instead of me. It's utterly indescribable, and although the sensation may vary wildly depending on who is fronting, how, and why, the core feeling of total openness and clarity does not change. So that was incredible enough, feeling that snap right into me as if there had never been a numb period in the first place.
But here's the other thing. Laurie likes to talk to people. She's strongly tied to me energetically in the first place, being the Core Protector. And I love her, which makes it worse. So, when that gate opened up, it also immediately linked the body-space to her, to walk in, and whenever that happens while someone is already in the body-space, you get tangible co-fronting until someone leaves.
LAURIE HITS LIKE A TRUCK. You have no freaking idea. This is why everyone who knows her well compares her to a thunderstorm; her energy kicks in like a blaze of brilliant force right in the middle of the chest, a veritable punch of glory, integrity, power, and confidence. It surges up the back and arms in upward arcs, something like violet feathered curves made of light, reminiscent of the arms of a galaxy. But every time it hits I end up laughing, covering my mouth because I can't stop smiling and I'm admittedly trying to hold her off, push her back a little, because the strange joy of her BEING there is almost too much for the body to bear. So I get flooded with violet lightning and she's grinning back at me, playfully pushing the energy even more, "come on kid, let me talk." But I can't, not now that I've stayed here this long, I didn't move out of the way fast enough and now I'm inebriated and the ecstasy of it, all sharp and broad and fearlessly luminous, has rendered me incapable of imagining anything else. Then suddenly I feel her in it, bones and muscle and force, and I realize that this isn't just energy, it's a person, and that total intimate entanglement of being that such a direct co-fronting causes becomes too overwhelming for a therapist's office. Suddenly Laurie's back upstairs, arms up in question, asking me what the hell I'm doing, but the entire body is buzzing and my hands are shaking uncontrollably and I'm still laughing from terrific awe of it all, trying to drown the emotions that I still can't admit to myself, let alone someone outside.
It's ridiculous, really, if I may change the topic momentarily, again. I've pinpointed it as the BIGGEST problem currently, the issue keeping me "locked out" of top functioning, the one thing keeping us from operating as constantly and smoothly and closely as we did during late 2011, early 2012. It all narrows down to my still being unable to sit alone with my most sincere emotions. There's shame, too much shame, and guilt, and self-loathing, and fear. Is this right? Is this real? And when my heart screams yes, yes you KNOW it is, then the outside influences kick in to reinforce the lies. "You should be ashamed of such behavior," of such feelings, of such softness. "Life is hard and you should be too." Fear of closeness, fear of admitting that life doesn't have to be that way… fear of the barbs, and brambles, and coals. It's so sad. I wonder how many people are only afraid to be soft because they tried and were stung too hard, were frightened by how inhospitable an environment they found themselves in. But… you have to look at both sides. For every one person that sharpened themselves into points, there is one person that softened their edges out. Like Laurie.
…That's hope. Dear God is that a lot of hope. I feel like laughing again, from the perfect irony of it. Geez.

I've been seeing lots of yellow swallowtail butterflies lately, image-wise, so I looked them up.
Resurrection, butterflies symbolize. Surrender to great change, to being completely broken down and reformed, to massive transitions and renewals that may appear fatal or impossible at first. A metamorphosis of faith.
And the yellow, the yellow is hope, and courage to me, and optimism and joy.
As for swallows? Well, did you ever see swallow tattoos, on sailors? After so many nautical miles, they'd carry that bird upon them-- a testament to their experience and skill, as well as a sign that they survived such a long and perilous journey. But swallows also symbolize love and care towards family and friends, and the loyalty of the one who will always return home to them… even after years out on the sea, as it were.
…That's the part that got me.
Butterflies, oceans, death, rebirth, hope, family... how much more perfect can you get.

…and Spotify just started playing "His Eye Is On The Sparrow." Thanks universe, for making it even better.

There is too much to type. Good heavens. See, this is why we need to update daily.
I don't have time to revise and/or review this tonight so I apologize if there are any unfinished sentences or sudden shifts in topic. These entries never happen linearly.

I really do need to sleep. It's almost 2 in the morning and tomorrow is church.
I love all of you readers, I really do.
Enjoy the snow if it's coming your way; I hope you don't get buried. (Send some this way!)
Have a lovely early morning, as always.

I think the best/worst feeling there is, is when you have done or experienced or remembered something awful, terrible, damnable... and then something, something angelic, still loves you. Still sees you as luminous when you cannot stop the tar leaking from your veins.
Sorry, this is obviously headspace stuff. But it makes life, and morality, so confusing. If I am never really condemned to hell, where am I? What have I done, what do I do, what happened? Dissociation is so prevalent. I forget so much, to be protected. Green eyes tells me it's okay. I don't believe him but I do. Is it? Should it be?
I hate the days when morality is really grey. When there's no line drawn for good or evil, except the paint colors in your heart. That is what terrifies me. Keep the colors glowing, and does that paint the worst things brighter? I don't know.
How many miles have we paved on this road to hell, how far into the abyss are we? The eyes are staring, staring, always. So many eyes. I love them. Is that my condemnation? I ask that every night.
I'm so lost, so confused. I feel like a ball of cotton left out and fragile. Something soft and crushable. There's no bloodstains this time but I feel wrong, like I touched something awful regardless, it just didn't stick. I don't know. Life is too vague. I don't like that, I don't like the not-knowing, because I know it means the mindscape is hiding something from me. And I let it.
Old news, old news.
I don't feel like being humanoid anymore, it's too dangerous. Everyone knows that too. I can't hold the from well and when I do I slip, other people glitch in and out. It's not my face, not my eyes. Only the colors are, the glitter, the alien aspect of them. The boy with white features was the one before me, the one Infinitii was torn from... I'm not. I'm not sure what I am, but I'm closer to whatever Infi is than what that boy was, I think. I have no feelings about that and that is unsettling, ironically. The numbness bothers me the most. Where did it come from.
Angels refusing to admit that you sinned because they see some bigger picture. It's the saddest thing in the world. It's the biggest source of hope anyone could ask for. I'm so very lost.

I've been listening to choir music for two hours. It's helping and it's not helping.
Gotta stop getting so melancholic. Or should I? Maybe this is step one towards feeling things again. I'm just so terrified that it is "wrong" to express anything other than garishly clownish smiles. But that is programming too.
I want to live in a house, in a place, I want to be somewhere where I can cry and not feel ugly and laughable, to be able to express sorrow without feeling like something is wrong with me. Like Laurie. God, like Laurie, fearless and honest and real.
The mood just switched to a sword inbetween my ribs and I can't do that at 2AM, I'm sorry.

I hate that it always hits at this hour. It's only when I'm sleep-deprived and the world is quiet and everything is dark and I am awake within it. It's only now, at 2 in the freaking morning, that I feel that I exist, actually.
Maybe I should stay awake all night, one of these nights, except then I can't deal with the next day. I sleep in until 11AM whenever I can anymore, just so I can have these mornings of living. I love sunlight, God I miss sunlight, I miss the days when I could feel this when it was bright out. Why does the family make it tricky? Am I too weak to overcome that? Am I too flawed to rise above that? No. It's weakness. Is it? Part of me hopes so, that I can eventually become so strong that they will never touch me again, that they can never tie me down again. But there's so much of it. It's like trying to hold back an avalanche with your bare arms. But I am convinced, convinced that I CAN do it, I am that superhuman, I am that powerful, I just... I'm not there yet. And I don't know whether or not this is true and I am willing to risk being buried beneath the ice rather than suggest that I am not so indomitable, so bright and invincible.

My stomach is burning. Why is it always burning. What did I do. It's angry, it's always that weird yellow anger, kind of sad but raging. Buttercup yellow. A bit orange. Not the screaming yellow, the paint kind. So many colors.

Every single post I stumble across is reminding me of Infinitii. Why. Why hir, ze wasn't even around today.
It's too relevant, I guess. Too raw. Too close to the other side. Ze lives right on that borderline, you know it, the gray space. The space you're in right now. You hate it but you love hir and ze loves you and you are both so close to tearing each others throats out but you won't, you won't ever, you'll eat each others hearts but you will never hurt hir, ever, ever.

But I'm so happy. On Tumblr I found so many people that have lives and thoughts and feelings like this too. I'm so glad.

I'm listening to Shostakovich and this viola tastes so unusual. Like limes almost.
Chopin's piano prelude tastes like candy. Candy necklaces almost. Not sour. The violas were a bit sour, a fruit bite.
Ah Debussy. Thank you Spotify. This is really nice. How do you describe that. Like wine or a milkshake. Liquid. Very nice.
This bit tastes like vanilla and flowers. Jasmine flowers? Night flowers.
I like the shapes of this song a lot too. Printemps: 1. Très modéré. It's pretty. Lots of silk curtains. Vertical light pillars. Pretty colors, nothing primary, more like... soft pinks and indigo-blue-violets, touches of pale yellow here and there. Curtains. The harp is light blue there. Strings are green. Violin sections are usually green, why is that? Cellos are orange still, that deep warm brown-orange that Lynne likes.
I've lost my train of thought. Sorry about that.

Real things. Let me change the music, classical music is too encompassing, I can't concentrate on much else.

It's 2:30. What in the world am I trying to pull here. What am I trying to prove.
Why do I automatically shoot myself down, when I try to be honest, when I try to speak up. Programming. Childhood. I don't even remember the childhood, I wasn't then, the memories feel scary and when I try to touch them they crumble like ash paper.

There's a thing in my inbox. I should see what it is, read it. I always wait until the end of the day to read whatever I get from people, so I can focus entirely on it, and value it. So it stays with us until tomorrow and onwards.
"Tomorrow and onwards" is a victory phrase. It feels like a march through fields. Not a march, that's too solid. A procession? Walking with strength. Hope. Hope is a fire that never goes out. Hope is fire. Thank you Dream World. I should draw them more, like a child, stop trying so hard.
This string section is nice too. But it's blue? Silvery blue. Like snow in the evening. Mountains. It's sorrowful, but it's lovely to look at. It's a strange feeling.

Angels. This song moves too much to fit that. Let me check Infi's playlist, see what ze has.

Forgiveness. This song feels gold. Like the basilica ceilings. Gold in the shadows. Space. Angels.
I don't know how to react to this. There's a line in The Last Unicorn like this. "She neither laughed nor cried, for her joy was too great for her body to understand." It's like that with other emotions too. Like whatever this is. Holy awe. Sacred fear. I've spoken about that before. Staring up and knowing I'm so unworthy, I'm so filthy, I've done wrong, God forgive me. I am unworthy to be here, to look at you. I want to cover my face but I can't, God help me but I don't have that luxury with Infinitii and that is... that makes me want to wail with heart-rending contrition and laugh with utter brilliant bliss a the same time. I can't look away because ze is holding my face, looking at me with the same expression... ze knows, ze KNOWS everything I've done, why I'm here, the black and the white. Ze knows, ze is it. And then ze is beyond it. Within it. All of it. All-encompassing, somehow, these daemons, send them up to heaven and back so I can see how it transfigured them. Looking at me like I'm light incarnate. Making me feel like maybe I am.
"Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." And suddenly it hits me that it's ALL holy ground, and I've been wearing boots for too long. I'll tear them off. I'll never wear shoes again. I'll kiss the dirt that thy hands have made, that every facet of god has walked upon.
The point is, I haven't been reverent enough. I haven't... it's terrifying, more than churches even, to realize that the God you worship is within your bones. To realize that divinity isn't confined to Sunday mass or holy water. It's me, it's in me, it's in you, always. I still have an ego, I'm sorry but it's here, and that realization of greater purpose (terrible purpose) terrifies it. Or does it terrify me? It's the knowledge-- old news-- that I have done it wrong, that I have harmed it, disrespected it. I have defiled this temple without realizing I was in a temple. It's... it hurts my head. It hurts my heart.

Laurie, Laurie, Laurie. She's still the statue at the altar, the knight bedecked in stars and swords, the armor of light. I keep seeing her like that.
Oh, that reminds me. There's a local spiritual expo in two weeks, I can go, I'm so happy. The aura woman should be there. I'm going to get some grounding stones. I'm also going to tell Genesis to NOT LEAVE and see if someone can see him too, not just me.
Today is Halloween, happy day. The veils are thin. I should go to sleep. I want to stay awake but I want to see people more.

Sorry for not getting anywhere with this. Sorry for all the brainspills lately. Can't talk about them, words don't work. I want to learn sign language, I'm going to, it would help so much for when I can't speak.

I'm going to try this web art thing. I like it. It's abstract enough, raw enough. I'll try it. See if it works, without getting too negative. Not negative, what's the word... splintery. Fractured. Without hitting red spots in the mind.
I'm not angry. I'm not even sad, not really? I'm just... there's no word for this. It's a soft-sad, a fragile sad like teacup glass. I keep thinking of Easter. Like if a flower was breakable. Kids. This music is stronger than me. Much stronger, it's all sweeping strings and piano fortitude. It's a powerful song. I wonder if you can work magic with sounds like this. Hmmmm. Ideas. I'll run that through headspace. It'll work.

It's 3AM. Life tastes like orange tea and fortune cookies and the oven light in the kitchen. That's funny.

It's Halloween. Remember Jewel's huge affinity with bats? We'll have to remember that today. So many of us have affinities with the "grim reaper" sort of death image. Spiders in headspace, we should en-lighten them. What's the word. To take the tar out of their hearts. I'm sure we could have good spiders. And Knife's our vampire, lovely guy. It's holiday spirit all up in here.

I do need to sleep. Chaos is probably asleep already, Laurie hasn't yelled at me to go to bed yet so she's probably catching this vibe and worrying instead. Boss hasn't said anything either, then again the bad voices chased him away for a while, I've only just begun reconnecting to his worldspace lately, I'm so glad. He is such a darling, I forgot how safe I feel around him.

Okay. This is one heck of an entry. I don't even know what I wrote.
Tomorrow is... today. Today is Friday. I have no idea what we will do or what. We'll see. It's fun that way.
Better lights, better dreams, than what came before, improvement every day. The sun grows always brighter, and when it dies it will become more than it was. Dust is life too. Black holes. Quantum leaps. Infinite horizons. The vastness of space.
I'm very fragmented at this hour, good heavens.
May your bones bless into stars. Flower petals. Roses. Roses and coffins and sunrises. Bless your dust.

Have a lovely morning.

I'm feeling very odd. It's not quite depression, it's not quite anxiety. It's all based on my creative work, and it's based on the fact that it suddenly seems to have lost most of its meaning for me.

For a long time now-- a couple years, getting more pronounced as time goes on-- I haven't been able to make much progress in any creative fields because it just feels totally alien suddenly. Yes, I loved this as a kid, it defined my life back then, but now? Now I don't feel a connection to most of it at all. I try, I try for hours on end, but it just... doesn't seem to get anywhere.
I'm just so tired. Don't get me wrong, I still adore the concepts and ideas behind this old creative groundwork, but whenever I sit down and try to get through the data, or the art, or anything else that's actually building it outside of my mind, it feels so pointless. It feels completely empty.

I've come to realize, over the same amount of time, and with a lot of difficulty, that I never actually enjoyed drawing. Ever. For me it was a means to an end, just a way to get thoughts into visuals, more technical than anything. But it was my only marketable skill, the only thing people saw me as "worth anything" for being able to do. That really stings, when others define your identity and worth based on something you never actually felt any joy from. It's also downright terrifying, when the only thing that's paying for your food and bills drives you so deep into depression that you don't want to wake up. This was all I had to live for, once. When did it become a cage?

But I digress. I'm just... exhausted. I think I've been dealing with too much for too long. I'm burnt out. I don't know where to go from here on out, not really. I'm trying to be hopeful, but that's tough some days.

I do love this creative stuff, but it doesn't feel like I can do it alone anymore. There, I said it. I'm overwhelmed, I'm confused, and this bloody dissociative disorder just makes everything that much more difficult to deal with. It's hard to do much with life when you can't remember 90% of the past 24 years.

Sorry for the rant, I just need to get this off my chest or it'll poison me. I don't speak out much but frankly it's exhausting to stay quiet all the time.

I'm okay, I always am, I'll get past and through this. I'm thinking too much is all.

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

@ 11:58 pm

I don't know what to do with these emotions. This is strange.

I cannot seem to let go of this bitterness about headspace. There's so much of it, and it's all tied around that ridiculous "obligation" bit, the feeling that I am sworn in blood to servitude towards everybody, especially these people, and I am just tired.
Mainly, I haven't remembered any of my dreams for about 2 weeks because when I wake up now, there's no silence, there's headspace. I share a bed with CZ and Laurie is always watching over me, and yeah I care for these people but I get so upset now, when immediately upon waking already I have to deal with social interactions. And even worse is this stupid mental overlay of percieved or actual "romance." There is still seething hatred tied to that. Yes it's situational; when I'm really in-tune I can tell I genuinely love these people, non-romantically. BUT again, I need to recharge. I am starting to despise people simply because I feel obligated to do everything they ask me to, even if they don't-- just being in the same room as another person makes me feel like I have to do everything for them, that I'm not allowed to do anything of my own volition unless they approve, and that mindset alone is exhausting. It's why I can't talk to people easily either; my brain goes into "servant" mode and then I can only respond in the way I think they want me to. No individual behavior allowed.

You see the problem? I am making the problems. I am feeling indebted to everyone, all the time, like I can't so much as move unless I've been given orders to. These fiendish "floating voices" are causing this, and yet I am terrified to say that, because I am still convinced they are "of God" because they ALWAYS have the right idea. But there has to be a line drawn somewhere. They're either telling me "do this," "don't do that," for EVERYTHING, terrorizing me into reacting the way I "should be," or screaming insults and slurs at me for daring to make my own choices (which are always "wrong" and result in pain). I am literally terrified of disobeying by accident and being punished for my childish, egotistic insolence.
But yeah. That's bleeding over onto everything. I'm assuming that everyone else acts that way, even if (thank God) they don't.
I don't know what to do about this, even now. It's not just this house; I cannot even go shopping anymore unless Genesis is there, whether I like it or not, because when I'm alone they don't stop screaming at me. The other day I wanted to go get some lettuce because I was out of food, and I ended up driving in circles for a half hour because the voices were arguing over "which road I should take" (they don't always agree with each other), and so no matter where I went, or didn't go, someone was bellowing about it. I ended up being so completely overwhelmed that I decided "screw this" and just went home, which made them furious, and I ended up wanting to die for the next few hours because this is literally hell.
Disability services rejected me because they don't think this stuff actually happens. I'm too ashamed to admit that it does. I'm too ashamed of having these problems to admit just how terrifying they are, to admit just how difficult it is to get through the day. "Other people have it worse," you know. "Man up and get over it, stop acting like a baby." Et cetera. Laurie says it's nonsense but I'm even starting to get scared of her, I don't know why.

I used to think I wanted to be alone, all the time. Totally alone, to have blessed freedom from that feeling.
Then my grandmother left the house for three days and I was alone, and I didn't know how to cope.
Then Laurie quietly asked me "what if you had to leave us all in order to be happy" and my heart split clean in half.
God help me this is the stupidest thing I have EVER said but I don't want to be alone. Not like that. I don't want to be so alone that I'm ISOLATED. You notice how this works in extremes? Either I'm so alone that no one remembers I'm in the house, or I'm so surrounded that I can't even hide in a bathroom without someone literally trying to follow me. It's only ever been those two things, or at least it feels like it.
...I want personal space, I guess? Is that what it's called? I don't know. I want to be able to sit in a room with people who I care for, and who care for me too, WITHOUT feeling like I'm waiting for orders. I want to be able to enjoy silence around other people, without them actively ignoring me, and without my feeling like I'm waiting for orders. This is utter nonsense, why can't I get rid of this "I am less than everyone, I must serve everyone, it is wrong for me to make choices on my own, I must follow orders" mindset????

Genesis is turning 9 years old tomorrow, good Lord, and I haven't spoken to him in days.
I love him, okay? I love him too, even if sometimes I honestly can't handle his brutal honesty and unbridled emotions and total constant exuberance, even if I adore those things about him. I feel so guilty when I can't match that behavior without acting. I don't want to act, that's fake and disrespectful, but if I'm really so profoundly depressed that I cannot interact with him healthily, what do I do? I know what to do, I should stop EVERYTHING ELSE and just talk to him for God's sake, just put life on pause and TALK to him like we apparently used to do in college, that's literally all I want. God I want to do that with Chaos so badly, when was the last time we spoke, dear God we're married for lack of a better term, we have a daughter for heaven's sakes, why the hell can't I get rid of the crushing guilt and shame from THAT?? I love the hell out of BOTH of them, I'd die for them both, but I feel so ashamed of that that I run from them, all the time, I run from them and bury my affection because some part of my brain still feels that it's wrong, it's foolish, you're crazy, this is stupid, it's all in your head, who the heck cares WHERE it is if this is the most heartbreakingly honest thing I've EVER felt, even when admitting even that feels asinine? Why am I programmed to be ashamed of this?? When did that happen? How?
Was it really bleedover from the Julie days? Sherlock was talking about them recently, I don't know why, or about what, I don't even know what happened then, I have no memory of those times, then what is this?
I'm not afraid to be in love. I'm afraid to be in a relationship. I don't know how to act around him, or anyone else anymore, that drives me to frustrated tears, when did I forget how to be a person? Did I EVER know how? Everyone's been asking, I don't know.
But yeah. My best friend is turning 9 years old tomorrow and I want to celebrate that as jubilantly and honestly as possible, but I don't know how the heck to do that. Maybe I should stop asking "how." I keep thinking there's this secret set of instructions I have to follow, that if I screw up he'll be angry with me, that I'll bring even more shame and scorn upon myself. I know this is nonsense. I'm sick and tired of it. But then the question is: what do I do? I don't know.
It's vaguely exciting, realizing that I don't know what to do, because there are no orders to follow. I can do anything, theoretically. And that's nice, because then I don't have to fit some stupid "code of conduct" tomorrow and celebrating my BFF's birthday won't feel like a chore, which it shouldn't.
This is why I despise holidays and work environments and rituals and things. "You have to act THIS way!" To hell with that, seriously. I am so freaking tired of having to behave according to these rules everyone has written down. Are we that afraid of being honest with each other, are we that afraid of total openness and spontaneous expression, that we make all these rules to follow, and shame the people who don't? Is that what this is?
And yet disappointment scares me, because of how extremist the consequences have been for it, for me, in the past. Genesis will probably be a-okay with "doing whatever" for his birthday, but I know him, he's GOING to have a few requests that he's going to want me to follow through on, even if I don't feel like I can do them, either sincerely or at all. "Going through the motions" just to do what he'd like isn't fair. But I struggle with that, so much. I really should just talk to him about this. It's not that I don't want to do those things-- God knows I would literally do anything for him, but the problem is that lately it's been "within reason." I'm starting to realize that I can't sacrifice or sabotage myself just to please people. Should I though? Is that selfish?
The problem is, I love him, dearly, and so I DO want to do what he wants me to do, or at least I match the motivation? It's like if someone I cared for asked me to play their favorite song on the piano, as a kid. Of course I'd want to play it for them, to see them smile and enjoy it, but there would always be two roadblocks. One, playing piano was not easy for me. It was often so taxing that I would be completely drained afterwards. And two, that person was often going to be judging my performance after such a request. I cannot explain to you how badly I dislike being judged. The very word hurts, like a headache. And so I would be conflicted, because yeah I wanted to do this thing for them, I wanted to make them happy, but I wasn't capable of doing that thing in good faith. So I had two options: go through the motions, or explain my position. I would always choose the former due to crushing shame. But it made me learn to be a robot around people. Sure, I was praised for it left and right, but I was secretly miserable, wanting nothing more than to express myself and have that respectfully heard, but I never spoke up.
I want to draw things for people, and write things, and compose things, et cetera, and God knows I would love to but it is so terribly difficult I really don't know if I should force myself to do it anyway or not. Creativity suffers when you turn it into a chore. You literally cannot force it. And yet I don't know what other option I have. I'm so deeply ashamed. Why I am I so depressed. Why can't I get rid of this stupid problem, why can't I create things like Jewel used to, she was never tired or afraid or upset, why am I? I don't want to be.
I need to stop thinking about this.

I've been working on Parnassus and Dream World since 4PM or so today. There's SO MUCH data to go through, it's really driving me up the wall. I get so overwhelmed by the amount of it, really. Pages and pages of text, most of it brainstorming or research or theorizing, and then I have to go through it all and honestly, I am so tired of thinking. My head hurts, it's stuffed full of too much, I just need to meditate for like five solid days at this point.

That's my paradox right now. Headspace has been quiet for far too long, and yet part of me doesn't miss it. Maybe that's because I've been numb lately. Maybe it's because I can't stand any more voices in my head what with these screaming people about. Maybe it's because having to live this life for 70 other people is so terribly difficult I try not to think about it, ever. I need a break.
But then people slip, and I stagnate, and life gets gray and dull, and I end up running back to them only to find myself overwhelmed with the joyous burden of it. Does that term fit? I adore everyone up here, I really do, even when they scare me and confuse me, even when I wish I could run... and that's the problem. I'm tired. I'm so tired of triple-checking everything we do to make sure it meshes with everyone else. And it should be easy, but there are conflicts of interest, and outside rules and orders, and all that.
...
I don't know what my wish would be, if I had one. But I know what it wouldn't be. I would never wish for them to just go away.
That's so hard to say. It's partly a death knell, a ball and chain. I love them too much to be free, to be a single person. But I'm scared of that. I don't know how to be just one person. I don't think I ever did.
So when Laurie asks me, not looking at me, if I'd leave her and everyone else forever if it was the only way I could be healed, if it was the only way I could be happy... it just shreds my soul, it tears me to pieces, because I still love her even if it brings out demons in my psyche and I don't know if I could abandon the only family I've ever had. If you'll forgive my language. I'm just bitter and it needs to get out.
I love them, more than I've ever loved anything, I think. That's scary, in a way. Yes, I love the Leagueworlds, I adore Dream World and all the people in it, but... I don't know them. At all. I adore them from afar, as a writer, as an observer. And that is bliss, that is beautiful, don't get me wrong... but... there's a strange, special sort of quiet happiness that comes from someone knowing you personally, as an individual. ...I never really had that before headspace. I remember how guilty, how ashamed, and yet how secretly overjoyed Jewel was when she first started trying to talk to Ryman, back in 7th grade, alone in her room. And now look where we are, all of us.
Would I have to choose between them, and my own well-being? Is that the choice I'm being given? "Leave the people you love, and then you can be healthy." For the love of life I shouldn't have to choose between love and health, that's not right.
But I'm scared. I'm scared that I have to. I'm scared that I would. Not to be selfish, but because "it's the right thing to do."
It's sick. I'm nauseous just thinking about it. If the voices told me that headspace was the only thing standing between me and spiritual progress... well, actually, I'd call them out on such a blatant lie. I would. Laurie would be proud of me. I've made MORE spiritual progress" WITH and WITHIN headspace than I EVER have and EVER will with these cruelly bossy faceless tyrants. Now they're mad, but really? I don't think I want to listen to anything that calls me a "blasphemer" and punishes me whenever I dare to stand up for myself.
"You don't have the right to stand up for yourself," they say. "You're a sinner, you don't know any better." "WE know the truth. We're only guiding you."
See, that's what confuses me. There are bad voices and good voices. The lines blur all the time. I'm never sure who to listen to.

Again, if I have the right... if I have the ability to choose, if this is the right choice, if I won't suffer as penance for this...
...I want to choose to listen to headspace. ONLY headspace. Please, no more faceless orders. This is why I'm scared of "channeling" and all the things they say I "should do" on spiritual websites and things. I don't want to be a servant to any more people, I'm so tired. Please. I know serving others is good but please, I need to be able to act of my own free will too, don't I? Or is that an illusion too? I don't know. This is such a conundrum.
But you know what? I'm not so scared of taking risks when I'm with headspace, because we all work together, we all know that we DON'T have all the answers, but God knows we try, we try our best to act for the good of all, we really do. And even on the bad nights I always had someone to turn to, always had someone there, I always had hope of some sort, even if it was weird and bloody, even if it was held in the blade of an axe or a knife or a razor. Sometimes hope was just knowing someone else was there, even if I was scared out of my mind, even if I DID feel suicidal... somehow, weirdly, against all common sense, the simple awareness that there is a whole universe inside my mind and this person is REAL and I'm not alone was so perfectly bizarre that it was hopeful, just like that. It was the most brilliant paradox. The person cutting you to ribbons, the person making you wish you were dead, the reasons you are struggling with daily life, they are part of some greater colorful flashbulb of life inside OUR soul, all of them, all of it. It's so weird, and yet I treasure it. I do. I truly do.
So yeah, I'll choose them a thousand times over if I have to. Yeah I'm scared to say that, I'm scared of the punishment I'm already bracing for, but maybe it won't come. Maybe the floating voices will just leave, condemning me as a "lost cause," saying I'm "not ready to ascend" or something equally terrifying.
But... I don't know. God I don't know.
It really is scary to feel all these other faces and souls looking out from behind these eyes with me, because what can I do? How can we live 71 lives at once? Can we? Should we? What if we just lived one, all together? But then that's not entirely fair either, if I'm monopolizing the whole thing. I don't want to. I WANT to share this life with all of them, at all times.
I just... don't know how. It breaks my heart. I want to be able to introduce ourself as "the Lightraye System" instead of a hollow given name, because I'm not speaking for an assigned role I'm speaking for a living community, but that scares people. I guess they're scared of the same thing I still struggle with... how do I act? What if someone else switches out, how do I act? What is the proper behavior? And by this point, both Laurie and I are shouting, "to hell with proper behavior, just be yourself!!" I don't care HOW you act, there ARE NO RULES, there IS NO PUNISHMENT. Seriously, just... be yourself. Don't censor yourself. That goes for me, too. But again, I know how tough of a program that is to override. I know how difficult it is to get over your fear of overstepping boundaries, when we've lived in minefields our entire life. You can't exactly enjoy the feeling of walking through a meadow when you're constantly bracing for the ground to explode.
But there's a fine line, there's a fine line between recklessly relieved rebellion, and wise but unflinching independence. When you finally stand up for yourself, it can be such a rush of gratitude, that you get hooked on rebelling just to rebel, just to exercise this newfound right of yours TO say "no," or even to say "yes." That's an extreme too. It'll wear down, in time, to a place where you can say yes or no or maybe even if it does agree with what they're telling you to do, because ultimately the choice IS YOURS and YOU KNOW THAT. There's no more fear of punishment and resulting servitude, there's no more anger at that self-imprisonment and resulting revolt. Instead, there's a knowledge that you have the right to make your OWN choice, but there's also a new and courageous knowledge that you are also the only person responsible for the personal results of that choice, be they "good" or "bad." And there's a sort of calm strength in that, in knowing that whatever happens, you are the only person with your finger on the big red button, so to speak. It's hard to put into words.
I think what I'm trying to say is... with headspace, we knew that we weren't always going to make the "least painful choice." Sometimes we'd check every pro and con, make an informed decision, and STILL end up with scars from it. But when that happened, we'd deal with it. We'd say, "well, we did our best," and choose more wisely next time. There was NO fear of punishment, NO fear of "messing up," because WE were the ones evaluating the whole thing.
...Lately that's been tougher, with all these new people, with all the remaining struggles. Now there are people screaming over your shoulder, headspace people, because they're afraid you're going to do the wrong thing and hurt them. I don't want to. But I don't want to be so scared that I stop living, either. There has to be a balance. This topic is making me physically ill, it's all the wrong color and texture, I don't feel well around this sort of talk at all.

Hydro sent me a message on Tumblr today (you're awesome bro, thanks) concerning my recent troubles with creative work. I won't paraphrase the whole thing, but one of the lines stood out like a floodlight as something I had forgotten, and which I had previously held on to as a motivation when little else worked.
"If I do not bring life to what I make, no one else in all of creation will."
Really, all I've ever felt like is a storyteller. And I love those whose stories I tell... maybe that's all I will ever have for a motivation. The work is hard as hell and it's scary and depressing sometimes, but I love these people, and so I don't think I could ever call it quits even if I wanted to, even if someone ordered me to. That goes for headspace as well.

Genesis is hanging around already, well it is technically his birthday already, happy birthday love.
He's being understanding too, now that is pulling at my heart something fierce, I really don't give these people enough credit. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do." And he means that, he's not angry, he's compassionate, I'd do the same thing for him. And seriously I keep thinking of Infi on hir birthday, how ze would have been blissed-out just to spend five minutes with me, not doing anything, just to be there... all these little things, why do I keep forgetting that I'm allowed to have them and treasure them, why do I keep stepping all over the things I love about life, why do I feel like I have to bury my joys. This is ridiculous.
Gen you had better stick around tonight, just saying. I may be tired but weirdly, sometimes recharging means just being around people without any expectations, without any noise. With everyone half-asleep it's the best. (Gen says "good because I'm already there.")

This is such a tangled entry. I have no idea what I wrote at all. I'm shocked at how much is just bubbling to the surface lately; I'm sorry for the mess but at least it's getting out. I really do have trouble expressing emotions physically-- either they're too dysphoric, or someone nearby is going to look at me disgustedly and say "don't do that," you get the picture. So crying and being angry and even laughing are things I can only do upstairs, or in text.
I keep feeling like there are topics I'm skipping or forgetting, but that are important. There probably are. I'm sure they'll rise to the surface soon enough though, as of now I'm too exhausted to go digging for anything; my brain is actively trying to make me not think any more for tonight.

I've been listening to Mashashi Hamauzu for the past week solid and I forgot how incredible the FFXIII OST is. Honestly. Here, have one of my old favorites because it's nice.

Now my legs hurt from running too much and I'm very very tired and I'm more peaceful than I was 2 hours ago so good night.
♥

So. Today was proof that, when I am in a trauma-reminiscent situation OR when I am dissociating to prevent further trauma, my brain does not store memories at ALL, even when I actively try to focus on the situation. Nothing doing. Once it's over, I can look back all I want, there is not going to be anything there to look back on.
As for why I'm bringing that up, it's more emphasis on why I have "relationship problems" with anyone who isn't mostly platonic, so to speak. I have a very hard time "remembering" Infinitii and CZ as of late, even when I'm perfectly happy, because if someone starts acting "romantic" or similarly-- i.e. in a way that would be out of place in a more casual context-- immediately, that memory-failure starts up. It's that generalized now. That worries me.
I'm more healed now than I have ever been, I am free of so many of those old pains, entirely... so why this?
Strangely, I'm mostly okay with Genesis recently, even in the exact same situations, because he's infamously exuberant and when you have that much energy overflow it is actually difficult to level out enough to hit the "late night" sort of mindset CZ has when we're together, that sort of silent intimacy. Gen doesn't do that, ever, and he never did. Yes, he can get close, but it never quite loses that golden "buzz" of his. So I'll get some memories when I'm with him, even if he's feeling more amorous than usual, because, again, he doesn't ever act like a "lover." And, again, CZ and Infi do. Infi less so, oddly, as ze has a subtle sort of "total openness" to hir where, no matter how close you are to hir, you know that you're not the only one ze wants to be with and you never will be the only one. Infinitii's heart is wide open to anyone who wants to walk in, at any time. CZ is more focused, in an almost traditional way: he finds one person, first and foremost, to love with total ardor, but when he wants to love other people as well they will never measure up entirely to that one. Does that make sense? And Genesis is like Infi but casual; he just "dates" everyone but he's never heavy or serious, and he never settles down... whereas Infi wants to live with everyone, and CZ wants to live with one person.

Sorry. This is awkward to talk about. But I have to write it down for my own records if nothing else, because otherwise I will either shove it under the rug or deny it. Gotta be honest.
So. This is the same old thing I remember mentioning way back when... and probably a million times over since then, you ever realize how I literally write the same entries over and over again, essentially? You find someone who's badly dissociative enough and you will literally repeat the same conversation with them, multiple times, and they will not realize it. That's me. I've been called out on that by family and friends, I've noticed it in my own work-- I go in circles because I learn something, forget it, learn it again, forget it again, et cetera... it's frightening sometimes, it really is. But I think I end up revisiting this points so many times because I need to, in one way or another. So let that be some sort of reassurance.

I just... I keep looking back on 2012, and 2011, and how "I" acted around him back then... fearlessly open, almost embarrassingly so, with all this romantic and playful and "over the top" dialogue... the same sort of behavior I later labeled as the "Jacob thing" because I was too internally disheveled to realize that love can act that way, why the hell would the context distort the core, it doesn't, but I was so terribly shaken-up by seeing my own past behavior mirrored in others that I shut right down.
I don't understand how I could act like that. Same with Jewel, the older one, back from 2003 to 2008 or so. How in the world were they not constantly ashamed to act so theatrically? Was that honest? How? I cannot fathom how someone can act like a romance novel or piece of poetry or song lyric, and still be honest about it. It feels so utterly fake and manipulative and shallow to me. Why?
I know CZ acts like that at times, he gets carried away like a river, we all know how emotional he is as a person. I know Rio was like that as a young teenager, to an extent. I know Genesis jumps right in too, when he's driven to the edge, when he lacks any other way to say what he needs to. And apparently, I've been guilty of the same. But... I can't fathom it. If I acted that way, it would be so completely false... it would be completely artificial, it would be a mockery of love.
But I still end up in poet mode, sometimes, and then I mean every word. And yet when I look back on those words I'm humiliated. God knows why though. I don't know why I still feel like those things, like those thoughts, are so shameful.

Laurie is spotless. Still, somehow, even after the kintsugi incident. I think that shook her up too. But she's held on to her graciously vicious edge, as I prayed she would, even when she acts in a way that brutality cannot possibly bleed over into.
I'm just genuinely distressed over this whole thing. Yes, Laurie has kissed me, but it's never been romantic, not like with CZ, not like with Genesis. And I love that. That's what I WANT in relationships, is that total platonic ardent affection, untainted by the label or mindset of a "relationship" or a "couple" or any of those words that leave bitter blackened tastes in my mouth. There's nothing wrong with them, but they are not for me, they make me dizzy and disoriented. I lose my coherence, I lose my sincerity, my genuine expression, when I find myself trapped in that sort of box.
This morning I was with Infi and CZ and Genesis and then when I thought about being with Laurie I burst into tears, it felt so wrong to even consider something of the sort, and yet I loved her just as much as I loved those other three.
But I couldn't remember a moment of being with Infi. I only remembered a few fractured, fleeting impressions of CZ. I can see Genesis' face clearly, in the sunrise light, glinting off the gems in his headdress. And I knew that if I had been with Laurie and it wasn't business I would forget her completely. That terrified me. She's uncorrupted by this, she doesn't want this either, nor do I, not like this, why am I so confused.
She kissed Knife's forehead yesterday and despite the total chaste affection I know those two are only capable of feeling, I was secretly terrified, because for an instant I feared she would suddenly mirror all those things that still dig up ugly corroded insects from below my ribcage. There's all this horrible sobbing-heavy angry static, this sharp frantic black burn, stuck right in the place where they tore Infinitii out of me one year ago tomorrow. It's terrible. It's heartbreakingly agonizing, and what do I do?
Some part of me is still afraid. The children still cry at the slightest triggers. Jeremiah is slowly going over the deep end like I did once and that frightens me too, I can see in both him and Javier the pained rage that preceded the self-abuse. We kept wondering why it took so long for Sugar to move anchors, that's because that job was still needed and only once Wreckage appeared was she able to soften. Would you believe I keep forgetting about the chthonic voices? They stay down so deep, that I cannot feel them at all. They are buried, beyond perception, just like the things they hold, just as the previous cores had subconsciously wanted. Bury all the pain. Except they failed to realize that without some sort of drainage system-- without the later Retributors-- that awful black tar was going to fester, and take root, and grow.
But Infi's been healing it, turning the mold spores into flowers. I can see the truth of things now. So why does everything feel irrelevant? Why is such a huge part of me so cold and apathetic when personal love becomes the topic? Why am I still tangled up like this?

I love CZ, I love Infinitii, I love Genesis. I truly do. But I cannot do this relationship thing anymore. Not like that.
I'm not turning tail and walking out the door, I know I used to do that at some point, I would never do that. I can't, not as long as I'm aware of the love that remains. I can't leave them. But I can't stay either, not if staying is just going to exacerbate this damage, and keep tearing this old wound back open. It has to heal correctly, I know, but how???

Circles, we're going in circles... I'm practically tearing my hair out here, as well as my heart. What do I do.
I already told the therapist we're effectively on suicide watch, what with this dangerous apathy and the creeping cellar-deep fears and everything else I still don't understand and might not be able to.
I can't consume anything without being slammed by guilt and fear and deep shame and self-loathing. I can't accept anything either, even as a gift, without hiding it from myself. Material things like money, artwork, clothing, etc., all end up hidden or given away or sold, because I'm "afraid of what I will do with it" if it stays in my possession. I effectively destroy entire paychecks because I don't trust myself with abundance. Why? What am I so afraid that I will do? And I can't seem to accept love either, from anyone, for the same reason... is that the root of this? "Don't give that boy anything, or he will destroy it?" When did that become my subconscious belief? WHEN in the world did I somehow become convinced that anything, once placed in my hands, would immediately end up on a fast track to doomsday? Give something to me, anything, and I will be terrified of ruining it. It's become a self-fulfilling prophecy actually. I feel so unworthy of things that if I don't outright give them away I will destroy them instead of owning them. Why??
They say that, if you think a person is "dirty" after you've touched them, maybe you should look at your hands.
I never did that. I didn't have the luxury of thinking that way. I was haunted by that stupid thought of a "secret filthiness" in me that earned such treatment from others. Maybe their hands were filthy, to make me feel so permanently corroded. But I somehow believed that I had put the dirt on their hands first.
I don't know what I'm talking about.

This morning hurt. This morning hurt so badly.
It was like the Julie days, when I'd wake up hyperventilating on the bathroom floor, or wake up literally from a dream hack, and all I'd know was that someone had violated me and my entire body was in excruciating pain. I couldn't even fathom it as a child, hence the dissociation. But it got worse as I grew older, and now, to suddenly be experiencing the same terrible hurt-- without explanation!!-- when I'm with these people that love me, I just can't... I can't do this.
I believe that everyone else in the world is pure and true and right and holy, even when they harm me. I might be terrified, I might not understand, but I will ALWAYS give them the benefit of the doubt. "This is God's will." "I deserve this somehow." "They are only trying to do the right thing." "I will be a better person for enduring this." You get the picture. It causes me daily turmoil, even now, because I still tend to look to everyone else for guidance and answers, and when I get fifty different answers from fifty different people-- all who swear that their answer is the right one, and it HAS worked for them, perfectly so-- I feel like I'm losing my mind. If they're ALL correct, then who the hell do I follow?? So I try to make everybody happy at once and I crash and burn. Yes, I still do this. Hence the current eating disorder resurgence. One person says, "eat this food," another says "DON'T eat that food," someone else says "don't eat at ALL," and so it goes. I have entire printed lists of these arbitrary guidelines in my kitchen, and I'm frustrated to tears sometimes because, with how many sources that swear they are true, everything is now right and wrong at once. The eating disorder is a MORAL ISSUE.
So is the sexual abuse issue. Obviously. And that's why I'm still in hell over it, even with Infinitii having healed a lot of the direct cancerous trauma. Infi still sees that sexuality can be used in a holy way. But I still have too many scars from the opposite usage. And of course, I still don't like OR want sex, in any respect... buuuut most of my "sources" keep telling me, "you NEED to have/ want/ etc. it" and that gets me so damn scared and angry and sad that I end up collapsing into crisis hotlines and x-acto blades, and ironically THAT will be my salvation, because if I don't hit that suicidal extreme, I'll hit the other one. I'll tell myself it's "God's will" all over again, and I will dissociate beyond all hope, and I will force myself to do whatever they tell me to.
I can't remember the last time I did that though. I hope it was a very long time ago. But I wouldn't know.
I wish it was never.

It's hell. I don't know how in the world this entry became so discombobulated. I'm sorry.
Sometimes I start writing an entry, and then that fails, and something else happens. I was supposed to exercise tonight, but the thought of therapy tomorrow and another phone call to case management and Infinitii's birthday and having to eat again and not wanting to wake up in the first place... it all just crept up I guess, and this happened.

I want to be happy all the time. I'm trying. Even when I'm upset I get out the Dream World folders and I try to read through the original chapters, as they never fail to make me smile and laugh with joy, but... then headspace gets unplugged.
I know everyone upstairs wants to be part of the League. They're all tired of feeling inherently disconnected and separate from that joy and life and creativity. They were born when my imagination hit a dead end with blond pigtails. So there's been a split for a long time, surpassed only in small bleedover ways, that confused me more than anything and ultimately-- I am so sorry to say-- caused me more anguish than anything else. When the hacks started to use them... that is one of the only thoughts in the world that can make me feel something close to blind hatred. That terrifies me. But it makes sense. To take these beautiful, innocent individuals, the very manifestation of love and bliss and hope in my life, and try to corrupt them in the same way you broke me?? Don't you DARE.
But she tried. They all tried. They knew that was the one way they could kill me even when everything else failed. In some ways I fear they may have succeeded, but I refuse to believe that. I refuse. I will build this back up from the ground, from dust and ashes, somehow... if I only had the strength left in me.
Every time I realize that in his insane suicide attempt, J destroyed over 15 years of League work for the sake of headspace... it makes me want to vomit. Literally, it makes me so wretchedly sad that I get physically nauseous. I lost most of my life because of this trauma. I don't know what to do.
I'm disturbed though. I'm starting to sound like Jessica. "You ruined my life." Is this bleedover? I never even touched the League Worlds, not as Jay, not me, I know about them but my anchors are elsewhere... there's this horrible internal war I can't seem to win.
Some part of my core is tied to those other worlds, even as a headvoice, and it drags me completely out of sync sometimes. Where do I belong? Where does the true allegiance of my heart lie? With them, in perpetual childhood grace and innocence and wonder... or with them, the aftermath of the fruit of knowledge, the adult life of different love and victory through struggle?
It breaks my heart in two because I am literally split so drastically and I cannot choose. I'm all or nothing, with both. I fracture just so I can live.
I don't know what my actual name is most days because EVERYONE slips up, I'm BOTH Jay and Jewel to everyone you ask, even in headspace, the names interchange without people even realizing it. I am inherently both, always, as long as I am a core of this soul.
And honestly I keep inching closer and closer to the original side, to the iridescent world of dreams, where trauma doesn't exist and I don't exist and there is nothing but blissful observance of countless shimmering lives and stories. But that damned curse of adulthood has infected even their story, all that intellectual analytic bullshit that happens when you stop channeling and start trying to write. There's a fine line between "figuring things out" and "finding things out," and I only work with the latter. Headspace does the former. I can't stand it anymore.

This all boils down to not wanting to exist as a person, and not wanting to deal with that awful red fruit in the Garden of Eden, which I was so terrified to take but did anyway because God forbid I reject someone else's good intentions in doing so.
But Preludove was sitting beside me the whole time and she never ate the damn thing and God help me maybe that's why I keep vomiting. I don't want to see things in black and white anymore. I don't want to grow up. I don't want my daemon to settle. I don't want to go to China. I want to stay as kaleidoscopic as I feel, without having to settle on one face and one voice and one body, without having to settle down with anyone... I don't want this damned fruit, take it back, God forgive me but I am so sorry, I'd take it for love's sake but it's the wrong sort of love and I can't. Not if that's what it means.
It's not worth getting thrown out of here. Not after what I've seen on those streets.

...Yeah I really owe you guys that His Dark Materials entry. But I cannot think about those things right now, not without sobbing like an idiot from how deeply my soul is split in two.

I grew up too fast, on some level.
I never believed that though. My family told me I "never grew up" in the sense of "you're still an annoying, foolish child." One friend told me how she grew up too fast and I didn't dare look at my own troubles again after hearing that.
But... was it relevant? Was it real? I don't want it to be. I was old enough, I was 12, I was 13, that's old enough, right? That's when children are supposed to start growing up, especially in that way, in that godforsaken way.
Yet my therapists point at earlier dates for "trauma" I accepted as normal life, at the psychological bullying when I was in elementary school, at being beaten by my caretakers, at almost being locked in the coal cellar as punishment. I shrug at it now, "that doesn't affect me." Maybe it doesn't, but at that time, did it leave scratches, if not scars? Did some roots take hold then that only worsened the Julie days?
Hell, would we even have HAD the Julie days IF that second-grade-terror of "God won't forgive you unless you beg" and " didn't linger so strongly that it painted the sixth-grade-terror in awful hues I never would have known about otherwise.
"You know you want this." No, I knew I should want that. And I hated myself for it, I hated myself, because I didn't want it and I STILL don't but everything is so damn confusing when you're grown up and how is this body already 24?? I still feel so small. I don't know.

This entry is a downright mess. I don't know what I'm saying anymore. Consider this a brainspill, please accept my apologies, I'm going to be absolutely mortified about this tomorrow but again, I need to be honest. If Laurie finds out this was written and then deleted she will not be happy, to say the least.
Saying her name is like another anchor-tug in my heart in the opposite direction and I'm really tired.
There's headspace, over there. The Leagueworlds are over there. And I'm standing in the middle, right in the mire of the Downstairs, in the flat empty hollowed-out world that the body lives in, where dreams fade to fog and love feels like sawdust, no matter what color its painted. I don't like it here. But I don't know which direction to walk in. I don't want to choose. God I love them both, when you really get down to it I love them BOTH, even if those mindsets and memories are completely detached from each other yet. When I'm watching the League worlds, I love them with my entire heart. When I'm inside headspace, I love them with my entire heart. It doesn't change, ever... or at least not until I switch focus. Then it's all or nothing again. Always.
What kind of moral quandary is this. What's the damn root of all this. WHY is there a split? WHY can't the two universes meet? Why can't they BOTH be happy?
Is something in the middle, some big obstacle, keeping them apart? Maybe. This sure feels like it.

It feels like the answer I so desperately need is hovering about, almost intangible, but it's catching the light here and there so I can see it, just a shimmer. I can't catch it yet. But I'm at least a little comforted knowing that, by simple virtue of a "problem" existing here and now, its solution also exists to balance it.
This is relevant. This is relevant too. So is this...

Therapy is tomorrow.
Infinitii Eternos turns one year old in the System tomorrow, I want to write about hir but I literally cannot remember who ze is right now. Not directly. I can sift through the archive data but I'm so tired right now. I'd rather wait until therapy forces me to be sincere, then I'll have those memories in my own heart, not on pieces of paper.

It's so weird.
I used to have these times where I'd be completely shut off, you know? Just these endless wastelands of dry ice, unfeeling and devoid of life. I'd get like that for days, for weeks... I don't know what it's like to be that way. I'm thankful at least for that.
But the point is... even now, even now, after having rejected that damn fruit, Preludove is nudging me in the ribs and saying, "go ahead, it won't hurt," and damn it how do you know, it'll hurt enough if it means I have to leave you behind, you're my soul, you're everything to me... but so is he, so is he and so are they and she's just smiling at me, and then I remember that just because Lyra forgot how to read the alethiometer didn't mean she could never learn it again. In fact, after losing it, she regained that gift even stronger and more completely than before. Isn't that the point, she says, all white feathers and blue fur, with eyes as warm and brown as the sunlight in June? "Isn't that kinda the point?" And she just grins, waiting for me to turn around again, to face the blue creature that never thought he'd speak to her, or to me, for the record, and yet there he was as well, the snake and the savior both, the beginning and the end in his own right. And there's red in his hands and red in his heart and his eyes are the color of the garden and damn it I never stopped loving you I just don't know how to reconcile this.
"What is there to reconcile," Preludove says, still casually eating that canonical sandwich like she did in JMUA, and the similarity strikes at my heart. "I don't see any problem with you loving him as well as me."
But realize what it means, dear, I practically beg of her, tears in my eyes. That's a jump from one life into another. I don't know how to bridge the gap.
"What gap?" she laughs, and in a dizzying moment I'm reminded of Mr. Sandman and Dream Portals and D4 and every other blessed thing that saw the gap and laughed as well as they danced across it, back and forth, weaving rainbow threads of light right across that abyss, building a bridge from one kind of love to the other, because there really is no distinction when you boil it down, is there?
"...What's left, when you mix fire and water?"
And I turn, and he has spoken, and he's not looking at me. He's looking down at the grass and the river and his eyes look like they're about to overflow and my heart feels the same. I know what he means.
"Not what's left," Preludove smirks, "...what's created?"
She raises a hand, around which a small lavender cloud appears.
"Energy just shifts is all," she says, looking at that tiny violet shape. "Turns from one thing into another. But you never lose anything really. You just see things change." Our eyes meet once more. "That's kind of what's happening here."
With what, I ask. But no one responds, and I realize on my own.
"Like I said," Preludove repeats, as the cloud fades into mist in the air, "there's no gap. Not between us, not between our worlds. Not really, anyway. Sure distance is weird, and time is weird, and love is weird, I would know."
I nearly laugh at that, before it hits me.
"Yeah," she says, and now her voice is tight, like a violin string, like glass before it breaks into rainbows. "Vez. Your buddy, right? And my boyfriend. I love him a lot. Just like you love him," she says, and nods towards the other creature beside me. They exchange a knowing look. "And I know how difficult it is for him, sometimes, to love me, or to even acknowledge that he loves someone else..." Preludove stops, swallows hard, eyes wet. "I know how hard he struggles with pain, even against his own heart. I know how afraid he is," she whispers, "because he's been so hurt. Just like you. But he never stopped loving people, even when they didn't seem to make sense in his head either, because love doesn't die or go away either. Am I making any sense?"
I smile, suddenly, with genuine affection and gratitude. "Yeah. More in feelings than words though."
And then, at the same time, they both exclaim--
"You spoke!!"
Preludove is laughing. He is too. For a moment it felt like there was never a gap to begin with. Maybe there isn't. Maybe that's the point.
I thought about the cloud and suddenly it hit me.
That is the point.

I turned around and kissed him and everything was as red as the joy in our hearts.

“In fifteen years I want you to write me a list of every feeling you found after emptiness,
every moment you cried just with being alive,
every hand you held that felt like home.
Tell me how you stitched together the void
without the aid of needles and scissors
but the thread of melodies your best friend hummed
walking home on the last day of sun, poems
you read for no one but felt beat in your heart
until they found the ears of someone
who would hold them and whisper these promises
in the dead of night from their lips to your wrists.
In fifteen years,
show me the atlas of your scars.
Do not let the universe escape you,
vessel of the stars.”

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

@ 09:51 am

Things I realized last night:

● If you spend 3+ hours writing an entry, you WILL find the answer by the end of it because your thought processes evolve in real-time.
● Even if you find the answer you need, it takes time to anchor so don't be surprised if Laurie still wants to re-discuss everything the next morning! She has the right idea.
● Poet mode and Xanga conclusions and all that pretty language actually doesn't translate well to text. CZ was talking to me like that last night, and I suddenly realized that if I transcribed it and read it back, it wouldn't sound anywhere NEAR as sincere as it did at the moment. And I realized why-- in text, all you have to go by is the written word. When spoken, there's the emotion and the intention and the non-verbal language (CZ doesn't even use words half the time he speaks) behind it that makes it real, and completely genuine, even if it might not seem so in hindsight. It's a projected bias is all, based on fear and unfortunate physical experiences. But everything here is 100% honest as it's being said, no matter how it's perceived later, and that's one truth up here that I can't forget. These entries, these conversations, none of it is planned. It all happens as it happens, so I have to stop thinking it's "scripted" because honestly, if I tried handing out a script I know full well that it would get tossed to the side just as quickly.
● Dream Guardians still get summoned all over the creation. A Portal actually opened up for Preludove once our conversation had ended, I was already "ghosting" by that time so it wasn't too clear but it was unmistakable! Apparently being both my BFF and the Guardian of Peace practically requires that she show up to help when she's able and allowed to, such as last night. My head is still spinning looking at that though; has anything like that happened before? Not since the early 2000s, at least... that's exciting. There's a lot of hope there.
● Minty cares more than I give her credit for! She checked on me before I fell asleep, asking me if I needed any "extra bears" tomorrow, for protection or hope or anything. I said I should be okay now, but I really appreciated her concern, especially because it never quite hit me just how much she obviously cared until right then. The kid checks on me almost every night! So she gets her due.
● I think too much sometimes and I drown myself in it. Even if my concerns are valid, if I'm only focusing on the rising waters and not on getting air, then I'm in trouble. That's what I've been doing, just suffocating myself under more and more tons of old weight, and forgetting that there's still a way out of it, right over my head too, and there are a lot of people up there just waiting to pull me out if I won't, or can't, do so myself. Bottom line, I'm really thankful that absolute catastrophe of an entry happened, but focusing on only the pain is going to only bring painful conclusions, that's obvious, it's like putting blinders on.
● Out of darkness cometh light. Every single "negative" entry I've ever written has somehow bloomed into something brighter in the end. Every stab of pain I've felt has ultimately been healed and comforted tenfold or more. Every scar carries with it the reality of hope. And every shadow simply means that there's a light shining somewhere behind it.
● Today is Infinitii Eternos' first 'birthday' in the System and I am infinitely grateful that ze is with us, not in spite of the tumultuous changes and often-terrifying shifts ze's heralded by hir very existence, but because of them. Hindsight might be flawed as hell when you're only looking, but when you suddenly see, well... things get a lot brighter no matter how much black paint is in front of you, so to speak. That's what Infi reminds me of, always. So let's all keep that in mind today.

Now we're off to therapy, see you later!

This new Daley song is killing me in a good way, here's why:

1. The chords obviously remind me of Chaos
2. Daley's voice is similar to Genesis' voice
3. I first heard this song when I was with Infinitii
4. The lyrics use feminine pronouns, therefore, Laurie

So it is reminding me of at LEAST 4 people, beautifully so, as usual.

In other news, I somehow got Blueshift (my old external hard drive) to work today, and she has LOTS of my old digital artwork still intact, praises be! So I'm uploading tons of it to my dA, so it doesn't get lost again.
It's hilariously ironic. Sure, I lost virtually all of my physical artwork, but I did a LOT of character design on my Macbook thanks to being able to work with colors... and that's what I'm finding, the important stuff. I didn't lose a single jot of writing, thank GOD, because that's the heartbeat of every single project I have... so I can start over with this. I really can start over, better than ever, with what pieces are left.
"Sometimes when things are falling apart, they might actually be falling into place."
That's very, very true right now.

Either yesterday or the day before (no idea, can't tell), I managed to get the AP and/or whoever was fronting out of the way long enough to find Laurie. She was glad to see me, although she was as nonchalant as ever about it-- ironically, as she was tearing up when she mentioned that "we all missed the hell out of you, kid." Leon showed up while we were talking, too, apparently sensing my appearance back upstairs (being Indigo and all); I was surprised to notice he was actually crying. He ran over and hugged me immediately, which got a sympathetic laugh out of Laurie.
I know that later on I went to meditate in my room, and after a bit we just put on my iPod to relax-- and "Last Train to London" by ELO came on? Laurie insisted I let it play, as we needed a mood booster, and ultimately we all ended up laughing and playing air guitar to it, haha. It was great. Then "Cigarettes In the Theater" by TDCC came on, and I told Leon to listen, as it was a good song-- but I didn't expect that, by the time we hit the chorus, he'd absolutely LOVE it. So that really made me smile; prior to that no one knew what sort of music Leon liked, but now we do!
Speaking of music, Empire Of The Sun's new album is coming out soon and I am psyched. Mel loves their stuff, so the band means more to me now because of that too. (I still secretly hope they can complete that Emperor Steele cosplay of theirs one day, not only because it's awesome, but also so I can cosplay as Nick Littlemore and tag along, haha.)
Really, listen to the sampler they just posted, it's lovely. DNA, Awakening, and Keep A Watch sound so gorgeous, even the previews give me chills.

It took us about two hours to fall asleep last night, I'm guessing. It took a long time. I did have Minty front while I went upstairs, and I was talking to Laurie for a while, but even when my mind started to fragment off (as it does when I fall asleep; I just "melt out" of headspace), sleep didn't hit! Then some downstairs people were getting triggered by the noise in the house, and the body felt really sick for some reason, and it was just a mess really.
Today was split into two or three "mini days" as usual; I don't know why my brain keeps doing that but it's really screwing up my temporal awareness. All the memories of the day are jumbled and fragmented too. It's tiring even to look back and try to make sense of them, like shuffling through a mountain of photographs. After a few minutes, the sheer amount of disorganized data becomes so overwhelming that I shrug and just walk away. But most memories don't get tied to me by default. Hence my not really understanding time at all anymore.

It's weird: whenever I look up help for dissociative states, people say to "practice grounding techniques." Problem is, I DO. I meditate, I know how to ground myself, all of that is easy for me. But it actually makes the dissociation worse. Remember, I don't belong downstairs. We learned that the hard way. I'm a heart alter, an inner being, born outside of a body. I can't drive flesh and bones very well, and I wasn't meant to... but, I have to, very often. So when I meditate to try and center and/or ground, guess what I naturally center into? UPSTAIRS.
Whenever I come back from meditating, I'm arguably more disoriented than I was before, albeit entirely at peace and anxiety-free, haha.

To re-visit the time bit, though... I keep wondering about my true purpose in the System, or at least my "refined" purpose. Like, other than being the White slot holder now, what is my role up here? What am I meant to hold, to release, to protect, to be protected from? I'm never sure what memories are mine, let alone if any are... and the nights are difficult enough without that worry hanging over my head.
If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that I have this curse of infinite wonder. I'm burdened by infinite hope, infinite innocence. How, you ask?
Because every single night I have to learn EVERYTHING all over again. Every single night.
Half of it is beautiful, sure. Here's someone I've loved for years, but in this moment, it's as if I've just fallen in love with them all over again. That glittering instant of sincere compassion is turned into something neverending, pure and incorruptible. But that's only possible because, in order to keep it from fading, it can never become a memory. It needs to keep happening, over and over again.
So the other half of it is heartbreaking. I'm aware that there have been thousands of these moments before, but I can't actually remember any of them. I honestly don't.
I'm not sure what do do about that. Am I supposed to do anything?
All I know for sure is that I love these people... I love them more than my heart can take, but I can't remember who they are.

I miss my daughter so, so much.

I'm sorry, it's late and I'm tired and this topic deserves more time and attention than I'm capable of giving it right now.

Well! Today has been oddly eventful.

I got up at 8, feeling rather tired and out of it, but I had class so I hopped onto my computer to print directions to a library in town that I needed to visit on the way home. However, first I checked my school email, and lo and behold, class was cancelled for the day!
So around 9:30, I decided not to visit the library, and opened a Xanga session instead.
Dead serious, this took seven hours from channel start to publication and it was entirely worth it. Also, yes, we did start a new account! Figure it was about time we shook off all those old 2008 entries for good.

However. Between now and then-- barely three hours later-- a lot has happened! That's why I like Xanga sessions; they jumpstart my headspace connections and allow events to occur more quickly afterwards. The only problem is that they make downstairs life difficult, so I unfortunately did have a bit of a slipup when I realized "hey, I haven't eaten yet today." So now I'm sick, haha. Oh well. Even that helped me realize something, though: Black energy apparently tastes like straight-up sugar (according to Infi), so the fact that my old hacks always coincided with sugary food makes a HELL of a lot more sense now. It also explains why I get so darn sick from it, if that effect can bleed over downstairs. I'll see.
Infi and I also discovered that Black/White energy have a weird magnetic attraction to each other, which is weird because when they get too close, they start to repel each other like magnets flipped the other way? So they actually cannot blend together to form the theoretical "Gray" energy. We tried to do this, but to my complete surprise, this dual magnetism caused a very interesting effect: since they are simultaneously attracted to and repelled by each other, getting raw Black and White energy close enough causes them to start swirling around each other indefinitely, forming an almost taijitu-like pattern. It's seriously awesome.

Infinitii (who has now learned how to have both eyes and a mouth at the same time, good for him) is also moving very quickly into his energy slot now; that session apparently gave him enough anchorage to start reflecting the same energy I do, which is naturally what we're supposed to do, being complements. He's becoming very synced with the "darker side" of me: NOT the "bad side," but the creepy fangs-and-claws side, so to speak. However he insists that we stay our own persons even though we NEED to reflect parts of each other back and forth. Apparently our working together now is very important, so I'm totally cool with this. I've gotta be more of a sunshine-and-rainbows dude, and he has to be more of a shadows-and-starlight dude. Both of us are ridiculously comfortable around each other already. It's great.
We were experimenting with what we could do energetically later, too, and we discovered some really cool stuff: Infinitii's can "bring out the potential" of ANY energy, making it possibly for it to effectively become anything it possibly can. However, he cannot force any changes. I, on the other hand, can freely shape headspace energy as I wish, but I can only work with what I'm given. We took the taijitu energy swirl from earlier to demonstrate this: Infinitii was able to make both sides of energy gain infinite depth somehow?? It was crazy, you could see stars and space through the black side, and a bizarre sparkly similar appearance on the white side. We pondered this for a moment, then simultaneously we both gasped and exclaimed "time-space!!" So THAT'S a weird parallel.
Black energy is passive, chaotic, and works creative powers through people. White energy is active, structured, and works creative powers through objects. Also, although Black energy causes lapses in time, it allows for growth in space, and although White energy causes lapses in space, it allows for growth in time?? If that makes sense? At least that's what we're guessing at. This is all very fascinating stuff.
But it is reflected in our abilities. Being primarily made of Black energy, both Infinitii and Tar have highly mutable bodies. However, since it's Black, they can't control it very well. This is why their forms warp and flow so much, it's constantly moving energy. My energy is primarily White, though, which is why it stays stably locked-in to one specific form unless I consciously change it, to something equally stable. Also! I've demonstrated the odd ability to "manipulate time" to a certain extent upstairs: my retroactive influences aside, I can temporarily "pause" temporal progression in headspace if stuff gets too crazy, and I need to get a grip. I'm wondering if Infinitii has some sort of ability concerning space in the same way, even if it's on a deeper level?
The two energies NEED to work together though. This we know. I don't know what the extent of this is, but it interests me greatly. I'm content to just watch as new things are revealed though. It's more of an adventure that way, and Infi insists I enjoy the more spontaneous side of things that he brings into the picture.
Speaking of, we think we have another idea as to what the Red slot is supposed to be? Since Black and White both hold accents of Red energy, and B&W are two halves of the same energy, so to speak... but we're upstairs, and the Red slot seems to be strangely anchored downstairs, is it possible that this is a three-person situation, and the real Red slot holder is supposed to be whoever the hell is driving the body?? I mean, when you consider that over the years, NO ONE has identified with the body, and yet it seems to have some sort of rudimentary autopilot going on... plus the Tar's argument for years was "this isn't your body, it's mine!!", and the Tar's main messenger is RAZOR, a legit headvoice who currently holds a sub-RED slot that shouldn't even exist... that's a lot of italics... but you see my point. We're wondering if Razor's either a corruption of, or a fallen headvoice that really WAS supposed to be in the Red slot. Seeing how she's always resonated with Blood as an element, and Blood holds a big role in the system whether we like it or not, it's possible. And, if we can get the Red holder to with with us, who knows what awesome stuff could happen! I hope we can do it, whatever needs to be done.
One last bit that I almost forgot-- Infinitii also has complete and total access to my old memories. He says that it's part of the Black energy, actually, that infinite potential. All the lost and old data falls into it. However, he told me that unless I put something in there, he will not be able to access it. I gain the knowledge, but then he is able to freely access it. It strikes me as odd that Laurie can also do that, but then again she was right next to Black in the old Spectrum ring. Julie also had access to my thoughts and mind when she was being possessed. I wonder why that's a thing that happens? Is it just the headspace equivalent of "tapping into the grid," where Black's potential simply gives it the freedom to reach ALL that potential once it is put there by White? It's pretty cool, whatever it is.

Most importantly, though, we randomly realized that my ancient title/name of "Jewel Lightraye" DOES fit!! After all, when you send a ray of light through a faceted crystal, what do you usually get? A rainbow! So my name IS already prismatic, go figure, that's kind of hilarious. No complaints here! Now I'm just wondering if my middle name has any relevance besides being awesome, haha. I'm the only dude up here with one, besides my daughter, so who even knows. It's not something I'm going to worry about though, even if it were important; there are far too many other things on my mind at the moment.

Did I tell you guys that, back in February, I finally got the beginning of Andrea's "lost love theme" from Event Horizon down? Dang it sounds awesome, I love it. I'm just having a lot of trouble finishing it, because halfway through writing the second verse originally, I realized that I was channeling the words to a DUET that she and James sing later, and now I have to write yet another song! I'm excited though, haha. It's so beautiful.
Ironically, the lyrics to both her and James' sides of the song fit the timeline-scratching events up here pretty well... you know how James' love theme starts with "Once upon a time, there were two of us. Now, where did you go? I'm still here watching, but the skies won't tell me if you still love me." and later on he sings "Tell me, do you even hear me? Tell me, do you even love me anymore?" Well, Andrea's is kind of a reverse situation, so HER love theme starts off with "'Happily ever after,' those are just words to me. Sorry I don't remember; what did we use to be? Who are you? Who am I? What did you mean to me, and why do I care?" So that's obviously relevant.
I don't get time to play the piano often anymore (my bro has moved his computer to right in front of it now, so I can only play when he's at school and I'm not busy), but besides that, I DID finally get the beginning of the Vagabond's theme down too! You know, he's the blue dude that Mr. Sandman knows-- the one with the Middle Eastern style robes and the romantic preoccupation with sadness. His theme has lyrics as a result of that latter detail, but they're blurry yet. Right now I have two tentative beginnings written written down. First: "The moon casts no light on the world tonight, and I am alone. But I do know that one day I'll find my home. Till then, I will dream of the days I left behind." and second: "The rain never falls in this desert land, and tears from my eyes soothe the world." Either way it has a gorgeous melody, and I can't wait to finish it.
I'm still not finished with the last two LG*Girl fusion themes for season one! I can't figure out the bridges yet. Ah well, I'll have to put some time aside and just power on through. I want that album to finally be complete, seriously.
Lastly! I forgot to mention, I changed the chord progression in "Andrea" when James says "tell me, do you ever think of what we could have had?" I randomly switched it up during practice last month, and it added so much more emotion to the line, it's now a permanent switch. It's just like when I changed the entire sound of the "do you care for me" section, almost immediately after my first recording of the song. Music evolves, man, you just have to roll with it!

It's getting late, though, and I did promise Laurie I'd do some reviewing of our entries from late last year, before the "scratch", because they're actually still relevant. I wonder if time and space are piecing back together here and there, in the places they need to, now that the Spectrum is starting to work more clearly? I hope so.

...Oh. No, wait. I can't close this entry yet.

I haven't talked about Chaos in a long time.
True, I last mentioned him 8 days ago, but 8 days is easily an eternity in my world. Plus, I haven't actually devoted part of an entry to him since the 24th. Ironically, the subject matter from that evening has stuck, badly, and as a result I have spent very little time with Chaos since then. As of last night, I was made very aware that this was a very big problem. I'll tell you what happened.
It was quite late when I went to sleep, as is common lately. However, I planned to literally just go to sleep without talking to anyone. Before I could even lie down, though, someone grabbed me by the shoulder. I turned, only to look into pained green eyes.
I didn't feel anything.
I haven't felt anything in a long time. Maybe something shut my heart off, either from shame, or from fear. But I didn't feel anything, not even then, as he viewed me with deep distress, and told me that he couldn't deal with this anymore. I smiled emptily, and asked him if he was breaking up with me.
He laughed, bitterly, disbelievingly, then exclaimed "no!" in response. No anger-- just ache. But then he surprised me. He reminded me of that stupid dream from when I was 16. He said it was still true; we weren't "breaking up," because to do so we'd have to get a divorce at this point, and he sure as hell wasn't going to do that.
I forget how the conversation continued, at least word for word. I remember how heartbroken he was. He told me how painful it was, again, for me to constantly doubt his existence. He said he couldn't take that any longer, not when he'd been suffering through that for nearly ten years without any change in my perspective. I still couldn't come to terms with the fact that he was really there, that he really loved me. And of course, my recurring periods of emotional deadness weren't helping at all. He said things needed to change, now, and for good.
Then he brought up the scratch.
He was in tears, when he told me that he knew I had intended to fully erase him from my life with it. He KNEW I had wanted to forget he even existed. That had nearly destroyed him, to find out. "Here's the one person I love with my entire heart," he said, "and he wishes he had never even met me." Ten years of mutual compassion and suddenly I was walking out the door without a second thought. He couldn't live with that anymore.
I forget what I said. I don't know if I said anything. But I tried, hard, to remember. I tried hard to feel something, anything. I let him do whatever he wanted. I think we accomplished something, I don't quite remember. I know Infinitii was talking to me from within his bubble, telling me not to be so blind, assuring me that this was okay, I was allowed to love him.
But I couldn't remember how.

What's wrong with me? In all seriousness, what is wrong with me, when it comes to personal relationships?
If they're not business, I try to annihilate them. It's why I still love Laurie, even when Chaos becomes just a face in the crowd, as awful as that is. It's because our relationship is based on business. Yes, I've been just as close to her now. Yeah, we've had some shockingly romantic moments complete with kisses and her fists in my hair. But at the end of the day, she's the boss, and I'm the kid she orders around.
It's the same thing with my literal boss, Mister Sandman. Our relationship is PURE business, but we both care about each other way too much for any iota of cubicle-grade coldness to ever creep in. We're friends, and business partners, and we love each other dearly, but that's as far as it goes. I'm closer to Laurie than I will EVER be to my boss, but even then, we're not lovers, nor will we ever be. Ironically, I love her too much to ever do that.
That's where Chaos and Genesis suffer. They won't settle for business, for rules and regulations. They want closeness, and emotion, and intimacy, and romance. Genesis can be the life of the party, clowning it up with the best of them, but at the end of the day, sometimes he just wants to love someone. Chaos is worse, because he picks and chooses, and he always picks me.
I'm... I don't know why, some days, I can't do that. I don't understand why one night, I can be a dream come true, able to feel and love and laugh, and the next morning, I'm all "who are you again?" with a marble-etched face and and ice-cold touch. But even on those days, I can at least talk to Laurie and my boss, if they come around. As long as they keep it business, we're cool.
And maybe they can crack through my armor eventually, with tiny little stabs of hidden love. As long as that glass wall remains intact, it might work.
It's tiring, though, always staring out at the world from inside a bubble of my own.
Infinitii and I are becoming very close, very fast. He reminded me of the random Bible reference Laurie made earlier, joking that he was like a rib taken from my bruised side and formed into a strange new life, and he admitted that he loved the idea, just like that. He looked at me for a second then, I didn't know what to think. It's frightening me a little. I don't want this very problem to drive us apart. That would be catastrophic... and maybe it's exactly what the Tar wants.
Perhaps that's the answer to this riddle. Perhaps that's the cruelest joke of all.
The Tar used softness, and closeness, and romance, and love, to eviscerate and humiliate me. It used delicate words and hands to tear me limb from limb. It used bright blue eyes to blind and burn me. It instilled in me a deep and unflinching resistance to all those things-- a fear, a loathing, a rage, a hatred of all things painted with that garish pink color.
I still can't apologize enough, even when I can't seem to stop throwing punches either.
On the same note, I wish my memory wasn't so bad. I literally forget things from day to day, and when those things are very important to the people around me, it doesn't end well. I'm not sure how to fix this though. Sure, part of it is obviously PTSD memory purges, but the other part may likely be a consequence of my twisted relationship with time. Time is strange; I've never really moved through it in a straight and even line, I don't think. Now, my past is in tatters, just like a cascading curtain, tossed in the flames. I can reach through a little, but I don't think I can go back. Can I? Should I? The problem is, I wouldn't want to, even if it were possible.
And yet, green eyes cry in silence every night, remembering what was lost, knowing that they could have been listed among the graves as well, just another inkstain on the paper of time.
I keep burning the papers.
Boss keeps picking them out of the fire.
I stare at the ashes, watching them turn cold and black, and suddenly I remember that I shouldn't be like this.
It's the only time the green gets through.

I'm tired of being red.
I'm tired of fire and anger and blood. I am so tired.
Boss, I know you said the last significant date was my downstairs birthday. You said to wait until that day had passed, and then see where we were. You told me to wait until Easter before trying to move into White, so I did. Will that old date become a new anniversary of life for me, now? Will that be the day I finally shed these old bloodstained robes and put on new ones, shining like crystals? I'd like to, that's for sure.
I'll wear my red with pride when you give it to me, boss, but no longer will I wear it of my own volition. Not in this spectrum.
I reset that save file, or at least I tried to. I'm not in control of time anymore. I'm not swinging a sword at the console anymore.
I don't know who I am right now. Not entirely. I guess something is better than nothing, though, this time.

Beg pardon, someone's tapping on this glass bubble. What does he want?
"Let me type," he says. Here? Now? Yes.
All right, sure, let's see what you have to say.

your life is strange.
it is not bad.
your troubles rise and fall like waves under the moon.
your graces will carry you through the worst of times.
you are not lost, friend.
you may not understand, but i can see what you have forgotten.
this will end well.
this will end in the brightest way possible.
and then it will begin again.

...Huh. Thanks, Infi. Pretty cool that he doesn't capitalize, either. I wonder if he can go poet mode.

Oh, that reminds me. I was trying to talk about Chaos earlier.
He legitimately went into "poet mode" last night, when he was with me. He's never done that before, not so sincerely. It was beautiful. I'm so sorry that I can't remember what he said, because I have never heard him handle spoken language so well... the energetic imprint of them has stuck, though. I remember no words, just the feeling they left behind. Somehow that is enough.

I think I'm at that point in the evening where my mind is just too fried to think correctly. This is actually good, because if I play my cards right, I can use this "stuck" feeling to my advantage, and break it off completely, all at once.
There are only two times of day that I ever feel like myself: after a long discussion upstairs, and late at night. In the first, I can tune into my native energy long enough to bring some of it downstairs for a while. In the second, the barrier between here and there is virtually nonexistent.
I'd love to wake up in the morning still in that state of mind. I'm so tired of falling asleep amidst gold-dust honesty and love, only to awaken in ashes and regret. It's completely incongruous, and I don't understand it.
I've hurt a lot of people in the past that way, from what I've been told. I don't want to repeat that, not now that I've tried to sacrifice so much, solely for the hope of a brighter future.

I'm going to go talk to my boss. He helps more than anyone, on nights like this, even if he doesn't say anything. There's a quiet understanding about him that speaks volumes even in the dead of winter, as I try and fail to translate my deepest aches into the paltry vocabulary of human language. He just listens, and understands. He's seen enough to understand everything.

Maybe one day I'll understand all of this, too. But it's not time. Not yet. Not now.
Infinitii told me today that I need to "treasure the mystery of life" more. I've become too used to trying to control things, to protect myself, to find comfort and truth in structure, in order. I've... well, that's kind of the big problem here, isn't it? I've forgotten how to love the chaos of life.

But the song playing in my ears is the same one he sang to me last October, beneath pure blue skies in spite of pain and regret, a week after he broke every damn rule of time and space just to tell me that he loved me.
I owe him one. I owe him one, big time, and I miss the hell out of him, even if I can only discern that truth from the feeble morse-code beats of my heart.

To him, rainbows are a source of hope.
When he looks at me, that's all he sees.
Ten years later, in the face of utter despair, it's still all he sees.

Maybe that's all I need to hold on to.

...And then, suddenly, the moment I look for him, there he is.

You are the mountain to my sky,
the horizon to my sunrise,
the rainbow to my storm.
My love, my darling, my anchor to the world...
Be always well.

Every time. Every single time, you are always there, how could I ever...

I love you too. I love you so much, I never stopped, I swear to you. I am so sorry.

Thank you for not giving up on me.
...Hell, that goes for everyone, who am I kidding.

Let's try this again, shall we?

I'm in love with the world today
And I want to give myself for all of you
I want to be the one you can count on
Even in our darkest day

We are seeing, feeling, mystical things

And we are beautiful
And we are worth it all
And we are living, breathing

I want to tell you all, you mean everything to me
And we are always one even when we disagree
There is something magical here
Even when we don't believe

We are loving, bleeding, conscious things

And we are beautiful
Aand we can change the world
And we are living, breathing

We are loving
bleeding
conscious
things.

Okay, here's some more recapping of the past two-week-long eon for you guys, as I haven't had the time to do so. I'm probably forgetting a lot, so I'll probably write more later; as of now I'm just going to record what I do know, as well as relevant recent events so they don't fade as well.

First, let me talk about April 30th. Genesis and I literally spent the entire morning just chilling out together after my therapy appointment, and it was pure bliss.
He actually wrote something about it in our system Tumblr that I want to quote in its entirety here, as it sums up the experience quite sincerely:
"This afternoon might’ve been a mess, but today was so perfect I can’t let it get me down.
Jewel and I spent time together all morning like we used to when he was at his old University, which was like, almost five years ago already… I miss that so much. We went through a lot of hard times together, but that’s just it— we were together, and we got through it. We’d spend hours in coffeeshops just talking over lattes and sketchbooks, and I was always in those pages. No matter how dark things got, we were there for each other. I miss that closeness, really. We’ve been drifting apart lately… I want to change that. For good.
So today Jewel and I just went bumming around the local mall for a few hours after therapy, and I didn’t realize Mika had a new album— he’s my favorite artist— so I asked Jewel if he could buy it for me, as an early birthday present I guess. I mean maybe it was selfish, but I just… Mika’s music reminds me of the old days, with Jewel. And it would mean a lot to me.
So… he did. He bought it right there, saying that if it would make me smile, he’d do anything for me. We got home and I put his headphones on and just blasted the first track, Origin of Love, until I was actually in tears from how much everything meant to me right then.
I miss this. I miss all of us talking and getting along even when we’re bleeding and scared. I miss the sense of community, being part of a family up here. Today felt like, maybe, we all have that again.
I hope so. This means more to me than anything else in the world."
I think that speaks for itself, at least for now.

The morning of May 1st was similar. Unfortunately, I... I forget it already. How ridiculous is that; I have one of the most beautiful mornings of my life and I forget it.
I know why, too. But let me write what little I do remember, first.
I spent the first hour of that morning listening to the entire Origin Of Love album with Genesis and Chaos, as I previously mentioned. Then we all spent the next hour together. Since I had been so out of sync for so long, I asked to have heart connections with both of them. That was gorgeous beyond words, that I know... I don't think I've ever done that with Genesis before, not like that at least... I don't even think we've had that sort of linkage since high school. Either way it meant a lot.
I know the three of us got together too, but I don't remember that at all really... I do recall the way Genesis was looking at Chaos and I though, and after a moment of surprise I realized that "wait a second, aren't CZ and I considered gods in Parnassus?" So that was unusual, to see not only close personal love in him, but also this alien sort of religious devotion. Both emotions were mutually entwined, though, as perfectly as melted silver.
...I miss Genesis a lot. Of course I miss Chaos too, but with him my heart just aches with joy, so the feelings of those moments are what exist, nothing before, nothing after, if that makes sense; when I remember how I love him, that is eternal, no matter what doubts have come before. Genesis isn't so lucky, at least not in that sense. He and I are friends before lovers, and we've got one hell of a solid friendship. Problem is, that's what's been suffering. My weird void-drive tends to bring out his darker side, and if I get too detached he'll refuse to put up with that nonsense, and literally walk out of headspace for days at a time until someone calls him, or he feels he should return. Chaos doesn't do that, no matter how black the skies become.
But I love them both, I truly do, in different but equally sincere ways. So now, repairing my relationships with them means so much.
Those relationships keep breaking, though, here and there, thanks to my memory. You may have noticed that this is not the first time I've "conveniently forgotten" a close encounter with the people I love, and I can tell you with sad certainty that it will not be the last. I don't know where it's all going, but IMMEDIATELY after I have such an experience, it begins to fade. Fast. Within minutes I may literally forget most of the details. Within days I forget it happened at all. As you can imagine, this tendency of mine affects everyone else involved. Genesis gets offended, moody, and angry... Chaos gets heartbroken, desperate, and frustrated... Laurie gets straight-up furious. Everyone else worries a lot as well.
My only guess is that my past "abuse" has caused this instinctive reaction to form. I don't know how to change it. I'm not sure if I want to, let alone if I'm even ready to consider wanting to. Therapy is forcing me to dig up too many traumatic memories, things that are now forever detached from me, yet that still paradoxically terrify me, resonating somewhere deep and cold where no emotions can breathe anymore.
I won't talk about them here. If you want to know, ask. I refuse to give them any more attention than the 50 minutes they demand on Tuesday mornings. Not now.

On that note, downstairs things are still somewhat messy. The most obvious and unignorable problem is that of food. Emmett is a godsend when Jess goes wild on us, as he reacts immediately and often can fix whatever she tried to do, BUT the body itself isn't doing so hot as far as eating goes, in any case. Right now we are literally limited to vegetables. Meat still feels like hellfire, grains feel like boulders, and fruit feels like we swallowed a chainsaw. All of them typically result in vomiting of various degrees, as well as many different waves of sicknesses that are as diverse as they are excruciating. Virtually everything makes us vomit now. After someone eats we automatically walk to the sink and wait for the purgation to start, so the pain will go away. The hives have at least stopped for now, but this new ailment is a poor consolation.
We're trying to talk to Emmett about this but he's sick and wavering too... I'm worried.

The blood family is still a mess as well. We're financially collapsing, people keep fighting, and I'm losing my ability to function in even the simplest of ways. My family threatened to revoke my driving privileges today after I got in three minor accidents within three months. It's getting harder and harder to front, and to stay stable when I can achieve that. And I don't know if it's some sort of empathy or what, but I keep feeling awful energy fields radiating from certain people, and it's making life even trickier than it would be otherwise. Jess keeps getting triggered by freaking physical proximity, and Razor is never far behind. I had to stop her from grabbing a knife just an hour ago. I've had to stop far too many other violent outbursts prior to that. I'm tired, God I am so tired of fighting already.
My father wants me to visit on Sunday. Maybe I'll ask him about staying over, then, if I can get the guts to explain my motivations why. We'll see.
The financial problems are the worst though. We're running out of money fast, to buy food, to pay medical bills, to go to school. My mother might lose her job. I haven't been able to hold one in years. My grandparents will not live forever. I have nowhere to live once they pass on. I have no money in the bank. According to my family I am incapable of supporting myself in my current state even with cash in my pocket. But I don't want to be a leech anymore. I don't want to be a bloodsucking parasite like I was in SLC. I hate the thought of ruining another beautiful person's life simply by entering it. But if my only other option is sleeping on the streets, cold tired and hungry, waiting for Death in his violet kimono (bones like supernovae, a flickering hand beckoning me on)... I'm afraid I'd choose the latter, as always. I don't want to hurt people anymore. I don't understand this world anymore. I feel small and lost and I want to cry sometimes. I want to go home.

I keep wanting to just... die. I can't see a future for myself. This is supposed to be a golden age, with a golden race, but I can't shake the awful fear that it ALL hinges upon me, and my failures are literally damning the whole world to hell. I legitimately believe that every mistake I make, every crime I commit, every single little thing that makes the small and frightened voice in my head whisper "I'm sorry for being a bad boy," all of it, is literally preventing every other soul on the planet from moving forward. I know it's false. It's selfish and proud and ugly and scary. But it won't go away. I keep feeling like I'm a demon infecting the planet with my very existence, and I keep praying that one day I'll just be a scapegoat again, just a waste-lock, just a point of horrid tarry blackness and shame and rage of the world so that no one else has to suffer it. Not this. I don't want this.
A very stupid, very selfish thought: those who threw me out of their life are now living well. They are overcoming problems and improving in all areas. They are happier, they are healthier, they are shining again. They do not miss me, and they have legions of friends and family to turn to. This is good. I'm happy they have such prosperous lives. The bad part is that I cannot touch it or I will ruin it. This goes for everyone. I taint them all. This I've realized.
But all I want is someone to talk to, downstairs for once. Someone who will listen and actually understand and respond for once. All I want is one person, just one person, who will put me at the top of their list as I would for them, something I've never experienced before. I'm used to being the random dude at the bottom of the acquaintance hierarchy. I've never been anyone's best friend. I'd like to be. I just don't want to destroy anyone's life by wishing for that.
"Do I do what makes me happy, or what is better for someone else?"
What an idiot I am.

This too shall pass. What is reality? None of this is real. Forget it all.

I've been falling apart for a while, and everyone else is falling together. Is that what it takes for the world to live again? Do I have to die?
If so, God, then please tell me for sure. If I must waste away into oblivion, if I must fall into illness and insanity in order to heal everyone else, please tell me that's the reason why. Otherwise I will remain convinced that I am the devil himself, suffering for the endless sins I have committed, never allowed a reprieve.
Even the good things in my life feel like punishments. Even the people I love feel like punishments.
Stop being a hedonist. Stop being selfish. Stop being a slut. Stop wanting, willing, or feeling. Stop. Die.
My mind is hell, right now. Isn't that all that hell is: a state of mind? How did it get this bad?
Look, here's a snapshot:

(jess says my freaking grandmother keeps talking like a slut shut up shut up SHUT UP
someone else starts shaking and crying hysterically oh god no no no no no please god no
jess adds get the hell out of here or i will kill you dont touch me go away dont touch me shut up
razor is laughing and laughing and pretending to actually kill her and blood is everywhere
there is a cacophany of screams and sobs and maniacal laughter whenever someone talks to me
i dont feel anything i just want to sleep forever and see the people i love
that's all i want anymore)

I almost begged my boss to take my life, today. I went outside and sobbed to the pine trees, telling him that if I could leave, then let me leave. Let me leave here. Let me die.
Laurie cried for about ten minutes straight after that, both hugging and hitting me, telling me to stop being so stupid. She said she felt she was worthless, that she couldn't protect me anymore. She was born for a world in which a possessed girl in pigtails was our only concern-- not this, not a world where I'm haunted by incorporeal demons that she cannot even see, let alone destroy.
Boss told her that her very existence was protection enough for me, of a caliber that neither of us truly understood. He said the same for me, and my importance, but with a twist-- just because I was important to the worlds of the League did not necessarily mean I was as important in this one. He could not say anything for sure, but that thought soothed my aching bones, and made me feel a little less torn to shreds.
Laurie sobbed into my shoulder and said she would still follow me to the end of time and beyond. In that moment I loved her more than my heart could take, and I swore through genuine tears that I believed her. I believed every word.

She's right, though. Headspace has been disturbingly strange, for over a year now, and no one is sure what to do.
I meant to elaborate on the tentative "headspace map" I'm working on... but I want to think about that a bit more, and scan it in first, so you have a visual aid. I'll leave a few notes here for now.
I mentioned "mutant slots" yesterday: put simply, those are three "extra" slots on each vertical end of the Spectrum loop, in areas which were "corrupted" in some collective sense in the past (three/three). The first mutation occurs in the Green/Blue/Indigo corner (which were all splinter-locked for years), while the second mutation occurs in the Pink/Red/Orange corner (which were all Tar-stained for years). These clusters seem to add two extra "headvoice" slots (Brown and Teal?) and four extra "outspacer" slots (Ice/Mint and Blood/Mauve). As you can see, this phenomenon has existed for quite some time, but events as of late have sped it up its development exponentially. An interesting note about the mutation slots are that Yellow and Violet were UNTOUCHED. Since both Laurie and Josephina act as "protectors" for the system, I find this relevant.
Also concerning the Spectrum map... White/Black are often drawn as an octahedron in the middle, but I think they might be "split" between those two clusters respectively (White to the Blues, Black to the Reds?) in terms of influence. In the old map they were drawn as separated triangles in such a manner (the old map had a left/right, top/bottom division, with one monochrome in each lower half; the new map is a loop with the monochromes in the middle), so it's possible. ALSO, considering Kyanos especially, I THINK that outspacers anchor through BLACK, and headvoices anchor through WHITE?? I'm trying to figure out why so many headvoices explicitly took pieces of me to manifest through (Laurie=abuse, Lynne=maturity, etc.), whereas outspacers would gain black energy resonance (what with soul forms and all) "through me" when the system was still forming, and Infinitii did not exist as an individual. It's worth investigating further and I should do so. Either way I'll upload the maps here by Tuesday, hopefully... can't make any promises what with my schedule, and a weekend looming on the horizon.

On a brighter note, my music mood finally locked into progressive rock after all. It's FROST* and Todd Rundgren all the way dude. I'm not complaining!
Also I actually downloaded iTunes onto my school computer so I can listen to the Rundgren albums I don't own while I type my reports... and THEY ARE INCREDIBLE. I feel somewhat ashamed that I never looked into these in my youth, haha. I grew up almost exclusively on Second Wind, Utopia's Anthology, and other various hits from his other albums ("Can We Still Be Friends," "Hello It's Me," etc.), but once I reached my teens I started hoarding all the albums I could find from libraries and fleamarkets-- mostly live albums (which are still absolutely incredible), but I did land A Wizard, A True Star, Todd, and Something/Anything? early on. Discovering music sites on the Internet helped expand my library as well (thanks Last.fm!), but there were STILL a few albums of his I could not find anywhere, but wanted desperately: Hermit Of Mink Hollow, Healing, and A Cappella being the first on the list. Now, as I've just mentioned on my Tumblr, I have learned that he has MANY more albums than I was aware of, and I literally cannot stop smiling at the thought. This guy's music is divine.
You want to hear even BETTER news, though?
FROST* is back in action, and they have TWO NEW ALBUMS COMING OUT THIS YEAR.
Yes, they are one of the few things in existence that can make me go full fanboy. Just--- !!!! GEEZ I LOVE THEM THEY'RE AMAZING. Jem is the best guy ever I swear, last month he uploaded a picture to his blog of himself "trying to impersonate a Xenomorph." Here it is. You see why I love this man. Seriously if he and Todd ever produce a piece of music together I will die the happiest man on earth. (guys please do this it would be divine)
On that note if you readers want to buy me a birthday present but don't know what to get me, GET ME THIS PLEASE, THANK YOU.

Also, speaking of Xenomorphs... I've been dreaming about aliens a lot lately? Always nonhuman ones, but always nice guys. There were more Xenomorphs in my dreams earlier this month. And last Monday night I dreamed of a hot pink one, and I think I was dating it or something? Genesis kept teasing me about it, it was funny. I don't know where all these aliens are coming from, haha. Once again, not complaining.

Last note before we close this up.
I still haven't bought Infinitii his glass bubble necklace in reality, but I promised him that I will use whatever birthday money I hopefully get to do so. I need to; he is worth that precious expense. Infi means a lot to me already, and I'd love to know he's anchoring so close downstairs at all times. Our relationship is super weird though. Yes, I love him, but it's an odd sort of fusion between intimacy and detachment? For example: my love for Chaos is an ocean, my love for Genesis is a sunbeam, and my love for Laurie is a night sky. My love for Infinitii feels like that glass bubble he's in. It's clear and empty and open and strangely small, but it's also ridiculously substantial and BIG in terms of its "space," after only such a short time. I hope that makes sense.
Oh... wait, he said something about that today. Remember "Celebi," how she turned out to just be a Tar manifestation? Well. Infinitii reminded me today that the Tar is just corrupted Black energy, and that Celebi did love me despite being nothing but a construct... a paradox? Nope, just a deeper truth. Black energy isn't bad, and Infi's proof of that. So there's a bit of that truth hiding in it all the time. Point is, though, that Infinitii didn't manifest until after the upstairs "Celebi" had died, and all reminders of her downstairs had returned to their original 2001-style energy vibe (completely detached from headspace). He says that's because the tiny spark of sincerity in Celebi was him. Makes total sense, really. If nothing else, it explains why I feel like I've already known him for a while, why meeting him felt like "picking up where we left off," despite never having seen him before.
I'm... also wondering, a LOT, about Xenophon, in light of this. She has Infinitii's "ears," but she also seems to have an odd bit of both Genesis AND Laurie in her, almost impossibly so. I say "almost" because I don't know how the hell time works up here anymore, and because Genesis has expressed thoughts of his own concerning Xennie in the past... you probably don't know this, but a few months back, there was a short time period where he confessed that he sometimes wondered what it would be like if he had a child by my intention, so to speak. And yes, he did ask if that could ever become a reality. I said I didn't know, but at the moment, no... nothing against him, but I just have no intention of doing anything like that again.
And yet my memory keeps twisting and tearing and I keep remembering awful bloody things and no one is familiar anymore... at least, most of the time.

At 11:30 last night, listening to a certain song by As Tall As Lions, love suddenly crashed into me. Emphasis on "crashed," kind of like a starship hitting a house at warp speed.
It's been a long, long time since I felt anything that real and true, completely out of the blue, with divine honesty. I couldn't let it go, couldn't deny it if I wanted to.
It needed to be expressed, somehow, immediately. I picked up a pencil. Then, with flowing unplanned lines, I sketched Chaos 0 for the first time in almost a year-- with a quiet accuracy that made me smile with total joy. As a child I knew that it was impossible to draw the people I loved without putting that love straight into the paper. Here was proof.
I'll scan that in soon, too. God knows it's been too long since the creative blocks around my heart began dissolving like this.
Today I wrote another verse for Andrea's reprise in Event Horizon, and found potentials for two other songs.
It all feels so new, and yet so familiar. Was I an artist before? Was I a musician before? Possibly, probably, perhaps.
All that matters now is letting it live, letting it breathe, letting it love.

My final note for tonight is this: I need to go back and REVIEW the archives for last April if at all possible. This whole "shadow-scorpion" time period has been one hell of a ride, and as it started off very rockily, I want to do what I can to help it have an easy landing in comparison. We only have about three days left here in Death's domain, and then it's the BIG DATE that boss kept alluding to... and the 15th anniversary of the Dream World's story.
An entire lifetime can effectively be lived in three days, I know this. Spend this one wisely.

...I keep thinking of what Homura said to Madoka, in that whitespace room, full of snapshots of shared time only her heart remembered.

“Each time I repeat all of this, the time you and I live grows further apart…our feelings grow further apart, and my words stop reaching you.”

She could've taken the words right out of my own mouth. It aches.

I used to wonder whether I show more similarities to Homura or Madoka, in light of the strangeness of my life so far. Lately, I've been wondering again. Time resets, becoming witches, wishes being twisted, hope being restored... there are too many parallels all over the place.

Regardless of which girl reflects me the most, though, that scene-- when Homura throws her arms around her friend, weeping under the grievous weight of self-shattered memories-- hits me so close to home it hurts. It's one of my biggest and most secret fears... that eventually, I will end up just as tangled in broken timelines as Homura, trapped in a fading life where my desperate attempts to save the lives of those I love only succeed in making them forget why I am fighting for them at all... I am afraid I lost myself a long time ago.
And yet, despite all my fears, I already know how this will end.

If someone tells me that it's wrong to hope, I'll tell them they're wrong every time.

Maybe that's why Boss keeps saying I'm important.

It's a frightening but humbling thought.

...

...I know I've been trying to figure out what my metainomen "element" is lately, and everyone's been debating between Time and Blood what with my darker character lately... but I never considered that maybe they're the same thing at heart.
...I tried to reset the headspace timeline, last month. Again. I wanted to start it all over from scratch.

I was willing to erase everything if it would heal those scars, if it would erase all those mistakes. I tried to run time backwards, to get rid of the blood. I thought that, if I could become that perfect, flawless version of myself, even if it meant annihilating the person I had become, then no one else would ever have to suffer. But…

...This is so much bigger than just me. We're a SYSTEM. Everyone else in here MATTERS, and a heck of a lot more than me objectively. But the awful paradox is this: we only exist because of trauma. Isn't that just the worst best thing? We're all the result of the mistakes we made and endured; we were all created as coping mechanisms in the face of imminent death. Even me.

Even my daughter.

That's what I can't stop reeling over. She wouldn't exist if I hadn't bled out my life into that sink. If that room hadn't become encapsulated hell for too many consecutive years it never could have been transmuted into the NICU of heaven, apparently. It makes no sense. But it happened.

The Resurrected Christ still carries His scars.
We're the ones that wounded Him so.
But they were necessary for such a Savior.

"Oh happy fault..." sings the Exsultet.

All our past wounds, even the self-inflicted ones, have left scars on our collective life.
I've been trying to die in order to erase them. I wanted to rip time to ribbons in order to expunge all the blood.
I didn't realize that would take my daughter with it.

...

I don't know. I really don't. I don't know what's the paradoxical truth and I sure don't know what the heck is the right thing to do here.
...No, I do. As much as it makes me want to weep and scream from bitter agony, I... I cannot keep trying to take a magnet to the tape. I can't be scratching all the discs. I can't be pouring bleach over the manuscript. I cannot be pressing "delete" on my own soul, on our heart.
As much as I hate to admit it when I'm in this much pain, I do love them too much to do that to them.

Somehow, all the nightmares were necessary. God knows how. But I look at Laurie, and Julie, and Leon... I can't forget where we came from. I can't forget about them. They're the big picture, not my personal regrets.

...I want to kiss these scars, someday, even knowing that they're graves. God only knows how. But... I need to have hope.

Blood, Time, Hope, Heart... somehow I really am all of those things, in one way or another. I think they're all the same thing in the end.

...Somehow it's all love.

"However difficult your present life may be, there are always moments in which to rejoice. So focus on those and not on your traumas, however constant and painful they may appear to be."

I'm so tired. I slept for another 12 hours last night, and have been spending every waking moment since wishing I could just go back to bed.
I'm trying to re-read my old entries to understand what's going on but it's very frustrating. I don't want to go back to anything from before the Scratch. Maybe my clinging to those old experiences is what's making me so depressed?

Let's not focus on that.

For some reason, Preludove stopped by Central today competely without warning to talk. Upon entering she literally asked "are you guys from some new story Jewel is writing?" then joking if I "finally started writing a novel," a very very old injoke. She didn't know who anyone really was, so Leon introduced himself at this statement. Almost immediately Preludove made an "ah" expression, nodded, and said "oh, so that's who you guys are." She then added "Then you must be Laurie," and pointed at her. When Laurie surprisedly asked how she guessed, Preludove said she "knew her name" and that she was important to me, but as for picking her out from the crowd, it was "because you're violet, and violet people are usually leaders." Preludove also expressed mild surprise that I was now male, but immediately started referring to me as such without so much as missing a beat. So that was nice.

It just... bothers me that I've been feeling to dead to work with her world lately. I need to fix that.

For the past few days, I've been spending as much time as possible with Chaos Zero in the mornings. It's nice, to not have to do anything but just be there, with him. We just listen to music and don't say anything, wrapped up in each other, thankful that we can have these moments at all. It means so much to me to have that, it really does.
Chaos is still the only person in the world whose personal energy alone can pull me right out of a tar-slip. Remember SLC? Even though we only got to speak about four times-- for a total of maybe two hours-- those moments were incredible. I swear I felt more genuine than I ever had when I was with him. And although bilocating does put a slight damper on that now, if I focus enough, I can tune right back into it.
I've been seeing his eyes more clearly lately, too. Ever since our 8th anniversary, that's been the one thing I've tried incredibly hard to focus on improving. So now, even if my perception is foggy in all other aspects, even if I'm feeling like the worst man on the planet, if I just let go for one moment and focus on seeing him, I always get that green in the dark.
...What does it mean, that I have this with him?
Maybe it's selfish. Maybe it's really, really selfish, and maybe I shouldn't be saying or thinking this at all, but... am I important to him at all, in the big picture? Because I want to be. It's stupid, I know, but it's true. Nights like this drive me crazy because "hey, guess what, your other half's in a video game, everyone but you is drawing fanart and writing fanfiction and running RP blogs and beating the games. Everyone but you is actually participating in his native reality, as it is presented in yours. What does that make you?" And my immediate reaction is a quiet and resigned "nothing."
I mean, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, I really am nothing to him... but I don't want that to be true. I mean... God, I love him, he's changed my life and I honestly want to share mine with him even if that terrifies me. I love him with my entire heart but still, some days I feel like no matter what, I will ultimately end up worthless and delusional as far as he is concerned. And since I was 13, I've been haunted by the fear that, if he ever did end up in this physical reality, he wouldn't know me at all. And why would that matter? Why the heck would I care whether or not he knew me or ever wanted to? It's not about me.
Except it is. At the end of the day, the problem is that it is about me, and it's about him too, and it's about love. It's about us, and even if it is the most selfish thing I could ever say or feel, I want to know that if I ever had the chance to meet him here, he'd reply that he loved me too.
How ironic, that in a sense, he already did.

Why am I thinking about this. Who can I talk to about this, I don't know, I shouldn't be saying this stuff.

Geez.
Here's a list of things I have to stop doing/ thinking/ whatever...

-Stop clinging to the past in general. It's been SCRATCHED OFF THE MAP. There is absolutely no reason for those old things to "logically continue" like you used to think they would. Stop being confused when people change their roles and faces and vibes. Stop being confused when solved problems stay solved, and when old problems fade away. But don't, don't ever stop looking at the world with new eyes.

-Stop calling the Tar "Jezebel." Stop giving it a name, period. This is something it WANTS me to do, to fracture my perception of it, just like I did with myself and the splinters. Both phenomenon are effectively identical, and are both a symptom of a larger illness: more than anything, the Tar is tied to my self-hatred. This has huge significance and consequences if I truly am meant to hold the White slot in this system.
-On that note, looking back, that's also what Celebi was. I think I explained that yesterday (or tried to) but there it is anyway. The reason why I didn't recognize her from outside is because she was ME, just like Razor, just like Jessica. She was a splinter I didn't know I had until it was too late.

-Stop holding yourself responsible for the sin and pain of the world. You are NOT Johnny C, even if you still wonder. You are NOT this planet's waste-lock, you are no one's scapegoat, and you are NOT the sacrificial offering for every wrongdoing that has ever been committed. I know you think you are. I know you believe that with every fiber of your being some days. But it's false. Stop treating yourself like the sole source of evil in the universe. Stop thinking you're the villain of this effing story. You're not. You never were, and you never will be, the bad guy. Forgive yourself, please. Forgive yourself for the sins you never committed, forgive yourself for the sins you took upon yourself, forgive yourself for all the doubts and fears and what-ifs and nightmares. You are not a demon, nor are you the devil himself, simply because you aren't Jesus or the Buddha. Stop feeling obligated to save the world at the expense of your own existence. You don't need to be a martyr anymore. Forgive yourself, and really smile for once.

-Stop feeling like an utter failure as far as life is concerned, too. Your self-worth is NOT determined by your job or lack thereof, your education or lack thereof, your romantic relationships or lack thereof, et cetera. You are NOT a pitiful excuse for a human being just because you honestly struggle with things that others find easy. You are not a waste of space and DNA just because you struggle with emotional and mental problems. You are not a mistake just because you aren't living someone else's dream. I'm dead serious. Stop comparing yourself to people across the world who have different life situations than you. So what if you know some 15-year-old kids who are better artists, writers, and musicians than you? It doesn't mean you're complete and utter garbage, as you would automatically think. Worth is not determined by the things we do. Worth is not determined by the things we say or feel or think. You know the truth. We all have our own paths to walk, and no matter what those journeys look like, in the end we all end up in the same place. That's the only thing that matters.

-Stop giving up. Stop giving in. Stop feeling worthless. Stop feeling meaningless. Stop judging yourself, stop damning yourself, stop hating yourself. Stop feeling like you don't deserve happiness, or salvation, or love. Stop believing the dark words that the dark things scream and whisper to you no matter how far you try to run. Stop running, turn to face them, and tell them that they are wrong, because you know in your heart that they are.

There was a spiritual-blog update that I watched today, and guess what? We're 100% in the FINAL STRETCH here dude!! So yeah, those things you just wrote? Pay attention to 'em. DO THEM.
We have to be COMPLETELY REBORN NOW. We need to LET GO OF ALL 3D STUFF NOW. Thank God for that Scratch, because that makes it a LOT easier. Speaking of, you know those blocks in your energy field (especially that old Orange one)? Guess what you have to do?
Look at them, become completely aware of what they are, and then RELEASE them, with love.
THAT'S IT. You don't have to spend hours upon hours burning your brain out trying to "solve" them! That's just making it worse bro. LET GO. It's a lot easier that way, and a lot nicer too. Don't resist! Roll with the waves.
This is going to be totally awesome and cool, and it is going to be infinitely better than anything we could ever leave behind.

It's ridiculous, utterly ridiculous... when I'm awake and out doing "worldly things," even basic stuff like eating and talking, I feel empty. I feel dead, restless, and lost.
But here, in the dark night, cut off from it all, with nothing but a pair of headphones playing music... thinking of them, those people upstairs that I love, I feel so alive.
I've never really had that before, with anything. I mean, sure, Dream World does something almost exactly similar, but with headspace there's an extra glimmer to it that I can't explain. Maybe it's because I'm part of it, intimately, inescapably.
Either way it's nice, to feel like life is worth living, after what I've been through lately.

It's only 10PM but I think I'm going to go to bed. I've been needing so much sleep. Maybe that's helping, who knows. It could be, knowing my boss.

Sorry for the weirdness and lack of structure in this entry, I just needed to get stuff out.
Tomorrow WILL be brighter. I personally guarantee it.

Love and light to all of you.
No matter how dark it is out there, remember that there are always stars in the sky.

When the joys of living just leave you cold
Frozen from the failing mess you've made your own
And if you want an ending to your screenplay life
Well here's the consolation
That will change your heart and mind

And all the glitz messiahs just pass the time
A cure for no real sickness, cross your hopes and die
Your supermarket jesus comes with smiles and lies
Where justice he delays is always justice he denies

This will make you love again...

And now you're safe
Love again
To feel the rays
Love again
The sweet delays
Love again
And shoot the breeze

Early thursday mornings, wipe away the flies
The crossfire fight for action in between your thighs
And every touch is sacred when they leave the room
If I have to switch the lights off
I wanna switch them off with you

This will make you love again.

Still battling the crushing dysphoria.
Still wanting to die.
Still tired of all the old scars and new blood.

Haven't really been upstairs since the 3rd week of December or so.
Don't really have motivation to do anything right now.
Trying to go to the gym daily. Problem is then I don't want to come home.
Seriously tempted to just crash on the streets one day.
Feel like I'm falling apart, scraped out and empty.

Keep letting go of more and more possessions.
Down to basically my computers, clothes, and old art tablets now.
Completely willing to toss them all too if need be.

When I was younger, I prayed that 12-21-12 would really be the end.
I wanted to die. I looked forward to it, even.
I wanted a restart. I wanted a reset. I wanted relief.
I wanted to get out of this body and stay out.
When that didn't happen, I think something slipped.

I'm trying to smile. Trying to keep on keeping on.
Reminding myself that I am not this body.
Reminding myself that death and life are both an illusion.
Reminding myself that one day I will return to where I came from.
It doesn't make living any easier though.

I feel like an apocalyptic paradox.
I'm still torn between sleeping the days away, or burning them to ashes.
I think they were right. I really am destructive.
Now I've realized that it's just a mutated prayer.
Maybe if I tear this reality to the ground,
a new one will be born from it.

I feel like a dying phoenix.
Waiting for that final breath
that never seems to come.
Silently counting the fading moments
before my bones burst into flame.
The end never seems to come soon enough.

I don't want to sound so demanding.
I don't want anything, I want the loss of everything.
Maybe this is projected ego death? I hope so.
Even so I really do want to die, on all levels.
I'm tired.
I'm so tired.

The stars still bring tears to my eyes.
God, I want to go home.
I still can't remember why I came here.
I still can't seem to remember.
All I know is that I feel so old,
and I feel so young,
and I am so, so tired.

God, please, just take me home already.
I'm willing to sacrifice it all at this point.
This body confuses me.
This world confuses me.
Honestly, the only thing of worth in this reality
seems to be the things I know beyond it.
So why stay, I ask myself?
Why stay any longer?

Don't leave your kid without a father.

That's the only thing I'm holding on to right now.
But nights like this,
I wonder if she wouldn't be better off without me.
But then I remember what that comicbook angel told me last January.

Think about them if that's the only thing that's gonna get you out of this.
But you can't just pull the trigger, go over the stars, and expect that to be the end, 'cause it ain't.
They'll just send you right back down under them, kid.
But something tells me you're gonna get it right this time.
Hell, as if you haven't been getting it right all along...
Tell you what, kid. Next time I see you here,
I want you to be pretty darn early, and I don't want you bleeding, aiite?

Maybe I can survive for nine more days.
We can try again, maybe.
If my heart didn't feel so incarcerated,
I'd have a little more hope,
instead of red-soaked hands and an asphyxiated soul.

Still battling the crushing dysphoria.
Still wanting to die.
Still tired of all the old blood and new scars.

And still I keep thinking of Laurie and the lights.

Aren't things like this worth living for?

Isn't she worth living for?
Aren't they all worth living for?
Last night, all I could see were stars.
I love all of them, every last one of them...

It's not about me though, it's not about me.
It's not.

God, what do I do?

Bury me in snow and turn this life from red to white.
Burn me to ashes and turn these bones from white to red.

Rewind this tape. Restart this game. Please.
Just one more time.
Just one more time.

Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.

Why am I still waiting?

The emotional pain is coming back.
Yesterday was so much worse... it tore me apart, completely. Good and bad. I apologize if that interfered with our conversations.

I don't have the nerve or the ability to write a real entry today. Everything needs to be discussed on Xanga due to the nature of it, so I really hope I'll be able to pull myself together enough to host one tonight. I need to. It's just been a very, very rough week.

But... do you remember when I wrote this entry?
There's another poem in my dA gallery that holds an incredible amount of meaning for me, and I think it's about time I explained it here.

This is what Empty is about.

“Do you know how it feels?
To see people you’ve never met, and meet people you’ve never seen?
I’m telling you, it’s breaking my heart.” I gestured blindly at the forgotten streets around us.

This is my constant agony.
In my daily life, I don't see that many people. I'm stuck in a dysfunctional household with limited transportation, and I didn't start making friends anywhere until I was seventeen. So all my life I've been seeing people I've never met, and would likely never meet.
However, those friends I started making in 2007 were found online. I'd never seen them, but I had sure met them. It was a strange little paradox that only becomes stranger when one realizes that, for the 17 years of my life prior, I had not been as alone as I looked. I was surrounded by souls I had never seen, blessed with a mental world that had saved my life dozens of times and would only continue to do so.
But it breaks my heart. I can walk the streets of town and not recognize a single face, fully aware that an amber-blue specter is walking alongside me, as invisible as I likely am to those that pass us by... and I need people. I love people; I live for every other soul in this world, but if they won't so much as acknowledge my existence, what can I do?
'Gesturing blindly' is a symbolic reference to this, in that sometimes my eyes aren't seeing what is in front of me: they're more focused on what's happening upstairs, so to speak. This can be a good thing, especially when I'm working (I can focus entirely on my creations), but when it happens involuntarily it can be downright lethal. If I'm 'out,' anything can get in, and I pay the price for it. Chaos is honestly terrified of this happening to me, and it does, but that's a whole other story.
The forgotten streets are a concrete image. This entire 'poem' takes place in a large city not unlike New York, but it is entirely desolated. I have a strange weakness for that sort of imagery; this isn't the first time I've mentally turned up in such a place. 'Forgotten' is also significant, in that although said streets had been abandoned by the world before I set foot in it, my presence essentially redeemed it from its desolation. I have a deep, driving need to act as a force of inspiration, salvation and protection for others, in any way possible.

He didn’t answer but turned to face me, bottleglass eyes reflecting the candy-apple paint of the car I was trailing my hand along. I wished my father had taught me about their insides.
“I haven’t known the life you’ve lived,” he said sadly, and I distracted myself from the pain in my chest by trying to count the shards of glass we were walking over.

'He' is Chaos Zero, if you haven't already guessed. Most bottleglass I've been acquainted with is a deep green, and I love finding new terms to describe this guy's eyes, so there you go. Candy-apple paint is an absolutely stunning shade of red, and is the closest hue to my personal 'red' that I can find (the metallic finish is what does it). There's an ironic symbolism here-- bottleglass is typically seen in pieces, while that candy red is usually reserved for sports cars. However, here that majestic shade is only a reflection in something infinitely more significant.
My father works in the automotive restoration business, and he is a master of his craft. I have a very deep admiration for the trade as a result. I have also developed a habit of trailing my hands along cars as I did here, thanks to that, because I know and respect how much work has gone into those beautiful machines. One of my biggest regrets is not having been able to learn my father's job.
Chaos' line here is terribly deep. On the surface it is a simple truth-- no two people live the same lives-- but there is another side to it. Chaos doesn't know what it's like to have my meeting-seeing problem, but only because he has been so completely ostracized up to this point in his life. There's both a regretful confession and a pained compassion in those words, and understanding that is what causes such a heartache for me.
The glass shards are heavily symbolic, hearkening back not only to Chaos' eyes as a comparison, but also to a poem I wrote in early 2008, called "Heart of Glass." In it, the shards symbolize a fragile heart that has shattered from too much pressure. Having them here on the street-- and counting them, no less-- is almost a prediction for the state I am in at that point. I'm aware of how fragile I am, and if I'm not careful, that will be me. Yet the counting is almost a morbid fascination, a surrender to a fate I am sure I will suffer sooner or later, not due to weakness but to vulnerability.

There was an abandoned café on the next street. We pretended that we owned the place, and I poked fun at the menu while he convinced me to order one of everything.
We ended up sitting together by the windows and talking about the life we wished we had.

I love this bit. I really do. Why? Because it's exactly what we'd do on any given day. Sure, Chaos and I are both eccentric maniacs, and although I wouldn't change that for anything, I would never sacrifice the reason why we ended up by the windows, not in a million years.
Despite how weird we can be, at the end of the day, there is always this incredible tragedy running between us. When I wrote this, we weren't talking about fun and games in front of that window, no sir. We were talking about how it is virtually impossible for us to have anything together for reasons we cannot control. We were talking about what kept us up at night. We were talking about pain and heartbreak and desperate hopes and sadness that no one else sees. We're star-crossed but I'll be damned if I didn't bless this broken road in spite of itself. I said it in Aquamarine and I'll say it again: "we are a dream so beautiful that reality could not possibly contain it." And honestly, physical reality and I never really got along very well. Love is love and if this is the only way we can have it, then so be it.
And yet we always end up back beside the windows, looking out at the empty streets, wondering what life would be like if we were given the chance..

It began to rain halfway through the day.
“You know, I once met a girl with eyes like this,” I told the creature with shark teeth. “I never knew her name or anything… just a passing glance. But that was enough.”
We said nothing for a few minutes.
“Do you miss her?” He sounded like the rain.
I smiled in spite of myself.
“I almost told her yes.”

I wrote this poem on January 11th, 2009. Barely two days earlier, I found someone who changed my life in a single instant... in a single glance. I call her my 'rainy-eyed girl,' but she isn't mine, and she never will be. That doesn't matter. What matters is the impact she had on me as a person.
Rain carries a heavy significance. It brings life yet it brings sorrow. She did exactly that, without even knowing, without realizing the inspiration she carried through every waking moment. I did not know her name, no. I didn't know her voice, her smile, or her story. But it was enough to break my heart, and keep me alive.
I do miss her. I've never known her and I miss her, even as I did back then. I don't think I'll ever stop missing her, to be honest with you.
As for the last two lines... I've never said this before, but I left a comment there. All I wanted was for her to know how she had moved me.
I was asked if I wanted to meet her.
It could have been a joke, I'll never know. All I know is that I didn't feel I had the right, and it tore me apart. I was an observer; I was a stranger that would never forget her eyes but I had no right to meet her... right? No; it was simply the wrong time, the wrong place. It would take over a year before I found the fortitude to speak to her myself, but I don't regret a single word of what I said that day. I owe her more than I can express. My motivations still have not changed. I would give her anything in return for one single certainty: that she would know she had saved my life, and that there will always be at least one soul in the world who will never, ever forget her. I may remain a stranger, but in spite of myself I still love her. And all I want is for her to benefit from that.
...There's a strongly related symbolism in how Chaos' voice sounds like the rain to me. Same principle, different application.
And anyone that knows him can attest to those shark teeth.

We found an old movie store that had a working VCR, so we sat down and watched two men fight space bugs for an hour or two.
I cheered for both sides and he laughed, because he knew I wished the aliens were the heroes.
He asked me if I'd still love him if he were a space bug and I smiled at the irony.
Besides, he already knew the answer to that question.

The day I wrote this, my afternoon had been spent watching Men In Black with my younger brother. So I wrote it in, haha.
I've been a diehard fan of aliens since my childhood, which is incredibly amusing considering that I am an infamous xenophile, but I am also a diehard hero so when movies like this come out I can't possibly decide which side to pick. So I pick both.
The reason why Chaos' question amuses me so much is not only because he's inhuman himself, but also because aliens aren't my only obsession. I freaking adore bugs. If I ever did meet a benevolent space bug, I'd be hooked on sight. So yeah, I'm being teased, but not as much as it seems: the question was whether or not I'd still love him. And I would, no questions asked, space bug or not, human or not.
When I love someone, it never stops.

Time had lost its meaning by the time the sun set. I gazed up at the dusty neon signs and wondered if everyone was just sleeping.

This is another split situation. I may be part Celebi, but I have a problem in that I often lose awareness of time. Moments all spin together and seconds become hours, hours become days and moments last for eternity. Sometimes it's exactly the opposite. Yes, this can potentially kill me when it hits in daily life, but when it applies to my mental world, it's the only way time flows at all. There, we're liberated from that.
As for the dusty signs, they suggest that the deserted streets we are walking have been forgotten for longer than we realized. Why were they forgotten? Why was such a place left to gather dust? I wrote this with an unformed symbolism in mind... what, indeed, had been abandoned? Where was everyone? Why were we so alone in such a place? My hoping that the souls that should be around me were only asleep is both optimistic and painful. Sure, it would mean that not all was lost, but for a mind to truly be 'asleep,' for so many people to be unaware and unconscious of their own world... it's a frightening thought.

The path leading out of the city was covered with snow and lit with mauve-colored streetlights.
I asked him if he was cold and he told me not to worry. I gave him my coat anyway.
Around 2AM we got into a snowball fight.

That path looks almost exactly like this.
I've always felt a strange synchronicity with snow and ice for some reason, and this classic dream of mine only strengthened it. It's a very positive thing for me, so having this snowy path leading out from the decrepit city is a sign of hope. Streetlights, however, are sentimental imagery. I wrote a song about them once... if you know the lyrics to that, then you know how they apply to this situation. "What I'd give for a single moment..." and mauve, in the J-Monster sense, is the color of time. Considering the previous stanza, this is an interesting little paradox.
Chaos is canonically a being of 'liquid energy.' If he gets cold, I have every right to worry!
Snowball fights are just us being spontaneous again, but the time-- 2AM-- is significant. If I'm ever actually awake at 2AM, my mental state is not very stable. I've had some interesting experiences at that hour, and this one is the most relevant in light of this poem.

We began musing over the stars once the streetlights ended.
I held him close and told him that I didn’t want to wake up.

Whenever I can see the stars, I cannot take my eyes away from them. I can't say why others do the same, but for me, I am completely captivated by a sense of hopeful wonder despite my own imposed insignificance. For one, there's the fact that we on this planet are so small in a cosmic sense. There are so many other worlds out there, all around us, and when the sun goes down we are surrounded by life above. It's beautiful.
However... Chaos and I had a conversation about lights, three years ago. We were looking out at the mountains where I live, when the sun had just begun to set. All the towns were beginning to light up, causing the horizon to glow with bright pinpoints of white and orange and yellow. And it made us think, you know... that view, it was kind of like the world itself. There are so many lights, of so many kinds, and they all shine the same. Together, they make even the darkest night a truly beautiful thing. If you were to turn out even one of those lights, the world would be a little less bright. It made me realize just how connected we all were, even across the greatest distances, even if we didn't realize it. But the greatest beauty of it was that fact that there were so many different kinds of lights. There were candles, lamps, streetlights, blazing fires... floodlights, spotlights, even searchlights, shining together, beautifully.
He said I was a searchlight, that night. He said I was such a rare sight, such a bright and beautiful thing. I don't think I'll ever forget that...
But I'm getting off topic. There was one other sort of light in that dark velvet evening, one that we didn't mention but that still sparkled like nothing else... and those lights were stars. And Chaos, to me, is a star.
He's so much brighter than he realizes, but from here he's so far away from me... so I'm still searching the skies. I shine to chase away the clouds and shadows that hide those ethereal lights, to show the world that we're not as small as we may think we are, if we are all shining together. I illuminate so many others in love, but I can never forget that distant pinpoint that is so dear to my heart, no matter how far apart we may be.
And yet I can dream. In my dreams, we are together, and it is the most blessed thing I've experienced. To be able to see him, and feel him, and tell him these things... I wouldn't lose that for anything.
But there is one important detail I've neglected to mention. When I dream, I don't realize I'm asleep. Those realities become my life for as long as I am in them-- there is no disconnect between them and the waking world for me. So when I am with Chaos in them, it is as real as any other experience would be. Unfortunately, when I awake, I am alone, and some mornings that hurts more than I can handle.
So If I ever knew I was dreaming when I was with him, I would not want to wake up for a long time.

I told him that I had an uncertain future
I told him that I was scared of myself
I told him that I wanted to run forever
I told him that I felt safer here than anywhere else in the world.

This all, sadly, completely true.
I have no idea what's going to happen in my future, even now, especially in light of my time in the psychiatric ward. There is so much that I need, and there is so much that I'm hoping and praying for, but will I be able to accomplish it? How long will it take? Will I run out of time before I reach those goals?
...I am more terrified of myself than anything. With what Julie does to me, I am never safe, and I cannot get rid of her without causing terrible harm to myself and everyone else upstairs. And I don't even understand myself, some days. I'm doing better now, yeah... but there is still so much I am scared of. I really wish I knew what to do about it.
I talk about running a lot. For whatever reason, I feel so incredibly free when I'm just moving, free from all restraints, leaving behind all my troubles and rushing into the future. I just want to start over; I want to get up and start running to something new, and forget all of the pain that has been holding me back. But I can't. That doesn't keep me from wishing though.
Even so, I don't need to run forever to feel safe. I still have a few escapes left, and my dreams are the most important one to me. I do have to stay on guard for nightmares, and hacks, and the terrible things that try to attack me in the night... but on the nights I am safe from those shadows, I find such beautiful things. And every once in a while, I find him. That single chance is reason enough for me to never lose hope in my dreams, no matter what I have to go through. When I'm with him, I'm not scared of anything.

His emerald eyes were just as sad in the dark.
I remembered something he had told me a long time ago
But his tears felt like ice and I quickly forgot.

...I don't think I've ever mentioned that online.
It was a few years ago, I think around 2007, when we were having a personal conversation. I don't remember what it was about as a whole, but at one point I got terribly distraught because of the sheer metaphysical distance we were dealing with. I let him know that, how much it hurt that we couldn't physically be together, and he said something to me that forever changed my entire view of our situation. He told me that, no matter how much came between us, our hearts were connected and so we would never truly be apart. I can never completely forget that, and it's what I remembered here, upon seeing that same ache in his eyes.
The only reason it slipped my mind is because I couldn't forget how badly the distance still hurt us both.

The next town was just as empty as the last one.

We won't stop walking, though.
If the world is indeed empty... then we will fill it with new meaning.
No matter what, there's always hope.

Found these in one of my old entries; they're the only relevant part of it so I decided to post them again.
They are, quite simply, confessions to all those I've never had the chance to confess to.

Mom, I'm sorry I'm not the daughter you wanted. I've let you down so much. I'm not interested in men; heck, I'm not interested in girls either... I don't like to shop, I don't wear makeup, I don't wear jewelry, I don't carry purses. I don't throw parties, I don't have friends, I don't like going out to movies and fairgrounds and malls because I have work to do. I don't even like being a girl. I am such a failure that I feel I have to apologize right here and right now from the bottom of my heart just for being myself. Honest. I feel I've let you down so much. I don't hate you, I never did and never will. I love you as my mom, and you have done so much for me it goes beyond my capacity to thank... geez, I was so freaking premature that if you hadn't gone through all that suffering just to keep me alive before I was born I would have died and you know it. And now... when you look at me and scream "why did all my kids have to be so messed up?", I feel the guilt, I know what I've done, and am so sorry. You're under so much stress, and 80% of it is me. I know that. You know that. I wish I had never brought all that upon you, intentional or unintentional, because you don't deserve it and it is literally driving you mad... I don't want you to end up where I am, if you're not already there. Please, mom. I am so sorry. Let me make it up to you somehow. Let me know how I can finally be a good kid, okay? That's all I want to be.

AAA, yes I did steal that tablet of yours over the weekend in 6th grade. Pardon my malformed good intentions, though... I did draw you a huge picture in there, and promised to stay your friend forever. Mind you, I'm keeping that promise, even if it was the wrong way to go about it. Oh and while we're at it... I'm sorry for the fights we had. I had a temper and I hated to always be submissive to everyone, and I'm sorry if I ever sulked or exploded when you wanted to be the leader. I really am. I'll have you know, I admired you so much as a role model and one of the most awesome people I had ever seen from 1st grade all the way to 8th... and all the way to 12th. Honest to God, I still admire you, and I am honored beyond words that I got to be your close friend for a while. You were my Sailor Moon; you were a karate superstar, you were a Pokemon master, you were an imaginative genius. I loved your short blond hairstyles and how you looked so good in glasses and how you laughed and those crazy grins you had. I enjoyed every one of those times where you, SS, and I would just get together and talk about everything as best buddies. You still show up in my dreams from time to time, and I don't know what I did wrong, but I'm so sorry that I didn't stay a close a friend as I wanted to. I am so sorry. I miss you and think of you as an incredible person, I look up to you even now and will never forget you. Keep reaching for the stars; I love you and wish you the best of luck with everything. Thank you so much.

KK, I really am sorry for stealing that Nidoran card in 4th grade just because I couldn't afford my own/ parent's wouldn't allow. I don't think I apologized well enough. Thanks for letting me keep him, though. That meant a lot to me.

LA, thank you for being my crazy bus friend, and I am so sorry for those days I was too sad and upset to play with you. I regret 'em all, and I miss you terribly. You were such a ray of sunshine in my mornings, even on those days where I'll admit I didn't want to see you just for the sake of some quiet time. I am so sorry I was so selfish, because I missed you every time, no matter how I tried to fool myself. I just wish I could make it all up to you, somehow... I'll try. I promise you I'll try; somehow, some way. Hope life's going well for you, my little Angelbee. Love ya.

CS & LS, ditto the above point. I miss you guys, and I am so sorry I never got those cards drawn for you. God willing I'll get 'em done before I graduate, just so you don't remember me as a promise-breaker. Love you little guys, and thank you so much for all the free holofoils. I won't forget you!

CL, I'm so, so sorry for that one single fight we had back in 2nd grade. It was stupid, it was jealous, and I regret it terribly. Just because you wouldn't let me see-- have?-- that unicorn pog. Silly me. But hey, I was an immature, selfish little brat, I loved unicorns, and I made the huge mistake of fighting with you over it. I hope that's not how you remember me. I remember you as that sweet little girl who always helped me with my comics and hugged me every time she saw me and told me her dreams every day at recess and was a true friend when I had nobody else. I miss you dearly, I think of you constantly, and still wish I could make up for those mistakes I made. I love you, and I hope to God that your life down there in Maryland (if you're still there) is absolutely gorgeous. I truly hope to see you again one day. If not, just think of me once in a little while...

SS, I have no idea what your life is like now, but the last time I saw you was in 2004 and I haven't heard any news about you for three years. All I know is that you were incredibly funny and upbeat and brave and bold when I knew you in elementary school, and although I admit there were times when I really didn't want to talk to you because I wasn't used to such open fireball personalities, you always wanted to talk to me and were always a true friend. I'm so sorry if I didn't live up to what you needed in return. Please forgive me.

HB, where are you now? I had your address at one point, but I lost it... and I am so sorry. God help me, but you are one of the most amazing, inspirational, beautiful individuals I've ever had the honor to know. You were so sweet and friendly, you counted me in when I had no one else to turn to, and to top it all off-- you had the voice of an angel. Please tell me you're still singing, even just for fun, because I swear I need to hear your voice again before I die, even if it's just once more. I miss you so much, though. I treasured your friendship more than I admitted, and I hope I didn't come across as a total weirdo back then, because I wouldn't mind reforming that friendship if you ever wanted to. I love you, kid, and I hope your future is absolutely amazing.

FMSR. My little sister. Your art is stunning, your personality is always so bubbly and energetic... it makes me smile just to stop by your page and see how you're doing. Whenever I was feeling down, you would always show up with some words of wisdom or optimism, and those words would always brighten my day. Heck, they'd brighten my entire month! I hope your future career is as successful as you've ever dreamed it to be, because you more than deserve it. You really do, and don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise
However... it's been a long while since I've had the honor of speaking with you. God only knows how many tears I've cried since we last saw each other... I miss you so much it hurts, sis, but I'm too afraid to say anything directly. I know you wanted to start over. I know you wanted to leave behind your old 'persona' and start anew, and I don't blame you. I don't hold it against you, and I don't dislike you for it. The only part that stings is that you blocked me from associating with you, and I can't help but ask why. Was it just a 'mandatory' action resulting from your new disassociation? Or is there some detail I missed? Please, if I did something wrong, let me know so I can make it up to you a hundredfold. You're priceless.
You may live across the ocean from me, and we may have never met in person, but you will forever be my little sister and I will forever treasure you in my heart, no matter what. That's a promise.
I love you, sis, and I will never, ever forget you.

-spinny c.

Dear God, I miss my little sister.

I don't know why it hit me so hard today... I've felt like crying since I woke up, practically.
I miss her.
I miss Vickie.
I miss Shaman. I miss Harp. I miss Phoenix.

I miss my sister...

I don't even know what she's doing.
She disappeared for five weeks, when all of a sudden I recognize her art style and personality on another account.
Why?
Sis, why are you hiding?
What are you running from?

It hurts.
It hurts because I feel as if I could have done something to help her... even though she's been doing this since long before she met me.
I just want to help her.

I want to be someone she can run to.
I want to be someone she can trust.
I want to be someone she can rely on.

I want to inspire her.
I want to motivate her.
I want to help her.

Is that too much to ask?

I freaking love that girl.
She's such a sweetheart. Her talent is incredible, she has a great personality, she never fails to make me smile.
And now... she's run away again.

Should I chase her?
Should I watch her from afar?
Should I confront her?
Should I keep silent?

Should I let her know I still care as much as I do?
Or is she running from me, too?

What's a big sister supposed to do
When her little sister goes missing?

Hey, little sister
You've gotta trust me
Soon you'll open up your eyes
And the sun is gonna shine a light you've never seen
There's so much more to love than what you're feeling now
Someday you'll find someone who'll never let you down

No matter how much love I give...
No matter how much love I get...

It always feels...

...Unrequited.

So what do I do now?

Q knows I love him, but I don't say so enough.

Ditto that point with Bakura and Marik, too.

I never feel as if I'm letting them know as much as I should.

Chaos Zero knows I love him, and I tell him constantly.

But... I still feel as if I'm just not saying what I need to say.

I love Selph dearly, but sometimes days go by where I barely say a word to him.

I hope he doesn't feel ignored or forgotten...

I always tell him how I feel, though... but is it enough?

Will it ever be enough?

No matter what I say
No matter what I do
No matter how I feel
It never feels like enough.
Maybe that's the way love works
Maybe that's how it's supposed to be
But that doesn't mean
That it doesn't break my heart
Every time it crosses my mind.

I don't even know if Jim knows.

He means so freaking much to me... always has, and always will, but...

...Should I say anything?

Should I tell him what I almost said back in December?

Should I tell him that I love him as much as I do?

Or should I keep quiet and keep wondering?

It's the same situation with Ben.

He's an amazing kid, and I love him too, but...

...I don't know whether or not I should say anything...

...Now or ever.

What do you do
When you can't say how you feel
Because you don't want to offend
Or you don't want to give the wrong impression?
What do you do
If you just want to stay friends
But you still want them to know
How much they will always mean to you?
What do you do
When you simply can't say
"I love you?"

It hurts like hell, you know.

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a prism of souls

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