the spectrum heart cathedral system

 

JUNE 2013

This is what the Black section of headspace should look like.
One day I will make it so.

-Infinitii

 

 

 This setup is very similar to our meeting space in Central (especially those huge windows).

 

 

This is essentially what Central looks like right now (during the lockout).
Obviously, this is not good news.

 

This image, right here, is disturbingly similar to how Jay looks when he slips way too far... dripping tar and broken rainbows alike.

 

I have dreams about hallways like this all the time... these empty, long, quiet white things. They're usually in hospitals or abandoned schools.

I dream about running down winding stairs almost every night though. Sometimes I jump over the railings to go down a floor or two. I'm usually in a hurry.
I'm still not sure what those dreams mean.

 

 

Churches, cathedrals, basilicas, etc. are sacrosanct locations in our inner world, and are strongly tied to B/W energy.
(Leon also has an inexplicable ability to "warp" between them, which has saved our hides on numerous occasions.)
This one, with its arches and intricacy, looks like one of Infinitii's places.





Places that remind me of the past... a long, long time ago, on a night with rainbows.

This also feels like both Parnassus and Oneircia, for entirely different reasons... still fitting, I'd say.


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


JULY 2013

 

 

There is a stairway like this, somewhere, leading down to the League Link Room. That's all we really know.
It's probably the most difficult location to find or access in headspace; Jay has been there only once. But with its obviously astronomical significance, that's not surprising.

 

 

For some reason, the insides of holy buildings like this feel so much like home to me. I've never been able to explain it.
It's not "home" in the way a household is-- it doesn't have that sense of "comfort" and domestic security that most people like but that makes me nervous. I wouldn't 'live' in a church!
But, in basilicas and temples and churches, I feel at home, which I DON'T get in houses. It's why my personal locations in headspace always reflect buildings of this sort, instead of actual living quarters. It feels like a spiritual thing. I like that. I'll have to keep it in mind, filed away in an important little place, out in the open. Just so I never forget to look at it and remember.





 
Gloucester Cathedral.

The parts of headspace we call "underground" (not the Tar Room; that's floating now thanks to Infi) look almost exactly like that first photo... just a little darker is all.
_{(The second one looks a lot like Genesis' Cathedral, too, now that I think about it.)}

 

 

This feels like swimming to the mainland from the beach in Central Headspace… except that there weren’t any mountains in the background back when I last swam there!

 

 

More city views that reminds me of headspace.
I’m so glad we’re getting more trees up here; after the Scratch most of the vegetation died for a while.
 

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

AUG 2013
 

   

This: my face whenever my boss doffs his cap and leaves for the night. He’s such a sweetheart.

_{Which reminds me, I’m late for work!}

 

Nothingness, nowhere, emptiness... it's all incredibly comforting to me and I can't put the reason for that into words.

No one I've met outside has ever understood that. "Doesn't that scare you? How could you possibly like the idea of oblivion?"
But I do. I love it.
When I was younger, it didn't scare me so much as it reduced me to silent, humble awe. I remember leaning backwards out of car windows, looking up at the featureless blue sky, and wondering what it would be like, if that blue went on forever? Then I'd wonder, what does forever feel like? What does the end of time feel like? What does it feel like, to stop existing? And I'd ponder those thoughts until I knew and the floor dropped out of the world and nothing felt real anymore.

But I loved it. I still do. I think part of me always will.

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


NOV 2013

 

 

Snow is one of the most potent, powerful forms of both absolution and purification for us. Our original host grew up in a woods that resembled this almost exactly in the winter, and the invariable, unbreakable safety and magic that it brought with it has stayed with us even now.
Jay has most of his memories attached to snow, as well as his identity anchor. Both Genesis and Mr. Sandman are tied to snow as personal symbols. And for even those of us who have never seen real snow before, being far too young in manifestation, we too can easily feel the all-embracing comfort of that delicate, quiet ice.
Winter is our favorite season. This photo perfectly captures why.

 

 
The skyline of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

This view, with the glowing streets, hanging mists and iridescent sky, is reminiscent of the view from Central HQ in our headspace.
The biggest difference is that our city is mostly crystal, not steel, and our sky is almost always late-night as well, swimming with stars and galaxies.

 

 

The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in Washington D.C.
This area of the Basilica is almost identical to Infinitii's personal 'floating' locations in headspace. His iterations of it are notably lacking in color-- they're mostly stark white, black, and silver-- but the warmth, light, and sense of quiet sacredness remains the same.

We visited this actual place twice when the body was a teenager, and it resonated with us so strongly that its aesthetic style permanently affected that of similar areas in our inner realms.

 

The Sofitel Brisbane Central Hotel, in Australia.
Despite being part of the building's lounge bar, this specific shot is one of the closest architectural likenesses we've found to Central's Meeting Room in headspace.
In headspace, this is where the core-color holders meet most often, and it is also the default location for all our Xanga sessions.

 

 

The Lotus Temple in New Delhi, India.
This is the only structure in the world that resembles the most holy place in our headspace, the eponymous Blood Lotus Cathedral.
Discovered in 2011, it is the core of our entire inner world, tied to the deepest and most volatile energies, as well as the cores of our System (Jay and Infinitii).
Unlike this Temple, however, the BLC is made of what looks like porcelain or opaque glass, all white and smooth. Originally it was located next to a red ocean in 'floating space,' but it has since been moved to the middle of Central City itself.
The BLC is also an unending source of inner relevance and symbolism, that we often don't understand until months later.

 

 

Ettal Abbey, in Germany.
I didn't realize it until now, but Infinitii has a room inside his bubblespace that looks almost EXACTLY like this! Trees and lights and all!
The only difference is that instead of church pews, the floor is mostly bright green grass and small meandering streams, with little deep pools here and there (mostly near the walls). The rivers might be barely 30cm deep in the shallow parts, but the pools could be as deep as 5 meters, from what I've seen!
So with all the water, the spots of grass and trees look almost like islands, especially since the ground is not level (it's all little sloping hills mostly, very pretty). But on some of those little hills there are holy shrines and baldachin altars and things, and since the whole area is inside of a church-like building, it feels pretty mystical.
I remember I went there once with Laurie and Knife, after a therapy session; it was the first time I'd seen it and it was gorgeous. We all felt really safe there.




This fictional landscape by David Edwards looks almost EXACTLY like the room we found hidden below the Razor Spire in headspace, back in 2012. I've been calling it the "mirror oasis room" thanks to that pool of water in the center.
We haven't been there since-- that entire freaky area was assumedly destroyed when the BLC was moved-- but I'll never forget what it felt like there.
Here. let me copy-paste a bit from that meditation log for context.

"...it was stone white, full of vegetation, i think butterflies too. there was a huge tree in front of us and instead of a dropoff in the middle, there was a large rectangular pool of water, perfectly still. we... walked onto the grassy area with the tree, i realized our footsteps were leaving glows, mine were white i think? laurie's were violet, leon's were dark blue, etc... i walked over to the lake and knelt by it, looking down into it, and suddenly it 'warped' somehow and became more like a mirror, although it wasn't reflecting? and it began to talk to me...then it turned back into water and something floated up to me, it was a silver-gold helmet, like an angel helmet..."


So yes, you can see why that location was so important. Most things in headspace are.
We've since tied this room to Infinitii as well, and in light of our previous post, you can likely see why.
_{(I wonder, if the Razor Spire was truly destroyed, did this place change and move into his bubble? We should check that out guys.)}

 

 

this looks way too much like the tar/plague rooms below headspace
(if you cannot tell we do not like those places they are scary)

 

 

This photo I found looked so much like Lynne, I had to edit it to match her as closely as possible.
Lynne has been around since early 2008, and she's always been a peacemaker... but she's just as badass as Laurie, and that's saying something. Not only that, but she's got this really cool ability to create any sort of protective phenomena within headspace-- which saved our hides on several occasions back during the warring years.

Tonight's been weird and I feel rather lost, but Lynne always reminds me of violins and warm silence and autumn, and even if those memories aren't mine the aura of stability around them helps a lot.
Just saying, I'm very thankful for her. We all are.
I'm sorry I don't actively appreciate you more, Lynne.

-Jay
_{(slipping badly, and Laurie isn't happy about that, but it's still mostly me)}

 

 

 

(112613)

This is Laurie.
Usually I only post on my own page, but for heaven's sake Jay, go to sleep. Go to work for the night and stop numbing your broken head with repetitive nonsense. It ain't gonna work, kid.

Listen, I'm here for you, we all are. Just stop running from us and TALK to us for once, I swear, it's not as scary as you somehow manage to convince yourself it is on nights like this.
Not all of us are dangerous, and I swear on my life, I will not harm a single hair on your body, ever, for the rest of my existence, if it will get you out of this empty state of yours. If that will convince you that it's safe up here, maybe not entirely but it is SAFE with us, then I will do that. I will do anything. I'll give up anything. You know that.

Go to sleep. Talk to your boss. Say hi to Infi for me.
When I see you in the morning I want you to be smiling, you hear me?

Love you, kid. Cheer the heck up. You'll be okay. I promise you that.


_{#i hate that i have to write something like this #but if it helps i'll do this #jay we do need to talk}

 

 

(112613)

My birthplace.

Although this photo wasn't taken by us, it is dated shortly after I first physically appeared in the System-- which, as you may have guessed, was at this very location. (And during a violin concert, which is why I love those so much!)
You've gotta thank Laurie for that, though. If she hadn't been causing so much trouble, I wouldn't have had to show up in the first place. ;p

Since then, I've been keeping everyone on track, and reminding everyone that they're not as messed-up as they seem to think they are.
I guess I was the first "positive" voice in the entire System, which is a little shocking. My role was always to keep the peace, to offer support, and to help others with their goals and ambitions.
I was even a sort of personification of "hope," for a while; the old Jewel said I represented an ideal future she could never have. And that was true... she's dead now, but I'm still here. I guess in a way, I'll always remember that. She felt incapable of being the mature, self-assured woman that I was, for many reasons, but she still looked up to me, and valued my presence. That meant a lot to me even then.
I still wish she had been able to believe in herself more, but at least now, I can help many others towards that end without wondering if they're going to die on me. Well... at least most of the time. (And Laurie backs me up on that.)

I love this picture though. Even if my first and only experience there was a little violent, it was the first time I'd ever experienced anything. So I really love this place, and I'm thankful that I can call it "home" here, if only in a little sense.

 

All right, I'm gonna put tons of lanterns upstairs somewhere. Tons of 'em. Gonna find all the dark spots up here and leave these things there instead. They're pretty cool if I do say so myself.
Don't mind me, I'm just sick of seeing people depressed as death again and if I need to be the sole person leaving light everywhere then so be it.
-Laurie


_{#ONE DAY #mark my words #oh hey maybe THAT'S what I can do with my axe #note to self: do the lantern thing #get jo to help #tell infi not to eat them #you know the drill #also NO JAY I'M NOT DEAD}

 

 

 

Lynne, Laurie and I (Jay) are looking at awesome interior design stuff, and upon seeing this one, Lynne said it looked like a hotel. Well, in response, Laurie said:
"Probably is a hotel, looks pretty high-class... freakin' shiny floors..."

I don't know why I found that so hilarious but I did, so there you go.

_{(edit: the "shiny floors" thing is now an injoke thanks to how the rest of the night went, haha)}

 

Now this is what the sky of Central City looks like most of the time!

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

DEC 2013

 

Steven Morgana,
Beauty is in the Eye of the Collective, 2011

one of our favorite photos of all time, for obvious reasons.

 

It’s like this for us, within the System. We all bandage each others wounds— protectors guard the children, healers care for the traumatized, and so on.
If we didn’t have such compassion within, we’d have shattered to pieces many years ago.

 

 

 

I can't believe we just updated 3 days ago. It feels like 3 months.

Had another terrible nightmare last night that my brain graciously purged (for the most part), but woke up exhausted and suicidal, with the worst body dysphoria I've had in months.
I've been actively fighting off the driving need to harm myself since this morning. Some alter keeps coming out too, screaming and sobbing about it, repeating "you whore, I hate you, I hate you, I'll kill you!!" every time it becomes aware of the body. Then the AP kicks in and it's poker face city all over again.
Someone yesterday was craving alcohol so vehemently I thought I'd snap. I don't even drink, but I swear, if someone had handed me a bottle of brandy I'd have downed the whole thing, and who cares about alcohol poisoning. The fact that that is the first alcoholic drink that came to my mind set off major alarm bells, but right now, that feeling is a thing of myth, and whoever is driving right now has no comprehension of emotion at all. Under the surface, though, it's an active volcano. The only reason why I haven't snapped yet is because I'm on the computer, this blessed tranquilizing thing, allowing us to plug in hours upon hours of work detached from a physical form, free from the pains of consciousness.
I don't know how many of us are fronting at once. Everything is being filtered through the AP. It's been like this for weeks, if not months.
We spent so long out of Central that I've forgotten it exists.

Daily life is a struggle at this point. I hate myself for saying that (someone does), but I can't keep denying it. Suppressing things just makes them worse, it seems. You've been forced to wear the mask of normalcy so well that you forget how to be honest. You forget how to ask for help. You forget how to be happy. The mask is nailed to your face but you've learned to treat the streams of blood as nothing to worry about. That's how it is. And every time we try to tear it off, we get shouted at. "You can't live without that mask," they say. But I can barely even breathe while the cursed thing is on.

I'm trying to apply for disability but my mother insists "I can just push through it" because "we have autistic people at our workplace, and they don't let their illness stop them!"
Well that's brilliant and I'm happy for them, but as this condition of mine is making the fact of my existence a living hell, I really don't feel like I'm capable of holding a job right now.
Even better, when I tell her this she laughs and says I'm exaggerating, but the moment she catches me with a sharp object in my hand, or on the brink of an emotional outburst, she puts on the "don't you freaking dare" face and hisses that if I do anything, she'll send me back to the hospital/ put me away/ etc. because "I'm THREATENING her." How the heck is this threatening you??? I'm trying to kill MYSELF, not you!!!
But that doesn't seem to register. She insists we're "blackmailing her," and it's always an angry, hateful accusation, with no acknowledgment of the pain we're going through. She doesn't understand that sometimes it is virtually impossible NOT to self-abuse. It has nothing to do with her, at all, and it NEVER DID.
Sometimes my teeth feel like they're going to explode. Solution: bite things. If I can't release the pressure that way, I get angry and violent in an attempt to ease the growing pain. She forbids me from both options, but when I start rattling from the confined pressure she threatens me to "get over it." I'm sorry, but I CAN'T.
Sometimes the voices in my head get so loud that I want to either scream and tear something to shreds, or shut down on the spot and effectively go catatonic. Once again, we're forbidden from both options. If the AP isn't fronting to buffer any and all emotions-- like if someone demands we interact with them-- suddenly the stopper's out and the voices get through. But raise your voice or swear a little or say one bizarre or unsettling phrase and immediately someone's trying to call 911 because "we aren't going to put up with your shit." So we go through the day in such a dissociative daze that we don't even know what year it is, simply because the alternative would be acknowledging the never-ending cacophony between our ears.
The only person capable of interacting with people is an alter and it's almost impossible to force someone to front for that long without passing out.
I can't even bother to eat or drink or bathe or move at HOME some days. My old job-- which I held three freaking YEARS ago-- was difficult enough. A LOT has happened since then.

It's not that I don't want a job. I desperately need money. I ran out of cash for food this morning. My several failed college attempts drained every single savings account I had, and my mother STILL insists I go back to school, while again threatening me if I fail out again. I can't guarantee that I won't. I'll work my ass off, sure, but that doesn't always guarantee a passing grade. Sometimes my best just isn't good enough. I know that.
But I just want to be able to buy food and clothing without wanting to die every day. I have an emergency $100 left from Mel & Jake but I need to spend around $50 of that on toiletries and bulk frozen food this weekend, just so I have backup items on hand if I end up penniless for a while.
To revisit the previous point, I'm trying to apply for Social Security in the meantime, but I'm cursed by my inexplicable high SAT scores from a century ago, and the fact that I can't afford the therapy I need to get a diagnosis.
My only advantage is the fact that someone took an IQ test back in early 2011 (I didn't exist back then, I have NO idea who that was), and although her score was about 130, she was diagnosed as schizoaffective with a heavy recommendation for medication, since the testers couldn't deny the extreme educational difficulties I was having and could only explain them as the result of psychological difficulties.
I'm desperately hoping I can re-take that evaluation though. We didn't start getting serious symptoms until we ACKNOWLEDGED that we had problems. Back in early 2011, shortly after the end of the world failed to happen, we weren't exactly doing that. We were in a self-induced state of blissful ignorance, CONVINCED that all our problems were "fake" and "not worth paying attention to anyway."
Here, let me quote from that awful diagnosis page:
"the respondent... describes NO significant problems in the following areas: antisocial behavior; problems with empathy; undue suspiciousness or hostility; extreme moodiness and impulsivity; unhappiness and depression; marked anxiety."
Now let me quote from one of our archive entries from that EXACT same time period.
This was 12 days before the test.
"I HATE endorphins. Every single time I do anything that sets them off, I want to kill EVERYTHING...I have literally hurt people because of this, you know. Not just me.
No problems with undue hostility, extreme moodiness, or antisocial behavior? Really?
And both this AND this happened on THE SAME FREAKING DAY OF THE TEST:
"I go to extremes just to make myself suffer, to make myself sick. I take stupid risks for it all the time... and oh God, the nightmares. The nightmares. But I can't stop. This has been going on for too long, too strongly. I have a splinter problem and it is literally killing me, bit by bit, every day, consciously, willingly. To think my therapist asked me about suicide today, and I said no! How ridiculous. Suicide doesn't have to be planned, it doesn't have to be instantaneous. This is suicide. This is slow, merciless, painful suicide. I almost miss the knives. How I wish I could just hand this drive over to Laurie and be done with it."
No problems with marked anxiety, unhappiness and depression, or impulsivity... yeah, whoever took that test was lying through their teeth.
And I'm well aware of the empathy problems too. For as long as I can remember, whenever someone around us starts crying (typically the mother), someone upstairs starts screaming "stop crying, you dirty faggot!! I'll kill you if you don't shut up!!" Every single time. It's very hard to keep them under control. Said voice has also explained that, to them "faggot" is the cruelest slur they can think of: not only is it a homophobic insult, but etymologically, the word means "a bundle of sticks," and that voice explained that "all you whores deserve to burn." So yeah. Not a very nice alter there.

Very few of the downstairs system people are nice, actually.
One of us adores the grandmother, one of us is terrified of her, one of us hates her. It's the same with the mother, although whoever actually likes her is extremely quiet and hard to find.
Many of us like to cause pain, either to others or to the body. Many of us just want to die, in one way or another. Many of us are manipulative and sadistic.
It's disturbing, and personally I don't want them around (SCREW YOU), because it's not good to have such violent and bitter voices always trying to get out and cause havoc.
But I don't know what to do about it. I can only front through typing. I don't know how to drive. I didn't even write the past 90% of this entry. See what I mean? The switches happen so quickly, so entirely, so imperceptibly, that it's only when we suddenly realize "oh hey wait, I'm fronting," that we realize someone was there before us.
Memories are chopped and altered and redistributed all the time. Someone can be triggered violently and then be buffered almost instantaneously be the AP, resulting in a very disturbing outer show of emotions: three seconds of screaming, crying, and/or violent retaliation, then suddenly a blank face and unmoving body, literally unaware of "what just happened." It's not supposed to know. But the people around us when that sort of thing happens know. They know, and they aren't comfortable around people like us. Hence the not exactly feeling comfortable getting a job right now.

We're in a FB group for dissociation now, we're learning a lot. Someone posted this.
"How do we keep our system from splitting anymore?"
And the response...
"Take the pressure off. This is likely to mean therapy and work dealing with the body of trauma. Reducing general stress all round seems to be a good step too."
Problem is, both the original poster and I have already been through years of therapy, as well as intensive work trying to deal with the trauma. But the stress levels around us won't go down.
And we keep burying everything.

Nothing is real. Nothing is real. Nothing is real.
All of you are dead. You're fake. You don't exist.
Go to hell, we're just as real as you are.
No you're not. ♡
DON'T YOU FREAKING START THAT WITH ME I SWEAR TO GOD
Guys, please, no fighting in the update box.
I'LL FIGHT WHEREVER I FREAKING FEEL LIKE IT
You won't be fighting anyone if you don't exist ♡
SCREW YOU!!!!!!!


all right i've gotta close this up and go meditate or something sorry its getting really loud

 

 

 

 

(this is j!!)

I'm so sorry for updating this late, but I'm caught between laughing and crying, and I have to write this down even if it is only for a moment.

I'm reviewing old logs here to try and remember what we've lost, and I'm listening to this, and that must be some sort of magic formula because whoosh, suddenly I'm feeling things and I miss everyone.
I love everyone, and I miss everyone, but I can't reach anyone.
It feels as if I'm not supposed to. Not yet, at least. I hope so. It's strange, to be this empty and alone.
I'm content, though. I'm the one that thinks happy thoughts, haha. Few other people do. There's a lot of panic and fear and pain up here, which I understand, but beneath it all I can see the lights. That's what I'm here to be, a light for those stumbling about in the darkness of the past. I just hope I can be bright enough! But I have no doubt in that.

Jewel and I are starting to work on Dream World again together, which needs a new title. I'm doing typecode work (at least, the more logical part of me is), and she is doing the art. We can't find the idea brainstormer yet, but we're trying on our own nonetheless.
It's strange, that we've become so finely splintered over the years. I can't help but wonder why.
Although, I'm not the one who's good at wondering like that! I'm too content, too happy, to fuss over details of that sort. Let's deal with the present, I say. Let's deal with what we're feeling right now. Let's calm down the heartbroken voices and soothe their rage, that's what I say. If we can do that, maybe we don't need to worry about the past at all.
We'll see. I'm not claiming I know it all. I'm just a poet, just a prism boy. I scatter rainbows around up here, but that's just one job in the big ol' System we have going on, you know?

AP (or whoever that was; didn't feel like AP, but maybe ze has fractures too?) said there were 43 people up here besides me. I'm sure there are, but I have this nagging feeling that there are more. I will need to make a list! I like lists, they're fun. Hence why I'm on typecode duty, haha. Jewel isn't good at that sort of thing, she's too busy doodling in the margins. Which is good!
Note to self, by the way: talk to Preludove, if you can. I'd need to do so in a dreamstate but she did offer to help, so it is worth a try! I think Jewel and I are the only ones who can contact her though, but since I don't get to front very often and Jewel doesn't like to enter headspace, ever, we haven't attempted to do so yet. I'm not sure it's the right time either. But keep it in mind!

Anyway, it's late, and I need sleep (we all do). I don't want to upset anyone by staying up any longer either, so I will be calling it quits for the night.

It was nice being able to talk to you all again! Hopefully we'll have some better news soon. I'm sure everything will work out.

 
 

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


@ 12:22 pm

 

The grandmother needs to realize that some alters don't understand sarcasm. She approached us after finding blood on our bedsheets, and said:

"So where'd you cut yourself now? Go on, keep it up; you'll get blood poisoning and die!"

To which Razor and her underground allies only grinned and exchanged devious glances.

It's going to be a long month if this keeps up...

 

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


@ 01:14 pm


Dream notes for this morning:

(college inside old elementary school; people kept saying i was from poland, so i was talking with a really strange european accent. i remember there was a class in the church basement, the teacher called me out on something, i think i was in trouble?

later on in dream, driving down some road with family, top of hill-- could see city below. resembled intersection by green bridge in avc regardless. i was in the back seat, looking at a paper i had drawn, covered in chest-up sketches of some woman.
she had long black hair, but it was silky and piled like a disney character. i think she had blue eyes? otherwise all i know is that she was wearing a simple spaghetti strap dress (black?) and, oddly, a necklace with a large pendant of jessica rabbit on it.
as i looked at this paper, i became aware that this woman was a HEADVOICE of some sort, and that she was "the one that had tried to get rid of the rest of us" (assumedly the one from june 1st??). That realization freaked me out because it meant that this cartoonish-looking woman was potentially the most dangerous person upstairs. I think I put the paper aside after that, but I know I woke up shortly after regardless.

 

 

 

 

(not j)

I've noticed something that I do that's very, very stupid.
I use art as a metaphor for life.

Personally, I don't draw. But Jewel will never stop drawing. Others will never stop writing, or brainstorming, or playing music, or finding ideas in every little thing they see. No matter how apathetic I am towards their creative prowess, it will not crush their spirit.
However, that fact has no bearing on how I feel, and that is simply "nothing."

Yesterday, one of us visited TRiPPY's new website to look at all of her old iMAGNi art. Her work from the early 2000s has the exact same magical vibe that our work from that time period does. When Jewel sees the Gens, she thinks of the J-Monsters, and she loves it. TRiPPY's old art was bold, colorful, and unique... and it wasn't perfect. Yes, there were perspective errors. Yes, the anatomy was off. But did we care? No. In a way, we loved it even more because of that imperfection. It was creativity and imagination spilling onto paper through ink and paint, brightly colored dreams captured in the only way they ever could be.
Looking at those pictures, many of us felt a deep sense of wonder, admiration, joy, love. It reminded us so much of our own old creations.
But some of us saw that same art and felt despair. "Look at what she did, so long ago," they sighed. "We never had the guts to draw like that. And what little we did draw, we lost or destroyed." Those few voices wept with regret and sorrow, feeling utterly unworthy to be viewing such beautiful snapshots of the past, haunted by darker thoughts that overshadowed everything else. Don't you remember? Art is a waste of time. And all you do is draw, so you're a waste of time, too. You're worthless. You're nothing. Just like your art.
Over the years, those are the voices that eventually won. It was simply a matter of volume and quantity. There were too many of them, all the time, repeating that same damning mantra. You'll never amount to anything. Stop wasting your life. Grow up. Despite the doubts weighing us down, we feebly chased our dream during high school, desperately holding on to the same red threads this courageous woman left behind for us, creating our own world from jester hats and gemstones... but even that faltered. Someone new appeared, who did not care about art, and she quickly led us into destruction. We fought back, but then college was at our doorstep... and someone else lost their mind.
Everything seemed to end at that moment, when dreams and nightmares were forced to become one grotesque abomination. It was the unholy fusion of hope and despair, a thing so unavoidably horrible that we abandoned everything in an instant, choosing oblivion over destruction. It had all happened so fast.
One moment, we stood at a canvas, holding a pencil in our hands and joyfully wondering what we would create next, now that we were pursuing our one and only dream...
...and then a woman walked in, stood before us, and dropped her clothes.
That was the day we died.

Since then, our artists haven't drawn much. They've tried, but it took years for them to begin again, and when they did, their heart was often no longer in it. Their work had been tainted irreparably by the intrusion of an entirely different reality, one dripping with tar and blood. Dark memories of the past that had been specifically buried were suddenly rearing their ugly heads.
The artists had known, as the fabric hit the floor, that they could no longer live once the dam broke, once the walls fell. The only reason they had been able to create at all was because this deplorable muck had been graciously hidden from their awareness. Now, it had burst into their world of color and light, shredding their very life with its merciless pink nails, and we all knew it was the end.
The artists fled underground, and we began to awaken from the shadows... slowly, irreversibly. Since then, this life has been ours, but now things seem to be shifting again.
The problem is, what other direction could we possibly take now?
So yesterday, curious to see what people would say, I wrote up a quick FB post about it.

"Looking back, I remember a time when I wanted to be an artist. I had dreams that I chased with childlike joy and enthusiasm. Now, I've given away or destroyed virtually everything I've ever created, and I'm not sure if I have any dreams left.
Is it better this way? Is it worse? Where do I go from here?

However, it wasn't until the replies started coming in that I realized my stupid mistake.
To those who read those words, "art" just meant "art." It meant drawing, or sketching, or painting. It was a mechanical function, that's all.
They didn't understand that, to us, "art" is LIFE. To us, art=purpose. Art is synonymous with joy and hope and wonder.
We weren't saying "we've stopped drawing, but we used to love it; is that right?"
No, in all actuality, we were saying something far more serious.
"We used to find joy and purpose in life. Now, we don't. Now, life is meaningless. Should we just give up?"

So, as you can imagine, the comments we received meant something entirely different in our eyes.
These originally spoke about art, but they've been edited to match our interpretation:

"You can still live! Don't ever give up what once gave you real joy! Your reason to live hasn't disappeared, you CAN find it again."

"I have never seen myself as much of a guru when it comes to giving life advice... so long as you have something to create for, you will always have a purpose, a reason to live. We make mistakes, throw away old work or lose it, and I guess it is our folly but at the same time it still happened, we benefited from creating it and still grew as people and artists."

"Throwing away your life doesn't mean you threw away your right to live. Start a new chapter in your life, and fill it with new creations. You are still worthy of life."

At this point I noticed, as usual, that I had not properly communicated my point.
So I wrote another message about art, which again, I will correct here to the true meaning:
I suppose I didn't clarify: I lost all motivation and desire to live many years ago. But some days I look at the hopes and dreams of others and think, "I wish I could give my purpose in life to them, if it would give them the joy I can no longer feel." There's no desire to continue living myself. I think I'd prefer it if I had no reason to live anymore. I don't chase my dreams anymore because I'm tired of them being "my dreams." I want to give my reason to live away, to someone else who wants to live.
So I guess my real question is: if I find no joy in life anymore, should I even keep on living?

The first response was an unintentional knife to the heart.

"Nope."

I knew they had good intentions. I know they only meant "If it doesn't bring you joy, don't bother with it." That is good advice, in and of itself.
But when you have severe depression and apathy like this, NOTHING brings you joy. Even joy as a concept is unfathomable.
It's like everyone else in the world has a secret treasure box inside, which can only be opened by a special key of "joy." Most people find that key, and they use it to open their secret treasures, which are full of dreams come true and happy endings. Finding their joy allows them to live with joy, as long as they don't throw away the key. It's a normal thing, it's supposed to happen.
However, with depression, it's like everyone keeps telling me "you just need to find your key!" "I'm sure there's a key out there somewhere." "Just try a bunch of keys, I'm sure one of them will work!" when they don't realize that I don't even have a freaking box.
I have a whole collection of keys, that I was given as gifts, that I picked up off the ground. They're beautiful little fragile things. And sometimes I pick them up and stare at them, admiring their beauty, and I cry, because I can't do a goddamn thing with any of them. What good is a key that doesn't open anything? It's useless.
When you're drowning in emptiness like I am now, it's impossible to find joy. Life itself is a box that no key will open.
So why bother trying?


We got two more comments after that one, though.
Our interpretation, again, is as follows:

"Ask yourself why you once wanted to live. What motivated you to wake up every morning? Then ask yourself what that old motivation is doing for you now before you make a decision to end your life. It is no small thing to throw your life away. Make sure that if you do it, you do it for the right reasons."

A strange mixed message. The last sentence especially left a strange feeling in my chest. It's not the first time I'd received such a message, except this time it was unintentional.
"If you're going to kill yourself, just make sure you really want to die."
I know that wasn't what the commenter meant, but again, I'd heard it before, and that's not something anyone should ever say to a depressed person. Of course I want to die. I want existence to just stop dead. All those old reasons to live are empty now, cold and drained and meaningless. They aren't doing anything for me now except fueling the fire of self-annihilation. Life holds no joy or hope anymore. I can't remember a time when it did.
So would that be the right reason to die? According to some, yes.

The problem is, even if I won't personally accept the fact, I'm not the only person living in this body.

Jewel wants to live. Fiercely. She wants to live. She saw that old artwork by her role model and nearly burst with joy.
"Look at this!" I heard her exclaim in delight, as she showed us the original Gen pictures. "Do you understand how amazing this is? Look at the magic! Look at how many dreams had their beginnings in this little picture!!"
Her eyes were sparkling; she was in tears. I just stared at the picture. It meant nothing to me.
But to her, to many others, it was the spark of life...

There was one last comment on that FB post, one that was oddly inspiring despite the fog. I'll leave it as is.

"get new art materials and start your NEW JOURNEY and your art WILL EXPLODE! TRUST ME ON THIS!!!!!! sometimes we have to get rid of the old to make new messages on our canvas! BE PREPARED TO GROW!!!!!!!!!!!"

There is truth in that, this we know. But there is also fear.
When Jewel was showing us TRiP's art yesterday, Jay was simply staring at it, caught somewhere between delight and despair. He recognized the life in it, the fire of creativity, the joy... but in that same art, he recognized the stamp of death, the annihilation of everything he held dear.
If Jewel lives, Jay dies.
If Jay lives, Jewel dies.
That's been our dilemma for too long a time, ever since that first hellish second in the college art studio. Art became the antithesis to Life, and the only life we knew for sure was inside.
Jay became the guardian of our inner world, triggering the growth of so many other lives, spinning global webs of thought and emotion. Through his hands, headspace blossomed into more than a dead white emptiness, and he filled it with color and love. But he could not exist outside of his world. In hands of flesh and bone, he could not live.
Jewel, however, still lingered somewhere lost below, protecting the reams of paper her heart shone through. She could not set foot upstairs-- to her, headspace was still forever a blank canvas, something she would not touch for fear of losing that infinite potential. Instead, she moved blood and breath, and created tangible art.
Tragically, the two have been at odds for years. Jewel cannot create her art if Jay's world exists. And Jay cannot maintain headspace if Jewel's work exists.

Start your new journey, the comment read. But only one form of art will survive to move on, and explode into reality like a firework.
The other, the "old," will need to be destroyed...
Be prepared to grow, they said.
But we know, all too well, that a tree cannot grow unless the seed dies first.


I apologize, but I have to attend a graduation ceremony right now.
Jay is planning to enter Central during it, if at all possible.
I do not know if he will succeed, or even attempt. But he will try.
It's all we can do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes for today.

- genesis showed up while i was walking to the greek festival today, which was a surprise; immediately we began joking around with each other, it was brilliant. he immediately ate half of what i bought, haha. we visited the mall for a few minutes too (we love chilling out there), he actually had me laughing out loud. he came to church with me too, said he missed xenophon being there, i said i did too. that worries me; i'm not sure where she is? i hope she's with chaos, i'll have to ask him. in other news when i got home i gave kyanos some baklava and he thought it was the most delicious thing in the universe, it was adorable.
- i was wearing infinitii's bubble too, he co-fronted with me on the drive home as he said "the body is too confusing" for him to work (i remember feeling him being really baffled over having feet especially). i put the windows down and suddenly we got this huge wave of scent from the mountain laurel, he paused and looked so inspired, i smiled and asked what he thought. he said he'd never experienced anything like that before, it was amazing. so i helped him manifest some mountain laurel in headspace, he was thrilled.
- we think mutant slots are "gateways" to other levels: teal to downstairs, brown to underground? the three in each are also related somehow. the teals are all childlike somehow, i don't know about the browns though. we're wondering if jeremiah is mauve instead of mulberry, no way to tell yet. the brown slot itself is technically empty too; jezebel is just "hijacking" it because infinitii claims she is STILL in the black slot, as she's a direct tar splinter (i.e. she IS the tar in a body).
- infinitii says he and i are partly "manifestations" of b/w energy, whereas headvoices choose to be "avatars" for the color energy levels when they fully anchor? again he explained how we both work with creative energy, and he had a good analogy for it: something like black being the material to build something, but white being the instructions for construction? you NEED both in tandem to create stuff upstairs, even if you only focus on one. THIS IS WHY WE WERE LOCKED OUT: CENTRAL CANNOT STAY IN EXISTENCE IF WE AREN'T LINKED TO IT. the white energy gives it structure/ form/ etc., but the black energy gives it substance (the ability TO be built). without either of us, central won't just decay, it will eventually CEASE TO EXIST AT ALL. that's scary. i have no idea who is behind this but that is NOT cool.
- i don't think i mentioned this yet but the headvoices still locked in central are having really disturbing side effects from it? i know for sure that lynne got incredibly thin, waldorf is practically catatonic, and leon is blind. josephina, nathaniel, and julie all have psychological troubles of some sort from this but i couldn't tell you what. needless to say I NEED to get back up there and heal this, it breaks my heart to know this happened.
- note to self: go back and see if there are any logs for how headspace reacted when infinitii was missing (especially when he DIED temporarily, because he DID), and/or when you didn't go upstairs for extended periods of time. those latter events might not have been big enough but still, check.
- infinitii referenced METAINOMENAI??? what if this is all happening because, again, we need to deal with "death" on some level? honestly i have been genuinely getting that feeling for a WHILE now, i just never expected something like this. so keep an eye out.
- later on infinitii and i were talking in lower headspace (the unformed white level) when i sensed emmett upstairs and called out to him, but infinitii said he couldn't find us on that level. we then moved to the "center" of the city, where there was actually a very high tunnel leading up to some sort of opening in the ground there? we were looking up and i could see light far away. then infi actually caused a sort of "cascading sinkhole" from it, beginning in the middle of Central City. the sides move down almost like a amphitheatre, but more 'broken up' and not structured. emmett found his way to the edge, we waved up, then infi warped us both to the edge. emmett began showing signs of recovery within a few minutes of being around us, so that's good.
- with that in mind, i think mutants aren't locked to central, as they technically aren't part of the central spectrum? emmett said there are "small secret passages" to get out of Central, but he claimed only "tiny people" can get through them. to clarify: the Central building is actually LOCKED by default to outsiders; you can only enter/exit if you have the rights to. so that freedom to move is what's being blocked here; the headvoices lost their ability to leave (EXCEPT LAURIE?? but then again she has special rights remember), whereas infi and i have somehow "lost" our rights to enter maybe?? look into it.
- kyanos is alive and healing well. he's in lower headspace too. also he is trying to befriend jeremiah. kyanos was telling him that his past incarnations are like "another life" to him now, just a memory-- but he's glad he lived through them, as now he understands his role better? claims it is "hope," or the "promise of a new day," so to speak. like blue sky through storm clouds. one line he said that i recall was that his coming back to life after his past incarnation was like "waking up from a bad dream." he was telling jeremiah that he could do that too if he wanted, even if it wasn't literal. i don't recall that conversation exactly as it was being "projected" into my head during church and it hurt to concentrate on it.
- laurie found her way back downstairs. she's shaking and claims she's very weak, no strength to fight; said she "burned out" the last of her reserves warping back to us from melody's headspace. she was also on the verge of tears and said she was terrified. she told me we might be able to "break in" to the central building, but to wait until tomorrow to even try, because whoever is behind this is not going to let us in easily, and she is not strong enough to help me fight in her current condition.
- central city is deteriorating too. it looks post-apocalyptic. everything is gray and cracked, there are no trees, the sky is overcast. it's actually scary.
- i haven't seen minty since the night before the lockout; i STILL have this weird nagging suspicion that she and kyanos were being "used" somehow to make this lockout happen, due to the whole "wish" thing that happened as she was wandering the city that night. write about that ASAP.
- i need to draw central city sometime soon. today i learned that: the skyscrapers in the city are not actual buildings?? some are big crystals, and some are spires, but the building-esque ones are huge hollow energy cores? like if you opened one, it would just be white light inside, but it still has "windows" for the light to shine through at night. also the reason why they always seemed to "sink into the ground" further into the city (giving a sci-fi impression of depth like this) is because it really DID go "downstairs" at the very center?? the huge sinkhole infi and i made today only expanded it massively. btw central city was directly inspired by coruscant, notably this scene, as I was awestruck by how deep the city looked to me when i first saw it. of course now i added trees everywhere (inspired, oddly, by early screencaps from sonic unleashed) and the streets look like what i remember (in an idealistic childhood sense) of new york city. (speaking of su i should totally put a spagonia mirror in headspace somewhere). oh yes and the beach to the right of the central building (when you look out the main windows at least) always reminds me of rio de janeiro somewhat? i've never seen the central city from above and i really should try sometime.
- THE BEAR FROM THIS DREAM MIGHT BE RELEVANT. i mentioned it to laurie and she said to look into it; after all she first formed within a dream too, and the one the bear appeared in was one hell of an important one even on its own. plus, with minty's alleged connection to teddy bears in general now, the dream bear might actually gain enough anchor energy to become a headvoice in the future, maybe moving into the brown or blood slot if that becomes an option.
- i forgot to mention before; the autopilot has an upstairs body now? its an android, which works well. its consciousness seems to have "stabilized" enough for this to happen, and it now has a sort of inner personality, rather than being just a jumbled bunch of pre-programmed reactions, although it is still strikingly robotic (and will likely forever be that way). it still refuses a name and color for that same reason too; it claims its role is simply to be the autopilot and nothing more, it does not want to be treated as an "individual." nevertheless it is a perfect fronter and jewel seems to like it a lot.
- i need to research the phenomenon of "fractures," i.e. when one individual has several different "sides" that are all separate individuals (proven through testing). i have at LEAST three that have not splintered off, which is bizarre. jewel has at least one, maybe two? i might have to do more research on mpd/did for this as this is closer to the actual "alter" phenomenon than anything else in headspace, go figure.
- boss showed up today, thank god, i was worried about him. however i was worried and asked him how he could work with us in headspace if he was from the rosewindow universe? people from leagueworlds usually don't cross over. but he just smiled and reminded me that he of all people was one of the most likely people to do so-- he DID have a dream self to use to be with us, after all! when i realized this i grinned with total joy, i almost forgot markus told us about that. so that's a concern off my back now; i kept worrying i was taking him away from his native world!
- lastly, about two hours ago i found chaos 0 and spent at least 30 minutes with him trying to figure out how to break or remove this weird emotional blockage in my chest. turns out all i needed was some direct heart energy and focus, because as soon as he started emphasizing that i swear i shattered (first time in a LONG time). so the block in my chest is gone for now, hopefully it will stay that way. all i know is that right now, i am listening to the gorgeous sigma harmonics ost and looking at these equally gorgeous sth screenshots and i am so in love with chaos 0 i could cry. i'm so perfectly happy at the moment, entirely at peace, and i cannot remember the last time i felt like this but paradoxically it seems like only yesterday regardless. this is a good thing.

Now I need to sleep. See you guys soon enough.

 

 

 

 

As of last night no one exists anymore 
They were only born because they couldn't let go of the past 
So I let go of everything 
Now I'm free 