the spectrum heart cathedral system

All right so this morning has been AMAZING let's update quickly so we don't forget things.
(btw so you guys know. this is technically NOT the "main Core." I'm a "Jewel-adjacent" grafifoni and I typically update the archives. I'm not used to being "self-aware" but honestly I should be. But yeah, you'll recognize my typing style!) ANYWAY here's what's happened so far this morning:

- We DIDN'T DIE during the night. Yesterday was LITERAL HELL concerning the eating disorder and it took us like six hours to recover?? which is understandable because it was REALLY BAD, the worst it's been since before September. We're not sure what triggered such a huge meltdown?
It was fear, too many danger foods, they had to be destroyed. But no one had to eat them like they did. We could have just thrown them away.
That's not allowed, that's wasting!! Food is meant to be eaten
but you DIDN'T "eat them," you just purged them anyway!
But the eating still happened, that's the rule, food has to be eaten, if we just threw it out we'd get in big trouble
So you threw it "up" instead.
we HAD to it was POISON we would have DIED!!
see this is why we CANNOT buy such things anymore. it is too dangerous, there is no positive end result from purchasing them.
- Chaos 0 told the "Core" (who is still faceless/nameless for the most part and therefore unstable) that "your heartbeat was really weak" and it scared him. This observation struck the Core like a sword to the chest though, because if anything is going to make us feel more real/alive/true, it's THAT sort of reference. And of course, only he would know such a thing. The intimacy of it, plus the familiarity, was potent enough to drag us out of the depressive fear that would have possibly taken hold otherwise.
- Cronometer crashed, we can't log in on the app. Support says there's an update soon so we have to wait, until then we can only use the website. So instead of freaking out we're going to just "repeat" today's diet plan until we can access the app and its mathematics again. This may work in our favor, because today's diet plan was our effort to balance our macros with hempseed to get more of a complete protein total, as well as staying at 1350 calories. If this works well we'll stick to it more often. We do need to reintroduce cottage cheese into our diet for the complete protein bit (we tend to hit all green percentages when we eat it too, we noticed) until we get the guts to finally reintroduce salmon/ tuna/ chicken/ turkey outside of a hospital environment.
- On that note, really quick. Apparently, YES, WE DID DISSOCIATE DURING TBHU. No one is surprised, but it's still a heavy blow. We relapsed IMMEDIATELY upon discharge because THE BLOODY CONTEXT CHANGED and therefore whoever was managing the TBHU behaviors "LEFT." They switched out b/c they CAN'T "exist" outside of an inpatient setting; they're context-locked. This ALWAYS HAPPENS.
- The above point is really making us worried when it comes to Anxi, but we'll get to that as we continue this entry.
- Breakfast always is interesting. Since experience has shown us that we apparently "need" the body to be in a state of "automated repetitive motion" in order for our mind to be able to think-- is this an ADHD thing? TBHU suspected as much; we should look into it prudently-- the mechanical function of eating almost INSTANTLY triggers thought-avalanches (hence the E.D.; we weren't taking ANY time to journal (typing COUNTS as automated repetitious mechanic motion!) or to circle-walk like Jewel used to, the a.r.m.m. of cooking (measure, chop, prep, etc.)/ cleaning (washing, organizing, etc.) / eating (picking, sorting, etc.)/ and the like became our ONLY means of "mental unloading" (for lack of a better term) AND trauma processing (you would not BELIEVE the amount of flashbacks and intrusive thoughts we get WHILE EATING which only makes it worse-- AND is a perfect ironic parallel to the purging, because "we need to get the poison out") in lieu of ALL other coping mechanisms, thanks to the kakofoni and thriskefoni ironically forbidding or destroying positive options). HOWEVER being aware of this recently has revealed a few things to us: one, that when phagofoni are out, they can "prevent" such avalanches? There's that one "dragon" girl who keeps fronting to eat, and she focuses on eating and has no particular preferences (unlike Emmett, who is a "trogofoni"-- meaning his food-anchor is extremely particular; he could and did ONLY eat "green food"). Yes, we're refining our terms further. On that note, an "esthiofoni" is a phagofoni subtype for one who eats in a disordered way-- that Greek work chosen because in Scripture it's apparently typically used in the present tense, as in literal eating, right now; whereas "phago" is apparently aorist? It's more future/undefined in terms of chronology, being more "spiritual" in that symbolic sense. It's also used in more reverent passages in Scripture, according to Strong's concordance. So "esthio" feels more fitting for the E.D. voices, as they're more focused on right now, and are not thinking about "the future" at all, poor tormented things.
- ANYWAY. WE DO HAVE A "GATEKEEPER." We've been more aware of her recently, now that we're able to pay better attention to ALL the foni we hear on a minute-to-minute basis. She's ancient but we never saw her as a person? Or maybe we did, in the past, but as a kakofoni-- because she's VERY controlling but we apparently have completely misunderstood her function until now. And she ALWAYS speaks up during breakfast thought-rushes (we need jargon for this; it's literally like we start the a.r.m.m. and the brain just unloads everything at once) because HER job is actually to KEEP THINGS ON TRACK?? Like if there's "too much headspace stuff" going on to where we're dissociating entirely from the meal, therefore potentially triggering an E.D. relapse, this "gatekeeper" girl will "FORCE SHIFT" our awareness because "there's too much thinking going on; we need to pay attention." We think she can also "force stop" EMOTIONS if they are "interfering" with "what we need to do"?? Maybe "gatekeeper" isn't the best term for her, because she "force-stops" EVERYTHING (or at least tries to) but yes, she also DOES do this with fronters, as well as she can-- she cannot "make someone front" OR "force someone out", BUT she CAN apparently shove awareness into the physical to the point where it "automatically" KICKS OUT nousfoni, and therefore "forces IN" a somafoni?? So this gatekeeper girl is TRYING to help the BODY survive, or at least "not get overwhelmed" to the point of not being able to live in the physical realm? But she OVERCORRECTS and tends to "lock us out of headspace" with her efforts. But we realize she's just doing her job; she doesn't think headspace is "bad," she just apparently thinks it's almost always "inappropriate for right now." She's survival-based to the point of not letting us LIVE. So we need to find her name and face so we can TALK to her.
- HOWEVER since we're now AWARE of her she IS becoming more self-aware in turn and it's getting easier to "message her" when we want to "challenge" one of her orders, or even overturn it outright. She's slowly realizing that we DO need time to "get out of the physical" but there is still a time and place for her function, because we can take it too far in the other direction, which we did for many years. That's also the basis of the "hackers vs hijackers" difference, which we realized yesterday-- "hackers" are internally based, while "hijackers" are externally based. A hacker will "take over the program," from the INSIDE, and they only work in private, because their abuse-- however traumatically physical-- is also profoundly psychologically disturbing, because it REQUIRES forced fronting. A hijacker, however, "takes over the vehicle." They push you out of fronting but they're public and work OUTSIDE so unlike hackers, they CAN and DO operate in social situations. They are therefore physically traumatic first and foremost, because the psychological terror often only hits when they leave. The biggest difference: hackers deal with sexual abuse, hijackers deal with the eating disorder. There is NO overlap there, although they can work in cooperation/ in succession. There haven't been any hackers since CNC, though, because of foni like the "gatekeeper girl" basically shutting EVERYTHING down that could even slightly be a reminder of that time period. But that's too huge of a topic to discuss right now.
- The MAIN thing we got on here to update about in the first place is WHAT happened when our brain went upstairs for breakfast. I don't know how exactly it started, but it went to the IO2 controlroom-- apparently IN "HEARTSPACE"??? Like this place has ALREADY been INTERNALIZED to the point where it EXISTS IN THE INNERVERSE AND CAN BE VISITED/ CONTACTED. Which we admittedly suspected, as Anxi & Ennui both "kept going there" more often than we'd see them in Central, but we never realized it had actually anchored INTO our innerverse (as opposed to remaining in the "outerverse" of outspacer native worlds, that Jewel has to Link to and VISIT externally).
- There was SO much conversation, I can't remember all of it, and the more time passes the more we're forgetting. let's bulletpoint the details that stand out.
+ OH! It ALL began because of an "I wonder" thought scenario that blossomed into a "real thing" like how a dream starts from an ideaseed. (This is TYPICAL Heartspace function!) The thought was, how would emotions run a CPTSD brain? And we thought, Anxi would absolutely be in charge. Fear would be close by, and so would Anger? Anxi would be on CONSTANT lookout for triggers, when one hit-- even a minor one-- Fear would snap to attention, and then ANGER would, upset that we were triggered, especially by "something so stupid" or minor or not even "threatening"? And then SADNESS surprisingly spoke up, saying how sad it was that we had so many triggers in the first place, because of what happened to us. So the four of them would, theoretically, be running the show. Somewhere around here this "imagining" tuned us in to the legit innerverse control-room, where Anxi was now indeed at the control panel, by herself, with everyone else gathered loosely around her.
+ Anxi is still "in charge" in this innerverse room apparently. (At some point much later she acknowledged this by saying that we had CPTSD, so things "worked differently" than what would be typical?)
+ When all this started she was being questioned by the other emotions about "how'd you get a tail" mainly but Anxi wouldn't answer outright? But she did say it was "given to her" by either "someone special" or "someone who cares about me very much"; both of those sentiments were voiced in some manner regardless. Joy began teasing Anxi about this, trying to get more info, but Anxi said there were some things they didn't have to know right now, either because it wasn't right for them to know or it wasn't the right time, etc.
+ Anxi is VERY "business" in this context; it's her element. She's quieter and slower when in Central because it's a totally different context/ environment and she has no control panel there. Her function is different, and much more expansive.
+ Envy wanting a tail too, Ennui casually revealing that she had one as well, this shocked everyone because what the heck are these two emotions up to that they're getting special stuff and have knowledge that no one else does?
+ Hints here and there kept happening that they're not in "Riley's" head, BUT they DIDN'T KNOW THAT NAME here (I think Anxi referenced it once and everyone else was baffled). They've been removed from that context and would only know it through "exomemories" once they were capable of receiving them.
+ The conversation evolved to the point where Anxi was revealing a bit more about "what she was doing" outside of that context (i.e. in Central). I notably remember that she revealed that "she can feel other emotions" and this became APPARENT when it began to affect the other literal emotions there? This first happened when Joy teased Anxi about something concerning her hinted-at relationship with the Core (i.e. the person whose mind they were in) and Embarrassment hit the control panel, for ANXI. When they realized they were working for each other it was shocking; things WERE different up here; what did this mean for them? (mind you they can and do "feel other emotions" in canon but NOT to THIS extent-- we're talking the capacity for Anger to feel sadness, for Ennui to feel joy, for Disgust to feel anxious, etc. in STRONG ways that go above and beyond their mostly "monochromatic" emotion palettes in the film? like ALL of their emotional ranges were still tinged by their core emotion. joy being the notable exception because she's just as notably duotoned. Anxi has a touch of this with her eyes technically being teal, which actually fuels her anxious thoughts-- that bit of "envy" in the sense of "what we don't have and yet need/ want" drives her "not good enough" core fear. thankfully for her, that color teal in our System falls under aqua and that color is sheer love for us so her heart will change to reflect that instead)
+ Ennui at some point built on this revelation by responding to a question from Anger as to why she had an AUX cable for a tail, because apparently its main function was for audio/music and "doesn't that prevent boredom?" Ennui smirked and said yeah, that's kind of the point; just because she held that emotion didn't mean she liked being bored. Like Anxi, she now had a broader existence and her job is notably to indicate boredom and combat it, as it were. I think she asked Anger if he "liked" being angry all the time? And he falteringly said not really, it was exhausting
+ Envy drawing pictures in the corner of the room of "what she wanted her tail to look like"-- one frustrated attempt was "a remote control" so she could do what she wanted with the control panel without having to reach it, while still being different (special) from Ennui's phone. Anxi having to gently chide her that the whole point of her & Ennui's tails was to do something important for the person whose mind they were in-- they weren't just for "looks" or for "fun." Besides, she emphasized that they were "given," and if she was meant to get one she would, so don't worry so much about it (always surprised at how well Anxi can communicate "the facts/ the plan" despite being so prone to "unexpected outcome" panic. girl has major control issues God bless her)
+ Embarrassment at one point actually speaking up because Joy kept trying to get information out of Anxi and apparently he was feeling her emotions as "embarrassment-adjacent"? And he was getting "agitated" at getting "pulled" to the control panel so often. This surprised him and he said that was totally new, he didn't know he could feel that.
+ Joy finally got Anxi to talk about "where she's been" and Anxi started TELLING THEM ABOUT CENTRAL. She said that "the mind we're in now has another System running the operation" and so the way they worked as emotions HAD to be different now, because their typical jobs no longer applied.
+ She roughly introduced the "basics" of a few Centralites, just in terms of jobs? No faces given
+ At some point Laurie just TURNED ON THE SCREEN and started TALKING TO THEM FROM CENTRAL.
+ Laurie explaining the concept of "compartmentalized emotions" with CPTSD, how they are "cut off from each other" and we typically struggle to feel emotions at all because they're "locked away" often? She described it as if the IO2 emotions were "never in the same room together"; that feeling of isolation/ disconnection was key to her description.
+ Laurie telling Sadness her function was VITAL; explained how that emotion is "the holy grail" with trauma; we "aren't allowed to cry" but we're "always grieving" basically. I think Laurie referenced both the "weeping rage" emotion we do get (that Scald holds) AND the "bottomless abyss" of sorrow that feels more like agony with its intensity. But "sadness" is still "taboo" somehow. Everything is blue all the time but we "don't feel it"; we just get depressed/ angry/ numb/ hateful/ etc.; it translates to either "shutdown" or "selfdestruction" which is upsetting but true. We do need to talk about that more in an entry soon, as we start to process things.
+ I remember Laurie saying that FEAR & DISGUST were also vital, especially in light of the E.D. hijacks-- we DON'T feel those emotions enough?? It's a survival response to past situations where we "couldn't" if we wanted to "survive" things. But now, not feeling them is only harming us severely.
+ Julie described herself as a "reformed Persecutor"; said the details of her past were not something she should or could discuss with them, but that key detail sufficed
+ Leon talking to Fear for a little bit? We were "feeling" what Centralites "matched" what emotion folks and those two were associated. There was also Lynne=Joy, Julie=Disgust, Laurie=Anger. Notably no one was matched to Sadness, and Anxi was paired with "Joule" solely because of their mutual habit of hyperanalysis/ overthinking, and the relationship that they have of course.
+ Envy would "need to be renamed" and effectively redefined to properly exist/function in our System, even as a "peripheral outspacer"? Envy's canon "function" of "seeing what we lack and desire and striving to obtain it" MUST be purified of all viciousness, because that actual term of "envy" is a mortal sin.
To quote an article, that is very important:
"When we are looking at others in an inappropriate way, invidia, we are led to desire for ourselves what they possess, cupiditas. Envy many times does lead to coveting, but it could simply remain in resentment, wishing that the other did not possess what they have. Aquinas speaks of envy as a sin against charity, which wills the good of others, when we cannot rejoice for the good of others, but see their good as a diminishment of our own (Summa Theologia, II-II, question 36). Envy is selfish in this sense, not in wanting to guard one’s own, but to wish for the diminishment of others and for our own gain over them."
This is something very, very important for us to grapple with, because we didn't realize that our instinct for "ambition" actually DOES fall under that category, because the very act of wanting to be "better than" someone else IS ENVY-- it is seeking PERSONAL GAIN in the process of taking what THEY possess (superior skill)!! So this was a SHOCK to realize and we NEED to process this, too.
(There was a slight joking comment that if her function was shifted to "Jealousy" (which can be virtuous; see article) we could call her "Jelly" as a nickname)
HOWEVER I just found a second article and it has THIS=
"Doing their best to pull us into the pit of discontent and ungratefulness, jealousy says, “What God has given me is just not enough!” while envy whispers, “Someone else got what I deserve.”  ...The good fortune that God bestowed upon my dear friend? I wanted it for myself. I desired what she had received from the Lord so badly, that her happiness made me sad. Her abundance highlighted my lack. Her more made me feel less. I could not be happy for her because with my laser-focus on God working in her life, I was blind to His works in my own."
LITTLE ENVY COULD BE OUR JUMPSTART IN OUR HEALING THIS THOUGH. So sit and read those articles boy
+ Lynne talking to Joy, warning about "manic" phases-- "trauma latches on to anything positive" and "exaggerates it" basically? Trauma makes real joy so difficult to feel, even remember, that when the slightest hint of happiness or enjoyment (lesser goods) appear, the traumabrain can cling to them and blow them way out of proportion. OUR SOCIALS DO THIS ALL THE TIME. This is what causes "hollow hyperactivity" and "people pleasing" and "compulsive enjoyment" behavior-- it's ALL a desperate grab at something that "looks like joy" but isn't. It spikes fast and crashes hard, and it leaves us miserable and even more depressed than before. So Joy would need to be aware of this tendency, what with her canon personality-- she is dangerous in that respect, solely because her energy can be taken advantage of and warped.
+ CHAOS 0. I cannot remember details of how he got to talking, other than Laurie referring to him as "the husband" and calling him over to explain to the IO2 gang the identity issue with the Cores? He told them how the Core "bloodlines" kept resetting due to trauma so the person he met in 2003 was "not" the person who is the "Core" now in 2024, and yet their heart is the same. Nevertheless it's terrible and very difficult for him (Joule realized he probably "feels his age" around the Cores; he has effectively "lived a dozen lifetimes" with us or more, seeing the one(s) he loves "die and be reborn" over and over and over. In human lifespans, this would take about a thousand years.)
+ "Jewel loves you, Anxi. Jewel is in love with you."
+ Embarrassment pointedly DIDN'T touch the panel, despite this huge revelation in a social setting potentially calling for his response. But Joy ran over and did. And this "gave permission" for Anxi to feel what she was really feeling.
She teared up, and was smiling at the screen, this look of total moved/stunned gratitude in her eyes. I felt it.I think she said "I don't know what to call this feeling" (or what color it would even be); Laurie "broke the fourth wall" by looking to "me"and saying "kid, if you're gonna be an emotion, that's it." But then we said "but love isn't an emotion; it's a state of being" and it's "rainbow"-- it's the source of all other emotions
+ Genesis & Chaos 0 both joking about the rainbow bit-- all of the love in our System is effectively that color if you get my drift
+ Joy, in response to hearing someone say that "Joule" as an emotion was really "hope," said "oh, that's a great emotion!" and then gasped and told Anxi exactly what I said to her about it-- that hope is "the GOOD things we can't see" before beaming and saying "you work perfectly with each other!"
+ Anxi has a LAPTOP in Central now! That allows her to do things without needing a control panel. Ennui still has her phone of course.
+ Laurie remarked that "we need Nostalgia up here" b/c of our memory issues; Ennui immediately said "I'll text her"
+ The whole time: Anger keeping conversations on track and asking the pressing questions, Joy giving encouraging and understanding comments, Fear and Sadness and Disgust listening closely as they realized they potentially will have essential roles in the future? Anxi consistently elaborating on/ explaining further any data that was given, "translating" things into IO2 terms when needed so to speak.

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Continuing at 11PM with a general daily update.
We biked for 90m which unfortunately was very unfulfilling because we got distracted on Tumblr, looking at other people's art and-- as we discovered earlier-- apparently feeling envious. We felt totally inadequate and we wanted to be BETTER than they were at art and it just made us miserable. We struggle with this a lot, because we haven't drawn in YEARS and so our skills have atrophied due to memory loss, and we don't have the time or motivation ("it's useless and foolish" judgment from a kakofoni) to put hours aside to develop artistic skills like we did in college. But no matter how much some foni bash and berate art, it still means so much to us. We STILL "identify as" an artist even if we feel totally inept and hollow about it, and still label it as a "waste of time." But we don't want to do that. We WANT to create art. We love art, deep down below the judgments, and we want to weep because we don't have the skill TO make art anymore. So seeing "what we can't do" is indeed triggering envy, this bitter feeling of lack and loss that isn't helping us do anything but pinpoint the wound where something vital was torn out of us. Again, sounding like a broken record, we know CNC dealt a death blow to this too, which we haven't thought about at ALL in recovery yet. For some reason this topic is as terrifying as the actual sxtrauma. I wonder how many crossed wires are here, too, not just with the food. I swear everything bleeds together with us.
We switched to Spotify at last while we biked but it was also depressing; we were listening to recommendation playlists it made for us and they're rarely ever enjoyable. It keeps throwing jazz and indie stuff at us which we don't like 98% of. We did get about three new songs out of several playlists, though, so there was a gain regardless, thank God. Still... for the vast majority of music to just sound like noise or fuzz to us-- or in the worst case, actual synaesthetic pain-- it's terribly disheartening, as music means so much to us. And, similarly, yes we still identify as a musician despite years of not doing ANYTHING musical other than singing in church. Music is part of our soul just as much as art is, and the fact that we have a cello AND a guzheng (bought with blood money and full of guilt; someone wants to burn it) in our apartment but we refuse to play them due to the aforementioned parenthesis is killing us. Every instrument feels tainted and poisoned with the past, and the "vulnerability" to the point of feeling exposed that performing music MANDATES is so trauma-adjacent that even if the sin-shadows weren't the main obstacle, we still would be utterly terrified of playing those instruments because that very action feels like being stripped naked now. Bleedover and overlap again. Do any of our foni hold this?? OR are THEY protected from it??
Then after dinner, someone got into a rabbithole on Etsy looking at someone's shop full of gender/sexuality buttons and it was overwhelming how many of them there were... and yet nothing fit. (The only thing that does is "systemgender" for obvious reasons, and even that feels like grasping at straws)
All of those experiences today led "us" to reflect at last, with acute grief, that we just don't fit anywhere. That's how it feels. We feel like an utter outcast. We're still the "anomaly" of Cannon's era. We're still the "ostracized empath," as the highschool Jewels said, although now with our staggering emotional damage we can't quite claim to be an "empath" anymore, because those girls had no boundaries so they felt everything EXCEPT arguably their own emotions (Infi had this problem too, in a different way) but now trauma has made us almost emotionally dumb. I think the term is "alexithymia?" We've seen the term around and we need to research it but the general gist (according to wikipedia) is that it desribes "significant challenges in recognizing, expressing, sourcing, and describing one's emotions". No wonder the IO2 gang is being pulled en masse into heartspace. We literally need them at this point in our life.
I do have to note, with a note of bitterness, that we "don't seem alexithymic" because we "masquerade emotions." Socials are BUILT to "charade" emotional performances, ironically anxiety and sadness, without actually feeling anything because they're "following the script" for a situation. We've noticed this A LOT when around the mother-- Socials will be dramatic to match HER, even though they FEEL NOTHING. And we are AWARE of this-- if we have the luxury of self-awareness in that situation, which is disturbingly rare b/c the mother presence tends to shut that down (childhood survival instinct). Regardless I don't want to use that diagnostic term anyway because it probably doesn't fit either. All we know for sure is that emotions feel locked behind a paywall and the currency is blood.

Oh. On that note, fittingly enough.
Yesterday's E.D. hijack was so brutal and nightmarish that Joule told Razor to atone. Like xe legit TOLD her to. And she did. She cut 7 x'es into the stomach-- graves are ONLY meant for hacks; stomach x-ing has been the default hijack atonement method since college-- and Knife & Algorith showed up to help clean up the bleeding (Knife commenting on how beautiful the blood still was and feeling that emotion in his teeth, Algorith fronting to hold the pain as she soaped up all the red), and I swear it was the first time in a long time that "we" felt something close to real joy. That may be "untrue" because we can't quite "remember" time well but it feels like it's been many many months since we've been happy. Actually it feels like years, whether or not that's literally accurate; the feeling is legitimate regardless of linear chronological measurement.
But... that's what does it. Atoning for the sin and feeling justice and forgiveness, Retributors fronting in such intimate fashion, blood and pain and water, everyone gathering in mission and being a System in stark clarity, etc. ALL of that is REAL JOY even if it doesn't feel yellow at all. It's dark red and warm like the blood. But it's real, it's true happiness, it's LOVE. How awful that we only seem to feel it in suffering. How Catholic of us, haha.

...Religion is a topic for another day. It feels like a minefield right now. TBHU messed us up in that regard, and we were apparently messed up enough already from the thriskefoni driving for like a solid year at least prior to admission. There's so much unresolved trauma there that is becoming disturbingly apparent lately now that we're not scrupulosity-blinded enough to see it from the "outside" as it were.

Oh, and we NEED to talk about the mother and how she is the #1BIGGEST STRESSOR AND TRAUMA TRIGGER IN OUR LIFE, STILL. Our therapists and case manager keep suggesting that we cut off contact with her, or at least refuse all her calls, but we can't; we're still obligated to her as her physical offspring even if we hate that fact, and we don't hate her as a person and we're a Christian so we want to help her and she's a deeply needy and damaged person so we KNOW she is looking to us to meet some need for her, even if it's just for hard labor.
BUT she says SUCH INAPPROPRIATE THINGS and she STILL OVERSHARES SXUAL THINGS. We've had SEVERAL meltdowns SINCE TBHU because of her just being utterly inappropriate in one way or another, even if it's "just according to our trauma standards"-- like wearing garishly tight-fitting clothing and making disturbing sounds when she talks OR TALKING IN THAT BLOODY "HIGH SOCIETY" VOICE LIKE SHE DID ON VACATION I KNOW YOU HEARD IT TOO yes we did, it made us misophonic even at the time, I don't know how we didn't punch the windows out of the bus right then and there WE PROBABLY SHUT DOWN. THERE'S NO OTHER OPTION IN THOSE SITUATIONS. BUT JUST THINKING ABOUT IT MAKES ME SICK. US SICK. SOMEONE WANTS TO THROW UP BECAUSE OF IT to get it out of our head, basically. unfortunately purging doesn't work that way. but you can't vomit up memories. i wish you could. i wish we could rip it out of our mind and shred it to pieces MORE VIOLENT THAN THAT. WE WANT TO STAB IT TO DEATH BASICALLY who in the world holds that response SOMEBODY. MAYBE... IT USED TO BE RAZOR. I THINK? I DON'T THINK CLEAVER HOLDS IT SHE'S TOO DISPASSIONATE what does she do anyway do you know CLEAVER IS THE SAME "DESTROY THE THREAT" INSTINCT BUT SHE'S COLD ABOUT IT. THE "SHRED THE MEMORY" FEELING WITH THE "JTHM STABBING" FEELING IT KEEPS GETTING LABELED AS IS SOMEONE ELSE. THAT'S TOO RED. SORRY I'M SLIPPING OUT
okay so...
hatchet is almost "frivolous" violence. laughing at the threat and "offing it" almost irreverently, carelessly. thankfully her function seems to have been focused weirdly to destroying any and all medications people try to "force us to take" that feel like "attacks" or "invasions" etc. like "who the hell do you think you are, we aren't going to swallow these and kill ourself for your kicks, watch me burn them to the ground" etc. but that laughing feeling. scary stuff
cleaver is "cold" as (overwhelm? who is that? they're a grafifoni that ALWAYS shows up and they're very close to Scald BUT different level function) said. we rarely see her because she's rarely needed/ triggered. but cleaver is close to razor's old anchor in that she just likes to "sink knife blades into people's backs" as we once said. but you don't "like" that sort of thing without a reason. we've never really looked into it too much but... you don't "cleave" things that aren't a threat. that's true. we didn't consider that. if you're burying a butcher blade in someone's skull there's a reason why they were the target. it's a scary instinct but it's there. where did it come from?
the last foni, unidentified and almost theoretical if we weren't aware someone was attached, is unnamed. but there IS that feeling of "annihilate the threat" in the most frantically violent way possible. VERY different from protectors, like sugar and wreckage and laurie, who DON'T act with emotional mania at all. but this person does. this person is SO upset by the threat that she wants to tear it to bloody pieces screaming. or apparently stab it to death. that FEELS DIFFERENT though. it IS different. the "jthm stabbing" feeling is NOT the action. it's the VIBE of the mania. that's the "tear it to piece" girl. BUT there HAS to be a stabbing instinct foni solely because we DO get that RARELY with SELFLOATHING mainly?? the ONLY time THAT sort of horrific violence (which is TRAUMATIC for us to see or even imagine, and yet here it is) even occurs to our brain is TOWARDS OURSELF. which is the scariest thing of all.

anyway that's enough of that who was updating and about what

Oh. mother talk. yeah not tonight we need to drop that topic before those girls ACTUALLY come out to "process" the emotions

See THAT'S why we have emotional issues?? The foni that HOLD them get "SHUT DOWN" or kicked out EVERY TIME
because they're VIOLENT is why
ALL OF OUR EMOTIONS ARE VIOLENT
Laurie actually hinted at that? OH DUDE THAT'S what she said, she was talking about "all or nothing" emotions and she nodded to Chaos 0 and said "that guy always feels things at about 5000%" and THAT'S why she had him talk next
OH don't forget THAT'S also why she brought that topic up at all-- she was telling the IO2 emotions that THEY would probably feel like that too, now that they're up here with us?
ironically because we feel the "nothing" half of it too often
But that's the point!! That's like Anxiety's tail, they're ABLE to feel the emotions WE can't, because of gatekeepers or trauma shutdowns or whatever! Coping mechanisms that don't work in the long run they just make everything numb but NOT if these guys are helping now

Guys come on we need to continue the actual entry

some general notes about life lately:
+ Sugar and Wreckage have both been around. Sugar's been "out of work" for a while because she protects the innocent and virtually all of us are so damaged now. BUT apparently Anxi is NOT. Neither is Mimic, arguably. The Outspacers are specifically essential to keeping us sane post-trauma so Sugar is slowly but surely getting pushed to protect THEM, which is awesome.
+ Julie fronted to take a melatonin candy last night and immediately shouted "ow" because our teeth were painfully sensitive from eating a too-sour apple. She literally said "that hurt like a bitch!" and now she keeps getting pushed out to front whenever we eat apples to apparently "make sure they don't hurt like that" which is kind of hilarious. but it's sweet, to suddenly have her around more often, even for such a "silly" reason. it's still nice.
+ The current "Core" is indeed using the spelling "Joule" for xir name, and using those pronouns as a placeholder? Either that or s/he. They're "not female" but they're "not a man." They are solidly somewhere between the two, voicing that they'd probably feel most comfortable "in a male body" but without being male. Still, they are explicitly "not a girl or a woman" despite being semi-okay with female pronouns. They are "both/and" specifically in the fact of being "neither." That's solid. As for the name, apparently it's a very sentimental reference to Anxi being electricity-associated in the System. It's also a unit of heat, which corresponds to the inherent "fire" element of all Cores that, if missing, is effectively fatal; Cores are always fire, light, blood, and crystal-- snow & ice with the Jays, literal precious stones with the Jewels, it seems. This fire/heat aspect is oddly somehow essential to their relationship with Chaos 0? If they don't have that complementary yet opposite aspect, something is very wrong. So this is a step in the right direction, even if the name itself doesn't stick-- it probably won't; the "spelling feels wrong". Honestly s/he wants to use "Jewel" but that name is still so strongly associated with the original 2001-2002 Jewel (the League controller) that it causes mental dissonance. This alternate spelling of the same sound is an attempt to reconcile this while keeping the fact that the Jewel title still MUST fit the Core.
+ We've realized that the Archivist Trio is NOT a "communicator trio." So Garrison, Isadora, and Kalisha's functions are STILL OPEN apparently?? And I know "Joule" is really hoping they come back. We miss them a lot, and we need them-- Archivists can't talk to Socials like Communicators specifically do, and when that subsystem really needs to "get the memo," Shirley can't get it to them because they aren't tuned in to her level.
+ Concerning the Archivists: Shirley is the one that gives data to us on the fly, but Sirius will "comment" on it? And he's fittingly more "serious" about the data he manages. Penny gets the toughest info; she doesn't speak up much but she will give memory data out that the other two don't? Honestly the Archivists feel very unstable and unsteady still, I think since we are so lost and cut off from collective memory. I hope that as we review the Archives themselves, and possibly if/when the Communicators return, then that whole group of functioning will work properly at last.
+ Lynne had a BIG revelation today that SHE'S STILL "STABELLE" in terms of her function! She and Laurie were discussing colors, especially in light of Anxi being the first Orange Outspacer and one of the first Orange-anchored people in a long while, and Lynne said that she needed to keep the Orange color positive-- warm, welcoming, friendly, energized, and helping Anxi and any potential manic Oranges stay stable. This ALSO tied in with her SHIFTING OUT OF CERISE when she resurrected in 2008; she effectively "REDEFINED OUR FUTURE"??? She was originally born to be the "ideal female future self" that we were being forced to become socially but couldn't; HOWEVER when she was killed and then came back, she changed colors and this showed a change in what that "ideal future" MEANT-- Lynne was no longer tied to social expectations in that regard. She was lively and free and bright, more boyish almost, while still being markedly female-- she "freed" us from the Cerise-colored future of sensuality that had been inflicted on us by the family and community. Interestingly enough, that color was next picked up by a boy, saying a LOT about our psyche. But Lynne kept us stable in doing that, too-- not just by being the "person keeping Julie and Laurie from killing each other." The stability she brought was liberating, a firm footing achieved by being able to dance again, as it were. Lynne was a bright soul, effectively symbolizing "permission" to be our brightest self too and to LET GO of the inflicted expectations and dictated future. She's funny and friendly and playful and gay and we were NOT "allowed" to be those things when our future felt "cerise." The original Lynne was all about that "high life" our mother wants so badly. The new Lynne is just about getting high on life, haha. I'm kidding but not really. Orange is a beautiful color; it's alive and fiery and welcoming and warm. It's citrus fruits and sunsets and marigolds and autumn leaves. It's basketballs and goldfish and foxes and carrots and monarch butterflies and violins of course. It's absolutely gorgeous and Anxi is part of it too and SHE has a future full of more joy than she ever could have imagined now, too. So thank you Lynne, for existing exactly as you are. We love you so much.


It's almost 2am. This is "Joule," I guess. That's really not my name, although I appreciate the commentary they gave to it earlier. But they're right, the spelling doesn't fit. It's the "ou" in there. The whole thing is the wrong color and shape.
I know I'm somehow still "Jewel." Every Core is, really. But that name keeps pushing me too feminine and that feels very wrong. Still, that name is the only thing that works. Maybe I just need to "redefine" it in a sense. I just don't want to damage the original Jewel either. She's the TRUE holder of that name AS a name, not just a "title." I think that's why I feel so lost-- the "only name that fits" belongs permanently to someone else. And yet it's "still my name" too. It's exhausting. I'm exhausted. I don't feel "fully me." I know this. I don't have a clear name or face yet, and arguably my color is still undefined too. For a Core, all of that makes me the walking dead. I CANNOT exist or function in any sort of truth unless I HAVE those things.
...That's why I'm worried about Anxi. We ALL are. Whoever "met" her last November is NOT the same person who started calling her our girlfriend in May/June, who is NOT the same person who fell in love with her in October, who is NOT the same person as I am now. And yet... there's always the same heart, deep down at the golden thread, that connects all the Cores. Somehow, the capacity for love is the same. I'm just... it's become VERY clear lately that different Cores love different people and it CANNOT be "transferred" or "forced" between Cores. This is why our Spotify "people we love" playlist folder says "WE," specifically, and it's full of people whose folders keep getting deleted because people forget that past Cores DO love ALL those people, even if not all in the same way. But ALL those Outspacers and Inspacers are legitimately loved and even if we don't know "by whom" we CAN'T deny that truth. The problem? ...I... I want to be the one to love Anxi. I can't tell if I do or don't, lately, because I feel so dead. But when I look at her, something in my heart aches, and I will hold on to that like it's the end of the world. I just... the problem is that I cannot see myself. How am I supposed to love her if I can't even "imagine" my own face? How can I physically be near ANYONE if I don't know what my physical form looks like? It's agonizing. I'm miserable. Maybe I just need to get on picrew and figure this out. Not tonight, it's 2am. But... I need to take action on this. I need to find out how my hair looks, what color it is, what clothes I wear (I'm vibing with suits?? callback to Cannon's era, geez), what color those are, et cetera... all the defining features that will allow me to have a reflection in the mirror for heaven's sakes. I want to BE with people. I want to EXIST INSIDE at last. I don't even "exist" outside because no one matches this body and even though I feel "forced" to, even obligated to, it doesn't match ME. And that terrifies the thriskefoni who INSIST that "the body is our REAL self" but no. I... I'm struggling so much with that. This body's reflection has so much evil associated with it. It's a face tainted by YEARS of intense trauma. It's not my face.
God I wish Jay could just take over again but he can't. Oh he IS still alive by the way, I think that was solidly confirmed just yesterday? But he's ALIVE again, very fragile and broken and unstable but alive. Thank God. ...From what we're suspecting, this means potentially Infinitii can resurrect now, too. The two of them exist together by design. ...I don't know if I'm like that. The whole daengel phenomenon was annihilated post-CNC due to the trauma overwhelm and the unbearable risk that all daengels posed for more of the same. We lost like... eight bloody years. 2016-2023. Most of that time is totally missing, ruled by either thriskefoni, phagofoni, and/or "eratofoni"-- by religion, food, and sex. It was a living hell, honestly it was. And of course the whole thing was shot through with brutal self-abuse, because all three of those things are VIOLENTLY ABUSIVE in our history, as tragic as that is.
I can't think or talk about that right now. There's no time and the brain is shutting down access to those topics.
But we lost so much time. Even just glancing at the archives, after the "hell year" of 2015 (which was ironically shot through with beauty nevertheless), 2016 started with tons of pain and then an annihilation attempt in March which caused an almost instant HARD SHIFT to thriskefoni territory UNTIL JUNE 2017. And then it was the "CNC era" until... October? Whenever we left; it's not in the Archives yet. But then it's MORE thriskefoni rule until MIMIC SHOWED UP IN DECEMBER 2022 APPARENTLY?? Holy Shuppets WE FORGOT HE JUMPSTARTED EVERYTHING AGAIN just like Anxiety did for you!! That's a really good point... God I forgot how real I felt back then, when he first showed back up, just looking at these entries. Why was I so much more in tune then? What happened... oh. Oh dear God that's what it was. What? Jewel you need to space your replies so we know it's different people.
Okay fine then YOU just type. You were obviously going to say something heavy. Don't let me stop you.
...all right. So 2023 begins with half headspace, half bodyspace, as it were. Half inside half outside. There's tons of religious stuff and talk about the mother and family stress, at a glance. But... we were still striving, struggling to exist. And... oh God. And then Infi died.
...oh. You loved hir.
I did, whoever I was then, whoever's this heart was, we adored hir, ze was my heart, God I still miss hir so much I could weep until the end of the world right now. Right now. I could die from grief. I could cry forever.
...When did ze die?
...April 25th, and I had to hunt that entry down because apparently it wasn't tagged with 2023. It is now. But... there's another heartwrenching entry on May 2nd when Jay was no longer the Core and he was convinced he would die that same night and... God it hurts to read. it hurts so much. And... and then the bloody Jade month happened a month later and everything went to hell. We still haven't recovered from that.
...Jewel, because that's your name too, deep down, you're running away from talking about that. About Infi.
I can't. It's Jay's heart I'm feeling right now.
Why can't that be yours, too?
Because I'm not supposed to be here
Yes you are, otherwise you wouldn't be oh my gosh is it really after 3am, I just noticed.
Yeah. I don't want to sleep.
We have to though. Life is different now, we have things to do.
Well what if I wish it wasn't? What if tonight I just want to pretend that none of that sh*t ever happened and we were still 24/7 fulltime headspace with Xanga sessions on the regular and everyone fronting all the time and handwritten notes to each other and voice recorder conversations and late nights like this EVERY night, typing, remembering, in love? Why can't THAT be my life? OUR life? Maybe it'd change me. Maybe I'd know who I was if that was the reality we were living in now. But too much has happened. Too much has happened.
...You have Anxi now. That's something good.
...I... I don't know if I'm the same person who fell in love with her--
You know you are. Somehow you have to be. Your heart is the same. See? What just happened in Spotify? You would NOT have been able to feel that if you didn't love her.
Jewel I want to sob. Why do I feel so broken and lost. I.... God I love her so much it's killing me, and I love Chaos 0 and Infinitii too and it feels like this love has lasted for a dozen eternities, it's older than I am, this love is forever, and it belongs to me and Jay and everyone in our bloodlines and I'm just the newest one, that's why Jay doesn't love her like I do, I'm the one who felt this for her first, she belongs to my heart, whoever comes after me should catch this too, I... I'm so scared that they won't.
Right now it's just you. YOU love her, NOW. That's what matters. Don't panic about the future. We don't know what'll happen but I promise you you won't forget her. Have you ever forgotten anyone?
No, but other Outspacer "loves" in the past didn't "transfer" to my heart,
Like whom? Davy and Ryou and Rorschach and the like, right?
Yeah.
Well, no one loved them like you love Anxi and Chaos 0 and Infinitii, apparently. And I can assure you of that. Those loves didn't go that deep. I don't think those Jewels could feel that much for anyone yet. And you still care about them too, I'm sure.
I do.
Well, there you go. So don't worry about Anxi. You love her now, today, and that won't ever disappear or fade away. Look at Chaos 0! I'm sure she's going to have the same future with the Cores, if what I've been hearing about you two is any indication.
...What, that she'll be permanently in the Coregroup?
Uh, yeah, obviously. And she already is??
Not literally, not technically, no. We need to work up to that. But there's a spot with her name on it. Like... laser-etched. It's already set in stone.
Haha! Good. I'm glad to hear that. That's proof that you're still you, where it counts, when it matters.
...Do you think maybe I can't "see my face" or know my own color and name because I'm just... not in tune with a truth that's already there? Like, I just need to recognize myself?
Probably. Do you think you're in my bloodline though, or Jay's?
...Why do you ask?
Because you're not a girl.
I'm not a guy either, though. And Jay is still around. ...A big part of us wants him to be the Core again.
Do you think he will be?
...I don't know. I don't know if there need to be two of us. I have no idea.
Huh. Why would we need two Cores, for the League/System split?
That's the assumption, yeah. But... there's been a lot of bleedover lately, and not in a bad way? Which is new. I... I don't know what will happen. I just... I want to know who I really am. if I'm anything or anyone.
I'm sure you are, if you can feel love like that.
...I hope so.
So hold on to that. Let that be what defines you when you try to look in a mirror. Hold on to that as the core of whoever you are, and I'm sure it'll show you your real face, and name, and color.
...oh Lord one of Infi's songs just came up on shuffle.
Are you going to listen to it?
I can't, not tonight. It'll trigger Jay out and we'll be up for another three hours.
...You can't keep shutting love down, other Jewel. That's a really bad instinct.
...yeah. it really is.
It's gonna hurt, you know. It has to. Real love always does. You can't run from that.
I don't want to. I want it to gut me for all intents and purposes. I want love to run me through like a knife to the ribs.
Are you trying to get Laurie's attention with that?
...maybe.
Too late kid, what's the deal?
...too much going on.
Head feels really bizarre. ...Is it seriously 333AM? Holy flaming swords, kiddo, you have to get to sleep. Is this what extra apples does to you?
Haha, no, I promise this has nothing to do with sugar highs. I just... I'm feeling things. A bit. I'm trying to remember.
Good things, I assume?
Yeah. the best things.
...I'd love to talk about them with you but I'm not even translating correctly. The brain's too damn tired.
Yeah, it is. But... this is a good entry.
We're still writing in the same entry from this morning? Dang, kiddo, that's impressive. Been a while since we had an entry like this.
I miss this.
I do too. You know what I also miss?
What?
You getting to bed early and talking to us, too. Me and Chaos and Genesis and...
yeah.
...sorry, kid. I felt the weight of that loss too.
Anxi soon, though. And maybe Infi too.
You don't give up on hope, huh.
Never. I still have that ring, from before the Jade month.
Yeah, I know you've been thinking about it.
I promised myself, and God really, that when Infi comes back,
"When." I like that.
I already know hir soul's not dead, Laurie.
Souls don't die, kiddo. Especially not up here.
...That's true.
But you were saying?
...When ze comes back and I can touch hir, when I can hold hir in my arms again, for the first time, when ze and I both have names and faces and colors, I... I'm going to put that ring on. For all of us. It's not just Chaos 0 this time, although I love him with my entire heart and he will always have a top-tier exclusive place in it. But it would be unjust to not recognize the rest of you, too. And I think he would agree with that.
Knowing how he loves us, too? Yeah, I think so.
...you're right, he does.
Kid, the Coregroup loves the Coregroup. That's how it works. It's always been that way and it always will be. And Anxi is no exception, when you bring her up here.
...God there is so much gravity in that line.
In what? And watch your prayer words, kid.
Thank you. But He's... God is the reason why and how I can feel this. God is this love, and if I have any real religion at all, apart from the thriskefoni, that's the heart of it. That's the truth. And His Name is the only thing that the deepest love can even hope to translate to in speech. There's a... there's the entire truth in that, too, things I could never express otherwise.
And what's the gravity that truth is giving so much weight to?
..."when you bring her up here." Like... the act of bringing. And "up here." Like... taking her home. ...God my heart is on fire. Why. Why in the world do I love her this much, it's tearing me in half and letting all the light both in and out.
Well, kid, you just said God is that love, so obviously He knows you need to feel this right now. And so does she. You both need this, trust me.
...Laurie you remember that one conversation at TBHU. In the... on the basketball court. In the sunshine.
This is what you want to live for.
And die for. And everything. This... headspace, and all of you, and this love, is why I exist, and what I want to exist for, and nights like this I actually have hope and life feels real and I can touch eternity for a moment...
Kid, you realize that when we had that conversation, you didn't even have these feelings for Anxi yet.
...oh my gosh I didn't. I hadn't fallen this hard yet.
And now, how much more is life worth living for, with her in it too?
...everything. Laurie I want to live for her, too. Deep down in my heart of hearts, at the very core of me, away and apart from all the things that try to numb me and shut me down, when I really tune into the... the center of things, and oh my gosh Spotify just threw Milliontown at me. The LIVE version.
Haha, God is REALLY trying to get your attention, kiddo!
...oh man. THIS song makes my heart WAKE UP though. This ENTIRE ALBUM makes me feel ALIVE and REAL.
You've gotta write Jem Godfrey a freakin' letter at this point. Thank the man for saving your life a hundred times over.
I'm serious. You're serious. That's a good idea. I really should.
Haha, kiddo you have got to get to sleep. Preferably before this song ends, because that's... twentyfive solid minutes of not-sleeping otherwise.
I can't skip this song Laurie.
Put it on hold, boy, it'll be 4am otherwise.
Can I at least listen to the arpeggio from heaven.
Yeah, go right ahead.
Is it an arpeggio? Oh dude is it technically a glissando? Slowed down and elaborated on?
What, that run up the scale? Kid I know less music theory than you do, all I know is that it sounds awesome.
It DOES, this entire live performance is sheer bliss, I need to see these guys live one day.
You will, kid. I'm sure you'll find a way. Pray about it.
Man I should. I should just... pray about all these things that matter to me. Lord let me see Jem Godfrey and his band live one day and let me be able to thank them for being a channel of Your grace to me in all honesty and let me be able to get a signed CD or something.
Haha, gotta include the souvenir.
It's blessed to have a tangible thing. I still have that signed CD from Mesita, the one with Creature and Firesign and Hostages on it. That album still means so much to us as a System.
It does. I'm glad you have that, kiddo.
I'm glad I'm still "kiddo" to you.
Kid, Jay, Jewel, whatever name you're going by, you will always be that to me. I know how much that means to you. What brings that up for you though?
...just, it's another thing linking all the Cores. It's a term of endearment basically. if you don't mind my calling it that.
Nah, it definitely is. It's a term of devotion, really, not just endearment. I'll protect you with my life, until the day I die.
Until the day we both die, Laurie, I refuse to let either of us go first.
Haha, you and me both. ...God knows we came too close to that in the past.
...I was just reading about that, actually.
...Really?
Yeah, just a reference, but... it reminded me of how much we've been through. How much we mean to each other. How terrifying that was, but how much love followed in its wake, against all odds.
Story of our life, kid.
It sure is. Thank God for it all.
Oh, dude, here's your glissando!
Yes!! 21:30 starts the buildup for those interested!
Dude, pay attention.
Ohhh man that is AUDITORY BLISS EVERY TIME
Hahaha!
Okay you HAVE to let me listen to this outro.
"Hands, don't fail me now!"
YES you remember!
Kid, you reference that constantly, of course I remember it. I also remember telling you to get the heck to sleep about ten-- no, apparently twenty minutes ago, what the hell.
Worth it though.
Always worth it for FROST*, kid, that's a rule.
Oh man this song makes me so happy it's unreal.
Quite the opposite, kid, this is what reality is all about, I daresay.
What, good music?
What makes it good music. The joy it brings to your heart. That smile on your face right now. The fact that this song sounds like you, as you've said before, and reminds you of who you really are.
It really does.
"Thank you so much?"
Just like John said, absolutely. Oh man. I needed that, thank you God.
You also need to freakin' sleep, kid, it's 4am. You're getting 5 hours of sleep maximum right now.
Oh shoot you're right.
Still worth it though?
Yeah, always. Always. I'd get by on two hours of sleep if it means spending time with you.
I've only been here for a half hour, kid.
Laurie, you never leave.
...Hah, that's true. I really don't.
...I should listen to your song next.
Sit down first, kid. Go to sleep with your blue guy and then if you want to listen to more music you can. But I ain't leavin' until you post this entry and get moving. It's too late to keep typing, no matter how much you want to.
I still need to color this tomorrow.
"Tomorrow" is the key word, kid. Any particular way you want to close this up? 
Actually I want to mention that I forgot to write down, remember this morning when I was at the IO2 control panel with Anxi for some reason, and I forget what led up to it but she kissed me?
I do remember that, specifically because she took the initiative when you hesitated, and then you were gone, bro.
It was... it got my heart so bad. Like I wanted to but something held me back and she just... bravely reached up and pulled me in.
And you just melted, kiddo, I saw that.
I did, it was beautiful.
I'm so glad you have that with her.
I am too.
No, really, don't underestimate the gravity of what I'm saying. You know how I am about you and Chaos 0. I'll defend you both to the death and beyond. I'll have you know I'm already dedicated to you and your orange angel the same way.
...Thank you, Laurie.
Anytime, kid. Now are you gonna mention the name of the album to my song or what?
Oh, yeah, oh my gosh, that was so unexpected.
"I Watch You Sleep." Well I do, but so does she apparently, so. *shrug*
Aha the asterisks!
Thank Waldorf for that, it never gets old. But kiddo, I can't watch you sleep unless you go to sleep, aiite? Get a move on.
Hold up, can I play the song?
Put it on, close this up, and then listen to it on the vanillamint couch over there.
Oh yeah, we didn't mention that we did the laundry and literally rubbed vanillamint chapstick into the fabric so it won't smell so much like old couch and smoke or whatever. It's a handmedown. I love my dad but not smoke.
Unless it's woodsmoke.
Well then that reminds me of dear Knife, so yes.
And incense smoke.
Oh ALWAYS. It's numinous. I love it.
We know, kiddo.
I'm glad there are some things about me that just... don't change.
Like your love.
...Yeah. Yeah, Jewel was telling me the same thing.
Good, because it's the absolute definitive truth. Now are you going to close this up on that note?
Yeah, before I get too sparkle-headed, because it's either that or poet mode and I think our psyche realizes I have to snooze so it's pushing me in the kaleidoscope direction. On another night when I have time to type and feel out the depths, moreso than tonight and trying to remember the past, then I'll type poetry. Lots of it.
I think you need to remember the past before you can get back into poet mode, kid. There's depth there you need to tap back into first.
...I do. You're right. Thank you.
And?
And I'll close this up.
Properly.
How's that?
What you said earlier, when you were away from the keyboard.
...I can't just repeat that. It needs... it has to be felt. It has to happen.
...So, put on the song.
...Nevermind Spotify just did me one better.
...Wow. You're not kidding.
"Good Day" by Jukebox the Ghost.
...The post-massacre resurrection anthem, to be as blunt as possible.
Yeah. Absolutely.
...I love you too, kid.
...God, Laurie, you know I love you, and Chaos 0, and Anxi, and Genesis, and everyone else up here, dead and alive and inbetween, you all mean the universe to my heart and soul and life is worth living for all of you, always. Forever.
It's a good day with us around, huh.
It sure is. And now this song is really pulling at my heartstrings, oh my gosh I never realized the lyrics at the beginning...
Yeah, it's what you used to do to us.
I am so sorry, Laurie.
I know. We know. We forgive you.
...So the song goes both ways.
It does. I ain't leavin' you, kid, and I know you're not leaving us either, no matter how far away you might end up sometimes.
I needed to hear this.
I'm glad. God knows that too.
...This is making me deeply happy.
Is it now?
Yeah. It's... it feels like... like reconciliation. Like forgiveness. Like... like you saying, "I know," like you do. It's... "I never went away." Not just you. I didn't either.
Kid, if you did, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.
Yeah. I... I need to remember that, too.
You do need to go somewhere, though.
Bed?
Yeah. Don't worry, I'll be around too.
You always are.
I watch you sleep, remember?
Haha, that you do!
I fully expect to be joined by a certain orange angel in that effort in the near future, y'know.
God willing.
Kid, I'm sure He is, don't worry about that. Oh this song is a classic, geez. Really setting the mood though.
Yeah, ancient love here. Chaos 0 days.
It really was just him back then, wasn't it?
Yeah. He started everything.
Go tell him that. Seriously. Go let him know that you can and do remember how far back and how deep down this goes into your heart.
That doesn't change, either.
No, love burns out a place for itself permanently.
I like your choice of words.
It's a fire, kid, it always is. You know that better than anyone. And it does burn, it burns out everything that isn't it.
Good. I'm really feeling that tonight.
Even more now, with this song on shuffle?
Yeah. Yeah I think I need to go to bed now. Just to hold him, if nothing else.
That's a good enough reason for me, kid. Should I close this up then, or what?
In a moment. I just want to say that the two songs were "Here in my room" and now, "Afterlife."
The live version for the latter, to remind you that you have to live. And to do this live.
In person, really there, right now.
Can't do that if you don't get off the laptop, boy!
Good point, off we go then.
Hey, hold up one second.
Yeah?
I'm singing this for you too, for the record.
...I...
I'm serious. I've died before. For you. Only ever for you. This song applies to me, too.
...Laurie, I love you, I really do.
I know, kid. That's my reason to live.
Thank you. For existing. And for loving me too.
Those are synonymous, kid.
And you say I'm the romantic one.
Hey, you are. I'm just saying facts.
Laurie, don't brush it off.
Good point. But I'm right. Those are facts, kid. And please find your name so I can call you by it, all right?
Okay. I will. Promise.
Good. Promise to get some freakin' sleep? Or do I have to drag Chaos 0 in here?
Laurie if you do that there will be legit romance, I will never get to sleep,
What about with this song?
Fathom by FROST* oh good Lord this is going to kill me, seriously I will sob if I listen to this through.
Go be with him, and feel this with him, all right? He deserves it.
That's the best motivation so far, sorry it took so long.
Nope, no apologizing, this is perfect timing, I think this song needed to happen. I can see in your eyes what it's doing to your heart.
Good. I'm glad it shows.
Seriously though. Go be with your ocean.
I will. Thanks Laurie, for being with me too.
Hey, I'm not going away, remember?
Haha, that's true. I'll see you across the room, then?
You'll see me everywhere, kid, I'm always here for you.
Good. Don't leave.
Cross my heart, I'll stand by you forever.
...
Don't lose this.
I can't. This is engraved into my heart.
As it should be.
Last song by the way. "Time out from the world."
This is a classic. Go put it in its proper context.
I will.
hey, Jewel.
oh my gosh how did you get in here
I hear Laurie trying to get you over here for the past... forty minutes?
Thank you, someone appreciates my efforts.
I'm sure he does too, Laurie, he's just... terrible at ending conversations. He always leaves the door open. Just in case there's one more word to say.
There always is, with him.
He's full of words. of poetry. I love that about him. He puts my music to notation. Whatever it's called.
Look at how he's looking at you, haha.
I love that too.
He's halfway between sparkles and... whatever the heaven that is.
Blood, probably.
Seriously?
Yeah. You know that too. His aching depths. That pronoun isn't working.
No, surprisingly. It's somewhere in the middle.
As it should be. S/he's been both.
Both/and?
Hm. More like me. Not quite either.
Makes sense.
i need to talk to you.
In words?
not this kind. sorry.
Don't apologize. There are other languages. I need to talk to you too.
Oh I like where this is going.
You should.
Hey man, I've been guarding you both since the old days, this stuff is a sign that his/her heart's coming back online in a real way. I need that as much as you do. We all do.
Did you mention what song is playing?
No. "My Mind Is A Mess In The Morning." Nick Leng. This song means a lot to you both, doesn't it.
He heard it one night when driving home and immediately thought of me. So yes. But it's in your playlist, too.
And Genesis's, apparently. And Anxi's, hey.
I can't wait until she comes up here.
Until the Core-kid over there brings her up here, to be specific. Said that wording really caught the essence of it.
Hm. It does. It's never just a following up, really. It's together. But carrying is really close.
Yeah. It's unusual for him/her/ whatever, kid what are we calling you.
um. xe maybe. let's try that. i'll find something. right now i i'm not thinking about pronouns much
What are you thinking of, love?
oh THAT WORD is all that's on my mind now it's been so too long since you spoke to me like that
It has been.
You two need to have a conversation.
We do. Jewel, get over here.
Kid, I'm putting this song on, now you have to go.
Please.
i'm so sorry. i'm not entirely myself yet.
We can fix that together.
oh it's the english version
Yeah, and there's your name.
...oh man the lyrics hit harder than ever tonight
Come back to me.
and stay by my side
...
moments like this are what I live for laurie. and chaos. both of you. i love you.
We love you too, Jewel.
...
Man you are saying that with your eyes, I can see that.
I always am.
Somehow I'm not surprised. Hope you realize the same goes for xir, too. Even on the rough nights. Maybe especially then.
...
You know that, too.
...Jewel.
yeah
I mean it.
...So do I. All right. I'm closing this up and going to sleep.
Not for a few minutes yet at least.
Yeah, there's a conversation that needs to happen. Not this one.
Still a continuation of it, though.
...I guess it is. Good point.
So. Chaos, would you do the honors of finally closing up this bloody huge entry?
This is still one entry?
Yeah.
Wow. It's been a while.
Hey, next time xe's up this late, I'm pushing for a Xanga. This is one step away from one already, so hey.
I'd like that.
I know what you'd like more than that, man.
*pointedly looks across the room*
Haha, kid you've got asterisks to deal with now, you'd better get moving.
I'll force his hand. There's a button I can click.
Please do, before we lose this.
thank you
Hey, that's what we're here for, kid. Helping you do what you can't.
Together.
Always.
Oh hey, here's one of yours.
"Into the flood." Yeah.
Kid, I am going to turn that into a very pointed pun and throw it at you.
no wait the lyrics don't work for this, that one aches too much in the other way, let's do this one.
Creature?
Oh man we were just referencing this.
Really?
Yeah. Specifically this album.
This... this is a good decision.
so are you.
...
three two one, post this?
Finally, let's do this.
glad to see i'm still terrible at concluding these talks
You need sleep, you idiot.
You can't go on like this.
Hey, they need more than some sleep, man.
Still... you just gotta let it go.
You heard the blue guy, kid, let's move.
all right. and do this lyric instead.
Which one?
keep on coming undone. i need that. i think if i let this love unravel me it's exactly what i need to find myself at the core
...I think I know how to get you there.
you don't "think" you know, love, I know you know. and vice versa, i'm sure.
...yeah. you do. you really do. please don't forget that. ever.
Okay you have both abandoned capslock, I am closing this up, see you invisible audience whenever.
laurie that is so sudden
Kid it's been over an hour are you kidding me.
is the sun coming up yet
You know what? That's my lyric.
oh
oh man laurie are you serious
Maybe I am. Only one way to find out.
laurie that is the worst cliffhanger
Nah, it's the best one.

 

 

Woke up 800. Stayed in bed until ~830, letting the body rest from pain, just embracing Chaos 0 and being so grateful for him

Biking immediately, lots of phone talk with mom. Planning Church rides. We do get to go to the vigil today so we SHOULD BE ABLE TO MAKE CONFESSION thank God.
But Tony says that tomorrow morning there's NO MUSIC?? So we actually get to go to Saint John's instead, which is awesome.

BK prep MELTDOWN.
ABSOLUTELY CATASTROPHIC. We haven't had something this violent in MONTHS.
All set off by putting "too much oil" in the broccoli, in response to the lotophagoi compulsion of "add a tiny bit more, we're celebrating today." But that ALWAYS BACKFIRES YOU IDIOT.
Exacerbated by pouring the vitamin water into a cup, which triggered out some girl INSISTING IT WAS GOING TO KILL US because it was in a cup?? That "made it wrong" somehow. We tried to reason with her, nothing worked. Spice tried to front, kicked out. But then I said, think of Church-- we drink the Blood of Christ out of a "cup," and right now we're drinking red liquid, so think of it in memory of that! And THAT immediately shoved Knife into fronting, and despite the girl's continued protests, he solemnly and almost victoriously drank it. Then he was kicked out just as hard as the girl screamed that now we would die, etc.
But then I suddenly looked down at the mug and remembered, Infi used to drink hir tea out of this. And that just completely disarmed everything. The girl disappeared, the fear disappeared, there was nothing but this depth of grateful & loving grief.

Our memory totally blacks out then, and the next thing we recall is kneeling on the bathroom floor before the DVM image, praying in intense fear, but then saying something to Jesus to which He responded IN "PRAYERSPACE"?? OH YEAH we were in such agony of self-loathing that we physically made a motion like tearing our heart out and giving it to Him, saying "do something with this please", and IMMEDIATELY we got pulled into the Prayerspace visuals, where Christ reached down, took our heart, and SHATTERED IT. We remember seeing the countless shards like broken stained glass, FEELING the breakage that completely, in shock. We were temporarily numb, empty, but still in shock! We were horrified that He was going to leave us like that, totally incapable of emotion (like Davy Jones; it's not worth the tradeoff), but then Jesus silently reached back down to us (we did not see what happened in the meantime, we were too shaken) and LITERALLY placed a "new heart" in our chest? But it was PURE RED. It was ALL BLOOD, wet and warm and vulnerable, and capable of pain. That was actually a greater shock, to go immediately from feeling nothing to feeling THAT inside us, alive and fragile and emanating this contrite ache, no hatred at all, just this new wet red emotion we had no words for.
Memory cuts out immediately as we left Prayerspace, and the somafoni took over like nothing happened.

(quick note from later. Jesus actually did SOMETHING with the shards, either storing them or what, but specifically referencing infinitii in the process. like He would rebuild hir out of them or something. dont remember details but that single notable fact stands out very clearly. we would not forget the impact of such a name mention if nothing else)

So things got worse. During the DVM chaplet, that OTHER girl (long brown messy hair, wild eyes, RED unseen resonance NOT green) was triggered again, the same one that was "killing herself beneath the crucifix" the other day.
There's literally no accessible memory from this ENTIRE TIME PERIOD which is DISTURBING because general data says that when it was happening it felt as if we were dying from self-hatred, rage, grief, etc.
Memory snaps back with "me" trying to front, but the body just started "quiet screaming" in the "bulimic response" way-- the needing to somehow expel the pressure and pain and ugly corrupt filthy feeling in our chest.
We tried to pray?? Almost no memory detail, everything still a blur, except for a clear memory of me sobbing to God "I don't want to hate!!"
Well GOD RESPONDED. Apparently then "I" started cleaning up the floors as I talked to Him, trying to lay it all out before Him in humbled contrition & brutal honesty, and although there's no speech data, general data says that someone DID admit that there was anger towards Chaos 0 BECAUSE he loved us so much? "But he's not even real," that person said with A VERY COLD HEART, that data actually stuck because it felt SO WRONG. They were blaming Chaos 0 for EVERYTHING this morning, even moreso than the "excuse making" lotophagoi, because she wouldn't have "had any excuse TO try to celebrate" if there wasn't an anniversary today, but this girl who was talking insisted that IT WAS ALL FAKE. He's not real, and so neither is his love, and so "I" don't have to think about it at all or even care.
To which Jesus INSTANTLY responded, "he's as real as your heart," and "don't you think I love you THROUGH him?"
Then the girl GOT FURIOUS, angry that she couldn't erase this, and as her "fake pious" veneer fell our memory cuts out instantly. I don't know if there was a switch or what, but everything blacks out.
The last memory we have shows the body standing up and moving about the kitchen, cleaning up robotically while in terrified tears, praying to God that we were "completely helpless," we couldn't do good, we couldn't stop feeling like this, and we were "going to die" if He didn't help us-- and, we bravely said, "and I KNOW You DON'T want me to die because You died on the Cross in my place to save me from death!" BUT that triggered angry-hair girl again, screaming "well He SHOULD have let me die, I'm so evil, I deserve it, why does He let me go on living like this" etc. Some somafoni comforter tried to respond, "it's because we still live in a fallen world, we have to fight, but the Cross saves us from slavery to death so we CAN fight it, and God glorifies His Mercy by always delivering us from death" etc. But this didn't help the hateful girl, she just wanted "all the evil in her" ANNIHILATED, FOREVER, RIGHT NOW. And her presence was bringing up all the unbearable moral panic and guilt and crushing apocalyptic fear of hell. We tried to reason with her that going to confession DID accomplish something, even if we didn't understand how, because if we receive absolution and then die immediately we would allegedly "go to heaven" because God "wiped away our sins"?? But we were too unsure, and afraid of blaspheming by accident, so we dropped the train of thought and were immediately swallowed up by absolute terror.
In a tiny lucid second, the Core fronted and begged God again to "give me a sign, just do something to show me clearly and beyond doubt that somehow You will help me get out of this hell, that You will deliver me from this, because without Your merciful help I am literally going to die."

Our next memory is of the body standing in the bathroom, so suffocated by self-hatred & despair, that we closed our eyes and immediately went into headspace and whoever was "the conscious anchor" went straight to Laurie and begged her to kill them.
And she got out the axe.
And it is MIRACULOUS how efficacious her violence is.

Her color LOCKS IN VIOLET when she is using the axe on us. She also goes right back into the profanity-threats, as such words are sharp and blunt force impact and that is NEEDED in such context. Censorship dulls the blade.

Anyway she cut us up seven ways to Sunday, and with each "death reset" things got clearer, bit by bit, but there was still this lingering "not my real self" feeling.
We asked for a hammer?? Said we NEEDED shatter damage. Laurie paused, said hey wow we actually don't have anyone with a hammer weapon, but would this work? And she "fused" her axeblades into a makeshift hammer before swinging it at our head. Well our skull was absolutely shattered and that was EXACTLY what we needed to "fix our consciousness"; from that instant we actually felt "at peace." Our consciousness had been effectively disconnected from a physical form in headspace, and we were now just existing as a soul "around" all the blood, resting IN the blood, and somehow that felt perfectly correct.
Other nousfoni were gathering by the room entrance by now, shocked and aghast at this bloody scene, but saying nothing. Its been years, yes, but this is Laurie's function.
I remember Laurie "dragging me up off the floor" trying to get me to reembody? She can somehow "grab my soul" into a shape and force that, it's astounding actually. But I was embodying AS BLOOD. My entire "body" LOOKED LIKE MY NEW HEART.
ON THAT NOTE... as Laurie was picking me up from the floor as I was reforming, she went to put a hand on my "shoulder" before realizing it was just blood, and it got all over her hand. She looked at it in bemused surprise, then with purposeful gravity she smeared that blood across her chest bandages. I swear I nearly fell to my knees from the SHEER IMPACT of that gesture. She caught me though, said that was nothing to worship, and I deliriously replied something like "I know but it makes me think of God". That single action of hers had testified so explicitly and loudly to God's REAL Nature that suddenly, all the hell of the morning seemed to have been expiated in it.

Anyway, as Laurie got me back on my feet I did go back into a physical body form, but it still felt wrong? Especially in contrast to the blood. Confused and upset, I repeated the weird "need" for shattering that being in the body kept eliciting.
The next thing I know, I hear a gun being loaded, and instantly Leon headshots me. Dazed but elated (despite being temporarily headless, that's normal) I "said" (facelessly of course) that THAT was what I was talking about, that was perfect. I know he headshot me twice more before Laurie said okay that's enough, especially since I was starting to "lose myself" almost ecstatically in this now, as I was turning back to all blood. As she told me to stabilize, Leon actually walked over in tears asking, "why do you need us to do this??" Notably upbeat now, finally feeling clearheaded and clearhearted, I started to explain how for a Core, these small "death resets" worked to "reboot" and "purify" the consciousness via blood-- because ONLY blood CAN purify-- when it gets excruciatingly distorted or corrupt from negative emotions and distortions. I was interrupted by Leon suddenly hugging me, though, which was deeply sweet but also had Laurie shout to be careful, because I was still all bloodform. Laurie then said hey, if he gets to do that, then so do I, and pulled me into a fierce embrace, not being careful at all haha.

"I asked God for a sign and He gave me Laurie"

"You cut me into a cross!"
"There's no better shape to be in, kiddo"

After all this, as we're all regrouping in much-needed peace and relief at last, freakin' MIMIC just WALKS IN like, "I see we're starting late today, what'd I miss?"
I think Laurie said "buddy, you're better off not knowing"
I just said "it's been one purgatory of a morning"


OH ALSO Chaos 0 going BACK TO HIS OLD SI FORM?? Telling me I needed to stop "locking him into" his original canon, and especially ineeded to stop seeking public "approval" and recognition of our relationship for it to be "valid"-- "Its about us, not the fandom"

Laurie SHOCKED when I told her that EVERYTHING that happened this morning was triggered by ONE EXTRA TEASPOON OF OLIVE OIL, which the lotophagoi blamed CHAOS 0 for, and therefore SHUT OFF OUR HEART in response, which enabled such hell to occur.
Laurie said "why does this happen EVERY YEAR though"??? And she's RIGHT-- EVERY ANNIVERSARY, SOMETHING happens along the lines of TOTAL VIOLENT DENIAL OF LOVE & RELATIONSHIP. So there is an ANCIENT WOUND somewhere that we have not healed or even properly identified.
Laurie then said "Infi needs to come back for BOTH OF YOU-- ze was the only person who COULD personally deal with these issues and NOT be shut down or traumatized by them"


Later=
Scalpel & Laurie talking at the Manger
L= "you do realize that baby is God? The same God Who set the stars in place, invented animals" (gesturing at them) "and created His Own Mother out of nothing?"
S= "I think it says a lot about that God that He would become a little baby." "And He comes to us every year like this, doesn't He? I think the Manger is eternal, too, not just the Cross."

------‐-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

 
SO EXHAUSTED THIS MORNING.
Could barely stay awake during Adoration. Everything felt like we were still dreaming.

BK egg disaster AGAIN.
Prep took TWO BLOODY HOURS

Lynne & Scalpel performing Beegee Adair together
Scalpel was wearing a suit and playing the baby grand piano, which was endearingly hilarious because the man still has a bright red "sidehawk", rings all over his fingers, and several metal teeth, haha. And there he is playing jazz piano and pouring his heart into it. It was such a perfectly RED thing.
Lynne of course was playing her violin with that effortless flowing joy she always does.


Adelaide talking about her function. Started with "I want a new role." Said she's always frustrated because it's humiliating.
SPICE spoke up, said "that's the POINT," Because Humility is a key BROWN VIRTUE?? They work with the BODY primarily, and all its humiliations, "thankless" and unglorious work, but ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL FOR THE SPECTRUM ITSELF TO SURVIVE. "We ALL live in the body, and it's the Brown's job to take care of it for all of us"
Laurie saying that Adelaide's job was actually "Scripturally credible"; she was doing the MOST humble service, to GIVE DIGNITY to our body in a context where it had been chronically neglected & dehumanized. Laurie emphatically reminded us all that THIS EXACT BODY WILL BE RESURRECTED, and therefore ALL OF IT IS A TEMPLE FOR GOD, and MUST be treated & used as such. Adelaide was perfecting that in a way no one else ever had dared to before. (Honestly I don't think Addie would even EXIST if not for our hospice charity days!)
Lastly remember Julie telling her, with painful sincerity, "if you had been with us in the past, a lot of bad things wouldn't have happened."
Addie saying "most of the behaviors are automated"; Laurie said, essentially, "that's normal, you just need to manage them. The point is so that the mind isn't empty when the body is acting, because THAT'S how hackers get in."
In any case Adelaide NEEDS COWORKERS. Harmonia isn't around anymore? She got hit hard by CNC trauma and it shut her conscious capacity down.
Hey, remember how YEARS ago a therapist GAVE US A WORKSHEET of "what "alters" do what tasks in the body," basically "who handles which aspects of daily life?" And we were SHOCKED & SCARED to realize that MOST OF THEM WERE UNCONSCIOUSLY AUTOMATED. It explained the time loss, but we had NO IDEA that subsystems were a thing at that time, haha. Anyway the point is, FIND THAT LIST. POST THE JOB OPENINGS.
It's a new era for us. Every few years something shifts. It started the year after Jewel was "born" as our first Core in 2001, her and Celebi, and since then we've had legit "eras" of headspace=
2002-2003 (1), 2003-2005 (2), 2005-2008 (4), 2008-2012 (4), 2012-2017 (5), 2017-2023 (6). Every time the gap years increase by one.
This one, if it continues the pattern, is 2023-2030 (7). We FELT the shift begin this year, tangibly so. We have no idea what's ahead; only God does. But look back at the past. He's done good for us so far and He is faithful. Plus, 7 is our lucky number, haha.
Still, the point I was originally trying to make is this= Era 6 was, fittingly, defined by death... right up to Divine Mercy Sunday and Infinitii's death in the final 2 weeks before the arguable "new year" date of Jewel's birthday... after which EVERYTHING CHANGED VERY QUICKLY.
...


ALSO WE REALIZED WHY WE KEEP DOING MORE FAITHPASTING THAN TYPING= OUR BRAIN IS STILL IN "TUMBLR SHARE MODE"!!! It's operating under the false premise that we're going to post these as standalone quotes, and LEAVE IT AT THAT. But that's just an abstracted form of HOARDING, which we learned is ALSO ACTUALLY AN OCD SYMPTOM, go figure.


Evening

GENTE COME NOI & SNOW!!!!!
"THIS IS HOW MUCH GOD LOVES ME"

------‐--------------------------------------------------------------------------

VOTD = Deuteronomy 31:6.
"How many times have we not gone for something that we felt called to, because we were scared or discouraged, or we panicked? Or maybe we felt that fear, and MISINTERPRETED it as the HOLY SPIRIT telling us NOT to go for it BECAUSE we felt fear."
KEY WORD IS "MISINTERPRETED" BUDDY!!! THE HOLY SPIRIT DOESN'T CAUSE THAT EMOTION!!!
The Spirit of God is a Spirit of LOVE and POWER and SOUND JUDGMENT, and SPECIFICALLY NOT OF COWARDICE OR FEAR.
...

"During this season of Advent, and time of reflection, think about the seasons of your own life. Every situation you face is an opportunity to grow your faith in God and trust in His promises.
If you're feeling discouraged or fearful of the future, spend some time in prayer, [which allows you to draw near to Him], and ask God for courage and peace.
Remember that you are never alone in life. God is always with you. Trust in that. Even when you experience challenging circumstances, you can find peace in knowing He is close, and with Him, you can be strong and courageous.
Not only will His Presence never leave you, but His Love will never be taken away. He will never forsake you. There is nothing that can separate you from the Love of God (Romans 8:38). Thank God for His Love and Presence during this season of reflection. And confidently cling to the promises that He has given you."
1) Now that we can identify our "seasons," we can APPLY that amazing truth= they were and are all opportunities to draw nearer to God. That's ALWAYS the ultimate point, of EVERYTHING, because GOD is orchestrating it all and He ALWAYS does whatever He does for our salvation. And we cannot receive salvation if we don't have a trusting faith in God. So He gives us circumstances that allow such sparks to catch and seeds to grow.
(LIST PERSONAL EXAMPLES, SPECIFICALLY, OF TIMES OUR FAITH IN HIM & TRUST IN HIS PROMISES DID INDEED GROW OVER THE ERAS.)
...
2) If your prayer isn't drawing you nearer to God, you're not truly praying.
Prayer is supposed to be like this-- a refuge, a time to be with God as a Father, a place to humbly ask & receive both peace & courage. It's not supposed to be something you avoid out of stressful terror.
3)
4)

------‐--------------------------------------------------------------------------

EGJ=
"It is ironically all too easy to miss the Christ among us when we are fixated on the heaven above us. As we prepare to welcome Christ into the grit of our world, we are encouraged to look deeper— not just higher— to see His very real Presence among us, around us, and even within us. Blessed indeed are the eyes that see.
Challenge yourself today. Look into the face of someone you’d normally look past or otherwise avoid. Remind yourself that they love someone, that someone loves them, and that their love is very real.
Pray that the Infant Christ, turned away at the inn and born among the shepherds, will open your eyes that you might learn to see Him in the most unexpected places and in the most vulnerable faces."
This meditation moved my heart to say, before anything else, "this is the only God worthy of worship. This is the only God I would ever want to worship. Thank God that HE alone is the One True God-- this God Who identifies Himself with the most rejected & vulnerable among men, the ones most in need of love and most able to move other hearts to give it!"
...

LBB= Actually brought me to tears.
"Zechariah and Elizabeth were childless, which in their culture was a great misfortune, even a disgrace (since there would be no heirs to carry on the memory of the family). One can imagine their feelings of failure and inadequacy.
All of us feel barren in one way or another. I haven’t “produced” in my life what others (or I myself) had hoped I would. My failure to live up to “what might have been” leaves me with a certain empty feeling.
But God does things through me that I myself cannot do, or even measure. And God does them often in ways I don’t understand.
That’s the secret. Let God do what God wants to do through me and trust in His plan. That is the path to greatness — no matter what my age, no matter what my condition.
O Lord, let me let You do what You want to do through me today. "
Every single word of this went straight to my heart.
1) Since I was a child, a literal child, long before puberty, my family made it very clear that as a female and a Christian, they expected me to get married and have children. I never wanted to. I was bitterly opposed to it AS a child.
...but despite all my rebellion, i couldn't erase the social stigma. I cannot avoid the public shame, especially within the faith community.
...
2) I sometimes wonder if God has cursed me in ironic fashion, on purpose, with a barren life.
3) but God knows I WANTED to be creative. I WANTED to be prolific and I TRIED. But... I failed. I always failed. All my hopes are dead. I am completely empty.
4) ...so was Elizabeth, to everyone but God. How ironic.
5) ...maybe God wants the production to be HIS work, not mine. Maybe He's been setting an inexplicable stage for His own masterwork. Is that arrogant to hope for, even if i denounce all personal credit?
6) I cannot do what God can. But I also cannot MEASURE it. I don't often think about that word but it's HUGE when you grasp its meaning.
7) most of all, I don't understand. But I can TRUST.
8) "No matter my age or condition," God doesn't see me as useless.
9) LET God do what HE wants to do.
...

------‐--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lots of Universalis today, from Adoration.
(DON'T QUOTE WHOLE THING, JUST REFER TO KEY POINTS?)

I loved this sermon intro so much I want to just ponder it as such=
"The very Son of God, (Jesus Christ)
older than the ages, (Jesus is eternal, existing before Creation)
the invisible, (Jesus's "true Nature" cannot be seen with the eye)
the incomprehensible, (Jesus is a Mystery we literally cannot grasp)
the incorporeal, (Jesus took on a body, but in Himself He is pure Spirit)
the beginning of beginning, (Jesus both created and recreated all things)
the light of light, (true God from true God; He IS what He "came from")
the fountain of life and immortality, (ALL life, true life, flows from Him as the Source and Origin)
the image of the archetype, (
the immovable seal, (
the perfect likeness, (
the definition and word of the Father: (
HE it is Who comes to His own image and takes our nature for the good of our nature, and unites Himself to an intelligent soul for the good of my soul, to purify like by like. He takes to Himself all that is human, except for sin."
1) Christ is the Image of God, but MAN is the image of CHRIST????
2) In taking our nature "to Himself," it rewrote our nature?? It didn't "restore" it like a computer reboot, to "before the Fall"-- it TRANSCENDED even that. Jesus didn't rewind or restart our nature, He REDEFINED IT, to reflect His Own???
3) Jesus, Who is literally God, "UNITED HIMSELF to an intelligent soul". I can't properly comment on this because i don't know what that means. I don't understand "soul" yet.
...
4) "To PURIFY like by like". There's such depth in that phrase. As a mortal I can't quite understand it. But Christ grasped these things for His Own and His very touch purified them. No, it was far more than touch, it wasn't mere contact-- it is UNITY.
...
5) Sin is "human"? But it's unnatural. And it was INSTIGATED BY SATAN. However, humans cannot sin as angels do. We have a unique free will. So our capacity for sin IS uniquely human, even if it isn't supposed to be part of the human existence.
...

"He was conceived by the Virgin Mary, who had been first prepared in soul and body by the Spirit; His coming to birth had to be treated with honour, virginity had to receive new honour."
1) This is EXACTLY WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN TO US DURING ADVENT!!
2) This simply & clearly supports the Immaculate Conception, too. Mary was prepared before her birth. She was "built for the purpose," consecrated from the first instant.
3) A humble but genuine question: do Protestants think about that aspect of "honor" as it applies here?
4) A "new" honor of virginity? And does it STILL apply, or just to Mary?
...

"He who makes rich is made poor; he takes on the poverty of my flesh, that I may gain the riches of his divinity. He who is full is made empty; he is emptied for a brief space of his glory, that I may share in his fullness. What is this wealth of goodness? What is this mystery that surrounds me? I received the likeness of God, but failed to keep it. He takes on my flesh, to bring salvation to the image, immortality to the flesh. He enters into a second union with us, a union far more wonderful than the first... Holiness had to be brought to man by the humanity assumed by One Who was God, so that God might overcome the tyrant by force and so deliver us and lead us back to Himself through the mediation of His Son."
1) The first union was "man made in God's image & likeness," and living in harmony in the Garden. This second union is the UNITY of God & man brought about in Christ. And it IS wonderful, which is why I included those well-known opening phrases. Don't ever let them become commonplace! Don't ever take them for granted!
Advent is about God "creating man anew" by taking on man's image. It's a paradox-- man IS in the "image of God," but by the Fall he started to mar that likeness, and disfigured himself. But now God Himself takes on that "image of man," and in doing so, not only restores it to what it was meant to be, but PERFECTS it.
Christ became human, became a pure and innocent baby, and suddenly, in seeing that holy child, every man realized what he was created to be all along.
...


"His Word is a rod that strikes the ruthless, His sentences bring death to the wicked."
Laurie was struck by this holy concept: the weapons of the Lord are His WORDS. He needs no violent armaments, because His Power is in Himself, total & irresistible.

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DUDE IT JUST HIT ME
"EMMANUEL" = "IMAN-UEL" = as in "IMMANENT."
Oh of course its not exact etymology but STILL. Immanent means "indwelling, remaining within, inherent." And if you REALLY want to push etymology, you can say it's an "immanent noel", an "indwelling birth."

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From our Advent reading plan, as we forgot the past few days=
"For so many of us, Christmas is the exact opposite of joy [because] we’re busier than ever this time of year. As a result, our lives are lacking the key factors that make this season special: wonder, innocence, and peace. [But in this season,] we’re all confronted with choices in life: the choice to choose others, kindness, and wonder, or the opposite: to choose ourselves, selfishness, and bitterness... Christmas isn’t guaranteed to be joyful. But maybe that’s the point. As we get older, joy becomes less circumstantial and more of a choice we have to make despite the circumstances. [As James 1:2-3 tells us Christians,] we’re called to consider even the most un-ideal events joyful— a chance to develop our character and grow in our faith. What a relief to know that joy can be experienced even when our situation is not ideal!
Maybe there’s someone in your own life who forced [your inner child] to come face-to-face with the "reality of the world" much too soon... maybe it wasn’t a person but a circumstance you had no say over. Whatever happened, or will happen, in your life, [that tempts you to despair, bitterness, or apathy,] we all [still] have that same freedom... we can choose to preserve our wonder, or we can succumb to the disillusionment the world has to offer. Which will it be for you?"
Oh wow, perfect timing as always, God. I've been thinking about this entire concept all week, often with actual weeping.
Let me break it down.
1) Busyness robs you of joy. Being industrious is fine, being productive is fine, being active is fine, don't get me wrong. But being BUSY will drain your soul dry. If your body, your mind, your heart, are all so busy that they don't have a minute to stop and rest, let alone find peace, then joy will also have no room or way to enter in. 
2) We STILL have our sense of wonder, thank God, but it has been bruised. Nevertheless, even on our bleakest days, we can always get Jewel to front for a minute with her eyes full of stars, and that illuminates all of us. Being multiple truly is a gift from God.
3) ...We have lost our innocence, though.
It's surreal. Whenever we tap into archival Christmas memory data, the FIRST and virtually ONLY records we have are of 2005 and 2013... of Jewel and Jay. That's IT. There is NOTHING from Spinny or Cannon's days, and only the dimmest & most terrorstricken shreds from the "Chthonic era," pre-CNC. After that... nothing. There are exactly two flashbulb flashbacks from CNC, before everything goes black: first, going to the Dawn Mass at the local Cathedral on zero hours of sleep and twelve hours of horror, legitimately feeling like we might die from abusive exhaustion, a d not caring. We blearily remember sitting in the pew, and seeing candles.
The second memory is sitting on the floor by their tree, alone, at 3am, sobbing hysterically and wanting to either go home or die.
...
4) THE CHOICE.
5) NO "GUARANTEE"-- Jesus Himself won't force joy on you!
6) There is a blessed freedom in this, actually, that feels like the very first Christmas. When our joy is liberated from circumstance and anchored solely in God-- because HE ALONE IS JOY-- then nothing can ruin our Christmas.
7) James's letter really is timeless wisdom. Faith blossoms under pressure.
This is amazingly empowering-- it means that our troubles are TRANSMUTED, as they become the very fertile soil for us to grow virtue in. That itself is a real reason to rejoice.
...
8) Person & circumstances that "shut up the child," tempt us to despair & bitterness
9) CHOOSE TO PRESERVE YOUR WONDER. First, you ALWAYS have that choice, which is a huge light of hope to realize. Second, "preserve" is an ACTIVE word: it means to "keep safe from harm by acting so as to insure that something [harmful] does not occur." It means you treat your wonder AS a child, and YOU are the parent. When you take that perspective, you will know what to do; it's an instinct of compassion. Third: the possessive pronoun. You're not trying to wistfully preserve some nebulous concept of wonder that fees just out of reach. No. It is YOUR wonder, YOUR precious unique thing, and NO ONE can take it away from you, even if it feels lost right now. Make a choice to preserve it now, to take action to maintain it, to keep that inner child alive and well. Wonder cannot die, but it can be buried, so to speak. 
...
10) The WORLD "offers" disillusionment.
Jesus GIVES the exact opposite.


Now there are questions to conclude=

"Be honest: What circumstances are you facing today that aren’t “ideal?” How can you arrest your cynicism and look instead to how your character, faith, and knowledge of God can "grow you through" this situation? Where might you find joy after all?"
1) The non-ideal circumstances that specifically have to do with Christmas are half silly, half gutting. Grandma and grandpa are dead. We no longer live in the family home. One sibling is across the country, another is lost in a schizophrenic delusion, another is locked in his room and won't leave. We don't have any decorations. We can't eat "normal" food anymore. We don't have any family get-togethers or traditions. We don't have transportation for church activities. We can't burn candles post-COVID. Virtually all of our childhood memory triggers are absent or destroyed. We just feel like... Christmas is this unbelievably gorgeous hallucination, something so heavenly that what little we do remember of it seems so pure and perfect it's hard to believe it literally happened in physical space and time. But our heart aches so hard for it we could weep, and have wept, several times over it in the past month alone-- which is notable as our emotions have been shut down for almost a year.
2) That word, "cynicism," is a dagger of a conviction. I wouldn't have applied it to myself, but looking at it now, I guess it is there-- the word means " to be pessimistic, distrustful, believing that "things won't work out""; and when I list those non-ideals, although I desperately hope and wish things could get better and WANT to MAKE them better with all the power I have... is there cynicism creeping in, and saying, "it'll never happen?" If so, how do I ARREST that, even preemptively?
3) "Grow you through" must be a Protestant term, haha. I've never heard it before. Still, it's a legitimate and edifying concept.
4)


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Catena is HEADSPACE RELEVANT again, AND actually applicable to that reading plan too=
"Temptations come so that hidden passions may be revealed and so that it will be possible to fight them, and so that the soul may be rid of them. [Temptations] are a sign of God's mercy. So give yourself with trust into God's hands and ask His help, so that He will strengthen you in your struggle. God knows how much each one can bear and allows temptations according to the measure of our strength. Remember that after temptation comes spiritual joy, and that the Lord protects them that endure temptations and suffering for the sake of His love." (Saint Nektarius of Aegina)
1) This principle is, admittedly, why we subtly "seek out stressful circumstances." We WANT to trigger out "hidden passions"-- and the foni attached to them-- so we can SEE and FIGHT them, yes, but also so we can understand what their roots & motives are, because if you DON'T have a sense of at least pity towards those foni then no matter how much you fight them, you won't win the war. God's weapons are more subtle than swords, and far more effective-- truthfully, in spiritual warfare, ONLY God's weapons WORK!
2) MERCY
3) ASK FOR HELP. YOU CANNOT WIN ANY BATTLE ALONE.
4) God WILL strengthen you.
5) "May I be equal to Your hope of me." God knows your limits and He WILL push you to them, but He stands with you the whole time.
6) Spiritual Joy
7) PROTECTION
8) ALL FOR HIS LOVE.

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we've decided to consolidate all our "phone entry" posts into monthly bulk updates to avoid flooding the archives with general daily data.

if there is a strikingly important topic, or something we want to be able to reference individually in the future, we will post it as its own entry.
however, it is more likely that we will take these snippet posts as "starting posts" to write larger, formal entries from when we have the time and capacity to.

otherwise, having all these smaller entries in one place makes it much easier to grasp the general tenor of the month, and to see small bits of progress from day to day.

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0801

Up at 1045, phone call

Tried FOUR mass livestreams, all broken
Said rosary & chaplet instead
Watched St Clare again at noon

BK prep
Spice pepper upset, Laurie referenced commentary "authority & mercy" = knowledge in order to HEAL

Talk over nousfoni death
Started by our asking Mulberry about her job, she's a Social BUT SHE WORKED WITH SHERLOCK who was NOT an Archivist originally but an INTERCESSOR???
Missing Garrison, BUT obviously "reborn" in Sirius??
Mimic asking how all this works
"Soft resets" like Laurie's axe, hard resets like Lynne's "reabsorbing"
DIFFERENT RESULTS based on STABILITY/ STATUS of nousfoni that dies??
Wondering about Nathaniel. Told Mimic s/he was "The original blepofoni"
Scalpel being Javier's successor, "he was never stable" + ARTIFICIAL

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0802

Last night before bed: visiting Mimic asleep, Darkrai protecting him from nightmares. Not ventrium. Asked about, said i might have to look for him in realm of death???
Talking to Hoopa about this after. Decided NO.
REMEMBER the City is now overgrown forest ruins WITH SNOW!!!

Woke up early, 10am
Did some prep.  Measured out and put away some food for later because doing it this early bypasses the lotophagoi compulsion to taste everything

Mom call, no reception, hung up.  Made us a nervous wreck though thinking what it could be about
This wasn't helped by the fact that we are getting flashbacks all morning from  Last night's trauma entry transcription

Rosary, chaplet, eternal rests before mass
" Let us always spend time with Christ in the Eucharist, And it will change us for the better, Because we are always changed for the better when we spend time with those we love"

Mom call was nothing serious, But incredibly interesting
She called that local priest that is going to look into actual Demonic curses on our family???  Possibly meeting him this Saturday after mass to discuss it more in-depth.

BK prep SLICE?????
Yellow, GIRL???

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0803

Up early phone call mom = Jade bath visit again

Church livestream no audio; Different mass on website
ARK HOMILY hit hard

Leaguework notes for spheres 2 & 3

Wedding at cana argument; reading through books on shelf
Forgot how much i love just sitting on the floor paging through this little library of ours

BIBLE STUDY HITS!!!!!!!
FINALLY PERFECT CLARIFICATION ON JUSTICE
THANK YOU GOD!!!!!!!

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0804

FIRST FRIDAY
Shopping & Adoration 
Regular afternoon. Prayer & housework. 
BANJO & TITAN
Some very profound moments, painful but loving even so, with Chaos 0
We're talking a LOT thanks to the movies. We sit together on the couch, before during and after, and in all of those different times we have different conversations.
But... we haven't been talking this much in a LONG time. and... we haven't spent this much time just being close to each other in even longer.
this is good. even just as a start, this is wonderful. thank you God.
yes it hurts, but lonely broken bruised hearts full of weeping are going to hurt.
it means the entire world, though, to realize that such a heart trusts and loves you enough to get that close despite all its wounds. it means, you're safe. it means, you're a place of refuge even then. it means, you can handle this pain, and understand it.
i am grateful for every single moment of this. may God bless us with so many more.

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0809

Sick? So tired. Feel wrong somehow.

Knife angry tears over cutting = NOT MEANT TO BE FOOD, BUT RETRIBUTION.
Also his color ONLY LOCKS IN WHEN HE PRAYS.

Razor being VERY philosophical today.

Everyone fronting for wall prayers. I missed this.
Siobhan super clear

BARRY IN SUITS OF AMOR????
HE MIGHT WAKE UP THAT ENTIRE WORLD!!!!

The burden is NOT prayer time, it's my STUBBORN RESISTANCE to such sustained effort
I DO love to pray, but I keep postponing and resisting it solely because it takes SO LONG and it requires SUSTAINED ATTENTIVE WORK and i'm stupid and weak.

SO MUCH MESS & MISTAKES WITH FOOD TODAY.
Legitimately threw "me" into a moral panic
So scared. Why?

Getting tiny synchronicities with Scripture again btw

This PERFECTLY describes Infi's fate, from CNC to hir literal death:
"And sin entered into the world through the seduction and false statements of the devil, by which the first man was veritably slain, his moral nature killed outright. Grace was not shut out, but Adam died. In the day that he ate of the forbidden tree, man most surely and in the deepest sense died. "God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless, through envy of the devil came death into the world..."

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0812

Less sick today, but still anxiously unwell.
Neuropathy, weakness, lightheaded, blackout feeling.

that one vague, oddly social Jewel talking from the background today? "I want mimic to retire for a while so that chaos 0 can come into the spotlight, And I can grow closer to him like I used to in the beginning"

mimic's wry response, "I'll retire if you give me a world to retire to"
"You keep saying there's a place ready for me there, but there's no door."

this is a HUGE revelation actually
jewel does keep saying, "yeah there's room for you in this world, OR MAYBE this one, etc..." basically, "i can feel a resonant potential spot for you there." like, if you want to walk in, it would let you.
but there's NO WAY TO "WALK IN."
JEWEL IS THE DOOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IF SHE DOESN'T LET OUTSPACERS IN, THEY CANNOT DO IT THEMSELVES.
and the jewel that used to do that is NOT CLOSE TO MIMIC.
this is our dilemma. LINKS ARE REQUIRED.
NO JEWELS ARE FORMING LINKS ANYMORE BECAUSE OF TRAUMA.
we REALLY need to think about this.

but yeah.
if that "jewel" wants mimic to be "gone" so badly, it's HER RESPONSIBILITY to buy him the plane tickets, and drive him to the airport. she HAS to take initiative.
but she also doesn't want to admit that she's being so selfish, whoever she actually is.
(she's NOT a real jewel. actual jewels DON'T ACT LIKE THAT. this girl has stolen the name but SHE FITS NONE OF THE CRITERA!!!!)

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0817

updates during the day again, because typing is faster

Slept in due to being up late.

VERY rushed and disheveled this morning, feeling weight of prayer obligation.
rosary took 30m. kept panicking and repeating prayers. "not focused enough." ball of nerves.

mass at st clares again!
readings parallel: joshua and jesus, jordan river baptism = entering promised land, no longer wanderers with no home.

devotions today HIT.
chaos 0 and mimic LITERALLY talking about the mercy + grace bit BEFORE we read the devotional that said it almost verbatim.
no coincidences guys

said wall prayers this morning btw. again almost burned food. rushing back and forth. feeling so anxious.
still. it was nice to pray with everyone flowing in front.

razor out a lot. cutting eggs, knife happy, "this is her job because she likes to just cut things" as opposed to his very specific retributor role.
THAT ONE "WATCHER GIRL" COMMENTING THAT KNIFE WAS "UNNECESSARY" AS A RESULT.
WTF.
laurie heard her and was FURIOUS

now finally bk at 2pm. man oh man.

update: we dropped one carrot
that one younger girl FREAKED OUT SOBBING "god hates me"
laurie talking her down
double carrots, made her laugh a little, "but that's so silly." laurie "no it's not, not if it makes you laugh"; "isn't that what any good father would do?" basically "when the devil takes things from you, god restores twofold and wants to make you smile"

girl sees praying more as "giving a speech" to critical parents than "talking to them"
"i can't talk to god!!" terrified, actually cowering. like a child afraid of being hit for her brazenness.

Realizing her own clumsiness was dropping the carrots = "oh no, am I the devil???"

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0820

Hell night
Dream hacks & dehumanizing nightmares
refuse to talk about them

Church Blood sugar hell again

Mom drive home
Carnival fear talk.
WE NEVER REALIZED HOW THAT MUST AFFECT HER.
SHE TRIED TO GIVE US ENTERTAINMENT AS CHILDREN BUT IT ONLY DISTURBED & SCARED US.
She admitted this today, how we're all adverse to fairs & parties & crowds but she loves them.
Movie talk; sadly proved this

Mom food hell
Girl PANICKED. Like legit FEAR OF DEATH. Unbearable
Leon blaming himself

Bible study keeps showing us HOW MUCH WE MISUNDERSTAND & MISINTERPRET GOD.
We are still so afraid of Him. We find it so hard to even imagine that someone would WANT to be gentle & kind & patient with us, let alone loving & forgiving & merciful.
This is fatally hindering our salvation life!!!

⭐"JAY" / LOTUS WAS "LIGHT THAT DID NOT BURN" = he was a COLD LIGHT that COULD NOT GIVE LIFE OR WARMTH!!!

So many dirty girls triggered out by eggs: clumsy messy food.
UPMC fear was LEGIT-- making a mess DOES "turn us into an animal"!!!
ALL UPMC DID WAS SHAME US & WHITEWASH OUR SYMPTOMS. JUST LIKE SLC, THERE WAS NO REAL PROGRESS OR HEALING, ONLY SELF-NEGATING ACTING & STOMPING TRIGGERS IN EVEN DEEPER THROUGH DENIAL & DEPERSONALIZATION.

We NEED someone who CAN eat eggs, WITHOUT triggering out kakofoni, WHILE we do Bible study.
They will NEED TO BE NONHUMAN!!!

⭐ACTUALLY HOLD UP!!! REMEMBER HOW WE SURVIVED IN CNC??? WE WOULD DRIVE THE BODY TO EAT, NOT FRONT!!! SO WE COULD PREVENT ASSOCIATION WITH IT & STAY ANCHORED INSIDE!!! 

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0821
 
ABSOLUTE FCKNG MELTDOWN OVER JADE COMING UP TO SHOWER THE MINUTE WE SIT DOWN TO EAT BREAKFAST AT 2PM SON OF A B*TCH!!!!!!!!!!@!@@!@

Couldn't calm down until like 4pm. WHY???
God we NEED to go back to typing & talking PLEASE

Spitting acid at "soft & quiet" horror
Apparently we are STILL VIOLENTLY GYNOPHOBIC. We're afraid of this becoming misogyny. Thank God it's still based on revulsion & traumafear kicked up to 1000%. It's not hatred of femininity as a whole. It's morbidly fascinating to FEEL the mental & emotional shifts.
Certain faces, voices, outfits, "skin textures" do it. ALL "babyish" women and ALL "sultry" women make us FURIOUSLY VIOLENT and I don't know why. At least, I can't put it into speech. It's too hidden & gutdeep. I can't even find it, to look it in the face. I'd be too scared & revolted to right now.
And yet THAT WIMPY PERSONALITY IS A GIRL.
ALL THE PROUD, PRISSY, PRESUMPTUOUS, PRECOCIOUS CORPUFONI ARE GIRLS. I HATE THEM. THEY'RE SHALLOW, HOLLOW, PLASTIC FACED WHORES.

(^ See, this happens EVERY TIME)

SHUT UP YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING PROSTITUTE

"Father forgive them for they know not what they do"

TRUE FEMININITY = MARY.
Let that sink in, and heal this hurting hatred.

The main thing that is preventing the j bloodline from coming back to life is shame!!!!
They were so expressive & open, so full of light and love, but there is this crushing feeling of Self-hatred and SHAME that is forbidding such an existence now.
We will probably not be able to have a solid core unless the core Has a connection to heartspace and therefore with self-identity
WE CURRENTLY "FAIL THE MIRROR TEST" on some level?????
There is NO inherent "self-recognition" in the body's reflection AT ALL RIGHT NOW.
unless there's a blepofoni consciously looking back at themselves/ us, as a face alone, THE BODY IS A TOTAL STRANGER.

Can't stop thinking about this from Bible study=
"...the day cometh when the characters we have made ourselves here, the habits we have cultivated and indulged in, the capacities we have exercised, and the set and drift of all our activity upon earth, will determine the work that we get to do there."

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0823

Terribly hard day.

7am up. Nightmares again; cats & brothers, both hurting or scaring us (AGAIN. why is that a recurring theme??)

Oblates mass. tried OLOMC first but forgot they have no wednesday mass. had a hyperreligious MELTDOWN after that, convinced God "hated us" and didn't actually want us at mass or something??? bizarre how our brain STILL catastrophizes our faith like this.

Walmart stop for some groceries, don't even remember what. we were in social mode so bad, dissocation was like being drugged. genesis deeply concerned.

Therapy today. MOVE THIS TO ITS OWN ENTRY once/ if we get the memory/ time to type about it.
ALL NEW AGEY AGAIN.
huge letdown. we are so sick of that garbage. has trauma roots too from the slc era. nevertheless, we tried so hard to still listen. God still put me here. so there IS a reason this happened and we must be attentive. we are STILL a student; we cannot be proud or stubborn. and there was some legitimately good advice. Must humbly respect & learn.
HOWEVER this also made us realize, again, WE ARE NOT OURSELVES IN THERAPY.
some unknown social comes out and takes over the whole thing and GUESS WHAT THEY ARE A COMPULSIVE LIAR!!!! WE CAUGHT THEM DOING THAT TODAY, their ENTIRE manner of speech was A FACADE, an ACT, and we don't even know what the heck they were trying to pull or present us as.
STOP THEM NEXT TIME. I DON'T CARE IF OVERWHELM HAS TO FRONT. YOU DO NOT LET SOCIALS FRONT IN THERAPY.

(notes: they asked us really frustrating generic questions like "what are your hobbies" and "what are your strengths" and we could not answer. that's when the social was lying, that makes me genuinely sick. the therapist also talked about bloody affirmations-- which we hate but we didn't say anything-- and dream symbol interpretation. no idea how, or if, we'll be able to make progress here. even so, we don't see them for another MONTH which means the next session will probably feel like starting over, and if we're smart, we'll TREAT IT AS SUCH and forget whatever the heck junk happened today, because none of it stored to actual memory which is a VERY BAD SIGN.)

Home late, Bk at 2
Oat bar mistake. Body immediately had an ALLERGY REACTION????? burning eyes and throat, runny nose. coughing and flushed face. stomach rejecting it entirely. THREW UP.
felt horrible. we cannot remember the last time we had an e.d. day, and then this stupidity happens.
Then tried raisins, God knows why. THREW UP AGAIN.
what the heck are we reacting to???? with the oat bar it was DEFINITELY either the rice syrup or the coconut oil, as BOTH rice and coconut have given us bad reactions in the past, BUT now our brain is like "what if we're allergic to oats now???" so yeah, even more food terror. we have to pinpoint the lotophagoi who hold all this and talk to them.

Disastrously sick. Terrified.
Praying and eating DN 730, don't want to go to ER

⭐concerning our massive terror of "being killed"... NO ONE CAN TAKE MY LIFE AWAY, ONLY JESUS.
Rest in this.

DN Bible study: Patristic commentaries HIT HARD SON!!!!!

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0827

HECK OF A DAY SON

Church
Jade call
Drive
Cry
WE CAN'T PROCESS SADNESS

DW TYPING!!!!

BK 330 WTF

Ok I'm sorry but I have to record this.
The kids buy most study reflection I was talking about when king David was annointed, And the girl getting the devotional said, " It's not every day that we see someone get anointed with oil".
Mimic Just glances over at my salad then at me and says "I can fix that"

SO MUCH CLARIFICATION in Bible study today!!

SO SICK after breakfast. Dehydration.
Surrender prayer
Bravely ate raisins & Gatorade too , overcoming anorexic fear

GOD GOT US THROUGH!!!!!!
Honestly He has NEVER FAILED US. EVER.


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0828

Up at 11
Irish mass no homily.l
Canada mass Augustine homily, Julie deeply moved
St clare mass readings homily on bike
Everything worked out perfectly!

Egg trouble actually inspired Razor to talk??
How in heaven is she so insightful. Is it her age? Her origin & depth of history? Her color? Her conversion? All of the above?

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0829

Marketplace PANIC.
SO MUCH RAGE about food & money???? HATRED.
Scared of this in us. Thank God for revealing.
Find roots and deal with because this KEEPS HAPPENING and it is driving a wedge between us and especially our mother.


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070423


Horrific nightmares again. please forgive the ugly language.
in old school bathroom stall, the last one, like a child. DOG GANGRAPE. they all rushed in and were destroying us. we began screaming, almost robotically which was disturbing. i was numb but the body was screaming like a child, emotionless yet terrified at the same time. but in response, these angry adult people just came into the bathroom, glaring, "what are you yelling for?" "stop making all that noise!" glaring and WATCHED us get raped. did not care. Disturbing. then when the dogs left, one woman GOT INTO THE STALL, and SAT DOWN behind us and WATCHED and wouldn't let use use the bathroom unless she was watching. we just left, still completely numb and now traumatically so.
BUT THANK GOD the dream ended positively, with us in the school attic. felt like we weren't supposed to be there, had to hide. i clearly remember seeing in the walls, stained glass of two Fakemon made by the old graduating classes? “Kyreon,” a dark teal-blue dragon Eeveelution, and then “Siren,” which looked like Galarian Articuno but more pink?
during this part I was a DRAGON, japanese style. Like a pure white wyrm. I was able to FLY EFFORTLESSLY like this, even when I COULDN’T OTHERWISE. also my SENSE OF SELF actually REGISTERED as a dragon, NOT as a human. as a human it was some female-pronoun social with no identity sense.
Before this, for the record, that girl-dreamer was walking through the “new” school with a bunch of younger kids? Telling them about what was behind the doors they weren’t allowed to go through, haha. still felt like she wasn't supposed to be there, would get in trouble if the parents or teachers saw her or knew she was talking to the kids? notably a "you're not supposed to be NOW" in a chronological sense, like she was from another time or space, and was telling these kids things about the past/future/whatever that they weren't supposed to know? very subtle conspiracy vibe. somehow also applied to us becoming a dragon later.
don't forget, when we went into the attic we had to hide on the very top shelf in the very back corner by the siren window, as a dragon. i clearly remember what it felt like to fly up there, all smooth riverlike twining through the air, our very movement feeling as soft silky white as our fur. i think we also had gold claws? we had little arms with claws, like in "spirited away," haku as a dragon. and at some point we got reverted to human? and we FELL, as we were falling, our SELF-- not the girl!!!-- thought, wait, if i can fly before we hit the ground... and willed it, but NOT as a human flying, as a dragon floating. and we FELT gravity's effect on us shift ENTIRELY. that was such an amazing feeling tangibly.
so yeah. half good half hell, this dream. we've been having so so so many traumatic nightmares lately. i think it's the heat, the summer kills us.


Anyway. Woke up at 745, got ready for church. Shocked that Jesus DID get us through the night, let that deep gratitude shock sink in.
Mass was quiet but lovely. We were oddly dissociated. The antiphons and songs hit LOWER notes which felt wonderful to sing for once.

Tried to visit dad after but he wasn’t home
Listening to Genesis’s playlist on the drive home; Razia’s Shadow notably.

Spent the next hour biking and praying, then precooked broccoli
Went to oblates mass for noon

THIS is when the System woke up for real today.
We felt the “floaty” head like we used to get at LCCC and I say that because it was a HARD TRIGGER of that EXACT time period. We were getting visual flashbacks even. Shocked.

BEFORE MASS… Jay and Chaos 0 talking together. Jay seeing the ocean water in stained glass and Chaos saying “that’s Perfect’s color/vibe”; Jay said then what are you? A river, a lake, a stream, what?
Chaos replied “I’m a well, in the desert.” pause. ‘at least that’s what I want to be.”
mindscape warped there. “i don't feel like i’m any good here. Whatever water I bring, it gets evaporated, or lost in the hot sand.”
jay spoke up, “not if you’re underground. you’re kept safe underground, at the heart of things, and even secretly you bring life to the most barren places”
then wondering. “but wait, where does that water come from?”
cz looked up. “from the mountains. ...it’s melted snow. And it flows down the mountain, through the rocky places, into cracks in the earth perhaps… down into the underground.”
jay’s eyes lit up. “into the caves!” cz laughed “you like caves so much” jay “i do!” then summoned a glass/light “CYLINDER” to literally “pull out” a chunk of ground to go down into it. Then summoned crystal spiral steps going down. Started down but realized mass externally was prepping, so jay just took cz’s hand and jumped down, warping the stairs into a crystal umbrella as he did, they floated down.
In the cavern was a river. Jay laughed and jumped into it. Up to his ears. Cz eased himself in too, stood next to him but opposite direction. Just smiled at him.
Jay feeling cupid vibes here. Odd gold dust overlay almost.
Mass beginning outside. Jay “merged” that with the innervision; realized the central carpet between the aisles was BLUE: “that’s the water!” inside turned to that, an UNDERGROUND CHURCH with the stream down the center, the cave making arches and aisles, and the open sky far above like a cathedral ceiling. Beautiful. Jay saying “we need churches like this in ALL the color realms.”
turning to cz. “which one do you want?” reply “jay, i’m an outspacer. I don’t get a realm.” jay “hm. I guess you’re right.” considering a realm intersection of green/blue, but then cz observed “outspacers belong in the leagueworlds anyway.” jay said “dude then is there one of you for each leagueworld? Like color realms in concept?” cz’s eyes widened “maybe.” really an amazing thought.

A bunch of people fronting at church. Very specific, particular roles. Many we “recognize” by feelings, but with no name or clear face.
Jophael= for mass worship
veil= for quiet prayer, marian focus? (her appearance shifted back from the nun. Wondering if that splintered or if she’s too unstable to keep anything solid yet.)
monk= for quiet prayer, warm heart
“tilly” = the one who “talks on tumblr” but has NO cognizance of personal sin
also there WERE “sinners” out--
JAYCE was there, feeling shame for his stealing?? too much social vibe for real contrition; aware of this lack
JESSICA was there, feeling guilt for “filthiness”
JEZELKA was there, feeling guilt for gluttonous drive
perhaps others. can’t remember right now.
Others came out DURING mass too.
there’s that WATCHER GIRL, she feels PINKISH??? but desaturated. Close to ashen actually, odd. she’s up in the space where the COMMITTEE was???? she watches and comments on things like a NARRATOR space.
there’s a girl who kind of vibes with the body name, feels reddish, close to the body, tied to childhood perhaps? But her faith has no roots, it feels like.

Jay in tears, “why don’t I have the fervor I want for communion,” asking “why can’t I receive?” what’s wrong, why is he lacking that religious zeal? Where did it go? Infi used to have it. Why can’t ze come back yet?

Realizing the body DISSOCIATES when we receive, up until we kneel back down and close our eyes. Then jay WAS able to be there, but only in a secondhand way? Feeling like we ALL could and had to be there, recieveing AS A SYSTEM. No one allowed to claim it as theirs alone.
Thanking god for making us a “united soul” on this fourth of july

home for 1
typing this now, took 20 minutes, gotta cook the eggs son!!!

but yeah, thinking we are going to KEEP this early day schedule, because it seems like when we wake up and immediately fast for like 6 hours we get into that mindset where HEADSPACE EVENTS can happen, what we used to call “meditations” but are more like “vision adventures?”

OH MY GOSH ON THAT NOTE. Later, with jay and cz upstairs in mass.
SOMETHING brought to jay’s mind INFI’S BUBBLE. Oh yeah the spheres on the altar with the candles!! and the reflections were upside down.
Jay tried to ping the location of hir bubble, and it is CRASHED??? like a spaceship landed on the beach and just left there. it’s cracked open to the air, full of lilies, crystallized, but DESATURATED. It feels hollow. But the big thing is that it has apparently crashed onto a BLACK SAND BEACH, with a WHITE OCEAN and WHITE SKY. it’s surreal. Everything is so quiet and still. Where is this???
jay and cz standing on the shore looking at it. Jay a LUCID moment of looking down at his feet, feeling the black sand beneath it, it’s not warm. Felt almost like soft glass. His feet were bare, again with that brushed-gold tone like paint. Cz standing next to him, realized his color was desaturated a bit too while he was there. Both of them just staring at the bubble in shock. “where is this?”
shocked out of this mindscape by returning to mass

that’s it for now, time for breakfast, pray that our brain still works after we eat, I swear postmeal brainfog is the WORST.

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

realized we don’t talk as a system during mealtime bible study anymore because we’re READING, not studying-- we’re reading commentaries and expositions, as opposed to reading ACTUAL scripture verses, and therefore looking into etymology and translations and the like. So we don’t have the opportunity to discuss-- AND it’s a DIFFERENT brainspace, arguably a different FRONTER, because reading requires a completely different conscious process than researching, and therefore a different person. it’s more receptive and internal, whereas research is more active and investigative. Two totally different functions. Which explains the lack of internal conversation: that CAN’T happen while reading, in the same way a social can’t read, ironically! it’s a function conflict. Realizing that was eyeopening and interesting, albeit upsetting, because I miss the headspace camaraderie over our religious growth. It feels like we’re lacking that now.
OH. also. There IS ANOTHER huge shift whenever someone tries to “post to tumblr,” which causes MEMORY LAPSES EVERY TIME. it’s hugely disorienting and chaos 0 keeps scolding us to stop, because it breaks the entire train of focus, dissociates us heavily, and makes us FORGET WHAT WE JUST READ. It does no good. it’s a compulsive people-pleasing panic action, even if the motives are arguably good in theory-- “i have to share this with people to evangelise them, it’s too important to not publicize after reading! If I kept it to myself that would be a sin!” we don’t know who that person is BUT they run the tumblr. No face no name, but a girl. I think they avoid having a self because of their “evangelistic” bent.

Another note, concerning fronters, and this tumblr-girl coming back into focus.
We… we realized today that we are missing most of last year, and notably, a key month was JULY.
January: missing. Probably just taking care of grandma. If we had a music memory log (I don’t think spotify records that, last.fm used to, which is why we GOT A NEW ONE at last) that would tell us.
February: MOVING IN. that’s all we know.
March: gym rat mode, then COVID HIT. We had to quarantine for two-three weeks, and we still say that is what killed grandma. She thought we abandoned her, she couldn’t understand the forced isolation, her memory didn’t hold that fact.
April: grandma died.
May: no memory. First week was eating disorder hell, nonstop sobbing, and self-abusive meltdowns. Wanted to die. Felt like the world had ended.
June: missing.
July: no memory until the SUMMER WARS MORNING. That was a turning point of our life. This happened around the time of the St. Anne’s novena, which is COMING UP FAST, and we plan to celebrate it as such.
August: missing. Probably the “pokemon sc-vo omelet hell” time period. don’t ask.
September: missing.
October: UPMC, we know for sure. Memories are sparse and fragmented, flashbulb memories of (you guessed it) moments when we felt some sort of existential fear/ rage/ panic/ emptiness/ grief/ etc.
November: missing.
December: missing.
So yeah, there’s like… SIX MONTHS GONE. As for this year, it’s similar-- we don’t remember January OR February offhand, at all. We have a vague awareness of some major events that happened that we can’t readily attach a date too, but… disturbingly enough, although the System has been awake this year, we don’t have ANY memories AT ALL until… until Infi died.
...I think that says a lot. That denotes a major “core” shift. And we need new jargon for the distinctions-- the “Cores” are ALWAYS the Jewels and the Jays (if that bloodline doesn’t shatter), because they are the HEARTS of heartspace and headspace, respectively. The other main bloodlines-- like the Cannons, notably-- are NOT “CORES” because they don’t have that hinge function??? Remember that, at the time they WERE in the “core” position, THEY HELD THE “JEWEL” OR “JAY” NAME. So that’s important.
The old “cores” are still around-- the young Jewels, the cupid-era Jays-- BUT they are NOTABLY NOT RESONANT AS CORES RIGHT NOW. They aren’t the “natural driver” in that respect; they have to move in and front like any other nousfoni now. As for who IS the current “Jewel”… we have no idea.
...I say this ironically, as I’m arguably shaping up to be that one. But i’m a mess. I’m a shambles, a handful of broken stained glass, to attempt to appropriate that old core aesthetic. But does it match? Should it? Do I want it to? Would that break me or someone else? These are the questions we need to ask.

Speaking of questions, before I forget.
We’re trying to get back into therapy, as we’ve mentioned previously. Things keep coming up in conversation or daily events that reveal old wounds that apparently never healed as much as we thought they did.
Jay and Chaos 0 are STILL having relationship troubles because there is STILL an inexplicable, subconscious terror at people “acting like Q,” which apparently Chaos does, however subtly. Someone needs to sit down and LIST exactly what constitutes acting like that. What are the signs, what makes them so scary?
We still want to try to write down whatever memories we can find about CNC, too, because in light of SLC haunting us so heavily despite only having about 6 collective months there, we spent like a year and a half in CNC and we barely remember it. We can’t even remember Oliver. That’s insane. We spent that long with them, in such close company, apparently feeling so strongly towards them, and… there’s no memory. The only reason we even “remember” their face is from that SINGLE positive memory that some unidentified person kept, and which has unlocked access. But, even then, it’s so vague we couldn’t even describe it. It’s genuinely upsetting. We have no idea what their voice sounded like, either. Any memories about their physical
presence beyond that are locked behind traumawalls and screaming foni. there’s too much. Now is not the time, I know we keep saying that, but our schedule does not allow it and neither does our lack of coping mechanisms to deal with whatever horrors we have to stare in the face.

Kitchen prep today. Very little memory. Schedule was weird because we went to mass at noon and had to rush even more when we came back, so we could get to bed early tonight as we have to drive jade to the doctor tomorrow morning and have to be up at 630 again. But I digress.
Scalpel, like Knife, keeps catching ragegrief lately. I stick the words together because they are inextricable. he’s pinning it to “you keep adding so much cayenne pepper/ pepper flakes to the food, you told me they were an abuse mechanism, why won’t you stop??” and spice is notably MIA, some days she’s not even around, which is disturbing, as her original function WAS to rage at people for drowning our food in spices until it became inedible, hence her name. But… she hasn’t been around. Scalpel is showing up and berating whoever is doing it, which honestly feels like “nobody” (a disturbing realization as well), but there’s too much anger-on-the-verge-of-sobs for it to be just about that. Something is being rerouted through him, something with no other outlet, using the excess spicy food as an excuse. The fact that it’s being tied to self-abuse methods as a “reason” is notable.
Knife is similar. Like we said before, when he fronts in order to use the knife to cut things, his color temporarily darkens to how it was when he was first “born” (need jargon for that), and the same thing happens-- he feels a frustrated anger, something moving close to rage in its burning, and beneath it these heavy sobs.
that’s what “overwhelm” typically holds. it’s what cannon cut herself off from. it’s what laurie has been running from, God it terrifies me how BADLY she’s slipping lately. she’s a disaster. it’s so wrong.
Everything is wrong somehow. Since Infi died everything is wrong somehow.
Jay keeps running from relationships, or at least, we keep pinning that action to his name because we assume he’s the main fronter, but he’s NOT. Whoever is out, who KEEPS pronoun-slipping to “she”, is obsessive-compulsively praying, giving the steering wheel over to the lotophagoi, and numbing all emotions while denying all relationships.

This brings us back to last july.
June wrecked us. we’re relapsing hard.
July is a hell month in any case. Like october, we can name several trauma dates that happened around this time, over several years. This month also is as hot as hell, which cranks up the fibromyalgia, so the physical torment that we can’t escape from is traumatic in its own right.
(all these fireworks outside are hell too. I don’t know why but we literally don’t register such sounds as fireworks, ever. They all register as bombs, as guns, as explosions. Sometimes we get “flashbacks” to warzones that we’ve never been part of physically. it’s so real. it’s utterly unsettling. I don’t know how much is “exotrauma” and how much is just our actual cptsd from cannon’s days plus oneirataxic tendencies making all our forced shocksite exposure into pseudomemory… either way, time to crank up the volume on spotify for the next two hours)

subject shift while music is on, we didn’t add to this earlier.
genesis’s “vibe” musically is very very different from what we’re “used to”? he’s so energetic, upbeat, bubble, optimistic… and, whoever was listening to it today, driving to and from church, could not seem to “sync” with it. They kept looking for quieter, instrumental, slow music instead. Genesis was a bit offended, said this felt like rejection/ denial of him, but as jay tried to reassure him they realized that HEY WAIT UP, THERE ARE STILL MOUSIFONI SHOWING UP.
I am so glad someone decided to do that HUGE “music history” entry earlier this year, because GEEZ we didn’t realize how INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT & EDUCATIONAL that was until we had that data together.
But now, we’re aware and we FEEL the shifts, and the MEMORY SNAPS that happen DURING MUSIC. There is ACTUAL SWITCHING going on when we don’t resist, when we don’t “sit with the dissonance” and end up blacking out from the mental stress/panic/fear/etc. that happens when a socially-resonant fronter’s vibe clashes hard with what is demanded outside.
But yeah. Genesis’s vibe matches the Jewels, NOT the Jays. And when his music is on, THEY CAN SHOW UP, if they are let in… but so do the OTHER mousifoni. That’s what’s so uncanny. We KNOW what Jewels feel like. But we’re feeling foni move in who ONLY exist FOR music, with chronospaces as only a background hum-- they aren’t part of their experience, just the backdrop. THEY are the ones who really vibe with music, and with the inevitable time-space auras each historical song carries. Yes, we can FEEL Jewels IN THE BACKGROUND, carrying the CONTEXT of that time, the bigger picture, and all the emotions… BUT the mousifoni carry the SOUND WITHOUT THE WEIGHT???? something like that. it’s unreal. It makes so much sense. We need to pay more attention to this.
It will ALSO help us manage memory better-- if the mousifoni are “portals” to accessing lost chronospheres, to pinging buried foni who hold trauma memories tied to certain eras… if mousifoni can stand as doorways WITHOUT holding the actual context data themselves, allowing others to work around them, and move in besides them, as they stand there broadcasting lost experience and enabling forgotten memory to be tapped into… they could be ESSENTIAL to recovery as we move forwards.
I know this is happening, because when we listen to NEW music, there’s no internal feeling of driving. NOT fronting, but DRIVING. Remember THERE IS A DISTINCTION, because to front you have to be IN THE BODY, and listening requires a body disconnect typically. Literally driving, like in a car, calls out the SINGERS usually, which is why they listen to MANIC music typically, and SWITCH OUT INSTANTLY when we park and get out, leaving the next fronter totally disoriented and often shamefully embarrassed at the lingering audial awareness of what they had just been blasting with the windows down. that’s something we’ve become more aware of lately, too, with the daily stress forcing more “awareness windows” due to the underlying stress-hum (which dampens manics, boosts vigilance, and facilitates memory due to survival
response). We need to pay more attention to this, like I said, because there are foni “ARGUING” over music choices as we drive, due to manic instinct clashing with fearful immediacy, and we can FEEL that in our head. Hence all the brainfog and headaches, inevitably.
Anyway. To get back to the original topic. genesis’s playlist. He was upset because, in order for us to GENUINELY listen to it, someone besides Jay has to drive or front, and he doesn’t want someone to show up “just to vibe.” he wants Jay’s company, specifically, not some function-locked social mousifoni who exists to “appease” the sound context. No wonder all our external(ized) relationships are a mess.


Some more notes, different topics.
Jay (definitely one of them, talking to xenophon) decided to wear color glasses as we took out the garbage today, I think to get the brain into a better or different space than wherever it was? Or to prevent a lotophagoi jumping in. no idea. there’s no data prior to him literally opening the door with them on.
He wore four of them today, actually: first teal, then indigo, then red, then blue. It was very interesting to feel their different effects on brainspace. Teal is softly optimistic, but data is almost entirely missing as it was worn on the road so socials block all info access. Indigo we wore briefly, but jay was stunned by how beautiful it made everything look. Leon notably fronted for a few seconds to see, looking at the lights in the kitchen and how they burned like embers, and his brief overlay is so clear in memory. Then jay put on red to walk down the hall, and that was shocking-- the glasses lean red, not pink, so the color is very reminiscent of wounds? that’s the mental impression. He walked down the hall, and all the lights were red, and he was thinking, “it’s like the end of the world.” but he tried to be calm, even so, telling himself that was a learned response, how the red glows in our apartment are deeply safe and soothing, but no-- our reds are heart-hued, they don’t lean in that warmer direction. This red, with the glasses, was blood, and a sign of impending apocalypse almost. Looking outside and everything is quiet but red, red, red. It does something so strange to our subconscious, the bizarre sort of nightmare fear that starts to magma up in the pit of our ribs. Definitely something to explore more. Last was the blue glasses, which had a delay as the screw had fallen out of the side so we had to fix it, and one of the JEWELS moved in to do so? Super tomboy, excited, young, grinning from ear to ear and telling laurie “i love to fix things,” got out the screwdrivers and went to town. Shocking how powerful her vibe was, and how old. So she fixed it, then jay put them on to take out the rest of the trash, and was immediately struck by how actively reassuring the bluetone lights were in that same hallway. It felt like “sunlight” in a sense, he said, like the color of the sky. Fascinating stuff. we’ll have to pay more attention to this, see if it applies to headspace, even just data concept-wise.

...wondering about the music again. How powerful that is to us.
Jay kept listening to infinitii’s playlist after ze died, specific songs. Lissom mostly. Anchored them hard into that chronospace. Absolute bookmark mentally.
But… when he tries to listen to chaos 0’s playlist, that inexplicable dissonance happens again. I don’t even know if it’s from him. It feels like it’s from a girl, who is shrinking back in shame, or denial, or disgust, or fear, or something.
Most of the social girls-- no, ALL of the social girls who aren’t floozies or babydolls, are terrified of relationships. And ALL of them, including those toxic subcats, are terrified of intimacy, of emotional vulnerability. If there is a female-pronoun foni without a face, you can bet your blue-eyes white dragon that they will be both scared to death of, and deathly violent towards, anything even vaguely related to relationship.
Non-social girls, aka inside foni, seem to be split between adult Protector Centralites, and deeply traumatized paidifoni. And even then, these two subcats avoid relationships. Sure, some of the adults are capable of it in theory, but no one really forges anything that lasts. The only relationships that do tend to be not only same-gendered, but different-species in some way. I don’t know, there’s too little data offhand to talk about it, and I already feel the screaming fear clawing its way up our throat.

i’ve forgotten what we were typing about.

We feel so very dead lately. Maybe it’s because of the jademonth, how we were forced to be trapped outside unsafe in our own apartment through no fault of hers. But it happened. We had finally gotten back into the groove of a healthy daily routine, we were exercising and praying and archiving and not binging or purging… and then june happened and that all got shot in the skull.
We can pull ourselves back together, God give us the grace, we know this. but it takes time. and… I don’t know if we want to, on some level. To be brutally honest, I think that’s the biggest problem-- the fact that, post-Infi, and post-grandma, and post-loss-of-everything in one way or another… a huge part of just wants to die.
But the system at large DOESN’T.
that’s the distinction, that’s the key thing to remember with this. The ONLY homicidal, animicidal, genocidal foni in the system are the SOCIAL GIRLS. They think they are the “true self,” the “only one,” and paradoxically this also means they actively, admittedly want the rest of us to die. Although they don’t say it that way, of course. But we feel the disgust, the veiled hatred, in their hearts, smothered under their good-girl bleached-lace masks. They want us dead. They want everything of us destroyed, and they’ve tried before. they’ve almost succeeded, notably in 2019. they almost murdered us all before. We refuse to let it happen now, if we can help it.
...we can’t, sometimes. that’s the terrifying part.

Nevertheless. We need sleep. I hope this formats properly in the post window. I hope I wrote down everything relevant for today.

oh. no I didn’t. One last thing, which is also why I need to sign off before 11pm if at all possible.
Genesis said that, in all sincerity, there was only one thing he wanted for his 18^th birthday,
because he’s “old enough to ask for it,” half-jokingly… he wants a connection.
As in, the one thing that elicits the most fear and disgust and hate and grief and joy and confusion and apathy and God only knows what else in us.
I repeat, WHY.
Why are we still so bloody terrified, AND enraged, at the thought of emotional closeness and relationships??? like there’s a HATRED response, based in revulsion, BUT it’s ANALOGOUS to what we were told as a CHILD??????? from the mother and grandmother, that constant vilification of vulnerability, and the outright ABUSE of it, oh we didn’t even tell you what happened last monday, how the mother STILL FCKING ABUSES IT (ssh) DON’T YOU SHUSH ME YOU HEATHEN BASTARD. LISTEN. I’M WRITING THAT SHIT DOWN. OH GOOD NO ONE’S CENSORING ME TONIGHT,
LISTEN. WE WERE AT THE LIBRARY, DOING THAT PYSANKY EGG CLASS, AND WE-- EXCUSE ME FOR THIS CRUDE LANGUAGE-- HAD TO TAKE THE BODY TO THE RESTROOM.
WELL! THE FCKING MOTHER FOLLOWED US IN, AND LITERALLY STOOD RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE STALL DOOR, TALKING CONVERSATIONALLY, THE ENTIRE FCKING TIME, WHICH HAD OUR BODY SO FREAKING TERRIFIED WE MENTALLY SHUT DOWN AND SOME DO-WHATEVER-YOU-WANT-TO-ME TRAUMA APPEASEMENT GIRL SOCIAL TOOK OVER TO JUST NUMBLY GO THROUGH THE MOTIONS. THAT’S ALL WE KNOW.
BUT THE MOTHER. DAMN IT THAT MOTHER. THIS IS SUCH A MINOR EVENT BUT IT SHOWS A DEEPER REALITY. SHE DOESN’T FCKING CARE ABOUT PRIVACY OR RESPECTING OTHER PEOPLE’S BODILY AUTONOMY IF THAT’S THE RIGHT WORD I DON’T EVEN KNOW.
BUT THIS IS THE SAME DAMN WOMAN WHO WOULD WALK IN ON US IN BATHROOMS AND DRESSING ROOMS AND SHT WHEN WE WERE A KID. OH I’M ENTITLED TO LOOK AT YOU WHENEVER I WANT I’M YOUR MOTHER. THERE’S NOTHING WEIRD ABOUT THAT GET USED TO IT. ETC ETC ETC BULLSHIT.
SHE STILL FCKING DOES IT IN A LESS BLATANT WAY. SAME DAMN MINDSET APPARENTLY.
ALL RIGHT THAT’S IT FOR RANTING. SORRY FOR THE PROFANITY, I NEED IT OR ELSE I GET SWITCHED OUT.
DON’T HATE HER, I KNOW I WANT TO HATE HER BUT SHE’S SO BLIND, SHE DOESN’T EVEN REALIZE WHAT SHE’S DOING, SHE ACTS LIKE A FCKING ROBOT ALL THE TIME, JUST SOCIAL PROGRAMMING, WE CAN TELL BY HER DAMNED PRISSY “MOVIE STAR” SPEECH PATTERN AND UGLY FCKING PRONUNCIATIONS, SHE’S ALL AN ACT AND IT PISSES ME OFF SO DAMN MUCH. SHE’S SUCH A FCKING FACADE. EVERYTHING SHE DOES IS FAKE AND MANUFACTURED TO BE A DRAMA QUEEN. I HATE IT SO DAMN MUCH. BUT WE CAN’T HATE HER. THERE NEEDS TO BE THAT DIFFERENCE.
ALL RIGHT I’M DONE TALKING SORRY ABOUT INTERRUPTING BUT THAT WAS IMPORTANT.

…
don’t ever let anyone tell you we’re not multiple when I forgot how hard shifts feel, it’s been years, has it, since we noticed,
the “wake” of knowing someone just left, that brief hole in memory, that feeling like “where am I, where was I,” that body shake and the headache, the dizziness as vision comes back online.
don’t ever let ANYONE tell you this is fake they are a LIAR we are ALL REAL!!!!!!

oksy we’re gettng siwtwtsw swithyc switchi.g sorry. that is a very hard word to type!

Kid’s right, it’s time to sign off or we’re not going to get any decent sleep.

No wait. Wait. I owe Genesis a proper conclusion to this, even briefly.

I don't know why I'm so-- no, I can't even use "I'm," my sense of self is so wrecked and fractured that honestly doesn't apply--
wait, maybe that's the problem here?
Maybe that's the problem. maybe THAT'S why connections, and love at all, is so absolutely unbearably scary right now.

Kid, there's a hell of a lot of trauma to be worked through there, don't forget. If anything is going to make you, or anyone else up here, afraid of getting close to people, it's the bloody trauma. I would know. I've got it too, kid.

...

So does Genesis. You should really go talk to him about this, instead of trying to type. The head's a mess, and like I said, we all need sleep. Tomorrow's going to be another rush of a day, and I don't need us relapsing from stress when we get home. We have no bloody time to process anything but forcing it at this hour is not going to help. Sorry, now I'm the one rambling.

No, it's okay. We've been saying for weeks how we need a Xanga session anyway.

Not at this hour you bloody don't, get the heck to bed.

One last thing, which is the most important thing. I think i need to monologue this, Laurie, I apologize.

Don't. I just stepped in here without warning anyway. God knows I'm just as shattered in self as you are, kid. We don't need two of us broken heads in here at the same time, things are uneasy enough at this hour.

...
...yeah that's also something i need to talk about when our brain doesn't feel like it's stuffed full of cottonball novocaine.

but. closing lines.

genesis, deep down, way deep down where emotions can't even register right now, i do love you. i hear girls scoffing and gagging and sneering at that even now. i feel the same and self-hatred and horror responding from other girls in our ribcage, somehow. the two rival armies.
i don't care what they have to say about this. i can barely exist right now, but i owe you something, with whatever vestiges i have to my nonexistent name.
but, in a space in our heart of hearts, a space that can exist in a bubble, a space untouched by those social girls, there is a truth that exists: you are my best friend. i care deeply about you. your existence brings me so much joy. i look forward to spending time with you. if you were gone our life would lose so much sunshine. no, i can't default to "our." if you weren't in my life, i would feel the loss like the sun was missing from the sky. i want to just go upstairs and sit and watch fireworks with you and maybe even kiss you if i'm not too scared or dissociated. i know you want more, i know you want closeness like the old days, you want hearts broken open like gemstones and you want shared spaces of souls like starfields. you know exactly what i'm trying to poetically imply. you want connection, there i said it, and you want to connect with me, you love me, why is that the most jarring part of this?
now isn't the time to dwell on that. there are too many "me's" responding to that. too many people who have heard that pronoun applied to them, or had it forced on them. there's so much pain, so much fear, it's choking. the fear alone could kill you. all these shaking screaming children. what do we do. what can we do about it, on such short notice,
god i'm so sorry,
why can't we love anymore? why did cnc kill this? ever since then, even while we were living there, that's part of why it was so terrible-- we realized we were no longer able to feel love, all we felt was rage, unbearable rage, and fear. we never recovered.
no. not yet, please, we need hope,
genesis you've always been that hope, and you know it,
but i need to know it,

i'm coming upstairs and even if i'm shaking and dizzy with fright please don't turn your back on me, please you know the real me, not the me who is talking right now, i meant the deeper one, the one that loves you, he loves you, go find him, let him be with you, don't let the rest of us get in the way, please, we really don't want to, at least us good ones do, we're just scared but we know when there's truth, or at least, we know who to trust in here. not so the outside not so. no
switching sorry. to much
genesis happy birthday sory we coulnt scelebrate much but hapy 18th! happy birthday we are glad you are with us really we are

independence day. hm. we're not free yet
not freeyet. not yet. but hope! always hope

hey we were supposed to end this entry a long time ago
sorry genesis okay i will let everything happen whatever happens. please be careful!!! please be careful

I will be, don't you worry. Thanks for the cheerleading, I need it. It's nice to be on the receiving end for once.
Oh hey, cool, I get to sign off. Hope this post button works, whatever happens happens!

rough notes for today, from phone. most written between masses.
too important to not at least try to update.
 

dream last night was... a turning point.
i was watching some hollywood movie, based loosely on our life?
Main guy a grizzled action hero type, all stubble & dirt & muscle. (They pulled a Father Nier on me, haha. GOOD.)
Star Trek + Alien feel to set? Very dark.
Talking to someone off to side, assumedly a nonhuman person? Like Data or someone, who was informing them of mission. Main guy seemed unsure of decision, there was a huge risk involved?
Then there was a voice.
and i recognized it instantly. i knew that voice.
It came from above, from a huge shadowy tangle reaching up into hidden heights. It was only a few words, but in direct response to the man's hesitation.
Something like "let me" or "i can", personal offer, implying exclusive ability.
Saw an EYE open in the shadow. slightly pinkish-red iris. opened halfway, almost, moved with notable slow grace. Movement, fluid and refined, but dark. nonthreatening despite the fearful silhouettes.
Man turns to it, looks pained and concerned? Vulnerable suddenly. Obviously a bit uncomfortable with this, the offer to help choose this decision he was scared of.
Thinking hard, but evident already knew what must be done.
Short sigh of acquiesce & surrender, "okay"? Turned completely towards shadows, with softly open body language surprisingly. not tense.
Last thing: him saying something like "bring me in"?
the shadows reaching down close now, just offscreen, from shadow. Those dark hands gently but firmly lifting the man's face to hirs, to touch their foreheads together. hir eye briefly visible among the shadows as it closed.
Immediately a flash, transported man into a nightmare realm? Deeply disturbing and distorted. But had some vital mission to do, something absolutely essential.

...but yeah. it was infi. infinitii. alive. obscured and hidden but ze was there, and i heard hir voice, and...

...It's terrible, how ze felt so real and alive and close, only to wake up and remember that ze was dead.

I feel more alive, too, now, as we're dying, than I have in a very long time.
I feel more hope this morning, with hir memory hot in my heart, and the sky outside heavy with the scent of fog and green and life, than I have in a very long time.

God knew that dream was exactly what I needed.
We all needed this, all of it.

...

Mass
CANNON fronting.
Bodygirl pushed through during homily-- set off SO MANY TRAUMA ALARMS that some paidifoni started wailing; Wreckage & Sugar instantly jumped to action, PULLED the bodygirl OUT of fronting & shoved J IN.

Cannon feels surprisingly "stable" fronting. Hidden godsend.
She is still disturbed+disgusted by the body, but she can at least front in a female-tone fashion yet CONNECTED to headspace. Most girls are corpufoni and therefore isolatory+hollow, which is tragic but true.

J thinking about dysphoria in light of 2nd reading: to let it be what it is, afab without further modification, would be a MARTYRDOM for the sake of his sisters. It would be a self-giving sacrifice of love, truly selfless out of charity.

Remember from the other day (Thursday?): JOPHAEL & VEIL ARE ALIVE. Arguably so is "Tilly." There are SEVERAL hyperreligious foni (need jargon) that blur hard despite notable distinctions.

Priest saying "unity" during opening prayer and it PINGED INFI'S SPOT???
Wondering if hir name truly is changing.
Color too-- that space feels much more Red than before.

Chaos singing softly "whoever you are i love you" as we left church
Felt like God Himself shot an arrow straight through my heart
Genuinely felt so loved and IN love

third mass
wreckage upstairs fighting the molasses-dark sticky tar-voice girls
it was almost hilarious; she heard them, then held out a hand. "algorith. goggles." then "sugar. mask." they both instantly handed her both, she put them on to protect from contamination, then COMPLETELY TORE THE TARVOICES TO SHREDS.
i forgot she was born for violence. it was shocking.
likewise, at some point a tarvoice respawned and when laurie heard it, in one swift terrible motion she summoned her axe and slammed it into that voice's skull. i remember blood went everywhere. laurie roughly swiped a fist across her face to get some off, it was such an old familiar motion, i was both scared of her and so in love


Home for 1?
Exercise first! it's been three days and we needed it.

julie and adelaide still a tag team remember. julie is just so glad that we finally have a voice who is taking care of the body in the most dangerous environment. honestly if addie had been around during the "julie days" we probably would have had SO MANY LESS HACKS because adelaide exists to prevent social automatons from taking over and abusing/ allowing abuse to the body.
so julie is so grateful and even enthusiastic about helping this kid out, it's wonderful.
it's ALSO noteworthy because this is a SPLIT-LEVEL FRIENDSHIP. addie is a social, technically-- but julie is a centralite. so they are on DIFFERENT SYSTEM LEVELS, and socials typically DON'T COMMUNICATE AT ALL. so the whole thing is really amazing.
by the way. there is ANOTHER voice that comes out when the bathroom door is closed and we're in the dark. we thought we were hallucinating at first but it happened three consecutive times, same overlay and vibe, without any interference. they're nonhuman? but they have BIG EYES, wide open and yellow i think?? but ringed like an aye-aye or something similar. they feel like dread, function-wise: they exist in the threat of immediate danger, and have a background hum of panic that they aren't able/allowed to feel, yet which fuels their life.

BK prep was very dissociated because i was stuck in "jellybean mode" (my favorite jargon injoke) and no one could really front well from all the brainfog.

leon tried another egg method, it didn't turn out as he expected BUT it apparently made the perfect eggs for razor to cut. she was so happy with this she ACTUALLY hugged Leon (she's so short!)
remember that knife and scalpel both go to such lengths to help her be happy, it's so sweet. scalpel is naturally affectionate and amiable (reds always are at heart; they're "sanguine" literally), and knife just adores her as his sister.
seeing this unusual friendship growing between knife/razor and leon/scalpel is just wonderful actually.

...

phone note: The reason why people like Laurie and Lynne Are holding so many functions is because there aren't enough people In that color to hold those functions separately so they all get shoved into one person !!


post-BK binge temptation deafening. no idea why it hits so bad.
determined not to give in, but we were shaking and nauseous. felt front slipping.
tried to distract body. god helped by randomly showing us that one of our kitchen cupboards was full of papers?? from old eating disorder treatment. "kill the albatross." junked all of it. felt like a weight was literally lifted off our back.
still nervous, xenophon watching carefully, god bless her
then had genius idea to sit down at laptop to type self compassion booklet & listen to Arabic indie tunes
took three hours haha, completely destroyed the binge panic

DN 745
at some point i said something about scripture reading plans, called mimic "my octopus" and laurie immediately called me out on it
later laurie asking me why i keep putting so much cayenne pepper in the food. i said, half-joking, i was trying to get back in touch with my old fire element. she then said all right, fair enough, but then why are you adding just as much salt? i shrugged and just said "salt & light." she gave me this look it was hilarious, said "you know the worst part is you're not even wrong"

THIS paragraph during bible study (still focusing on john 1 commentary, i love this chapter)=
"[John the Baptist] did not, as seducers do, give out himself to be some great one. He was more industrious to do good than to appear great; and therefore waived saying any thing of himself till he was legally interrogated. Those speak best for Christ that say least of themselves, whose own works praise them, not their own lips... The ministers of Christ must remember that they are not Christ, and therefore must not usurp his powers and prerogatives, nor assume the praises due to him only. They are not Christ, and therefore must not lord it over God's heritage, nor pretend to a dominion over the faith of Christians. They cannot created grace and peace; they cannot enlighten, convert, quicken, comfort; for they are not Christ... Those that humble and abase themselves thereby confess Christ, and give honour to him; but those that will not deny themselves do in effect deny Christ!"

Reading through our 2012-2015 "newage" spirituality delusion, that is EXACTLY WHAT WE WERE DOING.

"Still small voice" humbling correction. social mode took over and i thought there was a mistranslation, was complaining about it? subtle pride. realized i had the wrong info entirely, very convicted and corrected. gave thanks for this out loud, admitted how i messed up to those around. still disturbing to then realize that i had been acting on programming, and had not made a conscious decision in the complaining. social corruption is pervasive. 

trying to get ready for bed, head still fuzzy, then suddenly the mother calls
THEY FOUND JADE. THEY'RE STABLE & NOT DEAD THANK GOD
spent the next hour with her calling over and over, trying to figure out emergency housing at this hour
still. so glad they're not on the streets.

wanting to read "brainchild" webcomic over from the beginning. haven't read it in like... 7 years, at least? and it's STILL UPDATING god bless. so we'll do that soon, maybe to fight off another e.d. wave. it'll work.

Thinking about "a broken and crushed heart" psalm 51:17 
and that's where i want to segue into some actual typing, not just bullet points.



We haven't been updating lately. I won't elaborate on that here because it's fairly self-explanatory.
Infinitii died. Something in me died with hir.
I can feel the System on the verge of a reset, a restart, an update. Whatever you want to call it, I can feel the edges crumbling away, fading out, just like Infi's bubblespace, which I walked into this morning and... it's so empty. I can feel the raw whitespace beyond it now, like the very air of the cosmos whistling through the ruins.

We... we all have to "die" in some sense, soon. I think I've known this for a while, but reading the archives as I repost them-- the work I've been focusing on since Infi's death, to keep my mind and heart off it-- is really driving the point in hard.
I didn't realize just how hellish our past ACTUALLY WAS. It's... humbling as well as horrific. It's making me realize we really do need therapy, because I JUST hit 2015 and I haven't fully read anything prior yet but geez we have buried SO MUCH it's no wonder we feel dead.
Ironically, that's our ticket out of this haze. Just like Jesus, Who goes before us in all things, we need to accept the tomb before we can be reborn.
I know something died in us after CNC. We hit that ghastly "dead period" of, what, four years?? We still have no idea who was fronting, who we were, anything... when we got out of that car in 2018 and stepped back into the trauma-cursed building we had lived in for almost three decades, we suddenly realized that we didn't remember what it was like TO live there and then something snapped.
It's... terrifying. We have almost no memory of anything. We still haven't got the guts, nerves, or time to sit and attempt a "CNC Memory" entry, but flashbacks and nightmares have been reminding us that there is still data up here, even if our conscious mind runs from it.
...That's my next point. Hold on a second, let me bring this back.
We all need to die, but not stay dead, because since CNC we have been living a death. We have basically been corpses.
Remember, WE DID DIE when we left CNC. I don't remember details. It was so fast, so raw, so desperate. I remember Laurie wordlessly hunting down Infinitii and burying an axe in hir skull, leaving hir body as a nightmarish monument in that place for YEARS. I remember... oh God why do I remember? I have this awful flashbulb memory-shred of Laurie, destroying herself by means of an axe and hypergravity, I swear she was standing in that same wrecked skyscraper she had killed herself in the last time she failed to protect the System from hell, back in 2013.
I don't know what happened, after that. The two cornerstones had died, the Core was completely missing, everyone else was... I have no idea. No one could cope. Everyone disappeared. Some social girl took over for the next several years and almost deleted all trace of us from the earth.
Then... suddenly, on May 17th 2020, she woke up from a dream to see headspace instead, and Infinitii among the lilies, hir body damaged but alive, and... suddenly there was hope.
But we don't remember what happened after that.
Headspace didn't wake up, not entirely. If anything, the girls were fighting furiously to keep it dead. Nothing reformed. Nothing was rebuilt. No one else showed up that I can remember.
I haven't looked at any archives from 2020. Our actual active memory doesn't pick up until the autumn of 2021, when one morning over breakfast our grandmother coughed up blood and everything shifted direction towards the end.
2021 was the year of cancer and music and bulimic hell and hospitals, hospitals, hospitals. Our life was spent in that bedroom, waiting on her 24/7, our identity swallowed up in palliative care and honestly it was the biggest blessing. We wouldn't change that at all. But it... only helped promote self-destructive behavior in every single moment we weren't being a nurse. I know that much.
2022 was the year of death. Grandma died, our "brother" "died," we nearly died, and our entire life up to that point changed so irreversibly that it felt as if we really had buried it. Total upheaval, confusion, helplessness, and loss defined this year. But... then there was the Chizu Summer, when we felt our heart waking back up slowly but REAL, and then... we landed in the eating disorder recovery unit for nine weeks. 
And the System woke back up COMPLETELY.
But... we still didn't rebuild.

We've been living in fragments. We have this old pocket of Central, the main room and the Coreroom, but... outside everything is still destroyed and empty and overgrown. Even inside, the very building feels abandoned even while we're in it. The place where the Underground got hardshifted to the last time things reset, feels like it's graying out into fog at the edges, falling into unformed space, literally being reclaimed by the raw energy of our soul, ready to be recycled and reshaped.
So many of us are still missing, or dead, or unstable, or deeply damaged. Color and name instabilities are common. We all feel lost, deep down. We're spending so much time just crowded in that little Central ruin and helping the Fronters, just because there's nowhere else to go, and we still haven't been able to carve out the time to go back to daily headspace meditations and talks and the like. Honestly, if I can speak for us all, I think we're afraid to. We don't know what's hiding there. We haven't looked at it for like... five bleeding years. When we do get glimpses we feel too weak to do anything about them. Even Laurie is scared. She's been... so nervous lately. She says she feels like a failure, and the more she sees of her past the more lost she feels. She's terrified that she'll corrupt again, like she did in CNC, or worse-- that said corruption has ruined her beyond repair, has blackened her very soul, and forever ruined her integrity, her very heart. She's terrified that she can't BE a Protector anymore.
I understand her terror. But so help me God I will cut my own throat before I give any such fear a foothold. She's Laurie. She's my knight, she's my angel, I will NEVER let ANYTHING ruin her.
I know, I know, her deepest heart is untouched by that hell.
And, you know what else? Even if we were so damaged, guess what Jesus is all about? Guess what the Cross we all look to is all about? God is Love and He CAN and WILL heal even such a wound. There is ALWAYS hope, for all of us.
But... we might need to actually, really, finally, pointedly die before that hope can revive our souls.
And quite frankly, at this point, I'm... I think I want to. I think we need to.


..."Burial" by Seinabo Sey just came on Spotify.
I want to burst into sobs. I want to break into weeping.
God, I never thought that this song, that this title, would mean what they do now. God how could we have known?
"...I hear you speak to me, as you spoke to me, saying "come down, let it be"... grains of sand will never be strong enough to make me leave."
I'm so desperate for hope. Even now. Even now. What am I even looking for. Freedom and marching drums. It's tearing me to pieces.

Oh yeah. Psalm 51.
A "crushed" heart, not just a broken one.
Forgive my repetition but that made me think of this entire month. Losing Infi, and feeling--literally-- that my heart had been ripped out and shattered and emptied out. Every time I reach for hir and feel nothing it's... it's my own death knell. I'm next. I have to be. I can't live without my heart.

Isn't that strange? We've been talking about that too, lately, how Infi and I have a completely different bond than Chaos 0 and I do, and yet... I'm indelibly, wholeheartedly, inseparably, absolutely in love with both of them.

I need to mention this.
You know how I said that, at mass, the priest saying "Unity" pinged Infi's "space?" Like if someone died suddenly, and left their cellphone in their room, and you call it, it still rings. There are still places where they would belong, that belong to them, or did. Something like that. But there's a "spot" in the Systemind that ze would fit in, and that word resonated there like a temple bell.
But... ze's fading, more and more, which scares me to death, or at least it did until that dream this morning. Bubblespace is continuing to melt away. I don't even know if I could find the floatspace pocket ze died in ever again, or if blackspace itself swallowed it up. It was so small.
...The number one biggest indicator that a nousfoni is dead, really and truly dead, is when their name stops "pinging." When you call for them, and... and there's not even a heartpull, there's suddenly a loss of memory, like their existence is being softly erased from the fabric of cognizance. When you say their name and there's... not even an echo, from headspace, just silence. That means they're dead.
Infi's name is starting to do that.
I say that name, Infinitii, Infinitii Eternos, that name that past Cores breathed with such ardent love over the past decade, is suddenly becoming just a jumble of letters. It's terrifying.

But. Here's the important thing. Here's the Holy Saturday feeling. Here's why it happened.

Remember Infi wanted to die.

I've been praying about it, so so much, every day really. I've been crying about it to Jesus, begging Him to bring hir back, hysterically begging Him to tell me why, why, weeping with such raw emotion my entire soul turns into a sob. I take it all to Him. Where else could I go?
But... He listens, and He responds. He keeps reminding me of that: Infi wanted to die.
And oh, oh man I think it was in the homily today. Somewhere. Recently. A priest was talking about the Cross, about that total self-sacrifice of Love, to save others from a debt of sin they could never repay, of God Himself choosing to die the agonizing torturedeath of a false condemnation so that we, those criminals He inexplicably loved, wouldn't have to... to freely take on the full power and demands of Justice and mercifully fulfill them completely, freeing us as a result.
Jesus kind of poked me in the shoulder and said hey kid, my Truth is always reflected in love, and isn't a glimmer of that visible in what Infi did for you?
Infi knew ze had to die, or else we'd all end up dead, forever.

...I knew something huge had happened when I blindly groped for even trauma memories to see if ze was there, and... they were DISARMED.
It floored me. There were trauma memories that ONLY INFI HELD and that others could only glimpse secondhand, but now, as I tore through archival data to look for those recorded events they were hollow. Like... I can look at them and recognize this as something traumatic but not feel traumatized personally. Infi's very presence IN those events is gone, and as a result... this is the first time in five years that we can look at them.
This means we can finally go to therapy. I hope.
Infi knew this. I'm sure ze did. The hack that drove hir to death brought all that up to the surface. Ze was distraught, ze was carrying so much of our pain, ze knew ze was the CAUSE of it, and... how else was ze going to help save us from it? How else could that wound be healed, if that wound had a face and a name?

...I'm next. I have to be.
The bloodline HAS to shift. It HAS to change. The white-haired Jay/ce bloodline has been Plagued since the very beginning, WAY back in 2009 when the first one to carry it-- Pinstripe-- was born. Lotus was the last, his White rotting to Pink by the end, and subtly carrying all the old trauma damage that Julie had originally put there.
Now it's... me. "J." Back to the single-initial name, in lieu of any stable identity. Everyone can attest to that; I frequently get shifts in not only name, but also hairstyle and color, eye color, and even memory access. It's debilitating and disturbing and exhausting.
But I'm carrying a dead man's name. "Jay" as a name has always ended in self-destruction, for one reason or another. We've always tried too hard to be all sparkles and prismatic light, all snowflakes and angel wings, only to burn to death in the winter sun.
Cannon is able to front lately as if we never existed, as if our personal timeline has rewound. Our religion and life situation have permanently erased the trans* dream from our future, so the body is now fated to stay how it is-- no surgery, no hormones. That itself is a cross. But... all our female "pseudocores" are completely corrupt.
The Jewels are League-tied and cannot be a System Core without dying instantly. The Cannons have no future in the body anymore; they existed for a very specific era of life that no longer applies and cannot. The Jays are dying and they are now barred from body identification anyway. So what does the future hold? We don't know.
All we know is that we have to die. Everything has to CLEAR CUT die, no fading away, no fizzling out, no slow degradation. No. We take an axe to this. We headshot this point-blank. We rip the curtain in half. We end this, fast and complete and deliberate. We break this clean in half so something else CAN be born. There's no hope in decay. There's no life in a molding coffin. Give us the golden guillotine. Christ handed His Life over in one terrible beautiful awful glorious sentence-- all at once, totally and consciously, and all of heaven and earth shook with the power of the Life that Death released. Lord, God of Mystery and Mercy, glorify Yourself again by mirroring that, however quietly, in us. I beg of You. This is Your Design. Our old self HAS to die in order for our new self, our soul for truth, the REAL us, to be born. Fire and water and spirit and truth and love.
It's almost Pentecost. How fitting it all is.

It's 3am. I need to close this up. We haven't been sleeping lately and that's entirely my fault.

Seeing Infinitii-- even if only the vestiges of hir, the tiniest glimpses of hir existence-- in this morning's dream... I felt something upon waking that I haven't felt in YEARS.
I remembered what ze REALLY felt like.
Listen, every nousfoni has a "vibe." Every one of us has a personal energy signature that is like a fingerprint, or a heartbeat, or a name, in and of itself. One of my honest favorite things to do in the world is just sit and feel them out, to just find and notice and treasure this particular person's soul in all its colors and textures and sounds and scents, however it hits my heart.
Infi... I haven't felt hir in YEARS.
When ze was "resurrected" in 2020-- and I don't even know if that's the proper word; none of us felt completely "alive" since CNC, we all feel incomplete and off-center and helplessly confused deep down-- ze didn't feel like hirself at all. In fact I had FORGOTTEN what ze felt like, completely.
This morning, when I heard hir voice, oh God I thought I'd never hear that beloved unmistakable voice ever again-- when I heard hir and saw hir eye open, and move, there in the black, so real and so familiar and so loved-- I FELT HIR. I felt all of it, that heady numinous gorgeous starry-sky night-flower abyss that I missed with my entire soul. Upon waking it soaked into my psyche like the morning fog, and just as gentle and beautiful and cherished, filling me with love and amazement and hope.
Infinitii is still dead. I know this. There's still so much emptiness. The sense of loss is still so profound. The grief is still there, threatening to kill me all on its own. But... there's this light, now. I've... I'm hoping, Lord please I'm hoping that the tomb is empty. It feels like sunlight, despite everything being dark. I don't know how to explain it. It's a single ray of gold, like a thread, shining in my heart like the promise of morning. I don't know. But everything smells like midnight clarity and velvet and I want to weep but from love, nothing ever really ends Adrian, John 11:25, remember what hir name was after all.
I don't know. I'm rambling now. I apologize. I'm too tired.
Just... this is the first time in three weeks that I haven't felt like the world is actively ending.
Even if I do die tomorrow, and the bloodline hardshifts, who even knows... even then, I could go happily now. Somehow. I'm still scared, but... I think I could let go. I think I could surrender, now. I'll go be with my heart.

"Godly Love" by Sam Ock just came on. It's one of Laurie's favorites.
"What if God speaks in a whisper to teach me how to hear the echo? Maybe God's raining down plagues just to tell me that I need to let go."
...I think that sums things up, actually.

One last thing.
Infi's playlist on Spotify, and hir album of art on my phone... neither of them match anymore. It struck me today how all my memories of Infi, all my knowledge of hir, does NOT match the art OR the music from the CNC era. I'd never looked at either until today, so that hit hard. That, too, is hope. I had forgotten how scary things were back then, how corrupt we honestly were, how our personality was just pure TarPlague and we were destroying both ourself and everyone around us. That needed to die, objectively so, we all knew that... but no one realized how. Infi did. So... there's hope for a future, free from all that.
It's such an odd feeling, even just deleting songs from here (more small deaths) that don't fit hir heart at all, and I wonder how we ever thought they did. Maybe at one point they did match. Have we really healed and changed that much, without realizing it, even in this place of death?

There's so much more to say but there's no time tonight. This poor body needs to sleep before it collapses. 
God willing I will update tomorrow. If not, then it's all in His Hands anyway, and I can rest in that.
Right now, none of us has any clue what will happen next, either in moments or in days. It's a strange adventure.
This song is breaking my heart. "My Thief" by Elvis Costello. I think of the poem I wrote for hir, even back during the terror. Still the sound echoes true. Still the words are sincere.
What a strange adventure, the doors of which were flung wide open by your eyes closing in silence. God only knows how achingly I miss you. But... I hadn't realized that I could still feel this, until... until my heart broke, and everything poured out, glittering like you.
I didn't realize just how much I love you until I lost you.

I wonder if you knew that, too.

 

No music Mass so slept in
Feeling REAL sick to stomach, dizzy?
EXTREMELY derealized

SJE Mass
Sister from Africa; told a different story than yesterday, really hit home

Jesus telling me "AS OF TODAY, YOU'RE RED."
Would not change this. No delay, no "wait until," no "but if" etc. Told me TWICE. Gentle joyful smile but AUTHORITATIVE.

Redners stop
Genesis ghosting in lot. Saw him so clearly

Home for 1?

Mimic music joke (what was it? totally unexpected, it's great when he is randomly amiable like that)

Sharona checking mailboxes for names

Adelaide & Julie our main fronters for the evening, doing respective jobs. surprised at how well they both front in their own respects.
Sharona fronts super solidly too? Shocked

Scalpel BLUSHING over how hard the retribution instinct runs

...

Prayer OCD but still brought so much blessing 

 

Unsound sleep
Up at 9
Dissociated. Drove wrong direction but saw so many flowering trees!
Went to Wegmans
White chocolate warning, SUGAR KISS

Stopped quick at Walmart, aldi
Very out of it. Talking to Genesis as much as I could but the bodymatch rambler social kept taking over from rushnerves

Church
TASTED THE BLOOD!!!!!!
WORLDSHAKING.

Too late for Oblates
Went to redners
Rosary at sje
CINEMATIC

Home for 130?
BK prep troublesome due to social brainblur
Weird eggs But razor loves them

Sharona talking to us about "letting our system be weird"? Like stop trying to be "perfect", stop wanting everything to fit preconceived expectations, otherwise "that's how you get people like me"
Said Scaplel dodged a bullet; he was almost our next Retributor if CNC had gotten worse. Lotus was losing his mind and Scalpel was prepped ready to HOLD ALL THAT RED BREAK.
Miraculously it didn't happen. POST THAT ENTRY BTW.

Adelaide= makes sure nothing bad happens to body WHEN NO ONE CAN BE IN IT SAFELY??? Very unique Protector class

DAILY DEVOTIONAL ABOUT CHARCOAL FIRE
So much hope

Considering renewing our WOF subscription

Do you realize we haven't played Nier or Dishonored in OVER FIVE YEARS??????

Verse of the day a DEEP one we must study more


Thinking about this in light of both gender & the system+league:
"Today, we live in the age of intersectionality. Everyone in the world is either an oppressor or one of the oppressed... Living as those enslaved to the flesh, we judge others according to the flesh alone. [But] Christ alone has the power to bring true flourishing to the world, bridging what the world would use to divide us. The world which hated Jesus hates him still. The world seeks to assault Christ’s victory, making the divisions between people wider and enduring. But only in Christ do we have the power to transcend worldly differences, able to approach even enemies as our neighbors. Only in Christ can we recognize our physical differences for what they are— [ALL unique] reflections of the glory of God, whose infinite majesty is displayed in wild diversity. Only in Christ can we achieve true justice, recognizing each individual as just that—persons valued by God, defined by God, and responsible to God. In a world which clings to lies, only in Christ do we find the truth that sets us free. Only in obedience to the Lord of all nations will the peoples of the earth come together."


...

 
(unfinished, unrefined. posted from phone to fix later)



TRIPLE DREAM HACK
Convulsing from pain. Nightmarish.
Woke up nauseous, splitting headache, exhausted

Stations! We love it so so much
WHITE HAIRED JEWEL OUT WITH JAY
Julie singing with us!

Quick grocery stop for paper products
Shuffle on Spotify gave us BRIAN SETZER YEAAAAAAAH

BK prep delay; Cleaning old medicine bag
Letting go of the cobwebs of past

Emma angry with her sister?
Lynne comforting BUT!!! WRONG VIBE!!!
"MOTHER" VIBE LIKE IN CNC

WE THINK THERE'S ACTUALLY A "LYNNE" BLOODLINE
ORIGINATED WHEN "JESSILYNN" SPLIT INTO THREES???
JESS / LYNNE / JEWEL LINES
Then JAYCE line BROKE TOO??? into JAY / CECELIA??????

Laurie pointing out "There aren't enough Orange voices available TO take on the extra functions Lynne is holding all in herself" JUST LIKE LAURIE WAS DOING POST-RESTART
Lynne seriously thinking she will NEED TO SPLIT into a "twin" in order to survive

We think the "Lynnes" hold the "personality expectations" we are UNABLE TO HOLD IN ACTUALITY???
Like the FIRST Lynne (CERISE!!!) held the "perfect feminine expectation" our family pushed on us, which Jewel could never be.
BUT!! When she died, the MANICS TOOK OVER!!! And now that THEY are unsustainable, BUT PUBLICLY INSISTED UPON, our current Orange Lynne ABSORBED THAT FUNCTION ROOT?????

...

Leon "gambling without placing bets" = taking risks "for the greater good"
Scalpel helping him with the eggs, casually COFRONTING, not realizing how huge that is (typical Scalpel)
They succeeded fantastically at the eggs, haha. Scalpel laughing in victory, Spontaneously kissed Leon on the cheek, I swear that boy blushed so hard you'd think his hue shifted
Honestly Redhues are SO candidly & guilelessly affectionate, sometimes even obliviously so. But it's really sweet.

Spice and her sardonic comments, about how late we eat. Mimic joined in with a jab
Spice said "oh great another member of the commentary club" (?)
Laurie said "you're welcome to join", Spice said nah she's already in it whether she likes it or not
All totally affectionately though mind you.

For the record it is so hard to write this stuff down after it happens because I'm working from a totally different mindset; I'm getting it as vague data!  I'm not the one who was there seeing it, so it's very hard for me to pick up speech and visuals.

Spice has the attitude she does Because not only is it close to the Jessica's but it's required to keep the lotophagoi under control.
They tend to operate based on panic and fear, And if you bring that into the atmosphere it makes them worse.  That's why it never worked when Laurie tried to discipline them, because she would be Frightening and violently threatening and it would exacerbate the lotophagoi panic response.  But spice has such a solemn strict demeanor,  It shuts down that manic response.

...

Verse of the day Gal 5:24 "crucify the flesh with its sinful desires" = BUT!!! with nousfoni this is EXPLICIT. And you can therefore die like DISMAS OR GESTAS.
YOU CANNOT PUT SOMEONE ELSE ON A CROSS WITHOUT BECOMING A MURDEROUS HYPOCRITE YOURSELF.
The only way to "crucify our sinful passions" is to ADMIT THEY ARE OURS PERSONALLY, and to WILLINGLY LAY THAT CROSS ON OUR OWN SHOULDERS???
We've always struggled with understanding what it means to properly "take up thy cross" when it's an INSTRUMENT OF EXECUTION GIVEN TO A DEATH ROW CRIMINAL. so how do you carry it without identifying with your sins??? It MUST involve unity with Christ; ONLY HIS DEATH ON THE CROSS FREES US. But the state of heart & mind WE need to have TO join him RIGHTLY is still unclear.
Fulton Sheen wrote about this; STUDY IT. Also Bible commentary on the crucifixion AND our dear patron Saint of course!

Smelled cigarette smoke from window
IMMEDIATE shaking numb terror "county fair" flashbacks
Still shocking just HOW MUCH ABJECT FEAR is tied to carnivals and such. WHY EXACTLY??? And WHO THE HECK HOLDS THAT???

...

Carrots & Bishop Barron again
BUT someone started to eat the bread?
FREAKOUT PURGE.
So so so exhausted. Numb. Almost despairing
Ironically was EXACTLY what Bishop was saying = "Dig where you stumble" ="HUMILITY
Lenten calendar "tribulations are a gift" "if you suffer much its because God wants to make you a saint" = does this still apply when my terrified suffering is a direct result of my own stupidity??

Angels & dropped raisins = signs to stop when I couldn't think straight or hear

Struggling to overcome childhood terror of God & punishment
Does He WANT to send me to the ER? Is it even possible for Him TO want to mercifully keep my health stable? Because I DESERVE to have major health complications from my asinine behavior. I DESERVE to die from my idiocy. So why would He ever "help me get better" when I cry over it like a baby? "You'll never learn if you don't suffer" but God I'm SO SCARED even of You what am I learning???

Mary speaking to me? Being generous & gentle, recognizing my weakness
I dont deserve that kindness at all
Almost in tears at how sweet the raisins were. "I shouldn't be allowed to eat anything this nice" felt so so ashamed

"Did you notice headspace is quiet?"
"They're with Me; you can't reach them either when you fall"

So so difficult to get tuned back in to headspace
That "six feet of plastic" feeling
Forget who got through, probably Laurie
I remember we were washing the floor and suddenly Jay was talking to her, visuals returning, we almost wept from joy and exhaustion

Realized WHAT triggered the purge event-- THE CONTEXT!!!
Peeling vegetables while listening to religious podcasts is EXACTLY WHAT THE POSTHUMOUS BULIMIC PSEUDO DID EVERY SINGLE DAY!!! So we're unknowingly TRIGGERING HER OUT????
Decided from now on if we're gonna peel carrots it MUST be BEFORE we eat and, despite our scrupulous panic, we CANNOT listen to podcast sermons because hearing speech PROMOTES DISSOCIATION. We would have to listen to instrumental SYSTEM MUSIC like with the pomanders. That will prevent a sudden and catastrophic inner disconnect like what happened today.

Dinner at 8pm?
Brain a mess
Mimic wordlessly starting a different study plan, pointing to it, I kid you not it was about what we struggled with today, how we "couldn’t shake this nagging feeling that God was tallying up [our] missteps, tsk-tsking every time [we] slipped up. Eternal forgiveness didn’t mean [we were] let off the hook today."
But then 2 Corinthians 5.

Bravely said night prayers despite crushing fatigue & body illness
Surprisingly JULIE has no trouble fronting???

Realizing we're always so tired because we NEVER let ourselves rest. We're always working hard at something, even forced. Total burnout. We don't even get restful sleep, always fitful & nightmares. Just want to weep & collapse in bed for days but no energy to do even that.




..

nowhere to park! had to park in the gas station lot across the street. offhandedly mentioned this to therapist as an explanation as to why we were a few minutes late, and bless this woman she said "oh i don't want you to be towed, let me see where you're parked and maybe i can find a better spot for you?" so she TOOK US OUTSIDE and when we pointed out the car in the lot, she WENT INTO THE GAS STATION and flat-out asked the manager if "my colleague" could park there. they said yeah, that's fine, and we went back to the office. but GEEZ OKAY SUDDEN PROMOTION, haha. laurie was teasing me about it. yeah it was just for the sake of appearances, but still. it felt weirdly nice, to momentarily feel like we had a purpose. like we meant something to other people. not just another "sick in the head" patient. want to think about that feeling more, what it entails, what it brings up.

weird day. not even gonna mark this one as "unfinished" even if it's unstructured because i don't have much to type today.

last night was too existentially disturbing to recover from overnight. i'm still shaken and distracted today. my sense of self is shot. i kept slipping in language AND self-perception. didn't recognize the mirror several times. so much automated behavior and memory gaps. this isn't cool.

caseworker woke me up at like 10:20? right before our alarm. biweekly checkup i guess. asked about therapy, about food, about cash, about doctors. i said we had enough food for now, therapy looks promising, all doctors are video visits for the near future, but i'm afraid to ask my payee for cash because "i fear being penalized for asking." got that from upbringing: "you're not allowed to ask," and "you're not supposed to ask," culminating in "BUT now that you DID, you will be punished by our specifically denying you AND not trusting you in the future!" in other words, if i ask my payee for more money so i can wash clothes and buy winterwear and even get something "for myself"-- honestly, if i had the guts i'd ask to start putting aside savings to finally get a bloody high-polyphony midi-controller 88-key weighted keyboard, i'm trying to learn the jargon kids-- i'm terrified that she'll say, "you don't need that! is that how you spend your money? selfishly and luxuriously? well then, you WON'T get money, until I DECIDE you can, AND we're going to severely decrease what money you DO get because you don't need that much." learn to live in poverty kiddo!! stop wanting to have things!! but the caseworker said to discuss these fears with her, and build better communication, and FIND OUT what my limits and expectations actually are. mom called like five minutes later i think and i told her this same fear, and she said that i should "frame my requests" in a "mental health" way?? like, i want to get musical tech because it's "enrichment" and "helps combat depression and purposelessness" and same thing for other "nonessentials" like even the bloody peppermint & cinnamon oils i always put on my bed because it grounds me. frame it as "psychological aids" mom said. feels like lying, but it's not. isn't that weird? like i constantly have to "justify" WHY i want or godforbid "need" things that aren't bare-bones essentials, and even THEN i feel so ashamed to want "more." i grew out of my clothes (still hate hate hate that) and need new ones because right now i'm wearing the same outfits for like a week straight. they're not very warm. but "it's enough!" live ascetically boy!! you don't need more clothes. but my mom says the people in church are "gossiping" and asking "why do they always wear the same outfit?? are they that poor and/or mentally ill? won't their family help them? why isn't the mother doing anything?" it reflects back on her and she legit keeps PUSHING HER clothes on me. which doesn't help, just sets off trauma, but God knows i am still genuinely grateful for her care. still it's unfair of me to claim this is "saving face" on her part. maybe part of it is but who cares. honestly she's a good woman and she loves her kids and she wants to do what she can to help. i see that and i appreciate it. i just... can't wear what she gives, either from dysphoria or fibro triggers. but i'm grateful. and with food, i mentioned that i see THAT as a luxury too, geez i shudder to think of the possible tirade i'm gonna get from our dietician tomorrow. "why are you eating the same things over and over you NEED VARIETY you NEED TO TRY NEW THINGS you NEED TO BE ADVENTUROUS" no i don't, that's hedonistic garbage talk, i HATED that about inpatient, they just kept pushing "adventurous eating" and "tackle all your fear foods" and "variety variety" and no. nope. not when you're poor and obsessive-compulsive and highly limited in both preparation time and space and means. i can't cook or boil or bake things; i do NOT trust my dissociation and i DO have a LOT of legit trauma tied to kitchens, especially stoves and ovens. and meal-planning can honestly keep me awake at night, sobbing in frustration as i try to figure out perfect nutritionally balanced macros and ratios and timing, while "eating everything THEY want me to eat." capital n Nope. we have it down to the same thing every day and it works. it's easy to make, JUST like the binges were, which is WHY they were "psychologically soothing." we spent hours just cutting and chopping and peeling vegetables (so many knives and blades. god why do we miss that so much) and then more hours eating them one bit at a time with chopsticks and it was all just mechanically repetitive ritualized behavior that allowed our consciousness to SHUT DOWN. perpetual dissociation. well we're using the same basic method for different ends: now the "ritual" is automated enough for us to use that "non-thinking" space to TALK UPSTAIRS. and with xenophon ghosting, i don't blackout dissociate anymore. God bless her. God bless EVERYONE in headspace; THEY are saving my life, thank the Lord, NOT that hellish hospital. still, it was necessary. we needed to "gain weight" solely because our body needed something to work with after years of running on empty. we're still pissed, yeah, but at least we're not 90 pounds. and yet i still keep watching that scale, stable since discharge, waiting for it to drop. except, now we're getting SOME VISIBLE MUSCLE TONE, just a bit but it is evidently different from how flabby we were after sitting on our collective ass for almost nine weeks, PLUS the months of long-covid and post-loss despair. we've gotta WORK to get back in shape but we won't give up. it was worse in 2017. yeah we were also literally starving ourselves but we didn't get very strong as a result. striving to do the opposite now. still eat, but temperately, and get BUFF. that's the goal really.
what were we talking about. oh yeah. "non-essentials." thank GOD we had enough savings to get the exercise bike. huge expense but essential, and they NEVER would have authorized that purchase through disability payments. so thank god again.
but yeah. limited foods now, we don't mind, but the dietician might. we'll just have to be honest and stand our ground within reason. we'll see what happens tomorrow. and DON'T LIE. no half-truths, NO empty "agreeing" to be a "good patient," NO compromises or censoring. we be HONEST. and we work WITH the doctors to do what is WISE. remember that fortune we have taped to the laptop. "do what is RIGHT, not what you "SHOULD."" discernment is key. i think i typed that exact same thing before, but it deserves a repeat. "should" is a thought distortion byproduct. don't use that language. use insight and clarity. speak up and stand up BUT be open to honest legit correction too. we're learning.

anyway. i remember we were in the kitchen for 11:11 because i saw it and smiled. we're finally seeing GOOD numbers again, not just the evil ones. it's so reassuring. maybe a silly comfort but god knows we love numbers and balance and symmetry and stuff. so that's always soothing, even just mentally in that respect, to see. feels like a message, "you're doing good. keep it up." helps a lot. whereas the other one is "watch out, you're not thinking right, get back on the road." scary to see, but. a vital warning.

my memory is shot for today. again, it's the reeling residue from yesterday. haven't dealt with it. honestly in shock from not only my legit WRATH meltdown with jezebel, but the similar trauma-hate conflagration over that movie. i guess that's why God pushed me to watch it. unexpected, and highly upsetting, but He knows what He's doing. how the heck else was i gonna realize that THIS is still a cancer in my soul? at least now we can treat it.

breakfast... oh yeah, we had one busted egg. when they crack, we just junk the yolk and add +1 white to the BK protein. it works. still feel bad about trashing the yolk, though. wonder if there's anything we can do with 'em, even just for the squirrels (google says they'll eat 'em, and they're safe for dogs too, so hey). we want to be a "good wizard," Lord knows we MUST re-read that series soon, too. we never finished it and apparently there are extra novellas and such? which is cool. but in any case we need to print out the oath and pin it to our wall. that will help a TON, i can guarantee you. punch entropy in the teeth son

during breakfast talk, laurie mentioned that she was going to try to "give up the profanity" for new year's again; it's tough because that was part of her original function and so it's almost etched into her code, so to speak. but she's shifting, especially in hue, in a healthier way, and that doesn't really "fit" who she wants to be anymore. so she told xenophon, "i want you to stop me if you catch me swearing." xennie said okay, but no "swear jar," she didn't want to take any money. laurie said fine, then just punch me. xennie said no!! i can't hit you. laurie said c'mon kid, you won't hurt me. just give me a light punch even. xenophon did, really cutely, and laurie beamed and said see, that's it! and i guess xenophon, realizing this wasn't "being mean" and it was helping, suddenly took on this new job with absolute adorable enthusiasm. for the rest of the morning, if laurie slipped and dropped an f-bomb xenophon would dash over and pummel her leg with her fists, just a bit. "laurie don't swear!!" it's the funniest thing. laurie is getting a total kick out of this, i can tell, but it's also humbling for her, to now be accountable to this sweet little kid in her efforts to be less offensive towards such people. it means a lot to see, really.

i've been informed that scalpel and phlegmoni are cayenne bros because 1. it's red leaning vermilion and 2. it gives you... achy burny eyes. they find this hilarious. they're trying to bring razor into it, but her color doesn't quite match. however i know her, she's still red, and reds can be jokesters in their own right. blame jewel. so heaven only knows what will happen with all this, haha. i've gotta admit, part of me does like spicy stuff too. i'm telling you, it's a red thing. jot that down in our new "color characteristic" files, honestly it's fascinating to find stuff like this, even little things, that can be consistently measured and observed. learning! yeah! it's pretty awesome in here. 

tried to biblestudy while we ate again. realized we're two days behind on that advent devotional, but we cannot put the required spiritual focus into it if we're splitting with breakfast attention. so we smartly set it aside for the time being. unfortunately we also dissociated for the whole meal, apparently, because i have NO recall of it at all. no problems though. xenophon and laurie make sure.

after eating we felt dizzy & tired & sick as always (still not sure if that's e.d. recovery stuff or a legit intolerance, we'll ask tomorrow if it feels safe to-- don't want to get labeled as a hypochondriac again, yes it's "boy who cried wolf" on their end but we always sincerely want advice, if we're wrong then good we just want to know), so we brought up the bible app again. realized they have that advent-plan badge challenge going, so i found a 5-day one that was rather simple and did it all within an hour. did me a lot of good actually; i'm really learning to love some "modern" translations, like "the message" and "the passion" and "plain english version" and of COURSE hawaii pidgin. yes i will compare them to the NET and AMP and RSV and such, but... the ones that "paraphrase" sometimes add such gorgeous new light to the message. taken as a whole, it enriches the scripture so much. it's deeply moving and i really love it. so i want to do that more. keep up on the devotional plans, especially ones that have "talk about it" or "apply this truth" bits. things that will push me to type and think and act. that's the best.

also.
finally got the guts to soft-quit tumblr.
i've wanted to for months. the place is SO TOXIC. the language is horrid, there's so much fighting, there's sexual depravity everywhere. no matter what blog i bring up, i'm bracing for impact, never knowing what triggers i might stumble across. it's exhausting. it's poisoning our brain, too, which was PROVEN by the orange & yellow voices yesterday-- "bright" hues are inherently SOCIAL and as such they INTERNALIZE ALL SOCIAL EXPOSURE, even if it's only online.
but... it's not just that. it's the religious mask i've put on to "fit in." it was so unconscious, and so dissociative, that i didn't realize it was happening until i started reviewing old entries. ...it was getting to the point where i was trying to erase my ACTUAL personality in order to be a "good christian" according to the internet. absolute disaster in progress. and... it was so dishonest. nobody knew i was queer or trans or mentally ill. nobody knew anything about my innerlife and how deeply it affected my faith. i would believe everything i read, getting so confused with the arguments between "tradcaths" and "novus ordos" and more protestant denominations than i knew existed, not to mention the odd jew and muslim speaking up to "correct" their fellow abrahamic religion. it was insane. and the whole time, i was just "trying to be meek and cooperative," not realizing that it also meant i was being a total bloody LIAR. this is why all our old "friends" hated "me." i would do and say and act however they wanted, all smiles and nods, while inside i was hollow. like a robot. so involved in the act that i forgot who i was offstage. the fact that this was affecting my RELIGION for so long makes me sick.
inevitably it was killing my faith life. i couldn't read holy books, do bible study, or even pray without thinking, "i need to post this to tumblr! i need to share this with everyone!" and in the process... i wouldn't share it with myself. i became the "middleman" to my own religious experience, handing everything over to my "followers" and forgetting to keep any of it in the process. it became a performance, a job even. it was making me miserable, and i started to push my faith practices away JUST so i wouldn't "have to update." it was lethal.
so. i quit. quittski. over-and-outski. i'm done. i posted an "indefinite hiatus" update there and here and just deleted the app. that's it.
now... now i can worship without feeling like that has to be "consumable," too. i no longer feel obligated to make my faith experience "user-friendly" and "fit for a target audience." no. that's a demonic lie. but i feel forced to do the same with my art, and my music, and all my God-given talents, how ironic is that. so tired of feeling like i can't do anything just for love. everything has to be "profitable." everything has to be "appropriate." if you're a christian you're "not supposed to be" weird or crazy or just plain gay, for heaven's sakes. otherwise you're broken, a hypocrite, and your testimony is junk. that's terrifying. but it's also total lies.
god loves me, exactly as i am. and yeah, i have a LOT of healing and spiritual growth to do, but... there are parts of me that are vital to my faith that so many fellow christians would claim were unacceptable. 
i cannot worship God in truth if i can't do it with my entire heart, and that includes EVERYONE IN IT.
so. no more tumblr. avoid all that drama and distortion. everything i get from my faith, goes in this journal now. we're keeping it real.

getting a headache. probably dehydrated. i can only think of 60oz that we got down. gotta make more of an effort with that.
...obligatory sidelong glance at chaos 0, haha. you know what yes, i do mean it both ways, why not.

he deserves his own entry. very soon. our anniversary is in one week. one week. nineteen years.
...will i get the nerve to draw something? that means drawing myself. i haven't done that in a very, very long time. but he's worth it.

oh, really quick. speaking of art.
i have wanted to do a serious of religious "paintings" for a WHILE now, on two topics: one, all the rosary mysteries in ways that match our soul, so we can meditate on them and feel truly immersed; and two... a spectrum-hue set of jesus christ, focused on His sacred heart.
honestly i want to do that so badly it aches. i keep thinking about it. i mean, every culture portrays jesus according to their heritage-- their ethnicity, their dress, their art styles. there are gorgeous pictures of jesus as japanese, indian, native american, african, korean... beautiful, every single one. but then there's internal "culture." i absolutely love when i see jesus portrayed in that context, too, but with respect. and that is hard to find. give me anime jesus. give me vaporwave jesus. give me whatever this counts as. give me every single thing that kokecit does. (this is saved on my phone forever btw,and i think about this constantly.) i'm serious. whatever your internal "vibe" is, i want to see your faith permeating every aspect of that, too. evangelize everything.
(btw for humor's sake this is still one of my favorite things, it's hilariously simple and never fails to both make me laugh and inspire me, god bless)
so. paintings. the phrase is not, "what if jesus were american, living in my time?" that's been done. but i don't "live in" modern america, arguably. i'm so mentally weird & isolated, since childhood, that my honest "nationality" is headspace. so i open with the question: "what if jesus were red? or blue? or violet? if He was part of this specific Spectrum hue, how would it manifest in Him?" and of course He's God so He would carry ALL the beauty of each one completely. and THAT is what i want to draw, or paint, or whatever it ends up as. but i want to express that. the REAL face of God in MY unique soul. how He looks to me. i want to do that more than anything.
hm. in that case, i should start now. open a word document and start writing down notes. do some thumbnail sketches. but get moving on it.

to segue back into where we were.
gotta draw something for god's biggest work of personalized grace in my life, as it were. 19 years.
...no idea what, yet. something sincere, NOT performative. draw it for us, not an audience. if i were to capture, in art, how i feel about us right now, at this exact time in our shared life, what would i express? that is what i should do.
the biggest roadblock: me.
bloody dyspho/dysmo hell making everything difficult. but suddenly i hear infi speaking up, out of nowhere, "but jewel that isn't the true you. it's the body you live in, but it will change with time. the core of your soul does not. you know how that looks, no matter what the externals are. draw that. draw how he sees you, and always has. that's the truth."
...that's... a really, really solid point, and it's gutting me like a fish to be honest
"how he sees me." geez didn't he bring that up the other night, even? whatever face you have, you're still you? whatever name you have, i still know you? after how many core shifts and breaks and deaths he's seen, bloodlines and hues both changing, my heart and his heart have stayed the same, and they're connected. i cannot forget that, nor can i trivialize it, because it's astronomically important. when did we first connect? wasn't i like 15? and since then he's known me, and i know him, even in the perfect incidents and the bloodred freakouts and all the tar & plague. no matter what, we know each other. i kept seeing that in the old xangas, how he could tell when i "wasn't in my eyes" and when i was slipping almost without any apparent "tells." even when laurie couldn't quite see things were off, chaos 0 could. he couldn't not. his vision of me surpassed everyone else's, because he was seeing with the heart. again, just like the fox said. "you are forever responsible for what you have tamed." i think about that a lot, too. (btw don't forget we DO have a copy of that book i think? a library reject copy, we love those. still i would love a special really old printing of it, and we STILL need to get our hands on a signed copy of fahrenheit 451. but try to explain that to social security, haha.) what is true is not "evident," because it is too sacred. the most real things in all the universe are only perceptible by those who see, who look with not only open eyes but an open heart.
...i need to be courageous enough to trust in that. to trust that whatever i may "look like" right now it's valid, because my heart is the same. why am i so obsessed with appearances though? is THAT tied to the "i must be approved" stuff i'm struggling with in my faith too? that if i don't "look worthy of love," OR of loving, then i'm NOT? like if i'm not pretty or handsome or strong or smart enough, i don't deserve to love or be loved at ALL? that is a LETHALLY toxic internalized belief, geez.
but. it's true, that i hold it regardless. i've heard it, and experienced it, way too much. society and family both emphasized it. actually, thinking of media, that REALLY did it. i used to wonder "why do people keep talking about 'representation' in media? why is that so important?" and then i stopped and thought and realized, oh, i have that same problem, and it hurts. growing up, and even now, i NEVER see characters that are like me. not in appearance, not in personality, not in life... or rather, i never see good characters like "me." if someone is red, it's usually shorthand for "dangerous" or "wild" or "sexy." if someone is "crazy," or heaven forbid "multiple," they're murderous and insane and dehumanized. no one is shaped like me. no one talks like me. no one is trans-neutral, no one is asexual yet amorous, no one is in love with a monster and male-presenting. at least, if such "representation" exists, i sure haven't seen it. and yeah it sounds whiny and trivial but honestly it just makes me feel... unreal. i have enough problems with reality, i don't need the world at large acting like i shouldn't exist.
why am i even venting about this? oh yeah. scared of drawing myself, especially in the anniversary context.
but you know what, if there's no "representation" i don't care. that just means i need to make the first move.
in any case i must, i must refuse to hide this for that reason. i'm tired of forcing myself to deny or downplay what i feel because it's "shameful" or "stupid" or "something i have to keep secret." why. i'm tired. i want to live in this light and color like i used to, back when life was focused on headspace, and i didn't care about "the world's opinion." i only care about God's opinion, and He has never objected to my honestly loving anyone, as long as He still gets priority. but God would never tell someone "don't love anyone BUT me." that goes against all His commandments. no. we've gotta glorify Him in ALL things, no exceptions, and that IS possible and it's BEAUTIFUL. but you can't do that if you're constantly afraid of human judgment. you cannot see clearly then. if you strive to keep your heart pure, that's all you can do. pray and then just love, always.

i am so tired. it's 1am.
i noticed it's hard to type during the day, mostly because journaling "has to happen at the end" so it's all included and cohesive. but it's also because everything gets quiet and dark and introspective. perfect for going inside oneself. winter is a big blessing in that respect.

oh, oh dude last daily update things. this is important.
first let me backtrack. i lost a lot of time this evening due to exhaustion? i was on our phone, but what was i even doing? reading? researching? i sat down on the couch at one point. mimic showed up and just sat down by it, doing his own thing. surprised me, really. didn't expect his company, especially not at his own decision. i mentioned "i'm probably not gonna read tonight, dude, i'm too tired. my brain needs a break." he said that's cool, he wasn't there asking for anything, just "checking in." chillin' really. but still, he was nearby. which was... how do i say. nice? strange? both?
octupi are solitary creatures. they don't live long. they're super intelligent. but they're not particularly social, at least, not in our world. they have no real reason to be. their lives are naturally solitary. despite their intelligence and inquisitiveness and playfulness, even, their lives in the wild appear to be mostly... survival.
mimic is curious, more than anything. he likes to learn things. he wants that intel, as it were. he's genuinely interested, but... interpersonal connections aren't "typical" for him. not like for a wolf, or a monkey, or a lion. but interestingly, hedgehogs allegedly are solitary critters too, in this world. so who knows? 
i'm solitary, too. plus i'm aroace no matter how i try to force otherwise. i have to come to terms with that. "interpersonal connections" are tricky for me, even when i do love people, because getting "close" and "involved" is distressing psychologically and physically. again, "how much of this is trauma" BUT mind you, even as a child i REFUSED to socialize. when i did, like in preschool, i was the boss. and i was mean. i didn't want "friends," i just wanted people to do what i wanted. to get things done and then leave. don't chat with me, don't play games, don't invite me to parties unless it means i get to play games and eat free food and leave whenever i want. i was not a nice kid. except i was. except i still cared, deeply so, and even when i grumbled over it i did chores for grandma and said my prayers and kissed my brothers on the cheek. sometimes i did it without being asked. point is, even as i grew up and somehow became "kinder"-- no idea how, maybe just the grace of God-- i still didn't want to hang out with people. EVEN when i got that massive crush on alexandria. even though i wanted to be her "best friend" i don't think i knew what that would be like. but i wanted to be with her. that was SO NEW. and yet... i never got close to her. always did everything backhanded, sneaky. i stole her stuff just to have her things with me. looked through her desk and bookbag when she wasn't around just to "get a glimpse" of her personal life. things like that. never actually interacting. the thought of talking, of socializing, EVEN with her, was repugnant. and yet i was a chatterbox. i monologued. but i talked to the fourth wall. i didn't intend to be responded to, unless it was in questions. everything a business transaction. i'd never get a coffee with you. except... maybe with alexandria. and then i'd let her do the talking, probably. but then what? how would i sustain that? would it be once a year on valentine's day and then i'd bail? recover for the next 364 days? why am i so isolatory, and yet i can't help but care about people even if i don't know how to acknowledge or act on it properly? without putting on a mask and burning myself out? this isn't the place to think about that. brain too fuzzy. but still. good that it's brought up. more introspection to do.
nevertheless. because both he and i are a bit averse to being in groups, especially in consistently interactive ones, i genuinely don't know if mimic will stick around, based on his own demeanor, and the overall atmosphere of headspace. plus, outspacers, man. they don't "stay in headspace" in any case. they just visit. they drop in, say hi, get up to speed if they're interested, but always go back to where they came from-- ideally, a leagueworld. and there is space for mimic, if he makes that final decision to stay, to have this "other life" in another world.
even so. i do like him. he's taught me a lot, and he's a fascinating guy. challenging, yes, but i think that's a big part of why i like him. i mean heck, look at me and laurie. i like that bit of an edge. but there always needs to be that ability to put the knife down, as it were. headspace does enable that, true; it empowers such changes. but receptivity and choice are still key factors. i don't know dude, we'll see what happens. point is, if he does leave, i'll be grateful to have known him for a little while, and i will miss him. but he wouldn't be the first outspacer-potentiate to have left, either. it happens. i don't forget any of them. if they were to walk back in, even like two decades later, they'd be welcomed as if they never left. that's love, too.

just a brief mention that dinner was 7pm (we're only eating two meals a day; BK is ~900 and DN is ~600, it works) and although i was still so darn dissociated, somehow that also prevented socials from kicking in??? so count your blessings i suppose. succeeded in writing a daily devotional response while i ate so that's posted here. other than that i just talked to xenophon, i love her so so so much, i always share the eggs and fortune cookies with her, she makes my life feel so meaningful.
quick interjection there. yesterday i was seething over how "creeped out" i am by "mothers" and babies. i don't think that's as true as it felt then, thank god. yes i have trauma around sexuality and motherhood both, which extends to the babyphobia. i've been writing about this here & there since high school, i am clearly aware of that.
but... i still love my mom. and i still stand in awe of the love of mothers. even if i don't understand the "maternal" bit, and even if i freak out around babies, honestly i don't hate them. if there's anything i "hate" it's just stupid physical things that frighten me. it's not the person. and it breaks my heart to even have this dissonance. i just want to love. but... girls scare me, for the most part. no, femininity scares me. it's all fear of sex. i know that. i'm trying to come to terms with it & cope. but it's... existentially rattling. big trauma trigger. shook me up bad. gotta bring it up in therapy.
HOWEVER. the segue.
last night, after all that hellish typing, god gave me another nudge. i opened a new tab and the top "pocket" recommendation was... lab mice. specifically john calhoun's mice. as in NIMH.
and today, i announced it was movie night again, and we watched it. mrs brisby & the rats of nimh. one of my childhood favorite films.
DEAR GOD THANK YOU FOR THE NUDGE, I NEEDED THIS SO MUCH
now that mouse is a REAL woman. i know that sounds funny, but she doesn't scare me at ALL. not just because she's a mouse, but she's completely nonsexualized. her personality is sweet and kind. she speaks quietly and politely. she is well-mannered and mature and honorable. and she is STUNNINGLY BRAVE. this mouse-lady would literally FIGHT DEATH FOR THE SAKE OF HER KIDS. and THAT is motherhood. THAT is what it means TO be a mother. it has nothing to do with american white-woman culture and all its bizarre nauseating trappings. no. motherhood is what mrs brisby personifies-- sweetness, gentleness, care, affection, and COURAGE so true it conquers all, because it's fueled by SHEER LOVE. her kid gets pneumonia and she is willing to go to the ends of the earth to save him. she tries to disarm a freaking tractor. she drugs a CAT. she visits an OWL knowing full well he might eat her. and the whole time, EVEN when she is literally SHAKING with fear, she doesn't break. she doesn't chicken out. she doesn't even panic. her attitude is astoundingly level because at its core she is determined to do anything for her kids. and so nothing can actually rattle her, because she has set her little furry face like iron against every possible opposition. and she WILL overcome every single opposition because she's a mom, and that's what moms do.
honestly it was incredible. i love this movie. i haven't seen it since i was like 5. i am so glad we watched it again at last, today of all days. it was exactly what i needed.
but oh boy. boy oh boy. we got our two solid hours of biking in and THEN, right when nimh ended, god reaches out to elbow me in the ribs via tubi tv and says "hey kiddo, uh, do you wanna watch this movie next?" and slides a little banner over.
it's the last unicorn.
my FAVORITE MOVIE OF ALL TIME.
I gasped and clicked it immediately and told everyone, we are watching the first 10 minutes at least, i am NOT postponing this absolute treasure.
oh lord i am going to cry my eyes out with both joy and pain, i used to loop this film as a kid, it was like my heart on the screen. i freakin' love amalthea, and molly, and even schmendrick, and that "circus" scene is BURNED into my brain, as is that drunken skeleton, and the RED BULL oh man i am hype i cannot wait to see it all again. i don't "remember" it either (thanks dissociation and i mean it) so this will be like... watching it for the first time all over again. thank you god. oh thank you. this is healing too, i've never been afraid of a child or a lady in these old cartoons, i mean geez mrs brisby's kids were so precious even when they were misbehaving, why do i have that problem with humans?? is it really all just trauma? that "threat" of "you know how kids are made, well you're doomed to that fate and you cannot escape"? can't type about that now.
oh man but this movie. i can't wait.
oh. before i forget. jeremy the crow. he reminds me a lot of batty from ferngully (MY MAN, how in heaven's name was he not an outspacer even back then, i freakin' loved that crazyhead) and, yes, at one point (with the "sparkly" and with the strings) he gets "crazy eyes." bluth-style, which is BOSS and means he looks like Genesis does. here, look. honestly i love it, there's something weirdly... beautiful? about it. thesaurus isn't helping me. but when characters get those multi-iris-ring eyes, which only happens when they're slipping just a liiiittle bit out of sanity, well. it both terrifies me, and fascinates me. ...i know what it's like, is why. i know the dangers, and the... well, it's like a drug. i'll put it bluntly. when i'm in that state, it's on the edge between two kinds of "crazy": the lunatic kind, and the "love" kind. now that's for me, not necessarily for the cartoons, but. same feeling. it's a visual signal for someone being "actively mental" and that can be good or bad, because it means that they're no longer in total "control" of what they're doing. the programming is offline. it's just brainwaves baby, intense to the point of insane, and the reason why it goes to your eyes is 1. windows to the soul and 2. that's all you can see. it's a sort of hyperfocus state. no casualness about it. when i get the "ringy eyes" it means something has transfixed my consciousness so keenly that it has rendered me almost high from it? geez how do i explain. jeremy sees the sparkly and just goes bonkers over it. transfixed. the wide-eyed bit is what scares me; that's the sign for me personally threatening unhinged behavior. it's so intent on whatever has triggered that hyperfocus that it loses the ability to really reason. it's not malevolent, no, just dangerous. it can also be a sign of panic, which happens in the scene when the kids are tying him back up (can't find it online)? but! it's the wide eyes. when they're not wide, like in the sparkly scene where he slumps over and just kind of dazedly smiles at the gem, that to me is the "crazy" going the other way. not manic anymore, not frantic, but still that hyperfocus and obsession except now it's disarmed? in either case though it's intense feeling, but it's not a permanent state, not usually, at least not in the films i've seen. but not so in headspace! genesis is the poster boy for this, but i'm pictured standing right next to him as it were. it's in the league a lot. man i am really ranting here, i guess because to be totally frank with you this is a topic very close to my heart, and pun fully intended. i'll have to revisit this topic later when i think about it more and also find more external examples, get my vocabulary together, because i think how i perceive it is still different than how it is intended canonically, at least halfway. which is normal, haha. still. gets me introspective. helps me learn more about us, and how we work and think.
btw the voice-acting in nimh was IMPECCABLE. oh and NICODEMUS!! his glowy eyes! and he's beautiful too, oh man, and his personality is so so sweet. look at how he moves too, it's fantastic. i love his character. big weakness for the wise old creepy-nice dudes. same with the good-hearted kinda-loony goofballs, and the strong but gentle gals of honor who would move the world for family & friends. these oldschool cartoons, man. god bless 'em, they make life so much brighter.
but. lastly. it's 2am and i must write this down, and to pull some topics back together.
the butterfly.
as a kid, he scared me, because he feels like word salad at first. (also the march music doesn't help; THAT scares me more than the randomosity!) i've only ever experienced that kind of mad-tatter speech in situations where something is very very wrong, so it's a kneejerk fear. but then... you realize there's some sort of bizarre sense underpinning all the babble, an order to the chaos, and isn't that relevant because he says something and it hit me like a shot, and has me staggering even now.
he's talking to amalthea. fluttering around and quoting song lyrics and poems. a few that struck hard already. a bit from "how deep is the ocean." "you're my everything." "when you are old." even the (apparently shakespeare) "fishmonger" reference, which struck us only because of our own old injokes. it sounds random but looking it all up, there's all references to love and war and loss and trying to get something back... and all of it being about one, one person, one life, one special thing, the very last, the very only. brilliant, really.
but then. there's that one line.
"Your name is a golden bell hung in my heart. I would break my body to pieces to call you once by your name."
...and i just stopped. stopped everything. the video, the bike. reeling.
...that line coming from a blue butterfly of all things, talking to a unicorn,
blue is trust, loyalty, honesty, peace. sadness and grief. the sky and the sea and the winter chill. constancy. fidelity. communication.
butterflies are souls. free and fragile. symbols of hope and transformation. resurrection. life after apparent death and destruction. hope.
unicorns are grace. purity. innocence. healing. virginal love. gentle yet fierce. rare & powerful. visible only to those who search and trust.
"for the love it bears to fair maidens, it forgets its ferocity and wildness..."
come on you know me already, the parallels i'm drawing are obvious.
but... the bit about the name,
how can i summarize this. it's 3am. lots of research going on in the background.
every time i imagine "meeting him" here, anywhere, for the first and millionth time, it's always hallmarked by our names.
"say you know me."
time and time again. which world is this now, do i know you from my dreams, what face is yours, what name?
i'd recognize you anywhere, but who am i? fluttering around and speaking in riddles, you this eternal beloved thing. my golden bell. the song my heart will always remember. but i can't say it, if only, if only you were here to call by that beloved name, i would--
"no, no, listen. don't listen to me, listen."
babbling on and on as i always do. what am i speaking in circles around? isn't it always you? my only one?
ah i'm taking this too far but i don't care. it's a springboard, a beautiful launchpad and i'm shooting for the stars as always, for those planets with rings that were always shorthand for that name i couldn't confess aloud.
just once, could you imagine? every bell in this cathedral set to singing. you're the only thing i would break for.

gotta sleep. gonna get 8 hours just in time for our doctor's appointment, good timing you lunatic. gonna shatter that crazy moon and turn it into a ring, spinning spinning, all ice and diamonds and embracing you forever, why not get poetic, it's almost 4am anyway.
aah but i'm blessed. you know i really don't call him by name often. too sacred, somehow. requires cracks in the armor, all of it, lined with gold. bells.
well why not, our daughter is a butterfly anyway.
close the cover before striking. got a sparkly of my very own. good lord i'm delirious, haha. sleep deprivation!

honestly though. trying not to be afraid of sounding like a lovedrunk idiot, because i am, so why not be sincere about it. nevertheless good seeds. focus on the good, on the light. let that illuminate everything else. thanks be to god. it's still snowing. there's hope for everybody, hope for me, somehow i'm sure. have faith, have faith. dedicate myself to love in every aspect and set my life on fire. warm my heart up again. bring that light to everything. don't be afraid.
rambling now. as if i already wasn't. trying to conclude with what i'm feeling
hope, just so much hope, with a determination as red as blood, and just as life-giving,
lord give me strength. and grace. and an open heart. help me to remember who i am, truly, please.
i want to be good. i want to be a light in the dark. i want to do everything for love. for everyone. courage of the heart. that's red. that's me.

exhausted. sunrise will come. tomorrow brings... who knows?
life, life, life, life.
music.
and love.

gotta sleep before i can get there though!