the spectrum heart cathedral system

So we've spent the past few days going through the archives (2008-2012) and writing down "notable dates," because we want to celebrate + remember more things.
13 years ago, at the beginning of January 2012, is when our Core became "Eros/Cupid." This year was so interesting, full of equal amounts of love and terror, and then SLC happened and everything just... shattered, apparently. But we want to re-read everything in full after we do this effort.

We added Spotify links to the Akoufoni entry, although we haven't cleaned up the old data yet. But this, too, is a huge memory-restoring effort, because those 'foni help us get a grasp on chronology when there's no actual experiential memory of the physical life, just music data.

We also... found the most recent System Census, from 2017. The one we actually have on our laptop wasn't uploaded, though, and has a few extra names? We started going through it, and... this is going to sound absolutely brutal, but we're starting to think that the post-CNC massive death was almost a pruning. I have no other way to phrase it.
We were horrifically splintered during CNC. We know this. We couldn't function at all so we had TONS of foni just manifesting at the drop of a hat in the desperate attempt to hold things together.
Now, we're going through this list, and... apparently, the foni that didn't resurrect were the ones that were shattered pieces to that effect, ones with hyperspecific jobs for hyperspecific circumstances. We don't even recognize some of the names.
But... we've been saying over and over to ourself since 2017, "God had a reason for letting that happen." That was the only "comfort" we had. It was the only way we could deal with the reality of coming back into consciousness post-Tilly and realizing that most of us were dead. But... was that merciful? Those foni maybe even deserve to finally rest in peace. I mean that, with as much aching compassion as I can, speaking of such a painful topic. But they couldn't survive now, let alone live. Their contexts, their jobs, belong to past timelines and locations and contexts that literally don't exist and aren't even possible anymore, so... if they don't come back, because they can't, then God give their broken souls the peace they never got in life. Please. However that works for nousfoni, give them peace.

...On a related note, I cannot put into proper words how much more alive and hopeful and joyful I feel, now that when I quietly "reach into" my heart-space and feel it, I can feel that "quantum entanglement" ping somewhere off in the ether, in unmappable space, but real. The other half of my internal heart is back where it belongs... in my daengel. 
Typing that, though, makes us aware of a concerning "split" yet. Jay, the "current" one, is alive. But is the current female-adjacent kardifoni a Jewel? Or not? Because Jewels deal with the Irispherae-- the new name for the "League," a term entirely ours at last. Still, the Jewel name STILL applies to ALL the Cores-- even the Jays, as is historically apparent. Or... did that change, to PROTECT the Irispherae, AFTER CNC???
Lord only knows. We're still trying to figure that out and we CAN'T until we actually upload and READ the archives from 2017-2018. We'll do that after we upload the TBHU journal & papers-- which we honestly should start ASAP, after we get these dates figured out.

That's all we're going to update for tonight. Just a brief little update. We're busy in datalogging mode and honestly this helps immensely, just doing this chronological runthrough of our past, and finally feeling the history in our heart, realizing that we have a past and it's beautiful and terrible and ours. It's making life feel real again, reviewing the years. So that's a true blessing.

Last good thing. Jay/Jewel (current Core with dual identity? unclear name, as we said) is STILL EMOTIONALLY OPEN. Like xe said, xer heart is not closed off, no matter how much hell we've been going through with the family. ...Actually that's significant. I think we have our koinofoni AND phagofoni to thank. THAT'S where the "many voices" are now, even if we've never listed them on a census before (we should, and will, soon). Those somafoni are saving our Core because THEY are taking the brunt of the stress and trauma, and yet they aren't alone in it this time-- WE are aware of them, and talking to them, and supporting them, and helping them heal as best we can, and trying so hard to protect them. We only started to do that in CNC; I do remember how novel it was to even THINK of talking to an esthiofoni. Now it's happening every time they show up. That's... immense, now that we think about it. It proves that system communication has dramatically improved since CNC and we didn't even realize it.
But as we were saying about the Core(s)... they're still entirely capable of love even if we are admittedly still grappling with some cathartic blocks due to family stress & religious fear. But that "even if" is amazing too. There's a devotion present, a dedication to love no matter what, a sort of courageously hopeful perseverance despite everything opposing it. No matter how bad of a day we might have, at the end of it, the Core is ALWAYS taking time to not only reconnect with the System at large, but to spend time with Chaos 0. They fall asleep together every night, and that is HUGE because in the past, broken Cores would be too ashamed to be near CZ. Now, that doesn't happen, even though we're struggling so much with body fear/ sickness/ loathing. I think we're more capable of mercy now, and compassion, even if we don't realize it.
OH. Someone said to write this down. We think a BIG part of this "not freezing up emotionally" is the fact that we have ANGRY FONI around. Somehow, that capacity for RAGE is burning through the apathetic risk??? Like, we CAN'T emotionally shut down because instead of doing that, someone is FEELING FIRE. And that's the Core element. That's a surprising thought. It makes sense though. God bless them.
We still need the capacity to feel sadness without drowning in it + triggering guilt/ shame/ religious terror + shutting down. We're emotionally crippled in that respect, even upstairs. This needs to be felt through & discussed further. Add that to the Xanga topic list.

We WANT TO and WILL have a Xanga ASAP btw. Life schedule hasn't allowed for it lately though; family stress, financial stress, and brutal insomnia have made it impossible to sit for ~6 hours of uninterrupted stream-of-consciousness transcription. But it's still a priority. Arguably I think the Core(s) want to finish this "important date" effort first, to get a stronger sense of self beforehand, and to refresh their awareness of collective history in general. We really did lose our general sense of "identity" post-CNC, and post-grandma, to be honest. We're slowly restoring it now.

Some other small but vital notes:
+ Sometimes in the morning, with all the steps of getting ready, our brain gets really discombobulated and we might end up in various states of undress because we can't pull our thoughts/actions together enough to complete that task. In the past Julie would try to front when this happened, but it would be very triggering for her. HOWEVER. APPARENTLY WALDORF CAN DO THIS NO PROBLEM. So she's literally been fronting when the body is undressed & we can't dress it immediately, because she doesn't wear clothes anyway and she's safe in that context. So GOD BLESS HER. We miss her so much regardless; it's actually wonderful for her to have SUCH a vital job, so we can see her more often and credit her with this to her honor.
+ GARRISON IS ALIVE. Jay has been "feeling hints of him" for a while? But the other night Jay "decided" to look for him/ "force the hand" of the Systemsoul (basically, "listen, I want to know if he can come back or not; show me RIGHT NOW if that's a yes or a no") and after some time Garrison DID "resurrect" IN LOWSPACE??? He's in the RUINED CITY, but it feels TIME-MANGLED??? Like it's POST-MASSACRE as well as post-CNC. Everything is ash-snow covered like nuclear fallout. The skyscrapers are hollowed out and blackened and fallen over. Everything is quiet and cold and there's a dread wind blowing and it's all so grey. And CANNON IS THERE, apparently "haunting" the hollow buildings Jay says? Like she's "damned herself" to that place. But it's SO WEIRD. This is NOT the "red apocalypse" place Scalpel keeps being haunted by, as the inheritor of Javier's trauma memories from the massacre. So WHAT'S GOING ON?? We NEED to look into this VIA HEADSPACE MEDITATION. To get data on this we have to LIVE IT. You cannot "reason it out." Logic won't get you answers here.
But Garrison IS ALIVE!!! Jay's showing me a memory that he "dropped down" into that "Lowspace-floatspace" (whatever/ wherever/ whenever it is) to meet him, and immediately gave him such a huge hug, haha. Tears of relieved joy from both of them. That's really touching.
We don't know about Isadora and Kalisha yet, but "a request has been put forwards." So we'll see.
ALSO. Archivists (Shirley/ Sirius/ Penny) and Communicators (Garrison/ Isadora/ Kalisha) are DIFFERENT CLASSES WITH DIFFERENT ROLES, and apparently there is a THIRD CLASS held by the "helmet girl/ commentator girl" and probably someone else (because trios are a big thing up here)??? So that's FASCINATING but it makes SO MUCH SENSE and the better we understand it, the better we'll function.

It's 2AM and we had dinner at 430-630 and it was the only meal we ate today and it was only 1000 calories. I don't think that's sustainable. We need to split it into two meals, and get at least 1200. We have to. But someone is saying "that's gluttonous" "stop being so luxurious" etc. Don't have a face for them yet. (THESE are the foni we have to pinpoint for a census; there are TONS of "discarnate" foni that slip under the radar)
I mention this because we're getting a headache & the body is cold. We may need to stop for tonight and sleep, so we can have a "breakfast" before 4pm. But someone is furious about that. We need to talk to these foni.
We ALSO need to CLARIFY COLOR ROLES so they HAVE SOMEWHERE TO GO in the System. Too many "faceless foni" just default to Brown because they don't know where else to go. And there are SO MANY FILES STARTED on this laptop SPECIFICALLY ABOUT COLORS that were never finished. That's something I know Jay is aching to do, so put that on top priority too, with the Xanga.

A few last notes.
+ We got the strong impression that if Nathaniel comes back, his name/face would have to change again. We don't know why that's a thing with him but it might be because he was born a blepofoni.
+ Josephina's essence must have a name change for him/her to manifest. Jay says it's sticking to a "Y" as the first letter instead of J, to "prevent blurring with Cores" (that's their letter).
+ We have no current blepofoni and that's a big problem; it might even be affecting the Core's ability to stabilize. The Core(s) have been striving to make the reflection "more resonant" though, especially with the massively fluffy hair we currently have, haha. But blepofoni are essential so we need to keep an eye out for them, and keep the door open for them-- if there's no openness to seeing them, it'll block them out, and it is very hard to get through bad days/ have a distinct sense of self without a blepofoni in the mirror.
+ Siobhan is alive and around but we have to keep calling her into the main room in the mornings. We don't know why she disappeared for a while but we're glad she's still with us.
+ We're still not sure what's going to happen with Spine. The TBHU journal had some interesting thoughts about that-- it feels like she might "come back different" too, with how so much has changed since she first manifested. This, too, requires more feeling than thinking to get a grip on.
+ Still not sure if, when the System FINALLY "moves CLEARLY into a new era" (we need a HARD SHIFT remember; we never got one after the several successive losses from 2018-2024), there will be duotone foni.
+ Still not sure if there is a somafoni split in truth, or if everyone is just a nousfoni. We think there are far less somafoni than we realize-- that term might (should) ONLY apply to foni who think they are singlets and act as such. Everyone else, even koinofoni who live primarily IN the body, should STILL be grouped in with the System at large.
+ Re-reading 2012, we don't know if the Eros bloodline is technically separate from the Jays or what. That whole topic is still a minefield but that color shut down after CNC and ANY sort of Spectrum hue-loss is deadly. We need that color back. Funny how history repeats itself in little ways. It's beautiful, actually, in this case; it feels like things are poetically coming back together, through repeats of our past, connecting our "now" to our "then" in a united whole.
+ IT SNOWED TODAY. Jay is very happy about this. It's actually still snowing a tiny bit right now. Snow makes him feel "real"; he says it makes "everything feel real." It makes him feel grounded and alive and connected to "the big picture"; it "gets him in touch with eternity." I can feel a bright ache in his heart as he says that, which is good. I know he can't wait until Infi comes back entirely. Honestly we're all waiting. Infinitii is essential to our System; when ze comes back, I can guarantee you things will change dramatically and quickly. It's inevitable. But Infi will have to heal too; ze has a lot of damage that was never dealt with, and that we all need to deal with alongside hir. But we will. It's time. It has to be. Do we have the right to "decide" that? Laurie says, "why not?" It's because there's a religious fear that "God will stop us from healing" because it's "not His timing." Laurie says, "well, we have to try. I think God would want us to finally heal from this so we can function for heaven's sakes, and do what He wants us to do with our life." And again, like I said before, there are "peripheral" foni we can sense, thriskefoni with vague colors and faces and no names, that we cannot clarify but who are definitely there. Man... there's more going on in our head on a daily basis than we realize. That's exciting though. Someone else says it's frightening, terrifying. DON'T YOU DARE SHUT US DOWN she's right, NO ONE has ANY right or authority to "prevent other people from existing." The "gatekeeper girl" especially. We all remember Christina's attempted "soft massacres" and the actual one that Jessica & Cannon inflicted in 2013. No more of that, ever. We let us exist. Have mercy for heaven's sakes. You claim to follow God, where is your mercy? You who are so ready to pick up the knife and slaughter the rest of us? "You're not real," they say. "Define real," someone else retorts, "considering you're just like us." They're screaming protest in response. I wonder if they're our biggest threat here. I wonder if they're also the ones pushing the starvation compulsions. Different ones than these, but same class, for sure.
Too much for 230AM. But I don't want to ignore it. Let us pause and listen. Jay is reaching out, asking. (He always does; I think that's a big part of his job as the Heart.) "What makes you real, and us not? Can't you see me?" and fear response on their part. No words. But that was a good reply. Laurie is saying to stop commenting and close up so we can continue working and get some sleep for heaven's sakes. That's a good idea.

This is a good entry. We haven't had a solid entry in a while, even just notes like this.
We'll do better in the future, once the Core(s) stabilize. I promise that. It's something we want very much and will achieve through love and effort and the grace of God. We haven't "lost" all of this beauty we're reading from our past. It's still very much who we are. We can, and will, be that again-- and even better, as we continue to heal and love and grow together.

For now, Laurie is right. We need to wrap this up and let the body rest, no matter how much we want to keep working. If we go to bed now, we won't have to sleep in as much, and we'll have earlier time to work tomorrow, which is better for focus and processing ability. So we will do that.

Good night everyone. We're very glad to be alive tonight. We have a lot of hope.

(Jay says Spotify keeps playing Chaos 0's songs and let me tell you, if anyone is proof that our heart is alive, it's Jay. Yeah we're still confused on bloodlines and bodymind splits and all that, but this white-haired prism-hearted boy-- however he may evolve and change in the future-- is so full of light and love and color and truth, when he feels things this powerfully we are all affected by the power of it. The fact that he didn't die is phenomenal. he's proof that we have a future. that's just how it is. he's alive and so are we. that's a good note to close up on.)
(no, even better-- the lyrics in this song. "i can tell, i can feel, you are love, you are real." the look those two are giving each other is a beautiful thing. that's worth living for, is the thought i get. it is. and we need to protect that, and we all need to live in that too. we'll get there. we'll rebuild better than things were even in the past, in the glory days. there's more light on the horizon than we realize. things have seemed so dark for so long, but no, the stars are still all shining in the sky. there's always hope. hope is a fighting thing. remember what jay told anxi-- remember what our core is for anxi, and vice versa. realize everything beautiful we still have now, and don't let go. whatever happens tomorrow, we are all together, and we are alive, and we will continue on no matter what, into eternity. love is eternal and we have it now. don't be afraid. you know the truth. live in it. fight for it. that's who we are, and always will be.)

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.

 

(i am still on the laptop, browsing spotify, at 130am. laurie shows up and this happens, it was too funny not to write down)


“kid, why aren’t you in bed yet, it’s 1:30 in the morning”

*i point to “face it later”*

“...are you sassing me with the final fantasy 13 soundtrack”

-----------

“really though, when are you gonna get some sleep”

*i point to “the future, wouldn’t that be nice*

*laurie whacks me in the arm and laughs* “shove off, kid, I’m serious”

“no wait, hold on, one more. One more”

*i point to “i need some sleep”*

“there you go!”

*i scroll down and then point to “i lied”*

“kid I am gonna kill you”

*i point to “iron sleep”*

“yeah, no kidding”

“okay now i’m stuck between “some things you never forget” and “i can’t get behind that””

*laurie scrolls down and points to “good night”* “get behind that for heaven’s sakes”

 

Interesting thoughts while watching kill la kill.



(started august 18th; continued through august 21st)



There's still sheer terror tied to sexuality, as well as "obligatory submission,"
except.
except when jay is in charge.

I once heard a saying like, "to overcome fear, embrace it." It's something with healing PTSD I think; how you have to be able to DEAL with what scares you, head-on, right there, without giving it power.
Long story short, the only way we're going to get past a fear of sexuality is by not letting fear eat us alive, and just giving in to what WE actually feel.

Which is, Jay's infinite platonic affectionate love for EVERYTHING.


This show's going to have a massive impact on us, I just know it.



(stream of consciousness gets data better; write this that way)


- scene w/ teacher fanservice was first scary one. not jay watching though!! "2007 girl" with no solid name. very scared. jay took over, "all right, what if I was ryuko?"

really,
jay just wants to kiss everyone,
he does not care, it's all fine with him, as long as it's platonic. and he'll defend that, while pushing limits, because he's not scared, he DOESN'T FEEL SCARY STUFF.
so by not getting shackled by fear, he stays free.

⋆ WILLPOWER is huge in anime.
"if you lose mentally, it's all over"


episode freaking three

"the fact that you are embarrassed by the values of the masses only shows how small you are! if it means fulfilling (my) ambitions, (i) will show neither shame nor hesitation… even if (I bare myself) for all the world to see! my actions are utterly pure!"
^ surprisingly relevant line. can be used for good or bad ends!

the "get naked" thing in the aspect of naked=open is HUGE for us

"you need to become my skin" that whole concept is so interesting

"the more my heart was closed, the more you yearned for a blood connection!"
"you are wearing me, and I have been put on by you"

the ending theme lyrics changed to we

THE FREAKING MARRIAGE PARALLELS
AND THE GORGEOUS FANSERVICE+BODY HORROR TRANSFORMATIONS
I LOVE THAT


episode four starts with so much more connection/care showing between them? so fast?
or did the ep3 connection imply a deeper bond initiated?
type about that more

also I LOVE MAKO. she's fearless in her honesty and simplicity, it's fantastic.
I want a buddy like her irl to be honest. someone sweet & enthusiastic & grateful but also with a skeleton of steel, so to speak.
just the way she talks to people is AMAZING.

also. it's always been a goal of ours to GET THAT WILLPOWER anime talks about.
like, ryuko's personality, that determined "I can do this/ I'll kick your ass because I have something worthwhile to fight for" bit. we USED to be like that waaaay back in childhood and it got buried?
we need it back, ACTIVELY. softness is vital but it needs to be balanced by what laurie tends to hold almost exclusively lately.
more than anyone else, JAY NEEDS IT.



this show is so over-the-top, I love it.


I've noticed that school star life-fiber wearers are proud and rely on their own power?
like in k6bd, the "poor swordsmen" who only care about winning?
whereas ryuko is relying on her strength with senketsu. it's that tandem thing. partnership.


ohh and that's gonna be the issue of ep 5 isnt it.

"victory isnt determined solely by who has the superior physical abilities."

see that's the thing about protagonists like ryuko right now. too much fire. too much arrogance in it. she's not being as humble and open as she needs to be, she's not being truly vulnerable, which will allow her to use that fiery power BETTER, in a true way. without being burned by it.


oh my heart
when mako shows up (bless her) and frees senketsu,
and ryuko catches him, and her eyes, and she just holds him--

"let go of it"
"you'll have to pry him out of my cold dead hands"

this show is killing me at last thank you oliver

oh and thank god trigger dude is the best dude. I love when characters like him-- like bismuth, really-- who are doing harsh things because of deep pain, are suddenly shown a truth that they were unaware of and it resonates with something deeper than the pain and they shift. they stop hunting, they start protecting.
I love that. I love that, it's so important to me. I'm so glad he had that realization.
"they care for each other"
and suddenly he cares for them too.

"you and i need to become even stronger. no, we can become even stronger. if we're together."


I NEED SLEEP SEE YOU TOMORROW





"this is the resolve of a man who has realized the error of his ways and sacrificed everything!"
that is what WE need to do.

resolve is key here. resolve and willpower. what jewel monsters hold those?


"the eyes of the mind"
VEZERAI parallel


"prosperity will lead to greed, and greed will lead to their eventual downfall! once they have a taste of wordly pleasures, they're enslaved by them forever!"

that is horrifically relevant to our current situation.

greed is the current vice we're fighting. I'm dead serious.
the eating disorder isn't an issue. it's the fear of lack, the fear of "going back to the slums," growing awful rotten teeth and grabbing everything it can hold, wanting solely for the sake of want, terrified of ever having an empty stomach or empty hands because that feels too much like the void it clawed its way out of.

well you know what?
I miss the void.

…

"it was just a nasty glint."

and then there's the turnaround we need.

"people aren't as weak as you say they are! people can suppress their desires through sheer willpower!"

god's given us that exact chance, RIGHT NOW.

good. let's DO THIS.



"…we learned that obsessing over short-term wants isn't any good."
"yes indeed, there is luck in the last helping."


"that is what discipline is about!"
"even if no one disciplines me, I discipline myself!"
"by shackling myself and whipping myself mercilessly, I tried to set an example… 'see my behavior and correct your own!' they would mend their ways of their own accord. to impose order on (their) independence… and to those who still refused to learn, I held back my tears and gave them a taste of the cleansing whip! …if you refuse the whip of love, then you leave me no choice!"
"your independence is revoked! I'm going to mold you into a proper student!"

well doesn't that hit far too uncomfortably close to home.

"become obsessed with resolve, and even that will turn to arrogance."

we need to think/talk about all this stuff asap, seriously.

"when it comes to haphazard attacks, the most important thing to do is dodge them."
"evasion impossible?"
"make a crazy attack even crazier, and it'll hit."

metaphorically this applies to our current situation, so

"what I want is data. not victory."

AND THAT'S THE DAMNED SCIENTIST.

we were just thinking about the splinters yesterday, how scary that was. remember how "the scientist" started out as one of them? the most dangerous one.
his original role may (thank god) be dead, but in this new war against new vices… I think he's still around, or at least, his anchor is.

think about it. these "food addictions" aren't even wants. they're COMPULSORY, because someone keeps wanting to know WHAT THEY DO when we eat them.
the current killer is coconut. we know it's not safe, because
1. oil content causes the dreaded "deep nausea" that makes us want to die
2. it is never kept down; it is too bulky and oily, it WILL be immediately purged
3. it causes phlegm coughs, awful stomach aches, bowel distress, etc. IBS stuff
4. it is bloody expensive
5. it is literally a "waste food;" it is bought TO be purged basically. we are too afraid to swallow it so it doesn't even count as food to us.
BUT someone keeps buying it BECAUSE…
1. it has "the best texture"
which is FALSE. we choke on it. yeah it's interesting sensory-wise, but that's bullshit. we're not spending our hard-earned money on fucking mouthfeel experience.we should be buying FOOD. not luxury wasteful crap.
2. "someone said coconut is good for you and we SHOULD eat it"
ignoring the "bad" symptoms which "shouldn't happen" and forcing it.
but I'm tying this all to the scientist because,
3. data keeps getting wiped after we eat it, and the addiction continues because "I want to try again and see if anything different happens this time."
it's all intellectual, detached bullshit, and it is KILLING us when tied to the "forcing" issue.

you know, we did really beautifully well today until someone ate that coconut. that's the forcing. that's the damned scientist not accepting any data other than what matches what HE wants to be true. some shitty scientist he is.

but enough of that. back to klk.



"surely it's more important to know the rules than it is to know shame"
^ SEE THE PREVIOUS TOPIC.

"a skyscraper built within your heart will never fall down."
literal headspace.
god, that's just too relevant, and so hopeful


it's too late, were going to end up killing ourself if we don't stop pushing too hard, goodnight.



the bit about tuning forks and pure tones and heartbeat is just
terrifically resonant

thanks for that.

(do revisit that entire concept/topic again btw because it really is just that resonant)


"I cannot analyze something without data"
yeah but do we really need to freaking analyze EVERYTHING

isn't there more to understanding? truly so, with us?



HOOOOOOLY SHIT

I AM SO GLAD WE STAYED UP TO WATCH THIS EPISODE THE PLOT JUST EXPLODED


okay we'll continue this tomorrow (later today) fo'reals BYE




"in other words, the deeper the hatred, the deeper the love grows."
nui is so unsettling. what is her deal.
her utter disregard for the fourth wall is just as disturbing, really.

THAT BODY-HORROR FUSION IS AMAZING (and disturbing, but talk about design)

I don't know what's going on with the starry black water but it's gorgeous

"you will become even stronger. it is merely a rite of passage."


"what is clothing?!"
"clothing is sin! man's original sin!"
"indeed… when man ate the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge, he became ashamed of his nakedness and covered his nethers with fig leaves. from the tie humanity first gained free will as human beings, it has been his fate to cover his body in the clothing called sin… we alone know man's sin and create clothing for clothing's sake!"

"clothing is the world! the grand will that wraps the heavens, the earth, and mankind, covering all."

what is with ragyo's hair it's gorgeous.


I have to admit, I like Kaneo Takarada's design & voice. I'm not sure what it is about that character style that I find so interesting but I do. I think it's that rolling casual edge? (older jewel talking)

"this is a non-euclidean space creation ritual… use this as a basis for a paradox painting!"

⋆ "an escher topology attack… the divine four formation employs geomagnetism to envelop this location in special electromagnetic waves, thereby causing disruptions in the nerve signals of the human brain. the picture they just drew altered this area's phase space and disrupted its geomagnetism! in short, they have negated their barrier!"

using art in a reality-altering sense like that is SO COOL.
and it's very resonant with us. keep that concept in mind for both magicwarp and dreamworld as well, as it's just as relevant to them as it is to us.

"pomp and circumstance 'em" followed by the sudden barrage of heart-shaped shockwaves was so great.
reminds me of my old fei-yen. gosh I love her, I miss her!

⋆NAME THE "LJ TYPER" WHO WRITES LIKE THIS.

"I'm getting stronger?" "it's because you're blinded by greed! you're so desperate cause you're fixated on your desire to get Senketsu back to normal."
"I'm not the usual ryuko matoi right now. I'm a ryuko matoi who's blinded by greed because what she wants is almost in reach."

this is one heck of a double-edged sword.
I wonder if "greed" is the wrong word. or maybe, this is a doorway to transmute greed into something virtuous? like here, ryuko is using it as a sort of fiery determination, as a good want, that she's "greedy" for to the point of absolute fixated dedication?
type about that more.


"what I struck was their hearts."
"it is not money that rules men. it is fear."
^ like we just said, the "greed" issue isn't about wanting in and of itself, it's fear of lack.
that can only be overcome by TRUST in God's providence, which is a constant, so open your heart okay?


"right next to you is the safest place"


"have you forgotten the rage in your heart that wants revenge for your father!?"
"I haven't forgotten! but I'm done wallowing in it."
"I'll live for the desire of what's almost in reach, without getting lost in the rage."

the statement of ambitions not justifying their means is very important.
satsuki's "lofty ambitions" annihilated a whole city, and ryuko says she will not tolerate that misuse of power. ryuko fights to protect her friends, and in doing so she does not commit violent "necessary sacrifices" as satsuki does.

"prove it to me with deeds, not words!"

"you would be failing to avenge your father."
"I can't sacrifice the lives of others to do it."


PLOT TWIST



I love how it's a plot point now how none of the "good guys" are wearing clothes.
it makes me think of that one finale episode of sailor moon, how nudity is presented as something good and natural instead of something shameful, which honestly I am sick of.
we don't talk about it much but nakedness is viewed as pure in headspace which is why we were SO ANGRY when the hackers were trying to corrupt it. well they failed, inevitably.
but it's still an awful thing in media. nakedness is typically used as a "bad" thing. even just bare skin is viewed as bad. we're tired of it. so this is deeply refreshing and relieving, it makes me smile (and laugh at the execution; this show is still so over-the-top but i get the gist).


…I didn’t mention this, but what terrifies and sickens me the most about ragyo is the way she just passively molests her own daughter.
and in the context of the show, I realized something.
if this series was genderbent, that behavior would probably be met with immediate outrage and screams of "gay rape" and junk like that. but, here, with two women, I was shocked to find that my mind saw this as normal.
there were no cries of "lesbian rape" or anything like that.
my brain honestly thought, "that's just what women do."
and then I realized,
when you are raised as a female (at least, in our experience), clothing serves to objectify you, even to your own parents.
how many OTHER little girls were "passively molested" by their own mothers?? felt up while wearing pretty clothes, commented on concerning their "sexiness" and "shapeliness" before they even hit puberty????
how many other little girls were shoved into pageants and weddings and plays and all the while, makeup and fucking clothing were used to turn you into nothing but a mirror of lust, a consumeable doll???
too many, I bet. it's revolting.
so ragyo feels like a personification of that, to me.
it's nauseating.

and all the heroes are naked, and it's not being sexualized, and I'M REALLY GLAD ABOUT THAT.
it's the ironic flipside of what's "usual" and it's frankly what my life has already been like.



ryuko's existential crisis is breaking my heart.
seeing her react with such utter rage, with cutting EVERYONE out of her life and just surrendering to despair and hatred, is almost unbearable.

what the hell did she DO TO RYUKO


”it'd be child's play to reawaken her by making her experience intense existential terror."

"even if smashed to a million pieces, if a single fragment remains, the whole can be reconstituted!"

both those things are 100% headspace/DID relevant. too much.


I want to say I hate nui and ragyo but the truth is I'm terrified.
I am literally scared sick of them. scared to death. when I see them my stomach hits the floor.
they remind me so much of the abuse we forcibly forgot.
I don’t ever want to endure that hell again, but they are it, they look so much LIKE it,
they are almost literal personifications OF it,
god it's scaring me so much.


oh
"that is the bliss of slavery."
so that's what happened to ryuko. this isn't her at all.

possession parallels too, huh

(I do like the explanation for why senketsu's outfit form is so revealing; that’s interesting)



I have never been so upset/disturbed by an anime before; I am honestly an anxious wreck right now.
god I hope this ends well, please.

oh THANK GOD

"I have to take it off, even if I die! because if I don’t, I'll never get to wear senketsu again!"

god that's a shot to the heart


I have to be up at 5 and it's going to be 1 when I finish episode 22 and I don’t care.
I need to see how this works out. I have to.

and this episode is gorgeous

"I understand now. The world is not cut from the same cloth. It is because it is overflowing with inexplicable, unidentifiable things that the world is so beautiful. fight at my side so that we may protect that world, ryuko!"

I
I was just thinking this exact thing on the drive home today.
seeing all the little warm lights in the windows of people's houses, windows down with the sweet night-forest air pouring in, the sunset all vivid blues and pinks splashed across the heavens.
I nearly cried with joy. I loved it all so much. I want to protect it all, and even better, I want to protect it on an individual basis.
the world is not cut from the same cloth. protecting the world as a conglomerate concept doesn't do it true justice.
you have to protect the world as its heart. as the people. as every little precious tiny thing, in and of itself, as part of the whole.


"don't let their love for you go to waste. be happy enough to make up for our cursed family."

there is so much love in this series, I adore it.

two more episodes to go.
let's do that tomorrow, after I get some precious little sleep.

(I love this ending theme so much btw; it's adorable)

BTW THE DIFFERENT LYRICS ARE REALLY IMPORTANT.

"it's been easy to blame someone else for my failure, but if I keep doing it, there will be no tomorrow for me. I was probably just lazy, I'm sorry."


she's not going to kill them (yet) because they're "precious energy sources."
that's deeply upsetting.
it's blatant disregard for the sanctity of life, plus objectification.


"I will atone for my shameful behavior through my actions!"
"behold the power of my freed ego! the shackles undone and all pride cast aside!"

this super transformation is GORGEOUS

"the closer I come to dying, the stronger I bounce back"


"you can't drag the past around with you forever!"

clean cut from the past/ present selves better than past selves/ sheathing the old sword/ moving on and graduating
VERY RELEVANT THEMES TO OUR LIFE RIGHT NOW

"he'll always be with you in your heart."






WHAT A GREAT SHOW, SERIOUSLY

 

 

 

 

 

(a warning: this entry is very triggering.)


I've figured out why I'm so scared/ sad/ miserable/ angry/ upset when the brother is around.
It's a really wretched human fear.

I feel utterly unworthy to be in his presence.
Since he showed up the floating voices have been so loud, highlighting all my sins and flaws, telling me how far I fall from the mercy of God, demanding that I obey them instantly and without question or else I will fall into even more sin.
I know they're right. I know they're right, and that's why I'm so sad, because in order to be a good person I have to completely sacrifice my free will and individualityand the worst part is I WANT TO.
Individuality is shit. It's worthless. I want to be an empty shell and servant of God.
BUT. Being a human, having an "ego" to function in society, means I have a fake individuality. And it "doesn't want to die." Well it has to.
And free will is terrible. That same part of me wants to keep its free will, wants the opportunity to sin. That's terrible. If my free will was gone, and my individuality was gone, I'd be empty. I'd be perfectly empty and thin and pure, and I'd have no sin anymore, and I'd have no self anymore, and I'd just do God's will without any emotions at all, and I'd be perfect and forgiven and I'd actually go to heaven.

Except I wouldn't.
In that state of existence I don't exist. I'd do God's will and when I died that would be it. There would be nothing "after." I'd be gone, I'd be dead, forever.

I don't understand this. There is no "I." There's no such thing.

The brother is some sort of prophet or something, he has to be. He has all this knowledge, he does all these holy things. He only eats fruit, and only a little. He takes tons of supplements to increase his spiritual power. He meditates for two hours a day. He studies quantum physics and vibrational healing and things. He plays guitar and he has a college degree and he has a job and he has friends. He's a perfect human and yet whenever he's around me he says those words. Small scathing rumbled words, under his breath but pointed like rusty razors, that hurt and burn just as much. You're a monster. You're doing this on purpose. Some willpower YOU have. There's that testosterone talking. If only she knew how you REALLY are.
He knows all my sins. God sent him here to damn me forever until I sacrifice myself to him and become exactly what he is.
And I'm terrified of him as a result.
Whenever he's around I want to sob and fall to my knees and beg forgiveness and hide my face and apologize over and over, I'm not worthy, I'm so sorry, don't look upon my sinfulness, forgive me my faults, forgive my damned human frailty, I will remove myself from your presence soon, I am so damn sorry for my filth.
I can't even go in the kitchen to grab the mints I left in there because the very thought makes the floating voices laugh in a cackling whoosh like a punch to the gut, a mocking scoff that makes me feel like mud. They're mocking my stupidity, my hedonism, my stupidity, my sinfulness. "Mints? What a fool! All you care about is food, you wretch!"

When I tell someone what they say they look at me with hateful shock, like if a child swore at theor mother. And they say, cold as death, "you will pay for this, you bitch."
Even now they're trying, clawing at my body, ripping at my brain, trying to molest me, full of anger and dirty-feeling hatred and I'm scared and I'm trying to push them away but that's a sin, that's a SIN, you HAVE NO FREE WILL YOU BITCH, EMPTY YOURSELF, EMPTY YOURSELF AND BECOME A SLAVE TO GOD


Every time I flip open a Bible I get OT verses of wrath and judgment and hellfire, all saying how human nature is evil and foolish and humankind is inherently corrupt. Always the wrath of God, always directed towards me. Every time I try to pray I get that feeling of eyes of fire, glaring at me in disgust, then turning away to leave me in darkness and cold. The wrath and judgment of God. "I do not know you."
That's why I'm scared of the brother. He's the Wrath Of God personified.


The voices said I have to "meditate for five hours; maybe that will expunge SOME of the sins from your soul, you filthy wretch, you filthy worm."
This is constant. Nonstop, day in and day out.

I can't eat anything because they spit at me and call me a heathen
that's why I throw everything up, I'm hungry but I'm not allowed to eat,
there's that scoffing laugh again,
"hungry??! you foolish bitch. you aren't hungry for food. you're hungry for GOD. sacrifice yourself and don't eat. worship god through fasting. empty yourself for god."
but the body needs food
"to hell with the body, it is a vessel of the antichrist."
no its not it's not supposed to be
"well you're in it, so tough shit"
I
I'm not, I'm a good person, I want to be,
"no you're not, not as long as you act like this and follow the ways of the world. you're going to hell. fast, empty yourself, and pray. stop living like 'human beings' do. become godlike. become more than human. empty yourself."
how
"don't eat, for one. stop eating. pray."
how
how do I pray then
ANSWER ME.

there's one whispering voice saying "pray to us"
no
no no
no
NO
DON'T YOU DARE



Laurie just showed up. "Leave him the hell alone."
And they cower a little and whimperingly shout "it's a she! it's a she and she's a whore!" etc.
to which Laurie says to shut up and leave her alone, then.
to which they respond "do you want to send her to hell?? we're punishing her for her sins! for her filthy existence!! if we don't condemn her she will go to hell!! *pointing at me* see!! how proud they are!!"

laurie: shut the hell UP.
them: listen to you swearing! you're not of god! you're evil! your filthy mouth!
laurie: at least I don’t condemn the hell out of these scared kids--
them: yes!! condemn the hell out of them! to save them! to save their soul!!
laurie: you don't seem to care very much about saving them when you call them a whore and a worm.
them: but they are!! they are and we are trying to STOP them!! don't you see!! we're trying to save them to restore them to the glory of god!!!
laurie: you JUST freaking told them they'll never deserve that, which is an absolute lie. tell me what you really think. DO they deserve it? to be forgiven?
(a pause, then a scream from the back) NO! THEY'RE A WHORE AND THEY DESERVE TO DIE!!!
laurie: get the hell out of here.
them: NO. YOU'RE A WHORE TOO
laurie: WHAT THE HELL DID YOU SAY??

they ran when she pulled out her axe
it's a little quiet now


why can't we get into headspace anymore, why can't we exist,


the girl said she was lonely and the voices told her, "good, BE lonely, you're SUPPOSED to be isolated from humanity, they're filthy wretches, you have to worship god ALONE."
they want her cut off from everything and everyone. she feels she will never be forgiven, that she's forever a dirty person, and they tell her she is, but they're 'trying to save her,' but she's not allowed to talk to any human being, because they will corrupt her and she's supposed to be 'ascetic' or something? it must be hard.

now they're condemning me for 'not being strong enough to worship god'
I'm not a bad person.
'yes you are you heathen you don't listen to us so you're a whore too'

I don’t like you
'that's what sinners say. sinners hate.'
so do you.
'…this is the wrath of god. this is the PERFECT hatred of god towards sinners.'

I still don’t like you.
'fine. go to hell then. don't say we didn't warn you.'

this is why laurie is confused and scared
how do we make them go away?


god I'm nauseous and frightened, why won't they leave her or us alone?
are we really that bad of a person/people?

is it really that terrifying and harsh to become good and holy?
do we really have to utterly annihilate our physical existence?
I know a lot of people on earth do, and we have always felt drawn to do that, but… I'm scared. I'm scared because the orders are so harsh and I know God sounds like that in the Bible but… I'm scared of dying and facing a deity ruled by wrath and "perfect hatred," who apparently created us and sent us to a sinful world only to damn us for that very state of weakness and kill our soul forever. what is that. that can't be "God," what is it?

it's a false god, is the thought I get.
the floating voices start roaring in sheer rage and utter shock.
leave us alone.
"then you'll go to hell," they say, "then you'll burn in hell without us to guide you!!"
the only thing you want us to do is stop existing.
"yes!!! because you cannot exist in god!! you cannot exist in heaven, it is impossible, you must not be


and oh lord help us they sound JUST LIKE THE ECHTHROI.


GET OUT OF OUR BODY.
GET OUT OF OUR HEAD.
YOU ARE POWERLESS HERE.
I REVOKE ANY AND ALL AUTHORITY GIVEN TO YOU, UNCONSCIOUSLY OR CONSCIOUSLY.
I REMOVE YOU FROM THIS SPACE.
I FORBID YOU FROM EVER SPEAKING TO US AGAIN.
I BAN YOU FROM OUR PRESENCE.
YOU ARE FORBIDDEN FROM EVER INTERFERING WITH US AGAIN.
LEAVE NOW.
LEAVE, NOW.

read that with integrity, NOT anger. feed the right motivation into it.

adding "in the name of Christ, Amen" had them screaming "you don't have the authority to invoke Christ" but hopefully that's the last we will hear from them.

if they do come back for whatever reason we'll banish them again. we have to. they're awful.

God this is so weird,
why in the world is THIS what our daily existence has become?

it's so hard to heal from even little faults when there is no room or silence, just screaming damnations and hate and all that. the girls who are struggling with their weaknesses, which are all born out of feeling worthless and undeserving of love, are just getting worse because the feedback claiming to be "of God" is constantly telling them that they basically are those things. it's awful.
don't you dare. leave us alone. go away forever. you are forbidden here. I cast you out.
we have total freedom and sovereignty here.
"well it's your funeral," they say.

well what do you want us to do?
"destroy yourself. destroy yourself for god."

why am I even TALKING to them GO AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!

…maybe this is all in our head, too?
("you fool")

leave us alone.

we need to just stop paying attention to them but it's hard when they're so loud and they scream and they hurt the body and it's miserable to live with. those poor girls.
"they deserve what they get"
NO THEY DO NOT.


it's hard to breathe. we need to meditate and calm down.
"don't you dare, listen to us!!!!" the loud back-room voice says
the other ones shush it panickedly
your cover is already blown, guys. you're not of christ, you're not good.
"fuck you. we don't need to be good to save you."
more shushing and covering mouths
LEAVE US ALONE.
GO AWAY.

"hahaha. we'll never go away. we're here to save you."

this is torment

this is why we're scared of the brother.

god we don't want to be scared of him. we know that underneath whatever weird black-cloud rusty-blade shell he has on, deep down he's a good person too, we've seen hints of it, but it's so hard to hold on to mentally because it clashes so badly with how he's defined himself by his actions?
are we doing the same thing?
have we defined our physical self as such a disgusting wretched pig that we feel damned to that awful sinful fate?
why do those girls have so much fronting power?
why did this only start this bad after the brother moved back in?
why are we so scared of him?
why can't we turn that off? why do we INSTANTLY dissociate and panicked children front whenever he comes into the room???

I don't know. I want harmony in this house, I don't want to treat him negatively, but I don't understand what's going on and it's making me miserable.
Like right now, if I just stop and listen to our current emotional state,
one bit is a young boy child that won't stop crying and sobbing,
one bit is a young teen girl who hasn't bathed in days who just wants to stuff herself full of food and throw it up, full of self-loathing and no future,
one bit is a viciously heartbrokenly angry semi-human person who won't stop screaming and wants to throw things and beat up the brother but they don't really want to do that, they just want the pain and noise to stop and they don't know how to express that.

mostly we're a mess.
and it's all on the downstairs level.
we haven't been able to tap into headspace at all lately? like it feels like it doesn't exist in this state and that's obviously a numb-period characteristic and that's TERRIFYING. we don't ever want that happening again.

but jewel was out during work today, thinking about leagueworld stuff for 3 hours, actually feeling happy,
but as soon as we got back on the road and into the "physical" we got dissociated and switchy and too social and sick,
and when we got home the memory blanks out and someone started binge-eating and abusing immediately.

god this is a hellish cycle and I'm not sure how to stop it.

step 1 is obviously cutting out EVERY abuse-food the girls use, but they're still using those as false coping mechanisms so when we take them away, we get the screaming suicidal distraught ones who can't deal with their emotions when they're not being forcibly crushed and purged by bingeing.

we need to deal with those emotions.

we NEED people fronting who think of food as fuel and who HAVE A FUTURE and who see themselves as WORTHY OF CARE, not these poor girls who have dead-end lives and eat literal garbage and don't want to live and don't know how.
they literally only exist in the kitchen, they CANNOT front outside the house.
what do we do about them.
they need to be healed, patiently and lovingly and with compassion and understanding and options, you can't tell someone they're "horrible" and not give them a way out. those floating voices just want annihilation, not healing, not love.
thinking about them makes me sick, and it's making me slip. forget about them.

I want to help those girls. I want to help ALL of us.
our physical life is rather frightening right now, I'll admit that. but I want us to have a real future. I want us to be able to live and have a good helpful purposeful joy-filled future, safe and full of light and creativity and wonder. we want good things in our life and that's NOT evil or hedonistic to say. is it?
we want to be good and do good. that's the bottom line.
I really don't feel that cutting ourself off from the world will help anyone.
yes the world is terrifying, but this isn't how it has to be. you need to put good out there, even if you're just one person, you need to stand brightly as best you can and be part of the collective difference.


…we feel purposeless, lately.
that's why we keep falling into addictions, or too-long meditations. we feel like we have no reason to exist anymore and that's awful, it's crushing.
losing so much of our creative work, on all fronts, almost totally destroyed our hope, and the worst part is (as we said before) we largely don't remember how to REDO the lost work. if our therapist is right then someone in the System does, but good luck finding them on cue, or when the body is in this bad a state. good creative people can't front in bad environments, at least not for long.

it's a challenge. but we need to keep pushing, we need to try really REALLY hard, it's going to take a lot of sheer willpower and effort at this point but it's required at this point.
this is still a war. we can't deny that. this is a war, and we need to fight to keep from being trampled, but fight in the right way.

I'm going to try reading and/or listening to music and see if we can get into a better mindstate, find a feeling of purpose and future again, because we need that right now to get through the night.

I'll see you later.

 

undertale take 11.

walking through the final door at last.


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


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


"Frisk, you LIVE with this?!"

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


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


oh god this choice.

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

…
I want to stay with you,
mom.


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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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



…

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

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

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

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

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



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



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





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


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

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

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

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


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


this game destroyed me and put me back together better.

 

 

 

 

undertale take nine.


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


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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

i'm wondering about the title screen intro now.

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

this empty refrigerator wont stop shaking

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


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


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

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

i knew it, i knew it,

"the flower's gone."


wait what

is this the castle?





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

how DARE you,

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

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

all my friends up there,

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

NO ONE MADE YOU DO THIS TO THEM, FLOWEY.

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


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

no. not you too.

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

wait what?
flowey are you lonely?

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

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

you sound just like the hackers.

why am i so fucking dissociated

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



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




i

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

wow.

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

why.

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

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

...

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


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

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

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

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

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


let me try again.

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


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


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



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


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

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

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

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

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


...

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

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

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

and asgore's words get me every time.

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

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


but this battle,

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

"legendary being made of every soul in the underground"

every
soul
in the underground.

i
yeah you talk about determination well I HAVE IT.


...BUT IT REFUSED???


OKAY WOW THAT WAS AMAZING LET'S DO THIS


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the whole world is ending.

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


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

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

...


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


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

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

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


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

oh you poor dear heart.


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

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

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


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


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


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


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


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

"Golly! That sounds neato!" THIS PRECIOUS MAN

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

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

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

have a lovely night, everyone.