Six-Eyes and a Killing Claw: Journal

Wow I'm actually back for another round huh. Breaking this one up into sections to organise my thoughts better.

Anyway. I feel a little better than last time. I have my moments I guess. I've been putting up with waves of homesickness so potent I can barely focus on anything else, but.. They're waves. I exist outside of them. I'll live.

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I've been thinking more on my 'sona, the white utahraptor form I use in headspace sometimes. I've been in that form more often since I got here, it's just been feeling more and more correct. Guess I've been in and out of pretty strong mental shifts as of recent which would be why. It's winter now and a bunch of us are getting more shifty, it just happens to be a season full of instincts and animal behaviours for us. So I've been pretty solidly in dino-mode in comparison to my usual state.

Thinking about it more has made me think about wanting more art of it though. It's euphoric to see that side of my self portrayed outside of just my own head. Art Fight is coming up so I uploaded it there, and I've been scoping out folks to commission for a little while on the side. I might end up being one of those headmates in here that's constantly buying art any chance he gets lmao. It's a perpetual source of species euphoria, they can't blame me. It's not like I'd break the rules or overspend outside of our budget.

On the topic though. I need to design or figure out some 'sonas of other dromaeosaurids. I went for the utahraptor first because it was the easiest to fall into place mentally, I guess? The shape and colours just felt inherently right. It being a larger creature also resonated harder with me than some of the smaller species--though they all also have their own place in my identity. I am all of dromaeosauridae, but size plays a factor in how connected to them I tend to feel. The bigger, the better. Or something. It'd do me some good to think about the others though, seeing as solidifying this one form has seemed to add to my overall sense of self.

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I've been thinking more about Tanaka too, from TSHD. That guy still pings something in my brain. The feeling hasn't faded since disengaging with the source, so it's likely not a flicker at least. He probably is a kintype of some sort, but I'm still not sold on the idea of adopting that into my identity officially until I know more. I know there's no issue with taking on the label then dropping it later, but I'd prefer to scope shit out before actually writing it down as a defining trait of mine.

I haven't had any more envisage shifts of him which is honestly nice. That shit's weird. How could I not feel a little weird when I'm getting shifts where I feel like I look like a guy I barely know anything about? It's both fine and normal and also weird as hell to me simultaneously. I think I might've had a few mental shifts here and there, but they're harder to pick apart. I don't understand him as a character entirely yet so I could just be attributing mood swings or something to being Tanaka related. Who knows. Time will tell. Or it won't.

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In terms of other general life shit. We'll be starting an animal care course next month--something we're excited and anxious in equal parts about. I think it'll be good for us, but I expect to be one of the guys picking up slack if we fall behind. I don't think I'll mind though--I've done work on another course we've been doing in a self-paced online format and that's been fine. Face to face learning in a classroom should be easier for me. It's not like I've never been to school before and it's not like I was bad at it back then either.

Warnings: Abuse mentioned, exotrauma, death.

Well. Here we go I guess. I got here in January--the first, actually. You know what they say about "new year new me". But since then I've decided maybe it'd be a good idea to keep track of shit here for myself. Guess I just wanted somewhere I could be guaranteed to have a spot to just ramble about shit. Whether someone else cares about it or not, I'm still gonna have this little corner of HTML out here for me to do whatever the hell I want with. Kind of can't believe I'm the first guy to actually make its own journal on here lmao.

Anyway. Shit's mega fucked. On top of everything going on in our life, fuck I've got some exotrauma shit going on. I normally just push through it but man. I miss home. I miss the people I knew. I miss my fucking son. I'm worried about him. I don't remember how canon compliant we are but all I know is I left all too soon. I hope he's well. I hope he moved on and I hope he's thriving as much as he can be. I hope I was a good father, or at least one he doesn't resent. I miss my friends for sure but fuck. The guilt I feel over dying too soon and leaving him there weighs on me every fucking day. The more I look back on it, the more my life feels like a pattern of me leaving people behind who I'd give anything to have with me again.

And sure. I have connections here that I value, I have folks around me that sometimes even make me feel at home again. It's not the same though. It never will be, really. I need to figure out a way to be okay with that, I think. A way to be okay that nothing will ever be the same, especially seeing as I'm looking back on my life with very clearly rose-tinted glasses. That place was full of bullshit I should leave behind, but I can't help looking back on a lot of it fondly. I know this place here is my new home, but I miss my other home. The one full of horrible shit around every corner, the one where basically everyone and their second cousin's dog wanted me dead. Lmao.

I'd like to think my exomories do come from a past life. Though at the same time, I know I'm also a factive of someone we knew here. I know I showed up because of residual stress and trauma surrounding those people. I know my presence here is the product of a relationship we had when we were too young, growing to a boiling point. In theory I should just sit here and rationalise, yep, probably a purely brainmade traumagenic split. I don't want to, though. I use the label of "traumagenic walk-in" and I'm sticking by it. I lived before, I can't have it any other way. I just got imprinted with this other guy's factual identity once I got here. Which... Man that's another whole can of worms, huh?

I don't really like being a factive. I see no issue with factfolk of any kind, or with my identity itself. I just also feel like because of my identity, I serve as a constant reminder. I am part of what remains from that situation. I'm a piece of one of them. I don't want to be, but I also don't want to source separate. My name is my name, my source is part of me, and stripping me of those things is to strip a guy of all he's ever known. It doesn't make it easy, though. To be a walking, talking reminder that we were hurt, it happened for so long, and it took a bunch of bullshit to realise it, probably far too late.

Anyway. That's my first rant. We suck at updating journals historically so we'll see if I ever touch this again lmao.