Eden was a cult. Eden had the last known tree in existence, and quickly it became a figurehead for us folks on Eden, and, just as quickly, it became the center of the cult's beliefs.

See, after the Quiet Rapture, folks quickly lost hope. We had limited ways to get food, water, other supplies. The cult grew up and around that lost hope, the belief that we were doomed. I was young, I dont remember much the leap of logic that folks had, but the teaching of the cult became that our bodies, when we die, would feed the Tree, become the soil. It was a noble cause, to those who had lost hope.

Public suicides began. That turned into scheduled executions of larger groups who had lost hope, and would give themselves up to the tree. My mom was one of them..

When I lost her, I lost a lot of myself too. I became impressionable. But something made me hold on--I was always the one who had held onto hope. I wanted to live in a world where everyone didn't seem to want to. That made me the perfect target..

Us kids were usually spared the "teachings" of the adult; we were the hope. But other kids like me who lost parents to the cult often followed their parents' logic, but the Salvationers wouldn't take kids. A group of kids in my foster group make up their minds; they wanted Salvation too. My mom had given me my dad's knife before she left us. I dunno if that's the only reason the kids approached me or I just exuded some sort of "this kid is Different" but. They concocted a plan to march up on the gallows after the adults were... done? And have me kill them.

..I dont know why I went along with it. Impressionable kid, I wanted to live, if I did it I would show I wasnt afraid... fuck I dont remember. It was definitely a mistake though.

And so, the.. next time Salvation came around, we watched the adults. Then we marched up onto the gallows. The kids had a big speech about why kids should be able to feed the tree too, and I did my job; I slit their throats. To this day I'm surprised the adults just let me. I'm not sure why I'm surprised, looking back at how deep the adults were in on their own supply, but..

After the shock? horror? apathy? wore off, one of the Salvationers whisked me off the gallows to meet with the Father, the head of the cult.

He asked me what happened. I told him. He said some bullshit about Eden needed people like me to help the lost, offered to take me under his wing. I didnt have much else going for me, and I was still sort of reeling that I wasnt in trouble? So I fell in with the Sons of Eden. I can only best describe us as a paramilitia group, the Defenders of Eden, Sons of the Father. It gave me a better upbringing than I could've had if I hadnt done what I did. And, when I got older, I was asked to be a Salvationer too. Turns out a spectacle like that doesnt go unnoticed or unforgotten, and ....folks would request me. The Butcher...

I've always had blood on my hands, it's poetic that the COI sent me to die in an ocean of human blood.

Filament Station... Both my fault, and not my fault... I was part of it, and yet I was trying to stop it... The reason I was in prison.

The other space stations and ships that weren't Eden had banded together into the Coalition of Iron after the Quiet Rapture. The COI, as I've mentioned them previously. ..Eden and the COI didnt see eye-to-eye. We'd always been uneasily at truce with one another when we weren't actively nipping at each others' heels. They'd pick through the remains of our ships, we'd infiltrate their stations for supplies.. I don't know the politics why we didnt get along, other than they, rightfully, didn't agree with the cult, and Eden thought the COI were too optimistic. Maybe I'm just too pragmatic but I never could understand why we couldn't just trade..

Filament Station... Part of what we Sons of Eden did was plan the raids on other stations. My Brothers planned an attack that was more than our usual hit 'n run. I, the star runt of the group, objected and demanded we run it safely, no casualties, no injuries. It was just the last in a long string of me trying to reign in my Brothers, who were getting more and more violent as the years passed. I'd gotten used to their sneers and telling me I was getting soft, but they agreed. Tongue in cheek and fingers crossed behind their backs, I came to learn.

We were to set off explosives, minor ones, in locations that would cause a commotion but no real damage. We arrived at the station in 2 ships. We docked at maintenance docks, rather than the usual incoming traffic docks, unlike what I had argued for. Red Flag. It was early in the station's sleep cycle, allowing for less security and maximum confusion.

We infiltrated, using comms to coordinate dropping the payloads. As I was the coordinator, I stayed nearest our ship, listening to comm chatter.

I got confirmation of the drop off, then of my Brothers getting clear or to their posts. One set came much later than the other. Red Flag.

I pushed the charge setter, which was my job. Then one of my fellow disillusioned Brothers rounded the maintenance shaft, shouting. That's when I learned of my other Brothers' betrayal: they had placed their charges not in the preplanned spots, but the station's mainframe ductwork, then fled back to the other ship to check in.

They left. My Brothers. Our Brothers. At their posts, on the station. And let me blow the whole place.

60-some dead, including my own Brothers.. The COI stopped me fleeing. I surrendered.

I've since come to realize that the plan was to get rid of us who were the weak links in the Brotherood, we who were disillusioned with the cult. Its probably better that the COI picked me up because I would have killed those Brothers.

I am.. gently colorblind. I've known that about myself for ever, and it only rarely has caused me issues. Being here, I learned it has a name: deuteranomalia; I can't see the color red, the color range of purples is severely limited and much more blue, and most greens look more yellow. I can tell this now, because the new body I reside in is not colorblind. One can only imagine the moment I first realized that there I could see these other colors.

Within headspace, I retain my colorblindness. It's frustrating, actually, as now that I'm aware of what is possible, it's hidden from me for a good section of my existence. I'm glad that I get to see these extra colors when viewing meatspace and when fronting, but it's in stark contrast when I know that Duranos is a beautiful lavender color, but all I can see him is as periwinkle. I can conceive of the colors, now that I have experience with them, but it's a far cry from being able to see them.

Those familiar with my source may be a bit horrified. Yes, I can confirm that I see blood as the color orange. When the blood was filling the Iron Lung, it was hardly a different color from the rustbucket itself--yes, that's just as horrifying as you think it is.

And in an ironic twist of fate, orange has been my favorite color for a long time. But once I saw red, real Red, it quickly became my new favorite color. I do still really like orange, don't get me wrong, but seeing Red for the first time was like I had finally found a missing piece of me. Thus, my new favorite color is one I can't see*. ....*normally.

I'm also very aware of the irony, I assure you.

When I arrived here, I was at my absolute lowest rock bottom. ..I mean, it's not very hard to say that "death" is the absolute rock bottom for anyone, but also mentally, physically, emotionally. And it wasnt all just the extremely traumatic experience I'd just had.

I grew up in a cult, I became disillusioned by the cult, I was betrayed by the cult, then I was imprisoned by the cult's enemies as a scapegoat. There was very little about me that was "human" by the time they welded me into that tin can; driven by the instinct to live, I was little more than a caged animal, as that's all I'd really ever been treated as.

Coming here was a massive culture shock, not simply because of how very different this world is to the one I'd always known, but because the people here immediately treated me with kindness. Despite all but one face in that first meeting being that of nonhumans, I was shown such gentleness and understanding... that honestly, it scared me. I'd never recieved such warmth, and it's unfamiliarity was akin to violence in my panicked state. But, I came to learn to that they were people, just like me--even the ones that didn't look human at all. ..And honestly, I was just as animal in my sense of self, as they were in appearance.

I had to slowly be introduced to the idea of personal agency, something I was wholly unfamiliar with the concept of, that I see now is a basic personal right. I was gifted a room of my own, with no surveilance, that I was allowed to retreat to whenever I felt like it, though I was gently encouraged to spend time with the rest of the system and not just hole myself up. As everything else, my sense of self-worth was at rock bottom, and I definitely didn't want to be seen by others. But, their warmth kept me around.

The inadvertant first step came from just being around them. I didn't get to grow up with animals; we didn't have the food to feed livestock and ourselves. I knew of animals as a concept, but hadn't seen one since I was small. I quickly became fascinated by the more animal-bodied of my sysmates and their lack of personal space wanting to be close to others and have their bodies touched. I learned the term "touch starved" later on, and I had a bad case of it--I kind of still do, even though I get plenty of touches and cuddles whenever I want. Probably making up for all the lost time. I was gently encouraged to reach out and pet my sysmates that came by, and it was suggested to Ozzie, little lapdog Ozzie, to spend her lap time with me. Honestly, I don't think I'd have recovered as quickly as I did if she hadn't. She can talk, but she's not as talkative as others in the system, and being able to just have her weight on me, like a weighted blanket, and not need to engage in conversation with her, helped immensely. Plus, she is so small that I never felt threatened by her presence. She would seek me out to make sure I was okay, and... just getting to have that personal connection was a major bandaid for my psyche.

Once I came out of my shell some, started to pull together some semblance of being a person, I was encouraged to pick out things I liked... We didn't have the resources to be picky, in my time, so choosing something purely based on aesthetics alone has been a painful affair, for me and everyone else encouraging me. Even knowing that in our headspace we can simply will things into existence is hard for me to comprehend, and even to this day doesn't make any of these decisions any easier. It started simply, with clothing, which at the beginning was an enormous hurdle. Choice paralysis was the least of my worries, because I didn't even know how to want. Liking things was made into a primitive experience--picking which of two similar things I thought was better. It's really embarassing to think back on it now. What actually helped, as much as I'm loathe to admit it, is having a celebrity for a doppelganger; you see, getting to see clothing on ...someone who looks like me, takes a lot of the guesswork out of whether I think I will like something. A couple of my earliest outfits were lifted straight from his wardrobe, because if I thought he looked good in something, I knew I would, too.

Once I got the hang of that, it was suggested to me to redecorate the room I was gifted. When it was crafted, I was part of the creation process, but in my caged-animal mindset, the box that came out of my early brain was little more than a prison cell--something I was all too familiar with. I knew it wasn't helping my psyche, but I had nothing more to go on. We looked at different rooms in catalogues--a concept I'm still baffled by--for inspiration. Eventually, I came up with my current room's layout; a beautiful, sunny, airy bedroom with plants along the walls and a small seating area for folks to hang out with me, in my space.

However, the most important challenge of them all has been learning bodily autonomy. After years of being treated as a tool, and dehumanized so thoroughly, my only real understanding of myself has been to be Used. I had some early practice of autonomy with Ozzie, as well as needing to have my wounds treated after my physical trauma and being able to voice my pain threshold and have it heeded, but as it became clearer that I was the subject of several of my sysmates' ..physical desires, I needed a safe crash course in how to Deal with that. You see, I was a virgin before coming here. I grew up in a cult, in the apocalypse, and in hindsight it makes sense that the leadership would refuse to teach the kids about sex. Just another way I was dehumanized, and my sysmates made it very clear that without that learning opportunity, I'd missed a huge part of learning to be a person. Some folks may disagree, but in my case, yeah, it was a huge missing piece of me. Healthily navigating sexual interactions and discussions, exploring my personal preferences, having my desires heeded--all very crucial parts of learning not only how to conduct myself, but interact with others, even outside of a sexual encounter.

For as much as I've bloomed and become my own person, I still have a long way to go--I can feel it. But it remains so funny to me that it's been a group of nonhumans to teach me how to be human again. I could say "person", but let's be real, those nonhumans have all been raised with humans. They know better than anyone how to be human--if only to better fit in. I don't think I'd have it any other way, given a different chance.

I come from a time in which there's so few humans left, no animals left, that it's inconceivable that there would be other life in the universe. The concept of aliens were just on our periphery before the Quiet Rapture, so suffice it to say, I never considered the possiblity of ever encountering something that wasn't human. Which, made coming here really scary. My first memories of being here were of being held down quite forcefully by a blue-skinned human-like person with eight extraneous ...arms? coming off their back, a purple-skinned person with a single ...mass coming out of their forehead trying desperately to tend to my massively bleeding arm stump, a.. person-shaped black-skinned creature with a long face trying to comfort me, and an actual, recognizable human, explaining in plain english where I was and what the fuck just happened. ...Beyond that, I don't actually remember much beyond the fear and pain.

But I did come to learn, through that perfectly normal human, that I was safe, even if it didn't feel like it, even if the others around us didn't look safe. They were people, just like them and I, and I began the slow game of learning what animals were, let alone what animals my new fellowship was.

I felt like I had a pretty good read on humans, before. But having no experience around animals, I was extremely lost, as they all seemed to have an innate language they all shared between them. I've since been told that, yeah. Animals have body language that they can more or less get the gist of just by being animals. Now, our headspace has what I learned is called "empathic telepathy". We can think at each other and be "heard". This is totally separate from their innate read of body language, and often is relayed in concepts instead of words. For the most part, I've been able to Get that bit. It's intuitive, as concepts typically rely on shared emotions or "pictures", but it's still been a bit of a learning curve--since, they're using Animal emotions, Animal "pictures". I've gotten... better, over time, as I begin to learn each animals' body language, but it's been a helluva road bump.

I'm told often that systemmembers who have alterhuman or nonhuman headmates, over time, acquire nonhuman identities just by osmosis. My one fellow human in the system has been here ..five? six? years, and has held onto their humanity with a deathgrip, and has wholly resisted this phenomena. They assure me that it's not for certain that I'll pick up nonhuman habits, and so far, I still feel wholly human. Which makes it interesting when I front.

The new body I reside in has "supernumerary phantom limbs", limbs that the human body doesn't naturally have--in our case, a tail and long, elven ears. Chief's assured me that they also feel and interact with these when they front, and it's nothing to worry about. Something about how the body's brain has created neural paths in particular for these features, and can be felt and/or manipulated by anyone who fronts. I'm told I'm quite expressive in headspace, posture and facially, and I've noticed that is similar as well for when I front. Including trying to utilize the long, elven ears to emote with. In a particularly nonhuman way. I'm assured that this is perfectly normal, that an emotion is instinctive, and that instinct is going to express itself in the ways the neurons are set to fire. Similarly, the phantom tail will do it's own thing, which is also in response to my emotions--it's still a weird fucking feeling though.

Especially when that tail follows me into headspace. I've been told that I've been spotted with a ghostly phantom tail in headspace, emoting with it. I don't feel a fuckin' thing, unlike while fronting. I do have phantom limb syndrome for my left arm when I'm not wearing my prosthesis, with a similar ghostly fascimile of my whole arm, so it's been theorized that my brain is simply translating that into a similar experience, after having gotten used to dealing with the body's phantom tail. I still feel wholly human, and Chief says they've never had a similar experience, so I guess I can only wonder if I'll become another example of headmates acquiring nonhuman identities.

I lost my left arm shortly before I died. My sysmates describe the trauma as "[I] pulled [myself] down off a crucifixion", which from memory sharing and being told some context, sounds pretty badass, and there's a great thinkpiece within the fandom about how it's about "the pain of atoning for my sins/letting go of the connections to my past". But, I still lost my arm, and that's a pretty disabling thing that no amount of "fits the narrative" can make it truly okay.

To be fair, I have it pretty easy. Because of our headspace physics and advanced technology that one of our sysmates just had schematics for in their head, I have an extremely high-tech, almost perfect, custom made prosthesis. It's heavy, and I don't have feeling in the limb like a flesh one, but with a lot of practice I've been able to re-gauge all of my physical inputs to make it work seamlessly, like it's flesh and blood. When I front, the body isnt missing an arm, so I still have complete use of both hands in that case.

But, my brain still knows it's missing. When I front, I noticably only use the body's left hand when it's needed (and not just because both my and the bodys' dominant hand is the right). When I do use the body's left hand, it's really awkward and unbalanced, like my brain is fighting the body's brain, and at times, it even feels like the body's arm is alien to me. In headspace, I don't always wear my prosthesis (it's heavy, the design is a bit awkward and can get caught on things, the harness to make sure it maintains good contact is pretty tight, the tight contact needed for it to work right bothers my scars, I can't wear it to bed, it can get in the way of cuddling, etc.) and when I don't, my brain often forgets that the arm was even there, making me bump the remainder of my arm into things.

And yet, my brain still thinks I have it. I have phantom limb syndrome, and in headspace, a ghostly visual of my missing arm will sometimes manifest and try to gesture, or even do things, but with no effect. I have, unfortunately, consciously forgotten it's missing and tried to put my weight on it and gone crashing down before, or tried to touch someone with the missing hand.

I recognize that I'm incredibly lucky that my sysmates are very accomodating, though I guess I would be surprised if they weren't seeing as the lot of them were there to see me straight out of my trauma, saw how it happened (through the movie), and were there every step of the way as it healed. They jump at the chance to help me do something if I'm not wearing my prosthesis and need a second hand. They've made me aware of accessible clothing (magnetic closures instead of snaps or buttons), gifted me hair combs--which are much simpler to put my hair back with than a hair tie--and shown how to use them, helped me design my room to be more conscious of my disability--just.. really put my accessiblity forward, even though I'm the only one with a limb deficiency in the system. ..The unconscious jokes about it (dubbed "Simon-unfriendly-language") have been both hilarious and a bit abrasive depending on the day, and to be quite honest, I've been sitting here for two months unable to tell whether making light of my trauma and newfound disability helps or hurts.

I have been through so much physical therapy, since I got here--practically started day two, as soon as my wound wasn't threatening to open back up at the slightest movement. First to strengthen my right arm and try to train my brain to rely completely on it, then with my prosthesis to train my proprioception to map it to my internal body map and learn, without being able to feel through it, how much pressure to apply to things with it without damaging anything. It hasn't been too terribly difficult, a lot of fine manipulation and relearning hand-eye coordination, and even some balance--all things I've been able to do by playing with Allie and Ozzie, or training with 14, a fellow knife expert.

I have tried to "grow back" my arm. Our headspace operates on a set of laws of physics that on paper, make it sound as though it's possible, but through a lot of attempts, has only given me the middle finger. ...uh, metaphorically. (Jeeze, I'm really bad at making jokes at my own expense, it seems.) Something, something about my subconscious writes it into Law that my arm is missing, and so I can't just "shapeshift" to get it back. Pretty rude, really. For the most part, I'm okay with that, as I really do love my prosthesis, and while it does feel Wrong to be missing my arm, and I am affected by it, I'm also not affected by it nearly as much as I'm aware I could be.

As a bit of detail about my prosthesis, I actually have a brief write up from Chief about it:

The prosthesis I designed is a standard high-input, highly articulated design from my time. This is now the third one that I have built.

Between where his arm ends and the device sits, is a highly conductive weave that is able to amplify and direct his body's neuronal output into the device. Amputees still get neuronal activity firing toward where their nerves used to be, and this device picks them up and utilizes them just as flesh nerves do. It is a non-invasive option, versus hard wiring one's nerves into the prosthesis itself, which I opted against both as we do not have a medical professional within the system capable of installing said prosthesis, as well as sparing Simon the trauma of said installation--he's suffered enough already.

It takes hours of calibration for it to sit flush and pick up the body's electrical input, then output the neuronal directions correctly into the device. But, once done, it's as natural as one's own flesh and blood limb. However, the large caveat is that once the device is mapped to the body's neuronal firings, it cannot be out of sync, placement-wise, or it simply doesn't work. Thus, it also requires the stability of a bracing harness. In Simon's case, the exact location his arm ends and the tight connection the device requires necessitates a carefully calculated positioning for the requisite counterbalance.

Besides the physical construction time and coding, the reason it took us as long as it did to finally finish it is that he needed to heal. I cannot fit this device until the skin is not only strong enough to take the shear and crushing force of the device and it's required tension, but also so that I can accurately mold the detection plate to how his fully healed, for lack of a better term and I do quite hate using this word, stump is shaped.

Growing up in a cult, one of the control aspects imparted on us was controlling our relationships. As in, close relationships were monitored, and abstinence was taught, if anyone ever had the thought cross their mind of what our groin parts were used for. Suffice it to say, I'm pretty emotionally stunted when it comes to interpersonal aspects.

Coming here was an extreme culture shock--for many reasons, but in this case, the system has a somewhat extensive polycule and are quite open about their romances and sexual proclivities. Meanwhile, my sysmates sat me down with their teenaged children to give the lot of us the sex talk--because let's be real, I definitely didn't learn any of that shit before. But, as introducing me to sex has been part of my rehumanization process, along with it came a lot of questioning of my preferences.

It's been pretty tough. Coming from a life of not getting a choice in anything to being drowned in options makes it quite difficult to decide on anything, as just wading through the options to whittle them down is a slog. Thankfully, I'm a pretty open person, and I've been able to trust my sysmates in leading me along the path. ..Except for one, and of course that one is the one who immediately had taken a shine to me.

Okay that's a bit of an understatement. Duranos had been physically attracted to me since before I even joined the system. Turns out a movie about you will do that. He's not a subtle person, and, I quote: "I am very forward. I will make what I want known." From the beginning he was unusually stiff around me. Him being the system's stand-in for a healer or surgeon didn't help the case much, as because I came here so injured, it was up to him to care for me. I caught onto him pretty quickly, but to his credit his unusual stiffness was him controlling himself around me. Which, I learned I was pretty thankful for, as his control slowly started to break down, and he began to attempt to woo me. It was actually pretty funny in the beginning, until I was given some context; he's not a very "vanilla" person. His words. Being wholly unlearned about anything sex-wise, I dared him to try. Luckily he panicked and got our syscule members to instead help ease me into things. Knowing what I know now.. I'm glad it turned out the way it did, because man that could have gone very poorly.

I learned a lot in those early days. About myself, about my sysmates. I learned that I don't have much of a preference for the sex of my partner--in fact, it hit me pretty quickly that what was more weird, was that I was openly attracted to my nonhuman sysmates. Stupidly smitten, as I've been told. Coming from a place where less than a thousand humans existed and certainly no other type of animal nor alien (except maybe gods or eldritch horrors, but I'm not counting that.) it strikes me as incredibly strange to be attracted to nonhumans. ...Hmm. Maybe having been dehumanized for so long has something to do with it. File that away for later... But, that checked off the sexuality box, for the most part. But the romance box was staring me blindly in the face.

I have felt my sysmates experiencing romance. Daski and Wenduag, 14 and Wenduag, Daski and Duranos, 14 and Daski... Though those last three feel different. 14 describes herself as aromantic and has told me that the love she feels for Wenduag and Daski is light, budding. She can definitely name the feeling but it feels fleeting to her, just as a hint of it. Daski and Wenduag feel romance fully, both with each other and their other partners, and it's easy to feel and name. Duranos... like me, doesnt know how to describe romantic feelings. We can certainly say we have a fondness for the others, a desire to be around and with them. As he'd been trying to figure it out for over two years, I followed his lead and settled on the label of Quioromantic for myself as well.

When he and I started having sex, it was like electricity. We spent a lot of energy trying not to look at each other, because we'd be on top of one another if one of us looked at the other wrong. Das laughs about how it was the quickest turn around of any pairing in the system, expecially between the two idiots who couldn't even describe what romance felt like--and even more ironically, between the kinkiest and the virgin. At first, Daski or Wenduag would accompany us--not necessarily be involved, but enjoying our antics from aside--to make sure that Duranos both didn't hurt me, as well as respected my boundaries. Quickly though, we were too prolific for our chaperones, and they deemed Duranos safe with me--if only because he'd shown remarkable restraint in our many pairings. We certainly had chemistry, and an attraction neither of us could explain. In fact, I think both of us tried really hard not to acknowledge it--its a little embarassing being so stupidly needy for each other.

Then, an "I love you" left his chest during the heat of passion, one night. I even didn't catch it in the moment; it was only upon reviewing the memory string the next morning that I realized it. I asked him if he remembered saying it; he confirmed it quite plainly. I asked him his feelings on saying it--and that I had caught it. The thing about Duranos is that he doesn't like to lie; ommitting facts is fine, but when asked quite bluntly, he has a hard time not telling the truth. Even if I didn't know this about him, he was quite forward with a sincere reply; although he couldn't describe what "love" was in the common fashion, he certainly did care for me, want to spend time with me, be near me--all the typical things that we observed within the romantic feelings our sysmates had for one another. And his feelings were unlike those he had for Daski, and unrequitedly for 14; they were stronger, more complex. I, of course, couldn't help but reply I felt the same for him; when faced with his revelation, I couldn't keep denying it, pretending I didn't at least partially understand the feelings I was having.

It's remained a difficult road. Feelings that aren't easy to parse make it difficult to communicate. See, Duranos, like me, is emotionally stunted in interpersonal aspects. Like me, love was not an emotion he was shown growing up, thus had no frame of reference for. This, it seems, is compounded by his nonhumanness. As I have come to understand, he is part Rakshasa, a fiendish creature that revels in political sabotage, hedonism, and self-servience. He has historically done some truly depraved things for self-serving reasons, and that is where all the concern for my safety has originated. And as much as I've known my sysmates are nonhuman, for the most part their nonhumanness is manageable.

A recent morning, he was extra clingy. I mean, laying atop me and refusing to move, clingy, denying Das getting close to us, clingy. It was the first time that I had ever seen him like this, or even any of the other nonhuman sysmates; I knew it was possible for them to go into "animal brain", as Das has so aptly phrased it, but just.. had never seen it until then. And certainly had never seen Duranos like that before--even when I had observed him in pony-space with Daski previously, he held an air of noble eloquence. This was... ferality. I'd seen hints of it from him, but nothing like this, in hindsight--in the moment, I thought simply he was allowing himself to lean into it but was still quite person in the head. I was quite wrong. I should really have known when Daski insisted on sticking around as we got ready for the day, because as I encouraged him to come shower with me, he was stiff and unresponsive, quite unlike himself. It wasn't until I was assisting him to dry his hair that he snapped out of it.

He admitted that he had fallen into his Rakshasa headspace, and had only broken out of it as he realized that I had been trying to make a bid for him to join me in a perfectly normal, human activity--something he and I have both been practicing doing as it is novel and the lifestyle we, each independently, have always wanted. He apologized profusely as he realized just how far into that headspace he had gotten, and how he hadn't realized how little lucid agency he actually had, that, all he could think of was how possessive he was of me. During a long conversation, he admitted that he tried very hard not to have emotions that weren't anger or lust because those were the two emotions he was most familiar with--and knew best how to handle when his Rakshasa headspace commandeered them. The newly experienced care and desire for me had morphed into obsession and possessiveness thanks to his Rakshasa-ness. As Daski talked to him as someone far more experienced with the situation, all I could do was reel in my own head--what the fuck had I gotten myself into? I'd finally gotten a taste of what all the concern for me was about, and it was terrifying--but admittedly, also strangely attractive. I can say now with more clarity that it's my inexperience with healthy relationships, but in the moment, it was morbidly attractive to be so wanted..

A lot has changed since that morning. It was one thing to have a conversation about one's feelings, and another to see your partner so overwhelmed by their feelings that it becomes unhealthy. He has since made an even more conscious effort to reign in his nonhumanness, if only for making sure I physically stay safe--and I've learned to not encourage his nonhumanness, for my own safety. He has taken Das' advice to allow himself to express his feelings--something he is, apparently, infamous for not doing for many reasons, some understandable--because if he's not stewing in his own head about something, then he's allowing others to aid him in identifying when that emotion becomes unhealthy. This has been a wonderful breath of fresh air, as he was nigh-on unreadable previously, and that has helped both of us understand each other much better, both because of our parallel social ineptitude and, well, we've been growing together through so many of the same issues, that we can help one another.

It also seems as though encouraging him to experience his feelings, and not just squash them down every time he begins to feel something, is quite helping him, as well as me, figure out what romance even feels like. During a horribly blurry fronting time, with Duranos attempting to primary front, me assist, and Daski popping in randomly without even trying, some mixture of our emotions led Duranos to the sickly sweet, warm, sappy emotion of how badly he wanted to have several first-experiences with me. Being all in front, I of course felt it too, and Daski acknowledged That is what romantic feelings were like. Since then, it's sort of unlocked a section of our emotional catalogues--we finally have a frame of reference to work off of, and have been having more experiences that allow us to practice that feeling. It certainly feels nice, and I'm glad to finally be able to put a description to it.

I still hold onto the label of Quoiromantic. Not because I think its wholly correct, but even though I now have some semblance of understanding what the feeling means, and how to label it, it doesn't seem to come naturally. It comes around with prompting, primarily. Is there a better label? Probably. For now, I don't really care--I have more important things to care about. Finally.

Who am I?

It's a question I've asked myself a lot recently during my rehumanizing process. When you strip away all that gets put on my shoulders, "Convict", "Butcher", "Son of Eden"... who is Simon without all of that?

It's a lot to strip away, and repeatedly, constantly, I find myself coming back to, "I am a Son of Eden", like its inextricable from me and my sense of self. And it kind of is. Because when I try to peel that layer back, there is... nothing underneath. There is a man, no--a small child, who is now laid bare, with no identity, no hobbies, no preferences.. There is only a will to survive a horrible life no one should have to have lived.

So I put back on the "Son of Eden" layer. What exactly does that look like? Not much, but something's better than nothing. It's a veneer of routine, subservience, violence--nothing more than a living weapon that gets unsheathed when its time to do a job. A living weapon that's disillusioned with violence, who's blade has dulled and cringes at the whetstone.

So I try to put the other labels back on.

"Butcher" falls on deaf ears here, and runs into the same issue as "Son of Eden"--they are inextricable from one another; "The Butcher" can't exist without being a "Son of Eden", and I would never have been a Son of Eden without being "The Butcher". Yet, somehow "Butcher" hurts more to hear, and feels easier to cast off--"Butcher" wasn't my identity, it was a moniker.

I could never be "The Convict" if I had never been "The Butcher" or "Son of Eden". The latter is what led me to my imprisonment, for better and for worse. I changed a lot in the COI's prison, not that anyone would have noticed that. I trained myself to be more willingly compliant, less militant, more understanding. I reigned in my temper, I tried to be everything opposite the COI thought of us on Eden. ..Not that they ever saw it that way, but being away from Eden and it's teachings did help me put my head in order. I didn't want to be violent, and the Realization Program's promise of being something greater was actually tempting.

So, I have to think, then, who am I with everything still put on my shoulders--but none of which matters?

I'm an extremely traumatized man, with a (less) bad temper, who has led a structured, militant life, who no longer wants to be violent, cares too much about how he's percieved, has no hobbies, no decision-making skills, and is socially inept.

Not a real great foundation.

So, I ask myself, should I just, throw out everything I was, since I'm already trying to remake myself anew here? Das once told me "sure, you're starting from scratch but youre not starting from nothing. You have ingredients, the bits of you that make up who you are, but you gotta figure out what you want to make with them." It seems real tempting. But it also begs the question of, what can I even do with what's left?

I try to pick out the positive bits--or at least, bits that I can spin as positive. My need for structure led Chief to suggest I help front and get the body's life back in order after years of unmanaged ADHD. That's been pretty nice, but I don't know what to do with it. I've been told several times that I'm a good man, caring and soft in the face of insane opposition that many others would have fallen back into my old habits if they'd been in my position. It's nice to know that my efforts are being seen, but it doesn't give me a direction of what to do with it. My trauma is getting better, and to many, that's really all they know about me--and that's kind of the identity I have right now..

The fandom gave me a new moniker: "The Patron Saint of One-Way Trips"... Someone put up to an impossible task and still did his best... I like that a lot better than "living weapon".

Maybe, then, I'm going about thinking about who I am in all the wrong ways. I keep wanting to strip away what I've done and start over. But I'm cumulatively everything I've done, worked for, and changed about myself. I mean, I can't completely erase everything that's happened--I'm still missing an arm, after all, a living reminder of what I've been through.

So, hi, I'm Simon. I fought against an eldritch horror to try and get knowledge to people who will never actually know who I am--and I don't even know if that knowledge will help or harm them. I'm stubborn. I get things done. I try my hardest. I care about others, even if they piss me off. I like music, trying new foods, wearing comfy clothes, seeing photos of space that only existed when I was a kid, petting animals, and I hope to have a garden soon.

I guess the rest will come with time.

At first, being here, and knowing that the world I'm from is fictional here, was weird. ..I mean, it still is but what's weirder is how many people know me, even superficially, because a movie was made about the worst time of my life. Over the time I've been here, it's gotten easier to comprehend, but the more I run into it, the weirder it gets.

There's some part of my brain that really wants to interact with the fandom. I think I've narrowed it down to the fact that, I was so isolated in that tin can, that knowing there are people who know exactly what I've gone through, makes me feel so much less alone in those memories. It doesn't fix that I was alone during that time, but it helps me fact-check my own memories--see, the multiple concussions, eldritch madness, oxygen deprivation/CO2 poisoning...

But I've also run into this off-putting phenomena as time goes on, and we get further and further away from the movie's release... Folks writing fanfic, writing headcanons, writing AUs... Only know a little bit about me. There's a lot that is hinted at, or is obtuse and you have to think about--Daski loves doing this, calls it "theory crafting", and while dei and a lot of others have gotten close, there are some people who... I dunno, need to revisit the source material? as Daski would put it. There are folks trying to write about me, and completely getting details wrong. Not on purpose--not always--I don't think. But it's enough to make me pause, and go "who are you writing about?" I've seen the movie. In fact it helped me a lot when I first got here to put my memories in order, and help me keep them in my brain so they didnt just get relegated to fiction. (I've been told the brain does that to protect itself.) It's really fucking accurate to what I went through. So when I see writings that flagrantly go against what was established in the movie, it doesn't just ping to me as strange; it makes me question how obvious details got missed... I don't mean folks who are purposefully throwing away canon, such as AUs, no I understand the suspension of disbelief in those cases. But, some interpretations obviously seem to be trying to build upon "canon"--and just, miss the mark completely.

Beyond that strange part of the fandom, the other reason I want to interact with the fandom, but can't seem to be able to, is it's been triggering the feeling of having a hallucination in me. This has gotten better over time as I've become more grounded here in my new reality, but when I was new here and so desperate to not feel alone, it was several times I tried reading fanfic or headcanons and triggered the fuck out of myself because I still hadn't solidified what had actually happened versus what was a hallucination. Thus, a "reality" that didn't happen to me was quickly filed in my brain under "fake...?". Currently, these happenstances don't trigger me; they do squick me out though. It's like my brain is healed well enough, but there's still that hint of doubt...

At first, being here and knowing that this world has thousands of people who know me, even superficially, was extremely scary. The movie was made about the absolute worst time of my life, when I was at absolute rock bottom as a person (even beyond being welded into a tin can of a submarine and tossed into a blood ocean) and being here extremely traumatized meant I was constantly afraid of being recognized. As I've become grounded to the new reality that I'm in, and we travel constantly with merchandise depicting me (in the worst fucking moment of my life, thank you very much Daski; I don't care how adorable you find it or how fitting it is--) I've learned that... this world is so much larger than I could have ever have expected. The way Das and the internet have made it seem, is that I'm recognizable to everyone upon first glance, but so far, we haven't run into a single instance of anyone recognizing me. Half of (if not a higher percentage of) the friend groups we hang out with have no idea who I am.

And yet, the folks who know me, recognize me in a single glance. I've been pretty lucky in that my systemmates have been very professional about my situation. Wenduag, someone with a widely recognized source like myself, has had much worse experiences than I have, and although we don't really get along, she's been incredibly protective of me in the regards of knowing how and when I should interact with fandom/fans, and I'll be eternally grateful for that. Being well known makes me feel like a time bomb, just waiting for someone to go "wait, is that Simon??". I'm not even sure how I'll handle when that happens, and it's a dread I continue to carry with me, even as I get more accustomed to being here.

Though, the one thing I doubt I'll ever quite get accustomed to, is knowing that I have a doppelganger in this world. I of course mean the man who directed the movie in which he performed as me. I can and will say his name, but for the sake of my journal I'll refer to him as my doppelganger, because that's what he is to me. Das is quite a fan of him and has admitted to me that he is half the reason dei went to see the movie. For a very long time, Das had trouble not calling me by his name, and it was quite early in my residency here that dei were forced to explain how the system knew me so well, because dei couldn't stop calling me by his name. (For the record, dei have not called me by his name for quite a long time now, dei've gotten it down pat by now.)

It doesn't weird me out to see someone who looks like me and sounds like me on the computer screen. But it does weird me out to watch him be an absolute doofus. I'm aware he's an actor, I've been told many times he's a comedian and a performer, but I can't stop wondering how The Fuck he managed to nail my mannerisms and posture and tone of voice perfectly for the movie. It's so opposite of the other performances he does, very serious, very sober. Kudos to him, ...but still awkward. Das likes to take screenshots of him as "expression references" for drawing me later (I'm perfectly okay with the drawing part) and I keep stopping deim, wondering what the fuck dei're picking that one for, and the response is always "you ALWAYS make this face!". I highly doubt it, ..but Duranos tends to back deim up..

It was quite helpful having a doppelganger early in my recovery though... Part of my rehumanization process was learning to make decisions for myself, and one activity was choosing clothing. My doppelganger helped in that it seems we have some overlapping tastes, and I knew that if I saw him wearing an outfit I liked, I knew it'd look good on me.

I've officially decided I don't like weather.

Growing up on a space station, where weather simply isn't a thing, has made being in this new reality quite a culture shock. What do you mean there's water that falls from the sky. (There's a SKY I have to worry about now?) Or frozen water. At least space wasn't as fickle as the atmosphere, we had accurate scans on when asteroids would come nearby, not this "maybe it'll go this way, based on previous instances" bullshit.

At first, it was "unseasonable" thunderstorms. It both helped and didn't whatsoever that Duranos is apparently a "Storm Druid"--someone who can harness the power of thunderstorms. It's comforting to be by his side and take shelter in his calm, knowing that if he's not worried about it, I shouldn't be--but all of the new sounds still put me on edge. Heavy rain sounds a lot like a ship getting pelted with space debris, which I hope I don't need to explain why that's a bad sound. Lightning and subsequently thunder, are, I'm told, very common to be afraid of, since they both are sudden and startling. I get the extra startle from being a spacer, where sudden flashes of bright light means something is extremely wrong with your ship or station and to hold your breath, and loud bangs usually mean imminent danger, due to decompression from an impact.

But now it's "unseasonable", *checks notes* clouds that spin so fast that it creates destructive winds that can destroy structures and suck things up into the wind tunnel? I'm sorry, what the fuck? This is coming from someone who drowned in an ocean of blood--What the Actual Fuck?

Look, I've been enjoying a lot of things getting to experience Earth for the first time after decades of hearing stories about it, but no one ever mentioned that "weather" was some fucked up joke of *checks more notes* hot and cold wind interacting. I don't like it. Stop that.