DrAnnonymous

It's still unnamed.
I started it as a project for friends back in high school, an innocent text-based tabletop combination of Risk, Civilization, Dwarf Fortress, my misguided concept of what Dungeons and Dragons must be like, Sword and Sorcery Pulps, and Lovecraftian Horror ...and Postmodernism.
Surrealist, numerous fantasy/sci-fi love letters. Just a big clusterfuck of "anything goes."
Set in an alt history of magic and Gods, cross referencing cultures and ideas as well as mine own, it was a highly experimental game based on the fact that I have not once written a serious fantasy setting let alone PLAYED in a traditional fantasy setting. My thought processes were based largely on utilizing a deck of cards rather than dice, text entirely rather
than a board, and by purposely (and rather lazily) having no rulebook, actively making up the systems as I went along.
The open-ended nature became extraordinarily complex, not only due to reality ensuing and making meta-gaming between the players, but also because my interests were ebbing and flowing into other art projects, people, and eventually college matters and the complete disconnect and disintegration of everyone involved IN this game.
Sloppily jotted down in a ragged orange notebook, scribbled frantically, hundreds of ideas loosely crammed into this tiny fucking book. 
Until about...a day ago?
Whether this be a manic episode I'll drop after making a massive push before life continues crushing me, this becomes a major aspect of my life, or I finish  it in a glorious push and can actually work on writing out the stories interlocked after the game itself ends...I realized a few issues and promptly fixed them.
Converted everything to text files online, and provided numerous updates to make everything less tedious.
I continued and/or developed deeper motivations for the skeleton-crew nations with leaders simply continuing as the characters would have.
I've taken over this game of 18 nations and am effectively playing an experimental chess game with myself, now, for the sake of seeing what would happen. 
And this nonsense is simply supposed to be for LORE, the original idea had FIVE independent novels I wanted to write out. I just included this as a separate phase of 6 total grand arcs.

*0 is this grand political fantastique clusterfuck. The basic premise is that "God" is real and reveals himself to man, indirectly, through the discovery of a rune from pre-history by archaeologists, which splinters into 5 pieces that each particular member takes...which drastically alters each's psyche into a mad leader of various ideals and goals once they return
to civilization. The world is kept in a Pangea for longer than reality, as well, which writes away why there is a universal language, cultures and people ended up all over the place, technology is in very different stages in different areas and progresses in strange and often nonsensical ways, the populations are SMALL for the time, people are notably easily kept from starvation/disease/the natural world being harsh, etc.

The first is overwhelmed by the revelation of God's absolute truth, and forms the faction based on being "Holy."
The major problem/plot devise is said God, which cleverly models itself after the Christian God for meta devices, is actually much more akin to an extremely powerful entity of chance. It isn't God in the sense that many modern cultures can understand, and as such the Holy faction quickly descends into a manic madness led by an impulsive psychopathic leader-vessel-Popelike figure, hell bent on converting the rest of the world to its ideals of destroying them in the process. While no faction is considered evil, necessarily, a nation of zealous psychopaths with divine favor/power and connections to otherwordly entities posing as angels and led by the creator God of this world makes them...extremely notable.
The militant and experimental playstyle further fed the idea that chancem moreso than any other faction, and divine favor will determine their game.
The lore implications and set up makes this effectively my vessel for exploring religion, chance, insanity, lovecraftian horror and meta. 

The second is similarly overwhelmed, but experiences visions (Which I'd later realize are eerily similar to those by Philip K. Dick) of a vast future, of impossible scientific progresses,
vast other worlds deep into the voids of the cosmos, and technologies the likes of which have yet to be understood in MODERN times. The possibility of wanting to seek that future
leads to a fascination with "defeating death" to allow humanity to focus on its' greater context in the universe. This faction is loosely nicknamed "High Tech" and begins rapidly progressing into the sciences...to varying degrees and with fluctuating focus on experimental, realistic, and magitek-styled technologies and a diverse array of goals once they find their immortality. A lot of this sets up a speculative fiction/philosophical tone a la cyberpunk, an goes into a lot of hyper-analysis of the implications of a world of schizophrenic technology marching in all directions and the dangers posed by a God and thus world that's so directly linked to chaos and entropic principles that it'll likely undo itself. 
As such, they are sworn enemies of the Holy faction and seek, among many other ideas, to understand and kill this "God." 
God not being able to instantly recognize this and stop it is the first hint that God isn't...a true literal God, more an Elder God of sorts. 
That can, in fact, be killed. Potentially.
This faction allows me to explore sci-fi tropes, have bizzarre matchups of cultures and technologies where people are fighting not even REMOTELY close battles (To reduce the total
significance of just stacking numbers), and at large introduces a lot of ways to understand the world from a "normal" standpoint albeit with extreme endgoal plans. 
Also introduces the concept of God making more Gods and allowing other pantheons/mythos being a form of faith/quantum mechanical abuse of reality warping, and that the random pulls from other cultures and Gods, etc are based in faith and belief. This gives a set up for Nonhumans, alien lifeforms, and allows the IMPORTANT concept of Gods and creatures being killable through killing ever worshiping, knocking it out of this dimension entirely. 
Also, fucking mechs.

The third is given a twisted form of the same visions of the High Tech man (Again, no proper names yet) where all organic life is replaced by wired machinery, grayscale colossal statues essentially forming a mass grave in a world seemingly devoid of life. He also sees and yearns for the vast, sophisticated technologies of the future and space,
but is given a much shorter glimpse which serves more as a cautionary tale of the implications of a nation that seeks to become immortal by any means necessary. They seek similar
goals, and as such are allied with the High Techs, but seek this future in harmony with the natural, organic world, and are MUCH more open to the concept of God being borderline necessary, death being natural, and entropy not being something to necessarily fear. Essentially, they become a rogue cult of hippies that fears extremism of any side, and is focused less on the philosophical elements of the world and more the sensory, fantastical and whimsical sides. "Green Tech."
This was extremely influenced by the Hippie movement, Beatnik generation, steampunk literature, Dada, and ESPECIALLY psychedelia and surrealism. 
This faction's playstyle emphasizes defensive, strategic survivalism of seeking allies and fostering a strong culture/community which can (A la Civ) culture-flip civilizations out of their insane idealogies or merely become so powerful they aren't able to be conquered. This faction's basis is a lighthearted step back from the crazier groups and seeks simply to live for the sake of living, a love letter to Absurdism and more open-ended players. 
They, canonically, win, due to the Nonhumans naturally allying more easily with a country that is actually accepting of their existence and ISN'T seeking the active end all life/opposing beliefs. This benefit starts small but begins amassing powerful alliances that eventually lead to (Depending on the game) them outright winning the world war it spirals into, or the idealogy slowly cracking and reforming from whoever actually was SUPPOSED to win. 
This however doesn't mean a victory is meaningless, history and how I write these later phasis is heavily based on the winning faction, as they are the direct link to my writing.

The fourth is given a direct surge of reality-warping understanding, and becomes fascinated deeply with what is later discovered to be actual magic. 
This magic is based on manipulating probability in such a way that the effects they vie for are so, such as "fireballs" being, depending on the user, simply leaping through time and space until a version of you that can naturally produce a fireball can take your place and then having THEM fire it, or even something as simple as fire already being there in a different timeline. Magic is poorly understood, tricky to develop, and, as is widely noted, inconsistent in its explanations for why is even completely works in the first place.
However, before much can be done with man is treated as a witch, what with the Holy man already demonstrating much more fantastic powers, and is ousted with an extremely small group of followers. They are automatically hostile to every other faction due to this historical grudge, and have natural abilities no other human can naturally match. 
This also makes them particularly hostile to the Holy faction as well, basically being rivals of chance/vs studious forms of reality-warping, and the High Tech, who see them as utterly unnatural and thus problematic. These witches have a penalty to initial population, though they gain massive boons in the magic school system, being able to still use technology, and abusing their connections to nonhumans and spirits is almost a given. 
This faction's playstyle is one less based on political agenda, technological advancement or cultural micromanagement or luck, and is almost solely governed by creative use of magic and being open entirely to whatever one's heart desires. Powerful growth of magi is the only goal, and you could simply turtle somewhere and grow. 
If the world would only allow. 
This allows me to explore magic, physics, and plenty of deconstruction/reconstruction of fantasy tropes, along with introducing plenty of bizarre concepts, characters, monsters, and new schools of magic (Often based on the actual periodic table or manipulation of CONCEPTS), have a place for Surrealists (LORE) to start, and let me write in my absolute love of witches in all forms. "Mages."

And finally, the fifth man...gets extremely confused as to why the other 4 are babbling incoherently about Gods and wired men who have lightning for blood and nature being important...he sees his chunk as nothing more than incredibly valuable, and he sells it to an unnamed eccentric lord for an absurd amount of money before founding what later becomes an empire. This faction, if it can even be called that , has a MASSIVE initial population bonus in return for...having no other gimmick. You are the rogue/human of this world, this world of Gods and space-age technology and magical beings and crytids, this is absolutely normal people each with as diverse goals and idealogies as a normal civilization. 
Similar to the Green Tech, the Imperials are merely let loose in this world, but have even LESS direction. Survive, conquer the craziness around you with sheer numbers, manipulate, assassinate, meta, find the most deceptive and dishonest means to remain alive. 
This is my dark comedy centered faction, absolutely normal people to juxtapose everything else with realistic depictions of modern military groupings in this chaos.
Snipers killing mages before they can cast spells, simply nuking Zeus out of the sky, assassination religious leaders so rituals can't be completely, and bribing nations into fight wars for them for promise of other land, the Imperials are lovable rouges who are squarely unimpressed with all this entropy God nonsense 
Ready the cannons, arm the men and enslave their women as we march.

 The canon is that a particularly friendly/"good" faction wins or at least slowly idealogically creeps over whatever remains of this war. (Those damn greens).

This predates a lot of my current influences, such as Africa basically being Wakanda (STILL haven't watched Black Panther) with Sun-Ra themes, a particular nation effectively being a retelling of Evangelion/Event Horizon, another being an Exp of Serial Experiments Lain crossed with I Legend, or understanding Lovecraftian Horror enough to actually have a good idea of how to realistically include Elder Gods without breaking the entire game, etc. A lot of ideas I had before ever getting CLOSE to the execution or firmly looking too deeply into existing fantasy tropes to use as a reference point. And after seeing said reference points, it shapes several plotlines in a way that is both more traditional/generic, but this also allows me to further cross and deconstruct tropes while having fucktons of references. This is by far the most ambitious plotline since it's EVERYTHING and less about characters, MUCH more about the world building at large. Huge scale...which was the point. It's the lore that sets up every single story and allows history for the rest of the novels. 

Phase 1 is about an undead prince (The idea predates my love of Dark Souls but it fits perfectly) effectively seeking to understand his place in the world following his seemingly random resurrection into a war-torn world. He is later revealed to be the physical manifestation of Death/the Grim Reaper (Originally just an Imperial general), firmly established as one of the generals of a particular nation that stylized its' generals after the biblical riders of the apocalypse.
He speaks in an extremely dense, poetic way calling back to several literary classic favorites of mine (Poe, Lovecraft, Shakespeare, Dante in particular. Again, this was the FIRST idea so my original influences). The primary focus of this novel is philosophy and death, and his adventures across countries...
finding himself in bizarre circumstance but often as an independent observer was extremely influenced by my constant dissociation, depression, Kino's Journey, and later the Soulsborne franchise. Particularly the understanding of being Death both conceptually AND literally, and the experiences of one being both in this one particular place but also everywhere death is the more avant-garde, psychedelic sliding scale that establishes a lot of thematic references ranging from Existential thought, Absurdism, and Nihilism. 
Again, my original fascinations. Further tropes include the concept of time, psychology, war, coping, suicide, dark comedy, art influence, and mythology. 
Not much emphasis on technology, horror, or the more surreal aspects yet, this is firmly rooted in Dark Fantasy, English Literature, and Poetry. 
Arguably the least weird ideas and surprisingly tame, graphically.

Phase 2 is a series of short story arcs intertwined in a by-now largely modernized world where reality is beginning to unfold at an alarming rate,  as such the entropic principles of physics and quantum mechanics were being WIDELY misunderstood by God (Who may or may not be dead by this point, hilariously it hardly matters as his existence would simply be floating around laughing as the world is so chaotic he needs to do no more). Focused on horror and science fiction, primarily, and ESPECIALLY the fusion of the two. Lovecraftian horror takes a much
bigger role here, technology resurfaces as a major element and the supernatural/spook weird tales glow in their pulpy, surreal nature between true crime and dreamlike circumstances. It's a bad trip that emphasizes character arcs and atmosphere, similar in tone to Twin Peaks, Videdrome, David Lynch's general films, Until Dawn, Welcome to Nightvale, P.T., Silent Hill,Resident Evil, Junji Ito, and Doctor Who, but many more calls to gothic horror, crytids, serial killers, ufology, H.P. Lovecraft, creepypasta, J-Horror, and surreal horror as a whole, while the technological weirdness marches on in a cyberdelic nightmarescape that often harkens to darker dystopian novels. Politics matters again, and cyberpunk is thick when weird shit isn't popping off. Widely different stories, very much a modernist variant of the first phase but less emphasis on classics in literature and more pop culture/modern based. 
Again, not TOO weird since it's all grounded in relatively tread ground, albeit with my lore/characters and weird plot devices.
Can do a lot of weird meta stuff here.

Phase 3 is also a series of short story arcs based upon an Apocalypse, the total deconstruction of the world and all it's logic, where physics and time get hideously warped,
God, the Devil, and cosmic horrors all essentially pour into the world at once, all the nightmarish problems of the older phases come back and technology isn't ready for it.
This phase is pretty much combining the scale of Phase 0 into the philosophical themes of 1 and the horror influence of 2. Religious horror out the fucking wazoo, with the darkest fantasy setting by far. This will go so far into fucked up territory again and again that I might have to make sure it isn't so over the top it becomes hilarious. 
It's pretty much set up to be my literary form of a Bosch painting, my variant of Salo sessions and Ragnarok/The Rapture. Gods fighting Gods, maybe some dinosaurs for good measure, pure Surreal and religious Horror. Most similarly tonally to Berserk, or the Soulsborne universe. But on a much larger scale.
By far the darkest set of ideas and story arcs, I can get into some pretty twisted and nightmarish stuff here. 

Phase 4, my actual original idea, is a post-apocalyptic tale set after a band of impossibly powerful forces end the Apocalypse but DON'T undo the damages done.
Pangea is re-established, and a band of nearly all children (By this point one of the last human civilizations or pockets of life to begin with) are sent into the expanses of the desert for resources, not told by their families that this is because the small town they're from has used every last bit of energy and food they have.
They are sent off in a protoype mecha developed hundreds of years ago as a self-sustaining transportation mech shaped and designed like a gigantic turtle, which functions like a land-ship and can be outfitted across different landscapes. They WILL see equally fantastical mechs dotting the land, again like Kino's Journey.
This is character driven, and goes back to the poetic adventure basis of phase 1, as these children escape capture, death, starvation, and seek purpose and meaning in a world nearly
devoid of all hope and life. A cute, surreal, notably light-hearted set of stories written from the points of view of EACH character in a revolving set of journal entries. 
It'll be an avant-garde style of writing as each child has their own tics, understanding of the events around them (With the younger children's being outright abstract poetry), and set of duties/responsibilities. Tonally most similar to the original inspiration, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. 
Extremely goofy and silly compared to the other phases, a lot of whimsy and cute slice-of-life antics. Will likely be very short and dense.

Phase 5, the loosest concept by far.
Physics have inverted to the point where the sky and ocean are replaced, the cosmos can only be reached through a thick layer of frozen ice, most of civilization lives underground in tunnels, lit by the light from lava deep below. Magic realism set up of surreal comedy, tonally similar to Alice in Wonderland and a continuation of Phase 5 but even sillier to the point of being a proper comedy/fantasy.
I have a few characters but no general narrative yet, just the premise. 

So yeah. 
I have a lot to work on, starting with this goddamn game, BY FAR the hardest section. 
And then, storytelling. 

I have to move my things back in with my mother, I have bills to catch up on and personal issues to sort out.
I've barely slept, I've barely eaten or showered. Work picks back up in no longer than one week. 
I have a backlog the size of a small country, and my mind is racing with ideas. 
All of this, this entire world, crammed into my fucking head. 
It needs written. I hope it comes out well, but it MUST be written.
I've been saving visual references all day, fantasy artists and concepts, sciences, other writers of weird tales and pulp fiction to look into.
I still need to finish Paradisio, and don't even get me started on film and music for establishing tone. 
This could be the single greatest creative output of my life, and I'm equally scared of rushing it sloppily as I am of never finding the focus to finish it in my lifetime.
I could do this by the end of the year if I just fucking focused. At LEAST I could do Phase 1 if I finished 0 by Summer's start.

Resident Evil 2 Remake, that's all I gotta say. Not that I've played it, or even own it, yet. In the meantime, still grindy games. 
It's come to a standstill with me always crawling back to games that let me explore possibility; variables, management of resources, and skills to sharpen, I actually care about time attacks and scores again after years of either wanting to simply improve or be comfortable. 
Dark Souls 3 has been a fun grind now that my cousin's guiding me and my lady through the DLCs. We cleared Ashes but he had a data crash shortly after he finished Ringed City with her. So I'm left partially wandering the final area, which gives it a strange sense of wonder again. I caved and looked into the storyline, fucking poetic ending. 
Don't Starve Together had another update I've yet to look into, I'm STILL looking into the myriad of uses of Christmas items and spamming the tree gifts. 
Also haven't even come close to bothering to carve out the ruins yet, I always get RIGHT there then get frustrated or bored. And online? Forget about it. 
Maybe if I bothered using the mic I could be a sort of leader and delegate but since I'm usually playing with kids (who die easily and know nearly nothing) it's tough. And if there's anyone else speaking, they're condescending as fuck about "proper" setups or meta. That's usually my job! But explaining tiers to kids is masochism equal parts pointless. 
Skullgirls, I remembered the frame data and hitboxes that went into the detailed ass training room. I'm learning to cover my weaknesses and ready to experiment with different setups and character roles...I usually just spam with Peacock and focus on a single bread-and-butter Parasoul combo (Or Squigly) but I'm bored of being a 2/3-trick and feeling like I NEED to win because I've invested time into a game and throwing a hissy fit when someone figures out my like 2 approaches. Fighting games are goddamn amazing. Hard, no one to blame but yourself, varied difficulties, no story to interrupt, no trillion concepts to constantly adapt to, just raw skill and a slight meta that only comes into play if you're pro and thusly no longer having fun with the game...
I have a slight gravitation to RE5 due to all the media hype, and it's splitting me into using all the Mercs characters on every level, playing the campaign itself again (I've beat it on Pro, have had EVERYTHING on my Xbox copy), or finally getting off my scrub ass and going through 0 and REmake...or at least finishing Revelations, 4, or Code Veronica. 
I'm just so fucking bad at puzzles and get lost regularly. I love the atmosphere and everything about survival horror, I just wish I wasn't so goddamn stupid that it sucks all the fun out of playing them. And when I'm regularly doing chores and cooking it crushes the atmosphere even more. I gave up on Claire and barely inched into Alien Isolation, didn't even SEE the fucking thing and it's one of my favorite horror franchises of all time!
A few flash games I'm interested in, too, and looking into Res 7...I kinda want to keep up with it from now on, as my series of choice (Next to Soulsborne but fuck Demon's and 2).
Minecraft came and went as a cursory interest, and Dwarf Fortress and finally going to other proper rouguelikes is like a parasite in the back of my mind too. 
So much I WANT to do but feel like I need a ritualistic set of prerequisites to meet first before I can relax and enjoy it all. 

On that same note, I went through about half of Ghost in the Shell's Stand Alone Complex and then Serial Experiments Lain cropped up and got me interested in Lainism and Transhumanism...which made me want to write and then read but I'm still stuck on Paradisio (Which I ironically named my journal entry shortly before a personal low point).
I need to straighten my shit out, yes, but in real life we now have infinite food and well...we've kept up with rent at least! My job picked back up and I picked up more days at least!
Her job isn't bought out yet at least! Just kinda watching reality crumble around me in comfort, Ambient radio blaring. 

[Stomach hurts so fucking bad. Bad coffee, then MORE coffee, pizza, my diet's gone to shit and I don't even exercise anymore, I should really work on my self-care more]

Haven't gotten around to my neighbor. I feel thoroughly embarrassed about my meetup and now am too ashamed to even humor making music, if I'm being honest. 
I'd need to seriously sit down and start rehearsing my songs, out loud and to people, until I get MY OWN SOUND right. 
I just sound that shitty after years of never showing anyone anything, or having any criticism thrown my way. 
I just feel like I'm awful even if the lyrics and flow and tech all work out on paper. I just need to practice.
Bass is the opposite, I NEVER practice, I can just jump back in and WHAM BAM I'm still good enough to learn songs and play old ones. I barely know old ones.
And not novice, I'm intermediate, skill-wise, and can even play a few advanced ones (Going by tab difficulties, of course...not my own ranking).
But...I don't know, what the fuck do I do with the ability to play my bass moderately well? Not good enough to matter but not bad enough to justify constant practice.
My sax work is probably dogshit, especially since I love bebop and that ain't shit you can just jump into. Maybe I'll learn the blues, or classical. That would be nice and classy. 

Incense in the bathroom was a great idea. So was the oil burner set up, and the candelabra downstairs is just begging to be used with the black candles. 

I talked to and hung out with an old friend, first friend to actually see my son. I felt mundane and ashamed of my houses' filth, yet proud of having a house, son, waifu and responsibilities to juggle to begin with. They might move in with us, help with the bills. I doubt it, after a lackluster hang out. But it'd be something to write about if it happens. 

I've felt sane, relatively, after the year ended in a state of total psychosis and paranoia. The anxiety lingers and my anger never subsides entirely, but I have more open thoughts than being entirely convinced the world is out to get me. It's almost empowering to know I'm more out to get IT, half the time. No need for therapy just yet, but with the bills about to collapse around us I'm sure it'll be rough unless we straighten our money situation our REAL soon. The usually themes come and go, right now I'm stuck between Cyberpunk and Fantasy, and fashion-wise it's a blend of Alt fashions, Avant-Garde and upper-class men's. I'd like better clothes. At least to replace my 4 year old P-coat since my love got me nice shoes for Christmas. She's been significantly improving in terms of housekeeping and communications and it's made us become solid again. I love her very much.

I would like to continue my blog, but I still haven't recovered from nearly getting my channel shut down for copywrite strikes when I made the datamosh vids. 
And Faceswap is more complicated than I anticipated. I want to work on more original work but I never feel inspired enough to get my own photos/art/video to disrupt. 
I'd like to just post my datamosh videos and not get yelled at for "sampling" but what would even allow that, another video sharing platform? My own blog, where no one will hunt me down and remove it all? Should I just learn the damn copywrite code to not get yelled at? Should I stick to public domain everything, embracing a vintage style?
Or just keep them privately, only ever posting stuff with permissions? It's a mess but I'm so glad I know how to do all of this at least. I DO wish I had a terabyte though. 

Somewhat interested in hacking and programming/coding, but mostly honestly I'm fascinated at logic gates thanks to quantum physics. I love AI. I love drones. I love watching code interact. I just wish I expressed an interest in it earlier, it could've been a proper career. Now it feels too late or wasteful to look into, especially what with us literally being OFFERED a car and still not even getting our permits yet. I feel like I'm fundamentally fucking up beyond repair as an adult. My sons about to be walking and I'm still ranting about video games and music? I feel like I need to become more handy and grow up, still. Stop relying on family to guide me, as little as they do, I want to be independent as can be and it shows. 
My phone is off, rent was only caught up due to my mother. I need a better job, a car, I know time's running out to get it all together but it's somewhere between too stressful to worry about directly and not actually that bad. Yet. Luca's fine, we have food, we have jobs. I think the rest sorts itself out in due time. I can only hope, really. 

Nothing notable about work. Lots of favorite people left, only really friends with fellow dishwashers. Starting to resent the rest to various degrees. My totally unapproachable nature makes me not exactly popular, moreso with the ditzy movements and bigger interest in my podcasts, Twitter, and music. But who gives a shit, I'm good at my job and more reliable than anyone else at this point. 

[Good lord did I mention my stomach imploding too much yet? Awful events transpiring, here].

I fucking love Welcome to Nightvale. Not sure where to go on it, but horror, dark comedy, surrealism and satire in the deadpan radio format with great music is a solid ass program.
Last Podcast on the Left is still glorious, just gotta keep some distance from too many serial killer episodes. Grime in the tiles, so to speak. 

Malibu Ken was pretty good, Bird Box was better than expected (if I didn't already mention that), still need to get back to Netflix binges (Penny Dreadful STILL not finished, don't even get me started on fuckin' movies right now good lord my backlog is the size of a galaxy). 

Still lots of friends to hang out with, at least I got ONE out of the way, and her family's finally appreciating my efforts to clean (becoming increasingly easier as my sanity returns in waves).

Musically, I've returned to properly setting atmosphere in gaming: EDM/Rave for RE5 Mercs, celtic and world music for DST (Or "steampunk" vague as that sounds), and anything to keep in a good mood for the saltfest that is Souls. Hip-hop and trace helps Skullgirls the most but it was built for jazz. 

Still politically reppin' centrism, ESPECIALLY in recent events where I ended up on the tragic side of the truth for several working controversies...weird coming from an anarchist/communist background now hating radicals. Maybe seeing it from the inside exposes you to the flaws, though I cherish the though of utopian society through technology...
Sad to say that tech upgrading is going to come from capitalism, though. It might just mean reinterpreting the concept of communism, maybe it IS the end-game for economic chess, who fucking knows at this point. I just know human nature better than I ever wanted to, by now, and I can definitely understand that if there wasn't a million people with my ideals it would fucking fall apart. Hell the goddamn leaders of every radical movement end up being exploitative hypocrites anyway, it's more about the power and status than the actual effects on the world, it's imposing ideals to see the world around you change. There's a bitter blood in every movement and genre, every passing blessing and boon. 

And I leave you, me, with that. 

It's been a long, cruel year, but I've made mental breakthroughs. For them most part, I seem to be in control of my emotional ebbing and flowing.
It's thought, now, pure and dissociative. But not to the same crippling extent it once was. I still have fun and joke, only it's extremely hard to relax.
Sometimes anxiety, sometimes excitement, most of the time and existential boredom, but at least I'm making progress and figuring things out.
I've learned to tackle some problems head-on and when to pull back and recuperate - consistency is still an issue and coffee agitating me to anger is another one. 
But I'm sure getting actual sleep and fixing problems would help that. Hell right now I SHOULD be finding a part time, as my job is about to be closed for a few months and unemployment can only provided so little. The house is still not set up, messy, I have dishes and garbage I've neglected. But it's stressing me out only so much, now, whereas that was actively stunlocking me earlier. I'm getting more help and showing more competence in solving problems. This was tested in Transistor and several games, I conclude my mental states are, in fact, different keys for different issues and have nothing to do with an identity crisis. Looking into this further, and pulling in several theories from transpersonal psyche, jungian ideas and behaviorism, it seems to be these subpersonas are weaponized aspects of the self that assert themself in patterns to repeated issues,
And that my "colors" idea from literally junior high was a legitimate concept in psychology, multiple versions of yourself to help see things in different ways for different actions.
Thinking outside of your own head, which psychedelics made even more literal and confusing.
But these different personas are normal. The average person, they claim, has around 12 subpersonas, all adapted into our various situations and emotional states.
And it makes sense, suddenly, why we're all so profoundly unable to understand ourselves but think others are straightforward by comparison, it's the "I know I don't know" thing. 

But then again, lots of people are exactly as shallow as they look and that's the total extent.
I don't care about grammar right now, or structure. My mind's racing. 

I'm finally going to work on music with a neighbor, today. Mom's friend. If I can use this as a vehicle to record actual music, that would be life-changing as hip-hop is a massive chunk of my life and arguably what'd I'd consider my passion (Calling, if it was more financially viable). But even if it's just practicing delivery, experimenting or working on HIS music as a rapper over beats, or this doesn't go as well as I'd hope, I just hope he understands my skill and has some ambition. 
I've become a Type A personality over the course of this year, no longer content to let the universe toss me around like some sad sack of uncontrollable shit.
I blame people, myself, cultures, and clash horribly. My political stance has turned conservative, radically centered (Oxymoronic I know).
I've made leaps in my understanding of quantum mechanics, finding the Pilot Wave theory and quantum eraser fascinating. 
I'm trying to stray from the multiverse theory and find a more realistic concept to grasp. Determinism is still a facet of my understanding. Non-locality, entanglement, the concept of what observation really is, fascinating. I'm not too sure about the Copenhagen Interpretation being even remotely right or true. I have a lot to look into beyond cursory looks at the different interpretations, maybe finally get into the nitty gritty sciences.

This recent scientific retreat isn't too shocking, I dip into this line of thought when reality isn't bogging me down too much. Or perhaps when I'm numb to caring.
My mental state has deteriorated to new lows, this year, and it's absolutely soul-crushing understanding what lies within the human mind and the depravity we can come to.
To understand a psychopath is one thing, but to empathize? Cults, serial killers, fringe theories of conspiracy, ufology, cryptozoology, I love LPOTL but they opened a floodgate of fringe topics I've been curious about and it's been equally exciting as terrifying. It's led me to paranoid delusions, moral degeneration, and a desperate need to control more than I normally would care about, in fear of another curveball in life. Ok I can't blame all that on them, but it all syncs up. 

I'm not an alcoholic, I have a job and am picking up a seasonal one soon, our finances are shakey as fuck but workable (hopefully), I learned to datamosh, take nice pictures, and am cooking enough to be almost proud of. I briefly picked back up bass and writing and reading again, but they served as vehicles to rejigger my baseline interests. I've been on and off with friends but for the most part admit I'm a miserly hermit content to my own musings and entertainment.

I'm debating what job to work next, worrying about going to PIMS online, struggling to get a license still, working through the will to spend and trip balls instead of buying more useful things, holding back a barrage of hypercritical statements to everyone and everything, trying to stay somewhat media and politically savvy in an increasingly polarized, false-flagging world, and understanding fatherhood and what it means to be a somewhat decent boyfriend. I'm trying to be husband material. Probably failing. 
I've got a lot going on, as always, but it's all starting to align and pan out. My blueprints laid out years prior, 8 years of character building, has made me smarter and more artistic than I ever would have imagined at great costs. But worth it.

The reading of the Divine Comedy has roughly characterized each segment of my worm-like life quite well; from my diving deep into psychosis, mind-altering substance, "revolutionary" thought and "experiments" with my mind, emotions, art and "friends", I've set my future in not stone by spiral. 
Roots and anchors were planted firmly into everything I know and will force myself to love, for the sake of knowing and loving, and obsessions and fixations are merely highwaymen to rob any passer-by of their symbolic fixtures into my life. Inferno gave me Deconstruction, the dissociative power to detach and observe with the coldness of a ghost and impartiality of a will-o-wisp. In my hermetic state, I found insanity meets genius and yet the price is too dear for a normal person to reach it. Not someone as normal as me. I needed to either drive myself absolutely low, into the deep ends of madness or suffering, to really create what I wanted to create. 
But that's nonsense, for I have too much to express as is. I learned a lot, but going insane or becoming a genius for genius' sake is not the way.

Purgatorio was met anxiously, feeling directly alluded to in the purging of sins, the blame of others, and the restructuring of my life. The last few years have been stability-emphasized, clinging onto sanity, romantic notions of beauty and art, expression, climbing from my permanent stasis due to overextending my brain into anything with a book on it. 
The free time leads to boredom, and the mind wanders towards that which makes one uncomfortable. Eventually, it's fixed, the deed must be done, and the auto-piloting was a success. I'm in the process now of creating a nice, stable, clean home for my loved ones, and I've never been happier internally while outside showing nearly the same dull detachment that's been my plague...for as long as I've ever breathed. I've learned to weaponize my dips into insanity and depression, to walk away when I'm volatile, to mull things over privately and swagger forward even when I don't have a plan. I've branched further and further into the arts and music, and my routine stops along my older friendships and family and older hobbies and habits have come full circle, I feel as strong as I've ever been, having endured deepest uncertainties and taming my emotions and killing my mind. 
Now it is open, with a disturbing vision in mind, an apocalyptic understanding that the chaos and control of before was too basic, and that while staying neutral is progressive, it's still too settled. Both must be met with tenacity, discord includes peace and peace breeds agitation, the natural cycle of whatever this rhythm is inside of me must be tamed yet milked for all it's worth. 
I want to cry pearl tears, bleed vermilion hues that make my home beautiful. I want to continue to understand gender as deeply as others do, racial assumptions and find my grounding again in the political stratosphere of "fake" this and that. I want to be a human again, that one considers a good friend, a good relative, a good listener, lover, classy, romantic, intelligent and successful. I want my time in the limelight and to finally finish everything I've started, regardless of what happens after the fact, just to say I did it.
I want to finish my books and my musical projects and my poetry collections and continue this datamoshing nightmare I've created out of sheer digitized angst and frustration, I know my anger is a gift and run on sentences are freedom!
I want to fill out this expectation I've set upon myself in a world that's already registered me as a waste of potential. 
I want to exceed expectations, my own, and to keep away from what's ruined so many others. 
This will be a purification ritual of sorts to some and a deep dive into madness for others, but when I hold both chaos and order so firmly in each of my hands,
What more would you expect but to finish all that I started?
Surrendering to a God, becoming a God, are they really all that different?
Becoming a genius, becoming a madman, an artist and a critic, all equally valid.
Living with and without purpose, the same. 
My paradise is not yours, my mind is not fragile, 
it is flexile and all-encompassing.