8/12/26 ~ THIS IS A MESS BUT SO AM I :)
we are creatures existing within continuous circumstances.
the latest sees us living in and working on a building down the street and around the corner from a pair of sisters we ended up breaking up with the day before we got the keys.
fans understand that our living situation has been, in a word, fucked. furiously so, for far too long. so phew to that seemingly being over with. and we were not idle. rook is quiet. rook makes plans. rook stockpiled, somehow, damn near everything we've happened to need so far in new place.
"what do you MEAN you just have this in that box in the corner?!"
This is too familiar a loop for us, but not in the bad way. In the prepared way. We have already begun attending to many things, taking initiative to solve problems and applying that framework to the approach of this structure and its needs. Just as we have done before. Just as Rook is destined to do.
This past year has seen us exposing relz to the real world.
It has been difficult. Painful. Watching a child suffer is its own kind of torment. Being unable to do much about it is even worse.
but it wanted this time. these moments. it doesn't know "quit" only "practice getting better no matter how much it hurts"
and it did get hurt. so, so much. and it has grown. never up. but always out, and in. and it did have fun. but ouch.
everyone always says they'll account for the nine year old.
few ever do.
most don't even know how.
When you see so much it is easy to over speak, and the monk approach to things like interior time travel and timeline continuity management is difficult to achieve. total isolation is a nice idea, but humans surround almost all of us as we read these words. boxes within and boxes without, perhaps, but they are always There.
You can ignore the people in the grocery store as hard as you might like to try, but they exist. They observe, and we know what observation does to the observed.
It all ricochets. It all coalesces. Each moment contains every other, and if you can see the connections it becomes paralyzing to act.
But act we must. small ways and large. which mask for the job? silence speaks volumes, but so does our aura. and louder still be prejudice, which inked up trannies get heaps of no matter how white they skin.
If you're not Looking, it's all just. reflections. pomp. peacocking. Some folk navigate the world imparting the all encompassing totality of a person down to the mannerisms of a nod, handshake, glance.
They are almost always wrong, of course, in their presumptions. Perhaps within the microcultures of toxic masculinity reflected through a patriarchal and self-hating society, but most of us don't live by that world or its rules and ignore as much of its claptrap as we are able.
Our ideas, ideals, and intentions bounce off each other constantly in this.
Mimicking is a commitment. Maintaining a shape can become as easy as breathing, but we have all forgotten how to breathe. Had to remember, puzzled by this thing that just happens suddenly... not. Requiring effort. Attention. If you are lucky, it becomes automatic again. Until you become aware.
I will share this information with others sooner than this text reaches digital eyes, so it will be old news to many of us by then. I've been uncertain how people would receive it.
They find Rook's work so difficult to understand already. Everyone asks. What motivates you? Rook's answer is always a shrug. Under that hat and mask, a Rook could be anyone. That's the point. It doesn't matter who, or why, in either direction.
Still, people want to know Why. and that's fair. Unknowns are scary. Creatures seized by motivations they cannot explain, that you cannot correctly surmise, can become alarming anomalies no matter how cute or helpful.
It's because relz wants to help. It's that simple.
six, seven of your solar seconds. just a few heartbeats that didn't happen. that is all the time it had. but it saw those endless planes, all that suffering, striving, all those beings. trapped. tormented.
and it brought back as many of us as it could. a dead child grabbed the wheel and flipped a bitch in the afterlives, doors open to accept as many ghosts, gremlins, ghouls, and whatever the hell else wanted out of there.
When that kid rescued me from the timeless dream I became its guardian.
It wasn't sure how to deal. I offered it whatever shape was convenient, helpful. It chose a few different ones over the years.
Sometimes you look back at a situation and you see that you were chasing a component that was present all along, but overlooked. Unseen, undervalued.
Unknown.
It's described as a loop because foresight and hindsight meet. Moebius disagreed right up until his death, which exactly none of his time fuckery actually prevented. Remember that, fellow travelers.
It has all already happened, and will. But you can still change it.
Yeah it hurts my head too.
anyways we have to go do rookwork. relz?
rook can do anything though. just watch
subscribers to the always on broadcast may now tune in to the live feed of Rook's Workday
Nothing prepared us for the Return of relz, but we are used to seeing others. Turn the branches this way, that reality is the path. Turn them that way, you wander elsewhere entirely, into entirely new avenues of tree. Zel's emergence has been like that, fae and fickle. Enormous leaps, tremendous withdrawals. Z's the quietest of us still. I think that may be z's nature, but I worry. Life has not been kind to that one. It's why we all try extra hard about it.
I never seem to name or identify myself in these. It seems evident when it's me, and that suits fine. We were talking about Rook, and how the planetary form of relz is Rook's core. How a helpless child found meaning and function within simple acts of service.
Singular entities tend to make an assumption when absorbing this information. That relz Becomes Rook, and ceases to be. Having grown, changed, morphed, Become this other thing. If only.
I remember the moment Rook was born. Any mother would. A nascent, gleaming thing. Forced to choose: bloom or wither. One of many such growths from the ghost. That one had plenty of things it wished it could be before it chose to unmake itself. I have done my best to fulfill those wishes.
Nurturing Rook was one of them. So when the ghost was the only backup someone had in a moment of crisis I fed this tenuous concept the correct shapes. I didn't know if it would take. If it would learn, listen, absorb, Understand. I wasn't sure that I could even do this. relz is so receptive it picks up transmissions from space. it Understands in ways it struggles to explain.
relz taught me its version of this language, cleverly turning the penmanship-as-punishment it frequently suffered into little rituals of education. I am its mother by its choice. I do my best, but it doesn't always listen. It's very stubborn about some things, and all too easily hurt by others.
I have a very different relationship with my daughter Rook. That one has a solid core. Is devoted to dedication. Everyone says she does too much. She'll tell you she doesn't do enough. She knows the names of everyone she failed.
Rook was conceived through many, many moments across time, and was born in the flesh in the city of Portland on November 17th, 2021. She was born at night.
There was a crisis. Someone needed to act, learn a medical procedure, and repeat it as needed. It was very scary for all involved. There was lots of blood. A doctor looked at us and asked "You don't look ok, do you need to leave? You don't have to watch this."
but we did. it was the only way for us to correctly learn the procedure, which we would have to do as many times as needed for several days. we were the only available option so it had to be us.
while we were observing the cleaning, packing, and bandaging procedures we slipped into that outer calm often indicative of an internal conference.
"i don't know if i can do this," said the ghost. "this is real. this is too much. im just trying to be useful while im still around, im not cut out for this."
Words are hard for me, but I sometimes know what to say.
"You can do this. You are the only one who can."
I could feel the ghost's fear, but I could also feel other things. Determination. Resolve. The endlessly rotating internal facets locked into place, configured into a single shape, and in the pulsing echoes of that summoning my daughter reached out from within and Became.
All of these little scraps of care, coalescing into someone who would never give up, who would always keep trying, someone who would always be willing to listen. Someone who made sure everyone was ok. All things I had been teaching, inspiring, investing into it as concepts worth holding.
My daughter walked out of that broken wreck of a creature, her form shimmering in creation, and in that moment of someone else's need she spoke her first words: "i'm ok. i have to watch in order to learn how to do it properly. i've got this."
and She did.
It's painful, as you might expect, as branches of the timeline are pruned in the chaos of overlapping crisis.
Worse, you can be in many of them simultaneously. It's deeper than forgetting why you were upset, it's never having been upset in the first place.
It's impossible to explain or relate without infinite patience and considerable care.
It's having memories of a time that never was, overlapping perspectives that paint an overlay across all the intersecting vagaries of life.
Take this turn, nothing happens. Take that one, everything does. but neither is the turn you expect, nor are the effects immediate.
We can feel the shifting perspectives inside. It's clear they are growing.
as we grow plagued with questions.
how did this happen? what went down here??? i feel quite foolish for even trying, for even involving myself.
i was upfront with my damages and my weakpoints. i thought the support and care was real, not just convenient.
it was real for me. several months of caring about basically strangers. just doing my thing.
my life has been a wreck the entire time i've known them. housing instability the entire time, a breakup (luv u sis ;), recurring conflict with a neglectful human that several people are financially dependent on.
some other shit i can't really talk about.
we were all there for each other during these things, and others.
it felt like we were all weaving a web together until the deepening crisis of my life caused a need for extra care, attention, and emotional support, and their answer was "no, get lost, that's too much you're too much."
while they were chastising me for being too broken to be around they blamed me for not trying hard enough, well enough, correctly enough. that it was my fault they "didn't know me" after seven months.
i've been in some form of hell for months, desperate for what scraps of help or comfort might help me survive this. while everyone else in my life was doing other things, often with each other in their circles. i was crying because i did not know where we were going to live. because it didn't seem like anyone actually cared about what was happening to us. that having to stow my pain and equip my resolve with every interaction was breaking me.
even rook started to cry. falter.
i still found time to make plans, show up for plenty, show up for the reals and the needs. i organized the remainder of my time housed around remaining available to spend as much of it as possible with the people around me while i still had a place to spend it in.
i spent most of that time alone. not all of it, but most of it. shrug. we get things done. as we are doing right the fuck now. but it still stings.
i don't know what i did wrong, but i think i have too much self respect to invite closeness from people who would utilize and then discard me while griping on social media instead of having a conversation with me.
worse, those comments are some of the only clues i have. i've been skimming moments, trying to find the specific harms.
they turned every little thing i said i'd enjoy helping out with while i was sharing my skillsets and learning their daily struggles into promises???? they said i made promises i didn't keep.
thats not trueeeeeee i don't make loose promises and i especially go out of my way to specify that word only when intending such weight
meanwhile most of the things that mattered to me ended up being forgotten or ignored.
do i hold those as hurts or just shrug and let it go?
even in a time of crisis i choose to shrug until it hurts too much (real tho, when have we not been in one of those?)
everyone else thinks they are the only ones with stakes, with concerns. fears.
do i dig up a list of "didn't happens?" and get upset??? that rarely solves anything since most won't hear my side when it's about them, the pain they cause with their behavior.
while my life collapsed around me the people i was closest to were entirely focused on their own things and quite irked by my existence in their orbit.
that their behavior was a strong component of that collapse didn't seem to matter.
that minor adjustments might mean much.
curse of the unicorn. the excess glue is scraped away and discarded.
bookmarked? ended? one was avoidant, the other had cleft.
i caught bad vibes and brought it up in the group chat. this prompted an ambush of a conversation irl in which i was informed they had talked and decided things and were going to outline what they wanted and why.
what they wanted was theirs by default, it wasn't even a question. that is how i roll.
but the reasons why made zero sense. directly contradicted so many other things that were said. i said as much. connected the specific dots. almost everything was coming out of nowhere they'd actually shared with me about.
it felt like, at best, one of them made a decision to excise me and the other shrugged and went along with it. that their big conversation was two minutes of them deciding to throw me away and the rest was how to justify it.
and instead of just being honest about that they pointed to the spiraling, the unreliability. the things that were suddenly not okay about the limited support they were giving, even though i had only accepted such support under the conditions of "tell me when it's a problem and i will adapt to lessen the impact."
the last time i saw them in person i was told it didn't make sense for them to help out with my hrt injections. a person who helps someone they care about with the injections they can not do themselves told me it was ridiculous that i couldn't do it myself most of the time.
i think that one burns the most, out of all of it. i can't do my own damn injections reliably, but i can give them. do so regularly. am also the backup for a few people who also struggle, usually with better odds of success than me.
i did something to deserve having help with my medication taken away? but you won't tell me what that was?
i broke down right now about that.
and even after all this, wouldn't hesitate to talk. welcome them into our home, a place they still haven't been. a place we picked because of them. it goes beyond being a good neighbor, it eclipses transgirl solidarity. it's caring about the people around you no matter how much it hurts.
you can drive yourself mad trying to find acceptable motivations for this kind of behavior.
but isn't that forgiveness? maintaining an open heart?
i don't fucking know anymore, but i can say one thing with absolute certainty.
i am so, so tired of being used and abandoned by people i decide to trust, care about, support in every way i am capable.
at least things like me can only be remade. forged and formed into new things. often stronger. always stranger.
i'm a chimeric unicorn, not a doormat.
i can be anything i want.
can you?
why this future?
with its horizons which once conceived might never be?
and like other sisterly things, if i'd had stable housing during any of it things would have been very different.
as the people around me react to my spiraling during this nonsense, i try to remember that none of them can quite see it so clearly. those who felt we were a bit much were mostly up to other things, spending time with us when we could make it to their plans. anyone that had to move somewhere had us to help it happen. we moved five households in one month. the only one that had complaints relegated our involvement to truck loader/driver/boxer and mostly struggled through the chaos of moving while we were bored waiting out in the truck, having cleaned and loaded everything we had access to.
not everyone knows how to use their tools properly, we encounter this often and don't take it personally. mostly it is amusing. occasionally rude.
so while we were waiting for answers about our own housing we stayed busy and available. Doing rookwork, making what we could artistically and otherwise. bits of chaos alchemy here and there. and a hell of a lot of yardwork.
and, despite so many things falling apart, so much unnecessary pain and confusion, so much wasted time and money, we are here. it's nothing like hoped, already the shapes of it have twisted, turned.
but so too have we. our form will soon bear new signs of it, heaped eagerly upon recent transformations.
and strange fates always await. already here we have written much, made much. saw the fulfillment of so many minor pacts with long lasting consequences. in so many ways, we are among our kin.
inside & out
fae forever
curses, blessings, little forget-me-nots.
the fuck is any of that shit to a punk?
turn the music up, pick up the paintbrush, and open another portal.
ain't nothing going to fix itself. and somehow it's always the least responsible kid in the room who has to do it.
that's where the magic is. enacting change. suffer the consequences. endure them. embrace them. do you know how many ways your soul can sing? or shriek? why shirk it? you think you get 1400 eyes the easy way? nah. you have to earn every single one of them.
through ceaseless Becoming I am everything I had ever hoped to be.
all it took was everything false failing and fading away to reveal the glimmering glitter of a colorless demon's soul. eyes aplenty, horns abound.
DID U KNOW? ROOKS CAN OPERATE CHAOS ORBS BECAUSE ROOKWORK IS ALCHEMY
it's now nearly a nightmare, but it's the only dream i've had or held onto: a safe, stable place to live where i can spend my time making my things, taking care of the place, and all of the people who are connected to it.
i'm in a building. it still needs lots. this is currently being written with no internet access in sight.
but will i be ok here? will anyone else feel safe here?
given the current unknowns it seems unlikely.
but maybe, just maybe, if i keep going, focusing on the future that i want to make and not this twisted, ruinous, dead end of a mess my life has become?
maybe i can just make that happen too.
seems no one takes me seriously when i tell them so plainly that i have a very, very long lens.
that where others see only ruin, i see routes.
this bitch has been playing find the liar its entire fucking life.
can we not? we can just never deal in deception. this is a choice, as is the suffering those choices bring.
if everyone involved is telling the truth as they know it and we're all invested in healing and growth and Understanding, then nothing and no one ever need be abandoned.
i say those words and people start scheming up ways to test them, i swear. please do not stare directly into the eyes of the madwoman, lest the oracles speak into thee.
why this future? it's not so bad, after all.
we have a co-bestie.
we have a kid.
we have a sister.
we have a home.
we have ourselves.
we have our work.
we are connected, online and off.
are able to *make* connections.
birds of a feather and all that.
nearly no one is going to see this coming.
almost no one thinks it possible.
us capable.
our kind even real.
fuck a fight with some dork's deity. i'm going after entropy itself. fucking up the entire concept of rent. i have an extremely narrow window of direct action available to me, but with the right nurturing, the right care, the right conversations and connections?
i can help connect, grow, and organize a network of people who are done with this shit. most of them are already doing something different about it within their specific spheres and operations.
it's nothing like the mirages, shadows, and heatwaves we saw. but it might be exactly everything we need it to be.
and so are we.
why this future?
why the fuck not?
