no, I'm losing it. I'm losing the thoughts I had, the feelings I felt... fuck. let me go through what happened today... well, uhm I met up with redoubt and forlorn. sorry, it took me so long to get back to this. I was looking for a fitting alias for forlorn and instead found fitting ones for me and let the emotions slip through... I miss vivid dreams. my literal dreams I used to have at nights. I miss all of my dreams. they're the only way I can truly feel.

today should've been a success... but it wasn't. it was another reminder of gentle, smiling disappointment. she [...] looked at me with a cunning, subtle smile... as if knowing this won't be enough, but get me on the edge of hoping. such an artful shadow of my dreams. those same dreams I saw when I was in the dark, unable to see...

it felt as if they weren't even really there. the only assurance they were there, were the circumstances of their state. redoubt wore high-heels capable of bruising her and was occassionally clutching onto me for support, periodically dragging my arm down aggressively. it was a constant rush of panic. things felt either so... empty or cryptic. my worries were mostly directed at my fears of the heat and paying attention to my light-headedness or very subtle dizziness. but things turned out relatively well. it's 01:37AM --- this meet-up didn't happen on the 21st. we sat down somewhere to eat and... people... kept... looking at me. I entirely forgot I was wearing a shirt of AT-AT machines from SW but with one having a "broken leg" and an Elizabethan collar. it was the only white shirt I could muster against the sun, my eternal nemesis. still, I doubt it was that out-of-place or easy to read from afar... I seriously felt watched. remember that darkness I talked about before? this is... it. my hair looked hideous btw. well... all of me did. I, sort of, accepted it already, as I'm still in recovery mode. I'm still not capable of properly prep myself up. I... started suspecting, and maybe even believing, that I could be seriously dillusional. I thought perhaps I was imagining them being there with me. it made sense... people were genuinely looking at me with a type of look I couldn't decypher and that was increasingly scarier and more worrying. and there were so many people that looked at me... every person we were physically close to, even when just walking, felt... intimate. not in a good way. not in any way. just intimate. it was scary. we met in the capital. there were a decent amount of people. from time to time, I managed to filter them out, but some set of eyes would still pull me back. it got me so worried that when forelorn asked for water, I specifically begged them to put it anywhere on the table except where I've putten it, assuming that if I was the one orchestrating all physical objects around me, I'd feel the difference in my body perhaps... idk... I reached for the bottle that was on the other side of the table. it felt like it gave me a bit of agency, but the worry never left. I cannot even explain it. I feel like I'm being judged for this, I just teared up writing this, I'm currently in it. I'm never taken seriously when I voice these concerns. I mean all rational thinking points to them being real, especially in hindsight, but... but. I'm sorry. idk what's up with me, irdk why I waterred up a bit. I beg that redoubt doesn't find this. amongst the many, periodic prying eyes that spooked me, there was also... a mature lady. she stood out so sharply... and I'm still not sure why. she looked at me with subtle surprise..? in a fleeting moment as she was passing us by. I looked up at her as if I recognized her. it was so odd... she was with two other men... or was it three? or was she with a supposed partner and the other people were just other bypassers? I couldn't tell you. but in that moment I was still thinking about my shirt, and how kiddish I looked in that moment. I felt ridiculous for how flabbergasted I felt. the reason why I hid this was because of how shameful I felt for having this... intimate 'pull' towards someone around redoubt. the day was fun at the beginning. we met up at a gardenous and stochastic station and went to a random kebab place where we ate. I was with my two allies, joking around, being goofy and childish for the fun of it. I was unusually louder today than I expected to be. partially, because I couldn't hear my own voice properly enough, but could hear theirs. we mostly played "never have I ever" while eating, which I was massively losing at, because I could think of very little things that weren't overly specific to the point it wouldn't be fair and that wouldn't also drag me into it. I was clearly the most experienced out of all of them in any way, really... the day was fun at this point still, because... I was still hoping for more, because there she was again, prying over me lustfully... like a fox waiting for the sheep, he chose, to leave the group just enough to pounce on them. except here, what was shadowing me was disappointment, herself.

the day digressed further into eventually just me begging to "do something, anything"... I just wanted to do stuff. dance. sing. yell in an empty street. be active. but they're both just vessels of passive, floating, observant entities. I do not mean to insult them though... I'm merely trying to express myself, I'm sorry, it's selfish to do it in such a fashion... after we've finalized our stay at the turkish ember feeding-station, we basically kinda just stopped at some asphalt blocks and there I was just... staring at the ground trying to muster up a creative plan that doesn't compromise redoubt's already limping state and doesn't play into forelorn's indifference. the street was too busy for me to confidently and outwardly let my energy radiate freely, but I put on the same music I was dancing to in the shower (naked and completely free, entirely in the zone like I've never felt before) and started letting my body massage the air deliberately a bit... it was goofy and it wasn't enough. I gave up after a while. forelorn eventually started petting my hair from above as I sat over my established knees, staring at the ground again. redoubt's presumed "possessiveness" kicked in as she started gently tapping and swinging at him to stop, as I'm only hers. I didn't even know what to feel about anything anymore. I felt bad that I didn't feel good, but it felt like she was taking away from me pets that caught me off-guard and felt surprisingly gentle. she also petted me ofc, and they were kiddishly racing over who gets to pet me. I felt bad for having lost my reach to them. it felt like a void that's full of dreamy hues, a powerful bright light like a star seemingly just a touch away from me, yet at more than arms' reach... how come I write in ways like never before when I've felt the most dumbfounded on how to describe this day so far?

despite these small, pretty moments... when I was on my own, going home on the train, I felt the weight of it all over my shoulders and head. the weight of my empty inboxes. I'm used to it and it's just such a cliche to talk about "not having anyone text you back", except I did, forelorn and redoubt were still actively reachable as they were on their way home as well, but I only typed for technical reasons. they felt like they were behind walls I couldn't see past, despite being right inbetween my hands. I was seeking out old connections I haven't talked to in shame of revealing my lack of a life, but found nothing but a hanging "profiler" post sent to the person who inspired me to build pages. I followed up, asking about them. it worked. it always does. everything about them, but never anything about me. I speak of me and they ask me to, and yet it feels more like a status-report; more like a check-up that doesn't change outputs much regardless of the path it follows. when I was crying, several, unending ... at sentence-ends would've been most fitting to portray my haulting... but dots were what came to me as I was crying. I typed, only knowing conceptually what I was telling as I saw fragments through my tears. I'm speaking so distantly of it, it just happened... what's wrong with me (rhetorical question... that I didn't mean --- it means nothing, why am I overexplaining every word I pick? --- did I just create the possibilty of a paradox where I ask these questions and specify they're rhetorical, just to question these decisions to even form them?)?

it's 2:29AM. it took nearly an hour to find words to type and concepts worth writing down. I'm not obligated to do any of this. and even more so, I'm not obligated to prolongate this post any more than just a simple check up or simple vent. there's no need for all of this technicality or emotions. and yet I keep going. stopping my mindless typing to think what I'm supposed to type anyway feels dishonest... I know for a fact I'll post this. somehow, unlike most times, I feel the need for specifically this one. I actually feel... but I still maintain my point that it's filled with unneeded clutter... no? I'm not even sure how i'd be judged by now. there are so many paths I took here, I cannot tell where you follow and where you lag behind. you aren't even here... 2:33AM for that...

I think this is goodnight for now. I'll go work on Loom... uhm, I'm not trying to promote anything here, it's free. using it gives me nothing; but loom is a type of storyboard creator where you can organize your ideas and stuff. it's supposed to help me with brainstorming Fastflow (bothunter) and The Poltergeist Case (sideeyes looking curiously). but I actually stayed up until 7-8AM last night working on it to polish it so we can use it today on our meet-up (aka on the 20th) and brainstorm a board game to play together or a story to always tell each other or anything... I even asked redoubt to bring her laptop, as the mobile interface is still a bit messy, buggy and not as lightweight. well, it's not lightweight enough for my phone to handle it, but laptops can handle it very well. I have to admit I vibe-coded large portions of it as I kept getting stuck and in frustration I wanted to get it done asap for them... I mostly used my dumb local model for fixes and such, because of my paranoias and principles. local llms I can control and therefore are my own. I'm not wasting water specifically, I'm using the electricity I always use, which I cannot stop using... im sorry again.

the song that made me dance without a worry about the world was revenge of the orchestra by Apashe :< bye now...

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