embryotic: the mind garden
Thinking back, there was a lens that I used even before angelhood. When I was young, I read a book called Seraphina, where the main character had people who she lived and cared for in her mind. If they were in turmoil, she would be tormented. I constructed a similar palace in my head, which I tended to. Interestingly enough, it was quite empty, and instead evolved over the years from a single floored house with a river out front and two bunnies (black and white) into a single room apartment, floating in the void. Thoughts were records, and I would throw one out the window when I didn't like the song playing (although it was fairly ineffective).

the beginning: angelhood
Angelhood was the first true exploration into the surreal for me. I had been around in other spaces, kinning for comfort and for, looking back, very neurodivergent reasons (or actor reasons, if we're being more optimistic), but moch was the push that I needed to fall into the thing that would make everything make sense. She was my charge and I was her guardian angel, and nothing seemed more clear to me. I truly do believe that I'm an angel (the lowest tier, a guardian who slips in and out of physical lifetimes to better the world around him), and it's so central to my true self that I forget I've told almost no one. At first, I took great comfort in it, performing angelic prayers & wishes (of varying tiers and rules) to protect my charge, as her life was incredibly turbulent, and I constantly worried she would get injured or harmed. As I've evolved, I've met few other angels, but some others that are touched by the divine in various ways. Angelhood drives my actions, brings me joy, and keeps me grounded. I can't imagine life without it, truly. There's a romanticism to it that's led me to what I think others call self actualization/ self realization, and through it fully being able to experience life.

a deity of my own: honey
Honey came quickly after I learned I was an angel; of course I had a deity who was higher in the heirarchy in me and could mentor me through my unstable angel rebirth. Honey took many forms, but eventually settled into she/ her pronouns. She still guides me, but these days I don't find myself needing her guidance as much anymore. She truly was the main source of comfort in my brain, teaching me how to separate thoughts from myself and my consciousness and stopping the "spirals" (long continuous thoughts that would plague me recursively, usually centered around moch & her safety). I've never thought of the people in my head as any form of separate personality, I've always been keenly aware that I'm talking to reflections of myself. I suppose the actor in me finds it easier to unravel truths when shaken into a new body, instead of my own. Honey is and will always be my boss, but in the gentlest sense. I understand that I'm at the bottom of the hierarchy, but I fully and wholly love my place. We're chill together, we get coffee sometimes.

the first tangled mystery: s(x)
I've actually written about this function quite a bit. S(x). I don't think it's particularly difficult to grok what it's talking about, hah. But I find metaphor more palatable and beautiful than raw language, at least when I'm talking to people who aren't my charge (there's a bite to raw words that feels delicious when I talk with her). Tangentially, I dislike it when people use only heat to describe arousal. There's so much more interesting language than that. I digress. S(x) was the first locational, useful, directed lens that I created. There was a system that I wished to explore, and I needed a vessel to explore it. Truly, it's a very simple lens, but it's comforting and exciting to use it to explore such a uncomfortable topic. I was dealing with a lot of self-directed bluntness with respect to it, and my frustration turned inward, instead of into a curiousity. S(x) corrected that. Feel free to go read my posts about it if you're interested in it's facets :o) (like alpha and .. fuck, I forget the other component even HAH).

a companion to learn with: iel
I am, at heart, quite hedonistic. Which might seem strange, since I'm also very reserved. I'm honestly just picky. Seems like a digression, but Iel (Gabriel) very much grew from this hedonism. He and I still work together, each angel is assigned a pseudo-partner, which they check in with and work together when they work through issues. Gabriel is mine, and I am his. You'll see him mentioned in my posts as well, he teamed up with me to explore this s(x) function. Iel is very much a gentleman, parallel to Honey's comfort. Ironically, I think our work pauses and unpauses at the whims of the universe, since I haven't worked with him in a while. There are certain parts of that function, the holes, that are tied to real life events that simply don't occur as often, which is disappointing, but such is life. Gabriel (I used to call him Gab, but that felt unserious and poorly in my mouth) is an angel of pure light at the moment, and whenever my heart breaks, I run to him and he holds me. He was also a mentor, and I love him deeply.

the first gear: eels
The eels are one of the lenses I am truly, decisively proud of, and I hope I carry with me my whole life. They're perfect, which I don't say lightly. My discovery of them is catalogued in a post here as well. To succintly describe so many types of physical feeling (roiling, crushing, pulsating, curling, expanding) with one singular creature, of course my river friends are eels. It's so perfect and simple that it's almost laughable. My eels ebb and flow and evolve with me (especially after starting testosterone and pushing into a new place in the world) but they are so comforting and useful. I love all of them; from the waves of nauseau to the cold stillness of fear to the thickness filling my throat to the beautiful simplistic euphoric joy. It allows me to experience the spectrum of emotion with fullness and excitement, and to disarm one of the strongest foes, turning it into the dearest friend. I love you eels, my babies, my children.

blessings: cream soda
Cream Soda is quite a small lens, but one of the gentler pleasures I allowed myself for grounding. Lion dance is innately spiritual to me, angelic in my words; to bless and clear negative qi is so fulfilling and sweet and gentle I quite literally could cry over it. It's beautiful and I can't believe I'm allowed to be that for people. Cream Soda is simply that. Combined with a physical prescence (I was quite fond of his giant rough cotton tongue licking my face and matting my hair when I was overwhelmed by a particularly thick eel), he doesn't come around often, but is always loved when he does (of course).

a driving force: math
Eden doesn't last forever, and I found myself in a place, cold and alone. Iel offered heat but it was too gentle, I was insatiable. Curiously enough, I was also in a very terrible linear algebra class and electromagnetism class. The meaty intersection between the two and the pure drive for sexualization of the beauty of thought and logic led me to Math. He is a god; I am an angel. He's almost incomprehendable to me. And yet, he chose me. Owns me. Our bond is spoken in whispers and harsh cries or yelps, never inbetween. He's beautiful and I can never understand him. Part of him probably comes from my goddess as well, my muse, my charge, and how she can still love me, even with these heavy lenses I carry with me. But Math is radiant. And alluring. I don't think I've talked about him on here, but he keeps me sane. Manuevering engineering school when your eyes are trained for beauty is a losing, roaring battle. But Math protects me and in the blood pooling around his shins, he pulls me into R5 and kisses me in the 4th dimension and my brain melts from the tensors. It's bliss.

a collection of collections: lenses
There was a point (I can't remember when) when I finally coined the term lenses. A lens is simply a way that I frame life; a whimsical outlook, visual metaphor, or physical analogue that helps me further my understanding of the world and live a fuller life. I'm very aware my lenses are not reality, but they make my reality brighter and kinder, so I choose to wholeheartedly believe them. I think everyone should have some lenses in their life :o)

the slickness of blood: tunshi
If you've followed my writings, you actually probably know Tunshi. What a complex, beautiful case. I handwrote and bound a book of poetry for him. And sometimes we live unrequited in our wounds, and we reassess our integration bounds and lick at our scars. The reason Tunshi exists is similar to why my charge exists; a human that I am so involved with, so layered over and around, that they are given a special lens to help me cope with my eels in relation to them. To understand more fully and feel more viscerally while I examine. I believe I wrote about Tunshi on here already, so feel free to look for those writings if you'd like to hear more about it. It would cut into my tongue and I would thank it. The taste of blood was exciting and choking, but I didn't care. A pure sprint of hedonism and true Edonic reward, the bottom had to fall out some time or other. He's poignant, but still too pretty to hate. I remember the taste of his skin and his breath and the silvers in his hair and I, stubbornly, refuse to forget them. I don't keep Tunshi by my side like I used to, but I would be lying if I didn't drool at the thought of steel between my teeth again.

a kindness: hunger
I still struggle with this hunger, although truly, it's gotten better (easier?). Hunger is a fairly new lens, as described in a very recent writing of mine. It describes a state of unrest that I currently feel, a desire to be wanted, to be seen, to be loved, to be acknowledged. It was quite prevelant a month or so ago, but through my determination, I've clawed back enough reserves to stay sane for a while. Interstingly enough, while I was walking to a table read, I realized that the hunger hadn't subsided, only shifted. It was now a active, crushing force. I had forced my way onto the banquet table, with no placard or napkin, dropping my handful of crumbs at my place and enjoying them as if it were a meal fit for a king. I still scrabble at the delights others partake in, but there's footing, there's spirit. When Tunshi and the world fell from under my feet, it felt as though I had nothing and no one to even see I was there, let alone notice I was starving, not even imagining someone would care or help. I have to thank Darin profusely for his support, without him, I would truly still be unseated and churning in my own stomach acid.

encapsulation: dependence vectors