Kasumi's Personal Log #3
14 Feb 2024Kasumi Goto
"There are things in your life which, sometimes, you really need another person to show you. That person could be your significant other, or a friend. But what they can make you realize... it could even be something you've been aware for quite some time, but just never knew how important it was, or could be, to you."
Personal log
Kasumi Goto
14 February, 3310
Visibility : Public
(Text only)
What's that funny quote up above? I came up with it myself. Why? Well...
I feel... happy.
Yeah, I know. Strange thing to be saying when there's so much else wrong and I have all of those Thargoid things to worry about... but it feels like I am. The reasons for that are... complicated, maybe. And also not something I really want to go into that much. Still look human, just... a little different. If you ever meet me, you'll know right away what I meant here.
So... I remember how Alba told me to write these logs to "prove to people I'm safe". Or... something like that. To try convincing people I haven't got the Thargoids whispering at me to go and screw with human stuff all the time, even if they're still in my head. They're not, but I'm not sure these would really have done that.
Don't know how many read these, anyway. Maybe I don't care. I prefer to use them for personal expression, and the people that do read my logs have probably made their mind up about me already. As have those who aren't, also have, or if they think I'm just some Thargoid spy... are probably reading them to find something they can twist or use against me. In which case they are not worth my attention.
It's... almost funny, how barely two months ago, I struggled to form coherent sentences. And look at it now. Almost like going through a second, very short-lived childhood. With an alien hivemind in your head. And I can't say much about childhood matters - there's not a lot there in my head, maybe because of whatever damaged it so much, even before the Thargoids messed with it(and messed it up even more). What fragmented memories I can find make it seem like it wasn't your typical happy 'growing up' experience, though, so maybe it's not such a bad thing I can't recall. Part of me still wants to.
Anyway. Seeing how I've progressed is nice. Everyone and everything says I have, after I nearly died... for a second time, apparently. More on that further into the log... I've had to do with... what was it? Psychologists? Psychiatrists? I don't know. The people that take care of all of that mind stuff with you. Or for you. I spent a lot of time near them - psychological support for my recovery, I was given as the reason. Especially once I learned of that... "fun" stuff the Thargoids put me through toward the end of last year, so I wouldn't have a breakdown because of it.
You've probably heard of it. Or if you haven't... uh, well, yeah... I haven't looked through the logs that I managed to record during that time. At least, not really. Not something I'd like to think back to, especially since it seems like I was put through some rather unpleasant things. So I'll maybe just ignore those recordings for a while longer. The only memory I was able to recover was of my last moments. Or what I thought were my last moments after shaking off control. It... wasn't great.
Yeah. Moving on from that. I've told you enough, I think. And I don't want to keep dragging myself down with all of that negative stuff. I've recovered from it pretty well, by all looks of it, and got something pretty nice out of it on top of that. Maybe not such a bad thing, considering all I've gone through in the (relatively) recent past.
And speaking of nice things, I had a lot of time to talk and 'catch up' with Seo(whatever catching up there is to do when you're a person with barely any memories). Yeah, that Seo, unless you know any others. She insists on continuing to call me Kira even if what I first remembered is 'Kasumi'... I just let her. She's nice enough that I don't mind, and I guess it is apparently my "real" name. So I'm not deleting it from any registries.
But yeah, Seo. Seems like I met her... I don't know, what did she say it was? February or March last year? Not like I remember, but apparently I caught on to her pretty quickly. I can see why, and she likes me quite a bit too, but maybe I did a little too much. She told me I might've fallen in love with her. It seems a little funny to me, but I prefer to leave things at the 'friends' level(which I seem to have said last year too). And yet... I can still feel that, like some remnant of my old self that persisted through all the mess. Don't feel like that's the right path though, even if I don't remember the why.
Speaking of 'Kasumi'... that was apparently an alias I used to not make myself obvious. I quite like the sound of the name, so I use it now, even if it's been given away as being 'me'. Hopefully, I look the part. And whatever friends I did have before the Thargoids got into my head won't mind calling me something different... assuming they recognize me. I can barely even recall what they looked like. Names? Yeah, forget that. Or, rather, I forgot them.
Speaking of the friend matter, I met someone funny called Jana... actually, met her again. Almost forgot that wasn't the first time. She was... let's just say, very interested in my improved state. Can't blame her, considering the mess that I was on her first visit. Which, apparently, was the first time she saw me at all. Well, outside of the funny VR space that is responsible for me knowing her in the first place. Also have very few memories of that left, even after revisiting that virtual world. Only a few snippets of it came back to me, and mostly, it was the emotions associated to those moments, which were... generally positive. And of having some really stupid fun.
She also gave me a few 'suggestions' of things that I could do in there. And, well, I did. Certainly nothing that I regret, even if it is weird enough that I won't tell about it in an open log like this.
Thinking of it, she also mentioned she'd be paying a visit to a friend... was it in a hospital? I don't quite remember. My memory is still not working perfectly. Something to do with the implant continuing to fix the brain after it got so damaged. I do wonder which friend she meant. Sounded like it was here, on Duamta. Maybe in the Aegis headquarters themselves.
Did get to leave myself for the first time since my return, more or less at the end of the last month. I asked if I could go out to the nearby city because I felt like it. And I was allowed... they didn't seem sure. Maybe because of the Thargoid nonsense going through my head, but... it's not controlling me. I kind of wanted to prove that to them, and... I did. Still got looked at a lot. Maybe because people recognized me. Going out there was... nice, though. And fun, although maybe just as a one-off. I don't seem to be very 'social', and it was getting a little noisy over there at times, for me.
Anyway. Seo asked me what plans I had for my future, but really... I don't know if I have too many. She wants me to look into some things about the Guardians, that long-dead species, to help me understand why she doesn't want to talk about that 'Nemesis' thing. Maybe that is what I am going to do first, but I might still stay here for... I don't know, one, two weeks. And there's other things I want to look at, too, that mysteriously appeared in my files(I'm sure it was you, Seo, and you're probably reading this) not too long ago. No details, just locations. Systems, specifically. And there's one more I want to look at of my own... you can probably guess, but if not, it's where this whole mess started for me.
What am I going to do when I'm through with all that? Not really sure. Don't have any idea, even. Maybe I'll do like I told Seo and just see what comes at me. It's probably going to have to do with that stupid war against the Thargoids, which I don't feel like talking about. Beyond just helping out with evacuation efforts, because I'm still not a fan of those abductions. Or the creepy Scythes. They give me the chills.
One thing that I probably should mention is that letter I published about those people who got abducted and held on the Titans. I can already see the people telling me about how it's all going to be so wrong when they turn on us, blah blah blah. You want to know what I think of that?
Well, first, I should say that I deliberately avoided mentioning it in that letter, because it's not about "those who turn on humanity", but those who wouldn't, if we supported them properly, instead of treating them all the same for something they didn't even have any play in. Not like those cultists on the Dedicant - and yes, I read up on that.
So some people are maybe turned on humanity, even though there is no evidence to support that, and the Thargoids would go through an awful lot of effort to keep them alive, just to throw them into the meat grinder. Are you just going to categorically dump everyone in that same bunch and indiscriminately judge them for getting abducted when they had no choice in it, and should all be held in the same room with a bomb in the center?
No. Those people should be supported and treated like humans, or at the very least, people. Not like Azimuth would like to claim they should be handled. Even if some of them are subjected to the Thargoid hivemind and are unable to retain their independence, the point still stands for those who do. Why should they not be given a chance to prove they have humanity's best interests at heart, or at least that they don't want to be involved in this conflict, instead of being subjected to claims of being a "traitor" just because some others were forced to work against humans, against their own will?
And even them, there should be attempts made to help them recover, if they even can be helped. And I don't mean the 'gun shot to the head' kind of help, which should only be an absolute last resort. They should be shown empathy, but most of what I see seems to be just writing them off because of a very vague chance of them "being bad", paranoia and whatever other things push people to immediately assume anything remotely Thargoid-related is immediately terrible and needs to be torched with a flamethrower.
I understand caution, but there's a difference between that and paranoid judgements. How long are you going to keep those people locked up for, even after the war ends? Could you really still justify such a quarantine if or when the Titans are gone? Anyone that wishes to show their support to humanity or even neutrality to both sides should be given the chance to do so, and if I am the one example to prove that.
Whatever, anyway. The people that do read this have probably made their minds up in one way or another about the subject already, and are unlikely to have it changed. But if you are willing to reconsider, just know that showing those people who were abducted against their own will empathy, could go a long way. As would discriminating them due to circumstances entirely outside their control. I know which one of those two would come back to bite us, and it wouldn't be showing those people that we care.
Anyway... I thought I wanted to make a point about how some people maybe turning on humanity wasn't relevant to that letter's core message. Maybe I did, but it feels like I just got carried away rehashing that letter. I did say I wasn't very good at making things like this, even if I have the idea in my head.
I think I'll look at making a point for this "war" too. Because I'm not so sure if the Titans were really ever here to 'destroy it all'. Which I'm sure would immediately be followed by claims of me listening to the voices in my head too much and how I actually want the Thargoids to win. Even though I don't.
Makes me want to sigh. I just did.
"But if the Thargoids put you through all that, why are you not upset at them, Kira/Kasumi?"
Maybe I am. Or maybe I'm not, because we're the ones who forced them into this conflict by being idiots and trying to exterminate them with that idiot Salvation's "superweapon". And even now we're still just looking for the easy solution out which is throwing more weapons in their faces, without even trying to understand if there is a greater purpose at play. One that those abducted might end up playing into. Or, just like with me, the Thargoids might reconsider their plans and use them in the war because we make them do so. Not that I know what their plan for them is. Or for me.
But I don't see why I should be upset at them. If anything, I feel like I should be more upset at humanity, because it is of my own species that I had to go through so much. Yet all I want is for both sides to stop fighting. Is that so much to ask? It apparently always was for us. Now it seems to be for the Thargoids too. Why can't we talk with words instead of weapons? (Maybe I should just be annoyed at both our species for being stupid like this. At least then it would kind of balance itself out.)
I should stop writing. I've still got a good bit of learning to do in those VR simulators before I can even think of flying a ship again. And, uh... yeah, let's just say, my first few attempts in those simulators weren't great. Maybe that stupid implant could give me a hand here and throw those memories in there. It's got to have saved them.
Anyway, yeah, you probably don't want or need to hear about those woes. Still need to figure that out before the day I want to leave though. It would be a little embarrassing if my first real flight day ends up in a burning wreckage. Even if I'd probably survive it.
Log ends.