paxislandsystem

Hey everyone, it's Ezra.

With our health kinda in the shitter at the moment (meaning, potentially forever), we've been spending a little extra time in our headspace, and I felt like sharing with you some details since we're proud of it.

Pax Island was created in 2019 by Madison before the schism that split her into Arden, Sal, Carolynn and Secret in 2025. It was designed as a place for her and her thoughtform, Artemis, to interact. The island is in a constant state of night, with dark blue emanating from the horizon and diminishing further upwards. It's covered in oak trees, and features a house that a grand majority of us headmates live in.

To start with, the house was small and more of a cabin, but as the headmate population grew, so did the house. It takes advantage of malleable spacetime rules to be able to house as many headmates as there are in the world, however a handful as of late have been finding other places to reside. More on that later. On the lower floor, there's the living room, the kitchen (very small because eating isn't necessary here), and a larger room just right of the living room from the entrance which can host concerts, but doesn't very often due to how much mental effort it takes to even enter headspace. There's a ladder going up to the top floor, which features a loft area with a guest bed to the left and to the right, a hallway of bedrooms that goes on for however many people there are. Last time we checked, there is a fronting room at the end, but we don't often use it.

There is also a mall on the north side of the island, which was one of the first things other than the house that Madison created back in 2019, for the express purpose of graffiti as an activity with Artemis. Nowadays we use it to get ice cream and do social things, but there's really only the ice cream parlor. Southeast of the mall is a submarine dock, also created in 2019. It hasn't been used in a couple years, however if memory serves me right there's a cat in there (an NPC) who mans the submarine and takes passengers on a short trip. Useful as an escape, I figure.

When Bentley formed in 2022, we discovered a monument in the middle of the island. It's an obelisk with stairways on all four sides of it leading down to a lower level, in the center of which there is a podium where some artifact probably stood. It used to also have a bunch of rooms and hallways, but they've since closed. Bentley is known to visit every now and then, as there is a connection between him and the monument that he hasn't really disclosed.

In 2023, Artemis built a treehouse right next to the house as an escape. It has a nice view of the northern half of the island.

We also have a movie theater where Briggs lives and watches whatever is onscreen with Bentley on the northwest side of the island. Just south of it is a playground which rarely sees occupancy and was discovered in 2022. Alex and Madison went on a date there once.

On the south end of the island is the recently discovered lighthouse, paired with a dock. It can be departed from, crossing the ocean floor where Blake lives, to Old People Island, inhabited just south of Pax Island by a headspace-originating species of humanoids called the old people, who resemble humans apart from having a range of characteristics associated with elderly humans from birth, and lacking visible eyes. One such old person, Geralt, lives on this island and operates the lighthouse on the north end. Geralt became a headmate upon extended contact with Sal and Treeline, who brought the knowledge of Old People Island to Pax Island's residents. Perhaps it was generated upon arrival, too, though.

Pax island's connectivity can be a problem at times, and has been that way even before we became disabled. Just now, Zane, Jax, Jessica, Carolynn and Myself were at the ice cream parlor before we were booted out of headspace. Additionally, our monoconsciousness can sometimes result in new headmates occupying the first person perspective, resulting in people spontaneously being teleported to the location of whoever was just fronting in headspace. We also sometimes have issues with the internal radio being louder than our speaking voices.

That being said, this place is our home and we're happy to inhabit it.

---Post by Madison---

I was at a gathering of some sort in West Oakland. I forget exactly what I was doing there, but I remember this one dude who was present in the general group of people I was with. He was Black, about 5'8, and had a gray hoodie over his head as well as a gray surgical mask. I remember him kinda looking at me as if he wanted to ask me something, but he was more of a background detail than anything. I wish I remembered what I was doing in this part of the dream because I remember it being really interesting.

After I eventually left, I found myself walking towards downtown. The interesting thing about Oakland in this dream of mine is how explicitly it resembled Sacramento in some ways. It looked less like Oakland and more like San Francisco and Sacramento mashed together. I was standing next to someone's RV in what seemed to be an RV park, although there was no fence and no sidewalk along what had to be broadway, which was a Stroad in this dream.

Just as I was about to keep walking, the guy from earlier shows up and asks me if I could fill his glass of water up from the tap connected to the side of the RV and sell it to him. I looked at him with a lot of concern, as I didn't think that maybe he thought I lived there. My first reaction was that he was trying to have me scam him or something. The whole situation froze me as it just didn't make sense. Not too long after, a bunch of other people came up and filled up their cups from the tap, and I used this as an opportunity to book it up the street. I had Pax front because in this dream, the body took the form of whoever was fronting, and in this case I suppose Pax ran faster than I did, although not by much. Pax heard the guy shout "Hey!", to which they replied "Sorry!" while continuing their sprint.

At around that point, most of the dream was very dim, vague and in third person visuals-wise. I've noticed sometimes my dreams cut visuals before I wake up. I wonder if it has anything to do with my mild aphantasia.