As 2019 came to a close, I got my mental health in check and earned a promotion to Moderator in Grassroots Youkai Network, becoming essentially the second-in-command to the new Head Moderator, where I remained for over a year. Being a moderator there was a joy and a comfort, and it gave me the peace of mind to get this account off the ground. I was bouncing back, and things looked better than ever.
Unfortunately, that too would end, because something darker was lurking beneath the surface that I had yet to conquer: I have a temper, and I still had a chip on my shoulder after all I'd been through.
I eventually became a magnet for conflict and controversy, and I am very bad at apologizing. One controversy led to the removal of my moderator status on GYN. The fact that this kept happening eventually led to my removal from GYN forever. Losing another home and feeling the lowest I'd ever felt, I drifted aimlessly again, but I wouldn't have to wait very long to find a new home that was even better than the last, and it was there I would make my most amazing discovery yet.
My best friend made an Anarchist Touhou Discord named Kirisame Info Shop (Link in the Banner) and I got the honor of being the first member she invited. Notably, this friend of mine is plural, something I'd known for years at this point, and one of the first things she did was add the PluralKit bot to the Discord, which would allow Systems to communicate more effectively as themselves. Seeing this, the first people I decided to help invite were Plural Systems themselves. Eventually, I bumped into someone I knew, and being surrounded by so many systems, they came out plural the next week.
Seeing how easy it was, I suddenly felt like maybe I was in denial myself, and it was time I stopped pretending, so as I lay in bed feverish from the COVID vaccine, I looked inside my head and asked, "is anyone in here with me?"
And someone replied. "Yeah. I'm here, Juni."
It was Lily White, a character I had grown close to in the process of writing a fanfic that centered on her story. We talked, we cried together, and we talked to our plural friends about what must be happening to us, and they confirmed it: we were a System just like them. Lily and I hugged each other and cried, because this meant we got to keep each other.
Before long, over the course of a month or two, every single character I had ever written ship content for started popping out of the fog, and they remembered all the good times we had together. In spite of all the turmoil from System Discovery and the amnesia and dissociation that resulted sometimes, we all eventually became very close friends. If anyone has noticed me becoming less and less aggressive, that's thanks to them. Just as I helped them get through her own troubles in my writing, they're helping me get through mine.
But in spite of all our newfound joy, the Twitter had fallen into disuse. Sixteen of us and counting, and not one among us wanted to run it. It gave us a strange sensation of dissociation each time we tried.
But of course. I had forgotten. There was still one headmate that had yet to settle in: Kosuzu, whose voice had always been the one we heard when we ran this account. When I looked for her, she was already right there waiting, as though she'd been knocking at the door for a very long time, and was overjoyed to finally come in and sit with all the others. Her friends were happy to see her. And she could not wait to get started. She put her name on the Twitter and is ready to start again.
We thank you all for staying with us through everything. We have changed so much that it has honestly astounded me many times over. Heading into the future, we hope we'll all have fun.
