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07/01/2025

I know this journal is meant to be just for Rose but it's the same topic so whatever, bear with me here. I never mentioned this on the site at the time but in December 2023 — January 2024 I developed a huge crush on Dr. Naomi Hunter after playing the first MGS game. She was officially a second F/O for a little while. The feelings faded after a certain IRL relationship began, and unlike Rose, they never fully came back after it ended. I was fine with this, I generally consider myself solely devoted to Rose so it wasn't an abnormal loss.

I was thinking about her again around New Year's Day, which was, technically, our first anniversary. I recalled some noemata I used to really love to think about back when I was head over heels for her. I've still got exactly what I wrote out at the time, actually:


There was a stretch of a couple of days where I was incapacitated by blood loss and was on the edge of death, Naomi recognised that my cyborg body utilised artificial blood that required specialist equipment to transfuse. She and Sunny worked together on treating me once we got access to that equipment. They would talk to me regardless of if I was actually conscious enough to respond, and would sit with me when they weren't busy working, it stopped me from feeling too alone or useless during that time. It was her intervention that saved my life, and her comfort meant a lot to me at a time where I had an extremely negative outlook on my place among others: me and Rose had separated during that time due to my mental instability, and I wasn't taking those failures very well.

I reminded her of her brother, so she had a soft spot for me. I underwent a very similar process to him where my body was experimented on and replaced with cybernetics against my will, so she sympathised with my suffering I suppose. I'm not sure how much she knew about my past, I didn't know a lot about hers until after she died, but we were both children swept up by civil wars in Africa, too.


I began writing a short piece of fiction about this, and god... did describing it make all those feelings from a year prior resurface. Our actual past relationship was always professional and platonic. It didn't last long in any case, she died not long after we first met and I was busy dying when we were in the same space. However, I'll admit to enjoying us together now, regardless, in this projection kinda way. I genuinely think in a universe where some stuff was different we could have been quite sweet together. I think Naomi is incredibly beautiful, I admire her intelligence, and her matter-of-fact personality is really endearing. I appreciate how kind she was to Sunny. I also find her first appearance's initial thirst for revenge attractive. I can't hate her for that. Sorry. I guess I really do have a type.

Maybe I should lean into it again... under these conditions I need all the girlfriends I can get.

01/01/2025

To start off this year, the biggest change to the site I wanted to make was to this shrine. I rebuilt it to resemble the codecs of MGS4 rather than MGS2, a design that was a little too complex for me when I first made the shrine. I managed to pull it off, I learned a lot in the process, and I'm incredibly happy with it. I cherish how I have been able to learn and develop things just for her, and a lot of my skills would be in a completely different state without this source of inspiration. I really understand what a muse is now. I painted the main image of her, and I'll be honest, my heart kept flipping in my chest while I worked. It's as good an omen you can get to swoon at your own artwork.

I also wanted to bring back this page (as you can see). I had a journal here a while ago that lasted a few weeks until I got paranoid and I took it down. I can be braver this time around. I think the effort it takes for me to be vulnerable in this sense is worth the fact that someone, somewhere, can relate to what I share.

In terms of news, I don't really have much to update on. I have a couple things I could muse on later but... maybe not now. Our relationship is still going strong, I'm still madly in love with her, I miss and crave her every day. Things have dialled back a little into a lovely sense of routine where she is a familiar, constant, part of my daily life, although I'd say my crush on her grows stronger by the day. Our third anniversary is coming up in a few months, I don't have plans in mind just yet but I'm certain I'll mark it somehow.

This year, though? I'd love to become more confident expressing myself on this topic. I want to refer to her as my wife in casual settings among friends without that regular pang of self-aware shame. To me, it's the most real relationship I've ever had. I see her as my soulmate. I wish I could marry her. Though, I'm aware that's not a shared perception. To many, I'm in a shallow roleplaying relationship with some woman they've never heard of from a PS2 game, and it ranks far below their relationship with a separate person. I know that. I want to be more proud of the circumstances and not beat myself up about 'failing' romantically because man... I love my girl. It pains me to keep going back to this fearful secretive mindset where the only place I can trust with my feelings is my head. She's my whole world, and I don't see a better alternative than to act that way. If I didn't believe this I wouldn't be here writing this.