Dear Diary,

"Allow yourself to enjoy,

Whatever makes you happy.

Ecstasy's where you find it."

Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Ecstasy

Along with folks not harshing other people's happy, I gotta remember that the whole puritan 'joy is for closers' bullshit is older than fuckin' dirt. Like, yeah, the modern refined versions are hard to spot sometimes. But there have been varieties of Prosperity Doctrine telling people if they don't hit some arbitrary externally imposed victory conditions, they're not worthy of happiness since the evolution of rational thought. Seriously, how many of us do it to ourselves, whether it's 'save the best for last', when you never actually get to that 'last', or 'I'll take a break when I'm all caught up', or any of the other million things we tell ourselves to convince ourselves that it's okay that life is shit, because we deserve it.

That's all tied in with the guilt people feel when they hit those moments of pure bliss. Especially since so many of them are physical, carnal in nature. Sure, I get it, not every moment of Ecstasy has to be prompted by pushing the love button. But just looking at how it works in the absence of all the shit we surround ourselves with. Like, put us back in the African forests hunting and gathering. Engage in the act of propagating the next generation? Bam, Dopamine euphoria. Snuggle up long enough with the next generation? Bam, Oxytocin euphoria. Get everybody fed and healthy? Bam, Serotonin euphoria. I mean, yeah, some of us aren't wired like that, and I'm sure if I thought about it long enough I'd get confused and bored and wander off, but if I asked Saffron to think about it for half a morning she'd have, like, a list of reasons why each of us with weird neurotransmitter triggers are getting rewarded for doing something good for the tribe, or the species, or whatever.

It's like the diurnal, nocturnal thing. Some of us are the descendants of the ones who stayed up late making sure nothing snuck up on the tribe. No 'oh, you're bad because you're not up at the ass crack of dawn' bullshit. Just 'hey, we're up, get some sleep, we'll save some berries for you.'. Shit, if there weren't as many night time people as day time people, maybe that's where the whole 'people who don't like to be constantly chattering to the other apes' comes from. Holy fuck, did I actually learn shit while I was in class here in Phileo? Would I have learned shit if I'd gone to class for reasons other than fucking with the teachers on the regular?

Before you ask, I never did. Actually fuck with a teacher. Not for lack of trying, but when you don't pay them shit and they're spending half of that lack of shit on classroom supplies, then you act like they're somehow at fault for the economic devastation in the neighborhood? The only peeps you get to put on the tie and stand up front with the chalk are the too desperate to risk anything and the too deeply driven to help to potentially hurt some poor dumb bitch who's just trying to prove how nasty everybody else is.

I wonder if normal, non-isekaied people come to these kind of realizations at some point. Like, do edgelords ever realize shit like, 'I just wanted to be special' rather than 'omg I was so cringe'?

Yeah, definitely felt special yesterday. For those who didn't study cephalopod biology in High School bio, uh... 'sexual dimorphism', especially as regards to size, plus 'positioning', like in the sense that the boy Kraken just being in a particular spot makes the girl Kraken all hot and bothered. Totally did not realize while dealing with my new Squid Gang, but apparently in an effort to get herself out of the line of fire, my Kitten found those buttons, set herself, and jumped up and down on them. Which, by the time the Humboldt shoal left meant that one of my arms decided it was time to insert Saffron A in Tab I. Fortunately my lovely Kitten is not against the idea of shapeshifted shenanigans in any way, shape, or form, so other than roping Marie and Siobhan into our little Revel when they came looking for us, no harm, no foul. Okay, I think Karen showed and left pretty quick, because she'd been offered a very pointed invitation.

Look, I have a hard enough time controlling my own impulses, and I've been working on that shit for over a decade. Whole new fuckin' weird Kraken impulses? I have no defense against those. 'Fuck or fuck off' was absolutely the best I could do at that moment. I apologized for screaming it into her brain as soon as the funky Kraken love juice wore off.

Interesting points about the Kraken, both in general and the big beastie that I shapeshifted into. Just in general, I definitely got the idea that the whole 'distributed intelligence' thing is weirder to experience for a 'my brain goes in my singular brain hole' type person than I might have thought previously. Beyond that, I'm not sure exactly what Kraken are, because they do not quite fit as Squid or Octopi or Cuttlefish. Like, the biggest commonality with cuttlefish, maybe the only one, is the sheer amount of pure flex skin color shit they could do. Not just like, camouflage like octopi or some squid, but all that rippling, rainbow, 'I'm pretty sure Saffron could figure out how to show live high def video on her side if she were one' level of chromatophores. Eight arms, and I'm talking big hefty motherfuckers like an octopus. At least a dozen tentacles of wildly varying sizes; like a half dozen small ones near the beak, a couple about as long as the arms, and then another half dozen really long fuckers. Definitely a full beak, strong enough to spaghettify the hard parts of poor brave boi.

Still a little weirded out at how the rest of the shoal just took that shit in stride. Like, I ask for some info, and they offer up their bravest for that weird Kraken mind meld, he dies, I eat him, and suddenly I'm part of their tribe.

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So after aforementioned Kraken Love Juice left my brain, the four of us headed back for bath time. Had some fun flirting with Devorah while the ladies smirked at her. Best part had to be when Siobhan, who since Devorah was pretty much second to last of the women to go through the bath, leaving Siobhan at loose ends, wandered over to drape herself over me while I dried Devorah. I don't remember exactly what Dev said, something about having 'done this dance before', which set Siobhan to laughing.

Devorah gave her a booger look, and Siobhan, through her ongoing giggles, said, "oh, please forgive me. I'm certain you have, but... wait, have you had an experience that ground your mind down to powder, mixed that powder with essence of pure Ecstasy, leavened it with fear and lust and unbridled Passion, then poured it back into you through every opening on your body?"

Dev just stared at her blankly for a second. "Well. I have had orgasms before."

I couldn't see Siobhan's face, but something told me she had the wide, innocent eyes of the nicer kind of zealot. "They're great, aren't they! How many at once?"

"I've, ah, never had a partner who really had the kind of stamina to... ah..."

"Oh, no, no, no, not how many in a session. I'm fairly certain I'd need to count on my fingers by the end of one, and I don't have enough fingers for that. No, I meant how many at the exact same time?" The most hilarious part to me was that my sweet Ice Pop was definitely not being sarcastic, or ironic, or any kind of nasty. She absolutely wanted someone to geek out about over her recently discovered favorite hobby.

Meanwhile Dev blinked. shook her head, blinked again, and said, "you... that... really?"

Siobhan, who'd leaned over me far enough I could see the side of her face by now, nodded, biting her lip, eyes wide with unfeigned delight. Then she half turned to me. "Champion... Mistress. May your Concubine assist you?" I opened my mouth to answer, and she interrupted with, "with Devorah. After?"

While Dev giggled like she'd just realized exactly what she'd gotten herself into, I smiled at my eager Ice Pop and said, "three conditions."

"Name them!"

"First and most importantly, Devorah's got to Consent to that. No coercion, either."

"Bribery?"

I laughed. "Oh, shit, bribery's fine. Dev wants to put a price on herself, that's her business. Second condition, you ask me properly."

"Please may I assist you with Devorah after, Champion?" I gave her a little side eye. "Mistress?" I frowned just slightly. "Tabitha?"

I smiled. "If she's okay with it? I'm not against the idea. Sliding an Ice Pop in during is kinky, not unpleasant."

"What's the third condition then?"

I gave Devorah a peck on the forehead, then spun her around and boosted her toward Marie. "Convince me with a kiss?"

She did. Thirteen out of ten for eagerness. Had to knock it off and send her off to Saffron when Anna ambled over to us, but consider me convinced.

Mimic dreamt of our ladies languidly shoving each other's foodstuff selves into the maw. All except Karen, who'd got herself a little turret that alternated between cinnamon whiskey, which she used to liberally hose down all my ladies, prompting hilarity when it steamed off them, and beans, which she used to pelt the foodstuff ladies apart in my maw. Also, slightly odd, dreamt of cruising south down the coast as we nommed all the things that didn't move fast enough.

In the morning, after we got everybody working on the Homestead, asked Saffron when she thought we ought to return to talk to the Keeper. "Are the lesser Kraken, the hunters, gone?"

"Yeah. Pretty sure they're a ways down the coast by now. Norfolk at least."

She nodded. "I'm overseeing a few things directly here, and have a few items to take care of, but shall we go there after lunch?"

"Sounds like a plan."

So after lunch she hopped us down to the Aquarium. So weird. It wasn't 'my' aquarium, the one I remembered from Camden, but it totally was an aquarium. She walked the two of us over to some scuff marks on one of the stone walkway between the big enclosures, then pointed at one. "In there, love."

"How'd the Humboldt get in?" She looked at me, and I said, "the squid. The hunters."

She blinked. "I... hadn't thought of that. Perhaps we can look while we wait?"

We dove in, and after searching for a surprisingly short time, found an archway big enough to drive a bus through. It didn't look like somebody'd built an arch, though, but like somebody'd carefully removed rocks until they had a big assed opening. A few rust colored lines on the ground and a whole shit ton of torn off plants hinted that it might not have been open at first, and that it had, at one point, been hidden by vegetation.

It looks like the Kraken here was less prisoner than willing guest.

Looks like.

She led me back to a spot that definitely rustled my jimmies; a pile of discolored dirt, with weird rust red patterns looping around it. We settled down on a rock a dozen feet away from the edge of the patterns and waited. And waited. And waited. Something tickled at my brain, like I ought to do something, but I had no idea what.

Then, as the sun hit the horizon, I realized. Uh, Kitten?

Yes, love?

I think I need to be a Kraken.

She facepalmed. Of course. Well, go ahead.

I... You...

She shook her head, her hair billowing around her. Oh, no, love. You startled me, but any fear was from the pack of... Humboldt. You... I think she actually blushed. You were quite striking.

Oh. I definitely blushed at that. Yeah, um... not just that. You... uh... yeah, that reaction was not a one time thing, I don't think.

Oh. She kinda deflated. I'll go, then, if...

NO! No, Kitten. Not that.

Then what?

Stay with me? As a Kraken?

Her eyes got really big. You... Of course, love. She drifted over, put her arms around me, and kissed me.

I shifted mid-kiss, and she shifted with me. Before I realized that the, ah, pull to mayhem was no less intense, but far less likely to result in Saffron residing permanently within my mantle, a... voice projected a motion-image and words into my head.

Welcome back, Chosen.