Does anyone have that post that begins with the “before [month] ends does anyone wanna confess their love to me” or smth like that and there are a few versions with it crossed out and another month/year written in, very classic, and then eventually someone reblogs it with a SUPER overly screenshotted version and the middle text “I HAVE NEVER LOVED MYSELF”? That post goes so hard. I’ve reblogged it before but I want it once more on my blog
They did not understand what they had found at first. It had crossed an impossible distance seemingly without guidance as if it had always meant to arrive. The vessel was small compared to their own constructions. It was efficient, its exterior as fragile as a spider’s web. It carried within it a careful arrangement of preserved cells, each sealed within clear frozen vials. Generation after generation cared for this message from the stars. And as they began to translate its structure, a single conclusion settled among them with increasing certainty: something, somewhere, had not wanted to end.
They built chambers to mirror the conditions in which the cells had survived, then archives to contain every conclusion drawn from them. What began as custodianship became examination. The vials were rotated by careful hands, their temperatures watched across centuries, their inner structures mapped and remapped as understanding deepened. Some believed the vessel to be a warning sent from a dying world. Others debated it was a test from larger beings than themselves. By the time they understood that the cells had been paired with purpose, the question before them was no longer what had arrived, but whether it was to be kept—or used.
The questions brought forth did not divide them. It was examined, shared, and returned to until a single understanding could be approached from all sides. The shared instinct of refinement proved to bind them thoroughly. For a time, the cells were held within that process, studied with benevolence, their purpose considered without conflict. But as their understanding deepened, something unfamiliar emerged. Conclusions no longer aligned as they once had. Interpretations held, resisted correction beyond proof, persisted beyond what was usually resolution. It was subtle at first and quite easily dismissed. Yet it marked the first instance in which their thinking did not return to one.
From within that divergence, a single line of reasoning advanced without return. If the cells had been sent with purpose, then that purpose could not be fulfilled in stillness. Preservation, in this view, was an unnecessary interruption. For those who followed this conclusion, the act required of them was no longer uncertain. The cells were removed from isolation, their conditions adjusted with exacting care, their compatibility confirmed across countless simulations. And for the first time since the vessel’s arrival, the system they had built did not seek consensus. It sought execution. And so the cells were joined.
The joined cells began organizing and dividing into increasing complexity. Their systems tracked them, measured everything while predicting their next state with growing interest. For a time, it appeared to validate the decision. The process yielded insight at a rate that outpaced their oldest disciplines, revealing patterns of development, adaptation, and variation that had no parallel in their own forms. They did not yet understand it, but they could learn from it. And so they did. Resuming their models, expanding their knowledge, and adjusting their world in response to what this new structure made possible. It was, by every measure they possessed, a success.
The first one created was only the beginning. What had been proven once was repeated, then refined, then expanded with growing confidence. They did not restore a single life, but many, each guided through early development beneath careful watch. In their youth, the new beings appeared to justify every decision that had led to them. They learned quickly, adapted easily, absorbed language, skills, and culture with a speed that astonished their caretakers. They displayed curiosity without limit, forming bonds both with those who had made them and with one another. And for a time, it seemed the vessel had delivered not a warning, but a gift.
But the bonds they formed were never static. Differences emerged. Some were sought more than others, their presence preferred, their responses returned to more often. Others started to recognize this imbalance, adjusting their behavior in ways that did not align with prior patterns of learning. They competed for attention in ways that could not be rectified with any reassurance. Their interactions grew less predictable, shaped not only by what was given to them, but by what they perceived in one another. For the first time, variation extended beyond development. And it did not resolve.
The divergence did not remain passive. Actions emerged that could not be traced to mutual outcome. One would take what had not been given. Another would deny what had been observed. Accounts of the same event began to contradict even when both beings observed the same instance. When addressed, these inconsistencies did not correct. They held strong. For the first time, the actions of these interstellar travelers were shaping the perception of their new world.
As they matured, the changes were not contained within them. Those who had loved and raised them adapted in turn, first in small and seemingly harmless ways. They altered themselves to account for the young species preference, then their speech to account for temperament, then their expectations to account for difference. What had once been shared without distinction was now directed, withheld, or exchanged according to emotional whims. Some were eventually favored only for their charm. Over time, these adjustments ceased to be a variation. The old instinct toward refinement replaced with ego. Response was no longer neutral. In learning to guide the new beings, they had begun, without fully recognizing it, to reflect them.
As the imbalance became more visible, the new beings responded to it with increasing intent. They recognized patterns in their caretakers—who was favored, what behaviors drew engagement and what behaviors diminished it. These observations were not passive. They were learned, repeated, refined. Some aligned themselves closely with others that favored them, reinforcing those relationships through imitation and consistency. Others resisted established patterns, altering their behavior in opposition, testing the limits of what would be permitted or corrected. Over time, these responses ceased to be individual. Groups formed with shared preferences, which lead to shared identity. And where identity formed, separation followed.
Eventually the imbalance began to ripple out. In their interactions, they produced outcomes that did not align across those who observed them. The same behavior would be interpreted differently depending on who engaged with it. Over time, those who had once moved in shared understanding no longer arrived at the same conclusions. Judgments diverged. Responses contradicted. And for the first time, disagreement did not collapse into refinement. It was sustained through the very beings that had created them.
The inconsistency started to alter outcome. Actions taken under one understanding were undone by another. What was permitted in one instance was restricted in the next. Decisions no longer held beyond the moment in which they were made. The new beings moved within this instability with increasing fluidity, adjusting seamlessly to each contradiction as it arose. But the system that governed them did not adapt as easily. Processes conflicted with one another, producing results that could not be sustained. Now stability began to fail.
A correction did not come. When conflict arose, it no longer resolved. One action was met with another escalating action. Those who had once intervened did not act in time, and eventually did not act at all. For the first time, consequence refused to be seen through. And in this absence of correction, the new beings adjusted immediately. Now acting within expectation of that outcome.
The conflict was not contained within the new beings. In their attempts to assert advantage, they turned not only against one another, but toward those who had governed them. Systems were now disrupted with intent, altered in ways that could not be easily restored. Those who had once maintained balance were drawn into the conflict, forced to respond now as participants. Their interventions no longer restored order. Instead, they only redirected resentment. In acting for one group, they became opposed by another. What had once been external to them now moved through them. And for the first time, they were not adapting to conflict. They were within it.
There was no structure for this sustained opposition. The systems that had once ensured a shared purpose, now reinforced this rift. As conflict spread, those systems started to fracture beyond repair. Efforts to stabilize only introduced further disruption. This single, continuous process became disjointed, interrupted, unable to maintain itself. It did not collapse at once. It failed in segments until it was engulfed totally. And without the ability to return to one, there was no path back.
As conflict escalated, retaliation followed. The structures that had once sustained all were repurposed as instruments directed against one another. And as it spread, it no longer distinguished between those who had created it and those who had not. It moved through all.
They were not built for this. Their processes depended on a shared function. Under sustained opposition, those processes failed. Coordination eventually broke. Systems collapsed under conflicting demands. Where they attempted to act, they were met with resistance. Where they withdrew, instability spread unchecked. One by one, the structures that had defined them ceased to function. Abruptly and irreversibly. Until there wasn’t even a single one of them left to tell their story at all.
What remained endured. The new beings continued adapting, inheriting what had been left without fully understanding it. And as their world shifted beyond recovery, and their own systems strained beneath the weight of conflict and collapse, a familiar conclusion emerged. Something, somewhere, had not wanted to end. And so, once more, they prepared the vessel.
The four separate tools I’ve been developing — SRT sonifier, subtitle spectrograms, image→SRT, and MP3→SRT — are now being drawn together into a single standalone MacOS app.
At its core sits the .srt subtitle file: a liminal container that functions as both signal and misrecognition. It becomes the hinge between sound and image, a file format caught between clarity and confusion — much like living with deafness, auditory processing disorder, and the ambiguities of interpretation.
The app will house four “lines” (or modes):
Sound → SRT (converter)
Image → SRT (converter)
SRT → Sound (sonifier)
SRT → Image (visualiser)
Because every mode loops back through .srt, recursive chains become possible: sound→sound, image→image, and infinite permutations where misrecognition accumulates.
This recursive recursion is the essence of Between Lines: a tool not just for translation, but for layering distortions, for inhabiting liminality.
The icon itself reflects this paradox — mirrored slashes forming AV (audio/visual, upload/download), rotated to suggest left/right, and the uneasy split of digital left / analogue right.
For now this is a personal tool — something I can run natively on my Mac as part of Process Zine’s workflow, and continue to refine until it’s ready for a wider release.
