#Adrift for Days

[a-driftamongopenstars]

I fucking love da2. I love that it's concentrated around a single city and a very small group of people while addressing things of a massive scale. I love that it's so small and personal and it tears you apart every act. I love the companions who are so incredibly well thought out, so complex and so interesting, with lives of their own. I love the voice acting so much. this game put huge stakes against one little guy (or gal) and spurred into motion a conflict a very long time coming.

it didn't pull any punches, it went straight for your heart.

[angels-in-overcoats]

Amazing that series 2 of Torchwood has some of the most depressing episodes I've ever seen in my life and yet it still isn't even the most depressing series of Torchwood

[loveisinthebat]

We all Lift

[leveragehunters]

I was reading the new Wayward Children novel by Seanan McGuire on the train this morning. Amazing book, 10/10, highly recommend.

Then I walked past this on the way to work from the station:

Definitely not my door, but I did one hell of a double take.

[littledashdraws]

dokkalfr resplendent arete

[thoughtsofananon]

A Mannequin Adrift - Skyblock Kingdoms Animatic

[teyrnacousland]

i want to break these bones ‘til they’re better (771 words)

Illario thinks often of Lucanis dying. 

When he watches him step a little too close to the edge of a rooftop, he thinks he sees a flash of capes fluttering over the edge out of the corner of his eyes. He hears the hiss of a knife cutting through the air, and an image of it burying itself in Lucanis’ chest flashes across his eyes. He has to turn to make sure it wasn’t a premonition of some kind. And lately he finds himself waking up twice. Once to find Lucanis laying still and cold in his bed, and a second time to find that it was only a dream.

Sometimes when they spar under Caterina's watchful eyes he imagines slipping through Lucanis' defenses and driving his dagger into his throat. He imagines the way his cousin would look at him as he dies. The image is so loud and so sudden that he doesn't manage to blink it away in time to react to Lucanis' next strike. The image falls away as Illario does, reality snapping back with a thud as his back hits the dirt. Lucanis is alive again, giving him a pointed look as he stands over him.

(When Lucanis reaches down to help him up Illario imagines tugging him down so he falls and lands on the dagger still in his other hand.)

Checking Lucanis for signs of the injuries that plague his daydreams has become second nature to Illario. A quick glance at Lucanis’ throat to see reassuringly unbroken skin. An hand on his arm to feel the warmth of life through the leather. A peripheral glance to make sure his cousin is still standing and not struck down beside him. 

It’s exhausting. 

And it only gets worse as they get older. As they each take their own contracts and spend more and more time apart. Lucanis leaves for days at a time, alone, and Illario’s head plays out the scene of someone else walking in through the door instead of Lucanis and delivering the news. 

He fills the empty days with empty pleasures and empty words to drown out the ones on repeat in his head. He’s gone. He ignores the whispers and pours himself another drink. Smiles at another pretty thing across the bar. Steels his heart and drives his blade into someone else’s. Anything to keep the thoughts at bay. 

Sometimes he wonders what would happen if the deaths in his mind became reality. 

Would Caterina renounce her approval of Lucanis, if he failed? Would she see Illario, the survivor, as a worthy heir at last? Would Illario become the favourite, if only by default?

Or would this, too, be Illario’s fault? Would Caterina scold him for not being able to protect Lucanis, House Dellamorte’s most valuable asset, and the one person in the world she respected and loved? Would she blame him for living when Lucanis did not?

And what of Illario himself? What would Illario be without Lucanis? No more glancing over his shoulder to check for signs of life. No more following in another’s footsteps and hoping he's not being led off a cliff. No more spectres of his cousin’s potential deaths floating around the Villa whenever Lucanis was out of sight too long.

He would be alone. Does Illario even know who he would be, without Lucanis held up to him like a mirror?

Illario’s daydreams never reach far past the mourning stage. He sees Caterina hearing the words he keeps hearing in his head: Lucanis is gone. Would she cry? He’d never seen her cry over her own children all those years ago. But she locked herself in her room, sometimes. Maybe she was crying then. Maybe she would cry if it was her dear Lucanis. Maybe they would mourn together. 

Or maybe she would lock herself in that room and never come out.

As for Illario himself… He would cry, he knows. He's always been the odd one out, never managing to keep the tight grip on his emotions that seemed to come naturally to Lucanis and Caterina. He would cry, and drink, and rant, and rave. And he would kill whatever took Lucanis from him. His final duty as his cousin’s keeper.

And then…

And then the nightmare ends. Lucanis walks in. Illario’s eyes scan him for fatal injuries, and the empty space in his lungs is replaced with relief when he finds none. The bags in his cousin's eyes are deeper and darker than when he left, but he can pretend to ignore that later.

The images in his head fade away. Until next time.

[vaguely-concerned]

varric and rook feels again. immeasurable suffering. sure, I'll be your checkmate of hope at the end of the world, the triumph of the noblest lie, that one that keeps us going: maybe it'll all turn out all right, this time. maybe we'll figure out that happy ending thing yet. but it feels like all I got to keep of you for myself are ghosts and so many stories I'll never know the endings or beginnings to now, stories I'll have to figure out how to tell on my own or else let go of. am I allowed to still miss you as much as I do.

(so. love as usual then. love as a haunting, love as ghosts that cannot quite keep us company but how could we ever bear to leave them behind completely. orpheus walking backwards out of hell the whole way to watch what he left behind. on a clear day you can see all the way back to kirkwall from here. the da2 themes continue to rule supreme varric just brings them along into the narrative with him)

[knightofleo]

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #466

Yeah, so... if you've been reading my letters up until this point... you understand that yesterday, I didn't get nearly enough sleep. And you probably also understand that I didn't have a chance to eat before work today, because I had to prioritize maximizing sleep. And you probably understand, from there, that today was kind of a weird mental health day.

...Well. Actually. It started normally enough, to be fair, even if I was somewhat sluggish. I had simple tasks to do – setting up sheets of cookies and croissants and such to be baked, putting labels on things, slicing bread, and suchlike. But then... well...

There's this young woman who works in our store. She handles gathering up stuff for people who order their groceries online. She has a habit of asking Tr where items are – even items that are not in the purview of the bakery. Tr does not have the skills to be able to tell this young woman, “I do not know where these items are; please ask me only about bakery items” or “Though you've been doing this particular job for a long time, it seems as though you still struggle to find items; do you need some coaching from a manager?” And so... when this young woman comes around, Tr gets visibly annoyed, but only when the young woman is not looking. Today, despite the eye roll I saw, she greeted the young woman, unprompted, with the same brightness with which she greets me when I come in, in the morning.

...And I felt very frightened in response to that. I perceived that Tr carries a lot of masked resentment towards this young woman – essentially, holding this young woman secretly accountable for Tr's failure to communicate her boundaries with gentle integrity.

Immediately, my mind questioned whether or not Tr feels similarly about me. It tried to draw evidence from past experiences to try to support or deny that conclusion. All at once, my mind was flooded with altogether too many memories of similar things happening to me – all of the folks who thought they were being “kind” or “nice” or “polite” or “avoiding hurting feelings” by not expressing their needs while I, obliviously, thought that they were feeling safe and having fun in my presence, only for it to be revealed later, usually accidentally, that they resented me and thought I was weird the whole time.

...It feels like a terrible betrayal every single time. And no matter how often it happens to me, dealing with it never seems to get any easier. I have to remind myself that if other people do not speak and act with integrity, then that's on them. But that can only do so much to soften the blow that is losing someone I thought was a friend, because I found out that they weren't actually interested in being my friend in the first place.

...So. With my freshly-adrenalined brain having gathered “evidence” from past memories (past memories do NOT count as evidence when it comes to people, because individuals are individuals, not faceless, stereotyped templates upon which to project our worst fears), it then tried to jump to the conclusion that Tr is perpetually annoyed with me as well.

...Because underfed, underslept brains afflicted with C-PTSD are gonna brain. And they're gonna usually do a pretty bad job of it. And so, the inside of my brain was quickly starting to look kind of like this:

...It was very lame. But I remembered that one of my coping skills is curiosity. So I asked more questions to Tr in order to try to get to the bottom of why she feels unable to communicate the boundary to this young woman. Conversation ensued. For reassurance, I asked Tr if she feels similarly about me. The answer, I guess, is no. So I'm gonna try to have faith in that.

...And then An came in. And... well. My brain immediately started trying to spiral in relation to him. I still speak to him via text sometimes. But... my brain sometimes perceives his behaviors at work as deliberate attempts to try to avoid interacting with or being seen by me. Sometimes I'll ask him questions via text (usually to the tune of, “we of my house will be at xyz place, do you wanna join us?��), and I perceive that he ignores the ones to which the answers are “no” instead of actually telling me “no” (which I have a REALLY hard time with because of the whole autism thing). Most recently, I asked him if he'd like to hang out before J and I leave for the Oregon trip; the answer to that was supposedly “yes”, but then when I followed up to request that he tell me when he's free so that I may plan something, I received no response to that after a few days, and the topic moved on and was never returned to, so...

...I was reminded, vaguely, of the way that the leader of a certain place J and I used to go to is, apparently, unable to say to us, “I need/want to exit this conversation”, and remained in a position of discomfort, speaking to us as though he's having fun when actually he wasn't, presumably because he didn't wanna hurt our feelings. We don't want him to have a bad time, so J and I don't go over there anymore.

My brain interpreted An's non-return to the topic of “when is your free time?” in the light of my past experiences and in the light of the way Tr treated this young woman. It wove it into a weird story all about how An actually hopes I'll go away and leave him alone forever and ever, but he doesn't wanna hurt my feelings, so he doesn't say so, and instead endures the discomfort of interacting with me.

...But I remembered this time that not all of the stories our addled brains weave are actually true. So you know what? When he came by, I tried to explain a little about the thing with Tr, and how it led up to the worry that he doesn't actually want anything to do with me. And he smiled and laughed a little, and without hesitating, he reassured me that I'm overthinking. So... I'm gonna try to have faith in that.

...Faith is hard when you've been lied to a lot by people who are afraid to set boundaries. But I'm gonna try it anyway. I haven't died any of the other times I had faith and it didn't work out. I'm probably not gonna die from it this time. And my support system is better now. And I know what to do when my brain is ouchy (most of the time, anyways).

...I'm gonna assume they're being truthful. But the fact of the matter is that it's fine even if they aren't. Because if they do not speak with integrity, that's on them, and I can handle it if that's the case.

When I got home, I immediately ate a few small things before putting some salmon I got a couple days ago into the steamer. The results were beautiful, and with me being not hungry anymore, I immediately felt a lot better.

...I wish I could give you some of this. It really is very yummy. But... I wrote you a letter that says how to make it, so... I guess... whenever you're done with whatever it is you're trying to do... you can make it for yourself and be really happy about its deliciousness.

...I hope you'll think of me a little when you try it.

I spent the rest of the afternoon/evening talking to various friends and generally derping around. At some point, I took an evening walk with J, which was probably good for me. And I took a shower, which was long overdue. I used the pink bar of rose-scented soap I got yesterday. And it smelled lovely for one wash. But it doesn't smell like anything anymore.

...A lot of bar soaps are like that for some reason, it seems. They don't smell like anything after the first use. I wonder why. It was kind of disappointing.

Overall, the shower was nice nonetheless. A great way to chase away the chill in my bones that I acquired from the walk.

...I should try to go to bed on time. So... I guess I'll end today's letter here.

I love you a whole lot, and... if you're around listening to my various derpy musings... I'm really glad you're here.

...Please keep being here. Please keep existing. Please keep staying safe. Please keep making choices that will lead you to that normal life you wanted.

I'll write to you again tomorrow.

Your friend, Lumine

[a-driftamongopenstars]

[amidnightqueery]

I don't hate my job or anything, but man, being a float educator is so fucking thankless

[castafae]

Drew another poon nerd! Her name is Paradise (Parry) and she's what I'd like to call a 'battle librarian'.

Her and Fae (my mystic) are pretty close friends and like to swap info on the various oddities they discover on their outings when they meet up in Sanctum.

She likes to roam the catacombs in search of secrets and old tomes, which usually means she has to thwack a few ghosts and ghouls as she goes.

Lord Kaluuz is not a fan.

[melikes-reads]

To all the Autumn lovers

How do you cope with the shorter days? With all this darkness?

Unless you are vampires.

In which case, please ignore the question.

[estarion]

Circe. "You are actually alright. I can at least have a conversation with you."

it’s funny. he was thinking something along similar lines about her recently. she is a lavish, commanding mistress, with a prodigious hunger and a contempt for fools. he doesn't know a lot about her, but already it seems they share a good amount in common. “thank you. likewise, too. your company has been a delight.” astarion’s hands are elegantly poised at his back as they promenade the courtyard of her palace, right fingers encircling his left wrist. he is only afforded the chance to experience things like this at night, but the way lanterns and candles have been arranged makes certain parts appear almost sunlit. he glimpses his mystical companion from the corner of his eye, touch of a smile on his lips. a rarity indeed to find anyone he could deem a friend these days, particularly a fast one. “also, i must say! the pangs of boredom have not struck once my entire stay. i ought to thank you for that, as well.”

[skyward-floored]

Ah no it’s that time of the month?

Hugs for you <333

Yeah *grumble* I kinda was looking forward to not being in pain for a few days, but apparently ‘twas not meant to be. and I’ve got a busy day tomorrow too 😭

But yeah. thank you trin <3