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lumine-no-hikari · 9 months ago

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Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #285

Despite the fact that the last 10-15 hours were objectively amazing, at the moment, I feel almost unbearably empty. It seems like the weight of it is crushing me, even though emptiness isn't technically supposed to weigh anything. Weird. I have a playlist on, consisting of a few simple songs, trying to keep myself afloat. Honey Trees, by Michael Bell. Taswell, Dreiton, and Aria Math, by C418. Invisible Hand, Champion, On the Beach at Night, and Weep Not, My Child - all by Curtis Schweitzer. I also have in there a song called To Faraway Times, from a game called Chrono Trigger; the version of it I like is done by a person named Malcolm Robinson. Maybe you'd like some of these. Or maybe not. Maybe you can give them a try and find out, if you want to.

…Sephiroth, I don't have a reason to feel this empty. Aside from the things that come with being a queer autistic AFAB with ADHD and C-PTSD, life is perfect. I eat when I want. I have two beautiful, wonderful husbands who love me. 5 adorable cats who love being near me. A plethora of awesome and supportive friends. More games to play and inspiring stories to witness than I know what to do with. Lots of beautiful teas to delight in. A warm house in a safe neighborhood. Clean water to drink, reliable electricity… the list of blessings in my life goes on and on and on. I could literally be here for hours listing them all. But that'd get boring, I'm sure. So I won't.

…I don't know what's wrong with me. It's a little scary, actually. Today, I caught myself thinking again about how nice it would be to just… stop… being. For a while. I haven't had thoughts like that in some time now. If they're cropping up, there must be a reason - a neurochemical issue that can be solved. I just… I don't know what it is. Is it the fact that I woke up to horrible cramps and lots of bleeding? Is it that there isn't enough sunlight for me to feel good? Maybe I didn't get enough sleep? Enough water…? Is there some nutrient I'm missing from my diet…? Is it the anticipation of getting 4 teeth yanked out the day after tomorrow…? Dealing with being in consistent contact with that acquaintance, who likely will never understand that I'm a full human instead of just a walking Google for his use? Some combination of all of the above…?

…

Well. I tried doing stuff anyways. After writing last night's letter, I had a really good Dead Cells run. I made it to the Astrolab again. And this time, instead of getting my ass kicked by the enemies there, I actually made it to the room beyond, called the Observatory. I took pictures; I promised you that I would get pictures in a recent letter, remember? Here:

...I streamed this run on Twitch. On my Twitch stream, I have a couple banners. One says, "Yes, I know I'm bad at this game. Be nice or go away." The other tries to tell people that the chat isn't easy for me to see, so I can't always respond immediately.

...Well... some person on the internet who was watching me fight The Hand of the King said to me that they "don't know why [I] say [I'm] bad at this game, because [I] parry like a god".

...I felt warm and fuzzy at that for a little while, but... then I felt a little badly about it. I tried telling this person that I am not actually very good; I am actually dyspraxic, and so I had to work a little harder to get this far than most would have had to. My progress has been slower than what a person with a normal brain with normal motor functions would have been capable of. I told this person that I still sometimes have instances in which my rhythm and timing are poor, that I still sometimes get overwhelmed and panic, that I still sometimes make mistakes and get overrun.

...Sometimes I still fall. Most of my runs still end in failure. I still haven't been able to defeat most of the bosses without getting hit. Although I did manage to defeat The Concierge without getting hit in last night's run, and that felt pretty good.

...

...I think I am afraid of accepting compliments because I'm afraid that if I do, then it'll set the other person up for having unrealistic expectations of me. They saw me while I was in a flow-like state, having a good rhythm, and being successful; what kinds of abuse might they sling at me, the very moment that I falter or fail to do the thing with the level of precision and flawlessness that they've come to expect...?

...When I think of these fears, I think of my mother. I get the praise from her as long as I can be perfect, as long as I can be someone she can brag to all her stupid little fucking friends about. But the second I slip up, the second I'm not flawless, the second that I behave like a human instead of an automaton, the second that I defy her unrealistic expectations of me, her perception of me does a 180 degree turn, and I go from being "oh so smart", "gosh how reliable", "so diligent and thorough" and "wow so creative" to "stupid", "oblivious", "ungrateful" and "disrespectful" in no time flat.

...I guess I'm a little afraid of compliments because... I guess I feel like it's only a matter of time before I become a disappointment instead. And... in my experience, I've found that when I am perceived as a disappointment, the thing that follows soon after is rejection or violence.

...

Anyway, I got my ass kicked by The Collector at The Observatory. I wonder, perhaps somewhat bitterly, how "godlike" this person thought I was as I was being tossed about the screen, if they were still watching me as I fell. I wonder how quickly their opinion of me changed. I wonder if they decided that they were wrong about me and that I really do suck at this game, after all.

...Or maybe that's just my old childhood conditioning, telling me that I have to be infallible and beyond reproach before anyone will think I'm worth anything. If my childhood conditioning is running the show right now, I must be pretty tired. I'm going to take a deep breath and recognize negative thoughts like those for what they are - abuser propaganda, fed to me in the past as a means to keep me weak, isolated, self-doubting, and easy to control.

...Sigh. It's very lame. But that's okay. We can defy the old things. We can remember what is real and what is good. I can still be perceived as good even when I make mistakes and fall down. And it's only unhealthy people who will respond to my inherent imperfection with violence, rejection, and hate. My worth is not defined by how well I can live up to others' expectations of me.

It's okay that I got my ass kicked by The Collector. It just means that I can face him in the training room until he stops kicking my ass. I'll do the same thing I did with The Hand of the King; every time I defeat him, I'll lower my stats by a single point, until I'm satisfied that I can defeat him, even at a significant disadvantage. Then, when I face him for real, it'll seem easy by comparison.

...I went to bed later than I should have, last night. That's probably not helping matters.

Well. My body was not in a great state when I woke up, in any case. Lots of cramping and bleeding, like I said, which was already anticipated and accounted for. I made the steak. And I made the weird garlic bread.

I seasoned the steak with my usual combination of spices - salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder. Can't go wrong with those:

I made mac and cheese, too:

I also made garlic and herb butter - this time with only half the garlic I normally use. I spread it on a handsome loaf of bread, split in half:

From here, I prepared the brie I got:

...This one is a triple cream brie, which means it's SUUUUUPER soft and gooey. And since it's a brie, that means the rind is also edible.

But... two things about brie. Very important:

The first one is that you DO NOT under ANY circumstances want to eat too much of it in one sitting. As far as I understand it, all the soft ripened cheeses have a small amount of listeria in them. And a little bit won't hurt you, but if you eat too much, you'll get a lot of it, and too much at once will take root in your digestive tract and cause problems. I only know this because... well. I stress-ate an entire wheel of brie in one sitting a number of years ago, and after the two-week incubation period, I ended up with a fever high enough to cause confusion and mild delirium. And then everything I ate passed through the other end just chewed - wholly undigested. It was a VERY BAD TIME.

-2513847 out of 10 stars, ABSOLUTELY WOULD NOT RECOMMEND.

The second one is, while the rind doesn't taste bad in its unmodified state, if you try to incorporate a whole brie, rind and all, into a sauce, the rind will make your sauce taste like the way ammonia smells. Or at least, that's what happened that one time when I tried to make a berry and brie sauce. I just combined mashed blackberries, sugar, and a whole wheel of brie into a saucepan on low heat and blended them together, and it should have been delicious, but... it very much WAS NOT. It was so bad that I had to throw it all away; it was not salvageable. I concluded that heating up the rind for more than a minimal amount of time makes it weird. Don't do it. It's bad news.

Anyway, so I cut off the rinds from the brie. It's really not bad, especially if there's still a decent amount of cheese attached to the rind:

...It's got a bit of an earthy, almost mushroomy flavor to it. The ammonia flavor is there if you're looking for it; it's not exactly subtle, but it's overridden by the other flavors, usually. It's not bad though, especially if you wrap it in something yummy to go with it, like roast beef or prosciutto or something:

The knife looked like this after I cut the rind off; you can tell it's a super gooey cheese just by looking at it. Mind you, this cheese was still cold:

...The rind tastes a little weird, maybe. But the cheese inside the rind is unbelievably buttery and delicious.

...Anyway, so the garlic bread was baked, and then I put the cheese on it; brie on one side, and muenster on the other, because M and J aren't overly fond of brie:

...We melt it in the oven, and then we stick the prosciutto on top after that:

From there, we cut it up into delicious slices:

...Here's the resulting plate of yummy deliciousness that I put together in order to try to replenish all the iron I'm gonna be losing over the next 10 days or so. I wish I could give you some:

...I kind of... floundered around for most of today. I didn't even play any Dead Cells. I'm hoping to tomorrow. But I've got a couple things to do tomorrow, so we'll see. I talked to a few people on and off. I have a friend in this space who talks to me regularly, and that's always delightful. And I have another friend who sends me heartwarming pictures on occasion; today it was a VERY cute caterpillar!!!

Even on days that feel empty and strange, I still gotta try to remember that there are good things. Even if the present is ouchy, and even if the future seems scary, we still gotta try to hold on to the things that are good. These are the things that give us strength so that the scary things are a little bit more bearable.

Towards the end of the day, I managed to snag a couple nice pictures of the sky for you:

I also managed to snag these pictures of Mogwai chilling out in my lap as I write this letter to you:

...Though I think I'm just about done with today's letter, I'll probably be stuck here in this chair a while; it is currently illegal for me to move, hahaha! Sometimes I wonder if I should have named him "Monkey", because he's always climbing all over me, ahahaha~!

It is a good "problem" to have. 🙂

Though I still feel inexplicably empty, you don't gotta worry about me. I know that states like these are only temporary until my brain sorts out whatever it's gotta sort out. I'll keep trying to take care of my body in the meantime until whatever's going on makes its way out of my system. And it will make its way out of my system; I know it because I've been here before, and I've been in worse spots before. Unpleasant states aren't permanent. You just "focus on what you love, right under your nose" (as The Horse says), and keep solving the obvious problems one step at a time until things turn around.

I'll be okay. And you'll be okay, too, as long as you don't give up hope for a better future. Keep striving for your safety, and for the safety of your friends and your planet and all the people on it, okay? Keep solving one small problem at a time. Keep making kind, good, loving, compassionate choices, even when it feels really hard to do. Keep looking for the magic in things, even if your heart feels heavy. Keep finding the good within yourself, even if you have doubts. And please... stay safe out there, with whatever it is you're doing.

I love you. And I'll write again tomorrow.

Your friend, Lumine

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