Bruce by Chris Samnee

Batober prompt: Absence

going to my dad's empty apartment and seeing everything just... there and frozen in the daily life hit me way fucking more than the actual funeral yesterday

hey fyi my dad is doing extremely not good, as in palliative-care/hospice-discussions levels of not good. I do not have the bandwidth to talk about it or about anything really, so if I'm curt or ignoring messages that's why

four years since my dad died 👍 get up man lol

Batober 2023 Day 2 - Torn

THE FEYWILD. ( arc. i, pre - baldur's gate )

you're still a young'un when your mother becomes cold. she stays locked up in her temple for days at a time, drowning herself in worship and prayer. your father is oft away at war, but he still is more present than she. he visits you and your sister whenever he can, ruffling your spring - soft hair and kissing your forehead, bringing you all manner of toys and trinkets. you and your elder sister find solace in one another; she comforts you when your mother leaves her temple to find you playing house instead of studying scripture, her cold hands   a  cruel  sting   across the pink of your summer - warm cheeks. you take the blame for her when your mother finds tomes of worship for a goddess other than her own, that which she believes to be the only true god. heretic, she cries, when you can take the fall for your sister no longer. heretic and dissenter, she calls your most beloved friend, as her hand cracks down like thunder 'pon her trembling visage. she's your older sister, but in the wake of your mother's booming rage and unkind hands, she's never looked smaller. if the nightsinger is the path to your salvation, you wonder, why is it the moonmaiden's magic that salves the stinging wounds left by your mother's rings?

still, you are nothing if not a diligent child. you keep your head down, lest provoked otherwise  —  you find that you cannot keep quiet when your mother's fury is directed at your sister, your dearest efru; your protector and closest companion. you practice your archery, ready yourself to heed   the  nightsinger's  call   should it ever come. should your mother ever call upon you to   spill blood   in her lady's name. your sister and you grow distant, for a time, though not of your own volition. efru buries herself in her studies, surviving off of scraps of selunite scripture and tomes their mother thought had been lost to time, buried within the recesses of their estate's library. she only wishes for your safety  —  every time she sees you suffering at your mother's hand in place of her, another scar is carved into her soul. she cannot exist with you as her   living  voodoo  doll   any longer. especially not when her rebellion has grown tenfold; mother ripping up the floorboards of her quarters to find tome upon tome, scroll upon scroll of selunite worship. she confiscates most everything, but it's pointless, anyways. she's nearly memorized everything she's ever read, and that which she hasn't is copied down in her journals thrice over.

still. as hard as things are at home, things are … okay. your father comes home to visit more often these days, off fighting whatever stupid war your mother seems to be raging in the depths of the feywild  —  spilling blood merely for the sake of spilling blood, you're sure. his smile is warm and worn, the skin around his eyes crinkling up like crows' feet when he sees you and your sister. for an archfey, he looks so old. too old. it would seem that the feywild agrees, for one day, when he comes home  —  well, perhaps it is that he doesn't come home at all. not really. you're with your sister, head in her lap as she murmurs hymns to you under her breath, when you both hear the solemn thundering of marching boots and a moaning, melancholy tune :    a  funeral  march   . you scramble to your feet, racing through the halls and down to the dining hall, where you know you'll find what you fear most; you're sure of it, a sick, sinking feeling that eats away at your stomach. your father, laid bare before your mother, with only the barest breath of life still on his lips. she does not weep. tears are already gathering in the corners of your eyes, dropping to your knees as the truth sinks in. the air is acrid with the stench of blood , a trail of it already drying brown against the white of the marble floors. 

your father is going to die. and there is nothing you'll be able to do about it. except  —  efru pulls out her staff, the mutterings of an incantation humming to life with ancient, glowing magic. she's a naturally gifted cleric, always has been, and a sigh of relief catches in your throat when your mother hisses a counterspell under her breath, flinging efru's staff from her hands, where it clatters against stone; it is a hollow, thudding sound. you feel your heart crack like glass.   'please. mother, this is ridiculous, i can save him—'   she begs, but to no avail. your mother spits at her, gathering your father up in her arms.   'silence. your craven, tainted magic will not touch him. not so long as i live and breath, and am the sole lady of this house,'   she hisses, every word dripping with venom. like efru is nothing but a gnat to be swatted from her line of sight, a spider to be crushed underneath the heel of her boot. efru moves to reach for her staff, hands trembling with desperation, but a booming wave of thunder knocks her prone, the carved willow rolling well out of reach. you feel it in the marrow of your bones when his heart stops beating. a gut - wrenching cry tears through your chest, ripping out from your throat and past bleeding lips, ones you'd been gnawing at so fervently you hadn't even noticed when you'd broken skin. 

slowly, verdant green curls are awash with an aching azure storm, streaks of white tickling the nape of your neck where sage flesh has gone death - blue, the freckles adorning your cheeks like speckles of moss suddenly blindingly white, like specks of snow across the bridge of your nose. it feels as though your heart has frozen over, succumbed to the harshest feywild winter you've ever known. you don't think you'll ever smile again.

some head canons about my portrayal of quinn:

i do not write her as ethan’s twin. she’s older than him by one year. she’s the middle child. some people in the fandom head canon they are twins but i go by what is canon for them.

she was asked to help kill her mother. she didn’t have to be forced to kill her like ethan did.

she and bailey did most of the planning when it came to the kill spree. she was actually interested in stab and she provided a lot of input because of that.

she’s actually a horror and stab fan like richie. it’s how she bonded with him.

she worked as a cam girl while she is attending cosmetology school during scream vi. she likes styling hair, doing makeup, and doing nails. in fact, she wanted to work in makeup special effects for horror films.

she’s a daddy’s girl and she uses that to her advantage.

she is also an artist and she’s helped richie with those drawings in the shrine and she finished them once he died.

stu is actually her favorite gf killer. :)

quinn is actually her middle name. her first name is [ REDACTED ]

her favorite franchise is child’s play and tiffany is her fav slasher. she’s her inspo.

she is actually sex positive. she was NOT FAKING being a slut.

she’s pansexual and has had more than just cis male partners.

she was unhinged before she lost richie. she had a tendency for violence ( getting into fights ) and getting into trouble despite her father being a cop. him being a cop helped keep her out of trouble a lot. her father and her siblings tended to ignore this. her mother did not. she got her into therapy to see what was going on with quinn. she was diagnosed with anti social personality disorder. she received therapy and treatment for it to get her mother off of her back. she didn’t always attend therapy and but she would do her best to take the medicine prescribed to her.

not to be a complete sap at six thirty in the fuckin morning but like.

Its been a trip and a half this past what month and a half maybe since i came back to this account? After leaving it over nearly two years ago and expecting not to, especially after everything that happened last year

(can skip over stricken part ♡) ------(finishing degree, brothers dog passing from cancer, moms cancer diagnosis, helping dad be her caretaker and watching her wither over the two months of treatment, family being insufferable and unreliable and still demanding shit from her during that time, the stress of preparing for my graduation and losing her right after, my youngest cat passing)

and the last thing on my mind being trying to write. In spite of mom telling me to get back into it, it was just one of those things where i couldnt really find the push to do so. Grief for my sister twenty years ago gave me the drive to write because she used to write poetry, and grief for mom and my cat-baby had seemingly killed it this time last year.

I really wasnt expecting to come back to tumby to write when i came back here, and i expected that itd be a week before i disappeared into the ether again, but ive genuinely had so much fun this last month and a half writing and chatting over disc - which was also VERY MUCH unexpected because i really never was comfortable with using it or joining servers but im seriously so happy i finally did - with those who have gone on silly lil tangents with me over these silly lil guys on my roster. Who've made all these different lil dynamics with me, for all the boards and the affiliates and all of that.

Ive really had such a good time the last few weeks, its given me a much needed push in terms of getting out of bed yknow? Not letting grief have me in such a chokehold.

And its very much appreciated, truly, to just come on here and be silly and feel welcomed. It's something very much new in spite of being all over the rpc for years. You guys are seriously such a breath of fresh air and im very happy and very lucky i feel being able to write and talk about a game and characters i quite literally have never even played dhudsb

All that to say, ive just been feeling alot more lighter since coming back and alot of its to do with how sweet and lovely and welcoming yall have been.

Before i let myself get any Worse on the sappiness, just leaving a Thank You for yalls patience with me esp this past week tryna get my damn brain back from being lost in luggage sbdjvud vacay brainrot is still lingering but hopefully goes away soon.

Its just been very nice since returning. Yall have been more than lovely vibing with and letting me ramble about muses with near nothing to them that ive yoinked from gun to my others from near non-existant r.pcs like my remakes and trials peeps. And with my little bird.

Im a ridiculously reserved and quiet person and my anxietys got a chokehold still that makes me hesitant in reaching out / talking as often as i wish but i do feel like ive started poking out of that since joining the server. (I also often sort of. Blank out. Time passes me by very strangely and it sometimes comes with me not realizing hrs or at times literal days have passed without me registering it has. So, especially thankyou on being patient with me c;)

Thank you for the last month and a half ♡ its fuckin wild to me that its both been a month already and that its only been a month. Feels like its been simultaneously much longer and much shorter somehow.

upon remembering it was the anniversary of my dad passing away @trueshredguitar said "do you want to do anything? we can watch an austin powers movie."

S/I: What happened?

Sibling F/O: You have to guess.

S/I: Why? Just tell me!

Sibling F/O: Okay, fine. Parental F/O is in the hospital.

S/I: Why would you make me guess that?

Batman by Alvaro Martínez Bueno

The date I was asked out being the same date we buried my mother is so fucked up but it’s an L for Freud so I’ll take it

I can't believe you're gone. You were my best friend my whole life and I'm going to miss you so much. Life was so cruel and unfair to you and I really hope you're someplace better now, mom.

parent death tw??

anyway i’m so scared and paranoid that my mom is going to die. every time she leaves the house or doesn’t answer my text for a few minutes, i assume she got into a car accident or had an aneurysm or something. my brain likes patterns and two of her sisters died recently, so to deal with that. my brain wants to make a pattern out of it. the pattern says that either she or her last sister dies in the next four years. the reason is that she has three younger sisters. in birth order it’s A (my mom) with two kids, B with no kids, C with one kid, and D with two kids. D died three years ago, and C died a few weeks ago. the pattern could either be that all of the sisters with kids die, which means that my mom will die. or, the sisters will die in order, which means that B will die and my mom will die after her. and none of this is logical, and no matter what my theory will be correct because eventually they both have to die because that’s. you know. the nature of life. but what if the years stay the same? what if my mom dies in three years too? or in six? i don’t want my mom to die and i can’t stop thinking about it. sometimes i think about her like she’s already dead because i’m so scared she’s going to die.

if the Inigo Montoya justice scene is one of the top most harrowing scenes for dead dad havers, what are some others?

OOH great question! i’ve been thinking about this ask for 24 hours. here are my findings:

the end of contact (1997) when the alien takes the form of ellie’s dad and they hug. this made me cry before my dad died so i can only imagine it’s lethal now

the end of interstellar (2014) when murph says “nobody believed me, but i knew you’d come back. because my dad promised me.” ough. OUGH! (this scene also made my dad cry so it’s a double-whammy for me now 🫡)

succession season 4 episode 3 “connor’s wedding” i think we’re all still recovering

the scene in “uptown girls” (2003) when the dude love interest sings the song brittany murphy’s dad wrote her as a kid, while dakota fanning dances in her recital. (rewatched this recently and it’s one of the most devastating depictions of complex dead parent grief i’ve ever seen.)

hacks hbo episode when deborah comforts ava in her childhood bedroom after her dad’s funeral ends

when mia finds her dad’s letter in the diary at the end of “the princess diaries” omgggg i’ve seen this movie 18 times but i’d never cried during that scene before LMAO

kyle ren killing han solo, specifically rey’s reaction. felt that in my bones while giffing the movie the other day.

that’s all i’ve got for now. feel free to reblog with your own favorite Harrowing Dead Dad media!

okay well I told my sisters so the worst part is kind of over. they both took it okay, but I also think it's one of those things that takes some time to really sink in.

I knew this was coming, it's the natural order of things, and I knew my mom would probably be sooner rather than later in my life, because she's lived really hard and been through a lot but.

I'm certainly not like. looking forward to it.

progressive kidney disease is one of those things that only really ends one way. not a matter of if, but when.