they ask her why she did it, she said, "honey, you would too"

OKAY. OKAY YOU KNOW WHAT? NO. NO HAUNT FOR OCTOBER. NO. DONE.

Primarily because...



...this is as far as I'd gotten.

Yeah.



AND I'm hopelessly behind blogging. AND I'm hopelessly behind on haunt coverage. AND AND AND I'm hopelessly behind on hunts.

Oh, and somewhere in that, hee hoo ha, I was planning on teaching myself how to make Dinkie clothes because...reasons...and...

NOTHING IS GOING WELL.

And I'm both tired of complaining and haven't even started complaining yet. (Make that one make sense.) Plus, the entire household is sick, and tired, and...and...and...

Yeah. So, no haunt. I did buy the gorgeous hunk of now-useless Octember building from What's Lost Spirits, because I saw it at the event...can't even remember which one, the last Engine Room? Something...and I had to own it. And I was coming up with a way to do the pathing properly and make a rest-of hunt beyond that one room, but...just...everything takes energy.

And I have the energy of a small yellow plastic soap dish right now.

So yeah. No haunt. Eventually there will be some haunt coverage. No guarantee when. Check out the last entry if you care to, there's a video there that I was tickled about actually getting done. It's not perfect--I am not a videographer on the same level as I am not a photographer, I do both badly--but hey, perfection is no longer the goal.

Or something.

So...expect more content...but no longer giving whens. I'm not good at them at the moment.

Right, off to meatspace to see if there's chocolate.

give me hope, help me cope, with this heavy load

The more things change, the more they break the same. It took the better part of two and a half hours to bash some kind of functionality into the Kaya head. And in the end, what we have is...not me.



And I am beginning to believe it just never will be me, and...why is everything so hard?



So, welcome Not-Me to the cast of characters, the rest of which are usually me, because I wanted a functional EvoX head to put EvoX layered things onto.



And if she does nothing else, pouty elven bitch that she is, she can at least stand around and get made up. It's ridiculous.

Something I sent to an otherlove when I finally gave up on making her look any better--or worse:

[15:41] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): Gods, when did I log in...around one? And it's now...now...and I have JUST finished finding an outfit and bashing a mesh head into at least surface-usable condition, and...now I'm exhausted.
[15:42] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): I hate this, I love you, I'll see what I can do with things this evening, and I'm off for a nap.

All I wanted to do is review EvoX layers for things. Why is it this stupidly difficult?

I'm broken down, the world around us surrounds my suffering

Okay, then, somwewhere else. How about this one? Because I'm already miserable, so why not?



House looks okay...if I ignore the obvious game rips...



They have vendors across the street.



I like the chairs. They're from Never Totally Dead, home of many lovely haunted things.



And the orphan asylum kids from Alice. I'm out.

Some innovation here and there? So for the sake of charity, two skulls.

the friends I've had to bury, they keep me up at night

So, at what point do I just give in and admit I work for a lesbian club now?



Maybe it's just that where I work is no longer a draw for anyone but...women. And I'm just not good at targeting them, because while I adore women, in my fifteen years of adult experience on the grid, they don't pay. Flat out. I can still count my female clients on one hand, in all that time, and have fingers left over.

Or this is depression talking, but...one way or another, the all-girl brigade is getting old. Especially as it's not just women, but women who are specifically drawn to women and MAKE THAT PLAIN IN MAIN CHAT, and...that's getting old, too.

Maybe it's finally time to move on.

I never knew my killer would be coming from within

Bit of an update from tonight's entry from earlier.

I'm not going to put these in frames, these are just shots on the fly.



Welcome to New Xantis.



Or what's left of it.



There are stores empty.



Now, not everything is gone, as I'd thought--but looking through these quick shots, I'm thinking Jaimy left up the main connecting throughway between the sims on either side of New Xantis.



With this side connection, I have no idea what used to be here, but I'd suspect a major set piece with the large items for sale, which then connected to that upper walkway leading down into another sim. It's all gone.



And I didn't want to wait until they fully rezzed in, but from left to right, this is Anthony Haslage (Ntanel Swordthain), Melina Firehawk, and Kirk Wingtips. Swordthain seems heavily involved in Star Trek fandom groups in SL, Melina Firehawk is pretty much in every RP group you can think of (and I'd be willing to bet either is the sponsor for the Super Heroes sim at Sci Fi Con, or at least organizes for it), and Kirk Wingtips (who not only seems to run Sci Fi Con, but is either involved with, or runs SciFi Expo, so dubious on that connection for now, plus is in a lot of Firefly/Star Trek groups).

And then I cleared their airspace, potentially never to return.

It used to look like this. Now...that's all over. Because the organizers were abusive. This is a very bad turn of affairs.

heart is a storybook, a star burned out

Sometimes, love dies from abuse. Sometimes, love dies from neglect. Sometimes, love dies from absence.



And sometimes...love doesn't die at all, and we just wish it would...



I've been here before.

And it never gets easier.



I asked him today for a hug. Well, no, let me be precise--I said I would ask him for a hug, but I didn't know if that would offend him.

I got back the lines of severance sent by someone else, the new ban firmly nailed in place.

I guess that's his answer.



Maybe it's a good thing, knowing that another fracture in my heart won't destroy me. Maybe it's a good thing that I know how to shore up the weak spots, and continue on. Maybe it's a good thing I know how to operate under stress.

Or maybe these are all terrible things, and they're just familiar to me.

I don't know anymore.



But this is where we are, I guess. No repairing what's broken, ever. No discussion. No further contact. No...more. No more anything.

And I get to be the pillow over the face of love, quietly smothering it until it gives up and stops kicking...while my brain protests there has to be another way, and my heart screams it's not supposed to be this way at all.



Well, I agree. It's not. But here we are. And here, we unfortunately stay.

And the walls go up, and the gates within will be reinforced, and the list of those that have access to anything past the courtyard will be narrowed further...

But, to use a phrase I loathe...it is what it is. And I have to accept it for what it is. And find a way to move forward from here...

there ain't nothing in my hourglass, just sand from a dead sea

The veil between the worlds thins, fades in spots, allowing wandering souls on both sides to peer through--and perhaps cross. A night of wonders and terrors, masks and subterfuge, deception and revelation, becoming its own form of honest expression. And in the thick of it...a wandering soul searching for home in every place but.

Tonight, knowing my mood was not ideal, I tossed over various ways to end the season. Try to find a non-disappointing new ride? Visit the Belasco mansion again? Take the unbelievably gory Linden haunted house tour?



And...no. I needed something less complicated. Possibly even less haunted. So I ended up at All Hallows at Moochie's.



Back when Maia Gasparini owned an in-world store (I believe her nail designs are still sold on Marketplace), All Hallows would frequently feature a hunt. A fairly challenging one, even.



These days, though, it's just what you see here--a half-sim of autumn trees, warming fires, carved pumpkins, and hanging lights, with occasional places to sit and have a cup of cocoa or mulled cider.



I don't know how long it's going to be open past tonight, but I'm fairly sure it should last until November 1st, at the least. Unless Ms. Gasparini was on the sim tonight as I wandered, specifically to take things down. I don't know.



What I do know is it's still a quiet, lovely, perfect autumn sim. Sit and contemplate the flames, have a cup of something warm, listen to the quiet waves wash the rocky shores.



And it accomplished what I wanted, in the end, which was some mood elevation. Gain a bit of perspective, get my feet back on the path, breathe, and ground, and center. And while I left the sim still (relatively) stressed, by the end of the night I was smiling more, feeling better, and, due to some very dear friends, in much better spirits overall.

Which is not the worst way to approach the dark half of the year. Past tonight, the days grow shorter, the nights longer, and this half of the world, at least, slowly sinks into sleep, to wait for the thaw. It's a good thing to remember. The seasons cycle, and we cycle with them, ebb and flow, grow and fall. It's all part of the process.

So have a blessed Samhain if you celebrate such, a happy Hallows if that's more your speed, and a good candy day if nothing else. See you after the veil closes.

hush, hush, hush, here comes the boogeyman

Tonight, being unsettled, I went to find a haunt. I found myself at Hushed, picked spur-of-the-moment from the Editors' Picks in Destinations.

Wasn't my best idea.



I'll give them this, the entrance point is atmospheric. A back-country road, autumn leaves falling, and the ghostly letters hanging in the shadows spelling out "HUSHED".



The problem? Most of the rides aren't, most of the things that look like they can be walked through can't...it's a vast collection of set pieces with nothing more than that. There's no 'there', there, is what I'm saying.



This is not to say it's completely unenjoyable. This fellow, for instance, while standing in front of essentially a cardboard cut-out tent, is someone I haven't seen a thousand times before, like many of the other clowns. And there was a fun little haunted balloon piece next to him.



The one ride I found that did work was the Haunted Mine--or, as the lights spell out here, the Nightmare Tunnel.

The less said about that, the better.



And...that was really about it. This hovering skeleton with the halo of leaves was neat, but again--just hovering in a field that was otherwise undisturbed, next to a horse that didn't seem at all affected by the floating apparition of bones beside it.

They...tried? One skull for that, I guess.

but now it's gone, it doesn't matter what for

"Three separate ER nurses have either rolled their eyes at me or called me 'lame' for dropping a hatchet on my own head. Everyone's a critic."
~John Roderick

In the meantime, have a list of twenty-five very creepy things kids have said, and a lovely explanation for candle flame (though the title of that particular Tumblr blog is somewhat NSFW).

Have six silent films for a dark and story night, as well, and an amazing treasure trove of very early French animation. Such a phenomenal accomplishment.

But, none of those are why I'm posting this. This is...considerably less amusing. Because all things change, all things end, all things pass. It's the nature of life.



And some dreams die.

I may still attend dances at that lovely little club, and I did forget the little beach nook pillows I'd put out, so I'll have to return for those, and I will miss Jeffery's superb house red. But...dishonor is the order of the day, and sometimes, we simply must accept that other people do not hold personal honor in the same regard that we do.



The dinner party was fun, though. More formal than I expected, but fun. A friend and acolyte in the Companions' Guild was celebrating 90 days on the grid. We take moments of joy where we can, and that is one I'll cherish.

But the Sphinx-Templar Syndicate has closed up operations. The office stands empty, our ships have been ordered to redirect elsewhere. The great mystery of the mysterious island may have to be unsolved. More's the pity.

There are other ports of call. We will find them. This harms us not in the least...something that certain people truly should consider, but sadly, I don't think they will. Maybe they'll grow out of it, maybe not, but either way, it's nothing to do with us anymore.

We're off to find new adventures, and we'll see what happens then.

but now it's gone, they say it doesn't matter anymore

(Note from the Editrix: Because these are mounting, sadly, I'm going to start generally indicating when they were written, as opposed to published. This one is from the 16th of July, with an additional note added once the entry on the 21st was published.)

(Additional insert from the Editrix: Something to remember.)

Oh, I probably still have a handful of these left in me, but as I mentioned, they're going to become more scattershot, and they have. When reflection hits, I'll put one together and try to organize my thoughts enough to figure out my thinking. But I doubt there's any more bombshell revelations to be had; the last one posted on the 21st, I think that's where it's going to stay.



I took my love, I took it down
I climbed a mountain and I turned around
and I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills
'til the landslide brought me down

Still, reflection hit today. While I value melancholy, I do not, oddly enough, consider myself primarily melancholic. (There's a hefty scoop of morbidity in my makeup, but that's different.) But, these days, drifting melancholy is becoming fairly constant. It's not eating holes in me yet, so I'm...basically...fine.



oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
can the child within my heart rise above?

No.

That wasn't an answer to the question, that was an answer to the lighthouse. As far as that goes, we hold all ages within us. Only the people who forget they ever had a childhood believe they don't, and frankly, they have more problems than dealing with emotions on a childlike level. Because that's really what it comes down to, and children are surprisingly honest until they're taught not to be so. What they feel, for the most part, they feel completely, intensely, with a total focus as well as total abandon.

It's only as adults that we practice repression of emotion, practice channeling what we feel away from others and off our faces. Or maybe that's just me.



can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
can I handle the seasons of my life?

That is ever the question. And I'm still searching for the answer. Sitting in various places around the grid, though, is helping me with perspective, at least.



well, I've been afraid of changing
'cause I've built my life around you
but time makes you bolder
even children get older
and I'm getting older too

I said no.

I don't build my life around people anymore. I used to--I still function largely with the trope of supports, be they barnacle-encrusted wooden pilings or flying buttresses of dark stone--but I no longer completely center people as the sole focus point (or in my case, group of focus points). Because it's almost not survivable when they leave.

Now, things are far from that dramatic now, and even that bare handful of times it happened before, I was long past the searching for knives stage. But it did hurt. It hurt deeply. Supports fractured, walls shattered, at least twice my entire personality broke apart, and I had to reconstruct from scratch. (Not my favorite thing, 1/10 would not recommend.)



oh, take my love, take it down
oh, climb a mountain and turn around
and if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills
well, the landslide will bring it down

...Linden lands are strange.

But see? I'm not wrong. Sometimes pianos just fall out of the sky in places. Never stop watching the skies. One could be up there, just waiting for the right moment...anywhere.

I've had far too many pianos fall on me.



and if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills
well, the landslide will bring it down, oh oh
the landslide will bring it down

I said no.

Seriously, what? What is it? Is this just leftover poking, or did I manage to somehow miss something else huge again? I can't take much more in the nature of revelation, I really can't; I'm at my limit as it is.

And I am not breaking things further down this weekend, not after they've finally started to settle. No. Point your light somewhere else, I'm not looking.

(Pictures taken at Luzon, Momenti Rubati, Ravennhart, the Temple of Iris, Waterhead and the L-Shaped Lake. Lyrics are from Fleetwood Mac's Landslide.)

I lost my power in this world, and the rumors are flying

(This is the first entry that was intended to be read after this one, published on the 20th, but it was written on the 19th.)

I wonder if I have an all-black Kemono skin. This feels like an all-black growing mood.



listen to the wind blow
watch the sun rise

Turns out I do. So...here we are.

The sweeping joy, then the jagged, crushing descent...and the stunned question circling through the sharks by the shore.

"That's it?"

I am still so screwed here. Or...not, as the case may be.

Dark desert highway, skin still itching for touch no matter what skin it is, and still feeling very, very small. Waiting for these things to change. Not sure when they will.

Not sure if they will.



run in the shadows
damn your love, damn your lies

On the far end of the rift I have more understanding, more frustration, more pain, more confusion. More more more when ideally, I want less. Ah, but a constant truth of the universe is we don't always get what we want.



and if you don't love me now
you will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
you would never break the chain

And there is a large part of my heart that's still raging. I was promised two weeks. I was given two days. Two days to force adaptation of any kind, at least enough to continue to function.

Is that breaking a promise, or reconsidering the timeline? Does it matter at this point? Did it matter before?

Am I just needlessly brooding?



listen to the wind blow
down comes the night
run in the shadows
damn your love, damn your lies

Because yes, part of that is my brain trying to find a way for that prototypical last time, hated though such things are, just in case it would be, and...then there was no time left. There were no days left. There were going to be no times, last or otherwise, again.

And did that break a promise, or just break me?

After all, doesn't matter how many corners I can think around if the building was demolished. No corners left.



break the silence
damn the dark, damn the light

You know, it's somewhat ironic. The last serious rift I had with someone--well, all right, the last before the actual last, but the last shocked more people than just me--I was instantaneously blamed by the other party. That was a situation where I knew I'd been in the wrong for not speaking up, but everything else could, and still can, absolutely be laid at his door. It took some back and forth recriminations, and far more angry words than probably either of us wished for, to finally convince him of that. I bear part of the blame, I accepted that, accept that; but he bore the brunt of it.

Which, in all honesty, he probably didn't want to hear, but...it was true. Though it's also true that he was hurting, he was confused, he was angry...and no one's at their best in that state. Trust me, I know.



and if you don't love me now
you will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
you would never break the chain

And...now here. I have gone from thinking that it was mostly that other heart's fault, to seeing we were equally at fault, to thinking it was entirely my fault, and each place I've stopped to decide has felt like the "real" truth of the situation. I look back on the past few weeks that feel very much like railing at fate, with a strong coat of unfairness, injustice, and general unkindness, save...I was there when all this went down. No, I didn't come up with the idea, that was someone else, and I was, still am, shocked to my core when the ban was proposed, but--I was aware of it. I didn't like it, I was hurt by it, I was confused, and baffled, and horrified...but--at least as explained to me then--I agreed.

Maybe I was wrong to agree. But I honestly do not believe, wrong or right, that there was ever a chance to say, hey, sleep on this a bit, okay, decide tomorrow, decide the next day, because...that is not my place here. I did ask why several times, but I knew the answer wouldn't change.



you would never break the chain
(never break the chain)

So my choices now seem to be...apart from very, very limited...very conflicting. Can't have the man, can't stand to walk away, and the indecision is killing me. This is perfect crazy-making territory, I know it, I do realize, but it seems like that's the only choice left too. So I guess I just accept I'll be crazy for a while?

How do I accept that?

Did this break me, or was I already broken and only thought I healed?



(chain, keep us together)
run in the shadow

And it's not the sex. That's not the issue. There are those in my life who thought it was--there's one who is still loudly proclaiming I'm a sex addict--but in any iteration of reality, sex is not that difficult to find.

That sense of connection, though, for lack of a better term. That's the difficult bit. I can sleep with people I just like, it's fun--and occasionally pays rent--but that...click...that's more rare.

(chain, keep us together)
run in the shadow

It took me a while to turn down enough static around everything to hear it, but that is what I miss. And I say that even knowing that's still there, because--it's not the same. It's still that half-recognition, half-novelty of feeling personalities mesh, only now, one side's strained, and limping, and flinching every time that click kicks in.

And it's not him. No, no, it's still clearly me.

(chain, keep us together)
run in the shadow...

And I'm back to feeling like I'm standing in the center of all commotion, screaming until my vocal cords strip, bleeding because I can't figure out how to stop it, and as goddamned usual everyone around me thinks I'm asking if they prefer Earl Grey or Darjeeling.

I hate it and I can't stop it and I have been here too many times and why again? Why again?

I know why, and I don't know why, quixotically. But neither the knowledge nor the confusion resolves anything. All I know is, I can't do what I want in either direction, and I don't know where to go from here.

I just...don't.



And the one new piece of information that was gently impressed upon me is that I am not alone in this. Which is both balm and bane, frankly. I don't want to be alone, and I have felt very alone most of the time, these past few weeks, and I desperately do not want to feel that alone, but...I don't want anyone else I care for to feel this, either.

The lifeline is made of braided silk and nettles, and I can't figure out if I should hold on tighter or let go and run away. Either action will hurt.

*sighs*

These things I know. These things are inviolate. If nothing else can be relied upon, I can rely on these, for whatever value they hold.

• I am still on my dominant's collar. There has been zero indication that that is ending.
• I am still trusted. Gods alone know why, but when absolutely everything goes dark, that has been the sole, distant flicker of light. I am still trusted.
• I refuse to give myself new scars over this. I am done with that.
• I have love in my life, from more than one direction, and if I stop spinning long enough, I will see it.
• I haven't done anything else irretrievably stupid beyond what caused the ban in the first place.

Some of these things are...very small things. But when the Tower collapses, sometimes you build it back up stone by stone, or pebble by pebble if that's all that can be found.

So. I've said this before, but now I need to rebuild. Not completely, in this case; lightning didn't strike the entire structure. It's just a matter of repairing the burn scores, patching the few places that cracked and fell, find a workable emulsion to seal the rest until it can stand on its own again. It's bad, it is bad, from any direction it's damaging; but it's not fatal. I do not die from this. Nothing is that extreme.

I just wish I knew with surety that both sides of this--that aren't me--understand as well, and...I'm only sure of one. And it's not the one that owns the collar.

(Insert from the Editrix: And as long as we're here:)



(Pictures taken at Obsidian Apocalypse, Deathlands, MOTHERLAND, ATMOS Foundry and Virtual Decay. Lyrics from Fleetwood Mac's The Chain.)