#unhappy that I am I cannot heave my heart into my mouth etc.

[vaguely-concerned]

Happy healing post-DA:I things for my Hawke and company

because if anyone ever deserved that soft epilogue it's these guys

Hawke giving Merrill a griffon feather from Weisshaupt

Hawke getting a new mabari puppy (maybe also kittens? can we work kittens into this as well?). Hawke and companions playing with and petting said puppy. said puppy falling asleep in people's laps. it dozes off on fenris' head once and he just lies there and lets it with great equanimity until it wakes again. varric and isabela try to teach it wicked grace. it's better at it than anders was.

Bethany can live at home now ;_______; the last of the Hawke family finally getting to actually live in their ancestral home together, after all their hopes and hard work in act one ;_________________________________; she could get married if she wanted to, she could have kids, she could have whatever part of a 'normal life' she feared she never would and her magic, not having to hide anymore ;__________________________________________; (a big thank u to leliana the murderpope my best homie <3)

Bethany bringing some of the apprentices she's taken under her wing and Merrill bringing some of the alienage kids who're in extra tricky circumstances, and the big empty house is not so empty anymore

Hawke training Bethany's apprentices and Merrill's wards in physical combat -- "My father always said that the real trick of magic is knowing when not to use it. Doesn't mean you can't throw a punch about it tho". the kids sometimes gang up on him when they're playfighting and bethany looks on like :') because he pretends to be vanquished & defeated, alas proud warriors your strength combined is too great, in exactly the same way he did with her and carver when they were little

Fenris and Hawke friendly sparring! Isabela watches while drinking rum.

Hawke hanging around the Viscount's office, pretending to be there just to make fun of Varric (and annoy Aveline let's not forget) but actually helping out unceasingly. don't tell anyone tho he has a reputation to uphold as a rich idiot with no day job even though he's been doing every fucking job in kirkwall for like a decade now, ssssh he has to feel like he's still fooling someone

First Wintersend party at the Hawke estate where most of the gang is together again. (My canon always has Hawke send Anders away at the end of DA2 and sometimes there's a romance involved for double heartbreak too so y'know. bittersweet there but at least the rest of the family gets to be together again.) Varric and Hawke mutually pretend they don't notice the other one getting teary-eyed during the dinner because sometimes that's what friendship is

kirkwall book club? kirkwall book club. fenris hasn't gotten to read a lot of books yet, so it sort of starts as people giving him recs, evolves to a covert war among the gang to get their fave books/series read first, and then it keeps escalating from there until they're all fully in it. isabela frequently derails it into friendfiction night.

what if merrill got to do some gardening. huh. what about that. I just think that would be nice.

varric writing some black fox stories just because he knows hawke likes them ;__; (you find the black fox codex entry in DA2 in Hawke's mansion and one of the DLC outfits you can get for them is said to have belonged to him as well, so I like to think Hawke has a weak spot for that Robin Hood/Zoro-esque thing deep down lol it would explain a lot about his life)

just varric and hawke hanging out honestly. varric writing while hawke lounges around in his room. every time he has to name a character or something and gets stuck he throws out the basic concept and hawke provides a name without missing a beat or indeed looking up from whatever he's doing. it's always brilliant or awful or brilliantly awful. varric does his shitty little he he he laugh and/or offers hawke his hand in marriage yet again and goes back to writing. all is right in the world, if only just for a while.

#my boy finally dodgeroll no hit run-ed his way out of main characterhood #and god good for him he gets to be with his family again #dragon age is one of those things I have so many feelings about I genuinely find it hard to talk about sometimes haha #unhappy that I am I cannot heave my heart into my mouth etc. #my chest just feels like an unending explosion in the fireworks factory #and all my words too clumsy and inadequate to let it out. alas #dragon age #dragon age 2 #on second thought let's not go to kirkwall; it is a silly place #hawke #I'm so desolate at having finished it again I just. never want that game to end. I want to see all of the rest of their lives. #I want to buy groceries with them and have a quest of varric pretending to do his taxes #solas fuck off you can't end the world. hawke and his family is in there.

[firein-thesky]

☕️ + king lear (since you latched onto cordelia)

omg THANK YOU FOR ASKINGGGG! i hope you’re doing well and having a good day 💞💞

what’s funny is i hated king lear at first. detested it. i said gET THIS OLD COOT OFF STAGE!! DRAG HIM OFF W A CANE!! WHERE ARE MY TOMATOES!!!

but the more i read, the more i warmed to it. i have a strange attachment to it. i think i just want to play cordelia at some point in my life—and when i’m old, i want to play lear and be the old coot myself.

i think we could probably talk plenty about it’s themes: justice, authority, nihilism, forgiveness, betrayal, etc. beyond that, we could of course talk about the very sexist nature of the play. but at the time, when i read it, all i saw was a story about a sick family member and a daughter who remained so loyal it cost her life. and i just resonated with her. and i got woefully attached to her monologue in the beginning of the play that begins with:

“Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave

My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty

According to my bond; no more nor less.”

which just kills me, because this whole monologue is her attempting to tell her father how unjust he is being, asking them to love him above everything. asking them to put him before everyone and anything. that you shouldn’t love someone like that, family or not. and i think the use of “heave” and “heart” strike a particular cord for me too.

and sometimes i have to remind myself that with family members. i love them according to my bond, no more nor less. i love them a great great deal and there is a lot i would do for them, but there is a line. and cordelia, noose and all, tend to remind me of that.

#IDK THIS WAS A LOT OF RAMBLING #THE PLAY HOLDS A PARTICULAR SPOT IN MY HEART #I HATE IT AND I LOVE IT #i love the fool btw love a fool who speaks wisdom sorry i AM a sucker #i think the storm scene is great fun too #ppl shouldn’t ask me about shakespeare i’ll talk too much #did i see a production of king lear and cry? of course i did #of course i did #ANYWAYS THANK YOU FOR ASKING #i’m sorry for rambling at you LMAOO #cielo chats! #cielo rambles

[redthreadtugs-blog]

jet lag, tears and insomnia

I hate jet lag.  Wide awake for the last hour and it is the middle of the night here even though I was awake for a full day yesterday.  I need to sleep.  Active brain.  And my tummy is growling.  And my arm/ hand hurts.  And I could just cry if that damn procedure I had yesterday is gonna net me nothing... I do not want to be a fucking medical mystery. My brain actively tracing over the anatomical nerve pathways in the dark... willing myself to unravel just where the source of the compression is if we got it wrong this time.  What the next clinical pathway ought to be.  Neuro consult? better PT evaluation? nerve conduction study. Whatever it is, I simply refuse to live like this with compromised sensation in my dominant hand.  I have too many years ahead of me and too much of my life and livelihood relies on full sensation. I follow the calendar in the dark back to the onset of symptoms.  How long since I had full normal neuro function?  Too long, and yet within a safe window.

and now my brain bounces to the work ahead. cedar or leather? how many lengths? how should I affix them at the top? what color crow beads should I use... where are my notes?  was is confederated tribes of... what was it now? red, white, pale blue, yellow?  should I use mixed sizes of beads? how fussy should I work?  I only have on working day - and what if they don’t like it... sigh. a band of leather at the top.  And then a sleeve of patterned green earth fabric sewn into a sleeve.... and did I remind them the other peice will need a new sleeve affixed to it for the new hanging device I am providing.... will they have remembered?  Have to send a text in the morning... or maybe I should get up now and send it since I am awake anyway.  Noooo they will just think I am bat shit crazy and I can’t have that.  Wait until a sane hour.  Can I cut the cedar cording I have or will it unravel?  Do I need to secure it where I cut it? and with what... wrap it with a smaller cordage... again... can’t be too fussy or it will draw the eye a place I do not want it to do. And the feathers.... simple half hitch cordage wrap around the stem with a slip of torn fabric to add color worked into the wrap?   do I have all that I need in my studio or do I need to buy more leather cord?  Small feathers need to be acquired... Think assemblage. Think collage.  Keep it simple.  Less is more.  fuck.  and a label.  Just make a label... oh... and a few more lines of quilting to hold the false back together. Again... do not go crazy with this or time will run away.

I get up.  my tummy is growling.  not enough calories yesterday after too many calories while traveling.  And my tummy thinks it is the middle of the afternoon, not the middle of the night. I fix myself a piece of multigrain toast.  brush my teeth again.

and then I  am crying in the middle of the night. quiet sobs until I can’t breath. nose full of snot and shoulders heaving.  guilt ridden that I have awoken my spouse.  I just want him to wipe my tears and kiss my forehead.  but he is all logic and planning.  pushing me to move past my tears and be all adult about it... pushing me to access the adult part of my brain... the one that has already kept me awake for the last hour working and planning and thinking and now I am beyond exhausted and I just want someone to take over and let me be “little” so i can go back to sleep.  And once he is satisfied a plan is made for the morning, his breathing settles to sleep and I am still wide awake. Silent tears streaking down my face and too snotty nosed to breath except through my open mouth.

40 minutes later... I am still wide awake and freshly crying. my brain is black and the tears are without object. just black and fearful and unhappy and my tummy is still hungry (another thing I want to cry about... 100 miles walked and still +3 # since I left home... fuck me with a spoon gdi... though J says... wisely... muscle weighs more than fat and to be calm about this and to just keep going, not feel discouraged etc etc) and my head hurts and I CANNOT wake him again tonight. I crawl out of bed to the couch where I can sit up to sleep the rest of the night.  Find more blankets and another box of tissues...cry some more feeling helpless and just mad, scared, upset and wanting J RIGHT NOW.  More tears slide down my face.  At least I can breath now.  And I am only disrupting MY sleep, no one else’s. 

Lists keep popping up.  A PM I didn’t answer before vacation that really should be attended to soon.  I start composing in my head and it quickly gets away from me... too much too much.  less is more... less is more.  only a few lines are needed, no explanation is required, and certainly not THAT explanation.  Just stop.  And then a promise I made on a thread to come back and say more by the end of the week... well TGIF... it is then.  will I have time?  should I make time?  what do I have to say anyway.  And these tears... do they make me a little?  or a middle?  and how does that answer the questions I posed and said I would answer?  That squeaky voice in the middle of the night when the tears won’t stop and I can’t adult that says... literally “I am so afraid I will never get better...” and he says... I can’t understand you... forcing me to clear my throat and try again in my grown up voice which apparently is the only one he can hear...  my lip quivers and the tears slide faster, my head throbbing from lack of sleep. Swallowing hard.

And then I am problem solving again.  Should I figure out stand up desk situation for my lap top at home?  How can I improve thing anatomically? what is making things worse.  What is the right answer?  Or maybe just a lap desk for the lap top to at least get it a bit more off my lap? And my mind flails to a promise I made to myself to make an almond cake for the next council meeting.  Adding to the list that I need to find out when they meet next... as my busy brain spins out a fantasy of giving a mini speech to the room about why an almond cake and how it came to my from my friend Karen, a mentor, a wise soul and young and progressive at heart, with a true understanding of hospitality and a link to the past and a vision to the future.  How she should see this moment where we are standing at the crossroads and how I can imagine her challenging us to our best selves even if the future seems scary.  She was never afraid of the future - a mousy unassuming woman with a spine of steel.  Left a first husband, a police officer, because he held a gun to her head.  When her grand-daughter had a baby out of wedlock with an african american boy, the mother, throwing the girl out of the house at 15, she took her and the baby in, loving her and the boyfriend and the baby most of all - ending up raising that great grandchild essentially as her own when she was in her late 70′s and her third husband was 94... her husband as good to the young kids and baby as she was.  So when I serve that almond cake... all of these things come rushing back to me and all the hopes I have for my community with them, in spite of what has seemed to be so impossible and hopeless in the past 2 or three years... and I want to end my little soap box speech asking the council to taste the hopes and promise the a guinue future of service to others, like the one that Karen modeled, when they eat of her cake.   But I can already feel how indulgent such a speech would be, i do not know if anyone even wants to hear from me any more.

And the tears fall faster as I think of Karen and how much I miss my friend and the wise counsel she would give and how she would actually swear at the stupidity of the things that have gone on since her death. 

Too much for one girl to take in the middle of the night... and it is dawn now...

must face the day.

~k

©redthreads

陪同

#fears #can't sleep #musings