Étoilelle and Friends

rediscovering my joy and love for rowan, g'raha, and estinien was unexpectedly quick the past few months. last year was really bad both IRL (because of a shit job that sucked away all my energy) and when it came to fandom (for reasons i feel weird talking about in depth but sort of amount to not following the right people and not muting/blocking enough things i didn't want to see).

but thanks to my friend lena especially, i ended up starting a full replay of msq so i could relive the things i loved most about 14 and revisit old lore for rowan that i'd never fully written out so it could be changed/refreshed. that replay (still ongoing right now!) has helped me get back a lot of my drive to gpose/write about my little ot3 when i literally had not thought about them positively in almost a year--it's been nice, allowing myself to rewrite things to better suit both the update lore i'm doing for rowan. also just. trying to not be self-conscious about what basically sometimes is just playing with my dolls.

truthfully, though, both wolstinien week a month ago and wolgraha week now have really felt like the actual spark that reignited my love for the game and my guys again. genuinely, it's been so exciting to see so much love for guys i love on the tl compared to what drove me away. i doubt many people will read all this (and i'm sorry if i come off poorly or maybe even self-obsessed sometimes) but i hope y'all know it's helped me to see so much love again.

to everyone participating this year: thank you for being an inspiration--and especially thank you to the kind soul organizing this ship week for putting in so much effort for a thing we all love. <3

i was a mess during the EW early access weekend, full stop. my work schedule meant i couldn't take off anything more than that friday, so i had 3 days to finish 6.0 if i wanted to finish before my time off was over. i remember being so wired and emotional the whole time--especially that sunday before i had to go to work again.

in one day, i had to: leave elpis; go through aitaiscope and see our fallen friends one last time; fight hydaelyn who i've placed as basically rowan's mom; and on top of ALL OF THAT get through ultima thule. with thancred's rather unceremonious death, i genuinely was worried about what would happen to everyone. i'd also only just started thinking about a possible ot3 with rowan, g'raha and estinien given estinien's inn room scene, so him going right after thancred was just out of nowhere.

g'raha's goodbye just plain hurt, and i sat for a while after completely wrecked. obviously everything turned out fine--by the time g'raha said goodbye i had a feeling things would turn out okay and we'd get everyone back somehow--but it didn't change how utterly wrecked i was about it.

with DT, i really got to savor the journey through tural. my expectations for 7.0 were admittedly low given how disappointed i was with 6.X in a lot of ways and how unprepared i was for 7.0's theming, but i genuinely loved the first half of DT and the rite of succession. that being said, i'd been feeling the tension and anticipation for things to go wrong all expansion--specifically, all throughout the first visit to shaaloani i kept thinking "when is the other shoe going to drop?". that bubble finally burst horrifically about when i could not stop thinking it was time for things to go wrong, and i was so sad to see tuliyollal (a place i'd genuinely come to love) so devastated.