#grief?

Why i have been trying to guess/create the end in my own head for the past 5 years.

Why I cant get over it.

made for and submitted to the 36-word game jam

feat. my notes as i made it

I can't overstate that I think LXC was fine with his relationship with JGY being what it was! it was fine being basically soulmates even if it meant shutting the fuck up about his feelings, because JGY was entirely devoted to his wife!

And then the truth about QS and JGY being related comes out, JGY dies, and LXC is left with knowing that this, too, is something JGY never told him - the thing about QS and him - and JGY hadn't in fact been in love with his wife for a decade

Proceed at your own risk and remember that we are all equally deserving of kindness! I love you <3

blue sovereign

what does comfort mean to you?

does it mean the food your mother used to make for you when you were sad - that you’d do anything to taste, just one last time?

does it mean the feel of a blanket you’ve had since you were young? faded and worn, but loved beyond belief - by a child as young as 3, colouring pictures at the table, or an adult as old as 30, filing taxes at the same surface?

does it mean a site you visit when you need guidance? perhaps a church, where you look to God to set you on the right path again, or the grave of a loved one who loved you more than you could ever possibly love yourself - or somewhere a tragedy happened, and you just can’t stop coming back?

for me, it’s the smell of a specific type of cigarette.

there is comfort, and there are things associated with comfort -

I love my grandparents so much,

sometimes I wake up, crying and scared

having dreamt they were gone.

they smoke blue sovereign cigarettes

and when I visit,

the smoke clings to me like glue.

sometimes, in public,

someone will walk past with a cigarette between their fingers

and as they walk past, I’ll inhale -

not because I’m addicted,

and not because there’s something wrong with me,

but because sometimes

just sometimes

it’s the same sovereign blues that my nanna smokes

and it’s like she’s with me -

a mix of her perfume and gaseous death that makes her so wholly her in my mind.

she’s not dead and gone yet

but sometimes I wonder,

lying in bed at night,

how I’ll cope when she is.

maybe I’ll turn to the restaurants we visited together,

order what she ordered

remember her eating delicately,

because she never had much of an apetite.

maybe I’ll find that shirt of hers,

the one I drew on as a kid without realising what it was -

and she never washed it, because she wanted to preserve my drawing for when I was older

so I’d remember what a troublemaker I was.

or maybe I’ll return to the place where she lived,

where the smell of sovereign blue cigarettes will probably linger forever,

the smell of comfort,

stuck to the carpets,

Mabel, if you're out there, I'm somehow missing you. I know we didn't like each other much when we were younger, but I'm willing to make up and call it childish rivalry if you are. Absence really does seem to make the heart grow fonder.