@vdova ; video

[waytodie]

[Her hair is in two messy twin braids. Her eyes are glassy. The sharp-eyed might notice she's probably, definitely drunk. The less-so might just assume she's overly tired. Her tongue presses into her cheek as she considers how to start this one, but in the end she just rips the bandaid off quickly: ]

So, tell me, how is it that you handle grief?

[She probably won't be elaborating on why she's asking, unless she has a certain level of familiarity with you, but you can try. People closest to her probably already know what this is really about: Her sister is gone. From Moorecroft. From Etraya. From the top side of the dirt. Gone and back to dead, and Yelena is spiraling.]

Comments

@geraniums

[rootlessly]

...I don't know that it's something you deal with, really. At least, as far as making it go away, anyway.

[Instead it lives in your skin, your bones, burrows into your very being and nests there for decades, a century and more until you no longer remember who you were before it.]

I'm sorry you're hurting so much, Yelena. Do you want any company? Or--snacks to eat by yourself, maybe? Haha.

[Or, you know, water for the inevitable hangover.]

[waytodie]

Oh.

[Her tone is flat, and she can't help the way her lips form a tiny pout. She wanted... something else. Something better than that. At least right now, later she'll appreciate the honesty of his answer, probably.

She doesn't look too terribly receptive when he mentions company, but she does seem to consider it a little more when he mentions snacks-- which really... would be an easy in to providing company, if he's careful about it.]

Has anyone found decent ice cream in this place?

video, un: hawkeye

[westcoasts]

( they haven't spoken, have they? but he's seen her around — hard not to, given how few there are of them in etraya, relatively speaking. so there's that, and then there's the other reply to the post which tells him everything he needs to know.

yelena. )

You don't. ( handle it — or at least, clint's never done especially well with handling it. ) You just figure out how to not let it consume you. It takes time.

[waytodie]

[She squints at the name. She recognizes it, but he doesn't look the same. She might poke at him over it sometime, but now... is not that time. Instead, she just points in his general direction and says: ]

That. How do you do that part?

@amidala

[politicallyinclined]

(This is a heavy question for obvious reasons. Padmé isn't going to probe for answers from Yelena - she is going through enough.)

I give myself time. I surround myself with loved ones or items that give me comfort. The first part is the most important. Let yourself grieve; there is no shame in it.

[waytodie]

[She appreciates it, honestly. The advice is more than enough to suffice for what she's looking for at the moment.]

How much time? How do you know how much time you need?

[She wants to scream. And yell. She doesn't wan't to grieve, she just wants her sister back. Her mouth shifts into a pout, trying her best not to start crying again.]

un: hidden | audio

[matermali]

Grief was often something I presumed to suffer alone. For most of my life, I did not know how to keep it from consuming me. Driving me. Only of recent years did I discover that it needn't always be the case.

[ Which is to say, Yelena doesn't have to go through this alone. If she's reaching out in any fashion, some part of her seems to understand that.

A pause of consideration. ]

Would you like some company?

[waytodie]

I don't think I've ever... properly grieved anything. [She admits with a frown. She's never really had the time to. And by the time she did... she had gotten so used to boxing everything up in locked vaults in her mind, she didn't want to risk taking any of it out again.]

...I could probably use a coffee or something. [Which is, you know, a yes. Company would be nice. Even if it isn't the company she wants right now. She can't have that anymore.]

@goldenapples

[utinam]

[She could easily recognize when someone was troubled or worse—the glassy eyes and messy hair were clear signs to her. So, Nuvia waited patiently for the other girl to speak, knowing the words would come eventually, and they did, in the form of a question.]

"The last time I handled grief... I ignored it and everyone else for five straight years. I don’t recommend it. Ignoring your grief like I did."

[waytodie]

What would you recommend instead? [She tilts her head a little. All perspectives are welcome. Yelena knows that seeming young means nothing about how much a person has been through.] What would you have done differently, if you could go back?

Voice | un: Peter P.

[keepitgoing]

[It's kind of weird, to see suffering in someone else that reflects your own so intimately. Peter hasn't resorted to underaged drinking (yet), but the exhausted, miserable look is one he had worn himself depending on just how the night goes. It feels almost cruel to put up a front, pretend he had it all figured out. Nothing could be further from the truth.]

Umm. To... be honest, I haven't handled it. At all.

[But that's not all. Peter had not missed who was missing. He noticed. Very quickly.]

I'm sorry, Yelena.

[waytodie]

Well... that makes two of us.

[There are so many things she has not yet fully unpacked if she's honest with herself. This, perhaps, is just somehow the easiest one to let people see a little bit of.]

UN: timdrake

[mostdangerousbird]

You don’t have to live up to anyone’s standards on how to grieve. It’s your grief. You only have to do what makes it feel all-consuming. You can hole up where you feel comfortable, distract yourself in a million ways, pick a fight with a companion bot.

[waytodie]

I just want it to go away.

@ 000

[decohere]

by finding something else to take it out on.

[waytodie]

Hopefully that won't be too hard to do around here, given the bullshit they hand us all the time.

[Some people might find the advice bad, but... Yelena can see the use in it, if she's completely honest.]

video; un: strawhat

[tangerinelike]

I personally find running away from it helps, at least in the short term.

[ this is terrible advice and she should feel bad about sharing it, but this network thing is certainly convenient for anonymity and she's milking it for all it's worth.

and it's not as though she hasn't run from most of her problems, in the past. ]

Drinking is an excellent start. Is it rum?

[waytodie]

[She purses her lips and nods a bit. It's not the worst plan, if she's honest. She's usually so much better at compartmentalizing things like this, but it's something about losing her sister three times now, all the feelings drug up from the forced family units in the last mission, it has all compounded in a way that makes that feel like such an out-of-reach tool in her toolbox.]

I'm a vodka girl, but rum is not a bad choice.

video;

[anciently]

[ Aerith takes it all in - the messy hair, the eyes, and of course, the words. ]

...Hey. Mind if I stop by?

[ It's fine if Yelena isn't in the mood for company, but she has to ask. This...is an in person conversation, she thinks. ]

[waytodie]

[She smiles weakly when she sees Aerith on the feed. She is such a gentle soul… Yelena can’t understand why she’s friends with a mess like her, but she appreciates the healer more than she knows.]

Yeah, that’d be nice. You know where the compound is, right?

[Not being alone through this… seems to be the most consistent piece of advice so. She’s giving it a try.]

video; un: asano

[revengeisalie]

After my parents were killed, I went on a quest to avenge them.

It's not something I'd recommend.

[ But she doesn't know any other way to cope, either. And she can't turn back, not now, not this late in the game.

But if she can dissuade someone else from walking her path? That's probably a good thing. ]

[waytodie]

I wish it was something like that... she was here, for a little while... sent home, back to a sacrificial death she chose for herself.

[Maybe that's what makes it all the harder to deal with-- she didn't just die, she wasn't simply murdered, Natasha chose it. For entirely altruistic reasons, maybe. To save the world. But...it still hurts so much.]

voice | un: sandalphon

[prevail]

For a very long time, vengeance.

[ He was, after all, Primarch of Vengeance. It was simpler in some ways to channel his pain into anger, into lashing out, even if so much in truth was directed inward.

The honesty may be bracing, but her pain is itself honest. He will be too. ]

But now I tell myself that I will see him again, someday. I partake in activities that remind me of our time together. It doesn't erase the loss, but I find it comforting.

[waytodie]

She made her choice herself... I can't even do that, even if I wanted to try.

[Not even getting into the fact of being stuck here, away from her own world.]

I'm not sure if I believe in afterlives. I wish I could, it might be easier, then...

un: ashen

[wolfish]

Depends, I guess, on what happened.

[ Grief comes in many forms, has many causes. Without prying, it's difficult to give a good answer, and there's no catch-all remedy that suits every person in every situation.

Even so, Yuri can make an educated guess. He's seen a particular sort of loss so much in his war-torn world. ]

But I find good food and good company tend to help.

[waytodie]

My sister was a hero... [Her voice wavers in a way she hates, but she doesn't hide it, either.] She quite literally saved the world. Her death was her choice. I had here for a little bit, but... she's gone again. [She drops to nearly a whisper.] I knew it would be like this.

[She'd been worried about it happening since the second Natasha had found her in the midst of her anguish from those stupid plushes.

She nods a little.] No one else has mentioned food as a coping mechanism. I like it.

@bluelion | video

[hauntedsnowfall]

[ Here is an unkempt blond man with an eyepatch who has been debating responding for awhile now. Loss resonates with many it seems. ]

For me... [ He glances at his hands then back up. ] I have dedicated my life to finding their killers. It gives me focus and purpose.

[ He pauses, considering how much to say. ]

...I have slaughtered hundreds... maybe thousands of soldiers to this end. I find my mind is quietest on the battlefield.

[waytodie]

[It's such a universal experience, loss. That's part of why she posed the question: she knew she could get a variety of answers from multiple people, and maybe someone would say something that resonated with her. It's what she had hoped for, anyway.]

I tried that... turns out the man I thought responsible was not, and now I am just left with nothing.

[No sister to turn to. Alexei and Melina haven't done a lot of keeping in touch, so there's no family to really speak of at all. No job. No laser-focus on a target. Just a lot of cold emptiness in the wake of what should have been.]

video | @theball

[stresstokens]

Knowing you'll get to see them again one day helps.

[ He's not getting much more personal than that, but he does need to ask... ]

...did something happen? At Moorecroft?

[waytodie]

I do not have much faith in that way.

[She shrugs at the question.] I don't think so... she was there, but... when we came back to Etraya, she was just... gone.

video: un: mal_durrish (CW: war recollection, loss)

[once_reborn]

Oh, wow, heh. It's...I've gotten...better at it. Maybe.

[She's quiet for a moment, pursing her lips. She's met Yelena, respects her. So how much do you tell?]

The idea is to feel it. Work through it. The words 'easier said than done' apply. What I used to do was find a quiet corner and drink until I could barely stand. I was...a dropship pilot. Dunno if you know what that was, but my job was flying a transport for ground assaults. The people on that ship, they were...the only family I had. Only friends. And you knew every time you weren't getting all of them back.

Lotta 'tomorrow we may die' thinking and drinking, you know?

[She's quiet again, leaned forward, folding her hands.]

What I try to do now, though - being in a much better place than I was then - is to celebrate them, who they were. We're taught, as Jedi, to not let our attachments control us...it can go...hoo, very bad if we do. Long story, short version being: couple special rules when you're us. But we also believe there's...worlds beyond what we can possibly know. And the people we care about aren't truly gone, just moved on. We can rejoice in the fact that they're in a place beyond pain, beyond hate and torment - all those bad things.

One day, we will see them again. Until then, we try to remember their life, the bright spot of light in the universe that they were.

[waytodie]

[She listens patiently as she explains her "before" times and "now" ones. Old coping mechanisms to new processes. Language is a funny thing, isn't it? How easily a positive can be spun into a negative, and vice versa... Stubbornness is the negative sister of determination, after all.

It all sounds like religion to her, in the end, though. And that is not the comfort she finds it is for some others. Perhaps because she never had any cause to believe in anything like it. Would her life have been any better, any easier at all for it? Yelena doesn't think so.]

And how exactly do you celebrate something like this? I... I barely got her back, and now because, what- some computer program decided it didn't want her any more, I just don't get to have a sister?

I don't think I believe in afterlives. I think... you're here. And then, there's nothing. No welcoming committee. No bright lights. Big, pearly gates. Whatever. It is just more children's fairytales told to people to make them feel better about something they cannot control. [She shakes her head a little.] It means nothing.

@wild.flower

[hasitsthorns]

[ It's interesting, in a way, how much Rosie can see herself in that messy hair and far-away stare. It's an expression she's no doubt worn many a time and due to pondering similar things. ]

It's different for everyone, [ she says, because that is important to note. ] But for me, I found that music helped. At my lowest points, it felt like music helped me put into words things I couldn't otherwise.

Whether just a melody or actual lyrics, it was just... something to get it out somehow. Because that's really how you handle it, I think, you have to get it out.

[waytodie]

Hi, Rosie. [She was at the other's lil slumber party, back in Moorecroft. That had been a much more fun interaction than this one could ever be.]

I like this suggestion. Do we... have some Etraya-version of Spotify here?

[She laughs a scoff, it's such a stupid question, but somehow, she'd never even thought of it.]

@octavius

[doctopoda]

Losing myself in work, I suppose.

[To take a slightly poetic view of things - but that seems fitting.]

But I can't really recommend that. Even if it works for you for a little while, it always runs out eventually.

[waytodie]

I don't know if I can exactly do what one might consider my "work" here.
People would not take very kindly to it, I think.

[She can't exactly continue the legacy of: one of the greatest child assassins the world has known, as her father put it.]

Text | UN: Loki

[abit_ofboth]

I’m not sure you truly want to know how I personally would handle grief as it has rarely been in a good or healthy way. One thing I can say is that it is better to let out your emotions than to keep them in. I can say from experience, that is not a particularly good way to handle things.

I know we do not know each other well at all, but I am a surprisingly good listener if you need someone more neutral, or if you simply want a drinking partner.

[waytodie]

All options are on the table, really. I mean, I may not choose to do the things that are offered my way. But I will accept all potential suggestions.

See, the thing is... I am so used to being able to usually keep it all set aside. Like in a little box in my head that gets locked and I don't have to think about it. But it is always so different when it is about family, I guess...

The second part. I like that part best.
...Can you even get drunk with the puny human alcohol?

[LOOK.

If he's drinking, he should get to have the fun side-effects, okay?]

@beary

[accelerate]

[ Change the timeline.

Barry wishes he could ignore this post. ]

I find it's like juggling a few balls. Sometimes, you're really, really good at keeping them in your hands and the air at the same time. Sometimes, you're fantastic at adding more to it. And, sometimes, you miss a ball and drop them all.

[ How do you handle grief? Take it one step at a time. ]

[waytodie]

I cannot juggle, your analogy is bad.

[Which is not to say she's unappreciative of it. Just.

Humor to cope? It's a thing she clings to desperately at times.]

But how much is one person supposed to lose in a lifetime? It isn't fair.

video; un: blake

[plangona]

[octavia can already tell something was wrong from how yelena looks as she asks the question and while the topic of grief is one that hits her hard, she can't bring herself to ignore it either] I didn't— at least, not all that well if there was time for it back home.

I handled it usually by hitting something. [or someone, which admittedly she has done too as a result of her anger at the time]