Kansas City Shuffle

[Ariadne]

May, 2013

*****!

Took my stuff.

Where the hell am I supposed to find another god damn Fender like that?

Get the **** out of my HEAD!

[Ariadne]

June, 2013

I woke up to my bedroom on fire.

I think she's mad about all of her stuff. I left the keys with the landlord so she couldn't get back in. I think she was sneaking back in when she was in control. She also thinks that I'm in her head. While this isn't exactly untrue, this is my body now. She just refuses to see this.

I've called a contractor to fix my place. I think I'll be staying in the tree for the foreseeable future.

[Ariadne]

September, 2017

Coming out of seclusion is almost like being born again. There is a perfect environment, warm, and dark, and quiet, and everything is in the proper place. At some point though, one is pulled from the comforting embrace to face the horrors of the world, screaming all over again.

Isolation was routine. Businesses, hunting in silence, hacking, monitoring. I had a sphere and paid little attention to what was outside of due to lack of time and interest, or perhaps a fear that it would disturb the world that I had created for myself. The cloying embrace pulled my further, and I allowed it. In my selfishness, I lost the few relationships I had left as I sank deeper into the world that I had created.

I have attempted to restart, but it has been hard. I feel the deep yearning for me. The siren song as it calls for me is so hard to resist, but resist I must. I clearly have things that I must attend to, no matter how much the world screams back at me.

[Ariadne]

[for_peace][/for_peace]

September, 2017

I was shot coming out of the winery the other day. It ruined a perfectly good Badgley Mischka evening dress. That in and of itself would have been enough to cast a pall upon the evening, however I haven't been shot in years. I am not that careless. Everything about my routine is intended to dispel suspicion of unusual or illegal behaviors. Clearly Longslade was a blemish in otherwise pristine ointment. Additionally, the matter required further investigation.

Once I had managed to heal the would and burn the gown, which again was an absolute waste, I began the investigation. It didn't take long to find that the footage from Longslade had gotten out and several of us were... implicated as persons of interest. The worst part is that they're only released what they believe to be "damming" footage. Things to make vampires look bad or threatening to humans and the public.

None of them understand...

It took me over 48 hours to scrub the files. Myself, Doc, Mortll, and countless others who were in Longslade and at risk of being attacked as we returned to our normal lives. I haven't left my home for two days because this needed doing, and clearly no one else saw the need as sharply as I did.

Maybe for society.

Maybe I just don't want to lose another dress.

[Ariadne]

October, 2017

There is something in the field of psychology called systematic desensitization. It was developed by a man named Wolpe who used principles of classical conditioning to create a behavioral therapy approach for treating phobias. The client works through three stages: First, the client practices a number of relaxation and anxiety reducing techniques, the goal of which is to provide them with tools for reducing tension at later stages. Second, they create a "Fear Hierarchy" where they rank items related to their phobia from least to most fear provoking. Third, the client begins to work their way through the Fear Hierarchy, starting with the least fear provoking item and using the skills used in the first stage to reduce tension and anxiety until they are prepared to approach the next level on their Hierarchy.

The concept is, of course, intriguing, and i have wondered for some time if it might apply to my ability to consume items aside form blood. I am not afraid of other food or beverages, however the reaction my form has to ingesting them of rather... violent. The smell of a good cup of coffee still does wonders for me on these cold Fall days, and I grow curiouser and curiouser about how I may overcome this obstacle.

Four to six sessions. Up to 12 weeks for severe cases. I would call vomiting up anything you consume a fairly severe case. After stage one I shall begin with in vivo exposure.

Probably best to use a neutral stimuli like water. I wouldn't want to spoil coffee for myself, now would I?

[Ariadne]

I went... Fadewalking...

Some time last year I was swept away with the need to visit the Shadow Realm, that place which has latched onto my soul like a leech.I couldn't resist the pull and so I stepped through the doorway of my own creation to the place of nightmares.

I got lost.

It wasn't just walls and ground that were shifting. There were holes that swallowed me up, and try as I might I just kept falling...

d

o

w

n

I don't remember stopping. I don't remember anything but the alternating dark and deep twilight that made up the realm. Time didn't exist. I think, for a while, I stopped existing, floating as one does on the tendrils of shadow and terror that feed the beasts in the dark.

Eventually there was a door. More of a doorknob that was so shiny that I, in my shadow-addled state, could not resist turning it. I was spat out, god knows where, in the unforgiving harshness of Harper Rock.


I would rather have been consumed by the shadows.