Remembering a Friend

[Eden Parker]

Hi everyone – I’m sorry to share the sad news that my longtime friend, writing partner, and member of this community, the player best known as Lyrical Dementia has passed away. You may have known her by one of her characters – Mason, Blue (Lyrical Dementia), Melantha, Silas Dancer, Ian Blaze, Edgedancer (Leah Dancer), Artists Muse, and more. (Thank you to her friends who helped me remember so many of her characters).

Lyrical and I met in this community and started a friendship that lasted fifteen years. We met when our characters met, and we wrote stories together, and while we wrote we slowly became friends. Our real life friendship far outlasted our writing partnership.

I know many of you knew her and had the chance to write with her and talk with her, but many of you didn’t and I’d like to tell you something about my very dear and cherished friend.

She was a wonderfully creative person, brimming with great ideas and imagination. As a writer, she got her start playing DnD, and she carried a gift for plot into her writing in FFRP. She had incredible range as a writer. She wrote unique and sympathetic characters, and she wrote villains too. She was crafty and witty. Writing together as Eva and Mason, she and I spent many nights together writing memorable escapades in the RDI with our friends here, much of that time laughing. And I spent many more nights admiring her writing with others.

Even once we stopped writing together, our friendship continued, and we still swapped stories and ideas. For every idea I shared with her, she had three more. We never got tired of talking about writing. And we talked about so much more. She made a space for me in her life for which I will forever be grateful.

Lyrical was a devoted and supportive friend. She celebrated my successes and carried me through my struggles. Her pride in me made me feel pride in myself. She was an incredible listener and advice giver, insightful and kind. She really truly listened and she taught me through her example how to be better at that. We could talk for hours and never seemed to run out of things to talk about.

I do not have adequate words to describe what her friendship meant to me and what she meant to me. She was one of the most important people in my life. I will miss her greatly.

There is no service or memorial information just yet, but if you're interested in hearing those details if/when they are available, please feel free to contact me.

[Mallory]

It has been a long time, but I was fortunate to play with and talk to Lyrical’s player as much as I did. She was creative, attentive, clever and kind, and knew how to make someone feel seen and safe all at once; and from talking to friends over the last two days, she was very, very loved.

There’s a rare, special kind of friendship that can be forged in places like this. I’m sorry for your loss, Eden. She lives on in her friends, and the bonds forged as a result of her kindness.

[Rohin MacKurn]

Out of the Blue

How can one describe the profound impact she had on others? The circle may have been small, but it was deep.

I met Lyrical Dementia (Blue) around 1998 when I was an angry, closeted-queer, snot-nosed, precocious, and obnoxious teenager trying to keep my head above the fanatical, evangelical waters of my upbringing. (Shout out to all those who waded through those waters with me, thank you.)

Over the decades since, I have written many characters in many styles, but in wrestling with Mac (Rohin MacKurn) I found the edges of my voice and sharpened them. In writing Mac *with Blue* and in writing Kyrie *with Ian* she helped me plumb whole other depths: the softness in strength, the laughter in sorrow.

She had a way of helping you find something you didn't know was there.

She could show you what you always knew, but had forgotten.

She taught my how to say more with less, how to follow a thread of intuition delicately, so as not to scare it away for the chasing. She taught me that tenderness and vulnerability were the heart of bravery-- that love sits at the center of all stories.

This morning, while driving to work, I took a shuddering inhale and heard all the times before she told me, "just breathe." And I lost it.

I'm still losing it.

Somewhere, some when, a Collector's low slung voice sings,

"I never loved nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost
In the sounds
… I hear in my mind
All of these voices
I hear in my mind
All of these words
I hear in my mind
All of this music
And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart..."
(Regina Spektor, Fidelity)

<3

[Pharlen]

Clovers and wisteria petals...

I remember the first time I saw her, but I don't remember when I saw her last. I didn't know that would be the last time. I was just thinking of her and wondering how to find her.

A short shorn elegance and a lovely, laughing person behind the scenes.

I know she will find her wings quickly.

[Sulissurn]

There are some that scoff at writing that comes across as poetic and whimsical. I have heard the term, "purple poetry," tossed around a lot over the years during my time at the RDI and here and while role-playing.

There's poetry, and then there is poetry.

Melantha, Silas, Ian, Edgedancer, and no doubt more--were some who had the most prolific effects on my writing and characters.

Blue was one of the most influential players to me, as a person. She was one of the first few along with Mac, to coax something beautiful instead of brutal from my broken girl, Suliss'urn, and one of the few players that would and often could, make me stop in the middle of writing just to watch them write.

There isn't anything really, for me to say that would put experiencing her in play and in-person (chat) to justice. Somewhere on the wall near the hearth and between the broom closet in the RDI is a painting made by a scarred drow and a talented painter who spoke in lyrics. I hope she knows the words, the stories, the hearts, and the imagination she sparked and continues to spark, wherever she flies.

[Anubis Karos]

..Wow, just...wow.

I only knew her characters in passing over the years, so flowery tributes are probably better left to those who were blessed to know her. But I would like to state that we are a small but tightly knit community, and when someone among us is called away like this, the shadow falls over us all. My most profound condolences to those who called her friend and family, I cannot imagine their pain.

[PrlUnicorn]

I'm sorry to hear of Blue's passing. She was incredibly talented and our community is richer for her having been a part of it. She has departed this life, but as long we remember her, she is still with us in our hearts and in the stories she wrote with many of us.