i'm still marinating my emotions. please forgive me if this is half-baked

a eulogy?

i don't mean to join the ranks of the seemingly ubiquitous black dresses fans who feel the need to evaluate the work of ada rook through the lens of that one project. but today the band's final album, laughingfish, released and i was brought back to this game once again. i said in my last review that fallow is "haunting" me no matter how much i play or write about it, and clearly that's still true.

if there's been one constant in the anything-but-consistent past 4 years of my life, it'd be the work of ada rook. her music has soundtracked 4 years of queer discovery and struggling; in particular, i favored her music with black dresses (same as pretty much everyone else on this planet, apparently). even the darkest pieces the duo made were shining beacons of hope from two incredible queer women pushing through the struggles of life and making art out of it. and now, that's all gone and my tiny emo heart is in shambles.

the depressive-ness of laughingfish is ever-pervasive. i know that the album acknowledges hope, that the end of everything you ever loved is the beginning of the future. it's still the end of everything you've ever loved. and in a damn near catatonic state on the floor of my garage after i finished listneing, i was reminded of fallow. fallow is 5 hours spent grieving before the end arrives. the final scene of the game sees our character, now named "harriet" (is she the same as isa? i don't know) on The Island On The Cleft: somewhere new for a new beginning. a girl you met moments prior asks her what she's going to do now, and harriet simply responds, "i don't know". i don't expect her to, really. i wouldn't either. i felt the same way watching that ending as i did listening to laughingfish's closer, "silence".

a new beginning punctuated by the aimlessness of a worn-out heart. still, forever we push on.