insidethekaleidoscope

[insidethekaleidoscope]

Why must every single scheduling experience in Chicago resemble trying to buy tickets to Beyoncé?

I just want to renew my driver’s license 😭

[insidethekaleidoscope]

Drabble 24: petty

Six epees in as many months. 

Six.  

It was a staggering amount to lose, though Lucy could - had - justified it to Lockwood, every time: 

“Really, Luce? Another one?”

“You unclipped it so I could fit through the gate, at that place in Whitchappel and-”

or

“I threw it to you, Lockwood!  And you dropped it in the river!” 

Or 

“Yes, Lockwood, another one - you used it to bar the doors, Lockwood!” 

It was an unfortunate pattern. So when she saw his rapier skitter past, just in reach, she almost grabbed it.  Almost. 

It was petty, maybe, but he’d earned that.

[insidethekaleidoscope]

It’s Not a Plot Hole, It’s Foreshadowing

vs.

It’s Not a Plot Hole, It’s Just Something That They Opted Not to Spoon-feed You Because It Would Be Obvious If You Thought About It For 20 Seconds

vs.

It May Be a Plot Hole, But It Still Works In Terms of the Story’s Themes and Character Logic

vs.

Okay, It Is a Plot Hole, What Are You Going to Do, Cry about It?

[insidethekaleidoscope]

This morning my brother in law texted me to commission a painting of his friends and their new baby. He sent me these sweet candid photos he took of them with just the most loving expressions, and he was so excited about the idea of being able to give them this gift. Everything about it was so loving it made my heart so full, and I’m just so pleased that I get to be the medium ❤️

Seeing the people you love take such apparent joy in their friends happiness is such a gift.

[insidethekaleidoscope]

Growing up is actually all about realizing people don’t inherently dislike you and it’s a bit odd to assume they do

[insidethekaleidoscope]

OKAY I CHANGED MY MIND. The real purest moment in the whole series is when we find out that the door to Jessica’s room was never locked. Because Anthony Lockwood, as deeply scarred and terrified of intimacy as he was, trusted his friends enough that he knew it didn’t need to be.

[insidethekaleidoscope]

I’m sorry I couldn’t reblog without adding this

whatever else you have to say about katy perry i do have to say "do you ever feel like a plastic bag" is maybe one of the all time funniest ways to start a song

[insidethekaleidoscope]

LUCILLE CLIFTON

[insidethekaleidoscope]

Tonight is the night. It has begun.

Every year our neighbors two doors down throw a very loud and very large clown themed small children’s party that runs until about 2am. Tonight is that night.

[insidethekaleidoscope]

My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined. So close you look past me when wondering where I am. It’s Ok. I know that to be human is to be farsighted. But feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living. Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive? Ask me the altitude of heaven, and I will answer, “How tall are you?” In my back pocket is a love note with every word you wish you’d said. At night I sit ecstatic at the loom weaving forgiveness into our worldly regrets. All day I listen to the radio of your memories. Yes, I know every secret you thought too dark to tell me, and love you more for everything you feared might make me love you less. When you cry I guide your tears toward the garden of kisses I once planted on your cheek, so you know they are all perennials. Forgive me, for not being able to weep with you. One day you will understand. One day you will know why I read the poetry of your grief to those waiting to be born, and they are all the more excited. There is nothing I want for now that we are so close I open the curtain of your eyelids with my own smile every morning. I wish you could see the beauty your spirit is right now making of your pain, your deep seated fears playing musical chairs, laughing about how real they are not. My love, I want to sing it through the rafters of your bones, Dying is the opposite of leaving. I want to echo it through the corridor of your temples, I am more with you than I ever was before.  Do you understand? It was me who beckoned the stranger who caught you in her arms when you forgot not to order for two at the coffee shop. It was me who was up all night gathering sunflowers into your chest the last day you feared you would never again wake up feeling lighthearted. I know it’s hard to believe, but I promise it’s the truth. I promise one day you will say it too– I can’t believe I ever thought I could lose you.

love letter from the afterlife, andrea gibson

[insidethekaleidoscope]

Andrea Gibson 8/13/75 - 7/14/25 "I am more here than I ever was before. I am more here with you than I ever could have imagined." – Love Letter From the Afterlife

[insidethekaleidoscope]

Restored binding! My friend fixed it for me, and nearly made me cry. I’m so excited to show my mom ❤️

Both of these books belonged to my grandfather. He died long before I was born, when my mom was 16, so as I child, this is mostly what I knew of him. I adored these books. I read them over and over again, particularly The 13 Clocks, which I've come to realize most people have never heard of. Looking back on them now, I can see how the thread draws forward to much of what I find compelling as an adult.

Both of these books reside in that strange place between whimsical and unsettling - odd and magical and a bit dangerous. I think it's this feeling of awe in its older, more complicated meaning, where there was a much finer line between awesome and awful. There's something in it that feels connected to the time in my early twenties when I camped on a beach and unknowingly stumbled upon bioluminescent algae washing into shore. The waves glowed, and the minnows darting through the shallows lit up like tiny shooting stars in the water. I spent hours staring at it, stepping in the surf, watching light bloom and fade in my footprints. There have been few times in my life where the strange magic of the world has revealed itself so baldly, and it was odd and beautiful and confusing. I think I could have stayed in that moment indefinitely.

My mom gave me these books when I was visiting recently. They were in a box with a bunch of other books she wanted me to go through - college textbooks, old novels, and the like. I don't think she really though that much of it. She's not really openly sentimental like that. When I turned eighteen she gifted me a family ring - one she had worn my entire life, that had made it through a pogrom, a harried journey across multiple continents, and several generations of wear - and she gave it to me without ceremony, simply handed it to me and said, "This is yours now. Try not to loose it." I, on the other hand, have always been sentimental.

At some point while I was in college, my aunt gave my mom copies of a couple letters my grandfather had written her. They were wonderfully strange and esoteric - written on a typewriter with words fragmented across the page, somewhere between poetry and riddles. I remember reading them, and thinking first, yes, it makes so much sense that these were written by someone who had loved Alice in Wonderland. My second thought was that I saw myself there. Looking at these books now, its odd feeling this clear and strong line of connection to this person who I've never met. There's something there, just in loving what he once loved, and the feeling that in a way he must reside somewhere inside me.

[insidethekaleidoscope]

Lockwood & Co puzzle purse 💕

Made for @womaninwinter birthday 😘

[insidethekaleidoscope]

"Our faces were very close, mine lower, his higher, leaning together as we peered out from under the burning hood at the swirling greyness all around."

This moment from The Creeping Shadow had me SCREAMING!!! I decided to do this piece traditionally, and I imagined it as the kind of illustration you'd find printed within the novel.

[insidethekaleidoscope]

“35 Portland Row, London W1″ 

[insidethekaleidoscope]

Happy "The Bear Season 4" to all those who celebrate 🐻🐻🐻

[insidethekaleidoscope]