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how are you?

“ you know that meme . . . that CLASSIC meme . . . the dog sitting at a table , mug of –– something or other –– close by , smiling and saying ‘ i’m fine ’ but everything around him is on fire ? ” that’s kinda how i ‘ am ’ these days .

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Who are the most attractive people in darkwood?

“ well that’s all SUBJECTIVE , isn’t it ? ” nat’s nose scrunched ; she was never one to admit to this kind’a thing . leave ‘em guessing , spare yourself the potential rejection . “ but i guess i can give you a few names , ” huffing , she tried not to put too much overthinking into it , “ cyrelle , fawna , andi , nik , eddie , & reggie are all . . . QUITE pretty people in their own way . i’d say dean , too , but he doesn’t need that ego boost . ” ––– @cyrellea , @ohfawna , @vndii , @alrightnik , @eddietm , @ofreggies​ .

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aster flores x the eyebrow raise™

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ofreggies​:

he’s slightly relieved, that things feel normal here. the pictures that hung on the walls in the same place, or the noise that brought him some glint of comfort while it riled the other up. he could see it, in the way she’d shaken her wrists against an invisible sink, washing away the feeling that he’d could only imagine was starting it’s way up the nape of her neck. there’s a smile that rises between dimpled cheeks, and it seems to make it all the way to his eyes tonight, that much was for certain. a gaze is directed back to the twins, and his tongue lulls into his cheek to try and suppress the smirk that enveloped around the hue of amusement. “wish someone could have switched places with me when i took algebra..” but when he’s glancing back to nat, who’s expression told him– that wasn’t the correct answer. “i mean, bad? yeah– bad. don’t switch places with your brother, it’s unethical.” and there’s a tether between both twins, before they’d muttered in sync. yeah yeah. and then he’s wavering between himself, and the boys, underneath the breath of yet another contagious smile. “see?” he’ll open the door for her, but it’s just out of habit, waiting until she’s slipped on her jacket and they’re counting down the porch steps. his hands found the pockets of a flannel that’s pulled over a work t-shirt, and he’s walking along the outer side of the sidewalk, otherwise– if his mom saw them coming up the driveway any other way, she’d beat him with whatever kitchen utensil was in her hand at the moment. 

his gaze squints at her slightly, before he’s scoffing through a huff of breath caught somewhere between laughter and a roll of his eyes. “bed by eleven?’ he’s musing it over, giving her a sideways jest with the corner of his elbow. “i remember you running home before 6pm nearly every day, back when we were ten.” brows wavered upwards, matter of factly, before he’s drifting back to the sidewalk, and the short five minute walk, before they’d reach his house. “always waiting till’ the last second, trying to beat the street lights home. your time management skills are atrocious.” he’s teasing, the dimples giving the fact away, as he’s glancing around the neighborhood with one too many memories, warmth climbing up the nape of his neck, as he catches her gaze for a moment. “and by the way, i’m starting to think my family likes you better than they do me. my dad still has a newspaper cut out, from that time we’d entered the strawberry festival when we were nine—” there’s a pause, and he’s raising his brows. “except he cut me out by accident.” don’t even get him started on his mom, who’d taken nat in from the moment she’d been born, they were practically arranged to be married before their first sonogram. “mom asked about you today,” doesn’t bother using ownership when it comes to that– because in catherine darcy’s eyes, she was family. “mentioned you two have a date later in the week, not gonna’ like- i was a little hurt not being invited, but i think i’ll survive the exclusion of mani-pedis.” 

something felt incredibly strange about seeing reggie standing in her home ; she’d known him for years . they were practically DESTINED to be best friends , and more , according to their mothers . she knew that to be true , so why was there a cloud of grey fogging up her memories of him . nothing beyond that moment , meeting his eye as she walked down the hall . it made it a bit . . . difficult to be with him . strange . for the first time in her life , she felt like she couldn’t tell him why he’d see the calm falter to reveal weeks of worry . then again , even lillian had said it . there was no going back to the future ; they’d found a soft reset . she supposed if reggie was around and her family was safe , it wouldn’t be ALL that bad . brown eyes shot up to meet his , brows furrowing in a silent glare that said DO NOT ENCOURAGE THEM . something he caught immediately . leaning forward , she pecked each of them on the cheek and grinned at the way they rolled their eyes , waving her off . maybe it would be nice to find a little NORMALCY with reggie ; maybe being with his family , confiding in his mother , spending the evening in a safe space would DISTRACT her from the fires . . . from the date . maybe for just a little while , she could pretend this was her first go round . it already began to feel normal when reggie nudged himself between her and the edge of the sidewalk and began TEASING her for playing mom . “ my time management skills WERE atrocious , ” she laughed , half admitting it , half defending herself , “ but i was a very busy six - year - old , you know . there wasn’t enough daylight to get everything i needed to done . ”

nat’s hands fidgeted in her pockets as she chanced a glance up at the tall boy next to her . their mothers had been best friends ; it was only right that the two of them had become so close . familiar dimples and a warm , glowing smile appeared , and for a moment –– just a moment –– nat found herself believing things were perfectly fine . her grin spread wider still . “ oh , your parents have liked me better for years , viejo . i’m glad you’re finally catching onto it , though , ” her words were riddled with quiet laughter ; she was sure it went both ways , and between her , camila , and noelia . . . she KNEW her dad sometimes wished he’d had all boys –– reggie & eddie being two of them . her eyebrows raised , “ did she ? what for ? ” and then , with her head tilted backwards slightly , she let laughter escape into the night . “ well , the point of having a girls day is literally to exclude you , ” she nodded , then reached over , snatching up his wrist and slipping her hand underneath his . her fingers splayed outwards , holding their hands up as though she was examining his fingers , “ though you might want to reconsider the mani-pedi thing . your nail beds suck . ” glancing up at him , she gave him a taunting smile before dropping their hands and instead bumping against him with her shoulder . “ speaking of later in the week , how early are you planning on getting out to the campgrounds to set up friday morning ? ” her nose wrinkled at the thought . camping wasn’t exactly nat’s thing , but she’d do it every year for the sake of her friends and her siblings . at least this go around , when her dad graciously roped her into helping set up , reggie would be there . or . . . she assumed he would be , “ i mean , i’m GUESSING you’re helping out . gotta keep that golden boy energy up year round if you want to go for year twenty-five of being god’s gift to darkwood . ”

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who do you owe the biggest apology to?

she wanted to be selfish . she wanted to say MYSELF , to acknowledge the girl she was before with starry eyes and a keen ear for music . . . a girl who thought maybe , one day , she’d have the courage to follow a dream all the way to a big stage . she wanted to APOLOGIZE to the natalie who didn’t get to live her teenage years as she would’ve liked , the natalie who hid within herself and missed out on friday night lights or storybook first kisses or sneaking in after curfew because there was a family that needed taking care of . she wanted to say sorry because ONCE AGAIN , she was living the same reality . but , no . “ probably eddie , ” she stated with a sigh as her shoulders lifted into a shrug and she began to smile , “ poor boy’s had to fix my car twice this month already , and i refuse to get a new one . ”

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Alexxis Lemire via instagram

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I have a soft spot for secret passageways, bookshelves that open into silence, staircases that go down into a void, and hidden safes.

Luis Buñuel  (via mirroir)

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ofreggies​:

twenty five years old, and his mom is still stopping by the restaurant– making sure he’s going to close up in time for them to have dinner as a family. he’ll stop short on the way home, standing in front of a fence that needed a little bit of patch work, otherwise it might blow over if it rained a little harder than usual. he’d make a mental note to fix that for her, sometime in between his days off. either way, the noise from the house is always a little bit louder than the quietness of the neighborhood. the sounds of kids running up and down the hallways, as he makes his way up to the porch. the front door swings open, just seconds after he’d knocked– and stands a kid that hadn’t quite hit puberty yet.  “good luck– she’s in a mood.” samuel mumbled under his breath, before swinging the door open, and allowing reggie to step over the threshold. he can practically hear it now– nat from the other end of whatever hall she was at, badgering the twins to stop opening the door and letting people inside, it wouldn’t have been the first time. luckily, he’s shutting it behind him, and latching it shut so the draft doesn’t kick it open again. arms crossed in front of his chest, and he’s puffing under his breath with a smirk. “yeah? what’d you do this time?” he’s grinning, but samuel goes back to the couch with shrugged shoulders, and nicolas wasn’t far around the corner, either— until they’re both yelling at the top of their lungs. NAT, DOOR!

days had passed like weeks , but nat was adjusting the best that she possibly could to this new old - normal . lillian and lydia were right . . . this was real , and there was nothing she could do about it . not unless she suddenly tapped into a part of her brain that was storing away hidden knowledge of astrophysics or the space-time continuum . neither were likely , and all of her siblings were , once again , kids . teenagers , mostly . cam was off at uni . . . junior and noeie were under control for the most part . but the twins . the twins were born restless , and she KNEW that carried well into their teenage years . so it wasn’t exactly surprising that they were JUST the same the second go round , never giving her a moment of quiet . this evening felt particularly MUNDANE . . . because midday she’d gotten a phone call from the high school that felt all too familiar . “ sammy can’t take your math tests for you , nico . we’ve talked about this a million times , ” nat threw up her arms , and it was going in one ear and out the other as half of the devilish duo walked out of the room , “ the parent trap thing isn’t CUTE anymore , you two ! ” groaning , she pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes ; the urge to be selfish was crawling up her spine . she’d already done this once , and she wasn’t sure she could handle it again , no matter how much she loved her family . it was a thought that made her stomach churn with guilt the moment it’d entered her head .

 her name hollered in unison pulled her from her thoughts , and she stepped into the hall , shaking her wrists as though to shake away any leftover negative energy . molten eyes flickered upwards , and there in the foyer was a boy she’d known since she could remember . . . but she couldn’t remember anything about within the seven years she’d skipped back over to land back in 2014 . she stared for a moment , trying to make out the image of him in 2021 and failing . . . and yet , she still felt warmth blooming from the center of her chest and outwards . reggie was so integrated into her life , what with their mothers being best friends , that he felt safe , even if she couldn’t remember more . “ ¡ oye ! who let this viejo into the house ? ” she grinned , slipping into a rhythm like it was nothing . she was happy to see him , and that happiness felt untainted by this twist in time . it clicked in her head : dinner at the bradford’s , she’d nearly forgotten . “ they switched places at school again , ” she shook her head , yanking open the coat closet and tugging out a jacket . “ junior’s in charge , ” she shouted through the house , “ and you two –– ” she slipped into the living room , leaning over the back of the couch directly in between them , “ bed by eleven . BEST behavior or i rat you out to dad when i get back . ” with an irritating big sister ruffle of their dark curls , she said her goodbye and met reggie by the door . “ remind me to ask your mother how she manages the lot of you . i think i’m going to be grey by the time i’m twenty - six , ” she offered a gentle smile , warmth reflected in dark hues , “ vamos . i’m ready for dinner with my favorite reginald bradford . ” as she pulled the front door open for him , she grinned , “ ‘course , i’m glad reginald junior will be there as well . ”

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lilliian​:

.

Lil listened as Nat gave a pretty accurate summary of the situation they seemed to find themselves in. “Like Thirteen Going on Thirty but backwards…sounds about right.” Except there was far less dancing and Mark Ruffalo. “Is it everyone?” She asked hesitantly. It was clear that David was back at least and she’d seen flashes of others but nothing had been confirmed. He might have been back but did that mean they all were? Everyone they’d lost, breathing again - it seemed impossible but all of the clues so far were pointing to ‘yes’. And what did that mean for the futures they’d left behind. “My head hurts.” She said with a sigh, her lips curling into a comfortable smile. The feeling of being back with Nat was so warm, so normal. It felt right when nothing else about this day did. “I have no idea what’s going on but I know it’s happening. This is real. Whatever it is.”

. . . 

“ depends on what you mean by everyone , ” natalie hummed , hands finding the warmth of her jacket pockets as she thought it over . the common thread appeared to be the infamous DARKWOOD FIRES . . . but her dad didn’t have a clue , and he was in the prequel to the 2014 accident . and then there was reggie . . . who she suddenly couldn’t remember past that point in time , and who seemed to be going about his life , business as usual . tired laughter fell from nat’s lips , and something about being back with lillian made her relax , if only just a bit and only just for a moment . it was security in the midst of so much uncertainty . “ yeah , mine , too , ” she mused , fingers ruffling through her hair to brush waves away from her face . “ whatever it is –– . . . ” lips pressed together and pushed to the side , thought clouding her features , “ i suppose everything happens for a reason . . . and lil , there’s got to be a reason we’re here here . before the , um –– . . . ” she cleared her throat , “ the accident . ”

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lydiaturan​:

“to be honest, i don’t think there’s a lot of words that explain the magnitude of this situation,” lydia responds a little too quickly. it is the truth. she’s struggling to reel in her thoughts, mainly because not one of them actually makes sense of this current situation. could anything? she looks at nat and she really wishes she had something else to straighten out both their thoughts but there’s absolutely no realm where she can make sense of this. it’s almost as if the universe has chosen to spit them all back out because they weren’t satisfactory the first time. it’s all grades and ratings in her head, maybe they just didn’t meet the universal standards when it came to their performance in life events and that’s why this was all happening. she could see how it could of been quite unsatisfactory from the outside how things truly ended up unravelling, deaths included.

“i remember the day and i remember the time, but i can’t quite…” she draws off, her eyebrows pulled together and her forehead crinkled, “remember the exact place. it’s so hazy, almost as if it never really happened. almost like a nightmare.” she’s honest with nat about this but not about the way it makes her feel, she couldn’t unload that on someone who seemed so well natured and undeserving of the burden of all her concerns and worries. “it seems that the people that lived past it remember everything but those two, they just don’t remember a thing. like we’re restarting their lives but reliving their own. a second chance…” or maybe it was a curse. like fawna had said, maybe this time someone else would die. maybe this time someone else would be left behind. george and nina wouldn’t even know any different.

. . . 

people wrote BOOKS and MOVIES about this kind of thing , but natalie had never really been all that well - versed in science fiction and she didn’t think A WRINKLE IN TIME would be much help in this situation anyway . teeth dug into her bottom lip , and she could hear her younger sister’s voice echoing in the back of her mind , warning her against making that concentration face for too long . . . you’ll get creases near your eyebrows , she’d state , poking at her skin as though she was already wrinkled . it was too weird , all of it , and maybe lydia was right . . . maybe there weren’t any words that fit the bill . “ strange , ” she whispered softly , “ like the ghost of a memory , in’it ? ” it was almost spoken to herself , quiet enough to slip away if you weren’t paying attention . a WONDERING of her own , and she realized she couldn’t think of any books or movies about time travel that had a little bit of ARSON sprinkled in .

“ a second chance for them , but . . . how is that second chance supposed to happen if we don’t know WHERE to look ? ” palms glided over each other , back and forth in a fidgeting motion that came with focus . a second chance . but why was mx aware of what happened ? and why couldn’t she remember anything about reggie passed the present ?  “ and what if we relive our lives wrong ? what if we fuck up the future ? ” her fingers lifted to pinch the bridge of her nose ; she hadn’t exactly been prepared for this kind of thinking . her father echoed in the back of her mind : sigue tu instinto . go with your gut . follow your instinct . her gut was in knots and her instincts had been on the back end of fight or flight since she’d woken up in the wrong year and seven years younger . “ what does your gut say ? ” she asked lydia , turning a thoughtful gaze on the redhead , “ is this a good , second chance miracle ? or are we . . . ” there weren’t words for it . not anything eloquent , anyway . “ completely FUCKED ? ”

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mxvirani​:

“yeah, i’m pretty much caught up on the whole sitch,” he filled in the blanks as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on at all. maybe he was just desensitised to his own life being completely out of hand because somehow waking up in the past was actually a refreshing change to the future – even if he was determined to go down the same rabbit hole all the same. “everyone who died is alive and clueless except for me who has the self-awareness gene and remembers every part of their exciting and crippling demise, we’re all just going to run around like headless chickens thinking about how we can change history or the future and nik’s going to make more movies where i’m way uglier than real life. that’s the general consensus so far,” he summarises rather eloquently, if he does say so himself.

“anyway, i’ve been finding out some pretty shocking things about 2018 onwards. did you know how fucking sad the last avengers movie was? and the jordyn woods scandal. man, almost makes me wish i hadn’t kicked it,” he says, again, as if it’s no big deal. to him it isn’t. death didn’t seem that dark, being alive was a hell of a lot darker. things are twisted in his mind, not quite how they were but he remembers them so vividly. maybe he should of stuck around to watch the fyre festival documentary. wait, could he invent the fyre festival instead? oh my god, i can invent nik’s movie before him! that’ll show him! “sorry, back to reality, yeah, so i’m aware.”

.

she was usually masterful at being a blank canvas . her sisters liked to joke that lightening could strike at her feet and she wouldn’t even flinch . . . but it was NOTHING compared to the way mx listed off the details of what felt like a bad take on remaking back to the future . nat stared back at him , dark eyes WIDE and jaw slightly slacked . silence lingered in the air ; she was well acquainted with how D A R K things could get when sadness seeped into misery and the world began to fade into shades of grey . death wasn’t even a stranger . she’d known it intimately , with the loss of her mother . but even at her lowest , even at her most cynical . . . natalie could never picture herself quite as calm as mx seemed to be . not when his fate was laid out in front of him . she didn’t know what to say , so her jaw snapped shut , lips pursing together with a furrowed look of thoughtfulness .

“ if nik was smart , he’d just kick off his career by making moonlight AND la la land in the same year . sweep the oscars , ” she said with a wrinkle of her nose . her hands lifted , palms running over her face as her shoulders hunched forward , tension releasing from her spine with a groan . she didn’t UNDERSTAND , and she hated not having answers . “ you’re aware . lil’s aware . lydia’s aware . everyone’s aware . ” well . . . not everyone . NINA wasn’t , and it didn’t make sense why . . . “ so this is just the new normal ? ” her hands fell to her sides , and she stared back at him with the faintest gleam of worry in her gaze . after all , mx was one of the ones darkwood LOST . she wanted to ask him if he was going to change things . . . if there was anything she , or anyone , could do to help him change things , but she wasn’t sure if that was her place . “ you should see what they did with game of thrones , ” she shrugged , shoving her hands into her jacket pockets . another moment of contemplative silence passed before she asked , “ do you think it’d screw everything up if we don’t do EXACTLY as we did last time ? ”

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·  *  .  𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒆 & 𝒄𝒂𝒎𝒊𝒍𝒂 : a look into the rivera family’s PAST .

natalie never GRIEVED her mother properly . at fourteen , she lost her mother and chose to grow up too soon in order to fill shoes no one asked her to step into . before then , a two year age game made it tough for her to get along with her sister closest in age , camila . they were polar opposites . NAT , calm & serene . CAMI , fiery & passionate . after the passing of their mother , nat spent a lot of her time trying to keep the pieces together & keep track of her older siblings while her grandparents stepped in to see to the littles .

Maddie. It’s okay, it’s okay.

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·  *  .  𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒆 & 𝒆𝒅𝒅𝒊𝒆 :  a look into their dynamic .

@eddietm​

The Notebook (2004) dir. Nick Cassavetes

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·  *  .  𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒆 & 𝒍𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒂𝒏  :  a look into the past  .

@lilliian​

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Goodnight, Rory. Goodnight, Dodger.

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rory gilmore + most relatable quotes