#briefly but just in case

[bungou-stray-chimera]

Daughter

She really doesn't know why she went back to the house.

Edgar would have no reason to, not knowing the place even exists, and Francis-

Oh, there's a reason he avoided it.

The lady of the house is as sweet as she remembers. Just as mentally unaware, too, considering how easily she accepts the story that Lenore is one of her daughter's friends, and that they go to school together. 

"She's getting so big, isn't she?" says Zelda, with a soft smile.

Lenore nods, unable to choke out even a single word.

It's a nice stay. A chef is fired, two maids are also, but the arguments and yelling are kept behind closed doors. The house is cold, even with the best heating system paid for monthly thanks to Francis. Zelda offers her room, clothes, three meals a day- it's more than enough, and her heart aches because of it.

Zelda encourages her to take from her own closet. The first few days, she refuses. By the second week, it's a tentative habit.

She doesn't know how to feel in the dresses. She was made from two men- her shoulders are Edgar's, her torso Francis's, legs of one and jaw of another and none of it is right.

But Zelda somehow sees a young girl named Lenore, not her husband. So both she and the dresses stay.

And then she takes that one.

It's dark blue, modest, and the skirt is long and wide. It covers up most of what she hates, and her face- well, she's learned a thing or two about make-up, and that helps. Not much, but it's enough to look distinct from the two faces haunting the mirrors of her memory.

Zelda comes in as she’s twirling her hair, trying to decide on a bow. She gears her laugh, and that gentle sigh, before,

"Oh you look so much like her, you know."

And that soft hand melts from memory onto her shoulder.

"Like my daughter," Zelda says, "so much like her, I can look from the corner of my eye and see her."

Lenore holds no love for mirrors, not since she became a her instead of two hims.

"I'm glad she has someone like you. To look out for her."

But Lenore has never been more grateful to lack one than at that moment, when she holds back the tears burning her eyes just long enough for Zelda to leave. When any semblance of certainty and comfort crumbles, and she stares unmoving at the wall for near an hour.

It's then she knows she must leave.

-

She says goodbye on a warm summer day, early enough that the crisp winds of autumn have yet to rustle through her hair. Sweat dampens her palms as she holds onto her luggage, and bows her head in gratitude to her host.

“It was no trouble,” Zelda says, “no trouble at all, for a friend of my daughter. Bring her here next time, won’t you?” She smiles. “We’ll host a party for you all. It will be lovely.”

Lenore smiles, too.

“It will be,” she says smoothly, now able to speak even when she’s choked. “I look forward to it.”

With one look at the house, at Zelda, for the last time, she waves and walks away. She lets herself into the pale yellow car, and only the corner of her eye sees Zelda turning back as they drive away.

When she visits the grave with a young girl’s name on it, she makes sure to leave her favorite flowers.

[amiacallistie]

venting again

I do think of going to a psychologist or something, but there's two things stopping me first, what if I don't have anything? What if I'm just a fucking crybaby who'se complaining over nothing? I still can work,, I haven't cut myself in years, I don't want to kill myself (because I'm a coward, but that's another story)

like, what else could I do if my worries are funded and my problems really aren't important enough

and even if there is something, what could be done? I already don't believe any of the self affirmations I see going around here. Those are true for the others, 100%, but not for me.

"your friends miss you" no they don't, I left for three month and they barely noticed

"you have worth no matter what you do" and be a fucking parasite? I already made my parents pay for a school I only stayed two years in out of the five, I won't be a bigger burden for them

and with all that, if I'd still try to seek therapy, I'd need to talk to my parents because I can't go on my own or pay online for a videocall. And I just don't want to tell them. They don't know how low I am, and I don't want them to know

it must be awful, as a parent, to believe that your child is fine and theml learn all of the sudden that it's not the case. I don't want them to feel guilty thinking they didn't pay enough attention or they did provide enough for me. They did well enoughµ. I don't want to bother them more

A friend that's trying to push me to seek help say that it's only excuses, and maybe it is.

but that's how I feel

[heavydistraction]

[monochromeblend]

fluorescent shrimp

[bitchapalooza]

The whole crew assuming Luffy is naive about sex and dating in general but he is in fact the most knowledgeable on it, even more so than Sanji and Chopper(safe sex education blah blah blah). He’s literally never dated and has very little desire to, he’s openly sex repulsed, and yet this man will give THE BEST relationship advice you’ve heard in your life. He may not personally get what your going through but he’s a good third party to have since his advice isn’t clouded by a bias of some kind, he just states what he believes is the obvious smarter solution.

[nabhx]

WE MAKING IT OUT THE BOX WITH THIS ONE 🗣🗣

I saw like a singular LJ drawing on Instagram and?? He used to be my absolute favourite back in the day, it's so weird to be back here fhfgh weirdly healing as well though! Child me would explode (affectionate)

[pixelatedraindrops]

Yuma Month: Day 25: Broken

Night terrors, burning body temperature, delirious hallucinations, and glassy faded vision…

Helpless and afraid, he calls out for his caretaker…but he’s not there…

He’s all alone now…with no one to help…

Completely broken.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Our Lady Of Mysterious Ailments & The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle

books 2 & 3 in the Edinburgh Nights series

paranormal mystery set in a climate-ravaged future Scotland, plagued by ghosts and magic

follows a 15yo Black girl who’s finally gotten an in to learn scientific magic properly - but it turns out to be an unpaid internship, so she has to take more jobs delivering ghost messages and investigating mysteries to take care of her gran and little sister

in book 2 she’s investigating a strange illness centred on a magic school for boys

and in book 3 she’s attending a global magician conference held in a creepy castle - when someone’s murdered, and they’re locked in until she figures out the culprit

Zimbabwean magic, friendship, disabled characters, no romance (so far)

[marzipanandminutiae]

COVID UPDATE

Woke up at 5 AM unable to smell some things. Woke up for real at 8 AM able to smell all of those things with the exception of some Stuffy Nose scent dilution. Now once again unable to smell one previously unsmellable thing- lavender soap -but still able to smell the other unsmellable thing- Japanese Cherry BlossomTM lotion -albeit slightly diminished

can still unequivocally smell: deodorant, perfume, conditioner, bergamot, toast, sweat

suspect this is merely a side effect of stuffy nose since it seems so sporadic and sense of taste remains- knock on wood! -unaltered

[thecrowsart]

"I got the feeling that Mr. Yorishima... wanted to give a loquat to Natori, and I got one because I just happened to be there. Yet I got the sweet one. Natori gave Mr. Yorishima a sour face. And I thought there's no winning even in such a tiny thing."

[liquidstar]

a friend who'd wait :)

[the-badger-mole]

The Villain and Hero Switch...🙄

On my Maleficent salt again. If anyone ever wants help understanding my hesitance to give live action remakes a shot, look no further. I honestly did want to like the movie at first, but them just taking the story and switching the villain and non-villain roles felt like a cheap cop out.

The fairies thing really pissed me off. In the first film, they were immortal magical beings who had trouble doing things the mortal way. Did that make them imperfect guardians? Sure! But they did their best successfully for just under SIXTEEN YEARS. Then the curse caught up with them, because of course it did. It had to. There wouldn't be a story otherwise. That wasn't a good enough reason to make them criminally negligent in the live action version in order to make Maleficent look like a hero by comparison. I love the fairies from the original movie. They made mistakes, yes, but all good heroes do. AND they SAVED THE DAY!!! Phillip would've frikin died without them, and so would've Aurora!

...huh...I think I'm realizing that maybe my hesitance to give remakes, live action or otherwise, of my animated faves might have a root cause...

Anyway, I do understand that adaptations should change some things in order to justify their existence. After all, a shot for shot remake is also lazy and boring. However, a lot of the time, the remakes just make lazy choices. Like Maleficent being turned into a thinly veiled date-rape allegory and switching the hero and villain roles instead of...I don't know... giving Maleficent a deeper motive for her villainy besides being snubbed for a party invite while still letting her be the fabulous villain we all love. Or instead of focusing on Maleficent at all, they could have focused on giving Aurora more of a story. Maybe showing us how out of place she felt growing up, and what finding out who her real parents are meant to her. Also expanding on her relationship with her "aunts". Have the fairies learning to be mortal a more pivotal part of their experience. Making Maleficent a hero at the expense of villainizing King Stephen, making Queen Leah even less of a character, and Flanderizing the fairies feels...well, lazy. Aurora was one of the few Disney Princesses with two loving parents. Why remove that distinction instead of expanding on their story? They had to give up their only child in order to save her life. Not only is there conflict for them as her parents, there's conflict for them as monarchs. I think a good writer could have made that a compelling story. But no...they just had to make King Stephen evil, for...reasons...

Look, it's not even like I'm against taking the villain of an original story and turning them into the hero. I just want there to be a good reason for it. For example, I love the story of Wicked. I think making Elphaba the hero worked really well, because in the original movie (I didn't actually read the books...sorry. But in my defense, I feel like most Wicked/Wizard of Oz fans probably haven't either? We're all Judy Garland trash) In the original movie the titular Wizard is enough of a morally grey character that you could argue that he could have been a villain actually, and the Wicked Witch of the West was such a one dimensional character that you could take her in so many directions and keep her recognizable (btw, I'm not saying it's bad the 3W is one dimensional. It worked for the story, but it gave the fanfics author something to build on). Also, I feel like Wicked the novel doesn't remove all the moral greyness from Elphaba's character, and it makes her interesting. There's a story to tell there! I can dig it! It's when adaptations completely switch the role of hero and villain so completely and abruptly that I get annoyed.

What they did was less a retelling than making up a completely different story altogether. Stephan and Leah were minor characters in the original story, yes. But they could've remained loving parents to Aurora, and Maleficent could've remained the villain and still been part of a great, expanded story.

Then maybe Maleficent could've still turned into a dragon instead of giving her stupid pet bird that moment.

[ghostleeeaf]

Locket by Crumb

Read the tags before you look it up

[bylertruther]

isn't mad/wheeIer like. 90% fanon 🧐

[squarebracketsmileyface]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I WOULD KILL FOR BIRDIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WANT MAMA LARK AND PAPA TIM AND BUBA BRIAN AND LITTLE BIRDIE TO JUST BE THE BEST HAPPY FAMILY IN THE WORLD GAH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mon I hope you know this will forever be in my brain, all my thoughts, are going to be consumed by them.

Do you think inthe everyone lives au they'd want more kids or are they completely happy with their little surprise miracle? And in that vain, do you think Tim would yeet his uterus/ get his tubes tide after Birdie is born or like, again, maybe perhaps... holding out for the possibility of another....

(Don't mind me, I'm just a fiend with baby fever and the love of projecting onto my favorite guys)

~💜

Oh dude even in the 'canon' of Sorry, It's Locked Tim does end up with another kid.

The second kid is more planned than Birdie but still not entirely planned (as in, he and Brian have been talking about it and have been a bit less careful about using protection, but it still happens a lot sooner than they expected it to lol). They name this kid Jesse and it's a little boy, so Birdie gets a little brother.

In the 'everyone lives' AU I think I'd keep this. Around the time when Birdie is sorta 12-13 ish, after Brian comes back into their lives and eventually starts dating Lark and Tim, he and Tim have a kid as well, and again, that kid is Jesse.

Also Jesse is like, obsessed with his big sister when he's a baby. Like, he only wants to be held by her, he stares at her constantly, y'know? He just really loves his big sister.

OH YEAH WAIT I FORGOT TO TELL YOU SOME STUFF ABOUT BIRDIE IN THE LAST ONE.

Birdie is a bug autistic, she fucking loves insects of all kinds. Every type of insect, there isn't a single one she dislikes. However, Tim really doesn't like bugs much (blame that on waking up in the forest, lying on the floor covered in insects and insect bites) but he tries for Birdie. Like, she wants to raise caterpillars? Sure, they can do that... Except that Birdie releases the butterflies in his room one day and he almost has a panic attack so now he's gotta explain to 3-4 year old Birdie that she really "really can't do that because papa is very scared of bugs, even the pretty ones". Birdie gets it and is allowed to raise caterpillars again, but she does ask if that means she can't dress up as insects for Halloween anymore, if Tim is even scared of the pretty ones.

Obviously, Tim says she is the prettiest bug and only bug he likes. She is very happy and proceeds to dress as a shield bug for the next Halloween. Tim is just very confused by her choice 💀

Confused but supportive dad lol

I think I also forgot to mention some of how Birdie is in 'canon' S,IL while it's just her and Tim. Because even though Tim hides MH from her, he can't really hide the PTSD kinda stuff it left him with. He can't hide the nightmares that wake him up, he can't hide how scared he is when he forgets things, stuff like that. He and Birdie have this kinda routine where if he wakes her up with his nightmare she goes and sleeps in his bed with him. So she'll wake up because he's yelled or something in his dream and she'll go into his room (wake him up if he isn't already awake) and they'll cuddle until they both fall back asleep.

A lot of Tim's nightmares pot MH are about losing people, they're about losing Jay and about losing Brian, they're about killing Alex and lying to Jessica about what really happened and then never seeing her again, stuff like that. But they're also about losing Birdie. They're about sort of "what if" scenarios where he lost her before he even knew he was pregnant, where the fight with Alex at the end caused him to miscarry. They're about losing her to some horrible accident now that he actually has her to look after. They're about the Operator coming back and hurting her. They're about the Operator coming back and Tim doing to Birdie what his mum did to him, sending her away to a mental hospital and rarely coming to visit.

The ones about Birdie are the worst for him, the others he kinda knows how to deal with, he dealt with them during MH and also, they did happen. He did lose those people. In a way that makes it less scary, because it's just reliving the events in a way and he can kinda handle that. But the dreams about losing Birdie? They fuck him up. Some days even sending her off to school after a really bad nightmare about losing her feels like too much and can send him into panic attacks all day.

On days like that he and Birdie have an agreement with the school that Birdie can phone home at break and lunch, and if Tim really needs to he can phone and ask for her outside of break and lunch. He tries not to need that one, he doesn't wanna drag her out of class in front of everyone, he doesn't want the other kids to make fun of her for it, because kids can be mean like that. Birdie doesn't really care what the other kids think. She doesn't even realise that getting called out of class like that could be something to be embarrassed by. All she cares about is "my papa is sad and scared and I can make him feel better by talking to him about bugs" because on those phonecalls she literally just talks about bugs she's seen that day and Tim's just happy to listen and remember that she's alive and safe and strangely obsessed with bugs.

ALSO kinda on the same lines as this, even tho Birdie loves Brian as a teacher, she's kinda suspicious of him when he and Tim get together. Like, not massively, but the first time Brian sees Tim have a nightmare when he stays the night, he ends up getting kicked out of Tim's room by Birdie because she doesn't trust him to know how to help. She kinda gets one of those little kid power trips about being the only one who knows how to look after her papa when he has a nightmare, like, she feels all special because just being there or talking to him makes him feel better, y'know lol?

She gets all high and mighty with Brian and he tries to focus on how funny he finds it rather than panicking about whether Tim is okay.

When Birdie doesn't come out of Tim's room again Brian cracks the door to look in and absolutely melts because Birdie and Tim are sound asleep all cuddled up together. Brian sleeps on the sofa that night and ends up all manners of fucked up because it is NOT a comfy sofa to sleep on and his back is already fucked 💀

Many many spasms were had all the next day. That poor man was not having a good time. Birdie feels sorry for him and tells him that next time he can go and sleep in her bed instead.

He appreciates the offer 💀

It doesn't take much convincing from Tim for Birdie to let Brian stay after the first few times he has a nightmare while Brian is staying over, rather than her causing a whole palava kicking Brian out (cos that's not as simple as just, Brian gets up and walks out of the room, he has to transfer into his wheelchair and make sure he grabs his morning meds in case Birdie won't let him back into the room in the morning when he needs them, and make sure he brings his service dog with him cos she sleeps on the bed with him and Tim, y'know? A little less simple than "get up and walk out". Also his neck is also kinda fucked up from the fall so he has a specific pillow that he always uses, which if he doesn't he always finds his neck all kinda of fucked up in the morning, so he's gotta grab that too lol)

Anyway, eventually Brian just becomes part of their whole nightmare routine and Birdie realises that teaming up with him to look after Tim works way better than doing it on her own. So she and Brian cuddle Tim from both sides and he gets extra reminded that they're both still there. Also Brian's service dog is probably trained to help with PTSD, cos no way Brian isn't also a little fucked in the head after MH, so she can task and do deep pressure for Tim. She's a bit confused at first cos usually she does it for Brian, but she gets it very quickly. Birdie is delighted that a dog can be taught to cuddle on command.

Oh shit you asked about tubes tied and stuff as well lmao. Sorry I got so distracted.

I think after they have Jesse, Tim gets a hysterectomy and all that. He doesn't wanna go through pregnancy and birth a third time, so they get that done so he doesn't have to worry about it. He jokes that if Brian or Lark wants another kid they'll have to figure out which one of them is gonna carry it.

He'd be happy to have another kid, all three of them have pretty good jobs now (Lark's the big moneymaker for the family with Tim close behind, Brian's still a teacher because he adores kids) so they could support a third kid financially, but if they want another kid, they're gonna have to adopt or go through a surrogacy thing rather than Tim carrying it like with Birdie and Jesse.

Oh yeah also the kids names:

Birdie is "Birdie Amelia Wright"

Jesse is "Jesse Alexander Thomas"

Yes, I know it's dumb but I love it. Jesse for Jessica. Alexander for Alex. Amelia for Amy. Tim names his kids so that people who were lost to MH are still kept alive in a little way (yeah yeah Jessica is still alive, but Tim has no way of getting in touch with her so nyeh). In the 'everyone lives' AU that kinda doesn't work as well so Jesse's middle name would probably be different in that, cos Alex is still alive lol. But yeah.

@pianofirepirate helped me come up with the Kids full names :]

I've ranted to them about this shit so much recently lol.

SPEAKING OF RANTING TO THEM here's another thing we came up with:

In the 'canon' of S,IL Birdie does eventually find out about MH. Probably about when she's 15-17 I think? One of her friends tells her about it, like, mentions that her dad's look like two of the guys from this old YouTube horror series and shows her a couple things that people managed to save before Tim deleted the MH channel and all that, cos even in universe I like to think MH got relatively popular, with people thinking it was a fictional horror series. It starts a WHOLE conversation at home with Tim and Brian where they have to explain that yeah all that stuff happened to them, no they really don't remember a lot of it (especially Brian), yes people think it's fictional but it's not, etc etc etc.

Tim and Brian are upset that some 'random' kid at school showed MH to Birdie, but over all it's not a world ending thing. What it does do though, is open the floodgates on jokes about stuff that happened in MH. E.g. "can't believe you pushed me off a building" jokes. Brian uses that one so often and Tim just sighs dramatically and comes back with "First of all, you fell! And also YOU'D BEEN STEALING MY MEDS FOR YEARS AND I DIDNT KNOW WHO YOU WERE BEHIND THAT STUPID MASK!" And Birdie just sits back and watches in glee. She finds it hilarious.

Though the first time Brian accused Tim of pushing him she did go "you pushed him off a building!?!?" Like, completely taken aback and they had to explain the whole thing to her and they probably showed her the video so she could see what actually happened.

Honestly I think that maybe once Birdie is like, 18 they end up putting all the videos back up. Maybe they only privated them rather than deleting them idk. But yeah I think after a while they'd just silently put the videos back up and all the lost media people rejoiced, and there's just the unspoken thing that Birdie can watch the videos if she wants to.

She doesn't.

Like, she watches a little bit of it here and there. But she never actually sits down and watches everything, she just doesn't feel like it's something she needs to do. She watches enough to know who the people being talked about by her dads are (Amy, Jessica etc etc etc) and she watches a couple entries with Jay in them over and over and over again. But generally, she just doesn't want to watch the whole thing, y'know. She doesn't watch all of MH and she hasn't seen a single TTA video.

Wait that reminds me now again (sorry, I keep fucking doing this)

That whole thing with Tim sometimes needing to phone Birdie's school and just, like, make sure she's still alive. That doesn't fully go away when Birdie gets older and goes off to college/university. Tim's always been a bit of a helicopter parent and though he gets better at it, he and Birdie do make time to phone each other pretty much every night. Mostly it's just Birdie talking about her day and what she's been up to, and Tim listening. Occasionally he'll chip in with bits about his day, but mostly he's happy to listen to her talking about her studies. (She's gonna be a bug scientist. I can't remember what they're called. But she's gonna be a big scientist, specifically working in conservation of insects).

If Birdie misses a phone call one evening Tim will definitely start to panic a bit, but he makes sure he only sends her one or two texts to check in before he forces himself to put his phone down and go spend time with Brian and/or Jesse :]

Cos while Birdie's uni age, Jesse is only like, idk 10 at most? So Tim still has a lot to do, y'know? Jesse keeps him and Brian occupied and while he's looking after/spending time with Jesse, Tim manages to take his mind off worrying about Birdie pretty well.

[cosmicheartz]

Gonna ramble abt some mental world stuff regarding the campers in my future au

Phoebes world sorta works like Cassie’s Collection where it’s her archetypes instead of her self in the mental world ( currently the archetypes I have are therapist and musician/rockstar and maybe one representing her pyromania but idk if I want to just have that be a mental figure/enemy instead bc I feel like it makes more sense for it to be some sort of enemy representing her pyromania rather than an archetype ) not sure on the exact theming i have in mind but i think itd be a split between like a music/recording studio and a therapy office ( yknow the trope where two characters share a room but they have wildly different aesthetics so theres one half with character a's aesthetic and one with character b's aesthetic? yea thats the vibe im going for )

tbh idk if I can top the mental world @salempie and splaoon made for Elka but I have considered some sort of dating game show since on her campster she mentions wanting to go on a game show circuit. It’d be like one of those dating game shows ala the Dating show where theres three contestants ( 2 being mental figure representations of Nils and JT and the other being one of the girls who enter her brain ( probably Franke ) and theres like a becky like mental figure thats a representation of her comphet and is the boss fight

JT's mental world is wild west/cowboy themed ( obviously ) and i like to think he has mental figures based on the campers/people he knows but theyre wild westified if that makes sense. some examples being: Benny/Bobby being bandits/outlaws, Kitty being a Saloon girl, Quentin or Phoebe being the Piano Player etc. im not 100% sure abt JTs role though bc i flip flop between sheriff or cowboy. basically its just a wild west parody. i dont think theres like a definite boss but Raz does get to beat up the bobby and benny bandits so thats smth ig

Bennys mental world is legit just a big ol broadway musical. i dont rlly have more to say abt it outside of that tbh.

I've talked abt Crystals mental world before but i wanna talk abt it again bc i can Its a gymnasium/dance studio hybrid thing and its very 80s workout themed. Similar to Millas dance party there's a compartmentalized area that harbors Crystals depression and former suicidal tendacies/ideation. its also where her mental Clem resides ( who doesn't look like actual Clem due to Crystal and Clem barely keeping in contact after the fallout so she kinda just had to wing it as she aged so its like what SHE would imagine an older Clem if that makes sense ) who would be the boss