#he brings her things from home

[softquietsteadylove]

So I just watched the vow and obviously I can’t stop thinking about Thenamesh in that context so here is my prompt for you — Thena somehow loses her memories and with it goes the memory of her marriage to Gil, but he helps her slowly and patiently remember their love 🥺

"Hey."

Thena jumped, whirling around to look at the doorway. Once again, guilt rose up in her throat as Gil held up his hand and made that terribly sad expression he had on most of the time.

"S-Sorry, sorry, I, uh-" he gulped in the middle of his sentence, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He kept doing that, perhaps to make himself seem less...broad. "I promised I would stop doing that, too."

No, it was unfair to him to make him knock on every door within his own home. She was the one who was jumpy and easily startled. The doctors said they didn't know how quickly it would or wouldn't fade. There wasn't much her doctors could promise her--them.

She had been in the hospital after the 'episode' for some time, anyway. As they explained it, it was a bleed in her brain, a stroke in not so many words. She had forgotten years of her life in a flash, lashed out in fear and confusion, even hurt Gil in the process.

He still had the scar on his arm from her attacking him. And yet he'd been the perfect husband through all of this, utterly and completely. If only she could remember him.

She thought maybe she would at least remember meeting him, knowing him in some way. But no, it was a stranger sitting beside her bed, cradling her hand between his, crying for her to be okay again. And she had done nothing but hurt him since.

Gil said that wasn't true.

He had been nothing but supportive from the moment she awoke. The doctors told them that her memories were fragile, and might never return in their entirety. He was a stranger to his own wife. Surely anyone would need to go through their own grieving process for their life in that way.

But Gil had looked at her far kinder than any stranger. He had given her the space she needed, understood that she didn't like people at the best of times, let alone when she was vulnerable. He did things like bring her changes of clothes, food that wasn't abhorrent, sit in her room with her while she tried to relax enough to sleep.

She did feel safe with him.

Safe enough to finally leave the hospital. They had done the physical therapy, the rehabilitative therapy, just about everything else. There was no more reason to keep her there, with exception to the gap in her memories.

"I left you some stuff I thought you might," he paused, gesturing from afar to the dresser by the guest bed, "like. I-I know you don't remember it, I just...I dunno."

"No, it-" she also choked on her words, nervous about what to say to him, "it's sweet, Gil. Thank you."

He smiled, just a little; he did every time she called him Gil.

She clutched at the shirt she was unpacking. He had brought her pajamas to sleep in while she was in the hospital, but they hadn't seemed right. And she had eventually deduced that they were indeed purchased brand new. What she had decided to sleep in more comfortably was an old shirt of his that had been shoved into a bag brought to her. "Come in."

He did so, shuffling into the guest room in their shared home awkwardly.

Her brows furrowed, even though it made her head throb. "You shouldn't have to be invited into a room in your own home."

He looked at her, his brown eyes so rich and soulful. But he smiled, "our home. And you need a space that's yours. Time to get used to...things."

Get used to him, he meant. And she hated that he was completely correct. She felt safe around him, but she didn't know this man (this sweet, kind, beautiful man).

"You decorated this room, anyway," he chuckled, looking around at the cream coloured walls and generic frames hung around the space. He clung to the walls, giving her a wide berth. "I wanted to turn it into an office or a place for a pool table or something."

Thena looked at the bed and then at him. "Wouldn't fit much else with that in here."

His smile lightened faintly. "You said that then, too."

She smiled as well, setting down her trusty shirt.

"And you were right, as always," he added, chuckling again. He arrived at the dresser, poking at some of the little things he had apparently brought and left out for her. "Kari crashes here sometimes."

Thena's eyes sparked at the mention of her. Gil looked both elated and wounded; they both wished she could have that level of recognition for anything that had to do with him.

Silence fell over them, and Gil looked down at his feet again. He was going to leave her to settle in, but she stepped closer to him, eager for more time with his company. She looked down at the dresser. "I remember this."

He smiled, picking up the little wooden cheetah and handing it to her with heartbreaking delicacy. "You love this thing."

"From when Kari went to Kenya for three whole months," Thena tilted her head at the little carving. She truly did value it. For all her insistence that Makkari was the trinket lover, not herself, apparently this little cat had called to her so clearly that she just had to bring it back to Thena.

Gil reached for something else, "what about this?"

She looked at the lovely little shell, but she didn't remember it. She stared and stared at it though, hoping she would. She just didn't want to admit to Gil that it didn't strike a single chord within her.

"It's okay," he whispered, forgiving her for something neither of them could control.

"Tell me about it?" she practically begged before he could take it back from her. Her palm tightened around the tiny little shell. It was so small and precious, she already felt protective over it.

He was obviously surprised, but she held his eyes. His face really betrayed everything he was feeling. She watched his expression melt as he whispered, "okay."

"Well," he started, moving them to both sit on the end of the bed. "You and I met...on the beach."

"The beach?" she balked before telling herself not to interrupt his very important story.

"I know," he chuckled, though. "You hate the beach."

He did know everything about her.

"But you were there painting, or collecting seashells, or looking for clay or something," he shrugged, the memory faded but precious for him. "I saw you at the end of the beach, kind of away from everyone. You obviously weren't looking for company but...I just wanted to exchange even one word with you."

"I jogged over, asked you if I could help you find something. You didn't talk to me at first, but I asked, and asked, and eventually you told me you were looking for a shell. And I mean it was probably just to shut me up," he added, making them both laugh. "But I said I'd help you look. Boy, the look you gave me--I'd still be dead and buried under that sand."

She offered a sheepish smile, but that was as much a lovingly remembered detail as the rest, for him.

"I found this," he tapped the shell in her hand. "I handed it to you and said, 'hey, you match!'. You gave me that look again, but I could tell you thought I was kinda cute."

She pursed her lips at that, but she had to admit that this man called her husband was undeniably charming. She could see herself very reluctantly admitting that he might not have been so bad.

"I saw you again a few times," he recounted, a different, dreamier, distant smile on his face. "Eventually you were out there with an easel, and I got to see you painting. You let me see it in progress and everything."

Perhaps she was already quite infatuated with him then, because she would rather fight to the death than allow something in progress to be viewed while she was working on it.

"I looked at your easel," he grinned at her, "and you had this shell sitting on the corner, like a good luck charm or something."

Thena felt herself blush faintly. It was a different her in the story, but she felt for that Thena's embarrassing secret being discovered.

"I asked you if you wanted to join me for dinner," Gil whispered, closing her hand around the little shell for safe keeping. "You said you didn't want to dine with me while I was all sweaty and in my jogging stuff."

Thena laughed. That certainly sounded like her (uncharming, unfunny her).

"I said okay, meet me here at sunset," he made a challenging face at her, and she could imagine how handsome it might seem in the right light. "You did and, well...history, right?"

History she wanted to remember.

Thena looked at Gil, sitting close to her, so warm and so solid. He was comfortable, she knew that much. She was no expert on physical closeness, but the times she had been in Gil's proximity via sharing an umbrella or letting him help her out of bed were nice. He had a gentle, calming presence.

He swallowed, his eyes flicking all over her face. She didn't even realise she had been leaning in until he moved his head quickly, stretching up so he could press his lips to her forehead. "You should rest, sweetheart. It's been a big day."

She felt both relieved and disappointed. The shell was still in her hand as he stood slowly, leaving her seated on the end of the bed.

He paused at the doorway again, lit softly by the lamp beside the bed. "You're welcome to anything, 'course--I mean everything, absolutely. But if you - I dunno - need help finding something or whatever...just wake me, okay?"

She already felt lonely at the thought of being in this room all by herself. And that was after weeks of being in the hospital, desperately wishing to be left alone. She nodded.

"'Kay," he smiled again, but it was back to being sad. He patted the wall, "night, Thena. I'll leave breakfast for you before I go to work."

He left gently, closing the door behind him, nothing if not a gentleman. To his own wife, in his own home. Thena flopped backwards on the bed, still holding onto her beloved little shell. She had been so desperate to have some time to herself in the hospital--really think about who she was and what her life was like.

But there was something undeniably lonely about the times when she was without him. Every time he came home for clothes or to shower or had to go to work, she had to admit, she was terribly bored without him.

Would it be terribly inappropriate to ask to sneak into bed with her own husband?

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Hello! I have come asking for you to info-dump about the the modern human au. I full of brain rot of them (especially after the last thing you posted about them, damn) Maybe you can tell us a bit more Sally!!

lucky for you, i've been full of that good ol brainrot As Well! thoughts! feelings! ideas! i got em!

so since we're already on the subject of the Crash Arc, allow me to expand on it for a moment before i get to Sally Thinkings! if you've read the snippet, you may have noticed the extent of Wally's injuries was not listed yet. well! he got messed up with a capital F! since it's fiction and i'm god in this scenario, i'm veering slightly away from realistic damage, immediate & lasting. bc lets be real. if i stuck to "this is as realistic as i can make it", then Wally would be aaaaaabsolutely fucked. it was a bad crash in a very unsafe vehicle at high speeds. like - this is what happened. a drunk driver hit Home going 70 down the freeway. swerve, fishtail, tumble down a (small, shallow, really its more like a glorified ditch) ravine with trees and rocks and shit on it. absolute miracle that Wally didn't die in the crash, let alone during the solid half hour (slightly longer) he was trapped in Home before someone noticed the crash site and called emergency personnel. Wally "hanging up" on Barnaby was actually the impact jarring him so he slipped and hit the end call button. but yeah without going into technicalities and detail, Wally has some lasting damage in his dominant hand. It takes extensive physical therapy for him to be able to paint/draw again at the same level he had been at. the hematoma hadn't done a lot of brain damage that wouldn't resolve itself with time. in my mind, when Wally wakes up in the hospital, for a few days he's very confused and his memory is shot. he'll wake up, interact, then go to sleep, but when he wakes up again its like waking up for the first time again. he just can't retain memories for a bit. he's got some severe brain fog. his mood is also kinda fucked with - he's uncharacteristically irritable with low patience, etc. these are all things that clear up with time, but in my mind Wally has chronic migraines going forward. bad ones! and there are days where it's harder fr him to concentrate. and yk. a teeny bit of chronic pain where his shin bone was pinned back together and where his hand was essentially crushed. but other than that he's fine going forward! good days and bad days!

but enough about that! You Want To Hear About Sally!

i imagine that she becomes quite successful in the theater industry. i'm not too familiar with it myself, so i'm gonna be uh. Vague about it? but she starts her own theater troupe - it's a bit of a commute from home base to the town she works in, where the theater is located in, but she makes it work! of the group, she's probably away more than any of them. working on shows, traveling to work on other ones - i like to think she's been on Broadway! she probably has had opportunities to do tv/movie acting, but idk... i feel like Sally would be like "nah. live shows or nothing". maybe at some point she takes up voice acting gigs, as long as she can do them from home. she probably has her own little room-turned-VA-studio thing. idk how that works either! it seems right! but yes Howdy's store's automated messages and advertisements are in Sally's voice. she's probably picked up a temporarily modeling gig here and there.

so Sally is very very busy. Poppy is supportive. everyone is, and they all love to help out when they can - and reel Sally in when the "stardom" starts to get to her head. they do their best to acclimate to occasionally getting jumpscared by her voice in a grocery store or in. idk. fashion shoots. victoria's secret billboards. that last one was a joke! maybe. i think she would.

i also like to imagine Sally like... getting some sort of award and then spending a solid five minutes naming her friends, thanking them with specificity, and then plugging their own stuff. they probably have a rotation for who accompanies her as her plus one for events and parties she may or may not be invited to. she's not like... a Big celebrity but! she's Known and Liked! she has Connections! i like to imagine her and Wally looking dapper as fuck at a Venue...

so the friend group typically stays together, with Sally going off to do her Things the most. she makes sure to schedule time to be with her friends and girlfriend/wife/Poppy between work and gigs and etc. she somehow finds a balance with Ease. or apparent ease... someone get this girl a vacation...

[laniemae]

Could John start hurting himself in trial 3?

TW FOR SELF HARM

So I’ve got a lot of theories for trial 3 and stuff but this is the one I want to talk about first since it was the one that stuck out to me most yet I haven’t seen people talking about the possibility

I actually wrote about this theory quite a while ago which I’ll just link to but I definitely do think it’s very likely but hasn’t been discussed much.

For a brief summary of the post I made it’s a theory on how John may have self harming desires but doesn’t physically hurt himself as he’s afraid of hurting Mikoto. Basically it’s how the reason why Mikoto’s clothes are so tattered is because John has been ripping them apart in another way to harm himself but not physically hurt Mikoto. Heck, there’s very clearly bite marks on the clothes so I highly doubt it was from the fight with Kotoko. And as well as just ripping his clothing it probably explained the breakdowns John is said to have at night especially in that one minigram where Es heard on it and there was a lot of crashing sounds and stuff breaking, even ripping sounds which definitely matches with what I was saying. So John does all of this in a method to self harm as a stress reliever but not physically harm Mikoto.

So here’s the trial 3 theory. As of recently Mikoto has stopped denying John’s existence as everything he’s seen in heard it’s just too much for him to deny anymore. And instead of that he’s began to hate John so much and blame him for every bad thing that’s happened, even going as far to blame him for what happened to Mahiru even though it was very clearly Kotoko’s fault. And with John, he loves Mikoto. Dedicates his entire existence to him and despite all the constant trauma and suffering he’s endured the only thing that keeps him going is the possibility that Mikoto will love him and praise him for saving him.

“Hey now, I saved you, right? So why in the hell are you crying?

Cling to me, hoist me up as your "savior", stand up and sing out your gratitude, that'd be good.”

Judging by these lyrics, it seems John is somewhat aware that Mikoto is denying his help but still wants to believe it. Even Neoplasm he says how Mikoto’s entrusting him with his heart, which can either be he doesn’t fully know about the hatred or is denying it. But what I’m really worried about is how much Mikoto loathes John in trial 3 and what he could do.

As I said earlier John dedicates his existence to Mikoto and I couldn’t explain how John may feel after he would realise his hatred for Mikoto  aside from his entire existence being denied. I already discussed this in another theory but for John to so deeply love Mikoto and dedicates everything to protecting him and only holding on with the possibility of approval and being told he did a good job, only to be met with unimaginable hatred from the person who he idealises as someone who could never hate anyone must be devastating on so many levels for John and… you can tell where I’m getting at here.

So what would happen next? Could perhaps John feel so betrayed by Mikoto that he could go to actually physically hurting himself out of conflicting feelings around Mikoto? Loving him like that but feeling so betrayed and hurt that he just tries not to care about Mikoto any more and harms himself out of both previously established coping mechanisms and spite?

It’s hard to tell here, as John is one of those characters who it’s very hard to predict what would happen next so who knows what he might do. I just believe this may be the most likely based off things that have been implied and established.

And just to address a potential elephant in the room is I highly doubt John would disappear in trial 3. That’s not how it works, and just because Mikoto may not be Guilty any more doesn’t mean he would be relieved from all stress so John definitely would still have his purpose. And I think it’s most likely why John claimed that he would disappear was that he believed Es hated him and wanted him gone, so he claimed that he would disappear if Mikoto were to be voted Innocent as a way to sway Es to that verdict. And there are lines such as “I’ll play dead even if I’m alive right?” And “can’t get rid of me now” that definitely imply that he will stay or perhaps pretend to go dormant which perhaps would be interesting as we’ve seen him masking as Mikoto in the minigrams before so it would be interesting if he does that in trial 3 perhaps. And side note even though this is kinda cheating theory wise but it would be stupid to remove John from the story like that so uhhh.

[tricksterlatte]

Yearning for another fandom historical event that makes me feel the way I felt when they confirmed Tracer was a lesbian. Please...it was so triumphant

[rosaacicularis]

which was more culturally significant, the renaissance or hermitgang

[widowshill]

mrs collins arc in summary

[prismatica-the-strange]

Nope, I'm still crying

[dbphantom]

you know if you guys voted for stretch armstrong i probably would have shut up a lot sooner tonight

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

"wow how pathetic it is of a man who isn't much of a fighter to be afraid and want to live in the middle of aggressors invading his lands"

WHY WON'T U JUST GIVE UP AND STOP DEFENDING YOUR LANDS THAT WE'RE INVADING AND ATTACKING ON TOP OF YOU LITERALLY DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO US

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

YES HIGH-SEA ADVENTURES!!! I love the idea of them coming across a kraken or something of that nature

Sally's at the front of the line like "FOR GLORY" meanwhile others are freaking out or trying to keep the ship(and themselves, but mostly Eddie) stable

Also the bit with Eddie and Frank😭<3 so good

Sally, Julie, Frank: throwing themselves at the kraken

Eddie: attempting to back them up, failing <3

Wally: getting snatched by said kraken

Barnaby: holding onto Wally's ankle with one paw & holding onto the ship w/ the other

Poppy: dragging Howdy's deliriously sick self into a corner for "safety" & screaming

[scionshtola]

i started writing a whole thing about mir and her mom and then i realized i accidentally gave the briadis family the perfect set up for a tragic family empire tv show

[fayeandknight]

No videos from agility because I forgot.

The first run wasn't bad and pretty standard for us. No knocked bars, decent contacts, and the occasional zooming passed me.

On our second run I was more mindful about my words, not yelling (because I'm the loud between us lol) and trying to be silent for at least half my cues. I definitely noticed an improvement in his focus. He looked to me for direction more often because my cues were quieter and/or silent. Very cool.

At the end we took some time to help one of the other dogs in class. This dog is reactive and Forte was called upon to play neutral dog. He's actually really good for that since he is super respectful of other dogs body language and doesn't escalate reactions. If a dog goes off he looks to me because I've heavily reenforced that a dog having big loud feelings means come to me for a treat. So it was neat to be able to use that to help another dog.

The owner thanked me and made a comment about how the cattle dog part of her (dog) made her crazy. And I laughed and assured them I understand because I have a Corgi cattle dog mix at home.

My instructor fell on this information and asked if my Corgi would do Flyball. Told the instructor that Faye would probably be good at it but she hates being in a crate. My instructor's so what, she (Faye) should come to Flyball practice.

I reached out to the Flyball instructor to see if there's room for Faye to join as well tomorrow so we'll see.

If Faye does come I'll probably just put her in my car when it's not her turn.

[dreampearls]

MY VISHION

[dirt-str1der]

Love the thought of kiryu losing nishikiyamas lighter fucking instantly after he gave it to him. Like he leaves it in the car and nishiki is nice enough to re-gift it to him when they meet up again and then two weeks after that whole fiasco kiryu loses it again and nishiki just buys him those cheap packs of like fifty plastic lighters because this is why they cant have nice things and he hates (loves) him so much

[salsflore]

[tchaikovskym]

My coworker: I've heard different opinions about the barbie movie

Me: oh yeah bad and good?

My coworker: yeah, some say it's a really good movie and the others say it's such a feminist movie

And that's how I came out as a feminist at my work