❛   I’m really kind of the suffer-in-silence type.   ❜ / for steven from theodora

ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴡᴀsɴ'ᴛ ᴇɴᴛɪʀᴇʟʏ sʜᴏᴄᴋɪɴɢ ғᴏʀ ʜɪᴍ ᴛᴏ ʜᴇʀᴇ - perhaps he made himself believe she simply never chose him to confined in because she had shirley to bond with. a hand outstretched offering his sister a glass of bourbon as he took a seat on the deck beside her, ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇᴍ sᴇᴇᴍᴇᴅ sᴏ ǫᴜɪᴇᴛ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴏғ ɴɪɢʜᴛ but something about it was so P E A C E F U L for him in the moment.

❛ aren't you a psychologist? aren't psychologist those who encourage people not to hold in emotions? ❜ his words paused as he took a sip from his glass, ʟɪᴘs ᴘᴜʀsɪɴɢ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ɪɴɪᴛɪᴀʟ sᴛɪɴɢ ᴏғ ᴀʟᴄᴏʜᴏʟ ɪɴ ʜɪs ᴛʜʀᴏᴀᴛ. ❛ it's not exactly the healthiest thing to do - suffer in silence that is. ❜ who was he kidding - he ignored the cries of help from his younger siblings growing up that he practically encouraged the coping mechanism, afterall it was one he used - ᴡʜᴇɴ ʜᴇ ᴡᴀsɴ'ᴛ ᴡʀɪᴛɪɴɢ sᴛᴏʀɪᴇs ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ᴛʀᴀᴜᴍᴀ.

steve's mind drifted to the things his younger sibilings E X P E R I E N C E D - ᴛʜᴇ ɴᴀʀʀᴀᴛɪᴠᴇs ʜᴇ ʜᴇᴀʀᴅ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴏᴜʀsᴇ ᴏғ ʜɪs ʟɪғᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʜᴇ ᴏғᴛᴇɴ ᴏᴘᴛᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ɪɢɴᴏʀᴇ. his fingers toyed with the crystal glass in his hand as cobalt blue eyes glued to the dark liquid. ❛ we've already seen what it can do when you hold it in, theo. this family has lost enough people, i can't handle another funeral and i sure as hell know shirley won't do another one. ❜ | @mor0se

@wildkissed​​'s shirley said:  ❛ you’re not alone. i’m staying right here. ❜

       it  was  not  in  her  nature  to  show  weakness,  to  show  vulnerability.  ever  since  hill  house,  theodora  had  always  been  the  type  to  keep  it  all  hidden  and  bottled  up.  it  was  just  easier  that  way.  she  had  seen  the  way  steven  had  judged  the  twins,  the  way  shirley  had  seemingly  shut  down  at  the  mentions  of  whatever  it  was  they  had  faced,  the  way  luke  and  nell  leaned  on  each  other.  the  only  one  who  had  ever  understood  had  been  her  mother,  but  olivia  was  gone  too.  dead  and  gone  and  buried,  her  absence  yet  another  feeling  that  theo  had  shut  down.  she  was  scared  of  feeling  everything,  praying  she  would  feel  nothing.  until  she  had  felt  nothing.  oh  what  a  mistake  it  had  been  to  touch  nell.  all  she  had  wanted  was  to  understand  and  she  finally  did.  eleanor  had  been  consumed  by  a  darkness  that  had  almost  eaten  theodora  alive,  how  strong  nellie  had  been.  theo  had  crumpled  apart,  desperate  to  feel  anything  again.  so  much  so  that  she  had  kissed  her  sister’s  husband.

       it  was  ridiculous  and  weak,  and  theo  hated  feeling  that  way.  but  even  feeling  alive  by  feeling  guilt  and  shame  was  better  than  that  empty,  dark,  all-consuming  nothing.  cerulean  hues  sought  shirley’s  gaze  at  last,  her  older  sister’s  figure  blurry  as  she  did.  ❝  you  don’t  hate  me?  ❞  the  brunette  whispered  quietly,  teeth  brushing  against  her  bottom  lip.  ❝  i  really  am  sorry,  shirl.  i  just...  fuck.  i  don’t  know  how  nellie  did  this.  how  she...  dealt  with  all  this.  she  really  was  the  strongest  one  of  us.  ❞

        a  ghost.  her  words  make  you  blink  slowly,  blue  hues  still  focused  on  the  corner  of  the  room  almost  as  if  saying  the  word  is  gonna  make  the  ghost  come  back.  it  does  not.  yet  you  cannot  bring  yourself  to  look  away.  it  had  been  years  since  the  last  time  you  had  seen  anything  like  that  /  years  since  you  had  allowed  yourself  to  think  back  to  that  place  and  all  the  unexplainable  things  you  thought  you  had  seen.  the  things  that  had  haunted  you  and  nell  and  luke  and  your  mother.  the  things  steve  wrote  about.  cup  of  whiskey  is  brought  up  to  your  lips,  a  long  sip  taken  as  an  attempt  to  shove  down  the  memories.  it  is  the  easy  thing  to  do  /  act  as  though  it  never  happened.  but  it  did  happen,  did  it  not?  shirley  had  never  seen  it  and  she  often  acted  as  though  you  all  had  lost  your  minds  but…

        no.  you  are  not  about  to  lose  it  so  near  nell’s  funeral.  however  selfish  her  choice  to  end  her  life  had  been?  (  and  may  god  have  mercy  on  your  soul  because  you  cannot  help  thinking  she  is  selfish  )  eleanor  is  still  your  baby  sister  who  is  gone.  tears  glisten  in  your  gaze,  the  same  gaze  that  has  still  not  left  the  corner  of  the  room.  it  is  not  going  to  move  so  soon,  not  while  you  are  drinking  away  your  sorrows  and  being  haunted  by  horrific  images  from  your  past  and  that  big  black  empty  nothing  that  almost  swallows  you  whole.

        ❝  our  family  is  full  of  ghosts,  shirl,  ❞  you  whisper,  a  dry  chuckle  breaking  out  of  your  lips.  ❝  but  no,  i  didn’t  see  anything.  i’m  just  thinking  of  nellie  alone  in  that  stupid  house.  thinking  of  how  she  didn’t  even  give  us  a  chance  to  help  her  before…  ❞  you  trail  off,  knowing  fully  well  you  are  the  one  who  is  selfish  for  blaming  her.  but  it  is  easier  this  way,  easier  to  blame  eleanor  than  to  admit  you  are  the  one  who  is  selfish.  that  you  are  too  detached  from  the  rest  of  your  family  to  do  anything  about  the  darkness  you  knew  was  haunting  your  sister.  had  you  not  seen  it  in  her  eyes  that  day  at  her  apartment?  had  you  not  felt  it?  had  you  not  pushed  her  away  out  of  fear  it  would  haunt  you  too?

         it  is  only  then  that  you  finally  look  at  @v0ltais​.  ❝  the  picture  you  chose  is  awful,  pick  another  one,  ❞  you  add,  finishing  your  drink  as  you  point  towards  the  nell  picture  in  the  corner  you  had  been  staring  at  for  the  past  few  minutes.  the  same  corner  where  the  ghost  had  showed  up.  the  same  corner  that  darkness  was  growing  in.  ❝  pick  another  one.  ❞

What do you mean by "bad adaptation?" I would say that haunting of hill house is maybe an inaccurate? adaptation, or like maybe subversive adaptation is better, but it's still a good adaptation. Ig I'm curious if by bad adaptation you mean it doesn't match the source material in terms of story or in terms of narrative meaning or both?

while i enjoy flanagan's hill house and think it carries enough of the core themes to have a passing connection with the source material, i ultimately believe it works much better as an original story rather than as an adaptation. "bad adaptation" is definitely an oversimplification for the sake of a meme lmao - unsuccessful is a little closer to what i mean, which i'll explain in more detail below.

first, i want to clarify that analysis of book-to-screen adaptation that only considers 1:1 story accuracy (called "fidelity" by adaptation theorists) when judging the final product's merit is often super myopic. many adapters seek to faithfully recreate the story in a new medium using their own artistic skills, but other adapters like our boy mike flanagan employ more artistic freedom.

to adapt hill house, he changed the basic plot/character elements and explored the nuclear family in more definitive terms than the novel. he also set the story in contemporary times, allowing him to modernize the story. this form of adaptation is totally legitimate and can work amazingly, but i believe it requires a certain recognizability to be truly successful.

here is where i believe flanagan went a few steps too far. his hill house is a good story, but it's a fundamentally different story from jackson's hill house. (this is a whole book ahead, i'm so sorry.)

the characters

again, it's completely okay for adaptations to change up the characters + their dynamics. some works combine characters or remove them altogether if they feel their presence isn't necessary for the version of the story they're trying to tell. but the hill houses have an almost entirely different set of characters, with entirely different dynamics.

in the books, a scientist interested in paranormal phenomena contacts individuals with recorded experiences to explore hill house alongside him and the owner's son, luke sanderson. these individuals are eleanor "nell" vance and theodora, who doesn't have a last name. other characters include the caretaker, mrs. dudley, mrs. montague—the scientist's ouiji board-obsessed wife—and arthur, who works for mrs. montague. the characters bond as they discuss the house's history, their own backgrounds, and the origins of supernatural phenomena. meanwhile, hill house slowly ingratiates itself in nell, who's mourning the loss of her mother.

meanwhile, the tv show centers around the crane family, who move into hill house to renovate and eventually flip the property. the show chronicles their tragic interactions with the house—which resulted in the death of olivia crain, the family's matriarch—alongside the house's robust, terrible history. it also chronicles the crain family in current day after the youngest sibling, nell vance nee' crain completes suicide in the house. throughout the season, we see the crain family learn to deal with their tragic past, their ghosts, and the stories they tell each other to cope.

the tv show's story works really well for its medium, but it's a different story. while some core themes stay the same, they're approached from very different angles.

the house

until the very last episode, i would have argued that the house is the most successful aspect of flanagan's adaptation. it's big, scary, and wrong-looking. you don't want to walk into this house. the angles are quite literally wrong. the addition of actual apparitions complement book!hill house's tendency to entrap its victims and haunt them until they eventually join its history.

olivia crain assumes the role of book!nell in the flashbacks; the idea of a proper home/family drives their internal arcs in both books, with some key differences. nell receives the letter from dr. montague about hill house after losing her mother, whom she took care of her entire adult life. nell and her mother eventually resented each other, and this resulted in mach 10 complicated grief for nell, who suddenly has no place and no one to call her own, to call home. she arrives at hill house ostensibly to search for this place and her fears of eternal loneliness drive her spiral.

in flanagan's hill house, olivia crain's fears over her children drives her spiral. the house ostensibly sends her a premonition of nell's death, leading her to believe the house (and the world outside) will kill her children. in desperation, she tries to kill nell and luke. while these internal arcs are demonstrably different, there is also a through line that allows book readers to recognize olivia as the "nell" figure. this was quite good and fun, aside from my issues with olivia crain's character and how flanagan uses the theme of motherhood. that's for another essay.

HOWEVERRR the last episode happened. the crain kids reunite with their sister, leave their dad in the house, and even see the dudleys reunited with their murdered daughter. afterward, the crain kids live happily. flanagan gave hill house a redemption arc, dismantling the fear from the previous episodes in one ten minute montage. at the end of the book, nell dies and the book ends by repeating the opening line. hill house has stood for a hundred years, and will stand for a hundred more.

a thousand essays could be written on this line alone. does this refer to the perceived permanence of the nuclear family? will humans always destroy themselves if they can't confront the immovable haunted house in their own lives? and so on. you can't unhaunt hill house without writing a fundamentally different haunted house.

theo and nell

in jackson's hill house, the relationship between theo and nell are arguably the heart of the story. the majority of nell's interactions are with theo, including the main "haunting" of the book - when the ghost rattles the walls and door of nell's room. we watch nell become equal parts entranced with theo and resentful of her perceived freedom. she's drawn to theo's vivaciousness and regrets that she's so meek in comparison. she later dreams of living with theo, who gently shuts her down, sending nell further into the spiral that eventually leads to her death. theo is also the last person nell touches when she tries to leave hill house. while i read their interactions as super mega gay, there are many alternative readings. either way, nell and theo are inextricably linked in the book.

in flanagan's hill house, theo and nell are siblings. this automatically changes the relationship and, obviously, removes any possibility of romantic feelings. the most salient parallel is how nell tries to reach out to theo for help; her rejection pushes nell further towards her deadly return to hill house. (not that it was actually her fault, but theo felt like it was her fault.) otherwise, flanagan nell's greatest connection is to her twin brother and her mother, olivia crain. the latter is ostensibly the most like book!theo, but show!nell has very few memories of her mother, and what she does remember, she cherishes rather than interrogates.

theo continued

theo herself is a very, very different character. she's closed off emotionally and her sarcasm is biting, rather than charming, like jackon's theo. book!theo also has a roommate heavily implied to be her girlfriend, which has been the subject of many literary journal articles over the years. while i think it's genuinely great that flanagan's theo is openly gay, she's just. an entirely different lady. this choice is ostensibly subversive, but i think her overall lack of connection to the original character diminishes this quality. (in a more faithful adaptation, i'd love to see a depiction of theo's internal life; it could be a realy interesting juxtaposition to nell's pov, which dominates the original book's narrative.)

nell continued

we are veering a little bit into My Personal Reading of the Text, but i think it holds some merit for this conversation. in jackson's hill house, nell reads as gay and closeted. she feels fundamentally displaced in then-modern society. she's in her thirties and unmarried, and she also isn't a working professional. her sister tolerates her, but nell perceives herself as an unwanted presence. i believe she's partly attracted to theo because she wants aspects of her life - the little house theo describes, her confidence. when book!luke (who's very much not her twin brother) flirts with nell, she recognizes how much she hates the interaction. she doesn't want to flirt with men. this realization makes her a little giddy. the tragedy in hill house is that nell reached out a hand for help, for home, and only the house answered. everyone else lets her drive away.

making nell unequivocally straight in the tv show just. eschews this entire aspect of the book for me. show!nell has a husband and a loving family. she definitely has ptsd from her experiences at hill house (and the vision of her own corpse looming over her head) and grieves her mother, but those societal factors are gone. i can't entirely claim this is an adaptational failure, but it's definitely the biggest missed opportunity of the show.

tl;dr

both jackson's and flanagan's hill houses did what they set out to do. those things are just irreconcilably different. i enjoyed the show and its versions of the characters have stayed with me. but it's not a "successful" adaptation of the book's story, themes, and narrative as i understand them.

GET TO KNOW THE MUN!

What's your phone's wallpaper: The Morningstar (once Magne) Family by ChandlLucky is my lock screen. I'm obsessed w/them. Lilith is the home screen but I cannot find the source so I'm not posting it.

Last song you listened to: Jericho (SYKO Remix) by Iniko!

Currently reading: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. Interview with the Vampire & Vittorio by Anne Rice and a few others. 🙃 Finished Long Live the Pumpkin Queen yesterday tho!

Last movie: The Greatest Showman. Good songs in that movie. Fav has to be "From Now On"!

Last show: I can't remember if it was The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina or Hazbin Hotel (even tho it's just a pilot rn).

What are you wearing right now?: Pajamas!

Piercings/tattoos?: My ears were pierced once when I was very little against my will, and they were pierced very horribly at the local Walmart lol.. Constant infection. Never again. Tattoos? Too big of a coward for needle piercing constantly, and also far too indecisive.

Glasses? Contacts?: Glasses!! Used to have contacts in school, but that went sideways and I do not like them. They'd be nice, but the process squicks me out too much.. not to mention they kept slipping out.

Last thing you ate: Corn nuts. Cronch.

Favourite colour(s)?: Burgundy. Dark shades of Red. Black. Purple. Cream.

Current obsession: demon hotel LMAO. Hazbin has me by the throat right now, SPECIFICALLY the Morningstar Family + Vaggie!! Sliding right back into Kuroshitsuji tho. BRACE FOR IMPACT.

Do you have a crush right now?: Been in a relationship for over a decade now with my gal. :) <3 Gonna be approaching two decades soon.. childhood love.

Favourite fictional characters (LAST TIME I SEEN THIS MEME IT HAD AN 'S' I'M SLAPPING THAT BACK ON BC I COULDN'T DO THIS OTHERWISE): Nora Wakeman (My Life as a Teenage Robot). Jessica Rabbit (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?). Wilt (Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends). Flemeth (Dragon Age). Olivia Crain (Haunting of Hill House show). Theodora Crain (Haunting of Hill House show). Elizabeth Midford (Kuroshitsuji). Undertaker (Kuroshitsuji). Claudia Phantomhive (Kuroshitsuji). Vaggie (Hazbin Hotel). Lilith (Hazbin Hotel). &&& I'll be here all day if I have to keep going down the list so I'm just leaving this here.

Tagged by: @casketdweller -- thank you, tickeroo! Tagging: If you like, @thcsevoices, @ominasapphirus, @derjaegermond && whoever else might see this!

CAST ( IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE )   ,     EXILAE IN THE ROLE OF THEODORA ‘THEO’ CRAIN  ,     DESTAGE IN THE ROLE OF ELEANOR ‘NELL’ CRAIN   .     KENNA FORGOT THE MEME    ,      ​  ❛   I LOVED YOU THEN AND I LOVE YOU NOW.   ❜

hers are cracks that showed too late,    hidden under flowers until this body was breaking,   and now she knows that her loveliness has become something twisted,    shapeless and writhing under her skin.    sometimes she still feels like the small child clinging at their sleeves,    pulling bodies closer and closer,    holding on to holidays and birthdays and believing recklessly that this year will be better,    that they can stomach a meal across the table without horrors resurfacing.    and now,   this year,   like every one she can convince them around a table,    eleanor’s sitting on a porch step swallowing a disappointment that feels like knives,    wondering if they were all shattered so far beyond repair that they cannot find themselves back to something real.    they’ll not try family time again at christmas,    she’s sure of that.    for now,   it’s raining and her fingernails are bitten down so hard they’re starting to ache,   and she’s thinking about local motels that might be easier to handle than this,    wondering if luke will come with her and she can pretend they’re happy for just a little while,    when the body sits by her side,    warm and steady and a promise made.     she leans in without thinking,    seeks a warmth that will sink into her aching bones,    make her feel like her bones aren’t quite so aching,   filled with a corpse - cold that comes from the grave,    from the dark halls of her home.       ❛    i know.  ❜        but she keeps looking forward,    staring at the distance as if she expects to see something coming for them,    with teeth and jaws unhinged,    to claim the life stolen;    she never could be present.       ❛    i do @exilae,    and they all love each other but it’s like this every year.    and every year i keep begging them to try again and i don’t know why i do it anymore.  ❜   

69 for the haunting of hill house Nell crain

Song 69: Girls/Girls/Boys by Panic! At The Disco

At the age of 13, Nell met Theo’s first girlfriend. Theo was sixteen, and it was completely unsurprising that she was in a relationship, it was just a little bit surprising that it was with a girl. 

Nell had been thinking for a long time about girls. Maybe now that Theo had a girlfriend it made more sense. 

She used to cry herself to sleep in middle school, fearing that she was a lesbian in an unaccepting world, but she felt less and less fear. As the fear subsided, and she learned to accept herself more, she tried to understand what it was that she actually felt. 

At the age of 15, Nell developed a crush on one of the most popular girls in her school. Her name was Jonah, and she was sporty and popular, but she also represented everything soft and wholesome in the world. She spent hours making pretty notes for her classes, and everyday she packed two neat lunches in her backpack, always delivering one to her younger sister when lunch started. 

Nell could’ve sworn she was in love. She couldn’t help but stare when they were in English class, and she would smile to herself thinking about a time that Jonah asked to borrow a highlighter and she had one on hand. Jonah, of course, had a boyfriend though.

Nell knew what she was feeling, but she didn’t know how to come to terms with it.

Her siblings had noticed the change in her demeanor in the last few weeks, but Luke was the only one who had noticed the newly neat notes in Nell’s binder, and the small hearts with Jonah’s name in them in the margins.

Instead of talking to Nell about it, he figured that Theo would be the best person to tackle the situation, so he informed her about Nell’s predicament. 

Theo planted herself in Nell’s room the next afternoon, waiting until her sister arrived from model UN to talk to her. 

When Nell arrived, she was surprised to see her sister, but not upset. 

“Hey Theo,” Nell greeted, throwing her backpack onto the floor before sitting down in one of her beanbag chairs.

“Hey Nell,” Theo responded, sitting down in the beanbag across from her. 

Nell looked at her expectantly, waiting for her older sister to say something.

Theo had no clue how to go about this, she’s not the oldest sibling, she wasn’t used to giving advice or having meaningful conversations, that was Shirley’s job, sometimes even Steve’s.

She decided to get straight to the point, “Nell, do you like girls?”

Nell looked down at her hands, playing with one of her rings. Had it been anyone else, they would have been upset about the ambush, but all Nell could feel was relief. 

“I think so,” she breathed out, loud and steady, “but not just girls, Theo, I like boys too.”

Theo nodded thoughtfully, taking in her baby sister’s words understandingly. “There’s a name for that, you know?”

Nell’s eyes brightened as she looked up and met her sister’s, “there is?”

“Yup, yup, yup, it’s called bisexuality.”

“No way,” Nell responded, relieved that this word meant that she wasn’t the only one who felt attracted to both. She felt calm, all this time she had spent worrying that her feelings were abnormal were put to rest, as if all at once.

“I’d talk to you about all that sappy stuff, but I think that’ll be Steve’s job, just know that we accept you no matter what Nellie.” Theo scooted her beanbag closer to Nell’s in order to ruffle her hair. “Now, tell me about Jonah.”

Nell turned as red as a tomato, shaking her head rapidly, “no way.”

Theo knew that her sister wouldn’t readily give up this information, and she had worn her gloves knowing that she would have to resort to desperate measures. “You’re forcing my hands El.”

Theo’s finger started spidering rapidly over Nell’s tummy, outrunning any attempts that Nell took to stop her fingers. 

Nell giggled, rolling down in her beanbag as the ticklish sensations overwhelmed her body. It was rare that Theo ever took part in the tickling of her siblings because of her gift, but when she did, she knew exactly how to get what she wanted. 

Theo’s left hand scurried up to Nell’s ears, and Nell giggled loudly, trying to duck. 

“Alright, aahahalright! I’ll tell you!” Nell screamed, rolling down as far as she could.

Theo stopped, sitting up in the beanbag with her hands held together, ready to intently listen. “Spill.”

Bye

“  okay,  you’re really starting to freak me out this isn’t funny anymore.  ” ( nell for theo )

❛ i'm freaking you out? ❜ ʜᴇʀ ᴠᴏɪᴄᴇ ᴡᴀs ᴄᴏᴀᴛᴇᴅ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴀɴxɪᴇᴛʏ as she struggled to pull her gloves over the length of her forearm, hands trembling while she fought back tears. theo would have given anything to sᴛᴏᴘ ғᴇᴇʟɪɴɢ, to not ᴇɴᴅᴜʀᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴀᴛᴀsᴛʀᴏᴘʜɪᴄ ғᴇᴇʟɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴜɴʀᴀᴠᴇʟᴇᴅ ɪɴsɪᴅᴇ ᴏғ ʜᴇʀ - not only her own but the brief contact with her sister only A M P L I F E D everything she was sensing.

ʜᴇʀ ʙᴏᴅʏ ᴛᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ ʙᴇɢᴀɴ ᴛᴏ ʀɪsᴇ as she started to pace the room while keeping her fair distance from nell, ❛ i can feel every single emotion that has happened in this room and it's suffocating ! ❜ whatever events occurred previously within the four walls where they stood was T R A G I C. deep down theo knew her sister was the last person she needed to come unglued in front of but the overwhelming abundance of emotions and sensations that forced themselves upon her made her V U L N E R A B L E. ❛ why are we here, nell? we - i need to go! ❜ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇsᴘᴇʀᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ᴛᴏ ᴇsᴄᴀᴘᴇ ᴡᴀs ʀᴇᴀʟ. | @nightskied

        she  paused  in  the  middle  of  the  living  room,  fingers  holding  onto  the  bottle  of  beer.  blue  hues  grew  colder,  teeth  biting  down  on  her  bottom  lip.  for  some  reason,  being  told  that  she  was  like  @m0urtes​  did  not  exactly  bring  theo  peace.  quite  the  opposite,  in  fact.  he  was  the  one  who  never  believed  any  of  them,  the  one  who  wrote  a  book  exposing  them  all.  did  she  accept  his  money?  yes.  did  she  want  to  be  like  him?  definitely  no.  though  she  did  want  to  be  normal.  it  had  all  she  had  ever  wanted  since  she  was  a  child.  to  stop  feeling  things  and  knowing  things  and  seeing  things  /  things  that  no  one  else  felt  or  knew  or  saw  most  of  the  time.  no,  she  was  definitely  not  like  steve.  she  was  like  their  mom,  a  thought  which  terrified  her  even  more.  was  she  doomed  too?  would  it  all  suddenly  become  too  much  one  day?  her  eyes  fell  shut,  exhaling  slowly  before  bringing  her  bottle  to  her  lips.  

        ❝  is  this  your  failed  attempt  at  bonding  with  me  now  that  you  found  out  i  am  a  lesbian,  steve?  ❞  theo  inquired  after  a  long  sip,  lips  pressed  together  on  a  thin  line  as  her  gaze  finally  sought  his.  ❝  because  you’re  only  about  two  decades  too  late.  ❞

twinthng sent:  and how long will you be able to stay? @ theodora crain a meme i seem to have lost     /     accepting.

it was difficult for theo not to try and analyze his every word,  even his actions,  for any extra hints as to how he was doing.  was he really trying?  was this all for show?  she was worried about him but she couldn’t show it.  she was setting boundaries,  and that was healthy.

she blinked a few times,  pulling herself out of her mind and back to the present--a conversation with her baby brother.  “well i can’t really stay beyond visiting hours at this place but,  uh--  i’ll be in town for a few days.”  she would be in town for one week,  but she wasn’t sure she wanted him to know that.  boundaries.  if she didn’t set them she would be a mess,  forever feeling the despair and pain of those around her.  forever trying to fix things that were beyond repair.  her heart clenched in her chest and she forced a smile.  “i’ll make sure to see you again before i leave.”     /     @twinthng​

name your top 10 favorite characters from 10 different fandoms and then tag 10 people

Isa/Saix (Kingdom Hearts)

Aoba Seragaki (DRAMAtical Murder)

Sansa Stark (A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones)

Lagertha (Vikings)

Naevia (Spartacus)

Julian Devorak (The Arcana)

Miguel Alvarez (Oz)

Aliena (The Pillars of the Earth)

Alyn Shir (Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning) 

Nomi Marks (Sense8)

Theodora “Theo” Crain (The Haunting of Hill House)

tagged by: stole it tagging: be gay do meme stealing crimes

human sympathy has its limits.

The Great Gatsby Meme || @detouch || accepting

“Even when it comes to family?”

        Nell’s mouth was pressed into a thin line as she looked upon Theo. The same Theo who held her hand in the dark, who made things okay when they weren’t, THIS Theo – her Theo – wanted to give up on him. To give up on Luke. She didn’t need to hear the words to know what was happening. Theodora Crain was detaching. The two of them had always joked that it was Shirley who was the one who iced people out, and to an extent that was true too. However, Theo detached due to fear of letting people get close. She never meant to, but even with the simple addition of her gloves it was clear to see that she was out of touch with the world. She maintained a bubble of privacy that was ironclad so that no on could get close enough to h u r t her. 

         She moved to reach out for Theo’s hand, but recoiled because she knows better. There was a wall that had grown between where they sat and Nell knitted her eyebrows together, peering over the wall, hoping that it would be enough to pursuad her. “It’s just his second relapse.” Her throat felt dry, like the words were nails on a chalkboard – chilling and uncomfortable. “It’s difficult - to kick the habit.” Nell said softly, searching from sort of understanding in her sister’s face. 

         “He wants to get better. We know he does. But if he wants to get back to who our brother is we have to leave a room open, we have to leave the door open, we have to help to guide him back home with the light from the porch.” Nell was talking more metaphorically now but the sentiment was there. “We have to h e l p him. 

🙇

MULTI-MUSE MEME. send a symbol and i’ll reply with any characters you write i’m familiar and interested in writing with  ! send + reverse for characters i write i could see interacting with yours /   @samenkomen  +  accepting

YOUR CHARACTERS.

cordelia goode, ben harmon, violet harmon, winter anderson, theodora crain, hugh crain, emily prentiss, betty cooper, harley quinn, lady galadriel, natasha romanoff, okoye, eugene thompson