still standing.

indie rp blog for norma louise bates of a&e's bates motel. written by maddie.

[mistress-light]

Orphan (2009) • Dir. Jaume Collet-Serra

[alittleimpulsive]

did tumblr change the way custom themes work? i have a sideblog i've been trying to do a theme for but it won't let me actually customize anything on it. it'll put the theme there but then not let me change any of the text even in the html :(

[adultslovexx]

[sophsun1]

Sabrina the Teenage Witch – 4.15: Love in Bloom

[bob-belcher]

constant mood

[samcarpnter]

READY OR NOT (2019) dir. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett

[pikky126]

life is good again (ordered something online)

[alittleimpulsive]

would anybody like... a starter. probably a lil thing unless y'all wanna plot first

[remanence-of-love]

[stars-bean]

Bridesmaids (2011) dir. Paul Feig

[alittleimpulsive]

norma is bisexual but was so trapped in her unhappy marriages to men (and other various shitty relationships or one night stands) that she honestly never even considered women to be an option

if she thought about it for two seconds she'd realize she was crushing on christine but that ended so badly that she refuses to even think about her anymore

anyways happy pride month

[uglygirlstatus]

i am extremely well-adjusted and mentally healthy as long as nothing goes wrong ever at all even a little bit

[godblooded]

“forever. and never. not until after he’s almost died. and yet, probably from the moment i met him.”

there was no understanding the magnetic pull. she couldn’t escape it — she had been so, so young, and it had never occurred to her. and of course, of course it hadn’t. she’d never felt young — alana had grown up too quickly, too exhausted when she was nothing but a child herself. hannibal had felt like something she understood — hannibal had felt like someone who made sense.

in a world where alana had already been playing academic games, had already forcefully climbed as far as she could, hannibal had been her equal. arrogance had not been what it was — once, he had smiled at her good naturedly with his pointy predator teeth, and his maroon eyes had creased at the corners — and said if you were a man they would call it pluck. the last word had pinged his tongue off the backs of his teeth like an instrument and they’d both laughed. (he had only laughed for her — not the restrained chortle of a puff he’d feigned for normalcy’s sake, but the raspy, low, musical hum of a laugh.)

“hannibal wasn’t — good. with boundaries.”

words come slow and immensely ruminated. she lets them marinate where they are, lets them turn over in her mouth. they taste sour — her mind can never truly grasp. it seeks and then it reels. norma squeezes her hand and the good doctor reminds herself of where she is. she squeezes back.

“he was micro dosing me. constantly. i never knew — i’ve had a dissociative disorder since i was very young. it was easy to make me believe i was only stressed, that i was just losing time. it completely demolished my neurochemistry. i suppose, really, now’s the first time i’ve been lucid in more than a decade.”

it’s strange to think about — to be this clear. it’s terrible, in its way, but she prefers the reality to the facade.

“i loved him. it feels like the worst thing i can say out loud, but if i don’t it has nowhere else to go. i might as well trust it here.”

she finishes her wine. she hates it, all at once, and feels comforted, ironically. but these contradictions are sometimes welcome.

“he taught me everything i know. how can i forsake that when it’s the foundation for the ways i can help?”

[alittleimpulsive]

Norma has never met this man, but she holds a disdain for him and the damage he's done to the person she loves. How can someone take on a job which promises to take care of vulnerable people and then... do that to them? She thinks of all the news stories of doctors and nurses killing their patients, and it's sickening.

"I don't think you have to forsake anything. He was a huge part of your life. You can't help that, and the horrible shit he did to you doesn't undo all the good things he did for you either. People are complicated."

Caleb buying her toys as a young girl just because she showed interest in them; Caleb holding his hands over her ears so she wouldn't have to hear the hard packing noises of her father striking her mother; the way he held her hand when crossing a busy street. Truly good, warm memories, intersected with remembering the rough scrape of Caleb's calloused palms on her thighs or the way his young adult stubble scratched her mouth.

Norma has a lot of practice in this -- her view of people vacillating wildly between idealization and abhorrence.

"You didn't deserve any of it. I hope you know that."

She sips from her own glass, nearing the bottom herself. It glints yellow in the porchlight.

"My ex-husband saved me from a loveless marriage, and without him, Norman wouldn't be here. But he was so... violent. I honestly thought he was going to kill me one day. Or kill Norman. Norman was so little and fragile, and Sam was so rough with him. I tried to leave a few times and just couldn't. He had a gun and--"

It doesn't matter now. She talks about it candidly, but stares into her wine, swirling it in the glass.

"It didn't stop until Norman hit him over the head with a blender. Or... I guess it was Nora, actually. And usually when I think about Sam, that's what I think of, him lying on the living room floor, blood all over the carpet, and Norman standing there staring into space with the blender in his hand. But there were good times, too. We went to the aquarium once and Sam put Norman up on his shoulders so he could see the penguins. And if Sam hadn't come into my life, I wouldn't have Norman at all."

She finishes her drink. Leans into Alana, holding her. Like if they press into each other hard enough, she can melt into Alana's skin.

"People being abusive monsters doesn't erase the good things they did for us. If Lecter hadn't... been the way he was, would you be here with us? Would you have gone into a different field entirely?"

Selfishly, she thinks: Would she have gotten Norman the help he needed at all?

[alittleimpulsive]

"dreams don't come true for people like me and you."

children of cain ! | accepting

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Does Norma even have dreams anymore? She did when she moved here, buying the motel on a whim the second she saw it up for sale. No experience in the industry and no desire prior to then to enter it, but there she was, running on pure hope and a need to escape.

Seeing that big, beautiful house up on the hill, she could imagine a life for her and her son that could be something close to normal.

"I worked hard to be where I am."

And where is that, exactly? A mother to a son she's growing afraid of, another son who hates her? Owner of a failing business? Laughingstock of the entire town?

"You may have given up, but I'm still here, and I'm not going down without a fight. So screw you."

[yourlilbrunette]

[clarkgriffon]

REWATCHING SITCOMS TO REGAIN MY SANITY → 7/∞

[alittleimpulsive]

What kind of time loop are you stuck in?

fantasy tragedy

you can’t look back, you can’t look back, you will always look back. you can’t ever stop looking back. a new dawn will rise if you ever find the strength to look forward, but they will always be gone.

tagged by: @babydxhl sorta

tagging: anyone who wants it