perfect penny,

Windemere, for Penny.

[windmere]

“She is the beauty of the family, the one you'd pick out of a photograph.⠀ ⠀ When granny was alive, she would remark on it.⠀ ⠀ The magnetism of Penny's physical appearance.⠀ ⠀ What a belle, she'd often say.⠀ ⠀ It seems unfair that this magnetism and beauty should be so heavily gifted to Penny,⠀ ⠀ and that she should value it so little.”

[windmere]

are we back sinclair nation...

[windmere]

@matriarclair okay but will you host @hastinge and @serenvy

[windmere]

are we back sinclair nation...

[windmere]

@cherrygame,⠀ ⠀ * i don't like that tone, avoid it.

the barbed, vicious in its intention response from bess makes penny laugh.⠀ ⠀ not a quiet laugh, not restrained or graceful⠀ ⠀ ( the way penny sinclair does ),⠀ ⠀ but taunting.⠀ ⠀ equally malicious in its melodic timbre.⠀ ⠀ it echoes down the halls of clairmont;⠀ ⠀ it lives in the very roots of this island.

she tilts her head slightly, blonde locks falling from one shoulder like the princess in a fairytale she was always raised to be.⠀ ⠀ ( be a credit to a family ),⠀ ⠀ harris always said.⠀ ⠀ but he never did tell them the cost of achieving it, the consequence in chasing the ideal.⠀ ⠀ so here they remained, stuck in the fairytale, eternally little girls:⠀ ⠀ harris and tipper sinclair's girls.⠀ ⠀ lost, repressed, unworthy.

the steely blues of penny's eyes meet bess'.⠀ ⠀ that sharp, angular gaze that leaves no room for mercy, leaves no space for emotion or empathy.⠀ ⠀ ( nothing can hurt her if she keeps her heart cold ).

“oh?⠀ ⠀ i'd be careful, if i were you.”⠀ ⠀ she leans in slightly, gaze held down over the younger sinclair, just enough to taunt, just enough to remind her dear little sister how the hierarchy works.⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ “how about i invite salty dan to dinner sometime?⠀ ⠀ hmm?⠀ ⠀ i'm sure him and daddy have lots to talk about.”

and then she straightens, head held high.⠀ ⠀ just like she always does.⠀ ⠀ “if you ever, throw my daughter under the bus like that, ever again, you will lose everything.⠀ ⠀ i'll make sure of it.”

[sabrinacarprenter]

we were liars 01x06

[notmorbid]

state of paradise.

dialogue prompts from state of paradise by laura van den berg.

the more times a story is shared, the more powerful it becomes.

it's like you've been in my head.

some people are like cosmic vacuums, always searching for other selves to consume.

you have freakishly pointy elbows.

once you start running, it can be hard to stop.

sometimes i can't believe a place like this exists.

i've lived many other lives since then.

this is a place with its own laws.

cats always look like they're casually dreaming of murder.

go where you need to be.

what's wrong with just staying where you're needed?

failures of foresight are the worst kind.

trees communicate with one another. they experience pain.

i thought i'd been stabbed by a ghost.

violence runs in our family.

i felt like i had a head full of bees, and i wanted to kill the hive.

i was sure you were never coming back.

i'm tired of discussing things that have already happened.

i feel like the last person left on earth.

people love to read about things that aren't possible.

time travel is trending.

you can't follow instructions to save your life.

i want to see what you can do.

you look real good. keep it up.

why were you so unhappy?

there isn't a clear answer for every question.

stop acting like a little bitch.

sometimes we are called back to the things we most want to flee.

aren't you freaking out?

sometimes i wonder what our memories are for.

we leave places, and we don't leave places.

i need a new system for processing reality.

stop skulking around.

where have you been? where did you come from?

the directives of the dead are very powerful.

how do you know that's what happened? how can you be sure?

i can't tell anyone else what really happened.

i'm pretty sure i've been having an existential meltdown for years.

i can't even deal with this bullshit right now.

there cannot be a utopia with people in it.

can you recommend a good paranormal investigator?

am i different than you remember?

some events are too big to even acknowledge.

i think i found a clue.

when we are denied a story, a light goes off.

is it hard for you to be here?

i learned how to fake everything.

i feel like a canoe in a tsunami.

action leads to more action.

we only know what we perceive, and we perceive so very little.

memory is a place, too.

cults are very seductive. they're portals to another world.

trauma can alter us in the most unexpected ways.

[1stliar]

She sits on the arm rest of the chair. Black hair falls over her shoulder as the warm summer breeze blows. The smell of the ocean is salty, fresh and what most would consider relaxing. Not Cadence. Not when the gaps in her memory and family betray her mind. This was not fair that she was forced to live in this state of unknown. It was her life, Cady deserved to know. Why did the liars not speak to her for two years? Why was the family so distant? Why was she not allowed at Beechwood for summer sixteen? So many unanswered questions that continued to develop further inquiries with no answers. All of the mystery had built up this feeling of teen angst that needed to be placed somewhere. Her mother, the once Sinclairan pride and joy who birthed the heir to the American Dynasty family, bore the burden. Cadence seventeen and angry at everything and everyone. The secrecy only fueled the fire.

“ Sometimes I’m not sure enough if it was good enough. ” The weight of being a Sinclair … Was it worth it? Look at what their love does. It is not peace. It is not endearing. It is conditional and materialistic. That is the love her mother and the aunts showed the Liars. Gat, her Gat, had a real family. Maybe there was some envy in the normalcy he experienced outside of Beechwood Island. That he experienced a maternal love that was pure and kind without the expectations of being some form of heir. Unfortunately, that would never be her reality. Penny and Cadence would always be arm lengths away from one another. They will exist only to be wretched mirrors of one another. “ Do you regret being a mom? ” My mom.

[windmere]

it's the rawness of the question that guts her.⠀ ⠀ leaves her sitting on the edge of her bed with her blue eyes wide, her posture stilled.⠀ ⠀ it was a question she had never even thought of asking her own mother.⠀ ⠀ what would that have been like?⠀ ⠀ tipper sinclair without her three sinclair girls.⠀ ⠀ would she have laughed more?⠀ ⠀ lived more?⠀ ⠀ it was hard to imagine her mother without the pearls, without the island, without harris sinclair.⠀ ⠀ ( what is your mother's life before she gives you hers? )

she purses her lips.⠀ ⠀ paired with that routine, manicured, slight lift of her chin.⠀ ⠀ she'd worn it like armor.⠀ ⠀ her coldness a wall against the emotions of the world, against the emotions of everyone else.⠀ ⠀ but as she looks at her daughter, the child she carried, the girl she raised, a softness blooms in her chest.⠀ ⠀ maternal, tender.⠀ ⠀ is it enough to pierce through the wall she's built?⠀ ⠀ enough to let her feel?⠀ ⠀ maybe.⠀ ⠀ and after almost losing her, after seeing her suffer in that hospital bed, even suffer now with her memory;⠀ ⠀ for the first time, penny sinclair felt true guilt.

“no.”⠀ ⠀ she answers with a finality that shocks even herself.⠀ ⠀ thoughts flutter to her own summer sixteen, to white cotton dresses and sandy feet.⠀ ⠀ to erin's smile and tender touch.⠀ ⠀ but through it, even through it all, she wouldn't want to live in a world without her cady, without her darling girl.⠀ ⠀ “i don't regret anything.”⠀ ⠀ she stands, closes the distance between her and cadence, a gentle hand cupping her daughter's cherubin cheek.⠀ ⠀ just like she used to when she was young.⠀ ⠀ ( i will allow myself this tenderness, i will allow myself to love ).⠀ ⠀ “you are the best part of me.⠀ ⠀ don't ever think for a second that i regret being your mother.”

[pensinclair]

“keep your chin up.”⠀ ⠀ ─── ⠀ ⠀ penny sinclair,⠀ ⠀ @windmere.

[windmere]

“penny likes order, but in a different way than bess does.⠀ ⠀ she wants things to happen easily, without conflict.⠀ ⠀ just be normal, she says to me.⠀ ⠀ meaning, don't be angry, don't rock the boat, just go along.⠀ ⠀ signs of unrest and turmoil bother penny.⠀ ⠀ she turns cold and quiet,⠀ ⠀ and that cold and quiet protects her from her feelings.”

[windmere]

what guts me is how each sister is fundamentally coping with her own identity + her own grief + her own trauma in the only way they know how and it is so destructive and so devoid of empathy and love, but they have no other frame of reference because they weren’t taught to feel, to grieve, or to be messy and human they just always had to keep their chin up, they had to be a credit to the family, they had to be a sinclair first above everything else.

[windmere]

“three blondes with willowy figures.⠀ ⠀ copies of our mother.⠀ ⠀ we are appealing to people, that way.⠀ ⠀ they like our serious eyes and our merry laughs.⠀ ⠀ we might be waiting to be rescued, people think.⠀ ⠀ we are white cotton and sandy feet, old money and lilacs, each one.”

[windmere]

@1stliar,⠀ ⠀ * did you ever love me?

the words slap like sea wind:⠀ ⠀ sharp and unrelenting.⠀ ⠀ penny doesn’t answer, at least not yet.⠀ ⠀ instead ocean blue eyes drift past the porch out toward the water.

hands in her lap, manicured nails brushing gently. ⠀ ⠀ what an odd question.⠀ ⠀ one she's never asked herself.⠀ ⠀ because love, in the sinclair family, was never loud.⠀ ⠀ it was never obvious.⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ maybe it was never there at all.⠀ ⠀ penny had followed all the rules.⠀ ⠀ she wore white in the summer.⠀ ⠀ pearls, not diamonds, before five.⠀ ⠀ she married the right man.⠀ ⠀ raised a daughter with posture and poise.⠀ ⠀ and if she held cadence a little too harshly?⠀ ⠀ well that was how she was held too.

a sigh.⠀ ⠀ not theatrical, just tired.⠀ ⠀ never one to show emotions, never one to truly feel.⠀ ⠀ “god cady, of course i did.”

“i did everything i could.”

there's no apology.⠀ ⠀ no acknowledgement of wrong.⠀ ⠀ it's not the sinclair way.

“i gave you what i had, cadence.⠀ ⠀ it may not have been loud (like bess and mirren),⠀ ⠀ it may not have been soft (like carrie and johhny),⠀ ⠀ but it was mine.⠀ ⠀ i gave it to you.”

[notmorbid]

somadina.

dialogue prompts from somadina by akwaeke emezi.

some people don't want to hear true things. you have to be careful which ear you speak it into.

you look like you're expecting trouble.

i have never loved you any less. never spent a morning without you on my mind.

will i ever sleep at night?

you don't think, and you don't see anything.

i just want to be close to you.

it's as if i know you already.

if i don't know myself, who is it that will know me?

you don't ever notice the things i don't say. everyone has secrets.

let's not worry too much about things we can't control.

i am here. i will always be here.

did you ever love me?

we are always family, no matter where we scatter to.

i'm not very popular right now, you know.

you belong to yourself first. just remember that.

people don't need to see everything.

people like us cannot be afraid of our gifts.

lie to me again. i dare you.

i wish i had been content with my boredom.

knowledge is worth everything.

i forget how to talk to people.

i hate seeing you in pain.

i don't think i can go back home.

i should have been there for you. i shouldn't have run.

you don't deserve what? care? touch? affection?

i'm not the one you left behind anymore.

i can't give up on you and let you hate yourself like this.

can i hold you, or will you bite my hand off?

we were always going to change, but the love doesn't change, you hear?

take it easy. you can handle this.

don't offer to pay me again.

you haven't lost me. not yet.

knowing what i want wouldn't help you stop me.

you don't look well. i think you need to sleep some more.

how are you managing?

you didn't lose me. you threw me away.

don't worry. you will always have a family.

your face is doing that thing where you're in pain but you're pushing it away.

sometimes doing nothing is the wicked thing.

i don't feel so strange with you.

sometimes i feel like i don't really exist.

if you won't fight for your own life, what will you fight for?

i don't like that tone. avoid it.

are you making a joke right now?

i always told you the truth.

you are not a victim here. which part of this is hard for you?

there's something very wrong with you.

the magic has to go somewhere.

do you want to go home?

looking away doesn't make things disappear.

it's going to be alright. everything is going to be alright.