#i dnt fully remember what songs i was gonna do the others to but who even care anymore -w-

[stringsxfate]

* ✶ 「 lana condor, 24, female & she/her 」 welcome to the mortal realm, MIRANDA TIEN— though, the fates whisper that they could only be ARIADNE reincarnated. it seems in this life they’re instead known for being a BAKER. what a downgrade. nevertheless, mortality can be confusing, so it’s understandable they can be COURAGEOUS and TRUSTING, but also INSECURE and DESTRUCTIVE ; maybe that’s why they remind people of DRIVERS LICENCE by OLIVIA RODRIGO ? but not all history is washed away by time — just as the poets say, they still remind others of HALF SMILES WITH EYES FULL OF TEARS, MESSY KITCHENS FULL OF LAUGHTER, LATE NIGHT DRUNK TALKS IN BATHROOMS WITH STRANGERS. hopefully this life treats them a little better.

hello all i am back with new child, she’s a bit of a mess and doesn’t know what any of her emotions and feelings are but she’s working on it. and until then she makes a really good cupcake and loaf of bread.

tw: parental death, alcohol mentions

about / socials

Miranda liked to break her life down into sections. There was the before and and there was the during and there was the after. Everyone tells her she’s in the after now, that she’s made it through the hardest part, but it still feels like she’s in the middle, stuck in a never ending loop with only glimpses of the after. 

before 

Miranda was born to Hien and Aida Tien, the youngest of four, she discovered very early in life that there was very little she couldn’t get away with. All high expectations were placed on her elder sister and brothers meaning Miranda had freedom to make as many mistakes as she wanted and run a little wild. Not that she did, but the option was always there, which was nice to know. When she looks back on her childhood it’s with warmth and joy. Family dinners where they would all laugh and her brother helping her with maths homework and long afternoons in the back kitchen decorating cakes with her dad. Her childhood is tinged in yellow and smells faintly like baking bread and spices and sounds like easy laughter in country songs. 

during 

The diagnosis came two weeks after her sixteenth birthday. It’s sudden and unexpected and throws their family into chaos. Miranda feels her life slowly start to revolve around her dad's doctor's appointment and rushing to the bakery after school to help out. She does it willingly, gladly, happy to help in any way she can, to take a little of the stress off her parents' sagging shoulders and her siblings' stressed backs. 

She meets him when she’s seventeen and he’s twenty. Justin, who’s older and drives his dad's old car that he’d painted new and gives her flowers he’s stolen from neighbours gardens and showers her with pretty words that make her blush. He walks - staunters, really - into her life when she needs him most, when she needs someone most. Sweeps her off her feet and takes her on wild adventures through the city and convinces her to sneak out of her house late at night. When she’s with him, Miranda forgets all about hospital beds and medication littering their kitchen table and how her dad isn’t getting better. She tells him she loves him as they’re curled together on the back seat of his car and she believes him when he says it back. Kisses his collarbone and lets him kiss down her neck, saves every whispered compliment in her mind. 

Her dad's illness isn’t short and it isn’t pretty. Twenty rolls by with a shakily decorated cake and balloons in her favourite colours and everyone avoiding asking about college. She spends her little party holding Justin's hand and laughing with her dad and trying to memorise every little detail. He doesn’t see her turn twenty-one. 

He breaks up with her two days before the funeral. In a text. It’s a text she’ll always remember. Because it was two lines and he hadn’t even been bothered to fully type out the word ‘you’.

 ‘Can’t do this anymore. ur just too much right now and i dnt sign up for it.’ 

Very little makes sense in her life for the next few months. She wakes up, she gets dressed, she goes to the bakery, she mixes batter and decorates cakes, she hugs her mom and smiles with her sister, she goes home and sleeps. Trapped in a loop of the same things over and over and until it finally hits her what’s happened. 

Miranda doesn’t really remember turning twenty-one. She knows her friends take her out and tap glasses together as they do shots and her mom smiles at her fondly as she stumbles through the door later that night. Because all she can think about is how Justin had talked about how they’d spend her twentyfirst, all the plans and places they’d go, how he’d been excited, so she’d been excited. And how she’d spent most of it alone and that somehow, the pain of missing her dad had been overshadowed by someone else. It’s the first time she lets herself hate Justin and start to realise that all the pretty words and whispered promises hadn’t been true. 

after

Now she’s twenty-three and crawling her way out of the during with her nails still. She overhears her friends whispering worries about how she seems like a bystander to her own life. It knocks her back, hits her in the heart as she realises how true it is. So she starts to make an effort again. Starts to pick up the fallen bricks of her life and tries to rebuild. 

She starts with taking a more active role in the bakery, allowing her mom a chance to step back a little, to take more time for herself. It gives her something to focus on and pour her energy into and it’s just an added bonus that she finds the sounds of stand mixers soothing. Miranda’s first major change in the bakery was clearing out the space they’d used for storage, knocking down a wall and giving the place a small sitting area, effectively making it a cafe. 

She starts going out with her friends again, starts conversations first and brings up possible plans. She agrees to be set up on a date, and when it doesn’t go terribly she lets herself start looking to the future again. 

tl;dr : in summary, she had a very lovely childhood with two lovely parents and the regular amount of sibling drama. her dad got sick, she meets justin, her dad gets sicker, justin makes her feel special, her dad dies, justin ends it. it takes her nearly three years to realise that she never really dealt with her dad dying or her grief because of it, so now she’s in therapy and taken over running the family bakery by turning it into a lil cute cafe too. 

( miranda is very easy to get along with and will honestly talk to anyone because girl is way to trusting for her own good which is why she’s just gonna keep getting her heartbroken. she wants to see the best in people and will ignore all the red flags that pop up along the way, despite people's warnings. she’s actually really got her shit together when it comes to the business and networking and stuff, she’s just a hopeless mess when it comes to her emotions. )

headcanons / facts

she’s shockingly good at finding her way through mazes – hedge, corn or just drawn ones – she can find her way through in record time. whenever people ask her how she does it (if she’s cheating somehow), she simply shrugs and says ‘i just get a feeling about which way to go, so i go that way’. the same logic applies to detangling wires, especially headphones and messed up balls of wool. most of the time she doesn’t even realise she’s untangling something until it’s done and someones looking at her weird.

her parents bought their bakery when they first moved to the city and named it laurel leaf because the first time they met was when aida accidentally threw a laurel wreath at hien’s face. for the holidays the family always tried to decorate with laurel wreaths when they could, after hien died aida couldn’t face doing it for a long time. now that miranda has taken over the day to day running of the place she’s hung up a permanent laurel wreath above the door. 

because baking is basically her job she’s taken up knitting and running for hobbies. there’s a basket on the counter at the bakery of all the many, many hats she’s knitted free for anyone to take. she really hates running, but also knows it’s probably going to be good for her in the long run (ha!) so she just complains to whole time to her friends via text whenever she goes.

wanted connections 

#theikosintro #( intro. )