🦋 Team Butterfly Forever 🦋

Reader mode
open_sketch said:
ustion, and her migraines were almost certainly related. The big one was a photosensitive tonic-clonic seizure, and Brigid had told them it had only happened twice before
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

So focusing on this - Brigid either had tried transforming before or was suspicious that she couldn't. And evidence points to her having tried.

open_sketch said:
"It's better. More like it used to be," you explained. She nodded, but it looked painful, her face screwed up. Like she'd received bad news.

"That makes sense. Spark could fix this," she said slowly. She indicated with her hand for you to back away, then she stood up unsteadily. As she came in line with her desk lamp, you saw the shimmer of sweat that clung to her face in the sharp golden reflection along the contour of her face. You stood too, your hand reflexively going to your necklace even as you stepped forward.

She was taking deep breaths, like she was psyching herself up. Muttering to herself under her breath. This time. This time it'll be okay. Just have to focus
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Which... Yeah Eve probably has a crisis on her hands right now that has gone accute.

open_sketch said:
Beyond dangerous. You might not know the rules of the magic or the nature of the science she was talking about, but you'd been her friend long enough to know this was brain uploading, the thing fourteen year old Brigid said she wanted to do and sixteen year old Brigid said wasn't possible. You couldn't remember all the reasons, but you knew this was just a fancy way of committing suicide so, at best, something like you would wake up in your place
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Because yeah - this probably is an elaborate suicide attempt. Or at least, it sets things up that her health isn't a problem one way or another.

For one thing Brigid was not accepting of her newfound disability with anything approaching grace. The limitations or anything else. Which being angry and furious about not being things you were once able to do or think you should be able to do is perfectly human. (Especially as between the photo-sensitivity seizures and the memory issues the isolation and refusing to leave the apartment looks a lot like an attempt at controlling the immediate environment to not trigger something/be able to respond to memory loss)

But the disability does hit Brigid in basically what feels to be what she prides herself on, her mind.

open_sketch said:
"Hi, Eve. I… forgot you were coming," she said, blinking and looking away. Then she smiled. "But this is good. I can show you what I'm working on."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

To the point that - yeah, comparisons to Alzheimers isn't inaccurate. On review they never actually told Brigid they were coming - but since Eve is there, Brigid just assumes she forgot. Severe forgetfulness is a problem because Brigid straight up can't trust her own memory, so she has to trust whoever is speaking with her to be honest.

And well she literally can't become Butterfly Spark anymore can she. (Her transformation phrase translated is basically Out of Darkness, Light - which yeah, ouch).

Those two things together would have been bad enough, especially with how Brigid goes to holding her butterfly necklace as a comforting mechanism (that she vividly knows now she can no longer use because transformation will set off a bad seizure)

But she can't be Butterfly Spark anymore when they fear the Dark Queen has returned.

open_sketch said:
"Oh, you're Eve! You're in that fan club with her, right?" the woman said, picking up a little. "The one for those superheroes? Team Butterfly?"

"... yeah, that's me," you said. The woman beamed.

"Oh good! We barely talk with her, but when we do it's almost always about you lot. She loves you guys,"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

And the one thing that has never been questioned no matter how arrogant Brigid may be is that she adored her team. Who need Butterfly Spark.

Brigid can't be Butterfly Spark anymore.

open_sketch said:
Brigid had sent "what's going on" and nothing else about eight hours ago. You didn't have to deal with that yourself, though, because Amara was on it; she sent a flurry of texts explaining that she'd finally called Brigid and had been met with long stretches of unsettling silence and the claim that she was 'too busy' to save the world. No contact since. Fuck.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

So here's something to think about - was Brigid as calm as she seemed when this conversation happened? Because she was able to hide that she was suffering from seizures (and she definitely suspected something because she was avoiding lights for awhile) for years.

Too busy meant physically incapable.

And she very much was reacting to it.

open_sketch said:
She pointed toward a mass of something lying on a low table in the center of the room. It looked sort of like a cage of some kind, brassy wire wrapped around posts. There was a laptop perched of it and a rats nest of wires running between them, connecting to what you recognized were several of the old Sparkle Beacon pens Andy had given you. And in the middle, there was a mass of twisted metal, all twisted up together and melted.

"For school?" you asked, and she paused.

"... it's more important," she said. "Especially now. Do you have any more of those pens?"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The situation was already degrading - especially as reading again the light situation was a problem for awhile. She asks for the light to not be turned on because one blinks - yeah that would be at risk of causing a grand mal. (Really that light sensitivity triggering seizures does a lot to explain the being homebound for two years because it does seem to be that Brigid is treating it as easy to trigger).

She was already working on the project but the return of the Dark Queen - it does seem to have pushed it into overdrive.

Something said about depression is that it lies. Anxiety and a whole host of other things is the brain running amuck. I think back to this with Brigid because - well it does feel like something akin to that has bit. She felt that she couldn't ask for help for some reason, her mobility was reduced to her apartment for apparently the last two years (which would not be helping any of the mental side of things any, especially as being unable to leave the apartment would do a lot to convince someone that genius level stupid ideas are reasonable.)

open_sketch said:
"No. Shut up," Kimiyo snapped. It was so loud you heard it twice, echoing out of the tinny speaker of Amara's phone. "Listen to somebody else for once in your fucking life. We've all sat and watched you get worse and worse for years, I'm tired of hearing you say it's nothing, it's fine, you're handling it. You haven't handled it. It's over. You're getting in that ambulance."

"-but-"

"You are not killing another of my friends," Kimiyo finished, then she tore the phone away from her ear and slammed her thumb on the red button. Brigid let go of the phone as Kimiyo threw hers onto the counter, collapsed onto the couch, her face screwed up as tears flowed down her cheeks.

In front of you, in the dark room, Brigid nodded weakly. She took in an unsteady breath that seemed to rattle her entire frame, her eyes falling to the floor. She clutched the golden butterfly like a lifeline.

"...okay."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This sequence right here - this is the anchoring line right now. As long as this holds then Brigid has to at least pretend to care about her own wellbeing. If this snaps then things go out the window. Or something happens where Brigid thinks that one of Kimiyo's other friends (so Butterfly or Amara as Princess Rose) are in trouble, because yeah, Brigid currently is not to be trusted with her health right now.

Addendum:
open_sketch said:
"She had a seizure. S-she's refusing to go the hospital. I don't think she can help, and I don't know how to help her," you explained. "Andy, what do I do?"

He always used to know, back in the day, as much as you'd always refused to listen.

"...I don't know. Lady O'Connell is not one to waver from the course she sets for herself," Andy said heavily. He was speaking slowly, his words measured and carefully-chosen. "We need her help, there's no doubt, and she has a duty-"

"She thinks she's doing it by… trying to build some awful thing," you said. "She won't listen to me, nothing I said helped. I just made it worse. Why would she listen to me?"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Okay - I officially do not trust Andy and suddenly I think him not being able to find the Knights Errant is a good thing as him talking to anyone without someone else there feels like a horrible accident waiting to happen.

Brigid physically cannot turn into Butterfly Spark. Yes they need Brigid's help - but that comes after you get the person who just had a seizure into the hospital. Andy talking to Brigid right now feels like a recipe for her to do something horribly stupid and damaging to herself out of "duty/for the good of the group."
 
Last edited:
it should be noted that an unreliable light is unlikely to trigger a seizure. this is her anxiety combined with photophobia related to her migraines, though it is intended as foreshadowing.

it's also intended to show how she's so out of it that changing a lightbulb is beyond her, and she can't ask for help from her roommates. that… is inspired by me getting so depressed in 2022 that it was easier to live in the dark for several months when i had a light burn out :(
 
Last edited:
open_sketch said:
Beyond dangerous. You might not know the rules of the magic or the nature of the science she was talking about, but you'd been her friend long enough to know this was brain uploading, the thing fourteen year old Brigid said she wanted to do and sixteen year old Brigid said wasn't possible. You couldn't remember all the reasons, but you knew this was just a fancy way of committing suicide so, at best, something like you would wake up in your place.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Ah, the continuity problem. Fun times.

Brigid knows this is going to kill her, and doesn't care, because she is already dying. Slowly, by inches, but just fast enough she can feel her own mind slipping away from her.

But also good on Brigid for trying to take steps to fix her problems! Completely wrong steps, horrifying steps, but her reaction is not "this is fine".
 
10ebbor10 said:
Eh, It really does like these steps were less steps and more an escape to argue that things were, indeed fine, even if she was going in circles making no real progress.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think it's less Brigid thinking she's fine - she very much does not think she is - but a case of her trying to be okay without asking for help.

Because no one of the group is good at asking for help. (I dread what Riley's kids will spill when Eve goes to visit her.)
 
Weird theory, but starting to wonder if the Dark Queen might be the result of Eve/Ward going through a sort of splitting:

The Butterfly Queen is Eve and/or Wards desire to use power to reshape the world as they believe it should be and the wisdom to know how to implement something like it (and that their idea of the good isn't necessarily universal.)

The Dark Queen is how Eve/Ward feels about monarchy/what she fears becoming queen will involve. She's just pure will-to-power without (or perhaps repressing really hard) Eve/Wards love for her friends or understanding of larger systems.

Alternatively, that upload!Brigid/Spark is the Dark Queen.
 
open_sketch said:
i'll rewrite the scene asap. i'm really sorry, i fucked up and gave too much credit to a source because it simplified things. i'll be more critical in the future.

edit: change implemented. i'm so sorry.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Please be easier on yourself ❤️

You have given a full apology, but please ask yourself what harm has been done by this minor mistake. A few readers noticed a thing and thought about it with kindness or curiosity for a few seconds or minutes each. Is that really something that you would want a friend to apologise for?

I know really well that it can be difficult to internalise that we all make mistakes (worse, we all sometimes harm others). This is part of being human. We are all still worthy of love, this is also part of being human.

With affection,
A stranger.

Edit: Also, you are absolutely smashing it with the emotional payload and thoughtfulness of this story. Thank you so much for writing yet another lovely thing for me to read 💜
 
Last edited:
The idea of a magical girl whose photosensitive seizures are triggered by her own transformation sequence is horrifying, and it's really well done.
 
Holy crap man this story has me invested. I'm of the opinion that mind uploading just leaves a copy of you behind, having that copy be made of like weird metal from an alternate dimension with demons in it probably wouldn't be a good thing.

Also I'm wondering how much does Butterfly Spark know about the magic system, in comparison to the rest of the team, I'm getting the feeling that Eve basically knows nothing while every other magical girl has to some degree a much more solid grasp of the actual events that took place.

One unrelated thing I'm wondering about, in the scene with Eve watching tv a few chapters back, it brings up American and North Korean magical girls, it was a little unclear weather those were actual magical girls or just propaganda.
 
open_sketch said:
The doctor explained that the blank periods were focal seizures, and she was probably having them dozens of times a day
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well that's not good at all, but damn, I was concerned in the last update she might have been having mini-strokes causing permanent brain damage for a long time. The crippling seizures still suck horribly and burned through a major chunk of her life, but at least it's not as bad as it could have been.

open_sketch said:
The big one was a photosensitive tonic-clonic seizure
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
... yeah that's going to suck *hard* for someone who uses a big lightshow to access the majority of her powers. There's some medications and devices that could help, but that's the kind of thing that would probably put her away from a combat role for good.

Edit: Also, I know you do a lot of research on this, but it's alright if you do make mistakes. Magic being real, and apparently having been real for all of history, probably would have some ripple effects! You're allowed to futz with some things if it makes a better story, or if it's convenient, or anything like that, it's all okay on our end. We really appreciate you putting so much thought into all of this in the first place.
 
Last edited:
zang269 said:
Well that's not good at all, but damn, I was concerned in the last update she might have been having mini-strokes causing permanent brain damage for a long time. The crippling seizures still suck horribly and burned through a major chunk of her life, but at least it's not as bad as it could have been.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Prolonged epileptic seizures can cause brain damage, so that could still be the case. It's a bad issue to leave untreated.
 
I was wildly off the mark in my expectations yet not terribly off either.

As far as i know there's no healing from injuries like these though. Nor do they likely make lenses that will stop you from having an attack from your own lightshow.
 
Gears said:
As far as i know there's no healing from injuries like these though. Nor do they likely make lenses that will stop you from having an attack from your own lightshow.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
And it doesn't seem like the healing power is capable of treating an acute seizure as a thing to cure. If it did that, you could try stopping the seizure as it occured by holding hands through the entire thing.

Also

open_sketch said:
It was somewhere past midnight when the doctor came back again, clipboard in hand. There was a list of problems, most of which you couldn't remember or couldn't understand even after the explanation. All of them were shuffled aside for the big one; post-traumatic epilepsy. You didn't even know that was a thing you could get.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Seizures aren't the only problem. The biggest one, right now, but there's likely a bunch of other assorted TBI related damage, skull fractures, neck trouble, related bone stuff, and so on.
 
Last edited:
10ebbor10 said:
And it doesn't seem like the healing power is capable of treating an acute seizure as a thing to cure. If it did that, you could try stopping the seizure as it occured by holding hands through the entire thing.

Also



Seizures aren't the only problem. The biggest one, right now, but there's likely a bunch of other assorted TBI related damage, skull fractures, neck trouble, related bone stuff, and so on.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
well likely also health problems due to being scooped up in a room with barely any evidence she's taking care of herself.
 
zang269 said:
... yeah that's going to suck *hard* for someone who uses a big lightshow to access the majority of her powers. There's some medications and devices that could help, but that's the kind of thing that would probably put her away from a combat role for good.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It probably should but I don't think that the group has the "luxury" of that. Andy has not located the Knights Errant, Tracy and Lyra aka Uranus and Neptune expies.

And of the main five, Esme is a missing and the others operating on the assumption that she's dead.

Kimiyo is in the fight - she's not happy about it and it's asking for a double helping of PTSD but she's in.

open_sketch said:
in a direct fight, Butterfly Sage is the weakest of the Knights.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The problem is that she's not a powerhouse. And while I think Riley can absolutely fight on a prosthetic - I do suspect that the kids will complicate things. We're all looking at the husband askance and... The two kids will need a responsible guardian and if the husband is garbage then Riley would have an obligation to prioritize her kids.

Brigid absolutely should be removed from front line action. But unless there is absolutely no combat and this is an epic misunderstanding going on I'd bet a chunk of chocolate coins on Brigid dragging herself into the fight somehow.

One because I do not see Eve having only the protagonist matters end game. Sailor Moon ends that way but there's a reason it's done with the cast whittling down over the action. There's been a focus on the team coming together to support each other, and Eve is going to be the recipient of that eventually.

Two - I extremely doubt that the end of this is going to be "Yeah the Butterfly with severe injury complications is useless end of story"
 
open_sketch said:
"Hey everyone, sorry I'm late, Finn was crying because I turned on the TV after he handed me the remote, which apparently was the wrong thing to do? Who knows. Also, sorry to start with this, but did you see they're making a movie of us?" she asked. She was smiling, but the exhaustion you'd expect from a mother of two young children was coupled with a nervous energy you hopefully wouldn't. She kept glancing up over the top of the laptop, and you weren't sure if it was because she was keeping an eye on the kids or the door.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Skipping from the Brigid Trainwreck to Riley... I take it that other people are adding things up to Grant probably being a problem?

Just... From the outside it looks incredibly like a controlling relationship? (There are perfectly healthy marriages where one partner stays home to take care of the kids and the other brings home the bacon but I didn't think Riley and Grant are in thatolf)

It makes sense for all the others to dislike the guy because Riley was apparently out when they knew her. But the fact that Riley was looking out for something or more likely someone while talking to them...

open_sketch said:
She glanced off-screen at something, then looked back quickly. "Shit. Gotta go, nice chatting!"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

And just hurriedly dropping the call. It feels like Grant does not like her being in contact with them. (Which would then filter into the fact that uh, it doesn't feel like either of the mentioned two kids know any of the Butterflies either. No popping in to say hi to the aunts out of obligation then going to watch TV or being excited and talking their ears off)

And someone being isolated is a bad sign for a reason. Throw in that Riley appears to be a stay at home Mom... Financial control is a thing.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Back
Top