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perpetualcontrolleddrowning · 7 months

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Blackbonnet Soulmate AU - Part 16

The Nettles in the Garden Don’t Go Away

JRaylin441

Summary: The fallout, Part 2

Content Warnings: similar content warnings as other chapters. Only things unique here are mentions of guns, some descriptions of hair clippings, and pretty significant internalized homophobia

Read on AO3 (x)

Read Part Fifteen Here (x)

Read Part Seventeen Here (x)

Stede has never been arrested before. Prior to the sudden and deeply fulfilling decision to run away and become a pirate, Stede had actually spent the entirety of his life doing his damndest to follow the rules. Not that he was very good at that, mind, but the effort was certainly there, and the kind of rules that Stede tended to break were not the sort that often resulted in a trial at sea.

This is all to say: Stede is lost and confused and overwhelmed. He can’t hear half the words people are saying and isn’t able to comprehend the rest of what makes it through the ringing in his ears.

Another thing that Stede is learning about being arrested: it involves truly staggering amounts of standing around doing nothing while not being allowed to talk to anyone. The fire is roaring inside of Stede, and all he wants is to find Ed (Ed, who came back). Instead, he is quickly removed to the jam room and locked inside, watching as the entirety of his crew is split and parceled out between the many rooms of his ship, waiting to be interrogated one-by-one.

And then, well, Stede waits. For hours. Presumably, while the English meet (on the deck of his ship) and discuss all the different potential ways they could handle this. Maybe they are setting up a proper courtroom. Certainly, they are bringing more people aboard, now that the fearsome pirate crew has been neutralized.

There is little for Stede to do beyond pluck sadly at the strings of various instruments and think about all the things he wishes he were saying to Ed at this moment. And, in the quiet waiting, Stede is forced to confront the fact that his last few days are catching up to him. There was the vicious up-and-down emotional tug-of-war that occurred yesterday throughout Jack’s visit, followed by Stede discovering that Ed was his soulmate, followed by Karl dying and Ed deciding to leave, followed by a sleepless night filled with drinking and mocking, followed by heavy conversations with his crewmates in the morning with the background of a raging hangover. All of this, within the last 24 hours, and topped off by an emotional speech to his crew, Ed’s return, and arrest by the English.

Stede is no longer a young man.

He can feel the weight of the last two days pressing down on him and blanketing him in exhaustion. The golden, hazy light drifting down from the grate in the ceiling of the jam room only adds to the feeling of distant unreality. Stede is exhausted and excited and so fucking happy that Ed came back. And it’s all getting to be just a little bit too much.

Stede experiences the rest of the day in a series of flashbulb images, glaring hyperpigmentation, significant touches. The sleep deprivation/hungover/overwhelmed feelings combine so that each moment rattles inside Stede and devastates his sense of stability all over again.

There is the moment Stede walks into his own quarters for an interrogation and is met with the same hallucination that plagued him at the beginning of his piratical journey. Nigel, stabbed through the eye and spitting mad. But, no, it’s his shitty little brother, that always followed right behind and kept the jokes going long past when everyone else had moved on. Chauncy. The feeling of trying desperately to sound innocent and normal while Chauncy's face keeps being overlaid with the jarring image of his twin brother, sword through the eye.

There is the moment, an hour or so after Stede has been returned to his holding cell, when Chauncy calls him back for a dramatic reading of Stede’s journal. Which, when read out loud by someone else, suddenly feels so childish and silly and overdone. Like every other part of Stede’s life has felt when narrated by either one of the Badminton twins. And then, the sudden slap of information. Blackbeard, having confessed to the crime of Nigel Badminton’s murder. And Stede is done with leaning on others to take care of him. He won’t let Ed take this fall for him. Not when he’s hovered over by the ghost of Nigel. The man he killed. The man he murdered, whether or not that was the intention. Maybe Stede isn’t sad that Nigel is dead. But this can’t be the thing that brings Ed down. Sweet, wonderful Ed. Ed, who doesn’t kill. No, Stede would never allow him to take the fall for one of Stede’s mistakes. He signs the confession. He’s crying, and Chauncy thinks it's because of the death of Nigel. Maybe it is. Stede can’t even say anymore. It’s all just been too much. He’s so tired.

There is the moment Stede accepts that he is going to die for the act of piracy. Ed is frantic at his side, trying to think of some way out of this. And part of Stede is panicking too, but a much larger part of himself is tired and snowy and at peace with what he is losing. Thankful, at least, that he was able to experience life for a few months before it ended. Today has been a reminder of all the horrible things he’s done, that he’s spent so much time ignoring and writing over with lovely memories. How wonderful, to have experienced such fantastic things. How awful, to have gone on experiencing new things after all the lives he’s left ruined in his wake.

There is the moment he faces down the firing squad, experiences true impending death. Stede’s panic, mirrored and amplified by Ed’s panic. Until suddenly, Ed shouts again from directly in front of him, voice breaking. Act of Grace. He must have jumped between Stede and the guns.

There is the moment Stede feels the gentle brush of Ed’s hand against Stede’s temple as he oh-so-carefully pulls away the blindfold. His eyes catch and hold Stede’s for just a moment, speaking volumes without actually answering any of the burning questions that Stede has for him. And then, the way that Ed’s eyes dart to the threat behind him. The way he turns back around, using his own body to block any stray bullet from finding its mark.

There is the moment triggered by the sudden, shocking slap of Chauncy taking all of that away, once again pushing Stede to the outside. Pointing out that he doesn’t technically count as a real pirate. And Stede’s crew. His crew. The crew of The Revenge. Their earnest efforts to save him. Their insistence on Stede as their captain. Lucius reading aloud from Stede’s journal and Olu running to fetch the plant that Stede stole and nurtured so carefully. They are risking their own safety to protect Stede. His crew his crew his crew. If Stede had an open ribcage, he would hold them all within it. Keep them safe from the world with his own blood and bone. If Stede had wings, he would cover them and wrap them up warm and safe. Instead, all he has is a feeble heart, which he throws across the deck. He prays that they feel its impact. We talk it through, as a crew. He can’t believe he’d gone so long without them.

There is the moment of creeping, dawning understanding of what he has just committed to, what Ed has just committed to, with this supposed Act of Grace. The horror of what it will do to Ed’s life. To the life that Stede has built for himself. The relief that he hasn’t died just yet. The press of Ed’s arm against Stede’s own, as he reads through the contract. They are leaning into each other, maximizing physical contact in the midst of all this upheaval. Of course, it’s only valid if Mr. Teach signs on, and the way that Stede frantically meets Ed’s eyes, tries so hard to communicate that this is too large an ask. Stede knows that. You really don’t have to do this. And Ed, steady as an anchor, yeah, I know I don’t. Two signatures scratched onto thick paper.

There is the moment on the way to the English naval ship. The rock of the dinghy as he and Ed are rowed back to two separate ships, intentionally kept apart. The pride of being seen as such a threat.

There is the moment filled with the dank, rotting smell of a small brig. The collapse of Stede’s body against a molded-out stool. The cold of his head against the metal grating.

And then, finally, sleep.

*~*~*

Okay.

Okay okay okay.

Ed’s in it. He’s fucking in it, okay? For real this time. No holds fucking barred. He’s back and he’s not fucking leaving until the moment Stede specifically and clearly asks him to. Because of how happy Stede looked when he came back. Because he thought Jack was his friend but that was only because he put Jack in that category before he had any idea what a friend could be. Because of the devastating gut-stab of worry that destroyed him, first when he saw the English on the horizon, and then again a thousand times worse when he saw Stede’s panic in the face of a firing squad.

Ed’s been gut-stabbed before. Dozens of times. Sometimes intentionally. The secret, though, the fucking secret of it all is to make sure they miss all of the important bits. Do you get it yet?

It’s too fucking late for Ed to take away the importance Stede has for him. It’s too fucking late for Ed to cut and run. Stede’s the important bits. That’s done and done. There’s no going back. Ed’s fucking in it and he’s not going anywhere. That shit hurts, when the stab strikes true.

Ed keeps thinking he understands what’s happening, keeps throwing himself at Stede, keeps feeling rejected, keeps running away or lashing out, keeps coming back. He’s fucking done with all of it. Shit. He’s leaving it all behind. They just signed a fucking Act of Grace together, and Ed’s throwing his lot in with Stede until the moment Stede himself says out loud that he wants Ed to leave. No more assuming he knows what the fuck is going on inside Stede’s panicked head. He just keeps making a fucking fool of himself that way.

Stede is smart. He talks about emotions and feelings and shit more than anyone else Ed has ever met. If there’s something going on, he’ll tell Ed. They’ll talk it through, as a crew. Their own little two-person crew.

This is all that Ed’s been able to think about, for the whole trip to the ridiculous fucking privateering academy. His brain does this cool thing, sometimes, when he’s figured out something new, where it just chases itself around in circles, yelling the same ideas over and over and coming to the same conclusions over and over and kicking whatever emotional reaction he’s having higher higher higher-

And Ed, well, Ed’s actually fucking excited about this. Sure, he’s in some weird new stage of life and genuinely has no idea what he’s gonna think of fighting the Spanish and ten years of licking the king’s boots. Edward Teach, a military man. What a fucking joke, except it’s not a joke. It’s something new and it’s a complete reset and he’s going to do it with Stede what the fuck.

By the time they see each other again, they’re being shuffled toward a longer line of people, presumably other, much less remarkable pirates, that are going through the same thing they are. Wild. Ed could not give less of a shit about any of these other people. All he can see is the red-gold reflection of sun-off-Stede’s-hair. His favorite color, for the way that it makes his heart leap in his chest Every Fucking Time.

Stede Stede Stede

Ed has spent the last however-the-fuck long sitting alone in a dark room chasing himself higher and higher with excitement to start this new thing with Stede. When he actually sees the man, the energy feels like it’s going to go sparking off the ends of his fingers. There’s no time to think, to try and hold himself back, and he’s fucking done with that anyway.

“Stede!”

Ed’s running, and then he’s slamming his weight into Stede’s side, slinging his arm around Stede’s shoulder and jostling him back and forth, juddering into each other, away, and back again. Ed could raise his head and howl to the moon right now, if it was out. He’s giddy on the way that Stede fits against his side, the way that he turned and smiled when he heard Ed’s voice, the bright blush that’s making its way up his cheeks.

“Ed,” Stede says, in that same shocked, awed, quiet tone that is officially Ed’s favorite way to hear his name. No one else should ever be allowed to say it. Not now that Ed knows it can sound like that. “What’s gotten into you?” And he’s smiling. Stede’s smiling and Ed made him do that. It’s amazing.

“It’s a fucking adventure, Stede. You gotta get excited about this shit.”

Stede laughs, a shocked chuckle that seems to carry most of his tension with it as he does. Ed can feel, through the shoulders he just now realizes are still tucked under his arm, as Stede relaxes, leans a little further into Ed’s side. Puts a little weight on him.

Fuck yeah. Stede can lean on him. Stede should lean on him basically always. Ed’ll take care of shit and Stede can just hang out right here. Ed will drape him in beautiful things and show him off while protecting him from any harm. Protecting the important bits.

They’re being shunted along toward some huge entry to a building they’ll probably be sleeping in, based on the glimpses Ed is getting through the cracked and rotting wood that makes up the wall. Some very stick-up-their-ass types keep shouting at everyone to be quiet and waving guns around. It’s kind of hilarious. Ed and Stede fall in line, but Ed keeps laughing to himself and is thankful for the volume of his beard, hiding the expression on his face.

Stede keeps peeping over Ed’s shoulder, asking questions, asking what the grand plan is. The Grand Plan, currently, is to decide what they think of the privateering life.

He’s Edward Teach, born on a beach, born all over again on the deck of The Revenge.

They hand him his new uniform, and Ed steps into the barracks.

*~*~*

People are staring.

So many people are staring. Stede is still trying to figure out whether this is a training camp only for pirates who have decided to sell out or if it’s a navy training base that also happens to take on the occasional pirate or two.

Not that it matters much. Captain Blackbeard is a legend among both groups, so either option would explain the staring.

And they are staring.

So much.

Stede really can’t emphasize enough how much every single person in this barracks is staring at Ed as he saunters his way over to an indicated bunk. It’s hard not to notice him, what with the leather and the hair and the enormous beard. Stede is so fond of that beard. That black beard, with starlight caught in its strands, holding the memory of nights stargazing on the deck of The Revenge. That beard is also the main cause of all of this trouble. The thing that makes it impossible to hide who Ed is for even a second.

Stede slinks behind Captain Blackbeard, trying his hardest not to look like some random hanger-on. This is Ed. This is his good friend (soulmate, no) Ed. Stede and Ed have been co-captains for, well, okay, for only a few days, but it still counts. Ed thinks they’re equals, and that’s what matters. The reverence that everyone is showing toward Ed and the raw dismissal they turn toward Stede should not have any impact on him.

It’s impacting him.

Ed is holding the terrible scratchy blanket and the new clothes they want him to wear. They drop their things off on their new bunks (shared bunks, this will be so strange, how is Stede ever supposed to sleep knowing that Ed is just below him, able to see the divot in the mattress caused by Stede’s body?) and then follow directions toward a private area to change.

It’s fairly simple for Stede to get ready. His father was a passionate advocate for the military lifestyle despite a complete lack of personal involvement. He had staunchly enforced short hair and a clean-shaven face. By the time Stede was out from living under his father’s thumb, he couldn’t even fathom what it might look like to groom himself another way. The thought of having a beard is baffling. Stede doesn’t know what he would look like. How would he even pick appropriate clothing?

That’s all a very long way of saying that Stede simply needs to change clothes before he passes muster from the man blocking the door, at which point he’s told to stand around for an hour or so and then shunted along to a new job with a small group of men he’s never met before. They’re sent to sweep out the shorn hair from the new recruits and are set loose on the barber’s chairs with a couple of brooms.

“Jennings,” introduces the burly man sweeping next to Stede. He’s careless with it, not even looking at the ground while he works and leaving swathes of hair clippings behind.

“Stede Bonnet,” he says, grinning through the absolute shambles his life has become and reaching out to shake hands. The man glances dismissively at the gesture and continues moving his broom back and forth on the floor. Stede waits another second, just to make sure there’s not going to be some other social overture for him to completely mess up, before shamefacedly returning to his cleaning. There is silence for a good few minutes, before a quiet murmuring starts between the man who introduced himself earlier and his other neighbor.

“That was Blackbeard,” Jennings says. And Stede pauses, waits for him to elaborate or make a point. He doesn’t. Apparently, though, that’s all the other man needs to go on.

“Couldn’t’a been. He’d never let himself get caught.” There is a feeling in the air. One that Stede is intimately familiar with. The other men are listening to this conversation. They are silent and tilted in its direction, so that they can hear easily and watch out of their peripherals. No privacy. A group deciding all together how they will respond to something.

“Hear he’s been sailing with another crew, getting all buddy-buddy,” Jennings scoffs. “Though that could be bullshit someone was spewing.” There is a quiet ripple of derisive laughter through the room, attaching heavy weights to each of Stede’s limbs. “Not the first time I’ve seen someone claim an association with Captain Blackbeard just for a leg up.”

“I don’t know, Jennings,” drawls a voice from the other side of Stede. It belongs to another man, this one rail-thin and tall enough that he slouches to lean against his broom handle. Stede is studiously ignoring the sensation of being surrounded by a pack of rabid dogs. Stede has extensive experience with doing that. “He looked pretty cozy earlier with that other guy. Maybe the old man’s gone soft.”

“Bullshit.” Jennings spits on the floor. “I’ve crossed paths with Blackbeard a few times in the Republic of Pirates, and I’m telling you the man’s possessed by the devil himself. Captain Blackbeard’s never gonna soften. He’s gonna be a menace on the sea until the day his blood turns to salt.”

“If that’s true, how’d he end up in this shithole with the rest of us?” It’s another voice, from across the room. No one is even pretending not to be listening anymore. Stede is frozen, a rabbit in a bush. There are words he wants to say, but they won’t come out. These men are talking about him, but they don’t even realize that Stede is that person who came in with Ed. Blackbeard’s presence is so strong that it wipes Stede from the picture.

“He’s gone soft,” the leaning man is savoring the words. “Everyone fucks up eventually, and I’m calling it. Blackbeard’s getting old, and it’s time for him to step aside and let the new blood take over.”

“I still don’t think it’s actually Blackbeard. It’s probably just a copycat that messed up,” Jennings’s neighbor says.

“It was Blackbeard. I’ve seen him, like I told you. That’s him and if he’s in a place like this, then it’s for a reason. Maybe he’s coming to blow up the place, rob it blind, use it as a foothold to get access to the royal treasury.”

They keep on like that, debating Ed’s motivations. There are words Stede wants to say. He’s not a menace. He’s absolutely lovely. You all don’t know him.

He does not say them. He holds still, keeps his head down, sweeps up the hair without really seeing it.

The men speak. Stede sweeps. At some point, he becomes aware that, mixed in with the many different textures and colors of hair, there are long, coarse strands of gray and silver and black. Stede keeps quiet. He sweeps the floor. And, when he and the other men complete their task, he gathers up the piles of debris and loads them into bags to be taken to the incinerator.

It’s fine.

It’s all fine. Stede makes his way back to the barracks where he is, apparently, meant to wait. Again. Presumably, all that hard work that everyone always said comes with the military will start soon, but it seems like they’re waiting for people to get settled beforehand. Or they’re lazy. Or it was all bullshit from the get-go.

And Stede already caught up on his sleep in the brig on the way over here. His head aches, still, from the creeping cold of the metal bars that pressed against his cheek for hours. He can’t fall back asleep, so Stede rests in his top bunk and waits for Ed to come back.

There are a thousand things that have happened and Stede has not yet had the time or space to process a single moment of them. He probably should be focusing on the arrest, the loss of his crew, the question of who will be taking over now. Instead, his head is stuck like a skipping record on EdEdEd. Ed, Stede’s soulmate. Holy shit. Ed, Stede’s soulmate. For a flaring, staggering moment, Stede is hit again by shock that has ricocheted through decades of his life. He is 49 years old and he is 12 years old and Stede Bonnet has a soulmate. There is someone who was made for me! Stede’s heart is a set of butterfly wings. He is thinking about what it means to meet someone who is able to speak his language. How he had bonded with Ed so quickly, before he even knew that it was because they were made for each other.

And that’s. Hmm. There’s a difficult, thorny thought that is wrapped like a choking weed around this whole idea. Because Stede is 49 and also 12 and he remembers what he’d thought back then. A woman to fall in love with or a man to befriend. Someone to share life with. And then, that difficult, thorny thought: the memory of his crew. Lucius, with his effeminate gestures and high-pitched voice and penchant for illustrating male genitalia. Black Pete, with his joyful and passionate interest in Lucius, the way he trailed behind him in awe, happy to go along with anything Lucius started. Jim, with their insistence that they weren’t a man or a woman, were just Jim, just wanted to be treated for who they were without someone trying to come along and define just what box that fit into. Oluwande, who was best friends with Jim and followed them around in a desperate attempt to keep them safe and who might be soulmates with Jim and clearly loved them so much either way.

Ed is Stede’s soulmate, a woman to fall in love with or a man to befriend. Except, that’s not quite the way it’s been. Stede was drunk the other night, and he was thinking thoughts he never lets himself think, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t remember what those thoughts were. He remembers. He remembers the way that he stared through the spyglass for hours at Ed’s sleeping form on the beach. In a way that, looking back, was definitely in poor taste and probably shouldn’t have been something he did.

Or maybe, Ed would understand. Ed, his soulmate. A woman to fall in love with or a man to befriend. Except, the way that Lucius had kissed Black Pete after the fuckery, when he gifted the carved wooden finger. Except, the way that Jim was neither option and Oluwande was deeply in love with them anyway. Except, Mary, the woman Stede actually had married and raised children with and started a life with.

And Stede just wants to look at Ed, talk to him, pin him down to the ground and stare at him until this all starts to make sense. Because it can’t be what part of Stede is trying to scream it might be. Because Stede and Lucius are different. Because Stede and Jim are different. Because Stede is different and this isn’t that because it isn’t because it can’t be because-

And isn’t that a thought that Stede has been avoiding. A path that he cannot let his mind wander any further down. Anything is better than what he’s currently thinking.

Mary.

A woman to fall in love with or a man to befriend and Mary, the woman he had married and raised children with and started a life with. That terrible comment the man taking the role had made. Stede Bonnet. Wife, Mary Bonnet. Deceased.

Today is a day for remembering all of Stede’s horrible misdeeds, it seems. Chauncy Badminton arriving to charge him with the death of Nigel Badminton. A man that Stede did kill, whether or not that had been his intention. A man that no longer existed. And Chauncy, terrible teenager that he had been, was obviously upset by the loss of his brother. The brother that Stede had killed.

Nigel and Mary. Two of the people Stede has damaged the most. And the people tied to them, Chauncy and Louis and Alma. Stede can still remember with lancing clarity the pain of Mary’s comments at the dinner table, the way that they never connected over a single topic, the way their marriage was nothing more than a desiccated withered thing. Did that excuse his choice to leave? He’s removed himself as an influence over Alma and Louis, but what if it’s too late? What if he already did all the damage he could do and is now too far away to support and guide them as they go through the horrors of adolescence?

“Do they really think I’m dead,” he wonders aloud, because no one in this whole barracks has bothered to give him even a first glance, and he’s always thought better aloud. “Or did Mary report me dead out of spite?” It would be like her. Do the children know? Or do they think he’s dead? The bed rocks beneath Stede. Ed must be back from wherever they’ve sent him. “I wonder if they had a funeral. I mean, what would they bury? Would it be an empty-”

holyshit

The beard. That starlight beard. Stede leans over to share his thoughts with Ed but something is terribly wrong. It’s Ed’s face, but it’s more of Ed’s face than Stede has ever seen before in his life and there’s so much to take in. So that’s the shape of Ed’s mouth. That’s what his lips look like, how they move when he talks. Which he is doing. Talking. Stede can’t register a single word. The beard. The beard that smelled like beard oil and pipe smoke and leather and sweat. That soft, wonderful beard that had brushed against Stede’s face when he had been showing Ed how to dance, how to use the proper utensil, how to prepare for a party.

The beard is gone.

The beard is completely gone. Stede is on the top bunk, dangling above Captain Blackbeard except it can’t be that because he can’t be Blackbeard without the eponymous Black Beard. Stede brings himself down to Ed’s level. Needs to get closer. Needs to see the way that the muscles in Ed’s cheeks move when he speaks. Needs to not be above him. Needs to rewind time and break down the door before anyone dares to take a razor to Ed’s lovely beard.

Ed smiles. It’s not his usual smile. Not the smile where he bares his teeth at the world and throws himself into some ridiculous risk. Not the soft, crinkly-eyed smile that he only gets late at night, when he and Stede have been talking for hours and will probably keep talking for hours more, getting progressively more tired and slumped over on the loveseat, their legs tangled in the space between them.

This smile is. It’s sort of…flat. And stretched. But, also, peaceful? Stede doesn’t know how to get a read on this version of Ed, who keeps saying there is no escape plan, that he’s folding socks and that’s okay. That he isn’t even Blackbeard anymore. He doesn’t know how to read this Ed, with whole swathes of his face showing where they hadn’t before. Stede had learned how to read Ed through the eye crinkles and the movement of his beard. Is this how his smile has always looked, underneath it all? Or is something wrong? How are you supposed to tell, when people can just go around changing their appearance?

Stede’s feeling dizzy. It’s this and the soulmate and Mary and the children and Chauncy and the men in the corner of the barracks watching him sit on the bed next to Ed and Stede needs to get out.

He runs.

*~*~*

Ed’s having an amazing time. Things are so different here. How long has it been since he spent this much time on land? He keeps trying to adjust for the motion of the ship and stumbling over his feet instead. Ed’s so focused on where his center of gravity is that he’s only using a small part of his mind to listen while he’s asked to put together the laundry and bedding piles for new recruits. And then he keeps messing it up and having to start over and watch what everyone else is doing to make sure he’s getting it right. And the time flies. When was the last time Ed did something new? It’s a shame Stede didn’t get assigned to the task with him. They could learn it together.

Doesn’t matter, though. They’ll get assigned to the same ship. Ed’s going to make sure of it. They’ll have time, then, to learn all these new things, try them together, just like they’ve been doing from the moment they met.

When he gets back to the barracks, Stede is quiet and a little subdued. He’s laying on the top bunk and staring at the ceiling, muttering to himself. When Stede finally gets around to looking down at the bottom bunk, he definitely gets a little bit of a shock. Ed can’t blame the man. His face is freezing cold, and he keeps reaching up to adjust his beard automatically, or stroke it for dramatic effect, only to have his hand fall through thin air. It’s hard for Ed to adjust too.

Stede seems to be struggling to adjust to a lot of this, though. Not just the beard. He keeps talking about escape, about grand plans, about fake heads made out of facial hair. It’s all ridiculous and wonderful and exactly the reason why Ed is so fucking obsessed with him. This is why it’s all going to be worth it in the first place.

“We got caught, alright? There is no escape. Now it’s time to accept our fate,” Ed says. And the beast can’t get enough of it. Can’t get over the idea that it’s our fate. That they’re going to try something new, something together. Stede smiles, but it looks a little strained, and Ed can’t figure out how to fix it.

Wait. Shit. Ed’s not making assumptions based on Stede’s facial expressions and body language anymore.

Stede keeps talking. Keeps smiling. Keeps keeping up hope. It feels like there’s something else going on in his brain, but he won’t just say it and Ed is doing everything he can to stop trying to read into any of this. He’s not making assumptions anymore.

“Besides, it’s kind of comforting, really, once you wrap your mind around it” Ed says, still talking, trying to get Stede to realize just what a fucking incredible time this is going to be. “I mean, look at this! I’m folding stuff. And that’s okay.” Ed scoffs, mostly at the utter ridiculousness of the turn his life has taken, and partly in complete joy that he’s here, with Stede. That he keeps being allowed to be here, with Stede. “Who would have thought?”

Something shifts. Something weird. Ed’s not reading into subtext anymore, but that was definitely a blank space in the conversation, and Ed has learned the flow and rhythm of a conversation with Stede. It’s time for Stede to say something, but there is a stark silence and Stede’s not moving. Until suddenly he is moving, up and running toward the door out of the barracks.

Ed casts around, trying to figure out what it is that could be upsetting Stede right now. There are other men in the room, which Ed has given exactly zero fucks about until this moment. A few of them are gathered over in a corner. They are glancing towards Ed’s side of the room.

Nothing Blackbeard gives a shit about. Potentially something Stede gives a shit about.

Ed’s up off the bed with a shove and a snarl, the beast leaping to life in his chest and gnashing its teeth in the men’s direction. He’s over here trying to fucking do something, and it’s exactly none of their business. Ed reaches for the jewel encrusted knife at his belt, realizes it’s not there, decides that he can do this with his hands anyway.

A brief sound of impact. Ed glances back over his shoulder just soon enough to see Stede bump into someone on his way out a side door, away from this whole situation.

And, well, obviously Ed’s going to follow Stede. No fucking question. He’ll end these guys later.

Gotta protect the important bits.

*~*~*

Stede is sitting on the small hillock overlooking the beach for only a minute or so before Ed makes his way over as well. He sits close, bumping their knees into each other to get Stede’s attention before he ever says a word.

“The fake beards idea wasn’t bad,” he whispers, as if that’s anything to do with why Stede’s upset. And Stede is so, so grateful to be able to talk about this instead of everything else.

“Oh, come on. Stupid idea,” and then, because he’s always been terrible at shutting his mouth when someone actually takes the time to listen to him speak, “I’ve only got stupid ideas.”

“Oh, shut up,” Ed laughs, rocking in place to bump into Stede again. And Stede still has his knees right up to his chest, hands on top of them, wrapped up around the sparking and popping fire in his chest, but it feels like he can maybe let down his guard a little bit here. If it’s just Ed. If he’s going to leave the space for Stede to come around and decide that he actually does want to talk about some of the harder stuff.

And Ed, Edward, he looks lovely in this light, actually. He’s smiling, and it’s another one that Stede hasn’t seen before, but it’s so much warmer than the one over the socks in the barracks. Sideways and soft and warm and Stede thinks he could curl up inside that smile and build a home there, maybe, given enough time. And maybe everything isn’t so bad.

“How are you handling this so well?” Because he wants that too. He wants to know how to leave behind all the horrible things he’s done and focus instead on all the small joys of some new phase of life. He wants to forget about Nigel and Mary and Alma and Louis without having to bury his head so far in the snow that he can’t feel the devastating warmth of seeing Ed’s whole face at once when he smiles.

“I don’t know,” Ed slouches back, giving Stede’s inane question proper consideration. “It’s kind of nice just to take a load off. Just to, just to be Edward.” And he looks so settled, so peaceful, in this moment with the sea wind tangling in his hair, that Stede almost doesn’t register the horror of the next sentence. “I don’t know if I want to go back to the old days.” As if Ed could leave behind piracy. Leave behind his crew. Leave behind Blackbeard. But, no, it’s not quite that, is it? Ed lists off horrible things, endless drinking and torturing turtles and eating toes. If that’s the life he’s trying to leave behind, well, he’s already started doing that with Stede. They can leave that behind easily. Go back to co-captaincy.

“I suppose, what I’m saying is that, right now, I just want to do what makes Ed happy.”

In this safe, warm bubble Ed’s created for just this moment, Stede feels brave enough to ask the next question. “And what makes Ed happy?”

“These past few weeks have been…the most fun I’ve had in ages?” Impossible. “Years?” No one says these kinds of things about Stede. That can’t be what he’s referring to. “Maybe ever.” No, no, no stupid Baby Bonnet it’s not what you think it is. “So.” No. “So, I reckon, what makes Ed happy,” and he pauses again, as if Stede hasn’t hung his entire sanity on the end of this sentence, “is…you?”

Stede doesn’t see it coming, when Ed leans in for the kiss. He’s sitting there, on the beach. There’s sand stuck to his palms. And then, suddenly, there’s Ed. Ed, so close, grabbing hold of Stede’s shirt to pull him around in a kissable direction.

And its. It’s a short kiss. Barely a moment. Just a press of dry lips to Stede’s mouth. Stede doesn’t even move much. Because he doesn’t know what to do with this.

He’s kissed before. He and Mary, they kissed a great many times, over the decade or two that they were married. Stede knows the technical expectations. There should be some movement. Some softness. He can’t make himself focus. He can’t process what’s happening. He’s pretty sure he shouldn’t be thinking about his wife while this is happening. Or, maybe, he should be thinking about her a whole lot more than he is.

Ed is there, right there, right in Stede’s face. He’s exhaling through his nose while he kisses, and it’s brushing lightly across Stede’s cheeks. Because Ed is kissing him.

Stede is frozen. He can’t make himself move. He’s half snow.

This isn’t. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. This isn’t right. Why can’t he make himself move? Why isn’t he kissing back? Is he even supposed to kiss back? This is his soulmate. This is a man. This is Ed.

And maybe, maybe, if it’s Ed…

Ed pulls away. The kiss is over before Stede even has time to decide what he wants to do with it.

And he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know what any of this means, but he knows that Ed is looking at him from soclose and that he’s smiling again, that warm home of a smile, and Stede doesn’t know what to do with any of this, but he does know that

“You make Stede happy.”

#ofmd #our flag means death #blackbonnet #ofmd ed #edward teach #blackbeard #gentlebeard #stede bonnet #blackbeard x stede #stedward #edward x stede #ofmd fic #soulmate au #my writing #nettles

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fuh-saw-t · 1 year

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I haven't posted in a hot while, gosh—

Ask box is open for requests but, now that I've remembered this blog exists, let's discuss:

Easy Ways To Uplevel Your Writing

Writing is hard, sometimes, and it's easy to start a paragraph and feel like it sounds off. However, there are tiny, simple tricks you can employ to make your writing sound a little bit better.

1 - Sentence Structure

I could do a whole separate post on sentence structure, because it really does matter a lot when kept in mind. Diversifying sentence structure can allow your writing to flow easier, seem less repetitive, and to give off a more educated impression.

For example:

'She told me outright that I wasn't making any sense, despite my attempts to explain. What we were being sold was a lie, and I knew it. It was just hard to articulate, especially when I was confronted by such an orthodox believer. The conversation was worthless, as I was unable to get through to her.'

It sounds dry and repetitive. You could, alternatively, change it to something like:

'She cornered me on the sidewalk, a twitch in her eye, telling me outright that I wasn't making any sense. I tried my best to explain my beliefs, but her concrete mindset made it difficult for me to get through to her. What we were being sold was a lie. Our confrontation, inevitably, was worthless.'

None of my examples are bestseller-worthy but we don't do effort on this blog, alright? You can probably see the difference.

2 - Descriptions

This section is gonna be a two-bit ordeal. First, let's talk about placement.

Sometimes, it's simple to just say things are happening. It gets your point across, and sets the scene for anything happening after, therefore making it efficient. However, replacing kinds of 'blank' statement paragraphs with description can often do a much better job. It sets the scene with a lot more drama, builds a much more immerse setting, and can be used to develop plot-points and elements about your introduction a lot more than a 'blank' paragraph would.

Example 1:

Turning to:

'He closed the door to the garage. The door was shut, his keys jingling in his pocket. Steve sighed, a puff of condensed breath blowing from his mouth and disappearing into the night. It was another boring day where he would walk home through the cold streets of London and repeat the day at the crack of dawn. But there was a sense of dread within him that itched at his brain. Regardless of his repairs, he'd return to the dusty garage with his woodwork and soldering scratched and scuffed. The way the shadows appeared to contort when he squinted—they formed hands, late at night, which strenuously attempted to reach for him. Steve had attributed it all to sleep deprivation and forgetfulness. The scattering he would hear when the moon would reach its peak said otherwise, the ever-distant skittering reminding him of crawing spiders. But his denial kept him coming back day after day.'

These are some long examples, jeez. But you guys get the point. The latter is a bit more engaging, thought-provoking, and less matter-of-fact.

The next thing is to do with how vivid your descriptions are. I recommend to add movement into your descriptions—have things change or move as you describe them. Involve your character, especially if you're talking from a first person POV. Utilise metaphors, similies, personification and phonetics to create a clearer and engaging image of what you are describing.

Example 2:

'Washing between the rock and the shore, the water came in waves. Dancing in an elegant sway, greeting the sand and retreating to the sea, as the tides pulled at the water. Matilda played with the shells at her feet. She searched for which stones shone the brightest under the sun, finding one that rippled in colour like the reflections in the ocean.'

Again, not the best description that could ever be written, but it displays most of the points I mentioned. Though I will not be elaborating on all descriptive techniques used, this is an ask blog. I'll make a separate post on any topic relating to writing or the English language if prompted (or if I get bored).

3 - Play With Motifs and Themes

Having a set theme for what you're writing isn't essential, but setting out specific motifs, themes, and meanings within your writing can give it a very professional and intriguing edge.

Themes such as guilt can be shown through characters. Perhaps your main character is guilty about something, and that guilt fuels or prevents them from reaching their goals. That guilt ripples, infects others, and fuels the conflict in your story. Guilt becomes ever-present within the plot or subplots. This is just an example. Themes can be anything from death, mistrust, resurrection, or the main message you are trying to convey. A theme is a central topic, message, or idea that your work discusses within itself.

By identifying themes in your story, you can incorporate them into your writing subtly. It can create cohesiveness, and can show the clear understanding that the writer has of the purpose of their writing.

Motifs accompany or explain themes. They are reoccurring symbols, ideas, items, and imagery that relate to the core themes of your writing. Poems about love may include frequent imagery of flowers and natural settings. Stories that explore the inevitable—whether that be death, time travel, sickness, or something related to mental health—may have a time motif, where the descriptions of events and settings mention time, the current date, clocks, or the time of day.

Motifs are repeated, reoccurring ideas that tie in with your themes, characters, and plot. Taking into account themes and potential motifs throughout your work can uplevel your writing by infusing the key ideas of your writing in your characters and descriptions.

And it kind of makes you sound smarter, which in my opinion is a good chunk of the goal.

In my view, the best way to get better at writing is to practice and to understand. Research techniques and grammar, and experiment with then. Get other people's opinions (preferably friends) and make sure to rant your heart out about your ideas to further solidify them and to boost your ego. Ego is good, but don't overdo it. I have some horrendous stories on those who overdo it.

And, most importantly, your readers can tell if you're having fun. So have fun, or else.

#letsdiscuss #ask blog #writing #creative writing #writing advice #writing prompt #send asks #fiction writing #fantasy writing #fanfiction #writeblr

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dimiclaudeblaigan · 8 months

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it's so interesting for me to hear that houses localization changed the script to vilify(?word?) the church bc when i played the game (i recently finished my first and so far only playthrough in lions route) for the first half of the game i was waiting for the shoe to drop to reveal the church is the big bad guys but it never came and the revealed was actually ed. idk if it should have been obvious but i was too focused on suspecting the church to see it or if it was actually subtle as i tend to be oblivious to hints(¿word again?) given in media lol.

idk where im going with this but i hope it makes at least some sense bc i am so sleep deprived rn

and the thing tou said about Henry being changed i am so curious of that too

hope you have a nice day and better sleep than me!

I'll answer the last part first since the rest is more descriptive.

Basically Henry went to Wizard School (tee em) and it was a cool and great experience. In JP, it was... iirc basically close to torture/hellish? It was a more mature situation/topic, but the loc changed it to be silly and fun sounding. For some reason Treehouse in particular seems deeply if not fatally allergic to mature topics and/or properly handling them.

Thank for about the sleep comment and I assure you, I sleep too often!! I wish I could send you some of my sleep and make it extra quality for you. :(

As for Three Houses, yeah, in AM it doesn't really happen that way. Nobody is really vilified (not even the imperialist warmonger invading neutral lands!) in AM (same with AG in Hopes).

What you saw/understood was the whole point! It was made it look at first like the Church was suspicious, but then the reveal was meant to be no, it was a fellow house leader all along. That was what the red herring part about the Church was all about. You were supposed to suspect the Church at first, hence Jeralt's warnings, and if you're playing GD, Claude's suspicions.

Unfortunately what happens in the other routes, especially in CF, is that Rhea's trauma is never explored, no characters stop to understand her motivation, etc. She's just used as the resident bad guy because she's Edelgard's enemy. Basically, you're seeing it from the point of view that Rhea is bad because you see it from Edelgard's perspective... but it fails to work because the game, in particular the localization, amps Edelgard up as a huge progressive hero. AM is the only route that really confronts her about her "views", and even then, it's a mess because all the things she argues with Dimitri about aren't her end goal (i.e. they don't ever end up actually happening in the vast capacity she claims she's going to do).

About Edelgard:

The localization avoids any particularly negative comments about her and changes or outright removes them (true of Hopes as well). In Dimitri's case it would make sense because of their connection, but when it ends up just being another route in the pile of feeling sorry for Edelgard (and... not Rhea, who had her family massacred and their bones turned into weapons), it just feels stale.

They basically tell you Edelgard is very cute and easily embarrassed, and she's just this headstrong progressive woman fighting For The People (tee em). The truth is (as per the game itself, i.e. content they can't change/localized because it's the contents of the game itself) that she's invading innocent lands, conscripting her own citizens, turning her citizens into demonic beasts to add to her military strength (lelz when u can't even rely on ur nation's own military strength without demonic beasts), and victim blaming anyone who fights back (if you have yet to see the extremely infamous "no u" line from Edegard to Dimitri in CF, you've been blessed) among other things.

They basically shove it down your throat, characters and narrative both (in the loc in particular), that Edelgard is good and just, while the story itself is looking at all that like ???. The JP script still tries to take good care of her and her image, but they're a lot more blunt about her/her goals (i.e. they don't dance around them nearly as much).

The localization showers what she does with love and attention, and even when they have to say she's the problem/aggressor, they still pretty it up as much as possible (such as Dimitri wondering if maybe her vision of society could possibly be just and righteous, instead of outright admitting what she's done is absolutely atrocious when it's way worse than anything he ever did, all of which he admits to doing and takes responsibility for).

The JP version is more clear on her being the villain. There's definitely bias toward her (as the writers were, confirmed by an interview), but it doesn't slap you in the face with it nearly as badly. Also, Dimitri has won a character popularity poll every year since the game's inception in Japan. In the west, Edelgard is much more popular than she is in the east. That, of course, is because of the way the loc pushed the writing for her/about her.

Edelgard's "progressive" stuff is supposed to be just propaganda (which is ultimately, even as per the western endings because there's only so much they can change). The way the loc frames it is that it's actually what she's aiming for. It's what she uses to inspire people to fight for her though, not what she's actually doing.

About Rhea:

This one's the real doozy because it's a victim of the above. Since they wanted to pretty up Edelgard's dialogue and make her A Hero (tee em), they needed whoever her main enemy was to be the "villain". Since Edelgard, now popular because of the tweaks in her dialogue, hated and wanted to kill Rhea, so too did her raging fans who gave no fucks whatsoever about any character who opposed her... even if it was just to save their own life!

They changed the tone of Rhea's voice in the loc to make her more angry and villainous sounding, rather than sad or kind. She was basically altered in the loc to make Edelgard look better. Like, of course, in the perspective of playing a villain in CF, she's the bad guy and the enemy. The problem comes when they have Rhea say things that are more aggressive than in the original script, and change her tone to sound demeaning and vicious (when she was otherwise not or not as much).

But like, why? The only reason any of us can think of is because they wanted to market Edelgard more. This is likely a result of the west's views and especially political views, since Edelgard's pretty words would sound good to a westerner's political beliefs... until you dig into them/the actual story content more.

Rhea also being the head of a Church probably got tweaked because of the west's recent irl views on religion. Religion in the west has been looked poorly upon in recent years. Instead of accepting this is just a fictional game though, the loc team just... pushed that they're Really Bad.

Rhea is more of a victim of them needing someone to be worse than Edelgard to make Edelgard look like less of a villain (which again, this isn't the case in the original script nearly as much), and they couldn't use Thales/the Agarthans because you were allied with them in that route.

The other characters vs Rhea as a villain choice:

The goal wasn't to make a playable lord a villain in the loc's case. It was the intention of the original script with Edelgard, but the loc tried to make her actions sound more justified because ??? like idk, I can't wrap my head around them justifying what she does.

Dimitri isn't handled too badly by the narrative itself and he's overall seen as a good person (even the loc didn't alter that or Edelgard's ablest mentality toward a mentally unwell person), so he wasn't really a good candidate for all that. Also, Dimitri's story is one of recovery, and because they ventured into mental illness, he wasn't a good candidate. He was treated well and pretty fairly (Edelgard not treating him particularly well makes sense with her character, but the narrative itself doesn't push him as being a monstrous person. Even in the time he considers that he was, there's depth, logic and complexity to the situation).

Claude being the main bipoc character would have just been an all around disaster if the loc or even original script tried to make him the top villain, yadda yadda (understandably). There was no chance that was going to go over well, especially in the west (have you seen the shitstorm GW caused? And that was with the writing not considering him a villain!!). He was basically safe from the get go as far as villainy if they writers/localizers didn't want serious backlash (there are discussions about the overall treatment of poc characters in Houses/Hopes, but I can guarantee it would've been legit backlash if he was made to be a genuinely and intentionally horrible person, so that wasn't really an option if they wanted this game to actually sell and be enjoyed).

So since Rhea isn't playable and is the head of a Church, that kind of makes her the only candidate. Players will get attached to the other lords and not like killing them, so it won't feel like a badass victory to kill them. I guess for some reason the loc team just... hated Rhea or something?

Dimitri's death in CF is either extremely sad and garners audience sympathy, or in the other version of his death in CF it's clear his mentally stability is starting to break right before he's killed, which in and of itself is another topic. Claude is either free to go by choice of the player or can be killed, and his death is sad and he's not villainized. Aside from how some characters treat Claude's death (in contrast to Dimitri's which is never outright villainized even by Edelgard), the scene meant for the player at the time it happens is supposed to leave a bad taste in your mouth.

So again, it really just leaves the loc team with the option of Rhea if they want to make the final battle seem like a big victory for the player. VW also has its big happy victory, and surprise surprise, Rhea dies in that route (offscreen no less!).

SS kills off Rhea but actually makes it sad, and it's, you know, actually the route that focuses on her/the Church most. AM doesn't kill her off and doesn't treat any character death as a badass victory, and instead gives a bittersweet ending (which again would be in line with Dimitri's connection to Edelgard, and it only feels botched down because of all routes obsessing over her).

So while, technically, the writing in the JP script wasn't trying to make Rhea as bad as the western version of the game, if the loc wanted to go for that, she was the best option. It just... came at the expense of butchering her character to make Edelgard shine, which shouldn't have been done but it was.

#DCB Ask #sorry this got pretty long. my thoughts are kinda. all over the place a lot lol. and I'm bad with expressing my thoughts in few words #this might be a liiittle discoursey for anyone not interested in that stuff #which sadly the loc changes ARE part of what had a hand in the discourse so it's #unfortunately a bit unavoidable when discussing loc changes and whatnot #but also like... what is discourse at this point? ppl seem to think discourse is just #any negative comment ever about the game/loc? like. idk lol #not sure how the truth is discourse but at this point I think it's bc the game has been #such a problem overall in the west that any negativity around it whatsoever is viewed by most as discourse #like I could say I don't like xyz character and here's why and if it's a certain character in particular (of a few)#then it's automatically considered discourse and not just someone's opinion on a game's writing/story?#but really any negative thing ever about Edelgard is considered discourse because like... it's a fucking mess lol #and well we primarily have the loc to thank for that mess so... it's hard to avoid when discussing the loc #anyway here is my resident ASHNARD comment of the week #you can have a villain just like Edelgard - identical even (cough Ashnard) - and if you handle it right #there's no need for discourse bc everyone's on the same page about the character!#but thaaaat's not what happened here bc pretty lady step on me loc/writer mentality. :(

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voxofthevoid · 4 months

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Hello Vox! Is me, werewolf anon!! Hope you're doing good on this fine day/evening/whatever the time of day it is for you!

I have to admit that you being happy to see my ask is 100% reciprocated by me when you answer them. I too, wave my fist in the air!

I haven't read more of your JJK fics but I re-read some of your Stucky ones because they are my comfort fics and I needed a pick-me-up. BUT THAT BEING SAID I DO HAVE THE JJK MANGA OPEN IN MY TABS and hopefully soon it will open up the rest of your fics for me! Oh how exciting!

As for Mappa and Nanami, the absolute WHIPLASH of him baring his forearms/hair pulling/quiet and yet explosive rage/Daddy Daddy DADDY to THAT scene of him before Mahito takes him out...I was on my knees I tell ya. I honestly don't know how the animators didn't go feral as they drew those panels.

And ahhhhh don't get me started on Yuji this week. Omfg that precious bean leveled up. *cough cough* I made a silly Yuji edit but sadly I don't know how to share it with you because Tumblr won't let me add images to anon asks. 😭

Wish me luck on my manga binge! I'll try to remember to eat and sleep but I can't guarantee anything! 😂 And I hope you enjoy your extremely well earned break from writing! I'm sure all the fans are frothing for updates from you but you deserve down time just like anyone. Take care!

Welcome back!!

Won't lie, it's very lovely to hear that my stucky fics are comfort stories for you. That's high praise, seriously.

And I really hope you enjoy the manga! It's still trying to give me a heart attack on a weekly basis, and it's always a pleasure to drag more people into this particular hell 😌

I'm cracking up at your description, but it's accurate for sure. If it helps, Nanami continues to make me fucking insane. His death scene is still my favorite, and while I prefer the manga's handling of it over the anime, they did a beautiful job with his final smile as well as Yuuji's later remembrance.

I shouldn't get started on the Yuuji scene because I will not be coherent (if you hear howling in the wind, it's me), but that scene drove me insane in the manga, and the anime went above and fucking beyond. I keep saying it's orgasmic, and know what, I mean it. Yuuji's expression, the insanely good voice acting, the hunting sequence—fuck me, that's art.

(Brb eating glass.)

Ah, damn :/ I think you could upload it somewhere and send a link on anon, if you'd like to. I used to have submissions turned on, but after Tumblr made it impossible to send anon asks without a blog, some charming fellows started trying to use the submission feature to send me bullshit while circumventing anon block. And now it stays off.

Good luck, and stay hydrated! Or binge like a demon and emerge on the other side sleep-deprived and vaguely feral. I really can't judge because that's exactly what I did 😂 But the upcoming arc should give you plenty of natural break points; it's pretty different from the storyline so far.

And thank you, hon 💗

#anon #i love my anons #werewolf anon

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trainsinanime · 3 years

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So, for all the Miraculous Ladybug fans who are wondering about that new Zoé character, here is my theory:

Zoé’s last name is Zimmer. She was born in France but grew up in New Jersey. She’s a lesbian, though it took her a while to figure that out. And she’s friends with a teenage girl who is secretly a world-famous superhero: Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel.

[Image description: Comic panel: A girl with blond hair with a red streak dyed into it, telling someone off-screen: “I don’t… I don’t like boys, Josh. I never really have. But they’ve always liked me, so I just sort of… went with the program. I know I was super mean to you a lot when we were going out, but it wasn’t because I thought you were stupid. If anything, I was angry at myself.”]

(Source: Ms. Marvel (2015-2019) #9)

I’m not kidding. Zoe Zimmer (spelled without the accent) is a real Marvel comics character who very much looks like the new Zoé on Miraculous Ladybug - after the latest “Endgame”-style massive crossover shakeup changed her outlook on life anyway; before that, she’s more or less the same as Chloé.

[Image Description: A comics page, set in a New Jersey Bodega. Zoe comes in, without the red streak in her hair, and asks for her usual. The cashier, Bruno, tells her that this is not a Starbucks and she has to get her coffee herself. Zoe says, “God, I only buy stuff here to top you, because I’m concerned about your economic situation. You should be nice”. Other characters discuss an ongoing party. Then Zoe says to a girl who is wearing a hijab, “Your headscarf is so pretty, Kiki, I love that color”. The girl corrects her and says that her name is Nakia. Zoe ignores that and says, “But I mean… nobody pressured you to start wearing it, right? Your father or somebody? Nobody’s going to, like, honour kill you? I’m just concerned”]

(Source: Ms. Marvel (2014-2015) #1)

The current Ms Marvel comic is easily one of the best of its wave of new titles that came out around 2014; a wave that actually includes several of my all-time favourites, so it’s not like it got that title just handed to it. It’s set in Jersey City and follows Kamala Khan, a pakistani-american muslim teenage girl who can transform into the shapeshifting superhero Ms. Marvel.

In the comic, Zoe appears right from the start, in the page I showed above, and is essentially your standard Chloe, Coredelia Chase or Draco Malfoy character: Rich, arrogant, a bit antagonistic but mostly an annoyance. Her particular deal is that she acts superficially nice, but clearly does not care about the people around her at all, which makes her rather infuriating.

Then Marvel does the super annoying “super important crossover” that they do every five years or so, the kind of weirdly popular stupid shit that movie goers have finally had to endure as well with Endgame. Worlds get rearranged, mini-series get spawned, time gets skipped, Rose Rowell proves she can write Runaways, and we end up basically where we left off, just a few months later with some characters evolved a bit, and Zoe profited the most from that.

[Image description: A comic panel, set inside a crowded high school corridor. A narration box says, “Even Zoe Zimmer is different now. That whole thing with the world almost ending gave her some kind of existential crisis, and now she’s going this what-does-it-all-mean phase.” On the left, Nakia from before is walking, saying, “Morning sleepyhead! Zoe brought caffeine!” In the middle, Zoe is walking, now with red and light blue streaks in her hair and carrying two cups of coffee, saying, “Are you going to gym class? I’m thinking of coming down with sudden flu-like symptoms…”. On the right and in the foreground, a sleep-deprived Kamala Khan is saying “Buhh…”. A final narration box says, “What can I say? It’s like we’re all growing up”]

(Source: Ms. Marvel (2015-2019) #1)

She is now actually nice, making an effort to understand the people around her and, as I said initially, to actually understand herself. And she’s got a red streak in her hair. Initially it’s light blue and red, presumably to honour Ms Marvel, whose color scheme is blue, red and gold - yes, just like Captain Marvel, that’s by design. The artists very quickly settled on only red, though, which means… well, she looks like the new Zoé in Miraculous Ladybug.

And yes, she does get to be a superhero, although in that case that mostly means her and her friends dressing up like Ms. Marvel on their own, with no super-powers.

[Image Description: Comic panel: Zoe, somewhat banged up, wearing a blue mask over her eyes and a long blue shirt with red and yellow details, matching Ms. Marvel’s outfit in this comic. She’s saying, “I’m… s-still here… unless heck looks j-just like Jersey City…”]

(Source: Ms. Marvel (2015-2019) #27)

All in all, it seems like nearly the exact same thing as the new Zoé character in Miraculous Ladybug, just perhaps two years older. Is that just a coincidence?

…yeah, probably. It’s honestly not that creative; both Zoes seem to be the result of similar character archetypes, and Zoe Zimmer isn’t even the only of her kind in Marvel comics. There is a lot of overlap with Karolina Dean, for example, even though Karolina is incredibly good-hearted. At the end of the day, neither Ms. Marvel nor Miraculous Ladybug invented truly new concepts; what makes them unique and fun are the details they add to their well-known frameworks. I’m posting all this only because I think the coincidence is funny and interesting.

Anyway, if you’re into american comics, or want to be, then I can strongly recommend Ms. Marvel (specifically the runs written by G. Willow Wilson). A TV show for Disney+ is also in the works.

And if it turns out that this new Zoé actually is from New Jersey, then I want it known that I friggin’ called it.

#miraculous ladybug #zoe #ms marvel #zoe zimmer #vesperia #mlb meta

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the-ethereal-serpent · 4 years

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Shadow People

☽⦁──────── ⦁⧊⦁ ────────⦁☾

A shadow person (also known as a shadow figure, shadow being or black mass) is the perception of a patch of shadow as a living, humanoid figure, and, interpreted as the presence of a spirit or other entity by believers in the paranormal or supernatural.

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Paranormal Veiwpoints

Shadow people are dark figures associated with nighttime visitations and some haunted places. Shadow people appear as solid black figures who are darker than darkness. Most appear to be male; some wear coats and hats.

They are usually six-and-a-half feet in height. They have substance and form and can interrupt light and block objects from view. Shadow people rarely communicate, but many seem intensely interested in human beings.

Shadow people fall into several categories :

Bedroom Watchers

These figures are discovered standing by a bedside or in a corner of the room when a person awakens in the night. They seem to stare at people in bed, even though they have no visible eyes or facial features. Most do not behave in a threatening manner, though their presence is often terrifying.

They can remain for long periods of time and when observed, disappear suddenly or melt through walls and ceilings. Some act aggressively toward people, causing choking sensations similar to the Old Hag.

Shadows On Walls

These figures appear suddenly as dark human outlines on walls, which detach from walls and move about rooms.

Moving Shadows

These figures appear abruptly and move quickly through a room, as though on a mission. They come through walls and melt into walls. They may seem to pay no attention to people present or else watch them intensely. They may be seen out of the corners of the eyes or in full view.

Background Visitors

These figures usually are not seen, but are captured in photographs. They appear in backgrounds, their forms noticeable on walls, doors, and so forth.

Haunting Presences

These figures appear in places known or thought to be haunted. They move about, act with intelligence, and appear and disappear suddenly. They may follow people. In some cases, shadow people are associated with bad luck

Video : The Truth About Shadow People : https://youtu.be/Yw6yl4nb0_0

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The Hat Man

The Hat Man appears much in the same way that Shadow People do, but unlike the phenomena that was made popular by Art Bell and Thunder Strikes, the Hat Man encounters bear a few striking differences that set it apart. When he appears, often during the night, the Hat Man is always seen wearing a wide-brimmed hat, and though most people are unable to make out any distinct facial features, he is usually described as a solid black mass. Witnesses are often unable to describe the Hat Man’s lower body, as if he seems to float silently above the ground.

The phenomena seems to center around basements and, according to the experiencers, appears to manifest in situations of intense negativity and family disfunction. In fact, many times if one person in a household has started experiencing visits by the Hat Man, it’s almost guaranteed that another family member will begin seeing the strange shadow man soon afterwards.

Video : The Truth About The Hat Ma : https://youtu.be/lLzaFhFHL2c

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Other Speculations

However, shadow people cannot be equated with the old hag syndrome. An explanation favored by some researchers is that shadow people are interdimensional beings. They find ways into the physical world and seem to have the purpose — unknown—of observing humans. They may show up as bedroom visitors because the nature of human sleeping or dreaming consciousness enables an entry for them.

Their appearance may be a form they deliberately assume, or it may be the only way they can manifest in the physical realm. Many experiencers feel shadow people are a type of nasty spirit, even a deamon, because they sense evil or trickery radiating from them. Almost all experiencers are deeply frightened of shadow people, even though they are not harmed by them.

Shadow people are sometimes associated with turbulent emotions. For example, many people who have had significant shadow people experiences can link them to states of emotional upheavals, such as anger, sadness, loneliness, and so forth.

Other people may be psychically open in such a way as to perceive shadow people more easily than others. Some haunted places where shadow people are prevalent, such as the Waverly Hills Sanitorium where thousands of people died, may be permeated with thought-forms of negative emotions.

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Scientific Viewpoints

Several physiological and psychological conditions can account for reported experiences of shadowy shapes seeming alive. A sleep paralysis sufferer may perceive a "shadowy or indistinct shape" approaching them when they lie awake paralyzed and become increasingly alarmed. A person experiencing heightened emotion, such as while walking alone on a dark night, may incorrectly perceive a patch of shadow as an attacker.

Many methamphetamine addicts report the appearance of "shadow people" after prolonged periods of sleep deprivation. Psychiatrist Jack Potts suggests that methamphetamine usage adds a "conspiratorial component" to the sleep deprivation hallucinations.

One interviewed subject said that "You don't see shadow dogs or shadow birds or shadow cars. You see shadow people. Standing in doorways, walking behind you, coming at you on the sidewalk."These hallucinations have been directly compared to the paranormal entities described in folklore.

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Sleep Paralysis

Sleep paralysis is when, during waking up or falling asleep, a person is aware but unable to move or speak. During an episode, one may hallucinate (hear, feel, or see things that are not there), which often results in fear. Episodes generally last less than a couple of minutes. It may occur as a single episode or be recurrent.

The condition may occur in those who are otherwise healthy or those with narcolepsy, or it may run in families as a result of specific genetic changes. The condition can be triggered by sleep deprivation, psychological stress, or abnormal sleep cycles. The underlying mechanism is believed to involve a dysfunction in REM sleep. Diagnosis is based on a person's description. Other conditions that can present similarly include narcolepsy, atonic seizure, and hypokalemic periodic paralysis.

Between 8% and 50% of people experience sleep paralysis at some time. About 5% of people have regular episodes. Males and females are affected equally. Sleep paralysis has been described throughout history. It is believed to have played a role in the creation of stories about alien abduction and other paranormal events.

Video : Scary Sleep Paralysis Stories : https://youtu.be/kBPS6RgHrAw

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Article Sources :

https://occult-world.com/shadow-people/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_person http://weekinweird.com/2016/08/31/investigating-the-link-between-the-shadow-man-phenomenon-and-the-terrifying-hat-man/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

Image Source : https://pin.it/1JjVkwL

Note : I do not claim any of the text or images to be mine. I am simply sharing information for the purpose of learning. I have listed the sources.

#Paranormal #Supernatural #Ghosts #Demons #Shadow people #Shadow creatures #Sleep paralysis #Hallucinations #The hat man #Wicca #Wiccan #Witchcraft #Witchblr #Witch #Pagan #Paganism

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the-sympathetic-villain · 4 years

Text

The Stowaway’s Heart - Chapter 5

AO3 | Previous | Next | Masterpost

Description: Virgil is rescued by selkies after being abandoned at sea and brought back to their pod to recover. Virgil’s poor, gay heart may just explode from how attractive they all are.

Word Count: 4615

Chapter Warnings: Play fighting, Sexual Tension/Innuendo (Mostly just heavy handed flirting), Overstimulation, Anxiety, Embarrassment, Swearing (Let me know if I need to add anything!)

Virgil curled comfortably into himself as he gently woke from his long sleep. He couldn’t remember the last time he'd slept so peacefully. Gently stretching his arm out, he hummed with pleasure at the soft blankets beneath him. He ran his finger across the silky, smooth fabric enjoying the way his hand glided across the top of the bed.

Maybe, I'll even lighten the dark circles under my eyes.

Virgil snorted to himself.

Unlikely.

One good night’s sleep wasn't likely to make a dent in his years of sleep deprivation, but one could hope it may lighten it's affect. He gently rolled forward on to his stomach, stretching hi arm out over the edge of the bed. His mind drifted as sleep pulled at his body. Exhaustion threatened to claim him once more when he felt an arm wrap tighter around his waist.

Wait.

Adrenaline jolted him awake and his eyes shot open. He forced himself to move slowly, carefully tilting his head to look over his shoulder. The sight of Logan’s golden, brown hair buried in his shoulder eased his escalating anxiety. His relief was short-lived as confusion settled over him. Brow furrowed, he stared back at Logan trying to remember how he'd come to be here only to up blank. His gaze drifted down, locking on to the pelt draped over Logan's shoulders. The soft fur covered most of Logan’s upper body and the edges extended over Virgil’s side, draped over where Logan’s arm wrapped tightly around his waist.

That’s why I slept so well.

He tried to swallow down his guilt, but it seemed to wedge in his throat. The memories of the evening before came rushing back. Images of Logan’s terrified expression flashed through his mind as regret burned the images into his mind Sucking in a deep breath, he squirmed in in Logan’s arms, trying to wedge himself out of Logan’s tight grip.

I can’t do this.

I can't hurt him—

“What are you doing?”

His panicked thoughts were quickly interrupted by Logan's tired voice behind him. Virgil gasped in surprise at Logan's voice. His melodic voice was deeper than usual as he woke from slumber. The sultry sound sent shivers up the back of his neck and he barely managed to mutter a response.

“Escaping.”

Silence hung between them for a moment as Virgil continued to squirm in Logan’s grip. After a long moment, Logan’s lazy voice came again. “And where, pray-tell, do you plan to escape to?”

“The ground seems like the place to be right now.”

“Why is that, love?”

Virgil gritted his teeth and his chest ached with emptiness. “Because—because I can't hurt you there.”

“Ah,” The soft exclamation gave Virgil pause. He heard sadness in Logan’s voice and guilt welled in his chest. “So, dear one. Your hypothesis is that by getting to the ground, you will avoid hurting me?”

“Yes.” Logan shifted next too him and Virgil felt the edges of his pelt brush against the skin on his arms. “I can't do that again—”

“And you’re sure this hypothesis is the one you wish to test?”

“Yes.”

“Very well, Virgil.”

Virgil squeaked as Logan lifted his arm from Virgil’s waist and the momentum of his squirming sent him tumbling forward over the edge of the bed. He landed with a groan on the stone floor below.

“What the h—”

“I think your theory is null, love.” Logan leaned over the edge of the bed with a smug smile. “Besides being slightly more entertained, I do not feel any different than before.”

Virgil groaned as he sat up, scowling at his supposed soulmate. “You’re a jerk, Logan.”

“Perhaps,” Logan crossed his arms on the edge of the bed, leaning his chin down on top of his arms with a sickeningly innocent smile. “but I think that makes us even.”

Virgil looked up at him with a confused expression. “Even?”

“You feel guilty for grabbing my pelt without express permission,” Logan chuckled smugly. “and I dropped you off the side of the bed. I believe that to be fair recompense for your trespasses, Virgil.”

Virgil straightened nervously, hanging his head. “I think what I did was worse, Lo.”

“What you did was purely accidental and you quickly rectified your mistake.” Logan’s eye flashed devilishly down at him. “What I did was intentional and I have no intention of apologizing, therefore my actions are at least equally reprehensible, if not more so than yours.”

Cocky bastard.

Virgil raised an eyebrow at him. “Is this your way of trying to make me feel better?”

“Is it working?”

“Unfortunately.” Virgil smirked up at him from the ground, before softening his tone. “You’re really not upset about what happened?”

“Not in the slightest, love.” Logan smiled down at him from the bed. “Now, will you please join me up here again?”

“Most men at least offer to buy me dinner before asking me to jump into bed with them.” Virgil glanced up at him with a challenge in his eyes.

The smile that spread across Logan’s face sent chills down up his spine. He nearly squealed as Logan leaped gracefully off the bed a strutted towards him. He scrambled back a few feet before his hand slipped and he landed on his back.

Fuck.

Logan's grin widened as he slowed his approach. Virgil gulped as Logan kneeled next to him. Before Virgil could even process what happening, Logan leaned a hand on each of his elbows, effectively pinning him to the ground. Virgil squirmed uselessly against Logan's weight, freezing as he leaned over him. Logan breathed on his neck with a teasing whisper.

“Oh, honey,” Logan chuckled as Virgil’s breath became ragged beneath him. “You are going to have to work much harder than that if you want to fluster me.”

“You motherf—” Virgil growled as Logan pulled away.

“Now, now, Virgil.” Logan chided, biting his lip as he teasingly raised an eyebrow at him. “You'll have to learn to watch that mouth, if you want to stay. I won't have you teaching Patton any new swear words.”

“S-stay?” Virgil pushed himself upright.

“That is what you want.” Logan extended a hand down to him. “Right, Virgil?”

Virgil looked up at him in confusion. “But Roman saw me take your pelt—”

“He also saw you give it back, love,” Logan held his hand out expectedly until Virgil finally reached up and Logan grasped him. He pulled Virgil to his feet in one swift motion. “He has agreed to allow you a place here, Virgil.”

Virgil eyed him tentatively before giving in to Logan’s persuasiveness. “What do I have to do?”

Logan’s usually icy gaze burned with determination. “You simply have to be willing to learn about our way of life and be capable of coming into contact with our pelts without being overwhelmed.”

“Logan—” Virgil eyes widened at the suggestion and he shrunk back, leaning back against the wall. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“No one is getting hurt, love,” Logan frowned as Virgil hung his head, avoiding eye contact. He stepped toward Virgil with a serious stare. “including you.”

“I know—” Virgil blushed, looking nervous.

“Virgil, look at me.”

Virgil blinked slowly. His muscles ached with tension as he hesitantly looked up at Logan. He paused, stunned by the soft concern in Logan’s eyes.

“I am sorry about the fear and guilt I caused you. My actions were negligent and you suffered as direct result of them.” Virgil opened his mouth to protest, but Logan quickly held up a finger to silence him. Once Virgil settled back, Logan smiled gently down at him. “I knew the temptation of what I was holding so close to you, Virgil. I scared you far more than you scared me and for that, I apologize.”

Virgil stared up at him, mouth agape as he struggled to find his words. “I don't know, Logan.”

“Virgil, come here.” Logan gently guided him back to the bed and dragged Virgil down to sit with him. He pulled his pelt from off his shoulders, hushing Virgil as he squirmed uncomfortably in front of him. “Do not stress, dear one. I do not expect you to touch it until you are comfortable doing so. You set the pace for what happens. Okay?”

Virgil hesitated for a moment before reluctantly nodding.

Logan smiled as Virgil seemed to relax slightly, staring down at the spotted fur in his hands. “Contrary to most human's knowledge, a selkie’s pelt is much more than a tool for us to be able to change forms at will. My pelt is a part of me as much my body or my mind.”

Virgil nodded along nervously. His hands instinctively clenched around the fabric of his pants to keep them from wandering.

“Part of my soul resides in my pelt, Virgil.” Logan sighed tiredly. “Without it, I am incomplete. When it has been taken by force, I was hardly present in my own body.”

“Isn't that more of a reason for me not to touch it?” Virgil’s voice was breathless with defeat as he turned his head up to look at Logan.

“No,” Virgil’s whisper had caught Logan off guard, but he kept his expression firm. “I trust you, love, and that makes all the difference.”

Virgil stared at him blankly. “How?”

“My emotions have a huge impact on how the pelt calls to me.” Logan frowned, biting his lip. “Earlier, when you picked up my pelt, I panicked.”

“I'm sorry—”

“Your apology has already been accepted,” Logan smiled weakly at him. “and it is not your fault my reaction was so strong. I have—I have had my pelt stolen before, Virgil, and simply the idea of it happening again triggered an unfortunate response.”

Virgil’s heart broke as he watched Logan shift anxiously in front of him. He slowly unclenched his fist and reached a hand out to rest on Logan’s leg, careful not to even brush the pelt in Logan’s hands. His heart fluttered warmly as Logan smiled at him appreciatively.

“I am sure I will share more of the details with you at some point,” Logan paused, looking up at Virgil. “I was scared and my pelt could sense that I had not given it to you willingly, so it called to me. My willpower had begun to drain away and I would have had no choice but to have followed your orders should you have given one.”

“I wouldn't have—” Virgil’s hand instinctively tensed on Logan’s leg.

“I know, Virgil.” Logan smiled at him. “You see, a selkie’s pelt is sensitive to intention, even more so to yours because our souls share a connection. You told me to take my pelt from you—”

“I—” Virgil sucked in a breath and pulled his hand back like he'd been slapped. His voice was broken as he managed a small whisper. “I did give you an order—"

“No, love. You never ordered me to do anything.” Virgil tried to move away, but Logan quickly set aside his pelt and gently grabbed Virgil’s wrist. Virgil froze, clenching his eyes shut with guilt. “Virgil, the second those words left your mouth, the trance was broken and it should not have been.”

Virgil paused, staring down at Logan’s hand around his wrist.

“My trance should not have broken until my pelt was back in my hands,” Logan leaned forward, gently using a curled finger lift Virgil’s chin up to look at him. “but even in your panic, you couldn’t muster the intent to force me to relieve your fear.”

“I—” Virgil started to pull back, but Logan moved his hand to his cheek and Virgil stopped in his tracks.

“Virgil, I trust you.”

Virgil turned a hesitant look up at Logan and his eyes darkened with guilt. “I don't want to take the risk of hurting you, Lo.”

Logan’s smile softened and he let his hand slip from Virgil’s wrist to his hand. “Would you take the risk to make my life better?”

“What?”

Logan smiled. “I want to show you my home and I want you to meet the other members of my pod. I cannot truly share my life with you if you are confined here, love.”

Virgil looked up and down at him with reluctance in his eyes before sighing dramatically. “Tell me what to do.”

Smiling patiently, Logan dropped his hand and reached his pelt, sliding it over his lap. “Hold out your hands, Virgil."

Virgil eyed him nervously for a moment before extending his hands out in front of him. The dirt on his fingers made him cringe in embarrassment but Logan seemed unaware as he lifted the pelt to hand it over to him.

Logan held the fur gently above Virgil’s hands with an excited grin. “My pelt is a living part of me and shares the soul connection I have with you. I should warn you that while this should not be overwhelming like last time, but it still may be intense for you.”

Virgil nodded nervously, closing his eyes as the pelt was lowered into his hands. He flinched as the soft fur came into contact with his hands, shooting pulses radiating through his body like lightning in the sky. He gasped, feeling a sense of comfort wash over him. Logan grasped his hands underneath the pelt, grounding him.

Suddenly, his mind felt clearer than it had in years. Nervousness gave way to peace as the effects of years of hypervigilance melted away. He glanced up at Logan only to see him staring at him an intensity he finally felt he could match. An uncharacteristic confidence flared in his stomach and he suddenly leaned forward, dropping his hands from the pelt.

He leaned forward, his lips stifled the surprised squeak that escaped Logan’s mouth as he toppled backwards. The corner of his lips twitched into a smile as he pinned Logan’s shoulders down to the bed. As his initial shock faded, Logan's tension ease his soft lips kissed him back. After a moment, he gently pulled back.

Virgil smirked down at him. “You're not so hard to fluster.”

Logan seemed to ponder for a moment before sighing with exaggerated disinterest. His eyes gleamed playfully. “Not so bad, love, but do not think you have bested me. You are still playing out of your league.”

“What?!” Virgil stared down at him with shock in his eyes. “You’re still blushing. You don't get to claim the upper hand here.”

“Would you be willing to make a wager on that?”

Irritation burned in Virgil’s stomach as he stared down at Logan's relaxed smile. Riding the wave of confidence from Logan’s pelt, he smirked down at the egotistical selkie. “What kind of bet are we talking?”

“If I cannot turn the tables on you by the time you count to thirty, I will concede to your claim of having the upper hand and admit your superiority.”

Virgil looked down at him suspiciously. “And if I lose?”

“Seeing you turn red and flustered is prize enough for me.”

“You’re a cocky bastard.”

“Do we have a deal?”

Virgil flexed his fingers on Logan’s shoulders. “Do I have to let you up?”

Infuriatingly, Logan closed his eyes and shrugged. “I think it will be more satisfying if you do not release me, but it is up to you.”

Virgil stared down at him suspiciously for a long time. “Fine, deal.”

Logan was silent for a moment and Virgil’s skin crawled with anticipation as Logan didn’t even open his eyes. His grip slackened as he watched Logan nervously.

“When does your time start?”

“I have twenty-one seconds left.”

Virgil’s muscles tensed in confusion. “You’re not doing anything.”

“I do not require the full thirty seconds.” Logan smiled smugly.

“What are you—” Adrenaline shot through Virgil’s body as an evil smile curled on Logan’s lips. He tensed, nearly drawing back before a few calm words slipped from Logan’s mouth.

“Remus, dear. I am so glad you could join us.”

Virgil smiled. “Nice try, but I'm not falling for th—"

“Oh, Lolo. If you were going to put on a show, you could have at least given me a better view.”

Virgil’s blood froze.

Fuck.

He spun around off of Logan, cheeks burning as his eyes locked on the man leaning against the bars across the room. The short man twirled his dark mustache staring at him with a dangerous smile. Virgil gulped, scooting back.

Fuck me.

The man was dripping wet, wearing nothing but a pair of trousers and a dark brown pelt around his shoulders. His body was tan and Virgil could see his toned muscles from all the way from all the way across the room. Virgil pulled the hood of his cloak over his head to hide the shame on his cheeks. Logan curled upright, turning to face Virgil. He reached a hand to Virgil’s cheek. The coolness of his fingertips sent shivers down his body and he whimpered.

“I think I won, love,” Logan smiled gently. “Do you still want to meet him?”

Virgil looked up at him, hands unclenching from his hood. “It's a little late to back out now.”

“You always have a choice, Virgil.” Logan whispered. “I failed to give you proper notice. There is no shame in not being ready.”

“Notice would have been nice.”

“I intended to warn you, but I did not anticipate him arriving so soon.” Logan’s thumb brushed lightly across his cheek.

“Awww, Logan,” Remus drawled dramatically. “You called for me. Open the door.”

“I may have called for you, but I expected you to have the common sense to dress yourself before coming.” Virgil watched as Logan rolled his eyes with a smirk. “As far as I am concerned, you deserve to wait.”

“You could have been in danger, Lolo.” Remus whined pitifully.

Virgil curiously leaned around Logan’s shoulder to catch a glance at the man lazily pouting at them between the metal bars. He shrunk back as the man wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at him. His heart pounded in his chest and he forced himself to take deep breaths.

Logan seemed unfazed. “Your feigned innocence falls flat, Re. You did this on purpose.”

Remus giggled. “I wanted to make an authentic impression.”

Logan rolled his eyes before turning back to Virgil’s nervous expression. “I will send him away, Virgil. This can wait until your ready.”

Remus groaned dramatically as Logan turned to move towards the wall of bars.

“Logan…” Virgil whispered quietly. “It's okay.”

Logan turned back with a quizzical glance. “What do you mean, Virgil?”

“You can let him in, Lo.” Virgil smiled nervously. “I want to meet him.”

“You are sure?” Logan asked patiently. “There is no pressure to do this today.”

“I'm sure, Logan.”

Logan glanced over a Remus, noticing the smugly satisfied grin on his face and turned a devilish smile back to Virgil. “Still, I quite enjoy the thought of making him wait.”

“Lolo…” Remus whined dramatically.

Virgil chuckled, matching Logan’s evil grin. “Well, I wouldn’t dream of ruining your fun.”

“Good.” Logan made to move back to the bed, before Remus’ groan interrupted him.

“Oh, come on,” Remus cooed from the bars. “Don't tease me.”

Plopping down on the bed, Logan sprawled himself out comfortably, laying his head in Virgil’s lap. “You attempted to fluster our poor guest. You asked for this, Re.”

“You're being a bit hypocritical. Aren't you, Lolo?” Remus called over, his voice taking on an edge of sarcasm. “From what you've told me, you've done nothing but tease your ‘poor guest'.”

Virgil had to stop himself from giggling at the strange selkie's sarcastic air quotes, but he quickly looked away as he locked eyes with the Remus, who was now raising an eyebrow and smiling at him.

Logan didn't even open his eyes as he smirked. “You forget one thing, Re.”

“And what is that, Lolo?”

“I do what I want,” Logan dragged out the words, savoring the moment. “And no one can stop me.”

“Is that so?” Virgil looked up to see Remus was apparently unfazed by Logan's snark.

“Undoubtedly.”

“You know, Lolo. This was meant to be a different type of surprise, but Jan taught me a new trick.”

Logan tensed in his lap as Remus fell silent and Virgil looked down to see suspicion in his eyes. “What kind of trick, Re?”

Remus giggled and Virgil looked up at the sound of metal creaking. He looked up just in time to see the door swing open. “I can pick locks now, Lolo.”

Virgil flinched back as Logan rolled off his lap and only managed to catch a blur of skin as Remus rushed past him. He scrambled off the bed just in time not to get out of the way as Logan tried to evade Remus' grip.

Logan groaned as he protested. “You are soaking wet, Re.”

Remus giggled. “Well, you should have thought of that before you decided to be a jerk.”

“Virgil has to sleep here. You are aware of that, right?”

“I'm sure you’ll find a way of keeping him warm.”

Virgil nearly gasped out loud as they tumbled off the bed and onto the floor, but even that they seemed to do gracefully. He stared in awe at the men wrestling in front of him. Finally, Logan seemed to get a grip on Remus, holding him in a loose headlock as he pulled him to his feet.

“Now, cease.” Logan muttered. “Lest you make your bad first impression worse.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. He's enjoying watching.” Remus wiggled his eyebrows at Virgil knowingly. “Just look at the way he’s blushing.”

Virgil's heart felt like it stopped as Logan turned his gaze to him. Instinctively, he shrunk back even deeper into cloak, his cheeks burning.

Logan rolled his eyes, keeping his voice neutral even as he barely bothered to conceal the smirk on his lips. “Regardless, are you ready to behave yourself?”

“Never.” Remus giggled.

“Fine, we will be leaving then.” Logan said matter-of-factly before dragging Remus towards the door.

“Wait—” Remus babbled, squirming in Logan’s grip. “Wait—You win. Let me go, Lolo.”

“Are you going to be reasonable, if I let you go?”

“I'll be as amicable as a newborn baby—”

“Newborns are not—”

“Lolo, just let me go. I'll be good.” Remus squirmed more vehemently.

“Fine—” Logan rolled his eyes, releasing his grip on Remus.

Free of Logan’s grip, Remus lunged forward at Virgil, who startled back into the wall behind him. Logan rushed to grab him, nearly crashing into Remus as he abruptly stopped in front of Virgil.

Virgil nervously pressed his back into wall as Remus bowed dramatically in front of him. With a playful smirk, he extended a hand out to Virgil. “The name is Remus.”

Virgil anxiously looked between Remus and Logan who had straightened up behind him. He hesitantly reached out to take Remus' hand. “Virgil—"

“But first—” Remus yanked his hand away before Virgil could grab his hand.

Virgil glanced up at him and froze. A shiver crept up Virgil’s spine as all warmness disappeared from Remus' face and he sneered dangerously as he leaned in close to Virgil’s face.

“Let's be clear about something,” Remus’ melodic voice echoed hauntingly and Virgil's skin crawled with the urge to get further away. “If you hurt him, I will disembowel you and scatter all of your organs in the bay for the sharks to feed on. Got it?”

“Re—” Logan rested his forehead in his palm, shaking his head in exasperation.

Virgil turned his head from Logan, looking down at Remus with a serious expression. “I won't hurt him.”

“Good.” A smile twitched at the corner of Remus' and he laughed. He extended his hand out to Virgil once more as his dark demeanor disappeared, replaced by a genuine smile. “Welcome to the family, Virgil.”

Fuck, he's pretty.

Virgil forced himself not to stare as his damp, curls bounced along with his animated movements. His breath caught at the sight of his piercing emerald-green eyes and he couldn’t help but follow the water droplets as they trailed down Remus' body—

Fucking. Focus. Virgil.

You have a soulmate now.

“Th-thanks.” Virgil reached a hand out to Remus. Remus clasped his hand and he gasped. A jolt of tingling shot up his arm and his knees went weak. Remus dropped his hand and he leaned back against the wall, shaking.

Fuck.

Shit.

What the fuck.

“Well, I didn't see that coming.”

Virgil looked up at Remus' shocked voice. Virgil’s breath was rapid and uneven, but Remus just stared at him in confusion.

Logan stepped forward curiously, looking between them with wide eyes. “Re?”

Remus moved towards Logan, still staring intently at Virgil like he'd suddenly grown two heads. For the first time since they'd met, Remus seemed speechless.

Anxious with anticipation, Logan wrapped a hand around Remus' waist. “Remus, is he—”

“Yeah, he is.” Remus cut him off, sounding breathless.

Both of them turned to look at Virgil, who was now shaking with disbelief.

I don't have one soulmate.

I have two.

“Virgil?”

Virgil looked up at Logan’s voice, barely registering his name. His vision blurred as he tried to focus on Logan and Remus. His balance seemed to fail and he stumbled. The ground seemed to suddenly move closer but strong hands caught him before he made impact. He groaned as he was curled up and lifted away, breath stalling in his lungs.

Virgil finally sucked in breath as he was lowered onto to bed. Arms were still wrapped around him as he clumsily wiped away the tears trailing down his face. “I'm sorry—”

“Love, never apologize for having feelings.”

Logan’s voice in his ear relaxed him slightly. The cool touch of the hands around him grounded him and he felt himself calming as he listened to the breathing next to him. He flinched as a hand brushed his own, his skin tingling intensely. The hand pulled back and Virgil opened his eyes, blearily looking up at Remus' guilty expression.

“I'm sorry—”

Virgil shook his head, blindly reaching for Remus' hand. Once he managed to feel Remus' hand, he clasped it, holding on tightly, despite the intense feeling. He felt Remus relax as Virgil held his hand. After a moment, he leaned comfortably into Virgil’s side. The intense tingling abated as they curled up on the bed together. Virgil's heart swelled with gratitude as his new soulmates rested on each side of him.

“Are you okay now, love?”

Virgil smiled, looking up at Logan. “Never better, Lo.”

Logan stared down at him adoringly. “I guess there is little room for doubt that you belong here now.”

“He's staying, even if I have to fight Roman myself.” Remus nuzzled into the crook of his neck.

“I hardly think that will be necessary, Remus.” Logan sighed with a smile.

“Fine, I'll fight Roman for fun then.” Virgil cooed as Remus’ voice resonated against his shoulder. He closed his eyes, settling in comfortably.

“Rest now, dear one.” Logan purred, breathing into Virgil’s hair. “When you wake, Remus and I will help you grow accustomed to holding our pelts. Once you can handle that, the world is our for the taking.”

“And we'll take it all.” Remus whispered.

Virgil curled comfortably into their arms, nearly drifting to sleep instantly. He gently felt their hands in his as he sunk down between the two selkies. “Whatever you want, as long as I get to stay with you.”

“Forever, love.”

The Stowaway’s Heart Taglist:

@alias290 @lonelyanxiousbean @somehow-i-got-an-account @kieraelieson @evoodo123 @dndnerd1609 @lovesupernova25 @minninugget @ace-in-a-shopping-cart @trainwreckwithlimbs @i-apparently-exist @rachetssearch @twilight-trix @evelyn-nova @sluggerbot-2-5 @chronicallynervouschild @arsenicdragon @so-what-if-im-crazy @somehow-i-got-an-account @slutty-cinammon-roll @inferiorfilth @justanotherhumanstuff

#sanders sides #sanders sides fic #sanders sides fanfiction #sanders sides fanfic #ts logan #ts virgil #ts remus #analogical #intrulogical #intruanalogical #The Stowaway's Heart #villain writes

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someone-always-cares · 3 years

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bonus 1, page 6, post chapter 4

first - previous - next

[image description: an sac webcomic page. "the way i see it, being a good person and doing the right thing is a choice." rami says, turning his hand while mateo is still clinging to his finger, half flopping into rami's palm, suprised. "the right choice, but still a choic. something to choose and work on, every day of your life." he continues. mateo looks up at him, now sitting in ramis upturned palm. "even when it's hard. maybe even especially when it's hard" rami finishes, holding mateo up closer, mateo is seen from behind while we can see ramis face clearly, starry eyed but smiling, eyebrows slightly furrowed. mateo tilts his head and softly sort or mirrors ramis expression. "huh. i suppose so." he says. end id]

i had some thoughts about what it means to be a hero and what it means to be a good person and idk

things that were cut out of this scene due to lack of space and pacing: a line or two about how lin and mateos parents all met each other (lins dad and mateos mum are siblings, mateos dad and lins parents are friends and mateos parents met when his mum visited lins parents) but it seemed out of place and i couldnt fit in the panel. was going to add this to last page's notes but i think i was sleep deprived

#someone always cares #sac #webcomic #webcomics #original characters #gently holds mateo

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things-we-used-tc-share · 3 years

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The Town That Never Was

[Image Description: a long road with decaying plants on either side, with text overlayed that reads ‘the town that never was’ in white. A white icon of a clock is placed underneath the text /end ID]

I’m re-releasing the first four chapters as I’ve edited them!

Ships: DLAMP/CALMD, Remile.

Warnings: Cheating is mentioned at some point during this fic in the past, some slight horror themes but in a comedic sort of way, kidnapping is mentioned but again this is like a comedy-horror so there’s not a lot of suspense.

Plot: In Hell, a town of roughly 1,000 people, nothing that is supposed to happen ever happens and everything that physically should happen, does. Logan, a scientist, goes there in hopes of studying the world’s most unfortunate, and miraculous, town. But no one who ever enters ever finds the will to leave again.

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three

Chapter Four: Heartbreak Hotel

Roman, Patton and Virgil wandered into Remy and Emile's home and business with questions on their tongue. Logan is sat in the reception using the impossibly fast wi-fi that doesn't seem to extend to his room quite as well, and Emile has just finished getting ready for his actual job (being a therapist to about four people who always seem to be confused about where they are) so he was stood in the foyer chatting to his husband.

“Did you know that there’s another hotel, it’s just opened across the road?” Patton enquires. Remy frowns, symbolising that no, he did not know and this most certainly will not do. He doesn’t go as far as to express this because the door opens again and Deceit wanders in, coffee in hand, and then asks the exact same question.

“No I didn’t,” the half-man, half-cat-man utters with an expression that can only be described as grouchy on his face. “How did it even get there?” He stands and walks to the door, taking the coffee off of Deceit on his way past, the DJ frowns at his now empty hand like a small animal with no sense of object permanence.

There is indeed a hotel there, and the huddle of strange men stare up at this even stranger occurrence with some sense of unease. Mainly because Remy is rather hotheaded and the thought of him having competition is unnerving, but also because it is strange for there to be an entire hotel that wasn’t there before.

Logan, who is somehow acclimatising, sighs and grabs his not-pen from his pocket to scribble something in a notebook and then pocket both of these objects in favour of wandering up to the door. “We should say hello,” The scientist decides for them all despite the fact that at least four of them have other places to be today.

“We should!” Patton agrees emphatically, with an air of confidence that everyone else (except Logan) is lacking at nine in the morning (Especially Deceit, who has just had his whole coffee stolen off of him).

And that, of course, is why they wandered through the large oak doors of 1950′s-style hotel, and once again, into some form of emotional trauma. And for the second time in a row it’s because Logan doesn’t quite know what to do with the unending amount of lust for knowledge that he has, except to use it to get everyone else in danger.

The inside has cream walls with wallpaper that looks too pristine, the carpets are a deep royal red and there are chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The doors slam shut behind them, making them all jump as they stare into the large and empty foyer. “It’s pretty,” Logan remarks quietly, Remy slurps on the coffee with a narrowed glare directed to the scientist. Logan doesn’t notice.

Emile wanders up to the front desk and taps on the little brass bell, it gives a very timid ring and they wait in silence but, after five minutes, nobody comes. Deceit winces at the sudden migraine he’s experiencing and stares around the hotel. “We should get out of here,” he whispers “...this place...it isn’t good,” he shivers as though witnessing something he shouldn’t, the way one witnesses a car crash or anything as equally catastrophic.

But as they all turn around the entrance they had walked through is now just a wall. “Not good at all,” Dee adds to his earlier sentence with an exasperated sigh of ‘really? again? We’re in another perilous situation?’ You know, the sort of sigh a mother gives her child when they’ve dirtied clothes that have just been washed.

“Sorry,” Logan offers, but in all honesty he doesn’t seem very sorry at all, or afraid for that matter. “I suppose we should explore the hotel?”

“Absolutely not,” Deceit and Virgil say, at the same time that Roman, Patton and Emile reply with “Yes!” Remy slurps on his coffee with no opinion other than the fact he is sleep deprived and needs to finish his (stolen) coffee before he formulates any form of response that requires critical thought. He is however feeling a little better about the fact this hotel isn’t really a hotel, rather a potential death trap, because it means he has no competition.

“Let’s just stick together,” Deceit speaks firmly, feeling uneasy because of one thing and one thing alone; he cannot see a thing here. Like all of its past and present and future had been wiped from its walls and its carcass, bleached of any sort of moments that have or would have happened, is hollow of time. His sight doesn’t work, which means someone or something had planned for him to be here.

They all head up the large wooden stairs, which creak under their weight as though protesting their company. On the first floor there is a long corridor, the walls are the same cream and the carpet the same red, and it goes on for miles, much further than it had appeared from the outside. “Trans-dimensional engineering?” Logan offers into the sudden hush that falls, every breath too loud. Emile looks at him with the exact expression a child gives their teacher when they don’t know the answer. “The inside is kept in a dimension other than the one we were in, the outside is just a shell, a mirage if you like, when you stepped through the doors you stepped into this dimension but...also the one you were in at the same time,” This did not ease Emile’s confusion. “Like Roman’s bag,” he added, and Emile nods in understanding.

“Do you think there’s anyone in the rooms?” Patton asks, stepping forward down the corridor, straying foolishly from the others.

“Possibly,” they glance at Logan once he had spoken, and then at Patton who had now started to wander down the hall. He pauses for a moment and stands very, very still, before turning sharply to stare at one of the rooms. “Wait, Patton I wouldn’t...” But it’s too late, his hand is around the golden doorknob and he’s pushing it open with a fierce determination like he can hear or see something that they cannot hear or see. “Patton!”

They race towards him and stare into the room. There’s someone else staring back.

Patton stumbles backwards with his eyes wide, his nails scratching against the wood to get away from the stranger, whose teeth are too sharp and his eyes too dark and that grin...Logan shudders as Roman and Virgil pull Patton back away from the malicious figure. The baker is shaking, his hands trembling to find some familiarity, they land on Roman and hold him close whilst he shakes. It doesn’t take them long to realise he’s crying. “How...How can he be here, how can he...?” He repeats this, stammering against his lover’s chest.

Roman lets him cry, rubbing his back and uttering for words of consolation as Virgil waits patiently, worried, by his side.

“It wasn’t real right, it’s not him?” Patton whispers as he manages to prise away, taking shaky breaths to calm himself down. They all look at Logan who shakes his head.

“It’s...it’s unlikely,” he confirms, clearing his throat. “It seems unlikely that whoever he may be has crossed dimensions to sit in a room you may not have opened to simply smile menacingly at you,” he feels a chill run through him, he doesn’t want to know how many times the sweet baker had seen that grin in reality. Or what it meant.

Patton seems to ease at his words and gives Logan a small smile. “You have a big brain so you’re probably right, yeah?” Logan knows that logically he can promise nothing, but Patton’s bright eyes are looking at him like he’s a lighthouse in a storm, so he nods mutely in response. Patton’s arms wrap around him and for just a moment Logan feels as though there is a weight against his chest but...not in an unpleasant way, no, it’s the sort of weight you get when a cat sits on you. Warm, homely. Like you’ve been chosen.

“We probably each have rooms then, right?” Virgil asks tersely. A cold silence descends and they exchange quiet and scared looks. Logan pauses before he answers, but honestly he just isn’t sure. If his previous hypothesis is correct and the hotel is forcing them to relive traumatic memories then it stands to reason it would not just attack Patton.

“It’s possible, yes.” They all stand very still.

“No offence,” Virgil starts “...But if I’m going to have to relive the worst moment of my very long life, then I’d rather you not be there to see it.” They look between each other, not wanting Virgil to walk off alone but also not wanting to put him in an even more uncomfortable position.

“I understand,” Patton says gently, and he does to some extent. “I think that if the hotel is playing a game, an emotional game, then once it’s had its fun it will probably let us go, right? That’s what people do when they want to get people to feel bad but there’s only so much fun to be had...” Logan’s heart feels like it’s suffocating itself in his chest. “So we find our rooms, and then it might let us go.”

Remy, who is finally looking less of a zombie, glances at his husband and then at the cup of coffee in his hand “I’d rather not have an audience, either,” his words are so uncharacteristically solemn and so is his tone “...except Emile of course, Emile’s always invited to my trauma party.” His husband smiles and squeezes his hand before looking ahead “I don’t know why but I feel like my room is on the third floor so, I’m going up a few more flights, we’ll meet back in the foyer when we’re all done, right?”

They all agree, and soon, they find themselves splitting; Virgil wanders off alone, whilst Remy and Emile head back to the steps to take a few more flights up into the tall, everlasting staircase. Roman looks at Deceit and then at Patton “Virgil’s right, I don’t...I don’t want you to see Pat,” It hurts to see someone you love in pain. Patton smiles and nods. Logan offers him his arm with a raised eyebrow and the baker takes it “I’ll see you later okay?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Logan and Dee have their own type of smiles; Logan’s is soft and happy that the two know their own boundaries enough, that Patton knows how to control his fears, that they love each other so greatly. Deceit’s is sad, it’s scared and it’s lonely as he thinks of the hundred reasons that he could never deserve that, he hasn’t forgiven himself and he will not forgive himself.

But then he and Roman are alone, sharing an awkward glance as they stare at an empty hallway and each other and a thousand memories that cannot be seen left buried in the bones of this hotel. There’s this lingering feeling of everything they could’ve said, should’ve said and then, everything that they did say and everything they wish they hadn’t.

When you find out someone cheated on you, there is no amicable way for how you are feeling, no friendly forgiveness for the heartache they caused, no wonder in the feeling of being betrayed. But Roman is getting too old now to hang onto the past of a teenager who got his heart broken.

He shakes away this thought and clears his throat “after you,” Roman offers an amicable smile, his long hair tucked behind his pierced ear as they start down the too-long hallway. He doesn’t want to admit that he knows what’s going to be on the other side of Dee’s door, and wishes the walk to be longer as dread settles in his stomach.

When they finally get there, after several long turns, Dee stands very still. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up and over his arms as if a sudden breeze had hit him. He stares at the golden door with slightly cracked paint and knows he is about to address something he’d been dodging for years. His hand wraps around the reflective door handle. He turns it, and pushes it open.

Roman had known, but he still felt sick when he sees his own face staring back at him as the snake-like man holds the door open with shaking hands. “I’m sorry,” Dee whispers, his voice cracking and fragile “I’m so sorry.” There’s a low pause before Roman can’t quite handle staring at himself; him, but not quite, a little younger and more naive and so angry.

“Sorry doesn’t take it back,” the fake Roman huffs, the memory of Roman, a shadow or silhouette of time left in the skin of Dee’s mind, his dark eyes afire with something so potent and terrible.

“I know, I don’t want it too,” Deceit whispers, flinching slightly as if fearing a slap, before Roman, the real Roman, grabs him by the shirt collar and tugs him back into the hallway.

“Then what do you want?” He whispers.

Static fills their ears in a silence so tense and so fragile at the same time. Dee’s eyes are prickling with tears. He shakes his head and steps away “It’s not fair to say and it’s not fair to ask,” the taller finally speaks but his voice has gone cold with his own unending self-hatred.

“Don’t treat me like a child, for fuck’s sake Dee,” Roman is frustrated and tired and...scared. His heart hurts under the weight of love that he cannot shake because he always had loved Dee and no matter how much pain stands where that man once stood...there would always be love. Roman can’t rewrite his own emotions, he falls in love with the first pretty man that smiles at him and falls hard, like a rock sinking into waves that are too rough to find solid ground. “Just tell me, for once, the truth.”

“I love you.”

A beat, a pause, a soft exhale that speaks so many different languages. “I know,” what a response to receive. They’re both setting themselves up for pain, they know this, but they’re adults that get to decide when they make bad decisions. “I love you too.”

“You shouldn’t.” And Roman laughs, he laughs with disbelief and an awkwardness of a man who doesn’t know what to say, he laugh and laughs until he is crying. Then his laughs turn sour because he got the truth and he hates it, he hated walking into that room, a room that does not lie about heartbreak and knowing that Dee’s biggest heartbreak is the pain that he caused Roman. That he lives and thinks about that every single day. For years. Why doesn’t that feel like an achievement when he was the one that was hurt?

“Why the fuck didn’t you just not do it?” His choked off words come out angry and hard and bitter and they taste like the sound of hailstone smashing windows open. “Would it have been so hard? To just not do it? To not cheat on me? Why do I deserve your heartache when you already gave me all of mine?” He curses loudly and kicks at a wall, frustrated, in tears. His words taste like saline and a cold beach in winter. “Fuck you,” Roman’s anger is nothing beautiful. He feels dizzy. He feels...cold and hot at the same time. “Fuck you, Dee.”

And Deceit can only leans shakily against the wall as he shakes his head with no idea what he’s supposed to say or do or if there even is something that he can say or do. Can you really fix something you shattered long ago? Find the fragments lost by time and glue them back together? “I’m sorry, I know...” He whispers , swallowing and choking on his own words as he tries to keep himself from breaking “What I did was bad, I don’t expect you back, I don’t expect...anything from you, Roman,”

There is an irony of feeling small against someone you are a head taller than, as Dee leans against the wall and Roman stands in front of him in a vicious cocktail of emotions. The anger flickers, it falters, and Roman sighs in defeat, resting against his ex-boyfriend because he’s suddenly too shaky to stand alone.

“I know you don’t,” his head still rests against Deceit’s collarbone the way it used to “I know you don’t, and I hate that you don’t,” he leans back “because I loved you and you loved me and it would be so, so much easier if that wasn’t the case, if you were a horrible person who treated me like shit but you weren’t, otherwise you were so wonderful it felt like a dream.” He wipes his eyes. “You did one thing that really hurt me, years ago and now I’m still so angry with you because you didn’t show me you loved me, you taught me that love is just a heartache waiting to happen.”

Deceit is stunned into a quiet silence as the walls seems to close in around him “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to be you,” he whispered “...but you’re the only person I’ve ever loved so who else would it be? What were you expecting?” And Roman doesn’t know, he has no semblance of an idea of what he was expecting, then and now.

“You took so much more than I was trying to give you,” Roman whispers, voice soft in his own sadness. “So much more,” he wiped his eyes “I don’t understand why I’m angry with myself when I did nothing wrong.”

“You’re not angry,” Deceit manages out as best as he can because Roman’s head is resting on his chest like a wonderful, suffocating weight and he doesn’t remember how to breathe with someone he’d loved so much so close to him. How do you breathe when there are flowers made of heartache growing between the bones of your ribs? How do you look them in the eyes and lie?

How did he look Roman in the eyes and lie. They used to be something greater than this hurricane, this destruction this…terrible idea. What a terrible idea love turned out to be, who willingly subjects themselves to the possibility of the tears and the cold feeling in his own veins?

“I tried,” Deceit’s voice is catching every notch in his throat. “I tried so hard to move on, to find someone else but how could I? How do I fall in love again knowing I can ruin it just like that?” Roman leans back to look up at the man he’d known, vulnerable and insecure; he supposes that never changed and Dee is just as good of a liar as his name would suggest. “I see everything Roman, everything that should happen, everything that has ever happened I see that every day, I know how a relationship is going to end before it even begins, how…how do I just fall in love when I know that?”

“You always knew?” Roman asked, his eyes looking up at his past lover with a new kind of sadness “Every time I told you I loved you and you knew how it would end?”

“I can’t turn it off,” He gestures to his eyes. “I just hoped it was a could happen instead of a will happen, not everything is so fixed, sometimes I see multiple futures or none at all,” his back is pressed against the wall like he’s afraid of the way Roman’s hand sits on his forearm too familiarly. “This place is switching it off, I can’t see anything but what’s in front of me.” ‘And never before have I wished to see something other than what is here and now, nothing else.’

“Good,” Roman muttered. “It’s not healthy for you.” Dee snorts, lifting a hand to wipe his own teary eyes “I’m serious,” but he’s smiling too, the way they used; when life was life and neither a dream nor a horrendous nightmare. “When you see me now what do you see? With that eye of yours?”

“Well, different things, different futures.”

“Are any of them happy?”

Gods, isn’t that the million dollar question? But then Dee knows this is it, this is the converging point where all those futures choose their course and he has no way to see how he gets to them; what a fucked-up irony that the one time he wants his sight is the one time he cannot have it? He blinks, his lips part and they quirk just a little as he takes in those god-awful puppy eyes he’d fallen headfirst into. “Yes.”

Roman’s smile could light up a million rooms, Deceit thinks, and a million stars could bow to its brilliance. He smiles for the first time like maybe he isn’t so angry, as though the past they’d had didn’t matter so much anymore. It does, he hasn’t forgiven Deceit even if maybe he will one day, but he does at least know that change is a passage of time and not much else.

The leaves grow in spring and fall in autumn, people make mistakes and change. And Roman knows that it hurts more to keep denying half of his heart than it ever did to be cheated on; for the most part it wasn’t even the act that had upset him, it was what it meant to him, that he wasn’t trustworthy enough to be effectively communicated with. It was also not as though he never did anything wrong, at the time they’d both been young and dumb and fiercely determined to fuck each other over and maybe, maybe Roman had pushed once too many.

Maybe they’re both different people now.

Not teenagers, or anywhere close, adults and trying their best. Maybe it’s time to move on, try life again. Roman wants to try him again, not because he misses him but because missing someone is different from craving who they are right down to their soul.

Roman shakes his head and steps back, but not today, he needs time to think properly . “Then one day I hope I get to see it, now let’s find my room.”

Remy is seven different types of jumpy right now, the first is caffeine-induced, the second is genuine fear and the third is the creak of floorboards as he tries to walk quietly through this too-old and too-big hotel. “Whatever it is,” Emile mutters to him, squeezing his hand “It’s okay,” And when his husband says those words, jumpy becomes just a word, because nothing can calm him quite like his partner’s caring eyes and smile.

He stops halfway down a corridor that seems to go on for miles, standing very still as he feels a tug at his body, like a magnet to metal. Remy turns with a deep breath and stares at the door, before he opens it with one quick movement. He stands very still as he looks onto the other side, blinking slowly as his eyes turn glassy. “Of course,” He mutters, a humourless laughs bubbling past the threshold. “What else would it have been?”

Emile stares over his shoulder with wide eyes and a tight throat before he can’t handle what he’s witnessing any longer and turns away. Remy walks back into the hallway, closing the door and staring at his feet. He breathes shallowly before nodding, coming to terms with something that had happened so long ago but still hurts, loss always hurts, it has no expiry date even ten years later. But he at least knows how to handle this sadness; it’s one he’s tackled before. He wraps his arms around his husband and buries his face in his neck, inhaling and exhaling with calculated breaths. “I’m sorry Rem.”

“It’s...okay,” Remy replies, in a way that says he is and he isn’t, okay. Okay is just a word people use when they don’t know what else to say, really, okay is a filled silence because there are no other words to add, a static TV screen that people have forgotten to turn off. “It was a long time ago,” He pulls back and rubs his eyes, a bittersweet smile stitched to his lips. “I’ve gotten used to it now,”

Not “I’m over it,” or “I’m fine,” those would both be lies. Losing a family member you loved is a hard ordeal no matter the age you were. When Remy was 7 he’d lost his brother to a static idea of happiness found on the backs of prescription bottles, and been the one to find the cold when nobody else was paying attention to an absent person with much more absent eyes. He’s gotten used to the sadness, the memories, the flashbacks and the unending feeling of dread of finding your brother unmoving on the floor. But not even time can heal such an early trauma.

Perhaps this is why he cannot sleep at night.

“We should find yours,” Remy finally breaks the quiet as he gets out of his own head. “Come on,” Emile doesn’t look scared, he doesn’t even flinch because he knows that nothing is going to be quite so scary with Remy, and also his heartbreaks have never really been that bad.

Well, most of them anyway.

The two wander down the hallway and Emile feels like he knows where he’s going as though he’s walking to work instead of a slightly spooky hotel.

When he gets there he knows what’s waiting on the other side, he’s not had his heart broken many times before; at least not bad enough that it had left an impression. But heartbreak never really hurt Emile enough because he’s had Remy by his side.

You’re a whole lot braver, a whole lot stronger, when you are not alone.

He pushes his shoulders back and raises his chin defiantly as he wraps his hand around the doorknob and then opens the door with a purpose. He was right of course about what it was, who it was. Two elderly people, a woman and a man with firm expressions and opinions that he didn’t care for; Emile is many things, but afraid of homophobia is not one of them. He listens to their violent words and then snorts a little “I’ve dealt with people like this my entire life mister hotel,” he snorts, rolling his eyes “It’s been a long time since I’ve cried over that sort of heartbreak,”

The door closes as he steps back out into the hallway, barely an image of discomfort on his face, whilst Remy smiles proudly at the bravery he’d fallen in love with so long ago.

The two of them had ran off together that night. In the middle of the night they’d taken to the road with nothing but their clothes, their bank’s worth of money and a beaten up car. Remy had been out of Hell for a few months, people never really make the year out of this place. It's how he'd met Emile, and he'd fallen so in love that he wasn't really sure how to breathe at the time. When he met Emile he understood love, and not soon after he understood hate too.

So they’d found themselves here, for Remy, a second time, somewhere where misfit is just an ordinary citizen, and sure you might get hit by an inter dimensional hotel every now and then, but no one will bat their eyelids if you’re gay. Sometimes this town choses you before you chose it.

Remy squeezes Emile’s hand and his lover smiles back, not at all scared, not at all bothered; he hadn’t been that night either. Emile rarely swears but the entire neighbourhood heard the “Fuck you!” he shouted angrily at his parents, a spitfire in pastel hair dye and a soft woollen sweater. As Emile had always known, you really are braver when you know you’re not alone; and for most of his life he hasn’t been.

Logan and Patton had been walking for quite a while now, staring up at the walls as they look between each other “I have no idea where I’m supposed to be,” Logan admits softly. “None of these are particularly calling out to me,” he sighs, scratching the back of his head in confusion. Perhaps he is an outlier, a mistake. Perhaps he isn’t supposed to be here.

“I’m sure you’ll find it.” They keep walking, but every hallway seems to just lead to the stairs and Logan doesn’t really feel like he should be going up or down the way Remy had. “Or maybe we’re not supposed to be here?” Patton voices finally as he stares down the stairs. After a moment he sighs and starts walking back down, it leads to the reception “I guess we just sit in the waiting room,”

“But I didn’t find my room?” Logan mutters with a confused expression “I thought that was the point?”

“Well, maybe you’ve just not had your heartbroken.” The scientist considers this carefully before a look of realisation crosses his expression. He hadn’t. He hadn’t even had the time to get his heartbroken. He’d never fallen in love, never loved anyone enough and lived in textbooks and chemicals the way a bird makes their nest.

Logan had never had his heart broken. What a horrid thing to realise, that you’ve never loved enough to have someone break your heart.

Virgil is anxious. This is nothing new of course, anxious is his part-time job, his favourite hobby and the first and last thing he does every day. But this is the sort of anxious that had his stomach twisting. He doesn’t know why there’s a dread in the pit of his stomach, as in he doesn’t know what specifically about this is making him anxious. He’s a demon and demons, categorically speaking, do not get heartbroken.

He doesn’t know what’s going to be on the other side of his door as he walks with a weighted step and aching bones and the knowledge that he is about to confront something that he himself does not know, how large or how terrifying or how non-competitively sad it is going to be. Sad is just a word, he tells himself, it doesn’t have to mean something.

Demon he may be, invulnerable he is not; he’s lived in this skin suit for many years now, among Humans, among…Patton and Roman and people who have taught him no emotion is just a word. He had known this before and forgotten, so Patton taught him all of his sad and all of his happy, and Roman all of his love and anguish. He is enough Human now, to be more than just anger and fear again, as he hadn’t been for decades before.

Human is not a category in their world; it is a feeling, an innate sense of right and wrong and love and hate. Human is a knowledge and a heartbreak.

The dark-eyed Demon stares at the end of a hallway at a door that is cracked and blackened as though it had been torched to the ground but the wood had refused to succumb to the flames. Virgil knows this is his door by the invisible rope dragging him towards it and the broken pounding of his heart in his chest. He steps towards it. There is silence and silence and silence.

Virgil opens the door with a shaky hand, pushing it open a little and staring into the beyond. Into the feeling of a cold hand on his back and nails dragging on his skin and the look of someone he tried most days not to remember. He swallows a little “I’m sorry,” He whispers “I’m sorry I didn’t come back.” Unable to hold back the guilt he’d been carrying for a fair few Human decades now.

A boy stares up at him, bright blue eyes wide and a small smile on his face. “Verge!” He giggles, a small hand reaching up to rest on his hand, ignorant to Virgil’s broken expression. The demon swallows and squats to hold his hand out, the little boy wraps his arms around him.

“How did you recognise me kiddo?” Virgil sniffles a little, “I don’t look the same.” The child laughs and places his hand on Virgil’s chest over where his heart is. Of course, he’d always know. “One day I’ll find you,” he wipes his eyes “But you’re not you, you’re an image, not real.” He lets go and steps back, shaking his head “You wouldn’t even be a child anymore,” The boy’s smile falls and his eyes tint a little black. “No, you’re not him,” He steps back through the door at the boy whose teeth are a little too sharp and if you look too closely you can see the way the air crackles around him.

“One day I’ll find you kiddo, but today isn’t that day.” And with that he slides through the door and lets it fall shut behind him. The hallway has changed and he can see the stairs through his tears. He staggers towards them, running into Emile and Remy as he does, practically tripping down the stairs to get to the warm feeling of love. Anything but that, anything but him.

Patton’s arms find their way around him as he takes deep breaths and remembers where his heart is, where his head is.

Now just to wait for Roman and Deceit.

“I have a long list of heartbreaks so I’m curious to know which is the worst,” Roman hums to himself, fingertips trailing across the papered walls as his legs move of their own accord, seemingly knowing where they’re going. He certainly doesn’t know in his mind, so at least the rest of him is controlling some sort of brain cell.

“You’re horrendously chipper,” Deceit grumbles a little, but the smile on Roman’s face can’t keep him grumpy. Because he knows now, and Dee knows too, that things are changing and are not going to stay the same. Roman knows he was angry for a reason, but whether that reason is slowly crumbling is another answer.

The thing is, Roman is aware he doesn’t have to forgive Deceit, the issue is that he knows the Dee doesn’t want to be forgiven. It’s been years and he’s still rolling in his mistake and to Roman that just doesn’t seem healthy, for either of them to be gripping on a hatred that isn’t real. He doesn’t hate Dee for cheating on him years ago, and the more time he spends in his presence the more he realises he probably didn’t hate him at all. Angry, sad, and many other things, but he loves him too much to hate him. There’s no hate in love, the two are not compatible and Roman has always found that a strange thing people say; that you love someone but hate them too.

Dee fucked up. He holds himself accountable for that, and Roman holds him accountable.

But there’s a time to move on and live. And now is that time. Maybe it’s Logan and his pretty hair and pretty cheeks and lovely eyes and the fact they both want to take whatever he’ll give, maybe it’s because he knows that Patton is worried about them both. Maybe it’s simply because his anger comes from the fact every time he looks at Deceit he feels that thundering of his heart that most people get from new crushes.

Yes, he decides, it’s time to move on. Not right now at this instance, but in the near future. There’s a life to be lived without all these negative emotions.

But that thought process dissolves as he finds himself standing very still, eyes trained on the wooden hotel door. He lets out a deep sigh, cheeks puffing out as he does so. They both stand very still and Dee looks down at his feet as though he dreads knowing what’s on the other side. But as the door opens and he can’t bear to not know, he looks up and is pleasantly surprised.

He’s not the person on the other side.

He does know who it is however.

Roman blinks slowly before muttering a quiet “Oh, I see,” he hums a little, before nodding. “That does make sense,” but he isn’t crying, he isn’t angry, he just stares unblinking, before clearing his throat and moving out into the hallway. The door closes behind him and the two stand in silence as Roman stares blankly at the carpet. There’s not an ounce of energy there at all, for a moment he barely looks like himself, devoid of everything that makes Roman….Roman.

“Remus?” Roman clears his throat lightly as Deceit asks the question with uncertainty. “Roman what happened to him isn’t your fault,” he knows this logically, of course he does, but Roman can never quite live without blaming himself for something. Another unhealthy habit he can’t seem to shake. “I’m sorry.”

“No it’s…it’s fine,” It’s not, Dee knows this now. He just never quite realised how Roman’s twin brother’s…possession had affected him.

Possession in the literal sense. Remus, Roman’s twin brother, had been possessed by a Demon at a young age. And now, as an adult it’s as though there’s little left of the brother there had been anymore. No matter how hard the man tried to learn, to understand, even Virgil had tried to help, nothing seemed to be able to shift the Demon from it’s vessel. He’s not even a terrible demon, a little odd and overtly sexual but otherwise not planning the apocalypse, he just really likes the flesh suit he’d adopted and grown in like a normal person would a house.

The two stare at each other a moment, before Roman sighs “I need a hug,” he mutters and Dee hesitantly opens his arms. The two still fit together like a warm glove in winter, Roman can feel Dee’s heart thudding lightly between his ribs and finds the sound as comforting as he once did. It’s nice, it’s…pleasant. When Roman finally eases away he looks down at his feet with an uncharacteristically shy expression “I did miss you, you know.” Then he shakes his head and starts to walk away. “Come on, let’s get back to the others.”

Everyone is in various states of upset, Emile is perhaps the only one who looks unbothered and Roman feels like someone that bubbly is either lying, stronger than they look, or simply has never had too bad a heartbreak. Remy is quiet, his eyes open like he’s forcing them to look at something, not wanting to close them; Roman decides he doesn’t want to know what he’s seen. Logan looks upset, he’s pacing and muttering under his breath, eyebrows furrowed. Patton still looks a little pale, but he’s busy tending to Virgil who is crying. Immediately Roman stands a little straighter and makes his way over to his lover, holding him close and pressing kisses to the top of his dark hair.

There’s a soft clunk noise, and when they look up the doors have returned.

The group all scramble to get outside, standing on the gravel pavement with one last glare at the hotel, before they cross the road towards Remy and Emile’s hotel. “I don’t know how to explain to my clients I got trapped in another dimension,” the psychiatrist snorts, squeezing Remy’s hand.

“Me neither,” Patton sighs, glancing at his watch, “...it’s nearly sun down Dee you need to get to the…Dee?” They all pause and look around, but Dee is on the other side of the road still stood in front of the hotel, his eyes glowing and unblinking like he's frantically searching for something. Roman pauses and then sighs.

“You guys go ahead,” he speaks gently, offering his partners a small smile. “You’ve had a long day, I’ll make sure he’s okay, make sure Virgil is okay,” they glance hesitantly between them before Virgil makes a noise of agreement despite his current state, he understands they’ve probably talked about a lot that needs a resolution.

“See you later Roman,” Emile offers with his kind smile. “Good luck,” and then they all trail away. Roman crosses back over the road carefully to stand in front of Dee. He rests a hand on the man’s arm and feels him jump, his eyes focusing once more as the glow subsides. He sighs with relief once he realises it’s just Roman, with his dark eyes much softer than he is used to seeing them.

“Sorry,” the serpent-man’s eyes look sad, he, in general, looks so very sad. Like he knows something he isn’t supposed to know.

“It’s okay,” Roman pauses, eyes searching as he tucks a stray piece of hair behind his ear. “What are you looking for?” Deceit’s cheeks flush and the smaller man smiles like he knows the answer, eyes avoiding each other before they finally meet again. “Fuck it,” He whispers under his breath.

“What?”

Deceit doesn’t get much further as Roman’s lips press to his own, sweetly and carefully and shyly. He can’t feel his own heart because it’s beating too fast, and his body feels like fireworks are shooting in his veins. They both pause as the world slows around them, the glow of streetlights illuminating their bodies in the carefully setting sun. Then they both break, they part and Roman sighs. “I forgot how much I missed that,” he muttered “We’ll talk, eventually, go do your radio show, I’ve got a Demon to look after.”

Deceit grins and nods, wondering how in all the futures he’d seen he hadn’t see that coming.

#ts sides #ts fic

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scripttorture · 5 years

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Hey I have a young character who was kidnapped around the age of eight and tortured. Most of it was things like being filling awake and unfrozen for surgery’s and being stuck in tight cages. He was stuck with his kidnappers for about three months before he was saved. In my story the kid’s around twelve now and despite having many resources to help him he still has many issues (1/2)

(2/2) . Such as: severe social anxiety (can’t look strangers in the eyes, hates talking to strangers and when he does talk it’s one word answers), is absolutely terrified of being touched, has attachment issues, and he has tiny things that will trigger him into a panic attack. He has two siblings that he’s really close with so he gets to socialize with them. Anywayshe grew up in somewhere really isolated and rural and now he’s moving to a big crowded city. How do you think he should handle this?

I think you might have underestimated the level of symptoms a child in this situation would have. Not by a huge amount, but enough that it seems noticeable to me.

What I’m getting from your description is that the character has two symptoms; anxiety and panic attacks. Both of which you’ve described at a realistic level of severity and you’re characterising them well.

I think you’re doing a really good job with the symptoms you’ve described but I think you should consider adding another symptom. It doesn’t have to be as dramatic or immediately noticeable.

Looking back over the ask it’s possible you’ve already done this and just described the ‘main’ symptoms that are an issue years later when the character moves. If that’s the case please bear with while I make some suggestions for further symptoms. It might not be useful to you but it could be useful to other people reading the ask. :)

I think you could include a memory problem here at a less severe level then the other symptoms. I’ve got a post on the four main types of memory problems torture causes here.

All of these problems are incredibly common in survivors. With anxiety that is this severe, this noticeable, a less severe memory problem could easily be overlooked.

It doesn’t need to be at a plot-effecting level the way the anxiety is. Something like- establishing that the character is ‘a little bit forgetful’ or showing that he ‘seems to think about what he went through an awful lot’ wouldn’t need to take up a lot of narrative space. And it adds in a type of symptom that’s rarely portrayed well in fiction but is experienced by most survivors.

You might also be able to include insomnia without changing much. Long term sleep deprivation (ie insomnia) does have some really dramatic and awful effects. One of which is that it makes anxiety (and problems with social interaction) worse.

But I think you could use it without changing the severity level of the character’s current symptoms. It could be used instead to highlight the main two symptoms ‘he’s not making any improvements right now because he isn’t getting enough sleep’.

I also suggest caution when using vivisection as a torture. It was generally not done in a way that’s survivable.

I’m not saying ‘don’t use it’ in this case. But I would recommend going back over what you’re putting the character through and then looking up an analogous surgery done for health reasons. Does it take more then three months for a complete recovery? Because if so then having the character survive multiple unnecessary procedures with less medical care in the same time frame- might not be possible.

You might also want to look up Japan’s Unit 731 which vivisected prisoners and civilians during World War 2. Some of the victims were children. This is- pretty heavy stuff even if you’re involved in reading about things like this regularly. It might help you with your story but it is extremely effecting.

I think that brings me to the question itself.

Honestly? Crowded cities and these kinds of manifestations of anxiety are often not a good mix. There’s a limit to how much anyone, but especially a child, can do to mitigate that.

Generally I’d say that there will be days the character just can’t go outside. In this particular situation it sounds as though his triggers and the ways his anxiety manifest would combine to mean that he usually wouldn’t be able to leave the house without a panic attack.

I think he’d spend a lot of time feeling exhausted and miserable and there’d be very little he could do to stop that.

If he’s strongly triggered by unexpected touch then he wouldn’t be able to walk down the street at rush hour or on the weekend. That means he’d be cut off from most parts of city life. That isolation would in turn feed into his symptoms and make them worse.

Based on what you’ve described he wouldn’t be able to regularly attend a mainstream school. The crowded, noisy, social environment would lead to almost constant panic attacks. Which means even if he managed to show up and be physically present during the school day he wouldn’t be learning. His energy would all be going on getting through the day, rather then taking in new information.

And due to the effects stress has on memory it’s unlikely he’d take in much.

I think how well the character would do going forward would really depend on the culture in your setting. Because he’d need a lot of accommodations and specialist care to recover in this sort of environment.

And well, even if he wasn’t being moved to a triggering environment, he’s twelve. Moving somewhere completely different is stressful at that age. Even more so when the child in question is a trauma survivor.

I moved countries when I was only a little bit younger then your character. It is incredibly stressful and isolating. In ways that make mental illnesses worse.

One of the things survivors really need to be able to recover is a stable environment. This scenario takes that away. It would take at best months and at worst years for the character to adjust to his new environment even if it wasn’t actively triggering.

In a culture that makes a lot of allowances for mental health and supports survivors then some things which might help the character include:

Specialist housing

Home schooling by specialist teachers (preferably with his siblings)

Regular scheduled visits from therapists

Regular scheduled socialisation with children his age in a non-crowded, out-of-home environment

It would mean keeping regular schedules of when the character is likely to come into contact with others and who those people would be. As well as allowing the character to withdraw at any time if things become too much.

In an environment more like the modern Western norm-

Essentially the character would be forced into situations that would give him panic attacks almost all the time. He would withdraw. He would get worse. And he wouldn’t really be able to do anything about it because as a twelve year old he doesn’t really have any control over where he lives, who he sees, whether/where he goes to school and what his home environment is like.

In that kind of scenario a family might choose to move somewhere more isolated again for the sake of the child. But they might also insist on the child ‘toughing it out for his own good’, resulting in- well a lot of harm and broken trust.

Asking how the character himself should handle this skips over one of the most important effects of his age: he can’t make the kind of changes that would help.

He can’t choose his house. He can’t arrange his schedule. He can’t choose his school.

All the important decisions about where and how he lives, what he does, the kind of medical treatment he has- those are all made by other people. And by the sounds of things those other people have chosen to put him in an environment that is going to be incredibly bad for him.

Where that leaves you really depends on what you want from the story.

If part of the point here is that the character has a very difficult childhood that delays his recovery, causes him to struggle at school and has a severe negative impact on his social position as an adult- You’ve achieved it. This will work very well.

And in that kind of story you could easily use the extra stressors imposed by adults as a way of strengthening the character’s bonds with his siblings. They understand, the adults don’t.

If on the other hand you want the character to recover and do well in the city, if you want the story to be about him getting better in this environment-

Then you need to change the way he’s interacting with his environment, building up something that is not like the typical modern experience of schooling and city life.

Adults with these kinds of symptoms deal with them by carefully planning when, how and for how long they come into contact with other people.

There are other things that can help, like CBT in some cases, but they all stem from being able to expect and plan contact with others.

So if you want him to do well he needs that structure, scheduling and control. Giving that to a child means rather radical restructuring of urban life. Don’t be afraid of that. Don’t be afraid of imaging a society and a city that treats torture survivors far better then we do.

Beyond that- I don’t know much about childhood development and I think you’d benefit from looking at what both @scriptshrink and @scripttraumasurvivors have to say about traumatised children.

I hope that helps. :)

Edited for formatting

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

#justoutofcuriousity #tw torture #tw child abuse #tw vivisection #mental health #writing victims #recovery #anxiety #triggers

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runaway-horses · 5 years

Text

Maybe It’s Selfish Of Me, But I Don’t Care About The World (Only About You)

Word Count: 2,003

A/N: I’m...so tired. Loved the concept but I’ve been fighting with this for days (I wanted to finish it and wasn’t taking writer’s block as an excuse) so I’m unsure how I feel about this. Comments! And reblogs! Feed my soul and water my crops!

Warnings: Nightmares, description of nightmares (all pretty vague and tame though), mentions of blood, sleep deprivation, hurt/comfort. Timing of fic is vague, loosely set after the events of S2 but Nick is still around and I don’t really mention the finale. As always please let me know if I need to add/remove anything

Tags: @imperfumedwithobsession (only because I want you to see this and I don’t want it getting lost in my blog. So sorry for tagging you without you asking)

Sabrina jerked up in bed, spooking Salem away from her. Her heart thumped in her chest as image after image flashed through her head.

Roz, dead.

Theo, dead.

Harvey, dead.

Nick-

She shook her head. Dwelling on the dream - because that’s all it was, Sabrina, just a dream - would do her no good. She sat up and swung her legs out of bed. There was always something to do, after all, and what harm could one night without sleep do?

And that’s what she said the next night,

And the next,

And the next.

///

Sabrina ran a hand through her tangled hair as she stumbled down the stairs, following the scent of pancakes to the kitchen, where Aunt Hilda was whisking batter and humming absently to herself.

“Blueberry?”

Aunt Hilda turned around with a smile that dropped quickly at her disheveled state.

“Sabrina? Darling, is this a new look you’re going for? Because I have to say, I don’t think the school will approve.”

“It’s the weekend, Auntie.” Sabrina frowned at her. Hilda cocks her head.

“No? Darling, today is Thursday.”

Sabrina paused and looked up at her aunt. Hilda stared back at her. Ambrose chose that moment to breeze in, stopping at the head of the table and completing their awkward triangle.

“I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?” A smile danced on the corner of his lips, and Sabrina took it as an excuse to whisk herself out of the room, stopping when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror hanging in the hallway. Her hair was tangled and had the frazzled look of hair that had had fingers run through it repeatedly. Dark half-moons were stamped under her eyes as well.

“Oh Heaven,” She muttered, trying to parse out some of the knots. Eventually she decided it was a lost cause and shuffled up the stairs to take a bath. Hopefully she could wash off both her exhaustion and the fear that lingered at the edges of her consciousness.

Salem settled himself on top of her towel, neatly folded on the counter, and flicked a lazy tail towards her. His presence was nice. Salem rarely featured in her dreams, his visage remained firmly in her waking moments. If Salem was here, then she was awake. Not replaying hellish images over and over or reliving impossible decisions.

His presence was reassuring, yes. But if she had to pick the ideal post-nightmare comfort, it wouldn’t be Salem. If she was honest with herself, she wanted to see the people from her nightmares in the flesh. Whole, breathing, alive. But she couldn’t exactly call up her friends in the early hours of the morning to assure herself that they were alive. (They always were. And she knew this. But still, the uncertainty lingered. She wanted to touch them and see them and maybe cast a few hundred protection spells on them.)

Deep in thought, Sabrina found herself relaxing into the warm water, and she jerked herself away from the brink of sleep at the last minute.

She quickly finished bathing and stood up out of the water before she could relax again, coaxing Salem off her towel and wringing the water from her hair.

After going through the motions of her morning routine, she headed out the door to the Academy.

The fear lingered still, itching at the edges of her mind. She shouldered her bag and walked faster.

•••

The Academy was imposing in every sense of the word (up in flames, bodies draped over the stone stairs, a yellow sky behind it,) but the aura of power around it was also soothing.

The foyer looked oddly empty now, lacking the statue of the Dark Lord and the later statue of Faustus that had dominated the space. Sabrina was pulled out of her head by two hands gently covering her eyes.

“Hey Spellman.” Nick’s warm voice said in her ear. Sabrina smiled and turned around, grabbing his wrists and pulling them off of her eyes.

“Heya Scratch.” She smiled up at him, trying her best to ignore the wave of relief that washed over her. (His eyes were brown now, not empty and red. The smile he gave her was genuine, not cold and threatening.)

He placed his hands on the sides of her face and leaned down to press a kiss to her lips, pulling her closer. She sighed as he pulled away and resisted the urge to chase his lips. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“You okay Sabrina? You look a little preoccupied.”

Her friends, dead, blood on her hands, a yellow sky with red clouds, hooves clomping closer, closer, closer…

“No.” She smiled up at him, hoping he wouldn’t notice that it was hollow. “I’m fine.”

///

Fine was not the proper adjective for Sabrina. Exhausted, more accurate. Tired, but not just from the lack of sleep. Tired of the constant fear, of pretending she was okay, of lying to her friends, to Nick. Wandering the streets of Greendale late at night might not have been her best idea, but she couldn’t stand to even look at her bed. The dread of another nightmare combined with the anxiety of missing another night of sleep had her turning out of her room and marching out of the house without a destination in mind.

So here she was, shivering slightly in the cold air and trying to steer her thoughts away from the dark corners of her mind. Her feet led her past Baxter High, and she stopped to stare up at the building. She had stood her, in this same spot, just weeks ago, a gallon of gasoline in her hand.

She had almost burned down her school. She had been seconds away, the gas was spread, the match was in her hand. She had almost done it. Sabrina walked forward, climbing up the first couple of stairs before sitting down. She gazed out at her town, quiet and asleep, seeming like its own pocket of reality with nothing but the streetlights and stars providing light.

She stayed there till the sun rose over the tops of the trees.

///

She snuck back into her bedroom just as her alarm was going off, and she flopped down onto the bed. Her feet hurt, and so did her head, and she wondered if walking around at night, mid-spring, without a jacket, was her best idea.

Aunt Hilda bustled into her room, a ball of energy, sing-songing “Wakey-wakey!” She pulled up short at the sight of Sabrina and dropped her voice.

“Sabrina? You okay darling?”

She rolled over. “I don’t feel so good, Aunt Hilda. I think I’m getting sick.”

It wasn’t really a lie, she probably was. And her pale skin, dark circles, and generally disheveled appearance certainly helped her look the part. Aunt Hilda, thankfully, just draped a blanket over her and told her to feel better soon before backing out of the room.

///

Sabrina’s day was long, each minute crawling by slowly and dripping with boredom. Twice, she drifted off to sleep only to jerk awake minutes later, heart pounding. She was sitting in bed, flipping slowly through the pages of a book, barely absorbing the words when there was a taping at her window. She jerked her head up and swung her legs out of bed. None other than Nicholas Scratch was at her window. She unlocked the latch and lifted the window, stepping back to let him in.

“Sabrina?” His voice was heavy with concern, and he climbed in through the window quickly. “Are you okay? You never came to school.”

Satan, she was glad to see him.

“No, I’m not okay, Nick.” Her eyes stung with tears at the admission. He stepped forward and gently cupped her face. ”I’m so tired. I haven’t slept in days, and every time I do I keep having these nightmares, and I’ve tried everything, rabbit’s feet under the pillow, lavender in the tea, but I can’t. Sleep.” Nick wiped away a tear and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead.

“Nightmares?” He inquired, keeping his voice soft.

She nodded mutely.

“I keep seeing Him. Him and other things, the town destroyed, the Academy, I keep seeing you-” She cut herself off and shut her eyes. “I keep seeing you dead.” She whispered.

“Hey,” He soothed, stroking his thumbs up and down in an soothing manner. “I’m right here, ‘Brina. I’m alive, and I’m not going anywhere.” She gripped his wrists tightly and looked up at him. His eyes were swimming with concern and she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around him.

“I know,” She said, voice muffled against his chest. “But I keep seeing it, and I can’t stop thinking ‘what if?’”

Nick wrapped his arms around her, solid and warm and safe. He tucked her head under his chin, just holding her. A few tears slipped out of her eyes, and with them her last defenses crumbled down. A quiet sob wracked her body and Nick pulled her closer. The two of them stood together, Nick holding Sabrina as she cried into his chest and he rubbed soothing circles into her back.

“Shh, I’m here, I have you,” Nick continued to murmur in her ear as he rocked her gently. After a while, her sobs quieted, and Nick pulled away enough to look at her.

“Sabrina, I think you should try to sleep.” He felt the way she tensed up and he gently pushed her towards the bed. Once she was sitting on the edge, he pulled away to grab her a pair of pajamas. Standing in front of her as he handed her the clothes and helped her into them, Nick could really see the toll the exhaustion was taking on her. Her movements were sluggish and he had to help her with the buttons of her top. Nick shrugged off his jacket and hung it up, toeing off his shoes and crawling in bed with her. Sabrina was chewing on her lips, looking apprehensive. He stopped in front of her and stared intently.

“What’re you thinking, Spellman?”

She shrugged and locked eyes with him. After a beat of silence he leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.

“I’ll stay with you tonight, and I promise that nothing will hurt you while I’m here.” He says into her lips. She gives him a quick kiss back and he slides under the covers with her. He pulls her gently into his arms, and she sighs and relaxes against him. They lay there in silence, Nick twirling strands of her hair around his fingers.

Her thoughts swirled as she tried to focus on the slight sensation of Nick playing with her hair, unable to relax fully.

What if she couldn’t fall asleep and went another night without sleep? What if she hurt him somehow in the throes of a nightmare, what if what if what if…

The prospect of another sleepless night had tears pricking at her eyes for the second time that night. She felt Nick’s fingers under her chin, coaxing her head up.

“I can hear you thinking, Spellman,” He said before kissing her, effectively silencing her mind for the first time in days. Sabrina relaxed into it, allowing the sensation of his warm lips and hands to wash over her. After what felt like infinity and not enough, he pulled away.

“Sleep, Sabrina. I’ll keep the nightmares away tonight.”

He sounded so sure, and she was very comfortable, Nick’s hand had now started to gently card through her hair, and she finally let go off the last shred of willpower keeping her awake. Trusting that Nick was here, and alive, and safe.

(And when she woke up, hours later, panting and drenched in sweat, Nick was there to dry her tears and sooth her racing heart, lulling her back to sleep again. Sabrina was able to fall asleep knowing that she was safe, and cared for. Loved.

She slept soundly after that.)

#athena rambles #love athena #caos fic #nick scratch/sabrina spellman #hurt/comfort #nightmares

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a-for-anne-blog-blog · 5 years

Text

PDF from the Internet

http://www.worldanimalfoundation.net/f/Panda.pdf

PANDA FACT SHEET

STATUS: Endangered DESCRIPTION: Pandas are famous for their black and white markings. The legs, shoulders, ears and oval patches around the eyes are black, and the rest of the coat is white. Good tree climbers, pandas can also swim to escape predators. Pandas use an enlarged wrist bone that looks like a thumb to grasp objects like bamboo. SIZE: Pandas weigh an average of 200 to 300 pounds and reach six feet in length. POPULATION: Only 1,000 pandas exist in the wild and 60 in zoos. LIFESPAN: The panda’s lifespan in the wild is unknown but in captivity averages more than 20 years.

RANGE

The shrinking range of the panda is limited to parts of Szechuan, Shensi and Kansu provinces in central and western China.

HABITAT: The panda lives in thick bamboo and coniferous forests (evergreens with seed cones) at 8,500 to 11,500 feet elevation. FOOD: Pandas feed mostly on bamboo, a tall woody plant full of fiber. The panda’s digestive system does not absorb the fiber, so it must eat a lot. Pandas also eat flowers, vines, tufted grasses, green corn, honey and rodents. BEHAVIOR: These solitary animals spend most of their days feeding. Although they live in cold forests, pandas do not hibernate. They move to lower elevations during winter to keep warm and to higher elevations in summer to stay cool. They do not have permanent homes but sleep at the bottom of trees and under stumps and rock ledges. OFFSPRING: After a gestation period of 125 to 150 days, a mother panda gives birth to one or two young, but only one survives. Eyes open at six to eight weeks, and the cub starts to move around at three months. Weaned at six months, the cub becomes independent after a year. GENERAL INFORMATION: The giant panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan and Tibet. Since the latter half of the 20th century, the panda has become an informal national emblem for China, and its image is found on many Chinese gold coins. Despite being taxonomically a carnivore, the panda has a diet that is overwhelmingly herbivorous. The giant panda eats shoots and leaves, living almost entirely on bamboo. Pandas are also known to eat eggs, the occasional fish, and some insects along with their bamboo diet. These are necessary sources of protein. Like other subtropical mammals, the giant panda does not hibernate. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the panda was under debate as both the giant panda and the distantly related red panda share characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, genetic testing seems to have revealed that giant pandas are true bears and part of the Ursidae family. Its closest bear relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. Giant pandas are an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. Poaching is uncommon; killing a panda was punishable in China by death until a 1997 law changed the penalty to 20 years imprisonment. The giant panda has an unusual paw, with a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone. The giant panda has a short tail, approximately 15 cm long. The giant panda has long been a favorite of the public, at least partly on account of the fact that the species has an appealing baby like cuteness that makes it seem to resemble a living teddy bear. The fact that it is usually depicted reclining peacefully eating bamboo, as opposed to hunting, also adds to its image of innocence. Though the giant panda is often assumed docile because of their cuteness, they have been known to attack humans, usually assumed to be out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. Giant pandas can usually live to be 20 30 years old. THREATS: Habitat loss to increasing human populations; poaching; periodic bamboo die-offs. CAPTIVITY: While zoos and aquariums may appear to be educational and conservation-oriented, most are designed with the needs and desires of the visitors in mind, not the needs of the animals. Many animals in zoos and aquariums exhibit abnormal behavior as a result of being deprived of their natural environments and social structures. Some zoos and aquariums do rescue some animals and work to save endangered species, but most animals in zoos were either captured from the wild or bred in captivity for the purpose of public display, not species protection. The vast majority of captive-bred animals will never be returned to the wild. When the facility breeds too many animals they become "surplus" and often are sold to laboratories, traveling shows, shooting ranches, or to private individuals who may be unqualified to care for them. PROTECTION: *Cites Appendix I, Endangered Species Act *Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, an international treaty with more than 144 member countries. Appendix I listed species cannot be traded commercially. Appendix II listed species can be traded commercially only if it does not harm their survival.

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sabihanaazcom · 4 years

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How to improve Concentration in kids?

Children are very precious in every family

Children are very precious in every family. Increase Concentration in kids and Understand your child better. Education is a necessary part of their growing process. It often happens that children with high concentration and concentration succeed well on their educational front at the same time, while at the same time improving their thinking considerably. In the beginning, we bring you 10 valuable tips to improve your child’s concentration and attention.

Beautiful

1.Diet

When we talk about children’s development, it is directly related to their diet. Here, it is important to know that nutrition is the key to improving a child’s concentration level. Children eat better so that they can focus on their daily activities. Your child’s cognitive functions are administered with copper, zinc, iron, selenium, and vitamins A, C, D, and E. Micro nutrients. Children with good attention and concentration will perform better in all their activities, including reading.

2.Routine

Children’s growing process is very sensitive. Here, of course, parents have a responsibility not only to keep their growing body healthy but also to be good in a way, they will be introduced to certain patterns. Here, routine determination is the biggest help. Parents should make sure that they set the best routines in their daily activities, which can help them focus properly. A well-established routine can help a child grow, but it’s a great way to improve their performance. Some of these routines include setting time for housework, playing, eating, sleeping, and more. Such a good routine is always ready to meet the goals with constant focus.

3: Non-academic perspectives:

Educational and non-educational perspectives should be developed as part of children’s daily routine. Add some puzzles, quizzes and more as an unusual approach. These activities better teach the child about automatic attention. Importantly, these activities will improve the child’s ability to solve unusual problems. Educational work often bothers the child. When you demonstrate dynamic non-academic methods, they will help the child improve concentration, which can be very helpful on the educational front.

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Children are very precious

Children’s growing process is very sensitive

A well-established routine can help a child grow

You can not buy happiness. Happiness is born.

A smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks.

good

so nice

Nice

It is a smile of a baby that makes life worth living.

Beautiful

4: Small tasks:

Big tasks are not of much interest to children. They get bored in front of big tasks. Such a situation will greatly affect the level of attention of children. It is always wise to break any big task into more than one small task with a deadline. This will encourage them to solve these tasks with determination and focus. This is a great way to improve your child’s concentration and attention.

5: Mitigate Distractions:

It is very common for children to engage too fast. If you want your child to focus and improve concentration, then this is the best way to overcome their distractions. The environment in which children are engaged is another important factor. Avoid loud noises, TV, music, and the like when your child is paying attention. Always observe what is causing the disturbing things and remove them from the environment as much as possible.

6.Rest

Your baby should get enough rest every day. Make sure your child gets enough sleep at night and get some extra rest during the day. Taking advantage of this can be a great activity for the rest of the child, which can help them focus and concentrate on their work.

7.Time spacing

It is important for children to have some space between tasks. For example, doing housework permanently can deprive them of attention and concentration. Complete their homework to ensure the time difference between volume bits and pieces. Doing so ensures attention and can still be improved.

8.Praise:

You must praise your child in every activity. Children find such compliments the biggest motivator. A well-motivated child often receives praise. Focuses on given tasks. You need to give your child good credit because the wrong definitions can lead to the wrong direction. Praising is a great way to improve children’s attention and concentration, but do it in a balanced way.

9.Change in activity:

It is very common for children to change activities in their daily routine. But caution is needed here. Children are growing up and it is difficult to accept the changes. Sometimes, these changes can have a significant effect on a child’s attention and concentration. Activity changes must be included with advance notice. You need to prepare them for change so that their attention and concentration is not affected.

10.Stories:

Storytelling or reading stories to children have a very positive effect from age. Use these stories well in reading to improve children’s attention and concentration. The skills of listening and understanding while reading stories will be much better. This is mainly due to the attention and concentration given by the child in this activity. Therefore, reading stories is a proven process to improve your child’s concentration and attention.

How to improve Concentration in kids? How to improve Concentration in kids? Children are very precious in every family Children are very precious in every family.

#improve concentration

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laurencetgayao · 5 years

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Just glad to be home after an eight-week vacation with my wife Edith. The vacation was a good time of unwinding, seeing new places, celebrating with relatives and friends both in the Philippines and Thailand. Two years ago during our last vacation, I gained about 17 pounds in weight so this time around I wanted to make sure this did not happen but still enjoy our vacation so I thought of game plan on ways to stay healthy on vacation.

Delicious tropical fruits in the Philippines

So to keep a healthy lifestyle during our travels this time I adopted these guidelines.

Resist the Urge to Overindulge

Many times on vacations we have to eat out at restaurants. The problem is restaurant menus have more high-caloric and high-fat foods and they usually serve larger portions and we tend to eat all of it. Some hotels we stayed offered a big selection at their breakfast buffet. The temptation to sample everything that attracts you and you have plenty of time to do it. During this time I made sure I ate plenty of salads, fruits and controlled the portions of the other foods to stay within limits.

Many restaurants I have noted offer on their menus healthy recipes or they would change them if request them to do so. Remember, too often however it is not what we eat but how much we eat that gets us in nutritional trouble. Enjoy, you are on a vacation; it makes little sense to deprive yourself of foods you enjoy but the important thing to do it in moderation. Eating many tropical fruits is a favorite of mine but overindulge if I have my way. So I have to be careful

2. Walk as Much as You Can

Many times your exercise program is hard to maintain on vacation. When airports with my backpack, I try to walk briskly. While staying in hotels one may go for a swim or have an after-dinner stroll or hike. Do not forget the amount of walking doing shopping in the malls add up. When we were in Bangkok, our daughter’s family apartment was a short walk to the train station that took us to three large shopping malls, so this provided plenty of exercises but a bit more expensive than going to the gym. When we went to Northern Thailand, in Chiang Mai we to the highest peak and had a good nature walk in the forest. The weather was nice and cool but we had to pace ourselves because of the high altitude air has a lower amount of oxygen.

3. Avoid Snacks

Frequent snacks could add up to your caloric intake. The first rule is don’t buy it, that seems of be really obvious if don’t have it you don’t eat it. Don’t skip meals and sleep regularly as much as possible. Drink water when you feel like eating and or go for a walk.

4. Water is Your Friend

Make sure you have a good supply of water with you. Stay hydrated especially when you go to places that have tropical weather the last thing you need getting sick with a heat-stroke on your vacation. Stay away from those soda pops especially those in the little refrigerators in your hotel room loaded with candies and other goodies they are not good for you, physically and financially. Try to drink bottled water when you are not sure of the quality of the tap water supply even in restaurants.

6. Remember Fruits and Vegetables

Attempt to eat five servings of fruit and vegetable each day. Doing this will make your meals more filling and satisfying. Other benefits are this provides a source of fiber in your diet that would keep your bowel movements more regular and give the important vitamins and antioxidants to keep well on your vacation.

7. Being With Health Conscious Company Helps

During our visit to Bangkok, we stayed with our daughter’s family and it was nice that they too were also into a healthy lifestyle and were into a plant-based diet. When we stayed with them they served not only healthy but also a tasty selection of food. For us we are lucky, all our four children are into a healthy lifestyle and are sharing it too to our grandchildren.

While in the Philippines we stayed in our vacation house in Iligan City and we were fortunate to have a sister-in-law, Quita who runs a fruit store in town who kept us a steady supply of fruits throughout our stay.

Happy Ending

If you ask me how I did this time around? Well, I must happily report to you I just gained only 2 pounds in contrast to two years ago when I bloated with 17 lbs. added weight.

In Thailand, we were glad to see our youngest son Chester came with Angela his girlfriend of many years with some of her relatives. He proposed, and they got engaged. I told them, “Congratulations for finally getting the right to officially love and annoy your partner for the rest of your life.” We were also excited to see our two talented and pretty granddaughters Harriet and Iris who have grown much since we last visited them three years ago.

In the Philippines, there was never a dull moment visiting with our community of relatives and friends. How do you describe life in the Philippines? They say “Life in the Philippines is party interrupted by short periods of work.”

Having fun with the family in Thailand

Supper at Vietnamese restaurant in Cebu City.

New Years Celebration with relatives and friends in Iligan City

With my younger brothers Ruel, and Jun.

Ways to Stay Healthy on Vacation Just glad to be home after an eight-week vacation with my wife Edith. The vacation was a good time of unwinding, seeing new places, celebrating with relatives and friends both in the Philippines and Thailand.

#exercise #lifestyle medicine #nutrition #obesity #Philippines #Snacks #Thailand #Travel #travel medicine #Vacation #walking

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amelngo · 5 years

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It is the 31st of October. While other children around the world are getting ready for Halloween, twenty four Syrian street-based children will be going to Swings camp, a picnic, camping and activity park in El Metn, Mount Lebanon. At 08:30 in Beirut the sun is shining bright, there are no clouds in the sky. The weather is an agreeable 20 degrees. Eight staff from Amel Association International and a country representative from French NGO Samusocial International (Amel’s partner) meet at the Haret Hreik centre to wait for the children, who have been picked up by the bus we will later use to get to El Metn. A while later excited children from the capital’s southern neighbourhoods fill the ground floor of the centre. Many of them live in Informal Tented Settlements (ITSs) on the outskirts of Beirut. Most of them do not go to school.

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What being a street-based child means

A street-based child is a child who is either living and sleeping on the streets, or who is exposed to the streets through working, begging, or garbage-searching to sell items. Deprived of a decent childhood and basic opportunities, street-based children are amongst the most vulnerable in Lebanon. They are exposed to exploitation, physical and psychological abuse, and sometimes even sexual abuse. Not only do they work in dangerous conditions – lifting heavy objects, or at risk of road and traffic accidents – but their life on the streets has scorching impacts on their physical health and mental well-being. Furthermore, working out on the streets vastly reduces children’s educational and schooling prospects and increases child marriage rates. 27% of Syrian teenagers in Lebanon between the ages of 14 and 19 are married, meaning more than one in every four Syrian girls in the country are in unions that are unlikely to let them go to school, and more likely to force them into early labour.

Arriving at the picnic and activity camp

The one hour bus ride to Swings is filled with singing and laughter. To get away from the endless noise and the pollution in the capital is a treat, even if it is just for one day. When we arrive we see just how idyllic this place is. Tall trees stretch into a cloudless sky. The sun beats down but the temperature remains perfect. The air is clean and crisp. All that can be heard are the children’s chatter and teachers’ instructions for the activities. As the children clamber out of the bus they are placed in two different groups according to their age. They are handed out red and blue caps that they will later get to keep.

The older group starts with the rodeo bull. Each child takes a turn, encouraged by their friends. Some of them manage to hold on to the bull. Others fall off onto the inflatable floor below in a matter of seconds, laughing. Leila* (11) is the first girl who challenges the bull, an example to other girls in the group who may have been slightly apprehensive at first but who are now motivated to try it for themselves.

On the other side of the camp the younger group is tree-climbing, guided by two dedicated Swings staff. The children find it tricky to begin with, after all tree-climbing is not an easy task, but as they learn how to navigate the moving steps, slings and ropes connecting the trees they begin to feel more comfortable. In the end it becomes many childrens’ most memorable activity. Zeinab* (9), who is dressed in pink from head to toe says: “I love tree-climbing because I had never done it before and now I know how to!” At 11:30 it is time for a morning break. The delicious scent of warm za’atar manoushe fills the air and each child is given a bottle of water. Once they have finished wet wipes are handed out.

The activities that follow are equally thrilling. The small children are taken to do bungee jumping and they absolutely love it. Sami* (7) jumps up and down while his friends cheer him on. When he finishes he grins. “I made the most jumps!” he says. Amira* (6) is very keen to try. One of Amel’s instructors says she has a strong personality, for she is brave and strong-willed and is not fearful. It comes across. She cheers in delight every time she drops back down to the ground. Later on we see her enjoying chasing a chicken around the camp.

Some children are guided to a lone 15m tree and are challenged to climb it. Rami* (6 and half) is the first one to attempt it. He makes his way up with relative ease, stopping at times to decide where to next place his feet. When he makes it to the top he smiles down at his cheering crowd. “It was very beautiful” he says, back on the ground. “This is my favourite activity”.

Meanwhile, the older group is taken to a neighbouring giant swing, dubbed ‘the mother of all swings’ by the camp itself. Grouped in pairs, the children quite literally fly through the air when the swing drops. Ali* (10) loves it. “My heart sunk in my chest!” he says. Hassan* (13) and Wissam* (14) are talking enthusiastically when they get off. When asked if they are enjoying themselves today they say they are very happy. “The swing has been the best part so far” they add.

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Amel’s Protection Mobile Unit

Today is a big day for the children. They are not used to being out in nature or interacting with other children in fun educational activities that have nothing to do with the daily struggle of being out on the streets. A full-day outing like today’s is an important component of Amel’s Protection Mobile Unit (PMU) project, implemented in partnership with Samusocial International and currently funded by the French Agency for Development. The latter responds to the needs of street-based children in 15 countries.

The aim of the PMU project is to reconnect children and by extent their families with basic services that include psycho-social support, health, education, food security and legal support, by following Samusocial International’s methodology of street intervention and social care. They are identified directly by the Protection Mobile Unit – one nurse, one social worker and one driver social assistant, – who assess their individual needs before referring them or accompanying them to Amel’s centres (or other organisations if their needs cannot be catered for by Amel). Working with these children is extremely sensitive, given the many vulnerabilities they are exposed to. Often times social workers are met with understandable fear and distrust from the children themselves, or with resistance from parents. However, home visits and the distribution of small goods, like items of food, clothing or diapers allow the team to build a “link of trust” with the children and their families. Since the launch of the project in July 2017, 514 children have been identified.

A day to remember

As we wait for lunch, the children spend some time at the camp’s playground, covered in orange autumn leaves. The girls love the trampoline. They are counting how many times they can jump up and down in a row. They are breathless, laughing as they topple over each other. At 13:30 it is time for a well-deserved lunch at the picnic area. Today the children are getting shish tawook (marinated chicken), French fries with ketchup and a choice of either apple, pineapple or orange juice.

We catch up with Zeinab* (9) before we head back to Beirut to ask her about today’s experience. She has borne a smile from ear to ear all day. She used to sell tissues in the streets two years ago, but thanks to Amel’s support she is now fully-enrolled in school. When asked what her daily routine now looks like she says: “I wake up in the morning, get ready, make my bed, help my mother with some house chores, do some homework, have breakfast with my dad when he comes back home from his night-shift job and then my mother takes me and my younger brother to school. I do not work anymore”. She really likes going to school. She is learning a lot and has many friends.

It is Halloween, and while the sun sets Amel staff hand out small pumpkin buckets. Inside there is a pumpkin mask, some biscuits and a Halloween-themed water bottle. The children are delighted with their gifts, a souvenir of today’s memorable experience. As we head to the bus, Hassan* (13) says that he really did not think the outing was going to be so much fun – it was much better than he expected. He has loved the activities and has made new friends. “I hope there are more days like this in the future” he adds, “far from the streets”.

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The scale of the street-children issue

Lebanon hosts close to 500,000 Syrian children, many of whom are street-based. A UNICEF report in 2015 found that there were 1,510 children across 18 districts in Lebanon who were living or working on the streets. 73% of them were Syrian, and two thirds were male. The first access to the labour market was happening between the ages of 7 and 14, and the average working day was close to 8.5 hours. Things have not improved. A report by UN Lebanon in 2016 as part of ‘Lebanon’s Crisis Response Plan 2017-2020’ estimated that male child labour amongst Syrian refugee children had increased from 4% to 7%. Outdoor activities like today’s are crucial to give street-based children a chance to enjoy their childhood in a safe environment. For one day they have lived and played like children are supposed to, as they deserve.

*Names have been changed for anonymity purposes.

Amel's street-based children enjoy a day in the mountains It is the 31st of October. While other children around the world are getting ready for Halloween, …

#Amel #Amel Association #Amel Association International #child labor #Child Protection #early marriage #Haret Hreik #mobile protection unit #park #Samusocial International #SSI #Street Based Child #street children #Swings #Syrian refugees

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