#( socialisation has become - tricky again >< )

[nuiert]

Nobody. Hi everyone! Hopefully this will be the last update but I have started to make Lux new icons - as well as currently remaking his old icons! So keep an eye out for those new icons!

I've been meaning to become active for the longest time but either A) was distracted by other things or B) didn't have the energy but I've altogether been feeling my roleplay muse (altogether) return as I attempt to get into the swing of things again!

#( I've got ideas for some - other muses of mine - to move them to a hub ) #( I cannot fathom multi muse blogs but having sat on it for a bit a hub blog with sideblogs for muses might be the way to go for me ) #( Which'll help narrow things down to 5 blogs properly ;- Lux - xig/bar - dan/te - va/sh and then the hub blog ) #( unless I turn that into 4 ) #( I do apologies for the radio silence and - up and vanishing. The last thing I had intended. ) #( socialisation has become - tricky again >< ) #(but I wholeheartdly love Lux and have missed him and the KH rp community ) #( i think I just needed to wait until I felt my passion for KH return in general tbh ) #( I'll see everyone shortly on Lux and Xigbar possibly <3 ) #( I'll properly remake some tags on here too! ) #( otherwise still got some clean up left to do ~ )

[nuppu-nuppu]

same anon here, just read the other tags. Look this is a shitty situation, but none of that makes you pathetic. Would you go around judging that way others who feel like that too? If not, then pls try to be more gentle with yourself; your worth doesn't dependent on how many ppl show they like you, or anything like that. Personally I think fresh starts can feel great if you come from a place of wanting a positive change in yourself and your relations with others, but pls don't do it bc you want to isolate yourself -even if rn feels like the only option, its not. The head can be so tricky for no reason, and doing that would bring the familiarity of loneliness, yes, but also make you feel even worse about who you are and your relation with the rest of the world, even losing the grasp of wether or not being real -been there done that. Ppl on the internet constantly show their best selves bc they also want validation, and be perfect, and be happy, and great, and admired, but behind the para social relationships we dont know who they really are. I apologize if im giving unsolicited advice or just sticking my nose where it doesnt belong (?), just hurts to see ppl going thru what sounds like what I have.

I know I’m being too harsh on myself it’s just hard not to be because sometimes I feel like this situation I am in is completely my fault and due to my personality being shit garbage or something

And I’m definitely getting the urge to self isolate myself again but I know I should not because then I would just be more lonely and why the fuck would I want that. The loneliness has just become too familiar, at least more familiar than trying to socialise. And yeah I don’t feel real anymore that’s kind of why I wrote the things I wrote.

And you don’t have to apologise, I kind of asked for it with my overly dramatic tags lol thank you for being kind to me. I hope the world is kind to you in the future <3

#seriously thank you i hope you’re taking care of yourself it’s important to me #I apologise for sounding so negative #it’s just hard to get out of this headspace

[raydom-gamer]

SLIGHT SPOILERS FOR ANYTHING AFTER CHAPTER 16

I'm actually really curious about other people's thoughts about this.

Okay I had this thought late last night and it's been bothering me ever since, Belphegor was probably the only brother Lucifer can get away with putting in the attic without a rising any suspicion.

I'm not going to really bring in the emotional aspects about Lilith outside of just her dying or the fact that Lucifer was hiding a big secret from his brothers. I'm just plainly talkin about them being put in that attic for the same duration of time. Someone else can bring that up as well because I haven't really thought about how Lilith would affect them trapped up in the attic besides Beelzebub mentally.

Lucifer could not get away with doing that with any of his other brothers. If he had tried the chances are his other brothers would have realized something is up and would have gotten suspicious. And I'm not talking about the fact that Belphegor hated humanity and he wanted to kill the exchange students I'm just talkin about the fact that Lucifer probably had Belphegor up in that attic for roughly six months without anyone but MC knowing. Because if we break it down each individual brother it would be almost impossible for him to accomplish it.

Mammon - We all know for a fact in later chapters I can't remember which ones but it was confirmed that Mammon was Lucifer's favorite. Despite all of his faults, Lucifer still loves him and can see that outside his greediness that Mammon has he still sees with a lot more potential in Mammon. I honestly think it would be easy for him to trap and keep Mammon in the attic but Lucifer's own guilt plus Mammon's nagging would no doubt call the lot more issues then just leaving him there. Mammon probably would be a lot easier than the rest of the brothers because he's been punished a few times but I think he would make more and more ridiculous demands. Like wanting a TV for entertainment or wanting shiny for being a good boy and staying quiet in the attic for the week. Mammon also would probably be the only one who could probably talk Lucifer into letting him out. Mammon knows Lucifer better than all his brothers whether or not he pointed out. I have no doubt that he could talk Lucifer into freeing him or at least making Lucifer realize how ridiculous this is and what the backlash is going to be.

Leviathan - Leviathan would honestly be one of the easier ones to get in the attic and be hidden away much like Belphegor. Leviathan probably wouldn't be all that hard to keep in there since he's naturally in his room to begin with but he would probably have stressed out about Henry 2.0 well being well-being in the attic. Leviathan isn't above begging for something if he feels like he's being unfairly judged and would probably say some things that would cut Lucifer down. Leviathan nose a little bit more about Lucifer's War side and could probably say some hurtful things to him to guilt him into letting him out. If desperate Leviathan could summon Loath (I think thats the name) to help set him free or at least alert his brothers that hey he's still down here in Devildom. His brothers would probably also notice that Lucifer would have Akuzon packages coming in every day or a lot of packages at one time. Lucifer would have to do this in order to keep Leviathan up-to-date with his games, snacks and events in the hopes that it will occupy him from having a fit. Which wouldn't be too difficult if it wasn't for the fact that Mammon would most likely steal one of the packages and that would also end up getting Lucifer caught that Leviathan is somewhere near.

Satan - I believe Satan would be the most difficult for Lucifer to get into the attic to begin with but also the fact that he would probably be the one trying to make breakouts constantly. Satan is not stupid by any means and no matter how good Lucifer thinks he is if Satan is pushed, he will find a way to get out. Honestly would not surprise me if he just completely destroyed the room and actually literally blew a hole out the side of the house in a fit of rage just to get out of the attic. Lucifer might be able to control his temper a little bit if he may have thrown a cat or two in there because Satan wouldn't harm the animal no matter how mad he is but it would only work for so long. Especially if someone notices Lucifer is running around with cat litter and cat food. Satan would most likely be the biggest problem child out of all them purely for the fact that he has a lot more tricks up his sleeves than his brothers.

Edit: I just realized that if Satan was trapped up in the attic with a cat he would have to clean the cat's litter box but couldn't get rid of the bag without Lucifer's help. You can't convince me that Satan wouldn't take a bag of cat poop and hand it to Lucifer looking him dead in the eyes and say "Here's a sack of crap for a sack of crap." Satan would be so sassy since he can't destroy anything with the cats in the room.

Asmodeus - Asmodeus would be be another tricky one do the fact that he's kind of a celebrity or at least very popular is that a lot of people would notice him missing and start asking questions. He wouldn't be so bad at first. As long as Lucifer managed to allow him to still go into having his private bath and having all of his lotions and his clothes. Asmodeus wouldn't have such a big problem until the social aspect starts to strain on him. He is a social butterfly and he enjoys being around a lot of people having a lot of gossip the ones he kind of realizes how isolated he is that's when shit is going to hit the fan. And I can kind of see this going one of two ways. Either 1. He's going to be so desperate for socialisation he will literally have a meltdown every time Lucifer has to leave to the point where he use probably going to have a mental breakdown. Or 2. Asmodeus is going to try anyway he can to get Lucifer to let him talk to someone. Whether it be charming his brother or just outright attacking him would not surprise me because I feel like once you take a majority his happiness away from him then he will become feral. And if MC actually did meet Asmodeus the way they met Belphegor then I feel like Asmodeus would have an unhealthy attachment to MC purely from the stress of being the only one who will talk to him while he was in the attic.

Beelzebub - Much like Leviathan, Beelzebub wouldn't be that difficult to hide in the attic if it wasn't for the fact that his stomach would give himself away. Lucifer running up and down the stairs of the attic constantly to bring up 10 portion meal food a couple dozen times a day would not only exhaust him but would be hella suspicious to everyone. It was confirmed in text messaging that Lucifer is known for skipping every meal except dinner because he still wants to see his brothers at the end of the day. Beelzebub would also be someone that Lucifer would probably let out from guilt because Beelzebub still has a lot of regret about what happened to Lilith and in some way he would look at this situation of him being imprisoned in the Attic as his punishment for failing her. And given the fact that Beelzebub isn't afraid to just talk about uncomfortable things with his siblings if it fixes is the problem. Lucifer would probably release Beelzebub after having a long discussion of needing to let Lilith go. Also the brothers would have noticed that Lucifer running around with a lot of food would immediately send off some of warning signals especially the Belphegor who would already be on high suspicion that there was foul play. Beelzebub wasn't like that with belphegor but that's because he didn't really believe that Lucifer was going to lie to him and thought that Lucifer was taking good care of Belphegor (which in a way he was but still.)

I just feel like because Belphegor sleeps all day and outside of Satan and Beelzebub she really doesn't have a lot of socialisation as well as someone who's really easy to accommodate for with very little needs outside of the basics that wouldn't come off is alarming to his brothers. I kind of feel like Belphegor was just a perfect type of person could be put in an attic for months on end with just a basic lie from someone they trust without really alarming anyone. Beelzebub was upset and was confused why his brother had never said anything to him but again Beelzebub had no reason to not trust Lucifer.

I guess what I'm trying to say is do you think Lucifer already had that planned. Like way before Belphegor had this whole situation about the exchange program. Do you think Lucifer has had to sit down and think of a place to lock his brothers up for long periods of time just in case. I'm pretty sure he's done that with Satan at least because of his rage but I feel like that would be more of like a rage room to just destroy things and try to minimize the damage then actually being a prison.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me belphegor #obey me leviathan #obey me beelzebub #obey me headcanons

[horrible-on-main]

He picks up the pen with apprehension. He knows, somehow, before he tries, that this is something he cannot do. Something that has been taken from him. Grief is deep and hollow and nauseating. So many long hours spent writing for a living, drawing freehand with easy certainty, taking pride in how the neat letters flowed, having fun with the flourishes and the ornaments.... So many hand-written letters composed to friends sectors away, pen to parchment to produce something for the astropaths to transmit, his lifeline to socialisation during the long, lonely months at Warp...

Memory fills his eyes with tears. He avoided this while sent out on mission, in the illusion of freedom. Almost without letting himself think about it, he stuck to dataslate and dictation. At first they were amongst the poor who couldn’t write at all, and then they had enough prestige that he could have a minion do it, or requisition a scribe-skull, or otherwise not have to think about it.

But now he has to face it.

Just holding the pen is tricky. Anxiety conspires to worsen the tremor in his hands. The tip jitters almost comedically. It seems implausible that such violent motions could be anything but deliberate. And ridiculous that he should try and write with an implement that jumps in his hand so. But he was too afraid to tell her that he couldn’t. And now she is gone, and he can imagine the consequences of not doing the work he has been set.

Predictably, the first touch of nib to paper leaves a juddering line almost an inch long. He lifts the pen in a hurry, wincing. But he’s going to have to get used to this being a messy process. How humiliating. Tears continue to track down his cheeks. He ignores them, and tries again. Just trying to keep the pen still against the page, he draws a sprawling inelegant spider of a scribble as he relearns how to make his fingers apply the right pressure.

In his mind’s eye, she looks at the mess he has made of the page and tsks her tongue and takes his hand and hurts him and - no, no, focus. He has to focus. He can’t help but make a mess of this, the best he can hope for is to get some work done as well. So he tries to swallow back sobs and devotes the top of the page to practice - “straight” lines first, then clumsy letter forms. His writing is worse than a child’s. An illegible, distorted, jittery mess. Still, the thought of her coming back to find that he has not even tried... He practices until he feels that he has the measure of his extensive limitations. And then he gets to work.

He has to rework almost every letter to make it legible. And as often as not the corrections make things worse rather than better. Only one word in perhaps five does not end as a crossed-out mess. He can’t stop crying, knowing that this is unacceptable but unable to do better.

Within an hour, his hand is aching. Within two, it is cramping badly enough that he has to stop every few words to force the screaming muscles back into compliance. He tries writing with his left instead, but it’s even worse. He can’t form anything that looks even remotely like a letter. He tries writing with the pen gripped in a fist. With both hands locked together. Even, in a fit of desperation, with it in his teeth. He cycles between clumsy methods, getting an appalling line or two down with each before it becomes untenable. His fingers spasm for minutes at a time while he tries to force them to hold the pen to no avail.

He fills two pages with a bare handful of comprehensible words each. On the third, he runs out of space before he has managed to write a single word successfully. Despair wins out over fear and he puts his head down on the table and sobs. It’s just for a little while, he tells himself. Just to give his hands a chance to recover before he starts over. He isn’t giving up, isn’t slacking off. It’s just for a few minutes.

The door opens and he squeaks with fear, jumping half out of his skin. He freezes up - a shaking, sobbing wreck, terrified of the punishment he is sure is incoming. Too paralysed even to get on his knees like he suspects he should.

She walks over to inspect the mess that he has made with critical eyes. Her frown sets him crying harder, hiding his face. “Eyes up,” she reminds him, so he unwillingly watches her look over the paper he has ruined in his futile attempts at writing.

She doesn’t ask him for his hands, but just picks his right up by the wrist. He offers no resistance. She inspects the shaking, ink-stained fingers, then runs her free hand over the cramping muscles of his forearm. He wants to beg for mercy, but he remembers acutely the lessons in Don’t speak until spoken to. It’s almost like his time outside never existed, like he never left.

“You’ve spent a long time on this,” she remarks. There’s something unexpected in her voice, something unfamiliar. Distraught as he is, he can’t start to decipher it. But he dares to hope it might be good for him. “Yes Interrogator.” “You aren’t getting anywhere.” “No Interrogator.” His head dips in shame, but he remembers to keep his eyes on hers. “But you kept trying.” “Yes Interrogator. I... I wasn’t s-stopping,” he half-lies, “I was just w-waiting for my f-fingers to s-stop twitching so I c-c-could try ag-gain...” Her fingers are digging into the pained muscles. It hurts, but it’s also a profoundly good kind of pain. He can feel the cramps easing slowly under her touch. “Good,” she says. His heart leaps. “Well done. Stay there. Put your head down, sleep if you want.”

He is grateful. Too sore and too miserable to sleep, even once she leaves. But grateful. And even more so when a guard comes to swap the writing supplies for a dataslate. He can use one of those. A little clumsily, but he can do it. He’s almost eager to get back to work.

#drabble #068 past #068 past drabble #ariadne #ariadne drabble #mention of torture #abuse #hand injuries #long term injuries #disability

[rvspotlight]

OKABAYASHI TAICHI “TYE”

age: 00 liner company: spotlight entertainment position: dance trainee traits: (+) Cheerful, Confident, Sociable (-) Arrogant, Competitive, Easily Offended played by: yaya

About:

When Taichi Okabayashi is still in the stomach of his mother, his life is already plotted out to perfection. The nursery is a painted in blues and while his parents don’t live in luxury, they have enough love times two for the son they await. When you picture the halcyon of it all- who can blame Taichi for entering early?

At 29 weeks and weighing only four pounds, they never leave the incubator’s side as Taichi begins fighting a war he’s too little to be conscious of. He will battle against his own organs, his lungs and his intestines will threaten to fail on several occasions, but Taichi survives. Eventually he is allowed to be taken to his nursery, where he grows and learns and plays. But he’s not done fighting; at three years old, when he’s still struggling to eat solids, it becomes clear something is wrong beyond stalled development. The hospital find his esophagus is too small, and for the next few years, he’s subject to operation after operation as they do what they can to give him a body that can perform it’s basic functions.

It cuts into primary school, and with the immune system of a scrap of paper, Taichi catches every bug and cold that spreads around. He misses so many days that his classmates barely know him, and he becomes reserved and shy- as if he’s not even been given the chance to figure out how to socialise yet, always recovering or unwell.

In hopes that it will give their son some confidence, his parents enroll him in dance classes. It’s a little tricky at first- he has trouble with his stamina, but he’s told not to give up and so he doesn’t. Somewhere in him, a switch flips; his life is given meaning beyond getting sick and getting better and getting sick again. So Taichi dances whenever he can and often when he should be doing other things (like chores and homework) and he knows it’s what he wants to do forever.

As Junior High starts, Taichi struggles with his academics and it soon becomes clear that there’s more to the story than just missing a lot of class. He’s tested for dyslexia and dyscalculia, and it’s agreed upon that he’s affected by both. Self conscious about his perceived lack of intelligence (although it’s clear to many that he’s anything but dumb), Taichi makes it up to himself by channeling everything he’s got into becoming social, instead. He joins several clubs and is elected as class president after a frighteningly persuasive campaign- and he becomes a friend to a large number of the student body. Taichi’s health improves to a level where he deals with the lasting side effects of his early difficulties with relative ease and avoids any further serious illness- but he still remains uniquely gifted in catching colds.

It’s halfway through his second year of Junior High when his dance teacher helps him attend the open audition for the South Korean entertainment company, Spotlight Entertainment. Beyond being a massive fan of the girl group Reign (and therefor being somewhat cynical about any label that doesn’t house them) he knows little about K-Pop. However, the more he thinks about it, the more he realises it makes no sense to do anything with his life beyond perform. His parents are left in the dark as he does not expect to pass; his singing leaves a lot to be desired, but he hopes if he can impress them with his dancing he may one day be able to work for them as a dancer. Against the odds, Taichi is one of very few to pass the audition and is met with the iron task of convincing his parents to let him be whisked away to South Korea to become a pop star.

It’s a unique opportunity, and he wants to see it through- but they thought they were going to lose him so many times already, how can they let their son move away so far, so soon?

A compromise is eventually made. They would go with him. As Taichi moves into the training facilities, they sell their home and move to an apartment within the city. It’s excessive and too great a risk to be at all sensible, but they can’t bare the thought of Taichi falling ill again and being unable to be by his side. Fortunately, Taichi’s health stays stable, and for two years, they teach him how to at least carry a tune- he’s taught to be passable in rap, too, when it becomes clear that his vocals would never pass the level of low average. And while dance remains his area of expertise, those in charge also take note of his always sunny disposition. Even before he’s learned enough Korean to deal with the language barrier, he creates solid bonds and friendships with his fellow trainees- even through the stress and hardship. His trainers laugh and joke with him like a favoured student, and he makes a good impression with the staff at Spotlight very early on.

And although he grows a little cocky, becomes a little too aware of his golden child status, Taichi faces each day with a smile and the mindset that he’s one day closer to stepping on a stage. Even as the years tick by, until six years are gone and his parents have returned to Korea, and he prepares to turn twenty with no certainty that he’ll debut any time soon, Taichi smiles and tells himself not to worry, he was born for this. (He’s grown a little cocky, remember.)

#okabayashi taichi #tye #trainee #kanemoto yoshinori #yoshi

[scripttorture]

So in case of all these child soldier/spy/assassin/superweapon scenarios, if one wants an effective fighter out of them, is it best for the villainous organization that usually is kidnapping all these kids to treat the children nicely? Even if it turns out the organization is actually terrible and does terrible things to people outside it, I'm afraid that if I write it it comes off as glorifying to child soldiers? "They are treated lovingly there~"

Is it easier for a “faux-loving cultist organization raised a child soldier” character to reintegrate into society if she was taken around 10, then escaped at 20/25, and has a sister she knows and loves from childhood and who supports her? Is it possible that she never fully integrates or integrates in a very long time period (decades) but can interact comfortably with a small group of (5-7) people she trusts? Does any of this change if her spouse in the cult abused her when she tried to leave?

There’s quite a lot to this one. (I also wrote out an answer assuming these were two parts of the same ask and it has belatedly occurred to me that they could be seperate asks. I’ve left the original answer as it stands and I hope that’s alright.)

When it comes to whether a piece of fiction handles a delicate topicpoorly- well I think that’s very subjective. I try not to tell people what towrite because I know an awful lot depends on the execution, on how it’s written.

I make exceptions for fictional scenarios that are both unrealistic and encourage real life torture.

I’ve also made a couple of case-by-case exceptions based on prettydetailed scenarios that had multiple, connected issues. I usually only say ‘no’to those if the asker comes across as unwilling to think about what they’reactually writing and the real people affected by the issues they’re planning totackle. I don’t get that impression from your ask at all.

I don’t personally like these sorts of child soldier stories very much.That doesn’t mean that they can’t bewell written or that they can’t be respectful, and I try to keep my personaltaste out of my answers as much as possible.

I think a lot of good writing is about balancing different elementssuccessfully. What I’m getting from this ask is that you’re unsure how tobalance the idea that this character’s trainers were kind to her directly withthe fact that their overall actions are abusive.

That’s a good question.

A book I acquired recently compares it to grooming and I think that’s agood comparison. This sort of manipulation is selfish, exploitative and oftenhugely damaging to the victim.

But it works because in large part that’s not how the victim sees thesituation at the time.

It’s not ‘just’ kindness. It’s the fact that these people makethemselves the central (or even only) positive social contact in the victim’slife. One of the common abbreviations for this sort of process should help makeit a little clearer: ICURE- Isolate from their previous environment, Controlwhat they perceive, increase Uncertainty about previous beliefs/values, useRepetition to instil new beliefs/values, manipulate Emotions to weaken formervalues and strengthen new ones.

In your story the character is isolated from a pretty young age. At thatsort of age it is easier to convincesomeone their old family has rejected them, stopped looking for them, doesn’tlove them anymore. And once convinced of that the conditional ‘kindness’ of thecult becomes very attractive indeed.

I actually left my family and country at roughly the same age as yourcharacter (less dramatic than it sounds). It can really knock your world view and sense of self. Many of thechildren at the school I was in were in a similar position. Some reallystruggled. Some thrived.

I remember being extremely susceptible to new ideas and not beingparticularly critical. I was incredibly isolated and looking for something toconnect to- fortunately most of what I found was world mythology.

My point is that given the situation she’s been forced into I don’tthink it would be unreasonable for your character to bond with her captors,accept their beliefs and go along with their training in return for affection,a positive social circle and their conditional kindness.

The thing with a set up like this is that the kindness is conditional on her obedience.

Growing up like this she will have seen the social consequences ofdisobeying; isolation, censure, ridicule, bullying. She’ll have been taughtthat love is a reward for ‘good’ behaviour.

Since you have both the groupdoing awful things and the character leaving the group I don’t think younecessarily have to worry about glorifying child soldiers. It sounds to me asif you’ve given the whole scenario a fair bit of thought and that’s always agreat first step.

However if you want to add more from the character’s childhood then I’dsuggest showing a child who didn’t do as well as she did. Perhaps they clung tothe idea of their old family, or perhaps they just weren’t as good at doingwhat the organisation wanted.

Beating them or killing them would hinder this sort of organisation andrisk any ‘progress’ made with the other children. Instead you might see thingslike…forbidding the other children to talk to this child for several days,ritually humiliating them in front of the rest of the ‘class’. Or the sortof…group recrimination that’s sometimes used in China, with the ‘teacher’making the other children stand in a circle around the targeted child andencouraging them to take turns to tell the victim their ‘faults’.

That’s incredibly intimidating and emotional for adults. For a childwithout any outside emotional support I think it would be pretty damn terrible.I’d be incredibly surprised if a child that age and under that pressure didn’tburst into tears. You could use that to illustrate that these aren’t nicepeople and perhaps witnessing something like that could influence yourcharacter’s decision to leave later.

Some of the factors you’ve mentioned around her escaping wouldprobably help but others might not.

Having someone who does genuinelylove and support her would make a huge difference to her mental health andemotional wellbeing. That in turn would help her…..not necessarily‘re-integrate’ but re-adjust to life outside the group.

I don’t think her age when sheescapes would make much difference. It’s hard to tell and some people put morestock in ‘youth’ as a measure of how well people adapt than others.

I think the age she’s taken wouldmake a difference. Ten is more than old enough to remember her life before she was forced to become asoldier. That would almost certainly help.

But reintegrating into society is a tricky business. It requires…well itrequires society accepting a formerchild soldier back into society. They need to be able to socialise with peoplenormally, get jobs, access opportunities. They need to believe they have anhonest shot at happiness in ordinary mainstream society.

That’s often tricky in the real world because many ordinary people are naturally rather afraid of individualswho fought with the terrorists that were shooting at them yesterday. That’scompounded by the lack of education child soldiers receive; they often don’t know how to do anything beyondfight and if they can’t get a decent job or a chance to catch up on theschooling they missed then they’re oftentargeted by criminal gangs who want to make use of their ‘skills’. And lack ofchoice.

From her end I’d say she’s got a much better chance than many real lifechild soldiers: she has a good support network and society isn’t totally new toher.

But that’s really not the only factor at play. The environment she’strying to integrate into also matters a lot.

I’d say both the scenarios you suggest (never entirely re-integrating orre-integrating very gradually over decades) are possible. You might also wantto think about what integrating back into society means.

There are plenty of people who function perfectly well day-to-day intheir society but are arguably not ‘fully integrated’. People who don’t speakthe majority language for example. They arecut off from certain opportunities and social events, but that doesn’tnecessarily mean they aren’t leading happy lives.

Once again positive social circles are the key.

What does ‘fully integrated’ mean to you, your story and your character?She’s probably not going to berunning for political office within a year. On the other hand she might well beable to interact positively with a small group of friends, perform small-scaleinteractions like buying things from the shops and hold occasional jobs.

The situation you’re suggesting seems reasonable to me. I guess what I’msaying is does it matter to the story if your character still has ‘weird’ingrained behaviours decades later? If she’s not hurting anyone and managesmost everyday things do her mental health problems (or difficulty graspingmainstream culture) automatically mean she’s not fully integrated?

Because by that logic I’m notfully integrated into British society, and I do alright.

Consider what she needs to beable to do versus what’s considered ‘normal’ by the society around her. Andfocus on the first category to figure out what sort of help she’ll actuallyneed over time.

Having a small close friendship group sounds reasonable and realistic tome. Difficulty trusting and interacting with people would be common for someonecoming out of the extremely isolated environment she’s been in.

It would be important that she doesn’t feel judged by these people and,given the environment she’s come out of, it would probably be important to herthat they listen to and respect her opinions and desires, instead of trying toimpose their own on her. She might respond particularly negatively to thingsthat are supposed to be gentle hints or attempts to persuade her to change hermind.

Lastly- I thinking having someone (spouse or not) from the cult abuseher when she tries to leave is actually incredibly realistic and in keepingwith how these sorts of groups behave.

But yes, it probably would make things more difficult for her.

That said, I’m not sure it would change your overall timescale for herrecovery. You’ve set a reasonably cautious pace and that’s a very good thing. Once again having thesupport of her sister would make a huge difference.

I’m not particularly knowledge about the long term effects of spousalabuse so I’m going to leave it at that. Scripttraumasurvivors has some verygood pieces on spousal abuse and looking through their tags could help you dealwith that aspect specifically.

You mightfind this BBC article by a woman who was raised in a ‘cult’ useful. Obviouslyshe wasn’t trained as a soldier but she talks a little about the process ofleaving her community and trying to fit in to mainstream society. I think thatcould be useful for your story.

Child Soldiers International also has some resources about reintegratingchild soldiers into society. Keep in mind the differences between what you’rewriting and the cases they’re discussing though, some of what they describewill be due to a community that’s hugely aware of and fighting these armedgroups. That might not be the case in your story.

Thisis a guide developed specifically focusing on girls in the Congo.

WarChild has this very short primer that discusses some of the myths about childsoldiers, those related to ‘regaining childhood’ are relevant. They’ve also got a pretty goodlong form post about the impact of war on children generally.

Child soldiers are a topic I’m not quite as knowledgeable on as some ofthe other things I talk about. Given the volume of asks I get on the subjectI’m prioritising it as an area of research and I hope I can produce somerelevant Masterposts on the subject this year.

Generally though, I get the feeling you’re on the right track andapproaching the topic with thought and sensitivity.

I hope this helps. :)

Disclaimer

#tw child soldiers #child soldiers #coercion #manipulation #ICURE techniques #cults #leaving cults #tw spousal abuse #tw child abuse #Anonymous

[letsdiscoverkitty]

You can have a life while you are recovering- in fact I think that’s the only way you have any chance of doing it properly. You talk a lot about your family but never about your friends- where are they? Parents are not meant to be our only companions when we are grown ups. It IS possible to do normal life things whilst having an eating disorder - whether you are in recovery or not. Without something to focus on and live for what is even the point of trying? Find that thing to I live for xx

It has been over 6 years since I was diagnosed and in that time the number of real true friends that I have has fallen dramatically. One side that people don’t often talk about when you suffer from an eating disorder is that it literally shrinks your whole entire world. It’s aim is to make sure that there is only room for you and it in your bubble; no friends, no socialising, no ambitions, no interests, no fun, nothing. It reduces your life to nothing. There is no time for friends or relationships, family or meeting new people. 

When you suffer from a mental illness, you definitely learn who your true and real friends are and who was just along for the ride. I know that I am a terrible friend, and I will put my hands up and admit that. I have lost contact with many people and I have isolated myself beyond belief for years. Depression and anxiety can make leaving the house and making plans feel like you are being asked to climb mount Everest; which often leads to receding into the darkness and allowing them to consume me. I am very lucky to still have a few friends who have stuck by me despite everything; sadly as my life has been on hold, theirs have been continuing to move forwards, so actually being able to see each other has become quite a rarity. Initially my close friends moved away to study at University (all over the country) or similar. Now having graduated, most people have moved onto new jobs, getting first houses, moving in with partners, having children etc. Despite me still sitting in my bedroom at home; my peers have all spread their wings, found new friendships, interests and are moving on with their milestones.

I think I can say that I have maybe 2 friends left from my school days; both of whom I love to bits but sadly do not get to see very often. I have some very close friends that I have met online (including Meg who is a true gem and who I still talk to nearly every day) but it is not the same (mainly due to distance). I do mention my parents a bit and I suppose that is because I live with them in a very rural part of the countryside so yes we are around each other a lot. Meeting new people is very hard; not only because of anxiety but because of where I live. This is one reason why I am considering moving out at some point not too far down the line/moving in with Andi as I am so bored and tired and stuck here (Andi found the same growing up and during their gap year and could not wait to move out). Tbh anorexia has reduced me to a mere shell of who I was...  have lost my identity and purpose and have no idea who I am anymore. Which can make trying to get out and meet people or do things very hard.

I completely agree that part of recovery is reconnecting with social circles, getting out there and meeting new people and taking steps forwards towards milestones. Recovery does not mean putting everything on hold until you are “recovered” because it just does not happen like that. Whilst IP at the beginning of the year I learnt a bit more about how important the social aspect is in recovery and I realised how this element has been missing from my life for years. It is something that makes me feel quite sad and alone and is often overwhelming to even think about but I know that I can’t continue to avoid it. My closest friends are extremely understanding; A is the best. She knows I find it difficult to open and reply to messages but she makes sure to give me the kick up the arse when I need it. I have met up with her quite a few times recently however she has been away for the past month travelling/doing a yoga course but she is due back any day now!!!! J is my other closest friend who again I have been to see and had coffee with a number of times, we are trying to plan to go to the cinema but she has just started a full time 9-5 job in a city about 45mins drive away, and spends the weekends with her boyfriend in London so it is a bit tricky to sort out. 

I suppose what I am trying to say is that you make a very very good point and it is something that I am aware of. Eventually I want to take steps towards doing things like socialising, getting a part time job etc. Ideally idk, ideally I would be going into an environment like 1st year at Uni where you meet loads of people and find your feet a little but that is not where I am at right now. I am still waiting to hear back from volunteering at a local animal shelter, and cubs is on hold for the summer. I aim to work towards getting a part time job but I am not sure what as but I know I have to take things slowly in this area as in the past I have rushed it too fast and end up putting everything else before my health, which is not the aim. As I have said before, I have applied for some apprenticeships online (despite knowing I am not quite in a place to be able to take them on) but it at least shows that I am trying to think about it a bit? even if it is to beat myself up a little...It is sadly one side of being IP that was helpful for my anxiety - I was forced to be around people and I actually got to meet some really wonderful people and spend time together and do things with each other. However now I am back home living where I do it makes things a million times harder to overcome that anxiety that is already crippling. My team (both IP and now OP) have tried so much to help me connect with other people and find ways of getting out but even they have come up against brick walls as there is very little around my area. 

This is, I think, one of the reasons I have felt so trapped in this relapse; I have very little motivation/drive as I don’t know why I am doing it anymore. In the past I have had prospects of University or when I was going back to my A levels however now I don’t know what I want. I am feeling more lost by the day with myself and it is really hard to deal with. I wish that there was a simple answer. That doing xyz would help me to find motivation and life and a way forwards but right now I feel nothing. And as shit as it is I know dwelling on it even longer and staying submerged in relapse is not the answer so I am having to take initial steps blindly into the darkness. 

I am going to leave this reply here as I feel I have gone on far too much but I hope that gives a rough picture of things x

#Anonymous #asks

[vroenis]

Turn Up And Play One Game

This is going to require setting a bunch of preconditions so you’re going to have to be quite patient with me. As you read this piece, I want you to try and remember these things. Remembering them may not be a problem for you, perhaps it’s a problem for me as I write and maybe that can be your framing as an introduction. If I was able to post this in a spreadsheet and freeze these points so they were stickied at the top, I would, and it’d be a very me thing to do, but that probably wouldn’t otherwise be conducive to reading linear text intended for an audience and reduce what little readership this is already likely to get to zero so let’s not, and by let’s I mean me.

The things I want you to try and keep in mind are;

I am ASD and for the most part present competently in social situations (carefully worded for reasons to be explained - stay with me).

I am bipolar 2 and present very competently in social situations (the delineation between the two behaviours is important).

I am genderqueer and femme-presenting male.

I took roughly 2 and a half years off from teaching and playing board games, running groups and events etc. due to burnout.

Unfortunately we’re not done yet - I know, but I think it’s all important but I’m not sure, I hope it is.

The reason I worded the qualifier for how my ASD behaviour presents the way I did is that I don’t want to use the reductive term “high functioning”. I haven’t done any reading on it yet, but I feel it really *is* reductive and tempts both the writer and reader to be prescriptive instead of descriptive. I’ve now used more words (and more here, now) but I think they’re needed. Function with Autism is a tricky thing. In a lot of contemporary writing, both by those with Autism and by those researching it, there’s commentary on outsiders making remarks of “oh but you don’t look or seem Autistic” or “you were less Autistic today” and this is some very unhelpful framing and perception of Autism from our experience of living with it. So what I mean by what I wrote is, 

it may not be apparent by my behaviour that I’m Autistic, and for the most part, I have learnt the social mores of interacting with others in order for socialising to be more or less frictionless.

It’s something I suspect many ASD folks at various capacities develop over time. It also means that often we spend a lot of extra energy on the labour of socialising. That’s no-one’s fault (for the most part - I’ll get to that hopefully, if I remember), it’s just a fact of our lives. I do use the term Our very carefully, and I apologise for speaking for other ASD people. I should speak only for my own experience. The labour of interaction doesn’t always come a great cost to me, but sometimes it does.

I’ve had my bipolar 2 diagnosis for longer so I’ve been educating myself about it for longer. While I currently have no pharmaceutical treatment for Autism, I’ve been on and off and currently on meds for bipolar for much longer, so I have much more experience managing it. In the past it has been impossible for me to understand anything about my own behaviour but slowly over time I’m beginning to develop skills in identifying components of each condition, what I can do about them and the many... many things I can do to navigate life.

That is a lot of management, as I have no doubt many of you will understand all too well. We do this on top of the rigours of life, in addition to the same concerns everyone carries. 

This is why nothing, nothing ever... is easily dismissible as just an “oh well...” “just a bad experience...” “you’ll just have to...” “next time just...” “don’t worry about it, next time...”

I feel like the “just...” isn’t so easy for us, or to be specific, for me.

By the way we’re still in the preamble. Hopefully by the end of this I’ll be able to focus on outcomes but I don’t know how emotional I’m going to get when I plunge into it. I realise what I’m probably doing is priming myself for the text to come and were I to actually edit this, a lot would be cut but I don’t have that luxury and I want all of this to stay in. It’s important to me and hopefully the context will become clear. My last primer is to set out to write about 3 distinct interactions;

The first and bulk of the text - not all bad but prolonged and thus harrowing

The second - unclear but ultimately terrible

The third - joyful

A Pub/Bar Is Not An Appropriate Place To Learn And Then Teach A Board Game

I’m going to begin with some paraphrased commentary I’ve thrown around several times before;

In board games culture, the social norm of over-reliance on Ambassadors is unacceptable.

Now that statement actually applies to a whole myriad of contexts including commercially, but I’ll apply it to how it’s relevant to the account I’m going to describe. I’m writing this journal entry because of a series of interactions that transpired after attending a regular board game night in the city where I live. Twice in a row now, people have seen that I’ve brought games with me and made statements more or less like;

“You look like you’re an expert, can you teach this game?”

And I know what you’re thinking, why didn’t I just say “No” etc. but with some social mores and I’ll get to that.

Here’s the thing;

Yes I brought games... do you think perhaps those are the games I might like to teach?

Thanks for the flattering compliment (I did thank them both times)... but you want me to learn a board game in a loud pub/bar and then teach it in said loud pub/bar with all that teaching entails i.e., shepherding the experience? Because I get that maybe to you, teaching doesn’t mean good Ambassadorship but to me it does and yep, I realise you might not know that (again... we’ll get to that because guess what...)

I’m Autistic, which you don’t know, and that’s important because...

I very gently tried to deploy all the delicate social niceties one does to disarm a potentially hazardous situation for me, rather than panic, because panicking is how things turn Very Bad. Honestly, sometimes it’s not even about things turning Very Bad for you which for the most part is you feel awkward - I mean sure, sucks for you, but for me, the energy cost goes through the roof and will continue to keep hitting for days. Turns out it still does anyway.

I tried to suggest that reading and understanding rules in a loud pub might not be ideal, but the other person was a bit happy-go-lucky and as it happens, I turned up late after work which unfortunately I’m always going to do - so most people had already started games and this person picked up a 2 player game from the common event library. I’m sorry if details are getting scattered, I’m doing my best.

So I attempt to read through the rules and teach it and at a few key points, they ask for clarification which is very natural, so I clarify as best I can and they simply don’t listen and give their own interpretation which in the way they gave it, I also totally understand. I’ll be clear at this point and say in no way was this person rude - their manner was really cordial, polite, and this person was actually wonderful. I’ve no way of knowing their gender identity or sexuality because it never came up and nor did pronouns, but they presented cis and never once showed any sign of having a problem with how I was presenting, so that was really really nice.

But they still didn’t listen to me when I clarified rules and so I just went with it - I dead-set offered minimal resistance because in a social setting, in a loud pub, when I’ve been set-upon to teach a game I don’t know and now there’s an expectation to deploy this experience, I just have to get this thing going and get through it. Already as we play I realise we’re playing it incorrectly and I have to make like it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t - even now I’ll be honest, it happens all the time - so again, let me be clear;

Playing the game incorrectly didn’t and doesn’t matter - not being heard is what matters. And it isn’t important because I’m Autistic, it’s important regardless.

So not only do I think having to learn and then teach a game in a loud pub or bar (or convention, to be honest) is a bad idea, I think specifically a 2 player game is also a bad idea because were a similar situation to occur with more people at the table, there’s more opportunity for consultation and consensus where hopefully other experienced and hobby literate people can review, discuss and contribute.

That whole experience was horrifying for me. It cost me so much energy and it still is... but it wasn’t that other person’s fault.

They didn’t know that I’m Autistic and bipolar and still don’t. I still don’t know how to tell people in a way I’m comfortable with that’s conducive to good socialising and group behaviour going forward thru each interaction. It’s difficult for me because there are so many things I believe should be good behaviours on principle but I realise the whole reason I may believe those things may be entirely due to Autism or bipolar or both, such as...

A Pub Is Not An Appropriate Place To Learn And Then Teach A Board Game

because if it doesn’t come out quite right for you, you can just waive it off, but for me, it ends up being a days-long nightmare of energy-drain and behavioural analysis. I can’t tell you anything about the game we played at all. I don’t understand anything about it because I barely processed the experience. Every unit of energy I had was spent on maintaining my social behaviours, my mechanical actions and verbal skills. I had a few impressions of the game’s mechanisms and was for a fraction of a second tempted to drop some comments on BGG but they would have been so ill-informed and incorrect, I remembered by self-observational skills and realised I shouldn’t do it.

I played one game that night and didn’t know whether I had any energy left for any other activities.

The Second Interaction

While we were packing up, some guy wandered up to our table - this usually happens when you see a game wrapping up so you can be included in a new game which is totally fine. I don’t know what his motivations were, but he literally spoke one or two words like “what’s happening?” and either myself or the other person said that we had just finished and I don’t know if he took one look at my queer-ass self or not but he was gone without another word. 

I really don’t know what that was all about. I really hate to talk like the only gay in the village with my hair clipped in and my women’s clothes but sometimes folks sure do treat me like it. Didn’t say “oh hey my game is ready, nice to meet you” or like he knew the other person I’d just wrapped the game up with, mans just took flight and was gone, so now I am already in Autistic cyclic coping mode and now I feel queer rejection too whether it’s real or imagined so I am noping the fuck out and going home.

The Third Interaction Which Actually Happened Second

As I write about what for me were some fairly harrowing experiences, I don’t want to cast a fully negative tone over the event as a whole. Each time I’ve attended this regular event, including this evening specifically, the hosts have visited the table I’ve been at and greeted us. They’ve shown absolutely no reaction to how I’ve visually presented and been warm and welcoming, discussed whatever game we’ve been playing and been full of positivity which I think is wonderful. I don’t want anyone to think that anything that’s transpired between me and anyone else is the result of some kind of endemic cultural problem specific to one cultural space...

I think it’s something endemic of board games culture in general, or even people in general.

It’s going to be easy to read this and say that I have to telegraph to people what my needs are. Also there’ll likely be people with ASD and/or people with mental health concerns who will advocate for changes of behaviour in others as I’m about to start outlining as you probably easily guess and I did promise to make an attempt at outcomes. I agree with everyone to a certain extent except that society doesn’t make it easy for people with mental health challenges to discuss our needs openly. Yes, not at all made any easier by those seeking to alleviate themselves of accountability but let’s take it on good faith that no-one wants to do that.

Outcomes

The whole reason I burnt-out from board games culture and took a break for so long was the overwhelming expectation from people to constantly teach games and keep providing good experiences over and over again, to the point of there being no appreciation for it. When anyone teaches me literally anything - even in my work place - I thank them for it - no matter how small it is. Teaching games isn’t easy, even simple games. Taking the time to read rules, cover ambiguities, ensure you can answer questions, and then shepherd the session for the duration of the game, is a skill - and that’s taking into account how well the rulebook is written. Expecting that to be done in a short amount of time in a loud environment?? For some of us, when we prep games for a game night, or bring a small selection of games to an event, we review the rules to ensure we can run them smoothly, even if we’ve run them a hundred times before... 

We do this not to ensure the game functions for the sake of the game, we do it so that the game functions for the sake of the people.

I guess you could argue, then, that learning a game on the night and getting it wrong shouldn’t matter because as long as the people enjoy it, it’s fine... but that’s just it - learning it on the night isn’t enjoyable. Even between the other person and I, it was time-consuming and half-way thru the game, they also picked up at least one of our magical rules errors which we did just play thru and also was fine, but these social frictions between people are going to be far more likely, and far more stressful. The end of the game just happened to coincide with the time I take my fistful of meds so maybe they did just happen to pick up on that but oh well too late by then, I didn’t get to mention what flavours I have in my brain so that might have to be for another night. 

I feel as tho loading up that expectation on other people to perform labour without knowing where they’re at and expecting the right of refusal to be amicable is a weird and unfair position to put on people. I put myself in a position where I’m happy to teach the games I brought. I understand what it means to learn and teach a game under the most ideal circumstances... for a person who doesn’t have mental health concerns... so I wouldn’t ask anyone else under any circumstances, ideal or otherwise, to teach a game they didn’t know.

People don’t know I’m ASD and bipolar. I don’t know what they are, either, but I’m in the unique position of having mental health concerns so I’m constantly considering where others are at and what they might need.

I think that’s what I’m asking for. I’m not at all angry at or feeling hurt by my board game play-companion that evening, they were lovely and I’d happily play a game with them again, but I don’t know how I’d go about explaining this situation to them because educating others in detail in a short amount of time is extremely difficult, then and there when you’re in the situation. I realise people who don’t have these or similar concerns tend to “brush off” similar situations but I don’t brush off anything. Nothing ever gets brushed off. Everything costs something and that cost is monumental. It costs energy and it costs days.

I don’t think I need people to go and read pages and pages about Autism and bipolar disorder, I think I just need people to listen a bit more. I need people to be appreciative of the labour of others, specifically of when they put effort into instructive and demonstrative action i.e. teaching board games., and understand this specific example in this context; a game that no-one knows, especially with strangers. If you want to pony-up for a new board game, don’t put it on someone else. You want to make that call, it’s your call, you do it. 

#2021 #chrono #mental health #bipolar #ASD #Autism #board games #boardgames #ambassadorship #board game culture

[upstartpoodle]

Bad Tidings (Chapter 1)

Rating: G

Pairing: George x Elizabeth

Summary: George Warleggan doesn’t believe in the supernatural. Just before the Queen Charlotte sets sail on its maiden voyage, he’s proved wrong.

In other words, the first instalment of my banshee AU, based on the edit I made here.

Chapter 1

“Francis, aunt, how are you?”

It was the day of Charles Poldark’s wake, and George Warleggan watched sullenly from his place beside the refreshments table, where his uncle and Dr Choake were having a dreary discussion about the ills of society at large, as the deceased man’s nephew headed over towards the corner in which Agatha Poldark was sequestered, Francis standing at her side, staring at nothing in particular. The question was, George couldn’t help but think, a rather foolish one, however expected it may be. Francis had always worn his heart on his sleeve, and as such the fact that he was very much the worse for wear was written clearly all over his face, and as for Agatha…well, he wasn’t entirely sure she even had a heart, he thought, somewhat uncharitably.

“I imagine we have seen better days” George, who had now completely tuned out Dr Choake upon realising that he was beginning to warm to the subject of purging, heard Francis say in reply, his tone dull and grim.

Agatha snorted into her glass of port. George wrinkled up his nose in distaste.

“Better days indeed,” she scowled. “These are dark times for the Poldarks—you mark my words.”

“Aunt, please…”

“You may ignore the signs, Francis, but they’re there nonetheless. You heard it, did you not, just as I did? The wailing, the night before he died.”

“It was the wind, aunt” sighed Francis in a long-suffering tone. It sounded as if he had had this argument one too many times.

“It was not the wind,” retorted Agatha heatedly. “It was a perfectly still night, and besides, no gust of wind has ever sounded like that. It was a spirit, come to warn us of our misfortune—that’s what it was!”

Ross, who had been watching the exchange silently, seemed at a loss for what to say to this. A little further along, George discreetly raised a sceptical eyebrow in the old woman’s direction. He had never been one for superstition. As common as it was amongst many Cornishfolk, he had always counted himself as a fairly rational man, and had little time for such things. Let the vulgars and the likes of that horrible old witch indulge in their tales and traditions all they wish, but he had no intention of being taken in by such trifles.

“If you say so, aunt” grumbled Francis, glaring down darkly at his port before raising the glass to his lips and swallowing its contents in one long draught. It couldn’t be clearer that he too shared George’s opinion on his aunt’s love of portents of doom and gloom, for all that he did not appear to have the energy or the inclination to argue the point at that moment. In fact, he probably resented it even more, considering that, as he lived in the same house as her, coming into frequent contact with that particular tendency of hers was unavoidable. George could hardly blame him for that. If he had faced the prospect of endless hours alone with that abominable woman ranting about spirits and omens just after his father had died, he might have been tempted towards drink as well. Then, glancing at his uncle out of the corner of his eye, he reminded himself that he was not best placed to judge the vices of other people’s relatives.

They didn’t stay long at the wake—Uncle Cary had soon become impatient to return home, and George had had too much experience of socialising in his uncle’s presence not to recognise this as a sign that remaining overlong would only lead to horrific embarrassment on his part. As such, they made their regrets to a slightly disappointed Francis, before heading back to Cardew. The rest of the day passed much like any other—he worked, he took dinner in his study, he worked some more. At some point in the evening, Ambrose skulked into the room and dozed off under his desk, pawing lazily at one of its legs in his sleep. He saw nothing of Uncle Cary in all that time and that, he told himself, was how he liked it. He chose to ignore the vast, empty silence, filled only by the monotonous ticking of the grandfather clock on the far wall, telling him otherwise.

It was late into the evening—well past eleven o’clock—when the wind began to pick up outside. He paid no mind to it, absorbed in a hefty stack of papers relating to a potential investment in the shipbuilding industry. It looked promising, he thought, though he had no wish to jump into it. He had never been much of a gambling man, for all that he enjoyed a game of cards as much as any other, and he was just as inclined to be cautious in matters of business as in matters of pleasure. No, he would not advance the capital right away, he decided. He would bide his time a little while yet, and think on it more in the morning.

He had been so deep in thought that the chime of the clock startled him. Blinking up at it, he saw that it had reached midnight. There was a definite chill in the room, he noticed, now that the fire had burnt so low in the grate that it was barely more than embers, and he could hear the spattering of rain against the glass of the large, arch-shaped windows of the study. A sudden, bone-deep tiredness came over him and, with a soft sigh, he laid the papers down in a neat pile and massaged his temples wearily. He could feel a headache coming on, no doubt a result of staring at endless figures for hours upon end with little but the light of a few candles which sat upon his desk to see them by. Perhaps it was time to retire.

With that in mind, he stood with a slight yawn and began to put out the candles. His sudden movement awoke Ambrose, who followed him out of the room, trotting quietly at his heel as he headed for his bedchamer. Once they reached their destination, the shaggy dog yawned hugely before curling up at the foot of his master’s bed and promptly fell straight back asleep. George stepped carefully around him, slipping out of his tailcoat and draping it over the chair near his bedside. He undressed methodically, folding up the rest of his clothes in a neat pile before donning his nightshirt. After a moment’s deliberation, he pulled his silk dressing gown on as well—he had forgotten to ask for a fire to be lit in his bedchamber that evening, and as such there was a biting cold in the room that he did not at all like.

He was just about to slip into bed when a sudden gust of wind roared outside the house, rattling the frame of the window so hard that for one moment he thought it might come clean off. Cautiously, he headed over to it, pulling back the drapes and laying a palm over the pane to still its trembling. Outside, it was completely black, but even if there had been some light to illuminate the surrounding land, he doubted whether he would have been able to see it through the cascade of rain pummelling against the glass. With a slight stab of unease, he remembered that Agatha Poldark, for all her bizarre ramblings, had in fact been right in one thing—the night before Charles had died had indeed been a still one, without even the slightest hint of a breeze. The question was, then, what had made the noise that Agatha and Francis had both heard, which the latter had been so convinced was the wind?

“Don’t be ridiculous” he muttered to himself scathingly. The day he took Francis’ mad old aunt’s words seriously would be the day hell froze over. There was no point dwelling on it, especially not when he had far better things to think about. Nevertheless, as he shut the drapes, headed back to the bed and slipped under the covers, pulling them tight around him to ward against the cold, his mind could not help but wander to that overheard conversation. There was something niggling in the very back of his thoughts, some place hidden and forgotten, as if something of what was said reminded him of another thing, though what it was, he mused as he closed his eyes, he had no idea.

Time passed, and George barely thought on Agatha’s strange words again—after all, many things Agatha said were strange, and far too much had happened for him to linger on them. Francis, who had been somewhat undercutting his own efforts of restoring Trenwith and Grambler’s fortunes through his gifts to Margaret, the woman he had found for himself in place of a wife—Francis was, as far as George could tell, determined to remain a bachelor for as long as possible, however much the mothers of Cornwall’s array of unmarried young ladies may have sought to change that—eventually lost the mine to George’s cousin, Matthew, who had elected to return to Cornwall after a time away in London. Ross, by contrast, had been doing surprisingly well with Wheal Leisure, but his setting up of the Carnmore Copper Company—a direct challenge against themselves and South Wales—had turned George’s rather general animosity with the man into a full-blown feud. Now, Carnmore didn’t have a leg to stand on, their pride and joy—the Queen Charlotte—was near ready to set sail on its maiden voyage and, all in all, everything seemed to be going well for the Warleggans. George told himself that it was enough to satisfy him.

A few days before the Queen Charlotte was due to set sail, George was summoned to the residence of a particularly old client by the name of Mr Nankivell so that he could put his affairs in order before he passed away. It was at times like this that George dearly wished that the original Nankivells—an ancient though never very rich family—had not chosen to build their home on Bodmin Moor. Even Bodmin itself was a long journey from Cardew, but traversing the moor to get to the Nankivell residence—a reasonably-sized stone cottage, not unlike Nampara in its appearance and somewhat isolated location—was infinitely more tricky and time-consuming. Trigg had suggested that he take the carriage there, but he had refused. Those lands were easier to navigate on horseback, and it was a fine summer’s day in any case, so he could not see that there was much danger in such a trip.

The journey, as he had predicted, was long and tiring, and as such he had set off early in the morning to make good time. The meeting itself was rather irritatingly short considering the amount of time and effort it had taken to get there, though George could not blame the man himself for it. He had seemed rather cheerful, all in all, considering what the subject of George’s visit had been and, after a short rest, he had been able to head off back to Truro some time in the early afternoon, keen to get away from this barren place and back to civilisation, where his uncle and cousin would undoubtedly be waiting whilst they oversaw the preparations for the Queen Charlotte’s maiden voyage.

It was about a quarter of an hour into his ride when he first heard the noise. At first he thought it was nothing but the howl of the wind—it was strong today up on the moor, whipping at the tail of his coat and rushing in his ears almost painfully—but after a few moments of listening to it, he realised it was something else entirely. It was a high-pitched, piercing wail, carrying right over the roar of the wind—an eerie, unnerving sound that made him shift uncomfortably in his saddle and grip the reins more tightly in his hands. It was fluctuating in pitch as well, he noticed and, all of a sudden, he realised that someone—or something—was singing.

George glanced around, trying to find the owner of the voice, but all he saw around him was empty moorland. The wind whipped sharply through the grass and sent a shiver up his spine. Despite the defeaning level it had reached, he could still hear that strange, otherworldly, wailing song as clearly as ever. It seemed to be coming from all around him, echoing off surfaces that were not there and filling his ears until he thought he might go mad. He felt suddenly faint, and he bent double over his horse, sucking in deep breaths in an attempt to quell the dizziness in his head.

A few terrifying moments and then the singing began to fade in volume, still there in the background but quieter, less intrusive. George gasped for breath, his whole body trembling ever so slightly as he pushed himself back into sitting position, raising up a shaking hand to straighten his hat, which had almost fallen off his head. He sat still for several long minutes, trying to calm the painful thudding of his heart and then, once he had mastered himself to a reasonable extent, coaxed his horse onwards a little gingerly, trying to ignore the faint sound of the voice that was still, despite everything, easily heard above the wind.

A little while later, he came to the crest of a hill, the moor stretching out before him as far as the eye could see. To his left in the middle distance were a cluster of large, smooth, bare rocks, formed so that they looked like towers of giant pebbles. From that direction, a stream trickled towards him, turning a bend and flowing adjacent to the path he was riding along, the water brown from the peat. None of this, however, was what truly caught his attention. No, what he noticed first was the young woman, bent over the stream and determinedly washing a pristine white shirt in the filthy water. She was singing, her voice a little more than a whisper, but it managed to reach George’s ears with a piercing clarity nonetheless, and the words were in no language that he could identify.

His horse took another step forward and the woman, plainly having heard the stamp of hooves on the ground nearby, stopped singing abruptly, leaping to her feet and whirling around to face him. For one long moment, they both froze, scrutinising each other with identical expressions of shock on their faces. She was a very beautiful woman, George couldn’t help but notice—tall and slender with long, dark hair tied into two plaits framing her pale, fine-boned face, and soft, green eyes shot with golden-brown. Her attire was rustic, if a little odd, clad in nothing but a long, cream gown made of some rough fabric that George could not identify, with wide open sleeves that tapered up to her elbows, and there were what looked like dried ferns, beads and feathers woven into her hair. She was watching him warily and, no matter how odd her appearance, or how eerie her singing had been, he instantly felt the urge to apologise to her.

“Oh, forgive me, ma’am,” he said. “I did not mean to startle you.”

For one long moment, the woman watched him searchingly, something akin to confusion, and something else which he could not decipher, flashing across her elegant features. Then, her face broke into a smile—small and a little cautious, but there nevertheless.

“It is no matter,” she replied and George couldn’t help but notice that her speaking voice was very different to her singing one—softer and gentler and far more pleasant on the ears. “I simply did not expect to see anyone else here. Are you lost?”

She looked a little concerned at this, twisting the sodden shirt in her hands in a slightly nervous gesture. There was a waistcoat too, he suddenly saw, and a fine one at that—a deep navy and made of silk. Upon seeing this, he was struck with an almost unbearable curiosity. How had she come by such a thing? And more to the point, why on earth was she washing two pieces of immaculate men’s clothing in a stream in the middle of nowhere?

“No, I know my way, thank you,” he replied, quick to reassure her. “But…might I ask what it is that you’re doing?“

“I am washing these clothes” replied the woman simply, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to wash gentlemen’s clothing in streams up on Bodmin Moor.

“In a muddy stream?,” pointed out George, confused. “Is that not a little counter-intuitive to your ultimate goal?”

The woman’s lip quirked slightly in amusemnt, although George thought there was something a little bittersweet about the expression. He wondered what she would look like if she smiled fully, and had just come to the conclusion that it would probably enhance her beauty tenfold before he began to wonder instead why he was thinking of such a thing in the first place.

“That would depend on what my ultimate goal is” she returned, and there was something a little sad in her tone, something a little lonely, despite the coy nature of the words.

She moved a little away from the stream as she said this, and a little closer to the path, hiking up her skirts a little as she did so. It was then that George, whose gaze had been following her progress, noticed something very odd.

“But your feet are bare, ma’am,” he cried, staring down at where her peat-caked toes peeked out from under the muddy hem of her dress. “Are you not cold?”

An odd expression flashed across her face, not unlike the one that she had briefly worn when he had first spoken to her—and one that was far too complex for him to possibly hope to interpret. It lingered for a moment longer before it melted, her lips curving into a soft, reassuring smile as she gazed up at him.

“You need not concern yourself,” she replied gently, “though I thank you for taking the trouble. I do not feel the cold.”

Despite the peculiar sincerity with which she said this, George remained unconvinced by her answer. He could not imagine, even on a warm summer’s day such as this one, that traversing Bodmin Moor without so much as a scrap of clothing on one’s feet was particularly pleasurable, and even if she were, as she claimed, hardier than she first appeared, he could not believe that her shoeless state did not at least trouble her a little.

“Well, do you at least have some means of returning home?” he asked her, glancing around him at the surrounding landscape. There wasn’t a dwelling in sight—nothing but the rolling expanse of grasss and gorse and moorland, and the broad, bright sky above it.

For a moment he wondered why he was so determined to assure himself of her wellbeing. He had never lied to himself about what kind of person he was and, though he hoped he had not yet reached the point of being habitually cruel, as his uncle was, he had never had much interest in the welfare of strangers, so why it should be different for her, he did not know. Perhaps it was something about the look in her green-brown eyes, soft and sad and lonely, never quite fading even when she smiled. Or perhaps it was the refreshing honesty in her manner when she spoke with him—so used was he to the pandering of near bankrupt nobles begging him to reverse their fortunes, only to sneer at the presence of the upstart grandson of a blacksmith amongst them the moment his back was turned. Or maybe it was simply the gentle, open compassion in her gaze as she regarded him that had made him wish to return the gesture in kind. Well, whatever it was, it had lodged itself deep in his mind, and he was unable to stop the worry from gnawing at his gut at the sight of her alone on the moor, despite her own apparent lack of concern for her situation.

“Oh I shall be alright,” she returned, her smile broadening and her head ducking a little shyly—she seemed unusually pleased by his attentions, for all that the emotion appeared to be mixed with many others. “I know the moors well, and besides, I do not live too far away from here.”

George raised an eyebrow, his expression sceptical.

“In that case, ma’am, our definitions of far must differ wildly,” he said. “The only signs of civilisation here appear to be yourself and myself.”

The woman laughed, soft and clear and gentle. It was a pleasant sound, he thought before he could stop himself—altogether different from the eerie, almost unearthly tones of her singing.

“Well you can never tell with this place,” she returned, a glint of mischief in her eyes. “There could well be an entire settlement of people just over that ridge.”

“And are there?” asked George, unable to keep himself from matching her slightly playful tone, though he was not entirely sure why.

The woman chuckled again.

“Admittedly not,” she conceded, her tone conciliatory now that she had had her fun, “but my home is close at hand, albeit out of sight.”

She was being truthful, he could tell, though he could not discern what she meant by those words. Perhaps her home really was just out of sight, and she considered it no great distance from the stream and back, even with her bare feet. In any case, she seemed to have spoken her final word on the matter, and he decided it best to let the subject drop.

“Well, since I am not particularly well-acquainted with Bodmin, I must bow to your superior knowledge of the matter,” he replied. “And I fear that now I must also bid you good day, ma’am—I am expected in Truro this afternoon and should not like to be late.“

“Of course,” the woman said, though the smile had faded from her face, replaced by something rather sad and, if he were not mistaken, a little guilty. “Good day to you, sir. And…and thank you.”

George frowned, baffled.

“Whatever for?” he asked.

“For talking to me,” she replied, “and for your concern.”

George blinked, not sure what to say in return. The woman, however, did not seem to be done speaking. A pause passed between them in which she seemed to be struggling with herself over whether she should utter the next words, a deep frown etched between her brows. Then, she took a deep breath and said, quietly:—

“I am sorry, truly, about your cousin.”

Silence.

“I-I beg your pardon?” George asked, not quite able to register what she was saying. She stared back at him mournfully, the grip on the wet clothes gathered up in her hands so tight that it was almost white-knuckled.

“I said that I was sorry—about your cousin,” she said. “And…and I hope that one day, you will believe that I meant it.“

George frowned at her, almost as unnerved as he was confused now. Whatever could she mean? He only had one cousin—Matthew—and, though his reputation had suffered a slight blow after the discovery of his dishonesty at the card table, he, as far as George knew, was perfectly well. And besides, how would this woman—this stranger—know anything about his family anyway, let alone something that he did not know himself? He cast a cursory glance around at his surroundings, twisting the reins of his horse in a slightly nervous gesture, and suddenly found that he wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted to know the answer to that question.

“I’m afraid I do not understand your meaning, ma’am… Ma’am?”

He trailed off, bewilderment colouring his tone, for when he turned back to face her, the woman was nowhere to be seen. But where had she gone? As far as he could tell, the only place she could have concealed herself were the towers of stones in the middle distance, but she could not possibly have reached them in that time—he had only taken his eyes off her for a few seconds at most. He stared around him, baffled and a little uneasy. All he could see was the stretch of barren moorland surrounding him—no one and nothing else in sight.

“Ma’am?” he called again, tentatively.

His voice was met only by the sound of the wind howling across the hillside, having picked up suddenly as he had spoken, unusually cold for this time of year. He shivered slightly, a chill running down his spine. Best not to linger in this place, he thought to himself, for all that he dearly wanted to know where the woman had gone, and with that in mind, he spurred his horse onwards, steeling himself for the long ride back to Truro. Nevertheless, he could not help but steal one last glance at the spot where the woman had stood not moments ago, as if he were expecting her to return just as swiftly as she had disappeared. There was nobody there.

Then why, hissed a quiet voice in the back of his mind, does it still feel as if you are being watched?

George swallowed, clasping the reins tighter as another shiver ran down his spine. This one, however, had nothing to do with the bite of the wind.

Next chapter: Elizabeth contemplates her position in life and the young man she met on the moor, and disaster strikes on the maiden voyage of the Queen Charlotte.

#poldark #george warleggan #elizabeth warleggan #george x elizabeth #elizabeth x george #georgibeth #francis poldark #agatha poldark #poldark au #banshee au #mine #my fic #fic #bad tidings

[freddieos-mum]

Our Normal...

Life, as always, has been a bit chaotic recently. I naively thought once Freddie started nursery I'd have more 'time' - I'm rapidly concluding time is actually an illusion. I suppose, the truth is, I try to do more with all this 'time' I have. This means I go running and clean the house on Monday's (James takes Freddie and collects him on a Monday because he works from home), if there's any surplus time I run errands or cook food to freeze. It's actually a very productive day but just not very creative. My website is still no further along, my blogs still haven't be copied over... blah blah blah. Then we come to Wednesday (nursery day number two) which is chaos. James is in Brighton on Wednesdays so by the time I've got Freddie to nursery and returned home it's usually 10:30/11 - maybe later if I have to stop at the shops. Once I'm home I have enough time to clear up after the carnage that is breakfast, maybe do a load of washing, pack a swimming bag and have some lunch then I'm leaving the house again at 13:10 to collect him and drive to Ipswich for hydrotherapy at The Treehouse. We finally get home around 17:00. It's an intense day for both Freddie and me. James usually gets home once Freddie's asleep and I'm normally exhausted. Unfortunately The Treehouse only offers hydro on a Wednesday so there’s no flexibility to move it. It's something we'll keep reviewing and if it's not working we'll have to stop.

So, that is a summary of nursery days but rest of the week I look after Master Cheese, whether that's just playing at home, play dates with friends, therapy appointments or various other appointments. It's amazing how much more stressful it is trying to fit life in during the remaining three days of the week. Not to mention the fact that Freddie is shattered Tuesdays and Thursdays (the days after nursery) so I need to make sure that he has plenty time to sleep.

The biggest bonus is that he loves nursery and I love taking him. His face lights up when he sees his friends and key workers. It's beautiful to see. Sixteen months ago we didn't realise this milestone would be possible, but here we are and I'm bloody grateful. Something I took for granted when I was pregnant was that our son would go to nursery. I am of the opinion it's good for children to socialise with their peers, and to learn to respect adults other than their parents or family members. I still have those views but Freddie's situation is obviously quite specialised and I like that his nursery is a mix of additional needs and mainstream children. Personally, I'm not keen for him to he institutionalised into a 'special' only facility any time soon. He learns a lot from mainstream kids (and has excelled since starting nursery as well as having his PEG fitted) not to mention the fact mainstream humans, of all ages, can learn an awful lot from our special community.

The point of me writing was to try and summarise why I've not been blogging or updating you so much... essentially it appears we’re too busy being normal (whatever the hell normal is). In all seriousness, I love all these mundane milestones. I love that Freddie goes to (and really enjoys) nursery. When you’re the mother of a special needs child, to a certain extent, you can find yourself excluded from things. For whatever reason. You also reach a stage where you have less (sometimes nothing) in common with mums of mainstream kids because your child won’t hit developmental milestones on par with theirs and they have zero idea what it’s like to mother a special needs or medically dependent child. It can be tricky to navigate socially. To me, not only is nursery a break for both me and Freddie but it also adds another dimension to both of our lives. It’s something else to talk about, focus on and be grateful for... plus it’s routine and anybody that knows me well knows I like a bit of routine. Our fear, back in September, when he started was whether he would pick up too many bugs and become too poorly to go. If that were to happen the Doctor that heads up symptom management for The Treehouse had warned us we may have to withdraw him as his health it more important. Thankfully (touch wood), his prophylactic antibiotics seemed to have worked wonders so far this winter meaning he’s only missed one session of nursery for illness plus one week post his gastrostomy operation.

As I’ve written before, I like these periods of calm and normality immensely. I like just focusing on now and the biggest stress at the forefront of my mind being whether we’ll be late arriving for nursery. James and I have often discussed how our lives will never be carefree again, usually in context of how we didn’t actually realise how carefree our lives were before. I guess you always think whatever you’re worrying about is pretty major until something life changing happens. Anyway, I’m enjoying our quiet time for now. Everything seems still and life is calm in terms of the mito shit... and long may it continue.

#freddiecheese #superfred #mitokid #mitowarrior #mils #leighsyndrome #dystonicspasms #dystonia #infantepilepsy #infantilespasms #mumblogger #mumblog #parentingblog #parenting

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Love is a Layered Cake (5/10)

Summary: Summer has come, and with it, the Great British Bake-Off. Sheep farmer and spinner Rum Gold is one of twelve contestants competing for the crown in the latest show. In addition to navigating the perils of televised baking, ridiculous challenges and his fellow bakers, he also has to contend with his undeniable crush on one of the judges, the beautiful and talented Belle French…

Rated: G

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[Week One: Cake] [Week Two: Biscuits] [Week Three: Bread] [Week Four: Pies and Tarts] [AO3]

====

Week Five: Desserts

In which Gold discusses optimum wiggle and nearly has a meltdown, and Belle loses her temper.

Also, Granny almost calls security.

Belle gave an almighty yawn, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel as she drove the winding route through the countryside to the filming location. The sun was shining brightly and it was set to be an absolutely beautiful weekend in all respects, not just the weather. She was going to see Gold again, and this was always something that put a smile on her face. And after their conversation last week, she knew that it was something that put a smile on his face, too. She couldn’t help grinning to herself. It was like a little hurdle had been got over, and with remarkably little stress on either of their parts. They liked each other, and there was the possibility of perhaps liking each other a little bit more as each week went on, and that was something that Belle could live with. The slow burn of their fledgling relationship was something that she could look forward to and savour, rather than jumping in with both feet first and possibly getting burned, which had happened to her too many times before. She was impulsive and she was used to going out there and working for what she wanted; it was something that she’d been doing ever since deciding to become a professional baker as her career. Belle was no different in her personal life, but she knew instinctively that this was not an approach that she could use here, not with Gold so shy and nervous and always giving off the deer in the headlights vibe.

And Belle found herself rather glad that things were going slower by necessity this time. It gave her time to really enjoy the relationship, and the week-long absences between their meetings necessarily gave her time to think and reflect, and reaffirm each week that she was definitely attracted to this man and definitely wanted things to go further.

As she drove up the winding driveway, she was distracted from her thoughts by the sight of the golden sun illuminating the country house where the show’s filming was based; it was a stunning sight and Belle slowed the car to a crawl so that she could fully appreciate it. Since they spent so much time in the tent rather than the house, it was easy to forget sometimes just how lovely their surroundings were. As she pulled up in front of the magnificent building, she saw that there were a couple of cars already there. It wasn’t unusual for others to arrive before her; most of the production crew would have been there since the early hours of the morning making sure that everything was set up, and since Leroy and Astrid always came together, his van was always a regular feature in the carpark whenever Belle arrived.

It was more unusual to see cars that she knew belonged to the contestants, but today they were definitely here before her - Emma’s yellow bug and a green vehicle that could really only have belonged to one person. Belle raised an eyebrow as she parked up and made her way into the house. There was certainly no love lost between those two women and she hoped that they would not have to break up any unpleasantness before breakfast. She peered around the door into the break room but Emma was in there alone, mainlining coffee.

“Hello. You’re here early.”

“Yeah. Night shifts again. My penance for taking so many weekends off in a row. My body can’t decide whether it’s coming or going so since I was awake anyway, I thought I might as well get here. Hopefully I can have a nap under a workbench whilst I’m waiting for my bakes in the oven.”

“Right.” Belle came in and helped herself to coffee. The production team usually aimed to segregate the judges away from the contestants so as not to put them off, but it was a practice that Belle had never really fully held with. If the bakers saw the judges sleep-deprived and off-duty like they were of a morning, then surely it would provide more confidence because they knew that at heart, they were ordinary people like the rest of them.

“I saw Zelena’s car in the drive when I came in,” Belle said, trying to sound conversational and not conspiratorial. “I was wondering where she’d got to.”

“Aren’t we all?” Emma muttered. “I’m just glad that they’ve got production crew out at the tent already or I’d be worried that she’d hardwired half the ovens to electrocute their users.”

Belle gave a snort of laughter at the statement but it was a weak one, only half in jest. Whilst she didn’t think that Zelena would come to homicide, she was definitely not above suspicion when it came to making sure that her fellow competitors hit certain road blocks.

“I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks that there’s something circumspect about her,” she said.

“Definitely not. She’s not only malicious, but she’s downright creepy as well. I feel sorry for Gold, I don’t know why she’s fixated on him.”

Belle couldn’t tell either, and she didn’t really want to get into any discussion of it in case her own feelings towards the man came to the fore, and as she sat quietly with her coffee, she wondered just what it was that had first made her take notice of him. His smile, his quiet pride in his creations, his nervy manner that made her just want to take his hands in hers and tell him that everything was going to be ok. She wondered if Zelena saw the same things as she did, because she certainly didn’t approach him in the same way. Zelena looked at him more like prey to be devoured, rather than someone to get to know and hopefully pursue some kind of romantic entanglement with.

“Well, we can always hope that she does something really terrible today,” Emma said brightly, and Belle looked at her in alarm. “I mean in the bakes. Hopefully she’ll completely screw up her crème brulée and you can send her home on the strength of that with a clear conscience.”

Belle burst out laughing. “In all my years of doing the bake-off I’ve never had a contestant that the others wanted to see fail quite as much as Zelena,” she said. “You’ve had the odd jealous candidate who gets annoyed when the same person gets star baker twice in a row, or someone whom the others treat with mock exasperation because they can always salvage things that go wrong, but it’s all light-hearted and in the spirit of the show. This time, there’s nothing softening it.”

“I know,” Emma’s voice held a great deal of lament. “I know, and it’s horrible that it’s creating this toxic kind of atmosphere in the tent because there’s that one person whom we all can’t stand, but it’s comforting to know that the judges and presenters think the same way and we have a somewhat united front against her, instead of there being all these different factions.”

“I think we just have to trust that the best person will win and there won’t be any drama,” Belle said. “But we’re all keeping an eye on her, that’s for certain. Especially this weekend.”

“This weekend, when so much can go wrong,” Emma said.

Belle had to agree with her there. Dessert week was always a tricky one, using a lot of different techniques that the bakers did not necessarily use in their everyday baking. It was the final week testing different basic skills before they moved on to testing more advanced techniques of things that had come before - more complex cakes than the first week, more difficult enriched doughs than bread week, different types of pastry. Dessert week seemed to stand alone in the middle of it all, not really related to anything, at the cusp between difficult and easy, and as such, the judges tended to set challenges that could not be fitted into any other category. It was one of Belle’s favourite weeks to judge, simply because it was so different all the time.

“Oh. Hello.” Zelena came into the room and took a double take on seeing Belle there. “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“Well, you know, I thought it would be a good idea to come down from my ivory tower and reassure everyone that I am in fact human and can’t function without a cup of tea in the morning, just like everyone else,” Belle said airily. “What about you? You’re here early.”

“Yes, well, you know. Traffic.”

Emma and Belle exchanged a surreptitious look as Zelena came over to get herself some coffee. Traffic was Zelena’s go-to excuse for everything, and both of them were wondering what she’d been doing in the interval between her arrival and her entry into the break room. Perhaps they were being uncharitable, but until Belle saw something that put her mind at ease, she was going to continue being suspicious, and unwilling to leave the two women alone together in case of a catastrophe, she continued talking to Emma happily about topics completely unrelated to baking, still watching Zelena out of the corner of her eye. It was not that she feared any particular violence on behalf of the two ladies if unsupervised, but until Zelena stopped being quite so creepy, Belle was going to keep an eye on her.

Gradually the other contestants began arriving in dribs and drabs, and Belle decided that it was probably time to leave. Granny and the runners would be looking all over for her and she could already see the look of exasperation on Granny’s face when she realised that Belle had been socialising with the contestants when she shouldn’t have been.

She left the room just as Gold was coming in, and they shared a smile in the doorway.

“Good luck today,” Belle said.

“Thank you. I… You’re looking lovely today.”

Belle looked down at her bright blue dress and beamed. “Thank you.”

There was another moment of silence, interrupted by a polite cough from behind Gold. It was Jefferson, and in a fluster Belle realised that they were still blocking the doorway. She slipped past out of the room, keeping her head down as she went to find Granny, feeling the blush rising in her cheeks at almost having been caught.

She wasn’t sure what she had been caught doing, though. They’d just been looking at each other and exchanging pleasantries, neither of them were doing anything against the rules. She sighed. She was so concerned about keeping her feelings towards Gold secret that she was feeling guilty even when there was nothing to feel guilty about. Him having a crush on her was acceptable in a way, but if the other contestants knew that the feeling was reciprocated, then there would be hell to pay. Well, there would from one corner in particular. Zelena would be the one to throw a spanner in the works, there was no doubt of that, and Belle sighed. She was just going to have to be careful, whilst at the same time trying not to give Gold mixed signals about her interest. It was a hard line to tiptoe along, but something in Belle’s gut told her that it would be worth it.

X

“You, Mr Gold, have got it bad,” Jefferson said as they went over to the refreshment table together to get tea and coffee.

“Yes, well…” Gold said, stirring sugar into his tea for something to do, even though he’d never taken sugar in tea.

“Oh, you know my views of the matter already.” Jefferson winked, and Gold remembered the conversation that they’d had during the very first week of the competition. “I say go for it.”

“Jefferson.”

“Because I think that it’s clear she’s starting to feel the same way. I’ve never seen so much eye-sex going on in one doorway. It was almost obscene.”

“Jefferson!” Gold hissed. “Could you perhaps not broadcast this to the entire room?”

“I’m not,” Jefferson said. He glanced around the room but there was nothing to suggest that anyone had heard his comments; the others certainly weren’t paying the two men any attention.

“It can’t work, Jefferson. Going for it isn’t really going to help me in this situation.”

“Don’t be silly. If you both feel the same way about each other then there’s no harm in seeing where it goes.”

“And the fact we’re in the middle of a televised baking show on opposite sides of the judging table isn’t even a slight hiccup in the proceedings?” Gold asked dryly.

“Of course not. Things are only a hiccup if you make them. Besides, you’re not going to be in the competition forever.”

Gold snorted. “Thanks.”

“I don’t mean like that.” Jefferson rolled his eyes. “Even if you get through to the finale - which I think you have as good a chance as I have of reaching - then you’re still in the competition for a finite amount of time, and you have an awful lot of time after that in which to pursue certain delights.”

Jefferson gave Gold a knowing look, and Gold just buried his head in his hands, still not quite able to believe that this was happening to him. As pleased as he was that his feelings towards Belle were reciprocated, the fact that other people in the tent seemed to be picking up on the fact was more than mortifying. It was almost worse than Aunt Elvira knowing.

Scratch that, nothing could be worse than Aunt Elvira knowing.

Thankfully he was saved from replying to Jefferson’s suggestive comment by the arrival of Astrid in the room with the mics. She was practically bouncing around the room, the diamond in her engagement ring catching the light as she fixed everyone’s mics on, and any gloomy feelings that might have gathered in the run up to the first challenge were dispelled by her sheer boundless enthusiasm. She almost ran into Ursula and Ella on the way out of the room, and her giggles could be heard all the way down the corridor as she went to sort out Granny and Belle. Leroy was smiling fondly after her, and Elsa gave a happy sigh as she came over for her second cup of tea and to say hello to Jefferson and Gold.

“I think it’s so sweet,” she said. “It’s certainly going to be the talk of the series. It would be nice if we could have this as the high point and not worry about anything more dramatic taking precedence.”

“Do not tempt fate,” Jefferson scolded. “None of us are masters on the dessert front. At least, I don’t think that any of us are, unless you have a hidden talent for baked alaska that you’ve been hiding from us.”

“I wouldn’t say that it was a hidden talent but you do recall that I work for an ice-cream manufacturer?” Elsa teased. “I know all about weird and wonderful flavours of ice-cream, and which ones work best with meringue to produce the perfect fluffy dessert.”

“Oh no!” Jefferson moaned. “We’ve found Elsa’s niche and she’s going to wipe the floor with us!”

“Just because I know all about ice-cream it doesn’t necessarily follow that I’m any good at making it,” Elsa pointed out. “And before we get to baked alaska, we have to get through today first.”

“Yes, very true.” The runners were shepherding them all out of the break room and down towards the tent, and Gold knew that it was time to stop thinking about Belle and focus on the task at hand instead. He wondered what the atmosphere would be like in there today, not from the point of view of the people, but the weather. It was shaping up to be an extremely hot and sunny weekend and he got the feeling that the tent, being made primarily from plastic, would turn into a sauna without much difficulty. Torrential rain one week, ridiculously bright sunshine the next - only in the UK, Gold thought. Then again, it was called the Great British Bake-Off, so perhaps there was something in it that made the weather so unpredictable. He took his place at the back of the tent, thankful for the vantage point that let him keep an eye on all the other contestants at the same time as being able to hide away from the cameras slightly better. He put his apron on and looked down at the ingredients on his workbench, praying that everything would go smoothly. This was not a week that he had been looking forward to; desserts were not on his usual repertoire. Well, desserts in the sense that they were making them were not - he could rustle up an apple pie just as well as the next person, but the fancier stuff was beyond him. Bae had been quite brutally honest about the quality of his practice bakes over the last week, but did admit that he was getting better, even if he wasn’t great just yet. Maybe now that he was here in the tent and didn’t have to focus on anything except the task at hand, rather than trying to run the rest of his life around making crème brulées, things would be a lot less haphazard than they had been in his own kitchen.

“Good morning bakers,” Ursula began brightly. “And what a good morning it is. Welcome to the fifth week of the bake-off, which is devoted to delicious desserts.”

“At least, we hope that they’re going to be delicious,” Ella said. “It could well be the week devoted to inedible desserts.”

“Ella, you’re putting them off, stop being silly.”

“Well, someone has to play devil’s advocate. Now, for your signature challenge this week, Belle and Granny would like you to make twelve individual crème brulées. They can be any flavour your like, but they must have a nicely set custard, and you are not allowed to use a blowtorch to caramelise the top. They must be done under the grill in the traditional manner.”

If it hadn’t been for the fact they’d received the brief of things to bake each week a couple of months ago, Gold would be convinced that they’d banned the blowtorches as a result of Mal’s mishaps last week.

“You have two and a half hours on the clock. On your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

The tent was once more a flurry of activity, and all thoughts of blowtorches flew out of Gold’s head as he focussed on the task at hand, turning the oven on and measuring out the ingredients for his custard. Since the oven was a combination; the bakers would all have to wait until their custards were completely cooked before they could begin the process of caramelising the tops, since the oven and grill could not function at the same time. It meant that timing was once more going to be extremely delicate, and it would be best to get the brulées in the oven as soon as possible to allow the maximum cooking and grilling time.

“I do think that they’ve made this needlessly complicated,” Elsa muttered from the bench in front of him. “I mean, even professional chefs in restaurants use blowtorches on crème brulées.”

“Yes, but we’re not trying to make ten other ridiculously complicated desserts for a restaurant full of one-hundred odd diners,” Regina pointed out from across the tent.

“Hmm.” Elsa did not sound at all mollified by Regina’s words and continued to mutter to herself as she made her custard; she was still ranting under her breath when the judges and presenters came around to speak to her, catching her by surprise. Gold had to give a soft laugh at that; at least he was not the only one who was caught off guard by the cameras at any given moment, and he was prepared for Belle, Granny and Ursula coming over to him next.

“So, Raymond, tell us about your crème brulées. What flavours are you using?” Granny asked.

“These will be cappuccino crème brulées,” Gold said, keeping half an eye on his cream where he was bringing it up to temperature ready to make the custard. “Because they’re naturally so sweet and creamy and caramelly, I wanted them to have a strong flavour that would counteract that.”

It was also to do with the fact that all the times he’d used fruit or other such flavourings in the brulées, they had been entirely the wrong consistency and had refused to set, so making something that would hopefully not alter the texture of the cream at all was the only way forward. He could see that Elsa was using blueberries in her desserts and he wondered if she’d had any more luck in practice than he’d had.

“That’s a good idea,” Granny said. “I’m looking forward to sampling it. What kind of sugar are you using for your topping?”

“Golden caster. That’s another reason why I went for the bitter coffee as a flavour, since the top will be very caramelly.”

“That’s unusual, most people use ordinary white sugar,” Belle observed. Gold shrugged.

“Well, maybe I’m spreading my wings a bit.”

“I’m sure it will be spectacular,” Granny said encouragingly. “We’ll let you get on. Just remember that the timings and temperatures are very important. We don’t want coffee-flavoured scrambled eggs.”

“No, that would be terrible,” Gold agreed.

“I think Ella would beg to differ there, on the morning after a night out,” Ursula observed. “She’d go for coffee-flavoured anything as long as she thought it was going to bring her a caffeine kick.”

They moved over to go and speak to Jefferson, and Gold continued with his work, glad to have got the seal of approval from the judges at this stage. You could always tell when they had doubts about a recipe from the off; he’d watched the bake-off for long enough to be able to pick up on the little quirks and the looks exchanged between the two of them when they were certain that a particular flavour combination really wasn’t going to work in practice. But Granny was right, it was all about timing. The custard had to be set and not runny, but at the same time it couldn’t be too set or it would be solid, and they needed to allow for the extra heat that it would receive from the grill during the second cooking session. Determining the right level of solidity was crucial.

So was neatness, Gold thought to himself as he overheard Elsa swearing because she’d poured custard mixture over her workbench whilst trying to fill up her ramekins, whilst he was trying to get his into the oven without any of the creamy liquid slopping over the side of the ramekins. They would be cooked in a bain marie and he had already vetoed trying to get them into the oven in a dish with water in it, opting to add the water once they were already on the oven shelf and nice and stable. It was a painstaking process, but at least nothing was going to end up on the floor. When he got back to his feet again, the oven door firmly closed and the brulées baking nicely, he found Elsa laughing at him.

“What?”

“You’ve kind of suffered from the heat of the oven a bit,” she said. “You’re a wonderful pink colour, almost as good as Leroy’s raspberry custard.”

Gold looked at himself in the shiny chrome fittings on his mixer, taking in his bright red face, and he sighed. So much for trying not to make a fool of himself on national television this week.

“Can I get you a cold flannel, Mr Gold?” Ella asked. “You want to be careful, people will be wondering what’s got you so hot and bothered.”

Gold sighed, resisting the urge to knock his head against the workbench.

“I’m just teasing.” Ella came over with one of the cameramen and leaned against his workbench, bending to look at the brulées in the oven.

“They’re looking good,” she said. “I mean, I am no great connoisseur of desserts whilst they are actually baking, only once they’ve come out and are being eaten, but they look like they would be tasty. They’re not boiling over or anything, which is good. How long are they going in for?”

“I don’t know,” Gold said honestly. “I think you’ve just got to do it by eye and see if they look ready, then test how wobbly they are.”

“And do you know what the correct level of wobble is?”

“No, I do not. I think it should have a bit of a wiggle to it, but not run anywhere.”

“Right. Well, I trust you know your wiggles from your wobbles and that you can tell when your brulées have reached optimum wiggle, so I shall leave you to it. If you do need any wiggling done in comparison with the custards, then I can certainly recommend Ursula. Her moves on the dancefloor would put the best of desserts to shame.”

“Right.” Not quite sure what to make of this remark, Gold decided that it would be better to leave it alone, and he returned his attention to making the caramel sugar that would go on top of his brulées and be grilled. It seemed that not all the bakers were making caramel sugar; some would be using ordinary sugar, but Gold felt that he might have a slight unfair advantage. When he had been looking up brulée recipes online in preparation for this week’s challenge, he had come across several that advocated caramelising the sugar beforehand to create a darker, richer, smoother surface on the final product. Hopefully the others had looked up the same recipes. Elsa, Regina and Leroy were all using the same method, and Emma was looking at them all with a worried expression, whispering with Jefferson and casting glances at her own sugar, evidently wondering if she had enough time to caramelise it. In the end, she just shrugged, giving it up as a bad job, and accepting whatever fate might meet her as a result. Gold stirred the caramel, and he wondered if perhaps Emma and Jefferson had had the right idea and his attempts to be more adventurous would end in catastrophe. He’d already had a near miss with caramel in biscuit week and now he was just setting himself up to fail again. There was nothing wrong with going basic.

Before he could start to panic, Ursula announced the time left on the challenge and Gold had to stop feeling sorry for himself and start concentrating on what was happening in the tent, and more importantly what was happening in his oven lest the brulées overbake. Everything was going to be fine. Nothing was going to go horrifically wrong, although the snide voice in the back of his mind kept telling him that it might well go slightly wrong. All he had to do was keep following the steps in the recipe. Cool the caramel. Crush it in the food processor. Check the custards. Grill, but not for too long, for God’s sake don’t burn it. He kept the mantra going for as long as he could, completing all the different stages as he went along, and by the time that Ella called time on the challenge, he had just about talked himself down from a complete panic and was feeling, whilst not in the slightest bit confident, at least not like he was about to faint.

The clean-up began, and Emma came over to peer at his and Elsa’s brulées and compare them to hers.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this nervous about sugar before,” she muttered. “This is ridiculous. I’ve vaulted fences running down drug dealers before now and I swear that this tent is more nerve-wracking than almost breaking your ankle on a bad landing in someone’s rockery.”

All too soon, the judging began, and Gold could only sit and listen to the comments being passed on everyone else’s work as they made their way around the tent. It seemed to take an age for them to get round to him.

“Well, the first thing I can tell is that they’ve been under the grill for a bit too long,” Granny said, carefully tapping the caramel topping on a few of the ramekins with her spoon and pointing out some patches that were quite clearly burned. “Still, the finish on them is very good for the most part and I can see that you have caramelised your sugar before you put it on, very good.”

“Let’s see how they are on the inside,” Belle said, cracking the sugar coating with her spoon and smiling when the brittle surface shattered. “That’s what we like to see. Not too crumbly on the top.”

The two judges dug their spoons in and sampled the finished product.

“It’s good,” Granny said.

“I sense a but,” Gold muttered.

“But it could do with a bit more coffee in it. I can taste it coming through but it’s very subtle; you shouldn’t be afraid of giving your flavours a bit more punch.”

“I disagree,” Belle said. “I think you’ve got the right balance there. Any more and it would be overpowering. The coffee is meant to cut through the sweetness of the dessert, but at the end of the day, it is still a dessert that is supposed to be sweet and creamy, which is what you’ve got. The texture’s good too. The cream underneath is set well, it’s just the stuff at the top which has had the heat from the grill on it that’s gone too solid. Overall I think that’s very solidly done, it was just your timing on the grill that’s let you down.”

Gold smiled. He hadn’t done perfectly, but he hadn’t done terribly either, and since the two judges were two different people with two different tastes, it wasn’t going to be possible to please them both all of the time. He felt that he’d got off to a good start, and as they all walked back up towards the tent for lunch, he wondered who had fared the best and worst. It was never nice to think about people potentially leaving the tent, especially the ones who had become friends, but it was nevertheless something that often played on his mind. The judging had been very close this round and he didn’t really think that anyone had come out on top. Those who’d caramelised their sugar had a tiny advantage over those who hadn’t, but there were still no standouts. In a way it made Gold glad, because it meant that no-one had had any kind of huge disaster in the morning. Of course, there were still two more challenges to go and anything could happen, but for now, he was happy.

The day continued to get warmer and sunnier as the time for the technical challenge rolled around and they were sent back to the tent after lunch. Jefferson tried and failed to stifle a huge yawn.

“You know, they really shouldn’t schedule the technical for after lunch on a sunny day,” he said. “I just want to go and take a nap under a tree somewhere.”

“You and me both,” said Ella. “It’s all right for the judges, they can go and take a nap somewhere, while we’re all in here slaving over a hot stove.”

Jefferson raised an eyebrow at this statement.

“Well, someone has to provide moral support whilst you’re all slaving over hot stoves and that takes an awful lot of mental power that can’t be provided when half asleep,” Ella said. Gold supposed that she had a point, in a way. No matter what happened in the tent, whatever triumphs and catastrophes occurred, Ella and Ursula were always there with a ready word of reassurance and a helping hand to get things back on track, or even just a shoulder to cry on if there was no hope of things getting back on track any time soon; and he marvelled at the kindness that they showed week after week in the face of the contestants’ histrionics. He hoped that he would not fall victim to any histrionics himself, but then again, depending on what this technical was, he might have a nervous breakdown within the next five minutes.

Ella shooed the judges out of the tent and turned back to the bakers.

“This afternoon, Belle and Granny would like you to make a tiramisu. We all know that one - layers of sponge, cream and coffee.”

“And alcohol,” Ursula pointed out.

“I was hoping not to mention that in the prospect of stealing some. At any rate, a nice creamy, boozy tiramisu is what we’re looking for. Now, this tiramisu should be nicely decorated, and it should be able to hold its shape and stand alone without the aid of a dish or tin.”

Gold cringed inwardly. With the rising temperature in the tent, he could see a lot of very melted desserts coming out.

“You have two and a half hours to complete the challenge. On your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

Gold took a deep breath. He could do this. If he kept telling himself that often enough, then hopefully the mantra would come true.

X

“Now that Ella and Jefferson have mentioned it, I could just use a little nap now.” Belle stretched out all her limbs and resettled herself in her chair in the small pavilion where she and Granny had been banished whilst the technical challenge took place.

“You can’t nap now,” Granny said. “I’m the septuagenarian here, I should be the one needing to sleep every five minutes.”

“I know, but it’s so nice and warm and sunny, and I’m full of crème brulée from earlier, and it would be nice just to relax and not worry about going and judging everything later.”

Granny rolled her eyes, but there was a good-natured smile on her face and Belle knew that any annoyance on her part was feigned.

“It’s been a strange morning,” the older woman continued. “Normally there are at least some pointers as to who’s going to win and who’ll need to pull something out of the bag to stay safe tomorrow but it’s been incredibly close. I don’t think I’d want to call it now.”

“Well, that’s why we have three challenges,” Belle said. She closed her eyes, wondering if she could get forty winks in before Astrid came along to tell them that they were ready for the judging. “The technical is the one that really starts to separate them out, I think. It’s rare for someone who wins the technical to go home that same week.”

“But it doesn’t necessarily work the same way round,” Granny observed. “Whoever’s last doesn’t necessarily go home.”

“No, you’re right now that I think about it.”

“That’s what I love about the technical. There’s always so much variation. When the bakers are making their own recipes, you can always tell their individual styles and naturally they always work to their strengths. When you take that away, you get to see who has those other skills. Not just the innate ability, but the ability to think on their feet and use their brains to work out the missing parts. You need common sense in technical challenges I think, more than anything else.”

“Well, they seem like a sensible bunch,” Belle said. “Apart from Jefferson - I am not entirely sure he’s on the same planet as us most of the time.”

“He does make very good bakes though.”

“Yes, he does. I think he sometimes bites off more than he can chew, but I never fail to be amazed by his ability to pull it off in the end. Like last week and the leaning tower of pies.”

“It did look a little precarious. Tasted amazing though.”

The two women fell into silence again as they considered the bakers’ triumphs - and less successful bakes - so far.

“We’ll need to take the heat into account,” Granny said presently. “They’re going to melt, there won’t be any stopping that.”

Belle nodded. “Yes. Typical really. The one weekend we need it to be raining and it’s absolutely beautiful. Such cruel irony. You’d think we planned it.”

“Well, hopefully no-one will panic.” She gave a little smirk as she turned to Belle. “Speaking of panicking, though, how are things going with Gold?”

Belle felt her face flush pink. ”I don’t know what you mean,” she mumbled. Unconvincingly. “And what does that have to do with panicking anyway?”

“Belle, I may be old but I am in no way blind. I saw you two chatting after the show last weekend and if I may be so bold as to say it, there was definitely something in the air between you. And since Gold did not panic and run away from the conversation as soon as possible, I’m taking this to be a great leap in your relationship.”

“There is no relationship, Granny,” Belle said. “We’ve had a few conversations, that’s all.”

“Ah yes, but I think those few conversations have been enough to establish the fact that you like each other rather a lot.”

“Granny, you’re making it sound like middle school all over again.”

“Well, sometimes it does feel like that.”

It was Belle’s turn to roll her eyes. “Granny, you know that we can’t do anything whilst the show is still running. It wouldn’t be ethical.”

“Maybe not. But you can at least sow the seeds, which I think you’re doing admirably. Now, as long as we can stop Gold from looking like he wants to hide in an oven half the time, I think that you two will end up being very happy together.”

“You’re already designing our wedding cake in your head, aren’t you?”

Granny reached across and patted Belle’s arm.

“I’m an optimist,” she said. “And a hopeless romantic when I can afford to be.”

“Yes, well, that’s not right now.” Belle indicated Astrid coming towards them from the main tent. “It looks like we’re up.”

“Afternoon, Astrid,” Granny said brightly. “I trust that you haven’t had to get the first aid kit out today?”

“No, no, everyone’s behaved themselves.”

“Damn. I was hoping that someone would have gone at Zelena with a hand mixer,” Belle muttered. Astrid looked rather shocked, but didn’t make any comment, and Granny chuckled.

“I really don’t think that’s the best way of removing her from the competition,” she said. “It would only increase her fame and, in all likelihood, her insufferability.”

“I can live in hope.”

They entered the tent to view the eight tiramisu cakes standing on the judging table awaiting their gradings. As Belle had expected, they had all started to melt in various degrees, but some were definitely better presented than others. One was dripping coffee essence onto the tablecloth.

“Now, remember that we’re looking for clearly defined, even layers of cream and cake, with the cake well-soaked in coffee mixture, but not sodden,” Belle said as they cut into the first cake. The outside looked good, but inside the layers were uneven and lacked precision. The next baker had fared much better.

Belle glanced up at the bakers, sitting lined up in the centre of the tent. They all knew whose was whose bake, and quite often, if you timed it right you could see the reaction of the person whose cake they were sampling at the time. She knew that she shouldn’t, but none of the contestants were trained actors and masking their happiness or fear was often difficult. Regina was smiling as the praised the cake and Belle thought it might be hers. It had long been established that she was a neat, precise baker, and that was one trait that could be carried through into the technicals.

The leaking cake, although it tasted great, had to be ranked last, and it turned out to have been Emma’s. She shrugged, accepting the news with good grace although she really wasn’t quite sure how she’d managed to get it quite so runny when she was using the same quantities of liquid as everyone else. Perhaps she’d mistaken teaspoons and tablespoons somewhere along the line, or maybe it was just one of those mysteries of baking that sometimes occurred. Jefferson had also not fared well, which surprised Belle. He’d had an extremely strong start to the competition and usually fared well in technicals. The uneven cake they’d sampled first was Gold’s; Granny ranked him fourth. Regina’s was indeed the one Belle had called, and she came second, ahead of Elsa and behind Zelena, who’d surprised them all with something nigh on perfect. Perhaps she was changing her tactic and was determined to win outright.

As much as she really didn’t want anything to do with the woman, Belle was duty-bound to go over and congratulate her on her success. She seemed to be benign enough today, but Belle couldn’t help noticing that Gold escaped from the tent as soon as he was able, and inwardly she cursed the other woman for making him so uncomfortable in her presence that he felt the need to get away from her as soon as possible. She hadn’t really had a chance to talk to him outside of the competition at all today, and considering the progress they’d made the previous week, she really did want to talk to him, just as she knew he wanted to talk to her.

“It’s all right.” Ella came over and patted her shoulder as the other contestants left the tent. “Tomorrow is another day and I’m sure you’ll be able to grab a few minutes’ private conversation after the showstopper. If you need to, Ursula and I will volunteer ourselves for ‘distracting Zelena’ duty.”

“Thanks, although I’m not sure that’s a sacrifice I’m prepared for anyone to make on my behalf yet.”

“Nonsense. There are affairs of the heart at stake here, and I’m sure that Ursula and I are more than capable of handling her for ten minutes or so whilst you get your man to safety. With any luck we’ll overwhelm her so much that she’ll lay off altogether.”

Belle wasn’t quite as convinced that such a tactic would work, but if anyone would be able to keep Zelena at bay, it would be the two presenters.

Nevertheless, she was determined to keep a very close eye on the woman throughout the next day’s challenge. Her suspicions were mounting, and she felt that things would come to a head very soon.

X

“Good morning bakers,” Ursula said brightly, “and welcome to your showstopper day. Now, on this wonderfully sunny day, what could possibly be better than ice cream?”

“We were thinking a delicious, if somewhat retro, combination of ice-cream, meringue and sponge cake all held together to make the incredibly sugary delight known generally as baked alaska,” Ella continued. “Now, you’ll all be pleased to know that the embargo on blowtorches has been lifted should you wish to use them, but that is entirely left to your own discretion. Your dessert can be any flavour or shape that you choose but must contain sponge, ice cream and meringue. You have four and a half hours to complete these fantastic confections. On your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

Gold took a deep breath as he started measuring out the ingredients for the ice cream. That had to be made first so that it could have the maximum freezing time before it needed to be worked with; the colder the better in all respects. It was a sweltering day outside and the production crew had brought in several electric fans which were dotted around the edges of the tent to hopefully keep the inside temperature at a bearable level. Gold was tempted to go and stick his face in front of one and he hadn’t even got started yet. Everyone else looked to be similarly hot and bothered already, but he was too focussed on his own work to spend too long looking at what everyone else was making. The judges and presenters were still hanging around at the front of the tent like they usually did at the beginning of the challenge, and Gold wondered if they were giving them more time to get going on the challenge because they knew that the contestants would be under a lot more pressure this week, battling against the weather as well as their unpredictable bakes. Eventually though, they began to come around, and Gold kept giving little glances at them, determined not to be caught unawares. Belle smiled at him as they came over, and he could not help but smile back.

“Good morning, Raymond,” she said. “Tell us about your baked alaska. What flavours are you using?”

“This is a recipe inspired by my Aunt Elvira,” he said. “I’ve made it before at home for her and she gave it her seal of approval, so I hope I’m going to do well with it.”

“Well, her family recipes have never let you down before, so I think we’re on to a good thing. What is it?”

“This is a lemon meringue pie baked alaska.” It was one of the more ambitious things that he had tried, but given Aunt Elvira’s love of lemon meringue pie, it had immediately been the one to spring to mind. “It’s a pastry case with a layer of lemon curd, then a vanilla sponge drizzled with limoncello, and a lemon ripple ice cream, topped with Italian meringue.”

“It sounds very impressive,” Granny said. “We’re looking forward to sampling it. Lemon is always a good partner to meringue, like with your coffee in the crème brulées it compliments the sweetness very well and stops it being too rich and cloying.”

“Yes, that’s the aim. I’m just hoping that I’ll be able to pull it off.”

“We have every faith in you,” Ursula said. “But hide the limoncello, Ella will be after it soon enough.”

“One of these days I’m going to do you for slander,” Ella said from the bench behind Gold where she was talking to Emma, and possibly trying to sample her unfrozen white chocolate ice cream mixture.

“Ah, you love me really.” Ursula blew a kiss to her partner and the judges moved on to their next victim, leaving Gold to get on with his work. He had a lot to do, aware that he’d ended up making a lot of work for himself and that he could well have made life a lot simpler, but they were almost halfway through the competition now and if he was going to stand a chance of reaching the final then it was time to spread his wings a little. He really didn’t want to be accused of being boring, but at the same time, the image of Icarus flying too close to the sun was horribly present in his mind.

“We need to divvy up the freezers,” Emma said from behind him, watching her ice cream churn in the maker at the same time as mixing up a chocolate cake base for her bake, looking around the room at all the freezer space available. “Put post-it notes on the doors showing whose is whose to avoid any confusion. As long as no-one’s making anything ridiculously huge then we should be able to fit two per freezer.”

They both looked over to Jefferson; after his performance last week Gold wondered if the man was adhering to a ‘bigger is better’ policy when it came to showstoppers, despite Belle having told him (much to Ella and Ursula’s mirth), that size wasn’t everything.

Thankfully, his creation showed no signs of being taller than Belle.

“Pistachio ice cream?” Emma said, her eyes moving from Jefferson to the bench in front of him where Zelena was baking. Gold snorted. She really did seem obsessed with the colour green and in any other circumstances he would be rather worried. As it was, he was simply worried about what kind of thing she might have up her sleeve should she succeed in cornering him again. He was seriously considering carrying mace around with him to fight her off with. Given her excellent performance the previous day, it was too much to hope for that she might get sent home this afternoon.

“I guess we’ll have to wait and see.” Gold put his ice-cream in the freezer with Emma’s and she grabbed Astrid with the post-it note idea. The judges were making the rounds of the tent again on their own, patrolling the perimeter as it were, looking at the bakers’ benches critically and making them even more nervous than they already were. Gold just ignored them; he already had far too much to worry about without adding Belle and Granny’s opinions into the mix. There was pastry and sponge and Italian meringue to make, ice-cream to freeze, and so much that could go wrong that he didn’t want to think about it. All he could do was pray for the best.

X

Looking back, Belle would always remember the moment she realised that Zelena had slipped through her fingers and caused chaos. She was fairly sure that the entire country would remember it, editing of the final camera work dependent. Certainly everyone in the tent would remember it. It was the first time that she had heard Gold raise his voice for anything. She’d heard him stressed and she’d heard him panicking, but she’d never heard him shout and swear until a ferocious Scottish roar rang through the tent and all eyes - contestants, judges, presenters and crew alike - were immediately drawn to the back left-hand corner.

“WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE?”

Gold was pointing an accusing finger at Zelena, his entire frame shaking with rage. Emma was standing at the grab-ready beside him. Zelena just looked smug. Time seemed to stand still in that moment, and as Belle left Walter where she had been speaking to camera, and made her way across the tent to investigate, she felt like she was walking through treacle and everything was taking far, far too long.

“What’s going on?”

It was Granny’s voice, calm and with that vein of icy steel running through it that would broker no nonsense.

“She’s sabotaged Gold!” Emma accused, and Belle immediately saw the problem. Gold’s half-completed bake, which should have been chilling nicely in the freezer, was out on the side, rapidly turning into a puddle of sponge swimming in melted ice cream.

Zelena just shrugged. “I needed to make space for mine.”

“You’ve got your own freezer!” Emma exploded, gesturing across the tent to the other freezers set up, all covered in post-its as per her suggestion. “We literally put your name on it! There is absolutely no reason for you to use ours!”

“All right, all right, let’s break this up,” Granny said. “Ursula, Ella, we’ll add fifteen minutes to the end of the challenge to make up for this commotion, you go and help Gold salvage what he can and get it back in the freezer as soon as you can. Emma, we’ll take it from here. Astrid, get Zelena’s ice cream into her own damn freezer. And as for you...”

Zelena’s expression had hardened, as if her emotions had crystallised into something sharp and dangerous, but Granny was completely unperturbed, her anger just as deadly when it needed to be.

Belle’s own anger was nowhere near solidified. It was boiling in her veins with the ferocity of a volcano, threatening to burst out at any moment. She’d never got angry on the bake-off before, but then again, she’d never had any reason to get angry. Nothing like this had ever happened before. There had been mishaps, there had been downright catastrophes, but this blatant sabotage was new, and it was making Belle absolutely furious. Granny caught her eye, no doubt seeing the vibrant rage about to explode, and gave a measured nod.

“Let’s take this outside,” she said. “We’ve disturbed the other contestants enough already. Come on.”

Zelena didn’t move and Granny arched an eyebrow.

“Am I going to have to call security and forcibly remove you from this tent?” she asked.

Her tone was non-negotiable, and the three of them left the tent, and standing in the bright sunshine outside, safely out of the way of the cameras, Belle let rip, the indignation that she felt on behalf not only of Gold who had suffered as a result, but also on behalf of the bake-off itself which had never seen something so underhanded before, and all the other contestants who expected a fair, clean competition, spilling out of her in a torrent of anger.

“What the hell did you hope to achieve by doing that! God only knows you’ve been tormenting that man ever since you first arrived here, for no earthly reason! Even if you absolutely had to use that one particular freezer, there is NO reason why you had to take Gold’s out, without telling him, and leave it in the sun! You didn’t even put it in the fridge which would at least have been better than leaving it out altogether! That was a deliberately callous act which you knew would affect his chances in the competition. And you know what? I don’t think it’s the first time you’ve tried something like that. Aurora’s catastrophe in bread week, Emma’s mysteriously sodden tiramisu yesterday. It’s all looking very bleak for you.”

“You can’t prove any of that,” Zelena spat.

“No, but you admitted to today’s fiasco, and right now that’s enough for us. You deliberately sabotaged another baker, God only knows why although I can hazard an educated guess, and you’re completely unapologetic!”

“Zelena, we’re disqualifying you,” Granny said.

“You can’t do that! You don’t make the rules!”

“No, but we’re the judges and we enforce them. Come with me up to the production office and we’ll speak to the producers about what’s been happening. I’m sure they’ll be able to give a final say. Belle, I trust that I can leave things in your capable hands?”

Belle nodded, giving Zelena a sweet smile. “Of course.”

“You can’t do this,” Zelena was still protesting as she trailed along after Granny as they made their way up towards the house where the make-shift production office was set up. “For God’s sake, this is a competition, we’re supposed to compete, not be best friends! Taking down the competition is all part of a competition.”

“Zelena,” Granny was saying as they went out of earshot, “have you ever watched the bake-off before?”

Belle took a couple of deep breaths before going back into the tent. It was eerily quiet, and she knew from the looks on the remaining baker’s faces that they had all heard her outburst. She went over to Gold’s workbench, the man himself was hidden from view by Ursula and Ella, who were providing a barrier to the cameras.

“It’s going to be a deconstructed baked alaska,” Ella said brightly, “but he hasn’t thrown it out of the window.”

Gold’s hands were still shaking, fists clenching and unclenching on his lap.

“This is a disaster,” he said faintly.

“No, it’s not,” Belle said. “I know it’s not because I know how the show works, believe me. Come on, there’s extra time. Come outside for some air. I promise you it will all be all right.”

Gold nodded half-heartedly and followed Belle outside. None of the other bakers questioned it and the camera crew knew better than to follow them.

“Deep breaths,” she said. “Zelena’s gone, she’s not coming back to the tent if Granny can help it. You’ll be all right. Like I said to Aurora the other week, it’s best to give us something, anything that we can judge. It won’t matter what it looks like.”

At length, Gold nodded and looked up with an air of slightly renewed confidence, not that he’d ever had all that much confidence to start with, and after a few more moments in the fresh air, the two of them made their way back inside.

“Thank you,” Gold whispered as he made his way back to the workbench, just as Ursula announced that they had fifteen minutes remaining.

Belle just smiled and returned to her post at the front of the tent. This was certainly not going to be Gold’s best week in the tent, but it would not result in his downfall.

The tent was subdued throughout all the clean-up and resetting ready for the judging; it was the first time that the bakes were packed way before being judged as if they didn’t keep the finished products in fridges for any time they weren’t required to be out, they’d all suffer the same fate as Gold’s. Granny came back in just in time for the judging to begin; Zelena was nowhere to be seen and it was clear that her departure was both swift and permanent.

In spite of the heat and the dramatic events that had transpired, the contestants had managed to pull off some very impressive creations. Regina’s sticky toffee baked alaska was so supremely decadent that Belle could almost feel her teeth rotting as she sampled it, but it still left her wanting more. Jefferson had decided to take their previous advice to heart and had been slightly more sedate this week, but his coconut and lime ice cream was another winner.

Gold had managed to pull it back from the brink, serving them the sponge and Italian meringue in a strange kind of lemon meringue pie, with what ice cream he had been able to salvage served up in a bowl on the side. It all tasted good even if the presentation was somewhat eclectic. It was going to be hard to choose a winner.

“Bakers, it’s time for the results,” Ursula began, after all the to-ing and fro-ing had finished. “First of all the judges wanted to express their admiration for you all soldiering on in spite of the shenanigans that went on today. Secondly, since Zelena has departed the tent, there is no need to eliminate anyone this round - you’ll be coming back next week.”

Belle could see the sigh of relief that Gold gave on learning this news. He had been on tenterhooks for the entirety of the judging, almost to the extent of dropping his bake, which would really just have compounded his woes.

“This means that we only have good news for you, and I get to be the one to deliver it.” Ella bounced on the balls of her feet. “This week’s star baker is Elsa!”

It was a well-deserved win. Elsa had performed strongly throughout the weekend and her summer berry baked alaska had been wonderful to both behold and taste. After the necessary camera pieces had been filmed and the crew was packing up, and after congratulating Elsa, Belle finally managed to make her way over to Gold, who was getting ready to leave. Belle left the tent with him, walking up towards where his taxi was waiting.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Incredibly relieved,” Gold said. “I was certain that I was a goner. Thank you so much, for everything that you did today. I don’t know what I would have done without you there.”

Belle shrugged. “You’re welcome. I just did what I know I would want someone to do for me if something like that had happened to me. You’re a good man, and you don’t deserve to suffer for what Zelena did to you.”

“Thank you. I know you went outside to get away from the cameras but I did hear what you were saying to her out there.”

Belle wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, I was just so angry I didn’t have a filter. I know I shouldn’t fight your battles for you.”

“No, no, I’m incredibly grateful. I don’t think I could ever have stood up to her like that. She’s terrifying. Thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome, Raymond.”

“Rum,” Gold said softly.

“Pardon?”

“Call me Rum, please.”

Belle smiled. “Very well, Rum.”

She thought back to what Granny had said, about him always having a deer in the headlights look around her. There was no evidence of that now. His smile was shy and he was still clearly rattled from the events of the afternoon, but there was something else in his face, pushing the nervousness to one side. Belle thought that it was hope, the same kind of hope as she was feeling.

“Well, I’ll see you next week,” she said eventually. Maybe next week one of them would work up the courage to say something slightly more pertinent about this unspoken thing that was hanging in the air between them. They had established last week that they were on the same page, that they were both interested in each other, and even though neither of them had actually said anything of the sort, they both knew that they were in a kind of limbo, waiting for something else to happen and at the same time, perhaps confident, deep inside, that something could and would happen when the time was right.

Gold nodded. “Till next week. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Me too.”

He got into the taxi and Belle waved him off before meandering her way back down to the tent. A couple of contestants were still there chatting among themselves; Granny, Ella and Ursula were sitting around one of the benches at the back of the tent. Ella appeared to be making milkshakes with the leftover ice cream.

“Why do you think she did it?” Granny was asking. “I mean, apart from completely misreading what the competition is about.”

Ursula and Ella looked at each other and then at Belle, and she sighed, helping herself to a spoonful of melted strawberry ice cream from Lance’s eton mess baked alaska.

“Revenge,” she said. “I mean, I’ve no doubt that the thought of sabotaging someone else’s ice cream was going through her head from the start, just like I’ve no doubt that she was responsible for the other bakers’ major disasters that they’ve had. I think she wanted to win by any means necessary. But as to why she picked Gold specifically this afternoon, then that’s revenge.”

“What did he ever do to her?” Granny asked.

“He had the audacity to rebuff her romantic advances,” Ella muttered darkly. “The woman’s been trying to eat him alive ever since they arrived here. If you thought he looked like a cornered rabbit when he was speaking to Belle, that’s nothing to how he looked when Zelena cornered him. She’s downright predatory.”

“Still, she’s gone now,” Ursula said, accepting the chocolate ice-cream milkshake that Ella handed her. “We don’t have to worry about her again, and with any luck, the rest of the competition will go very smoothly with no huge catastrophes.”

“We can hope.” Belle had to giggle as the image of Zelena trying to sneak back into the tent to cause chaos and being held back by the security team came into her head and refused to leave. The others politely ignored her whilst she tried to pull herself together.

Whatever had happened this week, and whatever would happen in the coming weeks, the atmosphere in the tent had definitely lightened without the spectre of Zelena hanging over them, even though the events of the afternoon would no doubt leave a bad taste in more than one mouth once they were aired. As Belle had feared, this was definitely going to be the most dramatic season of the bake-off that they’d ever had, but now there was hope that it would all come together to a very satisfactory conclusion.

And if that conclusion happened to include her and Gold making the transition from talking to kissing, then so much the better.

====

Next time: The bakers tackle pastry in various forms, Elsa experiments with eclairs, and Belle takes a chance.

====

Cappuccino crème brulée recipe here

Tiramisu recipe here 

#rumbelle fic #rumbelle #Belle French #Mr Gold #Spinner!Rum #GBBO AU #Fic: Love is a Layered Cake

[mental-health-advice]

Submission from Bones

½ There is someone in my life (kind of) who doesn’t respect boundaries- or more like he has no regards for boundaries/doesn’t think about them. The thing is he’s my best friend’s boyfriend, so I can’t exactly cut him out, nor do I think it’s my place to tell her to break up with him. I have talked to her about it and she’s good at talking to him. His problem is, is that he’s the type of person to look in your bowl to see if he got enough because he wants things to be “fair” for him. (Bones)

2/3 the other day, we were hanging out. We called our friend to come with us. Wanting to be “fair,” he wanted to invite his “friends.” His logic was, you invited your friends, why can’t I ? Our friend has a car we could use and he’s not a shit. Your “friend” has emotionally abused one of us. He’s a shit. They are not someone I feel comfortable or safe around. I don’t know, maybe that’s why we don’t want him around, Kyle. (Bones)

3/3 I don’t think he has set boundaries for himself/he doesn’t know how to choose good people as friends. Ther people closest to you reflect who you are, or if you want to know someone look at their friends. If you choose people that drag you down or ABUSE people as your friends, what does that say about you? At the very least, you tolerate people like that. My friend knows not to have my abuser and I in the same area - she dislike him before I did - but where is his common sense? (Bones)

(Bones) - I think I forgot to put my previous one off anon. I want the shit who abused me to be dead to me, to not be a real person- like he never existed. I want no reminders of his existence, so having him hang out with us is like throwing a “here’s your abuser” flag in my face. What an idiot. This may sound harsh, but I wouldn’t care if he died. I don’t care if he’s alive, but still. I don’t care at all, alive or dead.

Hi Bones,

I am really sorry that you are having to deal with this right now, it sounds like a really tricky situation be in. I am also so sorry that you suffered abuse at the hands of one of his friends, you did not deserve that. Your feelings are completely valid, and you have every right to feel hate towards the person that abused you. I hope I will be able to give you a little advice, lovely.

I think the best thing you can do, is talk to him, but I know that is easier said than done. Does he know about the abuse you suffered? If he does and he is ignoring that, then I really do think you, and your best friend if she is supportive of the idea, should discuss with him the reasons you do not want your abuser around. It is completely understandable that you do not want to be around him after what he did to you, and if Kyle does not understand that then I think there is a real problem. He may simply not understand how being reminded of the abuser can cause painful memories that you do not want to experience; could you try and explain these to him?

If you explain this to him and he still doesn’t understand and carries on inviting his friends to hang out with you, or if you don’t want to tell him about the abuse, then I think making it clear that you want to spend time with your friends alone and without Kyle’s friends is important. Maybe a good boundary to set is that you hang out with your friendship groups alone, so you and your best friend with your friends, and Kyle with his group? You can simply say to him that his group of friends make you and your friends uncomfortable. I realise that you cannot cut him completely out of your life because he is your best friend's boyfriend, but you still have every right to not have to spend time with him and his friends if you don’t want to. 

It is up to him to choose his friends and the sort of people he associates with, and that is something that you cannot really change. However, like I say, you are completely within your rights to have an influence over the people which he forces you to socialise with. He may feel like his group of friends are the only friends he has, so when you and your best friend go to hang out with your friends, he may feel very isolated - if this is the case, I think it would be good for you to make a real effort to include him in things that you and your friends do. Hopefully this will make it easier for him to spend time with you all without having his friends there. This may just be something as simple as engaging in conversation with him more about the things that he enjoys. 

I am just wondering how you are doing, lovely? Experiencing abuse can be a really traumatic experience, and it’s really hard to deal with. I am just wondering if you have ever sought any professional help following the abuse? Talking to a counsellor might really help you in terms of dealing with the negative emotions abuse causes, and they might be able to give you some really good coping techniques for when you feel yourself become overwhelmed with the bad memories. I am going to link you to our page about getting help here. There is also always the option for you to report this abuse to the police, or to a trusted responsible adult - please feel no pressure to do this though, it is completely up to you!

It is completely normal to feel a hatred and no compassion towards your abuser. Please don’t feel bad about having feelings like this. Something to try and remember, is that you are so much more than the abuse he put you through. You are strong, and brave, and beautiful. You can overcome this abuse and you will find a strength in yourself that you never thought was possible <3 Abuse can cause us to experience periods of anxiety; just in case you are suffering from anxious thoughts, I am going to link you to some of our resources about how to deal with anxiety and panic:

Information on anxiety disorders Calming anxiety and panic Self help tips Mindfulness Grounding techniques

Again, I am really sorry that you are having to deal with this, lovely. Please remember to give yourself lots of self care: pamper yourself, take time to do the things you enjoy, and remember that you are wonderful and deserve a life full of happiness. If there is anything else we can do for you, please do not hesitate to get back in touch! Take care,

Rhiann xo

#bones #submission #mha #advice #advice blog #mental health advice #mharhiann #abuse #friendships #overcoming abuse #relationships #toxic friendship #getting help #anxiety #ptsd #facing abuse #your feelings are valid #you deserve the best #you are worth so much

[orenjininja]

Important

[K so as some of you know I have some mental health issues that I feel I should make more clear so that misunderstandings and shit don’t happen. This blog has already beaten my health into submission in the past and I don’t want that to happen again.

Kinda vaguely depressing stuff under the cut.

EDIT: Added another point.

Anxiety + Paranoia: 

These basically go hand-in-hand and almost never separate. 

The most prominent issue I have here in terms of RPing and socialising is that I can see someone RPing/dashboard chatting with someone else and think they’re just ignoring me bc they dislike me etc -- and honestly if you sit and think about it everyone does it because people are not machines and have tons of other stuff to juggle.

My brain doesn’t like that logic very much. I’ve gotten a lot better for it, to be completely fair, but I still find it a little tricky to ignore the depressing thoughts and stuff. Still, the fact I’m able to recognise that logic says a lot about how far I’ve come.

Please just bare with me on this. I’ve had heart-breaking experiences that have led to this sorta thing becoming a normal thought process for me and I’m working through it as best I can. I might try poking chats occasionally if you haven’t responded, for example. Expect random “boops” or “rolls”.

I also constantly worry about how I appear to other people. Am I annoying? Too clingy? Am I stuck-up? (this one especially. I really don’t want to be seen this way) That sorta thing. So if I think we’re real friendly and shit and I speak to you a lot I might ask something similar to it (though I’m going to try and not to)

Depression

I’m recovering. Mostly recovered, I think, but I still slip back occasionally. The above ties into this, but you’ll mostly see it in me not responding to threads or messages. Depending on how bad I’m feeling I’ll probably post a little kinda “feel sorry for me” post because I’m honestly just a very people-dependant person (despite being a bit socially awkward and a social outcast. the fucking irony, man). Please don’t take that the wrong way, because I know some people do. I will NEVER vagueblog. 

Attention//Neediness

Kinda really sucks to say it because I’ve been trying to refute it for so long but-- I can get kinda attention-needy at times. Again, tying into the above with the “feel sorry for me” shit. It’s a coping mechanism that might be a bit unhealthy, honestly. 

Be assured though that there is a limit. It never goes to a dangerous point (hurting myself etc). It’s honestly just a thing to make people aware I’m not feeling great and could use some warm thoughts. 

Inability to focus + bad short term memory

Not sure I can be classed as having a full-blown attention disorder, but I think it’s along the same kind of thread. I had depression for a good few years and it severely stumped my ability to do schoolwork and stuff. Even now that I’m recovering it’s still scarred me. I can’t concentrate on things for nearly as long as I used to be able to, and my short term memory is near enough awful sometimes.

This means that threads might be randomly dropped because I simply forgot about them-- or couldn’t focus long enough to come up with a good reply. This is especially prevalent with long long looong posts.

Inferiority Complex

I’m sure a lot of people on here understand this one. There have been times where I have almost deleted/quit this blog because I felt so inadequate to other Mikey RPers and I honestly don’t see this problem going away anytime soon. 

#!do not reblog #[outofsquish]

[8livescatrescue]

We’ve reached a stage where all the purrmanent residents at 8 Lives, apart from the infamous Flipper, are teenagers. I mean teenagers in human years …. so in feline terms senior kitizens – as opposed to defiant adolescent /teenage stage felines.

Oldies have a charm that needs to be experienced to be appreciated.   They’re slower, quieter, less destructive, more and more gorgeous and snuggly every day that comes.   The challenge is that older age (as with humans) often brings health issues and challenges.  This is the time you might start to be glad that you took out good pet insurance whilst they were younger … though sadly some of ours were too old or had too many pre-existing conditions when they arrived in rescue to make insurance a viable option.

We don’t know for sure how old any of them are as we don’t have full histories ….. actually we don’t even have sketchy histories.   Apart from Jango they were found as strays.   We know that Amber is Honey’s kitten so is a little younger than Honey … though probably not much.  Jango came from the dog pound but sadly we have no history of how he came to be there or his life before that.

So our official guesstimates are that Amber is 13, Honey & Jango 14 and Henderson 17.

Honey & Amber

The girls, Honey & Amber are kind of doing ok.   Honey went for her health check yesterday and we were concerned that she’s lost a bit of weight, but mostly things checked out fine so we’re just keeping an eye on her weight and see how things go.  Amber is trickier to care for.  Whilst her mum had clearly been a pet cat before becoming a stray, Amber was born outdoors, and didn’t have enough socialising early enough for her to be confident with humans.  So when Honey came into rescue she quickly settled back into being a happy snuggle puss, whilst Amber has remained wary despite the number of years she’s lived here.  Don’t get me wrong, Amber is setttled and happy, she purrs and plays and relaxes …. until you approach her.  Then she’s scared.  She’ll allow some strokes but is very stressed by any other intervention …  so any trip to the vet is a major trauma.  She’s a bit snuffly from time to time … we assume she had cat flu before coming to us.  We keep an eye on it … mix in some meds with her food to help with that sometimes … but mostly try to avoid stressing her by doing anything else.

  Amber & Honey with Flipper

  The boys have had more health issues.   Looking back on it, Jango was less active than you might expect even when he arrived here nine years ago, but at the time we put it down to him being a lazy ginger tom cat … and maybe he was.  He’s also always bunny hopped down the stairs … again we put it down to not being used to stairs or just one of those quirks of his (he has many!).  As time went on though he became more apparently stiff in his joints.  The lazy spilling out of his bed, and flopping on his back  came to an end.

We worked our way through joint supplements … which helped a bit.  Then moved to daily metacam …. and more recently have needed to add other drugs to manage his pain.  He can just about still manage the stairs under his own steam … but prefers to sit at the top or the bottom and wait for a human stair lift to scoop him up and carry him … or howl to request assistance.

Our bed is one of his favourite places to sleep but we realised he was beyond being able to jump … or even scramble up.   So we rigged up a stairway using a low footstool, which led onto a bedside cabinet which was lower than the bed, and then a final step to the bed.  That also started to get tricky for him …. so we invested in a ramp.

  Jango ramp

That’s proved to be a great success. The other cats like it too and it serves well as a scratch post.

The arthritis sadly isn’t his only problem. He howls very loudly … pretty often. Sometimes it’s clear what the problem is …. he’s waiting at the bottom of the stairs and getting impatient for someone to carry him up. Other times, and often in the middle of the night he’ll howl and there is no apparent reason. The first time I heard this sound I flew out of bed thinking something dreadful had happened … he’d trapped his hand in something, fallen, hurt himself on something. But no … he was standing on the landing …. just howling.

We’re fairly confident he’s not howling in pain .. for one thing he’s on lots of pain meds and for another it’s just not what cats do … they hide their pain rather than shout about it. However we’re pretty certain he’s very deaf, and that may explain why he’s so loud. Deaf cats just like their human counterparts tend to shout. I know with cats it’s tricky to be sure about the quality of their hearing as they’re masters of selective deafness …. but he regularly sleeps while I hoover round him. Another reason for the howling could be dementia. Sadly it affects cats as it does humans. Having watched my father suffer with it, I’m reluctant to accept that it’s happening to Jango too. I do think some of the howling is deaf shouting and impatience. However after experiencing several nights of having to get out of bed 8+ times to find him standing howling on the landing for no apparent reason I think we have to accept that there’s an element of dementia. Thankfully when he’s picked up and snuggled into bed he settles for a while and purrs very happily.

Despite being unsure of their ages we’re pretty sure Henderson is the eldest.  He was guessed to be 14 when he arrived here 3 years ago.  He’s been collecting ailments ever since.   All the usual elderly cat things – hyperthyroid, then chronic kidney disease and most recently high blood pressure.  His mobility isn’t what it was though he’s thankfully not as stiff in his joints as Jango.  He can’t jump too well but what he’s lost in agility he more than makes up for with strategy.   These beds on the table are popular with the residents as the table is against the radiator so the back of the beds are heated.  Hendo can’t jump but has worked out a route: onto the spokes of the chair on the right of the table, onto the spokes of the table, then to the seat of the chair on the left of the table, and from there onto the table and into a cosy igloo.

We decided to invest in a heat pad for them all.  Jango has aching joints that would benefit from some warmth, Hendo is a skinny old chap who needs some extra insulation.   We weren’t sure if any of them would use it.

Henderson looked a bit uncertain when I first put him on it but after a few seconds it dawned on him that there was lovely warmth coming up through his feet.  He’s scarcely left it since then.

not sure at first

convinced

Jango also had a go

thinking about it

yes

Flipper has also been a major user of it.  She’s not old and thankfully not poorly either … but she’s very often complaining about being cold.

on the radiator

under a blanket

She absolutely loves it

Aids and Adaptations We've reached a stage where all the purrmanent residents at 8 Lives, apart from the infamous Flipper, are teenagers.

[seidipaddlaw-blog]

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SUGGESTIONS FOR Sewing With Lace Fabric.com Blog

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