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la-knight · 5 years

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Books I Read in 2016_::_The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy by Nikki Loftin

“When my mom was alive, she read me stories every night.

‘Use your imagination, Lorelei,’ she’d say, ‘and your whole life can be a fairy tale.”

I wanted that to be true. But I should have paid more attention to the fairy tales.”

When Lorelei’s old school mysteriously burns down, a new one appears practically overnight: Splendid Academy. Rock-climbing walls on the playground and golden bowls of candy on every desk? Gourmet meals in the cafeteria, served by waiters? Optional homework and two recess periods a day? It’s every kids’s dream.

But Lorelei and her new friend Andrew are pretty sure it’s too good to be true. Together they uncover a sinister mystery, one with their teacher, the beautiful Ms. Morrigan, at the very center. Then Andrew disappears. Lorelei has to save him, even if that means facing a past she’d like to forget – and taking on a teacher who’s a real witch.

What Lorelei and Andrew discover chills their bones – and might even pick them clean!

1.85/5 stars

So I read this book a while ago, and the first time I read it, I really liked it. Not love, but I enjoyed it just fine. I’m not snobby about the target age of my reading material: I love Dragons Love Tacos as much as I love Red Queen as much as I love The Night Circus as much as I love Aru Shah and the End of Time. And I read The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy at a dark time in my life (I have many) when my depression went undiagnosed and therefore untreated and I couldn’t handle much in the way of length or high-high stakes or grimdark or anything like that. So this book was perfect because it had stakes but it’s easier to care about one kid’s life than about, say, the war for the Iron Throne on top of all your faves possibly getting killed by ice demons or zombies. And I enjoyed this book.

More recently, I’ve reread it, and…well, I didn’t love it or like it as much as I had the first time. I didn’t hate it, but I definitely didn’t love it.

People talk about purity culture, which is hecka toxic, and I’m not here for that (I don’t judge people’s reading material unless it’s something drastic, like shouting from the rooftops how much they enjoyed Mein Kampf because, um, yikes). If there’s a book that I’ve heard is problematic, I may or may not read it for myself, depending on the nature of the issues and whatever. No media is perfect, it’s a balancing act. If I’m titchy about the person getting my money, I’ll buy that book secondhand so they don’t get any of my money (this is what I did with Stephenie Meyer, Suzanne Collins, Cassandra Clare, Anne Rice, James Dashner, & JK Rowling, for example). Not difficult to do. The obsession with consuming so-called “pure media” can be super bad and result in things like anon harassment or even death threats. I’ve seen this happen. On the flip side, the push against both problematic content and purity culture, when dealt with rationally, has led to some really great discussions regarding media analysis and critical thinking with regard to story consumption, and that’s great.

Why is this relevant?

So I reread Splendid Academy after some exposure to articles, essays, blog posts, and tumblr posts about several topics - including the pervasiveness and lethality of fat-shaming (among other things, like the silencing and condemnation by society of justified female anger). I did not go looking for these posts, they just trickled into the fringe of my social awareness as a result of using social media. I’d read them, reblogged and retweeted them, but I didn’t consciously try to apply those posts to Splendid Academy when I reread it. But this time through, the book made me super uncomfortable, although at first I didn’t quite understand why. I had to sit and, as they say, “think muh thoughts” all the way through a few times before I figured out what was bothering me.

The very basic dual premises of this book are sexist and fat-phobic. Now, I’m fat. There’s a lot of stigma around being fat. I mean, people have died of treatable, not-fat-related medical ailments because their doctor refused to look for those things, falling back on “just lose some weight and you’ll be fine” instead - and then boom, it’s something like cancer (which is not exacerbated by being fat) and the person dies.

(I am not Google. You can Google this information if you really want to. It’s all over Tumblr, Twitter, and Google. Don’t bother me about it)

The sinister nature of Splendid Academy is that its run by three witches fattening up all the kids to be eaten. Typical “Hansel and Gretel” motif, right? Except! In “Hansel and Gretel,” the kids are literally starving when they come upon a food source, an adult tells them to eat and eat and eat (it’s not their idea), and Hansel ends up locked in a cage by the witch and force-fed because the witch* threatens to kill his sister if he doesn’t. A lot of fairy tales (original ones in Grimms collections and by Andersen and whatnot, I mean) have morals of various types. The moral of “Hansel & Gretel” is not “gluttony should be punishable by death” or “being fat makes you a worthless human and it’s why bad things happen to you.”

(*By the way, the stereotypical long-nosed warty witch who eats Christian children is an anti-Semitic caricature of Jewish women and it’s gross; luckily the author doesn’t do that)

But in this book, the kids almost seem to bring their imminent demise on themselves by eating too much junk food. Sort of like how the narration says Augustus Gloop ended up turned into semi-sentient fudge in Charlie & the Chocolate Factory because he was a greedy glutton and not because Willy Wonka is a colonizing* sociopath who should never be in charge of minors.

(*Three words: Fucking. Oompa. Loompas.)

All but one of the kids attending Splendid Academy are snackers. These twelve- and thirteen-year-olds will snack on Skittles or sunflower seeds or whatever while they do homework or school work. They’re fed gourmet breakfasts and lunches in the school cafeteria every day. The food is enchanted, of course, to be highly addictive and also enchanted so that it transforms immediately into fat, apparently? Bypassing the stomach entirely, I guess, because the kids never get full and literally just eat all day every day that they’re in school.

Wait, you say. If the food is enchanted, it’s not the kids’ fault they’re eating it. That’s not fat-phobic at all. What?

I said all but one kid has fallen for these magical machinations. One boy (not our protagonist Lorelei, but her friend Andrew) is basically immune to the call of the candy. If the One Ring of Power was candy, he’d be movie!Faramir and Lorelei would be Frodo. And why is he immune? Because he’s got a fairy godmother? He’s magical himself? He’s a total nerd and studied mythology and knows how to spot ensorcelled edibles a mile away?

Nah. It’s cuz he went to fat camp.

Y’all can’t see my face right now.

Now, to be fair, apparently Andrew was a compulsive eater and needed some kind of intervention because he was out of control (which, also being fair, is a ridiculous and tired trope about how fat people can’t control themselves around food and we need to kill that with fire and not spoon-feed the idea to tweens, thanks). But even with the blegh back story of compulsive eater, YOU DON’T SEND A TWELVE-YEAR-OLD TO FAT CAMP, OHMIGAWD. Unless he’s got PICA (that mental illness where you compulsively eat dangerous or non-food shit like glass or soap or carpet lint) or whatever, he’s not compulsively eating because he’s the next Augustus Gloop and he’s a spoiled brat who hates the word “no.” I used to be a compulsive eater as a kid (which is oddly not how I got fat). I developed the habit if “eating my feelings” because I WAS SUICIDAL AND FOOD WAS THE ONLY THING THAT EVEN HELPED A LITTLE BIT.

And you know what helped me curb my compulsive eating when my depression got really bad? It wasn’t the taunting about being fat or my mom telling me I needed to go on a diet or my dad asking me constantly if I really shouldn’t put back that second cheese stick or applesauce cup. What really helped me stop compulsively eating WAS TREATING MY FREAKING DEPRESSION.

Ahem. However, the book does do one thing sort of right with this kid - because he HAS UNTREATED DEPRESSION went to actual therapy (for the compulsive eating specifically and not anything else that might be wrong) while shipped off to fat-person exile because his parents are horrible people, he can recognize “trigger foods”* - the foods that he would compulsively eat and would make him overeat when he was upset, foods he now avoids. They got that part right. But it also means he’s more selective about what he eats (which is fine) and has more self-control than the other kids (um…), self-control he learned thanks to an entire summer at fat camp (UM…), and his sheer determination alone to not “stuff his face” helps him shake off the herion-addictive magic laid on the school food.

ExCUSE me???

(*Side note, I’m on meds now for non-food stuff that screw with my appetite and also I’m a broke bitch but as a kid/teen, my trigger foods were bread, apple pie, cake, waffles, and fruit bagels. I can still, if I had money, eat an entire angel food cake but that’s not a trigger, it’s just super fluffy and delicious)

So our sidekick is a former fat kid with untreated mental health issues who got sent to fat camp and thanks to the miracle of fat camp has now overcome his unhealthy dependence on food AND has the will power (forged from denying his inner fatty) to throw off three witches’ worth of addictive magic. Something Lorelei only manages to do after she eats magical dead-kid bone chips. Because she and the other kids have no self-control and so just eat and eat...apparently.

Alrighty then…

But Andrew’s not our lead. Lorelei is. And Lorelei interesting as a middle grade protagonist. Her mom recently died of cancer and Lorelei blames herself (because that’s what kids do) and she’s filled with even more confusion, fear, self-hate, and anger than a typical tween girl as a result both of her mother’s lingering illness and ugly death as well as the fact that Lorelei at one point jerked away from her mom during an argument and, due to chemo-induced weakness, her mom lost her balance, fell, and broke a bone.

Lorelei is lost and angry. She makes friends with Andrew and finds out about the witches and their cannibal plot while still struggling not only with her mom’s death and her own guilt, but the screwed-up situation with her family. What situation? Her dad and older brother are 100% emotionally abusive and treat her like she’s some kind of bratty little monster because she’s feeling sad and guilty and scared and angry all the time.

HER MOM JUST DIED YOU BUTTHOLES, SHE’S GOING THROUGH PUBERTY WHICH IS A HORMONAL HURRICANE OF DEATH THAT RUINS EVERYTHING, AND YOU POOP-WAFFLES ARE HELPING NOT AT ALL AND YOU SUCK.

This is a MAJOR pet peeve for me because too often emotional abuse is normalized in middle grade fiction, especially when it comes from parents (this book, The Night Parade by Kathryn Tanquary, All Four Stars by Tara Dairman, Young Wizards by Diane Duane, and even in Harry Potter, perpetuated by some of the so-called heroes) and it drives me bat-crap.

This is a middle-grade review, so I’m trying to keep it PG13.

The head witch, Ms. Morrigan, is drawn to Lorelei because of her anger and how lost she feels, and instead of eating her, wants to adopt her and make her into a baby cannibal-witch. This would be kind of a cool angle except once again, it reinforces that Lorelei being angry about her mom being dead is a flaw iin her character and not a completely understandable psychological response to a tween’s universe being ripped in half by the concept of her mother being gone forever.

Her dad and brother are “good guys” and disturbed/horrified by and condemning of her anger, grief, guilt, and fear, and they punish her for it. Ergo, according to the narrative, her anger is bad. The evil witches who literally eat children admire her anger and say it proves she should be one of them, too. Ergo, her anger is double bad. She only stops being tempted to join with the witches once she realizes being angry about her mom dying is “immature” and “bad.” Ergo, blah blah blah, girls should never be angry, it’s unladylike and turns you into a flesh-eating witch.

My parents spoon-fed me “demonstrating anger in any way for any reason is bad” along with a HUGE helping of “being angry about feeling powerless makes you a bad person” for six years of my adolescence, then wondered why I started self-harming, developed depression, and attempted suicide on multiple occasions before I was twelve. The message that a child’s anger in the face of powerlessness, death, or sudden and unpredictable changes to their homeostasis is an inherently bad thing that should be punished and makes them bad or evil can be incredibly damaging. Her mom died. A twelve-year-old girl is allowed to be confused and sad and hurt and angry about that.

Like I said, I didn’t hate the book (although these two things I ranted about made me suuuper uncomfortable while reading and the more I thought about them later, the angrier I got). But I didn’t love it, and I didn’t like it as much as I did during my first read-through. The fat-shaming was annoying and gross, and I’m suuuper tired of angry girls being shamed for their feelings, especially teens and kids. Young people feel things so intensely. And they don’t always have the experience or the vocabulary to parse out how certain aspects of a story make them feel or why, or resist internalizing toxic messages about how feeling intensely or feeling a particular way at all is bad. Thre’s a big differene between asking an eight-year-old to consume their media critically and someone twice or thrice that age. And yeah, parents have a responsibility, family discussions, if they rely solely on books society has failed them, blah blah. Unfortunately, a lot of parents suck and a lot of parents shame their kids for having feelings the parets don’t think they should. Especially young girls. The normalizing of emotional abuse by parents in middle grade books proves how “normal” many adults think such things are.

Did I Enjoy This Book: yeah, for the most part, I guess. But I won’t be reading it again anytime soon.

Would I Recommend It: No, I wouldn’t. I can’t think of anyone I would feel comfortable recommending it to, who would actually enjoy it.

Plot: .35 star

Word Choice: .5 star

World Building: .5 star

Characters: .5 star

Realism: .75 star

-¼ star for fat-shaming

-¼ star for normalizing emotional abuse

-¼ star for shaming female anger

Total Score: 1.85/5 stars

________________________________________________________

Nicole Kidman as Principal Trapp Michelle Pfeiffer as Ms. Morrigan Bryce Dallas Howard as Ms. Threnoddy

#book review #aesthetic #nikki loftin #sinister sweetness of splendid academy #suicide m #fat shaming tw #sexism #misogyny #middle grade #food tw #emotional abuse tw #character death tw

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omegaleveltrouble · 6 years

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@rebekahwinters

His head was spinning, his stomach weak, as he sunk to his knees atop the chilly lawn. He hiccuped, trying to restore balance, telepathic tranquility, all that good stuff that would keep his mind away from the pain. His arm hurt so much worse now than it had in the aftermath of the actual fight. He'd barely noticed it, against the psychic trauma; how could it have got so much worse? He inhaled sharply and settled himself on the ground, legs crossed, head drooping in concentration, trying to shut out the voices in his head of passing losers.

He'd woken up this morning feeling unnervingly ill, yet had bravely — dazedly — stupidly — pulled his way through breakfast and wandered his way outside. He blinked, trying to steady himself as he forced himself not to retreat to the astral plane. Wincing, afraid to look but more afraid now not to, he unzipped his sweater jacket, pulling the knitted material back so he could slowly slip his arm out from the sleeve.

Cool air against a boiling a sensation made him wish he would pass out. Breathe. He'd been hurt forever ago, he was fine. Counting determinedly in his head, he made up his mind; he peered at the wound, taking in mental record of the damage. Ew.

He didn't need to be a doctor to see that it had gotten worse. The arm was… lopsided, and through every aching shift, he wondered how it was that he could even still feel all his fingers and their throbbing screwy circulation. The blood clotting looked on the verge of reopening, but it was the pus bubbling from that area that made him flinch. Well that was pretty much confirmed, then: he'd definitely made it worse two days ago when he'd tried TK-ing the bone back together. To be fair, it'd been a shaky attempt. Even though obstinate snark had always been his go-to upon being tortured over demonic mutant super-people stuff (wow, the fact that he'd had a go-to spoke volumes about how bad the school sucked, totally not how he used to run away from it) — regardless, that did not mean he was good at channeling pain, or whatever it was that the fake badasses did. This really hurt and he needed opioids now, and it was so gross.

He lifted his trembling opposite hand to poke at the obvious bit of bone that jutted out of his skin. It was really weird. It seemed coated with a layer of slime against his jagged fingernail. Inadvertently he shuddered. He wasn't actually shy of gore — at that ridiculously unsafe school, he used to have to watch Logan get horrifically disfigured on the daily — but seeing his own arm like this made him feel nauseous. How did Glob Herman deal with this all the time? Or maybe this nausea was all just the infection whose persistence on existing was now impossible to deny. Complicated shit. It made him actually miss the days of being a disembodied semi-conscious psychic entity, back before he'd learned to put himself back together again. Bodies were totally overrated. And at least McCoy had used to talk to himself in the lab; sometimes even to Quentin. It had been soothing. Unlike now. Now was sensory overload; he assumed that was something to do with all the pus, because he liked his telepathy.

But someone was yelling at him. That itself wasn't weird — Quentin was always being yelled at — but this seemed a little different. They were concerned.

~Hey man, are you okay!

~Bro lookit your poor arm bro!

The thoughts and feelings behind their yells weren't annoyance or anger, at least not towards him; but all the same this still became a problem when someone with a less-than-sappy psyche abruptly grabbed at his awesome hair.

"Bad sapien!" he muttered angrily, pushing them away with a gentle wave of TK, clutching the arm to his side. Honestly this tug at his scalp was nothing now compared to the searing injury, but it was the very principle. He liked his hair. It marked him as a mutant overlord; it made him recognizable; it wasn't like enough people gave a damn about his face. Why was everyone thinking at him? He couldn't do this right now, he couldn't handle it — struggling to his feet, he resolved to march away. He'd have to try again to fix the arm again. Not here. Back in his bedroom. Other people were about him now, and they hadn't stopped yelling, so loud— or was it thinking? Thinking at him, far too loud…

~Lookit his arm, is like

~The hell is that there, pus, or

~Stay back from him, darling, he's

~He's infected! He's been bit!

~Get him away from my baby!

~Oh my god, the poor boy is burning up!

That last one was accompanied by a gentle hand upon his forehead. Dazed, Quentin found himself leaning in against it, a comfort against his feverish skull, but in a moment the touch was pulled sharply away, and he stumbled to his knees, wincing angrily. The world was hazy as if a dream. Maybe he was overtired. He was certainly dizzy. There was shouting, pulling, flinching, so many minds unsure what to do.

~Stay back from him for the love of

Quentin got back to his feet, glowering about him. They were treating him as less than, they were treating him as a thing, for what, because he was a mutant? His brow tightened as he tried to regain balance. Waves of pain like a jigsaw puzzle were shooting outwards from his arm to what felt like his entire body. He started cussing at the people. But they never knew when to let down, did they? He lifted himself into the air, blinking through the brain fog into a concrete pink haze of psionic energy. "Shut up, shut up, shut up! I'm Kid Omega, doesn't that name mean anything anymore? Get lost, or I swear to god I'll kill you all!"

~The signs are already showing, irritability, violence, ravenous desire for brains

~An infected got inside of Haven oh god oh god omigod it's the beginning of the end

~Kill it kill it before it kills us all

These were thoughts, right? The mouth movements didn't seem to match up, like he was watching a shitty old monster movie, but he was too stressed to care. "Fuck you," Quentin gave another telekinetic push in their general direction. He was feeling so woozy though, and he couldn't stay in the air. TK flight gave him a definite sense for the direction of gravity, but it wasn't enough to settle his nausea. He dropped to his feet some steps away, lumbering off towards the dorms as best as he could; man did he want to show these sapiens what's what right now, but he just didn't feel well enough now. Scheduling revenge for a later date was just as good as immediate retaliation, right? Just like he'd do for Scott. Maybe. He didn't know. Scott was such an asshole. Quentin was a million times more powerful than him; and the only reason he'd been hurt at all was because he'd taken the moment to feel sorry for him! Pity had been his downfall. The psychic trauma especially was the fault of Quentin's overflowingly kind heart. He didn't get nearly enough credit for this shit. And Scott had actually hurt him? That was the most embarrassing thing ever ever ever annnd… he was thinking in circles. Don't stop moving. It peeved him, the unsureness anymore of how much of his perceptions was his words or their words and how much was their thoughts. But he knew that his telepathy was okay, Scott was pathetic — it was just Quentin that was less than okay. Right now. He needed his room. To fix this. Sleep fixed everything, yes, sleep. A smile crossed his lips. He was fine. He'd feel better in the morning…

The world seemed to flip in his vision, and the voices of the little group of sheeple returned to him. It was a moment before he spoke. "I could shut down all your brains with a thought… leave you vegetables…" Firm arms were laid around him, graciously well avoiding his injury, but he felt too exhausted to argue. It didn't mean he'd lay down and take it.

~Ohmigawd he's trying to bite me

~Keel eet with fire

~Calm down son, can you hear me?

He blinked into a pair of piercing green eyes. "…I'm not a zombie." Because that's what these idiots were fussing about, weren't they? Infected. Zombie talk. Because even that ridiculous assumption was easier for them than to admit to themselves than their hatred of mutants?

~I know, help me with him

"I didn't get bit!" He could sense the fear around him. They all did think so. Why…? People could really be cray when they wanted to rationalize their bigotry. They had every reason to be scared of him, why not tell it like it is?

~Dude, your arm is

"I obviously didn't get bit! How bout you weirdo, you wet your bed till fifth grade!" he shrieked, pulling away. His head was spinning. He needed to throw up, but nothing came up; he couldn't, until he got away. Quentin took off at a run, before promptly faceplanting flat into the ground. Fuck it, had one of these sapiens literally fucking tripped him? He let out an undignified strangled moan into the dirt, seriously considering psychically calling Storm or somebody for help. Nah, he wasn't that desperate.

Someone was helping him up, but it wasn't easy to trust these guys right now. Naturally, he began to dig his nails into their skin and they promptly let go with a squeal. Now that was a sound he was over ninety percent sure wasn't telepathic.

~Remember who you are! Kid Omega, right?

~God's sake, he's a mutie terrorist, he doesn't deserve your sympathy!

~Don't be racist, Jerry!

~It's not that he's a mutant, it's the terrorist part I'm more worried about.

~The arms scandal was years ago, he was a confused child!

~It's the zombie part that I'm most worried about.

~Shut up, Lazlo.

Well… at least someone knew who he was. "You'll never take me alive," Quentin mumbled, the only possible response upon this ridiculous human conversation, eyelids drooping, as he felt his body lifted into someone's arms. This was so pathetic. Quentin could control every single one of these people, effortlessly make them all start killing each other or some shit. If only he could focus. "Put me dowwwwn," he whined.

He tried for a moment to break free, before promptly deciding against it. He didn't want to jostle his belly. "Fine, fine, you've convinced me, guys, I'll go with you willingly in defense of my cause. Like MLK, if you really want me as a political prisoner again, yay, but you'll never stop me from defeating the murderers and oppressors in your species or submitting you humans underfoot for all the harm you've did to us—"

~What's the infected terrorist on about?

"Well fuck you… mmmph!"

A hand was clasped tightly over his mouth, before being promptly and wisely being replaced with a crumpled cloth, held in his mouth by a hand.

~Did he scratch you

~Quire? Quire, I'm an Inhuman, you little weirdo. But hang onto your… convictions, what's important to you. You're going to Observation, we'll see if you're infected

~Don't let him bite you

~I got it

~Stay with me Quire

It was like a dream, how he was… was he carried off? He wasn't sure how much was real and how much was the impressions from reading all their thoughts; or even for that matter if he hallucinated. He thought he heard himself crying. It wasn't his fault, it was just that everything hurt, all shooting from that carefully avoided arm. Right now, it felt like he'd never been in so much pain in his life, even when he'd been tortured in a dungeon by demons over the whole thing with the Siege Perilous. Probably he wouldn't feel that way in retrospect. But still.

There was a discussion going on around him — he felt their feelings, but not their words. Probably explaining the situation. Fake situation, why the hell would he be infected? Did they really think he'd been gnawed on by a zombie, and just pulled on his jacket to stroll back in the gate? Maybe. What would he do if he had been bit? And he couldn't admit that it was Scott, or everyone would condescend him and laugh because Kid Omega had been hurt by Cyclops. Maybe it was a good thing though. It had been forever since he'd been treated like the revolutionary riot-starter he was. He couldn't let himself get rusty now, could he?

He was laid on a bed, which rather ironically perked him up a little. The individual was standing over him, brow knit into a look of… he didn't know, but he could hear him. He was actually upset.

Quentin stirred on the bed, grasping at the sheets. He was going to be left here, wasn't he? No… no… there was no time for the big questions. "Hey…"

~Hi there

"I could get away, if I wanted to, but I don't, because my bravery in prison will bring people to my cause. Like, it hurts to focus but I could still, like, telekinetically bring the building down if I'm not worried to be precise." He exhaled, weirdly proud of his boast, but his heart thudded in a mix of exhaustion and fear. "I kept falling down, Inhuman." Yeah, this was the Inhuman. "…How many people saw me like that?"

~None really. We found you wandering along the back wall, mumbling something about voices. I wouldn't worry. It was clear you weren't yourself. We've all seen them outside. I thought you were high till I saw your arm.

He knew the guy was just rambling to calm himself down. Fabulous. Either that or he wanted to ramble to calm himself down, but he wasn't actually saying all this, it was just his thoughts.

"Yanno I'm not infected, damn you, you know! You just hate it when a mutant advocates freedom for a minute."

~Just… hang in there

"If I am infected, you'll kill me, right?" Which wouldn't happen. This arm was just an injury from… fighting… it just looked ugly because it hurt too much to wash it. But he couldn't think straight, so just in case he was…

~Just, hang on, kid

"S'okay… just tell Isaac and Jubilee to burn down Haven in my honor… they're my friends. And Wade can have my stuff. He's probably low on cool stuff out where he's at."

~…Okay.

He was lying, the idiot didn't plan on telling anyone to burn Haven down! Quentin knew that from the guy's mind, but he said nothing on it. There were more pressing things than a oral Last Will and Testament that'd never end up needing to be enacted. "I'm not infected, though. Okay, I'm almost certainly infected, but I'm not a zombie." He pushed his good fist against the bed, trying to get a look at the arm again.

~I know, I understand, kid

He genuinely thought he did understand, but Quentin knew he didn't. It wasn't the zombie virus, dammit. And the guy was literally thinking right now, how sad it was that Quentin would have to be 'put down'. He actually had the actual fucking gall. He grit his teeth, blinking… but the guy was gone. Dammit, how long has he been alone? His heart raced. He hadn't imagined this, had he? Maybe he was dreaming.

He coughed, then started yelling; the only reasonable move in his place. It hasn't been a front that he figured he could bring the place down on them, but some good could come from politics-based incarceration. Maybe the kids would write inspirational Quire quotes on their arms…

"Mutants will rule the world before this day is done! I'm far too powerful for you to kill! I could control all the minds in this place!"

That was enough yelling. This was a bed, and he was tired. It was actually far cleaner than his own blankets in the dorm. This was comfy. The pillow didn't seem so rough and stinging against his unprotected muscle and bone. He thought he might have passed out. He may have been unconscious for a time. Whenever he thought he could hear footsteps by his cell — it was quite comfortably furnished, but he would call Observation what it was — he'd yell out something in a slurred voice about revolution and their cowardly political agendas for holding him here. But here was comfy. It was nice. The sheets felt so clean and his surroundings smelt like fresh laundry. And he had no idea how much time passed.

He woke up for real at a mind signature that he recognized. He struggled to place it; but it felt like a person whose opinion mattered somewhat. He sat up, rubbing at his reddened eyes, struggling not to cry from the pain that had seemed only to increase. At least his head felt somewhat clearer. Hell yeah, revolution. Oh… this was Bek.

#(its weird)#(but here)#(sidenote ive never had an injury involving bones sticking out...so...yeah lol)#rebekah winters #rebekahwinters

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