You Know What Doesn't Make Sense?

Daily Doodles- Day 109- 02/08/24

Started my first day of work on the 2nd and I didn't do much (mainly a small tour, meeting co workers and setting up my computer), so I had time to make a whole illustration!

I was feeling very 'pen and ink' and 'storybookish', so I drew a lost boy in a dark forest (or something) with creatures peeking out at him.

I had brought along my pen, pencil and sketchbook with me just in case. Once I'm settled in, I obviously won't have time to be drawing, but I'll still be bringing my sketchbook, because lunchtime exists and I can multitask!

The tag for this is #agdoodles

Daily Doodles- Day 135- 29/08/24

A nature pattern dress! I've been wanting to experiment with blending my doodling with realism. This little doodle was a doodle (heh) of one of those ideas.

The tag for this is #agdoodles

Daily Doodles- Day 160- 24/09/24

Cute fluffy cloud dress.

The tag for this is #agdoodles

Daily Doodles- Day 181- 15/10/24

A girl with pattern hair! Inspired by some fun pencil art I did back in the day.

The tag for this is #agdoodles

Rejection

Ao3

Summary: In a world where Danyal al Ghul is resurrected by his mother after his death, the child turns down the idea of going with his biological father, the feared Batman.

In this one, he doesn't.

Most things don't change. Unfortunately, some do.

A what-if scenario from my dannymay entry "Reflection".

-

Look, I don't actually hate Damian, but I stumbled upon far too many "Danny forgives his abuser/murderer because he was just a kid and forgiving us good and siblings must stick together 4evr 🥺 uwu" and fuck that noise, I say as an abused sibling.

in the first part of this series, Danyal wondered what would have happened had he gone to Batman when he arrived to the USA

here we find out 3:)

- - -

Bruce watched his sons go with a smile on his face when Danyal finally reached out and held Jason’s offered hand.

It was a victory, for Danyal to see that his brother wasn’t out to get him, that he didn’t intend to harm him.

That his brother wouldn’t kill him.

The smile slipped from Bruce’s face, and the detective found himself cursing Ra’s al Ghul yet again.

- - -

Danyal had arrived at the Batcave in the middle of the night whilst Batman and Robin were in the middle of patrol, and introduced himself to Alfred as Batman’s son. His words, his face and his eyes quickly had the vigilantes returning home.

Talia’s nose, Bruce’s chin still full of baby fat, Talia’s soft hair, almost like silk… Martha Wayne’s blue eyes.

Bruce had frozen mid-step when he saw him, so small , with clothes that didn’t fit him and only a small backpack on his tired little shoulders. And when the boy’s eyes –Martha’s same blue – landed on him, a myriad of emotions passed through them, almost too fast for the detective to read them: awe, fear, hope, relief… and when he spotted Robin, the fear came back, wariness, unease…

His Jason, in spite of growing quick to anger as of late, was still good with younger kids, and agreed to leave him alone with only some minor grumbling.

Once alone, the boy stood straight again, hands clasped behind his back and chin lifted up proudly even as he swam in his clothes. (So small.) His eyes, though, didn’t meet Bruce’s, and instead settled on his chin.

“Hello, my name is Danyal al Ghul, son of Talia al Ghul…” He paused for a second, but then carried on, “and of the Batman.”

“I see.” Bruce barely managed to get out past the lump of emotion clogging his throat.

“I… mother and I have decided that Nanda Parbat and the League of Shadows is no longer safe for me,” his voice wobbled and broke and they both pretended it didn’t, “so she sent me here with you, if—if you will take me.”

Bruce breached the distance between them and knelt in front of his son with measured, projected movements.

“Danyal,” he said at last, “can I hug you?”

With a stunned expression, his son stiffly nodded, and just as slowly, Bruce wrapped his arms around him, tugging him towards his chest and feeling Danyal tentatively wrap his tiny arms as far as he could reach in turn.

“Danyal, what happened? Why now, at last, did your mother send you to me?”

“… I was murdered by Damian al Ghul—son of Talia al Ghul, grandson of Ra’s al Ghul and Heir of the Demon’s Head… my—my twin brother.”

- - -

It was always a challenge to track down the League’s movements and status, but not one Bruce ever cowered from.

Talia’s latest movements weren’t impossible to track, if you knew what you were looking at.

Places she hadn’t gone to in a long time, where he knew she had caches of valuables, money, safe-houses and the necessary means to disappear.

He could almost see her helping Danyal along, guiding him long enough to know he could make it to Gotham, until her father turned his eyes towards her once again, questioning her actions.

He searched further, from everything from the past seven years, to what they were currently doing.

He wished he could leave the country to have a more hands-on approach with the ever elusive League, but with Danyal only really relaxing—feeling safe— when Bruce was present, he had barely even left to go on patrol.

Despite their tense start, Bruce was grateful for Jason, from his acceptance of the paused patrols, his patience with Danyal, his understanding of the smaller boy’s situation, and his genuine desire to connect with him and be a good big brother.

It was a relief to Bruce, as a father, to see the anger that had been growing more and more in him be tampered down, easily put aside by his kindness, his gentleness.

- - -

“Do you like reading?”

Jason asked, smiling from his upside-down position in the couch on Bruce’s studio, where the man was working on police cases while he couldn’t go out and be Batman.

Danyal was glued to Bruce’s side, having been assured that it was okay for him to do so, was welcome, even, and he looked at his father from his periphery, gauging his reaction.

When he got a curious lifting of an eyebrow, Danyal frowned and his focus returned to Jason. “I don’t know.” He seemed pained to admit it.

Jason, though, didn’t let that put a damper in his plan, and beamed at the kid instead. “Wanna find out if you like children’s tales?”

This time, Danyal did turn his head towards Bruce, just a little, and the small frown on his face showed he was having difficulty deciphering Jason’s statement.

With an indulgent smile, Bruce carded his fingers through his youngest’s fluffy hair, feeling the kid relax under the touch.

“Jason is a fan of reading,” he explained, “and he’s trying to see if you two have that in common, and you just don’t know it yet.” Jason smiled and nodded, as much as he could in his position. “But mostly, he wants to share something he loves with you.”

“Oh.” Understanding dawned on Danyal. “Uh, okay.”

Jason’s smile turned radiant, and he jumped from his spot, closing his eyes and gripping the back of the couch as the world straightened, but said with joy anyway, “I’ll be back in a second!”, and ran out of the room, no doubt towards their library.

Once the older boy was gone, Danyal finally turned towards him, glaring at the bookshelf behind them. He clenched and unclenched his chubby fist a few times, clearly thinking hard. Bruce had learned by now that it was best for him to let Danyal take his time—unlike Jason, who typically had to be encouraged into revealing his feelings.

“Father, I have only ever read academic and pedagogic papers, what if I don’t like what Jason loves?”

Bruce cupped Danyal’s cheek with one hand, a victory in his heart when his son leaned into the touch, when two days ago he had startled. “Did you love all the academic papers you read?”

After a second of thought, Danyal confessed, “I don’t know. I enjoyed the ones about astronomy, the other ones… not nearly as much.”

“Hmm. Then maybe you will like this better, or you won’t, and you can try to find something you do, Jason has a big collection, and the library is even bigger, I’m sure he’ll like to help you find out, if you allow him. But tell me, do you want to find out if you like fantasy and fairy tales better than academic texts?”

Danyal did stop to think about it, and then a spark of defiance entered his blue eyes, a small rebellion compared to what he had already done, but a rebellion nonetheless.

Bruce ever-active detective mind could tell his son was thinking of Ra’s, of his sure disapproval for such a frivolous topic, and felt his heart fill with pride when his son replied, rocking his whole body in a nod.

“Yes, I want to find out.”

When Jason returned, it was with his arms full of books, almost toppling over his hold.

“I got some variety here!” He put half of them on Bruce’s desk, closer to their father than to his little brother, and went back to his seat across from the room. “Got two copies of each one so you can have your own! You get to choose what to start with!”

Bruce spread the books out on his desk, over his paperwork, to let Danyal see the titles and covers.

“How about this one?” He suggested, pointing at one title in particular.

Jason, though, glared at him. “Danyal gets to choose.”

Bruce winked at him, but Jason’s frown only really abated when his little brother asked him, “What is The Little Prince about?”

And, in spite of the physical distance Jason respected, Bruce got to see his children grow closer.

- - -

Now here he was, down in the Cave, pouring over strategies on how to infiltrate one of the most guarded places on earth to rescue his son, get him out, and not allow the League to ever lay hands on either of the twins again.

“They made him a killer.” He lamented when Alfred approached to hand him another mug of coffee. “They’re only six… if only Talia had told me…” He massages his temples and closes his eyes, the map of Nanda Parbat burnt in his eyelids while he imagined a world where he got to raise both kids since infancy.

“The past is rarely what we want it to be, Master Bruce, we can only hope to influence the present so as to have a better future.” Alfred told him, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder before taking his leave.

“If Damian is given the opportunity,” he muttered after a long moment of silence, drumming his fingers on the desk, “what kind of person would he become?”

“You would bring him here? After what he did?”

Bruce felt a stone drop in his stomach and he turned around to be met with Danyal, his sweet and shy youngest son, already clad in his star-themed pyjamas, staring him down even as he had to tilt his chin up to look him in the eye.

Straight in the eyes, instead of his chin or the bridge of his nose, where he felt safe looking in his shyness or nerves. Right now, his gaze was cold, a cold so great it burned you.

His tiny fists, clenched at his sides, were shaking, thumping against his thighs. If it was in rage or in fear, he couldn’t tell; both, possibly.

“Danyal.” He breathed out softly, carefully relaxing his posture and letting his hands fall palms-out by his sides. “Son, I know this isn’t ideal, but please listen to me, what Ra’s did to you is monstrous, to both of you; you are both just children…

“I promise I will keep you safe, and won’t let anyone hurt you, but I have to get your brother out of there, too, he’s not safe there. He’s only a child, Danyal, I can’t just leave him there.”

“Damian is not in danger, he is the danger! He murdered me and you don’t care!”

“Of course I do, if there was anything I could do to change it, to fix it, I would, but all I can do now is try to prevent it from happening again, to either of you; your brother is just a child too, who wasn’t taught any better-”

“ I knew better! I didn’t kill him !” Danyal screamed. His chest was heaving with laboured breaths, and his eyes shone with tears ready to fall. One of his hands went up to fist in his hair, tugging on it, and Bruce internally winced, trying to keep it off his face. “You—why—I can’t—you’ve only had me for a week, but you’ve already decided you love him more!”

Bruce had stood up, at the beginning of this, with measured movements, and now approached his youngest son the same way, with his hands spread out and taking a short step.

The only one he managed to take, before Danyal flinched back from him, eyes wide and afraid, sobs cutting short.

It was as if he had been stabbed in the gut, with the way he suddenly couldn’t breathe and how his knees would no longer hold his body and left him prostrated before his flesh and blood.

“Please, son, listen,” but the boy didn’t, instead bolting for the lift, almost falling into it when it opened, and leaving the cave with tears falling down his face, “Danyal!” Bruce called after him, watching him go.

And as he had sank into the floor, Bruce sank his head in his hands.

When he had regained enough of his composure, Bruce went back up into the manor, resolute in talking to his youngest. He was met, instead, with his second’s glare and anger.

“What did you do to Danyal?” Jason’s arms were crossed in front of his chest, his knuckles white and his blue gaze cold.

Bruce really didn’t like the sense of déjà vu he was getting.

“Not now, Jason, I have to talk with your brother.” He tried to go past him, but his son wasn’t budging. “Jason, move .”

“Why? So that you can go and make him cry more ?” He spat on his face, making Bruce flinch.

“Move aside, Jason, that’s an order.”

Changing his stance, Jason was no longer an unmoving wall, but someone prepared to dodge a blow. It was just as bad as with Danyal flinching back from him, even if this time he didn’t let his body fail him.

“Make me.”

“Jason,” he pleaded, “I have to fix things with your brother.”

“How? Breaking down his door? Barging in through his window? He locked himself in, he won’t even say a thing to me!”

And that obviously hurt Jason, who had adored his little brother the moment he knew about him, and for whom he had worked so hard in earning his trust, step by small step.

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

“I need to make things right, son.”

“Then think of how you’re gonna do that first!”

And with that, Jason marched off to Danyal’s door, sitting down to keep watch against their father.

-

Jason didn’t barge in through Danyal’s window, he knocked on the windowpane first, and waited patiently for his baby brother to decide to let him in himself.

“Hey, buddy,” he started, looking at the boy’s red and swelling eyes, knowing he had cried himself to sleep, “you haven’t touched the food Alfie left ya, and you gotta eat if you wanna grow up strong.” He handed Danyal the lunchbox he had brought with him and continued. “I know my cooking isn’t as amazing as Alfie’s, but I think I’m okay.”

Danyal bit down on one of his sandwiches with a thoughtful face.

“It’s good.” He declared after swallowing.

Jason beamed at the praise, and hurried to offer the bottled juice he had brought as well. “It goes better with the sandwich than tap water!”

Danyal took it, and they sat down next to the wall, silent as Danyal ate.

“Thank you, Jason.” His little brother told him, handing him back the lunchbox.

“No problem.” There was another moment of silence, and Jason hated having to break it. “If you don’t wanna talk,” he started slowly, “about what happened with Bruce, you don’t have to; but, if you don’t wanna keep it in, you don’t have to do that either.”

Danyal obviously mulled it over, putting a hand on his nape and rubbing gently, and Jason waited, thinking of what could’ve happened and what he could say to it.

Maybe he should have expected it, knowing Bruce for years already, knowing Batman, but Danyal’s words still left him speechless.

“Father wants to bring Damian here.”

-

“Are you out of your fucking mind?! How could you even think it was a good idea?!”

“Jason, Damian is a kid who needs a better environment, not to be in the belly of the League of Assassins, he needs his family!”

“And Danyal? First Ra’s sacrifices him so that his chosen heir doesn’t grow weak , and now you sacrifice him so daddy’s littlest murderer can come and play house!”

“… Damian is my son.”

“So is Danyal. Doesn’t he matter?”

Alfred cut in with a harsh, worried look, “Sirs. Young Master Danyal is gone.”

The vigilantes turned as one to a worried Alfred, meeting his panic with theirs.

-

Everything fell apart so quickly after that.

They looked for Danyal, of course they did, but it was like his son was a ghost; he had only taken two extra changes of clothes—from the full wardrobe they had just gotten for him days ago—, some money in cash and some food they hadn’t seen him take from the kitchen.

He knew how to travel by himself, that was how he had gotten to Gotham in the first place, and even if he hadn’t wanted to use it, he had had infiltration training, knew how to not be noticed, how to look as if he fit in a place he wasn’t meant to be in.

He could have already left the continent, for all Bruce knew.

Not long after, Jason left for Ethiopia.

Him, who had a goal in mind other than leave this place , Bruce managed to track, reading his hurried movements and seeing, as well, another plot emerging around him, the jaws of danger closing on his son, who had walked into a trap as he looked for a good parent.

Batman arrived too late.

“Danyal is gone and Jason is dead.” His voice was rough with disuse, after having screamed in sorrow until his throat burned. “What could I even offer Damian if I could bring him here?”

Disappointment? Failure? Death?

Alfred didn’t answer him, but he didn’t expect him to. Whilst looking at Jason’s battered Robin suit inside the glass case, they knew there was no answer.

He allowed himself another short moment of sorrow, and then pulled himself together. He had work to do.

“If Ra’s finds out Danyal was here, he could look for him, he could find him.” He could have him killed again. “Outside the two of us, no one is to know that we even met him, that we knew he existed .”

“I shall dispose of his belongings, then.”

Bruce could hear the well-hidden pain in Alfred’s voice, but this had to be done, it was now the only thing he could do for Danyal.

Had his small son stayed, it would have been unavoidable for the League of Assassins to find out, but Bruce had been ready for that, ready to fight the Demon’s Head for his children, to make sure they were safe.

Now, though, he knew he couldn’t promise that. The safety of a warm home was not something he could provide, as a father.

All he could do was hope, against his paranoia and his instincts, that Danyal would survive out there, that he could live.

And all he had left, all he could do, was to keep on his crusade against crime, hoping a better world would treat his son kindly where he had failed.

- - -

and then Danyal meets an eccentric but loving ghost-obssessed family that adopts him and love him very much and don't dissect him because that tropes fucking bores me too fr

and if he ever meets Damian again and sees for himself he has changed for the better and regrets his actions, he still doesn't forgive him and doesn't reconnect with him, because he doesn't owe him neither his forgiveness nor his love just because they're blood 😊

i have Thoughts about why Danyal was deemed the weak one (it's ableism) by Ra's, and how it connects him and separates him from Bruce as well

please leave a comment with your thoughts! unless you're a scammer, I won't fucking buy a comission if you spam me!

Short Story- An 'Angel' Passing Through: By Adinelle Ggreeo

We have this saying from back in the day, for when a room full of people (usually a class full of chatty students) all of a sudden go completely quiet for a few seconds.

'An Angel just passed through!' someone would jokingly say, breaking the silence.

It's a soothing thought.

Claire, unfortunately, finds out the hard way that it's anything but an angel.

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You can also read my stories here:

Archive Of Our Own

Fictionpress

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It was a regular day for the girls of class 3-A at St. Christopher Girls’ Secondary School. It was their English Language period with the well-liked teacher, Mrs Hayes. She was one of the more lenient teachers and let them get away with a little bit more. Like just then. It was fifteen minutes before the bell rang for lunch and instead of trying to cram more knowledge into their brains, she gave them a short worksheet to complete, telling them that she would be collecting them in their next class. The girls of 3-A took the wonderful opportunity given to do the one thing they like most: to talk. While Mrs Hayes took the little time left to start marking some papers, the students’ chatter filled the classroom with a low buzz.

Two girls sat at the back of the class. One with afro hair that she wore in two neat puffs at the top of her head with a navy blue headband as an accessory. The other wore her hair in long braids that she tied up into a ponytail with a blue ribbon. Their names were Claire Baptiste and Kadisha Benedicte. These best friends sat at the back of the class, to the left of the room and right in line with the teacher’s L-shaped desk. They were out of her sight behind two more desks of classmates. Perfect for uninterrupted conversation.

‘Soooo,’ Kadisha drawled, grinning at Claire. ‘I have a new boyfriend! It’s Chey, from the boys’ school. Remember him?’

Claire rolled her eyes, scoffing good-naturedly. She did remember him. She was glad to know her friend’s taste wasn’t totally trash.

‘Yeah,’ she said ‘But isn’t he the third one this month?’

Kadisha looked away, slightly embarrassed, tucking an escaped braid behind her ear.

‘Well, like he’s the fifth,’ she mumbled. ‘But, we went to the mall yesterday and he bought me ice cream!’

Giving her a look, Claire said, ‘We go to the mall and buy each other ice cream all the time. He has to come better than that.’

Kadisha sighed in exasperation.

‘You don’t understand, Claire! We really need to get you a boyfriend!’ ‘Ha! No thanks!’

Kadisha sucked her teeth.

‘Whatever! Anyway, after the ice cream we...,’

Claire nodded along to her friend’s tale while she absentmindedly doodled in the margins of her worksheet. Slightly hypnotised by the squiggles and swirls she was making on the paper, she didn’t realise that Kadisha had stopped talking. Coming back to full awareness but still looking at her worksheet, she realised that it wasn’t just Kadisha that stopped talking. The buzz of chatter in the classroom had ceased. She looked up and jerked in her seat at the sight of her friend’s face. Her mouth was wide open and her eyes round with excitement. Her hands were thrown back and some of her hair was caught between her fingers. Placing her hand over her racing heart, Claire laughed softly.

“Girl, you look so stupid!”

But Kadisha didn’t respond. Actually, she didn’t move at all. Not even a twitch of her lips or fingers. She was still, like a statue. The smile slowly slipped off Claire’s face.

“Kadisha?”

Her friend remained silent.

Feeling slightly unsettled, Claire looked around the classroom. She felt her stomach drop as she took in the stillness. Everyone was frozen, posed awkwardly in their seats, with their hair suspended in the air, pens and pencils frozen in mid-drop and sheets of paper paused in their fluttering from of the tables. Clair, pushed her chair back, wincing at the loud screech of the legs dragging against the terrazzo floor. Even though there seemed to be no one to interrupt, she slowly crept on her tiptoes towards the desk next to theirs.

The closest girl, Zara Crawford, had big round glasses and her frizzy was hair in four ponytails. Her eyes were screwed shut and her hands covered the big smile on her face. Claire poked her at first, then tried to shake her when she didn’t react at all. She tried the same with the next girl, Clara. She didn’t even twitch.

Claire, starting to feel disquieted, scampered around the class, poking, shaking, flicking and pulling hair, trying to get some kind of reaction. Not one person moved. She finally skidded to a stop in front of Mrs Hayes’s desk, catching her breath. Like everyone else, Mrs Hayes was frozen, bent over the papers she was marking. Dashing the papers off the desk and banging on the wood, Claire screamed in her teacher’s face.

“Wake up!”

Like everyone else, she remained as she was.

With dread overtaking her, she slowly backed away. Her attention was drawn to the doorway and while staring at the tree in the plot of grass past the corridor, she realised that she couldn’t hear the rustling of the leaves. Actually, she couldn’t hear anything at all. No birds chirping, no insects chittering, no sounds from the surrounding classrooms. Having a bad feeling, Claire ran out the door, barging into the classroom to the left of hers. Just like her classmates, everyone was still. She ran into the class next to theirs. Same thing. The class at the far end, the same and the form four class across from theirs. All the same.

Gasping and close to tears, she stumbled back to her classroom at a loss for what to do. The whole world it seemed like, was frozen and all the sound was gone. Except for her. Her footsteps and whimpering were uncomfortably loud in the eerie stillness. She reached the door of her classroom, pausing briefly to take in the frozen forms of her classmates, dreading that she had to sit in their stillness. Sniffling, she placed a hand on the doorframe and stepped over the threshold. She never made it past the door.

She had one foot past the threshold. As soon as her shoe touched the floor, Her whole body was locked in place and the world around her began to change. The light blue walls of the classroom, the whiteboard, the lockers and the floor all began to melt, the colours and textures slowly sloughing off and sliding away. In its wake was a ghastly, roiling mass of colours that she’s never seen and a pitch-black darkness. They moved in and out and in between each other, writhing like they were alive.

With their appearance, the sound came back. And what horrible sounds they were. A thick squelching and a ringing that alternated from a high, ear-piercing sound to a low ominous hum. It vibrated around her, torturing her ears, causing goose bumps to rise on her skin and sending her heart into a panic. The strange colours and the darkness seethed around her, seeming to close in on her. Claire wanted to scream, but her lips remained firmly closed. Her eyes, the only part of her that could freely move looked on as the colours and the darkness began to churn faster, converging in the corner of the classroom diagonal to the door. They twisted and turned, the squelching sounds increasing and the ringing lowering to that horrible, low drone. They began to bulge out as if something was pushing on them and horror filled Claire’s heart when she realised that something was trying to come through.

A long black thing pushed through first, dripping with the colours and the darkness. The spindly twigs at the end of it slowly curled into themselves. It was a hand and those twigs were long bony fingers. The rest of the thing came after. Claire could barely comprehend what she was seeing. As it oozed through the rapidly distorting colours and the darkness, It began to grow and grow and grow. There was no ceiling to hinder it. It had no discernible form. There was no head and no face. It kept shifting and twisting into tattered ribbons of black and they swirled around like a mini hurricane. Pale, glowing orbs were embedded in the parts that the ribbons revealed. They moved and rolled around, leaking a thick black substance that flew off to join the rest of its swirling form. They vaguely looked like eyes pouring dark tears. The limb it used to push through into the classroom had disappeared. There was no indication that it even existed. There were no other limbs to be seen. It was a mass of swirling darkness with orbs all over its form and it brought with it such a bone-chilling dread that Claire thought she was dying. The ringing had gone high again, the shrill sound increasing her fear.

It slowly, so slowly began to move away from the corner, making its way between the desks. It did not touch the girls. It didn’t pay them any attention at all. It left a trail of the dark substance in its wake that was absorbed into the colour and darkness that was the floor. Claire watched the thing as it made its way to the front of the class, pausing where the whiteboard was and pulling one of its long, spidery limbs from the confines of its form. It was so close and Claire was so afraid. Desperately, she began to pray.

As if sensing her pleas, the thing whipped around to face her. Its form contorted abnormally and all of its orbs turned to look at her. The high-pitched ringing abruptly stopped and Claire silently sobbed. They both stared at each other for a short while. Then suddenly the thing was right in front of her. It was crouched down, so the place where its face should have been was right in front of hers. There was one big orb embedded there. It was still as it observed her. With her heart trying to beat out of her chest, Claire could only watch as it brought its hand up to her face, one of its skinny fingers held up. It dripped with the strange black liquid. A soft whistling sound filled the air around them. It rose high and loud, assaulting her already hurting ears. Its orb began to glow white hot, so bright. One moment, she was looking into the face of what she thought was death, the next, she was blinded by the expanding glow and knew no more.

---------

Mrs Hayes softly laughed to herself at the three seconds of silence from the class.

‘An angel passed through,’ she thought, remembering the old saying the adults used to chuckle about when she was a young girl.

Immediately after, a scream pierced the air. It was coming from right outside the class. She shot up from her chair, almost slipping and sliding on some of the papers that were for some reason on the floor. Some of the students followed, their desks and chairs scrapping against the floor as they scrambled out of their seats.

She almost ran her over when she shot out the door.

There was Claire, curled up on the floor right outside the door, still screaming. Her arms were wrapped around her head and she was clawing at her hair, pulling the strands out of their puffs. She knelt by her, trying to gently pry her hands away from her face and head, but her hold was like a vice. Other teachers and students, disturbed by the screaming, had come out to check.

What happened? How did her student who sat at the back of the class end up outside the door? She didn’t see her pass by. And the screaming. It was filled with genuine fear and pain. She could barely hear the other teachers as they tried to talk to her.

Her other students all huddled by the door, some starting to cry and wail at the sight of their classmate. Claire’s seatmate and possibly her good friend had pushed herself to the front of the crowd, trying to reach out to her, but was held back by another teacher who was failing to console her. Her own screaming and crying added to the utter confusion of the situation. Thankfully, someone had gotten the school nurse who arrived with a wheelchair. As the nurse wheeled the still-screaming girl away, Mrs Hayes, with a racing heart and an unnerving feeling about what happened, shook herself and breathed, turning towards her distraught girls.

It looked like lunch would be a bit early that day.

I’m so sorry but in the nicest way possible do yall actually read books or just read words??? Cause I’ve been seeing that trend of people not understanding how “snarled” and “eyes darkened” and “eyes softened” etc. was used in a book and like…

Genuinely, do yall just not have imagination?? Or not understand figurative language??? Also eyes do literally darken and soften have you not lived a life??? How do you read with no imagination? Is this how you get through so many books in one month - you simply don’t take the time the understand the words as they are read?

Daily Doodles- Day 195- 27/10/24

Three preppy girls in my cartoony style!

The tag for this is #agdoodles

Hand Sewn Three- Tiered Maxi Skirt- Part 1

Here | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Heyo! I'm back with a new sewing project and this one will (hopefully) be a garment that I plan to wear often.

I'm handsewing it, again because I don't really know how to handle a modern sewing machine and because I want the satisfaction that completing this will bring me.

It's also an easy project to start off with!

I'm making one of these!

A three-tiered maxi skirt!

I've been wanting one for a while and decided to get some fabric and make one.

I looked up some tutorials on YouTube, figured out the math

and drew my final pattern onto brown paper.

I have a waist band, which is the length of my hips. It was going to be a wide band at first, but I bought thinner elastic because I had a brain fart. You'll see in a few that I had to significantly shrink the width.

For tiers 1 and 2, I chopped the measurements in half and for tier 3 which is suuuupppper long, I had to quarter the measurement to fit it on the paper.

I had juuuuuusssst enough fabric to get all my pieces:

-1 piece for the waist band

-2 pieces for tier 1

-2 pieces for tier 2

-4 pieces for tier 3

I'm 5"1' and on the smaller side overall. I got three yards of fabric. I suggest you double that if you're taller and/or wider.

This is how thin my waist band will now be. The elastic is about 3/4 inch. I originally made this waist band to be about 2 inches and I had to cut off the seam allowance from that. I still have a generous amount left just in case I may need to widen it (hopefully not!)

I accidentally started sewing this like a left-hander, so when the thread is done, I'll start on the other side so I can finish this faster 😆

Daily Doodles- Day 18- 04/05/24

She's supposed to be a flower girl 🌺, but her petals look more like fins. She overall gives more of a fish vibe 🐟

The tag for this is #agdoodles