“The Pan-African flag is red, black and green. So when you see Okoye, T’challa, and Nakia in their coherent looks, you see the colours of the Pan-African Flag”
The Pan African flag represents Pan-Africanist ideologies. Red is the color of the blood which men must shed for their redemption and liberty; black is the color of the noble and distinguished race to which we belong; green is the color of the luxuriant vegetation of our Motherland.
We come from the land of the ice and snow From the midnight sun, where the hot springs flow. The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands To fight the horde, and sing and cry, ‘Valhalla, I am coming!’
Tony looks up at the god with as much of a scathing look as his five-year-old form can muster before slipping past him toward the kitchen in search of his own breakfast.
“I woke up like this,” he huffs as he stands in front of the now much taller cabinets, glaring at them in annoyance as he realises this isn’t going to be as simple as most mornings when everything is within easy reach, even with FRIDAY having already started the coffee maker for him.
He’s feeling just stubborn enough this morning to not want to ask for any more help than he has to, knowing Loki is his best chance of having whatever this is reversed, and so it is that he wanders over to the dining table and starts rather noisily dragging one of the chairs into the kitchen.
“Please say this is your idea of a joke, because I’m not sure I want to even start thinking about what else could have caused this and neither of us having actually noticed until I woke up…”
“Eheh, is that a Beyonce reference?”
Loki, proud though he is of his capable reference to pop culture, now grows serious, as he kneels to examine his lover-turned-tyke. He lifts his shirt, and pokes his bellybutton, because he really cannot help himself, the child is simply too dear. Then, with a conspiratorial smirk, he casts a spell not unlike the diagnostic properties of a Soul Forge from Tony’s head to toe.
“I suspect this was a joke, but not one of my making. I have more than one, ehm, colleague, who would like nothing more than to see me inconvenienced, and any one of them–Amora, Lorelai, Karnilla, and others–might have done this to rid me of a romantic partner.”
He boops Tony’s nose: again, it’s irresistible.
“Terribly sorry, darling. Tis a standard age reversal hex. Give it one to three days to wear off.”
So after I wrote my post about writing characters with PTSD who experience flashbacks, I kept thinking about portrayals of PTSD and things I often find lacking or underdeveloped, and on the list is hypervigilance. This is based on my own experiences, the experiences of people with PTSD I’ve talked to, and things my therapists (and their many many flyers) have told me.
Hypervigilance is a state of being some people with PTSD experience which is primarily based around the need to stay aware of your surroundings in an attempt to notice threats and prevent your trauma from reoccurring.
If you’re experiencing hypervigilance, you might:
Have a very noticeable startle response, which may make people intentionally try to startle you because they think it’s funny to watch you flinch and/or panic. (tip: if someone startles easily or flinches when you touch them, maybe try not doing that)
Need to orient yourself with your back to a wall so you can see the entire room. People with hypervigilance often need to know what’s going on around them, and will pick the best vantage point they can.
Be near an exit/have multiple exit strategies. The hallmark of a traumatic event is being stuck in an extremely painful or life threatening situation and not being able to leave. Therefore, people who are hypervigilant especially, who are actively trying to avoid repeating traumatic situations, will often make sure they have at least one escape plan. Often, contingency plans have contingencies.
Frequently physically be in fight-flight-freeze mode, people with hypervigilance often exist in a state of arousal, with elevated heartbeats, sweat, and anxiety. This is especially noticeable when put in a new environment and can make it hard to focus on anything but trying to stay safe.
Have trouble sleeping, hypervigilant folk often have trouble shutting down their minds enough to sleep, especially if they have nightmares because that makes sleep feel threatening too.
Have shifting eyes/split concentration, when you’re hypervigilant, you are constantly looking for danger. As such, I’ve found at least that my concentration is always split between what’s going on and the hunt for threats. I have trouble looking at people sometimes because I need to be looking for the danger. People therefore have told me I look like I’m lying because we associate “shifty” eyes with lying in popular culture. It also can make it harder for you to stay on task or participate in conversations.
But there’s good news! Hypervigilance can be improved by treating PTSD, but specifically through mediation and yoga! Now, I know we have that “telling me to exercise is bullshit, this will never help” mentality sometimes, but it actually has been shown to help, even though it’s very hard especially at first. In fact, heart math, which is sort of a type of mediation, is the very first thing my therapist had me try for PTSD. So for characters, especially with hypervigilance, who are in therapy, mentioning that would be a good little sidenote to add realism instead of just going with talk therapy as the only kind of therapy they receive!
I have several more of these that I’m going to write, because a couple people messaged that they found the first one helpful, and I see a lot of characters with PTSD. However, if you have questions, I’m always here to talk about it! I love seeing portrayals of PTSD, but I worry a lot about potential consequences of under-researched PTSD written by people who don’t have PTSD.
The angel’s eyes immediately light up with wonder and joy. He puts aside his mending — how Thea is harder on jeans than Davie he’ll never know— and gives his beloved his full attention.
“Do you truly? Darling, it would be my deepest honor and greatest delight to have a child with you.”
“Goodness. I expected you to be hesitant … even argumentative. You already have two babies of your own, and I … well look at my brood.”
Loki averts her eyes to the hands folded in her lap, turning back to the bonfire: the first of autumn, and she already feels her blood coursing fresher, crisper, with the cooling of the Scottish air.
“ … Balth. You are my safe haven. I wish to create life there.”
“My heart,” his voice is soft, warm with all the love it could possibly possess, “I would welcome hundreds of children into our lives. Yours are no less dear than my own, no less loved. I know they’re grown enough to take care of themselves, but still, I think of them as my own. Davie and Thea would be delighted to have another sibling to give their boundless love to and I….”
The angel has always been emotional, and to his beloved he shows these deep feelings without a trace of hesitation or shame. He produces one of his favored handkerchiefs, fine linen, monogrammed, and wipes at his eyes, smiling all the while.
“Loki,” he murmurs, taking her hands and pressing gentle, reverent kisses to the backs of them, “Child of Frigga, hear me well for I would give you my truths.” Catching her lovely eyes, so like jade, he speaks from his heart.
“I am honored, every day, and awed and humbled that you choose to spend your life with me. Our children love you without hesitation, and I have never felt such love as this, my heart. Every fiber of my grace belongs to you, every bit of what I am, is dedicated to you, beloved. When I say to you that I would welcome a child of ours, one mingled of our blood together, it is… there are no words for the vast awe, the wonder, the joy I am filled with. It would be my greatest honor to create a new little life with you.”
She had not expected such ardor. Why she hadn’t, she cannot be sure; it’s nothing Balthazar lacks, for he has shown her only infinite tenderness and keen attention. He knows her favorite foods, he knows when she rises and goes to bed, he knows her favorite books and pastimes, her favorite music, he knows what frightens and stirs her, and he knows everything that impassions her, his, body.
Rather, it’s that at her core Loki is still learning not to misapprehend her worth.
It will take time. Many, many years, and the residue of a lifetime in the shadow of a “preferred” son may never fully wash away.
She swallows tears and cants back her head. She nods once.
“I see. I.”
She reaches the hands he kisses for his face.
“Come closer. Please.”
She pets back tawny-hay hued hair from his face, smooths his eyebrows with her thumbs, caresses his cheeks.
“That is good, closer, you silly sweet romantic bird. You are a hearth embodied. I can think of no one I would trust more with my child. Take me to bed. Right now. How do you make me feel that I am worth so much?”
Loki’s lip quirks. He averts his gaze to the cauldron. He sniffs, and turns, and walks to his steadily growing bookshelf, and leafs through the spines of the tomes like each is an old lover.
He bares his back to Tony intentionally. And most carefully, he modulates his tone, to be cool and wry and vaguely disdainful, yet the gesture itself, and the motives, cannot be mistaken, when he speaks again:
“It is a scrying spell. A permanent one. It will tell me when any suit of armor that you wear, a residue of which I have placed into the potion, is in peril.”
He conceals his smile well, while leafing through the text, for ideas on binding agents, to make good on his word that the spell is permanent.
“I thought it fitting. Creatures that I summoned on behalf of our mutual enemy have been the stuff of your nightmares for many years. Now I shall remedy that, and be cause for you to feel safer.”
He turns toward Tony, then, with a far darker expression.
“No one is ever going to reach into your chest and pull out your life force again. I made you a vow. You are my friend and I will extinguish those who threaten you.”
Tony listens in rapt attention as Loki explains the purpose of the spell, his eyes widening in shock at the overwhelming implications of what he’s being told. He already knew Loki had his back, but this… Thiswas something else entirely.
It wasn’t just the god having his back. It wasn’t just his promised protection. It wasn’t even the safety, or the peace of mind made possible. It was all of it, and the intensity of all of it, leaving no room for doubts.
His breath hitches, tears welling in his eyes as he stares at Loki’s back. He doesn’t even have words to express how much of a reliefit is to know he’s not on his own. Even with his friends, most of them are only human, just like himself, and to know what Loki was giving to him was as overwhelmingly terrifying as it was gratifying to know his friend truly cared.
But when the god turns to face him, his words become too much for Tony in that moment, and without thought he closes the distance between them, wrapping his arms tightly around Loki’s waist as a sob escapes him, so overcome with relief there’s little else he can do.
It takes him several moments before he can even manage to choke out a quiet, “Thank you,” his complete and utter relief nearly palpable as he all but clings to the Trickster as if his very life depends on it. “I… Just…” Another hiccupped sob escapes him as he practically buries himself into the other’s chest, managing another painfully desperate, “Thank you.”
“Oh, ehm, I. Well.”
Loki initially stiffens when Tony collapses into him. He is among the most skilled of silvertongues, capable of felling a foe or exalting a friend, brother, or ally with words alone, but oh, gestures of affection render him a stammering flustered fool. He has always coped with this particular shortcoming with illusions, with jests, with outright self-concealment, but obnoxious, gunslinging, outspoken Tony Stark is another story entirely.
Loki pats him awkwardly on the back; after a time, accustomed to bursts of tenderness from his elder, infinitely more extraverted brother, Loki settles into the embrace.
“There, there. No, no, shh. I know. I know what you have endured. I know firsthand.”
Ebony Maw, the Black Order, the Chitauri, the Other and Thanos, they were Loki’s Afghanistan. They were Loki’s Obadiah Stane. And Thor was, and is, Loki’s Ho Yinsen: Loki’s Avengers. Loki’s whole population of earth. The people he desperately tries to protect, better and better as time passes, in the wake of his own nightmares. Loki knows.
icyxmischief 