#and is volo about to get hit with a random move

[esprei]

happy father's day to the best egg dad out there

[onestepbackwards]

Imagine how different the Sinnoh storyline would be if self aware Cyllene, Kamado, Volo and Cogita kept a journal and it was passed down until their descendents have it. I'd imagine Cyrus reading about cyllene's life and starts looking for the player rather than go through the extra steps of finding the lake trio, getting the red chain and summoning gods on a random mountain to make a wish. I can't imagine what Rowan would think of kamado's paranoid rantings about the main character and us (although i spent hours just feeding random wildlife).

Hdksjdkd imagine if like, some of them had pictures of the Hero saved and kept in those journals too. How the Hero fell from the sky, and claimed to be from a future where pokemon and humans work and live together.

How they talk about things, such a ‘tee-vees’, or ‘microwaves’.

Rowan finds the book when digging through some old stuff in his attic. He ends up flipping through it, and catching a picture that falls out of someone.

After some investigation, Rowan declares his ancestor must have been hit in the head to be obsessed with someone and so paranoid. Though he does pity the man for losing his village as a kid, he wonders if that event caused too much stress for the man.

He does find some ideas interesting though, and decides to look into Sinnoh’s history later.

Imagine his surprise when he later sees someone who looks like a carbon copy of the person in the journals, and how well they use a starter pokemon.

Rowan decides then and there is fate is real, he will do what he can and give this person a pokemon. Especially since they seem to get along so well with the partner they choose. They’ll definitely need the experience…

Meanwhile, in an alternate timeline, Cyrus finds the well kept journal of his ancestor Cyllene when collecting things from his family’s old home that was left behind after a move.

As much as he dislikes the memories, he remembered a few journals he saw as a kid he wanted to find. Thankfully, they were left behind as junk in the attic.

He flips through them, curious if he remembered correctly how bizarre they were. Stories of people falling from the sky, and time travel, to literal pokemon gods.

At first, it sounds like crazy talk. If it wasnt for the clear cur way his ancestor wrote her journal, he’d have waved it off.

Until things such as planes and cars are mentioned. Some of those things specifically not having existed yet in that period of time. His interest is piqued.

Were they not ramblings of someone who lost their mind to stress after all?

Cyrus then comes across photos delicately sewn into the pages to help preserve them. His ancestor sitting with someone.

That would seem normal, though his eyes widen just a fraction when he sees several legendary pokemon behind them in some photos, like they are having a picnic of some sort with a few other people.

The same person besides Cyllene pops up though, labeled with a name, how they are from the future.

Cyrus then takes note how this Hero mentions how they battled someone named Cynthia. A name he is well familiar with.

Packing the journal into a case he brought with him, he decides then and there to change the course of action.

He would hold off on finding Giratina. That would be a plan he’s keep on a back burning if things didn’t work out.

Instead, he decides to search for you.

[pyromaniac-cyndaquil]

people are saying that about volo huh? man he’s such an experience bc the fundamental rules of the game (or of singles i should say) are messed up there. there’s a lot that’s different in your favor and a lot that’s different in his. the turns system is unique with the strong and agile style thing making it possible to go multiple times in a row (and to get hit multiple times in a row.) the fact that there are no free switches in between your opponent’s pokémon so you can get punished for ohko’ing somebody by having him send out the perfect counter that immediately goes first. the fact that max revives are very easily attainable in this game. the fact that not only is giratina A Thing, but that when playing for the first time *you don’t know about that.* the only way to be truly prepared for giratina is to stall and take the time to heal your team toward the end of volo’s fight which feels kinda cheap. barring that you either have to be very overpowered or very lucky

i struggled when i first played even when using a ton of items and having brought four legendaries (probably bc i was a noob). but on my next replay when i had more experience and a real team i was still fighting for my life, even with items. but i did a no items volo challenge for my most recent run and it was a fresh nightmare that came down to very good luck on my part for the final shot. all three times i remained strictly on level and honestly isn’t the game way more fun that way? i’m also thinking i should go no items or at least limited items from here on out. and a strict level cap

It's mostly YouTube comment bragging I've seen people say that about volo in, but yeah, it's really silly. Couldn't have said it better myself! The way pla is balanced is honestly so cool, and the dread I felt so many times with battling him and he stacked up enough agile and priority moves to get like three turns in a row was painful 😭 not to mention the obscured status! Hoo boy, that REALLY made giratina a pain.

What I find really funny is I beat volo's regular team first try and even when I was liveblogging I mentioned that I was sad it wasn't harder, even if I only had a couple pokemon still standing.

... Then giratina happened 😂 I lost to his first phase sooooo many times on subsequent attempts after that, think I ended up having to swap out my hisuian lilligant for an alpha sylveon and trained that up from scratch just to have a reliable counter for spiritomb.

Anyway yeah, it's soooooo much more fun to stay on level! If I'd just ran in overlevelled there's no way it'd have stayed in my head for as long as it has, it's probably my favourite pokemon moment of all time as it stands. No items is definitely really fun in Pokémon in general, I love having to think hard about team order, items and status moves to give myself the best shot of staying alive 😭 tempted to also try a level cap when I play violet, bc shiny hunting and BBQ grinding made it way too easy to accidentally overlevel (accidentally got my hydrapple to level 100 half way through the epilogue, woops)

If you have access to emulation btw, I'd highly recommend luminescent platinum! Idk if you've heard of it or not but it's a really cool bdsp mod with a few cool story changes, properly scaled pokemon and a massive overhaul to every battle in the game (as well as expanding the dex by A Lot). All bosses have several rotating sets of teams they'll use at random that are fully competitive and there's an option in-game to set hard level caps that increase as the story goes along, and stop you levelling up at all once you reach them. It's really cool! Think I'm up to victory road in that game, should really get back to it haha

[riddlerosehearts]

bg3 playthrough thoughts!! i'm still basically just doing sidequests, but they've been interesting and it feels like a lot of important stuff has happened even if it isn't part of the main story.

i... ran into gortash's parents at the cobbler shop while wandering around? i had no idea that would happen. i also got an option to use illithid powers on the mother, but did not do it because my tav is someone who has been adamantly refusing to use the powers this entire time. may have to keep that in mind for another playthrough!

OMG I FOUND THE INSTRUMENT STORE!! got excited about that because elenion lost their lyre when they got taken by mind flayers and they've been trying to find a new one this entire time. i'm still annoyed that volo didn't stock one even though he stocked like every other instrument. also omg if you're a bard you get special dialogue with the shopkeeper!

i brought both karlach and shadowheart to the graveyard, specifically because i knew in advance that they had things they'd comment on if you did. so i got to see karlach speak to her parents. :( i also put some flowers outside their graves, and a night orchid at the grave of the guy shadowheart mourned for.

YESSSS THE PARTY HIT LEVEL 11. after suddenly getting attacked by a bunch of sahuagin on the beach lol but i'm not complaining! i can't wait to use otto's irresistible dance in every battle from now on.

...i had used up a lot of spell slots and such from various quests so i went to take a long rest. and it was nice to finally rest, except for the fact that lae'zel got kidnapped! i actually knew that someone was going to get kidnapped, but i didn't know when it would happen and i don't know how the game determines who it is either--though, storywise, for my tav, i really like that it ended up being lae'zel. also, orin made it look like lae'zel was trying to kill yenna, and now i wonder what would've happened if someone else had been taken instead?

it's a good thing saving orin's victim isn't time sensitive LOL because i have sooo much stuff left. and storywise it feels wrong to be going around completing a bunch of random sidequests and helping out the rest of the companions while lae'zel is in trouble, but in terms of gameplay it feels like dealing with orin and gortash should be some of the last things you do! so i'm just going to say we need to take our time to come up with a plan and lae'zel is strong enough to handle herself until we get there.

looking for minsc now--i know i said before that i wasn't very attached to jaheira, but she gets better the more i see of her LMAO. i mean, she approves of being sarcastic with nine-fingers and saying "just exploring the local sewer life" when asked what you're doing in the guildhall! maybe on my next playthrough i'll try to use her a bit more.

i'm sure there was a more reasonable and normal way to get past the vault puzzle than by literally throwing water all over the buttons and short circuiting the contraption with lightning magic. but would a reasonable and normal method have been as FUN as short circuiting the contraption? i doubt it.

MAN i wish there was a way to speed up the combat specifically when it's the enemy's turn, at least. fights with a large number of characters involved, like this one i just did at the counting house, can just get painful to sit through when it isn't my party's turn to move. especially since with this particular battle i messed up and got party wiped once and there's a lot of enemies AND a lot of bank employees helping out MISSING EVERY ATTACK and it's just ajksgshgdh. i'm so glad to be done with that now.

got jumpscared by astarion's siblings appearing at camp! after that i tried to continue the mystic carrion quest (which i started as part of the free the artist quest) and realized it was leading me down the sewers, which is also where we need to be to find minsc, so to the sewers we go. i found a woman there who had been lured by a vampire--wonder if astarion would've had any reaction to that if we brought him along.

i now have the single most important companion of them all--boo! okay, and minsc is here too. i talked to him a bit back at camp and he's really funny, actually. now i actually wanna try using him a bit and seeing if he has any funny reactions to things around the city.

also, i finished the free the artist quest and oh my god it was unbelievably annoying just to navigate the house. and the massive detour you have to take to deal with mystic carrion... well, that was actually interesting, but was it all worth the reward you get in the end? nope! maybe in the future my characters won't stumble across the zhentarim hideout and just won't know oskar exists...

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

If we're wanting to have Volo as a human, you know how in the game Volo is angry because he thinks he's more worthy of arceus' attention than the protag is? In this Volo's motive for drugging, kidnapping, and tossing Ingo out of the train could be that same kind of toxic envy. He doesn't like cats and resents how much fame and attention they get, so he wants to get rid of them. On this go round he only manages to get Ingo, but his plan was to get both of them (only to find that people are much more vigilant about keeping track of Emmet after Ingo's disappearance). Are there easier ways to kill a cat? Sure, but he's also a dramatic bitch. He tosses Ingo out as they're going through the tunnel, Ingo hits the wall and sustains some injuries, and then when he wakes up he limps his way out of the tunnel/rift, where he is then found by the Pearl Clan.

Most railway cats are either strays or former strays who were adopted by the station when they seemed to permanently move in. So it could be that Ingo and Emmet started out as strays that train hopped around, until they ended up settling into Gear Station as their permanent home. They were smart, friendly cats so people took an instant liking to them and they ended up being locally famous.

In which case he probably does know how to hunt for food, but it was always for like mice and things around railyards or in human settlements, and for the last few years he's only had to do it for occasional pest control because humans typically feed him. And even as a stray he never really had to do the whole like, fighting thing, really. Most of his "fighting" experience is just him and Emmet wrestling each other. So he'd probably suit the medicine cat role better, as you said.

Side note, but I kind of want Elesa to be an award winning show dog whose owner sometimes uses the trains to go to shows. She and the twins have a good rapport, which is part of why Ingo is so chill even with the nobles who are non-cat predators. When Emmet can't figure out what happened, the next time Elesa comes through he asks if she can tell anything. It's been a bit since he went missing, but not so long that she can't tell a few things from lingering smells, which finally gives Emmet a lead.

disney villain kinda motivation ngl. you're jealous of a Cat? at least canon volo had a tiny bit going for him bc he decided to Fight God. but that's a CAT DUDE. it's not even like he'd GET that attention if the cats were gone bc... they're... cats... a human is not going to replace them... tho tbh i feel like his motive (if he DID do it and that's what we're going with) would be more along the lines of. not wanting ANYBODY to have nice things. like oh these cats make people happy but they're stupid and frivolous so i'll teach them a lesson about What The Real World Is Like.

this is actually why im lean towards them being just like, traveling strays who meet more other cats than people, tbh. like i feel like it makes way more sense for a human to randomly decide to abuse some random stray than it does to go after a beloved public kitty yanno. just from like, math on the repercussions if nothing else. also i think i said earlier but i kind of like the vibe warriors has where humans are like, on the very distant fringes of the characters' world? they're just these sort of inscrutable beings that the cats know exist, but whose world they never fully enter, and the cats barely even grasp that they're, like, alive animals. why did the twolegs do that? well why do twolegs do anything? and ingo and emmet being station cats sort of. detracts from that a little bit i think. i think i want to keep it barely even clear that a Human Society exists. like i know it's a kinda weird way of looking at this that most people aren't gonna do BUT from the perspective of their in-universe function. if that makes sense? at all?

and then as another point in not-station-cats-'s favor, i DO really like the idea of them being like guides to other cats on the art of trainhopping. like maybe in this warriors world there's a subgroup of cats who are just, hardcore wanderers, or cats who want to be Really Far Away for whatever reason. and then as a bonus to that you can have other cats that they kinda know from repeat encounters, and emmet while he's on his Search can track them down and get the same "yeah idk, haven't seen him" response from all of them. which i think is a fun b-plot opportunity!

i do like the idea of them being station cats, to be clear, i think it's cute. i just dunno if it fits for a warriors au maybe. it might be better as something separate. elesa being someone's show pet is really fun tho

[vorthosthewillis]

Welcome to my Legends Arceus nuzlocke attempt!

Before I really get into it, let's go over the rules. In a basic nuzlocke, you only catch the first pokemon on each route, (and no dups unless the og had died), you have to nickname all your pokes, and if a pokemon faints you cannot use it anymore (considered dead). The issue here is how do I decide what a route is in Legends? Well, after consulting with some friends, it was decided that each named area on the maps counted as a route, and for each area I would pull up a list of all available pokemon in said area (I've gotten to Arceus in my og run, so there's nothing to spoil for me looking that up), and roll a random number generator. Each region can also generate rifts later in the game, and for those, it will be the classic "first pokemon I run into". Shiny pokemon are always game, but that rule became irrelevant for my run given I never got the ponyta mission.

Also, a few original rules due to the unique nature of Legends Arceus. Pokemon can attack you in this game, and npcs talk about how dangerous it is out there, so if any pokemon successfully knocks me out in any context, I consider it game over - I'm pokefood. There's also the Boss pokemon battles in this game. In those, I'm on the line, sure, but given I've played and beaten this game before, I need to make it more of a challenge. In addition to my life on the line in each boss battle, I have to use at least 2 pokemon in each fight as well. I bring these rules up because both become (painfully) relevant during this series.

So with all that out of the way, time to begin our tale.

Part 1: Bittersweet Beginnings

As I'm dumped into the world, I get my choice for the starters. In my og run, I choose fire, and this time, I go water, naming my oshawott Azure. Ridiculous amounts of tutorials later (Including where Azure demolishes Volo), I dump the 3 pokemon the game forces you to catch, and enter the Obsidian Fieldlands.

I quickly hit some nearby areas for more pokemons, and acquire a bidoof named Nutmeg, an eevee named Adapt, and a cascoon named Mom Shipton (a reference to a moth species). Nutmeg almost falls to my rival, but she pulls through to beat him, and Adapt narrowly finishes off Mai's munchlax. My first boss battle is coming, and I need to train. I catch a geodude named Diorite and a zubat I called Lilith. Mom evolves, and suddenly I have a team of six, and am feeling ok.

This is when I go into the first boss battle, against the alpha music bug. My plan is to use Mom Shipton for this - she's got higher defenses than the rest of my team (except for Diorite, but I'm hesitant to use him due to the bug having Absorb), as well as Aerial Ace, which should be super effective. The battle starts, and immediately that music bug uses Aerial Ace against Mom. She hits it back, and both Mom and the bug are below half health. And here's where I made my first mistake this run. See, (getting technical for a second), if the enemy pokemon can "see" a kill, they will always use the move that can kill. So, I assumed the music bug would use Aerial Ace again, so I decided to pivot into Diorite, and hope I could kill the bug in one move next turn before it could use absorb. However… in Legends, they added Strong style (which is a stronger but slower attack), and Agile style (which is a weaker but faster move). If a pokemon can see multiple ways to kill, like this bug could due to Strong style attacks, the attack chosen is random. So as I switched to Diorite… music bug used a Strong style Absorb. Diorite never stood a chance, and with that my first death happened. Frazzled, I use the opportunity for a free swap to bring in Lilith, whose speed and stab with Aerial Ace makes sure this bug goes down. The sun set as I buried Diorite, and I made camp. Day 2 will bring the Kleavor boss battle, and I'm not ready.

Upon waking up, it's time to grind. I catch some more pokemons, including Cordyceps the paras, who gets added to the team, and train hard, evolving both Azure and Nutmeg. I beat Lian and Irida relatively easily, and am prepared for the Kleavor battle, I hope. My team is currently:

Azure (Dewott), lvl 20

Nutmeg (Bibarel), lvl 18

Adapt (Eevee), lvl 18

Mom Shipton (Dustox), lvl 17

Lilith (Zubat), lvl 17

Cordyceps (Paras), lvl 15

Going into this, the two pokemon I'm using are Azure and Nutmeg, who with their water moves should definitely hurt Kleavor. And so I go in.

I duck and dodge, landing several hits before Kleavor smacks into a rock, stunning him and allowing me to throw out Nutmeg. It's a rough fight, but she succeeds, knocking it down, and I'm moving again, hitting it hard. Soon enough though its up and moving, I'm dodging and throwing, and then its time to bring out a pokemon again. I go to throw out Azure… only to realize I never switched my pokemon. A battered and wounded Nutmeg jumps out, and Kleavor shoots a rock shard straight through her. I Raged. Throwing out Azure, I took down Kleavor again, and unleashed balm after balm until it finally calmed down. Irida praised my efforts, but it felt hollow. Nutmeg was my second pokemon, and had made a reputation for herself by constantly getting into trouble but squeaking through. Not this time though, not this time. Rest in peace, my crazy Bibarel.

Before I went to the next region however, I did go to more of the areas on the map to get more pokemon. There's not much to report here… until I went to the waterfall. I rolled the flying gyarados, and I had 5 feather balls. Caught it in 1! Gari was the newest member to my team, and strong to boot. It was time to move on… time to go to the marshlands.

Fieldlands completed.

Teammates:

Azure, Adapt, Mom Shipton, Lilith, Cordyceps, Gari

Teammates lost: 2

Diorite, Nutmeg

Total Teammates lost: 2

Diorite, Nutmeg

Next Time: The Last Dance of Mom Shipton

[geeneelee]

Arceus opinions. Gimmee.

THOUGHTS THOUGHTS THOUGHTS HERE WE GO

I 100% believe that the protagonist is the Sinnoh Champion, because it would make total sense for Arceus to entrust them with this, they look exactly the same (unless you choose otherwise lmao) and it just makes all the ironic differences between the ancestors and descendants crueler lmao

If you demonize Laventon in your fics, first of all WHY, second of all delete your fic

I don't respect Volo at all and I think he's motivated less by being some tragic backstory and more by a bloated sense of entitlement. I love that he's this bastard who takes advantage of a frightened teen and tries to destroy the universe because the it's not to his liking. I hope he never gets a redemption arc he sucks so bad I love it.

Relatedly, some Celestica people headcanons: The ancient hero was from the Celestica people, and he caught "Arceus" like the current protagonist after defeating it, which is why it loved among them for a while. Then, I dunno, the hero died or they did something fucked up because Arceus living among them gave them a power high and Arceus left. They couldn't handle it, and eventually most of them left to go find Arceus, and the remaining people couldn't keep it together for more than a few generations. Cogita and Volo were both born after Arceus left and are the only ones still remaining and became immortal somehow? not sure. Cogita was given the responsibility of one day helping the protagonist, while Volo felt cheated that he never got to meet Arceus and instead watched his people fall apart, and viewed everyone else in Hisui as stupid and unworthy for not even knowing who Arceus was, which is why he's fully ok with killing everyone and likes to toy with people (e.g. asking Ingo about his memory loss while knowing its his fault). I fully believe he's still on his shits to this day and may or may not have a fic idea related to that if i ever stop being afraid of writing documents lol.

Speaking of Ingo: he did not fall out of the sky! He canonically just appeared, and honestly I'm betting it was through a space-time distortion like a lot of the displaced Pokemon we see. I think the protag only fell from the sky because they were express delivery via Arceus instead of random fallout from reality tearing itself apart. Also I love Ingo sooooo much autistic king of my heart I want him to go home please let him go home. I think he's been there for a few years judging by how settled and familiar he seems, but man I think he wants to go home and he should go home, although I'm not sure if that'll happen in a DLC or not. (SIDE NOTE: it's too early to say whether there will be DLC or not it hasn't even been three months yet guys chill)

I don't forgive Kamado but I think he's an interesting, thoughtful character. He got off light but it's Pokemon. What can you do. Cyllene on the other hand deserves the world.

ALSO BENI. BENI WAS THE MOST GOBSMACKING REVEAL. HAS HE KILLED PEOPLE? HES A REAL NINJA.

Speaking of killing my slightly edgy headcanon is that it's Volo's fault that there aren't any noble pokemon or their ilk in modern Sinnoh because he drove them to extinction out of spite for having Arceus' favor.

I love Palina and Iscan they're so cute t4t romance right there.

Arezu is my funny little gal. I want to kiss her and let her do my hair please please please

Also Melli is the funniest bitch on the planet. BUT ADAMAAAAAAAAAAN. Pokemon sure knows how to make pathetic little men that are so funny

The Forces of Nature were so hard to catch they are my FUCKING enemies. Also I'm really bad at mass outbreaks because I get seen and then can't move because as soon as I get off my ass I get hit again and then I die.

The soundtrack is amazing but Pokemon games always have good music I love them

[elane-in-the-shadows]

Random sentence starter prompt- “ i’m not good for you , trust me. “ for Ptolewren? :)

A/N: Just took me just 10 weeks to write, but here it is. I hope you - if you’re still here - like it.

Trigger warning for mention of child abuse.

Find this on Wattpad and on AO3

Getting Better

It was the heat that woke him, asmothering, heavy warmth. Both onerous feelings were, Ptolemus realized whenhis eyelids flew open as if his weariness had vanished, not caused by anysunlight. The air was cool, and only few rays made it into the room betweenthick curtains of dark velvet. Choking him were padded duvets of the samematerial that covered him up to his chin.

It’sstill spring, he remembered. This is my suite in Ridge House.

AndI am a prince.

Recently elevated toroyalty, he’d returned to the ancestral home of House Samos, and he hadn’t evennoticed. Or forgotten, likely due to the fever he felt in his skin, along witha terrible itch. Again, he cursed the velvet embroidered with metal pieces thathis ability couldn’t not sense and alert to him. He didn’t want to hear theirthuds in his head, programmed to examine any material until he knew which metalsit contained, how much there was, and how to wield it. He didn’t. He wished hewas free of his ability for once, for an hour, when he was in such a poor stateand just the thought of controlling the metals made him wince.

He forced himself tomove despite his soreness all over, and tried to shove off the duvets, teethgrinding as his hands –

Hands

“Hey,” a voicemuttered. He couldn’t see her behind the bedpost at first, before Wren Skonosrose and turned toward him to slow him down. Mostly urging him to “be careful!”with his right hand.

Their eyes met for amoment. Wren’s concerned gaze calmed him, although his head still beat toofast. How could he have forgotten? He’d lost a hand in the battle at thewedding. He’d felt the absence and the pain. The injury was the reason why hisbody was weak and his mind not sharp and he’d known that deep down.

But this hand …

Wren took it, this new… thing, in hers. “I numbed its nerves for now,” she said. “For the most part.You’ll need to reassess it, though, to … recalibrate.”

A light flush glowedcoldly on her dark cheeks. Recalibrate indeed. As if he was a machine that hadto function, and his hand was a motor in repair. It looked as strange as one.Oddly soft and raw, with a strong grey tint like from heat or a hit. He couldimagine the pain throbbing in it he had to thank Wren for not feeling.

Wren’s lips twitchedlike she was restraining herself from biting them. She always hid her distressso well. Everyone he knew did, because all of them felt great distress. But itwas somewhat different for Wren, a young skin healer who saw and saved the mostpowerful people of Norta at their worst. Her patients would want neither pitynor worry, but whether they wished for Wren to be talkative and comforting orquiet and unnoticeable, she had to find out.

Whatdo I wish her to be for me?

“I’d recommend to moveyour fingers,” Wren said eventually. “Do you consent?”

He blinked at her and asshe stared back, he realized he still hadn’t said anything to her. You’re getting as taciturn as your father, Tolly,he thought with dread. He cleared his throat. “Yes,” he groaned.

Wren nodded, her greyeyes lingering on him before she focused on his hand. “I’ll move the fingersand you tell me if you feel it. Then I’ll lessen the numbness piece by piece.”

“Yes,” he repeated. Andthen winced and soughed as Wren started the examination. Pain radiated throughhis new limb. Not for Wren being careless, but because the pain was inevitable whenhe needed to heal, get used to and train the new hand.

That was something hewas definitely used to; he’d done so from birth. A Samos was strong, and to remainstrong, you suffered and withstood. Only that his father would never call it “suffering”– to not admit such feelings was a part of their creed so essential it didn’tneed saying. Eve certainly never said so. She was stronger than him, smarterthan him, more inscrutable than him. And their father even went so far, he didn’texpress any emotions at all, nor said very much in general, while you were stillexpected to understand and obey.

It was odd that, when Ptolemushad mocked this discrepancy as a child, he’d been beaten until he shut up; butwhen he talked back now, he didn’t earn any response which probably qualifiedas a praise on Volo Samos’s terms.

Asif obstinacy and contradiction are valuable only after you learned to obey.

By now, they’d switched from Wrenmoving his fingers to Ptolemus doing it on his own. He’d expected the ache yetwas still frustrated by the inefficiency and feebleness in the motions of thenew limb. He’d require weeks of training to return to his old skills.

“This was the wrongway,” he said, sighing. “I should’ve been conscious while you regrew it, andimmediately gotten used to it.”  

“Your mother orderedit.”

He startled. “What?”

Wren smoothed herskirts with a dash of vexation. “I told your parents the same – that it’d bemore successful to wait until you’re stable and conscious, but Lady Larentiadisagreed. She wanted you to be … whole, as soon as possible, and your unconsciousness,she claimed, would avoid any ‘disturbances’ in my efforts.” She breathed outheavily, not to say snorted, andturned away, her eyes on the window.

He wished he couldsimply admire her profile, accentuated by the sunlight and let everything elsebe. For a moment. Or an hour.

“That wasn’t her idea.”

“Hm?” Wren moved herface slightly so he could see her raised brow.

He was even morebewitched by her half profile. He cleared his throat. “I mean, that sounds likeMother, but I’m sure father ‘told’ her so.

Wren frowned. “Ithought … a warrior like him would know better?”

He didn’t reply.

Wren’s gaze held on tohim as much as her hands. They continued to soothe him, his fever, and thethrobbing in his new hand, but she couldn’t slow the beat of his heart, or coolthe warmth in his cheeks. Not when she was their cause, and he didn’t dare tolook anywhere but at their joined fingers in his lap. In the pregnant silence,he began to hear her breathing as she waited, thoughtfully. He believed she graspedhis meaning, even without another word from him.

Finally, he lifted hisface and let their eyes lock. He wanted to sink into her touch, into her greyeyes, in this moment. But as he tightened his grip, Wren opened her mouth,about to break apart their understanding.

No,don’t say it

When she breathed in,it was all he needed to anticipate her words.

It’spunishment, isn’t it?

He let go of her hands,startling her enough to interrupt her. He’d speak to be sure. “Why are you here?”he uttered, the first idea he had. But he truly wondered.

Wren was irritated, ifnot annoyed by him being so ungrateful. She pulled away for good, straightenedfirst her back and then some imaginary wrinkles in her skirt – again. It washer habit. “I am and I was there to heal you,” she said sharply.

“Because Eve draggedyou along.”

“To help Mare Barrow,yes.”

“Which was treason.”

This time, she glaredat him. He couldn’t match her stare, but he didn’t flinch away either. Wrensighed, then stood up, glided toward the poor rays of sunlight and huggedherself.

His eyes followed her,realizing well enough that she sought a bit of golden warmth in this place ofcold iron. He knew where either of them belonged.

“I couldn’t have sa …helpedMare Barrow without your sister’s insistence,” she said eventually. “And I wasglad for it, because I’ve wished to help Barrow for a long time.” She glancedover her shoulder. “After I had to see her suffer for months, as close by as onecould get.”

Thatmade him flinch, although Wren’s reminder was hardlyas icy as Barrow’s rage pointed at him. I’vemade her suffer too.

Did Wren notice his thought?She came back to his bed, arms lowered and features soft. She tilted her head. “Everysingle person in this place is a traitor now,” she said. “Did you agree to becomeone too, before?”

He shook his head everso slightly. “We weren’t told beforehand, as a safety provision.”

Wren inclined her head.“Well, I agreed to as much as I was allowed. I wanted … something new.” A twitch,not quite a smile but close to it, played on her lips. “A new king, a neworder. In this case, a new country. Or at least the chance of one. Without …Maven.”Her smile turned sour.

To honour hersincerity, he quieted his snort. It wasn’t that Wren’s notion was false, butthat he was wrong in it. Ridiculous, even. All this would bring was chaos, hewas sure. Maybe his father wanted exactly that, yet Volo was able to controlit, too. Not he, Ptolemus. His father had made him a crown prince, he who hardlygrasped what was happening, and he’d make a mess of it and disappoint everyone.Most of all Wren, especially with this wedding dreaded by all lying in wait.

He wouldn’t demean herwith pretenses. “The Rift won’t do you that favour,” he said. How easy it wasto undermine his father’s ambitions. “Nor can I. I’m not good for you, trustme.”

She laughed. Really laughed,although a flush crept up her cheeks, as if she was also a little embarrassed.She bent down to take his hand and he squeezed back automatically. It painedhis new hand, but he didn’t mind it now. It felt wonderful to touch her, withor without her ability flooding his nerves.

And then she camecloser still, her face mere inches from his and her finger brushing his lips. “Howmany times have I saved your life now?” she asked.

“Umm …” he estimated quickly.He could think of four times at least.

When he said so, sheoffered him a smirk. “And if you count the training incidents too?”

Those were innumerable,and while he considered, her lips touched his, at first as feathery light asher finger before the kiss intensified. What an idiot he was. Had he actuallytried to chase her away? It was the last thing he wanted, although he should want it. For her sake.  But that was probably why he’d failed somiserably.

He didn’t want the kissto end, but everything had to. He knew that. Yet having Wren this close to him,to both remember her touch and feel it as they pulled apart, he realized thatthings could also be repeated.

“It seems like,” Wren murmured,“that I’m very good for you, Ptolemus.” He gasped when she spoke his name, andonce again when she laid her head on his chest. “Perhaps you should leave thatdecision to me,” she concluded.

He nodded as he huggedher soft frame. “Then I’ll have to do and get better, I assume.”

He loved that the firstthing his new hand felt, still raw and untested, was someone as lovely andbeautiful as Wren Skonos.

@elliemarchetti @mareshmallow @carstairsjames @eurydicel @hannaharies @clarafarleybarrow @lilyharvord @samanthaslytherin @inopinion @redqueenfandom @selenbean-beany  @avid-author-activist @marecalrandomstuff @mvaen 

[diceandlipstick-blog]

Waterdeep: Dragon Heist Session 1 recap - 1/15/2019

The season is spring and the setting is the City of Splendor, Waterdeep. We find ourselves entering the Yawning Portal, a famous tavern built over the entrance of a well, which leads down into Undermountain. We'll come back to that in a bit though. Entering the Tavern is a lovely half-elf named Sylvar. She enters with a cloaked wrapped tightly around her lithe frame. Is she hiding something? We shall see...She looks around for someone, but doesn't seem to search hard, or possibly can't find whom she is looking for. She is nervous and looks extremely out of place, but that is only to me, the DM who will set up her story and potentially her demise at a later date.  Following her as she takes a seat, at the only table made available to our unlikely group of heroes is Elias, a young male half-elf with mischievous intent in his eyes. He receives a lukewarm almost disdainful welcome from Durnan, the proprietor of the renowned Yawning Portal. Elias is warned by Bonnie to behave while she chastises him for getting the barkeep riled up with his presence. Elias unphased and amused, orders a drink and takes a seat at the back of the tavern, away from the large crowd, though ever aware of his surroundings. As he settles in and is brought his drink a large half-orc (all you interbred motherfuckers.) enters the tavern. He's no stranger to his surroundings, and his love struck eyes fall on Yagra Stonefist, a roughneck half-orc female, who's brutality and manhandling has earned her the attentions and affections of Dirge.  Dirge takes a seat at Bonnie's insistent that he occupy the table with the lonely half-elf. He orders a drink and watches Yagra arm wrestle a few of the hulking bandits seated at her table, with stars in his eyes. Panning the camera no one is holding to the entrance yet again, and you find yourself looking at a bruised up hill dwarf named Yossuck, returning to the tavern after a long days training with Hlam the eccentric monk in the mountains. Yes, you heard me, a hill dwarf monk.. weird I know. He moves with sore muscles straight to the bar and requests a drink. Durnan points over to a table and shoves a tankard of ale at the dwarf grunting about taking a seat and glaring at the pack of bandits who have become even rowdier with the third arm wrestle loss. Suddenly everyone hears the song, "Under the Sea" as Sebastian the crab enters... Sorry, scratch that. Kymani, an islander who sounds like the crab from my favorite Disney movie, enters the tavern. Loudly greeting anyone who wants to listen, (Psst which was no one.) asking a few unhelpful patrons if they've seen his friend, Obaya Uday, to which most just look at him as if he were shit that they stepped on. (people are so racist and rude) He is greeted by Bonnie who is flustered but seemed to have it all under control, as she is running around taking orders and serving as fast as her legs will carry her. She points to a table and scurries off with a promise of return and a look of distressed confusion, he takes his seat, and it seems as though the properly planted single table that was the only place for our random adventurers who never met before or knew one another were forced to sit together. As conversations fly between them all, Elias joins the group, offering overpriced tour guiding. Once everything seemed settled, there was an outburst from the back of the tavern, the group of rowdy bandits were now trying to fight the large half orc woman. She managed to knock two of them out, but eventually the remaining four overpowered her. She was knocked out, but not before several members of this mismatched heroes get a few hits in, though sadly for Dirge, Yagra missed his heroic smash of one of her enemies. During this epic battle for first level players... Elias pickpockets the distracted customers of the Yawning Portal. Lucky for him Durnan wasn't paying him any mind though in hindsight, he should have been for his patrons' sake.  Once Yagra falls, Durnan breaks up the fight, sending the remaining bandits scampering out the door. While everyone is helping make the knocked out Yagra comfortable, there is another catastrophe to deal with. Durnan yells out, "TROLL (earned XP)!!" and once again our heroes are put into a combat situation. They fight hard, though let's face it Durnanwrecked the troll with his 4 hits on the beast and a  cocktail of oil and flame. Though there was an explosion of stirges (earned XP), who tried to drain the party members. Durnan giving the group his thanks, though the tavern was filled with more suitable warriors who could have handled the troll with more finesse, (silly DMing done weirdly wrong and right) this group were the champs of the night. As they celebrated their victory over free drink and food for the night, they are approached by a man, who calls himself Volo. Members of the party don't bother to pick their own brains to see if they remember who he is, what he's "famous" for. He sits with them, enjoying their free drinks and food, and offers them payment for a little help. He hands them each 10 gold dragons (coins not the beasts) and tells them with a job well done, he'd pay them 10 times each what he had given them if they will help him find his friend Floon Blagmaar, who has disappeared a couple nights back, and he fears the worst of his friend, and for his safety. After a while of insights and shit talking, the party agrees to band together and find this Floon character. Heading off to the Skewered Dragon, in a seedy area of the seedy dock ward, they enter the new scene which is not impressive at all, and are quickly taken advantage of by the greedy and desperate proprietor of this establishment. He extorts them heavily for the little information he knows, which for the most part isn't helpful aside from the fact that after Volo left Floon that night, another man joined him for a few more drinks and they left together. The new man's name being Renaer Neverember (I can never remember.), who is the son of the previous Open Lord, Nagault Neverember.  A smarter, maybe nicer man sitting at a table, taking a smaller fee (at this point you all have paid among yourselves 20 dragons.) offers up that he watched Floon and Renaer leave together, and were followed by a couple of men who in other areas would be bad, but fit in nicely with the dark and bad-ass theme of this bar which is called for to progress the story. Sent to Candle Lane, to look for a door with a flying snake on it. The group enters the yard of the warehouse and making plenty of noise, and shedding tons of light because of their weak ass human member with no dark vision, they are once more tonight set up in combat. Fighting four kenku (earned XP), who leave them with a parting exclaim, "Xanathar sends it's regards." (So do the Lanasters, bitch!) the group basically raids the warehouse which is packed with trash, or at least as far as the searching eyes have found so far. Sylvar finds a door, and inside the tiny closet, they find, not the man they are seeking but his friend, Renear. He accounts a similar story of drinking and leaving the tavern, he was hit over the head and has spent a couple days in the dark. He expresses to the group that he fears that they may have mistaken Floon for him, and that they seek the fortune Renaer's father had embezzled and hid away somewhere in Waterdeep. Renaer makes a claim that he doesn't know anything about the truth of the gold's hiding place but seems to gather his courage and offers to help find his friend, possibly out of guilt or friendship, who knows now. And that my friends is where we have been left off for the session.

[ixvyupdates]

A teacher remains fiercely committed to her students as UNRWA schools face closure

Nesrin Ayoub is the head-teacher of an UNRWA-run girls’ primary school of 450 girls aged 6-16 years in Ein Hilweh Refugee Camp, in Lebanon. All the children are all Palestine refugees from Lebanon and Syria. People in the Ein Hilweh Camp live in harsh conditions of socio-economic challenges and unstable security conditions where armed clashes and riots erupt many times a year.

Nesrin is spearheading our campaign #EducationOnTheMove which tracks migrants and refugees all over the world as they try to access education in their new countries. Its aim is to help us understand the messages in the forthcoming 2019 GEM Report, Migration, displacement and education: Building bridges, not walls, in the context of peoples’ real-life experiences.

She has witnessed stray bullets entering her class when teaching, armed clashes erupting while in school, with the school sometimes hit, and windows smashed. Such riots lead to students being evacuated to shelters, and even helped to escape outside of the camp to seek shelter elsewhere. Schools in the camp shut for several days during the school year.

Today was one of those bad days, where you begin with wonderful activities and end up with evacuation due to random shootings in the ref camp. #NesrinOnTheMove#EducationOnTheMove@UNESCO @GEMReport

— NesrinAyoub (@nalhasan1) October 4, 2018

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Nesrin herself had nightmares from her own childhood experiences until she was 40 years old, and now meets many children traumatized by the fighting. As with the other teachers in the camp, she faces numerous challenges helping the children to come back to school, providing psycho-social support for the children, and covering up for the teaching days lost.

Nesrin’s students are the lucky few. Not only has Nesrin benefitted from psycho-social and emergency training, but as a Palestinian refugee born in the camp she has a natural empathy with them. In this blog she describes some of the ups and downs of the new term.

“On the first day of September my heart was pounding with joy as I crossed the army check point at the entrance of the camp. My primary school had opened its doors for the new academic year, against the odds. It’s no secret that UNRWA is facing an unprecedented funding crisis and it was feared that around 500,000 students who attend its schools across the middle east, (including the students at my school) would be forced to stay home this term, missing out on the education that is their right.

It’s true that some of our classes will be very crowded with up to 45 students or more; but we’ll make the best of the situation. Being a former UNRWA student, and an UNRWA-trained teacher, now a head teacher, I feel indebted to the generosity of the international community and its continuous support to Palestine refugees. This generosity motivates me to work as hard as I can to give students the chance of a better future.” 

As it does every year, UNRWA provided the 450 students at my school (and all other UNRWA schools) with books, stationary, including to all the students from Syria. We are all holding our hopes high that the school will stay open throughout this academic year. The first day went phenomenally well, and on the second day, we held a graduation ceremony for grade nine students who had passed official exams. The celebration was very joyous and was generously funded by the Belgian government. 

But our joy did not last long.  Due to the unstable security situation in the camp, we lost 4 of the 23 days we were supposed to teach to forced closure. And for each day we close, we need another day to restore the sense of normalcy in classes.

We conduct psycho-social support sessions, establish communication trees for emergency communications with parents, reflect on evacuation drills and agree on how to compensate students for the teaching hours lost. Within reform initiatives, UNRWA has trained us well to lead Education in Emergencies, but we still need to draw on our own person resilience to cope with reliving this scenario over and over again. 

At the United Nations General Assembly the world had shown its love and support to Palestine Refugees and to UNRWA. On the 5th of October, World Teacher’s Day, my heart was pounding again. I’m a refugee serving refugees and nothing will prevent me from creating happy memories for my students. Hope springs eternal!”

To support our #EducationOnTheMove, please retweet and share, and download the Report in November. If you have a similar story to tell about education on the move, please get in touch.

And look out for our next guest-blog from a Refugee Education Co-ordinator, Evi, based in Volos, Greece. She works with Syrian and Iraqi refugees, helping to settle them into their accommodation and preparing their children to attend mainstream Greek-language schools and pre-schools – no easy task.

A teacher remains fiercely committed to her students as UNRWA schools face closure syndicated from https://sapsnkraguide.wordpress.com

[dailynynews-blog]

Top Reasons to Visit Los Angeles in 2017

New Post has been published on https://www.dailynynews.com/2018/top-reasons-visit-los-angeles-2017/

Top Reasons to Visit Los Angeles in 2017

01of 08

7 Reasons Get Excited About Visiting Los Angeles in 2017

•••

Los Angeles is always an exciting destination to visit, and recent and upcoming developments make 2017 a great year to plan a visit. The combination of year-round pleasant climate, coastal and mountain recreation, Hollywood glitz, rich urban culture and an abundance of theme parks make it a perfect spot for a family vacation, romantic getaway or solo adventure at any time of year.

2016 brought us the new OUE Skyspace LA and the Italian American Museum of Los Angeles in Downtown Los Angeles, the spectacular Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Hollywood, the Museum of Broken Relationships in Hollywood, Great Wolf Lodge indoor/outdoor water park in Garden Grove and the Metro Expo Line finally extended the Metro train system to the beach in Santa Monica.

If you haven’t been here in a while, notable additions in 2015 worth a look included the new Broad contemporary art museum in Downtown LA and the complete transformation of the Petersen Automotive Museum.

2017 is shaping up to welcome even more new developments including more grand theme park changes, museum openings and the biennial D23 Disney Fan Expo.

Take a peek at just a few of the reasons to visit Los Angeles in 2017.

02of 08

Guardians of the Galaxy Ride comes to Disney California Adventure

•••

  The Tower of Terror, one of the original rides at Disney California Adventure, is no more. The structure is being converted to the new Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! which will debut in summer 2017. The new ride inside the tower will present an all-new story based on the Marvel characters. Riders will walk through the fortress-like museum of the mysterious Collector, who keeps his newest acquisitions, the Guardians of the Galaxy, as prisoners. Guests will board a mechanical lift which launches them into a daring adventure with new visual and audio effects enhancing the free fall sensation which is programmed to offer multiple, random and unique ride experiences in which the rise and fall of the gantry lift rocks to the beat of music inspired by the film’s popular soundtrack. The new ride is scheduled to open in summer 2017 times with the release of the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel.

Also in summer 2017, Disney California Adventure will welcome the Guardians of theGalaxy to join other Super Heroes such as Spiderman and Captain America who will be greeting guests throughout 2017 at the Hollywood Backlot.

If you didn’t make it to Disney California Adventure in 2016, you’ll also want to check out the new stage musical based on the movie Frozen opened at the Hyperion Theatre in May 2016.

New at Disneyland

At Disneyland, the popular Main Street Electrical Parade first introduced in 1972 will return January 20, 2017 for an unspecified limited time. The Electrical Parade ran down Main Street until 1996, and then at California Adventure until 2010. The original opening float is also back. It’s a giant drum with “Disneyland Presents … Main Street Electrical Parade” spelled out in bright lights.

In November and December 2015, Disneyland opened Star Wars Season of the Force, a precursor to the full-fledged Star Wars Land currently in development. The new attractions are all located in Tomorrowland.

Read more about What’s New at Disneyland or check out the Disneyland Visitor’s Guide.

03of 08

New Ride at Six Flags Magic Mountain

•••

  Magic Mountain is introducing a new interactive high tech ride for spring 2017. JUSTICE LEAGUE: Battle for Metropolis, which will be located in a newly themed area of the park, will make riders members of the JUSTICE LEAGUE Reserve Team in a multi-sensory four-minute game experience. The ride will surround you with wind, fire, fog, and special effects as you battle alongside Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Cyborg, and Green Lantern to save the city of Metropolis from Lex Luthor, The Joker, Harley Quinn, and more. Interactive 180-degree toroidal screens allow you to experience state-of-the-art gaming while riding in six-passenger pitch and roll motion-based vehicles synced to custom action-packed scenes with the first-ever virtual 360-degree loops on an attraction.

On the 40 year anniversary of the original Revolution ride in 2016, Magic Mountain unveiled the shiny New Revolution with brand new modern cars and an updated color scheme. They’ve eliminated the restrictive shoulder harnesses in favor of lap and calf bars to provide a “smoother, sleeker ride with more air time.” Over the holidays, they added virtual reality goggles on the New Revolution creating the Santa’s Sleigh Ride Experience. It reverts back January 2nd, but a new virtual experience is in the works.

In 2015, Magic Mountain opened the ground-breaking Twisted Colossus, a remake of the original wooden Colossus with new Iron Horse Track and state-of-the-art cars allowing over-bank turns, inversions and close encounters with cars on a facing track not otherwise possible on a wooden coaster. You hit 18 airtime hills in four minutes on 5000 feet of track.

More on visiting Six Flags Magic Mountain

04of 08

New Ride and Slides at Knott’s Berry Farm

•••

In November 2016, Knott’s Berry Farm reinstalled the beloved exhibit of scale models of all 21 California Missions originally created by Leon Bayard de Volo in 1955-56. The models have been undergoing refurbishment for the last three years.

The park also has more big announcements for both the main theme park and Knott’s Soak City for 2017.

At Knott’s Berry Farm, they’re adding an all-new thrill ride, the Sol Spin, where riders spin in all directions on six rays of the sun hoisted six stories above the ground. The new ride will be in Fiesta Village next to the Jaguar.

The neighboring Knott’s Soak City Water Park will also be expanding and adding two new water slide towers in time for their May 2017 opening. The Wedge slide tower is an open-air family raft ride that will replace the Pacific Spin. Shore Break will be seven stories high and include six different water slide experiences, four of which will feature the Aqua-Launch chamber that drops the floor out from under you to send you into a free fall through a translucent flume of loops and S-curves. 

In summer 2016, Knott’s reopened the classic wooden coaster, GhostRider after a complete restoration with 4500 feet of new wooden track and all new cars. For 2017 they’ll be bringing back the local inhabitants in Ghost Town Alive they introduced for the Ghost Town Centennial in 2016.

In 2015, Knott’s Berry Farm opened an all-new 4D interactive ride, Voyage to the Iron Reef, to great acclaim from park visitors.

Check out What’s New at Knott’s Berry Farm or the Knott’s Berry Farm Visitors Guide.

05of 08

Anaheim House of Blues Relocation

•••

Since both the Sunset Strip location and the Downtown Disney location closed, the LA area has been without a House of Blues. That will soon be remedied with the opening in March 2017 of  The House of Blues Anaheim at a new, larger location at Anaheim GardenWalk. The new HOB will have an expanded main concert hall, an intimate theater – The Cambridge Room, and a newly designed VIP Foundation Room club. The grand opening also kicks off a yearlong 25th – anniversary celebration for the chain of music halls and restaurants, as the very first House of Blues opened in Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA, in 1992. HouseofBlues.com

06of 08

The Wende Museum of the Cold War – New Location

•••

The Wende Museum documents cold war culture between 1945 and 1991 through design objects, works on paper, ceramics, paintings, sculptures, posters, furniture, textiles, films and books. The museum is moving to a new home at the Armory in Culver City. They began construction in November 2016 and are scheduled to open by summer or fall 2017. The new location will triple the museum’s exhibit space.  The Wende Museum will eventually move its 11 segments of the Berlin Wall, which have been on display on Museum Row, to a sculpture garden at the new location.

07of 08

Institute of Contemporary Art, LA will Open in Downtown LA

•••

The Santa Monica Museum of Art, founded in 1984, closed its Bergamot Station location and regrouped to re-emerge as the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, which will open in a new home in Downtown LA in the Los Angeles Arts District.

“Our mission is to support art that sparks the pleasure of discovery and challenges the way we see and experience the world, ourselves and each other.”

www.theicala.org

08of 08

Disney D23 Fan Expo Returns in 2017

•••

If you’re a Disney fan, Anaheim is the place to be in July 2017 for the biennial Disney D23 Expo fan experience.  People come from around the world to experience extravagant exhibits, the latest in Disney products and technologies, see Disney TV and movie stars live and be the first to hear announcements about new developments in Disney movies and theme parks around the world.

[ixvyupdates]

A teacher remains fiercely committed to her students as UNRWA schools face closure

Nesrin Ayoub is the head-teacher of an UNRWA-run girls’ primary school of 450 girls aged 6-16 years in Ein Hilweh Refugee Camp, in Lebanon. All the children are all Palestine refugees from Lebanon and Syria. People in the Ein Hilweh Camp live in harsh conditions of socio-economic challenges and unstable security conditions where armed clashes and riots erupt many times a year.

Nesrin is spearheading our campaign #EducationOnTheMove which tracks migrants and refugees all over the world as they try to access education in their new countries. Its aim is to help us understand the messages in the forthcoming 2019 GEM Report, Migration, displacement and education: Building bridges, not walls, in the context of peoples’ real-life experiences.

She has witnessed stray bullets entering her class when teaching, armed clashes erupting while in school, with the school sometimes hit, and windows smashed. Such riots lead to students being evacuated to shelters, and even helped to escape outside of the camp to seek shelter elsewhere. Schools in the camp shut for several days during the school year.

Today was one of those bad days, where you begin with wonderful activities and end up with evacuation due to random shootings in the ref camp. #NesrinOnTheMove#EducationOnTheMove@UNESCO @GEMReport

— NesrinAyoub (@nalhasan1) October 4, 2018

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Nesrin herself had nightmares from her own childhood experiences until she was 40 years old, and now meets many children traumatized by the fighting. As with the other teachers in the camp, she faces numerous challenges helping the children to come back to school, providing psycho-social support for the children, and covering up for the teaching days lost.

Nesrin’s students are the lucky few. Not only has Nesrin benefitted from psycho-social and emergency training, but as a Palestinian refugee born in the camp she has a natural empathy with them. In this blog she describes some of the ups and downs of the new term.

“On the first day of September my heart was pounding with joy as I crossed the army check point at the entrance of the camp. My primary school had opened its doors for the new academic year, against the odds. It’s no secret that UNRWA is facing an unprecedented funding crisis and it was feared that around 500,000 students who attend its schools across the middle east, (including the students at my school) would be forced to stay home this term, missing out on the education that is their right.

It’s true that some of our classes will be very crowded with up to 45 students or more; but we’ll make the best of the situation. Being a former UNRWA student, and an UNRWA-trained teacher, now a head teacher, I feel indebted to the generosity of the international community and its continuous support to Palestine refugees. This generosity motivates me to work as hard as I can to give students the chance of a better future.” 

As it does every year, UNRWA provided the 450 students at my school (and all other UNRWA schools) with books, stationary, including to all the students from Syria. We are all holding our hopes high that the school will stay open throughout this academic year. The first day went phenomenally well, and on the second day, we held a graduation ceremony for grade nine students who had passed official exams. The celebration was very joyous and was generously funded by the Belgian government. 

But our joy did not last long.  Due to the unstable security situation in the camp, we lost 4 of the 23 days we were supposed to teach to forced closure. And for each day we close, we need another day to restore the sense of normalcy in classes.

We conduct psycho-social support sessions, establish communication trees for emergency communications with parents, reflect on evacuation drills and agree on how to compensate students for the teaching hours lost. Within reform initiatives, UNRWA has trained us well to lead Education in Emergencies, but we still need to draw on our own person resilience to cope with reliving this scenario over and over again. 

At the United Nations General Assembly the world had shown its love and support to Palestine Refugees and to UNRWA. On the 5th of October, World Teacher’s Day, my heart was pounding again. I’m a refugee serving refugees and nothing will prevent me from creating happy memories for my students. Hope springs eternal!”

To support our #EducationOnTheMove, please retweet and share, and download the Report in November. If you have a similar story to tell about education on the move, please get in touch.

And look out for our next guest-blog from a Refugee Education Co-ordinator, Evi, based in Volos, Greece. She works with Syrian and Iraqi refugees, helping to settle them into their accommodation and preparing their children to attend mainstream Greek-language schools and pre-schools – no easy task.

A teacher remains fiercely committed to her students as UNRWA schools face closure syndicated from https://sapsnkraguide.wordpress.com

[ixvyupdates]

A teacher remains fiercely committed to her students as UNRWA schools face closure

Nesrin Ayoub is the head-teacher of an UNRWA-run girls’ primary school of 450 girls aged 6-16 years in Ein Hilweh Refugee Camp, in Lebanon. All the children are all Palestine refugees from Lebanon and Syria. People in the Ein Hilweh Camp live in harsh conditions of socio-economic challenges and unstable security conditions where armed clashes and riots erupt many times a year.

Nesrin is spearheading our campaign #EducationOnTheMove which tracks migrants and refugees all over the world as they try to access education in their new countries. Its aim is to help us understand the messages in the forthcoming 2019 GEM Report, Migration, displacement and education: Building bridges, not walls, in the context of peoples’ real-life experiences.

She has witnessed stray bullets entering her class when teaching, armed clashes erupting while in school, with the school sometimes hit, and windows smashed. Such riots lead to students being evacuated to shelters, and even helped to escape outside of the camp to seek shelter elsewhere. Schools in the camp shut for several days during the school year.

Today was one of those bad days, where you begin with wonderful activities and end up with evacuation due to random shootings in the ref camp. #NesrinOnTheMove#EducationOnTheMove@UNESCO @GEMReport

— NesrinAyoub (@nalhasan1) October 4, 2018

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Nesrin herself had nightmares from her own childhood experiences until she was 40 years old, and now meets many children traumatized by the fighting. As with the other teachers in the camp, she faces numerous challenges helping the children to come back to school, providing psycho-social support for the children, and covering up for the teaching days lost.

Nesrin’s students are the lucky few. Not only has Nesrin benefitted from psycho-social and emergency training, but as a Palestinian refugee born in the camp she has a natural empathy with them. In this blog she describes some of the ups and downs of the new term.

“On the first day of September my heart was pounding with joy as I crossed the army check point at the entrance of the camp. My primary school had opened its doors for the new academic year, against the odds. It’s no secret that UNRWA is facing an unprecedented funding crisis and it was feared that around 500,000 students who attend its schools across the middle east, (including the students at my school) would be forced to stay home this term, missing out on the education that is their right.

It’s true that some of our classes will be very crowded with up to 45 students or more; but we’ll make the best of the situation. Being a former UNRWA student, and an UNRWA-trained teacher, now a head teacher, I feel indebted to the generosity of the international community and its continuous support to Palestine refugees. This generosity motivates me to work as hard as I can to give students the chance of a better future.” 

As it does every year, UNRWA provided the 450 students at my school (and all other UNRWA schools) with books, stationary, including to all the students from Syria. We are all holding our hopes high that the school will stay open throughout this academic year. The first day went phenomenally well, and on the second day, we held a graduation ceremony for grade nine students who had passed official exams. The celebration was very joyous and was generously funded by the Belgian government. 

But our joy did not last long.  Due to the unstable security situation in the camp, we lost 4 of the 23 days we were supposed to teach to forced closure. And for each day we close, we need another day to restore the sense of normalcy in classes.

We conduct psycho-social support sessions, establish communication trees for emergency communications with parents, reflect on evacuation drills and agree on how to compensate students for the teaching hours lost. Within reform initiatives, UNRWA has trained us well to lead Education in Emergencies, but we still need to draw on our own person resilience to cope with reliving this scenario over and over again. 

At the United Nations General Assembly the world had shown its love and support to Palestine Refugees and to UNRWA. On the 5th of October, World Teacher’s Day, my heart was pounding again. I’m a refugee serving refugees and nothing will prevent me from creating happy memories for my students. Hope springs eternal!”

To support our #EducationOnTheMove, please retweet and share, and download the Report in November. If you have a similar story to tell about education on the move, please get in touch.

And look out for our next guest-blog from a Refugee Education Co-ordinator, Evi, based in Volos, Greece. She works with Syrian and Iraqi refugees, helping to settle them into their accommodation and preparing their children to attend mainstream Greek-language schools and pre-schools – no easy task.

A teacher remains fiercely committed to her students as UNRWA schools face closure syndicated from https://sapsnkraguide.wordpress.com

[ixvyupdates]

A teacher remains fiercely committed to her students as UNRWA schools face closure

Nesrin Ayoub is the head-teacher of an UNRWA-run girls’ primary school of 450 girls aged 6-16 years in Ein Hilweh Refugee Camp, in Lebanon. All the children are all Palestine refugees from Lebanon and Syria. People in the Ein Hilweh Camp live in harsh conditions of socio-economic challenges and unstable security conditions where armed clashes and riots erupt many times a year.

Nesrin is spearheading our campaign #EducationOnTheMove which tracks migrants and refugees all over the world as they try to access education in their new countries. Its aim is to help us understand the messages in the forthcoming 2019 GEM Report, Migration, displacement and education: Building bridges, not walls, in the context of peoples’ real-life experiences.

She has witnessed stray bullets entering her class when teaching, armed clashes erupting while in school, with the school sometimes hit, and windows smashed. Such riots lead to students being evacuated to shelters, and even helped to escape outside of the camp to seek shelter elsewhere. Schools in the camp shut for several days during the school year.

Today was one of those bad days, where you begin with wonderful activities and end up with evacuation due to random shootings in the ref camp. #NesrinOnTheMove#EducationOnTheMove@UNESCO @GEMReport

— NesrinAyoub (@nalhasan1) October 4, 2018

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Nesrin herself had nightmares from her own childhood experiences until she was 40 years old, and now meets many children traumatized by the fighting. As with the other teachers in the camp, she faces numerous challenges helping the children to come back to school, providing psycho-social support for the children, and covering up for the teaching days lost.

Nesrin’s students are the lucky few. Not only has Nesrin benefitted from psycho-social and emergency training, but as a Palestinian refugee born in the camp she has a natural empathy with them. In this blog she describes some of the ups and downs of the new term.

“On the first day of September my heart was pounding with joy as I crossed the army check point at the entrance of the camp. My primary school had opened its doors for the new academic year, against the odds. It’s no secret that UNRWA is facing an unprecedented funding crisis and it was feared that around 500,000 students who attend its schools across the middle east, (including the students at my school) would be forced to stay home this term, missing out on the education that is their right.

It’s true that some of our classes will be very crowded with up to 45 students or more; but we’ll make the best of the situation. Being a former UNRWA student, and an UNRWA-trained teacher, now a head teacher, I feel indebted to the generosity of the international community and its continuous support to Palestine refugees. This generosity motivates me to work as hard as I can to give students the chance of a better future.” 

As it does every year, UNRWA provided the 450 students at my school (and all other UNRWA schools) with books, stationary, including to all the students from Syria. We are all holding our hopes high that the school will stay open throughout this academic year. The first day went phenomenally well, and on the second day, we held a graduation ceremony for grade nine students who had passed official exams. The celebration was very joyous and was generously funded by the Belgian government. 

But our joy did not last long.  Due to the unstable security situation in the camp, we lost 4 of the 23 days we were supposed to teach to forced closure. And for each day we close, we need another day to restore the sense of normalcy in classes.

We conduct psycho-social support sessions, establish communication trees for emergency communications with parents, reflect on evacuation drills and agree on how to compensate students for the teaching hours lost. Within reform initiatives, UNRWA has trained us well to lead Education in Emergencies, but we still need to draw on our own person resilience to cope with reliving this scenario over and over again. 

At the United Nations General Assembly the world had shown its love and support to Palestine Refugees and to UNRWA. On the 5th of October, World Teacher’s Day, my heart was pounding again. I’m a refugee serving refugees and nothing will prevent me from creating happy memories for my students. Hope springs eternal!”

To support our #EducationOnTheMove, please retweet and share, and download the Report in November. If you have a similar story to tell about education on the move, please get in touch.

And look out for our next guest-blog from a Refugee Education Co-ordinator, Evi, based in Volos, Greece. She works with Syrian and Iraqi refugees, helping to settle them into their accommodation and preparing their children to attend mainstream Greek-language schools and pre-schools – no easy task.

A teacher remains fiercely committed to her students as UNRWA schools face closure syndicated from https://sapsnkraguide.wordpress.com