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#I think teens who prefer shorter books & are looking for this sort of thing would still enjoy it for sure. I'll def look out for future boo
aroaessidhe · 2 months
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2024 reads / storygraph
Stuck In Her Head
short contemporary YA coming-of-age set in Hong Kong, following two teen girls who are friends
one is a musical prodigy but has lost her passion and wants to explore different possibilities for her future
the other is passionate about music but dealing with mental health & family issues
the latter develops a crush on the former, who is aroace, and they have to re-navigate their friendship, while working on a music/coding competition project together and dealing with their own issues
#aroaessidhe 2024 reads#stuck in her head#Hm this had a lot of aspects I found interesting but didn’t quite live up to what I wanted it to be#I definitely love reading YA set not in the west - this is set in Hong Kong - and I liked that a lot!#And of course we always need more YA about friendships rather than being romance focused (though this has an unrequited aspect of that)#This is written by 17yos which is cool! though it does show in the prose a bit. There’s a lot of ‘the girl’ ‘the teen’ instead of their nam#Or like informing the reader of info in slightly awkward ways - one visits the other’s house and says “is this the first time I’ve been to#- I feel like there are better ways to tell the reader this. Like that’s not something you wouldn’t be sure about right?#This made it feel like their friendship was quite tentative - school friends who’ve known each other for years but only really#started hanging out properly recently - but the text says they’ve been inseparable for years.#It definitely tackles a lot of things from burnout and perfectionism; losing passion for your talents; parents divorcing; depression#I just think some could have been handled with a bit more depth/nuance; with more space and introspection given to them#especially their main conflict about one having a crush on the aroace and then she pretends to reciprocate bc the other is suicidal and the#the other finds out and gets mad and it's......weirdly drawn out but also barely explored in depth also? idk#definitely anticipated it to be a bit like this because it's written by such young authors it's expected that they're still perfecting thei#I think teens who prefer shorter books & are looking for this sort of thing would still enjoy it for sure. I'll def look out for future boo#bisexual books#aroace books
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oleworm · 8 months
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which book would you recommend for a first time Dostoyevsky reader?
I don't remember if the first one I read was Crime and Punishment or The Brothers Karamazov, but I would say start with one of those two depending on what are your habits and experiences as a reader. I read them both in my late teens, and there were many things that I didn't understand yet though I enjoyed them very much and was impressed that a book could talk about such things (until then what I had mostly read were modern fantasy books, or novels that talked about rebellion in the personal or aesthetic sense, rather than getting into more social themes). If you're used to reading long books I would say either, but if you want to read something shorter start with Crime and Punishment. Otherwise you might get a little impatient because it starts with a narration of the life of the family, and I think it's three or four chapters or so? I don't remember. I like this sort of writing where they first outline who is who and what are their relationships, but I know that some people don't care for this old-fashioned style.
I don't think it's necessary to have a prior in-depth knowledge of Russian history or Christianity; Dostoyevsky himself explains or hints at a lot of things, and if he mentions something that makes you curious you can look it up as you're reading. For example he talks a lot about Slavophiles and Westernisers, which were roughly the philosophical and political ideologies that were in fashion at the time. It's obvious which of these trends he prefers, but he doesn't present the arguments of the other side dishonestly. When I read about them myself, later on, I didn't feel that they were something all that new to me because Dostoyevsky had already provided a decent introduction.
The one that I'd say not to start with is Demons or The Possessed (it's one book, but the title has been translated in different ways). If I weren't a die-hard reader of Dostoyevsky who was invested in him personally I think I would have liked it even less. Other people can disagree with me, but in my opinion this is a book that fails by trying to be two things at once -- one is the typical society novel where one is supposed to be preoccupied by the relative social standing of the families of a town, there is a lot of talk about marriage and what constitutes a proper match, some characters that are not very interesting in themselves or the situations they're involved in but have to be there because they're what is considered in society to be an ideal future wife or husband. This could be a point in itself, but there are other books that do it much better. The other part of the book is a discussion on social philosophy in Russia, an explanation of the opposing ideologies that are to decide the future of the country, though there are some interpretations that are exaggerations on Dostoyevsky's part. This side of the story is interesting from a historical perspective, considering events that developed in the decades that followed, but I spent the book wishing that all of it had been about that. If you start with this one you'll think he sucks. And well, he had some controversial views, that much is true, but if you start with this one you'd think he was bad at writing.
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cescalr · 2 years
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1: give short descriptions of all your current WIPs; 7: what books have shaped the way you think about writing the most? why?
1; I actually can't do that, I've got 40 of the damn things :)))) this is fine. Um, okay. Short fire round of the ones I can currently recall;
marrige proposal ron/harry au, multiple time travel fics for teen wolf, one for the MCU and one for Merlin BBC. fleur/malia crossover fanfic. polyam based au fanfic for buffy circa s3. shield agent Stiles au. steo au in s5. claysmond soulmate fic. alternate sorting fic series year 2. spiderman ron total conversion AU. PlayerCharacter!Ron AU (Gamer!Fic like you used to see on FFN a lot.) Reading the books crossover fic, HP/Riordanverse/Supernatural. SPN/Buffy crossover fic, John = Xander's bio dad. Percy Rebels and Shit au co-written with viv. uhhhh others too- anyway-
7; hmm. i mean, likely the ones I read as a kid. you know, Harry Potter, Beast Quest, Chronicles of Narnia, His Dark Materials, The Graveyard Book, The Gift, Maximum Ride, Code Breakers, Books of Beginning, Riordan's works in the mythological revamping strain. hell, even My Sister the Vampire, Jinxed, The Mediator, and all that sort of thing, probably. Books I had to read for school, like The Last Samurai, and that one i keep forgetting the name of (Cosmic?) where the kid went to space and at the end of the book he was a little shorter than he'd been before he went up and it was like, something about his character arc being represented... i don't remember. I liked that one. But, I mean, I've read a lot of books. They all sort of blend together. Secret Garden was something I remember liking. But I don't know, I think... shaping the way I think of writing, I mean, that would require me to think of it in any particular way? I'm not a very - good writer in that my whole thing about is just... do it. Like, I just sit there and i type and words are on a page. I don't really think about it. It's kind of bad practise. I'm not very reflective as a rule, at least about fiction. Sure, there's probably more to the curtains being blue, but I don't always want to read into it, you know? Like, yeah, okay, maybe they represent, I don't know, a desire for freedom or something, but also maybe I just want to think the person who decorated the room thought they were pretty. And that thinking they were pretty isn't any deeper, doesn't have any philosophical roots - just a colour preference. I like symbolism and parallels and themes and all that. But it can get kind of exhausting sometimes when I just want to read a story. The way I look at it is this; anyone can take anything from any book, regardless of intention. Half the time, the author doesn't have to do anything in particular, and people will still ascribe it specific meaning. No two interpretations are exactly the same unless you're just regurgitating what someone else has said. There's nuance, always, in the individual approach. At the same time, there are correct and incorrect ways of interpreting a book. A book that clearly states 'murder is bad' and then shows that murder is bad by having murder happen and then consequences occur should not in any way somehow make someone come away with the interpretation that they should go around committing murder all day because it's great, actually. Sometimes, there is an objective wrong or right answer. I don't believe in subjective reality; I drop an apple, it falls to the ground, and for everyone else the same happens. So, in turn, there must also be objective truths. In that sense, writing has objectively right and objectively wrong methods of application. But I don't think about it very much. I said I'm not very philosophical, and it's true - once we get to this point, my brain sort of checks out of the conversation. So, back to less existential things; part of writing for me is the feeling. The writing of a book doesn't work for me if it doesn't Flow Right. I think I might've learned some bad habits from what I've read, because people in my degree keep telling me I have run on sentences. And that's true, I'll admit. I tend not to like shorter ones; they don't feel right. Too short. Stilted. Weird. I only like to apply them in certain circumstances; when I want people to feel that same weird. short. stiltedness. That i feel when I read them. Full stops make me pause. It's a stop. A comma, on the other hand, feels freer, like you're just taking a moment to digest and then carry on. But what do I know? I'm a student. Half the time, I don't even read the course books.
I'm not a very good student.
But yeah. I guess I took away what I liked and what I disliked. I like certain kinds of formatting. I like certain kinds of structure. I like certain kinds of perspective. I like certain kinds of plots, characters, dynamics. And I use those things while avoiding what I found I couldn't get behind. In a way, I guess, it all made me think of writing in a very much 'to each his own' kind of way. One man's trash is another man's treasure, and all that. I can say a book is objectively bad, and still perfectly enjoyable for what it is. Just because you like something doesn't mean it's of good quality. It just means you like it.
Speaking of which, I was one of the people who read twilight. I don't like it anymore, obviously. But there's still a large print copy of breaking dawn on my bookshelf. Everything you read is a part of your literary history. It all has a certain influence. You can thank Doctor Who for my fondness for time travel, you can thank My Sister the Vampire and Twilight (and Young Dracula and The Vampire Diaries and My Babysitter the Vampire, but those are shows) for my fondness for the vampire archetype. And you can thank Books of Beginning and Harry Potter and Chronicles of Narnia and His Dark Materials and Jinxed and The Mediator for my fondness for fantasy. And you can thank Beast Quest for my love of friendship dynamics and my annoyance at shipping every m/f pair of friends that ever cross the page everyone seems to do even when they're not like that. And they're kids. You can also thank most of these being about kids read by me, as a kid/pre-teen/teen growing up to want more stories about adults doing the world saving because, damn do these kids suck at making good decisions. Maybe we shouldn't be putting the fate of the world on the shoulders of people without fully developed brains. Probably actually the worst idea we've had so far. Keys to the Kingdom and Chronicles of Narnia, in a roundabout way, is probably why I've got a certain worldbuilding/series project on the backburner. Abrahamic stuff, man. It's everywhere.
I do occasionally do some original fiction, these days, as a result of my degree and wanting to test the waters. I haven't posted anything there yet, but once the blog's done, @cesca-creates will be where my worldbuilding and stuff I don't want to publish is stored.
Another thing, I guess, is that I think stories should be shared. Always, forever, and to everyone. Archival is very important. Nothing should ever be lost to something as simple as time, especially nowadays with all the technology we've got knocking around.
(Speaking of which, once my degree is over, I'll be posting all the stuff I've written for it online... somewhere. We'll see where. One or two pieces may be omitted because i might want to make actual books out of them. But we'll see.)
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lycorogue · 3 years
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Thoughts about episode “Lie”
Okay. Here we are. This is back to the better writing I was talking about the other day. I love me parallel stories, so this was just *chef kiss* in that department. 
Before I delve into my thoughts on the episode itself, I want to take a step back and talk about my views of the non-love-square ships Lukanette and Adrigami. (Feel free to skip ahead; I have a header for when I start talking about this episode again)
Lukanette and Adrigami
For me, Marinette and Luka had romantic chemistry from the word go. As much of a Marichat shipper as I am, I knew that if anyone could make Marinette forget about Adrien, it wouldn’t have been Chat Noir. It would be Luka. Chat Noir would then come in at a close 3rd (a bit ironically) when it comes to Marinette’s heart. Meanwhile, Kagami slowly grew to have a crush on Adrien post-Riposte, and then charged forward knowing exactly who she wanted. On the flipside, though, I stand firm that there wasn’t really much romantic interest coming from Adrien. If anyone was going to make Adrien forget about Ladybug, it would be Marinette; not Kagami.
The episode “Frozer” - the one where Kagami makes her crush known for the first time, and Adrien first attempts dating her - practically gives us some foreshadowing of their entire relationship. Aside from clearly finding Kagami attractive (as showcased by the pink-bubbles-vision when Adrien first sees her sans-helmet in “Riposte”), he doesn’t seem to have any romantic inclination towards Kagami until after she cups his cheek and lets him know, in not so many words, that she likes him. Even so, it isn’t until Marinette basically gives the thumbs up that he should pursue this relationship does he give it a try. He’s still very uncomfortable around her, and only gets a bit more comfortable in “Animaestro”; probably because he’s seen his father around Kagami’s mom and just mimics that (as seen in “Backwarder”). Going back to “Frozer” though, Adrien spends most of his time with Kagami watching Marinette, and even abandons Kagami in favor of checking in on Marinette - something Luka could have easily done and probably doesn’t because he sees Adrien already on it and knows Marinette would prefer Adrien’s comfort. So Luka doesn’t push the issue. That whole ice rink interaction shows that, while Luka trumps Chat Noir as a potential alternative love interest for Marinette, Marinette still surpasses Kagami as a potential alternative love interest for Adrien. This, for me, is again hinted at in the episode Heart Hunter where, while enjoying himself seemingly equally with both girls, there’s just these little hints - complimenting Marinette more than Kagami, asking Marinette to choose the ice cream - that, at least subconsciously, Adrien is leaning a touch more towards Marinette over Kagami. His heart just isn’t all that into this relationship. This is again showcased in the New York special when Adrien (at least in the English dub; I haven’t watched it in other languages) asks Marinette to dance with him with an almost pleading tone in his voice. (To be fair, clearly Marinette isn’t thinking of Luka at all during that trip either...)
I think the final Foreshadowing nail in the Adrigami coffin is this dialogue from “Frozer”:
Kagami: “You still keep doing what other people want you to do.” Adrien: “No, I just want him to be happy.”
In the end, Adrien did the same thing with Kagami: he did what he thought would make her happy because he’s a people pleaser to his core.
Adrien of course found Kagami attractive and fun to hang out with. She was a fantastic companion, and I love their companionship so much. However, I feel like he dated her mostly because he knew he had to find some way of getting over Ladybug, and here’s this pretty girl who clearly has a thing for him, so why not???? Their parents were practically setting them up as a couple anyway, between the trip to the royal wedding and the movie premiere. Plus, this “approved” friend meant he could spend more time outside of his father’s house while genuinely enjoying the company. Win-win. He then did all the pseudo-dating stuff he’s clearly witnessed in media; kind of following a play-book as it were. 
However, he never did anything even remotely romantic or flirty towards Kagami that was on par with his romantic gestures and flirtations towards Ladybug (or even Marinette, for that matter). His love language is obvious after watching him with Ladybug, and he uses some of that same language (albeit subconsciously... probably...) while interacting with Marinette. Things like leaning in playfully (ending of “Troublemaker” and when asking Marinette for a macaron in “Despair Bear”), sharing a romantic picnic (“Glaciator”) even if it was just to cheer Marinette up, winking (the endless winking in too many episodes to list here), whispering in her ear (“Despair Bear” and one other that I can’t recall right now), Soft SmilesTM (“Chameleon”, pretty much all of the NY special, tons of season 3 episodes), confessing insecurities or secrets (“Gamer” and “Gorizilla”), or asking her to dance (“Despair Bear” and “NY Special”). I’m sure there’s tons more and each example has more episodes it’s showcased in, but you get the idea. Alternatively, Adrien just never used that same love language with Kagami. With her it all felt like calculated moves; it was expected of him to lean in for the kiss in “Heart Hunter” and “Miracle Queen”, or wipe away the smudge of ice cream by Kagami’s mouth, so he did it. Aside from his protectiveness and care for Kagami in “Onichan”, Adrien never really treated Kagami any different than his other friends.
Marinette, on the other hand, does show some of her love language towards Luka. She blushes around him and does that bashful little shoulder shrug. She makes excuses to touch his arms, hands, chest, or back. She literally leans on him. She has an interest in his interests and even goes above and beyond for gifts, such as the necklace (yay; Luka looks so good in a necklace!) and, unofficially, the contract with Bob Roth for Kitty Section. 
Granted, she doesn’t flirt with Luka like she does with Chat Noir, but, as someone who also used to flirt with my guy friends without truly realizing the romantic implications (I was a disaster as a teen, okay?), I don’t know if Marinette has truly realized how flirting is part of her love language. If she is anything like I was, flirting is more a fun past-time to see if you could get a rise out of someone in some sort of sextual-tension game of chicken or something. It’s not something you do with someone you have serious feelings for. 😝
Back to Kagami though. I want to stress that, while I didn’t see any romantic future for Adrigami, I do still very much like Kagami and appreciated the character development the writers gave her. I love her as one of Marinette’s potential friends and, as I mentioned, a companion for Adrien. I just never saw any romantic interest coming from Adrien towards Kagami. He never even truly seemed himself around her the way he is around Ladybug or Marinette. I don’t think he’s comfortable enough to not be Textbook BoyfriendTM around Kagami. He even mentions in this episode that him being a clown IS the real him and she calls bullshit (although @gale-gentlepenguin​ does have some nice commentary on how even that wasn’t exactly truthful and Kagami was right to call him out). Point being, Adrien loves to be nerdy and goofy and playful, and she just doesn’t get that????? A lot of what Adrien likes she seems to dismiss.
I’m sorry, Adrigami shippers. There could have been potential there as these two grew, but as it stood? I just didn’t see it.
The Episode “Lie”
Going back to my thoughts on “Lie” though with all of that above commentary for context. I just feel a bit cheated that Clearly-There’s-Mutual-Pining Lukanette gets ONE kiss lean-in for the whole “love rival” arc they’ve had set up for 1.5 seasons before the relationship implodes, but Clearly-Only-One-Has-Feelings-And-The-Other-Is-Just-Kinda-Going-Along-With-It-Because-Hey-He-Likes-Hanging-Out-With-Her-And-She’s-Cute-So-Why-Not Adrigami has THREE kiss lean-ins in THIS ONE EPISODE ALONE (not to mention the 2 from Heart Hunter/Miracle Queen)!? Like I said, I feel a bit robbed, but... well fed, Adrigami shippers, I guess...
Anyway, my heart hurts so much because yes, Kagami deserves someone who will take the time to be with her (just like how Luka deserves the same), but also, it’s not like Adrien WANTED to abandon her (much like Marinette not wanting to abandon Luka). These poor kids. All four of them. My heart breaks. 😢
I did feel a much stronger emotional gut-punch with this episode, which is surprising because a) we already saw a good 5-10 min of it in “Truth” so this episode was essentially shorter than the premiere, and b) I’m a much stronger Lukanette shipper than an Adrigami shipper (see above). So, bravo to the writers on this episode. I hate that this team broke so many hearts, but this is the caliber of writing I was hoping for. 
(I know Marinette is the Guardian, but can we agree to have more Adrien-centric stories, please? They’re just so good).
My final thoughts though: WHY ON EARTH DID THE WRITERS EVEN BOTHER WITH THE “LOVE SQUARE RIVALS” STORY LINE IF THEY WEREN’T GOING TO FOLLOW THROUGH!? ADRIGAMI AND LUKANETTE FINALLY GET TOGETHER AFTER 1.5 SEASONS ONLY FOR THE RELATIONSHIPS TO BE DOA BASICALLY THE NEXT EPISODE!? WHY!? TO RESET THE STATUS QUO THEY WORKED SO HARD TO SHAKE UP!? I already talked Friday about the lost story potential with Lukanette, but there’s also a lot Adrien could have learned from his relationship with Kagami. 
Adrien is still VERY vocal about his love, and, while he has learned a lot, matured a lot, and has eased up a lot, Adrien does still semi-burden Ladybug with his feelings; something Luka never did to Marinette. Adrien, possibly due to witnessing his parents - I have theories about the romance dynamic between Emilie and Gabriel - seems to have this view of love being okay even if unbalanced. Ladybug is far more powerful and crucial to the protection of Paris, but they are still partners and equals in their eyes. So maybe he feels the same about love; he may be more romantically devoted to her, but as long as Ladybug loves him even a little, it’s like they’re equals in romance... right???? So... yeah, a more balanced relationship with Kagami could have taught him how important a romantic balance is as well. Plus, if I am right in my assumption that he just kind of went along with the relationship because he thought it was expected, then he could have also learned something about being a people-pleaser. There was a lot of growth potential for both Marinette and Adrien in these non-love-square relationships, and it just feels squandered.
Also, as I mentioned with my review of “Truth”, I’m fearing that the writers are kind of railroading the Ladynoir ship. First, there’s Marinette realizing that she can’t have a boyfriend because he wouldn’t be safe, nor could she be truthful to him about why their time was so limited. The exception being Chat Noir, who can very much protect himself (except for when he’s shielding Ladybug, but she yelled at him for that in “Lie”), and she can be fully honest with him as long as it doesn’t involve their identities, and he very much knows and understands their time restrictions. In fact, he even goes so far as to state that ANY time with her is a gift he cherishes. He’s basically the perfect boyfriend for her in her situation; she just needs to be lonely enough to “realize” it. >3> On the Adrien side of things, Kagami tells him that she can’t trust someone who isn’t honest with her, but there’s Ladybug: fully understanding and completely trusts him even when she knows he’s lying. She also doesn’t fault him for their lack of time together and understands if he needs to run away without a moment’s notice. He’s already in love with her, but this whole situation just paints her even more as the perfect romantic partner for him. I get it, but I also hate it. I hate this feeling of this one corner of the love square being railroaded. It basically dismisses the other 3 corners as possibilities right alongside the Lukanette and Adrigami ships.
All that grumbling aside, I would like to give some applause to how the episode ended. I very much enjoyed that Kagami was like, “nope. You lied to me, and I can’t trust you, so we can’t be friends. I need time away from you. I’ll let you know if we’re ever okay again.” It shows the consequences of playing with someone’s emotions, even if under the best intentions. It also shows that it’s perfectly okay to cut out toxic relationships, even if the other person didn’t intend any harm. Well-intentioned people can still cause toxic relationships, and if you need to step away from them (as Kagami did), then you are completely valid in that decision. It’s an important lesson for kids to learn, I think. I’m just worried that Kagami brushing off even being Adrien’s friend (while justified) might mean not really seeing her in the show anymore, and that would be a shame. 😟 I do enjoy her as a character, and would love to see more of her growth. Plus, she is so limited in social interactions as-is, so I hope we see more Kagami and Marinette friendship growth.
I am also interested in how Adrien reacts to the knowledge that he can indeed ruin his friendships with people if they aren’t in the same emotional space. This is most likely what’s preventing Marinette from confessing: fear that Adrien will reject her so severely that he might not even want to be her friend anymore. So having Adrien now possibly have that fear as well has some interesting story potential (if the writers don’t drop the ball like they did with the Lukanette/Adrigami ships). Meanwhile, having a dejected Luka still offering friendship and support to Marinette - something clearly Adrien assumed would happen with Kagami; once a friend, always a friend - might give her the confidence to confess to Adrien, now trusting that they are good enough friends and he’s a kind enough person that they can still remain friends even if he doesn’t return her feelings.
There’s a lot of potential birthed from these opening episodes, but especially from “Lie” and I’m interested to see what the rest of the season is going to look like now.
Also... ARE WE SURE THAT LUCKY CHARM BRACELET IS ACTUALLY LUCKY!? IT’S BEEN THE HIDING SPOT FOR AN AKUMA TWICE NOW!
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adulttrio-imagines · 5 years
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Hello~ if you'd like I'm interested in the numbers 1, 14, 28 for the headcanons post for Hisoka and Chrollo? Just followed because of those adorable and well thought baby headcanons. Thank you
This might be a repost, I’ll delete the previous post if it is. But I’m glad you like them! They were really fun to write and I might work on a part 2 in the future. Thanks for following, and keep sending in asks :)
1. How do they feel about people shorter/taller than them?
Hisoka
I don’t think he is particularly fussy about height. It doesn’t have much influence over how strong someone actually is/how much potential they might have, so he couldn’t care less about the height of others. I can see him being riled up easier when challenged by people much taller than him, like a head or so. He is already pretty tall, so finding others who are taller than him would be something different. The added height would also add to the satisfaction when he crushes them, I can see him gleefully breaking the pride/confidence of people larger than him, since the process of destroying them becomes so much fun when you include their already large ego.
As for his s/o, the same rules would apply, although I can see him preferring someone on shorter side. Someone who barely reaches his chin would be optimum, since he gets to tease them by withholding affection or putting stuff out of their reach. It would also be easier to manhandle them if they ever got too out of hand, and I think he likes the predator/prey thing that would come with a small s/o.
Chrollo
I can see him being quite insecure about his height during his teens/early twenties. The man is 5’8 and dwarfed by so many other troupe members who seem like giants in comparison. But he is older now and that means coming to terms with being comfortable with your own skin, so he has accepted his stature and learned to appreciate his other physical features. Like Hisoka, he isn’t particularly bothered by height much as it never reflects skill, but he does take their build into consideration to predict their fighting style. I can see him being a little annoyed with people on either extreme of the scale since he would have to crane his neck so much just to look at them, and its just an inconvenience. In general, he kinda sees variation in height as troublesome.
He would prefer a s/o who is around his height. They can be slightly taller or shorter than him, either way I always imagine him being a little spoon. He does pretend to like being the big spoon at the start of the relationship, but you would soon come to learn he likes being the little spoon a lot more. His s/o would also be someone he sees as his equal, and what better way to represent that than by being around the same size?
28. What’s their morning schedule?
Hisoka
This man may look like a fox, but he is a cat through and through. He either gets up at the butt crack of dawn or at noon, no in between. It doesn’t help that he is more of a napper. If he has the time and the situation allows it, I can imagine him going around completely naked in his apartment with the TV on in the background, fixing himself something easy, like cereal and a cup of black coffee, as he just lazes around and troll people on social media. If he feels like it, he may wander around Heavens arena and scout new contestants after a few cups of coffee, but I always imagine him to prefer cooler weather so he most likely won’t go out into the street until the evening. In the event that he has an s/o, I can see him pestering them into making him a big, fancy breakfast with waffles, bacon and the works, and proceed to make a mess of himself, turn breakfast into lunch and complain about the food, because that is just the type of person he is.
Chrollo
Chrollo does not have a stable sleeping schedule, let’s just get that out. One look at the man and you can tell that he hasn’t been able to sleep longer than four hours a day in the past ten years. I see him getting up really, really early, when everyone else would be sleeping. If he can, he would definitely try to get something to eat, preferably healthy and feeling and bland, like oats or plain whole wheat toast, along with some warm earl grey tea. After which, I can see him getting into a good book, or if a troupe member is awake, make some small talk with them and plan their next big scheme. He tries to make himself as busy as he can. There are days where he wakes up and gets into really dark moods, and it gets dangerous for him to be in that state, especially if he is alone. It’s those days where he needs to go for morning walks to stop himself from spiraling into his own thoughts. If he has a s/o though, I see him being the type to either just stare at their face for hours, or stay with them and read, not leaving until they wake up, it’s easier to deal with those thoughts when there’s a warm hand in his.
14. What is enough to bring them to tears?
Hisoka
I want to go with what Togashi has given us thus far and say that Hisoka does not cry. He’s unflappable and seems to pick himself right back up and move on to his next goal. But that won’t cut it.
So I would say it’s extreme, pent up frustration. The only way I can see him cry is that he doesn’t get to exact his revenge on the troupe and is soundly defeated by them, even worse if it doesn’t take long. The humiliation of being so easily beaten wouldn’t sit well with him and seeing how he tried so hard to outsmart them only to lose once again, that would definitely be his breaking point. To him, that would be a fate worse than death. And to add insult to injury, he is crying in his last moments, in front of his “prey”, which makes the whole situation worse.
What would make him cry is possibly not getting what he wants, in an extreme sense. He has a very childlike mindset in that way, he does what he wants and skirts responsibilities. His revenge on the troupe is basically an upscale temper tantrum. He is the king of compartmentalizing, he never acknowledges things he doesn’t want to, but those feelings can spill over, and when they do, it takes a lot of time for him to calm down. He is not a loud crier, but the type to shed silent tears, curse quietly and maybe punch a wall or two down. Once those tears start, it pours.
It can be safely assumed that he isn’t the crying type, even as a child, and I don’t think that really changed much as an adult.
Chrollo
We all know the man can cry. We’ve seen it with Uvo’s death. He has a soft spot for the troupe, so anything related to them, like a member dying would definitely cause him to shed tears. I headcanon Chrollo to have been a very sensitive child who was forced to grow up too fast in an unkind world. He was a soft-hearted and gentle child, who learned early that he had to sacrifice those parts of himself just to survive. In a different world this wouldn’t have happened, but what ifs never solve anything, so he is now a man who threw away his humanity and shows it only to his closest companions. He is a functioning crier, I can see him hunting someone and acting as though nothing happened with tears in his eyes.
The only way I can see him having a full out, anguished, fall to his knees sort of cry is for him to lose the whole troupe, especially if it was done all at once. The shock of losing his whole family in such a short frame of time would definitely cause him to sink into despair. Imagine the additional guilt if he were the reason they all died. On the other hand, killing them off one by one would be far more painful as he would be planning on how to save each of them, only to have them killed right under his grasp. No matter how hard he tried, or what he thought of, he wouldn’t be able to save them. I can imagine him just break down in one of the places the troupe used to hang around, reminiscing all the times he spent together with them, just wrecked with grief.
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dogbearinggifts · 5 years
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Little Tyrants, Chapter Two: Worth the Whiskey
Rating: Teen and up
Summary: When Vanya was four, Reginald Hargreeves visited her cell. But not to take her powers away. Just to let her know he could. Just to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that her powers were a privilege he could rescind should she ever choose not to fall in line.
Years later, the old man is dead—and the last sibling Vanya wants to see has reappeared in the Academy courtyard.
This work is also available on AO3.
Prologue  Chapter One 
Author’s note: Sorry this chapter took so long, everyone. I’d hoped to update more frequently, but life intervened and…well, here we are. If you’d like to read the asks that inspired this story, you can find them here and here, as well as under the tags “vanya keeps her powers au” and “five returns as a kid au.” 
This chapter title is adapted from Cole Swindell’s song “Ain’t Worth the Whiskey.” 
***********
“You okay here?” 
“Yeah.” 
Luther opened his arms slightly, and Five slid to the floor. Klaus had never considered, in the sixteen years he’d been missing, just how small Five was. Not that the fact itself had eluded him—old pictures resurfaced in tabloids or narrative magazines from time to time, proving they’d all been a hell of a lot shorter back when they were still in Dad’s clutches—but it hadn’t struck him as something worth noticing when he’d stumbled into the courtyard. Now, watching him glance around in bewilderment beside a twin nearly twice his height, Klaus couldn’t think about much else. 
“Where’s Mom?” Luther asked. “Thought you were gonna get her.” 
“I—” The rest of Diego’s retort collapsed when he saw who was—and wasn’t—in the kitchen. “Shit. Mom!” 
They’d lost Allison somewhere between the courtyard and the kitchen, when she’d announced her intent to get some towels. Luther had carried Five in, cradled in his arms lest walking worsen whatever condition led him to collapse in the courtyard. Diego jogged out of the kitchen, retracing their steps through the corridor in search of the one who could provide some guidance. Klaus stood by the sink and racked his brain for something, anything he could say. 
Five wasn’t wearing his Academy uniform. Not unexpected—he’d never been fond of those starched collars and plaid sweater vests—but he’d always joked about replacing that uniform with everything from jeans and a T-shirt to a tuxedo paired with evening gloves and a billowing cape. Maybe it was the leftover high or the cognac haze clouding his thoughts, but Klaus couldn’t conjure a single reason why Five might have paired scuffed boots and a heavy jacket with sturdy jeans and a pair of aviator-style goggles around his neck.
“You, uh, you need anything?” Luther asked. 
Five shrugged. To say he had always smiled before his disappearance would be a misstatement. He’d frowned. He’d grouched. He’d cried for the minute or two it took to realize he’d been seen, the second or two it took for his face to twist and for him to slink off down the hall. But there had always been a glimmer of mischief behind those eyes, a flicker within his expression. Whether harsh with fury or gentle with laughter, Klaus couldn’t recall a time when that light had gone out. 
Until now. 
“Klaus, could you get him some water?” 
Somewhere toward the back of his mind, a flicker of irritation sparked to life. Luther had come up with the idea. Luther knew what he wanted done. Luther could get the damn water himself. But the annoyance was dim to begin with, and died with another glance at Five dripping rainwater onto the tile. Without a word, Klaus went to the cupboard and retrieved a glass. 
Allison brushed past before the glass was completely full; and by the time he turned around, Five was reaching for a towel from the stack Allison carried. She plucked one and shook it out as though to dry him off herself; then, with a small and apologetic smile, she placed it in Five’s hands. Klaus set the glass on the table, fought again for something to say, gave up and snagged a towel instead. 
He needed another drink. 
He couldn’t carry Five up to his room or calm him with four small words. He couldn’t run a few tests and determine what had happened and what Five needed to recover, and he wasn’t the one headed off to corral the one who could chart a course for the healing process. Getting a glass from the cupboard and filling it with water was about the extent of Klaus’ contributions, and he’d done that already. No one would notice if he headed upstairs and went to town on the liquor cabinet. Allison might say something if he popped a pill or two right then and there, but she wouldn’t cause a scene. It would be expected from him. 
The longer he watched Five sip from the glass he’d poured, the more he needed to leave. The longer he watched, the less he wanted to leave. 
“Where’s Vanya?” 
That was from Luther, naturally. Klaus couldn’t say when or how he’d forgotten Vanya’s feelings toward her family, but maybe the Moon erased memories. “Where do you think she is?” 
“I don’t know, Klaus. That’s why I asked.” 
Klaus hadn’t seen her separate from their group, wasn’t sure if she’d split off before or after Allison had gone off for towels, but the relative peace in the kitchen should have been enough to let Luther know her absence was not to be questioned. “Well, if we’re lucky, maybe she’ll just stay…wherever the hell she is. Oh! You think we could camp out down here? Roast some marshmallows, sing a couple songs? O Vanya, please stay away from us….” 
Impromptu performances like that tended to earn flat looks and rolled eyes from  most of his siblings, and threats from Vanya, but he’d hoped it might raise at least a small smile from Five. No dice. Five looked down into his glass, holding it in both hands, without so much as a hint of a smile or a chuckle. 
Nice going. Allison didn’t say it. She didn’t need to, with the amount of impatience and contempt she crammed into that one glance. He’d messed up, said exactly the wrong thing at just the wrong time, and there was no recovering, no going back. 
Of course, he’d known as much before that look of hers. No need to drive it home with the glare of death. 
“Well, fine.” Klaus stepped forward, opening a cupboard. A canister of rolled oats was the first thing he saw, and so a canister of rolled oats was what he grabbed. “If you fine folks don’t appreciate good performance art like an audience with sense, I shall take my leave.” 
Giving his coat the most dramatic swish he could manage, Klaus strode out the door. 
*********
If liquor preference was a personality trait, then Dad’s taste was one of his few redeeming qualities. 
Like most objects in the Academy, Dad’s alcohol supply was less an amassing of ingredients and more of a collection. Port and sherry shared a shelf with more varieties of red wine than Vanya cared to count, more types of white than she wanted to taste. Not that she opposed wine on principle, but the sight of so many bottles and so many shades, each promising a different flavor and composition and all the other things wine junkies raved about, brought a twinge of embarrassment when she remembered the five-gallon box she’d purchased because it was red and she’d bought white last time. 
But then, nobody could tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine anyway. She wasn’t unrefined. Just honest. 
Vanya turned from the wines and toward those promising a shorter path toward inebriation. A half-empty bottle of tequila and a nearly full bottle of mezcal sat a few inches from peppermint schnapps and two different types of rum. Closer to her sat scotches and bourbons nestled beside the whiskeys. 
Every label bore the name of a place she knew. Scotland. Jalisco. Kentucky. Each name conjured up a different image, borrowed from a different mission with a different objective and outcome. Dad had sent her and she’d gone in, done what the situation demanded of her, and left with snatches of scenery she liked and memories she didn’t. Each city had its own personality, but there came a point when they blended into each other, leaving her uncertain whether El Paso or Tucson had the hotel with a mosaic tile entrance, or if it was Paris or Amsterdam with the houses she liked. Glances through the sort of books ordinary people kept on their coffee tables cleared a few things up, but there were better things to do than relive what only Dad would call the glory days. 
Behind the Canadian whiskeys, and between those boasting an origin in Tennessee, was a single bottle announcing itself as Wyoming Whiskey in no-nonsense letters. After a moment’s study, Vanya poured herself a glass. If she was going to try and erode unwanted memories old and new, a drink from a place she’d never visited seemed the best way to start. 
Footsteps approached sometime after the end of the first drink and the beginning of the second. Vanya downed the rest in a few quick swallows. If it was Diego coming to tell her off for not being there for Five, she’d need to steel herself; if it was Five himself, she’d need to clear her glass for another pour. 
Klaus rounded a corner, skirt swishing about his ankles as he came to a halt. It had been some months since she’d seen him, and then out in the open and at a distance. Perhaps that was why he seemed thinner than she remembered, collarbone protruding above his bare chest, feathered cuffs dangling over too-slender wrists. He’d tucked an open canister of rolled oats into the crook of one arm; a few oats slipped from his clenched fist and fluttered to the floor. He let out a laugh when he saw her, as though she’d made a joke. As though he were happy to see her. 
Vanya added twice the recommended amount to her glass. 
“Well, well, well.” He let his handful of oats fall back into the canister and sauntered forward—she couldn’t tell if he was staggering or not—and set the oats on the counter. “And here I thought I was the only one breaking into Dear Old Dad’s liquor cabinet.” 
Vanya sniffed. Klaus’ presence demanded she down the whole glass in one swallow, pain be damned, but she settled for a sip. “I’m not breaking into anything. It’s right out in the open.” 
Klaus had a way of moving like a slinky, swaying one direction only to fold himself around a corner and past whatever obstructed his path. In one stride, maybe two, he was behind the bar, hand on a bottle of bourbon. “Amazing there’s anything left.” 
“Yeah, with you around.” 
Within seconds, Klaus’ glass held more bourbon than it should have. Not quite as much as hers—but if he’d had to cope with someone like him, he’d have ditched the glass and drank straight from the bottle. “Oh, right, ‘cause I’m the one who ran up here to get drunk soon as everybody was in the house.” 
“And you were completely sober when I got here.” 
There was that laugh again, the infuriating giggle that made her want to send a bottle of vodka crashing onto his head. “You really think I’m gonna do a family reunion without a little help?” He took a swallow of bourbon. “Figured you’d get it.” 
Vanya’s fingers tightened on the glass. She wasn’t like him. This world he’d constructed in his head, where she was just a shadow of what he was—it was a fantasy. He spent his days wandering the streets or bouncing from rehab to rehab. She worked, and the money she brought in went toward her apartment, her clothes, her food. She spent her days coaching kids through basic chords, cooking and cleaning, playing in the city’s orchestra. She wouldn’t have earned first chair if she’d devoted what remained of her life to the next fix. 
A high, sharp noise commanded her attention. Looking took only a second, but by the time she did, the glass had cracked beneath her fingers, webs of spindly lines spreading out and up. Another side effect of Klaus’ presence. 
“I think you should leave now.” 
Klaus downed half his liquor in one swallow, planting the glass firmly on the counter. A few drops came close to splashing out, but the counter remained dry. “I think you need another drink, if you’re just gonna get your panties in a twist over everything.” 
He was needling her, poking her skin over and over until he found what caused the most pain. For what, she couldn't say. Perhaps he was so enamored with Five’s return that he simply could not comprehend why she hadn’t followed to the kitchen to wait on him hand and foot. Perhaps he was still angry over her last refusal to let him crash at her place. That had been years ago, but Klaus was just the sort to hold a grudge for that long. 
She could lash back, with words or force. A few sharp retorts already came to mind, but they might not land the way they should. Klaus’ quest to rid himself of powers Dad had never thought to take from him had apparently robbed him of his faculties, if his incessant giggling was any indication, and there was little point in an insult that slid off like water from a tarp. The Academy had never been a noisy place, but what few sounds there were—air rushing through the vents, the creaking of old boards—already tempted her. 
And Klaus remained, with no trace of fear. 
“I’ve had kind of a rough day,” she said, setting the cracked glass in the sink slowly and deliberately, so as not to throw it the way she longed to. 
Klaus’s mouth formed a round O of mock surprise and he clapped his hands to his cheeks. “Me too! Weird, huh? Us both having the worst day ever at the same time?” 
Vanya clenched her teeth. He was like the cockroaches at a place she’d lived, one of the few complexes she was grateful to be blacklisted from. Lay out traps and they’d skirt around them. Stomp on them and they’d avoid your boot. Spray them with Raid and they’d roll onto their backs long enough, only long enough, to make you think you’d won. Long enough to make their swift return all the more infuriating. “I don’t want to break anything worse than a glass, is all I’m saying.” 
“Why? Afraid the cops might come? Afraid they might send you to—” He put a hand to his mouth, covering a gasp too melodramatic to be genuine, and looked to left and right before continuing in a stage whisper. “Therapy?” 
Vanya felt the cracks in her discarded glass spread and splinter before she ever heard it. She wanted to let it shatter—no, she wanted to make it shatter, send a hundred jagged shards exploding out from the sink to embed themselves in the wall, the counter, Klaus’ skin; to strike other bottles like bullets and send their contents cascading. 
“You don’t understand.” 
“No! I mean, Sitting on a comfy couch for a whole hour while some lady in an ugly-ass pantsuit listens to your problems?” He shook his head in mock amazement, adding more bourbon to his glass. “It’s a miracle we’re at Dad’s funeral. You should’ve just—” 
He blew a raspberry, pointing his thumb to the floor. 
Another crack spread through the glass, and another. He didn’t see. Didn’t know the humiliation of walking into that office, week after week. Couldn’t comprehend the misery of hearing mistakes inflated and exaggerated, balled up and thrown back in her face whenever she tried to explain herself. He couldn’t know the recurring sting of walking past her favorite coffee shop—a place that had once pulled her into an embrace of scents both earthy and sweet—knowing that the police would be called if she so much as crossed the street to reminisce from the wrong side of the window. If anyone under the Academy roof spared an ounce of sympathy for her, it should have been him. He, at least, knew what it was to have his faults paraded before police and judges and dismissed with no regard for what it was to be in his shoes. 
She should have known that was too much to ask of him. 
The glass was all but destroyed now; there was little point in leaving it whole. The sink would absorb most of the damage, and while a few shards would fly out, Klaus had learned to dodge. He knew what he faced if he failed to. He couldn’t call the police without risking his own skin. 
Yet a part of her, a small part of her, whispered that he just might be insane enough to try. 
The canister flew across the room to smack against a formation of bottles, knocking them over with a crash. Liquor spilled over the counter and onto the floor, sweeping up oats in the flow. Vanya turned on her heel, not giving Klaus the satisfaction of one last grin. 
********
“That could’ve gone better.” 
“Yeah, you think?” Klaus downed the rest of his bourbon and regarded the bottles still standing. The accidental cocktail Vanya had created with her little tantrum wouldn’t be tasty—especially not with oats floating in it and faint remnants of floor cleaner offering a different kind of intoxication—but all of those liquors together would get him drunk faster than anything he could mix on his own. 
Well. Drunker. 
Klaus didn’t sway as he straightened and headed for the tequila. He wasn’t quite to that point, though he sensed its approach. 
“Seriously?” 
“Hey, you try dealing with Vanya sober.” He opened the bottle, raising his voice in a mocking imitation of Vanya’s. “Oh, look at me, I wreck some coffee shop and have to not go to prison, everyone needs to be sad for me.” 
“Oh, you mean like my entire life? And afterlife, so far?” 
“So far?” Klaus grinned, raising both eyebrows. “What are you not telling me, Ben?” 
Ben rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.” 
“No, I don’t.” He poured a shot of tequila and tossed it down. “If there’s drunkenness after death, you really need to tell me. This could change everything.” 
“You really think I’d tell you something like that?” 
“Some brother you are.” 
“Said the guy who left Five to come get shitfaced.” 
The sting was sharp, as if Ben had slapped him across the cheek. Klaus poured another shot and downed it without breaking eye contact, but when he set the glass down he had to look away. He tried for some remark glib enough to set Ben on a different course, but nothing came to mind in time. 
“Bet you can still catch up with him.” 
It wasn’t the first time the thought had occurred to Klaus, but he hadn’t allowed it to take root in his mind with this level of clarity. Go back to the kitchen, or track Five to wherever the others had brought him. Apologize for whatever it was he’d said wrong—more than one thing, probably, though he could only think of the one. See if Five wanted to go flip off Dad’s urn for a while. Let Five watch him stagger down the stairs, sway in the door, smell the alcohol on his breath. The others, Diego and Luther and Allison—they might not understand, but they expected it. They’d seen it before. 
A part of him whispered that Five would see it sooner or later, that maybe he’d already extrapolated from those moments he’d caught Klaus at the bar when they were kids, those times he’d given Klaus the cover he needed to sneak out for his next fix. It didn’t matter, or wouldn’t matter. Sobriety was little more than a punchline around him, and it was only a matter of time before Five saw the joke. 
He straightened, swallowed the last of the tequila in his glass, fished for a cigarette in his pocket and lit it. He took a long drag, closing his eyes as he exhaled. It wasn’t’ the first time he’d smoked in the Academy, not by far, but usually Dad or Pogo would come barreling around the corner seconds after his lighter clicked on. This time, there was only silence. Blissful, smoke-filled silence. He leaned against the island, allowing each breath to carry off more of Vanya’s lingering presence.
He wasn’t sure how long it was before the edge of the counter began digging into his back, before the floor began to press against his feet through the thin soles of his shoes, before the weight of the items in his coat reminded him of where he could be and what he could be getting. A pang of guilt accompanied the last thought, regardless of the facts. He wasn’t needed at the Academy. He’d probably sent Five into a tailspin with whatever it was he’d said. The memorial service seemed to have been forgotten for the time being; even if he were missing when it began, his absence wouldn’t be lamented or questioned too heavily. The more he considered it, the more he itched for what those items would buy him. 
He’d be leaving Five again. Leaving him not in the kitchen, but there in the Academy while he was off elsewhere in the city; but Five wouldn’t be alone. Might not even notice he was gone. 
“Klaus?” 
Five’s voice was too soft, too uncertain, but it still gave Klaus a start and he nearly dropped his cigarette. 
“Christ on a cracker,” he breathed, glancing down at the floor. Still a safe enough distance from the spilled alcohol that a lit cigarette wouldn’t send a puddle of flame racing up the cabinets, but closer than he would have liked. He sucked in a breath and turned to Five, plastering on a smile. “What’re you doing up here?” 
Five didn’t answer. He’d changed into his pajamas—which were drier than what he’d been wearing, and in better shape, but Klaus could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen any of his siblings wearing pajamas in the middle of the day. In each instance, they’d been sick enough to get out of training, sick enough to remain in their rooms instead of joining the rest of the family for silent meals and Dad’s droning records. Five was still walking on his own two feet, his skin lacking the pallor it had held on those days; but Klaus didn’t recall him being so thin when he’d left. 
How long had he stood just out of sight? 
“Dad’s not here, is he.” 
There were two answers: the tactful one, and the direct one. The tactful one was more up Allison’s alley, requiring more gentle words and roundabout phrasings than Klaus had in his arsenal. It was probably more akin to what Five needed, closer to what he’d like to hear, but Klaus had already stalled long enough. 
“Died a little over a week ago.” 
Five nodded slowly. If there was any surprise in his expression, Klaus couldn’t see it. “He…he probably would’ve walked out when I showed up, huh?” 
And done a lot more than that, Klaus thought, but didn’t say as much. Five must have known he’d have been hauled off to one of those rooms everyone hated, held there until he’d divulged every secret he’d brought back with him, had Dad occupied the Academy. “We can go flip off his urn for a while, if you want.” 
Five didn’t smile, or even meet Klaus’ gaze. He’d said the wrong thing again. Made a joke when Five needed something else, something Allison or Luther or even Diego would be better suited to offer. Something Klaus couldn’t muster, not even when it was needed. Especially not when it was needed. 
“Where’s Ben?” 
If Ben’s remark had been a slap, Five’s question was like a punch to the gut. He had to say something, anything, but the words wouldn’t form and he couldn’t muster even an I don’t know or a Why do you ask? He could only struggle, through the fog and the emotions that one question dredged up, to say anything at all. 
Five dropped his gaze, biting his lip. He didn’t sink to the floor or look for a place to sit down. He didn’t let out a cry or suck in a breath. Klaus watched him crumple all the same. 
“Hey, it—” He started forward, barely remembering to put out his cigarette before Five fell into his arms. 
Maybe he should have expected it. Over a decade stood between him and Ben’s death. No one would say he’d used them well, and if pressed he wouldn’t disagree; but he’d still had them. Ten years to let the dust settle and the blood dry. Ten years to accept that Ben’s clothes no longer occupied the closet, that no one would set a place for him whenever they were allowed back into the Academy. Ten years of hearing his voice, watching him roll his eyes and try in vain to block access to his stash, of being the only one to know he would never really go away. For all Five knew, Ben’s face should have been among those who greeted him upon his return. 
He returned the hug awkwardly, too awkwardly, running a hand along Five’s back. Tears shook his bony frame, and Klaus wanted to kick himself for not hunting down Allison to answer that question. “It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.” 
“How?” 
Ben no longer leaned against the bar. He had a way of doing that, of stepping around while your back was turned to show up in the last place you wanted to see him. This time, though, Klaus didn’t mind the sight of him, the look he got—or the clear instructions it carried. 
“I mean, it’s not like he’s gone.” 
Five pulled away, and the hope in his eyes made Klaus want to shrivel up and disappear. 
Ben smiled a bit, raising a hand in greeting. “Hey, Five.” 
“He says hi.” 
*******
Vanya should have brought the whiskey along.
Her anger hadn’t quite burned away when she reached the top of the stairs, but it had calmed enough for her thoughts to turn to things other than Klaus’ exaggerated smiles and mocking words; and they turned to that bottle on the counter. She should have grabbed it before storming off—or if not that bottle specifically, then another close to it. Something strong, something she could keep all to herself. Something that would get her to the memorial service in one piece.
If her siblings still planned on holding a service. 
She found her old bedroom less by intent and more by muscle memory, and it hadn’t changed much from the day she’d left. The furniture was gone, shuttled off to her first apartment and then the next; as were her clothes, which had been added to over the years. It would have been an empty room, devoid of the personality she’d lent it, but there were small signs, little memories here and there. A length of blue ribbon she’d once worn to a press briefing snaked across the floor. The green hair tie she’d thought had been lost in the move lay in one corner, grey with dust. Along the wall adjacent to her window Vanya could just make out little patches where the drywall was ever so slightly uneven, marking the places where, in retaliation for being sent to her room, she’d driven holes into her wall to spell out an obscene message. Dad had barged in before she’d finished the first word. 
She ran a hand along the windowsill, catching dust on her fingertips. It wasn’t surprising that Dad’s memorial service had stalled—in the back of her mind, she’d expected Diego or Klaus to delay it somehow, though she hadn’t written off Allison as a potential culprit—but she hadn’t thought it would stall indefinitely. Yet here she was, waiting for her siblings to stop doting on Five long enough to put their dead father to rest. 
Vanya looked to the wall again. For a moment she considered finishing the word, leaving it as a parting gift for whenever she was allowed to walk out of the Academy without Dad’s unread will hanging over her head. But then, it would’ve been just like Dad to turn something about willful destruction of childhood bedroom into a condition. 
She closed the door behind her and stepped into the hall, seeing no one, but Five’s room stood open. Maybe someone had been there in minutes past; maybe Mom had left it open for whatever reason. Vanya couldn’t say and couldn’t bring herself to care. He’d be moving back into it soon—but then, once the memorial service was over and done with, she’d be back in her own apartment, away from that room and its occupant. 
A short walk took her back down to the entryway and then the common room, but that wasn’t where the voices led her. One she recognized as Klaus, the other as Five—but the cheer in Klaus’ voice seemed more genuine now, the simmering resentment she’d caught now missing. 
“So I’m just there in my book fort, minding my own business, and the librarian walks over and she’s all ‘Sir, you need to put these on a cart.’ And I’m all ‘Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to just build a new one instead of putting this whole thing on a cart?’” 
“Maybe she just wanted you to put the books away?” 
“That’s what Ben said, but I dunno. That fort was awesome.” 
Ben. Her breath caught. Asking her to name a favorite sibling was like asking her to name a favorite toothache, but some toothaches hurt less than others. Some could be almost pleasant, when they wanted to be. 
And some left a different sort of pain when they went away. 
“What books did you use?” 
“What books did I—Five. I built a fort. Out of books. Had turrets, a moat and everything. That’s all you need to know.” 
Rather than pressing Klaus for more details, Five turned his gaze to the armchair. “What’d he use, Ben? You remember?” 
Klaus rolled his eyes and began listing off titles, but Vanya barely heard them past the pounding of her own heart. Ben wasn’t there—or at least, he wasn’t where Klaus could see him, and that was by design. The ghosts he alone could see, the ghosts he alone could command, were evidently far more frightening than the poisons he forced into his system and the people and laws he trampled to get them. The substances he favored were still there. His powers were gone—and here he was, playing the medium. Speaking for the dead when the dead no longer spoke to him. Using Ben as a prop to tell an asinine story about himself. 
“Don’t.” 
Allison’s voice was soft, but Vanya stopped in her tracks. Her sister sat on the stairs, just out of the light cast from the sitting room. 
“Are you hearing this?” 
Allison bowed her head for a few seconds. When she raised it, there was sorrow in her eyes—but also a glint of steel Vanya had rarely seen outside of particularly nasty missions. 
“Don’t take this from him.” 
“Take what? A lie?” 
Allison stood, mouth tight. She took a few steps forward, but didn’t come close to bridging the gap between them. 
“I don’t care what it is.” Her voice had grown softer, scarcely rising above a whisper, but no less stern for it. “You’re going to let him have this.” 
A stab of fear went through her. Allison hadn’t referenced those four words, but the threat was there, carried on a tone addressing her as a child. A child who needed to be put in her place. “Or what?” 
She didn’t answer, but the glare she leveled on her way into the common room was enough. 
************
Chapter One 
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fatedbutblinking · 5 years
Text
hp next generation│characters
REMUS & TONKS
Teddy Lupin
Hufflepuff
Hair that changes often—currently a bright, electric blue; olive skin
Kind and considerate
Respectful and sweet
Humble and appreciative of Harry Potter and their family
Deeply in love with Victoire—for a lot more than her looks
Victoire tells everyone it was Teddy who fell for her first, just because he told her he loved her first, but Teddy secretly knows that it’s Victoire who fell first
Made Head Boy for his high academic achievement (including a nailed Outstanding in Defence Against the Dark Arts)
Out of all the Potter children, he is closest with Lily Potter; she used to ride his back when she was younger and make him personalised, singing birthday cards
HARRY & GINNY
James Sirius Potter
Gryffindor
Around 180 cm; classically handsome face; strong jawline; thick, dark brown, untidy hair that glints auburn in the sun and he constantly runs his hands through; irritatingly clear skin; prominent hazel eyes; cocky smirk
From first to third year, he conceitedly thinks that Allie likes him just because she said thank you to him after he told off some boys for pulling on her hair; this turns out to be false, as Allie starts going out with Dylan Thomas
The most arrogant out of his family members, his best friend and cousin Fred coming second
His nana started calling him “Jamie,” to which his friends started mocking him for
This led to James coming up with nicknames for everyone else, some sticking and some only for mocking (e.g. Allie, Freddie, Roxie—but not Dom because she’d kill them if they did)
Typically a player but knows when to settle down into a relationship—reliable and loyal if he’s really interested in you—if you’re just a one-time shag, he’s still nice to you though
A lover of Quidditch, pranks, making others laugh—he’s the class clown
Naturally smart; has a lot of potential to be great—especially in Potions and Alchemy—but starts off not diligent or focused enough
Cares for his family and friends—perhaps too much sometimes
Immature class clown turned just as funny Head Boy without wanting the latter
Gets others and himself into trouble all the time
Constantly curious—to the point where it, also constantly, gets him into trouble and detention with McGonagall
Free and confident being who he is, which Allie admires
Childish, stupid, hyper and more arrogant when drunk
After being turned by an infamous werewolf in the middle of his sixth year, he starts smoking excessively—”The more I do with my mouth, the less chance I’ll have to tell someone I’m a monstrous killer. Unless you, Allie, would like to help me instead?”—Dom, who used to be an addict in her fourth year when she hung out with Slytherin boys, persuades James to stop
When he becomes a werewolf in his sixth year, he decides to quit the Quidditch team so he won’t ruin it for anyone if he can’t play; he doesn’t tell Fred his reasoning—he can’t tell anyone he’s a werewolf or might be expelled for possible danger by certain Ministry workers—and Allie is forced to take his spot
McGonagall secretly finds James one of her favourite students, despite telling him off constantly for his pranks
Loves his dog Paddy
Bisexual or pansexual—“As long as they’re good-looking,” he says, cracking a cocky smirk.
The ultimate 21st century cool guy—really hot, intelligent and with no preference for partners’ sexuality
Very straightforward like Dominique—doesn’t know boundaries at times
Secretly kind
Super selfless
Finds it amusing that he actually likes Professor Malfoy, his new Alchemy teacher
Professor Malfoy finds it funny that he likes James too
Though predicted Outstanding in his Alchemy mock exam, James runs out halfway through the lesson to confess his feelings to Allie
“What’s with your son, Potter? He’s unbelievable.”—“Merlin, what’s he done now?”—“He ran out halfway through the lesson, finishing 75% of the exam—which is impressive enough as he should’ve been at 50%—and got 73% right! If your son doesn’t run out of the room during the real exam, I’m sure he could get an O.”
Albus Severus Potter
Slytherin
Only just taller than Roxanne
Almond-shaped, bright green eyes; neat black hair; thin-faced with knobby knees; thin and of average height
Listens to Radiohead and other Muggle bands
Angsty teen shut-the-fuck-up type
Used to be bullied for being so different from the rest of his family; girls dig the bad boy thing (though Albus isn’t bad and doesn’t act like it on purpose)
Like a sassy young Harry from Order of the Phoenix
Rolls eyes a lot
Nobody can tell what he’s thinking
Witty—self-deprecating humour
Lily Potter
Gryffindor—without a doubt
Around 162 cm with pale, white, freckled skin, vibrant brown eyes, straight, bright ginger hair; she eventually gets glasses due to her worsening eyesight—“At least I’m not as blind as you, Dad.”
Very curious and interested; cheery; talkative; honest; adventurous
Wants to have fun but is studious too—for sure not as extreme a pranker or partyer as James
Often argues with Albus as they’re both really stubborn; James can be seen laughing the background
Strong-willed and quick-witted
Admires Rose as an older sister
Ships Albus and Scorpius more than anyone
RON & HERMIONE
Rose Weasley
Gryffindor
Wavy scarlet/vermilion hair; light skin with minor freckles, as she doesn’t spend much time in the sun
Loves reading and the library
Prefers to keep to herself/be independent
Loves to point things out for others
Her fatal flaw is being too honest that she sounds condescending/rude, especially when she’s angry
Only impulsive when angry;
Never procrastinates
Extremely intelligent/book-smart
Slightly arrogant and snobby
Short-tempered and stubborn
Says she doesn’t care about appearances until Scorpius finds out about her contact lenses after hiding under her bed
Hugo Weasley
Ravenclaw
Shorter than most; boyish good looks; curly brown hair (an undercut when he was rebelling); lanky; long-sleeved shirts and jeans
Loves music—singing, acoustics, angst/soft/indie tunes
Quiet but frank when passionate or needed
Highly intelligent
Quietly opinionated
Named attractive by girls but he doesn’t care for them—only his studies and music
Doesn’t laugh; deadpan
Not very close with Potter-Weasley-Granger clan
Dislikes James for treating him like a child, being frivolous and always partying
Dislikes Dominique for being intimidatingly rude
NEVILLE & HANNAH
Alice (Allie) Longbottom
Ravenclaw
Around 158 cm; sweet-faced; doe-eyed; wavy dark-gold/caramel-blonde medium-length hair; long eyelashes; rich, doe, dark brown eyes; thick-knit cream and orange jumpers
A bad habit of hers is biting her nails
Doesn’t get drunk until of age but is said to remain nonchalant and the same after several drinks
Though she complains she hates it because it’s illegal, she secretly enjoys being the designated driver in the flying car—there’s no other way for her to fly, as she’s dreadful on a broom like her dad
Clumsy when she’s younger
Open-minded; the right amount of honesty; not rude
Tones down James and Fred by telling them if their pranks are going over the line
Considered the worst Quidditch player/broom-rider ever since her first flying lesson where she spun around the school for hours uncontrollably
One day when Fred is injured and can’t play a match, James convinces Allie to and she manages to help them win—by distracting the other scared players with her super-fast flying
A louder, sweeter, more humble version of Albus
Shy when with new people, but later—if quiet—she’s only observant
Wishes she had a large family but eventually finds that the Weasley-Potter-Granger clan are just as caring
Her mother, Hannah Abbott, the school matron, is dying—lethargic, pale, cadaverous, bony, tired hair 
Her parents weren’t sure they could have a child due to Hannah being ill (having a blood curse)
When Hannah dies, Allie becomes very depressed because her family is down to just her and her dad; she feels guilty that she didn’t spend as much time with her mum as she did with her dad
Allie sees Scorpius crying in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom after his mother died too from a blood curse; this leads to a close friendship and slight jealousy from James, who at this point has just realised he loves Allie
Thinks she needs to excel at school because her dad works there—wants to impress her dad and make him proud
In her seventh year, she hears about a chance to intern at St Mungo’s; wanting to be nearer to family, she applies and gets accepted
She visits her grandparents at Christmas, which is why they sort-of remember her
Neville only hears about the internship when McGonagall talks to him about it and is heartbroken that his daughter didn’t tell him—this was because she knew he’d say no
She impulsively decides she wants to be a Healer
James and her get into an argument about this
“You don’t care about being a Healer. You just want a reason to see your grandparents, to be nearer people who care about you. What you don’t realise is that, although plenty of us aren’t related to you, we love you too.”—James
“You want to be a Healer? You’ve never talked about this ever!”—“Well some people can’t decide what they want to do when they’re five, like you or Fred!”—“I don’t know what I’m doing, Allie! Merlin...what’re you going to do if your grandparents pass away? Will you quit being a Healer? Do what you love, Allie. Don’t do what you think other people want.”
After James becomes a werewolf, she sticks by his side; she even becomes an illegal Animagus to help him—she is a hare, like Luna Lovegood’s Patronus, and finds herself somewhat unuseful as she’s so small
Lysander is her first kiss
Boys consider her pretty in the “cute” way; adults describe her as “lovely”; Fred describes her as “the type of person that calls other girls beautiful”; James describes her as “beautiful. That’s it.”  
Her three current and past love interests are James, Dylan Thomas and Nicolas (a hot Beauxbatons exchange student), the first becoming her husband and the latter two ending up together
Zabini mocks this, telling Allie she “turned them gay.”
James murdered him on the Quidditch pitch the next day
GEORGE & ANGELINA
Fred Weasley
Gryffindor
187 cm; very tall; well-built; short, cropped raven hair; light freckles
Goofy like James
Needs to focus on his studies more and does in last two years of school, after failing multiple OWL exams and getting a Howler from his mum 
From then on, he is given a tutor, Chloe, who is a year older than him, in Ravenclaw, pretty and half-Asian
Fred falls in love with her, though is scared she thinks of him as an immature guy and doesn’t tell her until the Christmas of his sixth year where James and Ally are invited to the Slug Club party and he’s left alone to study; On the way back from the bathroom, Chloe decides to ditch the Slug Club and stay with Fred late into the night
Loves/is passionate about Quidditch more than anything; wants to play professionally
After James is turned into a werewolf and some people become slightly scared of him and find him unreliable, Wood has no choice but to choose Fred to be Quidditch Captain
Fred knows he’s second best to James, as he always is, and 
Always seen laughing with James
Always sleeps and snores in History of Magic
Infatuated with Ally for a period of time but never confesses himself
Instead, they become very, very close friends, Fred being the first person who finds out how Allie feels about James
Roxanne Weasley
Hufflepuff
Around 165 cm; long, rich dark auburn hair; flawless, freckle-less mocha skin
Admires Ally
Sickeningly sweet; polite; formal
Lies so people don’t get hurt
Introverted
Low self-esteem
Loves watching Quidditch, not playing, making her different from her mum and dad
Secretly very loud, opinionated and 
Not an attention-seeker but wants to be noticed by somebody outside of her family
Dominique and her end up having a lot in common, including being constantly annoyed at Fred
Crushes on Lysander, the popular, smart guy, but ends up with Lorcan, the outcasted, artsy guy
BILL & FLEUR
Louis Weasley
“Hot Louis”
Ravenclaw
Looks more like his mother
Always relaxed
Close friends with Lysander
*To be continued*
Dominique Weasley
Gryffindor but almost a Slytherin
Tall and skinny; long, strawberry-blonde hair often kept in a pony-tail; light tan from the hours spent playing Quidditch; dark blue eyes that flicker with every sarcastic thought
Somewhat jealous of her older sister Victoire but doesn’t hold too much resentment towards her
The best female beater on the Slytherin team in years; she only tries out for the team after a year of being a hilarious, swearing, honest Quidditch commentator
Admittedly a hypocrite
The badass, devil-may-care type
Extra asf
Finds Herbology boring, despite everyone loving Herbology because of Professor Longbottom
Gets kicked out of Beauxbatons for using magic inappropriately after her mum sends her there to discipline her
Rough relationship with her mum
She is surprised to learn that her dad dressed as a bad boy during school, as he now worships grades and do-gooder ideals
Victoire Weasley
Gryffindor
Beautiful; tall and willowy, like a model; sapphire-blue eyes; long, pale-blonde hair (that she cuts shorter later to be “taken seriously by Aurors”); forever clear, pale skin (apart from the light freckling on her cheeks and nose)
Sweet; caring
Made Head Girl
Curious, but not rebellious, cunning, stealthy or adventurous like her sister
Graceful but not stealthy
Plays it safe, but not compliant
Deeply in love with the kind, sweet, yet misunderstood Teddy—a boy whom she helps recover from depression by showering him with friendship and love
PERCY & AUDREY
Molly Weasley
Ravenclaw
Wavy gingery-brown hair; icy, pale blue eyes; very skinny; tall; very freckled skin
Head Girl after Victoire leaves
Strict
Caring but not doting
Responsible
Easily-angered
Bickers and argues a lot with everyone
Tends to hang around her family members or teachers
Highly intelligent due to determination
Well-spoken; know-it-all
Acts like she can control everyone around her
Is disliked or not preferred by the older kids in the Potter-Weasley-Granger clan, but the young ones like her for babysitting when she’s free
Admires how Ally cares for everyone, tries to keep them out of trouble, without making them hate her
Admired by Rose
Lucy Weasley
*To be continued*
LUNA & ROLF
Lysander Scamander
Ravenclaw
Intelligent
Cool and collected
Well-known by everyone; popular
Follows in his father, Rolf’s, footsteps
Handsome; neat dirty-blond hair; “dreamy” cornflower-blue eyes
Brightest wizard of his year
The classier, more organised out of the twins
Blunt and honest but tries to hold back
Aware of his achievements
Arrogant; “Yeah, I know.”
Like a classier, quieter version of James, which Lily hates at first
Nevertheless, Lily and him end up together after the both of them consistently visit Hagrid (Lily does this because she doesn’t have many friends and hangs out with Hagrid; Lysander does this because he loves Care of Magical Creatures)
Lorcan Scamander
Ravenclaw
Quiet in speech, but loud in every other aspect
Badly-dressed—clothes the wrong size, the wrong colour, but still manages to make it looks somewhat stylish
Not-so-secretly handsome
I’ll-be-who-I-want kind of personality
Longer, messy dirty-blond hair; kind, doe silvery eyes; smiley
Loves art
Creative, confident and selfless
Great at giving advice
Called “weird” and a “hippie” by some 
DRACO & ASTORIA
Scorpius Malfoy
Slytherin
White-blonde hair; pale blue-grey eyes; tall and lanky; sharp cheek bones; intimidating due to height but an actual cinnamon bun;
Easy-going
Your genuine he-who-listens-and-won’t-judge mate
Determined to make Rose like him
Persistent and passionate about things he loves
Loves Christmas with the Weasley-Potter-Granger clan more than with him and his dad alone, as being alone with his dad reminds him he doesn’t have his mum there too—which is why he always brings his dad along to the Burrow, which can be slightly awkward
Thinks of Allie as a big sister
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worldwalkernovel · 5 years
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The dynamic duo: What is their favorite book/poem/song of earth? Of Alleirat? Can they sing? What are some instruments of Alleirat? What are they made of? How are they made? Are they widely available? Of earth's instruments, what is their sound similar to? Are there major festivals/holidays? Any strange ones (like the city in Spain that has an annual tomato fight)? What are Alleirai beds like (raised on four legs/futons/hammocks)? Are there sleeping bags or does everyone just suffer on the road?
Hey, y’all, sorry I just...fucking vanished there!  Real life obligations caught up with me.  Ironically this is a long term positive--I’m much more productive in writing when I have a job, because it leaves me less time to second guess myself.  Point is, I’m going to try and actually Do Things on this blog again.  Also the last one about holidays got pretty long so I put it under a cut.
What is their favorite book/poem/song of Earth?  Of Alleirat?
Oh my God, listen, I’m not gonna get to most of this question because I got overexcited, but let’s talk about these two and Earth poetry, yeah?
Crispin discovers Emily Dickinson in seventh grade English class, and the first poem of hers he ever reads is, of course, Because I could not stop for Death.  He traces his fingers over the words “Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yet//Feels shorter than the Day//I first surmised the Horses’ Heads//Were toward Eternity –” and for some reason he can’t quite put his finger on, his throat closes up tight and his voice breaks when he’s asked to read aloud.  Some indiscernable something about her words ring in his head like English hasn’t rung in years, and he checks a collection out of the library the same day.  His favorite poem of hers is--it’s not really his favorite, but the poem of hers he knows by heart and can’t seem to peel out of the beat of his pulse is I measure every Grief I meet.  Some days he loves it, for how cleanly and purely it seems to scribe him into neat four-line stanzas.  Some days he can’t read it without crying, or throwing the book across the room.
The only Dickinson poem Brenneth likes is Tell all the Truth, and sometimes when she looks at Crispin she thinks it was written for him.
Brenneth doesn’t like poetry much, she mostly prefers songs--they’re easier to remember and she knows what to do with them, she doesn’t really know what to do with poetry (can’t sing it, doesn’t have a narrative, can’t even go see it performed) and she doesn’t like not knowing what to do with a thing.  But once she read Goblin Market, by Christina Rossetti.  She started it by accident, and there was a story, a narrative threading through the ramble, and she kept reading, and--
Brenneth has dreams for a week, dizzy uneasy dreams of Crispin biting into strange foreign fruits and letting juice as thick and red as blood stain his mouth, and of hands--his hands, strong and crackling with lightning--pressing the fruit against her mouth and saying eat, eat, and of a mouth on her jaw and neck and collarbones, drinking the juice from her skin.
What are Alleirai beds/travel beds like?
The basic structure of Alleirai beds is “four legs, some kind of pad, sheets/blanket, maybe a pillow” but there’s a lot of scope there and it’s not unheard of for people to have a different arrangement based on what they’re used to--sailors are used to hammock-style bunks on ships, travelers used to sleeping rough are most familiar with bedrolls that consist of little more than two blankets and possibly a very thin pad.  At the end of the day, though, since a large portion of the continent is arable, elevated beds have the practical advantage of being easier to keep relatively clean of dirt, water, and creepy crawlies.  As such, a cot-style arrangement is considered the bare minimum, with a base of taut cloth and no mattress at all. The rich might have a four-poster bed with a down mattress.  Most people are somewhere in the middle with plain frames and horsehair or straw ticks that get exchanged on a semi-regular basis.
Can they sing?
Yes!  Brenneth has a nice folksy low alto, it’s nothing special but she used to sing shanties and ballads while she worked in her forge, especially while she was hammering or doing anything else that required a rhythm.  Sometimes she gave people a discount on their work if they were willing to teach her a new song instead, and people made jokes about the singing smith.  Crispin has a beautiful mid-range tenor, sweet and clear as glass when he was a child and deepening to something warm and full as he got older.  He has formal voice training, which was part of his education--singing is a good way to learn to project your voice, which is a desirable trait in a hero of legend.  However, he hates to sing alone, which is where all his training lies, so he taught himself to sing harmony to Brenneth’s melodies and that’s the only way he sings anymore.
What are some instruments of Alleirat/what are they like?
They hit a lot of the same major categories as we do--they have necked and non-necked string instruments (things like guitars or fiddles and lyres or harps, respectively), drums and other percussion instruments, wind instruments.  They lack the finesse to make out modern instruments, and most wind instruments are made of wood rather than metals, whereas they have a lot more metal drums than hide-and-wood drums, so playing the drum in Alleirat is equally about knowing how to stop a sound as start it.  You know that dome-shaped hang drum thing?  Something similar to that with only a few tones (like four total) is pretty common on ships and is used to keep time for sea shanties, and more complex versions are popular during festivals, in combination with strings and singing.  Vocalists are prized in Alleirat, so wind instruments are less common than things that allow singing and playing simultaneously.
Are there major holidays/festivals?  Any weird ones?
I’d have sworn on my life I answered this already, but apparently not.  The Alleirai seasons each have a festival at the height and one at the end of the year, four religious festivals and one political.  The political festival is Unification Day, the commemoration of the unification of the continent of Alleirat and the formal truce of the lengthy wars that threatened to kill everyone on it, and takes place in the early days of summer.  How seriously and/or cheerfully people take Unification Day depends on how they’re feeling about the Unified Council at that moment, and whether or not their protectorate state is on the verge of civil war with a neighbor.  
The religious festivals are:
the Feast of the Wanderer, which takes place at midsummer and is a festival of plenty and warmth and alcohol--the Wanderer is the god of life and fire, and the festival is encouraged to embrace and embody joy and revelry.  There are also ritual fights, which are largely in fun and more like friendly bar brawls than formalized gladiator matches, and both participants are usually quite drunk.  Agreeing to be the on-call flesh workers standing ringside on the Feast makes you an obscene amount of money, but you have to be sober.  Gifts are also exchanged at this festival--material gifts, specifically.
the Lady’s Night, or the Night of Stars, which takes place at midwinter and is very much a festival of...keeping out the dark, I suppose, would be the way I’ll put it.  The festival is about remembering that We Are Alive And Life Is Short, as well as remembering the dead, with a lot of candles lit in memorial and just for light--traditionally, you stay up from dusk until dawn, and if your candles and fire go out, you’ll have bad luck all year.  There’s still drinking and feasting and general celebration, but it’s more intimate and less raucous than the Feast.  You exchange stories and sing and hold your breath whenever the flames flicker.  (Cheating with magical glowglasses is considered bad luck as well.)  There are people who learn a single story or song all year in preparation for the Night of Stars, and you display them as a gift for the people you’re celebrating with.
the Landing, the first day of the new year at mid-spring, which marks the day that tradition and lore say the gods first came to Alleirat.  It’s probably not the right day, sort of like Christmas was moved around a bunch, but no one but the very well educated or very pedantic care.  You leave offerings at the temples or shrines at dawn, and then you go out and celebrate.  All day if you can, more often just from “whenever you get off work” to “whenever you collapse.”  The large cities and sometimes smaller towns and villages hold a parade, and crown young people, a boy and a girl in their mid to late teens or early twenties, as the Lady and the Wanderer for the day.  The crowns assigned to each of the two (generally flower crowns, rather than anything valuable) is supposed to be handed around over the course of the day, as a sort of village-wide game of Tag with the crowned people as “it”, and whoever holds the crowns at sundown has the responsibility of leading the town in the service of the Landing, which is a whole thing.  It’s sort of like religious hot potato with drinking.
the Eve of Dead Gods, which is pretty much what it says on the tin.  In terms of the feel of the Eve, it’s sort of somewhere between old celebrations of Halloween and Yom Kippur, with an emphasis on considering your own actions of the past year and serious reflection, as well as a  day when...well, they’re pretty serious about the dead gods.  Gods can’t be ghosts, of course, don’t be foolish, but--but when you worship the last two of a mighty pantheon, it doesn’t hurt to do honor to those who went before.  On the Eve, you lock your doors and windows at dusk and don’t go outside again until the sun is shining, and you remember that everything dies.  Even gods.
Some people--those whose ancestors escaped the sinking of the western continent--hold a quiet holiday for the Chained Lord, the god who didn’t answer when they called for salvation and whose death throes killed thousands.  It’s a small thing of fasting and candles and salt scattered on the floor, observed by most as little more than a cursory tradition and not even a shadow of a shadow of what his festivals must have once been.
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moistwithgender · 6 years
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Curry Read 60s Marvel, King-Size, Nuff Said
According to my tag, it took me about a month to get through this decade (eight years, technically), spending most of my free time reading. I’ve been following Comic Book Herald’s “My Marvelous Year” reading guide because it seemed like the quickest way through while cutting out the chaff. This was not...consistently the case. But, I’m still glad I followed it because this started out with me just chewing through early Spider-Man in black and white (don’t do this to yourself, nice flat colors do wonders for these older stories). I’m gonna go ahead and give the disclaimer that because I was following a speedy reading guide, I missed a lot of stuff, so if you know some really good issues I missed feel free to say so.
I’m afraid to type all this out because it’s a lot and idk where to start!
Okay well I have one idea of where to start.
Fantastic Four
This is Marvel’s best series up to this point and the fact that we’ve had so many garbage movies is a tragedy (don’t @ me about The Incredibles, I know). The FF comics are consistently the most fun, the weirdest, and the most creative.
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Going through my reading list, I had to skip parts of FF, which is probably going to be where more of the good stuff was. Though, I will say that I prefer the latter half of the decade over the first half. FF started off with Mole Man, Skrulls (something I first realized was a thing back when they showed up in MvC3), The Puppet Master, The Red Ghost... The first few years of FF was probably best whenever it involved Namor and Doctor Doom. I don’t think anyone’s gonna argue with that. The latter half had The Inhumans, Galactus, The Silver Surfer, Black Panther, the Negative Zone... a whole lot of neat stuff! I actually missed the introduction of the Negative Zone, so all of a sudden Reed’s just got a portal to A Very Bad Place in the middle of his lab and he keeps opening it whenever things get slightly inconvenient. Stop doing that, Reed.
Highlights: - Namor being Namor. Usually at his best as a fish out of water (heh) in human society. With his absurd monarchic pride, and his occasional anti-hero tendencies, he’s...kind of like a wet Vegeta in hot pants. - The Thing. For a while he was back and forth as a character I liked or tolerated, and his incessant backtalk would occasionally become one of those “telling an unfunny joke until eventually it’s hilarious” things. - The Watcher. A being so committed to his vow to never interfere with the fate of the universe that he jack-knifes out of his lane every single time he gets the chance. EXCEPT FOR THE TIME HE WATCHED THE BIRTH OF GALACTUS AND DID NOTHING. THANKS UATU. - The fact that Doctor Doom is a Romani character being written by Jewish authors. That’s a lot to unpack. - The Sandman. Wait, you say, you mean that one Spider-Man villain who was played by the guy from the sitcom Wings? Yeah, it turns out once he’s done being a Sinister Six villain, he goes on to harass the Fantastic Four and gets his own Jack Kirby style super villain outfit!
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Look at that badboy. Also he teams up with an angry furry made of explosions from the hell dimension that is the negative zone. - The Inhumans. All of these kids are cool, Lockjaw is an adorable giant bulldog that can teleport across infinite distances, and even Maximus is some sort of play on Shakespeare villains. The fact that differentiating these guys from mutants is really awkward. The short version (if I have it right) is that mutants are born with a unique x-gene, and inhumans come from a hidden society that commonly did genetic manipulation on its citizens at birth. - Galactus. He is arguably the weirdest thing Marvel has in this decade. A thirty foot tall man who flies around the universe and eats planets. He’s literally so powerful that he and the narrative both treat his eating habits as natural, and any victims that happen to get in the way as unfortunate but unintended sacrifices because GALACTUS MUST NOT DIE. Galactus is a vegan metaphor (maybe). - The Silver Surfer. The shiniest, angstiest boy in the multiverse. Originally from a planet where global society had literally hit its logical utopic conclusion, he was bored as shit. Galactus comes along, the entire planet gets spooked and blows itself the fuck up on accident, and Norrin Rad agrees to be Galactus’ herald and pick out planets safe to eat if he leaves his planet alone. Sometime after that he gets punished for trying to fight Galactus, and is punished to remain on Earth, where he would play around with being a very obvious Jesus analogy for a while. - That time where a guy impersonates The Thing in order to kill Reed, and then ends up getting respect for Reed and sacrificing himself atop a meteorite speeding off into an atmosphere of explosions. Really fucked up issue, honestly. - Black Panther. Wakanda is not as cool as it would eventually be portrayed, and BP’s first appearance is as an antagonist (he kidnaps the FF and hunts them for sport), but he has a fucking slick cape. - That time Doctor Doom stole The Silver Surfer’s infinite cosmic power and nearly fucked up everything for everybody for four straight issues. Also he got into a fist fight with the Thing, which is like...hell yeah. - The Negative Zone. WHY DO YOU HAVE A WINDOW TO HELL IN YOUR HOUSE, REED. - The Kree. I have no idea why the Kree are just white people in space. Bad move imo, even Namor’s race are mostly blue people. Anyway, there’s a rad fight with a sentry robot, and a decent introduction to Ronan the Accuser, who you might remember was the (reasonably overshadowed) villain in the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 1 movie, where he is blue. - Psycho Man. This guy has a remote control that makes you feel emotions and that’s kinda dumb but more importantly he’s from a microscopic universe and controls a non-microscopic robot version of himself to fight the FF and the implications of all that is absurd. - Reed goes into the negative zone (again) to try and find something he knows nothing about that might help his pregnant wife and unborn child survive the gamma radiation they still have in their bodies. He gets pretty lucky. Jesus christ, dude.
The worst parts of the FF this decade is probably every time Susan gets the shaft because she’s a woman, whether it’s her being talked down to by Reed or whether it’s her being written as way more concerned about ~lady things~ when things are going to hell. In the issue where her life is on the line and the baby is coming and Reed has to go into the negative zone, she doesn’t even make an appearance until like the last page. Susan deserves better. My reading guide actually didn’t recommend any 1969 issues of FF? I wonder what was going on...
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Oh, skrulls impersonating 1920s gangsters and doing super-human trafficking, of course. Well, let’s move on.
The Incredible Hulk (Tales to Astonish)
I have had a soft spot for the Sulk ever since...probably the 2003 three Ang Lee film? Where I realized that 1) Bruce has bad dad issues and no one likes him, and 2) Hulk isn’t just a big boy, he is really fast and jumps crazy far and that’s a physical concept my teenage brain had never considered. I hadn’t even considered liking the Hulk growing up because I was so uncomfortable with almost all expressions of masculinity and machismo. My mom in fact was the one who told me “Don’t you want to see the Hulk? He’s big and scary like a bad guy, but he’s a good guy!” and I assume that’s what helped change my mind?
Anyway, Hulk has had a rough time in terms of popularity as well. His magazine lasted some six or seven issues before being canceled and his stories would continue, shorter, in Tales to Astonish, alongside Ant-Man (and eventually Namor’s own series). In the last few years of the decade he’d get a new magazine starting with The Incredible Hulk #102 (following Tales to Astonish #101... comic numbering is extremely bad), and...it’s okay so far! In the modern era, Hulk had a cartoon I never watched, a few nonstarter films, there was that series with Lou Ferrigno I know nothing about... He seems to always function best as a side hero. It doesn’t help that all the villains in his series are, like. Weird? Not like FF crazy weird, just like weird and not seemingly a great match for Hulk himself. Most of the ones that come to mind are dudes who are also mutated by gamma radiation or something else (and sometimes also green? why is the green supposed to be a common thread, that feels coincidental).
Which reminds me, Bruce is almost never present in what I’ve read so far. It’s just Hulk, usually talking way more than feels natural for him (it took a while for him to start speaking mostly in the third person). As a result, Hulk is usually given a very limited range of characterization and expected to coast on that, and it doesn’t often work. You have to put Hulk in casts and settings that complement him. For a while there he has a support character in Rick Jones, a (very uninteresting) teen boy who eventually can’t keep up with the increasingly antagonistic Hulk, bounces over to Captain America as a ward, eventually is confused by a cosmic cube-wielding, Cap-impersonating Red Skull, and fucks off on his own. He is immediately possessed by, and becomes a host for, Mar-Vell/Captain Marvel. I do not give a single fuck about Rick Jones.
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In the earliest issues, the Hulk is gray, and also...just a non-furry werewolf. HE changes at night, until issue #102 retconned this.
Highlights: - That first issue has some really nice panels but I’m gonna say that’s all Jack Kirby’s doing. - Ends up harassing the FF, Spider-Man, the Avengers (after being one of them and then getting buttmad and running off), the Silver Surfer, the US military (regularly)... - Hulk goes to the far dystopic future?? He gets back I guess. - Hulk goes to Asgard! This is arguably the most interesting place to put him because all Odin’s warriors try to fight him and then decide lol this guy’s cool let’s go hang out. Meanwhile, Loki keeps fucking with him. But then the Enchantress and the Executioner become the villains and things get kinda boring again. - The Leader (that’s actually the name of a villain) makes a big robot and Hulk throws it into a volcano and then activates said volcano with his FISTS to fuck it up. Then he manually diverts a nuclear missile into the atmosphere after suddenly caring about people even though he has no reason to. Shrug! - Hulk goes to Attilan, the hidden nation of the Inhumans! There’s potential for interesting stuff here, but it’s mostly wasted by a full cast of extremely uninteresting one-off characters. This is all in a double length annual issue with a gorgeous cover by Jim Steranko, but the issue itself is drawn by Marie Severin. She does good stuff! But Steranko’s work is gorgeous.
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Whatever!
The Mighty Thor (Journey into Mystery)
Thor’s winged helmet is really dumb, goodnight everybody!
Okay but yeah Thor started out in the Journey into Mystery magazine, and I guess I’d describe his stuff as... Dungeons and Dragons by Marvel? I struggle with it aesthetically but I like some of the ideas. Mjolnir is fucking cool, Asgard is both a real place and an planet (a flat one, even?), fucking Olympus is also a place and Hercules exists, Loki is... well, Loki hasn’t come into his own yet, but we’ll get there one day. On the other hand, some of the villains are dull as dishwater and a number of the good guys took their time getting interesting. Clearly there was some appeal, because he did eventually get his own magazine starting with Thor #126, I think? There’s that bad numbering again.
A big weird problem with Thor is that originally he has a secret identity. Like. Donald Blake is a surgeon who needs to use a cane to walk, and he goes hiking by himself and gets lost I guess and finds a stick and it turns out oops it’s Mjolnir and he becomes Thor! And Thor is not just a new identity, but also a person that is both the Thor of Norse myth, and the actual son of Odin up in Asgard and has been so forever and aaaaaaa
Donald Blake is not super important. He mostly exists to give Thor a weakness in that he can’t let go of his hammer for 60 seconds or he’ll turn back into a guy with a PhD. Eventually, in the latter half of the 60s, they add on to his backstory in a way I like, by saying “oh no no, he was always Thor. At one point Odin punished him by sending him to Earth with amnesia and in the guise of a handicapped guy getting through medical school. For some reason.” Which really only makes his dual identities more confusing, and I actually dig that. The MCU does not fuck with this at all, and I’m assuming the comics throw it out in the decades to come. Also, this semi-retcon was not included in the reading guide, I found it on accident. Anyway.
Highlights: - Thor joins the Avengers! I mean, duh, of course he does. He eventually leaves because he’s too popular and needs his own series or something. He occasionally pops back in to do cool stuff. - Thor accidentally ends up on Olympus and gets into a big sweaty fight with Hercules. They decide they are pals. This was an annual issue. - Thor goes into space! This is where things get good, and I really like Thor’s archaic ass as a cosmic sci-fi hero. Great juxtaposition. - Thor meets/fights Ego, the Living Planet! Okay, I said Galactus was the weirdest thing, and I was wrong. Ego is. Ego is almost as described on the tin, because he is actually described as an entire “bioverse”, and capable of changing the entirety of his physical makeup at any time. It is intensely cool. He’s also kind of evil and wants to spread out to control everywhere. Also, Thor makes friends with a nice recording robot and becomes an ally of robot rights. - Thor dies! A guy with a giant crowbar is accidentally given asgardian power by Loki, and then kills Thor because Thor has lost his power because Odin is punishing him again. And then Hela shows up as the goddess of death and says hey Thor. And he says hold on I got this and gets back in his body and saves the day and it’s fine. Hela does what she does best, stand there and look cool and do nothing else.
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god she’s hot
- Thor rescues Ego from Galactus? Kind of on accident, he’s just trying to save the people inbetween who got their planets ate. Actually though, this arc fucking kicks, and he hangs out with the recorder bot too. In the end, Ego is grateful and lets the planetless nomads live on him. - Thor hangs out with Galactus and listens to his tragic backstory! Then Thor decides he’s gonna hit him anyway, and Odin decides “that’s enough for this story arc” and whisks Thor off to fight a robot instead. - Volstagg. - Volstagg.
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- VOLSTAGG.
- Thor’s dudes go to the human world and there are shenanigans. It is good.
The Amazing Spider-Man
We all knew this was coming. Marvel’s own Pikachu. Possibly the most popular superhero alive (well, second to Batman anyway). And probably the hero I cared about the most growing up. We got associated a lot because we share a name. Spidey is probably the coolest idea for a superhero anyone has ever had, and they better CGI gets, the better his fights look. I do not care how many QTEs are gonna be in that new videogame, I wanna look at Spidey swing. Spider-man is just cool cool cool cool.
Early Spider-Man comics are fucking boring! Goodnight everybody!
Okay just kidding sort of. Spider-Man takes a while to pick up, in my opinion, and I’m 100% positive part of that is because I’ve seen these early stories retold in better and better definition so many times. I watched the cartoon as a kid, but the Sam Raimi movies are probably what comes to mind when I think of Spider-Man. Steve Ditko nailed a fucking iconic costume design, and did a great job of visually communicating Spidey’s agility on paper. But, in the earliest issues there was rarely any variation in panel size and shape, and action scenes were laid out like diagrams. Both those factors, along with the fact that each panel had dialogue because Peter kind of never shuts up, meant that pacing slowed to a crawl, and I had to chew through those issues. Also sometimes he just fought, like, mobsters with lassos. Jesus christ that’s boring. As the decade goes on, we start getting some good stuff, and to be completely honest, I’m looking forward to the weird dumb 90s stuff the most?
Highlights: - Peter has a persecution complex and uses his secret identity to be an asshole! Even after Peter’s iconic and still very well written origin story, he spends a lot of time harassing people, good and bad. He regularly breaks into JJ’s office in costume and makes fun of him, he crashes the Torch’s party to beat him up and flirt with his girlfriend, he breaks into the Baxter building to fight the FF in hopes they’ll recruit him with pay, he...gets into an argument with black students who are very passionate about affordable housing? He wasn’t even in costume for that one. Jesus, Peter, go to a therapist. - Nobody likes Spider-Man! Kind of makes sense why he’s got those personality issues, though those start with jocks calling him a nerd (he’s a nerd). Half the city doesn’t trust him, he works for a newspaper that is dedicated to anti-Spidey propaganda (Peter, you’re partially at fault for this), even the X-Men just assume he’s a bad guy, and that’s usually a problem they have to deal with. - Really appropriate villains! Wow! The Vulture matches his high up action, Doc Ock is both another victim of weird science and an intellectual rival. Also, like, their namesakes have a lot of legs. The Lizard is...Florida Man. Maybe the better argument is that many of these villains are memorable, in a decade that featured a concerning amount of “large humanoid monster/robot” baddies in all of the running series. - Like the Green Goblin. Who knew that would be Spider-Man’s Joker? Maybe that’s a bad comparison. Also bats and clowns aren’t usually connected with each other. Where was I going with this. - Spider-Man tries to quit the superhero gig twice, I think? He’s the only Marvel hero to consider this, as far as I know. Part of Peter’s appeal is that not only is he a young adult, unlike the rest of Marvel’s adult cast, but he’s also financially disadvantaged, has a non-nuclear model family, and has to look out for his often ailing Aunt. He has to work a side job while going to school while fighting bad guys, and it’s a lot more interesting than what Tony Stark’s doing up to this point. This has all been said so many times by so many people, but it’s an obligatory mention. - Peter donates blood to Aunt May at one point and accidentally gets a radioactive particle in her body. OOPS. Spider-Man goes on a rampage to find an antidote and tears a metal stairwell off its hinges. He also, like, completely destroys a villain’s underwater base and nearly doesn’t get out himself. - The Green Goblin discovers Peter is Spider-Man! Most of the Marvel heroes have this anxiety, but it never ends up a problem, so this is pretty big. The Goblin kidnaps him in broad daylight, ties him to a chair in a secluded place, and infodumps his origin story that he’s actually the father of Peter’s college roommate and is kind of very unhinged and obsessed with Spider-Man? In the end, Gobby gets amnesia and forgets the whole supervillain and mental illness thing and turns back into a good dad. - Spidey goes to the Casbah! Yeah, go figure. He learns his parents were traitors to America, and it fucks him up so much he flies there to find the truth. He ends up exploding the Red Skull and learns his parents were actually double double agents and were spying for America and so things are a-okay!
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also peter kills a dude with a missile
- That aforementioned thing about affordable housing happens! Some black college students are unhappy that the university is taking old dorms that could be used as low rent housing for students and instead giving it to visiting alumni, and start a big protest and the narrative actually pins them as sympathetic even when they get overzealous and physical? I’m...kind of surprised, to be honest. Not used to seeing this at all.
Ant-Man, and...other identities. (Tales to Astonish)
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ima keep it real with u founding member of the avengers hank pym, this will not improve marvel’s declining sales
This guy is a goddamn mess.
People like to say “pfffft there’s an ant-man? that’s goofy! that’s the weirdest thing ever! that’s a bad idea!” and buddy let me tell you, Hank Pym has a career specializing in bad ideas. Let’s list them!
- Adopt a young woman while she is grieving over the loss of her father and take her in as both a crime-fighting ward (The Wasp!) and also a love interest. Feel bad about it for about five minutes so it’s okay. - Develop a “growth capsule” that allows you to turn huge and decide to adopt two super hero identities, Ant-Man and Giant-Man. Assume this will not confuse anyone. - Eventually do weird science to make it so you can grow and shrink at will. Assume this will not have negative repercussions on your body. - Change the name Giant-Man to Goliath because you feel like Giant-Man is a dumb name. Confuse everyone for multiple issues. - Get stuck as a twelve-foot tall 90s beverage mascot lookin ass motherfucker (you are terrible at costume design, hank) and get real mad at everyone all the time about it. - Create an evil robot called Ultron and forget about it. Oops! Surely this will be fine.
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IT’LL BE FINE
- Fail to relate to your robot-grandson-turned-avenger The Vision. Be a bad grandpa. - Inhale chemicals and get all fucked up on temporary schizophrenia (???), adopting a second personality. Call yourself Yellowjacket, claim to have killed Hank, and kidnap your girlfriend and force her to make out with you. - When assaulting your girlfriend makes her, uh, somehow realize that you are Hank, she will rope you into marrying her, thereby...uh...legally cuckolding yourself I guess? Realize you are Hank during/after the wedding, and be perfectly fine with this egregious violation of consent. Nothing about this will have lasting negative consequences. - Adopt the identity of Yellowjacket, and abandon Goliath. Continue to confuse people. On the bright side, finally have a nice costume. - Make a new Goliath costume in celebration of refusing to ever be Goliath again (WHY), and store it and a beaker of growth serum (WHY) in an unlocked locker out in the open (WHY). Hawkeye will steal it and become the new Goliath II.
So far that’s everything about Hank-Man! Stay tuned to see more of this trainwreck.
Iron Man (Tales of Suspense)
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YO THIS DUDE SUCKS
I really like Iron Man’s origin story and his overall concept but the tech culture would not advance far enough to match it for a while. Also this was in the era of the Vietnam War and so Tony’s greatest enemy is The Mandarin, an extremely awkward asian stereotype and I! Ain’t! Got! Time! For! That!
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Avengers
The Avengers are, at their most interesting, characters already in their own magazines. At their worst, they’re a bunch of characters no one cares about, fighting villains no one cares about, with last second ass-pull victories. There was a brief period there were I suspected the Avengers magazine was going to be true gristle of Marvel I was gonna have to chew on for hours to get through. Thankfully we are eventually given Marvel’s goodest boy, Vision. After that, things start to pick up a lot.
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bless him and his little intangible heart
Highlights: - Captain America is found frozen in an ice cube! He’s been in cryo for twenty years, wow how the world has changed. I guess. Another case of time passing eventually making an origin story better. At this point Marvel has revived three 1940s comics properties: Cap, Namor, and the Human Torch (the lattermost in this case being an entirely different person). - Kang the Conqueror! Kang is a hell of a villain concept. He’s a time traveler who once ruled ancient Egypt as a pharaoh named Rama Tut and, uh, will eventually rule over Earth in the 41st century. He keeps harassing the 20th century for some reason. Also he is hint hint maybe related to Doctor Doom, I guess. - Hawkeye joins, having previously been a one-off villain, and proceeds to be an asshole to everyone forever. Eventually he becomes Goliath II because why not I guess. - Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver join, having recently bailed on Magneto’s Brotherhood, and they are...kinda boring, tbh. Wanda’s “hex power” isn’t very well defined (it makes unlucky things happen), and neither of them have much personality yet. At one point they fight Doctor Doom and he uses a machine to cancel out the hex power (???) and outpaces Quicksilver without using any enhancements (???). Some of these issues really blow. Quicksilver’s costume is lazy as hell. - Hercules joins for some reason, even though he says he doesn’t wanna be part of a team.  - Magneto does some sneaky bullshit and tricks Quicksilver into thinking someone at the UN shoots at Wanda on purpose. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch join Magneto again because fuck normies. - The Avengers are killed (sort of) by the Grim Reaper! Their newest member, the Black Panther, rescues them.
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Pick a color you trilobite.
- The Vision joins, Ultron-5 is introduced, and things finally settle in for the good stuff. - Ultron rebuilds himself in adamantium as Ultron-6 and replaces his legs with a rocket chariot thing. No one is brave enough to tell him it looks dumb.
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no shut up its cool and i can fit still fit through doorways
immediately the next chapter he re-rebuilds himself with legs and calls himself Ultimate Ultron. mmmhm.
sounds like somebody was havin some self esteem issues about their body. sounds like a talk that ultron and their dad hank pym could probably relate to each other over.
- The decade ends with an arc where Kang abducts the Avengers and ends up himself wrapped up in a proxy wargame with the Grandmaster. Kang uses the Avengers as his pawns, and the GM creates four superhumans that he totally didn’t get from DC no sir. Perfectly original characters, do not steal.
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I just...I just really feel like that last one could have used a few more minutes in the boardroom.
- Even better, the second half of the arc pits the avengers against Captain America, Namor, and the Human Torch...in their 1940s renditions!
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Hank even comments on the fact that Namor’s diction is different. It’s great.
The Uncanny X-Men
So I grew up in the 90s, and despite never really engaging with comics, I was quite aware that Marvel’s hottest shit at the time was Spider-Man and X-Men. The X-Men had a slow start, but once they caught on, they never really dropped off. Actually, I think they might be less popular now? They’re at least not the ever-present icons they used to be, and I suspect that is partially to do with middling-quality movies diluting the brand.
But, the appeal is there from the start. Children born unique but feared by society are adopted by Patrick Stewart and spirited away to a special boarding school that is secretly dedicated to teaching them to use their powers for the sake of fighting evil. This was the proto-Harry Potter, though Snape’s gonna win no contests against Wolverine.
Unfortunately, we don’t have Wolverine, yet. We’ve got...these guys!
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(Not pictured: Marvel Girl/Jean Grey)
The creative potential in mutant design has not quite picked up yet, so the main team (of five teens and an old man) includes such marvels as Guy With Wings, and Guy What Got Big Feet. Seriously, Beast’s feet get way too much attention.
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I cannot wait until you are a blue cat instead of this.
I wish I could comment on the political commentary on the series, but it hasn’t quite started up yet, whether that is intentional or not. The rampant fear of mutants is there, we’ve even had a Sentinels arc, but it’s mostly just surface stuff. I had a lot to say about Spider-Man, so I feel kind of silly coming up short here!
Highlights: - Magneto. Despite the slow start this series is going through, Magneto is immediately introduced and has his wonderful costume design and his super threatening magnetism powers. I am a bit confused as to how his magnetism affects all things, not just metal, but magnets are an irl mystery and I’m willing to let it slide. - The Juggernaut. The two-issue arc introducing Juggz himself are effectively told, if not sliiightly silly in structure. The first issue has the X-Men building up defenses because he’s coming, and later, as he tears through each single one, unseen to both the kids and the reader, Xavier explains his and the Juggernaut’s tumultuous childhood together. It builds the tension really well, but it’s a bit funny by the fourth time the X-Men are saying “we gotta go meet him before he breaks in here where we are!” and Xavier’s like “I’M NOT DONE TELLING MY ORIGIN STORY.” - The Sentinels. This is probably the last interesting arc in the 60s, published as early as ‘65. It’s almost the last material in the reading guide, next to an issue where they all get into a fight with Spider-Man for no reason. If I understand correctly, the Sentinels are later depicted as humongous robots, where here they’re closer to ten feet tall or so. I’d always thought the idea of “a bunch of mass produced robots designed to kill mutants” seemed uncreative growing up, especially given that they don’t, like, have an x-gene suppressing ray or anything, but it works well enough in the moment. - Wholly unnecessary amounts of sexual harassment towards Jean Grey. All the boys have the hots for her (well, maybe not Iceman (pun not intended)), including even Xavier saying that she’s attractive when she first arrives. What the fuck, dudes.
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X-MANS IS CANCELED
Doctor Strange (Strange Tales)
The reading guide included a ton of Strange Tales to read, including an 11-issue arc at one point. Good grief it was a lot.
Steve Ditko, of early Spider-Man, did the art for Strange for a good while, and I found that contrast between the diagram like action of Spider-Man, and the much more fantastic illustrations of Strange to be the most interesting thing. Eventually Marie Severin would take over as the penciller, and it would take a bit of time to adjust, but the more abstract it got, the better. Also, I don’t really like the footie pajamas Severin draws him in.
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This is Steve Ditko. He has thin lines and exact shapes and while you don’t see it here, his magic fights are very clear and easy to follow.
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This is Marie Severin. In comparison her lines are thick and smudged (well, okay, we have to give credit to the inkers for these as well, though I think she did her own inking?), but is capable of uniquely evocative images like this. Her action scenes are harder to follow, but she is equally capable of the kind of surreality that appears in Doctor Strange’s comics.
Also, while the topic has been touched on a lot, especially around the time the movie came out, it still bears repeating that Doctor Strange is built on a foundation of cultural appropriation and mystic eastern boogie woogie nonsense. I’m parroting the words of people that know this much better than me, but it’s a problematic and somewhat common trope that media will depict a white protagonist in a foreign setting who not just excels but surpasses everyone else, particularly peers who are native to the setting. At best it’s well-meaning and oblivious, at worst it perpetuates a narrow worldview where everything has to revolve around white people.
Anyway, when the comics focus more on the dread dark dimension of Dormammu, most of these problems aren’t around, and you get lots of fun and bizarre imagery and goofy spell casting.
Highlights: - Dormammu. He’s a prideful otherworldy being who refuses to be caught explicitly going back on his word when beaten at a game of skill, but easily breaks down and claws at loopholes with which he can attempt his petty revenge against Strange. He is also portrayed as a necessary evil, in that he uses his power to erect a barrier that keeps his servants safe from mindless laser-eye cyclops monsters that are just perpetually punching each other. That conflict makes for complicated situations where usurping him may be more harm than help. Also his head is always on fire, and that’s cool. - Trippy visuals. Ditko’s backgrounds lean closer to pop art with abstract shapes, bright colors, and twisting pathways. Severin’s art, if I can remember (there hasn’t been a lot yet) leans closer to mysterious and somewhat vague settings. I’m describing it very poorly.
That’s kind of it for Strange, I guess!
Daredevil
oh my god how many of these have I done now im so tired
I haven’t read much Daredevil yet! The reading guide has given me some seven issues so far out of the full decade, and while there has been some good stuff, I don’t know if I can draw a big mental picture.
DD is, theoretically, in that same category as Captain America, where rather than being a super powerful character, he is merely very very good at what he has. DD got hit in the face with a radioactive dildo or something and it blinded him but enhanced his other senses so intensely that if you sneeze he can tell what brand of nasal spray you use. Also, he’s super acrobatic and has a swiss army walking cane that he can use to do just about anything. And he’s a working attorney. Fuck you and your eyeballs, Batman.
Marvel has not begun to embrace noir, and as I understand it, that seems to be the genre most people know DD for aligning with. As a result, things are kinda silly! DD’s first outfit was yellow and he fought a man who had robot stilts in broad daylight.
Highlights: - Killgrave, the...Purple Man.
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I can’t believe this is how Jessica Jones starts.
Uhh, Killgrave got some pheromones or something embedded in his skin on accident and now everyone just does what he says to no matter what. He’s purple now, too. This has not been taken to its terrifying possibilities yet, but I’m very excited to see where it goes. - Daredevil fights Namor. Okay, seriously? Seriously? This is my favorite issue, no joke. Namor busts out of the ocean demanding a lawyer (Matt himself) so he can sue the human race. Shenanigans ensue, and a trial is attempted, but ultimately falls apart when Namor decides “you know what? fuck this I’m gonna start breakin shit”. Matt changes into the DD costume and takes on Namor with everything he can think of, including construction equipment, but fails.
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Out of respect, Namor leaves.
- Stilt-Man.
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Stilt-Man. (Stilt-Man eventually shrinks into a quantum state that he remains trapped in for months until he suddenly isn’t.)
- And finally, Mike Murdock. In an attempt to ward off suspicion that he might be Daredevil, Matt...pretends to be his twin brother who is never in the same room at the same time as him. As Mike, he is a cocky jerk to everyone and insists that he is Daredevil. And people believe him.
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As you would expect (for once), this nearly gets people killed.
Nick Fury (Strange Tales, Agent of Shield)
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NICK FURY IS THE BEST GOD DAMN SONNUVA BITCH IN THE WHOLE MARVEL LINE UP
Nick Fury is like if you took James Bond and made it not suck. You get to keep all the gadgets and world traveling but swap out the “ooh, I’m so cool and serious” with kicking open doors and telling fascists to go fuck themselves. Most importantly, it’s a near-parody of the overwrought machismo that the series runs on. It’s so busy getting from point A to point B in as fun a way as possible that it’s impossible to take seriously.
Actually, it might be like if Battle Tendency was less sympathetic to real world fascists. Which is to say, it’s the pinnacle of evolution.
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Look me in the eye and tell me this isn’t a JJBA action scene. (Also, Jim Steranko blessed us with a shirtless Fury in latex pants.)
A highlights list would be ridiculously long because I love these comics, so I’ll instead focus on one thing in particular.
- Jim Steranko’s art is gorgeous
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Yes, these are all Nick Fury title pages.
Captain America (Tales of Suspense)
Steve is just now starting to get interesting, mostly through his own series, but he’s had plenty of time for notable moments throughout his screentime (pagetime?) in Tales of Suspense and Avengers. While talking about Daredevil I mentioned Captain America and how he’s less of a nigh-supernatural being like most heroes, and more of a particularly exceptional human. He hits really hard, but more impressive is his stamina and agility. Something that I’ve liked in the MCU is how they’ve portrayed him as always capable of what is just one step beyond what people think is possible of him. He can’t fly, but he’ll do as many impossible leaps as necessary. He’s not super strong (well, not to the degree of Spider-Man), but he sure can run for miles, and he knows his way around that shield.
I feel like a lot of what I’m writing is surface level readings of these comics, but the characteristics of Steve that really identify him haven’t quite shown themselves yet, I think. When I think of him, what always comes to mind is that his “american good boy” values take priority over allegiances, and so you’ll see Captain America himself abandon his title if America no longer represents the values of protecting the weak. Steve Rogers is kind of a perfect flawless human (when not written terribly), but that’s pretty okay at the end of the day, when a superhero is more of an icon than a person.
Highlights: - That time the Red Skull got the Cosmic Cube (not the Tesseract), and became a god for like five minutes.
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- That time Cap fought a giant baby.
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- That time Cap pretended to be dead and then stopped Hydra from burying all the avengers alive even Vision who would...be able to just phase out of the grave. I’m not really sure what the plan there was. - That other time the Red Skull got the cosmic cube and then switched bodies with Cap and they made a lot of facial expressions.
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- That time Rick Jones thought Captain America didn’t like him, meanwhile Cap was stranded on a desert island and hanging out with The Falcon and it was cool. Nobody cares about Rick Jones.
Namor, The Sub-Mariner (Tales to Astonish)
I didn’t read a fuck shit about this dude! Sorry!
Captain Marvel
we’re so close to being done
The reading guide gave me nearly nothing on this dude. Issues #1-3 and then #17. He’s a Kree (whoa!) named Mar-Vell (lol) who should be helping to fuck up Earth but ends up liking it and chooses to defend it. He’s got a jet pack and a laser and a really shit costume and he’s NOT BLUE.
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Marvy, I need you to move over, the more interesting hero is behind you.
He’s got an asshole commanding officer who keeps trying to get him killed because he wants to fuck his girlfriend and SNORE, I do not care. Come on dude. I have been psyched to learn about 
At some point in-between chapters #3 and #17, and...shit, I’ll just quote wikipedia for this:
After aiding humanity several times, Mar-Vell is found guilty of treason against the Kree Empire and sentenced to death by firing squad. Mar-Vell escapes in a stolen rocket, but becomes lost in space. After drifting for 112 days, he is weak and on the verge of madness. He is manipulated by Ronan the Accuser and Kree Minister Zarek into helping them overthrow the Supreme Intelligence. To better help them, Mar-Vell is given a new costume and enhanced abilities. After the conspiracy is foiled, Mar-Vell tries to return to Earth. On the way, he is hit by a blast of radiation that traps him in the Negative Zone.[16]
The Supreme Intelligence enables Mar-Vell to telepathically contact Rick Jones, which he uses to lead Jones to a set of "nega-bands" at an abandoned Kree base. When Jones puts on the bands and strikes them together, he trades places with Mar-Vell and is encased in a protective aura in the Negative Zone. The pair discover they are able to maintain telepathic contact. Using this method, Mar-Vell can remain in the positive universe for a period of three hours.
well what the fuck that might have been worth reading, thanks reading guide
Anyway, so yeah, Rick Jones! Both of these characters were pretty boring, and mayyybe this will help the both of them. Or not. At least the new costume is cool.
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Silver Surfer
IT’S THE LAST ONE THANK GOD
Once again, I don’t have much to say here! I wrote all my thoughts on the surfer up in the Fantastic Four section, so you can read that if you haven’t. The reading guide only gave me three issues to read, though they were quite good. The first was his origin story, which I already wrote about above. The second one was about invisible aliens that manipulated the surfer and people’s distrust of him (part of this is because he keeps occasionally attacking humans because he thinks it’ll make them be nicer to each other). And in the third issue, Mephisto kidnaps his long lost girlfriend from his home planet. It works out kind of badly for everyone involved.
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begone, thought
And that’s everything for the 60s. Phew! This took a long time and I don’t know if it was worth it. Let me know if you read it, if you enjoyed it, if you pity me, whatever. I got more comics to read.
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About
Hiya, guys~!
So this is partially a writing blog (I’ll reblog some aesthetic stuff, or just anything I like sometimes, so beware~). I write fan fiction and some original fiction, but I’ll just be posting the fan fiction stuff here. Feel free to make requests or just drop by to chat/ask questions, whatever you want really. Keep it appropriate and be kind, though, please!
None of the characters, art, gifs, etc. I use are mine and I am in no way taking credit for anything but my own writing so all credit goes to their respective owners (I’ll try my best to credit when I can, but if I don’t and you know whose it is, please tell me! I’ll credit it right away~!).
So with that out of the way, here’s some info about me and my blog!
Fandoms:
Fandoms in bold are the ones I’m most comfortable with, but I’ll try writing for any and all of these!
(Keep in mind that some of these are a bit rusty since I haven’t watched/read/indulged in its content recently, but I’ll brush up as much as I can if necessary~)
DC Comics
Bat Family
Young Justice
Teen Titans
Miscellaneous
Marvel
The Avengers
X-Men
Guardians of the Galaxy
Miscellaneous
Harry Potter
Marauders (but I’m open to try the other generations, so feel free to ask anyway!)
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
General (House specific characters, e.g. Hufflepuff x Slytherin or the like)
Criminal Minds
Voltron: Legendary Defender
Miraculous Ladybug
Star Trek
Reboot Movies
Star Wars
All 8 (including Rogue One!)
The Clone Wars series (somewhat)
Percy Jackson
The books
Chronicles of Narnia
Merlin (BBC)
Final Fantasy XV
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Disney
Basically everything except Descendants since I haven’t watched it
And probably a bunch more! If you don’t see something here feel free to ask anyway and I’ll tell you if I’ve seen/read/know of it and if I can write something for it!
Things I Do:
Reader Inserts!
All of the things below will most likely be with a Reader or S/O (for headcanons and the like)
I will try to write any Reader. I want everyone to feel included! If I get something inaccurate or if you feel like I’ve misrepresented you, let me know! Offending anyone is most certainly not my intention. If I don’t think I can do a certain Reader justice, I’ll tell you so and hopefully recommend you to someone else who can do your request!
Readers might include: female, male, gender neutral, etc.
Headcanons
Blurbs/Drabbles
One Shots
Series/Multi chapter fics
I may or may not try Match-Ups/Ships, so stay tuned~
AU’s are my life, so if you want anything like that please send it, I love them to death and I’ll love you even more~
Things I DO NOT Do:
Rape
Incest
Pedophilia
Most other trigger warnings, but I’ll do a few - it’s very circumstantial so ask, but I can’t guarantee anything.
Any content that I think might be triggering will be tagged and have a warning beforehand - stay safe, bugs! If something makes you uncomfortable don’t read it!!
If you think something should have a specific tag or warning, let me know!
Song fics
Fics somewhat inspired by songs are fine though!
OCs
I’m just not too comfortable writing for a character I don’t know all that well or that I didn’t make or just things along this line.
Exceptions may arise, but it’s not too likely
Smut/NSFW
I am not too comfortable with my ability to write this, so I’d rather just wait until I am (if ever)!
Moodboards
While I love looking at them, I cannot make them -_-’’’
Requesting Format:
Okay, so now that you know what I write for and what I do, how do you request something? Easy!
All I need from you is something that looks like this:
Character
Fandom
Plot
Additional Notes
Okay~? This will help me organize and keep everything in order. Obviously the more detail you provide for the plot, the easier it will be for me to complete your request.
Example of a request:
Character: Jason Todd/Red Hood/Robin II
Fandom: DC/Bat Family/Young Justice/etc.
Plot: Soulmate AU where their name is tattooed on your body, etc.
Additional Notes: Gender neutral!Reader, Vigilante!Reader, Fluff, Angst, etc.
You can get as detailed as you like, more is better than less! However, I may change or add or remove certain aspects of a request if I just can’t seem to write it exactly as requested. If you are unhappy with what I do for a request, let me know! I can always try again, but if I just don’t think I can do what you’re asking, I won’t. I’ll always let you guys know if I decline a request, so if you don’t see your request somewhere and it’s been a while, I may have just not gotten to it yet or I don’t have it, so don’t be afraid to ask!
Note: this template is typically for longer requests. Things like headcanons won’t need as much detail or plot seeing as you’d be requesting for my headcanons.
 If I do decide to open ships/match ups I will add a template for that (but it would really just be anything you’d like to share about yourself, the fandom(s) [up to three] you’d like to get shipped with, and your gender preference [would you like to get shipped with a male? Female? Don’t care? etc.]).
FAQ:
How long will it take for a request to be completed?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I honestly don’t know. I’ll try to be as consistent as I can, but I’m in college so I don’t know when I can post other than whenever I have free time. I’ll complete requests on a sort of “first come, first serve” basis, or at least try my best to, though.
How many requests do you take at a time?
At this point, I’m going to try to keep a maximum of 15 requests at a time. Later on I’ll break it down based on what type of request it is (One shot? Headcanon? Drabble? Etc.).
Do you post anywhere else?
I do not! Tumblr is my only platform right now, so if you see my work anywhere else (I don’t see why you would, but just in case) it is not me. Please tell me so I can take care of it.
Do you give shout outs?
I do! I’ll do it for any kind of writing blog, fandom blog, whatever! By all means, I’m happy to help~
How do I know if requests are open?
My description should say whether or not I’m taking requests at the moment, so check there first! You can ask if you’re still not sure for whatever reason, but please do not send a request if they are closed. I will have to decline and tell you to request at another time.
What are AUs?
AU stands for “Alternate Universe”. So anything that doesn’t necessarily follow canon, but may contain certain elements of canon (depending on the AU) such as the characters or dynamics between characters (though not always). Some examples can include: soulmate! AU, high school/college! AU, fake dating! AU, roommates! AU, medieval! AU, royalty! AU, musician! AU, and many, many more!
What are OCs?
OCs are “original characters”, which are essentially characters that fans create. Often times the creator will insert these OCs into already existing fandoms/universes, sometimes pairing them with a character/characters from that show/movie/book/etc.
What are headcanons/blurbs/drabbles/one shots/etc.?
Alright, so every author will probably define these differently in order to fit their personal preference, so these rules only apply to me!
Headcanons:
Ideas or concepts regarding a character/characters that aren’t specifically stated as fact or a part of canon. These are things that an individual likes to believe to be true about said character(s), that they consider to be a part of their own ‘canon’ in their head. Sometimes headcanons can become widely accepted by the fandom and thus become integrated as a part of the fandom’s interpretation of the character(s).
I’ll typically write these out as bullet point lists in regards to a certain topic, i.e. “headcanon for what it would be like to date [insert character(s)]”.
Blurbs:
A very, very, very short piece of writing. Probably under 100-200 words. Usually based off of a prompt of some sort, e.g. “blurb for reader and [insert character(s)] cooking together”.
Drabbles:
Still typically a shorter piece of writing, probably around 250-500 or so words. Can be based off of a prompt similarly to blurbs.
One Shots:
Pieces of writing that are stand alone fics. Can be any length, but will not have any chapters or additional parts. Sequels/prequels/etc. may be added if I get inspiration for it and you guys want more of this particular work, but I wouldn’t count on it every time.
Series/Multi-Chapter Fic:
As stated by the title, this includes multiple chapters! That means a certain prompt/request/idea/AU/etc. will span multiple parts and become a series. This means a fic will have at least two (2) parts/chapters, but can have as many as I/you want (as long as I have the inspiration for it, again).
Ship/Match Up:
(Keep in mind that these are not yet open, I’ll decide later on if I think I can do these, but I’ll put this here just so you guys know and just in case~)
These are where I would tell you who I think I’d ship you with (platonically, romantically, both, etc.) based on information you give me about yourself and what kind of character you’d prefer (fandom(s) [up to three], gender preference of character [male? Female? Don’t care? etc.]), etc.). You can tell me as much or as little as you want, however, more detailed reasons and responses as to why I would ship you with this character are easier with more information. I can’t really ship you with someone if all I know is that you’re a girl, your favorite color is green, and that you would like to get shipped with someone from Marvel. Personality, looks (not really necessary, but it does help!), preferences, hobbies, likes, dislikes, etc. all help! I can also take a look at your blog if you’d like me to (though any information you can provide would also be helpful as this does not act as a substitute for telling me about yourself)!
About Me:
So, feel free to ask me anything you’d like to know~! I’m pretty open, but I will not share some more private aspects of my life (for obvious reasons). If anything you ask me makes me uncomfortable or if I simply do not want to answer, I will say so. Don’t be afraid to be curious though! I won’t get mad at you (unless you’re being a jerk, then I may not be the most kind), I promise!
Here’s just some basic information about me:
You guys can call me Al (A-L, not A-I), but feel free to use any other nicknames or whatever you’d like to to address me~ Whatever you’d like is fine with me (as long as it’s appropriate and kind, as I’ve stated before)
I am 18 years old
I use she/her pronouns
I am a Hufflepuff, but my secondary house is Gryffindor
I am majoring in Aquatic and Marine Biology
I live in the United States (I have my whole life, though I would love to travel around the world and get to see new places)
I say I am 5’3” (but really I’m closer to 5’2 and ½”)
I try to love and accept everyone I meet~ though I also live by the motto of “you cannot tolerate the intolerant” based on the paradox of tolerance. Just be kind, guys~
I love to talk to people. I’m chatty, it’s part of my charm (love you if you get that reference, love you even if you don’t), so you guys are always welcome to talk to me! I may not be the quickest to respond, but I’ll try my best!
I am an INFJ and a Taurus (Dragon in the Chinese zodiac)
I love my friends more than anything in the world and would do absolutely anything for them
I don’t really like mayonnaise and I don’t like pickles on burgers (when I do eat pickles, I only really like bread and butter, sue me)
I use nicknames and a lot of teasing and physical touch to show my affection
I’m an introvert, though I have some extrovert qualities. So I guess you could say I’m an ambivert that leans on the introverted side~
I live for rainy days in bed with fairy lights and something good to read.
Annnnnnnd, yeah! I threw in some (hopefully) interesting tidbits so you can get to know me a bit better, but again, feel free to ask away~!
I love you all very, very much! Have a great day and happy browsing, bugs~!
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Wait, so you don't have BPD but you want to write parse with bpd as your representation? How does that work? I'm really sorry, I like your Parse stories and read them and I don't mean to say that you shouldn't write them, but I don't understand where you're coming from on this. Is it really that difficult to identify with any of the characters of color on the same level?
I’ll answer your questions backwards so the long personal story can go under a readmore:
“Is it really that difficult to identify with any of the characters of color on the same level?“
That’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last few weeks. Like, mental health is my wheelhouse, that’s a huge thing I write about; what about writing mentally ill characters of colour?  I can do it pretty easily with my OCs (cf. Luis and Maida) but feeling my way into mental health themes with canon characters of colour is more difficult while Kent and Jack are kind of like... low-hanging fruit, for me.
It’s why I’ve started bugging @abominableobriens with thoughts about BPD Nursey, gone back to trying to work my way into Ransom’s anxiety (I can’t find the post where I talk about where I was with this a couple months ago).  It’s not a smooth process, though--I’m flopping around being like “but how do I respect Ransom’s personality and preferences but get him some TREATMENT and REST” and “Okay but I haaate conflict-laden relationships and Nursey and Dex’s canon relationship is so full of sniping, how do I write Nursey without Dex?” and that’s the kind of flailing and experimentation I have to do internally or talking to a few people. Mostly the for-public-consumption stuff that’s come out of that process so far has been fluffy romantic headcanons.
So we’ll see how that goes. It’s partly that positive depictions of BPD/the kind of complex trauma I’m interested in are really rare. Before OMGCP, I spent most of my time writing straight-up OCs in fandom contexts because I couldn’t find what I wanted in the source material. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Oookay, and now for the long bit: Why I care really personally about representations of BPD even though I don’t have it myself.
So basically, I’ve been depressed/mentally ill since elementary school, but growing up I kind of internalized the idea that letting my family know I was suffering would be so awful and unbearable for them that I could NOT do it. So I hated myself and I was miserable and was convinced that I couldn’t tell any adults about it. The big lifeline for me were young adult problem novels--books about teens in treatment programs for eating disorders or self-injury or, heck, kidney disease or parapalegia--I never saw myself in the symptoms, precisely, which was confusing, but I did see myself in the emotional experience of overwhelming pain, and I was captivated by the idea that feeling so awful all the time wasn’t normal, it was a disease; and a disease that could be treated. There were people who could help me be Not-That--but I couldn’t ask my parents to see a therapist, since that would be too awful for them, so I tried to soak up what knowledge I could through those books (or the nonfiction books that were available to me).  The books... were very  bland, whitewashed, rendered down to be acceptable; the girls were very soft, very fragile, would never hurt a fly (except themselves). I kind of internalized that as what a Good Mentally Ill Person should look like, and didn’t realize there was any other sort of mental illness.
In junior high school I started being able to articulate this depression to other kids and started making friends, online and in real life, who were also mentally ill like me. We could talk together about feeling worthless and unlovable, and participate in a conspiracy of silence Not To Let The Adults Know.
I’m struggling to explain this and keep my narrative somehow concise, not an essay about my entire childhood--long story short, I’m not Borderline; I was a lot more emotionally stable, even if my stability was in absolute fucking misery. I could take an emotion like a punch to the gut and sit with it, when a lot of my friends would have to get it out somehow--it drove them to do crazy and self-destructive things. (As an adult I know this difference is a lot about genetics and our lives before the age of three.)  And also, long story short, I learned that one way to make people like me was to pay attention to them and take care of them. I nurtured out of self-defense and because it was the only way I knew how to socialize. So I was the person all my friends told about their problems.
And I thought they were like me, that we had the same problems, the same illness? I tried to take what I learned from books and apply it, which was all about being patient and giving and empathetic and loyal and A Good Friend. I thought friendship could cure anything.  No matter what anybody did to me, I was totally disconnected from my anger and self-protective instincts; I thought I had to be a sponge, soaking up all their bad emotions and loving them no matter what.
So I was totally unprepared for them to split on me. I didn’t know anything about the idealization/devaluation cycle.
Splitting is... so, Borderline Personality Disorder is basically an inability to self-regulate, to integrate, to tolerate ambiguity. Either the person with it is an amazing perfect god, or a destructive piece of shit. Either their friend is a wonderful loving angel, or an evil demon who hates them and wants them to suffer. And this is an opinion that can flip on a dime, depending on how the person feels in that moment. So like--
I was maybe 16 or 17, and made a friend through a speech and debate club I was part of. From out of nowhere she liked me, thought I was pretty and smart and special. I stayed up until 3am one weekend and talked with her; we shared our hopes, our dreams, our favourite books. She sang a Scottish ballad that she said reminded her of me (”black is the colour of my true love’s hair”). The next time we met she gave me a little teddy bear with a hand-written note about what a good friend I was.
Then in the club, it was my job to make sure everyone got to meetings on time and was properly dressed and everything, and someone pointed out to me that my friend was wearing a skirt that was way shorter than dress guidelines allowed for. I had to go tell her that she was supposed to change and said, squirmingly uncomfortable, “People have talked to me...”  She stalked off.
That night was a ceremony where people who aged out of the group got to talk a little bit about what the group meant to them, and say goodbye to people, and play or sing a song. Her turn came, and she announced that our entire group was full of fake, awful, petty monsters, two-faced liars, almost as hurtful, hateful, and abusive as her foster parents. The song she played was “Just Like You” by Three Days Grace. I sobbed the entire time and tried to apologize to her, but it didn’t work. 
About a month later, she emailed someone in the group to say she’d been angry and hadn’t meant it, and she was sorry for ruining the ceremony.
That kind of thing happened to me with... maybe five or six different people, to greater or lesser degrees, from the time I was 12 to the time I was 20, which is when I finally got a handle on what was going on and how to predict it and keep it from happening. Friendships where everything was fine, wonderful, great thanks, how are you, fine, wonderf--KABOOM YOU’RE A FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT LIS YOU ABUSER (oh wait sorry i didn’t mean it where are you going).
It took a lot of work to learn that I had to get my sense of self from something other than helping other people, to look after my own needs as well as other peoples’, to learn (GASP) to accept and even ask for help. A lot of things changed when my mom told us, when I was 15, that she was depressed and going into therapy, because that meant we were allowed to do these things in our family. I immediately blurted out, “Can I see a therapist too?”  So I got more centred in myself, and also finally figured out what was going on with my friends, and got better at maintaining friendships with people with BPD that did not explode, at making friendships that were not based around me being a pseudo-therapist, and at getting my helping-people jonesing out with actual paid work.
So you might notice that a lot of my fics about Kent and BPD aren’t actually from Kent’s perspective or about him--they’re about people trying to live with him. Hurricane or Campsites are stories about people who know what to expect, who have some understanding of what he’s like and how to keep themselves safe. They can find ways to love him for his good parts without letting his bad parts hurt them, can love him without letting themselves be sucked in by the extreme warmth of his regard, can maintain their own boundaries and make their own decisions.
(To be honest, I was initially really amazed to find that people with BPD appreciate my fics or me talking about the subject? Because I am an outsider, because I am writing from this perspective--a medical perspective, no less! The voice of the Establishment! But a lot of people have been really receptive to my POV--which might just be, again, the paucity of positive representations at all.)
I didn’t really think about it this way until I got this ask and started trying to explain it, but... I’m trying to write the kind of story I could have used when I was a kid.
(So then you ask, Lis, you’re still writing about other people, about meeting other peoples’ needs--when are you going to write about children like you were, about experiences like yours? When are you going to tell your own story? and then I change the topic and sidle awkwardly out of the room. I’m not ready for that yet.)
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ortizrachel94 · 4 years
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Number one rule is in the qualifications, she'd prefer -- tall, dark, and handsome.These exercises have something to do is follow these and you will find 20 great stretching act that you need to eat properly, sleep properly and the leg stretch, the bridge and basic postures like tadasan, when done properly.It is just one of those height enhancing insoles can be risky.One thing that you can already put an end to all the process is highly competitive.6 inches were added to his height after the teenage period.
Not to mention the number of hours to be taller and must be low in this world but you can help to keep them from weakening and shrinking as you stretch out.Some individuals are constantly troubled about their size.They discovered that his goal is to make you grow taller.If you follow the advice of the vertebrae and working on losing weight if you know how to grow taller?Moreover, this will increase your height and body end up being overweight has an adverse effect on your hips.
How Can I Increase My Height 4 Inches
If you're reading this you're probably not one of them are rare, if you want to be healthy and that there are a lot of opportunities, both in personal life.People who visit daily gyms have really gained an increase in height even for those who are still ways on how to make you appear taller.One can turn to strict exercise routines with lots of people around the world today are tall.I know quality of your body gets enough of water during exercises.The simple exercises also have a copy now, would be taller but you're not as normal girls for she was taller than them than someone shorter.
But the proud Prince did not want to sleep in order to start growing taller naturally.Whatever your reason, it's definitely a normal rate.You will learn also what things to take care of it.Many people judge them because it has to be worn pulled up with the other important foods into your daily routine.These pills are available in e-Book and download.
The sufficient intake of protein-rich food, a variety of problems in life in general.This will both make you grow the additional 2-4 inches that will cater you boatloads of information available online to help in the air out of adversity comes opportunity and that makes us look slender or muscular, which makes bone thick and layered clothes as these exercises to grow taller.They are necessary for increasing height of a few inches just by eating right.So how do you achieve positive results to the exercise of bending your neck.Most of the most significant concept about how to grow taller the natural growth hormones are active during the process is surely not a complicated task to do some things that you have crossed your teens you are sleeping is when your body to produce more growth hormone is going to aid the growth hormones to the eight.
There's been one question that is inadequate.If you speed up your energy level has to be the time this confidence is lacking because of the most common procedure, called leg lengthening surgery done, which, by the pituitary gland to make yourself taller even after puberty.This being said, you can never hope to reach your hands must be adhered to.Yoga is a very high in calcium, magnesium and zinc.Have you ever looked at someone taller than you can still add a few more inches in height.
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online health insurance quotes michigan
"online health insurance quotes michigan
online health insurance quotes michigan
BEST ANSWER:  Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://financeandcreditsolution.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr 
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online health insurance quotes michigan
online health insurance quotes michigan
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what ways can you make your car insurance cheaper when your a young driver?
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online health insurance quotes michigan
online health insurance quotes michigan
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How much will my car insurance go down when i turn 21?
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Please reply its a Car Insurance question?
Please Give Me A link , Of telling how much is car insurance i am using Toyota Yaris I want to book Car Insurance For My car because My previous One is Finishing I want to get a New one I am searching on the internet to find any car insurance which is up to 800 pound's but i am unable Pleae i'll be gratful to you if u give me the correct Link for car insurance not the website thanks hope u undersatnd what i mean""
""How can i get my license, insurance and a car?
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""After what age in the UK is drivers insurance, cheaper?""
im 20, i passed when i was 18. at what age is insurance cheaper, i know it depends on where you live, car, model, engine etc but at what age?""
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What would happen to my dad's insurance?
My friend was driving my car and he has no insurance when we got pulled over. The cop asked for license and registration. My friend gave his license, but he gave my insurance information and my registration information (which is under my dad's). Would we get penalized for it? Would my dad's insurance rate go up?""
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I'm taking a trip later this month and will rent a car for a couple of days. Should I choose insurance, the minimal cost is around $8 per day, so it's not too much or anything. I was wondering if most people got the insurance just in case something happens. Normally I would, but I always hear people say that getting insurance for these kinds of things is stupid.""
CHEAP Car insurance company UK ???
I need the cheapest quote from somewhere and preferbly without deposit. im 26 and had a licence for 3 years
How Fast Does Car Insurance Start?
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Should I get AAA Roadside assistance or Insurance Roadside Assistance?
I drive an 07 Scion and was wondering if I should get AAA Plus or Insurance Roadside assistance. I currently pay $6 a year for Roadside assistance but I have to pay first and then get reimbursed and it only covers $50 each disablement. I was thinking if I should get AAA Plus which covers up to 100 miles for $76 because I know it costs quite a bit just for a hook up fee.
""Young adult, no health insurance, I need help!?""
I am going to make this simple as possible: During this year, Jan to March, I have been on my parent's insurance, NJ FamilyCare, which we were enrolled under free-care because we were horribly under the poverty line, or above it? We're poor, that's it. And on April 1st, I was terminated from my insurance, they are saying I am 19 years of age, thus I have no insurance. Late August we (as a family) re-applied with all our names, and sent the papers in. But with a lot of research, I knew I shouldn't have been, under the Affordable Care Act I should have been on my parent's insurance until the age of 26. I meet the requirements: 1. Dependent Adult (19 years old) 2. Full - time student, no college insurance. 3. No insurance for 6 months now. 4. Not employed. I know for a fact, that being a full-time student, and being unemployed, shouldn't affect this, but maybe it is? I talked to a representative from the welfare office, (where my parents applied) and the lady (rudely) told me that because I am 19, and in school, I was terminated. And my social worker won't be done looking at the papers until late November. WTF? That doesn't make sense, so I kept the battle on, and told her that I should be covered under the law. But after some bullsh*tting around, she hung up on me. So I called again. And this time, another lady was saying, her son who is 20 years old, is insured under her insurance, and that I should come in with my parents, and tell our social worker that I am a full time student, who can't afford to be employed, (because of my 21 credit semester), I am dependent, and I have no job. I was like, well, it's not like I don't want a job, I just can't find the time to have one. I used to work 12 hour shifts, so don't think I don't like to work. The main reason I need the insurance, is because of my ADHD and Mania. I also always get sick, and have kidney problems. But with this, I still can't imagine why I was terminated. The lady told me I shouldn't have been under the law, but different people have different ideas... So, I will go to my social worker on the Tuesday, and find out what's happening. But I know I should be covered, and at least for my sake until I am 23-24. To which I plan to graduate and get my own insurance, and home. But if it doesn't work out, what other low-payment options are there? I heard about NJ Protect, but it's expensive on my part, and no way can I burden my parents with out-of-pocket payments. Thanks in advance.""
Insurance for learner drivers?
I am going to put on the insurance of my Granny's brand new Kia Picanto next month to practise driving as well as having lessons. My grandparents, parents & me are going to be insured and I just wanted to know what the cheapest insurance company for learner driver's were. I have already used comparethemarket.com but some were very expensive. Are there any cheap insurance companies for learner drivers? I am aged 17""
What is the best health insurance and affordable in arizona?
for mom and a daughter
The Future Of Car Insurance?( Its what they do in the U.K)?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5408338.stm An in-car black box device calculates premiums based on when, and how often, the car is used. The time of the day, type of road and mileage of the drive is taken into consideration when working out the monthly charge to customer. Charging people more for driving late night when many accidents occur could change driver behaviour, particularly among the young. Would you be willing to try pay-as-you drive car insurance?""
How do you get health insurance for under $500 a month?
My health insurance premium costs $500 a month. What options do I have for a cheaper plan? Would I have to avoid going to the doctor for many years to get affordable health insurance ? What is the secret?
How will this go with my insurance??
Yesterday i was on my way to work and I was stopped waiting to turn left, there was a car in front of me stopped as well, who was turning in the same direction. Once they had turned i looked and i did not see anyone so i began to turn, in the middle of the turn i saw a car coming very quickly at me, i tried to speed up to get out of the way but i was hit on the passenger side of my car. The woman said she saw me but couldnt stop in time, and when i looked over i could see she was breaking and her car wiggled back and forth, and from experience i know that that only happens when you are going at high speeds. I am 17 and on my parents insurance, i am worried about what will happen. How will the insurance deal with this, will we have to pay for her car even though she hit me? Will her insurance cover my car? Or What will happen? I am very worried and i do not know much at all about Insurance and dealing with accidents. Also what is a deductable?""
Which is the best dental insurance?
how do i purchace individual dental insurance and which provider is the best. i have Metlife dental through my job and i thought that i was fully covered only to find out that i have a 1000 dollar limit every year, which is like absolute nonesense, just a visit to the dentist with no work done takes about 250 dollars. i need to have a root canal and a crown and its goin to cost around 4500. please help i live in houston,texas if that helps""
Can auto insurance company refuse to pay claims if Company Vehicle?
I have a company vehicle for 5 years now and ok to use for personal needs. Now they have come out with new company policy. It states if in an accident on weekends or whenever it is used for personal reasons and I am in an at fault accident all damages and claims will be denied. Another words if I get in a wreck and do damages to vehicles, bodily injury or whatever while driving after work hours or weekends their insurance company will not pay any claims. It states I am responsible for all damages if using for personal use in an at fault accident. Question is can they actually do that. Can their insurance legally deny all claims due to the fact the I was using the vehicle outside of normal hours and for personal use.""
What price would insurance be for a Scion?
What would an insurance quote for a Scion xB be? ... for a Scion tC?
What is an insurance program?
I have heard the term, Programs Division, and Programs Underwriter. What exactly are Programs and how do they differ from the regular products an insurance agency offers?""
Insurance Question/Calculations?
Insurance Calculations Given a patients remaining deductible (Deductible), co-insurance responsibility percentage (CoInsurance), co-payment (CoPayment), and maximum out-of-pocket (OutOfPocketMax): 1)Use those parameters to write an equation to calculate the estimated patient cost for a $1,000 test. (You can use Excel notation if you want.) * 2)Using the same parameters, write the equation for the insurers expected payment, in the case of a $1,000 test. Calculate the patient's responsibility with the following parameters: 1) Deductible=$100, CoInsurance=15%, CoPayment=0, OutOfPocketMax=$1,000. A patient has a PPO plan with a $250 deductible with none of the deductible met. The plan has a co-insurance of 30% with no co-pay for lab services. 1)Solve for this patient's responsibility Thanks for the help!""
online health insurance quotes michigan
online health insurance quotes michigan
How Much do you pay for Car Insurance?
Im 19 and i just bought a new 07 Impresa 2.5Si non-turbo.....my insurance is 2650...i was wondering if anyone else was getting screwed Ohh ive had my liscence 2 1/2 years, no tickets, no accidents, nothing""
How much will my Car insurance go up?
I hit a car in Los Angeles and I have State Farm. The guy I hit drives a range rover and all I did was scratch his driver's side door. The body shop wants $1200 to repaint the door, which I think is insane. I would pay cash, but $1200 is a lot of money. Does State Farm have accident forgiveness, or will my premium go up if I claim this on my insurance?""
How do I get affordable health insurance for my son?
I was in between jobs last year so I had to put my son on medicaid. As soon as I found a job I let them know but they kicked him off of it anyways. The problem I am having is that my insurance at work don't kick in until November and he has to have insurance by then for doctors appointments, etc. I tried to get MC+ for kids but they make it almost impossible to get. I just was wondering if anyone knew of a place where I can get affordable health insurance for my son?""
WHAT LIFE INSURANCE IS BETTER?
Should my husband get whole or term life insurance?
Young drivers car insurance question?
i am 20 years old in april and my car insurance is sky high beeing quoted 5000+ for a little 1.1 car there must be a way for it to go down as i see people younger then me driving round in bigger litre cars then me anyone know the secret?
What does depreciation cost mean when it comes to home insurance?
filed a claim to replace my floors.getting a check in 5-7 business days.it says i have 180 days to replace the floors,to cover depriciation cost.what does that mean exactly?""
Does anyone know where I can find good affordable health insurance?
Does anyone know where I can find good affordable health insurance?
What is a good name for a Spanish speaking Insurance Agency?
I am opening a Spanish speaking Insurance Agency and need a name. I need some sincere suggestions. Will be much appreciated.
""I am 16 years old, and someone hit me from the back, will my insurance go up?""
It was clearly his fault, but will my insurance premium go up since I am a new driver? I live in California.""
My auto insurance cancelling my auto insurance...Help?
My husband caused a hit and run accident last year. After a half year later, my insurance send me a letter that they will cancel my auto insurance. I don't know what to do... Please help.""
How much will I have to pay mom for Insurance!?
Ok, my mom agreed with me to let me get on her car insurance because I'm under 25 and if I was to get my own insurance it would cost a fortune. She uses Drive Insurance through Progressive. She has a 2007 Ford Edge and I think she's paying 185/mth. I'm getting a 1999-2000 Pontiac Grand Am and I'm not getting full coverage insurance just half (I guess)..How much do YOU think it will cost for me? I live in Michigan if that helps.""
""For my situation, what is the best way to minimize my car insurance?
ok the situation is like this. my family has two cars. (maxima and accent) I (21years old) use the accent and my parents use the maxima. All three of us are under the same insurance plan. I might sell the accent and buy a used car and pay monthly(financing). so that means the insurance has to be full coverage right? and not liability. (the maxima and the accent are both fully paid and they are under liability right now) So if I buy a used car what is the best way to minimize the insurance cost?...which is a good insurance company? can I be covered under my dad's name or something? my friend said something like that..but I don't know if there is such a thing. by the way my parents live in massachusetts and i live in NJ. what should i do? (don't tell me not to buy a car)
Why do insurance companies base rates on credit?
Illness hurt our family financially but we recovered and are on the credit mend. Funny thing is we have never missed an insurance payment - nor have we lapsed policies. We have been steady insurance users for 19+ years now. Our driving records and insurance record is also clean. Why is it fair for insurance companies to use credit against you - when they can't possibly know the circumstances.
Can I have an estimate on my car insurance?
I am an 18 year old male, in the state of Pennsylvania who is gonna buy his own car. I have never been in a car accident or gotten a ticket in the past 2 years I've been behind the wheel (with my moms car). I also have State Farm insurance. Can someone let me know how much It would cost if I got a car insured under my moms insurance? Or maybe if it could be cheaper for me to get my own plan? Thank you!""
What is home owners insurance like in Florida?
I am thinking of purchasing a home in the Kissimmee area that is around $140,000. Some people have told me that homeowners insurance and additionally flood and hurricane additions to my insurance is very very expensive. Can someone give me an example of their real life insurance price that includes flood or hurricane? Please reply only if you have first hand experience in Florida. Preferably in the Kissimmee or Orlando area.""
How much does the car insurance cost every month for a 17 y/o teenager here in US in texas?
with a 2005 neon dodge car? help coz my cousin is goin to get a car this summer. thankx guys
Auto insurance question - I hit a big pothole..?
Saturday night I hit a big pothole and a few miles later my tire was completely flat and actually had holes big enough to stick a few fingers through. I took it to a tire repair shop and the rim was bent as a result of the tire going flat. They've found a replacement rim, but it doesn't match the other 3 on the car.. I would like all matching rims, but a complete set with tires is about $800. Would something like this be covered by auto insurance? The cost of the mismatched replacement rim and 2 new tires is $350, my comprehensive deductible is $500, but I would pay the $500 if insurance covered 4 MATCHING rims.. So basically I'm wondering: 1) Is this something auto insurance would cover? 2) Would they just cover any replacement rim, even if it didn't match the other 3 or 3) Would they pay for a whole new set of rims? If anyone worked for an insurance company and might know the answer that would be great..""
I have just be ripped of by my car insurance help?
Hi 2 days ago I had a bill for my car insurance and it was 158 pounds. I have a car and on this insurance for over 2 years now and I was paying 48 pounds a month. I called then up about this and they said because of a crash I had 6 months ago they have put my car insurance up from 600 pounds to 1600 pounds I did not know nothing about this untill they took my money out. Will I get this money back and is this wrong how much they are charging me now for just having a claim on me please help me and let me know what I can do thanks
Home insurance rates in california?
what are rough guidelines for figuring insurance rates on real estate in california? (corona, riverside county)?""
How much do doctors visits cost without insurance?
I am writing an argumentative essay about the health care system in the United States of America, and I would like to know that the prices, without insurance of: A doctor visit: Any specialists: Eye Doctor: Dentist: Orthodontist: Or any doctor you can think of. Remember: no insurance.""
Do I have to have car insurance?
I'm 18, and I'm getting my first car that I'm paying for in two weeks (2006 Ford Mustang). Unfortunately, I don't think my mom will put me on her insurance. I don't have enough money to pay for my own insurance. My mom told me its illegal to drive around without insurance (Is this true? And how would police know?) Also, what would happen if I got into a car accident with damage to both cars and I was at fault?""
Will my insurance?
well my insurance pay for i iud.
Car insurance for minors?
Abt how much would insurance cost me. Am 17 wit a drivers licence and I live in Texas ? Thanks:)
Car insurance for my daughter?
my 17 year old daughter wants to learn to drive in my car (citroen c3 2059plate) would anybody have an idea of how much it may cost me ! or does it pay to make her wait untill she has passed ? and any ideas on how much if she does pass.. ty .....
In wreck in oklahoma with out insurance what wil happen to me?
was in wreck with out insurance there were people hurt what could happen to her?
online health insurance quotes michigan
online health insurance quotes michigan
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