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leupagus · 5 years ago

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Who’s your County Executive? and other steps to becoming a valuable pain in the ass

I fired off a tweet thread this morning, but I feel like a lot of folks here might benefit from this info, too. Which is: if you want anything to change, from police abolition to getting statues removed to passing local ordinances requiring masks to removing local legislation putting limits on abortion (just for some random examples), you need to get real familiar with your local reps. As in, you need to know who they are, what they do, how they’re elected/appointed, how long they’ve been doing that job, what their history is and how you can pressure them into doing what you want. Using hashtags and sharing links and signal boosting can only do so much. Talking to the people who are actually able to implement the change you want is a huge part that I don’t think gets discussed enough; and although it requires some preliminary work, once you get into the groove it’s surprisingly easy.

First, find out where you live! Which you may think is a stupid step, but —do you live in a city? Are you sure? I live in a city, for example, but I actually live in a township/suburb of that city, not the city proper. (Fortunately due to what I suspect is some white flight-related weirdness, I can still hassle the city proper.) There are entire towns inside of some cities, like West Hollywood and Los Angeles. Double-check; you might be surprised.

Then, find out who’s in charge of said place. There are quite a few people, actually. You probably have a mayor — but they might be called a supervisor. Or you may have a city manager, or executive, or clerk, or all three, or someone else entirely, who’s actually doing the day-to-day running of the place — for instance, while Austin has a mayor, it also has a city manager, and the city manager does WAY more than the mayor does. You also have people at the county/parish level — a county executive is I think the most common term, although sometimes it’s the county clerk, who can have entirely different duties depending on the county. Whatever way it works where you live, find out. While you’re at it, find out who’s in charge of your local elections. Sometimes that’s the county clerk (actually I think it’s almost always the country clerk, but sometimes it’s the county auditor or something weird like that); sometimes they’re elected and sometimes they’re appointed. Find out. Get names, put their contact info in your phone. (More on that later.)

Then, find out who represents you on the city/town council and the county legislature, or whatever they’re called where you are. Finding out what district you’re in can sometimes be hellaciously frustrating; when in doubt, an email to the county or city council can often get you an answer if you provide your address. Also bear in mind that different places have different ways of apportioning council members; sometimes they’re all “at large,” sometimes they’re elected according to districts, sometimes it’s a combination of both. Sometimes (not often I don’t think) they’re not elected at all but appointed by someone. Find out who! And don’t leave out things like school boards and zoning boards and community college boards and anything else you happen upon that has a representative you didn’t know existed. They exist, and I guarantee they’ve got power.

Note: find out who represents you state-wide, too. Often calling the governor isn’t that effective (at least for me, calling Cuomo ain’t gonna do much; if you live in Delaware or Montana or Iowa or somewhere relatively less populous, definitely get your governor’s information), but your state reps are usually pretty eager to talk to constituents, even — and this is really important these days — ones who aren’t of the same party. I’m represented by a GOP state senator, for example, but he ended up voting for this bill that just got signed into law. Most states are bicameral (except Nebraska, heyooo), so you likely have a state senator and a state rep/assemblyman/whatever. Make sure to get info for both. (Unless you live in Nebraska, in which case tell Ernie I said hi.)

Next, find out what the court system looks like where you are. Are your state/county/district/etc judges appointed? Elected? What are their terms? Who’s your District Attorney? Who’s in charge of your Public Defender’s office? (I actually haven’t bothered to look up that myself until today!) What courts handle which offenses in your area? Collect that information.

And what do you do with this info? You put it into your phone contacts, or whatever you use to keep your contacts organized, I dunno, maybe you still use your Wizard from 1992. No judgement. However you do it, put all of these contacts somewhere they’re all together — for example, if you have a letter in your directory that isn’t used much. I have a kind of weird method of organizing my contacts, which is that I put their first and last names (and their handles, if I know them online) in the Firstname field, then the Lastname field I use to say how I know them. So all of my New York-based friends are listed as “NYC, Holly Golightly/moonrivergoddess” or whatever. So for me personally, I just put all my political contacts under “Y” as in “Y do I have to keep pestering you to make you do the right thing.” So a county clerk would be listed like so:

Y, County Clerk Horace Vandergelder

In the “Company” field, I usually put their party and when/if they’re up for election next as well as term length, so Horace would be “Dem, 2020/2024.″ And then I might add any links I thought were helpful as well as notes about, say, what staffer I may’ve talked to or if there’s an important bill coming up etc.

And now you’ve got that information, it’s time to fuckin’ use it. Was there a protest that happened in your area that ended in arrests or violence? Call your mayor, register your displeasure. Call your DA, ask if anyone’s being charged. Call your city council member, ask them what legislation they’d support to end police violence. What do you know that you want them to know? Alternatively, was there a protest in your area that was really great and positive? Call these people; ask if they attended. If they did, offer support for them and say that you want them to follow up with actionable steps. If they didn’t, ask why. (BTW, it’s election season — look at the candidates, too! That state senator I mentioned earlier is retiring this year, and a pretty awesome Democrat is in a good position to get his seat; I’ve started volunteering for him in part because he’s got a history of agitating for police reform and has been regularly attending the protests here.) You can email, too; you’re welcome to c&p form emails, but once you have all these people’s contact info at your fingertips you’d be amazed how easy it’ll be to write something from you, that will be far more effective.

It’s also important to keep a record for yourself of who you’ve talked to, when you talked to them, what they said, if you want to follow up etc. I’ve got a little section of my planner for this; it has dates, names, topics, the works. It’s been really helpful to me over the past few weeks making sure I’m exerting pressure to a variety of people in a variety of positions, not just repeatedly calling one office and leaving the same message over and over again.

But if you really want to, as I put it on twitter, tighten the sphincter of local government, nothing beats face-to-face (or, these days, facetime-to-facetime). And here you’ve got a shitton of options. You can see if a particular politician/government office is taking virtual one-on-one meetings, where you can lobby either your politician or (more likely) one of their staffers to support legislation or policies or whatnot. This is, and I cannot stress it enough, HUGELY EFFECTIVE, especially if you are a demo they don’t often see (aka if you’re not a white Boomer). Local politicians are both desperate for and terrified of an engaged constituency; they want you to care but they’re very much aware that anyone showing up to an office (or a zoom meeting) could make their lives very, very difficult.

If one-on-one isn’t your style, there are also committee meetings, which... holy shit, you would not believe the number of committees there are. Committees for art festivals, committees for transportation, committees for public safety, committees for pretty much everything you can think of and a few I’ll bet you can’t. Noodle around on your councils’ and county’s websites, including their facebook page (nine times out of ten there will be more — and more up-to-date — info on the facebook page) to find out what committees meet when. And here is where your specific priorities will be important, because usually you can attend and in some cases even become part of these committees. Do you want to advocate for better public transportation? Find out when the transportation committee meets. Go to that meeting. If they have a Q&A, get some fuckin’ Qs ready and demand some fuckin’ As.

And then there’s the big kahunas of council meetings and state legislature sessions. Most city/town councils have a segment of their weekly/monthly meetings to hear from the public (this is different from a public hearing, FYI, although they too are really important and you should find out if there are any going on where you live and when). Do you have something you want to get in front of the whole council? Get your ass on the list! In Austin I think you had to call or email the council’s office by the day before; in my town you just roll up and get in line when it comes time. Then for state legislatures, often there will be specific bills on which they ask for “citizen input” or however else they describe it. This is less practical because we don’t all live in easy distance of our state capital, but if you do, consider getting involved there. (And right now with the pandemic, your state legislatures may have new rules about citizen participation that actually make it easier for you to get involved, for once.)

Mostly, though, this is about local involvement — find out who’s in control of your city, your county, your precinct and district and all the other ways your home is demarcated. Talk to these people, even if it makes you nervous; their power to make effective change comes with their responsibility to listen, and your power to make them listen comes with your responsibility to speak.

#you want your city to follow in camden and minneapolis's footsteps?#then CALL THEM UP #protesting sometimes works #advocating sometimes works #if you are only doing one of them that's fine #but doing both is more effective #and if what you want is change then you will want to be at your most effective #ergo this post #politics!

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longingandheartacheandlust · 5 years ago

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Roach is a Hereditary Title

Okay, so, I was thinking about Roach, as I do frequently.

Do any of y’all remember that scene in Lord of the Rings where Aragorn’s almost unconscious and his horse, Brego, lies down next to him to help him mount? Given that Geralt spends a lot of time getting himself severely injured while alone, it makes a lot of sense for Roach to be trained to do something along those lines, also. (That sorta thing is absolutely done IRL. I knew a lady, for instance, who was 5 feet tall but rode a draft horse who was more than 6 feet tall at the shoulder. She trained her horse to lower his head so she could hop on his neck and the horse would then lift his head back up so she’d slide down his neck to his back.)

And then I was thinking about what other training a Witcher’s horse would require.

(I have another huge point as well about Roach and Geralt and world-building that is what I’m actually working towards in this very long post. The hint is in the big text up there. Also, there are some fun gifs below you might wanna check out even if you don’t read the post.)

The most obvious is a ground tie, which we actually see used in the show. That’s where a horse is trained to act as though they’re tied to something when they’re not - for instance, you might take a lead rope, let it dangle it down to the ground, and train the horse that they should act as though the lead rope is tied to the ground. Cowboys use it to keep their horses still while they’re dealing with obstacles, working with cattle on foot, etcetera, when they’re out in the middle of a prairie with nothing to tie onto. This would keep Roach put if Geralt needs to do something and there’s nothing to tie to, but also is great to keep her out of danger - she can be trained that if she’s actually being attacked she should GTFO.

Here she is, in fact, doing just that: she had been ground tied, but when the kikimora got closer, she calmly backed up out of range. That calm backing, btw, is 100% a trained behavior. If she were getting out of there of her own accord she’d be spinning around and going both forwards and much faster.

(From this post by @highevre.)

Horses can be trained to track - their sense of smell is almost as good as a dog’s, and Mounted Search and Rescue using horses as trackers is a thing. Not necessarily needed given Geralt’s own enhanced senses, but it might come in handy sometimes.

She’d probably want to be trained in extreme terrain, and you’d be amazed what horses can do with that. Here’s a clip of part of the standard training for US Cavalry from around 1930:

(From here.)

A good trail horse can shift their own weight to keep an inexperienced, exhausted, or, in this case, injured rider in the saddle, so she’d definitely want to know that.

It’s unlikely, but she might even be trained in active combat. Horses have in the past been trained not only to carry their riders into battle, but even to fight themselves. Here’s a gif of one tactic:

That’s a pretty good way to get a drowner off your tail! (It can absolutely be done with a rider on, I just didn’t find any nice gifs for that.)

This one could come in pretty handy too:

Even if she’s not kicking forward with those front hooves - which is, actually, an established move, it’s called “mezair” - if I were a monster I’d be a lot less eager to attack with a twelve foot tall wall of muscle coming at me.

(Look up videos of “haute ecole” or “airs above the ground” and you’ll see a whole lot of breathtaking stuff that Roach could do.)

There are some random fun tricks that might be useful, like picking things up and handing them to her rider.

The absolute number one thing, though, is that she would have to be completely, 100% bombproof, and that’s where I get to my main point.

(Please note for the rest of this post, in case you’re unaware, the name “Roach” refers to several horses, as horses aren’t generally immortal. Geralt names all his horses Roach.)

I used to breed horses, and specifically the emerging breed Drum Horses. They were originally bred to (and are still used to) carry kettle drums in parades. Now, for that you need to be big, since the drums and gear can weigh more than 450lb. But, most importantly, you need to be completely, entirely unshakeable, to a degree that shouldn’t frankly be possible in a prey animal. You’ve got not only the insanity of a parade going on but also a huge loud noise right next to your head, the constant vibration from the drums, AND since the rider’s hands are busy playing the drums the horse is steered using only the feet.

So how the heck do you get a prey animal that’s specialized for millenia in Running the Fuck Away to do that? Well, centuries of selective breeding. Drums are derived from the Irish Cob, which was (and is) used by nomadic people in Europe to pull caravans. They have to be steady, able to deal with kids running around their feet while they work, since the caravans were mobile homes they're very noisy, and, long story short, Irish Cobs spent centuries being bred to be bombproof. The Drum Horses, then, were derived from that breed but with an even stronger focus on being 100% reliable and not-prey-like.

They’re also trained literally from birth; parade horses, police horses, and the like generally are. Within minutes of birth, you start handling them, rubbing them all over so they’re never startled by a touch. You put radios in their stalls playing rock music so they get used to sudden loud noises. You tie brightly colored streamers in their pastures to wave in the wind, pop open umbrellas, toss beach balls at them. Spray perfume and waft popcorn smell. Rub them all over with any equipment you might use, including tack but also things like weapons (mounted target shooting is a sport still done today). Have the equipment make whatever noise it’s gonna make. (Clanging, firing, whatever.)

The POINT being, that for Roach to be able to handle dealing with a new terrifying monster every week, she’d pretty much have to be specifically bred for it.

Well... where do you get horses bred to handle monsters, you ask? They might have had a small breeding operation at Kaer Morhen, but that doesn’t exactly help now.

My conclusion: Geralt must be breeding his own horses.

Roach is always a mare, after all. Maybe that’s not just sentimentality. Every so often, he finds a good, steady stallion - the very best on the Continent, of course, nothing else would do for his perfect girl. She’d be able to keep working most of the 11 months of pregnancy, and then for the last few he’d let her rest, either leaving her with someone he trusts until she’s due or staying with her and only doing day trips on foot.

And when the foal’s born, he starts doing all that training above from birth.

Half of those foals are going to be boys, of course. And he only uses mares as Roach. So what about the colts? Well, he sells them, once they’re old enough to leave their mother. And those horses, damn, they’re bred and trained so incredibly carefully, they must be the most valuable, sought-after cavalry mounts on the Continent. Kings and Queens bid for Roach’s sons to be their noble steeds. Geralt wouldn’t need to take jobs for years after selling one of Roach’s foals, if he didn’t want to.

Sometimes bad things happen, so he’d need to have a spare Roach or two always around just in case his girl retires earlier than planned. (She got a mild injury that keeps her from doing all that stuff above, she didn’t die, I promise!) So there are always a few Roaches around the country on a sort of lease, not allowed to be taken into combat but still being the amazing, perfect horses they are until their Witcher comes back to get them.

Final Conclusion:

All of the most famous horses on the Continent are Roach’s descendants. Royalty riding a horse that wasn’t from her is barely even worth being called royalty at all. And Geralt has raised his girl, and her mother, and her mother’s mother, and her mother’s mother’s mother, and on back, from birth, the first face they ever see and the first hand in their manes.

(Source: me! That’s one of my babies.)

#geralt is a horse girl #roach witcher #roach the horse #roach horse #mine

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jeannereames · 4 years ago

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Hi Dr Reames, I hope you're well! I think I might have asked this before, so sorry if I'm being obnoxious, but do you think there is very much studying left to be done in regards to Alexander/Macedonia? Looking at the field from the outside, it seems a little bit like all that can be said, has been. Would you recommend studying Alexander specifically as a prospective academic path, or would you advocate pursuing other areas of classics?

The problem with studying ANYthing in the ancient world is always a problem of the sources. Unless there’s new material, then we’re all just doing ring-around-the-rosie with what we have. That doesn’t mean new things can’t be said. I’d point to my own work on Hephaistion, or for that matter, Alexander’s bereavement. I wasn’t looking at anything new, just looking differently at what we already had. As someone who’d done bereavement counseling, Alexander’s mourning of Hephaistion didn’t strike me as particular unusual, except in the amount of money he had and power to have his desires put into practice.

Also, scholarship tends to go through “fads,” like anything else. That is, someone makes a splash with a new approach, one that can be applied more broadly, and suddenly, a lot of people jump on board. That’s not necessarily bad, but it can result in oversaturation. Right now, one of the big fads is “reception studies.” So the rise of new directions in the study of old fields can offer alternative approaches to familiar material.

Another thing that can happen is for old fields to give birth to new ones. E.g, Charles Edson, Harry Dell, and then Nick Hammond all started asking questions about the country that produced Philip and Alexander, instead of writing just about them. Edson’s 1939 dissertation at Harvard, “Five Studies in Macedonian History” widened the lens but things really began to churn in the 60s and 70s. In 1972, Nick Hammond published the first volume in that massive A History of Macedonia, after having done Epiros earlier. He got Griffith to work with him on vol. 2, Griffith writing much of the material on Philip (which is still, btw, a pretty damn good summary of Philip’s reign, if you allow for material discovered since), then Walbank, already well-known as a scholar of Philip V, worked with Hammond on Vol. 3, which is the Hellenistic period.

Macedonian Studies was born, and by 1990, 3 different histories had appeared: a short version by Hammond on Macedonian Institutions called The Macedonian State, Gene Borza’s (still) excellent In the Shadow of Olympus, that goes up to Philip II, and Malcolm Errington’s A History of Macedonia that included ATG and the Hellenistic period. What followed (and was in between) involved numerous articles, then companions and conference proceedings. Alexander (and Philip) were still hot property, but many articles had nothing to do with them. New direction had been found.

Yet notice most of those early scholars were English-speakers. Partly, that owed to where it got started: Edson and Dell were Americans. They trained students who were also Americans. So Bill Greenwalt (Dell’s student) would go into Argead Macedonia with an interest in Illyria (and Thrace) because Dell had the same. There were some Greek scholars, such as Miltiades Hatzopoulos and Argyro Tataki doing a lot with epigraphy, and Manolis Andronikos himself, but the field was dominated by English-speakers for a while.

One of the bigger shifts in the last 20-25 years has been an expansion into other languages, plus the Greeks dominating the archaeology. When you take up high-level scholarship, there’s an assumption that you will read material in languages besides your own. When I got my PhD, aside from the ancient languages, common wisdom dictated I learn German and French.

BUT my NUMBER ONE piece of advice to anybody who wants to do ancient Macedonia today is LEARN MODERN GREEK.

Why? Because, as I said, the Greeks have taken back their own archaeology and most of their reports are in Greek. They’re talking to each other, and most (non-Greek) scholars don’t read modern Greek [that well]. That’s not entirely accidental, and some payback for the colonial dominance of the late 1800s and 1900s. (Elgin Marbles anybody?) The best way to keep out “interference” is to write mostly in a language few other scholars read well. That keeps Macedonian history in Greek hands. I would now advise young scholars that modern Greek is more important than French. Just as, if you really want to do Thracian history, learning Bulgarian and/or Russian might be a good idea.

It’s getting increasingly hard, as scholarship expands, to keep up with all the languages one needs. Current work is being done on Macedonia, as well as Alexander and the Hellenistic world in English, Spanish, Italian, German, modern Greek, and even Russian, and that doesn’t look at the wider world outside Europe (and colonial states). We’ve got a ton of talented young scholars on the continent, while jobs are lacking in many English-speaking countries, meaning students just aren’t going into it. English still remains a major language, largely because Americans and Canadians suck at learning other languages while the Europeans might speak 4-5. But English is becoming less relevant. As a grad student, I couldn’t have guessed I’d need Spanish and Italian more than French.

But LEARN MODERN GREEK, as that’s where the NEW stuff is. I doubt we’ll get much (if anything) new in textual evidence. By contrast, archaeology is rewriting what we thought we knew about north Greece. E.g., Methone now vies with Pithokousai for the earliest Greek script. Think about that a minute. Euboian Greeks and Phoenicians weren’t just hanging around off the coast of Cumai in the late 8th century, they were poking about the Thermaic Gulf, too, interacting with whoever the hell was at Pella before the Macedonians moved in (Bottaians, Paionians, somebody else…?). Who [what people] were buried at Archontiko between 650-450 BCE?? What was happening tradewise between Aiani in Elimeia and Corinth? That, to my mind, is where scholarship is going: or it should be. The Early Iron and Archaic Ages…periods before Macedonia even shows up in the written record with Herodotos.

Sure, I love Alexander, and I write about him a lot here, or Hephaistion, but I’m really an Argead specialist. I’m just as curious about how Alexander I used Persian power, then Persian absence to consolidate his own power and create Macedonia as we know it. When I first got to UNO, the Hellenistic Era was the “happenin’” place, but there are now a number of Macedoniasts doing that. Pat Wheatley (Brian Bosworth’s student) and Charlotte Dunn just (2020) published a new (probably definitive) book on Demetrios Poliorketes for instance (I’ve been waiting to see that for years). And there will always be Yet Another book on Alexander or Philip, but the place that is WIDE OPEN for research is the archaeology of Archaic and Early Iron Age Macedonia. That shit is interesting.

Go to Macedonia. Drive around and visit the museums (not just the big ones in Athens and Thessaloniki, or even Vergina). Go to Veroia, go to Pella, go to Aiani, go to Ioannina, go to Florina. See what’s up there. It’s COOL.

#Macedonian Studies #ancient Macedonia #Macedonian archaeology #Alexander the Great #Philip II of Macedon #ancient Greece #Classics #Classical archaeology #directions in new Macedonian research #asks

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botwstoriesandsuch · 4 years ago

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im loving the history lesson posts!!! what are you're thoughts on the ruins in Tabantha? based on the memory near the skywatchers and the shrine quests in the region, the stone ruins in tabantha existed about 10,000 years ago and were destroyed or vacated and left to crumble. but the stone structures contrast heavily with the wooden architecture of Rito Village? bUT if i'm remembering correctly the song lyrics go "pride of the rito/pillar to the sky" so the rito stone and tabantha itself has (1)

Ok first off, I AM SO SORRY! I read this ask months ago and I worked on it in my google docs and then I was going pure theory mode and then another person sent in another ask about ruins and I was getting all excited so basically long story short I got so caught up in making a masterlist of all the ruins that I completely forgot about this ask until now... So anon I apologize for the terrible wait but hopefully you’ll still enjoy what I have in planned.

You’ve given me a lot to work with so I’m going to break this up into several posts based on your asks. I’m gonna post them on different days becauseeeee content management, schedules, things.....I’m lazy and also if I posted all my thoughts in one post it would be like a giant book with zero pacing so

[Today] Thoughts on the Ancient Columns and the Ruins of Tabantha

[Some time later idk when I post it I’ll shove the link here] The Effects of the Calamity on the Rito and People of Hyrule

The Relationship between Skywatcher Locations and the Cunning of Calamity Ganon

Buckled in ladies, lads, and gentlefolk? It’s time for a history lesson, Part 1 o’ Trois. So today here is

Ancient Ruins, Architectural Parallels, and the Probable Worship of the Fae

So! Let’s start with the ruins of Tabantha. Specifically, the Ancient Columns.

Anon you’re correct in that these ruins are over 10,000 years old. We can not only gather this from the fact that their condition is the same even 100 years ago, meaning they have to be older than a century (see their crumbled state and similar moss patterns) but also from direct lines from the Creating a Champion (CaC) book itself.

However, I’m inclined to believe (for several reasons that I’m going to get into) that these ruins have nothing to do with the “pillar in the sky” as mentioned in the Rito songs. For one, the pillar of Rito village is of an entirely different architectural style, given that it looks like the natural work of wind erosion. And for another, the existence of the Rito village pillar has to have been much younger, around 100 years old, in order to coincide with the Sheikah Shrine quest, as the Sheikah platform thingy has to correlate with the characteristics of the pillar’s shape. Ergo, ergo, ergo, the “pillar in the sky” isn’t 10,000 years old and has no correlation with the Ancient Columns.

Ok so! Back to the actual ruins themselves and what we can analyze from them.

Circled above is every instance of ruins in the Tabantha region. Although I should specify that I’m talking about the Ancient Hylian ruins, as that is the type that is most notably scattered across this area.

We know that all these ruins are off the same civilization because of their style and material.

[Remember this picture for later^^]

In addition, we can also tell from ruin maps in the CaC book that these ruins are from the same Hylian civilization, as well as the important detail that these ruins were centered around the Goddess.

Citing that other screenshot at the beginning on the Ancient Hylian Culture, these ruins were built around the same time as the Sacred Springs, so I think it’s safe to assume that these ruins had a religious purpose.

But I can take this one step further! Up until now, all this information has been based on interpretations from the botw ruins and official info alone, but if we take into account the real life counterparts/parallels, I can prove the exact purpose to what these ruins are for!

Firstly, these ruins are obviously inspired by architecture in Ancient Greece, and other old Empires (like the Romans and Byzantines) across the Mediterranean.

We also know that the ruins are constructed out of limestone. One, because moss is able to grow on it, so it is unlikely that it is marble. And two, we can see the actual limestone texture when seeing the broken parts of certain columns and walls.

[and kinda quick side note here: but the existence of large limestone rich structures 10,000 years ago gives more credit to the theory that Botw takes place after a large flood, notably the events of Wind Waker. One, because limestone is a material mined near the sea, as seen with the Island of Paros and Naxos for the Ancient Greeks. And Two, this ancient sea was directly mentioned in the description for botw rock salt. And also Three, this explains the weird placement of certain structures, such as the buildings placed on suspended and isolated rocky plateaus like the ones I showed earlier by the Skywatchers. So there’s your mini theory which kinda proves that the Tanagar Canyon was probably an ocean trench at one point and it also still proves my connection of the Ancient Hylian ruins being parallels to the Ancient Greeks and all that because...ocean. Greece, peninsula, hundreds of islands, lots of quarries in Hyrule by the sea. Akkala is by the sea, there’s quarries, also the islands with mining equipment like Tingle Island. You get it by now right?]

Anyway. Greeks, Romans, polytheistic gods, temples for sacrifices, limestone, yadayadayada. Safe to assume that these Hylian ruins were of a civilization centered around a temple of some sort worshiping a powerful being, or beings, such Hylia. Hurray! Theory seems done.

BUT!

I can take it

A step FURTHER!!!

You see, I was originally gonna leave this post at that. The Ancient Columns are of an Ancient Hylian civilization 10,000 years ago that worshiped some higher powers. “Great!” I think to myself. “Time to get all my screenshots so that my ADHD followers wont die immediately”

But but but! As I was spending an hour or so getting said screenshots, I took this picture right here and came across a revelation so bright you could have placed a light bulb over my head...

A pretty enough capture, got a nice aerial view of the ruins, the suspended island thing in the middle of the path... nice view of Tanagar Canyon and the Ancient Columns, the sunset is all pretty and—Oh hey! The Great Fairy Fountain is there. Heh, that’s nice. You know it’s kinda weird that it’s just plopped right in the middle of all these Ancient ruin and temp—

BAadaBing, badaBoom, ladies, lads, and gentlefolk! I’m here to tell ya that these giant fae ladies were once worshiped by 10,000 year old Hylian civilizations. And not just this fairy mind you, but all four of them.

First piece of evidence? The proximity of 10,000 year old structures to every Great Fairy. Mind you, these are the most rare type of ruin in the game. 90% of the ruins are of settlements destroyed 100 years ago by the Calamity, and then the other 10% is still divide up between the Ancient Sheikah and Zonai. So I find it quite interesting that almost every case these special ruined civilizations are near a Great Fairy. [Uh, spoilers for all the Great Fairy locations btw]

First, of course, you got the Great Fairy in Tabantha.

Then you got the one in Akkala, by the Torrin Wetlands (again, the highlights in yellow are of the canonical 10,000 year old Hylian ruins)

The Lanayru Promenade isn’t even up for debate at this point....I mean it was the parade ground for the ceremony up to the Spring of Wisdom. How much more “Ancient Hylian” can you get then that?

The only kinda iffy one is the Great Fairy in the Gerudo desert, but even THEN this fairy is by two out of the three only instances of 10,000 year old ruins in the entire desert, the third instance being the Zonai labyrinth.

But, sure. Correlation might not equal causation. But I think the picture becomes all the more clear when you take a look at the timeline of events!

Note that no one in Hyrule really knows what the fairies are all about. Sure, you got that one researched in Tabantha that knew about one of them, and some of the elders in Kakariko had a sort of understanding that a fairy was their neighbor. However, their stance was that of wariness and caution, and they very much did not worship or give offerings to them. Dorian, for example explicitly shows suspicion towards the fairy, and thinks they might be dangerous. (Which, to be fair, is valid if you’ve ever read ANYTHING about the fae)

My point is, people don’t know what the Great Fairies are, or what their powers, motives, or *anything* really are. Sure, 100 years might have passed, but it would be pretty hard to forget something as eye catching as the fae. The people of Hyrule can remember century old white horses, cook books, treasure locations, ancient songs, and vague legends, but the majority of them don’t know about the Giant (seriously, it’s right in the name) Fairy Fountains?!

That is, of course, under the assumption that the Great Fairies existence was known 100 years ago. But what if it wasn’t?

You might be inclined to assume that the fairies lost their power because the Calamity prevented them from getting offerings 100 years ago, but in truth, there is no evidence whatsoever saying that their lack of power originated at the rise of Calamity.

It’s entirely likely that they haven’t been sitting around for 100 years, but 10,000, or even more. It explains why no one knows anything about them, and also their proximity to the ruins.

A beautiful spring you say? You power is directly correlated to offerings you say?

Gee if only there was some ancient civilization that existed a long time ago, that has ties to old religious practices, temples, and polytheistic, which has parallels to the Ancient Greeks and Romans who build their civilizations centering around certain gods and offerings to said powers, and also if only these said civilizations were nearby to all of the fae oh WAIT!

Even when Link gives his offerings, the results are only that of the Great Fairy Fountain blooming, not an entire spring. Could an entire spring existed long ago, providing for the hundreds or thousands of people who worshiped the fae? Who’s to say that these old 10,000 year old civilizations gave offerings to the fae not only for the magic and all that, but for the vitality and life that they provide? Who’s to say that those earlier relief arts of warriors on chariots were of people with enhanced armour. Fairies that give you magic defense would be quit helpful for a civilization that liked to battle... the possibilities are endless....

TL;DR, the Ancient Columns, along with the other 10,000 year old Hylian structures, were constructed for religious purposes, centering around the Great Fairies, who accepted their offerings in exchange for the vitality of their springs, as well as their enchantments.

So! That’s that. Can you believe this is just me tackling only one aspect of anon’s ask? I realize that the majority of the ask was about the Rito but...oops! That’s why I split it into parts. [When I post the other posts I’ll update the contents at the top to link to them]

A like and reblog is appreciated! I spent too long on this, including an extra week because tumblr deleted my original draft which was much longer... so if you liked it, let me know! It’d be nice to know that my time didn’t completely go to waste, :P Anyhow thanks for reading all this

#the only thing stopping me from outright making a theory channel is my lack of youtube skills #zeltik how do you dO IT #botw #breath of the wild #legend of zelda botw #loz botw #botw theory #botw ruins

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authenticcadence18 · 4 years ago

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For the sending you a character thing could you maybe do Candace Flynn please? :)

Hi anon! And of COURSE!!

Favorite thing about them: I love how relatable she is! Candace being overwhelmed with life and feeling stuck/discouraged and frustrated is just, a big ‘ol mood, especially as I’ve gotten older. “The Universe is Against Me” is very therapeutic to sing for those reasons! I also love the moments when she is genuinely a kind older sister, like in “Dude We’re Getting the Band Back Together” or the end of “Summer Belongs To You.” I also love her friendship with Isabella (especially in the later seasons), it’s just really sweet! Candace helping Isabella out with her crush on Phineas (or just reacting to it in a deadpan way) is so so soooo so great! (Basically big sister Candace. Yes.) Candace is also just, SO FUNNY. Both with her dialogue and physical comedy. She’s a great character. (On a personal note, I also relate to her struggle with not wanting to drive right away! I was the same way, and thinking about Candace made me feel better about my own struggles!) Also her SINGING. YES. I love Ashley Tisdale. ...Ok, now that I’ve said lots of nice things about Candace...onto the next question😅

least favorite thing about them: sometimes Candace is just, very unkind. Like, I KNOW she has her own struggles and I’d never want to invalidate those.....but she is just so MEAN to Phineas and Ferb sometimes for no real reason (particularly in earlier episodes). Like, in the Christmas special for instance, she continuously laughs off Phineas and Ferb’s desire to write letters to Santa (but then USES this idea in a scheme to figure out what gift Jeremy wants, so it’s hypocritical on her part) (EDIT: i wouldn’t change the “letters to Santa??” bit, btw, it’s pretty funny!! but it illustrates my point) and THEN puts the thought in Phineas’s head that he might be the reason all of Danville was deemed naughty, which DEVASTATES him. I think the saddest part is that, 95% of the time, Phineas and Ferb are nothing but kind to her. It makes her occasional spitefulness towards them seem so JARRING. (And again I KNOW she struggles with her own issues and feeling inferior, CATU especially made that apparent, and I get it! But that doesn’t make it okay for her to be mean to her brothers, you know?). Also scenes where she says something nice to Jeremy and then rude to her brothers...idk, it just rubs me the wrong way. (I also dislike it STRONGLY when she is condescending to Isabella. I think this only happens, like, twice...but Isabella is my fave so I’ll never forget, LOL)

Favorite line: oh MAN how do I CHOOSE??? She’s got so many iconic lines. Maybeeee: “It’s SO not fair! I mean why am I still on sock detail when Gladys from accounting got promoted to commander and she doesn’t even know hold to hold a blaster!!! No I mean, really, she failed that part of the exam three times, she held it backwards AND upside down but she’s a second cousin to some mid-level darth and so SHE gets the promotion?? What about ME??? If they would just open their eyes, they’d see that I’ve got everything it takes, I COULD BE THE STORMIEST STORM TROOPER EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!” Oh i also like (in reference to lumpy tables) “it’s the new hip-thing, it’s so European!!!” And also “Though I’ve often thought of you as just a nuisance and a bother, today I can’t imagine havin’ better little brothers!”

BrOTP: Candace and Stacy, 100%!! I love them and their friendship SO much, it really feels genuine (especially as their characters develop more). Their subplot in “Canderemy” is one of my favorite Candace plot lines in the show, it’s so funny and so sweet at the end (and a welcome distraction from a certain OTHER subplot in that episode.....yes I’m still mad about the ending🙃)

OTP: CANDEREMY! I’ll be honest, when I was younger, Canderemy kind of annoyed me because Phinabella was my fave and I always got mad when Candace had better luck with love than Isabella (because Candace was mean and Isabella wasn’t and I identified with Isabella and like, I’m just trying to give y’all a picture of younger me😂). But now that Phinabella is canon and I’ve gotten older, I really, REALLY appreciate Candace and Jeremy. Candace doesn’t have to act a certain way for Jeremy to like her: he likes her just the way she is and actively DISCOURAGES her from changing her identity just to appeal to him more. That’s so refreshing and wonderful to see in media aimed at kids/teens. I love that, for the majority of the show, they’re either “talking” or in a relationship and it’s just, a healthy relationship! No multi-episode arcs about them breaking up, no love triangles, no petty arguments (sometimes the show leans into these tropes for an episode, but that’s it. And it’s always resolved). They genuinely care about one another, and I think it’s really sweet. (Plus a Canderemy wedding is RIFE with possibility for pre-relationship Phinabella moments👀)

nOTP: I don’t have any specific nOTPS for Candace, so I’ll just say I’m fine with any ship between her and someone her age (that she isn’t related to, obviously. AND THAT GOES FOR ALL MY SHIPS. I don’t want to say that on every one of these character posts so like, just know. That is where i stand.)

Random headcanon: Candace and Jeremy adopted Fred. I just think it’s a sweet headcanon 🥺. Alsooooo ok this doesn’t specifically revolve around Candace, but when she and Jeremy got married, Isabella and Phineas were both a part of the wedding party and Candace made SURE they were paired together to walk down the isle💕. And Candace continues collecting Ducky Momo memerobilia well into adulthood!

Unpopular opinion: Candace isn’t a terrible, irredeemable character.....but she’s not a purely amazing character who can do no wrong either. I feel like some fans either despise her fully or love everything about her. I’m in the middle. I see her as a flawed character who was written by numerous people and thus is somewhat inconsistent in her characterization. I like it when she is characterized as kindhearted but easily overwhelmed and longing for validation, so that is how I choose to portray her in my own writing/headcanons.

Song I associate with them: look Candace sings so many FANTASTIC songs in the show that I can’t associate her with any other music. Like I guess Ashley Tisdale’s “Kiss the Girl” because there’s fics of her singing that to Phineas and Isabella and I think that’s adorable? (I know I wrote one of those waaaaaaay back in the day, LOL). But in general, every Candace song is great. “The Universe is Against Me” ESPECIALLY.

favorite picture of them: you know what Y’ALL GET FOUR PICTURES BECAUSE BIG SISTER CANDACE IS THE BEST OK

Thank you so much, anon! As you can see, I’ve got quite a few thoughts on Candace😅. At the end of the day, I think she’s a great character and I relate to her a lot! I had a ton of fun writing all these answers out.

This is the last ask I’m going to answer tonight, but I’m looking forward to answering more tomorrow!!!! 😁

#cadence rambles #Candace Flynn #(I KNOW i say some salty things about her BUT I SAY A LOT OF NICE STUFF TOO. so i think it’s ok to put this in the main tag)#omg i have an ask!!#anon #ask game #character asks #phineas and ferb #long post

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lizzybeth1986 · 5 years ago

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This won't make you feel better, but this anon might have an explanation for the problems in Pixelberry's stories: essentially, I think it's because media and fandom culture in general has been hijacked by people with much older value systems, value systems where "whether behavior hurts people or not" was at best a secondary concern. The way Olivia is coddled, for example, does resemble how children used to be expected to be grateful to abusive parents for at least being given food and shelter.

Thank you for the ask anon.

Initially, when you'd sent the first ask, I'd had a different answer planned. Because sure, those kind of mindsets could very possibly factor in on how they treat a certain character type or trope...but it never actually happened with any sort of consistency. There were these invisible unspoken rules that certain characters would get away with breaking, and other characters would be punished for. So if there is no consistency in this treatment, how could I believe that it comes from a value/belief system that the writer holds, and nothing else comes into play?

Which brings me to the second thought you had. It's possible, yes, that the demographic they're hoping to cater to the most are the ones who may benefit the most from seeing white (and perhaps straight) characters thrive above others. The ones who will benefit from black and brown characters being placed on a heirarchy of worth - the most exoticized being the most "worthy" of "good treatment". But PB does benefit from a show of appreciating and celebrating diversity, and they do know it - as you can tell from the posts they were putting out during Black History Month last year:

(Thank you @nikkisha16 for helping me source these!)

This is a "nice gesture"....if we ignore the fact that only three out of the handful of default black characters featured at all. And if we ignore the fact that Griffin from this tiny list was hardly given an opportunity to use his skills in the biggest "disaster relief" diamond scene in the series, just to make more space for the white guy. Or that Luke's "alternative romance" arc was given more attention than the one where the MC chose him - to the point where we didn't get to see his mother (more attention to the alternative arc is often a surefire sign that the team is focusing on another LI and presuming said character as single by default, which is why you'll see more effort in the playthroughs where they're single). If the demographic you aim to please are the ones who may not notice or care about what actually happens to such characters in their respective stories...why this posturing? Why this pretence that you care?

It's not that PB is evilly rubbing their hands and contemplating on which character of colour to screw over today. It's very rarely as cut-and-dried as that. Very often it is just as possible that they don't know, or notice how some of these subconscious beliefs translate into their art. Ignorance of how damaging certain tropes can be for certain communities, and an unknowing favouritism towards certain characters based on their skin tone just as plausible causes for the mess we see in most stories of PB now. And a certain dismissiveness, would account for why it keeps happening despite people pointing out these problems. (I mean, this is the company that issued an apology on Twitter for Drake Walker calling a pink cake girly. And I don't recall them making apologies for anything else thus far)

It takes awareness to understand the cultural weight of some of these tropes and archetypes, and certain kinds of treatment in some cases. It also takes awareness to figure out ways to empower these characters within their stories and arcs! And I do believe for that kind of awareness to emerge in the storyboards and the office meetings...there (possibly? Idk what the PB office is like) would need to be more voices from varying communities in the rooms. For instance, look at this incredible interview by Chelsa Lauderdale on the experience of writing Griffin's character in The Elementalists:

Griffin is the rich, fullfilling character that he is because the writer brought her own experiences and worldview to that character. And you can see glimpses of that promise in so many different black and brown characters when they're given even half a chance. Kiara's ambition and logical bent of mind. Hana's loyalty and struggle to discover who she really is. Sloane's courage in taking on the world while battling an anxiety disorder. Teja's love for her craft and desire to excel in her field. Jax's protectiveness towards the underprivileged. Lily Spencer's humour and playfulness and recognition of those who have less privilege. William's (RoE) recognition of his work-home imbalance and his commitment to change that for this woman he loves. James Ashton's creativity and insecurities. Victoria's wisdom and her experience in the film industry. Aurora's desire to make a name that's her own, so that no one will ever view her as benefiting from her aunt's high position again. But unfortunately, we're often only allowed glimpses for a lot of these characters, rather than whole stories that use these traits as a foundation. Having writers from diverse backgrounds and with diverse experiences - not just a handful but many - with voices that will be embraced and respected, would go a long, long way in both pointing out these blind spots and in enriching the writing and stories themselves. Only a handful of writers cannot be burdened with the task of "educating" an entire company, but a vast team of diverse writers would mean there is an environment where they can more openly question and maybe shoot down more tone-deaf narrative choices.

@massivelysilentchaos made an amazing post about this sometime last year IIRC. A lot may have changed since this post, but there's plenty in it that still applies. More now than ever, I tend to go back to this one paragraph in her post (but please, please read the full thing):

I think a lot of PB’s problems with regard to representation in their writing could be helped by having more diversity on their writing staff. That’s not to say they don’t already have a fairly diverse staff (at least it looks that way from their blog) but some of their narrative choices are tone deaf in a way that tells me they could benefit from more black and brown perspectives on more of their stories. Specifically I’m thinking of the choices to have a book set in Trump country where an eventual protagonist pulls a gun on a potentially black MC or the recent decision to include the detail that Syphax, a black man who spent 8+ years at Lena’s scholae where MC was presumably taught to read and write, can’t read. Both of which were entirely unnecessary to the overall story they’re trying to tell and left a bad taste in mine and many other black fans’ mouths.

To add to this - I can speak, as a South Asian woman who was excited everytime a South Asian character appeared in a series - of Teja Desai getting one solitary scene to address her parents' initial doubts about her becoming a filmmaker, and one solitary scene about being a "woman in a boys club" as a director - which the writers never bothered to connect to her current work ethic - and being presented her as overworked, pressurized, frazzled by the punishing amount of work she was taking on - only for RCD's narrative to turn around and compare her to Marcus von Groot, the mediocre white male whose lack of control over his crew came from his own incompetence and delusions of grandeur (btw, in subsequent books he was written as this adorable funnyman the MC could bond and hang out with). I can talk of Jackie Varma, who was placed in a position where players could pick and choose between her and Bryce (with Bryce having more free scenes), before the narrative wrote her out for a large chunk of the story. Even in Book 2, scenes we get with her explore OUR backgrounds more than hers. Given that getting into medicine or engineering is such a huge deal in our communities, I can just imagine the ways in which that would tie up with Jackie's work ethic. And I know that many desi voices in that room would maybe make those connections and understand how to tie that into these stories.

I'd like to close this post with a quote from Chelsa that I showed you all earlier in this post: "Stories can perpetuate stereotypes or change narratives. That's really up to the people who write them". And perhaps, the people who hire the writers as well.

#long post #ask me #ask lizzy #characters of colour #sorry for the lack of read more guys but placing it in the post the last time was a fucking nightmare. you can block long post or ask lizzy #if that helps

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wholelottatiffy · 5 years ago

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Oh thank god for @all-ringils-blazing for saving me from utter boredom<3

Who were you named after?: The song “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”... take a wild guess as to what part of that I was named after ;)

Last time you cried?: Earlier today

Do you like your handwriting?: Well... it’s 50/50, I don’t hate it but sometimes I wonder what my hand was doing when I try to read stuff I write

What is your favorite lunch meat?: I don’t really eat much lunch meat anymore, I try and limit my meat intake most of the time. Maybe like... roast beef if I had to pick?

Longest relationship?: My current relationship with my boy that’ll be 6 years on April 11th <3 *Dabs in success*

Do you still have your tonsils?: Nope, got rid of those suckers

Do you bungee jump?: Nope, and honestly I would probably do it once and freak out the entire time

What is your favorite kind of cereal?: Okay so reaally specific... around my area, we have a grocery store called Shoprite and yooo fam, their store brand of Lucky Charms is fantastic and for like $2 for a box instead of $4 for cereal. And Krave cereal, those would be my two top choices (also I love how the longest answer on this whole thing is about cereal)

Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?: Yep. I wear high-top Converse if I wear sneakers at all and that shits is impossible to take off without unlacing it

Do you think you’re strong willed?: I would say so

Favorite Ice Cream?: Okay so I am literally a garbage can to the point where if my parents find a wacky ice cream flavor with all kinds of stuff in it I will 100% eat it. But other than that Cookies n Creme is my go to

What is the first thing you notice about a person?: Probably their face, like their smile, or whatever

Football or baseball?: No, me don’t watch sportsball

Favorite donut?: My local Amish Market has a bakery and... guys... these donuts are like mini cakes, they have so many crazy donuts and I would have to pick either the Cookies n Creme one, or one of their peanut butter donuts

What are you listening to?: Buzz by Halestorm (y’all should give it a listen if you like rock)

If you were a crayon, what color would you be?: A solid deep red, like a Merlot

What is your favorite smell?: Other than like the standard cookies and brownies answer, probably like, the scent of a print shop, buckets of ink and stuff. Honestly, don’t ask me why, it may be because I miss being in my college’s printmaking rooms

Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?: My bf

Hair color?: A dark brown, in certain lighting and situations it sometimes looks almost black

Eye color?: Hazel

Favorite food to eat?: I don’t get it a lot, but I really love Quiche

Scary movies or happy ending?: It depends on my mood, if it’s a really good horror movie I’m down, happy endings are nice sometimes

Last movie you watched in a theater?: The Sonic the Hedgehog movie (it was a solid 5/10 btw, I went with my squad of friends) But a movie I actually wanted to go see before that was Joker

What color shirt are you wearing?: Dark gray (for once I’m not wearing black)

Favorite holiday?: Halloween 100%

Beer or wine?: Can I choose Whiskey in this instance? Beer, not at all. Wine, sometimes... but a glass of whiskey? Sign me up, especially some peach whiskey

Night owl or morning person?: Oh a night owl 100%

Favorite day of the week?: Tuesday

Favorite animal?: Doggos and sneks

Do you have a pet?: I used to, my doggo Remy had passed away last November

Where would you like to travel?: Literally anywhere across the U.S. and outside the U.S.. I’ve never left my home country and would love to just hop in a plane and just go wherever (but like... obviously not right now tho).

Taglist boopety boop: @awkward-turtles-world @herbalina-of-yesteryear @briarfox13 @quincy-riv3rw00d @literary-potato @mothelia

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makeste · 6 years ago

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BnHA Chapter 202: Rival Break and the 3rd Set

Previously on BnHA: Momo made a giant cannon and used it to fire a bag of emergency supplies over the onomatopoeia wall back to her pals. The bag contained some fungicide which Tokoyami and Hagakure doused themselves with to ward off Toadette’s horrific quirk. It also contained a pair of night vision goggles which Toko used to track down Toadette and Kuroiro. For a moment it looked like he had them both contained, but then Toadette sprouted some mushrooms in Toko’s fucking windpipe, cutting off his air supply and causing him to release them. Meanwhile Kendou showed up to rescue Manga from Hagakure’s flurry of invisible attacks. She’d managed to knock Momo out, but not before Momo sprouted a bunch of steel cables from her left side to tie Kendou up and attach herself to her while she herself was still attached to the giant cannon. So basically she slowed her way down, and tbh they would have had this if Hagakure and Tokoyami (and Aoyama, who got captured before any of them) hadn’t dropped the ball. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. But anyway, so the round went to B Team, and now the classes are tied and we’re about to move into the third round.

Today on BnHA: Since Momo and Kendou’s teams absolutely trashed the battlefield, Aizawa and Vlad announce a short break before the start of round 3. All Might takes Deku aside and asks him if things are all right with his quirk. Deku says he’s fine, only to be interrupted by Kacchan who’s all THE FUCK ARE Y’ALL DOING HAVING THIS WEIRD CONVERSATION SO CONSPICUOUSLY and he makes them fill him in. Kacchan’s response to the whole OFA situation is to basically egg Deku on to become stronger already, and it fucking works is the thing, so y’all know this one-page conversation is easily the most “!!!!” I’ve been about this series in fucking ages omg. But anyways, so then round 3 starts up with Team TetsuPonyHoneSen VS Team TodoIidaShoujiRo. Shouto briefly thinks back to when he was like six fucking years old and Endeavor was trying to teach him a new fire technique by being an abusive dick. Shockingly this method didn’t pan out, but Shouto’s been thinking about it again recently since watching his dad battle the Noumu at Fukuoka. Meanwhile Iida is hyped to win since he’s representing his brother as the successor to the Ingenium name. And Tetsu is also hyped because he’s always fucking hyped! So basically everyone is getting ready to do their best and this should be good!

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’m caught up with the manga now at chapter 223, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

oh wow Toadette is actually offering Tokoyami a throat lozenge like I was joking about earlier. haha. only the reason it was a joke on my part is because I thought it was fairly obvious that a fucking lozenge wasn’t exactly going to do much to help after you sprouted fucking mushrooms all along the inside of his goddamn windpipe! these kids are fucking savages I swear to god. they’re out for blood

anyways he’s still coughing and hacking and she’s telling him to go see Recovery Girl before this turns into one of those hanahaki fics

meanwhile Momo also appears to be ill after using her quirk as much as she did, and she’s shaking and doesn’t seem to be able to stand, so two sarcastic asshole robots are wheeling her off to RG as well

yeah I’m gonna need you two to shut up. were they specifically programmed to be douches? this is someone’s idea of a joke isn’t it

anyways I hope my girl Momo is gonna be okay. Kendou go with her please!

Shinsou’s all “wow everyone got really fucked up” and Aizawa’s just like “yeah that’s just how it goes with hero training” as though this is in any way acceptable lol. well I guess it’s been a little while since U.A. did anything outrageously irresponsible though, so maybe we can cut them some slack this time around. plus ultra?

(ETA: nope I take it back. within three chapters all four teachers will be idly standing by shrugging their shoulders and hoping none of the kids fucking burn to death by accident. lesson learned, never ever cut the U.A. faculty any slack whatsoever.)

btw I almost forgot to mention it but it’s super cute that Shinsou is hanging out next to Aizawa. they have clearly built up some kind of bond by this point, and as usual I’m delighted by any and all instances of Aizawa being a dad

looool

did I mention that Manga’s quirk is seriously unbelievably strong though?? is there an onomatopoeia for “All for One-destroying weapon” that I don’t know about that he could speak into existence perhaps? hmm?

also smh at these teachers being more concerned with the property damage than with the attempted murder. Tokoyami’s fine by the way. but sure let’s scold them for doing some mild damage to your industrial training site which you specifically created for this very purpose

so apparently they’re going to change the stage? or “move the stage” at any rate? does this mean they’re cleaning up the training ground, or are they moving to one of the other areas? I’m not quite clear here

but at any rate, Vlad says they’re going to take a short break which I’m all for because it means more chances for the kids to interact!

look at them interacting!!

so I’m just going to assume the two speech bubbles on the right are Kirishima and Tetsutetsu, yes?

also, Manga, I’m gonna need you to stop whining about how your ultra-powerful and crazy broken quirk gives you a sore throat. fuck outta here with that nonsense son. I assume the only reason no one gave OFA to you is because the series would already be over

Deku is happily taking notes on everyone’s growth while Ochako watches, and it’s super fucking cute. I am shipping this more these days now that she’s not losing her damn mind any time she thinks about him and he’s not on the verge of passing out whenever she gets within two feet of him

and now All Might’s coming to say hi to his apprentice!

are y’all gonna talk some more about the Avatar State. because if you are then I’m the one who’s gonna start taking notes omg

so he’s beckoning Deku over so they can have a quick private chat in the corner

Mina’s all “well aren’t they close~” and I know she’s just making a mild observation, but once again I’m reminded of how these two are just the absolute worst at hiding their secret. like for real though

so All Might’s asking Deku if anything has felt off since their last conversation

and Deku says “nothing in particular”, which is a bit of a curious answer since he could have just gone with a straight “no”

All Might says he’s planning to ask Gran whether or not Shimura ever mentioned anything. I doubt it though, otherwise you’d think he’d have brought it up before now. not everyone is as cagey as you when it comes to passing on vital information

anyways, he says for the time being Deku should take care since he’ll be facing off with Shinsou

and interestingly, he says Shinsou is a piece of the puzzle as far as the Vestiges/Traces are concerned

really? I mean it’s true that Deku first saw them during his initial fight with Shinsou, and now he just so happens to be fighting Shinsou again on the same day that he had that crazy dream. but is that not just a coincidence? how could Shinsou actually be involved with this?

OH MY GOD

(ETA: speaking of onomatopoeia, Kacchan has his very own complete with exclamation point lol. what happens if Manga uses this. do the letters explode)

KEEP KACCHAN IN THE LOOP 2K19!!!! OH MY GOD YES PLEASE THANK YOU MANGA GODS

holy shit I was wondering if he was gonna get annoyed since he could hardly fail to notice them sneaking off to chat while he was right fucking there

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

OH MY GOD YOU GUYSSSSSS

IT DID!!!! AND NOW THEY’RE FINALLY GONNA TELL HIM WHEEEEE

oh my god. Kacchan/Deku rivalry. it has been so fucking long you guys. it’s been 80 fucking chapters!!

things I love:

DON’T KEEP ANY MORE SECRETS FROM KACCHAN ABOUT ONE FOR ALL, HE OFFICIALLY GETS ANNOYED ABOUT IT. HE WANTS TO KNOW SO MAKE SURE YOU KEEP HIM POSTED

for reals though, he’s making sure they remember that he’s part of the OFA squad now. that wasn’t just a one-time thing, he wants to actively be involved. I don’t know if they actually realized this before, but now they’re aware so I hope Deku tells him the next time without having to be asked

also him yelling at them to be more fucking secretive for christ’s sake lol. RIGHT?

and him immediately getting competitive and reminding Deku of what his goals are. they always do this with each other, and it’s honestly so important. the shounen rival relationship is, at its core, one of constant growth. if done right, the two rivals will each be the one person who can always unfailingly push the other when they think they can’t go any further, and nudge the other back on track whenever they start to go astray. and that is so, so important, and it’s especially important for them to keep establishing this relationship now, when for once things are actually calm and there aren’t any villain plots or other angsty things going down for the time being. because this quiet period is not going to last. and there will come a time when Izuku will need this type of push again, when the fate of the world might even depend on it. they help each other to focus and they keep each other grounded, and this shit right here is why it’s my favorite relationship, and I can’t say enough good things about it

lastly, this is fairly subtle, but you can see that this is Katsuki’s way of reassuring him. like, he realized Izuku was... not unsettled, exactly, but certainly confused and still trying to figure out what the hell is going on. so he immediately sets onto distracting him. and I’ve gotten completely distracted by my own excited ramblings and I haven’t even finished the damn conversation yet, but I bet you anything that it worked, too. because that’s the power of rivals, dammit

yeppppp

I fucking love it you guys. every damn time. this is what keeps sucking me back in. this is why I’m reading. give me some good old fashioned shounen rivals showing their concern for one another in the most indirect way possible and it fucking works

PREACH IT ALL MIGHT!

NO, HE DEFINITELY IS. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I’M SAYING. SEE, ALL MIGHT GETS IT

like, I don’t really have much more to add other than what I already said, lol. although I will say I’m fairly sure that not only is he not actually pissed off, but he’s actually relieved that Deku did smile, and it was the exact effect he was going for, which is why he called attention to it before immediately trying to play it off like h was mad

anyway, so that was everything to me you guys, but the show must go on, and we are now all set to begin round 3! and it looks like we will be staying in Ground Gamma and that they’ve just relocated to a different part of the stage, or something. idk

so Sen is the only guy in this round who we haven’t already met, although I don’t think we actually know Pony’s quirk. Honenuki’s quirk is of course the quicksand quirk of cavalry battle fame, and I’m looking forward to seeing that in action again

meanwhile they’re up against these legends!

once again I can’t for the life of me figure out how they can possibly screw this up. but we know they will somehow! guess they’ll just have to get creative

and now a quick flashback of Tokoyami, who you can tell is feeling better because he’s coming up to Todoroki and just rambling on and on for no real reason

no you don’t you boob. calm the fuck down man. go eat some ice cream and lie down

well what have we here

friendly reminder that I ship these two. by this point I think I ship Todoroki with almost as many people as Bakugou and I’m not quite sure how that happened. this boy is more social than I give him credit for

so now Shouto’s thinking back to his dad’s battle against High N’ Tight Noumu

and what’s this?

the prominence burn thing? or the flying thing? I personally think he ought to learn the flying thing first

and now some flashbacks to Endeavor being abusive

jesus christ. please tell me Shouto is smoking from his own quirk. please tell me you didn’t actually set your child on fire you utter trashpile of a man

and what the hell is with the shinai? because the fire wasn’t fucking enough??

props to Horikoshi though for showing this. it’s not pleasant to see, but the fact that he doesn’t shy away from it even after starting Endeavor’s redemption arc is really important. none of his past deeds have been erased. he’s not pretending it didn’t happen or that it’s okay now because things are finally starting to get better. it’s such a fucking mess, and I really, really appreciate that we’re being confronted with it even now and nothing is being swept under any proverbial rugs

correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like this is pretty rare for redemption arcs, both in Eastern and Western media. usually once the former bad guy starts down the right path, the story stops addressing those past sins, presumably in the hope that audiences will eventually forget about them. but not only is Horikoshi not doing that, he’s actively showing us the bad shit again in vivid detail, the resulting effect being something like “hey, just in case you forgot...”

anyway, so here’s more confirmation that Todoroki Touya is in fact Dabi

just fucking confirm it already you cowards. it’s not like you’re trying to hide it; you purposely alluded to it so overtly at the end of the Endeavorhawks arc that no one could possibly fail to miss it. so I really don’t know why you’re playing games with it at this juncture. he must have some sort of plan here but idk

anyway, he says that Shouto is the one, and that he can pass this technique on to him and only him

I wonder if Touya accidentally immolated himself with a failed prominence burn. god I want to know what happened so bad uggghhhh

ahhhhhhh

they’re so cute omg

Ojiro says he had no idea anything was wrong because Todoroki’s expression “never really changes that much”, and he’s impressed Iida could tell

it’s because they’re lovers, Ojiro! but not really, but do you agree with me that they should be? because if not then I really don’t know why you’re wasting my time here tail boy

Iida’s all “but of course!” and says he’s the class president and is always there to lend a hand to a classmate in need. and sure. but also, lovers

AHHHHHH

SUDDEN TENSEI MENTION MY HEART WASN’T READYYYY

(ETA: his face is so cute here too oh my god. fucking adorable.)

so now he’s putting on his helmet, and he says he’s also representing Ingenium’s good name

is this in reference to what Tokoyami said earlier about him and Todo representing the #1 and #2 heroes? did your feelings get hurt bud lol

and he’s reminding everyone that he placed third in the sports festival, “so allow me to show you all!”

damn, somebody sure is fired up

you better watch it son, this enthused 40-year-old nerd is stealing your boyfriend before our very eyes

now we’re cutting to class B!

and Tetsutetsu is also all fired up!

no one thinks you’re dumb, Tetsu! just passionate!

lol but he is acknowledging that this is one of the less strategically balanced class B teams

but he has a plan to address that!

kick some ass!!

yessssssss

and stfu Sen. he has exactly one specialty so of course he’s gonna lean into it. nothing wrong with that

now I’m honestly starting to wonder how he would fare against Todoroki. he might be the only one who could actually stand up to the Prominence Burn attack if it turns out Shouto does have it

...or he might melt. but surely Shouto wouldn’t actually fire a potentially lethal blow during a training exercise... right?

(ETA: ...)

so now Vlad is grumbling about how THEY JUST SAID not to destroy the whole fucking stage, and here Tetsu is, destroying the stage

nice hero name! but it definitely is a misspelling! I’m sure it’ll be corrected at some point later on though

lol this group is something else

this is definitely my favorite class B team to date lol. and Honenuki’s personality is in such stark contrast to his somewhat terrifying appearance, who knew

also props to my boy Sen for having the appropriate reaction to being pitted against Todoroki freaking Shouto. though you could have had it worse, bud! it could have been Bakugou or Deku. at least you guys are somehow going to win which I still can’t get over

lol because it’s literally their only choice given the makeup of their team

well, bring it on!

62 notes · View notes

writingdumpster-o · 5 years ago

Text

Day 1:

Kind of a quiet day, mostly me napping and him reading the books he'd ordered recently. It's a Saturday so he doesn't have to work from home.

Day 2:

We talk a bit over breakfast, and I self-isolate during the day to avoid sharing my leftover bad mood from the reasons of my leaving the family abode. I tend to isolate myself when I feel like shit to avoid spreading it to other people, (insert instances of doing it through flashbacks) and he tries to reach out at first but then keeps mostly to himself.

Day 3:

He's working from home. So after breakfast he sets up his computer in the living room on the coffee table.

Having cried myself to sleep on Day 2, I feel better about being in his presence today. So I grab my Arabian Nights book and read on the armchair while he's sitting on the couch, staring at his screen in concentration as he's used to doing at work. I sneak glances at him over my book, and he notices once. This makes a small smile creep under his beard and it makes me blush like a schoolgirl.

Other than that instance, nothing of import happened. I made soup for dinner while he still worked, and we ate and talked about lore and mythology. We smoked as dessert and he shared a writing project he had.

We go to our rooms at 02:45am and sleep right away.

Day 4:

I wake up to the sound of a shower running. As someone who gets anxiety from men's cologne/cosmetics, I'm glad I thought to bring my shower gels (a fruity sweet one and a flowery fresh one). Thankfully, his clothes bear my smell now (cause of the baby oil I rub on myself every night), even though I haven't smelled cologne on him yet.

As I exit my room (his guest bedroom, which I took to liking), I bump into him.

He's DEFINITELY only wearing a towel right now. I lower my eyes immediately, which lands me on the specific spot that the towel covers, but then I make eye contact again.

"Good morning." Great line, poor delivery.

An apathetic half-smile lifts his moustache (I'm accentuating cause his moustache hides his whole upper lip which isn't unattractive but would be kinda complicated to kiss???). "Morning." And he walks past me without another word.

I'm so taken aback i follow him with my eyes and notice his shoulders tense and his back muscles coiling under his skin. He's not that built, but he's lean enough that the tension is noticeable.

I shrug and go wash up for breakfast, which happens normally. Though I'd say he's a bit less talkative than usual. I even try to spark up a debate in one of our chosen fields, but he doesn't bite. He's usually very argumentative...

The day goes by in this fashion, with a silent dinner and no talk until bedtime.

I go to bed perplexed that night.

Days 5 and 6:

Thursday and Friday would be skipped cause it'd just be narrator introspection and giving him time to reach out cause we confined and I don't wanna stir up arguments with a dude I barely know and who hoarded Pastis like it was made of gold before quarantine

the particularity about these days is that each morning I heard the shower and found that there was no more hot water when I tried to wash up, and he skipped dinner altogether on Friday night.

Day 7:

I wake up and for the first time in three days, the shower isn't what wakes me up. Instead it's the TV, a bit louder than comfortable. (btw I'm picturing this in the second apartment I made cause it's what I pictured first)

I slept kind of... groggily last night, so I look for yoga exercises in my Instagram saved collections and stretch for five minutes.

As I grab my bag to retrieve my toiletries, it suddenly clicks: He's been grumpy and tense all of a sudden, a hot shower every morning, his muscles and shoulders coiled... He needs a massage. I let my fingertips linger on the baby oil bottle as I process my epiphany, seriously considering offering the massage right now.

I quickly shake off the idea as I gather my toiletries and go shower. I notice he uses a grunt as a greeting, so I use silence and proceed to the bathroom.

I notice he's watching a Netflix show, sitting on the carpet with his back to the couch, which is bad for his condition but... his loss, I guess.

See that sass? It all disappears when I rub myself with baby oil after my shower and exfoliation. I purse my lips and shake off the scorn from his attitude. He was like a wounded wolf who'd snarl at anyone approaching him with help, and I need to keep him happy just long enough to remove the bear trap.

As I get out, I'm met with his clothed chest, nearly colliding with him. I look up to face him.

"Did you use all of the hot water?" He asks, visibly trying to stay amicable.

I blink and frown. "How are you feeling? Physically?"

He frowns minutely. "I'm fine."

I shrug, maybe now's not the moment. "Yes, there's still hot water."

He turns around as I walk past him back to my room. "Why did you ask?"

I turn around, letting the daylight from the kitchen illuminate me, which is uncomfortable without my glasses. I squint at him and gesture towards his upper body.

"You've been tense these days, and it's affecting your mood," I observe, trying desperately not to spark an argument.

He purses his lips in a matter-of-fact way and shrugs. "It's not like anyone can do anything about it right now."

He enters the bathroom before I get a chance to reply and I imitate his last gesture as I go to my room.

I put back my toiletries and go to the kitchen to make tea for the pair of us. As I grab my mug, I go to the bookshelf to choose something to read. As I settle for the Van Gogh book that started it all and take place on the loveseat, he exits the bathroom and a wave of sauna emits from the open door.

"Maybe crack a window?" I suggest, making him smirk. He's still tense.

I roll my eyes at his stubbornness and keep reading until he comes back to the living room with his tea and presses play again on his TV show. I'm sitting facing the TV and can see from the corner of my eye that he's fidgeting.

I get up suddenly, put the book back in the shelf and place the mug on the coffee table. He notices my moves and follows me down the hall with his eyes. I put a drop of baby oil in the palm of my hand and rub it so that it doesn't leak on the carpet and go back to the living room.

I sit directly behind him, holding him down by the shoulder when he's about to move, and fold my legs behind his back. He's wearing a T-shirt, so it's easy to get access to his shoulders.

I spread the excess oil on his cervical spine and shoulders.

"You're aware this isn't going to do anything, right?" He asks with insulting disdain.

I stay silent as I start the real massage, which is deep tissue. He's startled at first, but then he complies and leans forward, bracing himself against the coffee table with his forearms and his forehead on them.

I apply pressure on his shoulders close to his neck, on the back of his neck, and his cervical spine. After a moment of hesitation, I start using my fingernails on his scalp, starting between his shoulder blades with my hands and finishing at the crease of his skull with my fingernails. At that moment, I hear a faint but very present guttural noise rumble in his chest.

I keep massaging him until his breathing deepens and his muscles feel like dough. At that point, my legs are both asleep and it feels like torture.

So I lean forward and I whisper (it's something I do when I just finished a massage so they don't get startled by noise after such relaxation), "Wake up, Little Wolf."

He rises so suddenly, my chest is pressed against his back and I have to hold on to him to avoid making him paraplegic by falling on his already damaged spine. He turns to me and our faces are an inch from one another's. It takes us a moment to recover from this, but he offers me his hand to help me get off the couch, and I accept it.

"That felt fucking great, thank you." He stated in a still sleepy voice.

I press my lips together and make a salute gesture. "Anytime!"

Before I can see his response, I back into the hallway and go to my room, closing my door as I get there.

I avoid him for the rest of the day to reflect on what never happened.

Day 8:

I stay in bed today. I scroll through end-of-the-world memes and turn over, keeping the blinds shut. I wake up at nine but let noon stroll by without leaving my room. It's Sunday, so I know he's not working. I hear bustling in the kitchen, it being adjacent to my bedroom. I hesitate to get out several times, but end up staying in bed until 2:30pm.

At that moment, a Messenger bubble pops up, still grey so I didn't know who was the sender, but the message said, "Come out, come out, little mouse."

When I scrolled down the notifications, it was his name above the message. I smiled despite myself and shuffled out of the room, dragging my feet.

I found an outside-dressed Douaïb waiting in the kitchen, sitting at the table.

He was drinking his beverage and scrolling through his phone as though he hadn't just texted me. I pressed my lips together, poured myself a tea, and sat down next to him. Just as I pulled out my phone, he put down his.

"I'm going out today, wanna join?"

I took a sip, considering it. "Where are you headed?"

"Just shopping, thought you might wanna join for... whatever you might need." He adds the latter eyeing the Silmiya T-shirt as though he were judging my fashion sense.

I look down instinctively and then back up. "I hope some clothing stores are open, then."

He downs the last of his drink and says, "Alright, we depart in ten minutes."

I nearly choke on my drink. "I haven't even washed up yet!"

"Too bad, guess you should've gotten up earlier." And he arrogantly strolls to his bedroom, leaving me to a nearly full mug of steamy tea and no hygiene whatsoever. I leave my tea and go get dressed in a top, jeans, and a hoodie. I wear my cap to hide the rebellious, unheated hair, and slip on my ankle boots before grabbing my wallet and empty travel mug. I pour the tea in it and meet a cockily ready Douaïb at the door, waiting for me while looking at his watch.

He pokes out his bottom lip. "Not bad, you've still got a minute."

I roll my eyes and push past him to the outside corridor.

We make it to the car and I plug in my phone to share my playlist, singing and rapping along to some of my tracks. This is a weirdly relaxing environment, where I insist that my songs are good while he goes on rants to prove that I only listen to commercial music.

When he parks in the Centre of Algiers, we separate as I go to Meissonnier and he goes to wherever he needs to.

It's only at that moment that we first exchange phone numbers.

"It's weird that we're only now exchanging phone numbers."

"There wasn't a need before now." He states, matter-of-factly. "Now, remember to wear the mask if the market is crowded."

Being in a cheerful mood, I grasp at the occasion. "Awww you care about me, don't you?"

He fights an amused smile. "I don't want my apartment contaminated because of you is all. Call me when you're done, and don't buy veggies, I will."

"Okay, guess I'll see you later." I avoid making a remark about how we sound like a married couple.

°°°

In the market, I look for any clothing stores that might still be open, and I get lucky with one that I'm used to visiting. I buy two pairs of pyjamas, both shorts, and three tops. I also stock up on underwear and a cute bra. The latter was only because the wire in my current bra was attempting to stab my boobs.

I also buy more toiletries, mainly wax, due to the fact that I had just bought shorts, and other necessities I felt I was lacking.

I seriously consider buying a hair straightener but the shop isn't open anyway, so the decision is quickly made.

After all of that, I decide on buying groceries to at least participate in my presence in his apartment.

When I'm done, I call him and we meet at the car again. My fat shopping bags earn raised eyebrows as he gets into the car.

That evening, I make pesto pasta (pre-made sauce, let's be real) while still wearing his PJs.

We have dinner in the living room in front of Colombo, which we both find out is each other's guilty pleasure. As I collect our now-dry plates, he stops me.

"I'll wash them, you go do you."

"Do me?" I ask, genuinely confused.

"I'm sure you're all excited about your new clothes, and whatnot."

I roll my eyes for the umpteenth time that day. "You'll get your T-shirt tomorrow, but you can still do the dishes," I offer cheerfully.

He rolls his eyes at me, "Sure thing, just leave them here."

"Thank you," I sing as I walk past him to my room.

It's about 11pm when I say that, and while he's busy dishing I take the advantage of sound to wax my winter legs the most that I can before choosing some light blue shorts and a burgundy T-shirt. I wear his sweatpants again and go have a bath to melt the sticky wax off my legs. As I walk by the kitchen, I see that he's cleaning up around the sink, so I fill up the bath and pour some essential oils that I bought from the market (for no particular reason).

I come out of the shower smelling like cinnamon with baby-soft legs and PJs on fleek around 1am, so he must be sleeping. Right... Tomorrow's Monday.

Day 9:

I wake up early Monday morning and stretch, noting how much good it did me Saturday morning. I make sense of my belongings and finally decide to place them under my bed as opposed to on the desk chair. I open the closet mirror and check my hair... Not catastrophic. Definitely preferable to whatever the boxer braids did to it. I then go to the kitchen to start on breakfast when a folded piece of paper catches my attention on the table.

"I went to the office today, I'll be back before 7. -- El Dib."

I raise my eyebrows slightly. This can only mean one thing: Original audio on my TV shows, baby!

I spend the day watching The Tudors, which was high up on my bucket list. And just when things were about to get real with Anne Boleyn, I hear the keys get inserted into the lock. I slump into the couch a bit deeper and grab a handful of popcorn (cliché, I know, but I spent the past three episodes munching on salted popcorn).

He's carrying a cardboard box which I can only guess contains his work computer. People have been carrying those around since working from home became an option at webhelp. Over the cardboard box was a pastry box, which was odd. I paused The Tudors and went to help him with the pastry box, placing it in the kitchen and, as per my habit, opening it immediately to assess its contents. At that moment, I can't quite say if it's his cologne or the cake but I quite feel like jumping him.

"Is it somebody's birthday?" I ask from the kitchen.

"It's my sweet tooth's birthday and you have to celebrate it with me," he announces from the living room as a sound of glass bottles echoes throughout the apartment.

I stick my head through the frame. "Got thirsty?"

He smirks and pulls out a bottle of Jack. "Very. Care to join?"

I shake my head and go back to face the cake. "Want a piece? And, more importantly, can _I_ get a piece?"

"What?" He asks from his bedroom.

I skip through the corridor and push his slightly ajar door, which takes us both by surprise. He's shirtless with a tank top in one hand and his button down in the other. His eyes travel down to my bare legs and my askew t-shirt with some surprise marring his gaze. Did he think I had hooves or something? I let my eyes skim across his chest and deem him attractive enough without being skeletal... Not that it's any of my business or anything.

"Cake." I state, raising my eyebrows at him, making him look up.

"Sure, I'll take a piece." He murmurs, malice creeping on his features. "The cake sounds nice too."

I was leaving but retreat a few steps to make eye contact with him. "I do hope you don't drink and drive."

"Never on duty," he winks as he wears his tank top and strolls past me, making sure we're both in the threshold at the same time.

My heart skips a beat but I would never admit to that ever happening. I hand him the knife I had brought. "I'll only have the cake, please."

He stays in the threshold, keeping eye contact. "Just the cake, huh?"

"Yeah, I don't drink." I murmur. He's close enough to hear me breathe.

Thankfully and unfortunately, he leaves and a breath I didn't know I was holding leaves me. For some reason, I go to my room and discreetly tap some of my lemon and jasmine perfume behind my ears, on my collar bone, and on my wrists.

When I go back to the living room, he's sat on the couch with a tumbler of Jack (probably) and a piece of cake. Another piece is on the coffee table with a mug of reheated red tea. I sit cross-legged and take the plate, trying desperately not to notice his fleeting looks at me.

"Let's see what you were watching, shall we?" He announces. Alcohol makes him more of a tease. "Ew, English."

I roll my eyes and finish chewing before answering. "I had to take advantage of your absence somehow, didn't I?"

He gives me the look that's specific to Douaïb, where it's a mix of exasperation and malice. As if I'd said exactly the aggravating thing he'd wanted me to say. I grin at him and he smiles back, taking a sip of his drink and smacking his lips frankly. He flips through shows and movies, trying to decide on what to watch.

After some time, I get antsy and groan. "Come _on_, just pick one, if it's bad we'll criticise it, how about that?"

He narrows his eyes at me and fights a grin. "I don't really feel like watching anything right now."

I press my lips together and my eyes fall on the chess set. "Teach me how to play chess, then."

He raises one eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

"Why wouldn't I be sure?" I ask.

His malice is still present as he shakes his head and goes to sit at the chess table. "No reason, come over here."

He spends three quarters of an hour teaching me in a mock-game where he explains his moves and tells me how I can counter them. Having him explain something with pedagogy brings me back to when I first met him as my new product instructor at work, and that feels... nostalgic? The word doesn't really fit, but that's what comes to mind.

After nearly an hour of teaching and a second tumbler of Jack later, he locks gazes with me as though to connect our minds.

"What?" I ask, wary.

"I have a proposition for you." He announces, leaning back in his chair.

"I do not like this." I murmur over my mug of cold tea, making him bark a laugh.

"Not _that_ kind of proposition. Well... not _exactly_ that kind." He concedes, trying to throw an innocent look but failing crookedly.

I roll my eyes and exhale from my nose. "Alright, what's the proposition?"

"You know the rules of the game now, and I know you've got enough brains to string them together. So my proposition is, the winner of this game gets to ask for a favour, and the other one has to comply." He takes a sip of his tumbler to punctuate the end of his sentence.

I raise my eyebrows. "Sounds interesting."

"It's a deal then!" He exclaims, presenting me his hand to shake.

"No contact, coronavirus!" I exclaim before taking his germaphobe hand in mine, making him grimace some.

The game starts, and the beginning is hopeful for me. I haven't exactly thought of the favour I'd ask for if I won, mostly because I never like to be too optimistic. It looks like the end of the game for him, but with his four remaining pieces he decimates my side of the board. The smirk on his face is unmistakeable as he takes my king. He'd planned for this all along. I narrow my eyes at him.

"Spit it out."

"Are you upset?" He drawls, swirling and then downing the last of his drink.

"I'm upset at myself for accepting this disguised deal," I murmur, folding my arms over my chest.

He goes to the kitchen and starts washing his tumbler and plate. I notice he hasn't taken my plate so I join him there and wait for my turn to wash my dishes.

"My favour is so small, it's not even a favour to me, really," he slurs in his tipsy demeanour as he asks for my dishes without turning around.

"I do wonder what it entails," I sing as I hand him my plate and mug and lean back against the table, folding my arms over my chest.

He finishes washing the dishes silently, dries his hands, and turns around, leaning back against the kitchen sink. "A kiss is all I want."

I tilt my head to the side and give him an indulgent smile. "That's all? Child's play."

"Is this a yes?" He asks incredulously, momentarily losing his cool.

"I don't have a choice, do I?" I ask back, subconsciously biting my lip.

He advances on me, earning an adult version of his name, and stands a literal inch away from me. Our eyes are glued to one anothers. The kitchen is dark, so the only light comes from the corridor and the balcony. The sliding door is open, so why do I feel so warm?

Subconsciously, I lean back further against the table, making a chair groan as it slides into the table. It's at that moment that he places his hands on my hips, sliding them towards my back and up between my shoulder blades, making my t-shirt ride up slightly. My arms fall to my sides, and just as I was about to cup his face...

Ding, ding, ding!

He closes his eyes in frustration, and I feel his hands tighten, as though wanting to be fists, on my back.

Ding, ding, ding!

He leans back, and again I release a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. He answers his phone dryly as I go put the chess pieces back on the board for something to occupy my sweaty hands.

"Yeah, yeah, hold up a second," he mutes his microphone and turns to me, "this is going to take quite a while, don't wait on me, okay?"

I squint at him and nod. "Yeah sure, go ahead, take your time."

I quickly finish putting away the chess pieces and grab my phone to go to my bedroom.

That night, I can't fall asleep, even with ASMR. My heart is racing with what almost happened.

Did I _want_ it to happen or... No. I'd just lost a bet, was all. And he was tipsy. Probably not master of his actions.

Somehow, that did not convince me...

Day 10:

I oversleep. It's mostly because it took me so long to fall asleep last night, and for good reason. What reason, you ask? I have a crush on my host, that's the reason. I sit on my bed and find it is nearing 2pm. I shrug in no particular direction as I make my way towards the bathroom. I don't exactly think about the fact he's already working in the living-room as I shuffle lazily to go wash up. I vaguely notice he's not at the set-up computer, so I'm only half-surprised when he's in the shower as I get in and get hit in the face by the steam.

"Sorry, I didn't notice this was busy," I say, just loud enough for him to hear.

"Oh good, you're awake. I need you." He announces, shutting off the water.

I quickly close the bathroom door and go sit in the kitchen, waiting for whatever he needs from me. I only wait two minutes as he comes out of the bathroom... Only holding a towel to his waist. Is this a test?

"I think I knotted a muscle in my side, I stretched and did everything but it won't stop bothering me. Think you can do something about it?" He asks, as though yesterday had never happened. Maybe it hadn't, and I just imagined it... Or maybe he simply doesn't remember it or doesn't wanna address it.

"Sure thing, step 1: go wear pants." I muse, following his lead of not mentioning or acknowledging yesterday.

"Just pants?" He asks, a hint of yesterday's malice discernible in his tone.

"Do you want to feel better or not?" I ask, growing a teensy bit frustrated. I, myself, acknowledge that I may be overreacting, but there isn't a way to stop it.

"Alright, give me a second." He concedes, going to his room.

I try to remove from my mind that there was a bump on his towel as he left. I make myself tea and sit there, waiting. Five minutes pass... Then ten... Is he wearing pants or pantaloons? Just when I resolve myself to go knock on his door, he shows up in the kitchen and winces at his sudden whipping around.

"Well, aren't you coming?" He asks, as though I were supposed to know what he meant.

"Coming where?" I ask, setting down my untouched tea.

"Might I remind you that I'm on my supposed lunch break and that I need to start working again in less than 45 minutes? Come to my room." And he leaves without waiting for an answer.

I follow him, making a stop by my bedroom to retrieve the baby oil I'd first used on him. I find him laying on his stomach sideways in bed. I tilt my head to myself. Is this really happening? This looks like the beginning of a porno.

"Okay, which side is it and where?" I ask, oiling my hands.

"Left side, right above the kidney area, next to my shoulder blade."

I kneel at the end of the bed and start spreading the oil from my hands to the desired area, pressing occasionally to ask for directions. I massage his pain away, earning some guttural moans which only make my job more difficult (while it usually encourages me to keep massaging). Knowing he can't see me, I bite my lip when he moans and take glances at his hands. They're of the water type. Earth and fire hands are thick and usually have short-ish fingers, like mine. Water and air hands are thin, with long fingers and usually good nails, which was the case with him. As I undo the knots in his side, I decide fuck it, might as well do the whole back. I make his skin absorb all of the oil, and do his shoulders, the back of his head with my nails like last time, and when I work from his cervical spine to the small of his back, I hear his first snore. Really? I look at the alarm clock and it's 2:39pm. I keep massaging until it's 2:45 to give him time to freshen up before work, and maybe grab a bite.

When that time comes, I lean forward towards his ear and run my fingers through his hair, "Doudou, wake up. It's a quarter to three."

He groans and turns over on his side to face me. "I told you not to call me that."

I fold my arms over my chest. "Well I don't appreciate being an unpaid masseuse first thing in the morning, either."

He laughs out loud. "It's hardly morning, sleepy head."

I give him a scornful half-smile. "Oh, look who's talking, you've got pillow marks all over your cheek and it's only been twenty minutes."

"What can I say, you're a magician," he muses, throwing me a flirty glance. "Where did you learn that anyway?"

"It's intuitive, for the most part. And the rest is what I wish was done to me." I immediately regret the latter part.

"You need only ask," he sings as he surveys me, making eye contact with me in silence.

"And you need to get back to work," I change the subject because for some reason this is making me uncomfortable.

He gets up and gives me a hand to get up without falling, cause I was quite literally on the edge of the bed. Before I leave his bedroom, he grazes my arm with his finger, making me turn to him.

"Hey um..." For a moment it feels like he's going to mention yesterday. "Thanks... For fixing me."

"Physically," I intone, grinning at his confusion.

"Chess tonight?" He asks, winking when my eyebrows jump in surprise.

I smirk. "Sure."

We do indeed play chess that night, but no favour is mentioned. It's an easy day, and I couldn't be happier about that. I go to sleep with a smile on my face and a sense of relief.

Day 12: I wake up groggily, and the first thing I notice, before opening my eyes, is that my bed seems to be wider. As I open them, I bolt upright. I’m not in my room, I’m in his. What the hell? I don’t remember how I got in here, and, worst of all, I don’t remember anything that happened after the game of chess… I sit up; look at the alarm clock—only to find it turned off. Curious. I shuffle to my bedroom, only to find the chair turned over and my phone plugged and on the desk. What happened? What the HELL happened? I grab my phone and find it turned off. But it was plugged in, why’s it off? It’s even saying low battery. I make my way to the living-room and find an unexpected sight. Every electronic device is off, and I confirm by turning the light switch that the electricity’s been cut off. That is normal for Algiers, the unexpected sight is Douaïb sleeping in the couch, he hasn’t even bothered to set up the work computer. I’d venture to guess he’s already texted or called someone to signal it. As I walk by the kitchen, I notice a clump of broken glass in a bowl of newspaper. I frown. I really need to ask him what happened… after washing up. When I face the bathroom mirror, I understand a good deal of what I’m feeling. My eyes are red and puffy, my face is sticky, and my gaze is even a bit downturned despite the obvious confusion on my features. Last night comes to me in flashes…

Day 11: I wake up to find myself starving. I go directly to the kitchen, where I find the last piece of the birthday cake on a plate on the table and one missing chair. I instinctively look at the balcony and find it with its occupant smoking. This reminds me that I still have an untouched pack of cigarettes in my backpack. I go fetch it and join him on the balcony. I sit with my back to the railing on the floor and extend my legs before me. We’re silent for a while, gazing at the faraway harbour with grey clouds looming above it. He lives in La Grande Poste, a bit higher than the Poste, so the harbour is visible, as well as most of the Centre of Algiers. “Slept well?” He asks, putting out his cigarette in the ashtray on the floor. “Can’t say I didn’t,” I shrug before taking a long drag of my cigarette. “You?” “Like a drunk baby,” he chuckles as he gathers his belongings to go inside, probably to start working. “Need anything?” He asks, poking his head back from the kitchen. “That Van Gogh book you have,” I say, making eye contact. He smirks and brings it to me presently. Hours go by and I tear through the pages, not noticing when lunchtime comes and goes. It’s only when the evening prayer is called for that I notice I’ve been reading for five hours. And I somehow didn’t finish the book. I go to the bathroom to freshen up, since I went directly to the kitchen upon waking up. The evening comes as usual, when 8 chimes, he starts packing up the work computer while I serve dinner. Sautéed veggies, tonight. We go for a game of chess. I’m getting better at it. Not that I’m winning or anything, but games last longer and he frowns more. This time, we move the chess set on the couch as well as drinks (sparkling water, for me, Pastis for him). We sit side by side as he gets increasingly tipsy and I get increasingly flirtatious. Do I control it? I’d venture to guess that I do. I just don’t really care about the consequences. At some point during the game, I drop one of the defeated pawns from the coffee table onto the carpet, so he leans down to pick it up, instinctively placing a steadying hand on my bare knee. He places the pawn on the table but keeps his hand on my knee. I grab his hand softly and intertwine our fingers, making him look up at me. Our faces are inches apart as he breathes Pastis in the space separating us. I get up suddenly, too suddenly in fact, sending my empty glass crashing on the floor. I gasp and cover my mouth. “I’m so sorry, I’m so, so, so sorry—” I move to go pick up the pieces but he grabs my wrist firmly. “Stop this, you’re barefoot!” “I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking!” I keep apologising, because I’m mortified. The logical part of my brain tells me it’s not a big deal, but the anxious part keeps apologising and being mortified. He grabs me by the shoulders, about to speak when he stops. “Are you… crying?” Am I? I instinctively bring my fingers to my cheek. I am indeed crying, but… why? I know this won’t matter in a few minutes. I have been feeling a bit cooped up, but nothing major, and I’ve definitely felt worse. Before I can control my actions, I burst into sobs and he pulls me into a tight hug. I cling to him and cry my eyes out while he feebly rubs my back. I calm down, but stay in the hug, and he doesn’t pull away. His caresses go from my back to my head. “Are you okay?” He whispers after some time. I nod against his chest, and he pulls away, first wiping away my tears and then locking eyes with me. “Do you want to talk? About it or about anything else?” I don’t answer. I simply lean up to his lips and kiss him, wrapping my arms around his neck. He’s taken aback at first, and I remember faintly thinking that I should have asked first, but then he wraps his arms around me, walking and making me walk backwards towards the chess table (now barren, since the set is on the coffee table). When I feel the table poking the small of my back, I slide my right hand from his cheek to his chest. He breaks off the kiss and lifts me up swiftly, making me sit on the table. We make eye contact again and his eyes look hazy. He grabs my jaw and leans in for the most feral kiss yet. I faintly recall biting his bottom lip, making him chuckle through a kiss. I also faintly recall hearing the fridge turn off in the kitchen. As we slide our hands under each other’s tops, we break the kiss and… it’s still dark. I remember we don’t really care, and are about to kiss again when my phone rings from my bedroom. It’s dark but I know that, like me, he closes his eyes and rests his forehead against mine. I caress his bearded jaw and drag my nails across the back of his neck and up his scalp. “I need to go check it,” I whisper, poking the tip of his nose with mine. “Fuck it,” his voice is raspy. “I’d rather not, it could be important,” I murmur, placing a soft kiss on his lips and extracting myself from the embrace. “Careful, there’s broken glass on the floor.” “At least I’m not barefoot!” He calls behind me. I poke my way around my bedroom and find my phone lit up. I was right. It was important. My sister called me. As high as my spirits got from that make out session, my heart dropped to my stomach. It’s been nearly two weeks since I’ve last spoken to her, and I miss her the most. And if she calls me at this time of night… She must miss me too. At that moment, I feel so guilty and so angry with myself that I throw my phone across the room and kick the desk chair, making it fall over. The sound brings a flickering candle light and a concerned Douaïb to the room. I faintly remember him kneeling and cupping my face. He asks me a question but I don’t hear it, I just let tears roll down my cheeks, with the occasional whimper. He grabs my hand, making my focus on one thing at a time, and leads me to his bedroom. He sits me down and I remember him saying something about sleeping here tonight. He’s about to leave but I take his hand. “Will you stay with me? Until I fall asleep?” My voice is lower than I remember it being. It takes him a full second to consider it before he blows out the candle and lies down in the middle of the bed. I curl up against him and he caresses my shoulder. I fall asleep in minutes.

Day 12:

I don’t know how to feel. On one hand, he seems to… care about me. On the other hand, I need electricity to come back as soon as possible to know why my sister tried to call. I only realise how hard I’m gripping the sink when it digs so hard into the heels of my hands that they feel numb. I remove them from there and wash them under warm water. I wash up and sit on the edge of the bathtub. Eventually, I slide on the floor and rest my back against the bathtub. I don’t cry, because I’ve dried out. But I still sit on the bathroom floor for a while before I hear rustling in the living-room. I still don’t move, even when I hear him calling for me.

After some time, there’s a soft knock on the bathroom door. “Hey… You in there?”

My voice gets lost in my throat, so I knock on the bathtub glass loud enough to hear from the other side of the door. Apparently, this worries him, because next thing I know the door flings open. Did he expect to find me in a pool of my own blood? I mean—yeah, he wouldn’t be wrong in assuming that. I can’t bring myself to alter my features in any way, so I kind of just… stare at him neutrally. His initial surprise and assessment of my situation fade, and he kneels in front of me, eventually sitting cross-legged.

“D’you wanna talk?” He asks finally, breaking the silence.

I shrug one shoulder. “Talking isn’t going to help when I don’t even know what’s wrong with me.”

He comes to sit to my left, right under the window. “We could just stay here, if you want. Or go somewhere more comfortable.”

I finally manage to twitch the corners of my lips into an attempt at a smile. “Can we go for a smoke?”

He stands up and extends his hand towards me. I accept it and rise too quickly. I find myself an inch from his chest. I look up and realise he’s got an arm around my shoulders, ready to support me in case I break.

I keep his hand in mine, and murmur, “Thank you… Thank you for everything you’re doing for me.”

He places his hand on my cheek and kisses my forehead. I lean in to hug him, and he caresses my back. I take long, deep, steadying breaths. This feels right.

We stay in that embrace for a few minutes and then take warm drinks to the balcony and smoke, while talking about anything but the situation at hand. The situation being me. I go through five cigarettes of my pack before snuggling close to him. In fact, we’d only taken pillows and blankets to the balcony, meaning we were sat together in the comfiest setting I had ever experienced. The day is sunny, and we can see the differences in depth in the sea. At some point, I doze off against his chest, and he hums a tune.

I wake up at some point, I remember, and plant a soft kiss on his lips. I remember this because right after that his embrace on me tightened.

The evening goes by without electricity. We skip dinner and spend the evening playing chess to candle light. When bedtime comes, my heart skips a beat.

“Uh Douaïb?”

“Yeah?” He turns around in the middle of the corridor.

“Can I… Can I sleep with you tonight?” I ask, praying to God he won’t misunderstand me.

He squints and walks towards me. “Are you okay?”

I consider brushing it off. “I—I don’t want to stay alone. At all.”

He wraps an arm around my shoulders and we go to his bedroom. He goes to sit on one side of the bed and before I go sit on the other side, I consider another option for the end of our evening. I stand in front of him and cup his face, planting a deep kiss on his lips. He snakes his arms around my waist and I kneel on his lap—well, I sit on his lap and kneel on the bed on either side of him. We break the kiss and stare into each other’s eyes in the darkness. The only light comes from the full moon reflected on the harbour, and it only lights up the left side of his face.

In that moment I realise that I am not romantically attracted to him.

I certainly enjoy his presence and his aura. He’s a great kisser and an even greater friend. But I don’t feel romantically towards him. Maybe it is too early to decide on anything, but so far… that’s how I feel.

We go to sleep in each other’s embrace after a few minutes of cuddling.

Day 13:

I wake up and find a weight on my side. Opening my eyes, I see a familiar arm wrapped around me. I snuggle into the embrace, waking him up. He nestled a kiss in the crook of my neck. I turn over and straddle him, planting pecks all over his face, giggling. We stop after some time and he sits up. Our faces are inches from one another’s. He closes the space between us (or I close it, I can’t be sure) in our softest and slowest kiss yet. I unconsciously place my hand on his thigh as he draws his right arm around me, lying atop me. He kisses down my neck and my collarbone, revealing my shoulder as he slides the hem of my t-shirt, trailing kisses. I run my fingers through his hair, smelling peppermint. We are about to kiss again when the sound of the call for prayer stops us. It serves to wake me from this dream-like situation.

“We should check if the electricity’s back,” I murmur, caressing his hair.

He kisses the crook of my neck again. “What good’ll that do?”

“You could work.”

“I’m tired of working.”

I smile at him. “Won’t you get in trouble?”

“How will they know my electricity’s back?”

I smirk at him. “I could rat you out.” I flip him over, straddle him, and fold my arms over my chest.

He smirks back at me and runs his hands over my thighs. “You wouldn’t dare. I’d report you.”

I lift an eyebrow. “What would you report me for?”

His hands lift the hem of my burgundy t-shirt. “Misbehaviour.”

“Does this include calling you Doudou?” I intone, lowering myself to hover over his face.

He reaches up to brush my hair out of my face. “And turning me into a sinner.”

I blink several times and bury my face in his collarbone as I snort and start laughing. I’m quite literally lying atop him and we spend the morning (well, afternoon) in bed, not doing much but physically enjoying each other’s presence. We don’t do much more than cuddling and kissing, before we’re both hungry and thirsty enough to go eat.

¤¤¤¤¤

Late at night, as we are playing another game of chess, the same sound that announced the cutting of the electricity alerts us of its coming back. I bolt to my bedroom and turn on my phone. I find the missed call, but no message aside from the occasional Messenger chatter.

I immediately call my sister. It rings three times before she picks up.

“Are you okay?” I ask at once.

“Where are you?’ She asks back.

“I’m safe and healthy. You?”

“I am too. I miss you. Please, come back,” she pleads.

“I love you.”

I hang up before hearing the rest. I don’t want to argue with her. I want to leave on good terms with her. I lie back on my bed and sigh deeply. There’s a soft knock on the door. I pick up the chair I hurled three days ago and admit him in. He sits on it and I sit back on my bed.

“Are you okay?” He asks. It sounds like he doesn’t want to prod.

I figure he has a right to know. “My sister called my three days ago. I miss her but I don’t wanna be home.”

He shrugs one shoulder and pokes out his bottom lip. “You can call this home, if you like.”

I exhale sharply and smirk humourlessly. “Thank you. I’ll have to leave after the quarantine, though. That’s what brought me here.”

“You could stay beyond that. I could have just driven you to Maria’s after a day,” he observes.

I take a deep breath, focusing on anything in the room but his eyes. “I figure we’ll find out in a while.”

He presses his lips together and stands up. “I guess this is good night. You’re free to join, if you like.”

I nod. “Thank you… I think I’ll stay here tonight. I need to think.”

His eyebrows jump and he smirks. “This is never good.”

I chuckle and go hug him. I plant a kiss on his cheek as I pull away. “Good night.”

He smirks. “Good night.”

Day 18:

I wake up in his arms, and gently extract myself. I go to the bathroom and take what I call a 360-shower. The kind where I remove all the hair and exfoliate all the skin. I get out in his bathrobe, feeling fresher than I have in days, and he’s setting up his work computer. I lean towards him and kiss him good morning, which he returns mechanically. We got used to each other’s presence and each other’s ministrations.

We spend a day that quite resembles our earlier ones, where we weren’t so focused on how much we wanted to give in to our sexual frustration. It’s still there, but it can be calmed down. And we calm it down at every opportunity. Might as well, considering we’re quarantined together and we have already established our mutual attraction to one another. What I fear the most in our current situation is developing feelings for him. That would ruin everything. I love him as a friend, and he’s an amazing kisser, but mix in romantic feelings, and everything goes to shit.

I’m not just saying this to sound edgy, I know myself and I know how he is at work. And, worst of all, I don’t know how he is outside of work. I would get extremely jealous. I’d be hurt at not knowing what he’s doing when he’s not working or away from me. I wouldn’t want him to know all of my doubts, so I’d hide them and it’d eat at me from the inside. Whereas now, I only care about hygiene, and he’s great at it.

As I was saying, we spend quite a normal day. It’s as if we were married, in my ideal image of marriage. Exempt of romantic feelings that would poison the mood and create needless arguments. I admit my view is unconventional, but it’s what suits my personality.

We silently enjoy each other’s company, him working, me reading. It takes me a few hours to finally go wear pyjamas. I wear the second set of PJs I bought when I went out. A sky-blue tank top that’s kind of flimsy, so I’d need a bra with it. I wear the cute one (black with lace coming down the sternum) that I bought on that same day. The shorts, because wearing pants to bed would be nothing short of suicide for me, that I bought are dark green with back pockets. I wear my hair in two tight buns, when though it’s already almost dry.

I go back to the living room on tiptoe and rub Douaïb’s shoulders, sliding my hands down his chest and nestling a kiss on the base of his neck, just above his collarbone. He places a kiss on my cheek as I pull away. I sit back where I was and pick up my book, but his typing stopped. I look up to see him looking at me and quickly bringing his gaze back to his screen, a smirk lifting his beard.

“What is it?” I ask, genuinely confounded.

He exhales sharply. “Cute.”

“And that’s funny?” I ask, letting a giggle overcome me.

He slides near me on the couch and slaps his knees. “Come here.”

I put the book back down and go straddle his lap slowly. He runs his hands across my thighs and gives me what I realise is his most genuine smile. It spreads a warmth within me I haven’t felt in years, and alarm bells go off in my mind, but I shush them. This is a good moment, and I don’t want to ruin it.

I smile back at him. “Are you okay?”

He brings his hand to the side of my face and brushes a loose curl from the back of my neck upwards. “I’m more than okay.”

I kneel up a bit higher and kiss his lips softly. “As am I.”

He gets up, lifting me with him. “Let’s take this somewhere more comfortable.”

“But work—” I object, making him chuckle.

“I guess they’ll have to spend the last hour without me,” he smirks, taking us down the hall.

I vaguely recall seeing pinkish and purplish hues reflected from the setting sky and the harbour.

That night is different from others we’ve spent together. It is slower, fuller, and more intense. We don’t ‘have sex’; we make love.

And that’s what terrifies me.

Day 19:

I wake up sore and groggy. I go run myself a warm bath first thing in the morning. I wake up earlier than usual, so it gives me time to think. I’m not sure that’s a good thing, however, because the first word that comes out of my mouth today is one that’s been repeated countless times yesterday.

“Fuck.”

What’s the most painful about last night is nothing physical. It’s the realisation that I developed feelings for him. I need out, I need—

“Hey, you in there?”

I whip around to face the closed bathroom door, making rippling water sounds. I don’t want to hurt him, especially not after all he’s done for me. He needs me, too. I can’t leave him… Not like that… Not after last night.

“Hello?”

I clear my throat. “Yeah, I’m having a bath. You woke early,” I remark as an afterthought.

“Bed got cold,” he muses. “May I come in?”

_Please don’t._ “Of course.”

He sits on the edge of the clear water bath in which I’m hugging my knees. “Are you okay?”

I nod. “You mean… am I sore or something?”

He nods. “Yeah… Any regrets?” He adds this bit as an attempt at humour, but I know he’s at least mostly serious.

I attempt to make my chuckle believable, but I can tell he’s hiding the fact that he doesn’t believe me. “Not a single one.”

He leans down and kisses my forehead. “I’ll let you enjoy your bath. I’m in the balcony.”

“I’ll join you when I’m done.”

And I hoped that was true.

I remember that day in flashes.

Me about to join him in the balcony, interrupted by my phone ringing.

Crying immediately, drawing him to my bedroom.

Jumping in the car with wet hair, on my way to the hospital.

Trying to ask for their names…

Fainting. Waking up with an IV drip. Crying some more.

I cry a lot that day. And he’s there. Near me.

I see her bruised face, asleep, bandaged head, IV drip, heart rate monitors beeping.

The only one I’ve ever loved, in a comatose state.

The ones I’ve lived with, dead.

I’m truly alone now. Alone, and wishing my sister would wake up.

Alone, motherless, homeless… Involuntarily, this time.

I don’t want to go to my dad’s. I don’t want to go back to Douaïb’s.

That night, I join him home to pack up my things. I’d already called Maria to ask if I could move to her place. He doesn’t understand, I explain I need a sister. He says he understands.

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Hi guys I was checking insurance for myself for when I passed my test in December and I have been quoted 3500. Now that was with my mum on insurance as a second driver. On my own it was 3600 on an Reno Clio 2000 1.2L. I'm 18 and only live with my mom. We're not made from money so I won't be able to pay that much for insurance. Is it this'd high because I'm from Poland (been in UK for 7 years) or is it because I got it from one of the comparison websites (compare the market, go compare). All answers are appreciated and thanks for reading. Jake""

Help finding very very cheap car insurance please?

i live in florida (miami) is there anyone that can give me a legit site that provides me car insurance for the cheapest price possible? what i mean by legit is no scams or anything, and an address where i can personally go to visit the insurance agency for the papers.""

Teens do any of you have any kind of insurance?

I ask this because im bored and I realized that there are so many kinds of insurance Automobile Insurance Commercial vehicle Insurance (busses and trucks) Homeowners Insurance Renters Insurance Disability insurance Cell Phone Insurance Life Insurance Travel Insurance Troll Insurance There are so many different kinds of insurance AM I RIGHT?

Roughly how much will my insurance cost? (New driver)?

I am a 17 year old female, I am thinking of getting a car If I got a 1999 VW Polo and registered myself and my mother (who has held a full license for over 10 years) as named drivers, roughly how much will my insurance cost? I was hoping about 500? Is that unreasonable? Thanks""

Do you have health insurance?

if so, how much is it per month? how old are you? what kind of deductible do you have? Also Feel free to answer if you do not have insurance and do you support Obamacare?""

At fault driver's car insurance won't pay for my damages!?

Hey guys and gals, My wife was in a car accident on 10/8 driving our truck with liability only insurance (IE: not full coverage because the truck is only worth ~$3000 and it's paid for). She was turning right and had slowed down to turn (with her turn signal on) when a speeding truck slammed into the van behind her, ramming the van in to our truck. The police filed a report, in which the driver of the speeding truck (an 18 year old kid, that had just left his house less than 1/4 mile away) was determined to be at fault. It is worth note that this happened in front of two different auto body shops, and within sight of the house the at fault driver had just left. Their insurance company, state farm, finally contacted us on 11/8 after not returning our phone calls for nearly two weeks saying they had determined he was in fact at fault and would send an adjuster the following Monday. He came, inspected the truck, determined it was repairable, then said we would hear from their office later that day. When they called they told us the damage was more than 75% of the vehicles worth so it was considered total and they would send the required paperwork to my email address to begin payment. Within 3 hours, the claim agent we had talked to the previous Friday said an owner of one of the auto shops had came forward (all of a sudden, no mention of a witness before) and that he had a notarized statement saying the van struck our vehicle before the truck struck the van. The insurance company now will not pay us for the damages. We tried to call the witness and get a copy of his report because State Farm would not give us the copy. Then we called the other auto body shop and both the owner and one of his employees both seen the accident and say that the truck was at fault, and the owner overheard the driver say specifically that it was his fault. When we bring this to the agents attention, she claims this is not evidence because they know the at fault driver. We found out that the first witness also knows the driver, but can't prove it. Ours is a small town, you don't have neighbors that you don't know or speak to. It seems we are at an impasse, and I have been without a truck for nearly 6 weeks. What should I do in this instance? Get an attorney? Our insurance agency is adamant about not intervening since we did not have full coverage insurance. It may be worth noting that my wife has had back and neck pain since the accident and went to the hospital the day of the accident, the family doctor twice since, and has an appointment with a chiropractor next week (all of which our insurance has paid for.)""

What is the average auto insurance cost for young drivers?

I know there are many variables, but I really want general monthly cost for young drivers please""

What is the cheapest best kind of individual health insurance?

What is the best kind of individual health insurance...that is the cheapest?

How much money insurance can offer my car severely damage in accident 1999 Mitsubishi diamante 132000 mileage?

some one hit in front while i was waiting to traffic pass , i have aaa and they have state farm insurance.""

Why would my car insurance go up?

Why would my car insurance go up? I pay my car insurance in full every 6 months and my car insurance is going up $150. I haven't gotten any tickets or in any accidents. I haven't had to pay this much since I was 19.

Question about affordable/good health insurance?

Homeowners and health insurance?

We have Nationwide homeowners insurance, which is just added to our mortgage. If we get health insurance through them too, do you think they can just add it to our mortgage also?""

Paragould Arkansas Cheap car insurance quotes zip 72450

""My friend backed his motorcycle into my car, who's insurance covers it?""

My friend backed his motorcycle out not paying attention and backed into the side of my car leaving 3 deep scratches from the pegs on the side of the bike. Also, the bike and the car were in his driveway. He does not have insurance on the bike, but we both have liability on our cars. How do we go about getting this issue resolved?""

How do i go about getting sr-22 insurance?

i live in new mexico, and i'm sure it varies a little form state to state, but can you tell me the process you went through and possibly what kind of increase in insurance rates im looking at?""

Auto Insurance/Roadside Service. Is Roadguard Auto Club a scam?

I have Robert Moreno Insurance Services via my broker Adrianas Insurance. I googled Roadguard Auto Club, and cant find it. I dont think its a real company. The roadside assistance is $42 and its not mandatory. Their California Motor Club License is #3427-2.""

Do I need insurance to drive my own car with a permit in Arizona?

Can I use my own car or do I have to use my parents car with a permit?

Car Insurance If I Am Not The Car Owner?

Is it possible for me to insure myself to drive my sister's car, and to add her as a named driver? Or do I have to own the car. My sister has just passed her test, and her insurance would cost 700 if she does it herself. If I insure myself to drive the car and add her as a named driver, then it would be more like 200. Does my sister have to sign over ownership of the car to me for this to work?""

Which is the best insurance policy for premium of 10 or 12k?

life insurance

Insurance for a 2007 Nissan Sentra SE-R Spec V?

I've been wondering how much insurance would cost for a 2007 Nissan Sentra SE-R Spec V for a 16 year old as the main driver, but I don't want to send my information to an insurer for a quote and possibly get unwanted solicitaions from them. Does anyone have any idea? Oh, and would it be different for a 17 year old?""

How much does car insurance cost for a new driver?

""ATTN: New drivers, How much is your insurance a month??

I just got my insurance today and was curious to see what other ppl are paying. Thanks in advance:)

Would it be cheaper for me to go on my parents insurance or get my own insurance plan?

I am 16 and go for my license on the 19th of Nov, im paying for it myself. My parents have geico, i called Allstate today to get a quotes and they said about 210, please help!(:""

Why should we pay CAR insurance?

I know it is made to protect us from being sue, I understand this. BUT if we are MADE to pay insurance to drive a car then the Car insurance companies should be MADE to include Car replacement as a STANDARD pack for both Full and Liability coverage(Why should I lose my car because of a BAD driver) If your car is totaled and you are still making payments then you lose a car. If you paid off your car and it is totaled, you lose a car. Lastly, we who pay insurance and don't have an accident in six months(or one year)should be given a choice of a lower premium, cash returned or a loan.""

Insurance for ninja vs nighthawk?

I am planning on getting a small 250cc motorcycle either a kawasaki ninja or honfa nighthawk. i am 16 yo and this will be my first bike. will insurance for a ninja be alot more than insurance for a nighthawk? just liability i dont want comprehensive or collision.

I want to buy a car insurance by different address?

i want to buy a car insurance by different address which where i lived now. is that getting a problem ?

How much will buying a 2005 Mistubishi Lancer Evolution 8 raise my insurance premium?

I'm looking into buying a new car and I'm a bit of a motor head and like to race. The Evo 8 is my next choice, but I can't find out how much it will raise my premium. Anyone know? If it helps, my insurance provider is Allstate.""

How much will insurance cost for a age 36 driver who got her license in this year?

Just give me estimate.

Can you get in trouble for letting someone drive your car without insurance?

I own a car. I just bought it. I don't have the title in my name yet, nor is there any insurance on the vehicle in any ones name. If I let someone else drive my car and they get pulled over, who is liable? Will the person driving the car get in trouble for driving without insurance or will I get in trouble for allowing someone else driving it knowing its not insured nor is the title in my name?""

What wold be the cheapest and best insurance?

I'm 19 and a full time college student and I live in Wisconsin. I have a work study job at school as well as a full time job in the summer. I live with my grandma because I was technically abandoned by my mom while in high school and she is unemployed so I don't think she has insurance. I wrestle in college and earlier this year I sustained a concussion and a few days afterward I got rear ended which made the symptoms a lot worse. Theyre insurance is paying for some of the bills but not all. So what insurance should I try to pursue.

Estimated car insurance premium for a Camaro/Corvette?

I am looking to buy either a 2002 Camaro (5.7L V8) or a 2000 - 2002 Corvette (5.7L V8). I am wondering how much insurance will cost me. The detailed information and questions are as below: 1. Age: 34 2. Have been driving in the States for little less than 4 years. No accident at all. Only one speeding ticket about 3 years ago. (I had been driving for 10 years in Seoul, Korea with no accident at all, but it didn't count) 3. I used to drive a 2007 Toyota Tundra (5.7L V8), which I sold a few days ago. I paid about 450 dollars/6 months for full coverage. Questions: 1. How much would it cost me if I buy either one mentioned above? (even ballpark number would be appreciated) 2. Do year and purchasing price (or resale value) affect premium? For example, buying a 2008 brand new Corvette or a 2000 used Corvette makes a difference? 3. I know it would be higher to have a sports car, but do my age and driving record affect premium? If yes, how much do they affect?""

Do you know of any auto insurance companies that don't base your rates on your credit report?

Due to an illness/ disability in our family, despite having health insurance, we still owe thousands in medical bills. Those that would not work with us turned them into collection. They now show on our credit report. Despite being insured for both our auto insurance and our home insurance for 20+ year with the same insurance company, we got a notice saying our auto insurance had gone up hundreds of dollars per year based on a credit report they obtained. We have never had an accident, ticket, etc. and the amount automatically comes out of our checking each month. Plus, last year, prior to this, they switched us to a preferred group within the company and gave us a discount when we threatened to switch. How can I find out which insurance companies base your insurance rates on your credit report and or score? Will they tell you outright? This is the first I have ever known that our company did this and was wondering if all of them do it, or do you just know about it when you get a notice like we did? I get their reasoning but it seems like such a rip off when so many are in our boat- insured but with insurance that is starting to pay less and less and cost more. Plus, they have our checking account and if we were not to pay, they wouldn't be responsible for us if we had an accident anyway. Seems like a double whammy to me. Can anyone help?""

What is the best car insurance that you don't have to pay much in any state?

I live in NJ and paying half as my car cost...

So why is car insurance expensive for anyone under 25?

I can understand someone who has just gotten behind the wheel for the first time ever, but I have been driving for 2 years without even a traffic ticket on record, and my insurance is still near 2.5 grand a year. I don't drive a sporty car either, I drive a 2002 Accord. And I still have to wait 7 years for my insurance to go down to a reasonable rate? doesn't this sound a little ridiculous? And don't tell me that an accident is bound to happen or unavoidable for someone of my age. My dad got in his first car accident at age 35. My mom has yet to get in one (well, one that doesn't involve being rear ended). My girlfriend's oldest sister, who is now 27, hasn't gotten in an accident either. I think it is flawed that the insurance companies are simply assuming I am going to get in an accident instead of assessing what kind of a driver I really am.""

Why is Progressive Auto Insurance so cheap compared to other companies?

I was paying $92/mo w/ State Farm American Family quoted me $112/mo Progressive is $58/mo. (I'm comparing straight down the $25,000/$50,000 and they are the same.) Is there something i should be concerned about? Thank you!""

Insurance rates-will they increase with 1 speeding ticket-58 years old?

will my insurance increase with one speeding ticket? i have aaa auto insurance

Can I get car insurance when I have a restricted license?

I have a B restriction on my tx license, would I still be able to get insurance, and if so will it cost more than insurance without a restriction""

How do I get car insurance for my 1972 VW Van????

I can get basic coverage for my van but not full coverage. Does anyone know where i can get full coverage for this van. I drive this van more than 12000 miles a year

Paragould Arkansas Cheap car insurance quotes zip 72450

Best health insurance in Texas?

Car insurance help needed?

I'm 16 and a male and I need to find out how much insurance would cost on a 2000 Monte Carlo SS. I heard that pod grade help so I have roughly a 3.3 GPA in HS

Tesco Car insurance cancelled?

I have just returned from 2 months being away and was very much surprised to read letters from tesco insurance about being unable to take money from my account for the annual renewal of my policy and therefore cancelling it. I talked to my bank and they said that there were not attempts to take money from my account by tesco. While tesco says that my card has been refused. I asked tesco if they could reinstate my policy due to some fault with the payment, which does not seem to be my bank they say that cancelled policy cannot be reinstated and suggest to pay 230 for the period that they were trying to collect and open a much more expensive new policy. They also told me that I face penalty because my car is uninsured now. I would like to reinstate the policy as cancelled unfairly and at the same time I need to insure my car quickly to avoid facing penalty. I wanted to maintain Tesco policy in case they reinstate it, as i will not have cancelled policy on my records and will not have to pay extra for the month, they have been cancelling my account, i also have 2 years no claim with them, provided another insurance, whose car slightly dammaged my front door, while i was parked at a petrol station, pays them. This insurance admitted that it was their fault, but have not finished paying Tesco. This is another reason, tesco could do me even cheaper insurance, once the responsible party pays in full. If i leave it as it is i am afraid that in additioon to cancelled policy I will have a not fully payed claim on my records.""

Beach Buggy Insurance at 18?

Ok so me and my dad have been working on this unfinished beach buggy project (now almost done maybe a month more). I'am a male student that has just finished my second year of college and have had my licence a little over a year (got my licence at 17 to get it out the way) I have never owned a car/been insured on a car and was wondering what sort of prices it would cost to get insured on a beach buggy at my age, the initial plan was for me to get something like a corsa when im 19 and try get insured on the buggy when im like 21. would anyone even insure a VW beach buggy on an 18 year old without no claims bonus? and if so how much do you think im looking at (if some answers seem reasonable i might call adrian flux to see if i can get a quote""

Can I be put on my parent's insurance for a separate car?

I need to get insurance on my car so that I can drive it without risking anything. My parents use Allstate, so I went to their website to see about how much it would be to get insurance. I found a nice monthly payment of $108, but the down payment was over $500! I drive a crappy old car that I payed for less than that. Can my parents add another car with the insurance in my name, put me under their policy for a different car, etc. at a lower price than that? I wish it were so much easier for things. All I care for is liability, so would it be possible to just piggyback off their policy?""

How much would car insurance cost for an 18 year old?

I have 2000 toyota celica and I had my license for almost 1 year. I was in a car accident(my fault) and my car was under my mom's insurance but the insurance company doesnt want to cover the celica anymore due to the fact that I was driving it. I will be 18 on september and I was wondering how much would it cost montly for me since Im going to CSUN and ill be commuting, and i don't want to pay too much. I live in california""

Multiple Car Insurance On One Vehicle?

Is is possible to have two insurance policies on one vehicle? The reason being is, current insurance (lets call it A) is way too expensive. To leave the A insurance I would be charged 500$, seems like a lot. New policy (lets call it B) would be much cheaper then A. If I have A for theft and fire + B (full coverage) it would still be cheaper then A full coverage! Is that legal????""

Full-Time College student looking for affordable health care in Ca.?

I go to Moorpark College full-time and I am looking for a health care plan that is preferably a PPO but an HMO is okay.. I am looking to pay less than 200 dollars a month and I am looking to pay no deductible. I am not looking to get insurance through the government.. I have found one through Health Net. It is an HMO. $0 deductible. $50 office visit. $205 / month. maternity coverage. If there is anything better out there, please let me know.""

Car Insurance when you're 17?

I'm starting driving lessons soon, and hopefully wanting to pass my test by the time I'm 18 and get a car, can you pay car insurance monthly at 17 or do you have to wait until you are 18 to do this? I would just like to know for in the future :) thanks!""

What's the criteria on whether or not car insurance is high?

I'm 17, looking for my first car, and I want something that won't cost my parents a fortune on car insurance. But how can I tell if insurance is going to be high? Would 2003 Acura RSX give high insurance? I've completed a Drivers Education course too, if that counts for anything?""

Is there a such thing as Cheap online insurance ?

I'm looking for some auto insurance for my car. I can't use the general aare there any sites that offer cheap auto insurance?

""Car Insurance coverage, will my insurance provider cover sun damage paint?""

I own a honda pilot suv, I have full coverage insurance on this vehicle. My pilot has bad sun damaged paint I live in a salty dessert area. I wanted to know if my insurance company ...show more""

What is the average cost of life insurance?

I know individual circumstances apply, but there must be an average monthly cost somewhere. 33 years old, Looking for term life insurance, 500K I was just given a monthly quote for $28 per month""

How much will my car insurance cost for 16 year old girl in possibly a ford taurus?

I'm going to be 16 and obviously I'm a girl. I might end up driving a ford taurus. But it's not decided yet. I'm going to put on as a secondary on my car and them my moms dodge grand caravan and my dads dodge dakota. Secondary on all. How much will my insurance probably cost? Would it be smarter to just be a primary on my car and not even on anyone else's car or would it be smarter to just be a secondary on my car? Or a secondary on all? Thanks

Student: Buy car with years free insurance?

I'm looking to buy a new car, and I have heard that you can get special deals where you get a years free insurance. I'm 18 and have one years ncb. Does anyone now of a deal like this currently on offer? Cheers :D""

Motorcycle insurance for a teenager?

I will be 19 in November and I want to get a Ninja 250R. I guess around a 2002, a starter bike. I was wondering (guess) how much it would cost.""

Cheap auto insurance for 18 year old?

Do I need full insurance coverage to finance a USED car?

I am planning on buying a car after putting like 4000$ down, I want to finance for like 2-3 years BUT I heard I had to buy full coverage which is like 300-400$ for me..(currently I pay 150$ one way) This will be a huge problem. I went to some dealer and a guy working there said it's upto me if it's a USED car, and you only have to buy full coverage for brand new cars. Is this true? I am from Edmonton Alberta, Canada.""

How much to insure a car?

im a 16 year old girl that is trying to save up for a car. im hoping to get a car at 2500 max. is there an amount that the registration and insurance would cost. I need to know how much i have to save. thank you :D ps. in utah

What if I don't want to have Obama's health insurance or any health insurance?

I have had health insurance through my employer for the past 10 years. It covers everyone in my family and I pay about $70 a month for it. It's very affordable and I hope to keep ...show more

Health insurance?

Does anyone know of a good and cheap health insurance company where i can save money every month and pay a low deductible?

I have full coverage insurance n my car was stolen n impounded should yhe insurance pay inpound fees?

How much is car insurance for an rx8 in nyc?

I work for EMS n im gonna pay around 16 cash for a 05 rx8 with 30 k miles on it. how much would car insurance b a month ?

Car Insurance Issues?

So I've just passed my test, looking to purchase insurance on a car (peugeout 1.1 fever) and the prices they're, sky high! My dad currently has a car with 5years ncb. I figured that if he ends his current policy on his car (which he paid annual for) and begins a new policy for my car using his 5years ncb it would be all cheaper. Then if he started from scratch on his car again. So basically hes ending his policy in order to transfer the ncb onto my car, him being the main, and me being an additional driver and starting from scratch again on his original car. Only query i have is, Is it legal? Is any part of the above illegal? Thanks guys for the help :D""

Help me with me car insurance?

i am 34 years old have a new license with pass plus and recentley bought a car. what is the cheapest car insurance for me(third party) thanks

Paragould Arkansas Cheap car insurance quotes zip 72450

Motorcycle and car insurance?

I want to get a motorbike but cant afford to run my car also. Put a question on here the other day about running a bike only all year round and been sort of put off by responses re winter riding. Is it possible to road tax and insure a car for half a year only and then for other half of year not road tax/insure it. During that period to insure and tax bike instead if put car on private driveway and not use it for that period? So basically run car half year in crap weather and bike other half in good? Whats the reprocussions insurance wise if thats possible? UK answers would be more usefull as thats where I live! thanks!

Best insurance for young drivers [UK]?

I already said the comparison websites don't seem to give great quotes. And i also said i want third party fire and theft.. so i don't understand your answer :s

Does Medicare or Health insurance work in other states?

If i lived In............. Rhode Island would my health insurance work in another state like Massachusetts.

Reviews on best insurance company to work for?

thinking of working as agent for insurance company. Which company has best reviews to work for?

WILL MY CAR INSURANCE BE HIGH?!?

I am 16 male, and I have a 2006 Honda Civic Sedan 4 door black currently living in NYC Long Island and I want to know what is my Insurance rate. How much would I have to pay every month please tell me every month not year !! Thanks ALSO FOR POINTS PLEASE TELL ME HOW MUCH FOR A 2002-2006 Honda accord !!""

Insurance Car coverage?

My car got flooded bacuase of the Hurricane IKE in the houston area. The current market value of this car is 9k but I still owe 13500 and I do not have GAP insurance. I had an offer for this car three weeks before the hurricane for 12k. As we all know insurance will only pay what it worth now. What are my possibilities for having the insurance pay it off sice this was a natural disaster.

I am looking for an expert in Insurance Car...Home...Commercial.?

I am looking for an expert in insurance,who can guide me with car insurance and Home and Commercial. Please Working for DCAP Insurance...................""

Why are there not provisions in the ACA that put caps on how much health insurance premiums can increase?

I just bought into a health insurance policy as I work 2 part time jobs and get no benefits in those jobs. Now my health insurance provider is saying my health insurance premiums will increase by 50% with higher deductibles and higher out of pocket maximums. This will put a strain on my finance as I can barely afford what I have now and having a $1500 increase really hurt. Why did this ACA not have something to cap these outrageous premium increases plus benefit decreases? It seems to be making it unaffordable rather than affordable.

In California can you register a car without insurance?

I plan on buying a car soon and want to register it under my name but can I do this without insurance since I don't plan on driving the car AT ALL until I secure a job and purchase auto insurance. By the way, the reason I want to pay for the registration right away is because the car I am purchasing is two years behind on the registration...""

Which insurance company offers the cheapest car insurance for new and young drivers?

Urgent question about medical insurance for college students!!!???

I'm a student at a major university in the state of Washington (not that it matters for the question I guess). I'm still on my dad's insurance but it's going to expire on my birthday this year. If it is verified that I'm a student at a college (I don't think it matters whether it's a university, community college, trade school, whatever), then the insurance can continue. I stupidly dropped a class close to the beginning of this term, and this unknowingly dropped me *just*, just barely to the status of 'half-time'. I really didn't realize this would happen and has caused me all sorts of grief with the financial aid gods (lol)...I already will have to be writing appeal letters explaining my mistake. Well, I digress, but my question is: For this insurance matter, do I just need to be a student or do I need to be a full-time student . If it's the latter, pardon my French, but I'm pretty much, f**ked, aren't I? Anyone know the answer?""

""How much would the insurance be, for a 17 year old female - new driver, for a Range Rover Vogue?""

It would be about 11/12 years old. 4.0L or 4.6L. And, probably is Petrol. How much on average would this be? UK!""

How much do you pay in insurance for your Honda Civic?

I'm trying to figure out the price difference between the coupe and sedan. So, let me know the year of the car, whether it's a coupe or not, and your age. Thanks!""

Cheap insurance w/a DUI???

Which are the best companies to compare for car insurance w/a DUI on your record???

Family of 4 looking for affordable health/medical insurance.?

I am looking for insurance for me and my 3 kids. Does anyone have any suggestions as to whom i can go to to find some that won't cost me an arm and a leg. i live in west texas so any suggestions located in this area would be much appreciated.

How much is comprehensive insurance for a Kawasaki ninja 250r?

I'm 20, never had a crash nor any fines, am on my graded license (just off l's) have done rider safety courses and have a 2008 Kawasaki ninja 250r and live in queensland (australia). i just want to get a general idea of the cost""

Car wreck with no insurance in tennessee?

I was recently involved in a car wreck where I wasn't insured whatsoever. This wreck was considered road rage on both parts. I didn't initiate the road rage. I had a dip spit bottle thrown at my car. It went in and all over me. I followed the other vehicle til he bowed up and stop in front of me where I then rear ended him. He was driving a '99 cadillac escalade and it didn't damaged anything but his bumper. He had insurance thus he didn't get a ticket I don't believe but I did and it says I didn't have insurance the time of the accident and a court date that follows up. My questions are what will exactly happen in court?? I have never been in a wreck. I now have insurance. I'm young. What will the court cost be? How will I pay him? Is there anything that I should know other than to show up?

Will my health insurance pay if car insurance refuses?

We have Personal Injury Protection, but car insurance says we didn't file claim on time.""

""No vehicle, Need SR22 Or Non Owners Bond? Ohio.?""

Situation- September 2009 I got my license suspended due to an OVI. I live with my parents whom own vehicles but I do not have one in my name. I am in the military, and my mother is ill. Both need me to get my license so your information is much appreciated. I want to get my license reinstated so I can drive my mothers vehicle when required. I am not sure where to get a non owners bond, or the correct SR22. I have called insurance companies and they say they cannot help me. I know I need to pay the reinstatement fee and provide proof of FR. Does the Non owners bond count as FR. Can I drive legally with it or do I need an insurance policy on top of that. Thank you for your help.""

Auto insurance in California?

I bought a car in Aug 09. It's under my dads name for cheaper insurance purpose. But I never really got to the insurance part and have been driving w/out it. I just got a letter in the mail from the DMV saying my registration is suspended because I haven't provided financial proof... So I went earlier... and if my dad were to add the car and list me as a 2nd driver on my car, I would pay too much :| So the question here is... if my dad were to add the car and not list me as a 2nd driver, will I be covered? I really don't give a crap if it's fraud or not, just need to know if I will be covered since he will be lending me the car. Only place I really drive it to is work, and I work overnight so there's no cars around! ..and weekends. Plus with gas prices this high I stay below the 1.5k rpm's.""

How does health insurance work?

and a family doctor? like if i went to a checkup insurance pays for me what does that mean

Personal Medical Insurance?

Why is medical insurance is a dream of riches or expensive commodity in U.S.A ? For example, Denmark, Canada, and other countries it is affordable and free to the people who contribute to the development of the country? (In Denmark for example if you can speak Danish, and work, you get free Insurance, like such in another countries). Why can't we make it affordable to everyone? What pro-active thoughts, comments, actions, suggestions you have for in this regard? Thank you.""

How soon after purchasing a car do you need to get insurance?

i live in florida and i just bought used vehicle... how long do i have to purchase insurance... also can i register the vehicle without insurance?

Does every state require auto insurance?

If a driver is not covered in your insurance and drive your car are they insured?

my daughter is 16 and is getting her first car today. I only listed the car in my insurance, if she gets in a car crash will she be covered? Or what will happen to her and the car?""

Paragould Arkansas Cheap car insurance quotes zip 72450

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exfrenchdorsl4p0a1 · 8 years ago

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5 Things The Media Gets Wrong About White Supremacist Hate

White supremacist terror is at the top of people’s minds after a white supremacist stabbed and killed two men who were defending two young black women, one in a hijab, from his bigoted rant in Portland, Oregon, last month.

The incident attracted widespread media coverage, which in turn drew criticism from many people on Twitter who denounced news outlets for not labeling the attack as terrorism.

There’s a familiar double standard in how the media treats violence by white supremacists versus violence by Islamist extremists. It’s time to get it right.

HuffPost spoke to two experts ― Farai Chideya, a journalist who has been reporting on white nationalism for more than 25 years, and Heidi Beirich, the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, who has been studying white extremist groups since 1999 ― to discuss the problem of white supremacist hate today, and how the media can do a better job covering it.

This is what the media should know:

1. White supremacist hate is not new.

“The one thing that bothers me the most about media coverage of these incidents is that they’re not frequently enough put in the context of the fact we’ve had ton of domestic terrorism recently,” Beirich told HuffPost.

Beirich noted a recent spate of white supremacist attacks in the U.S. In addition to the May 26 Portland attack, there’s the March 20 murder of 66-year-old Timothy Caughman, who was black, by a man who traveled to New York City expressly to kill African-American men, and the May 22 killing of Richard Collins III, a black college student in Maryland, by a man who belonged to a white supremacist Facebook group.

“When it comes to Muslim terrorism, nobody questions it’s a problem that’s an ongoing threat ― a security problem, radicalization problem, et cetera ― which it is,” Beirich said. “But when it comes to Portland or Dylann Roof [the 2015 Charleston church shooter], they always seem to appear as one-offs.”

Outlets covering last week’s truck and knife attack in London, for instance ― carried out by three men identified as Islamist extremists ― often made a point of mentioning the bombing in Manchester, England, two weeks before.

But many news outlets covering the stabbing attack in Portland failed to mention other recent U.S. attacks by white supremacists, such as the one in Maryland just a few days earlier.

Meanwhile, more domestic terrorism incidents in the U.S. have been carried out by people associated with white supremacist ideologies than by people with radical Islamist ideologies, Beirich noted.

In tracking deadly terror attacks in the U.S., the New America Foundation has counted 11 attacks by Islamic extremists since 9/11, compared to 21 by far-right extremists. Between the 9/11 attacks and the 2016 Orlando, Florida, nightclub shooting, more people were killed in the U.S. by right-wing extremists than by Islamic extremists, the foundation said.

We began as a country that said ‘all men are created equal’ ― but there was slavery, and women were not allowed to vote. Farai Chideya

Americans “shouldn’t be surprised” by the frequency of white supremacist attacks, since they are rooted in a long history of racial discrimination, Beirich said. As she puts it, until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, “white supremacy was the law of the land.”

“I’m disturbed by this cycle [of attacks],” Chideya told HuffPost. “But we began as a country that said ‘all men are created equal’ ― but there was slavery, and women were not allowed to vote.”

“This is a continuation,” she added. “We’re not done, just because people are uneasy with how long the history is and how prevalent the issue is. We have to give up thinking this is rare.”

2. White supremacist hate is not “fringe.”

White supremacist hate doesn’t just manifest as violent extremism, Chideya noted.

“People frame it as weird guys with fringe beliefs ― no,” Chideya said. “White supremacists don’t just wear hoods and give Nazi salutes. White nationalists are in the U.S. government.”

She pointed to “institutionalized white nationalism, like voting laws,” mentioning North Carolina’s voting practices an example of “de facto white nationalism.” The courts recently found that the state’s legislative districts were drawn to intentionally disadvantage black voters.

Chideya also mentioned “political white nationalism, like in the White House,” calling out the links between the white supremacist movement and upper echelons of the federal government.

She listed President Donald Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon, who led Breitbart News, a publisher of white nationalist content, and Trump aide Sebastian Gorka, who reportedly has ties to a Nazi-aligned group. When Beirich spoke to HuffPost in April, she also pointed to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has received awards from and has spoken at events for an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as an anti-Muslim hate group.

White supremacists don’t just wear hoods and give Nazi salutes. White nationalists are in the U.S. government. Farai Chideya

In terms of how news media could do better, Chideya pointed to coverage of Greg Gianforte, who was elected to Congress in Montana last month and was found to have made donations to candidates with ties to white nationalist groups ― which Rewire reported just days before his election. Gianforte made national news when he physically attacked a reporter on the eve of the election.

Chideya said members of the news media were slow to surface Gianforte’s links to hate groups, which she thought should have “come out sooner.”

“In general, reporters need to become more adept at tracking not just extremist white nationalism, but also when it enters the mainstream, like in Montana,” Chideya said. “The same way you run a background check on politicians’ finances, run a check on if they are connected to extremist ideologies.”

3. White supremacist hate is terror.

News outlets have been repeatedly criticized for their slowness to label attacks by white perpetrators as “terrorism,” while they’re quick to use the label when attackers are perceived as nonwhite or “other” ― and specifically, Muslim.

Here's the list of charges facing the Portland murderer. Call him what he is: a white supremacy terrorist. #Portland http://pic.twitter.com/Wr6cSd6w60

— Arjun Sethi (@arjunsethi81) May 31, 2017

I love how @CNN & media perpetuate idea that it's never terrorist attack if white guy does it ever only brown ppl are terrorists#Portland https://t.co/JKAkcnElMs

— Hasib N (@HasibMN) June 4, 2017

Distressing that this piece I wrote on white supremacist violence in March can be so easily re-upped for Portland. https://t.co/zezC2Ymsko

— Sherrilyn Ifill (@Sifill_LDF) May 31, 2017

“What is terrorism? Acts designed to inspire terror. But somehow, we don’t call this terrorism,” Chideya told HuffPost of the Portland attack. “When a Muslim terrorist kills one, two, five people, it’s immediately labeled terrorism. But when a white nationalist kills one, two, five people, it’s not labeled terrorism. But they’re the same.”

“We have to be aware as journalists of the labels we use,” she added.

The issue of how to label any given attack is complex. As CNN reports, for an attack to be labeled a hate crime, a perpetrator has to attack someone based on their identity ― for example, their race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity. For an act to be labeled terrorism, the perpetrator has to be motivated by political or ideological beliefs.

But the line is blurry. Many people condemned the government for not labeling Dylann Roof a terrorist after he killed nine black people in a Charleston church in 2015 and specifically said he was there “to shoot black people,” according to witnesses.

There is a more general presumption that white people are good and innocent in American culture at large ― and journalists come from that culture. Farai Chideya

Officials themselves can be slow to use the “terrorist” label when white attackers are involved, adding to the challenge for journalists.

“It’s too early to say whether last night’s violence was an act of domestic terrorism or a federal hate crime,” an FBI special agent told reporters the day after the Portland attack, per CNN.

Beyond the inconsistent labeling, there are other discrepancies in how the media treats violent attacks by white supremacists versus by Islamist extremists.

White attackers are often portrayed as lone wolves with mental health issues, while Islamist attackers are simply terrorists. The Muslim community is made to answer or apologize for Islamist extremism, while white Christians don’t get similar requests. There’s deep digging into how Islamic extremists were radicalized ― but that’s not the case for white extremists.

“Plenty of terrorists have had mental health issues,” Chideya told HuffPost. “There is a more general presumption that white people are good and innocent in American culture at large ― and journalists come from that culture.”

This quote is about the white supremacist who killed two folks in Portland on Friday. How about: he was radicalized? https://t.co/LrJ6rFRQgd http://pic.twitter.com/AOa8U3Gjzw

— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) May 27, 2017

The presumption that the attacker is mentally ill and not "radicalized" is strictly based on religion and race, btw. https://t.co/onKJtOAog1

— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) May 27, 2017

And when someone perceived as Muslim commits an attack, the news typically receives far more coverage than an attack by a white supremacist would.

A man yelled anti-Muslim slurs and murdered two people. Reverse the killer/slur scenario and there would be *nothing else* on TV for days. https://t.co/Y6GFpz8f0h

— Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) May 27, 2017

This double standard is perpetuated from the nation’s highest office, as Trump continues to respond selectively to terror attacks during his presidency.

After Islamist extremists attacked London, for instance, he condemned the violence on Twitter the same day. After the Portland attack, Trump waited more than two days before tweeting about it.

It is my favorite pattern of this presidency. If Trump thinks an attacker is Muslim, instant condemnation. If not, prolonged silence.

— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) June 4, 2017

“There’s crickets from Donald Trump when there’s white nationalist violence,” Chideya said. “But there’s a deluge with Muslim violence.”

4. Don’t worry about giving white supremacists too much coverage ― worry about giving them the right kind of coverage.

News organizations are sometimes concerned about giving extremists too much attention, which could feed into their desire for publicity and spur copycats.

Beirich recognizes the issue, but she maintains that reporters need to pay more attention ― not less ― to the issue of white supremacist hate.

“I know there are concerns about journalists who don’t want to report on a neo-Nazi rally where four people show up, because those groups are just seeking attention ― and that’s a valid point,” Beirich said. “But when we’re talking about domestic terrorism and hate crimes related to white supremacy ― that’s a real thing.”

“I understand not wanting to draw attention to small instances,” she added, noting specifically the series of news stories about white supremacist flyers on college campuses. “But when people are getting killed because of this, we’ve got to pay attention.”

When people are getting killed because of this, we've got to pay attention. Heidi Beirich

Deciding how much of a platform to provide extremists is an “inevitable transaction of journalism,” Chideya noted.

She recalled a time years ago when she was conducting a phone interview with a woman in the white supremacist movement. At the end of the interview, Chideya asked: “I’m black ― would you have granted me the interview if you’d known that?”

The woman responded: “Probably not ― but on the other hand, every time I talk to a reporter, people will read your article and come find me.”

“You can write a piece saying [white supremacists] are cowards, and there still will be people who come over to their side,” Chideya told HuffPost. “That doesn’t mean you don’t do journalism ― you just do it as well as you can.”

Good reporting on white supremacist movements will recognize that there is a range of people within any movement.

“It’s a question of journalism: Not every story is about Derek Black,” she said, referring to a man The Washington Post profiled after he left the so-called alt-right movement. “Nor about the worst violent person in the movement.”

5. White supremacist hate is a bigger problem than you think.

“Not only do we have domestic terrorism inspired by racism, but also we have a hate crime problem ― and the dimensions are not understood,” Beirich said.

While we know there has been a recent rise in the number of hate groups and a spike in hate crimes after Trump’s election, the U.S. still doesn’t do a good job of tracking hate crimes.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, for instance, puts out a report of around 5,000 to 6,000 hate crimes each year. But when the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics did a large-scale study from 2007 to 2011, Beirich noted, it found the number of hate crimes closer to 260,000 per year.

If people were looking at these data points more, we would be talking about ways to combat this problem. Heidi Beirich

“If people were looking at these data points more, we would be talking about ways to combat this..

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