#zoomed in hooky characters

[spectacleweirdo]

dorian being the freakiest adorable weirdo ever

[renjana-theme]

Chartbreaker: LOONA Cracked the Code to a K-Pop U.S. Radio Crossover

The 12-member K-pop unit scored its first pop radio hit with “Star,” thanks to an intensive, years-long strategy.

LOONA member Yves didn’t believe it at first when the K-pop girl group debuted on Billboard's Pop Airplay chart last month with its snappy synth-pop single, "Star.""It sometimes feels unrealistic," she says over Zoom from a conference room in Seoul. Reality will sink in, she believes, when she and LOONA’s 11 other members can all travel safely to the United States and hear it on the radio for themselves.

Only a handful of Korean acts have experienced that singular thrill. Despite K-pop’s strong physical sales, booming streaming numbers and titanic influence on social media (LOONA alone has 1.6 million Instagram followers), it has long struggled to gain traction on American radio, an institution that doesn't play a lot of non-English pop songs. So Korean artists looking to break through on U.S. airwaves typically adapt to the market with strategic label partnerships, Western collaborations, and English-language singles — and LOONA has adopted the lattermost option with “Star.”

Before LOONA ever attempted to cross over, though, the group — whose members range in age from 18 to 24 — promoted each member individually before debuting as a 12-member unit under its Korean management company, BlockberryCreative. In an atypical move, the members of LOONA were announced over a two-year period: each month, a new face was revealed to the public — hence its Korean name, 이달의 소녀, which translates to "girl of the month" — along with a solo single. Throughout this ambitious pre-debut process, three official subunits were formed (1/3, ODD EYE CIRCLE, yyxy), and an elaborate fandom was created called the LOONAverse.

As Heejin, Hyunjin, Haseul, Yeojin, ViVi, Kim Lip, Jinsoul, Choerry, Yves, Chuu, Go Won, and Olivia Hye were introduced, the spectrum of LOONA's sound only grew more diverse, from the saccharine bombast of Chuu's "Heart Attack" to Kim Lip's hazy R&B to the future bass intensity of JinSoul's "Singing in the Rain” to the Grimes features on yyxy's synth-heavy "love4eva." Meanwhile, the anticipation for the full group to finally arrive grew more feverish.

"We were happy to be the main characters," Chuu adds. "It took a long time to debut as a whole, but I'm proud that we've created our own unique characteristics."

Looking back, Heejin, who joined the company as a trainee at 15, says she was initially worried about the unusual process. "At first, there were lots of concerns, wondering if this project will be able to gain attention from the public since it was something very new," she says. "Now, I’m very proud of my [solo] album and the fact that [our projects] became what makes LOONA so special."

The intensive launch strategy culminated in August 2018 with the release of LOONA’s first official single, the hyper and hooky "Hi High." While the LOONAverse was a creative concept and fictional world built with the group's fans, Orbits, in mind, LOONA has done fairly little press in the U.S., aside from a 2019 performance at KCON LA. Without much name recognition in America beyond Twitter and no support from a major label — but a strong belief in the crossover potential of “Star” — BlockberryCreative doubled down on an expansive global strategy.

That plan started with the launch of a digital initiative last October called "Map of Orbits," a website where LOONA's fans could register to become a star in the group's galaxy, with thousands of stars surrounding LOONA's moon. From there, BlockberryCreative prioritized local promotion, investing in digital advertisements and a billboard in Los Angeles in support of LOONA's third EP, [12:00] (pronounced "midnight"), which hit No. 112 on the Billboard 200 last October.

[skeeter-110]

I Dreamt About You Every Night

Tony Stark has been dead for seventeen years due to a mission gone wrong. He's survived getting blown up, palladium poisoning, terrorist attacks, and even Thanos himself, and he gets killed by - what was supposed to be - a simple day-to-day mission. Or, so everyone thought.

|| Chapter One || || Chapter Two || || Chapter Three || || Chapter Four ||

Chapter Five

Truth never damages a cause that is just. - Mahatma Gandhi

"What do you think you're doing?" M.J demands to know as she barges into Peter's lab, Peter looking like a kid that just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar when she began looking at the video he was watching.

"No, Peter, we can't be back to this." M.J says, shaking her head at the same video that she saw the first couple of years Tony was missing. The same video that was playing when she found Peter lifeless. "You have a job, now, and a family that needs you desperately. You cannot become obsessed with this again." M.J scolds.

"I know, Love, I know, and I'm not going to become obsessed again. I just wanted to comb through this one more time, just to make sure we're not missing something now that we know the base is somewhere in New Jersey." Peter explains, making M.J sigh.

"Your kids miss you. You've been down here all day." M.J tells Peter making him the one to sigh this time.

"I'm sorry. I promise I'll make it up to all of you tomorrow. How about when you take Claire to her dentist appointment tomorrow, I'll pick the other two kids up from school and after the appointment you can meet us out for a nice family dinner. Just us, no distractions." Peter offers.

"Just us?"

"Just us." Peter confirms.

"No distractions?"

"Absolutely none at all." Peter says smiling when he saw the grin forming on his wife's face.

"You know what, Tiger, I think you have a deal." M.J says while wrapping her arms around Peter's neck. Peter couldn't resist standing up and planting a kiss on her lips, chuckling a bit at the fact that he was still able to make the "big, bad" Michelle melt.

"How about we call it a night and go to bed?" Peter asks as they slowly pulled away.

"I think you've got yourself another deal."

* * *

"Mr. Parker, you have a visitor." Peter's P.A knocks on the door, her confusion already telling him who said visitor could possibly be.

"It's okay, let him in." Peter permits, quickly double checking his work on his computer before saving it. Something told him he wasn't going to be getting much work done now.

"Hey, Underoos." Tony greets as he walks into the office, Peter only pretending to be annoyed at the nickname; in reality he's been dying to hear Tony tease him again like this.

"Hey, Tony, what are you doing here?" Peter asks not unkindly.

"Oh, just wanted to check out Parker Industries, see what my protégé has accomplished while I was gone. You know, I've heard from Pep that Parker Industries is our top competitor." Tony says, but rather than sounding mad he sounded impressed.

"Yeah, we're usually nipping on your toes because with M.J working at Stark Industries, we don't want to put you guys out of business and have her lose her job." Peter teases right back, smiling at the fake wounded look Tony put on.

"Ouch, Parker, I'm hurt." Tony mock ups, making Peter roll his eyes fondly.

"Would it make you feel better if we went downstairs and looked at some of the R&D labs I got going on here?" Peter offers, Tony pretend to actually think about it.

"Yeah, you know what, I think that would actually do the trick." Tony answers, making Peter laugh as he got up and began leading the way.

He decided to give Tony a full tour of the company, making sure to spend time showing him everything that he managed to create and accomplish over the past decade. After a few hours, when Peter was satisfied Tony saw everything there was to see, both men went down to the company's cafeteria and got a quick bite to eat. "So, have you figured anything else out about the possible location of the base?" Peter asks once they settled down at one of the cafeteria tables. "A bit. I've got it narrowed down roughly, but I still don't know where exactly it could be." Tony answers making both of them sigh

Before anyone could say anything else, Peter's phone began to ring. Peter huffed and pulled his phone out, quickly signaling to Tony to give him a minute when he saw that it was M.J calling him.

"Hey, Darling, what's up?" Peter answers.

'Peter, love of my life, please, please, please, tell me you picked Ben and Annie up from school early.' M.J says, sounding like she was out of breath.

"What? No, it's not time for me to pick them up yet. Wait, why does it sound like you're running? Are you running? Why are you running?" Peter questions, not being able to hold in the worry that he was beginning to feel.

'I'm running because I just got a call from the school saying someone just came and picked Ben and Annie up from school.' M.J says, Peter easily picking up on the fear in her voice as the sound of a car door closing is heard in the background.

"Hey, it's going to be okay. Maybe Nat or Morgan just decided to sign them out and play hooky with them." Peter tries to placate, also trying to convince himself that everything was okay.

‘No, Peter, I have a really bad feeling about this. The secretary said it was some man and he said that he worked with the Avengers so she allowed it, but called me because she wasn't sure and-’ M.J nervously rambles, Peter cutting in and stopping her from working herself into a tizzy.

"Okay, okay, listen to me. You and Claire go home. Don't stop anywhere on the way, don't talk to anyone, not until I get to the school and figure out what's going on." Peter instructs, getting up and signaling to Tony that they needed to go. "I will figure out what's going on, Love, I promise."

'Find our children, Peter Parker. You find our children.' M.J shakily says, clearly trying to put up a mask she no longer was used to having to wear.

"I will. I swear to you, I will. You and Claire just focus on getting home safe." Peter says before exchanging his goodbyes and hanging up. "We need to go to the kid's school, now." Peter tells Tony, putting as much urgency as he could in his voice.

"Why, what's going on?" Tony asks, instantly following Peter when he began walking away.

"Someone picked the kids up from school and we don't know who it is so just to be on the safe side we need to go to figure out who signed them out." Peter explains, both of the men being quick to get up to Peter's office.

"So, why aren't we going up to the school?" Tony questions, watching as Peter sat down at his desk and began doing something on his laptop.

"Because the school's not going to have answers for me - they don't even know who picked the kids up - so I'm going to directly to the source and figure it out myself." Peter answers, smiling when he saw the confusion still sitting on Tony's face. "I'm hacking into the security camera footage." Peter explains, pulling a laugh out of Tony.

"You know, almost two decades have passed, but you, Peter Parker, have not changed a bit." Tony lightheartedly says, coming around and looking over Peter's shoulder at the footage on the laptop.

Peter fast-forwarded through most of the footage, gasping and pausing it when two men began walking in.

"Tony, you said you have a rough estimate to where that base was?" Peter asks as he begins to zoom into one of the men's faces.

"Yeah, why? Who is that?"

"I don't know who he is exactly, but I would recognize him from anywhere. He's one of the men in the video we have from the night you disappeared." Peter tells the scientist.

"Why does he look like that?" Tony questions, completely stunning Peter with the odd change of subject.

"Look like what?"

"Like he's trying desperately to be one of those vampires from that book series." Tony says, Peter gaping at him in return.

"Really? That's what you're worried about? Not that fact that he took my kids, but the fact that he looks like a Twilight character?"

"No, you're right, sorry. So are you sure that this is the guy? I mean, I guess it would be difficult not recognizing him, looking like that." Tony questions, wanting to be certain about this before they go in guns blazing.

"Tony, I have watched that video over a thousand times. Trust me when I say this is him." Peter says, brushing past the comment of his looks again.

"Alright, then suit up. Looks like we're going back to New Jersey."

*   *   *

"Annie. Annie-May, wake up." Ben whispers to his younger sister, who was still laying on the floor passed out. Looking around the - what looked like - a storage room turned cell that they were in, Ben tried to remember exactly what happened.

He remembered getting called out of class and going into the office to leave, but after that it begins to get a little fuzzy. He couldn't remember who it was that picked him up, but clearly they weren't anyone good or else he wouldn't be sitting here tied up with his youngest sister.

The real questions was, how did they manage to get Ben and Annie to actually go with them, and why couldn't Ben remember anything about it?

"Annie, come on, it's time to wake up now." Ben tries again, trying to reach over and nudge Annie as best as he could. It was a bit difficult though, considering his hands were tied behind his back and he had legs that didn't seem to want to work.

Slowly Annie began to stir, Ben sighing in relief when he saw that his sister was waking up.

"Come on, Annie-May. Wake-up!" Ben continues to say, Annie scrunching up her face in return.

"Leave me alone, Benji. 'M sleepin'." Annie mumbles, causing Ben to huff in return.

"Now is not the time to sleep. Now is the time to figure out where we are." Ben says, confusing Annie enough to convince her to open her eyes. It only took a few seconds of looking around before Annie realized that they were in some sort of trouble.

"Benji, where are we?" Annie asks, struggling to sit up as she did so.

"I have no clue. Someone managed to take us somehow." Ben replies, giving Annie a sympathetic look when she let out a low whimper.

"What do they want from us?" Annie hesitantly asks, going to anxiously suck on her fingers until she remembered that her hands were tied behind her back.

"I don't know. It has to do with wanting something from Dad. You know how people will do anything to get at the Avengers for something." Ben replies, rolling his eyes with as much annoyance as he felt. "Can you break free from those?" Ben asks, nodding his head towards the ropes that were holding Annie's hands back.

Clearly whoever took him and Annie didn't take into consideration that they could have possibly inherited powers from their Father because they were both tied in in plain rope. Although, the only person they really underestimated was Annie; Ben was unfortunately - well, unfortunately to him - born normal.

Annie just nodded before using her strength to bust out of the ropes, rubbing her wrists in order to ease the slight burns there.

"Now hurry up and untie me." Ben commands, turning his hands so Annie can get to them.

"What do we do?" Annie asks once she managed to free Ben's hands from their confines.

"We need to find a safe place to hide. We can't just stay in this cell and hope that the people who took us aren't going to hurt us, but I also can't walk well enough for us to completely leave where we are. So, our safest bet is to just find a random room, lock ourselves in, and wait for Dad to get here with the Avengers." Ben simplifies for the eight-year-old, sighing when he saw tears forming in her eyes.

"Don't cry." Ben pleads, only succeeding in making the tears fall.

"I'm scared." Annie admits to her older brother. "What happens if we get caught before Daddy finds us?" Annie cries, Ben being quick to pull her to his chest to muffle her cries so whoever was guarding them would still think they were passed out.

"We're not going to get caught, I swear to you. We just need to be quick; you need to help me get to another room." Ben says, Annie nodding to show that she understood. "Now listen out in the hallway and tell me if you can hear anyone." Ben directs, pushing Annie towards the door of the cell.

"So, did our oh-so-fearless leader contact the two Avengers?" Annie hears a man's voice ask.

"Nah, he didn't need to. I guarantee that as soon as that Spider-Guy realized his kids are gone he's going to be running right over on over here with Iron Man by his side." A second man says.

"It was really stupid of them to come back to that corn field. I mean, did they really think that we weren't going to be searching every inch of that cornfield for Stark?" The first man chuckles.

"Speaking of which, why aren't you watching to make sure they don't escape?" The second man all but shouts making Annie gasp in fear.

"Because the girl is no older than ten and the boy is crippled. You really think they need to have a close eye kept on them? We're of better use out here to help fight these comic book wannabes." The first voice says, the reply from the second voice being left unheard due to Annie pulling away from the door.

"They don't know I have powers." Annie tells Ben, confirming his suspicion.

"Good, it's good that they underestimated you; it'll make it easier for us to escape. Do you think you can break the handle off the door and get us out of here?" Ben asks, smiling encouragingly when Annie nodded her confirmation.

Slowly, and as quietly as she could, Annie broke the handle in half and pulled it out. Gently, she reached down and helped her brother stand as best as he could before steadily pushing the door open.

"Do you hear anything?" Ben whispers once they both peered around the door and didn't see anyone.

"No one close enough to see us." Annie replies.

"Good, good. Okay, so you see that closet over there? I'm going to need you to help us get over there." Ben instructs, slightly feeling bad when he had to lean most of his weight onto his younger sister.

"Wait, wait, before you open the door." Ben stops his sister once they were standing in front of the room, turning himself to face back down the hall. As soon as he steadied himself against the wall, he took the handle that Annie was thankfully still holding, and chucked it down to the other side of the hall.

"What?! Why would you do that? What was-" Annie began to question her voice shrill with fear. Ben was quick to slap his hand over her mouth, though, pushing both of them into the room and shutting the door as the two men Annie heard from before began to shout and run down the hall.

"Listen, listen to me, I know you're scared, I know, but just - shh, for a second. I had to throw that down there because now they think we've ran down the other hall. They have no idea or suspicion that we're down here now so, shh. It's okay." Ben explains, plopping down on the ground and leaning against one of the lab tables there while simultaneously ignoring the reason for there to be lab tables here.

Before either child could get even remotely comfortable, the ground beneath them began to shake.

"What's happening?" Annie whines as she falls to her knees, crawling over to Ben instead of walking.

"I'm not sure." Ben admits, looking around the room to try and find a safer spot for them. Once he saw that the lab table they were against had an empty storage hole, he began pushing Annie towards it. "Here, crawl into there."

"What about you? You can't fit." Annie cries out, stopping herself from going further into the cubby hole when she realized.

"I'm going to keep guard. Make sure no one's getting in here." Ben says making Annie scoff at him.

"Yeah, because out of the two of us, the kid who can't even walk without crutches is more fit to fight soldiers than the kid with powers." Annie snarks, earning a glare in return.

"You're a baby, you don't know what you're talking about." Ben dismisses, sliding the storage door closed and effectively muffling Annie's protest.

Ben crawled as best as he could to the door, pressing his ear to the door to try and see if he could hear anything. He could hear faint shouts an gunshots in the background, but nothing prepared him for the door to the room swinging right open.

Tag List: @spideyspeaches @lost-lunar-wolf @joyful-soul-collector @hatakehikari @thatcrackheadsadbitchtm

[grandraconteur]

Wish You Were Here, Chapter 4

Hallucinations of his dead father had haunted Peter for years. Symptoms of trauma, a child psychologist told his Aunt and Uncle with a well-practiced sympathetic smile on her saccharine face. A natural result from surviving the car accident.

Except Peter just saw his father, and he was very much alive.

With the help of his mentor, Tony Stark, and the mysterious figure, Doctor Stephen Strange, Peter is going to have to delve into new details from a painful history to uncover the truth...

Iron Dad, Doctor Dad, Spider Son, and slow burn Ironstrange.

As always, betaed by the incomparable @merelypassingtime

Please enjoy!

1, 2, 3

Also on AO3

1, 2, 3

Chapter 4: Comfortably Numb (Part 2)

Come on, now.  

I hear you're feeling down.

Well, I can ease your pain,

Get you on your feet again.

~ "Comfortably Numb," Pink Floyd, The Wall, November 30, 1979

Around dinner time that night, someone knocked at the apartment door.

Peter was still holed up in his room, May thankfully agreeing to give him more space as long as he promised not to play Spiderman that night. He hardly paid the visitor mind, until May’s characteristic knock on his door.

“Peter? Mr. Stark’s here for you.”

With his advanced physiology, Peter was pretty sure he made some kind of record from his bed to open the door, ignoring entirely the fact that he was still dressed in his pajamas. Mr. Stark jerked back slightly at the abruptness of the movement, but, as always, played it cool and used the movement to appear as if he was looking Peter up and down. “Mr. Parker, dare I say you played hooky today?”

Before Peter could answer, Mr. Stark turned to Aunt May with his version of an apologetic smile, though it seemed far less sympathetic and more for show. “Mind if I talk to the kid in private? Got something important to discuss.”

“You mean like the last time you had to ‘talk privately’ and Peter ended up in Germany to fight a bunch of criminals under the guise of an internship?” She drawled, raising an eyebrow archly and crossing her arms.

“Yeah...that was...extenuating circumstances and kind of urgent. But this is just paperwork. Superhero business. Nothing that will require him to leave the tri-state area.”

“It’s fine, Aunt May, nothing to worry about!” Peter tugged at Mr. Stark’s sleeve, pulling him into the room. “Like he said, just some paperwork. But, you know, private Avengers business-”

“Not quite an Avenger yet, kid. Turned me down, remember?”

“-private...friendly neighborhood superhero business. We’ll be done in a jiffy!”

Before the door could close, May put her hand on it. Looking Peter dead in the eye, she remarked, “Peter...swear to me this isn’t anything dangerous. Because you do not need any more stress right now.”

That pointed look, earnest yet brooking no argument, nearly caused Peter to give in and spill everything. But, he reminded himself, he didn’t know everything yet, so…

He’d spare her, just a little longer.

“I promise.”

The door closed on Aunt May’s dubious and slightly concerned face. Peter leaned against the back of the door, breathing a sigh of temporary relief.

“Well, can’t say it looks like you’ve taken my advice.”

Mr. Stark looked him over with an apparent detached critical assessment that did not quite belie his concern.

“I’ve been doing nothing but homework, Mr. Stark. I haven’t even been Spidermaning this weekend.”

“And yet, you look like the poster image of teenage depression. Probably why Aunt Hottie had a Mayo Clinic page about it open on her laptop when I came in.”

Peter started to comment on ‘Aunt Hottie’ but redirected when the rest of Mr. Stark’s sentence registered. “She did?”

“Yeah. Might help if you got dressed. Seems to fool them. Though I have to say, I am flattered by your show of support. Terribly outdated, though. What is that, Mark VII?”

Glancing down, Peter let out a little eep at the realization he was in the Iron Man pajamas May bought him last Christmas. He crossed his arms across his chest nervously. “Well, you know. They were on clearance.”

“Oh, ouch. Hit me where it hurts, why don’t you? Though I haven’t seen any Spiderman merchandise, clearance or otherwise. ”

With a quick look around the place, Mr. Stark took a seat on Peter’s bed, patting the spot beside him in invitation like it was his own room and not the teenager’s. Fumbling a bit, Peter sat down, running his hands over the tops of his legs in a restless motion.

“So…?”

With an expressive breath, Mr. Stark took out his phone and snapped it forward slightly, producing a holographic image of a file with the Stark logo and a name.

  Dr. Stephen Strange.

“Turns out Shield was good for something. I was able to access their archived security footage from around the globe for Friday to analyze, plus I had her scour social media, looking for a facial match or mention of his name.”

Heart pounding in his chest, the hairs on his arms standing on end, Peter leaned forward expectantly. “And?”

“And...well, see for yourself.”

The holographic folder flipped open, revealing several photos.

In the last few days, when Peter couldn’t help himself from fretting about what Friday would find, he’d considered several possibilities ranging from awful (it was a fake, his dad was dead, his dad had a new family that he’d abandoned Peter for) to simply nothing. Somehow, considering anything positive that would suitably explain his absence had given him the sensation of having a rock tucked under his ribs.

After all that theorizing and thought, the Instagram post Tony brought up on the holographic display was not exactly what he’d expected. Still, looking at the man who was clearly his dad...it took one weight off his shoulders and put another one on them. Hot and cold rolled down his body like waves, the contradictory sensations leaving him floundering.

“He’s...”

“Alive, if this and the rest of the footage Friday tracked down is to be believed.”

Peter’s stupor was momentarily distracted as he took in the content of the picture, his brow pinching as he recognized…

“Does that t-shirt say-”

“Yup. Your dad’s a One Directioner. Congratulations, kid.”

Indeed, his dad was wearing a rather loud, pink shirt with “Just Call Me the Future Mrs. Harry Styles” written in a garish cursive. He did not appear to be particularly pleased with his attire, though, a severe frown marring his features that spoke of a man at the end of his exhaustive rope. Beside him sat an incredibly smug looking East Asian man in Eastern style robes with a shaved head and a huge smile, one hand clearly holding the phone up for the selfie, the other pointed at Stephen. The caption beneath the image read “Today, Stephen learned the hard way that betting against me is the ‘Wong’ choice! ;D #Onedirection #harrystylesforever”

“Or rather, Mr…..” Mr. Stark leaned forward, squinting at the hologram. “So-wong-its-right is if you want to go by his Instagram handle. Which is a good thing, because otherwise we probably wouldn’t have been able to prove anything about your dad’s existence.”

Waving across the image, the page turned once again to show what looked like security footage taken from a camera. Not in the United States, though.

“Is that China?”

“Hong Kong, to be more precise. About six years ago. Facial recognition didn’t have any luck finding matches to your dad by himself, but when we found his buddy there, that was a whole new story.” Zooming in, the image focused on his father’s friend, strolling down a crowded street that was so atmospheric you could nearly smell it, some sort of club in his hand. Beside him, his face partly obscured by the tall collar of a bright red cloak, was a man that looked suspiciously like Stephen.

“See those pants and boots?” Mr. Stark zoomed in closer on said articles, the blue robes a similar Eastern style to the other man’s, with the addition of the cloak, the pattern on which looked oddly familiar. Turning back to the Instagram photo, Mr. Stark tapped on what could be seen of Stephen’s pants, the bright blue visible under the pink shirt.

“Based on his horrible taste in clothing and general appearance, we can be pretty damn sure that is also your dad there with this Wong character.”

“From six years ago…”

“Meaning that with these two images, we can already determine that he has been cropping up in places not only unrelated to you, but also since before your little run-in with the genetically modified arachnid.”

Okay, so that was...that was…“Shit...” Peter breathed, running a hand through his hair.

Mr. Stark leaned back, looking at Peter with raised brows and twitching lips. “Such language, Mister Parker.” Though his words were teasing, his tone was mild. “Though, to be fair to you, I think I’d have gone with something a lot less PG-rated after that bombshell.”

Peter mostly ignored him, reaching out to flick through the pages of the file. More images from security footage sped past him, showing similar levels of mysterious circumstances, with Wong and Stephen often appearing in areas that looked like they had recently experienced some kind of attack. And in each one, Stephen’s face was somehow blocked from view, either by the twisting of his body, something in his hands, or his cloak catching an unnatural looking wind.

“There is some weirdness here for sure. According to the archives, all of these locations received a sudden flux in activity-- alert messages, panic response, emergency personnel called to the scene-- and then whatever the trouble was just...vanished, right about the same time these two showed up. All of it. Like nothing had ever happened.”

Crossing his arms, Peter looked over the images carefully, seeking....something. The kind of something you knew was something only once you saw it. “What could cause that, though? And what does it have to do with my dad?”

Mr. Stark exhaled sharply through his nose. Resting his cheek in his hand, Mr. Stark inclined his head to the teenager. “Honestly, I don’t know, Pete. I haven’t seen anything like this. Shield never told the Avengers about it, because according to their records they determined it to be a low-level threat and just kept it monitored. At this point, your guess is as good as mine.”

“But do you have any kind of, like...intuition about it?”

“Nothing good.”

Chills instantly invaded Peter’s spine at his mentor's words. The feeling was close enough to his Spider-sense that it unnerved him some, fearing this was more premonition than normal human response. Either way, Peter’s own instincts mirrored his mentor’s: This was nothing good.

“There’s one last thing you should know.”

Blinking, Peter looked at Mr. Stark, whose face rapidly twitched with different emotions as he looked off into space. “Is this going to be one of those clichés like in movies where I’m going to hate what you say next because it suddenly makes everything a whole lot worse?”

“Oh, no, I know you’re going to love it. That’s why I’m so hesitant to tell you.” Flipping through several more pages, Mr. Stark landed on a close-cropped shot of Wong standing on a familiar looking street.

“That’s the street where I fought the Eldritch Horror! Bleecker Street, right?”

At Mr. Stark’s impressed glance, Peter shrugged one shoulder. “I have an eidetic memory.”

“Impressive, though I was marveling more over the Lovecraft reference. Didn’t know you were a fan of horror.”

“I’m not really, but MJ convinced me and Ned to help her start a group for Contemporary Cthulhu Worship at our middle school.”

“Cthulhu worship? Should I be worried that you three accidentally summoned the something on Bleecker Street?”

“No! We never did anything; MJ just wanted to protest the preferential treatment the Christian Group got.”

Tony raised an eyebrow.

“It’s a long story,” Peter demurred.

“Be that as it may…” Mr. Stark trailed off, motioning back to the hologram. “Friday tracked down several instances of this guy-- Wong apparently-- exiting and entering the same building on Bleecker from some more recent security cameras we…‘accessed’. She found some of your dad, too, albeit shielding his face as he seems to have a habit of doing. Including one just a few days ago.”

On the images dated for that past Friday, Stephen appeared strolling down the block, hands in his pockets and face turned down, dressed as he had been in the footage Karen recorded. The thick red scarf-- which closely resembled the pattern of the cloak in other photos, Peter realized-- wrapped snugly around his neck and concealing the lower half of his face. On the last slide, Stephen entered a peculiar looking brownstone.

“The address is 177A Bleecker Street.”

“You...you found where he lives? ”

“Friday did,” Mr. Stark corrected. “Or we think we did. We can’t be quite sure.”

It eclipsed every expectation Peter had imagined, and he had imagined a lot, especially considering he was supposed to avoid all speculation. His father was alive. Living in Greenwich Village. Living in the same city. Had been for who knows long, and yet…

Suddenly lightheaded, Peter released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and braced himself on his knees. A calloused hand rubbed at his back, Mr. Stark uttering a quiet “You’re alright” that barely registered in Peter’s shocked mind.

In. Out. In. Out... It might have worked better if he couldn’t still hear that order in his father’s voice.

When he did regain some semblance of control, Peter quietly muttered, “Why would you tell me that he lives here?”

“I promised you all the data I could find, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but….you know me. I can’t...I can’t just ignore that. I need to try to talk to him.”

Mr. Stark said nothing, continuing to rub Peter’s back. It was a grounding gesture and Peter focused on it as his mind began to stray towards the rocky shores of fear and self-loathing, left by his father’s apparent abandonment.

“You’re right. I know that about you. But, I also know what it’s like to have vital, life-altering facts withheld from you by someone you trust. Intimately. It’s not a fun feeling.”

“I don’t like telling you,” Mr. Stark continued, moving his hand to grip Peter’s shoulder. “But as I see it, I don’t have a choice, not if I want to be able to live with myself. I’m just gonna have to trust you. And offer to go with you if you do want to meet your dad again.”

“You’d...do that?”

“Better believe it, underoos. You’re my only mentee, and I’m pretty partial to you at this point. Plus, it’d be hell training up someone new.” Mr. Stark ruffled Peter’s hair, continuing, “Not that I really have you trained all that well. Maybe I should start fresh with something easier to train than a teenager. Maybe a goldfish.”

“Mr. Stark…”

“Yeah, I know. No ethical pet store would sell me a goldfish. Guess I’m stuck with you.”

To his shame, Peter felt tears stinging his eye, and he wiped them away surreptitiously on the back of one hand. He suspected Mr. Stark pretended not to notice. “So that means I should probably keep you safe.”

Standing, Mr. Stark moved for the door, grousing as something in his left shoulder popped as he stretched. Peter watched numbly as he did something on his phone, swiping away the hologram and typing into its surface. “I’m sending the file to your computer so you can look through it. If you’ve got any questions, contact me. Day or night. I’m usually up both.”

The older man paused as he grasped the doorknob, looking back at Peter. His eyes held an unusually tender quality as he said, “I really hope you’ll take me up on my offer to go with you. I know he’s your dad, but we don’t have any clue what the hell is going on. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and I’ve seen most of what there is to phone home about.” As Mr. Stark pushed the door closed, he added, “Think about it.”

After he left, Peter sat in brooding contemplation, the image of his father’s brownstone etched into his mind.

***

When he was nine, Aunt May and Uncle Ben formally adopted him. Along with getting full custody of him now that his father was “dead,” the legal proceedings opened up a new possibility.

Changing Peter’s surname.

On some level, he’d wanted to stay Peter Strange. At the time he hadn’t been totally cognizant of it, but now Peter believed his desire stemmed from his need to keep even that small, tenuous connection to his father. Everything back then had been about that.

But Ben and May had looked so hopeful when they suggested it, and the kids at school had taken to taunting him for being the Strange Orphan; the parentless freak.

So he’d accepted, and, mostly, he hadn’t looked back.

There were times since, though, when he wondered if he was denying a part of himself. Or hiding from it. Trying to cut off the part of himself that was a constant reminder of what he was missing, like a phantom limb, there and not there, forever itching but unable to be scratched.

The name had little influence in that regard, really. Significance is in the eye of the beholder, and something like a name can only hold so much power over you if you let it. It wasn’t the name, it was the origin.

It wasn’t Strange, it was his Dad.

Now, if Peter really wanted to be free of that drag, then as far as he could see he had two options. Cut it off the rest of the way, or reattach it.

And there was only one way for Peter to decide which course he wanted to take.

“Hey, Karen,” Petter said with forced cheer as he slipped on the mask. “I, uh, I really need you to do something for me.”

“Yes, Peter?”

“I need you to swear, I mean, swear up and down, invoke any protocols necessary to do it, that you won’t tell Mr. Stark what I am about to do.”

“That doesn’t sound very wise,” she intoned. “It is my function to ensure your safety, and if calling Mr. Stark -”

“Karen, please. I am literally begging you right now, okay? I just...I really need to do this on my own. If I get knocked out, or...or something, then fine. But please, please give me a chance? I need this.”

There was brief silence on the line, during which Peter’s heart beat so furiously in his ears he wasn’t sure if he could have heard the AI’s reply if she made one. Finally, though, she spoke up.

“Direct alarms to Friday offline.”

Brushing at his eyes through his mask (for all the good it would do him), Peter let his body relax just slightly. “Thank you.”

“Please be careful, Peter. Mr. Stark had a point.”

“I know. He always does. And he’s probably right, logically. But this isn’t...”

It wasn’t about logic.

It was about closure.

When Peter heard no more from the AI, he took that as his cue to do this before he chickened out.

Glancing down from the roof of 177A Bleecker Street into the large, open window he’d spotted before, Peter leaped down, swinging into his father’s brownstone.

----------------

Before you all kill me for another cliffhanger, I swear chapter 5 is flowing well and should be out next week. ;)

Speaking of the next chapter...the next chapter is called "Coming Back to Life."

[blogwritetheworld]

The Write Place: ‘Tis the Season - My December

by Lisa Hiton

Looking for the right advice on pursuing the writer’s life? You’ve come to the write place!

My family is Jewish. We don’t celebrate Christmas. And yet, isn’t going to a movie and eating Chinese food while the rest of the world closes down for a day a kind of ritual—its own kind of made-up holiday? I’m sure that these details seem usual as well. But, dear writers, a lot more is there than meets the eye. Your family’s traditions, rituals, and habits—no matter how ordinary they seem—can be made extraordinary by turning them into words.

Family Hanukkah with multiple Hannukiahs! These are different than menorahs as they hold nine candles instead of seven.

PANNING FOR GOLD

An easy way to describe your holiday season to someone else (and kickstart your writing process) is to make a list of traditions and rituals that you think of when this time of year comes around. Mine looks something like this:

Tuesday before Thanksgiving

take a train into the city

to go to the Art Institute with my mom

followed by shopping for new art supplies

and a nice dinner

and train ride home

Thanksgiving Eve and Day

prepare spinach balls

set table

cook cook cook

eat eat eat

play games with cousins

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

hang Hanukkah stockings

attend Cathy Nathan’s x-mas party

cook a big breakfast including eggs, fresh squeezed OJ, and bacon

open stockings

hang out

go to a movie at the theatre

cook a nice dinner (Chinese food takes too long in my hometown since we live in a pretty Jewish part of Chicagoland)

watch holiday movies with mom and brother, especially The Family Stone

Winters in Chicago can be brutal; there’s no better antidote than playing in the snow! Here I am enjoying the snow with my first friend, Rebel.

Are you bored yet? This isn’t even counting Hanukkah since it doesn’t always fall near Christmas! All of these things may seem pretty usual. That might be true if you make your list of traditions as well. You might decorate a tree, hang twinkle lights, go caroling, go to the same person’s house every year to celebrate, leave out cookies for Santa, etc. Most neighborhoods and cultures have their usual lists of traditions. Part of your goal as a writer is to pan for gold among them.

Looking at this list, I began to ask myself, Why is it that my mom, brother, and I do these same things every single year? Some of it seems like the larger culture, but some of it was made by us. As I think about why, it’s clear that a lot of these rituals are in some way related to my parent’s divorce. Through that lens, I might start panning for my own gold—to sift through this litany to find something that might be worth more than meets the eye. Each of these seemingly usual bullet points, in fact, triggers different memories for me. In that field of memories, where might I find a scene that begins a longer story? How might I organize these scenes and memories into something cohesive for myself and my readers? I’ll begin with my freshman year.

My freshman year of high school marked the first year of spending winter break with divorced parents. While breakfast time was never particularly special in my house, Christmas day posed a dilemma: what would my mom, brother, and I do in this new situation, just the three of us? Especially since nearly everything is closed on Christmas day and people are with their families, filling the time posed some anxiety for my mother and me, especially with my young, shy brother.

To be sure, I already had thrown one tantrum about adjusting to these new circumstances. It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. In elementary school and middle school, I normally had that day off as part of my holiday break. In high school though, this was not the case. It was second period when I received a pink slip during chorus to report to my advisor’s office. As a self-proclaimed academic, I was not used to be in trouble. With a room full of eyes on me as I left the choir room, my angst only increased.

It seemed my senior leaders had gone to my advisor worried about my general sadness. In my humiliation that anyone had noticed such negative energy, I proceeded to have the first of many tearful conversations with my advisor about adjusting: to high school, to a new home situation, and more. My mom came and picked me up from school so we could play hooky and keep our one ritual of going to the Art Institute of Chicago. I knew it was a temporary solution to a larger problem, and that this was just one of many adjustments I’d have to make. Yet, the gesture helped me persevere despite my pain.

That choir room would continue to serve as a literary backdrop for growth and tough love throughout high school. It was also a common community I kept throughout high school while everything else changed. For our annual fundraiser, we sold grapefruits and oranges by the box. When the trucks pulled up to the high school, we passed the boxes one by one down the line, just like the who’s down in Whoville, singing all the while in the face of another frigid Chicagoland winter.

While I’m more of a night owl than a morning person, and certainly not a big breakfast eater, this introduction to ripe grapefruits became my exception. Cut in half with a little bit of sugar was all I needed to jump-start my day with a jolt of Vitamin C. And so when the week of Christmas came around, my mom picked up a citrus juicer. The morning of Christmas. My brother and I sat on the island in our kitchen cutting oranges in half. We took turns pressing oranges onto the machine as it whirred and whirred. In an absolute mess of pulp, we finally squeezed enough halves for three cups of juice, just as our bacon was coming out of the oven. It was a new tradition, mundane as it may seem now, and a way of lightening the day and passing the time on a holiday that is not ours.

Christmas may not be our holiday, but it would be a boring day without our own tradition of “Hanukkah stockings”. My brother, Merrick, and I still give each other socks and chapstick as a ritual!

AMONG THESE ROCKS

Among the rocks in the river, there are some that are worth spending time with as a writer, and others that probably don’t add much to the larger story. The larger story in a personal essay is not always about a narrative arc. In the passage I just wrote about making orange juice, the larger story is about recasting the family unit as three instead of four, connecting to my younger brother, and trying to lift my spirit despite how hard it was to start high school with divorce at the forefront of my thinking and feeling. While all of that may not have come out precisely, writing this little passage is a signal that with time and effort, I could write that longer essay. Now as a writer, it will be up to me to describe these anecdotes as scenes, make characters out of my self and my family members, and reflect on the meaning. If this can all be done well—the showing and the telling—then it’s likely the reader will feel a similar sense of nostalgia.

The house where I grew up is on a hill whose swale leads to the north fork of the Chicago River. My fondest memories of winter are sledding down that hill and walking on the frozen river. Here I am teaching a new friend, Miriam, about these prairie-land games.

That is, perhaps, the most important way to approach material. If something is significant, memorable, or worthy of reflection to your own sense of self or personal narrative, there is probably a way to translate that to your reader in writing. Take for example Vani Dadoo’s My December piece from last year, “December in Delhi”, about waiting for the train:

Winter is not good for a polluted city like mine. December, being the main month of winter in India, is always the coldest.

All things in nature huddle together in winter, trying to find, or steal, some warmth from the other.

The clouds creep towards the ground. The fog and the smoke meet and embrace, and together try to steal the little sunlight before it touches the earth. The smog becomes denser, trying to wrap the earth in a heavier, grayish blanket, like the people sleeping in woolen quilts in their homes.  Evening darkness approaches faster than before, as if the smog did succeed in robbing the sunlight. Even after twilight, the smog refuses to diffuse. The air becomes thicker, but the world puts on an old, dull, sweater and wraps a muffler around its neck and walks on.

Some evenings, it coughs and some mornings, it can see its breath. But most days, it can’t peer into the distance.

This year, my father decided to travel to escape the harsh winters. “Migration over hibernation,” he called it, and, “better to get the sun somewhere than get closer to that old, rusty heater at home,” is what he said. We decide to journey to the western coast around Mumbai by train. Indian Railways was a part of family, as all cross-country trips; from Himalayan foothills to the Rajasthani deserts, were made by train.

As we take a cab to the New Delhi railway station, the moon is rising. The moon is a blurred piece of white in the black sky, clouds and smog. The street lights, though, filter through this, illuminating every speck of dust. The cars zoom past on the highway.

One can rarely see stars in my city.

Dadoo wavers between a present-tense meditation on December, and a swell of memory related to waiting for a train in Delhi. While these may be ordinary in another context—waiting for a late train or reflecting on the season—Dadoo weaves these two threads together, a double helix, to arrive at grand statements of the human condition: that like waiting for a train, we wait for a season’s end so that we may be carried into a new one.

Dadoo also brings us Delhi in her sensory details. From the opening passage about all things in nature “huddling together”, Dadoo mirrors her descriptions to match the crowded and polluted city around her. Just as Dadoo was able to give the details of December in Delhi while waiting for a train, you can give your own details as you think about your family—their traditions and rituals, the personalities of each member, and the things that make you nostalgic.

A reader gets a clear sense of a train station in Mumbai from this piece. If you’re familiar with such a place, you will get swept up in a shared nostalgia. If you’re unfamiliar with this land, you may find these descriptions to be exotic. In both cases, the very things that are both familiar and new bring the reader into a shared sense of the human condition with the writer herself. That shared humanness is the the entire point of sharing stories! And all of that came from writing about waiting for the train!

So, dear writers, as you think of Decembers past and enjoy your current December, what memories and rituals are for keeps? What gold will you find in waiting for the train, cooking with your grandmother, visiting a museum, playing in the snow? Show us your favorite places, traditions, and people at this time of year by tagging your stories and images with #MyDecember on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

About Lisa

Lisa Hiton is an editorial associate at Write the World. She writes two series on our blog: The Write Place where she comments on life as a writer, and Reading like a Writer where she recommends books about writing in different genres. She’s also the interviews editor of Cosmonauts Avenue and the poetry editor of the Adroit Journal.