#summer 1992

[themoonlitsojourner]

It was summer 1992, terrible and humid, humid because Florida, terrible because Grant wasn't coming home this year.

It was ten in the morning when the car pulled up.

The neighbor's dog started barking and Joey looked up, startled, the pencil slipping from his fingers and clattering to the hardwood.

The car was black, big, and sleek. A girl about his age was leaping out, blonde hair whipping in the wind. The driver was invisible from this angle.

Something grabbed Joey's feet in that moment. Something in his chest, something in his heart, a whisper of premonition.

No specific thoughts. No conscious understanding, just his feet pounding down the stairs and a dawning certainty blooming bright yellow and warm in his lungs.

His mother called his name as he flung open the door. The girl was leaning back into the passenger window, shouldering a backpack and arguing.

"I know, I know, you've said it a million times, I get it."

She straightened, rolling her eyes. And then she saw Joey.

"Hey."

A mini salute, and combat boots, and flannel, but the other car door was opening and Joey's attention leapt with his heart.

Stepping out onto the street

--tall and regal and silver and strong

was his father.

Joey's face hurt from smiling. He lifted his hand then dropped it, thought about running into his father's arms, then decided to wait. Vibrating around a single point in space, a single point in time.

His father rounded the back of the car and stopped. He looked Joey up and down, and Joey stood up taller, and his father smiled.

"You've grown."

Yes.

Then the spell was broken and he was running. His father's heart beat firm and steady beneath Joey's ear. His arms felt just how Joey'd remembered. Except Joey was a little taller, now. His head came up nearly to his father's shoulder.

Then his mother was calling his name again. The screen door slammed. She stopped short.

Joey tugged away. Mom, it's-

She lifted her chin. Her arms were folded over her cardigan. "You're early. And unannounced."

She... of course. She already knew.

A smirk lifted Joey's father's mouth. "You would pick those to be the first words you've spoken to me in three years."

In the thick silence spread thin across the distance between them, his mother's shoulders slid down, inch by inch. She shrugged and pivoted on her heel. "You might as well come in."

Triumph lit his father's eye. Someone cleared her throat, and Joey blinked at the strange girl he'd forgotten about.

"Will I get my own room or what?"

"You will." Then, then- his father reached out, and, casual as could be- he ran a hand over her hair.

He didn't even look her way. Eye still focused on the gate leading to their home, it was so second nature. He'd done that a million times.

For three years, Joey has laid awake imagining his father's gruff, loving touch, and his father picked someone to replace him.

...How long? How long before he chose someone else to give his attention? Did- did his father even miss him at all?

"Hey," the girl elbowed his father with a whisper, and even that sent pangs of purple envy through Joey's throat. "You didn't mention he was broken." She nodded at Joey.

"Tara." His father looked at him. "Show some civility."

There's an empty room upstairs. His fingers stung like that time he'd been plunged into ice water. It has a nice window. Joey was not a petty or mean person.

His father laid his hand on the girl- Tara's shoulder, and nudged her forward. "Show her."

Joey swallowed his heart and nodded.

"What? What was that?" Stumbling into step beside him, jogging up the stairs to the front door, Tara asked Joey, or his father, or the world. Somehow, it was hard to tell. She stared at Joey's hands.

I-

The most frustrating part was how futile it was. Joey couldn't even explain himself. He checked over his shoulder, knowing the answer but still disappointed when his father was busy unloading the car. Silver hair hanging around his eyepatch, longer than Joey remembered.

They walked through the door his mother left open and Joey snatched his sketchpad from the entryway table.

It's American sign language.

Her eyes flew to his, still leaning over the sketchpad, a little too close. "Teach me."

His eyebrows flew together and he was lifting his shoulders and palms before he thought about it. What?

Tara shrugged too. Joey guessed she didn't really need to know sign language to understand his reaction. "Teach me," she repeated, still clearly a command, though her tone was less bossy. "You can't speak English, so teach me your language."

It's not my-

He grabbed the sketchpad.

'It's not my language,' he wrote. 'And I can speak English, I just can't'

...He just couldn't speak.

Joey let the sketchpad fall back to the table in defeat.

"Well?" When he looked back up, Tara had her fists on her hips, chin lifted like she was taking his attention back. "Are you gonna teach me or not? What's your name?"

He traced the letters in the air.

"Joey? Well, are you?"

It was the summer of 1992. Grant wouldn't be home. Aside from his paints, and pencils, and piano, Joey had nothing else to do and no one to do it with.

He shrugged and nodded.

Sure.

[internatlvelvet]

Drew Barrymore, July 1992

[classichorrorblog]

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1992)

[fuzzyghost]

[vertigoartgore]

Russell Dauterman's tribute to X-Men: The Animated Series (2014).

[felicitykings]

Kid Blink & Racetrack dancing with Medda (requested by anonymous)

NEWSIES (1992) dir. kenny ortega

[venominomenon]

Sketching Scott in random shirts is my new hobby i guess????

Looking at you with his autistic eyes through his autistic visor

[bellamer]

What I think the X Men team eats on their hotdogs

Wolverine: Mayonnaise. One of my older co workers does this and I think he would too.

Cyclops: slathered in Ketchup like a fucking bitch baby.

Jean: Ketchup and mustard

Morph: Likes chili dogs with cheese and onions

Nightcrawler: Stereotypical but he eats his with mustard and sauerkraut

Gambit: Eats his with coleslaw and old bay sprinkled on it

Jubilee: Doesn’t have acid reflux or digestive issues yet so eats hers with nacho cheese and jalapeños

Storm: Likes hers Chicago style,

Beast: Doesn’t eat hotdogs because “do you know what’s in those things ?”

Rogue: Relish and mustard

Professor X: Like Beast, doesn’t eat them because “don’t you know what’s in those ?”

[browsethestacks]

Original Art - Titans #160 Cover (1992) (French)

Art by Ciro (Cyrus) Tota

Semic

From ha.com...

On this cover, inspired by the episode "At Last... the Reunion!" from Excalibur #41, the team members are confronted with a Warwolf who has just kidnapped Rachel Summers. The sense of composition and the sharpness of line of Cyrus Tota, creator of the hero Photonik for Lug, give this cover a very special dramatic intensity.

[awesomesauceweezerbutt]

Scott and Logan caught on a date irl (no clickbait)

[2001hz]

Connie Fleming for Thierry Mugler Spring/Summer haute couture (1992)

[renleonhart]

Alright. I'm going to say it.

Everyone is always saying that Wolverine is being a creep/stalker/etc. whenever it comes to Jean Grey because of that VERY uncomfortable love triangle between her, Logan, and Scott. But what people are failing to notice is that Jean actively led Logan on into thinking that she loved him the same as he did her.

She actively flirted with Logan seemingly only whenever Scott was around, like she was trying to make him jealous. But when Logan tries to reciprocate the affection, she immediately plays the "not interested/you're only my friend" card. And what I find even more sad, is that Logan has risked his life for her multiple times, literally facing Death in the face for her, and has always been the first person she more or less runs to when she's having an emotional crisis, only for Jean to throw it all back in his face and ultimately choose Scott over him. (I know its canon in the comics. I'm talking about the tv shows and movies here.)

Like, why the ever loving hell would Jean fucking Grey think it would be a good idea to play into Logan's affection for her if she was just going to get with Scott in the end. Instead of doing that she should have just told Logan straight up that she wasn't interested in him and left it that that instead of playing with his heart like she did.

[musical-dash-trash]

brat summer? no. newsies summer.

[nostalgc]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, (1992).

[idfkanymoreidk]

Scott is the most sassy & cocky twink of all fiction. Like he puts on this whole leader persona but we all know Jean/Madelyn was topping him in bed & he likes that shit. He should’ve been the one wearing the dress at the wedding

[frogmanfae]

David Jacobs always saying he has a fall birthday and then finding out that September 3rd is technically still summer leading to another identity crisis