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kkanabel · 2 years ago

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directory/m.list

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march 10th, 2020 ( chapter 4 , week 2 )

sypnosis: The new year has just started– you’re moving into a place with your closest friends after reaching the peak of your career. Now that you can afford to live in Tokyo, you can finally spend time with your closest friends and go out on the town to further grow your YouTube channel. It’s time to have a new start in your new place and meet hot, rich people to be your possible future partner. This is the life to live; it’s great being famous and living in a big city with your best friends!

Wait, never mind– COVID-19 is in Japan? Fuck.

Well, at least there’s this one hot guy you keep seeing on Tik Tok who keeps posting about cleaning.

[ 9 : 02 AM ]

You were nursing a warm cup of hojicha to your chest in your favorite mug. Your legs were crossed atop a white modern-style stool by your kitchen island. This was your morning routine– you’d wake up (at some point), drink either some tea or coffee, and check your phone before staring out the window and questioning life.

There were many windows in your apartment. They spread out across the walls, giving the room lots of sunlight. You always pulled up the blinds in the morning.

Things were only getting more worrying in the news. Today, the government of Japan officially declared the coronavirus outbreak a national emergency. As of this point, there are 514 people infected and there have been 9 deaths in total. The emotional strain it’s taken on you is already terrifying. You’re seeing articles about the state of corona in China, and it’s even worse.

You text your parents a couple times every day, making sure they haven’t caught anything. Their growing age worries you. If they caught the virus, what would happen? You don’t think you could handle it. You’re too young for that right now. You look at the clouds in the distance through the window, the entire sky blanketed in a thick cover of gray fluff, offering wishes to the sky.

It’s getting warmer and more humid outside. Around this time, you were planning on buying a bunch of spring clothes for some new videos. You couldn’t leave the house, though.

But you didn’t mind that. You were just waiting for the end of this in a couple weeks. You wanted to stop worrying about your parents and about your friends. It was exhausting, looking at the news and worriedly going to the Phone app to call your parents to check if they’d left the house or if they started developing random symptoms.

You get knocked out of your anxious trance when you hear Hinata opening the door from his/Oikawa’s room and yawning a muffled “good mornin’” to you. You uttered one back to him, smiling as you finished the last of your hojicha and hopped of your stool to walk over to the sink, washing your mug and placing it into the dish rack.

“How was your sleep?” you ask as a way to distract yourself, heading back to your favorite stool.

Hinata was in the middle of grabbing bacon, eggs, and orange juice from the fridge for an American-style breakfast. He sighed when he heard your question. “See this bump right here?” he pulled his bangs from his forehead and pointed to the growing red bump on his head. “I hit my head again.”

You laughed at him, causing him to groan and release his hair back onto his forehead, fluffy orange curls flopping back down. “We should really get those shelves removed. It’s not like we use them anyway,” you said, pausing. “Hm. I guess we should remove them after coronavirus ends.”

Hinata just turned on the stove and placed a pan onto it. “Want some?” he offered, putting oil on the pan and waiting for it to heat up. He turned on the stove fan, so you listened as the machine whirred to life and started breathing in the delicious smells of fried bacon.

“Absolutely!” you thought for a moment before speaking up again. “Hey, why don’t we get some pool noodles, cut them, and then put them onto the edges of the shelves? It’ll protect your head at night.”

He turned back to you for a moment, his eyes brightening. “That’s genius!” Then he paused and narrowed his eyes at you. “Wait. Isn’t that what they do to babyproof a house?”

Laughing, you nod your head. “It would still protect your head, though! Maybe I’ll order some the next time you hit your head again.”

The ginger scoffed. “Please just get them now. You know I’ll hit my head again!” he complained before realizing the bacon finished cooking. He placed the bacon evenly onto four plates.

You watched his back as he moved around, grabbing one of the eggs from the carton. He cracked the egg open, gingerly dropping it into the pan as it sizzled and hissed in the bacon’s grease. Meanwhile, he plugged the (really cute) white retro-style toaster into the power outlet and plopped pieces of bread into it for the eggs.

You were very proud of this toaster. You gave it to them as a housewarming present before you knew you were going to move in, knowing that you wanted the toaster for yourself. You were glad that you inevitably started owning it.

Hinata made four plates for everybody and placed yours in front of you. Grinning, you told him to move close to the plate so you could take a photo to show off how great of a roommate you had. He smiled brightly behind the plate, putting up two peace signs.

It smelled amazing. These were the kinds of moments you were grateful for when you moved in. You were really looking forward to more of these moments.

[ 1 : 09 PM ]

Today is upload day! Starting last week, you’ve started to double the amount you normally upload onto YouTube. This, of course, means that you need to work twice as hard, but you’ve been stuck inside, so there’s not much else to do.

You’re waiting as your video uploads to your channel, sitting in the living room next to Oikawa as he edits one of his videos. He’s wearing blue-light glasses and a fluffy grey bathrobe that you gifted him for Christmas, sitting with his legs rested atop an ottoman and ankles crossed together.

He’s truly the epitome of a modern-day man. In his earbuds, his voice plays over and over again as he cuts and moves around clips of himself. You’re doing the same, editing a video for next week.

Today, you’re uploading a video for outfits in quarantine. You pray that the algorithm takes kindly to this. In your video, you clarify your update to your uploading schedule, and you tell everybody to stay inside and stay safe before giving them tips for outfits. Of course, all of the clothes are linked in your description. You aren’t a monster.

In fact, you’re wearing one of those outfits that you showcased in the video– some sweatpants and a mock neck sweater underneath your graphic-designed sweatshirt. Of course, you popped on quite a lot of jewelry. After all, “accessories are necessities,” as you always repeat in your videos.

Your hair is put in a cute and trendy hairdo– one stolen straight off of TikTok.

When the sound of your own voice and the sight of your face starts to repulse you, you put down your laptop and head to the fridge for a drink. “Hey, ‘Kawa! Want somethin’ to drink?” you call from the kitchen to the living room to ensure that Oikawa can hear you through his earbuds.

He jolts for a moment and pulls out an earbud in his panic. “Oh! Yes! Could you grab me a juice?”

You grunt out an affirmation before sitting back down next to him and handing him his mug. During this gesture, he also puts away his laptop and lets out a relieved sigh while stretching out his arms and wrists. “Have you finished uploading yet?”

You check your laptop quickly, seeing it at 58%, and then shaking your head. You pull yourself into a sitting fetal position on the couch, and you face Oikawa. “So, I talked to Kenma about doing some sort of Minecraft server thing with him and uploading it to our channels. Wanna join? I’ve already asked Tobio and Shoyo.”

Oikawa’s eyes widened. “A Minecraft server? Dang, I haven’t touched that game since 2015… but my builds were god-tier, so yes. Absolutely.” He finished the last of his juice. “Get ready to be pranked 24/7.”

This statement makes you cackle. “What makes you think that? I’ve destroyed you so many times in Mario Kart. I doubt you’ll be any better at Minecraft. Do you even know what a cave is?”

He rolls his eyes. “You only ever win because you cheat!”

“How is following the game’s rules cheating?!” You laugh as he accuses you.

“Stop placing banana peels in front of me!”

“Dude. Bro. ‘Kawa. I love you man, but you can’t blame the game’s mechanics for losing in this case. Accept that you suck.”

Oikawa ceases this subject matter because he knows he’s lost. “Anyway, when are we gonna do it?”

Craning your head up to the ceiling, you say, “Honestly? I’m not sure yet. Maybe about a week or two. Maybe when we’re out of this quarantine?”

He then crosses his arms together. “I wouldn’t bet on this ending anytime soon. I think it’s going to last longer than two weeks… Why are you so convinced it’ll end soon?”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s because I can’t imagine it lasting any longer. I don’t want it to,” you admit, bringing your gaze back down to the ground and groaning. “I’m worried about my parents.”

He pats your back to comfort you, and rubs your shoulder to ground you. “It’s alright. We’ll keep sending them groceries every two weeks, so they won’t have to leave the house. I’m sure they’ll be okay.”

Then, a notification sound knocks you out of your emotional state again. “Oh! It’s finished uploading!” You then get busy liking and responding to comments to distract yourself from your worries.

Oikawa glances at you and gives you a soft smile before getting back to his editing.

[ 2 : 19 PM ]

[ 10 hours later ]

You shrieked in your bedroom after checking on the video you just uploaded, a hand clasped over your mouth after the high-pitched noise. It was the dead of night, but your brain didn't even register that you made a horrifying noise.

Your brain was completely frozen, staring at the screen on your laptop.

Worried, Oikawa, Hinata, and Kageyama all rushed to your door and opened it in a panic.

"What's wrong!? Is there a pervert!? A thief!?" Oikawa screamed, holding up a lamp as a makeshift weapon.

Hinata was holding a plant. Kageyama wasn't even holding anything. He just looked sleepy, confused, and worried.

The ginger had definitely shuffled out of bed at your scream, and you could see a red bump forming on his nose from where he probably tried to get up in a rush to make sure you were okay.

"G-Guys. I reached three million views in ten hours!" You screamed, jumping off your bed and jumping for joy into their arms.

The three men were frozen for a moment, confused. This was before they started jumping with you, smiles of joy cracking open at their faces.

"Oh my god! We need to celebrate! Let's grab some champagne!"

[ video of the week ]

directory/m.list

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a/n: hehe what do y'all think? btw, thank you so much for all the reposts recently! i appreciate it so much <3 also, please lmk if i have a typo or anything lol. i was kinda typing this up in a rush.

#social media alternate universe #haikyuu smau #smau #haikyuu #sakusa kiyoomi x reader #sakusa x reader #sakusa kiyoomi #oikawa tooru #yachi hitoka #shimizu kiyoko #kageyama tobio #hinata shouyou #bokuto koutarou #miya atsumu #miya osamu #sakusa smau #sakusa fluff #haikyuu crack

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journeytothewest-daily · 10 months ago

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New volume! Thanks for keeping on! I took some notes for chapter 26!

Wukong (no more Wade Giles uwu) demands that Tripitaka receive his three meals and six teas every day. That's not bad for a mendicant ascetic! I'd quite like to be guaranteed that, hahaha! There's a typo calling him the Tank Monk later in the chapter, very funny.

It's funny how reading Pinyin, which is all anyone uses now, feels unusual, while individual trees having names like Long-life grass of reverted cinnabar seems normal. You can really get used to anything.

I was quite surprised that the immortals are described as youngish-looking! We usually imagine a Greek philosopher-looking sage here, but even Plato was a virile, hairy wrestler once, I suppose! They always carry around gourds with stuff in them; I've seen the like in movies, but were they ever made of gourds, do you think? Pumpkins weren't around in Tang times, at least I think not.

Is Eight Rules and Idiot the same character? The switching between in the same paragraph seems to go against best writing advice, but I daresay I'll not write anything that will survive 500 years! Incidentally, he quotes a saying "put on the cap to increase riches." Is that a real saying or did he misunderstand something comedically?

There are several beautiful poems about specific natural sites here, and I wondered where Chinese people would learn these. Would they have to read them? Are they carved into stones near these rivers and mountains? Is poetry a part of the curriculum? Accented Cinema on youtube said poetry is a large part of Chinese culture, and I'm jealous. We all disliked it in Norwegian class :(

These supposedly rural and simple immortals have jade tea cups and wine goblets! That sounds nice! They should redistribute them to me! Hahaha! They have eternal life, after all, and isn't time worth at least as much as money?

Also, shout-out to the peach thief! Can't believe we got another peach thief here!

1. Same! I too struggle with having that many meals and teas (no money). To be a Tang Monk...

2. About the looking young thing, East Asians have a gene whose name I've forgotten that makes them mature more slowly than other ethnicities. My biologist s/o will kill me if he knew I've forgotten the name. So yeah, in my fantasy or historical despictions even of older people, they won't have many wrinkles (in others do). Remember that Taoism is about prolonging your life, so it's only normal that saints are young looking, while in the West ™ our idea of wise and saintly is Plato, Saint Patrick, etc.

3. I think that the only original to Asia gourd is the Wax Gourd, so they might have been using that.

4. Yes, Idiot and Zhu Bajie are the same and I too dislike a bit the constant change of name. I looked up the saying in English but couldn't find anything, and my chinese isn't good enough to try to translate it back into Chinese and look it up. I know that some of you are reading the OG Chinese book, could you tell us if it's a real saying?

5. Poems are very important in all cultures I'd say, and of course also in China. People who got an education in the past not only had to learn how to write poems but also to learn them from memory. For the imperial exams you were examined on your poetry. I think normal people like you and me in China would have learnt them from memory when a passing singer said them and retained. People used to work their brains more in the past, methinks. If you cared for poetry and you were a peasant, you'd try to memorize it and say it to others so you weren't a base man, but an intelligent peasant, closer to heavens because poetry comes from heaven etc.

5. It's only normal that immortals have jade things :) Maybe they lack in other commodities, but would you rather have a precious jade cup or ten IKEA mugs? I am sure they didn't even buy it, but they just sprung out of thin air in their house when they became immortals.

Thank you for your analysis :)

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gatekeeper-watchman · 2 years ago

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PRAYER FOCUS SPOTLIGHT URGENT! PRAYER NEEDED FOR PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS————————————————- The prayer focus spotlight this issue is dedicated entirely to the 200,000,000 Christians in over 60 countries worldwide who live in daily fear of secret police, vigilantes, or state repression and discrimination. More Christians have been martyred in the 20th century than in the previous 19 centuries combined! Pastors are being arrested and sometimes shot in China and Cuba. Believers are forbidden to buy goods or own property in Somalia. Christians who testify to their faith in Iran or Saudi Arabia may be put to death for blasphemy. Mobs have wiped out whole villages of Christians in Pakistan. And it goes on. For all this, the western Church is mostly silent. “I am in prison,” says the Lord, “and you are not visiting me.” It is time to shatter the silence.When terrorist groups or oppressive government authorities interrogate a believer they do not ask questions about their particular denomination or their doctrinal views. No, they ask one thing, and one thing only: “Will you bow down to another god, or will you remain faithful to Jesus?” If the answer is ��Jesus,” you are under arrest. It’s that simple. Please pray for your brothers and sisters under persecution around the world. Pray every day, for that matter, but especially pray that day. Fast if you can.**Pray also for kidnapped missionaries Dave Mankins, Rick Tenenoff, and Mark Rich who have been held hostage in Colombia for almost five years by a guerilla group known as F.A.R.C. The group has recently reported to Latin American governments that it continues to hold the three missionaries captive, and has confirmed that the hostages are alive and well. These admissions have been made even as F.A.R.C. is actively seeking international recognition and presenting its own rights and grievances against the Colombia government.This November, in a summit meeting on Margarita Island in Venezuela, Latin American heads of state will be discussing the issue of human rights in Latin America. Each of the wives of the hostages and all 7 of their children will be going to this summit meeting to seek the assistance of these assembled heads of state in gaining freedom for the three hostages. The wives and children do not know if they will be allowed to address the summit about the plight of these hostages, but they are determined to find a way to bring this terrible violation of basic human rights to the attention of these influential leaders. We think that F.A.R.C. is counting on these hostages being forgotten.Please pray that these women will receive favor at the conference, and that their husbands will be released SOON, by the power of the Almighty God!

From: Elder Steven P. Miller @ParkermillerQ, Founder of Gatekeeper-Watchman International Groups Jacksonville, Florida., Duval County, USA. Instagram: steven_parker_miller_1956, Twitter: @GatekeeperWatchman1, @ParkermillerQ, https://twitter.com/StevenPMiller6 Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gatekeeperwatchman Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElderStevenMiller#GWIG, #GWIN, #GWINGO, #Ephraim1, #IAM, #Sparkermiller,#Eldermiller1981

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nickgerlich · 2 years ago

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One For The Team

Maybe you saw their commercial during the Super Bowl. More than likely you have stumbled over their ads in your social news feeds. The odds are good that you have at least heard of them, even if you haven’t shopped there yet. Their tag line? “Shop like a billionaire.” And Temu has surpassed Amazon, Walmart, and Target put together as the most-downloaded app.  

Temu (pronounced “tee-moo”) is the new online shopping site that wants to give Amazon a run for its money. And just like Jeff Bezos upset the apple cart back in 1995 when Amazon launched, Temu, which debuted in September 2022, aims to do the same with its rock-bottom prices, and by eliminating a middleman along the way.

Temu is based in Boston, but is owned by PDD Holdings, a company based in Shanghai China. PDD also owns Pinduoduo, one of the most successful e-commerce companies there. Items are shipped directly from Chinese vendors, instead of relying on US warehousing and shipping.

In three short paragraphs, I have already tossed out several potential red flags that should give would-be customers pause:

  a) ridiculously low prices b) Chinese-owned c) Chinese-made d) overseas shipping

  In the era of TikTok bans by more than half of US states, worries about weather balloons, quality, data, 7-15-day arrival times, and…I could go on, but I won’t…I can see this one having a tough time gaining traction right now. And yet they are aggressively pursuing us. I can’t go a day without seeing them in my feed, and now the media have latched onto them as well.   

There is no doubt that PDD is cash-rich. Their $7 million ad on the Super Bowl is testament to that, not to mention the 8900 ad placements on Facebook and Instagram. They clearly want to make a splash.  

But will people take the bait? I realize that low prices, especially during a period of high inflation, can be appealing, at least on the surface. But even though we have all embraced—willingly or not—the idea of Made In China products in our homes and on our bodies, will we provide our personal information and credit card numbers to buy things more or less directly from a company that is clearly tethered to a nation we don’t exactly trust very much?

I am not one for conspiracy theories, but I can see how skeptics might think that both TikTok and Temu are the new Trojan horse, and not a lot unlike that balloon. It’s just that these are more subtle, because they offer entertainment and shopping, yet manage to get their foot in the door. Lots of doors. And maybe more than just their foot.  

Of course, you may also be wondering how Chinese fast-fashion purveyor Shein (pronounced “she-in”) fits into this. Shein is a competitor to Temu and Pinduoduo, and offers similarly low prices for what is arguably disposable clothing. But hey, you’ll look good for one or two nights of clubbing.

I could be wrong on all of this. Maybe Temu is for real, and everything will turn out OK in the long-run. Maybe Amazon will be forced to react, although their 2-day shipping and easy returns are hard to beat. What are you going to do if that dress doesn’t fit just right, or the sunglasses you bought fell apart the first time you wore them? Send them back to China? Good luck with that.  

You see, we really have no problem with buying Chinese-made products. That ship sailed long ago. It’s just that we have American filters in place, like Amazon, to—we hope—properly vet and manage everything. They ostensibly keep us safe from those Trojan horses and balloons.

Color me wary. I’m watching and waiting, but I am in no hurry to go shopping just yet. Besides, I really don’t want to shop like a billionaire, much less be one.

Dr “Amazon Is Good Enough For Me“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

#marketing #online #e-commerce #Temu #Amazon #PDD #pinduoduo

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glass-needles-and-futurisms · 1 year ago

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#Thoughts Musers?#Mine are a bit mixed: apprehensive yes and also totally understanding that#(as someone FROM Asia—where they NEVER usually tour—they would want to avoid a situation where they stopped from playing)#along with bits of ‘shame that Muse feel the need to comply; just seems so un-Muse-like’#Muse band#musers#wotp tour#Muse Kuala Lumpur#Muse#muse band#2023#muse live#Wonder which song too

So full disclosure: I am in Kuala Lumpur right now because this is probably my best and only chance to see Muse live. And it's not just because I'm Asian; I'm from a very specific nationality whose movement in and out of the country is very tightly regulated and monitored (unless you're rich). We have one of the weakest passports in the world, and western countries like the US and UK are extremely strict about who they give visas to. You could be financially independent, acclaimed and successful in your field and still not get a visa for even a brief 3-day work conference in Cleveland. I spent the last couple weeks an anxious wreck because I have no idea if I could even make it to Malaysia... all because I have no idea whether the immigration officer I'll run into at the airport is gonna be a power-tripping douchebag or not.

I mention this because I'm bothered by the mismatch of privilege whenever these kinds of issues come up. It's not just this show or the 1975 incident; it came up back when Muse toured China in the Drones era too.

It's easy to lean back and boycott Band X when you have the luxury to pick and choose which artists are worth your time, or won't go against your principles. Is it a hypocritical money grab to agree to a gig even if it goes against the messages you espouse in your music? Sure. Is it bad to capitulate to the demands of controlling governments just for the sake of putting on a show? Sure. But do Malaysians who enjoy Muse deserved to be punished for the conservative values of a government/culture they didn't choose to be born into? Well...

Inevitably all this circles back to the kind of "no ethical consumption under capitalism"- style moral accounting The Good Place exists to dissect. We all make compromises when it comes to the things we consume or patronize, and we have different thresholds for what our personal values can and can't tolerate. People still buy smartphones and Shein clothes. They still listen to Chris Brown and Marilyn Manson and a whole ton of "problematic" musicians. They still look the other way when a celebrity they like does something horrible.

Policing every single thing other people like based on how moral or "problematic" it is may seem noble, but it is both an exhausting way to live and a gateway to a ton of insane gatekeeping/purity culture logic. And that goes double when your lived reality exists on a different plane from someone else's.

The Muse fandom is not a monolith. Not everyone holds the same values and principles... nor the same freedom to actually exercise them. We can argue 'til we're blue in the face about whether they're morally compromised by virtue of being an international stadium act beholden to higher powers. Or we can argue over whether role-playing political ambiguity deserves to be punished to the degree of, say, domestic abuse or sexual assault or open racism. Either way there's still gonna be some random kid who can't watch his favorite band for reasons completely unrelated to these culture wars.

Because unless all this Matty Healy discourse is actually going to uplift Malaysia's marginalized LGBT community through direct activism, all of this is just posturing by privileged white people and their enablers in an ethical pissing contest. Unless you're working to fight world injustices in a way that's not just "getting angry on the internet", you're not a better person for saying Muse are hypocrites for performing in a shitty country full of people who never asked to live there (or in the case of Southeast Asians, probably can't leave even if they wanted to). "Let he among us without sin" and all that.

I don't really know what my point is here. If you think one censored song is worth cancelling Muse over, that's up to you. Maybe if I could actually afford to go to more shows I'll even agree.

Muse have “pulled one song from their planned KL setlist owing to its title” following Matty Healy in Malaysia-gate. Huh.

#venting because this shit has been bothering me for days now #and everyone I've talked about this with so far don't even live anywhere near Southeast Asia #my kl adventure

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miraculous-trinity-leo · 4 years ago

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Whacky Gotham, Goofy New York, and Chaotic Paris.

(part 1) (part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7)

Chapter 1: Genius Little Ladybug

★—–—–†–—–—★

It all started when Sabine Cheng and her parents moved from China to America, where she met a rich boy named Tony, they weren't the best of friends at first, but they would always get into crazy shenanigans because of Tony. Sabine always finding a way to get them out of it. After a while they were practically inseparable, they had each others backs, both in the good times, and the bad.

So when Tony lost both his mother and father in a tragic car accident, and had to take over his parents company, she was there to try and ease the pain. It helped a little, but the boy changed and blocked out many people, only keeping a select few close to him. His personality changed, and he started to act differently, it saddened Sabine, but she knew it was his way of coping with his lose.

She would oftentimes find him crying silently in his office. When Tony opened a branch in Paris France, he was paranoid something would go wrong when he wasn't there, so he had Sabine become a sort of co-CEO for the Paris branch. Over the many years of her being a sibling-in-everything-but-blood to Tony, her intelligence was much higher than everyone in the company, other than said boy.

She moved to Paris not long after, always keeping an eye on both the Paris branch and Tony ( because god knows what would happen if she didn't do so). She even met a baker named Tom Dupain. Eventually dating, and marrying him. Tony wasn't the most eager when he heard of Tom, but he accepted him as family (not because if he didn't Sabine would knock some sense into him). He practically exploded with excitement when he heard we would be an uncle a few years after Sabine's wedding.

Tony was there in the waiting room with Tom, when Sabine was having the child ( Tony denies not having a mini heart attack when the nurse came in). Both men looked at the beautiful child through the glass. Tony was put to tears when he read her name "Maria Dupain-Cheng" and was comforted by a teary Tom.

When Maria was 9 months old, her Uncle Tony came to spend time with her, and talk business with Sabine. None of them expected Maria to crawl her way into their conversation and say "Uncle Tony" in the sweetest most adorable laugh both adults had ever heard. Tony had a massive grin on his face, and gave Maria a big hug and lots of kisses saying " I knew i was your favorite hahaha, and you're only 9 months old. Sabine I think we got a little genius on our hands." Sabine was just as happy and told Tom to hurry and grab the camera.

"Come on say it one more time my dear Maria, show your papa who your favorite adult is" Tony said with a very wide grin.

Maria giggled at her uncle's happiness, clapping her hands. "Uncle Tony, Uncle Tony" Tom just smiled giving his baby girl a kiss and handing Tony 10 Euros.

Tony continued to visit his little genius niece over the years. Maria ended up getting the best education a kid could get, becuase his logic was " If she is a genius (which she is) then she is going to have the best education money can buy, for nothing is to much for my Little Genius Maria!" and with that she could officially be called the smartest kid in all of Paris... heck probably in all of Europe even! So when she gained a passion for fashion at 4, Tony didn't hesitate to get her, her very first (kid friendly) sewing set. By the time Maria was 5 she already knew how to speak and write in French, English, Spanish, Russian, and is learning Mandarin.

Maria had met Chloé when they were both 6, although they weren't really friends, they were polite to each other, which surprised a lot of the other kids their age. She had met Alix a few months later. She spent a lot of the time she wasn't studying with her friends, Alix would get in trouble with another kid on the playground, Chloé would criticise the other kid, and Maria would talk to Alix and then apologize to the other kid. Overall, they had a good dynamic going on, and they (as 7 year olds) promised to always have each others backs to the very end.

When Maria was 3½ months away from her 9th birthday, Tony was kidnapped. Maria just broke down, she wanted to help her Uncle, but she didn't know where he was or how she could help if she did. For three months Maria would only speak to Chloé and Alix (they were kinda shocked to find out she was related to THE Tony Stark). A few days before her birthday, Tony came to their home, with rolls of fabric, flowers, and 'I'm sorry cards'. Maria jumped into his arms crying asking what happened, and "If you're the smartest man on the Earth, why the Heck did it take you so long? How did you get out? Are any of your vital organs hurts? Do you need to go to the Hospital? An-"

"Hey slow down My Little Genius Maria, I'm ok. 1, They didn't really give me much to work with at first, and there is only so much a genius like myself can do with so little resources, and time before your Birthday. 2, I made an anime mecha suit and flew out guns a blazing. 3, Nothing I can't live without. and 4, No because I'm spending the week with you lot before a conference I have in about 10 days." He said while holding his small little genius in his arms.

Wiping away the tears she looked her Uncle in the eyes "Wait, you 'made an anime mecha suit and flew out guns a blazing?' How does it work? what's its power source? And why do you have a weird glowing device in your chest?!" He had a lot of explaining to do.

That week, in her words was 'The best week of her life.' She was really happy for the first time since the Tony-napping happened, although she was sad he had to go, she knew he was safe, and that she didn't have to worry (as much) now.

When Maria was 13, both Tony and Sabine decided to have her go to public school with her friends. After hearing this Maria called for a meeting, her two commanders (Alix and Chloé) came for the meeting, and had a talk on how she should go about her first day of public school, asking questions like 'How do non-homeschooled kids act? What are their personalities like? What interests do they have? Are some barbaric like Alix is sometimes? Will they like me? Am I allowed to talk to Chloé in or only out of class? What are the seating arrangements? Who do I sit next to?' the list goes on. They were all excited to finally all be in the same study environment, now all they had to do was wait for their first day.

•~—~—~—~—~—~—~•

The night before her first day Maria may or may not have slept well due to her excitement, she woke up a little later than she ever would have preferred, getting breakfast, her clothes, the 'greeting sweets' (as Alix called them) and heading out in a slight panic.

On her way out she noticed an elderly man with a cain crossing the street, and a car coming a little faster than what was allowed, she pulled the man out of the cars way without losing any of the sweets, after making sure the man was ok, she gave him a sweet before saying good day and heading over to school. She never noticed the man walking away without the use of his cain.

She still got to class on time, when her teacher walked in she greeted everyone in the class "Bonjour, je m'appelle Maria Dupain-Cheng, c'est un plaisir de vous rencontrer! (Hello, my name in Maria Dupain-Cheng, it is a pleasure to meet you!)" after the introductions she sat down in the empty seat next to Alix, both giving a fist bump, and a smile to Chloé, who looked away as if she didn't care (the girl had an image to keep after all). When class was over she handed out the sweets and went with her friends to lunch. During lunch, one of the other students from a different class was mocking one of their classmates that Maria remembered as Ivan, for having a crush on Mylène and not saying how he really feels to her. Ivan ran off into one of the locker rooms, and Maria decided to go and comfort him, she explained that she overheard what happened and that he should try and tell Mylène about his feelings, listing many different things he could do or say, and that he should stay positive.

Ivan thanked Maria afterwards and went off to write a song for Mylène. Ivan later showed Mylène the song he wrote for her, but was teased by other students near them, Ivan ran away not wanting to be embarrassed more.

Back in the classroom Alix and Maria are sitting and talking when everyone hears crashing and screams outside, the class looked out to see a giant rock thing destroying everything on its way to the school. The teachers sent the kids home in an attempt to keep them safe.

When Maria got home she noticed a small box with writing she didn't recognize, she carefully opened it, instantly releasing a glow of bright red-ish pink light.

"Greetings Maria Dupain-Cheng, I am Tikki, the Ladybug Kwami of creation and good Luck, it is a pleasure to meet you." Maria couldn't believe her eyes "Mon dieu..." was all she could say, before going full interrogation mode "You're a Kwami? What is that? How are you floating like that? How am I able to understand you? Do you have some sort of ability to communicate in any language?How did you fit in this box? w-"

"There is no time, Paris needs you! I can only explain the powers I grant and how to use them, so please listen carefully."

•~—~—~—~—~—~—~•

Soon Maria was running in a red suit with black spots and amor. She ended up facing the 'akuma' as Tikki called it in a stadium, meeting her partner (a blonde furry she decided) for the first time.

"Bonjour m'lady, so what's the plan to take this thing down?"

Without hesitation she explained her plan " The plan is for you to have your Cataclysm ready, I'll give you a signal when it's your-"

"Cataclysm!" The boy proceeded to use his ONE attack on a GOAL POST!

"I said to wait for a SIGNAL! Now you only have five minutes before you power-off."

"Oops" The blonde was really wasting her more useful braincells. After the boy was thrown out of the stadium, Maria was left to fend for herself, and she did really well, considering this was her first non(but sort of) official villain fight, up until she lost her footing and was knocked into the side of the stadium. The akuma was gone before she could get back, more and more people were turned to stone, but it showed just where Stoneheart was heading.

She arrived at the Eiffel Tower, where blonde was fighting stone people, he just managed to get away and actually listened to the plan this time.

They defeated Stoneheart, Maria gave her speech to the villain, and did a fist bump (though at this point Maria just wanted to get some sleep), when a reporter came to interview them.

"What are your names, and where did you come from?"

"My name's Chat Noir an-"

"Ladybug, and we're hear to protect Paris from Moth-Man, as much as we would love to give you a bit more details, we don't have much time at the moment" right on que their Miraculous' beeped signalling they had 2 minutes left " Stay safe, and positive, Bug-Out. "

•~—~—~—~—~—~—~•

"Well done Maria!"

"Thanks Tikki." and with that Maria went downstairs to get something to eat, when she saw her parents watching the news.

"Earlier today Paris gained a villain and two heroes: Ladybug, and Chat Noir. Many of our viewers submitted pictures and videos, but only one of Ladybug came out clear."

"Thank you Ladybug and Chat Noir for protecting us, bonne journée à Paris."

.................

"Maria you're taking self-defense classes starting tomorrow" Sabine spoke, though Maria didn't have any complaints, plus it'll help when fighting akumas so it's a win win.

"Yes maman."

•~~~~~later in Maria's room~~~~~•

"Ok, so you're basically goddess of creation personified into a cute little Ladybug creature?"

"Kwami, but yes."

"And you've existed since basically the Big Bang?"

"Correct."

"... how are you able to float like that? How are we able to talk without any ancient god language in the way? And what other kinds of um kwamis are there?"

"I float with magic. Yes their is a language only for the Kwami, but we've learned every other language in existence, so there would never be an issue with communication. And to your last question, there are many different kinds of Miraculi all over the world, some even across the universe, so I am unable to list every single one in existence, but there are just as many Miraculi out there as there are starts in the sky."

"Impressive... does that mean I could learn magic?"

"As a human you are limited to what you can do with magic, but you have a strong creation soul. So yes it is possible for you to learn basic magic, I can teach you some life magic to help you heal quicker if you get hurt outside the suit. You can also learn other types of basic magic based on what Miraculous you are most aligned to. Surprisingly you have a close affinity to most of my brothers and sisters that are here in Paris."

"Are they in the hands of other Miraculous users?"

"... aside from Chat Noir, only two: one belongs to the Guardian, and the other to Hawkmoth."

"What are their names?"

"...Wayzz is Kwami of Protection, and is the partner of the Guardian. The other is Nooroo Kwami of Transmission, Hawkmoths Kwami.

"Ok, so then I assume the 'Guardian' is who you were with until now, right?"

"That is correct."

"And how was I chosen exactly?"

"The Guardian chose you because he saw your kindness in action, and sensed your strong Creation Soul, he has only ever been wrong once, but I can tell you will be a great Ladybug, maybe even one of the few who achieved a higher sence of life."

"... I feel like you kind of described a Sage, also how would he have seen an act of kindness, I mean, I got my things, went out helped an older man with a cain, wait."Maria squinted her eyes at Tikki as if looking for something.

"The elderly man's the Guardian isn't he?"

"..."

"I get it, you don't have to tell me, it's all apart of the 'plot' like some show, I get it. Welp, good night Tikki, have to get up early tomorrow."

"Good night Maria." Tikki never messed up so badly before, then again she never had a user with such a strong Creation Soul before either... Maria is something special.

•~—~—~—~—~—~—~•

And Tikki was right, she excelled at Life Magic, learning a fair bit of healing, luck and slight plant manipulation and communication magic. Tikki wasn't sure if she should be proud of her Bug, or scared at her fast learning skills.

A few weeks passed and Maria was thankful for the self-defense classes, she even started doing her own training routine with Tikki guiding her. She didn't like that her partner was a flirt, it got distracting and almost got Chat killed a few times. She often wondered 'what the hell did I do in my past life to get a partner like this?'

•~—~—~—~—~—~—~•

Tony Stark was called by Sabine to meet her earlier than they had planned, she informed him that Paris now has a villain and two heroes.

"Ok, so what's the problem? We agreed to put Maria in self-defense classes so she would be safe... is it a boy?! Don't tell me it's a boy, she's to young to be dating!"

"It's not about a boy."

"Then what is this about?"

"She's Ladybug, *sigh* I swear she gets it from you Tony. She learned it from your dumb@ss, and it didn't help the need to protect people she loves when you got kidnapped. I need you to teach her how to be a good hero, good combat strategist, and to give her your support. She already has a tactical mind, I'm proud in a way that she shares your bravery."

"Ffffffffudge... ok, where is she?"

"Upstairs."

•~—~—~—~—~—~—~•

After a slightly awkward conversation Maria started to get even more training, and became a pretty much badass on the field, she incorporated the known fighting styles of: Black Widow (her favorite hero), Captain America, Deadpool (favorite hero to some degree), Daredevil, Wolverine, and some moves from famous villains like, Kraven The Hunter, Red Skull, Doctor Doom, Scorpion, Shocker, and Taskmaster ( her favorite villain). And she used ALL of those skills in battle, it was damn impressive to watch, and then Sabine had a talk with Tony.

〜(꒪꒳꒪)〜Bonus〜(꒪꒳꒪)〜

"Ok Tony wtf? I asked you to teach her how to fight for protection when she's out there, But you turned her into a complete badass, I mean none of the akumas have lasted more than 10 minutes with her! I want to hug you and kick your @ss at the same time."

" Sorry not sorry Sabine, but she is our Genius Little Ladybug after all."

•—–—–†–—–—•

First fic, wahoo (mario stile), hope you're all having an Absolutely wonderful day, stay safe, and stay positive, BUG-OUT!🐞💮🐞

〜(꒪꒳꒪)〜 Tag List 〜(꒪꒳꒪)〜

1st place★: @animegirlweeb ☕

2nd place★: @jumpingjoy82

3rd place★: @zalladane

4th place★: @jayjayspixiepop

5th place★: @arty-shadow-morningstar

6th place★: @smol-book-nerd

7th place★: @irontimetravelflower

8th place★: @fandom-trapped-03

9th place★: @meme991001

10th place★: @buginetye

11th place★: @blackroserelina

12th place★: @jessigurl-design

13th place★: @adrestar

14th place★: @moon5608

15th place★: @little-bluestar

16th place★: @batgirljr72

17th place★: @myazael

18th place★: @our-preciousss

19th place★: @wolf2118

20th place★: @nyx-in-line

21st place★: @kking13

22nd place★: @lunerlover2024

23rd place★: @moonlightstar64

24th place★: @corporeal-terrestrial

25th place★: @kashlyn

26th place★: @tbehartoo

27th place★: @heart-charming

28th place★: @solangelo252

29th place★: @t1dwarrior-of-earth

30th Place★: @lady-phoenix-of-tardis

@lupagrimm

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haikyuuscreaming · 5 years ago

Text

MORNING THOUGHTS

⌦ a JUMIN HAN x READER

⌦ NOTES: MYSTIC MESSENGER FUCKERS WHERE U AT!!!! this is my first published mm fic and 2day this is just fluff (it was so hard 2 write without mentioning dick) so i hope u guys r happy!!!! please reblog i need the mysme hoes out there 2 know that i am a multifandom bitch

⌦ SYNOPSIS: Jumin Han isn’t a morning person unless you’re there.

➽───────────────❥

Jumin Han cherishes you because there’s not enough money in the world to buy you.

It’s true; no matter how hard anyone tries, even all the plastic surgeons that he could afford for someone and the 7.6 billion people on Earth, there will never be anyone who is even close to replicating you.

You are even better than money, and that’s a lot coming from Jumin Han, the man born with the silver spoon and raised in total luxury. Every part of you is something he prizes and holds dear to him. Your flaws may crack you at times, but you are held together like gold adhering the fragments of broken glass and clay. There’s a word for it, Jumin recalls. Kintsugi. A Japanese word literally translated as gold joinery. It’s when gold is used to repair broken ceramics and pottery, making a beautiful piece out of something once shattered. His family owns a few of those, but they’ve always preferred fine china that was held together and pure from the start.

Jumin recognizes how strong you are. You’ve dealt with the worse in the RFA, and you’ve been on the verge of being kidnapped so many times. There are countless things that should’ve torn you down from just being involved with him and the RFA. But you’re still there, whole and gorgeous. Jumin admires you and your strength. You are perfect to him.

He makes sure to tell you that. Every morning you wake up in his roomy, spacious penthouse, he kisses you tenderly and tells you that you’re the love of his life. Every night, before you go to bed with him, his hand brushes your face delicately and reminds you of that once more. Throughout the day, Jumin’s touch skims over yours for a brief moment, almost daring to linger, and he whispers his warm affections into your ear. He wants to spoil you. It’s what you deserve.

You are the sunshine to Jumin’s rain. Cheesily enough, he truly believes that you brighten up his life. Before you came into the picture, it was always money, ethics and selfishly enough, his own personal gain, for himself. He focused on what could be done for his father’s business. Personal relations were meaningless if it did not bring food to the table- or in Jumin’s case, pay his personal chef. He burns through money like it holds no value, and he seeks out only the most comfortable life possible for him and Elizabeth, though it gets boring at times just buying and buying everything in his sight. If he tells the truth to himself, life lacked the luster it has with you when it was just him doting on his cat. You are the splash of color to his monotonous, stone-cold demeanor.

He’s grateful for the way you stand up for him in the chatrooms, even though he knows he could handle it himself easily. No matter if it’s Zen or Seven calling him a robot, emotionless and unempathetic, you’re always there to justify him. It’s like you know him best, and it irritated him in the beginning because who could understand Jumin Han, the lone wolf who was always the inhuman person in the situation? You were so gentle and encouraging, supportive, the point-blank opposite of him-- how were you even capable of empathizing with him so well? You shouldn’t be. Jumin has built up his stone front so people can’t empathize with him, because he is rich and he is better than them (he hates to say it-- no, wait, no he doesn’t.). But you still broke through. There is light of both awe and bitterness in Jumin because of it, but it turned into love. That’s also what surprises him about you: you let him feel love. And he’s grateful you grant him such an opportunity.

He finds that even the littlest things in life, those of which he’s overlooked before meeting you, are enjoyable. Mundane tasks like brushing his teeth or making the bed are made a little more lively with you around. Jumin wouldn’t long for your cheeriness and pep, much like how you wouldn’t necessarily want his stone-cold front, but he likes it in a way. You complement each other, and for once Jumin thinks it’s refreshing. Even just your presence enables him to loosen up a little bit, and he keeps your brain from wandering in the clouds too much.There is no life Jumin couldn’t imagine without you.

So here Jumin is, at 7 AM on a Saturday morning, arms gently wrapped around your torso and his hands resting on your stomach. His touch is delicate, hands pressed onto your skin with just enough pressure to claim you as his but gentle enough to protect the baby growing inside of it. You’re making him (and Elizabeth the 3rd) pancakes, to which he would usually take care of but you insisted for some reason he could not comprehend. He doesn’t fail to notice how while one of your hands mixes the batter while the other slowly drifts to his hands.

Your hands are soft and cool, and tinier compared to his big ones. You’re so fragile yet held together and composed, and Jumin uses all of his strength to not lock you up and keep you as his forever. His chin rests on yours and his lips press against your head softly. He likes the way you smell: it’s comforting more than any other scent in the world. He even refrains from using your shampoo in the shower because he wants this scent to be yours and yours alone.

“Are you sleepy?” Your voice is warm in the lazy silence of the morning. “You should get dressed. You have work soon.”

“I’m their manager, I can be late.” Jumin hums lowly. He likes this. This is a good morning. “And I get to spend time with my lovely wife.”

“Mmm... and you get to eat pancakes with your lovely wife and cat, too.”

“And my future child.”

“Yep.”

Jumin can feel you smile, and his chin is still resting on your head as he shifts his hand on top of yours. “Your hand fits perfectly in mine.” His voice is a deep, gravelly murmur that comes from the back of his throat the way it does every morning after he wakes up, and Jumin wants nothing more than to go back to sleep with you and hold you in his arms.

He peers over your head and watches you scoop the batter into the pan. You turn around and smile at him, and it’s like Jumin doesn’t need the sun because he has you. And as you stand on the tip of your toes for a kiss while he leans down, you whisper, “I wouldn’t have this any other way.”

#jumin han x reader #han jumin x reader #mystic messenger #mystic messenger x reader #mm x reader #reader x mystic messenger #han jumin #jumin han #reader insert #mm #mysme #mysme fanfic #mysme jumin #mysmes #mm jumin #jumin han x mc #jumin x mc

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lokilickedme · 4 years ago

Text

The Queen of Springtown

I’m going to tell you a story. It’s a true story. There’s a bit of conjecture here and there to fill in empty spots, but not a lot. It’s a story about my grandmother - my paternal grandmother, not my maternal grandmother - I feel the need to specify who exactly it is because mom’s mom has a bit of a story too, but that’s for later.

This one’s about the one I’m going to call Elizabeth. Elizabeth was her middle name, it was a family name, it belonged to her mother and her grandmother I believe, though I didn’t know any of those people so I couldn’t swear by it. The family records are long gone if they ever existed.

Elizabeth’s last name was one of those romantically ridiculous names that still clung to old families at the turn of the century. It had a lot of extraneous letters at the end, a handful of unnecessary and partially silent sounds that looked beautiful in the flowery handwritten script of the time, a noble sounding -eaoux that did little more than tag a fancy sounding o onto the back end. A lot of fuss for such a little piece of sound. And when Elizabeth’s grandfather moved his family from France to Ireland and signed the manifests upon arrival in the new old land, he dropped the -eaoux and shortened the family’s name to four tiny letters and a single syllable. They were Irish now.

Elizabeth’s father carried the new name and the new heritage, and when he was of age he went and married an Irish beauty named - yep, Elizabeth. They say she was redheaded and blue eyed and fair skinned, though no pictures exist to prove it. All that exists is my grandmother, who supposedly looked just like her mama. She didn’t remember Ireland...she was too young when her daddy moved his family to a new land just like his own daddy had done, and she never really told anyone she was Irish. No one actually knew, once her parents were gone.

But you could tell. She looked it - flame red hair, china blue eyes, fair skin. She had the bones of whatever French nobility had been in her lineage from way back, but her colors were the Emerald Isle all the way. A beauty like you’d see in the movies, petite and ladylike and perfectly put together.

But my god that woman had a wild streak that dated right back to the Celts whose blood made up half of what she was.

(continued under the cut because long story)

So Elizabeth grew up in America, the daughter of an Irish mother and a French father. She had brothers and sisters, quite a few, though I never knew any of them. I believe I met two of them when I was too young to remember much about the encounter, but I’ve always found it hilarious that one of her sisters was named Bill. Bill, like the man’s name. I never found out why and I’m not entirely sure there was ever actually a reason. It was just one of those things.

The newly American family settled in Texas. And when Elizabeth was very young - probably not yet in her 20′s, though nobody knows for sure just how old she actually was because it’s likely she tended to fib a bit about her age to get into places she had no business being - she got herself involved with the Texas mafia.

Now let me tell you a thing or two about the Texas mafia. It wasn’t an official operation - not like the Italian Mafioso or the Eastern Syndicates or whatever the hell was going on between Florida and Cuba at the time. But it was every bit as dangerous and vicious and bloody and corrupt as any of those bigger organizations, and it was led for the most part by a man I’m going to call Big Joe.

This was the early 1940′s or thereabouts. Elizabeth was a party girl - up for anything, always out and about, girl-gang at the swing club, the works. And Big Joe saw her in the club one night, it may very well have been his club she was dancing at, and the proverbial first-sight thing kicked him hard in the gonads. This girl was a looker, and she was dancing with everyone in the place, whooping it up, living life like tomorrow it was all going to take a header into the sea. He had to have her.

And he did.

Big Joe was likely in his late 30′s, maybe early 40′s. There’s not a lot of information on him other than a handful of facts mentioned once and only once by my grandmother to my aunt - that Big Joe was a handsome man, big and tough and a snazzy dresser, and he always had enough money in his pocket to take Elizabeth anywhere she wanted to go and buy her anything she wanted to buy. And Elizabeth, party girl extraordinaire, was all up for that.

So Elizabeth and Big Joe become a thing. Everybody knows she’s his squeeze - and suddenly not a male soul in Dallas or the surrounding metropolitan areas will dare to lay an eye on her, not even a quick glance, because she’s Big Joe’s girl. And that means something. Elizabeth doesn’t know quite what it means because she’s likely not even 20 yet, but Big Joe is fun and romantic and he takes her on trips and buys her nice clothes. He buys her a ring, a blood red garnet, a ring that I inherit many decades later. He’s going to marry her, he says. She doesn’t care much one way or the other, she’s having too much fun dancing every night in his club, traveling with him, going shopping, rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous of the Southwest. She’s all but a star, protected and adored. Big Joe’s men follow her everywhere she goes when she’s not with him. And Big Joe starts going out of town without her a lot, taking care of business that he never tells her the details of.

She’s cool with that. He’s a businessman, that’s what he’s always told her. Things to take care of out of town. The Boss. He has a lot of operations to oversee, operations that make all that money he spends on her.

She has no idea what he actually does.

All she knows - or cares to know - is that when he comes back to town he ushers her around town in his big fancy black car, buying her furs and expensive dinners, showing her off to society. When he isn’t slapping her around...but hey, that’s part of the deal isn’t it? It’s the 1940′s, and Big Joe is very much a man of the era. Women grew up knowing they’d have to take the back of a man’s hand from time to time, and Elizabeth knew which side her bread was buttered on. She kept Big Joe happy, put a smile on his face, did the old grin-and-bear-it on the rest of it.

And then one night Big Joe comes banging on her door. He’s frantic. He pushes a set of keys into her hand - keys to the fancy black car that takes her everywhere - and tells her to keep it there, at her house. Don’t drive it anywhere, just keep it there. He’ll contact her soon and tell her what to do.

He leaves in another car with one of his men, and that’s the last time Elizabeth ever sees him.

A few weeks later she gets a letter from Big Joe telling her to drive the car into Grapevine Lake, on the far side by the shoals. Don’t open the trunk, he says. Put a brick on the gas pedal and put it in drive. Do it at night and make sure nobody sees you.

That night Elizabeth picks up her best friend and they drive the car to Grapevine to do as Big Joe said, sinking it in the murky green water on the far side of the lake. The two girls - just girls, barely even women yet - stand on the shore watching it disappear into the deep dark.

A week later Big Joe is shot to death. A deal gone bad maybe, or a competitor moving into the territory. Nobody really knows - grandmother never said. Don’t think I haven’t done my research...I know what I know, and according to a nearly nonexistent little trove of newspaper articles microfiched in a tiny little library in Azle Texas that isn’t even there anymore, odds are very likely that Big Joe went down in a shootout with the Dallas Police Department.

Elizabeth never opened the trunk of that car. At least she said she didn’t...it’s one of the many things that nobody ever knew or will ever know, because once she shut the door on that part of her life and moved on, it might as well have never happened. Getting this much out of her was outrageously difficult. Thanks to my very tenacious and very persevering aunt, what I’ve just told you managed to survive. It’s very likely my aunt was the only person she ever told, and it’s very likely I in turn am the only person my aunt ever told. And now my aunt is in her 70′s and in poor health, and this little unknown family story has started poking around at the back of my skull. I don’t want it to be lost. I don’t like the idea of soon being the only person alive who knows it. It’s not a spectacular story, but it’s testament to the fact that extraordinary things happen to ordinary people, probably more often than you’d think - and that those ordinary people sometimes take it all to the grave with them.

Elizabeth - my dad’s mom, my grandmother, the one I look like and act like and laugh like, the one whose cheekbones and eyes and hair and size I was born with, passed away twenty-something years ago. She lived through some extraordinary things. After the demise of Big Joe she married an oil roughneck, one of the semi-transient oilfield workers that were prevalent in the Texas Panhandle at the time, and had two children with him - one of whom was my father. The roughneck was the epitome of the James Dean romantic brooding bad boy type, handsome and manly, but unfortunately also a scoundrel who had a second family in another city that he went to every other month when he traveled to another rig for work. She left him when she found out. It was almost unheard of at the time, a young mother taking her two little kids and leaving her husband to be on her own, but she did it. And when my father was 12 she met and married a very tall, very handsome, very Cary Grant-esque railroad worker who loved life every bit as much as she did.

They were together for the rest of her life. I’ve never to this day seen two people more in love than Elizabeth and Jesse. I spent many summers in Texas with them and not a night went by that I couldn’t hear them giggling in the next room after lights-out, talking and laughing quietly until granddad’s wallshaking snores echoed through the house. It just about killed him when her heart gave out. But she was old, and she’d lived a life worth living. There was nothing in her face in those final moments that could ever convince anyone she wasn’t ready and willing to go when the time came.

I’d been married for a couple of years when she died, and my husband and I traveled to Texas for the funeral. The first night there, as my aunt brought out grandmother’s jewelry box and told me to take whatever I wanted, the story was passed from her to me. And when it was all told I opened a little drawer in the bottom of the jewelry box and pulled out an old garnet ring that I’d seen before, when I was a small child snooping in grandma’s stuff. I’d always been fascinated with it...it just looked like it had a story to tell. That’s it, my aunt said. That’s the ring he gave her. That’s all she ended up with.

It was the only thing I took.

The church was so full the next morning you’d have thought it was the final sendoff for some local celebrity. Everybody loved my grandmother, everybody, but this was sort of astounding. Some of them I knew from my childhood, from many many summers spent in the Panhandle, but people came from all over to say goodbye and nobody in the family knew who a lot of them were. They just showed up, some of them cried, some just stood in the back of the church all stoic in black suits. Some were very old. And when it was over and I turned around to watch a group of distinctly important-looking old gentlemen quickly and quietly leave the building, I looked over at my aunt and pointed at them. She arched her eyebrows in that way she always did, that way, the way that said What did I tell you?? - and I wondered if maybe all those years ago some of Big Joe’s men hadn’t pulled that car out of Lake Grapevine and found the trunk empty.

I mean...this is Elizabeth we’re talking about.

#true story

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yconic · 4 years ago

Text

"Divorce is a special kind of pain. It's like death without a body, " is what they say when two halves of a whole heart separate.

Tony never understood when he was younger, never extended the notion of two people who gifted each other to eternity in union splitting up beyond 'Just not talking for a bit.'

He looked at it from a small perspective belonging to a small person, as if the people in question were just two good friends who couldn't decide on what game to play, hurt each other, and needed space.

His parents had done it more times than he cared to count. The frigid silences and artificial prompt politeness between the socialite power couple Howard and Maria Stark could last for two days, or two months, depending on how deep the issue picked out that time ran.

Tony sat straight as he watched the clock tick away, dutifully counting the hours that would bring Maria closer to home from whichever elicit travel affair she filled her time with while Howard closes himself into his workshop, stewing in anger and bitterness that leak out from the door he's not permitted to trespass.

He learns to measure the gravity of their squabbles, - If it's a small argument, Maria picks Germany, France, or Spain. She sends a letter stating the duration of her stay. She sends Tony well wishes, with a touch of formality for a mother, and her name is elegantly plastered on the bottom in cursive.

When Howard fucks up, she picked China, Britain, or Italy, and she disappeared from the earth until she emerged at her like. Howard is Howard, - the relationship between him and his son was too cold for Tony to tell how his father was like without the disdain gleaming in his eyes, but the liquor cabinet always needed at least a daily refill after a spectacular drama.

He looks back at those moments and realizes, with a shade of pity coated in something more sour, mellow but active, that divorce was never an option for them, the cycle of co-dependency and maintaining legacy had to be kept no matter how demanding that task was.

He can't bring himself to be angry when he feels so bad for them. All that money, and they couldn't buy a second of peace.

It doesn't take long for him to realize his parents don't love each other.

Tony was young, but he was never a child. He was naive, gullible, innocent, - but he was awake. While he didn't clearly understand what love was, he looked at the unhappy frowns on the miserable faces of the pair and thought: 'If that's how love looks like I want no part in it.'

He doesn't love people for more than one night, - A full week if their company was good enough to distract him from the rich golden color of his whiskey that gradually tastes bitter, and more bitter every time. It's not love, he knows, - He keeps that special for his family. But the kind of feeling he has with strangers, with nobody's with a name, resembles what he knows of love too much for him to change meaning.

He won't know how "love" feels like. He refuses to be the caged bird his mother was, to take form in the monster Howard let himself become.

Then, life gives him Steve.

He nests into Tony's life like a storm with skin, hair kissed by sunshine and eyes filled with an ocean that the brunette longs to sink into. He has a boyish charm to him, an old soul that swoops Tony off his feet. It makes him want to slow down, even if he belongs to the future, to activity, to progress. He wants to sit and listen to the stories Steve has, told in a Brooklyn swird that gives character to every word.

Steve looks at him like Rhodey told him all people should look at him. 'Like they can't see the status, or the money, or the power. Like they just see Tony, and nothing more. Because Tony will always be enough. ' Steve looks at him like he hangs the moon for him.

Tony never stood a chance. He looked at Steve, and thinks: "Oh, shit. He's It for me."

He just knows that this one, this Captain, decorated to the teeth, hiding in awkwardness at this petty mingling, social climbing Gala, lowering himself at the bar because he didn't know anybody, was made for him. And if Steve clings to Tony the whole night, he agrees with the parallel drawing out on his part.

He doesn't leave Tony's side, arm snug and comfortable around his middle like they've known each other for longer than time itself, and Tony loves it more than he has the courage to say.

Steve looks at him when the epilogue of the night strikes, too soon for either of their likings. He's tall, broad-shouldered, strong but has the softest eyes in the world. It hurts Tony to arch his neck to stare, but he doesn't want to miss a thing. "I've... I didn't laugh like that since I was in tour. You made my night, Tony."

"It's nothing, -" Because it really is. Considering the sins to his name, the least he can do to atone some mistakes is make as much people as happy as he can. And Happy is a great look on Steve.

He does learn one thing: When Steve says something, it stays how Steve says it. "No, its everything, Tony. I didn't smile once since coming home, " he croaks, like the confession pains him, and Tony aches alongside him. "Everyone is worried about me, saying that, that I seem upset, or sad, or just, never happy anymore, but how else am I supposed to feel?"

"You can't let others tell you how you feel, " Tony soothes, without thinking, a hand softly brushing against Steve's cheek. A frisson zaps through him at the feeling of the soldier's stubble spiking his skin. Steve leans into his touch like it's the most normal thing in the world. Tony's heart grows. "It's not even in your control, so why should it be in theirs? " He understands how Steve feels. More than the world would care to listen.

"Exactly. So, if it's not too much trouble, " his shyness compliments Tony's smitten. "Would you mind making me smile again?"

Tony is, utterly, indubitably, irrevocably, without a shade of doubt, fucked.

He smiles anyway. "You know, soldier, I think I could pull some strings."

---

Their love is like rain in June. It's mellow and distractingly peaceful, makes their worry and everything that ever went wrong scarce away. They can breathe around each other even when they feel like drowning. For once, Tony feels like it'll be okay.

But Life decides to do what it always does when Tony finds something good. It takes, and it takes, until there's nothing.

Steve tells him about Bucky. About the fallen brother that vanished in the mission that stole everything for Steve. "Only one soldier fell off that train, but two died that day, " God, Tony is so worried when Steve talks like that. "It should've been me. I wanted it to be me."

Tony listens and he pictures Rhodey falling. Steve loved Bucky in ways he couldn't even hope to understand.

It turns out, Death is not something so permanent after all.

It's a lovely night for them when Steve gets that call. He's wrapped around Tony and holds him in his arms as if he'd rather go to war again than let him go and Tony's heart never beat so loud for anyone. He would have never let Steve answer if he knew that phone call was the beginning of their end.

Bucky's alive again, is reborn from snow and war and ashes. Broken, but alive. Held captive by terrorists and is unmade, undid, but still alive. Everything around Steve is lost after that.

Tong gives him space and resources, help, support, he gives everything to Steve like on their wedding day. He gives him his care and gentle hands and soft words and love with a heartbeat. And Steve is just... Too preoccupied looking at Bucky to notice. Tony feels like a selfish bastard for wanting his soldier to look at HIM instead of coddling his friend at every moment notice.

He wants Steve to stop suffocating Bucky when he already looks like he's just inhaling instead of breathing.

He wants his husband back.

That's why he deserves what's coming to him. That's his punishment.

They drift apart slowly, as most terrible pains start.

Steve starts spending more and more time around the mental help facility Bucky asked to be enlisted into after his hasty return that had everyone clutching at their pearls. He wants to do it alone, Tony figures easily, starves for a journey he wants to walk himself, for the kind of autonomy only a man who lost it for too long craves.

His bitterness aside, Tony marvels at how similar they are. Maybe In another life, he and Barnes would've made a handsome pair of kindred souls.

Steve doesn't agree. He looks sickened, struck even, at Tony for having the Gall to suggest maybe Barnes would be more responsive if he talked with someone who had mirroring experiences. "God, Tony, you don't... You're not a soldier. You're just a man. You've been through pain, sure, but not like Bucky. No one went through what he did. I'm honestly speechless you ever thought you could compare."

Steve says that, it's why it hurts so bad. The man who swore he'd walk back into the hellfire of war just to find the people who hurt Tony and tear them apart.

The man who couldn't be moved by anything. No nightmare, no night terror, no panic attack, no argument. Nothing convinced Steve to leave. He stayed through it all.

The man who cried relentlessly when Rhodey walked Tony down the alter because 'He couldn't believe how lucky he was to marry someone so beautiful.'

The man who hasn't written Tony a love letter every morning like he used to do in over a year.

The man who spent more time sleeping in hospital rooms than in their bed.

The man who used to not go even one day without saying "I love you". Tony can't even remember the last time this sentence was spoken between them unless he said it first.

The man who agreed to couple therapy, then acted like it rained the next day.

Tony would will himself to shove this under the rug. To put a blind eye to it, to make it work, to ignore Rhodey's disapproval and Pepper's warm worry, to push away the pain blossoming in his chest, threatening to overspill.

But this man adopted a child with him.

---

"That one" Steve points to a small boy, thin but sturdy-looking even in the hand me downs from the orphanage, short limbs supporting a mess of brown hair that looks impossibly soft. His eyes are big and kind. Tony wants to take him home and feed him. "That one's ours."

His name is Peter, and he got into a fight with older kids when they wanted to stomp on ladybugs. He pushes back, but not unkindly. He's no bully. Instead, he takes the time to teach them why disrespecting and hurting nature is wrong, then takes their hands into his own, playing with the tiny creatures for hours.

Tony falls in love immediately. "Let's bring him home, Cap."

---

He can't do it. Tony can't look into Peter's adoring eyes, wide and brown that feel more like a mirror than anything, and see the fear he had for Howard, or the sadness for Maria. Tony can't handle looking at the love of his life and see another him.

Steve is Peter's role model. His knight in shining armor, his protector, everywhere he goes he sings praise to anyone who cares to listen. About his fearless father, his heroic antics that seem so tall for him. "My daddy's a superhero!" Tony doesn't have the heart to take that away.

And Tony loves Steve too much to see him become Howard.

So when Steve misses their son's 5th birthday party because he had more pressing business in D.C, Tony realizes bitterly, there's no saving this. People labeled him as a mechanic, a futurist, but he feels unworthy of both when he couldn't fix or foresee this.

There's no coming back from this.

Natasha doesn't voice it, but she doesn't need to. She tucks her phone away after a third failed attempt to coax, threaten, and guilt Steve into joining them, with muted movements, and Tony can tell she agrees.

Tony's grin is too wide when he looks down at Peter when he drags him off to paint his face, unaware of his father's turmoil. He laughs. He smiles. He celebrates. He has a nice day with his family.

He pulls Pepper aside and asks her to prepare his lawyers in the same breath.

This is why Tony knew love wasn't made for him.

---

Tony's always been good at hurting himself. The more pain he inflicts on himself, the less it'll hurt when someone else does it. So he unpacks the stash of letters he kept locked away in a seif, because they're prized to him, more than any sleek car or company, and reads them before he burns the bridge.

They feel like warm kisses and goodbyes.

'Left for a grocery jog, ran out of coffee. It's supposed to be cold, so don't you even think about leaving the house without a jacket! I'll know. Take care of yourself, even when I'm not there. '

' I love waking up next to you every morning. I love how you hide from the sun in my chest. I love how grumpy you are when Pepper calls for updates and all you do is cuddle me and whine. I love your messy bed hair and how you fall asleep in the shower.

'I never cared for jewelry before but seeing my ring around your finger never gets old. I still can't believe you said yes, but I'm glad you did. You deserve more, but you settled for someone like me. I can't believe it when you say no one would want you forever, I hate that someone made you think like that, that they let you go, but their biggest mistake is my biggest win. Jokes on them.'

'I can't imagine my life without you. Its all radio silence and broken static. Like an artist with a blank canvas and grey paint. You're the best damn thing that ever happened to me, and the fact that I have you means there really is someone up there looking our for me. I'm never letting you go. I love you, I love you, I love you, '

Tony stains the paper with tears as he listens to the song of heartbreak in his chest.

---

"Nat, " Tony pleads, choosing not to look at the tremor in his hands as he neats the papers he wants to see burn. "There's no need for that, come on. You know I love you, but I'm a big boy. I don't need you to hold my hand for this."

Natasha shrugs. "Indulge me."

"He wouldn't do anything to me."

"I thought there were lots of things he wouldn't do. Like stop loving you, for one, " she doesn't mean to be a jab, but Tony strokes his right arm and lets the hurt wash off. He sometimes forgets how blunt and terrifying Pepper's wife is capable of being. "Being paranoid is worth being safe."

They find Steve in the kitchen, sitting stiff and unfamiliar as if he didn't design the place himself. Tony swallows down the pressure in his throat and forces his eyes to stay dry. He wants to rest his hands on Steve's shoulders and pepper the lines of laughter on his flushed face with kisses.

But they're behind that now.

Steve raises his eyes to look at him. He's tired, run-down, missing the spark Tony marked as one of his favorite traits of the blonde. The life wasted from them, telling Tony that he's surviving, but not living.

Tony looks at him back and his eyes say, 'Me too.'

Steve's mouth twists into an imitation of a smile, tries his luck at mimicking something of the reassurance and ease variety, to hide his emotions with a mask of cracked peace Tony undressed a million times, just as Steve undressed his. He's always been good at reading the man. Or, was.

Steve's eyes fall on the documents Tony's holding with his naked hands, no ring in sight, and Tony watches something die in him.

The room drowns in silence for a while.

Natasha stands as a loyal shadow at his side, silent but sharp, hands folded in front of her crotch like a guard dog waiting to pounce. There's a forced calm into her breathing that puts him even more on edge.

Papers brush smoothly above the marble surface, ear piercing to him. Red hot blazing into white noise. It's the most terrible sound he's ever heard. He prefers his breathless, agonized screams in Afghanistan to this.

Steve recoils away, standing up suddenly and shakily, as if the documents are bombs about to kill him anytime now.

He turns his head, refusing to look at them. Refuses to accept they're real.

"Throw those away, Tony, " he says, voice edged with the kind of suffering that would bring Tony to his knees on other circumstances."Get them the hell away from me and never bring them up again, you hear me? I'm serious.''

Carefully, Natasha chimes in, tone mild and neutral. " Steve. Tony would like to speak with you about something, alright? Let's sit down, and talk like grown-ups, -"

"Where's your ring!?" Steve shouts, tiptoeing at the border of desperate and hysteric. Tony wants back into the cave, wants the water to take him away from all of this. It's hard to kill something that's already dead. "What did you do with it!? Why aren't you wearing it!? You PROMISED me, you promised you'd never take it off you JERK, you lying -"

"And you promised to love me until the day we die, but by the looks of it we both could use a lesson in honesty, " Tony cuts icily, colder than colder. His words are resigned, hollow, at the brim of mechanical. He thinks all the people who say Starks are more machine than men had a point. "I'm the fuck up in this relationship. What's your excuse?"

He thought he'd feel vindication watching Steve taste a fraction of his sorrow, that his destroyed look would make something in Tony retaliate. It does nothing. Tony loves him stronger, fiercer, and there's no win here for anyone.

His mouth tastes like ashes.

He just wants to stop, to sink in his bed and swim in ratty hoodies drenched in cheap but sweet cologne, smudged with paint of all shades, and feel Steve's arms shield him from the world.

He wonders if it'll keep Steve up at night, how it never occurred to him that the danger he wanted to defend Tony from might have his face.

"I'll do better. Tony please," Steve begs him, and Tony wonders if the situation is so low a man with his nature would resort to that. He's shaken by big hands engulfing his own for exactly a moment before Natasha intervenes, pushing the blonde away with a hint of regret. Steve recovers, looks right through her at Tony who wants to wipe his tears away. "I'll do better, I'll- I'll spend less time with Bucky if you want, -"

"Bucky isn't the problem. It's not about HIM, it was never about him, this is US, Steve. We, our marriage, our family, its been here longer than Bucky. I never wanted you to - to erase him from your life, I just wanted my husband. Peter wanted his daddy. Bucky could've been apart of that, but you just, you just pushed us aside,-"

"I won't do that anymore. I, - Do you want me to be at home more often? I can, sweetheart, I can do that no problem. I can be at home, I can make time for dates and-and for activities, I can take Peter to the park and play ball, - Do you remember that? How we used to play until he fell asleep? I don't mind, its no problem, -"

Something in Tony snaps.

"WE'RE NOT YOUR FUCKING CHORES," His voice is more roar than man, ragged, tight, pushed to the last limit. The garden of silent pain, fury, rage, and fear he's been harboring finally blossomed into something that seemed to shake the world. His body shudders. "We're not some,- some pestering tasks that you have to save your precious time to complete! Some fucking pets other people have to force you to care of, or some dirty laundry you decide to wear whenever you feel like washing! We're your damn FAMILY,- " A sob hitches his anger, and by the broken look on Steve's face, it's worse than any rage.

He narrows his eyes in disbelief, as if Steve was some stranger and not someone he gave years of his life to. A laugh is pushed out of his chest, choked, long, and terrible. "I would've ended this sooner if, - God, if I knew how much of a burden we became for you."

"Tony, Tony don't say that, " Steve's face is blotched red, painted in punishing torment. "I love you and Peter more than anything in this life. You're mine, both of you, how can you think I don't love you? I, -"

"Just love Bucky more, " Tony finishes, note flat, accepting, rehearsed. His voice feels as hollow as his chest when Steve flinches. "I'm just... I'm so tired. Steve,I'm tired, and- I can't do it anymore. My son, my baby is not going to be a burden on anybody. I can put up with a lot of shit, but Peter is my limit. I can't and I won't put anyone above him. Not even you."

Horror shines bright and clear on the blue eyes Tony loves so much. He spots Steve's finger tremble at his sides, notices the hesitant movement of his Addams apple.

Natasha was wrong. It's a rare occurrence, but it happened.

Steve never stopped loving him.

It makes signing the papers so much harder.

---

Steve lost Bucky to ice, snow, and time. Tony loses Steve to fire, anger, and distance.

---

Pepper is surprised when she hears Steve ended up signing willingly.

She doesn't want to ruin the calm air that finally settled over the emotion packed atmosphere surrounding the living room, currently stashed with carton boxes filled with Steve's stuff, ready to be delivered tomorrow as Tony wanted, but it's a needed talk.

"What did you say to convince him?" She asks, not demanding an answer but clearly expecting one. "I'd just assume Nat had him in an arm lock until he agreed, but, in all honesty, Steve would probably lose an arm than do what people tell him to. Seriously, I've seen anarchists with more respect for authority than this guy."

Tony laughs, too loving and too fond for this predicament. "I said you'd drag his ass through every courtroom in America and drain him of everything he's worth?"

"Mmm. Try again. I mean, that's a Sunday for me, but he's already heard that talk before." Giggles are shared between the pair on the couch, snuggled under fuzzy blankets with wine glasses that clink slightly. Pepper's face relaxes into something sympathetic, earnest. "Was it something Peter related?"

"No, " he shakes his head. It never crossed his mind once, no matter how hurt he was. It felt too much like what his father would do. " Peter is his son, too. No matter what happens between us. There's no changing that. "

"No one would blame you if it came down to that, you know that, right?"

He hums. Pepper waits.

"I asked him to let me say goodbye to my husband instead of forcing me to stay with Howard."

A sharp intake of breath settles something cold beneath Tony's skin. He closes his eyes, and accepts the wine Pepper pours in his cup, neither commenting on how it spills over the rim.

---

Talking to Peter is the hardest part.

He doesn't understand why suddenly there's only two people there instead of three, why he isn't woken up by two pairs of arms tickling him and kissing his sleepy eyelids every morning, why Tony's laughter isn't echoing through the house as Steve spins and twists him around in the living room dance session they had at least once a week.

Why, apparently, Steve now has a permanent residence in DC and can only see him twice a week as their legal agreement states.

Why he has to live in two different places and split his playtime.

Why Tony bought a new apartment and they had to move away, stretching the distance between them and Steve.

"Is Papa comin' home today?" A hand squeezes Tony's heart painfully tight at the small question. He looks down at his son, smaller than usual and playing with his fingers at his feet. His frail shoulder raise, housing an anxious breath as he awaits an answer.

Tony takes his tiny hand in his own, leaning down to press kisses on the back of his son's palm, apology on his lips. "Yeah, baby. He has to come and pick up his stuff. Maybe you can play a little when he arrives! I'm sure he'll be happy to see you. "

Steve sends Sam to pick up his things and Tony feels guilt bite at him for hissing 'coward' in his mind.

Peter is excited to see his uncle Sam but the disappointment when he hears a truck coming instead of the deep rumble of a motorcycle engine doesn't wash off. He soldiers on, smiles for Sam because as little as he is, he's careful with people and their emotions. His goodness is organic. He takes after Steve like that.

Sam's always been frustratingly talented at deciphering his thoughts, even when his face is emotionless. It's one of the many reasons why Tony thinks him and Rhodey match so well. "He said he's really sorry he couldn't come, but... Okay, his excuse is just sad, because I doubt you'd believe he'd rather attend a Zoomba class than see you and Peter. Truth is, he's scared."

"Of facing me?"

"Of hurting you."

"Yeah, well, he's already got that job done on the to do list, " Tony huffs, petty and aware. He tosses Peter his baseball that lands in the backyard, gently nudging him away from the conversation. They watch the ball of energy squeal in delight as he runs to fetch it, tension momentarily on hold. "Sorry. You don't need my shit. Let's just load this and be done with it."

Sam huffs. "Man, I've been involved with your shit for a while. Appreciate the feeling but it's a bit late for that. Trust me, me and Rhodey have in length discussions about it. I'm neck-deep in white boy drama, but well, sacrifices of the job. Not much you can do."

He's playful, Tony knows this, in the corner of his brain that isn't raided by anxiety, yet fear claws at him, sharp and cruel and unexpected. Coldness spreads inside him like wildfire, almost matching the thoughts racing in his mind. Sam and Rhodey were talking? Were they arguing? Had Tony harmed Rhodey's relationship as if he didn't wreck his own enough?

"Talk?" Tony rasps, pushes the words out of his constricted throat that seems to close more and more, synchronizing with his lungs. Sam's wide, concerned eyes tells him the surface looked as bad as the inside."You... You and Rhodey, you guys- Bad talk? You, you fought about it?"

His mind torments him by showcasing Rhodey yelling in Sam's face and Sam yelling back, both standing their ground like two soldiers on a mission and defending their friends like avenging angels. Rhodey is more brother than friend, he'd take his side, like the devoted friend he always proved himself to be, but he watches with a cut breath as Rhodey locks himself in his room and weeps.

Rhodey sharing his fate is Tony's own horror movie.

"...ony! Tony, deep breaths, come on, " gentle hands guide him away from the void his own psyche trapped him into, speaking in a low voice that plucks him back up little by little. "Come on, in and out. Focus on my voice, that's good. Listen to me, Rhodey and I did not and will not fight about this. We're fine, Tony, promise! We agreed, no side pickers. This isn't war, and we won't get into some life or death fight for your and/or Steve's honor, " he tries for a little grin. ''I mean, I'm not supposed to tell you, but we don't like you guys that much."

Tony laughs, at once, a pathetically small sound, but he's grounded enough to laugh. He basks in the lack of sound around them, like the silence of an after battle, suffocating, but free.

The quiet hangs in the air as they load the truck, too, not oppressing, but welcomed, with a touch of comfort that burns just right. When the last box is secured and road-ready, him and Sam stay just a bit on the porch to stare at the house. Because that's what it is, isn't?

'Is papa comin' home?'

There is no home. Not if Steve's missing.

"Steve said you can keep those, if you want," that sentence made Tony hunch his shoulders, releasing that bitter aftertaste in his mouth again, blending with something sweet, and igniting the warmth that pierced as deep as his very marrow. "Nothing he loves or wants back is in those boxes."

Yes, Tony wants to scream. I want to keep the sketchbooks he has for me. I want to keep the photo albums. I want to keep the paint, the charcoal, the brushes. I want to keep the stuffed animals he won me at the fairs. I want to keep his clothes. I want to keep the dances in the living room. I want to keep his love, attention, care, worry, sadness, anger, grief. I want to keep my husband.

Instead, Tony reaches for his back pocket, and squeezes his ring. It burns in his palm, almost begging him to put it back in it's place, or on his finger, where it fitted like it always belonged. His being feels it, as if connected, and he decides to even the odds in the cowardice department.

Sam holds his breath as Tony hands him the ring, with hesitance, with no indication he wants to. "You sure about this?" It's a careful question, painfully gentle, far softer than Tony deserves.

No. Not by a long shot. "Yeah, " he mutters, almost lost in the air. "It's not mine anymore."

Sam curls his hand around the ring, pockets it, and Tony wrestles with the urge to ask for it back. His eyes are trained to the floor, on his shoes, the fine leather ones Steve bought for him on their anniversary, he realizes.

He watches droplets of water splash and dissolve into the concrete. It's raining, he figures, he should take Peter inside or he'll catch a cold. He looks up to watch the dark clouds, and the senine blue above mocks him.

"It's okay, " Rhodey picked a good one, Tony thinks, as Sam covers his crying form away from Peter's eyes. "It's okay, Tony. Just... Let it out. You earned this."

"I tried, " he sobs in Sam's neck, sobs his demise his failure, his bottled cocktail of emotions that waited to implode. "I tried, Sam, I tried so hard, I swear I did."

"We know you did, Tony. We all know."

---

Peter wants to meet Bucky one day.

"Papa used to talk about him all the time, " He says, oblivious to how vexed Tony is hearing that. He apprehends himself, reproaching that he should be over it already. "He sounds pretty cool! I want to see his Terminator arm!"

"It's a Tin Man or Robocop arm, at best, " He smirks at the pout Peter throws his way, smoothing it out with his thumb. "And he's in a hospital. You and I hate hospitals, remember?"

Peter whines and makes his eyes larger, pitifully glassy and sad, just the way to wrap Tony around his little finger. "Daddyyyy, pleeeease!" He hooks his fingers around his arm, hugging it close to his chest and his lower lip trembles.

He imagines Steve behind him, smothering a laugh in his shoulder, egging Peter on like two conspirational buddies. He melts, pushing the rush of yearning back, and knows it's a battle lost. Peter is too lovable, too determined, too bright eyed.

He's morbidly curious, in a way, to see what was so special about Bucky that it made Steve want to trade that.

---

Bucky and Peter hit it off in a heartbeat.

The facility hosting Bucky is uncomfortably pristine, from door corner to ceiling. Everything is tailored and arranged with ridiculous precision, clinical, professional, boring, and detached, as most medical spaces are. His workshop dances circles around it in the personality field, and he tells Bucky as such.

He laughs at him. "That's an interesting way to say you're a chronic untidy mess."

'Chronic untidy hot mess, " Tony corrects, hating how easily he falls into conversation with him. He tells himself it's merely a distraction from the stomach twisting smell of medicine, stingy and sharp smothering the air. "How offensive. I demand a trial by combat. Peter, make him pay in blood!"

Peter turns to Bucky, unblinking. "Your hair's greasy."

A theatrical gasps spreads in the room from the blue eyed brunette. Tony beams, kissing Peter's cheek. "That's my boy. I'm sure Bucky's bleeding a lot on the inside."

"Yeah. You know, where blood usually is, " Bucky snarks, heatless, propping Peter off from the spot on his leg and putting him on the ground . "Why don't you go ask nurse Joy to give you some magnets for the arm? Your father and I gotta talk adult business."

"Uncle Clint says adult business is just gossip for grown ups. " Peter retorts, smirk on his lips, half raising on the edges of his mouth. He got the smugness from him, that much Tony will admit. Bucky huffs a laugh that mirror Tony's own and waits for Peter to be out of the hearing range to say his next words.

"I owe you an apology."

Tony blinks, hastily, and speaks before he can even register what he's saying. "No, you don't. Drop it." It comes off razor sharp, yet Bucky must be used to worse, because he doesn't falter.

"I ruined your marriage. There's no forgiving that, but I DO regret it and you'll damn well listen to what I have to say."

"Look, I appreciate it. I do. I'm not... Mad at you. You're just in the crossfire of this clusterfuck. There's no forgiving because there's nothing to forgive, " he murmurs under his breath, words quiet, but sincere, he realizes. "My failure is my own to carry. "

"Stark, relationships need more than one person. Stevie ain't exactly blameless in this whole thing, - Far from it, trust me, I let him know. He got the scolding of the damn lifetime, because he threw away a damn good thing. He made a home for himself and then demolished it. You didn't hand him the sledgehammer, he picked it up on his own dumb self."

"You know, your philosophy lesson would impact me better with wizard lingo. Throw in a riddle or a prophecy and I might bite. " Receiving a blank stare to his quip, Tony sighed, eyes downcast.

"Look. I called it off, alright? I lit up the matches, I burned down the bridge, and I watched it turn to ash. But it was meant to happen, one way or another. We were just too different. Guys like me break the world apart. Men like Steve put it back together. He'll move forward. Like he always does."

Bucky's reply is instant. "No, no he won't, " it's said with such conviction, with such a finality, that it has Tony freezing. "He'll never move on. Not from this. I've never seen him like that for anybody, hell, never seen ANYONE like that. You and him? That's a forever kind of deal. You don't need a ring and name change for that to last. You don't have a choice."

Tony swallows, slowly, unsure. "So what? We just keep path crossing like fate has us tied together, in each other 's range but standing on parallel lines, never meant to cross? This isn't a fairytale, Barnes. It's real life. And even if it wasn't, that's still far from fair."

"It is real life. Which means it ain't fair, Stark. "

Tony takes Peter home, cuddles him closely as if he might disappear, and eyes the empty area around the right side of the bed with a lonely glint that burns in the darkness.

---

The first time Tony meets Steve after the divorce, it's for Natasha's birthday party.

Time jumps from slow to fast, alters between stagnation and overwhelming in the first 6 months that pass after the finalization of their parting. Some days are agonizingly slow. As if the world wants him to stomach every second, consume every minute, where Steve is not with him, isn't his anymore, and choke on the pain that tastes just as sharply as the first time.

And in some, time goes by in blink record, not keen on giving Tony the courtesy of healing, of moving on, of according him the patience or kindness in adapting his feelings to his pace, to accommodate to the arrangement it dragged him in.

Concern crawls inside him regardless of how many times he buries it, makes a tangly nest right in his chest, and makes no effort to move. He doesn't blame Steve for not wanting to meet him, to look at him, to give him the chance of staring into the bright, baby blue eyes that hold everything beautiful in the world.

Tony's seen the wonders of the world, all 8 them, and they all pale put next to Steve.

He feels seething, scalding guilt showering him for thinking that. Because Steve is not his to worry over, not his to call wonderful, not his to care for. Not anymore. He repeats that like a mantra against his eardrum when Natasha asks him if it's fine if she invites him to her party, too.

It's the perfect excuse to see how he's doing, but Tony elects to ignore that and remind Natasha grown-ass people don't ask other grown-ass people for permission on what to do. "Do I look like Pepper to you? No? Then why would I order you around?"

A discreet smile reaches Natasha's features, exhibiting confidence but betraying relief. She loves them both, Tony knows, and wants her friends first, not the fallen lovers. "Just wanted to know if I should hide the sharp knives or prepare some spare sheets."

His face heats ferociously, climbing all the way to the tips of his ears, and all the embarrassment in the world is worth listening to Natasha laugh. Something sharp-edged inside of him brittles at the prospect of seeing Steve, thought, and he holds his tongue from saying something of that nature won't happen.

In the company of his solitude and shame, Tony wonders later, is he afraid of seeing Steve again because he fears the blonde is not doing okay, or because he is?

Later on, he sees Steve stand in flash before him, chatting with some faceless figures, hair longer than last time and flattened slightly at the nape, sporting a beard that framed his gorgeous face perfectly. The impeccable balance between scruffy and well-groomed. Tony itched to run his fingers against it.

"It's the divorce beard, " Clint muses, elbow jolting Tony in the side to show the humor. "Give him a few more weeks, and you'll see him shopping from the Hobo shop. All wrinkled shirts and ketchup stained clothes or something. Men are useless without their wives.'' He winks in Tony's way, but Tony is too entranced by Steve to acknowledge it.

His fists are bruised, Tony notes with a wince as he gets drunk on Steve's form with a studious gaze, creamy skin battered and laced in a cluster of dark purple, crimson, and small patches of yellow shaping his knucklebones.

A trail of question rests blistering on his tongue. 'What happened? Who did that? Who were you fighting? Why? Are you okay? Did you win?' But he closes his eyes and bites his tongue, knowing these questions don't belong to him anymore.

He gave up his rights to that.

But then, Tony spots them.

His breath is knocked out of his lungs in a silent punch, eardrums pushing out all the sound attempting to penetrate his ears. His fingers loosen so much they almost drop his water, feeling tingly numb. Tony's eyes, large and surprised, trace the circle of gold curled around Steve's fourth finger, gleaming softly against the artificial light around the dining room.

Steve is still wearing his ring.

But then, his chest burns and booms, heart roars fiercely behind his ribcage as he notices the thin string of black leather circling around Steve's neck, loose as a necklace, hanging low enough for Tony to eye the shape of metal halo looped right in the middle of the material.

Steve was wearing Tony's ring, too.

The realization left him petrified in place, more statue than man, in stunned shock as he bore into his former lover who only then noticed the brown eyes looking at him, transparent astonishment clear as crystal in his features.

It's like a spell breaks.

Tony's limbs move mechanically, on autopilot, running to the nearest room, getting himself away from what his body detects as danger. Urgency is packed on his step, taking him to the bathroom in record time, but Steve's always been the runner, more athletic between them, and his sprinting lands him a spot in the sleat Tony wass about to slam.

He's pinned to a wall effective immediately, feels cold tiles plant clammy kisses on the back of his head and neck. Tony almost hisses at the force of the slam, but before he can make a peep, his lips are stolen in a savage, fierce kiss.

It's pure desperation conveyed in the most unconventional way. Steve pounces on him, lips wild against Tony's own, pouring every emotion he went through in the past few months,- Longing, yearning, craving, hunger, desire, - his being, his love, his soul into that kiss, barely giving Tony the chance to breathe.

"St-Steve, " He gasps, head tilting slightly to the side to escape the ministrations, to gulp air, moving to avoid the chase at reconnection Steve is playing at by trying to capture his lips again. "Wait, wait a minute, -"

"Missed you, " Steve's voice is thick with want, hitching in the small puffs of air that came off raggedy and breathless, words melting over Tony's mouth. Steve's face glows with a blush he wants to kiss with inhuman greed. "I missed you, I missed you,Tony I missed you" Tony's fucked.

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blackswaneuroparedux · 5 years ago

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The Bunad: roots of a nationalist symbol

The bunad is a Norwegian folk costume which exists in many regional varieties. A symbol of rootedness and belonging both local and national, the bunad is ubiquituous on Constitution Day, 17 May, but it is also used at other festive occasions. Although it is far more widespread among women than men, male bunads have become common in some social circles.

Can anyone wear a bunad? Is it a real bunad if it is made in China? Is it a symbol of origin and roots or a nationalistic symbol?

It is estimated that Norwegians own altogether 2.5 million bunads, worth more than 40 billion kroner (€500 million). In other words, one in two citizens owns a bunad, and they are expensive garments with embroideries and filigree silver ornaments, consisting of several components often including aprons, headdresses, scarves or shawls. You could easily buy a few prestigious and beautiful dresses from famous designers for the cost of a single bunad. Moreover, bunad ownership and use has grown fast in the last few decades.

The increased popularity of bunads could be put down to the growing prosperity of the population of oil-rich Norway in general. But this is hardly the whole story. A symbol of Norwegianness, rootedness and regional origins, wearing a bunad is a statement about identity. Non-Norwegians are often puzzled by its widespread use, since folk dresses are associated with minorities in other parts of Europe. Perhaps the Norwegian identity is essentially a minority identity, even though independence was achieved through a bloodless secession from the Swedish–Norwegian union in 1905.

The ongoing story of the bunad is complex and involves claims and counter-claims about authenticity, the feared and respected ‘bunad police’ and a vivid popular discourse about who has the moral right to wear which bunad. The right not to wear a bunad is generally tolerated, but there is no strong and visible cosmopolitan discourse dismissing the widespread love of folk costumes as antediluvian, reactionary, nationalist and possibly racist. Yet there is no consensus concerning which dresses should be classified as sufficiently authentic and what the criteria are and it has led to controversies.

The bunad is a particular kind of festive dress. The term is a neologism based on an archaic dialect word, introduced in urban circles by the author and nationalist activist Hulda Garborg in her pamphlet Norsk klædebunad in 1903. Writing during a feverish phase of Norwegian nationalism just ahead of independence, Garborg argued the need for a truly Norwegian and regional form of formal dress. She collected and systematised what she saw as intact and useful regional bunad traditions, and even designed some bunads herself. Interestingly, Garborg never denied the syncretic and partly invented character of the new, traditionalist folk costume. She nevertheless emphasised its role as a marker of rural, Norwegian identity.

A relevant distinction can be drawn between a bunad and a folk costume. Folk costumes are everyday and festive clothes which were traditionally worn by peasants in southern Norway, and – like certain kinds of peasant food – have been recontextualised and upgraded more recently as formal dress. Bunads, on the contrary, are reconstructed and re-designed – sometimes very nearly purely invented – costumes designed from the early 20th century onwards, and are used at occasions such as Christmas Eve, Constitution Day, weddings and other major social events, although not at funerals: bunads are bright and joyful garments. Some bunads represent minor adjustments (‘upgradings’ and modernisations) of the original folk costume, while the link is less obvious or absent in other cases.

The bunad is an important traditionalist symbol of modern Norwegianness. Most of these costumes are related to regional and minority folk costumes from Central and Eastern Europe, and the German influence has often been commented upon. More importantly, the bunad confirms Norwegian identity as an essentially rural one, where personal integrity is linked to roots and regional origins. However, 18th and 19th century peasants would often wear European-style dress at formal occasions such as weddings, or they might wear a folk costume, which gradually went out of use. In other words, there is a clear element of modern invention, which nobody denies, not only in the currently widespread use of bunads, but also in their design.

What exactly, then, is a bunad? One possible answer widely accepted is: a festive dress associated with a regional Norwegian tradition, accepted by the Bunad and Folk Costume Council as such, and widely recognised as a bunad by the public. Its popularity as a symbol of tradition has increased proportionally with the modernisation and urbanisation of Norway in the last hundred years, thereby saying something essential about the politics and poetics of identity in modern societies, where the quest for rootedness in the past increases with de facto uprootedness.

In contemporary society, many if not most individuals have two, three or four options: they can legitimately wear a bunad designed in the place where they live, in the place where they grew up, or in one of their parents’ places of origin. They cannot, however, legitimately wear a bunad from wherever they fancy. Of course, they could buy it, but their friends and relatives might frown.

Norwegians who live in the heart of urban cities and have no real rural roots are sometimes unaware of people in the heart of Bunad Norway who are deeply offended. These rural Norwegians as they see it have no time for West End ladies who claim Telemark ancestry when they buy the perhaps greatest status symbol of all bunads, namely the expensive and exclusive East Telemark bunad. They also disapprove of people wearing gold chains and earrings with their bunads.

There are frequent conflicts over authenticity framed within the bunad discourse itself. In the valley of Numedal, competition between two alternative bunads actually led to the creation of two distinct factions in the 17 May parade of 2002. Family members fell out with each other; local politicians groped for compromises. One of the alternatives, a simple folk costume, is woven in dark fabrics; the complex, reconstructed bunad sanctioned by the Bunad and Folk Costume Council is much more elaborate and colourful. The defenders of the simple costume argue that the new one, ‘overloaded with silver and embroideries’, is inappropriate and clearly inauthentic for a traditionally poor mountain valley; while the other faction see the simple bunad as sordid and joyless. Both factions claimed that their bunad was the most ancient one. The colourful and expensive alternative won in the end.

The bunad stirs up strong emotions. After the 17 May celebrations in 2001, Queen Sonja was criticised in public for wearing sunglasses with her bunad; in the same year, Crown Princess Mette-Marit was severely reprimanded in the press for wearing a purely invented ‘fantasy costume’ rather than an authentic bunad from her home region. She has since made amends, and now has several bunads to choose between (legitimate in her case, being princess of the whole realm), including an elaborate bunad from her home county of Vest-Agder in the far south of the country. Women are generally advised by the Bunad and Folk Costume Council not to wear makeup and earrings with their bunad.

Because of the wealth of detail, a proper bunad cannot be made industrially in its entirety. This partly accounts for its high market price. Moreover, the knowledge and skill required to make a bunad is considered a cultural, local form of knowledge – a kind of inalienable possession. In the spring of 2002, a conflict erupted between the traditionalists and a young entrepreneur who wanted a slice of the market. This conflict inadvertently brought the implicit ideology underlying the bunad to the public eye. The controversy is still alive today, with cultural arguments overlapping with the economic ones.

What happened was this. A young Norwegian of Chinese origin, who originally worked as a cook, began to take an interest in bunads. He took a bunad course, learning the basics of the craft. Before going into business, he changed his name from Aching to John Helge Dahl, realising that he would have little credibility as a bunad salesman with a Chinese name. (The current owner of the company founded by Dahl is nevertheless called You Hong Bei.)

Dahl founded a company called ‘Norske Bunader’ (Norwegian bunads), and then he did the outrageous thing, namely to contract dozens of Chinese seamstresses in Shanghai to do the stitching and embroidery. The fabrics were sent from Norway, and the completed garments were returned – at a much lower price than that of the Norwegian competition. He built the bunads himself. ‘To most people, it is the quality that counts,’ he says, ‘not who has done the embroidery’. Of course, he can offer bunads at a competitive price.

The Bunad and Folk Costume Council reacted strongly against Mr. Dahl, as did Husfliden. At one point the latter threatened to sue him for plagiarism, but since bunad designs are not copyrighted, they were likely to lose a court case. Their argument was that the craft amounted to a locally embedded kind of knowledge which did not travel well, comparing it to dialects. Talking about mass production and industrialisation of bunad production, they argued that the use of foreign labour leads to cultural flattening. The resulting products were said to have no hau, to use the anthropologist Marcel Mauss’s term for the ‘soul’ of an object.

Opinions bitterly divided people. Many who defended the traditionalists said that this concerns ‘personal knowledge’. Bunad embroidery was a kind of handwriting. They argued that when anyone can take a pattern, send it abroad, and make a good profit from the product, people will ask: ‘What is it that I am spending one or two months’ salary on?’ Many argued that this kind of garment would feel alienating, and that it would not satisfy people’s emotional need to build their own history into the garment.

Another argument concerns the low salaries in China, claiming that it was immoral to hire ‘underpaid women’ to do this kind of work. Dahl’s Shanghai seamstresses were paid what he described as a good salary in China, but which is a fraction of a comparable Norwegian salary. Yet others have said that it may be acceptable to employ immigrant women living in Norway, who may have assimilated some local skills, but not to employ foreign women living abroad.

Although the Dahl case was spectacular in that it simultaneously brought out both accusations of racism and controversy concerning criteria for authenticity, his business innovation was less original than it might seem. Several producers admit that they outsource parts of their production to the Baltic countries and elsewhere where wages are low, and even Husfliden has admitted that parts of their bunads are made industrially because of the high cost of labour in Norway.

The anxieties voiced by the critics of the outsourcing of bunad production are threefold: In a thoroughly neo-liberal society (anyone can wear what she wants; anyone can design and make bunads anywhere in the world), national identity suffers because regional roots are severed; economic interests suffer because prices go down; and the personal or emotional pole of the user suffers since the garments lose their special quality.

In what exactly does this ‘special quality’ consist? What is the nature of the considerable personal capital invested into clothes?

What is reaped from this investment is a handsome profit, an enhanced sense of community and visible boundaries to the outside world. Cultural property of this kind is intangible, it is legally oblique, and it is poised to lose against both the brisk efficiency of contemporary capitalism and against the individualism of free choice.

So the main question as I see it: is what price your heritage?

Put your secret/sacred knowledge online, and the spell is immediately broken.

This kind of knowledge has to be scarce, localised and difficult to obtain, or it loses its magic qualities. Beyond pricing policies and profits, this is what stirs the souls of the people who care about the national and regional provenance of their bunad. Had they chosen a Dior dress instead, or a pair of blue jeans and a nice T-shirt, the problem would not have arisen.

Still critics argue why all the fuss? The Bunad is no different from what a kilt is to a Scotsman or a lederhosen is to the Bavarian or a sari is to an Indian. Yes and no. Each of these have differing degrees of exclusivity and symbology.

The kilt arguably was an English invention to control the Highland clans. But it became something else - a national symbol of being loyal to clan, crown and country. It used to be people only wore kilts if they had a hereditary claim to that tartan but nowadays no one really cares what tartan you wear (much to the chagrin of older generations). The lederhosen has always been a regional symbol not a national one but has been ‘McDonalised’ to an Oktoberfest fancy dress costume party. The sari is an interesting example that remains a distinctly Indian national symbol but can also now be readily worn by anyone around the world - just as well as I love wearing saris at Indian weddings and when I lived in India. But the Bunad is different because of its own distinct roots that has never left its national borders. The Bunad is a living tapestry and its threads can’t be simply out sourced to other countries.

One’s heritage should never be outsourced. To the anti-traditionalist naysayers I would say that the bunad is a special kind of garment saturated with symbolism and existential significance; it is from somewhere, not from anywhere. It’s Norwegian, born and bred.

#bunad #norway #custom #heritage #tradition #dress #folk #norge #norsk #culture #society #history

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feminist-propaganda · 4 years ago

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Single Mothers Will Probably Cry During Every Episode Of Queen’s Gambit - Episode 6

“Men are gonna come along and wanna teach you things” predicts Alice at the beginning of Episode 6. “Doesn’t make them any smarter” she continues. “In most ways, they’re not. But it makes them feel bigger. They can show you how things are done. You just let them blow by and you go on ahead and do what the hell you feel like”.

Little Beth listens carefully.

“It takes a strong woman to stay by herself in a world where people will settle for anything just to say they have something.”

As she finishes her sentence, the camera zooms out and we see her finishing the embroidery of Beth’s name onto the dress. Beth smiles, and her mother says “There we are”. She’s almost finished her project.

Episode 6 : Learn From Straight White Men

To survive under capitalism, it is necessary to learn from those who created it, ie Straight White men. Many feminists might want to avoid capitalism all together, and avoid the mentorship of White men, which they don’t find useful. But Beth’s mother understands that to truly extract oneself from the oppresive system she is in, Beth first needs to navigate that system.

In the first part of the episode, we see Beth ride with Benny to New York. He seems good for her. He doesn’t let her drink. He improves her chess. He introduces her to his friends.

A bunch of people don’t know this, but New York’s original name was New Amsterdam and it was founded by the Dutch.

The city, like Mexico, is symbolically chosen in the mini-series, as it is the epicenter of modern day capitalistic activities.

The Netherlands was a poor nation swamp up until the 1600s, when the Dutch figured out that they could trade goods, ensure the boats that transported the goods they traded and then eventually created the stock market. To this day, Amsterdam remains the international capital of financial technology. Every year, hundreds of higly skills migrants from countries like India, Turkey, China or Greece come to Amsterdam to develop faster robots to trade at higher rates for trust funds and billionaires.

Trading changed the Netherlands forever. It launched what some history books still call the “Golden age” which is now being deconstructed as a racist era, where the Dutch played a key role in organizing the trans-atlantic slave trade.

Even though modern day Dutch society likes to downplay the role the Netherlands played in the slave trade, it is proven that the Netherlands became immensely rich thanks to the slave trade. They were experts in importing the coffee and sugar that was grown by the slaves and trading it inside of Europe.

New York, is the projection of the Dutch dream in the West. It is the home of Wall Street, where we find the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as well as the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ), which is the same as the stock exchange only this time we let the robots to the high frequency automatic trading for us (yup).

In 1904-1905, right when Einstein was discovering the photoelectric effect in Germany, a man called Max Weber coined the phrase “the protestant work ethic”.

According to the theory of the “The protestant work ethic”, it is believed that there is something in protestant culture that encourages protestant communities to work very hard. As a result, a great deal of “ excess” is produced, and these goods can then be traded. According to this theory, the inventors of capitalism were just very hard working people, who accidentally made too much of something, and started selling it in a very organized way (the stock market). Then they became rich.

Martin Luther King disagrees:

“We have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice. The fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor — both black and white, here and abroad.”

As the car pulls up in Benny’s street, and looking at these ever so simple Brownstone houses, I am reminded of the myths that protestants like to perpetuate about themselves. “We work so hard!” “We’re such simple people” “We eat stew” “My grandfather used to raise pigs”.

The never ending lies that protestants propagate about their work ethic serves an important purpose in White Supremacy. It tries to convince us that the wealth isn’t unequally distributed. That the privileges that the ruling class have are deserved, rather than stolen.

Benny is the ambassador of these White Men. He lives ever so simply. He offers Beth a mattress to sleep on the floor. He lives in a basement. There is no decoration on the walls. There are only the prizes he’s won at his competitions and tournaments, and some magazine covers. Again, the underlying subtext here is that Benny works hard, lives frugally, and deserves all of the awards he’s won.

Instead of resenting Benny, Beth accepts to learn from him, just like her mother told her to. She looks around his house, but doesn’t say a word, doesn’t judge. She’s here for a purpose, she’s here to take everything that he has in his head, and bring it with her to Paris to win against the Soviets.

She seems dissociated from the situation most of the time. The only time we see her getting a bit excited is when she meets the French model. Again, it’s the high fashion that seems to attract her, as if it’s a sign, an indication of something grander and more appropriate, something that she needs to follow.

An adjournement in Chess, which is also the name of the episode, is when a player secretely puts his move into a sealed enveloppe after 5/6 hours of game. The players resume their play the following day.

Towards the middle of the episode we find Beth right where we met her: in Paris. She plays her matches and makes it to the final with Borgov. Unfortunately, on the day before the final, she meets the French model from Benny’s, drinks and is so hangovered the next day she makes a fool of herself. Not even the two tranquilizers she takes before coming down from her hotel room can help her.

Losing to Borgov in Paris destroys Beth. She goes back to Kentucky and drinks her life away. By the end of the episode she looks sick.

She’s probably discouraged because she’s gotten to the end of her mother’s advice for this episode. She followed the White Man, and all of his advice. She met him in the capital of capitalism, learned everything that was in his head. She even met his friends. She copied his cool. She became him. When she meets the french model in the hotel, they are themselves being the men they seek. They smoke, they drink pastis, they casually talk about fucking.

It’s also worth noting that by losing to Borgov, Beth isn’t failing Benny. He never won against Borgov either. Her presence at these tournaments is already the best that he’s ever achieved for himself. This is also why Benny’s teachings alone won’t get her past Paris, beyond the iron curtain, to Moscow and beyond. He’s never been where she needs to go, where her mother wants her to be. How can he take her there?

A single mother will tell her children to learn from the White Man, but she isn’t telling them to be the White Man. The White Man is probably the reason why she’s single in the first place, why she’s alone. The single mother tells her children to learn the White Man’s way to survive in his world first and then to unbuild it.

Single mothers are often poor, so they understand capitalism very well. They understand that often times money does buy happiness. It gives you security. Strength even. And joy. Beth can’t extract herself from Kentucky, the deep south, segregation and the feminine mystique if she doesn’t have cash.

After she comes back from Paris, Beth finds Mr Wheatley is looking for her. He needs money and wants the house back. She buys his share from him and calls him pathetic. it’s another sign that she’s outgrown the men she used to learn from.

Now there is nothing else but the void, the emptiness beyond her, and she doesn’t know where else to go. It can be overwhelming and Beth copes with alcohol. Who could judge her?

#the queen's gambit #single mom #feminism

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watchtheworldargue · 4 years ago

Photo

egg magazine, april 1990. interview with Michael Hutchence

transcription below :)

Michael Hutchence on Lower Broadway

By Hal Rubenstein \ Photography by Steven Meisel

Globe-hopping is hell on a wardrobe and hard on the feet. Sometimes you have to get out of the limo to spend your money.

Michael Hutchence rarely comes to New York without luggage monogrammed INXS or Max Q, so one would think that on a visit without portfolio, the last thing he'd want to do is add on more baggage. But given a free day, a book of tickets, and our offer to go anywhere to do anything, Hutchence got into the limo with an agenda we could hardly call a new sensation. What kept us from sulking was that he hadn't left the devil outside.

Michael: You think we can load this car up with Yamamoto, Comme des Garcons, and Armani by 6?

Hal: Driver, step on it. Down to Grand and make a left.

[The car turns onto Union Square West.]

Isn't there a club on the corner here?

The Underground.

That's the one that keeps surviving regardless of how many people get shot there. How many are they up to?

No one's quite sure.

Where are we now? I don't recognise this.

This strip of lower Broadway didn't exist last time you were here. Now it's like a mall-less town's Main Street.

And Tower Records is City Hall. Not bad. It's wild to see this much activity because people around the world now talk about New York in terms of decay, how New York is such a rude place, and we keep telling them, No, New Yorkers are quite friendly, we like it there. New Yorkers are just very honest. They don't have time to bullshit. I like New York because people are linked to each other. L.A. Is fun, but segregated. Here there is a metro, and a different philosophy of getting around so there's rich upon poor upon rich. The only thing I don't remember is how many homeless are asleep on Park Avenue and everywhere else. Or is it my imagination?

No, it's real. How come you choose to live in Hong Kong instead of Australia?

For about three years, I thought it didn't matter where I lived. But I kept passing through it again. I grew up there, from when I was four until twelve. My dad still lives there. It has great energy, like New York. And it's ten hours closer to the world than Australia is. If you travel a lot, it adds up.

[We enter the Yohji Yamamoto store.]

So austere. Do they go wild if you hand back anything wrinkled? Those clothes over there are good acid-house colors. Has acid house caught on here?

Not like in England.

That's 'cause New York has bad radio. Are these dogs always here? They must sleep in the shoes. Ooh, look at these here. Not very me, but very Star Trek. $500 for a T-shirt. I see. I'll buy six. No, twelve. Now, here is something very stagy. Ultraflouncy. I like that, but the general consensus might kill my career.

Is what you wear onstage the same as you wear off?

I sort of smush them all together. My favorite piece of clothing is a leather jacket I had made for me that says “Hutch” in chain mail on the back.

Did Michael Schmidt make it for you?

Yeah – how'd you know? He's great. He sort of looks like a beautiful snake. He loves all the Hollywood stuff, but he's so sincere when he talks about it. Almost makes me like it. Is there somewhere funkier we can go, like Yankel's House of Pile? I saw that on the way down.

If you want old clothes, we should go to Cheap Jack's.

[We head back up to Broadway and 13th Street. Several young ladies on the corner stare at Hutchence as he enters Cheap Jack's.]

Do you enjoy recognition?

Depends on where I am.

Like when you're out on your own. Shopping, for instance.

Shopping, yeah, 'cause I get discounts. And there is a definite bonus to recognition when I'm onstage.

It makes the night go faster. But I'm not an institution yet. Sometimes I think about how hard it must be for someone like Bob Hope to go for a stroll. I don't really get hassled. I can stand in the middle of a street in London, or even New York, and usually nothing happens. I don't think I have that distinctive of a face. I got recognized in Tangier once, going by in a taxi, very fast … from a distance … in a fog … during monsoon season. Just kidding. It's odd how once you are conscious of being watched, you stop being so self-conscious because you realize there's nothing you can do about it. Of course, nobody in Hong Kong gives a shit who I am.

Aren't people there freaking about the city's eventual realignment with China?

Thousands are leaving a year, but they're the ones who can afford to leave, to give Australia half a million to let them in, though a lot more are going to Vancouver or New Zealand instead because they've heard, and it's fairly true, about Australia's racism.

It's actually more like unconscious racism. There's a naivete to it that you might call charming if it wasn't so sick. See, most foreigners don't realize – because we refuse to believe it ourselves – that Australia is southern Asia. Australia is linked to England in everyone's minds.

Yet most Australians don't have the faintest idea why the Japanese tried to invade us during the Second World War, and can't understand why they might not have wanted any foreigners on the biggest island in the Asian paradise. If we had lost, my home would be covered in rice paddies by now. Australia would have been Japan's Great Plains, their grain barrel.

I've never met one Australian who knows that. We have it so easy in Australia. It's very easy to live there. Tougher than it was before, but that's because five years ago it was ridiculous. I used to live in a three-story, five-bedroom house. It cost me $20 a week.

Did you make that much playing music?

Nah, but so what, we were all on the dole. Everyone went on it. That's one of the reasons you have so many bands in Australia. It's cheap to live and collect, so all the bands go on it. You wouldn't even have to go pick up your employment check; they'd mail it to you or transfer it to your account. Ready cash. I guess because there is such an anti-authoritarian vibe in Australia that people are quite happy to accept government checks. “Aw, screw 'em” - that's the attitude. Lots of people accept four and five checks or even have jobs. It's very lax. That's why we're stuck with the tall-poppy syndrome.

Translation?

Don't be successful, don't rise above your mates, or you'll get chopped. It's weird. It's the don't-leave-the-pub way of life. I think people in America are generally happy for someone's good fortune; they know how to let themselves go. In Australia, they go, “Good, mate,” and don't ask a single question. There are no celebrations for a job well done. I'm still shocked at how Americans cheer you on when they like you. I know you don't fancy it anymore, but I like phrases like “dress for success.”

And that's why you're shopping here?

I love hideous ties. Girls love 'em. Dunno why. Its like red socks. Are the playing Richard Hell? I haven't heard this song in 20 years. God, you must hear better music in clothing stores than you do anywhere else in New York. All these baseball jackets are so cheap. You know what they pay for these in Australia? I should buy the whole lot, take them back. I'd never have to tour again. I could get 150 to 200 bucks just for the ratty ones. I think this is the first clothing store I've been in that wasn't playing videos.

Are videos big in Australia?

We've actually been involved in music video a whole lot longer than in America. Because we are so far away, the only way we've had to understand all this music flying around the world is through video. Since the '50s, even when it was only 10 minutes a week, Aussie tv has been showing music videos.

And we don't censor the way you guys do. The “Way of the World” single is a very serious song, but MTV is quite shy of the video, you should note – I say this diplomatically. They censor here for all the wrong reasons. Like it's okay to stare at Cher's crotch for four minutes, but it's hard to say something truthful about the state of the world.

Could it be because with a group that's become as wildly successful as INXS has, it's inevitable that favorable reaction always turns?

I don't think INXS has reached that point yet. Give us four more years. We've only recently become hip in England. At the beginning, they hated our guts.

Why?

'Cause we are Australians writing pop music, why else? They don't make much in England, apart from nice jumpers and Jaguars, and one of the few things they can claim some turf on is pop music. So, they're not happy when someone else does it. It's a standard trait of island people; they're very territorial.

But you guys are island people too.

Yeah, but we got a bigger island. Now, if we can just get rid of some competition from the expatriate colonies.

Isn't it enough already with this rivalry between Australia and England? L.A. And New York have settled their feud.

England still treats Australia like we're descendants of convicts. Well, I guess we are, aren't we? We're trying to get rid of them, but unfortunately, they're coming back with money and buying up half the country. Don't you resent the Japanese buying Rockefeller Center?

I resent the Rockefellers more.

[Having tried on everything and bought nothing, Hutchence decides against old clothes. We head down to If boutique.]

Armand Basi. Nice stuff. That Claude Montana is fabulous, but God, this stuff is expensive. We don't know anyone here for a discount, do we? My father used to design clothes for a shop in Hong Kong called Dynasty. Glitzy evening wear for too much money. One year, when we did our first tour, we bough ta lot of Sprouse, real colorful stuff, and we spent a fortune, especially when you consider it's disposable fashion. All it had to do was last a month. All the buttons fell off, it shrunk, seams opened up. We would have been more upset, but it made us homesick for the mother country. Disposable fashion is very English. The nice thing about it when it comes from there, however, is that even though the stuff falls apart, it's cheap.

Ah, I like this. Very sexy, very smart. Basi, right? I found the best underwear. I think it's called Nikos. Someone gave it to me last night. Well, that's a plug. No names, please. These pants might go with the Basi shirt. [Like Navy pants, they have over a dozen buttons instead of a fly.] Not good clubwear. Certainly not quick enough to please me.

Your choice of underwear would have to be very discreet.

And always clean. Maybe these pants come with a catheter. Should I ask the shopgirl? [He raises his arm to call her and, wincing, puts it down.]

Just realized a colostomy bag wouldn't hurt?

No. I think I have a cracked rib, from too much fun the other night at Inflation, this super club in Melbourne. Melbourne has some of the best clubs in the world. Great people. Amazing clubs. Sydney has nothing. Boring as hell. Nice place if you're a surfer. Really pretty, like L.A. But very corrupt, Sydney. Everyone is always paying everyone off. That's why you can't afford to do a club there. It's like, in order to get a club license, all the other nightclub owners have to agree to your having a license. And four people control the voting on that. Melbourne now has a club called Razor that is so exciting. It used to an automobile club, especially popular during the '50s, where people used to talk about their cars, you know, with photos of Mini-Minors making hairpin turns around corners. Like a racing club, I guess, except for slower cars. Razor gets the best people.

[He picks up a pair of huge, get-lost-in-the-rain-forest-and-survive black shoes and delights.]

Many people have shoe fetishes. I guess it's around the world actually, not just with Imelda. I think people are probably just jealous of her because they secretly wanted so many pair. But these are big, like size big. Are Americans getting larger feet, or do they just want more room? I always notice shoes when I'm here.

There's almost like a $100 tax on shoes in Australia. Like a pair that will cost you $50 here will cost you almost $200 in Australia. A pair of Levi's cost $100. I never buy furniture in Australia, either, and I have an obsession with furniture the way Americans love shoes. It's a shame I don't have an obsession with homes, too, since I have no place to put all the furniture. I have it stored all over the world.

Let me get the Basi shirt, and then I want to buy records. I would get them later, but I just remembered I have a friend coming in tonight for only one night. He and his father are trying to get down to Nicaragua. They're helping Ortega keep the Contras back. Good luck. What's so weird about their going is that these guys are publishing magnates in England. Entrepreneurs. They should be serious Thatcherites, but they just hate Thatcher. Real lefties.

If everyone is so vocal of their dislike of her, how come she's so strong?

The British love her because they love to be miserable; they love to complain. Thatcher's become irrepressible. She's finally showing signs of faltering, except she's winning by default, because no one wants to put Kinnock in, either. It's like your Dan Quayle. What an alternative.

Are Australians political?

It's compulsory to vote, if you want to call that political. Frankly, nobody particularly gives a fuck. That doesn't mean Australians are not aware people. I think they know more about what's going on in the rest of the world than the average American, but that's because they have to compensate for being in the middle of nowhere. They're more concerned about international politics, about the environment. Every time the Americans come into Sydney harbor with their nuclear ships and submarines, there's always 5,000 people telling them to fuck off.

But the hell with domestic politics?

Do you know anything about our system? It's built on a bickering sort of war. The front page is always about politicos throwing shit at each other, spending more time insulting each other than governing.

Mind you, they are really very good at it. It's a fine Australian tradition of political insult. Listening to parliament is hilarious - “Shut up, you bastard!” - and that's our prime minister, Bob Hawke. He's in the Guinness Book of World Records for having drunk a yard of beer in record time. He is actually a brilliant leader, a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, and he has done a bloody good job, considering the apathy he's up against. What he should be real pleased about its restoring pride in being Australian, particularly after all that nonsense when the governor general dismissed Prime Minister Whitlam in 1975.

How was that possible without the consent of the Australian parliament?

We're still a colony. I think a lot of us were cynical after that. They felt like puppets. Probably had something to do with the CIA. The good old CIA. I'm in their files, I found out. That they should waste their time on me. I'm listed as subversive, for my lyrics to “Guns in the Sky” and because I once threw condoms out to the audience in Northern Australia.

How is that subversive?

The more north you get in Australia, the more it is like the South in America. The man who ran Queensland, one of the biggest states in Australia, was this guy, Joh Peterson, who was in power for over 20 years. Peterson was this sort of South African leftover who arrived in Australia, and he made things illegal, like sex education, abortion, condoms to minors – you couldn't have the vending machines in clubs. [You can now.] Well, I slandered him, and so I got taken to court, where he was thrown out of office from the corruption uncovered during the proceedings.

Did that make you a hero down there?

Say what, mate? This is Australia, remember. Our heroes are bushrangers, outlaws, and sporting stars. If you're an athlete, you can get away with anything.

[Hutchence purchases the Basi shirts, and then we head to Tower Records at the corner. A street person approaches us.]

is this the official mugging committee?

Street person: “Ooh, ooh, here they come in their limo, straight from Saks Fifth Avenue. Board of directors, how you doing, moneys, you big-time decision makers. Uh-oh, who's you? You must be a rock man. Stand aside for the rock man.”

They always pick on me.

“I want to give you something, man. Some humility. But there's only enough for one.”

I don't care for some, but humility is something we can spread around.

“Hey man, this is for seriously. You will love this humility. No side effects, no speed. Say yes, and I can be back in an hour.”

[We go through the revolving door and right to the rock section; within three minutes, Max Q is playing on the system.]

That's good, somebody knows it's out.

[Hutchence buys albums by Ciccone Youth, Camper Van Beethoven, Soul II Soul, Grace Jones, Shakespear's Sister, Jesus and Mary Chain, and Suicidal Tendencies. As he is paying for them, he spots a postcard stand that features a picture of him.]

Holy shit. When did they take this thing? What a bizarre likeness. I hardly know this guy. This is not an approved photo. [He gets the attention of a young lady behind the counter.] Excuse me, please, this is not an approved photo. It's a pirate. Do you know where you get these from?

Salesgirl: “No idea.”

Can you find out?

“Why, do you want to buy a lot of them?”

See, I told you no one recognizes me.

[We walk outside and the street person comes up to him again.]

Street person: “I know who you are.”

Who am I?

“You are someone who's gonna give me a lot of money.”

How much you want?

“Just give me one of those bills, thank you. Now I'm officially your biggest fan. Just tell me what you want to buy.”

I must be dressed for success.

#inxs #michael hutchence #egg magazine #salesgirl's answers are perfect lol why would she know that hutch #maybe these pants come with a catheter #what kinda pants......#long post #tagging that in case read more doesn't work on mobile idk #collection

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mysticalmusicwhispers · 4 years ago

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HELLO... i am back

yes aditya gets a treat because otherwise indus is going to murder him and then transfer him far far away and never unground him ever and we can't do that to a baby. also i hope no actual murder of chickens occur in their plot thing but it could also be something Worse so Yikes!

i wish yao didn't know what a hickey is but. welp he would. actually this makes me propose a situation (nsfw-ish? implied nsfw?): nyo china buys encyclopedias for yao to read and one very old one has a section with a full diagram of sexual intercourse. it isn't porn, it's those diagrams where the skin is missing and serves as a view into the organs of the human body but just in a... position. so 8 year old yao reads all about sex and goes to nyo china being like "hey so sex is for making babies right? so if i want children i have to have sex right? there's no opting out of it?" and nyo china is like fuck it the kid might as well get his sex ed + introduction to adoption stuff now since he knows about it already. then the next day a teacher has a badly hidden hickey and yao is trying to figure out how the fuck that happened before he remembers that certain animals bite each other during sex and asks nyo china about it.. and then boom. (the encyclopedia part was unfortunately inspired by irl events 😔)

but anyway imagine yao mistranslating the code.. and being like "wtf why do you want to BITE people" and india + iran being like ??? and then they get an unfortunate sex ed that night (baby! yao's mildly inaccurate version: "sometimes weirdos like biting each other during sex many animals do this as well and this is called a hickey. sex is this thing that adults do for fun and sometimes to reproduce. but you should only bite other people and have sex with them if all of you are interested and not just because you want a baby, because there are other ways of getting one. if they try to have sex with you or bite you or touch you in Bad Touch areas you should -" "kill them? and get an adult later?" "yeah exactly" "how do you know this tho??") then yao probably tries to find the sex encyclopedia to bring to school to show india and iran but nyo china threw it out because it was 20 years out of date and said that pluto was a planet ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

also YES MISS VIETNAM DESTROY THE PROPERTY OF THE RICH... CUT HIM DOWN TO SIZE imagine getting 2 entire ass houses at 18 lol and there was actually a person who was going to get a mercedes in my class. apparently his parents were buying 2 and wanted him to pick the one with the colour he liked more as a gift at 18 and keep the other for themselves. he asked us which colour Mercedes was better, someone accused him of being a braggart, and then there was so much drama... i am glad i am no longer in that class. rich people.

also yeah miss vietnam is definitely one of those nice but strict teachers!! she'll definitely be kind to everyone but she won't tolerate bullshit and god knows yao is full of it. but also imagine vietnam teaching india's class and then yao pouting to india about the assignment he got a b on (a slight improvement from the c) only to be met with "what? she's so nice and smart lol you're just an asshole i kind of want to make friends with her tbh" and yao's like How Dare You Backstab Me Like This? but yes she really forces him to Think instead of just letting him be and that's very good for him!! and she gets an intellectual outlet too :D

also yeah like linh is going to struggle.. how do you write "he's a complete asshole but tolerable and intellectually fun after a while" in a GOOD manner?? this rec letter will probably be full of phrases like "a spirited personality given to debate" or something

This is also a late reply :’)

I wasn’t really thinking about anything specific for the plot; I was really just trying to find a word that was slightly similar to hickey and decided on a dead chicken lmao. But honestly, it would probably be something like “I’m going to bring a (dead) chicken to class for show and tell and you two need to act horrified and cause a ruckus because it would be fun and it would scare the other kids :)”. (this is probably bullying, so in an effort to make them slightly better kids, an alternative plot is that a stray cat has been coming to their school and in order to make friends with it, they feed it a whole-ass dead chicken Nyo China got from the butchers and was planning to cook for dinner. The teachers are horrified and confiscate Yao’s backpack for fear of germs and salmonella.)

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OH MY GOD nyo China, miss, please, he’s young. But the encyclopedia reading is so accurate o-o small and independent Yao + voracious reader + lots and lots of books about Everything + nyo China’s hands-off “it’s never too early to know” caretaking/parenting strategy = what other things has he been exposed to... (let’s face it he’s probably said the F-word or insulted someone in Mandarin without meaning to, but came off as a disrespectful little chaos ball) BUT THE BADLY HIDDEN HICKEY and the ANIMALS BITING EACH OTHER salk;fsdl;ksdjl way to unconsciously roast your teacher lmao. I love nyo China’s no-nonsense way of approaching Strange Questions Asked by Eight Year Olds but I do not know how to feel about her very direct answers 😭 Also, I am very sorry for your personal loss 😔.

Scene 3 is 100/10 canon now. “weirdos who bite each other during sex” Yao thinks hickeys are weird, and good for him. Also the little summary!! Of course Yao pass on everything he knows to India and Iran... at least it’s not a fucked up version of sex-ed, even if it may have some small inaccuracies. rip outdated encyclopedia. Also “ ‘kill them? And get an adult later?’ ‘yeah exactly’” GOOD nyo china thank you for doing at least one thing correctly

also your class is crazy??? A MERCEDES oh my god... how do his parents love him so much? My parents probably wouldn’t even trust me with a second hand from 2005 lmao. Also, wtf rich kid, why would you be crowdsourcing opinions for YOUR car? (ngl I kinda think he was bragging too 😂, but drama? Do all these people have nothing else to do besides gossip smh)

Vietnam has a blacklist of Confirmed Assholes she needs to keep an eye on and Yao got on the list in the first few days after being very tryhard and simultaneously arrogant, so he just assumes she’s naturally mean because he never saw the other side of her. But then he starts hearing reviews from his friends who all say she’s their favorite teacher so far and he’s all like “????? Excuse you???” Also yes go get her friendship Aditya hopefully it will mellow you out a little as well “A spirited personality given to debate” YES YES YES! That sounds like such a nice phrase but it’s just code for “loves to argue with me and that’s cool I guess”. The recommendation makes Yao glow (to admissions) despite how much Vietnam thinks it’s bad and also how much bs-ing she thought she did. Admissions officers think Yao’s amazing and contributes greatly to the classroom environment and Vietnam is like “yeah, in a way, as long as you don’t mind someone who thinks every word you say is somehow wrong and will fight you to prove it lol. just take him, I’m trying to get rid of him”

Since there’s essays involved I’m assuming she teaches either history or literature? Kinda on the fence because I feel like she’d be good at giving a no-nonsense version of history filled with interesting details and prompts that make you think (and also hosts monthly debates on controversial issues), but I also want Yao to be as un-confident as possible in his abilities in her class, and I feel like he would be less comfortable/sure of his answers and thoughts in a lit class than a history one. I’m not sure though

#the ancients elementary #musings #luyous #aph china #side note i love how we're literally penpaling over the internet. both of us take a few days to process the ask and then respond and i find #it hilarious and amazing. thanks bones lol <3 :)#to process the ask/reply*#also you have no idea how much i was laughing reading this so thank you for that too 😂#hws china #aph vietnam #hws vietnam #hetalia #hws #aph #nyo china #fem china #headcanon musings #ask musings #answered

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jewelrystoresnearme · 3 years ago

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What is Tungsten Jewelry?

What Is Tungsten Jewelry? And What Is Tungsten Carbide Jewelry?

Tungsten, also known as wolfram, refers to the chemical element, the metal itself. On the periodic table, tungsten is numbered 74 and is known for its hardness, durability, high melting point, high density and is somewhat rare. It is dark gray in color and known for being very difficult to work with. Tungsten is very brittle and not very malleable, making it hard to form into rings or other jewelry designs. As a result, it is often compounded into alloys. Tungsten carbide jewelry is created from an alloy of 80% elemental Tungsten and 20% Carbon alloyed with other metals. Tungsten is exceptionally strong, hypoallergenic, highly scratch-resistant, and tarnish-resistant with a substantial feel in weight.

Tungsten Carbide Jewelry Vs Tungsten Jewelry

The biggest and most important difference between them is that tungsten refers to the individual metal, whereas tungsten carbide is an alloy of tungsten and predominantly carbon, although nickel and titanium are among the other metals that might be used. Some websites and jewelers will use the two interchangeably. In general, Tungsten jewelry is just tungsten carbide jewelry.

Tungsten Jewelry Pros and Cons

Advantages Of Tungsten Jewelry

Tungsten carbide is the most scratch-resistant metal known to man.

Tungsten carbide jewelry is affordable and has a nice weight to it, similar to gold and platinum.

Tungsten rings are quick and easy to remove from your finger in case of a medical emergency — easier than gold.

Tungsten does not bend out of shape due to its hardness, so in an accident, the ring will not become deformed and injure your finger further.

People with allergies to gold jewelry can wear tungsten jewelry because it is naturally hypoallergenic.

Tungsten wedding bands come in a natural gunmetal grey color, but they can be plated in black, white, or even gold colors.

Disadvantages Of Tungsten Jewelry

Just like a diamond, tungsten is very scratch resistant and will not bend out of shape, but it will break if enough shock or pressure is applied to it.

Reputable jewelers and manufacturers will offer a lifetime warranty that covers this by providing a replacement ring in case of accidental breakage.

Due to their hardness, tungsten rings cannot be resized.

Reputable jewelers and manufacturers should provide a lifetime sizing policy to provide for ring size exchanges when your finger size changes.

Tungsten carbide is not easily turned back into cash. Gold is traded on the world’s commodities markets and is very liquid. This means anyone can change gold into cash or gold is just like cash.

Tungsten is not traded and easily valued, so if you want to pawn it someday, that will be difficult.

Tungsten RingsWhat Is A Tungsten Ring？

Tungsten carbide rings are made from the chemical compound tungsten and carbon atoms. Tungsten rings have become a popular ring of choice because of their hardness. It is much harder than diamonds and solid gold rings. It also is 10 times less likely to scratch than any other ring.

Mens Wedding Bands

Black Tungsten Wedding Rings For Men

Tungsten Wedding Bands come in many different colors and styles. Some unique styles include; comfort fit rings, two-toned rings, channel set Diamond Tungsten Bands. They also can be found in three different finishes; satin, matted or brushed finish.

Among them, Black is an excellent color choice for a Men’s Wedding Band. Black Tungsten Carbide results from Tungsten Carbides’ extreme hardness, which is the perfect base metal for physical vapor deposition.

This is the special process from which the exterior of the ring can be permanently changed. This creates a rich, luxurious Black color.

Black Tungsten rings are bold and symbolize strength, courage, and conviction. Black Wedding Bands, along with any other type of Wedding Bands symbolizes a married couple’s commitment to each other a strong bond, and everlasting love for each other.

Tungsten Rings Price And Value

How Much Do Tungsten Carbide Rings Cost?

For retailers or individual consumers, most quality tungsten rings are priced at over $50 dollars — if you are looking for a ring that is priced under $50 dollars then stainless steel or titanium bands may be a better option.

How Much Is A Tungsten Carbide Ring Worth?

Different price of the tungsten ring value introduction

Tungsten Rings Price (Dollars)Suitable Crowd/Application ScenesTungsten Rings Quality$5WholesalerThe best China jewelry manufacturer will provide you with tungsten rings of high quality and low price within your budget.$20 — $30for a daily outfit/for daily useMost of the tungsten rings are made with jewelry grade tungsten (not industrial grade), so, you got no problem with the tungsten rings. The rings will not tarnish or blacken your fingers.$50-$60As a gift or an important ceremony giftThe seller provides a lifetime warranty for size exchange and any. If your tungsten ring is broken( the chance is slim, but it could happen) or the wrong size, you can get a free replacement. You just can contact the seller at any time.$190-$600As a wedding bandVery unique and exclusive design; Better craftsmanship; 45-day Customer Satisfaction Money-back Guarantee; Lifetime Ring Replacement Warranty; Lifetime Ring Sizing Warranty.Different prices of the tungsten ring value introduction

Why Do Tungsten Rings Vary in Price?

Main Difference Between Cheap and Expensive Tungsten Rings

Cheap tungsten rings made with Cobalt ( Industrial Grade)-Bad; Expensive Tungsten rings Made with Nickel ( Jewelry Grade)-Good

Cheaper tungsten rings made with cobalt, cobalt is a cheaper filler some ring factories use that to make tungsten rings. So, the tungsten is not jewelry grade, only reaches the industrial grade. Cheaper tungsten rings with cobalt( industrial grade) will tarnish. It will make your finger gray or black. Expensive Tungsten rings Made with Nickel( jewelry grade) Jewelry grade tungsten will NEVER tarnish or haze. So you can enjoy your rings for a long time The tungsten rings with cobalt or nickles may look the same you saw at a ring store or online. But, industrial tungsten rings would take on a dark cast and might have discolored in places after 3–6 months. Industrial tungsten is awesome for other applications, but for fashion jewelry? It isn’t a good choice. Jewelry-grade tungsten carbide rings with nickel will retain their original look and luster for a long time. Nickel might irritate your skin, but the amount of nickel in tungsten alloy is less than 1%. This means that unless you have a severe allergy to it, you wouldn’t even know that it was in there. Cobalt is the only aspect that makes it tarnish. You need something that is jewelry grade, not industrial grade. Jewelry-grade tungsten will NEVER tarnish or haze. Tungsten HAS to be an alloy, as it is far too brittle by itself. Find one with no cobalt, and you should enjoy the piece forever.

The Cost of Selling Tungsten Rings

As far as I know, 80% of tungsten rings on the market are manufactured in China. The tungsten carbide rings manufactured in the USA would cost more than rings made in China, in other words, manufacturing costs are much higher in the USA. They sell for a higher price due to the cost, such a store location, advertising cost, and other costs.

Short Time Warranty/Guarantee VS Lifetime Warranty

Suppose that you purchase a cheaper tungsten ring, but your ring breaks( the chance is slim, but could happen), the time could be a month or a year, or the plating wears off( it could happen), or any bad things that may happen, even you get the best quality of the ring. Can you return the ring? Is there someone you can call for help? Is there some warranty or guarantee? But, if you buy an expensive tungsten ring, you will get a lifetime warranty, you can replace a new one if you break it or your finger grows bigger. You have the right to replace a new tungsten ring for free.

Conclusion: The true value of a tungsten ring depends on how you use it or depends on what kind of services you want to get.

How to Tell if a Ring is a Real Tungsten?

Density Identification Method-Judge from Weight

Today Churinga will tell you some great ways to test the ring. Tungsten is a dense metal and its density is much higher than titanium, stainless steel, or other alloy rings. The very texture when wearing, also in heaving metal feeling. The weight of men’s tungsten bands is about 14g-22g. But, if you feel your tungsten ring is quite lightweight, it might be a fake tungsten ring. We used 3 same-size rings made with different metals. Here are the results.

The first one is made of stainless steel. The weight is: 4.78g

The second one is made of alloy. It is the biggest. The weight is 6.71

The third one is made of jewelry grade-tungsten. The weight is 17.24g

As you can see, rings made of tungsten carbide are much heavier than rings made of other metals. This is a very great way.

Judge from Hardness

The hardness of tungsten is between 8 and 9M( This is the international Mohs hardness standard), close to Natural diamonds( it is10 M).3 times harder than gold, 4 times harder than titanium, and 5 times harder than stainless steel.

Because of their hardness, so the tungsten rings are hardly be scratched. Only the diamond can scratch the tungsten.

Judge from Appearance

In this part, I am going to teach you how to buy a real tungsten ring by its appearance. The real tungsten carbide ring is cold silver in color. ( like a mirror, the effect of the polished surface) But after the polishing process, the tungsten ring has amazing luster and gloss, which shines as a natural diamond does. Moreover, the real tungsten ring is very smooth and flawless.

If the ring surface is a little bit dim or dark, it must not be a real tungsten ring.

Judge by Time

A real tungsten ring will not tarnish or fade and it maintains as polished as new for a long time. (The polish of a real tungsten ring is supposed to last 30 years or more, if you start to notice scratches on it then it is likely not tungsten carbide.)

Why? The tungsten carbide ring is very resistant to wear and corrosion. Daily wearing will not produce oxidation, fading, or skin allergy. If your tungsten rings blacken your finger, you probably get a fake tungsten ring or you might get a tungsten ring made with cobalt.

GradeFsss （μm）O (%) does not exceedWC101.01～1.400.15WC141.41~1.800.10WC181.81~2.400.10WC242.41~3.000.08WC303.01~4.000.08WC404.01~5.000.08WC505.01~7.000.05WC707.01~10.000.05WC10010.01~14.000.05WC14014.01~20.000.05WC20020.01~26.000.05The particle size of tungsten carbide powder

How To Clean Tungsten Rings?

To clean tungsten carbide jewelry, use a solution of warm water and detergent-free soap with a soft cloth. When not worn, store your tungsten pieces in soft cloth bags or the original box to protect them from the elements of daily exposure.

#tungsten jewelry

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