#you didnt even actually know about until your late twenties.

[snekdood]

really funny my abusive ex engages in invalidating my identity, especially since thats what they accuse me of doing to them. its almost like you made that up and just wanted an excuse to invalidate me.

[compacflt]

wrt your answer regarding IceMav’s overall perception of women, and how they were both unfortunately, products of their times/military backgrounds: this is a question I asked myself all the time, while reading WWGATTAI — CAN they really only have a truly equal relationship with another man? Back in chapter 1, when Ice was so deep in denial about himself and his sexuality, that he wouldn’t know what (or who) he wanted, even if it rode up-to him on a freight train, and knocked him flat out on his ass, his idea of what he thinks makes sense for him is: a simple woman who won’t ask too many questions, who will wait up for him until his ship comes home, who will purse her lips when he tells her of the violence he’s witnessed but won’t pry, who will wash and dry his uniform for him and kiss him at the sound of Reveille in the morning. ‘Cause, in his own words: Complicated women lead to complicated problems, long arguments, late nights, philosophy discussions, plans for the future.

Now, maybe it’s telling, maybe it’s not, but the closest Ice gets to semi-serious relationship with a woman, is with a PhD candidate: who doesn’t seem to fit into his very-juvenile ideal of a ‘simple’ woman, and the person he ends up choosing over her is Mav: who is a man ofc, but at the same time, is ‘simple’ in the sense that he doesn’t ask too many (or any) questions, does wait up for Ice till his ship comes home (even if Ice doesn’t explicitly want him to), probably has little interest in late-night philosophy discussions, and absolutely-zero expectations for their future. This combined with the fact that Ice confides in Jake, telling him that Mav’s the only person he’s ever been in love with, made me wonder whether Mav’s ‘simplicity’ (LOL), was a part of the reason why Ice loved him, and whether there was a sliver of a chance that maybe, Ice did know himself just a little bit, back when he was in his mid-twenties? In Debriefing, Mav thinks to himself, that he’s slept with a lotta guys, and he’s slept with a lotta girls, and maybe, there was a 50-50 chance who he ended up with. But maybe, for Ice, it was always meant to be Mav—regardless of how many others he slept with. I mean, Mav’s clearly not washing and drying any uniforms for Ice, but he’s probably kissing him at the sound of Reveille in the morning?

lol i literally never thought of it like that but you’re so right!!! in my head it’s not exactly “ice is in love with maverick BECAUSE he doesn’t ask questions” it’s more like “maverick not asking questions ALLOWS ice to be in love with him.”

I really have spent an EXORBITANT amount of time thinking about possible moments in the story they could have talked about it—moments when they could’ve chosen not to “waste time,” depending on how you look at it, and I cannot see any foot in the door that isnt maverick literally dying & coming back from the dead. Like—the most likely moment would’ve been when they hugged each other ~halfway through debriefing when mavericks like ice always leaves—i think maverick (if he were feeling forgiving enough) could’ve whispered I love you, and it wouldn’t have gone TERRIBLY, but I literally cannot imagine ice’s response. “Ok.” Doesn’t know what to do with himself. “Uh. I, uh. Can’t, really, uh…” until mavericks like “don’t worry about it…” & who knows what happens after that.

I think the ONLY way i have come up with that actually works is—maverick nonchalantly asking anytime, “do you like me? Like, as a person. I know some people don’t like me. I don’t know. Am I a likable person? I know we’re stuck together but. Do you actually like me?” And ice going, “yeah, of course i like you! :) i didnt used to… u used to be a fuckin twerp… but…” blabbering on about how “You have no idea how respected you are… You walk into a room & everyone’s faces light up… ur so much FUN… ur the life of every party… it used to make me jealous but now it just makes me so proud to say yes i used to fly with maverick Mitchell, yes im friends with him, yes i know him… :)))” like, the truth! & then, kind of insecure, “i know some people don’t like ME…. too cold hearted etc… idk as my best friend how do you feel about ME…” & maverick goes “come on. You know how I feel about you.” and ice is like… “oh! you love me!” & “oh shit.” More complicated than that obviously but that’s literally the only way ive come up with (besides TGM doing the work for me and killing Maverick off so Ice realizes he can’t live without him) that doesn’t end with ice going “uh. uh. Well we can’t. I don’t know how to respond to that. Uh. We can’t be in a relationship because I’m not.” And maverick going “yes you are!” And ice saying “fuck you, navy first!” and leaving. (The possibility that would’ve happened if mav wanted to ask questions. my Ice has to figure it out for himself.)

idk if this is really answering ur ask. But—i love that reading wrt mavs “simplicity” and the quote from ch 1. i literally wasn’t thinking about it that way at all (like I wasn’t thinking period when i wrote it) but it makes me feel smarter than i am so thank you

[cartoonemotion]

sofa. I'm trying to think of another question but im not sure. would you list some of your top 10 favorite cartoons of all time

DAMN ANOTHER TOUGHIE.. ive watched a lot of cartoons... i feel like its easy just to list more current ones/cartoons ive very recently watched but im gonna try real hard not to do that. so in no particular order:

adventure time: probably an obvious choice to ppl who know me personally. im pretty sure ive said this before but i quite literally grew up with this show, like i watched the pilot on nicktoons when i was like 9 and freaked out when the first episode of the actual show aired, and ive still regularly and enthusiastically kept up with it ever since, even to this day. i have to be honest and say the inclusions of distant lands and fionna and cake had me worried in a very cynical way about wringing the franchise dry or it succumbing to nostalgia bait but ive been happy to have had those fears handily dispelled every time. it makes me really happy to see that the cast and crew that have stuck with it just seem so genuinely excited to continue to tell new stories in the expanded universe and explore the land of ooo and new characters who live there, i think thats a good way to keep an ongoing series with spinoffs or limited series or what have you to keep from getting stale

ducktales 2017: once again anybody who knows me personally or follows this blog knows why this is on the list. i. fucking. love. ducktales 2017. ive said a million times before that i think its like a perfect encapsulation of what a reboot should be, something that obviously has a lot of love and respect for the original that its rebooting, but isn't afraid to incorporate entirely new ideas or deviate from pre-established "rules" or roles of the previous installments/versions of the characters and story, so on and so forth. i think it blends the family sitcom and action adventure elements really well together, its got a great ensemble of charming characters, i think most of the over-arching storylines it sets up are executed really well and it has a lot of fun one-off stories. its not perfect but its damn near close, in my opinion. also as much as i hate disney the corporate i do still love donald duck hes the best legacy disney character ok american moment over

the secret saturdays: i was a HUGE fan of the show as it was coming out but didnt remember much of it as i got older until i rewatched it, whereupon i found out just how much it fucking holds up, oh my g0d. i genuinely cannot believe its not more popular considering its premise, and again i think the story and character writing really hold up !!!!!! it has fantastic twists, you are immediately endeared not just to the saturday family but a lot of the other supporting characters, its overreaching storyline is executed so so well especially when you consider it was unfortunately gutted and prematurely cancelled by CN. some parts of it may be a little dated but again i think for the years it was developed and coming out there are some elements that were kind of ahead of the curve. if you havent watched the secret saturdays PLEEEASE please do !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! im fucking begging you. its good

ben 10: i think ben 10 might be my white whale. for important context i was scared to death of the original series as it was actively coming out when i was like, 6 years old, only to get extremely invested in it and the "original universe" franchise in like late middle school/early high school, and then they fucking got my ass AGAIN as a current twenty-something. every time i think im out they fucking pull me right back in. i know its a dumb meat headed action cartoon for little children but the wasted potential in this franchise is nothing short of insane, i wouldnt be saying this if they didnt literally bring up certain threads and ideas in the show only to be like, actually who gives a fuck ! that being said its a premise that sticks with you forever. to quote that one post

justice league unlimited: i dont post much about superhero cartoons on here but make no mistake they were hugely influential to me when i was a kid, my dad was and still is a huge marvel nerd but unfortunately for marvel (and my dad) their cartoon game was (and honestly, still kind of is) just aaaaabsolute trash, except for the ones about the x-men, but thats a ramble for another day. it wont surprise you to know a lot of the writing staff for the justice league and justice league unlimited cartoons would go on to work on the original ben 10 continuity so they have a lot of the same issues, but i would be lying if i didnt say jlu had a huge effect on my little baby brain, arguably maybe more than ben 10. why unlimited and not the original justice league cartoon of the aughts you ask ? well because jlu is hornier, and also booster gold is there

discovery kids favorites: this is technically cheating cuz its 3 cartoons, BUT ! i dont remember them enough on their own to put any one above the other. as a kid my mom hated cartoons (and honestly most tv programming aimed at children) and hated me and my sisters watching them in the room with her, or in general, for more than like 15 minutes a day, unless they were educational, and so i felt extremely clever for exploiting the discovery kids loophole bc they were cartoons made to teach you stuff. the ones i remember the most vividly and fondly were tutenstein, grossology, and growing up creepie, which i feel like honestly. says a lot about me. i should rewatch those sometime.

samurai jack: i will not argue against the fact that genndy tartakovsky is a tremendously talented individual, and a lot of his work has been extremely inspirational to me, that being said, if given the chance, i would drop an anvil on his head. i probably shouldnt say that but i cant express to you how much a lot of his work frustrates me and samurai jack really takes the cake. i cant even talk about season 5 but a lot of stuff in seasons 1-4 has problems that i feel like should be addressed, THAT BEING SAID, in spite of it all, i still fucking love samurai jack. i have fond memories of it from when i was a kid and during the collective resurgence it had as the 5th season was coming out, i cant argue that it doesnt have a lot going for it or pretend that again it isnt responsible for a lot of my own personal artistic inspirations.

class of 3000: I KNOW IVE BEEN POSTING ABOUT THIS A LOT LATELY BUT ITS NOT JUST CUZ OF THAT ! this last rewatch hasnt been my first, ive genuinely brought up this show to a lot of people both online and irl in the desperate hope other people remembered it because it was one of my absolute favorites as a kid and i remember the visceral feeling of how unfair it felt when i found out at like age 9 that it had been cancelled and there would never be another episode of it again. i think it just came into my life at the right place at the same time, i was both getting really into drawing and coming up with little stories myself and so the art and the cast really drew me in, and i had a music teacher at the time who was really into jazz and blues music and seeing that reflected in a cartoon i was watching was so cool :v] and again i just think so much of it holds up. its a gem i dont think should be hidden

spongebob (but only the first four seasons and the movie): im almost 25 so this is supremely unoriginal. its not that i think the newer/newest stuff is all bad its just that everybody gets one thing to be unreasonably blinded by nostalgia about and for me its early spongebob. the userbase on here is aging you all know what im talking about i dont need to explain this pick

the owl house: i really like the owl house for what it is ! its not for everybody, i know people tend to think it kind of skews towards "children's cartoon that is targeted for adults who still watch that stuff" but i think thats kind of cynical and not very generous to the cast and crew, i know the show got pitched around a bit before disney picked up on it but i dont think its fair to exclude the care and thought that went into re-adapting it for a broader and therefore younger audience, and the care that went into it in general ! i like its take on the fantasy setting, both the main and minor cast clearly have a lot of love and thought put into them, genuinely i think luz is maybe one of my favorite cartoon protagonists ever, the messaging it tries to get across i think comes from a personal place and is thus very earnest and sweet, and much like the secret saturdays i think its able to accomplish a lot in the limited time it was given. the whole show just feels like a labor of love to me and i just like the way that comes through !

since this was hard here are some honorable mentions:

batman the brave and the bold: wouldnt be fair to bring up a superhero cartoon and not mention this. i was pretty obsessed with this rendition of batman as a kid, unsurprising since i unironically loved the joel schumacher batman & robin movie and liked to catch the adam west batman re-runs they would play at the wee hours of the morning when i couldnt sleep, i think brave and the bold channels both of those a lot, its deeply stupid and kind of sucks in a lot of areas but thats also kind of part of the charm

3below: so i watched the first season of this before ever watching trollhunters, and while i recognize trollhunters is on a lot of levels the superior tales of arcadia cartoon i just like 3below the best. the stakes of trollhunters can get a little exhausting and i think 3below lets itself get a bit more goofy, plus its about a little group of "fish out of water" aliens !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i love fish out of water stories AND aliens, what do you want me to do

fangbone!: real sofa fans remember my fangbone phase. ongoing actually cuz hes still my icon. its one of those cheaply produced flash canadian cartoons but from my perspective i think it was made by people who actually put more effort than was expected of them, which i like, and again its another fish out of water story, and the graphic novel its based on is also very cute

dwampyverse cartoons: phineas and ferb and milo murphy's law mostly ! pnf was very impactful on me as a kid and i loved the first season of mml. i think theyve reached a kind of oversaturation maybe ? that has made me juuust a little bit jaded about them, but i cant pretend like i still dont hold plenty of fondness for em in my heart

unicorn warriors eternal: see the above points about genndy tartakovsky in the samurai jack bulletpoint. the premise is a really cool one and the first season managed to be really good in ways i didnt think it would be but theres still the second season, so im scared. i hope its good. ive got the clown make up ready to go just in case though.

lastman: don't watch lastman. we all have our own cross to bear, alright, and this one's mine. i watched lastman, so you don't even have to worry about it, i mean i haven't finished the second season yet so i will, so don't watch lastman, please. im telling you as your friend, don't watch lastman. we all make mistakes sometimes, like for example, i watched lastman, both in french and english. if you watch lastman than my sacrifices will have been for nothing. don't watch it, and don't look up the comic either. im completely serious.

big city greens: im very picky about sitcoms and sitcom-type faire, but big city greens takes i think a very flat and tbh cynical gimmick and explores it with a lot of heartfelt earnestness, its hard not to be charmed by it. just pure comfort food tv to me.

danger & eggs: fun fact !!!!!! the cartoon that made me decide to make this sideblog !!! i keep meaning to revisit it, i would recommend checking it out if you havent before, both its premise and humor is very idiosyncratic and sweet to me, again its just another show that feels like it came very a place very near and dear to the creator's heart and i just always love to see that. if i had kids of my own which i never will i would definitely show it to them

[will-pilled]

i used to be a hardcore body positive “activist”. i used to buy in so heavily (pun intended) to the health at any size bullshit. i’ve suffered from restrictive eating disorders since i was around 13, got to my lowest weight at 16 and then discovered “body positivity”. i think i gained about 80 pounds between my 16th and 17th birthday. 🤮 i stayed obese throughout my late teens and early twenties because i truly believed it was ok.

it wasn’t until finally this past year, age 23, that i was finally able to undo all of that bullshit. i lost 100 lbs in 7 months. that’s how huge i had gotten — the weight just started falling off the moment i started giving a shit and putting in actual effort. i started working out multiple times a week, med cal restriction / high protein on work out days and low cal / carb / fat on sedentary days. i actually started eating what my body needed (smaller portions and actual nutrients) instead of the junk it constantly wanted. and it fucking worked. the way all the other fatties said it couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t. 🥱

i never truly felt confident while preaching body positivity. felt like shit all the time. i was essentially just binging and giving into literally any craving i had, emotional eating all the time, and claiming to love myself while doing it. but the truth is i DIDNT. i was miserable, and ashamed, and unhappy. i can’t take any of the fat acceptance bs seriously as someone who has been through it — i see right through it. you can smile and shake your ass on tiktok and claim to love being big but i know that misery firsthand. it’s physical and emotional warfare and there’s nothing empowering about it. at the end of the day you know the way the ppl around you see you even if they claim to be body positive too. it’s gross, it’s uncomfortable, it’s inconvenient! there’s nothing fun or freeing about it. i have plenty of work left to do but i’m so far from where i started and i feel so free now compared to this time last year when i was just starting my journey of unlearning

just wanted to share. there is always hope no matter how big someone has gotten and how brainwashed by ~fat liberation~ they currently are. it doesn’t have to be this way!

[theygotlost]

TWENTY. YEARS. OF RATCHET AND CLANK. LOOKS AT YOU WITH BLOODSHOT EYES. i really wish i had the foresight to draw something for the anniversary but it just didnt happen. i think i still will draw something but it will just be late and thats ok. anyway I would like to share MY experience with the series ❤

my first ever rac game was tools of destruction. my dad brought it home one day and i had no idea what it was, I dont think HE knew what it was, I have no idea why he bought it. we never had a ps2, only a ps3, so nobody in my family had ever played the og trilogy. I didnt even know there were earlier games in the series for several more years. idk exactly how old I was, maybe 8 or 9, so this was a few years after tod's release (2009-10??). I watched my dad play it, and I thought it was the most awesome shit ever. I rarely actually played it myself cause I was bad at video games but I had such a huge crush on ratchet i wanted him to be my catboy bf so bad (some things never change 😑....) but my little brother became OBSESSED with it and played it over and over and over. he was only like 6 so he couldnt even read and didnt know the actual title of the game so he just called it "THE ROBOT GAME". i remember being so fucking confused and pissed off by the ending LOL. we had quest for booty pretty shortly after that and played that a million times too. i dont even think i registered that it was a separate game from tod and tbh i still think of it as tod dlc.

next was the acit demo, which again we played a million times, until finally our parents got us the full game (again a few years after release so probably around 2011-12). I distinctly remember my brother and i thought qwarks line in the opening cutscene "space. its big. so big in fact, that if you lost your car keys in it, they would be almost impossible to find" was the funniest shit ever and we quoted it constantly.

(and when I say "we played", i mostly mean i watched my le epic gamer brother play while I pissed him off with my backseat driving the entire time. sometimes this ended in physical violence.)

then we got all4one, and i remember my brother and I begging our dad and a family friend to play it with us so we would have a full party. our friend was like "idk guys, this is kinda wacky and quirky 🤨". I always insisted on playing as ratchet cause he was my specialest little boy and my brother mained nefarious. he LOVED nefarious he would run around screaming ANNIHILATE HIM!!!!!!!!!!

our parents got my brother into the nexus for christmas 2013, but at that point i had kind of lost interest and didnt care so i didnt play it (or just watch him play it like i did most of the time). for the next several years I really didnt give the series much thought. I might have played some of tod or acit again, i dont remember, but it was just something I used to like as kid.

and then well. spring 2020. I think a lot of people returned to things from their childhood after the pandemic started because all that fear and uncertainty makes you want to return to a seemingly simpler and safer time, especially if you were living away from your family and had to suddenly move back in with them like i did. so during quarantine I replayed all the rac games we had just for kicks, and it reignited my passion for these games and reminded me just how special they were to me. i became so intensely obsessed with them (especially acit). MY HORRIBLE SON DEX WAS BORN. (dexo is 2 years old now awwwwwwwwww) and ciro lent me his copy of the og trilogy ps3 port and I played the original games for the first ever time. and as luck would have it, rift apart was announced at e3 during that same period. kind of insane to think about. there was no way I was gonna get a ps5 so I just watch other peoples playthroughs 1 million times. i still wanna play it so bad 😭

ratchet and clank isnt even a game series its like a brother to me. its everything. its so important. learn your herstory. for some reason I was under the impression for a long time that rac was a super mainstream series that everyone has played. that a playstation and a copy of acit was made free for all americans by the president. but unfortunately the fandom is so so small with barely any active members on tumblr. there was a HUGE surge in content last year cause of rift apart, but 90% of people quickly forgot about it and moved on. i am eternally grateful to my rac mutuals and followers that continue to post and talk about it. o7

[theres-an-impulstor-among-us]

Ok I know your brain is probably on Last Life right now, which is fair, but if you're looking for some new Among Us angst opportunities, consider:

Oxygen failure now kills players if they don't grab a mask in time. Including Impostors.

Take a crewmate. Let's say, Tango, for example. He's not the Sheriff, he can't do anything special, he's just a Crewmate who isn't doing so well this round. He can't seem to get anyone to believe him.

Which is a problem, because Impulse messed up.

He took a second too long standing still while calling the sabotage, and Tango saw his screen. Tango knows he's the Impostor. He knows, and he's completely thrown off, and there's nothing he can do about it, right? They're both stuck in this room alone. He can't call a meeting during a sabotage, he can't act against Impulse because he's not the Sheriff, all he has is himself and Impulse and those two masks left hanging on the wall and -

No. No. He can't do that. Right? But it would be so easy...if he's lucky, Impulse will be too shocked to even kill him before -

It's just a game. It's the only way. And, a small voice in the back of Tango's mind is reluctantly, morbidly proud of thinking of it.

He takes both masks and braces himself to watch Impulse die.

(this can be a writing request if you want it to be but honestly I just thought you would appreciate it, game mechanic angst my beloved)

i really really love the mechanic of imposters being able to die to the O2 sabotage it's amazing

i'm sorry this one is shorter than usual, i just didnt wanna sacrifice quality for the sake of adding more words lol

...

“Hey, Impulse,” says Tango casually, entering the lower deck. “You faking a task?”

Impulse grins at his friend from the task panel. “You know it. Killed anyone lately?”

“Sure have.”

“Nice.”

Tango goes over to the task panel next to Impulse and touches his tablet to it. As his download starts, he discreetly glances over at Impulse. He knows his friend hasn’t quite gotten the hang of disguising his sabotages when he’s imposter; maybe Tango can see something.

What he doesn’t expect is for the O2 alarm to go off the second Impulse taps his screen in the exact place he knows the O2 sabotage button to be.

Tango freezes, his breath catching in his throat. Impulse is an imposter. He has to be. But what can Tango do about it? Emergency meetings can’t be called during sabotages. And nobody would kick Impulse out on such flimsy evidence, if it can even be called that, anyway. The only thing he would be able to do is sheriff Impulse, but he’s not sheriff. He’s just a helpless crewmate.

...or is he?

This new map does offer one solution.

Kicking himself into action, Tango pushes past Impulse and grabs an oxygen mask, securing it over his face so he can breathe. Then he grabs the last one and backs away from Impulse, who stops and stares at him with wide eyes. “Tango, what are you doing?”

“Imposters don’t deserve to live,” Tango says quietly.

Impulse blinks. “I’m not an imposter, Tango. Please give me the mask.”

“No. I know you’re the imposter and I’m not giving you the mask.”

“Tango, c’mon!” Impulse’s voice rises in panic. “E-Even if I WAS the imposter, would you really just leave me to suffocate and die?!”

“YES!” Tango’s voice also rises to match his friend’s. “If I give you the mask, you’re just gonna get voted off anyway! Why not just get you out that much quicker?”

The flashing of the red lights increases in intensity. Twenty seconds left until death.

This makes Impulse desperate and he draws his knife, lowering slightly into an aggressive stance. “Tango. GIVE ME THE MASK.”

Tango clutches the mask tighter and backs up as far as he can, his heart skipping a beat. He wasn’t 100% sure that Impulse is the imposter but now there’s no doubt whatsoever. “No.”

“Give me the mask and I’ll get voted off. You can get me voted off. It doesn’t have to end like this.”

“No it does, cuz I don’t trust that you actually will get voted off. This is the only certain way to get rid of you.” He lifts the mask above his head, despite being well aware that Impulse is taller than him. “If you really want it, come get it.”

He realises only a second later just how bad that decision was.

Encouraged by Tango’s vulnerable stance, Impulse lunges and stabs Tango in the stomach. Letting out a choked scream, Tango drops to the floor, the oxygen mask still clasped tightly in his hand. He fights against Impulse as the latter tries to take the mask from him, using the last of his strength to cling onto it.

Finally, it’s wrenched from his grasp.

But it’s too late.

Impulse’s body hits the ground just a split second later.

Breathing heavily, Tango lets his eyes close, the throbbing pain in his stomach slowly ebbing away as he slips under.

At least his sacrifice won’t be in vain.

[help-i-need-a-cool-username]

Recently saw a tiktok that was like "if you ship [toph and zuko] than you have issues or you see something galaxy brained that i havent" and stumbled upon the concept of aroace Zuko and i concocted this idea ages ago so im posting it now: the epic Toph x Zuko Marriage of Convenience 

Okay what you are all thinking of is book 3 Toph and Zuko, which totally dont have romantic chemistry and with the added age difference is prob why no one ever considers this ship. Four years when you're a teenager is a big difference. Four years when you're in your twenties and beyond isnt that big a deal. So they're adults and they've been friends for years at this point.

You also gotta sit back and look at what they are. Toph is the only child to a very rich and very well known Earth Kingdom family. Her family name in general is huge and carries a lot of weight but you also got her own accomplishments: Master Earthbender, the Creator of Metalbending, the Avatar's Earthbending teacher, and shes a war hero. Thats big. And then you got Zuko, who at this point is the Fire Lord. Zuko himself comes from a prominent Fire Nation family, seeing as he's royalty. He's also descended from a Avatar, but i dont think thats all that well known. Zuko is a Master Firebender, the Avatar's Firebending Teacher, and a war hero. On top of being famous both these people have credibility to fall back on.

So what im leaning into here is not exactly a marriage alliance seeing as the Earth Kingdom has its own royalty but its definitely a political move

Anyways Zuko has a lot on his plate, dismantling his dad's empire and all that. When he's nearing 30 the council is all like "you need to find a bride". Zuko writes up his ex-girlfriends and finds out they're either married or he just cant bring himself to trap someone into a marriage with him after knowing how it destroyed his mom. So he's stuck with no one of his own choosing so the council and high up nobles are trying to fix him up and not-so-subtly set him up with their daughters. Half of Team Avatar comes and visits (lets say Toph, Aang, and Sokka) and witness the behind the scenes of all this. They're having tea with Zuko and two people come in at different times and try to casually talk about the marriage thing. Toph can hear things that happen in the hallways too. Zuko is all "noooooooo guys why is this happening to me" and Sokka probably finds it funny but also a little sucky, and Aang probably hates it because "Zuko should marry for love!". And Toph is all "I know right" because she can totally relate. Her parents were looking for matches for her since she was born, and now that shes visiting again they've started back up again. Her and Zuko start swapping match-making stories ("so i come home and this boy and his father are there and my mom is all like 'Toph have you met __'" "I'm in the throne room for a meeting on road construction and this guy derails the whole thing so he can introduce his niece to me"). Later on after Toph has been listening in on the palace for a few days now and shes starting to really feel sorry for Zuko. Sokka just keeps making jokes until Toph snaps at him. Aang is pretty oblivious and probably spends all day at the market looking for souvenirs to bring home for Katara. And one night while Zuko is up late doing paperwork by candle light Toph stops by because her body cant sleep at night sometimes and they get to talking and Toph jokingly throws out "what if we just married each other? Then everyone will get off both our backs!" and they're laughing and after they've calmed down Zuko has a light bulb moment and he's like "wait, that might not be a bad idea". They spend all night working out the details to their hypothetical wedding and a day later decide to actually go through with it. Theres uproar from the council of course because Zuko didnt choose their pick Toph isnt Fire Nation nobility. And then Zuko starts listing all her family's importance and stuff and the council is forced to admit to themselves its not actually a bad idea. Plus marrying Earth Kingdom would make the Fire Lord more relatable to the colonies where theyre having a lot of problems with people of mixed heritage right now. Sokka and Aang hear rumblings of this because palace servants gossip and they're debating wether or not to believe these rumors when they run into Toph and just ask her and shes all like "yeah we're talking about it" and they boys flip out. Aang still maintains that everyone should marry for love but Toph and Zuko won't budge.

Over in the Earth Kingdom Toph's parents are ecstatic because the only better option Toph could marry was Earth Kingdom royalty. They completely endorse it and only argue to not seem like pushovers and when topics revolving money come up (ex. dowery). The Earth King gets in on this because its too good a opportunity to not capitalize on it. The Earth Kingdom is abuzz because a foreign King is marrying one of their own. Everyone is hyped and Team Avatar are the only ones who find the whole situation weird because to them its not a fairytale its their actual friends.

All-in-all they get married in the Fire Nation and the guest list was awful to make but people from all over the world are there. Toph's mother freaks out the whole time because "what if Toph falls down all those steps!" The wedding is mostly all Fire Nation tradition but Toph wears a Earth Kingdom wedding dress because everything is political now. Toph and Zuko have a relatively fun night and Sokka has the time of his life. And their marriage actually really works out for them because they're friends. They make fun of fancy people and rant to each other in the evenings. Toph is still running metal bending schools but either now they have to come to her or she gets stuck with a Fire Nation security team for like 3 months of the year she spends in the Earth Kingdom and she gets flashbacks to her childhood. And Zuko is sometimes all "i miss my wife" and the servants are all "awwww they're so in love" but the truth is he wants to talk sh*t with her and because shes blind he always has to write letters with the interpreter's opinion/gossip in mind. Toph still sneaks out all the time because shes not giving up her independence willy-nilly and is not above pulling the blind card to get out of things, which irritates Zuko sometimes because that means he has to deal with boring meetings by himself. They gaang visits all the time and by the time Republic City rolls around Toph manages to get herself sent as a "ambassador" (her and Sokka have some fun their shared meetings) and then to stay on to help set up the police force, which is a little dicy since shes representing the Fire Nation but also shes teaching only metalbending so its a controversial thing. This also gives Zuko a excuse to visit Republic City more often so he can see everyone since they settled down there.

[fishoutofcamelot]

It has come to my attention that after all these years I still have not told yall about the Cell City Incident. Well, it’s time to rectify that

Realistically i know this story isnt all that funny, but its probably the only interesting thing that will ever happen to me so let me have this dammit

So! I was 12 years old. My science class was doing the Cell City project. For those of you who don’t know, Cell City is a thing that some schools around the US do where everyone has to make a physical/visual model of a cell. We spent a full month learning about the cell, studying its components, and using class-time to design/construct our models. A full month. Logic dictates that I should have this in the bag, right? 

Well. That’s only if you use your classtime wisely. I, the dumbass I was, had the chronic inability to pay attention in class, and instead spent all my time sitting in the back and watching “Keroro Gunso the Super Movie 5” about fifty times in a row. 

So no. I didn’t work on the my Cell City Model. I hadn’t started it. I didn’t even know the first thing about cells, because I hadnt listened to a single thing my teacher had said for the last month. 

And to make it even worse than that, I didn’t realize this until the night before this very important, grade-defining project was due

So. I panicked for about ten minutes - and then, true to form, procrastinated again. Told myself I could just work on it in the morning. And then rolled over and went to bed, nary a trouble to be seen.

Come morning, the morning this big project was due. I had twenty minutes to eat breakfast, get dressed, and whip together a project that SHOULD have taken me a month to prepare, and also was about a subject i had no knowledge of.

So. I looked up ‘cell anatomy’ on Google, found an old poster-board in the closet, drew a bunch of random shapes and labeled them as various parts of the cell, and then used pink and orange highlighters to color everything in. It was TRASH, and it looked hideous, but it got the job done.

But! I was also worried that everyone else in class would be doing posters too, and if there’s one thing you should know about me its that since birth i have been afflicted with the deeply american need to be Different For The Sake Of Being Different TM. 

So on my half-hour walk to school, I contemplated ways to jazz up my mediocre poster. And you know what I came up with? You wanna know what my tiny, lazy, absolute dumbass past self came up with? 

I had the oh so brilliant idea to just. Tape the poster to my chest. Just take scotch tape and attach it to my body. And  then dance around saying, “Hi! I’m Planty, the magical plant cell that came to life!” Essentially roleplaying as a cell while i tell people about what all my body parts do. 

Yeah. I really did that. The limits of my stupidity know no bounds, but in my defense I was 12 and also an idiot and also pressed for time

So, eventually presentation time rolled around. And when my teacher strolled by my desk and asked me to present to him, I did the shtick. “Hi, I’m Planty the magical plant cell that came to life!” And proceeded to spend three minutes riffing on whatever information I could only vaguely remember learning earlier that morning - because my dumb ass had struck again and neglected to take any actual notes 

At the very end, my teacher paused, wrote down my grade on his little rubric clipboard sheet, and said, “That was very creative. I can really tell you spent a lot of time on this.”

And looking back I realize he was probably being sarcastic, but in the moment? Hearing him compliment the effort I had put into a 20-minute Hail Mary? I absolutely ascended.

I got an A. 

Now here’s where things get tricky. The moment presentations were over, I tore the poster off my body and theatrically ripped it into shreds. But little did I know, my teacher had decided to enter me in for a community outreach presentation night thing, where parents and civilians could come to the school and review everyone’s best projects. 

And he entered me in. And the project I was supposed to present? The Cell City poster. Yknow. The one I had slam-dunked into a trash can in the hopes of getting someone to pay attention to me (no one did, obviously)

But my teachers didnt know that. They just eagerly approached me like “Oh, your science teacher told us all about the Planty thing! We’re all so excited to see it!”

So I lied through my teeth. I told them that I couldn’t remember where I put the poster, but I know I left it in the storage room next to the lab. Which resulted in me being led around the school for a half hour in search of something I already knew full well had been destroyed. Because I had ripped it to shreds. With my bare hands. I even primal-screamed while I did it, too. 

In the end, my history teacher dejectedly lent me his laptop so I could showcase a Prezi I’d allegedly made about Old Growth Forests. I say ‘allegedly’ because in truth no such presentation existed, but I told him it did, and hastily whipped together a Prezi in the five minutes his back was turned. I got good reviews for that presentation too, but thats only because the people reviewing me were parents, and parents know youre supposed to be nice and supportive to kids that arent your own

(That night, my parents asked me how it went. Not wanting them to think I was a total failure, I lied and said I had made a new friend named Sebastian. There was no Sebastian. A month later, they suggested that we invite Sebastian over sometime, to which I hurriedly lied and said he was moving to Wisconsin like tomorrow and I was never gonna see him again. I know for a fact that they probably didn’t buy it, but they never brought it up so neither will I)

To this day I remember almost nothing about cells, and even in college I still pull dumb crap like this. So that’s a big fat ‘no’ on whether I learned my lesson. But my teacher already gave me the A, and I’ve already graduated, so its too late. No take-backsies. 

[randomsevans]

Lover

Steve Roger's x Reader

A/n I might do another version of this . Since it wasnt what I planned for this song but I came out this way anyway . I like the story but I have another one in mind of this song

Remember to send in a song request along with a character ❤

Requested by @donutloverxo

We could leave the Christmas lights up 'til January

This is our place, we make the rules

And there's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you, dear

Have I known you twenty seconds or twenty years?

Its hasn't quite been twenty seconds or twenty year . But long enough for me and steve to finally get our place together. We havnt been here long late August. And our little nest has already seen the change of season quite quickly with as soon as September rolled around the Halloween decorations were up. It didnt take much convincing since steve loved the holiday.

But as 31st of October past and November the 1st came forward I knew my work was cut out of me .

" please stevie . Pretty please " I said looking up wrapped up in his arms on the stairs giving my best puppy dog eyes .

"No . It ain't gonna work " steve shut his eyes shaking his head trying to avoid your eyes

"But .... please "

"No doll . The boxes are going up and nothing it coming down . No Santas or reindeer until the 1st of December " steve said sternly

"But that agesssss a way "I whined like a kid . What can I say I love Christmas well any holiday really

Steve took a deep breath and step away from me . Picking up the box on the floor filled with skulls ,bones and black and orange decor .he began to clime the ladder to the loft whispering to himself "no happening. Not happening. It was literally Halloween yesterday "

Can I go where you go?

Can we always be this close forever and ever?

And ah, take me out, and take me home

You're my, my, my, my lover

As I stood there staring at the ground waiting for steve . I knew he wouldnt let me put the decorations up . I mean it November shops are selling Christmas stuff why cant I put it up ! I'm not waiting a month ! I softly yet firmly stamped my foot like a child . Quickly glancing up to see if steve notice he doesnt like it when I'm a brat . But what do u expect me to be like when I want Christmas and his been a grinch .

Yet I couldn't find it in me to be angry with him . His been so patient he waited months for me to finally agree to a date and then took things slow with me . But when one night randomly in his room he said he wanted a place of our own . I freaked out and avoided him for days until we talked and he said he was happy for to wait for me to make a decision . It didnt take me long tho . I knew steve was the one . He will always be my lover . That's why I dont think I wanted to rush things but to make them perfect . But the thought of a place all mine and steve warned my heart I couldn't wait. I ran into the compand kitchen one day shouting 'yes ' everyone thought we were gonna get married . But no I said yes to a place of our own , where the walls would have our favourite colour and our pictures. Decorations when ever I want . Apparently not

We could let our friends crash in the living room

This is our place, we make the call

And I'm highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you

I've loved you three summers now, honey, but I want 'em all

Its wasnt until a heavy box fell at my feet with a thud that I snapped out of my thoughts looking down untill u saw the red tinsel picked out . I smile creeped on my face. Growing as I turned my head towards steve who was at the bottom of the ladder showing of his muscles as he held a larger box on his shoulder . With a final creek he was at the bottom and turned to face me . He had a frown on his face as he was clearly trying to hid his smile . He left the box on the ground and grabbed you with full force you fell over my own feel and right into his chest . His arms circled around me.

"Let's make one thing clear " Steve slowly said as his blue ocean eyes glance into mine ."this ..." he pointed to the boxes "is only happening ... this early ... because it our first Christmas here "

"Yes sir " I said happily bouncing quite literally up and down with a wide smile on my face untill I was pushed all of a sudden to the wall behind me

"What the h..."

"What did you just call ?" Steve voice was stern yet playful .

"Umm " my throat all of a sudden become very dry

"Now what do you say and say it right " steve soft eyes where a contrast to his voice . It's one of the many things you love about your lover for the last three years . Mainly why you will alway want to be with this man .its always somthing I know alot of people would want and do want . Even after three year and a house with the ring hidden in his drawers I cant help but still feel like he doesn't actually want me because I know everyone falls to his feet so why pick me . But the though went as quickly as it came as I feel Steve's lips getting closet to mine .

"Ummm thank you captain "

Can I go where you go?

Can we always be this close forever and ever?

And ah, take me out, and take me home (forever and ever)

Steve quickly pulled away just before our lips met .

"Come on then " the bastard had a smirk on his face as he looked down at him .I just hummed as a reply pissed of with me . "Dont you want to to decorate " he bend his neck till he was eye level with me and did a playful pout . I quickly nodded and zoomed off to get a box .

You're my, my, my, my lover

Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand?

With every guitar string scar on my hand

I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover

My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue

All's well that ends well to end up with you

Swear to be overdramatic and true to my lover

And you'll save all your dirtiest jokes for me

And at every table, I'll save you a seat, lover

The sky had turned black as me and steve finally sat down with a cup of hot chocolate for both of us . Mine with mashmalls of course. I sighted finally relaxing. I glanced around the room. Seeing the tall tree and the red and gold decor every way.

"Thank you stevie " I spoke softly

"No thank you doll "

My brows raised as I turned to face the handsome super solider "what for ... you spend your day of helping me take down and put decorations "

"That I did love ... but maybe next time you shouldn't let me have so much control over where to put put them " steve said as he leaned toward and took my hot chocolate out of mine hand . He slightly titled his head up with a devilish smirk . I followed his eye light . Untill I saw a mistletoe hanging down . I small chuckle left his lips and he came closer to me. "It is traditionally after all "

A small smirk was now placed on my face as I quickly got up and ran to the kitchen "not quite yet lover boy " I giggled

Can I go where you go?

Can we always be this close forever and ever?

And ah, take me out, and take me home (forever and ever)

You're my, my, my, my

Oh, you're my, my, my, my

Darling, you're my, my, my, my lover

His laughter boomed though out the halls as he slowly made his way towards me . "Ohh really " he cockly said as he point above me once again. My heart sank as I looked up and saw yet another mistletoe.

"Oh you think your so clever dont you?"

"You know it darling " he quickly stood in front of me with his hand framing my face and his lips touched my softly .

I softly sighed as we parted I must of looked pissed or sad or angry because Steve's face quickly become worried. "What's the matter doll . I'll take them down if you.."

"No ...no " I quickly said

"Then what is it ?"he softly asked his hands moving to my waist .

"Can we stay this close forever " I closed my eyes . Untill I heard a chuckle

"Forever and ever my lover , "

"Really " I looked up wide eyed .

"Of couse if you'll have me that is ?" He looked a bit scared untill I placed a small peck on his pout .

"Why wouldn't I? Your my lover "

[foolishlovebugbaby]

ten-thousand miles gone

prologue

summary: they say time heals all wounds, but the one left by han jisung on your heart is one that you still treat tenderly. alternatively; han jisung reappears into your life like a whirlwind, knocking you off of your feet, after leaving you without a goodbye.

genre: angst

warnings: nothing triggering or rated

word count: 6k

note: in my head, the mind map of the way this particular fic ended went in so many directions, but this was very draining to write so i settled on the one that wouldn’t leave you hanging. 

been travelling these wide roads for so long my heart’s been far from you ten-thousand miles gone

In your younger years, life had always seemed to move gradually. Time seemed to be muffled by all the firsts and seconds that came and went like waves, distracting everyone from the reality of growing pains. But college certainly ripped off that bandaid, a cushion no longer supporting your fall into the harsh realities of life. 

Second semester of sophomore year had just ended, so now every college student across the country was making a beeline for the airports and bus stations, with tickets home clasped tightly between hands that were potentially developing carpal tunnel syndrome. Luckily for you, home was two train rides and a taxicab away. But like all your independent adventures of navigating life unhinged, no journey would be complete without twenty-something voicemails from your mother telling you to padlock your luggage and some vague, superstitious advice she read on Facebook. 

[To ma: yes, i didnt forget to pack your scarf and no, im not going to drink ginger and ginseng to ward off bad train spirits.]

[From ma: thank you. suit yourself , you will be bad spirit magnet !]

You chuckle and shove your phone into your pocket, hailing a cab with one hand while the other slings an abnormally large duffle bag over your shoulder. “North-Hill train station please.” You say to the cab driver and shove your luggage into the seat next to you. 

You let out a tired sigh and slump into the pleather seats. Butterflies swarmed your stomach- you always seemed to get them whenever you went back home. Back to the place of some of your greatest and worst memories. Somehow, through the years, the fear of seeing him again in that godforsaken town died down, because the thought of ever being able to see him again at all proved itself to be almost impossible. 

Even a fool knows this, you’re the best thing I’ve got…

You almost choke on your spit when that song comes on the radio. Of course that song had to come on so conveniently in the middle of your trip down melancholy lane. You have half a mind to reach over and turn the radio off, but decide against it when you see the cute old man bobbing his head to it. 

So instead your mind traces its steps back a few moments until all you’re reminded of is him. 

In your head you remember all these great experiences- graduation day, senior prom, camp nights during wintertime and summer carnivals down at the boardwalk. But then your mind tortures you and conjures up these images of what it would’ve been like to have experienced it all with him next to you and suddenly the memories become less fond. It’s treacherous, really, being your own worst enemy. But you learnt the hard way that time slows down for no one. 

When you get to the train station, you move in a daze. The muscle memory of validating your ticket and walking to the platform does all the work for you. And usually that would be a good thing, except now it only allowed you to stay in your head a lot more. It’s funny, really, how everytime you see posters and billboards of his group around you don’t flinch. Not anymore at least. Because you don’t know him anymore, and he’s probably forgotten about you.

Sometimes, you’re convinced he was just a character that your very active imagination conjured up to fill gaps in your life with meaning. But every time you open a picture of the pair of you way back when, you’re met with the reality that he was real. Even if it was just for a short amount of time, he was visible to you. Tangible. And meant galaxies to you. 

[From mama han: cant wait 2 see u back again ! have dinner with us soon xoxo] 

You smile fondly down at your phone once you’re situated in your seat, typing out a reply to the woman you consider a second mom. 

You thanked the universe for still keeping her in your life. Sure, her son would probably be known to you as the biggest jackass to exist for eternity, but she would remain sweet and tender in your heart for longer than that. 

[To mama han: can’t wait to see you too:)]

You don’t confirm your spot at their dinner table, because frankly speaking, the last time you stepped foot in their house was the summer before university when you went to drop off a box of jisung’s things that you found in your room- sweatshirts, t-shirt’s, notes and other miscellaneous items that demanded you remember every miniscule moment spent with him. And since then you’ve found every excuse not to go near that place. You knew it probably hurt the woman whenever you conjured up some arbitrary excuse to not dig in to her incredible cooking, but the finger is to be pointed at Han Jisung and Han Jisung only. Screw him. 

She sometimes tries to address the elephant in the room whenever you do get to talk during her visits at your childhood home. Like It would be great to have you both visit at the same time or Would you like me to call him? I’m sure he’s not busy right now. Yeah, subtle as a gun, but you love her still. 

You’re not one to believe in luck, and if you did you’d actually quite fancy yourself as the most unluckiest person of them all, but you thank the heavens that he’s never been back home the same time as you have. Either that, or you’re just way too good at being further than a 10-mile radius from him. Like last semester break, when you got word from one of your childhood friends that he would be in town so you decided to cancel all your plans of going back home under the guise of going on a group excursion somewhere up north. Obviously, all you did was stay in your dorm and binge watch Gossip Girl for three weeks, but you concluded that anything would be better than having to confront your demons- or demon. Singular.

What would you even say if you saw him? Realistically, not that much. Ideally, you’d destroy him with words. All that pent up anger for him leaving you behind and all the unresolved feelings left to concentrate in an urn you buried deep in yourself exploding like Pandora's box right before him. 5 years passed, and yet you still found it difficult to imagine what a conversation would be like with him again. 

Honestly, you’d tell him to stay a while longer, just so that he’d remain vivid in your memories once he decided to leave again. 

When the taxi cab pulled up in front of your childhood home, you were half asleep and in desperate need of a solid meal. “Thanks, keep the change,” you say groggily as you pass the money to the driver. 

You take a deep breath once you’re out of the car, your duffle bag slung around your frame. It’s been a very long time since you were last here. The months seemed to pile up without you noticing, and now that you think about it, it had been a good whole year that passed. You don’t know where the time went, but you were definitely here now. 

You trudge up to the door, ringing the bell once. “Hey ma,” You say as she squeals and pulls you in for a hug. “I’m glad you’re back in one piece, especially since you ignored my advice.” She says pointedly and ushers you in. “Yeah, well, I guess the train spirits didn’t feel like victimising me today.” She looks at you with her mouth hung open and slaps your arm. 

“Don’t say that!” She’s about to scold you more when your dad enters the living room in his pajama pants. “My daughter finally decides to show her face around here! Send in the doves!” You always knew that you got your flare for drama from your dad. 

“How are you doing sweetie, we missed you.” He gives you a big bear hug and you sigh. “I know, it’s been too long.” 

“There is not enough time in this world to mope around! Now, darling, it’s very late so your father and I are off to bed. There’s some leftovers for you in the toaster oven in case you get hungry,” They both smother you in a hug and you almost suffocate. “We’d love to hear all about your university in the morning. Sleep tight honey.” 

And so you’re left to your own devices. Again. Sighing, you reluctantly head up the stairs and make your way into your old room. A smile finds its place on your lips.

The room is oddly clean- you figured your mother must have emotionally cleaned in here (more than once) during your time away from home. But the walls are still the same ugly navy blue, and your star-print curtains remained planted in front of your windows with planet decorations all over the ceiling to match. Funny. He helped you decorate. Said it made your room feel like the universe was just the two of you.

You didn’t know that what he really meant was that you were his safe place.

You spend a good thirty-minutes unpacking, tinkering around your old room and texting your friends about your trip home. It feels like an eternity passed when you finally decide to listen to your growling stomach and go get something to eat. But you’re picky and nothing in your kitchen seems to entice you enough to devour it, so you swipe your house keys off the kitchen countertop and head to your door. 7-Eleven it is. You’re dressed in a pair of leggings and a pink sweater with fluffy slides to match, but you could care less.

As you walk out of your driveway and head down your street, you pass by his house. The lights are off (of course, since it’s an ungodly 1AM) and it practically looked like a dollhouse. 

You turn your gaze away. 

The walk to the local 7-Eleven is only 5 Hozier tracks away, so you reach there in no time. Your tummy growls when you enter, and you immediately head to the instant section. Hmm, ramen, tteokbokki or pasta, choices choices choices…

You’re too busy pondering to notice the figure clad in sweats and a baseball cap standing frozen at the end of the aisle, gaping like a fish your way. He practically isn’t breathing, but your presence had knocked the wind right out of his chest. 

“Y-Y/n?” He manages to breathe out, and you look around, confused. Did someone just say my name?

Your eyes slowly turn to his figure, and you can barely see who it is from afar. Tan skin can be seen from the collar under his hoodie, and dirty-blonde hair peeks out at the ends of his baseball cap. You feel like you’re seeing things, because you know that baseball cap. You bought it. 

Slowly, your eyes trail over his face, and you feel the air leave your lungs.

Jisung still remembers the last time he saw you. Well, the last time he saw you before he didn’t say goodbye. 

It was a Thursday afternoon, History class had just ended. On the way out, he caught a glimpse of you. He hadn’t seen much of you the entire week, but that was because he was actively trying to avoid you. But there you were, at your locker putting away your books with that puppy-dog expression you always wore whenever you were tired and in need of a good nap. He stood for a few moments, taking you in. Even if your hair was messily up in a bun with a hoodie two sizes too big drowning your frame, he still thought you looked like an absolute dream. He wanted to go up to you and ask you how was calculus? And when you pout and say boring, he would suggest you come over for some hot chocolate and a movie. And you would say yes, with a sleepy, lopsided smile, and his body would feel all warm and fuzzy at the sight of you.

But he doesn’t do any of that. Instead, he leaves his heart by the lockers, and with one last look, he walks away. His jacket does nothing to warm the cold that creeps its way up.

Had he known he wouldn’t get to see you one last time after that, he would’ve watched you for a few seconds longer. Had he known that you would fall sick and stay home from school the day before his flight, he would have told you to take better care of yourself. And had he known that the last time he’d see you would be when you’re drained and tired and down, he would have gone up to you to make you smile, one last time. 

He never stopped recreating pictures of you in his head, fearing the outlines of you would fade. 

Except now, as you stand a mere six feet away, he feels as though you stepped out of his mind and into his world once again. He can see you. You’re there. 

None of the pictures of you that he drew up in his head would ever compare to the way you looked right then. Beautiful, just as he remembered you.

Your name feels like a foreign language when it leaves his lips. 

The air is so thick between the pair of you that it makes everything around him slow down. He sees your eyes move from confusion, to shock, to utter fear and bewilderment, and then to pain. It feels as though a knife impaled his heart when he sees your eyes quiver.

He always loved your eyes. Dark brown, like freshly turned over earth, warmed by the sun. They look at him with sorrow now. 

Your arms drop to your sides and your lips quake, “J-Jisung?” God, he forgot what it was like to hear his name in your voice. He hates that it’s said with so much heartache. 

You run out without thinking twice. 

“Stop, slow down! W-wait!” You hear his voice call out for you, but you continue to run- where? You don’t know. You just wanted to get away. Your feet take you far down the sidewalk, lamp-posts your only source of light at this time of night. 

But you’re not fast enough, and for the first time in a long time, you feel his grip on your arm.

“Let go of me,” You say, your voice already breaking. He breaks with it.

“Y/N listen-” He pants out.

“No, let go of me!” You snatch your arm away from his grip. God, you’re furious. And hurt. And every other emotion there is to feel when you see the person who left you with nothing.

Your raised voice startles the two of you, and you both stand there for a moment, breathless. From running, from shock. 

He doesn’t say anything and just gapes at you, “Well?” You provoke pointedly. “What? Cat got your tongue?” 

“No ‘Hey y/n! How’ve you been? Long time no see since, you know, I abandoned you’.” You say harshly and the knife in his heart twists. 

“I know you’re hurt-” You cut him off.

“Hurt? Hurt? Hurt doesn’t even come close to what I feel, Jisung.” All the words you want to spew get caught in the back of your throat and you fight yourself to keep it together because you don’t want him to see you cry. You don’t want him to catch you vulnerable and raw, because you don’t know if you can trust him with that part of you again.

“Can we please just- can we please just talk?” He begs, and you scoff. “Please?” His eyes plead with you, and you frustratedly run a hand through your hair. 

“So talk.” You cross your arms over your chest and look at anywhere but him. He doesn’t say anything, and each time he tries to, all he does is end up biting his tongue. Where does he even begin?

“I’m sorry,” He croaks out, even though it’s the worst thing to say. 

“Great. All is forgiven.” You’re ruthless, but that’s only because he didn’t show any mercy when he left. 

He searches your eyes, not knowing what he could say to make things right. Or if that was even a possibility anymore. You both stand in silence for a while, and slowly your resolve breaks away.

“Why?” You say, your voice coarse and exhausted. “Why’d you do it? I tortured myself for months- no, years asking myself what I did wrong that caused you to leave me like that. What- was it something I said? Something I did? Please- tell me, I’m begging you,” You’re full-on sobbing now, tears flowing down your face like waves. They twinkle in the warm streetlights and he feels the ground beneath him crumble. The wound he left on your heart was ripped open again, and you couldn’t help but bleed in front of him. “P-please, Jisung. It’s been killing me for so long.” 

Tears leave his eyes, “It wasn’t your fault,” He says softly. 

“Then what was it? Because for all this time I broke myself down, questioning why you left like that. For so long I thought you were mad at me- I thought you became tired of me, bored of having me around. Do you know what that’s like? Tearing yourself apart to find answers you know you can’t answer by yourself?” “Shit, I thought you didn’t need me anymore. Which sucked, because I needed you.” You whisper through ragged breaths and he takes careful steps closer to you. 

“Of course I still needed you- I haven’t stopped needing you, y/n.” His voice is as broken as yours.

“Then why?” Your voice is barely above a whisper and you struggle so hard to not fall to the ground. 

“Do you know what it felt like to wake up one morning, clueless and thinking everything was fine, and then finding out that it was, in fact, not? Do you know what it was like to find out the person you cared for the most up and left you alone and with no explanation- not even a single goodbye? To be desperate to hear his voice again, and wonder to yourself why it was so easy for him to cut you off like that?” He stood right in front of you, so close that he could touch you. 

“I searched for you. I still looked for you in the hallways at school, hoping it was just one of your stupid pranks. I waited in my room for you to climb up to my window again and whisk me away to the park for one of our late-night walks. I called your phone for days, just in case you’d finally get annoyed and pick up. You never did. You never did,” You didn’t notice that your face was in his hands and that he tried so desperately to wipe your tears away, his own streaming down his face.

He sucked in a breath, “I left like that because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get on that plane with you watching. That I would drop everything, all my stupid dreams, to stay in this stupid town for god knows how long with you. Leaving you was the most painful part,” 

“That day I found out I passed the audition- do you remember? You were so happy for me, more happy than I was. The only thing on my mind was the fact that I had to leave everything behind to chase after this dream- to chase after a dream that came true because of you. I wasn’t sure anymore. But you were so sure of me, so ready to see me attain everything we talked about, that the thought of all of that being in vain because of my cowardice ate me up inside. I thought that maybe if I could keep you at a distance- make you mad at me for ignoring you, have you hate me- that it would make it a little easier to let you go of me,” Your lips quiver.

“It wasn’t easy-”

“I know, I know that.” He rests his forehead against yours and squeezes his eyes shut as he hears your soft sobs. “It was so that I wouldn’t have a memory of leaving you behind in an airport. I wasn’t ready to have that image in my mind haunt me. I’ve regretted it everyday. You have to believe me when I say that.” 

“Then why didn’t you call back? Or even send a message?” Your eyes search his for answers as you pull your forehead away from his to get a clearer look.

“I thought you hated me. That you didn’t want anything to do with me anymore.” 

“Bullshit. You thought wrong.” Angrily, you push at his chest with closed fists and shut eyes, “You thought wrong,” You push him away until you’re no longer in his grip. “Let me go,” You whimper when he tries to reach for you again. “That doesn’t justify why you left me like that. I felt like I meant nothing to you for so long. You threw me away like I didn’t mean anything- made me feel like I was insignificant.”

“You meant everything to me!” He shouts out, shocking you into silence. “Don’t you see it?” When you only stare at him in confusion, he sucks in a breath. 

“The mere thought of leaving you was enough for me to think twice. Sitting with you in French class and giggling because we didn’t understand a word, spending so many nights with you in your ridiculous dinosaur onesie, getting to walk around aimlessly until 4am in this godforsaken town as if time wasn’t fleeting- I-,” He runs a hand over his face, frustratedly wiping his tears away. “I wasn’t ready for it to be over. I didn’t want to miss graduation, the day we looked forward to since grade school. I didn’t want to facetime you on prom night while you look so goddamn beautiful, knowing that someone else would be getting to slow dance with you. Knowing that I wouldn’t be there, that I would be missing out- that I would be missing you every goddamn day made me realise I wouldn’t be able to last without you.” 

“Selfishly ripping you apart from me felt like the only option. And it was so cruel, I know that. I’m the selfish asshole,” He takes exactly five steps to stand in front of you, and places a hand tenderly on your cheek. 

“I was selfish because I knew I couldn’t have you. I was in love with you, y/n. So fucking in love and you didn’t even know. And after all this time, I still am.” He says that last sentence in a whisper, and before you know it, his lips are on yours.

His mouth is so warm against yours, so tender, and yet they set your skin on fire. 

You pull away and take two steps back. 

“Y-you don’t get to kiss m-me like that, not again,” You say breathless. You’re reminded of sophomore year, and the kiss in his living room that made you feel weightless and lightheaded.

“Y/n-”

“I think we’ve talked enough for tonight,” Your heart hammers in your chest and the blood rushes to your face so fast that you swear you’re shivering. His eyes are illuminated by the streetlamps and you see them break right before you, defeated. Yours are no different. 

You walk away, choking back sobs.

He doesn’t try to stop you.

It’s 4PM when you decide to get out of bed. 

Your eyes are practically closed shut from your lack of sleep and you don’t bother to brush your hair, or undrape the blanket around your shoulders when you head downstairs. Your parents are sitting in the living room, oblivious and unassuming, but when they see you they almost go into cardiac arrest. 

“What’s wrong?” Your mother asks tentatively, extremely unsure as to why her daughter looked so abnormally disheveled. “Did you know he was going to be back in town?” You croak out, and she sighs. 

“So you saw him.” She states, and your dad pretends to read the newspaper. 

“Why didn’t you tell me ma, you know what happened-”

“Exactly; everyone knows what happened, and everyone knows how ruined you’ve both been because of it. But nothing’s going to change if you keep sweeping it under the rug. Honey, I know you’re hurting,” She rests a hand on your cheek and you close your eyes at the feeling. “But this is your chance to get closure.”

“What if I don’t want it anymore?”

“Oh that’s a load of cow dung. Look at you; you’re a mess.” Gee, thanks mom. 

She bites her lip and pauses for a second, “What if I told you that during your first year in college, the very first semester you were away, he came back? It was the autumn before things took off for him, and he showed up in town looking for you everywhere, not knowing you had left. I felt so bad, but you’re my daughter, and my first instinct was to protect you because I knew that for the first time in a long time, you were enjoying yourself. So I didn’t give him your new number, said your phone was broken, and he was absolutely heartbroken. I regret it slightly, but maybe this time you both can stop being constantly out of step.” 

Your mouth hung agape and your head spun. He looked for me?

“Don’t leave things like this, you need each other.” She gives you a squeeze, and you sigh. 

She was right. Years passed with so many things left unsaid, so much time gone. And as much as you hated to admit it, you were never going to get that time back. It would kill you knowing that you didn’t take the chance to fix things. You were already broken down to your bones, what’s left to chip away?

You uncoil yourself from your blanket and fling it onto the couch, groaning when you realise you’re going to have to face him again. The events that had elapsed last night were still hard to wrap your mind around, and you found yourself wondering if it ever did happen. You could already feel your heart pound at the thought of it. His words float in your mind ceaselessly; so much so that when you step out of your house, you almost miss the slumped figure on your sidewalk.

He gets up at the sound of your door closing. 

His hair was messy, pointing every which way, and the same clothes from earlier were now wrinkled and crimped. His eyes devastated you. They looked worn down and exhausted, much like yours did. 

“Walk with me?” He breathes out, and you nod. 

Seeing him in daylight is different. As you two walk, you become increasingly aware of exactly how much he’s grown. He used to be only a few centimeters taller than you, but now you only reach his chin. Barely. But his skin is the same golden tan and his cheeks remained full. You’re close enough that you can smell his scent- a scent you didn’t know you missed until now. But in retrospect, you just missed him. 

You both reach the small park in the middle of your neighborhood, and you find yourselves under the big oak tree that he had deemed our spot all those years ago. You look up into his eyes, and for a moment you remember what it’s like to feel home again.

“Do you remember the first time we found this place? You were always so terrible at hide and seek.” 

You find yourself smiling at the memory. He hid from you, behind this very tree, for so long that it had felt like you spent hours searching for him. When you finally did find him, you were angry and upset with him with red cheeks to match. 

“That’s only because you were always so good at hiding from me,” There’s ambiguity that you didn’t intend in that statement, which brings you both back to silence. 

After a while, you gather the courage to speak again. “So about that kiss-” He winces and scratches the back of his neck.

“I’m sorry for catching you off-guard like that last night-”

“I’m talking about the one on your birthday, sophomore year.” His lips squeeze into a tight line and his round eyes stare at you dumbfoundedly. 

“I-I always thought you never remembered that. You never brought it up, so I thought that it was just a mistake.” You fiddle with your fingers and gnaw at your bottom lip, feeling the heat creep to the back of your neck. 

“Y/n, it was never a mistake. I wanted to kiss you- and I did- because I was sick of being confused about my feelings for you.” You look back up at him, “I didn’t bring it up because I was too scared of scaring you away with it all.”

“Well you should’ve, so that I wouldn’t be so confused either.” His expression changes, and you didn’t think it was possible, but it becomes even more defeated than it was a few moments ago. He rubs his face with his face with his hands, leaning against the tree. 

He’s about to speak again, but your lips reach his before he gets the chance.

His soft cheeks rest in your hands as you taste him, soaking in the feeling of his warm lips against yours. This time, for the first time, the kiss lasts longer than a few seconds. 

The sensation sends shivers up your arms and down your spine. When he kisses you back, he kisses you with so much fervour that you’re worried you’ll pass out at the feeling. But his arms grip you tightly around your waist to keep you there, with him, firmly in place. Your mind is fuzzy and your heart beats erratically in your chest when he squeezes your waist. Craving him like this is new to you, and yet you can’t help but yearn for more. 

Where words failed you before, you make up for it in slow dances across his lips. 

“It was worth it, right?” Your question comes as a surprise to him. 

Earlier, when the sun had begun to set, the two of you decided that public parks were not exactly the most ideal place to have a heart-to-heart. So you walked back to his place, hands shoved in to the depths of your pockets, but your shoulders brushing against his with every step. 

The two of you laid face to face on his bed, pillow-width apart. 

“Leaving, yes. Hurting you, not at all.” He answers quietly, his hand drawing circles on the small of your back. 

Under his bedroom lights, you take his breath away. His eyes trace over your features, over every dip and bump of the outlines of your face and he hopes that this vision of you never leaves him. He takes in every mole and freckle on your face like it’s the first time he’s seen them, when the reality is that he always used to map out constellations on your cheeks while you slept. He’s afraid that if he blinks, you’ll vanish again, so he tries to keep his gaze steady on yours, unwavering and certain. The way he looks at you sends the butterflies in your stomach into a frenzy.

“I miss you,” You say, your voice meek and he feels his heart break all over again. “I miss you too.” You both speak in present-tense because even though he could touch you, see you, he knew it would take an indefinite amount of time for the pain of losing so many moments to heal. 

He pulls you into him, savouring the feeling of your embrace. Holding you makes him feel at home, and god knows he’s been away for so long. You nestle into the crook of his neck, and his hands rest under your sweater and on supple skin, willing your pain to go away. 

There are an infinite amount of things he wants to tell you, but he figures “I love you.” would suffice for now. 

Life never slowed down. As much as it felt like it had when you spent your days with him again, the days piled up one by one. And soon enough, time caught up. 

Soon enough, you would need to book your train ticket back to the city, because your three-week long semester break would draw to a close. He would have to book a plane ticket back to glitz and glamour, and the pair of you would wind up in the same dilemma that you were in five years ago. 

Only this time, he never leaves your side during your fleeting time together. This time, he tries to make up for all the lost moments within the span of three weeks. He doesn’t let go of any chance to be with you- to hold you, to touch you, to kiss you. He imprints the feeling of his skin on yours so that you never forget. So that he never forgets. Your eyes are cosmic in the moments that you share intimately, and he soaks up every inch of you so that he never forgets what it feels like to share the same breath. 

He listens to all your stories and all your bizarre adventures with a fond smile, because you tell them with such wonder that it makes him feel like he was there. Your voice is the only one he wants in his head. 

When he drops you off at the station, he doesn’t say goodbye. But not like last time; he doesn’t say goodbye because instead he says I’ll see you soon and Get there safely. When he watches the train pull away from the platform, he prays he sees it soon again because it carries his heart with him. 

He likes to imagine that you send him voice notes of your day and how frustrated you are with you OChem professor. That you send him pictures of yourself, and all the cute little cats you come across during your walks to class. That you send him long letters in the mail like the hopeless romantic that you are. In return, he would introduce you to his members- he knows you’d get along with Hyunjin the best, because you both would like to bitch about him while he’s still in the room. He likes the idea of facetiming you whenever you have the time, and getting to say he misses you, even if it’s only through a screen. He likes to imagine that in every lyric he writes, an essence of you treads in his words, because you’re his only muse. And he envisions the day when he’s finally back in the town where time slows, up in your room where the rest of the world crumbles away and your slates are clean once again. 

But for now he watches as the train becomes nothing but a speck in the distance, waiting for it all to play out.

[way-veee]

yān yǔ

rating: m

genre: romance, fluff, comedy, wayv being absolute crackheads

word count: 1.5k +

pairing: reader x wayv

pt. 1

“a week!”

“actually, its two, they’ll be here for one and then you’ll go to china for one.”

“i cant! i have a coverage report due wednesday, not to mention school work. there’s no way i can be following idols around for one-”

“two.”

“two weeks!”

“look y/n, you’re our youngest and best reporter. this could be our breakthrough to younger audiences. please do this for the company.”

you feel guilt pile in your stomach. you knew that you had to do this for them. a news agency having coverage like this could be huge.

“all hotel and travel expenses are covered by us and SM.”

you hold your breath.

“fine, okay, i’ll do it.”

you shake your head as your manager jumps in the air. you cant believe you were going to do something as crazy as this. god you hated celebrities, and now you’re gonna live like one.

“y/n-”

you look up sharply at your manager who is nervously introducing you to wayv’s manager. you spaced out after they started talking about the logistics of your reporting, because you really didnt care.

“yes, its great to meet you sir,”

you bow quickly and give your manager a slight nod as you walk to the car that will take you to wayv. she holds two thumbs up in the air in support. she looks excited but you can tell she’s nervous, you always find a way too mess things up. and she knows that more than most people.

“ so miss, i have your itinerary for our time in osaka, the briefing for bejiing will happen shortly after arrival.”

the uptight manager says more logistical boring things, and you of course tune him out, quickly scanning through the day plan. you weren't looking forward to most of it, even meeting the boys isn’t something you look forward too. you know how snobby celebrities can be, especially to news reporters.

the car pulls up to the big industrial quarters twenty minutes later. you leisurely exit the van into the sunny osaka afternoon, in no rush to meet the idols you had to follow for weeks. you walk into the cool building as a flurry of security checks and beeps go off, scanning everyone. you shake another managers hand as he guides you to the briefing room where the boys are in a meeting.

“i’m so happy for this opportunity. i think the public will really enjoy a look at the boys everyday lives through the eyes of a regular person.”

you’re not sure if he meant that as a backhanded comment, so you try to ignore it.

“yes, i’m also glad that as a reporter, i have such an easy assignment. i expect i wont have much to write about so i look forward to resting.”

he opens up his mouth in shock as you smirk, continuing to walk down the hall. you never were good at keeping quiet.

a door swings open in front of you and you’re now looking into a room full of business men mulling over graphs and data. you were severely under dressed wearing a loose sweater with your hair tied back. but you wouldn’t let that stop you.

“sorry to interrupt,” the same man from the car ride says. “but the reporter for the day in the life project is here.”

he slowly gestures to you as you glide into the room shaking everyone's hands, charming them with a smile as fake as ever.

“i’m so happy to be here, being able to work with such people will be quite and experience.”

you glance over at the boys after you finish reciting the speech you had been practicing in the car. the seven of them sit eerily straight, dressed in suits restricting movement up to their necks. their faces are caked in makeup so expertly and effectively you couldn’t even see their true expressions.

you shudder at the thought of these “boys”. the room stays silent, so you take this as your cue to leave.

you could hear them all laugh after you left and your face reddens at the thought of those men making fun of you.

this was going to be a long two weeks.

“your quarters are going to be right near the boys so you can have quick access to them for any early morning or late night installments. keep in mind that the boys are very busy and need lots of sleep and limited distractions to perform well on the stage.”

you look over at the uptight man that is leading you across the street to your living arrangement. this man probably made choices for wayv that the boys had no say in.

it disgusted you.

but you decided to make today a day where you didnt yell at people, or at least certain people.

the second you got into the room you take a warm shower and sit on the semi hard mattress in your well worn pajamas. you didnt have the energy so late at night to do homework so you watch tv and read one of the books you brought. then you hear a crash outside that startles you.

you didnt know how long you’ve been in here but it must’ve been over two hours. you quietly creep to your door and open it, only to see a yoga ball fly past your door and crash into the plaster wall. then you hear heinous screams and footsteps.

you fling open your door in anger, only to notice wayv staring back at you, mid whatever they were doing.

they looked so different from before that you barely even recognized them. barefaced, with messy hair and baggy pajamas. their body language is so much more relaxed and natural. they look so happy and normal it startles you.

“oh. we’re sorry” kun says just as surprised as you. “we didn’t know anyone else was staying here.”

you stare at them open mouthed. “were you guys just playing… with yoga balls?”

kun’s eyes shift over to a messy utility room filled with gym equipment.

“we call it zhuā zhù, sǐ, “ henderey says excitedly getting up off the ground from where yangyang had pinned him, “it means.”

“catch or die?”

you respond, confused on why seven grown men would throw yoga balls around while tackling each other to the ground.

they’re confused on why you look so upset and mad.

“you know chinese?”

henderey responds even more shocked then before. you shake your head slowly.

it stays silent for a while until kun ushers to their quarters and says,

“well we should get going, we have a busy schedule tomorrow-”

“but we have to do the finals still!” you hear yangyang whisper into the leaders ear.

lucas then proceeds to punch yangyang in the lower back. that shuts him up really fast.

“umm yes sure, i’ll see you guys tomorrow then,” you say before closing your door to one of the weirdest displays you’ve seen so far.

how could the boys switch from being so manufactured to so normal? it scared you and made you mad. you have no idea how you’re gonna write a report on wayv without making SM look bad.

you didnt worry about it for long though, because a well deserved sleep washes over you. you would’t think about that until far into tomorrow.

the boys decided not to sleep just yet, instead they stayed up discussing the weird female reporter that would be following them around for two weeks.

“why do you think she was so mad at us?” yangyang questions.

“mad? that was just disgust.” xiaojun quips back.

“maybe she was just overwhelmed,”

kun offers, though the boys don’t believe that and they keep bickering about you.

“how is she a reporter? she looks like she hasn’t even graduated yet!”

“yangyang you haven’t either!”

winwin says while punching yangyang in the shoulder. yangyang growls in response and tries to grab winwin until kun pulls them apart.

“she might be  acting weird because we’re famous,” ten says, easily making his conspiracy seem like the truth.

“she could be in love with us, or a super fan. maybe she’s never been around famous people before!”

they talk for a while longer, discussing the anomaly that is you. but soon they also fall asleep too, tired from today’s advertising meeting.

neither you nor the boys knew how tomorrow would play out, and how different the both of you will seem.

pt 2 

[swifty-fox]

Please tell me about 1920s Russian socioeconomic policy

PLEASE LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT 1920′s RUSSIAN SOCIOECONOMIC POLICY

 so 1920′s Russian socio-economic policy was in a few short words. entirely fucked.  Granted the issue goes farther back than 1920′s! basically up until then Russia had been functioning as a mostly closed society in that they rejected the industrial age of the mid to late 1800′s. They believed that they were superior as a country and did not want interference from other religions and cultures (the Great Schism took no prisoners) So essentially at the turn of the 20th century Russia was still almost in the middle ages (granted there was some technology leakage etc. it was more prevalent in upper society to be more modernized) BUT they still had peasants and serfs and people living as they had done hundreds if not thousands of years ago (something like 80% of Russians were impoverished and working as serfs ((that might only be white Russians there's like 32 ethnic Russian groups nobody likes to talk about)) ) 

cutting for length

so naturally people are like mad pissed about that right? they want to be part of the progression of the world they want to be educated and to travel and to have access to medicine and technology and all the benefits of ‘modern’ society. but Tsar Nikolai says no. This is a huge part of his downfall, his unwillingness to change (also vague antisemitism ((they used to conduct these things called Pogroms which was basically localized exterminations of Jewish people. it was fucked up and vastly condemned by a lot of people but the powers that be used the Jewish people as a scapegoat because uhhh 1800′s and 1900′s be like that)), being REALLY bad at war, Rasputin, excessive spending and wealth, a little spice of police brutality and a few massacres as well as aggressive heavy-handed tactics against terrorists. Great family man. Bad leader.) 

Anyways fast-forward through the Russian revolution that's a whole can of worms

Now we have a new government. not a better government but a NEW one with vastly different ideas of what they’re going to do. 

Another sidetrack, lets talk about Communist Theory for a sec. I’m going to go into Karl Marx’s original intention as Russian Communism is actually a twice bastardized idea of Communist (Lenin developed his theory of communism from people like Georgi Plekhanov and  Nikola Chernechevskey’s book What Is To Be Done?  who were also putting their own spin on Marxism) 

ANYWAYS. The basic idea of of Karl Marx’s Communist theory is that society will eventually, over the course of hundreds or thousands of years, develop through capitalism and unto a utopian world where we have no need for things live government or taxes or money. The concept here being over hundreds or thousands of years and NATURALLY.

The Bolsheviks (Led by Lenin) Looked at that and said mmmm no lets do it in like twenty years. 

it’s 1921 and Lenins NEW ECONOMIC POLICY (fondly nicknamed NEP) enters STAGE LEFT (get it) 

The basic idea of NEP was to blend capitalist (i.e a private market) with communist ideals (i. e. no market) and Fast-Track us to glorious utopian communism in not a few hundred years but in a few years! 

sounds doable right? 

the basic idea of NEP was that there would be limited private property that would ultimately be mostly owned by people that Lenin approved of (allies, benefactors, heroes of the glorious revolution for mother Russia and so on) There were things called prodravzyorstka  which was forced grain requisitions by the communist party for the good of the people  basically soldiers would come in and take most of the famers grain and left them to starve. There was also an imposed a tax on farmers that could be paid in -you guessed it!- more grain! NEP abolished that and instead allowed for a cash payout the harder that farmers worked. Productivity went up like 40% in the years following! Pretty great!!

It also incentivized and supported the formation of unions (they were communists remember, those bitches love unions) All in all it was....pretty decent? It wasn’t exactly communist as essentially it was just tax returns or the government buying grain from peasants rather than the peasants having to sell the grain themselves. Pretty great right! 

But it created an imbalance. Again, that Russia wanted to do was industrialized! they wanted to become modern but they didn't want to follow the way any other country did it and they wanted to do it in a fraction of the time! As the government and the ECONOMY began relying on the small farms for grains and vegetables and resources, the big factories and institutions that were privately owned were STRUGGLING!  as a result, they had to raise their prices to try to pay for themselves. But now those same farmers couldn't afford the industrial things they needed! like equipment for their farm tools and tractors or household goods. So now they have to raise THEIR food prices in response. It was a great way to inflate the economy after WII and the revolution. But obviously we all know where this is going. 

And then Boom. Lenin dies. The man had one too many strokes and croaks out in his country home without a successor named. The government is in chaos. Nobody knows what to do. Shortly before his death lenin wrote a (frankly quite funny) letter saying all his successors were fucking idiots and he hated them all.

In steps Stalin. If you think Lenin was bad...Stalin is a fucking bastard. The guy is even MORE antisemetic, brutal, corrupt, mysogynistic and RACIST. The man really hated the chinese. he also hated Georgians (the country not the state) which is pretty funny because he was Georgian. 

Anyways, he abolishes NEP and implements something called the Five Year Plan (NEP 2 for the jokesters out there) 

Stalin shifts the focus away from boosting agricultural development and focuses on rapid industrialiation in, you guessed it, FIVE YEARS. The stats on this plan are fucking insane man get this:

Staling wanted an 111% increase in coal production, 200% increase in iron production and 335% increase in electric power!!! in FIVE YEARS. 

(he also eliminated a class of people called “kulaks” which were richer farmers by turning the poor farmers against them. By elimate I mean they were murdered and their property distributed amongst the poorer farmers.)

I could go on and on about all the ways this failed, all the brutality, unethical and unsafe work enviroments, the continued programs, the amoutn of people who were murdered, the prison(slave) labor used, the rounding up and mass murder of anyone who spoke out against Stalin, the Five Year Plan or the russian government. This is really where the Soviet Union as we know it as westerners got its reputation. 

Also he caused TWO famines because he made all the farmers move into the city to be industry workers so they ddint have any food and didnt accept help from the Red Cross or other countries because MUHHH MOTHERLAND

but you know what it kiiinda worked? Capital increase was almost 160%, consumer goods increased by 87% and total output was up almost 120%!

But also it caused one of the worst famines in the western world with an estimated 6million (some people argue as many as 10million. We will never know the true number because it was mostly peasants and ethnic people suffering) people dying across the entire Soviet Union. Poeple were dying out on the streets in broad daylight, people were selling their dead children to be food. You can see pictures if you google it but they’re very graphic.

Generally, the Five-Year-Plan was lauded as a massive failure and a hotbed of absolutely disgusting human abuse and cruelty. And you knwow what Stalin said? He said nah it went well and implemented about FIVE MORE (theres been twelve in all but they exent up into the early 90′s) I wont touch on them as they were all pretty much iterations of Stalins original one and they all sucked.

Basically Russian Socioeconomic Policy is a hotbed of bad decisions, human rights violations and a LOT of interpersonal drama that i do not have the time to get into. (like the fucking DRAMA between Stalin and Nadezhda Krupskaya (lenins wife))

theres also a LOT more to it I just tried to condense like 40 years into one post so please feel free to go out and research your own! I used Peter Kenez’ “A History of the Soviet Union From the Beginning to its Legacy” while in class. It’s a little dry but effective 

theres also this book by my professor who is a DELIGHT https://www.amazon.com/Red-Arctic-Exploration-Soviet-1932-1939/dp/0195114361 and while I havent read it im sure its told with the same humor and zeal that he conducted his lectures 

also this bOOK THIS BOOK RIGHT HERE is SUCH a good read!

https://www.amazon.com/Vasily-Grossman-Soviet-Century-Alexandra-ebook/dp/B07P9HJMLM/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=the+soviet+century&qid=1589727805&sr=8-4 if you read any of them read this one! it examines the entire rise and fall of the communist party through the story of Grossman who was a jewish-russian writer and pretty famous in his own right though he died penniless and scorned. He’s got a couple movies based off his books out there two which were shelved for criticizing the party for decades! please read it i beg you

[mistymark]

the boyfriend one. [jeno]

full masterlist // part of the nct boyfriend series // 1.0k

Sweet Boi

really just loves you a lot

ur really living the life if ur dating him

like

athletic, handsome, musically talented, intelligent, funny, sweet, the boy is the Whole Package

and not just the tiny package people use to build someone’s self confidence 

he's the Whole Package but like all twenty packages you could possibly get

he really is That Guy

perfection

and hes ur boyfriend (lucky hoe)

overall adorable boyfriend

lowkey shy lowkey treats you like one of the guys

definitely have one of those ‘We were best friends and now we’re dating’ kinda relationships

you were probably friends for a while beforehand

and his confession consisted of him holding your hand for the whole day before you even noticed

and then asking you out in the cutest manner

made you stop walking so he could stand in front of you and tell you how he felt

you melted it was so cute

mostly because ho’s so cute

loves to joke around w you

used to claim he “didnt know how to flirt” yet would flirt with you Constantly

the boys would always make fun of him poor boy lmao

and it was that really Obvious flirting as well

but you never really thought he meant it

he did tho lol

sometimes would hit u with classic dad jokes which would make you wanna DIE from laughing but are also So Terrible

“jeno im tired :((” “hi tired im jeno”

jhjhkjshcjhs

but you gotta like his jokes if ur dating jeno

and he would love that u understand and appreciate his sense of humour

even if u roast him for his lame jokes sometimes,,, you still get them and sometimes think theyre actually funny

he's also probably lowkey the showoff type but like, accidentally

like you'd be hanging out with ur friends and he'd arrive and be like ‘oh babe sorry im late’ and hand u flowers and all their significant others just seem less significant, inferior, not jeno

loves treating you though

loves to see you smile

really just wants to see u happy

when it comes to him, your smile is infectious

always cackling around you at the dumbest shit

like you’re never serious when you’re together

you’re both just so happy all the time it’s so pure

needless to say whenever he needs to do anything seriously you’re immediately banned from being anywhere near him

“no babe I have to study” “I can help you jeno :((” “no you won't, trust me”

your contact in his phone is “the distraction” but he insists it’s just your name

you didn’t find out until jaemin told you

his password is 100% ‘000000′ and you’re the only one that knows

youre honestly surprised no one else has figured that out

his background is something subtly you, like a random sunset pic you sent him once or a cute doodle you did one time when you were studying  together

always there to help you destress because boy is Chill

suggests athletic dates

like indoor trampolining or walks along the beach or something where you’re doing something

doesnt understand what sitting down is

randomly shows up on your doorstep when he’s hungry

even tho he lives like a fifteen minute walk away

he knows you’re always up for a lunch date or a coffee run

when you won't stop working he drags your chair out of the room and closes the door

holds it closed until you promise him you’ll take a break

lets you back in with the softest smile

lowkey wears outfits he knows you’ll like around you just to see if he gets a reaction

tells you he’s gonna change his appearance just to make u have a breakdown

“babe im gonna go bald” “JENO YOURE W H A T ?!”

thinks hes so fucking funny istg this kid

favourite pda is

just fuckin

lying on each other

or forehead kisses

if its just the boys around hes constantly lying on you

and youve got 60kg of teenage boy weighing you down

but if youre out in public you just look like really good friends

sometimes holds your hands if hes in a mood

like stressed or kinda bummed

just needs to know youre there you know

forehead kisses he presses to your head whenever he has the opportunity

walking in the city and gotta stop to wait to cross the road? hes got his arm wrapped around ur shoulder and is tugging you into his chest to press a kiss to your forehead

stares at you sometimes without meaning to

gets embarrassed when you tease him about it

boy is just really in awe of you tbh

asks you to be his date for any event ever

it was like that when you guys were just friends too

everyone thought you were a couple way before he officially asked you out

he pretended it annoyed him the lil jackass

but his crush was so obvious lmao

like jeno seriously boy

falls on you whenever you make him laugh

so all the time lol

boy needs to get it together

because you were so close beforehand you’re so used to teasing each other

so if he does compliment you he either stutters as he says it or compliments something so random

one time you were sick and your voice dropped like two octaves and he thought it was so hot lol

but he wasnt going to tell you that

“you should get sick more often”

- jeno 2k19

sweetie that aint how you do it but ok

okay maybe I lied sometimes when hes really shocked by how beautiful you are he just blurts out his compliment

its really quite precious

I mean its jeno

what else is new

anyway

take care of this precious boy he is my son I love him sm

peace out babies

[fcrtuncs]

( park chaeyoung, cisfemale, she/her. ) ARDEN JUNG ? you must be thinking about the TWENTY-THREE year old WOMEN STUDIES GRADUATE student starting their SECOND YEAR at harvard university. they're known as FORTUNA in the ROMAN society, because they remind people of pennies found heads-up on the sidewalk, laughing until your sides hurt, getting lost on a late night drive, and wishing on shooting stars. but be careful, they are rumored to be CAPRICIOUS... you'd think being KINDHEARTED would make up for it.

EARLY LIFE: when arden’s grandparents first moved to america, their dream was to own a restaurant. within years, they’d built a hole in the wall diner from the ground up in new york, a tiny suite crammed between a clinic and some bodega. her father grew up there, learned the art of running the business, and was the person to take it over when her grandparents died. together, arden’s father and his wife carried on this legacy of love, eventually bringing arden into the world they’d come to adore. with an apartment sat right atop their restaurant, the jung family was very cozy in their lives together. the restaurant paid the bills, but business was certainly not booming, leaving arden without certain luxuries her harvard counterparts may have enjoyed. what they lacked in funds, however, her parents made up in love. she grew up supported and comfortable in her home, a luxury she herself considers a privilege. her father was always a believer in luck which eventually led to his purchase of a winning lottery ticket. he’d managed to win a mega jackpot, giving the jungs enough money to live in a way they never had before. now, arden’s parents were determined to make her dreams come true, one of those being to attend harvard. what previously had seemed unobtainable was now being a reality as she received the acceptance letter, her father already writing the check for her full four years. it was then that tragedy struck, her mother falling victim to a sudden death. it destroyed arden, leaving her too wounded to attend harvard in the fall like she’d intended. instead, she remained at home with her father, spending days running the restaurant in absence of her father and nights taking classes from the local community college. 

arden was 16 turning 17 when her father won the lottery

her mom died the following year when arden was 18

PRESENT: arden is actually a great student, but never expected to attend an ivy league school due to finances. she was good in school, but nowhere near good enough to get a full ride, which left her hopeless until her father won his money. she’s a women studies graduate student because she of course recognizes the importance of the subject, but she also chose it as a safe option. she’s considered being a tattoo artist, and has completed many a stick n poke on her friends ankles, but hasn’t really practiced art since before her mom died. for now, she has no real career goal in mind, but is furthering her studies to appease her father. she’s entering her second year at harvard this fall. her bank account is currently full of more zeroes than she can count and now it’s a matter of figuring out how to fit into a world she’s never known before. her father had heard whispers of the roman society and bought arden’s way in, so she’s definitely out of her league and she knows it. new money all the way babyyyy

in the last year, her dad decided to make a franchise of their business, basically he’s become a sellout to get some more coin so she’s coping w that as well

PERSONALITY: arden is very loyal, almost to a fault. she will ride for anyone she considers a friend, and even that definition can be loose. however, she’s rather aloof at times and never takes anything seriously. her tendency to treat everything like it’s a joke often gets her in trouble because she tends to blow things off since they don’t seem that important to her. it’s not that she doesn’t care about the person, she just doesn’t understand the urgency of most things. she’s immature at times, especially when it comes to arguments. tbh her mom dying really wrecked her and stunted her in a lot of ways. she spent years taking care of her father and while she’d do it all again, it definitely took a huge toll on her. she also doesn’t love that money has seemed to change her dad and she’s terrified of turning into someone she’s not, but feels that she has no other choice. she desperately wants to be liked, but tries to play it cool always. i think i described her as a meme that tries to be edgy and i think that’s pretty fitting

she’s very uncomfortable with having money since she grew up decently poor and doesnt rlly know how to use it??? like her idea of splurging is getting the guac at chipotle so . 

i’m interested to see how her time in the society has kind of shaped her if that makes sense??? i think she entered a v naive girl who had the world ahead of her and now she’s kind of seeing how evil money is and that the only way to rlly prosper is to rise to the occasion. money is power and maybe it;s time she had both

oh she’s also kind of closed off at this point just bc she lost her mom and now she feels like she’s losing her dad and idk she’s just hurt so it’s hard bc she wants to be an open book but she’s also so so scared of getting hurt and feeling out of her league so she’s just . existing 

i mentioned it before but she used to rlly love art and actually considered pursuing it professionally but gave it up after her mom died bc she didnt have the love for it anymore so it’s something she dabbles in occasionally but she doesnt rlly let herself get into it anymore </3 

also i havent figured out her zodiac sign yet but when i do i’ll let u guys know 

anyways i dont rlly know what else to add to this bc i think this basically sums her up but yeah i would love to plot w each and every one of u so pls like this if ur down and i’ll probably message u embarrassingly fast <3

[jinxthequeergirl]

Teenage Rebellion's

Steve Harrington x Hopper! Reader

(Mainly a little more of a father daughter reader)

Requested by @melxoxo23 : " A story, where you're hoppers daughter and dating steve.with angst maybe?, but with a happy ending and include joyce too! Please and thank youuuu!"

Warning: swearing/ angst/ a small fight between pops and daughter

Hope you like it?!

~~~~~~~

You crawled through Steve's window instantly catching his attention. "What are you doing here?"

"What aren't you happy to see me, harrington?" you asked a but offended by his greeting as you shut the window.

"Yes I'm just...surprised." He got up from his spot on the bed and quickly moved to place his hands around your waist. "That was the point dumbass." you teased, wrapping your arms around his neck and leaning in to kiss him. He smiled and kissed back.

He lifted you up and spun you around earning a laugh from you before setting you on the bed.

"Your dad is going to kill you if he finds out your here...maybe he'll kill me first." He said from above you. you smirked knowingly at him, and took a glance at the time on his nightstand.

" silly boy you underestimate me!" you pushed him off top of you and sat up. "It's currently 11: 35 meaning Magnum p.I. just finished up an hour ago. I, knowing everything about my father, knew that he goes to bed at exactly ten on the dot! giving me about twenty minutes to make sure he feel asleep before slipping out my window and into yours!" you booped him upon saying the last word, and slung your legs over his lap with a smile. "And your sister?"

"Sleep over with max." you said with a grin. "Now are you complaining about this or would you rather come over tomorrow and deal with three inches?" with out another word he moved in and kissed you.

It wasn't a secret that something had been different with you for the past couple of weeks. You had been pushing to do things you never once wanted to do, you started planing things around your father. Steve started taking note of these things but didn't say anything thinking it would pass. He pulled away scraching the back of his neck.

"What's wrong?"

"I was actually going to ask you the same thing." You looked at him confused. "C'mon you've been acting... different this past week."

"I have not..." He gave an unconvinced look. "I..." you groaned and feel back onto his bed. You pat the space beside you and he laied next to you.

"In all honesty...I Have no idea, like I feel I should but I don't just everytime my dad tells me not to do something it just pisses me off so I go against it! And lately it's worse I just feel like he...well...you get the point for the most part."

"Just a little teenage rebellion never hurt anyone." You chuckled lightly and snuggled into him. "I guess..."

"It'll pass over."you hummed in response and shut your eyes. "Hey don't let me fall asleep, I need to get home..." you muttered already pretty drowsy.

"No..no..I Promise.." he mumbled resting his chin on top of your head eyes slowly shutting. Soon enough you where both asleep.

"I'm telling you it's that harrington kid! He's nothing but a bad influence on her now!" joyce looked at hopper as he paced back and forth in front of her. "Well I think Steve is a nice guy." she said simply looking back down at the cash register.

"That's what he wants you to think!"

Joyce scrunched her noise in conduction. "Why would Steve want you to THINK he's nice?"

Hopper threw his hands up before placing them on the edge of the counter. "I Don't know!"

"I think maybe it's another one of those issues where you just need to talk to her!" Hopper opened his mouth but shut it when Steve's car pulled up outside.

Both adults watched you hop out after giving him a kiss. "Morning joyce! Hey dad." You slid on your blue vest that matched the one Joyce wore. "Where the hell were you this morning!"

"I accidentally slept over at Steve's last night. Not a big deal!"

"Not a big deal? Y/n I didn't know where you went! I thought something happened! When did you even leave?"

"I told you last night."

"When!?"

"God why do you even care!? I'm here alive and breathing! Nothing happened last night either!"

"Listen I don't know what this little teen rebellion thing you have going on but I've had enough! Enough of the disrespect and the lying and just everything from you now!"

You rolled your eyes and started towards the back to start working, but hopper only followed you. "Hey! Do not walk away from me when I AM talking to you! You know I think this Harrington kid I proving to be-"

You whirled around angrily. "You leave Steve out of this! It's NOT his fault I'm acting like this! It's YOUR own!"

He stoped taken aback by this. "What did you say?"

"It's your own damn fault I'm acting like this you are just to...to..ugh dense to realise that! To dense or stupid!"

His eyes widened. "Really? Well if I can't realise that maybe I don't know you anymore! You might as well be a stranger! You might as well not live under the same roof!"

"What are you kicking me out now because of this!?"

"Well I mean you wanna sneak out stay away as long as you can maybe I am." it was your turn to state at him suprised.

"Hop..." neither of you had realised Joyce was following trying her best to cool the both of you off. "Good. Fine! It's not like you'll notice you act like you have one daughter anyways!" you stormed to the front of the store the last part of your scentence sinking in.

"Wait what does that mean!? Where are you going!?"

"Get my stuff from your place! You want me out so fucking bad!" He stopped as the door slammed shut.

"Goddamn it!" He fumbled around for his keys until Joyce came up beside him and took them. "Hopper no! You need to stay here, I will go talk her! You need to cool down...I'll be back."

She quickly pushed the door open and hurried down the street to you.

"Y/n! Y/n!"

"Yes?" you snapped turning to her.

"Are you ok? What's going on with you?"

You stopped and stared at her searching very deep down inside. After telling steve last night something else came to mind something you thought was stupid and selfish. Something you swore you would just ignore but the more and more It stuck in your brain the more It made you want to act out.

"Y/n?.." Joyce moved closer to you and rubbed away a tear that started to fall from your face.

"I'm going to sound like a five year old of I tell you."

"Thats ok..." You both sat down on the curb and you took a breath.

"Every Sunday...dad would make French toast since it was my favioret...we had this silly superstion that if he made the first on properly the rest would turn out bad."

You started to cry just thinking of it and joyce simply placed a hand over yours as she listened. "So he always burnt the first one, that's how I would know he was making breakfast, because I would be waken up by the smell of burning bread." You both chuckled as you paused to wipe away tears.

"And every Friday we would rent a movie every Friday no matter what...It didnt matter if he was tired he would come home and take me to family video and we would pick a movie, we never finished then because we would both fall asleep...but that changed when he adopted el." You sighed using your free hand to play with your shoe laces.

"I love el so much, there is nothing in this world that could make me think other wise. But I get the feeling that nothing I do is ever as good as anything she could do in my dads eyes, I feel like I come on second now! And I miss our stupid old traditons!"

"So you did this as a way to get his attention?..."

You looked at her. "I guess in a weird toddler way of acting out yea.."

"It's not weird...love can make us do crazy things...even make us rebell against the people we love..."

"Yea...I guess it does." you smiled softly.

"But I think maybe you should talk to him tell him You miss doing things like that and miss spending time with him..."

You where scilent. "We could even go back together and tell him?"

So the both of you walked back to the store hopper stood there anxiously before you two came back in.

You both started to speak at the same time. "Let me it's my fault so just hear me out? And if by the end this you can...well you can kick me out if you want?"

He pulled you into a hug. "I don't think that gonna happen kiddo."

~a week later~

"What are you wearing?"

You looked over to your dad with a smile as you stepped out of your room. "What? It's...how would you put it? Cutting edge!" You joked making him laugh.

Things where better, a lot better no more teenage rebellion from you now that things where explained and fixed. There was a knock at the door catching both your attention.

"I'll get it!" you hurried across the room And opened the door. "El there here!" you stepped aside letting steve, Mike and joyce enter. Steve greeted you with a warm hug and kiss.

"Evening Sir." Steve said nervously after shutting the door.

"Relax kid, you can call me hopper. What movie did you get?"

You lead Steve to the couch as he looked through the bag. "Well everyone had different suggestions so out choices are. The breakfast club, ghost busters, American werwolf in london, pretty in pink, and Nightmare on elm street."

"I vote pretty in pink!" joyce said taking a seat next to hopper.

"No girly movie! Nightmare on elm street!" Mike chilled in. "Are you two even old enough to see that?" steve asked. Soon enough everyone started arguing over the movie.

You smiled at hopper and he offered you the same one knowing what would happen no matter what they picked.

"Ok Ok put the werewolf one on! Mike where are the snacks!" Hopper said quickly shutting every one up. Mike handed him the bag full of candy and snack before passing them out.

You curled up onto the couch next to Steve as the movie began

[drkoestersmithrpg]

The End To Another Man’s Name

“Look kid, I messed up, but that doesn’t mean you get to…” Tony spat into the phone, trying not to sound angry, trying not to sound hostile.  Maybe pacing around his penthouse furiously wasn’t a good idea while trying to sound calm?  He tried to stop pacing.  It didn’t work.

“Kid… Peter… I know I messed up, and you need to let me make it up to you.  You owe me that.”  He pushed the button that ended the call, damn he missed the days when he could have angrily snapped the phone shut or, better yet, slammed down the receiver. Ah, the days of hanging up the phone when you could actually hang up the phone.   Peter’s generation would never know the satisfaction of hanging up the phone angrily…

Because Peter’s generation has no idea what “hang up” means.  To them the words “hang up” is just an idiom.  They’ve never “hung” the receiver in the cradle.  There is no “up” because the one phone in the house isn’t attached to the wall.  You grew up in a different world than he did – you’re practically an alien to him.    

That was true, but it was information that wasn’t helping Tony now.  He took a deep breath and tried to think.

And, just like the twenty seven other deep breaths he had taken that day, it did no good.

He couldn’t think straight.  Peter’s radio silence since last Wednesday was making him crazy.  His chest tightened every time he thought about it, and now his one superpower, his brain, was completely failing him.  He couldn’t think his way out of this one, which was fucked up because thinking his way out of things was his one and only talent. He needed to get the Kid back, and there was absolutely no one he could turn to for help.

Finally, in absolute desperation (and abject humility) he turned to Google.

“How the mighty have fallen” he thought to himself as he typed in the words “Help Me I’m Dating A Millennial.”

He was three hours in before he realized Peter was actually Gen Z.

He was so very, thoroughly and sincerely screwed.

* * * *

 Spending money calmed him down, as always.  Made him feel more in control.  His daylight conversation with Peter’s voicemail as far more calm and collected.  He was proud of himself.

“Alright.  I’m sorry.  You don’t owe me anything, obviously.  That was stupid.  But I need you to know that I do know what I did… I knew it as soon as it happened… and I am sorry.  And I really need you to give me a chance to explain…”

But still, Peter maintained radio silence.  Daylight turned into eventide and Tony found himself feeling more and more panicky. Over and over again he looked at his elaborate “I’m Sorry” present.  It had to work.  Didn’t it? It was huge and elaborate and expensive, and that was good thing, wasn’t it?  Of course, not all his over-the-top gifts worked all the time. They tended not to work with Pepper at any rate.  Maybe he should call her for advice…

“Fine, ignore me,” Tony spat into the phone as evening was officially becoming night.  “But you’ve left a lot of your stuff here and you need to come pick it up, and you need to pick it up tonight or a fleet of limos to your dorm room to deliver it in the morning and people are going to notice.”

Finally, his eerily silent phone made a noise.  A ding. Peter had texted.

//no I didnt//

That was it.  Three words.  The first time the kid had acknowledged him in 72 hours.  And all because he wanted to dispute an erroneous fact.

“You did, in fact, leave quite a bit of stuff here, and it’s crowding up the place, so you need to swing by and claim it all, or else your neighbors will be talking in the morning.” Tony explained patiently to Peter’s voice mail, feeling more confident now than he had in days.  Why hadn’t he thought about this before?  Peter might or might not stop being mad, but he could not stop from being curious.  Tony poured himself a drink and took a seat looking out at the New York skyline.  He didn’t have long to wait.

            * * *

 His heart sank a little when Peter alighted on the roof and didn’t disengage his mask, even as he entered the penthouse.  Tony drained his glass and stood.  This was going to be a hard sell.

“Peter, I’m sorry,” he said as gently as he could, just like he had practiced.  He wasn’t used to having conversations with the mask that he had designed, but maybe that made it easier.  He delivered his next line, the one he had written and rewritten carefully in his head a dozen times, to the masked face, and hoped for the best.

“You probably need to know, up front, that I’m not very good at these things.”

Peter’s mask didn’t react.

Shit, because he delivered the line wrong.  “At relationships,” he was supposed to say.  “I’m not very good at relationships” was the line and now it was too late and he had blown it because Peter was speaking.

“I didn’t leave anything here, unless there’s something in the lab you want me to pick up,” Peter was saying, and suddenly Tony appreciated his large bank account more than ever, because his mouth was too dry, and his chest too achy, to speak. And so he didn’t.  

He just pointed towards the flowers.  

Peter turned his head and his eyes widened, or rather, the mask Tony designed for him widened the eye-shields allowing Peter to take in more visual information.  Tony relaxed completely.  It had worked.

In silence Peter took it all in, the glass vases of long-stemmed white roses, taking up every inch of the bar, the table, and the coffee table, as well as the floor.  Vase after vase.  Thirteen in all.

“These are yours,” Tony said in a normal tone of voice, as Peter started to walk around the room, his eyes wide, counting vase after face.   He felt more normal than he had in 3 days.  “But now that I think about it, I’m not sure they’ll all fit in your dormroom, so if you want to leave some here, that’s fine too.  He stood behind Peter and, when Peter turned around, reached out to put a hand on the boy’s waist.  

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I screwed up.  You have to let me make this up to you.”

“I wasn’t mad,” Peter said, then shook his head.  His mask disengaged, but his eyes were still cast to the floor.  “It wasn’t about that.  It’s just… Tony…”

He tried to look Tony in the eyes and failed, then took a step forward, until their heads were practically touching, and spoke.

“Tony I’ve never had sex in an elevator before.  But you have. And I sure as hell ever did it in front of a mirror before.

“But you have… I mean it’s your elevator.

“And I sure as hell never did it on a kitchen counter before… but you have.  And what you did to me in your bedroom with your toys that was… but they were your toys.  You’ve done that with other guys before.  And that just made me realize…”

“That this is really big for you,” Tony said when Peter’s words dried up.  He put both hands on Peter’s hips, then did everything he could to not get any closer.  “And I understand that kid, I do.  That night I… that night I ran away and hid from you like coward and I’m sorry. Listen…”

This was it.  The second line he had written and rewritten a dozen times.  He was grateful, reall, that Peter had given him enough time to prepare.  He wasn’t going to blow it now.

“Peter your senses get dialed up to 11 and you need help to dial them back down.  And sometimes things get really intense for me too and that night…”

Peter eyes were glistening with tears and Tony hadn’t been prepared for that.  When Peter looked into his eyes Tony found it all drying up in his mouth, all of it.  And he realized he couldn’t do it, couldn’t say any of the lines he had prepared. Couldn’t do anything but tell the truth. It was going to hurt, was going to take a hunk out of his chest in a way no piece of shrapnel had ever done before. He didn’t have a choice.  He opened his mouth and pushed himself to tell the gods-honest truth.

“Peter I need to take care of you so badly it scares me.”

They blinked at each other in surprise.  Tony kept blinking in surprise even as Peter threw his arms around Tony’s neck and pulled him into a crushing embrace.  He continued blinking even as Peter kissed the side of his face, his mouth, then the side of his face again.  He had set out to make his confession and, in fact, confessed to something else entirely.

But it was true.  The sensors and the surveillance and the obsessive studying of details had been about that, had always been about that and nothing else.  The lines he had carefully written and carefully memorized were true too, much to his horror.  

“I love you Anthony Stark,” Peter was saying over and over again, and that, at least, Tony could work with.  He ordered his arms to move and wrapped them around Peter’s body and held him close.

“I love you, Kid.  And I’m a disaster and I’m absolutely no good at this but I love you.  And you need to know up front that I’m terrible at relationships and you’re going to hate every minute of this but this is all I’ve got.  I love you, Peter.  And I’m sorry.

“No…” he said, pulling away from Peter’s kiss.  He had memento going now and he didn’t want to stop.  “I mean I’m sorry… for something else.  A lot of something elses, really.”

He took a deep breath, let it out in an exhausted sigh, and took Peter by the hand.  With a weak smile, he led the both toward his private lab.

“I hope you’re in a forgiving mood,” he said ruefully.  But maybe it would be alright.  Maybe his luck would hold.