#also I was insecure about scheduling it once I deemed it finished-

[palskippah]

Oooh mareach preg ftw!

Ngl Im kind of curious, how did mario and peach handle the birth? 😳

Hi! Yess 😭 Them expecting babies is so cute to me ;-;

They (mostly Mario) handled the labor and birth like champs, although at the beginning both had the downside of panicking, but later on they had the help of people with more experience than them (Luigi or the doctors) or that were less panicky during the situation (like Toad). Mario was scared shitless bc giving birth is intimidating, but once he's with Peach and Luigi he's much calmer.

Btw I don't think I'll set this on stone, bc there's other ways the labor and birth could've gone that I also had thought of and actually written or drawn askdlsa but I'm sharing this one bc I like it c: Like, Toad's singing (like that person at tiktok that dresses up as him and sings shakira's songs?? them) makes him laugh too hard and that makes him break his water and he's like 🧍 bc he doesn't realize at first and all-

Under the cut there's a much more (I mean it 😔) detailed description of how it went! It's pretty long (mostly the labor part) and you'll scroll a lot sorrie, I thought of shortening it, but then left it like it is- the moments are separated by star emojis, so if you wanna skip to the birth, go ahead jiji

Birth isn't explicit but I'll give you a warning about it anyway! Also, it's kinda cartoonish (I think? maybe not) for the fun of it, I'm not a big fan of serious stuff sdlksdks

BTW! here's the bebis :'v

[Nettarina was born like half an hour before Mariella was, so she had more experience with being out in the harsh, cold world out of the womb- so she was peacefully sleeping while her twin was being delivered akjsdkd

Imagine those scenes in TV where there's in the first plane a very peaceful thing going on and at the background there's a ruckus- something like that but with Nettarina wrapped in her warm blanket and sleeping comfortably in her bassinet, and in the background there's Mario grabbing the hell out of Peach's and Luigi's hands while he pushes and grunting in effort and the other two are encouraging him and stuff, she doesn't wake up at all despite the noise.]

Also, there are some drawings that are kinda vague about birth- and also the newborn baby will not look like an actual just newborn baby bc that's too much 🧍

Anyways, enjoy the thingie if you read it!

🌟So! The whole thing is very fast and tiring- like when Mario wakes up, he doesn't even hope he'll go into labor that day, and before the sun even sets, he already had both babies in his arms.

Also, I read that first-time pregnancies are a tiny bit more likely to go past full-term and I was like sure why not, let's put Mario in situations. So, he's overdue by just a few days and honestly the babies are really taking their time with getting there, and that's why he isn't even worried that particular day that he'll go into labor.

Also, the doctor had said they'd have to consider induction if the babies didn't make act of presence in the next week. Bc twins usually are expected to arrive like at the 38th week, where they are already full-term, and over that is considered overdue- so maybe Mario is like 38 weeks-and-something pregnant in this day where he has the babies.

🌟 About the labor-

For when Mario goes into labor, I'm torn between doing it sitcom-like, where Peach for ABC reason is very far away from Mario, and she has to go through frustrating drawbacks to get to him quickly, or go with that it happens when they're together and all comfortable and stuff sdkjskd

But going with the first option, imagine Peach is at a meeting that she definitely didn't want to go to, where the king was adamant about her presence and of other royals to see the matter (which in Peach's opinion, could've been handled via email!), so she couldn't send in Toadsworth to sort it through.

Peach warned the host king that Mario could go into labor at literally any minute, and she wished to stay with him when it happened (Mario was supposed to go into labor a few days ago, she was really anxious about it!), but the other thought she was being overdramatic, surely Super Mario would be fine without the princess for a few hours.

Many royals think that way initially, whenever Peach requested that meetings be held at her castle, or that may Toadsworth go in her behalf, since she doesn't want to leave Mario's side for too long. But, they wholly understand when they see Mario, who definitely looks like he's ready to pop. Others are more understanding, because they have been the pregnant person being fretted over, or the partner that frets, so they indulge the princess on her requests.

And well, she was overly worried the whole meeting, and barely paid any attention. At the beginning Peach texted Mario every few minutes to make sure he was okay and calm her anxiety, but after one too many judging looks from the host king, she apologized and asked one of the servants to take her phone until the meeting was over, knowing she'd keep using it otherwise- she had duties to attend as a princess, despite her worries as a soon-to-be mom.

Meanwhile, back at the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario had woken up not long ago, stretching as much as he could and groaning because he slept like hell. His back hurt a lot, like was usual lately. He briefly wondered when the babies would dignify themselves to show up, so he could have a proper night's sleep finally (as if! with two newborn babies it wouldn't be very likely), because they overstayed long enough, he was supposed to have them in his arms by now, while also he wished Peach was there to just magic his pain away.

Mario resigns himself to hurt and keep being pregnant for a few days more. He throws a look at his side, and then checks his phone, smiling at Peach's (fretting) texts, so he starts answering to each of them, while getting himself more comfortable on their bed.

[Good morning my love! 😚😚😚] Good morning bella mia :33 [Are you awake? 🥰🥰] I am [Maybe not, it took you a lot of time to fall asleep 🤕 just wait until the little rascals are born, I'll give them a harsh lecture right away] Me too bc my back hurts like a beach I wish you were here to make it better :c [I love you] I love you very much too! [Te amo mi amorchito pechocho💓] Ti amo la mia luce 💖 [Mi amore] 🥰 [Wake up mi amore] I did :D pick your phone peachy [King Calami keeps talking about I don't know what hepl] Pay attention and don't pick your phone peachy [Mario 🥺🥺] Peachy <3

Peach appears offline from not long ago; and Mario hoped she actually had put her focus on the meeting. After that, Mario does the extenuating routine of getting off of bed, showering, grooming, dressing on his own -which proves much harder than when Peach just does it for him, especially with the overalls and shoes, but he's in the mood for them, so he tries anyway (and almost falls off the bed trying to reach his feet- but at least no one's there to see him struggle). He does all this while feeling a bit restless the whole way, but it's been a few days of the same feeling, since the babies weren't born when they were supposed to.

Mario has a very late breakfast and then spends a while just nibbling on treats and lazing around (Resting! You're resting - says for the nth time a voice that sounds like Peach's). He made some plans with Toad over text, and soon he met Mario at the lounging room in the castle, ready for a walk around Toad Town.

Mario wasn't very sure if he still wanted to go, still feeling like something (read: labor) was about to happen. Toad offered staying at the castle, if he wasn't sure, and they could eat ice-cream right there too and maybe watch a movie, or just walk through Peach's gardens. The thought of the ice-cream stall at the middle of Toad Plaza makes him salivate and reconsider- oh his damned cravings. Also, to walk and enjoy the sun and bustling streets would do him good, so they go.

The walk to Toad Town is very slow but filled with conversation (mostly from Toad). At certain times Mario felt cramps on his belly, but he has been feeling them from weeks ago, so he doesn't get too worried about them. At the platforms Toad very carefully helps him. And while they walk down the steps, Mario looks at the pipes systems and all the toads going through them, which was a much quicker way of getting anywhere. Not for the first time Mario lamented that traveling through pipes was not safe for him anymore, and it made him too dizzy anyways (and in some of them he didn't even fit any longer- but whatevs).

Through the walk many toads greet both of them as usual, some commenting lightly about the babies not being there yet, which had Mario chuckling politely (bc, of course they're not there yet, Mario is clearly still huge!) and by the time they get to the ice-cream stand Mario's too tired and feeling kinda out of breath, so Toad tells him to sit and wait for him to get the ice-cream, and Mario does so gratefully.

When he's at the bench, the cramps only get worse, and he briefly wonders if maybe they're contractions- He hopes they are, because the babies are overdue and he is tired as hell of carrying them, but also- he wishes it's not the case, he doesn't want them to come out yet because he is still way too nervous of giving birth. Either way, the cramps hurt and are uncomfortable, and after a while they stop, and he realizes he'd have to pay closer attention to them, lest he actually was in labor.

Toad gets back with their stuff and they eat and talk and it's very nice, because the day is sunny and calm, and the babies aren't as energetic as other times (which is always good, because they would beat up Mario's ribs, bladder and whatever was in their way whenever they kicked or stretched).

Suddenly Mario feels a particularly bad cramp, and he has to take a moment to breathe through it, wincing in pain and placing his hand where he's kinda feeling it. It catches Toad's attention, and he gently pats Mario's arm to be of comfort.

Toad then gasps excitedly, "Wait- are you having contractions yet?"

Mario shakes his head, then signs, "I don't think so."

"Aw... I want to meet your babies already, Mario," Toad laments, taking a sad lick from his ice-cream cone. "I want to receive my Uncle Toad title from you too."

Mario smiles at him and shakes his head again, in amusement, the toad had said years back that he was happy to receive the title from Luigi, and now from Mario, as if they were some sort of university of unclehood by simply becoming parents.

At some moment, their conversation takes a turn towards Mario's relationship with Pauline, for some reason. Toad can't believe Mario had sung with the Pauline! And why is he just now finding out about it?!

It leads to Toad begging Mario to sing something for him someday, and Mario saying he can beg all he wants. Toad shakes his head in feigned disappointment and says, "I would never deprive you from my singing skills, Mario!" And Mario does a 'really? prove it' face, so Toad graces him with the most off-key, shrillest and loud cover of Pauline's Jump Up, Super Star!

It had Mario laughing almost hysterically- it probably wasn't even that funny, but he was caught off-guard bc Toad started off strong with the main vocals and from then on, his singing didn't get any better. He was holding his belly while trying not to drop his ice-cream and waving slightly at Toad with it to stop- or he's sure he'll... oh- have an accident.

Mario stops laughing all of a sudden and looks down with a grimace. For a few seconds he thinks not again! because he has two heavy babies resting right over his bladder, he can't help it sometimes! But this time it's much more than usual, and he can't even stop it.

He turns to Toad in panic and embarrassment, because he's sitting in the middle of the crowded plaza and there's no way other toads won't notice! Toad notices his exalted state and stops singing. He tilts his head in confusion and worry.

Mario signs "I peed myself."

"Oh- that's huh..." Mario looks more embarrassed. "That's okay! Don't worry, bestie, I'm going to fix it. You just stay here, Mario!"

Toad shoves the rest of his ice-cream in his mouth and while he munches the waffle cone, he jumps out of the bench and scoots somewhere in the crowded place. Mario huffs in discomfort, throwing nervous glances around him, hoping no one suddenly decided to speak to him. He looks at his cone still in his hand, melting down. He gives it some licks, entirely out of anxiety, because he doesn't have much appetite anymore.

Toad returns soon enough, carrying a folded blanket with himself. Very subtle, especially with the nice weather and Mario in his long overalls. The man kicks himself mentally for being picky about Toad's ideas, when his friend is clearly trying. Toad jumps on the bench and gets closer to whisper to Mario, "I asked some friends to bring you clothes. Don't worry though, I told them to be discreet about it- also got this blanket so we can walk to a bathroom."

Toad sits back down beside Mario on the bench, to wait for the other toads. Mario decides to occupy that brief time by finishing eating his ice-cream, and rubbing his belly while silently scowling at the babies for putting him in situations. When the toads arrive, carrying a little bag, they discreetly leave it on the bench, and walk casually in the other direction, not even looking at Mario or Toad. Mario lets out a relieved sigh, glad that they left them alone. Toad stands on his seat and extends the blanket, leaving it ready to use over the bench, and then jumps back to the floor.

"Let me help you up," he says, extending his little hands to him with a big smile. Mario smiles a bit funnily, knowing that Toad wasn't precisely strong enough to pull him up.

After much effort from both, Mario is on his feet, and he has to suppress a disgusted shiver, because the wetness is very uncomfortable and has gone cold. Toad notices his discomfort and hurries to hand the blanket to Mario, who wraps it around his shoulders. The toad makes sure it covers all the damp spots, and then they get to it, looking for the nearest bathroom either of them can think of.

Toad peaks his head in a restaurant, and quietly asks the receptionist to use the bathroom without being clients, who refuses, being strict about their rules, but Toad says with a knowing smile, 'it's for Mario' and the other toad quickly agrees for them to just come along, anything for the Mushroom Kingdom hero! (But Mario's sure it's because he's very pregnant, it's obvious).

When Mario's inside and Toad's doing guard outside the door, he strips from his wet clothes and rummages through the little bag, pulling out one of his red maternity dresses and underwear. He smiles to himself in relief as he thinks 'perfetto...' because having to ask for help from Toad to put on his overalls would probably be the last drop in the glass for Mario to- to have a breakdown or something.

When he's almost done and letting the dress down his arms, he feels such a strong cramp in his belly that he's just sure it must be a contraction. Mario panics for a few seconds because his arms are stuck in the dress and he's in pain and all he sees is red! He has to double over and support his weight with his hands against the wall the best he can, while he tries to quiet down his pained groans and tightly closes his eyes.

When it passes, he gives himself a bit of time to catch his breath back, and then quickly lowers the dress the rest of the way, to dress himself properly. Mario then holds his belly, looking around the bathroom nervously. He slowly paces on the small space in building panic- he's sure it was a contraction! It was way too strong- and- and the accident? What if that was his water?

He stops waddling and looks down at his belly, placing his hands on it as if silently asking the babies if that was the very important liquid that signaled that he was indeed in labor. Mario notices that he's breathing way too quickly, so he tries to do the breathing exercises that Doctor Toadlina taught him to do- he clenches his fists tightly over his belly while the babies move leisurely as if their mamma wasn't freaking out.

Outside, Toad hums to himself patiently, giving Mario all the time he needs to get comfortable in the changing of clothes. He nods to passing waiters and clients alike, with a big smile.

Back inside, finally Mario's calm enough to think of what he should do now if the babies are coming- he immediately thinks of Peach and that she's far away and literally on another whole kingdom, with no pipe system attached to theirs! Mario scrambles as fast as he can for his phone, feeling his hands and his lower lip trembling in fright.

He calls her and places the phone by his ear, while trying still to breath calmly and failing spectacularly. His fear only spikes up when it sends to voicemail. Mario calls a couple more of times, each without success. He tries to write to her instead, being a bit difficult with his shaking fingers and his blurring gaze due to the tears.

Pech I don't wanna scare you but i think I'm in laborr Pelsa answer Nd come back soon I'm very scared

He holds his phone in his hands for a while, still trying to convince himself that everything will be okay... Mario frowns and looks to the side for a second, those words remind him of something.

Everything will be okay...? Right, Luigi! Mario should call Luigi. He calls him this time and smiles in relief when his twin answers right away.

"Ciao, fratellone!" Luigi says happily.

Mario's smile drops when he realizes just then that he must talk if he called- Oh, fuck! What an idiot! He's bringing more despair for himself on his own!

He opens his mouth and then closes it and shakes his head- why does he never think things through?! He curses himself, now with tears of frustration in his eyes and the thought of just hanging up and texting instead goes through his mind.

"Bro? Mario? Is everyth-" Mario quickly hangs up and goes to text him. He blinks his tears away the best he can and writes down while his phone rings and the notification of Weegee calling... appears just above the chat.

M in labor nd pach isn't here Can you come ?

A few seconds pass when Luigi answers:

On my way Where are you going to be?

Mario sniffles and thinks quickly, should they go to the castle, or maybe just wait for Luigi to get to the restaurant? Mario didn't want to be in that bathroom all alone, he felt too scared and defenseless. But he doesn't think he had the energy to go to the castle quick enough either.

Gret toadcimu restornat Oki I'll be right there bro Pls be calm Everything will be okay I promise Are you with someone? Let them help you Mario To stay cal M Ok

Mario opened Toad's chat this time, feeling at least a tad bit calmer now that he knew his brother was on the way.

Tod Come in pls

A short moment later, a knock sounds at the door, and Mario unlocks it and let his friend in, Toad closes the door and looks at Mario in thinly veiled worry when he notices his tears and panicked expression.

"What's wrong, Mario?"

"I'm in labor," he has difficulty even signing, his hands trembling too much. Toad seems to have difficulty to understand what he signed too, but when he does, he opens his eyes widely and seems absolutely ready to start panicking. Mario braces himself for his shrilly screaming, but the toad shakes his head quickly and sets his face on a determined expression, that Mario would not be surprised if he started speaking in a very deep voice.

"We have to go to the castle, then! I'll tidy this up, you- you just focus on not having the babies yet and calm down. Calm down, Mario!" he says in his regular voice, with a very subtle hint of panic that Mario can easily ignore for his own sake. The toad starts gathering his wet clothes in the little bag, then hurries on folding the blanket while Mario focuses on doing the breath exercises.

Another contraction hits in and Mario has to lean against the wall again, groaning in pain and holding his back. He feels like it lasts even longer and hurts worse than the previous- how is that possible? They were supposed to grow very gradually in intensity and time!

He feels a hand on his back, and he turns to look at Toad, with a pained expression on.

"Do I call the princess?" His friend knows Peach isn't in the Mushroom Kingdom, but Mario shakes his head. She didn't answer him, it'd probably be the same for Toad.

Mario breathes through the contraction the best he can, and when it's over he tells Toad that Luigi's on his way. The toad nods and leads them slowly to the outside of the restaurant, going through the tables occupied by many toads since it was lunch time, saying his thanks to the receptionist (and Mario awkwardly nods at them in thanks too).

Toad looks around quickly, looking for a bench for Mario to sit on, when he spots one, he leads them in its direction.

Just as Toad is helping Mario to take a seat, they hear, "Bro!" and Mario straightens up right away, looking around for his twin, almost losing his balance, and he and Toad and Luigi all panic that he'll fall, but Mario manages to keep standing as he grabs onto Toad's cap and the other hand supports his back, while Luigi runs to his side.

When Mario and Luigi are close to each other, the first thing Mario does is hug his twin, feeling like he wants to cry. And he does, actually, while Luigi gently shushes him and holds him tightly (albeit a bit awkwardly due to Mario's belly in the middle).

"It's-a okay, Mario, I'm here," Luigi says, subtly trying to catch his breath, he surely must have run all the way from the pipe that connected their kingdoms to the Great Toadchimu restaurant. Mario nods and buries his face on Luigi's shoulder, feeling much less scared than he did moments ago. The only thing to truly make him feel complete would be that Peach was there with him too.

Luigi takes care of the situation and instructs Toad to please get him a super mushroom so he could easily carry Mario to the castle. Once he eats it, he goes up the hills on a careful walk to not accidentally drop Mario or jostle him too much, while Toad hurriedly walks beside them, carrying Mario's stuff and calling Peach's father to let the doctor know they were on their way (and so were the babies-).

Back at Peach, the blessed (cursed) meeting that seemed like it lasted hours just ended, and the (damned) King Calami finally let them leave, but of course, he invited all the royals to have lunch first. But Peach is absolutely ready to tail it out of there and return to her own kingdom and to her Mario.

After exchanging quick pleasantries with the rest of royals, and passive-agressive words with King Calami that left no space to argue her reasons and determination to leave, the king kindly instructed a worker to prepare a vehicle for Princess Toadstool, as she's in such a hurry to leave already, and isn't even able to stay for lunch. The servant bows and leaves to do as instructed.

Peach smiles while inside she wishes unpleasant things for the king. She bows her head and walks calmly out of the meeting room, but one of the servants standing at the doors stopped her, "Princess Toadstool, your phone, your highness."

Right! Peach smiles thankfully as she receives it and immediately checks her notifications while walking out of the room. Her smile drops when she sees the three missed calls from Mario. With worry she clicks on the notification that says [New messages from Marito❤️] and her smile comes back in full force again while reading Mario's responses to each of her texts. And finally, her smile fully drops as does her stomach, all the way to her feet, when she reads the five last messages.

Mario's in labor?! Peach anxiously hurries to walk in a direction, then halts and turns around and prepares to walk the other way, then realizes she doesn't even know where she is supposedly going, and she's just panicking. Peach looks at her phone and quickly calls Mario's number, while trying to calm her breathing as she places a hand on her chest. There's no use on her losing her mind, she needs to stay calm.

Peach gets more anxious with each ring, until the line picks up and she jumps into talking.

"Mario, are you okay? Where-?"

"Princess, it's-a me!" She gets interrupted. It's Luigi.

"Luigi! Where is Mario?!" So much for keeping calm, she mentally scolded herself.

"He's-a with me, don't worry, we're-a going to the castle, oki? We'll wait for you there, Toad talked to Toadsworth, so he can notify the royal doctor."

"Hi! Princess, it's me, Toad, Mario's best friend- he's good and he's not talking now!"

Peach lets out a mildly relieved sigh, at least they had the situation under control.

"I hope you are okay, Mario," she says, lacing her words with the most fondness she can, while she smiles. "Please wait for me, I'll be there as soon as I can."

Luigi chuckles after a while, "He says he will, and he loves you, and you're his very beloved light- Hey! Don't-a hit me, I'm-a just adding-!"

Peach giggles to herself, imagining Mario swatting Luigi.

"I love you so much too, mi chaparrito bigotón pechocho," she says, allowing herself to be utterly corny, at least Luigi wouldn't get it.

"Aw please, Peach, that's so cheesy!" said Luigi while laughing and Peach's face burned. Right, he knows some Spanish, Daisy is teaching him only the things that are convenient for him to learn- like Peach's terms of endearment. When she hears Mario's own chuckles, she's glad she said what she said, despite her embarrassment. She smiles brightly, "I'll be there very soon, Mario! Stay strong, I love you!"

"Wait, when you're-a on your way here try ta do a videocall," says Luigi before she can hang up.

"Okie-dokie! Bye!"

Peach allows herself to jump in place for a few seconds, while holding her phone to her chest, closing tightly her eyes and smiling so widely that her cheeks hurt. Mario's in labor! They'll finally meet their babies! How exciting! She must get there as soon as possible.

As if on cue, the servant that King Calami talked to was walking to get closer to her. Peach walked to reach them quicker, expecting for them to tell her that her vehicle was ready.

"Your highness, I'm very sorry-" Oh great. "-but we have a few complications with the long-journey vehicles. But if you're willing to wait, by late afternoon-"

Peach shakes her head worriedly; Mario needed her now! Not by late afternoon- and she'd get to the Mushroom Kingdom by night if that were the case!

The servant patiently waits for the princess to arrange her thoughts, as she seems lost on her own mind.

What could she do? What to do... There wasn't a pipe system between this kingdom and hers, so she couldn't go quickly there, and the journey on any vehicle was longer than two hours, but there were closer, neighboring kingdoms to this one, that had agreed to install the pipes! She could go to them first, and then go to her wished destiny!

Peach is struck with a feeling-like-an-idiot urge to facepalm, because that's literally the way she got into King Calami's kingdom to begin with. She sighs, lamenting that her first-time parent panic is affecting her good reasoning.

"Are there available any vehicles for shorter journeys?" she asks with a falsely calmed smile.

The servant nods, "Yes, your royal highness. The smallest allow for a very fast travelling- but they fit only one member inside, you'd have to leave on your own."

Peach quickly nods, "Yes, I will- It's perfect. I'll, um- arrange for my toads to return the vehicle safely once I no longer use it, yes?" she says, trying to be convincing.

The servant nods and leads Peach to the room where the vehicles are (a royal garage i guess?), while mentioning how they will not notify the who was in charge (whoever that is-) first, if all because the princess looked so antsy that it was making the servant a bit nervous too.

Peach apologized for her clearly anxious state, delightedly (and unsubtly terrified) saying that Mario's in labor and she's in a hurry to leave. The servant looks back at her in surprise, because why didn't she say so before?!

After that, things go very quickly, both the servant and Peach hurry to get to the vehicle, where Peach puts her few belongings in and hops in, ready to drive as quickly (and safely-) as she can to the nearest kingdom with a working pipe system to the Mushroom Kingdom.

As she puts on her seatbelt, the servant, whose name Peach still doesn't know, bows respectfully, "I wish you luck and very healthy babies, your royal highness!" Peach smiles and nods hurriedly saying 'thank you so much!', and she starts her journey towards Mario.

Back with Mario, they are received by Toadsworth already fretting over the whole situation, while Luigi takes him to his bedroom, where Doctor Toadlina and two young toad nurses are already setting everything to attend his birth.

Luigi leaves Mario gingerly on the bed, in a sitting position. On the way up the hills Luigi asked Toad to take the time between each of Mario's contractions. They were way too close to each other if Mario supposedly started labor not long ago, Luigi is sure it must have been much earlier.

The doctor informs what will be done from then on, to pass labor and check his contractions and to check his dilation depending on how the labor progresses and the babies' position and all that (vague labor stuff, y'know 🧍).

Luigi (after asking one of the nurses to pinch him hard to wear off the super mushroom effect-) gently helps Mario into a more comfortable sleepshirt and underwear, while he makes some light conversation to distract him from his worry at Peach's absence. Toad isn't let in, and he asks to at least be updated if anything important happens, like the babies being born or Mario needing something. Doctor Toadlina politely closes the door on his face with a, "Thank you, Toad, we'll let you know!" while the nurses lightly giggle as they arrange water bottles, and very light snacks in their little coffee table, and arrange Mario and Peach's bed for more practical use, tying the bed drapes as tightly as possible to avoid them becoming a burden for any of them.

Mario breathes slowly and tries to keep himself as calm as he can, while closing his eyes as Luigi helps him to lay on the bed for a check up, Doctor Toadlina puts on a glove meanwhile. He feels Luigi's own gloved hand caressing his hair.

"It's-a okay, bro," he says softly, and Mario turns to look at him with a small smile, that turns wobbly after a second. He just wishes Peach was there too.

After the check-up, the doctor muses that he must be very far along in labor, because his dilation is very advanced. She announces that in no time he would be ready for the pushing stage. Mario nods with a very nervous smile, glad and also terrified to hear so.

So, Mario and Luigi do anything for him to dilate further, like walking around the spacey room, or doing different exercises together (the ones Luigi remembers from when he was in labor, and also the ones the toad doctor recommends them).

They are face to face a bit far away from the bed, both with their feet a bit apart and hands on their hips, both moving them in a swaying motion- Mario thinks his twin is doing much better than he is, and briefly wonders if he's doing it wrong himself, but then remembers that Luigi's not even pregnant, and Mario smacks himself mentally for being an idiot again, always realizing things too late. He shakes his head, he's not even sure anymore if it's the pregnancy brain or he's always been like this.

Luigi frowns, "No? But I thought you already settled on tha names-"

Mario blushes a bit, now realizing he and Luigi were supposedly talking. He shakes his head again with a bashful smile, letting Luigi know to just ignore him. His brother smiles comprehensively. "You're-a not even paying attention- Is your mind on tha princess? She hasn't called yet..."

Mario frowns and settles his gaze on the nurses quietly talking among themselves, a bit sad about the matter. He supposes she's still busy getting to their kingdom if she can't call, but still...

Back at Peach, she just exited the outskirts of King Calami's kingdom, now entering the long, deserted road that connected both realms. Now that the risk of running over someone were diminished almost to zero, she pulls out her phone, finally she can videocall Mario! She thumbs around on it, throwing brief glances at the road, and then back. As the phone dials she keeps it in her hand, not about to risk it flying away from the speed she was driving at.

The other end picks up and her big smile falls a bit when it's Toad's face that receives her, she muses that Mario must be a bit busy, then!

"Hello, Toad!"

"Hi, Princess Peach!"

"Where's Mario?"

"Oh, he's inside with the doctors and Luigi, he left his phone with me- when they kicked me out. I'll hand it to him, don't hang!"

The brothers end up going to the balcony for Mario to take some air after he realizes he's again way too nervous (so close to giving birth and Peach's nowhere to be seen!), while Luigi pats his back, and he leans on the railing. Mario looks up to the sky, the day is so nice and sunny, and it feels ironic with the way he feels- all heated up and tired already.

He gets another contraction and his hands clench on the railing while he whimpers and winces. Oh, Peach should get there sooner, she could help him to not feel pain! He tries to breathe through it as he's been doing it since they started, while Luigi rubs his lower back. It almost feels like the same rubs Peach usually did to ease his pain with her magic, only that Luigi's just brought him emotional comfort and nothing more.

They hear some commotion at the door that leads to the hall and both twins turn to look and see (nosey 🤨) what's going on. It's Doctor Toadlina scolding Toad-

"I told you already! You can't come in, Toad, only the queen and the princess can, Mario needs people that can bring him comfort and support-!"

"Yeah, I know, that's why I need to give him his phone, it's the princess!"

Mario gasps, Peachy is calling?!

He turns to Luigi and signals with his head for him to go deal with it. Luigi nods and leaves his side briefly (not before throwing a dirty look at Mario for ordering him around-) to go to the toads and see the situation. Mario doesn't have to wait long for Luigi to come back, talking to his phone with it in front of his face. Mario's heartbeat gets quicker at the idea of finally seeing Peach. When he sees her, he smiles brightly at Peach's face, being hit with a lot of wind and making her hair fly behind her.

"Hi, Mario!"

From then on, Peach and Mario talked as if she were right there with him, while Luigi did as an interpreter - given that the princess couldn't look too long at her phone while she was driving -, and Mario felt much better about the matter, now only longing that she was physically close to him.

He keeps doing exercises and staying hydrated and complaining from the contractions - at which Peach reassures she's going to calm all his pain away once she got there! -, while the doctor checked every now and then the position of the babies and stuff.

At a certain moment the connection halts because Peach had to go through the pipe system- and after that Mario had to resist the urge to laugh at her, because Peach was clearly running as fast as she could while still trying to keep her face on the camera. Mario also felt the excitement that she was very close to getting there. The background behind her changed fast from the outside of the castle to the main floor, and then to the hall where their quarters were, and finally she all but bolted inside the room, making Doctor Toadlina jump in fright and the nurses squeal in surprise.

"Mario!" she says, phone held in her hand. "Where- where are you?" She looks at the room, at the exalted toads, and then at her phone, looking at Mario's happy face.

"We're-a here!" says Luigi while waving his arm from the balcony's entrance.

"Oh!" she all but glides through the room, after saying quick hi's to the medical toads. And when her and Mario are finally face to face, they embrace the other so tightly and tenderly that Luigi quietly leaves to give them some privacy. Mario exhales in utter relief, at finally feeling completely safe. And Peach let her chin rest over his hair.

They walk to the bed and Peach lovingly helps Mario to sit close to the pillows, while the plumber keeps his hands at all times in hers.

Doctor Toadlina suggests Peach changes her royal clothes into something less cumbersome, so Peach obliges- and Mario reasonably knows it's better that way and it wouldn't take her very long, but he looked worried when she started to back away, in direction to their wardrobe- she smiled and said she wouldn't take long. Yet he still held into her hands until she pulled back too much, and they slipped from his.

At Mario's very puppy-kicked eyes, Luigi laughs and says Peach will be back to his side soon! Mario wipes his eyes and lays back on the pillows, smiling a bit ashamed of his reaction. Soon enough, Peach gets back from the bathroom where she changed, with her hair tied up, her crown still on and dressed in a white shirt and pink trousers, without her gloves or her blue brooch.

From there, Peach takes Luigi's place and is the one to help Mario with the exercises and helping him walk around or lay down or help with his contractions. She uses her healing magic several times each hour to numb his pain, and Mario sighs in relief each time she does. Also at certain times they sit at the little coffee table while she feeds him nibbles from the light snacks the nurses left. Luigi is glad to simply sit back as back-up support until the birth, enjoying the lovebirds' interactions, which in his opinion are adorable.

(Y'know those moms that do their make-up all pretty for when they give birth?) Since Mario had been crying and wiping his eyes so much, let's say his eyeliner had kind of wore off almost completely- and, in a moment of relative calmness while they waited for Mario to be able to push, Peach went to their bathroom and came back with his eyeliner. She proceded to apply it while humming to herself, as she has done many other times (this post!), while Mario smiled all relaxedly. He wasn't in pain, the babies were barely moving or bothering him, and both his girlfriend and brother were there with him (as were the doctor and nurses), so he was feeling all safe, although tired.

Mario doesn't feel pain anymore, but he is still so very tired. And the next few hours of labor and contractions became taxing way too soon, feeling the pressure at his pelvis as the babies got ready to be born and all that. As Peach helped him walk around, he finally decided he had enough of that, so he squeezed her arm to let her know, and from then on he kept himself out of his feet.

He looked tiredly at his brother from time to time, looking for additional support, while Luigi said comforting words, because he knew all too well how Mario was feeling. He spent the last moments before pushing mostly supporting his weight on the bed while on his knees, or laying propped up against the pillows, or sitting at the edge, all while still trying to vaguely do the exercises to help dilation and stuff.

🌟 During the whole ordeal Toad is outside and so is Toadsworth, because none of them were let in, for Mario's (and the medical toads) comfort. The old toad is more or less a nervous mess, so Toad takes on distracting the soon-to-be grandpa, while his daughter and son-in-law (never mind that Peach and Mario weren't married, he'd consider him so if he wished!) were going through the whole thing.

Mario at most was grunting or groaning loudly and stuff, not really screaming or anything, so from outside they couldn't hear much- which was more worrying than comforting, bc they couldn't guess what was going on.

Almost a couple of hours later, one of the nurses peaks their head out, excitedly saying that the first baby has been delivered and it was a healthy baby girl. It leads to Toadsworth being all tears while Toad excitedly (and quietly) celebrates.

Maybe he (or maybe even Luigi) had been keeping their friends updated on the matter? They have a big friend group chat or something and he's been writing the few updates he has been getting, like:

First baby's a girl!!!👶🥳🥳

And he receives a bunch of confetti emojis and crying faces and excited replies in the next few minutes, and asking for pictures (which are sent by Luigi a lot later, when Mariella had been born too, and Mario was sleeping and so were the babies).

🌟 During the birth-

The birth of each baby is extremely quick.

Doctor Toadlina gives the ok to Mario that he's free to push, but he's nervous and he quickly turns to look at Luigi, with his eyes teary and clearly very scared. His brother hugs him and is quick to reassure him that it'll all be okay bc he's right there with him (the meaning behind the words is that as long as they're together everything will be okay :''''v cries in brotherly love), and Mario smiles and nods.

Despite that, he is still feeling terribly nervous, but he's determined to do it anyways (because what other option does he have? Not give birth? He has to do it!), so he firmly grabs Peach and Luigi's hands. He takes a deep breath to brace himself- and then he exhales and takes another breath. Then he quickly looks at Peach with a pout. She smiles brightly back, full of encouragement- so he takes one last breath.

And then, he pushes with all the strength he can muster, holding and clenching Peach's and Luigi's hands firmly, not bothering to hold back (so maybe it feels like the man is trying to break their fingers, but Peach and Luigi don't say anything about that, of course-)

(pipipi kinda sad of these drawings, in the sketches they looked better and like he was really putting force into it skdjks whatevs I lost them)

After the first push, the doctor is pleased to notice that he made a lot of progress right away. And Mario's all slumped back on the pillows and trying to catch his breath, but he smiles very slightly bc he's making it despite his tiredness, woo! Peach and Luigi congratulate him quietly on his efforts, while the princess squeezes his shoulder and his brother pads at his sweaty face with his wrist. That helps too in giving him more determination to keep pushing with all he got.

The thing is that (for the sake of funny, remember) Mario is very strong and it takes one more, really strong push and the first baby pops out in the whole sense of the expression. She just shots out and Doctor Toadlina is definitely caught off guard, but she still manages to hold the baby, the thing is that she stumbles back, and she would've fallen if the assisting nurse toads hadn't hurried to help her stay upright, all caught by surprise.

She's like obviously surprised, as are Peach, Mario and Luigi (who actually took a lot of effort to push his own baby out, so he's like 'wowie bro :0'), but she quickly snaps out of it and congratulates the now officially moms for their baby girl, while the baby cries with all her little lungs' strength, looking too big in the doctor's arms.

Then she instructs the nurses to cut the umbilical cord and do all the procedures to check on the baby's health, while Peach cries because "A baby girl! that means we'll have two baby girls! Oh, Mario!" and Mario looks almost heartbroken that they had to take their baby away (he knows it's for her own wellness, but he just wants to see and hold her already), but then smiles widely at Peach's words, and at his bro's excited congratulations and hugs.

Doctor Toadlina offers Peach to hold their first born so she can bring her to Mario, but Peach is kind of scared and feels shaky from excitement, so she hurriedly tells Luigi to hold their baby instead, since he has more experience. And when he does, Luigi first holds her to Mario's face, and after making the baby kiss his cheek, he places her in Mario's arms.

When the baby is placed in his arms, Mario can't help all his tears because she's so cute! (she's actually a bit ugly, like any newborn baby is) and small (not really, she's bigger than average, especially for a twin pregnancy), and she's utterly perfect (that part's true).

Peach and Mario lean their heads together while admiring their baby (and having so many tears running down their cheeks, but they don't care).

"Oh, Mario- she's perfect," Peach barely chokes out, feeling her heart overwhelmingly full. She turns to him and kisses his head a bunch of times, while Mario smiles brightly. "You did great!"

Then Doctor Toadlina tells Mario that, given baby two's position, it'd be a while for them to be born, so he's allowed to rest and maybe take a quick nap if he wishes to. And Mario takes up on the offer right away.

He leans his head back on the pillows and, with his baby still held in his arms, he knocks out immediately. Peach lets out a surprised but amused giggle. And Luigi shakes his head in amusement too, he gently brushes Mario's hair from his forehead, and then pats his head tenderly. Mario's arms go a bit lose around the baby, but Peach and Luigi make sure he still holds her firmly, supporting his arms with their hands. While Mario naps they whisper about the baby, and how cute she is, with her little cheek squished against Mario's chest.

Peach notes all the physical features that she notices, the clearest one being her round Mario™ nose! And her brown hair, and her little dot eyes, so similar to how she knew Mario's were when he was a baby!

(Mario and Peach totally fall in love when they see their oldest baby- and fall in love again with the second- who arrives almost half and hour later.)

🌟 Once both babies are in Mario's arms, Luigi takes 23429 pictures of the three while claiming that each picture is absolutely perfect, because Mario looks happy in them (and the babies look adorably ugly- like newborns usually do), and Peach, while crying her eyes out, says how she's going to put all 23429 of them in their photo album (that so far has many pictures of Mario's pregnancy process-).

Mario's sure he looks terrible, because despite his joy he feels really exhausted, he can barely keep his eyes open enough to look at Luigi's phone while he snaps several pictures, and even though Peach ran her fingers through his hair to fix it up a bit for that moment, he knew it probably was still a mess.

It's just that everything happened so quickly and it was taking its toll on him, but at least he's very glad that both babies (baby girls! They're Mariella and Nettarina!) are in his arms already.

After everything is done, and he knows his babies are going to be well-cared for, Mario just passes out the rest of the night, and nothing wakes him up. When the babies start to get fussy because they feel hungry, Peach and Luigi take care of them, and they keep doing it for the whole rest of the afternoon and night, all while quietly speaking among themselves how cute the baby girls are and how much they look like either Mario or Peach (definitely more like Mario). Peach tears up almost each time she looks down at the babies' little faces, but it's out of her overwhelming happiness, while she whispers to herself: 'stars, they're finally here!'

At some moment, Peach hands Mariella to Luigi's arms so she can drink some water, since the baby seemed adamant about not joining her twin (and mamma) in sleeping.

"I feel very dehydrated-" she says quietly and then serves herself a glass from their coffee table. Peach makes the mistake of looking back to her brother-in-law and the little bundle of light green blankets in his arms, and she has to cover her mouth to sob again, turning to look at her glass. Oh, she was so small! And so real and there already! She hadn't felt this overwhelmingly happy since... maybe ever. And also, Peach is sure the lack of sleep has something to do with her very emotional state.

"I don't blame you, you've-a cried so much, Peach," mutters Luigi distractedly, as if he hadn't been crying a lot too, while very gently rocking one of his newborn nieces as the baby slowly blinked at him.

She had a round nose like all the Marios did (he, his bro and Magma-), and very relaxed little eyebrows, and almost a full head of reddish chestnut hair. And her little mouth was not even pouting, but Luigi couldn't help but think that she (and her sister, since they were identical) reminded him very much of when Magma was a newborn, and just placed in his arms (he also briefly remembered Mario's and Bowser's weeping when they saw her properly, and he huffed a laugh to himself).

-By the end, Peach puts only some (but still many) of the pictures in their family album, several of Mario holding the girls, either smiling or kissing them, others of her holding them, others of both new moms with their babies, and others of Luigi holding his nieces.

🌟 The next morning, Mario wakes up and the first thing he does is stretch as much as he can, realizing that he actually slept pretty well (and he was even laying on his back!). He feels a bit sore and all but less... heavy. He looks down to his body and sees his still round and swollen belly, but much less than it should be if he had two babies inside. He panics for all of a few seconds as he looks around the room, and a huge relief envelops him as he sees the two wooden bassinets that hadn't been there the day before, until the previous afternoon, when one of the nurses brought them in from the nursery to lay the babies.

He looks at the other two sleeping adults in the room, at Peach sitting in one of the armchairs in their room, with her cheek against her fist in what must be an uncomfortable position, with her crown still placed perfectly on top of her head. And to Luigi, sprawled at the foot of the bed, hatless and snoring slightly.

He smiles to himself slightly and slowly gets out of bed, wincing a bit because he still feels kind of tender from the previous day and the toll it had in his body. Mario waddles sluggishly to the bassinets and his soft smile turns bright as he looks at the little babies' faces. They're still as perfect as they were the day before, when he had them in his arms.

He looks at the oldest baby, Nettarina, wrapped in the red-pink blanket, just like he and Peach accorded that the first baby to be born would be, and then to Mariella, who's wrapped in light green. And whose little dot eyes are blinking open. Mario gets closer to her bassinet, and he leans a bit while smiling softly to her.

"Hi, baby," he whispers, holding out a hand to lightly caress her very soft cheek with a finger. Mariella just keeps blinking, with her little closed fists close to her face. She does a big yawn with her eyes tightly closed, and then she keeps looking and blinking in Mario's direction.

She was just born yesterday, and of course her vision was just terrible, but Mario still smiled at her widely as if to show her how happy he was that she was finally there. After a while the baby fell asleep, all while Mario kept looking at her.

He spent some very good minutes on his feet beside his babies, until Peach stirred awake and, upon seeing Mario standing, scrambled to her feet and with a smile asks how he's feeling-

The morning goes all nicely and stuff while both new moms (and uncle!) spend the time caring for the babies and tending to them. When it's the afternoon and Mario's feeling much better, they first let Toadsworth in -who got there early to ask for Mario's and the babies' state- and he's all weepy while looking at his grandbabies!

Maybe a few days later their friends meet their babies, as do their niblings and Daisy and all :''v

#super mario bros #mareach #text #my art #mario mario #princess peach #toad nintendo #luigi mario #mareach fankid #mareach family au #mareach preggy stuff #mpreg #godbless this is so long akjsdkjas #this ask is kinda old like the others I have on inbox but I'm gonna try to use them to answer the questions jiji #I'm not sure if I put everything I wanted in this but akjsdkasjd it's so long already wiwiwi #and I've been writing it for like a week I feel #If I want to add something I might just make another little post #also I was insecure about scheduling it once I deemed it finished- #bc of reasons #i hope you enjoyed it if you read it! #ALSO headcanon that Peach's una latina güerita alskdaslkd (like her voice actor in the movie is?? :0) #in Sarasaland they speak Spanish mainly #and in the MK it's mostly English #and Daisy and Peach's moms are both from sarasaland #ALSO sorry if there are typos or mistakes! I checked it many times but maybe I missed something :'y

[vintervittrannerd]

True as Sarcasm

By @vintervittrannerd for @whotheheckitheheck

Rating: General

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark 

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, James “Rhodey” Rhodes

Summary: The first time he said it, it was pure sass. But over time, the word started to feel more and more true, until Peter realizes that’s what Tony has become to him. A dad. 

This is for @friendly-neighborhood-exchange, you can read it on Ao3 here :)

The first time he said it, it was pure sass.

He had been back as Spider-man for a few weeks, after the month-long grounding he had gotten after May found out about him swinging around Queens stopping crime after school.

The grounding had been a compromise. May had been absolutely furious with everyone when she first found out (Peter still winced at the memory of her shouting at Tony for what seemed like hours) and had forbidden Peter from going out as Spider-man ever again. Peter had been certain that that had been the end. Once May made up her mind, she very rarely changed it, and she had been angry enough that not even Peter’s otherwise quite successful puppy eyes had worked. But to his astonishment, Tony had, after letting May finishing her shouting, somehow convinced her to let Peter continue his vigilantism. 

  There had to be rules of course. Peter wasn’t entirely happy with all of them, but May and Tony had been in agreement and there was no way Peter could change their minds once they had teamed up against him. The rules included strict curfews for patrolling (10pm on school nights and midnight on weekends), school and homework had to come first, he had to make time for his friends and family, and his sleeping schedule had to still be appropriate for a teenager (though Peter suspected he had quite different views on appropriate bedtimes for a 15 year old than the adults had). He also had to get some actual training, which resulted in an agreement that he should spend every other weekend at the Avengers compound and train with any of the remaining Avengers (which meant either Tony or Rhodey, or occasionally Vision if he was there). He also had to continue his patrol reports, but now directly to Tony, and was under no circumstances allowed to tone down or hide an injury of any kind. Not that he could hide it anyway, because Karen kept a log and reported directly to FRIDAY, and if she deemed any injury severe it would alert Tony the minute it happened. Peter was not very happy about this particular rule, but found it best not to try and hack Karen again. At least not so soon. He figured he would give it a few months at least, and then he and Ned could see if they couldn’t change Karen’s coding without Friday (or Tony) noticing.

And then there was the grounding. Peter had hoped that the, in his opinion, absurd number of rules would be enough of a punishment, but May did not agree.  

“The rules are just to let you be Spider-man at all. The grounding is for lying to my face for months.”

Peter couldn’t really argue with that, and besides he did feel bad for lying to her, so he accepted his punishment with minimal complaint.

And when he was finally allowed back out as Spider-man, things had been so different from how they’d been before the Vulture incident that Peter didn’t quite know how he should behave. Mr. Stark had taken a much bigger part in his life, way beyond what he actually had to according to his deal with May. Not only did he listen to all of Peter’s patrol reports, but he seemed to take a genuine interest in Peter's life, chatting with him about school and friends and Legos. He’d also started to invite Peter to the compound more often, not just for his training sessions, but to work in the lab with him and one time just for a movie night (Tony had claimed that he just needed a third person so a majority could vote against Rhodey's movie suggestions, but after a few minutes of mock betrayal when Peter sided with Rhodey, he had just decided that voting was a bad idea anyway and they should just take turns choosing what to watch on movie nights). And Peter found that he grew more and more comfortable around Mr. Stark, his nervousness and insecurity slipping away and being replaced by a familiarity that he hadn’t expected but definitely welcomed.

Which was how, a few weeks after he’d been allowed out as Spider-man again, Peter found himself in the compound kitchen after a training session with Rhodey while Tony cut up bread rolls and fussed over Peter like a mother hen.

“Have you eaten yet? It’s important to eat after you’ve trained, especially with your metabolism. We don’t want you passing out on us now, do we? Also, water,” Tony tosses a water bottle at Peter and then continues to rummage around in the fridge, pulling out a package of roast beef “you need plenty of water after working out, so drink up.”

Peter can’t help himself, the situation of THE Tony Stark preparing a sandwich for him and pestering him about drinking water is so surreal that the sass just slips out.  

“Yes dad.”

Rhodey snorts behind him and Tony turns to glare at the both of them.

“Very funny. But I have a deal with your scary Aunt and she will have my head if I break it. And I happen to be rather fond of my head.”

“Your deal includes making sandwiches?”

“My deal includes keeping you alive” Tony says with a stern look at Peter, who has a very hard time keeping himself from laughing. “Now shut up and eat your food.”

Peter rolls his eyes but doesn’t protest. He is starving after all.

***

It becomes a thing after that.

In fairness, Peter only sarcastically calls him dad when Tony is really helicopter parenting. In other words, all the time.

And really, who can blame Peter? Tony is, after all, the worst case of helicopter parent that Peter’s ever seen. Seriously, Peter has had four parents during his fifteen years on this planet and none of them has been quite as overprotective as his mentor is.

Peter doesn’t really mind it though. It’s kinda nice to have someone else that looks out for him, besides May. It’s mostly just a fun thing to mock Tony with, especially since he insists that he’s not a helicopter parent and is just being a “responsible adult” (at that, Rhodey had laughed so hard that he nearly fell of the chair he was sitting on and Tony had thrown a half-made sandwich at him).

He doesn’t know when or how it happened. But somewhere during the months of lab days and movie nights and texting each other stupid jokes, the “dad” had stopped being sarcastic and started being…something more. Peter wasn’t really sure what it was, only that Tony fricking Stark, Iron-man, genius, billionaire, philanthropist and arguably the best Avenger, had stopped feeling like just a mentor and started to feel something that was much closer to a real dad. It terrified Peter, but at the same time it made him feel safe and calm. Like he had someone he could lean on. Someone who would never leave him to face the world alone.

And that was precisely the reason he was terrified. Because Peter knew all too well that father figures did leave, even if it was unwillingly. His first father, Richard Parker, had left, died in a plane crash when Peter was four and he still missed him terribly sometimes. His other father, Uncle Ben, had also left, bleeding to death in an alley while Peter held him. And the grief he had for Ben was something he couldn’t even put words on, because it was mixed with guilt. Guilt, because he was the reason Ben had been in that alley in the first place. Guilt, because even with his powers, Peter couldn’t save his life. And guilt, because even though Ben had been his father in every sense of the word and he had loved him so much, Peter had never told him. He’d never called Ben Dad, or told him that he saw him as a father. In his mind, Peter knew Ben must have known anyway, just as Peter knew Ben had seen him as a son even if he never said so. But in his heart, there’s still a stab of guilt. He should’ve told Ben. He should’ve told him how much he meant to Peter.

Peter Parker knows that father figures leave, unexpectedly and painfully, and he knows the guilt that can follow. He knows he can’t always prevent the leaving, but he can prevent the guilt of never telling. And so, he starts to make a plan.

***

Peter has never been this nervous in his entire life. He almost asks Happy to turn the car around and take him back to the apartment at least twelve times on his way to the compound, and when the elevator doors open up to reveal the corridor that leads to the lab, he almost asks FRIDAY to take him back up again.

But he doesn’t. He steps out of the elevator with the small gift bag clutched in one hand and takes a deep breath. He reminds himself that he’s a superhero and that he’s supposed to be brave and that really, this shouldn’t even be something to be afraid of in the first place. Really, it’s just a small present. It’s just Tony. It just happens to be Father’s Day.

Tony looks up from his workbench when Peter enters the lab and blinks several times at him. He looks disheveled and tired and Peter suspects that he has spent at least the past 24 hours in the lab.

“Peter? Is something wrong? Wait, shit, did I miss that this was a compound weekend?”

He looks stressed and guilty enough that Peter rushes to reassure him.

“Oh, no, everything’s fine! Just… Rhodey said you weren’t busy today” (actually Rhodey’s exact words had been “It’ll do him good to be dragged out of his lab for a while, he could use the break”) “and so I asked Happy to drive me here cause… uhm, I just… I wanted to… I-I mean I just thought…” Why can’t he form a full sentence? His brain refuses to be of any help at all, so Peter gives up on trying and just holds out the gift bag to Tony “Here.”

Tony accepts the bag with an odd look on his face. “What’s this?” When Peter just blushes and doesn’t answer, Tony carefully pulls the gift out of the bag.

It’s a mug, the kind of mug that you could get in any gift shop, red with the words “World’s Greatest Dad” written on it. Only Peter had made it a bit more personal and had drawn a small golden Ironman helmet to the side and added the word Iron, so the mug now says “World’s Greatest IronDad”. Tony’s eyes go wide when he sees it. He stares at it, blinks slowly and continues staring as if he can’t quite believe it’s real.

Peter wonders if it is too much. If it is too little. If Tony will just assume it is a joke gift. If, maybe, it would be better if he thinks it’s a joke gift.

Tony is still staring at the mug.

Peter thinks maybe he hates it. Maybe he’ll look at Peter and tell him to take his mug and all its implications and get out of his lab. Maybe he’ll distance himself from Peter again. Maybe…

Tony sniffs and turns away, blinking furiously and swiping a hand at his eyes.

Now it’s Peter’s turn to stare.

“Mr. Stark…are you…are you crying?”

“No” Tony sniffs again, and his voice sounds suspiciously shaky. “It’s just that the air in here is very dry and it makes my eyes water. It’s a perfectly normal thing.”

“The air humidity is at a very normal level,” FRIDAY comments. “It should not affect your eyes in any way, boss.”

Tony glares at the ceiling and mutters something that sounds like “snitch”. Peter can’t stop himself from snorting and Tony turns his glare at him instead. However, the glare quickly melts into a look so soft and full of love that not even Peter's overanxious brain can doubt it. And finally, he dares to say the words he came here to say, the simple yet terrifying words he’d turned over and over in his head, wondering if he had any right to say them. The look in Tony's eyes wipes away all of Peter’s worries. So, he says it, and he means every single word.

“Happy Father’s Day, dad.”

#vintervittran writes #friendly neighbourhood exchange #i have no idea what this is to be honest #its just 2k words of fluff #like so much fluff #(and a tiny bit of angst just cause i couldn't help myself) #but really its mostly fluff #tony acting as peters father figure #peter calls tony dad #and its sarcastic #until its not #fathers days gifts #tony is a helicopter parent #irondad #fanfiction #peter parker #tony stark

[teal-quetzal]

Masked Prince

Hi all! =D

This is the second piece i write, and this one is for @nakunakunomi​ ‘s 750 followers event, Cliché with Hazel!

The cliché prompt i was given: We met and danced at a masked ball but i don’t know who you are.

Random word to include: thumb.

Warnings: there’s some swearing and foul language. Basically the Vinsmokes, mainly Yonji, being abusive little shits.

I love Sanji, he’s the sweetest, so i hope i made him justice! I really hope anyone who reads this likes it and enjoys it!

You finished your shift at the cafe you worked at and went straight to your best friend’s place, he had sent you a message asking to meet him ASAP. When you entered your best friend's bedroom, you found him surrounded by a huge variety of dresses.

“You’re late! We have so much to do!” he said getting up and running towards you. Cavendish was the heir of a big company and wasn’t used to the fact that other people had to work for a living and had tight schedules.

“What’s all this? Are you dressing up?” you said pointing at the gowns, “You’d look so elegant in the purple one!” you continued, pointing at it but not touching it. You were scared of ruining them because they all looked incredibly expensive.

“They’re for you, silly” he said smiling, “C’mon, start trying them on, we don’t have all day! The ball is tonight!”

“...what ball?” you asked afraid that this might be another one of his rich boy adventures.

Cavendish handed you a very fancy invitation card for a masquerade ball and explained the ball to you. It was for heirs and heiresses of big companies only, ment for them to mix and mingle without the lower classes around. And even seal some deals and arrange marriages.

“The good thing is, everyone has to be disguised, so no one will know it’s you!” Canvendish said excitedly, but seeing your frown, he added “You need to get out once in a while and have fun, no one will know you’re a waitress, not with this beautiful sapphire gown and the invitation card” he finished with a smile, and also handed you an elaborate silver mask.

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

"A masquerade ball? Why aren't any of you going? You know i’m busy..." Sanji asked his brothers, who didn't even bother to look at him.

"Cos you're the only one who can make a good impression in this stupid things" said Yonji, the only one who at least looked at him, “And the only busy you should get is with some lady, so you could strike a deal and be useful to the family for once” he added mockingly.

"You have no say in this, you're going, so put on your suit" added Ichiji.

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

You found yourself stepping out of Farul, Cavendish's favourite car, and following a candlelight path surrounded by marble statues. The venue for the ball was one of the most luxurious mansions in your city, and it couldn't have been more fitting for the event. There was a romantic aura surrounding it, and you started to think that maybe Cavendish was right, this could be fun.

When you offered your invitation to one of the doormen you couldn’t help but overhear the other guests' conversations. Economics, finances, you knew nothing about those subjects so you couldn’t help but start to feel out of place. What if someone noticed you weren't anyone important?

You started to avoid conversations and group gatherings all together, and pretended to be injured when someone asked you to dance, because you didn’t know how to ballroom dance either. Luckily for you, the food was amazing, so you tried almost everything and, being a waitress yourself, you started to fraternize with the staff. You even helped a waitress to clean her clothes when a pretentious rich kid threw wine on her.

You decided to catch some fresh air and went to the balcony. It was a beautiful balcony, surrounded by rose bushes, with marble columns and a bench...a bench occupied by one of the guests.

Deeming it inappropriate to go back inside, you politely asked him if you could sit besides him. He nodded and offered you a cigarette, which you declined. He wore a black suit, nothing too flashy like other guests, but very elegant, and a black mask with a few golden details that suited his blond hair.

"You've been quite the talk of the ball already" he said after a long silence and turned to look at you with a tired smile. "What is a beauty like you doing in a place like this?" he asked, a phrase that he had learned from a romance novel he had hidden under his bed. But he didn't expect the effect it had on you.

Suddenly you felt cold, anxious, he found out that you weren’t any heiress and was gonna drag you in front of the others, clearly.

"I--I'm not doing anything and how can you say I'm a beauty when you haven't even seen my face?!?!" you said getting up, but he grabbed your hand, gently, and didn't let you leave.

"I’m sorry, I didn't want to upset you, I just wanted to talk for a while…, and you're right I haven't seen your face but I don't need to see it when your soul is crealy the most beautiful here" he said, getting up, "I've seen you help that waitress, and if you'd like, I'd love to be your partner for a dance" he almost pleaded.

"I--I don't...know...how to dance?" You stuttered, afraid of the effect that such revelation would make. Everyone here was taught the expected protocol, and of course all of them knew how to dance.

He stood, left your hand, and turned to the rose bushes to pick up a rose. When he turned he offered you the warmest smile, took off the thorns and put the rose on your hair.

"Makes sense you're pretending to be injured then," he said while offering you his hands to dance, "just follow my lead, my princess".

With his warm hands in yours, you saw that he cut his thumb, probably with the rose's thorns, you thought, and you retrieved and started searching in a hidden pocket you had.

"Wha-what's wrong?" he asked, clearly confused and...sad? Did he really care and wasn't just playing?

"You cut your thumb! Here, let me!" you said warmly, and put a colorful band aid on it. "Maybe it's a bit too childish for you? It's the only one I have..."

"I love it!" he said, cutting you and seemingly flustered, with blush appearing on his ears, "you're... you’re too kind". And he proceeded to put a hand on your lower back and grab yours with the other.

You started to dance and clumsily follow him. Under the stars and surrounded by roses, to the muted music that came from the inside, you forgot about classes and money. You started talking about everything and started to call him "Mr Prince" in response to him calling you "My Princess", which you both found amusing.

But after a while the music stopped, and you knew it meant the masquerade ball was over, and you had to part ways, probably forever.

He asked for you to meet him again, but your fear of rejection once he found out your real income and class was too big, and you left without saying goodbye, disappearing in the crowd.

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

Feelings of regret flooded you since you disappeared from the ball last night, never before you had such a connection with someone, but what could you do now? You knew nothing about him, not even his name, because your insecurities and fears took the best of you.

Your shift was almost finished in the cafe you worked at when a guy with green hair came in, followed by a blond guy and a woman with pink hair.

While you were taking the pink hair's orders and scribbling her name in the cup, you couldn't help but overhear the green hair picking on the blond.

"Why are you wearing this stupid band-aid, anyways? It's childish and pathetic as fuck" he said, "At least tell me you scored last night at the ball, you have to keep our reputation, you know?"

"Reputation of disgusting pervs” said the pink haired woman, turning towards her brothers, “Sanji is better than this". Sanji rolled his eyes and came closer to the counter and finished their order.

"Excuse my brother and his manners" he said to you with an apologetic smile, "how much is it?" he said while taking out his wallet. And then you saw it, the band-aid on his thumb. Just like the ones you usually carried around.

Your blood froze and you started to feel dizzy, you started to ponder if it could really be last night’s prince. The comments his brother made and the band-aid he wore in the exact thumb were pointing towards it.

With your heart beating faster than ever, you couldn't help but wonder but in an impulse of bravery you wrote "Mr Prince" in his cup instead of his name, hoping that if it was him, he'd recognize you.

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

Outside the cafe, Sanji couldn't stop thinking of that waitress' weirdly familiar voice, when Yonji gave him his cup.

"Ha! Mr Prince...you didn't score with a nice heiress but you scored with the waitress...you really are a pathetic good-for-nothing!" said Yonji reading Sanji's cup.

Sanji, in shock, looked at his cup. Everything made sense now, of course your voice sounded so familiar! He thought you were of lower income but an heiress anyways, but no, you were a waitress that sneaked their way into the ball! That’s why you were so weirdly secretive last night!

He rushed inside, leaving his siblings confused, excited by the sudden realization.

You were ready to leave the cafe for the day, feeling like the biggest idiot. “Maybe it wasn’t him?” you wondered, “or maybe he didn’t care about you if you were a waitress, afterall you two were from different worlds…” you kept thinking, feeling like a fool for having the slightest hope.

But when you were already heading for the door, he came in.

"Princess!" He called when he saw you, leaving you confused and flustered at hearing him calling you that endearing nickname again.

Sanji came closer to you and grabbed your hands and kissed them, leaving you like a blushing mess, unable to say a word.

"I feel like the dumbest man in the world...could you ever forgive me for not recognizing you right away?"

"How...How could you? We were disguised and i'm...i'm a..." you answered pointing at the counter, but he caressed your cheek, leaving you speechless again.

"You're the beautiful woman that came into my life last night" he said tenderly, "Would you do me the honor of joining me for lunch? I'd love to get to know you properly" he finished with the sweetest smile.

And how could you say no?

#cliche with hazel #sanji #black leg sanji #sanji x reader #tw: swearing

[cloveroctobers]

YASMIN DOUGLAS—

IG info/Bio: @/imyasmin_d | 11.6k followers | hello & ahlan 🎶

23-24 years old depending on her birthday (I’m thinking too much about timelines since i know some shows aren’t live and if they filmed it prior & it’s just being shown to us now...then there’s the boat party that comes in after, you get what I’m saying right? No? Okay)

Moroccan heritage

she was born in fes along with her baba

Father works in the carpet & rug manufacturing industry and worked in his father’s business from the young age of 16

her mother is from Essaouira & has often stated that she couldn’t stand Yasmin’s father the first time they met but she wouldn’t want to travel through this life with anyone else

Her father and mother came from two different lifestyles. All he knew how to do was hard work yet he had a sarcastic but playful side to him whereas her mom came from a family that was more financially stable & she was free to do whatever! mainly hanging at the beach with her friends without a care in the world, she was privileged and a little uppity while her father’s life seemed to be planned out from the day of his birth

Yet they still fell in love and decided to leave Morocco months after they got married at 21 & 24 & not too long after they had yas they left for England

She was raised in Kent, England

The Atmosphere led to her boho lifestyle...being exposed to castles, gardens, and underground tunnels from time to time shaped her into what she felt she was meant to be. She loved her second home

they call her “yazzy”

Parents follow islam...Which Yasmin respects but is not strongly devoted to

Can speak & write in Arabic but seems to do better in writing

Her paternal grandparents fault her parents for not teaching her to excel at both & feel that if they weren’t in such a rush to leave home she would speak Arabic better

Which made Yasmin feel like shit. Her paternal grandparents were strict on keeping their customs alive whereas her maternal grandparents were carefree as long as they got to see their granddaughter alive & well that was good enough for them

Idk maybe a only child or has a older brother? I don’t feel like she comes from a big family sibling wise

her mother made her a stuffed purple sheep that she took everywhere with her as a kid & continues to keep close to her. Y’all had imaginary friends? Well Yasmin had a real friend she could see & squeeze the life out that didn’t require talking and hugging the air, but that’s fine do u

100% collects beanie babies until this day but lil yamb is the number one princess in her household

As her significant other you have to be okay with lil yamb sleeping in between y’all that’s just the way it is

These stuffed babies are her comfort when no else can be

she’s a singer/songwriter. Went to uni for it & finished a semester early

Went through multiple hell experiences when it came to interning & temping while still in school & after

Let’s just say she wasn’t down to f*ck her way to the top

this made her anxiety act up, these people made her feel like she wouldn’t be good enough to show the world her craft & it’s didn’t have to be the world, just someone who would listen

But she couldn’t give up, there was nothing else she saw herself doing. She knew this is what she was meant to do but she couldn’t lie and say that her insecurities didn’t get the best of her most days

Although the cons seemed to out way the Pros some days, she kept at it & found herself a solid team that knew what she was about and understood her soul

Was definitely the student who loved all her English classes & when she spoke up everyone found it shocking since she preferred to just write everything out rather than “participate in group discussions”

I feel like her singing voice sounds similar to Jessica mauboy’s (if you don’t know who that is & you’re a fan of r&b/pop check her out or if you’re just curious that works too lol)

Knows her music notes like the back of her hand, duh!

Fav color is royal blue, especially on her eyelids & nails

Occasionally sleeps in rollers to keep her hair wavy

Needs her space when it comes to disagreements, they stress her out & she panics a bit when things go wrong so she feels like she needs to leave the situation rather than talk it out right then and there

She’ll talk when she’s ready, she just needs someone that’s a little patient with her that’s all

Words of affirmation is her love language? When she figures out how to balance her love life with her work life that is. When she’s feeling confident she’s smooth with words but when she needs to show you how much you mean to her & she really takes the time to think it out & feel her emotions, she’s writing you a song or you’re the inspiration to it or a poem, leaving you little love notes on blue post-it’s around the house, will write 50 reasons why she loves you on Valentine’s Day, and will say so when it’s just the two of you in your own comfort

Isn’t too crazy about public displays of affection but will deff hold your hand if that’s something you or she wanted in that moment

I think she’s fluid

Hasn’t been in many relationships. Sure she goes on tour every other year and gets to meet many people but they’re not solid relationships, they’re hookups and she hasn’t done many of those either

Had maybe one or two solid relationships: a androgynous woman that uses she/they pronouns & was in a rock band & a cis male she met at a tattoo parlor his step-brother owned (he kinda favored seb but we’re not going to speak on that)

I believe she wants to get married someday but isn’t so keen on the idea of kids. The furthest she’ll go is adopting a couple of animals. She’ll be a pet mom! I feel like she’ll be anxious looking after the life of a human being when it’s extremely hard to do so not only for herself and the love of her life & you want to add kids to the mix?! Fucking hell! but that could change? Who knows what life can throw at u

Has a hedgehog named Sonia that she drops off at her parents for their weekly sleepovers

Loves lace—mostly bralettes & crotchet clothing

I see her as a corduroy girl too. She has at least some rusty brown low-rise corduroy pants or/and a jacket

owns a crotchet kit, she’s bloody good at it too

Loved pink & purple (still likes them, they’re her 2nd & 3rd fav colors) so much as a kid that she tried to dye her hair half & half while her parents went out on their date night...it was also the weekend before school pictures :)

Says she got her inspiration from starfire & raven. She was only 13 at the time & had braces. Her father approved saying she’s a kid and she should be allowed to express herself. He only said that because his own parents barely let him & his brothers have their own fun

Her mother thought it was atrocious and did her best to get it out with the help of her other hair stylists friends (her mother worked in plenty of beauty shops once she got to England, until she decided to convert their basement into her own shop) who she invited over to see what her daughter had done but when you use certain permanent dyes...

It didn’t completely damage yasmin’s hair plus it was just hair, Yasmin didn’t see the big deal. She thought she looked splendid

Anyway, massive fan of ballroom dancing

She’s got a great ear to begin with so it was extremely fun twirling around while wearing pretty ballroom gowns

Took boring etiquette classes as a form of punishment? After the whole teen Titans inspiration thing “went wrong”

Enjoys western films

yes she owns a cowgirl hat & some boots too so sue her, she likes what she likes

Knows how to lasso but hates doing it to animals but she’ll do it to you :) (*gags* lmao why???)

Also loves visiting western towns & learning some history or at least experiencing what it was like

Type of significant other that will do her best to persuade you to stay in a treehouse airbnb, a cabin, the fucking Idaho potato, or camping out in her Volkswagen van in the middle of nowhere!

Has faux cow rugs, wicker baskets, wicker chairs in her flat, hangs some plants in glass jars & bottles all over her house

Her flat is very bright & vibrant: white, mocha brown, tan, yellows, & pastel purple

When it comes to decision making, she’ll make them pretty quick but only if it comes to choosing desserts

nobody is touching her mom’s meskouta orange cake WITH syrup

the dessert eater that always picks the one that has a surprise inside, meaning it has to ooze out with SOMETHING to make it 10x more satisfying

Leaning towards Buddhism, had studied some of their beliefs and found it resonates with her spirit

Fan of neon lights, probably has a few neon signs in her flat preferably on her brick wall in the loo, “to give u comfort as you go!” “that...actually makes sense.” Tai commented as he rubbed his chin coming to terms with yasmin’s reply. While Iona scowls, “no, no it doesn’t. I feel as if it’s an invasion of my bits!” “...Sorry you feel that way.”

tai & ciaran are automatically deemed as her brothers since she came into the villa with them. She had time to connect with them unlike anyone else. It was just the way the stars wrote their story and it showed outside of the villa too. they often crash at her place all the time when they’re in town & vacation all the time together when their schedules line up + it never feels like she’s third wheeling

“TaiTower” & “BB-Ci” are their names in her phone, Tai picked his own name while the “bb” stands for “best buds” for ciaran —which is a joke since he drunkly called himself so + he loves everyone when he’s drunk

You can always count on her to belt the lyrics to a Chaka Khan, TLC, or paula abdul joint when she’s drunk lol

As for the girls? She’s close with miki 😒 they just seem to be on the same wavelength when it comes to the pressure of the media since they have some sort of fame which increased with them being on the Telly. They bond over that & from there they’ve built a solid friendship

She could also be friends with AJ too (if you didn’t get swiped from her that is lmao!) they’re sorta opposites with aj being high energy/active while Yasmin is more mellow & “mysterious” but seem to connect in different ways: their sexual indentities, insecurities/anxieties, having something to be passionate about but at the same time maybe not? She might lean towards elladine or Genevieve if she had to make a choice?

Aquarius sun + cancer moon

so she’s still 23 y’all, I got it! I can’t do math sorry

“Freddie Mercury was probably my dad in my past life.”

Can play the banjo, guitar, & oud

Participates in hot yoga weekly

If she’s not with mc in the end and continues dating around if anyone from season two: LUCAS, Kassam, Gary, Rocco, maybe Blake? I originally thought Elisa but she’s probably too much for yas let’s be honest here lol they’d be better off as friends

Omg I forgot marisol! Imagine that?! Whew!!!

Season three: maybe Lily? But what if? Me being the slightly messy bitch that I am? Something happening with her & AJ. Now that?! Would be some chaotic shit “from the outside looks of it” name the irrelevant person behind the quote...now!

I’d like to see her interact with allerga but there could be something with her & cherry. I’m thinking cherry, Yasmin, & priya would bond well but we’re not here to talk about that

Getting rid of the physical aspect I genuinely think she’d do well with marisol, Lucas, or kassam. They’d mesh well I think in a relationship

She’s a body shimmer girl for sure!

Loves silk or satin robes

she’s a shortie, 5’2 to 5’5

Is learning Spanish

Loves arcade games, come see her in pinball & Pac-Man!

Quarantine life did not change her lifestyle much, but it did slightly mess with her mental health :/

loves the fall time, feels like she can slow down some and really spend time with family and friends

I feel like she has one best friend outside of the villa & that’s good enough for her!

They met their first year in uni & been close ever since

She doesn’t speak to the temporary friends she grew up with anymore & is often confused why they feel the need to keep up with her in the media which added more annoying worries to her heart but whatever right? Keep your eyes on the horizon

celebs she finds/found attractive: Aaliyah—especially when she played in queen of the damned, Kehlani, Zazie Beetz, Fivel & Booboo Stewart, Lakeith stanfield, Leah Lewis, Sofia Carson, Ryan gosling, & Nick Jonas

She listens to: jade bird, Yebba, Elli Ingram, Wafia, Zeina, Summer walker, Tanerèlle, Mariah the scientist, Teyana Taylor, Tove Lo, lady Gaga, Ra Ra Riot, Empire of the sun, & smallpools

Anthem? Diana Gordon — Rollin’

#litg #litg3 #litg s3 #litg yasmin #litg tai #litg ciaran #litg mc #litg aj #litg2 #litg s2 #litg cherry #litg allegra #litg oc #litg iona #litg elladine #litg genevieve #litg seb #litg lily #litg headcanons #litg moodboard

[obsessedwithbbandsuju]

Forever

*Dialogue Prompt #3 for @2ya2yao​‘s Super Junior Prompt Fic Challenge

Well. If someone asked him, he would insist that it wasn’t mischief. It was for science, and his girlfriend was the subject.

Pairing: Park Jungsoo/Son Taeyeon

jagi: a Korean word that can be used to refer to one’s significant other

___   

The name Leeteuk wasn’t really associated with mischief in the idol world. Leeteuk was supposed to be the responsible leader of Super Junior, the tired mother who did his very best to keep a merry gang of crazy men sufficiently under control. And in some ways, Jungsoo knew, that was who Leeteuk was. But Leeteuk could also be mischievous, and right now Jungsoo was up to some mischief.

Well. If someone asked him, he would insist that it wasn’t mischief. It was for science, and his girlfriend was the subject.

Taeyeon was notorious for being good at, well… everything. Not only musically – though certainly that too – but athletically, linguistically, academically, practically, socially – he didn’t have the time on his hands to name it all. Not once had he seen her fail, or even so much as rattled.

And Jungsoo loved how capable she was. He did. But she had to have some weakness, right? It just wasn’t plausible that a human being could be such a natural in every field. There had to be something, and he was determined to find out what it was.

~

“Come on, jagi,” he whined into the cell phone, throwing in the jagi, a word he rarely used, to let her know how desperate he was. “I have to go soon, and Shimkoong is absolutely refusing to go where I usually leave her when I’m away. I don’t know who else to count on. Please?”

“Okay, okay. You always know how to get what you want.” On the other end of the line, there was amusement in Taeyeon’s voice as she accepted his request. Jungsoo gave a mental shout of triumph. “Thanks, Taeyeon. I’ll have her over soon. I love you.”

“I love you too.” The sincerity that rang when she said those words warmed his heart, distracting him from his plotting, even for just that second.

Once she’d hung up, he scooped his dog into his arms and gotten into his manager’s car, asking him to head quickly to Taeyeon’s apartment before they arrived at the filming location. Usually they stayed together in his place, but with both of their schedules packed for most of the days of the current month, they’d decided it might be more convenient to stay apart from some time so the all the chaos didn’t clash in one apartment.

At his girlfriend’s place, Jungsoo watched Shimkoong intently as he handed her over to Taeyeon, who stroked the dog’s head and cooed. Shimkoong tended to get rather cranky in unfamiliar places, especially when he wasn’t around, and when she got cranky she could keep it up for several days at time, running around and barking and refusing to listen – which was what he was counting on. He thanked Taeyeon one more time with a kiss on the forehead, to which she laughed and swatted him away playfully. Before he left for the broadcast he was filming that day, though, she still sent him off with a kiss on the lips (since he insisted) and a “good luck”.

The filming took the better part of the day, and they paused in between only for a thirty-minute lunch break and forty-five-minute dinner break. By the time he was finished, Jungsoo was exhausted, but there was one thought that kept energy coursing through his body. He headed over to Taeyeon’s apartment, fully expecting to arrive to a relentless Shimkoong scampering around, barking up a storm, and an annoyed girlfriend. But when he walked in through the door, he saw his dog running up to him happily, wagging her tail. Trailing behind her came Taeyeon, looking calm and collected as ever. She shot him a smile, almost like she knew what his scheme was.

Jungsoo pouted.

~

Jungsoo stared at the instruction booklet in his hand and then back at the scattered parts of the new computer he had bought and was trying to assemble. He’d made some progress, but the pieces were still far from a working device, and he couldn’t help feeling that this was his limit; he had had yet another filming for another variety show earlier that day, he was tired and hungry, and the fact that the instruction manual’s font size was probably about five wasn’t helping matters. Huffing through his nose in frustration, he set the booklet down, glaring at the parts in front of him. And then an idea came.

“Taeyeon?” he called. He heard footsteps, and then she appeared from the hallway, her hair tied back messily in a ponytail.

“What is it?” she asked, kneeling next to him and rubbing his back soothingly. Jungsoo was silent for a second, melting into the sensation of her slim fingers against his skin through the thin T-shirt he wore.

Gathering himself, he turned to her with puppy eyes that he reserved only for her sight, probably because they wouldn’t have the slightest millimeter of an effect on the other members. “Do you think you could help me with this?”

Taeyeon glanced down at the mechanical parts strewn across the floor, then at the instruction manual that Jungsoo was still holding. To his surprise, she flashed him a small smile.

“Of course.”

A little restless with anticipation, Jungsoo handed her the manual. She squinted at its text, read one of the lines, stared down at the pieces for a moment, and then got to work.

About an hour later, the computer was put together nicely, its polished black plastic and metal practically glinting under the lights. Jungsoo held down on the power button, and the newly-assembled device turned on without a hitch.

He huffed.

~

When he’d suggested a walk to his girlfriend, this was not what he’d had in mind. He had just wanted a peaceful stroll in the moonlight with Taeyeon and Shimkoong, a chance to unwind after all the hecticness of the past two months. It didn’t seem like much of a request, but apparently the universe had deemed that it was.

Because they’d run into three of the many juvenile delinquents that often roamed the streets of Seoul at night while under the impression that they were grown and could do whatever they wanted. (It was a phase everyone went through in their late teens, though thankfully the majority didn’t let it get so out of hand that they began committing borderline illegal acts.) The kids couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen, maybe twenty tops, but they sure had strutted right up to Jungsoo and Taeyeon like they were professional criminals.

Jungsoo calculated in his head the risks. He didn’t really want to run; it would feel silly fleeing from practically children, but getting in a fight didn’t seem very appealing either. Both of them were wearing caps to partially conceal their faces, and the dark was helping, too, but still, the consequences of a celebrity getting in a fight… no, they weren’t worth it.

On her leash, Shimkoong was snarling and barking.

“Cute dog, mister,” the kid in the front, a tall but thin boy with ripped jeans and a black jacket, smirked as he eyed Shimkoong blatantly. Nerves flaring, Jungsoo fought the urge to glare. His eyes flicked sideways toward Taeyeon who had just been standing next to him a second ago, but now she wasn’t there anymore. She’d stepped forward in the path of the delinquents, posture unnervingly relaxed. If Jungsoo was just a passerby he would have thought she was someone who often picked fights on the street, too.

“We’re trying to take a walk, so it would be nice of you to go on your merry way,” she said calmly.

The atmosphere was full of uneasiness; Jungsoo’s muscles were tense, Shimkoong’s fur stood on end, and there was visible aggression in the delinquent’s stare as he looked down at Taeyeon.

Eventually, though, he spat sideways in an attempted show of dominance, saliva flying from his mouth and landing with a splat on the street. Jungsoo fought the urge to wrinkle his nose, and Shimkoong gave a very soft growl. Taeyeon didn’t move.

“Tsk. Whatever, slut.” The delinquent’s voice was somewhere between sullen and purposefully dismissive, like he was trying overly hard to sound though. “Come on, guys. Let’s not waste time on this cuck and his bitch.”

Without another word, the three kids stalked off, glancing back occasionally at Jungsoo and Taeyeon with slight unease as if they were afraid they were going to attack them from behind. Jungsoo couldn’t help feeling the slightest bit of pity; he knew that brash hotheadedness mixed with crippling insecurity and nearly animalistic desire to prove yourself of early adulthood, and it was a no pleasant feeling. But he couldn’t feel any kindlier towards them than that, on account of the slurs their leader had used to refer to Taeyeon. Only once the three of them had vanished from sight from several seconds did he relax.

The entire time, though, Taeyeon hadn’t blinked an eye once (figuratively speaking). Slightly awed at his girlfriend’s composure, Jungsoo threaded his fingers through hers, squeezing. She glanced at him, and it somehow wasn’t a surprise to see her instantly smiling again.

“Doesn’t anything scare you?” He was half-chiding, because he would feel better if she was more cautious, but half-asking, because she legitimately had not seemed fazed.

Taeyeon squeezed his hand back with a shrug. “Plenty of things do, but not a few delinquent kids.”

~

Hyukjae, Donghae, and Ryeowook were fighting. About what, Jungsoo didn’t know. All he knew, or cared to know, was that he, eyelids practically drooping from filming since seven A.M. that morning, was just trying to sleep early for once when he’d been interrupted in his preparations to crash by the sound of the three members’ raised voices.

All of them had moved temporarily back into the dorm recently because they had several group schedules coming up that required long hours of driving and decided it would be more convenient to just go at the same time, rather than every member setting off and arriving at different hours depending on the traffic in their area. On one hand, it was nice because it was nostalgic; it took him back to the time when they were young and vigorous and the burden of their fame hadn’t quite caught up to them yet. On the other hand, Jungsoo felt like he was fucking dying. He’d forgotten how uncontrollable it could get with all of them living in the same space.

A few hours ago, Taeyeon had come over and spent the night at the dorm, eating dinner with them while rolling her eyes several times at the teasing from the other members to keep things private in the bedroom. They did not, in fact, have any intention of doing anything that night, for the sake of being courteous of everyone else, and it would be more than nice enough to fall asleep next to her.

Jungsoo just wished he’d get to lay down in peace.

“What do you mean, me? You’re the one who’s at fault here!” Ryeowook’s shrill voice rang through the dorm. Jungsoo groaned, suppressing the urge to shriek into the pillow. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with this.

Taeyeon must have seen the will to live fading from his eyes, because she sympathetically patted his shoulder. “You okay?”

Jungsoo took another calming breath. “Yeah. I’m just tired.” That was one way to put it. A more accurate way would be “I’m just done with this bullshit” or something along those lines, but he restrained himself.

“That’s understandable. Go and sleep, I’ll sort everything out,” Taeyeon suggested, giving him a light push toward the bed. Jungsoo sat down on the mattress, pointedly ignoring another bout of loud arguing from outside. “Are you sure?” She should know better than anyone how difficult his members were to deal with.

“It’s not like I’m unfamiliar with how Super Junior works,” she reassured him, amusement in her voice. “I’m still hanging around you people, which means I’m picking up some of your insanity – since that’s the only way to survive around this group.” She wasn’t exactly wrong. Maybe none of them had been exactly normal since the beginning, but being around each other had only amplified the chaos over the years.

“Okay, I’m counting on you then,” Jungsoo said, laying down with a sigh of bliss. She patted his head and gave him a quick kiss on the lips before leaving the room, flicking the light switch off as she did and closing the door tightly. Jungsoo stared after her, wondering how well she would fare.

Miraculously, he drifted off, but the concern over what had become of the argument must have been eating at him more than he realized, because only two hours later, he found himself blinking up into the darkness. It was quiet outside, but a quick glance at the door showed him that the lights of the living room were still on, which meant at least some of the other members were still awake. Taeyeon wasn’t back, either.

Rubbing his eyes, he got up out of the bed and peeked out into the hallway. The way his door was positioned, he had a fairly good view of Hyukjae, Donghae, and Ryeowook sitting together on the sofa, talking quietly but cheerfully. Clearly, they had made up. Perched just a little distance away, watching the three with the expression of a satisfied mother, was Taeyeon.

She was even good at mediating arguments.

~

I give up. Jungsoo was about to admit that he’d lost. Apparently, his girlfriend was just perfect – good at everything on top of being funny and intelligent and beautiful. He was ready to just accept that he’d been lucky enough to somehow snag a superhuman for a partner.

He couldn’t even find anything bad to say about her cleaning, he noted, as he glanced over his shoulder at her, kneeling in a corner and wiping away dust. They had decided they’d spend the day today tidying up his apartment; something that Jungsoo was used to and liked doing, but there was a new kind of enjoyment in it when his girlfriend was there doing it with him.

He was engrossed in wiping down some of the drawers when Taeyeon shrieked – a terrified, shocked, shrill, and entirely alien noise. Alarmed, Jungsoo spun around in her direction to find her staring underneath one of the windowsills with horror in her eyes before she distanced herself from it at the speed of light. Bewildered, he abandoned what he was doing hurried over, wondering what it possibly could be that she’d seen. He had never heard her sound so frightened; she’d hardly even flinched when they were watching The Wailing together, so what could have scared her so badly now, especially in his apartment?

“What is it? Is there something there?”

Taeyeon looked over at him, disgust marring her greyish-hazel eyes. “There’s a spider!”

Jungsoo stopped in his tracks, dumfounded. A spider?

Approaching the windowsill and looking under it, he saw that she was right – there indeed was a tiny, light brown spider there, settled among its webs.

He glanced back at Taeyeon, whose gaze was still fixed under the windowsill like residing there the most monstrous abomination that had ever existed. “Jagi, it’s just a spider.”

“Just a spider?” She sounded practically furious that he’d dared use the word just in reference to a spider; in fact, this might be the most rattled he had ever seen her. “Kill it already!”

Jungsoo chuckled. He couldn’t help it. After all the ridiculous antics he’d done to try and pinpoint anything that might faze his girlfriend, this was it? A tiny spider? Sure, he might not be fond of arachnids, but her visceral reaction was on another level.

“Not funny,” Taeyeon muttered from behind him, flicking him on the back of the head as punishment for his amusement. Jungsoo turned around to face her, unable to stop smiling. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Just… I didn’t think a spider would be the thing to crack your composure.”

“Oh, shut up and get rid of it,” she hissed, furrowing her brows at him in displeasure. Obediently, Jungsoo knelt in front of the windowsill and disposed of the spider with a piece of toilet paper. As he stood, he noticed Taeyeon backing up, eyeing the crumpled paper in his hand warily.

“You know a tiny spider can’t hurt you. Especially if it’s dead,” he pointed out.

“It’s not about hurting me,” Taeyeon admitted, her nose wrinkled. “I just hate spiders. They’re… disgusting. Now will you please throw that away?” She had inched further away from him. Well, not him specifically; it was the toilet paper with the squashed spider that held all her animosity.

Ever the dutiful boyfriend, Jungsoo obeyed and made his way to the bathroom, where he flushed the arachnid. As he washed his hands, he glanced at Taeyeon, who had been peeking in to confirm with her own eyes that the spider was long gone. “Better?” he asked, amused.

“Better,” she huffed. “You think this is real amusing, don’t you?” The words were an accusation, but, now that the spider was completely gone, she seemed to have relaxed. There was playfulness in her tone, and she was smiling faintly.

Washing his hands as he formulated a response, Jungsoo decided there was no point in hiding it – she’d already caught on. “It’s just… you always seem to be a natural at everything. For a spider of all things to freak you out so much is funny.”

“Well. I never thought you’d have such a cleaning obsession when I first met you, either,” Taeyeon retorted, but her voice was mild.

“Ouch, low blow. What did you think I’d be like?” Jungsoo challenged as he wiped his hands with the towel. He was genuinely curious; by her own admission she’d been a Super Junior fan since their debut, which meant that she must have known something about him even before they met for the first time during a broadcast. He forgot which one – they’d seen each other several times for business over the years, although it was only in 2014 when she worked with Super Junior for their MAMACITA album that they’d become closer than just acquaintances.

“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “I thought you’d be more naturally witty. I thought you wouldn’t complain and nag as much as you actually do. I thought you wouldn’t be so awkward when you flirt. I thought you’d give me less cheesy pickup lines.”

“Jagi…” Jungsoo complained.

Smiling, Taeyeon closed the gap between them with a light hop and reached up to take his face in her hands, pressing her lips to his in a chaste kiss. When she pulled away, Jungsoo flushed, not having expected the sudden display of affection. There were times when his girlfriend could seem slightly detached, but other times, she was touchy-feely like this.

“I love you, Jungsoo,” Taeyeon said simply, dropping all honorifics from his real name in the way that made him shudder a little under her hands. “I love everything that you are. Cheesy pickup lines and all.”

She went to move away, but Jungsoo grasped her shoulders and pulled her to him so their foreheads were touching. She was significantly shorter than him, but the height difference was just suited so that he could look directly into her eyes like this. God, she was beautiful. Almost unconsciously, he brushed his thumb over the soft skin of her face.

“I love you too.” The words were barely a whisper.

With a smile, Taeyeon cupped his face in her hands. “I don’t say this often, but I want to right now,” she said. “I love you, and I’m going to protect you from anything.”

The rush that flooded him made Jungsoo heady and breathless, his veins burning like he was being scorched from the inside out with the heat of his emotion. “For how long?” he murmured, stroking his fingers across her cheek.

“Forever.” She kissed him.

#super junior scenarios #super junior reactions #super junior imagines #super junior #leeteuk scenarios #leeteuk reactions #leeteuk imagines #leeteuk #park jeongsu #my writing

[timetoresurface]

POLYGLOT (3) / JJK

The prefix poly- comes from Greek and means “many” or “multi-.” The last part of the word comes from the Greek term glōtta, meaning “language” or “tongue." = a person who knows and is able to use several languages.

Word: I’m no writer and English ain’t my mother tongue, but I’ll try my very best to make this as great as I possibly can. I’ll try to be your polyglot and put my weird romantic dreams into words.

I’ve never experienced love like this on Tumblr. Thank you for reading, liking and reblogging my baby. There is also some more dialogue in this part, please don’t cringe while I’m still learning how to be as real life as possible.

Pairing: reader x Jungkook Genre: romance Warnings: none Word count: 2374 words

Summary: Your academic background consists of a wide range of languages. You only studied Korean with a linguistic point of view in mind, as Hangul is a perfect phonetic language. Learning a new culture and their music always excited you so when an opportunity arrises to be a translator in Korea you didn’t even hesitate for a second. No, you immediately booked your one way ticket without even being certain that you had the job.

PART (1) / PART (2) / / PART (4) / PART (5) / PART (6)

After the night you had all spend together it became easier for you to feel comfortable around them. They had shared funny anecdotes that had filled the room with laughter. They also talked about some of the hardships of being in their position, they can barely poop without someone noticing and stirring up a little drama. It drives them crazy from time to time but to them it is worth it. Which is the most important thing, you guess.. You could never live like that but you weren’t an idol. You were just you. Translating your way through the world.

“Y/N can you film our secret handshake?” Halsey asked you nicely. She and Namjoon had been practicing for what felt like hours. They had to create and perfect their little shake. You took her phone and started filming after giving a clear sign for them to start.

Your eyes wondered over to the youngest of BTS. He was holding Taehyung’s little dog while looking like a snack himself. He had just changed into a new set of clothes and the white T-shirt seemed to be handmade for him. Like his body was the only body allowed to wear that shirt. Yes, that shirt was that strong. Or maybe it was Jungkook. Halsey took back her phone and went to chat with Namjoon about something. Everyone seemed busy so you naturally gravitated toward the puppy.

“How cute.” Was the only thing you could say while holding out your hand to pet the little man. Your eyes looked pleadingly in the direction of Taehyung and he only seemed to encourage your behavior.

“You can pet him. He likes people.” His words were barely said and your hand had found its way toward Yeontan. You started to stroke it gently not wanting to touch Jungkook by accident. Which was really difficult as the puppy itself wasn’t that big. Every time you unexpectedly touched Jungkook’s arm you felt him tense up beneath your touch. 

“He’s really tiny.” You said. Taehyung had left and you were alone with Jungkook. He looked a bit panicked while just nodding his head to your remark. “Do you think he will get any bigger?” You asked him curiously while your eyes remained on the little dog. You thought he was shaking his head but you weren’t sure so you looked up and your eyes locked for a second. The moment his brown eyes connected with yours he looked away. It felt like you were an ugly troll that couldn’t be directly looked at. You never thought you could understand the frustration behind the greek mythology character Medusa, but here you were thinking she had it easy. At least she turned people into stone while you had ti endure the awkward glance.

“You want to hold him?” He asked you while offering you Yeontan. You nodded your head and suddenly a wild puppy was in your arms. The little dog looked a little bit lost in your hold but started to relax as soon you started to pet him. 

“He isn’t rea-“ you started to say but Jungkook was nowhere to be seen. Where did he go? Why did he leave you with a dog that is not yours and you had just met. Luckily for you Taehyung was a good father and immediately came to your rescue.

“He was needed for a little touch up.” Tae knew it was a lie and you knew it was a lie so did it still count as a lie? 

“Yeontan is a real ladies man.” You said while Yeontan tried to lick your face.

“Yes, he gets all the girls. It’s a shame he will never know the real struggles and rewarding hard work to get a girl.” 

“I don’t think you know either. You just have to get into the streets of Seoul and you can find a girl willingly to be your woman.” you liked to joke around and Taehyung seemed to enjoy your banter and played along.

“A willing girl is not necessarily what we seek.” He quirked an eyebrow.

“What is it that you seek my dear Tae?”

“I still haven’t figured that one out myself. When I find the answer you’ll be the first I’ll tell..” You both started laughing and Yeontan started to bark and reach for Taehyung.

“He’s a real daddy’s boy. Barely leaves your side for more than five minutes.” Taehyung grabbed the puppy out of your arms and started to kiss his little baby.

“It’s because he knows he has to cherish every moment with me as I’m more away out in the world than home.” He looked sad but the love in his eyes for the little dog were genuine. You were a bit jealous that he had someone to love so deeply.

“You really do know how to make a light and airy moment heavy with regrets and uncertainty.” You remarked.

“What can I say, it is a gift. I thought a European girl like you would appreciate my gift.” His smile returned to his face and it gave his eyes that extra spark. He was a really good-looking boy.

“Oh we do, but we also like to laugh. A European girl is even harder to decipher, or that’s what I’ve been told.” You both laughed but were interrupted.

“Have you dated a lot of people?” Jungkook suddenly appeared next to you and you had no clue where he came from and how long he had been listening. His eyes were desperately searching for yours.

“I’m in my twenties. Of course I’ve dated people but I don’t know what you deem as a lot and I don’t know what you consider dating.” You said bitterly. He did leave you fifteen minutes ago with a dog that wasn’t yours. Taehyung started coughing and Yeontan saw an opportunity to escape. Tae immediately excused himself with a huge grin on his face while running after his son. Jungkook on the other hand was quiet. He seemed to wait for more.  “Have you dated a lot of people?” You asked him.

“I can give you the exact same answer as you gave me.” The conversation had to be continued as Hyun Shik entered the room and started to give orders.

“Please, let’s have fun for our last scene. When this is finished the filming will be done and history will have been made. Be proud. Stay strong and please don’t break anything.” He looked at Namjoon for the last part, who tried to ignore his last remark. Everyone ran to his position and you joined them toward the set. Somewhere at the side there was a chair for you to be comfortably seated in while the 7 boys and Halsey were working hard to get the dance right in front of the camera. 

After the filming was done everyone was tired and it was already past one in the morning. Hyun Shik made its way over to you.

“Will you get home safely? I can drive you home so you don’t need to take a cab.” You could barely speak so you just nodded your head. You weren’t necessarily needed so early in the morning because Halsey was only scheduled after lunch but you felt the extra support was needed. He guided you toward the parking-lot with is hand hovering at your back. Once inside there were only three cars left as everyone had rushed home as soon as the shooting had ended. Only Jungkook was to be seen standing next to his car. 

“Hey, what are you still doing here? I thought I saw you leave about half an hour ago.” Hyun Shik remarked after spotting Jungkook. He had changed into black jeans and a long black hoodie that hid his extremely well built body. It didn’t hide everything but you could imagine what was underneath. 

“I live near Y/N so I thought I could drive her home.” He tried to look confident but you were sure he didn’t know where you lived and definitely not if it was close to him.

“Yeah, you are right. I live all the other way so maybe that is more logical. Do you mind driving with him Y/N? He does live closer to you than I do.” If you remembered correctly Hyun Shik only lived a ten minute drive from you which is definitely not all the other way, but you simply nodded. Feeling a bit excited to share a private moment with Jungkook.

“Let’s go.” Was all that the young boy stated and that was all that Hyun Shik needed to hear to start walking to his car alone. 

We got into the car and we both fastened our seatbelts. He put the engine on and simply asked “So where do you exactly live?” 

“I knew you didn’t know where I lived.”

“I remember you saying over at my place that it wasn’t far from were you lived. You didn’t want anyone to call you a cab or drive you home after dinner. So yes, I don’t know where you live exactly but I do know the area as I seem to live there too.” He tried to explain himself and you were surprised he remembered so much. 

“Yes, we are practically neighbors. You can just drive home and I will walk from there.” The only reason you said something that dumb was so he could protest. A girl shouldn’t walk alone so late at night blabla, you can spot that exact scene in every romantic comedy. The real world is nothing like a movie and blame it on all the Korean TV-shows you had seen but silently you had hoped he would be more galant. 

“We never got to finish our conversation from before.” He suddenly remarked.

“I didn’t know you could actually hold up a conversation with me.” Why were you so on edge? You felt so nervous and insecure it made you feel annoyed and the only outlet you had seemed to be him. Apparently he didn’t seem to mind your rudeness. 

“I’m a bit shy around new people. I’m sorry.” You would be lying if his little confession didn’t make your ice cold heart melt a little bit. 

“Well, what do you want to know?” His hands gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter, making his knuckles white. It was fascinating to watch him drive. His eyes were focused on traffic and it gave you a good chance to study his mannerisms. He couldn’t keep his fingers from tapping along to the music and his leg never stopped bouncing.  

“What do you want to know as you were the first one to start the conversation?” On the outside you looked confident but on the inside not so much. You stopped looking at him as your hands seemed to be more interesting at this point.

“I’m just going to tell something about myself and maybe afterwards you can figure out if I’m worth it to talk too about this kind of things.” He looked expectantly at you and you simple nodded your head. He saw your nodding head as a sign to continue.

“Well, I have dated girls before. No I’m not gay but I definitely don’t mind if people are. I feel like being an idol most certainly impacted my view on dating. Sometimes dating might be locking eyes with the same girl at award shows three times in row. Or sometimes dating is meeting once and never even touch each other and you really want a second date but neither has the time. Sometimes dating is a quick kiss and touch in a barely locked room.” During his speech he never looked over at you. He only stared at the road ahead or at the bright red light in front of you.

“I don’t think your kind of dating is weird. Even if you’re not an idol, dating in your twenties is something like you explained. Sometimes you like each other but the timing just isn’t right. Sometimes the other person doesn’t like you and your just wasting time.” It felt nice to talk about something like this with him. You were scared the boys might’ve never really touched a girl or have never been in a relationship. It made you feel more at ease to know they hadn’t just thrown away their teenage years without some experimenting.

“I don’t want to waste time.” He silently confessed.

“Nobody wants to waste time, Jungkook. Sometimes you only know after everything is over that you could’ve done something better.”

“Have you experienced something like that?”

“On multiple occasions but it felt real when it was happening so I don’t regret a thing. Every crush or person I liked has left an impact. They made me who I am today.”

The rest of the car ride was silent. It was peaceful. You had both said what you wanted to say and the conversation you had started hours ago was finally finished. You started to recognize the neighborhood Jungkook was driving through.

“You can drop me off somewhere around here if that is possible.” You said after passing the entrance of your apartment building. He immediately pulled over and parked at the side of the road.

“I’ll walk with you. It is never safe for a young woman like yourself to walk alone at night in a strange city.” It felt like your heart skipped a few beats.

“I can walk alone. You don’t need to waste time and to be honest, this area of Seoul doesn’t feel as lonely as before.” He looked straight into your eyes and the whole world felt like it stopped. His eyes scanned your face while a smile crept on his face.

“i’m glad you’re feeling home but I could never forgive myself if I let you walk all by yourself  so late at night.” He started to unbuckle his seatbelt and opened his door. “Let’s go Y/N.” Was the last thing he said before slamming his door and walking over to your side. You watched him stride over to your side. His hair was still styled but some strands started to have a life on its own in the wind. Never before had you seen someone so good-looking without any effort as him before, and it scared you.

“Will you please get out? It is starting to look weird just standing here by your door.” He said after opening your door. You finally got out of your trance and tried to get out of the car with your seatbelt still on. This got a laugh out of Jungkook and your face reddened. You tried to hide your blushing cheeks while unbuckling your seatbelt.

“So where do you live exactly?” He said while you got awkwardly out of his car. You simply pointed toward the right direction and started walking. It was only a five minute walk but it felt like hours. You stopped at the entrance of your building and turned your head toward Jungkook.

“Thank you for driving me home and also walking me home.”

“It was no problem. It is nice spending time with someone like you.” Blame it on the lack of sleep or blame the eyes of the boy before you for not thinking straight, but the following you really said and immediately regretted: “What is that even supposed to mean? Spending time with a subordinate?”

“To be honestI feel honored you chose me to drive you home. I know Hyung Shik lives actually ten minutes from your place and I feel like you knew too. So thank you.” The emphasis on thanking you. The wind blew your hair out of your face and there was nothing to hide your red cheeks. 

“Thank you for wanting to drive me home. I’ll see you in a couple of days when we leave for America?” He simply nodded and turned around. You typed in the code of your apartment and started to get inside, but you didn’t feel like saying goodbye yet. You watched him walk slowly away. When you thought he wouldn’t turn around anymore you turned your back and walked inside the building.

“Wait!-“he quickly grabbed the door before closing. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

#bts #bts imagines #bts scenarios #jungkook #Jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook #jungguk x reader #jeon jungguk #bts x reader #bangtan #bangtan x reader #Bangtan scenarios #Bangtan boys #Bangtan imagines #imagines #fanfiction #fanfic #fan fiction #bts fanfic #bts fan fiction

[100dad]

Worried about raising snowflakes???

Worried about raising snowflakes???

I have seen this more than I would like in our comment section. “Snowflakes”, this is what happens when you give everyone a trophy”, etc. For the record, I tend to almost always disagree with mass labels and categorizing. By age group, politics, whatever. I think it is oversimplified to say everyone in this broad category thinks this way. It is simply not true.

For those living under a rock, snowflake is a term meant to throw shade at tender, over-emotional, easily offended person. I assume the name fits because they melt down easily and are fragile. Snowflakes tend to argue for tolerance and acceptance while yelling at someone with a conflicting view.

The term usually gets assigned to liberals but was recently used for conservatives upset about the election results too. I have seen many attempts at embracing the snowflake term as a term that means you are kind, caring, and compassionate. I genuinely do not think that’s what most people consider the definition when they use the term. So, I am going with the more widely accepted view. But fully understand the term is getting thrown all over the place with different definitions.

So, since it is a term. And that is how most of society is defining it.

And since I would think most people would like to avoid seeing their kids fit that description, the question is:

How do we avoid such a dastardly fate for our youngins?

We want to blame this younger generation for being this way when it was the older parents that raised them and fostered the environment that created this. Its odd to blame kids when they are heavily influenced by the upbringing parents provide.

Let us dive into the makeup of a snowflake. (as I have understood most of society to define it)

They seem to have an overinflated value of their opinion while simultaneously undervaluing conflicting opinions. It's not enough to undervalue it--it must be stopped. They must cancel those who disagree. They must bring attention to this and make a scene, so they have attention. They must try and get others fired and hurt them, so they know the wrong of their ways.

They seem to have zero tolerance for opposing opinions and lack the ability to handle rejection, in addition to having little understanding of how the real world works or thinking things through completely. Any resistance or rejection to their thoughts is deemed as a personal offense. And all problems are easily fixed if someone else does the fixing.

It seems like such a miserable way to live. To always have irritation and frustration in your life. That seems like a very unpeaceful life. I certainly would not want that lifestyle for my kids.

To be fair here I have never met or associated with a “snowflake”. I know how to address what is in the definition. In my social circle, I have never met someone who fits all of these things. Certainly, have met kids and adults who fit a few of these things, but not all of them!!

So here are 10 things Dad (and Mom) can do to prevent this “snowflake” mentality.

1.)  Encourage failure.

Not in a weird way. Failure is needed in life. Pain is a requirement. Hovering and helicoptering, while good in its intent, is damaging to the long-term goal of raising a fully functional competent adult that is good for society. Kids need to experience failure. They must learn to fail and know it's not the end of the world. Life after failure does, in fact, exist.

They need to know how to pick themselves up and try again. This builds up internal confidence and resiliency. Resiliency is not talked about a lot. And maybe that needs to change. What a great character trait: the ability to handle adversity and push forward. To not be held back by challenges and obstacles. This will help keep relationships strong, build a successful career, and overall win in almost every aspect of life. Resiliency is a needed trait that is learned 2 ways. By witnessing mom and dad struggle/fail and continue to push forward and by experiencing failure themselves and knowing that it is not the end but actually just a normal aspect to the process.

Well-intentioned parents preventing their kids from failure and pain end up handicapping the adult version of their kids. They don’t have the ability to function in the real world. They get easily flustered when things do not go their way (after all mom and dad usually step in and fix everything!) They won’t persevere when their boss tells them the project they did was not good enough, they will crumble. They will not get past the hurt of rejection. They will be insecure and jaded because they will feel crushed.

Parents forget this lesson. It's just as important for kids to learn how not to do something as it is to learn how to do something. Failing teaches you how not to do something. Teach them, in our family we do not cower and hide when things get tough or uncomfortable. We deal with the uncomfortable. We have to back up the claims we make with intelligent responses. Failure is how we realize we need to have an open mind and improve ourselves.

2.) The household needs structure and consequences and reality checks. Stable homes statistically produce better families and kids that become high-functioning adults. Kids thrive in structured environments. To be clear I do not mean oppressive non-flexible structure. Dad does not need to be a hard-core drill sergeant 24-7. That is a solid way to screw up your kids. Structure would include family rules, a regular schedule, consistent presence, and familiar routines. This is all at the macro level. Big picture. In our house we for the most part wake and go to bed at the same time. This does not mean we never stayed out late, slept in, or woke early. We were flexible when needed.

Actions have consequences. Dad should encourage that because it represents the real world. Do bad things get bad results. Do good things and get good results. Dads give praise and discipline. Eliminating one or the other is a mistake.

While on this subject a lot of parents tend to defend their kids before knowing the facts. At times you are simply playing the role of the judge. Get the facts, figure out who is lying, figure out what makes sense, look at past history and sentence accordingly.

Ignoring reality is foolish. Sometimes your kid is a jerk, a turd, whiny, a bully, spoiled, entitled, or just plain rude.  This happens to my kids. Its normal. Call it out. Give examples and explain why their behavior is ________. We do this all the time. Parenting is constant adjustments. If we could say things one time, close our eyes, and hope for the best I’d be out of a job. Repetition and consistency. Also, Repetition and consistency. Also, Repetition and consistency.

We don’t want to create a false assumption that they know all the answers. Challenge kids to explain their behavior, their actions, their logic, their claims, their opinions. Dig beneath the surface layer. I have no doubt snowflakes were encouraged at home that the other kids were foolish and they are perfect little angels. Having met a lot of kids. None of them are angels or even close to perfect.

3.) Values, morals, and ethics need to be discussed as a family.

It is insanely important to write these things down. Most people won’t do it because it requires extra effort and thought. It really helps create clarity not only in your life but in your parenting. When you know where out of bounds is you can play the game a lot easier. When you know what the finish line looks like calling the plays is much easier. When the rules are written the job of the ref is much easier.

These are discussions to be held as a family. Mom and Dad need to be on the same page. It might involve going back to your own parents and asking questions. I might involve sitting down with your church leader to create clarity. Once mom and dad are on the same page it can be written down. Now everyone (mom, dad, kids) knows the game, the rules, the boundaries.

I’ll say this again. Tremendous clarity in your life when it's written. I encourage it. It’s a guide, a compass, a map. It's helpful. I'll attach a link to what ours is if you want an example.

This way expectations are set. Accountability is vast. And life can be lived blacker and whiter and less winging it in the grey area.

4.) They need encouragement and love.

Dads are typically pretty solid on discipline, correcting, and pointing out what needs to improve. What gets ignored sometimes is encouragement and unconditional love.

When your kids had 7 A’s and 1 D on the report card. State the obvious. 7 a’s is amazing!! Let’s celebrate. You know what you gotta do on the D let’s celebrate the A’s!

This is super common. It doesn’t matter how successful our kids are at something, we must point out the thing that needs improvement as if no one else knows about that thing. Kids want the validation that dad is proud of them and that needs to be said (or written) so they do not spend their lives wondering.

One tactic that is helpful is to mirror the positive emotions your kid brings to you. When they are excited about something be excited with them. When they are full of pride reflect that pride back. Its validation they look for and that’s a great way to give it to them. And if they come to you with a negative emotion remain stoic and calm. Assess the situation with a straight face and respond accordingly. Reacting to negative emotions or responding emotionally can backfire bigtime.

Mirror the positive. Controlled Response to negative.

Life needs purpose and having goals is a big purpose and motivation in this world. As dads, we should encourage our kids to pursue their talents, interests, and goals as they fit into our family values, morals, and ethics.

The love a dad has for his kids is nonconditional. It does not matter what happens, my love for you does not change. When you disappoint me, embarrass me, impress me, or succeed beyond me wildest dreams, my love for you is the same. This needs to be made clear frequently. Eliminate any doubt in their minds that love is earned, bought, or conditional.

Invent a code word or phrase between you and each of your kids. It can be straight forward or a fun code word. It means Dad, I need to talk to you. And they can say it whenever and they know that Dad will stop, go somewhere private, and listen without reacting immediately. They can ask any questions. Tell any story. Confess about anything. And you will listen to them. No promises of immunity. Just free from an immediate emotional reaction. A safe time to vent or otherwise be heard. So many issues occur because kids are afraid to come to dad. This is an excellent way to put it out there. When they use it…..make sure to handle it in a way that they won't be afraid or embarrassed to use it again.

5.) Demonstrate humility, compassion, kindness for others

This is a key ingredient that is missing in the lives of a snowflake. It is the inability to take an L without making excuses or blaming others.

No sense of humility, that is understanding they are not the end all be all in the world.

Having genuine compassion for others instead of sitting on a high horse and yelling at everyone else. Knowing kindness is the tool that leads to a life without regret. When you are kind and humble and compassionate---the truth is you are going to get used and walked over sometimes because you put someone else’s needs before your own. But so what? Does it really matter in the big picture?

I’ve been giving this area more and more thought lately. It's something our family needs. I’m a firm believer our kids need to stay grounded and keep their perspective in check. They get to live a privileged life of travel, nice food, fun experiences, and real comfort and security. I want to make sure they know they are no better than any other person. This is not like we are royal class and we don’t associate with the peasants.

And it's my job as a dad to make sure these things are being learned. For us, I think that is going to be doing some mission trips when the kids are older. Some volunteering at local shelters. Visiting some nursing homes so we can all see where we all end up. Frail, needing others, humbled, maybe lonely, simple kindness very much appreciated.

Perspective is important. Humility is important. Compassion and kindness are necessary for a fully functional human being. Snowflakes are missing balance in this area. That is why they get so angry…they think everyone should think like them and they lack the humility to realize everyone gets to live their own lives. They talk about compassion and kindness but their actions display hate and anger. They are broken. They are royal and everyone else is peasants that should do what the royals say.

6.) Kids need goals, challenges, and obstacles.

Humans need to be working toward something meaningful for them. And those things should fit what our family values are.

They need to develop work ethic and see what happens when they fail to put in the necessary effort. This means they need to face adversity. They need to do things on their own.

Do not bail them out, they do need guidance from dad on how to work their way out. Teach them how to process a situation and how to make decisions. Giving them the answer is easy today but handicaps them in the future. Guidance is key. They do the work and do the thinking.

Snowflakes don’t know how to handle challenges. They never had to work through adversity. When they fail or get corrected then can’t handle it and they lash out. Mom and dad are not there to bail them out.

Moreover, we need purpose in life that makes us feel good. Work, pursuing goals, indulging our passions are all great things. I am big on the problems caused by idleness. Sitting around with nothing to do or not being challenged in your career path is going to lead to depression and opportunities for stupidity. Stay motivated. Keep pushing forward. Accomplishment is good for the soul.

The best thing we can do as parents is make sure our older kids have goals and are involved in activities or jobs. Teenagers get into trouble when they have nothing to do. Snowflakes have a lot of downtime. They are bored. I don’t know many professional, respectable adults that sit around with nothing to do. Snowflakes had a low bar set for them, they were not pushed, they never learned to do things on their own.

7.) Know what happiness and contentment are. If 2 things are lacking in this country is genuine happiness and contentment. There is an epidemic of people (adults and kids!) that are never satisfied. Always ignoring or sacrificing their present for hopes of the future. We just mentioned goals and aspirations and 100% those are important. But being driven and being content can live in harmony. Its okay to say If even I never make any more money, never move to a bigger house, never get a nicer car, never grow past X then I still like my life. I’ll still be happy.

Happiness should be lived. It should never be the goal. And that’s why so many are miserable.                 Their happiness is contingent on status, money, stuff, approval of others. If I lose everything and end up in a shack with my family. I will be happy with my life. I will know I did my best. I will know I lived with integrity. And I have the people I love with me and they actually like me!! Would I like nicer things? Sure. Would I like more outside approval? Of course. Will that determine how happy I am today. Nope.

Of course, I’m driven, I’m smart, motivated, Love business, have made good decisions in life so I don’t think that will happen. And if it did happen, I would keep working. Not to find happiness, but because I like work. I like achieving. And I feel satisfied after putting in work. I feel satisfied going home to people who love me and like me.

There are certain things in life we can’t control. We have to have peace with that. Its beyond our control so why let it eat at us.

I can work out and eat right but really, I can’t control my health. Vision, hearing, injuries, cancer, disease….these things happen.

Some people get luckier than me. Meeting the right person at the right time. Promoted by a big-time influencer. Some people don’t like me!! Sweet, innocent, gentle, wholesome Townsend Russell. Can you believe it?! Does it effect my happiness? Nope. I still get to go home to a great family. Now if something happens to my family……that would be tough. I would probably be less happy. Like a lot less happy in life. That is the toughest thing I can imagine. But I am not going to complain about these things I can’t control and let them keep me down. I move forward.

Comes down to a bit of perspective. Looking at the big picture. Comes down to knowing we cannot control everything and everyone. Comes down to knowing that when we are content and happy today…..the future is even brighter because you are enhancing the life you already love.

Enjoy Today. Everyday. Kids need to see mom and dad being happy in the present. Driven, motivated, and happy.  We don’t want to be miserable. We certainly don’t want to teach our kids how to live never being content (not lazy) in life.

8.) Kids need independence and freedom

This is given with age and maturity. There will be adjustments of latitude. We give more and more leeway and responsibility. Sometimes we need to pull back. Sometimes we need to push them to be more independent.

Dads- we need to teach them how to live. Laundry, cooking, dating, household chores & maintenance, taking care of vehicles, how to budget, responsible purchasing, figuring out local laws to abide by, insurances, career skills, life skills, social skills. You have got to teach them how to be an adult. It's wrong to “protect” them from the real world then be shocked when they move out and cannot do anything. Teach them how to live on their own—without you.  You’re always there for guidance but if you raised them right you prepared them for the real world.

They need to be able to get themselves to places on time. You need to be teaching them how to make a good first impression. How to interview for a job. How to stay out of trouble. How to handle peer pressure (even as an adult)!! How to stand up and fight for what they believe is right. How to think for themselves and process information so they are not blindly following bad advice. How to negotiate. How to compromise. You know how many real skills there are in life. Pass the lessons you have learned on to the next generation. There is no need for them to have to stumble through and learn everything from scratch.  They can gain knowledge from your mistakes and lessons.

This freedom and independence stage can be difficult. We must slowly let them act more and more like an adult. Which means being able to have real conversations with us. We cannot tell them to shut up and do as we say forever and then expect them to be able to flip a switch and handle the real world. They need to practice with us. We have to give some leeway in this phase. And if they betray our trust they lose our trust and the freedoms that came with it. But they can earn it back.

The truth is we were all kids. We did stupid things. Maybe immoral or even illegal things. Kids are not going to be perfect. But we can raise them well. Teach them our values and ingrain them. Set a good example. With age and maturity, we can give them more and more responsibilities and independence.

9.) Involved mom and dad. Mom and Dad. Not one or the other. Complete families have a much higher percentage of creating normal functioning adults than broken families. That’s just a reality. Having mom and dad is a major bonus in the development of children to adults.

Make sure kids can never play mom and dad against each other. Mom and Dad are a united front. If kids can manipulate mom and dad – the parents have failed.

Temper tantrums are not given into. Manners and common etiquette are taught in the home. Everything in this blog is taught and lived. Involved parents are just that. Involved. You raised your kids. You taught them the things they need to know. You prepared them. You were their primary influence. And it takes a lot of effort and it requires your time.

Because it's so easy to focus more on work. It's so easy to let daycares and school be the primary influence in our kids' lives. It's so easy to let screens expose and teach our kids to…..well everything.

If you want your kids to grow up to be good men and women you need to be involved. You must never be afraid to stand up for what you believe in and explain to your kids why.

The Why’s are everything. Communicate with them. We stop and look both ways so we don’t get hit by a driver that’s not paying attention. We have parental controls because there are bad things in this world kids eyes should not see. Parents have to be willing to take a stand and defend their values and morals. We have too many parents caving. Thinking if they roll over and ignore it all goes away.   Stay involved or maybe get involved. Better late than never.

Time is the biggest thing I tell Dads they need to give kids. Sometimes that means sacrificing their hobbies, social activities, even career paths. Your involvement matters. Burying yourself in work or anything else quite often leads to massive regret down the line. Learn from the dads that made that mistake. Time is everything. It creates the opportunity for everything we have talked about to happen.

10.) Consistency and repetition

For any functional adults, much less avoiding raising a snowflake, consistency, and repetition are important. Everything in this blog has to be your life. It is just the way you live. Which means it is true to you and your family. Otherwise, you are faking it and it will not be consistent.

Saying things once does not work. We have to live the example. Talk about everything. Repeat it over and over and adjust it to the age and maturity of each of our kids.  This is the same in the adult business world. Very few people in this world hear what you say once. Say the same thing over and over and over and it will finally be heard the first time.

Consistency in what you say leads to the world making sense for kids. They have the framework their family lives by and that is their world. They do not have to try and process why dad says one thing but does the other. Consistency means the repetition is the same which means it will eventually take hold in their brains! This is why I push so hard for you to write it all down. Because then everyone is on the same page. It's easier to repeat. It's easier to be consistent. You have a guide to look back on.

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#snowflake #parenting #parentingtips #politics

[kadobeclothing]

The New Approach to Work-Life Balance

CareerBuilder found that nearly half of American workers check email after they leave work, and 45% say they do work during non-business hours. Additionally, this phenomenon crosses global borders, prompting new laws in France and a campaign in Japan to limit working hours. Of course, we’d all love a little more balance in our lives. But it’s more than that. We need it. Today’s “always on” mentality has serious consequences. Stanford professors Joel Goh, Jeffrey Pfeffer, and Stefanos Zenios found that more than 120,000 deaths per year and approximately 5%–8% of annual healthcare costs may be attributable to workplace stress from long working hours, job insecurity, work-family conflict, high job demands, and low social support at work. But achieving work-life balance is hard. Obviously, reducing workplace stress is essential. But, despite finding that those who take vacation and travel are happier in their personal and professional lives, Project Time Off also found that more than half of American workers don’t take all of the vacation days they’ve earned. By contrast, many other countries offer or mandate additional vacation days. For example, The Center for Economic and Policy Research found that the United States is the only country surveyed that doesn’t have a law requiring paid leave. Compare that to Germany (20 days), the United Kingdom (28 days), and Australia (20 days). With the exception of the United States, laws in other countries mandate a minimum of 10-30 days of paid leave per year.

The Work-Life Balance Matrix Work life balance can (and should) look different for everyone, based on what’s most important to you. There may be times in life when you’re focused on career and personal development, and other times when your focus turns to family or a favorite hobby. In other words, work-life balance examples run the gamut. But we’ve got some tips to help you find the work-life balance that’s just right for you. Before addressing areas that might be out of balance, it’s a good idea to first understand what you value and how satisfied you are with the time you’re allocating to those areas of your life. When I was touring colleges, I used a weighted decision matrix to score each campus on the things I cared about. Ever since, I’ve used this handy tool to evaluate everything from jobs, to apartments, to vacation spots. Here’s a sample of a completed matrix, with steps to complete your own, below:

Step 1: Create a list of 4-6 categories that most contribute to your satisfaction in life. I recommend using categories that are broad enough to encompass changing life phases, but narrow enough to act upon. You can use anything that contributes to your satisfaction, from hobbies, to career, to family, to spirituality, and volunteer work. I also recommend that these categories have a significant effect on how you make life choices, how you spend your time, and have actionable and measurable steps associated with them. For example, while it may significantly increase your satisfaction to “be a successful person,” a better category might be career. Or, if your satisfaction is impacted by “helping people,” a more actionable category might be “volunteer work.” Step 2: Assign each of the chosen categories a percentage for the amount that the category impacts your satisfaction. For example, if your categories include family, career, hobbies, charity work, and education, you might say that family is 30%, career is 25%, hobbies are 10%, charity work is 20%, and education is 15%. Be honest with yourself when choosing and rating each category. If you honestly don’t receive much satisfaction from hobbies, don’t give it more weight than career. Step 3: Assign a percentage for your current satisfaction in each category. Are you 100% satisfied in your career? Are you only 50% satisfied with your family life? Go through each category and give an honest percentage with how satisfied you are with that area of your life. Step 4: Multiply the satisfaction percentage with the weight of each category. Now add the categories up. The end percentage is how satisfied you are with your life. What’s your total? It’s rare than anyone will be 100% satisfied, but maybe 90%? What if your percentage is low, say, 30% satisfied? Step 5: Analyze the results, and determine which areas of your life are causing the most dissatisfaction. What steps can you take to change that? How much of your satisfaction is built on choices and situations within your control, and how much is not in your control? 7 Work-Smart Strategies Once you’ve quantified your life satisfaction, it’s time to start tackling areas with lower scores. Most people struggle with finding enough hours in the day to fit it all in, especially for personal time. Working smarter and savvy time management help you free up mental capacity, physical hours, and emotional space to accommodate more of the activities you love. 1. Just say no to low-impact work. We all want to play as a team, but helping out on too many projects sucks up your time, leaving too little for the work that really matters. Setting quality OKRs (objectives and key results) is the key to knowing which activities are high-value, and which will distract you from accomplishing your goals. And this doesn’t stop with office tasks. If the committee you’ve chaired for three years no longer brings you joy, step down and get back to participating in a way that feeds your soul. Are too many hobbies making you feel stressed and frenetic? Pare them down to the activities that bring the most pleasure. If an activity is not bringing you joy and helping you progress towards your goals, give it up! When going through these steps last year, I recognized that I was feeling stressed and guilty about my role as a board member for a local community theater. I kept skipping meetings because of other commitments and I felt like I wasn’t contributing. I still wanted to volunteer on an ad-hoc basis, so I sent a note to the board president explaining that while I didn’t have time to make the required commitment to board duties for the coming year, I’d still love to participate by helping staff auditions, contributing time and money to opening night festivities, and acting as the house manager for productions. This allowed me to keep the things that brought me joy, and provided much needed support on a more reliable cadence for the theater. 2. Stop multi-tasking. Seriously. How many browser tabs do you have open right now? Multitasking makes you think you’re getting more done, but research from the American Psychological Association has shown it reduces productivity by as much as 40%. Instead, break each project into time-bound tasks, and spend focused amounts of time completing each element. Prioritize the tasks that require input from others for completion so that you can finish your portion of the project and hand it off to the next worker. Parallelizing work (where multiple work streams happen at the same time by different people) is an efficient use of time, but trying to do it all yourself is a recipe for disaster. 3. Break work down into achievable tasks. Create a project plan that includes all the tasks you need to accomplish for the quarter. Then, divide the tasks in monthly and weekly to-dos. These can be kept on a team whiteboard, personal notepad, or shared Trello board. Whatever method you choose, make sure that you can check things off the list when complete, and move activities to the next phase of the project when ready. 4. Make your meetings matter. Many people assume a weekly check-in meeting is needed for their projects … but is it? Do you really need to get in a room for 30 minutes to talk about the status of the checklist, instead of looking at the shared board or exchanging comments in writing? Useless meetings waste tons of valuable time, so get ’em off the calendar if they aren’t adding value! If you want to take a bold step, delete all the recurring meetings off your calendar for the next quarter. Ask organizers to re-send the invites to meetings you should attend, and confirm why they feel your presence is valuable. You might find that check-ins for old projects never re-appear, and the meetings that remain actually do help you move work forward each quarter. 5. Create checklists. Don’t procrastinate on checking things off your list. Sometimes we waste more energy worrying about doing the thing than actually doing the thing itself . David Allen, who wrote the book “Getting Things Done” and offers training on how to be more productive, says that the mind is for having ideas, not holding them. He advocates for making a series of lists to capture and process all the things that you need to accomplish in a day. Once captured, do. Sometimes we get so mired down in the need to make the list perfect, make the steps perfect, make our desk perfect, that we forget that the act of starting means we’re one step closing to finishing our task. Once you’ve got a plan in place, take action. 6. Evaluate your daily schedule. A long commute is another area that eats up time and contributes stress to most peoples’ lives. Want to reduce these effects? Try negotiating for a work-from-home day once or twice a week. Gallup found that in 2017, 43% of Americans said they worked remotely at least some of the time, and with collaboration tools like video, chat, and email, you can stay just as connected to your team. If a long commute is non-negotiable, use that time for something that you’ve deemed important to your work life balance. For instance, if you have a goal to advance your knowledge or learn a new skill, you can listen to podcasts or audiobooks, or if you want to focus on well-being you can use apps like Headspace that offer guided meditations for relaxation. 7. Make time for self-care. As you’re thinking about your daily plans, revisit your routines for physical health. You can gain time and nutrition benefits by meal planning and cooking in bulk on the weekends. Freeze meals in pre-portioned containers for easy reheating in the evenings. The time and stress you save each evening allows you to spend more time unwinding with your family, and getting to bed at a reasonable hour. Speaking of which … how’s your sleep schedule? Are you going to bed at a reasonable time, getting a solid night’s rest, and waking with energy? If not, commit to a bedtime routine for 30 days, and see how you feel at the end. Keep the elements that improve your rest, and experiment with changes to ensure you get a good night’s sleep. Of course, all of these new habits take time to build and practice to maintain. Some tactics, like deleting all your meetings and negotiating a regular WFH day, can be done right away. Others, like declining low-impact work and focusing on tasks individually, require diligent attention throughout the year. This article was originally published on Atlassian.com and republished with permission.

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[celestial-writespace]

Seemingly

Sometimes, your greatest love isn’t always the one you end up with.

[ genre: romance, teen fiction ]

Have you ever met someone who you thought was seemingly perfect? It’s this one person who just seems to have absolutely everything you’re looking for. A person you’d never thought could even exist. That one person, the one who you’d always have a soft spot for. That was it, that was exactly what I’d describe Kyle. I’m Margaux, and this is how a green eyed boy who wore dark grey jeans and a black hoodie that day in September changed my life forever.

If you’re reading this, then it must mean that it’s probably already some time in 2040 where I’m all grown up, being stable and all, and this “story” I’m writing, just happened to live on for a couple decades. I don’t know who’ll be reading this, if you’re my friend or a completely random stranger, but in case you didn’t already get it, or you just completely went over all the things I said, I’m Margaux. As of June 20th of the year 2018, I’m 18 years old, and I’m probably the typical freshman college girl. I was born and raised (as typical as it may sound) in the sunny town of Phoenix, Arizona. Let me start my story a little like this:

Okay, let’s flashback to the day I first started college. Now, I’m generally a pretty open, outgoing girl, but this day just made me so anxious. I woke up today at 4 AM, and the welcoming rally starts at 8. I was totally not stressing out. I mean, who would’ve thought i’d actually make it into my dream school? Did I even deserve it? WHY WAS I THERE? REALLY? Anyway, so I started my morning, like any other, with coffee and bread, in a desperate attempt to calm myself down and make it feel like it was just any other day. The anxiety didn’t fully go away, but my favorite bittersweet sensation from a good cup of freshly brewed coffee definitely helped. A few hours of stress, anxiety and weirdly enough, boredom combined, and the clock struck 7 o’clock. Of course, I immediately left at that moment.

As I arrived in school, the anxiety took over me. There were so many people who were so much better than me. Talk about insecurity, right? Flash forward to the end of the day, when I became tired, scared, but thankfully, a little less anxious, and a little more excited, but nevertheless, I came here to learn, and I kept in mind that I really shouldn’t let those things bother me. I deemed college one of the most life changing periods in my life. At that time, I was so ready to reinvent myself, move on from the horror that is high school, and prepare myself for a better future ahead of me.

When three months had passed since my first day at University of Phoenix, midterms had just ended, and I had been a member of this lovely sorority where my mother was once a member of, for around 2 months now.. I hoped to gain a sisterhood like no other through this. This was where I met my first college best friend, Sarah. I was definitely off to a great start, and I hoped so hard that nothing changed this for the next 4 years. However, it was way too early for me to hope, right?

One day in September, I committed to going to a Mura Masa concert with Sarah. She and I both loved Mura Masa, and it was his first show ever in Phoenix. To add, Sarah had been such a nice friend to me. She was the only one caring enough to show me around the campus voluntarily, and we’d have lunch together every time our schedules aligned. Seeing this, I knew we just had to go together. Little did I know that going to that concert would change my life forever.

My phone read 9 o’clock, the concert just started, and I was having the time of my life seeing one of my favorite artists play live with my college best friend. But there was something more magical about that night. There was a tall guy that was standing beside me, in his dark grey knee-ripped jeans, a black Mura Masa hoodie and some beat up Nikes. He sparked up a simple conversation as the intermission started. Nine. That’s how many words it took for him to finish his sentence, and how many seconds it took for me to gaze at his beautiful face, which was a bit too long for someone to respond to such a simple question. “What do you think the next song’s gonna be?” he asked me.

“I think it’s definitely gonna be my favorite, Firefly” I responded, as I lock eyes with the silver haired fellow. Suddenly, the music started. But that wasn’t the only thing that started that night, but also a love that just seemed so right. I see this as mystical I'm sure that you know, my favorite line from Firefly played as I stare at him once more. That night was mystical, for sure. Although, I’m not quite sure if it was those green eyes that got me lost every time I looked at him, or his soft-looking lips I would have loved to lock with in those moments. Kyle and I danced and sung along to our favorite songs, and not too soon after, Sarah joins in and gets to know him a little more.

The concert ended, and me and my friend were now with Kyle. As we were walking to the parking lot, we exchanged numbers. Turns out, he was an artist who dropped out of college in his sophomore year. He loved painting and photography the most, for he thought that being able to capture beautiful moments in one’s life was one of God’s greatest blessings to mankind. But to me, it was people like him. Those that appreciated the beautiful little details, and those that believed that imperfection is most times what makes us human, and what makes us beautiful.

Sarah drove me home, and during our drive, she talked to me about Kyle. “Soooo, Kyle huh?” she teases me. I wasn’t gonna deny it to my best friend.

“Yeah, I like him, what’dya think?”

“I think you guys are really compatible for each other, hell, couldn’t even get you guys separated.”

So that night I came home, I could not stop smiling and thinking about the enchanting night I had just experienced. I wondered until about 3 in the morning. Did he know how wonderstruck I was when I met him? And all I could hope for was that, he wasn’t already in love with someone else. I fell asleep to these thoughts.

The next morning, I woke up to a vibration from my phone, which rested on top of my chest. I received a text from him. “Forgot to tell you, I thought you were wonderful last night, and i’d love to get to know you more, perhaps over some coffee?” it read. The text struck my stomach with butterflies as I eagerly texted back “I feel the same, actually. How about today at 4PM?” A minute passed and I got a confirmation text, complete with the words “Can’t wait!”

We met up at a local cafe on the corner of 10th street and Park Avenue. I walked into the cafe but failed to spot him anywhere, so I decided to sit down at the table by the glass window. Five minutes passed and I saw him on the other side of the street, about to cross the road. Seeing him once more brought an uncontrollable smile on my face. He entered the cafe, approached me and I ultimately greeted him with a warm hug. He smelled bittersweet for some unknown reason, like the coffee I drank every morning. He smelled like.. Home. It was the scent I could wake up to every morning.

And so we talked for hours about our favorite songs and how he loved travelling so much that he could spend the rest of his days travelling everywhere and never have one permanent home. He told me his adventures in Peru, Japan, Australia, Indonesia, all at his age of 23. It was truly amazing to see how one man could appreciate so much in life. Everything to him was beautiful. I wondered if I was too.

Seven o’clock struck and he invited me back to his place for some dinner. I spent such a wonderful afternoon with this man, but I was not to forget why I stayed in Phoenix despite my longing urge to leave this city, my studies. I told him I had things to do and his persistence went on, not in a bad way though. He wanted to help me finish my paper for a writing class I had. Well, he was an artist so I figured he’d be of great help. I was wrong. “OH WOW now I know why you stuck with playing music and visual arts, you are absolutely terrible” I say, teasing him as I giggle. He really was terrible, but that’s not what I looked at. I looked at how hard he tried despite knowing he wasn’t exactly a good writer. It was cute. He was cute. This infatuation has really gotten over me. “It’s cute you know,” I said, staring at him as he typed on my laptop a few more senseless lines.

“What is?” He asked with a grin on his face.

“When you try like that, but fail in the end,” I answered.

“How is that cute?” He asked, this time, looking at me in the eyes that showed the most interest in what I was saying.

“Because you’re determined, and I find that cute.”

He pinched my nose and said “not as cute as you, you little human bean.” We spent the rest of the night teasing each other and just talking for hours, being with each other like nothing else mattered. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. We were spending most our nights together like this until the next month. We knew each other’s favorites, our interests, our childhood, and even our past, including past relationships. At this point, it was safe to say i loved him. Or at least I thought it was.

It was movie date after park dates after study dates. Although he dropped out of college, he never stopped supporting me in my goals. He understood how college was so important to me, and how I wanted to make things right in college after all my mistakes in high school. He knew that for me, college was the time I wanted to reinvent myself, and he was more than happy to be part of such a life changing period in my life.

Never have I met someone who scarily liked the exact things as I did. He had the same political views, same moral values. Never have I met someone so beautiful, someone who saw wonder in the least wonderful things. You could say we sort of completed each other’s sentences. He was good for me, I knew, because I felt that I was growing as person, becoming more positive around him, and others. We complemented each other, and it was all going good. It truly was as if we were made for each other. We were compatible, but perhaps, too compatible that it scared me too. I thought that somewhere along the way, it might become a problem.

The time came, it seemed as if something kept bothering him. That smile I could never tired of, was gone. Was I doing something wrong? What was it I was lacking? I thought. I just couldn’t bare that I wasn’t making him happy. So one day, I came over to his place, and I decided to confront him. “Why aren’t you happy with me anymore?” I was hoping to hear something like “You’re a bit too clingy” or that he didn’t really like me anymore, or he just simply got bored of me in general. But it wasn’t because of any of those that we just couldn’t be together. It was because of a fragment of his past that kept reappearing in his head every time he looked at me. He told me I was beautiful, and that he had spent his greatest days with me, but it was all too familiar for him.

Before I came into the picture, he had dated this girl named Emma. I had gone to high school with her. No doubt, she was beautiful, kind and smart, which had caused her to be one of the most popular girls in school. However, she had transferred in senior year, and no one knew why. It turned out she had severe anxiety and depression, as Kyle said. This had also become the reason for Kyle to drop out of college. He took care of her. He was so sure about her, that he wanted to spend the rest of his days with her. She had graduated high school and a few months after, he proposed to her. He said he knew they were young, but he had been so sure about his forever with her, that she was his, and he was hers, and nothing could have broken them apart.

I thought we had an invincible love, a love that no one could top, until I saw the way his eyes sparkled talking about Emma. It never sparkled that way when we were together. He had a different glow to him. He was sad talking about this, but he had more life than he ever did going on dates with me. Seeing the way he talked about her, It hurt. It hurt that he couldn’t be that way with me. Though I knew he had feelings for me, it wasn’t enough. It was not the best kind of love he deserved. He deserved Emma, not me.

However, let me tell all of you that during those moments, I was more in awe at how one man could love a woman so much than I was jealous. At that point, I already knew where it was going. We weren’t going to end up together and maybe it was okay. Maybe he’d be better off without me, because I knew at that moment, I wasn’t what he needed. And maybe I never will be.

Moving onto the story, Kyle and Emma plan their small wedding. Emma and her dad drive to pick up her wedding dress days before the wedding, but gets into a major car crash which costs her dad his life. This triggers her depression and long story cut short, she decides that suicide is the best option for her. She was found in the bathtub of her parents’ house lifeless, with a note “I’m sorry, Kyle. Know that i’ll never stop loving you, even in the afterlife. I’ll see you soon.” And of course, Kyle is distraught. The woman she loved so dearly, the woman who he had planned to spend his entire life with, committed the most selfish act of all. Up until now she remains in his heart, and he was never really meant to be mine to begin with. Although they never got married, it was as if they did. He was going to love her, for better or for worse, even after death tried to do them part.

Maybe I’m too busy being yours to fall for somebody new, a line from one of the songs in his playlist which he loved listening to. And now I know why. He couldn’t deny he had feelings for me, for it was too real for it all to just be fake. One thing i’ll always remember in his voice though, is how he bid me goodbye that day.

“You are a beautiful and respectful woman, Marge. I’m so thankful that I met someone like you. Any man, and I mean any man would be so lucky to have you in their life. Although it would have been nice for me to be that man, i’m sorry. I still think about her countless times a day. I see her in you sometimes, and I don’t want that to be the reason I stay with you. I don’t want you to fall in love with someone whose thoughts keep wandering to someone else, more so,someone else who’s long gone. Promise me, Marge, you’ll find someone who’ll give you the world, because I know that’s what you deserve, and exactly what I can’t give you.”

I hugged him tight and gave him a quick kiss. Our first, and last. And maybe also the first and last time i’ll feel that way about someone. And so I told him that there was no need for such an apology. “Maybe we’ll find our way to each other someday,” were the last words I told him.

It hurt, but I knew he was doing this for me. It was a kind act, kind of like mercy killing. I would have endured a greater pain if he hadn’t told me as early. I was never going to forget the genuine happiness he always made me feel whenever i’d be in his presence, and maybe, just maybe, i’ll feel that way again with somebody else, or maybe, with him but in a different time. I was truly hopeful, that maybe it was right love at the wrong time, and if it was right love, maybe the right time will come.

It was sad getting to experience a love so surreal but not having it last for so long, but I don’t regret having met him. He showed me what it was like to truly love someone so deeply. He showed me how beautiful life was, and that we should never stop loving, even after death, may it be your own, or anything/ anyone else around you. Loving was a gift, one that we should practice, even if it hurt. Sometimes there are things that will continue to make love a hard thing to do, but we shouldn’t stop. Alfred Lord Tennyson once said “'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” That experience of mine is one I would never forget, and never regret. Kyle and I remained friends, but months after we decided to remain friends, he seized to travel the world, and I deemed i’d never see him again, nor hear from him.

EPILOGUE

I now write as Margaux, a 34 year old woman, with a stable job in the state of New York, who graduated form the University of Phoenix with awards, like I always pictured myself back then. I write as a married woman, with a loving husband, and 2 amazing children.

I met my husband when I landed my first job in LA. The best part about it is, when I met him, you could tell he had the brightest glow in him, his eyes sparkled whenever he’d see me, and you could feel it in his kiss. It took us 3 years before he proposed to me, and I could never been happier that day I said “I do, Father.”

I write because few years after I got married and had my first child, I received a letter from somewhere in Puerto Rico. It read:

“To the beautiful Margaux,

I heard you got married, and I could never have been happier for you. I’m glad you’ve found someone who will treat you well, much that I couldn’t. I don’t exactly know if you still care but, just as you remember, I left because I traveled the world to find myself. During my first year of travelling, i fell in love with immersing into the different cultures and learning more about each one. I started volunteering at charity foundations in every country I visit, and i’ve become a self-proclaimed journalist now. And I guess travel is whom I’m married to now. Anyway, I hope you’re living the wonderful live you deserved. Write back, so at least I know you got this.

Sincerely,

Kyle”

#fiction #creative writing