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hyunjin-mylove · 1 month

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Late night birthday confessions

It's way past midnight and you've almost accepted the mess in the dorm kitchen isn't ever going to cook itself into a birthday cake. You're sat on a stray barstool next to the counter, your cheek resting on your hand, as you take in the sight. There are dirty dishes piled in the sink and flour covering the counters, the floor, and you from where you accidentally dropped the container. The last straw for your late night patience lays directly in front of you. You had accidentally turned the electric mixer too high, too soon and half of the ingredients from the bowl are now scattered around the counter.

You had the brief idea of possibly calling Minho or Felix to help, but you knew they were tied up with the same practice schedule that your Hyunjinnie currently was. Chan was home right now - he was the one who let you in to the boys' dorm - but he had looked exhausted when you last saw him. That was a couple hours ago and you haven't heard from him since, presumably catching up on some much needed sleep while Han and Changbin work in the studio, and who were you to interrupt the insomniac.

All you had wanted to do was bake a surprise birthday cake for Hyunjin and enjoy a few hours together before he had more schedules in the morning and you had work. At this point in the night, he should be home soon and the only thing to show for the hours you spent planning is a messy kitchen and decorations haphazardly placed around the dorm.

The late hour and the adrenaline fading away from the intense upset has your eyes falling shut in exhaustion and you don't even realize you've fallen asleep until you're awoken by someone gently nudging you.

You open your eyes to see the kitchen cleaned up and all of the dishes and ingredients set up, ready for another attempt at baking. You shoot up from the stool when you realize it's Hyunjin who was trying to wake you. Your sudden movements have you and the stool tipping backwards and you would have ended up sprawled on the floor if he weren't right there to catch you. The stool still hits the floor and you both wince at the wood meeting tile, worried about waking Chan from his much needed rest.

Deeming Chan still asleep after a beat, Hyunjin meets your eyes. You look up at him, still wrapped in his arms, and watch his eyes crinkle into a smile.

"Hey baby." His face is so close you can feel his breath on your own as he speaks. "Are you okay?" The pinch in his brow makes his concern known.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thank you." You can barely get the whisper out, still entranced by his eyes.

He turns slightly to look at all the ingredients laid out on the counter and squeezes you closer as he asks, "now what was my angel doing before she fell asleep on the counter, hm?"

Your eyes widen, remembering the mess you left in the kitchen. "Please tell me you didn't come home just to end up cleaning! I was going to take care of it," you insist, struggling out of his arms to get a good look at the cleaned kitchen.

His giggle comes in reply. "No, I didn't clean, don't worry about it." He tucks a stray piece of hair behind your ear and squeezes your cheek before turning back to the ingredients. "Lee Know hyung and Yongbok were going to come have a late night snack, but we found you here instead and they decided to help out before leaving us for the night."

It's then that you're hit with the painful awareness of the drying drool on your cheek and you quickly wipe it away, your cheeks burning at the thought of all three of them watching you drool in your sleep. He looks amused, but still quirks an eyebrow, silently reminding you of the question you left unanswered. You sigh in defeat and walk back into him, your face buried in his chest.

"I was trying to bake you a surprise birthday cake since I won't be able to see you much tomorrow-"

"You mean today?" You can hear his teasing grin and groan.

"Yeah, whatever day it is at this point." You sulk even further into his chest as he brings his arms up around you once more. "I just wanted to surprise you for your birthday, but everything kept messing up. I'm sorry I ruined the surprise."

Hyunjin's hand rubs up and down your back once, twice, before reassuring, "it's okay. Now it just means we get to bake together. Surely two people together can surpass one alone."

It's difficult to decide whether his proclamation was true or not when, an hour later, the cake is on the counter cooling, but there is an even bigger mess than before after Hyunjin started a flour fight. You had started to clean up, but he pulled you to the floor to join him in between his legs.

You're now sat with your back against his chest, his legs caging you in. His heart beats against your ribcage, blending with your own steady heart. His arms find their way around you and pulls you even closer to him. Subconsciously, your hands meet his to start playing with his fingers.

Flour still covers the counters and the floor and both of you, the dirty dishes lay out, and the cold items really should go back in the fridge soon, but neither of you care as you find peace in this new position on the floor. Hyunjin has taken to swaying you gently back and forth in his arms as he hums against your shoulder. It must be a new song. Your eyes start to droop as he lulls you to sleep.

Before he's completely successful, you tap his hand twice, silently requesting his full attention. He immediately stops humming and snuggles closer into you. You can't stop the giggles that escape you as he accidentally brushes the sensitive spots on your sides. He goes to pull more giggles out of you but you restrain his wrists before he could do so.

You relax back into him, fully letting him support your weight. It's quiet a beat more before you bring yourself to break the silence with a whisper. "Thank you, Jinnie."

He nuzzles even further into you, his cheek pressing against your own. You know if Han and Changbin were to come back to the dorm at this exact moment, they'd cringe at the way Hyunjin is causing your cheek to puff out unnaturally with his nuzzling. Normally, you would too, but Hyunjin has always been a source of comfort and you can't be bothered as long as he's here with you.

"mm, what for?" His voice matches your own whisper, not wanting to break the bubble the two of you have created.

"For going with the flow with me. For forgiving me so easily, even tho I ruined your birthday surprise. Thank you for continuing to go along with my whims even when I know you're tired and just want to go to bed. Thank you for being my Jinnie, my baby, my favorite person on this planet."

"Of course." He intertwines one of his hands with your own. "I'm grateful that you allow me to go along with your plans and be with you. I plan to do so for as long as you'll let me."

You can feel his heartbeat rise as he pauses from speaking, not just through his chest, but through the grip you still have around one of his wrists. You feel your own heart begin to pick up and the butterflies in your stomach take flight. The weight of this moment is crashing over the both of you and you're teetering on the edge of being fully consumed. When Hyunjin speaks next, it's so low, you're sure you only hear it because he's literally pressed to your ear.

"Thank you for letting me love you." As if it's possible, he squeezes his arms around you even tighter, grounding the violent storm of butterfly wings in your stomach. "Because I do. I love you so much. I thank God every day for bringing us together."

He's intentionally hid his face in the crook of your neck, but you need to see him in this moment. You need to see if he's falling over the edge into being consumed just like you are.

He tries to grip you harder when you go to turn, but you get him to let go long enough to turn in his lap, coming face to face with his shiny eyes. You cup his cheeks gently, then place featherlight kisses all over his face. First, you place one on his forehead, then his nose, then both his eyelids, then both of his cheeks. His eyes remain closed throughout the whole ordeal, but you watch the blush creep onto his cheeks.

While he can't see you, you find the courage to echo his feelings, "I love you too, Hyunjin. Thank you for letting me love you."

When his eyes open, it's with a tremble to his lips and glittery tears threatening to fall. Yet, you can't find a single lie when you look into the glittery brown. You press your foreheads together and close your own eyes as you feel your own tears well up. The two of you sit on the floor for a little while longer, holding each other, until Hyunjin starts to get antsy and wants to try the cake you made together.

You get up off of him and frost the cake as neatly as you can, making sure to put extra focus on the note of the cake: "Happy Birthday Jinnie ♡" His iconic eye smile graces his face when he comes up behind you and hugs you from behind. He leaves a kiss on your temple, the spot left tingling.

"Thank you for the best birthday ever."

Thank you so much for reading! I hope everyone's celebrating hyunjins birthday well :) I was kinda going for more cute/funny/dorky whatever but in true me fashion, I got sentimental and dramatic over how much I adore this man. Hopefully it's not too sappy, fingers crossed

#happy birthday hyunjin #my love #my dumpling🥹#i am so truly in love with him #its not even funny #hyunjin fanfic #hyunjin fluff #hyunjin x reader #hwang hyunjin #hyunjin #skz fluff #skz x reader #skz #its a little late for kst but still early for america time

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16woodsequ · 2 days

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Things People Seem to Forget About Steve Rogers (aka the past is complex)

Things in the future didn't happen in a vacuum, and while Steve missed a lot of stuff while he was in the ice, he would have seen the roots of things like the Civil Rights, Women's Rights and even LGBTQ+ Rights movements in his time.

While I'm sure Steve encountered a lot of people expecting certain right-wing behaviours from him, due to his birth year and the things he missed in the ice, this doesn't mean he would act that way—even right out of the ice.

But first lets take a look at the things Steve missed and see what he did in fact know:

The atom bomb. Steve never saw the atomic fallout, but what did he see? Hydra bombs literally being flown to his home city. There is also a possibility that as a specialty team, he learned about the German Nuclear Program during the war. His unit was tied to the Strategic Science Reserve, so I wouldn't be surprised if between that, and Hydra's bomb initiatives, Steve was well aware of the potential of a bomb threat. I doubt Steve has clearance to know about the Manhattan project, and I think he would be horrified to learn about the impact of the atom bomb on Japan (especially since he essentially thwarted the same thing from happening to New York) but majorly powerful bombs would not surprise him.

• The Cold War. Steve may not have experience the Cold War, but he grew up surrounded by the outcome of the First World War after the Communist take over of Russia. The debates surrounding Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism aren't new. Steve would have grown up with them and would probably be familiar with American pro-capitalist, anti-communist rhetoric. But would he agree?

Here's some things we know about Steve: He's an artist, he grew up during the Depression which was heavily mitigated by socialist measures, he grew up poor, he grew up disabled. As an artist Steve would be well aware of the debates between the political movements, and with his background, and the success of Roosevelt's New Deal reforms, it would not surprise me if Steve leaned more towards the Socialist side of the scale.

All this to say: Steve would not be unfamiliar with the tension between Russia and the USA. Especially since even though they were allies during the war, there were already concerns that the USSR wasn't so much 'liberating' the countries they drove Germany out of, as putting them under new management.

Steve would be familiar with the tensions underlying the Cold War, and his background might lead him to have a critical view of some of the pro-Capitalist propaganda that came out during the Cold War. While I don't think Steve would approve of Russia's methods and the ultimate outcome of Communism there, I don't think he would approve of the Red Scare Witch Hunt that happened in the States either.

• Civil Rights Movement. While Steve missed the major changes that occurred during the 50s and 60s, he would not be unfamiliar with movements for equality. Steve would also not be unaware of the inequality that minorities faced in his country.

For example:

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was established in 1909 and is still run today. The NAACP fought and fights against discrimination and advocates for equality.

In the 30s President Roosevelt responded to "to charges that many blacks were the "last hired and first fired," [his administration] instituted changes that enabled people of all races to obtain needed job training and employment. These programs brought public works employment opportunities to African Americans, especially in the North" (Link)

"The first precedent-setting local and state level court cases to desegregate Mexican and African American schooling were decided during [the late 1930s]" (Link)

In 1941 thousands of Black Americans threatened to march on Washington for equal employments rights which pushed Roosevelt to issue an executive order that "opened national defense jobs and other government jobs to all Americans regardless of race, creed, color or national origin." (Link)

The Double Victory or Double V Campaign during the war was an explicit campaign to win the war against fascism in Europe and the war against racism as home.

All this to say, Steve would not be unfamiliar with many of the issues tackled during the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s.

Not only that, but Steve led a multi-racial special unit during the war during a time of active army segregation. Not only does he have a Black man on his team, but also a Japanese man. This would have most definitely led to backlash from higher command as well as discrimination from other units against Jones and Morita. Steve and the entire Howling Commandos would be explicitly aware of prejudice against two of their members and likely had to fight for them many times.

• Anything space travel. It's true Steve wouldn't know anything about attempts to reach the moon. But there were still several space discoveries he could know about, especially since he and Bucky are clearly interested in scientific discoveries, considering how they went to the Stark Exbo before Bucky shipped out.

Some discoveries:

Hubble's Law: In 1929 Hubble published evidence for an ever expanding universe, and thus provided evidence of the Big Bang theory.

1930: Discovery of Pluto (makes me chuckle to think this is a relatively new discovery for Steve and he wakes up to find it is a dwarf-planet now. You think Millennials are protective of Pluto? I think Steve would be too 😆.)

1937: "the first intimation that most matter in the universe is `dark matter'"

Personally I think Steve would be absolutely amazed by the advances in space travel.

• Women's Rights. Like with Civil Rights, while Steve may have missed the large movements during the 50s and 60s, he was around for the early movements. The 60s movement is called Second Wave Feminism for a reason. This is because there was already many pushes for women equality in Steve's time.

For example:

1920: White women win the right to vote. This means Steve's mother first voted in his lifetime. I feel this alone would make Steve heavily aware of inequality faced by women. (As a side note I feel that Sarah always emphasized voting to Steve since it was such a major development in her lifetime.)

Also in the 20s the Flapper trend rose, along with hemlines. Women's skirts were shorter and they smoked and drank with men. Middle-class and working-class women also worked outside of the home. The 1920s-1930s 'modern' woman is very different from the Victorian vision of a woman in petticoats and skirts.

Early Birth Control movement: Was "initiated by a public health nurse, Margaret Sanger, just as the suffrage drive was nearing its victory. The idea of woman’s right to control her own body, and especially to control her own reproduction and sexuality, added a visionary new dimension to the ideas of women’s emancipation. This movement not only endorsed educating women about existing birth control methods. It also spread the conviction that meaningful freedom for modern women meant they must be able to decide for themselves whether they would become mothers, and when."

1936: A Supreme Court decision declassified birth control information as obscene. Legalised doctor-prescribed contraceptives.

WW2 Watershed: Women serve in the army and work factory jobs. The government establishes universal childcare while women work.

Women also wore pants and form fitting clothes to work in factories. We also see Peggy wearing pants during the last assault on Hydra. While Steve may need to get used to modern fashion, he would already be familiar with the 'morale outrage' over women's clothes in his time, and probably try to manage his surprise in private as well as possible.

• LGBTQ+ Rights. Like with the rest of the equality movements, LGBTQ+ rights movements also started before the late 1900s.

1924: "Society for Human Rights is founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago. The society is the first gay rights organization as well as the oldest documented in America." This organisation was broken up soon after founding due to arrests, but it published "the first American publication for homosexuals, Friendship and Freedom."

In the 1920s and 30s "the gay and lesbian movement started taking shape. Social analysts began rejecting prior medical definitions of "inversion" or "homosexuality" as deviant.

Communities of men and women with same-sex affiliations began to grow in urban areas. Their right to gather in public places such as bars was tenuous, and police raids and harassment were common." (Link)

WW2 Watershed: While many LGBTQ people lived in rural areas or outside 'queer neighbourhoods' the war brought people from all backgrounds together. "As with most young soldiers, many had never left their homes before, and the war provided them an opportunity to find community, camaraderie, and, in some cases, first loves. These new friendships gave gay and lesbian GIs refuge from the hostility that surrounded them and allowed for a distinct subculture to develop within the military."

They still had to hide their identities for fear of persecution and a 'blue discharge', however "Gay and lesbian veterans of World War II became some of the first to fight military discrimination and blue discharges in the years following the war."

It's unclear how much Steve would have known about the gay and lesbian rights movement. But in the comics he has a gay friend Arnie Roth, and there are many meta posts (X X X) about how Steve may have lived in a queer neighbourhood.

And, according to my history professor, gay and lesbian soldiers were often protected by their friends in the army instead of outed. This is not to downplay the discrimination and pain outed veterans faced, but there was a comaraderie and understanding that developed between soldiers that protected many gay soldiers.

• Computer and the internet. The seeds of modern computers began during World War Two. Arguably it began earlier with Ada Lovelace. While technology has changed a lot for Steve, there is a long history of it's development.

Colossus Computer: Kept secret until the 70s, it's unclear if Steve's association with the SSR, Peggy (who was a code breaker before SSR) and Howard, would have led him to know anything about the "the world's first programmable, electronic, digital computer", but we see electric screens and machines being used in Captain America: The First Avenger. So he would know something of those mechanisms.

Also the first American TV was broadcasted in the 1939 World Fair, And since Steve and Bucky are already shown going to a science fair, I believe it is reasonable for Steve to know about the concept of television, though it looks much different in modern day.

• Rise of Neo-Nazis. Steve already saw the rise of fascism in his own country before the war, so while I think he would be horrified and saddened to learn of the Neo-Nazi movement, I don't think he would be surprised.

Because:

Eugenics: A large part of the Nazi campaign, this part of the movement originated and was inspired by the United States Eugenics movement. "It is important to appreciate that within the U.S. and European scientific communities these ideas were not fringe but widely held and taught in universities."

Lobotomies and institutionalisations were part of the treatments for disabled and 'weak-minded' individuals during Steve's time. With Sarah being a nurse it is likely Steve knew of these treatments and more. And as a disabled child of immigrants, I have no doubts Steve brushed up with eugenics beliefs many times.

1939: More than 20,000 people attended a Nazi rally in Madison Square while "[a]bout 100,000 anti-Nazi protesters gathered around the arena in protest".

In the comics Steve canonically has a Jewish friend, Arnie Roth. If he wasn't part of the protests against the Nazi rally, he would have heard about it and known about the rise of antisemitic sentiment in the US before the outbreak of the war.

So Where Does That Leave Us?

Steve has a history of anti-racist behaviour. While he would still have a lot to learn from the Civil Rights Movement and no doubt has unconscious biases he grew up with, he also explicitly builds a multi-racial team that would have led to clashes with systemic racism in the army. This would have inevitably led to him and the Howling Commandos taking an anti-racist stance in protection of their members.

Would Steve say the N-word? Likely not. The N-Word already held negative connotations by the 19th and early-20th century. I doubt Jones would be willing to follow a man who would knowing use the insult. 'Coloured' or 'Negro' were seen as the more acceptable terms. So Steve may use those words at first, instead of 'Black' or 'African-American'. 'Negro' is a controversial term for some Black Americans, so this would be something for him to learn, but he would not purposely by insulting or hurtful. And I believe he would adapt as quickly as possible upon learning.

Steve saw the early steps of many social movements. Given what we know about Steve—artist, disabled, immigrant, poor, raised by a single mom, gay and Jewish friend, potentially lived around queer people, worked with Peggy and smiled when she punched a sexiest, and built a multi-racial team—Steve would not only be aware of the social movements of his time, but he would be happy to learn of the developments after he went into the ice.

While it would take some time for him to learn all the changes that happened, Steve's background would led him to be pleased with the changes in society. This is the opposite of being racist, sexist, and homophobic. Some things might take some adjusting for Steve to get used to, but he is already open-minded and has a frame of reference for many of the social changes that happened.

People sometimes bring up Steve's Catholic upbringing to argue about some beliefs he might have. But while I do think this upbringing would lead to some biases, I think Steve's life experience helped counter, or helped him unlearn some of those biases, even before he hit the ice.

Also, as an Irish-Catholic, Steve would have faced some discrimination of his own. It is most certainly not on the same level as other minorities, and things were better in the 20th century. Being very clear, any discrimination Steve faced for being Irish-Catholic would not be systemic or commonplace like racism. But adding his heritage to the rest of Steve's background helps give us a better idea of why he was already open to social movements like the Civil Rights movement before the ice. And it may have made him already more understanding of LGBTQ+ people, who he may have lived around, even if he grew up being taught certain biases.

Other Things We Forget About Steve

He is quite tech-savvy. While Steve would have a lot to learn, we know he is capable. There are a lot of jokes about his technical know-how in Avengers, but I think he's actually managing very well considering it's probably only been a few weeks or months since he came out of the ice.

Examples:

Deleted scene where we see Steve using a laptop in his apartment. He presses the spacebar to pause a video, which is a keyboard shortcut. So not only can he set up a laptop to watch a video, but he already knows key shortcuts.

Deleted scene where waitress mentions 'wireless'. Steve is confused and thinks she means radio. But I think he actually knows about wi-fi at this point, but probably had never heard it referred to as 'wireless' before. By this point he knows radio is not as common, so his real confusion is why the waitress is offering him 'free radio'. If she had said free wi-fi (the more typical phrase in my opinion) I think he would have understood.

Canon scene of Steve helping Tony fix the Helicarrier engines. This is my favourite evidence because Tony asks Steve to look at the relays and Steve makes a quip that they 'seem to run on some sort of electricity' indicating he is out of his depth. But we never see Tony tell Steve what to do. Steve figures out how to fix the relays himself. Tony is busy with the debris in the rotors and the next thing we see is Steve telling Tony the relays are all good.

Steve is much better at adapting and figuring out technology than we give him credit for. This doesn't mean he won't be anxious or uncomfortable with the sheer amount of stuff he has to learn (especially if everyone keeps making jokes about it to him). But by 2014, it's clear he's already mastered all of it, which is amazing when you think about it, because that's only two years of learning.

Steve is very book smart. In the comics Steve goes to art college, implying he finished high school. Even if he did drop out of high school to work, we know Steve is very smart.

We see him unloading a whole suitcase of books in the barracks before he got the serum.

The mental math is must take to throw the shield at the right angles for it to bounce back is insane.

Steve is also known as a master tactician. So it is clear he has the brains and smarts to run his team during the war. Not only that, but he is not just Captain in name. He actually has that rank, which means he passed the Captain's exam. I also have a feeling he would have needed to pass some kind of evaluation to get the serum in the first place.

We see in Steve's 2014 apartment that his bookshelves are full of history books. Steve is a veracious reader and spends a lot of his time catching up on what he missed. Things he didn't learn or were taught differently growing up would definitely exist, but Steve is actively working to counter that.

Steve would swear. Swearing has been a constant throughout all of history. So too, the backlash against profanity. Even if Steve grew up being told not to swear he would have heard it. And, Steve became a soldier. If he didn't swear before the war, he most definitely picked up some of it then.

I think Captain America isn't supposed to swear, and I think Steve would be aware of this perception of the symbol of him. But I think when Steve is comfortable with people, he would swear. We see in Avengers he doesn't swear, but in Avengers: Age of Ultron, he does.

We joke about Steve and the "Language" line, but I think that line has something to do with Steve's history of being perceived as a symbol and as Captain America since he said it 'just slipped out'. So, while Steve may have been encouraged not to swear growing up, and expected not to swear as Captain America, I fully believe that soldier, veteran, and Irish man Steve Rogers does swear.

Wrap up

I hope you liked this deep dive into Steve's history and character.

I think it can be easy to take the past as a lump sum and view everyone in the past through one lens. We know the past was racist, sexist, and homophobic, so we view everyone from the past that way.

And while it's true things were different back then, people were most definitely fighting for change and aware of the issues. There is also a lot of nuance to the past, and a lot that can be gleaned from what we know about Steve.

It's true that Steve would have a lot to learn when it comes to terminology and specific technology, but I believe Steve's background would prepare him for a lot of the social changes that happened after he went into the ice.

#steve rogers #meta #deep dive #long post #captain america #historically accurate #research #sources cited #early 20th century #20th century history #20th century #social movements #marvel #mcu #please don't tag the other post #no drama please #iykyk #historically accurate steve rogers

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