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nadiawrites14 · 4 years

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everything’s fractal

wc: 1.7k

okay this is a follow up to the fic i posted yesterday because these are the only two men i have brain worms for and i also need to keep writing every day or else i lose. anyways. hold hands or whatever

“I read your book,” Florijan declared. “It gave me a nightmare.”

Laszlo spun around, eyes wide as his gaze met Florijan’s. “Hello to you too, dear. Why did it give you a nightmare?”

Florijan shrugged, plucking it from his coat pocket and handing it back to Laszlo. “It was scary. I think you should return it to the library.”

“Uh, alright.” Laszlo stared at the cover. A Full History of Yugoslavia — Tito and Onwards. Debating, he shoved it in the bag tossed on his wheelchair, and started leading himself from the conference room. “Did it give you some context, at the very least? What made it... scary? I don’t think I understand.”

Florijan followed, his hands shoved in the pockets of his long gray jacket, ruined threads and tears running throughout it. “It gave me context... I don’t like the context. I don’t understand the brutality of it,” he said. “And I don’t like how we didn’t have a say in anything. And I didn’t like all the death and destruction and suffering. It didn’t have to be that way.”

“It, uh, it sure didn’t,” Laszlo muttered. He had begun to wonder if Slovenia’s newest president had even the faintest clue of the region’s own history. His face flushed an event of red, and he paused outside. “Let’s sit and talk. That works?”

Florijan nodded, his lips a thin line. “That certainly works, Laszlo.”

Laszlo patted the bench beside him and leaned forward as Florijan sat. From the morbid expression on Florijan’s face and the scrunched eyebrows on his, he almost began to feel like a parent giving a child a hapless explanation for a death in the family. The death being whatever history of Yugoslavia Florijan had believed before. “You seem bothered.”

“Learning about history makes me sad. I don’t like it.”

“You’re a man with a lot of empathy. There’s nothing wrong about that,” Laszlo replied.

Florijan huffed, his gangly hands folded into a neat bundle. “I feel duped. I feel duped that there was all this stuff I didn’t know. And I just lived my life without realizing any of it. I knew about the war. I knew there was a lot of people killed in it and that ever since then we’ve been seven instead of one. But all of those photographs, and the articles, and, and, and, the brutality of all of it. And we weren’t even fighting by our own means,” he mused, his voice trembling as he spoke. “Oh, Laszlo, it’s very sad.” Laszlo looked up when he felt Florijan’s gaze transfixed on him. “I see what you meant now. When you said what a troublemaker you are. But, but, you’re not. You’re a very good man with a big heart. Just because Macedonia has a bad rap doesn’t mean you should.”

Laszlo’s mouth twitched into a small smile before he looked away. “We shouldn’t have a bad rap at all.”

“I know,” Florijan said, putting his hand on top of Laszlo’s. “I know now. Izet always made these jokes that I could never understand, these vile jokes about you and Miss Arsic and Miss Horvatic. It makes sense now, it does, but I should have thought, oh... I don’t understand.”

Laszlo shifted. His hand was an icebox beneath the warmth of Florijan’s. “What don’t you understand?”

“The book... well. I did research, and it says— it says Slovenia isn’t considered a Balkan country. And Izet mentioned that sometimes, but I never really understood it, I just thought it was a consistent error he liked to make. Is it true, Laszlo? I don’t want it to be true. I think you guys are great. And I don’t fit in with Lorenzo and Manon and Aurelia— I mean, they’re great, but I do feel like the odd one out. I can’t speak German or French and they can't speak a word of Slovene or even read Cyrillic. It’s... weird. I always thought it was the other way around.” Florijan’s voice went increasingly distraught, and Laszlo’s panic flared in his chest.

“Don’t get upset. It’s okay. Um, let me explain it to you this way. You guys, the Slovenians, drink wine and beer. Me, Jelka, Svetlana, Agim, we drink rakija. Uhhh... that’s how I’ve heard it explained.”

“I don’t drink, Laszlo, I hate drinking! It doesn’t make sense,” Florijan let out a whimper of frustration and inhaled. “I apologize. This is making me rather emotional. Can you just— hm. Explain it to me like you would anybody else, and I’ll try not to get upset.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s fine. Promise. Erm,” Laszlo felt the back of his neck and his eyes touched the ceiling. He squinted through the glass panelling at the fractured afternoon sun. “Okay. It’s like, a stereotype, really, that you guys are more poised. You’re better. Less boisterous. You don’t fight or argue or make mountains from molehills. You handle things like those posh westerners do.” Laszlo steadied his gaze, and chuckled to himself. “You’re seen as one of the good ones. Too rich, too lavish, too educated to be grouped in with us,” he continued, dripping with venom. “But, Florijan,” his voice shifted back into a soft explanation. “I know you don’t think that way. Izet might have. Hell, the rest of the world might, but you don’t have to. You have the ability to decide what opinions you have, and that’s what’s so beautiful about history. Yes, it’s scary and depressing and leaves you feeling desolate and morbid but it gives you perspective. Needed perspective. So, uh, don’t lose sleep over it, alright? Just... make the right choice.” Laszlo straightened in his chair, as if he were defending himself at one of the various sessions or meetings with his cabinet or with the throng of fellow leaders. “Make your own choice.”

Florijan had never realized the sound of his own voice. He’d always thought his accent sounded different than that of the other Slavs who came to visit Izet, their tones and pronunciation being more defined, more proper, less casual. Everything was conducted with an air of dignity, a twill of formality sprinkled on posture and manners. He hadn’t known it was a unique thing until it all came into perspective. He also hadn’t noticed before how when Laszlo spoke at the meetings, his Slavic accent seemed to melt away in favor of what sounded like a mock British thing. When Laszlo spoke at those meetings, the uncharacteristic severity of his adoptive accent was dour and exuding with bitterness and icy etiquette. The way Laszlo spoke now, though, and the way he spoke at the library, was comfortable, relaxed, his voice soothing and not characterized by the harsh intonations of a western disguise. His accent was beautiful, it was colorful and chaotic but also fun and fitting all at once. It was uniquely Laszlo.

Florijan didn’t want him to hide the person he was beneath all those layers. He found himself first outstretching a hand, wordlessly, which Laszlo took, eyebrows furrowed. Then, with his emotion pouring out like an opened set of floodgates, he reached out both his arms and enveloped Laszlo in a hug. Florijan squeezed, careful to not hurt his friend, and rested his head in the corner of Laszlo’s neck, his eyes shut tight. Laszlo froze for a moment, stunned and caught like a red-handed criminal, and hugged back. Just slightly. His hands shook as he patted Florijan’s back and listened to the sound of his aggressive heartbeat. It was Florijan who let go first, folding like a house of cards and keeping his movements light and gentle. When Laszlo looked up, he realized Florijan’s eyes were welling up. “I don’t want you to hide from yourself just because the world said so!” Florijan whimpered, wiping his tears away with his sleeve.

Laszlo had never been so aware of the sound of his own heartbeat in his chest. It was so strong and filled his ears with that drumbeat of blood and life. He shut his eyes, choking back a tidal wave of emotion and hearing the pounding inside of his head. Like a swimmer coming up for air, he took in a long breath and turned back to a brimming Florijan, smiling like a politician. “Ah, thank you, dear. It means a lot to me that you say that. Thank you. Really, thank you.”

“Oh, Laszlo, you’re such a good man. You were so good today. You’re so clever and intelligent and wonderful, I don’t see why you have to hide behind— I don’t see why you should hide at all.” Florijan sniffled, making paws with his sweater and rocking back and forth in his place. “I look up to you.”

Laszlo felt that pit in his stomach again and his mouth grew dry. He sat there, a rubberneck to his own wreck, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. “Awh, shit, dear. I look up to you too. You’re an admirable fellow. I’m happy to be here with you. You’re doing amazing.”

Florijan swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded, blinking away the last of his tears. He grabbed Laszlo’s hands again, giving them a tight squeeze. Laszlo gazed at Florijan’s olive green nail polish. “That’s— that’s my favorite color, some fun Mincef trivia.”

Holding up his hand to study his own nails and then gaze back at Laszlo, Florijan beamed. “Green is beautiful! It’s the color of life.”

Laszlo nodded, his mouth a faint smile. “Yeah, yeah. You feel better now?”

Florijan nodded his head. “Thank you for talking with me… dear.”

“Noooooo problem, dear!” Laszlo responded, aiming finger guns and shooting with two snaps of his fingers. “Always a pleasure to see you around. I hope we can see each other more often.” To be fair, Laszlo thought, relations had especially stalled with Izet in power. Maybe it was time to repair that.

“Mmph,” Florijan replied, his head bobbing up and down. He kissed Laszlo’s outstretched hand and got to his feet, placing one of his firm hands on Laszlo’s shoulder. “I’ll see you around.” His words were smiling almost as wide as he was.

“See ‘ya.” Laszlo gave a salute.

Florijan saluted back, giggling as he disappeared towards the dorms.

Laszlo heard his heart pounding again.

#ah #men #they exist #these ones though <3 #sobs #we are on laszlo/florijan lockdown #what s the ship name vote on your phones #call that #macevlenia #?#sorry that is awful #i will leave #laszlo mincef #florijan kovac #my writes #writeblr #liaisons #go crazy #lemme put this on ao3 for the heck of it too

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ivanshatov · 5 years

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explaining liaisons or my main oc thing whatever 💅

tw; terrorism, war, bombs and stuff

this is europe edition asia and africa edition coming soon to a tumblr near you

some things u need to know in advances

africa avoids serious colonialism but colonialism still happens elsewhere

sykes-picot doesnt happen so arabia is still a singular country really

austria instigated world war 2, because

germany never existed as a unified country and stayed split into kingdoms like it was before the 19th century

romania is a monarchy 💅

russia got nuked in the early 2000s by themselves and everything east of moscow is basically toxic and the gvmt is in shambles

in 2007, northern ireland recedes from the UK into ireland. the UK is lenient abt this and is just yeah yeah whatever you do you ig and no one dies. however scotland tries to declare independence about a month later and the UK immediately backtracks on what they said previously and goes to war with scotland to keep them from leaving. during this time, the monarch, a young dumbass prince, usurps the prime minister’s seat and dissolves parliament (albeit illegally) and declares martial law. he makes a lot of military decisions that a lot of english citizens feel are unnecessary, and they are kind of tired of the whole monarchy in the 21st century thing.

so in early 2010 the war ends with england winning and annexing scotland back but only after 3 major cities are completely destroyed. the english citizens the scottish the irish and the eu and basically everyone in the world ever thinks this was a really bad take so in mid 2010 a former MP named ben hunter leads a miltia mostly formed from other mps and angry citizens and essentially kills the dumbass prince and his military henchmen and then exiles the royal family. the EU, who originally supported mr. hunter is like “wait, no, don’t do THAT,” because as we all know monarchy states essentially run the show and they don’t like their whole divine right being threatened. so all the monarchy states in the EU, after some protests start up demanding an end to 21st century royalty, secede together on a single day (december 18th, 2010) and declare war on england and france. yes, another war.

the war lasts around 9 years and doesn’t really pass europe aside from some debates and revaluing of ideas in africa and asia. the war ends in a draw, with the republics creating their own union, the REU, and the monarchies creating their own union, the CMS. a handful of european states declare themselves independent from both and act as buffers (macedonia, moldova, estonia, finland, iceland, kosovo, cyprus). things are awfully tense for a while between the two especially considering they kept trying to murder each other’s leaders. things cool down after a while, until 2027, when the very gentle balance keeping the two sides from war slowly begins to crumble.

it starts when a monarch in monaco attempts to expand territory into france and italy then threatens war, obviously the madman is subdued and it doesnt happen but the REU is on edge. in late 2027, the belgian monarch and prime minister are killed by the deputy pm, ms. amelie de warlencourt, after she discovers that the two of them are having an affair. fortunately the independents are able to manage the situation so it doesn’t turn into another whole out war. unforunately the damage has already been done, the REU has gained another member state, and the CMS swears that if aggressed again they will go to war with the REU. in 2028 an REU prime minister, mr. fedya vranchev of bulgaria, goes into independent territory (macedonia) and commits a mass assassination, nearly killing the macedonian prime minister and killing his entire cabinet of 18 people. the CMS then accuses the mass murder as an act of unwarranted aggression from the REU and is tempted to declare war but is stopped by the UN assembly general.

but only three months after the murder, the serbian capital of belgrade gets totally bombed out, killing most of parliament except for like 10 people and prime minister ms. svetlana arsic and her entire cabinet, except for her finance minister/personal accountant cvetko rajkovic. cvetko is unqualified as heck but ends up getting elected in a panicked snap election facilitated by the REU. he really doesn’t want this. why? he may or may not be having a gay affair with his country’s worstest enemy, the president of kosovo. also, while the balkans are almost on the verge of another war the slovakian prime minister ms klara kollarova may or may not know about a plot to take over the continent by her hungarian and polish neighbors but refuses to tell anyone out of fear for the life of her girlfriend best friend ms. pavla klimesova the prime minister of czechia. oh, and former pm of england mr. ben hunter and his dpm lloyd fowler & former president of france ms. liv guillot-akoma and her vp angeline toussaint may or may not have started a secret surveillance agency that they didn’t tell anyone about.

so that’s liaisons (part 1: bitches in europe) and i hope it was a wild ride from start to finish. don’t worry i’ll make a character masterlist to go w this post.

#liaisons tag #my ocs #the circus itself #the entire idea of liaisons is a political satire that got out of hand #everyone is a clown #theyre good people ay heart but corrupted by the idea of government itself #and thats the plot #long post

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