I tried to have a theme, then I got distracted

adrian fully understands how into grace rocky is, but they didn't understand the extent to which grace needs/wants rocky until now. it warms their hearts, but it also breaks them specifically because of how much they must have had to endure together to be this reliant on each other. especially because, from what rocky has told them, adrian knows humans don't technically need anyone to watch them sleep like eridians do.

Jonathan is the son of a working single mother and often stepped in to help take care of his little brother. Between Lonnie's abuse and being parentified at a young age, he never really got to be a child. So when one of the kids asks him for help with something, he will do it for them.

Steve is the only son of absentee parents and was expected to take care of himself from a young age. He was left to figure everything out on his own or deal with the consequences if he couldn't. So when one of the kids asks him for help, he teaches them how to do it themselves.

Will, who sometimes feels smothered and babied by his family, likes asking Steve for help. Dustin, who has no interest learning skills he thinks are unimportant, loves asking Jonathan.

He's tired. He wants to go to bed. He's a little pissed that none of these bozos had an actually plan on how they were going to get home when they decided to go to an out of town college party but..

This is a good deed.

This is a great deed because he'd prefer it his brother didn't die (so he can kill him himself) and because good things happen to those who do good things, right?

Wrong.

Theo just got sucker punched with, "You're like a dad to me."

"No," He says to the drunk teen in the passenger seat of his car. "No, Steve. No, I’m not."

"Yeah."

"No."

"You're my dad," Steve insists, slurs. Twists the knife in deeper and ages Theo twenty-five additional years. "Wish you were my dad."

"I’m your brother," Theo says because it's more or less true. "I’m like a brother to you. Not a dad."

"No," Steve shakes his head and then stops when the world shakes with it. "You're like - no, I mean. I wish you - I wish my dad was like. Was like you. I wish he was like you."

That was...better? Maybe. Not by much.

"Why?"

"You're nice to me," Steve says heartbreakingly simple. He takes a breath and then asks like every other overly emotional teenage drunk, "Do Tommy and Carol hate me?"

"No. If anything, they like you too much."

"They left me."

"They went into McDonalds to get us food before we drive an hour back home, remember?" He says, looking up to see where those idiots are and... "They're getting handsy. Great."

He lays on the horn.

Tommy and Carol stop kissing to laugh when Theo yells out the window, "Get in the car, assholes."

"Do you like me?"

"I love ya, kid," Theo says as Tommy yanks open the door to the backseat and spills in.

Steve’s quiet for a second, watching him. Then says “Huh.”

And Eddie says “What?”

Steve, shrugging, a little embarrassed “I never… actually made a fort. As a kid.”

Eddie sits up so fast dragging his feet away from Steves lap he almost knocks his beer over “I’m sorry, what?” Eddie stares at him like he just confessed to a crime. Then his whole face lights up, with a mischievous grin. “Oh, hell no. Nope. We’re fixing that.”

Steve blinks. “What, right now?”

Eddie’s already off the couch. “Yes right now, come on, I’ll show you. Childhood do-over, Harrington.” Eddie tearing through Steve’s house like he owns it. Going through closets and grabbing blankets from Steve’s bed and Couch cushions Steve’s just leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, absolutely gone for this man.

Steve laughs “Eddie, ome on You’re going to get everything dirty.” And eddie, dragging a dining chair in the living room “For a king,” he says, dropping everything in a pile with the goofiest, proudest smile. “Can’t have his majesty catching a draft in his first fort.”

Steve bursts out laughing, hand over his face. It’s so stupid. And It hits him all at once nobody’s ever done something like this to make him happy and god was he happy. And Steve, softly says “God, I love you.”

Eddie freezes. Blanket in hand. Then he grins, slow and dangerous, and drops the blanket. Two steps and he’s got Steve by the hips and backing him into the half -built pillow wall.

Eddie, nose to nose with him “it’s because of my good fort skills isn’t it?”

Steve can’t even answer. He’s laughing, but it’s wet, and he yanks Eddie down by his vest. “Shut up and finish the fort, Munson.”

They do eventually end up finishing it and It’s lopsided and one of the chairs keeps collapsing. String lights from Christmas are hanging inside because Eddie “always wanted those in a fort.”

Steve’s laying on Eddie’s chest, both of them under the questionable blanket roof. Eddie’s playing with Steve’s hair.

Steve says almost in a whisper “I get it now. Why you never wanted to get out.”

Eddie, kissing his temple “Yeah?”

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

"I'm just thinking about when we met. There should have been some sort of sign."

"There was, you pointed out the no smoking sign, was first thing you said."

Shane smiles, "sure but it just seems crazy to me that I met you and no one told me that I'd just met the most important person I'll ever know."

Ilya felt like he'd just been sideswiped by his husband. It was so like Shane to just be thinking the most romantic thing Ilya's ever heard while Ilya's playing candy crush.

"I thought that I'd found the thing that would make me happiest in the world already, and I did, because hockey led me to meeting you. It's just crazy is all"

@yearnalisms requested to bring this beautiful text post by @honeyybrii to gif form! all inspo credit to op of the text post! 💜 this tag is especially a good sum up of the set:

So he gets a tutor. He meticulously researches her (she's from Moscow, so he'll learn from someone with Ilya's same accent). She's signed to more NDAs than he can count. She has 10 years of experience, she's certified to teach English and Russian, and she has 4.8 stars on MyTutor.

Shane pays her a frankly concerning amount of money to make house calls. Twice weekly, unless he's on the road, she arrives at his apartment to teach him foundational Russian. She gives him workbooks, Russia cartoon recommendation, podcasts for beginners, etc. He tells her he's learning because his boyfriend is Russian and she outlines a course that focuses on domestic language first (as opposed to travel or business). She even teaches him what she calls a 'culture course' with lessons on Russian music, food, and various traditions.

She's only a few years older than Shane and he actually finds himself looking forward to her visits. At this point, she's the only person other than his parents that knows he has a boyfriend.

About 4 months in, Shane finally feels comfortable enough to ask about what he'd been very excited about learning.

"You want me to teach you how to talk dirty to your boyfriend?" Ekaterina raised an eyebrow.

"Um," Shane blushed. Was this a little too far? Was this inappropriate to ask of a tutor? "Yes? If - If that's okay, I mean."

A slow smirk spread over her face. "This will be fun. Fun for me, now. Fun for you, later."

"I made a list," Shane admitted. He wasn't going to back out now, he put a lot of thought into his list. He turned to it in his Russian notebook and handed it to her.

She scanned over it indifferently. "You will use all this in one night?"

"Yeah, probably. Is it too much?"

"It is good you have a Russian man," Ekaterina said. "They have good stamina. Mostly, anyway."

And while it was a little embarrassing for Ekaterina to correct his pronunciation of please let me suck your cock, it helped that she seemed just as comfortable with that as there is tea on the stove.