#and his main thing for me is that i don’t have any ‘official’ leadership experience

[gobbluthbutagirl]

there is like a high probability that i will wind up getting this lead position at my job because my talk with the store director went really well and the problem with this is that i feel the exact same way about this that i did when i got my GED four years ago. and the way that i feel is the way that talk show host by radiohead sounds. which is empty(and nothing. nothing. nothing. nothing)

[seyaryminamoto]

Do you think canon Zuko has any understanding of the idea of duty? That he, especially given that he aspires to political power, should act like his status as Prince gives him certain responsibilities? That doing what's best for the for Fire Nation or the world might require him to do things which make him unhappy or uncomfortable or require him to make grave personal sacrifices? Does he even understand duty as a concept?

Oof. Complicated questions, thus, this sat in my inbox for a veeeery long time.

I honestly, seriously, genuinely... don't think Zuko truly understood, at any point in canon, what it really meant to be a leader. I know many of us (and I think you, too?) don't particularly like the comics, but in my opinion, The Promise did a surprisingly decent job at highlighting several problems left in the wake of the end of the war, and perhaps unintentionally, this is one of the problems: upon becoming Fire Lord, Zuko is remarkably erratic, unsure of his choices, even seeking advice from his FATHER, of all people, because he has no idea what he's doing.

In the most favorable possible view of Iroh, he taught Zuko to be a better person. I don't entirely adscribe to this belief, but fine, let's concede that he did, or else this answer would never end: not just because you're a good person, however, are you guaranteed to be a good leader. Zuko, as we both know, is far from the best person in the world, and he is prone to making impulsive, emotional mistakes that can cause harm and trouble, and typically, Zuko doesn't face the consequences of most his actions, or the narrative just pins the blame on someone else. When we see this sort of behavior in a real-life politician, the immediate reaction we would have is "this guy is awful at his job", and sadly, I find myself thinking that quite often when it comes to Zuko's canon tenure as Fire Lord.

So... what is Zuko's concept of duty? Going by his pursuit of Aang in the first two seasons, duty is a task given to him by someone whose approval he seeks (in this case, Ozai) and he must pull it off, no matter what, to gain said approval. By Book 3, this logic still applies fairly easily to how Zuko acts over Iroh: I've highlighted in the past that the main motivation for Zuko's redemption is Iroh, doing right by Iroh, making amends to Iroh, regretting how he treated Iroh. He points that out explicitly in Ember Island Players, he does it as well indirectly by bringing up Iroh first of all, when confronting Ozai: this is his main priority. Ergo... I'd honestly say it's safe to judge that this is what Zuko regards as duty, as what he has to do. Iroh wants him to be Fire Lord? That's exactly what he becomes. The difficulties and complications in this particular line of work are taken for granted, and so, we have an outcome that was remarkably well depicted in The Promise, despite that comic's many glaring flaws: Zuko gets swept back and forth, twisted left and right by all the pressures and responsibilities, because he has no idea what he's doing as Fire Lord, and no idea/experience in how to be a real leader.

As far as I can tell, the core of the matter is that nobody really seems to have taken Zuko all that seriously as future Fire Lord. Ozai, evidently, wasn't training Zuko to be his personal heir. Ozai himself is a questionable source of information regarding learning what it means to be Fire Lord, considering he, as well, wasn't raised to take that role, just as he didn't raise Zuko for it. Yet Iroh didn't exactly teach Zuko how to lead anyone either, as far as I can tell: his lessons were meant to be of a more personal nature, and even then, Zuko had lots of trouble accepting most of them. Iroh's firebending lessons to Zuko were typically stunted in the basics because he was hot-headed and rash about getting to the intense and interesting stuff...

So: neither Ozai nor Iroh gave Zuko actual responsibilities. Ozai gave him a punishment Zuko was trying to endure however possible, a punishment he wanted to prove himself unworthy of by finding the Avatar and "regaining his honor". Then, Iroh punished Zuko as well by giving him the cold shoulder in Book 3, then he escaped and Zuko did everything he did, after betraying Ozai, to prove himself worthy of Iroh's kindness once again. It's not actual duty, the way it is in Azula's case: no doubt, Azula wants Ozai's approval too, but she has the madman's trust when it comes to finding her brother and uncle, to taking down the Avatar, and to conquering Ba Sing Se, as far as anyone can tell. I do doubt Ozai gave her all these missions at once, but he gave her the resources through which she pulled off ALL of them: she had the firebending procession, she had a ship, she had a train-tank, she had mounts... Zuko had a rundown ship that looked like a 1:10 scale version of every other ship in the harbor back in the very third episode: he was being punished. In contrast, Azula is entrusted with a mission, with LEADERSHIP, while Zuko has no visible, tangible, objective experience with the latter (consider how Azula steals the Dai Li's loyalty from under Long Feng: when did we see Zuko pulling off something like this? Even with Jet, Zuko was more of an associate to the Freedom Fighters, and Jet was still the leader).

I've always thought Zuko wasn't prepared to be Fire Lord, and the main reasons are the ones you indirectly point out through this ask: Zuko doesn't seem to treat the throne as a responsibility, but as his right. I won't get tired of pointing out that this was NOT Zuko's birthright, he was NOT born thinking he'd be Fire Lord: he was born to the second branch in the Fire Nation family. We literally SEE the day in which Lu Ten's death is revealed to him. According to somewhat official sources? He's ELEVEN in Zuko Alone's flashbacks. I, personally, think he looks a little younger than that, but I think that's the official wikia age, no idea where they got that info but that's what it says. Meaning...

Zuko, objectively, only had been crown prince for FIVE YEARS.

Zuko was NOT raised, not by his mother, not by his father, with the belief that the throne would one day be his (Ursa is gone before Ozai is crowned and Ozai clearly wanted Azula for the job rather than Zuko).

And yet, when you backtrack to the show? It seriously looks like that was the case. He clings to the throne in Books 1 and 2 as though he had no other purpose in life, as though this was everything that was promised to him (in contrast, Azula only ever indicates wanting the throne in Sozin's Comet: Part One). Even when he's an outlaw, discarded and cast out, he STILL talks about the throne, as though most his identity were built upon the notion that he must become Fire Lord: why? How come? Within five years, he's crafted his entire existence around being the heir to the throne? That's... a bit weird.

And a bit wishful, too. Which is why I commend that the comics show him struggling as Fire Lord, if anything they should've had him struggling MORE than that, because Zuko is simply NOT prepared for these responsibilities. He never gave any indication, any sign, of seeing it as such. He sees it as his right, his birthRIGHT. Why? Why more people don't ponder how utterly strange this behavior is, beats me. But it really does bother me that Zuko built his entire existence around being Fire Lord in a very similar way to how Korra built her own about being the Avatar. I have very little praise to give LOK in general, but the premise of Korra learning she was a person, a human, and not just the Avatar felt like the perfect parallel to Aang's story, where he was very much anchored in his humility and belief that he was just "one kid", and his rejection of his duties as the Avatar was meant to change gradually as he learned to accept himself as he was. Korra, however, never fully hit the mark with this subject, in my personal opinion... much as Zuko doesn't hit the mark either, since the show's only direct attempt to "deconstrue" Zuko's clinging to the throne happens in one dialogue, and his attachment to the idea is built up again, right afterwards:

Zuko: And then ... then you would come and take your rightful place on the throne? Iroh: No. Someone new must take the throne. An idealist with a pure heart and unquestionable honor. It has to be you, Prince Zuko. Zuko: Unquestionable honor? But I've made so many mistakes. Iroh: Yes, you have. You've struggled; you've suffered, but you have always followed your own path. You restored your own honor, and only you can restore the honor of the Fire Nation. Zuko: I'll try, Uncle.

And there we have it. The only point in the show (that I can remember) where Zuko seemed to not feel worthy of the throne and questioned he should be the one sitting on it (RIGHTFULLY!), buuuuuuuut he goes right back to wanting it, right afterwards, based on how this single exchange was enough for him to be 100% determined to take down his sister, merely a few lines later.

As for his willingness to make personal sacrifices... some might say he was outright willing to die for Katara in the finale -- though I'll point out he was trying to redirect the lightning anyway, didn't do it as well as he should have, but he wasn't exactly, consciously, trying to DIE for her... --, some might say that he left Mai behind in the FIre Nation, and that as well was a sacrifice... but was it? We don't see him missing her, or suffering about her fate, at any point in time after SHE sacrifices herself for him in the Boiling Rock (my biggest gripe over this particular canon couple is this, tbh). I feel like the show generally presents Zuko's situation as somewhat... self-sacrificial? Especially in Books 1 and 2, and yet that's really not the case: it isn't Zuko himself who makes the choice of traveling to find Aang, it's a punishment inflicted upon him.

This particular view upon his circumstances makes it so Zuko is never responsible for... well, any of his choices? It's always someone else's fault, therefore, whatever he suffers through, there's always someone he can (and usually does) resent for it. Therefore... I can't genuinely think of anything Zuko sacrificed in order to come as far as he did. He was forced to let go of things by his father, typically, by Zhao as well, maybe, but even then, it's not like we saw that he has a super healthy and happy relationship with, I don't know, Earth Kingdom people (his only meaningful positive EK bond was with Jin, which went nowhere and goes forgotten after a single mini episode)? The Palace staff? The commoners of the Fire Nation (they just treat him like a hero and he seems awkward and distant about it anyway, like he can really just do without their worship)? He doesn't have other friends beyond Azula's own friends... thus, he doesn't sacrifice anything that really matters. And in a sense, some people might say he doesn't have to sacrifice anything at all: he already went through so much strife and struggle that why would he need to sacrifice anything else? But the thing is... you DO have to learn to make such sacrifices if you're going to be a good king.

So often, people who devote themselves to their jobs have to consciously neglect their families, to name one thing: Zuko neglects Mai and she explodes at him for it in The Promise, then he just tries to get her back at all costs in Smoke & Shadow, with no thoughts given to the fact that maybe he isn't ready to juggle both a relationship and the throne, that maybe Mai could be happier with someone other than him, someone who can give her the attention and relationship she's looking for... THOSE are the sacrifices I'd be referring to, personally, sacrifices where his happiness and peace of mind have to be set aside for the sake of something much more important than himself, and I expect that's the kind of sacrifices you're referring to, too. I seriously don't think he's ready to make them, and with the comics as reference, there's seriously no evidence to suggest he's prepared to accept these burdens that come with the heavy mantle of leadership and ruling. I've never seen any signs of him being ready for it, myself. Maybe I need to reexamine the show and see if maybe I'm missing something... but I don't really think I am.

The worst part, for me, is that Zuko isn't even doing the bulk of the things he's doing in pursuit of genuine happiness: he's doing it over a sense of destiny. He never stops to reason with that destiny, to wonder if maybe he doesn't need to be Fire Lord, if maybe he could have a life beyond that role. Book 2 veeeery briefly suggests he MIGHT be on his way to questioning that destiny, but as I've said before, I don't see the sense in Zuko's big change of heart after the Appa incident considering we don't really understand what he's learned, other than how to be the perfect nephew for Iroh, apparently. Zuko never really is happy, as he says in the show: his happiest moments are with Mai and they're only like a 25% of his relationship with her, everything else is a mess (and his relationship with her isn't exactly the core of his character, either). So, the way I see it... Zuko is even worse off than it looks at first glance. He's out to fulfill a destiny he has never stopped to reason with, a destiny he's 100% sure is his, despite he has only been on that path, objectively, for five years? Despite he wasn't raised all along under the belief that this was what he was supposed to be? If given a chance to be genuinely happy, what on earth would he even do? A lot of the growth I gave him in Gladiator was based on that particular question: is the throne really what Zuko needs to be happy? It doesn't look like it, even in canon. If it's not... then it's not happiness he seeks, it's some sort of sense of assurance that he's doing the right thing, according to the figure of authority he follows at a set point in time: by Book 3, said authority is Iroh, and Iroh wants him on the throne. His motivation, as far as I can see it, is as simple as that.

Long story short... I don't think Zuko really has a strong grasp on many concepts that he absolutely should have reasoned with and worked out in order to become Fire Lord. In a sense, he's way too young for the role he's given, for the heavy burdens he has to deal with, and I'll NEVER see the sense in not having Iroh taking the throne (beyond how "poetic" the creators and writers found it to crown Zuko to finish his story, of course), at least for a short time, before Zuko can be ready. This is exactly why I wrote things that way in my oneshot where Azula takes Zuko's role, more or less: Iroh serves as regent while Azula prepares for taking the full role of Fire Lord when she's ready. I love her, she's awesome, I absolutely adore her character... but I don't think an Azula who was sidelined and sent on a long voyage with her uncle for YEARS could possibly be ready for the responsibilities of being Fire Lord right away.

Meanwhile? Iroh was given leadership of military missions enough times that he became a general in the Fire Nation forces. By all evidence, he was Fire Lord Azulon's pampered and spoiled son, whom he DID prepare for the duties of a Fire Lord for as long as Iroh was born: Iroh literally had fifty-ish years of preparation, as far as I can tell? How is he NOT the better suited person to take the throne, if just temporarily, while his nephew learns what it really means to rule by watching him, or by maybe learning leadership by managing smaller duties first, a specific town or city, and then putting his knowledge to good use by becoming Fire Lord properly?

Eh... because it wouldn't be an epic enough finale for the show, I suppose. That's the only answer I can find for this particular question.

So... yeah. That got long :'D but in short... I don't think Zuko has a strong grasp on responsibility and duty, let alone on the burdens inherent to these concepts. Yet more reasons why his character's arc can't hit all the marks it should, imo, to make it as great as the whole fandom is already convinced it is.

[dailysuna]

Hello, yes, I heard requests are open!! I would like to know your thoughts on the economic repercussions of Suna losing the battle of the chunnin exams? I thought they were already in a depression before and I think I remember that things ere pretty dire to have them need to make Gaara, but the loss at the Leaf must have hit even harder. What do you think some likely strategies were, and by whom, to stave off complete economic ruin and widespread starvation among their citizens? Thank you!

Okay first off thank you so so so much for sending these in! I kid you not we were overjoyed at seeing them because they are just the type of content we like to see!!! We think about these types of things in depth so its great to see others thinking about them as well. Now let me separate these questions and answer them for you.

Question One

You are very right! Canonically Sunagakure never had great economic standing, but during Rasa’s reign as Kazekage it got worse. Now, this has nothing to do with Rasa’s way of ruling himself, but rather that the Wind Daimyo, ruler of their specific country, not Suna, started giving shinobi missions to Konohagakure instead of Suna. So, Rasa used his abilities to extract precious metals to sell so Suna didn’t collapse; however, their economy never really got back onto their feet because of many reasons I will not get into at this moment. The economy was already suffering under Rasa’s leadership, which was good even if he sucked as a father, so the sudden absence and loss of the battle during the exams would cause much chaos. 

Rasa was killed meaning the country lost their best source of procuring income as well as their main leadership position (although the fact they have a council means they won’t be thrown into complete chaos without a kage good job Suna). His death alone would cause much turmoil and trouble. With the added loss of ninja, supplies (any war requires supplies and loss only means losing all that effort put in), and already strained relationships would not help. How can they even come back from this?

Well first, who is the one implementing the methods? The way we see Suna formatted almost seems to be based on a democracy where the kazekage is but one voice amongst that of the council, thus, the kazekage and the council would be the ones to brainstorm and make the changes necessary. We think that their main method in fact is to lower wages. When shinobi cash in on their missions, they take some of the profit and the government takes the other amount. They would need to start taking more from their already small amount of missions. (In fact in a discussion us mods had about similar situations one time I, mod K, have an oc family I have based in Suna that we figured would be the first to have wages cut.) In consequence I believe they would order local businesses to drop their prices. Suna has no fertile land in sight, their small plot of land in the Land of Fire they acquired years ago their only place where growing is possible, so they rely heavily on importing goods. The government would likely prioritize trying to keep the country running, while reforming relationships with Konoha. I could see them purchasing larger quantities of non-perishable food or ingredients to give out rations. They are also going through a change in power which most likely made the situation very difficult and required the council to do most of the work while Gaara listened and learned.

The important thing to remember is Suna shinobi are extremely patriotic and loyal, so here at dailysuna we think the village as a whole would do their best to cooperate and help one another should it mean the success of Sunagakure, aka a more stable economy.

Question Two

I briefly addressed some of these questions at the end of the last one, but yes we actually have planned a lot of this out in varying degrees of depth. As for the change in power, I already established Suna was facing ruin and shifting power creates another hard element in harsh times. Sometimes it is what you need but sometimes it doesn’t help in the slightest. In the case of Suna, the job of the kazekage isn’t one where someone can jump in after assassination and immediately change it all. The council is there to provide checks and balances for the kazekage as well as advice, its no coincidence we see council members mostly i their middle ages or later. This abrupt shift in power from the dead fourth kazekage to his 12-13 year old son is just a crazy change. Gaara is continuously not trusted by the council, in Shippuden they even discuss his death being beneficial in a meeting, so Gaara needs to not only learn the ropes in his young emo preteen years but to foster a better relationship with the council and the citizens as well. I don’t believe it is actually ever confirmed when Gaara officially took the seat of kazekage, so there could be a few months or even years in there where there was no official fifth kazekage. During this time, the council likely ran Suna, as they have the power to do so. Even a bit into Shippuden I believe the council was still pulling a majority of Sunagakure’s puppet strings as Gaara simply lacked the life experience for certain decisions. As far as for Gaara, we are told that he had a very rough time gaining everyone’s trust but had started doing so before being stolen away by sparky sparky boom boom man and Suna’s original angsty emo preteen, but they never really explain it? Either way, its clear based on everything I said so far that Gaara’s main focus in his transition was mostly on building those relationships others had decided to break out of fear. He is very successful and everyone loves Gaara now including us mods!

Baki. I love this man so so dearly. In an old rp discord server that no longer exists, may it rest in peace, I actually role played Baki so I workshopped an entire backstory for him based on our millions of Suna headcanons that us mods have all accepted as our canon (you’ll find we all share the same exact headcanons). As far as his ascent to council member, I thought long and hard to develop it. Everyone starts out as a basic ninja, and, without going into my headcanons for his childhood, Baki was the same. He slowly rose with his skill, as he is extremely skilled - his stamina is awful but I am convinced its because he is so good none of his battles last long and thus no need for it anyways - and became a trusted aide to Rasa. In our collective brain that contains headcanons we have also determined this is due to the personality we gave Baki, which is he is so dedicated to the village he doesn’t stop to take care of or think of himself. In other words, he can be a pushover when it comes to doing work because he only wants to be of use. This makes him the perfect target for paperwork which we believe is how he got closer to Rasa. Baki and Rasa are never explicitly said to be close or anything of the sort, but the fact that he is entrusting his precious children, one of which has a giant chaos beast inside of his little emo body, plays to the fact that he is familiar with Baki in some regard. Serving as the Kazekage’s aid, aka errand boy in this case, Baki would gain experience with paperwork, the jobs of the council and kazekage, form connections, and display his skill in all assets. 

Now, there are some nasty little children needing to be taken care of. Who better to send than the man who you know will do anything for you, for the country? I am convinced very few ninja would willingly teach preteen Gaara, I mean, I don’t think I would even want to, so no one would be willing to have such an assignment and would do anything to get out of it. Even Baki was likely wary of it and for the longest time debated quitting, although, after some time, the siblings likely began to realize he cared about them (this is something I would love to talk about in more depth some other time) and weren’t as awful towards him. Hence a successful team. Did being the kazekage’s children’s sensei help Baki? Because he was their teacher? No. Because he was able to gain their trust and lead them? Most definitely. This experience likely helped him gain prestige and respect for his abilities which is how we mainly believe he got his position on the council, as that is what the council members seem to have as well as dedication to the village.

As far as being kazekage goes, we love Bakikage! This is what I mentioned earlier about a role play server. What happened is we had a plan for Rasa to be taken out of power in this AU but we didn’t wish for Gaara to suddenly be ripped from the rest of the role play by being stuck with kage duties. So, we sat down to think and realized Baki would actually be a great person to wear that fancy greenish hat. As stated earlier, he has the respect, the strength, the intelligence, the ability to prioritize things, as well as many other necessities for a good leader. The big thing that stood in his way was Gaara’s character development because the angsty emo preteen needed to turn soft boy cottage core obviously. But in all seriousness, I believe what stood between him and his theoretical throne - which he deserves - was honestly himself. Baki serves the village. Baki loves the village. Baki wants the best for the village. Baki is, as we call it, villagesexual. He only desires to be of use, not to gain power or prestige, they just happened to be given to him along the way. His own lack of drive, as well as care for Gaara, because of course if his adopted son wants those fruit snacks he will get them for him. Please Baki, you spoil them too much. So yes, Baki could be the kazekage, he has all the equipment for it, but Gaara’s own desire to be something no one expected and show them he wasn’t a monster was all Baki would have cared about. Even in our rp AU Baki was going to be reluctant about taking the power. Even if he did have that desire and drive, his care for Gaara would likely win out. 

Honestly, it might be best he didn’t have that drive. You know, all the kazekages are assassinated and Baki is not an important enough of a character to Kishimoto to be brought back to life. I will gladly hold onto council member Baki if Bakikage means he dies. But its nice to think how Gaara would actually get to be a kid while Baki gets a hard earned role, huh?

I hope you enjoyed my very very long winded answers - believe it or not I tried to keep it short - and that they actually answered your questions. We all look forward to more submissions/asks from you as well as others! And we’re working on getting those lovely drawing requests planned out.

[angsty-violet]

In a Flash (I’ll be at your side)

So this year I did the ColdFlash big bang. This is my story. Here is the AO3 link because it is really long. Here is the art link because it is gorgeous and perfect.

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Barry glowered at the man in front of him, marveling at his pure idiocy. The man ducked his head in shame and tried not to look at Barry. “I want you to do your job, Lawrence. You have had plenty of time to deal with the last of the Santini’s men. I want you to start doing what you are supposed to. Now get the hell out of my sight, and don’t you dare come back here before you have taken the last of them out.”

The man ducked his head again and scuttled off. Barry buried his face in his hands and let out the most aggravated sigh he possibly could. This day had been impossibly long, and he wasn’t finished yet. He heard a soft chuckle and turned to his best friend and right-hand man, Eddie Thawne.

“See, boss, this is why you should be delegating. One of the underlings can deal with this sort of nonsense. I know you like a hands-on approach to your people and your business, but this is taking it a little far. You can’t do everything yourself, you know.”

Barry blew out a breath. “Yes, I’m aware. That doesn’t make it any easier. If something gets screwed up, that’s on me. I don’t know where I would stand with punishing someone who was in a leadership position.”

“I’m sure you’d figure it out. Look on the bright side.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Today is Friday.”

Barry lit up at that and grinned at his friend. “You’re right. It’s Friday. What time is it? I want to have on a new suit before we head over there. Maybe one of my new ones, see if I can impress him a little.”

“Just after 4, boss. Home to get dressed?”

“Oh, yes. I need to make a good impression after all.”

ColdFlash

Leonard allowed himself a moment to lean heavily against the bar. He gave a little sigh but continued making drinks. Bartending was better than waiting tables, but that didn’t make it great. However, it was the only day a week he could stand behind the bar and interact with customers as little as possible. Most of them just wanted their drinks anyway, not idle chat, making the experience better than waiting tables.

It was also the only day when Barry Allen was able to talk to him at work without getting him into trouble.

He mostly just kept his head down and did his work. There was talk amongst the managers of letting him have more bartending days. He knew that he could’ve just asked Barry to make it so he worked the bar every day. No one was willing to tell him, no, but he didn’t want to risk someone who needed the money getting bumped.

Saints and Sinners was likely the only bar in town where bartenders made better tips than waiters. Partially because most of their clientele, workers, drop-ins, and even the owner were mob. If you knew how to make the drinks right, give the right kind of alcohol to the right people, you went far. Otherwise, in a week, you’d be out of a job.  

He needed this job, at least for a little while longer. He might be able to live endlessly off of Barry’s money, but he wasn’t that kind of man. He wouldn’t allow himself to become overly dependent on Barry’s charity, even if they were together. Eventually, his thieving would get off the ground better. He would be able to take more extensive, better-paying heists. Once he got his business and his reputation up, he’d be doing better.

Then he’d be able to pay for Lisa to go to college wherever she wanted. She was only 8, but Len knew that she was going to go so far. She was going to have a much better life than he did. That was a guarantee.

“I’d like to get a tall glass of you, handsome. Something to quench my thirst and warm me up.”

Leonard smirked at his line. “I’m afraid that I’m a bit too cool for you. You’d be frozen to the ground before you knew it.”

Barry laughed delightedly. “God, you’re sexy. You should come home with me and let me show you just how sexy you are.”

Len’s ears turned pink, and he avoided eye contact. “I’m working, Barry. You know that.”

“I know, honey; I’m just teasing you. You know I like to harass you when you’re at work, and Fridays are the only days that I can do it without being too much in the way. Besides, this is the only job I’m allowed to harass you at. I’ll let off of you if you give me a little kiss on the lips.” Barry knew that it was a long shot. Len hated public displays of affection. However, he figured that he might, just might, be able to get away with it.

Len glanced around and saw that everyone in the area was diligently looking away from the two of them. One of the bonuses when it came to dating a crime king. He leaned over quickly and pecked Barry on the lips.

Barry grinned in delight. “Oh, you are the sweetest thing. I could just eat you up. Hard to believe you ever spare a second glance on little old me. Now darling, can I get a whiskey, neat?”

Len nodded and reached for the top-shelf whiskey. Barry allowed himself an ogle at the tight little bum but resisted the urge to pinch it. Len would be agitated, and he didn’t want to ruin their evening together.

Len poured him two fingers and left the bottle on the bar, knowing that anything claimed by Barry “The Flash” Allen wasn’t going to be touched by anyone else.

Len winced as the thought occurred to him that he fell into that category. Not a single person had dared even to look his direction romantically since Barry had begun to make his attraction known. Now that they were dating, most people would only speak to him when necessary—terrified that it would appear as hitting on someone who belonged to the city’s most dangerous and ruthless mob boss.

He tried not to dwell on thoughts like that too much. They often led to thinking about his past, and if he could never think of his history again, life would be good.

The rest of his shift passed in a blur of bartending and flirting. Listening as Barry tried out every single cheesy pickup line he could think up. Also, he was eavesdropping, just a little, as Barry conducted some late-night business. He completed most of his official mob business at his headquarters, but Len knew that some things happened under the guise of a drink and the cover of a dark corner booth.

He usually didn’t care about the mob business; it didn’t really have any bearing on him. Lately, though, Len had tried to pick up a few tidbits here and there. That kind of information could be beneficial, both at this job and at his other. It might even save his life. Len believed that you could never have too good of an understanding of what was happening in the world. Especially when that world was the crime world.

The night passed in both a flash and a drag. He was desperate to get out of there, which made the time move slowly, but the bar was busy. Friday night, right after the first of the month, they had many drinkers in there. Both of these contributed to his exhaustion once he finally hit the end of his shift. His feet were killing him, and he really wanted to just go home and sleep. This was warring with his want to jump Barry’s bones. He figured he’d decide in the car.

As soon as he had clocked out, Barry wrapped his arm around Len’s waist and led him towards his car. Barry led Len towards the expensive car and then guided into the back seat. Barry sat next to him and gestured for the driver to take them home.

Barry placed a hand on Len’s thigh, sliding it up just a little towards his cock. This pretty much made the decision for him. He wasn’t going to go to sleep, trying to pretend he wasn’t horny, not when he had access to what he wanted so desperately.

Len tried his best to keep the flush down. A battle he assumed he was losing and knew that if he’d let him, Barry would’ve had him in the back of this car right now. But Len had already decided that he didn’t want to do anything that made him feel as though he were nothing but a cheap hooker, someone Barry paid to fuck.

So, they would wait until the two of them were comfortably ensconced in Barry’s overly expensive bed, and Len could be laid out the way that he thought he was entitled to. However, waiting till they got home for the main event didn’t keep Barry from groping, kissing, or dragging him around like this pet. It just meant that he wasn’t allowed to fuck him in front of other people or in semi-public places.

They were silent the majority of the way home. Barry wanted the anticipation to build, and Len was desperately trying to keep from cumming in his pants like a teenager. Every time Barry shot him that smile, though, it made his desperation even stronger. This was only exacerbated by Barry refusing to take his hand off of Len’s thigh. He gave regular squeezes and smiled every time Len looked at him in exasperation.

When they got back to the house, Barry thanked his driver and pulled Len from the car, placing one possessive hand on his neck and one on the small of his back. Pushing him towards the house and towards the one evening where they could do anything they wanted.

Len got one day off a week, and Barry rearranged his whole schedule to also have it off. They had one day where he wasn’t at the bar or doing his other work, and Barry wasn’t going to waste a single second of it. He escorted his lover into the house, a possessive arm around him the whole time.

When they got to the bedroom, Barry nudged him towards the attached bathroom. He didn’t care about how Len smelled when they got home, but he knew that Len did. He wanted a few minutes to shower off the stink of the bar and to take a moment to separate himself from work.

Barry took a moment to appreciate himself in the mirror they kept in the bedroom. It was a bit narcissistic, but he didn’t care. He had explicitly changed to impress Len, and this was definitely impressive. The tailored suit fit him like a glove and helped make his naturally slender frame look more masculine. Unlike Len, he didn’t have the ability to have large bulky muscles or look intimidating with nothing but a towel. He had to stick to more tried and true methods.

He took the time to straighten out his jacket and pants and tame his hair a little. When Barry heard the water turn off and tried not to grin in excitement. This was one of his favorite parts of the evening. He waited for a few more minutes, listening to Len moving around, and then the door opened up, and Len entered the bedroom.

Barry’s breath caught in his throat, and he took a moment to remember how to breathe. Len glanced at him shyly, staying partially out of his line of sight. Despite his penchant for skirts (kilts as he would call them), he wasn’t very comfortable flaunting his occasional cross-dressing, and he wasn’t comfortable with lots of skin exposed.

This outfit combined both of those.

A thin blue camisole covered in lace and a blue miniskirt. Barry grinned and beckoned Leonard closer to him. He approached cautiously, a little skittish in his outfit, but came without any complaints. Barry allowed his hands to slid up the skirt and took a firm grip of the plush ass beneath it.

“Hey, baby. Ready to have a little fun?”

Len nodded, reaching out his arms to place them behind Barry’s neck and sliding firmly into his lap. Barry grinned a little and chuckled. “Someone’s a little eager tonight. Had a rough week?”

Len sighed and pressed his cheek to Barry’s, closing his eyes. “I had this weirdo that kept watching me all week long. He came in every single day. Shawna threw him out after getting a little too close to me and wouldn’t lay off the staring. He was right back in there the next day. Had me on edge and worn out.”

Barry narrowed his eyes. “Baby, you’re supposed to tell me these things when they happen. I know you don’t like how I deal with things, and I won’t, if you ask me not to. However, I at least need to know if you are in any danger. That was our agreement. Remember?”

Len nodded a little, chastened by Barry’s words. “I know, but it didn’t seem like that big of a deal. A lot of guys stare. Usually, they just want to think they have a chance with me. There was something else about this guy, though. He had the oddest look on his face. Almost like he expected me to recognize him, but if I do know him, I couldn’t figure out who he was.”

“I’ll have someone look into it in the morning. Now, where were we?” Barry pressed a harsh kiss to Len’s lips, nipping lightly at the bottom one. Then he firmly gripped Len’s waist, sliding his hands underneath the camisole and pressing upwards, searching out the little pink nipples. Len arched into the touch as Barry tweaked his nipples and moaned out loud. Barry smiled lightly at him.

“You are such a sweet lover. I don’t know how anyone keeps their hands off of you.”

“Mm, you.”

Barry smirked as Len entered his nonverbal phase of arousal. It happened a lot when he was comfortable. His words just escaping him as he became aroused. Barry liked to try and get him to talk even with it.

“Oh? Me? You say that like I scare away all the people that want to grope your perfect ass. I just don’t think that’s true.” He pressed one of his fingers against the tight opening, and Len whimpered.

“You-ahh-do. Scare them. They think you own me.”

Barry smirked possessive, “Do they now?”

Len glowered at him, and Barry pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“I don’t own you, of course. You are your own person, and you can leave whenever you want. You are with me because you are choosing to be with me. Which in my mind,” Barry flipped them, so Len was on his back underneath him, “is a million times hotter than owning you. You have the choice to be with anyone that you could possibly want, and you decided to be with me. It's scorching in my mind, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Len relaxed. He smiled soft and slow and pressed a langued kiss against Barry’s lips, pulling back before Barry had the chance to introduce any tongue. Barry smiled at him and then reached for the lube bottle that he kept on the table beside the bed.

He slicked up his fingers with plenty of lube and pressed one to Len’s puckered entrance. They didn’t have sex nearly as often as Barry would’ve liked, their schedules not allowing it. However, every day was likely an impossibility anyway. Neither of them had that kind of stamina. Even Len, as young as he was, had limits. However, they did it often enough that they were usually able to keep Len mostly open. Len slid his hands up to his own nipples and then began to play with them gently. He liked the feeling of light tugging.

Before long, Barry was sliding a second finger in, and Len moaned at the feeling. Barry grinned at him and pressed a kiss to his thigh, just to the left of his erect cock. Len reached for his cock with one of his hands to give it a stroke, but Barry batted his hand away, not allowing him the satisfaction.

“You know better than that baby. If you’re, going to cum tonight, it’s going to be from my cock and nothing else.”

“Bastard. I don’t know why I stay with you.”

Barry grinned in delight and bit Len’s thigh, sucking just enough to leave a mark.

“I’m wonderful in bed. Besides, you like being tormented. Like the feeling of a cock pressing into you, the desperate build that comes from knowing that your satisfaction relies entirely on how well I fuck you. If I choose to fuck you at all. One of the reasons I love you. Go on, then, play with your tits. Pinch and torment them the way you like.”

Len nearly shrieked when his fingers pressed against his prostate. Finally, moving his hands away from the abused nubs. He was going to need them in a minute. Barry pulled out his fingers and slicked up his cock. He chose to start off with a bit of teasing. Nudging the head around the hole, pressing in only a little.

“Give me more asshole!” It seemed he was a lot more verbal this go around. Barry must not be doing his job properly.

Barry gave Len a punishing slap on his ass but decided to comply anyway. He started pushing in steadily. Stopping halfway through because he feared that if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to control himself. Once he had his breath back and knew he wouldn’t embarrass himself, he continued with the steady inward push. Once Barry was seated deep inside of his lover, he paused and waited for a moment, wanting to tease him just a little more. Len let out a desperate sound and tried to push back, and Barry took pity on him.

“Is this how you want it gorgeous? Want it hard and fast?”

“Yes! Please, more!”

He pulled out fast and then thrust into him harshly, and for a few moments, there was only the sound of panting and skin slapping, with the occasional moan thrown in. Sometimes Barry wished that his lover would be more vocal in bed. Then he remembered the pure pride he felt at wrenching those few and far between sounds out of him.

“God, I could just keep you like this forever and ever. You’d never leave my bed; all you would ever do is just service me when and where I wanted it. would you like that, huh?”

Once Barry got his rhythm, he adjusted his angle and began to strike that beautiful little place inside Len. Len continued to moan and beg for more. It had been too many days since they had sex, and he was desperate. Len wrapped his arms around Barry’s shoulders and pulled himself into an even better angle.

“Oh, God, Yes! Len. You feel so good, you are so good. You are unbelievable.”

After that, it didn’t take long for either of them. The extra stimulation was enough for Len to start towards his climax and the feeling of friction urging Barry on and on. Len was first, arching up and spilling all over both of them, coming untouched as he often did when it had been awhile. He made absolutely no noise. Simply clenched his teeth and came forcefully. To Barry, it was hotter than anything else he could’ve done.

Only a few thrusts later, and Barry followed, filling up his boyfriend and shouting “Len” at the top of his lungs. He pressed in close, bottoming out completely. He could feel the warm cum flooding into his lover, and if he had been 10 years younger, it might have inspired another round. However, he wasn’t. 1 round this intense was pretty much all he could take. He pulled out carefully.

The two collapsed in the bed together. Barry reached out to Len and pulled him close. Len followed, pressing his face to Barry’s chest, and Len silently decided that the clean-up could wait. He usually preferred to get cleaned up right away, but he knew that this was only round one.

They might not be able to get it up right away, but an hour of pillow talk and dozing, and they’d be ready to go. They had all night to make the sheets filthy. After they got through a few more, they would change the sheets and go to bed. Until that point, it was just a futile effort.

ColdFlash

When Barry woke up, he gave a deep sigh and glanced over at his lover. Len was still asleep, his eyes shut and pressed close to Barry. Barry extricated himself from his lover’s grip and decided to make them both breakfast.

“So, what do you want to do today?” Barry questioned over his omelet. Len shrugged and took another bite of his own scrambled eggs.

“I need to do some work this morning. Play around with a few blueprints. Didn’t plan anything beyond that, so whatever you feel like.”

Barry grinned, delighted. “You’re going to regret that. I’m taking you out for a new tailored suit. We can run a few more errands while we’re out, but that’s the main thing I want to do today. Sound good?”

Len sighed but acquiesced. Barry wanted to get Len into a designer suit right after they met, but there was never any time; now was as good a time as any.

ColdFlash

Len let himself into the office where he did his work. Barry had his own office, and the two of them had long ago agreed to stay out of each other’s workspaces. There was too much stepping on toes when they were involved with the other's work.

He pulled out his current project and laid it out on the large drafting desk he worked at. He then started to make notes and jot possible times on a little notepad, making sure to write everything he thought of down. Then he started the beginning of a workable plan for his next job.

Stealing the most expensive piece from the current ruby display at the museum wasn’t going to be any cakewalk. He worked diligently for several hours. Losing himself in the calming motions of work. He didn’t realize just how much time had passed until he felt a firm hand on his shoulder. Len startled a bit, but the relaxed when he realized it was only Barry.

“Hey, handsome. It’s been nearly 2 hours. Get ready to be done. We are spending today together.”

Len blinked at him in startlement and knew better than to argue. “I hadn’t realized I’d worked for so long. You should’ve come and got me earlier. I just got caught up in all of the little details. Let me put a few things away, change, and then we can go do your suit fitting. Alright?”

Barry nodded in agreement, and Len left the room.

ColdFlash

After Len finished changing, they made their way to Barry’s tailor, who immediately began planning Len's perfect suit.

“He is broader in the shoulders but still so slender, particularly in his waist. He needs a cut that flatters his sharp features, no?”

“I agree, Anthony. Something that makes him stand out in the crowd but also says, ‘taken, back off.’”

Anthony grinned at him and nodded, knowing what he meant. Len was beginning to get bored watching the two of them talk about suits, mostly since they had already done the measurements and looked at suit cuts. There was a part of him that would never adjust to the expensive way he now lived. This was Barry’s world. Len would always be the kid from the wrong part of Central.

Barry seemed to realize his boredom and wrapped up his conversation, then he led him out of the shop and into downtown. The two of them wandered up and down the street. Occasionally they popped in and out of shops, buying things, and for a while, things were perfect. It was a perfect day off and a perfect day for a perfect date. Unfortunately, it didn’t last.

ColdFlash

When Len woke up, he noticed that his eyes were covered and his hands were tied behind his back. He tugged lightly at the bonds, but they were professional and didn’t budge an inch. They had been deftly attached to each other and the chair he was on. His feet were bound tightly to the legs as well.  He breathed softly and listened carefully, trying to get an indicator of where he was.

He had only stepped away from Barry for a moment. He wanted to give him privacy while he was taking a business call. It was always best to know as little as possible about work that didn’t include him. Made him less of a target to Barry’s enemies. Then he felt a pinch in his neck and had woken up here. Despite trying to seem like he was still unconscious, he must have been discovered because he heard a man begin to speak.

“I’ve wanted to meet you for some time, Mr. Snart. I’m dying to get to know The Flash’s pet thief. The one who spends part of his time stealing from all of Mr. Allen’s enemies and part of his time working at a bar. Such an interesting fellow you must be. So young, but you are so talented.”

Len sighed but gave up the act. “I’m afraid I can’t say the same thing for you as I don’t know who you are.”

Another deep chuckle, this time very menacing. Len had to resist the urge to roll his eyes at the cliché. “Well, I really would love to tell you, but if you knew my identity, I would need to kill you. You are simply too beautiful to waste on something like that. You can just call me Sir.”

A hand settled on his thigh. Len didn’t like where this was going; kidnapping and threatening bodily harm were one thing, sexual advances were another. “Well, Sir,” he said ‘Sir’ in the most condescending way he possibly could. “Can I at least know why I’m here?”

“Mm, yes, you can. The Flash has something of mine, and I want it back. Something you didn’t steal. He’s either going to hand it over to me in exchange for you, or we’ll keep you. I would like to say that there’s no chance we won’t kill you, but that would be a lie. We most certainly would kill you if you got out of hand. But I don’t think it will come to that, do you? Besides, if that were to happen, we would want to get our money’s worth, and you have such a lovely body.”

Len shivered at the tone and nodded in agreement. He had no way of knowing when Barry was going to get around to this, or if he even could deal with it. It was impossible to know these days. It was best to bide his time and hope that Barry could get him out of here. That meant playing along with this psychos plans.

ColdFlash

“Find him! Right now! Do you have any idea where he is? A single clue?”

“Boss,” Eddie placed a hand on his arm. “It’s only been a couple of hours. We’re going to find him and bring him home. You’ll see. We’re working on getting him back here as soon as possible. Right now, we need to be calm; that is the best way to locate him. Alright?”

Barry took a deep breath and nodded. He narrowed his eyes and thought desperately of who hated either of them enough or had the guts to do it in broad daylight. The list was short but Barry knew that he was probably missing some.

“Check to see what the Santinis are up to. My money’s on them. They wanted a war between us. This is a sure-fire way to get it.”

ColdFlash

Len was a little concerned about how cold he was. In this damp weather hypothermia was a definite risk. He shivered a little and sighed. At least there were no strange hands on him right now. It seemed that every time he relaxed, someone would slide their hands along his body. He was getting sick of it. When he got out of here, he was going to kill every single one of those bastards.

“I’ve sent the ransom note. Let’s hope that Mr. Allen loves you as much as we think he does. I have to say though, even if he doesn’t, we’re going to come out ahead. Some acquisitions can be very lucrative even when you were planning on exchanging them for something else. Are you curious about what we’re trading you for?”

Len ignored the bit where he was relegated to an object. “I suppose I am. Kidnapping is hard. You have to get your victim away from prying eyes as quickly as possible. Then you need a place to store them while you work out the ransom agreement. Someplace that no one ever goes but can get to easily, if need be. It’s tricky business, so whatever you’re after, must be important.”

The man laughed. “You are a very astute man; I can see why Mr. Allen thinks so highly of you. You see, Mr. Snart, we are after the blueprints to S.T.A.R labs.”

Len paled at the thought of these monsters with possible access to all sorts of dangerous new technology. S.T.A.R Labs was known for its production of weapons. Powerful, vicious weapons that are used in some of the worst situations in the world. The mere thought of them having something like that made his stomach turn in a horrible way.

The man seemed to sense his horror, or maybe it read on his mostly uncovered face. “I’m sure you are imagining all sorts of horrid things that we might do with all those lovely little toys. We’re only after one thing, though. If we have access to others, we might allow a bit of a detour, but we aren’t focusing on those wonderfully powerful weapons. We have something else in mind.”

The man leaned very close to Len. Len breathed out tensely, not daring to move with his presence so near. It took everything in him not to recoil when he felt lips press against his ear.

“I’d tell you what we were looking for, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’d have to either kill you or keep you forever. I don’t think you’d like that very much, would you darling?”

Len gritted his teeth. “No, I wouldn’t,” he said.

“I didn’t think so. Now darling, we just need to wait for your lover’s reply and hope that it’s a favorable one. You just sit tight. This should all be over in a few hours.”

Len heard the steps as the man walked away, and regardless of who was watching, hung his head. He didn’t want to deal with this situation at all. Partially because the idea to break into S.T.A.R labs had also occurred to him.

ColdFlash

Barry’s hands clenched as he read the ransom note. Did this punk think that he would get away with taking his beloved, stealing him away, and then attempting to ransom him? What kind of moron went after his lover?

“Eddie,” Barry growled.

“Yes, boss?”

“I want you to track down exactly who wrote this note and where it came from. I imagine you won’t have much trouble since whoever wrote it didn’t make Len do the writing. See if you can find any traces that indicate where he’s being held.”

Eddie nodded and then hesitated. It seemed for a moment that he wanted to reassure his old friend. To tell him that they would get his lover back. He had a feeling, though that it wouldn’t do much good. Barry wouldn’t be at ease until they had Len back safe and sound.

“If it comes down to it, we will hand over the blueprints.”

Eddie stared at him aghast. “You’re not serious?”

“I am completely serious. I will not lose Len over a bunch of papers. No matter how valuable they are. I am aware of what the blueprints are and what they could mean. Despite that, I refuse to lose him. Do you have a problem with that?”

Eddie regarded him for a moment and then shook his head. “No, Sir. I’ll start trying to figure out where he is. Perhaps it would be best if you contacted them and informed them that you were complying. That would help guarantee Mr. Snart’s safe return. If they know for sure that you are doing what they want you to.”

Barry nodded in agreement. “Let’s find him before it becomes necessary.”

ColdFlash

Len wasn’t enjoying his stay with the assorted menacing goons. He was cold and hungry, and all he wanted to do was go home and not have to deal with this mess. Len desperately hoped that Barry was coming to get him because his plan making was failing him. No matter how hard he tried to gather more information, all he came up with was a blank.

He was someplace cold. Not rare in Central City being so close to the water. It was industrial. Again, not unusual. That was all he could glean with the blindfold on. Since someone was watching him continuously, he had no hope of attempting to work the blindfold off. With it on, he was limited to what he could hear and feel, which was hardly anything.

He heard the clomp of boots that he had come to associate with Menacing Goon in charge of other Goons and tilted his head towards the sound. He flinched back when a finger traced along his face and down his neck.

“You’re in luck. Your boyfriend wants his toy back, and he’s willing to trade us for you. I’m sure you’re glad that he actually cares about you. I would’ve thought he’d be willing to throw you over. That does mean we won’t get to have our fun, but I think the blueprints will be an adequate substitute.”

Len resisted the urge to glare at him. Likely Menacing Goon wouldn’t even see it. He knew that Barry loved him, that he was more than just a toy to pass the time with. He was comfortable in his relationship with the crime lord that Barry saw him as an equal, some he was on par with, despite the age difference. He knew all of that.

So then why did his stomach tie into knots?

The rope that bound him to the chair was severed. Although that still left his hands tied behind his back and the blindfold, he felt better about his odds. He was unceremoniously pushed down the corridor. He stumbled because he couldn’t see, and he heard a grunt of annoyance at his slow pace.

Someone took his arm and began to drag him along the corridor at a much faster pace. Len did his best to keep his footing and not fall. He wasn’t going to let these people have the satisfaction. He desperately wanted to be reunited with Barry.

So, he could watch the crime boss kill every single one of these motherfuckers.

ColdFlash

Len didn’t know where he was being taken to be exchanged. He attempted to keep track of how long it had been and then calculate it, but that was mostly in vain. Although there were only a few places he could be kept, dozens of locations from each of those spots they could’ve driven to. Most of the city was well within the possible area.

All he could do was sit back and hope that whatever happened next was going to be in his favor. Although he knew Barry would try everything to safely get him back, he also knew that these kinds of exchanges often went horribly wrong. He closed his eyes behind the blindfold and hoped desperately for this to all be over.

The van came to a halt, and he heard someone get out, and someone else, presumably, get in. He jumped when he felt a familiar hand on his thigh.

“We made good time. We’re here nearly an hour early; it seems a waste to just sit here and wait. Why don’t you and I spend a little time getting to know each other.”

Len felt bile rise in his throat. His voice seemed caught, and all he could do was shake his head.

“No need to be shy. Your boyfriend never needs to find out. The two of us could just spend a few minutes learning each other’s bodies, and that will be that. Or I could always just put a bullet between your precious lover’s eyes as soon as he gets here. Would you prefer that?”

Len went pale and desperately shook his head.

“Then, darling, why don’t you keep those lips closed and just hang on for the ride?”

Len kept his eyes closed behind his blindfold. He figured it might help blot out what was about to happen to him.

ColdFlash

Eddie finished his phone call and glanced at Barry, giving him a defined nod. That was the signal that everything of value had been moved out of S.T.A.R labs and replaced with useless junk. He might be willing to hand over the blueprints, but he wasn’t going to allow the bastard the satisfaction of getting his hands on whatever he was after.

The trick was to do it before he gave the blueprints, so when they started casing the joint, they didn’t see anything that seemed overtly suspicious. Barry nodded back and then picked up the plans. He had multiple copies, so he wasn’t losing anything, but he still didn’t like giving up something that was his.

He wanted Len back a hell of a lot more, though.

He made his way to the car, where Eddie would be driving him to the rendezvous point. He took the back seat, and Eddie assumed his role as driver. Barry allowed himself a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself down. It wouldn’t do to lose his temper in the middle and Len get caught in the middle of a firefight.

Eddie shot him a look in the mirror but didn’t say anything. For which Barry was very grateful. The last thing he wanted to do was admit just how badly this whole event had shaken him. That he could have the one thing that meant more to him than anything else in the world be taken from him so easily. That he would become so helpless in the face of a true adversary.

Before he knew it, they were arriving at the rendezvous spot. He could see the dark van already in the abandoned parking lot and knew that it contained his lover. He wondered when it had gotten there; Barry himself was very early. What was going on?

“Something’s wrong.” He said this to Eddie, who nodded at the words. Barry pulled out his sidearm and watched as Eddie did the same. They both checked the weapons, made sure they were fully loaded, and they started towards the van, parked in the middle of the parking lot.

On the far side of the van, just out of eyesight was one of the men. Barry gestured to Eddie to make his move and soon the enemy was laying on the ground unconscious. It crossed Barry’s mind that the van could be filled with people. In a few seconds they might be outnumbered and taken out without a chance of rescuing Len. Barry doubted it though. This wasn’t a well thought out professional job. It was someone hoping to get their hands on something they shouldn’t the easiest way they could think of.

There was a second goon out of sight. He saw them and gave as shout to alert whoever was inside of the vehicle before Eddie brough him to the ground. It didn’t matter, they had the advantage of surprise and it all would be over soon. They shot the two men sitting in the front of the van before they could even get out of their seats.

Barry moved quickly to the back of the van. He whipped open the doors and saw red. Len’s hands were tied, and he was blindfolded, but he didn’t look much worse for wear. What upset him was the sight of the asshole’s hand on his thigh. He gave a growl and was about ready to attack when the man pressed a guy to Len’s head.

Barry stopped and looked at him carefully, tamping down on his temper in the process, wondering if he indeed was willing to shoot Len or if it was a bluff. He decided that he didn’t want to take the chance that the man was a psycho ready to shoot a blindfolded unarmed man and held his hands up in surrender.  He still had Eddie with him, and Len wasn’t out for the count, even tied up.

ColdFlash

Len kept his eyes closed behind the blindfold and was startled by a loud shout from one of the men. He opened them again, although he still couldn’t see anything. His captor made a noise of anger and shifted a little. He heard two gunshots and figured that this entire situation was about to be over. Barry had come for him.

Next to him, the man yanked him close, pressed a gun to his head, and then placed his other hand possessively on Len’s thigh. Len figured that he was going to be threatened so that the man could get away.

Len wasn’t going to put up with it, all he needed was a single moment, and he could be free. It wouldn’t even take that much energy.

“Mr. Allen, I see that you broke our agreement.”

“Actually no, you see, I was just a few minutes early when I saw the van was over here. Figured we could get the trade out of the way. It was your men that attacked. This is all on your people.”

Len wished he could see his lover’s face but knew that trying to dislodge the blindfold could be deadly. He just needed a few more moments to work his hands from the ropes, and he would be able to move. He heard that horrible chuckle again, and it set his nerves on edge. The man clearly thought he had the upper hand, and he might very well have it. If he did, it could mean that Len’s attack would mean nothing. If he didn’t, it would mean the whole thing was over.

“I will give you the blueprints. I just need you to hand over Leonard. This doesn’t need to end in bloodshed.”

“Oh, Mr. Allen, it most definitely does. You were never supposed to see who I was. With your knowledge of my identity, I know that it is just a matter of time before you come after me. I won’t stand for it. I’m afraid that I am just going to have to kill you both.”

There! Len finally got both of his hands worked free of the bindings, and he knew the time was to act now. If the man actually still had some of his goons left, they already would’ve attacked. No attack, no goons, which meant that the only thing complicating this was Len, and he could finish it.

ColdFlash

Barry could see Len pulling his hands out of the ropes out of the corner of his eye. He just needed to stall for time until his lover could do so. He offered up the trade even though he knew it was pointless. As soon as he and Eddie had attacked, he had known it was never going to be a smooth transaction. Men like these always had a bit of an ace up their sleeve.

He didn’t allow the anger at seeing another touch his lover continue cloud his mind. He could kill this bastard as soon as Len was safe if Len didn’t do it first. He watched as Len finally managed to get his hands free of the ropes and winced at the thought of the rope burn he would have.

Len was able to get the man by surprise. One minute he was the docile hostage, the next, he had his hands around the throat. Thankfully, the man had pressed very close to him, allowing Len to know precisely where he was. Otherwise, the blindfold could’ve inhibited him. He clamped down on the throat and did his best to strangle the life out of his hostage-taker.

Len was so focused on his task that he completely missed Barry moving closer to him. However, he didn’t miss his lover pulling the blindfold away from his eyes and restoring his sight. For the first time, Len laid eyes on his hostage-taker. A man that had threatened to rape and murder him.

His face was shockingly normal and gave nothing of his cruel nature away. He was also startlingly familiar. Len realized precisely who this man was. Callum Miani, the Santinis’ enforcer. A man who was attempting to move into the mob business by shoving others out of it. Len knew him because they had worked a few jobs together, a few years ago when Len was still young and needed help. His identity explained his threats to Len. The man was obsessed with him, both in Len’s refusal to climb into his bed and the fact that Len was a much better thief.

Len was so startled by the realization that he relaxed his grip and slumped backward. It didn’t matter, though. Barry was already pushing a gun to Maini’s head and tugging Len out of harm’s way. Len went placidly, too shocked to object.

“Alright, Len?”

Eddie’s questions startled Len badly, and he turned to look at the man in surprise.

“Yeah, I’m okay. You guys got me out of the situation before he could do anything too bad to me. Thank you for that. Thanks for coming along to rescue me at all. I know that Barry would’ve let you off if you had said you didn’t want to come. Means a lot to me.”

“Yeah, well, you saving Iris’ life means a lot to me. It seems only appropriate that I respond in kind. You’re one of us now, even if you are a thief. Not like we can object really to the illegality. Just don’t like someone showing us up in the business.”

“Still, thank you for coming.”

“Come on, Len, we can let Barry deal with this scum sucker. Get you into the car and warmed up again. I’m sure you are thirsty and probably hungry. You just watch, in a few days, all of this is going to be behind you, and you can get on with your life. Forgot all about this asshole screwing up your day off.”

Len allowed Eddie to lead him from the van. To lead him away from the man who threatened horrible things on him, and to where the car was parked. Eddie opened up the back door, and Len slid in. He glanced at Eddie, seeming to consider something, and then spoke.

“Tell Barry to make it as painful as possible. You wouldn’t believe the things that he threatened to do to me.”

Eddie gave him a considering glance and nodded. Then he closed the door and walked back to where the van was. Len wanted to stay awake until Barry came back, and he knew that both of them were safe, but he didn’t have the energy. He thought he would just close his eyes for a few moments to get some energy back. Before Len knew it, he was sound asleep in the car, dead to the world.

ColdFlash

When Len woke up, he was relieved to see that he was back in Barry’s house, lying in their bed. For a moment, he thought that it might all have been a nightmare, something conjured up by his paranoid exhausted brain. However, when he sat up and felt the bruises, he knew that it was all true. The kidnapping, the threats, and Barry and Eddie dealing with the bastard.

Len felt a little sorry that he hadn’t been able to fulfill his wish of killing every single one of those assholes who had dared think they could ever lay their hands on him. Len assured himself that Barry dealt with it and likely did a much more painful and creative job than he ever did.

Len was relieved that although Barry had brought him home, that he hadn’t been undressed. As safe as Barry made him feel, he would’ve been very uncomfortable to find that someone had taken his clothes while he was asleep. It was nice to know that Barry understood his boundaries well enough to know that.

Len allowed himself the rare luxury of simply lying in bed, doing nothing. Usually, he would get up and start working on his endless plans, but today he just allowed himself the comfort of home. He figured that anything he had to do could wait until he had his emotions and life a little better under control. Nothing was pressing anyway and he deserved some time off to recover.

Len came out of his thoughts when he heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs. For a moment, his paranoid brain spat out several horrible scenarios where his kidnappers had returned to reclaim him. Managing to kill every single guard, employee, and even Barry in their way. That they would rip him from the world he lived in and send him back to the horrible dark, cold place.

After a moment of deep breathing, he regained control of his wild thoughts. He knew the sound of those footsteps. He heard them every single day. That sound was ingrained in his mind from Barry returning from late hours with business or needing to get up early to make a meeting. Len was perfectly safe here; he just needed to convince his pounding heart about that.

Len heard a knock on the door and breathed deeply to steel his nerves. “Come in.” He was glad to see that his instincts were right. Barry was carrying a tray piled with food, carafes, and tableware. Len was a little surprised. Barry was shockingly against breakfast in bed. He claimed that it was much easier to get up and go to the table. That way, you had plenty of room and didn’t have to worry about crumbs getting into your bedsheets. Today seemed to be the exception. Len sat up and gave Barry a smile, but even he could feel its brittleness. No doubt, Barry could as well.

“Hey handsome, I brought you some breakfast. I figured you’d be up by now and needing a little pampering, especially after the time you’ve had. I just brought you up to bed last night. You were so exhausted I didn’t want to wake you. You’re more than welcome to have a shower and freshen up before you eat. I can’t imagine it’s very comfortable to be like that.”

“You always seem to know exactly what I need, Barry. I’ll just pop into the shower, have a quick rinse off, and then put on some clean clothes. Then I’ll eat.”

Barry smiled patiently at him. “If I couldn’t take care of you the way you deserve to be taken care of, you’d have no reason to stay with me, would you?”

Len tilted his head in a teasing manner and sent a lewd glance towards Barry’s crotch. “Oh, I think that I could come up with a few more if I thought very hard about it.”

“Go ahead and get cleaned up, you tease.”

ColdFlash

Barry couldn’t help the pure relief that came with Len’s teasing. He didn’t know what had gone on while he had been in Miani’s confinement, and without knowing, he had no idea what Len might be dealing with, no clue as to what might trigger him. Or even if anything would trigger him at all. Without that, he would need to tread carefully, at least until Len was more comfortable in his presence. Until he felt he could reveal what he needed to.

That had been part of the reason he hadn’t undressed Len the night before. Usually, he wouldn’t have hesitated. They had been together long enough that a few lost clothes wouldn’t phase either of them. However, Len wasn’t a fan of strangers touching him on an average day. Barry had no clue how much physical contact he would’ve been subjected to during his captivity. Len’s veiled comment about the threats against his person didn’t inspire too much confidence.

He listened as Len showered and set the tray on Len’s dresser. He took the chance to make the bed, fluffing the pillows and settled onto it, waiting anxiously for his lover to return. As little as he wanted to subject Len to any more emotional upheaval, they had to talk about what happened while he was captured. He needed to be reassured that he was safe from Miani and the accompanying goons.

Otherwise, any trauma he experienced would cement and become an underlying issue in his life. It was better to get it out in the open and out of the way before that happened. Even small traumas could haunt you for the rest of your life if they weren’t deal with properly. Then, Len could begin to heal from this experience.

Barry heard the water shut off and listened as Len shaved at the sink. He went to the closet and picked out Len’s softest, most comfortable clothing. The things he only wore on days he didn’t plan on leaving the house. He knocked on the door, and after a moment of silence, he heard Len say come in.

Barry only cracked open the door and handed him the clothing. Len thanked him softly and took it, shutting the door once he had it. Barry tried not to be discouraged about not being invited in or Len leaving the door open. Len had had a long few days. He could want to get cleaned up as fast as possible without any distractions. Or he could be uncomfortable with someone seeing him naked.  

Barry ordered himself to stop catastrophizing. Until Len talked to him, he had no way of knowing what went on. After their talk he could freak out about what happened. Until then, he would hope for the best while treating Len like the worst happened.

Len exited the bathroom in fresh, clean clothes. Barry stood up and moved for the breakfast tray. “Have a seat. This is the only time you have permission to get crumbs all over the bed. I planned on changing the sheets today anyway.”

ColdFlash

Len gave him a smile and sat against the headboard. Barry knew how to treat him, and he really did need a bit of pampering. Barry brought over the tray and set it over Len’s lap then sat next to him. For a few minutes, the only sound was the two of them enjoying their breakfast. Barry allowed Len to become comfortable with him and then broached the subject.

“If you don’t want to talk about what happened right now, you don’t have to. I just want you to know that I am right here if you have anything to say about what happened.”

Len gazed at the breakfast tray, thinking over his response. Truth be told, he didn’t really want to talk about what happened ever, but he knew he should. That the faster he got it out in the open, the faster he could leave it all behind. That didn’t make it any easier, though.

“I woke up, blindfolded, and tied to a chair. I wasn’t sure where I was, and my memory of being snatched was foggy at best. I knew that you were going to come looking for me and that I would be out of danger soon enough, so I didn’t panic.”

“I feel like there’s a “but” coming.”

“I knew I wasn’t in any danger. However, the way he talked to me, the way I could feel him leering unsettled me. I was supposed to just be a business transaction, his behavior wasn’t what I expected, and that unnerved me. I couldn’t get a feel on where I was being kept, which made things worse. I had trouble keeping perspective. Then when he told me what I was being traded for, I was worried about what would be done with what he was stealing.”

Barry tilted his head and gently placed a hand on his cheek. “You had to have known I wouldn’t let someone like that get something really dangerous. I had everything moved before I set the time for our trade. Got it out of the way before he would even have people watching the place. You had to know I would take care of things.”

“I knew that logically. My emotions had other ideas. I was worried about what would happen if he really did get his hands on what he was looking for. Or, if you got caught in the middle of his plan and killed. Or, even if you decided that it wasn’t worth the chance to turn over the blueprints and that I would be gang-raped and murdered.”

Barry drew back, feeling a little offended, and took a moment to remind himself that Len didn’t really think that way. It was just fear from the situation combining with his concern over some assholes destroying the city with a super-powerful weapon. Now was not the time to blame his boyfriend for his emotional response.

“I know that it must’ve been terrifying, but I need to know that there is nothing in this world worth more to me than you. You are my number one priority, and I would burn down this entire city, the entire world, if it meant keeping you safe. No matter what your terrified mind may tell you in a moment of terror, you will always be my number one priority.”

Len sighed softly and pressed his head against Barry’s chest. “I know that. I know you would make sure that no one would ever do something like that to me. If you’re dead, though, you won’t be able to stop anyone from doing anything to me. There is always going to be a worry that one day some psycho is going to kill you and take me, and there won’t be anything either of us can do.”

Barry pressed his face into Len’s hair and stroked it gently. “I don’t think you are giving yourself nearly enough credit, darling. You were a massive help in your own rescue.  You were able to keep a calm head even when he was threatening to rape or murder you. You are a good fighter and loyal to me. If worse comes to worst, you could do some serious damage. Truthfully, the only reason they got their hands on you is that we weren’t together. Together, we could face the world.”

Len looked up at him with a tilted head and smiled. “Together, we can face anything. We will face anything. God, Barry, I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Barry leaned down and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’m sure you can come up with something, my love. You are the smartest person I’ve ever met, and the only one that always lands on his feet when things go wrong.”

Len smirked and leaned up for a kiss on the lips. “You know me, throw away the plan.”

[adventure-hearts]

I was asked about this topic recently, and, being bored out of my mind, I felt inspired to use it as a starting point for a new series! I hope to share my current headcanons about the personality types of the Digimon Adventure universe’s main characters, according to different personality systems: astrology, Enneagram, MBTI... feel free to suggest any other typologies you’d like me to explore in the future.

In this first post, I’ll try to explain which of the Sun Sign personality archetypes I find more likely and interesting for each character. Consider this this an update of my previous headcanons, post-tri. (and post LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna).

1: DIGIMON ADVENTURE + ZODIAC SIGNS

Taichi - Aries

Yamato - Aries

Sora - Pisces [semi-canon]

Koushirou - Aquarius

Mimi - Leo

Jou - Virgo 

Takeru - Libra

Hikari - Pisces

Daisuke - Sagittarius

Miyako - Gemini [canon]

Iori - Capricorn

Ken - Cancer

Meiko Mochizuki - Virgo/Libra

Maki Himekawa - Scorpio

Daigo Nishijima - Leo

Note: Every single headcanon is highly subjective and even I will probably change my mind about it. This is only a PROPOSAL.

If you’re interested in my interpretation and methodology, read on!

Canon Clues 

Although there are no official birthdays for the characters, several Adventure materials have provided “goalposts” where we can fit some characters’ birthdays. I strive to make my HCs as canon-compliant as possible, so it’s important for me to take this info into account.

Miyako is stated to be a Gemini in 02.

The official synopsis of tri. Indicates that Taichi is 17 years old during the series, suggesting the has an April-June birthday.

Sure, you’re free to ignore this little nugget if you prefer, but I personally like to think there’s a reason they mentioned Taichi’s age explicitly — something they never did before. They also never mentioned the explicit age of any of the other characters.

Funnily enough, the DALEK official website and novel lists the character’s ages during the events of the film. Since the film takes place in the summer of 2010, taking those numbers at face-value would require us to believe all 8 characters have birthdays in the first half of the year. 

This contradicts the explicit on-screen information about Jou’s age in the original series (see below). 

I’m proposing this should be interpreted as their “average” ages, rather than precise ages at this specific moment in time — after all, in Kizuna it’s more difficult to identify the characters by their school year, like they always did before.

Sora’s birthday is canonically before the events of Our War Game. The film takes place during the spring holidays, which typically begin around the third week of March.

Sora having a March birthday is so universally accepted by Japanese fans that it’s even on her Wikipedia page. I wouldn’t be surprised if more recent writers took that information into account, post-OWG, and portrayed her accordingly. 

Notice that Pisces is only the more likely option considering the canon timeline and Sora’s personality — Aries (late March) and Aquarius (mid-February) could fit as well. Hence why I consider this choice [semi-canon].

Jou, who is a 6th-grader, mentions he’s 11 years old during Adventure. This suggest his birthday would be after August 1.

Ken is supposed to be 9 years old in August 2000, when he’s in Year 3, suggesting he has an April-August birthday.

This is different from other guidebooks which only list the characters “average” ages, because this lists Ken’s precise age during a specific event.

I believe Ken being exactly 9 years old went to the Digital world is deliberate, since Osamu is stated to be 3 years older than Ken, hadn’t yet turned 12 when he died.

Again, except for Miyako, Sora, and Jou birthdays, I can understand why fans chose to ignore any of this.

Personal Notes

My method isn’t about finding a putative “Official / True Birthday” — that never existed, at least for the Adventure eight. It’s about finding birthdays that work within the limitations of canon (see previous section). 

My HCs are based on the personality / character archetypes represented by the the zodiac signs. In theory, any Chosen Child could be understood as representing a specific symbolical archetypes.

The problem is that the Adventure characters are quite complex and often deconstruct traditional archetypes. This explains why it’s so hard for fans to agree on which sign they are supposed to represent. I should also note that anime series seem to understand astrological archetypes slightly differently from the Western mainstream tradition, which explains why typical anime zodiac signs sometimes feel a bit “off”. 

Nevertheless, some archetypes are so strong that most of the fandom seems to have reached a consensus: Jou/Virgo and Koushirou/Aquarius, for example. Then you have textbook examples of archetypes like Gemini/Miyako (unsurprisingly canon), Taichi/Aries, and Hikari/Pisces. But even there is a lot of room for disagreement and subjective interpretation!

*

The 02 writers clearly intended Daisuke to symbolise Fire, Miyako Air, Iori Earth and, due to the Dark Ocean connection, Ken Water. In fact, it’s super easy to place those four characters into any traditional 4-group personality types, such as the four temperaments, Jung’s types, blood types, ABCD personality, etc. 

My HCs respect this, and ended up creating two polar opposites within the team: Daisuke/Miyako (mutable) and Ken/Iori (cardinal).  

*

It’s tempting to ascribe 12 main characters = 12 signs, but post-tri. I’m inclined to do something different and not put myself into such a limiting framework.

For this reason I repeat some signs, and I don’t have any Taurus character (sorry!).

*

My MAIN innovative choice is that I suspect Taichi and Yamato might represent the same sun sign.

Now, I understand this is an extremely controversial opinion. It isn’t a possibility I thought about until quite recently.

But Taichi and Yamato being “different but the same / two sides of the same coin” is incredibly well represented if both of them correspond to the Aries personality archetype. 

After all, they’re the leaders, the heroes, the Knights in shining armor. This explains their incredible similarities, despite superficial differences. as well as their love-hate dynamic: the rivalry, the union, the way they complement and balance each other out in an almost instinctive way.

Here are some examples of the Aries/Aries dynamic from the literature... 

Both of you are independent individuals and you don’t like feeling “owned” by anyone. Neither of you can tolerate being dominated or bossed by anyone else, so you probably make your own decisions, and direct your own lives. You respect one another’s autonomy, and a relationship that is based on constant togetherness and dependency wouldn’t suit either of you. Sometimes, however, there is too much emphasis on individualism rather than on being close and nurturing the relationship. You both have proud egos, and are sensitive to criticism. Almost inevitably you will compete with each other, and in small doses this can be invigorating. But it easily becomes nasty, and one of you is likely to get hurt. If you’ve ever seen two rams locking horns, you know what I mean! You either respect one another immensely or detest one another – rarely anything in between. (X)

If your relationship has been built on the basis that you are equals, the fire element produces tremendous vision and industriousness. Your combined power and effort could well be a force to be reckoned with — but again, only if you both learn to subdue your own ego in the service of each other. Remember, you can’t always be right. You need to try hard to see things from each other’s perspective; this will help the two of you become a great partnership over time. (x)

When Mars clashes with Mars, the result can be full-scale war, with all flags flapping, bravely and colorfully. Occasional flare-ups are bound to occur when these two are thrown into close, daily proximity, without the relief of some separateness in their association. But there will also be some glorious Highs to offset these Lows. (...)  It's been said that Aries people have a way about them. They do. Their own way. Yet, despite that sometimes antagonistic Martian exterior, they'll sense each other's desperate need to be appreciated and liked. When they get together, they may struggle for leadership, but the experience will supply some well-needed lessons. The shock of living with someone - or being around some- one - as innocently thoughtless, selfish and aggressive as one's self, is sure to soften any battering Ram, although there may be a few scars to show for the les- sons in living thus mastered. Aries hearts always carry more scars than the Rams ever show, or openly discuss. (x)

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? The more you read, the more this pattern begins to make sense. Try to watch the Dark Masters arc, the Agumon-is-kidnapped mini arc, tri., and even Kizuna with this possibility in mind, and you’ll understand what I mean.

Sure, order to accept this theory, you have to understand Yamato as a more atypical reserved / sensitive Aries (influenced by a Cancer Moon, perhaps?) and Taichi as a more “pure” Arien type. Yamato is more like a baby lamb, right? (don’t tell it to his face).

You can make a very strong argument for Leo!Taichi (that was my initial HC as well) or Yamato as almost anything else. I wouldn’t disagree. But why not come up with a fresh perspective to explain these two? 

Oh, and in case you’re curious, their (canon) Japanese Zodiac is also the same: Dragon, the direct equivalent to Aries. 

*

A note about tri.: typing Maki and Daigo seemed straightforward enough. Maki is the stereotypical Scorpio antagonist, and Goggle Boy Daigo’s partner evolved into a literal lion.

I couldn’t resist the idea of making Meiko a Libra, considering her digimon partner is literally the Libra and Meiko is the 9th member of the group. But  personality probably fits other signs better — it’s very tempting to type her a Virgo, the polar opposite of Hikari. She could also be the missing Taurus element (Mei as the literal May Queen). 

The truth is... I can’t decide!

*

Disclaimer: There is zero scientific evidence for astrology and, as far as I’m concerned, it’s only interesting as a tool to analyze fictional characters in symbolic /archetypal terms. My headcanons are based on extensive reading about astrology, its symbolism and psychological profiles; I’m happy to share my sources (they’re not from pop astrology). But I’m also aware of the Barnum effect. We are all biased; there are no right or wrong options. Everyone’s conflicting headcanons are equally valid.

Feel free to ask questions or request more in-depth explanations for my suggestions, but FFS don’t start arguing with me and insisting I’m “wrong” based on other people’s equally subjective and disputable headcanons.

*

BONUS: Sun sign Archetypes / Personality Keywords

Aries

Aries at its best : Brave, assertive, pioneering, quick, determined

Aries on a bad day: Aggressive, hard-headed, selfish, impulsive, impatient, brutal

The Aries archetype : Prince Lancelot, the brave and romantic rock star of King Arthur’s court

The Aries stereotype : The rage-a-holic in the pickup truck who just gave you the finger after cutting you off on the freeway

Gemini

Gemini at its best : Curious, inquisitive, quick witted, communicative, inventive, clever, adaptable

Gemini on a bad day : Verbally cruel, deceptive, disloyal, restless, doesn’t follow through”

“The Gemini archetype : The jester; clever and mischievous, your wit and agility are your best defense

The Gemini stereotype : The meddlesome neighbor, snooping and eavesdropping

Cancer

Cancer at its best : Family-oriented, nurturing, intuitive, domestic, maternal, sensitive, sympathetic, emotional, patriotic, retentive, traditional

Cancer on a bad day : Moody, touchy, oversensitive, negative, manipulative, overly cautious

The Cancer archetype : The universal mother

The Cancer stereotype : The smothering mother

Leo

Leo at its best : Regal, creative, magnetic, performer, generous, inspiring

Leo on a bad day : Vain, domineering, attention seeking, insecure”

The Leo archetype : The benevolent monarch

The Leo stereotype : The shallow playboy or party girl

Virgo

Virgo at its best : Discriminating, thorough, scientific, clean, humane, scientific, analytical

Virgo on a bad day : Picky, critical, petty, self-centered, hypochondriac, gloomy, pedantic

The Virgo archetype : Sherlock Holmes, with his staggering powers of perception and analysis and his earthy tweed jacket

The Virgo stereotype : The quiet, slightly geeky scientist or secretary with horn-rimmed glasses and a repressed manner

Libra

Libra at its best : Refined, artistic, diplomatic, sociable, peace loving, persuasive, just

Libra on a bad day : Fickle, over accommodating, argumentative, indecisive, insincere

The Libra archetype : The diplomat

The Libra stereotype : The gigolo or “kept” man or woman”

Scorpio

Scorpio at its best : Determined, probing, brave, passionate, insightful, empathetic, penetrating, investigative, powerful

Scorpio on a bad day : Jealous, suspicious, sarcastic, secretive, vengeful, manipulative

The Scorpio archetype : The magician, able to transcend the laws of nature to achieve transformation

The Scorpio stereotype : A secret agent, skilled at investigative work and most comfortable working behind the scenes”

Sagittarius

Sagittarius at its best : Philosophical, adventurous, freedom loving, scholarly, funny, honest, athletic, traveler

Sagittarius on a bad day : Crude, blunt, know-it-all, arrogant, superior, intolerant

The Sagittarius archetype : The wayfaring stranger who transforms a community with his knowledge and wisdom before moving on

The Sagittarius stereotype : The clown who trips over his gigantic shoes and throws pies in your face

Capricorn

Capricorn at its best : Responsible, authoritative, traditional, pragmatic, hardworking, economical, serious, mature, ethical

Capricorn on a bad day : Domineering, stubborn, inhibited, unfeeling, fatalistic, judgmental, unforgiving”

“The Capricorn archetype : The wise elder

The Capricorn stereotype : A cranky old man or woman who keeps yelling at kids to “stay off my lawn!”

Aquarius

Aquarius at its best : Independent, genius, iconoclastic, rebellious, logical, scientific, progressive, intellectual, humane

Aquarius on a bad day : Eccentric, temperamental, unpredictable, cold, opinionated, radical”

“The Aquarius archetype : The charismatic rebel who wins over his fellow men by thumbing his nose at authority

The Aquarius stereotype : The mad scientist

Pisces

Pisces at its best : Sympathetic, compassionate, emotional, intuitive, musical, artistic

Pisces on a bad day : Impractical, timid, procrastinator”

The Pisces archetype : The mystic

The Pisces stereotype : The flake

from Kent, April Elliott. “The Essential Guide to Practical Astrology: Everything from zodiac signs to prediction, made easy and entertaining”.

[ironwoman359]

Can you explain the different beliefs of the different dominations of Christians? Like, the big differences I mean.

Well, I can’t accurately tell you what denomination neccessarily believes what, as I only really have first hand experience with two, but I can tell you what those different beliefs would be. A good way to find out what a specific denomination believes about an issue is ot look at their official website, but also, individual churches and congregations may hold different views than the official stance of the denomination they’re a part of, as many Methodist (i think it was) churches did when the Methodist leadership doubled down on their anti-LGBT stance. With that being said, here are some of the different teachings you may find across denominations:

Catholic vs. Protestant: 

While all Christians believe God to be Sovreign, the Catholic church tends to take reverence for God to the point of nigh unapproachability. When Catholics pray to saints, they are asking the saint to take their petitions before God in their stead, while a Protestant would just ask God directly. When Catholics go to confessional, they are confessing their sins to a priest and asking him to present them before God and ask forgiveness, while a Protestant would confess to God and ask for forgiveness directly. In general, Catholic churches tend to be more ritualistic (though there are protestant churches like that too, lutherans, for instance) and approach God with less familiarity than Protestant Churches. 

Calvinist vs. Wesleyan: 

In Protestant belief, there are two main schools of thought you’re likely to find, Calvinism and Wesleyanism. The differences between them get into very academic langauge that’s sometimes hard to explain, but I’ll do my best to explain. The big stickler of disagreement comes in the ideas of “Unconditional Election ” and “Irresistable Grace.” 

Undoncitional Election refers to the teaching that before God created the world, He in His infinite knowledge pre-selceted those who would be saved from sin and who would be condemed to the just punishment for their sins. 

Wesleyans, on the other hand, believe that Jesus’s atonement was for all people. Yes, God in His omnipotence knows who will and will not accpet His grace, but He still leaves it to the individual’s free will to make that decision. 

Irresistable Grace teaches that to those God has pre-selected for salvation, there is no resisting the call of the Holy Spirit. 

Wesleyans, since they believe that anybody could be saved, that the pull of the Holy Spirit is not irresistable, as humanity has been given the free will to accept or reject salvation. 

Another more minor disagreement between Calvinsim and Wesleyanism is the “once saved, always saved” argument. 

Since Cavlinists believe in Unconditional Election, they also believe in “Perseverance of the Saints,” which is the belief that if you are Saved you cannot ever lose your faith (you also don’t necessarily have to be a Calvinist to believe that once you are saved you can’t ever lose that salvation). 

Wesleyan teachings, on the other hand, state that Salvation can be lost, as continued salvation is conditional upon continued faith. Aka, someone who once had a strong and steadfast faith would have been saved at that point in their life, but if they lose their faith or walk away from it at some point, they have lost that salvation (though the arms of God are always open to welcome them back). 

The other points of Calvinism and Wesleyanism don’t necessarily contradict each other, and so aren’t worth pointing out, but as you can see the differences are pretty drastic, and it’s easy to see how these different ideas could have sparked different sects of churches.

Communion/The Eucharist: 

There are esentially two views on Holy Communion: that Jesus’s presence in the bread and wine is literal, or that His presence is symbolic. 

For Catholics, they take it to the literal extreme: Transubstantiation, which is the act of changing the substances of bread and wine into the substances of the Body and Blood of Christ. 

Most Protestants who believe in Jesus’s literal presence in the elements do not take it that literally, believing more along the lines of, just as the Holy Spirit is present in the waters of baptism and the water itself is not what’s special, Jesus is present in the elements of communion and it is not the bread/wine itself that is special. 

Then, there is the belief that communion is more a ceremonial remembrance of Jesus’s last supper and a communal declaration of faith.

While I personally don’t believe in Transubstantiation, I think that any of these interpretations of Jesus’s words at the last supper are valid, and that God cares more that the community of believers celebrate the Eucharist together than He does about the minutia of it.

Also some churches practice “open communion” meaning that any believer in Christ regardless of views on the meal may take communion at their church, while others practice “closed communion,” meaning you must either be a member of their denomination or have spoken with the pastor before the sacrament to confirm that your beliefs line up with the church’s before taking communion with the congregation.

Also also most churches have different ages they start children taking communion at, Catholics it’s around 6 years old I think, while I as a Lutheran had to take half a year of catechism classes and be Confirmed before I could start taking it, those classes begin around age 12.  

The Means of Grace

The Means of Grace refers to how salvation is achieved. In this, Calvinists and Wesleyans agree: there is nothing humanity can do to achieve salvation, it is solely through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that humanity is granted Salvation. This belief is often referred to as “By Grace Alone,” or “Saved by Grace,” as their is nothing that a person could do to achieve Salvation, it’s all through God’s gift of Grace. 

The other view of Salvation is that it is achieved through Good Works, aka, what most non-christians probably think all Christians believe: If you are a Good Person and do Good Things you will go to heaven, but if you do Bad Things and don’t repent, you’ll go to hell. Most Christian theologians will tell you that this is False Doctrine, but there are some who insist that Good Works are a part of Salvation. Most, however, say that this does not line up with the Bible’s teachings.

The counter to Salvation by Works is that Good Works are not a means of Salvation, but rather evidence of it. Yes, a Christain should strive to do good works, because Jesus commanded us to love one another and to help each other, but if you’re doing these things because you think they will save you, you are missing the point. I personally really like the way a VeggieTales cartoon about St. Nicholas put it once, actually. Nick to a nun feeding the poor: “Do you do that to feel happy?” The nun: “Oh, no. I do it because I am happy.”

Other Differences

Baptism: Namely, should you baptize babies? Catholics and Lutherans and others say yes, Nazarenes and Baptists and others say no!

Biblical Inspiration: was the Bible 100% dictated to man by God and thus absolutely flawless (ie, all of the bible is what God said word for word), 100% inspired by God and thus flawless but not dictated directly (ie, the different writers used their own words and voices to write what was inspired to them), Inspired by God but written by man and thus subject to the trappings of humanity and possibly flawed in places? Vote now on your phones. 

Ordination: Who gets to be a pastor? Can women be pastors? Are youth ministers, worship ministers, and other types of minsiters called pastors or are they called something different? 

The End Times: Is the Rapture a thing, or what?

Creation: How literal is genesis exactly?

Queer Issues: A lovely can of worms that no one seems to be able to agree on and which is sometimes the sole reason for a denominational split (The Evangelical Lutheran Chruch of America split into two factions when they disagreed on whether or not gay people should be allowed to be ordained ministers. There’s now one faction of that church that does ordain gay people and one that doesn’t). 

Nondenominational Churches

Some bodies of believers have said “screw that” to all the crazy infinitesimal differences in theology between all the denominatons and said “We are simply Christains.” Now, each nondenominational church will likely have its own stance on each of the issues I’ve mentioned here, they just have chosen not to identify with any larger denomination, and if you’re church hunting and go to a nondenominational church, you’ll probably have to talk to hte pastor/look at their website to find out what they say about all these things. 

Again, for me at the end of the day, I hold my own beliefs about these issues, but concede that for about 95% of them, where you fall doesn’t matter (for me, the lines that I draw are the means of grace and unconditional election; I believe that anyone can be saved and that we are saved by grace alone), what matters is that if you believe in God and have accepted Jesus into your life, you are a Christian, and my sibling in Christ. Hope this answered some of your questions, and again, I’m always happy to provide more clarification/talk about this stuff! (can you tell I enjoyed the theology classes I had to take in college?) 

[meta-shadowsong]

Quick response to Mandalorian season finale

Behind a cut because, well.

Okay, yes, I am in this show for Dadalorian and Found Family etc. But I am at least as invested in the plotline this season about various factions of Mandalorians and their, for lack of a better word, sectarian disputes. Which frequently result in barfights. Because Mandalorians.

(AKA that scene where they picked up Bo and her minion was. A Delight.)

(Also, I love my girl Bo-Katan. Even if she’s very much a blunt instrument/not a politician going at this in all the wrong ways and was Very Rude to Boba but tbh I wasn’t 100% sure she was going to show up in this episode and I would’ve been Sad if we hadn’t gotten to see them meet. Either here or next season.)

(Still Sad at the lack of Sabine, though :( )

Leaving aside anything re: Gina Caranno (because that has been discussed by people much smarter and better-informed than myself), I’m kind of thrilled that the strike team was Almost Entirely Ladies.

(On that note. Uh. Does anyone else kinda. That little “Anyone else, we can take” smirk. And I just. Uh. Bo/Fennec, anyone??????)

(I kind of already ship Bo with Ventress tbh but a) multishipping ftw and b) threesome??????)

(Hi I’m shallow sometimes lol)

Anyway moving on.

Also the sound/almost-music when the Cylons Dark Troopers were activating was Excellent I approve.

And that Visual of the one trooper Din set on fire. ...honestly that whole hallway fight sequence was pretty Brilliant.

And the sort of...almost casual layer of the scene in the elevator. Even if these women haven’t worked together before, just that, “sure you don’t need any help with that?” “I got it. Excuse me.”

And that whole thing where Gideon was trying to Manipulate Din and he was like “...dude, I legit just care about the kid. I’ll fight for/with Bo-Katan because she’s pretty badass and I Might As Well plus she gets me what I want but I don’t...actually...Care about her Greater Cause?”

(Side note, I’ve spent a lot of time writing Bo-Katan/figuring out how her head works and literally all she cares about is Mandalore and its survival. It’s why she broke away from her sister in the first place, and has informed every single thing she’s done since. A lot of why she makes the specific choices she does goes back to the Mandalorian Civil War and her experiences there--especially since all the evidence indicates she was not with Satine and Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. The way that separation and their different experiences of that conflict probably contributed to the eventual destruction of what seems likely to have been a Very Close Relationship before that is fascinating to me. And the subject of a fic I’ve been working on off and on for a couple years now, lol.)

(...anyway, where I was going with this was--I mean, yes, Gideon knows everything in terms of facts, but he doesn’t always interpret them correctly. IMO, Bo-Katan’s desire to rule Mandalore is less about power (for herself) than it is about Mandalore. Especially given some of what she says to Sabine in Rebels--if there was someone else she genuinely trusted to take the throne and rule her world, she’d be willing to cede her claim and be one of their generals. Especially since she’s very much not a political animal. She’s an excellent war leader, but not so much in terms of actual Governance.)

(insert long ramble about the Parallels between her and Anakin, which I touched on in one of my fanfics, lol; and will probably do more with in my BB project which involves the two of them and Padme as the main characters)

(And, yeah, she does want to fight Din for the right, but if she thought Din would be a good Duke/King of Mandalore, I think she would seriously considering swearing allegiance to him? Again, witness how she handled things with Sabine. Also she would probs prefer to avoid a third (fourth?) civil war in her lifetime. But, I mean. I love Din but he is. He is not a Leader. Not like her people need.)

(And I think the way things played out with Sabine affects her decisions here, too--she did accept the Darksaber as a gift/tribute then, but proceeded to lose it. Maybe she does need to fight for it the way Maul and Viszla did (presumably; we don’t know how he got the Darksaber; it may be something he inherited/have been held by House Viszla for a while, even if they never used it to dethrone the Kryzes until now).)

(But, then again, I mean, this has been her life for at least a decade, so...well, maybe she wouldn’t quite step aside. Even if an Absolutely Perfect candidate came along. But WRT Din specifically--given who he is and what he’s capable of, while she absolutely wants him in her camp (and on a personal level isn’t super thrilled about having to fight him like this; she seems to genuinely like this kid), my guess is she doesn’t want him ruling. Not without some more actual leadership training/experience. Because, well, he’s been either a follower or a loner in everything we’ve seen him in, and given Bo’s opinion of (possibly experience with?) the Watch/the group who raised him, and the fact that he’s consistently shown himself to have super-narrow priorities and not really caring about much outside of them...yeah, she probs has some Concerns.)

(Plus, he clearly doesn’t want it. And you have to Want It on some level in order to be an effective ruler--that Wanting can be from genuine altruism/wanting to make the world better, like we see with Bail and Padme; it can be from single-minded determination to Make Things Right, like Satine and I would argue Bo-Katan (Leia falls into either the first or second category, depending on the point in her storyline); and it can come from a desire for personal power and advancement (as we see with Pre Viszla and, of course, Skeev Palpatine himself; to be fair, rulers in this third category tend to be bad in other ways lol). But someone who genuinely doesn’t want power generally kind of Sucks when they’re unexpectedly handed it. Which I could cite several IRL historical examples of. And, I mean, obviously, this isn’t the only factor in play for what makes a good ruler/leader (see above re: Palps and Pre Viszla), but it is a factor.)

(Also, to clarify: none of these are bad qualities/traits, necessarily? Like, traits are good or bad depending on whatever context a person/character finds themself in. And in Din’s current context, with his current life and mission--even in situations where he has to coordinate with other groups in the service of a larger goal--these are excellent traits to have. But for someone who’s responsible for an entire nation? Not so much.)

(One could argue that Bo has some Issues there, too, albeit different ones, which is why I think she might be willing to step aside and cede her claim to a Genuinely Good/Better Alternative, if she found one. She’s a war-leader, not a ruler, and the two jobs require overlapping but different skillsets.)

(..........honestly? I don’t think the show would go there, but I think the two of them as a team/partnership ruling Mandalore would actually be really effective? Either on an equal footing or with one as the Official Ruler and the other as a second-in-command/right-hand. She has the leadership expertise and the actual will and drive to pull this off, and he has the diplomatic skill, as we see with the Tusken Raiders, among others.)

(Not a romantic partnership, lol, that would be Weird, but a political and probably eventually platonically affectionate one. Especially with how Mandalore feels about family of choice/adoption, and the fact that they’re both kind of alone now (whatever happened to Korkie, anyway??) even if no formal adoption is likely in their case...)

(Anyway. Uh. Long tangent aside...)

(also if there’s anyone who didn’t see Gideon trying to decapitate Din when his back was turned...IDEK what you were expecting. Like. I am All About guys like Pellaeon in the Imperial ranks, and the fact that there might be a few people who would make that offer/deal and be on the level. To say nothing of my best beloved Alexsandr Kallus. But. Uh. Gideon is. Not one of them.)

(Also, I thought it was a Nice Touch when the spear started turning red--because, no, the Darksaber can’t cut pure beskar. But it does generate heat, as we’ve seen in, say, TPM. And beskar does melt.)

Also, called it on tossing the Cylons Dark Troopers out the airlock Not Working in the long term.

While it’s not Cool or Flashy like a bomb or slicing, the Cylons Dark Troopers pounding the doors down with their goddamn fists was Cool and Terrifying in all the best ways.

Side note--I think even if I hadn’t been spoiled (forgot to mute the spoiler channels on the SW Discords I’m on before going to bed, and checked on autopilot), X-wing + Grogu perking up would’ve probably clued me in and I would’ve been SHRIEKING. I was still vibrating super hard even though I knew who was coming, but it probably would’ve been slightly more XD

(and then a moment of HAHA GIDEON KNOWS WHAT’S COMING)

(and so does my girl Bo)

(and then the green ‘saber and the glove and other costume details and IF YA DIDN’T SCREAM BEFORE YOU SURE ARE NOW!!!!)

(Kind of cool that they waited until the last minute before showing his actual face though)

NO MY GIRL BO-KATAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(IF YOU DIE WHO WILL GET DRUNK AND SWAP WAR STORIES AND MAYBE HAVE VICTORY SEX WITH FENNEC)

(shut up i’m shallow)

(also I love her she’s legit one of my favorite characters in this series I don’t want her to die DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD:)

OH GOOD SHE GOT UP

(yeah that was my actual real-time reaction to her getting shot lol)

“Talent without training is nothing.” ::insert Obvious/Tired joke about Luke having all of three months’ training At Best::

(also, I mentioned this in my last quick reaction, as well as elsewhere, but I’m...still kind of uncomfortable with the continuing implication that the Jedi path is the only option other than Darkness. Not because it’s a bad one, either in the PT-era or with Luke’s reconstruction. But the idea that the only way to achieve the mindset/emotional stability/whatever needed to wield the Force without Falling is through adapting the Jedi philosophy sits wrong with me. especially the implication that you can only do so from an early age/in isolation from other influences or bonds; which is a word I’m using very specifically because there’s a difference between Attachment as defined by the Jedi and interpersonal bonds which they clearly have and I don’t want this to get derailed by that particular Discourse(tm) That doesn’t even super hold up on Earth, with a single species, let alone in a galaxy with trillions of beings of multiple different species. Basically, people and the galaxy--and by extension the Force, which is in part created/influenced by living beings--are way too complicated for there to be only one right answer.)

(Also, it...doesn’t really hold up with the core message of Star Wars, which is about Choice? If the only way you can be a Good Force Adept is by meeting this extremely narrow set of criteria, most of which are outside your possible control......but I should probably save this for a separate post, lol.)

(The point is, I mentioned earlier in the post how much I’m LOVING the throughline in this season about different factions/sects among Mandalorians, and I think it would be Great if we got more of that with Jedi/Light adepts.)

(Anyway. Uh. Back to the episode...)

That FACE MOMENT had me legit crying omg

ARTOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!@@21!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

omg had they MET

I...don’t know what I was expecting from the credits but Welp. I wonder who the body double was...

(And before you ask, I didn’t really get the Uncanny Valley effect from Rogue One, not even Tarkin, so.....yeah, I guess I don’t always pick up on that, or it hits me from weird directions, lol. Because I sometimes get that from the Rebels animation, especially in stills/gifsets, because everyone’s faces are all so Smooth...)

.........Jabba’s palace, okay.

.......Bib Fortuna, Okay.

(those fingernails, however, are Not Okay)

YAY RESCUE THE GIRL.

Good on you, Boba, just shooting him in the face instead of letting him posture!

although why you want to rule Tatooine is...okay then.

LOL at Fennec perching on the arm of the chair, sipping her booze all casual-like.

Right! So that was an Experience! Overall, I liked it. Looking forward to how Din and Bo handle things moving forward, in particular! Because, like I said, I’m in this series for Dadalorian (so IDK how I’ll feel with it no longer being the Core Story since Grogu left with Luke) and in this season for the Mandalorian factions/sects and how they interact.

I’m also not sure how I feel about three interconnected series leading up to a Major Finale Event? Disney’s Star Wars has not had a super great track record with giving all the information needed to follow things in the core product (see: the ST worldbuilding lol, and also some of the cameos/appearances in this season, even), so I’m Skeptical of how well they’ll do explaining what is Necessary in each of the three series, in case someone only watches one or two.

What were your thoughts?

[shealynn88]

TWENTY-FOUR CREAM OF THE CROP BDSM FICS!!

There are three main categories:

BDSM Alternate Universe (3): Au trope where everyone is born a dom or a sub.

Safe, Sane and Consensual (10): Mostly AUs where they have some experience in the scene and try to work through things in a healthy way.  It’s not, always, because they’re them and messy and human.  But these are typically on the more realistic side of things (at least the negotiation/agreement side).

Don’t Try This At Home (11) - dark, a lot of pain and bloodplay, characters handling themselves or each other in ways you probably shouldn’t put into practice..but reading them is HOT (for some of us, anyhow).

BDSM Alternate Universe: everyone is born a Dom or a Sub

all the other things by @reallyelegantsharkfish (Destiel) - Words: 8,439

Castiel is a dom at a service for unattached subs.  Dean never knew being a sub didn’t have to hurt.

This is such an incredible story of kindness and healing.  I can’t recommend it enough.  It’s just gorgeous and sweet.

The Meaning On My Skin by @saltnhalo (Destiel) - Words: 82,787

Castiel despises everything about being a dom.  Then he meets Dean, and begins to see there might be another way.

I love the way this weaves in the ‘born a dom’ au, insecure Cas, tattoo artist Dean, a lot of personal growth and some blazing hot, gentle BDSM.

Closer to Bound, Closer to Free by bendingsignpost  (Destiel) - Words: 5,867

Sam is going far, and the country needs his leadership.  So Dean holds off on what he wants to be sure nothing gets complicated.  Even when he meets Cas.

This is an incredible take on the characters - the way Sam serves the greater good, the way Dean serves him.  It’s an incredible take on the BDSM AU - the culture of it, the assumptions, the dynamics...it’s an incredible world built in very few words.  

Safe, Sane, Consensual: trying to do their best in an imperfect world

riptides by @reallyelegantsharkfish (Destiel) - Words: 138,635

“I’m going to kiss you now.”

This is one of the most gorgeous things I’ve read in my existence.  Truly.  It is heartfelt, it is sweet, it is filthy, it gets into a vast number of kinks, the ups and downs of BDSM, delves into some dark and difficult character exploration, and ends up...transcendent.  Read the tags, but then read the fic.  You will not regret it.  

Four Letter Word For Intercourse by @bendingsignpost (Destiel) - Words: 194,739

As a grease monkey turned college freshman, Dean's constantly three seconds away from being stressed out of his mind. It hardly helps that he's finally figuring out his sexuality in his thirties.

What might help with that stress is a little phone number (and a big credit card bill). If he can't figure out how to be bisexual in person, he can at least give it a go over the phone, right?

This is another one that is just...incredible.  It is sweet, it is heartfelt, it is hot, it is a story of self discovery and mistaken identity and bravery, and it is a really great representation of something healthy growing out of a lot of angst and doubt.

Unsolicited by @dangerousnotbroken -  (Destiel) Words: 56,348

Dean get a dick pic from a wrong number...and he cannot believe who it’s from.

Porn star Cas.  Mechanic Dean.  Hotness, sweetness, and a whole lotta fantastic sexy times ensue.  This is just 100% fun and lovely.

Love, light me on fire by ThePornFairy (Destiel) - Words: 3,841

He took a deep breath, wanting nothing more than to turn around and forget this, forget what he was about to do, just go back to never having to deal with it ever again. Instead, he threw the heavy object in his hand on the table before crossing his arms and all but glaring at his husband, whose smile disappeared as his eyes narrowed.

Incredible character exploration and seeing Dean as a masochist with self esteem issues is so true and the way Cas takes care of him is so lovely.  It’s hurt/comfort, S/M style.

Kinetics by kittenbot (Destiel) - Words: 106,440

Set in the modern world without the supernatural, Dean is a sculptor and Castiel is a photographer. Castiel is also a Dom and Bakushi—an expert that ties people up in the traditional Japanese way; his specialty is suspension ties. Cas wants to show Dean how wonderful submission can be and he’s absolutely dying to tie Dean up and suspend him. Dean wants to let him. 

A long, plotty, character exploration and BDSM scene exploration sort of fic.  It will break your heart and heal you.  I love this one so much.

Aesthetics in Autoerotica by @relucant (Destiel) - Words: 8,260(+)  

Cas is a photography student doing an erotic shoot, Dean is a student who needs money and does some modeling on the side.  It ends up being more than either of them expected.

This is incredibly hot and steamy and lovely - it has many of your kinky needs, and the BDSM starts slowly but there are gorgeous rope scenes and soft Dom!Cas is just delicious.

I Wanna Get Outside (Of Me) by emwebb17  (Destiel) - Words: 142,717

Castiel is a diagnosed OCD suffering from PTSD and agoraphobia, mysophobia, and dystychiphobia.  The only outlet that’s been helpful is for him to have control over a sub. Dean is the novice submissive who may be his last hope.

This is lovely.  It deals with some hard things, so read the tags and be ready for some emotional times, but it is beautifully handled, the character development is fantastic and the hotness is off the scales.   

Cloud Nine by Ltleflrt (Destiel) - Words: 2,254

Alpha Cas is a sub, and his Omega is happy to take him apart when he needs it.

Some gorgeous role reversal A/B/O fic.  

Send Me Thorns by nhpw  (Destiel) - Words: 34,297

Castiel is an experienced masochist submissive whose first meeting with Dean doesn’t go well.  But when they end up working together, Cas is forced to consider that there’s more to Dean than he’d realized.

An animal shelter, a masochist, an idiot with a dash of romance and insecurity - this is so lovely in so many ways.  It’s sweet and hot and plotty and wonderful.

Russian to the Altar by @malmuses​ (Destiel) - Words: 144258

It turned out that Castiel was a Russian erotic novelist in need of a ticket to America, and Dean… well, Dean was a last resort.

Picture, if you will, Cas with a Russian accent, Dean baking cooking and cakes, the two of them married and having not a damn clue what to do with each other, except maybe crush from afar.  Until they start having a D/s relationships as friends, which of COURSE isn’t how either of them feel.  Slow burn, but with lots of sex, funny jokes, hot hot hot D/s scenes, a lot of desire to bash them both over the head, and then an ending that makes it all worth it.  So good.

Don’t Try This At Home: it may not be healthy but it’s hot

Countin' One Two Three by Minxchester (ComeAlongPond14)  (Dean/Cas/Sam/Gabriel+) -  Words: 7,963

AU in which Sam and Dean Winchester are not relatively moral hunters who travel around saving people, but are instead road-tripping, bank-robbing, diner-dining rogues with nothing but their car, a slightly-too-intimate sibling relationship, and a passion for double-teaming cute waiters.

This is basically just a smutfest.  If you’re looking for Wincest, it takes a very long time to get there, but it does happen. if you’re looking for WinCasWin, there’s plenty of that to soothe you before you get to any real brotherly sexy times.  This is unabashed porn, and it is on FIRE.

Blind Date by @hazeldomain (Wincest) - Words: 1,489

Sam finds out Dean has a kink for anonymous gang bangs, and takes advantage of that to feed a kink of his own...

Some hot wincest pwp.  Nothing more to say, it’s just smokin’.  Non-con, officially, but ultimately desired.

All Inclusive K!ink by Amazonia_8 (WinCasWin) - Words: 29,552

Castiel has never been in a BDSM relationship, but he’s ready to fully submerge himself in the lifestyle.  Dean has been a dom for a long time, but Cas is something entirely new and irresistable.

The second story in this series is my favorite, but this entire thing is just out of control hotness.  Sub slave Cas, experienced Doms Dean and Sam.  I love this take on the brothers, and on Cas, and the way it shows them working through their insecurities and unwillingness to communicate in order to help them develop a healthier relationship.  Sam is brilliant and insightful and dark.  Dean is sweet and thoughtful and a well meaning mess.  Cas is inexperienced and stubborn, but he knows what he wants.  This is definitely a go-to for me!

SextersAnon.com by @unforth​ (Destiel) - Words: 16,739

SextersAnon.com, is a site that helps like-minded individuals find each other for anonymous sexting.  Dean and Cas have no idea what they’re getting themselves into when they match up!

This and it’s sequel Offline are just incredible.  It is incredibly emotional and goes into a lot of difficult trauma and backstory.  But it is absolutely incredible.  Dean is a sadist, Cas is a masochist and they are a PERFECT match...if only they can get through all the baggage, history and fears that keep them apart.  Grab a tissue box and have a friend available for comfort, and then go read this fic!!!   (Happy ending, just a rough time getting there.)

Dirty Laundry by vipjuly (Destiel) - Words: 28,566

Dr. Castiel Novak is a leading name in the mental health community. When Dean Winchester, self-proclaimed Golden Gardens killer, lies down on his couch for the first time, Castiel feels it.  Dean is exactly who he says he is.

Aw, yeah.  That’s some quality murder husband fic, right there.  This is supremely written dark destiel, and I am HERE FOR IT.  The push/pull of it is very Hannibal-esque...it’s just lovely, dark and deep and stunning in the best ways.

Ancient Cultivars by @wingstocarryon (Sastiel) - Words: 7063

Castiel cries for the first time, and Sam doesn’t know what to do.  He just does what he can.

This is such a deep and heartbreaking and beautiful exploration of Sam and Cas, on the same and opposite sides of the same trauma. It’s panic attacks and feeling at home and using pain to find a way back...it’s stunning and I can’t say enough about it.

Orpheus by sysrae (Destiel) - Words: 84,007

Dean keeps going back because he thinks he deserves what they give him.  But when Castiel picks him up, it’s different.  And it’s just the beginning.

Long, plotty, thought provoking AU exploration of Alistair and Dean and the aftermath of that.  how Cas comes in not understanding any of it, but treating Dean kindly because that’s the way he is, and it’s hard and also needed so deeply.  This is another one that’s just stunning and hard but so worth while.

Willing by @chiisana-sukima (Wincest) - Words: 13,466

After expelling Gadreel, Sam kills himself to close the Gates of Hell. Dean copes poorly alone, and then they cope poorly together.

The atmosphere of this fic is incredible - gritty, noir desaturated feeling to it.  It’s subtle and thought provoking and you see Dean serve in a way he really doesn’t in canon, but the growth of it, the way he gets there, is utterly believable and perfect.  This is absolutely one of my favorites of all time.  

hurt me because you love me by blamethemusk (Sastiel) - Words: 4,374

Sam is a masochist.  Castiel is not a sadist, but he can adapt.

Castiel serving the Winchesters in difficult ways is probably one of my favorite things.  Here, Castiel gives Sam the pain he needs because no one else can.  This is so dark and painful and so full of love.  I can’t explain it.  If you like some loving S/M, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Rise Above It by @silver9mm (Destiel, Wincestiel) - Words: 10,692

Cas wants to show Dean that, despite what he did in Hell, he’s not a monster.  Dean disagrees.

This is the darkest, hardest fic I’ve ever loved.  Definitely heed the tags.  BUT, it’s also gorgeous and full of an incredibly selfless love, and it has such strong characterization and exploration of motives and mindsets...truly a masterpiece. 

Dollars & Cents by ekbe_vile (Destiel) - Words: 4,602

 Dean has a taste for causing pain, and Cas takes it.

Heartbreaking, this one.  But again, so much exploration of character in the giving and receiving of pain.  There are threads of repentance and horror and challenges of self acceptance.  So much packed into so few words.

Been Down So Long by BlindSwandive (Wincest) -  Words: 14,404

Sam’s addicted to demon blood and Dean is willing to do absolutely anything to get him over it.

Dark, dark, dark.  Non-con all the way.  Sam needs demon blood and it’s making Dean crazy.  This is so well done - you can see the downward spiral for them both. Sam is an unreliable narrator while experiencing withdrawal; Dean is coming unraveled trying to take care of an unwilling Sam.  Chilling but gorgeous.  If you like bloodplay/blood-drinking, this is the fic for you.

[jewish-privilege]

On Thursday, Nov. 21, a week before Thanksgiving, 500 high school students settled into their seats in the auditorium of the Fieldston School’s main campus, which sprawls over 18 leafy, manicured acres in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, to learn about apartheid. The invited speaker was Kayum Ahmed, an employee of the Open Society Foundations and adjunct faculty member at Columbia University Law School.

Ahmed’s initial presentation at Fieldston went off without a hitch, according to multiple people who attended the talk. But then came the question and answer period. In a video of his response to a student’s query, Ahmed explained his theory of patterns of trauma and oppression, and how they relate to Jews who were massacred during the Holocaust.

“The [Nazi] attacks are a shameful part of history, but in some ways it reflects the fluidity between those who are victims becoming perpetrators,” Ahmed told the Fieldston students and faculty. “I use the same example in talking about the Holocaust. That Jews who suffered in the Holocaust and established the State of Israel today—they perpetuate violence against Palestinians that [is] unthinkable,” he opined.

Ahmed’s comment sent a jolt through the room, students who were present there told Tablet, yet no one present questioned Ahmed’s assertion that survivors of the Holocaust had metabolized the trauma of their own mass murder to inflict “unthinkable” violence on Palestinians. Jewish parents at Fieldston who heard about Ahmed’s remarks were shaken and outraged, texting in chat circles and even threatening, privately, to withdraw their children from the school. A video clip of Ahmed’s presentation began to circulate amongst the school’s community, confirming the veracity of the recollections that upset students had shared with their parents.

As the crowd filtered out of the auditorium, some of the Jewish students present registered the moment with fear and confusion, according to multiple parents and others familiar with the event. In a classroom later that day, one Jewish student shared that Ahmed’s comment was upsetting. According to someone with direct knowledge of the situation, the teacher allegedly responded that there might be less concern about the Holocaust if more people were familiar with the genocides in other nations.

...Parents certainly had reason to be upset; some were the direct descendants of Holocaust survivors, and others had familial or emotional ties to Israel, a small country located in a region of the world where there is no shortage of states and radical fundamentalist groups that routinely echo Nazi calls for the extermination of Jewish populations. Moreover, the Ahmed event was only the latest in a series of what a number of Jewish parents saw as problematic experiences for Jews at the school, which they said had been escalating since 2015...

...In the wake of the event, J.B. Brager, one of the history department’s instructors who teaches a Holocaust elective, posted several public Twitter messages about the event and the resulting upset—none of which acknowledged the feelings of Jewish students or parents, or even the history of the Holocaust and the effects of trauma on its victims. Instead, Brager chose to use the moment to assert her support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. “I refuse to ‘reaffirm the value’ of ethno-nationalist settler colonialism,” Brager wrote. “I support BDS and Palestinian sovereignty and I have for my entire adult life.”

...Tablet also interviewed the parents of more than two dozen Jewish students, past and present—all of whom, regardless of wealth or status, said that they were too frightened to be quoted by name. All said they specifically feared that public disclosure of their discomfort would cause retaliation by administrators and faculty—who they needed to write recommendations for their children’s college applications or transfer applications to other private high schools. The situation at Fieldston could be worse, they told me, though that perhaps depends on your perspective. “So far, no one’s throwing things at me and yelling ‘Dirty Jew,’ so it’s fine,” one parent wryly noted, in resignation. “But everyone else is going to leave.”

...In their purchase of a Fieldston education, parents aren’t buying an assurance that their children will be able to read Latin, apply basic principles of physics, or score a standard deviation or two higher than the norm on calculus tests. In exchange for the financial support and volunteer board hours, what Fieldston and other New York private schools are rewarding their patrons with is safe passage to the American elite.

...For many of Fieldston’s Jewish families, several told me, what distinguishes the problem at their school can be traced to the recently implemented Affinity Group program. Rolled out in 2015 as a new mandatory part of the curriculum, the Affinity groups asked parents of students in the third, fourth, and fifth grades to tell their children that they would need to select a group to join based on how that student defined their own identity. Over the course of the spring semester, parents were told, students would be segregated into groups based on a single selection from a set of options: African American or Black; Asian or Pacific Islander; Latino; Multiracial; White; or “Not Sure,” which consisted of “a cross-racial dialogue group” designed to make “your child feel more comfortable.”

...At the time, several families asked the school to add a Jewish affinity group; they acknowledged that no other religious group was offered, but argued that Jewishness should also be seen as a marker of ethnic and minority identity—not least because it has been for centuries by Jewish oppressors. According to several parents, they were politely but firmly told that no such group would be forthcoming. “Many parents were aghast,” one parent with multiple children at Fieldston told me.

...As certain teachers remodeled their courses, Jewish students found that their concerns about anti-Semitism were met by fellow classmates who plainly suggested that, first, they should be considered white and privileged—and that second, as such, they could not be considered victims of discrimination.

It was a two-step that shocked and frightened certain Jewish parents—first erasing what they understood to be the history of Jewish exclusion, isolation and murder, while simultaneously confining Jews to the category of history’s not-good people.  

...For Jewish parents, the result of these changes isn’t simply the sense of injustice at the prospect of their children becoming targets for social exclusion, bullying, and officially-sanctioned condemnation for holding or expressing normative in-group beliefs —like a belief in the uniqueness of the Holocaust, or that the State of Israel isn’t effusively evil. The lit match here was that “Jews” were nowhere to be found on the roster of oppressed groups.

It’s an absence that is quite deliberate, and yet, because many Jews don’t seem to quite get that, it results in furious and often unintentionally hilariously medieval-seeming debates, both within Jewish communities, and between Jews and “woke” believers about whether Jews with white skin or dark skin are in fact “white,” what degree of victim-privilege Jewish “whiteness” or non-“whiteness” should properly confer, how much possible Sephardic or Mizrahi blood can one reasonably lay claim to in order to join the good team, and so on.

During that same academic year, swastikas began appearing in Fieldston halls and classrooms. In what would become a recurring theme for some Jewish families, parents told me that they were taken aback when school leadership responded to the initial appearance of the swastikas with a presentation for students that foregrounded “the ancient history of the symbol,” as one parent who saw the presentation told me. There appeared to be no significant scrutiny of what the symbol meant after it had become the Nazi emblem, and there appeared to be no mention of its relation to the slaughter of millions of Jews, the parent said.

Facing an uproar over the presentation and the lack of any strong, community-wide condemnation of the incidents, the school sent out a second letter, shared with Tablet, that identified the swastika “as a hateful symbol of the Nazi genocide, the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, fascism, and the destruction of European Jewry and other victims of the Nazi regime.”

...Of course the problem then got worse. Toward the end of the 2017 spring semester, George Burns, who for almost two decades had been the principal of the grade school’s younger division and who had been an advocate of the Affinity Group program, abruptly left. His departure was as much of a surprise as the rumored reason behind it.

According to a report in the New York Times, Burns was discussing parent pushback to the Affinity Groups with the recently hired head of the school, Jessica Bagby, who allegedly then told him who she thought the program’s critics were: “It’s the Zionists—the Jews.” Burns later filed a report to the school’s human resources department; shortly after, Burns announced his retirement. “Mr. Burns had worked there for 18 years and had given no indication that he planned to retire,” the Times report said. “Almost no one believed that his departure was entirely voluntary.”

In an interview with the Times, Bagby disputed the account. “I said to him at the time, ʻWe have a problem in that some members of our community who identify themselves as Jewish, and some who even might identify themselves—self-identify—as Zionists, do not feel embraced by this program.’”

For some Jewish parents, it was a distinction without much difference. Bagby’s remarks had a perhaps unintentional but palpable edge. Since no one in the progressive cultural sphere has used the word “Zionist” as anything other than a curseword for at least a decade, her remarks implied to them that parents “who even might identify—self-identify—as Zionists” had themselves to blame for not being embraced by a program that would not and should not, in fact, embrace them.  

Whatever the proper interpretation of Bagby’s remarks might be, the willingness of her school to take anti-Semitism seriously was about to be tested by national tragedy. On Oct. 27, 2018, 11 Jews were murdered during a religious service at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. The night of the attack, the school sent out a note expressing sympathy for the victims, and horror at the attack.

But later that week, the school sent out another letter, shared with Tablet, which declared the committee’s dismay at the slayings while highlighting the positive reaction by the Muslim community of Pittsburgh—as though anti-Semitism was somehow a narrow detail in relations between Jews and Muslims. “[We are] heartsick for the state of our national dialogue and concerned for the safety of the vulnerable among us. We are also heartened by the clear voices of empathy across the spectrum of political views and overflowing acts of kindness, such as the pledge by the Muslim community of Pittsburgh to protect synagogues,” they wrote.

The letter then went on to explain that the theme of the year’s multicultural programming would be “Intersectionality,” with the first event a community day where guest speakers will explain “what Intersectionality means to them and what effect it has on their lives as they work toward equity and social justice.” The committee signed off by highlighting the Multicultural Committee’s recent progress, including a mention of the various faculty who over the summer participated in “anti-bias training for white educators.”

According to several Jewish parents who read the letter, they were stunned by the absence of the word “anti-Semitism”—the specific hatred against Jews that was the defining characteristic of the mass shooting.

“There was no mention of the murder of Jews,” one parent told me. “It talked about how the Muslim community really helped the Jewish community in a time of crisis. And you know, that’s great they did. I think that’s beautiful they helped. But what’s the point of including that in a letter that should be about a horrendous act of anti-Semitism?”

The school’s disparate tone was made all the more stark several days later, when after a gunman killed one and left three injured in a shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California, near San Diego, Fieldston distributed a community-wide letter that did not identify the victims as Jewish but instead as “Passover worshippers”—and which then contextualized the shooting among other recent events. “Hatred and religious violence across our globe at houses of worship since the 2015 murder of congregants at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, should be unimaginable. Nevertheless, in just the last three months, since the horrific mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, this once unfathomable crime seems unrelenting in our news cycle.”

Though this letter mentioned the word “anti-Semitism,” according to multiple parents Bagby’s contextualizing of the anti-Semitic shooting with hate crimes against other religious denominations...was one further example of the school’s apparent aversion to explicitly singling out violence or hatred against Jews as worthy of specific concern or condemnation.

...Several Jewish parents said that this emerging herd mentality had other more direct repercussions: While some of the school’s administrators and faculty have expressed solidarity with Jewish families in private, there’s a fear, according to multiple employees, that any public activism on behalf of the Jewish families will lead to that member of the staff becoming ostracized by their colleagues. This is particularly important because, unlike nearly every other elite private school in New York City, the faculty at Fieldston are unionized—which endows them with a power their colleagues at other schools lack in disputes with the board or the administration.

...By Monday, the leadership of the school was anxious to quell the growing unrest, a person familiar with the leadership’s decision making said, but lawyers cautioned school leaders that a revised statement being circulated was too critical of Kayum Ahmed directly and might ostensibly expose the school to libel charges, according to this person. Some involved in the discussion of the response felt the risk was justified by the necessity to reaffirm an unequivocal position against anti-Semitism, particularly in light of other recent incidents at the school—but that position, according to a person familiar with the drafting process, was not universally endorsed by all parties involved in finalizing the statement. There was enough dissent among the board and administration about how to properly respond that some proposed waiting for after the Thanksgiving break to publicly acknowledge the incident...

Following the wide dissemination of the video clip, concerned parents now reached out directly to the school wondering about the circumstances that led to Ahmed’s presentation. On Wednesday morning, Bagby signed off on a final letter that was sent to the Fieldston community at large. “We are taking the opportunity brought by this incident not to discuss this particular speaker or his words, but to reaffirm our institution’s firmly held values,” she declared. “We will not accept Anti-Semitism. We will not accept racism. We will not accept sexism. We will not accept homophobia. We will not accept transphobia. We will not accept xenophobia. We will not accept hatred in all its ugly shapes and forms.”

Bagby’s response landed with a thud among Jewish parents, several of them told me. “That letter was worse than doing nothing,” one father explained, pointing out that school’s inability to single out anti-Semitism, coupled with the lack of any direct condemnation of the content of Ahmed’s remarks, reflected a lack of courage or willingness to stand up against this particular form of hatred. “It was simply a ‘fuck you,’ and entirely infuriating,” he said. Another parent I spoke with wearily acknowledged to herself that the school’s response was “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” and immediately began the process of finding another school for her children.

For these parents who’d themselves encountered incidents of anti-Semitism at Fieldston or watched their children endure such trials, there was a hope that if the school would only ramp up its educational offerings on the Holocaust or on anti-Semitic bias the campus experience of Jewish students would improve, several parents told me. There had been a time, they recalled, when the school held regular assemblies with Holocaust survivors, including a Holocaust Remembrance Day—which the school no longer includes in its annual calendar of events.

Yet, as some of these same parents recognized, Fieldston is a different place for Jews than it was before, perhaps because New York City is a different place. As one parent observed, Jewish education in New York happened every day for children who would encounter Holocaust survivors at the synagogue, at the kosher butcher’s, and at family birthday parties where explanations would accompany the tattoos on guests’ forearms. At this point, the expectation that elite schools like Fieldston will wholeheartedly embrace Jewish students—let alone encourage the kind of Jewish self-awareness that students are not receiving in their home environments—seems, at best, misplaced. All of which is rather unfortunate—and not just for Jewish students and their parents...

----

I don’t agree with everything in this piece, especially with respect to the author’s “understanding” of intersectionality and white privilege. That being said, the underlying issue at Fieldston and the denial of antisemitism as an actual, real type of discrimination when Jews are being killed, beaten, and harassed for being Jews (regardless of whether we’re white or not) is something that bears acknowledgment.  

[thevanitychariot]

The Chariot: Issue VIII

Original Publication Date: May 24, 2020

Changing Times Require Changing Cultures By: Aramis Giordano Original Publication Date: 25 March 2020

The new year and a new Hollywood administration is ushering in many necessary changes. As we are advancing through the current generation in entertainment, we are highlighting the shortcomings that the previous administration failed to focus on and fix.

Following the 2019 Ross Awards with Vanessa Harding finally taking home the crown, three of the Best Actress winners (River Johnson, Riza Yuki, and Vanessa Harding) shared their experiences of the life post-Ross recognition. River (Omelas) opened up as to how the industry shunned her after being booed out of stage for winning over Keira Kuyama (Your Lie in April) back in 2017. Riza Yuki (Death Note: Zero) also followed the same suit the year after in 2018 for winning over Keira Kuyama (The Town Without Me).

With the public humiliation, River's career took a great hit and unofficially became the face of the silenced and attacked women in the industry. She vocalized transparency and awareness of how the media is shaping the audience's minds and opinions by pitting talented women again each other. Since River's 2017 win, it has became an annual tradition for women to talk about the gender issue prior to awarding Best Actress.

2019 also saw the rise of culturally-important stories, such as Don't Cry for Me Argentina and Things Fall Apart and also provided platforms for South and Southeast Asian women to flourish, such as Samar Chopra (Hotel del Luna), Kiev Harjanti (A Story I Couldn't See), and Anjali Varma (Still Seventeen), yet none of these women and films were recognized for their contributions in the industry.

Three months into his presidency, Emerson Wright has exemplified the importance of diversity, not only in roles, but also in perspectives. He wants to provide a platform on those whose voices are rarely heard with the White-majority Hollywood under Lawrence Harland's administration and the Asian-majority MC-Wylde under Davis Wylde's leadership. Within three months, three movies have been released that showed the range of talent from Middle Eastern and Black actors and directors.

Emerson Wright started his presidency with the release of The Messiah, directed by Walid Abd al-Rahman, showcasing the first main roles given to those of Middle Eastern descent. The second movie focused on the story embodying the complexity of the relationships between the Mexican cartels and the Italian mafia in Zero Zero Zero. The third movie, groundbreaking with being the first movie to present an all-Black cast and director, On Her Own Ground tells the story of the first ever self-made female millionaire.

Emerson also wanted to purge the administration of the blame and blackball culture pushing forth the agenda by having his first movie star Chrystia Allwright as the female lead. Prior to his administration, Chrystia was blackballed after winning Best Actress (The Eureka Moment) in 2015 against the fan-and-industry favorite, Vanessa Harding (1906). For four years, Chrystia was unable to star in any movie role until Cygna Entertainment, a subsidiary of MC-Wylde, provided the opportunity, with her sister Kendra Allwright helming.

As a director himself, Emerson knows how to win both the administration and the crowd by bringing forth the powerful comebacks of classic actors such as Aubree Jones and Clapton Robinson, further sparking excitement within the entertainment industry. As the new president is releasing groundbreaking films, Davis Wylde sits idly and continues to draw in large crowd praising the films highlighting Asian excellence.

So far, he has released four very successful films: Vagabond (Beijing Lee, Meili Wang), Crash Landing on You (Park Jungmin, Joanna Park), Guardian: Great and Lonely God (Rayyan Ong, Malivalaya Leechaiyapornkul), and To the Kingdom of the Gods (Jeong Minhyuk, Joanna Park).

As it's approaching its third year, the Asian Age does not seem to be slowing down. The longest generation so far spanned almost four years (Stagnant Age, April 2013-November 2016); it won't be long until this current generation surpasses it - unless this rapidly-evolving movement caused by the Emerson's changes welcomes in a new revival.

Meet the Visionaries of the Ross Awards Committee By: Aramis Giordano Original Publication Date: 12 April 2020

The corruption scandal that took down the previous administration of Hollywood Studios finally lead to the formation of the Ross Awards committee, formed to independently screen and choose the nominees and winners from this point forward. After four months of deliberating how to build the framework of the new leadership roles, the Ross Committee decided to mirror the current administrations of MC-Wylde and Hollywood Studios. 

Both Davis Wylde and Emerson Wright held debriefings for the past four months to discuss the future of the committee and how it will maintain its lack of bias and independency. The topic of corruption was brought up the most with the fear of repeating what happened in the 2016 Ross Awards in which previous Hollywood Studios Chairman Omar Vanderkoff was accused of falsifying the Best Actress results. 

Davis Wylde and Emerson Wright agreed to establish an official impartial screening tool for the committee administration to use when hiring their staff. It will assess and analyze previous workplaces, experience, education, and connections within the industry. The committee decided to announce that a staff with a history of working with either MC-Wylde or Hollywood Studios would have their applications reviewed with the utmost precaution prior to moving ahead. On April 12, 2020, the official administration that would build the future of the Ross Awards Committee were announced. Hans Neumann would serve as the committee's president, Jolie Laurent as the vice president, and Godfrey Howard as the chief of staff. They request the rest of the year to fill in the empty positions, create new roles, and allow interns and volunteers to collaborate together in preparation for this year's Ross Awards. "People never had anyone to put their blames on whenever they don't like the results of the Awards", Anika host Anika Sunisa begins. "The Ross has always caused the greatest divide within the industry and the general mass audience and we've always pit the candidates against each other as if they're modern-day gladiators". "Hans Neumann is placed in the most dangerous position in the industry for all the arrows and guns will be pointed at him by the time December comes", Vanity Chariot editor Lancer Knight claims. "He will definitely be the most talked about, if not most attacked, president in entertainment history", he finishes. Presidents have never had it easy with the audience, as shown by the very publicized witch hunt that led to Lawrence Harland stepping down the previous year. Hans Neumann should have expected it to be the case prior to accepting the coveted role. "In the case of Emerson", Anika continues the discussion. "He has his reputation preceding him as someone generally well-liked." That was also the case with Lawrence Harland. He has a very over-the-top personality, which was shown in the types of movies he released. Lawrence wanted to create spectacles that would leave legacies for as long as possible; he also focused a lot of his attention on presenting himself as a cult personality, especially with the establishment of Lawrence Harland University. "This is in contrast to Davis and Emerson who want to create films to tell stories that are current and relevant and let time decide its fate". Lancer agrees to Anika's claims. It will definitely be interesting to see how this decision of opening up the Ross committee will affect the future of the awards ceremony and how it will play a role in shaping the entertainment industry. On the other hand, after the announcement comes the abrupt statement that current MC-Wylde Chief of Staff McCormick Hawthorne is stepping down after two years of service. Following the resignation, he disclosed his plans to go back to teaching film history in Lawrence Harland University this upcoming school semester. It was reported that Seema Banerjee will replace him after a long discussion among the three leaders of the company. Davis Wylde also announced the official Chairman of Cygna Entertainment, Manuela Valdiviero. Vanessa Harding unofficially held the position previously and would only do the role during pre-production of the films. The official appointment of Manuela Valdiviero serves as a good sign for a bright and prolific years ahead for Cygna Entertainment.

Emerson Nation is Catching Fire By: Aramis Giordano Original Publication Date: 24 May 2020

Five months into his presidency and Emerson Wright had already taken the entertainment industry by storm. In early May, the Hollywood president announced the upcoming revival of the esteemed The Hunger Games series by releasing a prequel that is being helmed by the master himself, Gary Ross.
 Following the announcement, social media sites exploded with excitement by sharing predictions, posting theories, and hosting watch parties in preparation for the upcoming movie. The fifth The Hunger Games film, titled Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, will center around Coriolanus Snow as the mentor of the District 12 female tribute in the 10th Hunger Games. Filming has commenced with information that Damien Avanda will be portraying the future president of Panem, while Persia Chapman plays alongside him as Lucy Gray Baird, tribute from District 12. "It's the biggest project of my career thus far and we're making sure we do the movie justice," Emerson assured during the press conference held on May 17, 2020. During the same event, he also announced that Hollywood is finally releasing three live adaptions of Avatar: The Last Airbender in collaboration with Davis Wylde. The trailer for the first movie was dropped, which tells the story of the adventures in the first book, with newcomer Chaucer Lim playing the titular character, and Cara Miyazaki, Mishima Kenshi, and Ikeda Marusa portraying the fan-favorites Katara, Sokka, and Zuko respectively. This unprecedented collaboration marks an important event in the entertainment industry's history as both Emerson Wright and Davis Wylde shared their resources in "recreating the masterpiece that is Aang's story". No news have been made regarding the live adaptation of Legend of Korra as of yet. These two colossal announcements gave the current administration the nickname "Emerson Nation", a wordplay based on Avatar: The Last Airbender in which the Fire Nation rapidly takes over the world.

[kurogabae]

TSUBASA: TRAINWRECK CHRONICLES

And Why Bee Train Are Officially Being Labeled, By Me, As The Boomers Of Animation

PART 1 – PART 2 – PART 3 -- Part 4

[Slim Shady’s “Guess Who’s Back” plays in the distance, muffled but threatening]

Look, I know I usually have something to say at the start of these, but honestly? Let’s just go because we’re starting knee-deep in some bullshit. 

Tsarastora (yes... fucking AGAIN):

Well, it didn’t take long for us to return to the land of the walking Not Dead Anymore. Rumor has it that Bee Train was ordered to retcon the S1 finale immediately because who do you think you are to break one of CLAMP’s cardinal rules like that?!? But I’ve never seen any proof of exactly what went down about this plot. But I’m forced to believe Ohkawa materialized behind the director one day and threatened to eat his spine or some shit. 

Anyway. We’re here. Again. And for some reason this is where they decide to have Sakura give Yuuko her White Day gift? Instead of in Piffle? Where she made it? With Tomoyo?

Stop stealing my moments Bee Train. It’s like you’re the crew who edited CCS for America back in the day and tried to market it towards boys so you pushed Syaoran as the main character and tried to remove all romance. Let Sakura have friends! Let her interact with people and have a story! LET HER BE BI!!!

So Yuuko has a dress and Fai makes a joke about being in heaven because the place is so pretty and Kurogane says not to, quote, “say such unlucky things” and it’s moments like this that make you wonder if they Knew and just didn’t care about Fai’s past or if they really were just as in the dark as the rest of us. I flip flop a lot between the two. 

Either way, now the dads are talking about the kids and how brave Syaoran is (why the bullshit in Piffle prompted this I do not know but whatever I guess?) and basically just about how badly they want them to succeed but without just saying it. Meanwhile Sakura is telling Syaoran about her latest memory and I could not for the life of me tell you which one it was and I refuse to go check. The important thing here is that the lazy animation trick that has given Mokona the power of flight is back and she’s hovering around the gang now. Not sitting on shoulders or anything. Just... flying around like she’s Kero. This is fine. I guess.

And then, after what has to be like a solid half hour of just dicking around Mokona Very Suddenly senses a feather. Why so suddenly? Because they wanted to get everything else out of the way first and it was convenient. No other reason. The feather isn’t moving. Neither are they really. She just decides to turn her sensors on now? IDK. Maybe she needs a tune up.

They find the feather not far away just casually sitting inside a rock and everyone but Kurogane is like “Yay! Easy find! Go us!” because apparently no one can learn anything in this anime about what those fucking feathers do. Spoilers: it’s not a rock, it’s a dragon.

[Kurogane voice]: kin

The dragon fucks off and here we come to a Thing. Now, Kurogane is ready to slaughter this thing and wear its bones basically. He is Ready to Fight in a real way. I found that odd and really didn’t care for it. In Hanshin he seems in awe of Celes when it appears to him and even though it’s mostly fanon that Kurogane respects and likes dragons that makes sense. His family’s guardian was a dragon, his sword was modeled after a dragon. His whole motif is dragons! Why is he so ready to kill this one? Does it not count if it’s not a Nihon dragon? Does only Ginryuu get respect? It just feels bad???

But none of that matters because guess what! Dragon shaped as it might be, the thing is a demon? At least, that’s what they’re calling it. Sometimes. Fai says demon, Syaoran says dragon. They don’t.... agree on the term? Shut up. It’s a dragon.

So they soon realize that they are back in Should Be Very Dead-ville and oh no everyone is going to die again unless we get this OTHER feather because if one feather can buy us a month of living surely one more will fix our deaths forever right? ....right? (On a side note; Fai makes a comment about how weird it is that two feathers fell in the same world while he’s from Celes and knows damn well he found two and is unaware of a third!!!) 

Either way the family is gonna help because, you know. Feather. If memory serves, the dragon is hiding in a lake, so what does Kurogane (who is now in charge because of course) have them do? They set the lake on fucking fire. And it delights him. It do not, however, delight the dragon, who, understandably, goes apeshit. Luckily, no one dies and they just hack off the horn that the feather was stuck in. And then they... take it to God again because wow they really do think this will work. Sakura, honey, I know how sweet you are but it only got them one month last time. What good will this do?

The answer is no good!

God basically tells them it’s tough tits, the month long visitation was all they could manage and no matter how many super powered magic bird parts they bring the dead are dead and that’s that. Which sucks for those villagers but haha, bummer for FAi to have to hear. Again. After watching Sakura wish someone to life with a mere piece of her soul. Again. Wonder how that felt. (Short post about Kurogane and Fai’s possible feelings here.)

So to end the episode, Sakura gets her feather back and then the family leaves town but sticks around on the outskirts to watch everyone fucking die again like some sick ass fuckers!!!

I’m not even going to talk about the stupid memory she gets with papa!Clow and learning about how death is a Thing via her dead pet bunny. It happens. It’s inorganic. I hate it. Shut up Clow.

The episode is over and I’ll leave you with this to heal your souls.

I am a simple woman.

Portoria:

WE’RE ON A BOAT MOTHA FUCKER!

If you’re too young to recognize that joke, click the link for... an experience. Wear headphones. Everyone else, please join me in this not-a-Wind-Waker-AU. 

We’re gonna skip all of my bad sailor jokes and focus for a minute on Kurogane’s Sinbad cosplay here because yes good hello I am easily distracted. 

Anyway, the captain is this world’s version of Koryo’s shitty Ryanban and Kurogane and Fai have a moment to wax philosophical about whether or not souls are inherently good or evil, which is fine and I would hardly mention if, while they were doing this, the “camera” wasn’t stood still on an image of Syaoran and Sakura just... smiling at each other while the dads spoke. Like the kids aren’t even doing anything, they’re just smiling. It’s weird. It’s also almost like accidental foreshadowing because HAHA THOSE ARE CLONES! But I’m not gonna go into it for the sake of this joke.

On the ship everyone has to work, Kurogane is terrorizing his new shipmates into compliance under his leadership, Fai and Sakura are cooking fish, and Syaoran is in the engine room with a child version of Fujitaka AKA his father. Understandably, Syaoran is Feeling Emotions, not that the animation is any indicator of this. He also calls a ten year old daddy so things are going great. 

Now yes, Syaoran must miss his father terribly, not only has he been dead for who knows how long exactly (anywhere upwards of 5 years possibly) but Syaoran is far from home without any pictures or familiarity to remind him of Fujitaka, and now he’s got some savant elementary schooler who is an AU version of his dad basically sharing his deepest hopes and dreams.  It’s a weird episode. Oh, and there is no feather, but Mokona is sweet as can be and stays so Syaoran can get to know this version of Fujitaka. Which honestly seems more like a punishment than anything to me, but hey. 

Also, there’s a sea monster. And a haunted island. And something that sounds suspiciously like Piedmon from Digimon. 

Syaoran and Fujitaka get stranded on the island after getting yeeted overboard and the captain telling the rest of the family that his ancestors forbid people from going to the island is enough to stop a rescue mission? Like. Kurogane AND Sakura are sitting there, letting nothing happen. This is fine. Everything is fine. 

And it kinda is because the island if filled with old shit and Syaoran is geeking out like a kid surrounded by his special interest would be expected to. 

In the end, the creepy laughter was wind, the island isn’t haunted, the family tries to row out to save Syaoran and a sea monster is on screen for all of 30 seconds. This episode was boring. Dull. It wasn’t even particularly angsty because Bee Train has no concept of emotional DEPTH!! Their expressions and emotions are as flat as Fai’s ass and as dry as Clow’s deserts. This could have been a very moving and fascinating filler episode, but Bee Train remains in capable of doing ANYTHING AT ALL EVER! I’m bored. This is boring.

At least Sakura looked cute in her little sailor outfit. 

The next episode is “A Date With a Wizard” and that shitshow is getting its own post. Peace. 

PART 1 – PART 2 – PART 3 -- Part 4

[kinetic-elaboration]

January 27: Thoughts on The 100 2x09, Remember Me

...For some reason I was really angry at the beginning of this? Also there’s a lot of Lxa bashing. Sorry. And some Clarke criticism but in the latter case, I mean it well.

Also this is really long whoops.

*

So...I miss when killing off main characters was a big deal and people actually reacted to it.

I truly cannot take Lxa seriously I’m sorry. I don’t find her... intimidating at all.

I’ve already complained repeatedly about her complete bad faith deal making at every turn so I won’t go into it again but nevertheless, here she is, again, moving the goal posts of the negotiation. ‘I’ll withdraw my army if you cure the Reapers. No, if you give up your friend. No, if you give me his body.’ Clarke should have double crossed her immediately.

Also I know that I ultimately did think it was reasonable for Finn to face Grounder justice (except insofar as that justice was itself morally untenable--that is, the Torture Porn) but now that he’s dead, I think there’s no real moral argument to be made that the Grounders deserve his body. I understand their traditions, which in fact I found quite moving when I first watched this ep, but surely his people have, or could make up, some traditions for his burial also. He is still their friend. This seems like little more than an excuse to be cruel. And Clarke’s so fucking broken she just goes with it. It’s truly awful. I mean she’s doing the only thing she can do I guess but it’s laughable that she sounds as if she has any sort of upper hand, you’re getting played bitch.

(Yeah I know, Lxa is being ‘groundbreaking’ and ‘revolutionary’ by even semi-accepting capital punishment without torture and taking his body is a way of appeasing her harder line advisers but like cry me a river--she’s either the all powerful commander or she’s fucking not.)

“We want the same things.” Lol if you wanted the same things you would have stuck to the original deal. No I’m not over this at all I guess.

I also still can’t get over how Clarke has literally never earned true leadership in the eyes of her own people and yet she continues to be randomly viewed as a leader by the Grounders and thus retains pretty much full de facto control over her own people’s power structure.

Also Kane shut the fuck up. I completely forgot about this but they really did put him through an off-screen 180 where all of a sudden Lxa is a God to him and can literally do nothing wrong and to this day we have never been given an explanation how that came to be. Guess it’s easier to tell not show huh?!?

ALSO I get we’re suppose to see a sort of racism-corollary to lines like “I don’t think they know what peace is” like obviously this rubs one the wrong way automatically. But Abby’s not really wrong. And despite what Kane thinks, Lxa has given, again, NO indication at all that she is interested in peace. She has given a lot of indications that she wants to do whatever she can to wring as much from the Sky People as she can without giving anything in return and hey we’re only halfway through the season and she’s already psychologically broken Clarke (also the only person she acknowledges as the leader even though she is not, cannot emphasize this enough, the leader of anything... and thus the only person L really has to break) and sunk-cost-fallacy-ed her into submission. Now that Finn is dead Clarke would cut off her own tit to make Lxa happy because anything else is “letting him die in vain.”

...Why am I so angry lol?

I understand the positions of both Clarke and Raven in this scene, which is fucking brutal, but I sympathize more with Raven. Clarke’s basically just a messenger, but what the Grounders are demanding is (I know I already said it) cruel, and cruel to Raven above all. And Clarke is almost all business. I think that’s what she needs to be for herself but it’s not helpful to the situation.

Anyway here are my faves in Mount Weather. It’s almost hard to watch these scenes because I want to, like, memorize them. Partially for the C/M story and partially just because. Today’s adventure is getting to a radio to send a message to the Ark-wide channel, which is a term for a thing that exists. Also I forgot how snarky everyone / Miller was to Maya. Which, I get. But--are they not thinking about how her own people have experimented on her? Like she is expendable to them, this is just a known fact at this time. So yes, there is a real risk to her, Nathan.

“Oh, is that all?” / “No--there’s more.” Monty’s so one-track he didn’t even hear the sarcasm. I love him.

“Their army has been getting their ass kicked by Mount Weather forever.” Bellamy speaking the truth. Do they need the alliance, or do they just need the Grounders to back the fuck off from attacking them? (Spoiler: they do not need the alliance.)

Ah Bellarke, always quick to reassure each other. Blindly, even.

“Since I don’t take orders from you, I’m going to need a better reason” is one of my favorite lines, and underrated. Finally someone reminding Clarke she’s not actually in charge of everyone and everything all the time. (I realize this sounds like I dislike Clarke. I don’t. I just find certain traits of hers frustrating. But this just makes her a good character.) Also you can see that, rather like her moment with Raven, she falls back on being business like and direct and issuing orders to avoid talking about feelings or breaking apart.

The United States War Room survives the apocalypse.

I’m sorry but it’s ridiculous to think that Lxa invented the concept of an alliance lol.

I guess Clarke needs to go all in on the alliance because of Finn, but... I also think this is part of who she is. Her sense of practicality outweighs any human desire to hold a grudge, and I think she assumes a level of practicality in others too, automatically, such that she underestimates wariness in others. Like Bellamy and Gustus and everyone is right to be uncertain about this literally hours-old alliance--not even an official alliance, since L’s latest demand hasn’t technically been met!--and Clarke’s like ‘yeah I’ll sleep next to people who would have killed me six hours ago np!’ because now that she’s in, she’s in. She’s neither angry nor afraid.

Linctavia like “Google Earth, always taking pictures.”

Is Lincoln wearing Ark clothes?

I know Raven is made to look kind of wan and sunken and sad but yet this scene where she’s being disarmed is honestly like peak hotness for me and I don’t know why. I like my women sullen and covered in knives?

Interesting how allegedly only the warriors knew English and yet Lxa’s big announcement re: get in line with me or die is made in English. Just going to point out yet again what a big mistake that throwaway S1 line is.

What a sad life to lead, where random declarations followed by “or death” have to form the entirety of your belief system “Don’t be upset that your wife and child are dead...or I’ll beat you to a pulp.” I truly don’t understand how we were ever supposed to get in line with this society as sympathetic or interesting. So much so that they get a whole prequel I guess???

I’d rather have a Mount Weather prequel except not really, don’t ruin it for me.

I love Miller’s canonical insane superhuman strength. This is a trait often overlooked in fics.

The usual comment on Mount Weather scenes: I love all of it.

The thing is that if everyone were on board with the funeral ceremony, it is touching. Murderer and murdered together, and the people who’ve been hurt, on both sides, saying goodbye as a group. It’s just that Clarke’s people were coerced into this--they weren’t convinced it would be a fitting ceremony, just told ‘well this is how it is and if you don’t like it, we could perhaps... KILL YOU?”

Is this a new revelation that Mount Weather crashed the Exodus ship (still a really satisfying belated explanation imo)? Or did we know that because, unlike Monty et al, we knew about the jamming signals already? Can’t remember.

You can see how L came to believe what she believes but nevertheless this is bad advice lol. “Don’t care about other people.” Okay, I’ll just stop doing that then.

Mmmm, a feast in a subway station. Delicious. Fucking full pig head as the centerpiece. Very DC.

Kane (handing over pure space moonshine probably): Just don’t drink too much of it. Clarke (five minutes later): Guzzles whole bottle at once. #partygriff is officially canon.

Waiting until tomorrow to start the war? Procrastinators. Clarke didn’t kill Finn for this.

I love Certified Dramatic Ho Bellamy knocking the cup out of Clarke’s hand even though she had made no move whatsoever to drink it.

“When you plunged your knife into the heart of the boy you loved, did you not wish that it was mine.” Lxa, also a certified Dramatic Ho.

Clarke kinda deserved to be punched in the face given that it wouldn’t actually make sense for Raven to try to poison Lxa--and make Finn’s death mean nothing? And put them all in danger in enemy territory? Nonsense. Nevertheless it’s hard not to feel bad for her when she follows this accusation up with a psychotic break.

Hmmm, do I think Abby turning in Jake was the same as Clarke killing Finn? Not really. She didn’t directly kill Jake, that was Jaha, and Jaha is who Clarke should really be mad at. That said, I don’t think she was really saving anyone in the direct way Clarke was. So, apples and oranges. Crazy awkward moment to bring it up, though lol. “Oh Clarke, you’ll feel better eventually--remember that time I killed your Dad? I got over that! Wait--does talking about your dead father upset you? That’s a surprise!” Nevertheless I appreciate major actions having consequences as that’s a semi-rarity on this show.

Monty Green: hero.

“Lxa needs this alliance as much as we do.” - True, if she intends to get her people out of MW. “She’s shown herself to be flexible.” - Not true. She’s given the bare minimum of concessions. Kane, please crawl back out of her colon for like 5 seconds, get some air.

Interesting that Raven and Bellamy are chilling near each other. I wonder what they were discussing. Tbh Bellamy’s feelings on everything in this episode are rather opaque. Other than understanding why Clarke mercy-killed Finn and being skeptical of the alliance.

“Kill one person and destroy the alliance” is literally only merciful because the default in this society is “kill everyone all the time for any reason.” Like, I guess??? That’s mercy by comparison?? But forgive me if I am not moved to admiration.

“This time justice will be done” says the woman who used the barest sliver of evidence to decide that a random person was guilty so she could have a public execution. A public execution to replace the other public execution, in fact, not to avenge a death because Gustus isn’t dead. (Yet.)

Kane’s really okay with letting Raven be tortured to death, huh? Gah he’s fucking annoying.

Bellarke: Crime Solving Duo. That’s some satisfying teamwork. Clarke figures out how the scheme worked. Bellamy figures out who’s behind the scheme. With all the evidence put together, the motive becomes clear. (Honesty, they should have been suspicious that the poison not only didn’t kill Gustus, it barely harmed him lol.)

Check out all the Department of Homeland Security stuff on Monty’s computer. This is perhaps Dante’s log in? There’s a set of “personal” files too. And a set of President’s Office files, which one would assume not everyone would have.

Anyway, I have a Thing for tense sequences of hackers...hacking.

When I first watched this season I was often so tense my whole body hurt and it’s mostly because of MW scenes like this one where Monty is caught. Like aaaaah it still gets me. He almost makes it... and then almost makes it again, with his silly little salute... (Never forget that he is A Dork.)

On the one hand, Raven being tortured and then seeing Gustus tortured to death allows her to see why Clarke killing Finn was an act of mercy, to forgive her, and to move on, so the narrative can continue with them as allies and nominal friends. And it works, basically. But I also think there’s something to the theory that they were never the same, that the wound never really healed.

I’m sorry but Octavia’s face when Clarke’s like “Yeah B, you’re expendable, go get yourself killed, have a map!!” is hilarious. Like, he’s just said that Gustus doing anything for Lxa made sense, and Octavia responded with “Look at the thanks he got” which seems to me like She Knows and then 5 seconds later Bellamy is basically thrown away by the person we all know he’d do anything for... I mean the face is fair. Also this is Bellamy’s idea and it’s a good idea and so he was right before and Clarke is also right now, but it’s still so... annoying.... like “okay, I’m done caring about you lol bye.”

And Raven’s just totally confused. It’s been a damn long day I guess.

Why are they all such fucking hotties? It’s hard to pay attention to “the plot.”

So the ashes Abby tries to give to Clarke are the same ashes, perhaps, that Jasper scatters in S3? This vial looks smaller. Why did she not immediately give them to Raven? That would seem to be the obvious thing to do.

And here we see Clarke, under L’s direct influence, becoming Increasingly Insufferable. I love her but this is obviously supposed to be her descent into the abyss: she treats her friends like little expendable minions, she turns her back on Finn’s memory, and then she ends the episode by dramatically walking into a dark room in slow motion to creepy chamber music. I mean this is the hero’s fall guys!! That’s what it always was!!!

If only they’d handled Bellamy’s hero’s fall in 3A, and Clarke’s rise again in 3B, as well.

That ending is a straight up horror movie thanks that’s why this is my favorite season.

[sarahlwlee]

31 Stories in 31 Days: Faith

What is this? As part of celebrating Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month (May), I am writing a story a day about my experiences as a Chinese Malaysian immigrant in America. My friends and family have provided numerous one-word prompts to help me create these stories. Today’s word prompt was contributed by Heather A. and the word is “Faith”. Thank you Heather for your contribution and thank you everyone who stopped by to read my story today.

When I was 14, I was baptized as a Christian at Holy Light Lutheran Church in Malaysia. One year prior, I had been taking catechism classes with the pastor and a few others who were preparing for baptism. I spent a lot of time in prayer and reading the Bible in preparation for this day. My faith in God was simple and it felt easy to understand His word, especially through song. In addition to the preparation to be baptized I was serving in church as one of the classic piano or synthesizer players for Sunday service. Whenever I prayed or read the Bible I felt a song within me that I use to play on the piano during communion or prayer at church.

The day I was baptized, I felt renewed and lighter. It was a surreal experience that is indescribable. When I shared this feeling with my parents and other grown ups, they said everyone’s baptism experience is somewhat similar but yet unique to that individual because it was about your commitment to God. Within the following year, I started to volunteer more in church especially with the youth group — from weekly cell group meetings,  to serving in the youth ministry executive team and leading worship service. This was the time where I felt most accountable to my faith and my belief in Christ was at its strongest or so I believed it to be.

After serving for more than a year on the youth ministry executive team as the secretary, I was excited to renew my service in this role. We had a new youth ministry leader take over and everyone’s role within the team was renewed with a unanimous vote. A few weeks later, the new youth ministry leader drove over to my house late one night to speak to me. My mom had greeted him at the gate and she called for me to come out and talk to him. I invited him into our house but he refused and said this was going to be short. He said that he would like his girlfriend to be the secretary because he is closer to her and feels much more comfortable working with her. In short, he asked me to step down from my role so that his girlfriend could fill the spot. No one else on the team was asked to step down, only me. As a young teenager at 16, I was disappointed and frustrated but felt helpless in pushing back or even asking for a formal process to make this official instead of some late night conversation in front of my house on opposing sides of a metal gate.

This was the beginning of when I started to lose faith in people at church. The new youth ministry leader pushed for a tight knit circle of people he liked and had existing relationships. I slowly felt pushed out of youth related activities and my opportunities were cut back to just playing the piano. One of the older youth leaders noticed I was not as active in church as I used to be and he asked me what’s holding me back. I couldn’t bring myself to explain to him what had happened and that it wasn’t me holding back but rather the opportunities were taken away and given to someone else. So I did what I did best at the time, I shrugged my shoulders in shyness and said “I don’t know.”

The youth cell group I was a part of was named “Joy”. Each youth cell group was named after the Fruits of the Spirit. Eventually our attendance started to drop and the same thing happened to “Love” youth cell group, so they merged our groups together. I really enjoyed these gatherings and the activities we did, however I always felt like I was the outsider trying to find a way in to this group. The inside jokes they shared, I could never get into nor understand the context. So when a joke was told, I wouldn’t laugh because I didn’t get it. This interaction continued to drive a wedge between my desire of connecting with the youth group and pursuing something else. I stayed for as long as I could because it pleased my mother that I was serving God and participating in Christian youth group.

During this same time, I started to engage more with a writers group called Phases Young Writers (PhYW). I met some really amazing people through this group and felt more accepted as well as welcomed into this group. Many of them were Christians and wrote for the Phases magazine, published by Scripture Union. The experience allowed me to explore writing and also step up as a leader to bring a group of people together who often felt like they didn’t fit in anywhere else. As I began to increase my involvement in the PhYW, I reduced my involvement with the youth cell group.

Subsequently, I told my cell group leader that I was leaving the group. He was sad and disappointed that I was leaving and wanted to make sure I was still getting the guidance I needed for my faith. I told him all about PhYW and what we had been doing, it sounded just like a youth cell group but with an emphasis on quirky writing and fans of good literature. He reluctantly approved my departure and I never returned to any youth activities except for Sunday church service with my parents. I even stopped volunteering to play the piano. A few of the musicians on the worship team tried really hard to engage me to continue playing with them by leveraging other instruments I played such as the violin. I was just so disappointed in the youth ministry and the church overall for allowing this culture to permeate its congregation.

In reflection, could I have told somebody about my frustration and would things be different? I don’t know. My family was labeled as big complainers in the church, especially after a big argument my mother had with another older youth leader about me. I felt that if I complained to someone, I would be labeled being just like my mother and people wouldn’t take me seriously or be blamed for getting kicked out because I was a troublemaker. I don’t hold any grudges towards anyone in that church today. These were very difficult thoughts to process as a teenager and the only reasonable choice I had at the time was to leave.

When I traveled to Kalamazoo for my undergraduate studies, I left everything about Holy Light Lutheran Church behind and thought I could start fresh with a new church or youth group at college. The first church I went to was a Lutheran church on West Main. I attended a few Sunday services on my own and inquired with the pastor if I could join their music ministry. He introduced me to the music ministry lead and they told me there is no extra spots in the music ministry where I could participate in. I kept asking about other opportunities on how I could get involved and each time they said no. Eventually I got the feeling that I was too different than everyone else in that church and they weren’t as welcoming to foreign students. I stopped going to the church because why would I want to keep going when I’m not welcomed. Later I found out a different foreign student who came from Sunway College went to this same church at a different time than I did and was given the same treatment.

I researched on campus for a Christian Fellowship group for college students and when I joined I thought I had found my people. I joined a Bible study group as part of the Christian Fellowship and we threw a few awesome Salsa dancing parties to bring people together. I even designed the invitations. After awhile, the Bible study group leader started to withdraw from her leadership role and subsequently the Bible study group fell apart. I wanted to join another group, but they were not taking anymore people into their group. If they took anymore, the group would have to split up to form new groups and they didn’t want that to happen. So I stopped going and trying to engage with other Christian groups.

Today, I don’t go to church nor do I belong to any Christian group. I have made my peace that I shouldn’t put my faith in people when it comes to having faith in God. We can only be responsible for our own actions and behavior. People stumble, fail and make mistakes all the time, just like me. So holding them responsible for my personal stumbling in my faith seems unreasonable. I still pray because it brings me a lot of comfort during very difficult times and have several prayers from the Bible memorized since I was a teenager. Reading the Bible is now much easier in a digital format than reading a physical book, which has made it easier for me to digest God’s word.

Not many people know I am a Christian at heart, it’s a piece of me that I keep hidden and private because I don’t want to discuss judgment others might have of me not going to church or not carrying on practices that a typical Christian should be doing. I know I am not typical and I have accepted that part of myself. It took me a long time to come to this acceptance and I have felt so much lighter in my heart.

[eldunea]

hear me out: lotor sincline as muggle studies professor and head of slytherin house.

would happen probably in his late 20s/early 30s after he designs the sincline mech and gets the wizarding space program up and running. at that point he’d probably hand off official control of his project to his mother honerva (though he’d still have some influence over it) and start focusing some of his energy on his decolonization project where he wants to bring back POC customs of wizards and muggles living side-by-side. to achieve this end. his aim as muggle studies professor is to get students used to the idea that wizards and muggles can and should coexist peacefully.

he has four main focuses in teaching his course: customs, history, philosophy and science. he tends to focus more on the last three than the first because those are more within his realm of knowledge. he also has more of an international focus rather than simply a european one when talking about history, philosophy and science--he could go on forever about how indigenous mesoamericans domesticated and bred 3,000 varieties of plants, or about the intricacies of lao tzu’s tao te ching, or about the hidden role of claudette colvin in america’s civil rights movement. and if there’s one thing that he nerds out about more than pre-contact histories of his parents’ peoples, it’s muggle jewish inventors. 

he has a special unit that he teaches to third years about 20th century atrocities and totalitarianism. he spends literally the entire second semester of third year talking about why dictatorships form, the tactics of corrupt leadership in controlling peoples’ lives, and how it’s every citizen’s duty to prevent this shit from happening again. he drives the message home by doing a comparative study of the rise of voldemort and the rise of hitler, and talking about how muggles’ racial biases toward POC have always influenced how wizards felt as well. one of the underlying themes of this unit is that wizards are more influenced by currents of muggle society than many would want to admit, and that’s why muggle studies is important.

one of his biggest messages as a professor other than the fact that wizards and muggles can live peacefully with each other is that muggles are the real wizards. literally when he starts class with third years he starts off with “wizards are fucking useless, i have the stats to prove it, we’ve technologically stagnated since the 1900s and we have the lowest proportion of inventors and scientists of any people in the world. muggles discovered the inner workings of nature through the likes of newton and einstein and hawking, and meanwhile in our corner we have bartholomew briggleby still pooping in the backyard and vanishing it like a dog because he’s never heard of a toilet.” he is vociferous about the notion that wizards are technologically lazy and complacent and it is imperative that the next generation starts being more like him and going out and inventing.

his domesticated foxes kugel and brisket have free run of the hogwarts grounds and all the students love them. occasionally a third fox--lotor himself--shows up with them. students, not knowing that it’s one of their teachers, have affectionately named it “blintzes.”

he’d also teach alchemy to the 6th and 7th years if there’s sufficient interest. the workload in the years where he has to do that is hellish but he pulls it off.

and some separate headcanons about lotor as head of slytherin house because HO BOY he’s about to start a revolution up in this bitch

he’s the first POC head of slytherin as well as its first jewish head. he goes to the chamber of secrets and takes a picture of himself leaning against the giant head of his house’s founder and writes a giant magical blogging post about how slytherin was antisemitic, how he said “jewish blood is just as dirty as muggle blood,” how he wanted to use the basilisk to purge the school of jewish students as well as muggle-born ones and how lotor literally became head of slytherin house out of PURE SPITE. he just.

“this isn’t your house anymore. it belongs to the people who live in it. it belongs to the ambition of the muggle-born who wants to show he’s just as good as any pureblood, or the romani child who wants to be the first in her family to graduate hogwarts. the cunning of the abuse survivor who has done everything in their power to survive. the leadership that young indigenous activists show when we fight to save the planet from the point of no return. the fraternity found in solidarity between jews, christians and muslims. I REFUSE to let hogwarts be a place where one house remains a bastion for prejudiced slander and hate, because if one house isn’t safe for the marginalized, the whole school isn’t safe either.”

half of his house hates him for that. if it’s not the conservative snob students calling for his removal, it’s their parents who most likely silently supported the death eaters while voldemort’s campaign was raging. but many of them learn very quickly not to mess with him for a reason stated below.

with all this feel-good talk, he seems more of a gryffindor or a hufflepuff. but to those students who break the rules or who try to make his life hell on the basis of his identity, he has steady reminders of how much of a slytherin he actually is. students who try to undermine him or others in sneaky ways are surprised to learn that he’s twice the filthy piece of shit that they all hope to be; no matter how clever they think they are he’s at least ten steps ahead, and it drives the lesson home when he manages to beat them at their own games. he sends the students off to detention with a smirk on his face, telling them “you can’t outfox a fox.” most of the time he takes absolutely no shit from troublemakers and isn’t afraid to teach them lessons the hard way. but if someone is looking to go after a known bully or something along those lines…he might look the other way.

he’s also damn good at keeping people in his house from going down the wrong path. he’s seen both sides of the coin--having been abused by white supremacists all his life and then experimenting with dark magic to get back at his abusers--so he knows real trouble when he sees it and he always puts a stop to it. 

this is where his persuasion comes in: he knows those kids won’t listen if he appeals to conventional morality, because he sure as hell didn’t listen either. so he appeals to their value systems instead. like if he catches someone with a hand of glory stealing stuff from other students who wants to be a master thief, he won’t blather on about why stealing is wrong, he’ll say “wow, i didn’t know your biggest dream in life was to be a petty felon. you’re a slytherin. where’s your ambition? don’t you want to be more than that?” or if someone wants to hurt someone via dark magic to achieve their ends, he’s like “well that’s not very clever of you. aren’t you smart enough to think of another way to get what you want?” of course, he always makes sure to walk them through the ethics of it later, but he knows he has to appeal to their self-interest, their ego and their childish still-developing emotions in order to hook them in. basically it takes a bastard to know a bastard and lotor is a supreme bastard so he can get inside their heads like nobody else.

one of the things he often has to do as a result of keeping kids out of trouble is confronting blood supremacist and otherwise bigoted parents when he talks their kids out of following their values. it’s fucking exhausting for him having to deal with their bullshit on a yearly basis but every time this happens he tells his students, “arguing is the jewish national sport. i was born for this” and goes right in.

if the parents get real bad, whether through hammering in bigoted ideologies or other forms of child abuse, lotor will straight up invite them to stay in hogwarts year-round. some of the nastier parents have straight up refused to let their kids go to hogwarts anymore and opt to send them to durmstrang, so this is their only option if they want to continue their education in a school that like, doesn’t teach the dark arts. he sometimes lives in the slytherin common room during the summer to keep an eye on the kids that stay there because they can’t go back home in one way or another and he’s more of a parent to them than some of their parents ever were.

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

“Another Life” Review: Another Hour of Mine I Won’t Get Back

One of the good things about Netlix (particularly compared to traditional TV channels) is that its ability to deliver a wide variety of content simultaneously allows it to experiment with things that might not have wider appeal. This is particularly important where genre fiction is concerned, because you can’t rely on formula to develop something genuinely good in that area. Who’d have thought that a ‘cursed object’ story set exclusively in the art world where everyone talks like they’re delivering a devastating Gustav Klimt review would turn out to be one of the best horror movies of recent years? And yet Velvet Buzzsaw blew me away and gave me a reason not to give up on western culture completely. Likewise, who expected a revenge saga about classical music with (at most) one or two truly graphic scenes to be the most gut-wrenching and powerful psychological thrillers of recent years? Yet The Perfection was one of the only truly transcendent films I’ve ever had the privilege of watching. The same goes for series- it’s hard to imagine that an overwhelming blend of surreal and dystopian imagery, hard-to-grasp technological concepts, semi-obscure literary references, needlessly brutal violence, gleeful depravity, whip-smart humour and a borderline-sociopath with a Hello Kitty rucksack would ever be aired on a proper channel. Altered Carbon, however, turned out to be one of the best sci-fi series of the last decade, missing the top spot only thanks to the existence of Rick and Morty.

The reason I’ve started with all this gushing praise, however, is merely to provide context and a necessary counterbalance to the excoriating review that follows. For you see, an ability to deliver niche or experimental content can lead to abject failures as well as shining successes. For every underrated gem, there must be a meticulously-polished turd waiting to ambush the unsuspecting connoisseur. Ladies and gentlemen, Another Life is that turd.

On paper, Another Life sounds like good, solid sci-fi. A starship captain has to travel across the universe to ascertain whether an alien race that recently dropped probes on Earth is hostile or just curious. Along the way, her journey will be complicated by a crew who’s used to working under a different captain with a radically different style of leadership and all the usual, real-life-plausible dangers of travel through uncharted space (along with a few blatantly made-up ones). It’s not a terrible idea, but every bad creative decision that could be made is made and so the whole things collapses like a poorly-made soufle before the end of episode one.

For a start, let’s talk about the show’s aesthetics and visual decisions. the CG budget clearly wasn’t huge (which is fine), but the show tries to realise as many of its effects as possible using CG anyway, which stretches that minimal budget far too thin and draws attention to how artificial and contrived everything looks. For example, the decision to make the alien probes on Earth giant shimmering walls of crystal that can only be realised through CG is particularly baffling, given that they could just have been big fuck-off metal things that could have been physically built as a set. Meanwhile, the show‘s overall look is... well, bland. If you’ve seen literally any space sci-fi before, you’ve seen the individual elements of the tech in Another Life. I think it’s aiming for Archetypal, but it just looks lazy. It doesn’t help that they liberally borrow terminology from other sci-fi. I know that ‘Impulse Engine’ is technically (probably) the correct name for a slower-than-light engine that works in a particular way, but calling your space engines that just invites comparisons to Star Trek, which won’t be favourable. Back to the point, though: in addition to cribbing heavily from superior shows, Another Life also makes everything look far too smooth and clean. A spaceship is a working vehicle filled with people doing dangerous, difficult, often dirty jobs. Its interior shouldn’t look like an iPhone fucked a trendy west-end bar. Seriously, the ‘future’ set in fucking Crystal Maze looks more convincing.

The problem of everything seeming too smooth and clean extends beyond the visuals and into the casting. Practically everyone in the core cast is in their early twenties. They’re not bad actors, necessarily, but they clearly need older, more experienced hands around them to guide their performances and the absence of these more seasoned actors is felt acutely. There’s a reason why mature sci-fi shows usually cast across a broad age range- you’re asking your cast to deal with conceptual and scientific abstractions that can be challenging for people who don’t have a few performances under their belt. It also feels wildly implausible that a dangerous space-mission would feature a bunch of hormonal twenty-somethings who’s personal drama might get in the way of them making clever decisions. The main lass (whose name I’ve already forgotten), is played by a noticeably older woman. Indeed, that age difference is a big part of her character: can she win the trust and respect of the young hotheads? Unfortunately, one older actress does not a seasoned cast make. Besides, the character she’s playing just isn’t worth rooting for. It’s not that she’s a terrible person- she’s coldly aloof, but so was Picard and everyone loves that dude. It’s just that she has no depth. She has a family back on Earth, and we’re told that she’s missing them and trying to ensure the mission’s success so she can see them again, but the supposed internal conflict has no effect on her behaviour. She just goes about robotically calculating and minimising risk, even though doing so ensures that she’s going to be in space, away from her loved ones, for much, much longer. Within the narrative of the show, she’s making the correct, mature decisions, but shouldn’t they be causing her some introspective strife? No? Yes? Does this fucking show care one way or the other?

Of course, janky characters and budget set designs are kind of par for the cause with sci-fi of a certain type. Sometimes it can be endearing (the fact that the sets literally wobbled sometimes in early Doctor Who was part of its charm, for example). A much bigger problem is Another Life’s total lack of narrative logic. The main character (no I still can’t remember her name, nor be bothered to check) managed to get ten people killed the last time she was in charge of a starship. Surely that’s the point at which you politely ask someone to retire? Even if there were mitigating circumstances (which there probably were because showing fallibility in its lead is not something this show feels comfortable with), why on Earth would anyone put her in charge of a crew of emotional 20-somethings she’s never met before while their previous, trusted captain is still on the fucking ship and clearly feeling mutinous? That’s just bad management on behalf of planet Earth’s top brass. I can only hope that someone in HR got the sack for that one. Or, better yet, that a giant hammer will spontaneously fall out of the sky and hit this show’s script-writer so hard in the head that he loses control of his motor functions and bowels and is forced to retire to a convalescent home for the incontinent.

The captain’s own decision making processes are just as baffling as her bosses. There’s a bit where the crew figures out that they can get back on course and cut down on journey time by slingshotting around a slightly temperamental star using the same shielding they use when traveling at FTL (yeah- FTL space travel is a common thing in this universe, yet humans have somehow never met another alien race before- make of that what you will). They already tried to slingshot round the star once and were forced to abort and break orbit because of the strain on the ship. The plan has an 89% chance of success. The 11% chance of failure doesn’t equate to instant death or anything- logically, it just means the shield would fail and they’d have to break orbit again (because that’s what happened before: remember that we’ve already established that slingshotting around the star doesn’t do anything worse than rattle the ship and give everyone plenty of time to back off). For some reason, Captain Caution decides that the high chance of success, negligible risk of serious repercussions and massive potential benefits just aren’t good enough and vetoes the plan, thereby adding months to the voyage. Isn’t establishing whether the new, technologically superior alien neighbours are friendly or not something of a time-critical op, by the way? Naturally, the crew mutiny (under the leadership of the previous captain), try their plan and it fails miserable.

And there’s the final nail in the coffin for Another Life. It doesn’t play by its own rules. Its established that the FTL shields can’t use much power, because they’re on all the fucking time during FTL. It’s established that nothing particularly terrible happens when you try to slingshot round a star and have to abort. It’s established that combining those two facts to get a speed boost has an 89% chance of success. And yet, when the crew try it without the Captain’s express permission, bits of the ship start to explode, everything goes to shit and the vessel ends up in a decaying orbit around the sun, somehow drained of power. The show’s in such a hurry to show that it’s main character is right and correct and noble in everything she does that it forgets rules it laid down literally five minutes earlier.

The whole shoddy shebang has a weirdly patronising and conservative ethos. “Listen to your elders and official superiors”, it whispers smugly. “They always know best, even when they’re responsible for the deaths of ten or more people in the quite recent past. Don’t think for yourself. Don’t try to improve your situation. The old, safe ways of doing things are always best, even when they seem neurotic or unworkable.” It’s weird, because it’s the exact opposite problem that sci-fi normally has. Normally, sci-fi tries so hard to be forward-looking that you end up with a bunch of wide-eyed fuckwits trusting the power of friendship and love over a more measured, carefully-planned approach. Both sides of the coin are equally annoying since they involve sacrificing the internal logic of the fictional universe on the alter of Some Hack’s personal ethos. However, Another Life earns my full, unmitigated disapprobation, not just a mild slap on the wrist, because it doesn’t even bother to be a good sci-fi show before jumping into the message-mongering bullshit. Remember, all this shit is from episode one. My advice to those of you craving some hard space sci-fi is to re-watch Nightflyers instead. It’s weird as balls, well-scripted, has a properly-established set of hard sci-fi rules and there’s even a romantic subplot involving the hologramatic projection of a hideous mutant. Yeah. Go watch that instead. I think I might, too, come to think of it.

[xxkellsvixen19xx]

You are Michael's partner/one & only/second-in-charge. You & Outpost Michael have gotten into an argument regarding the selections & you've had enough of him having the last word. While he's away from your chamber, you pack up & secretly leave the bunker towards the next Outpost without a word of where you're going. Michael immediately senses your absence and ... how will he react to this? 🤔

Breach Michael x Reader

Word Count 1,895

A/N: absolutely loved this concept enjoyed working with it!

Requested by @master-langdon

It was a cold grey day in late November. The weather had changed overnight, when a backing wind brought a granite sky and the nuclear winter with it. It has officially been eighteen months since the bombs fell beginning the apocalypse.

Y/N stepped out of the carriage that had pulled up outside of Outpost 3. Looking around it could best be described as a scene out of a low budget horror movie, there was rarely much left that would pass as suitable much less look like an even remote possibility of surviving. To you it looked like ground zero and to be completely honest it left you with a rather superstitious feeling, hell it actual creeped you out.

Y/N and Michael arrived at outpost 3 it was the fourth one they have visited that actually had even.an inkling of any survivors. The first three outposts they has been either abandoned, destroyed or in the case of the output they visited in Syracuse New York the survivors had been massacred.

Y/N stood inside the main commons area a little later on. Michael glided across the floor im stealth like movement. The nervous faces of the survivors watched in anticipation

Michael spoke up piercing the dead silence that had fallen across the room. “My name is Langdon and I represent the Cooperative, I won't sugar coat the situation humanity is on the brink. My arrival here is critical to the future of your survival.”

When leadership from the Cooperative arrive it was a moment that caught everyone by surprise. Michael is Venable's superior within the Cooperative, she was unaware that a representative had any intentions of course unexpectedly, Michael stood in front of the fire in the commons area. He says the other outposts had been overrun — by what, he didn't specify — and that Outpost 3 is the only surviving beacon besides another mysterious "facility" that he now wants to whisk some of the survivors to.

The questions started firing out one after the other, where was this 'sanctuary. Was there enough food supplies tp last, ect.. ect. Michael turned his head cocking it to the side, he looked stoic showing no sign of commotion. “Classified!” He responded sharply. A few more questions were asked, each receiving that same answer.. “It should take a few days at the most to conduct my interviews and can inform everyone of the results shortly after.

Michael and Y/N had been involved in a relationship for years on both a professional level as well as personal. You served as a second in command to Michael as your role in the Cooperative. They both held in their possession ID cards that contain their signatures. Michael's saying"President" and yours "Chancellor" of the Cooperative, as well as having ID numbers, ranking numbers, and other coding. Your role being that it is second in command means that in the event that Michael that was unable to or not present to carry out the work of the Cooperative then you would act in his place.

There were times that you both equally worked together, but when Y/N and Michael started to pay visits to the outposts to conduct the interviews you noticed that Michael was adamant about doing these interviews himself. You tried on multiple occasions to offer your help because honestly you felt like why should one person be bogged down with all that work it's stressful. Michael often spent late hours either conducting interviews or he was going over files or emails in his laptop.

It wasn't uncommon for you to loiter around the passageways or close to his office door to hear that was discussed between him and the survivor being questioned at that time. Y/N paid attention and absorbed info that she retained to be able to formulate your own observation/opinion as well. Normally you two were able to talk to each other when it came to any matters pertaining to the Cooperative. Y/N and Michael had that dynamic where they could talk to one another, discuss options, offer insight and work together for results. You couldn't understand why Michael seemed to be keeping you 'in the dark’ when it came to the interviews and the information revolving around it. At first you didn't confront him about anything. You stayed pretty closed lipped, knowing that given time you would bring it up. Timing was everything when it came to approaching Michael with something Y/N know was viewed as controversial and or possibly sensitive.

Y/N at various points of time had the opportunity to gain enough info on each of the survivors of Outpost 3. You weren't certain who Michael in his opinion deemed as worthy to join you both at the sanctuary. Ultimately when it came to making choices you were known to think practically and logically. You took into consideration with each person their strengths, weaknesses, the positive and the negative.

Y/N approached Michael carefully, you happen to catch him in a halfway decent mood so you hoped that maybe that since you were discussing this that maybe it would be done so in a civilized manner. “I take it the interview process must be completed.” You observed. “Just about, got a few more to take place tomorrow evening. I may some in mind though but waiting to see after I complete the final ones though.” He responded not looking up from his laptop. You had paid careful attention to who he had already interviewed, you knew exactly when and who as most of the interviews took place when everyone was gathered in the commons area. You would watch as Mrs. Mead approached each party saying “Mr. Langdon wishes to speak with you.” The only two people left yet to be interviewed was Mallory (the grey) and Andre Dinah Stevens son.

You were vaguely curious as to who Michael had in mind or thought to be worthy. “Oh really… who are the possible viable candidates if you don't mind me asking.” You asked carefully silently hoping that he would answer. Michael paused momentarily to briefly look up at you, “Mrs St Pierre Vanderbilt and Gallant.” Your jaw dropped slightly and your eyes held a shocked expression. You just as quickly regained your composer praying that Michael hadn't witnessed your initial reaction of absolute shock. “I have been paying attention to the inhabitants here, just from witnessing actions, overhearing conversations ect it seems to me that Mr Campbell and Emily seem to be viable.” Out of those you have had the opportunity to observe as well as overhear conversations about that those two seemed pretty decent. They seemed level headed and out of those that were currently residing there they had the most common sense.

Michael let out an amused chuckle “When we begin our journey through the new world I would rather have people with experience. Not deal with two fairly wet behind the ear young adults.” You felt your anger rise, normally you and Michael could talk to each other, or at least discuss things maturely. You took a deep breath before you spoke again…”Michael..you might want to consider this. Others may have not acted with the best of intentions—and that you might not know the whole story.” Michael's eyes flushed red, he was definitely angry. Despite the fact that you appreciated this as tactfully as possible it was clear you still somehow managed to strike a nerve with you. There was clearly some difference of opinion, which is heartening, you did your best to hide your emotions from Michael.

You made a final attempt to try and discuss this with him. “I understand it can be a slight oversight..” Pausing for a moment you tried to approach this professionally. “Maybe you haven’t finished thinking this through, the whole selection process a surprise to you, or you want to get a clearer sense of what is going on,” Michael's eyes held yours in a stare that read quite defensive, “I know what I am doing Y/N just drop it!” You could see that your difference of opinion is based partly on the differing understandings of the purpose of the purpose at hand. You didn't say anything more, it seemed clear that Michael wasn't open minded enough to listen to your point of view on this.

The next day while Michael conducted the final two interviews you remained back in the suite packing your things. Michael seemed determined to handle the selection process in his own way here, you took it upon yourself to leave before him to the next outpost. You wanted to handle things professionally and fairly, Michael however seemed to make it personal. Later on that night Michael returned back to the suite, it had been a long day. He didn't completely notice it at first, at one point he caught sight of a dresser drawer that was open ajar. Michael immediately got the sense that something was off, he opened the drawer all the way it was completely empty. Michael looked through the rest of the drawers and your side of the armoire..bare empty everything of yours no longer there. You were gone. Michael had never been so confused in his whole entire life. He didn't understand, why, why had he allowed this to get to this point?

Michael needed to see Y/N again, to speak to her but he was faced with a simple conundrum: what should I do next? Email her? Would the Cooperative or anyone know of your where abouts? Michael could only blame himself, he had let a personal vendetta get in the way of not only a professional relationship but his feelings for Y/N.

Michael POV…

‘My beloved Y/N, you are the greatest thing in my life and it breaks my heart to see that I have hurt you. I hate knowing that I have upset you. The last thing I want to do is hurt your feelings and make you feel insuperior. To make you think that your opinions hold no value. You mean the world to me. You deserve so much better than this and I promise I will make this right, Please Y/N forgive me and I hope that I can prove that I mean it when I say that I am sorry.’

An encrypted email came through from Jeff Pfister, Y/N had left heading to outpost 8 in Phoenix Arizona. Michael wasted no time on packing up his things and heading that way. He was going to make this right with you no matter what it took, you were far to important to him professionally and personally to let it end this way.

Neither Michael nor Y/N depend on the other for their feelings of self worth- they know in their heart that they are just as valuable to the world as the other. Good looking, optimistic, and they spark a light in the world that people recognize that goes beyond a normal relationship.

They are the perfect power couple...one of them is flawed, the other makes up for their weaknesses in their strength. Together they are the epitome of what anyone would desire in a relationship. They encourage goodness in the world and make it a better place by being together.