#are being erased from history/only talked about via relationship to men

[sochilll]

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[contacttwo681]

Best Dating App For Professionals Over 40

Best Free Dating App For Over 40s

Best Dating Site For Professionals Over 40

Best Dating App For Professionals Over 40 2019

OkCupid's basic services are free to use, and upgraded features start at $4.95 per month. Tinder: One of the most popular dating apps, Tinder was once known as a hookup app for people not looking for long-term commitment. But for many people over 50 Tinder has become a more traditional way to meet and connect. Best dating sites and apps for people over 40 — and which ones to avoid. Find love again (or for the first time.). EliteSingles utilizes a bunch of algorithms to find you a professional match. After a lot of trail and error, here's my unfiltered take on the best dating apps for women over 40, from Bumble to Hinge to eHarmony. Since 2007, Zoosk has distinguished itself as a high-tech dating site and app for singles looking to socialize and pick up dates on the fly. It has over 40 million members and sees over 3 million messages exchanged per day.

It is impossible to stop time and go back to the past. It has turned out that older people mostly search via the internet “what are the best free online dating sites for over 40?” because they are still single. That happens due to one important factor.

Single Sites For Over 40

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When you become older, it is much more difficult to meet new people, especially to marry. It is truly half of life. Many have managed to achieve something in their lives, maybe even several marriages and divorces. However, love is something eternal. That is why there are plenty of over 40 dating sites for singles over 40. They provide various opportunities for communication in order to find love. There a 40-year-old woman can easily start dating a man over forty that have never married. Everyone deserves to be loved, and you also will definitely find it: over 40 dating websites will help you with it.

Characteristics of Best Dating Sites for Over 40

The industry of online dating has developed tremendously, and now there even free dating services for over 40. All of them are different, with their strong and weak sides. It is necessary to define whether a over 40 website is good or not. That is why there are some common standards that the best dating websites for over 40 must match. Some features are very common, but they also must be implemented in a proper way. Here is their overview.

Easy to Use

An over 40 dating website should not be complicated. It must have a simple infrastructure that every new member will be able to easily use. With well-thought-out website design, even not tech-savvy users will be able to easily find future husbands and wives.

Free Registration Process

Registration should be free. It allows new members to try the service and decide if to continue or not. In addition, in enlarges the number of members, thus improves the chances of perfect matching. The sign-up process also should not be able to be done through social networks as it may lead to leakage of personal information. It is also should include verification by email to decrease the number of fake accounts. Most scammers do not want to waste much time, and email verification can be a small obstacle to a part of them.

Well-Thought-Out Questionnaire

It is common knowledge that it is difficult to write about yourself from scratch, and this can disinterest new members for further over 40 dating steps. As a solution, there are questionnaires. Most internet users like answering different questions about themselves instead of writing personal info. It allows to quickly fill in important information. Hence, over the forties dating sites develop their own questions to save users’ time and make it easier to find people with the same interests. They are not obligatory. You can skip this process and provide information about yourself later when you would like to.

Communication Tools

Probably, the most important thing in the over 40 dating process is communication. On the best over 40 dating sites, you should be able to express your emotions and feelings, which means that sending only emails is not a solution. There just must be tools for communication, such as:

Live Chat With Instant Messages

The possibility of chatting in real-time greatly improves the relationship between people.

Voice Calls

Talking is very important as you can hear most of the emotions and understand how a person reacts to what you say.

Video Calls

Real-time communication with video helps to see if all the photos are too altered and how a person looks like. It is recommended to have at least several video calls before meeting offline.

Translation Services

Mostly members communicate with someone from a foreign country. It means that they may not know some common language. Therefore, the translation service will help to erase this language gap between people.

24/7 Customer Support

In case of some troubles, a customer support team should be there. It must be available 24/7 due to the fact that members from different countries live in different time zones. You may contact them for sure if you have some concerns like:

Registration process;

Suspicious behavior of a member;

Search tools usage;

Payment issues;

How to start a conversation and you need some tips on how to do that;

Amount of profiles.

Speaking of singles over 40 dating sites, you must understand that they have a vast network that attracts new users from all over the world. You can find members from oversees countries like the US, Canada, Australia, and Europe. It has become a wonderful community of single men and women. On such over 40 dating platform, it is much easier to find a person due to your preferences and create a lovely couple.

Profiles Quality

Over 40 dating websites can be rated by the quality of users’ profiles. They must include:

Photos of a person that are not fake;

Initial user info: name, country, age, nationality etc;

Self-description of personality, hobbies, world view, and favorite things;

Expectations from a future partner.

Additionally, some members may upload short videos about themselves

Premium online dating platforms check if the provided information is up-to-date and is not going to mislead other members.

Safety

The most important thing while using any kind of over 40 dating platform is safety. There is a special management team that checks if the members are likely to be scammers. It has turned out that most female accounts are used to deceive people. Even after registration and member validation, checkups do not end. Security team continues to monitor these users, and if any of them will ask for money, send spam, or behave inappropriately, they will ban this account. It is necessary to mention that over 40 international dating websites cannot guarantee 100% safety. Hence, they inform their members with what to do in case of fraud and suspicious behavior of members according to security guidelines.

Pricing

You should know that for most of the features on over 40 dating websites you will have to pay. However, you may forget about subscriptions. They proved their inconvenience as users do not spend most of the time that they have paid for. There is a new tendency of credit system where you buy specific currency on to find single professionals over 40. The most pleasant side of this system is that you will spend credits only when you use something. It does not bind you to the time, and you can use free over forty dating services when you want. Moreover, there are discounts for loyal members. Speaking of payment methods, you will be definitely able to use:

Visa

MasterCard

Discover

Maestro credit, debit, prepaid or gift card

PayPal is also available for some countries

Additional Services

Dating websites for over 40 often provide additional services to improve communication and relationships between members. They help to erase the borders between people, and it can be done by using:

Present Delivery Service

It can help you to express your feelings by sending a present to a person you like. This delivery service can make it even in a different part of the world. It takes up to 8 working days, and in the end, you will receive a photo report. Among the gifts that you can send are:

Toys

Chocolate

Perfumes

Flowers

Jewelry

Smartphones

Offline Dating Service

Over 40 dating service can help you to organize an offline date if the person you like also agrees. It allows being sure that the date will definitely happen. However, bear in mind that you will have to pay for accommodation and flight by yourself.

Exchange of Personal Contacts

This service allows both people to receive phone numbers of each other, so they can continue to talk outside the over 40 dating platform. It can be used only if communication is going well and the two are not against of doing this.

Best Free Dating Sites for Over 40

On the internet, you can find different best places to meet women over 40. However, these definitely match the above-mentioned features that indicate their high quality. You will not regret using them.

VictoriaHearts.com

Amazing over 40 plus places that will surprise you with the simplicity of usage. With quick registration, the initial questionnaire, and a powerful search tool, new members easily find nice people to talk and date.

Valentime.com

Wonderful over 40 international dating platform that has a high rate of women from Eastern Europe. It has an excellent 24/7 customer support that helps not only with some problems but also can help in online dating.

MatchTruly.com

This over 40 website is considered to be one of the best in quality of member profiles and safety. It has a long history of successful matchings of people from different countries.

Conclusion

Best Free Dating App For Over 40s

While searching for the best dating websites for over 40, you should remember all important qualities that they must have. This is how over 40 dating platforms can prove their usefulness and safety. Age does not matter; everyone deserves to find love.

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Table of Contents

Best online dating apps and sites for over 40 singles

When it comes to dating men and women over 40, many middle-aged singles might be worried about getting back into a relationship. Whether they are recently divorced or single, professionals focusing on their careers, or looking after kids, there are many reasons over 40 singles wait to date.

Whether you are a professional who wants to start dating or a divorced, single parent looking to try dating, there are options. Many people are dating with kids as well. You can also find matches for friendship, but of course romance and love are the focus.

Hitting your mid-life period doesn’t mean that your dating is done. There are now plenty of over 40 dating apps and websites, allowing you to enjoy 40+ dating like never before! Here are some of the best over 40 dating app / sites today:

OkCupid

OkCupid is one of the leading dating websites and apps for helping you to match with new, like minded users who are also in their forties. They offer free registration and a way to link in through Facebook as well, making set up your profile easier than ever before.

Filter your searches for a partner based on a variety of topics, such as interests, physical appearance, location, and more! You can also take the time to make meaningful connections via their chat and messaging and arrange dates with people who are a perfect match for you.

To top it all off, they offer an excellent app for anyone who is on the go and looking for a new dating relationship while still maintaining a busy lifestyle.

Match.com

One of the largest and best apps for people looking to start a new relationship with men and women across the United States.

Match is especially great for people who are looking to utilize the full extent of an advanced matching service, including filtering out the types of single over 40 people who they may not want to date. This means you can be specific about dating people who are focused on their careers, have children, or are looking to meet someone that shares a specific hobby.

Sign up for free today with either email or your own Facebook account and enjoy their easy-to-use app and website!

EHarmony

Launched in 2000, Eharmony is one of the leading online dating services for serious relationships, especially with the over 40 crowd that wants to take the time to find true love with help from one of the best sites for dating.

Start a relationship on your own terms with the help of Eharmony, connecting people through the use of advanced filtering, profile creation, and some of best matching services on the market today.

They do offer free registration when you sign up, but you can only view your matches with this level of subscription. You will need a paying account to make use of all the features that Eharmony has to offer.

What to consider when you start dating in your forties

Dating in your forties means that you are bringing experience and baggage into a place where you may not be used to having both. Many things will be the same as when you were younger, but not everything.

For many, the big issue with dating in later life is that there may be children involved. While a partner having kids is a possibility, it shouldn’t put you off. If the family is welcoming, it can be a rewarding experience. Plus, children are especially good at giving you a signal if your match is truly good.

For people who are dealing with loss, there may be the issue of living in the shadow of the partner who’s passed on. Whether you do it to a date or they do it to you, the important thing is to remember that you should stop with this kind of comparison.

Ultimately, the relationship you share with someone will be different from the one they had. No better or worse, just different. And maybe even the best one.

Finally, you may also have financial concerns, particularly if you’ve been through a divorce. However, letting your money rule your love-life is a sure-fire way to scupper any future romance. Sometimes, you just have to roll the dice and see what happens.

What are Pros & Cons to middle-age dating?

Best Dating Site For Professionals Over 40

Pros

You’re far more likely to have similar interests and similar life experiences.

You won’t have to suffer never-ending conversations about the latest music, or which social media platforms are the best

You can concentrate on enjoying the important things in life for the two of you

Couples in their 40s tend to favor quality over quantity when it comes to sexual encounters

Cons

Odds are that you will have other obligations to look after, ranging from work to children

You may not always be your date’s priority, especially if they have kids

With Covid, traditional ways of meeting up and mingling are severely limited, so you both will have to adapt

People who date when they are older are likely to move things quickly, especially if there are kids involved. Sometimes this is okay, but it isn’t always the best way to move a relationship forward

What you can do to make over 40 dating successful

Making the world of dating work for you and being successful at it requires that you understand what you want and need out of a dating relationship from the start. If you are looking for love, then it will take time but be patient and with the right app you can make dating work.

Click here for more tips and guides on Over-40 Dating

You should understand that not every potential match you’re paired up with is going to be right for you. The best dating apps are a great way to get to know someone before you take the plunge and meet up, but there’s no need to compromise on what you want right from the start.

State your preferences from the outset. If you don’t want to date someone with children, then don’t beat about the bush: state it on your profile page. There’s no sense in being coy about what you want from your online experience and your honesty could well be seen as attractive.

Best Dating App For Professionals Over 40 2019

This will also help to make your dating experiences much better and far more successful.

Remember, if you’re convinced that you’re too old to start dating again, then you’ll likely self-sabotage your own efforts to find love. Avoid this. Other users looking at dating sites for over 40 singles are all at similar age to you and trying to enjoy dating. You can too.

Of course, be sure that you’re ready. If you’ve come out of a divorce, you might feel like diving back into the pool out of some sort of sense of injustice. Dating sites are there to help you find new love, not to try and exorcise the ghosts of a previous relationship.

Finally, be honest. Profile pictures can be misleading and if you manage to bag yourself a face-to-face date, you don’t want your match to find you unrecognizable. If you have wrinkles, have put on weight, or have gone bald, embrace it. There’s someone for everyone.

If you are unsure, you can also try to be friends with them over Facebook or try to reach them by email in a way that is outside of the dating site. This is good for confirmation that they are who they say they are, as well.

Why are dating services for the over 40 crowd working and on the rise?

You don’t need to see the popularity of dating for people over 40 on social media sites like Facebook to know that more people are enjoying online dating. Millennials in their forties have found sites and apps like OkCupid, Match.com, EHarmony, and even Tinder are the best way to date.

Of course, there are sites which help make these kinds of online dating service experiences more niche. For example, you could try Coffee Meets Bagel or Zoosk for niche dating opportunities with the 40+ crowd.

Part of what makes them so attractive is the fact that you can date online from the comfort of your own home. With Covid on the rise and such a threat, dating with a mobile app or on a website not only feels convenient, it’s safer too.

For anyone who is older, regardless of whether you want to find love, friendship, or a middle age romance that is flexible, online dating is the place to go. A good online dating service will help you to meet the person you can love.

You will meet a lot of millennials and people from all walks of life, including LGBT communities and others. These sites are great for making friends and finding out new things about yourself as well.

Thanks to advanced algorithms that pay attention to personality tests you fill out, as well as what you put into your user profile, finding a significant other to fall in love with has never been as exciting or as successful! Try the best over 40 dating sites and find true love!

Interested in Reviews for the following Dating Sites?

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep 2: The VR Zone Has a Hell Ton of Trees

Alright guys I am regretting the hell out of this teriyaki ramen bowl I just ate, so it’s a better time than ever to go back into this VR arc. Now that the Big 5 have made their speech, all of them quite fat and one with a cane although he doesn’t even have a body anymore, they are ready to send everyone down a series of...plot-shaped holes.

Like they were JUST in some sort of tropic zone, to go back to here and then go somewhere else and so like--this is still VR I think? Like I’m assuming they went VR the moment they entered this room but it is quite vague at what point they were officially in VR. Was it when their vision went fwisssh and everyone split into RGB layers or was it that they got knocked out with gas quite a long time ago and were just unaware that it happened? Probably a bunch of these things.

With this announcement we find out that everyone--and I mean everyone--has to play cards now, although I’m pretty sure half of them have duel disks and the other’s are like...not equipped? I mean it’s VR, so hypothetically no one at all needs a duel disk anymore but you gotta sell toys, so no matter what, Yugi’s going to be lugging this heavy sharp thing on his wrist, even when he knows he will soon be shot down a wacky hole.

The title of last episode, ps was “VR Nightmare,” but like, it’s actually fairly pleasant, compared to the blimp hell we were dealing with just a few episodes back. I mean I guess people are actively trying to kill us here but when are they not?

The audacity of this show. Every state in the US has huge ass fake castles in it leftover from the Rockefeller era. Where else are our Moms supposed to drag us on Day Trips so we can get our history credit for Girl Scouts?

Americans are hella good at creating fake historical sites--all you need is a 50+ year old house and some turret work possibly made by a reasonably well known architect and it’s like “yeah that’s a good enough castle for me! Can we say it’s haunted, too? It’s hella haunted! Come to my castle B+B!”

(read more under the cut)

Tea landed in some concept art that kind of looks like the underside of a mushroom. I dunno how I’d classify this rock structure.

And then Kaiba landed in his worst nightmare which was being in a normal park with one single straight road but somehow still completely lost. At least Mokuba managed to fall into the same hole as his brother to ensure that Seto wouldn't be lost for like the rest of this arc. Which was actually kind of an unintentionally hilarious animation.

*rare shot of the Kaibas actually taking a break*

Man, this is the closest they’ve gotten to a real hug in kind of a while. Like when was the last time these bros hugged? Pegasus’ castle?

Meanwhile, Noah is admiring his work from this throne room and it would be a whole lot more intimidating if he wasn’t in calf-high black socks.

His outfit is like a white school uniform so what gives with the black socks? Like of all the things to complain about on Yugioh (especially since I see Yugi’s hair looking right at me in the next cap) those socks though. Those are pretty inappropriate with this outfit, Noah. Especially matched with this God Throne you’ve got going on. Did not see socks like that matched with a chair like this.

Meanwhile Yugi is all by himself but that doesn’t matter at all because he is 2 (3) people. This strategy to isolate everyone only really worked on Serenity and Joey, TBH, since Tea is also accompanied by slightlylessevil!Marik (who hasn’t really said anything since the VR started).

I knew Bakura would be out for a while, but I didn’t realize it meant everyone else wasn’t even going to once acknowledge it, it is baffling. I mean I get they’re super distracted right now but your friend is DEAD.

Honestly I would not mind if the big 5 succeeded and we had to see some old men try and work with Yugi’s hair and alt rock clothing, deal with Pharaoh sassing them from a brain labyrinth, go to Yugi’s school where people get savagely beat up like every other day, deal with Bakura and Marik trying to body snatch and other magic assholery during class breaks, and through all that watching the Big 5 attempt to take over the world with their megacorp that no longer sells guns but actually sells like...children’s entertainment supplies which include the dueling roombas from S1. How on Earth do they actually think that getting a body would help them at this point? They would be Yugi Muto and that is the last face anyone would ever take seriously.

Pharaoh pops up and is like “I guess we’re doing this right now? Really wish we weren’t doing this right now.”

Anyway, because they don’t physically exist in this digital world, neither do God Cards, or any other card in their deck. So, now they have to make new decks out of a pool. Very convenient for the writing team, bad news for Kaiba’s intense and vaguely romantic relationship with his Blue Eyes. Really glad we spent a full season talking about how much these cards meant to all these people, from the magicians, to Joey’s Red Eyes, and then that one card that was Mako Tsunami’s Dad or something--really glad we learned all of that to just completely erase it this arc.

I sounded sarcastic just now, I actually wasn’t for once, I am so glad to just purge my mind of all those card memories for a little while. Just allow myself to forget. Ah. My mind is already so much clearer. It feels so good. I am very much ok with this soft reset, I kinda needed it.

Since Yugi is supposed to choose a Deck Master from his set of cards for this particular type of duel monsters duel, he goes right for the dark magician--since that’s his MO, but for some reason Kuriboh chose himself? Like this greasy thing just hopped out of the card and played himself.

Anyway Kuriboh is now their new Pikachu and well...this show has done worse cute-character-that-does-literally-nothing-else type things to me, speaking of, lets see what Serenity is up to.

This is a digital hellscape, Serenity.

Serenity, you are going to die here.

Serenity.

So because I just realized just now in Season 3 that Duke’s necklace is a hot, over designed disaster (much like Duke himself) I figured I should like...see what this necklace is supposed to look like. So I typed into Google “duke devlin necklace” and guys, turns out there is a LOT of Yugioh jewelry--and I don’t mean like fanart (which there is also a lot), I mean like officially, a lot of people in this show wear a lot of jewelry and so it was sort of hard to find a good pic of a Duke Devlin specific necklace--especially since it feels like most people just go for the dice earring because that’s way easier.

But what’s interesting about the Duke Devlin necklace, at least from my quick search, is that when we bring it to the real world, it gets a little lost, like a game of telephone.

Cuz I assumed that was a clown on his necklace--and there’s quite a few clown necklaces, but I’m also seeing skulls, I’m seeing gothic crosses, I’m seeing spikes and knives instead of crosses. Bro thought it was a flower for some reason--I kinda blew his mind just now when I pointed out it was a clown. Some people think it’s made of silver, other people think it’s sort of painted? (I assumed the cross was entirely blinged out with rhinestones--my honest assumption) No one can actually agree. Especially since Duke apparently changed his necklace for the movie. I know that because it looks a lot like the Legend of Zelda emblem, and some people had the actual Legend of Zelda emblem mis-tagged as Duke Devlin. Which sucks a whole lot for their SEO, and sucked a whole lot for me in my search to find a real actual Duke Devlin necklace.

Like, feel free to attach a link to a reply -- is there an official physical Duke Devlin necklace that Yugioh inc sells? Like I just want to know--officially--what the hell I’m looking at.

Anyway, back to the show, much like everyone else, these two are hopelessly lost.

Kaiba seems to keep forgetting that his Dad is clearly behind all this and would obviously have his old tech but like...Kaiba forgets so much I can forgive him this.

So, faced with roads that lead no where, Tristan decides to do his tried and true method of solving all of his problems.

And at the other end of the VR zone Tea is getting kidnapped after...being kidnapped by Noah while she was already kidnapped by Marik. This is three levels of kidnap, yes?

OH SHOOT IS THAT A ONCE DOOR. DID SOMEONE DO WHAT I HOPE THEY DID? OH SHOOT.

I will read their fanfiction start to end I swear to you I will do it if it exists and I will report back to you who dates Captain Hook and who is related to Henry Mills.

OMG It didn’t exist.

You have got to be kidding me.

I am beside myself, this is the only property known to man that has not been turned into a OUAT fanfiction.

Incredible.

That or I’m just really bad at searching for fanfics since I haven’t actually read any since my LiveJournal days. Like, when you’re basically immune to shipping, as I am, you just really lose the desire to read about 90% of fanfiction.

Anyway, the closest we have to a OUAT Yugioh fanfiction, to my knowledge, is that cap I made just now right there. Your welcome, Once community.

This is absolutely made of load-bearing drywall. Why do none of the sets of windows line up with each other and how many stories is this? Like 2.5? And you can stand on the roof I guess because it has handrails? It’s super weird.

Anyway, I just made a OUAT joke and maybe it’s because I knew shortly after we were gonna get--that’s right--an orphanage flashback. OUAT was basically 6 seasons of effed up orphan flashbacks so I feel pretty well prepared. Like bro was worried how I’d handle this filler but y’all, I watched the Lily arc in OUAT. I can do anything.

*slaps hands together*

Totes ready for these boys to have been given up for adoption via a magical tree and a memory curse, only to find out their real parents are 3 years younger than them because of a time loop. Make it weird, Yugioh!

Anyway, as always, if you want a link to read these from the beginning in Chrono order and without any comments and all that jazz here’s a link

[monaedroid]

She rose to fame as an endlessly inventive pop android. Now, she's finally revealing the real person waiting inside

Janelle Monáe is crying in her spacesuit. It's early April in Atlanta, and she's in one of the basement studios of her Wondaland Records headquarters, surrounded by computer monitors and TV screens, one of them running a screensaver that displays images of her heroes: Prince, Martin Luther King Jr., Pam Grier, Tina Turner, Lupita Nyong'o, David Bowie. She's about to reveal, for the first time, something the world has long guessed, something her closest friends and family already know, something she's long been loath to say in public. As she sings on a song from her new album, Dirty Computer,"Let the rumors be true." Janelle Monáe is not, she finally admits, the immaculate android, the "alien from outer space/The cybergirl without a face" she's claimed to be over a decade's worth of albums, videos, concerts and even interviews – she is, instead, a flawed, messy, flesh-and-blood 32-year-old human being.

And she has another rumor to confirm. "Being a queer black woman in America," she says, taking a breath as she comes out, "someone who has been in relationships with both men and women – I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker." She initially identified as bisexual, she clarifies, "but then later I read about pansexuality and was like, ‘Oh, these are things that I identify with too.' I'm open to learning more about who I am."

It's a lovely spacesuit she's wearing, a form-fitting white NASA artifact complete with a commander patch on one arm and an American flag on the other. She's put it on for no reason at all – there are no cameras in sight – as she lounges around Wondaland. The outfit is a remnant, perhaps, of the android persona, known as Cindi Mayweather, that she fed us all these years: a messianic, revolutionary robot who fell in love with a human and vowed to free the rest of the androids.

Early in her career, Monáe was insecure about living up to impossible showbiz ideals; the persona, the androgynous outfits, the inflexible commitment to the storyline both on- and offstage, served in part as protective armor. "It had to do with the fear of being judged," she says. "All I saw was that I was supposed to look a certain way coming into this industry, and I felt like I [didn't] look like a stereotypical black female artist."

She is also a perfectionist, a tendency that's helped her career and hindered her emotional life; portraying a flawless automaton was also a bit of wish fulfillment. It's one of the many reasons she thought she had a "computer virus" that needed cleaning, which led her to years of therapy, starting before the 2010 release of her debut, The ArchAndroid. "I felt misunderstood," she says. "I was like, ‘Before I self-destruct, before I become a confused person in front of the world, let me seek some help.' I was afraid for anybody to see me not at the top of my game. That obsession was too much for me."

So she overcompensated, as she puts it, leaving fans to puzzle over the sight and sound of a dark-skinned, androgynously dressed black woman creating Afro-futuristic fantasias as trippy as the Parliament-Funkadelic soundscapes she grew up hearing. She became a pop anomaly, a sometimes incongruous interloper in the universes of her earliest supporters, Big Boi and Puff Daddy, the latter having signed her to a partnership with Bad Boy Records in 2008. The ArchAndroidwas a buzzy introduction, and 2013's Electric Lady – certainly the first progged-out concept album in the history of Bad Boy – established her as one of the 21st century's most inventive voices. Years before Frank Ocean, Solange, Beyoncé and SZA pushed arty, alternative R&B to the mainstream, Monáe was already there, bridging the gap between neo-soul and all that was to come, unafraid to fuse rock, funk, hip-hop (when she feels like it, as on her recent single "Django Jane," she's a top-flight rapper), R&B, electronica and campy, drama-kid theatricality.

She always ducked questions about her sexuality ("I only date androids" was a stock response) but embedded the real answers in her music. "If you listen to my albums, it's there," she says. She cites "Mushrooms & Roses" and "Q.U.E.E.N.," two songs that reference a character named Mary as an object of affection. In the 45-minute film accompanying Dirty Computer, "Mary Apple" is the name given to female "dirty computers" taken captive and stripped of their real names, one of whom is played by Tessa Thompson. (The actress has been rumored to be Monáe's girlfriend, though Monáe won't discuss her dating life.) The original title of "Q.U.E.E.N.," she notes, was "Q.U.E.E.R.," and you can still hear the word on the track's background harmonies.

Monáe is the CEO of her own label, a CoverGirl model and a movie star, appearing in the Oscar-winning Moonlight and the Oscar-nominated Hidden Figures, two hits led by black casts. In both films, she tackles black American stories that don't typically get the big-screen treatment. "Our stories are being erased, basically," she says of her attachment to those scripts, which made her "want to tell my story." Monáe does worry that the human behind her masks may not be enough. She has asked aloud, including in therapy, "What if people don't think I'm as interesting as Cindi Mayweather?" She'll miss the freedom of being the android. "I created her, so I got to make her be whatever I wanted her to be. I didn't have to talk about the Janelle Monáe who was in therapy. It's Cindi Mayweather. She is who I aspire to be." On Dirty Computer, the only hints of sci-fi are in the title and the storyline of the accompanying film. The lyrics are flesh-and-blood confessions of both physical and emotional insecurity, punctuated with sexual liberation. They're the unfiltered desires of an overthinker letting herself speak without pause, for once. And she wants to help listeners gain the courage to be dirty computers too. "I want young girls, young boys, nonbinary, gay, straight, queer people who are having a hard time dealing with their sexuality, dealing with feeling ostracized or bullied for just being their unique selves, to know that I see you," she says in a tone befitting the commander patch on her arm. "This album is for you. Be proud."

Monáe grew up in a massive, devoutly Baptist family in Kansas City, Kansas, or as she likes to put it, "I got 50 first cousins!" Not all of them know details of her romantic life, but they have almost certainly seen her wear sheer pants and share a lollipop with Thompson in the "Make Me Feel" video. "I literally do not have time," she says, laughing, "to hold a town-hall meeting with my big-ass family and be like, ‘Hey, news flash!' " She worries that when we visit Kansas City tomorrow, they'll bring it up: "There are people in my life that love me and they have questions, and I guess when I get there, I'll have to answer those questions."

Over the years, she's heard some members of her family, mostly distant ones, say certain upsetting things. "A lot of this album," she says, "is a reaction to the sting of what it means to hear people in my family say, ‘All gay people are going to hell.' "

She began questioning the Bible and her family's Baptist faith early on. Now, she says, "I serve the God of love" – love, she's determined, is the common factor among all religions, an idea Stevie Wonder expanded on in a Dirty Computer interlude.

When we arrive in the flat, industrial Kansas side of Kansas City, her family doesn't actually have any questions – or anything unkind to say, for that matter. There's just a whole lot of love for their homegrown superstar.

Janelle Monáe Robinson was born here on December 1st, 1985, to a mom who worked as a janitor and a dad who was in the middle of a 21-year battle with crack addiction. Her parents separated when Monáe was less than a year old, and her mother later married the father of Janelle's younger sister, Kimmy.

Monáe's loving warnings about the sheer size of her family ring true as soon as we step into her old neighborhood. On one street, her maternal grandmother owned several homes in a row that housed cousins, aunts, uncles and Monáe herself. A few minutes away is her paternal great-grandmother's pastel-coated house. Monáe spent a significant portion of her time there – it was her main connection to her dad and his family as he went in and out of prison; their relationship was rocky until he got sober 13 years ago. Another short car ride away is her maternal Aunt Glo's home, where we meet her mom. "She's my favorite slice of pie," her Auntie Fats says, referring to Monáe's familial nickname of "pun'kin."

Monáe was raised in a working-class community called Quindaro. It started as a settlement established by Native Americans and abolitionists just prior to the Civil War, and became a refuge for black Americans escaping slavery via the Underground Railroad. A few weeks before our visit, vandals painted swastikas and "Hail Satan" on a statue of abolitionist John Brown in the neighborhood. It's since been repainted. "I know nobody in this neighborhood did that," her great-grandmother says, shaking her head. "Outsiders."

On the Missouri side of the bridge, Kansas City is predominately white, but Monáe's community is overwhelmingly black. "I would read about where I was from," she says, "and understand who's really disadvantaged coming from these environments. It sucks. It's like that for brown folks." It's hard to miss her family's religiosity – they hardly get a sentence out without a mention of God's blessings. At 91, Monáe's great-grandma still monitors the halls at the local vacation Bible school with a switch in hand. During our visit, she sits behind a piano to lead a gospel singalong. Monáe, beside an aunt and a cousin, joins in, belting "Call Him Up and Tell Him What You Want" and "Savior, Do Not Pass Me By."

Monáe is never more relaxed during our time together than when she's in Kansas City. Her Midwestern drawl comes back as she screams and sings while running into the arms of her cousins, aunts and uncles, many of whom she gets to see only during the holidays or tour stops nearby. At one point, she curls up into her mom's lap while they look at a homemade poster full of sepia-toned childhood pics. "She was a delightful baby," Auntie Fats recalls.

Monáe's family members all share different versions of the same story: She was born to be a star, and she made that clear as soon as she gained motor skills. There was that time she got escorted out of church for insisting on singing Michael Jackson's "Beat It" in the middle of the service. There were the talent shows for Juneteenth where she covered "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" three years in a row and won each time. She was the star of the school musicals, except for The Wiz her senior year, when she lost the role of Dorothy because she had to leave the audition early to pick up her mom at work. She's still a bit miffed about not getting that part.

Monáe soon passed a bigger audition, for the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, and headed to New York. She studied musical theater and shared a small apartment with a cousin where she didn't even have a bed to herself. When she wasn't in class, she was working.

Meanwhile, an old friend was having the college experience Monáe desired, in Atlanta, so she relocated. The rest is well-trod history in the myth-building of Monáe: She was an Afro'd neo-soul singer strumming her guitar on college quads and working at Office Depot. She was fired from that job for using one of the company's computers to respond to a fan's e-mail, an incident that inspired the song "Lettin' Go."

That song caught the attention of Big Boi, who put her on Outkast's Idlewild and helped connect her with Sean Combs. "I'm-a be honest with you," her dad says, recalling an invite to one of Monáe's shows in Atlanta, where Combs was supposed to be in the house. "I was like, ‘Yeah, right.' I didn't think Puff Daddy was coming."

Skepticism aside, Michael Robinson was proud of the invite. He'd recently gotten sober, and the two were repairing their relationship. He spent much of Janelle's childhood hearing about her immense talents from the more-present members of their family. He was honored that they had come far enough for Monáe to want him to be there for such an important concert. But he still didn't believe Puffy would be there.

"I go down there with my two cousins, and she says, ‘Dad, everyone's gonna know you're not from here. Your jeans are creased.' " Fashion faux pas aside – he insists he hasn't creased his jeans since – Robinson was in for a pleasant surprise when one of his cousins spotted Combs and Big Boi in the back. It was the beginning of his daughter's new life, and he was just in time to be along for the journey. "I remember thinking, ‘This is what the big time is like,' " he muses. "They had all the cameras, all the lights. It was all about Janelle."

Wondaland Arts Society's headquarters feels like a utopian synthesis of Monáe's past lives in Kansas City and Manhattan. It sits inconspicuously in the midst of suburban Atlanta and looks like every other neighborhood home, with its two floors and brick exterior. Inside is much more ostentatious, with vintage clocks wallpapering the foyer, pristine white couches in the communal living spaces, and books and records everywhere.

It mimics the close-knit, constant accessibility of her childhood in Kansas City, with all its artists popping in and out of the space throughout each day to record new music, rehearse for shows and present the final product to the rest of the collective. At one point, the singer-rapper Jidenna shows up, having recently returned from a trip to Africa – everyone immediately starts teasing him about his newly buff physique.

Simultaneously, Chuck Lightning, seemingly the more extroverted half of two-man funk act Deep Cotton, who make their own music as well as work with Monáe, grabs a bowl of quinoa from the kitchen as Monáe doles out decisions on which version of the "Pynk" video will be released (they settle on the one without the spoken-word love poem that appears within the song in the film).

Monáe recorded most of Dirty Computer here, in a small studio with Havana-inspired decor. Guests and collaborators ranged from Grimes to Brian Wilson, who added harmonies to the title track. The album's liner notes cite Bible verses and a recent Quincy Jones interview alongside Monica Sjöö's The Great Cosmic Mother and Ryan Coogler's Black Panther.

But she was particularly close to one inspiration. Monáe was good friends with Prince, who personally blessed the album's glossy camp tone and synthed-out hooks. "When Prince heard this particular direction, he was like, ‘That's what y'all need to be doing,' " Lightning says. "He picked out that sound as what was resonating with him." Prince gave highly specific music and equipment recommendations from the era they were drawing on, including Gary Numan, whom he loved. "The most powerful thing he could do was give us the brushes to paint with," Lightning says.

Rumors spread that Prince co-wrote the single "Make Me Feel," which features a "Kiss"-like guitar riff. "Prince did not write that song," says Monáe, who sorely missed his advice during the production process. "It was very difficult writing this album without him." Prince was the first person to get a physical copy of The ArchAndroid – she presented the CD to him with a flower and the titles written out by hand. "As we were writing songs, I was like, ‘What would Prince think?' And I could not call him. It's a difficult thing to lose your mentor in the middle of a journey they had been a part of."

Stevie Wonder was another early fan of Monáe, and a conversation between them – Wonder insisted she record it – appears as an interlude on Dirty Computer. At one point, years ago, her budding friendships with both legends collided: She had to choose between playing with Prince at Madison Square Garden or with Wonder in Los Angeles. Prince encouraged her to pick Stevie.

On election night in 2016, Monáe found herself experiencing an unfamiliar emotion. "For the first time," she says, "I felt scared." Overnight, she went from living in a country whose president loved her music and had her perform on the White House lawn to one where it felt like her right to exist was threatened. "I felt like if I wake up tomorrow," she says, "are people going to feel they have the right to just, like, kill me now?"

Monáe had already been a committed activist. In 2015, with members of Wondaland, she created "Hell You Talmbout," which demands we say the names of black Americans who have been victims of racial violence and police brutality. Before #MeToo and Time's Up, Monáe created an organization, Fem the Future, which stemmed from her frustrations about opportunities for women in the music industry. She was called on to perform at the 2017 Women's March and to speak about Time's Up while introducing Kesha at the Grammys. "We come in peace, but we mean business," she told the cheering crowd.

That sums up Monáe's mindset in the Trump era. She hopes not to destroy the oppressors but to change their minds. "The conversations might not happen with people in the position of power," she says, "but they can happen through a movie, they can happen through a song, they can happen through an album, they can happen through a speech on TV. Most of them will probably turn off their TVs, but . . ."

She's in a New York hotel now, two weeks before the album's release. "There's some anxiety there, but I feel brave," she says, teetering between her typical sternness and a bit of vulnerable shakiness. No tears will be shed today. "My musical heroes did not make the sacrifices they did for me to live in fear." Her activism isn't the focus of Dirty Computer, but it's there, hovering above every note. She ended band rehearsal in Atlanta by asking the musicians to reflect on how American this album is. Monáe's America is the one on the fringes; it accepts the outsiders and the computers with viruses, like the ones she thought she had.

She understands the significance of now making her personal life a bigger, louder part of her art. She cites the conversation around one of her films as an example of how she might use her own story to engage with more-conservative listeners. "When I did Hidden Figures, there were some Republican white men tweeting about it and how they just felt bad. You could feel through their tweets that they were just like, ‘These black women did help us get to space. How could we treat them like that?' "

Meanwhile, she's again anticipating questions from her family back in Kansas. She seems more worried about them than what anyone else has to say. Still, Dirty Computer is meant to be a celebration, and if she loses a few people along the way, Monáe seems OK with that risk.

"Through my experiences, I hope people are seen and heard," she says, sitting at a hotel-room desk, dressed up from a day of promo in a puffy black-and-red jacket, matching red pants and terry-cloth hotel slippers. "I may make some mistakes. I may have to learn on the go, but I'm open to this journey." She sighs, voice confident and stare unfaltering. "I need to go through this. We need to go through this. Together. I'm going to make you empathize with dirty computers all around the world."

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/cover-story-janelle-monae-prince-new-lp-her-sexuality-w519523

[blackjacketmuses]

hc; ango 1

Ango’s family is fairly well off, upper-middle class. A very traditional family with very traditional values, his mother does not work and his father is a businessman at a successful company. He has an older brother, who is a lawyer. From a young age, Ango was taught that the best he could ever achieve is a comfortable job in business or at an office, marry a quiet, obedient traditional girl, have children, and live a normal, unassuming life. Be traditional, be one of the crowd, don’t stand out, just live and go on with a normal, average existence.

That was foiled summarily when he was fourteen and his ability manifested. This coupled with Ango slowly beginning to realize he wasn’t interested in women started to put strain on his familial relationships, and when he graduated high school with top marks, he applied and was accepted to a college far away from home --- he fled from Tokyo to Yokohama, to go to college there.

A scant few months after he entered college (majoring in history and anthropology), he was scouted by the government due to his ability, and pulled into the Special Abilities Department for both his keen intellect, his sense of perfectionism, and...okay, mostly his ability. He was put through training quickly and immediately stationed in an accounting firm that worked for the mafia, working there until given the go-ahead to act. A situation was half-caused and half-fabricated in which Ango and some others (government plants and patsies both) were stealing mafia funds, and after staged chaos (the plants killing the patsies and fleeing separately), Ango fled alone, staying out of the mafia’s grasp for six months before he was ‘caught’ (really, allowed himself to be caught on orders) and recruited by Mori, as intended. He was nineteen.

A year after this, he was sent overseas for two months to Europe for a mafia deal, and while there was contacted by the government (and the mafia itself) to get in touch with and infiltrate a terrorist group named Mimic. After this, he was spying on Mimic for both the mafia and the government as well as spying on the mafia for the government.

Not long after he returned, the Dragon’s Head incident began, and despite Ango’s protests, the government hired Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, a strange criminal with an ability, to staunch the conflict. In the end he only created a lot more deaths, and the government covered it up.

After this, Ango met Oda and Dazai during the cleanup, and they became friends. As this was just around the time Dazai became executive, a few casual conversations were had about Dazai’s partner that led Ango to do research on the situation himself and learn of Chuuya’s circumstances and the Rimbaud incident via his ability. Because of this, he was relatively prepared for Chuuya approaching him to help him find Verlaine, Rimbaud’s partner. Verlaine was working for the government, and after getting permission from his superiors, Ango aided Chuuya in finding and confronting the man.

During the incident, Ango made a point to collect all the belongings of each dead mafia agent and use his ability to make a proper record of their lives, memorializing them as he felt guilty for such a huge loss of life that the government was complicit in. even if they were mafia members, they were still human beings that deserved remembrance and respect, and a loss is a loss. At first his thorough records went unappreciated, but eventually he was allowed to continue.

Ango came to treasure the time at the bar with his two friends, caring about Oda and Dazai deeply and, though he could never lay himself bare to them --- too wrapped up in secrets and mixed loyalties --- the time he spent talking about inane and superficial things, just casually, able to be a normal person laughing with companions, was the most important thing in the world to him, something he would treasure beyond anything else. A glimpse of the life he could have had, laughing and joking with friends after a long day at work, like any other normal businessman.

Eventually, the mafia and the government’s chess game came to a head with Mimic being lured to Yokohama, and Ango’s cover within the terrorist organization was blown. Because of this, he got in trouble, and Oda was lured to meet Gide, which would lead to Oda’s death. During the incident he was captured/tortured by Mimic and rescued by Oda, but just before the government came to collect him and his cover was blown on all sides.

After this, he went back to the government and was witness to the deal in which Mori sold Oda’s life in exchange for an operation permit, and after that continued in his desk job at the government. Out of heartbreak and guilt for what happened, when Dazai confronted him after having left the mafia, he directed him to his boss, chief Taneda, and arranged for Dazai’s past to be erased via the 7th Agency branch of the government, so that he could start over and keep his promise to their dead friend. He also helped Dazai arrange a grave for Oda at a quite seaside graveyard.

Ango logically knows he was just a pawn in the Mimic incident, but he can’t help but feel deeply guilty for being involved at all, as it led to Oda’s death and the shattering of the friendship he’d valued so highly. While he and Dazai are on better terms than they were immediately after, and still know they can rely on one another, he knows they can never have what they once did, and it’s painful. He has subordinates, but he has no friends, and he knows it’s in part his own fault. He’s very lonely.

He only barely knew Chief Taneda when the Mimic incident occurred, given how quickly he was funneled into the undercover operation. At the time of the incident, Mori was more his boss than Taneda; he knew Mori better, after all --- he'd spent basically three years with the mafia at this point despite technically working for the government the whole time. While the meeting the day of his capture was a warning about what would happen, he was still captured, and though he knew he would be rescued those armed men was the first time he'd ever really seen the special ops team: for a moment he thought they were going to kill him before he remembered they were picking him up. And when they came, he didn't want to leave Oda -- he entertained the idea of defecting to the mafia on the spot, for Oda, but he knew he'd die if he did, so he went along quietly.

Despite the risk to his own safety, he did everything he could to help the two of them deal with Gide, even knowing that it was a trap and regretting that he couldn’t do more, hoping that Oda wouldn’t take the bait and knowing Mimic did need to be stopped. Even so, it hurt to know that he could never go back, being in that bar one last time and knowing everything had changed and broken forever. Knowing this might be the last time he saw Oda. Knowing that he’d never be able to see them again, not with the lines now drawn, knowing that Dazai would likely never forgive him. He contemplated suicide for a time (including by showing up at Lupin in the first place, half hoping Dazai would kill him), before deciding against it, because he had to stay and help Dazai make it out and then make sure he could fulfill Oda’s last wishes.

Ango had a huge, huge crush on Oda, and it broke his heart even more when his cover was blown and whatever could have been was made into something that could never be. And even worse when Oda died, because he knew of his own complicity in it. He misses him so much, and tries to do his best to carry on in his memory. To take over the department to keep his final wish of drinking with Dazai again, and to take care of Dazai for both their sakes.

[littlebitliz]

wow! it’s the first blog post and i don’t quite know what to talk about. i asked my instagram stories and the overwhelming response was about the works by Becky Albertalli. specifically, the topic that struck me was, “Why do we need more movies like Love, Simon?” to expand on that, “Why do we need more queer youth and queer love stories in big name pop culture and media?”

and why do we? why is Love, Simon so important to millions of queer youth across the united states and outside? there’s no clear answer other than: gay people deserve better. for as long as humans have been around, gay people have been ostracized and oppressed. not only has homophobia been prevalent, but homosexuality has always been a significant part of human existence. homosexual people have made some of the most amazing and historical changes in our history. so often was the sexuality of these inspiration people erased, not only then, but also now.

for example, you might not have known that Alan Turing, the man who decoded Enigma (the most infamous Nazi code during WW2) and created the first general modern computer was notoriously gay. he was convicted of gross indecency in the spring of 1952 after admitting to a sexual relationship with a man twenty years his junior. both men were convicted and charged, but Turing was exempt from prison due to opting into hormonal treatment to reduce libido via injections of synthetic oestrogen. two years later, after being banned from the cryptanalysis of Enigma and after participating in consistent hormonal therapy, Turing committed suicide by cyanide poisoning. in 2014, The Imitation Game (starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing) was released, and the truth about Turing’s sexuality became far more recognized all over the united states.

furthermore, Alexander the Great, who is considered one of the greatest military minds of Persian and Green history, Leonardo Da Vinci, one of the most famous artists of all time, Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King Jr’s partner in politics and activism, Emily Dickinson, an extraordinarily famous poet, and Eleanor Roosevelt, first lady and advocate for the poor, were (reportedly) queer. i ask you, did YOU know they were queer? some of them were openly gay (most notably Rustin, but Dickinson and Da Vinci also did not hide their sexuality), some of them came out posthumously (first lady Roosevelt, especially, who was discovered to be queer via letters after her death) and some of them never really came out at all (Alexander the Great was just...gay!)

but what does it matter anyway? all of these historical figures are far gone, and there is no point in avenging their personal life when it was erased so long ago. the answer to that might be best as another question - did YOU know they were queer? generally, their sexualities are erased by history books and the were unspoken of during their lives. and, a follow up to my previous question, why is that? why did so many gay and queer and even transgender people have their identities hidden rom the spotlight? is it because the normalization of queerness was (and in many places, still is) outlawed? is it because the general society was far more comfortable with violent hate crimes then than they are now? or is it just because people were not supposed to be gay, it was not the standard, just as people were not supposed to be women or black or whatever. not to compare the plights of gay people, black people and women, but it certainly has the same standing - hate what is different, and what cannot be changed.

so what does queer historical people have to do with movies like Love, Simon? well, did YOU know any of them were queer? most people did not. most people dehumanize queerness and queer people; most people hate and oppress and fear queerness and queer people.

even today, in 2018, countless people in modern media are so quick to hate and oppress queerness and queer people. look at the white house right now; mike pence, donald trump, etc are all considered to be homophobic. LGB hate crimes have been steadily rising in recent years, and transgender youth are in some of the highest risks they’ve been in. but it’s the little stuff too - like how my wifi blocks inappropriate content by using keywords such as NSFW and gay, or how tumblr marks posts as ‘explicit’ when tagged with lesbian or gay, or how in some developing countries, queer movies are rated higher (from PG-13 to R, R to X, etc) because gay people are ‘inappropriate’. Love, Simon, in a nutshell, was and is important because it’s not about this guy who had this horrible homophobic experience and his whole character growth is about being gay and being bullied, but instead his horrible homophobic experiences + being gay and being bullied = a minor part of his story. instead, his story is the same ugly cliches we see in every teen romance movie ever. Love, Simon was as cheesy and goofy and wholesome as The Kissing Booth or F The Prom or Candy Jar or DUFF. Love, Simon followed the same rules as these teen romances, and began to break down the barriers around gay people and sexuality as a whole.

but why are those barriers so suffocating anyway? it’s not like any law in the western world prevents people from being gay or transgender. perhaps it’s because gay youth are take their own lives four times the amount straight youth does. or maybe it’s because that number skyrockets nine times when their family has a poor reaction to their coming out. or maybe because queer young adults with rejecting families (as opposed to mildly rejecting, neutral or accepting families) are six times more likely to have major depression, four times more likely to have unprotected sex and four times more likely to do and use illegal drugs. and with the federal legalization of same sex marriage in 2015, nothing is legally stopping queerness and queer people from existing. in this, though, comes one realization: nothing is legally stopping people from hating, oppressing, fearing and dehumanizing queerness and queer people.

this is a very long, drawn out way of saying Love, Simon (and, more broadly, queer love stories in big name pop culture) is important because it’s not about this kid’s horrible experiences of being gay and how he had to fight tooth and nail and work from the ground up to become a person who’s more than just gay. instead, it’s a story about a kid who’s homophobic backstory is a minuscule detail in his character because he is so much more than the kid who suffered; his character growth isn’t going from hating himself to tolerance, it went from tolerance to LOVE and ACCEPTANCE. his story is so important because it normalizes the way gay kids feel, just like other cliche teen romances normalize the way straight kids feel. it’s just like any other romance movie except that he’s GAY and that one little detail changes so much about him as a person. his story isn’t just about being gay, it’s about finding love, and he happens to be gay; his character growth is about accepting his sexuality and being proud of his differences; he teaches others to also be proud of who they are and to never shy away from using their voice because if you don’t, who will? Love, Simon, and other stories like it (Alex Strangelove, Leah on the Offbeat, Will Grayson Will Grayson, etc) are important because they’re not just about being gay, they’re about being gay and FALLING IN LOVE! and isn’t that just so beautiful?

this was a very drawn out blog post for such a short ending but i am very excited to write better things as time goes on. i just hope you all see how important this story was for ME. his coming out was such a strong scene but such a small part of who he is; he isn’t just the gay kid. he’s the gay kid who lives for theatre and likes oreos and cute boys who make him tongue tied at football games and he thinks ferris wheels and emails are the epitome of teen romance and he drinks iced coffee and he’s a hufflepuff and he’s more important than his coming out story. but with all of that, all of those beautiful wonderful details about him (his iced coffee, his harry potter fanaticism, etc) not once is his identity as gay erased, and that’s much much rarer than so many people realize. after centuries of not only fear but also hiding...i don’t know, i just think everyone should watch Love, Simon and then try to tell me it wasn’t the sweetest gosh darn movie ever.

and that’s me, signing off for the FIRST TIME in this blog. who knows, maybe i’ll actually keep up with this?

[viduamor-moved]

do u have any headcanons abt natasha's religion? i'm always interested how marvel chara muns tie in their muse's religion w/ the myth based nature of the marvel universe, and with natasha's cultural background it's especially interesting! xoxo

OF  LOVE  /  OF  DEATH.     thank you  SO MUCH  for sending this in !!!      & in fact,     i do !!     i’ve been meaning to write about it for … more than a year,   honestly but just never got around to it.      but that’s changing   ————     SHORT  ANSWER  :   I  SEE  NATASHA  AS  AGNOSTIC,      with a tendency towards belief in some kind of higher power.     whether that be  GOD  or  FATE,      she has yet to decide.

but i’m sure you’re here for the long answer.      IT’S  IMPORTANT  TO  REMEMBER  THAT  SOVIET  RUSSIA  WAS  MILITANTLY  ATHEIST.     the government seized land & property that was owned by the orthodox church,     persecuted & publicly ridiculed or arrested religious followers,     & did all that it could to erase orthodoxy  ( or even pagan superstitions that were both separate from or intwined with orthodox beliefs   —–   this marriage between superstition & christian orthodoxy was one of the biggest contributing factors to pre - soviet russia’s rich culture )  from the face of russia.     natasha was born about six years after the soviet union was established,      & was raised by a soviet soldier for the first ten years of her life before she was put into a soviet orphanage / training facility for about three years   ( after which she returned to ivan’s care ).      needless to say,     natasha grew up without religion.     & whatever tidbits of religion she did encounter were heavily implied to be foolish little habits,      or archaic beliefs that nostalgic laymen who were useless to the soviet stubbornly clung to.     but that would be an oversimplification,     i think.     there were still people who had not yet reached their middle age when nat was reaching her adolescence,      who were born before the bolshevik revolution,      who still held to orthodoxy or tradition in some way,      who found it hard to let go no matter how much they tried to in public.     in reading  DEATHLESS  by catherynne m valente,      i found a small passage that i think perfectly sums up these people born before the revolution,     still holding to their traditions:

IVAN  HISSED  THROUGH  HIS  TEETH  &  MADE  THE  SIGN  OF  THE  CROSS.      IT  WAS  A  BAD  HABIT,     CROSSING  YOURSELF,     BUT  LIKE  BITING  FINGERNAILS,      HARD  TO  BREAK.       catherynne valente   -   deathless,     chapter 14.

no matter what the people soviet or the government did,     they could never truly erase religion from russia.     still,     they tried their best,      & their best meant a generation born into the USSR that found itself to be atheist.      NATASHA  WAS  AMONG  THEM.     in her prime,     she became a member of russia’s  ELITE,      married to the premiere test pilot,      previously trained under  THE  WINTER  SOLDIER  himself,      becoming the  BLACK  WIDOW in the early  1960′s.      the concept of  ‘ GOD ‘  was never on her mind.      the only  higher power  she looked to was  THE  STATE,     MOTHER  RUSSIA,     &  THE  PEOPLE  SHE  SERVED.      but that changed when she defected in the late 60′s.

it is nothing less than understandable that once natasha defected from the USSR to the west,     she underwent a major shift in thinking.     she doubted her identity,     she doubted her homeland,     she doubted everything they made her believe,     & when she finished doubting,     she started  BELIEVING.

I  GAVE  UP  ONE  COUNTRY  FOR  ANOTHER.      ONE  COUNTRY  FOR  AN  IDEAL.     I  DIDN’T  THINK  OF  IT  THAT  WAY  AT  THE  TIME.      CALL  ME  CRAZY.     BUT  I  JUST  WANTED  TO  BE  FREE.        natasha romanova,     name of the rose (2010),     #1

& free she became.     free to love,     free to choose,     free to  THINK  &  BELIEVE  in what she wanted,      how she wanted.      the atheism she was raised with,      she looked upon the same way as everything else the soviets tried to make her believe.     she looked at herself critically,      & she made herself someone new.      but in terms of direct beliefs,      natasha did not rethink them immediately.      i’d say it was a slow process,      via exposure rather than searching.

during the 60′s - 70′s,      america was still a very protestant / evangelical nation,     & belief in God was pretty commonplace,      & natasha definitely picked up on this.      her first real,     substantial interaction with a devout believer was  MATT MURDOCK,      her on/off boyfriend for nearly a decade,      her fwb ever since,      who as we all know is fundamentally catholic.      though never addressed on - panel in the 70′s daredevil run,     i’d say that natasha was shifting from atheism to agnosticism during their relationship.       however,     religiously,     things got a little more complicated when natasha began a relationship with  HERCULES.      yes,     that hercules.      ancient greek god,     heracles,     son of zeus,     figure of myth.      of course,     we cannot forget that natasha also had a teammate in  THOR  when she joined the avengers.       as someone who was not exposed to the concept of a god for the first thirty or so years of her life,      this was no doubt somewhat of a shock,      even if she never showed it.      assimilating into a nation that believed freely,      being close to a devout catholic,     knowing two separate gods from two separate pagan religions   …   it threw her for a loop.      but it also opened up a whole new world for her in terms of how people actually view their religions.

as a christian myself,     God is a being that is so intrinsic to my life    ——    i literally do not know how i could live without Him.      & i think that through the people she was around,     especially matthew,      natasha saw this.       & through interacting with hercules & thor,      natasha realized that all these ancient beliefs,     these religions,      could have some truth in them since their deities actually  EXISTED.      but still,     there remains a distinction between how natasha views pagan religions whose figures she personally knows,     & how she views a God that she cannot see.     she knows hercules exists,     she knows thor exists.     she has been to mount olympus & conversed with the pantheon,      she has seen odin,      fought alongside brunnhilde,      against loki   ——–   she knows without a doubt that these deities exist.     but she does not pray to them,      she does not devote her life to them,      she merely acknowledges that they are there.      & frankly,      if we’re just talking about hercules,      she’d much rather tell him what to do in a team setting,    & sleep with him,     than offer him prayers & supplication.

but if there were a God that natasha would believe in,      if there were a God that would define natasha’s agnosticism,      it would be the abrahamic God.      she knows the pagan gods exist,      but from what she sees of them,       their power is limited.     they fight,     they make the worst of humans,      & are far too hot headed & proud for her taste.       what she has heard of the abrahamic God,     however,     is that he is good,    merciful,    perhaps omnipotent,      & grants salvation even to those who do not deserve it.      AS  SOMEONE  WHO  HAS  DONE  SO  MUCH  WRONG  IN  HER  LIFE,      is steeped in sin,     kills like it is nothing,      & hides so many secrets within her heart,      this God,     this concept of a higher power is one that is attractive to her.      but for a person this complex,      it’s not that simple.      as someone described above,      she is also a person who has  SEEN  so much evil in this world.     she has seen men fight,     millions of people die in war & of starvation,      & it is extremely difficult for her to reconcile such a world with a creator that lets it fester like it does.      but she also believes that without a higher power,      without anything watching over the world,     she & everyone else is practically screwed.      in terms of her own belief & how it applies to her,      she also can’t quite  …  wrap her head around sin,      & how her own sins can be forgiven.     in  MARVEL  KNIGHTS  vol. 1,     natasha visits a church & goes to confession.     the first time in a very long time,     she admits,     & what she says is quite telling.

BEGIN  WITH  THE  LEAST  OF  YOUR  SINS.AREN’T  ALL  SINS  EQUAL ?      DOESN’T  EACH  ONE  OF  THEM  CONDEMN  US  TO  THE  SAME  FATE ?     IS  THERE  REALLY  A  DEGREE  TO  SIN,     FATHER ?      AM  I  EXCUSED  BECAUSE  THE  SINS  I  COMMITTED  WERE  IN  THE  CAUSE  OF  GOOD ?      CAN  HE  SEE  THAT  THE  DEED  IS  SOMETIMES  ISOLATED  FROM  THE  SOUL ?      DOES  GOD  SOMETIMES  LOOK  AWAY ?        natasha romanova,     marvel knights vol. 1,    #1

these are not the words of a woman who does not entertain the belief in a higher power.     NOR  are these the words of a woman who believes with clarity that this higher power can be defined.     & at the end of the day,      though she may mull over what she believes about God when she drifts to sleep,      she does not have the time nor energy to devote herself to a higher power,      especially when her life is already given to helping people herself.

though she does not yet know where she stands,      she does have a high respect for those who do practice religion,     or even just for the concept of a God.      & it has seemed to me that she thinks it is a concept that  SHOULD  be respected,     & untouched by those who would seek to taint it.      there are two instances that come to mind  ( both from black widow vol. 5 ),      the first when natasha is fighting against a man who calls himself  the  HAMMER  OF  GOD.      natasha thinks this is ridiculous,      insane,     & tells him that she thinks that somehow,    God cannot hear his prayers over his machine gun.     the other instance is when the  ‘ translator ‘  of  CHAOS / the PROPHET,    is offering natasha a part in their new movement to rid the world of evil,     through means that natasha does not support.      she ridicules him by saying that he cannot pretend to be jesus,     that he does not have the right to be the final arbiter of good nor to take away people’s will.      both of these instances are never explained in terms of natasha’s beliefs,     & i think are left there to be interpreted as one wishes,     but to me in context of natasha’s entire history,      they are indicators of a leaning towards belief,      of an acknowledgment of a God,     a higher power,     but nothing further.

ALL  OF  THAT  SAID,     i return to my short answer:     natasha considers herself agnostic,     & perhaps with a side of deism that she can’t quite put a finger on.     to me,    she is definitely  NOT  atheist,     which is what fanon / fandom so loves to pigeonhole her as.     but it’s not that simple,     & there’s ample evidence sprinkled across her canon that says otherwise,     much of which i probably haven’t even touched on here.     i hope this answers your question,     & i’m sorry if this was messy or complicated   ——-   there’s just so much to consider.      religion is never something easy,     because it isn’t just a set of frivolous beliefs,     it’s a way of life.     this is no different for natasha.     & since she herself is so complex,     so multi - faceted,     it only makes sense that her own beliefs are the same.

[chicagoindiecritics]

New Review from Jeff York of Creative Screenwriting Magazine: Martin Scorsese Meditates on Age and Regret in “The Irishman”

Much has been made about the technology director Martin Scorsese used in The Irishman to de-age stars Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino. Indeed, it is a marvel, if not a distraction at first, to see the decades digitally erased off of the stars, but it actually helps the idea of the film as a memory play. Based upon Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran’s hitman confessions in the book I Heard You Paint Houses written by Charles Brandt, it’s the story is an old man’s remembrances of his career as a mob enforcer. His was a life filled with excitement, power, and brotherhood. If anything, Sheeran’s memories seem more glamorized by the heightened sheen of the film’s digital effects. It’s a stark contrast to the lonely and feeble old man now telling his tale from a wheelchair in a nursing home.

Mob dramas are old hat for Scorsese, but this film feels very different from his past classics. Whereas Goodfellas, Casino, and The Departed were all told with a kinetic, even restless, sense of bravura, The Irishman takes its time as the camera stays stationary a great deal. And time aplenty it takes to get all fo Sheeran’s story in, running an epic 209 minutes in length. That’s a lot of life of narrative for Sheeran to be telling from that nursing home in 2003. Is he talking to someone – his priest, the DA, or maybe a writer? Perhaps, but one of Scorsese’s coy moves is to not show the listener. Arguably, his audience is those of us watching the movie. Or maybe it’s all just supposed to be in Sheeran’s mind.

Al Pacino

As Sheeran sets the stage, the first flashback finds him driving his longtime friend and mob mentor Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) from Philadelphia to Detroit to attend a family wedding. With wives in tow, their trip plays out innocuously with chit-chat and cigarette stops. A Stuckey’s diner along the highway reminds the two men of their meeting by chance there decades ago. From that point, more and more flashbacks play out, often flashbacks within flashbacks, from their first moments together through the thirty years they worked together in the Philly mob.

It doesn’t wholly matter that the digitally scrubbed De Niro doesn’t look he’s in his early 30s as he’s supposed to be in those early flashbacks. Everything in Sheeran’s telling of those earlier days is bathed in a sort of romanticized nostalgia anyway. His face looks as pristine as the cars and highways.

Soon enough, Sheeran becomes Bufalino’s top enforcer. Writer Steve Zaillian’s script draws a parallel to Sheeran’s WWII war crimes slaughtering defenseless German POW’s and how it numbed his conscience towards killing, but the way Scorsese directs De Niro to play it suggests otherwise. The actor always looks a bit exasperated by the extreme jobs he’s asked to carry out. His narration may dismiss all his bloodletting as part of the job, but De Niro’s physical stooping and wincing during the murders suggests a nagging regret about it all. It’s a mostly reactive performance and De Niro is terrific in it.

Joe Pesci

Nonetheless, Sheeran continues to play the unquestioning soldier, again and again, remaining reliably tight-lipped through all the chicanery. Such loyalty gets him in good with the paranoid Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) when he starts making deals with the Mob. Sheeran becomes the go-between for the two parties. Along the way, Sheeran’s relationship with Hoffa turns into a deep friendship.

Hoffa is everything Sheeran is not: loud, boisterous, delighted in being the center of attention at any gathering. Sheeran admires his boss, especially since he never seems to fear retribution from the Mafia. Pacino and De Niro play wonderfully off each other in the middle hour of the movie, as Sheeran becomes Hoffa’s right-hand man and he grows away from Bufalino.

The film becomes a sort of mini-history lesson in that second hour, dominated by Hoffa and his interactions with famed mobsters, the Kennedy Brothers in the White House, and the press that hung on his every word. Sheeran watches Hoffa grow more powerful and treat the Mob with increasing hostilities. The more Hoffa huffs and puffs, the more Sheeran’s loyalties are called into question by his crime bosses. Soon enough, Hoffa’s out of control, and even if you don’t know the history of the man, you know where the story is going.

Robert De Niro and Al Pacino

Indeed, a lot of what Scorsese is doing here feels familiar. He shows the Mob to be both ruthless and ridiculous as he always has done in past films. The director ensures the period details come alive in their lush way too. And he directs all his players to deft performances once again, especially Stephen Graham, Ray Romano, and Bobby Cannavale. Pacino plays Hoffa large, but never over-the-top. You can see why Scorsese cast him to play such an outsized personality like Hoffa, even though the physical resemblance isn’t ideal. With every moment onscreen, Pacino reminds us why he’s such a star, and indeed, why Hoffa was in his day too.

Pesci, coming out of retirement for this film, gives an even better performance, holding the camera with his stillness. Bufalino stayed in power because he was one cool customer and even though he’s quietly moving the chess pieces around in the Mob’s deadly game, he remains the most admirable character amongst this den of thieves. Pesci’s performance, like De Niro’s, is mostly reactive. Bufalino watches and listens, and then after careful consideration, gives orders. Pesci ensures we see every wheel spinning in the kingmaker’s brain, even suggesting a similar distaste for all the killing, just like Sheeran’s.

In the final hour, the film does start to grow a bit redundant, suggesting the script could have been trimmed some. Hoffa oversteps his bounds – again and again. Sheeran fails to rein him in – again and again. Even so, the material is never less than compelling, and what makes it all so fascinating is the more mournful tone that Scorsese applies to the telling. It’s an affecting meditation on old age and regret, a film with more melancholy than Scorsese’s usual dark wit. The blackest comedy here comes when Scorsese introduces new characters with titles that tell us how violently they died as mobsters. It gets laughs every time, but there’s not much comedy elsewhere, especially in Sheeran’s strained relationship with his daughter Peggy (played by Lucy Gallina as a child and Anna Paquin as an adult.)

Would it have been more challenging for Scorsese to tell a story in a world that he hadn’t mined so often before, one where he still sympathizes avidly, even though most of the characters are stone-cold killers? Perhaps. But Scorsese should be able to tell the stories he wants to tell, and Hollywood should be willing to subsidize his vision. Even with his vaulted reputation, only Netflix would give the septuagenarian filmmaker the money needed to fund this sprawling tale. Is that a story of ageism unto itself? If so, I hope that those who turned Scorsese down live to regret it.

View the trailer for The Irishman below:

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[republicstandard]

SJWs: New Harry Potter Movie for Kids Is not Gay Enough

L.Siren

It has emerged that some people are still obsessed with sexuality, rather than enjoying a good story about magic.

Despite more than a decade passing since the revelation that a fictional wizard took a bludger from his own team, social justice warriors are up in arms that The Crimes of Grindelwald will focus on grown men fighting with magic wands rather than homosexuality.

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I am a major Potter Head. I have the tattoos to prove it; (although they are a work in progress that I plan to finish- I’m Slytherin and proud!) Now a positively ancient 23 years old, I started reading these books when I was 12- the same year that Dumbledore was outed, in fact. The Potter series were the first books I ever read cover to cover, start to finish, and just like many other Potter fans I was lost when I thought the series was over. What fictional world could compare to that of Harry Potter?

As it transpired it was naive to imagine that a cash-cow would remain unmilked for long. The Potterverse keeps expanding, with stage shows and fantastic beasts and so on. So far, so money. But wait, what hue and cry? There’s a new movie called The Crimes of Grindelwald and it won’t be two hours of Johnny Depp kissing Jude Law on the mouth?

To those who say: "wait for it, it's a long saga": No. 10 movies (8HP, 2 Fantastic Beasts) and they failed to include any clear signs of Dumbledore being gay. His love with Grindelwald is literally THE point of the whole drama & they decide to exclude it. Screw them.

— Dana. 🌈🌍 (@Dana_Lurchliebe) February 1, 2018

Here we go again. There is no appeasing the SJW’s even when they are getting fan service movies made explicitly for them.

It would suck if there was just no lgbtq rep in the books and that was the end of it. But her saying Hogwarts Gandalf was absolutely gay, then dodging it deliberately, that is a different level of stink.

— GAIL SIMONE (@GailSimone) February 1, 2018

In an interview, Director David Yates stated Dumbledore’s sexuality would not be handled explicitly.

“But I think all the fans are aware of that. He had a very intense relationship with Grindelwald when they were young men. They fell in love with each other’s ideas, and ideology and each other.”

Oh David. That was a mistake. Of course this has many Potter fans outraged- many claiming the film is about ‘Dumbledore and his boyfriend who turned evil’ and therefore should be gayer.

In the book, Albus and Grindelwald became best friends as teenagers. Together they made plans to locate and secure all three Deathly Hallows and lead a wizard revolution to bring about the end of the international statute of secrecy- which, as of course you know, was the magic law that hides wizards from us muggles and our world. Alas, their friendship came to a tragic end after the two were involved in a three-way wand-fight with Albus’s Brother, Aberforth, that resulted in the death of their younger sister, Arianna. After the duel, Gellert left Britain. This is what we know from the Harry Potter novels, at least.

Rowling never mentioned them being in a relationship at all. You don’t have to be gay to be gay. It's fine to be a normal person that doesn't define your entire identity around what arouses you sexually. Even if the homosexual relationship was explicit, you can never be gay enough for some people.

So, Dumbledore's still only Hays-code gay and the abuser Johnny Depp is still Grindelwald. That's a hard pass from this Harry Potter fan on Fantastic Beasts 2 or whatever it's called.

— molly tanzer (@molly_the_tanz) February 1, 2018

In her novels, Rowling never mentioned Dumbledore’s sexuality. Never.

Rowling announced that Dumbledore was gay after a fan asked her if he “had ever loved anyone” at a Q&A in Carnegie Hall, 3 months after the final book had been published. She then continued to answer the fan’s question and said he had love Gellert Grindelwald, his childhood friend.

After the announcement, many fans were shocked, claiming they couldn’t see him that way. How did Rowling respond?

For once, flawlessly. Rowling was put on the spot in a Q&A session about Dumbledore’s sexuality. Whether it was her intention to still be talking about the wandcraft of gay warlocks over a decade later, only she can say. It takes all sorts. Once the wizard was out of the closet, there was no going back- but his sexuality is fundamentally unimportant to any story he appears in. As mentioned before, his sexuality was never explicit in the novels. Does that mean he’s not gay? No. No it does not. Perhaps Mundungus Fletcher had a penchant for buggery, maybe Mr. Weasley is hung like a mouse’s ear. None of this matters to the tale in the slightest.

In Kevin Smith’s 1995 movie Mallrats the central character, Brodie, is obsessed with superhero genitalia.

“It's impossible. Lois could never have Superman's baby. Do you think her fallopian tubes could handle his sperm? I guarantee he blows a load like a shotgun right through her back.”

In the 22 years since that movie was released, society has come around to be as fixated with what fictional characters do with their sex organs. It is behavior worthy of the Catholic church, as the permanent Social Justice present is similarly devoid of comedy. Or nuance, for that matter.

Hogwarts isn’t home, that Wizarding World world isn’t home if you’re going to erase the expression of HOMOSEXUALITY. DUMBLEDORE IS GAY AND WAS IN LOVE WITH GRINDELWALD. HAVE SOME CREDIBILITY @FANTASTICBEASTS!

— Francis Dominic (@frncissdominc) January 31, 2018

There are plenty of Movies and stories where the romance is a subtext. After all, people pay money to watch things blow up with a side order of smooching. The original Star Wars trilogy, The original Ghostbusters, even Pixar’s Anastasia complies with this basic storytelling format. All these movies have romance but love is not the main focus of the story, in some of them it is barely even shown at all. A New Hope has a love triangle played out with a kiss on the cheek, a jealous glance and Han Solo being a jerk. It is perfect. If The Crimes of Grindelwald uses this storytelling technique, deploying something subtle showing what they had- if anything other than friendship- I would be completely fine with that. The storyline would work with a nod to a gay history, and just as easily without- because the story isn't about Wizard Gay Pride 1922, it's about two of the toughest wizards of all time going tête-à-tête. Even with this blatantly obvious fact spelled out, you can guarantee though that Yates, Rowling, and the stars Jude Law and Johnny Depp are walking into a social justice sh*tstorm.

and on top of that now Dumbledore won't be "explicitly gay" and Rowling is mocking queer people who just wanted a bit of representation. yikes. it's like they want us to despise Fantastic Beasts 🚮 pic.twitter.com/cUO99SSTyN

— Riley J. Dennis (@RileyJayDennis) February 1, 2018

Need we be reminded that this is still a movie for kids? While a lot of people my age and older will gladly enjoy it without the company of our little ones, a lot of young kids will still watch it. Perhaps I am a relic of the past, but is it not the case that parents decide when and how to educate their children about love and sex and the different forms it takes- not Hollywood?

Although this whole affair is the fault of Rowling for chumming the waters with the gay wizards revelation in the first place, she has at least handled the resulting mess in the correct manner. It doesn’t matter about Dumbledore’s sexuality in the context of a movie about fighting with magic. Fantasy stories fare very poorly with the addition of moralizing messages of leftist politics. As we saw with the Last Jedi, pandering to Social Justice instead of making a good movie never works. Ever.

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I’m as much as a Potter fan as any- all I want is a solid movie that tells the story with the minimum of pandering fan-service. They have already changed so much. All I want is to see this part of wizarding history accurately portrayed. This is the story leading up to one of the greatest fights in the Potterverse.

It’s simply not a love story. Please, for the sake of movies, stop shoe-horning socio-political agendas into them- and that goes to both movie makers and goers alike. If nothing else let this be a lesson in speaking carefully. Rowling had an off-the-cuff remark that she thought would gain her a few wokeness points in 2007, and here we are today- still picking up the pieces, and still watching the identity politics chimera run amok.

Can't we just hope the movie doesn't suck?

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[itsclydebitches]

Summary:

“He likes this song.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

In which Cisco is given seven months to fall in love with Barry Allen. It’s admittedly a little weird - what with Barry being unconscious and all - but since when was anything normal nowadays?

Fandom: The Flash (TV show)

Words: Through Chapter Four: 10,707 (will be around 12k total)

Warnings: None

Pairings: Barry/Cisco

Where to Read it: Below the cut or on AO3 (AO3 recommended for formatting)

Worth the Wait: Chapter Four

“Speed,” Dr. Wells said.

He made it sound like some huge, all-encompassing concept. Which, the more Cisco thought about it, it kind of was. Speed was at the root of all the coolness right now; it had taken over their previously snail-paced lives.

“Speed,” he said again, just in case they’d missed it. Dr. Wells was flipping through his chart with true ferocity. “We’ve established that Mr. Allen’s heart has been beating fast enough to fool even our machines. His body has, twice now, vibrated at a speed reminiscent of a seizure. I can only assume his accelerated healing is stemming from similar circumstances.”

Caitlin’s mouth twisted. “Kind of ironic considering that Barry is, you know, asleep.”

“Oh. So he’s ‘Barry’ now huh?” Cisco said and only cut the teasing when Dr. Wells pinned him with a stern look.

“He’s changing,” Dr. Wells emphasized. “We do not know when or even if Mr. Allen will wake, or what kind of state he’ll be in when he does. All we can do right now is keep him comfortable and remain observant. I hope I don’t have to remind you the kind of caution you’ll need to maintain from here on out...or the consequences if you do not.”

Cisco and Caitlin both nodded. Dr. Wells may have taken precautions after Barry had first moved in, but he’d gone into true, protective overdrive following his ‘death.’ Cisco knew that Dr. Wells had erased the last year of Barry’s medical history, disguising it as a system malfunction. That he’d paid off—even threatened—every medical professional that had come within a mile of Central City General, and had spoken at length with Joe and Iris regarding what they said to friends or family about Barry’s condition. Cisco knew because he’d been helping.

Ultimately he’d never expected to be committing felonies either. Although...were they felonies? Cisco didn’t know the law. Should he start learning it? Maybe. All he knew for sure was that this was probably Illegal and Bad... but not necessarily Wrong.

No. He looked at Barry, oddly vulnerable ever since that day, and thought again, no. This wasn’t wrong.

“We hear you, Dr. Well,” Caitlin said. She spoke for the both of them.

“Good.” Dr. Wells smiled then, an honest-to-god smile that filled up Cisco’s chest like a balloon. “You’re both free to go then. It’s been a long week. Go get some rest.”

Caitlin raised a pointed eyebrow. “And you?”

The smile remained. “I’ll be off soon. I promise.”

They’d heard that one before, but despite close quarters and new, impossible bonding experiences, Cisco wasn’t sure his and Dr. Wells’ relationship was at the ‘call you out on your shit’ stage yet. So he grabbed his jacket and waved Caitlin off, staying behind only briefly to turn off the other Levels’ lights via the access panel directly outside of the Cortex. Cisco was looking for his keys when he heard,

“You really are amazing.”

Cisco thought Dr. Wells was talking to him, until he caught the soft timber of his voice, the kind of tone a man like Wells would only use when he was sure the recipient couldn’t understand him—or hear. Sure enough, when Cisco quietly snuck back to look he found Dr. Wells directly beside Barry’s bed.

He’d rolled the blankets halfway up his waist and—after hoisting himself onto the bed in a surprising display of strength—took Barry’s left leg carefully in hand. Dr. Wells began a series of movements and stretches that Cisco recognized from the man’s own therapy sessions.

Caitlin was adamant that he attend them. What’s the point of exercising a useless limb, he’d snapped at her once.

Now here he was, doing it for Barry.

“I don’t simply mean your ...condition, either,” he continued. “Though I must say, that alone is quite fascinating. No, from all accounts you are an extraordinary young man. Your adoptive father speaks of you most highly. Your colleagues have nothing but praise. Based purely on Iris’ accounts, one would think that you’d hung the moon. Or the sun. Yes, that would perhaps be a more accurate saying...” Peeking around the corner, Cisco could just make out Dr. Wells shaking his head. “Well. I’ve always cared most about the mind, and I can say with certainty that I wish I’d nabbed you before the CCPD did. Perhaps we can re-negotiate your employment once you wake up.”

Cisco smiled, leaning heavily against the wall. He stared at the plaster on the other side.

It was silent in the Cortex and Cisco thought that perhaps that was all Dr. Wells had to say. Until, so softly he almost missed it, he caught,

“You’ve instilled great hope in us, Barry. In me most of all.” Cisco could easily imagine Dr. Wells’ hands tightening over pale skin, still careful not to bruise. “Won’t you wake up for us?”

Too personal. Cisco left, resolved to erase his little fit of eavesdropping from the security tape.

Dr. Wells deserved that much.

***

Cisco let his feet carry him away aimlessly. He didn’t feel much like going back to his empty apartment and he certainly wasn’t about to go home, parrying his mother’s questions about why he wasn’t making something of himself now that STAR Labs was officially closed. It didn’t matter how much he explained the good his inventions could still bring, or that Dr. Wells was paying him more than he’d ever find elsewhere. It wasn’t like Dante’s life, and it was therefore useless.

He grimaced. Cisco kept walking until dusk fell and the streetlights started coming on. When he finally looked up he was in a part of town he didn’t recognize, though the landmark was easy enough to know.

He’d walked to the CCPD.

“Why not,” Cisco murmured, jogging up the steps. It occurred to him in that moment that he knew everything about Barry digitally, as well as every inch of his body. It still didn’t feel like enough though... wouldn’t be enough until he could actually talk to him, but that wasn’t an option just yet. This felt like the next best thing.

The precinct turned out to be every bad cop movie Cisco had ever seen rolled into one: barely controlled chaos, men and women in blue flowing like water, yells of rage from perps as they were literally dragged away, the overwhelming scent of coffee. If someone had written this place down on paper Cisco would have judged them for stereotypes. Learning that this was reality though...it was somehow comforting. Like life was just a story.

“Can I help you?”

One of the men paused in the flow, dressed in muted browns instead of blue. It was David Singh, captain of the department, and of course Cisco would run into the boss when he had absolutely no reason for being here.

“Uh...actually no, not really.” Cisco rubbed at the back of his neck before fumbling and presenting his hand. “Captain.”

Singh’s eyes narrowed. “Let me guess. Cisco Ramon?”

“Y-yeah! How did you...?”

He snorted. “I’ve kept careful track of Mr. Allen’s condition since the accident. Frankly there aren’t too many five-foot six Puerto Ricans in these circles, let alone one with a penchant for novelty t-shirts.”

“Right.” Cisco smoothed down his TARDIS shirt. “That’s actually kind of impressive.”

“They pay me to notice things,” Singh drawled. “C’mon,” and he started marching off towards the back, leaving Cisco with nothing to do but follow. Or leave. Which would be rude.

Somehow he didn’t think pissing off the police captain would be a good idea.

Or Barry’s boss, a voice whispered and Cisco growled at it to stop already.

The two of them piled into Singh’s office, him gesturing for Cisco to grab the rickety chair in front of his desk. Despite the cordiality it felt a little like he was about to go through an interrogation. Cisco willed himself to stop bouncing his knee.

“Here.” Singh slammed a paper cup of coffee down. “It takes like shit, but it gets you by. Joe isn’t here right now, if that’s who you’re looking for. You don’t actually have a crime to report, do you?”

Cisco took a sip and grimaced. It was awful. “Uh, no. Really. I’m sorry, this is weird and a huge imposition—”

Singh waved him back down. “Relax. If anything you’re doing me a favor. Can’t be working if I’m talking to you, yeah?” He sighed, leaning back in his chair and pulling out a small ball that he began tossing between his hands. At Cisco’s look he held it up for inspection. “Stress ball. My fiancé says it’ll help with my anger.” The disdain dripped out of Singh’s voice. “I’d like to see him be captain for a day and talk about ‘mental mindfulness.’”

“I’ve... actually got a boss like that.” Cisco chuckled. “Tells us to, you know, not die from the work while basically digging his own grave.”

Singh’s stare had intensified. “Wells?”

“...yeah.”

“He always did strike me as the eccentric type. Refined eccentric.”

“Pfff. Nah. No, no way. I mean he can pull it off for events, but the guy lives in sneakers and eats enough Big Belly Burger to drive our doctor up the wall.”

“Really?” Singh pulled a face that Cisco wasn’t sure how to interpret. “Good to know. That he’s human, that is.” That stare intensified once more. “How is he, then?”

They didn’t need to lay out who ‘he’ was—they weren’t talking about Dr. Wells anymore. Cisco hesitated, the warning to keep things under-wraps still ringing in his ears, but he also couldn’t lie. Not about Barry.

“Still asleep,” he finally settled on. “Well. ‘Sleep.’ Coma, I mean. You know. We... still don’t know if he’ll wake up.”

“He will.” Singh said it with so much certainty that it actually made Cisco jealous. “Barry Allen is the biggest pain in my ass and has been for nearly two years now. He’s off,” Singh pointed, “miles away, unconscious, and he still manages to drive me to distraction. Case in point,” and when his finger honed in on Cisco he took another loooong sip of coffee, taste be damned. “Allen is the most singularly stubborn man in the whole goddamn universe. He’ll wake up just to force me into an early retirement, mark my words.” Singh shook his head.

Cisco was fascinated despite himself. The captain sounded annoyed...but Cisco also knew that tone well. It was the annoyed ‘I kind of love to hate you’ tone that belonged solely to parents with unruly children—and apparently police captains with their forensic scientists.

“Was he really that bad?” Cisco asked.

Singh held up a hand and wiggled all his fingers, ticking them down methodically. “Habitually late, to everything. Incapable of keeping his mouth shut. Frequently embarrasses himself as well as this whole precinct. Once accidentally ordered 72 pizzas—” Singh nodded at the look on Cisco’s face. “Uh huh. I said seven for a sergeant’s party and two for those still out on patrol. But oh no, he somehow heard that wrong. What fool thinks we need that many pies? I told Allen he’d be paying for it and he promptly pulled these, these,” Singh made a complicated gesture, “puppy eyes on me, blabbing about how he was still trying to pay off student loans. I ended up paying out of pocket. Goddamn the kid.”

“Oh man,” Cisco breathed. “That actually sounds like something Barry would do.”

“You know him?”

“Well...” Did he? It really felt like Cisco did, but... “Sort of.”

Singh cracked a little smile, like he actually understood all the insane, overwhelming complications of that sentence. He tossed the stress ball back into its drawer and leaned over his desk, effectively pinning Cisco in his seat.

“You know I’m the one who found him?” he said, so much quieter than before. “Not many people do. In an emergency like that no one pays attention to how people get out or who gets them to the hospital, they just care that they do. But I found him. Amidst all that fucking chaos I still had time to think, ‘Hey, where’s Allen? Where’s that damn shadow of mine?’ And I climbed those stairs, I walked into that lab...” Singh’s mouth tightened briefly. “You know how shit slows down in dreams? How you just know something bad is about to happen?”

Cisco swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

“Just like that. Whole power grid was blown—you know that—so it took me a moment to see him in the dark, and... Jesus. Just Jesus. The bolt threw him clear across the room, Ramon, into a whole rack of beakers with who knows what in them. Allen looked like a rejected thing out of an old sci-fi flick, fluids everywhere and his clothes half charred away. The smell...” Singh stopped again, running a hand down his face. “I thought fuck, no way the kid survived, but there he was, still breathing. Still goddamn breathing. Even now.”

Cisco kept staring desperately into his coffee cup. He’d wanted to know more about Barry. He could admit that now. He just wasn’t sure he’d wanted to know this.

...but of course that was a lie. He wanted everything.

“You seem like a good kid,” Singh said. “Go back to that fancy lab of yours and give Allen’s ass a good kick for me. Tell him to wake the fuck up already. He’s got work to do.” The last part didn’t sound nearly as detached as Singh probably hoped it did.

“Yes, sir. I will, sir.”

"Good man."

And Cisco did. It was late now and he should have turned straight for home, hailed a cab like any normal person on the block, but instead he walked all the miles back to STAR Labs. He keyed in his code and didn’t bother to turn the lights back on. Dr. Wells was long gone and Cisco relied on pure memory to reach the Cortex. Barry was still lying there—always lying there—but tonight he looked almost ethereal. He glowed. He was a bright spark in the darkness; like lightning.

“Wake up,” Cisco said, trying to imbue some sort of power into his words. It came out too desperate though. “Just wake up already.”

He had to raise up on tiptoe to reach over the bed. Cisco smoothed back Barry’s hair and placed a firm kiss on his forehead, thinking of stupid, whimsical things like fairy tales and true love’s kiss. It was an act he never could have done during the day, but at night so much more seemed possible.

“Wake up,” he whispered a third time, directly against Barry’s skin. If this had been a story Barry would have opened his eyes.

But it wasn’t, and they weren’t.

Cisco pulled back, acknowledging how warm Barry’s skin was—and the cold feeling it left in his chest.

He left.