#Decades of brainwashing have convinced people it's romantic

[scentedluminarysoul]

It's not just American

In Germany, your marriage can be seen as invalid if you don't have sex

You can marry your partner solely for tax reasons and nobody bat's an eye, but marry an immigrant so they and their family can stay in the country instead of being flown back into an active war zone? Suddenly a government official can come into your home and ask you how often you have sex and you better have romantic photos everywhere and sleep in the same bed!

You can't even marry your friends for tax reasons alone

And while we're at it, why can you only marry one person, anyway? There's no reason you shouldn't marry multiple people. Marriage is stupid, honestly

[prying-pandora666]

On Alucard and Maria

Are there actually fans advocating for Alucard to be written as Maria’s father figure in the new season of Nocturne? Like that would be a good thing and not infinitely creepier? I don’t think they’ve thought this through.

Alucard is the single most popular character in the franchise. He’s also probably the most shipped character. And yet he has only had one canon love interest in the decades since he’s existed. It’s Maria. And you’re telling me that you think that because he’s 300+ and she’s 17-18 when they started living together in the games, that it would be grooming. However, somehow him inserting himself into her life at age 16 when she’s just lost both her parents wouldn’t come off like grooming!?

Does this man look like he should be picking up random children!? He’s literally terrified of his own cursed blood. Maybe LISTEN TO HIM.

I’m convinced fandoms have forgotten what that word means. Grooming has specific features. It doesn’t just mean “older guy and younger girl.” A relationship with an age gap or an uneven power dynamic can be exploitative or abusive without being a case of grooming. Grooming specifically refers to the process of forming a relationship with a child with the intention of leveraging that relationship and trust to train and prepare (aka brainwash) your victim for the harmful activities the groomer wants to normalize. The relationship Alucard and Maria have in the games is in no way grooming. You know what would be grooming though?

Coming into a 16 year old’s life when she’s vulnerable, traumatized, and recently orphaned only to insinuate yourself as a new father figure. This is so highly inappropriate and a huge red flag. Consider what you’re actually asking for here. These characters do not exist in a a vacuum. They have a long history together as each other’s only canon love interests. You cannot fully extract them from the games, art, interviews, audio dramas, animations, and more where they’re depicted as a couple. There are decades of this precedent and you are asking Netflix to knowingly take the characters with an established romantic dynamic that the audience is already primed to see as romantic and instead portray their meeting as him trying to be her new daddy?

“Oh look! Alucard and his… daughter? Yikes.” This is an official advertisement btw.

THAT is grooming! Think about the optics of this! It would be abysmal! No it would NOT fix the problem of their age gap to make him act like a groomer and get in good with her as a dad. You just cannot completely extract them from the legacy of their relationship in the source materials. It will be incredibly creepy and textbook grooming if you get your way.

Is this really what you want to associate with an “adoptive father Alucard”? Because the art we create doesn’t exist in a vacuum. All the old content—official and fanmade—is still going to exist.

What is so objectionable about the original dynamic anyway? It’s a pretty fun subversion of the tired and problematic vampire trope of “vampire man stalks teen girl and coerces her into being his”. Instead in their original relationship, Maria is the one who pursues Alucard! It’s the young woman who takes initiative and is given the agency to go after what she wants. She courts and woos him. That’s part of the fun!

Yes, Alucard is 300+. He’s also a fictional creature that doesn’t actually exist IRL and stays eternally young. There are no actual people who will ever have his problem of staying 20 forever so it’s rather silly to say he can’t date any humans because of course he will have an age gap with any of them.

The only real problem I have seen people bring up is Maria’s age, but from what I can tell, the show’s already fixed this. Check it out.

In The Games

Rondo of Blood: Maria is 12. She and Alucard do not meet. Richter is a brother-figure and not romantic.

There is then a 5 year time skip.

Symphony of the Night: Maria is 17. She and Alucard meet to save Richter. At the end, Alucard says his goodbyes and intends to return to a life of solitude. Maria goes after him because she has developed feelings for him and doesn’t want him to suffer a life alone.

Maria is given agency to pursue what she wants and prove herself even against Alucard’s resistance and hesitance to let another person into his life.

They spend a year together before we get the audio drama.

Nocturne of Remembrance: Maria continues to try to get close to Alucard. They end up saving each other’s lives and in the end he finally confesses his romantic feelings for her. She is an adult and perfectly able to make her own choices. She chose him. He admits he returns her feelings.

How fandom can look at a story about a young woman subverting the trope and chasing the vampire to get what she wants—basically an anti-Bella Swan—and still find a way to disempower her just so they can pearl clutch? I couldn’t tell you.

So now let’s look at what the show did.

In The Show

Nocturne S1: Maria is 16. She’s been aged up from 12, probably to give her a more active and believable role. But this also means she’s within a normal age to start feeling attraction and expressing her wants. Within her society, she’s even considered of marriageable age. However we are spared the discomfort of our modern values clashing with her contemporaneous ones because Maria in this season isn’t interested in romance. She’s interested in revolution, equality, justice. They’ve portrayed her with so much love and strength. There is no indication they’d betray her by writing her as the child victim of a male suitor. In fact she only meets Alucard in the final few seconds of the season and the two do not even speak a single word to one another.

Now let’s remember the games had a five year time skip. The show only needs two years to get Maria to the adult age of 18, but assuming the follow through with the timeline and go for the full five?

Maria will be 21.

21.

Fan concept for adult Maria. Credit:@esp-art

Are you telling me a 21 year old woman is not old or mature enough to make her own decisions? How is this not a total infantilization of women? Do you think a 21 year old badass vampire hunter needs protection from the ace depressed dhampir boy who just wants to sleep and has in no way tried to pursue her until after she expressed consistent and persistent interest in him?

It is not “grooming” to meet someone when they were younger and then meet them again years later as an adult. That’s a thing that happens! In real life! Adults can still make decisions for themselves! It is only grooming if Alucard behaved in a way that would manipulate teen Maria and put her under his control and authority before she can consent. There is no indication that Alucard in the show is going to do this. And yet the fandom is basically demanding it by saying he should make her “his baby girl”?

And what of Maria’s feelings in all this? She just lost her mother and was betrayed by her father shortly after discovering he even existed. She has lived her whole life without a father. She is in no desperate need of a new one. And if she does need a family member, she already has one! Richter is 19 and is her trusted adoptive brother. Why wouldn’t she go to him over a total stranger she just met and who is half vampire - literally a predator creature that feeds on humans!?

Yeah, hi, Richter Belmont still exists. He and Maria consider each other family. Why would you want her relying on a strange man she just met as a “father figure” rather than her trusted and loving brother?

Have none of you even considered how Maria would feel if Alucard even tried to fill the paternal role? He’d have to force it on her through manipulation and coercion. No way she would want to view him that way. Especially considering she is 16 and likely to be as attracted to the sparkly 20 year old looking sculpted marble beauty as anyone else!

Don’t mind the beautiful eternally young man who looks made of pure porcelain and light. No teen girl has ever been attracted to this, right? No way it could be exploitative and creepy for him to present himself as her new daddy, giving himself authority and influence over her as his child to mold as he wishes, right? Oh yeah, this is MUCH better than Maria pursuing him of her own volition once she becomes an adult, right guys?

We are truly in the stupidest dark timeline.

Frankly, I don’t care if Netflix has them get together or not. They would work just fine as friends too. I just sure as hell hope they’ll ignore the fans clamoring for a creepy daddy/daughter dynamic. Dressing it up as “concern” won’t hide that for some it’s a fetish, and for others they’re just useful idiots who haven’t thought it through.

I implore you to think it through.

[irlkafka]

The death of romance

In our current society, moving always faster than before and leading us to live frenetic lives, we rarely find time for ourselves, let alone for others. I find myself walking down the streets and not realising I am moving fast-paced, even if I am not in a hurry. I subconsciously match what "other people" are doing. So I found myself thinking, and it's something exceptionally rare in our era, and started being really interested (or rather weirded out) by relationships. And I specifically mean romantic and/or sexual relationships. While I do agree that our expectations from a relationship are getting higher than the bare minimum compared to decades ago (thankfully), most people are transforming or have gotten transformed their relationships into a product. It was just a few months ago that I overheard a girl I know talking about her current partner as her "future ex boyfriend", and I was weirdly impressed by what could have been the purpose of entering a relationship with a person knowing for sure you'd want to leave them. I viewed this case as one out of many, an isolated case, until my partner actually told me it's popular nowadays to have something I call "seasonal" boyfriends or girlfriends; for example, having a relationship just for fun during the summer. I found myself flabbergasted by this piece of information, but suddenly many relationships people I know had made finally sense.

I, personally, can't figure out how is it possible to switch partners so fast, or even getting in a relationship you already know you'll break sooner or later. Building a relationship is a lot of work, because you let yourself naked, completely exposed, unless you decide to keep your past, your emotions, your opinions secret, holding back and suffering your own loneliness while being with a person that supposedly loves you or the persona you created.

Many other people just look for hookups, and I find that to make more sense than a planned relationship where you talk about it like it's already ended and in the past. Hookups have no interest in bonding with their one night stand partner, but yet has gotten eerie. Most of these people don't even care about the partner they're looking for, have no respect whatsoever and surely no boundaries. Especially after being brainwashed with the surreal products of the porn industry, we have created unnatural and unreachable standards and convinced people consuming this content that those standards are the average sexual intercourse actions, letting us forget (or ignore) that every single move presented in those videos is table planned, and there's (almost) nothing that's realistic. Porn rotted people's brain to the point of creating addictions, both from the consuming of content and from self pleasure.

So, is almost nobody looking for a solid relationship with one (or more) partner(s), whom let you be the happiest you can and listen to your needs and concerns? Is our fast pacing world of work being blended with our relationships, making people something "useful" to us, and feeling entitled to throw them away after we finished exploiting them? Do we feel like the only type of relationship people are looking for are short-term ones and we have no alternatives? Or do we enjoy constantly switching from one person to another?

There's probably no solution to the death of romance we're experiencing, it's probably just another phase of how things happen. We'll eventually reach a plateau in new things to look for in a relationship, bringing them to be more monotone than ever, maybe even without finding joy in them. Even these tool-relationships may bring positive outcomes like feeling less lonely, having someone to spend time with or raising your confidence, but to a certain extent. If even these little sparks would stop existing, then we'll surely experience an era of the (temporary) end of romance.

[musclesandhammering]

Loki Westview AU

(Because platonic lokius could’ve done it so much better than romantic wandavision and you can fight me on that)

- Instead of an android/human couple living an idealistic married life in the suburbs, it’s a an alien/human buddy cop duo basically living out a vintage murder mystery in various locations.

-When I say various locations I mean that as in, like… instead of Westview being one suburban neighbourhood it changes into different neighbourhoods every episode. Just to make it more trippy. But it’s still called WV.

-The plot is that people have been dying around the town, and the local PD (including detectives Mobius & Loki, and their colleagues B-15 & Casey) are trying to solve the case and figure out what’s going on.

-Their main suspect is Sylvie, a suspicious drifter that no one in the town seems to know anything about.

-It’s slowly revealed that B-15 and Casey’s minds are being tampered with (and at this point, they’re assuming Loki’s and Möbius’s are too), along with everyone else in the town & they realise that Sylvie has supernatural powers (she kinda sorta fills Agatha’s role).

-They set out to try to track her down and apprehend her, but every time they get close, reality bends/they lose their train of thought/the evidence goes missing/she disappears/etc.

-The big reveal is that Loki was the one that was enchanting them, and Sylvie was just acting as the bouncer. The people coming up dead were actually TVA agents that had found them and wanted to take them back.

-Loki, Mobius, & Sylvie had figured out the whole “the TVA is controlling you” thing in one episode and had decided to hide out in a little pocket of the timeline- that Loki kept casting illusions over & shifting and blending with other timelines (changing locals) so that they wouldn’t be found (yes, he can do that. In this au he’s as powerful as he rightfully should be.)

-They weren’t able to/didn’t have time to convince B-15 and Casey of this so they just brainwashed them and dragged them along.

-A twist is that Möbius’s mind was never altered, he knew what was happening the whole time and was just playing along and helping cover up for Loki.

-The first episode is basically the same as the one in the Loki series- starting with him getting arrested and introducing the TVA and worldbuilding, etc. Except Sylvie basically makes her episode 2 appearance at the end of episode 1.

-The next 5 episodes are the decade episodes.

-Episode 7 is a mix of flashbacks (revealing to the viewer what’s been going on all along), attempts to convince B-15 and Casey to trust them again, and foreshadowing that the TVA is closing in on them.

-Episodes 8 and 9 are the big showdown ones. There’s a badass scene where the Superhero Group We Deserved But Didn’t Get (Mobius, Loki, Sylvie, B-15, and Casey) fights the assembled TVA agents in Westview. The end up in multiple different places all across the multiverse (Lamentis??).

-This ends with them being separated. Sylvie and Casey end up being taken in by the TVA, Mobius and B-15 end up stuck in the WV illusion, and Loki ends up in The Void.

-Kang and the other Loki variants and several other plot points either don’t exist in this au or will just have to wait until season 2, up to you.

-There’s no need for Jimmy or Monica in this au because Loki fully knows what he’s doing, while no one on earth (aside from his posse) notices.

-In this au Sylvie is a likeable person who isn’t forced to be Loki’s romantic interest, shows actual remorse over killing TVA agents, and has a believable build up.

-Loki gets to be the extremely morally ambiguous cunning and manipulative badass we know he can be.

-Imagine the main 5 in six decades worth of detective outfits omg.

-This is purely a suggestion but the Westview locals should be: a small suburban town in the 50s, a hippie trailer park in the 60s, a big city in the 70s, a creepy middle of nowhere ranch community in the 80s, a Miami-like city in the 90s, and a boardwalk town in the 00s.

-All of this is tinged with the looming question of what exactly they’re buying time for- they don’t know how to defeat the TVA for good, they don’t know how to free all the agents at once, they don’t know how to escape them permanently, etc. The entire show is just our main crew existing in a panicked limbo.

-Some episodes are super comical, some episodes lean heavily into the murder mystery theme, some episodes are downright foreboding and eerie, some of them of action packed, some of them are really emotional.

-The main theme running through all of it is trust. Loki and Mobius trusting each other completely after not knowing each other very long at all. The two of them grappling with trusting Sylvie when she still seems shady even to them. B-15 and Casey struggling to trust Loki and Mobius all throughout the story. Just trust issues all around.

-We don’t have to endure all the brown of the TVA for as long as we did in the series.

[the-naruto-corner]

Itachi & Emotional Manipulation

The question “Would Itachi Uchiha have been an abusive husband/father?” was asked on Quora, and someone responded with a really neat breakdown of Itachi’s barriers for open, healthy relationships (read under the cut).

“Maybe.

Itachi Uchiha was a severely emotionally damaged individual. He was basically a child soldier twice over, and heavily manipulated by unscrupulous individuals for most of his formative years.

What he did to Sasuke was HIGHLY abusive. People might argue that his intentions were good, but there’s a famous statement concerning roads to hell that pertains to that.

And then we have what Itachi did to Izumi. Other answers bring this up as a reason against Itachi becoming abusive, but I see it as even more evidence of his risk.

Because, merciful or not, what he did to Izumi was just as abusive as what he did to Sasuke. Notwithstanding that he killed her, he basically gaslighted her for a subjective span of decades. If she had survived that genjutsu how do you think she would have felt about being made to experience a lifetime of lies?

And finally we can look at how he dealt with his parents. We learn in hindsight that Fugaku willing submitted to death rather than “fight a death match with his son.” If that was indeed the case, don’t you think it likely that he would have rather called off the coup rather than do the same? If Itachi had simply talked to his father, told him the truth, that Konoha knew about the plot and that if it was going to become shooting match Itachi has resolved to side with the village? If at that point Fugaku was willing to call off the coup (without secrecy it was tactically doomed anyways) and then make open peace overtures to Hiruzen (the openness would forestall any schemes that Danzo might try on his own)? The whole tragedy could have been avoided.

But Itachi did not do that. And that was a recurrent pattern in how he dealt with the people he loved. His intentions were always for the best, (as he saw it, anyways), but Itachi decides what best is. Itachi acts on it. Itachi does not talk. Itachi does not ask. Itachi does not consider what the other person might want.

He went as far as to prepare a plan to use Shisui’s eye to brainwash Sasuke in the event Sasuke turned against Konoha, a brainwashing intended to endure for a lifetime.

This is all consistent with how Itachi himself had been treated and indoctrinated and had his own agency stripped from him.

So we have a history of a young man who suffered abuse as a child, with a history of abusive behaviour to a younger brother, abusive behavior to a potential romantic interest, and abusive behavior towards his parents.

A young man who does not communicate openly or honestly with his loved ones, but instead tries to manipulate them with deception and is willing to use special powers to achieve these aims.

This, in the lexicon, is what we call “red flags”.

If he were a patient in a modern therapy practice, he would be considered at high risk to become abusive to future loved ones.

More likely emotionally abusive than physically.

One must never forget that abusers are usually not cackling villains in their own minds. Most do love, or think they love, the people the abuse. They think, or justify to themselves, that what they do is motivated by love and for the victim’s own good, or they convince themselves that what they do is forced on them by the actions of their victim, that they had no choice.

And that is Itachi to a T.

But of course, high risk does not mean certainty. And perhaps the biggest fact in Itachi’s favor is that when he comes back as an Edo Tensei, we find out that he realizes his mistakes. He tells Sasuke that he was wrong to manipulate him and that he should have tried talking first instead. That’s a reasonable basis for healing, if Konoha only had some decent therapists.

If he had survived and gotten himself a wife and a child, perhaps he could have beaten the odds and overcome his psychological challenges.”

Source: https://qr.ae/pNMh0I

[spndystopiabang]

SPN Dystopia Bang 2020 Master List

The bang is over for 2020, but here are all the amazing stories and pieces of art that were created for this year.

Please do pay attention to tags and warnings below and when you click through. Also, please remember this is a multishipping friendly bang, and so the stories here are across a range of Supernatural ships.

You can also find all stories in this year's bang over on our AO3 Collection.

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Title: Bite The Hand That Feeds Author: hit_the_books Artist: Anyrei Rating: Explicit Ships: Castiel/Sam (Sastiel) Expected word count: 20k Major warnings and tags: Graphic depictions of violence Summary:

Two centuries ago, a great cataclysm hit the Earth. Monsters poured forth from a tear in reality, and the insidious energy from this rift turned much of the Earth into wasteland. Humans now survive in a handful of guarded megacities, like New Lawrence, while some live out in the wastes.

But what if there was a way to finally close the rift for good and save the Earth?

That’s what Castiel hopes when he happens upon Sam Winchester, a powerful psy—a human mutated by the energies of the rift.

Yet other psys have different plans. The cult of Azazel sees a newer, deadly future for the tear in the world and the rest of humanity.

Banding together with Sam’s brother Dean, Castiel and Sam set forth to heal   the world once and for all, along with some help from old friends.

The Plan? Survive. Save the world. Fall in love. Link to story Link to art -

Title: I’m All Yours My Love Author: DWImpala67 Artist: EmmaTheSlayer Rating:  Mature Length: 33121 Pairings: Jared Padalecki/Jensen Ackles Warnings: No Major Archives warning Apply Summary:

They live in a world where a love marriage was a taboo and more so for male carriers. Jared is one of them. His father has arranged for his marriage with Jensen Ackles, whom he doesn’t know from Adam. Unfortunately for him, he falls in love with another man. He’s happy and they keep it under wraps until they can seek Jared’s parents’ permission. But, his secret is exposed and his guy is sent packing and Jared is married off to Jensen Ackles forcefully to honor his family name. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to forget his first love and move on.

Jensen Ackles was a romantic. He always believed his married life would be one full of love and belonging, of togetherness. He took one look at his husband and fell hard and fast for him. His husband is the single most treasured and important person to him in the entire world. He’ll do  anything to make his husband happy. But what he gets instead is a husband who’s given his heart away already. So, Jensen decides to help his husband find his true love. Only, Jared has other ideas… Will Jared get his happily ever after? Or will they both find something to soothe their battered soul?

Link to fic: Archive Of Our Own Link to art: LiveJournal - Title: A Town Called Rhoda Author: smalltrolven Artist: MidnightSilver Rating: Explicit Length: 24,937 Pairings: Sam/Dean, (Dean/Original Binary Character) Warnings: Brief mentions of past torture, enslavement. Summary:

It’s the end of the world, and Dean believes Sam is gone along with the rest  of San Francisco. When the nukes began to fall they were separated by hundreds of miles, and now there’s no point. He tries his hardest to move on, living in a small town in the redwood forest of Northern California. This is the story of what happens when Sam eventually shows up after enduring an epic journey just to reach Dean.

Link to fic: LJ or AO3

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Title: Brother Take My Hand Author: MidnightSilver Artist: MissJenniferB Rating: Explicit Length: 40K Pairings: Sam/Dean Warnings: sentient animal sex (Sam and Dean are wolves), Sam is 17 at the start of the fic, attempted non con, Magical roofies, minor character death, canon level gore and violence (please read tags) Summary: All Sam has ever known is Yellow Eyes’ rule and life within the Pack, but he is sure there has to be more.

The young wolf questions everything he’s been taught. Why is he the only one fascinated by old ruins? Is human nature really so evil that it justifies using other creatures as slaves? And why can no one else see the benefits of using hands?

Dean loves Sam but he doesn’t have any answers. In fact he wishes Sam didn’t have so many questions.

On the summer equinox fate will force Sam to make some choices and Yellow Eyes is already showing far too much interest in him. So what will the young wolf do when he has to choose between the Pack and his conscience?

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Title: The Sounds of Hope Shall Never Fade Author: Hannah-deserved-better (Hannah_girl) Artist: Duck (majesticduxk) Rating: Mature Length: 14,215 Pairings: Hanstiel Squared (Castiel/Hannah/Castiel’s female vessel/Hannah’s male vessel) Warnings:  Abuse, torture, medical experimentation, attempted artificial   insemination, captivity, pregnancy, emotional trauma, psychological trauma, Evil!Sam, Evil!Dean, major character death (sort of) Summary: Castiel and Hannah fall into an alternate reality where they encounter their counterparts in this world. Castielle (Castiel’s female vessel) and Hana (Hannah’s male vessel) have endured decades of torment at the hands of these humans. Castiel and Hannah meet Sam and Dean, but these aren't the Sam and Dean they know. They are a twisted, cruel, uncaring version of their real-world counterparts and they see the angels and their powerhouse supply of angel grace as commodities. The Angels power their underground world after a comet strike destroyed life on the surface. Now, this small underground civilization, one of many all over the world, has running water, food, power, and other necessities all powered by angel grace. Sam and Dean will do whatever it takes to hold onto their four precious powerhouses, and have long since given up on caring about the comfort of their angelic captives. Castiel, Hannah, and their counterparts must endure endless medical experiments, painful grace extractions, and deplorable living conditions, and somehow they must find a way to survive because the future of heaven may hang in the balance.

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Title: When Worlds Collide Author: LilyAnson Artist: AnyRei Rating: General Length: 18500 Pairings: Mick Davies/Arthur Ketch, Matt Anderson/Hilary BeckerWarnings: No warnings really apply Summary:

Ketch is halfway across the country when the Croatoan virus break out. Worried about his boyfriend he races as fast as he can to find out if Mick is still alive or not. Upon arrival he finds something new. A strange, floating object, seemly made out of what appeared to be glass shards hovered nearby.

Matt is a traveler from the future bent and determined to save his world. If that means he has to use the people around him, so be it. That is, until he falls for one of his fellow teammates. Now he must decide whether or not saving the potential future is worth losing the one person he's ever loved.

Otherwise known as what happens when dinosaurs and the supernatural meet.

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Title: Fabulous Monsters Author: ellispark Artist: nickel Rating: Mature Length: 10k Pairings: Dean/Castiel Warnings: Canon-typical violence, references to torture and brainwashing, references to war crimes Summary:

It’s been a year since Dean last saw Castiel — a year since he was captured and reprogrammed by the angels, trained to be a torturer. When Charlie escapes the angels, she tells him Cas can still be saved.

Dean rushes to Cas’s rescue, unsure of what he’ll find. Will Cas be the loyal friend he lost, or the emotionless killer the angels turned him into?

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Title: WEDLOCKED Author: spnsmile Artist: oddsocksandstuff Rating: Explicit Length: 50k+ Pairings: Castiel/ Dean Winchester Warnings:  Noncon, graphic violence, torture... Summary:

Dean Winchester, the leader of the Southern Resistance, makes a decision to stay in the capital keeping his brother alive, meeting his new husband with a promise to never break.

Castiel Novak, a Skywalker, has just returned to Discordia from his trip to outer space. Trained by the best Capacitors from VOLTS, the paramilitary officers, he finds himself with a new mission— to connect with a rebel and transform him into a submissive member of the society.

Can Castiel convince Dean to stay by his side? Or will he turn against the society threatening Dean?

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Title: Feathers On My Breath Author: navajolovesdestiel Artist: kuwlshadow Rating: Explicit Pairing: Dean/Castiel Warnings: Drug use Summary: The world following the apocalypse was a very different place than before. After Sam said yes to Lucifer, after he and Michael had fought the final battle, the angels won. They retreated to heaven after locking Lucifer away again, sealing heaven.

There were a few angels who were left behind, trapped forever on earth. Some humans had survived. They lived in small groups, foraging for food, medicine, necessities. But human beings are resilient. They prospered, grew in numbers as babies were born.

One thing they all had in common was their hatred of angels. If they ever trapped one it was swiftly put to death, or worse.

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Title: Fields of Freja Author: Emblue_Sparks and tfw_cas (punk-is-notdead) Artist: shealynn88 Rating: Explicit Length: 65k+ Pairings: Castiel/Dean Winchester (Past Dean/Benny, Claire/Kaia, Sam/Eileen) Warnings: MCD (Dean only), Graphic Violence, Juvenile Soldiers, Juvenile Deaths Summary:

Bolivian-born Dean Winchester is a seasoned soldier, having served courageously in the rebellion against an immortal and tyrannical visionary. Yet his greatest fight begins the day his life ends. Dean awakens to a beautifully winged, albeit sardonic man, claiming him for Valhalla. Only problem: Like Helheim is he going. Not until Sam's safe from the Bright One in New Lebanon, tech beacon of the broken world, resting within the arctic circle.

As the only male Valkyrie in existence, Castiel Sigurd is an outcast tasked with purpose, yet denied companionship. Called to claim the only soldier to refuse the honor of Valhalla, intrigue paints his otherwise colorless eternity. Castiel journeys with Dean to find Sam, who's been lost to the winds for years. With nothing but a clue-filled journal and an oath to ascend upon 'mission accomplished,' Dean embarks on this last harrowing quest, experiencing adventure beyond his wildest fantasy and heart's desire along the way.

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Check out the SPN Dystopia Bang 2020 AO3 collection here!

[thelaserdiscfiles]

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969, Bond no. 6, Dir. Peter R. Hunt)

After a successful run of 5 Bond films, Sean Connery decided to hang up the holster and explore other ventures. This would not be a permanent departure from the series, in fact it would not be his only departure and return to the series, but we'll get into that. After Connery's temporary retirement from the role, series producers Broccoli and Saltzman began pre-production for filming an adaptation of The Man With The Golden Gun, featuring Roger Moore as Bond, intending to shoot it in Cambodia. However, between Roger Moore signing up for another series of the television show The Saint and political instability in southeast Asia at the time, this didn't come to fruition, thus TMWTGG and Moore were shelved for a later day. In fact, OHMSS was originally to be made post-Goldfinger, but the rights legal battle I mentioned a few posts ago was resolved, and EON was able to move forward with Thunderball.

Enter George Lazenby, a 29 year old Australian model who had more or less no acting experience aside from appearing in a chocolate bar commercial. Lazenby is kind of the movie star that was never to be. He kinda lucked into an astonishing amount of potential by starring in this movie, but unfortunately for him, he squandered it by declaring shortly into filming that he would only be starring as James Bond in one film, as he had been convinced by his manager the the Bond franchise would not remain solvent into the seventies. Yes, time has born this out to be an incredibly poor decision, and incredibly ironic, as the franchise has stood the test of time very well. But, going from the tumultuous 60s into the more civilized and freer 1970s, who's to say if it would have been at the time? Yes, hindsight is 20/20. It's easy to, in 2019, laugh at Lazenby's decision as very poor judgment and mismanagement, but at the time it was not known that the Bond franchise would be a titan that transcends decades.

The movie begins with James Bond driving along in his sweet new Aston Martin DBS Vantage, when he gets passed by a totally bitchin' red Mercury Cougar XR-7. Given that the Merc was driven by a pretty woman, Bond naturally takes an interest, and prevents her from drowning herself in the ocean.....and is attacked by two thugs who presumably want the woman. After beating them down, the women takes off as Bond quips "this never happened to the other fellow", and opening credits role.

The woman, revealed to be contessa Teresa di Vicenzo, or, just Tracy to her friends, is the troubled daughter of an Italian crime lord. Her father, seeing some kind of potential in Bond, attempts to bribe him into wedding his daughter with a princely dowry of one million pounds. Bond refuses, however, he continues to romance Tracy on the condition that her dad reveal the location of his nemesis, SPECTRE numero uno, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Finally having a shot at Blofeld, Bond returns to London only to be told by his superior M to drop it, and Bond resigns from MI6. Well, tries to, at least, as M's secretary Moneypenny changes the resignation notice to a request for vacation. Bond then makes tracks to Tracy's dad's birthday, where he finds himself in a genuine romantic relationship with her. Inevitably, her father's sources lead Bond to a geneologist for London's College of Arms, and learns that Blofeld is scheming to attain a title of nobility, claiming to be Count Balthazar de Bleuchamp, and that he is holed up in a mountain in neutral Switzerland, running an allergy clinic. Impersonating the geneologist and donning his silliest outfit, Bond heads for Piz Gloria, Blofeld's compound high in the Alps, and, after seducing several of the young patients and finding out that they're being brainwashed to taint the world's food supply, Bond is caught and outed at the spy he is, despite coming face to face with Blofeld, who apparently remembered him looking more like a certain Scotsman. Bond is imprisoned, but escapes by skiing down the mountain with the bad guys, including Blofeld's head henchwoman, Irma Bunt, behind him. Hiding from his pursuers in a mountain town, he comes across, of all people, Tracy, who is in town doing some skating. Together they take flight in her Cougar, and more skiing ensures. Blofeld triggers an avalanche, and manages to abduct Tracy. Along with her father and his men, Bond stages a daring raid on Piz Gloria, and rescues Tracy, but Blofeld manages to escape on a secret bobsled. Later, with M, a weepy Moneypenny and a proud Q present, Bond and Tracy wed, only for Blofeld and Bunt to gun her down in a drive-by shooting, leaving James Bond to weep over the body of his dead wife.

Fifteen or so years ago, when I was first REALLY getting into the series, Lazenby and OHMSS were stalwarts of worst Bond/Bond movie lists everywhere. Contemporary reviews seemed to focus on one thing: George Lazenby isn't Sean Connery. Connery had been the face of the series since the beginning, a series for which the public had a voracious appetite for. In my personal opinion, they just weren't ready for the face of that to change. However, in 2019, as I right this, the movie has undergone considerable reappraisal. Industry bigshots Steven Soderberg and Christopher Nolan have cited it as their favorite of the series. Lazenby himself is still rather polarising. You either like him or you don't. I do. I personally believe that had he stuck with the role, and gone on to make Diamonds are Forever and especially Live and Let Die, and we had not had poor Roger Moore languish in the role til 19-80-fucking-6, we would have had a vastly different franchise. A franchise that I lement the loss of the possibilities of, and had Lazenby been the face of that franchise, matured with it, I think he would be infinitely better remembered. He has a youthful flippancy about him, and a greater physicality than Connery ever had. I genuinely enjoy the dynamic between him and Tracy, who is played by Diana Rigg, who modern audiences will probably NOT (it has been 50 years since OHMSS) recognize and Olenna Tyrell from the HBO juggernaut Game of Thrones. A lot of people didn't like when Bond wept over her dead body. I do agree that Connery probably would not have done that. For me Lazenby balances the quintessential hard drinkin' Aston Martin drivin' PPK shootin' womanizin' tropes that the series had become known for with a healthy dose of humanity. The things he could have done...even though it was literally 20 years before my birth....still bothers me.

The action in this movie is both thrilling and beautifully shot. The skiing scenes put that of Moore-era flick The Spy Who Loved Me, which was made nearly a decade later, to shame. The car chase with the big, brawny Cougar XR-7 is just awesome, a chase made better for me by the fact that it's Tracy, not Bond, behind the wheel. The penultimate bobsled scene is, goofiness aside, pretty damn exciting. The music, including the driving opening theme (the first, and only theme in the series to be an instrumental piece) and the Louis Armstrong-sung tune We Have All The Time In The World are really good and have a great late 60's feel.

If I had to pick one thing that doesnt do it for me....it's easily Telly Savalas....Mo'fucking Kojak, as Blofeld. Savalas, despite being a bigger and more physical and intimidating figure than Donald Pleasence,..I just can't take him seriously. I seriously expect him to say "who loves ya, Bondy" and start sucking on a lollypop at any moment. That said....he is easily the most fun rendition of Blofeld, despite Savalas playing the character deadly serious.

Depsite middling reviews and reception, OHMSS brought in over ten times it's budget of 7 milion, which was 3 mil less than YOLT. But Lazenby was out. Who would fill the tux next? Well....to the great joy of the general public, EON would manage to tempt back Sean Connery for one last (official) Bond film....James Bond would be back in Diamonds are Forever.

[whimsoriginalcharacterscentral]

OC Origin

MAX

Origin: 2006 or 2007

Appearance: golden-blond hair, sky or cerulean blue eyes

Backstory: Changes with each iteration

1st + 2nd iteration - Max Dragon

Max Dragon is the prince of dragons. Well, a version of dragons that are part human and primarily look like humans until they're capable of transforming at the age of twelve. Max and his twin Giancarlo were the subjects of a prophecy that they could kill a dark dragon known as Ken. Ken attempted to assassinate the royal twins during their first public appearance as literal infants.

The King and Queen decided the best course of option for their children's survival was to send the twins away to live amongst humans. They were given to two guardians who would take them away. Max's guardian was a twelve year old boy named Jake (renamed Valen in later iterations) who descended from the family of a dragon that had married a wizard and not a human.

Jake leaves the hidden paradise island of dragons and runs away to the human world with baby Max. He hopes to reunite with a distant human relative that will help him raise Max in secret. Unfortunately, Ken is hot on his heels with the belief he has both infants. Jake spends months running from Ken but a recent encounter leaves him gravely injured. With a stroke of luck, he makes it to his human relative and stresses the importance of Max and his protection. With his dying breath, Jake obscures Max from Ken's sights and succumbs to his injuries.

Max is raised by Jake's relative known as Old Man Jenkins. They don't have a good relationship since Jenkins didn't want the responsibility of taking care of Max. It's a better relationship than the one they have with the other villagers. Max is ostracized by the villagers for his unusual eyes, his mysterious origins and because he lives with the odd hermit. As such, he's lonely most of his youth. He joins a secret organization of rangers to develop some of his skills and also meets pure dragons that he has an automatic connection with.

Things change when Max is 11 as the village leader figures out Max is working with the rangers to overthrow him. He sends men to trap Max inside a burning building in order for him to have a terrible death. However, Max's heritage allows him to survive the fire. Max is confused but puts it on hold to effectively end the reign of the village head. On the eve of his 12th birthday, Old Man Jenkins reveals Max's origin and how he came to take care of him. Max, with the Old Man's permission, decides to return to his home, reclaim his title and kill Ken. His adventure begins.

The adventure includes finding his brother, meeting mermaids and their princess Zelda that he grows affection for, returning home, traveling to different worlds and times, war, loss, love, clones, truth of a clone-triplet situation and meeting an evil alternate self of his.

3rd iteration - Max Darwin

Max Darwin is a human boy who lost his parents to a teacher who had become obsessed with him. He's a quadruplet - Giancarlo, Sehel and the official appearance as a sibling with Halt - but is distraught since the other three are in comas since the attack by the teacher. Max is a closed off boy that Jake Anderson, legal guardian and cousin, struggles with since he knows Max is just hiding his pain.

Max meets Zelda and the two have a typical teenage coming of age story where they begin to open up to each other and fall in love until news break out that his obsessed teacher has escaped prison and is most likely searching for him. Then it becomes a thriller.

**least developed version**

4th iteration - Maxiel Garwin

***Current Iteration(s)!!***

Maxiel "Max" Garwin is the latest iteration that has subcategories: the king/prince, the God, the damaged soul and the assassin.

King category: King Maxiel Ilian Draconian

Maxiel I. Draconian is the Dragon Witch-King of the country of Draconia in the No. 6 fanfiction Children's War (first fanfiction appearance of the character!). He lost his father at a young age, before his father could choose a successor. So he and his brothers became the Four Kings, ruling the country until an invasion from a foreign country's king led to their deaths(?)

God: Leixam, 12th God, "Maxiel"

Leixam - Leixam is one of the Elder Gods in the No. 6 fanfiction universe that makes his first appearance in the OC-centric Serendipity: Through the Eyes From Above. He is initially an apathetic, bored deity until he becomes involved in the love story of Nezumi and Shion. He goes through great lengths to ensure their happy ending, messing with the natural order in order to do so. To summarize, he's a big NezuShi shipper.

12th God - 12th God is a part of a large pantheon of gods that has been helping humanity for centuries. Unlike his fellow deities, 12th God likes to spend his days disguised as a human and chilling with them. He meets an interesting village boy named Nath, who is a complete atheist. 12th God grows fond of Nath and is distraught when Nath catches a terrible plague that kills his family and nearly kills him. 12th God spirits Nath away to the realm of the gods and gives him the gift of immortality since he can't cure the plague, as it was another god's doing. Nath initially hates immortality and is rattled by finding out gods are real. He grows thankful of his new life and stays with 12th God for centuries. Forces threaten to tear them apart such as jealous gods, amnesia, near loss of immortality and, oddly enough, death.

Another version of 12th God has him meet a modern day Nath - short for Nathaniel - under the human alias Maxiel. The two met at several points in Nath's human life while "Maxiel" was fighting a celestial war. The two became a couple a year after Nath divorced his wife and they lived together for decades. They had several demigod children - none of them born in a traditional way - and fun adventures.

However, 12th God finally realizes one day that his Nath has become old. Despite Nath's insistence, he remains by his side with the promise to immortalize his soul after his death. Unfortunately for the duo, others want Nath's soul and immortality seems less likely to happen.

"Maxiel Nikas" - "Maxiel Nikas" is not a god like the previous versions but he's not completely human either. He was created as an Irregular weapon with the power to implant, erase and manipulate memories. For the power to manifest, he has to have physical contact with the person. He weaponizes his power in order to complete his mission.

The damaged soul: Maxiel Hadriel Garwin-Russo

Maxiel H. Garwin-Russo - Maxiel is the son of a wealthy CEO and an international actor. Like most of the other incarnations, he is born with other siblings. This time, he's a quintuplet with the same brothers plus a younger, quintuplet sister Gwendolyn. For reasons not to be told to avoid spoilers, he ends up in the streets where he meets Zelda and their love story begins anew.

The Assassin: Maxiel Garwin

Maxiel Garwin - Max has been an assassin since he was seven, eliminating an entire crime organization that killed his parents, sold his brothers and kept him as a slave. He was found by two men, Jason and his younger brother Ken who, instead of doing the right thing and sending Max to therapy, recruited him as an assassin for their organization.

He does pretty awful acts in his line of work until he disappears at the age of seventeen and reappears at age nineteen with an interesting case of amnesia and a bullet that should've killed him. Instead of letting him go, Jason takes advantage of the amnesia to convince Max that he is his father and Max is fiercely loyal to the organization. He brainwashes Max with falsehoods before he allows him to interact with others.

As this happens, "Felix" wants to create the Black Jokers, a group of 4 individuals that they can use to assassinate anyone they please. "Felix" wants the amnesiac Max to be the leader, to Jason's anger since he wants to have Max completely under his finger before releasing him. After a threat, Max is released and allowed to join the Black Jokers.

The story involves friendship, experimentation, fake deaths, hurt and comfort, child abuse, manipulation, fragmented memories, more mature content, quintuplets, racism, etc. I can't divulge more without spoiling anything but I can say that therapists should come out more often.

Love interest: Max, in many iterations, is either bisexual or ace. Bi!Max is present in the fourth iterations with the exception of King Maxiel Ilian Draconia and "Maxiel Nikas". Those two are asexual and have no love interest. Hell, the war that led to the downfall of King Maxiel was his insistence on not getting married and a spurned man deciding to try to take him as a spouse by force. "Maxiel Nikas" doesn't have any romantic or sexual interest in people and he doesn't fault his mission for it. He genuinely doesn't understand it. The godly versions of Max are either pan or aro/ace.

Max Dragon in his first iteration had no love interest since both he - and I as the author - were children. So his sexuality was never brought up or thought upon by yours truly. The second version of Max Dragon did have more options since he lived longer and I was older. He dated Maxine, Hebe and Zelda, only marrying Zelda and having children with her. 2nd Max Dragon still didn't feel straight, though, so it could be possible he was bisexual.

The 3rd iteration of Max is also a mystery. Again, I didn't think of a sexuality because it didn't seem important.

Depending on the iteration, Max has either Zelda or Nath as his love interest. So he definitely has a type since both have black hair and bluegreen/sea-green eyes. Both Zelda and Nath are morosexual - exclusively attracted to morons - since they like Max (Just a joke, ya'll).

Several people have fallen for Max - mostly women - for his status, looks or personality. The majority do it for his status since he's either a prince, king, rich kid, god or just a powerful assassin with influence. Nath and Zelda are the few of the people that look beyond the mask of Max, loving him because of who he is rather than his money or looks.

Possible love interests: I actually had to read back my old writings (yikes) to discover people who could've been Max's love interests if the story had taken a different route. They are: Maxine, Hebe, Greyson, Lady Cassandra, and Oliver.

Maxine was Max Dragon's fiancee but circumstances caused by one of the people on the above list (Greyson) cause Maxine to believe Max was dead. She mourned for two months before marrying his cousin, Samuel. Upon his return, Max was heartbroken but tried to not show it. Maxine was the first love interest written for Max.

Hebe, the goddess of youth, didn't think her relationship with Max was as serious as he thought it to be. He loved her more than she ever loved him, leading to their mutual separation.

Lady Cassandra's the darkest of the girl love interests since she wants Max despite his marriage to Zelda and their children. She didn't view Max as a person either, seeing him more as a trophy to be earned. She wanted Max because he was a powerful, handsome king, not for anything else. She's the most selfish person "in love" that I've written.

Greyson is the prince of the wyverns (drakons in the original version) who was manipulated by Ken to see Max as an enemy to his people. The two nearly destroy each other until they realize that they were manipulated. After that, the two began a very close relationship. Greyson always did his best to save and protect Max and was his most loyal friend during Max's darkest times.

Oliver met Max when the two were slaves. Oliver immediately decided he wanted to protect Max because he saw the other boy as fragile and weak. The two were separated and Oliver temporarily lost his purpose and thought Max had died in his absence. They reunite but Max has no memories and Oliver feels slightly intimidated by Max's strength and independence.

The closest people to qualify as potential love interests are Greyson and Oliver. Heck, Oliver and Max would've become a couple had they not been separated. Alas, the two are second to Zelda and Nath.

Family: Max tends to have an extensive family. The first iteration has him with the largest amount of siblings who would either be written out or rebooted. His original family consisted of his parents, the eldest and only sister Elizabeth, older brothers Jake, Jacob, Zack, and Cody and his twin Giancarlo. The 2nd iteration brought Sehel into the family.

The 3rd iteration removed Elizabeth, Jake, Jacob, Zack and Cody and put in Halt and having Max be a quadruplet. Max is also orphaned in this version with his legal guardian being Jake/Valen, his older cousin.

The 4th iterations returned some of Max's previous siblings. Elizabeth, Jake, Jacob, Zack and Cody are the older siblings of Maxiel Garwin-Russo while Max is a quintuplet thanks to younger sister Gwendolyn. He doesn't have true siblings in his godly forms, though. Just vaguely connected to other gods. Maxiel Garwin the assassin only has three brothers and two sisters (removing Jake, Jacon, Zack and Cody).

As for kids, only 3 versions of Max has kids: Max Dragon version 2, Maxiel Garwin and 12th God "Maxiel".

Max Dragon has a lot kids with Zelda: Blake, Gabriel, Dylan, Atticus, Kay, Zora, Senna and Nami. The first three are later incorporated into Maxiel Garwin the Assassin. 12th God Maxiel and Nath had 7 children, currently unnamed at the time.

Closing thoughts: I really really love Max. He was my first and oldest OC. I created him as this spunky, confident and outspoken kid because I was the complete opposite. I've changed throughout the years and Max has been the only OC that changed with me. I even used him as a form of therapy when I got a bit depressive in middle school. Max has a special place in my heart and is the OC that made me fall in love with writing. That's all for Max's OC Origins. See you next time!

[anti-marxistcult]

SJW’s “Diversity” dogma and Tokenism comments

same with me

YES!!! THANK YOU!!!

good point

same, entertainment is for escapism, not propaganda but this is what happens when ideologues control any business

Pretty much.

muthafucken TRUTH ^

they do because 1) it is their “selling-pitch” and to guilt/shame you into watching/liking it and 2) it is so if you dare criticize it they use the women/POC/GLBT card on you and call you names to smear you and deflect attention away from the criticism that it is a shitty poorly constructed film, game, series, comic, etc they use “diversity” to protect their mediocre propaganda from negative reaction, backlash, criticism

yup, that is why feminism is a sham, by looking at the people in the movement, their mentality and hatred of femininity and healthy women, it is no wonder feminists indulge in fandoms to bash classical feminine characters and project themselves into male characters by stripping them of their masculinity and making them go against their original identity by screwing other male straight characters. Feminism is for self loathing fugly women who are anti femininity and anti masculinity in their natural forms.

exactly, they know they have to get them while they are young, the younger he better because they are at their most vulnerable and impressionable. it is very much like a cult, they’d groom their children too.

True, it is feminism that makes women turn against themselves and each other. it conditions them to hate their femininity, hate being healthy and attractive. It is these land whale types that attack classic and traditional femininity and want to make women more butch and masculine because they think that since masculinity is men’s strength then women should emulate it, when in truth femininity is women’s strength, but feminism views femininity as a weakness, thus they emasculate men to weaken them in society’s eye and promote women to be masculine under the dumb belief it is supposed to give women some magical strength that men possess, lol or in other words: ‘cock envy’. This leads to both men and women being unhealthy, depressed, miserable, they develop self-image issues, and instead of taking responsibility for their lifestyle and their gullibility for buying into feminism and anti-gender norms dogma, they blame attractive people or the air brushed celebrities and models (friendly reminder sex sells for a reason, human beings generally prefer attractive healthy partners, people that a obese is a turn off - unless you have a fetish for it). another fact is women are prone to jealousy, envy, (I’m a woman, I know, and every other women with an honest bone in her body knows it is true too) again it leads back to human nature and our hard wired competitive streak. Majority of society’s problems, men and women, where personal issues and self-image and all that are concerned stem from the backwards ideology of feminism attacking our natural behavior because feminism and its flawed theories attack gender norms for its own interest, not for the majority of people’s interests. it causes more problems than it fixes, the only people that benefit are the ones that are devout followers of that dogma...except they aren’t really because they’re still jealous and resentful to those that are not conforming to their ideology. this is why they are now pushing it onto younger people more than before.

yup, sad but true, this is what happens when they are exposed to conditioning through media for decades and pass it down to the next gen and peer pressure them to hate the natural norms of women, her femininity and nature. feminism is communism in a skirt and marxism in drag. feminists are their own oppressors.

well that is one way of putting it. a channel I watched explained that too with a remarkable collection of articles, studies and polls and surveys and all that stuff and not to mention just observing that behavior by living and experiencing the real world, which these snowflakes dont do, they live on the internet in their safe bubble echo chambers believing the opposite about human nature and then get triggered and shocked and outraged when it doesnt mirror their fantasy expectations

personally I like watching attractive and healthy women, I can identify better with a person of any race, gender, sexuality, creed, etc that takes care of their health and appearance, not an unhealthy smelly thing that makes me feel sick :\ the agenda to promote ugliness and force acceptance of it is truly sad and gross

that is a great point actually, it is why the activists first hijacked online fandoms when the internet began because it was the perfect platform to shove their politics down teens and apolitical people’s throats and peer pressure them by calling dissenters all the usual buzzwords if they didnt re-”interpret” characters to virtue signal and appease the oppression stack.

yeah that is true, that is the women’s jealousy showing itself (and in some cases their control-freak tendencies), tumblr showcases their hypocrisy too with the double standards of sexual objectification

omg ... I have found my soul mate !!! ;D

Yeah and that is racist and sexist, once again SJWs are the thing they claim to hate. Personality and who you are matters, not what you are. for the people that think their entire being revolves around their race, gender and sexuality - that is pretty pathetic, that means they havent discovered themselves outside a group. One is supposed to let go of the ‘group’ after highschool. I think because millennials were given social media while they were still in highschool is why they havent grown up, they use it as an emotional crutch. Naturally a dependent person is going to feel helpless and confused because they arent thinking and evolving outside their surface traits that they cling to and use as victim cards. identity politics is cancer.

yeah... -__- yeah they eat themselves, this is a move of virtue signaling to gain more minority followers, they really are bigoted to think minorities want to be used as their fucking pawns in their self serving agenda

truth. the best a girl can hope for is a best friend and a sister. rumors, gossip and backstabbing is huge problem among girls/women, it is the result of being emotionally driven, lol 

because feminist/sjws double standards and jealousy, and their dogma of “not please the male gaze” lol it is not up to them to tell people what to do and dress and be attracted to, but they do because they and their ideology is totalitarian

yup and they get their activists running rampant on damage control to ridicule people who point this out, who do they think they are fooling?? their strategy and co-ordinated efforts to brainwash the youth is fucking blatant at that point, we get students reporting the ideological bias bs they endure in the classrooms 

thats why i find the romantic comedies of the past 20 years unbearable lol

there is nothing wrong with liking characters that all fall into one demographic due to great writing. I like characters for their journey+personalities+quality, gender and race is just the wrapping paper they come in. Badly written characters are the types that only focus on their race, gender, sexuality and nothing else, which are boring tokens and unrelatable on personal level. that why im resentful to fanfic writers that change characters recognizable identity traits (race, gender, sexuality), they prove they cant create a character and have no respect for established characters, even though those traits are what i called the “wrapping paper” it is still their image and a part of them. people that change canon characters are the bigots for changing them in the first place and would be the first to screech if a minority character was changed to be a different demographic. hypocrisy is the SJW game.

exactly, they build it up first, gain the following and support and devotion and then flip the switch. Jim Jones did the same thing. He gained his following by enticing a church, and then after filling them up with joy and hope and hoax miracles to convince them he was legit he then threw the bible onto the floor and said “did lightening strike me down?” and then began pushing his own marxist twisted beliefs and because the followers had been duped to sell their homes to donate to the Jim Jones church and live with the rest of the followers, (note it is easier to create a cult when they are isolated and exposed to the dogma all the time, like modern days ppl are hooked up to social media 24/7) it made it harder for them to just walk away. This is what these zealots do, they lure you in and once they have you they make you feel obligated and dependent on it and then switch the dogma an further poison your mind to reality. it is sick but they use this trick so often it is not hard to spot it, and it is always by the same brand of ideologues using the same methods.

[marvelousbirthdays]

Happy Birthday, issysmum!

October 9 - "I'll keep you safe" WinterBones (Bucky/Rumlow) for @issysmum

Written by @celiaequus

Brock hated some parts of his job, and he was torn over this one.  On one hand, he supervised the restraint and memory-wiping of the Asset; on the other hand, he got to see James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes sans upper body clothing.

Brock could admit that he wasn’t one hundred percent straight – if you worked with Steve Rogers, that went right out the window, for all the guy was too damn good – and he liked watching those muscles move beneath that pale skin.  Not enough to make his mouth water (at least in front of his bosses), but he wasn’t ashamed to say that the Winter Soldier had made his way into a few of Brock’s fantasies.

So it was a hell of a shock seeing him so listless after finally meeting Rogers.

“I know him,” he kept murmuring.  Brock felt a stab of sympathy.  But he had to dart forward and help restrain the Asset when he tried to break free.

“I’m sorry, but you need to keep still,” Brock said, managing to keep Bucky in place.

“Please, I need to get out of here, please,” Bucky whispered.

Brock froze.  Shit, those were the words on his soulmark.  He lowered his head, kept his voice soft.  He knew Bucky would be able to hear anyway.

“I’m gonna give you a gun, and we’re gonna take out everyone else in this room, then get the hell out of here,” he said.  “Shoot everyone in this room except for you and me.  That’s an order, soldier.”

The Winter Soldier nodded minutely.  Brock turned side-on, showing Bucky the gun on his left hip.

Ten seconds later, all but two of the people in the vault were lying in puddles of blood.  Brock grabbed hold of Bucky’s arm, and was worried when there wasn’t a flinch.

“Come with me,” he said.  “I’m gonna get you out of here.  I’ll keep you safe.”

“I know those words.  The ones you said to me.”

“Do you remember soulmates?  Is that something you remember?”  Bucky slowly shook his head, and Brock sighed.  They had to steal that from him, too?  “Just stick with me.  We belong together, and I’m gonna protect you.  I’ll…”  This was gonna cost him.  “I’ll find the best person to look after you when I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?”

“Bucky—”

“He called me that.  Is it my name?”

“It’s your nickname.  Your real name is James Buchanan Barnes.”  Brock spoke quickly, quietly, as he led his soulmate – shit, his soulmate – through the building.  They had to find Rogers as soon as possible.  He didn’t yet know how to do that, but it would probably involve him exposing HYDRA.  And there was no way Rogers would let him bond with his soulmate as soon as he knew.

Messages had already gone out by the time they reached one of the secret exits, stealing spare weapons and ammunition along the way.  Brock kicked open the door and held out his gun, ready to fire.  Nobody.  Not that he could see, anyway.  The point was, there were people shouting for them, calling for Bucky to comply.  The idiots didn’t know that he wasn’t under that kind of brainwashing.  The confusion on the Winter Soldier’s face wiped the smirk off Brock’s face, though.

“I can help you find Rogers… I hope,” he said.  “Just stay with me, got that, Bucky?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hey.”  He touched Bucky’s cheek, probably the only tender gesture he’d had in… decades.  The man leaned into it, more confusion in his eyes, like he didn’t understand why he’d done that.  “I’m only giving you orders until I get you to safety.  Then you don’t follow any orders unless you agree with them, one hundred percent agree.  Once you’re safe, you’re your own man, no longer at anyone else’s behest.  Got that?”

“I… I don’t understand.  It’s…”  His eyebrows drew together.  “What do I call you?”

“Brock.  My name is Brock Rumlow, but… just call me Brock.  Unless I tell you to call me something else so no one knows it’s us.  And once you’re safe—”

“Why do you keep talking about being safe?”

“Because you’re my soulmate!”  He began to lead Bucky through the darkness.  “You don’t know what’s going on because HYDRA’s wiped your mind on a regular basis for… a long time.  But I know the one person in the world who can help you recover.  Once I find him, I’ll hand you over to him.”

“And you?”

Brock checked their surroundings, and then ushered his soulmate down the path.

“What about me?” he asked.

“Will you be safe?”

“I know what I’m doing.  My mind is intact.  Yours…”

“Is not?”

“No, it isn’t.  I’m sorry.  But we’ll fix this.”  He paused long enough to cup Bucky’s face again.  “Whatever we have to do.”

Bucky nodded and followed Brock’s lead as they escaped.

“What’s a soulmate?” he asked as they sneaked through Washington DC.

“It’s like the other half of your soul,” Brock said softly.  “The other half of you.  The one person you’re meant to stick by the rest of your life.  Sometimes the relationship is romantic, sometimes it’s friendly instead.”

“What are we?”

“I… I don’t know.  You deserve better than me.”

“But…”  Bucky frowned and Brock itched to smooth out his forehead and make him smile.  “If you’re the other half of my soul, our souls are the same.  Just as good as each other, right?  So if you’re a bad person, so am I.”

That was true, but Brock wasn’t convinced that destiny hadn’t screwed up when it assigned a brainwashed POW to an agent of HYDRA.

“If you wanted it, I’d be happy with a romantic relationship,” he admitted.  Bucky at least deserved the truth.

“Romantic.”  Bucky nodded.  “That means kissing, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah—”

Bucky crashed their lips together sloppily and Brock had to take control until their mouths were more coordinated.  He’d let himself have this, even if it was only the once.  Even if Rogers shot him on sight.

Brock would have this to take with him.

[allthislove]

Hi, yes, I like the Bucky/Elektra parallel.

But you will never convince me to romantically ship Steve and Bucky.

Hell yeah platonic love between men. 

I mean, I’m super happy with gay superheroes, I read & write their fic and I crackship ridiculous ones, and serious ship others. And I get WHY y’all ship Steve and Bucky. I just... don’t think they’re romantic. Steve has 2 people from his past still alive (One now, but at the time he sees Bucky again in TWS.) Peggy, who is incredibly old, and Bucky Barnes, who is brainwashed and doesn’t remember him. 

At that moment in his life, all he can think is “I can maybe save my friend. Maybe he’s still in there.” And I don’t see why that NEEDS to be for romantic/sexual reasons. First of all, maybe it’s because I’m demisexual and don’t always GET it, but if I was like... a supersoldier frozen in time and thawed out decades later and saw my best friend being used as a crazy ass assassin by like the one Evil Organization I knew about, one I was even fighting before I was frozen... I’d probably react exactly like Steve Rogers. Not because I’m in love with my best friend, but because all of that shit? Heinous. IDK, I know y’all like to see it as romantic, but I can’t find, in my mind, a reason for a straight man to abandon his brainwashed best friend after being frozen for, what, 70+ years. Like, if you saw your bestie from your 20s, and it’s 70 years later, and y’all both look the same, you wouldn’t be like “WTF? How? Why?” And if that bestie didn’t know who you were and also was actively trying to kill you, you wouldn’t be like “WTF???? I NEED TO FIX HIM/HER!!” IDK why that’s inherently gay. (And my ass is gay af, sometimes.) And similarly, for Buck Buck, if you were like, brainwashed, and some random person called you by some random name, but then it sort of felt right and familiar, and also maybe you knew him??? Wouldn’t you also react the same way Bucky did, whether you were In Love!!! or not? Like, IDK why that’s gay, either. That’s just... IDK. Like, sometimes I think we’re so used to seeing men avoid intimacy and emotions that seeing any of it at all between two male characters makes you read platonic shit as romantic.

And the difference between Elektra/Matt and Steve/Bucky is that we KNOW FOR A FACT that Elektra and Matt were a couple and in love with each other before she died. The information we’re given about Steve and Bucky is that they’re best friends. We see them go on a double date with two girls who are far more interested in Bucky than Steve. We see Steve dreaming of getting into the Army. We don’t see them being romantic or even seemingly interested. We even get Bucky surprised that Peggy pays him no mind when Steve’s supersoldier serum has him beefed up. 

Anyway, I’m glad people ship shit, and I’m glad y’all like Bucky/Steve, but please stop trying to make it canon. It’s not. It’s just a ship. The Elektra/Bucky parallels are awesome and valid, but not because Steve is in love with Bucky. Because Elektra and Bucky have very similar things happen to them. And I’m sure the parallel was not lost on the show creators. 

[idontneedasymbol]

12x22: Who We Are

This is going to be long (you're shocked, I know), and more than a little confused. Because there were things I absolutely loved about the episode, and then there were things that frustrated me, and then there were a few things I hated. And some of those are tangled enough together that I'd have a hard time teasing them out into separate posts So. Fair warning.

Starting with the things I loved: I knew from spoilers that Dean was going to be going into Mary's mind to get her out of the brainwashing. And given my increasingly ambivalent feelings about Mary this season, and what the season was doing with the Mary and Dean relationship, I was prepared to be at best bored and at worse angry with that scene.

And then it ended up being some of my favorite stuff of the season. Dean's "I hate you" was genuinely shocking, not because the feeling is unexpected or uncalled for, but that he actually says it -- and it's not just to shock her out of it; he means it. And he has reason to, and he actually explains it -- what I've been wanting to hear the whole season, the acknowledgment that Dean is angry at Mary, not because she doesn't fit his view of a perfect mother, or even that she abandoned them, however unintentionally -- but because of what it meant that she wasn't there. That he not only had to grow up without a mother, but he had to become one himself, for Sam. That Dean actually says that he was father and mother. And that it wasn't fair. Because whether or not it was Mary's fault, or even John's for breaking -- it wasn't fair to Dean. He's said it about John, but only to himself, in his dreams; for Dean to actually get to say it to Mary was amazing.

And then, Dean's list -- that it's not that he resents being that for Sam, but that he failed in it. That he failed Sam, his little brother, the baby that he still recognizes instantly, three decades later, who's gone through so much pain that Dean couldn't prevent -- that's what hurts him the most, and that, that is Dean, the Dean I've been missing all this season.

And then the "I hate you, and I love you" -- because this is Dean, and it's not just that Mary is family; it's that she's family the way Dean is family, and he understands. He can work through his anger and forgive her the mistakes that he's made himself. As he's been forgiven.

And Mary, too, confessing that it was fear of this that kept her away -- and Sam's openhearted absolution, and their hug, with Dean pulled in too -- that was beautiful, that was all amazing.

What's frustrating about it...and it was frustrating...was that I wish more of the season had been like this. It doesn't feel like it came from nowhere; there were hints of it in other episodes (in particular Dean and Mary's argument in 12x14, also written by Robert Berens.) But I feel somewhat cheated, that we had to go through a whole season of Mary being distant to the point of being unlikable to get to this conclusion. It's not that it's bad, but the story wasn't really complex enough to be drawn out for that long. It took 22 episodes for Dean and Mary to go from point A to point B in their relationship, and while I'm glad they did get there...I wish it had been sooner, that we could have more time with the Mary we may (hopefully?) get now.

And then there was Sam's part of the story. Which is where I get really frustrated. (And not just because Sam got so little with Mary -- my hope is that with Dean & Mary's story moved along, next season will put more into Sam & Mary? Which might be an empty wish, but we'll see.)

Because, here's the thing, on the one hand, I like this story for Sam, this idea that he's coming into his own as a leader. And then on the other...what? When has that ever been Sam's arc before?

It's not that it's completely out of nowhere. Sam's story has always been about personal responsibility, about making decisions for himself. So extending that to taking greater responsibility, to others trusting him to make decisions, is a natural evolution. But it's not one the show has ever hinted at before, that I can think of. Even 12x14 (which, again, was Berens' last solo effort, and this episode felt like a direct continuation -- so direct in some ways that the rest of the episodes between might not have happened at all?) Sam wasn't struggling with the question of leading vs following. That was the episode with the "pick a side" argument, but picking a side and choosing to lead aren't the same.

It also felt a bit like they were trying to retcon why Sam joined the BMOL, as that never really made sense to begin with. And didn't here, either. Nor was the strange turn to make it seem like a redemption story, like Sam joining the BMOL was something he had to atone for -- even though at the worst, it was an honest mistake, buying from a shady seller.  If Sam had actually done anything for the BMOL, had given them the names of hunters or whatever, that might've needed atonement. But as far as we know, he didn't. He didn't even do any special cases for them; all he and Dean did was take out a few monsters that they would've gone after anyway if they'd heard about them.

(And he did most of that with Dean's agreement, so Sam taking all the responsibility for it was...weird? If that's what that was meant to be, when he switched from "me and my brother" to "I" -- I wasn't sure what the intent was, whether that was meant to be Sam taking the blame, or Sam taking independent command, or what?)

Also, for all the music tried to convince me that Sam's dramatic speech to the hunters was a "But it is not this day" moment -- I didn't get why it would be such a hard sell? The BMOL are killing hunters (for who knows what reason, I still don't understand that) -- presumably most of the hunters they called in have lost friends, and even if they hadn't, their own lives are in danger. And hunters put their lives on the line every day. And it made it clear that none of them had any respect for the BMOL. So I wouldn't think you'd have to convince them to take on the BMOL; I'd have thought that Sam wouldn't get three words into his speech before one of them went, "Yeah, we know, they suck, do you have an address? Great, let's go!"

(I also am still puzzled as to why, as far as we saw, not a single hunter besides the Winchesters actually took the BMOL up on their offer. Okay, the Brits have silly accents. But NO hunter was interested in their toys or their knowledge? Or the chance to take out all monsters? None? Anywhere? Seriously?)

Then there was Dean's reaction to it all, which...I think what the episode was going for was an echo/response to what Dean says to Mary later, about being Sam's parent. This was Dean finally realizing that his job there is over, that Sam is all grown up, letting him go be his own man.

Except that's a story that we got years ago -- it was a major theme of the first five seasons, culminating in "Swan Song," in which Dean lets Sam go. Sam reiterated it in the beginning of season 11 -- "You do what you do. But you've got to let me do what I do, too." And this season especially, when we haven't once seen Dean come to Sam's rescue (and have seen Sam come to Dean's rescue multiple times), when Sam has been doing all kinds of things and Dean hasn't once expressed any concerns that Sam couldn't handle anything, or implied that he sees Sam as anything less than a full-grown man and a badass hunter -- it felt a little weird and forced.

(Unless, and I really hope this isn't the case, the show is actually "breaking the toxic codependency" like so many Destiel fans want -- that is, ending the closeness between them, putting them on separate paths, so they act like "normal" siblings should, still loving each other but at a "normal" distance, no longer hunting or living together and with other more important people (i.e. romantic partners) in their lives. Which for me will be destroying the thing I love and value most in the show. And this thought made me enjoy the brother hug a lot less than I should have. But Sam did want Dean to come along, and Dean's injury gave a strong narrative reason why he shouldn't, so it wasn't just Dean choosing to help Mary over his brother. And then Dean with Mary made it clear that there still is "nothing I'd put before you". So I don't know? And I hope I'm reading too much into that.)

Finally, and this is most annoying as a Sam fan -- Sam's storyline here of becoming a leader doesn't really get any denouement. The mission succeeds. But Sam's leadership isn't really critical to that success; there's no particular strategizing, or Sam coming up with a plan. And afterwards, no one comments on Sam's leadership; we don't get to see any the hunters who survived telling him that they'd follow him again or any other textual acknowledgment, showing or telling, that he did a good job leading.  Maybe this arc will be picked up next season (I really am hoping that organizing a real American hunters network will be a storyline). But it's a shame it wasn't carried through more completely here.

Then there were a few things I hated. Which pretty much all fall under the banner of, Supernatural is not an action show. And I'm not sure who* mistook it for one, but I really wish they would figure out the truth.

* My private theory is that Andrew Dabb got so perturbed by criticisms of "Alpha & Omega" that he decided to prove everyone wrong and spent last year's summer hiatus mainlining every action movie ever made, cribbing from the plots to write his eps. (This conveniently allows me to place the blame on all the people who were WRONG WRONG WRONG about "Alpha & Omega," which stands as one of my favorite finales of the show. :P)

The point is, Supernatural is not an action show. It has action sometimes, but its most memorable and most effective moments are nearly always character drama. Action movies have the drama to string together the action setpieces, while Supernatural uses its action to propel character moments. So making the climax of Sam's storyline be him leading hunters into the BMOL facility guns blazing just can't satisfy, and Dean and Mary taking out Ketch together is a little more effective but still doesn't have the power of Dean getting through to Mary in her mind.

Also, and this one nearly killed the episode for me -- I know the BMOL are bad guys. But they're also human beings. Some of the upper-level BMOL managements know some magic (but they still mostly resort to standard weapons) but the grunts, as far as we see, are completely normal humans, not even modified people like the Stynes. And we don't know the deal with any of them, whether they're paid mercs or brainwashed like Mary or trained (and brainwashed) at Kendricks.

So having hunters just shooting them was really, really disturbing. Hunters hunt monsters; they save humans. I didn't get why not a single hunter so much as questions killing any of the BMOL, or hesitates to take a shot -- and lethal headshots, no kneecapping or shoulder shots. Especially when back in "First Blood" Dean and Sam made a point that they wouldn't kill soldiers who were trying to kill them, because those men were just following orders. But the BMOL soldiers were exempt from that, and I don't understand why.

(This especially bothers me because it was one of the things I was most interested about the BMOL as antagonists -- that it was the first time the enemy was actually human, making it a more complex situation than just a monster that had to be slain. And then it never came up at all, was never even mentioned through the entire season.)

Likewise, while Ketch needed to die, shooting him executioner-style, when he's unarmed...I got what the show was going for, subverting the heroes-showing-mercy, if-we-do-we're-no-better-than-them trope. But it was still really unpleasant, not what I want my heroes to be like.

A few more random points:

Single-layer Winchesters, dirty and with goggles around their necks, having a heart-to-heart, aww. (Though was that a bottle of booze, not water? Seriously, Dean?)

It's a minor thing but it had me scratching my head -- why the heck didn't they change outfits in two days? They were in the bunker, they had all their clothes. They get all dirty trying to chop through the wall and then they go and put on the same outfits, why? (Okay, this is mostly because I didn't like Dean's red and black shirt, the plaid was too broad for him.)

And Sam's story maybe didn't get denouement, but the grenade launcher did! And we were sure Toni was going to be instrumental in their escape, so that she proved useless was satisfying.

(Also in SPN-is-not-an-action-show -- that scene was weirdly arranged. Why the heck did Dean climb up the shaft with an injured leg without so much as calling to Sam to say what he was doing? And then Sam nearly passes out from oxygen loss but Dean doesn't come down to help him up or anything -- Dean didn't help Sam up once this entire season, not even that much casual h/c, whyyyyyy?)

Toni in general was...they really didn't know what to do with her character, did they? She joins the long list of Sam's torturers who he then has to work with, but there was zero acknowledgment that they had that history. And then Dean hears about her son and maybe is mildly sympathetic, and then Ketch kills her, and...that's it? I'm not really upset about it, because I didn't have much faith they would figure her out if they kept her around. And frankly at this point I'm just glad to have the BMOL plot over with. But I am a little wistful for the Toni Bevell of the first couple episodes, the overzealous and under-experienced Woman of Letters, who had some human connection and thought she was saving the world and maybe could have been interesting, given more development.

Jody survived! And Alex did too, apparently? I don't quite get why she was there at all, except to make us worry (about her and Donna too), and even Jody’s role was pretty negligible (though her clasping Dean’s hand, aww) but they all lived! \o/

And we got two Winchester hugs. So in the end, for all my quibbles, I have to like the episode for that. And I am looking forward to seeing where next season might pick up some of the threads here.

(But before that, there's the finale. Comments on which will have to wait until after I've slept, and mulled some more on it...)

[bridalpearlnecklace-blog]

The diamond ring, speaking on behalf of the shy male half of humanity, makes a reliable decisive blow at the marriage proposal, writes David McKay in an article published on the Miningmx portal . First, it sparkles. Secondly, it is expensive. And thirdly, perhaps, in view of paragraph two, it means that we have serious intentions.

Yet the question remains, how can a sparkling and glass-like stone be so important? What social idea justifies such recklessness and such a waste of money equal to annual earnings?  

From a chemical point of view, a diamond is a twin of graphite; But in the minds of people, carbon, subjected to heating at ultra-high temperatures and thrown out of the vale of an ancient volcano, is tantamount to boundless eternal love.

Clearly, this is brainwashing. Or is it the ability of De Beers, the world's most famous producer of diamonds and diamonds, to create, over and over again, decades of image and express a romantic love that generations of women and men are eager to accept.

To some extent, the moment that forced the marketing genius of De Beers to act, came in 1947, when a young compiler of advertising slogans wrote the words "a diamond is forever". At the same time he created an image embodied in the memory, which not only formalized the romantic hobby, but also created a business model that crosses economic and cultural boundaries.

For this reason, for example, entry to China turned out to be relatively simple for De Beers. It just needed time and professional marketing.

Stephen Lussier, CEO of Forevermark, De Beers, was one of the company's top executives who went to China with business intentions.

Arriving there in 1993, he apparently doubted the famous market "radar" of his company. At that time, China was a country where carts with bulls harnessed in them were adjacent to cars.

Lusya did not have to worry. And he, in truth, probably did not even bother. After all, De Beers was already able to convince most of Japanese society to accept the tradition associated with engagement rings - a process that it began in the late sixties.

But Lusya says that in China this was perceived even more rapidly. "If half a century went to ensure that half of Japanese brides became owners of diamond rings, it took only a decade to convince 55% of brides in the centers in China, where there are diamonds," he says.

Some simple lessons learned from the first sales of diamonds in Japan were taken into account in China. "Although the cultures are different, and they celebrated weddings differently, but there was still the same need to have symbols," says Lusier.

"As in Japan, we focused our attention on the wedding," he stressed. Weddings work for De Beers' sales strategy because this is a turning point in life that can serve as an economic argument for buying a diamond. "We formulated it in Chinese manner, but this model is the same everywhere," says Lusier. "It's just that in China it happened faster."

At present, China is the main growth point for the De Beers diamond market. Osobenno because in developed markets, such as the markets of the United States and Europe, the strategy is to preserve in a competitive market share for discretionary spending, which includes holidays, cars and other luxury goods.

De Beers wants the diamonds to remain a symbol of love for the new generation of brides in the United States and that the older generation has several diamonds. In some cases, De Beers chooses a very specific segment of its population: a family with an income of over $ 175,000 (R1.6 million) per year should already have four diamonds.

The recent De Beers campaign "Center of My Universe", which can be found on YouTube, is one of the attempts aimed at owning several diamonds.

But we warn cynics: this approach is used gently. At the same time, for gullible people, he casts gentle rays of light on his wife or mother, gradually leading to the question: how much does it cost?

Just think about it, the diamond: the age is three thousand years; The hardest substance on earth; And in addition, beautiful. As with any campaign conducted by De Beers, a diamond in the store has a price, but what he says is priceless.

In China, there is a huge potential for market growth for De Beers. "In ten to fifteen years, China will account for a quarter of the world market," says Philippe Meillier, chief executive officer of De Beers, in an interview with Finweek. It is very important.

Currently, De Beers sells diamonds in 30 different major Chinese cities, and not only in well-known shopping centers in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. "Keep in mind that the second-tier cities in China probably have about 10 million inhabitants," adds Lusier.

Forevermark - a sign of ambition

But with De Beers recently, it is interesting that she focuses not just on sales in general, but on increasing sales of her own brand line Forevermark. This business was launched in 2008, and a year later Lusier became the chief executive director of the brand.

Analysts were critical. The Forevermark brand was swept aside as an insignificant part of the entire business of De Beers; It was said that he was in conflict with a joint venture, an agreement on the creation of which De Beers signed in 2001 with the French luxury manufacturer LVMH Moet Hennnessy Louis Vuitton, and even devours it. This was the agreement by which De Beers sought to form its own independent retail presence called "De Beers Diamond Jewelers". The flagship enterprise is the store on Old Bond Street in London.

"We see this as an addition," says David Prager, corporate affairs manager at De Beers. "Forevermark is a brand that is suitable for some consumers, but not suitable for others."

For Lusya the goal is to make Forevermark one of the most luxury brands in the world, and not just in the market for top-grade diamonds. It is a brand that is moving in the market in order to compete with the most expensive consumer products on the market.

Perhaps this is true, but this brand is not currently registered among the leading brands in the luxury line.

According to a survey of 2012 made by Interbrand, the leading luxury brand is Louis Vuitton, a bag maker worth $ 23.6 billion; Then comes Gucci, considered the 38th most expensive brand in the world, whose value is $ 9.4 billion.

[aion-rsa]

Captain America: Hydra Cap’s Cabinet of Supervillains Explained

When “Captain America: Steve Rogers” #1 debuted, fans across the world were shocked to learn the beloved superhero is actually an undercover agent for the terrorist group Hydra. But while the audience is now aware of Steve Rogers’ nefarious scheme, his friends and teammates remain in the dark regarding his brainwashing at the hands of the sentient cosmic cube Kobik and the mysterious Elisa Sinclair.

Wait – who?

As revealed in the pages of writer Nick Spencer’s ongoing saga, Hydra agent Sinclair is the person who brought a young Rogers to the evil organization, enrolling him in a school that reinforced their beliefs and ideals. While Sinclair’s background remained a mystery throughout a series of flashback sequence appearances, we finally discovered her real identity in the present as the new Madame Hydra in “Captain America: Steve Rogers” #12.

PREVIEW: Secret Empire #0 Sets Up Captain America’s Big Hydra Turn

Having revealed herself to Taskmaster and Black Ant after the supervillains stumbled across Cap’s double-agent status, Sinclair has since recruited the duo to serve as her personal bodyguards while she assembles a new High Council of Hydra. This group, which came together in the pages of “Captain America: Steve Rogers” #14, includes some familiar faces to fans of the “Secret Warriors” series that ran from 2009 to 2011.

What follows is a rundown of Madame Hydra’s cabinet members, a quote she uses to entice them to join her cause, and what their membership could mean for the summer’s “Secret Empire” event.

Hive

“I offer you violence.”

On their first stop, Sinclair takes Taskmaster and Black Ant to what she calls the “ends of the Earth” in search of Hive, a Hydra-loyal, genetically-engineered parasite. Hive is comprised of a group of individual parasites that combine to form a humanoid body — with a head in the shape of the Hydra symbol.

The entity, which debuted in 2008’s “Secret Warriors” #2, has taken many lifeforms as a host in its day, including a previously deceased Viper who the creature resurrected into a new Madame Hydra. The offer of violence is a tease from Sinclair that she plans to use Hive’s dedication to the Hydra cause as a weapon against her enemies.

Viper

“I offer you belonging.”

Ophelia Sarkissian first appeared in “Captain America” #110, the former leader of Hydra operating under the moniker Madame Hydra. In the mood for a change, she switched to the codename Viper, and was once (incorrectly) believed to be the mother of Spider-Woman, Merriem Drew.

“Secret Warriors” saw another version of Madame Hydra — former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine — join Viper among Hydra’s restructured leadership team. After Viper is captured by the rival organization Leviathan, Madame Hydra/Contessa de Fontaine shows her true colors by killing her predecessor.

This would not be the end for Viper, however, as she is resurrected by the Hive, and gains long, flowing tentacles from her head. Following Viper’s revival, she adopts the name Madame Hydra again, until her new monstrous look is removed by Norman Osborn’s S.H.I.E.L.D. replacement H.A.M.M.E.R. during “Dark Reign.” The Green Queen was also romantically linked to Wolverine, with the two actually getting married at one point. She was last seen taking out a contract on her former husband in the “Death of Wolverine” miniseries.

In “Captain America: Steve Rogers” #14, Elisa Sinclair finds Viper distributing drugs in her old stomping grounds of Madripoor. Sinclair has decided that Viper has strayed too far from her Hydra roots, and thus offers the chance to rejoin the organization. After how Hydra treated Viper in the past, you couldn’t blame her for staying as far away from the group as possible, but that’s not how the villain sees things. Perhaps the former Madame Hydra views Sinclair’s invitation as an opportunity to reclaim her name and position? Whatever the case, Viper is now a part of Steve Rogers’ new inner circle.

Doctor Faustus

“I offer you influence.”

Johann Fennhoff, aka Doctor Faustus, is most famously known to modern comic fans as one of the masterminds behind the death of Captain America in 2007, using his mind manipulation powers to force Sharon Carter to deliver the killing shot. He was also a member of a subsidiary Hydra group called the Secret Empire, which coincidentally is the name of the Marvel event this new cabinet will be participating in. Faustus also ports closer than ever ties to Steve Rogers; when Kobik reset reality, Faustus’ father, Sebastian Fenhoff, ran the boarding school Rogers attended as a budding Hydra agent.

When Elisa Sinclair finds Faustus, he is posing as a psychiatrist to a wealthy debutante in order to fleece her fortune. As someone who makes his living off of controling others, Sinclair’s offer of influence will allow Faustus to return to his roots as a master manipulator on a much larger scale.

Gorgon

“I offer you vengeance.”

Tomi Shishido’s loyalties have bounced around between the Hand and Hydra since his appearance in “Wolverine” Vol. 3 #20. Born with the mutant power to turn anyone into stone upon making eye contact, he was killed in a battle against Wolverine; upon seeing his own reflection in the X-Man’s adamantium claws, he turned himself turned to stone and was then shattered. Gorgon would later be resurrected by the Hand at the behest of Hydra, where he served as the Wolverine stand-in for Norman Osborn’s Dark Avengers.

Called the “spear in the East” by Elisa Sinclair, the Gorgon is enticed by the chance to inflict vengeance upon those who have wronged him. Whether that vengeance comes against rival Hydra cells, the Hand or an unknown third party remains to be seen.

Arnim Zola

“I offer you discovery.”

The mad scientist has been a thorn in Captain America’s side since they first clashed with one another in World War II. Zola’s consciousness was able to survive the many decades since, having been transferred to a robotic body. In the first iteration of “Marvel NOW!,” Zola trapped Cap in Dimension Z, where time moves faster than normal. Rogers spent years fighting Zola and his bioengineered army, eventually even convincing the biochemist’s genetically-engineered son Ian to fight evil at his side as the new Nomad.

Just a week before his recruitment here, Zola made a guest-appearance in a back-up story for “Amazing Spider-Man” #25 where he himself recruited Otto Octavius – in a newly cloned body – to join Hydra as the Superior Octopus. When we see Elisa Sinclair makes her own offer to Zola, she conjures an image of a cosmic cube, a powerful artifact the mad scientist has manipulated on many occasions, and thus an item of particular interest to him — certainly of enough interest for Zola to align himself with the rest of Hydra’s new High council… for now, at least.

Kraken

“I offer you meaning.”

The most interesting of Elisa Sinclair’s recruits is the new Kraken. In “Secret Warriors,” we learned two people previously wore the Kraken helmet and armor: Daniel Whitehall and Nick Fury, Sr.’s brother, Jake Fury. Whitehall was the original Kraken, a puppet master who remained behind the scenes, helping to train and lead some of Hydra’s finest operatives, including Viper. Kraken was involved in the creation of the Hive, and gave a young Gorgon his Godkiller Sword.

After Jake Fury became aware that Whitehall was the Kraken, the younger Fury killed Whitehall and took his place in order to infiltrate Hydra. He would appear again as one of the Hydra officials in Steve Rogers’ remastered history.

There appears to be a new person taking on the role of the Kraken when Sinclair meets him in Scotland. She drops some clues as to his true identity, saying “the man this suit belonged to — he meant a great deal to me,” along with calling him “family.” Whoever is playing this role is believed to be dead; could it be a resurrected Whitehall, or is it someone else with close ties to Sinclair? Time — and “Secret Empire” — will tell.

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Why Most Relationships Fail

Whatever you have been taught to believe regarding life has been a complete rest. Everyone here has been altered for profits made by the actual elite. They care absolutely nothing about you, your family, your friends, your wellbeing, your life. This extends to your own beliefs about the world, really like, food, drugs, and human relationships, just to name a few. There are many ways you have been fed incorrect information but for today the focus is on human relationships.

http://whatmenlike.org/

Every thought or concept about relationships, fairy stories romances, how we look, the way we dress, and movies and publications written are completely incorrect. We have been brainwashed with provides, magazines, and subliminal communications from movies and tv. All of this to keep your life within fear and line their own pockets with money. We've been taught to believe that one time we will find our prince/princess charming and live gladly ever after. So many solitary people are searching for the "one" only to be let down again and again. There are tons of dating sites encouraging you that you will find your perfect diamond necklace. Others believe the more a person pay, the better chance you should have. Wrong! Some of you dread love because you relate enjoy with pain. Love is not pain. The breakup could possibly be painful but love is simply not. In truth, breakups are only distressing because you were not taught the causes relationships end. If you recognized the laws of the whole world, you would understand life and discover everything that you thought ended up being negative was and always is usually positive. There are 50 widespread laws that I suggest happened only learn but comply with. These laws have always been throughout affect. These are the ONLY rules to live by. They oversee your life. The Law of Fascination states, you attract actually. If you love yourself 100% unconditionally, then you can only attract a person who loves you as much as you care about yourself. Everyone is you. We live not separate but a single. Remember when you felt absolutely in love? Take in which same feeling, that similar energy and direct the idea inwards towards yourself. Really the only person you truly are seeking is yourself. Love involving self is mandatory. This is why you attract anything or maybe anyone for that matter. The law involving Resistence states that which you reject you draw to you. We live only energy who vibrate at different levels. The harder you focus on what you no longer want, you create the contrary; you draw it for you. When you focus on what you avoid want, you put energy in it, therefore , bringing it for you. For instance, if you think that all men/woman are cheaters, then you attract cheaters into your life. Whatever you think, you create to convince yourself that you are correct. In case you believe there are no accessible men/women, then that is what you should see. Are you following me personally? This extends to everything in your lifetime, not just relationships. There is also regulations of Unconditional Love. First of all you must love yourself unconditionally first!. In order for any romantic relationship to survive, you must also enter your relationships with wholehearted love. It's about a couple who are their own person who enhance each other. It's not about manage, demands, and expectations. You might be already complete so must not be looking for someone to complete a person, or make you happy. Nobody can do that for you (http://whatmenlike.org/find-balance-in-life.html). Whatever you place your attention on you produce. What you worry and worry about with relationships, a person draw that to you. Most people are you. You attract for your requirements what you feel and believe. As an alternative to putting your focus away from yourself, the person who you are absolutely searching for is you. You have for ages been the love you are searching for. Everything will start with you. Another law could be the Law of Manifestation which often creates what you believe. There are actually only three steps in realizing anything you desire, including a connection. The first step is your desire to have some sort of relationship. The second step could be the universe automatically goes out to develop that to you. You have confidence in and believe it will transpire. You tell yourself you will be a great manifester and you often get whatever you want. You will be very positive about it. You then let it go, not to think about it ever again because you know and have confidence in it will come. The third stage is allowing it to come. Many of you stop the allowing procedure because you bring in resistance from your words and thoughts. A person tell yourself, "I in no way get what I want". Or even, "I will never have this particular relationship". "Nothing good actually happens for me". Through saying any of those terms, you stop your outward exhibition. When a negative thought gets into your mind, change your focus. Pay attention to music, take a walk, or rest. Then say to yourself, "I am a great manifester. I am able to always manifest whatever I'd like. I always get whatever I'd like. " It is that simple. Recall, "where you attention moves, the energy flows". You then permit the desire go because you have confidence in it will happen. The more you may be specific of what you want to draw in, the more the universe can cause this for you. When I ended up being 21, going through a divorce, some sort of voice told me to write down typically the traits I wanted in a connection. Whatever I wanted at the time Outlined on our site list. For example I would publish on my list for a one who was fun, exciting, some sort of man's man, communicative, along with affectionate. That person would come straight into my life exactly how I composed him. I was young and not necessarily that experienced so I mastered what I thought I appreciated I didn't, and would likely keep changing my checklist. Each time I wrote a fresh list or deleted things and added other features. That exact person would certainly enter my life. This took place for years until I hitched. I always thought I hitched the right man for me, but I kept attracting unsafe men. I have been married 3 x to completely different men on the outside of. Meaning different races, diverse upbringings, and different ages. These people were all insecure. At that time I actually didn't realize it was I actually who was insecure. I captivated my feelings about me personally in others. After our last divorce in 08, I decided it was time for my family to find myself. I have nevertheless been in any long term romance as I was not ready. Rankings think I was healed connected with my past only to frequently attract unavailable men. Adult males who were married, men who all lived out of town, or adult males who worked all the time. This has been telling me that I hasn't been available. Are you following my family? In the beginning of this article, I talked about that we have been living quite a few lies creating the opposite connected with what we want. This is a great way we have been manipulated off of the worldwide laws. I have always treasured watching romantic comedies. I believe I figured that was simple but I was mistaken. All of romantic movies and works of fiction have the same scenario. Boy fulfills girl, they have problems, they will break apart, then like magic , come together and live enjoyably ever after; a story book. So many of us, including our old self, spend a great deal time searching for this story book romance. These movies generate resistance big time. The other night I recently found how automatically my mind travelled into resistance mode. Our thoughts were, "oh that will never happen for me. inches I also started looking backside at my past loves and after that noticed it never provides! It was then that I made the bond of how these movies I believed were harmless, were certainly not; A ploy to keep us coming from our truths. We have been developed into disbeliefs that have become more intense our fears and stored us from our wishes. I stopped that imagined and changed my concentration. Otherwise I would be back with resistance mode from luring the relationship I am manifesting. In actual fact, we are amazing creators that can create abundance, love, satisfaction, and our own paradise. You need to know what we can do and discover about the truths of lifetime. Follow this process, which is consequently simple just by changing your thought processes. It takes practice because decades what you are used to. Do not badger yourself if you make a miscalculation. The more time you spend on by yourself practicing, being positive in addition to loving every part of by yourself, it becomes automatic. Become the manifester you truly are in addition to manifest yourself your own romance. When the time is right therefore you are in vibrational alignment with the desire, you will have what you have already been searching for. By releasing anxiety, you raise your sto? which in turn keeps you with vibrational alignment with having everything you desire. Are you ready to look for love? Start first with yourself. You will need to be healed to attract a new healed person. Everything is due to self. Release any guiltiness from your past. Release thought processes that there was or is definitely something wrong with you. You are a nice person who has their own carefully selected presents to offer this world. Release your personal past, period! Live solely in the present moment. When you stress about your future or your outcomes you actually stop your desires. An individual create your future by what you imagine today. Always be in touch with how you feel. Use your feelings as your guidebook. Your own feelings are a vibrational lens to see where you are from. Your true self will be love. When you become mental, angry, guilty, etc . you're not in alignment with your genuine self. When you are not lined up with your true self, experts resistance. Use only your feelings concerning each person you meet. As early as you see a red flag, leave. Your current heart always has your responses and knows whats right for you. Leave your friends out of this since they have their own perceptions. Simply no two people see the same thing. Rule out your past and common sense and only follow your feelings.