#End Childhood Hunger in America

[ausetkmt]

The excitement of the draft has truly permeated the city, bringing energy and enthusiasm that extends far beyond downtown festivities and the general passion for football. Importantly, this event has also shone a light on something less expected but deeply significant: urban agriculture. As the city celebrates new team picks and enjoys its moment in the sports spotlight, community gardens and urban farms are gaining recognition as vital elements of urban life. 

It is all too common for underprivileged communities to endure substandard conditions that shouldn’t even be an issue, such as access to clean food. Likewise, our veterans, who have sacrificed immensely for the US, are frequently neglected. Despite the sensitivity of this issue, it reflects our reality. This has spurred a number of grassroots organizations, policies, and nonprofits, both locally and politically, to take action. Among them is the NFL and S.H.I.E.L.D 1, a nonprofit founded by NFL players aimed at boosting economic mobility in underserved areas. They showcased the Green Boots Veteran Community Horticulture Gardens and Marketplace for their community ribbon-cutting event on the city’s westside, which features a GroShed. GroSheds are hydroponic gardening sheds designed for cold climates, allowing year-round access to nutritious, non-toxic, affordable whole foods, thereby addressing the seasonal gaps in fresh produce availability in these communities. 

The excitement behind the draft have touched down in the city but it goes beyond the confines of downtown and the fun times and the love of football, this has placed a spotlight on urban agriculture. 

Green Boots not only offers nutritious food choices for the local community but also provides a therapeutic outlet for veterans like its founder, Travis Peters, to engage in gardening and improve their mental health. 

PHOTO: Travis Peters, Green Boots Community Horticulture Gardens and Marketplace

“My mission was to sustain myself, my family, and my community through urban agriculture without leaving our veterans out of the picture,” said Peters. “This place is a multifaceted space where we focus on urban agriculture basic training for our veterans and community along with horticulture therapy and protocols to help bridge the wellness gap.” 

“The GroShed will allow us to produce food at a higher rate, a faster and a more economical rate” Peters said. “This space has no city municipalities connection whatsoever. We run on solar power and rainwater, I rely on nature and just what the earth gives us.” 

Standing alongside community members and local media were NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, United States Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Senator Debbie Stabenow, New Orleans Saints Linebacker Demario Davis, NFL Cornerback Josh Norman, and NFL Legend Alex Lewis. 

“Travis is an extraordinary man and I’m proud to be here on behalf of the NFL,” said Goodell. “I’m also inspired by our players. There are two players here that have really led the way. Damario Davis and Josh Norman. For the last 4 or 5 years I’ve heard about this concept and their desire to make this happen and they have worked to make this happen. It has been their undying support to bring this into fruition not just here in Detroit but also in Buffalo. These men are not just great professional athletes, they are stand up men.” 

PHOTO: New Orleans Saints Linebacker Demario Davis, Travis Peters, NFL Cornerback Josh Norman, Senator Debbie Stabenow, United States Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

This event is part of the NFL’s Inspire Change social justice initiative. Inspire

Inspire Change is designed to reduce barriers to opportunity, especially in communities of color, demonstrating the collective efforts of the NFL family—current and former players, teams, owners, and the league office—to foster positive change. The initiative operates at all levels within the league, with a mission to showcase their commitment to social justice and community improvement. 

This GroShed initiative all started when Davis took a trip to Flint, MI a few years ago and realized there was a need for clean water. At the time he witnessed truckloads of water bottles being dispersed throughout the city, but he had an epiphany regarding his charity work, “What’s going on with the water system? That’s when we moved from doing just the charity work to finding sustainable solutions in the community.” 

“This is a continuation of our work that we’re doing in other cities,” said Davis. “We are committed to bringing sustainable solutions to communities that have traditionally been marginalized. This work touches me personally. It brings our hearts joy.” 

The NFL is collaborating with the White House on the “Challenge to End Hunger and Build Healthy Communities” initiative, highlighting this effort at the event. 

Amidst the backdrop of steel and concrete, a transformation is quietly taking root—a healthy mindset. Spearheaded by Peter and powered by the enduring strength of the local Black community, this initiative isn’t merely about planting vegetables; it’s a reclaiming of urban spaces, turning them from symbols of decay into beacons of hope and growth. These community gardens are not just places to grow food; they are sanctuaries of empowerment, where residents, burdened by economic hardships and societal neglect, find a powerful form of expression and control over their lives and environment. 

Peter’s movement is leveraging a rich yet underrecognized legacy of Black horticulture expertise, challenging the stereotype that urban communities lack the green thumbs or know-how. Each garden plot and GroShed serves as a testament to resilience and innovation, with every plant sown echoing the community’s deep-rooted connection to the land and their ancestors wisdom. This isn’t just about horticulture; it’s about cultural heritage, community, a bridge connecting past generations who tilled the soil for sustenance to a modern movement for food sovereignty and social justice. 

“I started a number of years ago putting in place opportunities and extra support where veterans can go into farming,” said Senator Debbie Stabenow and chair of the agriculture, nutrition and forestry committee in Washington D.C. “We now have veteran organizations and veteran farmers around the country with the largest group in Michigan.” 

Absolutely, agriculture transcends the rural boundaries we often confine it to; it’s very much a vibrant part of urban landscapes as well. Urban agriculture is about more than just growing food; it’s about building community, fostering sustainability, and ensuring access to healthy, affordable meals. Echoing this sentiment, Senator Debbie Stabenow said, “This is about providing healthy food in a sustainable way right here in our urban communities.” 

This movement reshapes the concept of what it means to be a community. It’s a collective effort where city dwellers reconnect with their food sources and with each other, breaking down the isolation that urban environments can sometimes foster. Urban agriculture initiatives make it possible for fresh produce to travel just a few yards from soil to table, drastically reducing food miles and providing a stark contrast to the impersonal nature of mass food production. 

Moreover, these initiatives are a testament to the adaptability and ingenuity of urban communities. Each space cultivated is a step towards a more sustainable urban existence, proving that the heart of agriculture isn’t found solely in wide-open spaces but wherever there are people willing to plant the seeds of change. 

“The Greenboots community displays the real work,” Davis said. “You guys are the heroes and deserve the brightest light to be on you all. They are on the ground doing the work, it is people that are in the trenches that really keep the game going. So, thank you for your work.” 

[astxrwar]

drops of blood [1/4]

SYNOPSIS: Bucky Barnes has some wires crossed. He fixates on a barista at a coffee shop near his apartment, and tells himself it's fine as long as he keeps his distance. Except you keep making that distance smaller.

Rating: M

Word Count: 7k

CONTENT WARNINGS: Off-screen violence. Series will enter gray territory in later chapters; angsty guilt-ridden stalking, exhibitionism, consensual-but-not-safe-or-sane vibes all the way down. teehee.

Read on AO3

[ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ]

When you’re a teenager— no, not even, when you’re a preteen, in middle school— a crew of surveyors for a Russian oil company finds a plane frozen in the Arctic. You’d just finished up the section on World War Two in history class; two weeks ago you’d been sitting in a hard-backed chair with the lights off trying not to fall asleep while watching a Netflix documentary about the life and death of Steve Rogers, the prototypical American Hero, that your teacher put on presumably to get out of having to actually teach. You had to fill out a worksheet about it. You had homework asking about the ways that national ideals of heroism have changed over time. You spent a whole class period talking about that, comparing and contrasting Captain America and Iron Man. You had to write a five-paragraph essay about whether or not you thought the American Hero archetype would even exist without Captain America’s death.

Except Captain America is not dead.

Captain America is alive.

It is 2012, and a lot of things are popular. The Hunger Games. Gangnam Style. The new Batman movie, the one with Christian Bale. A type of teenage and pre-teenage girl exists—has existed, will continue to exist— and while there was NSYNC and Backstreet Boys and whatever the fuck else in the 90s; right now there’s Twilight and One Direction and Justin Bieber.

Captain America comes out of the ice. Captain America is 6’4 and muscular and blond and blue-eyed and unfailingly kind, and then he goes on to join up with a bunch of other people—superheros— and saves the world.

The end result, the one that anyone with a brain could have seen coming a mile off, the one that gets referenced by late-night talk-show hosts and poked at in grocery-store gossip rags and sometimes said outright in interviews with the guy on national television,  is that Steve Rogers— Captain America— kind of ends up rounding out the “teenage girl obsessions during the ‘10s” list. 

And—

Well.

You were never big on any of that.

Your friends were, though, and so you let yourself be dragged through the onslaught of new Netflix specials and you dutifully and appropriately emoji-reacted to every Battle of New York youtube compilation and Vine edit they sent to you and you even went to the movies to watch the new remastered docudrama about the life and now the not-death of Steve Rogers, and—

You never really liked blonds, so.

His friend, though—

His friend was kind of cute.

Sergeant James Barnes. Twenty-eight, dark-haired and blue-eyed and attractive, in a charming, boyish kind of way. 

Fast forward ten years. There’s some weird drama with a helicarrier and some entirely anticlimactic fight at an airport and then an alien kills half the population of the world and then they all come back again, courtesy of Iron Man’s sacrifice and your middle school history teacher one-hundred-percent predicting the future with the whole “the American Hero trope is dependent on the hero’s death” shit that you totally didn’t understand at the ripe age of twelve—

Anyway. Life happens, basically. You grow up. You’re not even friends with those girls anymore. Not uncommon. And that crush on cute little baby-faced James Buchanan Barnes lasted all of something like three months— one of those fleeting childhood infatuations you have on people who are safely unobtainable, like rock stars or fictional characters or guys who are very, very dead— after which time you never really thought about it again. 

And now you’re twenty-three and working closing shifts at a coffee shop in Brooklyn while figuring out what your life trajectory is even going to be, adjusting as best you can to your fucking daily customer base having quite literally doubled in the last six months, that part of you that’d read his entire wikipedia page on a phone with an actual physical slide-out keyboard at two in the morning an entire eleven years ago so far away it feels like something even less than a memory.

Except one night in April this guy walks in. He’s dark-haired and blue-eyed and wearing a leather jacket and matching gloves; he comes up to the counter and he makes startlingly unbreaking eye contact that freaks you out a teensy bit— a lot— and orders a coffee, black, and nothing else, and you stare right back kind of temporarily immune to the weirdness of it because you know him, why do you know him—

It clicks as you’re pouring the coffee into a reinforced cardboard cup and it stuns you so completely that you almost overfill it and wind up less than a second away from burning the shit out of your hand.

Sergeant James Barnes. 

He looks the same, kind of, but also not at all— you sneak glances at him while you fumble for a lid, the harsher angles of his cheekbones and the wider set of his jaw, the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes and the lines setting into his forehead and the way he doesn’t really have any of the baby fat left in his face that he had in all the photos you’d seen of him. 

“Thanks,” he says, when you give him his coffee.

His smile, or his attempt at it, looks more like a grimace than anything. 

You expect him to leave, then, but he doesn’t— he goes over to one of the tables in the lobby, the one by the window in the corner of the room, and he sits there and he drinks his coffee and he stares out at the street. It’s dark already; late November, almost December, the solstice approaching. It’ll be a long while before it’s still light later than 4:30.

He stays there for a long time, and the awareness of him prickles at the nape of your neck as you work, filling orders for a dwindling trickle of customers and starting the long and arduous process of cleaning up everything for close. 

Sometime around 9:30 you go into the back to try to get started on dishes; the doorbell chimes when you’re about halfway through, and you grumble under your breath and rinse soap suds off of your forearms and resolve to pretend you hadn’t lost track of the hose and accidentally soaked the whole of your shirt from about the sternum down—

There’s nobody waiting at the counter when you come out, though.

And Sergeant James Barnes is gone.

~

You expect it to be one of those things. Everyone in New York has one of those things. They’re great party stories. One time I sat next to Denzel Washington on the subway. Michael Keaton bought a phone from me when I worked at Apple in Midtown. I ran into Steve Buscemi at this one mom-and-pop bagel place. 

I served coffee to Captain America’s not-dead friend in Brooklyn. 

Except next week, same day, he’s there again.

The lady in front of him is getting something stupid complicated and being annoying about it. Two pumps caramel, two pumps vanilla, two creams and two skim milk, three sugars and make sure to melt it first, if you don’t, I’ll know, Jesus Christ, make your coffee at home—

The guy who is maybe potentially Barnes laughs.

You said that out loud, apparently. Mumbled it under your breath, or something, quiet enough that the lady hadn’t heard, just shot you a suspicious look and sipped at her drink and then left without a thank-you, apparently satisfied. It’s just you and him now, your coworker off doing food prep in the back room and the lobby empty.

Somehow, he’d heard you. And he’d laughed. It was a weird sound, sharp and rough and cut short like he hadn’t meant to and like he’d tried to make himself stop; his expression is flat, and he’s not smiling, but there’s something— lighter, about it, than when you’d seen him last.

“Black coffee?” you blurt out, before he can say anything. 

He blinks. He’s doing that thing again— the staring. 

“Easy to remember,” you say, by way of explanation.  “Simple.” 

His mouth twitches at the corners, not really a smile, yet, but still— something. That lightness to his expression, impassive as it is, hasn’t faded. “Yeah, just black,” he says. “Thanks.”

You make it for him— ‘make’ is a stretch, you pour it, and that’s all, really— and he takes it back to that same spot by the window in the corner, nurses it as he looks out into the street, the sky cast that bruised purple color when the sun’s gone below the horizon but the light hasn’t faded, yet. 

You try not to stare.

Same deal as the last time; he stays.

“Hey,” your coworker’s voice drifts from the back room, “You want to sweep the lobby or do the dishes?”

“Lobby,” you reply, extremely fast, thinking about last time and the hose mishap and how your shirt hadn’t dried until basically the end of your shift, but also thinking about maybe-Barnes sitting by the window and how part of you really fucking wants to know. Even if it’s not him, if it’s just some particularly uncanny lookalike, you wonder if it happens a lot. The being mistaken.

You make it through about maybe five minutes of actual lobby-sweeping before you become physically incapable of resisting your curiosity. 

“I always got pretty good marks in history,” is what you tell him. Because saying “are you Seargant Barnes” seems kind of— rude. 

He stiffens, and he drums his gloved fingers on the lid of his coffee cup, and he doesn’t look up or say a word.

“Your photo was in a bunch of the textbooks,” you add, twisting your grip on the broom handle, back and forth. It’s definitely him. The haircut. His face. Older, a lot less boyish, but the same eyes. “Sergeant Barnes. 107th.”

He doesn’t look at you. Speaks very deliberately. “Are you going to tell anyone?” 

There’s this bright jolt of satisfaction at being right, followed pretty quickly by a pang of guilt at the thought you’d irritated him.

 “Oh—um, no, definitely not, I’m sure it’s— annoying, probably, getting recognized,” you say, stumbling over the words. “I— sorry, I shouldn’t have— bothered you.”

He does look at you, then. He stares. You’d been fidgeting, still, but under the force of his gaze every muscle in your body goes tense and still, frozen solid, and nerves prickle up at the back of your neck, raising the hairs there. You have to fight back the urge to shiver.

“No,” he says. “It’s never happened before. Don’t— don’t be sorry.”

You open your mouth. Close it again. Your hands resume their twisting around the broom handle before you abruptly decide you do need to actually finish the chore you’d set out to do. 

You tell him one last thing, before you go back to it. You’d always kind of felt weird about saying this kind of stuff; it gets touchy, particularly after Vietnam. Not really a great practice to get into, the whole “thank you for your service” schtick, because a lot of them don’t see it that way, and every war after that was even more complicated and your opinions on those are— similarly complicated. But World War 2– that was different. It wasn’t US military overreach. It was necessary. And he’d been drafted, you remembered that. 

“Hey,” you say, very soft. “I just— Thanks. For— you know. Serving, when your numbers came up. It couldn’t have been easy, I mean.” you clear your throat, shift your weight, suddenly feeling very self-aware. “Coffee’s on me, next time, okay?”

Something flickers across his expression, like a ripple over the surface of a lake. Whatever it was, it’s gone before you can make sense of it.

You spend most of the week thinking he won’t come back next Friday. But he does. There’s nobody in front of him in line, this time, and like the time before your coworker is off in the back, which means it’s easy to slip him his coffee and conveniently forget to ring it out.

“Thanks,” he tells you, his voice a lot quieter. Softer, too.

You smile at him. His mouth twitches back, like maybe he’s not sure if he should return it, but wants to. 

He takes the seat by the window again. 

~

He keeps coming back. You try to make small talk but it feels stilted and awkward. It kind of makes you sad, a little bit, seeing him sitting there for hours, alone. 

On your day off, in early January, you go grocery shopping. 

You spend about 25$ in total and you make a split second decision to grab something out of the ordinary that’s on-sale. Dude was raised during the Great Depression, you guess he’s not the most experienced in the realm of the great big world of Weird Things You Can Purchase At The Modern Day Grocery Store. It’s meant to be a sort of peace offering, a look-I-can-be-normal-about-it, let’s-be-friends kind of deal, if he’s going to keep hanging around the coffee shop. You’re not sure if he, like— wants that, friends, or if maybe it’s just that he doesn’t want to be alone, but you figure it’s worth a shot. 

Part of it is that he interests you. Part of it is that your job, as much as it sucks less than a lot of other service jobs, is very mundane, very normal, often very boring, and James Buchanan Barnes being a regular customer is easily the most interesting and least boring thing that has ever happened to you at work. Or— ever, honestly.

 And maybe that’s selfish, to want to talk to him for that reason, but— whatever.

On Friday, like last week, you get there and you clock in and you try to casually scan the lobby, the floor littered with straw wrappers and crumpled napkins and empty sugar packets, the tables tacky with flavored syrup and coffee stains that you’d need to clean later, chairs around them arranged haphazardly and not pushed in, and—

And in the back corner, sitting low in his seat, baseball cap tugged down and shade over his eyes and fingers drumming restlessly against the side of a paper coffee cup, is James Buchanan Barnes.

The excitement you feel, then, is not really the kind you’d expected to— the last time you’d thought about him had been middle school, and even if it’d been just that three months, you remember with startling clarity that girlish, daydreamy kind of interest, how it felt, pleasant and mild and entirely harmless. Whatever you feel right now is not like that at all. It’s sharp and it’s visceral and it’s real, not a fantasy or the result of your imagination, not directed towards some fiction of a person that functioned as a safe receptacle for the things going on inside your head, but an actual individual human being. 

 It’s just interest, just curiosity, what you feel— you don’t have a crush on him, it’s not like you’re still in middle school and still interested, like that, in even just the general category of person that crush had represented. And the person sitting in the lobby isn’t the person– the fiction– you’d even felt that type of way about, anyways. You don’t know him, and he’s obviously nothing like the guy memorialized in every Captain America docudrama miniseries on Netflix. No, James Buchanan Barnes is a real human being, a very different human being, one that’s a stranger to you and you think— you guess— probably just as much of a stranger to that other, safer, softer, more boyish version of himself. 

You keep thinking about how he looked at you, unbroken and unwavering and eerily fucking precise, how his eyes hadn’t even move at all, focused so intently that it’d made the hairs on the back of your neck raise and goosebumps prickle across the tops of your shoulders and all the way down your arms and your gut instinct yell, loudly, there is something not right about this guy!

You’d read his Wikipedia article again. It’s been updated since; lots of shit came out since 2012. You’d heard about the Winter Soldier stuff, but reading about it in detail— it’s bad. There are probably several things that are not exactly right about him, now. That’s fine, though. The way the world is these days, there’s stuff not right about everyone.

You’re occupied with a steady and annoyingly constant stream of customers until about 8:00, making coffees and sandwiches and trading on and off with your coworker in the back room, where you’re trying to get the brunt of the stocking and dishwashing done before they leave at 8:30. You’d been fucking busy, and you’re annoyed, you got cream from the dispenser machine all up one of the sleeves of your sweater so you’d had to take it off, and there’s fucking caramel sauce stuck to the hairs on the flat of your forearm near your wrist and gluing them to your skin and that grocery bag of fruit is sitting on the back table next to your jacket and your gross sweater and your house keys and it’s staring at you. Accusingly.

Your coworker leaves.

You steal a careful glance over the coffee machines at the lobby, just checking, just to make sure that he’s still—

And he is.

Cool.

It takes you a few minutes to kind of— dredge up the guts to go talk to him, another few more for the last trickle of late-night coffee-getters to start to finally taper out, and then you do it. You gather your resolve and your nerve and whatever else, courage, too, probably, and you go out into the lobby and you stand in front of his table and you wait for him to, eventually, look up from where he’s been staring, kind of sullen-looking, out of the window.

“I looked it up,” you blurt out when he does, before you can think better of it, “Online. Apparently supply chains were really small, in like. The 30s. So people could get stuff, right, but a lot more of it was— local. You know that, obviously, but, um.”

He just looks at you. Unblinking.

“Anyway,” you say, trying to ignore the weird kind of twisty feeling of your nerves in the pit of your stomach; jesus christ, he stares, a lot, “Anyway, I had this neighbor when I was a kid, right, and he was— his family, they were refugees. Immigrants. He was learning English, but I made friends with him by using my allowance to buy things at the grocery store, like, weird things, stuff that he’d never had before. So we could— try it. For– fun. And I thought– well. There was a sale, today, so.”

You gesture to your hand; awkwardly, helplessly, god, this is weird, like ice-breakers on hard mode, if the ice were less like a frozen-over pond and more like one of those miles-deep Antarctic glaciers. A tissue-thin plastic bag, the knotted top of it held in your fist, the lone fruit inside just kind of– sitting there.

He finally blinks, and then he shifts back in his chair, and he looks at you some more, his gaze unwavering and solid and heavy like it has actual, physical weight to it, like it’s pressing down on your shoulders and forcing you into the ground.  “Are you— have you been trying to make friends with me?” he says, in a tone that’s kind of incredulous and a lot disbelieving and tells you absolutely nothing about whether or not he’d actually be amenable to that.

Whatever.

Fuck it, you think, and then you lift your chin and you meet his eyes and you make yourself stare right back, stubborn and deliberately unflinching. “Yeah,” you tell him. “I have.”

His expression– it’d been flat, impassive and unreadable, but something cuts right across it for a fraction of a second when you say that, quick and sure as a knife. For that one heartbeat of a moment he looks expressive and alive– you think he might even look stricken, actually, and you wonder far too late if maybe this had been a mistake, if you’d upset him. Done something wrong.

But then it’s gone, so quickly that you think you must have imagined it.

He leans back in his chair, and he looks down at his empty coffee cup as he taps it absently against the table, like he’s thinking it over. When he looks back at you the sum of his features are wholly neutral, except for his mouth, which is quirked up at the corners, just a little– not a smile, not with the way his lips are pressed together, into a hard, unwavering line, but it doesn’t look like something bad, either. It doesn’t look negative.

“Okay,” he says. “All right, shoot.” He jerks his chin towards the bag in your hand. “What’ve you got?”

You tear the side of it with your fingernails and dump the contents on the table. “Pomegranate. Had one before?”

His mouth twitches up more, and this time it does look like a smile, the beginnings of one, like he’s repressing it. He clicks his tongue and stretches his legs out under the table and shakes his head, just a little. “Yep,” he says. “Struck out on your first try.”

“No way Mr. Great Depression is more worldly than me.” You decide you’re going to interpret that as an agreeable reaction. There’s only one chair at his table, so you drag one over from nearby, the legs making this awful grinding sound against the tile floor. “I’ve never had one, so I’m taking half. Only fair.”

You fumble in your pocket for your knife to cut into it. He stares at it, when you pull it out, and then stares at you, “What do you have that for?”

Some nameless tension inside of you unwinds at the realization that he’s not just sitting there in stone-faced silence, anymore.

“Walk home after close,” you reply with an easy shrug; the conversation no longer feels like the world’s most awkward one-person performance or like actually physically pulling teeth, and that’s— pretty cool. Feels like a victory. “I usually finish at like, eleven-thirty. Not super dangerous, or anything, but better safe than sorry.”

Barnes makes a disapproving sound— what you think is a disapproving sound— under his breath when you flick the blade open, and grabs the pomegranate from the center of the table. “Too short,” he says, jerking his chin at it in your hand, “Gonna be a pain in the ass, let me.”

The knife that he pulls from what you think must be a sheath on his boot is a straight blade without a handguard, matte black and tapered to a point and without a doubt longer than four inches. Long enough to halve the pomegranate in one clean cut, sharp enough to bite into the laminate surface of the table underneath, just a little. 

“That’s definitely not street legal,” you say, mostly joking. 

Barnes stares at you. It takes you a second to realize that’s— new. Relatively speaking.

“New York made anything over four inches illegal, plus butterfly knives and switchblades,” you inform him. “I think in the 50s.”

He makes some noncommittal sound of what you assume is probably distaste, and stows the knife back in his boot. 

“Don’t worry,” you say, “I’m not a snitch.”

He doesn’t smile, but his expression lightens a little.

On the table, the pomegranate is split neatly in half, and the little pebbled fruits inside the open skin glint in the warm light from the overhead fixtures. Like flecks of garnet. Or drops of blood.

“Could get these in the fall, sometimes,” he says, looking down at it. “Used to pick the bits out with a sewing needle. Made it last all afternoon.”

Your brain conjures up the image of the baby-faced Barnes, maybe sitting on the curb or the front steps of a building. You wonder what the details of the memory are. You wonder if little scrawny Steve had been there, or if he’d been alone. 

You don’t ask. 

“I don’t have a sewing needle,” is what you do say, “But—“ your nametag is clipped to your shirt, a flat slip of plastic with a pin on the back, and you unfasten it and slide it across the table. 

Behind you, the door hinges creak and the bell chimes and you sigh, long-suffering, and get to your feet with an exaggeratedly affected eye-roll.

“I’ll be back,” you tell him, “Customer.”

You go to take the order and then midway through making it the doorbell sounds again. Midway through making that, same deal. This happens, at night, a trickle of customers just fast enough to keep you working nonstop, now that you’re the only person running the store. It goes on for something like ten minutes, which irritates the shit out of you despite the fact that it is technically your job. It’s nine-thirty at night and you’ve been at work for six hours and what you want to be doing is picking this dude’s brain, not making fucking coffee and bagels.

And also because a part of you is aware that he usually leaves around now.

He’s still there, though, when you come back; on the table there’s the husk of one half of the pomegranate,  this pale and washed-out color like corn silk, and a neat pile of seeds on a recycled-paper napkin. Barnes has the other half and he’s poking out little grains of red with the safety-pin end of your name tag and biting the pieces off the tip, breaking the fragile skin between his teeth. He looks— calmer. Kind of wistful. 

You realize this must be the first time he’s done this since he was a child, all the way back in a Brooklyn that doesn’t look anything like this one. Living alongside different people. Walking different streets. Breathing different air. 

“That’s for you,” he says, nodding at the little bits of red, the empty husk, “I thought— since you’re working.” 

You blink at him, and then you smile, a small, grateful one. Something flashes in his eyes, when you do; you aren’t paying much attention to it, still thinking about him, being so out of time. How strange this all must be. How much you really did mean it when you said you wanted to be his friend.

Barnes seems to realize when he brings the pin to his mouth again that it’s attached to your nametag. “Sorry,” he says, stilted and stiff and awkward-sounding, again, “I— you probably don’t want this back, now.”

“‘S fine, you can throw it out, if you want— I have so many.”You slide back into the chair and fish out of your apron pocket a blank one that you’d grabbed from the back, not knowing he’d gone and picked all the seeds out of your half already.  “I forget them in my pockets, they keep ending up in the washing machine.”

His expression relaxes, a little. He catches the kernel of fruit at the end of the pin between his teeth and bites down until there’s a burst of red in his mouth. Stabs another, works it free of the shell, the flimsy little white membrane around it wilting in on itself. You watch him do that for a minute, contemplative and silent. His mouth is red. His tongue, too, when it darts across his bottom lip. Makes you think about rocket pops from the ice cream truck in the summer. Makes you wonder if they had those, back then. 

“Did all that work for nothing, huh?” he says, after a while. You startle out of your thoughts and blink at him, nonplussed; he glances down at the pile of seeds on the napkin. “Thought you wanted to try it.”

“Oh,” you say, eloquently. “Oh, yeah. Duh.”

The first gem-glittering marble of fruit is softer than you’d expected and ruptures between your thumb and forefinger, staining the pads of them all red. You think about summer, as a kid, when you’d fall and scrape your hands on the asphalt hard enough that they bled. It’s almost the same color. 

The second time the seed is firmer and it bursts sharp and tart and faintly sweet between your teeth. “Kind of like cranberries,” you say, taking another. 

The pile is gone quickly, leaving just the napkin, the juice, like a dark wine stain. You lick your fingers clean. He’d been staring, the way he kind of always stares, but when your lips close around your thumb, he looks away.

~

You learn a bunch about food in the 1940s, mostly by accident.

Mangoes were a thing; they’d had some growing down in Florida, and you could get them seasonally. Pineapples used to be so rare that rich people would display the whole fruit as a centerpiece at parties and things, way back in the very early 1900s and up through the Great Depression, too; but by the time the 30s rolled around you could get the canned kind at the store. Watermelon was a thing, too, but they all had the solid, jet-black seeds you weren’t supposed to swallow; somebody’d bred those out of the commercial ones sometime after Barnes had slipped out of time. 

“I gotta just go straight for the really fucking weird stuff,” you muse, mostly to yourself. It’s late and it’s quiet in the shop and it’s raining outside, the street slick and black and reflecting the light from the lampposts. He stays later, now, leaves closer to 10:30; you’re kind of proud of that. That he seems to like you, your company. Or at least doesn’t dislike it.

“You could just ask,” he says, sounding just the slightest bit exasperated, “If I’ve had something before.”

“No,” you tell him, deeply serious, “No, that fucking ruins it, Barnes, it ruins the surprise.”

He looks at you blankly. A few seconds too late, you realize you’ve never actually said that, out loud. His name. You don’t call him Sergeant in your head anymore, it seems too formal, but James seems too intimate, and you hadn’t asked— hadn’t wanted to ask, hadn’t wanted to pry— if he still thinks of himself as Bucky. 

He doesn’t say anything.

Barnes it is, then.

~

Gooseberries used to be way more popular, all the way up into the 1920s, even though technically it was made federally illegal to grow them a few years before he was born. It was an attempt to stop the spread of this fungus that’d jump from the bushes to pine trees, killed huge swathes of them up and down the Northeast, decimated the lumber industry. He tells you his Ma used to make tarts and pies from them, in the fall when they were in-season, but eventually the farms upstate started getting shut down, and it was too expensive. The federal ban lifted in the 60s, you learn via Google, but production never really ramped back up again— they didn’t even have them at your regular grocery store, you’d had to go all the way to Trader Joe’s.

They taste kind of like green apples. He’d looked the way he did with the pomegranate, that first time, wistful and softer and like he’s remembering. It’s really the most you’ve ever seen behind whatever practiced and controlled exterior he maintains, beyond flashes of almost-smiles and eyebrow-raises and pointed looks. You want to peel that veneer off like peeling the skin from a fruit, get underneath it, get to the flesh of him; when this thought occurs to you, you bury it immediately, as deep as it will go. 

“White pine blister rust,” you read aloud off of your phone, crossing the lobby to his table, coffee cup in one hand. You set it on the table for him and he reaches for it with a mumbled thanks. “That’s what it was called, the fungus-thing. According to wikipedia.”

Barnes blinks at you. He takes a long, slow sip of his coffee, even though it’s still probably a little too hot, not that it matters to him; and then he sets the cup down and frowns and says, “What the fuck is wikipedia?”

You laugh without meaning to.

The skin slips, a little, whatever’s underneath peeking out, bruised and soft and bloody, but then you blink and he’s fine. Watching you, expression light and practiced. Whole, again.

~

In February something happens.

Your coworker tells you before he leaves, pulls you aside in the threshold of the door to the back room to mumble, “there were some dudes out back by the garbage when I took it out before. I was getting bad vibes, I don’t know, just— be careful.”

There’d been a string of robberies through the borough, all within some convenient distance of the subway line, and the store is probably three blocks away from one of the platforms. The back door is one of those that opens only from inside the store, the other end flat and lacking a handle; you leave it propped open when you run to take the garbage out. You’re not stupid, is the thing. The guys, whoever they are— it could be nothing, but it could be that they’re waiting. Waiting for it to be just you, waiting for the door to open, waiting for the opportunity. You have a knife, but it’s a flimsy ten-dollar gas station piece of shit, mostly for intimidation and not for actual use; you’re also well aware that using knives in confrontations tends to make things worse rather than better. Bring that shit out and you’re asking to get it taken from you. Asking to have it used on you.

You could try to call the cops, but more than half of them have been requisitioned by the GRC, and you know what they’d tell you. Unfortunately at the moment we’re understaffed and can’t afford to respond to predictive calls. Please let us know if and when something illegal occurs. Practiced and perfunctory and something people joke about in your neighborhood, because there’s really nothing else any of you can do. Your coworker can’t stay, either; he can’t afford to pay the babysitter another hour, not on minimum wage. 

“It’s okay,” you tell him, “I’ll be fine.”

And it is okay. You will be fine.

Barnes is there.

It’s a Wednesday, so it’s just sheer fucking luck that he’s here at all; he must be able to see it, in your face, when you come bursting through the little swinging gate-thing and out into the lobby, because his hands tighten into fists where they’re resting on the table.

“Oh my god I’m so glad you’re here,” you say, breathless and frantic and very much meaning it.

There’s a flash of something on his face that makes you think of heat lightning or splintering ice of the second right before a pomegranate seed bursts between teeth. You are not thinking enough about things that aren’t your immediate anxiety to register it.

“I need your help,” you tell him.

He grows progressively stiffer as you explain the situation, and when you’re done he says nothing, just stands up and pushes his chair in and says, real low, “I’ll go— talk to them. Don’t worry.”

The bell above the door chimes when he leaves.

You stand there at the edge of his table for what feels like some impossible amount of time, every muscle in your body wound up like a spring, jaw clenched so hard it’s starting to drive the beginnings of a headache somewhere on the top of your skull—

He comes back.

“Are you— did they—“ you break from nervously picking at your fingernails to make some vague and anxious gesture. Barnes looks fine, unscathed, cool and neutral and controlled as ever, but when he looks at you it makes something base and instinctive deep inside of you buzz with— alarm. Or— something.

“They were just— being stupid, just drunks,” he says, and maybe you’re imagining it, the thread of tension in his voice. “It’s fine. It’s all— it’s fine.”

You feel yourself visibly relax. “Oh, god, thank you so much, dealing with drunk guys is— it’s the worst.”

He flinches, when you say the first words, just a little, his eyes almost closing and the muscles around them going just briefly tense, like he’d managed to suppress most, but not all, of the instinct. “You don’t— you don’t need to thank me.”

You study him for a minute, like maybe if you look hard enough that flicker of whatever it was would come back, linger long enough for you to make sense of it.

“All right, fine, no thanks. Thanks rescinded,” you say finally, bemused. “I’m going to refill your coffee, though.”

You say it with your hand already half-outstretched, close enough that he can’t stop you even with his reflexes, and whatever entirely reactive and entirely accidental noise of triumph you make when his hand closes around empty space is— not on purpose. 

His mouth twitches, the closest you’ve ever seen to an actual smile.

Something in your stomach flips.

You shove that shit down, too. 

When you come back with the coffee he’s sitting back in the chair with his legs stretched out and he’s staring out the window again. 

“Thanks,” he says, when you set it down.

“Oh, so you can thank me, but I can’t thank you?”

His mouth twitches again. “Yes.”

You make some entirely performative tch sound of affected annoyance as you retreat back behind the counter; you still have to take the garbage out, clear out the pastry display case, start emptying and scrubbing down the coffee pots you’re not using now that business has slowed to a crawl. 

“Are you still coming Friday?” you call out to him,  over the hum and hiss of the espresso machine running through the automated cleaning program, the milk foaming wands steaming in pitchers of sanitizer water, all of it loud enough that you’d never be able to hear him over it, something you realize too late, “Sorry, hold on, I should have asked before I—“

“Do you want me to?” His voice is clear and close and you startle reflexively; he’s at the counter, at the register, staring. Always staring. You thought in the beginning you’d get used to it. It’s not uncommon; those with power stare, and those without cast their eyes down and away. It’s the nature of customer service jobs in New York City. You meet a lot of powerful assholes in suits who make more money than you probably will ever handle in the entirety of your life, and they look at you and talk at you rather than to you, like you’re nothing, a rodent or an insect or something even less than that. You’ve never once flinched away from any of their stares, and never so much as felt like you wanted to, either.

James Buchanan Barnes doesn’t look at you like that at all. He doesn’t look at you like you’re lesser. He looks at you like he can see you— like he can see right through you, like you’re transparent, like everything going on in your head is out in the open, visible, vulnerable, or maybe like he just wants it to be. Like he’s looking for a door hidden somewhere in the minutiae of your expression, some way to force himself inside and pull all of your thoughts and secrets out like unraveling a spool of thread.

He doesn’t look at you like you’re not human. He looks at you like he knows, precisely, intimately, exactly how human you are, and that’s—

Kind of worse. Or maybe it isn’t. It’s definitely weird.

You realize with a start that he’d asked you a question, and you’d been silent for way too long. You tear your eyes away from him and focus on pulling all the cup lids out of the tray at the edge of the counter, sweeping the donut crumbs and sugar crystals and coffee grinds out and onto the floor. 

“I mean—,” your tongue feels thick and clumsy in your mouth and it trips over the words, the syllables, stumbling and uncertain. “Not if you have plans, I— you don’t have to.”

“I never have plans,” he scoffs, scathingly self-deprecating, and then there’s the steady rhythm of his fingers drumming against the counter and you feel it on your neck, the hairs raising there, that he’s staring at you still, “I just—since I came today, I thought maybe you wouldn’t— I don’t want to bother you.”

You freeze, stack of iced coffee lids in one hand, half-lowered back into the now-spotless tray. 

You force yourself to look back up at him.

“You’re not bothering me,” you say, stressing each word, like it’s important. It is important. “You’re— I like you. We’re friends.”

 That thing, from before, the almost-maybe-flinch; it happens again, and you feel your own expression do something reflexive in response, your lips part and your brow furrow in the seconds before you can school your features back to composure. Whatever he does, the control he has over his affect; you’re not very good at that.

“Besides,” you say, into the silence, eyes cast back down and focused on filling the lid tray, “I found something you’ve never tried before, this time. And since I paid for it already, you are, in fact, contractually obligated to be here.” 

He laughs, the same kind of laugh, the only kind of laugh you ever get from him; the cut-short one, like he doesn’t mean to, like he’d tried to stop it. 

Like he couldn’t.

~

Barnes leaves at about 10:45, and you bring the trash out right before he goes, just in case. You wouldn’t have seen it if it weren’t for the fact that you were still kind of nervous and had your phone in hand, shining the washed-out beam of light back-and-forth across the little fenced-in area by the dumpster, trying to keep the garbage bag at arms’ length to avoid getting some disgusting coffee sludge mixture on your shoes where it’s leaking out of the corners.

The light catches on it. It glitters, captures your attention, red against the sun-bleached gray concrete. Pomegranate seeds. Shards of garnet. 

Drops of blood.

[love-too-believe]

Why Namor x Shuri makes sense in terms of story structure

So if we go off context, Nashuri was already planned by the writers, as seen in interviews and the og script. Which isn't surprising because viewers picked up on their chemistry and romantic undertones in the movie already. The only reason this was changed is because they wanted to focus on the theme of grief and dealing with loss. Which has been the main theme for phase 4 in general since we're moving on to new heroes.

Also not sure if people are aware of this but the choice to kill Ramonda was more or less a last minute decision by Ryan. Angela only agreed to it after Ryan brought up how often it is for characters to come back.

So this could mean Ramonda's coming back to life or will continue to make appearances. If she does come back to life this more or less weakens the "but he killed her mom!" Argument.

Now let's talk about Shuri's story and Namor's role in it. Because at the end of the day this is Shuri's story.

Shuri's story in WF is her journey from childhood to adulthood. Tenoch has said this is his favorite thing about her story.

In the beginning she is a girl by the end she is a woman.

The particular kind of story structure Ryan used is called "The Heroine's Journey" a popular method to use in storytelling with female leads.

You'll find similar stories following this method in movies like "Star Wars, Labyrinth, The Hunger Games, The Wizard of Oz etc."

"The Heroine's Journey" is a female version of "The Hero's Journey" which is used for male leads. T'Challa actually goes through his hero's journey during "Civil War" and "BP" so im not suprised Ryan used the female version for his sister.

If you look at the structure of the heroine's journey Shuri pretty much hits all of these.

Distancing herself from her mother, venturing out of Wakanda (both in America and in Talokan) aka leaving the nest, and having her time to shine.

Both the hero and heroine's journies are a method to mature your lead in a way that makes sense and is relatable since hey, we all gotta grow up some times.

Also a subtle thing Ryan incorporated was how both Ramonda and Okoye treat Shuri like she's a child while Namor treats her like an adult, because she is.

Now something that is not always included but is common in both, is the hero or heroine's being presented with sexual incitement, at times for the first time. This signifies them coming into sexual maturity which is why you won't see it in every story or may just get subtle hits of it.

Now if it wasn't obvious Namor is ment to be Shuri's expirence with sexual enticement. Possibly her first encounter since we don't know her history.

And this isn't a "maybe" situation he literally just is. Firstly, this role usually is presented when the hero leaves the nest, not to mention Namor takes up every single trope of this role.

-Invades the hero's space (hut scene)

-whispers to them (again hut scene)

-touches or caresses them (First holding her hand then putting his mother's bracelet on her)

-shows them something new and exciting (Talokan)

-Is usually older then the hero (20s vs 500)

-Often times wears clothing that is either tight fitted or very little clothing (bro is literally walking around in nothing but jewelry and booty shorts)

Secondly, sometimes you'll straight up get subtle hints and/or introductions of sex it's self.

-In Star Wars there's a scene where Leia has to sit on Han's lap and the ship starts bouncing up and down...

-Again, in Star Wars Kylo Ren wipes his mouth which we see has water on it after meeting with Rey through the force...

-With Shuri in Namor, their fight has a weird amount of grappling and holding, not to mention the back scratching...

Namor treats and speaks to Shuri like she's a grown woman. He doesn't handle her with kid gloves like everyone else, he respects her as an adult who can make her own decisions.

In a dark sense even when it comes to either raging war after Ramonda's death or the alliance. He leaves it up to her to decide.

Also Riri, just isn't this to Shuri. This is not to say people can't ship it cause you can ship whatever you want, their all fictional. But Shuri refers to Riri as "a kid", "a child" or "a girl" depending on what translations you watch. This is to show the audience that Shuri does not view Riri as an adult. They're confirmed to have a sisterly bond. Shuri lost a sibling and gained a sibling.

But back to Namor, he also is noticeably kinder to her then he is to literally anyone else in the movie besides his people. Not to mention it's canon that he finds her charming and interesting. He also likes her smile.

It's confirmed by Ryan that he never wanted to kill her even during their fight which some fans noticed, he never tries to kill her even when he has an obvious chance.

And lastly, he sees Shuri as an equal by the end of the movie, showing he has respect for her as a protector of her nation and possibly even views her as a god now but we have to wait and see on that one.

As quoted by Ryan, Namor is ment to be a Peter Pan archetype and when you think about it he really is. He's black and white way of thinking is very childish, he's incredible stubborn, he's arrogant and cocky, yet at the same time, curious and charming. Like Peter he's a father to his people (he literally refers to them as his children) and their sole protector.

There's innocence to his character that's very compelling and shows how young he is in mind.

-he collects (maybe steals, very Killmonger of him) Mayan artifacts from the surface since he never got to see Ancient Maya.

-speaking of collecting things, he even collects random surface world stuff. He has 2 gramophones in his hut, which he most likely got from a ship back in the day.

-he's suprised and charmed by Shuri's kindness. Which makes session since she's the first surface person he's ever spent time with.

-and hey, he got his love of drawing from his mama.

Now what does all this mean for Namor and Shuri in the future? Well for one you got a good amount of back up for them no longer being enemies.

1. Shuri's heroine's journey is over now.

2. Namor was the one who forced her into womanhood.

3. We concluded the story at her finalizing her grief

4. It's canon that Namor was humbled by Shuri after their fight.

5. Wakanda and Talokan will be working with each other.

6. Namor may play a mentor like role with Shuri

7. Dispite many romance scenes being removed they still chose to keep enough hints for people to pick up on.

8. Their fight is described as "intimate" by both writers.

9. Namor and Shuri are described as "two sides of the same coin" and "twin flames" (these are the same descriptions that were used for Rey and Ben Solo in Star Wars)

Why does them having a possible relationship make sense? Well the most basic answer? They're the only two people that can understand what the other is going through.

Their both protectors of great nations that are centered around a resource unique to their land and have a culture and ancestry untouched by colonization. They both know grief of losing people they love. (Namor's mother and his two handmaids, Shuri's brother and mother) Their both EXTREMELY intelligent. (Namor build a vibranium sun underwater and I don't remember where I read it but he learned English in a week.) They both find each other interesting. They both see each other as equals. They both have alot of growing to do.

So will they have some kind of relationship? Most likely. Will it be romantic or platonic? Who knows. But we know they won't be enemies so we have to wait and see.

[ohnocreativity]

Not a love story. 

Dystopias aren’t a dating ground for the main characters, unlike what Hollywood thinks.

Dystopian environments should make the main character and reader question everything and everyone. Would they tell me to the government? Would they leave me behind as we run away from infected people? Should I trust them? 

Hollywood focuses too much on love to notice that the economy is collapsing and trust is a difficult and complicated thing while living in a dystopia.

In this essay I will be comparing The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner and between the books and the movies.

In the Hunger Games Trilogy, the books written by Suzanne Collins), there are plenty of instances when the main character, Katniss Everdeen makes it plainly clear that she doesn’t want to have a relationship with either Gale (her childhood best friend) and Peeta (the boy who saved her life when they were young.)

She only wants to save her younger sister, Primrose, and their mother. Anyone else is just a bonus. However, playing the star-crossed-lovers is what managed to save her and Peeta from the first games, because the Capitol (like America and Hollywood) wants to see a love story. After 74 years of having every other type of victory story, romance is perfect for them. “Haymitch is right. Star crossed lovers, they eat that stuff up in the Capitol.”

Katniss Everdeen fully believes in the “eye for an eye” motive. She cannot let go of the fact that Peeta saved her life when they were young, which proves to be a good motivation to destroy the Capital and its ideals of using child slaughter as entertainment. 

Even though everyone in the Capital, as well as real life fans who only watch the movies, believe that Katniss and Peeta’s love for each other is what sparked the rebellion that led to the revolution, that is incorrect.

It was the murder of a 12 year old girl in the first games and Katniss’s grief that made the other Districts realise that they are done watching their children be placed in the awful situation where humans are pitted against each other and are forced to fight for the entertainment of others.

If Peeta wasn’t in the Hunger Games, it would still have a powerful message and Katniss Everdeen would still not be with Gale.

Although, in the prequel of the Hunger Games, we learn that before the 11th Game the Capital people didn’t enjoy watching the Hunger Games, not while contrasting their reactions in the 74th. For them it was as much punishment as it was for the District people.

In the end of the books, it is even shown that Katniss left Peeta. She left both of her love options so she can just live by herself and do what she wanted back in District 12. 

Peeta, like always, came to her. 

Survival takes precedence over romance within the books of The Maze Runner. We see it numerous times. 

In the Scorch Trials, when Teresa betrayed Thomas and still believed that W.I.C.K.E.D was good, that was the answer.

In the movies of The Death Cure, Teressa choses W.I.C.K.E.D again and decides to stay, even so. The romance still clouded Thomas’ decision, he was hesitant to trust Teresa but less so than the others.

In the movies Teresa betrays Thomas on an almost daily basis, it was starting to get very tiring. She kept getting into contact with W.I.C.K.E.D (Although it is spelled WCKD for some reason), ignoring the fact that they have failed so many times at so many things. They were meant to keep the Gladers(or subjects as they referred to them) under control, and failed. They were meant to find a cure for the Flare, but failed. They were meant to save humanity and yet again they failed.

In the movies, Teresa’s faith in WCKD was conflicting with her love for Thomas, but near the end of the books Teresa thought she was saving Thomas.

In both The Maze Runner and The Hunger Games (the movies), people’s main focus is romance. As such the screenwriters must have decided to use that to their advantage and focus on it as well. Perhaps because the real meaning of the books were too dark for Americans to take seriously and probably because when someone goes to see a movie they want to be entertained, they want to be moved by something that is seen in regular life. Cranks and murdered children are often evasive from the day-to-day life of people.

So, what is the real meaning of the books?

With The Hunger Games, I believe its main focus is how easily humans can be distracted by positive media, sparkly dresses and good food. As long as things are disguised by something pretty and something that releases endorphins, it’s ok.  The Capital uses bureaucracy, politicians, social, culture and  media control, that is what makes it dystopian.

With The Maze Runner, the main focus is how easily humans betray one another for “the greater good.” It is easy to be lied to, especially when they want to be lied to.

W.I.C.K.E.D lied to themselves. They believed they could play God with children. There were alternatives that they could have taken, but they were less entertaining to do. W.I.C.K.E.D used bureaucracy control like the Capital, but there wasn’t much media to control over, so they got creative. They used psychology to confuse the main characters, making them doubt everything. Their names, their whereabouts. The Gladers were physically confined into the Glade.

Bureaucracy, psychology, resources, physical and information control. 

Dystopian is described as an unfair society… Like ours.

[isleofdarkness]

What is something you haven’t said about auradon or the isle yet that makes you incredibly angry or upset?

The fact that it's based on real life. All of it is.

Disclaimer- I am an anarcho-socialist hope punk and we are getting political under the cut.

Auradon is how I see America in both present and future. A violent capitalist hellscape built on innocent bones with a happy prison finger where new ideas are scorned, people are forced to conform, human rights are denied, childhood is rapidly disappearing, the media is controlled, and laws only apply to minorities and people without money. Auradon is how I see America. And it infuriates me that people will see a society mirroring this country and condemn it, but continue to insist that the real America is the greatest country on Earth.

The Isle is... well, that's complicated. It's my belief that humans are inherently good. In a way, the Isle kids represent what I think society should be- banding together, helping each other, sharing resources so that everyone can survive the bad times, united against a common enemy despite their differences, coming together to work towards the survival of everyone, not just privileged groups. No gods, no masters, just leaders elected by the actual public who work in the best interest of everyone, who don't rate the value of human lives. Acceptance even when there's a difference in gender, race, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, ability, age, status, class, whatever. Banding together to fight for those who can't fight for themselves, even when those who can't fight can't provide something in return. A society where people deserve to live, where the taking of human life is never a decision made flippantly. Resources are shared, needs are met, and people are protected simply because they are human beings and deserve to live. A society where medical care is free, where shelter is free. A place where laws are created to prevent, lessen, or end the suffering of people and animals, not to create it. Where trials are based on the facts and not politics and bigotry, and the sentence is based on the same thing. Where mental health carries no stigma, where a diagnosis of ASPD or NPD won't be used to discredit everything you say. Where disabled lives, children's lives, black and brown lives- where all lives are truly valued as they are. Where all languages, cultures, and traditions are preserved, not erased. I'm rambling. The Isle kids are everything I believe in, everything I think we could be. And yeah, their lives are shit, but that's because of the people pushing ideas that are the exact opposite of what the Isle kids value. If they weren't being constantly brutally sabotaged, the Isle kids' society even in that tiny island would flourish because they work together and care about everyone.

What makes me angry is that I'm writing Hunger Games, and I know exactly how society would react if this were an actual book- they'd support the Isle and hate Auradon. But then, in real life, they would support every policy that I would write in Auradon, and they would sneer at everything the Isle kids stand for.

And that pisses me off.

[themculibrary]

Fics Written In 2020 Masterlist

5 Times Peter Thought Iron Man and Captain America Were Dating (+1 Time He Wasn't the Only One) (ao3) - bravobeavo steve/tony T, 13k

Summary: 5 times Peter Parker thought that Iron Man and Captain America were dating. And one time when he realized he wasn't the only one who thought that.

OR How Peter accidentally caused Steve and Tony to get together by assuming they were already together.

A Barton Surprise (ao3) - Delena_Stark clint/laura, pepper/tony G, 5k

Summary: Requested by Droth “Maybe one where Peter is Tony’s 12 year old biological son. Peter has to go with Tony to the Barton farm, and he ends up hanging out with the older Barton kids.”

Amaryllis by paperstorm steve/bucky E, 70k

Summary: So do I remind you of someone you’ve never met, a lonely silhouette? And do I remind you of somewhere you want to be, so far out of reach? I wish you’d open up for me, ‘cause I want to know you … amaryllis bloom. // In 19th century Europe, Bucky and Steve are members of neighboring royal families. Steve is the heir to a throne he does not want, and Bucky is the neglected third child waiting to be married off and forgotten about. Trapped in unhappy lives by seemingly immovable circumstances, they find a way out in each other.

Brainwashed Bros (ao3) - haveufoundwhaturlookingfor bucky/clint T, 3k

Summary: Bucky and Clint return from a successful mission, only to find that Bucky’s childhood best friend (aka Captain America) has been recovered from the ice and is actually alive. On top of that, Loki pays a visit to Earth and brainwashes Clint. So, not only does Bucky have to worry about Steve, but now his brainwashed boyfriend.

Clint's Hugging Service (ao3) - pherryt bucky/clint G, 7k

Summary: Bucky really, really wants to know what a Clint Barton hug feels like. Everyone else seems to swear by them.

Do No Harm (ao3) - AuroraWest, the_genderman loki/stephen M, 69k

Summary: When Loki stole the Tesseract from the Avengers, he hadn’t been trying to break the universe. Nor had he anticipated a wizard saving his life.

Now, Loki finds himself in the New York Sanctum, helping Stephen Strange hold the universe together—while he himself falls apart. But trouble finds the God of Mischief whether he invites it or not, and good things don’t last for Loki. As his universe crumbles and takes another with it, he’ll be faced with a choice: the greater good or the people he loves.

Drowning in Demons (And Learning to Breathe) (ao3) - ariverofthings, PS_NoThanks pepper/tony T, 244k

Summary: The oh-so-overdone HYDRA Peter trope that literally no one asked for, but we delivered anyway. Featuring shameless Peter whump, way too much angst to be healthy, and a bucketload of Irondad and Spiderson fluff.

Effortlessly (ao3) - fundamentalBlue, VexedBeverage clint/tony E, 24k

Summary: When Tony offers him a place at the tower, he takes it, despite the fact that life has always been tit for tat, and Tony must want something in return. Some kind of control or dominance over Clint and his life. Clint has nothing to give anymore, not that he ever did. Still, he moves in, taking with him all of his meager belongings. There’s no trinkets between Coulson and him. No photos or cards. It’s alright. It’s always been alright.

Clint could never afford to be sentimental about possessions before anyway.

Fake (Date) It Til You Make It (ao3) - Blizzard_Fire bruce/clint M, 6k

Summary: ‘Hey Doc,’ Clint said one morning, strolling into the lab, ‘Can you date me?’ Bruce frowned up at him. ‘Why?’ ‘To fuck with Tony, mainly.'

Bruce and Clint start fake-dating to mess with the others. But then it becomes a question of how long they can keep this up, and maybe their “dates” aren’t quite so platonic anymore…

fed up with hunger (ao3) - frankoceansmoonriver steve/bucky N/R, 10k

Summary: “What do you wanna talk about? How I’m gonna have to marry some girl with perfect ringlets and you’re gonna marry some girl who’s smarter than both of us combined, and you’ll be right to? What is there to talk about? Quit being a dumbass and just go to sleep.” He says it so matter of fact. He says it like none of it bothers him. Steve sighs. “Nobody is gonna marry me,” Steve says softly. He lays back down and goes to sleep. In the morning, Bucky doesn’t mention it and neither does Steve. They go back to not talking about it. Maybe they never will.

Or, the one where it’s 1939 and sometimes Steve thinks that having is worse than wanting.

first one's free (ao3) - shatteredhourglass clint/tony E, 5k

Summary: Clint Barton has a crush on Iron Man. Clint Barton is also sleeping with Tony Stark on the regular. All in all, it's a mess.

maybe we should tell them (or maybe not) (ao3) - GreenPencil harley/peter G, 3k

Summary: Peter forgot to tell the Avengers he and Harley were a couple. He suggests that they should tell them and Harley suggests they don't.

Our Omega (ao3) - haveufoundwhaturlookingfor bucky/steve/sam N/R, 3k

Summary: Steve And Thor have a one night stand at one of Tony’s parties, and Steve ends up pregnant. Thor leaves the next day for Asgard without saying a word to Steve, leaving Steve to deal with the mess alone. Except, he’s not really alone. He has Bucky and Sam, who step up to take care of Steve and the baby.

research and disaster (ao3) - blueh T, 9k

Summary: the interns at Stark Industries have some questions about Peter Parker. The answers aren’t quite what they expect.

Scary Movie Tough Guy (ao3) - Delena_Stark mj/peter, pepper/tony N/R, 3k

Summary: MJ recommends a scary movie for Peter to watch, and of course he had to try to show off to her even if he doesn't do well with certain horror stuff. Turns out it wasn't gonna be an easy feat.

Some People Should Not Work With Children (ao3) - AllThingsGeeky G, 15k

Summary: With May at work and not answering, poor Peter’s stuck in school feeling awful. But when the School Nurse has to call his other contact, she’s less than co-operative...

The Puzzle that is Peter Parker (ao3) - Neuropsyche pepper/tony T, 279k

Summary: Peter is reeling from the after-effects of the spider bite and seeks out Tony Stark. If anyone can teach him how to be a superhero, it's Ironman, right? Tony isn't impressed at being stalked by an eight year old

two gentlemen of brooklyn (ao3) - rooonil_waazlib steve/bucky E, 7k

Summary: Or, five times Steve and Bucky weren't married, but sort of were, and the time they figure it out.

[ofmermaidstories]

merm...bkg hunger games au....

okay so here are my initial thoughts:

1) im actually probably way too into the hunger games to be having this discussion lmfaoooo. im too into it, it’s too perfect, i love it too much. it is basically the pinnacle of all YA and i will fight literally everyone on that.

2) so with the first point in consideration, are we talking like a strict 1:1 AU? Setting it in New America/Panem? Districts with distinct specialities? Commentary about reality TV and modern entertainment entwined with like, the trauma that comes with war and trying to break free of generational curses and etc etc etc? RE: reality TV, I do think we could probably modernise that just a teeny weeny little, to include like, idk, some bullshit about how we’re always under constant surveillance and how we no longer have the time/option to be unavailable (because we’re so connected!). and since we’re like, apart of an actual fandom, maybe we could throw in some stuff about how our more privileged/sheltered audience members would engage in like, stan culture about all these dying kids, LOL. Shipping wars that ends bitterly because one half of the pairing like, idk, clubs the other to death LMAO. Real People Fanfic and the culture war that would come from that (people having a problem with RPF of the tributes bc they’re real people, but like also conveniently like… forgetting they’re real people who are being forced into a death match). would we throw in a line about Reader and/or Bakugou discovering self-insert Gamefic? lmao no wait i made myself snort, we’re absolutely keeping that LMAO. anyways im gonna cut myself off here bc otherwise i will ramble on, but that brings us to point numero-threeo—

3) i recently rewatched Battle Royale (a “random” class entered wins a yearly lottery then dumped on a remote island where they have three days to murder each other—all in the name of keep the status-quo, etc etc, also this is somehow a solution to sky-high unemployment rates etc etc etc.). if we kept the Quirks then like, you could spin it as a dystopian AU where people are fearful of quirks being too powerful, so then ya death-match children are pulled from hero classes and we make Reader end up in there accidentally or something, and oh no! they’re also quirkless (and defenceless hehe).

4) idk. i know i was like hehe i like war! but like, i don’t know how to emphasise how much i love the hunger games LMAO. and how that love sort of translates into the same fierceness i feel about BNHA, when it comes to fanfic—that the canon characters have certain inevitabilities you have to honour. just like no matter the universe, we are always going to need a Bakugou who’s centered around his friends (Deku, always, in any capacity. Kirishima, the first equal he had. Shouto, his frustrating Bestie <3), to me the hunger games works as well as it does because it’s war through the lens of relationships. Gale as the danger of unhealed anger, Peeta as choosing peace—like… that’s the magic of THG to me, and i just…… like…… what are we gonna do with the relationships, with a BNHA cast? 🥺 What would Bakugou be? Do we start with a Bakugou who’s still in Bastard Mode? Has he gone through his canon growth by the time he and Reader meet? If he has, then how was that facilitated in our new world? Did he and Deku end up in the same game? Survive together somehow? How many of their peers and friends do they lose, or does that come later on? How do we fit Reader into that dynamic naturally? the romance in THG happens through like, a need to play the game, play it up for the cameras, but it’s born out of Peeta’s very real feelings for Katniss, that started when they’re kids, and I’m not a childhood friends-to-lovers person (writing wise). The “romance” (if u can call it that) in Battle Royale is probably more culpable to what i do (vague awareness of each other/one-sided crush, grows as they prop each other up) but… idk!!! idk!!!! we could just write up Bakugou and Reader sharing a cave and making out over a festering wound but like…. idk!!! i believe in earning our kisses. 😌 show me the build up in the war-torn society first, and then maybe we can have a kiss later on, lmfaoooo.

[pixiestickers]

Tagged by @bethanyactually thanks :)

3 ships you like: I have my old standbys that are always in the back of my mind, but these are the ones I'm currently thinking about: I still have Kurapika and Leorio from 'Hunter x Hunter' on the brain and have since the Fall of '22. The Leopika brainworms are here to stay it seems. I just read some 'Hunger Games' Haymitch and Effie fics on a whim and enjoyed those, and I guess Ava and Deborah from 'Hacks' but they are kinda lowkey toxic so idk I'm just sorta rooting for them bc I enjoy their dynamic.

First ship ever: The first time I ever watched something and wanted the characters to be together was Chip and Gadget from 'Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers' (I had really ick feelings abt the Disney+ movie jokingly putting her with Zipper like what??).

Last song that you heard: last.fm tells me it was The Kill by Maggie Rogers

Favourite childhood book: I read a lot of Babysitter's Club books growing up, but the one book I've come back to many times since reading it at age 10 is 'Island of the Blue Dophins'. It sparked my love for survival books.

Currently reading: I was reading 'A Gathering of Shadows' by VE Schwab, but then my neck issues flared and I haven't picked it up in two weeks, so I checked out the audiobook from the library. I haven't gotten it yet, but as soon as I do I'll finish the book.

Currently watching: I'm abt halfway thru 'Frieren: Beyond Journeys End'. I just finished the season finale of 'Abbott Elementary' and will watch the season finale of 'Hacks' later tonight. I was trying to watch the Walking Dead spin-off 'The Ones Who Live' featuring Richonne, but I am not loving it. I have only two episodes left, but don't think I'll finish it. I kinda stalled on 'His Dark Materials' after season 2 and haven't started season 3 yet, but will eventually. I've been going thru 'Hunter x Hunter' again, picking my favorite eps and arcs via DVDs from the library and I just requested 'The Chairman arc' so I'll watch that again as soon as they get it to me. Oh and I just found out yesterday that 'The New Adventures of Superman' is airing a new season!

Currently consuming: nothing, but I ate an egg sandwich abt an hour ago.

Currently craving: A healed neck so I can do most activities again, like writing and reading as much as I want.

Lowkey no-pressure tagging: @mydoctor @alphamano @leaving-a-comment @america-oreosandkitkats @spectraling and anyone else who would like to participate.

[battleangel]

Third Eye Realizations

🧿Abolitionist

🧿Liberation

🧿Justice

🧿Climate Change

🧿Protecting the Earth & the environment

🧿Socialism

🧿Community

🧿Banding together

🧿Pooling our resources

🧿End child hunger & poverty

🧿Eradicate homelessness

🧿Universal medical care

🧿Universal college & coding education

🧿Bodily Autonomy + Womens Rights

🧿Kemet

🧿Ancient Egypt

🧿Isis

🧿Decolonizing the mind

🧿End paternalism + patriarchy

🧿Toxic masculinity

🧿End corporate America

🧿Restoring communities not policing crime

🧿Legalize marijuana & psychedlics

🧿End prison sentences for non-violent crimes (exception financial manipulation where people & families lose life savings like securities fraud)

🧿End school to prison pipeline

🧿End criminalization of normal childhood behavior of black & brown boys in elementary school that leads to juvenille halls, early prison records & sets them up for a life of crime for something they should be getting detention for

🧿End overmedicalization of black women by psychiatry & disgusting abuse of power through misdiagnoses, forcible drugging & forced hospitalizations

🧿Remove Protestant work ethic from public consciousness

🧿Strengthen unions & labor laws

🧿Stop prioritizing profits over people

🧿End preventable deaths from starvation, homelessness & curable illnesses and diseases by providing a universal living (not "minimum") wage, affordable housing & medical care so people stop dying needlessly in the "richest country in the world"

🧿Remove organized religions influence from laws, education systems, public sphere & culture at large as it has caused hatred, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, racism, persecution, genocide, unjust laws, oppression, suppression, indoctrination, brainwashing, forced baptisms, trauma, upheld patriarchy & paternalism, reinforced bullshit feminine ideals, subjugation of women & their forced submission to the "head of the household", dogma, blind faith, zealotry, corruption, grift, theft, "tithes & offerings", sex abuse, emotional abuse, psychological coercion, child abuse, hypocrisies and wars.

🧿Societal realization that feminine doesnt equal women, masculine doesnt equal men, anyone can wear makeup, heels, dresses, business suits, tuxedos, grow facial hair, not shave their legs, have acrylic nails, etc. and it has nothing to do with genitalia, sex or assigned gender at birth and everything to do with Spirit (as the Native Americans know with 2 Spirit), energy and how Source has divinely chosen to manifest itself in each individual soul and that expression of Source is as unique and individual as our fingerprints and if that expression is through gender affirming transitions, surgery, medical care, facial feminization surgery, changes in physical appearance, hormones, drugs then that is how that persons soul has chosen to express themselves in this temporal, corporeal, temporary and physical plane of existence -- the soul, our energy, Source, the divine is what truly matters and noone should question anyone elses unique soul expression which can be expressed and communicated in literally millions of different ways, through body art, body modifications, tattoos, piercings, hair adornments, permanent makeup, the list is literally endless and gender identity expression and gender affirming care is just one of these millions of ways and should not be demonized, hated, feared or legislated against.

🧿Opioids like fentanyl, percoset, oxycontin, etc. are dangerous, harmful and addictive. Millions are addicted and millions have lost their lives for no reason other than to enrich pharmaceutical companies. We can be healed with plants and herbs and we can be healed with our selves and our own inner healing power. We dont need these synthetic, unnatural, harmful & deadlydrugs. They should be made illegal.

🧿Cancer is nothing but a cottage industry and a money making tool -- with all the trillions and trillions donated and decades upon decades of research, where is the cure? Same with arthritis, lupus and other autoimmune diseases. Prescription drugs exist to make pharmaceutical companies richer, thats it.

🧿Satan was made up for Christianity, which is a bastardized & stolen form of kemet, Mary is a bastardized Isis & Jesus is a bastardized & fake ass Horus. There is no hell, hell is never mentioned once in the Old Testament, it was made up later for the New Testament to control and enslave. We are in hell, thats literally where we are now, what else do you call millions of children dying every year of starvation, from homelessness, from completely preventable & curable diseases when Apple is a trillion dollar company? What do you call the Earth dying because of profit and greed and capitalism? What do you call pointless wars over inside government jobs? What do you call genocide, systems of oppression, police killing unarmed Black men with absolute impunity, prison industrial complex, military industrial complex, school to prison pipeline, corporate amerikkka working people to death into literal early graves, money being valued over living human beings with unique souls, forests being destroyed, colonialism, colonizers, government experimentation, MK Ultra, minders, greys, the Bohemian Grove...youre in hell literally now.

🧿Decolonize your mind, heal yourself, commune with nature, unplug and disconnect, exit the rat race, stop treating yourself as a machine when you are a beautiful soul, stop overworking, stop hustling, stop overeating, stop overdrinking -- ethanol is a poisonous depressant, so how do you "drink to have a good time"?, stop overspending, stop overconsuming, stop retail "therapy", tap into yourself, tap into your soul, stop endlessly scrolling and tapping your phone, tap into Source, we are all infinite beings and they treat you like you are an inconsequential cog to be replaced -- if you die today, your job will replace you tomorrow i was a corporate recruiter and saw it happen more than once, listen to ocean waves, float weightlessly in a dark pool, stop listening to 24/7 news, stop being 24/7, youre not 24/7, you have a natural circadian rhythym, replenish your depleted melatonin levels, they treat you like a 5 below knock off when you are expansive & divine, stop killing yourself to make a CEO that doesnt know who tf you are and his shareholders richer they will brush your ass out the door this fall with the estimated 2 million more people being laid off, stop making yourself a number, stop being a statistic, stop being plastic, stop playing their game, be an individual, be yourSELF, know the Self, know Self, know thy Self, cant run away from Self forever, look inside because thats where all the answers are and thats the only place they dont want you to look so you google it but baybee what did people do before google, stop shortening your attention span, you are more than a Tik Tok, read a book, fight the power, fight the machine, take a slow leisurely walk to nowhere to do nothing, stop existing and curating your entire existence for social consumption on social media, you are not a thing to be consumed, you were wonderfully made by Source, you are Source, realize who you are and open your eyes...🧿

[cloudychao]

Ok but Them with Omegaverse elements in it. I have my own take on A/B/O and let's just put them in it.

Takao is a beta and is definitely insecure about that. His chances at love are pathetic despite how amazing his kendo skills are. People always look at him pitifully since he is just a beta.

Kai is an omega and will never fit into the stereotype despite what his grandfather wants. His grandfather been training him since he was young and makes sure his son is the most beautiful candidate in the world. Kai doesn't care about his looks or love. He just wants to be free from his grandpa and see more than just his room.

Max is an alpha and doesn't really show it. His parents never raised him to be conscious about himself, but everyone always praises him for being an alpha. He never grew as tall as the other alphas nor as strong, disappointing a lot of people. He decides to withhold a lot of information and try to look as androgynous as possible, which is his biggest appeal.

Rei is also an alpha and hates that side of himself. Most villagers look down on him and many other alphas are mad at his beauty. His childhood friends always had to protect him. He wishes to fight his own battles and does not want his friends to get hurt because of him anymore.

My favorite type of messed up hierarchy. Male Alphas are on top but the others are beneath it. That is the standard but other societies have other types of hierarchies (along what is the perfect couple). Also depending on the time period, standards can change.

In Japan, that is their standard. Their perfect couple is a male alpha with a female omega.

In America, Both Female and Male Alphas are on top, Betas are in the middle, and Omegas are on the bottom. Their ideal couple is an alpha with a beta. They are trying to make changes to put everyone equal, but that is still in progress.

In China (specifically Rei's village), their hierarchy is in reverse of Japan (this is not based on actual traditions and more for variety). Female Omegas are on top of the hierarchy, Betas are in the middle, and Alphas on bottom. Their ideal couple is a female omega with a beta. (this is based on ranma 1/2)

In Russia, their hierarchy is similar to Japan's. Alphas and Omegas share the top tier while Betas are below them. Their ideal couple is an alpha with an omega.

Along with A/B/O, they all share a practice of a mating chase. (idk the actual name of this so im making it up rn) It is where all people partake in a survival game to find their "true mate" and to keep the populations at an "even number." Everyone must participate in it yearly once they are 18 and can't stop until they are bound to someone. (inspired by the hunger games)

Only people who come out the Mating Chase alive are recognized as a true couple. Any other relationship will never be true love in the eyes of society and look down upon.

The whole group meets in the survival game. Their countries often do an international survival game on top of the national and city ones. With their limited Japanese, they fight together to survive and end this ritual.

In the end, they were not successful and instead chose to survive by bonding with one another. Takao and Kai become "fated mates" while Max and Rei become the "pair that defied all odds." They all become a pack.

No, I will not write about their sex lives because I am not that type of writer nor am I comfortable with that right now.

[stuckybingo]

Stucky Bingo Round-Up #33 (May 21st - May 23th)

Don’t forget to fill out the submission form to be a part of the round-ups and to get your bingo badges! Round 4 ends May 31st and all works must be submitted before then!

GHOSTED by the Winter Soldier by Winnie Square filled: B1 - dorito Ao3 rating: Mature Warnings: No archive warnings apply, implied torture, kidnapping, gun violence Major tags: Modern AU - Spies and secret agents, humor and action, movie retelling Summary: Local farmboy Steve is reluctant to sell living plants to presumed Plant Killer Bucky. However, they soon find common ground and spend a lovely night together before Bucky ghosts Steve. When Steve decides to find him, he gets more than what he bargained for: spies, bounty hunters, and criminals in an underworld that mistake Steve to be the Winter Soldier, infamous and ruthless agent on a mission… Bucky, who isn’t what he seemed, rescues him, but will they be able to save to world and their relationship? Stay tuned to find out! Format: Part of a multichapter fic

Smutconnoisseur’s Fic Recs Vol 1 - Prostate Milking Edition by Smutconnoisseur Square filled: O5 - Prostate Milking Ao3 rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Explicit sexual content, Polyamory, Kinks Summary: Smutconnoisseur’s Fic Recs Vol 1 - Prostate Milking Edition Format: Reclist

A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow Chapter 2: Main Street USA by Jimothy Square filled: I2 - Nerdiness Ao3 rating: General audiences Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Disney World AU, Nerdiness, Fluff Summary: They explore main street USA and Tony performs my childhood dream of buying the giant rice krispy treat. Format: Medium oneshot (1000 - 5000 words)

Miles Apart, Close In Heart by SmutConnoisseur Square filled: I3 - Long Distance Ao3 rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Established Relationship, Long Distance, Explicit Sexual Content, Sex Toys, Phone Sex Summary: As soon as he climbs onto the bed and settles against the headboard, phone in hand, it starts to ring. Bucky takes a deep breath, willing his nerves to calm. He's never done this before, but what a way to start. Format: Medium oneshot (1000 - 5000 words)

It's Trending by singthebeginningofmoana Square filled: I4 - Power Couple Ao3 rating: Teen Warnings: No archive warnings apply, Homophobia Major tags: Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Twitter, Rumors, Humor Summary: A rumor starts, and Steve and Bucky are confused. Format: Short oneshot (300 - 1000 words)

Part 2: Hunger by theemdash Square filled: N1 - Kink: Biting Ao3 rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply, Blood, Blood Kink Major tags: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Canon Divergence from Movie: Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Smut, Biting, Codependency Summary: They may be vampires, but a daylight stay in a barn proves not much has changed in Bucky and Steve's relationship. (Okay, there's a lot more blood and teeth in their sex life.) Format: Short oneshot (300 - 1000 words)

Forbidden Enticement by rookthorne Square filled: N1 - AU: Royalty Ao3 rating: Mature Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Pet names, fluff, forbidden and polyamorous relationship, spicy tension Summary: The relationship was forbidden, you knew the risks and you knew what the punishment would be if you were found out – oh, the court scandal it would cause. It didn’t deter the need to see them, though, nor the bout of friendly competition you craved. Format: Medium oneshot (1000 - 5000 words)

All Eyes are on Him, For their Entertainment by rookthorne Square filled: I1 - AU: Circus Ao3 rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Swearing, pet names, forbidden relationship, secret relationship, sexual tension Summary: They were a secret, hidden down alleys, amongst flaps of tents and silk ropes, ensnaring them both and binding them tighter and tighter–it was dangerous, it was trouble, but above all else, it was intoxicating. Format: Medium oneshot (1000 - 5000 words)

To the Stage! by andrea1717 Square filled: G2 - AU Theater Ao3 rating: Teen Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Alternative Universe College, Enemies to Lovers, First Kiss Summary: Bucky is "thrilled" when he has to play the lover of Steve Rogers on stage. It's not like they hate each other - right? Format: Medium oneshot (1000 - 5000 words)

It's Okay to be Omega (AOTTTYAHS)-Ch 1 by sarah-writes-stucky Square filled: O4 - Medical Setting Ao3 rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply, Dub con (due to abo shenanigans), wetting, omorashi, diapers, reference to past self harm Major tags: a/b/o, hurt/comfort, medical kink Summary: Bucky is a troubled young man going through the traumatic transformation of late-onset omega puberty--What used to be crudely referred to as ""bitching."" Without a supportive family, he's been in and out of treatment since he was sixteen. Steve's been developing too much of an attachment, he knows he has. But this time when his patient shows up to the ward, hurting and abandoned, Steve might not have the self control to stop at the mere 'professional'. He might just have to quit his job and keep Bucky for his own. Format: Part of a multichapter fic

It's Okay to be Omega (AOTTTYAHS)- ch 2 by sarah-writes-stucky Square filled: B2 - Identity Porn Ao3 rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply, Non-consensual medical procedures Major tags: catheters, omorashi, humiliation, punishment, diapers Summary: Bucky is a troubled young man going through the traumatic transformation of late-onset omega puberty. Steve is the Support Alpha assigned to work with him. Format: Part of a multichapter fic

It's Okay to be Omega (AOTTTYAHS)-Ch 4 by sarah-writes-stucky Square filled: B5 - Art Ao3 rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply, Dub-con due to abo shenanigans, reference to past thoughts of self-harm, reference to castration Major tags: inflation, breeding kink, enemas, wetting, knottingn Summary: Bucky is a troubled young man going through the traumatic transformation of late-onset omega puberty. Steve is the Alpha support assigned to help him. Format: Part of a multichapter fic

Coming to Collect by sarah-writes-stucky Square filled: B3 - Dub-Con Ao3 rating: Mature Warnings: Rape/non-con, Dubious consent, spanking Major tags: Mob!AU, Dark Bucky Barnes, vaginal fingering Summary: He's coming to collect you, because you spoke out of turn. Now you squirm in your seat: a little scared, a little wet, and all-too-conscious of what he'll be doing to you once he gets you someplace private. Format: Short oneshot (300 - 1000 words)

A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow - Chapter 3: Space Mountain by Jimothy Square filled: I2 - Disguises Ao3 rating: General audiences Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Disney World AU Summary: Tony conquers Space Mountain Format: Medium oneshot (1000 - 5000 words)

[mitcheldepalo]

Current State of Social Media Ethics

The current state of social media ethics: what trends are happening in the industry?

The current state of social media ethics is a bit of a mess. Influencers are constantly trying to profit, selling products, courses, or even unattainable dreams. Platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok are rife with biased news sources. These platforms often present information in a way that supports their narrative, making it challenging to find unbiased information. Additionally, data collection is rampant, with platforms using this data to predict our behaviors and sell us products. There's also a concerning rise in narcissism, materialism, and a "me-first" attitude. Social media has become polarized, with each user living in their own information bubble, leading to varied mindsets and perspectives primed to clash.

What are two current cases related to social media ethics?

Brands, at times, inappropriately involve themselves in significant global debates, such as LGBTQ rights and COVID-19. A notable example is Bud Light. They launched a marketing campaign that didn't align with their core audience's beliefs, leading to a significant drop in sales. This case highlights the importance of brands staying true to their identity and not encroaching on personal and sensitive issues.

A few months back, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike, protesting the increasing reliance on AI tools for content creation in the entertainment industry. As AI becomes more sophisticated, there's a growing fear among writers that their roles might become obsolete. This strike underscored the importance of human creativity, emotion, and experience in storytelling. It also brought to the forefront the ethical implications of using AI in content creation, especially when it comes the dilution of unique human perspectives. The WGA strike serves as a reminder that while technology can aid the creative process, it cannot replace the genuine human touch.

Outline the current code of ethics for social media by a professional organization you would be interesting in joining as part of their social media staff.

I'm quite interested in Verbo, the rental app. They seem inclusive, avoiding major political or controversial stances. Instead, they focus on showcasing their diverse range of rental homes. Their social media campaigns emphasize inclusivity, featuring people from various backgrounds. They also provide extensive resources for property renters, ensuring they're well-informed. This approach makes them stand out as an organization with strong social media ethical codes.

Brands/professionals with strong social media ethical codes: what brands are utilizing proper social media ethical practices?

Stop and Shop is a brand with strong ethics. They actively support causes like Pride Month and the LGBTQ community. They're also committed to ethical supply chains and ensuring the welfare of farm animals. Their efforts extend to supporting childhood cancer programs, fighting breast cancer, and donating to hunger relief organizations.

Are there any professionals that you feel practice strong ethical behavior on social media? Support your choice with evidence. What are some takeaways you can bring forth in your own practices?

Lex Friedman is a prime example. He avoids taking a definitive stance on polarizing issues, focusing instead on seeking the truth. His podcast features insightful conversations without pushing a particular narrative. A tweet that encapsulates his approach reads, "I'm not right-wing or left-wing no matter how much either side attacks me. In the end, we're one." A key takeaway from observing professionals like Lex is the importance of neutrality and understanding. It's essential to avoid diving into controversies and to always approach topics with an open mind.

Key concepts and issues: what main concepts do you think are necessary to adhere to for your own personal conduct online?

Understanding and empathy are paramount. It's crucial to comprehend others' viewpoints and not jump to conclusions. Being supportive, especially when someone is trying to raise awareness about a cause, is also vital. Even if you disagree, it's possible to be kind and understanding. Avoiding controversies, especially those without clear answers, is a wise approach. Stick to facts and avoid getting embroiled in debates that can harm your online reputation.

What to do and what not to do: what main concepts do you feel strongly against and want to make sure you avoid on social media?

Avoid controversies. While they might boost engagement temporarily, the long-term damage isn't worth it. Always be genuine and avoid taking stances on issues just to appease a particular audience segment.

Bullet point 5-10 core concepts that you will follow as a practicing social media professional. 

Always Be Kind: Treat every interaction with kindness and understanding.

Agree to Disagree: It's okay to have differing opinions. Respect them.

Avoid Arguments: Engage in constructive discussions, not heated debates.

Support Others: Everyone is on a journey. Be supportive, just as you'd want support.

Golden Rule: Treat others as you'd want to be treated.

Be Genuine: Stay true to yourself and your beliefs.

Avoid Controversial Stances: Unless absolutely necessary, steer clear of controversies.

Stay Informed: Always be updated with the latest information before forming an opinion.

[love-too-believe]

Gotta disagree with this one since them having a possible relationship would make perfect sense for the roles each other play in their stories.

Why Namor x Shuri makes sense in terms of story structure

So if we go off context, Nashuri was already planned by the writers, as seen in interviews and the og script. Which isn't surprising because viewers picked up on their chemistry and romantic undertones in the movie already. The only reason this was changed is because they wanted to focus on the theme of grief and dealing with loss. Which has been the main theme for phase 4 in general since we're moving on to new heroes.

Also not sure if people are aware of this but the choice to kill Ramonda was more or less a last minute decision by Ryan. Angela only agreed to it after Ryan brought up how often it is for characters to come back.

So this could mean Ramonda's coming back to life or will continue to make appearances. If she does come back to life this more or less weakens the "but he killed her mom!" Argument.

Now let's talk about Shuri's story and Namor's role in it. Because at the end of the day this is Shuri's story.

Shuri's story in WF is her journey from childhood to adulthood. Tenoch has said this is his favorite thing about her story.

In the beginning she is a girl by the end she is a woman.

The particular kind of story structure Ryan used is called "The Heroine's Journey" a popular method to use in storytelling with female leads.

You'll find similar stories following this method in movies like "Star Wars, Labyrinth, The Hunger Games, The Wizard of Oz etc."

"The Heroine's Journey" is a female version of "The Hero's Journey" which is used for male leads. T'Challa actually goes through his hero's journey during "Civil War" and "BP" so im not suprised Ryan used the female version for his sister.

If you look at the structure of the heroine's journey Shuri pretty much hits all of these.

Distancing herself from her mother, venturing out of Wakanda (both in America and in Talokan) aka leaving the nest, and having her time to shine.

Also a subtle thing Ryan incorporated was how both Ramonda and Okoye treat Shuri like she's a child while Namor treats her like an adult, because she is.

Both the hero and heroine's journies are a method to mature your lead in a way that makes sense and is relatable since hey, we all gotta grow up some times.

Now something that is not always included but is common in both, is the hero or heroine's being presented with sexual incitement, at times for the first time. This signifies them coming into sexual maturity which is why you won't see it in every story or may just get subtle hits of it.

Now if it wasn't obvious Namor is ment to be Shuri's expirence with sexual enticement. Possibly her first encounter since we don't know her history.

And this isn't a "maybe" situation he literally just is. Firstly, this role usually is presented when the hero leaves the nest, not to mention Namor takes up every single trope of this role.

-Invades the hero's space (hut scene)

-whispers to them (again hut scene)

-touches or caresses them (First holding her hand then putting his mother's bracelet on her)

-shows them something new and exciting (Talokan)

-Is usually older then the hero (20s vs 500)

-Often times wears clothing that is either tight fitted or very little clothing (bro is literally walking around in nothing but jewelry and booty shorts)

-is the one to bring the hero into adulthood (in a brutal way but yup)

Secondly, sometimes you'll straight up get subtle hints and/or introductions of sex it's self.

-In Star Wars there's a scene where Leia has to sit on Han's lap and the ship starts bouncing up and down...

-Again, in Star Wars Kylo Ren wipes his mouth which we see has water on it after meeting with Rey through the force...

-With Shuri in Namor, their fight has a weird amount of grappling and holding, not to mention the back scratching...

Namor treats and speaks to Shuri like she's a grown woman. He doesn't handle her with kid gloves like everyone else, he respects her as an adult who can make her own decisions.

In a dark sense even when it comes to either raging war after Ramonda's death or the alliance. He leaves it up to her to decide.

Also Riri, just isn't this to Shuri. This is not to say people can't ship it cause you can ship whatever you want, their all fictional. But Shuri refers to Riri as "a kid", "a child" or "a girl" depending on what translations you watch. This is to show the audience that Shuri does not view Riri as an adult. They're confirmed to have a sisterly bond. Shuri lost a sibling and gained a sibling.

But back to Namor, he also is noticeably kinder to her then he is to literally anyone else in the movie besides his people. Not to mention it's canon that he finds her charming and interesting. He also likes her smile.

It's confirmed by Ryan that he never wanted to kill her even during their fight which some fans noticed, he never tries to kill her even when he has an obvious chance.

And lastly, he sees Shuri as an equal by the end of the movie, showing he has respect for her as a protector of her nation and possibly even views her as a god now but we have to wait and see on that one.

As quoted by Ryan, Namor is ment to be a Peter Pan archetype and when you think about it he really is. He's black and white way of thinking is very childish, he's incredible stubborn, he's arrogant and cocky, yet at the same time, curious and charming. Like Peter he's a father to his people (he literally refers to them as his children) and their sole protector.

There's innocence to his character that's very compelling and shows how young he is in mind.

-he collects (maybe steals, very Killmonger of him) Mayan artifacts from the surface since he never got to see Ancient Maya.

-speaking of collecting things, he even collects random surface world stuff. He has 2 gramophones in his hut, which he most likely got from a ship back in the day.

-he's suprised and charmed by Shuri's kindness. Which makes session since she's the first surface person he's ever spent time with.

-and hey, he got his love of drawing from his mama.

Now what does all this mean for Namor and Shuri in the future? Well for one you got a good amount of back up for them no longer being enemies.

1. Shuri's heroine's journey is over now.

2. Namor was the one who forced her into womanhood.

3. We concluded the story at her finalizing her grief

4. It's canon that Namor was humbled by Shuri after their fight.

5. Wakanda and Talokan will be working with each other.

6. Namor may play a mentor like role with Shuri

7. Dispite many romance scenes being removed they still chose to keep enough hints for people to pick up on.

8. Their fight is described as "intimate" by both writers.

9. Namor and Shuri are described as "two sides of the same coin" and "twin flames" (these are the same descriptions that were used for Rey and Ben Solo in Star Wars)

Why does them having a possible relationship make sense? Well the most basic answer? They're the only two people that can understand what the other is going through.

Their both protectors of great nations that are centered around a resource unique to their land and have a culture and ancestry untouched by colonization. They both know grief of losing people they love. (Namor's mother and his two handmaids, Shuri's brother and mother) Their both EXTREMELY intelligent. (Namor build a vibranium sun underwater and I don't remember where I read it but he learned English in a week.) They both find each other interesting. They both see each other as equals. They both have alot of growing to do.

So will they have some kind of relationship? Most likely. Will it be romantic or platonic? Who knows. But we know they won't be enemies so we have to wait and see.

Why Namor x Shuri doesn’t work from a storytelling standpoint

Before I went and watched Wakanda Forever for the first time last Christmas, I saw so many people talking about how Shuri and Namor should’ve been a romantic couple. So I walked into the movie and for the first half, I could kinda see why some people could come to that conclusion. And then the second half happened and I was genuinely wondering if we saw the same movie. 💀 And while I didn’t (and still don’t) ship them, personally, and was (and still am) very confused as to why some people did (and still do), I wasn’t really bothered by it. Initially. But the more I think about it, the ship makes even less sense when you think about from a story writing perspective.

I will (begrudgingly) give Namor x Shuri shippers one point, Namor and Shuri do have good chemistry. Letitia Wright and Tenoch Huerta do play off each other well. But I would argue that it takes just as much chemistry to play enemies/rivals/antagonistic relationships as it does to play romantic/platonic/positive relationships. Any two characters on screen (on on paper or on stage or any other narrative art form) must have chemistry. Compelling character dynamics are important to tell a good story. Imma call it negative and positive chemistry.

Positive chemistry

Let’s look at Shuri as an example cause she has no canon love interest in the comics or in the movies, so most of this is fan theory.

Shuri and Peter Parker would likely have good chemistry because

- they’re both intelligent so will likely have the same interests

- they’re around the same age so they would likely be able to relate to each other

- they have the same dry sense of humor

- they have the same goal of wanting to defeat the bad guys -eg- Thanos

Whether platonic or romantic, they would make sense as a pairing.

Another pairing post WF we can look at is Riri and Shuri, and they work because

- they’re also both very smart but are often undermined because of their ages

- they have shared trauma and as a result are fiercely protective of one another

- they also have a similar sense of humor

- they both have the same goal of wanting to defeat the Talokanil and especially Namor (He does try to kill both of them. Several times. 💀)

- they literally finish each other’s sentences

Once again, platonic, romantic or even sisterly, it makes sense.

What makes both these pairings work to a degree is the idea of them being equal in some regard. Whether equal in intellect, or age, or race, or any other metric, they clearly both see each other as equal, even with Shuri being “the Crown Princess of an international superpower” and Peter and Riri being “average” civilians. They more or less agree on a common enemy and how to deal with said enemy, with morals and values that more or less align. (Within the context of the world they inhabit.)

Negative chemistry

But Namor and Shuri have what I would call negative chemistry. They do have some things in common which can be where their chemistry stems from, such as

- they are both rulers of powerful kingdoms who love their people and will do anything to protect them

- they both experience great personal loss and therefore are motivated by grief

- the surface world poses a great threat to them and may be exploited for their resources

- they admire each other’s kingdoms (the physical spaces that their people inhabit)

However even with these similarities we see that there are some glaring differences.

- Namor does not view Shuri as an equal, despite their similarities. His line of “you are queen now” showed that he was never willing to conduct to business with Ramonda, likely because she was the only person on the surface world who bested him when she lured him out of Talokan to facilitate Shuri and Riri’s rescue mission. He was simply looking for an excuse to get her out of the picture. Also, Namor’s love only goes as far as his people. Shuri’s love of people goes far beyond Wakanda’s boarders.

- He is reckless with his grief. He is correct in hating the surface world, and in particular white people for the pain they caused his people. But wanting to wage war with the whole world is extreme. Shuri on the other hand, has a better handle on how she externalizes her grief. She recognizes that even though she is angry at T’Challa’s death, the rest of the world doesn’t deserve to feel the extent of her wrath. Even when Namor does kill her mother, she rightfully directs her anger at him. She doesn’t become antagonistic with anyone else or try to take vengeance from anyone else. Sure, she has some outbursts at Nakia and M’baku, but she never really alienates them.

- Namor and the Talokanil, immediately resort to violence and war when they feel a threat from the surface world. But since no one knows they exist, this threat is hypothetical for now. (We know it’s going to happen when they do find out, given the track record of some countries in the world, but not yet.) A direct contrast to Ramonda and Shuri, who in the face of real eminent threats, resorted to peace and showed their aggressors mercy.

- Namor, despite wanting Wakanda’s help with his mission, ultimately doesn’t view Wakanda with anymore sympathy than he does the rest of the world. He has made it clear that he hates the surface world and everyone in it, which includes the Wakandans. I mean, “no love” is literally his name. Wanting to destroy the whole world, funny enough, including other Mayan descendants who were enslaved or colonized, is no different from wanting to wage war on his so called ally, killing half of them and then killing their queen. He never liked or respected them as people. That was not going to change with Shuri.

It’s also another reason why he killed Ramonda with no hesitation despite knowing what he knew about Shuri. It would be easy to forgive him if he had never met Shuri. Then Ramonda would simply remain as the nameless, faceless monarch of a powerful country. But the fact that Shuri opened up to him about the grief she was already carrying, only to inflict more pain, makes his crimes way more egregious. He knew Shuri on a somewhat personal level and still chose to kill the queen. Knowing she was her mother. It goes back to the point of him never seeing Shuri as human or recognizing her feelings as valid. All he wanted to do was push her to the extremes of grief so she would become reckless like he was. It’s clear that Namor doesn’t see Shuri as an equal. Which means that any positive development that would happen between the two would take a long time to properly write.

I’m sure someone out there has come up with better terms than “positive and negative chemistry” in a screenwriting book somewhere, but I was just thinking about different character dynamics and how they work. Many compelling relationships have that element of chemistry. For example, in the first Black Panther, T’Challa and Shuri bounce well off of each other. Positive chemistry. It’s also why Killmonger makes the perfect antagonist to T’Challa. Negative chemistry. It’s all chemistry that translates differently. Batman and Joker. Superman and Lex Luthor. Thanos and the Avengers. Team Dynamics within the Avengers. Thor and Loki. The Guardians of the Galaxy. And so many more. It’s all different types of chemistry. So yes, Namor and Shuri are arguably both great characters with complex motivations, and together, do have stellar chemistry, but is it chemistry that produces romance? I don’t think so.

In conclusion, yes, ship who you want (even when it makes no sense), these are fictional characters (who represent real world dynamics), it’s just for fun (how?), etc. but looking at it from the perspective of a storyteller, the character dynamics would not make it work. If you write a story with two such characters and they end up in love, it wouldn’t make sense.

(These are just the 3 am thoughts of a sleep deprived college student 😀)

[focusonthegoodnews]

DOLE FOOD COMPANY RENEWS ITS COMMITMENT TO COMBATING CHILDHOOD HUNGER IN 2022

DOLE FOOD COMPANY RENEWS ITS COMMITMENT TO COMBATING CHILDHOOD HUNGER IN 2022

Good News Notes: “Dole Food Company has renewed its partnership in 2022 with No Kid Hungry, a campaign to end childhood hunger in America. The company’s alliance with the national campaign first began in summer 2020 in response to the impact of COVID-19 when schools closed and millions more U.S. children were left facing hunger. The strategic partnership between No Kid Hungry and one of the…

[dreamertrilogys]

my way home is through you, my chemical romance / here’s what our parents never taught us, shinji moon / tv, julia vinograd / 27, fall out boy / i know the end, phoebe bridgers / st. lucy’s home for girls raised by wolves, karen russell / psychogeography, chelsea dingman / bulletproof heart, my chemical romance / drive, halsey / this is a ghost story, @peachpdf​​ / house of wolves, my chemical romance / hunger for something, chase twichell / zero percent, my chemical romance / hard feelings/loveless, lorde / planetary (GO!), my chemical romance / sifting through the remains of my childhood homes, or: a question on stability, lo celeste riddell / too much, all time low / giovanni’s room, james baldwin / adeline, electric century / afterglow, all time low / america is not the heart, elaine castillo

[id: 1: “Can't find my way home” 2: “You will fall in love with train rides, and sooner or / later you will / realize that nowhere seems like home anymore.” 3: “I don't belong here, it was all a mistake, / this isn't my real home.” 4: “If home is where the heart is / Then we're all just fucked” 5: “I'll find a new place to be from / A haunted house with a picket fence” 6: “her own bedroom. When she was very small, she would wake up tearing at her bedspread and shrieking, "I wanna go home! I wanna go home!" Which was distressing to all of us, of course, because she was home.” 7: “wildflowers on the side of a highway. / I’ve been trying to go home my whole life— // my mother tracing my face, my fingers. / Trying to find my father // in the country he left her. I was home there. / Longer & longer, I belong nowhere.” 8: “How can they say, Jenny could you come back home? / 'Cause everybody knows you don't / Ever wanna come back / Let me be the one to save you” 9: “And California never felt like home to me / And California never felt like home / And California never felt like home to me” 10: “There’s something wrong with me. / Maybe / tomorrow l'II see you at the end Of my driveway instead. / and you’ll say, / I’m home! / And you’ll be lying. Maybe there’s something wrong with you too.” 11: “You better hide up in the alley / Cause they're never gonna find you a home” 12: “Neither inside nor out, / neither lost nor home, no longer” 13: “I don't like being alone / Run up these streets, turn up the stereo / Synthetic animals like me never have a home” 14: “God, I wish I believed ya / When you told me this was my home, oh, oh” 15: “Kill the party with me and never go home / Who they want you to be / Who they wanted to see / Just leave the party with me and never go home” 16: “my home was not broken. / it was never built.” 17: “What a waste, where did the time go? / Where did our minds go? I don't know / What's this place? Where did our home go? / We won't know, I don't know…” 18: “He smiled, 'Why, you will go home and then you will find that home is not home any more. Then you will really be in trouble. As long as you stay here, you can always think: One day I will go home.' He played with my thumb and grinned. 'N'est-ce pas?’” 19: “I walk away outside these buildings / I like to think they were made for me / It's just familiar in these settings / I guess I'll leave / I have the fear I won't be calling / There is no special place that I need / There is no home that I remember / There is no place that I can be” 20: “Can't stay here but you can't go home” 21: “You've just turned twenty-nine years old, your accent still hasn't left, and you're starting to understand what it means to have baggage. Baggage means no matter how far you go, no matter how many times you immigrate, there are countries in you you'll never leave.” /end id]

[oumaheroes]

NZ and Artie hcs pretty please! Something 🥺 thank youuuu

Sorry this took me so long to answer!

I should start with something 'overall' first. I've enjoyed seeing different fandom interpretations of New Zealand throughout the years- as a shy golden boy, to rambunctious fellow play fighter, to mud weary tomboy, to a poised daughter, or all at once. For me, potentially due to how Zea has been canonically drawn, New Zealand is non-binary. What they've got going on under there ain't my business and they certainly don't care. I’ve therefore given them the name ‘Alex’- for the feminine or masculine version, who’s to say.

They very much live by the feeling 'I am New Zealand', and whatever that entails. Nothing more, nothing less.

Childhood/ Teenagerhood:

England had really settled into the swing of things at this point. He was used to children, used to parenting in general- the ups and downs of it - and used to keeping his children at more of a distance emotionally than he had with Canada and America. So, by the time Zea came about there was a smoother transition into family life than there had been for poor old OZ. Australia, who had a few brief years of England as a more affectionate, happy, and relaxed parent, was abruptly cut from contact for a few years and then reintroduced to someone stricter and far more distant and which has left their relationship a bit strained at times.

Zea knew nothing else. From the get go, England set a standard of behaviour and maintained it. On the one hand this was good: Zea never struggled around England, either in being comfortable in his presence or with the 'new' rules that were in place, and also never suffered from any sort of consequence that came from having a parental figure suddenly do a 180 on you.

On the other hand, they did grow up slightly lacking in the affection department. They knew England loved them, but as soon as they became a little older there were less hugs, less kisses, less of playing silly games and more study, learning, and filling their days with their own company. They were used to this and it didn’t bother them at the time, but compared to their older brothers, or younger ones (seeing him with Sealand does spark some bitterness), they certainly missed out, and have inherited England’s current (in)ability to interact physically with loved ones- they’re not overly touchy-feely and express love through acts of service or gift giving.

Mainly though, Zea's childhood was good and quite stable. They were home schooled, but England also used to like sending them off for playdates with noble families with children to get them more acquainted to people their physical age, or would take Zea with him into town to work with their politicians or their tradesmen. Zea thus spent a lot of their time waiting, either sitting on the floor of England's study, or somewhere around him outside, watching and listening to him work and talk shop with people.

Nations are robust things, sturdy and, surrounded by their people, not really in too much danger. I think England was rather lax in this regard with his children (someone who had a childhood of wandering around villages, foraging for food, and being personally thrust into war from a young age will hardly find a town centre in the 1800s dangerous) and used to leave New Zealand with some local children for entertainment if he needed to go and do things that required a bit more time than a quick chat.

Because of this, a humdrum of business is something New Zealand finds to be a soothing white noise, something they can filter out or tune into easily, and they appreciate this unorthodox education. They’re also very happy with their own company and can entertain, and soothe, themselves independently.

Not to go on too much of a tangent (because I do do that, in these posts), I just want to quickly touch upon Zea and Oz’s relationship because I think that helped cover up for what they were lacking in terms of openness and easy affection from England- Zea because they never really had it, and Oz because he was missing it. Due to how close they are geographically, and potentially because England on some level felt guilty for his inability to fully let himself go and open up to them, New Zealand and Australia spent quite a lot of time with each other in either of their lands from England moving them about with him when he visited one or the other. Both were also sometimes taken back home with him to the UK and a lot of Zea’s exposure to a more ‘traditional’ Kirkland upbringing comes from their time with their bother- playfights, arguments, mischief, and an open easiness with each other’s raw and unfiltered company.

Back on topic and to summarise, New Zealand's childhood relationship with England was a good one. As I mentioned in my Canada headcanon post about a similar topic, England is very, very good with small children and Zea was no different. But as they got older this decreased rapidly, something that they considered perfectly acceptable at the time but now is something they sometimes look back on with a small amount of hurt and confusion.

Teenagerhood they were very used to being on their own and, funnily, when you think about what England was trying to do, very independent. Not independent like America, with his fights for recognition as an independent entity removed from England, but independent personally. A childhood of watching England work and playing often by themselves meant that Zea as a teenager was studious, quiet, and happy to be left alone or taken out for company (similar to Wales in personality, I reckon. Need their alone time and will take themselves away if this is not given).

Arguments with England were rare- Zea’s not one for butting heads but would much rather learn the ins and outs of everything and then put forth and argument for change. England may be a hothead and stubborn, but he’s not closed minded. It’s how you approach him that matters and Zea caught onto this early. Whereas Australia would shout or refuse to do that he was asked if he didn’t want to, or would put up some form of fight, New Zealand would instead do the task, do it well, and then request time with England to formally present him with all of the reasons their proposal was far better.

England being told he is wrong will likely not listen if he believes himself to be right (even if he has doubts, someone telling him that his way is bad will make him stubbornly cling to it just to prove them wrong and himself justified for doing it in the first place- clawing and scraping for even an inch of a victory). But England being told that someone has thought of a different way, and asking for his opinion on it, is far more likely to inspire change. He feels valued and goes into the discussion with an open mind that most often went in New Zealand’s favour.

Because of this, they do have a reputation of having England wound around their little finger from a young age. But really, they were just smart enough to figure England out and use it to their advantage. They were also smart enough not to overplay this hand, and so their teenagerhood was peaceful and calm.

Adulthood:

As adults, the two are on very good terms. England prefers adult children to teenaged ones, especially calm, well-mannered ones, and this relationship improved after Zea got their independence. Rather like a burst of relief from England’s end, I feel- he’d spent so long paranoid about his colonies leaving him that this clouded his enjoyment of them. With them finally independent, that worry is redundant and he can enjoy them for the people they are. And Arthur likes Alex, he really does. He finds them mature, funny, and intelligent. The two have similar hobbies and interests and England often spends time with them travelling about to beaches or passing book recommendations back and forth.

Being nations heavily shaped and surrounded by the sea, this is something that is a huge passion for the both of them and they often go sailing together on the ocean, either on smaller boats by the shore or for larger trips out to sea. Arthur willingly took all of his children out to sea, but Alex was the only one who really took to it and shares a similar hunger for it as he does. They’re probably the least openly affectionate pair of all of the Arthur- child relationships, but that doesn’t mean he loves Alex any less and, most of the time, Alex knows this and is content with the way things are. As mentioned in my Canada post though, England is trying to improve himself in this area in the modern day and he’s trying really hard with Zea, (though this is sometimes awkward for the both of them.)